A Rush of Wings

by Adrian Phoenix

  LaRousse snorted. Shook his head. He helped Manning to his feet.

  “Take him to the emergency room,” LaRousse said to Jefferson. “And write a detailed report.”

  “I’m fine,” Manning said, face flushed. “Christ!”

  Jefferson slipped an arm around his partner and walked the protesting Manning to the doorway. Dante still stood there, hands braced. A wry smile tilted up one corner of Dante’s mouth. Lowering his hands, he stepped inside the room.

  “Je va te voir plus tard,” he said to Jefferson.

  All color drained from Jefferson’s face. “I don’t know none of that Cajun talk,” he stammered. Pushing Manning through the doorway, Jefferson hurried into the hall.

  Heather blew loose strands of her hair from her face and glared at Dante. “You weren’t kidding about that problem with cooperation, were you?”

  “He told Jefferson he’d see him later,” LaRousse said. “Sounds like a threat.”

  “No threat,” Dante said. “Just bound to happen.”

  Swiveling to face LaRousse, Heather said, “Prejean is not a player. I think he needs to be placed in protective custody.”

  “No thanks,” Dante said. “And my name ain’t Prejean.”

  “Shut up,” Heather said. “You’re not helping.”

  “Oh, he’ll be placed in protective custody, all right,” LaRousse said, a tight smile thinning his lips. “In jail. For assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.”

  “Let’s get things straight right now, LaRousse,” Heather said, stepping closer to the detective, muscles tight, hands clenched. “I’m in charge of this investigation —”

  LaRousse leaned in and met her head-on. “That’s where you’re wrong, Agent Wallace,” he said. “You’re not in charge. You’re consulting. Hell, you haven’t told us whether or not the damned Cross-Country Killer is even here.”

  LaRousse’s words hit Heather like an open-handed slap. Her cheeks burned, but she didn’t look away or back down. Her nails dug into her palms.

  “I’m waiting for DNA confirmation,” she said, keeping her voice level.

  “Even if he is here and you’re put in charge, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck,” LaRousse said. “That prick” — he stabbed a finger in Dante’s direction — “assaulted one of my officers.”

  Still holding Heather’s gaze, LaRousse called, “Davis, cuff that piece of street trash and hand him over to the uniforms downstairs.”

  “We’re not finished,” Heather said, voice low, and turned around.

  Davis approached Dante cautiously, handcuffs held loose in one hand. “Take it easy,” he murmured, a man gentling a growling dog. “Don’t have to be hard. We can do this easy.”

  Dante’s wary face and coiled body spelled hard in a big way.

  Look, we don’t have to do this the hard way.

  It’s the only way I know.

  “Wait. Back off,” Heather said. “I’ll cuff him.”

  Hands lifted in a gesture of surrender, his gaze still locked on Dante, Davis said, “Fine. He’s all yours.”

  Well aware that LaRousse watched her every move, Heather took the handcuffs from Davis’s outstretched hand and crossed the carpeted floor. Dante watched her, expression guarded, hands clenched at his sides.

  “What’d you do?” Heather murmured as she stopped in front of him. “Stand LaRousse up at the prom? What a hard-ass.”

  A smile quirked up the corners of Dante’s mouth. His hands unclenched, relaxed. But his gloved fingers curled in slightly, on the verge of closing into fists again.

  Heather realized in that moment that it had been need she’d seen on Dante’s face as he’d looked at Gina’s body, need mingled with the shock and disbelief.

  The room reeked of blood, the bed drenched in it. He believed he was a vampire…. Had it been a vampire’s need she’d seen? Or something darker yet?

  “Just relax, okay?” Heather said. “Trust me. I’ll get this all straightened out.”

  Sweat trickled along Dante’s temple and his jaw was clenched. Migraine? Annie had often looked the same just before a headache.

  “I’ve never trusted a cop,” Dante said, voice husky.

  “I’m not asking you to trust a cop,” Heather said. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

  Dante looked at her for a long moment. Sudden dizziness swirled through Heather, spinning from her head to the base of her spine. Just as panic touched her, the sensation vanished.

  Without another word, Dante tugged off his gloves, tossing them into the easy chair. Then he turned around, hands behind his back.

