But Chloe finished it for him. “Drink me all up. Monsters and fairy tales and poisoned apples.”
“ ’Fraid so, p’tite.”
Footsteps pounded ever closer. Dante heard the hummingbird-pulse of mortal hearts. Heard the slide of rounds being chambered. “We need to go, princess. Now. Even if you say no, I’m taking you with me. I ain’t leaving you for them.”
Chloe nodded, her tangled red tresses dancing against her purple Winnie-the-Pooh sweater. “Okay,” she said, “here”—she extended her hand, the fingers uncurling to reveal the key resting on her palm—“I kept it.”
Dante accepted the key with a quick smile and unlocked the cuff with its dangling door handle charm from around his wrist. Cuffs, key, and door handle hit the concrete, the room’s padded walls swallowing the musical clang.
Chloe’s paper wings rustled and her sweet strawberry-and-soap scent washed over Dante as he snugged her securely against his side. She looped an arm around his waist, instinctively tucking her fingers through his belt. Anchoring herself.
He frowned, wondering when he’d grown so much taller than her and, taking in the leather pants and boots he wore, he also wondered where his jeans and duct-taped Converse sneakers had vanished to. Not that he was complaining, but . . .
Wrong. This is still all wrong. Wake the fuck up.
Dante shoved the troubling thought aside. It would have to wait.
“Hold on tight, chère,” he warned, snugging her even closer.
“ ’Kay.”
After aiming a dark and savage fuck-you smile at the camera, Dante moved. He sped out into the hall, streaking past rows of closed steel doors and security/medical monitoring stations, and bewildered faces as he blurred past, a cool and unexpected gust of wind—one most likely smelling of fresh blood, death, and strawberries.
“It feels like we’re flying,” Chloe said happily. “Even without your wings.”
Dante was about to remind her that he wasn’t an angel and therefore lacked wings in the first place, when he heard determined shouts behind them, followed by muted thwips as bullets or trank darts breezed past. Whatever they were—bullets or darts—one breezed through his hair. Then pain burned across the top of his shoulder as another grazed his flesh. Blood trickled hot down his back.
“No bullets!” someone shouted, voice tight and furious. “You might hit the girl.”
Surprised that anyone gave a damn, but still not risking a glance over his shoulder to see who, Dante tightened his grip on Chloe and kept moving.
He’d survive a bullet. Chloe wouldn’t.
He surged forward, pushing for more speed, and hung a left at the next corridor T. More doors and surprised/puzzled faces blurred past. The shouts and sounds of pursuit faded, then vanished.
A glowing red EXIT–STAIRS sign appeared on the right and instinct insisted he take the stairs even while a more rational part of his mind warned him he’d have nowhere to go but down—the hard way—if he did.
Grabbing the handle, Dante yanked the door open and followed his instincts. An alarm blared and he winced as the steady shriek pierced his eardrums and his aching head. By the time the steel door thunked shut behind them, thankfully muffling the alarm, he’d already vaulted up the first flight of stairs.
He’d just rounded the fourth flight of concrete stairs when he heard the door bang open again below.
“Baptiste!”
The same determined voice from before. How was the fucker keeping up? Frowning, Dante mulled over the name said fucker had used—not Prejean, not goddamned S, but Baptiste. . . .
“There’s no way out, Baptiste. You’re boxing yourself in.” Closer, the voice.
Ignoring it, Dante kept going until he hit the final door, wrenched it open, and raced onto the roof and into a night smelling of old tar and damp blacktop and, faintly, of dewed grass. A sudden pain spiked behind his eyes.
A star, cool and white, burned at his mind’s core. A bond. A familiar and constant presence buried beneath pain and broken glass and barbed wire. The sending carried with it the scent of rain and lilacs and sage, a scent he knew intimately.
He saw her then—waves of red hair. Twilight blue eyes, that brightened to moonlit cornflower when she laughed. Lovely, heart-shaped face. Deadly aim with a gun. A woman of heart and steel.
Heather.
10
CARNIVAL BARKER
THE WORLD TREMORED VIOLENTLY beneath Dante’s feet, cracked open. The past receded. And the here-and-now poured in like storm-frothed water through a breached levee.
