A Rush of Wings (23 page)

Ronin tilted his head. “There it is again…
us
. I set
Dante
up. I can’t help it if you’re along for the ride.” He
moved
.

Something slammed against Heather’s temple. Blue light flickered through her vision. She staggered. The .38 was ripped from her grasp, tearing the fingernail on her trigger finger down to the quick. Pain arced up to her elbow. A gleaming pin-wheel spun through the air. The .38 clattered onto the roof of CUSTOM MEATS. Rough hands spun her around, an arm slid around her throat. Squeezed.

“Time for Dante to wake up,” Ronin said, his voice smooth, affable. “And time to bid you good night.”

Heather’s vision darkened. She drove an elbow back, hoping to connect with Ronin’s wounded side, and slammed her foot down on his at the same time.

He squeezed harder.

She gasped for air. Her fingernails tore into his arm.

Darkness swallowed her whole.

***

IN A JAGGED SHOWER of glass, Dante landed in a half crouch on the concrete below. An old stench of spilled blood and terror permeated the building, clung to it like a starving leech. He straightened, bits of glass dropping from his shoulders and hair and scattering across the stained and dusty floor. Thick curved hooks and dangling chains gleamed in the darkness. No power. No lights. Only a little bit of moonlight leaked in from the broken skylight. But that was all the light he needed, and more.

An image flickered: blood spraying across white walls, blank faces, a window. A voice, asking,
What’s he saying
?

The image vanished, but Dante’s unease deepened. Pushing his shades to the top of his head, he listened. Two hearts. One slow, a little erratic; the other deep and steady. One mortal. One nightkind. Adrenaline burned through Dante’s muscles. Drawing in a deep breath of tainted air, he
ran
.

Chains clinked in Dante’s wake, and memory clawed at him with cold fingers. Pain prickled behind his eyes. He ignored it. Just as he reached the cavernous building’s far end, a door scraped open, metal shrieking against concrete. Nightkind scent. Clean and spicy, blood-fed and warm. Familiar.

Flickering light spilled from the opened freezer door—candle-light—and a form hurtled out with nightkind speed. Black braids, café au lait skin, eyes black as burned coffee and just as bitter.

Étienne.

Dante headed straight for him, going low and fast. Étienne swerved at the last moment before impact, but Dante spun with him, slamming a forearm across his face.

Blood spurted from Étienne’s broken nose. He hit the floor hard with Dante on top of him. Air exploded from his lungs. Grabbing a handful of blue-beaded braids, Dante slammed Étienne’s head against the concrete over and over. Something cracked—floor, skull, Dante wasn’t sure. A deep ache radiated through his right side. Glancing down, he realized Étienne was hammering a fist against his ribs.

Dante smashed his fist against Étienne’s swollen nose. The vampire’s eyes rolled up white and he went limp. Dante paused, blood-smeared fist still lifted, braids still clutched in his other hand. He listened. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

Too easy. Too fucking easy.

Heather was wrong. Either someone—Étienne?—was copycatting her killer or her killer wasn’t working alone. Mortal DNA, she’d said.

Glass crunched beneath boots. Dante let go of Étienne’s braids and lowered his fist. Another heartbeat. Another familiar scent. Nightkind. His muscles coiled. He slid off Étienne’s motionless body and straightened. His hair fluttered as the newcomer rushed past him. Dante breathed in the smells of dark tobacco, ink, and desert sand. His hands knotted into fists.

How about a nightkind journalist with a pervy mortal assistant who liked to sneak peeks?

Dante swiveled around to face the open freezer door. Ronin leaned against the wall beside it, one leg braced behind him, a cold smile stretching his lips. His eyes gleamed. Shades dangled from his hand.

“Lying motherfucker,” Dante spat.

Ronin spread his hands. “You should know. You’ve been
living
a lie.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “Wake up, S. Time to wake up. All of this is for you.” He stepped into the freezer, stepped toward the source of the irregular mortal pulse.

Jay.

Dante launched himself, diving across the threshold and into quivering orange light. Rolling to his feet, he looked up. And froze.

A figure hung by the ankles from a metal hook, wrapped and hoisted in dull chains, strapped into the white cocoon of a straitjacket. Blond hair swept against the floor. Pale face. Nearly white lips. Closed eyes.

