Let me go, bro, let me go…
Leigh Stanz’s hoarse voice and sad, yearning words ended. In the ensuing silence the unasked question in Collins’s eyes looped through Heather’s thoughts: Is the Cross-Country Killer in New Orleans?
And is he…what?…identifying with Dante Prejean?
Now? Suddenly? After three years?
An instant message from her SAC, Craig Stearns, blipped onto the laptop’s screen: Wallace, consultation progress?
Heather typed: Consultation continuing. Looks like the CCK, but not positive. She stopped, fingers poised over the keyboard.
Should she mention the records glitch she’d run into on the flight from Seattle? The inability to access ViCAP and NCAVC files on the CCK’s victims? A problem she’d never experienced before in working this case?
Heather rubbed her face. She glanced at the window. Rain poured outside, streaking the glass with ribbons of neon-lit color. Maybe she was being paranoid. Human error. Server malfunction. Shit happens. Maybe she needed to upgrade her computer.
And yet. A change in the CCK’s pattern. A computer glitch.
Heather returned her gaze to the monitor and the blipping cursor. A knot of unease nestled in her belly.
And if the glitch was deliberate? Could it have been Stearns?
She shook her head. Her SAC was a stand-up guy, hard but honest. He’d even helped her with Annie when Dad refused. That kind of deception wasn’t Stearns’s way.
Heather’s fingers dropped onto the keys: Checking leads. Nearly finished. Will contact you tomorrow. She hit send.
Scooting her chair back from the desk, she shut the laptop down and switched off her iPod. Heather shrugged on her trenchcoat. Scooping her Colt .38 up from the desk, she slipped it into the trench’s specially designed inside breast pocket.
Time to go to Hell.
2
Club Hell
“Fuck your money. Go to the back of the line.”
Heather squeezed free of a knot of people clustered in the crowded, narrow street and, grabbing hold of one of the brass horse head hitching posts, pulled herself up onto the teeming sidewalk.
She glanced at the speaker. He stood at the club’s entrance behind a velvet and barbed-wire rope barrier, eyes hidden behind shades. Reflections of neon light winked and edged the dark lenses and lit up the silver crescent moon inked below his right eye. Tall and lean, he wore jeans, road-weathered leather chaps, and a leather jacket marked with nomad colors, which surprised her. She’d never seen a member of one of the family-oriented gypsy-style clans working before, let alone for in-town squatters. At least, not at something legal. Long dark hair tied back, a mustache framing his mouth, he grinned at the fetish-dressed-but-slumming tourist slinking to the back of the line.
Heather paused. Had she seen fangs when the bouncer grinned? Maybe so. She’d learned at one of Annie’s gigs that for a few thousand dollars a person could get customized fangs implanted.
And given that this was Club Hell…
People fought their way onto the sidewalk, elbows and shoulders jostling Heather. A sharp jab to the ribs made her pull her arms in tight against her sides. She locked one hand around the purse strap looped over her shoulder. Her gaze skipped along the swollen line of people waiting to gain admittance.
The majority were Goth — dyed black hair, pale makeup, black lipstick and eyeliner, male and female. Some of the young men seemed to think they were Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise in that old vampire movie: long hair, lace ruffled shirts, velvet jackets, and silver-headed canes. The young women squeezed into form-fitting rubber or latex dresses, or dark velvet minis with tights and fishnet stockings.
Splashing the line with odd bits of color were kids in torn jeans and Ts, their hair buzz-cut or knotted into dreads. Some, like the admonished tourist, were simply curious.
Looking up the three-storied, black iron balconied building, Heather saw curtains fluttering in the night breeze from opened French windows on the third floor. Light flickered inside, like from a candle, and beckoned, like a curved finger.
Heather edged her way through the crowd, slipping between partiers reeking of beer and patchouli and sweat, to the bouncer. She glanced at the unmarked door beyond him — nothing identified the club.
The rain shifted into a cool drizzle, beading on Heather’s face, in her hair, and on her trench. Like Seattle, she mused. She reached into her purse and palmed her badge.
