Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Her partner, Glen One-Eighty, gunned his cobalt-blue Kawasaki Versys beside them, jerking ahead a few meters. The black, bird-shaped V tattooed on his right cheek named his clan—Raven. As he dropped back, Von extended both middle fingers— fuck you twice . He caught the gleam of teeth as the nomad grinned.

Fuck you twice . Dante’s phrase. And Dante and Heather were the reason Von was on the road flying toward Portland and Damascus at 75 mph on the back of a Raven’s Indian instead of sitting beside Silver on a plane winging to New Orleans.

One moment, Von’s chatting with the pair of Ravens at a Dutch Bros. coffee kiosk inside the terminal; the next moment, pain ragged as a chainsaw blade chews through his relaxed shields and into his mind. Literally knocks him on his ass .

Dante.

Von funnels energy into his shields, tightens and strengthens them. The pain vanishes, but his head still aches, the throb a phantom, a memory ghost .

He jumps to his feet and runs, blurring past the weekend tourist crowds , to the bank of pay phones. Fumbling Heather’s card from his jacket pocket, Von plugs a debit spike into the pay slot and punches in her number .

Von grows colder with each unanswered ring. He leaves a message on her voice mail, then decides to ask a favor .

The Ravens had been happy— Honored, nightwalker bro —to take Von to Heather’s house. No Trans Am. Von had vaulted the fence and walked around to the back of the house and looked in through the dining room window. The boxes Heather had packed were still there. So was Dante’s duffel bag.

And Von had known . Calm and cold and intuitive.

Not a second team trying to snatch Heather. Not a car accident. Not even the goddamned Fallen.

Alex Lyons had refused to take no for an answer.

All you have to do is heal my sister .

Lyons knew how to trigger Dante. Knew how best to hurt him.

Remembering what Heather had said about Lyons’s home in Damascus, Von had sent to Trey in New Orleans and asked him to search the Internet for the address. Ninety seconds later, Von had asked the Ravens for a ride south.

Hand on Marley’s hip, raindrops stinging his face like pissed-off honeybees, Von wished they could eat up the road faster.

Shoulda never left Dante’s side. Shoulda never let him walk away .

ALEX STARED AT THE Lord of the Underworld, the blood chilling in his veins.

She stood between the occupied beds, a smile on her lips, her mud-streaked face luminous as though a fire burned just beneath her skin and behind her eyes. Her hair was twisted with mud into dark coils sweeping against her shoulders. A long, white, gore-streaked tunic belted at the waist graced her slender form.

In one grimy hand, she held a spear from their father’s collection, and in the other what looked like an apple or pomegranate or—no, too big, Alex thought, too misshapen and moist. She held a heart.

“Welcome home, my Xander,” Athena/Hades said.

Alex’s goddess of wisdom was drifting away from him with each breath she drew, a kite with a broken string.

A string Dante could not only mend, but reel back in and tether. Alex would make sure of it.

“I brought Dante home,” Alex said, joining his sister between the beds.

“I know.” She tilted her head, then shuddered. “He’s dreaming.”

“Thank God you’re back,” his father said from the right-hand bed, his voice thin with relief. “She’s betrayed us. She helped the assassin into the house. She murdered your mother—” Rage throttled his words into silence.

“Consider it a mercy,” Alex said. “Mother’s been dying for years.” He looked around the room, cataloguing all of his sister’s additions to the décor.

A garland of bluish-gray intestines looped across the top of the closed curtains and hung down each side of the window.

A man’s head, a small bullet hole marring the forehead, was perched on the nightstand beside Mother’s bed. And in Mother’s bed, a dark-haired woman in black slept, her wrists and ankles wrapped in leather restraints.

“The Tightrope Walker?” Alex asked.

“Yes, once,” Athena/Hades said. “Now she’s a meal for our Dante.”

Still holding his sister’s hand, Alex turned to face his father. Robert Wells stared at him with red-rimmed and furious eyes, helpless and full of hate. A well-deserved karmic kick in the gonads, Alex mused.

“I triggered Dante,” Alex said, holding his father’s gaze. “He did as you instructed. Rodriguez is dead. And I don’t think it was a pleasant death. Dante’s an effective tool, but not a very subtle one.”

Father drew in a deep breath, then nodded. “If you hope to have any success using him, you need me, Alexander.”

“I noticed your little safeguard. He can’t even hold your name in his mind.”

A smug smile curved his father’s lips. “Keep this word in mind: Safe guards .”

“Keep this word in mind: Hood.” His father’s smile faltered. “Here’s another: Duct tape. If Dante can’t see your face or hear your voice, I’ve got a feeling he’ll have no problem killing you.”

“Unmaking you,” Athena/Hades added.

Their father paled. “You still need me. I have the map.”

“No,” Athena/Hades said. “Dante needs to remember . When he does, he’ll take you apart.” Swiveling, she walked from the room.

“I can coax S into healing Athena,” Father said. Sweat gleamed on his forehead.

“Y’know, I always thought Mother was right about one thing,” Alex said, walking to the doorway. Pausing at the threshold, he continued, “I think Alexander the Great did have his good ol’ dad, King Philip, murdered. Goodnight, Father.”

Alex flipped off the light and closed the door.

HEATHER PULLED IN BEHIND Alex’s Dodge Ram. She slid the Trans Am’s gearshift into neutral, switched off the headlights, then the engine. The night, deep and endless, swept in and swallowed up all the places the doused headlights had abandoned.

She climbed out of the Trans Am and pocketed the keys. Not wanting to give Lyons another excuse to search her, she left her trenchcoat in the backseat. The air was thick with the smell of pine and moist earth, of the woods surrounding the houses. A nearby stream gurgled over rocks.

Pale light spilled from the windows and across the dark curves of shrubs and bushes. She glanced from one house to another, wondering which one she was supposed to go to; Alex had neglected to mention two houses.

Just as Heather started across the yard toward the main house, the front door opened and a light-haloed form stepped outside onto the porch, a gun in one hand.

“Cutting it close,” Lyons said.

“It’s not an easy place to find,” Heather said. She stopped at the foot of the steps leading to the porch. “Let me give the car keys to Annie. Let her go. Why do you need all three of us?”

Lyons raked a hand through his curls, his face thoughtful. “You might have a point. C’mon in, let’s see if we can reach an agreement.”

Heather placed a foot on the bottom step. “You’ve lied to me before. I need a show of good faith,” she said. “You let Annie take the car and leave, I’m yours.”

“I’ve got Dante, so you’re mine anyway.” Lyons turned around and sauntered back inside the house. “Annie’s negotiable.”