Etched in Bone (Maker's Song #4)

  Epstein nodded, face grim. “And not just your gun. The techs processing the scene in Damascus also found your missing partner’s gun in what appeared to be an empty grave. Beck never would’ve left his weapon behind. So that suggested he’d never left the Wells compound, like you said, or driven you back to your hotel. It also suggested that you’ve been lying and Beck is dead. The only question is why.”

  “It was necessary,” Caterina replied, holding Epstein’s gaze. “And not a decision I made lightly.”

  “Very vague, Cortini,” Epstein growled. “Care to fill in a few details?”

  “Not really.” She also didn’t plan to waste any more time with talk.

  Swinging both hands up, she clapped her palms against Epstein’s ears, then hammered the heel of her hand into his unprotected belly just above the pubic bone.

  Epstein doubled over, pain contorting his face, baring his teeth. Caterina pivoted behind him, reaching for the gun nestled against the small of his T-shirted back, but he twisted away and wheeled around before she could grab it.

  Son of a bitch!

  Sliding back a step, Caterina snapped out a front kick to Epstein’s gun hand, pinwheeling the Glock into the air. She barely had time to lower her foot back to the floor before Epstein came at her with a breath-stealing flurry of precise and deadly blows.

  Caterina tossed up forearm and knee blocks, fending off each bruising hit from its intended target as she spun on the balls of her stocking-clad feet. She launched adrenaline-fueled punches and open-handed blows of her own as she danced a whirling, punishing, Mach-3 martial arts tango with the man who’d taught her much of what she knew.

  Sweat trickled between Caterina’s breasts. Her breath burned in her lungs, her throat. She fought without pause or thought, her muscles and reflexes responding with speed and accuracy. This was a primal battle. One for survival. A duel between samurai.

  And soon, one of them would be dead.

  Caterina caught Epstein’s sudden subtle shift of position, and she used a change-body technique to slither aside just as his combat-boot-clad foot rocketed past her cheek in a lethal roundhouse kick.

  Dropping, she knocked Epstein’s legs out from under him with a quick leg-sweep. He crashed into the bed, sliding down the comforter-humped but empty mattress—wait, where’s the dummy or pillows or whatever that was rigged under the blankets to draw my fire?—then rolling, but Caterina was on him. She yanked her captured Sig free of Epstein’s khakis.

  The hair prickled on the back of Caterina’s neck.

  Someone was behind her. Bastard wasn’t alone.

  She snapped the gun up, intending to fire a couple of rounds into Epstein’s skull before spinning around to take on his partner, but before she could even squeeze the trigger, a Fourth of July’s worth of fireworks exploded behind her eyes, searing her vision white. Her muscles short-circuited, then went slack, and she flopped to the floor like an air-gunned steer. Her teeth cut into the inside of her cheek. The metallic tang of blood filled her mouth.

  “She would’ve had you,” a low, masculine voice said.

  Epstein grunted in agreement.

  Unsure what had happened to her—if she’d been hit with a Taser or had taken a sledgehammer blow to the temple—Caterina tried to move, struggled to get her hands and knees under her, but nothing happened. Sweat slicked her face and nausea rolled through her belly. Fear slivered her heart with ice. Had she taken a bullet to the neck and been paralyzed?

  “Even though I knew from day one, Cortini, that you had a foot in both worlds, I never questioned your allegiance,” Epstein said. “Not even when I learned that our so-called director was in your mother’s pocket and that she was using him to protect Prejean, because I believed you truly didn’t know anything about Renata’s arrangement with that traitorous prick Britto.”

  “I didn’t know,” Caterina said. At least her vocal cords worked. She spat blood onto the polished oak floor. If she was paralyzed, it seemed to be only from the neck down. Small comfort, that.

  “Maybe you didn’t,” Epstein allowed. “But you do now, right? And you’ve taken Renata’s side and betrayed not only me, but the human race. You might’ve been raised in a bloodsucker household, but at the end of the day, you’re still human, Cortini. Just like me.”

  Caterina saved her breath. Nothing she could say would make any difference. She had betrayed Epstein’s trust. The reasons why wouldn’t matter to him.

