A Rush of Wings

  Ronin kept his pace at a deliberate mortal-paced stride. He walked with a small herd of pedestrians, not wishing to call attention to himself. Blend, meld, become ordinary and therefore invisible. He didn’t want Dante to see him. At least, not yet. The GPS receiver marked the young vampire just a few blocks ahead of him.

  Another thing E didn’t know—microchip-size GPS transmitters had been implanted at the base of the skull of each Bad Seed subject. Johanna had wanted to keep tabs on her experiments once they’d been unleashed.

  Of course, most of the subjects—all ignorant of each other and Bad Seed’s existence, let alone their own participation—were now dead or entombed in prisons. E and Dante were the only two still roaming free.

  Ronin looked up and over the heads of some of the people encircling him. He saw Dante a block ahead of him, stopped in front of the light-filled and glittering Harrah’s, next to the black iron fence near the entrance.

  Muscles tightening in anticipation, Ronin slowed his pace, allowing his camouflage group to trundle across the street without him. A vendor sat on a metal folding chair next to a street-light, his wares—colorful MARDI GRAS! T-shirts, plastic beads, and other bits of cheap jewelry—displayed on a sheet spread out on the sidewalk.

  Ronin stopped and looked over the vendor’s goods, pretending a mild interest. What was Dante doing? he wondered, his gaze skipping from DRUNK ON BOURBON STREET Ts to ’gator charm bracelets. Meeting someone? Planning to play the slots?

  “This one be real pop’lar,” the vendor, a black man in his midtwenties, said eagerly. He held up a shirt reading SHOW ME YOUR TITTIES! “Fresh batch. I keep sellin’ out of ‘em.”

  “Ah,” Ronin murmured. “No doubt.” He glanced up the street.

  Dante leaned against the fence, his hands gripping the railing behind him. He stood near the double-globed streetlight, but not directly beneath it, his face hood-hidden. Light danced across his leather pants and winked from his rings and hoops and bracelets. His head was bowed, his shaded gaze on the sidewalk.

  People flowing in, out, and past Harrah’s glanced at him. More than a few paused and stared until nudged into motion by a less-dazzled companion.

  “Maybe this one’s more to your liking? Sir?”

  Ronin forced his gaze away from Dante. The vendor held up a shirt proclaiming LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULLER. Let the good times roll. Ronin nodded.

  “That one. How much?”

  “Ten, sir. Cash only.”

  As Ronin tugged his wallet free of his hip pocket, he darted another glance up the street. Two men in jeans and Saints sweatshirts paused near Dante. They leaned in close to one another, hands gesturing, their conversation intense. One pointed across Canal street toward the French Quarter. The other shook his head, then looked toward the casino.

  Dante lifted his head, his pale hands pushing his hood back. He slid his shades off and looped them through his studded belt. The mortal froze, mouth open. A smile tilted Dante’s lips, wicked and oh-so-inviting. The man gripped his friend’s forearm and squeezed. Swinging his head around, the friend looked and went still also, mesmerized by the moonlit slice of sexual fantasy leaning against the fence.

  Ronin looked away. Excitement shook his hands as he slid a ten out of his wallet and handed it to the vendor.

  Dante was hunting.

  Snatching the T-shirt from the vendor’s hands, Ronin tucked one end of it into his hip pocket and started up the sidewalk. He forced himself to walk slowly. He still couldn’t afford to call attention to himself, especially near a hyper-alert and, undoubtedly, territorial vampire on the hunt.

  Both mortals had recovered enough from their first glimpse of Dante’s breath-stealing beauty to sidle in on either side of him, their bodies nearly touching. Their hungry, somewhat predatory, stance amused Ronin. They spoke to Dante, smiling, their gestures friendly. One displayed a wad of cash.

  Ronin paused at a store window. He was close enough now that Dante would feel his presence if he wasn’t careful. He tamped his aura down tight, stilled his questing mind. Blood surged through his veins electrified, adrenalized. For a moment, his thoughts spun, and he shook his head, perplexed. What had come over him? He prized control—the essence of strength and self-rule.

  Dante. True Blood. Vampire aristocracy.

