Etched in Bone (17 page)

“What was I talking about before I—” Dante twirled his hand in the air, index finger pointing at his temple.

The fallen priest cleared his throat, then said, “Closing the gate. You wanted to know why closing it would take time and practice when opening it hadn’t required either.”

Dante trailed a hand through his hair. “Yeah.
D’accord
. I remember. So spill, how come?”

The Fallen priest studied the gate, lips pursed. “Because you used brute force and raw power to open the gate.” His attention returned to Dante, his blue eyes grave. “And you were lucky. You could have easily torn a hole in the time/space continuum instead, in which case we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Dante looked at the gate again and whistled low. “Shit.”

“Ditto that,” Heather murmured. “When that shock wave blasted through the cemetery . . .” She shook her head.

“Until I can train you in the proper opening and closing of gates, this one will be masked with an illusion so that no one shall see it for what it is.”

Dante shifted his attention back to the priest-garbed Fallen. “
C’est bon
. I appreciate that.” Pain throbbed at his temples as he looked the fallen angel over. “You a real priest or is that just for show in the mortal world?”

“I am a real priest,” was the reply. “I am called Father John there and simply Janus here.”

“Wait. So you live in the mortal world?” Heather asked.

Janus nodded. “Off and on. Yes. Some of us do—out of boredom or restlessness or curiosity. This is the first span of time I’ve spent among mortals in centuries.”

“Centuries?” Realization flickered in Heather’s eyes. She tilted her head. “Janus. As in the Roman god?”

A smile brushed Janus’s lips, and he inclined his head in acknowledgment. “A few of my original temples still remain in Rome and elsewhere in Italy.”

“And now you’re a fucking Catholic priest?” Dante asked. “Gotta hear the story behind
that
some night, but not tonight. See y’all in two weeks.” Spotting Gabriel behind the others, arms crossed over his chest, eyes hooded, Dante added, “And I’ll
definitely
be seeing you.”

A chiseled-ice smile stretched Gabriel’s lips. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Liar.”

Dante ducked down, intending to slip through the gate, but pain knuckled against his wing tips with bruising force instead, shuddering along his tender shoulder muscles, and stopping him cold. Little bits of marble snowflaked to the gate’s rim.

“Fuck.” He’d smacked his half-folded wings full-tilt into the gate.

“Perhaps you should tuck your wings into their pouches before exiting?” Astarte suggested helpfully.

“I would if I knew how,” Dante replied, straightening. His wing tips throbbed.

“Here,” Lucien said. Turning around, he offered Dante a view of his black wings. “Flex in and down, like so.” His wings compressed together with a soft rustle, then seemed to disappear into his back.

“Flex in and down,” Dante repeated. “
D’accord
.” Drawing in a deep breath of hyacinth and myrrh scented air, he attempted to imitate Lucien’s movements. On the third nerve-tingling try, he felt his wings contract and kaleidoscope inward, felt their velvety slide beneath his skin. His shoulder muscles spasmed once, then quieted.

Dante blew out his breath. “Damn.”

“It’ll eventually become automatic,” Lucien said, sympathy and amusement lacing his voice. “You’ll even get them both in at the same time.”

“Terrific. Can’t wait,” Dante muttered. As he started to duck through the gate again, a strong-fingered hand gripped his shoulder, stopping him.

Catching a whiff of bitter orange and tree sap, Dante glanced back at the Morningstar. “I need to clear the way,” he said, releasing Dante’s shoulder. He arched a meaningful eyebrow.

From the night-shrouded cemetery beyond the gate, Dante heard the squelch of emergency radios, the murmur of incredulous voices. “Even with Heather, I can move fast enough that no one will ever see us.”

“Won’t be necessary,” the Morningstar said. Bending, he angled himself, body and wings, skillfully through the gate. Dante followed him, and was about to turn around and offer a hand to Heather when he froze, finally comprehending what he was seeing.

The cemetery had been destroyed.

Pale mist twisted around shattered tombs and crumbling crypts. Clung to fallen cypress and oaks. Snaked along fallen and severed statues. Cob-webbed chunks of broken masonry cluttering uprooted stone paths, draped the ruins of the cemetery walls. And in the street beyond, shards of glass hung from windows like jagged teeth. Cars were piled in the road at odd angles, crumpled and dented.

