“You sure you wanna do this in front of everyone?” Von asked, eyeing the pulsing crowd of mortals and nightkind packing the club’s floor, the air thick with musky pheromones, sweat, and warring perfumes—patchouli, cherry-vanilla, sandalwood.
“Yup.”
More nightkind than usual were present, threaded like pearls through the mortal throng, and Dante had caught more than one lambent pair of eyes directed his way, burning with a cold and preternatural curiosity.
Waiting to see what I’m gonna do about Mauvais. Gathering like crows. All tilted heads, sharp beaks, and glittering eyes.
No one had said a word about Simone—except for Vincent. And, at the moment, the Magazine Street lord stood at the bar beside Silver and Annie, smoking a Pink Elephant, his gaze on the Cage, glammed to the max in face and body glitter, lipstick, kohl, and dressed in a white faux fur vest and skin-tight silver vinyl pants.
“There will one day be peace,” Ruby sang. “There will one day be light.”
Dante doubted that, but at least the waiting was over. He felt a gentle tap against his shields and recognized Lucien’s touch. He opened to his father’s sending.
Lucien reminded.
Lucien stood beside the Cage, his hair a loose spill of night down his back, his arms crossed over his black silk shirt. A teasing smile curved his lips.
Arching a touchй eyebrow, Dante lifted both hands and flipped him off.
Lucien’s smile deepened.
“One day there will be no more sorrow. Waiting, waiting, waiting for these days to end . . .”
As SOR guided the song to its end, Dante turned, cupped Heather’s face between his hands, and kissed her deeply. “For luck,” he murmured against her lips.
Her fingers brushed against his temples. Her twilight-blue gaze held his. “For luck, Baptiste,” she agreed.
Releasing her, Dante moved through the crowd, Von following in his wake. Lucien unlocked the Cage and swung the steel-barred door open. The crowd screamed and cheered as they realized who was climbing inside. The jockeying for position at the front of the Cage intensified, more than one person took an elbow to the nose.
“Fuck, YEAH!”
“Oh my God! Dante! Dante!”
Ruby looked up, startled, her hands frozen on the mic stand. Tommy Dark spun around, guitar held at his side, light glinting from the stud patches on his black stretch denim pants. The three remaining band members all slanted uncertain glances at Dante.
Looks like Ruby and Tommy mentioned I was nightkind.
Dante greeted Tommy, then Ruby, with a kiss to the lips. Smiling, Ruby wiped her lipstick from Dante’s mouth with a swipe of her thumb. Her midnight blue taffeta dress rustled as she stepped back, relinquishing the microphone.
A smile tilted Dante’s lips. “Merci beaucoup, chиre.”
Von took his position in front of the Cage, the crowd melting away from him like ice on a hot sidewalk. Dante waited for the enthusiastic screams and raw-throated shrieks to die down. Once they had, he stepped in front of the mic.
INHALING ANOTHER LUNGFUL OF vanilla-spiced smoke, Vincent watched as Dante climbed into the Cage amid lust-spiked shrieks and screeches and howls from the jam-packed audience. He wondered if the captivating, but sodding exasperating vampire planned to perform a song or two with Saints of Ruin.
Not for the first time, Vincent itched to paint Dante, wondering if he could capture his heat, the sensual promise whispered in every fluid movement of his body, the danger inherent in his dark glance and white skin and coiled muscles. He even had a title for the painting in mind: INCUBUS.
Simone laughs. “No, I won’t ask him for you, chиre. He’ll never agree. Never pose. Paint him from memory or a picture. I’d love to see what you could do.”
Vincent’s throat tightened. He blew smoke out from his nostrils. He hoped Dante followed up on the info he’d shared with him, exacting a bit of payback from the bloody wankers who’d torched the house for Mauvais and ended up killing Simone.
Dante curled one hand around the microphone, leaning in just a little, his luscious cupid’s bow lips nearly grazing the mic cover. “This is an official announcement for all you nightkind out there.”
Vincent straightened against the bar, vinyl pants creaking. Was Dante foolish enough to call Mauvais out? He shot Silver a glance, arching an inquisitive eyebrow, but Silver only shrugged, his face carefully neutral.
