Beneath the Skin (14 page)

Let me tend to that,
cara mia.
You tend to the things you do so well,
mia ballerina scura.
Serve Dante Baptiste heart and soul. Guide him true. Win his trust.

Renata glided the scooter between two white delivery vans with only inches to spare on either side. Their drivers, berating one another as incompetent, unworthy to even spit-shine the other's boots, paused in their mutual insultathon long enough to give Renata an appreciative once-over.

"Ritorna, bella,"
one of them called after her.
"Una bella donna merita un uomo, non un ragazzo."

"Cio e allineare!"
Giovanni shouted.
"Sapere di c'e ne?"

Renata laughed. "You put yourself down too with that one."

"Worth it."

"Perhaps you
are
just a boy, and a silly boy at that."

"I haven't been a boy in centuries." Giovanni's fingers tightened on her hips.

"Perhaps."

<
Is Caterina certain?
> Giovanni sent.

<
Of the True Blood?
Assolutamente.>

Tourists in straw hats, fingering the cameras dangling around their necks like rosary beads, stared at her, shaded faces startled, whenever she buzzed past with a polite tap of her horn. Romans never even looked up, stepping aside instinctively.

The warm evening air fluttered her hair, chiming through her silver and amber earrings, and lacing the delicious smells of herbed fish, roasted tomatoes, and garlic through her curls.

<
I have difficulty believing this young True Blood is also a Maker.
>

But he
was
fathered by one of the Fallen. The things Caterina saw him do ...
> Renata lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. <
I know of no other explanation. No other way that this child could turn one, let alone dozens, of the Fallen to stone.
>

Silence. Giovanni's finger tapped lightly against Renata's hip as he mulled over this latest bit of information. Careful, her
fils de sang,
each thought viewed from all sides and angles like a jeweler peering at an unpolished gem. She tamped down her impatience and let him think.

As she zipped her scooter into the tourist-thronged Piazza di Spagna, she eased off the throttle and guided it into a parking lot on the east end of the
piazza
. Parking between two smart cars, she switched off the engine.

"She
is
mortal, our Caterina," Giovanni said, his lips close to her ear, his breath warm. "Perhaps she was tricked, an illusion woven into her mind." His hands slid away from her hips. "If the boy really is True Blood, he might be capable of such a thing."

"Might be,
si
, but why would he bother?" Renata stepped off her scooter, smoothing the gauzy violet bohemian-style smock she wore belted at the waist over her black leggings. Her gaze fixed on Giovanni. "He'd been drugged and tortured for hours by deluded mortals hoping to use him." Fury burned through her, hot and deadly, a summer sun at high noon. "He was exhausted."

"And you know what it takes to exhaust a True Blood,
si
?"

Renata stretched her five-two frame erect and lifted her chin. "Perhaps I do."

Still lounging on her scooter, Giovanni regarded her with light-filled hazel eyes. His short, tousled, burgundy-dyed locks highlighted his handsome face with its long Roman nose. His lips curved into a wicked smile.

"Perhaps you do at that,
bella."

Renata waved an elegant dismissal with one pale hand. "Sexy smiles and rote flattery, Vanni
mio
? How disappointing."

Giovanni swung off the scooter and stood in front of her. Tall, at least compared to her, just a shade under six feet. His jeans and midnight blue sweater fit him well, revealing a trim, athletic build.

Taking her hand, Giovanni raised it to his lips.
"Bella,"
he murmured, his lips warm against her skin. He smelled of the sea, this eldest son, of brine and sand and deep, restless waters. He looked at her from beneath his dark lashes.

"Have I disappointed you?" he whispered, his lips caressing her captive hand.

"Many times," Renata said, her voice tender. She tugged her hand free. "But I love you still,
mio figlio.
That never changes."

But as for her trust, that was another matter entirely.

Giovanni glanced away, his gaze skimming over the crowds perched on the Spanish Steps and ringing the low, boat-shaped fountain in the
piazza
's heart. Golden light gleamed on the Trinita dei Monti and its twin bell towers, glittered like jewels--ruby, sapphire, and emerald--upon the water in the gurgling fountain.

