Renata loved the Protestant Cemetery. RESURRECTURIS was carved deep into the stone above the cemetery’s main entrance, sanctifying it as a place for those who will rise again. Peace and stillness ran deep here, like a river within the earth’s heart.
A sacred place.
Often in the quiet hours of the night, she’d soar over its stone walls and bask in its silence and calm like a cat stretched out in a pool of warm Mediterranean sunlight, the cemetery’s ancient and thick Roman walls blocking out all traffic noise from the streets beyond.
Renata scanned the shadows for Fionn, drawn by the rhythm of his heart, as she followed the stone path meandering around the grounds. She walked past tombstones and weathered monuments, her attention coming to rest on the ancient pyramid looming just behind the short, iron-barred fence and the figures shadowing its stone—one standing, one kneeling.
Renata left the stone path and started across the night-draped grass. A lean figure wearing a long, black coat stepped forward. His shoulder-length hair—gold and honey and red—flickered like flame in the warm breeze. An intricate band of Celtic knot-work was blue-inked across his handsome face, running beneath his light-filled eyes and across the bridge of his nose.
Beautiful Fionn, from Ireland.
Renata nodded in acknowledgment as she drew to a halt in front of Fionn’s tall, muscular form—six-four to her five-two. He wore tight-fitting black leather pants and a white poet’s shirt beneath his long coat.
Fionn was the only member of her privy council within the Cercle de Druide that she truly trusted and the only member she had told that a True Blood—Dante Baptiste—had been found by her mortal daughter, the child of her heart, Caterina.
Now she was about to entrust Fionn with an even more powerful secret—that she suspected Dante Baptiste was much more than a magical True Blood.
Caterina’s words sparkled like fairy dust in Renata’s memory.
The Bloodline still holds, Mama, and a myth from the ancient past now walks the world. I’ve seen him. Fallen and True Blood.
And not just that. A Fallen Maker.
Renata’s blood thrummed with excitement as she considered all the ramifications, all the possibilities. The time of gods and vampires had, at long last, returned.
According to Caterina, Dante Baptiste had rejected the Fallen by turning dozens of them to stone in Damascus, Oregon. And this pleased Renata because, at the heart of the matter, Dante had been born vampire. He belongs to us, not the Elohim. We shall guide him.
“Mo bhean,” Fionn greeted formally, dropping with feline grace to one knee in the grass. He bowed his head, one gold-and-fire side braid swinging against the side of his face. “I seek thy blessing.”
Renata bit her lower lip and hot blood welled, washing away pain’s sting. “Then rise and receive it, mo phбiste.”
Fionn stood and, grasping her shoulders, bent his face to hers and kissed her deeply, drinking in her blessing with his lips and tongue. He smelled of peat and smoky fires, of deep, dark forests.
His warm hands slid away from her shoulders as the kiss ended and he straightened to regard her with eyes the color of a winter sea—blue-gray and full of hidden depths. He licked the last drop of dark blood from his lips with a slow curl of his tongue—and the sight melted the final bit of frost from Renata’s flight-cooled body.
Well. At least I’m no longer cold.
“I brought an offering, my lady,” he said, his lilting voice like musical honey.
Renata glanced at the young mortal male kneeling in the dew-wet grass behind Fionn, his head respectfully bowed. His pulse raced through his veins. Mingled lust and adrenaline and an opium-laced merlot spiced his blood.
“Grazie,” she said with a quick smile. “He smells absolutely delizioso. I shall share him with you, of course. After we talk.”
Fionn nodded, “Have you news of the True Blood?”
“Sм. Troubling news received from my llygad this evening.” Renata crossed the moon-silvered lawn to a bench and sat. A tabby jumped down, deciding it didn’t care to share its perch.
Renata crooked a finger, and by the time she had lowered her hand, Fionn was sitting beside her, fingers absently stroking the ghost-pale fur of a purring cat already snuggled into his leather-clad lap.
“Troubling?” he asked, a frown pinching the skin between his eyes.
