by J. R. Ward
Xhex bounced on the balls of her feet as she ran with the males, the bunch of them falling into a quick rhythm that carried them down the alley efficiently and in relative quiet. The back of the structure was nothing but more red brick streaked with metro-grime. Only difference was that the reinforced-steel door opened out into a small parking lot instead of a surface road.
No lessers. No human pedestrians. Nothing but stray cats, filthy asphalt, and the distant wailing of sirens.
A sense of powerlessness overcame her. Goddamn it, she could show up here or across town at that ridiculous park or out in the sticks. But there was no making the enemy come to her. And they had so little to go on.
“For fuck’s sake,” Qhuinn muttered. “Where the hell’s the party.”
Yup, she wasn’t the only one spoiling for a fight—
From out of nowhere, Xhex felt a tingling go through her, the resonant echo something that at first she didn’t understand. She glanced at the rest of the team. Blay and Qhuinn were studiously not looking at each other. Tohr and John were pacing around. Zsadist had his phone out to report to the Brothers they were at the mark.
That pull . . .
And then she realized: She was sensing her blood in another.
Lash.
Lash was not far.
Blindly turning on her heel, she headed off . . . walking, then breaking into a run. She heard her name being shouted, but there was no stopping to explain.
Or stopping her.
SIXTY-FIVE
On the Far Side, as Payne lay in an unnatural position on hard marble, her namesake overwhelmed her—but only above her waist. She felt no agony in her legs or feet, only a disassociated tingling that made her think of fire sparks over damp kindling wood. Directly above her broken body, the Blind King was leaning o’er, his face tight—and the Scribe Virgin had also made an appearance, that black robe and dim light floating around in circles.
It was not a shock that her mother had come to magically fix her. Like that door which had gone from shambles to saved, her darling mother wanted to wipe away everything, neaten it all up, make everything perfect.
“I . . . refuse,” Payne said again through gritted teeth. “I do not consent.”
Wrath glanced over his shoulder at the Scribe Virgin, then looked back down. “Ah . . . listen, Payne, that’s not logical. You can’t feel your legs . . . your back’s probably broken. Why won’t you let Her help you?”
“I am not some inanimate . . . object She can manipulate at will . . . to please her whims and fancy—”
“Payne, be reasonable—”
“I am—”>
“You’re going to die—”
“Then my mother can watch me expire!” she hissed—and then promptly moaned. In the wake of her outburst, consciousness ebbed and flowed, her eyes blurring and then regaining focus, Wrath’s shocked expression becoming that by which she measured whether she had fainted or not.
“Wait, she’s . . .” The king braced his hand against the marble floor to steady his crouching position. “Your . . . mother?”
Payne cared not that he knew. She had never felt any pride associated with being the birthed daughter of the race’s founder—had in fact sought at every turn to distance herself—but what did it matter now. If she refused “divine” intervention, she would go unto the Fade from here. What pain she did feel told her this.
Wrath twisted around to the Scribe Virgin. “This is the truth?”
No affirmative answer came back to him, but nor did a denial. And there was no chastisement that he had dared offend by his inquiry, either.
The king looked back at Payne. “Jesus . . . Christ.”
Payne dragged in a breath. “Leave us, dear King. Go forth unto your world and lead your people. You need no help from this side or Her. You are a fine male and a brilliant warrior. . . .”
“I’m not going to let you die,” he spat.
“You have no choice, do you.”
“The fuck I don’t.” Wrath shot to his feet and glared downward. “Let Her heal you! You’re out of your goddamn mind! You can’t die like this—”
“I most certainly . . . can.” Payne shut her eyes, a wave of exhaustion rolling through her.
“Do something!” Clearly the king was now yelling at the Scribe Virgin.
Too bad she felt like such hell, Payne thought. Otherwise, she most certainly would have enjoyed this final declaration of independence. Verily, it had come upon the wings of her death, but she had done it. Stood up to her mother. She had gotten her freedom through her refusal.
The Scribe Virgin’s voice was barely louder than breath. “She has denied my help. She is blocking me.”
She certainly was. Her fury was directed at her mother to such an extent, it wasn’t hard to believe that it functioned as a barrier to whatever magic the Scribe Virgin might seek to bear upon the “tragedy” that had occurred.
Which in fact felt more like a blessing.
“You’re all-powerful!” The king’s voice was a rough charge—the frantic nature of which was a tad confusing. But then, he was a male of worth who would no doubt place the blame upon himself. “Just fix her!”
There was a silence and then a weak reply: “I can no more reach her body . . . than I can her heart.”
Verily, if the Scribe Virgin was finally getting a sense of what it was to be without power . . . Payne could die in peace.
“Payne! Payne, wake up!”
Her lids lifted. Wrath was inches from her face.
“If I can save you, will you let me?”
She couldn’t understand why she was so important to him. “Leave me—”
“If I can do it, will you let me?”
“You can’t.”
“Answer the fucking question.”