  A small measure of relief trickled into Caterina when she felt the pain and pressure of a knee digging into the small of her back. Not paralyzed, then. Drugged, maybe. Epstein wrenched her arms behind her. She heard the ratchet of handcuffs clicking shut, felt the bite of cold steel against her skin. Then rough hands hauled her into a sitting position against the side of the bed.

  Epstein ripped the goggles from Caterina’s face. He stepped back, stopping beside a tall man in slacks and a button-down shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The man’s eyes gleamed in the dark room, a lambent and inhuman gaze.

  Teodoro Dнon.

  Caterina’s heart kicked hard against her ribs. Now she knew why she couldn’t move. Her skin crawled. He’s in my fucking head. Switching things off.

  Dнon could reach into a person’s mind and pluck information from it. He could also wipe the mind clean of all memories.

  And he was an interrogator for the SB.

  Panic rooted tendrils deep into Caterina’s guts. She met and held the interrogator’s calm, curious gaze. The powers that be at the Shadow Branch declared Dнon a man with special gifts, a rare talent. But she felt pretty damned sure that he wasn’t mortal. Nor vampire, given his tanned olive skin and his regular daylight hours.

  Could he be Fallen?

  A smile quirked up one corner of Dнon’s mouth. He lifted a hand and seesawed it in the air. A chill rippled the length of Caterina’s spine. He was still in her mind, like a cockroach inside a wall.

  Dнon arched an amused eyebrow.

  Words burst like soap bubbles in Caterina’s mind: Interesting analogy.

  Sweat beaded her forehead. She corralled her thoughts, steered away from recent memories—especially those involving Dante Baptiste.

  “Get the lights,” Epstein ordered.

  Dнon stepped back and flipped on the wall switch. Caterina winced as the bright overhead illuminated the room.

  “Why did you kill Beck?” Epstein asked, folding his arms over his chest.

  Caterina shook her head, refusing the images, shooing away the memories, her gaze never wavering from Dнon’s watchful face.

  “I never dreamed I’d be having you interrogated,” Epstein said, shaking his head, voice laced tight. “Never imagined you giving me cause. I believed we were two of a kind. Old school warriors. You’re one of my best, Cortini—hell, you are my best; or were, anyway—and I trusted you.”

  Each cold word, diamond-hard and true, shanked Caterina to her core. “I know, and I wish it hadn’t come to this.”

  “But I was wrong about you. You’re not samurai. And you have no honor.”

  Caterina looked away from Dнon then and met Epstein’s gaze. She lifted her chin. “So says the man who planned to execute his own master.”

  “Britto stopped being my master the day he decided the life of his dying son was more important than the integrity and honor of the SB, more important than his allegiance to the goddamned USA or even to the human race, and sold his soul to Renata Alessa Cortini in exchange for his son’s life.” Epstein barked a laugh. “Are you actually trying to tell me you came after me out of loyalty to that bastard?”

  “No. I—”

  Epstein waved a hand wearily. “Save it. I don’t want to hear any more lies.” He nodded at the man standing at ease beside him. “Dнon will dredge the truth out of you.” He glanced at the interrogator, jerked his head in a nod, then stalked over to the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed and sat on it, his back ramrod-straight. He rested Caterina’s Sig on his thigh.

>   Dнon sauntered across the floor, one hand tucked casually into his trouser pocket, handsome face amused. Caterina closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath of air reeking of sweat and musky adrenaline, hoping to calm the frantic pounding of her heart.

  Maybe she couldn’t stop him from mind-raping her, but she could keep her emotions stowed away. She refused to give him fear.

  A quiet thump on the hardwood floor told her that Dнon had knelt beside her. She caught a whiff of vanilla-spice and spring dandelions and maybe a hint of lightning-strike ozone. Ozone. Like in Damascus. The image of blue sparks skipping along white stone, stone that had once been Fallen flesh, popped unbidden into her mind.

  Caterina’s heart refused to quiet, refused to slow.

  Warm fingertips caressed her temple. The heated touch left Caterina feeling drowsy but dizzy, like a child falling asleep on a merry-go-round. Nausea cramped her belly. A cold sweat slicked her body.

  “Relax,” Dнon murmured. “Submit.”

  “Potete andare diritto ad inferno,” she spat.

  “One visit was quite enough, thank you. Hell is chock-full of fanatics. You, however, might fit right in.”

