1
THE swamp had four
distinct seasons and within each she had moods as well. Tonight she
wore a mantle of purple, all different hues, dark swirls that
filled the night sky and lighter lavenders that crept through the
cypress trees. The moon illuminated the veils of moss hanging to
the water’s edge, turning them a pale, silvery blue. Crimson and
blue made up the color purple, and it was evident in the splashes
of dark red slashing through the trees to pour into the
duckweed-carpeted water below.
Saria Boudreaux
smiled as she carefully stepped from her airboat to the blind she’d
set up, building it day by day, a little at a time, so as not to
disturb the wildlife around her. She’d grown up on the edges of the
swamp and there was nowhere she was happier. The blind was set up
alongside an owl’s nest and she hoped to get night pictures, a
coveted coup that could possibly bring her a great deal more money.
More and more, her photography was allowing her an independence
from her family’s store that she hadn’t thought
possible.
Going to school had
been rather difficult—she’d been miserable—until she’d discovered
the world of photography. Most of her childhood had been spent
running wild in the swamps, fishing, maintaining the crab pots,
even helping hunt alligator with her father when her brothers were
gone—which had been most of the time. She wasn’t used to authority
in any form, and school was too structured, had too many rules. She
couldn’t breathe with so many people around her. She had nearly
fled into the swamp to avoid the rules when a kind teacher had
pushed a camera into her hands and suggested she take some pictures
of her beloved swamp.
There was a bit of a
moon tonight, so she wouldn’t need the dim light she had used the
last few nights to reveal activity in the nest. The babies made
eager sounds as an adult approached, and as it descended, Saria
tripped the camera’s shutter release. At once there was a burst of
light, much like a lightning strike, as she set off the electronic
flash. Used to lightning, the birds never seemed to be bothered by
the occasional bright flare.
She caught a glimpse
of talons and a beak outlined against the night sky as the owl
dropped down to the nest, and her heart sang. At night the swamp
had a different music to it. The bellow of alligators could
literally shake the earth. Movement was all around her, in the air,
under her feet, in the water and through the trees. The natural
rhythm even changed from daylight to dark. Sometimes, lately, she
thought maybe she’d been spending too much time in the swamp. Her
night vision seemed vastly improved, so that even without the flash
of the camera, she often caught sight of the adult owls returning
with their catch.
Flickering light
caught her eye. Someone had to be poaching, or night fishing around
Fenton’s Marsh. Fenton Lumber Company owned thousands of acres of
swamp and leased it to most of the families that she knew. Seven of
the families living in the burrow each leased several thousand
acres to hunt, trap and fish, making their livings almost entirely
in the swamp. Some of the men, like her brothers, worked on the
Mississippi to bring in money as well, but their lives centered
around the swamp.
Fenton’s Marsh was
considered rather sacred and off-limits to her people. She found
herself scowling at the thought of anyone poaching there. Jake
Fenton, the original owner, was well-respected by those living
there. It was hard to gain the trust and respect of anyone living
in the swamp, yet all the families had liked the older man and
often invited him into their homes. He’d become a regular fixture
in the swamps. More than once, several of the alligator hunters had
allowed him along, a huge privilege when it was dangerous work and
a greenhorn was never welcome. He had given them generous leases
and no one would jeopardize their livelihood by biting the hand
that fed them. Fenton was dead, but everyone knew that the marsh
contained oil, and his great-grandson, Jake Bannaconni, would be
developing it one day. Out of respect for Jake Fenton, they left
that marsh alone.
The adult owl took
off again, the rustle of movement attracting her attention briefly,
but she refrained from trying to get any more shots. The lights in
the swamp madeer uneasy, and she didn’t want the flashes from her
camera to give her away. She shifted position, easing the cramping
in her hip, reaching almost unconsciously for her gear. She had
meant to spend the night and go home in the early morning light,
but the uneasiness was suddenly full-blown fear, and there weren’t
a lot of things Saria was afraid of.
