Beneath the Skin

by Adrian Phoenix

  “Did you kill him?” Dante says, fury lighting his face, seething in his husky voice. His gaze skips from face to face. “Did you? Or you?”

  Blue light shines out from Dante, shafting into the aurora-glimmering air and into the Fallen, those on the ground and those still in the sky.

  All are transformed into statues of exquisite detail, captured in gleaming white, blue-edged stone.

  Wounded, exhausted, stumbling, only rage had kept Dante on his booted feet. Since Dante believed his father— Lucien—dead, the bond between them must have been severed. Whether Lucien or Samael or whatever he wished to call himself had severed it himself or Gabriel had killed him, the result was the same: the lost bond had injured Dante, and the Morningstar could only hope that it hadn’t damaged the young creawdwr beyond healing.

  In any case, the Morningstar planned to keep the promise he’d given Lucien before leaving him in the pit, hanging from hooks through his shoulders.

  I find it amusing that the slayer of one creawdwr fathers the next. Dante, an intriguing name, but inappropriate, don’t you think? Once he’s seated upon the Chaos Seat, he’ll finally be far away and safe from the hell politely referred to as the mortal world.

  And he’ll be mine.

  The boy needed stability and guidance, a sure hand. Before it was too late.

  Before he lost his sanity. Before Gehenna ceased to exist.

  CATERINA EASED THE DOOR open and slipped into the darkened room. She remained still as she waited for her vision to adjust. She heard a shift in someone’s breathing—it had to be Heather; Dante and the llygad wouldn’t stir until twilight. It pleased her that even as exhausted as the soon-to-be former FBI agent was, her survival instincts were still in high gear.

  “It’s me,” Caterina said quietly. “Vending machines.”

  “Okay.”

  In just a few moments, Heather’s breathing dropped back into the low, easy rhythm of sleep. Eyes adjusted, Caterina turned, and locked and chained the door. Returning to the desk chair, she stripped off Von’s jacket. Draped it around the chair again, chains chiming.

  The Red Bull winged jittery energy through her system and accelerated her heartbeat. Offered the illusion of wakefulness, an illusion she accepted and needed.

  Caterina walked over to the bed shared by Dante and Von. Knelt one knee down on the carpet at Dante’s side of the bed. She glanced at the window and gauged the amount of rainy-day light filtering in through the curtains. Not much. The gloom seemed thick enough even for a True Blood.

  Winding her fingers tight around the warm, fleecy blankets, she slipped the covers down from Dante’s face, ready to yank them back into place if she’d misgauged the amount of light in the room.

  Dante’s glossy black hair, smoothed away from his face by Heather’s hands, trailed across the pillow. Kohl smudged his eyelids. Blood trickled from his nose and stained his lips and chin red.

  His scent tugged at her, perfumed each breath—burning leaves and frost and deep, dark earth. She wondered what her mother would detect in his scent, wondered if his spell—cast unaware even as he dreamed—would also enrapture Renata Cortini.

  Caterina touched the inside of her wrist against Dante’s forehead and sucked in a breath as heat pulsed into her flesh at the contact.

  He burned when he should be Sleep-cool.

  Rising to her feet, Caterina padded into the bathroom and wet two washcloths with cold water. Wringing out the excess, she returned to the bed. Dante didn’t stir as she placed the folded washcloth over his forehead. She used the other washcloth to clean the blood from his face.

  Her mother’s words whispered up from memory: Earn his trust, cara mia, then bring him to us. I’ll tend to those hunting him.

  He’d be safer in Rome within the protective embrace of Renata Cortini, that was certain. If he remained in the States, the SB would eventually haul him in. Lock him up. Or worse—they’d use this True Blood child and Fallen Maker like a weapon against their enemies.

  She wouldn’t … couldn’t … allow that.

  But if Dante refused to travel to Rome? Refused the wishes of Renata?

  Caterina wadded up the bloodied washcloth in her left hand and pulled the blankets back over his face with the other.

  Given time, perhaps she could change his mind, persuade him to listen to her mother and the Elders composing the holy Cercle de Druide.

  And if not? What then?

  Caterina tossed the washcloth into the bathroom sink, then returned to the desk chair and sat down. She rubbed her face with her hands, trying to push away the exhaustion nibbling away at her awareness, despite the Red Bull and snacks.

