Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (22 page)

“B
eneath still waters I lie / my mother's fingers anchoring my hair / to the porcelain bottom / she ripples above me / a goddess / not a woman / seeking to wash taint from blood / beneath still waters I lie / my mother, my anchor / I close my eyes / and breathe / beneath still waters…”

E read the poem aloud, speaking over the gurgling, wheezing sounds issuing up from the sofa. He closed the book and slipped it back into his satchel.

“I fucking
love
Navarro's work,” he said to the gasping thing on the blood-soaked sofa. “He speaks to the darkest heart.”

Leaning back in the easy chair, E tilted his head and regarded his latest creation.
Thing
was apt. He'd removed everything that made Keith male and placed them artistically around the room. On the coffee table beside a candle. On the bookshelf nestled next to a framed photo of Keith and someone…lover…sibling…who gave a rat's ass?

He grinned. Well,
Keith
probably gave a rat's ass.

The gurgling, wheezing sounds continued. E smoothed his latex-gloved hands down the front of the blood-spattered butcher's apron he wore. Buck-ass naked underneath. Kept his clothes clean and was, frankly, liberating. He leaned forward and dug in his satchel until his fingers found the shape he sought. He pulled out a cordless drill. Tapped the on button. It whirred to high-speed life. He pulled down the welding goggles parked on top of his head and walked to the sofa.

Dead, was he?

Case closed, was it?

The wet gasping sounds became faster and more frantic.

“Time to recite a poem for me,” E murmured, lowering the drill.

L
UCIEN FELL
. T
HE WORLD
spun beneath him. The city blurred into a single point of dazzling light. Cold air whistled past, frosting his cheeks and icing his hair, his wings.

Dante's barriers had been smashed. Fragmented memories crept out of the depths and slithered across his consciousness. Pain devoured Dante from the inside out, pain strong enough to knock Lucien from the sky.

Chaos song, dark and twisted and pulsing, flowed into Lucien's scorched mind. Maker. Unmaker. Unguided and abandoned.

He knew in that moment he'd failed his son. Just as he'd failed Genevieve. Just as he'd failed Yahweh.

The tall spires of a church loomed up beneath him; weathered black steeples filled his vision. He crashed through the ancient wood, plummeting through attic and ceiling and thick wood beams, body spinning with each blow. His bones broke. Fractured wood punctured his wings. Pain enveloped him in a red-hot web.

Like a star, Lucien fell into a gleaming chamber. Above him the words SANCTUS SANCTUS SANCTUS DOMINUS DEUS SABAOTH curved across the high arched ceiling.

His pain backwashed into the link. Dante's song faltered, and then stopped.

<
Lucien?
>

Using the last of his strength, Lucien closed the link between them. Then he smashed into the thick wood pews. Pain wracked his body as splintered slabs of polished wood flew up into the candle-perfumed air of St. Louis Cathedral. He hit the floor.

The golden ceiling whirled. SANCTUSSANCTUSSANCTUS blurred into a streak of amber paint.

Lucien fell into darkness.

H
EATHER DRIFTED UP FROM
the dreamless dark. Her head ached. She opened her eyes and stared into a cloud-smudged night sky. She was on the ground—hard, damp gravel judging by the way her back felt. Her thoughts spun backward.

A rush of wind. Exploding glass.

Time for Dante to wake up.

Ronin's voice echoed through Heather's throbbing head. She sat up, or tried to. Something jerked hard on her right wrist, clunking, and she slid onto her side. She sucked in the smell of wet dirt, oil, and moldering trash. She glanced at her right wrist. Metal gleamed. She was handcuffed to a drainpipe in the alley.

How long had she been out? Was Dante still inside? And Ronin?

Heather scooted toward the drainpipe. Putting her back to the building, she sat up. She examined the cuffs. Probably her own. She reached for her purse, but it was gone. She finally spotted it at the other end of the alley, the contents strewn like confetti all along the packed-gravel lane. She thumped her head against the building.

And her .38?

A quick look around confirmed it was nowhere in sight.

“Shit. Shit. Shit!”

Memory sparked. A pinwheel of metal whirling through the night. She looked up at the roof of CUSTOM MEATS. All right. Had to be a way up. A full clip in her pocket…Heather grabbed at the trench, feeling for the magazine beneath the fabric. Her hand closed over a rectangular shape.