Lucien soaring through a star-jeweled sky—
Von feeding his blood to Heather—
Guy Mauvais and Lake Pontchartrain—
Trey transformed beneath his hands in blue fire—
Annie slapping his face, telling him, Heather’s in trouble—
A cold-eyed man in a tan trench coat, pulling a trigger—
Dante’s breath caught rough in his throat. Heather’s in trouble. A dark and chilling possibility unfolded within his mind; maybe he wasn’t here alone. Maybe Heather, Von, Silver—hell, even Annie—were locked in their own padded cells and were busy eyeing hooks curving sharp and deadly from the ceilings. One way to find out.
Dante’s sending boomeranged, slamming into his aching mind. His vision grayed. He tasted blood at the back of his throat as blood oozed from his nose. Puddled hot in his ears.
Dante stumbled to a halt near the roof’s edge, and his heart constricted as he looked at the little girl he held so tight, so close. He couldn’t breathe, but it wasn’t blood that stole the air from his lungs this time.
“Chloe,” he whispered.
Her blood spills hot and fragrant and crimson over his fingers . . .
She lies on the concrete floor, staring up at the hook, her blue eyes as wide and empty as a doll’s. The blood from her slashed throat stains her hair a deep red.
She shook her head. “I’m Violet, remember?”
You saved me when I died and floated away from my mommy. You changed me with blue fire—made me look like this.
Creawdwr. Fallen. Nightkind.
Not a punk-ass twelve-or thirteen-year old fighting to protect his princess, but a grown-ass monster who’d killed her instead.
The truth is never what you hope it will be.
Yeah, and it usually carries a motherfucking shiv.
And at the moment, truth and the here-and-now were busy cutting the heart right out of him. It didn’t matter one fucking bit that he hadn’t meant to kill Chloe. It only mattered that he had.
Dante struggled for air, for balance, finding neither—until the rooftop door creaked open behind him. Survival instinct and the need to keep his promise—I won’t let them hurt you—lent him all the balance he needed. Shoving Violet behind him, Dante swiveled, hissing, to face their pursuer. His warning, razor-sharp and primal, cut through the still air.
It was a warning their pursuer, tall and tawny-haired and wearing the prerequisite black suit, seemed to take to heart. The stranger came to an abrupt halt in front of the door. A com set was hooked around one of his ears.
Awesome. No doubt the bastard’s already spread the word.
Dante couldn’t catch said bastard’s scent beneath the thick smell of his own blood. But he didn’t need the bastard’s scent to know that he wasn’t human; the slow pendulum swing of an immortal heart and the pale green sheen of lambent eyes gave that much away.
“There’s nowhere to go—unless you’re planning on jumping,” their pursuer said matter-of-factly. His voice carried a faint accent, one that reminded Dante of Quarter-slumming European tourists. “You’d survive, of course, but Violet might not, if your grip should slip or you landed wrong or even passed out on the way down—not unless you choose to remake her yet again”—he inclined his head respectfully—“Creawdwr.”
<
br /> So the motherfucker knew. Even about Violet. Not good.
“You must be the trouble that showed up at the club,” Dante said, voice low and tight. “You take Heather too? My friends?”
“That’s Mr. Díon,” Violet volunteered, peeking out from behind Dante, one hand gripping his leather-clad hip. “He’s been taking care of my mommy and he gave me my crayons and he sent me here so I could see you again. It was my second time on an airplane.”
“Yeah? Second time, huh?” Dante questioned, keeping his gaze on crayon-gifting Mr. Díon. Molten anger bubbled in his chest, chasing away the chill that was starting to creep back into his bones.
Bastard had intended for Violet to die beneath his fangs.
Had put her on an airplane for that reason alone.
And if he truly held Heather, his intentions for her would be equally fucked.
“As far as I know, your friends are still in New Orleans. But Heather”—Díon’s lips quirked up at the corners, a tiny smile of regret—“died defending you.”