He was such a good male, and the fact that her demise would be upon his conscience e’ermore was a sorrow. “I’m sorry . . . about this. Wrath. I’m sorry. This is not your doing.”
Wrath turned upon the Scribe Virgin. “Let me save her. Let me save her!”
Upon the demand, the Scribe Virgin’s hood lifted of its own volition, and her once glowing form appeared nothing but a dingy shadow.
The visage and the voice she put forth was that of a beautiful female in tremendous agony: “I did not want this destiny.”
“That and a pile of shit gets you nothing. Will You let me save her.”
The Scribe Virgin shifted her stare to the opaque heaven above her and the tear that fell from her eye landed on the marble flooring as a diamond, bouncing with a shimmer and a flash.
That lovely object would be the last thing Payne ever saw, she thought as her eyes became so heavy, she could no longer keep her lids open.
“For fuck’s sake,” Wrath bellowed. “Let me—”
The Scribe Virgin’s answer came from a vast distance. “I can fight this no longer. Do what you will, Wrath, son of Wrath. Better she be away from me and alive, than dead upon my floor.”
Everything went quiet.
A door was shut.
Then Wrath’s voice: I need you on the Other Side. Payne, wake up, I need you on the Other Side. . . .
Odd. It was as if he were speaking into her skull . . . but he was more likely leaning back down over her and talking aloud.
“Payne, wake up. I need you to get yourself over to my side.”
In a haze, she started to shake her head—but that impulse wasn’t borne out well. Better to hold still. Very still. “I don’t . . . can’t get there—”
A sudden, twirling vertigo sent her reeling, her feet swinging around and around her body, her mind the vortex about which she spun. The sense of being sucked downward was accompanied by a pressure in her veins, as if her blood were expanding, but was confined to tight quarters.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a lofty white glow above her.
So she hadn’t moved, then. She was where she had been lying all along, beneath the milky sky of the Far Side—
Yes . . . she recognized what it was—and indeed, in her peripheral vision, she sensed walls . . . four pale blue walls. There were lights as well, although not ones that she remembered—not torches or lit candles, but things that glowed without flame.
A fireplace. A . . . massive desk and throne.
She hadn’t moved her body here herself; she hadn’t the strength. And Wrath could not have cast her corporeal form forth. There was but one explanation. She had been expelled by her mother.
There would be no going back; she had her wish. She was free, e’er-more.
An odd peace o’ercame her, one that was either the calming pall of death . . . or the realization that the fight was over. Indeed, live or die, that which had defined her for years had passed, a weight lifted that sent her flying anew in her as yet still flesh.
Wrath’s face came into her field of vision, his long black hair slipping free of his shoulders and falling forward. And at that moment, a blond dog ducked under the heavy arm of the king, its kind face holding a welcoming inquiry, as if she were an unexpected but very appreciated guest.
“I’m going to get Doc Jane,” Wrath said, stroking the flank of the dog.
“Who?”
“My private physician. Stay here.”
“As if . . . I’m going anywhere?”
There was the jangle of a collar and then the king left, his hand on a harness that connected him with the beautiful dog, the animal’s paws clipping on the floor when they reached the edge of the rug and hit hardwood.
He truly was blind. And here on this side, he needed someone else’s eyes to function.
A door shut and then she thought of naught but the pain. She was floating, rendered buoyant by the agony in her body—and yet, in spite of the incredible discomfiture, she was aloft on a strange peacefulness.
For no evident reason, she noted that the air had a lovely smell here. Lemon. Beeswax.
Just lovely.
Fates be, her time on this side had been long ago and, going by how strange things looked, in a different world. But she remembered how much she had liked it. Everything had been unpredictable and therefore captivating . . .
Sometime later, the door opened and she heard once more the jangle of the dog’s collar and caught Wrath’s powerful scent. And there was someone with them . . . who didn’t register in a way that Payne could process. But there was definitely another entity in the room.
Payne forced open her eyes . . . and nearly recoiled.
It was not Wrath standing o’er her, but a female . . . or at least it appeared to be a female. The face had feminine lines—except the features and the hair were translucent and ghostly. And as their stares met, the female’s expression shifted from concerned to shocked. Abruptly, she had to steady herself on Wrath’s arm.
“Oh . . . my God . . .” The voice was rough.
“Is it that obvious, Doc?” the king said.
As the female struggled to respond, it was not the sort of reaction one hoped to engender in a physician. Verily, Payne had thought that she was well aware of how injured she was. However, it might well be that she was unclear as to the gravity of her condition.
“Verily, am I—”
“ Vishous.”
The name froze her heart.
For she had not heard it in well over two centuries.
“Wherefore speaketh thou of my dead?” she whispered.
The physician’s ghostly face took tangible form, her forest green eyes revealing a deep confusion, her flesh carrying the pallor of someone fighting emotions. “Your dead?”
“My twin . . . is long passed unto the Fade.”
The physician shook her head, her brows dropping low over that intelligent stare. “Vishous is alive. I’m mated to him. He’s alive and well here.”
