Vanished

The local police, the Garda, weren’t too concerned when Aly faced them down with tales of a missing sister. But she’d been all over Westport. She’d visited dozens of pubs, talked to whoever would listen and, nearly frantic, had finally discovered the place her sister had last been seen, a pub called the Sidhe, which sat on the corner of the main street, just across from the river that snaked alongside the bustling city.

And the waitress at the Sidhe remembered serving Casey. Even remembered her leaving. Alone. About twelve o’clock the night before. Then, it was as if she’d slipped into a hole in the earth.

“If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, miss,” the sergeant at the broad wood desk said with a smile, “you’re worrying for naught. I’m sure your sister is simply enjoying her first trip to Ireland.”

Aly bit down on her frustration. The man was trying to be nice, after all. “The question, Sergeant, is where is she enjoying herself?”

He gave her another smile that flashed briefly in his clear blue eyes. “Ah, well, now. She’s an adult, isn’t she? There’s no sign of foul play. You’ve said yourself, the waitress at the Sidhe says she left under her own power, none the worse for wear.”

Around her, the police station hummed with activity. Somewhere down the long, narrow hallway a woman was crying, and Aly hoped to heaven that wasn’t an omen. She heard snatches of English mixed in with the musical sound of Gaelic. Burned coffee stained the air, and the sergeant in front of her had bread crumbs on his uniform jacket. It was as if she were outside herself, noticing all the little details of the room in a blind effort to keep calm. To keep from screaming that her sister was in trouble and no one was listening.

“Now, if you’d like to leave the number of where you’re staying, I’ll be sure to let you know if I learn anything.”

“Sergeant,” Aly tried again, desperate to make him do something to help her. “My sister and I are traveling together. Casey wouldn’t simply disappear without telling me. She would know that I’d be worried.” Calm. Collected. In control. Hysteria would only make him dismiss her entirely. “Something’s happened to her, and I need you to help me look for her.”

Sighing, he pulled a piece of paper in front of him, picked up a pen and, giving her a look that clearly said she was wasting his precious time, asked, “Will you tell me again what she looks like?”

“Yes.” Aly didn’t care if he didn’t believe her. Didn’t care if he was patronizing her. All that mattered was that he was filling out an official report. She dug out her wallet, produced a picture of her sister and handed it over.

“I can’t promise you much, miss.” He studied the photo of a smiling Casey for a long moment, then made notes in a tidy hand. “Your sister’s a grown woman. She’s been gone only overnight. For all you know, she’s hunkered down in a hotel with one of the local lads, I’m sorry for saying so.”

Aly bit down hard on her bottom lip, then said, “Casey’s not like that. I’m telling you, something is wrong. I know it.”

“Ah, well, then, we’ll see what we can do.”

While he wrote down everything she said, Aly looked around the station again. And this time, she noticed the pages tacked up to a bulletin board in the entrance. Missing notices. With pictures and descriptions of young men and women. They dotted the entire surface of the corkboard and filled Aly with trepidation.

If the Garda hadn’t found any of those people…how would they find Casey?

Chapter 3

Rogan slipped through the countryside and made no more than a whisper of sound. A young moon gave fitful light as it slipped in and out of thick clouds rolling in from the sea. He moved with the stealthy grace he had learned over the long centuries of solitary battles. His gaze swept the darkness as he made his way across the open field, searching, always searching for the telltale energy traces that would lead him to a demon.

The wind was icy and tossed the branches of the trees into a tangle of limbs. But he hardly noticed. The night was home to him, the open land more easy on his soul than four walls could ever be. He belonged here, hunting. The scent of peat smoke from a nearby chimney came to him, and for one brief moment, memories crowded Rogan’s mind. Memories of other times, when he’d roamed these very hills in the company of his brother warriors. Before he’d died. Before he’d begun his eternity on the hunt.

As a Guardian, Rogan was one of many. Chosen at the moment of their death to defend humanity from the demon threat, Guardians were immortal. And with the gift of long life came other gifts. All of them were telepathic, able to read the minds of the humans they protected. Some of the Guardians had other gifts, as well, gifts that had been with them in life and were, over the course of eternity, strengthened, made more powerful.

