Dark Side of the Moon (Dark-Hunter 9)

"I don't know. About two months ago, maybe."

That was around the same time the chief's wife had died. Susan remembered the articles about it clearly. No body had been returned to the States for a funeral, but they had held a memorial service for her.

Of course if she was a Daimon, there wouldn't have been a body to bury. Oddly enough, it made a perfect cover.

Ob jeez, now you're thinking like Leo. But then Leo wasn't the crackpot she'd taken him for...

"Do you remember anything about her?"

"Yeah," he said breathlessly. "She was a nasty bitch with a mean left hook."

"Not that," Susan snapped. "Something that could help us identify her as the chief of police's wife."

"The words get out of jail free card-"

"Maybe she played a lot of Monopoly. Who knows what weirdness Daimons partake in to pass the time." At his withering stare she held her hands up in surrender. "Okay, bad stab on my part. Please continue."

"Couple that with Jimmy's paranoia that someone high up in his department was covering up murders and disappearances. C'mon, Susan, this is too much to be coincidence."

"I know I'm playing devil's advocate here. We have to have concrete proof before we accuse this man of framing us and hiding murders."

"Susan..." he said in a chiding tone.

"Look, Ravyn, I already ruined my life because something that looked like a duck and quacked like a duck turned out to be a tiger with an entire battery of attorneys bent on taking everything I might ever own again. All the evidence was there, clear-cut and perfect, and I leaped at it and, in the morning, everything that said he was guilty was just a bad coincidence for me. I don't want to make that mistake again." She held up her wrist to show him the scars she still bore. "I really don't want to relive my past."

Ravyn's gut clenched at the sight of the scars where she'd cut her wrist. "Susan..."

"Don't patronize me, okay? I know it was stupid. But I was completely alone. Everything I'd ever believed in caved in on my head and I had to sit through lawsuit after lawsuit until the rubble settled and left me homeless, friendless, and hopeless. I clawed myself up every morning from bed so that I could be kicked again. And then I decided that though I was ruined, I wasn't dead, and that my life, such as it was, was mine and I refused to let them take that from me, too. I've come a long way, but it's been hard and brutal, and the last thing I want is to accuse an upstanding, highly decor-rated official and relive that nightmare all over again. Understand?"

Ravyn's throat tightened at the pain he heard in her voice, the agony she held in her eyes. He kissed her wrist, and held it in his hand as he locked gazes with her. "You won't ever relive that, Susan. I promise you."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

"I can keep this one. And if I'm wrong, I'll go down alone with my error. But if we're right..."

"Jimmy's avenged."

Cael had just reached the back door of the Happy Hunting Ground when his cell phone started ringing. He pulled it off his belt to see it listing Amaranda's number. Flipping it open, he held it to his ear. "Yeah, babe?"

"Don't come home."

"What?" he said, not sure he'd heard her right with the loud music that was drowning out her voice. He reached for the doorknob.

"Don't. Come. Home," she repeated only slightly louder than the last time.

"Is this a joke?" he asked angrily. Amaranda would never tell him not to come home. "If this is you, Stryker, go fuck yourself." He slammed the phone shut, then opened the door.

As usual, the club was thumping and loud with college kids gyrating on the dance floor and guzzling alcohol at the tables that surrounded it. He inclined his head at Amaranda's cousin who was waiting tables as he passed by.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Cael closed his eyes and searched the building mentally for any telltale sensation of a Daimon. Nothing set off his radar. Wanting to double-check in case he was still unnerved by the earlier fight, he pulled out his phone and ran the Daimon trace program that was in it.

It, too, came back negative.

Cool, there was nothing here that needed his attention... except his wife.

Cael pulled his thin jacket off and slung it over his shoulder as he descended the stairs to the basement. Looking forward to spending some quality time with Amaranda, he began whistling while he headed for his room.

Until he opened the door.

His whistling stopped mid-tune. Kerri was in his room, bound and gagged. Her eyes were large and terror-filled as she begged him with her gaze to set her free.

And in that instant, he came face-to-face with his past. The pain of it was almost crippling. And most of all, he could feel his Dark-Hunter powers wane.

Was it some kind of joke? If it was, he damn sure didn't find it funny.

"What the hell's going on, Kerri?" He'd only taken one step toward her when the door slammed shut behind him.

He jerked around to find a human male there, glaring at him. In his mid-fifties, the pudgy little man had shifty gray eyes that re-fleeted his insanity. "What the hell's the meaning of this?" Cael demanded.

"Where's Ravyn Kontis?"

Cael forced himself to betray nothing. "Who?"

"Don't play stupid with me," the man snarled, spewing spittle in his rage. "Answer the question."

"I can't. I don't know anyone named Ravyn."

Disbelief twisted his features. "No?"

"No."

The man tsked as he moved forward toward Kerri's chair. "Too bad. I guess I'll have to kill you and your whore then." He headed for Kerri, whose eyes widened even more as she started squealing through her gag.

"She's innocent."

The man gave him a vicious glare. "No one's innocent. And even if she was, I don't give a damn." He pulled a hunting knife out from his jacket and angled it at Kerri's throat. "Tell me where that bastard is or watch her die."

"But I don't-" He broke off as the man pressed his knife so close that it pricked Kerri's neck.

She screamed, trying to angle her neck away from the blade.

"Okay, okay," Cael said, trying to stall for time as his powers weakened even more. But what concerned him most was where had Amaranda gone? Obviously, she was the one who'd called him and this idiot had mixed the two of them up. Even so, if anything happened to Kerri, Amaranda would never forgive him.

Nor would he forgive himself.

And then he felt it... that prickling sensation of a Daimon's presence.

Only there were two of them.

The door opened and Cael's entire world shattered. Amaranda was between the two Daimons with her hands tied behind her back. She was pale and shaking as she bled from a wound at her neck.

They'd been feeding from her and by her appearance, they'd almost drained her dry.

"Look who we found trying to warn him, Dad."

"Damn you!" Cael snarled. Without thinking, he rushed at them.

Even though his powers were all but gone, he caught the first one about the waist and they went sprawling into the hallway. The Daimon didn't let go of Amaranda, who landed on top of Cael.