On Midnight Wings

12 NOTHING PERSONAL BATON ROUGE DOUCET-BAINBRIDGE SANITARIUM

TEODORO DíON PULLED A chair up beside the steel examination table and sat, elbows to knees, chin to steepled fingers, and studied Purcell’s handiwork.

The white, leather-strapped straitjacket fit as snugly as though it’d been tailored specifically for Dante, which, Teodoro had no doubt, it had been, its thick leather straps pulled painfully tight.

Straitjackets worked just as well on vampires as they did on mortals. Of course, straitjackets for vampires were woven of more durable stuff than those manufactured for mortals. Still, the simple fact remained—if you couldn’t move your arms or use your hands, you couldn’t tear free—even with preternatural strength.

But Purcell hadn’t stopped at the straitjacket.

Double loops of steel gleamed at Dante Baptiste’s socked ankles, a pair of handcuffs on each. Each cuff’s twin and linking chain had been pulled down through a slot in the table and pulled taut from underneath, before being looped back over the table’s edge to snap the second cuff shut around the same wrist or ankle.

Handcuffs double-looped. Slots that couldn’t be wrenched free like welded-on door handles, since they were part of the table. Metal bands across Dante’s chest and thighs.

All made of reinforced vampire-proof steel.

But creawdwr-proof was another matter entirely, Teodoro knew.

When Purcell had called yesterday to tell him that Dante wasn’t healing from the bullet wounds, that he was, in fact, bleeding out, Teodoro had instantly known what James Wallace had put in his bullets, because he’d once used sap from the dragon’s blood tree himself for a very similar purpose centuries ago.

Fatal to True Bloods, yes, but Dante’s Fallen heritage had saved his life—barely. And because of that, Teodoro had believed—no, be honest, had hoped—that the resin, in combination with the damage James Wallace had wreaked with his oh-so-well-placed bullets, would short-circuit Dante’s use of the creu tân.

And it had. Until Dante had managed to make a snack out of Bronson.

Until that awful moment on the rooftop.

On midnight wings, Dante rises from the sanitarium’s roof.

Fury shadows his pale, blood-streaked face. His eyes blaze with gold light. Blue flames flicker to life around his fingers as his anhrefncathl slashes a dark and savage melody into the night.

Teodoro stares, dread and awe pulsing through his veins in equal measure. He’s never seen a creawdwr in action before, never seen a living creawdwr—until now. And he has a gut-knotting suspicion that it might be the last thing he ever sees.

But a split second later, Dante’s eyes roll back into his head. The seizure’s sucker punch breaks his song, snuffs the flames, and slams him back down to the roof.

While the seizure had been a welcome surprise, the wings had been both unexpected and problematic. Teodoro had never imagined that Dante would have wings. No half-blood did. At least not those born of Fallen and mortal unions. Perhaps it was different with vampire-Fallen offspring, although he didn’t know of any. More likely the reason rested in who and what Dante was—creawdwr.

In any case, Teodoro had carefully erased the memory of Dante’s wings from the minds of each agent on the roof. No one else needed to know what Dante was.

Not yet.

Not even Purcell. Although Teodoro could just imagine the man’s reaction.

You’re telling me that this bloodsucking son of a bitch not only has wings and a fallen angel daddy, but he’s also a fucking god? What goddamned bullshit.

A fucking god, yes. Bullshit, no.

“So do I get your stamp of approval?” Purcell asked from the foot of the table.

Back in the moment once more, Teodoro nodded, then murmured, “Nice work. This should actually hold him.”

“Personally, I think shooting him full of resin and hoisting him onto the hook would hold him even better,” Purcell grumbled. “But, yeah, this’ll work. Lucky for you he had that seizure. Why the hell couldn’t he have had the damned thing before he slaughtered two of my men?”

“Their error,” Teodoro pointed out with a shrug. “You did tell them to make sure Baptiste was secured before doing anything else and they failed to do so.”

Purcell blew out an exasperated breath in agreement.

“His file doesn’t mention seizures,” Teodoro commented, slanting a glance at Purcell. “I take it that’s something new?”

Purcell raked a hand through his gray-flecked sandy hair, then nodded. “Definitely. And he had one yesterday following surgery, but I have no idea what’s causing them and—to be honest—I really don’t give a rat’s ass. For all I know maybe it’s an indication that his sanity is about to take that plunge you’ve got such a hard-on for.”