Rogan, though, was only what he appeared to be—a warrior. A man who had known little else in life beyond the camaraderie of a battlefield and the company of others like himself. He’d served the last hereditary high king of Ireland, Brian Boru, and his last act on Earth had been to avenge his king’s death. He valued loyalty. Honor.

And told himself that the vow he’d made so long ago was enough for him.

Then Alison Blair had walked into his home and short-circuited every nerve in his body. Just remembering her now brought back the flash of…knowing that had filled him with a simple touch. He’d dipped into her mind and felt her confusion. Felt her reaction to him and had had to fight to maintain the cold distance he preferred between himself and humankind.

She was…unexpected. He’d thought only to be irritated with the intrusion of the Society. But with a single touch, that had changed. And he wasn’t pleased with the knowledge.

Scowling, he cleared his mind and concentrated instead on the here and now. Thoughts of a woman he didn’t want had no business on the hunt. He was needed. He did a job that few others could do, and this night he would track whatever demons thought to prey on his island.

While he moved through the darkness, becoming a part of the night itself, he thought of the seer’s prediction. And again, despite his best intentions, of Alison Blair. He didn’t want to think of her. He’d found and lost his Destined Mate centuries ago. There would be no other for him, and Rogan knew it was as well there wouldn’t be. A hunter had no need for anything in his life but the next hunt. The next challenge. The next demon.

And as that thought rose up in his mind, he turned over the seer’s warnings again. He had little patience with those who claimed to see the future. But since Alison’s visit the night before, he’d done some research himself. True, he was more at home with a sword in his hand than he was sitting at a computer. But he’d long ago learned that to move with a changing world, he had to first keep abreast of those changes.

He’d taught himself how to use the state-of-the-art computer system installed in his home, and his satellite Internet connection afforded him the luxury of researching anything he wished with the click of a button. And he’d found enough to make him wary, to make him consider using the Society’s seer.

He seldom watched television and rarely read a newspaper, since the mortal world’s interests had little to do with him. So it was with surprise that he found people were disappearing all over County Mayo. One or two at first, but in the past several weeks more and more were simply vanishing. The missing were generally young—in their twenties. And most of them were tourists, as though someone or something was endeavoring to keep the local population from becoming too suspicious.

Rogan moved out onto the road and stared up at the B and B where Alison Blair was staying. A farmhouse, the tidy white building fairly sparkled in the spare moonlight. Alongside the B and B was a stone-faced, thatched cottage used for self-catering vacationers. With the Lough behind him, Rogan stared at the B and B, shifting his gaze from one lamplit window to the next, focusing his mind and listening for the thoughts of those inside.

He heard children arguing, couples discussing a cathedral they’d toured that afternoon. The farmer who owned this land was laughing with his wife over something their eldest child had done, and a teenager was planning to slip out of his room and meet some friends.

And nowhere in that rush of thoughts was Alison Blair.

“Where in bloody hell is she?” Rogan muttered darkly, honing his concentration, searching all of those inside the house, looking for the American woman. With the link he had into the local system, he’d also combed through the guest registries all over the area until he’d found where she and her sister were staying while they were in Ireland.

He’d thought to talk to her again, to find out if that blasted seer had had anything more useful to say than the vague admonition she’d passed along. Damn the woman for not being where she should be.

Scowling off into the distance, he reached out with his senses, searching for some sign of her in the vicinity, but there was nothing. And irritation spiked inside him as he reached further, stretching his telepathic abilities out into the night even while he cursed her. She’d come all this way to give him the bloody message. Now that he actually wanted to speak with her, she was gone?

Aly walked up and down the sidewalk in front of the Sidhe pub, her gaze flicking constantly from side to side. Outside the square of light from the pub, the city streets were dark. Shops were closed and the few pedestrians on the sidewalks were scurrying, heads down, in the face of a sudden rain shower. Alison, though, tugged the hood of her jacket up and over her head and stood her ground. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for exactly, but she knew she had to be here—where Casey had last been seen.

