On Midnight Wings

by Adrian Phoenix

  Silver frowned at her abrupt change of topic, then realized it wasn’t a change but a self-protective gas-pedal stomp into reverse. He glanced at his—Jack’s—garlic-redolent T-shirt. “Oh. Right. Nope. It might make us gasp for air, but that’s about it.”

  “So what does work against vampires? I mean, given that just a couple of weeks ago I didn’t even know you guys existed outside of paranormal romance novels and the CW Network, I wanna weed truth from fiction.”

  Silver shook his head. “Can’t tell ya. Trade secret. When we’re turned, we each take a solemn vow not to spill the details of how best to ice our asses. Sorry.”

  Annie nodded. “Smart. Especially during a breakup.” She tilted her head, studying him. “Y’know with your hair like that, you remind me of that Zero character in those manga books of yours—except your hair is purple, not silver-white, and your eyes are silver, where his are violet, and not to mention that you’re flesh and he’s not—but other than that . . .”

  Silver blinked, surprised by the comment, then felt a pleased smile stretch across his lips. “Zero Kiryu, huh? Didn’t know you liked Vampire Knight.”

  “Gorgeous nightkind, sex, and betrayal, what’s not to like?”

  Another voice chimed in. “Mmm-mmm. I hear you, girl. And he does look like Zero.”

  Catching a whiff of spice and smoky cloves, Silver turned to face Merri. She stood on the curb, her weight on one hip, arms crossed over her suede-jacketed chest. Frustration and a deepening concern glimmered in the dark depths of her eyes, despite the amused smile curving her lips. And that told Silver all he needed to know. Nothing new on Von.

  Aside from what he’d learned.

  “Merri’s here, so spill, dude. Anybody see our missing nomad?”

  “Pizza dude said he saw Von,” Silver said, tucking Von’s keys into a front jeans pocket. “But he wasn’t alone. Three others were with him, a blond chick and two guys in kilts—all nightkind.”

  Merri straightened, dropping her arms to her sides. “Kilts. That sounds like the llafnau,” she said, voice grim. “And no one else would dare lay hands on anyone marked with a crescent moon. No one with brains, anyway. You can bet your sweet ass that if llafnau were in the French Quarter, they weren’t here to drink Hurricanes and traipse about on vampire tours.”

  Silver nodded, jaw tight. That was his thought too. Dammit. The only question was: “Why would they come after Von?”

  “You know why,” Merri said softly. “Think about it. Von kept silent about Dante until that announcement. Kept silent. Lost his impartiality. He broke his oath to the order.”

  “Shit.” Silver drew in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “If Von broke his oath, then it was to protect Dante. And I know there’s nothing Dante wouldn’t do to help Von—if he was here. Same goes for me. There’s gotta be something I can do.”

  “Maybe there is,” Merri said. “I think I’ve heard from my mère de sang that the llygaid compound is in Memphis. If that’s true, we could be there in seven hours. I’ll contact Galiana for the address.”

  “Aside from the fact that you’re hot for Von’s tattooed nomad ass, why would you do that? What’s it to you? Von ain’t your friend, ain’t your llygad. Hell, he doesn’t even trust you.”

  Merri held his gaze, chin lifted. “I know. And I can’t think of a better way to start earning it than by taking a rescue run to Memphis. Unless you’d rather sit on your ass at Jack’s house and twiddle your thumbs?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  Silver raked a hand through his gel-spiked hair as he pondered Merri’s suggestion. Her words resonated deep within him, a pealing bell. She hoped to gain Von’s trust and he hoped to regain Dante’s. He remembered a nearly week-old conversation with the nomad about just that.

  He doesn’t trust me.

  Nope. Not anymore. But he does care about you, man. You still have a chance to earn his trust again.

  Silver had no doubt Dante would be all for a rescue run to Memphis. And, until Lucien returned, sitting on his ass at Jack’s house, twiddling his thumbs would be exactly what he’d be doing.

  No thanks.

  “Yeah,” Silver said finally. “I like the idea. Jack and Emmett could take turns driving the van during the day while we Sleep in back. I don’t want to leave anyone behind.”

  Merri nodded. “Smart. That works. The llygaid will be Sleeping too. Whatever they plan to do with Von won’t happen until after sunset. We’ll be there in plenty of time.”

