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/house like 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?"