Blue and white and red lights strobed through the night.

Dante’s heart hammered against his ribs. Despite the blood racing through his veins, he felt ice-cold.

What the hell did I do?

“I need to fix this,” he whispered.

A warm hand tucked into his. Dante smelled lilac and evening rain.

“Yeah, you do,” Heather said. “But not tonight.”

“What the . . .? Are those people or ghosts?” A startled voice asked.

“Huh? Where? Christ!”

Several firemen in reflective tape-striped turnouts stood facing them, their eyes shadowed beneath their helmets, bodies rigid with surprise.

Standing on the path outside the tomb, the Morningstar tossed a glance over his shoulder at Heather before returning his attention to the mortals in front of him. “Cover your ears,” he told her.

Heather clamped her hands over ears as suggested.

The Morningstar unfolded his wings with a taut snap. Their undersides glimmered with a wet mother-of-pearl sheen, pale blue and purple. His body gleamed, as though captured sunlight burned beneath his skin.

The Morningstar’s radiance beamed throughout the ruined cemetery, searing away the low mist and bleaching the scene white.

Dante hastily reached for his shades and discovered he’d lost them. Again. Squinting, he shaded his eyes with the edge of his hand. His eyes teared.

“Shit,” Heather whispered.

The firemen lifted their arms to shield their faces from the blazing light.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Shit. Another bomb?”

“Holy fuck! Are those wings?”

The Morningstar’s voice pealed through the dying night. “Sleep.”

The firemen crumpled to the cracked stone path. Dante heard the soft thump of bodies falling throughout the cemetery, heard the clatter of dropped flashlights and equipment.

The Morningstar’s radiance dimmed. He swiveled to face Dante, his skin still glowing with light. His smile made Dante wish for his shades again.

“See you in two weeks,” he said.

13
DARK AND DAZZLING

N
EW
O
RLEANS
C
LUB
H
ELL
March 28

V
ON
M
C
G
UINN TOSSED BACK
another shot of Jim Beam Black. It burned like gasoline all the way down, leaving behind the aftertaste of caramel-smoothed oak on his tongue. And, like the twenty previous shots, it didn’t do one damned thing to ease the tight knot of worry prickling in his chest.

He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall between the booze-filled glass shelves behind the bar. Its red-eyed bat hour markers indicated 4:25
A.M.

Dante’d gone offline around two. Von could still feel their link, but whenever he tried to reach Dante, his sending would vanish—a message unsent and unreceived, like an e-mail hovering in the Ethernet waiting for a downed server to reboot so it could slide into the appropriate inbox.

Grabbing the nearly empty Jim Beam bottle from the bar’s polished and now bourbon-sprinkled counter, Von splashed another round into his shot glass. Tossed it back. A little more napalm added to the pool of unease curdling in his guts.

Dante, man. Where you at?

Unreceived messages. Blocked links. Oh. And the explosion he’d felt ten or fifteen minutes after Dante and Heather had split for St. Louis No. 3.
Yeah, don’t forget that. Let’s just toss it into the mix, get everything stirred up
real
goddamned good.

Normally the trip to No. 3 was a ten-minute drive, longer if you hit the lights wrong or got swallowed up in traffic, but with Dante behind the van’s wheel, Von figured five minutes max with Dante blowing every red light.

Then the explosion. Not close. Several miles away, at least.

Von had frozen, heart jackhammering against his ribs. Possibilities had flipped through his mind like a Slinky down a set of stairs.

Terrorist bombing. Plane crash. Massive levee failure. Steamship explosion on the Mississippi. Asteroid. Worlds colliding. The freaking apocalypse.

Anything
could’ve happened. Didn’t mean it had anything to do with Dante.

But images of fallen angels caught in coils of blue fire and plummeting from rain cloud-paled skies as stone had flashed behind Von’s eyes.

I’m gonna find Lucien and bring him home. We just lost Simone. We ain’t losing him too.
Dante’s voice had been rough and low, tight with grief. But his body had been coiled with determination and a low-simmering rage.

How you plan on doing that? You don’t even know where he is or how to get there. Where the hell do the Fallen live anyway? I know it’s called Gehenna, but . . .

Dunno. But I’m bringing him home,
mon ami.

