PUMPKINS INTO COACHES
ALEXANDRIA, VA
SUNSHINE WAFFLES CAFÉ
March 28
ASWIRL OF WARM air flavored with the crisp smells of bacon, waffles, coffee, and cantaloupe washed over Teodoro Díon as he pulled open the door to Sunshine Waffles and walked inside, leaving the chilly predawn morning behind him.
A manila file folder in hand, Teodoro strolled down the café’s narrow aisle, smiling apologetically as waitresses balancing armloads of plates sidled past him. Forks scraped against plates. Spoons clinked against coffee mugs. Voices rolled and dipped, a gentle wave of hushed conversations—a quiet, comforting hum.
Mortals, every one, their fast-paced hearts a trilling cascade of notes, like a two-handed cocktail run down a piano keyboard, in comparison to the slow, bass boom of his own heart.
Teodoro tuned out the noise as he headed for the last booth on the right. The woman sitting there alone was busy reading a report or printout of some kind while eating, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, a frown on her dark face. Silver glinted among the tight black curls that capped her skull. He would bet anything that the ratio of black to gray in her curls would soon reverse, given the recent events at HQ.
An AWOL section chief, two runaway field agents with heads full of sensitive intel—correction, only one head jam-packed with intel since Teodoro had wiped the other’s memory during debrief—and a joint project with the FBI in sociopathology that had imploded in a violent and messy fashion.
But none of that had anything on a little girl named Violet Miyako Sullivan. She’d taken a stray bullet to the head during the SB shootout in the Happy Beaver motel parking lot outside Damascus and had ended up cradled in Dante Baptiste’s arms. Then between one moment and the next, she’d been transformed by his glowing blue hands into another child entirely.
The long-dead Chloe.
True Blood magic, some of the SB brains claimed. Illusion. Mass hypnosis.
Hoax, others declared. The child hadn’t changed—she’d been disguised, and Prejean had performed a very effective sleight of hand.
But only Teodoro understood that Violet had been reshaped by a creawdwr caught up in the past and balanced on the edge of madness. A truth he planned to keep from the Shadow Branch’s fumbling grasp for as long as possible.
Until it no longer mattered.
Halting beside SOD Underwood’s booth, Teodoro said, “Good morning, ma’am. Interesting choice for a meeting. Looks like the land of comfort food. I didn’t even know this café was here.”
Underwood’s fork full of scrambled eggs paused at her mouth, and irritation rippled across her face before she smoothed it into her usual cool and professional expression. She looked up from her report, light from the overheads bouncing from the lenses of her reading glasses.
“I’m not surprised, Díon,” she replied, setting her fork on her plate. Her gaze flicked down to the folder in his hand, then back to his face. “Trendy bistros, biscotti and lattes, and European cigarettes seem more your style. But those who beg for off-site meetings are in no position to be choosy.”
Teodoro shook his head and allowed a self-deprecating smile to curl across his lips. “Right on all accounts, ma’am.”
Underwood picked up her fork and tucked it back into the diminishing pile of scrambled eggs on her plate. Only thin swirls of maple syrup and crumbs remained of her waffles. “Take a seat. And let’s get to it. I need to get into the office early.”
“Understood, ma’am.” Unbelting his short khaki trench coat, Teodoro slid onto the opposite seat, the vinyl squeaking beneath his charcoal gray trousers. He placed the folder on the table.
Underwood looked at him from over the top of her reading glasses and waited.
“First,” Teodoro said, “the Sullivan/Prejean event seems to be contained. The final agent involved in the shoot-out in Damascus was debriefed last night.”
“It went smoothly, I trust?”
Teodoro nodded. “It did. He didn’t resist, and the wipe wasn’t difficult.”
“Then that’s everyone—motel manager, guests, field agents. Everyone who saw what Prejean did to that child.”
“Violet Sullivan, ma’am, yes. Except Section Chief Gillespie.”
Underwood’s expression iced over—deep winter. “I gave that bastard a second chance when no one else would and he goes AWOL at the first little bit of weirdness as a thank you. Never trust a drunk.”
