Beneath the Skin

23 ILLUSIONS

March 25–26

WITH NIGHT-WOVEN AND STAR-PIERCED illusion wrapped tight around him, the Morningstar glided through the sky, following the forest green SUV as the creawdwr ’s fetching and flame-haired lover steered the vehicle from the truck stop and onto the interstate.

Heather, the older sister of pliable and more-than-willing Annie.

He’d gleaned more than a little information about Dante from both minds.

Wybrcathl silenced, the Morningstar wheeled higher into the sky. Ice crystals hissed and steamed against his heated skin and beaded like diamonds in his white hair.

Annie’s miswired mind had allowed her to see past his illusions. Had left her immune to his Word … ah, but not to his touch, his suggestions—especially not when she desired both. Without her willingness, he couldn’t have planted careful little seeds in her subconscious.

You won’t hurt him, right?

Of course not. He will be cherished.

Good. Um … you ready to go again?

Vicious and urgent in her coupling, Annie had worked hard to punish them both. She’d only half succeeded. Her tears afterward had puzzled him, as did her self-loathing, but even after millennia, he still couldn’t claim to truly understand females, mortal or otherwise; a part of their allure.

The Morningstar’s wings stroked through the dying night. Breathing in the crisp scent of frost, he reworked his illusion to match the coral sunrise streaking the mountain-peaked horizon.

Annie’s knowledge of Dante had been sparse, however. So after she’d returned to her bed and had curled beside her sister, pretending to sleep, the Morningstar had delved into Heather’s dreaming mind.

A treasure trove, lovely Heather.

When he finally winged down into New Orleans, the Morningstar would become the father and mentor missing from Dante’s life and help this misused and tortured creawdwr fulfill his destiny.

CELESTE UNDERWOOD FINISHED HER coffee, barely tasting the Sumatra Mandheling’s sweet roasted-caramel flavor, then rinsed the cup out in the sink. She gripped the counter’s polished granite edge and stared out the kitchen window. Heavy, gray rain clouds hid the sunrise, stealing color from the horizon except for a lighter shade of gray.

She knew how to work gray, used it often in her job. Indeed, she was required to think in shades of gray instead of absolutes like black or white. And she even enjoyed it.

But Director Britto’s call last night had muddied gray into black.

Call your people off S and Wallace. Immediately.

Bill, what’s going on? I don’t have a problem with letting Wallace or Lyons slip away, but I suspect S has been triggered and used. We absolutely need to bring him in and assess—

Celeste, listen to me, and listen carefully.

All right, Bill.

S is not to be brought in. He and Wallace are free to go wherever they damn well please, understand? Surveillance can continue, but it’s essential your operatives aren’t spotted.

I understand, but what happened? What’s changed?

You mean aside from a missing house, an enigma of a cave, and a circle of stone-sculpted angels that are, even now, on their way to HQ?

But that’s the point. S and Wallace must know what happened, how and why those things occurred. Interrogation would—

No. No interrogation. No pursuit. No arrest. Am I clear? Call your people off right now. If you turn up Lyons, make sure he truly becomes an official casualty of the sinkhole/toxic fumes cover story. S and Wallace are no longer your concern.

Ironic choice of words, given that she’d delivered the same orders to the Bureau’s ADIC Rutgers. But officially or not, Prejean very much remained Celeste’s concern. Especially since her former daughter-in-law might vanish with her granddaughters, her Stephen’s girls.

What troubled Celeste even more than the director’s command was the fear she thought she’d detected in his voice. Controlled, yes, but still present.

Who had the juice to put the squeeze on the director of the Shadow Branch?

What galled her to no end was the fact that Gillespie and his agents actually had Prejean and Wallace in their gun sights when this goddamned order came down.

Sighing, Celeste pried her fingers away from the sink’s counter. She crossed to the center island and finished putting together her lunch on the gold-veined green granite. She had a feeling that today would be an eat-in kind of day.

The curry, tuna, and tomato salad she prepared quickly filled the kitchen with a welcome and spicy odor. A few Ritz crackers and a generous slice of apple pie completed the meal.

Carrying her insulated purple lunch sack into the living room, Celeste rested it on the sofa. She picked up the report Gillespie had e-mailed her late last night. Some of the things it contained disturbed her, to say the least.

