Etched in Bone (Maker's Song #4)

by Adrian Phoenix

  Fire scorches her lungs. Blackens her skin. Devours her with relentless teeth.

  “Oui, je connais,” Dante agreed, voice low. “I fucked up for true and she paid the price. So did her brother.”

  “Bloody hell. I forgot about her brother. How is he?”

  “In fucking shock.”

  Vincent’s brow furrowed in concern. “Will he survive it?”

  “Gonna do everything in my power to see that he does,” Dante said. “Now if that’s all—” His words cut off as pain drove an ice pick through his left eye.

  The gaslit sidewalk and Vincent tilted, then shifted, peeling away to reveal a concrete floor awash in water. Dante stumbled, but strong hands latched around his biceps and kept him upright.

  A dark ribbon of blood curls through the water and away from the scrubs-clad man sprawled facedown on the wet concrete floor.

  Dante crouches beside the body and rifles the guy’s pockets, searching for the lighter or book of matches he knows has to be there, given the smoke and nicotine odor coating the tech’s skin and clothes. Score. He finds it. Dante pulls his hand free and palms the blue Bic lighter.

  His pulse races. Fuckers will be here soon. Gotta hurry.

  Rising to his bare feet, he splashes across the padded room to the mattress he’d tossed aside. Hands shaking, he places Orem, the plushie Orca, the only thing he has left of Chloe, onto the torn and shredded mattress’s dry center. Long-dried flecks of blood dot the white part of Orem’s fur.

  Ain’t letting them touch you. Ain’t letting them take you. I promised.

  Dante’s eyes sting. He flicks the lighter’s wheel . . .

  Someone was shaking Dante, calling his name in a low, urgent voice. Focused energy tapped insistently against his shields.

  The image of his hand touching the lighter’s flame to Orem’s fur rippled like a puddle pummeled by rain drops, then vanished as Vincent’s pale and perplexed face blurred into view. Fingers were squeezing Dante’s biceps hard enough to cut off the circulation.

  “J’su ici,” Dante whispered, blinking. Pain prickled behind his eyes. He tasted his own blood at the back of his throat. He tried to recall what he’d just been thinking about or remembering, but it spun away from him like an oiled roulette wheel.

  “Yes,” Vincent said, drawing the word out dubiously. “You are here. But are you all right, mate? You looked . . .” He hesitated, as though searching for the right words, then said, “. . . lost.”

  “You can let go now,” Dante said, ignoring Vincent’s question, flexing against his tight-fingered hold.

  “You’re welcome,” Vincent muttered, releasing Dante’s arms. “Next time I’ll bloody well let you bash your skull against the pavement. Might do you some good.”

  A smile tilted Dante’s lips. “Fair enough.” His fingers tingled with pinpricks as blood started flowing to his hands again.

  “Of course,” Vincent mused, his gaze taking a slow cruise along Dante’s body from his head to his boots and all ports in between, “if that was an attempt to end up in my arms . . .”

  Dante closed the distance between them. Brushing his lips against Vincent’s ear, he murmured, “Then you blew it . . . mate.”

  Vincent shivered. Musk spiked his scent. “You really are a right bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I give it my best, yeah,” Dante agreed. Pacing backwards toward the club’s door, he added, “I’ll pass your condolences along to Trey, d’accord?”

  “You might be able to pass along more than that.” Vincent glanced up at the ivy-draped balcony above them, expression thoughtful. “I have a gift for Trey, one that might give him a reason to keep breathing—for a little while, anyway.”

  Dante stopped walking. “What’s the gift?”

  “The bloody wankers Mauvais sent to torch your house? He left without them, mate, and I know right where they are.”

  17

  A DARK AND QUIET PLACE

  NEW ORLEANS

  CLUB HELL

  March 28

  HEATHER SANK DOWN ON the edge of the bed, the mattress giving just a little beneath her weight. Annie lay on her belly, her head turned to one side on the pillow, snoozing booze-hard and drooling like a four-year-old. And reeking of nicotine, alcohol, and, faintly, of black smoke from the torched house.