She strained to pick up any psychic signs of her sister, but there was nothing. All their lives, she and Casey had been able to link telepathically. Not that Aly was able to do this with anyone else, but she and her sister had always had such a close bond that they’d at least been able to touch each other’s minds. But tonight there was nothing.

She’d almost gone to Rogan Butler to ask for help, but that impulse had disappeared fast. After all, he’d made it more than clear he hadn’t wanted her around. And truth to tell, she was in no hurry to be that close to him again anyway. He was too much. Too handsome. Too powerful. Too overwhelming. And far too arrogant.

He hadn’t wanted to listen to her about business. There was no way he’d care about her missing sister. She probably wouldn’t even be allowed past his security guards again, so there was no point in trying to get in to see him anyway.

But that fact changed nothing. With or without help, she would find her sister. It had been just she and Casey for years. They were their only family, and they took care of each other. Wherever Casey was, she was counting on Aly to find her. So she would—even if she had to stand outside this pub and talk to everyone in Westport for the rest of her life. As a middle-aged couple darted past, headed for the pub, Aly hurried forward and intercepted them.

“Excuse me,” she said.

“Why, you’re American, aren’t you?” The woman smiled a greeting as if she were expected to personally welcome all visitors to the city. “That’s lovely.”

“Thank you.” Another woman hurried past them, and Aly dipped her head to avoid getting impaled by the points on her umbrella. Holding out a picture of her sister, Aly looked from the woman to her husband and back again. “I’m sorry to bother you, but my sister’s missing and she was here last night. I’m trying to find her and—”

“Nice-looking girl,” the man said, handing the picture back. “Haven’t seen her, though.”

“Sorry, love, I’ve not seen her either,” the woman said, shaking her head solemnly. “Are you sure she’s missing and not just off with a friend?”

“No,” Aly said with a sigh of disappointment. It had been like this for two hours. Everyone she showed Casey’s picture to had been kind and concerned but hadn’t been able to help. Misery rose up inside her and did battle with fear. Fear was winning. “We only just arrived in Ireland yesterday, so she wouldn’t have friends here to go off with.”

“Come on, Bridget,” the man said to his wife, yanking open the pub door to allow music, smoke and the scent of beer to escape.

His wife shooed him off, then waited for the door to close again before asking, “Have you spoken to the Garda?”

“Yes. They couldn’t help me either.”

She sighed in sympathy. “Terrible shame that is, love. So many young people going missing all of a sudden, you’d think the Garda could do something about it.”

Aly swallowed hard, looked into the woman’s eyes and fought down a growing sense of dread. “There’ve been a lot of missing people here lately?”

“Oh, yes. Mostly tourists, and Sean—that’s my husband—he thinks nothin’ of it. Says young people thrive on causing trouble.”

“What do you think?” Aly asked, watching the elder woman shift her gaze around the well-lit square as if looking for something.

“I think,” she said finally, softly, as if half afraid someone would hear her speak her own fears, “sometimes things happen that can’t be explained.” She shivered a little, shoved her hands into her coat pockets and offered a sad smile. “And I do hope you find your sister, love.”

“Thank you.” Aly whispered the words, staring down at the picture of Casey. But the woman had already slipped into the pub, leaving Aly alone on the sidewalk again.

Things that can’t be explained…

That cold sense of dread coiled and tightened in the pit of Aly’s belly, and she wished she could ease it. But how could she? She was in a position to know that what the woman had said was all too true. There were monsters out there, moving through the darkness, looking for prey. Demons from other dimensions, crowding into this world, taking what they could and destroying what they couldn’t have.

Demons.

Lifting her head, Aly stared off into the shadows that bordered the river running alongside the town. From her post outside the pub, the rush of the water was more like a long undulating sigh, and she couldn’t help feeling that it sounded lonely. Empty.

And she wondered about Casey. If she was safe. If she was afraid.

If she was alive.

