by J. R. Ward
Lash looked up at the Tudor and figured that it would do. “I’ll see you at the farmhouse. And then I want you to take me to that cabin where all the records are.”
“Yes, suh.” Mr. D touched the brim of his cowboy hat and slid behind the wheel.
As the Focus wheezed its way back down the drive, Lash went inside through the kitchen. The house smelled really bad, the fruity-nauseating stench of death and decay nearly a solid, it was so strong.
He had done this, he thought. He was responsible for what was stinking up the fine house.
He took out his phone to call Mr. D back, but then hesitated, focusing on his ring. The gold was burning to such a degree, he was surprised it didn’t take his finger off.
His sire. His sire.
The dead people here were not his.
He had done the right thing.
Lash walked through the butler’s door and into the dining room. With his ring glowing, he stared at the people he’d thought were his parents. The truth was in the lies, was it not. All through his life, he’d had to cover up his real nature, camouflage the evil in him. Minor flashes of his true self had come out, sure, but the core that was his engine had been kept hidden.
Now he was free.
Staring at the murdered male and female before him, he abruptly felt nothing. It was as if he were looking at ghoulish posters hanging off a cinema lobby wall, and his mind accorded them with appropriate weight.
Which was no weight at all.
He touched the dog chain at his neck and felt stupid for the silly feelings that had made him take it. He was tempted to whip it off, but no. . . .The animal it reminded him of had been strong and cruel and powerful.
So it was as a symbol, not from sentiment, that he left it around his neck.
Man, the dead smelled bad.
Lash walked into the foyer and figured the marble floor was as good a place as any to see his true father. Copping a seat, he pulled his legs into himself and felt like an idiot just sitting there. Closing his eyes, he couldn’t wait to get this over with and cop the keys to the—
A humming started to displace the silence in the house, the sound emanating from no particular direction.
Lash flipped his eyes open. Was his father coming here? Or taking him somewhere else?
From out of nowhere, a current began to swirl about him, warping his vision. Or perhaps it warped what was around him. In the middle of the maelstrom, though, he was rock steady, struck by an odd confidence. The father would never harm the son. Evil was as evil did, but the blood tie between him and his sire meant he was the Omega.
And, if for self-interest only, the Omega wouldn’t hurt itself.
Just as Lash was about to be carried away, when the rush had nearly consumed his corporeal form, he looked up.
John Matthew was on the stairs before him.
Chapter Forty-seven
"My sister,” came the hiss from the other side of the temple’s door. "My sister.”
Cormia looked up from the parchment on which she had been recording the scenes she’d watched of the Primale saving those civilians. “Layla?”
“The Primale is ill. He is calling for you.”
Cormia let the quill fall from her hands and flew to the door. Sweeping it open, she stared at her sister’s pale, frantic face. “Ill?”
“He is abed, shivering in coldness. Verily, he is unwell. He wouldn’t let me help him for the longest time, I dragged him from the vestibule when he lost consciousness.”
Cormia put the hood of her robe up. “Are the others—”
“Our sisters are at meal. They are all at the meal. There is no one who will see you.”
Cormia hurried out of the sequestered temple, but was blinded by the brilliant light of the Sanctuary. She took Layla’s hand until her eyes adjusted, and the two of them raced for the Primale’s temple.
Cormia slipped in through the golden door and swept aside the drapery.
The Primale was lying on the bed with nothing but the silken bottoms of his Sanctuary dress on him. His skin had an unhealthy glow to it and a sheen of sweat. Racked with the shakes, his big body seemed horridly frail.
“Cormia?” he said, reaching out with a palsied hand.
She went over to him, shucking her hood. “I’m here.” He strained at the sound of her voice, but then she touched his fingertips and he calmed.
Good God, he was on fire.
“What’s wrong?” she said, sitting by him.
“I th-th-th-think th-this is d-detox.”
“Detox?”
“N-n-no . . . d-drugs . . . n-n-nnno mo-mo . . . d-d-d-drugsss . . .”
She could barely make out what he was saying, but knew on some level the last thing she should do was offer to get him any of the hand-rolled he’d always smoked.
“Is there anything I can do to ease you?” When he began to lick his dry lips, she said, “Would you like some water?”
“I shall get it,” Layla said, heading for the bath.
“Thank you, my sister.” Cormia looked over her shoulder. “Bring cloths as well?”
“Yes.”
As Layla disappeared behind a curtain across the way, Phury closed his eyes and started turning his head back and forth on the pillow, his speech abruptly evening out. “The garden . . . the garden is full of weeds . . .oh, God, the ivy . . . it’s everywhere . . . the statues are covered in it.”
When Layla returned with a pitcher and a bowl and some white cloths, Cormia said to her, “Thank you. Now please leave us, my sister.”
She had a feeling things were going to get much worse, and that Phury wouldn’t want to be seen by others in his delusional state.
Layla bowed. “What shall I speak unto the Chosen when I appear at the meal?”
“Tell them that he is resting after your mating, and that he has requested time to himself. I shall care for him.”
“When shall I return?”
“Does the sleep cycle begin soon?”
“Following Thideh prayers.”