“His home was burned down to the foundation last night in New Orleans and a member of his household is believed to have died in the fire.”
When Renata had received word of the fire, uneasiness had trailed a cold finger down her spine. The fact that she’d heard nothing of this from Giovanni—already in place in New Orleans to meet with Dante Baptiste and offer him the support of the Cercle—had left her more than a little disturbed.
“Does Baptiste have any ongoing feuds?”
Renata nodded. “According to my llygad, Dante was accused a year ago of murdering an entire household, but for one survivor, by torching their home. The matter was dropped due to lack of evidence and motive.”
“A household for a household,” Fionn mused. “Sounds like the sole survivor finally decided to take matters into their own hands. Any word about the fire from Guy Mauvais? Since he’s master of the city, he must know something.”
“He knows, sм, since he ordered it done as punishment for his fille de sang’s murdered lover,” Renata said, voice tight. “A matter of personal revenge taken out on innocents. According to Mauvais, Dante admitted to the murder.”
“Then the matter should’ve been settled between them, not taken out on the boy’s household,” Fionn said. “Where is the honor in that?”
“There’s more,” Renata said. “According to rumor, Mauvais kept his llygad away from a meeting he held aboard his riverboat, a meeting that Dante Baptiste was rumored to attend—by force.”
“So anything that happened or was said during this rumored and unverified meeting can’t be confirmed.”
“Exactly.”
Fionn swore in deep-throated Gaelic. “Mauvais knows, then.”
Renata nodded. “That Dante is True Blood, sм, I would imagine so. Given that the meeting was forced, I expect Mauvais took blood by force as well.”
Fionn swore again, causing the ears of the cat curled up in his lap to twitch.
“And one final bit of news—Mauvais’s llygad reported that just before the Winter Rose undocked from the wharf, a strange statue was carried on board. A winged and crouching sculpture that seemed to be falling apart.”
Renata’s heart had danced against her ribs when she’d received that information. Winged stone. Another of the Fallen transformed by creawdwr fire? A chill had touched her spine. Did Guy Mauvais possess one of the Fallen?
And why had she heard nothing about any of this from Giovanni?
Two possibilities snapped like fire through her mind—Giovanni as prisoner, betrayed by Mauvais; Giovanni as co-conspirator for power, standing beside Mauvais.
But she knew from long experience with her fils de sang that a third possibility was more likely: he’d been buried to the hilt inside some lovely little thing, so busy laughing and drinking and fucking that he hadn’t noticed that everything was going to shit around him.
A muscle flexed in Renata’s jaw. She quickly calculated the time difference. It would be nearly seven P.M. in New Orleans. Giovanni should be awake soon, if he wasn’t already. As soon as she finished here, she would have a long conversation with her fils de sang. One he wouldn’t relish.
“Sounds like a gargoyle, a statue,” Fionn said. “Why is that worthy of note?”
“Because it brings us to the heart of why I asked you here, mio amico.”
“I’m listening, my lady.”
“There’s more at stake here than you realize,” Renata said, rising to her feet. “I was waiting until I could verify the information before sharing it with you, but given recent events . . .” She lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.
“More at st
ake than True Blood?”
“Sм, assolutamente,” Renata held Fionn’s winter-sea gaze. “Dante Baptiste was fathered by one of the Fallen. I also believe him to be a Maker.”
Fionn stared at her, his face shocked clean of emotion, his body held preternaturally still. “There has never been a vampire/Fallen creawdwr,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “Never a mixed-blood creawdwr. Period. There hasn’t even been a Maker since Yahweh’s death. How certain of this are you?”
“Almost completely. His being fathered by one of the Fallen is beyond question. My daughter, Caterina, has proof of that. She also witnessed him turning Fallen emissaries seeking to guide him to Gehenna to stone.”
“To stone . . .” Comprehension glinted in Fionn’s eyes. “You suspect Mauvais has one of the transformed Fallen in his possession.”
Renata shrugged. “И una possibilitа.”
