“I didn’t lie to you,” Lucien said, voice tight.
“D’accord, you didn’t lie. But you kept the fucking truth from me and that’s the same as lying. Happy now?”
“How can I be when your search for the truth is tearing you apart?”
“My problem, not yours. Stay outta my business.”
“Impossible. You are my business!”
“Fuck you! I ain’t your business, never was!” Pain fractured Dante’s vision, throbbed at his temples. Blood trickled hot from his nose. “We were friends, remember?”
Lucien looked away. His fingers reached for the pendant that no longer hung at the base of his throat—the rune for friendship, for partnership, that Dante had given him—then closed into a fist. Dante wasn’t sure when Lucien had lost the pendant or how, but its loss seemed somehow karmic to him.
“I made a mistake, one I regret,” Lucien said, returning his gaze to Dante’s. Amber fire flared in his eyes. “But I refuse to keep apologizing.”
“I never asked for a fucking apology.” Rubbing his temples, Dante closed his eyes. Nothing looked right. Blurry. Distorted. “And I ain’t asking for one now either. Quit pushing! Leave me the fuck alone so I can find what I’m looking for. I need the truth or the past will always control me.”
“The truth is never what you hope it will be, Dante. And the cost is always higher than you imagine. Much higher,” Lucien said, his deep voice as low as a sigh. “I thought I could keep you safe in silence. I thought I could hide you, help you heal from all the damage done to you.”
Dante opened his eyes and lowered his hands. Safe in silence?
“I thought I could contain your song or at least muffle it so it couldn’t be heard.” Lucien closed the distance between them with one long stride. His dark-earth scent curled around Dante. “But I was wrong.”
Dante straightened, suddenly uneasy—something he’d never felt with Lucien before. “Hide me? From who? Are you talking about Bad Seed?”
“I didn’t know Bad Seed even existed. No, I hid you from others. Powerful others who would use you without mercy.”
“Others…like him?” Dante nodded at the stone angel hunched on the path.
Lucien’s gaze flicked to the statue, resting for a moment on the flowers swaying in its hand, then back to Dante. “Yes, like Loki. I trapped him to protect you.”
“Yeah?” Dante questioned softly. “From what?”
“The Fallen.”
Lucien’s golden gaze pierced Dante to the core, iced his heart. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would I need protection from them?”
“You aren’t merely True Blood and Fallen, child. You’re much more.”
“And that is…?”
“Creawdwr.” A reverent note sounded in Lucien’s voice. Pride gleamed in his eyes. “You’re a Maker. The only one in existence.”
A chill rippled down the length of Dante’s spine. He looked at the bouquet bobbing in Loki’s hand. “Is that why I can do shit like this?”
“Yes. You can create anything and everything. Your song carries the chaos rhythm of life. And you can unmake, as well.”
Dante’s memory flipped back. The center. Johanna Moore screams as his song pulls her apart, divides her into elements…
Dante returned his gaze to Lucien, his hands curling into fists. “And how long have you known this? That I was a…Maker?”
“From the first moment I met you,” Lucien admitted quietly. “Your song, your anhrefncathl drew me. Just like it drew Loki. Just like it will eventually draw the rest of the Elohim. Unless I teach you—”
“Forget it. No,” Dante said, throat tight, heart pounding out a furious rhythm. “Instead of pretending to be my friend, you shoulda told me the fucking truth! Shoulda offered to teach me then. Now’s a little late.”
Pain prickled behind Dante’s eyes and suddenly it was as if he was looking through a shattered window as Lucien’s image fractured and multiplied. Alarm flickered across Lucien’s now diamond-faceted face. “Child…?”
Something abruptly shifted inside Dante, something long broken, carving into his mind with white light and molten pain. The world spun, the stars streaking the night with gossamer ribbons of light, and he felt himself falling, tumbling down, down, down as memory sheared up, sharp and slick and edged with whispers.
You wanna take her punishment, p’tit? D’accord, take it if you so hellfire eager.
He’s quiet now. Take him down.
Little fucking psycho.
Pain wrenched Dante apart and his vision winked out in an explosion of incandescent light—
Wings rustled.
