by J. R. Ward
“Thanks, Trez.”
The two of them stared across his desk.
“It’s going to be okay,” the Shadow said.
“You sure about that.”
“Positive.”
About a block and a half away from the Iron Mask, Xcor stood in the lee of a tattoo parlor, the red, yellow, and blue glow from its neon sign getting in his eyes and on his nerves.
Throe and Zypher had gone into the establishment about ten minutes ago.
But not for ink.
By all that was holy, Xcor would have preferred for his soldiers to be anywhere else on a mission for anything else. Unfortunately, one couldn’t negotiate with the need for blood—and they had yet to find a reliable source for it. Human females would do in the pinch they were in, but the strength didn’t last nearly as long, and that meant the hunt for victims was nearly as frequent as that for food.
Indeed, they had been here only a week, and he could feel the lagging effect on his flesh already—back in the Old Country, they had had proper vampire females that they had paid to be of service. Here, they currently didn’t have that luxury, and he feared it would be a while before they did.
Although if he became king, the problem would be solved.
As he waited, he shifted his weight back and forth on his boots, his leather coat making a subtle creaking noise. On his back, concealed in her holster but ready for use, his scythe was as impatient as he was.
Sometimes he could swear the thing talked to him: For instance, from time to time, a human would pass by the opening of the alley he was in; maybe it was a loner striding quickly, or a woman lollygagging as she tried to light a cigarette in the wind, or a small group of revelers. Whatever the variant, his eyes tracked them as prey, noting the way their bodies moved and where they might be hiding any weapons and how many bounding leaps it would take to put himself in their paths.
And all the while his scythe whispered to him, urging him to take action.
Back in the Bloodletter’s time, humans had been fewer and less robust, good for both target practice and as a source of sustenance—which was how that race of tailless rats had ended up with so many vampire myths. Now, however, the rodents had taken over the palace of the earth, becoming a threat.
Such a shame he couldn’t go to work on Caldwell properly. Take it over not just from the great Blind King and the Brotherhood, but the Homo sapiens, too.
His scythe was ready; that was for certain. She all but tingled on his back, begging to be used in that voice that was sexier than anything his ears had actually heard from a female.
Throe emerged from the shop and came into the alley. Immediately, Xcor’s fangs elongated, his cock getting hard not because he was interested in sex, but because that was just what his body did.
“Zypher’s finishing up with them right now,” his lieutenant said.
“Good.”
As a metal door opened down the way, both of them ducked their hands into their leather dusters and gripped guns. But it was just Zypher… with a triumvirate of ladies, all of whom were about as attractive as garbage next to a dinner plate.
Beggars, choosers and all that, however. Besides, each had the foremost requirement: a neck.
On the approach, Zypher was grinning, but being careful not to flash his fangs. In his accent, he drawled, “This is Carla, Beth, and Linda—”
“Lindsay,” the one on the far end called out.
“Lindsay,” he corrected, reaching over and pulling her in closer. “Girls, you met my friend—and this is my boss.”
The soldier didn’t bother with names—why waste the breath? Yet regardless of the improper introduction, they seemed excited: Carla, Beth, and Lin-whatever-the-fuck smiled at Throe, all green-light in the eye… until they looked at Xcor
Even though he was mostly in the shadows, a security light had been motion-activated above the door they’d come out of, and clearly they didn’t like what they saw. Two of them dropped their eyes to the ground. The other just got busy fiddling with Zypher’s leather jacket.
The intrinsic rejection was not an unheard-of reaction. In fact, no female had ever looked upon him with approval or attraction.
Fortunately, he couldn’t care less.
Before the silence could get awkward, Zypher said, “Anyhow, these lovely ladies are about to go to work—”
“At the Iron Mask,” Lin-whatever spoke up.
“—but they’ve agreed to meet us out here at three o’clock.”
“When we get off,” one of them tacked on.
As the trio fell into a set of annoying, naughty giggles, Xcor was no more interested in them than they were in him. Indeed, his ambitions were far loftier than the likes of Zypher’s. Sex, like taking blood, was an inconvenient biological function, and he was far too smart to ever fall for that romance bullshit.
If one was determined to go that route, castration was easier, less painful, and just as permanent.
“So, do we have a date?” Zypher said to the woman.
The one who’d all but crawled into his clothes whispered something that brought his head down. As his brows tightened, it wasn’t hard to figure out what the gist was, and the woman didn’t look too unhappy about his answer.
She purred.
Then again, that was what unspayed alley cats did, Xcor supposed.
“It’s a date,” the vampire said, glancing at Throe. “I have promised that we shall take care of these three very nicely.”
“I’ve got what we need.”
“Fine. Good.” He swatted the ass of one, then another. The third, the woman trying to get into his coat, he tilted back and kissed hard.
More giggling. More coy looks that were not entirely about the fact that these were prostitutes on the way to getting paid.
