On Midnight Wings

26 A FAMILIAR AND DANGEROUS VOICE

DANTE JERKED AWAKE, HEART hammering, his body bathed in a cold sweat. Light needled his eyes and he snapped them shut again—too late; the pain in his head intensified. Whatever he’d been dreaming was gone. The last image, tendrils of red hair sinking into a moonlit pool of blood, an image that iced his heart, vanished like smoke in the rain, leaving him with only a disturbing blankness.

Something dark and ugly had happened in the dream. Something that scared him to his core. Something inescapable and unstoppable, a massive boulder rolling straight for a lonely highway, aimed at the single car traveling upon it.

Tendrils of red hair whipping through the air. . . .

Gone.

“Shit,” Dante whispered, easing his eyes open again.

And once again fluorescent light from the overheads spiked straight through them and into his aching brain like luminescent ice picks. Squinting, eyes tearing, he lifted a hand to shield his face—or tried to, anyway. But his arms, crossed over his chest, wouldn’t move.

Canvas rustled. Leather creaked. His mouth dried.

Dante didn’t have to look to know that he was strapped into a fucking straitjacket, but he lifted his head anyway and, blinking away fluorescent dazzles, took a gander and confirmed what he already suspected. Panic settled into his belly and buckled itself in for the ride.

Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

The straitjacket seemed weathered, flecked with old blood, a patch of fresh blood glistening on the left side, above his heart. And as if that wasn’t enough, steel bands restrained him at his chest and thighs, and his ankles were cuffed—no, make that double-cuffed—to the table.

Dante strained against the bands holding him to the table, muscles cording in his arms and chest and thighs. The heavy steel biting into his bunched biceps and pecs and thighs refused to budge. He refused to give up. Maybe he couldn’t get out of the straitjacket, but he could sure as hell do whatever possible to get his ass off the goddamned table. He fought and battered himself against the steel, not stopping until sweat beaded his forehead and a wet heaviness filled his lungs. He sucked in a breath, the air burning his throat. Pain pulsed deep in his chest.

Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

What now?

Coughing, Dante closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. At the back of his throat, he tasted blood and the bitter residue of drugs. His head felt full of broken glass and hissing sea-tide whispers, his thoughts punched full of holes.

He was in a room with padded walls, a concrete floor, and a camera snugged into a ceiling corner—and didn’t that feel fucking familiar as hell? The door stood open. Beyond, the hall was empty, a teasing temptation out of reach.

Where am I this time?

As much as Dante hated that particular question, what he hated even more was knowing that the answer was most likely hidden away inside his own skull.

Ragged pain wheeled through his mind as he struggled to think back to the last thing he remembered, fought to remember where, when. He pushed against the blankness. Shoved. Then—

Memory ratcheted into place. Images flickered, running backward—a Halloween strobe light show.

That’s Mr. Díon. He’s been taking care of my mommy. . . .

A tall, black-suited prick with tawny hair and an immortal’s slow pulse.

Tearing into warm, whiskered flesh. Running. The roof.

A hook, slick with light. Handcuffs.

The white padded room. Chloe—no, wait, Violet—with her black paper wings.

Blue eyes wide with panic. C’mon, it’s me. Annie. Heather’s in trouble.

Heather, warm and drowsy in his arms, smelling of lilacs and sage, and with a desperate hope, whispering: Sleep tight, cher.

Heather. Heather. Heather.

Dante shoved through the pain and drug-woven fuzziness encasing his mind and reached for her—or tried to, anyway. Pain shredded his sending and, for one graying, alarming moment, his consciousness. He blinked black spots from his vision as the pain gradually eased off the pedal.

Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

Beneath the pain, Dante felt the steady flame of Heather’s presence through their bond, a flame currently hidden behind miles of thick, dark glass. Relief flooded through him. Heather was alive. And, as near as he could tell, not here, but somewhere north of him. Maybe hundreds of miles away, maybe just across the street.

But just because Heather wasn’t sharing his particular hellhole, didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger. Didn’t mean she wasn’t straitjacketed into a hellhole of her own or running for her life. Whatever had happened, whatever had landed him on this table, strapped into a motherfucking straitjacket, could’ve swallowed up not only Heather, but Von and Silver and Annie, as well.

Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

Dante hoped to hell he was wrong—that they were all safe, unharmed—as desperation pushed him up against the steel bands again and again. A wet cough tasting of blood bubbled up from his lungs. He finally stopped, slicked in cold sweat, hoping to catch his breath, hoping to breathe, period.

What about Lucien? Searching, he’d be searching. And sending. Over and over and over. Which meant—I can’t fucking receive either. No sending. No receiving. This party keeps getting better and better.

“Guard your ass, catin,” Dante whispered, hoping his words would somehow find a way to her. “Do whatever it takes to keep yourself safe. Don’t waste energy on me. You and Von watch out for each other. I’ll find you again. I won’t stop until I do.”

Find her again? Yeah? Think that’s a good idea?

Fuck you. Absolutely.

An image flashed unbidden behind Dante’s eyes, blowing a hole in his certainty like a shotgun blast to the chest.

Her head rocks forward with the first bullet, then snaps back with the second, tendrils of red hair whipping through the air. She drops like an air-gunned steer. The thick, heady smells of blood and cordite saturate the air. Hunger pulses through him.

Dante’s breath caught ragged in his throat. The unwavering flame of Heather’s presence in his mind reminded him that she was alive, yet he still felt his finger pulling the trigger. Still felt hunger coursing through him as he breathed in the copper and adrenaline scent of her blood.

Still heard his own laughter, silk and 100-proof whiskey, low and satisfied. Now you’ll never hafta worry about her again, yeah? Now she’s safe. And so are we.

We? Fear scraped a hollow in Dante’s heart.

Movement in the doorway drew his gaze. A middle-aged guy wearing an official gray suit and an unofficial smirk stood there studying him, one shoulder resting casually against the threshold.

A steady, hypnotic drumming filled Dante’s ears, the succulent sound of the man’s heart pumping blood in a high-pressure hiss through his veins. Hunger twisted, a circling shark.

“You don’t remember, do you?” the man asked. “Where you are, who I am?”

“But you’re gonna tell me, yeah?”

“That I am—again. But, hey, all good things bear repeating. So here it is: Welcome home, S. Welcome back to Doucet-Bainbridge. Welcome to your final destination. And, trust me, it is your final destination.”

Welcome home? Welcome back? Memory flickered, then vanished, a finger-pinched flame. Pain pounded at Dante’s temples with sledgehammer intensity. He felt the hot trickle of blood from his nose, sniffed it back.

“Name’s Purcell, by the way.”

His voice. That’s fucking familiar as hell too.

It was like a jackhammer drilling against a dam’s massive concrete face, gouging a path toward a series of cracks created by the dark, restless waters on the dam’s other side—Dante’s fucked-up memory.

“Ain’t S,” Dante replied flatly. “And I ain’t staying.”

Ain’t S? Liar, liar, latex pants on fire. Now who’s the big, fat menteur?

Tais-toi. Shut the fuck up. Ain’t listening.

Oh, yeah, you are. Even when you think you ain’t, you are.

The impatient sound of snapping fingers drew Dante’s gaze back to the doorway and the man lounging against it. Lowering his hand, Purcell questioned softly, “You still with me?”

“Yeah, unfortunately,” Dante admitted reluctantly. “Need to change that, though.”

Purcell laughed, low and very amused. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re not going anywhere. You’re not killing any more of my men. You’re done.”

Purcell’s voice triggered more jackhammer action against the dam. He was an unfamiliar asshole, yeah, but one with an oddly familiar and dangerous voice. The cold smell of deep water and friction-scorched concrete filled Dante’s nostrils, a pungent future odor that knotted him up with dread.

That jackhammer’s gonna break through.

Quiet and level, those words; a stated fact.

Peut-être que oui, peut-être que non. But before it does, I might still have an ace up my sleeve.

He hoped.

On the roof, his power had finally flared to life. Sure it had been pale blue and watery, a thin reflection of itself, and had vanished a split second later, but a split second would be all he needed.

Closing his eyes, Dante drew in a wet, shallow breath and summoned his song. Nothing. No electric tingle as flames swallowed his hands. No blue glow, no song, no transforming fire. Nada. He only felt/heard an inner silence, as though some essential thing had been disconnected or blocked or corralled.

