In the Blood

by Adrian Phoenix

  Heather twitched the curtain aside and studied the quiet, rain-wet street. The rain had stopped, for the moment. Most of her neighbors, people she didn’t know well, were at work, their driveways empty. She didn’t recognize a couple of the cars parked along the street—an SUV, a rust-pocked old Chrysler—both with Washington plates.

  A blade of sunlight sliced through thinning clouds and cut ruby dazzles from a pickup parked a block down. Heather squinted, thought she could make out Oregon tree-in-the-center plates. An image popped into her mind of the Portland field office’s parking lot and the vehicle she’d watched SAC Alex Lyons climb into, a sparkling red Dodge Ram. Her pulse picked up speed.

  Couldn’t be on official surveillance, she thought, dropping the curtain back into place. Not in such an easily spotted vehicle. She wondered how long he’d been watching the house and for who. Rodriguez?

  She planned to find out.

  Turning, Heather crouched beside the sofa and shook Jack’s shoulder. The drummer opened one eye and grunted. “Your shift,” she said. “I’ve gotta check something outside.”

  Jack forced himself away from his pillow and sat up on the sofa, yawning. He stretched, then smoothed a hand along his mane of cherry-red braids.

  “You awake?” Heather asked, rising to her feet.

  “Sadly, yeah.”

  “Do you need a gun or did—”

  Jack pulled one of Von’s Brownings out from under the pillow. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m strapped, me.”

  A snort sounded from Eli’s end of the sofa. “Nutria beware.”

  Without looking at him, Jack flipped Eli off. “Damn straight.”

  “I’m going out the back door,” Heather said. “And coming back that way. Don’t let anyone in but me.”

  Jack nodded, and his braids swept across his muscled shoulders. “If anyone tries to get in here, I’ll make ’em dance like a turkey in hot ashes, for true.”

  “Now there’s a disturbing image,” Heather said with a smile.

  “You need help?” Eli asked, setting aside his breakfast. The smell of fresh cantaloupe drifted though the air.

  Heather shook his head. “No, I should be fine. Just being cautious.”

  With an inquisitive trill, Eerie jumped from Eli’s lap to the carpet and padded over to Heather, rubbing against her legs, his back arched for pats. She reached down to pet him, then froze.

  Padded. Not hopped. Eerie had four legs, not three.

  “Holy Christ,” she whispered and knelt. Eerie mewed happily as her trembling fingers stroked his head.

  “I thought you knew,” Eli said.

  “Knew?” she repeated. She touched Eerie’s new leg, felt its solidity and strength.

  “Yeah, I mean, he was that way when he came out of your room this morning,” Eli said. “I figured Dante…I mean…how else?”

  How else, indeed, Heather thought, her mind spinning. She’d known Dante could unmake. She’d been too troubled by Johanna Moore’s destruction to even consider that Dante might be able to make, as well. Yes, he’d most likely made changes within her when he’d saved her life, but she’d never carried that realization all the way through, never stopped to consider its implications.

  Could Dante create? Not just fix or heal, but create?

  Eerie bunted his head against her fingers and she petted him. He sat and extended his new leg, grooming it as if to say, See? It was there all along.

  Heather stood and walked to the bedroom. She eased the door open and looked into the darkened room. Dante’s pale face was turned away from the door, his black hair trailing across the pillow, one white arm across his blanketed waist.

  He is the never-ending Road.

  Heather touched her hand to Dante’s chest, waited for the reassuring thump of his heart against her palm. When it came, she removed her hand, bent, and kissed the tiny bat tattooed into the pale flesh above his heart.

  With a mew, Eerie jumped up onto the bed and settled himself beside Dante, yellow eyes gleaming.

  “Watch over him, little guardian,” she whispered.

  For answer, Eerie licked a paw and swiped it over his head, the very epitome of nonchalance. Cats. Heather backed out of the room, leaving the door cracked open for Eerie’s passage.

  Jack, Browning Hi-Power snugged into the back of his jeans, walked Heather to the back door so he could lock it behind her.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, stepping out into the gray day. The air smelled of impending rain and wet pavement. “Look, there’s probably nothing to be worried about, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  “We’ll keep the Sleepers safe, for true,” Jack said, meeting her gaze. “If someone’s hunting Dante, he ain’t gonna get through us.”

