Moore looked away. She trailed a shaking hand through her blonde hair.
Why have you abandoned us?
Lucien tasted the ashes of bitter regret. He deserved Dante"s hate, perhaps.
My Genevieve, I am with our son. He is safe at last.
Lucien pulled his wrist away from Dante"s mouth, then bent and kissed him, breathing energy in between his lips. Urged his son up to consciousness.
Awaken, child. Time to take your revenge.
Time to free yourself from the past.
Dante"s eyes opened, revealing dilated gold-rimmed pupils.
"Avenge your mother," Lucien whispered. "And yourself."
Pushing Lucien"s arms aside, Dante sat up. The corridor spun. Colored flecks starred his vision. His head ached, but a different kind of pain knifed his heart. Heather.
He looked for her, saw her resting against the wall, a smile on her pale lips. Rising to his feet, he crossed the floor and, kneeling, touched a hand to her face.
He breathed a little easier knowing she"d live. He"d flooded energy and song into her, seeking what was broken. He wasn"t sure what he"d done, but it had worked. He hadn"t lost her.
Heather laid her hand over his, her skin cool. Wonder lit her face. "I hear a song. It"s dark and furious and heartbreaking. So beautiful. Is it coming from you?"
Dante nodded. Leaning in, he kissed her. Her fingers inter-laced with his. "Don"t listen," he said against her lips. "Shut it out.D"accord? "
"Let it go. I can build a case against Moore," Heather said. "Let it go, Dante."
Dante leaned back. "No." He squeezed her hand, then released it. He stood.
Heather closed her eyes. "Pigheaded," she whispered.
Dante spun on his heel and strode across the corridor, past Lucien, Heather"s fear pressed like a rose against his heart. For him. She was scaredfor him.
Elroy the Perv"s body stretched across the doorway, his shirt bloodied, his eyes empty, his heart silent.Dissipating heat shimmered up from the body. Dante"s hands curled into fists.Gina. Elroy had taken the last little bit of her to the grave.
"Name the one you love," Dante whispered, stepping over the Perv.
Tomorrow night?
Always,ma pet.i.te.
Dante walked into a room rank with buried memories and the smell of old blood and medicine. He looked at the woman standing at the opposite wall - tall, blonde, nightkind. Never taking her eyes from him, she reached for a dart gun on the counter beside her.
Images sparked:She looks down at him, smiling. He smells Chloe"s blood congealing on the floor, on the straitjacket wrapped around him. "You"ve done well, little one. You failed to protect her, but you protected yourself. No one can ever be used against you if you"re willing to kill them yourself."
Sparked:She tightens his restraints, smooths a hand through his hair, then, smiling, steps back as a man in a white lab coat and a clear mask walks into the room, a baseball bat clenched in his hand. And goes to work.
Wasps droned. Pain whispered through Dante"s mind. White light squiggled at the edges of his vision.He watched her hand slide to the dart gun; helet her curl her fingers around it.
She"s the one, Dante-angel.
I know, princess.
"My True Blood," she said. A smile brushed her lips. "Do you remember me?"
"Oui,"Dante said, voice low. "I remember you."
Dantemoved and caught her wrist as she raised the dart gun, then slammed her against the wall. The dart gun tumbled from her fingers andtunk ed against the tile. Moore twisted, but Dante held her against the wall, his hands locked around her wrists, his body pressing against hers, his thigh between her legs.
Dante smelled the blood flowing through her veins, listened to the hard pounding of her heart, smelled her - cinnamon and cloves and cold, cold ice.
Smelled l.u.s.t, smoldering and pheromone-rich.
Moore stopped struggling. She looked into Dante"s eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and another memory-fragment tore through his mind: Moore curled naked and warm beside him, reeking of blood and s.e.x, her fangs in his throat, her fingers in his hair.
Rage coiled through muscles already taut. "What makes you different fromhim ?" Dante nodded his head toward Jordan"s body behind him.
"I know what"s best for you."
"Yeah, he thought so, too."
"No one knows you like I do," Moore said, voice husky. "I"ve explored your mind. Mapped your psyche. But it"s only a beginning. There are secrets, S -"
"Ain"t S."
Music twisted through Dante: an aria, thorned and dark, p.r.i.c.kling around his heart, rising, pounding, a crescendo of fury and chaos and loss. Chords strummed; chaos rhythm pulsed discordant and raw.
His song burned. Incandescent.
"Did my mother ask to be turned?" Dante asked. "Did she choose?"
"Yes. But, she changed her mind later, when it was too late. I couldn"t undo -"
"Liar," Dante whispered.
"What"s that glow?" Moore breathed as he lifted his hands and cupped her face.
Chaos rhythm plucked at vibrating strands of DNA, breaking, compressing, erasing.Unmaking.
Johanna Moore screamed, a long undulating sound that pierced Dante"s aching head. His song pulled her apart - divided her into elements, played an arpeggio with her core. Spilled her essence. Separatedflesh and bone and blood.
Johanna Moore puddled on the floor, her scream ending with a wet gurgle.
Blue spikes of energy whipped around Dante, flamed from his hands. He shivered, caught in the song, the rhythms of chaos, the tempo of creation. Closed his eyes. He saw stars. Heard a rush of wings.