Dante opened his eyes in frustration. Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

“What, nothing? No smart-ass comments?” Purcell said. “No threats to rip out my heart or tear off my head?” He shook his head. “You must still be doped up to the gills.”

“Blow me. Given the conversation, I don’t think I’m doped up enough.”

“There we go. That’s more like it. That’s the S I know and despise.” A cold, contemptuous smile curved Purcell’s lips. “And given the multiple times James Wallace shot you before torching your club and disappearing with his wayward daughter, I’d say he must feel the same way about you.”

Dante blinked. Heather’s father? He didn’t want to believe it, but if Purcell was telling the truth, and he had a feeling that this time the fucker was—at least mostly, then James Wallace had managed to blindside them all.

“Sonuvabitch.” Dante stared at the white-tiled ceiling, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Did the bastard take Annie too?”

“Couldn’t say. What do you care, anyway? You’ve got more pressing concerns.”

“Oui. Like finding Heather. Like killing you.”

“Nice trick for someone who’s never leaving that table. Not alive, anyway.”

Dante shifted his gaze from the ceiling to Purcell. “We’ll see, yeah?”

“That we will,” Purcell agreed, his eyes dark green flint. He sauntered into the room, stopping at the foot of the table. “But for now, Violet wants to tell you good-bye before we head out to the airport. And the only way I’m ever going to get her to shut up about it—short of pumping her full of tranks, that is—is to let her.”

“She okay?” Dante asked, remembering someone yanking her from his arms—against orders—as the seizure knocked him from the night sky.

“She’s fine. Of course, I don’t know how long that’ll be the case.”

“Where are you taking her?” Dante asked warily.

“To HQ,” Purcell replied. “Our science and medical geeks are salivating over what you did to her—not to mention the mystery of how you did it. They can’t wait to get their latex-gloved hands on her and begin their tests and experiments. Kind of like they used to do with you.” A mocking grin stretched his lips. “Not that you remember, of course.”

“Smug fi’ de garce,” Dante said, his voice low and coiled and full of blood, a venomed promise. “Enjoy it. It ain’t gonna last.”

Purcell chuckled. “Really? You keep forgetting I’m not the one in a crazy jacket strapped to a table.” Touching a finger to the com set curving around his right ear, he murmured, “Bring in the kid.”

ANOTHER SUIT ESCORTED VIOLET into the room, box of crayons clutched in her hands. As the little girl walked over to the table, her freckled face somber, her black paper wings rustling behind her, Dante’s reality wobbled. The box of crayons shifted into a plushie orca, the paper wings became shadows.

Pain pulsed at Dante’s temples, behind his eyes.

Stay here. Stay now. Stay . . .

Reality wheeled.

“Looks like you found Orem, princess,” he heard himself saying. “Did one of these bastards give him ba—” His words cut off as a soft voice, one stitched into the very fabric of his heart, whispered from within.

That’s not me, Dante-angel. She’s not me. I’m where I’ve always been.

And that would be dead on the floor in a pool of blood, yeah?

Cold shivved Dante’s heart, sheeted his soul in black ice. As bad as those words were, the voice speaking them—Cajun-spiced and whiskey smooth—was worse; it was his own.

You won’t save her, you know. You’ll fail.

“Shut the fuck up,” he whispered, the words hoarse, barely audible. “Tais-toi, tais-toi, tais-toi, tais-toi—”

“Dante-angel. Who are you talking to?”

He smelled soap and strawberries and coppery blood pulsing beneath freckled skin. Heard the hummingbird patter of a little girl’s worried heart. Hunger sat up and took notice. Turning his head, he looked into sky-blue eyes—concerned, curious, trusting. His whispered and furious chant slowed, then trailed away.

Reality wheeled.

Shadows sharpened into paper wings. Plushie fur sloughed away to reveal a bright box of crayons.

“Who are you talking to?” she repeated. “And what does tay-twah mean?”

“Tais-toi means shut up. And I’m just talking to myself—hence all the tais-tois.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Ça va, Violet? You okay?”

Mingled happiness and relief lit Violet’s face. “I’m okay and you remembered!”

“Happens once in a while.” A smile tilted Dante’s lips, then quickly faded as the girl bent to hug him. “I’m hungry, so it ain’t safe to touch me right now, p’tite. Okay? I can’t move, but I could still bite.”

