She had a job to do.
The click-click-clickety-click of heels against concrete echoed throughout the parking garage. Caterina thumbed off the Sig’s safety, eased the slide back ever so quietly, and chambered a round.
A beep-beep rolled like thunder through the garage as the mark unlocked the SUV with her remote.
Lifting the Sig to head level, Caterina waited.
VALERIE UNDERWOOD YANKED THE SUV’s door open, then tossed her purse into the passenger seat. She slid in behind the wheel and thumped the back of her skull against the headrest.
Shit-sucking, money-stealing attorneys.
They were determined to get every last goddamned cent of Stephen’s life insurance money and pension. She’d hoped that her acquittal would dissolve her of any responsibility for legal fees and court costs.
By the time it was all said and done, she’d be lucky if she even had money enough for the girls’ college funds.
I was found innocent. Shouldn’t I sue the state for my legal fees? For my emotional and mental distress? My husband was murdered and I was accused.
You were acquitted, Valerie. I think I’d count my blessings and move on.
Easy for her attorney to say. He’d have the majority of her funds. The cheapest part of this whole ordeal? Hiring Baxter to do the job on Stephen. He’d only cost her 5K and a couple of blow jobs.
Shit-sucking, money-stealing attorneys.
At least she’d had one slice of good news today—a heaping slice. Her ball-busting mother-in-law had dropped dead of a stroke in some diner on her way to work.
She wondered if Celeste had changed her will to exclude her yet.
Sighing, Valerie sat up. She needed to get over to Georgetown and pick up the girls at her folks’. She strapped on her seat belt, then slid the key into the ignition. When she glanced into the rearview mirror, her heart hurtled into her throat.
A woman with dark hair and shadowed eyes aimed a gun at the back of Valerie’s head. “Stephen and Celeste send their regards,” she said, pulling the trigger.
29
WORDS SHE SHOULDN’T KNOW
NEW ORLEANS,
CLUB HELL
March 28
“THANKS, JACK,” HEATHER SAID as the drummer set the carton down on the bedroom floor beside the one she had carried up from the van. A musty smell wafted up from the cartons. “I appreciate it.”
Jack straightened in the dim light shafting in from the hallway, then shrugged, muscles cording in the shoulders displayed by the black wife-beater stretched across his chest.
“Зa fait pas rien, hun,” he said, his Cajun accent spiced thicker than Dante’s. “Glad to help, me.” He nodded at the time-weathered and stained cartons, the faux hawk of cherry-red colored braids atop his buzz-cut dark blond hair swinging against his shoulders. “Still working on your mama’s case?”
“I hope to—once things have quieted down,” Heather replied.
“If you wait until things quiet down, hun, you might be waiting a long fucking time. Things ain’t never quiet around Dante.”
Kind of what she’d figured, but . . . “Point taken, m’sieu.”
Jack’s gaze drifted over to the bed, his attention on Dante’s Snoozing form. “How’s Tee-Tee doing, anyhow?”
Heather smiled at Dante’s nickname—earned for being the youngest member of Inferno—but her smile faded as she realized what Jack was asking. How’s he holding up? “Blaming himself,” she said quietly.
Jack shook his head and returned his attention to Heather. “Bet he is, him. I was afraid of that. Simone wouldn’t like that, no.”
“You should remind him of that,” Heather said.
“Good idea. I’ll do that, me.”
“Dante and Simone used to be more than friends, didn’t they?” she asked, surprised to hear the question spill from her lips. She knew it didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter, not anymore, but still . . . she couldn’t help wondering.
“At the start, yeah, but it was a short-lived thing. Then they became friends.”
“Were they in love?”
Jack snorted. “Nope. Just lust and curiosity. A getting-to-know-you thing.”
“That’s one way to get to know someone, I suppose,” Heather muttered, daggering a glance at the beautiful nightkind stretched on top of the bed, one pale arm across his waist. Her beautiful nightkind. Her man. “Does he do that often?”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. He leaned one shoulder against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. His hazel eyes held hers. “Maybe you should be having this conversation with Tee-Tee, not me.”
