A moment later, it stopped again. Parka switched off the engine. Heather opened her eyes. Glancing up, she caught Parka’s blue-eyed gaze in the rearview mirror. Caught the lift of his eyebrow. Heather tensed. Parka knew. While she’d been watching Trench, he’d been watching her.
“Looks like our passenger’s awake,” Parka said. He opened his door and stepped out. Cold air and snow whirled into the car before he shut the door.
Trench swiveled in her seat, looked at Heather. “Let’s do this easy. Okay?”
Heather nodded. She pushed herself up into a sitting position with her elbows. White specks whirled through her vision like snow. She lowered her head until the dizziness passed. Another blast of cold air followed by a solid thunk told her Trench had gotten out of the car.
The passenger’s side door opened. Parka reached in, grasped Heather’s upper arm. Snow blew into the car. Heather looked at him. He held her gaze for a long moment, then helped her out of the car and into the storm.
The cold bit through Heather’s trench, iced her fingers, stung her cheeks. She stared at the building ahead of them, at the sign half hidden by the blowing snow.
The Bush Center for Psychological Research
WHAT HEATHER HAD SEEN in Parka’s eyes stunned her. He knew she’d taken the file, but kept silent.
Trench gripped Heather’s other arm. They crossed the parking lot hunched against a whirlwind of stinging snow and ice.
***
JOHANNA WATCHED ON THE security monitor as Bennington and Garth escorted Wallace into No. 5 and stripped her of her trenchcoat and shoes.
“Tell Moore I want to talk to her,” Wallace said, her voice surprisingly strong and level for a woman recovering from a dose of Down-in-Three.
Garth exited the room without a word, Wallace’s black trench draped over her arm, her shoes in hand. Bennington paused at the door, and then looked back.
“Might as well relax,” he said. “It could be a while.”
“Do you know why I’m being held?”
Bennington shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t.” He walked from the room, closing the door behind him. Red light scrolled across the door panel as it locked.
Wallace walked the padded room’s circumference, her sharp gaze flicking up to the ceiling. No fool, Johanna mused. After one circuit of the room, Wallace sat, her back against the north wall. Wrapping her arms around her drawn-up knees, she lowered her head. Red hair swung forward to veil her face.
Headache and lingering sleepiness—two aftereffects of the trank. Johanna swiveled her chair away from the monitor. She glanced at the file on the polished surface of her desk. Wallace’s record was exemplary. She’d done well in the Academy, graduating at the top of her class at age twenty-five. In the six years since, Wallace had proven to be a dedicated, talented and intelligent agent.
And, if Johanna remembered right, intuitive and compassionate and tough.
Memory sparked. A test given to the recruits to determine their motives for wanting to join the FBI; the simplest question the most revealing.
Why do you want to be an agent of the FBI?
Most answers had been along the lines of to get the bad guys off the streets or to help protect my country or to make a difference or even to have a career in law enforcement with decent wages.
But Wallace’s answer was the one Johanna remembered: I want to be a voice for the victims. To be a voice for the dead, a voice of justice. She wondered if Wallace still believed in justice, still yearned to be a voice for the dead. Or had the last six years in the real world sucked her spirit dry?
Johanna combed her fingers through her hair. She hated losing an agent of Wallace’s caliber and potential. She’d been sharp enough to question the Pensacola M.E. on the autopsy findings and had been ballsy enough to challenge Anzalone to her face, then had returned to New Orleans to seek the true CCK.
A sudden thought flared to life. She didn’t have to lose Wallace. Could she turn her? Convince her to be a voice for justice—not for just a couple of decades, but for centuries? Millennia?
A better question: Was Johanna ready to be a mère de sang? Her first attempt had been during a vacation in New Orleans. In truth, she’d only meant to feast upon Genevieve. Not until she’d nearly drained the dark-haired beauty had Johanna heard the second tiny heartbeat. The mortal hadn’t even known she was pregnant. Burning with curiosity, she’d forced her blood past Genevieve’s pale lips.
What would happen to an embryo when the mother was turned?
