by J. R. Ward
The soldier he tracked was fat as a hog, with folds of flesh falling over his leathers and facial features indistinct for the puffy padding. The glutton went without a tunic most of the time, his bulbous chest and distended belly jiggling while he paraded around kicking the stray dogs that lived in camp or going after the whores. For all his sloth, however, he was a vicious killer, what he lacked in speed being made up for in brute strength. With hands as big as a grown male’s head, he was rumored to snap the limbs off lessers and eat them.
At every meal he was among the first to get to the meat, and he ate with speed, though he was hampered by a lack of accuracy. He didn’t pay a lot of attention to what actually made it into his mouth: Pieces of deer flesh and streams of blood and segments of bone would coat his stomach and chest, a gory tunic knit of his sloppy ministrations.
This night the male finished early and eased back onto his haunches, a deer flank in his fist. Though he was through, he lingered next to the carcass he’d been working on, pushing other soldiers away for amusement.
When it was time for the sparring punishments to be dealt out, the fighters moved from the fire pit to the Bloodletter’s platform. In the light of torches, soldiers who had lost during practice were bent over at the foot of the Bloodletter and violated by those who’d bested them, to the sneers and slaps of the others. Meanwhile, the pretrans fell on what was left of the deer while the females of the camp watched with hard eyes, waiting their turn.
V’s prey wasn’t much interested in the humiliations. The fat soldier watched for a little while, then lumbered off, the deer leg hanging from his hand. His filthy pallet was all the way at the far edges of where the soldiers slept, because even to their noses, his stench offended.
Stretched out, he looked like an undulating field, his body a series of hills and valleys. The deer leg lying across his belly was the prize at the top of the mountain.
V stayed back until the soldier’s beady eyes were covered by fleshy lids and his hefty chest went up and down with a slowing rhythm. Soon fish lips fell open, and one snore escaped, followed by another. It was then that V closed in on his bare feet, making no sound over the dirt floor.
The foul smell of the male didn’t deter V, and he cared not about the grime on the deer’s fresh muscle. He reached forward, small hand splayed, inching toward the bone joint.
Just as he ripped it free, a black dagger streaked down next to the soldier’s ear and its penetration into the packed cave floor snapped open the male’s eyes.
V’s father loomed like a chain-mail fist about to fall, legs planted, dark eyes leveled. He was the biggest of all in the camp, rumored to be largest male born into the species, and his presence inspired fear for two reasons: his size and his unpredictability. His mood was ever-changing, his whims violent and capricious, but V knew the truth behind the variable temper: There was nothing that was not calibrated for effect. His father’s malicious cunning ran as deep as his muscle was thick.
“Awake,” the Bloodletter snapped. “You laze whilst you are feloned by a weakling.”
V cringed away from his father, but started to eat, sinking his teeth into the meat and chewing as fast as he could. He would be beaten for this, likely by the both of them, so he had to consume as much as possible before the blows landed upon him.
The fat one made excuses until the Bloodletter kicked him in the sole of the foot with a spiked boot. The male went gray in the face but knew better than to cry out.
“The whys of this happenstance bore me.” The Bloodletter stared at the soldier. “What shall you do about it, is my inquiry.”
Without taking a breath the soldier curled up a fist, leaned over, and slammed it into V’s side. V lost the mouthful he had as the impact drove the breath from his lungs and the meat from his mouth. As he gasped, he picked the piece up from the dirt and pushed it back between his lips. It tasted salty from the cave’s floor.
As the beating commenced, V ate through the blows until he felt his calf bone bend until it nearly snapped. He let out a scream and lost the deer leg. Someone else picked it up and ran away with it.
All along, the Bloodletter laughed without smiling, the barking sound coming from lips that were straight and thin as knives. And then he ended it. With no effort at all he grabbed the fat soldier by the back of the neck and threw him against the rock wall.
The Bloodletter’s spiked boots planted in front of V’s face. “Get me my dagger.”
V blinked dry eyes and tried to move.
