Beneath the Skin (31 page)

The same blue flames that had surrounded Prejean's hands when he'd transformed that poor little girl. Medics had sedated her mother. The girl kept talking about the beautiful angel with black wings--Prejean.

I was a balloon with a broken string floating up to the stars, then the angel caught me and wrapped my string around his wrist and pulled me back down. It tickled in my tummy.

Now, after viewing the disk he'd confiscated at the site, those words chilled Gillespie to the bone.

A figure moves into view--waist-length black hair snaking into the air like night-blackened seaweed caught in a current. His wings, black and smooth, arched up behind him, half-folded, as he kneels on the floor and reaches for one of two figures crumpled together on the tile.

"Avenge your mother. And yourself."

And Prejean rises from the speaker's arm--
from the fallen angel's arms
--bathed in dim red emergency light, his body tight and coiled, blood smeared across his breathtaking face.

Prejean wasn't just a True Blood vampire--he was much, much more.

Fallen angels.
Jesus-fucking-Christ! Gillespie would bet every last dollar he had in his pathetic 401(k) that the angel statues now rolling along the interstate to Alexandria hadn't started out as statues. But Prejean--
Name ain't Prejean
--had fixed that pesky flesh problem, now hadn't he?

Maybe Underwood had just discovered the truth about Prejean herself and that was the reason he'd been ordered to stand down last night.

Wallace's words, a calm and clear warning, nudged Gillespie's memory.

They're lying to you. Ask about Bad Seed.

I know about Bad Seed. I know what Prejean is.

I doubt that.

She'd been right; he'd had no idea, and he knew very little about Bad Seed.

In all honesty, given what Prejean was or, more to the point, what he could
do,
Underwood had probably saved all of their lives with that order--no matter the reason. As it was, two agents had been medevacked to Legacy Emanuel in Portland in critical, but stable, condition.

Another thing Heather Wallace had been right about?

They're lying to you.

And they had no reason to stop.

Gillespie dropped his hands from his face, padded to the bathroom, and hit the shower. Once he'd shaved, splashed on a little J$obar;$van Musk, and dressed in fresh clothes--matching gray trousers and jacket, white shirt, blue tie--he repacked his suitcase.

Gathering the empty beer bottles, he racked them back into their carton slots, then placed the refilled sixer on top of the dresser. He powered down his laptop and switched it off, the pilfered security-cam footage of Prejean in its disk drive like a hidden and deadly cancer.

Gillespie stared at his reflection in the mirror. Noticed the extra pounds around the middle. Noticed the gray pallor of his skin. Noticed the fear in his eyes even behind his glasses.

It'd never been the booze.

He was a coward, plain and simple. His lack of heart had lost Lynda, had cost lives under his command, had drained away all respect--from his wife, his kids, his coworkers, and from himself.

Even drinking was cowardice.

Of course, Gillespie's thirsty brain insisted otherwise. Claimed he thought better, reasoned sharper, with a few brews under his belt.

Gillespie splayed his fingers on the dresser and leaned closer to the mirror and his sagging and aging reflection. Most people would probably guess his age a good ten years older than his forty-six.

He had a choice to make.

Option one: He could check out of the motel, get in his rental, drive to FedEx and Next Day Air the disk detailing Moore's death at Prejean's unearthly hands to Underwood, then putter back to the Wells compound and continue processing the site.

He could leave the fate of Prejean to his higher-ups as ordered. Wipe all thoughts of the bloodsucker from his mind. Or, more likely, booze them away.

Option two: He could check out of the motel, get in his rental, drive to Portland International and book a flight to New Orleans. Wallace had told Prejean that they were headed home. Home had to be New Orleans. Once Gillespie arrived, he would finally be able to do something that mattered.

Gillespie knew he'd never win Lynda back. Knew he'd never win back all the respect he'd pissed away. The lives lost on his watch due to his poor judgment, his cowardice, were his to carry forever. He just needed the courage and strength to do so.

He had an opportunity to do the right thing.

