nod.
“Did a man just come in here?” he asked.
The barkeep was polishing a glass. “No, milord. Ain’t been no one in for nigh on
two hours.”
“You seen a tall man with a brown hat with star conchos, dark blue shirt, fancy
double rig worn low?”
The bartender squinted. “Aye, milord. That sounds like a fellow named
Fontabeau,” he replied. “Didn’t get no first name. Hails from over Exasla way.”
“What’s his story?”
12
BlackMoon Reaper
A shrug lifted the barkeep’s shoulder. “Don’t know much about him ’cept he’s been
here going on a day or two. Keeps to himself when he comes in. Has a few whiskeys,
plays a hand now and then. He’s got a room at the Delaware House.”
“I went by Constable Redfield’s office but it’s locked. You know where he might
be?”
“Today’s Wednesday and every Wednesday he leaves Dexter, his oldest boy, in
charge, and the constable goes fishing up near the dam. Dex was most likely checking
on his new bride. He married Gerry Granger’s girl Sarah.” He winked. “Can’t keep
away from her, I guess.”
“They got a house in town?”
“Down at the end of the street. The one with the red flowerboxes.”
Phelan tipped his hat to the barkeep and sauntered out. He was sure the constable
would have questioned any newcomer to town, and if there was anything the Reaper
needed to know about Fontabeau, perhaps the newly married deputy could tell him.
Keeping an eye out for the mysterious stranger as he made his way to the end of the
street, Phelan had the unwavering notion he was being watched and though he wasn’t
a betting man, he would have laid money it was the stranger’s eyes tracking his every
move.
The young man who came to the door was barefoot, breathing hard, face flushed,
hair tousled, shirt and belt undone, and as soon as he saw who his visitor was, nearly
fainted as he stumbled back into the parlor with his hands out.
“Sweet Merciful Alel!” he shouted. “A Reaper!”
“A what?” a feminine voice inquired.
Phelan took the door left open in the young man’s wake as an invitation to enter
and did so, removing his hat as soon as he saw the young female standing to one side
belting a silk wrapper around a very curvaceous body.
“Deputy Redfield?” Phelan inquired with an arch of a thick dark brow.
“Aye, milord!” the young man yelled, snapping to attention and saluting.
“At ease, son,” Phelan said, amusement dancing in his golden eyes. He swept his
gaze to the young woman. “My apologies for intruding, milady, but I have official
business with your husband. Would you please excuse us?”
Sarah Granger Redfield managed to bob her head in acknowledgement of the
Reaper’s request then turned and fled back into their bedroom.
The boy—surely no older than nineteen or twenty—was trembling and Phelan
decided to wade right in rather than prolong the lad’s fright.
“The newcomer named Fontabeau. What do you know of him?”
Dexter Redfield swallowed hard, still standing at attention. “He’s from Exasla
Territory, Lord Phelan,” he said. “Here with the mining company.”
“Hired gun?”
13
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“Security for Mr. Desdon Brell, the mine owner, milord. Mr. Brell will be in town
another day on business with the bank then they’ll be going back up to Haxton Cove,”
the lad reported.
“You had any trouble with Fontabeau?”
The young man shook his head. “No, milord. Stays to himself.”
“So I’ve been told,” Phelan mumbled. He rocked his hat on his head. “Relay again
my regrets for the interruption to your lady-wife, Deputy.”
“Aye, milord!” Dexter snapped, saluting again.
“I won’t be in town long,” he felt the need to say. “I’ll be going up to Haxton Cove
should I be needed.”
“Aye, milord!” the young man said, and relief flooded his worried gaze.
Phelan sighed as he exited the young man’s parlor. Sometimes his status as a
Reaper made him feel again the shunning he had experienced on his homeworld. There
were times it cut him to the quick and today was one of those.
Heading back to the general store, he once again felt eyes on him and looked across
the street and up this time to the windows above the entrance to the Delaware House.
Standing framed in the window with the curtain pulled to one side was Fontabeau, the
lower part of his face hidden in shadow.
Their eyes met and Phelan felt something shift within him. It was a feeling not
unlike a twisting, slithering serpent undulating through his gut. The hairs stood up on
his arms, bringing him to a complete stop on the sidewalk.
