On Midnight Wings

43 A CHILD’S WHISPER ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA SHADOW BRANCH HQ APRIL 1

DESPITE HEATHER WALLACE’S ESCAPE from custody in Little Rock, using a coffee carafe and a field agent’s own Taser, embarrassing facts which that particular agent wouldn’t be living down anytime soon, Teodoro’s vacation remained on hold.

Only temporarily, the SB brass had reassured him. The red-haired FBI agent had vanished into the night, true. But they expected her to be quickly reapprehended once she popped up on their grid again.

And she would pop up again, but not alive.

Teodoro’s deadly little puppet would make sure of that.

Teodoro glanced at his cell phone again as he rode the elevator down to the eighth floor and frowned. Soft Muzak floated from the elevator audio panels, bland and cheerful, a neutered version of a popular rock song.

It’d been hours since he’d received a text from Caterina, a single-word message—acquired—telling him that the assassin had found Wallace. He’d received nothing from her since.

Caterina’s silence, her lack of response to his texts, left him uneasy.

He couldn’t imagine Heather Wallace escaping Caterina, but he could imagine Caterina deciding to spend some quality time with her captive, teaching Wallace the painful cost of her “betrayal” of Dante Baptiste before executing her.

Even so, the delay still troubled him.

Teodoro continued to frown at his cell, his thumbs poised above the touchscreen, as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors glided open, revealing a brightly lit corridor leading into the medical unit.

He let out his breath in a low, frustrated exhalation. No point in sending another text. He would simply have to wait for Caterina to make contact. Slipping his cell phone back into his trouser pocket, Teodoro stepped from the elevator and headed down the corridor, the sharp smell of antiseptic prickling his nostrils.

Aside from Caterina’s extended silence, things had been going very well. Seraphina had convinced the rest of the Oversight Committee not to bring Dante Baptiste in until the majority of the attention generated by his unexpected and unprecedented announcement had faded. The young True Blood was too hot to grab.

A smile flickered across Teodoro’s lips.

By the time they realized Dante was no longer at his club in New Orleans, Heather Wallace would be dead, their bond severed, and Dante’s sanity shattered. At that point, it wouldn’t be Dante Baptiste they needed to deal with, but the Great Destroyer.

“Back so soon?”

The cheerful voice startled Teodoro from his dark reflections.

A nurse in lavender scrubs, her shining chestnut hair tied back in a ponytail, was standing on the threshold of room 416, a clipboard in her hand and a smile on her lips. Her name tag declared her to be Robin Graham LPN.

Slowing to a stop, Teodoro returned Robin’s courteous smile. “I just wanted to look in on Violet before I clocked out for a nap.”

Robin stepped out of the doorway and into the corridor. “She’s finally asleep and”—she arched one warning eyebrow—“I hope to keep her that way. She’s been shuttled back and forth like a suitcase, poor little thing.”

“I’ll whisper my wishes for sweet dreams.”

“See that you do,” Robin said, softening her words with a quick smile. She walked away, headed for the nurses’ station, her shoes squeaking against the floor.

Once she was gone, Teodoro took her place in the doorway and rested one shoulder against it. Violet slept on her side in the darkened room, her freckled face peaceful. Her black paper wings, crumpled and crinkled and a bit tattered after the flight from Baton Rouge and the drive from Dulles, poked up from the back of her nightie.

Looks like she talked the nurses into letting her wear them, Teodoro mused, folding his arms over his chest.

Intercepting Violet once she’d arrived at HQ had been easy and wiping her memory clean of the time she’d spent with Dante at the sanitarium, along with any memory of Dante—not to mention himself—being at Doucet-Bainbridge, had been even easier.

You’re still hoping to see your angel. It’s been a long time.

It has an’ I miss him. When will I see my mommy?

Tomorrow. I promise. She’s asleep right now, honey.

Okay. Thanks, Mr. Díon.

Whether or not Violet’s sedated mother would ever accept her transformed daughter was another matter. For Violet’s sake, Teodoro hoped so.