“Perhaps,” Teodoro agreed, straightening in his chair. He thought of the elaborate scar on the creawdwr’s left pectoral, near his heart. A sigil. One Teodoro had recognized—as any nephilim would. His jaw tightened.

“And the mark on his chest?” He jerked his chin at Dante. “Is that new too?”

“He didn’t have it the last time we picked him up and brought him in,” Purcell said. “But that was six, almost seven, years ago. S usually keeps his shirt on when he’s onstage with his band, so there’s no telling when he got it. What does it matter? It’s just one of those neoprimitive cuttings or whatever.”

Teodoro shrugged. “Simply curious.”

“So what now? You still plan on breaking him even after all this?”

“Definitely. But I think I’ll take a look inside this time”—Teodoro air-tapped a finger next to his own temple—“and see if I can find the best way to accomplish that goal.”

“Christ.” Purcell sighed. “Talk about a waste of time, but fine. You do that. I’ll go check on the kid, tell her that her goddamned angel is all right and blah, blah, blah. Any other instructions before I go?”

Teodoro frowned, considering. Bright blood welled up from the half-healed bullet wounds above Dante’s heart, soaking through the canvas straitjacket in a small dark circle. It also trickled dark along his temple and pooled in his ear.

“Yes,” Teodoro replied. “Have a medic waiting on standby.”

“If you want the bastard to heal, then you should quit giving him the resin.”

Teodoro lifted his gaze to Purcell, met his unreadable olive green eyes. “I don’t want him to heal. I want him weak.”

“Weak is good,” Purcell said. “Dead is better.”

“Be patient and we’ll both get what we want.”

“Bronson and Holland are dead. How’s that for patient?” Turning, Purcell kicked Dante’s discarded boots from his path and strode from the room.

Teodoro wondered if he’d made a mistake in taking only temporary control of the prickly agent’s mind—a brief visit, one just long enough to make Purcell rescind his shoot-the-little-fucking-psycho order and erase the memory of having ever given that order in the first place.

If so, it was a mistake that could be corrected, if necessary.

Once Purcell had exited the room, Teodoro scooted his chair closer to the table and gave his attention to the sigil above the drugged and dreaming creawdwr’s heart.

He’d lied when he’d told Purcell the scar didn’t matter. In truth, it mattered a great deal because it was the Morningstar’s mark and a blood pledge. Which begged the very troubling question: How had Dante managed to remain free in the mortal world, given that the Fallen—or at least the Morningstar—apparently knew of his existence?

Teodoro touched the blood-soaked spot on the straitjacket, his finger tracing the sigil’s design from memory upon the material—an upside-down pyramid with a smaller reversed triangle hooked to its base with graceful curlicues.

“Foolish child,” he whispered. “What bargain did you make with the Devil?”

Dante’s head was turned toward Teodoro, his pale, pale face half hidden beneath a fall of night-black hair. Blood glistened beneath his nose, smeared his cupid’s-bow lips, its coppery odor mingling with the autumn sharp scent of frost and burning leaves. Teodoro moved his hand up from Dante’s chest and trailed a finger along his smooth jawline. Brushed the pad of his thumb across that full kiss-me-bite-me lower lip.

Breathtaking.

Even bloodied and unconscious, the creawdwr’s beauty scorched. Hinted at tangled sheets and hungry moans. Moonlight and fire seemed to pulse white-hot through his veins, smoldering beneath his alabaster skin, skimming the length of his lean-muscled body—intoxicating and deadly.

Tempting.

A unique creature—even in beauty and power and bloodline.

And the only creawdwr in existence.

Teodoro felt a sharp, unexpected pang of regret. He planned to shatter a creawdwr’s fragile sanity and reshape him into the Great Destroyer, leaving the Fallen no choice but to kill the Maker they’d spent thousands of years yearning and searching for before he unmade the mortal world and their own.

But no matter how beautiful Dante was, or how brutally he’d been used by others, no matter how innocent of long-ago Elohim crimes, Teodoro refused to let his sudden sympathy sway him from his course.

He’d waited too long. Committed too many crimes to simply shrug and walk away. Not after subverting minds and ending lives to reach this very moment.