  If not for Simone, Annie might’ve died in that blaze too.

  Heather pushed locks of blue/black/purple hair away from her sister’s face, then, squinting in the low-wattage light filtering in from the hall, she checked to make sure the gauze bandages on Annie’s arms and right hand were still secure.

  That was one thing about hanging out in a nightkind household that she’d have to get used to—the lack of bright lighting. Maybe a compromise involving LED light bulbs for her and Annie and sunglasses for them could be worked out—though at the rate Dante went through sunglasses, she’d need to buy them by the case. He couldn’t hold on to a pair of shades to save his life.

  Annie’s bandages looked fine—still in place and dry despite her no doubt enthusiastic plunge into the bottom of a vodka bottle; no, make that the bottom of two vodka bottles, according to Silver.

  Guilt pinched Heather hard as she remembered Annie’s shocked, pale face and smoke-inhalation raspy voice—Simone never made it out . . .

  Heather wearily rubbed her face with both hands. Exhaustion burned through her. Enthusiastic? I don’t know that and I’m not being fair. I think what she went through tonight should entitle her to a get drunk free card.

  Heather needed to figure out how to get Annie checked over by a doctor without drawing FBI or SB attention. Not just for her burns and smoke inhalation, but to get her back on the meds she desperately needed. And into counseling or group therapy before her adventures in self-medication ended in razor blades and blood again.

  But that was a task for later. Right now she needed sleep. Later, when her thoughts were focused and clear, she and Dante could hammer out a plan of action.

  Ain’t running. Ain’t hiding.

  Heather still couldn’t fathom what Dante had done. Cracked the cemetery apart like an egg, hard-knuckling his way into another world or dimension or whatever it was; faced down fallen angels and plucked his father from the pit.

  Oh. And had grown wings. Just like in her vision.

  Smooth black wings arch up behind him, fire patterns of brilliant blue and purple streaking their undersides. Gold light stars out from his kohl-rimmed eyes. He looks up as song—not his own—rings through the air. The night burns, the sky on fire from horizon to horizon.

  Had he been fighting against the Fallen while the world burned or alongside them? Fear brushed icy fingers against her heart. At least that last part hadn’t happened.

  But a traitorous voice inside whispered, Yet.

  Dante still shielded himself from her, determined to protect her from the pain and darkness ravaging him from the inside out. Determined to protect her from himself.

  She intended to set him straight. She didn’t need his protection.

  Too late for that. I’m in for the long haul. And he needs to learn that a burden is easier when it’s shared.

  Rising to her feet, Heather made sure that Annie was comfortably blanketed and the trash can close at hand—just in case—before striding out into the hall. She headed for the room Trey occupied across the hall and down.

  With or without Dante’s shields, Heather felt his presence through their bond, burning bright and steady in a corner of her mind like a nightlight. She wondered if she was a nightlight for him as well.

  And hoped she was.

  PAUSING IN THE DOORWAY, Heather looked into the darkened bedroom. Tucked into a snoozing kitty-ball, Eerie was nestled against Trey’s back. Neon light from the bar across the street filtered in through the lace curtains, winking blue, then pink across the bed and Trey’s curled form. Glittered like Christmas across his face, his closed eyes.

  A dark shape sat in a straight-backed chair beside the bed, c
aught in alternating flares of blue-pink-blue. Neon reflections danced in De Noir’s sleek, black hair. His scent—deep dark earth and green leaves—threaded through the room’s close air. Gold light glinted like tiny stars in his eyes.

  “Trey’s Sleeping early,” Heather said. “Did you . . . ?”

  Hearing her voice, Eerie lifted his head and yawned, tongue curling.

  “Yes, Agent Wallace, he allowed me to ease him into Sleep,” De Noir said in a low rumble. “He’s hoping to awaken and find that the fire and the loss of his sister were only a bad dream.” He sighed. “I didn’t have the heart to reason him out of that hope.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have had the heart either.”

  De Noir looked at the Sleeping web-runner. “Once he’s awake again, I hope to convince him that his sister would want him to keep living.”

