A Rush of Wings (39 page)

Chloe…

Dante’s princess, his little sister, his heart. He screamed as the in-between memory rammed past the pain. He screamed, yanking on the handcuffs, coughing up blood, choking. Something sharp jabbed his neck—stung. Cold curled through his veins.

As Dante slid down into drugged darkness, Chloe’s image already fading from his mind—
No
!
Let me keep her
!—an answer to a question stood clear in his mind:

What are you afraid of, True Blood
?

Not you, Peeping Tom. Not you
.

Me
.

Someone laughed and Dante didn’t know if it was himself or Elroy. But whoever it was laughed and laughed and laughed.

***

HEATHER POPPED THE CD out of the laptop. Elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands, weary and heartsick. Dante had been so caught up in the fight, in his rage and blood-hunger, that he’d struck out at everyone near him—including Chloe. She tried to blank out the images she’d watched, tried to forget the sounds she’d heard—too late. The stricken expression on Dante’s face as he looked at Chloe’s body, the desolate sound torn from his throat, would haunt her forever.

Like the scream in the slaughterhouse
.

A chair scraped back. De Noir. Heather lowered her hands and looked up. He gathered up the reports, stuffing them back into the folder.

“I’ll burn these,” he said, his voice level.

“No.” She sat up. “Dante needs to know…he needs to see…”

“
This
?” De Noir waved the folder. “No. He doesn’t. No.” He picked up the CD and closed his fist around it. Plastic cracked. Crumbled.

“What are you doing?” she cried, leaping to her feet. “We need that—”

“For
what
?” De Noir flung the CD pieces to the floor. “To hurt my child? To tear him apart again? The past cannot be changed.”

Heather stared at De Noir.
My child
? It clicked then, the relationship between De Noir and Dante—watchful, sheltering, hidden. The sudden gold flecks in Dante’s dark eyes. “Does he know?”

De Noir nodded, then looked away. “I told him tonight. I’d hoped—” He closed his mouth. Shook his head. He touched a finger to the hollow of his throat.

The X-rune pendant was gone. Heather sank back down into her chair. “No wonder he didn’t wait when I asked,” she murmured. “He was running from you.”

“No,” De Noir said. His gaze locked with Heather’s, flared with gold light. “He thought he needed to do penance for Gina and Jay…for the girl he can’t remember.”

Penance. Everything Dante cared about had been taken from him since he’d been a baby. If he cared, someone or something suffered. Heather trailed a hand through her hair. He went to face Ronin alone so no one else would die. Or suffer in his place.

“I need this file to find Dante,” she said. “Elroy Jordan has
claimed
him. The reason why might be in there.”

“To torture him—just like you told me,” De Noir said. “You warned me that I couldn’t stop it. I refused to listen.”

The regret in De Noir’s gaze tugged at Heather. She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “You thought you could protect him.”

She stood up, crossed to the counter. The faint smell of coffee lingered in the kitchen. Dumping out the old grounds into the trash, she rinsed the filter in the sink, then spooned in fresh coffee.

Elroy Jordan was the Cross-Country Killer. Maybe Ronin had been a part of that, or maybe he’d just pointed Jordan in Dante’s direction. Ronin had known that both Jordan and Dante were part of Johanna Moore’s sociopathology experiment. How?

She poured water into the coffeemaker, set the carafe on the burner, and tapped the on button. What had happened to Ronin? She glanced at De Noir. He stood motionless beside the table, folder clutched in one hand, head bowed. His black hair veiled his face. He appeared to be listening, his body almost quivering with effort.

“Dante,” he breathed. “Ah, hush, child. I will find you.” Lifting his head, De Noir looked at Heather. “I felt him…
heard
him…for a moment. He’s…” De Noir swallowed whatever else he’d intended to say.

De Noir’s expression told Heather that whatever he’d heard or felt from Dante was far from good. Cold twisted around her heart. “Ronin,” she said. “What happened?”

“Dead.”

So whatever Ronin had planned, exposé or blackmail, had died with him. How much had he told Elroy about Bad Seed? Enough, she figured, just enough to control him. Enough to whet his appetite for the whole story.

