In the Blood

Lyons positioned the absinthe bottle between Dante’s lips and poured. The pale green liquor filled his mouth faster than he could swallow. He choked, and coughed, breathless.

“That’s the last of it,” Lyons said.

The wedge of energy vanished and Dante, coughing, jaw aching, closed his mouth. He saw Athena/Hades lifting a laptop. Images flickered across the monitor. Familiar images. Pain chiseled at his thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut. They couldn’t keep torturing him if he didn’t look.

But Lyons sighed and said, “Again with the closed eyes? You really don’t remember, do you? Or maybe you’re just fucking stubborn.”

“Both and both and both,” Athena/Hades chanted.

Absinthe-green light pinwheeled and flickered behind Dante’s eyes as the heavy dose of wormwood burned though his veins like gasoline and pooled in his mind, just waiting for a match.

“You’re not alone, Baptiste.” Heather’s voice, as cool and steady as river water. “I’m with you. I’m with you. I’m here and I’m with you.”

And Dante held on to that promise with all his strength, refused to let go even as tiny metal hooks pierced his eyelids and hoisted them up—again. Even as the laptop with its flickering images—Is that me? descended over his face—again. Even as pain shuddered through him, cracking his psyche like an egg against the hidden past—again.

Images quaked up from the jagged depths below, each one a struck match tossed into his wormwood-soaked mind.

Papa Prejean uses the special straps to bind Dante’s hands, then shoves him onto his knees in front of the bathtub full of steaming hot water.

You wanna take her punishment, p’tit? D’accord, if you so hellfire eager, take it.

Papa grabs Dante’s hair and plunges his head and upper body into the scalding water, holds him down and holds him under until he finally sucks in a lungful of water and drowns…

Dante drains the last of the men, the men that came to do bad things to Chloe, and wipes a hand across his mouth. He swivels on his knees and reaches for his princess, but she’s lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, her empty blue eyes wide with shock…

Whoomf!

On their burning wings, wasps carried voices aloft.

Dante-angel? I’m cold. Can I sleep with you?

Time to get yo’ ass down in the basement, p’tit.

What’s he screamin’?

A very clear demand: Kill me.

You’re not alone. I’m here and I’m with you.

Dante held onto that promise.

Even when he couldn’t hold onto anything else.

Even after he could no longer scream.

He held onto her promise.

ANNIE CROUCHED DOWN BESIDE the main house’s back door, away from the light streaming through the small window in its center, and tucked herself into the shadow-draped bushes beside the door with a minimum of twig snapping and leaf rustling. She hunkered down, her knees against her chest, her back against the house.

Her fingers slid along the handle of the pocketknife she’d swiped from Alex’s red truck. Dante’s anguished screams had masked any noise she might’ve made while ransacking the vehicle. Her eyes stung.

Silver had let her know that Von was on his way. But when had been something they’d been unable to communicate, for whatever reason.

Stay right where you are. Von will find you.

But Annie had whipped the Trans Am around and had torn up the highway going back the way she’d come. She’d parked at the mouth of the long, steep driveway, then had hiked up to the house.

Annie unlaced her Docs, tugged them off her feet, and stashed them in the bushes. Pulse racing, and wishing for a drink of beer, water, anything, she rose to her feet. Before she could think herself out of it, she opened the back door and slipped into the brightly lit kitchen.

HEATHER WIPED THE TEARS from her face with the back of one bound hand. Dante was sprawled half on the sofa, his booted feet on the floor. His eyes were open, but his gaze was turned inward, unseeing, his body knotted with pain.

Her breath caught in her throat. He looked broken. A toy shaken apart by an angry child, then tossed aside.

She’d lost count of how many times Lyons and his sister had tried to awaken Dante’s memories. Had lost count of the number of seizures Dante’d endured.

Dante falls silent when the seizure ripples the length of his body. His muscles lock, his back arches, and his limbs twist. His head whips back and forth, a blur. Blood flings into the air from his nose, his mouth, his pierced eyelids. The twins push Dante onto the floor and allow the seizure to have its way with him.

Athena kneels on the blood-flecked carpet beside Dante’s convulsing body and whispers to him: Rememberandrememberandrememberandremember…

The seizure ends and Dante curls up on the floor, dazed and trembling, sweat-damp black hair clinging to his forehead, his cheek.

Lyons floats Dante up into the air and back onto the sofa. He bends over Dante with a washrag and wipes the blood from his face. And the process starts all over again.

And each seizure is worse than the one before.

