E straightened. Bitter truth wiped the honey taste from his tongue, boiled and bubbled in his belly like fresh tar. E’d never been closer to his Heather than at that moment, hunched over her, smelling her, and he hadn’t laid a hand on her—but Dante had, the back-stabbing little bloodsucker.
“You were with Heather,” E said, voice low and full of righteous wrath. “She’s mine. She’s always been mine. She follows me.”
“She’s not following you. She’s hunting you. She ain’t yours.”
“Name the one you love,” E snarled.
“No.”
“She’s mine!”
E plunged the shiv into Dante’s chest, then yanked it free and punched it back in. Blood flew and spattered. The golden cords linking E to Dante snapped, unraveled, spraying golden light into the air.
Stabbing and slicing, E went to work. Dante turned his face away, eyes closed in pain, blood foaming on his lips. He twisted, trying to dump E off, but E just grinned and squeezed with his thighs, enjoying the ride.
Had Dante fucked Heather? Drank her blood? Had she asked for more?
Breathing hard and fast, he parked the shiv between Dante’s ribs, then grabbed his chin with bloodied fingers. E wished he had two good hands to lock around Dante’s pale throat. As he forced Dante to face him, the bloodsucker’s eyes opened. Gold and red flecked the thin ring of iris, glimmered in the depths of his dilated pupils.
“Enough,” Dante said, voice bubbling with blood.
Pain shafted E’s head, skewered his eyeballs, and lanced his ears. His hand flew up to his temple. He squeezed his eyes shut. Pain scorched his brain.
E screamed.
* * *
30
Awake
« ^ »
SNOW FELL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Big flakes swirled down from low-hanging gray clouds, hushing the city. Lucien flew through the predawn sky, hair iced behind him, snow clinging to his lashes and riming his wings. He listened, but static filled his bond with Dante, buzzed and whispered—psionic white noise.
He hadn’t felt anything from his child since that fleeting moment in the kitchen when Dante’s anguish had pierced the static and Lucien’s heart. Madness had undulated in that cry, heartbroken and burning.
Loki’s voice whispered: You can’t keep him from going mad, brother. Not alone.
How could he keep Dante’s past from driving him mad? Let alone his creawdwr gifts? The child was strong-willed, but he’d been tortured since birth.
Genevieve…
The images from Wallace’s CD burned behind Lucien’s eyes, images he’d carry forever. His beautiful little Genevieve, pale and weak from blood loss, struggling to touch the son she’d just birthed, hers and Lucien’s. But strapped to the blood-smeared metal table, she couldn’t reach the black-haired, white-skinned, preternaturally silent baby.
“Let me hold him.” Genevieve says. The scrubs-clad medical team bustle around the sterile, empty room like ghosts unable to hear her. “Let me hold him!” she screams.
The ghosts never pause. They wash blood from the newborn. The infant watches, golden eyes aware, awake. Vampire and Fallen.
And in that moment, damned.
“Dante.” she whispers. “My Dante. Never give in. Make hell your own. Fight.”
Genevieve closes her eyes. A tear slips out from beneath her dark lashes. “Pourquoi tu nous as abandonnes? Je ne sais pas ce que j’ai fait pour vous faire partir. je t’en supplie, sauve ton fils,” she prays. Her hands clench into fists. “Éloigné le d’ici. Mets-le l’abri. Il est ma lumière et mon coeur—comme tu as pu l’être. Lucien, mon ange, s’il te plaît, écoute-moi.”
Genevieve’s words, her unanswered prayer, wrapped around Lucien’s soul and burned, incandescent; a votive forever lit within him.
The report stated that Genevieve had been killed after they’d analyzed the milk contents of her breasts. No photos or filmed images of her death were included in the file. She’d become insignificant.
Gray shreds of moisture-laden clouds parted before Lucien. Snow shrouded the land below. Grief shrouded his heart. If only…He shifted his thoughts away from paths unwalked and unregarded. Even with eternity stretched before him, he’d learned there was still such a thing as too late and never again.
He could only focus on what was—and what might be.
Lucien tipped his right wing and spiraled down toward the awakening city. He’d agreed to meet Wallace at the airport. With or without her, he’d find his wounded child. With or without her, he’d take his vengeance on the woman who’d had Genevieve killed and who’d put his son through a hell beyond imagination.
