Beneath the Skin

by Adrian Phoenix

  The statue teetered, then fell over onto the paving stones with an echoing craack. Plastic beads bounced along the pavement. Candles flickered, went out.

  White stone cracked and crumbled away from Loki’s body in patches, revealing glimpses of the flesh underneath. But the Fallen angel remained on his side, unmoving, and unnoticed, so far, except by Dante.

  Had he succeeded in unwriting Lucien’s spell or had—

  More hands grabbed him and Dante stomped on the instep of the nightkind holding him from behind. Bone crunched. Then he swung to the side and sliced his nails across the throat of another. Blood sprayed his face; hot and pungent. Dante licked it from his lips. Throwing himself forward, he rolled onto his shoulder, then sprang to his feet.

  A hand latched around his ankle and yanked.

  Dante felt himself going down. He tensed, preparing to curl and roll again as soon as he hit the path. But someone fell on top of him, and he hit the pavement hard. Fangs pierced his throat; his blood pulsed into a greedy, cool mouth.

  Heart hammering against his ribs, Dante pounded his fist against the drinker’s temple until the bone dented and the mouth tore free of his throat with a wet pop. Several more bodies dropped onto him, knocking the air out of his lungs and pinning him to the ground like wrestlers in a grudge match.

  Muscles straining, Dante tried to twist free, and managed to stamp a bootprint into someone’s face. Then something smashed into his temple. Fiery light sparked through his vision. A second hard-driving blow. The light went out.

  HEATHER STOOD AT A bus stop a couple of blocks down from St. Louis No. 3, watching as the first vampire Dante had taken down—his gait a bit stiff—carried Dante slung over his shoulder to a shining black limo edged up against the curb. He flung Dante’s unconscious body inside.

  Inside her pocket, her fingers flexed around the Browning’s grip. If she did anything to call nightkind attention to herself, then everything Dante had done to get her free and clear would’ve been in vain.

  Her pulse thundered at her temples. She had no idea why the nightkind—M’sieu Mauvais—wanted Dante or where they were taking him.

  The rest of Mauvais’s crew, a bit battered and torn, piled into the limo. The vehicle pulled out into traffic, as smooth and predatory as a shark.

  Knowing the drive from Dante’s house to downtown was a good twenty minutes, she could only wish Von clear roads and green lights.

  Hurry, Von.

  35

  THE WINTER ROSE

  NEW ORLEANS

  March 27

  THE LIMO GLIDED TO a stop. Tall’N’Beefy, or Payne, as Laurent had called him, opened the door and stepped out onto the wharf. Dante glanced past him to the docked riverboat. Painted crimson red with a white, twilight-dewed rose at its center, Mauvais’s traveling home and casino gleamed in the moonlight. The river flowed beyond, dark and vast. Several figures stood on the riverboat’s deck, slender silhouettes in the deepening night. Lanterns strung above the deck winked in the breeze.

  “Out,” Payne said, bending to glare in at Dante. His fingers curled around the door’s edge. “I’ll catch you if you run,” he added with a fanged smile.

  “You’ll try, anyway,” Dante said. “But running ain’t on my mind.”

  Laurent shoved Dante, pushing him halfway across the seat. “Move your ass.”

  Dante whirled, seized a fistful of Laurent’s blond hair, and yanked his head back until his pale throat stretched taut, the blue vein in his throat exposed. Pressing one black-painted fingernail to the throbbing vein, Dante leaned in close.

  “Only gonna tell you once,” he whispered. “Don’t touch me.”

  Fingernail flicked. Blood trickled. Laurent’s eyes widened. Point taken.

  Payne was just beginning to react when Dante released Laurent and slid out of the limo. Dante felt Payne’s gaze as he straightened. Smelled him: adrenaline-sharp and blood-hungry.

 

 

 

  Dante sent. < I need you to check Loki. I think Lucien’s spell might be wearing off.>

 

 

  Laurent’s hand hovered above Dante’s shoulder.

  “Only once,” Dante murmured, gaze still on the Winter Rose.

  Laurent snatched his hand back.

