On Midnight Wings

Lucien’s expression iced over. “Gabriel most likely had us followed.”

“We’ll hold them,” Hekate said. “Go. Hurry.”

Closing the door, Heather raced up the stairs, Lucien right behind her.

“KILL ME FOR MY own actions, not for the actions of a sick priest bastard I was against from the get-go,” Purcell blurted—and S was pretty sure he was Purcell. So someone inside kept claiming. “Fight me man to man.”

“Like you did me? Trussed to a table?” S crouched down in front of Purcell. Drank in the adrenalized scent of his fear. “I think you said something about taking me apart and burning each piece until nothing but ash remained, then flushing those ashes down the goddamned toilet. Does that sound about right?”

Purcell gave a low groan. “Just kill me, you motherfucker. Get it over with.”

“Over that?” S laughed. “Hey, boys will be boys, yeah? We can take it. But little girls? That’s another fucking story.”

“You should know,” Purcell said, his tone the resigned register of a man on his way to visit the death chamber. But no lethal injection here. No. Nothing so clean. Welcome to Ol’ Sparky, motherfucker. “Right? You have first hand experience.”

She was eight years old and you slaughtered her. Just like you’ll slaughter Violet and Heather and anyone else who gets close to you. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.

“C’est vrai,” S said in a monotone. He reached up in a blur of movement and snapped Purcell’s neck. The SB agent toppled bonelessly to the floor. S rose to his feet, his heart a wasteland.

Loki applauded politely. “Beautifully done. Perhaps a bit too quickly, but with practice—”

“Practice makes perfect, yeah?” S asked, closing the distance between them.

“Definitely. And I’m the perfect tutor.” Loki grinned. “I will teach you everything you need to know and I’ll show you how to walk your true and proper path.”

“No need, Papa. I already am.”

Power crackled along S’s fingers. Reflected blue in Papa’s ever-widening eyes. The stormy scent of ozone filled the room. S felt his hair lifting into the air.

Papa dropped to his knees. “The Great Destroyer,” he breathed, eyes bright.

Kneeling in front of Papa, S cupped his child-pimping foster father’s false face between his flame-wreathed hands and kissed him hard on the lips. “For Chloe,” he whispered. Releasing him, S stood. And watched.

Blue flames spread throughout Papa’s body, glowing beneath the skin like sapphire embers. His Loki skin-suit dissolved, revealing the structures beneath—muscles, tendons, ligaments.

“Let’s see you hide now, you fi’ de garce. No more Russian nesting dolls.”

Papa screamed.

But not for long.

“BY ALL THAT’S HOLY,” Lucien whispered, staring at the flesh-and-bone throne situated in the middle of the third floor corridor. “Tell me that Dante didn’t—”

“No,” Heather assured him. “That’s Loki’s work, but he made it for Dante. For the Great Destroyer.”

“Then Loki’s gone mad.”

“I think stark raving mad would be more accurate.”

The fetid smell of decaying flesh, of spilled guts, festered in the air. A stench Heather could barely stomach even with her human sense of smell. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Lucien or Dante.

Heather headed for the stairs, freezing in place when a wailing scream from several floors above sirened briefly into the air, then died. Her skin goose bumped.

I feel like I’m running out of time, catin.

No, cher. I refuse to lose you.

I fought my way here, coffee pot, Taser, and gun, and I refuse to be too late.

Lucien stared up at the shadowed ceiling, his face troubled. “Maybe you should stay here.”

Ignoring his suggestion, Heather raced up the stairs, following her heart and her blood link to the fifth floor—and to Dante. She knew Lucien followed, knew neither one of them might be safe. As she ran, she chambered a round in the SIG. She hoped she wouldn’t need to use it, but if she did, she knew she’d only have one chance and one chance only. She trusted Dante not to hurt her.

She couldn’t say the same of S.

HEATHER PADDED DOWN THE corridor, making sure to keep to the right-hand wall because inside the opposite wall, beneath the now-vibrating plaster, wasps droned. Four rifts marred the wall’s surface in long, lazy lines and in those black depths, wasps crawled, their metallic bodies glittering like moonstruck mica in the dim red emergency lighting.

Four rifts. As though left by trailing fingers.

Heather found it hard to breathe, fear was an anvil on her chest. Looking up at Lucien, she saw the same fear shadowing his face.

<Hold on, Baptiste. Hold on, damn you.>