Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

The words Von had arrowed into his mind at the airport darted through his memory: Don’t deny your heart, little brother .

Gotta. She’ll die if I don’t .

No, Dante, no…

A song suddenly disrupted the silence, a tinny version of Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl.” “That’s Annie’s ringtone,” Heather breathed. “Phone’s in my purse.” She steered the Trans Am to the shoulder of the road. “Talk to her until I get stopped.”

Dante swiveled around in his seat, grabbed Heather’s purse from the backseat, and fished out the Zombie-rocking cell. He flipped it open. “Annie?”

The Trans Am slowed to a stop. Heather pulled up the emergency brake.

“No, but you’re not who I was expecting either.” Alex Lyons’s voice was level and warm. “You’re who I wanted to speak to, though.”

“Fi’de garce,” Dante spat. “Where’s Annie?”

Heather stared at Dante, fear flickering across her face. “Who is it?”

“Lyin’ Lyons,” Dante told her. “Where the fuck’s Annie?”

“She’s with me and she’s safe, for the moment.”

“Give me the phone,” Heather said, holding out her hand. All fear was gone from her face, but her hand trembled. Dante gave her the phone.

“What have you done with my sister, Lyons?”

Heather’s expression tightened as she listened to whatever the motherfucker was saying. Dante trailed a hand through his hair. Annie was in trouble. Bad trouble. Because of him.

He should’ve killed Lyons when he’d had the chance. Should’ve torn into his throat and fed.

Heather lowered the cell from her ear. The phone beeped and she looked at what appeared on the tiny monitor. Her breath caught in her throat. Wordlessly, she extended the phone to Dante so he could see too.

The screen held a photo of Annie, eyes closed, duct tape across her mouth. Anger burned through Dante’s veins.

“He wants to talk to you,” Heather said, her voice strained.

Dante took the phone from her fingers. He knew what she was thinking because he was thinking it too. “How do we know she’s alive?” he said into the cell.

“You’ll just have to take my word for it,” Lyons said. “She is, but if you want to keep her that way, you need to meet me.”

“Where?”

“Heather’s house. If you aren’t there in ten minutes, Annie will be dead.” Lyons ended the call.

Dante flipped the cell closed and dropped it back into Heather’s purse. “Your house in ten minutes,” he told her.

Heather nodded, jaw tight. She dropped the emergency brake, slammed the Trans Am into gear and burned rubber out onto the road. Dante listened to the rapid, furious rhythm of her heart. Adrenaline heated her scent, edging its lilacs-in-the-rain sweetness with the sharp tang of steel.

“Hang on, p’tite ,” Dante said under his breath, wishing hard and from the heart. Memory whirled through him, edging his vision with white light.

Jay, straitjacketed and dying on the slaughterhouse’s cold floor, blood from his slashed throat pooling around him, staining his blond hair red …

He’d told Jay to hang on, too. Dante’s hands clenched into fists. He refused to add Annie’s name to the litany of the lost, the long list of all those he’d failed.

“He’ll want me,” Dante said. “And he can have me. As soon as he gives you Annie, you get the hell outta Seattle and head for New Orleans.”

“I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself,” Heather said, voice tight. “We need to think of something else.”

“He wants me to heal his sister. He ain’t gonna hurt me.”

“I’m not letting Lyons leave with you.”

Dante shrugged. “I’ll just kill him first chance I get.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Yeah? Why won’t I?”

“Because you’re going to prepare two syringes with just enough morphine to knock a mortal into slumberland for a few hours. That’s why. Whoever gets to him first can give him the shot. Will you be able to get into his mind? Find where Annie is?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” White light danced at the edges of Dante’s vision and thorn-sharp pain prickled at his temples, scraped behind his left eye. He willed the pain below. He could only hope it’d stay there. And if it didn’t? He shivered, a chill breathing against the back of his neck.

I’ll have to use it before it uses me .

“Promise me that both syringes will have a nonfatal dose.”

Dante looked at Heather for a long moment, reading the tension in her body, the trust in her eyes. She knew he’d never lie. He reached into the backseat, grabbed the black bag, and unzipped it. He plucked out a syringe and uncapped it.

“Ain’t promising.”

In the depths, wasps droned.

He’d do whatever it took to keep Heather and Annie safe. No matter the cost.

Seattle, WA

March 24

SHERIDAN WATCHED ON THE mini-mon as the Trans Am pulled into Wallace’s driveway. The headlights went out. The passenger door opened and Dante Prejean stepped out of the car. Streetlight shimmered along his leather pants and latex shirt, gleamed blue in his hair.

Prejean strode down the driveway and Sheridan couldn’t help but admire his smooth and predatory grace. He also noticed that the vampire’s body language whispered of coiled muscles, of agitation. Of hunger.

Prejean glanced up the street in both directions, skimmed a hand through his hair, then turned and paced up the driveway.

Interesting. Waiting for someone, but not happy about it.

Let’s see who .

DANTE WALKED AROUND THE car to Heather, gravel crunching beneath his boots. It had started sprinkling again, more of a mist than actual rain, and droplets of water glistened on her black trenchcoat, jeweled her hair.

“If this goes south, and Lyons leaves with you,” she said, her voice husky, pained, “I will find you. I won’t give up. Do you hear me, Baptiste?”

Dante cupped Heather’s rain-cool face. “I hear you, chérie . And ditto.” He lowered his face to hers. “For luck.” He kissed her and she kissed him back hard, her lips parting beneath his, her hands on his hips.

Inside, the droning wasps washed away beneath a wave of white silence and the pain in Dante’s head eased.

The deep rumbling of a powerful engine drew Dante’s head up. He released Heather. “Truck coming.”

“Which direction?” She reached inside her trench for her gun. “Lyons drives a Dodge Ram.”

“East.”

Headlight glare stabbed blue-white light into Dante’s eyes. Pain pierced his head, ratcheted his headache into high gear. Squinting, he lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

The rumble stopped. The headlights winked out. Brilliant pinpoints flecked Dante’s vision. He plucked his shades from his shirt front and slid them on.

Heather studied the red truck parked against the curb, yellow parking lights glowing. “Is Annie with him?”

Dante saw only one occupant in the truck’s shadowed interior—Lyons. Filtering out the steady rhythm of Heather’s heart, he listened. The truck contained one heartbeat, a mortal’s fast, smooth patter. Dante’s hands curled into fists.