Moon Sworn

given the bags under my brother’s eyes, it was going to take more than a bucket of the brown stuff to keep him awake and alert.

“Got the systems hooked up yet, Sal?” Jack asked.

“Finalizing it now,” she said briskly. “Just a few minutes more.”

Jack grunted and slapped several folders on the desk as he sat down opposite us. Rhoan just perched on the table’s edge, his posture reflecting his tiredness. Obviously, he couldn’t be bothered walking any farther.

“Remember me saying that I thought the name Daskill sounded familiar?”

I nodded, and he pushed a folder forward. Quinn stopped its slide across the desk and opened it. I’d been expecting a rundown of whoever Daskill was, but what we got instead were photographs. Vivid, bloody photographs of the remains of what I presumed were a woman and child. They’d been so torn apart it was hard to tell. Only the remnants of their nightdresses gave their sex away.

“Bobby Daskill’s wife and child were murdered in their beds while he was on a business trip. The main suspect was Bobby’s business partner, Henry Kattram, who had apparently been having an affair with Bobby’s wife for over a year. She refused to leave Bobby and apparently broke it off. Those pictures are the result.”

“Then why is Kattram still listed as a suspect?” Quinn asked. “Why was he never charged if the police are so certain he was their murderer?”

“Because Henry Kattram was found dismembered in his bed twenty-four hours later.” Jack indicated the photos.

“In a manner eerily similar to the way Jenny and Evie Daskill were killed.”

“Daskill obviously was the main suspect, so why was he never charged?” I asked.

“Because he was one hundred miles away with friends at his country retreat. One of those friends was a high court judge.”

“Convenient,” Quinn murmured. “But from what I’ve heard about Kattram, he’d be the sort to have closed circuit TV both inside and outside. What did that reveal?”

“A shadowy figure wearing a mask, gloves, and some sort of shoe covering.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Surely not a demon costume?”

Jack half smiled. “No. It was just a black mask and padded clothing, but the idea is the same. If they leave no prints, and you can’t see their face or body shape, it’s hard to make any sort of ID.”

Quinn closed the folder and pushed it back to Jack. “If he is behind these murderers for hire, he surely wouldn’t be stupid enough to use his own planes or helicopters.”

“He might if it was an emergency and there was no obvious link back to him. Daskill owns a private jet and helicopter charter service catering to remote areas. The helicopter Harris downed was hired by one Harry Jones— who is not the vamp and who actually doesn’t exist.”

“Charter services these days have to have cameras and facial recognition software installed in their offices, so what did that come up with?”

“Again, nothing. We suspect he might have been a Helki wolf, because the one capture we got of his face showed their distinctive eyes.”

I nodded. If you were going to use fake ID, then what better person to use than someone who could physically alter their human shape? Not so much their size or actual shape, but their physical characteristics. Hair, minor facial shifts, teeth, easy stuff like that. They could also change their eye color, but that apparently took more effort and drained their energy faster. “So what’s the plan? We have no obvious connection to the man, just our suspicions.”

And Jack never moved on suspicions alone. Well, rarely, anyway.

He gave me the sort of smile that a shark might have a heartbeat before he attacked. “Every bad guy makes one mistake. In Daskill’s case, he keeps records.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’d imagine such records would be extremely well protected.”

“They are, but we have some of the world’s best hackers in our employ.” He glanced Sal’s way. “Sal, for instance, is a genius at hacking into security-sensitive areas.”

“Which I’ve just completed.” She glanced over her shoulder. “We now control Daskill’s security systems in both his house and his Melbourne office.”

“Excellent. And the computer files?”

“Randy is still downloading. There’s a lot of information, and it’s all coded.” She paused, glancing briefly at the screen and flicking a button. The screen divided into four, each one showing a different section of what looked to be a grand mansion. “Initial investigations on one of the earliest files downloaded indicate intensive records concerning the movements of a man who was found murdered three days after his release from jail. If he isn’t the brains behind this scheme, he’s certainly involved.”

“And that is all we need to go in and get him.” Jack glanced at me. “Daskill has been going home to have lunch with his new wife every day between one and two-thirty—”

“Obviously he doesn’t trust the new missus not to take a lover,” I murmured. “Which says a lot about the power of his loving. Or the lack of it.”

Maybe he just fancies his new missus, Quinn commented, eyes twinkling as he glanced at me. Hell, when the company is fully transferred to Melbourne, expect me to be breaking up a boring day by coming home for a quick bit of loving quite frequently.

That’s because you hang out with a werewolf, and the randiness has finally rubbed off.

“The reason doesn’t matter, just the result,” Jack said. “He has a security force of eight men who rotate on twelve-hour shifts, as well as the cameras.”

“Having eight security guards on standby is a bit of overkill, isn’t it?” Rhoan said, frowning. “Even for a man whose first wife was murdered.”

“They work in teams of four,” Jack said, “which makes the numbers more even. And given he’s either in charge of, or involved with, an organization that runs a stable of some extremely well-trained hit men and women, then no, I wouldn’t think his precautions are over the top.”

“If we move on Daskill, that stable of killers may just melt into the woodwork.”

Jack glanced at me. “He’s the brains and the money behind it, so he’s the one we need to take out first. The others can be found in time.”

Fair enough. “Then what’s the plan?” He obviously had one, because he wouldn’t have called Quinn here otherwise.

“We’re going in at one-thirty. Quinn will take out the guards, as neither myself nor any of the other guardians is able to venture out at that hour.”

Even Quinn was pushing it.

I’ll be fine, he said. At worst, it’ll give me a nice tan for our wedding night.

You’ll be naked on your wedding night. No one is going to care about your tan.

I’ll be wearing trousers. I may not be quite as old-fashioned as I used to be, but Liander is not going to get the joy of a full frontal. Not when I’m getting hitched.

Amusement bubbled through me. Who said I was talking about the ceremony?

“Riley,” Jack said heavily, “stop mind-talking to Quinn and concentrate on the business at hand.”

“It takes two to talk,” I commented. “And I am listening.”

He gave me a disbelieving look, then continued. “You and Rhoan will hit the house once the guards are taken out. He does keep two rottweilers inside, so you’ll have to watch out for those.”

“A good stun gun will fix those quickly enough,” Rhoan said dryly. “But someone this security conscious is going to have standby systems we don’t know about.”

“And a gun by the bed, no doubt,” I said.

“No doubt, so be careful.” Jack was looking at me rather than Rhoan when he said that, which wasn’t exactly fair. Rhoan tended to be more reckless. The only problem was, the bad guys just didn’t seem to enjoy munching on his body as much as they did mine.