“Right. Come back after all are settled. If this persists . . . I’ll need to go over to the far side and fetch Doc Jane, and you’ll have to stay with him.”
“Fetch who?”
“A healer. Go. Now. Extol the virtues of his body and your station. Be loud about it.” Cormia smoothed Phury’s hair back. “The louder you are, the better for him.”
“As you wish. And I shall return.”
Cormia waited until her sister left, then tried to give him something to drink. He was too out of it to take water, though, unable to focus on what she held to his lips. Giving up, she wetted a cloth and pressed it to his face.
Phury’s feverish eyes flipped open and clung to her while she blotted his forehead. “The garden . . . is full of weeds,” he said urgently. “Full of weeds.”
“Shhh . . .” She dipped the cloth in the bowl again, getting it cool for him. “It’s all right.”
On a desperate breath, he moaned, “No, it’s covered them all up. The statues . . . they’re gone . . . I’m gone.”
The terror in that yellow stare made her blood run cold. He was hallucinating, clearly out of his mind, but whatever he was seeing was very real to him—he was getting more agitated by the second, his body twisting and turning in the white sheets.
“The ivy . . . oh, God, the ivy is coming for me . . . it’s all over my skin—”
“Shh . . .” Maybe she couldn’t handle this on her own. Maybe . . . Except if his mind was the problem, then— “Phury, listen to me.If there is ivy overgrowing things, then we shall clean it up.”
His thrashing slowed, his eyes focusing a little. “We . . . will?”
She thought of the landscapers she’d watched on the far side. “Yes. We are going to get rid of it.”
“No . . . we can’t. It will win. . . . It will—”
She leaned down, getting right in his face. “Says. Who.” Her forceful voice seemed to get his attention. “Now tell me, where sh
ould we start cutting it back?”
When he began to shake his head, she clamped her hand on his jaw. “Where do we start.”
He blinked at her command. "Ah . . . it’s worst at the statues of the four stages . . .”
“Okay. Then we go there first.” She tried to picture the four stages . . . infancy, youth, middle age, and the eve of passing. “We will start with the infant. And what tools shall we use?”
The Primale closed his eyes. “The shears. We will use the shears.”
“And what shall we do with the shears.”
“The ivy . . . the ivy is growing all over the statues. You can’t . . . see the faces any longer. It . . . chokes the statues. They are not free . . .they can’t see. . . .” The Primale started to weep. “Oh, God. I can’t see anymore. I’ve never been able to see . . . past the weeds of that garden.”
“Stay with me. Listen to me—we’re going to change that. Together we’re going to change that.” Cormia took his hand and pressed it to her lips. “We have shears. Together, we’re going to cut free the ivy. And we’re going to begin with the statue of the young.” She was encouraged, as Phury took a deep breath, as if he were approaching a big job. “I’m going to peel the ivy from the face of the young and you are going to cut it. Can you see me?”
“Yes . . .”
“Can you see you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now I want you to cut the piece of ivy I’m holding. Do it. Now.”
“Yes . . . I will . . . yes, I am.”
“And you place what you’ve cut on the ground at our feet.” She brushed his hair back from his face. “And now you cut again . . . and again. . . .”
“Yes.”
“And again.”
“Yes.”
“Now . . . can you see some of the statue’s face?”
“Yes . . . yes, I can see the young’s face. . . .” A tear ran down his cheek. “I can see it. . . . I can see . . . me in it.”
In Lash’s house on the far side, John stopped on the stairs and thought maybe the creep factor in the Tudor had shorted his brain out.
Because that couldn’t possibly be Lash down below, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the foyer, a warping blur swirling around him.
While John’s brain tried to tease out what was reality and what couldn’t possibly be real, he noticed that the sweet smell of baby powder permeated the air, nearly turning the shit pink. God, it didn’t eclipse the nauseous bouquet of death—it enhanced that godawful rotting stench. The reason the scent had always made him sick was because it was just like the bouquet of death.
At that moment, Lash looked up. He seemed as shocked as John was, but then he gradually smiled.
From out of the malestrom, the guy’s voice drifted up the stairs, seeming to come from a distance greater than the number of yards between them.
“Well, hello, John-boy.” The laugh was familiar and bizarre at the same time, echoing strangely.
John palmed his gun, steadying it with both hands as he trained it on whatever was down there.
“I’ll see you soon,” Lash said as he went two-dimensional, becoming an image of himself. “And I’ll give your regards to my father.”
His form blinked on and off and then disappeared, swallowed up by the warping rush.
John lowered his weapon, then holstered it. Which was what you did when there was nothing around to shoot.
“John?” The beat of Qhuinn’s boots came from behind him on the stairwell. “What the hell are you doing?”
I don’t know. . . . I thought I saw . . .
“Who?”
Lash. I saw him right down there. I . . . well, I thought I saw him.
“Stay here.” Qhuinn took his gun out and hit the stairs, doing a sweep of the first floor.
John slowly went down to the foyer. He’d seen Lash. Hadn’t he?
Qhuinn came back. “Everything’s tight. Look, let’s go back home. You don’t seem right. Did you eat tonight? And while we’re at it, when was the last time you slept?”