  She’d guard Dante with everything she had—heart, mind, and razor-sharp reflexes. And share with him everything she knew. From the interior of the Shadow Branch’s labyrinthine heart to her mother’s whispered bedtime tales about the Elohim.

  But she didn’t know if she could or should force him to do Renata’s bidding.

  Reaching behind, Caterina pulled the Browning free from the back of her jeans. She rested the gun on her thigh, her fingers curled around its grip.

  What she’d seen up on the hill … Images of what Dante had done swooped like gulls through her mind.

  Dante, curled up on the carpeted floor, shivering with fatigue and seizure-induced pain as spokes of blue light wheel from his hands, transforming everything they touch.

  The carpet ripples, shifting into a forest floor of pine-needled dirt, thick underbrush, and tiny blue wildflowers. Thorned blue veins slither across the room.

  Blue light stabs out from the house, from its shattered windows and yawning front door, as Heather and Von—Dante draped over his shoulder—run from the shuddering, quaking building.

  Above, a massive rush of wings draws her gaze. Shapes dive and glide through the rain-cloud-paled night, outlined against a shimmering splash of vivid twilight colors—an aurora borealis—where none belongs. The night rustles, full of wings. Ethereal music rings through the wet air as the Fallen sing to Dante Baptiste.

  Singing to guide their young creawdwr home to Gehenna.

  But Dante had set the Fallen ablaze with blue fire, turned them to stone even as they sang to him. Even as they tried to flee from him, realizing too late that he blamed them for the death of his father.

  Caterina recalled the words Von had spoken earlier: Lucien asked me to guard Dante from the Fallen.

  And that was another marvel—a llygad who took action instead of remaining an impartial observer of events. From what Caterina had witnessed just a few hours earlier, Von had abandoned his essential impartiality and aligned himself with Dante Baptiste—against all precepts of llygaid law.

  Caterina sighed, and leaned back in the chair. She had so many questions to ask Von and Dante both. But she realized Dante probably didn’t have any answers for her—given how his mind had been ravaged by mortal monsters, his past fragmented and buried deep within him. She tried not to think about Dante’s seizures or what they might mean.

  And Von? Well, it depended on how much he trusted her. Or if he trusted her.

  The less she knew, the better, in all honesty, since she planned to return to the SB. If something seemed hinky or off to her handlers when she spoke to them again, she could find herself facing an interrogator like Teodoro Díon who would destroy her mind as he stripped knowledge from it, piece by piece. And leave her a drooling idiot.

  If she was unlucky.

  Caterina shivered, goose bumps popping up on her arms. She tightened her grip on the Browning. Her cold, wet clothes would keep her awake. Another Red Bull wouldn’t hurt either. In four hours, she’d catch some sleep.

  She and Heather both needed to be on their toes, sharp and alert, balanced on a knife’s edge for whatever would come next once twilight deepened the gloom.

  The light seeping in beneath the door and at its edges vanished. Caterina bolted to her feet, snapped up the Browning. Adrenaline pumped into her system, kicking her hea
rt into high gear. Her focus narrowed. She aimed the Browning head-height.

  Blue sparks shot out of the lock’s key-card slot, a miniature fireworks display. Caterina’s heart kicked against her ribs. She kept her aim steady, though she now suspected a bullet wouldn’t stop whoever stood on the other side of the door.

  The door pushed in as far as the chain allowed, stopping with a thunk. Another shower of blue sparks. The chain fell from the door, links glowing, molten. Caterina caught peripheral motion and realized Heather had awakened and was swinging up her Browning too.

  The door creaked open, but only mist and rain and green leaves swirled into the room on a strangely heated breeze. Caterina’s finger flexed against the trigger, stopping just a hair short of firing the gun.

  No one entered. But the hair rose on the back of her neck. She caught a whiff of ozone. The mist and rain and green leaves still spun in the air as though caught in a storm-fueled funnel cloud. A man-sized funnel cloud. A funnel cloud that glided into the room with a purpose.

  “Shit,” Heather breathed.

  Caterina swiveled and shifted her aim, the Browning’s muzzle now targeting the whirl of leaves and mist.