There was a creak of leather, and then the Bloodletter’s face was before V. “Get me my dagger, boy. Or I will have you take the whores’ place tonight in the pit.”
The soldiers who had gathered behind his father cackled, and someone threw a stone that hit V where his leg had been injured.
“My dagger, boy.”
Vishous speared his little fingers into the dirt and dragged himself over to the weapon. Though a mere two feet from him, the blade seemed miles away. When he finally closed his palm upon it, he needed both hands to free it from the dirt, he was so weak. His stomach was rolling from pain, and as he pulled at the blade, he threw up the meat he had stolen.
After the retching passed, he held up the dagger to his father, who had risen back to his full height.
“Stand,” the Bloodletter said. “Or think you I should bow to the worthless?”
V struggled into a sitting position and couldn’t fathom how he was going to get his full body up, as he could barely lift his shoulders. He switched the dagger to his left hand, planted his right one on the dirt, and pushed. The pain was so great his eyesight went black…and then a miraculous thing occurred. Some kind of radiant light overtook him from the inside out, as if sunshine had swept into his veins and cleaned the pain until he was free of it. His eyesight returned…and he saw that his hand was glowing.
Now was not the time to wonder. He peeled himself from the ground, rising up while trying to put no weight on his leg. With a hand that shook, he presented the dagger to his father.
The Bloodletter stared back for a heartbeat, as if he’d never expected V to get to his feet. Then he took the weapon and turned away.
“Someone knock him back down. His boldness offends me.”
V landed in a heap when the order was followed, and at once, the radiance left him and agony returned. He waited for other blows to land, but when he heard a crowd’s roar, he knew that the losers’ punishments would be the amusement for the day, not him.
As he lay in the swamp of his misery, as he tried to breathe through the pounding of his battered body, he pictured a little female in a black robe coming unto him and wrapping him up in her arms. With soft words she cradled him and stroked his hair, easing him.
He welcomed the vision. She was his imaginary mother. The one who loved him and wanted him to be safe and warm and fed. Verily, the image of her was what kept him alive, giving him the only peace he knew.
The fat soldier leaned down, his fetid, humid breath invading Vishous’s nose. “You steal from me again and you shall not heal from what I bring unto you.”
The soldier spat in V’s face then picked him up and slung him like useless debris away from the dirty pallet.
Before V passed out, his last sight was of another pretrans finishing the deer leg with relish.
Chapter Six
With a curse, V disengaged from his memories, his eyes flying around the alley he was standing in, like old newspapers caught in the wind. Man, he was a wreck. The seal on his Tupperware had cracked open and his leftovers had leaked out all over the place.
Messy. Very messy.
Good thing he hadn’t known then what a crock of shit the whole my-mommy-who-loves-me thing was. That would have hurt him more than any of the abuse coming his way.
He took the Primale’s medallion out of his back pocket and stared at it. He was still looking at it minutes later when the thing dropped to the ground and bounced like a coin. He frowned…until he realized that his “
normal” hand was glowing and had burned through the silk cord.
Goddamn, his mother was an egomaniac. She’d brought the species into being, but that wasn’t enough for her. Hell, no. She wanted herself in the mix.
Fuck it. He wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of hundreds of grandchildren. She’d sucked as a parent, so why should he give her another generation to screw over.
And besides, there was another reason why he shouldn’t be the Primale. He was, after all, his father’s son, so cruelty was in his DNA. How could he trust himself not to take it out on the Chosen? Those females were not to blame, and didn’t deserve what would come between their legs if he were their mate.
He wasn’t going to do this.
V lit a hand-rolled, picked up the medallion, and left the alley, hanging a right on Trade. He badly needed a fight before the dawn came.
And he banked on finding some lessers in downtown’s concrete maze.
