The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8

by J. R. Ward

  John jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder.

  “Easy, son,” Wrath said. “Jesus Christ—”

  “Actually it’s Lassiter,” the man said, “in case you forgot.”

  “Whatever. So what’s the price?” the king asked, reaching out to take Tohr.

  “I like how you assume there is one.”

  John wanted to be the person who took Tohrment back to the car, but his knees were knocking so badly he probably needed to be carried too.

  “Isn’t there a price?” As Wrath accepted his brother’s body, the king shook his head. “Shit, he doesn’t weigh a thing.”

  “He’s been living off deer.”

  “How long have you known about him?”

  “Found him two days ago.”

  “Price,” Wrath said, still looking at his brother.

  “Well, here’s the thing.” As the king cursed, the man, Lassiter, laughed. “It’s not a price, though.”

  “What. Is. It.”

  “We’re a two-for-one deal.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I come with him.”

  “The fuck you do.”

  The man lost any levity in his voice. “It’s part of the arrangement, and believe me, I wouldn’t choose this either. Fact is, he’s my last chance, so yeah, I’m sorry, but I go with him. And if you say no, by the way, I’m going to level us all like that.”

  The man snapped his fingers, a brilliant white spark flaring against the night sky.

  After a moment, Wrath turned to John. “This is Lassiter, the fallen angel. One of the last times he was on earth, there was a plague in central Europe—”

  “Okay, that was so not my fault—”

  “—that wiped out two-thirds of the human population.”

  “I’d like to remind you that you don’t like humans.”

  “They smell bad when they’re dead.”

  “All you mortal types do.”

  John could barely follow the conversation; he was too busy staring into Tohr’s face. Open your eyes . . . open your eyes . . . please God . . .

  “Come on, John.” Wrath turned back to the Brotherhood and started walking. When he came up to them, he said softly, “Our brother is returned.”

  “Oh, Christ, is he alive,” someone said.

  “Thank God,” someone else groaned.

  “Tell them,” Lassiter demanded from behind. “Tell them he comes with a roommate.”

  As one, the Brothers’ heads snapped up.

  “Fuck. Me,” Vishous breathed.

  “I will so pass on that,” Lassiter muttered.

  Chapter Fifty

  Phury walked through the glowing white expanse of the Sanctuary, going over to the Scribe Virgin’s private entry. He knocked once and he waited, willing a request for an audience.

  When the doors opened, he expected the Directrix Amalya to be the one who greeted him, but there was nobody on the other side. The Scribe Virgin’s white courtyard was empty save for the birds in their white-blossomed tree.

  The finches and canaries were out of place, and all the more lovely for it. Their colors were bright against their background of white branches and leaves, and hearing their calls, he thought of the number of times Vishous had come over here with one of the fragile things cupped in his palms.

  After the Scribe Virgin had given them up for her son, the son had returned them to her.

  Phury went over to the fountain and listened to the water fall into its marble basin. He knew when the Scribe Virgin appeared behind him, because the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  “I thought you were going to step down,” she said to him. “I saw the path of the Primale unfolding for another’s footfalls. You were supposed to just be the transition.”

  He looked over his shoulder. “I thought I was going to step down as well. But, no.”

  Odd, he thought. Beneath the black robes that shielded her face and hands and feet, the glow of her seemed dimmer than he remembered.

  She drifted over to her birds. “I would have you greet me properly, Primale.”

  He bent down low and said the proper words in the Old Language. Also paid her the service of staying in a bow, waiting for her to release him from the supplication.

  “Ah, but that is the thing,” she murmured. “You have already released yourself. And now you want the same for my Chosen.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “You need not explain your reasoning. Think you I know not what is in your head? Even your wizard, as you call him, is known unto me.”

  Okay, that made him uncomfortable.

  “Rise, Phury, son of Ahgony.” When he did, she said, “We are all products of our upbringings, Primale. The constructions that result from our choices are laid upon the foundation set by our parents and their parents before them. We are but the next level in the house or paver in the path.”

  Phury shook his head slowly. “We can choose a different direction. We can move ourselves along a different heading of the compass.”

  “Of that I am not sure.”

  “Of that I must be sure . . . or I’m not going to make anything of this life you’ve given me.”

  “Indeed.” Her head turned toward her private quarters. “Indeed, Primale.”

  In the silence that stretched, she seemed saddened, which surprised him. He’d been prepared for a fight. Hell, it was hard not to think of the Scribe Virgin as anything other than an eighteen-wheeler in black robes.

  “Tell me, Primale, how do you intend to handle this all?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But those who feel more comfortable here can stay. And those who want to venture forth to the far side will find a safe haven with me there.”

  “You are abandoning this side for good?”

  “There is something I need on the far side, something I have to have. But I will be back and forth. It’s going to take decades, maybe longer, to change everything. Cormia is going to help.”

  “And you shall take only her, as a male does?”

  “Yes. If the others find mates of their choosing, then I will accept all their female offspring into the traditions of the Chosen and urge Wrath to take their males into the Brotherhood, whether they are born here or on the far side. But I will have only Cormia.”