Exhaling in relief, she looked at the building's side entrance. The door stood partially open, spilling shadows into the narrow alley. She listened, but heard nothing. Her gaze skipped across the debris from her emptied purse: Makeup bag, badge, wallet, keys, spearmint gum, fingernail clippers, cell phone, nail file, mini-flashlight.

Heather's gaze whipped back to the nail file. If she could reach it, maybe she could
dig
the bracket loose; dig and chip and pry.

Leaning over as far as her cuffed wrist would allow, she reached for the file, her fingers wriggling through the gravel. She stretched, cuff scraping her wrist, bruising the bone. Her fingers scrabbled, dirt working up under her nails.

Breath rasping in a throat gone tight, wrist throbbing, Heather pushed herself back against the building. Too far. If she had something she could snag it with, pull it in…

Easing down on her side, cuffed arm extended behind her, she felt around in the gravel with her feet, scooping with her shoes, kicking pebbles, little bits of shells and glass, cigarette butts, and petrified wads of chewing gum up toward her hand.

Her fingertips glided over metal. She looked down into the gravel. The dirt-stained file rested next to her hand. She curled her fingers around it, clutched it tight against her palm.

Scooting back into a sitting position, Heather twisted the file around and, grasping it like a knife, worked it under one edge of the bracket and pried. The file chipped paint from the drainpipe and its bracket. Gritting her teeth, she twisted the file under the bracket.
Give, damn you!

One edge of the bracket abruptly pulled away from the building. The file sliced through the air and Heather fell back onto her elbow. Dropping the file, she worked the cuff down and off the drainpipe.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to the back of the building. She jumped up, caught the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder, and pulled. The ladder slid down, the clanging metal loud as a falling Dumpster lid at four in the morning. She grabbed the cold rungs with both hands and climbed, dangling handcuff tinking against the rail.

As she stepped from the ladder onto the roof, shards of star-lit glass caught Heather's attention. She saw a broken skylight at the roof's midpoint.

Exploding glass. Dante.

Heather paused every few steps to break up the rhythm. Didn't want Ronin to know she'd escaped.
If
he was still here. She crouched down and scanned for a gleam of metal, for the .38 Colt's familiar shape. Then she saw it among the broken glass near the skylight.

She stood, forcing herself to continue the step-step-pause step-pause unrhythm. Slipping her hand into the trench's pocket, she pulled out the magazine. She knelt, careful not to crunch any of the spilled glass, and picked up the .38. Slammed the cartridge-filled clip into it.

A scream sliced through the silence, desperate and raw with denial. She froze, pulse pounding. The sound died away after several time-stretching seconds, fading into a low growl of long-simmering rage.

Dante.

Heart pounding, Heather jumped to her feet and ran for the ladder. She flung herself onto it and half climbed, half jumped to the ground. She rounded the back corner and pelted up the alley to the side door, then slipped inside CUSTOM MEATS.

D
ANTE'S ANGUISHED HOWL LIFTED
the hair on the back of Ronin's neck, iced his blood. He almost released the boy.
Almost.
More than a little madness and blood rage edged that echoing cry. Even Étienne's mouth snapped shut—gloating whispers silenced.

Ronin tumbled into Dante's mind as the shields he pushed against crumpled inward, pain swarming against his intrusion like a disturbed hive of wasps. Images whirled, broken and fragmented, through Dante's mind—images Ronin had difficulty deciphering.

An anarchy symbol cut into a pale torso…

A falling drop of blood forms into a metallic-looking wasp and flies away…

A shattered window, but one that stretches across the horizon…

Dizzied, Ronin withdrew from Dante's mind. Johanna had done her job well. The boy was more fucked up than he'd imagined. Disappointment curled through him. Dante's shields had fallen, but memory still hid, disguising itself with symbols. He'd awakened, but saw only in tarot card pictures—powerful, but confusing. True memory lurked within his subconscious.

Maybe a little more incentive?

Hooking his fingers in Dante's silken hair, he yanked his head back, pulled his throat taut. The boy struggled against Ronin's and Étienne's tight hold, muscles straining.

You'll never taste my blood.

Ronin sank his fangs into Dante's throat, just above the bondage collar. Hot blood tasting of dark, sun-warmed grapes and spiced with adrenaline and rage spurted into his mouth. Ronin swallowed mouthful after heady mouthful. True Blood, oh yes. And more. Electric energy surged through Ronin's veins. He wrapped his arms ever tighter around the struggling young vampire, pressed his lips ever closer against his fevered flesh. Dante's strong heartbeat pulsed through his consciousness.