A punk queen in plaid trousers with bondage straps and a torn, black EATS YOUR DEAD tee safety-pinned up the sides submitted to the bouncer’s search. His skimming, fight-scarred hands paused at the cuff of her left trouser. Reaching under and into her boot, he slipped free a secreted switchblade.
“Naughty, naughty,” the bouncer said, one eyebrow arched. He held the gleaming blade like a pro, spinning it between his fingers before sliding it into a pocket of his leather jacket.
The punk queen smacked her forehead with a tattooed hand. A sheepish smile touched her lips. “Fuck, Von. Forgot.”
“I’ll bet,” he said. “You can have it back when you leave. Go in.”
Heather noted the name. She stood on the sidewalk, maybe a yard from him. She knew he was aware of her presence; saw it in the deceptive ease of his body, the deliberate refusal to look her way. That was fine. For now, she was content to observe.
After a couple of minutes, the bouncer turned and, head tilted to one side, regarded Heather for a long moment. “Okay, little girl,” he said, flashing another fanged grin. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Special Agent Wallace,” Heather said, stepping beside him. She flipped open her badge so only he could see it. “I’m investigating the murder next door.”
The bouncer shook his head. “Cops already been here, darlin’.”
Palming her badge, Heather looked up into the nomad’s shaded eyes. Her twinned reflection looked back: face wet, hair pulled back, rain glistening on her black trench. “I’m looking for Dante Prejean.”
Shrugging, the bouncer shifted his attention to the Goth princess swinging her weight from one foot to the next, a pout on her red-lipsticked lips. “Might be in, might not,” he said. “No tellin’.”
His hands skimmed the Goth princess’s velvet-clad curves. “Go on in, darlin’,” he said to the girl. He glanced at Heather. “You, too. Doubt it’s your kinda scene, but —”
“What’s your last name, Von?”
Arching an eyebrow, he murmured, “Sharp ears.” He shrugged again. “Smith. Or maybe Jones. Mama lost track. But if you get it figured out, doll,” he said, looking at Heather from over the tops of his shades. His green eyes seemed to glow. “Call me.”
“Count on it,” Heather said.
* * * *
Von watched the fed disappear into the club.
As always, Lucien’s mind felt busy, structured, somehow alien. But receptive. Von felt the activity pause, then his thought was allowed in.
Lucien’s thought arrowed into Von’s mind with an intensity that sometimes unnerved him, especially when he reflected on the fact that Lucien’s reply was gentle.
Good enough. Two surprises so far and the night was young. The fed had been numero dos. A nightkind stranger — a bearded black dude wearing jeans, untucked pearl-buttoned blue shirt and snakeskin boots, and trailed by a geeky-looking mortal — had been numero uno.
An honor, llygad, the stranger had said as Von patted him down. But his rigid body language had totally disagreed with that statement.
As had his mortal buddy’s amused grin.
Von’s attention returned to the line. He smiled at two pretty young things clutching each other, laughing and peering at him with drug-dilated pupils. He smelled them — sandalwood, vanilla, and chemical tang. He listened to the blood pulsing through their veins.
With a half bow, he unhooked the rope barr
ier and gestured them through. The first one, honey-haired and dark-eyed, grasped his hand, then kissed it. Her soft lips lingered, warm against Von’s skin. Her kiss tingled up his arm and down the length of his spine.
She looked at him with adoring eyes. “Nightkind,” she sighed, blowing him a kiss as her giggling girlfriend grabbed her hand and led her into the club.
Hunger unwound within Von. The honey-haired mortal’s warm vanilla scent tugged at him. Sucking in a deep breath, he slid his hands over the next person in line. He scanned the bobbing crowd, looking and sensing for someone else who was out of place. Feds rarely worked alone. He tamped down his hunger. He had to stay sharp. Tonight was not a night to dream of warm flesh and hot blood and sexy giggles. Not with a fed inside.
And a nightkind stranger.
