Dante closed his fingers around the iPod and snatched it from the air. The moment he did, Heather’s gun floated up from the foot of the drive like a wind-caught leaf. It fluttered over to the truck and in through the open window.
“He’s not going to listen to that until we have Annie back!” Heather yelled.
“I really don’t want to hurt your sister, so don’t force me,” Lyons said. “Dante has ten seconds to comply, then I’m driving away.”
Truth and mingled lies wove the fabric of Lyons’s words. Dante knew he’d hurt Annie with little hesitation.
“Don’t listen to the iPod. I think he’s trying to trigger you.” Heather looked at Dante, her eyes nearly black with emotion. “There’s got to be another—”
“Move away from me, chérie,” Dante whispered. “Get outta reach.”
Jaw tight, eyes glistening, Heather backed away from him.
Dante worked the earbuds into his ears, then, heart hammering against his ribs, he touched the play arrow. A smooth voice burrowed into his ears.
“S, time to awaken, my Sleeping Beauty. You have work to do.”
A familiar voice. One Dante still couldn’t name. Pain ripped through his mind, rising up from below and shredding his thoughts, his sense of self. Voices, whispering, screaming, and everything in between, cycloned up from the shattered depths. Droning wasps winged up in a dark and furious cloud, needling venom into his heart.
Pain shoved him below.
And Dante tumbled into limitless depths.
The unnamed voice continued to speak.
35 LOCKED INSIDE HIS HEAD
Seattle, WA
March 24
DANTE DROPPED TO HIS knees on the gravel and doubled over, his hand fisting around the iPod. His rain-damp hair swung forward, hiding his face.
Pulse thundering in her ears, Heather stepped toward him. He hissed, the low sound a warning as primal as a rattlesnake’s. She froze.
“Stay away from him,” Lyons called from the truck.
The hiss faded. Dante swayed on his knees. Heather wanted to yank the headphones from his ears, but had a feeling it was too late. And, for all she knew, interrupting the process might do him more harm than good.
A car door thunked, then Heather heard footsteps approaching from the street. Her hands knotted into fists when Lyons stopped beside her in a cloud of cigarette smoke and Drakkar Noir.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked, her voice flat.
“When he stands up again, throw him your car keys.”
“What?” Heather looked at Lyons. He met her gaze, his own curious.
“I think I know where my father’s sending him,” Lyons said. “Give Dante the keys and stay out of his way. We’ll follow.”
“He’s doing this for Annie, so tell me where she is.”
“After,” Alex said, nodding at Dante. “Ah,” he breathed.
Dante pulled the earbuds free and dropped the iPod in the gravel. He pushed his hair back from his face with both hands, then rose to his feet. Rain dewed his hair, glistened in beads on his leather pants and on the shoulders of his hoodie, on the lenses of his sunglasses.
He swiveled around, a movement so quick she’d nearly missed it. He watched her from behind his shades, his pale face still and, suddenly, unknown to her. Blood trickled from his nose. Fear hollowed Heather out.
She was looking at S, not Dante.
“Give him the keys,” Lyons murmured, touching her arm.
Heather pulled the keys from her purse and tossed them. Dante snatched the jingling keys in midair. Without a word, he walked to the Trans Am, slid inside, and started up the engine. He backed the car out of the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tires, then drove away, exhaust pluming in the chilly, moist air.
Heather watched, eyes burning. Her promises twisted around her heart.
I will find you. I won’t give up.
“Aren’t we following?” she asked, looking at Lyons.
A smile curved his lips, a wide, dark smile. “Amen, sister, that we are,” he said. “But first, I want you to put your hands on the hood of the truck and assume the position. Need to search you.”
Fury blazed through Heather’s veins. “Payback time, huh?”
Lyons laughed. “Absolutely. Give me your purse and take off your coat.”
Knowing she had promises to keep to Annie and Dante both and no time to waste, Heather gave Lyons her purse. He slung the strap over his shoulder and waited as she unbelted her trench and shrugged out of it. She threw it at him, then marched over to the Dodge Ram, placed her hands on the rain-slick hood and spread her feet apart.
