In his right hand, pinched between two fingers, he displayed a bloodied sliver of plastic. "See this?" he said. "A bug implanted at birth. So you couldalways be followed. Studied. Et cetera, et cetera. I had to dig mine out by myself."
Pain slammed through Dante"s skull. Bugs? Implants? An image flickered behind the pain - a woman, short blonde hair, blue eyes, fangs - murmuring,They"re afraid of you, my little True Blood . Pain shattered the image.
Ronin"s low voice:What are you afraid of, True Blood?
A needle p.r.i.c.ked the skin on his throat.
"Your nose is bleeding," Elroy said. "That"s kinda s.e.xy."
The Perv"s lips, hot and tasting of tobacco, pressed against Dante"s mouth; his kiss as gentle as a fist. As Elroy"s hand glided over Dante"s body, the drugs tumbled him back into the darkness of Papa Prejean"s bas.e.m.e.nt.
Dante-angel?
Let me burn, princess.
Heather opened her eyes as De Noir descended, gliding, onto the wrought-iron balcony outside Dante"sbedroom. She slipped her arms from around his neck and stepped down onto the concrete. Her hand felt frozen to the briefcase"s handle. A quick glance revealed bright red fingers, cold, but not iced.
She walked into the unlit bedroom through the opened French windows. The air smelled of candle wax and crisp autumn leaves, smelled of Dante. The sight of the unmade futon, the rumpled sheets, twisted her heart. She closed her eyes.
Focus on finding Jordan. Focus on finding him fast - before he goes to work on Dante and learns he never has to stop.
Heather opened her eyes and strode across the room. As she rounded the corner into the hall, she saw Simone on the stairs, her pale face anxious.
"Lucien told us what happened," Simone said, stepping onto the landing. "What do you need Trey to do?" Her dark gaze shifted past Heather and up.
De Noir stepped past Heather, b.u.t.toning on a black shirt.
Lucien told us what happened.Of course. Heather swallowed back the words she"d planned to say, hard words -Dante took a bullet to the head and now a serial killer has him, just as he said he would, just as he promised, in innocent blood.
Heather said, "I need your brother to do another search for any kind of rentals or purchases recently made by either Ronin or Jordan. Have him do a vehicle search too."
"D"accord."Turning, Simone trotted down the stairs.
De Noir glanced at the briefcase. "What"s inside?"
Heather looked up and met his gaze. "Dante"s past."
"Where did you get it?"
"From my boss," she said, voice low. "The man who shot Dante."
De Noir"s jaw tightened. His gaze shifted to a point above and beyond Heather. Tendrils of his black hair snaked up into the now electrified air. The smell of ozone spiked the air. Heather"s hair lifted. Her skin tingled.Lightning strike.
"Have you looked at what"s in that case?"
"No. I"d hoped to give it to Dante."
De Noir"s gaze dropped and swept over Heather. She saw nothing she recognized in his eyes, human or otherwise. After a moment, he nodded.
"Then we shall look at it together," he said.
Arm throbbing, E steered the van into a rest stop off I-59. Needed a pick-me-up. He shut off theengine, glanced in the rearview mirror. Dante slept, head turned to one side, handcuffed wrists stretched above him.
E opened the door, slid partway out, then froze. Maybe Dantewasn"t sleeping. Maybe he was faking it and planned some kind of kicking, yelling, rescue-me-bulls.h.i.t. Better make sure. Climbing back into the van, E crawled past the front seats to the back, and scooted to the air bed.
Dante"s breathing was slow and easy. Strands of black hair partially covered his face. E poked him in the ribs. Nuthin". Doped and flying sky-high. He grabbed his shoulder, shook him. Nuthin".
E"s gaze scrolled down the bloodsucker"s hard, yummy body - bondage collar; vintage black NIN T-shirt, rucked up a little, a line of flat belly exposed; chain-strapped black jeans, metal-studded belt, the belt and jeans unfastened at the moment.
E bent over Dante, a shiv sliding into his good right hand. He punched the shiv into Dante"s chest. The bloodsucker"s body spasmed. His breath caught, rattled, then released hard and fast. Blood bubbled up on his lips. But his eyes didn"t open. Out cold.
d.a.m.ned good drugs,E mused.Wonder if he can heal with the shiv in his chest?
Rummaging through his satchel, E dry-swallowed a handful of pills, then made his way up front again. He hopped out of the van and sauntered to the free-coffee stand. The image of Dante sleeping with the shiv buried in his flesh burned itself into his mind and left him trembling.