Images flashed and whirled through Dante’s mind. A glimpse of red hair. The reek of clotting blood. The cold gleam of chains. Pain blasted through his mind, dropping him to his knees like a sucker punch to the temple. His vision whited out.

Dante-angel
?

What’s the little psycho saying
?

“You can still save him, True Blood. All you have to do is wake up.”

Wasps droned, crawled angrily beneath Dante’s skin. Staggering to his feet, dizzy with pain, he threw himself at Ronin.

The journalist sidestepped Dante’s rush, shoving as he passed. Off-balanced by Ronin’s push and his own momentum, Dante slammed shoulder first into the wall. As he twisted around, a hand latched onto his throat and bulldozed him into the wall. Dante’s head snapped back against the concrete. Color fractured his vision.

The fingers around his throat squeezed. Struggling to breathe, Dante locked one hand around Ronin’s steel-corded wrist. Energy pushed at Dante’s shields. Sweat trickled down his temples, stinging his eyes. His shields rippled, faltered. Gasping for air, he hammered his other fist into Ronin’s gut again and again.

Ronin doubled over, his fingers sliding away from Dante’s throat. Sucking in a throat-burning gulp of air, Dante hooked his hands on either side of the journalist’s head and rammed Peeping Tom’s smug, lying face into his upraised knee.

Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.

Dante shoved Ronin away from him, tossing him completely across the freezer. The journalist stumbled, struggling to retain his balance.

Blood slid down Dante’s throat. He wiped a hand under his nose. Blood, gleaming almost black in the candlelight, smeared the back of his hand. Wincing in the light, he reached for his shades and realized he’d lost them in his fight with Étienne.

Nausea twisted through Dante’s gut. The migraine pierced his mind with blinding shards of white light, hacked at his thoughts. But one thought persevered—Jay.

Dante shoved the pain below. Pushing himself away from the wall, he went to the center of the freezer. Jay’s eyes opened. Relief flickered in their green depths. A smile ghosted across his lips.

“
Mon ami
,” he breathed. “I’m so sorry—”

“Shhh.
Je suis ici
.”

Dante circled Jay’s bound and dangling body, his eyes on Ronin. The journalist straightened, his dark eyes calm above his blood-smeared face. Gaze never leaving Ronin, Dante slipped his arms around Jay, lifting him up and off the hook. As he crouched, easing Jay onto the concrete floor, Ronin grinned. Then he
moved
.

Uncoiling upward, Dante placed his feet on either side of Jay’s body and braced himself for Ronin’s attack. Denim slid across latex. As Dante ducked and swiveled, something caught his hair and yanked his head back. Pain rippled through his scalp.

“Caught you,
marmot
.” Étienne, up from concrete floor and joining the fight.

A flurry of fingertip jabs hit Dante in quick succession, stone-edged and quick; then Ronin whirled away. Minefields of pain exploded with each jab. Base of throat. Sternum. Gut. Crotch. Dante gasped for air, but gagged instead as his burning insides tried to turn themselves inside out. He spat blood onto the floor. His vision blurred.

Ronin wheeled around for another pass. Dante swung his arms up, blocking the first two blows. The last two knifed into his ribs on either side. Pain stole his breath.

Send it below or fucking use it
.

“Your pretty little FBI agent won’t be joining you,” Ronin said. He knelt beside Jay. “A shame, really. Might’ve been amusing.”

Heather
. The thought hurt, a jagged splinter of glass. Light pinwheeled through Dante’s vision. His head ached. Pain pounded at his temples.
Jay
.

Send it below or fucking use it
.

Dante leaned back into Étienne’s warm body, then stepped forward and kept moving. Pain tore through his scalp as tendrils of hair ripped loose, still wrapped around Étienne’s fingers. Blood trickled down his neck, sticky and warm.

“Wake up, S,” Ronin murmured. His forefinger slipped across Jay’s throat.

Blood sprayed across the grimy floor and spattered Ronin’s face, the white straitjacket. Jay choked.

“No!” Dante dropped to his knees beside Jay and bit into his own wrist. Blood welled up, dark and rich and full of life.

Jay looked at him, eyes dilated, scared. And dying.