Heather listened to the coffee as it trickled into the carafe. So what was Jordan’s plan?
S is mine
. One certainty iced her thoughts: No matter what, Jordan meant to possess Dante. Forever. And from Seattle to New York, graveyards sheltered the remains of all those Jordan had possessed in the past.

Where was he going? Where was he taking Dante?
S is mine
. Who had those words been aimed at? Ronin? The cops?

As the rich, roasted smell of fresh coffee filled the kitchen, the final piece of the puzzle locked into place.

Johanna Moore
. The words had been meant for Johanna Moore.

Jordan intended to confront her with Dante—S—at his side and under his control.

Heart racing, Heather rushed to De Noir and grabbed the folder’s edge. “I think I know where they’re going,” she said.

***

JOHANNA RETURNED TO THE hearth with a cup of brandied eggnog and sat down. Burning wood snapped, releasing the smell of pine into the room. Sipping at her eggnog, she flipped open her cell and speed-dialed Gifford again. His continued silence worried her.

On the third ring the call was answered, but Johanna didn’t recognize the voice saying, “Hello? Hello? This is Detective Fiske. Hello?”

“Doctor Johanna Moore, FBI. How is it that you have Agent Gifford’s phone, Detective?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Moore, but Agent Gifford is dead.”

The black, empty night seeped into Johanna, stilled her heart. “How?”

“We’re still not clear on the particulars. We have several bodies at the scene,” Fiske said. “Why was your man here?”

“Surveillance.” The fire snapped the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon into the air. “Are the other dead identified? Perhaps our suspect is among them.”

“Special Agent Craig Stearns and one of ours, Detective Trent Collins.” Emotion laced Fiske’s voice.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Detective,” Johanna said. “Please keep me posted.”

“Who were your people watching?”

“Thomas Ronin.”

“House was rented under that name. I’ll call you if I have any other questions.”

“Fine, Detective. Thank you.” Johanna ended the call.

She gazed at the fire, the dancing flames calming her, ordering her thoughts. She walked from the living room to her office and stepped behind her desk. She glanced at the GPS receiver. No signal. Like E, S was now offline. Were they together? Was Ronin with them?

Johanna walked to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Touching the pane of glass between her and the winter sky, she closed her eyes. She wished for snow.

Stearns and Wallace had cost her a good man, one she’d miss for years to come. What had happened in New Orleans?

Opening her eyes, Johanna turned from the window. She needed to find her beautiful True Blood child before Ronin corrupted him, twisted him. And if her
père de sang
was bringing E and S home?

Then she’d need strength. Johanna pulled on her coat and tugged gloves over her hands—a habit left over from her mortal life. She walked out into the night, her breath a pale plume in the air, and hunted.

***

DUCKING FROM THE COLD, damp wind, Heather pressed her face against Von’s leather-jacketed back as the nomad gunned his Harley up the interstate toward Louis Armstrong International. She kept her arms wrapped tight around the nomad’s waist, grateful for the gloves and helmet Simone had lent her. The wind blew through Von’s hair, whipping its length from side to side.

Von steered the bike through traffic, swooping in, out, and between cars and semis with heart-stopping speed. The night blurred past, streaked with red and silver.

After Trey ferreted out Johanna Moore’s address on the net, Heather had booked a seat on the next flight to D.C. She was gambling on the chance that Elroy Jordan was heading “home” to Moore, but it felt right.

De Noir had refused a seat on the plane, said:
I’ll get there my own way
.

She wondered if he winged overhead even now, hair and lashes white with frost.

Trey had also discovered a purchase made by a C. K. Cross a few days earlier. A white Chevy van with customized windows and some interior alterations. The dealership had provided the temporary license plate number, but Heather hadn’t passed the number on to the police. If Jordan was pulled over by cops, more people would die. Like Collins.

And Dante…Heather couldn’t be sure of his reaction. She remembered the nightmare scene captured on the CD, remembered the cold fury on Dante’s face as he’d murdered the Prejeans.

Dante sits cross-legged in a corner of the dining room, flipping through a music mag—
Metal Scene,
maybe—headphones in his ears. In his own world, but tensed, coiled, ready for hell in a moment’s notice
.

