Sean, never taking his eyes from the redcap, nodded.
“Da! More on the south side!” Leo came running, golden sparks trailing behind him.
“Where’s your brother?” Sean followed his middle child around the house and out of Jaden’s sight.
Jaden pointed toward the redcap. “I know you! Didn’t I feed from you?” He licked his lips. “God, I hope you bathed today. Last time you left a nasty aftertaste.”
The redcap’s hand went to his neck, his eyes wide. “NO!” The idiot turned and ran, hand still over his neck.
I haven’t had this much fun in weeks! Jaden pounced, bringing his prey to the ground and biting into the side of his neck with little finesse. After all, the redcap wasn’t going to survive what Jaden did to him.
When he was done, it looked like he’d be paying a little visit to Charles Malmayne’s house. It was time for Charles to die.
Duncan pulled Moira to her feet. “Come on.” He raced for the opposite side of the house, knowing the explosion had to be a diversion.
“Wait! What about Jaden?”
Duncan sidestepped her father. The fury on Sean Dunne’s face would frighten a lesser man. Duncan had faced leprechauns before, but he’d never been stupid enough to do it on their own land. What in hell was Charles thinking? He had to know this was a very bad idea. As Jaden would say, it was a move worthy of a Darwin Award.
He sped out the front door, knowing Moira could move much faster than he. “Jaden has the back. Unless I miss my guess, there will be more out front.”
She stopped struggling and joined him. “Ma!”
“I’m heading upstairs with Ruby. I’ll keep her safe.” The two women pounded up the stairs, much to Duncan’s relief. While the little human was feisty, she was no match for a redcap.
He barreled through the front door and skidded to a halt. There in front of him were three redcaps. They’d dropped their Seeming, much to his dismay.
“Oh, ew.” Moira wriggled her nose. “Those guys are hideous.”
The redcaps had thick, muscle-bound bodies and limbs both skinnier and longer than they should be. Their skin was the color of fresh toadstools and wrinkled like that of extremely old men. Gray beards partially hid their fang-filled mouths. Red eyes glared at them, filled with hate. Steely claws tipped the fingers of each hand, razor sharp and lethal. All of their teeth were sharp, their eyes too big for their faces and their noses long and pointy. On their feet were iron boots, and on their heads they wore caps dripping with fresh blood. They weren’t carrying their traditional pikes; instead, each redcap carried a gun.
Shit.
Duncan tried to push Moira behind him, without luck. She ducked and ran, heading around the porch. One of the redcaps took off after her, firing his gun. Duncan saw her weave her way across the ground, moving faster and faster until she was around the corner.
Duncan had to trust that Moira knew what she was doing. She knew this land almost as well as her father, and that bond would give her some power here.
He turned his attention to the two remaining redcaps. Both had lifted their guns. He had a split second to decide what he was going to do.
Do what a son of the Tuatha Dé does best. Fuck with their minds.
The echo of Jaden’s words gave him just what he needed to get moving. He dove into one of their minds, quickly reweaving what the redcap saw. Duncan now seemed to stand where his comrade did, while Duncan himself looked like the redcap’s ensorcelled partner.
As he’d hoped the redcap spun and fired on his buddy, hitting him in the head and killing him instantly. Duncan held on to the redcap’s mind, sensing its satisfaction at a job well done.
Well, shit. Their orders were to kill him. And the person he saw handing down those orders was his own uncle.
He snarled, gesturing for the redcap to follow him. They ran in the direction Moira had gone. The redcap’s orders as far as Moira was concerned were muddled. Part of the redcap wanted to kill her, to feast on her sweet blood. The other…
The other had Duncan seeing things through a filmy haze of rage. The urge to crush the redcap’s mind until nothing was left but a slobbering, mindless husk was nearly overwhelming. But he held on. If the other redcap had cornered Moira, he had plans. He’d use this redcap to destroy the other.
Then he’d crush the creature’s mind.
They turned the corner to find Moira fighting off the redcap. She was using her link to the earth to pull up rocks, hurling them at the redcap with devastating results. The redcap was bleeding from hundreds of cuts. Bruises peppered his body. One eye was swollen completely shut. Still the rocks came, pelting the redcap with all the force a major league baseball pitcher could put behind a throw.
Duncan could tell Moira was tiring. Sweat beaded her brow, and her aim seemed off. Duncan switched Moira and the other redcap in his redcap’s mind. It responded immediately, firing on the redcap menacing Moira.
The bruised redcap fell with a howl. The shot hadn’t been lethal. Duncan read the fantasy his redcap had of stripping Moira down and having her, and shuddered. He reached out and looped a fantasy through the remaining redcap’s mind. He grimaced at what the redcap considered nirvana, but he shoved the redcap there anyway and left him to rot. He would never move from that spot without being lifted. He would not eat, drink or sleep.
Duncan had sentenced him to death, and the redcap would never know how or why it had happened, not that Duncan really cared.
Moira joined him, the swirls of her skin dancing with rage. Green firelights danced around her. She was panting, strain showing in fine lines around her eyes and mouth. She rolled her shoulders. “Are there more?”
Duncan picked up the gun and aimed at the howling redcap’s head. “I hope not.” He pulled the trigger and ended the redcap’s life. “Let’s go.”
Jaden stalked around the corner of the house, his eyes glittering red and green, his claws dripping with blood. “Any more?”
“Other than the one contemplating his navel? No.”
Jaden eyed the bodies with satisfaction. “Good.” He stared up at the sky, a huge grin crossing his face. “Look up. Akane’s playing.”
Duncan looked up. “Dear gods. Is that a salamander?”
“Yup.” Jaden put an arm around each of them, pulling them close. “And that’s my partner beating the shit out of it.”
Duncan wasn’t surprised when Moira elbowed Jaden in the side. “I thought you and Akane only worked together occasionally?”
Jaden winced. “Yeah, well. Mostly I work alone, but when I partner up I usually prefer Akane. She’s all right, you know?”
“She’s mine.” Shane Dunne stepped off the corner of the porch, his gaze glued to the black and gold dragon fighting the salamander. Unlike popular myth, the dragon wasn’t much bigger than the woman had been, and most of that was wingspan. The salamander was roughly the size of a German shepherd, long and sleek and sinewy. Flames shot out of the salamander’s mouth, but the dragon was immune, darting in and out, toying with the salamander.
“Gods above. Is that a salamander?” Sean Dunne stood next to his son, staring up at the battle raging above them.
The salamander was tiring. Its flame bursts were coming further and further apart. Akane forced it down, closer to the ground, using her tail to whip its ass into complying. The salamander landed, exhausted. The creature panted, watching them warily through flame red eyes. Its flame dimmed until it looked more like a tall Komodo dragon with longer limbs. After another second it took on its Seeming. The German Shepherd wagged its tail and settled down on its haunches.
Akane landed next to it, turning back into the elegant female she’d been inside the Dunne house. She petted the salamander, smiling when it licked her hand. “I think I’ll keep it.” She winked at Jaden, earning the vampire glares from two sets of Dunne eyes.