Maker's Song - In the Blood Part 3

"The Fallen will find you, one night," Lucien said quietly. "And, if I'm not with you to prevent it, they will bind you."

Dante paused on the path. Deep inside, wasps droned. "If they find me, they ain't binding me," he said, his voice low and taut. "They're gonna hafta kill me."

"Not if, Dante. When."

"Peut-etre que oui, peut-etre que non. Same ending."

"Not if I can help it."

"You ain't got a say," Dante said, his throat almost too tight for speech. "And we're done here." He moved, racing down the path, the night streaking past in a blue-white ribbon, the smells of moss and weathered marble deep in his lungs.

A few moments later, astride Von's Harley, his hands on the nomad's hips, the wind cold against his face, Dante wondered if Lucien followed. Wondered if any of the Fallen followed. Wondered if Lucien had finally given him the truth.

I hid you from others. Powerful others who would use you without mercy.

The Fallen will find you. And bind you.

No, they wouldn't. Not ever. Not unless they knew how to bind a corpse.

One way or another, he would be free-his life, his own.

Dante glanced up. The sky was empty but for stars and moon and pale streamers of clouds. Nothing winged above. Not that he could see. And the Harley's deep-throated rumble swallowed any sound he might hear.

Like a rush of wings.

2 A DARK AND DELICATE SONG.

New Orleans, St Louis No. 3 March 15

LUCIEN DE NOIR STOOD motionless on the moonlight-bathed path, Dante's furious words-They're gonna hafta kill me-battering his calm like bra.s.s-knuckled fists. He drew in a deep breath and forced his muscles to relax. Unclenched his hands.

Perhaps knocking his stubborn son to the ground and sitting on him until reason overcame rage-as Von had suggested a few nights earlier-would be necessary.

Shouldn't have to sit on him for longer than a week or two, Von says, straight-faced. Maybe three. He's your son, after all.

I am patient, Lucien reminds him, not stubborn.

Von laughs.

Lucien bent and searched through the sc.r.a.ps of paper at Loki's stone feet for the blood-kissed prayer Dante had placed among them. Finding it, he plucked it from the pile and straightened. The fading essence of creawdwr blood magic tingled against his fingers. Unfolding the liquor store receipt, he read the words scrawled in Dante's lefty slant: Watch over her, ma mere. S'il te plait, keep her safe. Even from me.

Lucien reread the prayer until the words blurred. He closed his fingers around the receipt, the paper crinkling against his palm. He had no doubt who she was-Special Agent Heather Wallace.

Wounded, his child, yes. Damaged, yes. But Dante's heart was whole and in love, it seemed, with a mortal. Perhaps Heather Wallace could bind Dante and help keep his sanity from unraveling.

Insanity. The fate of an unbound creawdwr.

Until Dante relented and forgave him, Lucien would be unable to teach his son how to control his gifts. Would be unable to help him keep his balance as creawdwr power raged through his mind and heart. Would be unable to lend him the strength to fight madness.

He wasn't the only one Dante hadn't forgiven. Dante also refused to forgive himself. Still sought penance for acts he'd committed as a child struggling to survive, acts he couldn't even remember. Penance unowed, as far as Lucien was concerned.

Lucien studied Dante's handiwork, the bouquet his child had created. The soft-petaled flowers in Loki's hand danced as though breeze-stirred. Thorned tendrils snaked around the stone figure's arms, neck, and wings. The scent of smoky incense, of myrrh, wafted up from each flower's glossy black heart, a night perfume.

A song, delicate and dark, chimed up from the bouquet.

Dante's power strummed across Lucien's heart and radiated into the star-p.r.i.c.ked sky-a beacon for any Elohim within range. A cold finger traced the length of Lucien's spine. He straightened and listened to the night. Listened for wybrcathl. Listened for the rustle of wings. He heard only the faint pulse of Loki's stone-caught heart.

Lucien looked at Loki's crouched and screaming form. Time was running out. Soon, whoever had sent Loki would wonder at his absence.

Ever since Yahweh's death, well over two thousand years ago, the Elohim had waited for the rise of another creawdwr.

