Dancing on the Wind (9 page)

looked to Fallon. “Retract them. Now!”

Fallon grinned again and the fangs were gone. He winked at Keenan, his eyes

flashing a red glow that stunned her.

“What
are
you?” she hissed.

“As I said, he’s a Reaper,” the Supervisor told her. “Part human, part wolf and…”

“I beg to differ. I am part hound, not wolf,” Fallon clarified, “although most

Reapers Transition to wolflike beings. I, on the other hand, Transition to a hell hound.

There are one or two other differences between me and my lupine cousins.”

“Are shape-shifters who are capable of finding their prey through blood scent,” the

Supervisor continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted.

“In other words they drink blood like vampires,” she said, her top lip quirking

distastefully. “I thought that was a myth too.”

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, little girl, than are dreamt of in your

philosophy’,” Fallon drawled. “If you can throw fire from your fingertips, astral-project

yourself, I can change into a hell hound when the mood strikes.” He wagged his brows.

“The rest of the time I’m just a horny little devil, but then you know that, don’t you?”

His eyes glowed scarlet red for a moment.

“Please sit down, Keenan,” the Supervisor said. “He isn’t going to pounce.”

“Not when we’ve got company anyway,” Fallon said.

Keenan’s chest was rising and falling rapidly as she returned to her chair. A vein

beat quickly at the base of her throat.

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Dancing on the Wind

“Stop giving off those potent pheromones, McCullough, or I might not care if he

watches me jump your bones,” Fallon warned.

“You aren’t going to touch me again,” she hissed under her breath.

“We’re bonded,
myneeast caillagh
, whether you like it or not.”

“What does
that
mean?” she demanded.

“It means we get to screw like bunnies when…”

“No, you idiot! That word you used!”

“
Myneeast caillagh
?” He grinned nastily. “Little witch.”

“You go to hell,” she snarled.

“Right back at you, babe.”

“So you bonded last evening,” the Supervisor said with obvious satisfaction.

“Isn’t that why you picked her for me?” Fallon asked. “You said you went to a lot of

trouble to pick the right woman. You knew damned well once we were together, the

hormones would kick in.”

“Is that true?” Keenan asked. “Is that why you assigned me as his Extension? You

knew we’d bond?”

“You bet your sweet ass that’s why he did it,” Fallon drawled. “Reapers mate for

life. The lupines can’t mess around on their mates, and their mates damned well better

not try to mess around on them. We canines aren’t as cut and dried about it, but

nevertheless, we are mated for life, and you’ll never be able to make it with another

man. Ever.”

Keenan gasped, eyes flaring. “
What
?”

“I didn’t stutter, baby,” Fallon grumbled.

“Oh my God!” She turned an angry glower to the Supervisor. “You could have

warned us,” she accused.

“If I had, both of you would have gone out of your way to avoid the other.”

“Fucking A I would have,” Fallon stated. “I never had any intention of taking a

mate and you goddamned well knew it.”

“I had my reasons,” the Supervisor stated.

“But you should have given us the choice,” Keenan insisted.

“Not when he’s in his playing God mode, baby,” Fallon told her.

“
Drochtáirs
,” the Supervisor said sharply to bring their attention back to the matter

at hand. “They pose a potentially devastating threat to this world.” He leaned back in

his chair. “I will arrange to have a chopper placed on standby for later today. I’ll also

have quadrant maps pulled up for each province. I think we can safely rule out those

provinces closer to the Arctic Circle such as the Yukon and Northwest Territories and

Nunavut, as well as those along the eastern coastline for now. Concentrate on

BASMOQ.”

41

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec,” Fallon

told her, pronouncing the last province as Keebeck.

“I know the names of the damned provinces, Fallon,” Keenan said between

clenched teeth.

“Just wanted to clarify,” Fallon said, linking his fingers, stretching his arms above

him and then cupping his neck.

“We’re going to provide you both with laser pistols and whatever firepower the

boys in provisions think you’ll need. If there’s anything else you might want to take

along, just let my assistant know. Otherwise, you can go pack and I’ll see you when you

return.”

“Pack?” Keenan questioned.

“You think this is only gonna take a few hours and then we’ll be home for catfish

tonight at the cafeteria?” Fallon asked.

She turned an eager grin to him. “Tonight’s catfish night?” she gushed then batted

her lashes. “Do they have coleslaw and French fries too, Billy Joe Bob Cletus?”

“And hushpuppies with minced onions, Betty Sue-Ann June,” he growled, his lips

twitching.

“Get the hell out of here, you two!” the Supervisor ordered. “And Fallon, don’t

aggravate the woman!”

Walking down the corridor together, Keenan and Fallon didn’t speak. When they

reached the monorail platform, they stood staring down the track, not looking at one

another. The air was electric from the tension between them.

A young man came hurrying toward them, an apologetic smile on his freckled face.

“The train is going to be a few minutes, Mr. Fallon,” the young man said. “We’re having

a minor problem.”

Fallon nodded.

“Thank you,” Keenan acknowledged for the both of them.

Five minutes passed in silence. Keenan sat on one of the benches under the

platform roof while Fallon stood staring down at the rail system.

“She’s never wrong,” Fallon finally said.

“Who?”

“My mother.”

It took Keenan a moment before she realized who he meant. “Madame

Gregorovich, the medium, is your mother?”

He nodded. “If she says the fiends are coming, they’re coming.” He leaned a

shoulder against a column and folded his arms. “When I was growing up, I hated that

she was a psychic. I hated what I was. I fought it tooth and nail for what little good it

did me.”

“From which parent did you inherit your abilities?”

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Dancing on the Wind

He shrugged. “Both, but since Mom doesn’t sprout fur and howl at the moon every

three months, that part of me came from dear old Dad although she hasn’t ever

admitted to him having been a Reaper.”