Just as they were leaving, each one of the women looked back at Xcor, their expressions suggesting he was like a disease they were soon to be exposed to. He wondered who was going to get the short end of the stick when they all reconvened—because sure as the day was long and the nights always too short, he was going to have one of them.
It simply cost extra in these kinds of situations.
“Fine specimens of virtue,” Xcor said dryly when he was alone with his soldiers.
Zypher shrugged. “They are what they are. And they’ll be good enough.”
“I am endeavoring to find us proper females,” Throe said. “It is not easy, however.”
“Mayhap you need to work harder.” Xcor looked up to the sky. “Now let us get to work. Time is wasting.”
THIRTEEN
Whore? Whore?
As No’One cast herself unto the Other Side and reentered the Sanctuary she had spent centuries in, she could get neither that word nor her anger out of her head.
Down below, in the training center, clean laundry had never been folded so viciously, and when she had finished her duties, staying in the mansion for the daylight hours had not been possible.
This was her only other destination.
And it was about time to come here to refresh herself anyway.
Standing in the field of colorful flowers, she took deep breaths… and prayed that she would be left alone. The Chosen were a kindly lot of sacred females and they deserved better than what she had to offer even a casual passerby—fortunately, they were mostly over on the Far Side now with the Primale.
Hitching up her robing, she started to walk, marching through the perpetually blooming tulips with their fat hats in vibrant, jewel-like hues. She kept going until her bad leg started to protest. And then still she continued to promenade.
The Scribe Virgin’s precious territory was bound on all four sides by a thick forest, and peppered with classically styled buildings and temples. No’One knew every roof, every wall, every path, every pool—and now in her fury, she made a broad circle about it all.
Anger animated her, driving her forward toward… nothing and nobody. And yet nonetheless she surged on.
How
could he who had seen her suffer ever call her that? She had been a virgin violently robbed of the gift she had intended to give whomever she would have mated.
Whore!
Indeed, Tohrment was not the male she had once known—and as the thought occurred, she reflected that in this they were the same. She, too, had shed an earlier incarnation of herself, but unlike him, her current persona was an improvement.
After a while, her leg ached so much she had to slow down… and then stop. The pain was a great clarifier, making the environment she was actually in supersede the one she had left down below but kept with her.
She was standing afore the Temple of the Sequestered Scribes.
It was unoccupied. As had all the other buildings been.
As she looked around, the true depth of the quiet sank in. The landscape was utterly unoccupied. It was as if, in a rake of irony, the vibrant color that had finally come hereto had not just replaced the pervasive white, but chased away all the life.
Recalling the past, when there had been so much to tend to, she realized that in truth, she had gone to the Other Side not just to seek her daughter, but to find another place where she could busy herself to exhaustion so that she did not think overly much.
Here she had nothing to do.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, she was going to go mad.
Abruptly, an image of Tohrment, son of Hharm’s naked shoulders filled her mind until she was blinded by it.
WELLESANDRA
The name was carved on the breadth of his musculature in the Old Language, the marking of a true union of bodies and souls.
After having something like that ripped away by fate, he was no doubt as ruined as she herself was. And she had been angry at first, too. When she had arrived here after her death and was shown her duties by the Directrix, her numbness had melted away, revealing a fire of rage. There had been nothing to lash out at except for herself, however—and she had done that for decades.
At least until she had come to realize the “why” of her fate, the purpose behind her tragedy, the cause of her salvation.
She had been given a second chance so that she could be born anew into a role of service and humility, and learn the error of her previous ways.
Pushing the temple’s door wide, she limped into the lofty room, where the rows of desks and rolls of parchment and flares of feather quills were. At each station, in the center of the workspace, was a round crystal bowl filled three-quarters of the way with water so pure that it was nearly invisible.
Indeed, Tohrment was suffering as she had, perhaps just starting the journey she felt as though she had completed over too many years to count. And though her anger was an easy emotion to feel in the face of his unjust accusation, understanding and compassion were the harder, more valuable stances to take…
She had learned this from the example the Chosen set.
Although understanding required knowledge, she thought, staring at one of the bowls.
As she stepped forward, she was uneasy with the quest she was about to initiate, and she chose a station far, far in the back, away from both the doors and the cathedral-size leaded windows.
Sitting down, she found no dust on the surface of the desk, nor minute debris within or upon the water, nor dried-up ink in the bottle—in spite of the fact that it had been a long while since the room had been filled with females seeking out the events of the race down below and recording the history that appeared unto their kindly eyes.
No’One picked up the bowl, holding it with her palms, not her fingers. With barely perceptible movement, she began to circle the water, picturing Tohrment’s back as clearly as she was able.
Soon enough, a story began to unfold, told in moving pictures that were trussed in living color, and animated by love.
