Beneath the Skin

by Adrian Phoenix

  “Yeah? Who?”

  A smug smile curved Merri’s rosy full lips. She lifted her hand and displayed a small, slender dart pinched between two fingers. “One of the other perps dropped the vamp with a trank gun. I relieved Abano’s techs of the one they’d bagged while processing the scene. But they missed finding the dart in the carpet.”

  Emmett grinned. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

  “Because I’m a better field agent than you’ll ever be?”

  “That’d be it.”

  “Truth, brothah,” Merri said, then chuckled, the sound warm and throaty. She slid the dart into an inside pocket of her black suede jacket. “Makes me wonder what else they missed.”

  “Truth, sistah. I’m guessing tons, but it doesn’t matter. It’s never going to court.” Emmett rose to his feet, his knees creaking with the movement. An annoying new voice in the body-choir his joints, tendons, and bones had orchestrated ever since he’d turned forty. A body-choir that sang loud and strong when it rained. Given that he lived in Seattle, the singing was almost year-round and lusty as hell.

  Looks like all those years of karate sparring are catching up with me.

  “Do we know for certain that feds are involved in this?” Merri asked.

  “HQ just said it was possible and to keep everything hush-hush until the perps were positively identified,” Emmett said, offering a hand up to his partner.

  Merri snorted. “When isn’t something hush-hush?” She grasped his hand, her dark brown skin bleaching out his hard-won tan, and he pulled all five foot nothing of her up onto her booted feet. “It isn’t called the Shadow Branch for nothing.”

  “Sing it, sistah. Wanna bet that even the director’s dumps are classified?”

  Merri shook her head. “Man, that’s nasty. What’s the matter with—” She straightened, her hand sliding free of his, her alert posture reminding Emmett of a hunting dog on point. She swiveled smoothly to face the doorway. “Our people are here.”

  Emmett heard the front door open, then click shut. A cold draft of air swept into the room and goosebumped his skin. He heard the squeak of wheels underneath the background noise of the TV, felt the thud of footsteps coming up the hall.

  “Three,” Merri murmured. “And Gillespie’s reeking of J$obar;$van Musk as usual. Maybe that’s why his wife left him.”

  “Christ, Merri.”

  “Just saying.”

  A white-uniformed medic with a neat ’fro and hipster black-framed rectangular glasses paused at the doorway. He nodded at Rodriguez’s body. “He ready to go?”

  “More than ready,” Merri said.

  The medic stepped aside as Merri and Emmett walked from the room. They passed the gurney parked in the hall waiting to receive Rodriguez’s remains and the blonde female medic standing at its head. She nodded as they passed, a nod Emmett returned.

  SB Section Chief Sam Gillespie stood in front of the sofa, his hair buzz-cut to black stubble, the outline revealing a hairline in high retreat. At six one, he stood two inches shorter than Emmett, his skin just a shade lighter than Merri’s. Beads of rain glistened on his wire-framed glasses and on the shoulders and collar of his deep blue Gore-Tex jacket. He held the handle of a black satchel in his right hand.

  Gillespie’s lips stretched into the taut line that he considered a smile. “Thibodaux,” he greeted. “Goodnight.”

  “Chief,” Emmett returned, stopping beside the sofa. His gaze fell upon a mug resting on the coffee table. The red letters etched upon its white surface read GROUCH, a mug Rodriguez was most likely sipping from just a few hours ago, unaware that death was climbing in through the laundry room window.

  “Chief,” Merri muttered as she strode past him to the front door. She flung it open, drawing in deep breaths of the moist air in noisy, drama-queen style. Rain pattered against the front steps and along the crime-scene-taped-off paving stones leading to the front door.

  Gillespie was a little heavy-handed with the cologne, but at the moment, Emmett was grateful to smell something besides blood and piss and death.

  “How’s Rodriguez’s daughter doing?” Emmett asked.

  “Okay, I imagine,” Gillespie said. “Her memory’s been scrubbed by now.”

  “Christ,” Merri muttered from the doorway. “She’s just a kid.”

  “One who’s still alive,” Gillespie said, “because of the memory scrub. In the bad old days, she would’ve been turned into another victim of this official and tragic ‘burglary gone wrong.’ ”

  Emmett nodded, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. True enough. Lost time, missing memories, and a few misfiring synapses were a helluva lot better than the cold and permanent alternative.