In truth, Teodoro mused, Violet’s transformation had been the third or possibly fourth bit of weirdness SC Gillespie had run into since arriving in Damascus. Out of curiosity, he ticked through a quick mental count.
Uno: a Stonehenge of fallen angels, white stone statues kissed with dancing blue sparks.
Dos: a missing house—porch, foundation, every single nail, gone.
Tres: a pit delving deep into the earth where the house had once stood; a pit ringed by the Fallen Stonehenge.
Cuatro: and from within the pit/cave’s glistening depths? Something sang, Holy, holy, holy.
So in all fairness, Violet’s transformation at Dante Baptiste’s hands had been the fifth bit of weirdness encountered by Gillespie before he’d bugged out for parts unknown.
But Teodoro decided to keep those observations to himself. He doubted Underwood would appreciate his insight.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Gillespie was busy boozing his way across the country,” Underwood said, her voice so cold Teodoro half-expected her words to frost the lenses of her reading glasses. “When we find the deserting bastard, I think we’ll do more than just wipe his poor excuse of a memory.” She arched one are-we-clear? eyebrow.
“Más claro que el agua,” Teodoro murmured. Then added at her questioning frown, “We’re clear, ma’am.”
The eggs finished, Underwood rested her fork on her plate. Curiosity thawed her expression. “Were you born in Spain, Díon, or just raised there?”
“My mother was Spanish, but I was born in Egypt. We moved back to Spain when I was very young,” he replied. “However, I’ve lived in the States all of my adult life,” he added, the lie slipping without thought from his lips. Another act of transformation—falsehood into truth with endless retellings.
Underwood opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again when the waitress, a slightly chubby woman in her mid-thirties, with a warm, gap-toothed smile, stopped beside their booth.
Teodoro ordered a cup of black coffee and a fruit platter, hoping the coffee wouldn’t be scorched or the fruit less than fresh.
After the waitress hurried away, tucking her order pad into a pocket of her apron, Underwood asked, “How is the girl and her mother?”
“Comfortable in the medical wing at HQ. I planted the suggestion in Aiko Sullivan’s mind that she was exposed to a hallucinatory toxin at the motel and that’s why she thinks her daughter looks different. We’re keeping her mildly sedated for the time being.”
“And the girl?”
“She seems content enough, not afraid, even with all the medical tests that we’re conducting,” Teodoro said. “But she’s worried about her mom and wants to know when she’ll be well so they can go home. She also keeps talking about Prejean. Believes him to be an angel.”
Close, little one, but no cigar.
Teodoro remembered the matter-of-fact sound of Violet’s voice, low and earnest, as she colored a daffodil blue in the coloring book he’d brought her.
I was a balloon with a broken string floating up to the stars, then the angel caught me and wrapped my string around his wrist and pulled me back down. It tickled in my tummy.
“An angel.” Slipping off her reading glasses, Underwood tossed them on top of the report she’d been reading. She rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. “Christ. Does she know what Prejean did to her?”
“She does,” Teodoro affirmed, remembering Violet standing in front of the bathroom mirror, fingering her long red hair and peering into her new blue
eyes, an expression of intense curiosity on her fair-skinned and freckled face. “But she’s at an age where anything is possible—pumpkins into coaches, mice into people, scrub-girls into princesses—so she accepts this change as magical.”
He called me Princess, but I told him my name was Violet.
Underwood sighed. “I doubt her mother ever will.”
“According to witnesses, Aiko Sullivan begged Prejean to save Violet after she’d been shot. If this is the price of having her daughter’s life restored, Mrs. Sullivan might be willing to accept that cost. In time.”
A muscle flexed in Underwood’s jaw and she looked away, but not before Teodoro saw grief ghost across her face, stark and aging. “You might be right. There’s virtually nothing a parent wouldn’t do for their child. Especially if it meant they could hold them once more.”
A grief and sentiment Teodoro sympathized with. Her son was murdered, like my Felicia so long ago.
Drawing in a deep breath, Underwood composed herself and looked at him again, her dark eyes no longer haunted. But Teodoro detected the ragged edge of loss in their depths, like sharp shards of glass in a broken window.