She had begun the
climb down from her blind when she heard a ragged scream. The sound
was human. Male and ugly, harsh—and terrified. The swamp came alive
in an instant, birds protesting, frogs and insects going silent,
the normally rhythmic world evaporating into chaos. The scream
ended abruptly, a ragged, cut-off note of agony.
Chills slid down her
spine as she quietly slipped into her boat. Had an alligator
managed to kill the person hunting it? As she pushed off into the
carpet of duckweed, a screaming roar of absolute fury cut through
the swamp. Spitting growls and deep roaring reverberated through
the cypress grove. The world around her froze, every creature going
still. Even the alligators fell silent. The hair on her arms and
the back of her neck stood up. Goose bumps rose. The breath left
her lungs in a rush.
A leopard. She knew
the legends and myths of leopards in the swamp. The Cajuns who
spoke of seeing one of the elusive creatures referred to them as
“ghost cats.” A few naturalists said they didn’t exist. Others
claimed they were Florida panthers out of the Everglades, looking
for new territories. She knew the real truth, and they all had it
wrong.
Saria sat very still
in her boat, her body trembling, her hand feeling for the
reassuring knife at her belt. She’d carried that knife from the
time she was ten years old and she’d discovered the truth. Using
careful, deliberate movements, she extracted her gun from the case
beside her and checked to make certain it was in perfect firing
order. She had begun practicing at the age of ten and was a deadly
shot—which had made her invaluable when hunting with her father.
She could hit that small quarter-sized spot on the back of an
alligator’s neck to kill it every single time.
She moistened her
suddenly dry lips and waited there in the dark, heart pounding,
hoping the trees and the root systems hid her. The slight wind
carried her scent away from Fenton’s Marsh. The roars faded into
the night and the silence stretched for what seemed hours. She knew
the large predator was still close—the night was far too
still.
She had tried to tell
herself for years that she’d had nightmares, and maybe she’d
actually convinced herself it was true until she heard that
sound—that roar. And now she could hear a rasping call and then a
sawing cough. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her
temples, biting down hard on her lower lip. The sounds were
unmistakable. She could pretend away many things, but not that.
Once heard, it was never forgotten. She’d heard those sounds when
she was a child.
Remy, her oldest
brother, was sixteen when she was born and was already considered a
man. He worked on the river, as did Mahieu by the time she was
walking. The boys were in school and worked afterward for long
hours while her mother slowly succumbed to some wasting disease and
her father retreated further and further into the world of
alcoholism. By the time she was ten, her mother was long gone and
her father rarely spoke. Remy and Mahieu and Dash were all serving
in the armed forces overseas and Gage had just joined. Lojos, at
eighteen, ran the store and bar nearly single-handedly and rarely
had time to do more than grab a handful of food before rushing out
to work.
Saria had been responsible for the house and
the fishing lines, running wild in the bayou without supervision
from that time on. The boys had come home for a mini reunion before
they scattered again, back to the service. They were barely aware
of her existence, eating the meals she provided, but not really
paying attention to the fact that she cooked. She had desperately
wanted attention and felt alienated and left out—not angry exactly,
but rather sad that she didn’t really fit in with them.
The night had been
warm and humid and she hadn’t been able to sleep. She was so upset
at the way her family treated her—as if she didn’t exist, as if she
was beneath notice. She’d cooked and cleaned and taken care of
their father, but like him, her brothers must have blamed her for
her mother’s slow sink into depression and then death. She hadn’t
known her mother when she was the vibrant woman they all
remembered; she’d been too young when she’d died. At ten, she’d
been resentful of their relationships when she felt as if she
didn’t quite belong. She had gotten up and opened her window to let
in the comforting sounds of the swamp—a world she could always
count on, one she loved. The swamp beckoned to her.
Saria hadn’t actually
heard her brothers leave the house, they all moved in eerie
silence—they had most of their lives—but when, resentful and hurt,
she’d gone out her window to find solace in the swamp as she had
hundreds of nights, she caught sight of them slipping into the
trees. She followed, staying well back so they wouldn’t hear her.
