In the Blood

25 NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS

Damascus, OR

March 23

“ABOUT TIME,” BECK SAID, climbing to his feet as Caterina hiked up the hill. “I was beginning to worry. What took so fucking long?”

“Sorry,” Caterina said. “The daughter was still up. I waited.”

“I was thinking I should do Wallace and make you wait in the dark and the dirt for a change. See how you like it. But we don’t need to worry about her since the orders just changed.” Beck bent and gathered up the blanket. “You got off easy, Ms. Bad Ass.”

Caterina looked at him. “Changed? How?”

“They want her bagged and brought in, so they’ve sent Norwich and Shep.”

“Brought in? Why?”

Beck straightened, the blanket draped over his arm, and looked at her for a long silent moment. “How the hell would I know?” he finally said. “When did you start asking why?”

“Right now,” Caterina said.

“Well, knock it off and let’s hit the fucking road,” Beck said. “I’m hungry and I’m tired and I have a zillion bug bites.” He started down the other side of the hill toward their rented Mazda.

Caterina drew in a deep breath of pine-scented air and lifted the Glock. “Beck.”

Beck turned around and his eyes widened. The blanket fluttered to the ground. His fingers locked around the grip of the Colt in his shoulder holster. She aimed. The moment stretched, time suddenly elastic and streamlined. Their eyes met.

Beck yanked the Colt free of its holster. Caterina squeezed the Glock’s trigger. The bullet hit Beck between the eyes, and he was dead before his body crumpled to the ground and rolled down the hill.

Lowering the gun, heart triple-timing, Caterina closed her eyes and stepped off the tightrope.

THE VAMPIRE NOMAD STRODE out from behind the curtain and onto the stage, joining the Inferno members already tearing down and packing up their equipment. Sheridan moved, climbing up the side steps and sidling along the curtain’s faded edge. He slipped behind it. Then froze.

Dante Prejean was stretched out on a well-worn sofa, unconscious, black hair half-hiding his pale face. Perched on the sofa’s arm, a beautiful red-haired woman lifted a gun in a steady two-handed grip and aimed.

“Turn around and walk away,” Heather Wallace said quietly.

Sheridan had no doubt that she’d pull the trigger if he didn’t comply. His mind raced almost as fast as his pulse. Wallace is guarding a fucking vampire.

For one heart-pounding, crystal-clear moment, Sheridan envisioned shooting Wallace, then Prejean, but knew he’d never have time to kill the bastard properly before someone—the nomad, one of the mortal band members, a groupie—wandered backstage.

Forcing a smile, Sheridan lifted a conciliatory hand, showed the digital camera in his other hand. “I’m with Spin magazine,” he said. “Just hoping for some candids.”

Wallace didn’t return the smile. Didn’t lower the gun. Didn’t say squat. Sheridan backed away, hand still lifted, then slipped past the curtain. He didn’t breathe easy again until he was outside.

He crossed the parking lot, sidestepping the puddles and ignoring the cold rain trickling down his face. Time to return to his original plan, which had been to follow Prejean to his hotel, then wait for daylight to snuff him; but the seizure had seemed like a perfect opportunity.

Live and fucking learn.

As for the lovely and treacherous Heather Wallace, he’d hoped to warn her, but she was beyond redemption. Cortini could have her.

ALEX STOOD OUTSIDE VESPERS and kept watch on Inferno’s bug-spattered tour bus. Shaking another cigarette from his nearly empty pack of Winstons, he stuck it between his lips and lit it, hands cupped around his Zippo. He breathed in the smoke, felt the nicotine rush through his veins.

The show had ended early and, according to the buzzing conversations swelling around him, it became clear that something had happened to Dante. Some whispered overdose; others whispered seizure. Alex wondered if something dark and deadly and hungry had awakened within the young vampire and knocked him on his ass.

Most of the people who’d been hanging out near the bus hoping for a photo, an autograph, or maybe a quick fuck had dispersed when the nomad vampire in his Nightwolf leathers had strolled outside and squelched their hopes.

No photos. No autographs. No fucks, quick or otherwise. Dante was down for the count, but he’d make it up to his fans later, that was a promise.

Inferno’s fans had lingered for a moment longer in the rain-damp parking lot as if they thought the nomad would laugh, say it was just a joke, that Dante was actually waiting to see each and every one of them with the intention of fulfilling their wettest dreams.

When that didn’t happen, they finally gave up and wandered away, their makeup-streaked faces disappointed. Quite a few were discussing Dante’s “drug overdose” in heated tones as they passed Alex, trailing the pungent nostril-pinching aromas of patchouli and sweat.

Alex sucked in one last drag from his cigarette, then flicked it into the gutter. It looked like the opportunity to talk to Dante was growing slimmer with each passing moment. He’d planned to pose as a fledgling musician with a Inferno tribute song on his iPod and ask Dante—Oh, would you, please? It’d mean so much to me!—to listen. The only possible hitch would’ve been Heather, but he could’ve worked his way around her.

Time to improvise. He’d follow the band to wherever they were staying, bide his time, and hunker down until twilight. Then he would knock on Dante’s door.

Better let Father know about the delay.

