In the Blood

40 THE GREAT BELOW

Damascus, OR

March 25

DANTE HIT THE GROUND hard shoulder first, rolling and bouncing across the wet grass until he slammed into a tree and came to a stop. Bright specks flecked his vision and pain shimmered like heat in his mind.

Lucien…

Je t’aime, mon fils, toujours.

Voices crooned and whispered and demanded, buzzing up from the shattered depths within on the backs of fire-scorched wasps.

You look so much like her.

You wanna take her punishment, p’tit?

How come Papa Prejean handcuffs you at bedtime?

Your heart won me, Dante Baptiste.

Heather’s face flashed behind his eyes as the bright specks faded. Dante tried to catch his breath, but his ribs ached and he couldn’t seem to get air down into his lungs.

Focus on Heather.

He rolled over and onto his knees, pressed his arm against his damaged ribs. Rain cooled his face. He swiveled around. The house was nothing more than a smoking pile of rubble, masonry, and wood. He stumbled to his feet. Heather…

Music trilled into the air, burning and bright, and his song soared up from his core in spontaneous answer. Lucien! He reached for their bond, but found nothing, just a searing emptiness where the bond had been. Pain jabbed Dante’s mind and sucked away his hard-won breath.

The ground rushed up to meet him.

COLD RAIN PLASTERED HEATHER’S hair to her skull and her clothes to her body. Wet grass prickled against her nose. She rose to her knees, ears ringing and head aching. The blast had sledge-hammered her to the ground, knocking the air from her lungs.

“Heather! Fuck!” A voice yelled. Just as Heather gained her feet, Annie skidded to a stop beside her and grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Heather replied. “You?”

“Yeah, but when the house blew up, I thought you…I was scared…”

“Shit,” Heather breathed, spinning around. Von and Dante had been right behind her. Through the rain, she spotted a figure rising to its knees several yards from the twisted and rubbled remains of the main house. Grabbing her sister’s wet hand, Heather loped across the yard to Von.

“You okay?” she asked. She scanned the yard, looking for Dante. Her pulse pounded through her veins. She didn’t see him.

Von blinked, then his eyes focused. He jumped to his feet in one smooth, light-blurring movement. Did a whirling 360. “Where the hell is Dante? Did she take him?”

“Who?” Heather asked, cold seeping in through her wet skin.

“One of the Fallen, a chick,” Von said. “She ordered me to give Dante to her. Said others were on their way. Goddammit! Lucien asked me to guard Dante from the Fallen.”

Heather pushed her wet hair away from her face. “But Dante’s part Fallen too, why would he need—”

“Dante Baptiste is a Maker.” The dark-haired woman’s voice joined the conversation. She stepped beside Annie. “And a True Blood prince.”

Von fixed a hard gaze on her. “And who the hell are you?”

“Caterina Cortini, llygad,” she answered, her voice laced with respect. “I was sent by the SB to kill Wells.” She looked at Heather, her gaze steady. “And you.”

Von’s hand blurred to his jacket, a creak of leather. Heather blinked. A Browning muzzle was shoved against Cortini’s temple. “Care to explain that comment before I pull this trigger?”

Cortini’s gaze remained steady, but Heather had caught a flash of surprise in her eyes at Von’s action. “The order changed,” Cortini said to her. “The SB sent another team to bring you in. But even before then, I’d decided to protect both you and Dante Baptiste.”

The muzzle didn’t waver, not one iota.

“Why would you do that?” Heather asked.

“Because I learned who and what Dante is and guessed at what you mean to him.”

“And why do you care?” Heather replied, voice tight.

“My mother is vampire.” Cortini’s chin lifted a shade. “I was raised in a vampire household and I’ve listened to fables about True Blood all my life.”

“A child of the heart,” Von said. “Who’s your mom?”

“Renata Alessa Cortini.”

Von whistled. “Holy hell. One of the Cercle de Druide.” He lowered the gun to his side. He looked at Heather. “I say, let’s trust her for the moment. She fucks up, she’s dead.”

Cortini inclined her head toward Von. “Thank you, llygad.”