  “Look, I’ll drive, okay? But on one condition.” Annie’s gaze skipped over to the zydeco-bopping tavern. Lingered. “Can we eat now?”

  Silver laughed. “Food it is. And a beer sounds good.”

  “Maybe even two,” Merri agreed.

  As Merri and Annie started across the narrow street for Aunt Sally’s, Silver paused to take another look at the buzzing crowd of nightkind and mortals milling restlessly in front of the club. Excitement pulsed through him when he saw a towering figure strolling through the crowd, moving with an orca’s powerful grace through a school of sardines, thinking Lucien had returned—until the figure stepped out of the shadows, revealing short red hair. And a pair of nightkind companions.

  One was a stranger with short, stylishly cut burgundy hair, wearing jeans, a short-sleeved black shirt, and an expression of knitted-brow concern on his Esquire-handsome face. Mediterranean Esquire, Silver amended, given the guy’s hawk nose. But the other Silver knew all too well—Guy Mauvais. The aristocratic shithead was dressed in an ash-gray frock coat, slacks, and fancy white shirt with lace cuffs and neckpiece, his wheat-colored hair loose about his shoulders.

  “Hey,” Annie called. “You coming?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, his gaze never wavering from Mauvais’s pale face. “Go grab a table and order me an Abita. I’ll be there in a minute. Just remembered something.”

  “You sure?” Merri questioned, really asking, You need backup?

  “Yeah. I’m sure. Just give me a minute.”

  “Okay,” Merri said. “You got it, then.”

  A knot of grief and cold fury and frustration tangled itself around Silver’s heart as a conversation with Von, this one about Simone’s death just five nights ago—a fiery death Silver himself had barely escaped—sounded through his mind.

  We all need time.

  People always say that, like time is fucking OxyContin. Like I could just down a handful of time and not worry about it hurting any more. Instant fix. But I can’t. And time takes fucking forever to heal. How’s that for ironic? Fuck time. And fuck Mauvais for taking her from us.

  I hear you, bro. And trust me, Mauvais is fucked—he just don’t know it yet.

  Renewed grief tightened Silver’s throat, burned behind his eyes.

  He fucking will now.

  Silver moved.

  31

  GOLD INTO DIAMONDS

  NEW ORLEANS

  THE FRENCH QUARTER

  THE SMELL OF SMOKE, of scorched wood and rubber and plastic, of fire-dousing chemicals clung to Club Hell’s shutter-style green doors like a whore’s cheap perfume. Mauvais’s gaze shifted from the thick chain looped through the door handles to the hand-scrawled CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign nailed to the doors.

  Mauvais drew a lavender-scented handkerchief from the sleeve of his shirt and breathed in its soothing scent. “Well, it seems we’ve wasted our time,” he sighed. “The place is closed and”—he paused, leaning in toward the door and listening for heartbeats, before straightening again and swiveling around—“empty.”

  “So I see,” Loki murmured.

  “Apparently those rumors about a fire and shootout were true, after all,” Giovanni said, his smooth Italian purr full of a regret that Mauvais suspected was every bit as false as his own. “Makes sense, then, that Dante, his household, and his father would go underground for the time being, sì?”

  “Perfect sense,” Mauvais agreed, taking a final sniff of lavender before tucking the handkerchief back i
nto his sleeve. “Perhaps we should give it a week or two or three and then return.”

  Giovanni nodded. “At the very least.”

  Loki laughed, a low, amused chiming, his gleaming gaze flicking from Mauvais to Giovanni and back again. “You’re doing it again. Both of you.”

  Mauvais arched one eyebrow. “Oui? And what would that be?”

  “Playing your little vampire games. Trying to misdirect me with half-truths and outright lies. Tap-dancing madly. But all you’ve managed to do is fuel my curiosity.”

  “We only wish to protect what belongs to us,” Giovanni said, his voice heated steel. “Your grudge is against this Lucien De Noir, not his son. What the Fallen do to one another is none of our business, but Dante is a True Blood—”

  “And Fallen,” Loki said quietly. “Which makes him Fallen business.”

