Fire Bound

S
IXTEEN MONTHS AGO . . .

C
HAPTER
O
NE

“I hunt demons, not aliens,” Evalle Kincaid grumbled under her breath. She parked her GSX-R motorcycle in the heavy shadow of an abandoned gas station in . . . she had no idea what this rural area was called, only that it was an hour east of Atlanta. March apparently intended to go out like a lamb with a cool breeze in the mid-sixties. Stowing her riding gear that left her in a black T-shirt and jeans, she headed over to where four men waited inside the gutted building.

VIPER team, mostly Beladors.

Not a Men-in-Black agent among them.

So why send a VIPER team to investigate this particular crime? As a coalition that protected humans from supernatural predators, VIPER handled a lot of strange things, but cow killings?

That was so . . . Roswell.

She took every mission seriously, but seeing two

particular men on this mission ramped up the significance: Tzader Burke, who was Maistir over all the North American Beladors, and, Vladimir Quinn, who oversaw the Belador investments.

They were two of the most dangerous men she’d ever met, and her closest friends. Much as she’d like to joke about looking for little green men, she was mentally prepared for something preternatural and deadly.

That actually raised her comfort level.

Also wearing black jeans, plus a matching longsleeved Under-Armour shirt over a ripped body that was such a deep brown he was nearly invisible in the dark, Tzader paused in talking to the other three as Evalle walked up.

She was only a few minutes late and the traffic jam hadn’t been her fault, but she felt it necessary to explain. “I would have been here sooner, but—”

Reece “Casper” Jordan piped up. “We know, sunshine. You’re a
fragile
Alterant, too
delicate
to travel before sunset.”

Of the agents here tonight, Casper was the only non-Belador. The mouthy Texan had shared his body with the spirit of a thirteenth-century highland warrior ever since he’d been struck by lightning while in Scotland ten years ago. She’d heard stories about how he’d changed into a highland warrior during battle a few times, and at times the shift was accompanied by electrical or lightning flashes. Sweet.

“Got your
delicate
in my boot, cowboy.” Evalle sent Casper a wry smile since he meant no malice. Yes, she was relegated to working only at night if she didn’t want to wear heavy protective gear due to her deadly reaction to the sun, the same reason her eyes were so sensitive to light. But as an Alterant—part Belador and part unknown—she had a few extra tricks even the other Beladors didn’t possess, such as natural night vision. She could see everyone here just fine in the tarpit darkness.

In fact, the barely-there moonlight seemed bright to her.

Having traded his signature Stetson for combat headgear, Casper had a night-vision monocular that gave him a cyborg-ish look. He wore a tactical moly vest with shell holders and had a wicked-nice customized double-barrel Stoeger shotgun hanging from a shoulder sling.

The three Beladors present—Tzader, Quinn and Trey McCree—didn’t need monoculars. They’d utilize her exceptional vision once they all linked powers, turning them into a dangerous fighting unit. Of course, that ability came with a downside.

If one of them was killed while linked, they all died.

“Everyone just got here right before you, Evalle,” Tzader said, then moved straight into the mission. “Listen up, team. We don’t know what exactly we’ll encounter tonight, but our people in local law enforcement will keep humans away while we stake out the kill zone.”

“Are they sure these cow attacks aren’t some creepy high school or college prank?” Evalle asked. She couldn’t be the only one thinking that.

Tzader nodded at Quinn who took over, speaking in his cultured British accent. “I’ve reviewed everything law enforcement has on the investigation and met with the farmer whose livestock was mutilated. He has an electric fence with a sophisticated security monitoring system around the pasture where the cows were killed.”

“Damn, son,” Casper crowed. “What kind of cows that boy got?”

Quinn merely quirked an eyebrow at Casper’s use of “son.” He was normally dressed in a custom suit—one that would cost more than Casper’s new Dodge Ram truck parked nearby—for a corporate business meeting, or in one of his many tuxedos, to attend the social event of the season.

But underestimating Quinn as nothing more than a party boy would be akin to keeping a pet pit viper.

One mistake and you’re dead.

Tonight he’d donned a dark turtleneck and sleek pants, both probably made of some hi-tech material being tested for military use.

Quinn continued, “These are quite valuable animals. They are a genetically superior line of cattle the owner has spent a small fortune raising as breeding stock for new herds. He’s lost two cows in the last thirty hours, and now he’s moved his herd indoors until someone figures out what is killing them. Our Belador contacts in law enforcement and animal control talked him into allowing them to substitute another group of cows as bait for tonight.”

Casper scrunched up one side of his face with a frown. “Usually takes more than losing a few head of cattle to get any serious agency attention.”

“True,” Quinn acknowledged. “This became high profile—and drew VIPER’s attention—because of the way the cows were killed and the evidence left around the attacks.”

Evalle sorted through what they knew so far and played devil’s advocate. “So what if this thing we’re hunting can tell the difference between that farmer’s prize stock and a plain old cow? What’s going to make this bait work?”