It was a safe bet. The war between the Lessening Society and the vampires had one and only one rule of engagement: No fighting around humans. The last thing either side needed was human casualties or witnesses, so hidden battles were the name of the game, and urban Caldwell presented a fine theater for small-scale combat: Thanks to the 1970s retail exodus to the burbs, there were plenty of dark alleys and vacated buildings. Also, what few humans were on the streets were primarily worried about servicing their various vices. Which meant they were otherwise occupied giving the police plenty to do.
As he went along, he stayed out of the pools of light cast by street lamps and splashed by cars. Thanks to the bitter night there were few pedestrians around, so he was alone as he passed McGrider’s Bar and Screamer’s and a new strip club that had just opened. Farther up, he walked by the Tex-Mex buffet and the Chinese restaurant that were sandwiched between competing tattoo parlors. Blocks later he went by the apartment building on Redd Avenue where Beth had lived before she met Wrath.
He was about to turn around and go back toward the heart of downtown when V stopped. Lifted his nose. Inhaled. The sent of baby powder was on the breeze, and since old biddies and babies were out of commission this late, he knew his enemy was close by.
But there was something else in the air, something that made his blood run cold.
V loosened his jacket so he could get at his daggers and started to run, tracking the scents to Twentieth Street. Twentieth was a one-way off Trade, bracketed by office buildings that were asleep this hour of night, and as he pounded down its uneven, slushy pavement, the smells got stronger.
He had a feeling he was too late.
Five blocks in he saw that he was right.
The other scent was the spilled blood of a civilian vampire, and as the clouds parted, moonlight fell on a gruesome spectacle: A posttransition male dressed in torn club clothes was beyond dead, his torso twisted, his face battered past any hope of recognition. The lesser who had done the killing was going through the vampire’s pockets, no doubt hoping to find a home address as a lead for more carnage.
The slayer sensed V and looked over its shoulder. The thing was white as limestone, its pale hair, skin, and eyes matte like chalk. Big, built rugby-player solid, this one was well past his initiation, and V knew it not just because the bastard’s natural pigmentations had faded out. The lesser was all business as he leaped to his feet, hands going up to his chest, body surging forward.
The two ran at each other and met as cars crashing at intersections did: grille-to-grille, weight-to-weight, force against force. In the initial meet-and-greet, V took a ham-handed smash to his jaw, the kind of punch that made your brains slosh around in your skull. He was momentarily dazed, but managed to return the favor hard enough to spin the lesser like a top. Then he went after his opponent, grabbing onto the back of the bastard’s leather jacket and flipping him off his combat boots.
V liked to grapple. And he was good at the ground game.
The slayer was fast, though, popping up off the icy pavement and throwing out a kick that shuffled V’s internal organs like a deck of cards. As V stumbled backward, he tripped on a Coke bottle, blew his ankle out, and took a seat on the express train down to the asphalt. Letting his body go loose, he kept his eyes on the slayer, who moved in fast. The bastard went for V’s off ankle, grabbing the shitkicker attached to it and twisting with all the power in his massive chest and arms.
V popped a holler as he flipped face-first onto the ground, but he shut out the pain. Using his bad ankle and his arms as leverage, he pushed himself off the asphalt, brought his free leg up to his chest and hammered it back, catching the motherfucker in the knee and shattering his joint. The lesser flamingoed, his leg bending in the absolute wrong way as he fell on V’s back.
The two of them clinched up hard-core, their forearms and biceps straining as they rolled around and ended up next to the slaughtered civilian. When V was bitten in the ear, his shit really got cranked out. Tearing himself free of the lesser’s teeth, he fisted the bastard’s frontal lobe, laying a bone-on-bone crack that stunned the fucker long enough for him to get free.
Kind of.
The knife went into his side just as he was pulling his legs out from under the slayer. The sharp, shooting pain was a bee sting on ’roids, and he knew the blade had broken skin and penetrated muscle just below his rib cage, on the left.
Man, if an intestine had been nicked, things were going to go bad, fast. So it was time to put the fight to bed.