Violet straightened, hugging her box of Crayolas to her chest. “Oh. Even if you didn’t want to, huh?” Her gaze zeroed in on the glistening patch of blood on the straitjacket. “Mr. Purcell promised me that he’d take care of you.” Her voice took on an accusatory, indignant tone as she swiveled to glare at the man in question. “He promised.”

Dante shifted his gaze to Purcell. Purcell lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m sure he plans to do just that.”

Swiveling back around, Violet studied him for a long moment through ginger-colored lashes, a fierce, desperate light in her eyes. “I don’t want to leave you behind. You need someone to remind you what’s real and what isn’t, cuz you’re hurt and you don’t always remember stuff.”

Dante thought of Heather, of twilight-blue eyes, of cool white silence infused with her scent. He felt a dark-side-of-the-moon tug to the north—or what his aching head told him was north—a tug as true and as inevitable as sunset or moonrise.

“Don’t worry about me, p’tite ange,” Dante said, holding her blue gaze. “Let me do that, yeah?”

“All righty, then, Violet, that’s enough chit chat,” Purcell said. “Time to get you to the airport and on the way to your mom. Mr. Díon said she misses you very much.”

“Can’t Dante come with us? Please? Pretty please?”

Purcell shook his head, a sympathetic and utterly false smile on his lips. “He’s too sick to travel; his owies, remember? He needs to get better first.”

“It’s okay, p’tite,” Dante said, drawing Violet’s attention back to him. “I can take care of myself. You just take care of yourself and your mom, yeah?”

“Okay,” Violet grumbled.

Dante wished he could plant a see-you-later kiss on Violet’s forehead, but knew he couldn’t risk it. Not with his control cocooned by drugs and his hunger gliding like a shark just beneath the surface, powerful and unpredictable and savage.

Maybe he couldn’t; Violet had other ideas.

Violet’s crayon box thunked to the table as she threw her arms around Dante’s neck and pressed her freckled cheek against his, her soft skin like red-glowing embers against his iciness. “I hate them,” she said in a furious, tear-choked whisper, “for making me go, for hurting you. Mommy says hating is a bad thing, but I don’t care. I don’t.”

“It’s okay, chère, it’s all right. I hate them too.” Sweat beaded Dante’s forehead as he struggled to ignore the shush-shush of the blood rushing through Violet’s veins.

“I don’t wanna go.”

“I ain’t leaving you there in that place, ma p’tite ange,” Dante whispered into her hair, throat so tight it ached. “I will come for you.”

Violet released him reluctantly, then picked up her crayons. “I’ll be waiting,” she replied, her face solemn.

“Take her to the car,” Purcell instructed Violet’s escort. “I’ll be along soon.”

With an acknowledging nod, the suit walked the little girl in her purple Winnie-the-Pooh sweater and tangled red tresses out of the room. Looking at Dante, Violet opened and closed her hand in a resigned farewell as the suit ushered her down the hall and out of sight.

Dante shifted his attention to Purcell. “I’ll be coming for you too.”

Purcell shook his head. “No, you won’t. Because I plan to disregard my orders and put you down permanently. Díon wants you alive so he can smash your sanity to bits. To be honest, I think he’s a little nuts. And he has no fucking clue how dangerous you are.”

“But you do?”

“Oh, yes,” Purcell said. “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.”

“You’re gonna try, anyway.”

“Still a cocky bastard. Good.”

Purcell moved up from the foot of the table to stand beside Dante and, reaching inside his suit jacket, withdrew a syringe containing a thick, reddish substance. “Just a little something whipped up by Mother Nature to keep born bloodsuckers in permanent check,” he murmured as he bent and jabbed the needle into Dante’s neck. “But this is only a half dose. I want you weak, but I don’t want you to bleed out. Not yet anyway.”

“Ain’t you a thoughtful asshole?” Dante said as cold flowed through his veins, chilling him from the inside out. Devouring his strength. He tasted something woody and thick and bitter at the back of his throat. Cold sweat iced his skin.

Purcell dropped the emptied syringe onto the floor. It hit with a hard plastic tick. “When it comes to you, yeah. I’m extremely thoughtful.”

Dante’s heartbeat stuttered, paused, then resumed an uneasy rhythm. He coughed, and pain ripped through his lungs. He tasted blood, warm and coppery. Felt its hot trickle from his nose down across his lips. His vision grayed. The world wheeled.

