On Midnight Wings

“I was stunned, not unconscious—as you well know,” Heather replied. Her nausea melted away beneath a surge of surprised relief when she felt the comforting weight of the SIG still tucked into her jeans at the small of her back.

Either Loki missed it or the arrogant SOB simply doesn’t care because, for him, a bullet is only an annoyance at worst. I unloaded ten goddamned rounds in his chest and all he said was “ow.”

“I believe the traditional greeting is hello.”

“Nice try, Loki,” Heather said. “But I know you’re not my father.”

“Loki?” Her father tsked chidingly, shook his head. “Is it so hard to believe that I had a tracking device implanted when you were first admitted to Strickland? That I had help waiting in the wings when you so unceremoniously dumped me on that highway?”

“No, I can believe all that,” Heather replied. “It’s the part about getting past a Fallen spell and cooperating with a fallen angel that I have a hard time believing.”

The fatherly smile stretched into a feral grin. “Maybe you don’t know me the way you think you do, pumpkin. Maybe you don’t know any of us the way you think you do—or the things we’ve had to do.”

Most likely true.

And that realization hollowed Heather’s heart. “I know you’re a coldhearted lying bastard—no matter who you are. I don’t need to know anything else.”

Sliding his glasses off, James Wallace retrieved a handkerchief from a pocket of his trench. “What about your mother?” he asked, using the handkerchief to wipe smudges from his glasses. “I know you think I either had her killed or did the deed myself, but no matter whether I’m a cold-blooded killer or a devoted father or both, you can’t deny the relief you felt or how much better your life became the moment you learned she was dead.”

Heather stared at him, her certainty slipping away. Words spoken twenty years ago returned to haunt her.

It’s just us now, pumpkin. You, me, Kevin, and Annie.

Daddy, that’s all it’s ever been.

Not relief, no. Just the sad and simple truth. Isolated by her bipolar disorder, Shannon Wallace had never been a part of the family—her mother had always been alone, even when her children held her hands; a fate Heather wished with all her heart to spare Annie.

“Nothing to say, pumpkin?”

Heather shook her head, throat too tight for speech. Doubt chiseled away at her certainty. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe her father had not only tracked her to Doucet-Bainbridge, but was about to make a confession that she badly wanted—needed—to hear.

Maybe. But not likely. James Wallace would’ve killed Dante the moment he spotted him Sleeping in the blood-splattered corridor. He never would’ve left him alive.

Loki had other plans.

“You’re not my father. So drop it.”

James Wallace slid his glasses back onto his nose and re-pocketed the handkerchief. “Ah. Looks like the proverbial jig is up. You’re a hard woman to fool.” He grinned. “But I so enjoy trying.”

“That makes one of us,” Heather muttered, pushing her hands through her hair. Her injured ankle throbbed and ached even though she was sitting; she doubted she’d be able to put much, if any, weight on it.

Some rescue this turned out to be.

Swiveling to face Dante, she leaned over and gently patted his cold cheek. She cast an anxious glance at his chest to make sure he was still breathing, before saying, “C’mon, Baptiste. Time to rise and shine.”

“He’s becoming,” Loki said in her father’s voice, his tone hushed, expectant. Excited. “He needs to keep Sleeping until his transformation is complete. His throne”—he patted one hand against the hideous flesh-chair he sat upon—“awaits him.”

Loki’s brass-knuckled words seemed to knock the air out of Heather’s lungs, left her struggling for breath.

The night burns, the sky on fire from horizon to horizon.

The never-ending Road.

The Great Destroyer.

One or both or neither.

“He’ll never sit there,” Heather scoffed, a quiet denial. As she looked at Dante’s pale face, the blood staining his lips, an idea presented itself. One she quickly buried. She glanced over her shoulder. A smug smile twisted Loki-as-James’s lips. “And you’re wrong. He’ll never be what you want him to be.”

Loki opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, his head tilting to one side. “Seems like we have a guest—a mortal one. How lovely. A gift for the creawdwr. He’ll be wanting to bathe in blood by the time he awakens.”

Heather felt a moment’s panic until she realized that there was no way it could be Annie, that she would’ve reached Memphis only a short time ago and couldn’t possibly be in Baton Rouge.