Heather sat at the kitchen table, the briefcase open on the cobalt-blue tablecloth, and switched on her laptop. De Noir drew up a chair and sat beside her, frowning. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the folder from the briefcase, set it on the table and opened it.
Photos spilled out: some current, taken surrept.i.tiously, Dante unaware; others showed Dante as a teenager, a child, a toddler; the boy"s wary gaze, the toddler"s fanged half smile, the teen"s smirk and raised middle finger.
She handed each photo to De Noir. He studied every image for long moments, jaw tensing, wordless.
One photo captured her attention: Dante laughing, his arms around a grinning girl with freckles and long red hair, her face half turned to him. Dante appeared to be twelve, maybe thirteen, the girl eight or nine.
Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.
Heather stared at the picture, at Dante"s happy face, the only photo of him laughing - big brother and guardian angel for another child lost in the system of foster homes and state programs. Handing De Noir the photo, she slid the CD into the laptop"s drive. When a menu popped up, she lined down to the section marked S AND CHLOE and clicked it open. Surrept.i.tiously filmed footage filled the monitor: In faded jeans and a gray tee, Dante sits cross-legged on the floor, his back against a neatly made bed, his attention focused on the book in his lap. Chloe sits on the bed in lavender cords and pink Pooh sweater, watching him, her sneakered feet kicking idly against the bed frame. A plushie orca is tucked under one arm.
"Sound it out," she says, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger. "k.u.m...for...k.u.mfor...tay...bull...k.u.mfortaybull. Comfortable."
"You got it!"
"Yeah?" A pleased smile lights Dante"s face.
"Yup," Chloe confirms. "Now finish the sentence."
"Pooh"s bed was comfortable and...warm."
"You learn fast," Chloe says. "I bet if you didn"t sleep during the day and could go to school, you"d get straight As."
Dante snorts, then glances back at her from over his shoulder. "I"d have all Fs."
"For...?" Chloe coaxes, gathering his hair into a ponytail and smoothing its black length between her hands. "What starts with F?"
"f.u.c.k school."
She giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. "Dante-angel!"
A blur of motion, then Dante is suddenly up from the floor and tickling Chloe. She shrieks with laughter, rolling on the bed, her sneakers thumping the mattress. Laughing, he tucks an arm against his side and tries to protect his ribs from her retaliatory fingers.
He tugs free the plushie orca from under Chloe"s arm and swims the toy through the air past her grabbing hands. He stops it at her nose. Leans it forward. "Mmm-wah!" A big sloppy orca kiss.
"Can I brush your hair while you practice printing the alphabet?" Chloe asks.
"Sure," Dante says, handing the orca back to her.
"Boy, you need to get your a.s.s down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and now," a man"s voice - bayou-bred and deep - says from off-camera. "Gotta visitor comin" and gotta cuff you up. You don"t need none of dat school s.h.i.t for the work you do,pet.i.t. Waste o" time." The speaker laughs, a cigarette-raspy sound ending in a cough.
"f.u.c.k you," Dante says. "I"ll be there in a minute."
Chloe"s smile vanishes and she sits up, the plushie held tight againsther pink sweater. "Leave him alone," she says, her voice sharp, her brows slanting down - defiant and pale.
"Hush, you. Or I"ll put my hand upside your head."
Dante"s hand squeezes Chloe"s knee. She closes her mouth. He looks at the speaker, all expression gone from his face, but fire burns in his dark eyes, a fire the speakermustfeel, see.
"You"re gonna need more than handcuffs to hold me if you touch her," Dante says, his voice low and flat. Another cigarette-raspy laugh. "Full of att.i.tude, aintcha, boy. Move your a.s.s or I"ll just send littlem"selle feisty in your place -"
Dante turns and kisses Chloe"s forehead, smoothes her long hair back from her face. "Night-night, princess. I"ll see you tomorrow."
Worry shadows Chloe"s face. "Dante-angel..."
He shakes his head. "Shhh.Je suis ici.Don"t come down. Not tonight."
She nods, unhappy. Dante blows her a kiss and walks from the room.
The footage ended. Heather paused a moment - how old was he? Twelve? - then she forced her fingertips from her palms, and clicked on the next section.
Later, eyes burning, she understood why De Noir had said that Dante"s past was something better left unremembered. She understood it would break his heart. And she understood why Stearns had called him a monster.
