A Rush of Wings

13 Keepsakes « ^ »

RONIN UNLOCKED THE PADLOCK looped through the metal door’s hasp. The door screeched when he yanked it open, the sound reverberating through the empty warehouse. He flicked on the light switch beside the door and stepped inside.

Huddled on the cot, arms wrapped around his legs, the shivering youth looked up, blinking in the sudden harsh light. The fluorescent overheads buzzed, marring the silence. At the sight of Ronin, the youth scooted into the corner, his back to the wall.

Smiling, Ronin shook his head. “It’s not me you need to fear,” he said. “It’s my companion—the one who brought you here. Do you remember him?”

The boy shook his head, kept his eyeliner-smudged gaze on Ronin. He pressed himself harder against the wall, like he could seep into it and vanish. Ronin’s smile widened. The boy’s gaze locked onto his revealed fangs. He went still.

Ronin sat on the edge of the cot. The youth’s fast-pounding heart intrigued him. He smelled the adrenaline-laden blood pulsing hot through his veins. He glanced at the youth’s lace-edged throat. An iridescent bat tattoo nestled at its hollow. How often had Dante kissed that white flesh? Pierced it with his fangs? Drank the dark blood that poured through those veins?

Leaning over, Ronin brushed a strand of blond hair from the boy’s face. The boy’s muscles—knotted and tensed—trembled. His green eyes never left Ronin’s face.

“I hear your every thought, boy,” Ronin said. “You might as well speak them.”

The youth closed his eyes for a moment. He drew in a deep breath, trying to calm himself and order his mind, but he remained pressed up against the concrete wall, his heart hammering against his ribs.

“Let me help you,” Ronin said. “Gina’s dead. Yes, I know you have Dante’s mark. And you will die at the hands of a serial killer—if I leave you here.”

The boy turned his face to one side as though sucker punched by the blunt words.

“Oh, and as for why all this is happening, call it destiny.”

“I don’t believe you,” the youth said, voice low and strained. Opening his eyes, he turned to face Ronin. “Gina’s not dead. Dante’d find her, he—”

“Hedid find her,” Ronin said, pleased by the sudden spark of fire lighting the boy’s eyes. “After my companion had finished with her.”

The youth blinked away unshed tears. Swallowed. “You’re full of shit.”

Seizing the boy’s slender throat with one hand, Ronin jerked him away from the wall and against himself. “Am I?” he whispered. “Dante’s looking for you, now. It’s up to you whether he finds you before my companion returns or after.”

The youth struggled to get free, pulling at Ronin’s wrist with one hand while shoving against Ronin’s chest with the other. Eyes half-closed, Ronin listened to the youth’s triple-timing heart. Smelled anger, fear, and desperation in equal measures. His blood would be a heady brew of natural pheromones.

“Before or after,” Ronin said. He looked into the boy’s emotion-dilated green eyes. “It’s up to you.”

The youth stopped struggling. He went still once again, kneeling on the cot. His gaze turned inward. For a moment, Ronin couldn’t hear him. Not a whisper of thought, not a word or image. A barrier had dropped between them, and the only sound disturbing the silence was the pulsing of their hearts.

With a shudder, the boy met Ronin’s gaze. “Before,” he said.

“Wise choice.”

Grasping a handful of blond hair, Ronin tugged the boy’s head back and sank his fangs into his throat.

E STEPPED INTO THE darkened house, closing and locking the door behind him. He glanced around the room. A bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon stood on the side table beside the La-Z-Boy, a tumbler beside it. The ashtray held a single cigarette butt. E sniffed. Grimaced. The air reeked of that towelhead crap Ronin liked to smoke.

The Camaro was gone. And so was Tommy-boy.

Just as well. He was in no mood to put up with the bloodsucker’s anal-retentive bullshit. He touched the knot on his forehead. Pain radiated out from beneath his finger and E jerked his hand away. His grin faded. If the Big Guy wasn’t made of stone, he might as well be. Kee-rist!

E crossed the room, then shuffled down the hall to his bedroom. Maybe some Vicodin and a little whiskey would ease the pain. Pushing open the door, he stepped into his room. He plunked down on the edge of the unmade bed. His head throbbed. His stomach clenched in uneasy sympathy.

E pulled open the nightstand drawer and rummaged through the contents—several red and white packages of Marlboros, a lighter, a nudie pen—tip her upside down and watch her strip!—until his fingers latched around the Baggie of pills.

E unzipped it, his hands shaking a little, and poured the pills onto the nightstand. Peach, old-lady blue, and yellow, the pills bounced and tumbled across the wood.