Then Fontabeau smiled.
It was a savage, knowing grin, a nasty smirk that lasted only a flicker of a moment
then vanished, the curtain closing to shut out the image of the gunman.
Phelan stared up at the window—knowing full well he was being watched from
behind the lacy pattern of fabric. Being watched irritated the Reaper. His hands
clenched into fists, his eyes narrowed and a muscle jumped in his tattooed cheek.
“Fuck it,” he snarled, and stepped off the boardwalk and into the street, his heavy
footfalls taking him straight to the entrance of the boarding house. Those he passed
stepped promptly aside for the look on the Reaper’s face bode ill for whomever had
caused it.
The desk clerk smiled nervously when he opened the door and strode in.
“Fontabeau,” was all he said.
“Room nine,” the desk clerk whispered, the pen trembling in her hand. She
watched the Reaper take the stairs to the upper rooms two at a time.
He had his fist up, preparing to knock—no, to pound—upon the door when it
suddenly opened.
Standing framed in the doorway was his target. Black hair, amber eyes, features
looking as though they had been sculpted by the hands of the gods, broad shoulders,
14
BlackMoon Reaper
slender waist, he was of the same height and muscular build as Phelan but looked a
year or so older. There was no doubt whatsoever in Phelan’s mind the man was a
balgair
. He had sensed it and now that confirmation had been made the moment he
caught a whiff of Fontabeau.
“It’s not what you think,” Fontabeau said. “I’m not a rogue.”
Phelan’s hand went to the laser whip at his waist. “The hell you’re not. I know what
a blooded Reaper smells like.”
“Come in and shut the door, Kiel. No one else needs to hear this,” Fontabeau
insisted, moving back, keeping his hands away from his hips though his gun belt was
looped over the footboard of the bed.
Phelan kicked the door shut. “You’re not a gods-be-damned Reaper so you have to
be a fucking
balgair
! You have no clan tat!”
“Aye, but I do.” Fontabeau tore open his shirt and there on his left pectoral was a
dark blue tattoo, but Phelan only glanced at it. “
Mo Regina
made me, Kiel, just as She
made you,” Fontabeau said.
“Who the hell are you?” Phelan bellowed.
“They call me Fontabeau,” he replied. “The clan name is Sorn. Unless you have
forgotten Reaper history, my clan is one of the
Dháréag
, the Twelve Clans.”
Phelan stared at the man. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
The gunman blinked. “You don’t?”
“Didn’t I just say I didn’t?” Phelan shouted.
Fontabeau put his hands up. “All right, just calm down. I would have thought
She’d have told you.” He lowered his hands. “You’ve never heard the term before?”
“No!”
“Shit,” Fontabeau said on a long breath. “It makes no sense She wouldn’t have told
you but here it is. The first Reaper male was Cainer Cree. The Crees are the Founding
Clan, the
Bun-Ayraghyn
. The goddess did not make him but She was responsible for
those who followed. After the Crees—and in order of the Transferring—came the
Gehdrin, Coure, Kullen, Belial, Kiel, Tohre, Ben-Alkazar, Belvoir, Tarnes, Jaborn and
then the Sorn clans.”
“Wait a fucking minute!” Phelan grated. “Ben-Alkazar, Belvoir, Tarnes? They are
our Shadowlords, not Reapers!”
“They are part of the
Dháréag,
and if you look, you’ll find they have the tats to
prove it. Shadowlords are members of the clan who have not undergone Transference,
who were not marked for the honor.”
Phelan thought back to the only time he’d ever seen a member of the High Council
without his robe. It had been a fleeting glimpse of Lord Tarnes as that man came from
the steam chamber as Phelan was entering. On the Shadowlord’s left pectoral had been
a dark blue knotwork fish.
15
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“The salmon, signifying knowledge,” Fontabeau said, plucking the memory from
Phelan’s mind. “The
Signiat
of the Belvoir clan is the bull, meaning strength, and the
men of the Ben-Alkazar clan bear the symbol of the lion, signifying nobility. They are
the ruling members of the Shadowlords.”
