Beneath the Skin

34 DARK AND AIRLESS HEARTS

NEW ORLEANS, ST. LOUIS NO. 3

March 27

DANTE LED HEATHER DOWN the cemetery’s central path, past the moon-washed white crypts and the dead cradled within their dark and airless hearts, to the tomb marked BARONNE.

She studied Loki’s crouched and stone-spelled form, shifting her weight onto one hip. Dante noticed her keen gaze drinking in every detail: the moonlight twinkling along faint designs swirled into the smooth wings, primal and stylized designs like tribal tattoos. Frozen waist-length hair framed Loki’s screaming face. He was nude except for a thick torc twisted around his corded throat and a bracelet around one bicep.

The smell of vanilla and wax from the small candles burning in front of Loki’s taloned feet mingled with the sweet scent of cherry blossoms and the dank scent of decay.

Dante noticed that the chiming black blossoms he’d created within Loki’s cupped hands had vanished. A few shriveled black stems left behind told him that the flowers had been uprooted.

Heather fingered a string of plastic Mardi Gras beads—one of many—looped around the stone angel’s wings and throat. Folded scraps of paper—prayers, words from the heart —littered the sidewalk in front of Loki. And chalked good-luck x’s in blue, yellow, and pink decorated the path.

“Why did Lucien turn him to stone?” Heather asked.

Lucien’s words rolled through Dante’s memory.

I trapped him to protect you.

I thought I could keep you safe in silence. I thought I could hide you, help you heal from all the damage done to you.

But I was wrong.

“To keep Loki from finding me,” Dante said.

Heather let go of the strand of beads and it fell back, clicking against the stone. She turned around to face Dante. “Do you think releasing him is a good idea?”

“Probably not, but he’s my best chance at finding Lucien. He can tell me how to find Gehenna. Hell, I bet he’d volunteer to take me.” Dante pushed his hands through his hair. “Maybe Lucien ain’t there, but I gotta know.”

“Let’s give it a shot,” Heather said. Pulling the Browning free of an interior pocket of her trench, she clasped it in both hands and backed up so she could better watch the surrounding area.

Dante knelt on one knee in front of Loki’s trapped form. The blood glyph Lucien had traced on Loki’s forehead had faded almost completely away. The blue spark of Fallen magic that had leapt between the stone and Dante’s fingertip a couple of weeks ago was only a pale flicker.

Frowning, Dante touched his fingers to Loki’s stone chest. A faint, desperate song scratched like little squirrel claws beneath the cool, white stone. Dante trailed a finger along the blood glyph and imagined unwriting it, imagined the blood flaking away, swept along by the March breeze.

Blue fire crackled unbidden along his fingers. Black moss suddenly sprouted on Loki’s forehead. A tiny song tinkled along the moss’s rounded edges. Not what he wanted. Heart pounding, Dante clenched his hands into fists. The fire guttered out.

“We’re not alone,” Heather said, voice taut.

Her words snapped Dante up from his contemplation. He heard the slow beat of vampire hearts—multiple hearts. He rose smoothly to his feet and swiveled around.

Heather backed toward him, gun extended and swinging from left to right as nightkind dressed in expensive and Euro-stylish suits glided across the cemetery paths and from the shadows pooled between crypts.

Encircled them.

Dante figured he could take several down and maybe outrun the rest. He couldn’t risk using his creawdwr power—not when whatever might pour out from his fingertips could affect Heather as well as nightkind.

“Perhaps you forgot about M’sieu Mauvais’s invitation,” a blond and well-coiffed nightkind said. Dante recognized him as Lackey Numéro Un—Laurent.

“Nope. Didn’t forget. Just ain’t interested,” Dante said. “Now if y’all don’t mind, we’ve got stuff to do.”

“Listen, you piece of shit,” a tall, Gold’s Gym beefy nightkind with buzz-cut hair said, each word juiced with spittle. “You and your pretty little pet get into the limo Mauvais so thoughtfully provided or I’m gonna tear her apart in front—”

Dante moved. Stretched Tall’N’Beefy out on the stone path with hard-knuckled jabs to the fucker’s throat and balls. TNB curled into a ball, coughing and gagging.