  The words Dante had whispered to Trey after the fire circled through Heather’s memory. You gotta stay alive, mon ami, for Simone. I wanna kill the assholes responsible for her death, but that’s your right. Mauvais and Justine ordered it. I’ll help you find them and their house-torching buddies, and I’ll stand beside you as you kill them.

  And she remembered Trey’s reply. Can I stop living after that?

  Ain’t up to me, cher. But ask me again when they’re all dead, yeah?

  Heather blinked rapidly until the burning in her eyes faded.

  “Where’s Dante?” De Noir asked, his tone casual, but something else altogether shadowed the planes of his face, strained his voice.

  “He went out to feed.”

  De Noir shook his head. “Even with his migraine.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I offered to help him, but he refused my touch, refused to let me ease his pain.”

  Even though Heather wished Dante would’ve allowed De Noir to cool down his migraine, she understood why he hadn’t. Dante loved his father, but he no longer trusted him. And the intimacy of mind-to-mind contact required trust.

  “It’s too soon,” Heather allowed. “I hope you can see that.”

  De Noir sighed, then nodded. “I suppose I can at that, Agent Wallace.”

  “Please, just call me Heather. I’m not with the Bureau anymore. According to the FBI, I’m a much-valued agent, but one now lost to paranoid delusions due to a hereditary mental illness and in desperate need of treatment.”

  De Noir arched an eyebrow. “Are you expected to survive said treatment?”

  Heather shook her head. “I’m sure it’ll end in a tragic suicide.”

  “And Dante?”

  “Snipped as the final loose end linking the Bureau to Bad Seed.”

  “I believe they would very much regret finding him.”

  “Not if they triggered his programming. Forced him to obey. It’s already happened once. He was used to murder a man in Seattle.”

  De Noir sucked in a breath at her words, his face blanking as though she’d slapped him. His fingers tightened around the arms of the chair. Wood creaked. “I believe they are very much going to regret that, as well,” he finally said, his voice cold enough to sheet the room in ice. Neon blue light strobed across his face.

  “I don’t care if they regret it or not, just as long as they can never use him again,” Heather said, throat tight. Her hands knotted into fists as she remembered tranking Dante after he’d completed his assigned “task”—the murder of FBI SAC Alberto Rodriguez. Remembered the relief in Dante’s eyes.

  “It seems I’ve missed much in these last couple of weeks,” De Noir said softly, drawing her attention back from its dark trip down memory lane.

  “I don’t know if ‘missed’ is the right word,” Heather said, feeling a smile brush her lips. “But yes, a lot’s happened.”

  “I never imagined he’d have wings,” De Noir mused. Pink and blue light strobed in alternating bands across his face. “Even though he’s a creawdwr and True Blood, he’s still only half-Fallen.”

  He rose to his feet, muscles rippling, kilt swinging against his knees, then went to the French windows and pulled down the shades behind the lace curtains, blocking out the neon light and the approaching dawn. And deepening the room’s gloom.

  “It happened after he jumped on Gabriel and fed on him,” Heather said.

  De Noir turned around and stared at her. “He attacked Gabriel?”

  “Pretty much the moment he laid eyes on him.”

  De Noir laughed, the sound low and delighted. “Well, well. I doubt Gabriel’s ass will be warming up the Black-Starred throne for much longer.”

  “Why’s that?” Heather asked.

  With a small chirp, Eerie hopped off the bed and rubbed up against Heather’s legs. He arched his back for pats. Bending, Heather obliged him, stroking her fingers along his warm, soft fur. Scratching his head.

  “The Elohim will view the attack as a humiliating and humbling rejection of Gabriel by the creawdwr.” A dark smile played across De Noir’s lips. “Hardly an endorsement of his ability to lead.”

  “Gotta admit, that doesn’t break my heart,” Heather said, straightening. “Gabriel came across like a true dick.”

  De Noir laughed again. “For good reason. He is a true dick.”

  Done with pats, Eerie padded back to the bed and leapt onto the mattress in one smooth, graceful bound, then curled up against Trey’s T-shirted back again.

