On Midnight Wings

memory—a tall, winged figure. “Is Lucien here too? I thought . . .”

“Nah, just me, man.”

Dante reached up and cupped Von’s face between hands that seemed a little less than steady, dammit—be honest, a lot less—and pulled him in for a quick, grateful kiss. “Fuck, am I happy to see you, mon ami,” he said, releasing him. “Did you find Heather too? How the hell did you find—”

Boy needs a lesson. Boy always needs a lesson.

Reality began to wheel. The corridor started to drop away. Dante squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated with everything he had on remaining in the here-and-now, fought to grab onto it with both hands. But the here- and-now was fucking slippery as hell.

Dante-angel, run, run, run!

No escape for you, sweetie.

Welcome home, S. Welcome back.

Set things to rights, cher. Make them pay in blood and—

A hand grasped Dante’s shoulder, the palm hot against his skin, and shook him gently. “Wherever you think you are, little brother, you ain’t there. Hear me? You. Ain’t. There.”

Dante seized that urgent voice and held on for all he was worth. He opened his eyes. He was still in the corridor, Von kneeling beside him.

“You okay?” Von asked, dark brows slanted down in a worried V.

Dante nodded. “For right now, yeah. What were we talking about?”

“About how I stumbled across your ass.” Von grinned. “I found a suit in the know and yanked the info— along with pretty much everything else—out of his mind. Probably needing a diaper change right about now. But”—his grin vanished as he looked Dante over, fire igniting in the green depths of his eyes—“I think the motherfucker got off easy. Looks like you’ve been through hell and then some. I’m betting you gave back as good as you got.”

“Not even close. The fucker won’t stay dead.”

“Which fucker?” Von asked, throwing a puzzled glance down the corridor. “They all look pretty damned dead to me.”

Pain pulsed at Dante’s temples. His memory blanked. “Fuck. Je sais pas,” he admitted. “Don’t remember.”

Von returned his attention to Dante. “Then I was right,” he said. His expression of grim resignation left Dante uneasy.

“Right? About?”

“Sending Lucien to intercept Heather, to keep her away from you. Away from what you still need to do.”

Nightmarish images swirled behind Dante’s eyes, crimson and violent.

His finger squeezes the trigger. Her head rocks forward with the first bullet, then snaps back with the second, tendrils of red hair whipping through the air. . . .

“Then he’d better hurry,” Dante said through a throat gone tight. Deep within his mind, his heart, he felt a hereherehere tug, one that felt stronger with each passing second. “Cuz she’s real fucking close. And that means—”

Run from me, catin. Je t’en prie.

“She’s in danger,” Von finished. “I know, little brother. If she finds you. But Lucien will stop her, don’t worry. He’ll keep her safe. Right now, Sleep is on the way and we’ve got a few things to discuss before we go under.”

Dante nodded. “That bit about what I still need to do, yeah?”

“Yup.” With a sigh, Von rose to his feet.. “You can’t let any of these fuckers—FBI, SB, nightkind, Fallen—get away with this shit. I know I told you in no uncertain terms that you needed to learn how to control your gifts and your past before taking action against anyone, but that was before.”

Dante stood, steadying himself with a hand against the wall when the corridor did a slow twirl. “Before what?” he asked, the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach suggesting he might not want or like the answer.

“Before you started to go nutso, little brother,” Von replied, voice husky. “Take a look around. Time’s almost up. Do you even remember doing any of this?”

Dante did as Von suggested and looked, really looked. Men and women in medical scrubs were included amongst the black-suited bodies sprawled and fetal-ball-curled on the floor. And the bloody footprints leading from one room to the next told him everything he needed to know. Whatever this building might’ve been once, it was now a morgue. The air alone, reeking of blood and of flesh just beginning to decompose, told him that.

Although Dante knew he was responsible for each body on the fucking floor, he didn’t remember killing a single one.

“No,” he admitted reluctantly. “I don’t.”

Trust me, bro. We had fucking fun.

Tais-toi, you sonuvabitch.

Laughter. Faites-moi.

“Soon you won’t know any of us, not even Heather,” Von said, the words low and level. “Time’s almost up, man.”

Dante slumped against the wall, feeling gut-punched and breathless. He heard only truth in his friend’s words. Trailing both hands through his hair, he whispered, “Fuck.”

“You need to set things right while you still have some sanity left. Make these motherfuckers pay—for Simone, for Gina and Jay, for Chloe, hell, for you too—before it’s too late. All you need is the courage to walk the path you were born to walk. With a friend at your side.”

Make them pay so I can be warm again.

Make the world burn, mon cher ami, mon ange, and set me free.

Set things to rights, cher.

Dante rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers, trying to focus past the noise and the never-ending ache. Trying to resist Sleep’s narcotic embrace.

Promises he’d made to the living whispered against the demands of the lost.

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 pere, and I ain’t losing you again.

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

“I can buy you some time, sanity-wise.” Von said in quiet, earnest tones. “But you’re gonna need to close off your bond with Heather first, especially if you want to keep her safe. Once you’ve done that, then you learn to ride that madness of yours like a bucking bronco. Make it do what you want. Use it to set things right.”

“No. Heather—”

“Will be safe,” Von cut in, “if you close the bond. You can’t risk cutting it, not with the shape you’re in, but if you seal it at your end, you’ll keep her free from mental harm—plus she won’t be able to home in on you anymore. Then Lucien won’t have a problem keeping her away.”

Heather’s voice whispered through Dante’s memory, a conversation held in the honeysuckle-and rose- perfumed courtyard as he’d struggled with Trey’s loss at his own blue-flamed hands and what that meant for everyone he loved.

I’m not leaving you. You can’t make me. You don’t have the right.