The result was on his way home, guided by Johanna’s père de sang, S’s grandfather, in a way.
Unless—was Ronin on his way with E and S? Her heart said yes, disaster runs behind the storm, blood-borne. Did her True Blood Sleep within Ronin’s embrace even now?
Did he whisper lies into S’s ears?
Or worse, the truth?
Johanna turned to the monitor. Wallace still sat against the wall, arms around her knees, head down. Red hair hid her lovely face. Red hair.
Johanna stared at Wallace’s image. Chloe. Could she use Wallace as a lure for her little True Blood? Get him away from Ronin? Turn him against Ronin?
Let Wallace mull her fate for a few hours. Then Johanna would offer her a choice.
HEATHER DOZED, HEAD CUSHIONED upon her arms. Dreams and images pulsed in the darkness behind her eyes like the pain throbbing in her head.
Pulse: Pleasure lights Dante’s face, gleams golden in his eyes as he enters her. She smells him—burning leaves and frost.
Pulse: She tucks her face against De Noir’s neck as he carries her through the cold night sky.
Pulse: Elroy Jordan stands over her as she sleeps, a knife glinting in his hand. He touches a finger to her hair.
Pulse: Stearns fires. Dante falls and falls and falls…
Heart pounding hard and fast, a cry caught in her throat, Heather grabbed for Dante. Her hand seized his; his pale fingers closed around her wrist. And they fell. Dante wrapped his arms around her, hugged her tight against him as they plunged through a starless night. He kissed her, and the touch of his lips set her ablaze.
She burned as they plummeted, entwined, a falling star. The wind of their passage streaked her fiery hair across the sky. Dante’s black tresses coiled around her flickering strands.
A song pulsed into her, vibrating through her, into her, dark and intense and pounding; it burned within her heart, her soul—Dante’s song.
I’m coming for you, chérie.
I’ll be here, Dante. Right here.
Shhh. Je suis ici.
She heard the rush of wings.
Heather’s eyes flew open. Her heart bashed against her ribs. Leaning back against the wall, she sucked in a deep breath of air. Her head still ached.
I’m coming for you, chérie.
Heather folded those words into her heart, kept them safe. Dante’d spoken to her. She didn’t know how, maybe because he’d drank her blood and that linked them, maybe because she’d dozed in an altered state created by the drugs in her system. But her intuition, her gut instinct, told her Dante was on his way.
Closing her eyes, she smiled. Hope kindled warm and bright within her. Her headache lessened. Her exhaustion faded. If Dante was on his way, then he’d gotten away from Jordan. Maybe De Noir had found him.
A buzzing at the door opened her eyes. The door swung open and a tall blonde woman stepped in. Dr. Johanna Moore. She wore a Euro-stylish tweed skirt suit dyed a deep red, her blouse as white as the walls of the room. She held a gun pointed at the floor in her right hand.
“I remember you from the Academy,” Moore said, her voice light and conversational, as though she was at a business luncheon instead of in a padded room. “I was impressed by your empathy for victims.”
Heather stood. The throbbing in her head increased with the movement. “Really? I’m surprised you recognized it.” She pushed her hair back from her face and met Moore’s gaze. “Are you here to do your own dirty wor
k?” she said, nodding at the pistol.
Moore’s smile tilted. Her gaze seemed to turn inward for a moment. “If it comes to that,” she said, voice soft. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll regret it.” She stood in the center of the room, a rose petal in snow.
“Not even a little bit,” Heather said. “Do you regret Rosa Baker’s death? How about all the other victims of the Cross-Country Killer—Elroy Jordan?”
Moore’s blue eyes brightened. “Sounds like you still long to be a voice for the dead. I’d wondered.”
“That’s never changed.”
“For most, it does.”
“What do you care?” Heather glanced at the door, estimated the distance. Wondered how many seconds she’d have before Moore spun and fired.
“I can give you E,” Moore said.
Heather’s heart thumped hard against her chest. She looked at Moore. Studied her pale face. Sincerity glimmered in her eyes, but Heather had a feeling she only saw the shallows; in the blue depths, dark things lurked.
