by J. R. Ward
Butch came forward, his boots crunching through icy puddles. His face was grim, his fangs elongated, his scent now carrying the baby-powder sweetness of their enemies. He had finished with the slayer he had fought with, done his special business, and now he would do it again.
The cop looked both motivated and in pain as he sank to his knees, planted his hands on either side of the lesser’s pasty face, and leaned down. Opening his mouth, he positioned himself above the slayer’s lips and began a long, slow inhale.
The lesser’s eyes flared as a black mist rose out of its body and was sucked into Butch’s lungs. There was no break in the inhale, no pause in the draw, just a steady stream of evil passing out of one vessel and into another. In the end, their enemy became nothing but gray ash, its body collapsing, then fragmenting into a fine dust that was carried away by the cold wind.
Butch sagged, then gave out altogether, falling to his side onto the alley’s slushy road. Phury went over and reached his hand—
“Don’t touch me.” Butch’s voice was a mere wheeze. “I’ll make you sick.”
“Let me—”
“No!” Butch shoved at the ground, pushing himself up. “Just gimme a minute.”
Phury stood over the cop, guarding him and keeping an eye on the alley in case more came. “You want to go home? I’ll go look for V.”
“Fuck, no.” The cop’s hazel eyes lifted. “He’s mine. I’m going to find him.”
“Are you sure?”
Butch got up onto his feet, and though his body waved like a flag, he was nothing but green light. “Let’s go.”
As Phury fell into step with the guy and the two of them went down Trade Street, he didn’t like the look on Butch’s face. The cop had the loose-goose expression of someone whose blender was on frappé, but it didn’t seem like he was going to quit unless he fell over.
As the two of them scoured the urban armpit of Caldwell and came up with jack shit, the no-V situation clearly made Butch even sicker.
They were on the very fringes of downtown, all the way out by Redd Avenue, when Phury stopped. “We should turn back. I doubt he’d come this far.”
Butch stopped. Looked around. In a dull voice he said, “Hey, check it. This is Beth’s old apartment building.”
“We need to double back.”
The cop shook his head and rubbed his chest. “We’ve got to keep going.”
“Not saying we stop looking. But why would he be this far out? We’re on the edge of residential land. Too many eyes for a fight, so he wouldn’t come here looking for one.”
“Phury, man, what if he got jacked? We haven’t seen another lesser out tonight. What if something big went down, like they bagged him?”
“If he was conscious, that would be highly unlikely, given that hand of his. Helluva weapon, even if he got stripped of his daggers.”
“What if he was knocked out?”
Before Phury could respond, the Channel Six NewsLeader van tore by at a dead run. Two streets down its brakelights flared and the thing hung a louie.
All Phury could think was, Shit. News vans didn’t show up in a rush like that because some old lady’s cat was in a tree. Still, maybe it was just human shit, like a gang-related lead shower.
Trouble was, some horrible, crushing prescience told Phury that wasn’t the case, so when Butch started walking in that direction, he went along. No words were spoken, which meant the cop was probably thinking exactly what he was: Please, God, let it be someone else’s tragedy, not ours.
When they came up to where the TV van was parked, there was your typical crime convention, with two Caldwell Police Department cruisers parked at the entrance to Twentieth Avenue’s dead-end alley. As a reporter stood spotlit and addressing a camera, men in uniform walked around within a circle of yellow tape, and kibitzers huddled together, drama-feeding and yakking.
The gust of wind barreling down the alley carried the smell of V’s blood as well as the sweet baby-powder stench of lessers.
“Oh, God…” Butch’s anguish rolled out into the cold night air, adding a sharp, shellaclike tang to the mix.
The cop lurched forward toward the tape, but Phury grabbed the guy’s arm to stop him—only to blanch. The evil in Butch was so palpable, it shot up Phury’s arm and landed in his gut, making his stomach roll.
He held on to his friend anyway.