Athena paced at the opposite end of the room, her spear thumping against the carpet with each step. Her reflection in the windows behind her echoed her movement. “I can’t see past Dante. Nothing stretches beyond him.” She looked at her brother. “He’s either the end of us or the beginning.”

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to make him whole again,” Lyons said. He trailed both hands through his curls. “Not without Father’s help. Maybe he told the truth about the labyrinth.”

“He’d tell us anything to get free.” Athena stopped pacing and faced her twin. A bitter smile touched her lips. “But he’d only lead us to the minotaur within the labyrinth’s heart.”

Heather went still. Wells was here? And a prisoner of his own warped children? She felt a dark smile twist across her lips. Maybe there was such a thing as karma, after all. She hoped he remained a prisoner. She didn’t want to think about what he could do to Dante if freed. Or worse, what he would make Dante do.

Didn’t want to think about what she might do to Wells, given the chance.

“Blood might give Dante the strength to reclaim his past,” Athena/Hades said.

Lyons nodded. “I’ll fetch his meal.” He walked from the room.

With a low sigh, the Athena-wind gusted into the air. “Holytrinitydante…” She resumed pacing, her spear once again thumping against the floor. Her eyes closed. “Holytrinitydantewillmakeusoneholytrinity…”

Hoping Athena was as lost in thought as she appeared, Heather rose from the recliner. Pulse racing, she knelt beside the sofa and touched Dante’s face. “Can you get up?” she murmured.

He closed his eyes, the lashes black against his skin. Three words whispered from his lips and knotted around Heather’s heart.

“Little fucking psycho.”

Little fucking psycho.

Chains looped around his ankles, he hangs upside down above the bodies of the men he killed. Above the body of the girl he tried to protect, but slaughtered instead.

Chloe. Chloe. Chloe.

A heart pulsed, hummingbird fast and delicate, and Dante smelled sage and lilac and smoky sorrow. Hunger scraped his heart hollow.

You’re not alone. I’m with you. I’m here and I’m with you.

Cool white light encircled him, a sacrament of silence. Heather’s promise.

“On your feet, Baptiste,” a voice whispered. “C’mon.”

Dante opened his eyes and looked into Heather’s blue eyes. Fear glimmered in their twilight depths. “Chérie,” he breathed.

The fear faded and she nodded, a smile brushing her lips. “We gotta move now.”

Dante slid the rest of the way off the sofa. The room spun around him. His head felt full of broken glass. Heather slid her flex-cuffed hands through his arm and tried to haul him to his feet. Black spots flecked his vision. Pain prickled through him, twisting like a thorned vine through his insides. He stumbled upright with Heather’s help. She steered him toward the door while he concentrated on moving his feet.

The quiet shush of wind through the treetops stopped.

A chill crawled up Dante’s spine. Heather pushed him forward, urging him on.

“Little god,” a woman’s voice said, a familiar voice. Lyons’s whacked-out sister. “If you want to rescue Heather from death again, I’ll be pleased to oblige you.”

Dante pulled free of Heather’s grasp, and turned around. Athena/Hades stood a yard behind them, her spear lifted and aimed at Heather. Curiosity lit her eyes. Dante stepped in front of Heather. Pressed his back against hers. “Keep walking for the door,” he said.

“Gotcha.” But as Heather took another step forward, Dante felt some splintered thing shift inside his head and an electric shock surged through his skull. His muscles locked. A blinding burst of light exploded through his vision, scintillating white light.

Memory sheared up.

Très joli, dis one, like an angel. Play with him all you want, but don’t put nuthin’ in his mouth. Boy bites.

Like an angel, ah, kiddo, that doesn’t even begin to cover it.

The man strokes Dante’s hair, curls a black lock around his finger. Fucker’s name is Eddie. He’s visited Dante in the basement a bunch of times. This time he brought a present—a handful of comics. Dante wishes he’d finish and leave so he can look at the comics and practice his reading. And, later, share them with Chloe.

This time Eddie’s tender and full of careful kisses. Some of the things he does feel good, make Dante close his eyes and suck in a breath. Yeah, feels good, but he still hates Eddie and everyone else who tromps down those fucking basement steps.

Do you think you could love me?

Nope.

If I had Papa remove your handcuffs, could you love me then? Nope. I’d kill you then.

When Eddie leaves, the fucker takes the comics with him. And Papa, pissed as hell, comes downstairs.

The world spun away. Time spun away.

And Dante felt himself falling and falling and falling.