The sweet smell of azaleas and sugar pastries perfumed the night.

Soon, very soon, they would hunt and dine.

Giovanni slid his hands into his pockets. "When are you telling the Cercle?"

"Not yet," Renata said. "I'd like to keep this matter just between us and Caterina. Keep it in the family. For now."

A smile flickered across Giovanni's lips. "Ah,
si.
You want to make sure that Caterina hasn't been deceived. So you admit the possibility."

"I admit no such thing."

"Say Caterina is right, that this Dante Baptiste is not only a True Blood--"

"Fathered by an Elohim high-blood," Renata tossed in.

"Si
--so not only a True Blood, but a Maker as well. Say that is all true." Giovanni's gaze came back to Renata, his eyes brimming with reflected color--gold from the church and ruby and emerald from the water, purple and deepest blue from the lingering twilight. "Whose hands do you most want to keep this True Blood out of? The Cercle de Druide? The Parliament of Ancients? Or Le Conseil du Sang?"

Renata felt a smile curve her lips. She always benefited by allowing Giovanni room and time to think. "Perhaps all three," she said.

"I have a feeling the Fallen might be a bigger concern," Giovanni said. "They will try to claim him."

"They tried once already and failed. Dante Baptiste seems quite content to turn the
aingeals
to stone," Renata said. "Perhaps his actions--if true--will buy us time. Dante belongs to
us.
He was born vampire."

"Si, mia signora,"
Giovanni murmured. "Born vampire
and
born Fallen. We shall have a fight on our hands. A holy war."

"Are we ready to wage one?"

"With the Fallen? No. Not as divided as we are. The Cercle can call upon the mortal nomad clans and they would join our fight,
cara mia,
but we vampires ..." He shrugged. "Both the Parliament and the Conseil will scheme to get ahold of Baptiste."

Renata agreed. Each vampire faction would slaughter the others for the opportunity to use and manipulate a True Blood, let alone what the youth truly was.

A
creawdwr.
Powerful and precious. Ready to be molded by whoever claimed him first--vampire or Fallen. And it would be vampire if Renata had her way.

"We shall keep him safe and secret for the time being,
si,
Vanni
mio?
This True Blood
principe
needs time to heal, to recover from all the evil done to him." The fire burning within her heart flared to life. "And those responsible shall be dealt with."

"Has anyone asked
him
what
he'd
like to do?"

Renata considered for a moment for effect, then said, "No, I don't think so. But he's too young to know what he wants. He's a child in need of guidance. We will help him decide what is best for him."

Giovanni shook his head, a smile on his lips. "Of course."

Renata looped her arm through his. He looked at her, his face bright beneath the
piazza
's lights, warm with humor.

"Shall we dine,
mio ragazzo bello
?" she asked.

"Si,
my beautiful Renata, we shall."

Arms linked, Renata and her eldest, her thoughtful Giovanni, strolled into the
piazza
proper and, mingling with the tourists crowding the steps, selected their dinner.

When she returned to her white stone and evening-cooled apartment later that night, she would place a few very important calls.

And those who refused to obey would soon find someone at their door bearing a final message, one delivered by a hungry and ruthless stranger. A message that would include all within the household--innocent or otherwise, family, friends, or lovers.

A message that wouldn't allow survivors.

Your time has come to an end. Arrivederci.

10
DEMON SEED

OUTSIDE DAMASCUS, OR
THE HAPPY BEAVER MOTEL
March 25

THE FALLEN ANGEL--AT LEAST that's what Annie assumed he was--tilted his head. The fiery glow in his eyes vanished. She looked into eyes colored the deep blue of a summer afternoon, framed with pale silver lashes.

A smile ticked up one corner of his mouth, but it wasn't a smile that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside, oh, hell no. It iced her heart.

"Appears I'm wrong about your devotion," he said.

"Why the hell does that matter?" she said, lifting her chin. "Just take him."

His gaze, no longer summer, but frost-edged winter afternoon, swept her from head to bare toes. "I wish I could."