“Sleep well, sweetie,” Teodoro whispered. “Keep safe.”

As he turned to go, he heard a sleep-thick voice whisper, “He’ll come for me, you know. He promised.”

The hair on the back of Teodoro’s neck prickled. Slowly, he turned around. Violet watched him drowsily, her eyelids weighted by thick, brown lashes.

“What did you say?” he asked slowly.

But Violet’s eyes shuttered closed again and her breathing slid back into the easy rhythm of sleep.

Teodoro stood there a moment, staring at the sleeping child. He knew he hadn’t imagined what she’d said, but also knew what she’d said was impossible.

He’ll come for me, you know. He promised.

Teodoro had erased anything Dante might’ve said to Violet at Doucet-Bainbridge from her memory. She couldn’t remember. Not even in her dreams. He backed away from the doorway, uncertain and chilled to the bone.

Maybe it’s a promise Dante made back in Oregon when she’d been hit by a bullet intended for someone else; a promise given after he’d remade her in Chloe’s image. Those memories are still intact, after all.

A wave of relief swept over Teodoro. Yes. Of course.

Turning, he headed for the elevator in brisk strides, his confidence restored. He shook his head, chagrined. Spooked by a dreaming child’s utterances like a peasant quivering in an oracle’s dank cave.

He needed sleep. He hadn’t rested in days. And while his Fallen half didn’t need sleep, his human half had its limits—and he was near the end of those limits now. He would allow himself a short nap only. Anything longer would have to wait until after he’d witnessed the Elohim forced to kill the creawdwr they’d awaited for eons.

Then he’d sleep the sleep of the righteous, long and deep and untroubled.

AN ANGRY BUMBLEBEE BUZZ drew Teodoro up from dreamless sleep. It seemed as though he’d just shut his eyes, but he received a shock when he glanced at the sleepbay’s bedside clock and realized hours had passed—long hours. It was almost 6 p.m.

So much for a short nap.

“Mierda,” Teodoro muttered, sitting up and scooping the buzzing cell from the end table. Must be Caterina—at last. His frown deepened when he looked at the screen. The number displayed belonged to Richard Purcell, not his little wind-up assassin.

“We’ve got problems,” Purcell said without preamble once Teodoro answered the call. “I can’t get into the building.”

“You’re calling me to tell me that you’re locked out?”

“I wouldn’t call if I was just locked out of the fucking building. I’d phone someone inside. But, you know what? No one inside is fucking answering. I’m calling because every time I drive into the parking lot or walk in—I’ve tried both ways—I find myself back at the motel a short time later, thinking about my wonderful day at work. Something goddamned weird is going on down here. There’s graffiti on the sanitarium doors and windows, more like some kind of symbols, actually.”

The chill Teodoro had felt earlier in Violet’s room returned in full force. What Purcell was describing, his inability to enter the sanitarium’s parking lot for more than a few moments before finding himself at home again, stank of Elohim magic. A blood spell designed to keep mortals away.

“What kind of symbols? Describe them,” Teodoro ordered, standing. He grabbed his neatly draped trousers from the chair back, tucked his phone between chin and shoulder, and pulled them on.

“I’ll do you one better. I’m sending over a picture of one.”

By the time Purcell’s photo had finished loading on his phone, Teodoro’s heart was pounding hard and fast and his chill had deepened into glacial ice. He stared at the image of the blood sigil—a No Trespassing, No Admittance sign—and realized that the Fallen had found Dante Baptiste.

If they force-bonded their unstable, young creawdwr before Heather Wallace died, then all of Teodoro’s hard work would be for nothing. He frowned, studying the image. If the Fallen had found Dante, why would they put up sigils to keep out other Fallen?

Maybe it was vampires who had stumbled across Dante, not Fallen. Or maybe the Fallen had split into warring factions. Again.

“You still there?” Purcell’s voice rose from the phone, a fly’s irritating buzz.

