On Midnight Wings

29 IT’S NOW OR NEVER BATON ROUGE DOUCET-BAINBRIDGE SANITARIUM

BROWS ANGLED DOWN INTO a deep, frowning V, SB agent Bryan Graham glanced at his partner, then back at the vamp strapped to the table. “What’d he just say?”

“Dunno and don’t care.” Morgan hefted his blood-spattered drill in one beefy hand. “At least the seizure’s over. About fucking time too. I was getting worried that we’d have to quit before we even got really started.”

S blinked, dazed, his attention focused on the ceiling. Tendrils of black hair clung to his sweat-slicked face. Blood smeared his lips, trickled from one nostril, oozed a deep red snail’s path from his ears down along his pale neck to disappear beneath the collar of his straitjacket.

Graham nodded. “Yeah, no point in beating the crap out of a guy when he can’t appreciate the effort you’re putting into it.” He’d only managed to wallop the bloodsucker a couple of times—good, solid bone-breaking blows (well, or would’ve been if the wallopee had been human)—before the seizure had struck, bringing the fun to a screeching halt.

Graham had never witnessed an actual, honest-to-God seizure before and, even though he felt pretty damned certain that human seizures lacked the speed and violence of vamp fits, he’d pass on witnessing another—human or vamp—thank you very much.

S’s body throws itself with mouth-drying speed against the restraining bars in violent, muscle-twisting convulsions. His head is a thrashing black-and-white blur, flinging warm droplets of blood from his bitten lower lip into the air.

“Break time’s over, you murdering bastard,” Morgan informed S cheerfully. His drill whined back to life. “Hope you enjoyed it.”

S coughed, then turned his head and spat blood onto the floor. “I’m a little disappointed by the lack of an in-flight snack,” he said hoarsely, “but you’ll do. Hell, you’re a big boy. More of a seven-course banquet than a snack, yeah?”

The cheerfulness vanished from Morgan’s hazel eyes as his expression darkened. “Asshole,” he gritted, bringing the drill down, its whirling bit aimed for the bloodsucker’s canvas-covered belly.

Graham narrowed his eyes. Was that light shimmering on the table from underneath S? Maybe a reflected glare from the overheads? “Wait,” he called. “What the hell’s that?”

His partner paused, the drill poised a breath above S’s straitjacket and the taut flesh beneath it. He regarded Graham from beneath his blond brows, snapped, “What’s what?”

“That,” Graham said, nodding at S’s prone form. Faint bluish light rippled along the straitjacket’s arms, spreading into its midsection. “See it?”

A frown furrowed Morgan’s forehead as his gaze shifted back to his drill and S. His frown deepened. “Dunno,” he said, taking a wary step back. “Never seen anything like that before. You?”

“No. Maybe it’s a born vamp thing.”

“Maybe.” Uncertainty shadowed Morgan’s eyes.

S turned his blood-smeared face toward Graham and studied him from beneath coal black lashes with eyes gone golden.

Pulse picking up speed, Graham tightened his grip on the bat’s blood-slick aluminum handle. Freaky gold eyes. Mysterious blue glow. WTF? Purcell hadn’t mentioned anything unusual about S. Only the obvious—make sure the prick doesn’t get loose.

“I hear your heart,” S said, his straitjacket awash in blue light, his voice soft and low and hungry. “I’m gonna drink it dry. Savor every drop.”

Graham managed a derisive chuckle despite the chill touching the base of his spine. He stepped closer and swung his bat up—c’mon, batter-batter-batter—winding up for a blow that would knock the bloodsucker’s ass into the future faster than a 1.21-gigawatt-fueled DeLorean. “How about you drink this instead?”

At the apex of Graham’s swing, S’s straitjacket dissolved into hundreds of small, blue-scaled fish and spilled away. Graham froze, heart vaulting into his throat, his mind unable to process what he was seeing. In fact, his mind was pretty damned busy screaming: What! The! Fuck! Which was soon followed by (but not quickly enough): Run!

The tiny sapphire fish tumbled to the floor, slapping moistly against the concrete before swimming into the air with strokes of jeweled fins.

“Dear God,” Morgan breathed.

A heavy metallic thunk behind him told Graham that his partner had just lost his grip on his drill. Graham felt that he was about to lose his grip on a whole lot more.

Sweat beading his forehead, S rested his palms against the table. Thin blue flames licked across its gleaming, wavering surface. Table and restraints splashed to the floor, a sudden blue waterfall, delighting the fish who hadn’t yet taken to the air.

