Beneath the Skin

14 WHITE SILENCE

OUTSIDE DAMASCUS, OR

THE HAPPY BEAVER MOTEL

March 25

THE SMELL OF BLOOD haunting his nostrils, and loss haunting his heart, Dante opened his eyes. Darkness, warm and close. Blankets, maybe a fucking hood. Voices, low and urgent. He had to move before they tried to wrestle him into a straitjacket and hang him from that gleaming hook.

Before they tried to take Chloe from him.

Dante rolled out from under the blankets and off the bed, tumbling across the carpet on one bare shoulder before jumping to his feet. Bare feet. Rough carpet, not blood-slick concrete.

“What the fuck?” A female voice. Not that chienne Johanna’s, but familiar.

Light dazzled his vision. Hammered the spike piercing his skull and left eye a notch deeper. His vision bisected, a mirror cracked in two, the halves no longer quite matching up.

Padded, blood-sprayed walls, the word OPEN scrolling in green across the door’s security panel./A strange room, warm light spilling from a lamp on top of a bureau beside a vinyl easy chair, a wide-eyed chick with blue/black/purple hair staring at him, her hands clutching the chair’s arms.

A chill touched Dante’s spine. Who’s she?

In both halves, he smelled blood, pungent and coppery—Chloe’s blood.

Diamond-edged chains twisted tighter and tighter around Dante’s heart. He shaded his eyes with one trembling hand as he backed up against a wall. His muscles coiled, ready to fight, to take every single one of the moth-erfuckers down.

They’d hafta kill him before he’d let them anywhere near his princess.

Wasps buzzed and vibrated beneath his skin. Stingered venom into his muscles and veins. Slicked poison along the sharp-edged wheel of his thoughts.

But Dante-angel, I’m already dead.

“They ain’t taking you,” Dante whispered back.

Promise?

Promise. Cross my heart.

Blood trickled hot from his nose. He tasted it, ripe red grapes and copper, at the back of his throat, on his lips.

The door swings open and three wary-eyed men in black suits step into the blood-spattered room, guns in hand. One carries a white straitjacket. / A guy—no, a nomad—wearing only blue boxers stepped around a bed and faced Dante, his hands raised palm out, a gentling motion. The crescent moon tattoo beneath the nomad’s right eye glittered silver in the light like ice beneath a new moon.

Pain pulsed at Dante’s temples. He had a feeling he should know what the tattoo meant, should also know the nightkind nomad wearing it inked into his skin.

“You can do this hard or easy, kid.”/“Hey, little brother.”

Dante’s heart drummed hard and fast, thundered in his ears. His thoughts scattered in all directions like a hurled deck of cards, slippery with pain.

He struggled for balance in the fractured, tilting world he straddled as his reality flipped between blood-wet concrete and hushed carpet. Dizziness pirouetted the room around him. Wasps buzzed. He closed his eyes and touched a hand to the wall at his back. Steadied himself.

Focus, dammit. Send the pain below. Or they’re gonna take her away and you’ll never, ever, see her again.

And in that split second Dante no longer knew if he was thinking about Chloe or someone else, someone—

Dante heard a single footstep, a slow slide of bare foot over carpet or maybe—with all the noise in his head, it was hard to be sure—the sole of a shoe treading across blood-smeared concrete.

“You ain’t taking her,” Dante said.

“Looks like the kid’s selected the hard option, gentlemen. Fire at will.” / “Dante, man, it’s okay. You’re in a motel and you’re safe. Everyone’s safe.”

Dante opened his eyes.

The douche bags in suits lift and aim their goddamned guns.

Dante moved.

He tackled the closest douche bag, rode him down to the floor. The fucker’s breath exploded from his lungs in a startled whoof when they slammed onto the concrete, Dante on top. Someone screamed and the shrill sound, like long nails lacquered and sharp, scraped furrows through his mind. He sucked in a pained breath.

“Someone shut her the hell up,” Douche Bag yelled, his voice strained through his clenched teeth. “It ain’t helping!”

The screaming cut off abruptly. A door clicked open, then slammed shut.