Choking on blood, Dante awakened. Darkness. Engine noise. Pain raked his chest. Blood filled his mouth. Turning onto his side, the handcuffs clunk-tunking as he moved, he spat blood on the floor until he could suck in a breath of air.
Dizzied, he listened to the engine"s soothing, steady sound. He glanced down. A knife"s hilt protruded from his chest.
"We"ve entered Alabama," Elroy said. "Don"t it feel good?"
Dante caught Elroy"s shaded gaze in the rearview mirror. The Perv grinned.
"Never mind the shiv," he said. "Couldn"t resist. How does it feel?"
Dante coughed, spat, then said, "f.u.c.k you. Take these cuffs off and I"ll show you." He jerked his arms, rattling the cuffs.
Elroy laughed. "That"s my Bad Seed bro."
Dante drifted off again as the miles rolled past, not really asleep, but caught in a twilight-zone haze created by drugs and pain. He opened his eyes as the van slowed down, then stopped.
The Perv keyed off the engine and stretched. He slipped between the seats, pausing to close a curtain between the front of the van and the back. He crab-walked over to Dante"s side of the van. Grabbing a battered black satchel, he opened it and pulled out a file folder thick with paper.
"Time for you to learn a few things." Elroy dropped onto his knees and bent over Dante. "Like who and what you are." Grabbing the shiv hilt, he yanked the blade out of Dante"s chest.
Refusing to touch his bond with Lucien, Dante tried his links to Von and Simone instead. Pain buzzedthrough his head as each attempt rebounded, unheard. Whatever the Perv was pumping into his veins had m.u.f.fled his mind like a thick layer of gauze.
Elroy played with the shiv, twirling the blade up, over and around. Wet with blood, the knife glistened beneath the covered light. On his last over-and-under pa.s.s, he drove the blade into Dante"s stomach.
Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Pain stole his voice. Another punch and the pain seared his chest, sucked away his air. He coughed up blood.
"Time to teach you all things S," Elroy murmured. "Open your eyes."
Fingers fluttered across Dante"s eyelids. Whispered across his lips. He smelled blood on Elroy"s fingers - his own. He opened his eyes and looked into Elroy"s sweating face. The grin had vanished. His fingers still held the second shiv in Dante"s chest. He pressed down on it.Leaned into it and twisted.
Pain corkscrewed through Dante"s chest and black spots speckled his vision. He bit his lip, determined not to scream, determined not to give the sick little f.u.c.k the satisfaction.
Dante-angel?
Shhh. Not now, princess. Gotta wake up. Gotta quit dreaming.
"Listen to me," Elroy said.
Dante blinked until his vision cleared. Spat blood. Coughed. The handles of two shivs stuck up from his body, one in the belly and one in the chest.
The Perv held up photos. Dante stared. They were of him, but when he was younger, from the years he couldn"t remember. Pain p.r.i.c.ked behind his eyes, jabbed his temples.
"You"re part of a project called Bad Seed," Elroy said. "Me too. In fact, we"re the last surviving members. They got me when I was two or three after my parents did the ol" you-kill-me-I"ll-kill-you routine." He held up a photo of a grinning toddler. "Wasn"t I a cutie?"
Elroy picked up a folder, flipped through the contents. "Now you, you they had shortly after conception.
They nursed your mama through a difficult pregnancy, then whacked her after you were born. Being a bloodsucker and all, they cut off her head and torched her body."
Heart pounding, struggling for air, Dante tried to make sense of Elroy"s words. Pain scoured away his thoughts. He coughed. His mother...
Genevieve.
You look so much like her.
Wasps droned and his vision blurred. From a great distance, he heard the Perv say: "She named you before she died. And it amused Mommy-b.i.t.c.h Moore to let you keep the name. Dante."
Something smacked hard across Dante"s face, rocking his head to the side. His teeth sliced into his lower lip again. White light sparked and flared at the edges of his vision. Narrowing his gaze against the light, he focused on Elroy"s sallow face. "I was losin" ya," Elroy said. "Your nose is bleeding again, by the way."
Dante coughed, a lung-tearing spasm that brought up gouts of bright blood. Elroy scooted back out of gouting/spitting range.
"Take out the f.u.c.king knives," Dante whispered after the spasm had pa.s.sed. "Then go on. Read it to me. Hit me if I pa.s.s out. But read it to me."