  Not for the first time, Mauvais regretted the timing of the release of Dante’s announcement. He regretted even more the inadequate shields of the younger vampires aboard the Winter Rose while in the presence of a fallen angel.

  A very curious fallen angel, and one adept at plucking thoughts and emotions from fledgling minds.

  “No.” Giovanni shook his head. “He is vampire first. Our bloodlines are determined by the mother. Dante’s mother was vampire, not Fallen. Therefore he is ours.”

  Laughing once more, Loki shook his freshly-barbered head—Time for a change. Do you happen to have a barber on board, as well?—his red locks cupping his skull and curving against his temples in a rakish cut that reminded Mauvais of long-ago highwaymen and Romantic poets.

  Now there’s a dangerous combination, he mused.

  “Vampire bloodlines mean nothing,” Loki said, once his musical laughter had ended. “Less than nothing. Only Dante’s Fallen bloodline matters.”

  Giovanni stiffened. His sea scent, deep and stormy, intensified. When he opened his mouth for what would no doubt be a scathing—and disastrous—rebuttal, Mauvais gave the Italian’s shoulder a warning squeeze.

  Mauvais chastised,

  Giovanni snapped his mouth shut. He glanced away, jaw tight, hazel irises slashed with red.

  Offering Loki an apologetic smile, Mauvais said, “No one is playing games. Not now, anyway,” he amended smoothly. “I truly believe waiting a few weeks for things to cool down, to give Dante time to return, would be wisest.”

  Loki regarded Mauvais with shrewd, golden eyes. “And once Dante does, what glib lie will slip from your tongue then, hmm? That by the time you realized Dante had returned, he’d already departed for a tour of Europe? Or will I need to snatch the truth from another member of your household?”

  “That was unfortunate,” Mauvais admitted ruefully.

  But it had allowed him the opportunity to slip a tracking chip onto the back of Loki’s torc while he’d been distracted questioning Rafe. If the immortal should catch wind of Dante’s whereabouts first, Mauvais intended to follow.

  Although stunned by Dante’s little coming out announcement, Mauvais had also been pleased to realize that his suspicions about the defiant marmot had been correct.

  True Blood and Fallen. And utterly invaluable to the vampire race.

  And with that realization, Mauvais’s long-held desire to have one of the Fallen standing at his side transmuted into a desire to have Dante standing at his side instead, an alchemical bit of magic—not lead into gold, but gold into diamonds—crafted by equal parts ambition, practicality, and a deep-rooted instinct for survival.

  We are stagnating. Our Bloodline diluted, tainted. Dante’s blood will renew us. Inject much-needed chaos into our ordered existence.

  Convincing the young True Blood to overlook the fact that Mauvais had ordered his home burned to the ground, resulting in the death of a household member, could prove to be a bit of a challenge, however.

  A challenge, oui. But not impossible. Not with the future of our race hanging in the balance.

  “It would ease our minds if we knew what you intended for the Nightbringer’s son,” Mauvais said. “True Bloods have become increasingly rare, and we’re quite loath to lose one because his father is involved in some kind of blood feud with you. Surely you can understand our concern.”

  A slow smile curved Loki’s lips. “I mean this Dante no harm. In fact, I hope to become indispensable to him. The most intimate of friends.”

  Mauvais found himself oddly unsettled by the fallen angel’s reassuring words. The tension radiating from Giovanni’s tightly strung body suggested he’d also found the words less than comforting.

  Giovanni confirmed this by sending:

  Mauvais sighed.

  “A noble gesture, given your animosity toward his father,” Mauvais said to Loki, with an acknowledging nod.

  “Indeed,” Loki murmured, his attention now fixed on the crowd. “Interesting mix of individuals. What manner of creaw . . . creature is this Dante?”

  Wondering what word Loki had intended to use before changing it to creature, Mauvais followed the fallen angel’s line of sight. The swelling crowd was mostly composed of vampires—the majority of them out of town strangers; they glided like pale sharks amongst the mortals. Usually it was the other way around, Dante’s and Inferno’s mortal fans choking the sidewalk in leather and velvet and fishnet and musk.

  “He’s a rare beauty,” Mauvais mused. “Riveting. But he’s also a defiant prick and a true pain in the ass. Disrespectful, sarcastic, a catalyst for chaos.”