And S . . .

S stood barefoot in a puddle of burning water, a dark, tilted smile on his bloodied lips, blue flames flickering unsteadily around his pale hands. Blood and bruises streaked his white torso from bondage collar to the top of his leather pants. Semi-healed bullet wounds. Drill insults. Bat injuries.

Not possible. Not possible. Not possible, Graham’s mind insisted. But Graham was unable to move his gaze from those burning hands.

S flexed his shoulders. Graham heard the soft whisper of velvet against skin, then smooth, black wings unfolded behind S, arching above his head and snapping the smoky scent of burning leaves into the air.

Graham’s heart tried to kick its way free of his chest. His brain had already left the building—but not before babbling, Wings like a dragon. Or a demon. Yes! A demon. A beautiful and deadly bloodsucking prince of darkness.

Graham crossed himself automatically, a habit that required no thought, despite the decades that had passed since he’d last stepped inside a church.

S snorted. “You kidding me?”

Graham caught a sudden, sharp whiff of piss. I just peed myself, he mourned. But a corresponding lack of wetness told him otherwise. Relief swirled through him as he realized the guilty party had to be Morgan.

S sucked in a pained breath, wincing. He stumbled, the flames vanishing from his hands. “Merde,” he whispered.

Hope launched Graham’s pulse and mind into hyperdrive. Demon or bloodsucker or Prince of Fucking Darkness, S was still in bad shape, thanks to the drugs.

It’s now or never. Make your move.

Graham considered the Glock holstered beneath his jacket, doubting he could be fast enough or steady enough to get a bullet into S’s head or heart before the bloodsucking bastard took him down. But the unlocked door—no need to lock it when a securely restrained bloodsucker was never getting off the table alive (Graham felt an urge to giggle here, an urge he quickly throttled)—was another matter.

Glancing at the thick, steel door, Graham measured the distance. Run. Grab handle. Yank. Bolt through. His muscles bunched, thrumming with adrenaline, the desperate need for flight. But what about Morgan? Could they both make it?

Shifting his attention to his partner, Graham nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized that the bloodsucker had moved without a sound and in the blink of an eye and now stood right in front of him. And his eyes were no longer gold, but red-streaked brown.

S’s smile deepened, revealing his fangs. “Run,” he said.

Graham tossed the bat and whirled.

S TOSSED THE MORTAL’S emptied heart aside, then rose to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d feasted on both men, and the intoxicating taste of their blood—copper and wild berries and adrenaline—lingered on his tongue.

“Black Steve and White Steve were both delicious.”

Pushing his hair back from his face, he stepped over Black Steve’s cooling body and went to the door. Renewed, blood-fed energy thrummed through his veins, slowing his own blood loss, but doing little as far as healing his wounds.

S touched a hand to the half-healed wound above his heart. Winced. At least the wet heaviness had lifted from his lungs and he could breathe a little easier.

Grasping the door handle, S listened. He heard the faint sound of distant heartbeats, the low murmur of voices, the steady beep-beep-beep of medical monitors and, fainter still, someone screaming with the regularity and rhythm of a metronome.

Someone ain’t happy. Can’t say as I blame ’em.

S pulled the door open, then slipped out into the hallway, easing the door shut behind him. He paused for a moment, wondering which way led out, right or left? Right looked to be a dead end, the corridor ending in a concrete wall, while from the left he heard soft voices as two people—a man and a woman—discussed modifying med levels for a couple of difficult patients.

Right it was.

Tucking his wings away, S moved, blurring down the hall, past the medic station and the source of those soft voices, leaving startled gasps and a trail of bloody footprints behind him. Ahead were stairs leading up, a possible exit. Just as he reached them, bits of his conversation—Dante’s conversation, whatever—with Purcell replayed through his mind.

When I get back, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to take you apart and burn each piece until nothing but ash remains. And then I’ll flush those ashes down the goddamned toilet.

S slowed to a stop at the base of the stairs. He heard footsteps above. Laughter.

We’ll see, yeah?

That we will.

“For fucking true,” S whispered, swiveling around.

He moved again, heading back the way he’d come, aimed for the medic station, a runaway train, a missile arcing down from the sky, good old-fashioned death on the hoof or, in his case, death on socked feet.

A smile iced his lips. Purcell was in for one helluva surprise.

S unleashed his hunger.