Von slowed to a stop at the foot of the stairs. “Where’s Annie?”
“She finished the vodka, then passed out.”
“Both damned bottles? Girl drinks like nightkind. And dances on tables like she’s auditioning for a job on Bourbon Street.”
“She was trying not to feel,” Silver said quietly.
“I think she succeeded,” Von drawled. “Until she wakes up, anyway.”
A smile ghosted across Silver’s lips. “She’ll still be drunk.”
“Holy shit, I’d hope so.” Von paused, then asked, “And Trey?”
Silver shook his head, sorrow drawing his features taut. “The same. Just staring into the dark. Eerie’s curled up with him, working purr-mojo, but I don’t think it’s helping. Nothing is.” Raking a hand through his hair and disarranging it even more, he added in a thick voice, “I can’t believe she’s gone. And I’m scared Trey’s gonna follow her. He doesn’t want blood. He doesn’t want talk. I ain’t even sure he’s blinking. It’s like his body’s here, but . . .”
“He just lost his sister and his mиre de sang, Silver. He’s in shock. He needs time to grieve. As much as we can give him.” But Von wondered if time would be enough. Simone had been Trey’s only tether to the world, just as she’d been his only kin. “We all need time.”
“People always say that, like time is fucking Oxycontin,” Silver muttered, his voice prickling with pain and anger. “Like I could just down a handful of time and not worry about it hurting any more. Instant fix. But I can’t. And time takes fucking forever to heal. How’s that for ironic? Fuck time. And fuck Mauvais for taking her from us.” The banister creaked beneath Silver’s white-knuckled hand.
“I hear you, bro,” Von said softly. He tapped two fingers against his chest over his heart. “I hear you. And trust me, Mauvais is fucked—he just don’t know it yet.”
Losing someone you cared about—hell, be honest—someone you loved, never got easier no matter how many decades slid past. Mortal. Nightkind. It didn’t matter. Even though the nomad clans taught that death was a part of the natural order, like birth and sex, it was nothing to rejoice in as far as Von was concerned. Especially when someone died hard. And alone.
Von couldn’t imagine the hurt lessening, couldn’t imagine ever losing the heart-squeezing sound of Simone’s screams. His fingers squeezed tight around the Jim Beam bottle’s neck, then he heard glass shattering. Liquid splashed over his hand, his knuckles. The sharp odor of bourbon soaked the air.
“Jesus Christ,” Silver said, eyes wide.
Von closed his eyes, sighed. After a moment, he opened them again and looked at the broken bottle neck clutched in his hand. The rest of the bottle was scattered in glittering black pieces on the floor. Blood dripped from the cuts and nicks on his booze-stung fingers.
“Well, hell. I was gonna drink that.”
“Not anymore,” Silver commented. “But if you strip off your jeans and table-dance in your undies while screaming ‘you can’t touch me, motherfucker’ like Annie, I’ll get you another bottle.”
“Don’t believe I’d jiggle as fetchingly, though I’d be willing to give it a try if the tips were good. And I can get my own bottle, smart-ass. How ’bout you get me a broom instead?”
“Damn. I already had a title for the YouTube video—Swinging Nomad Dick.”
“Think that was the title of my first porn flick. I’ve been used, man. Tragic story.”
Silver rolled his eyes. “Tragic—to the viewer. If such a flick existed. Tattooed nomad booty.” He shook his head, then moved down the stairs.
“Wouldn’t’ve been just my fine ass.”
“Now you’re scaring me.”
Von tossed the blood-smeared bottle neck onto the floor. Glass crunched beneath it. He licked blood from his knuckles, tasted copper and bourbon and heated grapes.
Hunger scraped at his belly and backbone. He needed to feed, and as soon as Dante and Heather were back safe and relatively sound, he’d head out to hunt. Grab a quick alley snack before dawn.
A blur of movement, a streak of purple hair, black tee and studded black jeans, a cinnamon and smoke-scented breeze, then Silver stood beside Von. Handed him a push-broom and a dust pan. “Heard anything from Dante?”
