Read Hunter Moon (The Moon Series) Online
Authors: Jeanette Battista
“Cormac?” she cut him off. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She led him back to their room so he could unpack.
Laila pulled the black hood over her head and tucked the stray strands of her hair inside it. She’d been waiting most of the evening for this Lukas Jaegar clown to either head out for the night or go to bed, but he didn’t seem to want to cooperate. She was tempted to just rush in there and blindside him, but that would probably get her in trouble with the Keepers, and she didn’t want that. She had to do this the right way.
But first, she wanted to confirm his kill. She had to see Mebis.
Laila hadn’t told anyone what she was planning. Frankly, she didn’t care what Kess thought and Finn would only try to talk her out of it. Neither of them seemed to understand that this was her brother, and that nothing would stop her when it came to family.
She saw Lukas exit the building. Kess had given her a good description and a rather haphazard picture taken with her iPhone, so Laila recognized him at once. Her upper lip curled into a half-snarl as she watched him walk down the street. She waited until he had rounded the corner before she began to move.
From the roof, she took the access stairs down to the ninth floor. The building had no security to speak of—she’d checked the schematics and blueprints earlier in the day, then run her own scan to be sure. She used a set of lockpicks passed down from her father on the door and was soon inside. There was an alarm panel next to the entryway to the kitchen, but it wasn’t armed. Laila could have dealt with it if it had been, but she was glad not to have to waste her time.
She followed Kess’ directions to the trophy room. Laila inspected the door for sensors; some collectors were very protective of their prizes, sometimes skimping on personal security to beef up that around their collections. She found nothing to indicate any security measures were in place, so she opened the door and stepped inside. Laila didn’t bother with the light. Instead, she pulled a small flashlight from the tool pouch at her waist and flashed the beam around the room.
Kess hadn’t been lying when she’d said this Lukas guy was some kind of major hunter. She counted two bears, any number of wolves, though all looked to be different variants, and a good start on big cats. Laila stepped between the rows of stuffed beasts, looking for the one that was supposed to be her brother.
The jackal stood in almost the center of the room, surrounded by much larger quarry. Laila walked over slowly, running her flashlight’s beam around the base first. She noted it had been decorated with a natural scene: this one had tall marshy reeds and grasses and the artificial ground gleamed as if wet in the beam of the flashlight. Swampland. She wondered if this was where the hunter had bagged this jackal; if so, it might provide her with a clue as to where everything went down.
She stepped closer, examining the animal. The taxidermist had done excellent work, she observed, trying to compartmentalize her feelings. She put the flashlight between her teeth and ran her hands over the jackal’s coat and head. The ears were large and perked forward, as though listening for something. The coat was a sandy brown interspersed with blondish strands—the pelt of a golden jackal.
Laila knelt to look closely at the face. Her hands stroked the animal’s jaw, running down its neck. The eyes were brown, the color of Mebis’. So was the expression—it was one he often wore when they ran the swampland back home in New Orleans. She gritted her teeth and continued her inspection of the animal, although she had no doubt this was her brother. Laila dipped the beam lower, illuminating the jackal’s paws. There it was. She’d seen Mebis change enough times after his injury to know that the mangled paw removed all doubt. It was her brother, stuffed and sitting in some asshole’s trophy room, like just another common kill.
She rested her hand between his ears and bowed her head. Laila hoped her short prayer to Anubis would help her brother pass into the next world. Then she said a prayer of her own, more of a vow, really. She would hunt this hunter and make him regret the day he’d ever had Mebis in his sights.
The lights flicked on and Laila dropped low, pulling her gun in one seamless motion. Using the various animals as cover, she began to move towards the front of the room. She hadn’t heard either the front door open, or this room’s door open, but someone was in here. She could sense another’s presence.
“You can come out now. I know exactly where you are,” a mellow, slightly amused voice said.
Laila popped up, gun out and in firing position. A tall, impossibly thin young man with dark hair leaned casually against the stuffed grizzly bear that took up one corner of the room. “You won’t need that,” he said, waving at her gun.
“Who are you?” She took in the cut of his black suit and tie. “Lukas Jaegar’s Alfred?”
“Funny,” the young man said, in a voice that conveyed it was anything but. “I could ask the same of you.”
“And I could tell you to get bent.” Laila tightened her finger on the trigger.
He inclined his head to her, his dark hair falling across his eyes. They were odd, his eyes, appearing to have no pupil that she could see. She dismissed it. She didn’t require an explanation of his weird eyes to plant a bullet in his skull.
“But you won’t,” he answered. “Because that would be rude.”
Laila rolled her eyes. Like she gave two shits about being rude at this point. Breaking and entering wasn’t exactly polite behavior. She said nothing in response, content to let him speak. She might learn something useful. He wasn’t carrying anything that resembled a weapon, either in his hands or under his clothes. She could wait. A little.
“Do you like my master’s assortment? I’m sure he’d be more than happy to show it to you personally. An attractive, unique young woman such as yourself would interest him greatly.”
Laila turned her lip up dismissively. Oh, he was threatening her now? She’d love to see his master try. “I know exactly what your master would be interested in.” She threw one last look at the jackal who had been her brother. She vowed she’d remove him from this trophy room, but not now. “And you can tell your master that he’s not the only one who knows how to hunt.” And kill.
The man smiled broadly, and Laila could see that his teeth were all sharp and pointy. There was more going on with this dude than she had time to suss out. He said, “Now why would I go and do a thing like that?” He winked at her. Then he opened the door with one hand and waved her out with the other. “Good hunting, miss.”
Laila stepped through the doorway, gun still trained on the young man in the black suit. She didn’t know what to make of him, but now was as good a time as any to leave. She’d gotten what she came for. Now she had to tell her parents that Mebis was truly dead. Once that was done, then she would hunt Lukas.