“I really know nothing of your kind,” she admitted.

“What’s to know? My kind—as you so sweetly put it—have supernatural strength

and speed and can disappear at will. We have strong psychic abilities. Like our canine

and lupine brothers, we are strong trackers and hunters. We hunt by scent, blood taste,

or sound, and never fail to bring back whoever or whatever we were sent to retrieve.”

He cocked a shoulder. “Though our preference is to kill the quarry.”

She put a protective hand to her belly. The sex they’d had the night before had been

unprotected. The thought of a supernatural being lurking inside her body made her

queasy.

“Don’t worry. There won’t be a pup from our encounter,
leanabh
,” he told her

through gritted teeth. “They made sure of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“They snipped me,” he said.

“You had a vasectomy?”

“I was
given
a vasectomy. There’s a difference.”

Keenan saw the anger in his gaze before he looked away. The monorail was

approaching at last and he pushed away from the column, digging his hands into the

pockets of his worn jeans.

“The Exchange did that?” she asked, surprised.

He shook his head. “It was done when I was eleven.”

“Eleven?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as the train came to a stop before them. “Before I

Transitioned for the first time.”

She watched him saunter into the car as though he owned it. The doors shushed

closed and the monorail jerked as it started its return trip.

Keenan reached up to take hold of the bar above her. He wasn’t looking at her so

she studied his face where a muscle was grinding in his cheek. Handsome didn’t begin

to describe Mikhail Fallon. His dark looks drew the eye like a magnet. When she

continued to stare at him, he turned his head and scowled at her. Having been caught,

she said the first thing that came to mind.

“How come you don’t have an accent?”

He was standing with his hands wrapped around a horizontal support pole as he

regarded her. “I work at not having one unless it’s needed. If I’m in Russia, I speak

Russian. If I’m in Germany, I speak German. I have a talent for mimicry so I have the

accents of the different languages down pat. You should hear my Scots burr. When I’m

here, I can blend in with a generic Midwestern accent.”

43

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

“Oh.” She tore her gaze from the steady amber stare locked upon her.

“Go ahead and ask,” he said. “I can see the questions flitting around inside your

mind like fireflies.”

She felt heat flooding her cheeks. “I don’t have the right to…”

“Whether we like it or not, we bonded,
myneeast caillagh,
with all that implies. Ask.”

Keenan hesitated. She didn’t know how he’d take being told that she and Matty

Groves had been discussing him behind his back. He solved the problem for her.

“My stepfather saw my mother and wanted her. He followed her and the man with

whom she was living—my father—and in the course of the tail discovered my father

wasn’t human. Thinking him a vampire, he laid in wait and beheaded him though he

didn’t tell his superiors what he’d uncovered or what he’d done. He forced my mother

into marrying him by threatening her unborn child. After I was born, he kept waiting

for me to show signs of changing and when I didn’t, he sought out some scientist in

Ireland who worked with Reapers. The bastard told him I wouldn’t change until I’d had

a hellion implanted inside me. He refused to give Gregorovich a fledgling so my

stepfather was forced to dig up my father’s body and extract one.”

Keenan shook her head. “I’m not following. What is a hellion?”

“A Revenant worm, a hellion, a fledgling. Different names for the same evil,” he

explained. “It’s a parasite that gives a Reaper his powers.”

She shivered. “And he put that inside you?” Her tone held her unease.

Fallon grinned nastily. “The scientist in Ireland—Daniel Dunne—wouldn’t help

Gregorovich, but he told him exactly what to do to create his own little Reaper. What

sane man would tell someone to harvest anything from a man long dead and buried

then put it in a child? I don’t think Dunne actually believed my stepfather had access to

a Reaper and was just pulling Gregorovich’s chain. He also told Gregorovich that the

first thing he should do was to make sure I couldn’t reproduce.” He scissored his index

and middle fingers together. “So my stepfather took me to a clinic outside St.

Petersburg and that was that.” He shrugged. “If they were to do that to me today, I’d

heal. The cut vessels would grow back together, but since it was done before my first

Transition, I will remain sterile.”

“Did your mother know what he’d done?”

“She had been sick for several days and we know now he had been drugging her so

she couldn’t stop what he was planning. She tried but was too weak and I was too little.

She’s never forgiven him and I’ve never understood why she stays with the bastard.”

“Maybe she loves him.”

Fallon snorted. “She hates him as much as I do. No, there’s another reason but she

won’t tell me what it is.”

“What happened after he put the hellion inside you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “The fledgling doesn’t come out of stasis until the host goes

through puberty. It’s the hormones that start the change but Dunne didn’t explain that

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Dancing on the Wind

to Gregorovich so the old bastard thought the procedure had failed. After all, my father

had been lying in his grave for over ten years and the hellion my stepfather harvested

had been inert. Gregorovich thought it was in suspended animation, but when I didn’t

Transition after the Transference, he believed the fledgling was dead. Imagine his

surprise when he found out he was wrong again.”

“The hellion wasn’t dead.”

“I Transitioned for the first time on my thirteenth birthday and that’s when hell

opened up and I fell into it.”

The monorail came to a stop and the doors peeled back. He held his hand out to

indicate she was to precede him onto the platform. They started walking slowly toward

the dormitory. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his head down.

“I’d been feeling strange all day,” he continued. “Mean strange with my body

twitching and my nerves raw. I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t lie down. I itched and ached.

About half an hour before the fateful introduction to what I am began, my mother’s

husband came home, decided he didn’t like the way I was looking at him and

backhanded me hard enough to break my nose—again. I’d had that kind of treatment

from him all my life. That day, I’d had enough. It was like someone had waved a red