by J. R. Ward
It was a little after nine o’clock when he pulled into an alley and parked next to a silver van. As he got out, he thanked God for the blow—he actually felt like he had some energy. Trouble was, if his Extreme Makeover didn’t finish up fast, he was going to go through that stash in the trunk in a matter of days.
Which was why he’d called for this meeting now instead of waiting any longer.
And what do you know, Ricardo Benloise was on time and already in his office: The maroon AMG he was squired around in was docked on the far side of the GMC van.
Lash approached the back door of the art gallery, and waited by the video camera. Yeah, he’d have preferred to chill on this face-to-face for a couple of days, but his own needs notwithstanding, he had sellers curing in his bathroom and he needed product for them to hit the streets with.
Then he had to turn some soldiers.
After all, the little Shit hadn’t wasted any time filling his ranks—although there was no way of telling how many were left after the Brotherhood’s raid at the farmhouse.
Never thought he’d be glad those motherfuckers were lethal at their jobs. Go. Fig.
Lash had to assume that the Omega’s boy toy was going to quickly cook up another batch of inductees. And given that the kid had been a successful dealer, he was going to resume making paper as soon as he could. Both of which would give him the resources not only to fight the vampires, but come after Lash.
So it was a case of the clock ticking. Lash was damn confident that the Shit couldn’t get a meeting with Benloise right now because he was small potatoes—but how much longer would that be true? Sales mattered. Smarts mattered. If Lash could get a foot in the door, someone else could.
Especially if they had the special talents of a Fore-lesser.
With a click, the door locks were sprung and one of Benloise’s enforcers opened up. The guy frowned at Lash’s Lady Gaga rig, but got back in the game quick. No doubt he’d seen a lot of crazy shit—and not just on the drug-trade side of things: artists were no doubt wacky nut jobs for the most part.
“Where’s your ID,” the guy said.
Lash flashed his fake driver’s license. “About to be up your ass, motherfucker.”
Clearly, the combination of the laminated card and Lash’s familiar voice was enough because a moment later, he was allowed in.
Benloise’s office was on the third floor in the front, and the trip up there was silent. The guy’s private space was bowling-alley uncluttered, nothing but a long expanse of black varnished floorboards that culminated in a raised platform—which was the desk equivalent of a set of lifts for shoes. Benloise was parked on the dais, seated behind a teak table that was the size of a Lincoln Town Car.
Like a lot of guys who had to stand tall to hit five-six on a tape measure, everything the short man did was big.
As Lash came forward, the South American stared out over his steepled fingers and spoke in his smooth, cultured way. “I was so pleased to receive your call after you failed to make our last meeting. Wherever have you been, my friend.”
“Family problems.”
Benloise frowned. “Yes, blood can be trouble.”
“You have no idea.” Lash looked around at all of the absolutely nothing, locating the hidden cameras and doors—which were in the same positions they’d been in the last time. “First off, let me assure you that our business relationship remains my top priority.”
“I am very pleased to know this. When you didn’t arrive to buy the pieces you were contracted for, I wondered. As an art dealer, I depend on my regular customers to keep my artists busy. I also expect my regulars to fulfill their obligations.”
“Understood. Which is the real reason I’ve come. I need an advance. I have an empty wall in my house that has to be filled with one of your paintings, but I won’t be able to pay with cash today.”
Benloise smiled, showing orderly little teeth. “I’m afraid I don’t make those arrangements. You must pay for the art you leave with. And why ever is your face covered up?”
Lash ignored the question. “You’re going to make an exception in my case.”
“I don’t make exceptions—”
Lash dematerialized across the space, taking form behind the guy and putting a knife to his throat. With a shout, the guard over by the door went for his heat, but there wasn’t a lot to shoot at when your boss’s jugular was on the verge of springing a leak.
