Description: On Midnight Wings 1 DARK AND BITTER PEARLS SLIDELL, LOUISIANA JACK CHERAMIE''S HOUSE MARCH 30 LUCIEN DE NOIR SAT beside the unconscious girl curled on the bed, box springs creaking beneath him. Mid-afternoon sunlight filtered through the golden, gauzy curtains covering the window, bathing the room in a tranquil glow. An illusion--no, worse, a lie--given the day''s dark, violent, and unimaginable events. My son has been shot and stolen and the mortal woman he loves, the woman who keeps his slipping sanity balanced, is missing. Lucien''s deltoid muscles flexed, restless, but he suppressed the urge to unfurl his wings and take to the sky in search of Dante and Heather; he feared that they had been spirited off in two very different directions. And he had no idea where to look, which path to follow, or even who was responsible. Not yet, anyway. Lucien focused his attention on Heather Wallace''s drugged sister. A light sheen of sweat glistened on Annie''s forehead. Tears wet the ends of her lashes. And her blood-speckled face looked light-years away from peaceful. Guessing why wasn''t difficult. The blood freckling her face and throat was Dante''s. Lucien knew by the scent alone--copper, a hint of adrenaline, a moonlight-silver tang--and had known from the moment he''d scooped her unconscious body up from the sidewalk in front of the club. She must''ve been standing beside Dante when he''d been shot. Or damned close, anyway. A muscle flexed in Lucien''s jaw. Shot repeatedly and without mercy. Dante''s blood had saturated the Oriental carpet in front of the bedroom he shared with Heather. So much blood when Dante should''ve healed. Too much blood. And the odd scent clinging to the shell casings Lucien had picked up from the hallway carpet had left him wondering. A troubling scent. Familiar. Lucien studied Annie''s pale face, pushed sweat-damp tendrils of her punk-style blue/purple/black hair back from her face. She shivered inside her fuzzy purple bathrobe as though it was woven from ice, instead of plush terry cloth. With a soft chirp, Heather''s orange tabby jumped up onto the bed and sniffed Annie for several moments before curling up beside her. Eerie blinked golden eyes at Lucien, then began licking the undersides of his paws, his tongue scraping delicately across the scorched pads. Like the cat, Lucien also smelled the drugs on Annie''s skin, in her sweat--a cold, chemical taint. He had no idea what drugs flowed through her veins, or how long she''d remain unconscious, but he had no intention of waiting for her to wake up. Not when answers rested like pearls in her mind. Not when he could play thief. Too much time had passed already. Hours lost to the police and their investigation of the shoot-out outside the club and the fire inside; a loss he''d finally cut short with a touch of a blue-sparked finger to the lead detective''s forehead and a whispered suggestion: You''ve already spoken to Dante. He saw nothing. Heard nothing. Knows nothing about the incident here or the fire that claimed his home four nights ago. You will write that down in your notebook. Blinking, the detective promptly put her pen to paper. Lucien sighed. A temporary solution at best; the suggestion would eventually fade. But a problem for another time. Closing his eyes, he drew in a long, deep breath--in through his nose, out through his mouth--then another, as he worked on centering himself before delving into Annie''s unshielded mind. "How she doing?" a Cajun-spiced voice asked from the doorway. "Looks like she ain''t moved an inch since I carried her in from the van." Lucien''s calming breath morphed into a low, frustrated exhalation. He opened his eyes. Glanced over his shoulder. Dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt announcing LAFAYETTE MARQUIS, the interruption--better known as Black Bayou Jack Cheramie, Dante''s band mate in Inferno--leaned one muscled, tribal-inked shoulder against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest, a bloodstained washcloth balled-up in one hand. The drummer''s mane of cherry-red braids framed his face, his expression a tight-jawed mix of worried and angry. "She hasn''t," Lucien confirmed. He nodded at the washcloth in Jack''s hand. "How are Von and Silver doing? Has the bleeding stopped? Are they healing?" "Oui, it''s stopped and they''re healing, for true, them. But given that they''re nightkind and all, it took longer than I expected. Thibodaux agrees with me," Jack added, with a tilt of his head toward the kitchen where the fugitive SB agent sat at the table cleaning his Colt .45. "Said his partner always heals up beaucoup