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  Both he and SOD Underwood viewed themselves as loyal SB agents, even though they hadn’t always agreed with certain policies—such as allowing a dangerous killer like S to roam free. Both agreed the world would be a better, safer place with S turned to ash.

  The plan had been for Purcell to quietly see it done.

  But then SOD Underwood’s socialite daughter-in-law had been acquitted of the murder-for-hire death of Underwood’s only son, Stephen. Not unusual when the bastard charged with the actual killing conveniently hangs himself in his jail cell (with shoelaces he wasn’t supposed to have), leaving an equally convenient note behind proclaiming he’d acted alone and the death was the result of a robbery gone wrong, that no one had hired him to murder Stephen Underwood, let alone his wife, Valerie.

  So the plan had changed slightly. Underwood decided to employ S one last time, a fanged vehicle for much-delayed justice. Purcell’s job had been to travel to New Orleans, activate S’s programming, and sic him on the daughter-in-law.

  Then permanently retire S afterward.

  It was the least Purcell could do for the woman who’d mentored his career from the very beginning and who’d always entrusted him with her secrets.

  But all that had changed four days ago when Díon called him in New Orleans to inform him of SOD Underwood’s sudden and unexpected death by stroke.

  So how come you’re breaking the news?

  So we could discuss mutual concerns.

  Those being . . .?

  Terminating Prejean and fulfilling Underwood’s last request. She told me about the gift for her daughter-in-law you were set to deliver.

  Prejean—the name given to S by his final set of foster parents. He’d thanked them by making sure they were deader than doornails before torching their house.

  Dante Baptiste—S’s true full name, according to Díon.

  S—the Bad Seed designation that Purcell preferred, a reminder of what the bloodsucker truly was, a programmed True Blood sociopath that had been allowed to slip his leash.

  Keep talking.

  We’re not going to kill S, we’re going to break him.

  Díon believed Heather Wallace to be an intrinsic component of that goal and had built his plan around her. A simple plan, really. Since he was already in New Orleans on Underwood’s behalf, Purcell was supposed to grab the redhead at the first opportunity, transport her to the SB-operated sanitarium/study lab—S’s old training grounds as a kid—and then make sure the bloodsucking psycho knew right where to find her.

  So he could watch her die. Hard and ugly.

  But then James Wallace and his ill-timed paternal outrage had showed up . . .

  Purcell nodded at the T-shirt-blanked monitor. “Heather Wallace, my ass. Maybe if the bastard could’ve focused on his hunger instead of his next goddamned breath, he might’ve drained the kid like he was supposed to.”

  “The resin keeps him from healing,” Díon explained patiently. “Slows him down, and the continued blood loss keeps his hunger sharp. Hopefully it short-circuits his telepathy as well. Perhaps even his other gifts.”

  Purcell frowned. “Other gifts?” He swiveled his chair around so he could see Díon. “What other gifts?”

  The SB interrogator regarded Purcell with amused purple eyes from where he leaned against the wall, hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers. Toffee-colored hair and short, stylish sideburns framed his face, making him look younger than the forty-two or forty-three Purcell pegged him at, as did his tall, athletic build.

  “He’s a True Blood and it varies, but you can bet he’s full of surprises,” Díon said, shrugging one shoulder.

  “Surprises like what?”

  “Flying. Fire. Shape-shifting. Telekinesis.”

  “How about making little girls look like someone else?”

  Another very European shrug—from a man Purcell suspected wasn’t even completely human. “With True Bloods, you never know.”

  Whatever Díon was, it wasn’t vamp. Not with his tanned olive skin and regular daytime hours. But given his ability to alter and wipe memories, to extract information from even the most reluctant mind with a soft word and a deft touch, he couldn’t be human either.

  “But you seem to be in the know,” Purcell pointed out. “Sounds like you stumbled across a copy of True Blood Psychos for Dummies in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble. Care to share?”