A chance to make the world safer. A chance to slay a true monster.

And all he wanted was a drink.

Pushing away from the dresser, Gillespie shrugged into his Gore-Tex jacket, grabbed his suitcase, tucked his laptop into its sleek black bag, and walked out into the rain.

PURCELL'S WORDS--PROPER AND SYMPATHETIC and less sincere than a hooker's smile--still rang through Monica Rutgers's memory.

He came through surgery just fine, so we were all completely caught off guard by his death. SOD Underwood asks that you accept her condolences, ma'am.

She couldn't take the time to extend them to me herself?

I apologize, but she's in a meeting this morning.

I'm sure Sheridan's family would understand how a meeting would take precedence over Brian's death.

With a jab from one rage-trembling finger, Rutgers had ended the call. She couldn't stomach hearing Purcell's smooth voice for one more second.

SA Brian Sheridan was dead.

Rutgers rubbed her aching temples, her pulse throbbing hard and fast beneath her fingers. Underwood's words from the day before echoed through her memory:

You
sent him into the line of fire. These are the consequences of action
you
spun into play and your agent will pay the price.

Rutgers had ordered Sheridan into the deep, dark woods and had promised to guide him out again; a promise she'd failed to keep.

The microwave beeped. Even in the midst of sorrow and disaster, everyday mundanity kept chugging along.

Sighing, Rutgers pushed away from her desk, and, rising to her feet, crossed to the beverage cart. She fetched her lavender mug out of the microwave and dropped two tea bags into the heated water it held, then carried the mug to her desk and set it on the cup warmer.

Vanilla-and-blueberry-fragrant steam curled into the air, unable for once to soothe her senses or quiet her restless mind. She knew the tea would remain untasted.

Rutgers tapped her assistant's button on the intercom.

"Yes, ma'am?"

Rutgers stared at the intercom, her heart kicking hard against her chest. For just a second, Ellis's voice had sounded like Sheridan's. Grief tightened her throat. Haunted by a voice. And by all that would never be said.

What would turn out to be her final conversation with Sheridan ghosted through Rutgers's mind:

And Brian? Be careful. Do you have your rifle?

Yes.

Use it.

Such Spartan words, efficient and to the point. And now--a cold and hollow eulogy. Sheridan had deserved so much more.

"Ma'am?" Ellis repeated.

Rutgers drew in a centering breath, then said, "Brian Sheridan died last night while in the care of the SB. I need you to send me the address and phone number for his parents."

"Brian? Shit. I mean, yes, ma'am, of course. Flowers to be sent?"

"Absolutely. And hold all my calls."

"Yes, ma'am."

Rutgers leaned back in her chair, her gaze on the cherry blossoms outside her window. Thanks to the SB, Sheridan was dead and Dante Prejean very much alive and free to continue to murder and corrupt.

Through unofficial channels Rutgers had heard about last night's shoot-out in a motel parking lot outside Damascus, Oregon, between Prejean and Wallace and Under-wood's on-scene agents.

Section Chief Gillespie had been forced to let Prejean and Wallace walk while two of his men had landed in the hospital with bullets in places they didn't belong.

Rutgers felt a hard smile tug at the corners of her mouth. She would bet anything that had been a bitter pill for Gillespie to swallow.
Wonder how many bottles of beer it took to wash it down?

An early morning breeze rippled through the cherry blossoms. A few of the pink flowers fluttered to the wintersered lawn, delicate splashes of color.

The words Heather Wallace had written on her admissions application, words the former agent had once lived by, fluttered like cherry blossoms through Rutgers's mind.

I want to be a voice for the dead.

So do I.

For Sheridan. For Rodriguez. For all who'd died at the hands and fangs of Dante Prejean. Even for the woman who'd once been the dedicated and compassionate special agent named Heather Wallace.

Through Bad Seed, the Shadow Branch--no, be honest, the Shadow Branch
and
the Bureau--had created Dante Prejean. Had brutally shattered a child, then pieced him back together with misaligned edges, the cracks still showing. Just to see what would happen.

