The bastard’s actually going to kill me. I’m going to miss Heather’s birthday. The bastard’s actually going to kill me. I’m going to miss Heather’s birthday . . .
She sucks in the mingled odors of car exhaust, sage, and dewed blacktop as she forces air into her lungs and struggles to get back up on her feet, to run before the bastard swings the hammer again, but her muscles won’t respond to her screaming brain’s demands: Get up! Get up! Get UP!
A rough hand latches around Shannon’s arm with bruising strength and hauls her upright again. Craig drags her back to the idling car. Flings open the passenger side door.
“Dammit, Shannon. Goddammit all to hell,” he mutters almost as if to himself, the tension in his voice edged with regret.
Regret? She’d show the motherfucker regret.
Shannon swings up a hand to claw at Craig’s face like a pissed-off tabby—or tries to, anyway. Her movement takes forever, her hand caught in slo-mo molasses-time as if the air has thickened. Craig tilts his head to one side, a slow smile slanting his lips. And bats her hand aside with a casual nudge of his own.
Craig’s face seems to shift, ripple with shadows. His body twists, flesh and clothing undulating. Denting.
Shannon blinks. Her heart clatters against her ribs. The man holds her arm in one hand and a gun—no, not a gun, make that a—
Shiv, baby. Make it a shiv. One just dying to get to know you better.
Shannon stares at the man who used to be Craig Stearns, her insides transforming into a winter wonderland of ice and terror. Thinning hair, sunglasses. A grin loops across his lips.
Behind him, flames lick up into the night sky, snapping the breath-stealing odor of burning wood and seared flesh into the air. A whirlwind of fire devours the tavern. The neon martini glass explodes in an electric shower of blue and red sparks.
Voices scream, high-pitched and raw, until only one remains—a woman’s. Screaming. Burning.
“S and fucking fire. He can’t keep away.” The man shakes his head, then turns it to watch the tavern inferno. Orange/yellow/red reflections flame across the lenses of his shades. “Well, so much for Goldilocks. A shame. She was one smokin’ hot chick.” He looks at Shannon and his grin stretches wide as a shark’s. “Gosh. Guess she still is.”
He’s still grinning as he hurls Shannon into the car through the opened passenger door. She sprawls onto the seat, vinyl squeaking underneath her. The stink of old smoke and nicotine burns the inside of her nostrils. Pain throbs behind her eyes. She tastes blood, thick and coppery, at the back of her throat.
The door clunks shut. Like the final closing of a coffin lid.
As she listens to the footsteps walking—no, skipping —around the car, Shannon grabs the armrest and pulls herself upright. For a second, she considers giving in to the shiv and the shark’s dead grin.
No more pills. No more booze. No more falling through the trapdoor into the unlit basement of her mind as her thoughts turn to lead. No more soaring catapult flights through the upper stratosphere, her consciousness full of fireflies and buzzing with ideas.
For a second.
Then she remembers she’s planned a surprise party for Heather’s twelfth birthday. Heather. Kevin. Annie. She’d be leaving her kids behind with an empty-hearted bastard of a man who had no problem asking his best friend to murder his wife, the mother of his children.
A cynical question corkscrewed through her mind: Wonder what took the motherfucker so long?
Shannon’s fingers fumble for the door handle. Just as she yanks the door open, spilling cool air inside the car, fingers curl into her hair and yank her back across the seat. Pain rips through her scalp. The door thunks shut again.
The man’s face lowers over hers. A fire-scorched metallic wasp crawls along the upper rim of his sunglasses and her heart skips a beat seeing it.
“Your nose is bleeding,” Elroy Jordan says. “That’s kinda sexy.”
23
KEEPSAKES
NEW ORLEANS,
CLUB HELL
March 28
HEATHER JERKED AWAKE, HER heart thudding against her ribs. She stared up at the unfamiliar and shadowed ceiling, struggling to remember where she was, Jordan’s lust-scorched words haunting her thoughts.
Your nose is bleeding. That’s kinda sexy.
She had the strong suspicion those had been words he’d said to Dante during the time he’d stolen him. Tortured him. Shoved his past down his throat.
