Krewe of Hunters The Unseen (2 page)

“Taylor, what’s happening?” she whispered.

There were men running toward them. She started to back away, but there was nowhere to run. This was an island. The beach stretched on for miles here and headed into bracken.

Nowhere to run.

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“There he is. Get the bastard!” one of the men shouted.

She felt pressure on her hand. Taylor was thrusting the ring into her grasp. She took it. And she knew that if these men were after the diamond, they would strip her down and search her on the beach. She pretended to push back a stray lock of hair and stuck the diamond in her chignon.

Her heart thundered. Five men had come out; one was Matt Meyer, known for scalping Indians in Tennessee. He was surrounded by his henchmen—rough frontiersmen who’d seen better days, but who had never lost their talent for brutality.

She stepped forward. “Gentlemen, what is the problem?” she demanded. She moved past Taylor, praying they’d hesitate before actually offering physical violence.

She was forgetting herself. And them.

Meyer grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her on the sand. “Cheater!” he said to Taylor. “Where the hell is my watch and fob?”

“What?” Taylor shrieked. “I didn’t cheat, and I don’t have your watch and fob! I swear, I swear on all that’s holy, I—”

“Men,” Meyer said quietly.

They descended on Taylor. They beat him as they stripped him naked and left him half-dead in the sand. Rose cried out in horror, but her one attempt to stop them was quickly diverted as one of the men backhanded her in the face and sent her down again, her mind reeling.

“He ain’t got it,” another of the men finally said to Meyer.

And then, of course, they looked at Rose.

“He was telling the truth!” Rose screamed in fury and despair. She staggered to her feet and stood as proudly as IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012

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she could, with all the old disdain she could summon. “He doesn’t have your watch or fob, never had it, and neither do I.” She knew, however, that her protest would be in vain.

And she was worried sick about Taylor. He lay bleeding and naked in the sand. She’d heard him groan once; now he was silent.

“You’ve murdered him,” she accused Meyer.

There was more commotion coming from the tavern.

Others, hearing the fracas on the beach, were spilling out of the saloon.

“Take the whore,” Meyer said to his men. “Let’s move out of here.”

“Wait! You can’t just leave him!” Rose sobbed. “He could be alive!”

Meyer, who was a big man, perhaps forty, and strongly muscled, walked over to her and jerked her toward him.

“How did you wind up with such a pathetic excuse for a man?” Suddenly he smiled. “All those airs, my dear Miss Southern Belle! Well, well. I’ll find out later if you’ve got my property. Come on, boys, time to leave this island and move inward. If there’s going to be a war, I think we’ll be part of it. Hmm. And, Miss Southern Belle Rose, I guess you’re going to be
my
whore now!”

“Let go of me, you bastard!” She had to play for time.

People were streaming out of the saloon and she had to tell them Taylor was innocent and that these men had halfway killed him. It was one thing to have a fight, or even shoot at a man, but to do
this,
to gang up on someone and beat him so badly…

Meyer hauled back and hit her again with such force that IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012

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she would’ve fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her. The world around her was whirling as Meyer tossed her over his shoulder. She tried to free herself, tried to protest, but his voice grated in her ears. “You want your boy to have a chance to live? Then shut up! You’re with me now, Rose. Ah, yes, Miss Rose, you’re with me. Think of the glory! We’re on to fight for Texas!”

He started to laugh.

For

Texas…

She fought against his hold. She raised herself, clutch-ing his shoulders, and for one moment, she saw the moon again. Or moons. Now there seemed to be ten of them swimming in the sky, still absurdly beautiful crescents.

Then the moons all disappeared. Yet as her world faded to black, Rose could feel the gem somehow burning against her skin through the tight knot of hair.

Meyer, these men, didn’t even know she had the diamond, but it had already destroyed her life.

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San Antonio, Texas

April

L ogan Raintree had just left his house and was walking toward his car when the massive black
thing
swept before him with a fury and might that seemed to fill the air. He stopped short, not knowing what the hell he was seeing at first.

Then he saw it. The
thing
was a bird, and he quickly noted that it was a massive bird, a peregrine falcon. Its wingspan must have been a good three feet.

It had taken down a pigeon.

The pigeon was far beyond help. The falcon had already ripped the left wing from the creature and, mercifully, had broken the smaller bird’s neck, as well.

As Logan stood there, the falcon stared at him. He stared back at the falcon.

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He’d seen attacks by such birds before; they had the tenacity of jays and the power of a bobcat.

They also had the beaks and talons of their distant ancestors—the raptors, who’d once ravaged land and sea.

This kind of bird could blind a man or, at the least, rip his face to shreds.

Logan stood dead still, maintaining his position as he continued to return the bird’s cold, speculative stare. There seemed to be something in its eyes. Something that might exist in the eyes of the most brutal general, the most ruth-less ruler.
Touch my kill, and you die!
the bird seemed to warn.

Logan didn’t back away; he didn’t move at all.

He knew birds, as he knew the temperament of most animals. If he ran away, the bird would think he should be attacked, just to make sure he did get away from the kill. Come forward and, of course, the bird would fight to protect it. He had to stay still, calm, assured, and not give ground. The falcon would respect that stance, take its prey and leave.