fast. But he also admitted that she ain''t never taken a bullet to the head before neither." Lucien thought of the odd scent on the shell casings he''d found in the blood-spattered hall, wondering again just what they had contained. "I don''t think normal rounds were used." "Dunno, padnat. They sure as hell look like normal rounds to me. Course there ain''t no telling what kind of load they-all contained." Jack uncrossed his arms and held out his hand, revealing two skull-dented and compressed bullets cupped in his callused palm. "They just kinda worked their way outta the wounds. Ain''t never seen nightkind heal from bullets before. Weirdest goddamned sight." "Let me have the bullets." Jack stepped over to the bed and dumped them into Lucien''s waiting palm. A faint tree-sap, amber-like odor wafted from the small bits of mangled brass. Whatever the substance had been, it seemed to be capable of slowing, perhaps even halting, a vampire''s natural ability to heal. Even a True Blood''s. Remembering what he''d felt when he''d reached for Dante''s mind back at the club--a psionic flatline that had sheeted Lucien''s soul in black ice until he''d finally detected a low, ebbing life force absent of any healing spark--he once again felt the urgent desire to unsheathe his wings and vault into the sky. He needed to find Dante before it was too late. Before destiny twisted in on itself and became fate. "Tee-Tee? Heather?" Jack asked. "You think they were in the back of that van those assholes were trying to put Annie into?" Tee-Tee. Jack and the other mortal members of Inferno had tagged their nightkind frontman with the affectionate nickname because, at five-nine, Dante was shorter than the rest of the band. Petit. Little one. Tee-Tee. And with Dante also the youngest, at nearly twenty-four, the name pulled double duty. Young in years, perhaps, but not in hard and brutal experience. Dante was the last surviving member of a secret, decades-long project co-run by the FBI and the Shadow Branch--a government black ops division that answered to no one and didn''t officially exist. Project Bad Seed had been devoted to the development and study of sociopaths. But in truth the goal had been to create, then control them. And being the only nonhuman subject in the project, Dante had garnered special attention. Had been shoved with cool deliberation beyond boundaries no human subject would''ve survived. Just to see if he could. Dante had been placed in the worst foster homes available, shuffled around constantly; everything and everyone he''d ever cared about or loved had been systematically stripped from him. Human monsters had fragmented and buried his memories, implanted deadly programming. The muscle ticked in Lucien''s jaw again. He''d flown away from New Orleans on a sultry July night unaware that he wouldn''t return for eighteen years, unaware that Genevieve, his dark-haired belle femme, was pregnant, unaware that she would soon fall into cold and curious hands, or that their son--born vampire and Fallen--would be birthed into an experiment of unthinkable design. Dante had escaped, his heart and mind scarred and damaged, haunted by things he couldn''t even remember. Yet he led his household and Inferno with skill and focus, with quiet strength, fierce devotion, and stubborn will. And I have failed at every turn to keep him safe. "Lucien?" Jack''s concerned voice scattered Lucien''s dark thoughts, returning him to the bedroom and the unconscious girl he sat beside. "You okay, you?" Lucien frowned. "Fine. Why do you ask?" "No reason, really--other than the fact that you''re getting blood all over the floor," Jack replied, tapping a finger against the back of his own hand, and pointedly arching one dark blond eyebrow. Lucien''s frown deepened when he looked down and saw drops of blood speckling the oak planks. He became aware of a distant, prickling pain. Exhaling in exasperation, he unclenched his hands, pulling his thick black talons free of his blood-slicked palms. "Well. Perhaps fine isn''t completely accurate," Lucien amended. "King of the understatement. Here, you. Catch." Glancing up, Lucien snagged the bloodstained washcloth Jack tossed at him, then busied himself wiping his palms and talons semiclean. The punctures were already healing, the pain nearly gone. His unbound waist-length hair brushed against his back and sides with the movement, soft as silk against his bare skin. He''d left his shirt behind on the club''s roof when he''d taken to the sky--not caring in the slightest that it had still been daylight or that he mig

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