Prejean would never, ever stop killing. Whether on his own, or being used as a weapon by people in the know like Alexander Lyons, Prejean would never stop.

And, even after last night's fiasco in Oregon, the SB planned to step out of his way with a genial smile and an after-you-please wave of the hand, and allow him to continue spilling and drinking as much innocent blood as he desired.

Rutgers shifted her gaze from the window, blinking dazzling light from her eyes.

So much to do. And not enough time to do it all. Prioritize.

Turning to her computer, Rutgers composed a letter of resignation, printed it out, and signed it. Sealing it inside an envelope, she wrote the deputy director's name across the front in elegant, flowing script, then placed the envelope on her keyboard.

If you even feel the urge to pull another stunt like this, just tender your resignation and do it as a private citizen because you'll be done here.

Understood.

She'd never again order someone else into the deep, dark woods.

She would enter them alone.

24
VIOLENCE IN MY HEART

SOMEWHERE IN UTAH ON I-84 EAST
March 26

Gigeresque wasps crawl along Dante's mud-streaked arms, burrow under his skin. He feels the tiny metallic bodies scraping along his muscles and veins on their way to his nest-combed heart.

Droning reverberates within his skull. Fills his fucking head with noise.

Perry's weight pushes Dante deeper into the wasp-squirming mud. Like tiny sewing needles or a rose's ruthless thorns, stingers lance into his back, his ribs, and his neck again and again. Venom burns like spilled gasoline beneath his skin.

Perry makes a choked kind of gurgling sound and Dante realizes he isn't dead, that Papa plans to bury them both alive.

Fuck that
fi' de garce
Papa. Fuck him hard and sideways
until he screams for mercy. Then fuck the bastard a little more.

"Perry?" Dante whispers. But the furious droning in his head keeps him from hearing Perry's heart, from knowing if his foster brother really is still alive.

His handcuffed hands numb and pretty much useless, Dante twists in the cold, fetid mud, trying to wriggle out from under Perry's body, but manages to push himself deeper into the muck instead.

Shovelful after shovelful of dirt flies into the grave and, slowly, it fills. Dante shakes dirt from his face. And keeps up his effort to work free of Perry's dead weight. Sweat and dirt sting his eyes.

Just as Dante slithers, mud-greased, out from under Perry, he catches a flash of peripheral motion from up above and something hard and edged slams into his temple.

White light strobes across Dante's vision like heat lightning, then pain slams him back down into the mud. Blackout.

"LITTLE BROTHER?"

The low, urgent voice pulls Dante up from the mud. A familiar voice. One he can't quite place. He slivers open his eyes and pain pierces his head. Sledgehammers a red-hot spike behind his left eye. Dizziness spins him like a bottle in a kissing game.

How do I know that voice?

Not how, Dante-angel. When.

Dante stops spinning with a hard lurch.
When
bounces around his skull like a ricocheting bullet, sparking images from his memory with each hit.

Spark: A tall nomad pulls off his leather jacket and tosses it onto the chair. Unbuckling his double shoulder holsters, he shrugs them off and places them, along with his guns, on top of his jacket. He touches fingers to one bare, muscle-corded wrist.

Spark: A crescent moon tattoo beneath a green eye.

Spark: A wicked, mustached grin.

"Von?"

"You got it. I don't know how I got here, but let's getcha outta that grave."

"I was just getting comfortable."

"Getting whacked in the head with a shovel will do that to ya."

Von's strong hands loop around Dante's shoulders, pulling him free of the squelching mud and lifting him out of the grave and onto the sawgrass beneath the deep cypress shadows. Dante rolls to his knees, vision swimming. He closes his eyes and lowers his head, pain throbbing in his temples.

"What about Perry?" he whispers. "He still alive?"

"Who's Perry?"

"Mon ami.
In the grave with me
."

"You were the only one in there," Von replies.

"You sure? Cuz he was on top of me and hurt bad. Dying, maybe."

"Yup. I'm sure."