E tossed five or six of them down his throat. He picked up the whiskey bottle from the nightstand and chased the pills down with a long swallow of gut-burning Canadian Hunter. Nausea rolled through him. Shaking again, E set the bottle on the floor beside the bed, then stretched out on the mattress. He stared into the darkness, waiting for the pills to kick in.

Closing his eyes, E snuggled his face into the pillow. He smelled Gina, dark cherries and sweet sex. He’d hidden her stocking inside the pillowcase. He loved keepsakes, little things that said, Remember when? He touched his right front jeans pocket, his fingers tracing the smooth rectangular shape of his newest keepsake.

He wakes in a vampire’s house, sprawled on a vampire’s sofa. He slits his eyes open. Candlelight flickers, etching wavering shadows on the wall. Only the steady tick-tock of a pendulum clock disturbs the silence.

Head aching, he rolls onto his side. His gaze falls on the figure curled into an easy chair across from him.

He wonders if she’s faking, playing with him, watching him from beneath long, black lashes. But her deep, even breathing convinces him that she’s asleep. He’s never been this close to her—not even when peeking through windows.

If he touches her, what’ll happen?

His lovely Heather, his very own stalker, sleeps in his presence. Allowing herself to be vulnerable before a god.

He watches her for several minutes, drinking in the color of her hair, the curve of her cheek, the parted lips.

Above him, the ceiling creaks once. He suddenly remembers where he is—in a house full of bloodsuckers. The warm, golden godlike feeling evaporates.

Rolling to his feet, he crosses the short distance to the easy chair, practically on tiptoe, his gaze locked on Heather—his beacon. He tries not to think of what else walks soundlessly through the house.

He bends over Heather until his breath ruffles her hair. He touches a strand and it slides like silk between his fingers. He picks up his cell phone from the arm of the chair. Tilting his head, he regards Heather for a moment. What message is she trying to send him by setting his phone out?

The ceiling creaks again. He backs away from the chair, from the woman nestled between its arms. Reluctant, he turns away. Piled on the floor beside the sofa are his wallet and shivs and every little thing he kept in his pockets.

He squats and gathers up his belongings. When he stands again, he finds himself walking into the kitchen. A voice in his mind tells him he’s a fucking idiot, get out, get out, get out!, but it’s too late, really, he’s already claiming keepsakes.

Heather’s purse and trenchcoat are draped over the back of a chair. He searches both until he finds what he wants, then he takes it. His gaze skips around the kitchen, looking for some trace of Dante—some reminder of the hot, hot, hot little vampire who’d earned looks of lust from his Heather. A token from his Bad Seed bro.

Finally, he seizes the black coffee mug and slips out of the kitchen.

He pauses beside the easy chair, a shiv sliding without thought into his hand. Heart pounding, he forces himself away from her. Forces himself to the door. Forces himself to open it. Outside. Ease the door shut. Run like a motherfucker.

E smiled and opened his eyes. He pulled his keepsake out of his pocket. The magazine for a Colt .38 gleamed in his palm.

DANTE KNELT BESIDE TREY’S recliner. Computer light and images flickered across the web-head’s composed face, danced across the cables connected to his neck and to the tips of his fingers.

“Can you get into the morgue’s system?” Dante asked.

Images and pages winked across the monitor’s screen. Trey’s fingers blurred in the air. Dante listened to the electronic crackle and hum. He wondered if data burned like fire through Trey’s veins, ever-changing and molten.

A page locked onto the monitor. MORGUE—INTAKE.

Dante squeezed Trey’s biceps. “Très bien, mon ami.”

A smile flickered at the corners of Trey’s mouth, then vanished. Dante tugged affectionately on one of his dreads.

Scanning through the intake photos, Trey stopped on the most recent—a young man, throat slit. Dante leaned forward, studying the photo. The hair might’ve been blond, but wet, it was hard to tell. Eyes closed. Face and lips drained of all color. A gaping bloodless wound stretched across the throat.

Dante sat back on his heels, relief flooding through him like hot, fresh blood. Whoever the cops had pulled from the Mississippi, it wasn’t Jay.

That meant whoever murdered Gina still had him.

“Who IDed this body as Jay’s?”

<Detective LaRousse,> Trey sent. His eyelids shuttered to half mast.

Dante felt it, too, spiraling through his veins. Sleep.

“Ferret out his evidence, his connections, mon ami,” Dante said. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out Elroy the Perv’s driver’s license. He flipped it onto the desk, in front of the monitor.

Trey glanced at it, then nodded.

<Check him, too. And Thomas Ronin.>

<After Sleep.> Trey yanked the cables from his body, unplugged from the web.

Simone walked into the room, half-asleep, to guide her brother to his bed. Bending over, she kissed Dante’s cheek, her soft lips cool against his skin.