Wrapping his uncut hand around the broom’s smooth handle, Von shook his head. “Nope. Not yet. But he’ll contact us as soon as he finds Lucien.”
Von kept his current inability to contact Dante to himself. No need to get Silver more worked up than he already was. He swept up the broken glass, the broom’s bristles smearing the spilled bourbon across the wood in a thin, dark streak.
“He’ll contact you, you mean.”
Von stopped pushing the broom and glanced at Silver from beneath his brows. Silver stood with his back against the bar, his hands behind him gripping the bar’s edge, his biceps bunched and hard. Beneath the club’s low-lit overheads, his face was pensive and all angsty teen. Boy was twenty-five, but his body would forever be that of a sixteen-year-old.
But not his eyes, which were knowing and shadowed and razor-edged.
“Well, if you wanna be literal, then yeah, that is what I mean.” Bending, Von swept the pieces of dark glass into the plastic dustpan. “You chose to lie to him—no matter your intentions. You knew the consequences.”
“Yeah, but . . . shit. It’s been over a year. I’ve never known anyone to hold a grudge like he does.”
Von straightened. “He’ll forgive just about anything—except a lie. Especially coming from someone he trusts.”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
“Nope,” Von agreed. “Not anymore. But he does care about you, man. You still have a chance to earn his trust again.”
“I don’t get what his thing with lies is all about. People lie all the fucking time. It’s no big deal. I just don’t get it.”
“No big deal? Your lie tricked Dante into helping his best friend commit suicide by vampire and you don’t think that’s a big deal? Now you’re lying to yourself.”
“I was trying to help. I wanted to save Leigh’s life.”
Von snorted. “So you turned Leigh against his will and now he’s in Portland with your pиre de sang because he can’t stand the sight of you and because Dante won’t speak to him anymore. Yeah, that was all real helpful.”
“I fucked up, I know that. And I’ve apologized over and over. But Dante still won’t let me back in.” Silver touched a finger to his forehead. “It was a lie, not murder.”
“In this case, that’s where you’re wrong. With that lie, you also messed with everyone’s free will. And if you don’t get that, you’ll never understand Dante.”
“Guess I’m fucking doomed then.”
“You just might be, with that kinda attitude.”
Going to the trash can behind the bar, Von dumped the dustpan’s contents into its black plastic-lined interior. He parked the broom against the wall. Plucking a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the glass shelves, he sauntered around the bar to join Silver. Poured shots for them both. The liquor’s golden tones wafted into the air.
“I’m gonna tell you something I don’t think Dante understands himself. Maybe somewhere down deep inside him he does, but not here.” Von tapped a finger against his temple, then touched it to his chest at heart level. “Because it’s here.”
Turning around, Silver leaned his black T-shirted side against the counter. He picked up the shot glass, then tossed it back. Sweat instantly sprang up on his forehead. “I’m listening,” he said, voice hoarse with whiskey.
Von rolled his shot glass between his fingers, watching the play of light across the booze’s amber surface. “Dante’s been lied to from day one. Lied to. Used. Fucked with. Picked apart, then stitched back together again. Maybe he doesn’t remember most of it, but it’s still a part of him.”
A low simmering anger reignited, tightening the muscles in Von’s chest and shoulders as he thought of some of the images he’d caught glimpses of in Dan
te’s mind—splinters of his dark, dirty, and violent past piercing and impaling his present.
On his knees, Dante looks around. All three badass men sprawl on the bloodied floor. He swivels, wiping blood from his mouth and reaching for Chloe. But she’s no longer in the corner. His hand freezes.
Von slammed back his shot. “Ain’t nothing dishonest about Dante. What you see is what you get.”
Silver snorted. “That’s pure bullshit, man. There’s layers and depths to Dante that people don’t see when they’re busy drooling over him. Depths they don’t wanna see.”
Von chuckled. “Well, yeah, that’s true. But I stand—lean, actually—by my words. Just because those idiots ain’t looking for the truth of him don’t mean it ain’t there to be seen.”