Dante opened his eyes. The song faded into silence. Pain sc.r.a.ped through his head. He tasted blood. He looked down at the moist strands that used to be Johanna Moore. Kicked them apart. Then he turned.Lucien stared at him, eyes golden, wings arched behind him, his face both rapt and...scared? Dante wondered. Lucien, scared?
Dante walked to the doorway. He knelt beside Elroy"s cooling body. Could he pull Gina from a dead mind?"Too late," Lucien said. "You"ve chosen the living over the dead."
Looking up, Dante saw Heather sitting across the hall, face stark, eyes dark and troubled. "Oui.The living over the dead."
Forgive me, Gina.
Standing, Dante stepped over the Perv"s body one last time. He gathered Heather into his arms and carried her down the corridor. His muscles tightened as he smelled fear on her, fearof him. He held her close, his heart pounding hard.
A man in a snow-dusted parka stepped into the corridor, his hands out and open;Look, nothing hidden here! "I can call an ambulance," he said.
"You can trust him," Heather murmured. "He helped me."
"Okay," Dante said. "Call one." He breathed in Heather"s scent - rain and sage and blood, drew it deep into his lungs. Scared it was the last time.
34.
All that Could"ve Been "Hey."
Heather looked up toward the doorway. Dante leaned there in leather and latex, one hand braced against the threshold. Fluorescent light winked from the ring in his collar and from the rings on his fingers.
A half smile tilted his lips, lit his pale, gorgeous face. He raised his shades to the top of his head.
He still stole her breath away. She suspected that he always would. Beyond him, in the corridor, nurses and CNAs stared, wondering who paid hospital visits wearing leather and bondage collars, wondering just what had wandered in from the frozen night.
"Hey," Heather said.
She pressed her hands against the mattress, meaning to ease up, but then Dante was there, arms around her, helping her, his hands hot against her skin. Pain rippled through her and she caught her breath.
"What"s wrong?" Dante asked. "Do you need -"
"No. It"s okay."
Dante looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes searching her face. Then he inhaled deeply. He pulled the chair close to the bed and sat. He waited. Heather was pretty sure he knew what she was going to say - or, at least, suspected.
Reaching a hand over the bed railing, she grasped Dante"s hand. A smile ghosted across his lips. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. She glanced out the window, at the room reflected in the black sky beyond, and the two people in that room, holding hands and keeping silent.
Heather thought of the mystified surgeons: the worst of the damage to her aorta and her left lung healed or closed off, or miraculously cauterized. She should"ve bled to death in minutes. She remembered the taste of Dante"s lips, the amaretto taste of his blood; remembered the cool fire he"d breathed into her.
None of which Heather could tell the surgeons. Or the investigators from the Bureau dispatched to take her statement, debrief her and uncover the truth. Or at least anofficial version of the truth. She knew better than to mention Bad Seed; she only discussed her hunt for a serial killer and how she"d finally found him.
One thing she knew for certain - her career with the Bureau was over. Her decision, one she hadn"t voiced yet. The powers that be would be happy to file her away at a desk in an obscure city; would, in fact, prefer it.
Heather kept Dante from all of them. He"d saved her life. Even without that, she"d never hand him over to federal wolves. Hadn"t Johanna Moore been wolf enough?
Johanna Moore. What Dante had done...Heather couldn"t wrap her mind around it. Whathad he done?
Dante cups Moore"s face. His hands tremble. Glow with blue light. Blue flame. His hair snakes up into the air. Energy crackles. Heather"s skin goose b.u.mps. Her hair lifts. She smells ozone.
Blue light shafts into Moore"s body, explodes from her eyes, her screaming mouth.
She...separates...into strands, wet and glistening, mingled blue and red. Dante unthreads her, separates every single part of her.
Johanna Moore spills to the tiled floor.
Energy continues to whip from Dante, blue tentacles snapping into the air andalteringeverything they touch. A counter twists into dark, heaving vines thick with blue thorns. The dart gun slithers into the shadows. Dante"s beautiful face is ecstatic - like it had been when he"d torched the Prejean house.
In that moment, Heather had been terrified of Dante. Of what he could do. His potential. Yet...had Dante been a voice for his mother? For all of Johanna Moore"s victims?
"Talk to me," Dante said.
Heather shifted her gaze from the window. Smiling, she squeezed his hand. He burned against her palm.
Felt fevered. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"ca va bien.I"m good." Dante held her gaze, his own open and unwavering. "Talk to me, Heather."
She nodded. Talk might help. "What you did to Moore...what...how...?"
"Dunno," Dante said. He trailed a hand through his hair. "I"ve never done...that...before. The song you said you heard? It"s tied to that. I feel it inside." He touched their linked hands against his chest, above his heart. "It"s like fingering the strings on my guitar, like composing on my keyboards."
"Is it a nightkind or a Fallen ability?"
Dante stared at her, surprised. "How did you know?"
"Your father told me," Heather said.
Dante nodded, then looked away. A muscle flexed in his jaw. After a moment, he said, "I"m pretty sure it"s a Fallen thing. I used to think it was nightkind, but..." He shrugged.
"Can you control it?"
"Not always. No." Dante looked at her, reflected light gleaming in his eyes.
"Were you controlling it then?"
"More or less."