Heat crept into Heather’s cheeks. He was right, of course. How would she feel if Dante started quizzing Annie over her past lovers and relationships?
“What you need to keep in mind is that I ain’t never seen Dante look at anyone like he looks at you, Heather. And me, I think you ought to leave the past right where it belongs.”
Claim the present. Forge a future. Together. All the things she was trying to help Dante accomplish with his life and here she was, getting worked up over people he’d gotten to know in the past.
Heather blew out a breath and trailed both hands through her hair. “Christ. You’re right. I’m being an idiot.”
“You’re being human, is all,” Jack said, “I think your feelings are natural enough. Just talk to Tee-Tee. Let him know what you expect from him. He’ll listen, for true.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Heather said. “I’ll do that.”
A soft trill drew her attention to the doorway. Eerie rubbed his furry side against the doorjamb, golden eyes blinking.
“Look who it is,” Jack said, nodding at Eerie. “Hey, minou.” Heather crouched and held out her hand. “C’mere, you. How’s my kitty-boy?”
Eerie padded into the room, tail held high, the tip curving into a question mark. He moseyed around the room, pausing to rub the side of his face against each piece of furniture as he leisurely made his way over to Heather’s hand and bumped his orange head against her waiting fingertips.
Heather scratched behind his ears. “Thanks for gracing me with your presence, oh regal and magnificent one.”
Eerie chirped that she was, indeed, fortunate to have been graced with his feline presence, then sauntered back across the room to the door. He glanced over his shoulder. Mewed.
“Yes, Master. Right away, Master,” Heather said, rising to her feet. “I take it that you need to be fed.”
“I do need to be fed, me,” Jack agreed. “And I appreciate the offer and all, but I ain’t too comfortable with the word master.” A wicked smile curved his lips, sparked mischief in his golden-brown eyes. He winked. “Jack alone will do.”
Heather cocked an eyebrow. “As Dante would say, tais toi. And unless you’d like a heaping bowl of kitty kibble, Mr. Jack-Alone-Will-Do, you can fix your own damned food.”
“Which flavor of kibble?”
“Fake tuna.”
“Yum. My favorite.”
“Mew,” Eerie insisted, managing to sound both impatient and disapproving at the same time. Tail twitching, he disappeared into the hall.
Laughing, Heather and Jack followed him downstairs.
ANNIE SAT ON A stool at the counter, watching what looked like Robot Chicken reruns on the flat screen TV bolted to the wall above the bar, a cigarette smoldering between the fingers of one hand.
As Heather walked around behind the bar, she noticed that her sister was wearing new jeans and an Inferno T-shirt—all courtesy of De Noir—the bandages still secure on her arms.
“Hey,” Annie greeted, taking a sip from a black mug with painted flames licking up from its base. The pungent scent of peppermint and tea leaves curled into the air. But the bottle of Wild Turkey resting on the counter beside the half-empty pack of Camels told Heather that tea wasn’t the only thing her sister was drinking.
You’d think after all the puking and groaning she’d done earlier this afternoon that the last thing she’d want would
be more booze.
“Hair of the dog?” Heather asked, lifting one eyebrow. “Doesn’t the bourbon cancel out the tea and peppermint? I thought you didn’t get hangovers.”
Annie shook a wayward lock of blue/black/purple hair back from her eyes and blew a ring of smoke into the air. “First time for everything. And I hope it’s the last. Because this fucking blows.”
“Have you eaten anything? Maybe some toast—”
Annie shuddered. “Dear God, no.”
Heather fetched the bag of kibble and poured a handful into the small plastic bowl sitting beside the water dish on the floor. With a happy chirp, Eerie started crunching tuna-stinky nuggets.
“My hard-earned advice?” Annie said. “Never try to keep up with vampires. Nightkind will drink ya under the table every fucking time.”
“Sounds like a no-brainer, actually.”
