Duncan fired a warning shot close enough to the doppelganger’s head to make him duck in fear. “Stay back,” he warned.
“Duncan, I’m fine,” Callie murmured, managing to regain her balance although he kept a stubborn arm wrapped around her waist.
He turned to study her too-pale face with a scowl. “People who are fine don’t faint.”
“I didn’t faint,” she ridiculously protested. “I was just ... surprised.”
“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”
She turned toward Boggs, her expression defiant despite the tiny tremors that Duncan could feel still racing through her body.
“I don’t know what you saw, Boggs, but I can’t raise the dead.”
He lifted his thin hands in a pretense of innocence. “I’m just the messenger.”
Yeah, right. Duncan’s finger twitched as he tried to leash the urge to fire off another round. A bullet or two in Boggs’s spongy flesh might teach him that not everyone enjoyed his mysterious mumbo jumbo.
“Did you see anything else?” Callie asked, her voice unsteady.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to share?” Duncan snapped.
Boggs gave another lift of his hands. “I did.”
Callie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“He spoke to me,” Fane said, his voice coming from directly behind them.
Duncan didn’t allow his attention to stray from the doppelganger as the Sentinel moved to stand beside a puzzled Callie.
“Fane?” she muttered in disbelief.
Duncan made a sound of disgust. “I presume there was a reason you didn’t offer a full disclosure.”
“After our first visit to Boggs I took Callie back to Valhalla before returning to the cave.”
“Why?”
Boggs answered. “He threatened to kill me.”
“I don’t like men who give little girls nightmares,” Fane growled, earning Duncan’s complete approval.
Boggs, however, gave a click of his tongue. “The whispers were driving me nuts. Besides, I waited until she turned eighteen.”
Duncan shot a brief glance toward Fane, but it was Callie who asked the burning question.
“What did he say to you?”
“He warned me that a shadow was growing,” the Sentinel said, his gaze trained on the doppelganger. “And that if I failed in my duty to you, I would fail all high-bloods.”
He heard Callie’s breath catch at the reluctant confession. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Fane shrugged. “You had enough to worry about.”
“It’s no wonder you’ve been uberprotective,” Callie muttered.
Duncan frowned. The warning might be vague, but unless the creature was a complete fraud then they were in some deep shit.
Corpses without hearts who disappeared from the morgue.
A crazy necro who could actually raise the dead.
And now some ominous shadow.
“So what is this shadow?” he asked Boggs, not at all surprised when the thing shook his head.
“I don’t know. All I see is a darkness creeping over the high-bloods with Callie standing in the center.” A genuine fear glowed in the white eyes. “If the darkness covers her then all is lost.”
Duncan’s fingers tightened on the gun. The thought that Callie was at the center of the brewing danger made him want to shoot something.
“You’re a master of melodrama with very few actual details that would help,” he snapped, glaring at the doppelganger.
Boggs stiffened, clearly offended by Duncan’s sharp accusation. “I have offered all I have to give.”
Callie sent him a chiding glance before stepping toward the creature. “Can you tell us anything more about the necromancer?” she asked, her voice pleading. “How do we find him?”
A dense power filled the air as Boggs seemed to swell in size, his presence an overwhelming force.
“Sometimes to see into the future you must look into the past,” he said in a voice that echoed through the room.
Duncan flinched. Oh man. He’d been treating Boggs as if he were some harmless whack-job, not a magical high-blood that could quite possibly squash him like a bug.
It was a wonder he was still standing.
Then just to emphasize the point, Boggs spread his arms wide and with a shock wave of energy, he abruptly disappeared.
Poof.
Gone.
“Fuck,” Duncan rasped in shock.
Fane snorted. “That just about sums it up, cop.”
Chapter Ten
Callie was exhausted by the time they reported their encounter with Boggs to the Mave. Even by a high-blood’s standard it’d been one hell of a day and all she wanted was to crawl into her bed and tumble into oblivion.
So why had she followed Duncan to his rooms instead of simply going to her apartment?
He was a big boy. She was fairly certain he could make the short distance without an escort. But even as she told herself to turn around and walk away, her feet were carrying her through his doorway and straight to the window that offered a view of the surrounding countryside bathed in moonlight.
“Doppelganger,” Duncan muttered as he shut the door. “What other creatures don’t I know about?”
She didn’t bother to turn; she could see his reflection in the window. The lean, hard body. The stark features that were shadowed with weariness. The hazel gaze that was checking out her ass.
He might be tired, but he was all male.
“You know I won’t answer that question,” she said.
He strolled to halt beside her. “You don’t think I have a right to know?”
“It’s not my place to make those decisions.” She shrugged. “You’re welcomed to return to the Mave and ask her if you want.”
He snorted at her helpful suggestion. “Yeah, thanks but no thanks.”
She turned to study him with a lift of her brows. “Does it matter?”
“Only if they’re dangerous.”
“We have our own method of dealing with dangerous high-bloods.”
“Hunters?”
She nodded at the mention of the Sentinels who chased down renegades. Even now they were on the trail of a murderous high-blood who was creating chaos through Texas.
“Sometimes.”
“And other times?”
“Psychics. Witches.” She grimaced. “And Wolfe.”
“Wolfe?”
“The head of the Sentinels. No one wants to piss him off,” she said before giving a sudden shake of her head. “Well, except the Mave. She does it on a regular basis.”