Fionn scrubbed a hand over his face, his gaze shifting away into the distance. “If this is true, that a True Blood/Fallen creawdwr exists, and he has rejected the Fallen, then we need to claim him before the Conseil du Sang learns the truth.”
“Sм, the Conseil will have no regard for the creawdwr’s spiritual well-being,” Renata said. “They know nothing of gods and will try to manipulate Dante into serving base causes. He is ours.”
“Aye,” Fionn murmured, looking at her again. “That he is.”
“And that’s where you come into this, mio amico,” Renata said. “I want you to bond Dante Baptiste. You have even more centuries than I do. I can’t think of a better teacher to guide him.”
But what she left unvoiced was her prime reason—Fionn would obey her.
Fionn blinked. He scrubbed a hand over his face again, whiskers rasping against his palm. “Why me, my lady? Why not you, yourself?”
“I have too many other responsibilities,” Renata replied. “All of which I would most likely need to give up if I bonded Dante. I have a feeling he would be a full-time job.”
Fionn laughed, the sound low and warm and very amused. “A polite way of saying I have time on my hands?” When Renata opened her mouth to protest, he held up a hand and shook his head. “I have been bored of late. When do you want me to go to New Orleans?”
“Soon. I have a task for Giovanni first—I want him to find and kill Guy Mauvais, then offer his head as a gift to Dante, our creawdwr, as a token of our devotion. I want you there with Giovanni when he makes the presentation.”
“Do you have any images of the True Blood you can share?”
“Sм, let me contact Stefan.”
Renata sent to her llygad and asked him to transmit the most current image he possessed of Dante to her and Fionn.
She felt a touch against her mind, a spiderweb’s delicate tickle, as the llygad pushed for her—and Fionn—to open. Renata inhaled deeply, then closed her eyes and relaxed her shields.
Stefan sent.
An image poured into Renata’s mind in detail so vivid it was as if she were viewing it in real time and through her own eyes.
Even though she’d studied the pictures of Dante that Caterina had emailed her and was acquainted with his lust-stirring looks, her breath still caught in her throat as though she were seeing him for the first time—a sudden intake of air she heard echoed from Fionn’s throat.
But as Renata looked past Dante’s dangerous and moonlit beauty, she noticed the tight set of his jaw, the smear of dried blood beneath his nose, the blue smudges beneath his kohled eyes, the dilated pupils like pools of ink.
He’s in pain. Or had been, anyway.
Shirtless, his white skin practically glowed in the waning night, pale moonlight pulsing through his veins. A ringed collar was buckled around his throat and snug, low-slung leather pants were belted over his hips. Smears of dried blood streaked his shoulders and down along his sides, blood that seemed to radiate out from his back.
Has the child been fighting? Feasting? Perhaps both.
But it was the scar on Dante’s chiseled chest that throttled Renata’s heart into high gear. A looping glyph in angelic script. Either Caterina had never seen it or it was new.
The heart-stopping image of Dante shimmered as though underwater, then vanished as the llygad withdrew it from their minds. Renata opened her eyes.
“A dangerous beauty,” Fionn breathed. “But that looked like a Fallen sigil on his chest.”
“I agree. Perhaps it was placed there by his father,” Renata said, hoping it was true. If he’d been marked by the Elohim . . .
Stefan sent.
Renata felt a another gentle touch from the llygad’s mind. Images streamed in.
The strobing lights of rumbling fire engines, police cars, ambulances, and a squat bomb squad van chip away at the night with red, blue, and white spikes of color.
Shards of broken glass in the street. Dented vehicles, cars slanted across the road as though kicked aside.
The cemetery walls, shattered and ruined, have collapsed; tombs, crypts, and statues have been cut in half, their contents spilling onto the ruptured stone paths; the sliced-off tops of cypress and oaks bury chunks of broken stone and masonry, the edges of their leaves curled up and blackened.
Rescue personnel and first responders search the cemetery, their voice perplexed at what they don’t find. A cause for the explosion. Or a reason why the first responders simultaneously fainted an hour earlier.