  “Psycho,” Díon rolled the word slowly as though tasting it. “Given that the whole purpose behind Bad Seed was to create sociopaths, I’d think that you’d be proud of S. But it sounds like you resent him for being what he was conditioned to be. Did you feel the same contempt for the human members of Bad Seed—before they were permanently retired?”

  Folding his arms over his chest, Purcell shook his head. “See . . . I always thought Bad Seed was one huge fucking mistake—not that my input was sought, needed, or welcomed. Creating sociopaths to study them? What bullshit. That was never the plan.”

  “But creating them to use and control was?”

  “Bingo. The day that I transferred out of the project to become Underwood’s assistant was a good day. But I never forgot S. Never forgot what he was capable of. Or what he was programmed to do. Fucking little psycho.”

  Díon shrugged. “I’m not convinced that term applies to Baptiste. He did everything he could to keep away from Violet, despite his hunger and blood loss. Hardly the actions of a psycho.”

  “That’s what he wants you to think. S is just playing games with us. You don’t know him the way I do. Let your guard down and I promise you, that fucking psycho you’re so busy defending will tear your heart out and eat it.”

  “Hence the resin,” Díon pointed out. “I have no intention of letting my guard down. And I’m not defending, merely trying to understand. Know thy enemy, yes?”

  “Definitely,” Purcell agreed, holding the interrogator’s gaze. “Always wise.” But S wasn’t the enemy as far as Purcell was concerned, only an evil in need of eradication. Díon, on the other hand, was another story entirely—especially since Purcell had an ever-deepening suspicion that Díon had somehow caused Underwood’s fatal stroke.

  She never would’ve told Díon about our plans. Never would’ve included anyone else. Not when our lives depended on no one ever finding out we were behind it.

  “Looks like we’re going to have to try something else where Baptiste is concerned,” Díon said. “This bit with ‘Chloe’ didn’t work.”

  Purcell glanced sourly at the blank monitor. “Even if the bastard had killed the kid, I never thought it would break him. He survived Chloe’s loss the first time he murdered her.”

  “Which is why I wanted Heather Wallace,” Díon said. “For now, let’s get Violet out of that room, then send a medic to clear Baptiste’s lungs.”

  Activating the com set hooked around his ear with a touch, Purcell issued the orders, making certain his men understood that restraining S was their first order of business. “Don’t hesitate to put another bullet in his skull, if necessary. And get that goddamned T-shirt off the camera.”

  Purcell caught a whiff of Díon’s cologne—a hint of vanilla spice and dandelions—when the interrogator moved from the wall to rest one hip against the edge of the control panel. “Have you heard anything yet from your Bureau contacts about where James Wallace might’ve taken his daughter?” he asked.

  “The Bureau’s official line is that Special Agent James Wallace is on leave while he tends to personal matters,” Purcell replied. “Wallace didn’t say where he was going or what he was doing, and his SAC probably didn’t ask, but whether it was by GPS tag or a tail, you can bet your well-tailored ass he knows.”

  “No doubt.”

  “But the only way we’re going to find out where Wallace went is for you to fly to the Portland field office and extract the information directly from the SAC’s mind.” Purcell shook his head. “Forget Heather Wallace.”

  “No, she’s key to breaking Baptiste.”
r />   “You’re wrong,” Purcell stated matter-of-factly. “I doubt Heather Wallace is anything more than a piece of ass to S. Just a way of literally fucking authority.”

  Díon folded his arms over his chest. “No, she’s more than that to him. I have reason to believe he loves her. His hold on reality is slipping and Heather Wallace balances him, anchors him. If he loses her, he loses everything.”

  Purcell regarded the interrogator skeptically. “Loves her? Anchors him? How the hell do you know any of that? Sounds like bullshit to me.”

  “A reliable source, one close to Baptiste.”

  Meaning Díon plucked the information from someone’s mind, someone in the know where S was concerned. But that didn’t make it true. Didn’t make it stink any less of bullshit. S could’ve easily fooled the unintentional informant into believing that he actually gave a rat’s ass about Heather Wallace.

  But, devil’s advocate and all, what if it was true?

  “Why the hell is it so important to break him, anyway? I don’t understand what your goal is here. If you succeed, then what? What’s in it for you?”

