Maker's Song - In the Blood Part 18

"We start anew."

"After thousands of years?"

"Absolutely. What else is there for us to do? We've both changed."

Lucien regarded Lilith for a long moment, remembering the trust they'd once shared, remembering their love and her honeyed kisses. But he also remembered her ambition. Perhaps that ambition could be used. Perhaps the memory of love, as well.

"His name is Dante, a born vampire," Lucien said. "He's twenty-three years old, and he doesn't understand what he is."

Lilith's eyes widened. "He's just a child! How could you leave him alone?" She frowned. "Did you say born vampire? Fola Fior? But how can he be a Maker?"

"He's my son," Lucien said quietly.

18 FOREVER SILENCED.

Seattle, WA March 22/23

ANNIE FINALLY SLEPT, CURLED up on her left side, just like she always had since she was little. Bending over her sister, Heather pushed a lock of blue hair away from Annie's face. The memory of an old promise-still as vivid as the night she'd made it-played through her mind.

Annie-Bunny, in her Tinker Bell jammies and clutching a plushie bunny, stands in Heather's doorway. She rubs her eyes with her fist. Tangled strawberry-blonde curls frame her plump toddler face. Mommy and Daddy are screaming at each other again, their voices sc.r.a.ped raw with rage.

"C'mere," Heather whispers, lifting the blankets.

Annie climbs into Heather's bed and snuggles against her. "Scared," she says.

Heather drapes the blankets over them both. "I won't let anything happen to you," she promises Annie, even though she's scared too. But Annie-Bunny's her baby sister, just like Kevin's her little brother, and she'll always take care of them, no matter what.

Annie-Bunny snuggles closer, her plushie bunny a soft squashed lump between them. Her eyes close.

"Sleep tight," Heather whispered. Despite her promise, she'd been helpless to prevent all the bad things that had happened to her sister over the years.

It seemed like when Mom had died, she'd left a part of herself behind, rooted deep inside Annie, dark and bitter and self- destructive, a part that resisted all attempts to uproot it.

Maybe if Annie'd stay on her meds.

Heather walked from the room, leaving the door partially open behind her. She went into the kitchen and set coffee to brew. As it trickled into the carafe, she leaned against the counter and rubbed her face with both hands. She was exhausted-the visit to her mother's death site, the meeting with Rodriguez and Rutgers, her father, then Dante and Annie-and the day wasn't over, not quite.And Dante...what else had that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Wells done to him?

Give me that name again. I can't read it.

Wells still needed to answer for his crimes, past and present. The victims of all those who'd died at the hands of the killers he and Johanna Moore had created and set loose upon society, needed a voice, someone to speak on their behalf.

Dante had tried to speak for his mother, Genevieve Baptiste, the only way he knew how-through violence-but who had ever spoken for him?

And Dante's victims? Chloe and the Prejeans?

Heather's thoughts spun back to the tavern murders in New Orleans. Two dead NOPD detectives, three dead tavern patrons, bodies and building torched. She was afraid that Dante, heartbroken and fevered and lost to darkness after Jay's death, had spoken for him with blood and gasoline-fueled flames, his programming triggered.

She dropped her hands from her face. Cold fingers squeezed her heart. Programming that could be triggered again and again. But if she killed Wells...

She sucked in a sharp breath. She steered her thoughts away from that dark path.

Murder is murder is murder, no matter how much the person deserves to die.

And the murders at the Flying Crow Tavern?

Dante never tells or forgives a lie. When the time was right, she'd just ask him. Deal with it then.

One thing at a time. Just one thing at a time.

Heather poured coffee into her kitty-face mug; the aroma, rich French roast and fresh, normally tantalized her nostrils. But now, she wasn't sure she could even drink the coffee; her stomach felt like it was full of cold stones.

A little more work. Then sleep.

At the table, she set her mug down, the coffee untasted. She picked up a pile of the papers and reports that Dante had gathered. A photo slid out and fell onto the table. Placing the stack aside, she picked up the photo. The first known victim of Higgins, a young woman with a hard-drinking and easy-loving reputation, and a wistful smile. Heather carefully tucked the photo back in with the reports.