“Keep any and all smart-ass comments to yourself,” Lyons said as he patted her down, his hands sliding under her arms and down her sides, across her breasts.
When his hands dropped down to her legs, Heather tensed, expecting him to take full advantage of the situation, but his pat-down remained quick and professional.
“Turn around.”
Heather did as Lyons instructed. He held up the morphine-dosed syringe. “Not even an overdose,” he commented. “Feeling merciful, Wallace?”
“Not anymore.”
Lyons handed back her trenchcoat and waited as Heather slipped into it and belted it. He kept her purse. He nodded at his truck, blond curls tumbling into eyes. “Inside.”
After Heather had strapped her seatbelt shut, Lyons fastened flex-cuffs around her wrists. “This isn’t necessary,” she said, heart pounding. “You’ve got my sister—”
Lyons shrugged, and keyed on the engine. “Sometimes family relations aren’t what they should be.”
Thinking of her father, Heather silently agreed. She fixed her gaze on the street beyond the windshield. She pictured Dante in her mind, visualized a cord stretching between them—the temporary link formed when Dante’d sipped blood from her throat the night before.
You’re not alone, Heather sent, hoping that wherever Dante was trapped inside his mind, he could hear her. Come back to me, Baptiste.
SAC ALBERTO RODRIGUEZ POURED another cup of French roasted coffee, stirring in a thick dollop of cream. He took a sip, savoring the rich flavor. He carried the cup back into the living room and set it on the coffee table.
He glanced at the fight occurring on the TV, a middleweight bout between the reigning champ, Miguel Garcia, and up-and-comer, Mickey Dowd. Always favoring the underdog, Rodriguez’s money was on Dowd.
It was Friday night, which meant he had the house to himself. Sylvia was visiting her folks in Bellevue and the girls were spending the night with friends. Friday night was always Daddy’s alone night.
Rodriguez sat on the sofa. He picked up the hardcopy he’d printed of Heather Wallace’s Seattle physician’s report to compare with the one from the hospital in D.C. Propping his feet on the coffee table, he picked up a yellow highlighter pen, and started marking pertinent facts.
Damage should have been fatal. Between the time Special Agent Wallace was wounded and when she arrived in Emergency, she should have bled out.
During surgery to remove the bullet, it was noticed that the aorta had clearly discernible new tissue…
The wild cheers of the crowd and the announcer’s excited voice drew Rodriguez’s attention up from the report. Garcia was down on the mat, struggling to get onto his hands and knees before the referee counted him out. Dowd bounced on the balls of his feet in his corner, a sheen of sweat on his youthful face.
Rodriguez watched as Garcia grabbed at the ropes, trying, but failing, to haul himself onto his feet. The bell rang. Dowd punched his fists into the air, head back.
But beneath the cheering, bell ringing, and shouts, Rodriguez thought he heard something he shouldn’t have—a quick snap from the rear of the house.
He sat up, listening. Had he heard the shush of a window rising?
Setting the report aside, Rodriguez rose to his feet and walked swiftly to his darkened office. His Smith & Wesson M&P .45 was in the gun safe beside his desk
. He knelt and worked the combination lock. Opening the safe, he grabbed his gun. He flipped off the safety. Chambered a round.
Just as Rodriguez stood, his skin prickled. Someone was behind him. He spun around, lifting the S&W. “Don’t mo…” His words shriveled in his throat.
Dante Prejean stood in the doorway. Bad Seed in the flesh. And Rodriguez had no doubt who had sent him.
The vampire moved.
Rodriguez pulled the trigger.
LYONS PULLED UP BEHIND the empty Trans Am and switched off the Ram’s engine. “Our little True Blood must be doing his thing,” he said.
“Where is he?” Heather asked. “Who did your father send him after?”
“Two houses up,” Lyons said. “SAC Rodriguez’s place.”
“Christ!” Heather stared at the neat green house. “Maybe there’s still time to stop this. You said you hated your father for what he’s done to you and your sister. Why are you letting him use Dante? How can you expect Dante to help you after this?”