The waitress delivered Teodoro’s coffee and fruit platter, splashed more coffee into Underwood’s half-empty cup, then hurried away after they assured her they needed nothing else.
The mingled scents of ripe strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, honeydew melon, and grapes wafted into Teodoro’s nostrils, mingling with the coffee’s strong, fresh-roasted odor. It looked and smelled as though his concerns about the food quality had been unfounded. Plucking up a piece of cantaloupe between his fingers, he popped it into his mouth. Juicy and cool.
“Honestly, given our conversation so far, I don’t see why we needed to meet off-site. We could’ve had this conversation in my office,” Underwood said, her irritation making an encore performance.
“The first part, yes,” Teodoro agreed. “But this next part of the conversation requires either an audio jammer in your office or a meeting outside of HQ. I opted for the latter.”
Underwood picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. “Let’s hear it then, Díon. I’m listening. What is this about?”
“Containing Prejean. Bringing him in. I suspect that you’re as unhappy about him roaming free as I am.”
Underwood snorted. “You must’ve missed the director’s memo. He declared Prejean and Wallace hands-off, surveillance only. My feelings on the matter are moot.”
“Why do you suppose Director Britto gave that order?”
“No idea.”
“Speculations?”
Underwood tilted her head and regarded Teodoro speculatively. “I think I’d be more interested in hearing yours.”
With his fingertips, Teodoro pushed the folder across the table to her.
Retrieving her reading glasses, Underwood perched them on the end of her nose, then flipped open the folder.
“It’s all in there,” Teodoro said, picking up a succulent chunk of pineapple. “The director sold his soul to the devil to save his son’s life. The boy was dying of brain cancer. Now he’s cancer-free and healthy—and usually seen in the hours between twilight and dawn.”
A deep vertical line creased Underwood’s forehead between her eyes as she read. “Dear God. He had his son turned.” Her gaze shot up to meet Teodoro’s. “By a vamp from Renata Alessa Cortini’s household? That means he’s in debt to the goddamned Cercle de Druide.”
Teodoro spread his hands, palms-out. “And Prejean is a True Blood …”
“Who the Cercle would do anything to protect, no doubt. Shit and hellfire.”
“The director has compromised the integrity of the SB. Sold us out.”
“For his son’s life,” Underwood murmured. She rubbed the bridge of her nose again. “While I can understand that, he should’ve resigned. Looked for a low-level street vamp to bribe and not dealt with a web-weaving Elder. Jesus Christ.”
“You could take this to the Committee,” Teodoro said, nodding at the folder, “and let them deal with Britto. They’d demand his resignation, at the very least. Might have him imprisoned for treason. Or maybe even disappeared.”
Given the cold natures of the mortals and vampires composing the Shadow Branch’s oversight committee, Teodoro imagined that the second option would be Britto’s fate. “But that doesn’t guarantee they’d order Prejean brought in or put down.”
“Why not? He’s a cold-blooded, murdering sociopath with the ability to transform human beings, for God’s sake.”
“He’s still True Blood. And we programmed him. The vamps on the Committee will definitely take all that into consideration. Maybe they won’t allow Prejean to remain free, but his care and confinement will be given over to other vampires. Trust me. They won’t punish him for his sins.”
“Shit and hellfire,” Underwood muttered. She flipped the folder closed. Meeting Teodoro’s gaze, one eyebrow lifted in a cynical arch, she said, “I don’t imagine we’re having this conversation just because you wished to enlighten me. You obviously have a solution to this problem in mind. Let’s hear it.”
“I think I know a way to bring Prejean in and guarantee his death,” Teodoro said, leaning forward against the table’s edge, his hands clasped together on its surface. “But I need Purcell.”
Underwood frowned. “Purcell? He’s in New Orleans on surveillance duty.”
“Officially, yes. But he hasn’t checked in with the regular surveillance team, and they seem to be unaware that he’s even supposed to be in New Orleans. All of which makes me wonder—what did you actually send him to do?”
Underwood looked at him for a long moment, her face unreadable. But her thoughts? Ah, her thoughts were an audio book on Dolby.