Gillespie claimed that Prejean had transformed a child shot in the crossfire into another child entirely. If not for the forwarded statements from witnesses to the event, including field agents, the motel manager, and the child’s mother herself corroborating Gillespie’s claim, Celeste would’ve assumed he’d had a six-pack too many.

As it was, she had no idea what to think of the transformation claim or how such a thing could be possible. Perhaps a mass illusion cast by a True Blood? Provided they possessed such an ability.

Should she pass the report on to the director or just sit on it for the time being? After all, S—Prejean—was officially no longer her concern.

Celeste slid the report into her briefcase, then latched it shut. Might be best to study it for a bit first. Look for any discrepancies. In truth, it sounded like the director had other worries on his mind.

Her cell’s ringtone—a sophisticated and European trill—ended the silence. The ID named the caller as Purcell. Celeste flipped the cell open and said, “A bit early for you, Richard.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid I have bad news. Sheridan died last night.”

Celeste rubbed her forehead. Of course. When it rains, it goddamned pours.

“Before or after debriefing?”

“During, ma’am. An autopsy was performed right away and his death was due to multiple aneurysms in the brain. Possibly due to traveling with a bullet wound.”

“Did Díon get anything useful from him before he died?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Dammit,” Celeste sighed. “Well, I would leave out the flight bit when you inform Monica Rutgers at the Bureau about the loss of her agent. She’s going to be unhappy in any case, but no reason to give her ammunition for her I-told-you-so shotgun.”

“Will do.”

“And meet me at my office in two hours. We have a few things to discuss.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ending the call, Celeste slipped her cell into the right-hand pocket of her black blazer. She wondered how quickly Purcell could get to New Orleans. Bringing Prejean to Alexandria was out of the question now, but maybe Purcell could make other arrangements. Maybe somewhere closer to where Valerie worked.

An image from a crime scene photo—the crime scene—developed behind her eyes, an image she’d forced herself to remember in every heartrending detail.

Sprawled facedown in a pool of his own blood on the gray slate entryway floor, one shoe—a brown tasseled loafer—behind him like he’d stepped out of it, one hand bent underneath his chest, Stephen looks like he never knew what hit him.

But Celeste knew better. Her son’s murderer had confessed to a cellmate that Stephen had pleaded for his life and had offered his wallet before the bastard had shot him in the head. Then he’d placed the gun muzzle against Stephen’s temple and fired again.

Stephen, her only son, her intelligent, creative boy, snuffed because his wife feared a divorce would cost her more than she cared to part with.

And the cost to arrange a murder? Abundant sexual favors, false promises, and five thousand dollars.

Cheaper than a divorce, true, but a murder trial really racked up the dollar signs.

Celeste would make sure that Purcell had everything he needed to trigger Prejean’s programming one more time. Due to Director Britto’s concerns, Purcell could no longer kill the vampire after he’d finished Valerie.

Unfortunate, but one couldn’t have everything.

Scooping up her lunch bag and briefcase, Celeste left her town house for work.

GILLESPIE DRAINED HIS LAST beer, wishing for a bottle of Black Velvet or Jack Daniel’s or even Grey Goose to chase it down. But he had a feeling that no matter how much booze he poured down his throat, he’d never kill enough brain cells to forget the images the security-cam footage had just etched into his mind.

The energy surrounding Prejean shafts into Johanna Moore’s body from dozens of different points. Explodes from her eyes. From her nostrils. Her screaming mouth. She separates into strands, wet and glistening. Prejean’s energy un-threads Moore. Pulls apart every single element of her flesh.

Unmakes her.

Johanna Moore spills to the tiled floor, her scream ending in a gurgle.

Well, the million-dollar question—where was Dr. Johanna Moore?—had finally been answered. She was still in the Bush Center for Psychological Research. Dead. Her remains most likely in a mop bucket.

Prejean’s beautiful face is ecstatic. He closes his eyes and shivers as energy spikes from his body, flames from his hands.

The same blue flames that had surrounded Prejean’s hands when he’d transformed that poor little girl. Medics had sedated her mother. The girl kept talking about the beautiful angel with black wings—Prejean.

I was a balloon with a broken string floating up to the stars, then the angel caught me and wrapped my string around his wrist and pulled me back down. It tickled in my tummy.

