On Midnight Wings

A muscle ticked in Dante’s jaw as he decided to ignore Díon’s threatening words, choosing not to play his game—if he truly has her, he’d offer me proof—and lifted Violet, her paper wings crinkling, into his arms and onto his hip. She tucked her box of crayons inside her Winnie-the-Pooh sweater, then looped her arms around his neck, interlacing her fingers beneath his hair. As Dante locked an arm around her waist, he heard footsteps pounding up the stairs beyond the door.

Time to go.

Dante flexed his shoulders. His deltoid muscles rippled, then he felt the slide of velvet across his bare skin as his wings emerged, arching above his head. They unfolded behind him with a soft, leathery rustle.

“There they are,” Violet said with quiet satisfaction.

Díon sucked in a shocked breath. The pendulum rhythm of his heart tocked a little faster “But . . . you’re only a half-blood. You can’t have wings . . . it isn’t—”

Dante turned and leapt up onto the roof’s three-foot-high concrete border. Violet tucked her head into the hollow between his neck and shoulder and snuggled in tight. His wings flared, sweeping through the air. He rose into the night, his boots lifting off the concrete.

“Hold tight,” he murmured.

“ ’Kay,” was Violet’s happy response. “This is my first angel flight.”

“Well, you’re my first passenger, p’tite.”

Díon’s voice cut through the air. “Heather is here. She’s hanging on a hook of her own, bleeding out, and waiting for you to come for her.”

The night spun. The stars disappeared beneath the rolling wheel of the past. A memory only weeks old, still fresh, still fanged, circled into place; the loss of his cher ami literally at the hands of a manipulative nightkind crime journalist, who’d learned about Bad Seed and thought it time Dante learned too—the hard way.

Mon ami. I knew you’d come for me.

A figure hangs by the ankles from a metal hook, wrapped and hoisted in dull chains, strapped into the white cocoon of a straitjacket. Blond hair sweeps against the floor.

“Wake up, S.” Ronin’s finger slips across Jay’s throat. Blood sprays across the grimy floor and spatters Ronin’s face, the white straitjacket. Jay chokes.

“I knew you’d come for me.”

Jay’s last words. He wouldn’t let them be Heather’s as well.

“It’s not too late,” Díon urged. “You can still save her—”

Díon’s words disappeared beneath the deep droning of angry wasps. White light flickered at the edges of Dante’s vision. Pain pulsed at his temples. Shivved his lungs. He swallowed back blood.

He focused on the sounds behind him—the door slamming open, the heavy thud of footsteps as more suits raced on to the roof, the sharp intake of shocked breath. Focused on Jesus Christ and holy shit. Focused on multiple cha-chunks as gun slides were pulled back.

“Hold your fire!” Díon yelled.

Wings slashing through the air in powerful strokes, Dante swung around to face the tall immortal in his black suit. He regarded Dante with wary eyes, sweat glistening at his hairline. Six suits—male and female—formed a semicircle around Díon, guns held in white-knuckled, shaking grips, faces drained of all color. A hard sweep of air from Dante’s wings plastered their clothes to their bodies, gusted through their hair.

“Surrender and you can still save—”

Dante’s song sprang to life, bristling with dark fury. Violet squeaked in surprise as power crackled to life along the fingers of his right hand in pale blue flames. Ghost flames, thin and wavering, barely there, but power enough to cram down Díon’s lying throat. Díon’s eyes suddenly widened. Panic flitted across his face. He took a careful step back toward the door.

Not now, not fucking now, that prick ain’t escaping, Dante thought in mingled frustration and fury as a lightning bolt surged through his skull, torching his mind. The seizure bit into him with electric teeth. The flames surrounding his hands flickered, then vanished as though doused with water, and his song spilled away in a jumble of harsh and jagged notes.

The stars returned in brilliant and broken and endless prickles of light behind Dante’s eyes. His body arched. His fangs pierced his lower lip as his jaw locked. He tasted blood, smelled it.

“He’s going to drop that kid or break her damned ribs,” someone warned.

“Let him,” Díon replied. “Either is fine.”