Beneath the Skin (24 page)

"You can't rewind the past," she said, hating each word as it slipped past her lips. "Chloe's dead and you can never take that back. It happened."

Dante's muscles coiled and flexed as if each word pounded into him like a steel-knuckled fist. His arms tightened around sleeping Violet.

Heather was fairly certain that Violet had died the moment the bullet had slammed into her forehead. Her eyes had been empty. Dante had done more than save her life, he'd brought her back.

Maybe Violet could've been resuscitated with CPR, a defibrillator, and drugs and returned to her body; a near-death experience. Not out of the realm of possibilities.

But Dante had rested a hand on Violet's chest and breathed into her.

He
is
the never-ending Road.

"You saved Violet, Baptiste. She's alive--here, now-- because of you. Give her back to her mother. Let her go."

Dante sucked in a breath, then opened his eyes. He looked at Heather. The gold light had vanished. The blue flames engulfing his hands winked out.
"J'su ici,"
he said, voice a husky whisper.

"Monster!
Give me my daughter!"

Fury scorched all other emotion from the woman's face as she leaned forward and grabbed Violet. Dante opened his arms and the woman jerked her changeling daughter free.

Violet awakened, rubbed at her eyes. "Mama?"

Heather rose to her feet and held up a wait-and-listen hand, palm out. "He can change your daughter back," she said, hoping to hell it was true. "All we need is a little quiet and--"

"He can change her back?" A ribbon of hope curled through the woman's voice. "Just like the way she was before ... before--"

"I believe so," Heather said. "As soon as things quiet down."

"Ma'am," the man Heather figured for SB, not FBI, interrupted. "I need you and your child to go to the office until the situation here is contained."

"But he can change her back," Violet's mother protested.

"You're in danger here," the SB agent said, voice strained. "You're in the middle of a firefight. You and your daughter risk being shot--again--or becoming hostages. Get the hell out of here."

"Wait," Heather said, "how about a time-out until Dante's restored Violet back to herself? Then--"

"Then nothing," he replied. His gaze remaining on Heather, though he directed his words to Violet's mother. "You're asking to give your daughter
back
to a bloodsucking vampire who's just angling to find a way outta the mess he landed himself in. Get your daughter out of here before I have you arrested for endangering a child. Now!"

Bewilderment flashed across the woman's face and Heather could just imagine her thoughts:
Did he just say bloodsucking vampire?

With a teary glance at Heather, the woman stood, then hurried across the parking lot, Violet clutched against her. Heather watched as Violet and her mother disappeared inside the motel office. She hoped Dante would have a chance to undo her daughter's physical transformation into Chloe.

A peripheral flash of movement followed by the crackle of glass under boot soles told Heather that Dante had risen to his feet. She looked at him, and the pain and raw grief she saw pooled in his dark eyes tore at her.

Chloe's death just happened for him.

"You and Chloe never stood a chance against them. You were just kids," Heather whispered, stepping up beside him. His fevered heat baked against her.

He looked away, blinking, his hands clenching into fists. "I fucked up."

"Hold it right there, Prejean. Move again and I'll put a bullet in your head."

And with those words, the detente created by a dying or dead little girl ended.

Adrenaline surged electric through Heather's veins, sparked clear and cool in her mind. She reached for the Browning tucked into the back of her jeans.

Fresh outta time.

GILLESPIE TIGHTENED HIS DOUBLE-HANDED grip on his Glock, his palms sweating despite the cool, moist air chilling his face and hands. Clicks and
ka-chunks
echoed all around him as guns swung up and fresh rounds were chambered.

"Name ain't Prejean," the vampire said. He wiped at the blood trickling from his nose with the back of one pale hand.

"I don't give a shit what your name is," Gillespie said. "On the ground. Hands behind your head and interlace your fingers."

"Blow me."

"We don't have to do this," Wallace said, her gun aimed at the center of Gillespie's forehead. "More innocent people might get hurt or killed. Two of your agents are already down."