The thunderstorm scent of ozone lingers in the air.
The flood of images and sensory input wavered, then vanished as Stefan withdrew from their minds once more.
Renata opened her eyes to find Fionn staring at her. She wondered if her expression looked as troubled as his.
“I don’t care for the looks of that,” he said. “Could it be the work of the creawdwr? Perhaps in a fight against the Fallen?”
Renata shrugged. “Troubling things are always occurring in New Orleans, sм? Why be bothered by this one? It may have nothing to do with Dante Baptiste.”
But despite her words, Renata couldn’t help but think that the mysterious explosion was tied to Dante Baptiste. But how and why eluded her.
A sudden thought, a horrible possibility, raised its head as Caterina’s words returned to her.
He’s been damaged, Mama. Monsters seized him the moment he was born and hid him among even more twisted monsters who fed upon his beauty and tried to shatter his spirit.
And did the monsters succeed?
No, I think they failed . . .
But what if Caterina was wrong and the monsters had succeeded in shattering his spirit, his mind? And Dante Baptiste, first True Blood Fallen creawdwr in history, was insane?
Gently shooing the cat from his lap, Fionn rose to his feet and inclined his head at the blood gift. With a smile she didn’t feel, Renata nodded in agreement.
As they feasted together on the young mortal from Naples, his blood pouring hot and well-flavored down their throats, Renata mulled over the relevance of the ruined city of the dead in New Orleans and pondered the possible destruction of the world and all it contained. Opium-birthed visions rippled through her mind.
The night burns, the sky on fire from horizon to horizon.
The Great Destroyer looks up and gold light stars out from his kohl-rimmed eyes.
Sitting back on her heels, Renata studied the runic patterns created on the mortal’s cooling skin in trails and smears and spatters of his own blood. But no matter how long she looked at them, their shape and revelation remained the same—revealing only swords and cracked towers, death and destruction and utter transformation.
Renata felt her heart turn to ice.
31
NO OTHER CHOICE
NEW ORLEANS,
CLUB HELL
March 28
“GO AWAY, T
EE-TEE,” TREY said when Dante walked into the bedroom. “Quitte moi tranquille. Just let me fucking be.” He rolled over onto his side, his dreads slithering across the bed.
Dante caught the bitter alkaloid odor of hunger undercutting the web-runner’s natural Spanish moss-and-still-water scent. Trey’s body wanted to feed, but he was ignoring it, willing himself straight into death’s ravenous heart instead.
Not if I can help it. Ain’t losing him too.
“I think you’re gonna want to hear what I got to say, cher,” Dante said, sitting down on the quilted comforter beside him. “Those motherfuckers who torched the house? I got word that they’re rendezvousing with Mauvais tonight at Lake Pontchar-train.”
Even though he wasn’t moving, Trey’s body seemed to freeze, every fiber of his being listening. “Word from who?”
“Vincent, and he sends his condolences.”
Trey flopped over onto his back. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes a lambent gleam in the darkness. “If he’s still an ally of that fi’ de garce Mauvais, he can keep his goddamned condolences. Was he telling the truth? About the rendezvous?”
“Ain’t sure, but I think it can’t hurt to check it out. We’ll be careful. Watch our asses. But if it’s true . . .” Dante lifted his arm and bit into his wrist. Blood welled up, dark and fragrant, on his white skin. “Then you’re gonna need strength.”
Trey’s nostrils flared at the blood’s rich grape-and-pomegranate scent. But he kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You gotta make me a promise first, Tee-Tee.”
A cold certainty crackled through Dante like winter frost. He shook his head. “No. You can’t ask that of me.”
“Then get the fuck outta here.”
“You want me gone? Fais-moi, you. Get the fuck up off that bed and make me. C’mon, toss my goddamned ass out the fucking door. Kick it all the way down the stairs.”
Trey bolted up on his elbows, fury blazing in his eyes. “Va t’cacher, Dante! Fout moi la prix!”
“Simone would want you to feed. She’d want you to fucking fight.”