But only Lucien knew the wait had ended nearly twenty-four years ago, when a Maker had been born, a creawdwr like no other-vampire and Fallen.

Only Lucien knew-so far.

And he intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Lucien carefully plucked free Loki's bouquet, unwinding its black roots from around the pale stone. A riot of chiming notes rose into the air, a sharp and wild crystalline song. Inky tendrils slithered free of Loki's arm and curled around Lucien's arm, his throat. The song quieted.

A beautiful song. One he would drown in the Mississippi.

Tucking Dante's prayer into the pocket of his black slacks, Lucien fanned open his wings. Air gusted, extinguishing the few remaining candles still flickering and scattering the prayer-etched bits of paper across the cemetery path.

As his wings flared and swept upward, lifting him into the sky, he suddenly heard another heartbeat. Strong and measured.

A rhythm he knew. Hovering just above the cemetery's main path, Lucien scanned the shadows.

She stepped out of the darkness pooled beneath the cypress. Flowing midnight hair, creamy skin, and gleaming eyes. A red gown clung to her curves and, at her back, her black wings were folded.

Rubies glittered in the slender torc curving around her throat and in the gold bracelets around her slender wrists. A cold smile played across her lips-lips the color of moonlit ruby wine and just as intoxicating.

"No song of greeting, my cydymaith?" Lilith asked.

Without a word, Lucien spun and soared up into the sky. Dante's black blossoms chimed and sang as the wind stroked their petals. He didn't need to look to know Lilith followed; he heard the powerful whoosh as she took to the air. He'd always out- winged her in the past. He hoped that was still true. He flew swiftly for the wide, night-blackened curve of the Mississippi, the night cool against his face.

The lights of the city burned bright beneath him, glimmered with headlight glow, except for one dark, empty section stretching to the east-what used to be the Ninth Ward, now a razed shadow reeking of decay. Veves and gris-gris and blessed candles warded its haunted borders, protecting the rest of an unknowing New Orleans from the bitter and angry spirits trapped within-forever drowning, forever waiting for help that never came. And never would.

Moisture beaded on Lucien's face as he veered toward the south and the river. Moonlight rippled across the Mississippi's surface and ship lights glowed red and yellow upon the slow-moving waters.

Lucien caught a glimpse of black and red in his peripheral vision: Lilith had caught up and flew beside him, her wings stroking smoothly through the sky.

So much for out-winging her, he thought wryly.

Ethereal notes rang into the air, clear and lilting. And, for one heart-stopping moment, the centuries dropped away and he was once again flying beneath the deep blue skies of Gehenna, his brilliant and beautiful cydymaith winging beside him, trilling her complicated song.

The sky-rumbling roar of an airplane overhead shattered the illusion and the centuries returned. But Lilith singing, that was no illusion; her desperate wybrcathl filled the air and Lucien's heart.

What she sang turned his blood to ice.

Gehenna was fading, a land too long without a creawdwr's powerful and sustaining touch. The border between worlds bled and soon the Elohim would return to the mortal world to rule it for all time.

Then the wars for power would begin in earnest.

3 BLEEDTHROUGH.

Above New Orleans March 15

WINGS FANNING THE AIR, Lucien slowed and descended to the weed-and mud-pebbled banks of the Mississippi, Dante's black flowers singing in his hand, Lilith's words echoing in his mind.

Gehenna is fading.

Folding his wings behind him, Lucien knelt on one knee and plunged the blossoms into the dark water, the reek of moss and mud and fish thick in his nostrils. A gust of air swept his hair across his face, and he caught a peripheral flash of red.

"What are you doing?" Lilith cried and grabbed at his arm.

Fending her off with a shoulder flex, Lucien tightened his grip on the flowers and shoved them deeper into the Mississippi.

The black tendrils knotted around his hand and arm and throat, twisting tight and digging into his flesh as the bouquet struggled for life. Little bubbles flecked the water's surface. Lucien thought he detected a faint gurgling underwater song. His chest tightened. He had no other choice. To keep Dante safe, he would do whatever was necessary.

"Stop!" Lilith leaped into the water, then bent, her hands searching beneath the surface for his and the things he drowned.

