“Good God,” Stearns whispered.
“You see, sir,” Heather said. “I know exactly who I’ve allied myself with.” She turned. Looking into Stearns’s stunned eyes, she added, “Right now, I trust them more than I trust you.”
***
RONIN WATCHED AS A female face, pale and stark with fear, bolted from the tavern. She ran full-out for the flame-painted Chevy, fumbling keys out of her pocket. Unlike terrorized females in movies, she didn’t trip, didn’t fall down, and her Chevy roared to life the first time she turned the key. Throwing it into reverse, she nearly backed into the black MG parked at a slant across from her. She stomped on the brakes, slammed the gearshift into first and peeled out of the parking lot.
Interesting. What mischief is my little True Blood up to? Although True Blood is no longer accurate, is it? Born vampire, fathered by one of the Fallen.
Excitement curled through Ronin. To pit himself against a True Blood/Fallen hybrid…what greater test of his abilities existed? Especially after he trained the child?
Leaving the engine running, Ronin slid out of the Camaro. He kept his shields tight and his own energy tamped down. The last thing he wanted was for Dante to sense him—to come for him before he was ready.
Ronin glanced at his reshaped left hand. Definitely not in the boy’s file. After he’d split from CUSTOM MEATS, he’d sat down and followed the fading wormhole created by Dante’s touch. His fingers weren’t merely gone, they’d been plucked from his genetic code.
The best part? Johanna had no idea that Dante had managed to keep a secret from her. A world-altering secret.
The tavern door flew open and a mortal in a baseball hat, grubby T-shirt, and jeans rushed into the parking lot. Nearly tripping over his own two feet, he skidded across the gravel to one of the pickups. He yanked the door open, then spotted Ronin.
“Mister!” he cried. “Don’t go in there! There’s a vampire inside! An honest-to-God fucking vampire.”
Ronin smiled.
The mortal shrieked, eyes wider than a cat’s, and practically threw himself into the pickup. He started the engine, but it died. The pungent smell of gasoline wafted through the air. Flooded. Throwing anxious glances over his shoulder, the mortal tried to start the pickup again. The engine caught, sputtered, then evened out into a low chug-chug.
Ronin stood in the parking lot, arms crossed over his chest, wondering if the mortal would give it too much gas again when he backed up.
Grinding gears as he shifted into reverse, the mortal slammed the gas pedal. The pickup lurched backward a couple of yards, then sputtered and died.
Ronin was considering putting the mortal out of his misery when the driver’s side door flew open and the mortal jumped out. He ran across the parking lot, through the bushes and weeds at the edge of the road and onto the highway. He pelted away into the night, his work boots clumping against the pavement.
Shaking his head, Ronin walked to the tavern’s front door. He curled his fingers around the handle, then listened. Silence. He eased the door open. Peeked inside. Bodies littered the blood-smeared floor. He counted four.
Dante’s been a busy boy. Or maybe I should say S.
A throat-scraping scream sliced through the silence, then stopped abruptly. Ronin adjusted the body count to five. He wondered how many bodies Dante had left on the floor of CUSTOM MEATS. Wondered if Agent Wallace still breathed.
Ronin closed the door. He’d seen enough. He returned to the Camaro. Time to get things ready for Dante’s homecoming.
Flipping open his cell, he speed-dialed E’s number. Instead of the voice mail message he’d been receiving all night, Ronin heard the sullen mortal’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“Where have you been?”
“Out. What are you? My daddy?”
“It’s time. Trade the Jeep in for a van. Remember the specifications?”
“Duh. Got Dante, huh?”
Ronin remembered the scream he’d heard inside the tavern. “Oh, yes.”
***
DANTE’S BLOOD-GRIMED HAND LOCKED around the handle of the gas can sitting in the back of the pickup. Voices clamored and screeched. Renewed pain burned through his mind. He walked back into the silent tavern. Splashed gasoline on the tables, pool table, and bar. The heady smell went straight to his head, dizzied him. He poured a trail of gasoline down the hall and to the women’s room.