  8

  The Unmaker

  With sharp metallic clicks, the cuffs ratcheted shut around Dante’s wrists. Old demons he couldn’t even name awakened. Hot, arid whispers seared his thoughts. Break the cuffs. Snuff them. All of them. You’ll be out the window long before their blood finishes splashing the floor. Wantitneeditdoitwantitneed —

  Muscles knotted, Dante bowed his head, struggling not to listen.

  Beneath the thick smell of Gina’s blood, he caught a whiff of gasoline and charred flesh. Heard the crackle of flames. But not here. Another time. Another place. He shuddered. Pain unfurled. His vision blurred.

  “Hey,” Wallace said. “Breathe. Just breathe. C’mon, in. Out. In.”

  Listening to the smooth, calming tone of Wallace’s lowered voice, Dante reached for Lucien, and touched his waiting mind through their link.

 

  “Breathe, Dante. Do you have any medication?”

 

  escaped before he could stop it.

 

  Cool light suddenly bathed Dante’s mind, icing his pain and silencing the voices. He jumped when Wallace reached up and gently lowered his shades. He turned his head away, dazed by the gray morning light. She gripped his chin, turned his head around to face her.

  “Medication? Do you take any?”

  “Morphine. Opium sometimes,” he said, looking through his lashes into her eyes. Twilight blue, he thought, just as the stars come out.

  She held his gaze, brows knitted. Wisps of red hair framed her face and curled against her temples. “Couldn’t you name something legal, at least?” she whispered, shoving the shades back onto the bridge of his nose. “Christ.”

  Dante shrugged. “You asked. I don’t lie.”

  “Maybe you should.” Wallace shook her head.

  “Take him in,” Dickhead — LaRousse — said. “Lock him up. He’ll be asleep in no time, I guarantee.”

  Dante glanced over his shoulder. Dickhead winked.

  He knows I’m nightkind.

  “Hold on.” Wallace pulled Dante’s hood up, tugged the edges past his face. “Don’t want you bursting into flames or anything,” she whispered. A quick smile curved her lips.

  “Merci beaucoup,” he murmured.

  Wallace’s actions surprised Dante. Hell, bewildered him. She didn’t act like a cop — at least, not all the time — even when she was busy rousting nightkind from Sleep with search warrants. He saw nothing cynical or mocking in her gaze. He watched as she turned away and crossed the room to the bed.

  The cool morning breeze ruffled Gina’s hair, fluttered the stocking knotted around her throat. Dante looked at her for the last time.

  We gotta go, sexy. Tomorrow night?

  He hadn’t said a word. Now it was a little late. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Tomorrow night.”

  He followed Sidekick out into the hall and down the stairs. Ice melted and pain sparked anew. Sweat beaded his forehead.

  We…

  Where was Jay?

  * * * *

  The need to sleep rolled through Dante, a need that put him on the nod despite his determination to stay awake. He sat knees up in a corner of the holding cell, drifting as he listened to his fellow lawbreakers.

  “S
o this hoodoo lady sez, watch out, ya know —” said Geeky-Sweaty Dude sitting on the bench across the cell, his voice fast and high; a caffeinated Ping-Pong ball.

  “Shut the fuck up,” growled Unfriendly Dude hunched on the bench beside him.

  And the drunk Bayou Boy clutching the toilet puked…again…retching hard enough to earn a grunt of semi-sympathy from Unfriendly Dude. Geeky Dude gagged at the violent splashing sound echoing from the bowl and the sour, vile smell wafting through the cell.

  Since his shades and hoodie had been confiscated along with his belt and jewelry, Dante was grateful that the cell was windowless, though a little fresh air would’ve been welcome. His eyes closed and his head nodded.

  Dante thumped his head back against the wall, forced his eyes open. He squinted against the fluorescent lighting. Stay awake!

  Geeky Dude, undeterred by the interruptions from Bayou Boy and Unfriendly Dude, picked up right where he’d left off. “For the reshaper, the unmaker, she sez.”

  “Who gives a fuck, shithead?”

  A little brown cockroach scuttled from a crack in the wall, hauling ass for the shadow cast by Dante’s knees. Snatching it up from the floor, he cupped it between his hands. The cockroach’s delicate legs and antennae brushed against his palms.