Now, after viewing the disk he’d confiscated at the site, those words chilled Gillespie to the bone.

A figure moves into view—waist-length black hair snaking into the air like night-blackened seaweed caught in a current. His wings, black and smooth, arched up behind him, half-folded, as he kneels on the floor and reaches for one of two figures crumpled together on the tile.

“Avenge your mother. And yourself.”

And Prejean rises from the speaker’s arm—from the fallen angel’s arms—bathed in dim red emergency light, his body tight and coiled, blood smeared across his breathtaking face.

Prejean wasn’t just a True Blood vampire—he was much, much more.

Fallen angels. Jesus-fucking-Christ! Gillespie would bet every last dollar he had in his pathetic 401(k) that the angel statues now rolling along the interstate to Alexandria hadn’t started out as statues. But Prejean—Name ain’t Prejean—had fixed that pesky flesh problem, now hadn’t he?

Maybe Underwood had just discovered the truth about Prejean herself and that was the reason he’d been ordered to stand down last night.

Wallace’s words, a calm and clear warning, nudged Gillespie’s memory.

They’re lying to you. Ask about Bad Seed.

I know about Bad Seed. I know what Prejean is.

I doubt that.

She’d been right; he’d had no idea, and he knew very little about Bad Seed.

In all honesty, given what Prejean was or, more to the point, what he could do, Underwood had probably saved all of their lives with that order—no matter the reason. As it was, two agents had been medevacked to Legacy Emanuel in Portland in critical, but stable, condition.

Another thing Heather Wallace had been right about?

They’re lying to you.

And they had no reason to stop.

Gillespie dropped his hands from his face, padded to the bathroom, and hit the shower. Once he’d shaved, splashed on a little J$obar;$van Musk, and dressed in fresh clothes—matching gray trousers and jacket, white shirt, blue tie—he repacked his suitcase.

Gathering the empty beer bottles, he racked them back into their carton slots, then placed the refilled sixer on top of the dresser. He powered down his laptop and switched it off, the pilfered security-cam footage of Prejean in its disk drive like a hidden and deadly cancer.

Gillespie stared at his reflection in the mirror. Noticed the extra pounds around the middle. Noticed the gray pallor of his skin. Noticed the fear in his eyes even behind his glasses.

It’d never been the booze.

He was a coward, plain and simple. His lack of heart had lost Lynda, had cost lives under his command, had drained away all respect—from his wife, his kids, his coworkers, and from himself.

Even drinking was cowardice.

Of course, Gillespie’s thirsty brain insisted otherwise. Claimed he thought better, reasoned sharper, with a few brews under his belt.

Gillespie splayed his fingers on the dresser and leaned closer to the mirror and his sagging and aging reflection. Most people would probably guess his age a good ten years older than his forty-six.

He had a choice to make.

Option one: He could check out of the motel, get in his rental, drive to FedEx and Next Day Air the disk detailing Moore’s death at Prejean’s unearthly hands to Underwood, then putter back to the Wells compound and continue processing the site.

He could leave the fate of Prejean to his higher-ups as ordered. Wipe all thoughts of the bloodsucker from his mind. Or, more likely, booze them away.

Option two: He could check out of the motel, get in his rental, drive to Portland International and book a flight to New Orleans. Wallace had told Prejean that they were headed home. Home had to be New Orleans. Once Gillespie arrived, he would finally be able to do something that mattered.

Gillespie knew he’d never win Lynda back. Knew he’d never win back all the respect he’d pissed away. The lives lost on his watch due to his poor judgment, his cowardice, were his to carry forever. He just needed the courage and strength to do so.

He had an opportunity to do the right thing.

A chance to make the world safer. A chance to slay a true monster.

And all he wanted was a drink.

Pushing away from the dresser, Gillespie shrugged into his Gore-Tex jacket, grabbed his suitcase, tucked his laptop into its sleek black bag, and walked out into the rain.

PURCELL’S WORDS—PROPER AND SYMPATHETIC and less sincere than a hooker’s smile—still rang through Monica Rutgers’s memory.

He came through surgery just fine, so we were all completely caught off guard by his death. SOD Underwood asks that you accept her condolences, ma’am.

She couldn’t take the time to extend them to me herself?

I apologize, but she’s in a meeting this morning.