He’s quiet now. The drugs must be working. I’ll take him down.
He saw a quick glimpse of a pale face framed by short blonde hair, then pain shattered the image. Dante staggered against the restroom door, hand to his temple. He struggled to remain upright. This pain he couldn’t transcend or use. This pain devoured.
Sucking in a deep breath of gasoline-laden air, Dante and his gas can strolled back through the tavern. He pulled a bottle of tequila from the booze-lined shelves behind the bar. He paused at the table where the Good Ol’ Boys had parked their dusty butts and picked up a pack of smokes and a book of matches.
Still sloshing gasoline behind him, he stepped out through the door and onto the porch. He tossed the empty can into the tavern. It hit the floor with an echoing clang.
Shaking out a cigarette from the pack, Dante stuck it between his lips, then lit it. He smoked a while, enjoying the tobacco, trying not to listen to the voices inside.
And…oh, yeah!…the last foster home burns to the ground….
Liar.
White light dazzled Dante’s vision. Pain pulsed. He flicked the half-smoked cigarette inside the gasoline-doused tavern. It lit with a whoommf sound that sent shivers down his spine. Flames licked up into the air.
Tell me, what does that anarchy symbol mean to you?
Heather’s face filled his vision. Her hair flickered like fire. Pain needled his heart. She’s gone. Safe.
Do you still love me, Dante-angel?
Never stopped, princess. Just forgot for a time.
Dante walked to the MG. Leaned against the trunk, tequila bottle in hand. He watched the blazing tavern, his insides all knotted up and twisted like barbed wire, but his heart, uncaged and unprotected, soared.
Tell me, what does that anarchy symbol mean to you?
Rage. Firestorm. Truth.
“Freedom,” Dante whispered.
* * *
24
Broken Trust
« ^ »
LUCIEN CLOSED HIS EYES. From his perch on the roof, he caught the smell of the Mississippi—cold water, moss, and mud. He listened, waiting for Dante’s touch through their link, a touch that might never be felt again. The link was closed, but not severed. At least, not yet. The child might not realize that severing the link would harm them both.
Despite Lucien’s shields, Dante’s blood-frenzied rage and euphoria tugged at him through their bond. Sang to him in chaos song, like that first time on the wharf. He gripped the roof’s edge, his talons puncturing the tiles. His talons—stronger and thicker. Shot through with creawdwr imaginings.
Lucien’s muscles rippled beneath his skin. His remade flesh ached. His hair fluttered behind him in the winter breeze. What else had Dante changed, trying to save him?
Yet another strand to the bonds inextricably linking them: father and son; friend and companion; creator and created.
Was it possible to regain trust, once lost?
Sudden pain, sharp as broken glass, scraped through the bond and sliced at his shields. Lucien flexed the pain away. His child passed out finally, freeing them both.
A lingering image haunted Lucien’s mind like a retinal ghost after a brilliant flash—a concrete stall, flickering light, dripping water; an image he passed along.
Lucien fought the desire to launch himself into the sky, wrestled with the need to go to Dante, gather him into his arms and carry him home. His wings flared and flapped, but he remained perched on the roof like a night-chained gargoyle, listening.
Waiting.
***
HEATHER RATCHETED THE SECOND cuff shut around the chair leg. The other cuff encircled Stearns’s right wrist. She straightened, brushing the hair out of her eyes.
“This isn’t necessary,” Stearns said. “I just want to talk to you.”
“Coffee?” she asked, crossing to the kitchen counter and the coffeepot. The coffee’s aroma, strong and dark, filled the kitchen.
As she poured fresh-brewed coffee into the same cup she’d used last night, her throat tightened. Twenty-four hours plus since she and Dante’d sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and brandy. Talking about the serial killer stalking him.
And who’d found him.
Her muscles knotted as she thought of Elroy Jordan stretched on the sofa in the front room, most likely the killer she’d been hunting for three years. Thought of him standing over her as she slept. Thought of him claiming his cell phone and leaving her and everyone else untouched.
“Go to my car, get the file and take a look; you’ll see Dante for the monster he is.”
