On Midnight Wings

31 GOLD INTO DIAMONDS NEW ORLEANS THE FRENCH QUARTER

THE SMELL OF SMOKE, of scorched wood and rubber and plastic, of fire-dousing chemicals clung to Club Hell’s shutter-style green doors like a whore’s cheap perfume. Mauvais’s gaze shifted from the thick chain looped through the door handles to the hand-scrawled CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign nailed to the doors.

Mauvais drew a lavender-scented handkerchief from the sleeve of his shirt and breathed in its soothing scent. “Well, it seems we’ve wasted our time,” he sighed. “The place is closed and”—he paused, leaning in toward the door and listening for heartbeats, before straightening again and swiveling around—“empty.”

“So I see,” Loki murmured.

“Apparently those rumors about a fire and shootout were true, after all,” Giovanni said, his smooth Italian purr full of a regret that Mauvais suspected was every bit as false as his own. “Makes sense, then, that Dante, his household, and his father would go underground for the time being, sì?”

“Perfect sense,” Mauvais agreed, taking a final sniff of lavender before tucking the handkerchief back into his sleeve. “Perhaps we should give it a week or two or three and then return.”

Giovanni nodded. “At the very least.”

Loki laughed, a low, amused chiming, his gleaming gaze flicking from Mauvais to Giovanni and back again. “You’re doing it again. Both of you.”

Mauvais arched one eyebrow. “Oui? And what would that be?”

“Playing your little vampire games. Trying to misdirect me with half-truths and outright lies. Tap-dancing madly. But all you’ve managed to do is fuel my curiosity.”

“We only wish to protect what belongs to us,” Giovanni said, his voice heated steel. “Your grudge is against this Lucien De Noir, not his son. What the Fallen do to one another is none of our business, but Dante is a True Blood—”

“And Fallen,” Loki said quietly. “Which makes him Fallen business.”

Not for the first time, Mauvais regretted the timing of the release of Dante’s announcement. He regretted even more the inadequate shields of the younger vampires aboard the Winter Rose while in the presence of a fallen angel.

A very curious fallen angel, and one adept at plucking thoughts and emotions from fledgling minds.

“No.” Giovanni shook his head. “He is vampire first. Our bloodlines are determined by the mother. Dante’s mother was vampire, not Fallen. Therefore he is ours.”

Laughing once more, Loki shook his freshly-barbered head—Time for a change. Do you happen to have a barber on board, as well?—his red locks cupping his skull and curving against his temples in a rakish cut that reminded Mauvais of long-ago highwaymen and Romantic poets.

Now there’s a dangerous combination, he mused.

“Vampire bloodlines mean nothing,” Loki said, once his musical laughter had ended. “Less than nothing. Only Dante’s Fallen bloodline matters.”

Giovanni stiffened. His sea scent, deep and stormy, intensified. When he opened his mouth for what would no doubt be a scathing—and disastrous—rebuttal, Mauvais gave the Italian’s shoulder a warning squeeze.

<Calm yourself,> Mauvais chastised, <and keep quiet. I shall handle this.>

Giovanni snapped his mouth shut. He glanced away, jaw tight, hazel irises slashed with red. <Then do so. But quickly. Before he actually finds Dante Baptiste.>

Offering Loki an apologetic smile, Mauvais said, “No one is playing games. Not now, anyway,” he amended smoothly. “I truly believe waiting a few weeks for things to cool down, to give Dante time to return, would be wisest.”

Loki regarded Mauvais with shrewd, golden eyes. “And once Dante does, what glib lie will slip from your tongue then, hmm? That by the time you realized Dante had returned, he’d already departed for a tour of Europe? Or will I need to snatch the truth from another member of your household?”

“That was unfortunate,” Mauvais admitted ruefully.

But it had allowed him the opportunity to slip a tracking chip onto the back of Loki’s torc while he’d been distracted questioning Rafe. If the immortal should catch wind of Dante’s whereabouts first, Mauvais intended to follow.

Although stunned by Dante’s little coming out announcement, Mauvais had also been pleased to realize that his suspicions about the defiant marmot had been correct.

True Blood and Fallen. And utterly invaluable to the vampire race.

And with that realization, Mauvais’s long-held desire to have one of the Fallen standing at his side transmuted into a desire to have Dante standing at his side instead, an alchemical bit of magic—not lead into gold, but gold into diamonds—crafted by equal parts ambition, practicality, and a deep-rooted instinct for survival.

We are stagnating. Our Bloodline diluted, tainted. Dante’s blood will renew us. Inject much-needed chaos into our ordered existence.

Convincing the young True Blood to overlook the fact that Mauvais had ordered his home burned to the ground, resulting in the death of a household member, could prove to be a bit of a challenge, however.

