Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

Dante closed his eyes and shuddered. Pain flickered across his pale face. Two blue bolts of fire spiked out from his hands; one lanced through Athena’s body, the other arrowing across the room to impale her faceless father.

Athena’s dead flesh undulated. As though boneless, her body slithered through the blue-vined underbrush to twist like hot taffy into her brother’s spiraling, stretching form. Lyons’s golden curls rippled into hay-colored fur. Athena’s gown morphed into white feathers. Fur and feathers and hot taffy flesh braided together. The twins were now a single entity.

Lassoed in blue flame, Wells was dragged over the top of the red-berried hedge that had once been the sofa. One slipper caught on a branch and remained behind, dangling like a sun-browned leaf. He clutched the severed head to his blood-soaked chest like a child’s bedtime plushie.

Wells entwined with his children, twirling around and into them, his flesh stretching as though elastic. The decapitated head slid up from his arms and over his featureless face like a mask. Only now the head was that of a young woman with vibrant blonde hair, taut skin, and a gaping mouth.

They rose into the air, bathed in cool, blue fire, a three-faced pillar of flesh. Arms and legs streamlined into feathered tails. Eyes blinked open in the triune creature’s braided torso and back. Rotating mouths opened in a chorus of song: “Threeintoone…”

One of the thick wood ceiling beams cracked, jutting through the roof. Huge chunks of plaster crashed to the floor just feet in front of Heather.

The house continued to quake and shudder. With a rifle-sharp crack, another ceiling beam split and part of the ceiling collapsed across the sofa-hedge.

Heather jumped to her feet, the floor rocking and rippling underneath her.

Dante’s eyes opened, and recognition sparked in his gaze. “Catin,” he said, his voice an anguished whisper. The blue tongues of fire licking out from around him vanished like wind-snuffed candles. He fell to his knees, head bowed, his black hair a lamplight-streaked curtain.

“Threeintooneholytrinitythreeintooneholyholyholy…” The triune beast sang its multiple-voiced hymn as it slithered and humped its way toward the dark hall.

The front door yawned open, then froze in its warping frame. A breeze smelling of pine and rain and cordite gusted into the room. Von came to a stop, struggling to keep his balance as the house shook itself apart, his gaze on Dante’s singing triune beast.

“Holy fuck,” the nomad whispered, holstering his Brownings.

“Yeah,” Heather agreed, her voice shaky.

She crawled to Dante. Kneeling beside him, she pushed his hair back from his face, her fingers skimming across his cheek, his temple; his skin was fevered and heat radiated from him, baked into her. Blood was pooled in his hoop-rimmed ear. That scared her, a lot.

“Dante? Baptiste?”

He lifted his head. His eyes were no longer golden, the irises now rims of deepest brown ringing dilated pupils. She looped an arm around his waist and tugged. “On your feet, Baptiste. We gotta move.”

More windows exploded into shrapnel clouds of glass. Groaning masonry crumbled. Beams splintered. Debris hurtled to the floor.

“I’ve got him, doll,” Von said. “Get the fuck out.”

Heather rose to her feet. “Together,” she said.

Bending, the nomad grabbed Dante’s arm and slung him over his leather-jacketed shoulder. Straightening, he looked at Heather. “Move your ass, woman.”

Noticing Annie’s gym bag by the front door, Heather scooped it up on her way out through the warped doorway, Von hot on her heels.

AS VON FOLLOWED HEATHER off the porch and into the yard, his arm locked across the backs of Dante’s thighs, he heard a familiar sound through the pouring rain—the rush of wings. Relief spun warm tendrils through him.

So Lucien was all right, after all. After what he’d felt from Dante, and Lucien’s continued absence, he’d feared the worst. Because, closed bond or not, Von had known that Lucien would’ve flown to his son’s aid even if he had to wing across oceans and time and hell itself.

Von sent, slowing to a halt and turning.

His thought bounced back, unheard. His relief vanished. Wiping rain from his eyes with the back of one arm, he looked at the black-winged figure standing beneath the evergreens.

Not Lucien. She fluttered her wings, flinging droplets of rain into the downpour. Her long black hair snaked up into the air and her eyes gleamed like golden stars. The chilly air steamed against her skin.

“We don’t have much time,” she said, her musical voice urgent. She stepped from beneath the trees. “The others are on their way. Give me Lucien’s son so I can hide him.”

Lucien’s words sounded deep and clear through Von’s memory: Guard him from the Fallen, llygad. Guard him from them, most of all .

As Von reached his left hand inside his jacket for his gun, the house exploded. And a giant, heated hand hammered him into the ground.

Damascus, OR

March 25

DANTE HIT THE GROUND hard shoulder first, rolling and bouncing across the wet grass until he slammed into a tree and came to a stop. Bright specks flecked his vision and pain shimmered like heat in his mind.

Lucien …

Je t’aime, mon fils, toujours.

Voices crooned and whispered and demanded, buzzing up from the shattered depths within on the backs of fire-scorched wasps.

You look so much like her .

You wanna take her punishment , p’tit?

How come Papa Prejean handcuffs you at bedtime?

Your heart won me, Dante Baptiste .

Heather’s face flashed behind his eyes as the bright specks faded. Dante tried to catch his breath, but his ribs ached and he couldn’t seem to get air down into his lungs.

Focus on Heather .

He rolled over and onto his knees, pressed his arm against his damaged ribs. Rain cooled his face. He swiveled around. The house was nothing more than a smoking pile of rubble, masonry, and wood. He stumbled to his feet. Heather…

Music trilled into the air, burning and bright, and his song soared up from his core in spontaneous answer. Lucien! He reached for their bond, but found nothing, just a searing emptiness where the bond had been . Pain jabbed Dante’s mind and sucked away his hard-won breath.

The ground rushed up to meet him.

COLD RAIN PLASTERED HEATHER’S hair to her skull and her clothes to her body. Wet grass prickled against her nose. She rose to her knees, ears ringing and head aching. The blast had sledge-hammered her to the ground, knocking the air from her lungs.

“Heather! Fuck!” A voice yelled. Just as Heather gained her feet, Annie skidded to a stop beside her and grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” Heather replied. “You?”

“Yeah, but when the house blew up, I thought you…I was scared…”

“Shit,” Heather breathed, spinning around. Von and Dante had been right behind her. Through the rain, she spotted a figure rising to its knees several yards from the twisted and rubbled remains of the main house. Grabbing her sister’s wet hand, Heather loped across the yard to Von.

“You okay?” she asked. She scanned the yard, looking for Dante. Her pulse pounded through her veins. She didn’t see him.