  Loki chuckled. “I like him already.”

  “Well, since he’s not here and no one knows where he is . . .” Mauvais began, his words stopping as he caught a peripheral flash of movement from the street, movement aimed straight for him. He deftly sidestepped the onrusher, grabbing a handful of purple hair as he did, and slammed his would-be attacker face-first into the club’s stone façade.

  Breathing in the clean, sharp smells of soap and cinnamon along with the scorched and bitter reek of rage—and garlic?—Mauvais spun the vampire around and pinned him to the wall with a hand to his pale throat.

  Purple hair, red-streaked silver eyes, a snarling and cornered panther dressed in jeans and a black Voodoo Fest T-shirt, the smooth-cheeked youth looked no older than sixteen. But Mauvais knew better. This vampire was young, oui, but he was no longer a teenager. He did look familiar, however.

  Perhaps he was a member of that traitorous Vincent’s household?

  “Motherfucker,” the youth spat, struggling to twist free of Mauvais’s implacable hold. “You killed her. You took her from us. And for what?”

  Mauvais tilted his head, considering the accusation. “Oui. Most likely I did—whoever she was.”

  “Simone. Her name was Simone, you jackass. She died because of you.”

  “And no doubt you intend to make me pay, rue the day I was born, and/or tear out my heart and feed it me. How very tedious and melodramatic of you. And, to be honest, I don’t know which is the worse crime.”

  “Tedious,” Loki said. “Without a doubt. Melodramatic is entertaining at least.”

  The youth’s gaze shifted to Loki, nostrils flaring. Panic fired in his eyes; extraordinary eyes, Mauvais reflected, eyes the color of moon-kissed silver.

  “Fallen,” the young vampire breathed.

  Mauvais tensed, a dark suspicion creeping into his mind. Most vampires wouldn’t know Fallen by scent alone since most had never encountered one of the immortals. Except for those, of course, in Dante’s household. A chill iced the base of Mauvais’s spine. Mon Dieu. Could his luck really be this bad?

  “You’ve been around Elohim before,” Loki stated in a chiming purr, coming to the same conclusion as Mauvais. “Do you know the Nightbringer? Or his son?”

  “I’ve seen them at the club,” the youth replied, his fury banked, but not gone, “but I don’t know them.”

  “Ah, a
shame. What’s your name, boy?”

  “Silver.”

  “He’s just angry about some girl,” Giovanni dismissed. “Simone. This is tedious, Guy. Send him on his way so we can hunt.”

  Mauvais nodded, relaxing his hold on the boy’s neck. “Oui. Excellent idea. We’ve wasted enough—”

  “You and Giovanni can go hunt,” Loki interrupted, one large hand locking around the boy’s shoulder. The boy winced as black talons sank into his flesh through the T-shirt. “Or do whatever you wish. Silver and I have a few things to discuss, including how to tell when one is lying.”

  Mauvais shared a dark, despairing look with Giovanni as the fallen angel forced Silver into the narrow alley between Club Hell and DaVinci’s Pizza.

  Mauvais sent.

  Giovanni bowed his head and buried his face in his hands.

  32

  SHAPE-SHIFTER

  SILVER STARED AT THE fallen angel, cold fingers closing around his heart. For the first time since Dante had disappeared, he was grateful he didn’t know where to find him. The angel studied him with eyes as cold as winter stars, his scent crackling with ice and cold stone, the fallow earth of ancient graveyards.

  “I have no desire to harm you,” the fallen angel said, pulling his talons free of Silver’s shoulder, but not releasing him. “Or Dante. But my patience has been worn thin. So I will ask you one more time, and if you lie to me again, I will be forced to gather my information in a more direct manner.”

  “Ain’t lying,” Silver replied, pleased at the steadiness of his voice. “I don’t know Dante or the Nightbringer. I came to the club to see him tonight, after his announcement, y’know? But, as I’m sure you noticed, the place is fucking closed.”

  Silver felt two anxious presences hovering in the alley’s narrow mouth. He had a feeling it was Mauvais and his burgundy-haired buddy, but didn’t risk a look. He kept his attention fixed on his captor’s cold and handsome face.

  The angel’s lips twisted into an eager smile. “A more direct manner it is, then.”