A song pulsed within Lucien suddenly, chaotic and powerful. Dante’s anhrefncathl, complicated and dark, crescendoed through Lucien’s heart and mind. And chilled him to his core. Chaotic, Dante’s song. Powerful. And mad.
Lucien closed his eyes. He heard Yahweh’s weary voice: Let them have me.
Never.
Thousands of years ago he’d killed the friend of his heart—his calon-cyfaill—to keep the Elohim high-bloods from chaining the maddened creawdwr to their will and channeling his power to their own self-serving ends—including altering the mortal world. Yet again.
And if the Elohim knew another Maker—unbound and untrained and painfully young—walked the earth, they’d do the same to him.
But, without the balance he’d gain from psionic bonds, Dante would slip into madness, the fate of all unbound creawdwrs. And, unbound and insane, he could unmake the world.
You can’t bind him alone, Brother.
Lucien swerved away from the snow-covered city below, angling upward, his wings slicing through the sky. He veered west. Dante’s black aria wavered. Vanished. Lucien suspected his child had poured the last of his strength into that song.
Time to gamble. Time to transmute whispers into words and rumors into facts. Time to answer his Genevieve’s prayer. Past time. He’d deal with the consequences as they came.
I would lay the world to waste for my son.
Wings flapping, Lucien hovered in the gray sky, snow melting against his heated skin. Blue light radiated out from his body. He burned like a star. Dawn faltered. Faded. Stars winked alight again in the renewed dusk.
Nightbringer.
Lucien voiced his wybrcathl, heart beating in time with his song, threading the music around his memory of Dante’s chaos song; brilliant and pure, altering his aria into a duet of chaos and order. It rang, sharp and clear, through the returning night.
The Fallen in Dante would answer.
So would any Elohim within song range. Just as they’d answer Dante’s anhrefncathl. Brief as it’d been, perhaps none of the Elohim had heard. Brief, true, but powerful.
A race, then.
***
THE PERV STRADDLED DANTE, his weight forcing the air out of Dante’s lungs. A knife gleamed in Elroy’s right hand. Fury contorted his face. He stank of tobacco and sweat and bitter lust.
Drugs still flowed through Dante’s veins and his thoughts ebbed, low tide. His body thrummed, almost floated, but the handcuffs and the Perv’s weight kept him anchored to the blood-spattered air bed.
“Name the one you love.”
Dante met Elroy’s narrowed gaze. “No.”
Heather’s face, flushed and beautiful, flashed into his mind. A fractured image of Chloe sparked behind his eyes, then vanished, snuffed, the image of Jay’s pale face and lightless eyes overlaying it.
“She’s mine!”
Elroy punctuated his words with his knife, stabbing it into Dante over and over and over. Punched. Slashed. Pain twisted into him, tearing him apart. Devoured him. He choked on blood. Drowned in it. It bubbled up from his lungs, trickled from his nose, gushed up from his stomach. White light flashed and strobed at the edges of his vision. Squeezing his eyes shut, Dante turned his face away. Pain ripped apart his mind.
Send it below or fucking use it.
The air reeked of blood and the Perv’s sweat-s
our odor. His thoughts echoed in Dante’s mind; mental shivs: Had Dante fucked Heather? Drank her blood? Had she asked for more?
Send it below or fucking use it.
The shiv slipped between Dante’s ribs and stayed. Fingers grabbed his chin, forced his face around. Pain torched him. Dante stopped resisting and jumped into the raging flames. White-hot, melting, flesh burning, bubbling—shadows seared onto basement walls, a smoldering plushie orca—it consumed him. Ashed his control.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Here, hold my hand, princess. We’ll go together. Forever and ever.
A song vibrated within him, chaotic, a strumming dark refrain. The melody blazed with rage. Hunger pounded out the tempo. Burned.
A shadowed figure uncurled from the ashes. Fire smoldered in his veins. He lifted his head. S opened his eyes. “Enough,” he said.
Reaching into Elroy’s mind, S funneled the pain the warped little fuck had dispensed with his shiv back into him; force-fed him his own shit.
