The Thief

by J. R. Ward

  "Well?" she demanded roughly.

  When he and his brother had materialized below her lodgings, he'd wondered the best course of their approach--and wished they could make a proper announcement of their presence during the daytime with a rap on the door and human-like greeting at a human-like hour for visitation. At this point, however, he was already counting down how much time there was until dawn's early light threatened their lives with the sun.

  In the end, he had resolved unto a mental intrusion, one for which he felt guilt, but nevertheless had proceeded with. He had not engaged with Marisol. No, he was unsure of their reception with her, and her participation was vital. Her grandmother, Mrs. Carvalho, had been the better choice. With suitable concentration, and inner apology, he had connected with the elder woman's mind and roused her from her sleep, summoning her unto the terrace so that she would allow them entrance not just into the building, but the home she shared with Marisol.

  Indeed, Assail's female might well have denied them, but never the matriarch. She had a soft spot for them.

  "Forgive us for intruding," Ehric began, "but we are in need of aid."

  Marisol's voice lowered as if she didn't want her grandmother to hear. "I am no longer in that line of work. And if your cousin wanted something, he should have called me and saved you the trip."

  "He is not able to travel the now."

  The woman frowned. "Why? Actually, never mind--just ask me what you need to so I can tell you no."

  "We want you to come see Assail."

  The woman looked back and forth between them. "I can't do that. I won't do that, I'm sorry. He knows why I had to go--you two know it, too."

  Ehric glared at her, but kept his voice soft. "He was there for you. When you needed..." He glanced in her grandmother's direction and was reassured by the older woman's concentration on her foodstuff preparation. "When you required a...friend...Assail came unto you. He did right by you and you need to make good on that debt."

  "I didn't ask him--" She, too, glanced at her grandmother. "He did what he did by choice. I never asked him to help me--"

  "You would be dead now--"

  "I saved myself!"

  The grandmother shot a look over her shoulder, and that was enough to readjust the volume on their argument.

  Ehric sat forward. "You owe him. And we need you to help him."

  As he stared at her, the woman burst up and went to the coffee machine. As it had yet to finish its cycle, she stood before the unit, tapping her foot. When at last it was through, she took all due care with mugs and pouring.

  "Do you guys still take it black?" she muttered.

  "Yes, we do."

  She brought them over the coffee and sat down once more. Clearing her throat, she said, "I'm really sorry, but I'm never going back to Caldwell." Now she stared at Mrs. Carvalho pointedly. "You understand. As much as I might be...grateful...to your cousin, I can't get involved with his business--"

  "Why we have come unto you is personal." Ehric tested the coffee and found it more than acceptable. "He is not well. And it is our hope that you can provide him with--"

  "If he's sick, he needs to go to a doctor--"

  "--a reason to keep fighting."

  Marisol stiffened. "Fighting? What are you talking about?"

  Ehric had prepared for this inquiry. "Cancer. Assail has got the cancer."

  The lie slid off his tongue as easily as the truth would have choked him. This human had no reason to know that she had been rescued and later bedded by a vampire. And if he told her that Assail was suffering from cocaine-withdrawal dementia, that was not just less likely to elicit sympathy, but he might well have to provide some manner of explanation as humans, evidently, did not respond to sobriety thus.

  Cancer was a different story. No matter that vampires could not get the disease; it was a scourge to humans.

  "Oh...God," Marisol whispered.

  "He is too proud to ask you for aid, of course." Ehric had to look away. "But we are his blood. There is naught we will not do to secure what future he may have."

  "I am not...I am not anything to him."

  "In that," Evale spoke up, "you are misconstrided."

  "Misconstrued," Ehric amended. "And that is why we are here. We want you to come to his bedside and...inspire him, in the way only you can."

  When she opened her mouth as if to argue, he wearied of the protest and put his hand up. "Please. Do not waste our time or pretend ignorance when you know precisely why you, of all people, would matter to him."

  Abruptly, the woman fell into a silence that seemed to compress her body, and he knew he had to give her space to feel most properly her emotions: Further commentary by anyone would just give her opportunities for defense. She, and she alone, was going to decide this course.

  As the silence continued, Mrs. Carvalho placed plates before him and his brother, the food upon them so fragrant, he closed his eyes, lowered his chin, and breathed in the aroma.