"That's rich coming from a woman who stood by while her bloodsucking squeeze murdered an FBI agent in his own home," Gillespie said.

"She had nothing to do with that," Prejean said, voice taut. "That was all me."

"Good to know. If you wanna save lives, Wallace, surrender."

Wallace's attractive face was calm, resolute. "We can't--"

Her words were cut off as Prejean staggered against her. Concern flashed across her face. She unwrapped a hand from the grip of her gun to help brace the vampire upright, but he slipped from her grasp. Fell to his knees.

Gillespie adjusted his aim at Prejean's head, his heart jackhammering against his ribs. Sweat dampened his shirt at the small of his back. And at this very moment, he'd sell his soul without an ounce of regret for just one shot of Jack Daniel's.

Prejean's golden eyes. The blue flames from his hands engulfing the little girl.

What the hell had Prejean done to that kid?
How
had he done it? How was such a thing--turning a little girl into someone else--even possible?

Not just a bloodsucker and murderer, Dante Prejean. But whatever the hell he was, he definitely wasn't what the kid claimed him to be.

Are you an angel?

Images of the white stone angels at the Wells site scrolled through Gillespie's mind. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. His finger twitched against the Glock's trigger.
Take the goddamned shot.

But before Gillespie could decide whether or not to shoot an unarmed man--
he's got fangs, speed, and strength, he's NOT unarmed
--the vampire keeled over onto the glass-strewn sidewalk, his body spasming with mind-numbing speed and violence, his black hair whipping across the pavement.

"Shit!" Wallace dropped to her knees beside Prejean. "Von!"

Gillespie stared, amazed. A seizure? He'd had no idea vampires were subject to physical ills or mental short-circuits. He relaxed his finger against the Glock's trigger.

In a blur of motion, the nomad vamp, Nightwolf colors on the back of his worn leather jacket, appeared on the sidewalk beside Wallace and Prejean, a zippered black bag in his hand.

A gunshot cracked through the night as one of Gillespie's men fired in a belated response to the nomad's unexpected movement.

Back turned, McGuinn flipped off whoever had fired, then knelt. He unzipped the bag, pulling out a syringe and vial.

Crisscrossed headlights shafted light across the trio on the sidewalk, spotlighted Prejean's limb-twisting spasms. Fresh blood from the vampire's nose and mouth sprinkled the pavement.

"Chief, what the hell is he? How did he change that little girl?" Kaplan asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Kid took a bullet square in the forehead, Chief. She should be dead."

"Doesn't mean she
was
dead," Gillespie murmured. "I've seen people chat about baseball statistics with a crow-bar planted in their skulls."

"But how do you explain that the kid's no longer Asian?"

Gillespie pulled his gaze from Prejean and looked at the field agent. She'd trotted from the dubious safety of the bullet-pocked car door she'd crouched behind to join Gillespie on the sidewalk, her Sig Sauer down at her side. Several strands of blonde hair had worked free of her ponytail and now curved along her jawline.

"I can't," Gillespie said, meeting her troubled gaze. "I haven't a clue how he changed her."

"She called Prejean an angel. Do you think ... I mean, could he be--"

Gillespie's phone
beedle-beedled
and his heart launched itself into his throat.
Christ! I'm wound up tighter than a pig's tail.
Pulling his cell from his pants pocket, he glanced at the incoming number. Underwood. A grim satisfaction curled through him. For once, he had good news to report.

"For now, Prejean's a murderer. Initiate the arrest," he said to Kaplan, nodding at the trio on the sidewalk. "But not alone. Shoot if they resist."

Kaplan nodded, her expression unhappy. She jogged back to the Saturn and the surviving agents.

Gillespie answered the SOD's call. "Ma'am, good news. We have them--Prejean and Wallace. No sign of Lyons, though."

"Release them," Underwood said, her voice flat.