  A voice rang out, chiming, scorching; a bell of fire. “Be still.”

  Those words rippled into Caterina’s mind, searing away all thought. Just as her mind blanked and she plunged into darkness, she thought she saw a tall man with short white hair curling against his temples, thought she saw white wings folded at his back, thought she saw him smile— dazzling like diamonds caught in a waterfall spray.

  She pulled the trigger.

  7

  DEEPER AND DEEPER

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  FBI HEADQUARTERS

  March 25

  FBI ADIC MONICA RUTGERS strode down the beige-carpeted hallway to her office, stockings whisking, pulse pounding hard through her veins. Something had gone horribly awry at the Wells/Lyons compound.

  Not only had Sheridan failed to kill Prejean and Lyons, he was in SB hands.

  Worse? Now the SB knew she’d not only disregarded orders concerning Bad Seed, they knew she’d initiated retaliatory action of her own.

  And risked the well-being and life of an agent, of a man, she trusted.

  Based on Gillespie’s phone call, Sheridan was in dubious condition.

  We have your agent, ma’am. Sheridan.

  He was only following my orders. I’m responsible, not him.

  I understand that, ma’am. He was wounded—

  I’ll have the goddamned hide of whoever—

  Ma’am, he took a bullet in the thigh and, no, it wasn’t us. My people found him that way. He’ll receive medical treatment before debriefing.

  Debriefing. Yes. May I send a couple of my agents to accompany him? And to participate in his debriefing? Sheridan’s a good agent, Chief Gillespie, a loyal agent, and he doesn’t deserve—

  No, ma’am, he doesn’t. You should’ve considered that before you sent him to Damascus.

  No arguing with the truth. But she’d sent Brian Sheridan out into the deep, dark woods. She’d guide him home again. What in God’s name had gone wrong? With a down-and-dirty, under-the-radar plan to assassinate a sociopathic bloodsucker and a turncoat SAC? Oh, let me count the ways.

  Sheridan was now a prisoner of war. A solider who’d followed his orders but hadn’t completed his mission.

  When did we become two opposing camps, the FBI and the SB?

  But she knew the answer to that question—they’d never been anything else.

  Her assistant, Ray Ellis, Bluetooth headset hooked around his ear, looked up from his monitor at her approach, fingers poised over the keyboard. Surprise flashed across his youthful face. Youthful, hell. He was young—only twenty-eight. A kid. But an efficient and competent kid—when she wasn’t catching him off guard.

  Ellis jumped to his feet from behind his tidy desk, smoothing a hand along his red diamond-patterned tie. Pausing to scoop up a pile of color-coded files, he hurried around to meet her.

  “Did something go wrong at your luncheon, ma’am?” he asked. “I don’t have—”

  Rutgers held up a hand. Ellis stopped in his tracks. He held her gaze, his hazel eyes calm, face composed. “That doesn’t matter right now. Clear my schedule and get me Underwood at the SB on the line.”

  “SOD Underwood?”

  Government acronyms never failed to unintentionally amuse. Unintentional, hell. She was pretty damned sure unintentional had nothing to do with it. SOD. ADIC. SAC. “Yes, the SOD,” Rutgers said dryly.

  Ellis shifted his armful of folders to his hip, bright splashes of color against his dark gray trousers. He glanced at her closed office door. Nodded.

  “Ma’am, SOD Underwood is waiting for you inside. She arrived about five minutes ago.” Ellis hesitated, then added in a low voice, “She also requested that I clear your schedule.”

  Rutgers stiffened. “You refused, of course,” she said, her voice cold enough to hang icicles from Ellis’s well-formed nose.

  “Of course, ma’am,” he agreed. “I’ll clear your schedule now.”

  “Good.” As Rutgers stepped past her assistant, she paused to pat his shoulder. “Thank you, Ray,” she murmured.

  “Ma’am.” A faint smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. “Give her hell.”

  “Count on it.” Rutgers threw open the wood and frosted-glass door etched with her name, and stalked inside. Cold fury propelled her across the room.

  Celeste Underwood, Special Ops Director for the SB, relaxed in one of two maroon leather chairs positioned in front of Rutgers’s desk, her black trousered legs crossed. She shifted to glance over her shoulder at Rutgers.