I . . . I don’t know.
“Right. We’re leaving.”
I could have sworn . . .
“Now.”
As they dematerialized back to the mansion’s courtyard, John thought maybe his buddy was right. Maybe he should grab some food and—
They didn’t make it into the house. Just as they arrived, the Brotherhood filed out of the grand double doors one by one. Collectively, they were wearing enough weapons to qualify as a full-on militia.
Wrath pegged him and Qhuinn with a hard stare through his wraparounds. “You two. In the Escalade with Rhage and Blay. Unless you need more ammo?”
When they both shook their heads, the king dematerialized along with Vishous, Butch, and Zsadist.
When they got into the SUV, with Blay riding shotgun, John signed, What’s going on?
Rhage stomped on the gas. As the Escalade roared and they shot out of the courtyard, the Brother said dryly, “Visit from an old frenemy. The kind you wish you never saw again.”
Well, wasn’t that the theme for the evening.
Chapter Forty-eight
THE DREAM ... hallucination ... the whatever-it-was felt real. Totally and completely real.
Standing in the overgrown garden of his family’s house in the Old Country, beneath a brilliant full moon, Phury reached up to the face of the third-stage statue and pulled the ivy vines free of the eyes and nose and mouth of the male who so proudly bore his own young in his arms.
By now, Phury was an old pro at the cutting, and after he’d worked the shears’ magic, he tossed another green tangle to the tarp that lay on the ground at his feet.
“There he is,” he whispered. “There . . . he is. . . .”
The statue had long hair just like him, and deep-set eyes just like him, but the radiant happiness on its face was not his. Nor was the young cradled in his arms. Still, there was liberation to be had as Phury continued to strip off the ivy’s messy layers of overgrowth.
When he was finished, the marble underneath was streaked with the green tears of the weeds’ demise, but the majesty of the form was undeniable.
A male in his prime with his young in his arms.
Phury looked over his shoulder. “What do you think?”
Cormia’s voice was all around him, in stereo, even though she stood right next to him. “I think he is beautiful.”
Phury smiled at her, seeing in her face all the love he had for her in his heart. “One more.”
She swept her hand around. “But look, the last one’s already done.”
And so the final statue was; its weeds gone, along with any stains of neglect. The male was old now, seated with a staff in his hands. His face was still handsome, though it was wisdom, not the bloom of youth, that made it so. Standing behind him, tall and strong, was the young he had once cradled in his arms.
The cycle was complete.
And the weeds were no more.
Phury glanced back at the third stage. It too was magically clean, and so were the youth and the infant statues as well.
In fact, the entire garden had been righted and now rested beneath the warm, dulcet night in full, healthy bloom. The fruit trees beside the statues were heavy with pears and apples, and the walkways were bordered with neat boxwood hedges. Inside the beds, the flowers thrived in graceful disorder, as all fine English gardens did.
He turned to the house. The shutters that had hung cockeyed from their hinges were righted, and the holes in the tile roof were no more. The stucco was smooth, its cracks having disappeared, and every glass pane was intact. The terrace was free of leaf debris, and the sinking spots that had gathered rain were level again. Potted arrangements of thriving geraniums and petunias sprinkled white and red among woven wicker chairs and tables.
Through the living room window, he saw something move—could it be? Yes, it was.
His mother. His father.
The pair came into view, and they were as
the statues had become: resurrected. His mother with her yellow eyes and her blond hair and her perfect face . . . His father with his dark hair and his clear stare and his kind smile.
They were . . . impossibly beautiful to him, his holy grail.
“Go to them,” Cormia said.
Phury walked up onto the terrace, his white robing clean in spite of all the work he had done. He approached his parents slowly, afraid of displacing the vision.
“Mahmen?” he murmured.
His mother put her fingertips to her side of the glass.
Phury reached out and mirrored the exact position of her hand. As his palm hit the pane, he felt the warmth of her radiating through the window.
His father smiled and mouthed something.
“What?” Phury asked.
We are so proud of you . . . son.
Phury squeezed his eyes shut. It was the first time he’d ever been called that by either of them.
His father’s voice continued. You can go now. We’re fine here now. You’ve fixed . . . everything.
Phury looked at them. “Are you sure?”
Both of them nodded. And then his mother’s voice came through the clean glass.
Go and live now, son. Go . . . live your life, not ours. We are well here.
Phury stopped breathing and just stared at them both, drinking in what they looked like. Then he placed his hand over his heart and bent at the waist.
It was a farewell. Not a good-bye, but a fare . . . well. And he had the sense they would.
Phury’s eyes flipped open. Looming over him was a dense cloud cover . . . no, wait, that was a lofty ceiling made of white marble.
He turned his head. Cormia was seated beside him and holding his hand, her face as warm as the feeling in his chest.
“Would you like something to drink?” she said.
“Wh. . . at?”
She reached over and lifted a glass off the table. “Would you like a drink?”
“Yes, please.”
“Lift your head up for me.”
He took a test sip and found the water all but ephemeral. It tasted like nothing and was the exact temperature of his mouth, but swallowing it felt good, and before he knew it he’d polished off the glass.