Dante tensed at the cold, brass-knuckled words, then flexed them away. He felt Heather’s presence at the back of his mind, a blue-white star—but distant now, galaxies away. Incommunicado. Whether it was due to drugs, pain, or whatever was preventing him from healing completely, or a mixture of all three, he didn’t know.
But she was alive. That he did know.
Díon’s little lie was a stalling tactic, yeah, a carnival barker’s sideshow lure, but it also suggested that he didn’t have Heather, otherwise the prick would’ve just said so, would’ve dangled her in front of Dante like the ultimate carnival prize—hand yourself over and WIN!
“Menteur,” Dante said, offering a smile of his own—one dark and full of fangs and tasting of blood. “And you just told me everything I need to know.”
The mocking amusement leaked from Díon’s face. His expression became still, thoughtful. “And that would be?”
“You don’t have Heather.”
“You’re wrong. She might not be dead—yet. But that can always change.”
Just more lies. More carnival barker lure. More stalling bullshit.
Or so Dante desperately hoped. There was one way to be sure, to be absolutely positive, but he couldn’t risk trying to send to Heather again, not if he hoped to remain conscious enough to get Violet out of there before more assholes—with guns, this time—joined the party.
A muscle ticked in Dante’s jaw as he decided to ignore Díon’s threatening words, choosing not to play his game—if he truly has her, he’d offer me proof—and lifted Violet, her paper wings crinkling, into his arms and onto his hip. She tucked her box of crayons inside her Winnie-the-Pooh sweater, then looped her arms around his neck, interlacing her fingers beneath his hair. As Dante locked an arm around her waist, he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs beyond the door.
Time to go.
Dante flexed his shoulders. His deltoid muscles rippled, then he felt the slide of velvet across his bare skin as his wings emerged, arching above his head. They unfolded behind him with a soft, leathery rustle.
“There they are,” Violet said with quiet satisfaction.
Díon sucked in a shocked breath. The pendulum rhythm of his heart tocked a little faster “But . . . you’re only a half-blood. You can’t have wings . . . it isn’t—”
Dante turned and leapt up onto the roof’s three-foot-high concrete border. Violet tucked her head into the hollow between his neck and shoulder and snuggled in tight. His wings flared, sweeping through the air. He rose into the night, his boots lifting off the concrete.
“Hold tight,” he murmured.
“ ’Kay,” was Violet’s happy response. “This is my first angel flight.”
“Well, you’re my first passenger, p’tite.”
Díon’s voice cut through the air. “Heather is here. She’s hanging on a hook of her own, bleeding out, and waiting for you to come for her.”
The night spun. The stars disappeared beneath the rolling wheel of the past. A memory only weeks old, still fresh, still fanged, circled into place; the loss of his cher ami literally at the hands of a manipulative nightkind crime journalist, who’d learned about Bad Seed and thought it time Dante learned too—the hard way.
Mon ami. I knew you’d come for me.
A figure hangs by the ankles from a metal hook, wrapped and hoisted in dull chains, strapped into the white cocoon of a straitjacket. Blond hair sweeps against the floor.
“Wake up, S.” Ronin’s finger slips across Jay’s throat. Blood sprays across the grimy floor and spatters Ronin’s face, the white straitjacket. Jay chokes.
“I knew you’d come for me.”
Jay’s last words. He wouldn’t let them be Heather’s as well.
“It’s not too late,” Díon urged. “You can still save her—”
Díon’s words disappeared beneath the deep droning of angry wasps. White light flickered at the edges of Dante’s vision. Pain pulsed at his temples. Shivved his lungs. He swallowed back blood.
He focused on the sounds behind him—the door slamming open, the heavy thud of footsteps as more suits raced on to the roof, the sharp intake of shocked breath. Focused on Jesus Christ and holy shit. Focused on multiple cha-chunks as gun slides were pulled back.
“Hold your fire!” Díon yelled.
Wings slashing through the air in powerful strokes, Dante swung around to face the tall immortal in his black suit. He regarded Dante with wary eyes, sweat glistening at his hairline. Six suits—male and female—formed a semicircle around Díon, guns held in white-knuckled, shaking grips, faces drained of all color. A hard sweep of air from Dante’s wings plastered their clothes to their bodies, gusted through their hair.
