A Rush of Wings (11 page)

“Nah,” he said finally. “Not Étienne’s style. He’d hurt Dante, sure. But not through a mortal—not unless he could make Dante watch.”

Heather glanced from Von to Simone. Their gazes held for a heartbeat longer, then Simone glanced down, a smile on her lips.

Grinning wolfishly, fangs showing, Von strode down the hall in long-legged, confident strides. He winked at Heather as he passed. His scent was frosty and clear, the first chilly breath of autumn. He brushed the backs of his fingers against Simone’s pale cheek as he passed. Then he was gone.

“There it was again,” Heather said. “That word.
Mortals
. Dante believes he’s a vampire. Von has fangs. What about you?”

Simone regarded her for a long moment, all amusement gone from her dark eyes. “What you need to remember,
m’selle
, is that Dante never tells or forgives a lie.” Swiveling around, Simone walked away, hips swinging. “I’ll fetch your coffee.”

“Everyone lies,” Heather said under her breath. That was the universal truth of detective work, one she’d had drilled into her since before her days at the Academy.
Everyone
lies. Guilty people lie. Innocent people lie. Cops lie. Bad guys definitely lie. The reasons differ—to hide, to protect another, to cover up—but everyone lies.

Heather stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. She regarded her weary reflection in the mirror. Tendrils of hair clung to her face and neck. Shadows smudged her eyes. She turned on the faucet, splashed cold water onto her face.

So…Dante had a reputation for not lying.

Heather patted her face dry with a plush blue towel, then looked into the mirror again. All that meant was that Dante
believed
he was a vampire. If his friends, hell, even his enemies encouraged his delusional thinking, then to him, he spoke the truth.

Reaching behind her head, Heather unpinned and unwound her French braid. Her hair, frizzy with humidity, tumbled past her shoulders.

What if he
was
a vampire? What if everyone in this house were
exactly
what they pretended to be—sun-shunning vampires? What was the word Dante had used?
Nightkind
.

Heather fumbled her brush and makeup bag out of her purse and onto the counter.

But she’d picked Dante up shortly after dawn.

It was overcast. He wore sunscreen and shades and gloves. He hid his face within a hood.

His mind-dazzling speed. Jackson pulled the trigger. No way that bullet could’ve missed Dante. But it had.

The need on his face. The blood, still dripping, the air reeking with it.

Then why had he allowed himself to be arrested? Weren’t vampires strong enough to snap handcuffs?

Heather tugged the brush through her hair. She didn’t like the path her thoughts were taking, but it was a path she needed to walk. She’d learned over the years to examine every angle, no matter how absurd.

What about the scene at the club? Étienne and his dark promises?

Leaning against the counter, Heather touched up her lipstick. She conceded it could’ve all been a game. Some live-action roleplayers took their games
very
seriously, especially the vampire and werewolf groups. She’d seen it in Seattle more than once.

But what if it hadn’t been a game?

What had Étienne said to De Noir?

This doesn’t concern the Fallen
.

Suddenly cold, Heather tucked her lipstick back into her makeup bag, then dropped it back into her purse. She stared into the mirror; her reflection stared back, eyes dilated and nearly black in the low light, rimmed with cornflower blue.

She dropped her gaze to her hands. They trembled once again. Fallen. As in angels?
Nightbringer
. Everything about De Noir seemed unearthly: his powerful presence, the gleam of gold in his black eyes, his speed as he rushed toward Étienne.

Heather shrugged out of her trench, then draped it over her arm so that she had easy access to her .38. She smoothed her sweater. Opening the door, she stepped out into the empty hall. The front door opened as she walked into the front room. De Noir stepped through, closing the door behind him.

Apprehension iced her spine. “Where’s Dante?” she asked.

***

SAC CRAIG STEARNS SIPPED at his coffee, his zillionth of the day, as he looked out his office window into the rainy Seattle night. He’d been trying to reach Wallace since morning, without luck. She hadn’t responded to his e-mail messages or to his calls.

Wallace had never gone this long without checking in. Her last message had stated that she was checking leads and would contact him today.

Returning to his desk, he sank into his chair. He flipped through some of the field reports stacked on his desk. He’d already read each several times.