“No . . . it cannot be.” Payne wished she could reach up and grab the doctor’s solid arm. “You lie—he is dead. He is long—”
“No. He is very much alive.”
Payne couldn’t understand the words. She had been told he was gone, lost to the Fade’s tender mercies—
By her mother. Of course.
Verily, had the female cheated her out of knowing her own brother? How could one be so cruel?
Abruptly, Payne bared her fangs and growled low in her throat, the fire of anger displacing her agony. “I will kill Her for this. I swear I will treat Her as I did our blooded sire.”
SIXTY-SIX
John took off after Xhex the instant she left the group and started running. He didn’t like the independent thinking or her direction—she was heading into an alley where no one knew whether there was an exit or a brick wall at the end.
He caught up with her, taking her arm to get her attention. Which got him exactly nowhere. She didn’t stop.
Where are you going? he tried to sign, but it was tough to do that to a person who was ignoring you while you were gunning full tilt. . . .
He would have whistled but that was too easy to ignore, so he tried again to get her arm, but she shook him off, focused solely on a destination he could neither see nor sense. Finally, he just jumped in front of her and blocked her way; then forced her to see his hands.
Where the hell are you going?
“I can feel him . . . Lash. He’s close.”
John went for his dagger as he mouthed, Where?
She jogged around him and resumed her pursuit, and as he followed, Tohr fell in step with them. When the others started to come along, John shook his head and motioned for them to stay put. Additional support in the field was a smart thing, but too many weapons in this sitch were not a value-add: He was going to take Lash out, and the last thing he needed was more trigger-happy fingers pointed at his target.
Tohr understood, though. He knew viscerally why John had to avenge his female. And Qhuinn had to come along. But that was it, no more cups and saucers welcome at the tea party.
John stuck close to Xhex—who seemed to have chosen wisely when it came to alleys. Instead of a dead end, the uneven lane rolled around to the right and wheedled in between other vacant warehouses as it headed down to the river. He knew they were getting really close to the water when the smell of dead fish and algae wafted up into his nose and the air seemed to grow colder.
They found the black Mercedes AMG parked in front of a fire hydrant. The sedan stank of lesser, and as Xhex looked around as if searching for the next directive, John wasn’t in the mood to wait.
He curled up a fist and punched out the front windshield.
The alarm went apeshit, and he glanced into the interior. There was some kind of oily residue on the steering wheel, and the cream leather was trashed with stains—he was damn sure the inky ones were lesser blood . . . and that rusty-colored shit was human. Jesus, the backseat looked as if it had been hit with a spastic cat, the scratches so deep in places, the stuffing underneath was showing.
John frowned, remembering back to training-center days. Lash had always been so particular about his stuff, from the clothes he wore to the way his locker was organized.
Maybe this wasn’t his car?
“This is his,” Xhex said, placing her palms on the hood. “I can smell him everywhere. Engine’s still warm. I don’t know where he is, though.”
John snarled at the thought of the guy getting so close to his female that she knew him by nose. Fucking bastard son of a bitch—
Just as his anger was getting away from him, Tohr grabbed him by the back of the neck and gave him a shake. “Deep breath.”
“He’s got to be around here. . . .” Xhex looked at the building in front of them and then glanced up and down the alley they were in.
When John felt a burning pain in his left hand, he brought up his arm. His grip on his dagger had tightened so hard, the handle was creaking in protest.
His eyes slipped to Tohr’s.
“You’re going to get
him,” the Brother whispered. “Don’t you worry about that.”
Lash half-expected Benloise’s men to pop some shit as he faced off at the pair of thick necks. He was separated from them by about ten yards of cold air, and everyone had their twitch on.
As he looked them over, he hoped they did John Wayne it and try something. The two thugs would have made an excellent addition to his growing stable—they knew the trade and had obviously earned their stripes under Benloise: there were a lot of kilos in those metal suitcases they had in their hands, but the humans were coolheaded and calm.
Armed to the teeth, too.
Just like Lash. Goddamn, it was a real Lead Rave here with all the guns and ammo—and wasn’t he going to feel a whole lot better after there was less of him to get shot at. Shadow was better than flesh, anytime.
“Here’s the art,” the guy on the left said as he hefted the cases. “Sir.”
Ah, yes, the one who’d watched the shit roll out with Benloise. Explained why they were both being so polite.
“Let’s see what you got,” Lash murmured, keeping the muzzle of his forty trained on them. “And let’s have your hands stay nice and visible.”
The flash of goods was efficient and satisfactory, the pair working together with the shuffle and reveal.
Lash nodded. “Leave the product. Go.”
The humans pulled a Simon Says and put down the drugs, backed away, and then briskly walked in the opposite direction, keeping their hands by their sides.
As soon as they turned a corner and their footfalls continued to echo away, Lash strode over to the briefcases and opened his shadowy palms. On command, the handles popped up and the two loads of coke levitated from the asphalt into his grip—
The shrill sound of a car alarm brought his head around, the mad beeping coming from the alley where he’d left his AMG.
Fucking human pieces of shit downtown—