Etched in Bone

by Adrian Phoenix

  “Go screw—” were the only words said motherfucker managed to grate out from between clenched teeth before pain-triggered endorphins flooded his adrenaline-saturated scent. And Dante’s hunger uncoiled like a striking rattler.

  Dante tore into the pimp’s taut, whiskered throat with his fangs, shredding flesh and muscle and larynx, lost to everything except the rush of hot, coppery blood pulsing in between his lips.

  DANTE TOSSED THE CADDY’S keys into the trunk alongside the pimp’s already cooling body, then shut the lid.

  Guess the fucker was right about a body in the trunk, just wrong about whose.

  A sliver of molten pain pierced Dante’s mind. “Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his temples with his fingers.

  Despite feeding, pain still chiseled away at his thoughts; his migraine refused to relent one fucking iota. And the blood-fed energy surging through his veins was only skating along the surface of his exhaustion, like a dragonfly skimming the Mississippi, instead of washing it away like normal.

  Looks like trashing cemeteries and creating gates comes with a honking huge price tag. Who knew, yeah? And I’m flat-ass broke.

  Maybe after Sleep . . .

  He thought of Heather, felt her presence at the back of his mind like a blue-white star, cool and soothing and constant. Beacon and anchor both. But their bond was a danger to her if he couldn’t keep his shit together and stay in the here-and-now.

  Ain’t losing her too.

  He stepped up from the street onto the sidewalk, skirting the Caddy’s liberated passenger door. He swiveled around, looking past green-shuttered doorways, past night-pooled balconies with pots of ferns and roses and geraniums hanging from their black iron scrollwork, the flowers perfuming the humid air, and toward the restless flickers of neon on Bourbon.

  He hoped that the teen with the black curls and HDA tee had found a safe place to snooze, but knew safe was real fucking relative when you lived on the streets.

  With a last glance toward Bourbon Street, Dante said, “Bonne chance, p’tit.”

  Tugging the edges of his hood past his face, Dante strode up the empty sidewalk, his boots soundless against the brickwork. Headlights starred the night, dazzling his vision and needling pain into his eyes, as a car turned onto Saint Peter and purred up the street. Wishing for a pair of shades, he both shielded his sight with his arm and looked down at the bit of sidewalk between his boots.

  He and the car reached the club at the same time. The headlights winked out as the vehicle glided up against the curb, in front of Von’s Harley. The engine revved, a high-performance eight cylinder’s throaty roar, idling down into a low rumble as the driver eased off the gas pedal, then killed the engine.

  Dante looked up, his muscles coiling in anticipation.

  A silver Jaguar convertible with black-tinted windows glinted beneath the gaslights. Music escaped from the car’s interior, penetrating the night—bass throb and sexy, up-tempo drumbeat, a pensive voice—David’s Bowie’s “China Girl.”

  Dante frowned. He didn’t recognize the car. Given the Louisiana license plates, it sure as hell wasn’t piloted by a lost tourist. Maybe one of Mauvais’s muscle-nerds looking to play?

  Glancing at the star-faded horizon, Dante felt the deadly dawn burning beneath it, searing away the night. Still an hour or so away. A cold smile tugged at his lips. Maybe the night’s hunt wasn’t over, after all.

  Dante pushed his hood back from his face and stepped over to the Jaguar, his hands loose and ready at his sides.

  The driver’s side window hummed as it glided down into its slot and a cloud of smoke smelling of premium, dark-leaf tobacco and vanilla rolled out from the car’s interior, carried on “China Girl’s” dark and yearning chords.

  “Christ. I always forget how bloody gorgeous you are, mate,” a male voice with a light British accent said, managing to sound both amused and rueful at the same time. A voice Dante recognized as belonging to one of Simone and Silver’s friends, the lord of the household down on Magazine Street—a household allied with Mauvais’s. “I think it must be a self-defense mechanism of some sort.”

  Body still tensed for action, Dante met Vincent’s gleaming, eye liner-rimmed gaze. “Self-defense mechanism, huh?”

  “Must be. Otherwise I’d become obsessed with figuring out how to get you into bed for a proper and thorough shagging. Then I’d never get anything bloody done.”

  “You could just ask me.”

