On Midnight Wings

5 TRUE NORTH DALLAS, TEXAS THE STRICKLAND DEPROGRAMMING INSTITUTE

“YOU NEVER REALIZE THAT you’re under the influence until you no longer are, but I’m finally thinking clearly—I mean crystal, y’know?—for the first time since I met . . . him.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe the difference.”

Pacing the sand-colored carpet in her slippers, Heather Wallace was busy lying through her teeth, lying for all she was worth, an Oscar-caliber, rose bouquet–throwing, standing-ovation performance—or so she hoped, since she desperately wanted to remain free of sedatives and restraints—when an unexpected mental touch put an abrupt stop to her flow of words. Halted her in her tracks.

Llygad. Nightkind. Nomad. Friend.

Heather’s breath caught in her throat as Von’s image suddenly flooded her mind, saturating her senses with his masculine scent—old leather, frost, and gun oil—warm and reassuring. His sending, pearled with intense relief, threaded like silk through her mind.

<Damn, woman. There you are. You okay, doll?>

<I sure as hell am now, road rider. But hold on, all right? I’m not alone.>

<Ain’t going nowhere.>

Boneless with relief of her own, Heather plopped down on the edge of the brown leather sofa, the cushions creaking beneath her. She exhaled, then carefully drew in another breath, in an attempt to calm her racing heart.

Von had caught her completely off-guard—but in one helluva good way.

Between the thick cotton fog of the drugs IV-fed into her veins and the ferocious tsunami of awakening emotions once the drugs had been stopped—a white-knuckled fury at the man she would never call her father again, and a deep, icy fear for Dante—Heather hadn’t realized that her blood link with Von was still intact. Had believed it long gone.

“Heather? You seem very distant. Are you all right?”

Looking up, she met the gaze of the dark-haired therapist—Allan Wade, but please call me Allan—sitting across from her in a polished mahogany leather chair. Dressed casually in white shirt, sage-green tie, and khaki trousers, he studied her, head tilted slightly to one side.

“You look pale,” he added, frowning. “Are you feeling ill?”

“A little nauseous,” she said in a low, reluctant voice as though he were forcing the admission from her. She allowed her fingers to pluck at her hideous peach chenille bathrobe. “I think I’d like to go back to my room and lie down. This has all been so . . .” She paused as though searching for a word.

“Overwhelming?” Allan suggested.

“Exactly. Overwhelming.”

Allan rested his notepad and pen on the small end table beside his chair, then leaned forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin. “How do you feel about your father’s decision to bring you here?” He regarded her with a penetrating walnut-brown gaze. Analyzing every word, every hesitation, every glance and gesture.

Heather wondered just how strong, how accurate, his bullshit meter ran.

“One problem at a time,” she replied, meeting that gaze with steel of her own. “You’re touching on an issue that goes way back.”

“All right, then,” Allan agreed easily. “We’ll come back to that at another session. For now, let’s get you back to your room so you can rest.” He rose from his chair and Heather caught a strong citrusy whiff of his too liberally applied cologne. “Those sedatives can really take it out of a person.”

Heather stood as well. “I don’t think I need any more sedatives,” she said. “I might not be happy with my dad, but I understand now that I need to be here.”

“You are much calmer and more clear than you were last night. Less volatile. I think we can forgo them for now.”

Relief surged through Heather, weakening her knees with its intensity. “Thanks,” she said, then added a heartfelt lie. “You won’t regret it.”

“No, I won’t,” Allan said quietly. “But you will if you abuse my trust.”

“Don’t worry,” Heather replied as he walked her across the room to the door. “I’ll do whatever it takes to avoid restraints and drugs.” Late afternoon sunlight slanted across the carpet from the two steel-meshed windows behind them, gleamed from the door’s bronzed lever.

It hit her then. Daylight.

Daylight and Von should be Sleeping. De Noir must’ve pulled the nomad up from Sleep like he had with Dante the morning she’d served her search warrant—weeks ago.

A lifetime ago.

“Get some rest,” Allan said, pulling open the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Not if I can help it. But Heather kept that thought to herself and gave Allan a quick smile instead, then stepped into the hall, where her assigned security escort, a trim blonde in a charcoal-gray suit with a name tag reading Riggins, waited for her.

Riggins started walking in a long-legged, easy stride and Heather fell into step beside her, slippers soundless against the plush carpet, eager to get back to her room and resume her conversation with Von.