“So does not hanging out with someone who can turn fucking fallen angels to stone and cemeteries to slag. But here we are.”
Jaw tight, Heather rolled the top of the kibble bag shut, then slid it under the sink. Gripping the counter’s edge, she locked gazes with her sister. “Don’t. Start.”
Annie rubbed a hand over her face, then sighed. “Shit. I don’t wanna start a fight. That’s not my intention. You’ve both been through hell. Fuck, Dante just lost his house, his friend. Maybe he would be safer in Gehenna with the other fallen angels.”
Heather stared at Annie. “Where did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Gehenna. How the hell do you know that name?”
“I don’t know. I musta heard it somewhere.” Annie took a final puff from her cigarette, blue smoke pluming from her nostrils, then stubbed it out in the butt-brimming glass ashtray. “What fucking difference does it make? The point is, the longer he stays here in our world, the more danger he’s in, right?”
Gehenna. In our world. Words that shouldn’t be slipping past Annie’s lips. Heather was pretty damned sure that neither she nor Dante had mentioned Gehenna in front of her sister, and she doubted that Caterina Cortini was the source of Annie’s disturbing knowledge, since she’d been against Annie knowing anything.
“The thing is,” Annie continued, her blue eyes meeting Heather’s, her expression earnest, “it’s where Gorgeous-but-Deadly needs to be. Gehenna. He could be himself there. He wouldn’t hafta hide who or what he is. He’d be free.”
Heather shifted her weight onto one hip and folded her arms under her breasts as she studied her sister. What game was Annie playing this time? Was it a game?
“Don’t call him that,” Heather said. “His name’s Dante. This is his world. This is his home, where he was born. Why should he have to run?”
Ain’t running. Ain’t hiding.
“I’m not saying he has to run,” Annie said, with a defiant lift of her chin. “But his blue fire mojo is outta control and his past is outta control and that scares the shit outta me. He’s gonna hurt you, Heather. Not because he wants to, but because he can’t fucking help it.”
An image of Chloe sprawled in a pool of her own blood flashed behind Heather’s eyes. Her throat tightened. The words that Dante had spoken to her before Sleep whispered through her memory.
As long as my past is messing up my present, I’m beaucoup dangerous to you and anyone near me. I’ve gotta find a way to always stay here and now.
Heather unfolded her arms, trailed a hand through her hair. “I know the risks. But they’re risks I’ve chosen to take because he’s worth fighting for and because I—”
“Fucking love him and trust him and yada-yada, I know,” Annie interrupted. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t kill you, then hate himself in the morning. Night. Whatever.”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that. But maybe if Dante went to Gehenna and found someone to teach him how to control all the shit in his head and how to keep from turning cemeteries into rock piles, someone like the Morningstar, he wouldn’t be so flipping dangerous.”
Heather’s blood chilled in her veins. “The Morningstar?” she repeated, voice low. “Now how the hell do you know that name? I know you didn’t hear it from—”
Heather felt a sudden intake of breath, felt Dante awaken. His awareness curled warm and inviting through their bond. Heat pulsed through her veins, her body. As much as she ached to race upstairs and fulfill her promise to make Dante pay for falling asleep on her, she knew her skin-on-skin revenge would have to wait for the moment.
Annie frowned. “Dunno. I guess . . . I was just thinking of fallen angels and maybe I remembered the Morningstar from a book I read or something. Fuck. I don’t know.”
Everything in Annie’s expression and body language suggested she was telling the truth—she had no idea why the Morningstar’s name had popped into her head and rolled off her tongue.
A dark possibility brewed in the back of Heather’s mind, a possibility that iced her to the bone. Her thoughts flipped back to Damascus and the discovery that one of the Fallen had broken into their motel room, frying the electronic lock and searing off the door chain, but—after magicking her and Cortini into sleep—had left without Dante. Which had made absolutely no sense.
“Holy fucking hell,” Von mutters. He looks at Dante. “Not that I ain’t glad, but why the fuck would they leave you behind?”
“I don’t think they woulda. We’re missing something.”