Silver frowned, the skin wrinkling between his eyebrows. “The truth of him? Don’t you mean in him?”
“Nope. I meant just what I said. The truth ain’t just words or deeds, it’s threaded into our DNA, etched into our bones, pulsing through our veins. Each of us is shaped by the truth of our natures. You can be the evilest motherfucker striding the world, a bloody knife in each hand, and still be brimming with down-to-the-bone truth.”
“Awesome,” Silver muttered. “A llygad lecture. Should I take notes?”
“If you plan to pass the pop quiz later, I’d advise it.”
“It ain’t a pop quiz if you warn people beforehand. Doofus.”
“That’s llygad-doofus to you, and did I say pop quiz? ’Cuz I meant ninja-quiz since you’ll never see it coming.”
Glancing at Silver’s empty shot glass, Von arched an eyebrow. At Silver’s nod, he splashed more Jack into both shot glasses. Thumping the bottle back onto the bar’s light-streaked surface, Von downed his shot.
“And Dante?” Silver asked. “What’s his truth?”
“Dante’s truth is dark and dazzling; it lays the heart bare. All you hafta do is look.”
Silver’s head tilted back as he lifted his glass to his lips and knocked the shot back. Blew out a whiskey-fumed breath. “Yeah, that’s the fucking goddamned truth all right.” He looked at Von, a muscle playing in his jaw. “But what does it have to do with lying to him?”
“Everything. His truth demands truth in return. Whenever you lie to him, you bury truth and trust in an unmarked shallow grave. Whenever you—” Von’s words froze unspoken in his throat when a thought blazed through his mind like a burning arrow.
But even as he sent that, Von knew the answer. Pain rippled through Dante’s sending like flame licking up a gasoline trail. Migraine.
Von laughed out loud, relief draining the tension from his knotted muscles like oil from a bike engine.
Feeling the heat and weight of Silver’s gaze, Von poured another shot of Jack for both of them, then clinked his glass against Silver’s. Silver stared at him, his expression both hopeful and wary. “Well?” he asked.
“Dante’s on his way back. He found Lucien too.”
Silver closed his eyes, a smile curving his lips. “Goddamn.” He tossed back his shot, then opened his eyes again. “Did he say where he found Lucien or how?”
“Nah. Didn’t come up. We can ask him when he gets here.”
Von was about to drink his shot when he heard a double thump at the club’s locked front door. Straightening, he looked in the direction of the darkened entrance hall. Red light from the neon BURN sign at the hall’s mouth winked across the wood floor.
“Did someone just knock?” Silver asked.
“Yup. And it’s too soon to be Dante.” Von pushed away from the bar. Reached for the Brownings in the double shoulder holsters strapped on over his black button-down shirt, but his fingers only brushed against the butt of one gun.
That’s right. Heather’s got the other.
Leather creaked as Von pulled the Browning free of its holster. He flipped off the safety and slid a round into the chamber. He motioned for Silver to wait at the hall’s entrance beneath the buzzing sign in case the fucker at the door managed to get past Von.
Silver nodded. Bared his fangs. Coiled his body. Hunger for the fight gleamed in his eyes.
Von moved down the dark hall to the front door in an adrenaline-fueled rush, and ghosted up against it. Listened. On the other side of the door, he heard the slow, measured beat of a nightkind heart.
And knew whoever it was heard his.
Mauvais’s lackeys wouldn’t bother to knock—unless drawing him to the door was a decoy, and they were busy climbing the fire escape at the back of the building.
Von sent to Silver as he quietly worked the door’s dead bolts.
Swinging the Browning up, Von grabbed the metal door latch and yanked the door open, gun aimed at forehead level. His finger froze on the trigger when he realized he recognized the face targeted in front of his gun barrel.
14
MUCH TO ANSWER FOR
NEW ORLEANS
CLUB HELL
March 28
VON STARED, FINGER CURLED around the trigger, boots rooted to the wood planks.
