Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

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 hellish 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.

Swept up by wing gust, sulphurous, stinking air blew over Lucien, but layered underneath was a hint of cedar and warm amber, of myrrh. As his vision cleared, he saw Lilith hovering in front of him, her lush body gowned in deepest blue.

“Your son has announced himself,” she said, her ember-shad-owed face tight with an emotion Lucien couldn’t quite name. “We’re out of time.”

“He didn’t intend to,” Lucien said. “He’s in pain.” If the past had finally risen like a tsunami from the depths and broken over Dante, he hoped that Von was close, hoped he had a syringe ready. “You must find him before Gabriel or the Morningstar do. Tell Dante I sent you.”

“What if he doesn’t believe me?”

“Tell him he once gave me a gift, one that I cherished, an X-rune pendant.”

“For friendship.” Lilith’s expression softened. “What happened to it?”

“It was taken from me,” Lucien said, voice low.

Lilith glanced up as shadows winged overhead. “Now, Lucien, hurry.”

Lucien closed his eyes, dropped his ever-weakening shields, and revealed the coiled ethereal bond linking him to Dante—father to son, creator to created, aingeal to creawdwr .

.>

Closing her eyes, Lilith dipped into Lucien’s consciousness, a mind she’d once known intimately. He felt her presence, intelligent and warm and strong. He felt her trace the bond, tap into its rhythm. Felt it resonate within her mind. Together, they forged a temporary link to each other.

.>

Lilith stared at him, gold flecks gleaming in her violet eyes. < Severing the bond might kill you both .>

.>

A sudden burr of wings opened Lucien’s eyes. One of the chalkydri, scaled hide gleaming in the ember light, buzzed away. It fluted/chittered in a mock- wybrcathl : “The Nightbringer has a bond with the creawdwr !”

The chalkydri’s fluting ended in a startled squeak. The strong flap of Elohim wings echoed from the nearest tunnel. Lucien’s heart turned to stone when white wings cut through the darkness at the tunnel’s mouth. He threw his shields back into place.

The Morningstar emerged into the pit proper, the chalkydri hanging limp from his taloned hand. He dropped the scaled body into the embers. Its delicate wings sizzled on the coals, and the sickening smell of roasting flesh wafted into the air.

A smile blazed upon the Morningstar’s radiant face. “Still planting seeds of trust, my love?”

Lilith spun away, her black wings stroking through the gloom for the pale sky above. Lucien focused on keeping his bond bright enough for her to follow. He wished her fletched-arrow speed.

“I find it amusing that the slayer of one creawdwr fathers the next,” the Morningstar said. “Dante, an intriguing name, but inappropriate, don’t you think? Once he’s seated upon the Chaos Seat, he’ll finally be far and safe from the hell politely referred to as the mortal world.”

White wings slashing through the reeking air, the Morningstar whirled up to Sheol’s mouth. “And he’ll be mine.”

Lucien stared after him, cold to his core.

And Dante’s anhrefncathl still raged through Gehenna’s sky.

HEATHER STARED, HEART POUNDING against her ribs, as Dante lifted his glowing hands from Wells’s face. Or what used to be a face. Only smooth skin remained. And behind his absent lips, Wells’s trapped screams faded. Her stomach clenched and, swallowing hard, she looked away.

He couldn’t hold Wells’s face in his mind any more than he could his name .

Looks like he fixed that problem .

A self-destruct safeguard had been programmed into Dante. And Wells had been about to trigger it until…well, until Dante’d made sure he could never speak again.

Drawing in a deep breath, Heather returned her gaze to Dante, carefully avoiding looking at Wells. Dante absently wiped at his bleeding nose with the back of his hand, then knotted his hands into fists—fists engulfed in blue fire. Pain glimmered in his golden eyes. He stood with quick and easy grace, and looked at her.

The sight of him tore at her. Exhaustion was pooled in blue shadows beneath his eyes. And blood slicked the front of his purple PVC shirt, dripped dark onto the carpet.

“Heather,” he breathed, the pain fading from his eyes. Then he stiffened, his body so tight, Heather was afraid another seizure was about to knock him to the floor. But he lifted into the air, instead, his expression startled.

“Shit!” Heather watched as Lyons floated Dante across the room. “Are you nuts? He doesn’t have control of his power!”

“Don’t have anything to lose.” Lyons lowered Dante to the floor beside Athena’s white-gowned body.

Heather thought of his father’s face and thought, Yes, you do . But kept that thought to herself. Anything Dante did to Lyons, Lyons had coming. In spades.

Had coming, yes, but Dante yearned for redemption, to be free of the past. Yearned to know who and what he was. How would he ever be free if she just stepped aside and let him kill? She’d be even more guilty than him, because she truly knew better. Dante didn’t…not yet.

“Hey,” Annie whispered.

Heather looked down. Her sister was kneeling on the floor, the pocketknife previously pressed against her throat now in her fingers. She smiled. After a quick glance at Lyons, she sliced away the flex-cuffs binding Heather’s wrists.

Annie started to rise to her feet, but not wanting her to see Wells, Heather shook her head. “Keep low,” she whispered.

Annie searched her eyes for a moment, then she bit her lower lip, and nodded. She crawled to the sofa, multicolored hair hanging in her face, and started cutting through the sleeping woman’s cuffs.

Rubbing her wrists, Heather glanced around the room for a weapon, found none. “Give me the knife,” she told Annie.

She wouldn’t let Lyons damn Dante. Or let Dante damn himself.

GABRIEL DESCENDED INTO THE pit, his face lit and triumphant, his golden wings gleaming in the last of the moonlight. Wybrcathl trilled and warbled in the skies above.