  All expression vanished from Díon’s face. His gaze turned inward. “I get to fulfill a promise I made a very long time ago.”

  Purcell frowned. “Not good enough. Not this time. I need you to be a little less cryptic for a change. What promise? To who?”

  “I could tell you, but then I’d have to erase it from your memory after I did. Are you sure you want those answers?”

  A chill rippled down Purcell’s spine. Despite Díon’s teasing smile, he suspected the interrogator meant every word. Díon would tell him, and then he’d take the knowledge away again. “Think I’ll pass,” he managed to say through a mouth gone dry. “Thanks, anyway.”

  Díon shrugged as if he didn’t care either way. Bastard probably didn’t either. Purcell twitched upright in his chair when a voice buzzed into his ear over the com set. Holding up a wait-a-moment finger, he listened as Bronson reported in, then repeated the information being relayed to Díon.

  “They’re in. And you were right—S cuffed himself to the door handle. The kid is quiet at the moment, coloring on the wall.” Purcell directed his gaze to the empty monitor and increased the volume on the audio. “Camera should be working in—ah, there it is.”

  Images sprang to life on the monitor as a black-suited man with a blond buzz-cut—FA Bronson—tossed S’s T-shirt onto the concrete floor. Behind him, S was sprawled on his side on the floor, one arm stretched up above him, wrist cuffed to the door handle. A small puddle of bright blood encircled his pale face, stained his lips, like water forced from the lungs of a drowning victim.

  Bronson’s partner, a tall and rangy black man named Holland, was bent over the handle, trying to unlock the cuff. Across the room, Violet watched silently with red-rimmed eyes, her box of crayons clutched in her hands.

  Bronson stepped away from the camera, touching a finger to the com set hooked around one ear. “You receiving the feed now?” he asked, the monitor’s audio echoing the words Purcell heard directly in his ear.

  “Yes, and you need to secure—” A sudden movement near the door caught Purcell’s eye and stopped his words cold. It hit him then—like water forced from the lungs of a drowning victim. His heart leapt into his throat.

  It was already too late.

  S moved. Twisting up from the concrete floor with deadly grace and speed, his fangs slashed into Holland’s throat with all the unerring accuracy of a preternatural predator—a true, natural-born killer.

  Blood sprayed the air in a glistening crimson arc as S ripped his fangs free of Holland’s throat, then shoved him away. Eyes wide, mouth a stretched and silent O, Holland was still crumpling to the floor, one hand futilely clutching his ruined throat, when S curled his cuffed arm, hard biceps bunching, and yanked.

  With a screech of metal, the steel handle wrenched free of the door to dangle like a charm from the cuff still encircling the bloodsucker’s wrist.

  The handcuffs were vampire-proof. The door handle, not so much.

  S was on his feet. He blurred up behind Bronson in a streak of leather and blood-smeared white skin, just as the agent, a frown pinching the skin between his eyes, was starting to whirl around, his hand reaching inside his jacket for his gun.

  “J’ai faim.”

  S buried his fangs in the man’s throat.

  Bronson never even had the chance to fire a single shot.

  “Madre de Dios,” Díon breathed, stunned. “Even with the resin . . .”

  “No, he’s slower than usual. You were right about that, anyway.”

  “That’s slower?”

  Purcell didn’t waste time on words like I told you so. Not now. Instead, he sounded the alarm and tersely issued kill orders through his com set while he watched S turn a human being into a meal. Again.

  “No more attempts to break the psychotic little bastard,” Purcell snapped when Díon started to protest. “Those were my men he killed. S dies. He’s too goddamned dangerous.”

  “I’m sorry, truly,” Díon said quietly.

  Before Purcell could decide if the interrogator was referring to the idiocy of his plan or apologizing for the men who’d just died needlessly because of it, he felt warm fingers brush against his temple. Panic surged through him, only to vanish as his mind blanked like a T-shirt-blocked monitor. A request, quiet and reasonable, and made in a faintly European-accented voice, dominated his awareness.