“You stay the fuck back. You probably worked with some of those badges.” When the cop opened his mouth, Phury talked right over him. “Pop your collar, pull your brim, and hold tight.”
Butch tugged on his Red Sox hat and tucked his jaw in. “If he’s dead—”
“Shut up and worry about keeping yourself on your feet.” Which was going to be a challenge, because Butch was a ragged mess. Jesus…if V was dead, not only would that kill each and every one of the Brothers, but the cop had special problems. After he pulled that Dyson routine with the slayers, V was the only thing that could get the evil out of him.
“Go on, Butch. It’s too much exposure for you. Go on now.”
The cop walked off a couple yards and propped himself up against a parked car in the shadows. When it looked like the guy was going to stay there, Phury went over and joined the hangers-on at the edge of the yellow tape. Surveying the scene, the first thing he noticed were the residuals from where a lesser had been offed. Fortunately, the police weren’t paying attention to them. They probably thought the glossy puddle was just oil spilled from a car and the scorched place leftover from a homeless person’s makeshift fire. No, the badges were concentrating on the center of the scene, where Vishous had clearly lain in a pool of red blood.
Oh…God.
Phury glanced at the random human next to him. “What happened?”
The guy shrugged. “Gunshot. Some kind of fight.”
A young kid dressed in rave clothes spoke up, all hyped out, like this was the coolest thing ever. “It was in the chest. I saw it happen, and I was the one who called nine-one-one.” He waved his cell phone like it was a prize. “The police want me to stick around so they can interview me.”
Phury looked over at him. “What went down?”
“God, you wouldn’t have believed it. It was right outta The World’s Most Shocking Moments Caught on Tape show. You know that show?”
“Yeah.” Phury checked out the buildings on either side of the alley. No windows. This was probably the only witness. “So what happened?”
“Well, all’s I was doing was walking down Trade. My friends ditched me at Screamer’s and I got no ride, you know? Anyway, I’m walking and I see this bright flash of light up ahead. It was like a massive strobe thingy coming out of this alley. I walked a little faster, ’cause I wanted to see what was going down, and that’s when I heard the gunshot. It was like a pop sound. Actually, I didn’t even know it was a gunshot until I got here. You’d think it’d be louder—”
“When did you call nine-one-one?”
“Well, I waited a little bit, ’cause I figured someone would come running out of the alley and I didn’t want to be shot. But, like, no one came, so I figured they’d disappeared out some back way or something. Then when I walked down here, I saw that there’s no other way out. So maybe he shot himself, you know?”
“What the guy look like?”
“The vic?” The kid leaned in. “Vic is what the police call the victim. I heard ’em.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” Phury muttered. “So what did he look like?”
“Dark hair. With a goatee. Lot of leather. I stood over him while I called nine-one-one. He was bleeding, but alive.”
“You didn’t see anyone else?”
“Nope. Just the one. So, like, I’m going to get interviewed by the police. Like, for real. Did I tell you that?”
“Yeah, congratulations. You must be thrilled.” Man, Phury totally had to resist popping the kid a fat lip.
“Hey, don’t hate. This is cool stuff.”
“Not for the guy who got sho
t, it isn’t.” Phury looked over the scene again. At least V wasn’t in lesser hands, and he hadn’t been dead at the scene. Chances were the slayer had shot V first, but the brother had still had enough strength to poof the bastard before passing out.
But wait…the shot came after the flash. So a second lesser must have come on the scene.
From the left, Phury heard a well-modulated voice: “This is Bethany Choi of the Channel Six NewsLeader team reporting live from the scene of another downtown shooting. According to police, the victim, Michael Klosnick—”
Michael Klosnick? Whatever, likely V had copped the lesser’s ID and it had been found on him.
“—was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest…”
Okay, this was going to be a long night: Vishous injured. In human hands. And they had only four hours until daylight.
Rapid-evac time.