A challenge, oui. But not impossible. Not with the future of our race hanging in the balance.

“It would ease our minds if we knew what you intended for the Nightbringer’s son,” Mauvais said. “True Bloods have become increasingly rare, and we’re quite loath to lose one because his father is involved in some kind of blood feud with you. Surely you can understand our concern.”

A slow smile curved Loki’s lips. “I mean this Dante no harm. In fact, I hope to become indispensable to him. The most intimate of friends.”

Mauvais found himself oddly unsettled by the fallen angel’s reassuring words. The tension radiating from Giovanni’s tightly strung body suggested he’d also found the words less than comforting.

Giovanni confirmed this by sending: <He’s lying.>

Mauvais sighed. <Of course he’s lying.>

“A noble gesture, given your animosity toward his father,” Mauvais said to Loki, with an acknowledging nod.

“Indeed,” Loki murmured, his attention now fixed on the crowd. “Interesting mix of individuals. What manner of creaw . . . creature is this Dante?”

Wondering what word Loki had intended to use before changing it to creature, Mauvais followed the fallen angel’s line of sight. The swelling crowd was mostly composed of vampires—the majority of them out of town strangers; they glided like pale sharks amongst the mortals. Usually it was the other way around, Dante’s and Inferno’s mortal fans choking the sidewalk in leather and velvet and fishnet and musk.

“He’s a rare beauty,” Mauvais mused. “Riveting. But he’s also a defiant prick and a true pain in the ass. Disrespectful, sarcastic, a catalyst for chaos.”

Loki chuckled. “I like him already.”

“Well, since he’s not here and no one knows where he is . . .” Mauvais began, his words stopping as he caught a peripheral flash of movement from the street, movement aimed straight for him. He deftly sidestepped the onrusher, grabbing a handful of purple hair as he did, and slammed his would-be attacker face-first into the club’s stone façade.

Breathing in the clean, sharp smells of soap and cinnamon along with the scorched and bitter reek of rage—and garlic?—Mauvais spun the vampire around and pinned him to the wall with a hand to his pale throat.

Purple hair, red-streaked silver eyes, a snarling and cornered panther dressed in jeans and a black Voodoo Fest T-shirt, the smooth-cheeked youth looked no older than sixteen. But Mauvais knew better. This vampire was young, oui, but he was no longer a teenager. He did look familiar, however.

Perhaps he was a member of that traitorous Vincent’s household?

“Motherfucker,” the youth spat, struggling to twist free of Mauvais’s implacable hold. “You killed her. You took her from us. And for what?”

Mauvais tilted his head, considering the accusation. “Oui. Most likely I did—whoever she was.”

“Simone. Her name was Simone, you jackass. She died because of you.”

“And no doubt you intend to make me pay, rue the day I was born, and/or tear out my heart and feed it me. How very tedious and melodramatic of you. And, to be honest, I don’t know which is the worse crime.”

“Tedious,” Loki said. “Without a doubt. Melodramatic is entertaining at least.”

The youth’s gaze shifted to Loki, nostrils flaring. Panic fired in his eyes; extraordinary eyes, Mauvais reflected, eyes the color of moon-kissed silver.

“Fallen,” the young vampire breathed.

Mauvais tensed, a dark suspicion creeping into his mind. Most vampires wouldn’t know Fallen by scent alone since most had never encountered one of the immortals. Except for those, of course, in Dante’s household. A chill iced the base of Mauvais’s spine. Mon Dieu. Could his luck really be this bad?

“You’ve been around Elohim before,” Loki stated in a chiming purr, coming to the same conclusion as Mauvais. “Do you know the Nightbringer? Or his son?”

“I’ve seen them at the club,” the youth replied, his fury banked, but not gone, “but I don’t know them.”

“Ah, a shame. What’s your name, boy?”

“Silver.”

“He’s just angry about some girl,” Giovanni dismissed. “Simone. This is tedious, Guy. Send him on his way so we can hunt.”

Mauvais nodded, relaxing his hold on the boy’s neck. “Oui. Excellent idea. We’ve wasted enough—”

“You and Giovanni can go hunt,” Loki interrupted, one large hand locking around the boy’s shoulder. The boy winced as black talons sank into his flesh through the T-shirt. “Or do whatever you wish. Silver and I have a few things to discuss, including how to tell when one is lying.”

Mauvais shared a dark, despairing look with Giovanni as the fallen angel forced Silver into the narrow alley between Club Hell and DaVinci’s Pizza.

<He’s a member of Dante’s household,> Mauvais sent.

Giovanni bowed his head and buried his face in his hands.