Lash hissed in Benloise’s ear, “I’ve had a really bad fucking week and I’m tired of playing by human rules. It is my full intention to continue our relationship, and you are going to make that possible not only because it benefits us both, but because I’m going to take it personally if you don’t. Know this, you cannot hide from me and there is nowhere you can go that I can’t find you. There is no door strong enough to keep me out, no man I can’t overpower, no weapon you can use against me. My terms are this—one major piece to fill up my wall, and I will take it with me right now.”
When he discovered who Benloise’s overseas contacts were, he might just off the bastard—but that would be jumping the gun. The South American was the pipeline for product into Caldwell, and that was the only reason the son of a bitch had a good shot at having lunch later today.
As opposed to a date with an embalmer.
Benloise dragged in a breath. “Enzo, the new Joshua Tree pastels are due to arrive early this evening. When they do, you will pack up one of them and—”
“I want it now.”
“You will have to wait. I cannot give you that which I don’t possess. Kill me at this moment and you shall have none of it.”
Fucker. Motherfucker.
Lash thought back to how much was left in the trunk of the Mercedes—and considered the fact that even now, the coke buzz was draining from him, leaving a whole lot of snooze in its wake. “When. Where.”
“Same time and place as always.”
“Fine. But I’ll be taking a taste with me now.” He dug the knife into that neck. “And don’t tell me that you’re totally dry. That’s going to make me cranky . . . and twitchy. Twitchy is bad for you—FYI.”
After a moment, the guy murmured, “Enzo, go get him a sample of the artist’s new work, will you.”
The meat across the way seemed to be having trouble processing everything, but then seeing someone disappear into thin air was no doubt a new one for him.
“Enzo. Go now.”
Lash smiled underneath his mummy wraps. “Yeah, beat some feet there, Enzo. I’ll take excellent care of your boss until you come back.”
The bodyguard backed out and then there was the retreating sound of his boots clapping down the stairwell.
“And so you are the worthy successor to the Reverend,” Benloise said with a strain.
Ah, Rehvenge’s former nomenclature in the human world. “Yeah, I’m right up his alley.”
“There was always something different about him.”
“You think that shit was special?” Lash whispered. “Wait’ll you get a load of me.”
Back at the Brotherhood mansion, Qhuinn was sitting up in his bed, leaning against the headboard. He had the cable remote balanced on one thigh, yet another short-and-squat full of Herradura on the other side, and next to him, hanging tight?
Good ol’ Captain Insomnia.
In front of him, the television glowed in the darkness, the morning news droning on. Turned out the police had found the homophobe Qhuinn had worked over in the alley next to the cigar bar and taken him to St. Francis Hospital. Guy was refusing to identify his attacker or comment on what had happened, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he opened his piehole. There were hundreds of pierced, leather-wearing, tatted up sons of bitches in town and the CPD could kiss Qhuinn’s ass.
But whatever, that motherfucker wasn’t going to say shit to nobody—and Qhuinn was willing to bet his left nut he never gay-bashed again either.
Next came an update on what the humans were calling “the Farmhouse Massa
cre”—said report basically amounting to a whole lot of no new information, but plenty of hysteria-inducing hyperbole. Cults! Ritual sacrifices! Stay indoors after dark!
All of which was, of course, based on circumstantial evidence, because the blue-uni-and-badge brigade had nothing but aftermath to go on—no bodies. And although the identities of a rash of missing lowlifes were starting to percolate to the surface, the dead end was going to stick: Those few slayers who had escaped the Brotherhood’s infiltration were now firmly entrenched in the Lessening Society, never to be seen or heard from again by their former friends and families.
So, yeah, basically, the humans were left with a ServiceMaster cleanup job out there and not much else: Fuck the CSI types; what they really needed was a carpet steamer, a shitload of mops, and a bathtub of Formula 409. If they thought they were ever going to “solve” the crime, those cops were just masturbating the soles of their shoes and the nibs on their pens.
What actually had happened was just a ghost they could sense, but never capture.