The Morningstar had admitted in the cemetery that he’d been following them and had broken into their room in Damascus—I’ve been keeping an eye on you for your father—but she was pretty goddamned sure that he’d lied.
Prince of Darkness. Big surprise, right? Of course he’d lied.
And Heather had the horrible feeling that he’d planted a suggestion in Annie’s dreaming mind or hypnotized her or bewitched her while in their room. Had told her to steer Dante to Gehenna—and to the Morningstar.
Christ. What if Annie’s mind hadn’t been the only one seeded full of suggestions?
Dante laughed, and the mental sound, the feel of his laughter, was a devilish hand trailing fire and wicked promises up Heather’s spine to the nape of her neck.
Heather’s breath caught rough in her throat when she felt Dante’s lips upon hers in a ravenous kiss, his heated hands cupping her face, his burning leaves and November frost scent enveloping her senses. Everything else faded away—the club, Annie, the Morningstar—beneath the intensity of Dante’s sending.
Then he was gone, his shields in place.
Oh, he’s going to pay for that one too.
Heather became aware that someone was snapping their fingers in her face.
“Hey, fucking Earth to Heather,” Annie said, snapping her fingers once more. “You’ve got that day-dreaming, inward look junkies on the nod get. Or like when I’ve seen Silver mind-chatting with other nightkind. Since I’m pretty sure you ain’t spiking black tar heroin into your veins, I’m guessing it’s that temporary blood link thingie.”
Cheeks flushing, Heather turned her thoughts back outward and focused on her sister. Annie stared at her with an unnerving intensity.
“Sorry about that,” Heather said. “And you’re right, except the link’s no longer temporary and I get caught up in it since I’m not used to it yet.” Of course, Dante hadn’t helped things one bit. She drew in a breath to calm her racing heart.
Annie narrowed her eyes. “You’re saying that you’re fucking permanently linked to him?” she asked, disbelief playing across her face. “How the hell did that happen?”
/>
“We don’t know exactly how it happened. I fell into his dreams or he pulled me in and somehow . . .”
Annie looked away, a muscle flexing in her jaw. “Well, that sucks for you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’ll never ever be alone again.”
Sliding off the bar stool, Annie scooped up the pack of Camels and tucked the book of matches inside the cellophane. Grabbing the bottle of Wild Turkey, she said, “Think I’ll see if the guys need any help.”
Heather watched her sister walk away, Annie’s hip swing growing more pronounced with each step closer to the Cage and the three Inferno members setting up equipment inside of it, wondering why she felt like she’d just been slapped and hard.
30
OF GODS AND VAMPIRES
ROME,
THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY
March 28
RENATA ALESSA CORTINI DROPPED down from the moonlit sky with its brushstrokes of pale clouds, landing with easy grace on the cemetery’s gravel path. The high altitude cold had glazed her fingers with frost, iced her nails. She threw back the hood of her black cloak and scanned the cemetery.
Moonlight glimmered on the bristling rows and layers of elaborate marble tombstones. Lambent-eyed cats—the cemetery’s sleek guardians of the dead—prowled the paths between the graves.
Renata closed her eyes and listened. On the old side of the cemetery, beyond the gate, the hummingbird flutter of a mortal heart winged around the slow, measured drumbeat of a vampire’s pulse. She opened her eyes, a smile brushing her lips.
Fionn and his blood gift.
A little calico cat slithered from around a white tombstone, scraping its furry side along the marble, and blinked moonlight-silvered eyes at Renata.
“Buona sera, bella,” Renata greeted with a smile as she walked along the gravel path, past the darkened and closed office, and through the gate into the oldest part of the cemetery. Less crowded, this side—fewer headstones and more lush grass between them.
A warm breeze rustled through the leaves of oaks, pine trees, and cypress, carrying the sweet smells of honeysuckle and roses through the air. Well-fed cats of all sizes and colors—tabby, calico, tortoiseshell—padded among the old graves or watched with lambent eyes from the benches positioned throughout the cemetery.