  Vincent blinked, mouth open. He moved, blurring out of the car and onto the sidewalk. Dante caught a glimpse of the Jaguar’s full moon–white interior before the car door thunked shut again. The music shut off.

  Vincent leaned against the Jaguar, dressed in his usual 1970s glam-style—skin-tight purple and blue paisley button-down shirt, the black top of his usual pack of Pink Elephant cigarettes poking up from the pocket; snug mock-snakeskin vinyl pants and platform-soled boots. His shoulder-length dark brown hair was cut glam star shag-style, his face clean-shaven. Several centuries old, maybe more, but he didn’t look a day over thirty.

  Dante had always thought he looked like Ewan McGregor’s character, sexy and out-of-control Curt Wild, in that old movie Velvet Goldmine. Minus the heroin habit. And the tendency to expose himself. Well, maybe not on that last one. At the moment, however, Vincent was staring at him, arms folded over his chest, the expression on his handsome face one of utter disbelief.

  “I could just ask? And where would the sodding fun be in that?”

  “In the proper and thorough shagging if the answer was yes, would be my guess,” Dante said with a shrug. “Whatcha doing here, Vincent? Kinda late for a visit, yeah?”

  Emotion tightened the corners of Vincent’s mouth and all amusement vanished from his hazel eyes. “Silver called me. Told me about the fire . . . and Simone. My condolences, mate.”

  Dante nodded, his muscles twisting several turns tighter. “Merci bien, but you didn’t hafta fucking drive out here to tell me that. What else?”

  “Your nose is bleeding.” Vincent tapped a paint-stained fingertip under his own nose. “And no, I didn’t drive out here to tell you that,” he added with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not bloody psychic or that desperate.”

  Dante snorted. “What else?” he repeated, wiping at his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie.

  Shaking his head, Vincent straightened and stepped away from the Jaguar to stand less than a handspan from Dante. Underneath the nicotine, tobacco, and vanilla reek of his smokes, his skin smelled of turpentine and ink and fresh canvas.

  “I don’t know what Mauvais’s beef with you is exactly,” Vincent said, “and to be honest, I don’t sodding care. The man’s a prick. So are you at times. But I suspect that whatever it is, it’s the reason Simone died. Which means you fucked up, mate.”

  Fire scorches her lungs. Blackens her skin. Devours her with relentless teeth.

  “Oui, je connais,” Dante agreed, voice low. “I fucked up for true and she paid the price. So did her brother.”

  “Bloody hell. I forgot about her brother. How is he?”

  “In fucking shock.”

  Vincent’s brow furrowed in concern. “Will he survive it?”

  “Gonna do everything in my power to see that he does,” Dante said. “Now if that’s all—” His words cut off as pain drove an ice pick through his left eye.

  The gaslit sidewalk and Vincent tilted, then shifted, peeling away to reveal a concrete floor awash in water. Dante stumbled, but strong hands latched around his biceps and kept him upright.

  A dark ribbon of blood curls through the water and away from the scrubs-clad man sprawled facedown on the wet concrete floor.

  Dante crouches beside the body and rifles the guy’s pockets, searching for the lighter or book of matches he knows has to be there, given the smoke and nicotine odor coating the tech’s skin and clothes. Score. He finds it. Dante pulls his hand free and palms the blue Bic lighter.

  His pulse races. Fuckers will be here soon. Gott
a hurry.

  Rising to his bare feet, he splashes across the padded room to the mattress he’d tossed aside. Hands shaking, he places Orem, the plushie Orca, the only thing he has left of Chloe, onto the torn and shredded mattress’s dry center. Long-dried flecks of blood dot the white part of Orem’s fur.

  Ain’t letting them touch you. Ain’t letting them take you. I promised.

  Dante’s eyes sting. He flicks the lighter’s wheel . . .

  Someone was shaking Dante, calling his name in a low, urgent voice. Focused energy tapped insistently against his shields.

  The image of his hand touching the lighter’s flame to Orem’s fur rippled like a puddle pummeled by rain drops, then vanished as Vincent’s pale and perplexed face blurred into view. Fingers were squeezing Dante’s biceps hard enough to cut off the circulation.

