Maker's Song - In the Blood Part 2

Von gently turned Dante around. "How's your head?" he asked.

Dante shrugged and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Blood smeared his skin. "I'm okay."

Sliding his shades up, the nomad c.o.c.ked an eyebrow and regarded him dubiously. "Uh-huh," he said, then dropped the shades back over his eyes.

Dante glanced at the stone angel and the midnight twist of flowers in its hand. "Why?" He nodded at the offerings tucked at the angel's feet. "Why do mortals pray this way? What do they hope to gain?"

Von stroked his mustache, considering. "Hard to say," he replied. "A lot of different reasons. Some might be prayers for a friend or relative who's in trouble, maybe for protection or success, or to be healed from something."

Dante's gaze returned to the candles. He stepped forward and fingered a loop of smooth beads dangling from one wing tip.

"Did you do stuff like this? When you were mortal? Pray, I mean."

"No, not like this," the nomad replied. "And I never prayed to anyone, ya know? I just kinda said things that I really hoped would happen, like wishing a friend safe on a long journey or saying good-bye to one that'd died."

"Who hears the wishes and good-byes?"

"I forget you don't know this stuff." Von shook his head. "Who hears the wishes and good-byes? The speaker does," he said, voice quiet, reflective. "And you hope that what you say from the heart has power. Power to protect, power to reach the ears of the dead. A spoken thing or a wished-hard thing takes a shape within the heart, man. Takes shape. Becomes real."

"Becomes real," Dante repeated. "And the good-byes?"

"Good-byes can heal the hurt. Or at least start the healing."

This doesn't need to be good-bye.

Heather's words whispered through Dante's memory. An image of her filled his mind: Rain-beaded red hair, black trenchcoat, cornflower-blue eyes, she'd looked into him with her steady gaze. She was a fed, yeah, but a woman of heart and steel too. He remembered telling her: Run from me.

She had and now she was safe.

From him, maybe. But was she safe from the Bureau? She'd uncovered a nasty secret in D.C. Now she was caught between the truth and a hard f.u.c.king place. She was on her own in Seattle, without backup.

But not for long.

The West Coast leg of the tour ended with two gigs in Seattle followed by two weeks of downtime before the tour picked up again. Trey had already ferreted Heather's address, had teased it free from the Seattle DMV's online records with a deft touch.

Easier than rolling a tourist on Bourbon Street, Tee-Tee.

Dante let go of the Mardi Gras necklace, the beads clicking against the stone wing, and turned to face Von. "You got paper? A pen?"

Von frowned. "f.u.c.k, I dunno." He patted his jacket pockets, leather creaking with his movement. "I hope you ain't planning on me taking dictation." He pulled a Bic pen from an inside pocket.

Dante took the pen, holding it between the fingers of his left hand as the nomad fished a wadded-up receipt out of his front jeans pocket and handed it to him.

Kneeling on the pavement in front of the stone angel, Dante smoothed the crumpled piece of paper against his leather-clad thigh. His pulse raced as he scrawled his prayer on the receipt, wondering if it had the power to protect, the power to reach the ears of the dead.

Dante folded the piece of paper, then raised it to his lips and kissed it. Blood from his nose dotted the prayer with dark color. He laid it at the angel's taloned feet among all the other paper prayers and chalk wishes.

Dante stood, glanced at Von. Wondered at the expression on his face, shadowed and a little sad. A smile touched the nomad's mustache-framed lips as he took his pen back and tucked it away again.

"You ready, little brother?" he asked, voice low.

"What time does the plane leave?"

"In about two hours."

Dante nodded. "Let's go."

A sudden gust of vanilla-and wax-scented air blew Dante's hair into his eyes. The candles flickered wildly and a few dimmed to blue, then died. Von's gaze shifted up and his brow furrowed. Dante's muscles knotted. Pain pulsed at his temples. He saw his own tension mirrored in the nomad's face.

