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."