Maker's Song 3 Beneath the Skin
Page 14
The blood smell coils through him; he’s lost to it. He drops to his knees and sinks his teeth into warm flesh. Blood pumps into his mouth, sweeter than licorice, headier than sneaked whiskey, and he can’t get enough. He drinks until nothing’s left.
On his knees, Dante looks around. All three badass men sprawl on the bloodied floor. He swivels, wiping his mouth and reaching for Chloe. But she’s no longer in the corner. His hand freezes at his mouth.
Chloe lies on the concrete floor, snow-angeled in a pool of blood. So pale even her freckles look faded, rubbed-away. Blue eyes wide and as empty as a doll’s. Her hair halos her head on the concrete in tendrils wet with blood from her slashed throat.
Orem rests on the concrete just beyond the reach of her fingers and Chloe’s blood stains the plushie orca’s white-furred patches maroon.
Dante looks down at his blood-sticky hands, his fingers. The blood caked beneath his sharp, sharp nails doesn’t belong to the badass men alone. And the blood he sucked down, so hungry and fucking delirious? His heart thumps hard and fast; breaking. He can’t finish the thought. The gut-churning, throat-burning, gonna-turn-inside-out feeling knots him up again.
Dante crawls to Chloe, her warm blood soaking in through the knees of his jeans and mingling with the blood already smeared on his hands.
Gathering her into his arms, Dante hugs Chloe tight against him, buries his face in her hair. But he only smells blood, rich and coppery. He’s lost her strawberry and soap scent. He closes his burning eyes, struggles to breathe through a throat so tight it hurts.
Chloe, his princess, his little sister, his heart.
Forever and ever.
On his knees, Dante rocks back and forth, Chloe in his arms. He whispers nonsense words into her hair, seeking the right one, the magic one, that’ll drum life and rhythm back into her silent heart or turn back time.
He’s still rocking and whispering when they finally come for him.
13
NOTHING CONVENIENT
WASHINGTON, D.C.
March 25
“YOU’RE LATE,” CELESTE UNDERWOOD said as her assistant slid into the seat across from her at her booth in Applebee’s. “I hope you have a good excuse.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” SB Field Agent Richard Purcell said. Rain beaded the shoulders of his black trenchcoat and glistened in his honey-blond hair. “Traffic sucked.” He set his sleek, black briefcase beside him on the orange vinyl seat.
“So does that excuse,” Celeste said, dipping a chunk of grilled chicken into the small bowl of cayenne-spiced lime juice beside her plate.
Purcell met her gaze, sympathy in his eyes. “I heard the news,” he said quietly. Almost too quietly, given the noise level in the restaurant—clattering plates, the high-decibel buzz of dozens of conversations accented with short bursts of laughter and children’s shrieks—and the precise reason Celeste had chosen the restaurant for their discussion. No need for audio jammers. “My sympathies.”
“The bitch got off. Self-defense. The jury actually bought her story.” Celeste pushed her folded-up newspaper across the table to Purcell. He flipped it open and scanned the headline that had burned itself into her retinas:
VALERIE UNDERWOOD ACQUITTED IN MURDER-FOR-HIRE CASE; MOTHER OF TWO WEEPS AS VERDICT READ, THANKS JURY.
Celeste chewed her bite of lime-and-chili grilled chicken, but she didn’t enjoy it. She swallowed hard, forcing the chicken down.
“Convenient that the man Valerie hired to kill your son hanged himself in his cell,” Purcell said. “With shoelaces he wasn’t even supposed to have.”
Celeste laid her fork carefully on her plate. “Also handy that he left a note stating that he’d implicated Valerie in Stephen’s murder as payback for rebuffing his advances. Painted her as the virtuous wife.”
“Very handy,” Purcell agreed. “And your custody suit?”
“Quashed. Null and void.” She pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. She picked up her wineglass. “Valerie sent me an e-mail this morning saying I’d never see the girls again. Those girls are all I have left of Stephen. And she knows that.”
“I’m truly sorry, ma’am. What can I do to help?”
A waitress stopped at the table and took Purcell’s order for a grilled cheese sandwich and an iced tea with lemon.