Here. Have some. How does it fucking feel?
Elroy’s hand flew up to his temple. Eyes squeezed shut, he screamed, the sound sweet to S’s ears. The Perv tumbled off of S and crawled around on the van’s carpeted floor, clutching his head and squealing.
Inferno’s music poured from the speakers: I’m waiting for you / I’ve watched and I’ve watched / I know your every secret.
Coughing up blood, gasping for air, S yanked with his arms. The cuffs clunked against the van’s metal back end. Sucking in a blood-choked breath, he yanked again. Poured what little strength he had remaining into his arms. Metal rended. Something popped. Black spots flickered through his vision. S lowered his handcuffed wrists past his head, wondering at the hook dangling from the chain.
The cuffs were nightkind-proof, but the hook welded to the van wasn’t.
S moved his cuffed hands to the shiv in his side and tugged it free. Dropped it on the bed. He struggled to sit up. The van spun around him. His vision darkened. He lowered his head and waited for the dizziness to pass.
Voices whispered, clutched at his thoughts. Sweat beaded his forehead. Hunger spiked through him. He needed blood. He pulled his mental fingers out of Elroy’s mind. The squealing stopped.
S slid off the air bed and crawled to Elroy. He shoved the Perv’s head aside and sank his fangs into the mortal’s sweaty throat.
I’ve stood in every room / of your house / and dreamed of you / wanting me.
Blood, hot and berry-sweet, spurted into S’s mouth. He gulped mouthful after mouthful. Elroy’s frantic heartbeat pulsed blood into his mouth almost faster than he could swallow. The Perv struggled. S slammed a knee between his legs. The squirming stopped. Fear and adrenaline spiced the blood pouring into S’s mouth.
Musky pheromones and the pungent smell of blood—S’s blood—laced the air. Elroy the Perv was hot and bothered and hard, even now, with S’s fangs in his throat.
Like all that shiv-work and blood had been foreplay.
Something cold and dark curled around S’s heart.
Très joli, dis one, like an angel. Play with him all you want, but don’t put nuthin’ in his mouth. Boy bites.
S ripped his fangs deeper into Papa’s throat. The bastard squirmed again. Stank of desperation. Fucker sliced up Chloe. Did he torture her like he did me?
The image of a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman flashed behind S’s eyes. Gina. The scent of black cherries wrenched him forward—Elroy the Perv and…Gina. Not Papa. Not Chloe. White light strobed at the edge of his vision.
Where am I? When am I?
A song vibrated through S, gleamed like moonrise. He pulled his mouth from Elroy’s flesh and tilted his head, listening. He closed his eyes. The rhythm of his heart shifted to match the music resonating within his mind—Lucien’s song.
Nightbringer. Friend. Father. Liar.
The tempo swirled through S, hooked his soul. Chaos and order. Compassion and fire. He shivered, and answered. S plucked dark chords, anger and longing and loss twisting through the refrain in equal measures. The song stabbed out from his heart like one of Elroy’s shivs.
His own voice, low, snaked from the speakers: I’ve watched you as you slept / I know you’ve watched me too / I’ve seen your footprints / beneath my window.
Not mine. Dante’s voice. Before he gave himself to the fire. I am after the fire.
Lucien’s thought blasted through the drug-static blocking their bond.
Pain tore through S’s mind. Blurred his vision. Darkness grabbed at him.
Wrong, S thought, head aching. I’m S. Hafta be. Isn’t that why Gina and Jay died? Isn’t that how I’ll keep Heather alive?
Lucien’s song ended with one last resonant chord, a promise ringing clear and full moon-bright across the sky: I am coming for you.
S’s thought rebounded, blocked again by static, pain and blood loss.
S pushed himself away from Elroy’s warm, huddled body. Hunger still gripped him. He glanced at the Perv. Imagined drinking him dry. Imagined ripping open his chest and squeezing his black, stunted heart until it pulped.
For you, Chloe.
“I can help you!” someone shouted. “You fuckin’ need me! Dante!”
S’s vision cleared. He sat on top of Elroy, straddled him, the mortal’s chest bared, his shirt torn open. Bloody furrows scored the flesh above the Perv’s thudding heart. Blood trickled along Elroy’s throat, the skin punctured, torn.
