Amanda's jaw dropped. Especially when she saw the four-hundred-dollar price tag on the doll. "Thank you, Liza, but I can't take this," she said, trying to give it back.
Liza waved her hand, refusing. "It's yours, hon. You need an angel to watch over you."
"But-"
"It's all right," Nick said, inclining his head to the door. Then in a low tone, he said, "Don't hurt her feelings by refusing it. She loves to give them away."
Amanda hugged the old woman. "Thank you, Liza. I will treasure her always."
They were almost out the door when Liza stopped them again. She took the doll back. "I forgot something," she said. "Starla is very special." Liza put the doll's legs together, then pressed her head down.
Two pencil-thin, three-inch blades shot out of her feet.
"It's for Daimons," Liza announced, pulling the head up until the blades retracted. "Beauty is sometimes best when it's lethal."
Okay, Amanda thought slowly. She wasn't quite sure what to make of all this.
Liza handed her the doll and patted her arm again. "You two take care."
"We will," Nick said and this time they made it all the way to the street.
Amanda stared at the doll in her hands, not sure what to think.
Nick laughed at her the whole way to the car.
"Liza's a Squire, isn't she?" Amanda asked as she got into the Jag and placed Starla very carefully in her lap.
"She's retired, but yes. She was a Squire and an Oracle for about thirty-five years until she turned Xander's care over to Brynna."
"Is Liza the one who makes the boots for Kyrian?"
He shook his head as he started the engine. "Another Dark-Hunter makes the big weapons. The swords, boots, and such. Liza makes the small weapons like the pendulums that carry plastique. She's an accomplished artist who likes to make jewelry and other innocuous items lethal."
Amanda let out a deep breath. "You guys are scary."
He laughed at that, then checked his watch. "It's almost three. We still have to go to Talon's and I have to get you back before dark, so we need to rush."
"Okay."
They drove for a good forty minutes, out of the city and into the deep bayou.
Down at the end of a long, winding dirt road, they came to a large, old shed/houselike structure. If not for the new locks on it, she wouldn't have believed anyone had used it in a hundred years. Well, that and the peculiar mailbox in front of it. It was black with what appeared to be giant silver spikes going through the box both diagonally and horizontally.
"Talon is weird," Nick said as he caught her staring at it. "He thinks it's funny that he staked his mailbox."
Nick opened the garage door with the remote in his car. She gasped as they pulled inside and Nick parked the Jag.
Inside, the shed was tile and steel and housed a Viper, a collection of five Harley-Davidsons, and a small catamaran docked in the rear, over the swamp.
"Wow," she breathed as she spotted one Harley that stood apart from the others. Sleek and black, it gleamed in the dim light. It was obviously a prized possession and she remembered Talon riding it last night.
Nick paid no attention to the car or motorcycles as he headed for the docked catamaran.
"Talon lives all the way out here?" she asked as she joined him on the crisp, clean dock and noticed that they had left enough room for another boat beside the first one.
He helped her into the catamaran, then moved to open the garage door that led out to the swamp. "Yeah, being an ancient Celt, he loves nature. Even when it's gruesome."
Amanda arched a brow. "Is he really an ancient Celt?"
"Oh yeah. From the fifth or sixth century. He was a chieftain. His father was a druid high priest and his mother the leader before him."
"Really?"
He nodded as he untied the boat, then jumped inside it. Once she was seated, he started the whirring engine.
"How did he become a Dark-Hunter?" she shouted over the roar.
"His clan betrayed him," Nick said, steering the boat out into the swamp. "They told him they needed to sacrifice someone of his blood. It was either him or his sister. He agreed, but as soon as they had him tied down, they killed his sister in front of him. He went nuts, but since he was tied down, there was nothing he could do. As they turned to kill him, he swore vengeance on all of them."
Jeez, did none of them have a happy life?
"He killed his clan members?" she asked.
"I would imagine so."
Amanda sat in silence while she thought about that. Poor Talon. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to watch one of her beloved sisters die before her eyes. They might annoy her a large portion of the time, but they meant the world to her and she would kill anyone who hurt one of them.
The horror that man must have felt that day. It must still haunt him.