Dante tasted blood, pomegranate-tart and heady. Felt heated flesh against his cheek. He opened his eyes and looked up into Lucien’s shadowed face. He tried to remember where he was and why he was cradled in Lucien’s lap, held tight within his arms. Lucien’s wings curved forward and purple-tinged darkness folded around them, creating a warm shelter smelling of dark earth and green leaves, of wing musk.
“I was falling…” Dante said, then stopped, uncertain. Or had that been a dream?
“Shhh, mon fils. You’re safe. Rest.” Gold motes danced in Lucien’s dark eyes.
“You need morphine, little brother?” Von asked, voice pitched low.
Ice frosted the base of Dante’s spine. There were only two reasons Von would spike him full of dope. Migraine or…
Another fucking seizure.
“No, mon ami.” The lingering taste of Lucien’s blood on Dante’s tongue, his lips, told him why red-hot pain wasn’t needling his joints and muscles, why he wasn’t sapped of strength. “Did you give me blood? Or did I jump you?”
A smile quirked up the corners of Lucien’s mouth. “I gave.”
“Merci,” Dante murmured. He felt Lucien gently tapping against their closed bond, urging him to reopen the link. Shaking his head, he pushed free of Lucien’s embrace. As he rolled to his knees, kneeling within the circle of Lucien’s wings, the where and why suddenly poured into his mind like water from a broken levee.
The cemetery.
I tried to keep you safe in silence.
The bead-draped stone angel.
Yes, like Loki.
Creawdwr.
Dante’s hands clenched into fists on his leather-clad thighs as his rage reignited. He met and held Lucien’s gleaming gaze.
To Von he sent,
Lucien’s wings swept back and folded behind him. He un-crossed his legs, rising to his feet in one smooth motion. “You are ill, Dante, and hurt. You need time to heal.”
Dante stood. “Don’t tell me what I need.”
A muscle ticked in Lucien’s jaw. “Let the past go. Cancel the tour and let me teach you what you need to keep safe.”
“No.” Dante turned and headed down the path, his fingernails biting into his palms.
“The Fallen will find you, one night,” Lucien said quietly. “And, if I’m not with you to prevent it, they will bind you.”
Dante paused on the path. Deep inside, wasps droned. “If they find me, they ain’t binding me,” he said, his voice low and taut. “They’re gonna hafta kill me.”
“Not if, Dante. When.”
“Peut-être que oui, peut-être que non. Same ending.”
“Not if I can help it.”
“You ain’t got a say,” Dante said, his throat almost too tight for speech. “And we’re done here.” He moved, racing down the path, the night streaking past in a blue-white ribbon, the smells of moss and weathered marble deep in his lungs.
A few moments later, astride Von’s Harley, his hands on the nomad’s hips, the wind cold against his face, Dante wondered if Lucien followed. Wondered if any of the Fallen followed. Wondered if Lucien had finally given him the truth.
I hid you from others. Powerful others who would use you without mercy.
/> The Fallen will find you. And bind you.
No, they wouldn’t. Not ever. Not unless they knew how to bind a corpse.
One way or another, he would be free—his life, his own.
Dante glanced up. The sky was empty but for stars and moon and pale streamers of clouds. Nothing winged above. Not that he could see. And the Harley’s deep-throated rumble swallowed any sound he might hear.
Like a rush of wings.
2 A DARK AND DELICATE SONG
New Orleans, St Louis No. 3
March 15
LUCIEN DE NOIR STOOD motionless on the moonlight-bathed path, Dante’s furious words—They’re gonna hafta kill me—battering his calm like brass-knuckled fists. He drew in a deep breath and forced his muscles to relax. Unclenched his hands.
Perhaps knocking his stubborn son to the ground and sitting on him until reason overcame rage—as Von had suggested a few nights earlier—would be necessary.
Shouldn’t have to sit on him for longer than a week or two, Von says, straight-faced. Maybe three. He’s your son, after all.
I am patient, Lucien reminds him, not stubborn.
Von laughs.