The heady smell of adrenaline and fear filled the van. Sweat beaded Elroy’s forehead, but his face was blank. Still.
S grabbed the Perv’s shades and tossed them across the van. Hazel eyes met his. Something at-the-bottom-of-the-cave-dark flickered in those eyes. “You fuckin’ need me,” he repeated.
Do you know my every secret? Dante whispered from the speakers.
S leaned over the Perv, placed his lips a whisper away from Elroy’s whisker-stubbled face. “No, I don’t.”
“I know shit you don’t,” Elroy said, his voice as empty as his face. “I know shit that’s not in those files. Bad Seed made us brothers. You ain’t in this alone. I want my pound or two of flesh—just like you.”
S laughed.
Elroy swallowed hard. Looked away.
S pushed Elroy’s head to the side with his cuffed hands and sank his fangs back into the mortal’s wounded throat. Sucked down adrenaline-spiced blood. Listened to the frantic pounding of the Perv’s heart.
Locks won’t keep me out / words won’t turn me away / I’ve long dreamed of this moment.
“I wasn’t there when Ronin iced your boyfriend,” Elroy said, his voice vibrating against S’s lips. The Perv’s heart rate slowed. Steadied. “But I was there for Gina. I know what happened, what Ronin did to her. I know her last words.”
S froze. Remembered a black stocking washed free of every trace of Gina. Remembered another stocking knotted around her throat. Remembered her walking away with only silence as a farewell.
S lifted his mouth from Elroy’s throat. Sat up and stared down into the Perv’s muddy gaze. Her last words. A chance for Gina to live another moment. Pain sparked behind his eyes.
“I know what happened to Ronin, too.”
“What’s to stop me from ripping all that from your mind?”
“I’ll make sure I die before you can get it.” Elroy’s gaze held steady.
“That’s my Bad Seed bro.”
Elroy’s expression blanked again. “The Big Guy got Ronin.”
S looked away, muscles knotting. Bastard was mine.
“Fucker was going for Heather too.”
Heather. S shifted his gaze back to Elroy. “Is she—”
“Fine,” the Perv said. “She even blew me a kiss as we hit the street. Well, okay, shot at me, but really, ain’t it the same thing?” He grinned.
Relief trickled thoug
h S, unwinding the knots in his muscles. He slid off Elroy and crawled to the air bed. Dizziness spun through him. Spots flecked his vision. He leaned against the mattress.
“Looks like you need some of those Batman Band-Aids,” S said, nodding at the blood-smeared tear in Elroy’s throat. S’s saliva would heal the wound, a few licks and it’d close. But…fuck ‘im.
Elroy sat up and clapped a hand over the wound.
“Take these off,” S said. He held up his cuffed wrists. The hook still hung from the chain like an urban legend—and they found a hook in the roof of the car!
The Perv wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “We cool?” he asked, lifting his gaze to S’s. “Still gonna kill me?”
S smiled. Elroy stared, mouth open, transfixed. After a moment, Elroy dropped his gaze. He glanced toward the front of the van. S heard his sly little mind planning to make a break for it, wondering if he could outrun his weakened plaything.
“Try it.”
Elroy looked at him, then tilted his head to one side. Licked his lips. “Who are you?”
“You should know. You woke me up.”
The Perv nodded. Wiped at his nose again. “Then you know we both got beefs to settle with Mommy-Bitch, right? Both of us.”
“A pound or two or three of flesh, right?” S glanced at his cuffed wrists. “Take these off.”
“Will you kill me?”
“Yeah. But not till after we settle the score.”
Elroy the Perv sat back on his heels and considered. He trailed his hand through his hair. After a moment, he rose to his knees and wormed his hand into his front jeans pocket. Pulled out a key.
Scooting over to S, Elroy wriggled the key into the cuffs. He looked at S. “Not till after, right?”
“Oüi.”
Elroy nodded and unlocked the cuffs. S shook them off his raw and bloodied wrists. The cuffs thudded against the carpet. He pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped blood off his face.
“Can we still play?” the Perv asked. Hunger edged his voice. He slid a hand up S’s thigh.