A Rush of Wings (35 page)

“I’m pretty sure it was the CCK,” Collins said. “No anarchy symbol…fuck…mean, there
could’ve
been but we just didn’t recognize…I’ve never seen…” He looked away. “There was a message. On the wall. In blood.”

The day’s warmth slipped away with the sinking sun.

“What did it say?”

“Does it matter?” Collins replied, looking at Heather. Anger burned the hollow look from his eyes. “That investigation’s officially closed. Word from headquarters is ‘copycat.’ No contact with you is allowed.”

“Trent, what did the message say?”

“ ‘S is mine.’ ”

Heather fumbled her cell phone from her purse. She punched in Dante’s number. The phone rang and rang.

Not recruitment, no.
S is mine
. Dante had been claimed.

***

SLAMMING THE MOTEL ROOM door open, Gifford lunged into the room, swinging his gun right, then left. The room was empty. He did the Bureau-standard enter and sweep: closet, bathroom, flipped on lights. Stearns was gone.

Gifford lowered the .45 to his side. He glanced around the room. Suitcase on the chair. Laptop on the desk. Bottle of scotch and a glass on the night table. Stearns intended to come back, given all he’d left behind. Wait for him?

A wastebasket beside the bed caught his attention. He dumped the wadded-up papers onto the rumpled bedspread and smoothed the first sheet. The name ELROY JORDAN appeared. Scanning the sheet, he recognized the dates and places for what they were—CCK murder dates and scenes.

When he unfolded the second sheet, his mind shifted into overdrive. THOMAS RONIN. What was Johanna’s
père de sang
doing in New Orleans? At the same time as E? Glancing at the address on the printout, Gifford decided not to wait for Stearns.

Gifford gathered up the papers and rushed out the door. He got inside his Hertz rental and punched the Metairie address into the car’s mapping system.

Johanna had been right from the beginning. No coincidence.

Throwing the car into reverse, Gifford peeled out of the motel parking lot.

***

BLOOD SPRAYED HOT AGAINST E’s face, spattered his shades. Tom-Tom’s hand locked around his wrist; something snapped and pain shotgunned up to his shoulder. A shiv dropped into E’s other hand.

Fucker broke my wrist
!

That thought ended in colored bursts of light—blue, green, and purple—as a sledgehammer smacked into E’s temple. He flew off the bed and slammed against the wall. Pieces of plaster rained onto E and the carpet. Vision graying, E glanced at his hand. The shiv was gone.

Done scared me shivless
.

Dizziness spun through his mind. Tweaked his gut. But adrenaline kicked his pain, kicked his ass, and kicked him up onto his feet again. Bracing a shoulder against the wall, E tugged another shiv from the sheath at his calf under his jeans. Blinking his vision clear, he looked at the bed.

Rivulets of blood poured from the bed and pooled on the carpet. The room
stank
of blood. Tommy-boy choked on the shit, spasming on the bed, hands at his throat, attempting to stem the flow. Grinning, E staggered to the bed. The bloodsucker’s gleaming gaze fixed on him, killing him a hundred different ways.

But not today. Today, E was a god, golden and powerful. The truest killer who’d ever walked the earth.

E raised the shiv into the thickened air. Air like honey. Like amber. The shiv plunged into Ronin’s beating heart.

“Plans have changed, asshole.”

***

LUCIEN CLIMBED THE STAIRS, Dante’s pain flickering like a candle in his mind. His child still Slept, but fire and shadows had fractured his dreams, stolen his peace. Lucien stepped into Dante’s bedroom. The mingled smells of sex and fading pheromones lingered in the air.

He knelt beside the futon and rested a hand upon Dante’s forehead. Heat baked into his palm. Blood trickled from one of the boy’s nostrils. Lucien closed his eyes and poured energy into Dante, icing his pain and strengthening his partially restored shields.

He is remembering. His past has set him on fire. Consumes him
.

Dante stirred beneath his hand, pale face troubled. The bleeding slowed, then stopped. The fever faded. Smoothing Dante’s hair back, Lucien bent and kissed his forehead.

Let him hate me. I will keep him alive and hidden
.

And sane
?