As if on cue, a promo for the all-new Paranormal Investigators prime-time special aired, the camera panning around some Southern mansion with trees that looked as if they needed a beard trimmer.
Qhuinn swung his feet off the edge of his bed and rubbed his face. Layla had wanted to come over again, but when she’d called out to him, he’d sent her back a thought that he was exhausted and needed to sleep.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be with her, it was just . . .
Goddamn it, she liked him, she wanted him, and he clearly was into her body. So why didn’t he just call her over here, mate her, and put a check mark next to the biggest goal in life he had?
As he thought about the plan, an image of Blay’s face came to mind and forced him to take a cold, hard look at the shaggy fabric of his life: The shit wasn’t pretty and all the threads he’d started and could neither clip free nor stitch together suddenly became more than he could bear.
Getting up, he went out into the hall of statues and looked down to the right. To Blay’s room.
With a curse, he walked over to the door he’d been in and out of as much as he had his own. When he knocked, the contact was a soft one, not his usual bang-bang-bang.
No answer. He tried again.
Turning the knob, he pushed inside barely an inch—and wished he hadn’t had cause to be discreet. But maybe Saxton was in there with the guy.
“Blay? You up?” he whispered into the darkness.
No reply . . . and the lack of running water suggested the pair of them weren’t taking a pneumatic shower together. Stepping in, Qhuinn flicked on the lights. . . .
The bed was made up, neat as a pin, totally undisturbed. Fucking thing looked like an ad in a magazine, with all its pillows arranged and the extra duvet folded up like a cloth taco at the foot of the mattress.
Bathroom had dry towels, no condensation on the glass shower, and a Jacuzzi without a bubble bath ring.
His body went numb as he went back out into the hall and walked farther on.
At the door to the crib Saxton had been given, he stopped and stared at the panels. Excellent carpentry work, the pieces put together seamlessly. Paint job was perfect as well, with no brushstrokes marring the smooth surface. Nice brass knob, too, that was as shiny as a newly minted gold coin—
His acute hearing picked up on a soft sound and he frowned—until he realized what he was listening to. Only one thing made that kind of rhythmic . . .
Staggering back, he got goosed in the ass by the Greek statue directly behind him.
With stumbling feet, he blindly walked somewhere, anywhere. When he got to the king’s study, he looked over his shoulder and checked the carpet over which he’d trodden.
No trail of his blood. Which, considering the way his chest was hurting, was a surprise.
Sure as shit felt like he’d been shot in the heart.
SIXTY-THREE
Xhex woke up screaming.
Fortunately, John had left the bathroom light on, so she had at least half a chance at convincing her brain where her body was: in fact, she was not back in that human clinic, being worked on like a lab rat. She was here in the Brotherhood mansion with John.
Who had leaped out of bed, and pointed a gun at the door to the hall like he was prepared to blow a hole right through the frickin’ thing.
Slapping a hand over her mouth, she prayed she’d shut herself up in time, before she woke the entire house. The last thing she needed was a bunch of Brothers showing up at the doorstep with a whole lot of what’s-doing.
In a silent shift, John swung the forty’s muzzle around to the shuttered windows, and then he swept it over to the walk-in closet. As he finally lowered his weapon, he whistled an inquiry.
“I’m . . . okay,” she answered, finding her voice. “Just a bad—”
The knock that cut her off was about as subtle as a curse in a quiet room. Or the scream she’d just let rip.
As she pulled the sheets up to her collarbones, John opened the door a crack and Z’s voice drifted in. “Everything all right in here?”
Nope. Not even close.
Xhex rubbed her face and tried to replug into reality. Tough assignment. Her body felt weightless and disconnected, and man, that floaty thing was so not helping her on the get-grounded front.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out why her subconscious had burped up that shit about her first trip through the abduction park. Staying in the OR while John had had his lead-ectomy had obviously been like a hot, spicy meal for her brain, with the nightmare being the cranial version of acid reflux.