Higgins had forever silenced twenty-four women, including Heather's mother. Each one had been lonely and hurting, seeking warmth in a bottle of booze or a stranger's embrace or on a barstool surrounded by cigarette haze and drunken laughter.

Most had been running from bad marriages, from uncaring parents, from themselves. Each woman had so desperately wanted to belong somewhere or to someone.

Just like Annie.

Annie's photo would never end up in a crime scene report, the victim of an anonymous killer. Heather wouldn't allow it.

She rubbed the back of her neck and flexed her shoulders until some of the tension eased from her muscles.

Heather fetched her laptop from her bedroom and eased it onto the table. Once the laptop was up and running, she mulled over which search to begin first.

Search A: Who was SAC Alex Lyons and why had he been a.s.signed to guide her on her magical murder tour?

Search B: What had been SAC Alberto Rodriguez's previous a.s.signments? Why had he been chosen to head Seattle temporarily? And why had he been pushing so hard on the medical issue and Bad Seed?

Search C: Where oh where was the retired Dr. Robert Wells?

Heather typed in DR. ROBERT WELLS and initiated search C.

19 JUST BENEATH THE SKIN.

Seattle, WA March 22/March 23

DANTE WALKED ALONG THE sidewalk, listening to mortal thoughts, feeling drum tight. Neon from the strip clubs on both sides of the street flickered and buzzed-JIGGLES and GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS and LAP DANCES!-too bright, and he slid on his shades. The winking colors muted. He drew in a deep breath of air and smelled car exhaust, fried chicken, and brine from the bay.

Hunger pulsed through him, strong and insistent, but still under control, thanks to Von. He'd f.u.c.ked up by waiting too long to feed, and he knew better, but his hunger for Heather had been stronger.Hood up, shades on, he slipped past small cl.u.s.ters of people gathered in front of some of the clubs smoking and laughing, making deals-dope, s.e.x, break-ins. Most didn't pay him any attention, their thoughts focused elsewhere.

Dante listened. But all he picked up were h.o.r.n.y thoughts, h.o.r.n.y and lonely and desperate thoughts, a few worried-I'll just say I was out with the guys, took in a ball game, had a few beers-and others challenging-I'm an adult, I'll f.u.c.king do whatever I want. Some thoughts were all business, flat and bored. Hey, baby. Wanna date? Wanna b.l.o.w. .j.o.b?

A few of the clubs were closing, and cars trickled steadily from parking lots. Dante stepped over one of the yellow-painted parking blocks and walked through the nearly empty lot for HOT x.x.x BUNS. Several cars remained parked near the employee exit at the side of the building.

Dante followed the noise of two fast-drumming hearts, their rhythms overlapping and twisting into one thundering sound. In the darkness pooled in front of the exit, courtesy of a burned-out bulb, a guy in a windbreaker struggled with a woman, his hand locked around her upper arm.

"Let go of me!" she cried, trying to jerk free. Fury edged her voice, but Dante heard fear underneath. She swung her purse.

"G.o.ddammit!" The guy dodged, then grabbed her bag and wrenched it from her hand. He tossed it into the parking lot. It hit the concrete, spilling its contents across the pavement. "I spent a h.e.l.luva lot of money on you! You could at least be nice."

"I don't-"

Dante moved. He ran across the parking lot, breezing past the woman's purse, and stopped beside the grabby guy before the woman finished speaking.

"-owe you s.h.i.t!"

The guy, potbellied but thick-muscled, scowled at Dante. "None of your business, a.s.swipe. Get lost."

"Yeah, y'know what? f.u.c.k you." Dante shoved the guy with one hand. Potbelly slammed into the building like he'd been fired from a cannon. He slid down to the pavement, expression dazed.

The woman blinked, not exactly sure what had happened, but when she noticed Potbelly was down, she ran over and kicked him in the thigh, then gathered up her purse and its contents. Whirling, she hurried back into the club. The steel door slammed shut behind her.

Potbelly groaned.

Dante leaned over him, twisted his fingers into the windbreaker's collar, and yanked the guy to his feet. He dragged Potbelly around the club's edge to the Dumpster-filled back lot. Hurled him against the building and pinned him there, hand to shoulder, thigh snugged between legs. Potbelly stared at him, mouth open, eyes dilated, and Dante realized his hood had fallen back.