  Dante walked down the wharf to the riverboat’s metal steps. He felt Payne on his left side and lovely Laurent on his right. Stepping up from the weather-warped dock onto the Winter Rose, Dante halted. Several guards patrolled the main deck, pistols holstered at their hips or tucked into shoulder harnesses.

  Their body language, stiff and slow, told Dante they were mortal long before he caught their scent on the night breeze, berry-tart and tantalizing. Hunger awakened.

  “So what’s the deal?” he said as Payne and Laurent drew up alongside him. “Anybody trying to slip in without paying the cover gets shot? Or is getting shot a bonus?”

  “Below,” Payne growled.

  Dante shook his head. “Gotta sign you up for the Nightkind Without Humor support group.” Sliding his hand along the cool metal railing, Dante climbed down the circular stairs.

  At the bottom of the steps, a narrow, lantern-lit hall led to a large open room. The low murmur of voices and minds lapped rhythmically against Dante’s thoughts like the muddy Mississippi against the riverboat. Slots chimed and rang, lights flashed, and laughter, high and light like champagne bubbles, drifted into the hall.

  Dante closed his eyes and breathed in, deep and slow. Using energy as mortar, he bricked his shields up tight, then opened his eyes. Ignoring Payne and Laurent, Dante sauntered down the hall to the Winter Rose’s casino. He stepped through the open doors into a roomful of gorgeous, graceful nightkind dressed in everything from corsets and Levi’s to ball gowns and leather.

  Mortals walked among them, gazes lowered, carrying trays of drinks and pastries. A few didn’t carry trays, offering instead a turned wrist or canted throat to any nightkind beauty who craved a blood treat.

  Gaming tables, couches, and plush easy chairs were scattered throughout the room. A bar stretched along one wall. Clove and opium smoke curled into the air like thin gray dragons. Dante felt the heat of attention as some of Mauvais’s partiers focused on him.

  Payne and Laurent escorted Dante across the room and through the door at its end into a small library containing two mahogany-brown leather chairs—one occupied. The warm smell of a roses-drenched summer evening sweetened the air. The door latched behind them with a solid click.

  Dante stopped a couple of yards from the chairs. He shifted his weight to one hip, folded his arms over his chest, and shook his hair back from his face.

  “So where’s Mauvais?” he asked.

  “On his way,” the woman in the chair said—a gorgeous chick in a long, sleek black dress. Her hair fell in dark waves to her bare shoulders and a black velvet choker with a white rose cameo at its center encircled her slender throat. “But I couldn’t wait to get a look at the murderer.”

  “Mauvais?”

  Her cold, dark gaze settled on him like a block of ice. “No, you, you prick.”

  “You’ll hafta refresh my memory. Who’d I kill?”

  “Would you like a list?” she replied. “It’s time to answer for your crimes, Dante Baptiste.” Her black-cherry-glossed lips curved into a smile. “I plan to watch you burn just like you watched Étienne burn.”

  “Oui, I did,” Dante said. “And it was over too fast.”

  The memory of Jay’s death—mon cheri ami—washed through Dante’s mind in a black and violent tide.

  Étienne’s arms lock like steel bands around Dante. Yank him onto his ass. He struggles to break free, twisting, and driving an elbow back into Étienne’s ribs. Dante scrambles to get his feet under him. Étienne di
gs in his fingernails, piercing latex and skin.

  The blood flowing from Jay’s slit throat has already slowed. It spreads in an ever-widening pool around him, staining his hair red. Jay’s half-lidded gaze fixes on Dante.

  Dante strains to pull free of the limbs holding him, strains to lower his mouth to his wrist. A sigh escapes Jay’s lips. His heart stops. The light winks out of his eyes.

  A hand brushes Dante’s hair aside. Warm lips touch his ear.

  “How does it feel, marmot ?” Étienne whispers.

  “And I’d do it again,” Dante said. “No regrets.”

  A glacier of black ice stretched behind the woman’s eyes. “Trust me, I’ll make sure you regret every breath you’ve ever drawn.” Her gaze flicked past Dante. “Put him on his knees.”

  MAUVAIS SLIPPED AN ARM around Giovanni’s shoulders as they strolled together along the Winter Rose’s main deck. “I regret that I need to cancel our get-together this evening. A matter has come up that requires my attention.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” Giovanni said.