Stay awake. Don’t you dare fucking pass out.

Dante bit down, his fangs slicing into his lower lip. The sudden, sharp pain cleared his vision as more blood seeped into his mouth. The wheeling world slowed.

“Y’know, that whole bit of yours with Violet was pretty damned convincing,” Purcell said, folding his arms casually over his chest, just two old drinking buddies shooting the shit. Never mind that one was in a straitjacket. Details.

“Bit?” Dante questioned.

“If I didn’t know that you’re a sociopath incapable of feeling anything for anyone except yourself, you’d almost have me believing that you actually cared. You’re good at pretending. Damned good. Always were. You even managed to fool people who should’ve known better. But you’ve never fooled me.”

“Think you know me, huh?”

“Better than anyone,” Purcell said quietly. “I know what Violet and Heather don’t—that you always turn on those foolish enough to trust you, the ones who think they’re actually safe with you. Just ask Chloe. While you’re at it, you could quiz Gina and Jay also. They trusted you too, right? And where did that land them? Oh, yeah, on metal tables in the morgue.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Dante growled. Pain pulsed through his head, hollowed his heart. From the shattered depths within, voices whispered and droned.

You’re gonna end up hurting everyone around you because you can’t help it.

She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved.

No escape for you, sweetie.

That’s my Bad Seed bro.

“Go fuck myself, huh?” Purcell questioned, a deep satisfaction crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Sounds like I hit a nerve.” He touched the com set curving around his ear. “Graham, Morgan, c’mon in.”

Two men in the standard black suits strode into the room, one holding a not-so-standard baseball bat, the other an even-less-standard drill. One was white, the other black, and both were tall and broad-shouldered. They stopped, each taking a place on either side of the table, both eyeing Dante with cold and savage intensity.

“Friends of the men you killed earlier tonight,” Purcell said. “I promised them a little payback. After I see Violet onto her plane, I’m heading to New Orleans to check in with our surveillance team, before returning here tomorrow afternoon. Should give everyone plenty of time to get acquainted.”

Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

Purcell headed for the door, then stopped with a snap of his fingers. Swiveling around, he returned to the table. “Just one thing before I go. I watched you kill Chloe. Watched you tear her throat open. I watched every single thing you did that night.”

Dante stared at Purcell, pulse pounding in his temples.

“You never even hesitated. Just sliced and diced and kept on fighting like a good little programmed monster—even at twelve or thirteen or however old you were at the time. Wells and Moore were so goddamned proud of you. Even though she punished you for”—Purcell put air quotes around the next word with his fingers—“ ‘grieving’ afterward.” He shook his head in disgust. “Fucking little psycho.”

Fucking little psycho.

The jackhammer slammed home.

Cracks splintered in every direction across the dam’s broken face with breathtaking speed. Dark water began to trickle from a few of the deeper rifts.

Reality took a slow, sideways roll as Dante remembered Purcell.

Strapped into a straitjacket, Dante hangs upside down from a gleaming hook. Purcell stands beside the man whose face Dante can’t see as anything but a headache-inducing blur. Purcell nudges Chloe’s cooling body with the toe of his polished shoe, then glances at Dante. She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved. . . .

“She was eight years old and you slaughtered her,” Purcell now said, stating facts. “Just like you’ll slaughter Violet and Heather and anyone else who gets close to you. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“Fuck you,” Dante whispered, voice raw, rough.

“No,” Purcell replied. “Fuck you.” Glancing at his men, he said, “Do whatever the hell you want with him. Just make sure he’s breathing and aware again by the time I get back from NOLA.”

“With pleasure, sir.”

Without another word, Purcell strode from the room, pausing long enough to switch off the room’s camera. The camera’s green power light winked out. The drill whined to life. Dante flexed against the restraints one more time, frustration a cold coil in the middle of his chest. But neither steel nor canvas nor drugs would give an inch.

“This, you bloodsucking son of a bitch, is for the human being you turned into a goddamned meal. His name was Josh Bronson.”

At that moment—the worst moment possible—an old commercial Dante had once seen on YouTube decided to pop into his head, some candy commercial where sharks on a taste test panel discovered that the guy they’d chosen as the yummiest among the contenders had eaten one of the candy bars before becoming a shark snack.