Ronin hears a rush of wings.

No longer able to separate his heartbeat from Dante's, Ronin wrenched his mouth from the boy's throat. The taste of Dante's blood lingered on his tongue, simmered in his veins, blazed like holy fire in his mind.

“You were wrong, boy,” Ronin said. “I've had more than a taste.”

“Let me up,
chien
, and we'll see how long you keep it,” Dante said, voice low and strained.

True Blood
and
…? The memory of Lucien De Noir's dark and earthy scent quickened Ronin's thoughts. And
Fallen
? Intriguing possibility. If so, it was information Johanna'd lacked. She'd never known or cared who had fathered Dante. Careless and a mistake.

Heart slowing, Ronin unwrapped his fingers from Dante's hair. Slid his hand once again across the leather collar circling the child's throat. His fingers tightened.

“All of this for you. See?” Grasping Dante's chin with his other hand, Ronin aimed the boy's face at the mortal's straitjacketed body. “For you.”

Dante's fury battered against his shields like a jackhammer. Ronin's fingers squeezed until the boy, gasping for air, slumped against him. Étienne slammed a fist into Dante's damaged ribs. A rib cracked. The boy hissed in pain.

“I'm gonna burn your household and make you watch,
marmot
,” Étienne said. “I'm gonna drink dry…” His words trailed off. He glanced at Ronin, face puzzled. “What's
that
?”

A faint bluish light glowed from Dante's palms. Ronin tensed. Inner alarms sounded, flooding his system with adrenaline. What, indeed? Power surged from the youth, chaotic and uncontrolled.

And definitely
not
vampiric.

Dante twisted in his embrace, struggled to bring those glowing hands up. As Ronin released the boy, flinging his arms wide, three things happened simultaneously:

Étienne said, “You're not going anywhere,
marmot
.”

Dante's skin brushed against the last two fingers of Ronin's left hand.

Étienne's head snapped forward, then back, braids flying, as a gunshot cracked through the building.

Ronin leapt to his feet. Chaotic energy scrabbled through his hand. Plucking. Unraveling.
Unmaking.
Sweat beaded his forehead. Grasping his wrist, he glanced down. The last two fingers of his left hand were
gone
. As in, no longer existed. His hand had reshaped itself as though it'd always possessed only two fingers and a thumb.

He stared, heart thudding hard against his chest. The pain ebbed. His mind refused to accept what it was seeing. A flash of motion caught his attention and he looked up.

Dante stood and swiveled with mind-numbing speed to face Ronin. Even blood-spattered and bruised, Dante's beauty mesmerized. Rage smoldered in the boy's suddenly
gold
-streaked eyes, a sharp-edged rage honed for twenty-three years. But beneath that—old grief, renewed.

Gold-streaked eyes. A Fallen attribute? Or was S awakening?

“Her name was Chloe,” Ronin said. “And you killed her.”

Dante froze. Pain flickered in his eyes.

Ronin
moved
.

Heather squeezed the .38's trigger again. The shot tore through empty space, the sound exploding in the room. She whirled, trying to track Ronin, and caught him hitting Dante with a flurry of blows, pummeling him down to all fours on the concrete floor. Before she could even blink, Ronin landed a vicious kick into Dante's ribs, knocking him halfway across the room.

Heather fired two more rounds. A pained grunt told her that at least one bullet hit the mark. She circled the room, .38 clasped in her white-knuckled hands. Edged ever closer to Dante.

Dante coughed, then spat.

Silence.

Heather lowered the .38. Ronin was gone. Drawing in a deep breath of blood- and candle-wax-scented air, she stepped over to Étienne's Raggedy Andy–sprawled body.

“Dante,” she called over her shoulder. “You okay?” She realized how inane that sounded—of
course
he wasn't okay; his friend was dead and he'd had the crap beaten out of him—but she needed to hear his voice, to gauge how
much
he'd been hurt.

“Lucien…no!” he said, voice husky, alarmed.

Lucien?
De Noir was nowhere in sight. But Dante had told her what she needed to know. He was hurt. Maybe bad. Heather crouched beside Étienne. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder at Dante. He knelt on the floor, head bowed, black hair hiding his face. His fingers touched the floor on either side of him as though for balance.