“Jaborn?” Phelan asked, thinking of his fellow Reaper squad member Kasid Jaborn.
“Are you sure you’ve got the right name?”
“Aye, I’m sure. That’s one of the twelve. Why?”
“Because the Jaborn I know was once a
balgair
but is now full-honored Reaper.”
“He has the tat of a snake?”
“No, it’s a ghoret and he hates it.”
“I would too, but the Jaborn clan tat is that of a snake, a cobra in actuality. It
signifies rebirth and is an honored
Signiat
.”
“Try telling that to Kasid,” Phelan mumbled.
“There is a thirteenth
Signiat
—the boar—which signifies ferocity. She is reserving
that one for a clan She has yet to reveal to us. That clan will not be part of the
Dháréag
but rather an extension of it with powers of both Reaper and Shadowlord.”
“That is a frightening thought,” Phelan muttered. He shot Fontabeau a heated look.
“That still doesn’t explain why you have no Reaper smell.”
“She brought me here from my homeworld of
Moddoilid
. I smell different to you
because I am a
mac imshee
.”
“A hell hound!” Phelan snarled, his lips quirking with distaste. His eyes raked over
Fontabeau, leaving no doubt how he felt.
Fontabeau’s chin went up. “Nice to look down your nose at someone for a change
instead of having them look down theirs at you, huh,
daa-chientyssagh
?”
It was the wrong thing to have said, that insult to his sexual duality, and Phelan
drew back a fist and slammed it as hard as he could into Fontabeau’s face.
But the hell hound Reaper didn’t go down. Instead he laughed, and when Phelan
drew his fist back again and shot it forward, Fontabeau caught it and jerked Phelan’s
arm down and behind him, jerking the Reaper hard against his chest.
“You want a piece of me, brother?” Fontabeau whispered. “Then you can have it.”
Before Phelan could react, the chiseled lips of the hell hound came slanting down
over his. A warm, authoritative tongue slipped inside Phelan’s mouth and claimed it
with such precision and sexual intent it took the Reaper’s breath away and he jerked
free of Fontabeau’s hold, staggering back to put distance between them.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Phelan shouted with eyes wide,
running the back of his hand over his lips. He’d never been kissed by a male and found
it unnerving.
“Taking what I wanted,” Fontabeau replied with a careless shrug. He folded his
arms over his chest.
16
BlackMoon Reaper
Chest heaving with fury, Phelan’s lips peeled back from fangs he had let erupt. The
snarl that came from deep within his chest would have terrified a human, but it only
seemed to amuse the hell hound Reaper.
“Is that the best you can do, Kiel?” Fontabeau asked, head tilted to the side. “I can
growl better than that on an off-day.”
“Fuck. You,” Phelan said.
“I’ll let you, pretty boy, if you promise I can do you next time.”
Rage shifted over Phelan’s face, his hand went to his whip.
“Be careful what you do, my Reaper. He is one of Mine.”
The soft feminine voice pulsed through Phelan’s head, but for just a moment his
palm hovered over the dragon-head grip of the
Speal
, the fiery whip only his hand
could activate.
“You’d best listen to Her, Kiel,” Fontabeau suggested. “She likes hounds better than
wolves.”
Phelan’s upper lip arched with revulsion then he spun around, strode to the door
and jerked it open. “Stay the hell out of my way, Sorn!” he threw over his shoulder as
he slammed the portal shut behind him.
Skipping down the boarding house stairs as rapidly as he had ascended them,
Phelan stomped out and across the street, shoving the door of the general store open
with a curse.
“Lord Phelan!” the storekeeper said, jumping. The man put a hand to his chest.
“You took ten years off my life.”
“Are the provisions ready?” Phelan growled.
“Aye, milord. I took the liberty of strapping them to your horse. I hope that’s all
right.”
“Aye,” Phelan snapped, and reached into his pocket to pull out two twenty gold
pieces. He slapped them on the counter. “Keep the change.”
Before the storekeeper could reply, the Reaper pivoted on his heel and marched
from the store. Within a matter of seconds he was mounted and urging
Ulchabhán
into a