Dante pounded Douche Bag’s gun hand against the concrete until the gun finally tumbled from his fingers and skittered out of reach.

Dante dipped his head for the jugular pulsing in the taut-muscled neck beneath him. Douche Bag’s fingers locked around Dante’s biceps, bracing him up and away from his vulnerable throat. Dante’s muscles quivered as he struggled against Douche Bag’s white-knuckled hold.

Voices—some from within, some from without— crashed against Dante’s mind like foaming storm-tossed waves against rugged cliffs.

She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved.

“Little brother, look at me. Dammit, Dante, look!”

Little fucking psycho.

“Baptiste.”

Her voice cupped his mind, cool and soothing and familiar, just like the hands now cupping his face. Dante looked up into blue eyes, the last glimmer of twilight as the first stars lit. White silence enveloped him. The voices hushed. The wasps stilled.

Her scent—desert sage sweetened with lilac, clean and fresh like evening rain—cut through the stench of blood.

Creamy skin, lovely heart-shaped face framed with red hair tumbling past her shoulders, lips soft as wild rose petals, a woman of heart and steel.

Heather.

She was kneeling on the floor beside him, her hands holding his face, her expression worried, a little scared. “Listen to me, Baptiste,” she said. “You’re in a motel with me, Von, Annie, and Caterina. We spent the day here while you and Von Slept. We’re safe for the moment. What’s the last thing you remember?”

Dante blinked.

Chloe lies on the concrete floor, snow-angeled in a pool of blood.

No escape for you, sweetie.

Something pricks the skin on Dante’s throat. Cold threads into his veins, chills his blood. Heather’s face lowers over his. “Can you hear me, Baptiste?”

Blue rays spiked into the fleeing Fallen, one by one. And turned them to stone.

Pain throbbed at Dante’s temples, skewered his left eye with a red-hot ice pick. He squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like he’d been tossed headfirst into a blender set on puree. His memories whirled and meshed—then and now, then and now, then and—

“I remember being in your car,” he said. Heather’s thumbs gently stroked his cheekbones, trailing ice over the fire raging beneath his skin. “I remember you dosing me with morphine.” He opened his eyes and looked into the evening-star steadiness of Heather’s gaze.

Some of the worry eased from her expression, but only some. She nodded. “You were having another seizure. Are you with me—with us—now?”

“Hey, little brother.” The voice, low and calm and full of smoky, familiar undertones, drew Dante’s gaze down.

His fractured vision shifted, slid together, and Douche Bag’s sweaty, straining face morphed into the nomad’s rugged and handsome features. A mustache framed his mouth and a crescent moon tattoo glimmered beneath his green eyes.

Llygad.

A frost-edged scent, smoke and motor oil, adrenaline spiced.

“Von,” Dante breathed. “Mon ami.”

A relieved smile quirked up the corners of Von’s mouth. “Damn straight.”

Heather’s thumbs caressed Dante’s cheekbones one more time, then vanished from his face as she stood up. “Be right back,” she murmured.

“Don’t mean to complain and shit, but think you could do me a solid and get your knees outta my ribs?” Von said, releasing his steel-fingered death grip on Dante’s arms. “Annoying habit, breathing, y’know? But it’s one I just ain’t ready to give up yet.”

“Fuck.” Dante jumped up, then offered a hand to Von and pulled the nomad to his feet. “You okay?”

Von pressed a palm against his ribs, winced, then said, “I’m good, man.” His gaze met Dante’s. “How ’bout you?” He tapped a finger against his own temple. “Your nose is bleeding,” he added softly.

“Merde,” Dante muttered, wiping his nose with the back of one shaking hand, smearing blood on his wrist and face. The room did a slow pirouette and broken, jagged things shifted in his head. So did his balance. He stumbled.

Hands, warm and callused, grasped Dante’s shoulders and steadied him.

<Gotcha, little brother,> Von sent.

The room decided to play possum and stopped moving. Dante exhaled in relief. But the sending died unfinished as pain—white-hot and barbed—shafted through his mind, pain he saw reflected in Von’s eyes. The nomad sucked in a sharp breath, wincing.

