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An Excerpt From: DANCING ON THE WIND
 Copyright CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO, 2008.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave
“I trust you had a good night’s rest, Keenan,” the Supervisor said from the windows where he stood with his back to the room, hands clasped loosely behind him.
“No, sir, not really, but thank you for asking,” she answered and since she was looking past Fallon to her boss, she saw her fellow agent’s lips quirk with what could only be amusement. She didn’t think it was his reading material that had caused the smirk.
“Strange that neither of you slept well last evening,” the Supervisor commented, turning around to face his agents. “Must have been something you ate, eh, Fallon?”
Fallon raised his head and swiveled it toward Keenan. “Guess so,” he replied, his gaze raking down Keenan in such a way she ached to lash out and slap the half-grin from his chiseled lips.
“Well, let’s get down to business,” the Supervisor stated and came around his desk to perch on one end of it. “Tell me what you know about drochtáirs, Keenan.”
Keenan blinked. “Drochtáirs?” she repeated, her brows drawing together before they shot up, her eyes widening. “I’ve been sensing something but drochtáirs? They are mythological creatures.” She felt Fallon staring avidly at her.
“One of our mediums believes seven of them are already here,” the Supervisor answered.
“Do she have any proof drochtáirs are real, though?” Keenan challenged.
“Madame Gregorovich has a very keen understanding of the preternatural world and she assures me they are,” the Supervisor said, throwing Fallon a quelling look. “She believes the drochtáirs were on Earth long ago but were destroyed in the Great Flood. Now, she believes they have come back to colonize again and that we can not allow.” He lifted a hand and pointed to the papers Fallon was holding. “Those are her notes to us on the matter.”
Fallon held the papers out to Keenan. “Not a romance novel but a fairly entertaining read,” he quipped.
Keenan snatched the papers from him with a glare from her narrowed eyes. “I want my bloody book back, Fallon,” she snapped under her breath, low enough that she hoped the Supervisor hadn’t heard her.
“Haven’t finished reading it yet,” Fallon said. “I’m on the part where Rogue is fingering Sharyn while they are...”
“That’s enough!” Keenan hissed, her face flaming. She glanced at the Supervisor who was looking at her with a bland expression on his lined face. She lowered her head, embarrassment flooding her very soul.
“Do you have something that belongs to her, Fallon?” the Supervisor inquired.
Fallon shrugged. “A trashy romance novel.”
“Give it back.”
Another fatalistic shrug and Fallon peeled himself out of the chair, stood then reached behind him to the pocket of his jeans where he had stuck the book. He tugged it out and extended it to Keenan.
Loathe to touch something the odious man had been sitting on, Keenan nevertheless took it then opened her shoulder bag and dropped it inside without a word of thanks.
“You’re welcome,” Fallon said as he took his seat again.
“Don’t filch anything else of hers,” the Supervisor ordered. “Is that clear?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Fallon agreed and shot his long legs out in front of him, threaded his fingers together over his belly and laid his head on the back of the chair.
“You were going to tell me what you know about drochtáirs, Keenan,” the Supervisor encouraged.
“Well, if I remember what I read about them, they are a species of blood fiends. A bite from their serrated fangs will make you one of them for they inject you with some kind of venom when they attack. Bite victims will in turn infect others. The creatures completely drain the blood from their victims until the body is nothing more than a decimated husk. They spend the daylight hours in the ground and can only move around after sunset. Wherever the corpses of their victims are buried, nothing will grow around the site. The land will be barren and scorched for a hundred feet or so. The same holds true concerning any land over which the creatures move. It is believed the destruction of plant life is due to the poisons given off by the drochtáirs. According to what I’ve read, they leave a noxious slime in their wake that is particularly vile.” She shifted in her chair. “They live in lairs deep beneath the ground in viper shape. When they emerge, they slither swiftly across the landscape in that form but when they are ready to attack, they assume an animal shape. What kind of animal hasn’t been recorded but whatever it is has to be big enough to overpower a full-grown man.”
“One theory is they merge with whatever animal they come into contact with so there is no one specific shape,” Fallon put in. “They don’t shape shift but rather invade. They can’t tolerate heat. Forty degrees to them is like a hundred to humans.”
Keenan shuffled through the papers she held, reading quickly through the paragraphs. “And the only way to kill them is to incinerate them,” Keenan said. “Their victims, too.”