Holly Mikovб’s hair was a wild, wind-swept tangle the pale, buttery color of late afternoon sunshine, her eyes the deep blue of ripe blueberries and full of mocking laughter, just like the lips painted a deep wine red and parted in a fang-revealing smile.
She wore a white blouse underneath a black leather vest that hugged her firm curves like it’d been molded to her with a blow torch, and belted blue jeans over square-toed scooter boots. A crescent moon tattoo glittered like frost beneath her right eye.
And her presence—or the possible reason for her presence—turned Von’s blood ice-water cold.
“Good to see you again, McGuinn.” Time had plucked her formerly flannel-thick Russian accent almost threadbare. She nodded at the gun barrel in her face. “Looks like some things never change, da? Still playing with your gun, I see.”
“Every chance I get, darlin’.”
“Well, they say practice makes perfect.”
“That it does. Which is why I get no complaints,” Von drawled. He lowered the Browning to his side, but didn’t holster it. No way this is an outta-the-blue social call. “So what brings you to New Orleans, Mikovб?”
“You.”
Suspicions confirmed. She’d been sent. And Von had a sinking feeling as to why.
“I’m flattered as hell, truly. But I’ve handed myself over to God and taken a vow of chastity in order to keep the peace. I don’t wanna be responsible for the ladies—and a few gents—turning this city into Thunderdome just to win a date with me.”
“Still an egocentric idiot, I see.” Holly’s gaze glided over him in a heated blue caress. “But a handsome-as-sin egocentric idiot.”
“Stop. You’re making me blush.”
Holly snorted. Her attention shifted past him as she looked into the darkened hall. “You going to ask me in, McGuinn?”
“Nope.” Von stepped out onto the sidewalk, pulling the door shut behind him. The cool, moist night smelled of rain-wet brick, the Mississippi, and night-blooming jasmine. He sent Silver an all-clear, then leaned one shoulder against the door. “Tell me why you’re here.”
A smile flickered across Holly’s dark lips. “To the point, as always. A nomad thing, da? At least the few nomads I’ve met have all been . . . direct.”
“Unlike a certain Russian llygad. Spill, woman. Why you here?”
“I was sent to deliver a summons.” Pale light from the street lamps flickered in her eyes. All expression vanished from her face as she took up her official duty. “Von McGuinn, you are to report to the fil
idh in Memphis in one night’s time to explain why they’ve learned of a True Blood through outside sources and not from the llygad apparently serving this alleged True Blood’s household.”
Von nodded. Even though his chest felt slivered with ice, some of the tension unspooled from his muscles. He’d been right; so no more reason to fret over it. The filidh, the master-bards of the llygaid, planned to take him to task for his silence.
“Why’d they send you? Because they thought you’d enjoy breaking the news?”
“No, they thought you’d listen to me—because of what we once had.”
Holly’s black tea and vanilla scent curled into Von’s nostrils, a warm and intimate odor he’d once known very well. “Before or after you shot me?”
“That was thirty years ago, McGuinn. And, for the record—in case you haven’t noticed—you lived.”
“I’ve noticed,” Von growled. “I was thinking you might like to explain.”
“Why you lived?”
“Why you shot me, woman.”
“Come to Memphis and maybe I’ll tell you.”
Holly stepped closer and tilted her head as she scanned him from head to toe and back again, her heated gaze skimming his body like hot oil. “One question,” she said softly, lifting her eyes to his.
“Shoot—not literally, of course. Maybe I didn’t make that clear last time.”
She rolled her eyes. “Big baby.”
“So what’s your question?”
“Is Dante Baptiste a True Blood?” Excitement curled through Holly’s voice, thickened her accent. Ruined her llygad- bred impartiality.
Von held her lambent gaze. “Ain’t my place to say. You need to ask him.”
Low, incredulous laughter broke from Holly, and she shook her head. “Of course it’s your place! It’s your duty to observe, compose, and report. This is information vital to vampire society, and you’ve kept mum. Abandoned your duty, your impartiality.” She touched his arm, her fingers as warm as her gaze had been. “Oh, Vonushka. You’ve got a lot to answer for.”