  Concentrate. C’mon…stay awake.

  A faint blue glow emanated from his palms and, despite his effort, his eyes closed. A song lured him in: the cockroach’s genetic song, an undulating wave, backed by DNA rhythm. Dante plucked at the rhythm’s strings and altered the song. Sleep still beckoned. For a moment, he drifted and the strings went slack, then knotted, and another song entirely blasted through his mind — chaos rhythms of nightmare and rage.

  An image flashed through his mind; a little girl, a plushie orca — black and white and red-spotted…deep red…

  Gone.

  Renewed pain snaked through Dante’s mind. So much he didn’t remember. Each time he tried, a fucking migraine laid him out.

  Opening his eyes, Dante lowered his cupped hands between his boots. Blue light gleamed against his bootstraps and buckles and glittered on the hard, black surface of the thing he released from trembling hands. What used to be a cockroach slithered away from its maker, mewling.

  Dante thumped his head against the wall once, twice. Did it all fucking wrong. He squeezed his eyes shut. Hand shaking, he touched his temple. Sweat slicked his fingers.

  “What the hell is that?!”

  “Gah! Kill it!”

  The pounding vibration of several pairs of stomping feet jackhammered up Dante’s spine to his skull. Pain flared like a supernova — white-hot and vast. Sleep sucker punched him and shoved him down into inner night.

  * * * *

  “So…death by strangulation?” Heather asked.

  “Unofficially, yes,” Adams said. “I’ll know for certain after the autopsy.” He slid Gina’s sheet-covered body back into the cold storage body bank. The door closed with a solid ka-chunk that echoed throughout the room.

  Heather noticed fatigue shadowing the medical examiner’s eyes and lining the corners of his mouth. Tension corded his neck muscles. A busy week in the Big Easy for the coroner’s office, what with Mardi Gras and a serial killer. She didn’t envy the man.

  “When will you have the results on the semen samples?” Heather said, shifting her attention to the square steel door Gina rested beyond.

  The CCK is edging ever closer to Dante. Why is he playing games?

  “Midweek, most likely. I’ll keep you informed.” Adams’s voice was low and strained, heated.

  Heather jerked her gaze up. Adams’s brows were furrowed, his jaw tight. “Which is a sight more courtesy than you showed us,” he continued.

  “Pardon me?” Heather regarded the M.E. warily, caught off guard by the hostility in his gaze.

  “Why didn’t you let us know? We could’ve issued alerts, warnings. A serial killer is in New Orleans, Agent Wallace,” Adams said. “You knew it. And said nothing.”

  Weariness swept through Heather. “I apologize. But I have to be certain.”

  “Tell her that,” Adams said, nodding at the body bank. He crossed the tile floor, then stepped out into the hall, the door swinging shut behind him.

  Heather stood alone in the morgue, surrounded by the voice-less dead. She touched a hand to the cold metal door. Pictured Gina beneath the sheet. Remembered Dante saying: He took everything from her.

  Heather’s throat tightened. True. Everything. But once she nailed this bastard, Gina would have one last opportunity to speak.

  Small comfort.

  After three long years, she finally had a link to the Cross-Country Killer: Dante.

  But at what cost?

  Dropping her hand from the cold storage door, Heather walked across the room, cold pinching the nape of her neck. She refused to look back. She slipped out the morgue’s door, pausing as the door clicked shut behind her.

  Forgive me, Gina.

  * * * *

  Lucien stood in the center of the living room, gaze directed at the ceiling. The old floorboards creaked as a foot touched them. His fists opened. His talons pulled free of his palms, the wounds already healing as he did so. He hurried to the front door and wrenched it open. Fading gray light spilled into the room. The day was dying.

  Lucien arrowed a message to the waking minds above, sending, in a single thought/image, news of Gina’s murder and Dante’s arrest. The replies slammed against Lucien’s shield, stunned, perplexed. He shut them all out and strode into the rose-and-rain scented evening.

  * * * *

  Ronin’s eyes opened. Color — orange and violet — bled into the room from beneath the curtained window. Sunset.