Dante smelled strawberries and baby shampoo and blood. The scent shivved his heart. His breath caught, rough in his throat.

Chloe.

The blood-soaked knees of his jeans clung to his skin, wet and cold. Dante turned around, but Chloe was gone and beige carpet had replaced the concrete floor.

He’d just been holding her. How had they slipped past and …

Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Clenched his fists. In a motel, not the white, padded room. Grown-up, no longer a kid. In leather, not jeans. Focus, dammit. Sweat trickled along his temples. He eased his eyes open.

Von stared at him, expression stricken. “Holy hell,” he whispered. “Jesus fucking Christ. Dante …” He grabbed Dante in a hard-muscled hug, held him tight, the fingers of one hand caught up in Dante’s hair.

Dante wrapped his arms around Von. Face against the nomad’s neck, he breathed in Von’s frost-and-gun-oil scent; felt the scratch of his whiskers against his cheek. Felt/heard Von’s heart thudding hard and fast almost in perfect time with his own, chest to chest and skin to skin, a comforting, musical rhythm.

“You ain’t there anymore, little brother,” Von murmured, voice rough, his lips against Dante’s hair. “And you ain’t never going back. What those fuckers put you through …” His arms squeezed tighter. “What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”

“I killed her, so, yeah, it is.”

“Was, not is. It’s long over and it ain’t and never was your fault.”

Dante pulled away from their embrace, slipped free of Von’s strong arms. Cupping his friend’s face, Dante kissed him, savored his juniper-sharp taste. “Merci beaucoup, mon cher,” he whispered against Von’s lips. “Mais ça vont jamais finir.”

“It will end, little brother,” Von whispered back. “It has ended.”

“T’es sûr?” Releasing him, Dante took a step back. Pain throbbed at his temples.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Von said.

Dante shook his head. “I’m okay, mon ami.”

Von arched an eyebrow. Gave him a gentle shove. Dante stumbled, the back of his legs hitting the mattress behind him. He half fell, half sat on the bed, landing on his ass and elbows.

“Yeah, you look okay,” Von drawled.

“Blow me.” Dante flipped him off with both middle fingers, then pushed himself back onto his feet.

A smile whispered across Von’s lips. “Ah, there he is, my stubborn sonuvabitch.”

Heather returned and handed Dante a wet washcloth. “You’re a mess,” she said.

“That ain’t nothing new, chère,” Dante said, offering her a smile. His smile deepened when Von snorted.

Heather glanced at the nomad and her lips curved into a mock-innocent smile. “You okay?” she asked him. “It sounds like you’re choking.”

“Nah, I’m peachy, doll. Just peachy. Now, if y’all will excuse me, I’ll get dressed. Try to contain your disappointment.”

Heather lifted her hand, her thumb and forefinger not even an inch apart. “All contained.”

“Ouch, woman.”

Dante wiped his face with the washcloth, scrubbed at the blood on his face. Heather had wet it with cold water and his fevered skin drank in the moist chill. Baked the cloth nearly dry. He shivered.

“What do you remember from yesterday?” Heather asked.

Dante wadded up the bloodstained washcloth in his hand as his thoughts reeled backward. His muscles kinked into hard knots. Images sparked through his mind like broken flame from a dying lighter.

Spark: Lyin’ Lyons shoves the muzzle of a gun against Heather’s temple.

Spark: Gone-gone-gone Athena throws herself on her spear.

Spark: The man whose name he can’t remember entwines with his children, twirling around and into them, his flesh stretching as though elastic.

Spark: Your father’s dead, little one.

“Lucien,” Dante whispered.

“Shit. I was hoping you wouldn’t remember his loss right away,” Heather said. She grasped his hand, folded her fingers through his. “I’m so sorry.”

Pain needled Dante’s mind. Grief twisted the diamondthorned chains around his heart another turn tighter. Emptiness stretched dark and endless in the place Lucien had once lit with his warm, steady presence.

“Ain’t gonna believe Lucien’s dead,” Dante said, throat tight. “Not until I see his body for myself.”

Von paused, jeans in hand. “Did you feel Lucien die?” he asked, voice soft. “Or did you just feel the loss of your bond?”