  But nothing said he had to like either option.

  “Seems the Bureau has a few rotten apples in the proverbial barrel.” Gillespie dropped the satchel onto the carpet. “The daughter positively IDed the suspects as FBI SAC Lyons, SA Wallace, and Dante Prejean—a vamp member of some top secret project.”

  Emmett whistled. “Wallace? Wasn’t she just named as a hero by the Bureau a couple of weeks ago for taking down that serial killer?”

  “The Cross-Country Killer—Elroy Jordan,” Merri supplied from the doorway.

  Gillespie nodded. “She was. But she ran into Prejean during the course of that investigation. It’s now believed he corrupted her.”

  Merri snorted. “If he did, then he was only working what was already inside her.”

  Gillespie lanced a cold, icicle-sharp gaze her way. “Wallace just kicked her career into the gutter, Goodnight, and after she’d been offered the Seattle SAC position. Her service record was sparkling with intelligence, ability, and drive—full of promise. I think corrupted by bloodsucker is as good an explanation as any.”

  Emmett agreed, but he kept that opinion unvoiced. A rush of cold air smelling of cloves and rain swirled to a stop beside him.

  “No offense,” Gillespie said.

  Merri held his gaze for a moment before asking in a crisp voice, “So what’s the lowdown, Chief?”

  “We’re confiscating all evidence gathered by the SPD and the FBI,” Gillespie said, his gaze traveling around the living room, as if envisioning how the scene would be officially reimagined and restaged. “We’re making sure that statements already given to the SPD and the feds by the Rodriguez girl and her neighbors vanish.”

  “Any of the neighbors facing a wipe?” Merri asked.

  Gillespie shrugged. “Could be. That’s for someone else to decide.”

  “What kinda TSP was Prejean a part of?” Emmett asked.

  “HQ’s playing this one real close to the vest,” Gillespie replied. “All I was told was that it was a joint project—us and the feds—devoted to the study of sociopaths.”

  The image of Rodriguez’s ravaged throat and empty eyes popped into Emmett’s mind. The study of sociopaths. A chill touched his spine.

  “In other words, their monster slipped its leash and they want us to fetch it. Do I have that right, Chief?” Merri said.

  Gillespie nodded. “Pretty much.”

  Emmett nudged the satchel with the brown toe of his Dingo boot. “What’s that?”

  A wry smile tugged up one corner of Gillespie’s mouth. “It’s your monster-catching kit. Cuffs, drugs, chains.”

  “We know how to handle vampires,” Emmett said. “Monster or not.”

  “Not this vampire. He’s enhanced.”

  “Enhanced?” Merri asked. “You fucking kidding me?” She dropped a hand to her hip, her dark brown gaze direct and challenging. “Why the hell would anyone enhance a vamp? It’s not like we need it.”

  “I wasn’t enlightened on that account,” Gillespie said. He removed his glasses, held them up to the overhead light, and peered at the rain-spotted lenses. “But I was told that adrenaline implants to boost his speed, dexterity, and strength had been installed. So be prepared—he’s going to be a helluva lot faster than you’ll expect.”r />
  The chief had never been a good liar and his little oh-look-my-glasses-are-dirty routine gave away the lie. He knew a lot more than he’d just handed out about the enhanced vamp. Emmett tapped a listen close finger against the back of Merri’s hand.

  “Our assignment, Chief?” Emmett said.

  Gillespie slid his glasses back on. “Intercept and detain our perps. Prejean is priority one, Wallace priority two, Lyons number three.” He slipped a hand inside his Gore-Tex jacket and withdrew a plastic-encased flash drive that he handed to Emmett. “All pertinent data including files, photos, destination, and instructions. Study it on your way to Damascus.”

  The medics, the blonde in the lead, wheeled the gurney and its dark, plastic-body-bagged contents through the living room and out the open front door, wheels thumping down the steps. The male medic pulled the door shut behind him.

  Even through the fog of J$obar;$van Musk, Emmett caught the nostril-pinching stench of blood and death.

  “Our perps are in Damascus, Oregon?” Emmett asked, curling his fingers around the flash drive, tucking it tight against his palm.

  Gillespie nodded. “We have reason to believe that Lyons might’ve taken Prejean home. Satellite scans of the area and of Lyons’s home in particular revealed Wallace’s Trans Am and Lyons’s Dodge Ram parked in the driveway.”