Alex leaned against the building, stone gritting beneath his shoulders, and pulled his cell from his hoodie pocket, his fingers brushing against the iPod’s slender shape. For a moment, he thought he’d punched the wrong button when Athena answered the phone and on the first ring, no less.

“The tightrope walker wants to talk to you,” she said.

Alex stood up straight, pulse double-timing. “Who? Athena, what’s going—”

“Your sister’s safe.” An unfamiliar female voice curled into his ear. “But I have the muzzle of my gun against your father’s temple.” The SB’s assassin’s tone—and Alex had no doubt that’s who she was—was low and level, reciting facts. “I can pull the trigger and walk away or I can holster my gun, for the time being. It depends on how you answer the next question.”

“BOB? SWEETHEART?”

Wells shifted his gaze from the artfully textured ceiling—like whirls of cake frosting—and looked at his wife. All the little glowing lights that displayed Gloria’s vitals beeped and blipped, a steady and reassuring sound.

“How on earth did Athena get the drop on you?” Gloria asked, her voice as parchment thin as her fragile skin.

Wells managed a rueful chuckle. “I planned for the SB, I planned for a coup d’etat from Alexander, but I never planned on our daughter.”

Leather creaked as Wells twisted his wrists once more, testing for any hint of slack. And, as with each prior attempt, he found none. How long since Athena and the other woman—a killer, an assassin, but one who hadn’t pulled the trigger…yet—had left the room? An hour, perhaps.

“Bob?”

“I’m listening, honey.”

“Alexander probably instructed Athena. This is his coup d’etat.”

Wells frowned. That made no sense. “No,” he said. “Alexander would wait until after he’d learned how to wield S. He’d want to look in my eyes as he twisted the knife. No. Athena acted on her own.”

“Alexander the Great had his father assassinated.”

A familiar argument. Even now, with Gloria dying in one bed and himself strapped to another, they still disagreed on one point of history. Wells sighed. “He had nothing to do with King Philip’s death. It would be complete foolishness for Alexander, our Alexander, to kill me before I’ve passed on my knowledge. It’d be—”

“Insane,” Gloria finished flatly. “Didn’t I warn you to put the twins down the moment Athena started slipping? Her madness is Alexander’s madness. I warned you, sweetheart, I warned you.”

“You did. But I still think Alexander had nothing to do with this.”

Beeping and blipping. The creak of the straps. His wife’s fretful silence.

“Is the syringe still under your pillow?” Wells asked. Neither Athena nor the assassin would be expecting an attack from Gloria.

“Yes.”

“Get it. Keep it in your hand.” Wells watched as his wife weakly fumbled a hand beneath her pillow. “Careful.” She pulled her hand free, the syringe clutched in her palm. She offered her husband a faint smile.

Wells smiled back. “Good. Keep strong.”

Gloria tugged the cap from the needle’s end and angled the syringe toward the inside of her arm. The syringe slipped from her grasp and her fingers frantically patted the blankets, searching for it.

Wells stared at her, mute and motionless. Cold iced him from the heart out, rimed his soul. “No,” he whispered finally. “Not for you…”

“Your heart is and always will be your undoing,” Gloria said, her voice tender.

“Alexander will bring S. The boy can heal! He can remake you—”

“Bobby, please. I’m so tired. Let me go.”

Gloria’s searching fingers discovered the syringe and closed around it. She looked at Wells, a relieved smile on her lips, lips that had once known his own so well.

S could save Gloria, he knew it; felt it bone deep.

A soft sound breezed into the room, snaking around all the beeping and blipping, a sound like the wind in the trees.

“Welcometohellwelcometohellwelcometohellwelcometohell welcometohell…”

Wells’s heart thundered in his chest. Gloria’s eyes widened and she yanked up the syringe, but it flew from her shaking fingers and bounced onto the carpet.

“No,” she moaned. She grabbed the bed railing and pulled herself over to the side of the bed. Teeth gritted, sweat already beading her forehead, she reached a trembling hand to the floor.

“Welcometohellwelcometohell.” Athena stepped into the room, spear in hand.

Gloria’s fingers scrabbled for the syringe, but it was just out of her reach.

“Athena,” Wells said, struggling to keep his voice calm, hoping to distract his smiling daughter, “has your brother called? Does he know what you’re doing?”

Athena ignored him. She stepped between the beds, bent and picked up the syringe. “Drop something?” Straightening, she fixed her wild, Aegean gaze on Gloria.

“Athena, sweetie, listen to me—”

“Shut up, Daddy.”

Gloria hauled herself back up and sank into the pillows, gasping. Athena sauntered to the chair beside the door and propped the spear against it. Wells breathed a little easier with the weapon out of his deranged daughter’s grasp.

“Athena, child, Father never helped you, but I will,” Gloria said, her voice breathless, but steady. “I’ve always fought for you. You’ve always been my favorite.”

Yes, Wells thought, that approach might work. Bad parent–good parent.

“Call me Hades,” Athena said, turning around to face her mother again. Her smile vanished and her eyes darkened. She dropped the syringe into her lab-coat pocket. Returning to the bed, she yanked one of the pillows out from under Gloria’s head. Pressed it over her mother’s face.

“Welcome to hell,” Athena whispered.

Wells screamed.