“Good enough for me,” Heather said. “Let’s find Dante.”

WINGS RUSTLED. DANTE SMELLED wing musk and smoky incense. Heat radiated against him. The ache in his heart eased.

Lucien’s here and safe.

But the scent was wrong and the scent was female.

Dante opened his eyes and looked into a woman’s rain-beaded face—golden eyes, midnight hair, a slender sapphire-blue torc around her throat. The black tips of her wings arched above her head, sheltering him from the rain. She traced a finger along his jaw, trailing down to his collar.

“You had a seizure, Dante. But you mustn’t rest for long, we need to leave.”

“You know my name. You a friend of Lucien’s?”

“Yes, he sent me,” she said. “And you may call me Lilith.” She flicked a glance at the sky. “We need to leave.”

“No, ain’t leaving. Why’d Lucien send you and not come himself?” Dante pushed himself up off the ground. Pain lanced through his ribs. Scraped through his mind. The night pinwheeled around him and he would’ve taken another header if Lilith hadn’t steadied him with a hand to his shoulder.

“Merci,” he murmured, stepping free of her support. “Is Lucien okay?”

The light in Lilith’s eyes softened. “Your father’s dead, little one.”

“Liar. I don’t fucking believe you!” He reached for his bond with Lucien again and touched emptiness. Pain burned like acid through his mind. He reeled, touched trembling fingers to his temple.

“He died to protect you from his enemies,” Lilith said. “And that sacrifice has injured you, more than you know. Let me help you.”

Dante couldn’t catch his breath. His heart felt cold and still, the blood cooling in his veins. He shivered convulsively, his hands knuckling into fists. “No,” he choked out. “T’a menti. He ain’t dead, he ain’t.”

Je t’aime, mon fils, toujours.

I shoved him away and now he’s gone forever.

Will he be with me now, Dante-angel?

Red hair, freckles, blue eyes, and giggles. Chloe. This time her name didn’t slide from his mind, a pebble skittering across ice. This time, her name, her face, stayed.

Chloe.

Dante’s breath caught in his throat. Grief knifed his heart. His muscles coiled, trembled. Blood trickled from his nose. “My princess,” he breathed.

“We need to go,” Lilith urged. “I promised your father I’d keep you safe.”

Lucien’s voice whispered through Dante’s memory: I tried to keep you safe in silence.

You promised me I’d never be alone again. And I abandoned you.

Dante’s eyes stung. He met Lilith’s golden gaze. “Why should I trust you?”

“Lucien told me that you once gave him a gift he cherished, an X-rune pendant.”

Memory splashed acid through Dante’s mind.

“Hey, mon ami, I saw this in a boutique. And I thought of you.”

A sterling silver and tungsten chain slides from Dante’s hand into Lucien’s palm.

“The rune for friendship,” Lucien murmurs. A pleased light warms his eyes. He teases: “What possessed you to think of me?”

Dante shrugs, a smile tilting his lips. “Dunno. Just happens from time to time.”

“Where’s his body?” Dante said, voice low and raw. “Wanna see it.”

Lilith blinked. “Gone to ash. Nothing remains.”

A muscle flexed in Dante’s jaw. Lucien’s words flashed through his burning thoughts: I hid you from others. Powerful others who would use you without mercy.

The Fallen will find you. And bind you.

Lilith pointed a taloned finger at the sky. “They are why you should trust me. They murdered your father so they could claim you.”

Dante looked up into waves of intense blue and purple and green light shimmering across the sky. Song suddenly resonated through the night air, warbling from many throats, each individual rhythm and melodic strand weaving into a flawless whole; an ethereal concerto ringing to Dante’s core.

Ain’t binding me. Not ever. Not unless they know how to bind a fucking corpse.

Dante’s song rose in response, a dark and furious aria.

THE RAIN STOPPED.

Sheridan knotted his tie around his thigh, hoping to slow the bleeding. The pain hadn’t set in really, not yet, but he knew it would soon. He wondered if he could make it down the slope, down the driveway and to the road before the vampire…

Something flared in the sky.