Riggins didn’t pack a gun as far as Heather could tell; instead she carried a Taser in a slim black holder clipped to her belt underneath her suit jacket. Heather judged her to be in her mid-thirties, noted her air of athletic confidence, and wondered how hard it would be to take her down when the time came to make a break for it.

If I tried now, with the drugs still lingering in my system, she’d have me on the floor, arm twisted up behind my back and screaming Uncle! before I could even unholster her Taser.

But now that she had Von online . . .

“Here we go,” Riggins said, stopping at an open doorway. “If you need anything, just use the call button.”

“Will do.”

Once Heather had stepped inside, she heard the click and buzz as the door was shut behind her and the locks activated.

Heather went to the bed and perched on the edge of the mattress. It was a hospital bed despite the resort flair to everything else in the place, from bathrobe to designer accessories in the bathroom to the minifridge stocked with high-end bottled water. A resort minus TVs, phones, and Internet in the guest rooms. But maybe the addition of restraints, burly orderlies, and forced sedatives made up for that lack, she mused darkly.

The air was conditioned and cool, and smelled faintly of ozone. And since it looked like the steel mesh–screened windows couldn’t be opened—at least not from the inside—the air-conditioning was a good thing.

She reached out for Von. Felt him respond, brushing like a cat against her awareness.

<Right here, doll. Tell me where you are so we can come get you.>

<That’s the problem. I don’t know. It’s a mental health facility of some kind—a rehab apparently for the brainwashed victims of religious cults, deep-cover operations, and apparently, in my case, nightkind.>

<Brainwashed? Shee-it. You? Your old man really doesn’t know you at all, does he, doll?>

<No. No he doesn’t. I know I was told the name of the place last night, but I don’t remember. My goddamned memory’s been drug-bombed. I haven’t seen anything naming the place. Not on stationery, or on the walls, on uniforms—nothing.>

<Relax, and it’ll come back to you. Keep looking. Maybe you’ll spot something.>

<Dante—what did my father do to him? The things I felt . . .>

Last night, before the honey-talking nurse had released a flood of sedatives into her IV with a single button push, Heather had been convinced Dante was dying, that she was losing him.

In anticipation of her session with Wade, the drugs had been stopped in the morning, and once the fog had cleared from her mind, Heather had reached for Dante through their bond. Their bond still held, the flame that was Dante’s presence burning deep within her, reassuring her that he was still alive. Last night that flame had been guttering, now it was steady again, but subdued—a candle beneath a dark mirror.

She’d tried to connect with him, to fill his dreams—or, much more likely, his nightmares—with white silence and calm, to let him know that he wasn’t alone, that she was with him even in the darkness.

But he’d been beyond her reach, swallowed whole by pain and whispers and the acrid bite of drugs. She’d kept trying though, again and again, until her security escort in the form of Riggins had come to walk her to Wade’s office.

Dante’s silence scared her—without question. But Von’s sudden silence was scaring the holy loving hell out of her.

<Von? Nothing you can say will be worse than the things I’ve imagined.>

But Von proved her dead wrong on that point.

He answered her with a controlled stream of images—images gleaned from her sister’s memory. Heather had never imagined any of this. Dante shot in cold blood with bullets designed to kill a True Blood. Von and Silver gunned down in their Sleep as well. The club torched. Her pregnant sister tranked and slung like a deer carcass over their father’s shoulder—no, dammit, he would only be James Wallace from now on, nothing more.

But the worst of all—the one thing she hadn’t imagined: Dante missing. Stolen from the burning club by parties unknown, for reasons unknown, destination unknown.

Heather swallowed hard, feeling hollow and sick.

All because James Wallace didn’t approve of her relationship choice or career decisions. No. It was even simpler than that. Control. It was all about control. He’d felt like he’d lost control over his daughters and he’d decided to rectify the situation.

Jesus Christ. Bitter acid burned at the back of Heather’s throat.

<I hate breaking it to you like that, doll. I’m truly sorry.> Regret curled thick through Von’s sending, as did a brass-knuckled resolve. <But we can find Dante—through your bond. You’re like a living, breathing GPS where Dante is concerned. We’ll find him. We just need to find you first. So keep working that memory.>

<I am,> Heather assured him. <Annie? Is she okay?>

<She’s worried sick about you . . . but, yeah, she’s safe.>

<Safe is good. But is she okay?>

Apprehension sank an anchor into Heather’s belly as she realized she no longer felt the thrum of the nomad’s energy through their link.

