Maker's Song - In the Blood Part 42

Looks like I ain't the only one sneaking around tonight.

Unholstering both Brownings, Von moved.

FAIRY-TALE TRIGGER WORDS.

Cold fingers closed around Heather's heart when Dante's eyes sprang open at Wells's command. Red streaked his dark irises. Pain dilated the pupils. His attention was riveted on Wells, but a deep and primal rage blazed in his eyes.

She touched Dante's arm and he shuddered. His muscles quivered, taut. "Don't listen to him, Baptiste, listen to me."

"He's not allowed to listen to anyone else, Agent Wallace," Wells said, looking the worse for wear, hair uncombed, face beard-shadowed, his clothes rumpled. "He won't hear you."

Heather met Wells's confident gaze. "That's what Johanna Moore thought too."

Wells's confidence dimmed a notch. He nodded. "Point taken." He pressed the knife a little deeper into Annie's throat.

She held still, clearly trying not to swallow. A line of blood appeared beneath the blade. "Kindly step away from S, Agent Wallace," Wells said.

"His name's Dante Baptiste. Not S."

"If you say so. Now move. Sit on the floor."

Sliding her fingers from Dante's arm, Heather paced aside a couple of steps, then knelt beside the sofa. She studied her sister. She looked pale and disheveled, but more than okay for a woman with a knife at her throat and a severed head in her arms, her gaze steady.

She'd never expected Annie to return, to attempt to help her. And even though it moved her that her sister had returned, Heather desperately wished she hadn't.

"Let Annie go," she said, voice level. "You don't need her."

"I don't, true, but S will need her blood sooner or later." Wells looked past Heather to the living room.

She glanced over her shoulder. Lyons had pulled the spear from his twin's body and tossed its bloodied length to the floor.

He cradled Athena/Hades in his lap, rocking back and forth. "Nonononono," he whispered over and over, his voice raw and broken.

As raw and broken as Dante's voice had sounded while the twins had tortured him. Any sympathy Heather might've felt shriveled in the heat of her anger. A muscle flexed in her jaw and she looked away.

She wasn't sure she liked what she was feeling, but she'd have to deal with that later. Right now, she couldn't, wouldn't let Wells use Dante.

With Wells's attention focused on his grieving son, Heather slipped her hands underneath the sofa. She groped along the carpet for the thing she'd glimpsed beneath the sofa when Dante had been feeding.

A syringe.

Heather's fingers b.u.mped against a smooth, cylindrical shape. Curling her hand around it, she pulled it free.

"Thank you for bringing Wallace home, Alexander," Wells said. "I'll enjoy studying her to see what changes S made when he healed her."

I'll just bet you would, Heather thought. You and the SB both.

A covert glance at the syringe cupped in her palm revealed that it was completely filled. That alone told her that it hadn't been intended for humans-too much, even for a fatal dose.

But for nightkind?

It won't do nothing but ease him into sleep, doll.

Desperation tightened around her throat. She hoped that was true for any drug.

Rising to her feet, Heather stepped beside Dante, slipping the syringe between her fingers. Wells couldn't command him if he was unconscious. Wouldn't be able to force him to do anything. She jabbed the needle into Dante's throat.

"No!" Wells shouted.

Just as Heather's thumb touched the plunger, a static-electricity jolt zapped her hand. The syringe twitched free of her grasp, jerked from Dante's throat, and zipped across the room.

Heather spun around.

Lyons met her gaze, his own a pale green sea of bitter hate and grief. "Can't let you do that," he said, easing his twin's limp body onto the carpet. "I still need the bloodsucking b.a.s.t.a.r.d to heal Athena."

Then he rose to his feet in one smooth, athletic motion, lifted his gun, and fired.

Heather twisted around, heart pounding, and saw a widening circle of blood in the center of Wells's shirt.

THE BULLET HIT THE side of Von's shades, shattering them. El Diablo styled shrapnel thistled his face.

"Motherf.u.c.ker!"

Von whirled, dropping into a crouch as he spun, and opened up with both barrels. Muzzle flash from the Brownings lit up the shadowed yard and dazzled his vision as he emptied both clips. He dove behind a stack of cordwood smelling of sawdust, mold, and oak. Wood splinters flew into the air when the next bullet slammed into the stack.

On his back, his gaze on a night sky gone pale with rain clouds, Von ejected the clips, pulled two more from his jacket pockets, and slapped them home-one, two.

He wiped his stinging face with the back of one hand. His hand came back blood-smeared. "Motherf.u.c.ker," he repeated.

Blinking the retinal flash ghosts from his eyes, Von rolled up to his knees.

He caught the glow of muzzle fire across the yard and up an evergreen and oak-sheltered hill. A split second later a bullet thwipped into the wood stack.

Von grinned. Gotcha, Mr. SUV Sniper Man. Squeezing off a couple of rounds to keep the a.s.shole busy, he jumped to his feet and ran.

WELLS STARED, STUNNED BY his son's display of telekinesis. A natural talent, not one he'd implanted or manipulated, one Alexander had kept secret. Then the bullet hit Wells in the chest, staggering him back a step like a hard-knuckled punch. He looked down at the hole in his shirt and the blood soaking into its fabric. The pocketknife slipped from his fingers.

Annie jerked away from him. He heard a dull thud and looked down to see Gloria's head rolling on the floor.