The muscles in his chest tightened. He stood.
I will do what I must
.

He crossed the floor to the French windows and drew the curtains aside. The last glimmer of sunset lit the room deep red; spilled blood. Lucien stood at the windows, listening to the others awakening in the rooms down the hall, listening to the night’s primeval pulse, and listening to the rhythm of his own dark heart.

On the futon behind him, Lucien heard his child drawing in a deep breath of air. Heard the
anhrefncathl
—a Maker’s chaos song—awakening within his son’s soul.

Without looking, he knew when Dante opened his eyes.

“We’ve some things to discuss,” Lucien said.

***

DANTE STRETCHED, SILK SHEETS sliding beneath him, muscles uncoiling. Tattered dreams slipped past his recall. Before-Sleep images sparked in his mind—Heather beneath him, lips parted, face lit with pleasure; the tavern ablaze, LaRousse’s sardonic smile; Jay—

Opening his eyes, Dante sat up, heart pounding. Reddish light poured in through the French windows, illuminating Lucien’s tall form.

“We’ve some things to discuss,” Lucien said.

Dante caught his breath as memory whirled through him—the cathedral, Lucien impaled, his whispered words:
You look so much like her
.

Untangling himself from the sheets, he rose to his feet. “No, we don’t,” he said. “Not ever again.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, child.”

Lucien unlatched the French windows and pushed them open. He stepped out onto the wrought-iron balcony. The deepening twilight shadowed his face.

Scooping up a pair of black jeans from the floor, Dante tugged them on and zipped up the fly. He strode out onto the balcony. Lucien’s gaze was fixed on the last shimmer of light on the horizon.

“You can’t go after Ronin,” Lucien said.

“Can’t?
You’re
telling me I can’t? Fuck you.” Dante’s fingers curled around the cold metal railing.

“Ronin will awaken your past. It will break you,” Lucien said, turning his face to meet Dante’s gaze. “Find another way to do penance for Gina and Jay.”

“You no longer have any say in what I do.”

“Did I ever? Does anyone? You’re headstrong, child.”

“I listened to
you
,” Dante said, throat tight, aching. “You, more than anybody.”

An image strobed into his mind: a little girl huddled in a corner, plushie orca hugged to her chest, her face tear-streaked and scared.

Dante-angel
?

He staggered as pain lanced through his head.
Chloe. Penance for Chloe
. Strong arms wrapped around him. Supported him. “Let go,” he murmured, pushing at Lucien’s arms. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Stumbling into the bedroom, Dante made his way into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He sank to the floor, head in his hands, eyes closed. He struggled to keep the images of Chloe in his mind, but they slipped away from him.

He saw her huddled and scared, then lying in a pool of blood, but he never saw what happened in-between. The unseen in-between left him shaken.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her
.

Sweat trickled down his temples. He slid his hands up from his face and through his hair. Thumped his head back against the wall. The pain receded. Didn’t leave, no, but backed off enough to think.

A thought pressed against his shields, a thought belonging to Simone. He opened to her touch. <
Heather is on the phone. She wants to talk to you
.>

I’m on my way
.>

Rising to his feet, Dante turned around and twisted on the sink’s cold water faucet. He looked into the mirror. In the twilight gloom, he recognized letters smeared across its surface.

WAIT FOR ME. In black lipstick.

Dante smiled and touched a finger to the message. Heather’s scent clung to him—lilac and sage—and he didn’t want to wash it away. Not yet. After splashing his face with cold water, he opened the bathroom door.

Lucien waited for him, golden eyes glittering in the dusk. “Are you going after Ronin?”

“None of your business,” Dante said, walking past him.

Dante caught a glimpse of peripheral movement and sidestepped, too late. Lucien seized his shoulders, talons piercing his skin—the pain needle-sharp. He felt the warm trickle of blood down his back. He hissed, but Lucien refused to release him.

“It
is
my business,” Lucien said, steel edging his voice. “It will
always
be my business. You are my son.”

Dante stared at Lucien, stunned, mind reeling.
His son
? “Let go.”

Lucien lifted his hands. Blood glistened on the tips of his talons. “I should’ve told you from the start—”

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Dante said, voice husky. “And now it’s too late.” He whirled and strode from the room.