Underwood wasn't given to jokes or pranks, so Gillespie could only assume he'd misheard. "Ma'am?"

"I told you to release them."

Or maybe
she'd
misheard. "We located Prejean and Wallace. We have them."

"Perhaps the third time will be the charm. Release. Them. The official search for them has been terminated. That order comes from the director himself."

"Ma'am, no disrespect, but have you been drinking?"

Underwood laughed, a soft and humorless sound. "No, Sam,
I've
never needed booze to bolster me when things unhinge. Release Prejean and Wallace."

Gillespie heard a click as Underwood broke the connection--hanging up on him as per the norm. And just like that, his good news had turned into a pile of stinky shit. Acid churned in his stomach, burning its way up his throat.

Gillespie thumbed END, then tucked the cell back into his pocket. He rubbed a hand over his scalp. What the hell had happened at HQ? Why would Director Britto call off the hunt for Prejean, Wallace, and Lyons?

He pondered disobeying the order, pondered telling his agents to open fire--shoot to kill--and end his career. He sighed. Pulling a half-empty roll of Tums from his shirt pocket, he popped the remaining tablets into his mouth, then crumpled up and tossed the empty wrapper. The chalky, mock-fruit flavored Tums masked the sour taste of acid on his tongue.

"We've been ordered to release them," Gillespie called. "Back off."

His agents, semicircled around the trio on the sidewalk, froze. Relief washed over Kaplan's face--and not just hers, Gillespie noted. Several other field agents seemed to regard Prejean with something dangerously close to awe.

"What the fuck? Chief, that can't be right," Miklowitz protested, turning around to face Gillespie. "They shot Holmes and Cantnor and--"

"And that's who we need to take care of right now. Have medics been called?"

"Yeah, but ..."

"Trust me, I don't like this any more than you do, but this comes from the top--release them."

A scowl darkened Miklowitz's face. Jamming his gun back into his shoulder holster, he jogged back to his part-ner's sprawled body and hunkered down beside him.

Prejean's seizure had ended or maybe he'd been pumped full of vamp meds, Gillespie didn't know and really didn't care. His stomach tossed more acid up his throat and he thought of the beer in his room growing warmer with each passing moment.

The nomad gathered Prejean into his arms and rose to his feet in a smooth, graceful movement. He carried Prejean to the SUV. Eased him into the back, then climbed into the driver's seat.

Wallace stood also, her gun at her side, barrel pointed at the pavement. She turned around to face Gillespie. She studied him for a long moment, her eyes shadowed and un-readable. A breeze fluttered through her red hair.

"You're SB, not Bureau, right?"

"That's right."

"They're lying to you," she said. "Ask about Bad Seed."

"I know about Bad Seed," Gillespie replied. "I know what Prejean is."

Wallace shook her head. "I doubt that." Gun still in hand, she trotted to the SUV and jumped into the backseat beside Prejean's prone body, closing the door after her.

Wallace's sister, the girl with triple-colored hair, poked her head up from the back, then slithered over into the front passenger seat. Gillespie guessed that she'd played it smart and had huddled on the floorboards during the firefight.

Gillespie watched the SUV pull out of the bullet casing-littered parking lot and peel onto the dark highway. His stomach knotted as he remembered the feel of Prejean's fangs piercing his throat.

I know what Prejean is.

I doubt that.

Thinking of the little Asian girl with jade-green eyes and black hair and how Prejean, with blue light dancing around his hands, had transformed her into a girl with red hair and freckles left him cold.

Gillespie had a feeling Wallace was right.

And that scared the living daylights out of him.

18
UNTIL YOU FADE INTO NOTHINGNESS

THE ROYAL AERIE, GEHENNA
March 25

SOMETHING COOL AND WET trailed across Lucien's forehead, dampening the fire raging inside his skull. The pungent aromas of lavender, peppermint, and eucalyptus curled into his nostrils and prickled against his consciousness.