* * * *
Gina’s head rested against Dante’s shoulder as he bit into her pale throat. Blood, hot, rich, and laced with cocaine, trickled into his mouth. He drank her in carefully, in measured swallows. He slid his hand into her unlaced bodice, caressing and cupping her firm, warm breast. Her nipple stiffened against his palm. She moaned, then gasped. Dante slipped his arm around her waist, holding her even tighter.
Gina arched her hips, and Dante glanced down the length of her reclining body to where Jay, kneeling on the floor at the edge of the bed, eased his hands under Gina’s bare ass and buried his face between her thighs.
Dante felt himself stir, harden. He closed his eyes and drank. Gina’s moans increased in frequency and urgency. He listened to the rasp of her thigh-high stockings against the chenille bedspread, listened to Jay’s muffled breathing, listened to Gina’s pounding heart, listened to the creak of his own leather pants as he shifted on the bed.
A soundless voice — a wordless song — touched his burning thoughts, rousing him from the heady flavor of Gina’s cocaine-laden blood. Concern whispered into his mind.
Dante opened his eyes and stared into the candle-and-neon-lit room.
Dante lifted his head from Gina’s throat. She glanced up at him, her heavy-lidded eyes puzzled. Then she gasped as Jay slid a finger inside of her. Her eyes closed again.
Sudden pain needled Dante’s left temple. His breath caught in his throat as the pain intensified, then faded. Muscles knotted, he held Gina tight, closing his eyes and listening to her uneven breathing as Jay brought her ever closer to climax. He listened to Gina and ignored everything else.
Including the whispers left behind in the pain’s wake.
* * * *
Heather walked down a crowded hall with black-painted walls scrawled with graffiti in fluorescent paint. Her gaze skipped over a few of the messages: INFERNO RULES! and RANDY SUKS DIK and WE DIE YOUNG.
People lined either side of the passageway, holding drinks, smoking — embers glowing as they breathed in — kissing, feeling each other up. The sweet odors of clove, pot, and wine mingled uneasily with the smells of vomit and warring perfumes.
Black lights glowed purple from bared male torsos and from nude, glitter-dusted breasts; shimmered from nipple piercings, NightGlo tattoos, and fluorescent body paint.
Music pounded like a sledgehammer and Heather regretted leaving her earplugs at home in Seattle. Didn’t think I’d be clubbing.
Looking from face to face and wondering if a killer was among them, Heather worked her way through the crowd to the entrance proper. A glowing red neon sign hung above the entrance.
Burn
Heather paused beneath the flickering sign as dry ice mist swirled around her legs. What if she was wrong? What if DaVinci’s courtyard being chosen, that particular wall being written on, had been coincidence?
Heather didn’t believe in coincidence. She passed the sign and stepped into Hell.
* * * *
Standing behind Dante’s stone bat-winged throne, Lucien shifted his gaze from the black, bearded nightkind stranger at the bar and his sallow-skinned mortal companion, to keep a watch on the entrance.
Silver and Simone sat on the stairs leading to the throne, their heads close together, talking and laughing. The crowd beyond them bobbed and jumped, dancing to the music blasting from the Cage.
Why was the law asking for Dante again? They’d already been here regarding the murder next door. His hands curled over the top edge of the throne, the stone gritty beneath his fingers.
Even more disturbing was the piercing pain he’d felt from Dante a few minutes ago. But there was no time to go to him now. No time to cool the hurt away — even temporarily.
Stone dust fell from beneath Lucien’s fingers, powdering the black velvet cushion. He yanked his hands away from the throne. As he did, his gaze locked onto a woman standing in the entrance, one hand holding onto the strap of the purse looped over her shoulder. Lucien noticed that one side of her trench-coat hung just a little lower than the other. Gun, he mused.
Pretty trenchcoat with no-nonsense eyes. Apt description. Lucien took in her rain-darkened auburn hair, her petite frame, her confident posture. Apt, indeed.
Now to get her out of here.
Lucien stepped from around the throne and started down the stairs.