Lucien bent and searched through the scraps of paper at Loki’s stone feet for the blood-kissed prayer Dante had placed among them. Finding it, he plucked it from the pile and straightened. The fading essence of creawdwr blood magic tingled against his fingers. Unfolding the liquor store receipt, he read the words scrawled in Dante’s lefty slant:
Watch over her, ma mère. S’il te plaît, keep her safe. Even from me.
Lucien reread the prayer until the words blurred. He closed his fingers around the receipt, the paper crinkling against his palm. He had no doubt who she was—Special Agent Heather Wallace.
Wounded, his child, yes. Damaged, yes. But Dante’s heart was whole and in love, it seemed, with a mortal. Perhaps Heather Wallace could bind Dante and help keep his sanity from unraveling.
Insanity. The fate of an unbound creawdwr.
Until Dante relented and forgave him, Lucien would be unable to teach his son how to control his gifts. Would be unable to help him keep his balance as creawdwr power raged through his mind and heart. Would be unable to lend him the strength to fight madness.
He wasn’t the only one Dante hadn’t forgiven. Dante also refused to forgive himself. Still sought penance for acts he’d committed as a child struggling to survive, acts he couldn’t even remember. Penance unowed, as far as Lucien was concerned.
Lucien studied Dante’s handiwork, the bouquet his child had created. The soft-petaled flowers in Loki’s hand danced as though breeze-stirred. Thorned tendrils snaked around the stone figure’s arms, neck, and wings. The scent of smoky incense, of myrrh, wafted up from each flower’s glossy black heart, a night perfume.
A song, delicate and dark, chimed up from the bouquet.
Dante’s power strummed across Lucien’s heart and radiated into the star-pricked sky—a beacon for any Elohim within range. A cold finger traced the length of Lucien’s spine. He straightened and listened to the night. Listened for wybrcathl. Listened for the rustle of wings. He heard only the faint pulse of Loki’s stone-caught heart.
Lucien looked at Loki’s crouched and screaming form. Time was running out. Soon, whoever had sent Loki would wonder at his absence.
Ever since Yahweh’s death, well over two thousand years ago, the Elohim had waited for the rise of another creawdwr. But only Lucien knew the wait had ended nearly twenty-four years ago, when a Maker had been born, a creawdwr like no other—vampire and Fallen.
Only Lucien knew—so far.
And he intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Lucien carefully plucked free Loki’s bouquet, unwinding its black roots from around the pale stone. A riot of chiming notes rose into the air, a sharp and wild crystalline song. Inky tendrils slithered free of Loki’s arm and curled around Lucien’s arm, his throat. The song quieted.
A beautiful song. One he would drown in the Mississippi.
Tucking Dante’s prayer into the pocket of his black slacks, Lucien fanned open his wings. Air gusted, extinguishing the few remaining candles still flickering and scattering the prayer-etched bits of paper across the cemetery path.
As his wings flared and swept upward, lifting him into the sky, he suddenly heard another heartbeat. Strong and measured. A rhythm he knew. Hovering just above the cemetery’s main path, Lucien scanned the shadows.
She stepped out of the darkness pooled beneath the cypress. Flowing midnight hair, creamy skin, and gleaming eyes. A red gown clung to her curves and, at her back, her black wings were folded.
Rubies glittered in the slender torc curving around her throat and in the gold bracelets around her slender wrists. A cold smile played across her lips—lips the color of moonlit ruby wine and just as intoxicating.
“No song of greeting, my cydymaith?” Lilith asked.
Without a word, Lucien spun and soared up into the sky. Dante’s black blossoms chimed and sang as the wind stroked their petals. He didn’t need to look to know Lilith followed; he heard the powerful whoosh as she took to the air. He’d always out-winged her in the past. He hoped that was still true. He flew swiftly for the wide, night-blackened curve of the Mississippi, the night cool against his face.
The lights of the city burned bright beneath him, glimmered with headlight glow, except for one dark, empty section stretching to the east—what used to be the Ninth Ward, now a razed shadow reeking of decay. Vévés and gris-gris and blessed candles warded its haunted borders, protecting the rest of an unknowing New Orleans from the bitter and angry spirits trapped within—forever drowning, forever waiting for help that never came. And never would.