Fingers grasped Heather’s chin and forced her head around. Lyons’s gaze churned, a storm-tossed sea. “Dante will help because he’ll have no other choice,” he said, voice coiled tight. “Since he gave me no other choice.”
Heather jerked free of his fingers. “Bullshit. Everything you’ve done has been a choice.”
A smile flickered across Lyons’s lips. “Did I mention you won’t have any choices in this little scenario either?”
“Am I supposed to be surprised?”
“Guess not.” Lyons reached under his seat, feeling around for something. He pulled out a small black gun and put it on the seat between them. “You have a job to do.”
Trank gun, Heather realized, cold icing her heart. A cold that intensified with each word from Lyons’s lips.
“You need to go into Rodriguez’s house and dose Dante,” Lyons said, reaching across her. He flipped open the glove box and rummaged through the contents. Finding whatever he was searching for, he closed the glove box and straightened.
He flipped open the blade of a small pocketknife and sliced through the flex-cuffs. “Once he’s unconscious, I’ll retrieve him.”
Heather rubbed her wrists. “And after that?”
“After that, I’ll tell you where Annie is and you can go get her. I’ll keep Dante.”
Heather thought it more likely he’d kill her and Annie. Why the hell would he leave them alive?
Unless…he planned to use them to keep twisting Dante’s arm.
“Just so you know, there’s only one dose in that gun. If you want to keep breathing, don’t miss.”
Heather picked up the trank gun, wrapped her fingers around its grip. The urge to use it on Lyons plucked at her control. Whatever the drug was, it’d been designed for nightkind, not mortals. She didn’t know if it’d kill Lyons instantly or if he’d suffer a nasty, painful death.
And Dante?
Heather drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Hold on, Baptiste.
She opened her eyes and met Lyons’s gaze. His smile vanished. She opened the passenger door and jumped down to the street, renewed rain cooling her face. A gunshot cracked the silence.
Heather ran.
A FIST SLAMMED INTO S’s chest, knocking the air from his lungs. He tackled the man who’d just shot him, bulldogging the fucker to the floor. He yanked the gun from the mortal’s hand and flung it away. Inside, voices capered and screamed and whispered.
Wantitneeditdoitkillit.
Givehimwhathedeserves. Giveitalltohim.
S wrenched aside the arm shielding the man’s throat and tore into the warm flesh with his fangs. S swallowed mouthful after heady mouthful of adrenaline-spiked blood. Sharp pain radiated from the bullet wound in his chest, the exit wound in his back. His lung burned with each breath he drew.
Wantitneeditkillit.
Burnburnburnburnburnitalldown.
He burrowed his face deeper into the mortal’s throat, seeking every last tart-berry drop of blood.
Dante-angel?
S went still. Listened.
Dante-angel? Where are we?
Princess…
Pain ice-picked S’s mind. Stole his breath. He lifted his face from the mortal’s ruined throat. Dizziness whirled through him, spun his thoughts like a carousel. He looked at the man sprawled beneath him. His eyes were huge in his pale, blood-flecked face. He gurgled. Then went silent.
Where’s Papa Prejean taking us, Dante-angel?
A bad place I’ve been before. Get behind me and stay there.
I’m scared.
Pain twisted, jabbed, gouged. Dante squeezed his eyes shut. His muscles trembled. He heard a door open, then click shut.
A voice called, “Daddy? I forgot my iPod!”
Dante opened his eyes. He uncoiled from the body cooling beneath him and moved.
HEATHER CLIMBED IN THROUGH the open window, blinds rattling as she ducked under them. She straightened. A white washer and dryer stood side-by-side in the tidy laundry room. Dark spots of blood marred the sage-green tiled floor, leading out of the room.
She followed Dante’s trail through the kitchen and down a hall decorated with framed family photos, the thick, coppery reek of blood filling her nostrils.
She glanced in each doorway she passed, trank gun held at her side. In the last room on the right side of the hall, she saw a man’s body—Rodriguez—motionless on the floor. Blood glistened on his ravaged throat and chest. Her heart sank.
I’m too late.