<Von?>

Empty silence.

Heather’s hands clenched into fists on her chenille-covered thighs. If the link had finally given up the ghost before she could even give him a hint, some clue as to her whereabouts—

<Heather. Hey, the damn link is starting to go.> Von confirmed her fear. <And I have a feeling it ain’t gonna last much longer. If you can remember anything that might help me find you, now would be the time, woman. But know this>—a deep and deadly determination composed his sending, a promise mind-to-mind—<whether you remember anything or not before this goddamned link falls apart, I will find you. You and Dante. No matter what it takes.>

A smile stole across Heather’s lips. <I know.>

<Good. Now get to work, woman.>

Closing her eyes, Heather did exactly that. She shoved her way past sedative-thickened dreams and shock-hazed memories to the previous night, in search of the words that had spilled so damned cheerfully from James Wallace’s lips.

A ceiling dotted with soft, recessed lights; a fuzzy where-am-I? feeling that quickly morphs into an icy ribbon of fear as she realizes she doesn’t know; the pull of restraints at her wrists and ankles as she tries to sit up.

“Pumpkin.”

James Wallace stands in the doorway, his eyes hidden behind the reflections glimmering on the lenses of his glasses.

“What have you done to Dante?” she asks, her voice tight, simmering with bitter fury despite the drugs cocooning her mind.

“You need to focus on your own life, Heather. You need to reclaim it. And once we’ve freed you of that damned bloodsucker’s influence, once we’ve scrubbed the taint of his touch off you, you’ll be my daughter again, the brilliant FBI agent.”

Heather’s eyes opened. James Wallace didn’t realize he no longer had a daughter. Not yet. But what else had the bastard said? She rubbed her forehead as though she could summon the memory like a genie from a lamp.

A nurse in blue scrubs pads into the room carrying an IV bag, which she starts to connect to the IV stand positioned beside the bed. “You’ll feel much better once the drugs start to work,” the nurse assures Heather. “It’ll make the therapy easier, as well.”

And there they were—the magic words.

Welcome to the Strickland Deprogramming Institute.

Heather quickly sent the memory to Von with its priceless nugget of information, then realized with a hollow feeling that he was gone once again. Hoping against hope that it was just a brief glitch like last time, she continued to send the memory to him on a repeating loop.

<Von. Come in, Von . . .>

Heather opened her eyes, then rose to her feet. Maybe she could gather a little more intel for him—provided it wasn’t too late. Hurrying to the window across the room, her slippers whispering across polished tile, she looked out through glass and steel mesh into a parking lot surrounded by forested green and a high fence. Several dozen cars, SUVs, and pickups populated the blacktop, bumpers glinting in the sunshine. She narrowed her eyes trying to make out a license plate. Was that Texas?

<Doll . . .>

Heather exhaled in relief. The link was still working—for the moment, anyway. <Did you get it?>

Frustration sliced through the nomad’s sending. <Only bits and pieces . . . full of holes . . . again . . .>

Gripping the smooth wood of the windowsill, Heather poured everything she had into sending the memory one more time, knowing it might be her last chance. Focused on the most important part: Welcome to the Strickland Deprogramming Institute and Texas.

<Did you get it this time?>

But once again, Von’s energy had disappeared, leaving only silence behind. Heather had a sinking feeling that the link had finally unraveled. Sighing, she rested her head against the sun-warmed glass and wearily closed her eyes. She had no way of knowing if the information had reached Von or not. While she hoped it had, she needed to plan as if it hadn’t.

She needed to steal a Taser and a phone. A tight smile curved her lips. Hell, a nail file had saved her ass in the past, maybe she’d get lucky again. She also needed to find a way out of Strickland, a path past all the security escorts and door guards, past the alarms she knew had to be rigged into every entrance and exit.

She’d bet anything the fence outside was electric—not a lethal charge, but one strong enough to stun. And even though she hadn’t seen it from the vantage provided by her window, she had no doubt that there would be security personnel patrolling the grounds and guarding the front gate.

Stealing a car would be difficult—unless she could find an older, pre-computerized model. Possibilities streamed through her mind. Maybe a hostage. Maybe a fire. She could attempt to slip away during the confusion that was sure to happen when the facility was evacuated.