Panic jolted through her, and it felt as though a tight fist had closed around her throat. Alive. Casey had to be alive. Of course she was. There was no reason to start the crazed imaginings of death and disaster. It was only that…“Oh, God. I never should have brought her here. Never should have let her go off alone. If anything’s happened to her…”

She stopped, refusing to even finish that sentence. Her heart felt heavy, and her stomach was a churning mass of anxiety and sheer terror. She’d never felt more alone, more out of her element. Here on this tidy street corner, as everyone else in this lovely city went about their business, Aly was forced to admit the very real possibility that a demon might have her sister.

And if that were true…she’d need Rogan Butler to get Casey back.

Rogan shook his head, as if that motion alone could ease the frantic thoughts he was picking up from Alison Blair. He’d trained his telepathic abilities on her, homing in on the raging confusion in her mind, and followed her here to Westport. Now, he’d need only to locate her in the large seaport city.

He knew the town well. He’d watched it grow from its beginnings in the eighteenth century into a teeming city filled with, as far as he was concerned, too many mortals. But tonight he was interested in only one of the people wandering up and down these broad, familiar streets.

“Bloody woman.” He bit the words off on an oath. “If she’d stop letting her mind whirl in circles, she’d be easier to find.”

There were no trace energy signals for him to follow. No sign of a demon as yet. There were only Alison’s thoughts, a wild mix of pain and panic and sheer terror guiding him to her like the flash of a lighthouse across a churning sea. He felt an answering sense of urgency rise inside him and tried to tamp it down. She was nothing more to him than a clue to whatever was happening in his little corner of Ireland. And to defend those he was sworn to protect, he would use whatever information she could give him.

Beyond that, there was nothing.

Rogan used his Guardian abilities to obfuscate himself as he walked quickly down the wide riverfront street in Westport. He didn’t have to be invisible, of course. But he’d found that a man of his size didn’t pass through crowds unnoticed, and he’d rather keep his presence in the city quiet.

The river roared to his left, and from a corner pub music and laughter rose up in waves that filled the air. To his right, a drunk stumbled along the sidewalk, muttering to himself.

Rogan dismissed the man and continued on. His steps were long, measured, and the quiet that flowed with him streamed out around him in a wash of power. He was comfortable in the night, in the shadows where demons thrived and mortals feared to step. The adrenaline of the hunt pumped through his veins as he heard Alison’s mind jumping from one thought to the next.

Alive. Casey’s alive. I know it. But where? A demon? No. Rogan should be here. He’s a Guardian. Maybe I should call the Society office in Dublin. And tell them what?

He stopped then, lifting his face to the wind, closing his eyes and focusing solely on Alison.

Where can I look? Where should I go next? I should find Rogan. No, he won’t help. Casey needs me. What can I do? Oh, God, help me find her.

Her mind raged, calling to him, as if she were sensing his presence and guiding him to her. He felt her fear lying over her thoughts like a shroud, and he moved more quickly, hastening his steps as if in answer to her desperate call.

He homed in on her and loped across the wide street to round a corner. There, in the gold light spilling from the Sidhe pub, she stood. And swathed in a cloak of invisibility, he could watch her unseen. Study her features, drawn and tight with worry and fear. He looked into her blue eyes and read the signs of banked tears. He heard her thoughts and the wild, discordant prayers that she whispered as if they alone were enough to keep her safe.

And something inside him opened, welling, with a need he hadn’t known in centuries. To comfort. To care for.

Rogan swiped one hand across his jaw, pulled in a breath and steadied himself. He wouldn’t be drawn to this woman, because there could be nothing between them. He’d had his chance at an eternal love and had lost it when his Destined Mate had died at the hand of a demon.

A demon the seer had told him was gone.

Seers and women—both were more trouble than they were worth, and it would be best if he remembered that.

Before he could move to reveal himself to her, Alison’s eyes suddenly widened. Her thoughts spun and unraveled like a spindle of thread dropped to roll on the ground. She ran past him, and as she did, he caught the uppermost thought in her mind.

Demon.