Brilliant. Little bastard knows what’s up, but isn’t sharing. Vincent returned his attention to the Cage and the feral beauty captured within its steel bars.
“My name is Dante Baptiste.”
Vincent puffed away on his pink-paper wrapped cigarette. Interesting. A new last name or perhaps the right one.
A mischievous light sparked in Dante’s eyes, slanted his lips. “I’m twenty-three, no—almost twenty-four years old—I like long solitary walks along the river, guitar solos, and feasting on kid-slapping motherfuckers. And I’m looking for someone who shares the same interests.”
Laughter rolled up from the crowd. Dozens of hands shot up in the air and waved me-me-me!
Vincent frowned. Twenty-three? Did he mean he’d been turned at twenty-three or he’d been turned twenty-three years ago?
“So . . . all kidding aside, I’m gonna share a few things I’ve learned recently and end the rumors tonight,” Dante said, his voice low and even, all amusement gone. “I’m the Nightbringer’s son and I was born nightkind.”
Vincent froze, stunned into immobility, wondering if he’d heard right. And he wasn’t alone given the silence—lacking only crickets—greeting Dante’s announcement.
But Vincent’s thundering pulse told him that yes, he had heard correctly and his brain was even now processing Dante’s claim—a claim bolstered by the pride gleaming in Lucien De Noir’s eyes, the lift of his chin.
Bloody hell. True Blood and fathered by one of the Fallen. If true . . .
“Just so there’s no confusion,” Dante continued into the silence, “no, I won’t turn you. No, you ain’t getting a taste. No, I ain’t interested in claiming power, your fucking household, or your girlfriend.”
“Bullshit! You’re lying through your fangs!” someone shouted. “You’re just trying to win support against Guy!”
“Yeah, that’s be my thought too, in your place,” Dante said, unstrapping his shirt and peeling it off.
The sight of Dante’s bared torso—all lean, defined muscle and ivory skin—burned away Vincent’s shock. Lusty catcalls scraped through the air. “Don’t stop there! Keep going!”
More laughter.
Dante turned around, giving the crowd his back. He flexed his shoulder and deltoid muscles, then black wings slid out from beneath his white skin in a rush and unfurled, snapping the scent of burning leaves and musk into the air.
Vincent’s cigarette dropped from his fingers.
Silence swallowed the crowd whole, mortal and nightkind alike.
Everything had just changed.
38
A SAVAGE TEMPO
NEW ORLEANS,
CLUB HELL
March 28
“THAT WENT WELL,” VON said. “Mild hysteria, a handful of screams, and only one person fainted, but I think booze had more to do with the fainting than your wings. As for the filidh verifying your announcement, I ain’t heard back yet.”
“How long does that usually take?”
“A night or two. But your wings stunt will probably accelerate the process, then the word will go out to llygaid around the world, who’ll pass it on to their households.
Following Von past the mortal bouncer filling in for him, out of the c
lub, and onto the crowded sidewalk, Dante shrugged on the black hoodie that Heather had salvaged from the van, the one with the red letters safety-pinned to the sleeves reading: NOT DEAD DO NOT TAKE TO MORGUE.
He slipped on a new pair of shades.
Clubbers and Saints of Ruin fans were still lining up outside—much to the joy of the other businesses on the block, no doubt. Excited whispers rippled the length of the line.
“Look, look, look! It’s Dante!”
“Hey, gorgeous! You looking for blood? You can have a taste of mine.”
“You gonna be in the Cage tonight?”
“Hey, man. Love the new album!”
Dante lifted his left hand and flashed the index finger-and-pinkie-horned devil sign and kept moving, weaving through the tourists and sidewalk traffic with practiced ease.
“I’ll scout the rendezvous site, see if anything looks hinky, then wait for y’all to arrive,” Von said.
Dante nodded. “Lucien’s gonna take a look from the air.” He glanced up at the neon-faded night sky. “He’s probably already on his way.”
“He is,” Von affirmed. “Told me he’d meet me there.”
“C’est bon.”