Dante sprinted down the stairs, muscles taut, heart pounding against his ribs. He struggled for air. He needed blood. He needed truth.

Penance. Maybe everything he knew and everyone he loved would be stripped away until he paid what was owed.

He found Simone in the front room, curled up on the sofa beside Von. Her eyes widened and the
llygad
straightened, brows knitted.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, handing him the phone.

Dante shook his head. Tried to calm his breathing. “
Oüi, chérie
?” he said into the phone.

“Wait for me,” Heather said. Static crackled across her voice. “I’ll be there soon.”

Would she be stripped from him as well?

“Don’t. I won’t be here,” he said. His thumb slid across the end button. The phone slipped from his hand, hitting the carpet with a muffled thud.

In the sudden silence, Dante heard the whoosh of wings, then the ceiling creaked as Lucien perched on the roof. His father. Fallen.

What are you afraid of, True Blood
?

Rage burned through Dante, poured white-hot through his veins. “Not you, Peeping Tom,” he whispered. “Not you.”

28
Convergence

«
^
»

“S
HIT!” HEATHER STARED at the cell phone in frustration. “Pigheaded…” She glanced at Collins. “We need to move it. Dante’s heading over there without us.”

The car surged forward as Collins floored it. “Hope you’re right about the probable cause. If we take Jordan in for questioning, I don’t want him getting off on a technicality.”

“My research placed Jordan at each kill site,” Heather said. “If we get a DNA sample from him, it’ll match the evidence in every single case.” She dropped the cell phone back into her purse.

The fire that’d been smoldering within her since she’d awakened beside Dante had flared to life at the sound of his voice.
Oüi, chérie
? She could almost smell him—warm, earthy, and inviting. But underneath Dante’s words, his voice had been strained. Migraine? she wondered. Or was it something else?

It’s quiet when I’m with you. The noise stops
.

I’ll help you stop it forever
.

Heather knew qualified hypnotherapists in Seattle who might be able to coax Dante’s subconscious into relenting, and help ease his past up from dark depths without pain. She trailed a hand through her hair. With humans, yes. But nightkind? Nocturnal blood-fed predators? The psychology wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—be the same. She sighed.

She looked at the briefcase on the seat beside her. Dante’s past. Everything he couldn’t or didn’t want to remember contained in a slim black briefcase.
Dante’s
past.
He
should see it first. The fist around her heart unclenched and she drew in an easy breath.

After they’d dealt with Elroy Jordan, she’d give the briefcase to Dante, tell him what Stearns had said, and then stay with him as he delved into the contents.

And if Dante was a monster?

Heather glanced out the passenger’s side window, hands knotted in her lap. The road blurred past, black and endless. She remembered the taste of Dante’s lips, the desolation in his voice at the slaughterhouse. Remembered her promises.

I won’t walk away from you
.

I’ll help you stop it forever
.

I’ll never bury evidence no matter how much it hurts
.

***

STEARNS PISSED INTO an empty orange juice bottle, his attention never wavering from the house Thomas Ronin had rented. When he’d finished, he screwed the lid back onto the bottle and set it carefully on the passenger’s side floor. He cracked his window for fresh air.

The tidy house was a block up and on the opposite side of the street. Stearns had watched it since noon. He’d watched as a man in his midthirties with thinning brown hair left the house in a Jeep, returning an hour later in a white van with black-tinted UV-protected windows. Elroy Jordan. According to the printout he’d swiped from Prejean’s kitchen, Jordan was Wallace’s prime suspect for the CCK murders. He was also one of Moore’s projects.

No sign of Thomas Ronin, but a sleek Camaro parked in the driveway suggested that the journalist was inside the house. Stearns still wasn’t sure where Ronin fit into the picture. An exclusive story deal? With a freaking serial killer?

And why not? Stearns had witnessed and participated in stranger, darker things.

Someone stepped out the front door. Jordan again, but something was spattered on his face and clothes. Hard to make out what in the deepening twilight. Then as Jordan tried several keys in the Camaro’s trunk, Stearns realized the spatter was blood.