She had felt so daring and a little superior. Her skills in the
swamp were already impressive, and she was proud of herself for
being able to track them without their knowing.
That night had turned
into a surreal nightmare. Her brothers had stripped. She’d sat up
in a tree with her hands over her eyes wondering what they were up
to. Who would take their clothes off in a swamp? When she’d peeked
through her fingers, they were already shifting. Muscles contorted
grotesquely, although later she’d admitted they’d all been fast and
smooth at it. Fur covered their bodies and they were horrifyingly
real as leopards. It was just—scary gross.
They had made those
same noises as she heard tonight. Chuffing. Rasping, sawing coughs.
They’d stretched tall and raked the trees with claws. The two
smallest had gotten angry and erupted into a furious fight, swiping
at one another with claws. The largest roared in fury and cuffed
both hard enough to send them rolling, breaking up the fight. The
sound of that ferocious roar had shaken her to her very core. Her
blood went ice cold and she’d run all the way back to the house and
hid under her covers, her heart pounding, a little afraid she was
losing her mind.
Leopards were the
most elusive of all large cats and the true shifters were more so,
keeping the knowledge even from family members who couldn’t
shift—such as Saria. She’d tried to find out about them, but there
were only obscure references in the library. She had convinced
herself she’d made up the entire thing, but there had been other
signs she couldn’t altogether ignore, now that she had seen
them.
Her father often
rambled on in his drunken state, and she had listened carefully to
the strange references he made to shifters. Surely they couldn’t
really exist, but sometimes her father made random remarks about
running free as he was meant. He’d stumble off to bed and then next
morning there would be rake marks on the side of the house, or even
in his room. He would be sanding the wood down and resealing it
when she woke up. If she asked about the scratches, he refused to
answer her.
Sitting in the swamp
with only the night to protect her, she knew a leopard was a
cunning predator and once on the hunt, he would find her. She could
only hope he hadn’t noticed those first few flashes of her camera
and come looking. It seemed like hours before the natural rhythm of
the swamp began to come back to life, insects humming and the
movements reassuring if not comforting as creatures once again
began to carry on with their lives.
She stayed very still
while the terrible tension drained out of her. The ghost cat was
gone. She was certain of it. She immediately left the safety of the
cypress swamp and made her way to Fenton’s Marsh. Her mouth was
dry, her heart pounding in terror at what she might find, but she
couldn’t stop herself.
The body lay half in,
half out of the water, right at the edge of the marsh. She didn’t
recognize the man. He appeared to be between thirty and forty, now
lifeless and bloody. He’d been stabbed in the stomach, but he’d
died from a suffocating bite to his throat. She could see the
puncture wounds and the raking claw marks clearly on the body.
Blood leaked into the water all around him, drawing insects and
interest from alligators.
She pressed her
fingers to her eyes for a moment, sickened that she didn’t know
what to do. She couldn’t go to the police. Remy was a homicide
detective. He was the police. And could she turn in her own
brothers? Would anyone even believe her? Maybe this person had done
something terrible and given one of her brothers no
choice.
Saria made her way
home slowly, dread filling her as she tied up her boat and stepped
onto the dock. She stood for a moment, observing her home. The bar
was dark, as were the house and store, but she knew with that
strange warning radar she always seemed to have that she was not
alone. She circled the house, determined to avoid her brothers. As
she reached for the back door, it jerked inward and her oldest
brother filled the doorway, towering over her, a handsome,
dark-haired man with serious, watchful green eyes. Startled, she
stepped back before she could stop herself. She knew he would catch
the fear flickering in her eyes before she had a chance to cover it
up.
Remy’s eyes narrowed,
inhaling, as if drawing her fear into his lungs. He swallowed
whatever he’d been about to say, concern replacing impatience. “Are
you hurt?” He reached to take her arm, to draw her into the
house.
