On Midnight Wings

Graham considered the Glock holstered beneath his jacket, doubting he could be fast enough or steady enough to get a bullet into S’s head or heart before the bloodsucking bastard took him down. But the unlocked door—no need to lock it when a securely restrained bloodsucker was never getting off the table alive (Graham felt an urge to giggle here, an urge he quickly throttled)—was another matter.

Glancing at the thick, steel door, Graham measured the distance. Run. Grab handle. Yank. Bolt through. His muscles bunched, thrumming with adrenaline, the desperate need for flight. But what about Morgan? Could they both make it?

Shifting his attention to his partner, Graham nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized that the bloodsucker had moved without a sound and in the blink of an eye and now stood right in front of him. And his eyes were no longer gold, but red-streaked brown.

S’s smile deepened, revealing his fangs. “Run,” he said.

Graham tossed the bat and whirled.

S TOSSED THE MORTAL’S emptied heart aside, then rose to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d feasted on both men, and the intoxicating taste of their blood—copper and wild berries and adrenaline—lingered on his tongue.

“Black Steve and White Steve were both delicious.”

Pushing his hair back from his face, he stepped over Black Steve’s cooling body and went to the door. Renewed, blood-fed energy thrummed through his veins, slowing his own blood loss, but doing little as far as healing his wounds.

S touched a hand to the half-healed wound above his heart. Winced. At least the wet heaviness had lifted from his lungs and he could breathe a little easier.

Grasping the door handle, S listened. He heard the faint sound of distant heartbeats, the low murmur of voices, the steady beep-beep-beep of medical monitors and, fainter still, someone screaming with the regularity and rhythm of a metronome.

Someone ain’t happy. Can’t say as I blame ’em.

S pulled the door open, then slipped out into the hallway, easing the door shut behind him. He paused for a moment, wondering which way led out, right or left? Right looked to be a dead end, the corridor ending in a concrete wall, while from the left he heard soft voices as two people—a man and a woman—discussed modifying med levels for a couple of difficult patients.

Right it was.

Tucking his wings away, S moved, blurring down the hall, past the medic station and the source of those soft voices, leaving startled gasps and a trail of bloody footprints behind him. Ahead were stairs leading up, a possible exit. Just as he reached them, bits of his conversation—Dante’s conversation, whatever—with Purcell replayed through his mind.

When I get back, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to take you apart and burn each piece until nothing but ash remains. And then I’ll flush those ashes down the goddamned toilet.

S slowed to a stop at the base of the stairs. He heard footsteps above. Laughter.

We’ll see, yeah?

That we will.

“For fucking true,” S whispered, swiveling around.

He moved again, heading back the way he’d come, aimed for the medic station, a runaway train, a missile arcing down from the sky, good old-fashioned death on the hoof or, in his case, death on socked feet.

A smile iced his lips. Purcell was in for one helluva surprise.

S unleashed his hunger.

30 CARNIVAL NEW ORLEANS THE FRENCH QUARTER

SILVER THANKED THE COUNTERMAN, then walked out of the pepperoni-and-garlic-fragrant DaVinci’s Pizza, fisting his hand shut around the key ring he’d fished earlier from a puddle in the gutter out front. He’d recognized it as Von’s the instant he’d seen the winged Harley logo stamped into its water-soaked leather fob.

The keys bit into his palm and the undersides of his fingers with dull metal teeth, speaking a truth Silver didn’t like. Not one damned bit.

Von wasn’t just Sleeping, he was missing. Like Dante. Like Heather. And, thanks to his pill-induced Sleep-coma, just as unreachable. As was Lucien, gone to Gehenna on some mysterious mission and beyond the range of Silver’s sendings.

Silver wove through the ever-growing crowd of nightkind and mortals gathering in front of the closed club. The air prickled with a carnival atmosphere of mystery, spine-tingling anticipation, and dark possibilities. Voices buzzed into the night like sugar-drunk flies.