  “Just a matter of discipline long overdue,” Mauvais said. “We’ll meet tomorrow evening, oui?”

  Giovanni took a sip from his flute of bubbling champagne, then nodded. “Sì, tomorrow. Have you any word on Dante?”

  “I’d heard rumors he was back in town, but my people haven’t been able to locate him yet,” Mauvais said, stopping at the starboard railing. “I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything different.”

  Giovanni finished his champagne, his thoughtful gaze on Mauvais’s face. Resting the emptied flute on the railing, he said, “You understand that Dante Baptiste is to be treated with the utmost respect once you have located him, sì?”

  “No matter his crimes?”

  “For now,” Giovanni said. “But I will take his crimes before the Cercle de Druide for consideration, I promise.”

  “Ah. Consideration.” Mauvais shifted his attention to the night-blackened Mississippi flowing past, breathed in its odors of fish and muddy brine. “And if he still refuses to recognize my authority?”

  Giovanni’s amused chuckle scraped along Mauvais’s nerves. “You have no authority over a True Blood, mio amico. None of us do. We just need to make sure—young as he is—he doesn’t realize that truth.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Mauvais said.

  “Buono.” Leaning in, Giovanni kissed each of Mauvais’s cheeks in quick succession, his lips cool. “Now I will leave you to your matter of discipline, and I shall explore more of your beautiful city.”

  “Bonne nuit et bon appétit.”

  Laughing, Giovanni strode away and Mauvais went below decks to meet—at long last—the defiant and disrespectful True Blood brat named Dante Baptiste.

  Justine’s justice was finally under way.

  ON YOUR KNEES, P’TIT, hands behind yo’ back. Gotta surprise visitor for you.

  Red-hot pain skewered Dante’s left eye and the memory unthreaded. His song burned through him, poured molten from his heart.

  He caught peripheral movement and whirled, blue light prickling warm and electric around his fingers, just as Laurent’s hand locked around his left bicep.

  Laurent froze, uncertainty flickering across his face. Tiny reflected blue flames glowed in his eyes.

  “Toldja,” Dante said. And grabbed Laurent’s hand.

  Gotta surprise visitor for you.

  But the past reached out from behind the walls Lyons and Gone-Gone-Gone Athena had shattered and seized Dante; sucker punched him over and over again with images and whispers and the hard bite of handcuffs ratcheting shut around his wrists.

  Sucker punched him with Jeanette’s soft sobs.

  You figured I didn’t notice you playing under the sheets with Mark and Jolie Jeanette, huh, boy? Oh, I noticed, p’tit. I noticed for true. Here, let me turn this monitor thingie on and we’ll watch.

  A baseball bat of pain slammed into Dante’s mind. His song shattered into thousands of jagged discordant notes. Fell away.

  A fist rocketed into his temple, exploding red and orange light behind his eyes. His vision rippled like he was looking through water. On her feet in front of her chair, the chick with the black-cherry-painted lips stared at him.

  Hands snagged Dante, and wrenched his left arm up hard behind his back, corkscrewing pain into his shoulder. More hands—another asshole or two summoned to the party—forced him down onto his knees. Another fist smashed into his ribs. Pounded the breath from his lungs. Dante tried to twist away from the punches and kicks falling against him like a hard rain, but he couldn’t break free.

  “How did he do that?” someone whispered. “Laurent’s hand? It’s gone.”

  “It’ll grow back,” Laurent said, voice shaking. “Right?”

  “I … don’t know. I don’t know how or what he did …”

  “He’s a True Blood, Justine.” An unfamiliar and assured voice joined the conversation. “He’s capable of many things.”

  Dante looked up.

  A man appearing to be in his mid-thirties, his slim body draped in an elegant charcoal-gray evening suit, stood beside the chick, the now-named Justine. A black ribbon gathered his long wheat-colored hair at the nape of his neck, allowing an unobstructed view of his sharp-angled aristocratic features and penetrating blue eyes.

  Fucking Mauvais.

  An amused smile brushed the old Creole’s lips. “I see you’ve been busy charming everyone. A shame you waited so long to grace us with your presence.”