Energized by the injury, V grabbed the lesser by the chin and the back of the head and twisted the son of a bitch like he was a beer bottle. The snap of the skull popping free of the spinal cord was like a branch cracking in half and the body went instantaneously loose, its arms flopping to the ground, its legs going still.
V grabbed his side as his crest of power faded. Shit, he was covered in cold sweat and his hands were shaking, but he had to finish the job. He quickly patted down the lesser, looking for ID before he poofed the bastard.
The slayer’s eyes met his, its mouth working slowly. “My name…was once Michael. Eighty…three…years ago. Michael Klosnick.”
Flipping open the wallet, V found a current driver’s license. “Well, Michael, have a nice trip to hell.”
“Glad…it’s over.”
“It’s not. Haven’t you heard?” Shit, his side was killing him. “Your new town house is the Omega’s body, buddy. You’re going to live there rent-free for fucking ever.”
Pale eyes cracked wide. “You lie.”
“Please. Like I’d bother?” V shook his head. “Doesn’t your boss mention that? Guess not.”
V unsheathed one of his daggers, heaved his arm up over his shoulder, and drove the blade square into that wide chest. There was a burst of light bright enough to show off the whole alley, then a pop and…shit, the burst caught the civilian, lighting him up as well thanks to a heavy gust of wind. As the two bodies were consumed, all that was left on the cold breeze was the thick smell of baby powder.
Fuck. How could they notify the civilian’s family now?
Vishous searched the area, and when he didn’t find another wallet, he propped himself against a Dumpster and just sat there, breathing in shallow sucks. Each inhale made him feel like he was being stabbed again, but going without oxygen was not an option, so he kept at it.
Before he got out his phone to call for help, he looked at his dagger. The black blade was covered with the inky blood of the lesser. He ran through the fight with the slayer and imagined another vampire in his place, one not as strong as he was. One who didn’t have the breeding he had.
He brought up his gloved hand. If his curse had defined him, the Brotherhood and its noble purpose had shaped his life. And if he had been killed tonight? If that blade had gone into his heart? They’d be down to four fighters.
Fuck.
On the chessboard of his godforsaken existence, the pieces were lined up, the play preordained. Man, so many times in life you didn’t get to pick your path becaus
e the way you went was decided for you.
Free will was such bullshit.
Forget his mother and her drama—he needed to become the Primale for the Brotherhood. He owed the legacy he served.
After wiping the blade on his leathers, he resheathed the weapon handle down, struggled to his feet, and patted down his jacket. Shit…his phone. Where was his phone? Back at the penthouse. He must have left it there after he talked to Wrath—
A shot rang out.
A bullet hit him right between his pecs.
The impact popped him off his heels and sent him on a slow-mo fall through thin air. As he went back flat on the ground, he just lay there as a crushing pressure made his heart jump and his brain fog out. All he could do was gasp, little quick breaths skipping up and down the corridor of his throat.
With his last bit of strength, he lifted his head and looked down his body. A gunshot. Blood on his shirt. The screaming pain in his chest. The nightmare realized.
Before he could panic, blackness came and swallowed him whole…a meal to be digested in an acid bath of agony.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Whitcomb?”
Dr. Jane Whitcomb looked up from the patient chart she was signing and winced. Manuel Manello, M.D., chief of surgery at St. Francis Medical Center, was coming down the hall at her like a bull. And she knew why.
This was going to get ugly.
Jane scribbled her sig at the bottom of the drug order, handed the chart back to the nurse, and watched as the woman took off at a dead run. Good defensive maneuver, and not uncommon around here. When the chief got like this, folks took cover…which was the logical thing to do when a bomb was about to go off and you had half a brain.
Jane faced him. “So you’ve heard.”
“In here. Now.” He punched open the door to the surgeons’ lounge.
As she went in with him, Priest and Dubois, two of St. Francis’s best GI knives, took one look at the chief, scrapped their vending-machine cuisine, and beat feet out of the room. In their wake, the door eased shut without even a whisper of air. Like it didn’t want to catch Manello’s attention, either.