  “You need to rescind that order.”

  9

  BENEATH PAIN AND BROKEN GLASS

  “THEY’RE COMING. WE NEED to hurry.”

  The voice, small and tremulous but insistent, tugged at Dante, drew him up from his unfinished feast, from the coppery, adrenaline-peppered taste of the blood flooding into his mouth and pouring strength and energy into his veins. The cold icing him from the inside melted away. The liquid weight eased from his lungs—not gone, no, but less.

  Pulling his fangs free of the warm, whisker-stubbled flesh beneath, Dante lifted his head. He swiveled around on his knees, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then—her blood spills hot and fragrant and crimson over his fingers . . .

  —reality shifted and a cold hand squeezed around his heart.

  She lies on the concrete floor, staring up at the hook, her blue eyes as wide and empty as a doll’s. The blood from her slashed throat stains her hair a deep red.

  Dante sucked in a sharp, painful breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Pressing his fingers against his temples, he desperately scrubbed the image from his mind.

  “They’re coming,” the dead girl repeated. “What do we do?”

  His answer came without hesitation, a rough whisper. “Make ’em pay.”

  “Or run. We could try running. I think that’d be better.”

  “Yeah?”

  Dante opened his eyes. Relief flooded through him at what he saw, knocked him back on his heels. Not dead. Chloe stood a few feet away, freckles stark on her pale face, her blue eyes huge, red-rimmed as though she’d been crying. She hugged the box of crayons tightly against her chest instead of Orem.

  “Dante-angel? You . . . um . . . okay?”

  “Oui. Ça va bien. Now. But where’s—” Dante looked down for the plushie orca and his words jammed up in his throat. A man in a blood-soaked black suit lay sprawled on the floor, throat savaged, a cooling and unfinished not-so-happy meal. “Shit.”

  He remembered taking the asshole down as he reached for his gun, remembered tearing into his throat with ravenous relish. Remembered the panicked, fire hose intensity of the blood pulsing between his lips.

  All while Chloe watched.

  “Shit,” Dante repeated, shifting his gaze to Chloe. “Did you close your eyes?” he asked, hoping against hope.

  “I did,” she confessed in a tiny voice. “But I could still hear . . .”

  Dante sighed. “Merde. Sorry, princess.”

  “That’s why you cuffed yourself to the d
oor, huh?” Chloe said. “Why you told me to keep away from you. So you wouldn’t”—she looked at the dead man sprawled on the concrete, then swallowed hard before returning her gaze to Dante—“do that.”

  Dante rose to his feet. Pain jabbed his skull, dizzying him for one brief moment. Even though he felt better after the gulped infusion of hot and heady blood, he definitely wasn’t at one hundred percent. Not even close. But it would have to be enough.

  Survival for both of them depended on it.

  “Oui, chère. That’s why,” he replied.

  Out in the hall, Dante heard the thunder of multiple pairs of running feet. Still a fair distance away, but getting closer with each passing second. He glanced at Chloe. Wondered if she was safe with him or not. Although his hunger was currently under control, it was far from sated, leaving his control unreliable at best.

  But one quick look at the hook hanging from the ceiling, at the merciless slice of curving metal, told him that Chloe was safer with him than without. Besides, safe or not, he could never leave her behind. Never leave her alone. He’d made a promise: You and me, princess. Forever and ever.

  Dante shifted his gaze back to Chloe. “They’re coming like you said, princess, so we need to haul ass.” He reached for her, but she took a hesitant step away from his blood-smeared hand. The fear in her eyes was an ice pick to his heart.

  “You said to keep away.”

  “I did, yeah. Because I couldn’t control my hunger. I’ve got a grip on it now, thanks to him”—Dante nodded at the black-suited body cooling on the floor—“but before that, with all the blood loss and the—”

  “And the owies,” Chloe finished, the fear fading from her eyes. “They made you even hungrier, huh?”

  “Yup. And I’m damned fucking sure that’s why they put me in here with you in the first place. They wanted me to . . .” Dante shook his head, unwilling to finish the sentence.