Arms locked like steel bands around Dante. Yanked him onto his ass. He struggled to break free, twisting, and driving an elbow back into Étienne’s ribs. The vampire’s breath exploded from him in a pained
whoof
. Dante scrambled to get his feet under him. Etienne dug in his fingernails, piercing latex and skin. Dante hissed.

The blood flowing from Jay’s slit throat had already slowed. It spread in an ever-widening pool around Jay, staining his hair red. Jay’s half-lidded gaze fixed on Dante.

“Hang on,” Dante said. “Hang on.”

A smile flickered across Jay’s pale lips.

Throwing himself forward with every bit of adrenaline-fueled strength he had, Dante dragged Étienne with him across the floor as he crawled to Jay. Sweat trickled into his eyes. Pain needled his temples. He sank his teeth into his healing wrist. Blood welled up again.

I knew you’d come for me
.

Jay’s thought penetrated the pain snaking through Dante’s mind, silenced the voices whispering from below.

I knew you’d come
.

More weight dropped on Dante, flattened him against the concrete floor. Another set of hands pulled at him, yanking him back up onto his knees. Straitjacketed him with steel arms. Thighs pinned him. A hand closed on his throat, around the collar.

I knew
.

Dante strained to pull free of the limbs holding him, strained to lower his mouth to his wrist. Strained to haul all three of them across the floor. He slid maybe a foot forward before his strength gave out.

A sigh escaped Jay’s lips. His heart stopped. The light winked out of his eyes.

A hand brushed Dante’s hair aside. Warm lips touched his ear.

“How does it feel,
marmot
?”

Dante screamed.

19
Elohim

«
^
»

W
INGS SLASHING THROUGH THE night air, Lucien flew, eyes closed, listening to the complicated aria vibrating through his heart and mind and weaving a dark refrain of information into his consciousness. He now knew the singer, how far he had traveled. And why.

So Lucien kept silent, his own
wybrcathl
unvoiced. He refused to share anything with the one warbling into the lush New Orleans night.

Cool, moist air rushed past him, beading his face with moonlit drops of dew. Lucien still tasted Dante’s blood, dark and sweet, on his lips. Still felt his reluctance and frustration. Smelled his hurt, sharp and bitter.

You’ve always been there for me. Whatever’s wrong, let me be there for you
.

No. Close your mind. Shield it. Promise me
.

Fuck you
.

Promise me
.

Opening his eyes, Lucien pushed all thought of Dante out of his mind. His song wasn’t the only thing he refused to share. His wings swept through the night, kiting him to the ground as he descended into St. Louis No. 3. Dead leaves swirled along the cemetery path, caught in his wing gust. Lucien touched bare feet to the cold stone walk.

An
aingeal
was perched on a mist-shrouded tomb marked BARONNE, his black, leathery wings encircling his body and sheltering him from view—except for his taloned feet. Silver markings, visible only in starlight, etched his wings. His scent, ozone and fallow earth and night-chilled dew, perfumed the city of the dead.

Sudden, unexpected longing burned through Lucien’s veins and tightened his throat. His pulse pounded in time with the
wybrcathl
’s haunting rhythm. Loneliness snaked around his heart. It had been
so
long. Ah, but by his own choice.

“Hail, Loki. Well sung,” Lucien said. “Your invitation has been received.”

The
wybrcathl
ended abruptly and thick silence, absent even of insect song, wound through the cemetery.

“But not answered in kind. Most intriguing, brother.” The
aingeal
’s wings curved back to reveal his bowed head.

Silver markings looped and whorled along the entire right side of Loki’s nude body, across his throat, torso, and taloned hand. Gold-lace bracers encircled both corded wrists and his right biceps. A thick gold torc twisted around his throat. Long red hair veiled his face. Several strands fluttered in the breeze.

Loki lifted his head. Golden eyes glowed in the darkness. “Expecting to be challenged for your aerie?”

“A challenge?” Lucien snorted, folding his arms across his chest. “From
you
?” His wings arched up behind him. “Are you trying to kill me with laughter, brother?”

Folding his wings behind him, Loki glanced up at the moon, a long-suffering expression on his face. “Phaaugh! Same old Samael. No sense of humor.”

“At least I have more than Lilith.” Even after a thousand years or more, he still felt a twinge when speaking her name.