  Heather smiled. “Thanks, Jack.”

  “Ça fait pas rien.” He closed the door. The dead bolt clunked into place.

  She swiveled around and headed across the lawn for the padlocked gate in her backyard’s northwest corner. Once through it, she’d follow a short alley between the houses and to the street, but behind Lyons’s Dodge Ram.

  Slipping her hand under the back of her blue turtleneck sweater, Heather touched the grip of the .38 tucked into her jeans at the small of her back.

  SHERIDAN YAWNED.

  The SUV’s interior smelled of coffee and greasy hamburgers. His stomach rumbled, but he didn’t feel hungry. The buzz from the pick-me-ups he’d swallowed during the night when he’d begun his surveillance was fading, leaving him twitchy and tired. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger.

  Dawn had come and gone and he was still waiting and watching; Prejean was still Sleeping and breathing, and Cortini was nowhere in sight. Nothing was going the way he’d hoped.

  With another yawn, Sheridan returned his gaze to the handheld mini-mon. The small camera rigged to the rooftop bike rack provided a steady feed of the street outside of Wallace’s white-brick house. He rested fully reclined on one of the car’s rear seats and he doubted Cortini or anyone else cruising past would be able to make him. To all intents and purposes, the SUV looked like nothing more than a parked neighborhood vehicle.

  But that couldn’t be said about the truck parked across the street and down half a block or so. It had shown up a couple of hours before sunrise had smeared the sullen horizon with bruised color, a red pickup with a black cover or tarp protecting the bed. The rumbling diesel engine had shut off, but no one had emerged from the cab. The flare of a lighter and a cigarette’s glowing end proved someone was in there.

  Someone watching, just like he was.

  More than a little curious, Sheridan had run the plates. The Dodge Ram was registered to Alexander A. Lyons of Damascus, Oregon.

  Portland SAC Alexander Lyons. The agent who’d accompanied Wallace on her little field trip to her mother’s murder site.

  Sheridan’s curiosity levels had blasted through the roof. So he’d put in a call to Rutgers and, ironically, that was the reason Prejean was still breathing.

  SAC Lyons is here keeping an eye on Wallace. Any official reason why?

  None that I’m aware of. Rodriguez wanted to interrogate Wallace more thoroughly about Bad Seed. I wonder if he’s initiated action of his own?

  Instructions?

  Don’t proceed until Lyons is out of the picture. And keep me apprised. If he’s working for the SB and not Rodriguez…

  Roger that. Prejean and his band are holed up at Wallace’s place.

  This seems to indicate that Wallace lied to us.

  Definitely. She was guarding Prejean earlier.

  A shame. Prejean corrupted her somehow. Goddamned vampires.

  Ma’am, is collateral damage acceptable? If I can’t get Prejean alone?

  Absolutely not. We’re not the SB. Only Prejean and Cortini are acceptable.

  Yes, ma’am. Roger that.

  Yawning, Sheridan dry-swallowed a couple more pick-meups. Prejean wouldn’t be going anywhere until twilight. Maybe he
could risk a run over to a nearby restaurant for real food and a restroom. The urinal he’d picked up at Walgreens was doing the trick, but it’d be nice to wash up.

  And if Cortini cruised by while he was gone? Circling her prey before moving in?

  Movement drew Sheridan’s gaze back to the mini-mon. Someone strode purposefully along the opposite side of the street—a red-haired, slender figure in sweater and jeans, one hand at the small of her back.

  Sheridan’s sleepiness vanished.

  Heather Wallace sidled up alongside the red pickup and tapped on the driver’s window with the barrel of her gun.

  CATERINA KNOCKED ON THE guest cottage’s front door, then opened it and walked inside. Gray daylight seeped around the edges of the closed drapes and into the room. Athena’s laptop rested on the coffee table, folded shut. The air smelled faintly of fresh-turned soil and vegetable decay, like a just-mulched garden. Caterina frowned. She didn’t see any potted plants, no window-box flowers.

  She glanced at her watch. It was nearly ten thirty. She hadn’t given Athena the shot until the wee hours, so she should still be out cold. Thick silence layered the shut-in air, weighted the atmosphere.