Phury dialed the compound while he walked back over to Butch. As the cell rang, he talked at the cop. “He’s alive at St. Francis with a gunshot.”
Butch sagged and said something that sounded like, Praise God. “So we’re going to get him out?”
“You got it.” Why wasn’t Wrath picking up? Come on, Wrath…pick up. “Shit…those goddamned surgeons must have gotten the surprise of their human lives when they opened him up—Wrath? We’ve got a situation.”
Vishous came awake in an out-of-it body, becoming fully conscious, though he was trapped in a cage of comatose flesh and bones. Unable to move his arms or legs, and with his eyelids shut so tight it was like he’d been crying rubber cement, it appeared that his hearing was the only thing working: There was a conversation going on above him. Two voices. A female’s and a male’s, neither of which he recognized.
No, wait. He knew one of them. One of them had ordered him around. The female. But why?
And why the hell had he let her?
He listened to her talk without really following the words. Her cadence of speech was like a male’s. Direct. Authoritative. Commanding.
Who was she? Who—
Her identity hit him like a slap, stunning some sense into him. The surgeon. The human surgeon. Jesus Christ, he was in a human hospital. He’d fallen into human hands after…Shit, what had happened?
Panic energized him…and got him exactly nowhere. His body was a slab of meat, and he had a feeling the tube down his throat meant a machine was working his lungs. Clearly they’d sedated the shit out of him.
Oh, God. How close to dawn was it? He needed to get the hell away from here. How was he going to—
His escape planning came to a crashing halt as his instincts fired up, took the wheel, grabbed control.
It wasn’t the fighter in him coming out, though. It was all those possessive male impulses that had always been dormant, the ones he’d read about or heard about or seen in others, but had assumed he’d been born without. The trigger was a scent in the room, the scent of a male who wanted sex…with the female, with V’s surgeon.
Mine.
The word came from out of nowhere and arrived with a matched set of urge-to-kill luggage. He was so outraged his eyes flipped open.
Turning his head, he saw a tall human woman with a short cap of blond hair. She wore rimless glasses, no makeup, no earrings. Her white coat read, JANE WHITCOMB, MD, CHIEF OF TRAUMA DIVISION, in black cursive letters.
“Manny,” she said, “this is crazy.”
V shifted his stare to a dark-haired human male. The guy was also in a white coat, with his reading, MANUEL MANELLO, MD, CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY, at the right of the lapel.
“There’s nothing crazy about it.” The guy’s voice was deep and demanding, his eyes way too fricking fixated on V’s surgeon. “I know what I want. And I want you.”
Mine, V thought. Not yours. MINE.
“I can’t not go down to Columbia tomorrow,” she said. “Even if there were something between us, I’d still have to leave if I want to lead a department.”
“Something between us.” The bastard smiled. “Does that mean you’ll think about it?”
“It?”
“Us.”
V’s upper lip pulled off his fangs. As he started to growl, that one word rolled around his brain, a grenade with the pin out: Mine.
“I don’t know,” V’s surgeon said.
“That’s not a no, is it. Jane? That is not a no.”
“No…it isn’t.”
“Good.” The human male glanced down at V and seemed surprised. “Someone’s awake.”
You’d better fucking believe it, V thought. And if you touch her, I’m going to bite your godforsaken arm off at the socket.
Chapter Nine
Faye Montgomery was a practical woman, which was why she made a great nurse. She’d been born levelheaded, just like she’d come out with dark hair and dark eyes, and she was outstanding in a crisis. With a husband in the Marines and two kids at home and twelve years of working in intensive care units, it took a lot to rattle her.
Sitting behind the SICU’s nursing station, she was rattled now.
Three men the size of SUVs were standing on the other side of the partition. One had long, multicolored hair and a pair of yellow eyes that didn’t seem real, they were so bright. The second was mind-bendingly beautiful and so sexually magnetic, she had to remind herself she was happily married to a man she still had the hots for. The third was hanging back, nothing but a Red Sox cap, a pair of sunglasses, and an air of pure evil that didn’t match his handsome face.