“Surrender and you can still save—”
Dante’s song sprang to life, bristling with dark fury. Violet squeaked in surprise as power crackled to life along the fingers of his right hand in pale blue flames. Ghost flames, thin and wavering, barely there, but power enough to cram down Díon’s lying throat. Díon’s eyes suddenly widened. Panic flitted across his face. He took a careful step back toward the door.
Not now, not fucking now, that prick ain’t escaping, Dante thought in mingled frustration and fury as a lightning bolt surged through his skull, torching his mind. The seizure bit into him with electric teeth. The flames surrounding his hands flickered, then vanished as though doused with water, and his song spilled away in a jumble of harsh and jagged notes.
The stars returned in brilliant and broken and endless prickles of light behind Dante’s eyes. His body arched. His fangs pierced his lower lip as his jaw locked. He tasted blood, smelled it.
“He’s going to drop that kid or break her damned ribs,” someone warned.
“Let him,” Díon replied. “Either is fine.”
Just as Dante’s vision whited out, he caught a quicksilver flash of movement, then felt Chloe—no, Violet, ma p’tite ange—yanked from his arms. Heard her scream his name. Heard Díon cursing in furious Spanish at whoever had disobeyed him.
The world whirled and Dante went with it, a torn kite tumbling from the sky. The ground rushed up at light speed, eager to meet him. He had no idea if he’d plummeted eight stories to the Dumpster-strewn blacktop below or just to the roof. Eight stories or ten feet, he hit hard. The air exploded from his lungs. Retching, he tried to suck more in, but his shock-paralyzed lungs refused to work.
“Give me your trank gun,” Díon demanded from somewhere above him.
But breathing seemed like a small thing, really, maybe even an unnecessary thing, as the seizure devoured Dante with a voracious white-hot appetite. Tore him apart, joint by joint, tendon by tendon. Torqued each muscle and limb and wing without mercy.
Send it below or fucking use it.
But below seized the opportunity to fucking use him instead when the dart pierced his throat and threaded ice through his veins.
Below yanked Dante under.
Shoved him down.
<
br /> Kicked his convulsing ass into the shattered, wasp-droning depths.
11
DARK PROPHECY
DALLAS, TEXAS
THE STRICKLAND DEPROGRAMMING INSTITUTE
SHE SEES DANTE, DESPITE the fact that he’s blurring up endless flights of concrete stairs, a red-haired little girl tucked against his side. Sees a determined scowl on his beautiful pale face and crimson striping the deep brown of his irises. Sees blood smeared on the skin above his heart, staining his lips, the skin beneath his nose. His black hair trails behind him, a silken slice of starless night.
For a moment, she thinks she has somehow stumbled into Dante’s memories since he’s carrying Chloe in her Winnie-the-Pooh sweater and purple cords tight against him. Thinks he’s caught in an old and heartbreaking loop—himself and Chloe at the sanitarium—but then she realizes he’s not the thirteen-year-old version of himself in jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, but the lean-muscled adult in boots, leather pants, and bondage collar.
Not the past. Not haunted memories.
Then she notices that black paper wings are taped to the back of Chloe’s sweater. Black paper wings. No plushie orca.
The little girl isn’t Chloe at all.
She’s Violet. The head-shot child Dante had transformed in the motel parking lot in Oregon. And she remembers all the SB agents that had been there. Remembers the sweating, grim-faced agent who ordered the resurrected and newly freckled Violet and her mother away from Dante and—no doubt—into their custody.
And she knows, bone deep—no dream. Not memories. Reality.
Her pulse races. She’s found him at last. Then fear knots cold in her belly. She’s found him, yes—in a desperate run for survival.
A voice with a mild European twist echoes up the stairwell, calling Dante’s name, but he never slows. Yanking open a door, he streaks out onto a rooftop.
She’s right behind him, close enough to touch. She feels the cool night air against her face, smells old tar, coppery blood, and Dante’s scent of frost and burning leaves. But when she tries to grasp his arm, to pull him against her and to safety, her fingertips brush a smooth, invisible barrier—like a one-way observation mirror in an interrogation room.
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