Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (31 page)

E circled the bed, wondering where Tommy-boy'd hidden the goodies. He studied the bloodsucker's snoozing form, his gaze stopping on the jeans. Keys. The Camaro. E bent over the bed and touched Ronin's left front pocket. His fingers slid across denim. Empty. Walking around to the other side of the bed, E bent again, his fingers groping the right pocket.

Score! A hard shape took form beneath his fingers. E wriggled a couple of fingers into Tom-Tom's pocket—
Don't mind me. Oops. Is that
it?
Guess I shoulda called you Tiny Tom.
—snagged the keys, and pulled them free. Golden light once again flooded E's veins as he straightened, keys in hand; he glowed, incandescent.

Time to say bye-bye.

A voice inside insisted—
No! Not yet! Make sure, first
—but E reminded it that a god didn't need permission. Bending over Tom-Tom, he slashed a shiv across his throat.

The bloodsucker's eyes opened.

H
EATHER NEARLY CHOKED
on the last bite of her Cajun-blackened burger. “Dead?” she managed to say after swallowing the spicy mouthful. “LaRousse?”

“And his partner, Davis,” Collins said. He looked worn and tired.

Heather and the detective sat at a picnic table set up beneath an aluminum awning beside a drive-up food place, the HERE 'N GO. They were alone, the other picnic tables empty. The aroma of hot grease and frying meat filled the air.

“What the hell happened?” Heather asked, dipping fries in ketchup.

Collins shook his head. “A fire—arson—at a tavern. There were three other bodies besides those of LaRousse and Davis.”

“I'm sorry, Trent. I didn't like LaRousse, but the man didn't deserve to die hard.”

A wry smile lit Collins's face. “Yeah, he was an asshole, but
man
, did he clear cases. He was a good detective. And he was one of ours.”

“What do you know so far?”

“Not much,” Collins said, running a hand through his hair. “The question is, was it something simple, like a robbery that went outta whack, or was it planned?”

“People lose their tempers. People panic,” Heather said. “Shit spins out of control. Have the state cops checked employees and regulars?”

“See who didn't burn last night and why?”

She nodded. “Was LaRousse on or off duty?”

“On.” Collins paused a beat before continuing. “In fact, they'd been out to Prejean's with an arrest warrant, but…” he shrugged. “Not home.”

Heather pushed the remains of her meal away, appetite lost. “Arrest warrant? What the hell for?”

Collins held up a placating hand. “To bring Prejean in for DNA samples. LaRousse still thought he was good for the girl's murder.”

“Gina,” Heather said, voice level. “Her name was Gina Russo. LaRousse knew Dante had nothing to do with her death; I'd already vouched for him.”

“I don't know what LaRousse's beef with Prejean was,” Collins said. “I'm just laying out the facts.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“There's more,” Collins murmured. He wadded up his burger wrapper and tossed it into the dark-plastic-draped trash can behind the picnic tables. “There's been another murder.” He glanced at Heather. “Bad.”

The detective's haunted expression surprised her. She leaned across the picnic table and touched his hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just a long fucking day.”

Heather squeezed his hand, then released it. “So tell me, how bad?”

“Victim had been cut apart. The killer placed parts of him throughout the room.” Collins paused, swallowed. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Go on,” Heather said, voice soft. She tensed. Waited for the guillotine to drop.

“I'm pretty sure it was the CCK,” Collins said. “No anarchy symbol…fuck…mean, there
could've
been but we just didn't recognize…I've never seen…” He looked away. “There was a message. On the wall. In blood.”

The day's warmth slipped away with the sinking sun.

“What did it say?”

“Does it matter?” Collins replied, looking at Heather. Anger burned the hollow look from his eyes. “That investigation's officially closed. Word from headquarters is ‘copycat.' No contact with you is allowed.”

“Trent, what did the message say?”

“‘S is mine.'”

Heather fumbled her cell phone from her purse. She punched in Dante's number. The phone rang and rang.

Not recruitment, no.
S is mine.
Dante had been claimed.

S
LAMMING THE MOTEL ROOM
door open, Gifford lunged into the room, swinging his gun right, then left. The room was empty. He did the Bureau-standard enter and sweep: closet, bathroom, flipped on lights. Stearns was gone.

Gifford lowered the .45 to his side. He glanced around the room. Suitcase on the chair. Laptop on the desk. Bottle of scotch and a glass on the night table. Stearns intended to come back, given all he'd left behind. Wait for him?

A wastebasket beside the bed caught his attention. He dumped the wadded-up papers onto the rumpled bedspread and smoothed the first sheet. The name ELROY JORDAN appeared. Scanning the sheet, he recognized the dates and places for what they were—CCK murder dates and scenes.

When he unfolded the second sheet, his mind shifted into overdrive. THOMAS RONIN. What was Johanna's
père de sang
doing in New Orleans? At the same time as E? Glancing at the address on the printout, Gifford decided not to wait for Stearns.

Gifford gathered up the papers and rushed out the door. He got inside his Hertz rental and punched the Metairie address into the car's mapping system.

Johanna had been right from the beginning. No coincidence.

Throwing the car into reverse, Gifford peeled out of the motel parking lot.

B
LOOD SPRAYED HOT AGAINST
E's face, spattered his shades. Tom-Tom's hand locked around his wrist; something snapped and pain shotgunned up to his shoulder. A shiv dropped into E's other hand.

Fucker broke my wrist!

That thought ended in colored bursts of light—blue, green, and purple—as a sledgehammer smacked into E's temple. He flew off the bed and slammed against the wall. Pieces of plaster rained onto E and the carpet. Vision graying, E glanced at his hand. The shiv was gone.