  “J’su ici,” Dante whispered, blinking. Pain prickled behind his eyes. He tasted his own blood at the back of his throat. He tried to recall what he’d just been thinking about or remembering, but it spun away from him like an oiled roulette wheel.

  “Yes,” Vincent said, drawing the word out dubiously. “You are here. But are you all right, mate? You looked . . .” He hesitated, as though searching for the right words, then said, “. . . lost.”

  “You can let go now,” Dante said, ignoring Vincent’s question, flexing against his tight-fingered hold.

  “You’re welcome,” Vincent muttered, releasing Dante’s arms. “Next time I’ll bloody well let you bash your skull against the pavement. Might do you some good.”

  A smile tilted Dante’s lips. “Fair enough.” His fingers tingled with pinpricks as blood started flowing to his hands again.

  “Of course,” Vincent mused, his gaze taking a slow cruise along Dante’s body from his head to his boots and all ports in between, “if that was an attempt to end up in my arms . . .”

  Dante closed the distance between them. Brushing his lips against Vincent’s ear, he murmured, “Then you blew it . . . mate.”

  Vincent shivered. Musk spiked his scent. “You really are a right bastard, aren’t you?”

  “I give it my best, yeah,” Dante agreed. Pacing backwards toward the club’s door, he added, “I’ll pass your condolences along to Trey, d’accord?”

  “You might be able to pass along more than that.” Vincent glanced up at the ivy-draped balcony above them, expression thoughtful. “I have a gift for Trey, one that might give him a reason to keep breathing—for a little while, anyway.”

  Dante stopped walking. “What’s the gift?”

  “The bloody wankers Mauvais sent to torch your house? He left without them, mate, and I know right where they are.”

  17

  A DARK AND QUIET PLACE

  NEW ORLEANS

  CLUB HELL

  March 28

  HEATHER SANK DOWN ON the edge of the bed, the mattress giving just a little beneath her weight. Annie lay on her belly, her head turned to one side on the pillow, snoozing booze-hard and drooling like a four-year-old. And reeking of nicotine, alcohol, and, faintly, of black smoke from the torched house.

  If not for Simone, Annie might’ve died in that blaze too.

  Heather pushed locks of blue/black/purple hair away from her sister’s face, then, squinting in the low-wattage light filtering in from the hall, she checked to make sure the gauze bandages on Annie’s arms and right hand were still secure.

  That was one thing about hanging out in a nightkind household that she’d have to get used to—the lack of bright lighting. Maybe a compromise involving LED light bulbs for her and Annie and sunglasses for them could be worked out—though at the rate Dante went through sunglasses, she’d need to buy them by the case. He couldn’t hold on to a pair of shades to save his life.

  Annie’s bandages looked fine—still in place and dry despite her no doubt enthusiastic plunge into the bottom of a vodka bottle; no, make that the bottom of two vodka bottles, according to Silver.

  Guilt pinched Heather hard as she remembered Annie’s shocked, pale face and smoke-inhalation raspy voice—Simone never made it out . . .

  Heather wearily rubbed her face with both hands. Exhaustion burned through her. Enthusiastic? I don’t know that and I’m not being fair. I think what she went through tonight should entitle her to a get drunk free card.

  Heather needed to figure out how to get Annie checked over by a doctor without drawing FBI or SB attention. Not just for her burns and smoke inhalation, but to get her back on the meds she desperately needed. And into counseling or group therapy before her adventures in self-medication ended in razor blades and blood again.

  But that was a task for later. Right now she needed sleep. Later, when her thoughts were focused and clear, she and Dante could hammer out a plan of action.

  Ain’t running. Ain’t hiding.

  Heather still couldn’t fathom what Dante had done. Cracked the cemetery apart like an egg, hard-knuckling his way into another world or dimension or whatever it was; faced down fallen angels and plucked his father from the pit.

  Oh. And had grown wings. Just like in her vision.

  Smooth black wings arch up behind him, fire patterns of brilliant blue and purple streaking their undersides. Gold light stars out from his kohl-rimmed eyes. He looks up as song—not his own—rings through the air. The night burns, the sky on fire from horizon to horizon.

  Had he been fighting against the Fallen while the world burned or alongside them? Fear brushed icy fingers against her heart. At least that last part hadn’t happened.