  No whispers. No constant murmur.

  Caterina’s inner alarms prickled. The silence felt wrong somehow. She reached into her jacket and drew her Glock from its shoulder holster. She listened. Refrigerator hum, dripping faucet in the kitchen.

  She padded across the room and into the hall; a nightlight at the hall’s end twinkled like an evening star. Dark clumps dotted the carpet at irregular intervals. Crouching, she touched one of the clumps—mud. She stood and chambered a round.

  Back to the wall, Caterina ghosted down the hall to Athena’s room. The door was still open, just like she’d left it earlier. A quick peek inside revealed a form curled under the smudged and smeared blankets. Mud clumps led to the bed like a trail of bread crumbs.

  Glock in a two-handed grip, Caterina stepped into the room. The smell hit her immediately, a mingled stench of mud, shit, and death. She crossed to the bed and yanked down the mud-smeared blankets.

  Gloria Wells’s corpse, muddied and crawling with insects, rested on the sheets. Caterina stared, stunned, absorbing the fact that the body was dressed in a fresh nightgown and a blue ribbon adorned the mud-stiffened hair.

  “Welcome to the Underworld.”

  Caterina felt a sharp sting against the back of her neck and whirled, Glock lifted.

  Athena held a syringe between her dirty fingers, her hair and underwear-clad body streaked with drying mud. “I am Hades, Lord of the Underworld,” she said. “The dead do my bidding and soon, so will you.”

  Caterina squeezed the trigger. The gun crack sounded like a cannon blast. Cold spread through her, icing her blood and spinning a white-out blizzard across her mind. She tried to fire another round, but heard only a dull tunk.

  Looking down, she saw her gun on the floor. The room tilted and she reeled against the bed. A fetid odor wafted into her nostrils as her hand grabbed hold of the corpse’s arm for balance. Things writhed under the already-moldering skin beneath Caterina’s fingers.

  Jerking her hand from Gloria Wells’s cold arm, Caterina stumbled, then fell to the floor. The ceiling spun and spun, faster and faster.

  “I think I’ll call you Little Red Riding Hood,” Athena/Hades whispered. “And I’m going to let Dante eat you all up.”

  Caterina spun into the abyss, the Lord of the Underworld’s girlish whispers guiding her into the darkness.

  LYONS’S HEAD JERKED AWAY from the rain-beaded window he’d been snoozing against and his hand dove inside his hoodie.

  “I wouldn’t,” Heather warned. “Hand out. Slow.”

  Lyons turned his head and looked at her, then focused on the gun she aimed at him through the glass. He eased his hand from inside his hoodie. “Hell, Heather,” he said, his words clear, but faint. “You scared the crap outta me.”

  Lyons seemed a little too alert for a man abruptly awakened, especially for one who’d been sleeping in what she assumed wasn’t his normal napping spot. Heather’s thoughts shifted to Annie, and Dante’s words rolled through her mind: Maybe faking…

  Heather motioned with her .38. “Roll down your window and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Lyons did as she asked. Warm air smelling of cigarettes, sweat, and Drakkar Noir wafted out of the truck. He wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he said, offering her a sheepish smile. “If you’d let me—”

  “Keep your hands on the steering wheel.” Heather leaned in through the window and reached inside his gray hoodie. Her fingertips brushed against his body-heat-warmed leather shoulder holster.

  “I’m usually a third-date kinda guy,” Lyons murmured. “But, for you…”

  “Lucky me,” Heather said, unsnapping the holster guard and slipping his gun, a Smith & Wesson M&P .40, from its holster. She straightened and met Lyons’s sea-green gaze. His smile faded at whatever he saw in her eyes.

  “Who ordered surveillance? Rodriguez?” she asked, tucking the S&W into the back of her jeans.

  “No one ordered surveillance.”

  “That’s a good thing, because you suck at it.” Heather lowered her .38 to her side. “Your truck is probably visible from space.”

  “Ouch.” Lyons winced. “To be honest, I was keeping watch—well, I was, until I dozed off. Christ.”

  Warning tingles prickled along Heather’s spine. Her fingers tightened on the grip of her gun. “Care to explain that? Watching for what?”