Nick navigated deep into the swamp until they came upon an incredibly small cabin. She doubted it was even eight hundred square feet. It looked even more rundown on the outside than the shed where they had left Nick's car. The rough wood was a light, sun-faded gray and it looked as if it would crumble under the slightest breeze.
As they approached it, she saw a dock behind the cabin with two large generators and another catamaran.
"What does he do during hurricane season?" she asked as Nick turned off the boat.
"Nothing really. One of Talon's powers is that he can control the weather so it's not that big a danger. But there's always the possibility the place could blow apart in the daylight while he's sleeping and not aware of weather conditions. In which case, he's toast."
"They like to live dangerously, don't they?"
He laughed. "It takes a certain breed to do what they do. Flirting with disaster is pretty much a basic requirement."
Nick got out of the boat first with a warning for her to stay put. He carefully walked along a narrow, old walkway that led from the makeshift dock to the cabin door, then motioned for her to join him.
"Back off, Beth," he snapped as an alligator approached her.
Amanda jumped back onto the boat.
"It's okay," Nick assured her. "They protect Talon in the daylight. As long as you're with me, they're harmless."
"I don't know about this," she said, reluctantly leaving the boat again.
Four massively huge alligators kept a vicious eye on her and followed her all the way to the door. Amanda's throat constricted in fear as the largest alligator climbed up on the porch behind them and swished its tail.
It hissed at them.
"Shut up, Beth," Nick snapped. "Or I swear I'll make luggage out of you." Nick knocked on the faded old door.
"It's not dark yet, Nick," Talon's thickly accented voice snapped from inside, making her wonder how he knew it was them. "What do you want?"
"I need your srad for Kyrian before it gets dark."
Amanda heard rustling on the other side of the door. A few seconds later, the lock clicked and the door opened the tiniest of cracks. Nick opened it wider and let them in.
She tried to see in the darkness, but had no luck until Nick turned on a small desk lamp.
Amanda froze as soon as she saw the interior. The walls were painted black and the place looked like a military control room. There were computers and electronic equipment everywhere. Though the location and-outside of the cabin would deny it, the man was a techno-junkie.
When her gaze touched on Talon, her jaw dropped wide open. The man was completely naked.
And he looked really good.
She stared at his perfect body, which was covered with strange red and black Celtic tattoos over the left side of his torso, front and back, and all the way down his left arm. His large, dragon-headed tore gleamed in the dim light. And though the man was sinfully handsome, she was strangely unmoved by him.
She appreciated him for the incredible picture he cut, but he didn't make her heart race like Kyrian did. Nor did she feel even a hint of sexual desire toward him.
And Talon was totally unabashed by his state of undress.
Nick gave her an amused grin. "I should have warned you, ancient warriors tend not to think much about nudity. Clothing is a modern hang-up none of them seem to have." He looked at Talon. "Celt, put some clothes on before you shock her."
Talon growled at him. "Why? I'm going back to bed. Take what you need and lock the door behind you." He paused at his futon in the back corner and raked a hungry look over Amanda. "Of course, if you want to leave Amanda, I might be persuaded to stay up for a bit and be sociable."
Nick scoffed. "Damn, Talon, can't you go an hour without a woman?"
"One is no problem. It's when I get to two or three that I get antsy." Talon returned to lie down on the black futon. He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes.
At least until his phone rang. Talon cursed, rolled over, and answered it while Nick went to the huge weapon cabinet and picked up two nasty-looking round dagger things.
"Wulf, I'm not even awake yet," Talon growled. "And I don't really care, and why would you ask me something about ancient Greece anyway? Did I live there? The answer is hell no... Don't know, don't care... Hang on." He turned over and looked at Nick. "Nick, ever heard of Cult of Pollux?"
Nick looked over at him. "You'd have to call Kyrian or one of the other Greeks."
"Did you hear that?" Talon listened a sec, then turned back to Nick. "Ash is walkabout, Brax, Jayce, and Kyros are MIA, and Kyrian isn't answering his phone. Wulf says it's really important."
The significance of that sentence seemed to hit both men at once.
Talon spoke into the phone. "When did you last try to reach Kyrian?"
Nick pulled his cell phone out and dialed.
"He might be in the shower," Amanda suggested.
Nick shook his head. "Even if he was, Rosa would answer."
After a minute, Nick turned off the cell phone. "Something's seriously wrong."