“Ain’t tearing no one apart, motherfucker.”

Dante heard a quick step behind him. He whirled and went low, slashing Laurent across the gut with his nails, feeling cloth, then flesh beneath his fingers. He breathed in the heady tang of nightkind blood and kept moving.

A gun fired, the sound cracking though the air like a hammer against glass. A second shot. A third. Dante risked a glance. Heather stood beside the Baronne tomb, her lovely face shadowed, the set of her jaw determined. Fire blazed from the barrel of her gun.

Several head-shot nightkind were sprawled on the path near her, dark pools of blood glistening on the cemetery path.

He needed to get her out of the fight before Mauvais’s idiots killed her or, worse, fed on her. Dante darted for Heather, moved with everything he had. Blurred past nightkind stumbling to intercept him, wove around others. Heather gasped as he grabbed her by the waist, swung around, then raced for the cemetery gates.

<Hold on, chérie.>

She locked an arm around his waist, his blood-linked message received. The cherry blossom and blood-scented night whipped past him.

Nightkind hunting whoops and shouts cut through the air right behind him; Mauvais’s hounds on his heels. Dante stopped at the foot of the locked wrought-iron gates and boosted Heather up and over. He lobbed the Harley keys over the fence.

“Baptiste!” Heather cried. “Hurry!”

“Von’s on his way. Go!” Dante backed away from the gates. He planned to keep his pursuers so occupied they would forget all about Heather.

But hands seized Dante at the shoulder and neck before he could whirl around and give them something to chase. Dante jabbed back with his elbow. Someone grunted in pain and the hand fell away from his neck. Spinning, he slammed his fist into the temple of the asshole gripping his shoulder. And knocked him back into two more well-dressed nightkind as they rushed forward. All three tumbled into Loki’s stone form.

The statue teetered, then fell over onto the paving stones with an echoing craack. Plastic beads bounced along the pavement. Candles flickered, went out.

White stone cracked and crumbled away from Loki’s body in patches, revealing glimpses of the flesh underneath. But the Fallen angel remained on his side, unmoving, and unnoticed, so far, except by Dante.

Had he succeeded in unwriting Lucien’s spell or had—

More hands grabbed him and Dante stomped on the instep of the nightkind holding him from behind. Bone crunched. Then he swung to the side and sliced his nails across the throat of another. Blood sprayed his face; hot and pungent. Dante licked it from his lips. Throwing himself forward, he rolled onto his shoulder, then sprang to his feet.

A hand latched around his ankle and yanked.

Dante felt himself going down. He tensed, preparing to curl and roll again as soon as he hit the path. But someone fell on top of him, and he hit the pavement hard. Fangs pierced his throat; his blood pulsed into a greedy, cool mouth.

Heart hammering against his ribs, Dante pounded his fist against the drinker’s temple until the bone dented and the mouth tore free of his throat with a wet pop. Several more bodies dropped onto him, knocking the air out of his lungs and pinning him to the ground like wrestlers in a grudge match.

Muscles straining, Dante tried to twist free, and managed to stamp a bootprint into someone’s face. Then something smashed into his temple. Fiery light sparked through his vision. A second hard-driving blow. The light went out.

HEATHER STOOD AT A bus stop a couple of blocks down from St. Louis No. 3, watching as the first vampire Dante had taken down—his gait a bit stiff—carried Dante slung over his shoulder to a shining black limo edged up against the curb. He flung Dante’s unconscious body inside.

Inside her pocket, her fingers flexed around the Browning’s grip. If she did anything to call nightkind attention to herself, then everything Dante had done to get her free and clear would’ve been in vain.

Her pulse thundered at her temples. She had no idea why the nightkind—M’sieu Mauvais—wanted Dante or where they were taking him.

The rest of Mauvais’s crew, a bit battered and torn, piled into the limo. The vehicle pulled out into traffic, as smooth and predatory as a shark.

Knowing the drive from Dante’s house to downtown was a good twenty minutes, she could only wish Von clear roads and green lights.

Hurry, Von.