Sheridan looked up.

And his mind quietly and irrevocably unwound.

“THERE,” VON SAID, POINTING across the yard and up the wooded slope.

Heather peered into the darkness. Dante wasn’t alone; a winged figure stood beside him—the Fallen female. The night rustled, a massive rushing sound, like a powerful wind gusting ahead of a storm or a tidal surge or hundreds of wings.

“Holy fuck,” Von whispered, his gaze on the sky.

Heather looked up and gasped. An aurora borealis of ghostly light danced and shifted across the night. Huge black Vs circled beneath the clouds; dozens of the Fallen swooped back and forth in a figure-eight loop like thermal gliding hawks, their stroking, black and gold wings glistening with rain and vibrant light.

One broke away from the others, a male with a flowing mane of red hair, the moist air steaming against his bare chest. His golden wings cut through the night with strength and precision as he soared down to skim the tops of the trees, then angled back up into the sky in a graceful pirouette of wings and body; a breathtaking aerial ballet repeated by each, one after the other. And they sang; a choir of crystal voices chiming and pealing through the night.

Like a courtship ritual, Heather thought.

The Fallen circled above Dante.

“They’re calling to him,” she said, pulse hammering through her veins.

“They can’t have him,” Von growled. “C’mon, doll.”

“Stay here,” she said to Annie. Heather caught a whiff of frost and leather, then felt a muscle-corded arm loop around her waist. Von held her close as they moved.

She heard thudding footsteps far behind and knew Annie followed. Of course. She never listened. That was her little sister. She had a feeling Cortini also followed.

Von breezed to a stop ten yards from Dante. “Keep back, doll,” he murmured.

Heather drew in a sharp breath as spears of blue light spiked out from around Dante, stabbing into the night. The air prickled with power. His pale face was tipped up to the sky and the fallen angels wheeling above him.

One descended, black wings kiting him down to the mist-shrouded ground. His wings flared once, then folded behind him, his red kilt swirling like silk around his hips. He bowed to Dante, then dropped to his knees in the wet grass, strands of his long champagne-pale hair lifting on the breeze.

“We’ve come to help you home, young Maker,” he said, his words clear and respectful. “To guide you to Gehenna and your rightful place upon the Chaos Seat.”

Dante lowered his head, his black hair beaded with iridescent pearls of rain. He leveled his burning and golden-eyed gaze on the flaxen-haired Fallen. “Gehenna?”

The fallen angel stared, lips parting. “Ah! So beautiful, little creawdwr!”

The winged woman standing beneath the trees behind Dante stepped forward and whispered into his ear. Dante listened, wiping absently at his bleeding nose with the back of one glowing hand.

A deep pang of sympathy pierced Heather. Can’t they see how much he’s hurting? She started forward, intending to stand at his side. A steel-fingered hand latched onto her shoulder and jerked her back.

“No,” Von hissed. “Too dangerous.”

“I don’t care. Let me go.”

The nomad shook his head. “Forget it, doll. Dante’d never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

“And I’ll never forgive you if anything more happens to him. Dammit! Let go!” But Von kept a tight and hard grip on her shoulder. She realized with frustration that she wasn’t going anywhere until he allowed it.

Several other Fallen swooped down to the ground and landed. Black wings and gold wings fluttered, flinging away moisture, then closed. Blue and black and purple and red kilts and gowns settled against limbs. Gold and silver torcs glinted with tiny slivers of captured moonlight.

One by one, they approached Dante crooning, “Douse the fire, young one. Douse the fire and silence your song so that we may help you. Guide you. Beautiful little creawdwr, we will take you home.”

“Did you kill him?” Dante said, fury lighting his face, seething in his husky voice. His gaze skipped from face to face. “Did you? Or you?”

The Fallen looked at one another, expressions bewildered. “Kill who, little creawdwr?” one questioned. His gaze shifted to the Fallen female behind Dante. “Perhaps the Lady Lilith has misinformed—”

“Lucien. My father.”

Von sucked in a breath. Dismay shadowed his face. “That’s what I felt. A broken bond.”

“De Noir, dead?” Heather whispered.