Has your father said anything about Bad Seed?
No. Elroy told me. But I can’t hold on to it. No matter how hard I try.
She could only imagine how Jordan had told him. Handcuffs, drugs, and knives. Her throat tightened. Dante’s dreams had somehow bled through into hers—maybe her shields had slipped or his had thinned, but his nightmares—past and present—had reshaped her dream of her mother’s final moments.
How much of her dream had been true? She didn’t want to believe that Stearns had killed her mother. Didn’t want to believe that her father had somehow coerced Stearns—the man who’d mentored her career in the FBI and who’d been more of a father to her than James Wallace ever had—into the murder. Motive eluded her, slippery as a wet bar of soap.
Tainted evidence, this version of the dream. Can’t trust it.
Or, more to the heart of the matter, didn’t want to trust it.
With a soft sigh, Heather looked from the ornamental tin ceiling bordered with ornate crown molding to the French windows curtained in heavy crimson velvet that completely blocked out the sunlight burning beyond.
Where clicked into place. Club Hell. Upstairs. The events of the previous long night—a night that had stretched across two worlds—flashed like a slide show through her mind: pulling the SUV into the driveway of Dante’s home; the gun battle aboard the Winter Rose; the fire and Simone’s death; the shock wave ripping the cemetery apart as Dante punched his way into Gehenna; the pungent smell of his blood as his wings ripped through his back.
Heather’s calming heart kicked into high gear again. Dante’s wings.
She rolled onto her side to face him. He Slept on his back, one arm across his bare, muscle-flat waist, his pale face turned toward her, his black hair trailing across the pillow. Blood trickled from one nostril, stained his lips. Heat radiated from him as though an inner furnace had been stoked to white-hot heat.
His Sleep didn’t look peaceful, and given the creepy and violent alterations to her own dream, she could only imagine the darkness roiling through his.
No escape, no time out. His broken past won’t leave him alone for a moment. Won’t let him rest. Won’t let him heal. Won’t even let him stay here and now.
Heather brushed the backs of her fingers against Dante’s smooth, fevered cheek.
It’s quiet when I’m with you. The noise stops.
I’ll help you stop it forever.
She wished for a way to keep her promise to him. After everything that had happened last night, she realized that she was somehow able to anchor him through their new bond, to hush the cacophony—and worse, the quiet whispers—inside his head. But only for a little while. She needed to find a way to make the silence permanent.
Her finger trailed along the firm line of his jaw. At least the no-whiskers mystery had been solved, she mused. She hadn’t seen a single mustache or beard or any kind of facial hair, not even a soul patch, among the Fallen males in Gehenna, so she figured being whiskerless was a Fallen trait.
Fallen. Heather shifted her gaze to the sigil etched into the white skin above Dante’s heart and gingerly traced the ridged scar with her fingertips. A vow made in blood and fire. But the sigil—both angular and looping—felt cold as winter-iced ground in the shade, untouched by the sunrise of Dante’s fierce heat.
Cold whispered against the skin above Heather’s heart, like crackling frost—until she removed her finger from the sigil. The Morningstar’s words flickered through her memory.
She’s mortal. The ple
dge won’t affect her in the same way—if at all. At most she might get a whisper, an echo. But as long as you fulfill your promise, neither of you will feel anything.
Seemed the ivory-haired fallen angel had spoken the truth. Or a piece of it, anyway. There was no way to know what the Morningstar—Lucifer, the oh-so-lustrous Prince of Darkness—had left unsaid when he’d seared the sigil into Dante’s flesh.
Heather sighed, hoping that she and Dante wouldn’t find out the hard way.
It’s the only way I know.
Dante’s words, spoken to her during their first conversation at the club over a month ago—a lifetime ago. She was worried those words—about doing it the hard way—were still true.
Dante’s earthy autumn scent curled around her, beckoned her, drew her in. Reawakened heat and hunger. Her fingers slid up from his chest to his throat, lingered on his collar. She looked down along the flat, taut-muscled expanse of his abs to his still unbuckled leather pants and yearned for twilight.
