On Midnight Wings

INTERSTATE 55 NORTH

ANNIE STEERED THE VAN down I-10, the tires humming along the blacktop, C.C. Adcock’s sexy swamp- rock/bluesy voice curling from the iPod Jack had docked into the van’s system, singing about a woman who just doesn’t know how to be good to her hard-working man.

Maybe that hard-working man needed to learn how to load a dishwasher or cook a three-course meal or fold up a basketful of clean laundry if he wanted his woman to remain thrilled about being his woman.

Just saying, y’know. A word to the wise—don’t be a self-entitled douchebag.

Beyond the windshield, dawn stretched fingers of rose, peach, and orange into the brightening sky, a color combination that made Annie think of raspberry sorbet and orange sherbet—a thought she quickly regretted as her stomach knotted. Nausea rolled through her in a throat-burning acid wave. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

One minute I’m devouring anything that doesn’t fucking scurry away fast enough, the next I never want to hear, see, smell, or think about food again. Ever.

“Pregnancy sucks,” Annie muttered through clenched teeth.

“Sorry to hear that, sugar. Peach?” Jack asked, offering her a juicy slice from the tip of his pocket knife.

Annie shook her head, swallowed hard, then fumbled at the window control button. Cool air smelling faintly of exhaust and wild grass wet with dew poured inside as the window hummed down.

The nausea gradually subsided and Annie breathed a little easier. She glanced at Jack. The drummer sat slouched in the passenger seat, one booted foot up on the dash, contentedly thumbing peach slices into his mouth. The aroma, sweet and sunny, did nothing to improve her mood or her nausea.

“If I puke, I plan to puke on you,” Annie announced darkly. “Repeatedly.”

“Hey, now. No need for vomiting, targeted or otherwise.”

“Says you,” Annie muttered.

“Hey, podna,” Emmett called from the back, “I’ll take more of that jerky, if you have any left.”

As Jack handed what remained of the bag of jerky back to Emmett, Annie found herself wishing Silver and Merri had left both men behind at Jack’s sister’s house when they’d dropped off Eerie along with a bag of tuna- flavored kibble, wishing that she was driving in non-food scented, blissful, silence.

They’re mortal, Annie. And Jack is a part of our family. He’s my responsibility, just like Thibodaux is Merri’s. We need to keep our family safe.

But who was keeping her sister safe? She was mortal too. And alone.

I wish you would wait . . .

I can’t.

Tension thrummed through Annie’s body, whitened her knuckles against the steering wheel. She wanted to get to Memphis as quickly as possible, find Von, grab him, then haul ass to join Heather in Baton Rouge, even though in her heart of hearts, she knew that whatever was going to happen would have happened and been long done by the time she arrived. Hell, probably before she even hit Memphis.

A quick glance at the speedometer hovering at 80 mph had Annie easing her foot just slightly off the gas pedal.

Christ! Slow down. The last thing you need is a fucking ticket.

Another thing she didn’t need was having to explain why the people in the back refused to wake up and fetch their identification. And she sure as shit didn’t want to screw up her chance to make things right.

Annie’s foot dropped down on the accelerator again, her lips compressed into a thin white line. The van surged ahead, a stallion under spurs.

PINE BLUFF, ARKANSAS

CATERINA’S HEAD WAS TURNED to one side on the pillow, eyes closed, her hair a spill of dark coffee across the white satin case. Giovanni studied her as Sleep crept into his veins, deeply troubled by her unhealthy pallor, by the shadows bruising the skin beneath her dark lashes, by the far from peaceful expression on her face.

“Keep her sedated until I awake,” Giovanni instructed. “I think the dose we gave her should keep her under until twilight, but”—he shrugged one shoulder—“she’s strong-willed.”

“Of course, signor,” Sondra murmured. A mortal friend of the Cercle de Druide, she kept a day-house, a vampire bed-and-dinner, for members traveling in the area.

Giovanni double-checked Caterina’s restraints, making sure she was safe and secure and couldn’t escape while he Slept. Finally satisfied that she wouldn’t be able to work her way free, despite her training and deadly skills, he sighed and raked a hand through his hair, leaving it in disarray.

Caterina’s mind had been tampered with, of that Giovanni had no doubt. Detecting the alterations within her unshielded mind had been easy enough.

From the moment Renata had first carried Caterina into their home, the toddler’s chubby arms wrapped around her graceful neck—Look, Vanni mio, we have been given a gift—he’d quickly grown to understand Caterina’s mind, comprehending how she thought and dreamed and schemed, this little mortal, our little mortal, dancing among vampires.

She’d been an annoying nuisance, at first, si, one he’d resented—no denying it. But over time, and almost without his knowing when or how, Caterina had transformed from nuisance to family, his soeur de coeur—a true sister of the heart.

And whoever had tampered with her had damaged her, perhaps permanently.

Giovanni’s jaw tightened, his gaze never wavering from his sister’s pale, vulnerable face.

“Qualcuno paghera, Caterina mia,” he vowed. “Qualcuno paghera a cara prezzo.”

Someone would most definitely pay.

Questions remained: Who? Why? Could the damage be healed, the tampering undone? He wished he could contact Renata, but given that it was early afternoon in Rome, his mere de sang still Slept, safe and secure behind cool marble walls.

Sleep surged through his veins, narcotic and inescapable. His eyelids drooped. A hand lightly touched his arm.

“This way, signor,” Sondra urged, slacks whispering as she stepped into the doorway.

Giovanni allowed the redhead with a matronly shelf of bosom to lead him to the room next to Caterina’s, then thanked her for her hospitality. Once she’d left the room, shutting the door behind her, he stripped down to his boxer briefs before collapsing drunkenly onto the pale rose silk sheets.

He sank into the fathomless waters of Sleep like an iceberg-gouged ship, chased into the dark by a single, chilling thought: Where had Loki flown off to in such a rush?

THE FRENCH QUARTER

IN A SMALL POWER boat on the Mississippi, Edmond gently swaddled his master’s burned body in fresh water-soaked blankets, covering him from now-bald head to blackened and curled toes.

Swallowing hard against the meaty stench of seared flesh, Edmond sat down beside Mauvais, then uttered one terse word: “Go.”

Phaedra opened the throttle and steered the boat away from the flame-engulfed Winter Rose. With a hollow heart, Edmond watched as the fire department geysered water on the blazing riverboat from several high-powered hoses.

With a sharp, splintering crack that boomed into the night like ancient cannon fire, the Winter Rose snapped in half. One half, still burning, slipped—foot by foot—into the inky waters. Distant voices shouted. Blue and red and white lights strobed through the graying night.

The majordomo blinked stinging eyes. The smoke, of course. The gritty ashes.

He didn’t know how the fire had started—not for certain, but given its swiftness, the reek of kerosene, and the death of the apprenti he’d left in charge of refueling and relighting the lanterns, he