Hoped we'd slip away without a scene. But maybe I need to play this out.

"Child, wait." Lucien's deep voice resonated from the sky above.

Pushing his hair back with both hands, Dante drew in a deep breath, swiveled around, and watched as Lucien descended from the star-flecked night, black wings stroking gracefully through the air.

Dressed only in expensive black slacks, Lucien De Noir touched bare feet to the flagstones bordering the Baronne tomb.

His wings flared once more before folding behind him, their tips arching above his head. He straightened to his full six-eight height, his black hair spilling over his tight-muscled shoulders to his waist. His handsome face was composed, watchful. Gold light glimmered in the depths of his eyes.

"Wait, huh?" Dante shifted his weight to one hip and crossed his arms over his chest. "Give me one f.u.c.king reason why."

"You can't go on tour."

"That's a command, not a reason. And f.u.c.k you."

"You're not well. Your control slips more every day. You're dangerous."

Fire blazed to life, fused with the pain in Dante's head, the ache within his heart. "f.u.c.k you twice," he said, voice low and strained.

Lucien's face remained impa.s.sive, but tendrils of his black hair lifted as though breeze-caught. "You know I speak the truth."

"Wow." Dante's gaze locked with Lucien's. "Is that like a first for you?"

A muscle jumped in Lucien's jaw. Shifting his attention to Von, he said, "I need to speak alone with my son."

Von sent.

"Merde," Dante muttered, wiping his nose against the sleeve of his jacket.

Von studied him for another moment before nodding. "Okay. See you in a few." He walked down the path past moon- washed crypts to the cemetery gates. "Play nice, you two," he called over his shoulder.

"I didn't lie to you," Lucien said, voice tight.

"D'accord, you didn't lie. But you kept the f.u.c.king truth from me and that's the same as lying. Happy now?"

"How can I be when your search for the truth is tearing you apart?"

"My problem, not yours. Stay outta my business."

"Impossible. You are my business!"

"f.u.c.k you! I ain't your business, never was!" Pain fractured Dante's vision, throbbed at his temples. Blood trickled hot from his nose. "We were friends, remember?"

Lucien looked away. His fingers reached for the pendant that no longer hung at the base of his throat-the rune for friendship, for partnership, that Dante had given him-then closed into a fist. Dante wasn't sure when Lucien had lost the pendant or how, but its loss seemed somehow karmic to him.

"I made a mistake, one I regret," Lucien said, returning his gaze to Dante's. Amber fire flared in his eyes. "But I refuse to keep apologizing."

"I never asked for a f.u.c.king apology." Rubbing his temples, Dante closed his eyes. Nothing looked right. Blurry. Distorted.

"And I ain't asking for one now either. Quit pushing! Leave me the f.u.c.k alone so I can find what I'm looking for. I need the truth or the past will always control me."

"The truth is never what you hope it will be, Dante. And the cost is always higher than you imagine. Much higher," Lucien said, his deep voice as low as a sigh. "I thought I could keep you safe in silence. I thought I could hide you, help you heal from all the damage done to you."

Dante opened his eyes and lowered his hands. Safe in silence?

"I thought I could contain your song or at least m.u.f.fle it so it couldn't be heard." Lucien closed the distance between them with one long stride. His dark-earth scent curled around Dante. "But I was wrong."

Dante straightened, suddenly uneasy-something he'd never felt with Lucien before. "Hide me? From who? Are you talking about Bad Seed?"

"I didn't know Bad Seed even existed. No, I hid you from others. Powerful others who would use you without mercy."

"Others...like him?" Dante nodded at the stone angel hunched on the path.

Lucien's gaze flicked to the statue, resting for a moment on the flowers swaying in its hand, then back to Dante. "Yes, like Loki. I trapped him to protect you."

"Yeah?" Dante questioned softly. "From what?"

"The Fallen."