"My G.o.d..."

Dante breathed in the mortal's adrenaline-and-l.u.s.t-spiced scent, listened to his jackhammering heart and thought of the blood pumping through his veins. Just beneath the skin. Promising pleasure. Promising relief. Hunger uncoiled.

He shoved Potbelly's head to one side, before he could say another word, and tore into his warm, pulse-pounding throat with his fangs. Burrowed into his flesh.

And fed.

20 LET THE DEAD REMAIN DEAD.

Seattle, WA March 23

Shannon staggers along the highway's edge, thumb out, peering into the darkness. She really has to get home.

She only stopped for a few drinks while out on errands. The kids were at soccer practice or guitar lessons or Scouts, and she had a few moments to herself.

A few moments to concentrate on all the amazing ideas and thoughts and plans buzzing in her head like busy little bees that won't let her sleep. Light seems to fill the darkness behind her eyes at night, illuminating her mind, and working in cahoots with the stupid busy little bees.

Just a few moments to drown the f.u.c.kers and put out the light.

The next thing she knows, it's dark, and the moon's high in the sky. Her new friends try to talk her into staying and, for a second, she considers it. Then she remembers Jim saying: I'll take the kids from you, Shannon, I swear to G.o.d! You need to pull yourself together. You need to get back into rehab.

So she pulls free of her friends' beseeching hands-C'mon! One more drink!-and escapes into the chilly October night. Car won't start and she can't find her cell phone. Screw it. She abandons the car, and decides to thumb a ride home. Probably will p.i.s.s Jim off-he'll rattle more crime statistics until she blocks out the sound of his voice by humming to herself.

Sometimes she wishes he'd never joined the f.u.c.king FBI. She can't compete with that kind of love, that kind of devotion. He was like a priest, and forensics was his act of communion with the Holy Bureau.

October, and the air is crisp. But she's not cold, she's on fire and alive and flying. Heather's birthday is coming up.

She'll be twelve. Twelve going on forty. She sees too much and maybe not enough.

Have I lost her?

Shannon stumbles, her heel catching on the asphalt's ragged edge. She giggles. Good thing she isn't driving. Point in her favor. She licks the tip of a finger and strokes an imaginary line in the air. Sliding off her shoe, she peers at the heel.

Headlights pierce the night. Shannon sticks out her shoe instead of her thumb, c.o.c.king her weight onto one hip and smiling. The headlights glow, twin moons filling her vision and dazzling her sight.

The car pulls over, tires crunching on gravel, the m.u.f.fler streaming a plume of exhaust and the heady smell of gasoline in the air. The engine purrs.

Headlight-blinded, she wobbles as she tries to put her shoe back on. She hops backward before sprawling on her a.s.s. She throws back her head and laughs. Good thing she isn't walking the line for a cop. Another point in her favor. She draws another imaginary line in the air. Slipping off her other shoe, d.a.m.ned heels playing havoc with her balance; well, that and all the booze, Shannon climbs to her feet, stumbling only a little. She's brushing the dirt off her hind end when the driver's door opens.

A man slips out of the purring car, and something gleams in his hand.

"Need help, Shannon?" he asks.

WITH THE SMOOTH IDLE of a well-tuned engine still in her ears, Heather awakened, heart racing. Light filtered into the room between the slats of the closed blinds. Rolling over onto her side, she pulled open the nightstand drawer and fished out a memo pad and pen. She wrote down as many details as she remembered: the car not starting; the lost cell phone; the cold, crisp air; the smell of pine and rain-wet blacktop; the man speaking her mother's name.

Shannon and her killer knew each other.

Heather stopped writing. Wait. This was a dream-only a dream. Not a glimpse into the mind of a woman twenty years dead. Just a dream, a recurring one that she'd had for years, not an interview with a victim.

Sighing, Heather tossed her pad and pen onto the nightstand and sat up. She wrapped her arms around her sheet-draped knees. Eerie was on his back at the foot of the bed, his belly up for pats. He watched her through slitted, contented eyes.

"Morning, you," she said.