"No!" Wells dropped to his knees and seized the head by the wispy gray hair. He gathered it into his arms. Gunfire cracked through the night outside, a series of shots, then silence. His thundering heart leapt into his throat. Had the SB sent more a.s.sa.s.sins?

"s.h.i.t!" Wallace said. "Annie, get on the floor! Stay there!"

S was wincing, his sensitive ears no doubt hurting from the explosive sound of the round Alexander had fired.

Alexander lowered the gun and strode to the door. Flipped the dead bolt.

"S, protect me. Kill Alexander!" Pain ripped through Wells's chest.

"Listen to me, Baptiste," Wallace said. "You're not the killer he's tried to shape you into since birth. You're the man your mother wished you to be, wished aloud and from the heart."

A muscle jumped in S's jaw. His eyes squeezed shut, his lashes trembling as though he fought to keep them closed. His taut muscles quivered.

"Protect me, S!"

"Shut him out, Dante. You deserve a life of your own, shaped however you want. Shaped from the heart. We're in this together, all the way."

Sweat beaded S's forehead. "T'es sur de sa?" he whispered, voice strained.

"Yeah, Baptiste, I'm sure," Wallace answered softly.

Wells stared at S. "Hush," he commanded, his voice a breathless wheeze. "Open your eyes, S, and look at me. Rip Van Winkle."

"Snow White," S replied. Blood trickled from his nose, spattered on the sofa, the carpet. A dark smile tilted his lips. The tension uncoiled from his body. "Sleeping f.u.c.king Beauty."

Fear iced Wells's blood. He struggled for breath. S was somehow circ.u.mventing his programming. Maybe it'd been short- circuited when the twins had tried to force his past down his throat. Or maybe it was Wallace. Maybe it was both. Or neither.

Should've made him kill Wallace, like Chloe.

Wells scooted back against the wall. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.

More shots popped outside.

S opened his eyes.

Wells caught peripheral flashes of movement around him-Wallace's sister crawling to the sofa, Wallace reaching for S, but he couldn't tear his gaze from S's beautiful, blood-streaked face, from his golden gleaming eyes.

Gold, just like when he'd been born. Just like when he'd un-made Johanna.

Blue flames flickered out from behind S, from his cuffed hands.

S's smile deepened at whatever he glimpsed in the depths of Wells's eyes.

"This'll make it easier to kill him," Alexander said. "But after you bring my sister back from the Underworld."

Wells watched, cold and slicked in sweat, as a small key floated across the room and disappeared behind S. He heard a sharp click, then a thud as S shook off the unlocked cuffs. S worked his shoulders, swinging his hands forward.

Hands haloed in blue flames.

He's the one, Dante-angel.

I know, princess.

Dante's song swelled in the dark of his soul, intoxicating and free, a primal aria. Energy crackled along his fingers.

Vaulting the sofa, Dante landed in a crouch beside the man whose face he couldn't keep in his mind, Lyin' Lyons's dad.

The pungent smell of fear oozed from every pore of the Faceless Man's body.

"My beautiful boy, my S," the man said, his voice bubbling, "it's time to bid you goodnight for-"

"No!" Heather yelled. "Shut up!" White light strobed at the edges of Dante's vision. Pain blurred his thoughts. He slapped a hand over the man's mouth. His song raged in wild ascending chords, strumming fast and sharp as he sealed the man's mouth with blue fire. Blue flames blazed across the man's face, wiping away all features, making it easy for Dante to look at him. The pain throbbing in his head throttled down a notch.

The Faceless Man screamed and screamed and screamed, the m.u.f.fled sound locked inside his throat.

But inside Dante, the voices whispered.

Want.i.tneeditkillitburnit...

Is he getting what he deserves, Dante-angel?

Nah, princess, not even close.

"Little f.u.c.king psycho," Dante said, his song resonating from his heart and into the night, aflame and unfettered.

DANTE'S anhrefncathl, DARK AND burning and razor-edged, pulsed into Lucien, drawing him up from restless sleep.

His muscles flexed and, instinctively, he tried to unfurl his wings, tried to launch himself into the sky.

Pain pierced his wings, his shoulders, and Lucien awakened. Embers glowed orange-yellow-red underneath him, and Gehenna bled away above.

As did he.

A cold knot of dread settled into Lucien's chest. His child's powerful chaos song stabbed into Gehenna's fading night sky, madness glimmering in each exquisite and haunting note.

Wybrcathl trilled through the skies above, crystalline and pure, and chalkydri chittered below, their excited voices echoing throughout Sheol's tunnels.

Anhrefncathl! Creawdwr! The song of a Maker!

And so, we must face the things we fear.

Dante was no longer hidden. All of Gehenna now knew a creawdwr existed, and the Elohim would stop at nothing to find him. Soon they would wing to the mortal world seeking the source of the chaos song-a damaged and beautiful boy, his furious son.

Once again, Lucien's absence was about to condemn Dante to a h.e.l.lish existence. Once again he was breaking his promises.

You'll never be alone again.

I will keep our son safe.

Lucien twisted in his chains. The barbs corkscrewed deeper into his shoulders and blood trickled hot down his back. Pain blackened his vision. A rush of wings and servile chittering from the chalkydri announced the descent of one of the Elohim.