Lucien's golden gaze pierced Dante to the core, iced his heart. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? Why would I need protection from them?"

"You aren't merely True Blood and Fallen, child. You're much more."

"And that is...?"

"Creawdwr." A reverent note sounded in Lucien's voice. Pride gleamed in his eyes. "You're a Maker. The only one in existence."

A chill rippled down the length of Dante's spine. He looked at the bouquet bobbing in Loki's hand. "Is that why I can do s.h.i.t like this?"

"Yes. You can create anything and everything. Your song carries the chaos rhythm of life. And you can unmake, as well."

Dante's memory flipped back. The center. Johanna Moore screams as his song pulls her apart, divides her into elements...

Dante returned his gaze to Lucien, his hands curling into fists. "And how long have you known this? That I was a...

Maker?"

"From the first moment I met you," Lucien admitted quietly. "Your song, your anhrefncathl drew me. Just like it drew Loki. Just like it will eventually draw the rest of the Elohim. Unless I teach you-"

"Forget it. No," Dante said, throat tight, heart pounding out a furious rhythm. "Instead of pretending to be my friend, you shoulda told me the f.u.c.king truth! Shoulda offered to teach me then. Now's a little late."

Pain p.r.i.c.kled behind Dante's eyes and suddenly it was as if he was looking through a shattered window as Lucien's image fractured and multiplied. Alarm flickered across Lucien's now diamond-faceted face. "Child...?"

Something abruptly shifted inside Dante, something long broken, carving into his mind with white light and molten pain. The world spun, the stars streaking the night with gossamer ribbons of light, and he felt himself falling, tumbling down, down, down as memory sheared up, sharp and slick and edged with whispers.

You wanna take her punishment, p't.i.t? D'accord, take it if you so h.e.l.lfire eager.

He's quiet now. Take him down.

Little f.u.c.king psycho.

Pain wrenched Dante apart and his vision winked out in an explosion of incandescent light- Wings rustled.

Dante tasted blood, pomegranate-tart and heady. Felt heated flesh against his cheek. He opened his eyes and looked up into Lucien's shadowed face. He tried to remember where he was and why he was cradled in Lucien's lap, held tight within his arms. Lucien's wings curved forward and purple-tinged darkness folded around them, creating a warm shelter smelling of dark earth and green leaves, of wing musk.

"I was falling..." Dante said, then stopped, uncertain. Or had that been a dream?

"Shhh, mon fils. You're safe. Rest." Gold motes danced in Lucien's dark eyes.

"You need morphine, little brother?" Von asked, voice pitched low.

Ice frosted the base of Dante's spine. There were only two reasons Von would spike him full of dope. Migraine or...

Another f.u.c.king seizure.

"No, mon ami." The lingering taste of Lucien's blood on Dante's tongue, his lips, told him why red-hot pain wasn't needling his joints and muscles, why he wasn't sapped of strength. "Did you give me blood? Or did I jump you?"

A smile quirked up the corners of Lucien's mouth. "I gave."

"Merci," Dante murmured. He felt Lucien gently tapping against their closed bond, urging him to reopen the link. Shaking his head, he pushed free of Lucien's embrace. As he rolled to his knees, kneeling within the circle of Lucien's wings, the where and why suddenly poured into his mind like water from a broken levee.

The cemetery.

I tried to keep you safe in silence.

The bead-draped stone angel.

Yes, like Loki.Creawdwr.

Dante's hands clenched into fists on his leather-clad thighs as his rage reignited. He met and held Lucien's gleaming gaze.

To Von he sent, Lucien's wings swept back and folded behind him. He un-crossed his legs, rising to his feet in one smooth motion. "You are ill, Dante, and hurt. You need time to heal."

Dante stood. "Don't tell me what I need."

A muscle ticked in Lucien's jaw. "Let the past go. Cancel the tour and let me teach you what you need to keep safe."

"No." Dante turned and headed down the path, his fingernails biting into his palms.