Moisture beaded on Lucien’s face as he veered toward the south and the river. Moonlight rippled across the Mississippi’s surface and ship lights glowed red and yellow upon the slow-moving waters.
Lucien caught a glimpse of black and red in his peripheral vision: Lilith had caught up and flew beside him, her wings stroking smoothly through the sky.
So much for out-winging her, he thought wryly.
Ethereal notes rang into the air, clear and lilting. And, for one heart-stopping moment, the centuries dropped away and he was once again flying beneath the deep blue skies of Gehenna, his brilliant and beautiful cydymaith winging beside him, trilling her complicated song.
The sky-rumbling roar of an airplane overhead shattered the illusion and the centuries returned. But Lilith singing, that was no illusion; her desperate wybrcathl filled the air and Lucien’s heart.
What she sang turned his blood to ice.
Gehenna was fading, a land too long without a creawdwr’s powerful and sustaining touch. The border between worlds bled and soon the Elohim would return to the mortal world to rule it for all time.
Then the wars for power would begin in earnest.
3 BLEEDTHROUGH
Above New Orleans
March 15
WINGS FANNING THE AIR, Lucien slowed and descended to the weed-and mud-pebbled banks of the Mississippi, Dante’s black flowers singing in his hand, Lilith’s words echoing in his mind.
Gehenna is fading.
Folding his wings behind him, Lucien knelt on one knee and plunged the blossoms into the dark water, the reek of moss and mud and fish thick in his nostrils. A gust of air swept his hair across his face, and he caught a peripheral flash of red.
“What are you doing?” Lilith cried and grabbed at his arm.
Fending her off with a shoulder flex, Lucien tightened his grip on the flowers and shoved them deeper into the Mississippi. The black tendrils knotted around his hand and arm and throat, twisting tight and digging into his flesh as the bouquet struggled for life. Little bubbles flecked the water’s surface. Lucien thought he detected a faint gurgling underwater song. His chest tightened. He had no other choice. To keep Dante safe, he would do whatever was necessary.
“Stop!” Lilith leaped into the water, then be
nt, her hands searching beneath the surface for his and the things he drowned. Her fingers skittered across the back of his hand. Her talons stabbed.
The bouquet’s inky tendrils slithered free of Lucien’s throat and arm, limp and lifeless. He released the flowers and pulled his hand from the river. Blood welled up in the punctures, even as the wounds healed.
Lilith swished her hands around in the muddy water for a moment longer, then she straightened, a single black flower, drenched and silent, hanging from her hand. She sloshed from the river, her gown wet from the thighs down and clinging to her shapely legs. She fluttered her wings, shaking water from their tips.
Rising to his feet, Lucien fixed his gaze on her. Like all Elohim high-bloods, she was tall, but at six two, she was still a head below his six eight. He remembered the feel of her silky hair as it slid between his fingers, the softness of her wings—even after thousands of years.
An image of Genevieve draped only in a white bath towel, her wet hair streaming past her shoulders, laughing, dark eyes gleaming, flashed behind Lucien’s eyes, and grief closed a fist around his heart.
Lucien was grateful that Dante was gone and on his way to Los Angeles. He was far enough to keep him safe temporarily—but not out of Elohim reach, not yet. Shields tight around his mind and heart, he watched Lilith’s approach.
Stroking one taloned finger along the drowned flower’s stem, sadness glimmered within Lilith’s golden eyes. She lifted her head, the fire in her eyes searing away any trace of the sorrow he’d witnessed just a moment before.
“How could you, Samael?” she demanded. “A creawdwr’s beautiful gift and you killed it like an unwanted kitten.” She flung the flower at him. It fell into the weeds.
“I haven’t used that name since I left Gehenna,” he said. “Call me Lucien.”
“Do you plan on slaying this creawdwr too?”
“Perhaps I already have.”
“Perhaps.”
Lilith crossed the short distance between them, her breasts shimmying beneath the thin silk with each step. She stood in front of him, chin lifted, a knowing smile curving her lips. Her scent reawakened the past, unearthed memories of heated, soft flesh and urgent moans. He tensed, breathing in her warm cedar and amber fragrance, his pulse winging through his veins.
In the Blood Page 3