If anything had…
happened
…to Wallace, he would’ve heard by now. Unless it was the kind of
happened
no one knew about yet.

Stearns swallowed the last of his coffee. He’d call that detective Wallace was consulting with in New Orleans—Collins. As he reached for the phone, it rang and he jerked his hand back, heart pounding. Chagrined, he switched on the speaker and tabbed on the vid-mon. Maybe he
should
cut down on the caffeine.

But the face that took shape on the monitor reassured him that his instincts were as sharp as ever: Blonde hair stylishly razor-cut, almond-shaped blue eyes, and a deceptively warm smile. He knew from experience that if a heart beat within her curvaceous chest, it’d been carved from glacial ice.

“I knew I’d find you at the office, Craig,” ADIC Johanna Moore said.

“What’s shaking, Moore?”

“Good news, I hope,” she said, her smile widening. “We’ve got a dead perp in Pensacola that we’ve reason to believe is the Cross-Country Killer.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You name it, we got it. We’re waiting on DNA results, but, really, that’s just a formality.” Moore shook her head. “It’s finally over, Craig. Call your agent home.”

Stearns smiled despite the sudden cold icing his bones. Something was
way
hinky here. “How’d it happen?”

“One of my agents caught the perp in action. Made a good kill.” Moore’s smile faded. “Unfortunately, the perp’s victim didn’t make it.”

“A shame,” Stearns said. “I think I’ll send my agent on to Pensacola to get those DNA results. Since this isn’t exactly your department.” Especially for the ADIC of Special Ops and Research, an ADIC rumored to have ties to the “non-existant” shadow branch.

“Not necessary,” Moore replied, another warm smile on her lips. “I’ve got an agent there now.”

“Well, hell, then I’ll tell my agent to hang out and enjoy Mardi Gras.”

“Recall Wallace,” Moore said, smile gone.

“So that’s it.” Stearns’s mind raced, flipping through possible courses of action. “What are you hiding in New Orleans?”

“You’re fencing with the wrong person. Get your agent out.”

“One of your
projects
must be down there. That it?”

A rueful smile brushed over Moore’s lips. “You know better than to ask that, Craig, you of all people.”

It hit Stearns, then, like a fist to the gut. One of Moore’s projects and the CCK were one and the same. Why had Moore even allowed them to work the case? Maybe it hadn’t mattered before because they were never close, but now they were. Wallace was
on
the bad guy’s ass. Closing in.

“Wallace had better be all right,” he said, voice tight.

“Bring her in,” Moore said softly, “and she will be.” She switched off, the vid-mon going slate-gray with static.

Stearns jumped to his feet, kicked his chair. It rolled across the polished hardwood floor and thunked into the wall. He paced from the rain-misted window to the door and back again. Think! Wallace would never buy it if he just called her in. She’d want to go to Pensacola, check the evidence for herself. Moore probably expected that.

Let Wallace know that the case was officially closed. The CCK was dead. End of story.

Bracing his hands on either side of the window, Stearns stared out into the black night. His stomach churned. Neon flashed on the streets below; car headlights streaked along the wet pavement. Moore’s request was simple.

All he had to do was bring an agent in. And let a killer walk. Again.

10
Unforeseen

«
^
»

R
ONIN PULLED HIS CAMARO over to the curb and switched off the engine. He glanced at the handheld GPS receiver. Dante’s movement had stopped, then resumed, but at a much slower pace. So…the boy was now on foot.

Getting out of his car, Ronin stepped onto the sidewalk and tabbed his debit spike into the parking meter, then set it for two hours. He checked the GPS receiver, then started walking down neon-lit Canal Street, toward the Mississippi. Even here tourists and vendors crowded the sidewalks, and the four lanes of traffic gleamed with headlights. Horns honked as drivers warned strolling pedestrians as they hung rights or lefts across crosswalks.

Ronin kept his pace at a deliberate mortal-paced stride. He walked with a small herd of pedestrians, not wishing to call attention to himself. Blend, meld, become ordinary and therefore invisible. He didn’t want Dante to see him. At least, not yet. The GPS receiver marked the young vampire just a few blocks ahead of him.