Leaning forward on her elbows, Heather kissed Dante’s burning lips. “Wake up soon, Baptiste,” she murmured. She licked the heady taste of his blood from her lips, then reluctantly rolled off the bed.
She needed a very cold shower. And she needed to check on Annie.
Thinking it felt like afternoon, Heather glanced around the thick-shadowed room for the glowing LED numbers of a clock, but wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see one. She doubted that keeping an eye on the time would’ve been important to the club VIPs and private partiers this room was probably intended for.
But something else caught her eye. What looked like a couple of neat stacks of clothing on top of the dresser nestled against the wall. Frowning, Heather rose to her feet and went to check it out.
She’d been right. Rising from the bureau were two modest towers of clothing with the tags still attached, one tower for her, the other for Dante. And not only that—a gun, along with an extra magazine, two boxes of ammo, and a cell phone rested beside “her” stack.
Heather picked up the gun, wrapping her fingers around the rosewood grip. It was nearly a duplicate of the Colt .38 Super that she’d lost when Alexander Lyons had confiscated it from her in Damascus. Removing the magazine and making sure the safety was on, she put the Colt back down on the dresser.
She flipped through her pile of clothing with a growing sense of astonishment—jeans and black cords, sweaters, blouses and smocks, rock T-shirts, bras, packages of bikini panties and socks. Every tag and label held the correct size.
Heather yanked out a pair of black boot-cut jeans and held them against her hips. Looked like a perfect fit. She grabbed a lavender lace bra. Again, the right size.
Who . . . ?
De Noir’s image flashed in her mind. She remembered how he’d moved her bags into Dante’s bathroom that first time at his place, stealing in and out while she’d slept, curled against Dante’s warmth.
Looks like De Noir did it again, only this time he went shopping too.
And, although Heather was grateful to have clean clothes to wear, she wondered how he’d known what sizes to purchase for her. Did he have a good eye? Had he crept into the room with a tape measure in hand? Or had he simply asked Annie, who probably woke up hours ago, hangover free as usual.
Heather would put her money on Annie. She’d have to thank De Noir when she saw him. And pay him back—as long as the Bureau hadn’t frozen her bank and credit accounts. If they had? Well, she’d figure something out.
Returning the jeans and bra to the stack of new clothes, Heather plopped down in the ivy-patterned armchair—or what looked like ivy in the gloom—tucked into the corner between the bed and dresser. She bent over, unlaced her Skechers, then toed them off.
Peeling off her borrowed socks, Heather dropped them onto the polished mahogany floor. Her hand froze in the air.
Borrowed. She was wearing Simone’s clothes. The only things left of her.
Heather drew in a ragged breath of air. She lowered her hand and carefully picked up the socks, draping them over the arm of the easy chair to make sure she didn’t lose them. The memory of what turned out to be her last look at Simone played through her mind.
Simone touches her fingers to Dante’s face and draws him down into a kiss.
A knot twisted around Heather’s heart at the memory, but this time it wasn’t threaded together from jealousy.
I can’t thank you enough for getting Annie out of the house. I’ll always watch over your brother, Simone, and see to it that he keeps living.
Heather would make sure the clothes were cleaned, the torn fly of the leather pants repaired, then give them to Trey as keepsakes.
She stripped off the rest of Simone’s clothes, folding each piece with reverent care, then padded across the room to the bathroom and the shower beyond.
24
THE HAND OF GOD
NEW ORLEANS
March 28
FORMER FBI ADIC Monica Rutgers gave up on sleeping.
She kicked the twisted and sweat-soaked sheets away from her body and stared at the motel room’s popcorn ceiling as early afternoon sunlight trickled in from around the window shades.
The room smelled stale, dust and sweat and recycled air, restless. But the sharp smell of ozone haunted her nostrils.
The bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey Rutgers had shared with Sam Gillespie after they’d escaped from shattered St. Louis No. 3 coated her tongue and soured her stomach.
She’d learned the hard way that no amount of whiskey could dislodge the images stuck like black burrs in her mind. Or numb her to their ceaseless prickling.
