Ilona Andrews: Dark and Stormy Knights

There were ways of telling for sure. Slice his skin with a regular knife and watch if it healed fast. Slice it with the silver-inlaid knife and watch if he died from it. But Father Patrick didn’t have the wolfish look in his eyes. He didn’t have the rage, the tension, as if he were holding something back. Cormac believed him and left him alone.

Cormac retreated from the school without saying anything to the girl. He’d already done a piss-poor job of covering his tracks; no need to make it worse. At dawn’s light, he checked out of the motel and showed up on Harrison’s doorstep.

He knocked on the front door and waited for Harrison to answer, which he did after a couple of minutes. His wife was looking over his shoulder, until he barked at her to leave them alone.

“Did you finally get it?” the rancher asked.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Who was it?”

“It doesn’t matter. But you won’t have any more problems.”

“And where’s your proof that you got it?”

“Talk to Father Patrick over at the church. He’ll tell you.”

Harrison frowned, plainly not happy with that idea. “Just a minute, then.”

He went inside, leaving Cormac standing alone on the porch. Didn’t even invite him in for morning coffee. Mrs. Harrison would have invited him in, which was maybe why Mr. Harrison had ordered her away. Folks didn’t like having Cormac around much more than they liked having the monsters. Two sides of the same coin in some ways, Cormac supposed. Though Sister Hilda never killed anyone, did she? And Cormac had. Over and over.

Harrison returned with a fat envelope to round out the job. He didn’t hand it to Cormac so much as hold it out reluctantly, making Cormac take it from him.

“You can let your herd out now,” Cormac said, instead of thanking a man like Harrison.

“Well. I’m glad the bastard’s gone. I hope it died painful, I hope—”

“Shut up, Harrison,” Cormac said, exhausted on a couple of levels. “Just—just shut up.”

Tucking the blood money in his jacket, Cormac walked back to his Jeep, feeling the rancher’s gaze on his back the whole time.

He drove away from Lamar, away from the morning sun, as fast as he could.

Carrie Vaughn is the author of the New York Times bestselling series about a werewolf named Kitty who hosts a talk radio advice show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. Recent volumes include Kitty Raises Hell and Kitty’s House of Horrors . Cormac is a recurring character in the series. Carrie’s first young adult novel, Voices of Dragons, the rock climbing, jet fighters, alternate history with dragons book, is due out in 2010. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, with a fearsome miniature American Eskimo dog named Lily. Visit her at http://www.carrievaughn.com/.