The goddamned bastard's white-taloned fingers--
Oh,
look! Talons. Awesome!
--locked even tighter around Annie's arms, the talon tips pricking through her T-shirt to the skin beneath. Her tingling fingers went numb.

"Let go, dammit," she said through her teeth.

"How is it you see me? That my Word doesn't bind you?"

"Huh?"

"Did the
creawdwr
--Dante--alter you in some way?"

"Fuck, no!" Fear spiked through Annie. "Am I
not
supposed to see you?"

"No, you shouldn't see me. My spoken Word is more than enough to bind mortals, but you ..." He regarded her for a long, uncomfortable moment.

Annie didn't like the way he looked at her. Not one bit. She suddenly felt like a jumbled-up Rubik's Cube being contemplated by a puzzle master. "The main thing is," she said, her words tumbling over each other in their haste to get out of her mouth, "you want Dante, right?"

The fallen angel glanced over his shoulder at the nightkind-only bed and hunger sharpened the planes of his face. "Yes."

Annie couldn't see Dante and Von's bed since the fallen angel's body blocked her view. Fucker was huge. Tight muscles and flat abs. Short white hair, but not old lady white, no. Sleek and gleaming like polished ivory, like fresh snow, like the first star at twilight. A thick, open-ended twist of silver curled around his throat. And his skin seemed almost luminous, as if light flowed through his veins instead of blood.

But she'd plugged the bastard with a bullet and he'd bled like anyone else, so that axed the whole light-in-the-veins bit. And now, only a few moments later, just a pink spot on his skin remained of the wound.

He was gorgeous, in a weird, not-quite-human-but-still-an-asshole kind of way.

"Dante's right there, sound asleep," Annie said, voice low. "All you hafta do is scoop him up and go. I'll even hold the door for you."

The fallen angel laughed and the sound of it sheeted Annie's soul with ice. She shivered, arms aching and throbbing beneath his hands.

"And lo,
aingeals
learned the seductive art of temptation from mankind." He returned his attention to Annie, a sardonic smile sliding onto his lips. "Why are you so eager to get rid of the person the other females were guarding?" His wings flared behind him, fanning a smell like smoky incense into the room.

White, those freaking wings, and smooth as cream frosting, not a single feather. Huh. So much for that, or maybe feathered wings were a
good angel
perk, who knew? The tips arched over his head and, before he folded them shut again, she caught an opalescent mother-of-pearl sheen--swirling blue, purple, glimmering white--on the undersides.

"Dante turned a bunch of your kind into flipping statues," Annie said. "Reason enough?"

"I watched as it happened," the fallen bastard murmured. "Impetuous fools."

"Wow. I've never seen anyone so heartbroken. My sympathies."

"You have no idea what I feel," the fallen angel said quietly. "You aren't even capable of imagining."

"How the hell would you know what I'm capable of, you dick?"

The fallen angel tilted his head and Annie got that Rubik's Cube sensation again. Sweat trickled between her breasts even though she felt ice-cold.

"Who
were
you defending with that gun if it wasn't the Maker?"

"My sister," Annie replied.

The fallen angel glanced past her. One silver brow arched. "Ah."

"I mean it's weird enough that Dante's a fucking vampire, y'know?" Annie blurted. "But now he's this Maker thing too. He's having these seizures and shit and it's too much. Heather, she's so into him ..."

"Seizures?"

Annie nodded. "They've been doping him up with morphine. I guess his mind's been messed with--bad, y'know? Maybe you can help him with that. Take him home-- wherever the hell
that
is--and heal him."

Annie's chest tightened. Heather would never forgive her if she ever found out. And, in all fairness, she owed Dante much more than to sell him out. She liked him, hell, she'd craved a tumble with him big-time. But that was before.

Now, Dante scared the shit out of her. Anyone who could do the things he'd done to Dr. Whacked-Out Wells and his kids, the Amazing Demented Twins--

They rise into the air, bathed in cool blue fire, a three-faced pillar of flesh. Arms and legs streamline into feathered tails. Eyes blink open in the triune creature's braided torso and back. Rotating mouths open in a chorus of song:
Threeintoone ...