Whirling around, he chased after her and caught her in just a step or two, his big hand coming down on her shoulder and pulling her to a stop.

She screamed.

“Hush now,” he ordered in a tight, cold voice.

“Rogan?” She looked around wildly, her eyes darting from one side to the other, trying to find him and not succeeding. “Where are you?”

Cursing viciously, he dropped the energy cloak masking his presence, and she was staring up at him in stunned surprise. “Sorry. Forgot I was invisible.”

She choked out a harsh laugh that sounded more like a taut sob than anything else and instantly clapped one hand across her mouth. “Now there’s something you don’t hear every day. Where did you come from? How did you find me?”

“I followed your thoughts.”

“God, that’s right. You can read minds.”

“And yours is a jumble at the moment, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so,” he told her, releasing her almost reluctantly. “Where were you runnin’ off to just then? And why were you thinkin’ ‘demon’?”

“Because I saw—” She half turned to point at the river walk. “Out there. It was just for a second. But I’m sure I saw a trace energy. It was almost purple, with some red, and it was gone very quickly. But I know I saw it.”

Stunned, he simply stared at her for a long moment. “You can read demon energy?”

“A bit.” She backed away from him, heading for the river. “All Society members are a bit psychic, some more than others. And I know what I saw.”

“I believe you.” And he did. He could see the truth in her eyes, hear it in her voice. He could practically feel the feverish intent to chase down a demon humming around her like an aura of emotion. “But you’re not to be chasing demons, Alison Blair. What did you think you’d do with it once you’d caught it?”

“I—” She stopped, took a breath and then shoved the hood off her face. A few drops of rain landed on her cheeks and glistened in the lamplight like tears. “I don’t know. I only know I have to follow it. My sister. Casey.”

He already knew what was driving her. Hadn’t he been latched on to her mind for the past half hour or more? “I know. She’s gone.”

She staggered as if his words had carried a physical punch. Her bottom lip quavered, but she bit down on it. “I don’t know what happened to her. She was here at this pub last night. I spoke to a waitress who saw her leave. Alone. But after that there’s just nothing…”

Alison turned her head to look through the pub’s window at the laughing, dancing people inside, and she was so wistful, so lost, she made his heart hurt. Something it hadn’t done in a very long time.

Bristling at the very notion, Rogan straightened to his full height and looked down at her. “What makes you think a demon has her?”

“What else could have happened? She isn’t at the hospitals. Hasn’t been arrested. She doesn’t know anyone here, so she’s not staying with a friend.” She shook her head slowly and looked away from him, staring off into the shadows as if expecting to find her sister there waiting for her. “She’s vanished, Rogan, and no one’s seen her. Anywhere.” She wiped away the stray raindrops from her cheeks with the back of her hand.

She blew out a breath and sucked in another. “There are others missing, too. Lots of them. Tourists are disappearing, and I believe it’s got something to do with the seer’s warning. There is something rising here and I think it’s got Casey.” She stepped up close to him, tilted her head back and met his gaze with a steadiness he admired. “I’ve got to get her back. And you’ve got to help me.”

Behind them the pub door opened and noise and smoke rolled out around them. A couple, linked arm in arm, ran from the pub and down the sidewalk, laughing. Rogan, though, paid them no attention.

Grabbing Alison’s arm, he ignored the instantaneous burn that erupted between them and dragged her farther from the lights, deeper into the shadows. When he was sure they were alone, he let her go and said, “You’ve no business following a demon.” When she started to argue with him, he cut her off neatly and kept talking, his voice going deeper, more rough with every word. “I’ve seen this before, you know. Society members spend so much time studying Guardians that they begin to believe they, too, are capable of battling the demons. It’s a false confidence, and all it causes is more death. If you go after a demon, you’ll get yourself killed.”

She stepped back from him, and despite the darkness, the determined gleam in her eyes shone at him. He actually itched to touch her again. A humming sense of intensity built inside him, roaring like a fire just catching the tinder. He hadn’t felt that particular warmth in more years than he cared to count and wasn’t at all grateful to be feeling it now.