Does Díon already know, and is he just playing games with me?
Unexpected questions, intriguing questions. Just what was the SOD up to? Teodoro decided not to waste time ferreting out the truth with an endless exchange of words and go straight to the source.
Underwood’s eyes unfocused, and her lips shaped a startled O as Teodoro delved into her unguarded, unshielded mind. And even though he was capable of ravaging its delicate contents like a black bear pawing open a camper’s food-filled ice chest, his touch was light, his thoughts a gentle breeze fluttering through new wheat.
It took just a split-second to find what he was looking for. It wasn’t hidden. It was forefront in her mind, lacing a skein of darkness throughout her dreams, her memories. Underwood’s dead son, Stephen.
And etched with bitter acid into her memory, a recent headline.
VALERIE UNDERWOOD ACQUITTED IN MURDER-FOR-HIRE CASE; MOTHER OF TWO WEEPS AS VERDICT READ, THANKS JURY.
But Underwood hadn’t believed her daughter-in-law innocent, no. She’d made arrangements for another kind of justice altogether to drop in on her son’s wife—or crawl in through her window in the dead hours of the night, fanged retribution in latex and leather—in a conversation with Purcell.
So you know how Prejean’s programming works? How to activate it?
Yes, ma’am. I do. Anything you’d like me to have Prejean say to your daughter-in-law?
Yes, thank you. Have him tell the bitch that Stephen sends his regards.
Teodoro finished his fruit platter—a plump strawberry—while he thoughtfully regarded Underwood, his mental fingers still deep within her psyche. Her mind was on standby, her face blank, like that of a sleepwalking child.
He had to admit, he admired Underwood’s plan for her murderous daughter-in-law. It’d be next to impossible to tie Underwood to Valerie’s sure-to-be-bloody and terrifying death at the hands—or fangs, actually—of Dante Baptiste. If anything, law enforcement officials might suspect that Valerie Underwood had reneged in the payment for Stephen’s murder and that she’d ended up paying in blood.
Admirable or not, Underwood’s plans interfered with his own. Teodoro had thought—erroneously, it turned out—that Underwood had sent Purcell to New Orleans to snu
ff Baptiste. Teodoro could’ve worked with that scenario. Could’ve tweaked Underwood’s memories into believing she’d turned the mission over to Teodoro to keep herself safely distanced from any fallout.
But since Underwood was actually avenging her murdered son, Teodoro wouldn’t be able to sway the SOD’s deep-seated desire for payback, to reap a little revenge in her murdered son’s name. Couldn’t tweak it in a way that wouldn’t leave doubt buried in her subconscious like a worm wriggling beneath rain-wet soil.
Her hunger to avenge her son was the driving force rolling her out of bed in the morning and pressing her foot against the gas pedal of her Lexus on her drives in to HQ.
A shame really. He understood that hunger for justice, that fire, well. It was what drove him even now.
Teodoro wanted the young Maker to remember everything that was about to happen to him with exquisite, diamond-cut clarity. But whenever Baptiste’s programming was engaged, he remembered nothing, not even his own actions.
That wouldn’t do.
Teodoro sipped at his coffee and mulled over his options. And realized he only had one. Setting down his coffee cup, he drew in a deep breath of the bacon-greased air and went to work.
A moment later, Underwood blinked, then opened and closed her mouth, confusion twisting a frown across her lips. “What … what was I saying?”
Teodoro arranged the proper amount of concern on his face, furrowed his brow. “Are you feeling all right? You seemed to lose focus for a moment.”
Underwood blinked again. She rubbed one temple with her fingers, pain tight at the corners of her mouth. “A bit of a headache. I’ve got some Excedrin at the office.”
“You look a little pale,” Teodoro agreed. “Maybe you’re coming down with something.”
Shaking her head, Underwood picked up her glass of water and drained it. Setting the glass down, she said, “I don’t have time to be sick, so that’s simply not an option.” She gathered up the folder, Teodoro’s questions about Purcell gone from her memory. “Thanks for this, Díon. I’ll make sure the Committee knows that the director has been compromised and that Britto is called on the carpet for it.”