  “A safe bet that Prejean’s with them,” Merri commented.

  “HQ’s thought too,” Gillespie said as he walked around the sofa to the hallway. He stopped in front of the murder room. “And they’ve got a good five or six hours’ head start, so move your asses. We’ve got a plane waiting for you at Sea-Tac. Rendezvous with Holmes and Miklowitz at the airport and bring them up to speed. You got stay-awake pills, Goodnight?”

  Merri nodded. “I do.”

  “Good.” Gillespie’s jacket rustled as he folded his arms over his chest. He stared into the office.

  Slipping the flash drive into his trouser pocket, Emmett bent and wrapped his fingers around the satchel’s handle. “Chief,” he said, straightening. “Is there anything else we should know about the project or Prejean’s enhancements?”

  Gillespie swiveled around to face them, the lenses of his glasses reflecting light, his arms still folded over his chest. “I wish I knew,” he said quietly. “Be careful out there. Don’t take any chances—especially with Prejean. Hell, not even with Wallace and Lyons. I know HQ wants them alive, but it’s not worth your lives. Not to me.”

  “Might be better to take our time and wait for Prejean to Sleep,” Merri said.

  “Maybe so,” Emmett said. “But then he could hole up someplace we won’t find him. So I think moving our asses is our best option.”

  “Then let’s hit the friendly skies and catch us some bad mofos.”

  “Truth, sistah.”

  “Be careful,” Gillespie said again, voice low. His gaze once again fixed on the office’s blood-spattered interior. “And that’s a direct order.”

  “Roger that, Chief.” Emmett exchanged a glance with Merri as he strode for the front door and the fresh air beyond. Doubt and a frown pinched the skin between her eyes. A dark realization glimmered in her eyes, the same realization rolling around in Emmett’s skull.

  He and Merri were being ordered into the forested hills of Damascus on a goddamned bureaucratic ass-covering operation without knowing the truth of what they were up against.

  A monster waited for them in the forest’s dark heart, a monster who savaged a man in his own home, but left his daughter untouched.

  A monster named Dante Prejean.

  2

  THE PERSISTENCE OF LOSS

  LAFAYETTE, LA

  Eleven years ago

  Chloe bounces out of the bedroom she shares with the other girls, wearing the purple Winnie the Pooh shirt he nabbed for her from Walgreens. Grinning, blue eyes bright, she throws her arms around him and hugs him. She smells like strawberries and soap and her red hair smells like baby shampoo.

  “It fits, Dante-angel! It’s perfect!”

  He laughs and hugs her back. “It looks great on you.”

  “Do you want to practice reading?” she asks, releasing him and smoothing her hands down her new Pooh shirt. “I got some books from the library today. One is called The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight. It looks a little spooky.”

  “Spookier than Winnie the Pooh’s adventures?” he teases.

  “Winnie the Pooh isn’t—oh!” Chloe giggles and smacks him on the shoulder with the plushie orca in her hand.

  Dante grins. “Did you learn anything new in math that you could teach me?”

  Chloe tucks Orem the Orca under her arm and considers. “Just more multiplication stuff.”

  “I like multiplication stuff.”

  Chloe’s face screws up into her ick-gross expression. “Yuck.”

  “I see that you like it too.”

  Hands on her hips, Chloe sticks her tongue out at him.

  “Wanna go to the park first? I’ll push you on the swing.”

  Just as Chloe opens her mouth to answer, another voice carries in from the front room, the accompanying foot treads punctuating each word. “Boy, you got work tonight, you. Time to get yo’ ass downstairs.”

  Those words scour the happiness clean from Chloe’s face. Her blue-eyed gaze seems to age while Dante watches—no longer eight, but a wary forty. She hugs Orem against her chest.

  It’s okay, Dante mouths to her. A smile ghosts across her lips. He turns around.

  Papa Prejean stands in the hallway in white T-shirt and khakis, his belt loops empty, an amused gleam in his hazel eyes. “Now why ain’t I surprised to find you with Little Ms. Feisty, huh, boy?”

  Dante’s gaze tracks down to the belt folded in Papa’s hand. He steps in front of Chloe. “I’m going. Ain’t gonna need that.”