“We don’t know this Lucien, your father,” the champagne-haired Fallen said, rising to his feet. “The Lord Gabriel and the Morningstar sent us—”

Dante slammed his hands against the fallen angel’s shoulders, shoved him back a step. “T’a menti,” he snarled. “Liar, liar, goddamned fucking liar!”

“Uh-oh.” Von’s hand slid from Heather’s shoulder to her bicep and he quickly backed them both up.

Blue light starred out from around Dante, shafting into the aurora-glimmering air and into the Fallen, those on the ground and those still in the sky. Heather smelled ozone. Electricity crackled through her hair and goosebumped her skin. She grabbed ahold of Von’s arm.

A spear of blue light pierced the fallen angel Dante had shoved. The angel’s mouth opened in shock, then fear tremored across his face as blue flames lit him up from within, turning his skin translucent. The light flickered out. A stone statue stood on the wet grass beneath the evergreens, stone wings half-opened, features terrified, kilt frozen in motion around the hips.

“Dante, shit,” Heather breathed. Pain and loss etched his beautiful face. His fury had swallowed him whole.

Screams and panicked trilling rang beneath the trees and in the sky.

Blue rays spiked into the fleeing Fallen, one by one. And turned them to stone. Those winging frantically through the air plummeted to the ground, those on the ground, kneeling or bowing or standing, remained there. All were transformed into statues of exquisite detail and captured motion—tendrils of hair lifted into the air, bodies half-twisted, faces averted, hands raised—in gleaming white, blue-edged stone.

The aurora vanished. Silence wound thick through the woods like river mist.

Dante spun around and faced the Fallen female. Her golden eyes were wide, her hands at her mouth. “You ain’t binding me, either,” he said, voice strained.

“I have no desire to bind you, Dante,” she said, lowering her hands. “I still need to hide you before others come. Your father sent me to keep you safe. To teach you what it means to be a creawdwr—”

“He woulda told me about you!”

“He couldn’t!” she cried. “He was afraid they’d find you through him!”

Dante’s black hair snaked into the air, merged with the night. “Liar,” he whispered. “Lucien warned me…”

She fell to her knees in the grass. “Please, little Maker, my daughter needs me,” she said, desperation stark on her face. “I couldn’t keep her safe, but with your—”

“He fucking warned me.”

A rope of blue fire snaked around the black-haired woman. Her wings curved forward and she closed her eyes, her hands clenched in her lap. Caught within glimmering blue coils, she morphed from flesh to stone, her long hair a white curtain framing her bowed head.

Light continued to whip around Dante and his pale, grief-stricken face burned with both rage and ecstasy. His song poured into Heather, brimming with wild, searing chords and pounding rhythm; each beautiful note vibrated into her heart.

She stumbled against Von, clutching at him for balance. He slipped an arm around her as Dante’s haunting and powerful song rang from her heart to his and back, rippling within her in ever-widening circles.

And Dante’s triune beast sang a layered refrain: Holyholyholy…

Eyes closed, face rapt, Dante funneled a fountain of blue fire into one spot—the remains of the main house. Geysers of dirt spumed into the sky. The ground rolled and quaked, spasmed. Split open.

“Aw, hell, little brother.” Von tightened his arm around Heather’s shoulder and moved them closer to Dante and away from the showers of dirt and rock.

Trees disappeared, sucked down into the convulsing earth. Wood cracked and snapped, and the smell of deep, dark soil and green leaves swirled through the air, cutting through the sharp odor of ozone.

A whirlpool of dirt, splintered trees, and house rubble spun and roared, spiraling deep into the land’s core.

The quaking slowed, then stopped. The mouth of a huge cave yawned where the main house had once stood. Heather caught a glimpse of the triune beast’s feathered tail as it slithered, singing, into the cave.

Holyholyholy…

“The Underworld,” Annie said, voice low, scared.

Mouth dry, Heather stared as lashes of blue light wrapped around the winged stone statues and lifted them into the air. One by one, the statues were placed around the mouth of the cave, the fallen angels caught in winged flight stretched across the tops of pairs of standing or kneeling statues.