“Sweet dreams,” she whispered.

“Et toi.” He trailed a finger along one fragrant lock of hair.

Simone straightened, and her hair slipped from his grasp. She eased Trey to his feet. Arms around each other, they half walked, half staggered out of the room.

Sleep swept through Dante, slowing his heart. Gripping the arm of Trey’s recliner, he fought the drowsiness claiming him.

Jay was still out there, waiting for rescue. Dante hoped with all his heart that Jay wasn’t waiting in pain, cut and sliced like Gina. Fury blasted through him and, for a second, Sleep receded. Dante rose to his feet.

Gina’s voice whispered, her words reverberating through him, mind and heart: Tomorrow night?

Pain prickled behind Dante’s eyes. Stabbed his temples. But Sleep crept back in, leaving him as drugged and drowsy as a hype of morphine. He swayed.

Hands touched his temples, cooling the pain in his head. He stumbled back against Lucien. Lucien seemed to fold himself around Dante, solid and protective. A voiceless, wordless song vibrated up from the core of Lucien into Dante. And something within him sang in wordless response.

Dante half dreamed of wings. Of flying.

<Stop struggling, child, and Sleep. Stop stirring up the pain.>

Shaking himself, Dante wrapped a hand around Lucien’s muscled wrist. <I appreciate what you’re doing, mon ami. But, please—> Something Dante couldn’t name clenched around his heart. His breath caught in his throat at its intensity; an inner hurt that felt strangely familiar. <I want this.>

Pushing at Lucien’s hands, Dante stepped away from him. But all the rage and hurt in the world couldn’t keep him awake.

He felt Lucien’s arms wrap around him as he fell.

THE CAB DROVE AWAY, exhaust puffing up white smoke into the gray predawn sky. Stearns stepped carefully onto the snow-shoveled sidewalk. Overnight ice glimmered on its concrete surface. He shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other.

From Seattle rain to D.C. snow and ice. How come a black bag job never led to Hawaii or Florida?

Stearns moved around to the back of the elegant and, no doubt, expensive townhouse. Each step onto the ice-encrusted snow crunched, the sound sharp in the dying night. Stearns gritted his teeth and hoped the neighbors were either heavy sleepers or thought it was only the paperboy making his rounds.

Stearns paused, glanced around the small yard, his gaze skipping from the townhouse behind and the ones to either side. Yellow light glowed from a few windows as people began to waken. He listened, his breath pluming white, his fingers tingling within his gloves.

He’d called the Bureau to check on Johanna’s whereabouts. In the past, she’d taken specially designed pills that kept her awake during the day, effectively neutralizing the narcotic effect of Sleep. Of course, she could only do that for so long before she paid a price. Stearns had gambled that she was downing the pills so she could keep on top of things in New Orleans. He’d learned that Johanna had pulled an all-nighter—not uncommon for her—and had yet shown no inclination of calling it a day.

Crunching across the yard to the steps leading to the back door, Stearns could only hope that Johanna hadn’t yet reached her limit for the pills. Even so, she might get caught in traffic, buying him a little more time.

Setting his briefcase down on the top step, Stearns studied the door’s lock. A red telltale gleamed in the fading darkness. It scrolled sideways, reading LOCKED. Stearns nodded. Pretty much what he’d expected. The tricky part would be any security or secondary systems.

Stearns knelt and flipped open the briefcase latches. Picking up the goggles, he slid them on. He palmed the em-pulse mini-bomb from the papers lining the briefcase. Using wire cutters, he stripped the insulation from the mini’s wires. He pried the case from the lock’s keypad and scanned the wires looped within the box. The goggles revealed blue lines criss-crossing the wires. Secondary system.

A sniper is climbing to the roof behind you and as soon as he scopes you in, you’re dead. Get busy and get inside. Move! Move! Move!

No longer feeling the cold, no longer pondering the best move, Stearns let his adrenaline-fueled instincts kick in. His hands, steady and quick, picked the wires to nick with the cutters. He twisted the mini’s exposed wires to the lock system’s. That was for the secondary system.

He imagined the sniper going belly down on the roof. He snipped the primary system’s lead wire and, turning his face away, set off the mini at the same time.

When Stearns looked again a heartbeat later—sniper’s lining you up—the LOCKED readout was gone, the screen black and blank. No frantic electronic bleating from the secondary system. Stearns turned the knob. The door opened. Scooping up his briefcase, Stearns dove in through the door.

He imagined the high-velocity bullet whinging into the brick where his head had been a split second before.

Stearns closed the door. Locked it the old-fashioned way, pushing down the button in the center of the knob.

He was in.