Je t’aime, mon fils. Toujours.

“He told me good-bye. Then …” The words stuck in Dante’s throat. He looked away, muscles taut and twitching.

“Did that Fallen chick tell you anything about Lucien? About what happened to him? Or how he died?” Von asked.

Frowning, Dante looked up. Fallen chick? Memory flickered.

Wing-musk. A woman’s rain-beaded face—golden eyes, midnight hair, a slender sapphire blue torc around her throat.

You may call me Lilith.

Dante met Von’s gaze. “She gave me some bullshit about Lucien sending her to protect me from the Fallen and about him being nothing but ash.”

“Lucien wouldn’t’ve sent her,” Von said. “He warned me against the Fallen.”

Dante’s muscles tightened and a shadow fell over his heart as his thoughts flipped back to his last conversation with Lucien and the warning he’d given: The Fallen will find you one night and bind you.

“Do you know where to look for Lucien?” Heather asked. Even though the words remained unspoken, Dante saw them in her searching gaze: If Lucien’s still alive.

“No, not yet,” Dante said, voice low and rough. “But I’m gonna find him.”

Dante watched as Von and Heather exchanged a quick, worried glance. “I know we need to get home first,” he said. Angling back slightly, he lobbed the bloodstained washcloth into the bathroom. “And those hunting us? Gonna take care of them.”

Promise?

Promise. Cross my heart.

The room flipped between beige carpet and blood-slick concrete.

Focus. You gotta stay here.

Dante straightened, moving slowly to make sure he remained in the motel room, remained a man, not a kid hanging from a hook. He squeezed Heather’s hand, palm to palm. “Gonna make sure you and Annie and Eerie are safe, catin.”

“Not alone, Baptiste,” Heather said. “It’s our fight—all of us.”

“Yeah, chérie. Not alone.” Dante lowered his head and touched his forehead to hers. Looked into her eyes. Concern flickered in their blue depths. He felt the heat of her body through her pink T-shirt and red plaid pajama bottoms. Her lilac, sage, and evening rain scent perfumed his senses. Awakened more than one kind of hunger.

“Damn straight, not alone,” Von said. “We’re all in on this.”

Dante lifted his head, a smile tilting his lips. “Hey, how’d you end up here, anyway? I thought you flew home.”

Von shrugged. “Felt a few things. I was already on my way here when Annie contacted Silver for help. But don’t worry, the guys and Silver all made it home safe and sound.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Dante said.

“Naturally,” the nomad drawled. He buffed his nails against the waistband of his blue boxers.

Cupping his face between her hands, Heather kissed Dante, soft and lingering. “You’re burning up,” she murmured. “How are you feeling?”

“Still on my feet and j’su ici. But where’s here?”

“In a motel outside Damascus,” she said. “We didn’t have time to get far. And we’ve got to get moving as soon as possible. We’ve got the Bureau and the SB on our tails and—”

The door cracked open, and Heather stopped talking. She tensed and broke their embrace, her hand reaching for her waistband, then balling into a fist. “Shit. Gun’s on the nightstand,” she muttered.

A mortal’s rapid heartbeat, alternating rhythms—two.

“Just us,” an unfamiliar female voice said.

But Dante was already moving. He grabbed the chick’s wrist and yanked her inside. Her shoulder slammed into the door, knocking it against the wall. Plaster crunched. Dante caught a whiff of mint and wild roses—a familiar scent. He whirled her by the wrist up against the bureau. Things clattered and thudded to the carpet.

She regarded him with calm hazel eyes, this chick with shoulder-length dark brown hair and dressed all in black. No, not calm. Her pulse pounded through her veins, her breathing fast and shallow. Something else flickered behind her calm facade. Her cheeks flushed a deep rose.

Dante suddenly remembered the berry-sweet taste of her blood. Hunger coiled through him. Tightened his muscles.

Memory clicked into place with a minimum of fuss and pain.

Your name. You know mine.

“Caterina,” Dante said, releasing his hold on her wrist. “I remember you.” He stepped back, studying her, trying to figure out the emotion he’d glimpsed hiding behind her mask. Not disappointment, but something close to that.