From the front room, pitched voices discussed boxing strategies—TV talking heads. But underneath that, Heather heard soft sobbing, followed by a voice she recognized, Cajun-thick and low, ragged with pain.
“Shhh, don’t cry. J’su ici, mon princesse, j’su ici.”
Dante wasn’t alone.
Heather dashed to the living room, then halted, heart in her throat.
A girl of about nine or ten in jeans and a Tinker Bell tee stood rigid against a cinnamon-colored sofa littered with papers. Dante was crouched in front of her, stroking her long dark hair with one pale, blood-smeared hand. “Shhhh,” he soothed. “J’su ici.”
Her face wet with tears, the girl cast a sidelong look at Heather. “Help me,” she whispered.
Heather lifted the trank gun, pulse pounding hard and furious. She aimed.
Dante moved. In a blurring streak of leather and pale flesh, he grabbed the girl and shoved her behind him as he whirled to face Heather. He hissed. Bared his fangs.
The girl squeaked, then fell silent, eyes wide.
“Get down, Chloe. I won’t let ’em have you.” Dante’s shades were gone and Heather saw rage blazing in his dilated, red-streaked eyes, a fevered fire that underscored the resolve on his blood-smeared face. “You ain’t taking her.”
“Baptiste, listen to me,” Heather said softly. “That’s not Chloe. She’s long gone. Alex Lyons triggered you with a message from his father, Dr. Robert Wells.”
Dante sucked in a breath. Touched trembling fingers to his temple. More blood trickled from his nose. Heather took a step closer. Lifted the trank gun and aimed.
“Just you and me, princess,” he said. “Forever and ever.”
He lifted his burning gaze to Heather’s and the desolation she glimpsed in the dark depths of his eyes broke her heart. His muscles flexed. “Run,” he whispered.
She knew in that moment, she would hate Alexander Lyons forever.
She squeezed the trigger.
36 THE UNDERWORLD
Damascus, OR
March 24
DANTE moved.
Heather jumped back, shielding her throat with her arms, hoping to hell she’d hit her mark. Dante stumbled to a stop about two feet from her, staggered. He plucked the dart from his throat. A familiar smile tilted his lips and, for an instant as he looked at her, he was himself again.
Relief flickered in his dark eyes.
The dart tumbled from his fingers. Then he followed it,
sprawling belly down on the oatmeal-shaded carpet, his black hair spilling across Heather’s Skechers.
Heather lowered her arms. She tossed the trank gun aside, then dropped to her knees beside Dante. She grabbed his shoulders and rolled him over. She touched his face. He was burning up, his skin hot beneath her shaking fingers.
“Good shootin’, Tex,” Lyons said from behind her—in the hall. “I kinda thought he’d tear you apart. Gotta admit, I’m glad he didn’t.”
Heather glanced at him from over her shoulder. “You’re so full of shit, I’m surprised you haven’t suffocated yet.”
“Ouch,” Lyons murmured, voice amused. He sauntered into the room and crouched beside her. “Looks like he took a bullet.”
Heather followed his gaze to the hole in Dante’s PVC shirt above the left pec. Almost a heart shot. Not fatal, but Rodriguez would still be alive if he hadn’t missed. But where would that have left Dante?
“Move away, Wallace. I’ll truss him up.”
“Where’s my dad?”
Heather lifted her gaze to the girl still standing wide-eyed and trembling beside the sofa where Dante had shoved her for safekeeping. “Is my dad here?”
Heather’s throat tightened. “I don’t know, honey,” she said softly, rising to her feet. “What’s your name?”
“Brisia,” she said. “Shouldn’t we call 911? My dad always told me—”
“You’ve been very brave, Brisia,” Heather said, crossing to the sofa. She knelt beside the dark-haired girl. “Your dad would be proud of you. You just need to be brave for a little while longer, okay sweetie?”
Brisia nodded, expression uncertain, her eyes glassy with shock. Heather stroked her arm, knowing her attempt to soothe the girl was hollow, at best.
Brisia’s father was dead, his body in another room, just yards away. She’d learn the truth soon enough and it wouldn’t matter to her that Dante’d had no choice, that he’d been programmed to kill on a madman’s whim.