  Memories flipped unbidden through Caterina’s mind, like thumbed-through cards in a Rolodex, and flared in-the-moment vivid behind her eyes.

  Flip: Beck yanks the Colt free of its holster. Caterina squeezes the Glock’s trigger. The bullet hits Beck between the eyes, and he is dead before his body crumples to the ground and rolls down the hill. . . .

  Flip: Dante Baptiste rolls up to his hands and knees, his gaze on Caterina’s bleeding throat. Hunger and delirium burn in his dark, dilated eyes. His beautiful face is etched with pain, blood trickling from one nostril. Weariness smudges the skin beneath his eyes blue. He crawls to the sofa, then rises to his knees.

  Dante leans over Caterina. He lowers his face to her throat, his lips parting and revealing the points of his fangs. Wishing she had the use of her hands, Caterina tries to shake her hair back, then arches her neck to make it easier for him to feed since he also doesn’t have the use of his hands. . . .

  Flip: Dante’s seizure ends. He curls up on the carpet, shivering, his breathing rough. Spokes of blue flame wheel around his hands, spinning out wider with every revolution.

  Transforming everything they touch. . . .

  Flip: The night rustles, full of wings. Ethereal music rings through the wet air as the Fallen sing to Dante Baptiste. . . .

  Flip: A spear of blue light pierces the fallen angel. His mouth opens in shock, then fear tremors across his face as blue flames light him up from within, turning his skin translucent. The light flickers out. A stone statue stands on the wet grass beneath the evergreens. . . .

  Flip: Caterina kneels and places her borrowed gun at Dante’s pale bare feet. He stares at her, disbelief flashing across his beautiful face. . . .

  The kaleidoscopic whirl of images and memories slowed, then stopped. Caterina sucked in a ragged breath, then opened her eyes. Pain pulsed at her temples. She felt blood slick the skin beneath her nose.

  Dнon regarded her for a long moment, his face thoughtful, then he rose to his feet and turned to face Epstein.

  “What did you learn?” Epstein asked. His fingers flexed around the Sig’s grip.

  Caterina had no doubt he planned to finish her with her own gun. Given the intensity of the pain in her head, she could almost welcome a bullet. Almost.

  “Plenty,” Dнon replied. “She killed Beck to keep Prejean safe.”

  “Because he’s a goddamned True Blood. I knew it.”

  “Turns out his name is actually Baptiste,” Dнon murmured, sauntering over to join Epstein at the upholstered bench. “And you’re only partially correct. Baptiste is also a Fallen creawdwr. And that played into her decision too. As did her belief that he isn’t the monster Bad Seed tried so hard to twist him into.”

  Caterina stared at Dнon, heart sinking. He was Fallen.

  He glanced at her and shook his head, and she remembered the seesaw motion of his hand earlier. She frowned. If not Fallen, what then?

  Epstein frowned. “Fallen? Cray-oo-what? You’re not making any sense.”

  “I know,” Dнon agreed, regret threading through his voice. “And I apologize for that. And for this.”

  The interrogator grabbed Epstein’s head in both hands and twisted it with a quick and violent motion. Epstein’s neck broke with a sharp snap. Caterina’s Sig clattered to the floor as Epstein tumbled bonelessly from the bench, eyes wide and staring.

  Caterina tried to move, but her body refused to cooperate. Dнon’s mental fingers were still planted in her brain.

  “You’re going to help me find a crowbar, one I can use to bash Dante Baptiste’s sanity into little tiny pieces,” Dнon said, returning to crouch beside her. “One I will enjoy wielding as I bring the high and mighty Elohim down. You’re going to be my sleeper spy, my link to Baptiste and his household, reporting every word back to me.”

  “I won’t help you,” Caterina said, despite the furious pounding of her heart. “You might as well just snap my neck now.”

  Dнon laughed, the sound low and amused. “You say that as if you actually have a choice in the matter, mia bella assassina . . .”

  The mental fingers buried in Caterina’s mind probed deeper, and images from her past streaked across her vision like falling stars.

  “. . . which, of course, you don’t.”

  Molten pain stole Caterina’s voice as phantom fingers hooked and unstrung her memories, rewired her consciousness. She struggled to find an anchor, something buried in the primal depths of her psyche, her self, that she could cling to.