* * * *
The dancing, thrashing crowd filling the dance floor held Heather’s attention. A band played inside a steel-barred cage while the audience stalked them, seeking ways inside. Some climbed the cage, reaching in as they did, trying to grab a sleeve, a lock of hair. Without missing a note, the band kept playing as they dodged and skipped out of reach.
A young woman standing on the mesh top of the cage held out her arms, threw back her head and stepped off. The crowd caught her. As she was passed from one set of arms to another, hands slipped under her dress, inside her top, feeling her up as she was passed to safety.
Heather forced her tensed muscles to relax. She looked away from the thrashing dancers. Small circular tables lit by candles dotted the other side of the club. Immediately to her left was a long polished bar and directly in front of her a…throne.
The bat-winged throne stood on a dais reached by four stairs. A couple perched on the uppermost stair. They both suddenly looked her way, fixing on her as though synchronized.
The boy was pretty, punked out, and way too young to be in the club. A half-empty glass of wine rested beside him on the step. Sixteen? Heather wondered. The woman wrapped her arms around her upraised knees. Her long, spiraled hair gleamed like gold against her black tights. Both her eyes and the boy’s seemed to catch and reflect the club’s low light.
Movement above them caught Heather’s eye. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a white long-sleeved shirt and black trousers stepped out from behind the throne and took the steps in two strides. Light winked from a pendant or chain at his throat. As he walked through the crowd, people parted for him without prompting, following his progress across the floor with gazes that Heather could only describe as awed.
Heather stepped aside from the entrance and waited for him, certain he was Lucien De Noir. As he drew nearer, she realized he was unusually tall. Six seven? Six eight? She straightened, determined to make every inch of her five feet four count.
“Good evening,” he said, stopping before her. “I’m Lucien De Noir, club owner. May I help you?”
Heather met his gaze. His black hair was tied back, his clothing neat and crisp. A sterling-silver, rough-edged X on a black cord hung just below the hollow of his throat. He radiated power, oozed strength. A slight smile curved his lips. A handsome man, she realized, one, no doubt, who knew when to turn on the charm.
Flipping open her badge for De Noir, Heather returned his smile. “I’m Special Agent Wallace. I’d like to see Dante Prejean. I understood this was his club.”
De Noir scrutinized her badge for a long moment before motioning for her to put it away. “His name is simply Dante,” he said, his v
oice a low rumble. “And I’m afraid your information is mistaken. But, in any case, Dante isn’t here tonight.” De Noir’s smile widened, warmed. Gold glinted in the depths of his eyes. “Perhaps I can help you.”
“Do you know anything about the murder next door? Or the victim?”
De Noir shook his head. “Only what I’ve heard from the police and on the street.” The gold lights in his eyes vanished. “And I’d imagine that Dante would know even less. He doesn’t keep up with the news.”
“It looks like it hasn’t hurt business, anyway,” Heather said, offering another smile. “Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?”
“The courtyard outside,” De Noir said, turning away and stepping into the crowd. His tied-back hair, black and gleaming, reached to his waist.
Knowing there had to be an office on either the second or third floor of the building, Heather wondered why she was being ushered out the back. So to speak. But, for once, she didn’t have a problem with that; she wanted to see the courtyard that adjoined DaVinci’s.
Slipping her badge back into her purse, Heather followed De Noir onto the dance floor and through the parting crowd.
* * * *
Dante eased out from behind Gina and slid to the edge of the rumpled bed. The black lace curtains framing the opened French windows twisted in the cool night breeze. The smell of rain and Mississippi mud filled the room. Dante trailed his fingers through his hair.
Still kneeling beside the bed, his hands resting on Gina’s thighs, Jay watched him with interest.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” Gina said, sitting up.
Dante didn’t have to look at Gina to see the pout on her lips. “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Candlelight flickered orange across the shadowed walls, across his leather pants, his boots. Pain flickered in his mind.
Gina’s fingers wrapped around Dante’s belt. She tugged. “Looks to me like you’re all hot and bothered. Looks to me like you need to stay,” she murmured. “Just lie down and we’ll —”
A Rush of Wings Page 2