  “Do you need anything before I go?” Heather asked, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.

  De Noir sat back down in the chair. “No, thank you, Agent Wal—Heather.”

  A burr of pain and heat prickled against Heather’s thoughts as she turned to leave. Her heart gave one hard kick against her ribs. She sucked in a breath.

  De Noir’s lambent eyes narrowed. “Are you all right?”

  The pain vanished as though the burr had been plucked away. But as with pricked flesh, a trace of the hurt remained. “I’m fine,” Heather answered truthfully. Dante, on the other hand . . .

  Whirling around, Heather hurried down the hall. Dante had returned to the club, but even though he’d fed, his migraine still raged. She looked for the dark and quiet place she knew from experience that he would need. And found it in the second to the last room on the right.

  18

  TUMBLING DOWN

  NEW ORLEANS

  CLUB HELL

  March 28

  DIM LIGHT FROM THE hall revealed Dante standing in front of the far wall in the bedroom, his hands braced against the wall, head bowed, his muscles ridged and knotted as he struggled for control. Fought to stay here and now.

  Voices whispered into Heather’s mind through his thinning shields. Pain floated through her mind like a blazing zeppelin.

  Little fucking psycho.

  Get yo’ ass down in the basement, p’tit.

  You won’t save her, you know. You’ll fail.

  The darkened bedroom did a slow merry-go-round spin around Heather, then a different room suddenly clicked into view like the next image in a slide show: a white padded room with a concrete floor an inch deep in water.

  Shredded bedding and torn mattress.

  Fist-cracked dents in the concrete bed slab.

  Toilet wrenched from the floor.

  A man’s scrubs-clad body sprawled facedown on the concrete, blood oozing into the water from his torn throat.

  The thick odors of wet concrete, toilet chemicals, and coppery blood filled the air.

  What the hell?

  Dizzied, pulse pounding hard through her veins, Heather grabbed the doorjamb with both hands for balance. With a sickening twist of her stomach, she realized that her shields had slipped, that her concentration had faltered. Keeping her shields in place wasn’t second nature yet.

  Worse? Dante’s shields were also tumbling down.

  Von’s words scrolled though her mind. Focus is key. Picture steel walls or whatever feels secure and safe to you . . .

  Swallowing back her nausea, Heather closed her eyes and concentrated on hammering another thick
layer of steel into place around her mind. Sweat trickled between her breasts. Her heart drummed a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

  No escape for you, sweetie.

  Get down. I won’t let them have you.

  That’s my good boy. No one can ever be used against you if you’re willing to kill them yourself first.

  Just you and me, princess. Forever and—

  The whispers and molten pain disappeared as though a steel vault had dropped down over her mind. Heather cautiously opened her eyes. And breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw the dark bedroom with its curtained French windows again.

  Releasing the doorjamb, Heather padded past the bed and across the room to Dante, stopping beside him. His silken hair hid his face from view, but she saw dark spatters on the wood floor beneath him, like tiny ink blots, and realized his nose was bleeding again. His bow string-taut body quivered with tension.

  “You’re next,” he whispered, a violent promise coiled in his voice.

  A cold finger traced the length of her spine, and her hand froze in the act of reaching for his bunched biceps. She sucked in a deep breath, hoping to calm her trip-hammering heart. And lowered her hand to her side.

  Given what she’d seen through Dante’s eyes just a moment before, Heather knew he wasn’t talking to her. She also knew he could very easily mistake her for whoever he believed stood in front of him.

  Okay. Touching is out. Mind-to-mind is out because I don’t think I have the strength to fight my way free right now. That leaves one option—well, two. But I don’t want to have to run downstairs to get the morphine.

  Shutting her eyes once more, Heather imagined a deep pool of water, its surface gleaming with reflected moonlight. She drew in a deep breath and visualized the cool, platinum water funneling through their bond and rushing into Dante’s blazing mind. Imagined a tide of white silence drowning the voices and scrubbing/sweeping away the broken visions from the past. And reducing the white-orange heat of his pain to dying embers.