What had she and Sam Gillespie witnessed in the cemetery? Or, more to the point, who had crafted both destruction and doorway?
Rutgers now knew why Gillespie had asked his questions about Prejean in the cemetery as blue flames danced along crumpled tombs and sirens wailed in the night.
What do you know about his father?
Nothing. Prejean’s mother never said word one about who fathered her baby.
And you never wondered about that?
Didn’t seem important.
Got something that’ll change your mind about that. Something you need to see.
And as the images from the center’s stolen security cam disk had flooded her mind with alternating waves of ice and flame, she’d realized a simple truth.
They’d been utter fools.
A figure steps into the corridor and moves into camera view. His waist-length black hair snakes into the air like night-blackened seaweed caught in a current. His wings, black and smooth, arch up behind him, half-folded, as he kneels on the floor and reaches for one of two figures crumpled together on the tile, Dante Prejean and Heather Wallace.
He fixes his gaze on the woman struggling out from underneath Elroy Jordan’s body—Dr. Johanna Moore.
Do you remember Genevieve Baptiste? My son’s mother?
Your . . . son?
Rutgers had shared Moore’s shock. Had stared open-mouthed and helpless at the monitor as the images continued to dance against her eyeballs, her fingers fumbling for the whiskey bottle’s smooth neck.
In all of the information the Bureau had compiled on Prejean’s friends and associates, the essential fact that Lucien De Noir was not only Prejean’s father but a fallen angel had escaped them.
Who knew fallen angels walked among us, let alone existed?
Rutgers had dismissed De Noir as a wealthy entrepreneur with a taste for beautiful, lean-muscled young vampires in eyeliner and leather. Believed him fond enough of Prejean to buy him a home and a club. Believed that Prejean made it well worth De Noir’s money and time.
How long ago did I stop doing my job? When did I start coasting on assumptions and half-truths? Glancing only at surfaces?
Fools, all of us. But I was the worst kind of fool—complacent.
Rutgers rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, and threads of orange light unspooled in the darkness behind her eyes. But the
images resumed their chilling flow.
The energy surrounding Prejean shafts into Johanna Moore’s body from dozens of different points. Explodes from her eyes. From her nostrils. Her screaming mouth. She separates into strands, wet and glistening. Prejean’s energy unthreads Moore. Pulls apart every single element of her flesh.
Johanna Moore spills to the tiled floor, her scream ending in a gurgle.
One mystery solved: Moore hadn’t disappeared. She no longer existed.
Avenge your mother. And yourself.
And Prejean rises from the fallen angel’s arms, rises up from the floor, bathed in dim red emergency light, his body tight and coiled, blood smeared across his breathtaking face.
And with a touch of Prejean’s hands, Johanna Moore’s life had been unthreaded.
When would he come for the rest of them?
A cold sweat sprang up on Rutgers’s forehead. Stomach knotting with nausea, she rolled out of bed, her nightgown tangling around her legs, and stumbled to the bathroom. She dropped to her knees on the tile, slammed the toilet lid open, and emptied her stomach into the bowl.
Later, resting curled on the cool floor, pain throbbing behind her eyes, she remembered why she didn’t drink. She had neither the head nor the stomach for it. She felt drained, boneless and hollow.
She hoped Gillespie was suffering too, but given the man was a well-pickled alcoholic, she doubted it. If anything, he suffered hangovers from lack of booze. With a low sigh, Rutgers grabbed the sink’s smooth edge and pulled herself to her feet. She brushed her teeth thoroughly with cool mint toothpaste, scrubbing the taste of bile and acid from her mouth.
Rutgers turned on the shower and yanked her sweat-sodden nightgown off over her head, one sleeve pulling painfully at her curls. She stepped into the shower. The hot water goosebumped her skin. She tipped her face up to the hot spray and allowed the heat to work the tension from her muscles.
A voice whispered up from within the wilderness of her heart. Run. Pack your bags and burn rubber out of New Orleans. Don’t look back. And don’t go home. Take up an anonymous life in some distant place. Maybe if you never think of Prejean again, he won’t find you.