Hunger scraped at Dante with sharp little rat claws, hollowed him out. He’d given Trey as much blood as he could, probably more than he should’ve. He needed to refuel before they headed for Lake Pontchartrain.
All around him he heard the steady rhythm of hearts, the song of blood through veins, the intoxicating aroma of warm and blood-flushed flesh.
As Dante pulled up the hoodie’s hood and tugged its edges past his face, he caught the faintest whiff of magnolias, a ghost scent. Simone’s scent. It pierced him to the heart. The last kiss he’d given Simone, the last time he’d ever seen her, he’d been wearing this hoodie.
Fire scorches her lungs. Blackens her skin. Devours her with relentless teeth.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
Von stopped on the sidewalk beside his parked Harley and glanced at Dante, a deep vertical line creasing the skin between his eyes. “What’s up?”
Joining him, Dante wordlessly held his sleeve up to the nomad’s nose. Von sniffed, nostrils flaring. He met Dante’s gaze, grief darkening his green eyes.
“Is that all that’s left of her?” he asked, voice rough.
Dante lowered his arm. “Think so.” He stripped off the hoodie, folded it, and handed it to Von. “You keep it, mon ami.”
Von looked down at the magnolia-scented bundle of black cloth in his hands. Blinked. “You sure, little brother?”
“Oui. J’su sыr. She loved you.”
“She loved you too.”
“Keep it for luck.”
“People are staring at you.”
“Don’t fucking care.”
Von swallowed hard, then nodded. “Okay then.” He turned to his bike and carefully folded the hoodie into the pack strapped to the sissy bar.
Boisterous zydeco bounced into the evening air from speakers hanging above the front door of a souvenir shop—one of a zillion souvenir shops in the Quarter—across the street.
“What the hell?” Von said, peering at the Harley’s fuel tank, a low and dangerous edge to his voice “Is that a dent? On my fucking bike?”
Dante froze, thinking of the cemetery destruction and the force behind it. Uh-oh.
Von crouched in front of his Harley Fatboy, leather jacket creaking as his fingertips circled a small dent in the fuel tank.
“Shit. I didn’t notice that last night, but, yeah, it’s probably my fault,” Dante said, crouching down as well to examine the damage. “Je regrette, mon ami.”
“You bet you’re sorry. You ever damage my bike again and I’ll kick your ass.”
“Duly noted.”
Von grunted, then rose to his feet. He straddled the Harley Fatboy’s seat and kick-started the engine. As it roared to life, he regarded Dante with a mixture of exasperation and affection. “See you at Lake Pontchartrain after you feed, little brother. Try not to destroy the city in the meantime.”
“Didn’t have citywide destruction on my to-do list, but I do now. And fuck you.”
“Awww. Love you too, you contrary little bastard.”
After a mutual double-handed flipping-off session, Dante watched Von steer his bike into traffic, the Harley’s deep rumble vibrating in through the soles of his boots as the nomad gunned it up Saint Peter toward Royal.
As his hunger guided him to Basin Street and Saint Louis No. 1 with its choice of tourist-mugging predators, Dante mentally replayed the conversation he’d shared with Heather before slipping from the club to hunt.
What happens when we get to Lake Pontchartrain? I’m pretty sure you don’t plan on rounding up those arsonists of Mauvais’s for nightkind cops or nightkind courts.
Nope. Those bastards are dead, they just don’t know it yet.
Simone’s gone and everyone else in the house could’ve died with her, including Annie and Eerie, so I get it, Dante, I do. But what worries me is this: where does it end? Does it become an endless loop of violence and revenge? When do you let go of it?
Never, catin. This is the nightkind world. The tempo is savage—marked out in blood. Grudges are nursed like precious and ailing infants over centuries. It ain’t like the mortal world, it can’t be.
I’ve noticed, trust me. But you can change your role in that world. You can change anything and everything. You could even let go of that endless loop.
Maybe, yeah. But not tonight, catin. Not tonight.
She nods, and her tight-jawed expression tells Dante this conversation isn’t over, not even close; then she pulls her gun free from the back of her hip-huggers and ejects the magazine, checks it, then slams it back home again—an automatic action.