Done scared me shivless.

Dizziness spun through his mind. Tweaked his gut. But adrenaline kicked his pain, kicked his ass, and kicked him up onto his feet again. Bracing a shoulder against the wall, E tugged another shiv from the sheath at his calf under his jeans. Blinking his vision clear, he looked at the bed.

Rivulets of blood poured from the bed and pooled on the carpet. The room
stank
of blood. Tommy-boy choked on the shit, spasming on the bed, hands at his throat, attempting to stem the flow. Grinning, E staggered to the bed. The bloodsucker's gleaming gaze fixed on him, killing him a hundred different ways.

But not today. Today, E was a god, golden and powerful. The truest killer who'd ever walked the earth.

E raised the shiv into the thickened air. Air like honey. Like amber. The shiv plunged into Ronin's beating heart.

“Plans have changed, asshole.”

L
UCIEN CLIMBED THE STAIRS
, Dante's pain flickering like a candle in his mind. His child still Slept, but fire and shadows had fractured his dreams, stolen his peace. Lucien stepped into Dante's bedroom. The mingled smells of sex and fading pheromones lingered in the air.

He knelt beside the futon and rested a hand upon Dante's forehead. Heat baked into his palm. Blood trickled from one of the boy's nostrils. Lucien closed his eyes and poured energy into Dante, icing his pain and strengthening his partially restored shields.

He is remembering. His past has set him on fire. Consumes him.

Dante stirred beneath his hand, pale face troubled. The bleeding slowed, then stopped. The fever faded. Smoothing Dante's hair back, Lucien bent and kissed his forehead.

Let him hate me. I will keep him alive and hidden.

And sane?

The muscles in his chest tightened. He stood.
I will do what I must.

He crossed the floor to the French windows and drew the curtains aside. The last glimmer of sunset lit the room deep red; spilled blood. Lucien stood at the windows, listening to the others awakening in the rooms down the hall, listening to the night's primeval pulse, and listening to the rhythm of his own dark heart.

On the futon behind him, Lucien heard his child drawing in a deep breath of air. Heard the
anhrefncathl
—a Maker's chaos song—awakening within his son's soul.

Without looking, he knew when Dante opened his eyes.

“We've some things to discuss,” Lucien said.

D
ANTE STRETCHED, SILK SHEETS
sliding beneath him, muscles uncoiling. Tattered dreams slipped past his recall. Before-Sleep images sparked in his mind—Heather beneath him, lips parted, face lit with pleasure; the tavern ablaze, LaRousse's sardonic smile; Jay—

Opening his eyes, Dante sat up, heart pounding. Reddish light poured in through the French windows, illuminating Lucien's tall form.

“We've some things to discuss,” Lucien said.

Dante caught his breath as memory whirled through him—the cathedral, Lucien impaled, his whispered words:
You look so much like her.

Untangling himself from the sheets, he rose to his feet. “No, we don't,” he said. “Not ever again.”

“That's where you're wrong, child.”

Lucien unlatched the French windows and pushed them open. He stepped out onto the wrought-iron balcony. The deepening twilight shadowed his face.

Scooping up a pair of black jeans from the floor, Dante tugged them on and zipped up the fly. He strode out onto the balcony. Lucien's gaze was fixed on the last shimmer of light on the horizon.

“You can't go after Ronin,” Lucien said.

“Can't?
You're
telling me I can't? Fuck you.” Dante's fingers curled around the cold metal railing.

“Ronin will awaken your past. It will break you,” Lucien said, turning his face to meet Dante's gaze. “Find another way to do penance for Gina and Jay.”

“You no longer have any say in what I do.”

“Did I ever? Does anyone? You're headstrong, child.”

“I listened to
you
,” Dante said, throat tight, aching. “You, more than anybody.”

An image strobed into his mind: a little girl huddled in a corner, plushie orca hugged to her chest, her face tear-streaked and scared.

Dante-angel?

He staggered as pain lanced through his head.
Chloe. Penance for Chloe.
Strong arms wrapped around him. Supported him. “Let go,” he murmured, pushing at Lucien's arms. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Stumbling into the bedroom, Dante made his way into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He sank to the floor, head in his hands, eyes closed. He struggled to keep the images of Chloe in his mind, but they slipped away from him.

He saw her huddled and scared, then lying in a pool of blood, but he never saw what happened in-between. The unseen in-between left him shaken.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.

Sweat trickled down his temples. He slid his hands up from his face and through his hair. Thumped his head back against the wall. The pain receded. Didn't leave, no, but backed off enough to think.

A thought pressed against his shields, a thought belonging to Simone. He opened to her touch. <
Heather is on the phone. She wants to talk to you.
>

I'm on my way.
>

Rising to his feet, Dante turned around and twisted on the sink's cold water faucet. He looked into the mirror. In the twilight gloom, he recognized letters smeared across its surface.

WAIT FOR ME. In black lipstick.

Dante smiled and touched a finger to the message. Heather's scent clung to him—lilac and sage—and he didn't want to wash it away. Not yet. After splashing his face with cold water, he opened the bathroom door.

Lucien waited for him, golden eyes glittering in the dusk. “Are you going after Ronin?”

“None of your business,” Dante said, walking past him.

Dante caught a glimpse of peripheral movement and sidestepped, too late. Lucien seized his shoulders, talons piercing his skin—the pain needle-sharp. He felt the warm trickle of blood down his back. He hissed, but Lucien refused to release him.