  “Apparently, your father can’t keep secrets. He spilled the beans about Prejean healing you,” Lyons said. “A team’s coming to bring you in.”

  Heather stiffened, her gaze locked onto Lyons’s. “You know this how?”

  A dark SUV turned onto the street, and Lyons stiffened, studying its progress with narrowed eyes, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. When the SUV cruised past behind Heather, he said, “Could we talk about this inside?”

  Heather glanced up the now empty street. Was Lyons telling the truth? She had a feeling he was parceling it out, but even so, it might be information she needed and soon. Returning her gaze to Lyons, she saw genuine weariness on his beard-stubbled face. Portland to Seattle took four hours, less if you floored it and burned up I-5.

  “Wouldn’t a phone call’ve been easier?” she asked.

  Lyons shook his head. “This is stuff you need to hear face-to-face.”

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll talk inside.”

  PALMS PRESSED AGAINST THE living room wall, legs spread, Alex kept his gaze on the cream-colored carpet beneath his feet. He felt the drummer with the mane of red braids—Jack—standing beside him, and was pretty damned sure he was still aiming a gun at him.

  “Keep any and all smart-ass comments to yourself,” Heather Wallace said as she patted him down, sliding her hands along his jeans-clad legs.

  “Hell,” Alex muttered. “Talk about killing the mood.”

  Heather’s hands moved sure and quick, with an expert’s thoroughness. She retrieved the iPod, his smokes, car keys, cell phone, USB drive, and lighter from his hoodie pockets. He heard clinking and soft thuds as she tossed everything onto the sofa.

  “Okay. Turn around,” she said.

  Alex swiveled around. Shifting her weight onto one hip, Heather studied him, her lovely face all business. Even dressed down in faded boot-cut jeans and a tight cobalt-blue turtleneck, she was sexy. The turtleneck showcased her creamy complexion, vivid blue eyes, and the deep red hair tumbling past her shoulders like a jeweler’s velvet cloth.

  Behind her on the sofa, the other two members of Prejean’s band watched Alex intently, their dark faces somber. To his right was Jack and his gun, to his left the recliner with its throw-shrouded vampire.

  “Take off your hoodie,” Heather said.

  “Why? You already patted me down,” Alex said, his fingers hesitating above
the zipper. “I’m kinda chilly.”

  “You can have it back, don’t worry.”

  Not having much of a choice, Alex sighed and nodded. He unzipped the hoodie, pulled it off, and handed it to her.

  Brows knitted, Heather stared at his chest, at the INFERNO logo emblazoned on the black T-shirt he wore. She straightened and lifted her gaze to his. Her face was cold, but anger scorched the color of her eyes almost black.

  “You were at the show last night.”

  Sexy and pissed. “I know you think that I’m playing you—”

  A dark smile touched Heather’s lips. “Are you trying to pretend that you aren’t? You followed us here from Vespers,” she said. “Am I wrong?”

  “No,” Alex allowed. On his right, Jack stepped closer. Alex held up a hand, palm out. “I told you the truth. They’re coming for you.”

  “So when were you planning on warning me?” Heather asked. “Before or after they dragged me away?”

  “Who’s dragging who away?”

  Alex glanced to the right. Heather’s sister stood in the hallway’s mouth, blue-purple-black hair tousled, and wearing only a purple tank top and black bikini-cut panties. She gave him the once-over, curiosity in her blue eyes.

  “Morning, Annie,” Heather said. “Get a robe on.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Use mine.”

  “Fine.”

  But Annie didn’t move. Instead, she leaned against the wall, hands behind her back, hips out, and watched.

  “Eyes front and center, Lyons.”

  Alex looked at Heather. Fire still burned in her eyes. She tossed his hoodie back to him. “Now’s the time. Spill. Tell me everything.”

  Alex shrugged the hoodie on, then trailed a hand through his curls. He felt Jack shift beside him. “They got word that Dante Prejean—”

  “Baptiste,” Heather murmured. “His name’s Baptiste. And who’s ‘they’?”

  “The SB.”

  Heather lifted an eyebrow and folded her arms under her breasts. Alex could just imagine what she was thinking: No such thing. Or, This guy’s full of shit.

  “The Shadow Branch exists and some of its projects intersect with the Bureau’s.”