Saria stepped back
out of reach, her heart pounding. Remy frowned and raised his
voice. “Mahieu, Dash, get out here.” He didn’t take his eyes from
her face. He didn’t even blink. “Where have you been, cher?” His tone demanded an answer.
He looked so big. She
swallowed, refusing to be intimidated. “Why would that suddenly
matter? You never wanted to know before.” She gave a little casual
shrug.
There were no
footsteps—her brothers moved silently, but both Mahieu and Dash
stood shoulder to shoulder behind Remy. She could see their eyes
moving over her, taking in every detail of her no doubt pale
face.
“Were you with
someone tonight, Saria?” Remy asked, his voice gentle—too gentle.
He reached out and just as gently caught her arm when she shifted
as if she might run.
She wanted to cry at
the gentleness in his voice, but she knew Remy could go from gentle
to lethal in moments. She’d seen him handle suspects on more than
one occasion. Nearly all of them fell for his gentle routineished
he was really all that kind and caring with her, but until
recently, none of her brothers had noticed her.
She scowled at him.
“That’s none of your business, Remy. Nothing I did mattered to you
while I was growing up, and there’s no need to start pretending it
does now.”
He looked shocked.
She saw it on his face right before he went all Remy on her, no
expression whatsoever. His eyes went flat and hard, kicking her
accelerated heartbeat up another notch. “That’s a hell of a thing
to say to me. We practically raised you. Of course we’re goin’ to
be concerned when you stay out half the night.”
“You raised me?” She shook her head. “No one raised me,
Remy. Not you. Not Dad. I’m a little too grown for any of you to
suddenly decide you’re goin’ to start wonderin’ what I’m doin’. And
just for your information, since you know so damned much about me,
I go out into the swamp nearly every night. I have since I was a
kid. How the hell did you possibly miss that with all your
concern?”
Dash studied her
face. “You tangle with somethin’ out in the bayou, Saria, or
someone?”
Her heart jumped. Was
that a taunt? She didn’t know if there was some double implication.
She took another step back. “If I had a problem with someone, I’d
take care of it myself, Dash. Why are you all suddenly interested
in my life?”
Remy rubbed the
bridge of his nose. “We’re famille,
cher. If you’re in trouble . .
.”
“I’m not,” she
interrupted. “What’s this all about, Remy? Really? Because none of
you have ever questioned where I’ve been or whether or not I was
capable of takin’ care of myself. I’m at the bar alone for days at
a time. None of you ever questioned whether that was dangerous or
not, although I was underage runnin’ it.”
Her three brothers
exchanged long, sheepish looks. Remy shrugged. “Maybe we didn’t,
Saria, but we should have. I was sixteen when you were born,
feelin’ my oats, cher, burnin’ through
my youth. You were a babe. So maybe I didn’t pay attention the way
I should have, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t mine. Famille is everythin’.”
“While you all were
out feelin’ your oats, I was takin’ care of our drunken
pere every night. Paying bills. Runnin’
the store. Makin’ sure he ate and had clean clothes. Orderin’ for
the store. Fishing. You know. Grown-up
things. Keepin’ the place runnin’ so you could all have your
fun.”
“We should have
helped you more with Pere,” Remy
admitted.
Saria blinked back
unexpected tears. Remy could be so sweet when he chose, but she
didn’t trust his motivation. Why now? She risked a quick glance at
her brothers’ faces. They were all watching her intently. They were
utterly still. Their eyes had gone almost amber with the pupils
fully dilated. It took every ounce of courage she possessed not to
turn and run.
“Now I’m grown, Remy.
It’s a little too late to start wonderin’ about my life now. I’m
tired and want to go to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” Not if
she could help it.
Remy stepped aside.
She noticed they all inhaled as she walked by, trying to read
scents off of her. She smelled like the swamp, but she hadn’t
touched the dead body, just went close enough to shine her lit on
it and see.
“Sleep well, Saria,”
Remy said.
She closed her eyes
briefly, just the simple gesture giving her another attack of
nerves.