Then I’m coming with you, little brother. That’s fucking final.

No. I need you here. I gotta know that everyone’s gonna be safe, and I trust you to do that.

So I just get to worry about you and Heather?

I can reach you.

So could Simone. Didn’t do her much good, did it?

Von’s hands clenched into fists, the scars on his knuckles stretching tight over the bone.
I can reach you
. Dante was wrong about that. The silence between them buzzed against Von’s nerves like a sander on low speed.

Dammit, Dante.

Von drew in a deep breath, caught a lingering trace of cloves and tobacco and dark beer on sawdust. Blew it back out again. Chased away the storm of dark memories and cleared his thoughts. Fretting was wasted energy.

Setting his shot glass on the bar, he snatched up the bottle of Jim Beam and resumed pacing, following a long-legged path in front of the darkened Cage and the dais leading up to Dante’s bat-winged throne. The feather and bone fetishes dangling from the Cage’s steel bars fluttered in Von’s fast-paced wake.

For a second, he thought he caught Simone’s magnolia scent, thought he saw her sitting on the top step of the dais, her arms wrapped around the long, shapely legs revealed by her denim mini-skirt, the club lights streaking her long, spiraled blonde hair gold and deepest blue.

She was laughing, light dancing in her eyes.
Come dance with me,
cher.

Pain twisted around Von’s heart. Tightened his throat. The stink of burning wood, singed clothing and hair suddenly coated his nostrils.

Gonna kill Mauvais. Slow. Maybe over years.

“You’re gonna wear a groove in the floor, dude.”

Von glanced up. Silver stood on the second floor landing, one hand on the banister. His silver eyes gleamed. His anime-styled midnight purple hair poked up in peaks and angles from his head and looked almost black beneath the dim lights on the staircase. Soot still smudged one pale cheek, his nose, and forehead—evidence of the fire he’d barely escaped.

Von slowed to a stop at the foot of the stairs. “Where’s Annie?”

“She finished the vodka, then passed out.”

“
Both
damned bottles? Girl drinks like nightkind. And dances on tables like she’s auditioning for a job on Bourbon Street.”

“She was trying not to feel,” Silver said quietly.

“I think she succeeded,” Von drawled. “Until she wakes up, anyway.”

A smile ghosted across Silver’s lips. “She’ll still be drunk.”

“Holy shit, I’d hope so.” Von paused, then asked, “And Trey?”

Silver shook his head, sorrow drawing his features taut. “The same. Just staring into the dark. Eerie’s curled up with him, working purr-mojo, but I don’t think it’s helping. Nothing is.” Raking a hand through his hair and disarranging it even more, he added in a thick voice, “I can’t believe she’s gone. And I’m scared Trey’s gonna follow her. He doesn’t want blood. He doesn’t want talk. I ain’t even sure he’s blinking. It’s like his body’s here, but . . .”

“He just lost his sister
and
his
mère de sang
, Silver. He’s in shock. He needs time to grieve. As much as we can give him.” But Von wondered if time would be enough. Simone had been Trey’s only tether to the world, just as she’d been his only kin. “We all need time.”

“People
always
say that, like time is fucking Oxycontin,” Silver muttered, his voice prickling with pain and anger. “Like I could just down a handful of time and not worry about it hurting any more. Instant fix. But I can’t. And time takes fucking forever to heal. How’s that for ironic?
Fuck
time. And fuck Mauvais for taking her from us.” The banister creaked beneath Silver’s white-knuckled hand.

“I hear you, bro,” Von said softly. He tapped two fingers against his chest over his heart. “I hear you. And trust me, Mauvais
is
fucked—he just don’t know it yet.”

Losing someone you cared about—hell, be honest—someone you loved, never got easier no matter how many decades slid past. Mortal. Nightkind. It didn’t matter. Even though the nomad clans taught that death was a part of the natural order, like birth and sex, it was nothing to rejoice in as far as Von was concerned. Especially when someone died hard. And alone.

Von couldn’t imagine the hurt lessening, couldn’t imagine ever losing the heart-squeezing sound of Simone’s screams. His fingers squeezed tight around the Jim Beam bottle’s neck, then he heard glass shattering. Liquid splashed over his hand, his knuckles. The sharp odor of bourbon soaked the air.