“Dante Baptiste,” she murmured, straightening. “I remember you too.” She rubbed her wrist. Her gaze slid past him and her mouth tightened. She drew in a deep breath, squared back her shoulders. “Llygad.”

Dante felt Von’s warm, strong presence behind him.

<She’s an assassin for the SB,> the nomad sent, his mental touch cautious. <But she changed sides when she learned more about you.>

Dante shoved both pain and capering stray thoughts—Put him in the trunk with the other, you; What’s the little psycho screamin’?—down below and away from Von’s mind. <Yeah? She still alive because you trust her, llygad?>

<For now.>

<Anything else I should know?>

<She’s the daughter of one of the core members of the Cercle de Druide.>

<That’d be Renata Alessa Cortini, yeah?>

<You got it.>

“Next time, I’d suggest knocking on the door first, Cortini,” the nomad said. “Dunno, Dante, should we work up secret codes in the form of knock-knock jokes?”

“You mean like ‘knock-knock, who’s there?’ ”

“Yup. As in ‘Ewe Butter.’ ‘Ewe Butter who?’ ‘Ewe Butter run like hell.’ ”

Dante felt a smile tilt his lips. “Nice.”

With a groan, Heather crossed to the open door and pulled her sister inside. “It’s okay now,” she said.

“Easy for you to say.” Annie, in a black Danzig tee and blue plaid pajama bottoms and bare feet, shrugged free of Heather’s hand and slouched into the easy chair, the vinyl squeaking beneath her. She folded her arms across her chest and stared at the carpet as if it were the most fascinating and fucking awesome thing ever.

The mingled odors of coconut and wet pavement trailed into the room with Annie, layered over a faint undertone of sweet, smoky incense and deep, dark earth. Something in that undertone fluttered mothlike about in Dante’s memory, seeking a light, and left him uneasy.

A muscle in Heather’s jaw jumped. She carefully closed the door, then turned around and put her back against the door. She pushed her sleep-wild tangle of red hair back from her face. Her gaze skipped from Dante to Caterina.

“I was about to tell them what happened,” she said to Caterina.

Caterina nodded. “Let me do something first,” she murmured. Reaching behind her, she pulled a gun from the back of her black jeans.

It looked like one of Von’s Brownings, so Dante was mystified when Caterina knelt on the floor in front of him and laid the gun at his bare feet. She looked up at him, and then he recognized what he’d seen in her eyes before: shame.

“I vowed to guard and defend you, my True Blood prince, and all those you care for,” she said. She swallowed hard. Drew a deep breath in the now-silent room. “But I failed.”

“Jesus Christ,” Von muttered.

Dante stared at her, not sure he’d heard right. He’d heard some pretty bizarre things from Inferno fans during show meet-and-greets, things ranging from secret cousins hidden from one another in a conspiracy to keep them apart to claims of “you stole my life and put it in your songs now you owe me royalties or a new life,” but Caterina’s statement left him off balance.

“You kidding me? Stand the fuck up and drop the ‘True Blood prince’ bullshit.”

Caterina blinked. “But you’re a—”

“So? Knock it off. Christ! I never asked … Fuck, I don’t even want …”

“No, course you didn’t ask,” Von tossed in, stepping up beside him, his jeans slung over his shoulder. “She promised all on her own. So, spill, Cortini. How’d you fail?”

“I think I fell asleep while on watch and I believe someone broke into the room.”

“You think? You believe?” Von’s brows slanted down, a deep vertical line creasing his forehead. “Mind explaining to me how that could happen? You promised to guard Dante with your life.”

“Ain’t no one risking their life for me. Ain’t no one responsible for me, but me.”

“Yeah, yeah, says you,” Von growled. He folded his arms over his chest. “So answer the question, Cortini. How’d this happen? And stand up, woman.”

Caterina picked up the Browning and stood, rising easily to her feet. She glanced at Dante, her eyes a warm hazel—pale green and golden brown—her cheeks still flushed, before returning her attention to Von.

“I don’t think she fell asleep,” Heather said. “I think someone put her out and possibly me too.”