A moment the Fallen had brought down upon themselves when they’d sentenced his daughter to death by poison simply for speaking out for change, for a better place in Elohim society.

His Felicia had also been beautiful, and ill-used, and innocent. No sudden sympathy had spared her life. As she’d died in his arms while the Fallen had idly watched, Teodoro had given her a promise: I will take everything from them, mi hija, just as they have taken everything from us.

No, Dante’s beauty and power and unique bloodline would end with him.

It was nothing personal. Just a knife into the cold, dark heart of the Fallen.

Wheels. Circles. Cycles. The Elohim’s long-overdue Second Fall lay strapped to a steel table, fate incarnate in leather pants and ringed collar.

Teodoro slid his fingers up to Dante’s temple. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, then inhaled deeply. He slipped through the creawdwr’s drug-thinned shields, pushing into his mind with ease, and entered—

—Hell. Searing heat engulfs Teodoro in a fiery maelstrom of nightmarish images, of angry droning and mocking whispers and molten pain, scorching his thoughts, his senses—

Metallic wasps burrow beneath milk-white skin . . .

I’ll make sure you regret every breath you’ve ever drawn . . .

An anarchy symbol cut into a pale torso . . .

A fire-blackened and broken window stretches across an endless horizon . . .

No escape for you, sweetie . . .

A face composed of blue neon ones and zeros flickers between glowing hands . . .

We ain’t done, you and me . . .

Wearing shades and a wide, cheerful grin, the Perv lifts a blood-smeared knife into the air, then slashes it back down . . .

That’s my Bad Seed bro . . .

Holy, holy, holy . . .

Teodoro retreated—no, fled—snapping back into his own body with a jolt that left his heart pounding and his mouth dry. ¡Madre de Dios! He felt Dante stir beneath his fingers, his blood-smeared face troubled, and Teodoro fought against the instinctive urge to snatch his hand away.

Any regret he still felt withered and died. Dante had been doomed even before Teodoro had found him. All he had done was speed up the process.

Whether it was because of the implanted programming, the memory fragmentation, the countless cruelties he’d endured, or all of the above, Dante’s mind was irreparably damaged and he already walked the path to madness. Stood near the mouth of the abyss, in fact, his walls and defenses beginning to crumble around him.

All Dante needed was one more good shove.

Teodoro had no idea—absolutely none—how Dante managed to remain on his feet and functioning, let alone coherent. His ability to do so hinted at a stubborn strength that Teodoro respected—even as it left him feeling just a tad uneasy.

Just how hard would that shove need to be?

Fumbling his handkerchief from his trouser pocket, Teodoro wiped the sweat from his brow as he imagined the sigil scarring Dante’s chest. He still hadn’t learned what pledge had been made between Dante and the Morningstar.

Unlike Purcell, who didn’t give a rat’s ass about certain details—the identity of Dante’s father, the reason for his seizures, to name a couple—Teodoro preferred to be armed with every bit of information available. That way, some missing piece of knowledge wouldn’t sneak up behind him and bite him on the ass later.

No choice—Teodoro would have to go back inside. Tucking his handkerchief back into his pocket, he drew in a deep breath, carefully shielded his mind, then took the plunge back into Dante Baptiste’s mind.

The second time wasn’t any easier—the raging chaos still hit like a brass-knuckled fist. But this time Teodoro noticed a cool, blue-white light radiating calm and quiet and stillness at the firestorm’s furious heart.

A bond. Someone had bonded the creawdwr.

Teodoro’s stomach sank. What do you want to bet that someone is the Morningstar? No wonder Dante wears his mark.

Teodoro negotiated his way past waves of never-ending whispers and swarms of droning wasps, their metallic wings ablaze and trailing drops of molten steel; skirted around memories rippling from past to present and back like a deck of cards in a magician’s sleight-of-hand flourish—first the faces, now only the backs—presto, chango.

When Teodoro reached the steady, but muted—the resin and/or drugs?—flame of the bond, he made an exciting discovery. The bond belonged to Heather, not the Morningstar.

Something else never before seen: a creawdwr taking a mortal as bondmate—Dante had claimed a human as calon-cyfaill.

It made him vulnerable.

All Teodoro needed to do was forge a temporary link to the bond; then, even outside Dante’s mind, he could tap into it and follow the ethereal tether straight to the former FBI agent—like a Heather-centric dowsing rod.