  “Yeah, about that—fuck you.”

  “Ah. As I said, charming. Apparently, a lesson in manners is needed. If you would, Payne?”

  Boy needs a lesson. Boy always needs a lesson.

  Payne knelt behind Dante and wrenched his arm up even higher, then leaned into him with everything he had—and given his Tall’N’Beefy nickname, that was substantial. Dante felt his shoulder muscles tearing, white-hot pain needling the joint. His teeth sliced into his lower lip as he clamped his mouth shut. He tasted blood.

  “Enough,” Mauvais said quietly.

  Payne eased back, but kept Dante’s arm twisted up hard. Sweat beaded Dante’s forehead. Mauvais looked at him for a long moment, his intent blue gaze traveling from head to knees and back again.

  “Such a singular beauty,” he said. “In truth, stunning.”

  “And a murderer,” Justine pointed out. “He admitted that he killed Étienne. Said he didn’t regret it.”

  “I killed the fucker, yeah. Ça y revené.”

  “And what of his household?” Mauvais asked. “Did you set his home on fire and murder his entire household as well?”

  Dante’s heart kicked hard against his ribs. Étienne had tossed that particular accusation at him several times before over the last year, but he had no memory of that night—except for a dream of fire raging against the dying night sky and joy winging through his heart.

  Might be guilty even though I had no beef going with Étienne at the time. Wish I knew the truth.

  “I don’t know,” Dante said. “Peut-être que oui, peut-être que non.”

  Mauvais tilted his head. “What an odd answer.”

  Bitter fury and grief burned in Justine’s eyes. “He’s lying.”

  “I’ve heard rumors that the boy never lies,” Mauvais said, his tone thoughtful. “But that seems rather unlikely.” He grasped Dante’s chin between his fingers. “But maybe with beauty like this everything he says sounds like the truth.”

  Dante jerked free of Mauvais’s cool touch. “Is this conversation part of the torture?”

  The amused smile flitted across the Creole’s lips again. “You refuse to recognize my authority.”

  “Authority over what? Wharf-rats? Compulsive gamblers?”

  “You’re disrespectful, defiant, and rude. You even break our laws.”

  “Fuck your laws,” Dante said.

  Bending, Mauvais touched a finger to the steel ring on Dante’s collar, flicked it. He leveled
his gaze with Dante’s. “But given this bit of decoration, perhaps you crave discipline. Instruction. Perhaps you yearn for your role in things to be defined.”

  A smile tugged at Dante’s lips. “You ain’t got any fucking idea what I crave.”

  “Perhaps not,” Mauvais murmured. He sliced a long, sharp fingernail into Dante’s skin just above his bondage collar. Blood trickled hot down Dante’s throat.

  Mauvais took a deep whiff, his eyes closing in pleasure. “Time for me and mine to flood our veins with your strength, mon joli.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t y’all blow me instead?”

  Chuckling, Mauvais opened his eyes. “Hold him tight.”

  DUCKING BEHIND A LINE of crates waiting to be loaded, Heather crouched beside Von, her gaze on the red riverboat at the wharf’s end. Waves slapped against the pilings, while distant laughter, honking horns, and the high-pitched shriek of a saxophone echoed from the street behind her.

  “We might need more ammo,” the nomad muttered, his attention focused on the lantern-lit riverboat and the silhouetted figures strolling the deck.

  No, make that patrolling. Posture too alert, steps too purposeful to be anything but security. The place was an exclusive casino, according to Von, but the security seemed excessive.

  “Is it always like this?” Heather asked.

  Von shrugged. “Ain’t sure, doll. Don’t have many reasons to visit the place, but I have a feeling they added a few bodies to the payroll for our benefit.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Heather said. She pulled the Browning from her trench pocket and checked the magazine—full—then chambered a round.

  A ka-chunk from beside her told her that Von had done the same. He looked at her with moonlight-glinting eyes. “You ready, doll?”

  “Ready.” She stood.

  Von wrapped an arm around her waist, his leather jacket creaking against her trench. She caught a whiff of motor oil and frost. “Guns blazing, darlin’. Shoot anyone who tries to stop you.”