“Keep it coming. I’m listening,” Von said, but his attention remained fixed on Caterina.

“We were messed with,” Heather said. She nodded her head at the nightstand between the beds. “I tucked the Browning under my pillow when I went to sleep. When I woke up, the gun was on the nightstand, safety off.”

“And my Browning was in my lap,” Caterina said. “Not only was the safety off, a round’d been fired.” She slid a hand into her jeans pocket, pulled it out again and un-curled her fingers. A bullet casing rested in her palm.

Dante glanced at Von. Frowning, the nomad plucked the shell from Caterina’s palm and held it between his thumb and forefinger.

“That’s not all,” Heather said. She bent and picked something up from the carpet. Straightening and automatically pushing her hair back from her face, she dangled a small golden-linked chain between her fingers.

Von whistled. “Hell. The door chain. Was it broken off?”

“Top link looks melted,” Heather replied. “And the door lock doesn’t work anymore. Like maybe the mechanism was disabled or fried somehow.”

Dante joined Heather at the door. Without a word, she dropped the chain into his palm. Magic sparked and prickled against his skin. His song kindled, strummed a single burning chord through his heart.

Smoky incense and deep, dark earth.

His moth-flitting memory finally landed. Now he knew why the smells that had traveled into the room with Annie had left him uneasy.

Wing-musk. It’d reminded him of Lilith’s scent as she’d held him, and of Lucien’s earthy green leaves and dark earth aroma. But just different enough to unsettle instead of comfort.

“Fallen power,” Dante said. He rubbed the chain between his fingers. His muscles coiled tighter yet. Lucien’s words sounded through his mind, clear and deep.

I hid you from others. Powerful others who would use you without mercy.

Dante’s throat tightened. Shoulda listened. Shoulda never shoved him away.

“Holy fucking hell,” Von muttered. He looked at Dante. “Not that I ain’t glad, but why the fuck would they leave you behind?”

Dante shook his head and instantly regretted it as the room dipped. Heather braced herself against him, slipped a steadying arm around his waist, offering balance. “I don’t think they woulda,” he said. “We’re missing something.”

“Maybe whoever it was saw what you’d done to the others,” Heather said, “and was worried that you’d do the same to them.”

“Or maybe this Fallen guy was just checking to make sure Dante was okay,” Annie suddenly tossed into the conversation.

“Guy?” Caterina questioned.

Annie rolled her eyes. “Just a figure of speech.”

“Then why not just knock on the fucking door?” Von said. “Nah, something else is going on here.”

“Time to get our asses on the road,” Dante said. “We can puzzle this out later.”

“We need to get another car,” Heather said. “Clothes and supplies too.”

“I’m gonna need my guns back, ladies,” Von said, sliding his jeans from his shoulder. “Still wet,” he muttered.

“Nice boxers by the way,” Dante said.

“I’d be telling you the same,” Von replied, pulling on his jeans. “If you’d bothered to wear anything under those pants.”

“Wait. Hold on. Let me check,” Dante said. He glanced at the ceiling and tapped his chin, then returned his gaze to Von. “Nope. Still don’t need a nanny.”

Von snorted. He extended a middle finger. “Sounds like you need more of this.”

“Always. Can’t get enough.” Dante felt a smile tugging at his lips. For a moment, everything felt normal. No one hunting them and the memory of killing his Winnie-thePooh princess, her blood sticky on his hands, her body cradled tight against him, just a nightmare.

For a moment.

Then he slipped free of Heather’s warm half-embrace and walked into the bathroom. Flipping on the light and closing the door, he stopped in front of the sink. Turned on the cold water.

I’m scared, Dante-angel. But I’m glad I’m with you.

Same here, Chloe-princess. No one’s gonna do bad things to you. I won’t let ’em.

Dante bent over the sink and splashed cold water on his face. His pulse pounded at his temples. He felt cold inside, ice-scraped raw, his heart honeycombed with frost. Clutching the sink, the porcelain slick beneath his fingers, he closed his burning eyes.

Promise?

Promise. Cross my heart.

He’d kept that promise. No one else had done bad things to Chloe.

He’d done worse instead.