And the beautiful redhead would become that last good, hard shove.

Just as Teodoro reached for the bond’s cool light, he heard laughter, low and dark and amused from the ember-lit depths below. Smelled frost and burning leaves and cold, cold rage. He froze.

“Hey, motherfucker.” From right beside him. “I don’t remember inviting you.”

Teodoro caught a glimpse of a pale, hard-knuckled fist, orange flames glinting from silver rings on the fingers and thumb, then an explosion of electricity shocked through his skull and whited out his mind.

TEODORO BLINKED. THE SQUARE white ceiling tiles swam into focus. He was no longer in his chair, but flat on his back on the hard, concrete floor. He sucked in a mouthful of ozone-flavored air, trying to calm his triple-timing heart.

Had he just been sucker punched by an unconscious subject? Tossed out of a doped and damaged mind and onto his ass?

An icy finger trailed the length of Teodoro’s still-tingling spine. Imposible. He sat up, then eased to his feet, holding on to the back of the chair for support like an old man, an unbalanced man, a weak man, in need of a walker. He fisted his other hand at his side to destroy any illusion that it was shaking. He stared at Dante.

Dante hadn’t moved. Was still out cold. Still cuffed to the table. Head still turned toward Teodoro, breathtaking face still partially veiled by tendrils of black hair. Fresh blood trickled from one nostril.

Nothing about him had changed from a moment ago.

Everything had changed.

Despite being ice-cold, sweat plastered Teodoro’s shirt to his back, beaded his forehead. As he scrutinized the unconscious creawdwr, he realized that he needed to get back on the horse, so to speak, before his shock and dread deteriorated into belly-knotting fear. He needed to link to that bond, to follow it to Heather.

But first, he’d shoot Dante full of more resin and tranquilizers. No more dark laughter or blurring fists, then. Never mind the fact that there shouldn’t have been this time either. Maybe the drugs were wearing off—

Teodoro’s cell phone buzzed, interrupting his speeding train of denial. He pulled it from a trouser pocket and frowned when the ID showed Webster’s number. Why would his supervisor be calling? Sinking into the chair, he thumbed the Talk button.

“Díon.”

“Sorry to interrupt your vacation,” Webster said, sounding—to his credit—vaguely apologetic, “but a situation has come up that requires your special expertise.”

Teodoro sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose. Leave it to the SB to ruin even pretend vacation plans. “Can’t you put whoever it is on ice for a few more days? I’m leaving for Barcelona tomorrow. If I miss the flight, I’ll be out the money.”

“Afraid not. This one comes directly from the Oversight Committee. And”—Webster lowered his voice—“I hear it involves the director.”

Teodoro sat up straight, suddenly more interested in the conversation. It sounded like the file he had left on the table following his meeting with the very-soon-to-be-dead-facedown-in-her-pancakes Underwood had been found. And studied.

Just as he’d intended—but the timing was unfortunate.

Given that the file revealed that SB Director William Britto had sold his soul, not to mention the SB’s integrity, to the powerful Renata Alessa Cortini, high priestess of the vampire Cercle de Druide, in exchange for new dusk-to-dawn life for his terminally ill son, Teodoro imagined it had made for fascinating reading.

And it wouldn’t take much deductive skills for the members of the Oversight Committee to realize that the only thing the Cercle would be interested in would be intel about a True Blood known as S. And where to find him.

“You’re expected at HQ by midnight,” Webster informed Teodoro.

“And my vacation?”

“Reinstated the moment you’ve finished with the interrogation.”

“Well, then. I guess I’ll see you at midnight.”

“Not me, you won’t. I hope to be in bed asleep by then. Too damn old for vampire hours,” Webster grumbled. “I’ll let the OC know you’re on the way.”

Conversation finished, Teodoro stood and slipped the cell phone back into his pocket. When he returned from HQ, he’d tap into the bond between Dante and Heather, follow it back to the FBI agent. Then sever it. He stepped over to the table, his strength and balance restored—no longer a tottering old man—and gently brushed the strands of black hair away from Dante’s face.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

A dark satisfaction curled through him. Soon. Very soon. With a severed bond and a creawdwr’s deep sea dive into madness, the Second Fall would begin—and then the air would fill with weeping and wailing and gnashing of Elohim teeth.

Turning, Teodoro strode from the room.