On Midnight Wings

“Hey, motherfucker.” From right beside him. “I don’t remember inviting you.”

Teodoro caught a glimpse of a pale, hard-knuckled fist, orange flames glinting from silver rings on the fingers and thumb, then an explosion of electricity shocked through his skull and whited out his mind.

TEODORO BLINKED. THE SQUARE white ceiling tiles swam into focus. He was no longer in his chair, but flat on his back on the hard, concrete floor. He sucked in a mouthful of ozone-flavored air, trying to calm his triple-timing heart.

Had he just been sucker punched by an unconscious subject? Tossed out of a doped and damaged mind and onto his ass?

An icy finger trailed the length of Teodoro’s still-tingling spine. Imposible. He sat up, then eased to his feet, holding on to the back of the chair for support like an old man, an unbalanced man, a weak man, in need of a walker. He fisted his other hand at his side to destroy any illusion that it was shaking. He stared at Dante.

Dante hadn’t moved. Was still out cold. Still cuffed to the table. Head still turned toward Teodoro, breathtaking face still partially veiled by tendrils of black hair. Fresh blood trickled from one nostril.

Nothing about him had changed from a moment ago.

Everything had changed.

Despite being ice-cold, sweat plastered Teodoro’s shirt to his back, beaded his forehead. As he scrutinized the unconscious creawdwr, he realized that he needed to get back on the horse, so to speak, before his shock and dread deteriorated into belly-knotting fear. He needed to link to that bond, to follow it to Heather.

But first, he’d shoot Dante full of more resin and tranquilizers. No more dark laughter or blurring fists, then. Never mind the fact that there shouldn’t have been this time either. Maybe the drugs were wearing off—

Teodoro’s cell phone buzzed, interrupting his speeding train of denial. He pulled it from a trouser pocket and frowned when the ID showed Webster’s number. Why would his supervisor be calling? Sinking into the chair, he thumbed the Talk button.

“Díon.”

“Sorry to interrupt your vacation,” Webster said, sounding—to his credit—vaguely apologetic, “but a situation has come up that requires your special expertise.”

Teodoro sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose. Leave it to the SB to ruin even pretend vacation plans. “Can’t you put whoever it is on ice for a few more days? I’m leaving for Barcelona tomorrow. If I miss the flight, I’ll be out the money.”

“Afraid not. This one comes directly from the Oversight Committee. And”—Webster lowered his voice—“I hear it involves the director.”

Teodoro sat up straight, suddenly more interested in the conversation. It sounded like the file he had left on the table following his meeting with the very-soon-to-be-dead-facedown-in-her-pancakes Underwood had been found. And studied.

Just as he’d intended—but the timing was unfortunate.

Given that the file revealed that SB Director William Britto had sold his soul, not to mention the SB’s integrity, to the powerful Renata Alessa Cortini, high priestess of the vampire Cercle de Druide, in exchange for new dusk-to-dawn life for his terminally ill son, Teodoro imagined it had made for fascinating reading.

And it wouldn’t take much deductive skills for the members of the Oversight Committee to realize that the only thing the Cercle would be interested in would be intel about a True Blood known as S. And where to find him.

“You’re expected at HQ by midnight,” Webster informed Teodoro.

“And my vacation?”

“Reinstated the moment you’ve finished with the interrogation.”

“Well, then. I guess I’ll see you at midnight.”

“Not me, you won’t. I hope to be in bed asleep by then. Too damn old for vampire hours,” Webster grumbled. “I’ll let the OC know you’re on the way.”

Conversation finished, Teodoro stood and slipped the cell phone back into his pocket. When he returned from HQ, he’d tap into the bond between Dante and Heather, follow it back to the FBI agent. Then sever it. He stepped over to the table, his strength and balance restored—no longer a tottering old man—and gently brushed the strands of black hair away from Dante’s face.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

A dark satisfaction curled through him. Soon. Very soon. With a severed bond and a creawdwr’s deep sea dive into madness, the Second Fall would begin—and then the air would fill with weeping and wailing and gnashing of Elohim teeth.

Turning, Teodoro strode from the room.

13 THE FIRST BREATH OF WINTER NEW ORLEANS THE WINTER ROSE

THE FALLEN ANGEL WAS gone.

Guy Mauvais stood in the doorway of the riverboat’s workroom, his fingers clenched around the crystal goblet of stove-warmed blood he held—never microwaved, since the damned contraption destroyed what little flavor and nutritional value bagged blood possessed—as he stared in disbelief at the wooden table.