Celeste took a sip of wine, a house zinfandel, good, but not too sweet. “You were there when Wells and Moore were programming Prejean. Fragmenting his memories.”
“Yes, ma’am. For most of it, anyway.”
“So you know how Prejean’s programming works? How to activate it?”
A knowing light sparked in Purcell’s eyes. “Yes, ma’am, I do. Once you have the little fucking psycho in hand, we can flip the switch and put him to work.”
“And switch him off again? Permanently?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Celeste nodded, then took another sip of wine. “Good. I’ve never been fond of vampires.” She doubted that her so-called daughter-in-law would find anything convenient or handy about Prejean when he showed up on her doorstep or climbed in through her window.
No, not at all.
14
WHITE SILENCE
OUTSIDE DAMASCUS, OR
THE HAPPY BEAVER MOTEL
March 25
THE SMELL OF BLOOD haunting his nostrils, and loss haunting his heart, Dante opened his eyes. Darkness, warm and close. Blankets, maybe a fucking hood. Voices, low and urgent. He had to move before they tried to wrestle him into a straitjacket and hang him from that gleaming hook.
Before they tried to take Chloe from him.
Dante rolled out from under the blankets and off the bed, tumbling across the carpet on one bare shoulder before jumping to his feet. Bare feet. Rough carpet, not blood-slick concrete.
“What the fuck?” A female voice. Not that chienne Johanna’s, but familiar.
Light dazzled his vision. Hammered the spike piercing his skull and left eye a notch deeper. His vision bisected, a mirror cracked in two, the halves no longer quite matching up.
Padded, blood-sprayed walls, the word OPEN scrolling in green across the door’s security panel./A strange room, warm light spilling from a lamp on top of a bureau beside a vinyl easy chair, a wide-eyed chick with blue/black/purple hair staring at him, her hands clutching the chair’s arms.
A chill touched Dante’s spine. Who’s she?
In both halves, he smelled blood, pungent and coppery—Chloe’s blood.
Diamond-edged chains twisted tighter and tighter around Dante’s heart. He shaded his eyes with one trembling hand as he backed up against a wall. His muscles coiled, ready to fight, to take every single one of the moth-erfuckers down.
They’d hafta kill him before he’d let them anywhere near his princess.
Wasps buzzed and vibrated beneath his skin. Stingered venom into his muscles and veins. Slicked poison along the sharp-edged wheel of his thoughts.
But Dante-angel, I’m already dead.
“They ain’t taking you,” Dante whispered back.
Promise?
Promise. Cross my heart.
Blood trickled hot from his nose. He tasted it, ripe red grapes and copper, at the back of his throat, on his lips.
The door swings open and three wary-eyed men in black suits step into the blood-spattered room, guns in hand. One carries a white straitjacket. / A guy—no, a nomad—wearing only blue boxers stepped around a bed and faced Dante, his hands raised palm out, a gentling motion. The crescent moon tattoo beneath the nomad’s right eye glittered silver in the light like ice beneath a new moon.
Pain pulsed at Dante’s temples. He had a feeling he should know what the tattoo meant, should also know the nightkind nomad wearing it inked into his skin.
“You can do this hard or easy, kid.”/“Hey, little brother.”
Dante’s heart drummed hard and fast, thundered in his ears. His thoughts scattered in all directions like a hurled deck of cards, slippery with pain.
&
nbsp; He struggled for balance in the fractured, tilting world he straddled as his reality flipped between blood-wet concrete and hushed carpet. Dizziness pirouetted the room around him. Wasps buzzed. He closed his eyes and touched a hand to the wall at his back. Steadied himself.
Focus, dammit. Send the pain below. Or they’re gonna take her away and you’ll never, ever, see her again.
And in that split second Dante no longer knew if he was thinking about Chloe or someone else, someone—
Dante heard a single footstep, a slow slide of bare foot over carpet or maybe—with all the noise in his head, it was hard to be sure—the sole of a shoe treading across blood-smeared concrete.
“You ain’t taking her,” Dante said.
“Looks like the kid’s selected the hard option, gentlemen. Fire at will.” / “Dante, man, it’s okay. You’re in a motel and you’re safe. Everyone’s safe.”