Her fingers skittered across the back of his hand. Her talons stabbed.

The bouquet's inky tendrils slithered free of Lucien's throat and arm, limp and lifeless. He released the flowers and pulled his hand from the river. Blood welled up in the punctures, even as the wounds healed.

Lilith swished her hands around in the muddy water for a moment longer, then she straightened, a single black flower, drenched and silent, hanging from her hand. She sloshed from the river, her gown wet from the thighs down and clinging to her shapely legs. She fluttered her wings, shaking water from their tips.

Rising to his feet, Lucien fixed his gaze on her. Like all Elohim high-bloods, she was tall, but at six two, she was still a head below his six eight. He remembered the feel of her silky hair as it slid between his fingers, the softness of her wings-even after thousands of years.

An image of Genevieve draped only in a white bath towel, her wet hair streaming past her shoulders, laughing, dark eyes gleaming, flashed behind Lucien's eyes, and grief closed a fist around his heart.

Lucien was grateful that Dante was gone and on his way to Los Angeles. He was far enough to keep him safe temporarily-but not out of Elohim reach, not yet. Shields tight around his mind and heart, he watched Lilith's approach.

Stroking one taloned finger along the drowned flower's stem, sadness glimmered within Lilith's golden eyes. She lifted her head, the fire in her eyes searing away any trace of the sorrow he'd witnessed just a moment before.

"How could you, Samael?" she demanded. "A creawdwr's beautiful gift and you killed it like an unwanted kitten." She flung the flower at him. It fell into the weeds.

"I haven't used that name since I left Gehenna," he said. "Call me Lucien."

"Do you plan on slaying this creawdwr too?"

"Perhaps I already have."

"Perhaps."

Lilith crossed the short distance between them, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shimmying beneath the thin silk with each step. She stood in front of him, chin lifted, a knowing smile curving her lips. Her scent reawakened the past, unearthed memories of heated, soft flesh and urgent moans. He tensed, breathing in her warm cedar and amber fragrance, his pulse winging through his veins.

"Perhaps," she repeated. "But I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. If you had killed him, you wouldn't have been in such a hurry to murder his flowers."

Lucien smiled. "Are you certain of that?"

Tilting her head, she studied him. The river breeze lifted tendrils of her black hair and blew them across her face, slashing her lovely face with midnight-black shadows. "Yes, my cydymaith. I'm certain you haven't killed him...yet."

"I'm no longer your cydymaith," Lucien said quietly. "I gave that up as well when I left Gehenna."

"I didn't," she returned with a haughty lift of her chin. Lucien laughed. "After all this time? Lilith, please."

The fire in her golden eyes intensified, bright and hot, as if she wished she could burn him to nothing but ash with one glance.

"Do you know where this Maker is?" she asked. "I know he's young, male, and powerful from his anhrefncathl. And unstable."

Dread gripped Lucien with cold talons. Even Lilith realized that Dante was unbound, a creawdwr edging toward inevitable madness. Forcing a smile to his lips, he said, "His song brought me, as well. I have no more idea of where he is than you do."

"Really?" Lilith murmured. She slid a warm hand up his bare chest to his lips. "Then who turned Loki to stone and chained him to the earth?"

Without thinking, Lucien kissed her fingertips. It surprised him to realize how easily he reverted to habits he believed long dead. Surprised and disturbed him. Grasping her hand, he lowered it from his face. "It's less than he deserves, I'm sure. Loki has any number of enemies," he said. "Did you send him?"

"No. He's been spending his time with the Morningstar and that wretch, Gabriel."

"Ah."

"How long have you known of the existence of this creawdwr?" Lilith asked.

Lucien shook his head. "What does it matter? I won't let you have him."

"So you do know him," Lilith breathed. "I knew it."

"Would you like to join Loki, my sweet?"

But Lilith didn't back away as Lucien thought she might. Instead her hands knotted into fists and her wings fluttered in agitation. "You are selfish," she said. "Selfish and full of pride. You'd let Gehenna vanish and leave the Elohim homeless and bereft and for what? Because you think only you know what's best for a Maker!"

"I know I'll never allow another to be chained to Elohim will!"