I’m sure Sheridan’s family would understand how a meeting would take precedence over Brian’s death.

With a jab from one rage-trembling finger, Rutgers had ended the call. She couldn’t stomach hearing Purcell’s smooth voice for one more second.

SA Brian Sheridan was dead.

Rutgers rubbed her aching temples, her pulse throbbing hard and fast beneath her fingers. Underwood’s words from the day before echoed through her memory:

You sent him into the line of fire. These are the consequences of action you spun into play and your agent will pay the price.

Rutgers had ordered Sheridan into the deep, dark woods and had promised to guide him out again; a promise she’d failed to keep.

The microwave beeped. Even in the midst of sorrow and disaster, everyday mundanity kept chugging along.

Sighing, Rutgers pushed away from her desk, and, rising to her feet, crossed to the beverage cart. She fetched her lavender mug out of the microwave and dropped two tea bags into the heated water it held, then carried the mug to her desk and set it on the cup warmer.

Vanilla-and-blueberry-fragrant steam curled into the air, unable for once to soothe her senses or quiet her restless mind. She knew the tea would remain untasted.

Rutgers tapped her assistant’s button on the intercom.

“Yes, ma’am?”

Rutgers stared at the intercom, her heart kicking hard against her chest. For just a second, Ellis’s voice had sounded like Sheridan’s. Grief tightened her throat. Haunted by a voice. And by all that would never be said.

What would turn out to be her final conversation with Sheridan ghosted through Rutgers’s mind:

And Brian? Be careful. Do you have your rifle?

Yes.

Use it.

Such Spartan words, efficient and to the point. And now—a cold and hollow eulogy. Sheridan had deserved so much more.

“Ma’am?” Ellis repeated.

Rutgers drew in a centering breath, then said, “Brian Sheridan died last night while in the care of the SB. I need you to send me the address and phone number for his parents.”

“Brian? Shit. I mean, yes, ma’am, of course. Flowers to be sent?”

“Absolutely. And hold all my calls.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Rutgers leaned back in her chair, her gaze on the cherry blossoms outside her window. Thanks to the SB, Sheridan was dead and Dante Prejean very much alive and free to continue to murder and corrupt.

Through unofficial channels Rutgers had heard about last night’s shoot-out in a motel parking lot outside Damascus, Oregon, between Prejean and Wallace and Under-wood’s on-scene agents.

Section Chief Gillespie had been forced to let Prejean and Wallace walk while two of his men had landed in the hospital with bullets in places they didn’t belong.

Rutgers felt a hard smile tug at the corners of her mouth. She would bet anything that had been a bitter pill for Gillespie to swallow. Wonder how many bottles of beer it took to wash it down?

An early morning breeze rippled through the cherry blossoms. A few of the pink flowers fluttered to the wintersered lawn, delicate splashes of color.

The words Heather Wallace had written on her admissions application, words the former agent had once lived by, fluttered like cherry blossoms through Rutgers’s mind.

I want to be a voice for the dead.

So do I.

For Sheridan. For Rodriguez. For all who’d died at the hands and fangs of Dante Prejean. Even for the woman who’d once been the dedicated and compassionate special agent named Heather Wallace.

Through Bad Seed, the Shadow Branch—no, be honest, the Shadow Branch and the Bureau—had created Dante Prejean. Had brutally shattered a child, then pieced him back together with misaligned edges, the cracks still showing. Just to see what would happen.

Prejean would never, ever stop killing. Whether on his own, or being used as a weapon by people in the know like Alexander Lyons, Prejean would never stop.

And, even after last night’s fiasco in Oregon, the SB planned to step out of his way with a genial smile and an after-you-please wave of the hand, and allow him to continue spilling and drinking as much innocent blood as he desired.

Rutgers shifted her gaze from the window, blinking dazzling light from her eyes.

So much to do. And not enough time to do it all. Prioritize.

Turning to her computer, Rutgers composed a letter of resignation, printed it out, and signed it. Sealing it inside an envelope, she wrote the deputy director’s name across the front in elegant, flowing script, then placed the envelope on her keyboard.

If you even feel the urge to pull another stunt like this, just tender your resignation and do it as a private citizen because you’ll be done here.

Understood.

She’d never again order someone else into the deep, dark woods.

She would enter them alone.