Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

“I owe him a favor and he’s called it in.” I shrugged, then remembered the vid-screen wasn’t working. “This will make us even and get him off my back.”

He grunted. “I haven’t got tickets this year, but I’ll ring around and see what I can do. Give me a few hours.”

“Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate it.”

“No promises,” he said and hung up. I shoved my phone into my purse and went back inside.

Jak raised his eyebrows. “Success or failure?”

“Neither. He’s ringing around and will let me know.” I reclaimed my stool, then my drink, taking several sips of the cool amber liquid.

“Huh.” He munched contemplatively on peanuts for a few seconds. “I’ve got a friend of mine keeping an electronic eye out on Nadler’s house. He’ll let me know who’s coming and going.”

“Well, it obviously won’t be Nadler if the neighbors haven’t sighted him for months.”

“No.” He paused again, munching on more peanuts before adding, “I’ve also been researching his family. Seems rather convenient to me that all his next of kin are listed as dead.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Why has that snagged your interest? It happens. Hell—me, for example.”

He gave me a wry look. “But you and your mother are somewhat special cases, and we both know it.”

We did. Only he didn’t know just how special. Mom had been created in a madman’s lab, and while I was the result of a more conventional mating, my father was about as far from conventional as you could get.

“It still doesn’t make his lack of siblings or relations that unusual.”

“If he was a much older man, I’d agree. But he isn’t and it just feels wrong.”

“So you think he’s been bumping off his relatives?”

He grinned again. “What I suspect is something far more exciting than just a spot of family bloodletting.”

I couldn’t help smiling at the excitement lighting his features and churning the air. He really did get turned on by this sort of intrigue—and it was damnably hard not to react to it.

“So, hit me with it,” I said in a wry voice. “Or are you intending to drag out the suspense as punishment for me not submitting to your werewolf wiles?”

“Well, damn, I hadn’t actually thought of that—”

I punched his shoulder lightly and he laughed. Just for a moment, it felt like old times.

“What I suspect,” he said, softly and rather melodramatically, “is that while our John Nadler might not be a ghost, he could be the next best thing.”

I gave him a deadpan look. “I will resort to greater violence if you don’t get on with it.”

He laughed again, and the sound ran across my senses like a summer rain, warm and inviting. “I think what we’re looking for is not just a man but rather something a whole lot more. John Nadler, I suspect, is a face-shifter.”

Chapter 6

I blinked in surprise. “But they test DNA at birth. If he wasn’t human, then it would have been discovered. Mistakes like that just aren’t made.”

“Helki werewolves are not the only ones capable of face-shifting,” he said. “I know for a fact the military has human face-shifters. Did a story on it quite a few years ago.”

“But from what I’ve heard, they’re rare.”

“Rare doesn’t mean impossible. But I rather suspect that the Nadler who was born fifty-six years ago is dead, and that a face-shifter has taken over his face and his life, and that’s who is now running the consortium.”

I frowned. I certainly knew how easy it would be to assume someone else’s appearance, having done it myself. But stepping fully into their life was a whole different matter. “What makes you suspicious? The lack-of-relatives factor?”

“In a way, yes. Nadler was an only child, as was his mother. But his father had two brothers and one sister, and they provided Nadler with a total of five cousins.”