But the bird didn’t leave. It watched Logan for another minute, then cast its head back and let out a shrieking cry.

It took a step toward him.

Even feeling intimidated, Logan decided his best move was
not
to move… .

“I have no fight with you, brother,” he said quietly.

The bird let out another cry. It hopped back to the pigeon, looked at Logan and willfully ripped the second wing off, then spat it out and stared at Logan again.

This was ridiculous, he thought. He’d never seen a perIN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012

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egrine falcon so much as land in his driveway, much less pick a fight with him.

He reached with slow, nonthreatening movements for his gun belt and the Colt .45 holstered there; he had no desire to harm any creature, but neither would he be blinded by a bird that seemed to be harboring an overabundance of testosterone.

As if the bird had known what the gun was, it leaped back.

Logan had the gun aimed. “I don’t want to hurt you, brother bird,” he said. “But if you force my hand, I will.” The bird seemed to understand him—and to know he meant his words. It gave yet another raucous cry, jumped on the pigeon and soared into f light, taking its prey. Logan watched as the bird disappeared into the western sky.

Curious about the encounter and very surprised by it, he shook his head and turned toward his car again.

He took one step and paused, frowning.

It suddenly looked as if he’d stepped into an Alfred Hitch-cock movie.

The Birds.

They were everywhere. They covered the eaves of his house, the trees and the ground, everything around him.

They sat on the hood and the roof of his car. Every bird native to the state of Texas seemed to be there, all of them just staring at him. Jays, doves, grackles, blackbirds, crows and even seabirds—a pelican stood in the center of his lawn.

It was bizarre. He was being watched…stalked…by birds!

None made a move toward him.

As he started to walk, a sparrow f lapped its wings, movIN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012

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ing aside. He continued to his car, wings f luttering around him as the smaller birds made way. When he reached his car door, he opened it slowly, carefully, and then sat behind the wheel, closing the door. He revved the engine and heard scratching noises as the birds atop his car took f light.

Logan eased out of the driveway. As he did so, a whir of black rose with a furious f lapping of wings. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, they were gone.

Every last bird was gone.

He looked back at his old mission-style house, wondering if he’d somehow blacked out, had a vision, and yet managed to get into his car. But that was not the case. He didn’t black out. For him, visions were dreams. They occurred only when he slept, and he usually laughed them away. His father’s people believed that all dreams were omens, while his mother’s father—psychiatrist and philosopher William Douglas—believed that dreams or “visions” were argu-ments within the human psyche. In William’s view, fears and anxiety created alternate worlds seen only in the mind; their role was to help resolve emotional conf licts.

Whichever approach was correct didn’t matter much.

He’d seen what he had seen. This hadn’t been a vision or a dream.

But it was odd that it had happened when he was on his way to meet with Jackson Crow, FBI agent and head of the mysterious Krewe of Hunters—a unit both infamous and renowned.

San Antonio. It was different, that was all.
Different.

Kelsey O’Brien looked out the Longhorn Inn’s kitchen IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012

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window. From here, she could see the walls of the old chapel at the Alamo. The city was bustling, pleasantly warm now that it was spring, and the people she’d met so far were friendly and welcoming.

She still felt like a fish out of water.

That’s what she was missing—the water.

She’d been in San Antonio almost three days and they’d been nice days. San Antonio was a beautiful city. Kelsey actually had a cousin living here, Sean Cameron, but he worked for a special-effects company, and they were currently out in the desert somewhere, trying to reproduce the Alamo as it had once been for a documentary. She was grateful that her old camp friend, Sandy Holly, had bought the historic inn and one-time saloon where she was staying. Sandy made her feel a bit less like a fish out of water, but it was strange not to be within steps of both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Her life—except for summer camp and college upstate—had been spent in the Florida Keys. Where there was water. Lots and lots of water. Of course, they had the river here, and she loved the Riverwalk area, with its interesting places to go and dine and shop. The history of the city appealed to her, too.

It was just…different. And it was going to take some getting used to. Of course, she still had no idea what she was doing here, or if she was going to stay. She might not be in San Antonio long; on the other hand, she could be transferring here. And she might be taking on a different job.

She was a United States Marshal, which meant she worked for a service that might require her to go any-IN PROCESS EDITION - JAN. 10, 2012

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where. She’d certainly traveled in her life, but the concept that she could be moving here, making a life here, seemed unlikely—not something she would have chosen. Now that it might be happening, she had to remind herself that she’d always known she could be transferred. But her training had been in Miami, and because of her familiarity with Key West, where she had grown up, she’d been assigned, as one of only two Marshals, to the office there. She’d been doing the job for two years now, enjoying an easy cama-raderie with Trent Fisher, her coworker. They reported in to the Miami office when required, and occasionally their Miami supervisor came down. Key West was small, and despite the friction that could exist between law enforcement agencies, she’d quickly established excellent working relations with the police and the Coast Guard and the other state and federal agencies with which the two Marshals worked. And then…

Then she’d suddenly ended up here. She was still wondering why, because Archie Lawrence, her supervisor, had been so vague.

“You’re going to love the situation,” Archie had assured her. “You go to this meeting, and then you’ll have a two-week hiatus to decide what you feel about an offer you’re going to receive. So, nothing is definite yet.”