Had one of them asked a question? She thought so.
As none of the other nurses seemed capable of speech, Faye stammered, “I’m sorry? Er…what did you say?”
The one with the fantastic hair—God, was that stuff for real?—smiled a little. “We’re looking for Michael Klosnick, who came up from the ED. Admitting told us he was brought here after he was operated on?”
God…those irises were the color of buttercups in the sunshine, a true, resonating gold. “Are you family?”
“We’re his brothers.”
“Okay, but I’m sorry, he’s just out of the OR and we don’t—” For no good reason, Faye’s brain changed directions, kind of like a toy train that had been picked up off one track and put down on another. She found herself saying, “He’s down the hall, room six. But only one of you can go in and just for a short time. Oh, and you have to wait until his doctor—”
At that moment Dr. Manello came striding up to the desk. He looked over the men and asked, “Everything okay here?”
Faye nodded as her mouth said, “Yes, just fine.”
Dr. Manello frowned as he met the men stare for stare. Then he winced and rubbed his temples like he had a headache. “I’ll be in my office if you need me, Faye.”
“Okay, Dr. Manello.” She glanced back at the men. What had she been saying? Oh, right. “You’ll have to wait until his surgeon leaves, though, okay?”
“He’s in there now?”
“She’s in there now, yes.”
“All right, thank you.”
Those yellow eyes bored into Faye’s…and suddenly she couldn’t remember if there was a patient in six after all. Was there? Wait…
“Tell me,” the man said, “what is your user name and password?”
“Excuse…me?”
“For the computer.”
Why would he—Of course, he needed the information. Absolutely. And she needed to give it to him. “FMONT2 in caps is the login, and the password is 11Eddie11. E in uppercase.”
“Thank you.”
She was about to say, You’re welcome, when the thought popped into her head that it was time for a staff meeting. Except why would that be? They’d already had one at the beginning of the—
No, it was definitely time for a staff meeting. They urgently needed to have a staff meeting. Right now—
Faye blinked and realized she was staring into space over the nursing station’s counter. Weird, she could ha
ve sworn she’d just been talking to someone. Someone male and—
Staff meeting. Now.
Faye massaged her temples, feeling like she had a vise clamped onto her forehead. She didn’t usually get headaches, but it had been a hectic day, and she’d had a lot of caffeine and not much food.
She glanced over her shoulder at the other three nurses, all of whom were looking a little confused. “Let’s head into the conference room, guys. We have to do a patient review.”
One of Faye’s colleagues frowned. “Didn’t we already do that tonight?”
“We need to do it again.”
Everyone got up and went into the conference room. Faye kept the double doors open and sat at the head of the table so she could watch over the hall outside as well as the monitor that showed the status of every patient on the floor—
Faye stiffened in her chair. What the hell? There was a man with multicolored hair behind the nurses’ station, leaning over a keyboard.
Faye started to get up, ready to call security, but then the guy looked over his shoulder. As his yellow eyes met hers, she suddenly forgot why it would be wrong for him to be at one of their computers. She also realized that she needed to talk about the patient in five right away.
“Let’s review the status of Mr. Hauser,” she said in a voice that got everyone’s attention.
After Manello left, Jane stared down at her patient in disbelief. In spite of all the sedatives in his veins, his eyes were open and he was staring up out of his hard, tattooed face with full cognition.
God…those eyes. They were unlike any she’d seen before, the irises unnaturally white with navy blue rims.
This was not right, she thought. The way he looked at her wasn’t right. That six-chambered heart beating in his chest wasn’t right. Those long teeth in the front of his mouth weren’t right.
He was not human.
Except that was ridiculous. First rule of medicine? When you hear hoofbeats, don’t think zebras. What were the chances that there was an undetected humanoid species out there? A yellow Lab to Homo sapiens’ golden retriever?