Adrian Phoenix - In the Blood

“Aw, hell, little brother.” Von tightened his arm around Heather’s shoulder and moved them closer to Dante and away from the showers of dirt and rock.

Trees disappeared, sucked down into the convulsing earth. Wood cracked and snapped, and the smell of deep, dark soil and green leaves swirled through the air, cutting through the sharp odor of ozone.

A whirlpool of dirt, splintered trees, and house rubble spun and roared, spiraling deep into the land’s core.

The quaking slowed, then stopped. The mouth of a huge cave yawned where the main house had once stood. Heather caught a glimpse of the triune beast’s feathered tail as it slithered, singing, into the cave.

Holyholyholy …

“The Underworld,” Annie said, voice low, scared.

Mouth dry, Heather stared as lashes of blue light wrapped around the winged stone statues and lifted them into the air. One by one, the statues were placed around the mouth of the cave, the fallen angels caught in winged flight stretched across the tops of pairs of standing or kneeling statues.

A Fallen Stonehenge.

Guarding the deep mouth of the Underworld.

Dante’s song ended.

The blue light winked out and Dante staggered as though drunk or exhausted. He fell to his knees. The night was suddenly black again, and Heather blinked away blue retinal ghosts from her eyes until they finally adjusted to the darkness.

Dawn wasn’t far away. She needed to get Dante somewhere safe, and soon. Later, she would think about all she’d seen, experienced. Think about what it all meant. Think about how much it scared her.

Heather pulled away from Von’s embrace and started forward, but he stopped her with a touch to her arm. “Morphine, doll.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a syringe and a vial. “I’ll do it. He’s hurting. Bad.”

“I know he is,” Heather said, “but thanks. Let me do it. I need to get used to it. He’s my man, after all.”

“Your man, huh?” the nomad said, handing her the vial and syringe. “Does Dante know that?”

Anytime you want, I’m yours .

I ain’t leaving you alone .

T’es sûr de sa?

“He’d better,” Heather whispered, throat tight. “He’d better.” Flicking the cap off from the needle’s end, she stuck it into the vial and filled it with morphine.

“No, Heather, stay away from him,” Annie said, her eyes huge, her face drained of all color, nightkind-pale.

Heather turned and caressed her sister’s cheek with cold fingers. “It’ll be okay,” she said, wishing hard from the heart. She crossed the yard, Von at her side.

Dante’s head was bowed, his arms at his sides, his hands clenched into fists.

“Baptiste?” Heather asked, stopping just a foot from him. “Can you hear me?”

He lifted his head and his red-streaked dark eyes fixed her. “Heather,” he said, his voice husky-raw, a near whisper. “ Oui ….”

She knelt in the wet grass, drew in a deep breath, then grasped his chin. “You’re a mess,” she said, voice firm. “Your nose is bleeding. Put your head back.”

Dante moved . He jerked free of Heather’s hand, seized her upper arms and yanked her in close. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

“Keep still,” Cortini said.

“Let go, little brother.”

Heather caught a peripheral flash of movement as Von stepped forward.

Dante hissed, a low, intense sound that stood the hair on the back of Heather’s neck. Then he shuddered. “Get the fuck away from me,” he whispered, shoving Heather with both hands.

Von caught her before she hit the grass, but she pushed free of his hold and returned to Dante. “I’m staying right beside you, Baptiste. This is our fight. Back-to-back and side-by-side. Remember?”

“You’ll never be safe with me.” Dante’s eyes squeezed shut. Fresh blood trickled from his nose.

“Who says I want to be safe?”

Dante stiffened, his eyes rolling up, and Heather lunged for him as the seizure locked up his muscles. She slid the needle into his taut-muscled neck and thumbed the plunger. His head whipped back.

She wrapped her arms around his fevered, trembling body, holding him as the morphine aborted the convulsion. With a sigh, Dante folded against her. She sat down on the wet grass with him in her arms, her heart pounding hard and fast.

“I was falling,” Dante slurred. “But Lucien…” The words caught in his throat. He looked at Heather through his thick lashes. He reached up and touched a finger to her lips. “Her name was Chloe. She was my princess. And I killed her.” His eyes closed. A tear slipped out from beneath his lashes, sliding to his ear.

Her name was Chloe .

A hot burr of pain pricked Heather’s heart. She stared at him, eyes burning. He’d remembered a part of his past, and not with the help of someone who cared for him and in his own time, but with drugs and torture-induced seizures. Was Chloe all he remembered?

Heather stroked his wet hair away from his face. Lowering her head, her lips just touching his, she murmured, “I love you, Dante Baptiste.”

But her words went unheard; Dante slept a false Sleep, lost to morphine.

“Dawn’s coming, doll. We need to move,”

“I have a motel room in Portland,” Cortini said.

Heather nodded. “We can hole up for the day.”

“And when it’s night again?” Annie asked.

Heather looked down at Dante’s peaceful, blood-streaked face. Tried to believe in its illusion. “Then we start a new life and we create a future.”

Outside Portland, OR

March 25

THE TRANS AM’S ENGINE thrummed with power as Von slammed it into sixth gear. They burned up the road, burned up the night, a flaming arrow. Cortini sat in the passenger seat, her attention fixed on the dying night ahead.

Heather sat in the back seat, Annie beside her, Dante stretched across them both, doped and unconscious. His rain-damp hoodie was torn, ruined with spear gashes and bullet holes. His physical injuries would heal. What scared her was the damage done to his mind. His heart. She was afraid he’d been hurt beyond what she could help him heal.

Her name was Chloe. She was my princess. And I killed her .

Heather stroked his wet, black hair. She curled one lock behind his ear. Saw the dried blood. He’d given himself without hesitation for her and Annie. Had never asked the cost. Had risked his sanity, his life, his freedom.

I won’t lose you, she promised him.

She was exhausted, all out of energy, drained of adrenaline. She was so tired her body vibrated like a downed power line. But her mind plotted and planned and refused to shut up.

She’d arrange to have a moving service pick up the boxes in her house, including the Portland PD and Bureau files on her mother’s murder and on the Claw-Hammer Killer. One day, she hoped to be a voice for her mother. For Annie.

For Dante.

Especially for him. So he could be free, his life his own.

His future shaped within his own heart—not by Bad Seed, or the Shadow Branch or the Fallen. Her future had already taken shape and she raced toward it, eyes open.

A red neon sign flashed to the left: MOTEL VACANCY, and a neon beaver with a twig in its nibbling mouth winked. Von aimed the bulleting Trans Am for the motel.