  He looked up the street again. Dante walked away with the mortals, one still on either side of him. The men glanced at each other. Winked. One squeezed a hand into a fist. Ronin watched as the threesome turned the corner onto Tchopitoulas Street. The mortals no doubt planned bad things for the young Goth hustler walking between them; planned to use him, then hurt him. And not necessarily in that order.

  Ronin now knew why Dante had lifted his head and allowed those two to look at him and fall under his spell.

  He’d smelled their filthy little hearts jittering away inside their chests. Had heard their fevered whispers. Seen their twisted thoughts.

  Ronin grinned. Dante hunted the evil-doer. Or, at the very least, he preyed on predators. Ironic? Yes. Fascinating? Yes. Something Johanna and her squad of behavioral scientists had foreseen? Hell, no.

  Ronin paused at another store window, allowing Dante and his new friends time to get ahead. One thing troubled him—S.A. Heather Wallace. Why was she investigating Dante? Was it possible she’d understood what Dante hadn’t so far? That the messages were for him?

  Ronin glanced at the GPS receiver. Dante had stopped. Looking up the street, he realized that Dante and the two Saints fans were no longer in view. Ronin dropped the mortal pretense and moved. He breezed through the sidewalk throngs with the ease of a man walking a deserted street. He touched no one and perhaps only a few mortals felt a cool rush of air as he passed.

  The receiver showed Dante halfway down an alley just ahead and to the right. Ronin slowed to a walk. His heart pounded hard in his chest. He felt Dante, felt his hunger sharp as a double-edged sword. But underneath that he felt rage, unvoiced and wordless; a red-hot torrent rushing through Dante’s veins.

  Shielding himself with steel thought and glass illusion—No one here. Look past. No one here. Look past—Ronin dared a glance down the shadow-filled alley.

  One Saints fan stood in front of Dante, pressing a pocket-knife against his pale throat while his buddy handcuffed Dante’s hands behind his back. A dark smile crossed Dante’s lips as the knife nicked his throat. Blood oozed from the tiny cut, trickling down his white skin and onto the collar of his mesh shirt.

  Ronin breathed in the blood’s fragrance, sucked it down into his lungs: rich and thick with pheromones and ripe-berry sweet. Hunger seized him. He hugged the building’s edge, his fingers curling around weather-worn brick, and watched.

  “Viens ici,” Dante said to the mortal holding the knife to his throat. “J’ai faim.”

  The Saints fan narrowed his eyes, his smile turning brittle. “What the hell did you just say?”

  His buddy grasped Dante’s hips and pressed hard against him. “Who gives a fuck what he said? Talking isn’t on the menu.”

  “Can you take as good as you give?” Dante murmured.

  He leaned forward and nuzzled the mortal’s throat, licked the flesh over the fast-pulsing artery. The pocketknife slid away from Dante’s throat, blood trailing from its point. The mortal closed his eyes. Dante sank his fangs into the man’s throat.

  Groaning, the Saints fan stumbled back into the wall. The knife tumbled from his fingers and hit the concrete with a sharp ting. Dante pressed against him, snugging one leather-clad leg between his, pinning him.

  The other mortal had moved with them, one hand still clutching Dante’s hip, the other wriggling between his buddy and Dante in an effort to unbuckle Dante’s belt.

  Ronin’s muscles tightened, his breath coming hard and fast. His lips parted. He felt the whisker-stubbled flesh beneath his lips, tasted the hot blood gushing into his mouth. He closed his eyes. Listened to his own thundering heart.

  True Blood. Destiny.

&nbsp
; Opening his eyes, Ronin smiled, then hunkered down. Let’s see how the True Blood, child that he is, gets himself out of this alley…alone.

  The mortal Dante feasted on suddenly started to struggle. His eyes flew open. He lifted a trembling hand, seized Dante’s shoulder, and shoved. But Dante didn’t budge.

  “Andy,” he slurred, his voice thick and panicked. “Help me. Andy…”

  With a casual shrug, Dante snapped the handcuffs. Metal tinked off brick and stone. His hands latched onto the mortal’s shoulders and held him still, burrowing his face deeper into the mortal’s throat, ripping into the flesh.

  The other mortal, Andy, jumped back when Dante snapped the handcuffs, astonishment on his face. “What the…”

  Dante released the Saints fan, who slumped to the ground in a boneless heap, his eyes already glazing. Licking the blood from his lips, Dante swiveled around and looked at Andy. He lifted his arms and glanced pointedly at the handcuff bracelets on his wrists.