Dante opened his eyes.
The douche bags in suits lift and aim their goddamned guns.
Dante moved.
He tackled the closest douche bag, rode him down to the floor. The fucker’s breath exploded from his lungs in a startled whoof when they slammed onto the concrete, Dante on top. Someone screamed and the shrill sound, like long nails lacquered and sharp, scraped furrows through his mind. He sucked in a pained breath.
“Someone shut her the hell up,” Douche Bag yelled, his voice strained through his clenched teeth. “It ain’t helping!”
The screaming cut off abruptly. A door clicked open, then slammed shut.
Dante pounded Douche Bag’s gun hand against the concrete until the gun finally tumbled from his fingers and skittered out of reach.
Dante dipped his head for the jugular pulsing in the taut-muscled neck beneath him. Douche Bag’s fingers locked around Dante’s biceps, bracing him up and away from his vulnerable throat. Dante’s muscles quivered as he struggled against Douche Bag’s white-knuckled hold.
Voices—some from within, some from without— crashed against Dante’s mind like foaming storm-tossed waves against rugged cliffs.
She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved.
“Little brother, look at me. Dammit, Dante, look!”
Little fucking psycho.
“Baptiste.”
Her voice cupped his mind, cool and soothing and familiar, just like the hands now cupping his face. Dante looked up into blue eyes, the last glimmer of twilight as the first stars lit. White silence enveloped him. The voices hushed. The wasps stilled.
Her scent—desert sage sweetened with lilac, clean and fresh like evening rain—cut through the stench of blood.
Creamy skin, lovely heart-shaped face framed with red hair tumbling past her shoulders, lips soft as wild rose petals, a woman of heart and steel.
Heather.
She was kneeling on the floor beside him, her hands holding his face, her expression worried, a little scared. “Listen to me, Baptiste,” she said. “You’re in a motel with me, Von, Annie, and Caterina. We spent the day here while you and Von Slept. We’re safe for the moment. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Dante blinked.
Chloe lies on the concrete floor, snow-angeled in a pool of blood.
No escape for you, sweetie.
Something pricks the skin on Dante’s throat. Cold threads into his veins, chills his blood. Heather’s face lowers over his. “Can you hear me, Baptiste?”
Blue rays spiked into the fleeing Fallen, one by one. And turned them to stone.
Pain throbbed at Dante’s temples, skewered his left eye with a red-hot ice pick. He squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like he’d been tossed headfirst into a blender set on puree. His memories whirled and meshed—then and now, then and now, then and—
“I remember being in your car,” he said. Heather’s thumbs gently stroked his cheekbones, trailing ice over the fire raging beneath his skin. “I remember you dosing me with morphine.” He opened his eyes and looked into the evening-star steadiness of Heather’s gaze.
Some of the worry eased from her expression, but only some. She nodded. “You were having another seizure. Are you with me—with us—now?”
“Hey, little brother.” The voice, low and calm and full of smoky, familiar undertones, drew Dante’s gaze down.
His fractured vision shifted, slid together, and Douche Bag’s sweaty, straining face morphed into the nomad’s rugged and handsome features. A mustache framed his mouth and a crescent moon tattoo glimmered beneath his green eyes.
Llygad.
A frost-edged scent, smoke and motor oil, adrenaline spiced.
“Von,” Dante breathed. “Mon ami.”
A relieved smile quirked up the corners of Von’s mouth. “Damn straight.”
Heather’s thumbs caressed Dante’s cheekbones one more time, then vanished from his face as she stood up. “Be right back,” she murmured.
“Don’t mean to complain and shit, but think you could do me a solid and get your knees outta my ribs?” Von said, releasing his steel-fingered death grip on Dante’s arms. “Annoying habit, breathing, y’know? But it’s one I just ain’t ready to give up yet.”
“Fuck.” Dante jumped up, then offered a hand to Von and pulled the nomad to his feet. “You okay?”
Von pressed a palm against his ribs, winced, then said, “I’m good, man.” His gaze met Dante’s. “How ’bout you?” He tapped a finger against his own temple. “Your nose is bleeding,” he added softly.