Heather turned, hands grasping the counter behind her. Stearns scooted his chair around so he could see her. His face went blank at what he saw in her eyes.
“Monster? I saw monsters tonight,” she said, voice husky, strained. “Two of them.” The memory of Jay lying in a pool of his own blood burned bright in her mind. “Dante may not be human, but he’s no monster.” She locked gazes with Stearns. “I’d stake my life on that.”
“You already have,” Stearns said. “You just don’t know it.” He glanced away. “I came here for you, Heather.”
“For me? Or for Dante?”
Stearns looked back at her, his beard-shadowed face open, weary. “For you. You’ve been marked for termination. Me too.”
Even though she’d expected something bad, real bad, ever since learning about the cover-up, hearing it stated was like a slap to the face. Picking up her cup, she walked back to the table and sat across from Stearns. “Because someone wants to protect the CCK? Or because the investigation led me to Dante?” She spooned sugar into her coffee with a steady hand even though she felt like she’d been gutted.
Marked for termination.
“Both. Dante’s part of the same project that produced the CCK.”
Heather sucked in a sharp breath. Gut-punched again. WAKE UP S. The pieces tumbled into place and the forming picture scared the hell out of her. “His project name,” she murmured. “Who heads the project?”
“Johanna Moore.”
“Doctor Moore? Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. She’s been creating sociopaths for years. To study.”
Heather felt like she’d flipped into an alternate reality: everything looked the same, but underneath, everything and everyone were dark, tweaked opposites of their counterparts in her reality—negative images.
That or she’d fallen asleep and plunged headlong into darkest nightmare.
No such luck.
Stirring her coffee, Heather thought back to her days at the Academy and dredged up memories of Dr. Moore—tall, blonde, charismatic, and brilliant. Her courses in forensic psychology had always intrigued. Her grasp of the sociopathic personality had been uncanny. Her profiles had never missed.
But to create sociopaths?
“She was behind the Pensacola ruse,” Stearns said. “You were getting too close.”
Heather met Stearns’s gaze. Cold certainty cascaded through her, an icy river that chilled her to the bone. He spoke the truth. “How high up does this go?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Stearns replied, shaking his head. “But I think it’s best to behave as though it goes to the top.”
Heather took a sip of coffee, her thoughts whirling. Elroy Jordan and Thomas Ronin—together creating the Cross-Country Killer. And Dante? Why would one part of the project be stalking another? Was Dante a failed experiment? One marked for termination, like herself? Like Stearns?
But what if he was exactly what he was supposed to be—a sociopathic killer?
Pushing her chair back from the table, Heather stood. Fatigue washed through her and her vision darkened. She grabbed the table’s edge for balance.
“We’ll discuss this later,” she murmured as her vision cleared. “I’ve gotta find Dante.”
“Take five minutes,” Stearns said, voice urgent. “Get the file. Look at it.” Reaching into his coat pocket with his uncuffed left hand, he tossed a set of keys onto the table. “Heather, please.”
She stared at the keys, wondering if the file would contain the secrets of Dante’s hidden past. And if so, could he be freed of migraines and nosebleeds? Would the truth have saved Annie from slashed wrists, meds, and institutions?
Maybe, Heather thought, scooping up the keys. She slid them into her pants pocket. Maybe it still would. Stearns opened his mouth, but she shook her head. “Not another word, Craig.”
Heather walked from the silent kitchen and into the hallway. Her overnight bag and laptop rested against the wall. Further down, a faint blue light spilled onto the autumn-etched carpet from a door near the stairway. She heard the faint murmur of Simone’s voice as she spoke to her brother in rapid, musical Cajun.
Heather remembered Dante standing in the locker’s doorway at CUSTOM MEATS, hands braced against the threshold, his dark eyes streaked with deep red; remembered the strain in his voice: Run as far from me as you can.
As she walked down the hall toward the spill of blue light, Heather also remembered Étienne’s head dangling from Dante’s blood-smeared hand; remembered the hot touch of Dante’s lips against her throat, twisting fear and fire through her guts; remembered the wonder in his voice as he spoke her name.