  With a tiny shriek, Andy whirled around, and ran—

  Right into Dante.

  Ronin shook his head, marveling at Dante’s speed. He wondered if the boy had any other surprises.

  Dante embraced Andy, locking his arms around him as his fangs pierced his throat. Andy’s legs gave out and they both went down, the mortal sprawling on the rain-puddled alley floor. Dante straddled him, sitting on his belly and pinning his arms to the concrete. Dante fed, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of hot blood.

  Ronin realized he’d stood at some point and had moved into the alley without being aware of it, his gaze locked on Dante’s slender coiled form, his thoughts hunger-fevered, craving only the blood burning through Dante’s veins.

  Sliding to a sudden halt, dirt gritted beneath Ronin’s snake-skin boots. He held his breath hoping the boy hadn’t heard—

  But he had. Dante looked up, his dark-eyed gaze locking onto Ronin. Wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, he uncurled from the mortal’s body and stood. Behind him, Andy twitched, then lay still.

  Ronin held Dante’s gleaming, hostile gaze for a single time-stretching moment, then the boy moved.

  Ronin danced aside using a change-body technique, sucking in as he whirled. Dante passed so close mesh whispered against denim, and heat radiated against Ronin’s night-cooled flesh. Dante’s scent swirled through the night air—blood and deep, dark earth, heady and sharp. And dangerous. Ronin forced himself to focus. His aikido-trained muscles relaxed, ready for Dante’s next charge.

  “Hey,” said a low, husky voice to Ronin’s right.

  Turning, Ronin met Dante’s dark gaze again. The boy stood not five feet from him at the alley mouth’s other edge. He watched Ronin through his lashes, his hands curled into fists, his muscles taut. He had a street fighter’s posture; deceptively still. His fighting style would be down, dirty, and vicious, but easy to handle with the calm focus of aikido.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Dante tilted his head and sudden knowledge lit his eyes. “You were in the club last night—you’re the one Lucien and Von told me about.”

  Ronin smiled and nodded his head in acknowledgment. “That I was.”

  “Where’s your mortal buddy?”

  “My assistant, you mean?” Ronin asked. Dante’s fists hadn’t relaxed. “I gave him the evening off.”

  “Assistant?” A half smile tilted Dante’s lips. “That’s a new one.”

  “I’m a journalist,” Ronin said. “Crime journalist, actually.”

  Tugging his wallet free, he looked up into Dante’s dark, red-streaked eyes. He now stood only a foot away. Ronin hadn’t heard him move, hadn’t felt him. He slid a black card from his wallet, extended it to Dante between two fingers.

  Dante plucked it free and read its silver-lettered surface. “Thomas Ronin,” he murmured. “So, what are you doing here, Peeping Tom?” He flicked the card into the rain-filled gutter.

  Ronin watched the sodden card float to a sewer grate not half a block down. He met Dante’s sardonic gaze and held it. In that moment, he had one regret—that Johanna had discovered this child, born of unwilling vampire mother, and he hadn’t.

  How he could’ve shaped him.

  Was it too late? Possibility raged through his mind with hurricane force.

  “Yo, Peeping Tom, you awake?” Dante’s voice now came from behind.

  Ronin swiveled around. Still only a foot away, Dante studied him, dark eyes missing little.

  “Sorry,” Ronin said, shaking his head. “I’ve been working the Cross-Country Killer case. And I’ve wanted to talk to you since the body was discovered in the pizza parlor’s courtyard and now—”

  “How’d you find me here?” Dante said, voice flat.

  “Pure coincidence,” Ronin said. “I went to the club, but it was closed. I decided to check out Harrah’s for fun and I happened to see you.” Ronin spread his arms out in a half shrug, palms open. “What the fuck, you know? I decided to follow.”

  Dante’s hands remained knotted at his sides, his gaze wary. “You wasted your time, M’sieu Peeping Tom,” he said. He glanced away for a moment, but before he did, Ronin saw something flash in his eyes—hurt, grief, maybe both.

  “I know we’re not off to the best start,” Ronin said. “And I completely understand you not wanting to talk to me…now. But in a day or two, you may feel differently. I really want to see this son of a bitch nailed.”