Tzader answered, “We’re hoping whatever is killing the cows will come back again out of habit,
and
it attacked
only
pregnant cows. We have a lot of those in this herd. Our plan is to catch this thing before it figures out the switch.”

She understood cows were grown for food, but anything that harmed an expectant mother was evil and needed to die in misery. “I say the minute something with teeth shows up, we kill it.”

“There’s the woman I want covering my six.” Casper chuckled.

The sigh that escaped Tzader said he wished she was joking, but he’d given her the dagger she carried—that had a death spell on the blade—as a gift, and knew she didn’t use it to peel potatoes. “We need to
capture
this thing, Evalle, to figure out what it is and where it came from. There were only a couple footprints with deep claw marks found around all the cows that were attacked.”

“Footprints as in
feet
, not paws or hooves?” Trey asked in a grumpy please-tell-me-you’re-kidding voice. Short brown hair stood up in all directions on his head, especially when he raked his fingers back and forth through it like he was doing now. Some men might claim that as a hairstyle, but with Trey it was pure bed-head. When you were built like a linebacker and supercharged with unusual powers, you could wear your hair any way you wanted.

Evalle grinned at Trey and teased, “Yeah, we’re after Bigfoot now. This just gets better all the time.”

“He’s right,” Tzader cut in.

“What?” she sputtered. “Like
human
feet with claws?”

Tzader nodded his bald head. “The feet and toes are human in shape. From the depth of the footprint and span of where the feet seemed to hit the ground in a stepping pattern we’ve estimated its size at over nine feet and weight somewhere around five-hundred pounds give or take some. The claws curving off the toes are three inches long and appear razor sharp.”

“That’d gut a buffalo,” Casper reasoned. “I’m guessing this thing is coming in from the sky with so few prints to go on.”

“That’s what we figure, too,” Tzader confirmed. “The bite marks on the bodies where the flesh was torn open were ten inches wide and indicate a double row of teeth that could rip through muscle and snap bones.”

Lovely
. Evalle muttered, “Carnivorous Bigfoot with wings. And you want us to catch
that
before it eats something else?”

She had no doubt that Tzader had heard her with his exceptional hearing, but he kept talking as if he hadn’t. “Here’s the plan.”

Tzader explained the layout of the pasture, which backed up to the woods behind the abandoned gas station, then added, “The new herd was fed a few hours ago, and recon says they’re bedded down near the end of the pasture where we’ll exit the woods. That’s where we should find them. Since no humans are involved, everyone is authorized to use their powers tonight, but we need this thing alive . . . unless the decision comes down to your life or a team member’s.”

Evalle would follow Tzader into any battle without question, but she didn’t get why they had to capture this thing. They destroyed demons and other dangerous dark creatures all the time, the point being to rid the world of supernatural predators.

Before she could ask, power surged into Evalle’s mind when Tzader addressed all the Beladors telepathically.
It’s time to link with Evalle so we’ll all have night vision.

No reply was needed. Belador warriors followed the orders of a Maistir without question.

Evalle lowered her mental shields and energy surged into her, feeling like a blast of adrenaline from all the powers linked, but it settled down just as quickly. She looked over at Casper. “We’re linked and using my vision.”

He nodded, moving his fingers up to his monocular.

Trailing behind Tzader, Evalle entered the woods, having forgotten how noisy crickets and frogs could be outside the city. She kept her thoughts to herself while she climbed over a rusty wire fence and pushed her way through thick underbrush, rattling branches in the wake of Tzader’s quieter moves.

Something squawked and flapped, diving from somewhere above her.

Evalle swung her hands up, prepared to use her kinetic power against an attack, but Tzader shouted in her head,
Don’t! Just a couple turkeys.

Close behind her, Casper muttered, “Never taking you hunting, that’s for sure.”

She released a stream of air that came out as a hiss of frustration and put her hands down. Back when she’d first been brought into the Beladors, she’d had survival training in a frigid climate. Her experience in southern rural settings had been minimal.

Catching up to Tzader, she asked him privately mind-to-mind,
Hey, Z, what does VIPER expect to learn from taking this thing in alive?

He had to turn sideways and lift his arms to squeeze through an opening in a patch of blackberry bushes that snagged Evalle’s jeans when she passed through behind him.

Just another reason to stay out of the boondocks.

Put her in the middle of any metropolitan landscape and she was pure stealth, but right now she was making more noise than Quinn, Trey and Casper together.

Trey and Casper she could understand since they both had grown up in the country, but Quinn surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to be so fluid and silent out here.

Tzader finally answered her.
One of the people I know up the food chain in the government has reason to believe that someone has been doing secret testing on strange animals in a private facility. This attack fits their intel. They need to know if this creature is a result of someone’s experiments and where it came from.

You mean they think someone created this thing we’re after in a lab?

Maybe.

Considering that implication, something more significant struck her. She’d always been told never to expose her powers to a human.
But I thought the humans and the government aren’t supposed to know we exist.

You know we have Beladors in national security positions . . . this is coming down from those offices.
The concern in his voice said there was more at stake than a few cows.