Heather felt an urgent tug to the east through the bond connecting her to Dante, a restless drive to go now, and knew—down to the bone, heart-deep, and gut-sure—that if she followed that intuitive eastward pull, she’d find Dante at the end of it.

Living, breathing GPS, Von had called her. Maybe, but Heather sensed only a general direction, nothing specific like ‘left turn in two point five miles.’ She had a feeling another analogy was more accurate—she was a compass and Dante true north.

All she needed to do was start walking.

But the cold prickling along Heather’s spine warned her that she needed to hurry. A timer set to an unknown hour was ticking away the minutes. A deadline with an unspecified but looming date was breathing down her neck.

Words Dante had said only two nights ago returned to her. Stark, whispered words she was determined to prove wrong—a lie.

I feel like I’m running out of time, catin.

No, cher, no. I refuse to lose you.

But if she remained sitting on her butt in Strickland gambling that Von had received her last transmission, that was exactly what would happen, she would lose Dante. Lose the man—nightkind/Fallen/creawdwr—she’d chosen to stand beside, come Gehenna, Molotov cocktails, government assassins, or even her own damn father.

I feel like I’m running out of time, catin.

<Stay with me, Baptiste,> Heather sent to him. <Stay here-and-now. Show me just how pigheaded you truly are.>

This time her sending vanished instead of bouncing back unheard, but Heather had no idea whether that meant Dante had actually received it or if his pain and nightmares had simply devoured it.

It didn’t matter. She would keep trying. Just like he had in the club. As she’d seen through her sister’s eyes in the images Von had poured into her mind.

Dante half slides, half falls to his knees on the Oriental carpet in front of their room, his black-painted nails scraping furrows along the threshold on his way down. “J’su ici, catin,” he whispers, his words Sleep-slurred. “Je t’entends.”

I’m here. I hear you.

Heather had believed it impossible to reach Dante while Sleep embraced him, but when James Wallace had sauntered into the club she’d hammered a warning against his shields anyway. And he’d heard her. He’d fought his way free from Sleep’s talons for her. Stubborn will. Quiet strength. Fierce.

She would do no less for him.

Prying her fingers loose from the windowsill, Heather turned away from the tempered glass and the lowering sun and shadowed grounds beyond it, and headed back to the bed. Hours and hours of forced sedatives and emotional stress had taken their toll. She wouldn’t be any good to anyone, let alone herself and Dante, if she keeled over from exhaustion.

Heather kicked off her slippers and slipped beneath the bed’s flowered comforter. She’d rest for a little bit, then eat. Despite having no appetite, she needed to refuel, to build up her strength. She had no idea how far “east” might turn out to be.

As she draped an arm over her eyes, a dark and terrifying scenario popped into her mind. Crackled ice through her veins. Suppose Shadow Branch operatives had been watching the club and, witnessing James Wallace’s little snatch, murder, and burn routine, had decided to take advantage of what must have seemed like the perfect opportunity.

A black ops version of a Powerball win.

And what if the SB discovered that Dante was much more than a True Blood? Discovered he was also a creawdwr? That he could not only Make and Unmake anyone and anything, but open gates to other worlds as well?

With just one whispered word, the SB could trigger Dante’s programming and twist him, force him, into becoming—

An image flickered to life in the darkness behind Heather’s eyes, an image infused with Dante’s scent of burning leaves and November frost; a recurring vision of a possible future, of a destiny embraced.

Tendrils of Dante’s black hair lift into the air as though breeze-caught. Gold light stars out from his kohl-rimmed eyes. He looks up as song—not his own—rings through the air. The night burns, the sky on fire from horizon to horizon.

—the Great Destroyer.

Heather still didn’t know which path her vision revealed—Dante as never-ending Road fighting to save the mortal world and everyone in it or as Great Destroyer leading the Fallen to war—but it wouldn’t matter if Dante didn’t survive what James Wallace had done to him. And Dante’s survival was all that mattered. The rest could wait.

<Stay with me, Baptiste.>

But that sending also vanished, a single rain drop into a vast, black lake. Despite the cold fear knotted around her heart, exhaustion could no longer be denied. Sleep swept over Heather in a relentless tide, claiming her as she sent to Dante one more time.

<Stay, cher. Please.>