“Burning is the only sure-fire way to destroy pure evil,” Fallon stated. He stared into her eyes. “Could you use your pyrokinetics to obliterate a human target, leanabh?”
“What does leanabh mean?” Keenan demanded, thinking he was insulting her.
“It is baby in Scots Gaelic,” the Supervisor replied. He gave Fallon a hard look. “Stop calling her that. It is disrespectful.”
Fallon sighed loudly and the Supervisor moved from his desk to the windows. “In the papers Madame Gregorovich suggests drochtáirs are the seed from which Raphian, the Destroyer of Men’s Souls, sprang.” He clasped his hands behind him once more as he looked out across the landscape. “That will make this enemy you are to seek out and put down a very formidable foe.”
“I’ve fought minions of Raphian in the past,” Fallon said. “They went down easy enough but she didn’t answer my question. Is she going to be able to wiggle her little finger or her nose or whatever else she wiggles and burn up an infected civilian?”
“Yes,” Keenan said.
“How many kills do you have to your credit?”
“My share,” she stated.
Fallon snorted at her answer, shaking his head as though he didn’t believe her capable of such a thing.
Keenan ignored him, concentrating, instead, on finishing her perusal of the notes from Madame Gregorovich. “It says here, she believes the creatures have gone to ground somewhere in a cold region where they will hibernate until winter.”
“We believe that means Canada,” the Supervisor said. “That is supposedly where they were before the Great Flood so they’ll most likely return to the original site.”
“Well, that sure as hell covers a lot of ground,” Fallon scoffed. “Do we just climb aboard a couple of dog sleds and start sectioning off each Province?”
“I should be able to detect them easily enough. We look for contaminated land,” Keenan suggested. “It’s just a matter of where to start looking.”
“My idea was to have Fallon pilot a chopper over specific grids across the Provinces, working your way east to west over the entire expanse. Any place that strikes you as being a potential lair can be marked from the air and then reconnoitered on foot later.”
“I could eliminate it from the air,” Keenan stated. “It’s just a matter of concentrating fire at their lair.”
“And take out a few innocent fuzzy-wuzzy little beasties in the bargain,” Fallon said with a snort. “We’ll go in to reconnoiter before you start frying defenseless little creatures that never hurt anyone.”
Keenan turned her gaze on her new partner to give him a narrowed look. “I would never hurt an animal just for the hell of it.”
“But you’d fire-bomb their little condos without a second thought,” he countered.
“I would not! That’s not what I…”
“We’ll go down and scope out the burrows. If there’s a blood fiend there, you can blast away ‘til your heart is content,” he told her. “I won’t even try to stop you.”
“And what if one of those blood fiends decides to take a bite out of us, Fallon?” she snapped.
“I’ll bite him first,” he said with a nasty grin that grew wider when he allowed his fangs to erupt.
Keenan nearly broke her ankle springing from the chair and putting distance between her and her new partner. Her face drained of color, her eyes were huge as she stared at the double rows of viciousness that filled Fallon’s mouth.
“You’re a…” She put up a defensive hand to keep him at bay. “You’re a…” She couldn’t get the word out.
“He’s a Reaper,” the Supervisor said.
“I prefer the term hell-hound,” Fallon quipped with a wag of his brows.
“I…” She shook her head as though to clear it of the sight of those wicked teeth. “Those fangs can’t be real!”
“They are very real, Keenan,” the Supervisor assured her. “And quite lethal.” He looked to Fallon. “Retract them. Now!”
Fallon grinned again and the fangs were gone. He winked at Keenan, his eyes flashing a red glow that stunned her.
“What are you?” she hissed.
“As I said, he’s a Reaper,” the Supervisor told her. “Part human, part wolf and …”
“I beg to differ. I am part hound, not wolf,” Fallon clarified, “although most Reapers Transition to wolf-like beings. I, on the other hand, Transition to a hell-hound. There are one or two other differences between me and my Lupine cousins.”
“Are shape shifters who are capable of finding their prey through blood scent,” the Supervisor continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted.
“In other words they drink blood like vampires,” she said, her top lip quirking distastefully. “I thought that was a myth, too.”
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, little girl, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’,” Fallon drawled. “If you can throw fire from your fingertips, astral-project yourself, I can change into a hell-hound when the mood strikes.” He wagged his brows. “The rest of the time I’m just a horny little devil but then you know that, don’t you?” His eyes glowed scarlet red for a moment.
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