“Merde,” Dante muttered, wiping his nose with the back of one shaking hand, smearing blood on his wrist and face. The room did a slow pirouette and broken, jagged things shifted in his head. So did his balance. He stumbled.
Hands, warm and callused, grasped Dante’s shoulders and steadied him.
The room decided to play possum and stopped moving. Dante exhaled in relief.
Dante smelled strawberries and baby shampoo and blood. The scent shivved his heart. His breath caught, rough in his throat.
Chloe.
The blood-soaked knees of his jeans clung to his skin, wet and cold. Dante turned around, but Chloe was gone and beige carpet had replaced the concrete floor.
He’d just been holding her. How had they slipped past and …
Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Clenched his fists. In a motel, not the white, padded room. Grown-up, no longer a kid. In leather, not jeans. Focus, dammit. Sweat trickled along his temples. He eased his eyes open.
Von stared at him, expression stricken. “Holy hell,” he whispered. “Jesus fucking Christ. Dante …” He grabbed Dante in a hard-muscled hug, held him tight, the fingers of one hand caught up in Dante’s hair.
Dante wrapped his arms around Von. Face against the nomad’s neck, he breathed in Von’s frost-and-gun-oil scent; felt the scratch of his whiskers against his cheek. Felt/heard Von’s heart thudding hard and fast almost in perfect time with his own, chest to chest and skin to skin, a comforting, musical rhythm.
“You ain’t there anymore, little brother,” Von murmured, voice rough, his lips against Dante’s hair. “And you ain’t never going back. What those fuckers put you through …” His arms squeezed tighter. “What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”
“I killed her, so, yeah, it is.”
“Was, not is. It’s long over and it ain’t and never was your fault.”
Dante pulled away from their embrace, slipped free of Von’s strong arms. Cupping his friend’s face, Dante kissed him, savored his juniper-sharp taste. “Merci beaucoup, mon cher,” he whispered against Von’s lips. “Mais ça vont jamais finir.”
“It will end, little brother,” Von whispered back. “It has ended.”
“T’es sûr?” Releasing him, Dante took a step back. Pain throbbed at his temples.
“Sit down befo
re you fall down,” Von said.
Dante shook his head. “I’m okay, mon ami.”
Von arched an eyebrow. Gave him a gentle shove. Dante stumbled, the back of his legs hitting the mattress behind him. He half fell, half sat on the bed, landing on his ass and elbows.
“Yeah, you look okay,” Von drawled.
“Blow me.” Dante flipped him off with both middle fingers, then pushed himself back onto his feet.
A smile whispered across Von’s lips. “Ah, there he is, my stubborn sonuvabitch.”
Heather returned and handed Dante a wet washcloth. “You’re a mess,” she said.
“That ain’t nothing new, chère,” Dante said, offering her a smile. His smile deepened when Von snorted.
Heather glanced at the nomad and her lips curved into a mock-innocent smile. “You okay?” she asked him. “It sounds like you’re choking.”
“Nah, I’m peachy, doll. Just peachy. Now, if y’all will excuse me, I’ll get dressed. Try to contain your disappointment.”
Heather lifted her hand, her thumb and forefinger not even an inch apart. “All contained.”
“Ouch, woman.”
Dante wiped his face with the washcloth, scrubbed at the blood on his face. Heather had wet it with cold water and his fevered skin drank in the moist chill. Baked the cloth nearly dry. He shivered.
“What do you remember from yesterday?” Heather asked.
Dante wadded up the bloodstained washcloth in his hand as his thoughts reeled backward. His muscles kinked into hard knots. Images sparked through his mind like broken flame from a dying lighter.
Spark: Lyin’ Lyons shoves the muzzle of a gun against Heather’s temple.
Spark: Gone-gone-gone Athena throws herself on her spear.
Spark: The man whose name he can’t remember entwines with his children, twirling around and into them, his flesh stretching as though elastic.
Spark: Your father’s dead, little one.
“Lucien,” Dante whispered.
“Shit. I was hoping you wouldn’t remember his loss right away,” Heather said. She grasped his hand, folded her fingers through his. “I’m so sorry.”