Another thing E didn’t know—microchip-size GPS transmitters had been implanted at the base of the skull of each Bad Seed subject. Johanna had wanted to keep tabs on her experiments once they’d been unleashed.

Of course, most of the subjects—all ignorant of each other and Bad Seed’s existence, let alone their own participation—were now dead or entombed in prisons. E and Dante were the only two still roaming free.

Ronin looked up and over the heads of some of the people encircling him. He saw Dante a block ahead of him, stopped in front of the light-filled and glittering Harrah’s, next to the black iron fence near the entrance.

Muscles tightening in anticipation, Ronin slowed his pace, allowing his camouflage group to trundle across the street without him. A vendor sat on a metal folding chair next to a street-light, his wares—colorful MARDI GRAS! T-shirts, plastic beads, and other bits of cheap jewelry—displayed on a sheet spread out on the sidewalk.

Ronin stopped and looked over the vendor’s goods, pretending a mild interest. What was Dante doing? he wondered, his gaze skipping from DRUNK ON BOURBON STREET Ts to ’gator charm bracelets. Meeting someone? Planning to play the slots?

“This one be real pop’lar,” the vendor, a black man in his midtwenties, said eagerly. He held up a shirt reading SHOW ME YOUR TITTIES! “Fresh batch. I keep sellin’ out of ‘em.”

“Ah,” Ronin murmured. “No doubt.” He glanced up the street.

Dante leaned against the fence, his hands gripping the railing behind him. He stood near the double-globed streetlight, but not directly beneath it, his face hood-hidden. Light danced across his leather pants and winked from his rings and hoops and bracelets. His head was bowed, his shaded gaze on the sidewalk.

People flowing in, out, and past Harrah’s glanced at him. More than a few paused and stared until nudged into motion by a less-dazzled companion.

“Maybe this one’s more to your liking? Sir?”

Ronin forced his gaze away from Dante. The vendor held up a shirt proclaiming LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULLER.
Let the good times roll
. Ronin nodded.

“That one. How much?”

“Ten, sir. Cash only.”

As Ronin tugged his wallet free of his hip pocket, he darted another glance up the street. Two men in jeans and Saints sweatshirts paused near Dante. They leaned in close to one another, hands gesturing, their conversation intense. One pointed across Canal street toward the French Quarter. The other shook his head, then looked toward the casino.

Dante lifted his head, his pale hands pushing his hood back. He slid his shades off and looped them through his studded belt. The mortal froze, mouth open. A smile tilted Dante’s lips, wicked and oh-so-inviting. The man gripped his friend’s forearm and squeezed. Swinging his head around, the friend looked and went still also, mesmerized by the moonlit slice of sexual fantasy leaning against the fence.

Ronin looked away. Excitement shook his hands as he slid a ten out of his wallet and handed it to the vendor.

Dante was hunting.

Snatching the T-shirt from the vendor’s hands, Ronin tucked one end of it into his hip pocket and started up the sidewalk. He forced himself to walk slowly. He still couldn’t afford to call attention to himself, especially near a hyper-alert and, undoubtedly, territorial vampire on the hunt.

Both mortals had recovered enough from their first glimpse of Dante’s breath-stealing beauty to sidle in on either side of him, their bodies nearly touching. Their hungry, somewhat predatory, stance amused Ronin. They spoke to Dante, smiling, their gestures friendly. One displayed a wad of cash.

Ronin paused at a store window. He was close enough now that Dante would feel his presence if he wasn’t careful. He tamped his aura down tight, stilled his questing mind. Blood surged through his veins electrified, adrenalized. For a moment, his thoughts spun, and he shook his head, perplexed. What had come over him? He prized control—the essence of strength and self-rule.

Dante. True Blood. Vampire aristocracy.

He looked up the street again. Dante walked away with the mortals, one still on either side of him. The men glanced at each other. Winked. One squeezed a hand into a fist. Ronin watched as the threesome turned the corner onto Tchopitoulas Street. The mortals no doubt planned bad things for the young Goth hustler walking between them; planned to use him, then hurt him. And not necessarily in that order.

Ronin now knew why Dante had lifted his head and allowed those two to look at him and fall under his spell.

He’d smelled their filthy little hearts jittering away inside their chests. Had heard their fevered whispers. Seen their twisted thoughts.