  “We’re not off to any start,” Dante said. “And I’m not gonna talk to you in a day or two or five or ever.” He backed up, half turned, his gaze still on Ronin. “Foute ton quant d’ici.”

  “You running me out of town?” Ronin asked, eyebrow arched, voice hard.

  Dante laughed. “Fuck, no! Go where you want. You can even go to Hell. But stay away from me.”

  Ronin took several long-legged strides after him, then stopped. “Need a ride home?” he called. “No strings attached, I promise.”

  Dante turned completely and walked up the sidewalk. He didn’t answer. When he reached the corner, he stopped, then about-faced.

  “Hey, what mag you writing for?”

  “Freelance. But I’ll probably let Rolling Stone have first shot at the story.”

  Dante laughed again, then rounded the corner.

  Ronin waited for a few moments, listening to the city’s pulse, the traffic noise, the streetcar clacking along the rails, chattering tourists—all bound to an earth-deep rhythm that lured musicians from around the world.

  Dante was gone.

  The entire encounter had gone south with breathtaking speed.

  Ronin glanced down the alley. The first Saints fan still lay sprawled on the concrete, his body heat dissipating into the night. Andy, however—Andy was pulling himself by his fingernails down the alley.

  Closing his eyes, Ronin remembered the smell of Dante’s blood, felt him hot and restless; saw again his mocking smile and smoldering dark eyes.

  Ronin opened his eyes and strode down the alley. He seized the mortal by the scruff of his neck and lifted him up. Sank his fangs into the wounds left by Dante’s sharp teeth. Andy sobbed and kicked weakly. Ronin drank what remained of him down, savoring every hot spurt, every last drop.

  With a squeeze of his hand, Ronin crushed what remained of Andy’s throat. He dropped the lifeless body and stretched as new blood coursed through his veins. He pulled from his hip pocket the T-shirt he’d bought from the street vendor and dropped it onto the cooling corpse. It draped across the mortal’s face.

  Let the good times roll.

  ***

  E SAT UP STRAIGHT when the yellow cab pulled to a stop at the plantation house’s gates. A black-clad, hooded figure slid out of the backseat, shut the door, and walked to the gates with a lithe, graceful motion E found arousing. Dante. And minus Tom-Tom. The cab drove away, taillights glowing red in the night.

  E grinned. Things must not have gone according to plan for ol’ Tommy, then. E was pretty sure Ronin had said he’d come back with Dante, th
eir friendship off to a solid beginning. E’s grin widened.

  Gosh. Guess not.

  Dante slipped through the partially opened gates and disappeared into the night-drenched yard. The only light illuminating the overgrown grounds was the pale yellow light spilling from several windows.

  Touching the rim of his shades, E toggled from night-view to infrared. Bluish-silver light outlined Dante as he pushed open the front door and stepped inside the house.

  E flipped the shades back to night-view. He drummed his fingers against the Jeep’s steering wheel. Why was it that he saw bluish-silver light around only Dante? The other bloodsuckers usually showed up yellow/orange or vibrant red, depending on how long since they’d fed. Ronin showed up gold and E had a feeling that had more to do with Tom-Tom’s age than anything else.

  But Dante…that boy gleamed like the winter moon on snow—sparkling blue-silver edged with purple. Kinda funny, considering how damned hot he looked.

  Even for a bloodsucker.

  Pulling the keys from the ignition, E hopped out of the Jeep. Gravel crunched beneath his Nikes. Pocketing the keys, he leaned against the Jeep for a moment, scanning the quiet yard across the road.

  Vampires. Whatta fucking revelation. When Ronin had showed up at his kill site in New York, E had stabbed him to death. But the bastard hadn’t dropped. Blood had spread across his fancy shirt in a deep red stain, then…

  The bastard grins.

  Something loosens inside E at the sight of those curving white fangs, something that curdles in his belly and freezes his thoughts. He catches a whiff of something rank, like maybe he’d stepped in dogshit somewhere along the line. But the heavy warmth in his drawers reveals the truth: E has crapped his pants. And then he’s attacking the grinning black bastard with his shivs again—

  And finds himself sprawled on the floor, his shivs no longer in his hands, but in the vampire’s, whirling between his long fingers like sharpened shards of moonlight.