  Fi la nana, e mi bel fiol

  Fi la nana, e mi bel fiol

  Fa si la nana/ Fa si la nana

  Dormi ben, e mi bel fiol

  Dormi ben, e mi bel fiol . . .

  Renata’s soft bedtime lullaby whispered along the ravaged pathways of Caterina’s mind, and Caterina found herself once more a child nestled in her mother’s lap, safe, secure, and warm as she pillowed her sleepy head against her mother’s nightgown-draped breast, breathing in her mother’s soothing night-dewed roses scent.

  With a low sigh, Caterina surrendered to the lullaby.

  8

  LITTLE FUCKING PSYCHO

  BAD SEED FLASH DRIVE

  Ten Years Ago

  S File No. 2504, The Doucet-Bainbridge

  Sanitarium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  Wearing wet, blood-smeared blue scrubs, S sits in the padded room’s far corner, his arms folded over his upraised knees and pillowing his forehead. His body thrums with tension, taut as a drawn bow, muscles spring-coiled. Blood glistens on his hands, freckles the pale skin of his arms. Wet black hair shelters S’s face from the camera.

  Water slicks the concrete floor, laps against his bare white feet.

  The camera zooms in to show the tail of the bloodstained plushie orca tucked against the boy’s chest, then zips wide again to show the room’s destruction.

  Shredded bedding and torn mattress.

  Fist-cracked dents in the concrete bed slab.

  Toilet wrenched from the floor.

  The body sprawled face down on the concrete in water an inch deep.

  The camera lingers on the man’s motionless form. Streamers of blood curl lazily away from the slashed throat, threading dark color into the water like Easter egg dye.

  Woman’s voice: You sent someone in without drugging him first?

  Man’s voice: Ma’am, absolutely not. Doctor Wells left standing orders that S is to be drugged and down before anyone enters the room. I made sure those orders were passed along.

  Woman’s voice (dryly): Passed along to whom? The cockroaches? Obviously the tech that S just killed never received those orders.

  Man’s voice: Ma’am, the tech’s dead because he screwed up, plain and simple. I’m not responsible if that idiot viewed S as just another violent, loony-tunes kid instead of what he really
is—a bloodsucking psychopath.

  Woman’s voice: S is True Blood, Purcell, and superior to you in every way possible—even at thirteen-years old. Don’t forget that.

  Silence.

  Woman’s voice: What was the tech doing in the room, anyway?

  Man’s voice (tight and clipped): He was supposed to take away that goddamned orca plushie. Doctor Wells’s orders. Ma’am.

  Woman’s voice: Ah. Well, I think we should carry out those orders. But I also think we need to alter them a bit. S needs to be punished for his little temper tantrum and for destroying his room.

  Man’s voice: Ma’am, what about the tech the little bastard—excuse me, the little True Blood bastard—killed? Doesn’t that warrant punishment too?

  Woman’s voice (icy): No. S is supposed to kill; he’s a born predator. Violence is etched into his bones, his DNA. The tech suffered a fatal lapse in judgment when he walked into that room without first making sure S had been drugged into submission. His death is his own fault.

  Man’s voice: Jesus Christ. Fine. So what’s the punishment?

  Woman’s voice: Drug him, but with only enough to immobilize him so he can be thoroughly restrained. I don’t want him unconscious. I want him to watch as you take Chloe’s plushie orca away from him and toss it into the Dumpster where it belongs.

  Man’s voice: That’s it? Trash the plushie?

  Woman’s voice (as though the man had never spoken): What’s the name of that paranoid schizophrenic who was admitted a couple of weeks ago for study—the Jesuit priest? The one who skinned those teens in Shreveport believing they were angels trapped in human flesh and that it was his holy duty to release them? And wept when he failed?

  Man’s voice (intrigued): Michael Moses.

  Woman’s voice: Ah, yes. Tell the good father that S is another flesh-trapped angel in need of rescue, give him his sculpting scalpels, then send him into S’s room. If the pain S is about to experience isn’t enough to keep him from wasting time and energy in grieving, then I’ll just have to take his memories of Chloe away.

  Man’s voice: I doubt he’s capable of grief, ma’am. I think it’s a feint to throw us off our guard, to lure us in.