  A sharp beep ruined the silence and drew Ronin’s gaze to the nightstand beside the bed. A yellow message light glowed on his cell phone. Rolling onto his side, he grabbed the cell, flipped it open, and thumbed up the text message. It was from his contact in the department.

  PREJEAN HELD AT 8th PRECINCT.

  Ronin smiled.

  * * * *

  A sound pulled Dante from Sleep. He opened his eyes and pushed his hair back from his face. A cop whapped the holding cell’s bars with his nightstick. The steel sang.

  “Yo, sleeping beauty,” the cop drawled. “Your bail’s been posted.”

  “Groovy.” Dante stretched, muscles unkinking, then eased to his feet. Hunger awakened and uncurled within him. He needed to feed.

  Bayou Boy and Unfriendly Dude were gone, long sprung, but Geeky Dude squatted on the bench, his feet tucked under him. He eyed the floor nervously. “Down there somewhere…watch out —”

  “Shut up, Wilson,” the cop said, shaking his head. “Ain’t you slept it off yet, fer chrissakes?” He keyed open the cell.

  Geeky Dude— Wilson —glanced up at Dante. His eyes widened. He wrapped his arms around himself, hugging tight like he could make himself smaller; a little garden gnome perched on a steel bench. “The reshaper is here. The unmaker.”

  Dante halted, his gaze locking on Wilson. “What are you talking about?”

  The cell door slid open with a loud clang.

  Wilson peered at Dante from between his arm and his knees. “Beautiful.”

  “Looks like you got a fan there, rock boy,” the cop said with a malicious grin.

  “Unmaker,” Wilson repeated.

  Shaking his head, Dante stepped out of the cell. The door clanged shut. He followed the cop down the hall, Wilson’s words chilling his blood.

  * * * *

  “Where is he?” Heather halted in front of LaRousse’s cluttered desk.

  “His bail was posted,” LaRousse said. He kept typing on the keyboard, his attention on the monitor. “We had to release him.”

  Heather leaned across the desk and pressed her hand onto the keyboard. The computer made several odd sounds. LaRousse looked up, eyes flashing. She held his gaze, hoped hers made him pause. This went beyond the usual passive-aggressive bullshit she put
up with when stepping into an ongoing homicide investigation; it even went beyond the bristling-alpha-male-refusing-to-submit-to-female-authority thing. This was between her and LaRousse — as individuals.

  “I wanted a statement from him,” Heather said. “You knew that.”

  “So call him at home and make a date.”

  “Asshole.” Heather lifted her hand from the keyboard. “Did you even bother to interview him? He knew the victim.”

  The chatter stopped in the other cubicles. The clicking of fingers across keyboards slowed.

  “We tried to get a statement from him,” LaRousse said, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the desk. “All we got was an hour’s worth of ‘Fuck off.’”

  “As charming as you are?” Heather snorted, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “LaRousse? Charming?”

  Heather glanced toward the speaker. Collins stood in the squad room doorway, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. Just coming on duty, then. She nodded. “Trent.”

  “Agent Wallace was just leaving,” LaRousse said, dropping his feet to the floor and sitting up. He switched off his computer, looked at Collins. “Unless you want your pet fed to keep you company.”

  “Like I said, charming.” Collins sauntered over to stand beside Heather. A deep vertical line creased the skin on his forehead — what Heather’s mother used to call the thinking deep line. “What’s up?”

  “I have reason to believe Dante Prejean is the CCK’s next target,” Heather said.

  “Yeah?” LaRousse said. “Well, he can have Prejean, far as I’m concerned.”

  “Why Prejean?” Collins questioned. He handed Heather one of the cups.

  Heather accepted the coffee, smiling. The sharp, fresh-brewed aroma cleared her head. “Well, the last two victims have had contact with Prejean, one intimately. The first was from Lafayette — same as Prejean.”

  Collins nodded. “Just heard about this morning’s call.”

  Heather paused to take a sip of the coffee. “The CCK — if it’s the CCK — has added Prejean’s anarchy logo to his signature. One vic was killed next to Club Hell, the other in Club Hell. I think the killer’s circling in, closer and closer. Sooner or later, he’ll decide to take Prejean.”