She asks: So when are we going?
Dante was yanked from his thoughts by a panicked scream. A man in an over-sized black hoodie punched a woman in the face, yanking her purse strap from her shoulder. He pelted down the sidewalk in a long-legged stride, the purse tucked like a football against his ribs.
Dante blurred after the mugger in an adrenaline-fueled rush and body-slammed him into the cemetery wall. Slashed his fangs into his sweat-salty throat . . .
. . . and drank deep.
39
PAST THE POINT OF NO RETURN
NEW ORLEANS
LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN
March 28
TREY CAUGHT THEM ALL off guard.
As Heather eased the van, headlights off, to a halt in the lot at Breakwater Park’s far end, Trey slammed open the side door and bolted outside in a dreads-trailing blur. He disappeared into the night-inked park and from view, but Heather didn’t need clairvoyance or a crystal ball to know where he was headed like a fanged, heat-seeking missile—the lakeshore beyond and the arsonists waiting at the distant boat ramps for their ride.
“Fuck!” Dante moved and seemed to vanish from the van.
Lake-chilled air salted with the scents of brine, marsh grass, and decaying wood poured in through the opened passenger door. Dante was long gone.
“Wow. Did not see that coming,” Silver muttered from the backseat, his tone the verbal equivalent of an eye roll. “Trey breaking his promise to wait? I mean, seriously.” He jumped out of the van. “I think he just fucked the plan.”
Heather had to agree.
Since Von and De Noir’s surveillance hadn’t turned up any indication of a trap, just a pair of anxious fire bugs waiting to go home, it had been decided to use them before handing them over to Trey.
The plan had been simple—in theory. Wait for the yacht’s power boat to arrive. Knock everyone out before warning could be sent to Mauvais. Pilot the captive-laden boat back to the yacht with herself, Von, Silver, and Trey aboard. Dante and Lucien would fly, hopefully adding a shock facto
r to the yacht-storming when they winged down to the deck.
Once we’re on the yacht, cher, they’re all yours—Mauvais too. Just wait until then, so we can catch the fi’ de garce off guard, yeah?
Mauvais’s fille de sang is mine too, Tee-Tee. Promise.
Dante’d bitten his lower lip, then given his promise, his sworn word, in a tender kiss.
If Dante didn’t catch up to Trey before he reached the boat ramp, the nightkind half of the Molotov cocktail–tossing pair would send word of the ambush to Mauvais, making it impossible to get the drop on the Creole lord.
Heather pulled her Colt from her trench coat pocket and chambered a round. As she was reaching for the door, Silver yanked it open, expression tense. Moonlight haloed his anime hero–styled hair. Heather hopped out of the van and he snugged an arm around her waist, bracing her against his hard, lithe body. His fresh, just-sprinkled-cinnamon scent filled her nostrils.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Let’s haul ass.”
Silver moved.
The night streaked past in cool, midnight shades of shadow and moonlight as they blurred across the parking lot, past pale rocks and old splintered logs and into the cool green of the park; blurred through marsh grass and past clusters of palm trees and along a curving stretch of pavement leading to the boat ramps.
“Shit,” Silver said, slowing to a stop at the ramp’s mouth. He removed his arm from around Heather’s waist. “Looks like we missed the party.”
Heather’s fingers tightened around the grip of her gun as she pieced together the scene meeting her gaze.
Two bodies lay sprawled on the ramp. One seemed to be missing its head.
Blood pooled on the concrete, glinted wet in the moonlight. Dripped from Trey’s fingers, his dreads, freckled his expressionless face. And the smell of it, thick and coppery, curled like smoke into the air.
The low throbbing sound of an idling engine drew Heather’s gaze to the sleek power boat bobbing beside the ramp’s end. Dante, his pale face almost luminescent in the dark, hauled a panicked-looking man out of the boat by one arm and tossed him onto the ramp.
The man’s boot soles slipped on the blood-slicked concrete and he would’ve gone down if not for Dante’s hand around his biceps. All color drained from the boat pilot’s face as he realized what he was standing in. He looked at Dante, then froze. His mouth dropped open.