  Papa looks down at the belt in his hand. “Oh, this ain’t for you, p’tit.” His gaze slants past Dante. A chill ripples the length of Dante’s spine. “Seems someone didn’t vacuum the parlor like Mama asked.”

  “I was gonna,” Chloe says.

  “I was talking to her and held her up, so punish me,” Dante says.

  Papa laughs, his voice cigarette-smoke rough, then coughs. “How’d I know that too? I ain’t gonna let you do it this time, boy. How’s she ever gonna learn to obey if you always take the belt for her, you?” Papa shakes his head. “Ain’t gonna mark you up before your clients get here, anyhow. Get in the basement, p’tit. After you’re done, I think I’ll give you the belt anyway since you’re so hellfire eager for it.”

  “No!” Chloe shouts. “It’s not his fault!”

  “Shhh, princess. It’s okay.”

  Amusement gleams in Papa’s eyes again. “Aw … ain’t this sweet? Y’all wanting to protect each other from what y’all got coming.”

  “Get that p’tite marmaille in here, Papa!” Mama Prejean shouts from the front room. “I want this parlor vacuumed tout de suite. You can beat her lazy ass later.”

  “Looks like you get a reprieve, you,” Papa says, nodding his chin at Chloe. “Go do what Mama wants. I’ll deal with you later, me.” His gaze flicks over to Dante. “You too.”

  Ice rims Dante’s heart. He has an uneasy feeling that as soon as Papa cuffs him to the bed in the basement, Papa’s gonna march upstairs and beat Chloe. Beat her while he’s cuffed and unable to do anything but listen. That’s gonna be his part of the punishment.

  Dante whirls, hooks a hand around Chloe’s biceps, and moves. She squeaks in surprise. Papa shouts and yells as he and Chloe blur down the hallway, into the brightly lit kitchen, blowing past a startled Mama, then out the back door into the night, screen door slamming behind them.

  “We’re flying!” Chloe breathes. “You really are an angel!”

  “Ain’t no angel. Ain’t flying.” But the houses blur past Dante as he zips down narrow Catherine Street, surprised by his own speed.

  “Where we going, Dante-angel?”

  “Dunno,” Dan
te says. The cool night feels good against his face and smells of wet pavement, boiling crawfish, and rain-heavy roses. He swings onto Johnston, then blurs down to Lewis, heart pounding, a wild hunger knotting his belly. He tightens his grip on Chloe’s arm.

  “Are we running away?”

  “Maybe we are, yeah.” Only wanting to get Chloe out of Papa’s reach, he hasn’t even thought about where they are going.

  As cars shush past them on rain-wet streets, headlights starring the night, Dante moves across the street to Girard Park. He slows to a walk, but slides his hand down from Chloe’s arm to her hand and clasps his fingers through hers.

  She looks up at him, her long red hair wind-blown and tangled. She smiles, and the sight of it buoys his heart. It rises within him as though on wings.

  “Where will we live?” Chloe asks.

  “Dunno. Maybe we can find an empty house and move in,” he says, angling a path past the swings and into the evergreens and leafless elms. Leaves crunch underneath their shoes. “But we can’t stay here. Papa’d find us.”

  Chloe’s fingers squeeze Dante’s hand hard. She stops walking, forcing Dante to a halt. She looks at him, and her eyes glisten with more than just starlight. “Papa’ll kill you,” she whispers.

  Dante pulls her into him, wraps her up tight in a hug. He hears the frantic beat of her heart intertwined with the steady pulse of his own. Smells strawberries and soap and the sharp tang of fear.

  “Shhh,” he murmurs, pressing his face into her hair. “He ain’t gonna catch us. I’ll make sure of that. We’ll leave here, go to New Orleans. Go anywhere.”

  “Promise?” Chloe’s voice is muffled against his shirt, a tight-throated sob.

  Dante drops down to one knee in the wet grass. He gently wipes away Chloe’s tears with his thumbs. “Promise. Just you and me, princess. Forever and ever.”

  “Forever and ever,” Chloe repeats, her blue-eyed gaze holding his, her face solemn. “Orem too?” She glances at the orca plushie squashed up against Winnie.

  And just like that, she’s eight years old again.

  Dante smiles. “Oui, naturellement.”

  “Okay.” Chloe hesitates, then says, “But what about Mark and Tami and Perry and Jeanette? Mama and Papa are mean to them too and …”