On Midnight Wings

“He didn’t have it the last time we picked him up and brought him in,” Purcell said. “But that was six, almost seven, years ago. S usually keeps his shirt on when he’s onstage with his band, so there’s no telling when he got it. What does it matter? It’s just one of those neoprimitive cuttings or whatever.”

Teodoro shrugged. “Simply curious.”

“So what now? You still plan on breaking him even after all this?”

“Definitely. But I think I’ll take a look inside this time”—Teodoro air-tapped a finger next to his own temple—“and see if I can find the best way to accomplish that goal.”

“Christ.” Purcell sighed. “Talk about a waste of time, but fine. You do that. I’ll go check on the kid, tell her that her goddamned angel is all right and blah, blah, blah. Any other instructions before I go?”

Teodoro frowned, considering. Bright blood welled up from the half-healed bullet wounds above Dante’s heart, soaking through the canvas straitjacket in a small dark circle. It also trickled dark along his temple and pooled in his ear.

“Yes,” Teodoro replied. “Have a medic waiting on standby.”

“If you want the bastard to heal, then you should quit giving him the resin.”

Teodoro lifted his gaze to Purcell, met his unreadable olive green eyes. “I don’t want him to heal. I want him weak.”

“Weak is good,” Purcell said. “Dead is better.”

“Be patient and we’ll both get what we want.”

“Bronson and Holland are dead. How’s that for patient?” Turning, Purcell kicked Dante’s discarded boots from his path and strode from the room.

Teodoro wondered if he’d made a mistake in taking only temporary control of the prickly agent’s mind—a brief visit, one just long enough to make Purcell rescind his shoot-the-little-fucking-psycho order and erase the memory of having ever given that order in the first place.

If so, it was a mistake that could be corrected, if necessary.

Once Purcell had exited the room, Teodoro scooted his chair closer to the table and gave his attention to the sigil above the drugged and dreaming creawdwr’s heart.

He’d lied when he’d told Purcell the scar didn’t matter. In truth, it mattered a great deal because it was the Morningstar’s mark and a blood pledge. Which begged the very troubling question: How had Dante managed to remain free in the mortal world, given that the Fallen—or at least the Morningstar—apparently knew of his existence?

Teodoro touched the blood-soaked spot on the straitjacket, his finger tracing the sigil’s design from memory upon the material—an upside-down pyramid with a smaller reversed triangle hooked to its base with graceful curlicues.

“Foolish child,” he whispered. “What bargain did you make with the Devil?”

Dante’s head was turned toward Teodoro, his pale, pale face half hidden beneath a fall of night-black hair. Blood glistened beneath his nose, smeared his cupid’s-bow lips, its coppery odor mingling with the autumn sharp scent of frost and burning leaves. Teodoro moved his hand up from Dante’s chest and trailed a finger along his smooth jawline. Brushed the pad of his thumb across that full kiss-me-bite-me lower lip.

Breathtaking.

Even bloodied and unconscious, the creawdwr’s beauty scorched. Hinted at tangled sheets and hungry moans. Moonlight and fire seemed to pulse white-hot through his veins, smoldering beneath his alabaster skin, skimming the length of his lean-muscled body—intoxicating and deadly.

Tempting.

A unique creature—even in beauty and power and bloodline.

And the only creawdwr in existence.

Teodoro felt a sharp, unexpected pang of regret. He planned to shatter a creawdwr’s fragile sanity and reshape him into the Great Destroyer, leaving the Fallen no choice but to kill the Maker they’d spent thousands of years yearning and searching for before he unmade the mortal world and their own.

But no matter how beautiful Dante was, or how brutally he’d been used by others, no matter how innocent of long-ago Elohim crimes, Teodoro refused to let his sudden sympathy sway him from his course.

He’d waited too long. Committed too many crimes to simply shrug and walk away. Not after subverting minds and ending lives to reach this very moment.

A moment the Fallen had brought down upon themselves when they’d sentenced his daughter to death by poison simply for speaking out for change, for a better place in Elohim society.

His Felicia had also been beautiful, and ill-used, and innocent. No sudden sympathy had spared her life. As she’d died in his arms while the Fallen had idly watched, Teodoro had given her a promise: I will take everything from them, mi hija, just as they have taken everything from us.

No, Dante’s beauty and power and unique bloodline would end with him.

It was nothing personal. Just a knife into the cold, dark heart of the Fallen.

Wheels. Circles. Cycles. The Elohim’s long-overdue Second Fall lay strapped to a steel table, fate incarnate in leather pants and ringed collar.