She had never before thought to search him and his life out in the bowls. The few times she had come here, it had been to check on her family’s fortunes and the course of her daughter’s life. Now, though, she knew it had been too painful for her to look into the pair of warriors who had given her shelter and protected her.
In her final, most cowardly act, she had betrayed them both.
On the surface of the water, she saw Tohrment with a red-haired female of grand stature—they were waltzing, she in that red gown, he robeless and showing off the fresh scarification that spelled out her name in the Old Language. He was so happy, incandescently so, his love and bonding making him shine like the North Star.
There were other scenes that followed, drifting down through the years, from when it had been all new between them to the comfort that came with familiarity, from small abodes to larger ones, from good times where they laughed together to hard times when they argued.
It was the very best that life had to offer anyone: a person to love and be loved by, with whom you carved meaning in the oak trunk of time’s perennial passing.
And then another scene.
The female was in a kitchen, a lovely, gleaming kitchen, standing before a stove. There was a pan on the heat, some meat cooking therein, and she had a spatula in her hand. She wasn’t looking downward, however. She was staring into the space afore her, her eyes unfocused as smoke began to curl up.
Tohrment appeared across the way, rushing into the doorway. He called out her name and grabbed a small towel, going over to a fixture on the ceiling and whisking the cloth back and forth with vigor as he winced as though his ears hurt.
Over at the stove, Wellesandra jumped to attention and shoved the burning pan from the red-hot coil. She began speaking, and though there was no sound associated with the pictures, it was clear she was making apologies.
After all was settled and calmed and no longer afire, Tohrment leaned back against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest, and spoke for a bit. Then he went silent.
It was a long while before Wellesandra answered. In the previous pictures of their life, she had always appeared to be strong and direct… now her expression was hesitant.
When she finished her reply, her lips pursed together and her eyes locked on her mate.
Tohrment’s arms gradually unfolded until they hung limp by his sides, and his mouth grew lax as well, his jaw unlatching to fall open. His eyes blinked repeatedly, open and shut, open and shut, open and shut.…
When he finally moved, it was with the grace of someone who had broken every bone in his body: He lurched across the distance that separated them and fell to his knees before his shellan. Reaching up with shaking hands, he touched her lower belly as tears watered his eyes.
He didn’t say a word. Just gathered his mate to him, his big, strong arms enveloping her waist, his wet cheek coming to rest on her womb.
Above him, Wellesandra started to smile… beam, really.
Down below her happiness, however, Tohr’s face was cast in lines of terror. As if he knew, even then, that the pregnancy she rejoiced in was doom for all three of them—
“I thought I’d find you on this side.”
No’One whipped around, the water in the bowl splashing out onto her robe, the image ruined.
Tohrment stood in the doorway sure as if her invasion of his privacy had called him forth to protect what was rightly his. His temper had dissipated, but even in the absence of anger, his gaunt face was nothing close to what she had just seen of him.
“I’ve come to apologize,” he said.
She carefully put the bowl back, watching as the choppy surface of the water calmed down and the level slowly rose to what it had been, replenished from an unknown, unseeable reservoir.
“I figured I’d wait until I sobered up a little—”
“I’ve been watching you,” she said. “In the bowl. With your shellan.”
That shut him up.
Getting to her feet, No’One smoothed her robe even though it fell as it always did, in straight, shapeless folds of cloth. “I understand why you are in a foul way and quick to temper. It is in the nature of a wounded animal to strike out at even a friend
ly hand.”
When she looked up, he was frowning so deeply, his brows were a single line. Not exactly an opening for conversation. But it was time to clear the air between them, and as with the debridement of a festering wound, one could expect it to hurt.
The infection must be wrestled from the flesh, however.
“How long ago did she die?”
“Killed,” he said after a moment. “She was killed.”
“How long.”
“Fifteen months, twenty-six days, seven hours. I’d have to check a watch for the minutes.”
No’One walked over to the windows and looked out over the bright green grass. “How did you find out she had been taken from you?”
“My king. My brothers. They came to me… and they told me she had been shot.”
“What happened after that?”
“I screamed. I took myself somewhere, anywhere else. I cried for weeks in the wilderness alone.”
“You didn’t perform a Fade ceremony?”
“I didn’t come back for nearly a year.” He cursed and scrubbed his face. “I can’t believe you’re asking me this shit, and I can’t believe I’m answering.”
She shrugged. “It is because you were cruel to me at the pool. You feel guilty, and I feel like you owe me something. The latter makes me bold and the former loosens your lips.”
He opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again. “You’re very smart.”
“Not really. It is obvious.”
“What did you see in the bowls?”
“Are you sure you wish me to say?”
“All of it plays in my head on an endless loop. Not gonna be a news flash, whatever it is.”
“She told you she was pregnant in your kitchen. You fell to the floor before her—she was happy, you were not.”
As he blanched, she wished she’d shared one of the other scenes.