A Fallen Stonehenge.

Guarding the deep mouth of the Underworld.

Dante’s song ended.

The blue light winked out and Dante staggered as though drunk or exhausted. He fell to his knees. The night was suddenly black again, and Heather blinked away blue retinal ghosts from her eyes until they finally adjusted to the darkness.

Dawn wasn’t far away. She needed to get Dante somewhere safe, and soon. Later, she would think about all she’d seen, experienced. Think about what it all meant. Think about how much it scared her.

Heather pulled away from Von’s embrace and started forward, but he stopped her with a touch to her arm. “Morphine, doll.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a syringe and a vial. “I’ll do it. He’s hurting. Bad.”

“I know he is,” Heather said, “but thanks. Let me do it. I need to get used to it. He’s my man, after all.”

“Your man, huh?” the nomad said, handing her the vial and syringe. “Does Dante know that?”

Anytime you want, I’m yours.

I ain’t leaving you alone.

T’es sûr de sa?

“He’d better,” Heather whispered, throat tight. “He’d better.” Flicking the cap off from the needle’s end, she stuck it into the vial and filled it with morphine.

“No, Heather, stay away from him,” Annie said, her eyes huge, her face drained of all color, nightkind-pale.

Heather turned and caressed her sister’s cheek with cold fingers. “It’ll be okay,” she said, wishing hard from the heart. She crossed the yard, Von at her side.

Dante’s head was bowed, his arms at his sides, his hands clenched into fists.

“Baptiste?” Heather asked, stopping just a foot from him. “Can you hear me?”

He lifted his head and his red-streaked dark eyes fixed her. “Heather,” he said, his voice husky-raw, a near whisper. “Oui….”

She knelt in the wet grass, drew in a deep breath, then grasped his chin. “You’re a mess,” she said, voice firm. “Your nose is bleeding. Put your head back.”

Dante moved. He jerked free of Heather’s hand, seized her upper arms and yanked her in close. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

“Keep still,” Cortini said.

“Let go, little brother.”

Heather caught a peripheral flash of movement as Von stepped forward.

Dante hissed, a low, intense sound that stood the hair on the back of Heather’s neck. Then he shuddered. “Get the fuck away from me,” he whispered, shoving Heather with both hands.

Von caught her before she hit the grass, but she pushed free of his hold and returned to Dante. “I’m staying right beside you, Baptiste. This is our fight. Back-to-back and side-by-side. Remember?”

“You’ll never be safe with me.” Dante’s eyes squeezed shut. Fresh blood trickled from his nose.

“Who says I want to be safe?”

Dante stiffened, his eyes rolling up, and Heather lunged for him as the seizure locked up his muscles. She slid the needle into his taut-muscled neck and thumbed the plunger. His head whipped back.

She wrapped her arms around his fevered, trembling body, holding him as the morphine aborted the convulsion. With a sigh, Dante folded against her. She sat down on the wet grass with him in her arms, her heart pounding hard and fast.

“I was falling,” Dante slurred. “But Lucien…” The words caught in his throat. He looked at Heather through his thick lashes. He reached up and touched a finger to her lips. “Her name was Chloe. She was my princess. And I killed her.” His eyes closed. A tear slipped out from beneath his lashes, sliding to his ear.

Her name was Chloe.

A hot burr of pain pricked Heather’s heart. She stared at him, eyes burning. He’d remembered a part of his past, and not with the help of someone who cared for him and in his own time, but with drugs and torture-induced seizures. Was Chloe all he remembered?

Heather stroked his wet hair away from his face. Lowering her head, her lips just touching his, she murmured, “I love you, Dante Baptiste.”

But her words went unheard; Dante slept a false Sleep, lost to morphine.

“Dawn’s coming, doll. We need to move,”

“I have a motel room in Portland,” Cortini said.

Heather nodded. “We can hole up for the day.”

“And when it’s night again?” Annie asked.

Heather looked down at Dante’s peaceful, blood-streaked face. Tried to believe in its illusion. “Then we start a new life and we create a future.”