“Of course.” Teodoro mentally thumbed through his options, gradually realizing that if the Fallen were indeed on the scene, he had next to none.

“Oh, there’s one other little thing you should know.”

“And that is?”

“Heather Wallace. I think she’s inside.”

“Impossible,” Teodoro said flatly. “You’re mistaken.”

“I don’t think so. I checked out a car parked down the street. It was unlocked and the rental agreement in the glove box was signed by Caterina Cortini, of all people. And judging by the cracker crumbs on the passenger seat, Cortini wasn’t alone. Now what would she be doing in Baton Rouge, let alone Doucet-Bainbridge?”

Teodoro went still. A very good question. Had Heather somehow managed to override Caterina’s conditioning and convince his assassin that Dante was missing and in need of their assistance?

“I wouldn’t know,” Teodoro lied smoothly. “I’m not her handler. But how does Heather Wallace figure into this? All you have is a car rented by Cortini. An empty car.”

“I pulled fingerprints from the steering wheel, Díon. Used my laptop to scan and upload them to the SB database. They matched what we have on file for Caterina Cortini and Heather Wallace.”

“Are you saying Cortini is helping Wallace?”

“Who the hell knows? All I do know is that I found a Little Rock gas receipt in the car. Cortini knows the SB travel routes and she does have bloodsucker relatives—some pretty damned powerful ones. Or maybe you sent her to intercept Wallace.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To break S. You keep yapping about that, right? So maybe when you learned that our people had found Wallace, you decided to use a little of that Jedi mind-trick bullshit of yours to convince one of our own wetwork specialists to kill Wallace or maybe you just bribed Cortini or whatever, but, yeah, I’m pretty damned sure you’re behind this.”

Teodoro didn’t like how close Purcell had come to the truth. He suspects too much. I need to remedy that.

“So where are they, then? Both are mortal, they wouldn’t be able to go inside anymore than—” Teodoro stopped speaking abruptly, as a memory gleaned from his sojourn inside Dante’s firestorm of a mind popped into his thoughts; a memory of Dante healing Heather when she had been mortally wounded in D.C., making her whole with song and blue flames.

Heather Wallace was no longer entirely mortal, then. But Caterina was—so she should’ve returned to her car and driven away—perhaps repeatedly. Since the car was still parked where Purcell had found it, Teodoro believed Heather had traveled to Baton Rouge alone. Meaning she had somehow escaped Caterina, perhaps killed her. No wonder his texts had gone unanswered.

It seemed his imagination was sorely lacking, he reflected ruefully.

“Mortal? Instead of human?” Purcell questioned in low tones. “Interesting choice of words.”

“I think you know, or at least suspect, more than you claim to, Richard.”

“Richard now, is it?” Purcell said after a long pause. “Like we’re buddies or something?” then adding without waiting for a response, “So do you know what those symbols represent?”

“I do. Something I would have to wipe from your memory if I told you.”

“Ah. That shit again. Christ. Look, just tell me what to do so I can get back inside. Wallace managed it, so can I—if I know what I’m dealing with.”

“Where are you?”

“Outside the parking lot, but out of view. Tell me how to avoid the parking lot hypnotic trance hoodoo bullshit.”

Raking his fingers through his hair, Teodoro considered his options again. He could never make it to Baton Rouge in time to keep whoever had found Dante—Fallen or vampire—from leaving with him and his mortal bondmate. And, even if he did make it in time, killing Wallace might prove difficult, if not impossible, if she was with Fallen and/or vampires and in the company of Dante Baptiste.

But Dante could kill her. Unmake her.

With just the right word. Words Purcell knew.

Teodoro’s lips relaxed into a relieved smile. “I can get you back inside, but you need to listen closely to my instructions and follow them to the letter.”

“I’m listening.”

SLOUCHED IN THE PASSENGER seat of his Chevrolet Suburban, Purcell was making yet another visual sweep of the sanitarium with his binoculars before settling down to follow Díon’s bizarre instructions, when a figure—a winged figure—landed in the parking lot.