Christ, she had a case of the fop sweats, her upper lip beading, her palms wringing damp.
In desperation, she focused on what she could see through the partially open door to the bathroom.
Turned out the toothbrushes on the marble counter saved her. The pair were standing up in the silver cup between the two sinks, looking like a couple of kibitzers who’d tilted their heads together to swap gossip. Both were John’s, she was guessing, because guests were on the whole not welcome in this house.
One was blue. The other red. Both had the green bristles in the center that turned white over time to let you know when to get new ones.
Nice. Normal. Boring. Maybe if she’d had a little more of all that she wouldn’t be looking for life’s exit door. Or having nightmares that turned her voice box into a bullhorn.
John bade Z good-bye and came back over to her, leaving his gun on the bedside table and slipping under the covers. His warm body was solid and smooth against hers, and she went to him with an ease that she guessed was common among lovers.
But something she’d never had with anyone before.
As he pulled his head back so she could see his face, he mouthed, What was it?
“Dream. Very bad dream. From back when . . .” She took a deep breath. “When I was in that clinic.”
He didn’t press her for details. Instead, she just felt her hair getting stroked.
In the silence that followed, she didn’t intend to talk about the past—especially when the last thing she needed was more echoes of the nightmare. But somehow, words formed in her throat and she couldn’t hold them back.
“I burned the facility down.” Her heart thumped as she remembered, but at least the recall of what had happened wasn’t as bad as being back there in a dream. “It’s weird . . . I’m not sure the humans thought they were doing anything wrong—they treated me like a prized zoo animal, giving me everything I needed to survive while they poked and prodded at me and ran test after test. . . . Well, most of the humans were good to me. There was a sadistic fuck in the group.” She shook her head. “They kept me for about a month or two and tried to give me human blood to keep me going, but they could read the clinical indicators that I was getting weaker and weaker. I got free because one of them set me loose.”
John rolled over on his back and put his hands into the shaft of light. Shit, I’m so
sorry. But I’m glad you dusted the place.
In her mind, she pictured her return trip to where she’d been held—and the sooty aftermath. “Yeah, I had to burn the thing down. I’d been free for a while when I went back and did it—but I couldn’t sleep for the nightmares. I lit the facility up after they’d left for the day. Although,” she held a forefinger up, “there might have been one rather nasty death. But the son of a bitch deserved it. I’m an eye-for-an-eye kind of girl.”
John’s hands reappeared to sign, That’s pretty obvious—and not a bad thing at all.
Provided it wasn’t Lash, she thought to herself.
“Mind if I ask you something?” When he shrugged, she whispered, “The night you took me around town . . . had you been back to any of those places before?”
Not really. John shook his head. I don’t like to dwell on the past. I go forward.
“How I envy you. Me, I can’t seem to get free of history.”
And it wasn’t just about the clinic shit or Lash’s little love-nest nightmare. For some reason, the fact that she’d never fit in—not with the family she’d grown up with, or the larger vampire society, or even the symphath one—resonated through her, defining her even when she wasn’t consciously thinking about it. Her lock-and-key moments had been few and far between—and tragically seemed focused on when she’d gone out on jobs as an assassin.
Except then she thought of her time with John . . . and recalibrated the depressing arithmetic slightly. Being with him, their bodies together, that fit. But it was kind of a parallel to her murdering for hire—ultimately not a healthy thing for all involved. Hell, look at what had just happened: She woke up screaming and John was the one who weaponed up and faced off . . . while she played poor widdle scared female with the sheet clutched to her widdle scared heart.
That wasn’t her. Just wasn’t.
And God, that she’d fallen so easily into the role of being protected . . . that frightened her even more than dreams that made her scream. If life had taught her one thing, it was that your best bet was to take care of your own biz. The last thing in the world she wanted was to chick out and rely on anyone—even somebody as honorable and worthy and kind as John.