On Midnight Wings

“Okay. But before we talk, I wanna haul the rest of this trash out to the curb.”

“Fine. Haul away.” Holly sauntered across the nightkind-littered floor to the bar, stepping on anyone in her path and leaving a renewed trail of pained grunts and groans in her wake. “There’s a restaurant across the street. Meet me there when you’ve finished.”

“I’ll do that,” Von said.

For a split second, as she passed him, Von caught a whiff of her homey, warm-kitchen-in-a-snowstorm scent—honeyed black tea and vanilla—before it was swallowed up by the stink of charred wood and melted plastic.

“Still like your style, darlin’.”

Heading for the exit, Holly shrugged. “I know.”

15 LIKE DISTANT THUNDER WASHINGTON, D.C. PLEASANTVIEW CONDOMINIUMS

BARRY LANG STEERED HIS Prius into his slot in the condo parking lot, switched off the engine, and barely resisted the urge to thump his head repeatedly against the steering wheel. Instead, he leaned back in his seat, the vinyl squeaking beneath him, and rubbed a hand over his face.

The news from Portland was bad.

No, worse than bad, unbelievable.

As if the mess dumped into his lap following Monica Rutgers’s abrupt resignation hadn’t been enough, the murder of an FBI agent at the satellite forensics lab—inside his own goddamned office, no less—was definitely the tasty cherry on top of the steaming shit sundae Barry’s life had become since he’d taken over Rutgers’s position as ADIC.

Sighing, Barry lowered his hand to his seat belt, his gaze focused on the night-draped greenery beyond his windshield. Normally, a soothing sight—the neat landscaping, the tranquil design of flower beds and trimmed hedges and blossoming cherry trees. But now he only saw darkness and shadows pooled beyond the sidewalk.

Someone had sauntered into the Portland lab, disabled the security cameras and audio equipment, then killed SAC Oscar Heyne. A vampire, for chrissakes. No one had seen anything, remembered anyone unusual. Heyne’s assistant couldn’t account for close to an hour of her time prior to the discovery of his body—or the various scattered parts of it, anyway. Simply drew a blank. Of course, after the discovery, she’d fainted dead away. A sample of her blood was currently being tested to see if she’d been drugged.

As for the manner of Heyne’s death, it had netted Barry a call from Deputy Director Phil Beckett himself.

“Heyne was torn limb from limb,” Beckett says, voice grim, “and his head was found perched in his outbox.”

“Christ. The killer couldn’t have been human, then. Another vamp?”

“Maybe, but that’s not all. When his heart was found, it had been turned to stone.”

“Stone? How the hell is that possible, sir?”

“I don’t know. It’s a new one on me.”

“Do vampires even have that kind of . . . of . . . power or magic or whatever you want to call it?”

“According to folks in the know, a True Blood vamp might.”

“Not does, but might?”

“The only other option I was offered by those same folks in the know was fallen angels.”

“Sir, I . . . no disrespect, but given the options, I think we can assume that Dante Prejean is still slaughtering FBI agents. And that the SB is allowing it. Maybe even sanctioning it.”

“So it seems. We need to talk. Somewhere private.”

And talk they had.

Barry powered the driver’s-side window down a quarter of the way, letting in cool air and the smells of cherry blossoms, bark mulch, and grass wet with dew.

He wouldn’t get out of the car and head for his condo until he’d filed away the day’s events—clearing his mental palate—so that when he walked through the front door, he was only Barry Lang, husband and father and golden retriever owner, and not Barry Lang, FBI ADIC.

The meeting with the deputy director had taken longer than Barry had expected, running well past the dinner hour, but DD Beckett had ordered food in—turkey, bacon, and avocado sandwiches and chips—from Subway.

Either the deputy director’s expense account had been slashed during the latest round of budget cuts, Barry had mused, or he was a frugal man—or he just liked Subway.

Barry ticked down the list of topics that had been discussed over Lay’s potato chips, Subway subs, and iced tea.