  “Monica,” she greeted. “How are you?” A smile curved her glossed lips.

  “How dare you give my assistant orders.” Rutgers strode to her desk and, automatically smoothing her skirt beneath her, sat in the plush captain’s chair, the leather creaking beneath her weight. She leaned forward, her forearms braced against the desk’s polished surface, her hands clasped. “You have no authority here.”

  Smile still in place, Underwood rose to her feet and crossed to the door. She eased it shut, then turned around. Her smile had vanished. “Sure about that?”

  “About you having no authority here? Absolutely.”

  Underwood shook her head. “Ah, Monica.” She regarded Rutgers with almost maternal fondness, a neat trick for a woman the same age as Rutgers. “Still living in the good old days.”

  “Back when we actually upheld the Constitution?”

  Underwood laughed, the sound warm, rich, and genuinely amused. “That we never did. Flawed instrument, the Constitution.”

  In her tailored black suit, rose button-down blouse, her modest and well-trimmed Afro sprinkled with strands of silver, gold jewelry glinting at her ears and left wrist, Underwood looked warm, accessible, every bit the boss with an open door policy.

  Easy to imagine her as the grandmother she was, in jeans and gardening gloves, her round face shaded beneath a straw hat. Rutgers even caught a hint of cinnamon and apples, as though Underwood had baked pies just that morning.

  Just an ordinary woman doing an extraordinary job.

  But Rutgers knew better. Had learned long ago to look past the warm facade Underwood projected. Inside, the woman was empty, heartless, a golem of flesh manipulated by a keen and cold intelligence.

  Underwood sauntered back to her chair, amusement lighting her face. Sitting down, she crossed her legs again, and leaned back. “Have you forgotten that when it comes to Bad Seed, I have authority over your every move?”

  Rutgers’s knuckles whitened and she unclasped her hands, dropping them to the arms of her chair. “I haven’t forgotten. But the project’s been terminated.”

  “Not completely.” Underwood’s eyes glittered, iced obsidian.

  “Since when?” Rutgers said, trying to figure out what game the Special Ops director was playing. “I was instructed—”
<
br />   “Exactly,” Underwood cut in. “You were instructed.” She tilted her head and studied Rutgers for a moment. She pointed at her ears. Arched her well-groomed eyebrows. “Unless you prefer to waltz around the bush … ?”

  Rutgers sighed. Underwood was right, of course. Hidden electronic ears listened in each office and hallway within Bureau headquarters. Eavesdropping. Recording.

  This particular conversation would be treacherous enough without misunderstanding greasing the cliff edge. She fetched the audio jammer out of her bottom drawer and set it up on her desk.

  Small and slim, the jammer looked like an iPod. She switched it on and chirps and burbling bleeps filled the room instead of music, desensitizing any and all audio recording equipment in the room.

  “I want my agent back.” Rutgers’s blunt words hooked Underwood’s dark gaze.

  “Impossible. He’s being sent to one of our facilities for debriefing. And you’re really in no position to make demands.”

  “Let’s be honest, here. You intend to interrogate a wounded man,” Rutgers said, voice flat and hard. “Not debrief him.”

  A smile skimmed across Underwood’s lips, glittered in her eyes like sunlight on ice, dazzling and cold. “You sent him into the line of fire. These are the consequences of action you spun into play and your agent will pay the price.”

  A twinge of guilt tightened the muscles in Rutgers’s chest. “There’s no need to interrogate Sheridan. I take full responsibility for his actions. He was simply following my orders.”

  “And those orders were … ?”

  “To kill Dante Prejean.”

  “Even after you were instructed to take your people off Prejean?”

  “Because I was instructed to take my people off Prejean.”

  Underwood tsked and shook her head. “Defying instructions like a jilted ex slapped with a restraining order. That’s not like you.”

  “How would you know?” Rutgers asked. “None of us are the people we were when we started this.”

  “True.” Underwood’s expression softened. “Very true,” she murmured.

  She glanced out the window and Rutgers wasn’t sure if she was gathering her thoughts or simply taking in the view beyond the glass—pink cherry blossoms shivering on slender-branched trees, caught in a strengthening breeze as a late March storm rolled in, framing the delicate blossoms between green lawn and bruised sky.