“You can finally speak for his dead. Give justice to the families of his victims. All you have to do is say yes.”
“Ah. The catch. Yes to what?”
Moore parted her lips. Heather stared at the revealed fangs, thoughts spinning, blood cold.
“To me,” Moore said.
* * *
33
Homecoming
« ^ »
I’ll be right here, Dante. Right here.
Dante drew in a deep breath and awakened. Behind his closed eyes, his vision of Heather fell away, her hair streaking the night with flames. Waiting for him. He still felt the soft, warm touch of her lips, tasted her on his tongue.
Dante opened his eyes. Darkness, warm and close. His heart jumped within his chest. Adrenaline surged through his veins. Before-Sleep images, fractured and random, strobed through his mind.
A knife hilt sticks up from his chest.
Someone calls his name. He turns.
The Perv reads to him, voice low, coiled with excitement.
A blood-grimed hand gropes along his body, unbuckles his belt.
Lucien looks down at him, gold flecks in his black eyes. My son.
“I’m still here,” Lucien said. His voice rumbled from in front of Dante.
Dante reached up and pushed away the darkness. A blanket. Sitting up, he shook his hair back from his face. Still in the van, he thought, taking in his surroundings. But the air bed was gone and the Perv—
Dante touched a hand to his slashed and blood-stiff T-shirt. Felt the healed, still tender flesh underneath. His muscles tensed beneath his fingers. He remembered the shiv punching into him again and again.
Dante parted the curtain. Night smudged the sky. Lucien drove the van, his gaze fixed on the snow-covered road, on the glowing red taillights of the traffic in front of him. Dante glanced at Elroy, at his wrist cuffed to the grip above the passenger window. Breathed in his ripe odor of old sweat, blood, and bitterness. The smell stirred the embers of Dante’s rage to life.
“Where are we?” Dante asked, his attention still focused on Elroy.
“D.C.”
Elroy glanced at Dante. “Oh, goody. You’re awake.” Shadows cast by signs and streetlights flitted across the Perv’s face.
Dante remembered the adrenaline-sharp taste of his blood. Hunger stirred.
“J’ai faim,” he said, his gaze lingering on the Perv’s bruised throat.
“Feast, then,” Lucien said. “He has no other use.”
Elroy went still. Dante caught the heady smell of fear.
“I’ve got Gina’s last words,” the Perv said. He pressed himself against the passenger door, his gaze fixed on Dante. “You promised. Not till after.”
“S promised,” Lucien said. “Not Dante.”
“Hey, you said there was no S,” Elroy protested. “No S, just Dante.”
Lucien shrugged. “Believe everything you hear?”
Voices echoed, like words spoken across a chasm. Dante closed his eyes.
We cool?
A pound or two or three of flesh, right?
Still gonna kill me?
“Oüi,” Dante said. He opened his eyes. Elroy stared at him. “But not till after.”
The Perv nodded. “Yeah. That’s right.”
Dante pulled his gaze away from Elroy, tried to shut out the sound of the blood rushing through his veins. Wind buffeted the van, slanting snow across the windshield.
Dante sent to Lucien.
Dante sent an image of a white padded room. His heart double-timed. Wasps droned. But memory skittered away from his grasp.
The city looked emptied and desolate. Traffic signals swung in the wind, flashing red, yellow, and green lights across the snow drifts. Icicles dangled from stark tree limbs, sparkled from the edges of buildings.
The van crawled along the street, tires scrunching across the snow. Dante glanced at the green-lit map screen on the van’s console. Almost there.
he sent, not sure Heather could still hear him, their link blood-forged and temporary. He’d said the same words to Jay. Would he fail Heather, too?
Penance.
Dante-angel?
Hush, princess. Go on back to sleep. I ain’t gonna fail her like I failed you.
Promise?
“Promise,” he whispered as Chloe slipped through the cracks in his memory and disappeared. He tried to summon her image, tried to remember her face. He hit a wall at light speed. Pain pierced his temples. He sniffed and tasted blood at the back of his throat. Watched it drip onto his hand.
