On Midnight Wings

43

A CHILD’S WHISPER

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

SHADOW BRANCH HQ

APRIL 1

DESPITE HEATHER WALLACE’S ESCAPE from custody in Little Rock, using a coffee carafe and a field agent’s own Taser, embarrassing facts which that particular agent wouldn’t be living down anytime soon, Teodoro’s vacation remained on hold.

Only temporarily, the SB brass had reassured him. The red-haired FBI agent had vanished into the night, true. But they expected her to be quickly reapprehended once she popped up on their grid again.

And she would pop up again, but not alive.

Teodoro’s deadly little puppet would make sure of that.

Teodoro glanced at his cell phone again as he rode the elevator down to the eighth floor and frowned. Soft Muzak floated from the elevator audio panels, bland and cheerful, a neutered version of a popular rock song.

It’d been hours since he’d received a text from Caterina, a single-word message— acquired—telling him that the assassin had found Wallace. He’d received nothing from her since.

Caterina’s silence, her lack of response to his texts, left him uneasy.

He couldn’t imagine Heather Wallace escaping Caterina, but he could imagine Caterina deciding to spend some quality time with her captive, teaching Wallace the painful cost of her “betrayal” of Dante Baptiste before executing her.

Even so, the delay still troubled him.

Teodoro continued to frown at his cell, his thumbs poised above the touchscreen, as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors glided open, revealing a brightly lit corridor leading into the medical unit.

He let out his breath in a low, frustrated exhalation. No point in sending another text. He would simply have to wait for Caterina to make contact. Slipping his cell phone back into his trouser pocket, Teodoro stepped from the elevator and headed down the corridor, the sharp smell of antiseptic prickling his nostrils.

Aside from Caterina’s extended silence, things had been going very well. Seraphina had convinced the rest of the Oversight Committee not to bring Dante Baptiste in until the majority of the attention generated by his unexpected and unprecedented announcement had faded. The young True Blood was too hot to grab.

A smile flickered across Teodoro’s lips.

By the time they realized Dante was no longer at his club in New Orleans, Heather Wallace would be dead, their bond severed, and Dante’s sanity shattered. At that point, it wouldn’t be Dante Baptiste they needed to deal with, but the Great Destroyer.

“Back so soon?”

The cheerful voice startled Teodoro from his dark reflections.

A nurse in lavender scrubs, her shining chestnut hair tied back in a ponytail, was standing on the threshold of room 416, a clipboard in her hand and a smile on her lips. Her name tag declared her to be Robin Graham LPN.

Slowing to a stop, Teodoro returned Robin’s courteous smile. “I just wanted to look in on Violet before I clocked out for a nap.”

Robin stepped out of the doorway and into the corridor. “She’s finally asleep and”—she arched one warning eyebrow—“I hope to keep her that way. She’s been shuttled back and forth like a suitcase, poor little thing.”

“I’ll whisper my wishes for sweet dreams.”

“See that you do,” Robin said, softening her words with a quick smile. She walked away, headed for the nurses’ station, her shoes squeaking against the floor.

Once she was gone, Teodoro took her place in the doorway and rested one shoulder against it. Violet slept on her side in the darkened room, her freckled face peaceful. Her black paper wings, crumpled and crinkled and a bit tattered after the flight from Baton Rouge and the drive from Dulles, poked up from the back of her nightie.

Looks like she talked the nurses into letting her wear them, Teodoro mused, folding his arms over his chest.

Intercepting Violet once she’d arrived at HQ had been easy and wiping her memory clean of the time she’d spent with Dante at the sanitarium, along with any memory of Dante—not to mention himself—being at Doucet- Bainbridge, had been even easier.

You’re still hoping to see your angel. It’s been a long time.

It has an’ I miss him. When will I see my mommy?

Tomorrow. I promise. She’s asleep right now, honey.

Okay. Thanks, Mr. Dion.

Whether or not Violet’s sedated mother would ever accept her transformed daughter was another matter. For Violet’s sake, Teodoro hoped so.

“Sleep well, sweetie,” Teodoro whispered. “Keep safe.”

As he turned to go, he heard a sleep-thick voice whisper, “He’ll come for me, you know. He promised.”

The hair on the back of Teodoro’s neck prickled. Slowly, he turned around. Violet watched him drowsily, her eyelids weighted by thick, brown lashes.

“What did you say?” he asked slowly.

But Violet’s eyes shuttered closed again and her breathing slid back into the easy rhythm of sleep.

Teodoro stood there a moment, staring at the sleeping child. He knew he hadn’t imagined what she’d said, but also knew what she’d said was impossible.

He’ll come for me, you know. He promised.

Teodoro had erased anything Dante might’ve said to Violet at Doucet-Bainbridge from her memory. She couldn’t remember. Not even in her dreams. He backed away from the doorway, uncertain and chilled to the bone.

Maybe it’s a promise Dante made back in Oregon when she’d been hit by a bullet intended for someone else; a promise given after he’d remade her in Chloe’s image. Those memories are still intact, after all.

A wave of relief swept over Teodoro. Yes. Of course.

Turning, he headed for the elevator in brisk strides, his confidence restored. He shook his head, chagrined. Spooked by a dreaming child’s utterances like a peasant quivering in an oracle’s dank cave.

He needed sleep. He hadn’t rested in days. And while his Fallen half didn’t need sleep, his human half had its limits—and he was near the end of those limits now. He would allow himself a short nap only. Anything longer would have to wait until after he’d witnessed the Elohim forced to kill the creawdwr they’d awaited for eons.

Then he’d sleep the sleep of the righteous, long and deep and untroubled.

AN ANGRY BUMBLEBEE BUZZ drew Teodoro up from dreamless sleep. It seemed as though he’d just shut his eyes, but he received a shock when he glanced at the sleepbay’s bedside clock and realized hours had passed— long hours. It was almost 6 p.m.

So much for a short nap.

“Mierda,” Teodoro muttered, sitting up and scooping the buzzing cell from the end table. Must be Caterina—at last. His frown deepened when he looked at the screen. The number displayed belonged to Richard Purcell, not his little wind-up assassin.

“We’ve got problems,” Purcell said without preamble once Teodoro answered the call. “I can’t get into the building.”

“You’re calling me to tell me that you’re locked out?”

“I wouldn’t call if I was just locked out of the fucking building. I’d phone someone inside. But, you know what? No one inside is fucking answering. I’m calling because every time I drive into the parking lot or walk in— I’ve tried both ways—I find myself back at the motel a short time later, thinking about my wonderful day at work.