Even if everything Stearns said was true, Dante struggled against whatever had been programmed into his fractured mind. He loved others, something a sociopath was incapable of. Dante’s willingness to sacrifice himself for Jay was all the proof she needed.
But Ronin’s voice snaked through her thoughts.
Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.
Dante struggled now, but had he always?
She shoved the doubt away, knowing she’d examine it closer at another time. For now, she was Dante’s partner, his backup, and she wouldn’t leave him to face Ronin alone.
Pushing open the door to the computer room, Heather looked at Simone kneeling beside her plugged-in and connected brother. Trey reclined in a lounger, his goggled gaze on the ceiling, his capped fingers moving data through the blue-lit air as he searched for the information she’d requested: A search for Elroy Jordan’s movements over the last three years.
***
Dante-angel?
Chloe tugs on the handcuffs, the chain tunk-tunk-tunking against the bedpost. Wake up! Papa took the curtain away. Dante-angel, wakeupwakeupwakeup—
Dante opened one eye. Light shafted in, piercing his already aching head. He shut his eye again. In the MG. Easing his head back against the headrest, he massaged his temples. The car’s interior stank of blood, gasoline, and tequila.
“Fuck.”
Something hard pressed into the small of Dante’s back. Wincing in the fluorescent light, he leaned forward and reached back to the waistband of his leather pants. His fingers wrapped around a smooth, cylindrical shape and tugged it free.
Dante stared at the gun—nine mil, a voice whispered—in his bloodstained hand. His breath caught in his throat as images strobed through his bruised mind. The sudden rush of violence—vivid, stark, intoxicating—slammed his heart into overdrive.
“The tavern…” he whispered.
Another dizzying montage of images: A broken pool cue spinning through the air; a knife plunging through his hand; a black-haired woman crouched behind the bar, terror on her face; an iridescent rose tattoo.
The taste of LaRousse’s bitter blood.
The gun tumbled from his fingers to the floorboards. Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Touched his fingers to his temple. Shaking, muscles taut, he pushed past the pain, bu
t the images whited out. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop the flood of broken memories; couldn’t control them, couldn’t even hold onto them.
Dante opened his eyes. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. He breathed in the smell of wet concrete and mildew and soap. But beneath that, he caught the stench of old slaughterhouse blood.
Pain ice-picked his mind. CUSTOM MEATS. Ronin and Étienne. Jay, bound and hanging from a meat hook. Ronin’s fangs piercing his throat. Heather kneeling beside Étienne, her gun pressed against his chest.
I knew you’d come.
You can still save him, True Blood.
Liar. Liar.
“Liar!” Dante screamed. He screamed until he was scraped raw inside, until his mind was empty and no more sound would come. He slumped back against the seat, drained, but still burning.
“Hey, little brother.”
Dante glanced at the now opened driver’s side door. Von knelt on the concrete, one knee in a rainbowed puddle of oil and water. He cupped a road-rough hand against Dante’s face, pushed his hair back with long fingers.
“It’s good to get that shit out,” Von said, voice low. “Festers if you leave it inside.”
“Yeah?” Dante whispered, looking into the nomad’s green eyes. “How come I ain’t never heard you screaming?”
Von snorted. “Nothing inside, man. I travel light.”
“Bullshit.”
Von’s hand dropped from Dante’s face to his chest. He pressed his fingers against the latex shirt. “You got a good heart, little brother. That’s why I stay. No regrets.”
“How can you know that when I don’t?”
Von touched a finger beneath the crescent moon tattoo under his eye. Tapped it. Arched an eyebrow.
“Yeah, yeah, llygad. Got it.”
Von lifted his hand from Dante’s chest, but Dante caught it and folded his fingers between Von’s. Dante leaned forward and kissed him. The nomad tasted of smoke and road dust. He listened to the steady thump of Von’s heart and his mind flashed back to Lucien, to the taste of his blood, to the sound of the song thrumming through him—Dante tried to block all thought of Lucien, but it was too late.