  But a traitorous voice inside whispered, Yet.

  Dante still shielded himself from her, determined to protect her from the pain and darkness ravaging him from the inside out. Determined to protect her from himself.

  She intended to set him straight. She didn’t need his protection.

  Too late for that. I’m in for the long haul. And he needs to learn that a burden is easier when it’s shared.

  Rising to her feet, Heather made sure that Annie was comfortably blanketed and the trash can close at hand—just in case—before striding out into the hall. She headed for the room Trey occupied across the hall and down.

  With or without Dante’s shields, Heather felt his presence through their bond, burning bright and steady in a corner of her mind like a nightlight. She wondered if she was a nightlight for him as well.

  And hoped she was.

  PAUSING IN THE DOORWAY, Heather looked into the darkened bedroom. Tucked into a snoozing kitty-ball, Eerie was nestled against Trey’s back. Neon light from the bar across the street filtered in through the lace curtains, winking blue, then pink across the bed and Trey’s curled form. Glittered like Christmas across his face, his closed eyes.

  A dark shape sat in a straight-backed chair beside the bed, caught in alternating flares of blue-pink-blue. Neon reflections danced in De Noir’s sleek, black hair. His scent—deep dark earth and green leaves—threaded through the room’s close air. Gold light glinted like tiny stars in his eyes.

  “Trey’s Sleeping early,” Heather said. “Did you . . . ?”

  Hearing her voice, Eerie lifted his head and yawned, tongue curling.

  “Yes, Agent Wallace, he allowed me to ease him into Sleep,” De Noir said in a low rumble. “He’s hoping to awaken and find that the fire and the loss of his sister were only a bad dream.” He sighed. “I didn’t have the heart to reason him out of that hope.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have had the heart either.”

  De Noir looked at the Sleeping web-runner. “Once he’s awake again, I hope to convince him that his sister would want him to keep living.”

  The words Dante had whispered to Trey after the fire circled through Heather’s memory. You gotta stay alive, mon ami, for Simone. I wanna kill the assholes responsible for her death, but that’s your right. Mauvais and Justine ordered it. I’ll help you find them and their house-torching buddies, and I’ll stand beside you as you kill them.

  And she re
membered Trey’s reply. Can I stop living after that?

  Ain’t up to me, cher. But ask me again when they’re all dead, yeah?

  Heather blinked rapidly until the burning in her eyes faded.

  “Where’s Dante?” De Noir asked, his tone casual, but something else altogether shadowed the planes of his face, strained his voice.

  “He went out to feed.”

  De Noir shook his head. “Even with his migraine.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I offered to help him, but he refused my touch, refused to let me ease his pain.”

  Even though Heather wished Dante would’ve allowed De Noir to cool down his migraine, she understood why he hadn’t. Dante loved his father, but he no longer trusted him. And the intimacy of mind-to-mind contact required trust.

  “It’s too soon,” Heather allowed. “I hope you can see that.”

  De Noir sighed, then nodded. “I suppose I can at that, Agent Wallace.”

  “Please, just call me Heather. I’m not with the Bureau anymore. According to the FBI, I’m a much-valued agent, but one now lost to paranoid delusions due to a hereditary mental illness and in desperate need of treatment.”

  De Noir arched an eyebrow. “Are you expected to survive said treatment?”

  Heather shook her head. “I’m sure it’ll end in a tragic suicide.”

  “And Dante?”

  “Snipped as the final loose end linking the Bureau to Bad Seed.”

  “I believe they would very much regret finding him.”

  “Not if they triggered his programming. Forced him to obey. It’s already happened once. He was used to murder a man in Seattle.”

  De Noir sucked in a breath at her words, his face blanking as though she’d slapped him. His fingers tightened around the arms of the chair. Wood creaked. “I believe they are very much going to regret that, as well,” he finally said, his voice cold enough to sheet the room in ice. Neon blue light strobed across his face.

  “I don’t care if they regret it or not, just as long as they can never use him again,” Heather said, throat tight. Her hands knotted into fists as she remembered tranking Dante after he’d completed his assigned “task”—the murder of FBI SAC Alberto Rodriguez. Remembered the relief in Dante’s eyes.