  “What of the purity of the blood? The strength that comes of it? Are there to be no standards? The breeding was deliberate, to beget strength from strength. What if a Chosen chooses one not of a Brotherhood line?”

  He thought of Qhuinn and Blay. Strong boys who would be stronger males over time. Why shouldn’t they be in the Brotherhood?

  “It would be up to Wrath. But I would encourage him to accept the worthy regardless of lineage. Courage of heart can make a male taller and stronger than he is physically. Look, the race is failing, and you know it. We’re losing ground with every generation, and not just because of the war. The Lessening Society isn’t the only thing killing us. The traditions are, too.”

  The Scribe Virgin drifted over to the fountain.

  There was a long, long, long silence.

  “I feel as though I have lost,” she said softly. “All of you.”

  “You haven’t. Not at all. Be a mother to the race, not a warden, and you will win everything you want. Set us free and watch us thrive.”

  The sound of the chiming fountain seemed to swell, growing louder, as if catching the drift of her emotions.

  Phury looked at the falling water, seeing it catch the light and twinkle like stars. The rainbows in each of the droplets were impossibly beautiful, and as he watched the flashing gems in every fragment of the whole that fell back down, he thought of the Chosen and whatever individual gifts they possessed.

  He thought of his Brothers.

  He thought of their shellans.

  He thought of his beloved.

  And he knew the whys of her silence. “You won’t lose us. We will never leave you behind and forget you. How could we? You birthed us and squired us and strengthened us. But now
. . . now is our time. Let us go and we will be closer to you than ever before. Let us take the future into our hands and shape it as best we can. Have faith in your creation.”

  In a rough voice, she said, “Have you the strength for this, Primale? Can you lead the Chosen even after all you have been through? Your life has not been easy, and the road you are contemplating is neither level nor well of surface.”

  As Phury stood on his one leg and his prosthesis, and thought about the days of his existence, and weighed the mettle of his marrow, he came up with only one reply.

  “I’m here, aren’t I,” he pronounced. “I’m still standing, aren’t I. You tell me whether I have the fucking strength or not.”

  She smiled a little then—though he couldn’t see her face, he knew she smiled.

  The Scribe Virgin nodded once. “So be it, then, Primale. So it shall be as you wish.”

  She turned and disappeared into her private quarters.

  Phury exhaled as though someone had pulled a stopper out of his ass.

  Holy. Shit.

  He’d just blown apart the whole spiritual fabric of the race. As well as its biological one.

  Man, if he’d known where the night was going to lead, he’d have had a bowl of Wheaties before getting off that bedding platform.

  He turned and headed back to the Sanctuary. First stop would be Cormia; then the two of them would go to the Directrix and—

  He froze as he threw open the door.

  The grass was green.

  The grass was green and the sky was blue . . .and the daffodils were yellow and the roses were a Crayola rainbow of colors . . . and the buildings were red and cream and dark blue. . . .

  Down below, the Chosen were spilling out of their living quarters, holding their now colorful robes and looking around in excitement and wonder.

  Cormia emerged from the Primale temple, her lovely face stunned as she looked around. When she saw him, her hands clamped to her mouth and her eyes started to blink fast.

  With a cry, she gathered her gorgeous pale lavender robe and ran toward him, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  He caught her as she leaped up to him and held her warm body to his.

  “I love you,” she choked out. “I love you, I love you . . . I love you.”

  In that moment, with the world that was his in transformation, and his shellan safely in his arms, he felt something he never would have imagined.

  He finally felt like the hero he had always wanted to be.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Back on the far side, in the Brotherhood’s mansion, John Matthew sat in a stuffed chair across from the bed where Tohr lay sleeping. The Brother hadn’t moved since they’d gotten home hours and hours ago.

  Which seemed to be the SOP for tonight. It was like everyone in the house was asleep, a collective, pervasive exhaustion overwhelming them all.

  Well, everyone except John. And the angel who was pacing in the guest room next door.

  Tohr was on both their minds.

  God, John had never expected to feel bigger than the Brother. He’d never expected to be physically stronger. He’d certainly never thought about taking care of the male. Or being responsible for him.

  He had all of that going on and more, now, because Tohr had lost sixty pounds, easy. And had the face and body of a male who’d gone to war and been mortally injured.

  It was weird, John thought. At first, he’d wanted the Brother to wake up right away, but now he was scared to see those eyes open. He didn’t know if he could handle being shut out. Sure, it would be understandable, given all that Tohr had lost, but . . . it would kill him.

  Besides, as long as Tohr was still asleep, John wasn’t going to break down and sob.

  See, there was a ghost in the room. A beautiful, red-haired ghost with a rounded pregnant belly: Wellsie was with them. In spite of her death, she was with them, and so was her unborn child. And Tohr’s shellan was never going to be far. There was no looking at Tohr without seeing her. The two had been inseparable in life, and they were in death as well. Sure as shit, Tohr might have been breathing, but he wasn’t alive anymore.