Dante removes his headphones when any of the other four foster kids in the house approach him, speaking Cajun with a couple, English with another; a quick, tilted smile. One teen, about the same age, maybe thirteen or fourteen, sits beside Dante for a time, putting his head on Dante’s shoulder. Dante loops an arm around the boy and they sit on the floor together, looking at the mag
.

Then, a heartbeat later, hell yawns open. Adelaide
“
Mama
”
Prejean smacks a blonde girl setting the table, telling her she’s
“
doing it ass-backwards
.”
Cecil
“
Papa
”
Prejean, with an irritated grunt, backhands the girl and knocks her to the floor
.

Dante rises so fast, even the camera can’t capture his movement. The other boy sitting on the floor holds the fluttering mag, mouth open. Dante punches Mama Prejean, knocking her three feet across the room. He leaps on her, taking her to the floor. He pounds her head against the hardwood until the skull splits, blood and brains splashing across the grain, across Dante’s hands
.

Dante swivels, stands, and
moves
again. He pins a stunned Papa Prejean against the wall and tears into his throat with his fingernails, ripping it wide open. Blood sprays onto Dante’s ecstatic face. He licks it from his lips, his fingers
.

Once Papa Prejean’s done spurting, Dante lets go and the body slumps to the floor. Dante gathers the other kids and tells them they need to get out. He searches the bodies for credit spikes, cash, anything of value. Ransacks Mama Prejean’s purse. He divvies everything up between the other four kids, keeping nothing for himself
.

Once the others have gone, Dante sprinkles lighter fluid from the barbecue throughout the house, then fetches gasoline from the garage. Pours it over the bodies. He lights a match
. Whoomf!
He lingers a moment before leaving the Prejean house for the last time
.

Dante watches the blaze from the street. Caught in the flickering shadows, his beautiful bloodstained face is rapt
.

Heather remembered Dante standing in front of the anarchy symbol, saying:
Freedom is the result of rage
.

He’d won freedom for only four that night. Project Bad Seed had picked him up, then proceeded to fragment and bury his memory. Again. Wound him up, then turned him loose.

Dante had survived the streets. But would he survive his past?

Von swung the bike onto an exit ramp, downshifted. “Almost there,” he shouted.

Stearns had called Dante a monster; but the real monsters were the people behind Project Bad Seed—Dr. Johanna Moore and Dr. Robert Wells. No wonder Moore had been so knowledgeable at the Academy, her profiles eerily accurate. She’d helped create the killers the Bureau profiled.

Had Bad Seed failed or succeeded with Dante? The murder of the Prejeans disturbed Heather, but knowing the torture he’d endured at their hands and at the hands of fifty-nine other pairs of foster parents—the worst Louisiana had to offer—understandable. Although she’d always believed there were no excuses for murder, there
were
reasons.

And in this case—a boy pushed to the brink and beyond—all she saw were shades of gray, even though she’d been trained to see
only
black and white; the law was either upheld or the law was broken. Simple. But was it?

Could Dante have just run away? Abandoning the other kids to their fate? If the project had been successful, Dante would’ve thought only of himself and used the others to his own gain. Never would have put himself in harm’s way for a little girl. Never would have wept for her. Never would have walked alone into a slaughterhouse for a friend, willing to sacrifice himself.

I have a promise to keep
.

But if the project had failed, he never would have murdered.

The bright lights of the airport glimmered ahead in the cold air. Heather looked over Von’s shoulder as he opened the bike up again. Her thoughts shifted back to her conversation with Collins. Five bodies in a tavern. A fire. Arson. LaRousse and Davis, dead.

In fact, they’d been out to Prejean’s with an arrest warrant…
.

Shit spins out of control
.

Bad blood between Dante and LaRousse.

Heather’s muscles knotted. Her thoughts led her to a path she didn’t want to walk. What if Jay’s death and Dante’s inability to protect him, his failure to keep him alive, had triggered the same impulses that’d followed Chloe’s death? What if the project
had
succeeded, and Ronin had spun the right stressors into action?