"Don't you remember last night when you got mowed down?"
Talon nodded hesitantly, unable to believe that that was what had slammed into him. "I was hit by a Mardi Gras float?"
"Yeah, it was Bacchus."
Now that was adding insult to injury. Jeez. He only hoped Nick didn't find out about it. Ever.
Nicholas Ambrosius Gautier had come into this world with not a lot of prospects. Born the bastard son of a career felon and a teenage Bourbon Street stripper, he wasn't exactly the most law-abiding of folks. In fact, his junior high guidance counselor had once voted him Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty.
But one night when Nick had made a stand against the gang he ran with, fate had changed his life and sent in a Dark-Hunter guardian angel who had taken a smart-mouthed kid, cleaned him up, and given him a real future.
Now, nine years later, he was a pre-law student, and instead of playing penal roulette like his father, he was almost a respectable citizen. Almost being the operative word.
All thanks to Kyrian of Thrace and Acheron Parthenopaeus.
There was nothing he wouldn't do for them and that was why he was sitting in his car, parked in a vacant field just after sunset, instead of being off with his latest girlfriend, putting a really big smile on her face.
Even with the car running, it was cold out here. That damp, frigid cold that could go deep into the bones and make them ache. His thermos of coffee all gone, Nick just wanted to get back home and thaw out.
Instead, he was waiting for Talon's Mardi Gras reinforcement to be delivered, because Zarek, having spent the last nine hundred years in Alaska, had no idea how to drive a car. Apparently, cars weren't the transportation of choice for snowbound Dark-Hunters.
Yee-freakin'-haw. This was one event he could have waited his lifetime for.
"Nick, you there?"
"Yeah," he said into the portable radio he had in the passenger seat of his Jaguar that kept him in touch with the incoming helicopter. "What's your ETA?"
"About two minutes," Mike said.
Nick started scanning the dark sky for the black H-53E Sea Dragon Sikorsky helicopter. It was a long-range, custom-built military-class chopper that the Squires often used to transport Dark-Hunters. The helicopter was fast and versatile, and could be refueled while in flight.
Its back section was equipped with a steel passenger area that kept sunlight from touching the Dark-Hunters. The windows in the passenger compartment could be lightened with a flip of the switch to allow a Dark-Hunter to see outside after dark should he desire it.
A few Dark-Hunters such as Acheron owned their own helicopters and flew them when needed.
Tonight, though, Mike Callahan, who was a Dorean Squire (meaning he didn't have a particular Dark-Hunter he served) was bringing in Zarek from Alaska.
Nick had heard a lot of rumors through the on-line Squire bulletin boards about Zarek of Moesia being psychotic. He wasn't sure how accurate that information was, but in a few minutes he'd find out firsthand.
"Hey, Mike," he said, radioing the pilot. "How bad is he?"
Mike snorted. "Let me put it to you this way. If you have a gun, unload it."
"Why?"
"Because if you don't, you're going to shoot this asshole which will only piss him off more. For once, I actually pity the Daimons."
That didn't sound encouraging.
"What? He's worse than Acheron?"
"Nick, take my word for it. You ain't never seen anything like this one. I now know why Artemis and Ash locked him in Alaska. What I can't figure out is why on earth Artemis wanted him moved into a large population. My opinion, it's like tossing a grenade on a gas station."
Oh yeah, his gut was knotted now.
Nick waited as the helicopter landed on the private airstrip Acheron used when he visited. At one end of the field stood a building that appeared to be a dilapidated barn. In actuality, it was a modified modern hangar equipped with an alarm system and doors so thick it could double as a bomb shelter. That barn currently housed the twenty-eight-million-dollar MH-60K Sikorsky helicopter that Acheron used to transport himself and his custom-built Buell motorcycle.
Ash had arrived in style the day before.