  “Is that you?”

  John’s eyes shot to the bed.

  Tohr was awake and looking across the dim stretch that separated them.

  John slowly stood up and straightened his T-shirt and jeans. It’s John. John Matthew.

  Tohr didn’t say anything, just kept looking him up and down.

  I went through the transition, John signed like a fool.

  “You’re D’s size. Big.”

  God, that voice was exactly like he remembered it. Deep as the bass note of a church organ and just as commanding. There was a difference, though. There was a new hollowness in the words.

  Or maybe that was coming from the blank space behind those blue eyes.

  I had to get new clothes. Jesus Christ, he was an idiot. Are you . . . are you hungry? I got roast beef sandwiches. And Pepperidge Farm Milanos. You used to like—

  “I’m good.”

  Can I get you something to drink? I got a thermos of coffee.

  “Nah.” Tohr glanced over at the bathroom. “Shit, indoor plumbing. Been a while. And no, I don’t need help.”

  It was painful to watch—something out of a future John didn’t think would come for hundreds and hundreds of years: Tohrment as an old male.

  The Brother put a shaking hand on the edge of the sheets and dragged them off his naked body inch by inch. He paused. Then slid his legs out so they dangled to the floor. There was another pause before he heaved himself up, his once-wide shoulders straining to bear weight that was little more than that of a skeleton.

  He didn’t walk. He shuffled like the advanced elderly did, head down, spine curving toward the floor, hands up as if he expected to fall at any moment.

  The doors shut. The toilet flushed with a gurgle. The shower came on.

  John went back to the chair he’d been in, his gut empty, and not just because he hadn’t eaten since the night before. Worry was all he knew. Concern the breath he drew into his chest. Anxiety the very beat of his heart.

  This was the flip side of the parent/child relationship. Where the son worried about the father.

  Assuming he and Tohr still had that whole connection going on.

  He wasn’t sure. The Brother had stared at him like he was a stranger.

  John’s foot ticked off the seconds, and he rubbed his palms on his thighs. Strange, everything else that had happened, even the stuff with Lash, seemed unreal and unimportant. There was only the now with Tohr.

  When the door opened nearly an hour later, he went still.

  Tohr was wearing a robe, and his hair was mostly detangled, though the beard was still ragged.

  In that loose, unreliable shuffle, the Brother went back to the bed and stretched out with a groan, settling awkwardly into the pillows.

  Is there anything I can—

  “This is not where I wanted to end up, John. I’m not going to front. This is not . . . where I want to be.”

  Okay, John signed. Okay.

  As silence stretched, in his mind, he had the conversation he wanted to have with Tohr: Qhuinn and Blay ended up here, and Qhuinn’s parents are dead, and Lash is . . . I don’t know what to say about him. . . . There’s a female I like, but she’s out of my league, and I’m in the war and I missed you and I want you to be proud of me and I’m scared and I miss Wellsie and are you all right?

  And most important . . . Please say you’re not leaving again. Ever. I need you.

  Instead, he rose to his feet and signed, I guess I’ll leave you to rest. If you need anything—

  “I’m tight.”

  Okay. Yeah. Okay . . .

  John pulled at the hem of his T-shirt and turned away. As he walked to the door, he couldn’t breathe.

  Oh, please let him not run into anyone on the way to his room—

  “John.”

  He stopped. Pivoted back around.

>   As he met Tohr’s weary navy blue stare, John felt like his knees were having an out-of-socket experience.

  Tohr closed his eyes and opened his arms.

  John ran to the bed and grabbed on to his father for everything he was worth. He buried his face in what was once a broad chest and listened to the heart that still beat inside of it. Of the two of them he held on harder, not because Tohr didn’t care, but because he hadn’t the strength.

  They both cried until there was no more breath with which to wail.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Triggers didn’t have to be on guns to be trouble, Phury thought as he stared at ZeroSum’s glass-and-steel facade.

  Shit, detox was about the body banging through a shift in chemistry. It didn’t do jack dick for the cravings that were in your head. And, sure the wizard was smaller than him, but the bastard still hadn’t left. And Phury had the sense it was going to be a long while before the voice did.

  With a kick to his own ass, he walked up to the bouncer, who gave him an odd look, but let him in. Inside, he didn’t pay any attention to the crowd, which as usual parted to make way for him. He didn’t nod at the bouncer standing at the velvet rope in front of the VIP section. He didn’t say anything to iAm, who let him into Rehv’s office.

  “To what do I owe this pleasure,” Rehvenge said from behind his desk.

  Phury stared at his dealer.

  Rehv was wearing a standard-issue black suit about which there was nothing standard. The fit was gorgeous, even though the male was sitting down, and the fabric gleamed under the low lights, a clear indication that there was a bit of silk in the weave. The lapels lay perfectly flat on a powerful chest, and the sleeves showed precisely the right amount of shirt cuff.

  Rehv frowned. “I can feel your emotions from here. You’ve done something.”