The manservant or whatever he was followed her to the door, his eyes positively gleaming with a dark joy. She was closing the front door behind her when she heard him say, “I hope to see you very soon, Laila. Call on Zamiel if you have need.”
Then the door closed behind her with a click.
Rafe dropped into one of the club chairs with a heavy sigh, dropping his notebook down with a sharp slap on the side table. Finn stopped what he was doing—which was idly flipping through books on hunting big game—and arched a brow at the dejected-looking young man.
“What’s the matter?” he asked Rafe, shoving the book back into place on the shelf. He folded himself into a wingback chair, wiggling to try and get comfortable. He didn’t know why Kess liked the library so much; the couches and chairs in the den were so much more comfortable.
“Nothing, that’s what’s the matter.” Rafe had a forearm draped over his eyes.
“So why do you look like someone just ran over your dog?”
The werehyena gestured to the pad he’d been carrying, not bothering to remove his other arm from across his eyes. “I’ve got nothing on the taxidermy angle. I’ve called to talk to every taxidermist on the freaking eastern seaboard and none of them have ever stuffed anything like a jackal or a hyena before. And they say there’s no way they could have had something ready so quickly.”
“What does that mean?” Finn leaned forward, his interest piqued.
Rafe sat up finally, looking Finn in the eye. “I extrapolated a little bit based on when Mebis’ car was found and when Kess saw him stuffed in the trophy room. I wanted to give the guys I talked to a time frame. And all of them agreed that there was no way they could have a trophy stuffed, mounted, and a habitat put together in that amount of time.” He handed Finn the notepad. “I must have talked to fifteen different guys and they all agreed on that much.”
“What if Lukas put a rush order on it or something like that?” Finn asked as he flipped through page after page of Rafe’s neat printing. He rubbed his fingers together to indicate money.
The young man shook his head, overlong hair falling into his face. “Not gonna happen. With what I described to them based off of Kess’ pictures, there was no way to get it done in the time frame I gave them. The drying and various other things they had to do to the carcass wouldn’t allow it to be done in time, no matter the money involved.”
“So what? Magic?” Finn didn’t like where this was heading.
Rafe shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s like Occam’s razor.”
Finn raised a brow. “I’m not entirely sure what shaving has to do with this…”
The young man rolled his eyes. “I’ll try and use small words. Occam’s razor is the idea that when you’ve eliminated all of the other possibilities, the one remaining—no matter how improbable or impossible—must be the correct one.”
“Oh. I thought it was that guy with the cat and the box.” Finn grinned. “I never knew that’s what that idea was called.”
“Yeah. And the guy with the cat in the box is Schrödinger.”
“Look at you with your giant freakish brain under that mop of hair.” Finn knew what Schrödinger’s cat was; he just liked tweaking Rafe as often as possible. He hadn’t fallen asleep in all of his theory classes. Just most of them.
“Ha freaking ha.” the werehyena frowned.
Finn leaned back in his chair. “So a magical taxidermist then?” He shrugged. “I’ve probably heard of weirder things, I just can’t think of any right now.”
“It might not be that at all. It could be something we haven’t thought of yet.”
“You tell Kess about this?”
Rafe shook his head. “Not yet. I’ve got a couple of online sites I want to check first. But it’s not looking like we’re going to eliminate anything this way. We’ve still got nothing on how Lukas operates or where he’s hunted before.”
“It was worth a shot,” Finn said, trying not to sound too much like a cheerleader. “You helped figure out what it isn’t.” He met Rafe’s eyes. “Now we have to figure out what it is.”
“And if anyone else knows about us.”
Laila dialed her parents’ number. This was not the call she ever thought she’d make, but someone had to tell them about Mebis, and that someone was her. There was no one else.
It rang three times before her mother picked up the line. “Laila?” Her mother’s voice was warm and soothing over the phone. More than anything, her mother’s voice would always be home, no matter how old Laila got or where she went.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to keep her voice steady. She would be strong and deal with this like a Keeper would. “Hi Mom. Is Dad home yet?”
“Is everything alright?” Now her mother’s voice held concern.
No, everything was most definitely NOT alright. Laila tried to put her mother off. “I just really need to talk to you and Dad. Can you get him on the other extension?”
Her mother didn’t say anything. Laila waited while her mother went to fetch her father. After a few moments, both of them were on the line. Her father’s mellow voice was as calm as ever. “What is it, Laila?” he asked.
She took a breath. There was only one way that she knew to deliver such bad news. “Mebis is dead.”
Laila heard the swift intake of breath from her mother. Her father was quiet for a few minutes. Then he asked, “How?” There was a deep pain in his voice, but no tears.
“There’s a hunter in Miami and he’s targeting weres.” It was easier if she only thought about her brother’s death logically and from a distance. Laila was afraid if she thought too much about it, the grief of losing her brother would overwhelm her before she could avenge him.
“Are you certain?” This from her mother.
“The hunter had him in a trophy room. I saw him myself.”
“Wait,” her father interrupted, before her mother could speak again. “What do you mean, trophy room?”
Laila closed her eyes, recalling Lukas Jaegar’s stuffed werebeast collection. “This hunter—he kills weres when they’re in their animal forms and then has them stuffed.”
She heard her mother wail and hang up the line. But her father was still there. “Tell me everything.” His voice was hard—the voice of a Keeper. It made Laila feel better.
Laila told him everything about her foray into the trophy room and the strange encounter with Lukas’ manservant, Zamiel. She told him about the missing werehyenas and Rafe’s hunt for the taxidermist. The only thing she couldn’t tell him was the how of it: how Mebis had been killed. But she would find out.