Fuck. Not now!
Dante tipped his head back against the seat. As the minutes stretched past, his pain eased, edged into the background behind his thoughts. The van stopped. A hand grasped his knee.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Why did you stop?”
“We’re there.”
Dante lifted his head and looked past Lucien to the window. Snow fell hard and fast. He made out a building hunched in the darkness beyond the snow. Light spilled from the windows.
Reaching into his jeans pocket, he tugged free the handcuffs key. He climbed up between the front seats and stretched across Elroy to unlock the cuff. He heard the Perv’s heart rate pick up speed. Felt him shiver. Dante turned the key.
The cuff dropped free of the emergency grip. “I’ll give you Gina’s words when we’re inside the building,” Elroy said, lowering his arm. “Then may the best Bad Seed bad-ass win.”
“This ain’t a fucking contest.” Dante slid across the rest of the way and opened the door. Icy air and snow gusted into the van as he hopped to the ground. The snow-covered pavement felt slick under his boots.
Elroy shivered again, this time from the cold.
Dante tucked the key back into his pocket. “Get out. You run, I’ll catch you. I catch you, I’ll kill you.”
Elroy’s jaw tightened. His brows slanted down. He looked away, but before he did, Dante saw the mask slip; saw the grinning monster, his eyes bottomless pits that sucked in every scream, memorized every etched line of pain, captured each second of fear and despair.
It was the face Dante had seen as the shiv had punched into him, over and over and over. Red flashed through his vision. Grabbing Elroy by his shirt collar, Dante yanked him out of the van and into the snow.
Elroy hit the snow-covered pavement on his shoulder. Grunted in pain.
Dante bent, locked a hand around the Perv’s arm and hauled him to his feet. Wind whipped through Dante’s hair, iced his skin, his face. He felt Lucien’s heat-radiating presence beside him.
Dante remembered Heather saying that her killer was mortal, all DNA evidence human. Remembered Elroy’s hands sliding along his body, groping, fondling; remembered the stab wounds on Gina’s body; remembered the anarchy sy
mbols cut inside her thighs.
“I fucked up,” Dante said. “You lied to me. You killed Gina. Not Ronin.”
“I still have her last words,” Elroy managed through chattering teeth.
“Not anymore.”
Dante shoved Elroy down into the snow and sat on him. Twisting the Perv’s head aside, he bent and sank his fangs into the monster’s bruised throat. Blood pulsed hot into his mouth. Elroy shrieked.
Dante plunged into his mind.
The Perv’s thoughts and memories rushed into Dante’s mind like a dark and dirty flood—corpse-ridden, sexed-up, spiked with sharp shivs and hard dicks. Diving deep, Dante searched for Gina.
Thunder boomed through the night. Thunder or a shotgun.
***
“I OFFER YOU A rare and priceless gift,” Johanna Moore said. “Just think of what you could do with it. The justice you could render.”
Heather kept her back to the wall and her eyes on Moore. “And if I say no, you’ll give me the not-so-rare gift of a bullet to the head.”
Moore’s shoulder lifted in an apologetic half shrug. “I’ll have no choice.”
“Is that how you justify what you do?” Heather said. Again she measured the distance to the door. “Do you think you’re aiding society by murdering mothers and twisting their children into killers?”
“Ah. Stearns gave you the file, after all.” Regret flickered in Moore’s eyes. “So you know what S is.”
“I know Dante’s willing to risk his life for his friends,” Heather said. “I know you failed with him.”
Amusement lit Moore’s face. “Failed? I don’t think so.”
Heather tensed, preparing to run. Better to die trying than not to try at all. “You’re a vampire. How could you do what—” An image spun into Heather’s mind, slamming aside her thoughts. She saw Dante’s face and words rang like crystal through her mind: Hang on.
The image vanished and she stumbled, dazed, heart pounding. Dante was close. She looked up into Moore’s wide blue eyes, watched as comprehension took root.
“You didn’t go back to New Orleans for E,” Moore said slowly. “You went back for S…for Dante. You slept with him. He drank your blood, didn’t he?”