Steve was delicious, one shark says.

So was Josh—minus candy, but Dante decided to keep that opinion to himself.

Molten pain whirred into Dante’s shoulder. He gritted his teeth as warm blood spattered his face, refusing to cry out, refusing to give the bastards the satisfaction. The baseball bat thudded against his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs.

Reality wheeled.

Black water poured in an eager rush from the ever-multiplying fissures in the dam’s crumbling face.

Purcell and his men swarm into Dante’s water-soaked cell and blast Orem’s box-spring funeral pyre with a stream of white foam from the fire extinguisher. Darts from Purcell’s trank gun hit Dante in the throat, chest, and hand—but not before Dante snatches the fire extinguisher from the wielder and beats the man to death with it, furious tears gleaming in red-streaked eyes, blood freckling his pale face: Orem’s mine, motherfucker. Mine. I ain’t letting you touch him.

The dam began to fragment. Water geysered, a roaring waterfall. Concrete tumbled away into star-spinning darkness.

Stepping over Papa’s bleeding body, Dante goes to the sideboard and grabs up Mama’s leather purse. The other kids watch him in stunned silence, their faces pale, eyes wide and dark. He dumps the purse’s contents onto the blood-spattered oak floor—cinnamon Certs, wadded bits of tissue, keys, cell phone, bobby pins, a clutch of crumpled store coupons—and scoops up the wallet with blood-sticky hands.

He divvies up the cash—several hundred that he himself probably earned down in the basement—and credit spikes among the others. Jeannette, the ashy color fading from her dark cheeks, wraps her fingers tightly around her share of the money, and steps forward, gingerly avoiding the bits of blood, bone, and brain smearing the floor.

What about you? she asks. You didn’t keep nothing for yo’self.

Reality wheeled.

Dante struggled to block the overwhelming flood of memories, fought with savage desperation and every bit of strength the drugs hadn’t stripped from him to remain here-and-now. Shielded himself with promises made, promises to be kept.

As lost as I get, I will find you, Heather. Always.

I ain’t leaving you there in that place, ma p’tite ange. I will come for you.

Found you, mon cher ami, mon père, and I ain’t never losing you again.

You’ll always have a clan in me, Von, mon ami, in us. You’ll never ride solo.

J’su ici. J’su ici. J’su ici. J’su—

Electricity surged through his skull, arcing along his spine, disintegrating his shields. Dante’s vision whited-out. His muscles locked as the seizure battered his convulsing body against the steel restraints. Wrenched loose his stubborn and desperate hold on the here-and-now.

Reality wheeled.

Orem burns on a torn mattress. . . .

Humming happily, Chloe brushes Dante’s hair while he practices printing the alphabet. . . .

She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved.

The dam gave way, collapsing in on itself in an avalanche of concrete and foaming black water. The past swallowed Dante whole, a hungry beast carried in on a dark and unforgiving tide.

I’ll make sure you regret every breath you’ve ever drawn.

No escape for you, sweetie.

How does it feel, marmot?

What’s he screaming?

Kill me.

Trapped in the belly of the beast and overwhelmed, his consciousness fading, a savage and desperate fury torched Dante’s heart.

Not fucking yet. I have promises to keep.

His song rose, pale and burning, a ghost. His canvas-bound fingers tingled.

Not so fast, dere, p’tit, the past said in the gravelly tones of Papa Prejean as it/he shoved Dante’s head under and held it there. Time for penance, you. Time to take yo’ medicine.

The past carried Dante, drowning in memories, down into the shattered depths. Something stirred in the whispering darkness as he plummeted toward its heart, something shaped of smoldering embers and razored steel. No, someone born of straitjackets and meat hooks, of shallow graves and shovels, of endless nights spent handcuffed in a dank basement while pervs played their sweaty little games.

Someone uncoiling from the ashes, pale skin crawling with droning wasps.

Someone Dante knew well.

There’s my Bad Seed bro.

S laughs: The truth is never what you hope it will be, yeah?

Yeah. And it usually carries a motherfuckin’ shiv.

Beneath his blood-soaked straitjacket, power danced cool and electric along his fingers.

“Fuck penance,” S whispered, opening his eyes.