White wings, gleaming ivory hair, tall. A man wearing what appeared to be black plaid trousers and boots.

A man with wings. Purcell lowered the binoculars and blinked. Before he had time to process the information his eyes had delivered to his brain, two more figures kited down from the cloud-flecked early evening sky to land gracefully beside the first figure.

The male was also tall with black, waist-length hair and black wings, but wearing regular slacks instead of plaid; the silver-haired female, curves draped in what looked like a Grecian-style gown, fluttered her wings in a blur of white and lavender before folding them at her back.

Slowly, heart pounding against his ribs, Purcell raised the binoculars back to his eyes. And received yet another shock: he recognized one of the winged creatures, the black-winged male.

Lucien De Noir. S’s sugar daddy.

Sweat popped up on Purcell’s forehead as he pondered the implications of what he was seeing. Not angels, their wings weren’t feathered, but smooth. If not angels, then what—demons? Aliens? Gods from fucking Mount Olympus?

He wasn’t sure and at the moment it didn’t matter, really. They were here and he had no doubt whatsoever they were here to fetch S. He also had no doubt this was the reason that prick Díon had kept threatening to wipe his memory.

Drawing in a deep breath, Purcell studied De Noir and his winged companions. They were observing the sanitarium and looking very unhappy. And Purcell chuckled in relief as the reason why became clear.

The symbols seemed to be keeping them from entering the building.

He watched as De Noir vaulted into the sky, ink-black wings spread wide as he flew away. Looking surprised, his companions sped after him. Interesting. Maybe S’s sugar daddy wasn’t immune to the goddamned parking lot spell either or maybe he was off for a spell-busting crowbar. In any case, it was time for Purcell to get to work.

Lowering the binoculars, Purcell tossed them onto the passenger seat. He yanked open the SUV’s glove box, then pulled his pocketknife free from its cluttered depths. He flipped the blade open. Hesitated.

Díon’s instructions had been more than a little nuts, but if they got him inside the sanitarium again, then—nuts or not—okay. He’d roll with it. What other choice did he have?

All we need is a bit of blood magic to protect you from the parking lot spell.

Blood magic. Christ. Whose blood?

Your own, of course.

Shit. I had a feeling. What about the damned symbols on the building?

Not meant for you. Forget those. Concentrate on my instructions.

And Purcell had. Even now Dion’s voice ran through his mind like an irritating commercial jingle that made him groan every time he caught himself humming it.

No more stalling, he thought, drawing the blade gingerly across his palm. Blood welled. Time to man up.

Purcell cupped his stinging palm, creating a tiny well, and dipped a fingertip into its flesh-cradled ruby depths. Looking into the rearview mirror, he painted the first symbol on his forehead between his eyes.

Once symboled up and once the sun had set, he would continue to follow Díon’s instructions and strap on a small helmet-cam and make sure it fed into the mind reading prick’s cell phone so he could monitor the action as it all went down.

Motherfucker wanted to watch. No problem. Watch he would.

Purcell planned only one itty-bitty change to Díon’s S sanity-bashing plan. He’d forgo the part where Heather Wallace died at S’s programming-triggered hands and just kill the fucking little psycho instead.

Okay, sure, that was more than an itty-bitty change—it was an entirely different plan, but so fucking what? S was too dangerous to play games with, an all-important fact that Díon seemed incapable of grasping. So Purcell, good guy that he was, would help him the fuck out.

As for Heather Wallace, she could stay and die or she could walk away. Purcell didn’t really give a rat’s ass. The choice was hers. She’d never been anything more than a pawn, anyway.

And Díon—along with his mind-wiping threats—could go screw himself. The next time they met it would be with the muzzle of his Glock against the back of Díon’s skull. Purcell suspected he’d be doing the SB a favor when he pulled the trigger. He felt a dark and mocking smile tug at his lips.

Hell, they might even give him a promotion.