Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Body tight as a fist, Heather climbed the steps. She walked into the house. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw Dante on the sofa, still unconscious.

“He’s fine,” Lyons said, a knowing smile on his lips.

Telepath . She was going to have to be very careful. “Where’s Annie?” Her gaze skipped around the room—leather recliners, wide-screen TV, bookcases, coffee table—marking window locations, possible exits, hall, kitchen archway.

“My sister’s fetching her.” Lyons nodded at the recliner closest to the sofa. “Take a seat, Wallace. Get comfy. You’re gonna be here a while. Oh, and hands out, wrists together.”

After her wrists had been secured again with flex-cuffs, Heather perched on the edge of the recliner, the leather squeaking beneath her. Alex went to the sofa, bent, and waved a capsule of some kind under Dante’s nose. Dante stirred, then his head jerked away from the capsule. Heather caught a whiff of something acrid.

“Rise and shine,” Lyons murmured. He slipped the capsule into his jeans pocket. Hooking a hand around Dante’s bicep, he hauled him upright.

Dante shook his hair back from his face. Blinking, he looked around the room and Heather could just imagine what he was thinking: Where the hell am I now? He looked at Lyons and something very dark and dangerous flashed across his pale face.

“Did I pay for Annie?” Dante asked, his Cajun accent thick, his words slightly slurred. “She safe?”

“No,” Heather threw in before Lyons could answer him. “He lied to us. He’s still holding Annie.”

Dante’s gaze shifted to Heather and the dangerous light faded from his face. “You okay, chérie ?” His eyes were glassy and dilated, just a thin ring of deepest brown slashed with red circled each pupil.

“I’m good,” she said. “I’m just trying to convince Lyons to give Annie the car keys so she can go.”

Dante’s gaze returned to Lyons. “Did I do what I was fucking supposed to do?”

Lyons nodded. “You did.”

A muscle in Dante’s jaw flexed. “Yeah? Then why you still holding Heather and Annie? You want me to heal your sister? I’ll do it.”

Lyons chuckled. “Just like that?”

Dante nodded. “I can be as easy as you want me to be. Just let them go.” His nostrils flared as though he’d caught a whiff of something bad, then he turned and looked toward the hall. “Fuck,” he whispered.

The stench of death wafted into the air, greasy and thick, and carried on a murmured tide of words Heather couldn’t make out. A tall, slender woman in a white Grecian-style gown streaked with dark smears and smudges walked into the room. She held a spear in one grimy hand, her other hand locked around a wide-eyed Annie’s arm.

“My sister,” Lyons said. A strange mix of love and despair swept across his face. “The Lord of the Underworld.”

A chill rippled down Heather’s spine. If this was Lyons’s sister, then she was worse off than Heather had imagined, much worse.

“What do you see, my Hades?” Lyons asked, his voice hushed.

The murmured tide of whispers stopped. Athena Wells looked at Dante.

“I can’t see beyond his beautiful face,” she said, her voice low and full of wonder. “I’ve tried and tried and tried. Either he blocks the way or he is the way.”

“The way?” Lyons questioned. He moved around the sofa and pulled Annie from his sister’s grasp, walked her to Heather’s recliner.

Heather saw the fear in Annie’s eyes. “It’ll be okay,” she promised. “We’ll get you out of here.”

“I fucked up,” Annie whispered. She looked away, blinking, jaw tight.

“Give me the car keys,” Lyons said, holding out his hand.

Rising to her feet, Heather worked her fingers into her jeans pocket, snagged her keys and pulled them from her pocket. She flashed a look at Annie, one her sister caught, then fumbled the keys. They jingled to the carpet.

Annie scooped them up like a first baseman diving for a low ball.

“Whoops,” Heather said.

Lyons looked at her, an almost smile on his lips. “Smooth, Wallace.” Opening up his pocketknife, he cut through the flex-cuffs binding Annie’s wrists. “Okay, all right, Annie can go. I’ll even walk her out to the car.”

The glint in Lyons’s eyes hinted of nastiness to come: a bullet fired into Annie’s skull underneath the evergreens, her body dumped into the trunk of Heather’s car, or maybe out in the woods.

Cold lanced through Heather. “No, wait—”

With a quick shove of his hand to her chest, Lyons pushed Heather back into the recliner. She landed hard, her head bouncing against the back of the chair.

A blur of fluid motion rocketed across Heather’s field of vision, a blur of leather and white skin launched from the sofa. Lyons slammed to the floor, Dante on top of him. The gun Lyons had just pulled somersaulted from his hand, across the carpet, and disappeared under the TV stand.

Heather jumped to her feet. “Annie! Run!”

Annie whirled and bolted out the front door.

“Both of you!” Dante yelled, straddling Lyons. “Fucking run !” Hands still cuffed behind him, he dipped his face toward Lyons’s throat. A flash of fangs and then he slashed into either the arm Lyons had flung up or into his throat.

Outside on the porch, Annie stopped in front of the window and mouthed run . But Heather shook her head and motioned for Annie to keep going. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t, abandon Dante. They were in this fight together.

Annie’s eyes widened in horror and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Skin prickling, Heather spun around.

The Lord of the Underworld drove her spear into Dante’s back, just beneath his left shoulder blade. Dante sucked in a sharp, pained breath. She yanked the spear free, the tip flinging dark droplets of blood through the air. She swiveled around to face Heather, a breath-stealing smile on her lips. Heather froze.

Outside the Trans Am revved to life. Gravel scattered under tires.

“Welcome to Hell,” Athena Wells said.

Damascus, OR

March 24–25

ANNIE SLAMMED THE TRANS Am into fifth gear as she peeled down the dark road and away from the winding driveway marked PRIVATE, peeled away from the image of the Lord of the Underworld driving her spear into Dante. Peeled away from the image of her cuffed sister still trapped inside that house of horrors.

Annie! Run!

But she couldn’t peel away from the truth.

Because of her stupidity, Heather and Dante might die.

Slamming on the brake and clutch, Annie brought the Trans Am to a stuttering, rubber-burning, smoking stop. Her heart launched into a moshing frenzy and she felt faint, sick. She sucked in a breath and it stuck in her throat, a ragged sob.

I almost lost Heather once. She’s still alive and here because of Dante .

Don’t walk away! Man up! Fucking do something!

Annie searched the car for a cell phone, rifled Heather’s abandoned trenchcoat, the glove box, but turned up nothing. She pounded her fists against the steering wheel. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! ” she screamed.

Who was she going to call, anyway? The cops? She had no idea where she was and she’d never trusted cops. Call Dad? Bitter anger percolated within her.