Adrian Phoenix - A Rush of Wings

WAKE UP.

A challenge? To law enforcement? The Bureau? Her? None of the above?

Drunken laughter and shouts—“ Dude ! Wanna get a bite ? Duuuude !”—boomed past her door and down the corridor, fading as the revelers found their rooms.

Heather worked her iPod’s headphones into her ears and thumbed the volume down low so she’d hear it if anyone called. Knocking back another long swallow of Dr Pepper, she typed in an online search of Club Hell.

The Leigh Stanz bootleg she’d downloaded into her iPod curled into her ears and focused her thoughts. Low and intense, accompanied by acoustic guitar, Stanz’s voice was husky and worn, like the voice of a man emptying his heart out for the last time.

I long to drift like an empty boat on a calm sea / I don’t need light / I don’t fear darkness…

Checking the links pulled up on her search page, Heather learned that the very hip Club Hell had opened nearly four years earlier and was frequented by a Goth/punk/wannabevampires crowd. The kind of place Annie would’ve gigged at with WMD.

A lot of local bands and underground acts performed at the club, especially Inferno, an industrial/Goth band fronted by a young man rumored to also be the owner of Club Hell. He appeared to be known only as Dante.

Heather shook her head. Dante’s Inferno. Cute. Good for marketing, no doubt. Hoping to find out more about the club’s possible owner, she Googled Inferno and received a trillion hits. Scrolling down to the band’s official Web site, she clicked on tour dates—none in the last year; albums—two, with the third due to be released in a few days; photos. She paused, studying the captured images.

Three men in their early to midtwenties—dreads, faux hawks, hard bodies pierced and tattooed—stood in one of New Orleans’s cities of the dead, each of them looking in a different direction. Behind them stood a fourth figure in black jeans and baggy sweatshirt, hood pulled up. Head bowed, fingers holding the hood’s edges, his face unseen, he seemed to be contemplating the seashell and gravel path beneath his boots.

But what caught Heather’s attention was the pendant hanging at his throat. The anarchy symbol. She sat up straighter and enlarged the photo. Stared at a circled letter A fashioned out of what looked like barbed wire and strung on a black cord.

Heart pounding, Heather checked the photo’s caption. The figure was Dante. She clicked on the next photo. Dante’s back was to the camera. No visible anarchy symbol. In the next photo, she caught a glimpse of the barbed-wire pendant dangling like a charm from a twist of wire around his wrist.

Heather scrutinized each photo. The anarchy symbol wasn’t always present or visible. But she did notice one thing: Inferno’s front man was never the focus of the photos. Dante stood behind the other members or off to the side or knelt in front, head bowed. Not once did she see his face. A flash of black hair in one, a pale cheek in another, but that was all.

Another marketing ploy? The oh-so-mysterious front man? Or genuine reluctance to be front and center—except when on-stage?

Heather scrolled through online band interviews and wasn’t surprised to discover nearly all were conducted with the other members of Inferno. “In the studio” was the usual reason given for Dante’s absence.

Heather finished her can of Dr Pepper, then lined down to the last article and opened it. This time, Dante wasn’t “in the studio”; he sat, alone, for the interview. Clunking the empty can onto the desk, Heather leaned forward to read.

Dante spoke intelligently about music and the state of the music industry, French or Cajun words spicing his comments, his tone often dark and humorous.

DANTE: It’s time to return to the days of the guillotine. If you don’t have passion for music, if you don’t have le coeur, and you’re only in it for the money, the fame, or the chicks, then off with your head.

AP: Are you serious?

DANTE: Yeah. At least that’d be honest entertainment. You need to bleed for your audience one way or another.

AP: Why don’t you give more interviews?

DANTE: I want the focus to be on the music. Not me.

AP: But people want to know more about you. You are the music. Why did you open Club Hell?

DANTE: (Tense) To showcase musicians, new talent.

AP: How do you address the rumors that you’re a vampire?

DANTE: (Standing) Wrong focus. We’re done.

VAMPIRE? WAS THAT A joke? More marketing? Heather suddenly remembered Collins saying: And a vampire hangout. Pretend, y’know ?

Using Bureau ID codes, Heather tapped into city records and looked up all pertinent info on Club Hell. The owner was listed as one Lucien De Noir, a French entrepreneur. All licenses and deeds were in his name, but based on that last interview and her own gut feeling, Heather believed De Noir was only the money man. Club Hell was Dante’s baby.

Heather plugged into the NOPD’s system with her guest security code and searched for Dante, though with no last name, she didn’t hold a lot of hope for a hit. The search spat up a list of Dantes as first names and last names and she worked her way through them quickly. She came to a halt on Dante Prejean. No social security number. No driver’s license. Age estimated to be twenty-one. Refused to give a birth date. No legal surname. Prejean was a name tacked on from the family who’d fostered him as a kid in Lafayette.

Lafayette. Daniel Spurrell’s hometown. Connections clicked and whirled through her mind like a slot machine. The bars all snapped to a stop in a line.

Anarchy symbol. Lafayette. Club Hell.

Heather skimmed Dante Prejean’s file—criminal mischief, vandalism, trespassing, loitering—all misdemeanors. She scanned for a mug shot, but didn’t find one posted. Frowning, she scrolled through case notes and arrest records. Camera malfunction was usually listed as the reason for no mug shot being taken, but one officer had jotted a different reason altogether:

Little shit won’t hold still. He moves so goddamned fast, every time we snap his picture, he’s fucking gone. This happens every freaking time with this asshole. This is the only picture he’s ever stood still for .

HEATHER CLICKED ON THE photo. A bowed, hooded head. And a hand in front of the hidden face, middle finger extended. Defiant, even under arrest, playing games. She stared at the photo for a long time. The only mug shot Dante ever stood still for? Were the arresting officers plain inept?

Let me go, bro, let me go…

Leigh Stanz’s hoarse voice and sad, yearning words ended. In the ensuing silence the unasked question in Collins’s eyes looped through Heather’s thoughts: Is the Cross-Country Killer in New Orleans ?

And is he…what?…identifying with Dante Prejean?

Now? Suddenly? After three years?

An instant message from her SAC, Craig Stearns, blipped onto the laptop’s screen: Wallace, consultation progress ?

Heather typed: Consultation continuing. Looks like the CCK, but not positive . She stopped, fingers poised over the keyboard.

Should she mention the records glitch she’d run into on the flight from Seattle? The inability to access ViCAP and NCAVC files on the CCK’s victims? A problem she’d never experienced before in working this case?

Heather rubbed her face. She glanced at the window. Rain poured outside, streaking the glass with ribbons of neon-lit color. Maybe she was being paranoid. Human error. Server malfunction. Shit happens. Maybe she needed to upgrade her computer.

And yet. A change in the CCK’s pattern. A computer glitch.

Heather returned her gaze to the monitor and the blipping cursor. A knot of unease nestled in her belly.