  "You have honored us, Mrs. Carvalho." He turned to the grandmother, who had gone back to her stove. "We do not deserve such a feast."

  "Eat." A gnarled finger pointed to the table. "Too thin. You are too thin. I make you more."

  Ah, her tone. Clipped, disapproving, accented with the unfamiliar. But her eyes were a-twinkled, and he knew that even as she kept a physical distance from them, she embraced them both with her food, welcoming them with a love that he had certainly never known.

  Orphans, after all, were by definition unfamiliar with a mahmen's heart and hand in their lives.

  Putting his fork to its very best use, he found that the eggs were mixed with marvelous spices, and as he began to consume them, another tantalizing scent wafted up from the stove.

  "What kind of cancer?" Marisol asked.

  Ehric reached out to the center of the wee table and took a napkin from a holder. After wiping his mouth, he said, "It is of blood origin, and of recent and very virulent duration."

  "Where is he being treated? St. Francis?"

  "He has availed himself of private physicians." She would recognize Doc Jane and Manny, and he'd cross that bridge when they got to it. "The treatment he is receiving is top-notch. There is no better, I can assure you of that."

  "How long..." She cleared her throat. "How long does he have?"

  "It is hard to say. But he suffers. Greatly."

  There was a long period of silence, punctuated only by their eating.

  "He stopped calling me," Marisol blurted.

  "He has been in touch, then?" Not a surprise. And then Ehric became concerned. "Did he tell you aught?"

  "He didn't speak to me. He just hung up, but it was him, I know it was. And then the calls stopped."

  "Yes."

  More plates arrived, this time with something made from corn. And another thing of potato derivation that he recognized from that which Mrs. Carvalho had frozen for them before she left. The grandmother did not join them. She began to wash her dishes at the sink, and he knew better than to offer to help. Up in Caldwell, during their cohabitations, he and Evale had asked but once to be of any aid in her kitchen endeavors and she had been offended sure as if they had cursed before her.

  It was not until he and his twin had finished their second and third servings that Marisol finally spoke.

  "I'm really sorry," she said. "I can't go back there. You have to understand. Even for him, it's not safe for us up in Caldwell--"

  Mrs. Carvalho interjected with sharp words in their native tongue, and the granddaughter bowed her head as if it would not do that she disrespect her elder with any disagreement. Still, Ehric knew by the line of the younger woman's chin that she would not relent.

  "We can keep you safe," he offered. "Both of you. You have our word of honor that naught will befall either of you."

  The grandmother spoke again, her hands on her hips, her wrinkled face drawn in disapproval.

  Marisol got to her feet. "No. It is not safe. Maybe I can Fac
eTime with him, or something. Or talk to him on the phone. Or--"

  As Ehric rose from his chair, Evale followed that lead. "I understand. Forgive us for bothering you."

  "I wish I could help." Marisol crossed her arms over her chest. "Seriously, if the circumstances were different, I--"

  "Madam," he said unto her grandmother. "You have paid us much grace and respect with this meal. We shall hold on to the strength it gives us and use that gift in your honor."

  Evale murmured an affirmation as both of them bowed to her.

  When he straightened, Mrs. Carvalho had her hands tucked up under her bosom. She appeared by turns delighted by the honor they paid her and frustrated by her kin.

  Turning to Marisol, Ehric bowed to her as well. "We shall not tarry herein nor bother you again."

  Marisol opened her mouth as if to speak, but he walked away, proceeding to the door. As he let himself out, he held the exit wide for his twin.

  "Do not say it," he muttered as Evale paused in the doorway. "Stay silent."

  As always, his twin was content not to speak.

  SEVEN

  Abruptly, Vishous looked up as he sensed Jane's presence. There, he thought, there in the darkness, in the cold wind, she had come.

  He jumped off his rack, his heart beating hard. Without setting eyes on her, he sensed her emotions--and knew she had found out somehow.

  "Jane," he barked as he strode over the bare floor.

  Out on the terrace, she was in her ghost form, nothing but an indistinct hologram of herself in her white coat, scrubs, and her Crocs. With her blond hair and her wide, dark green eyes, she was at once achingly familiar...and something from a different, earlier incarnation of his life.

  When did this separation happen to us, he wondered.

  "What have you done," she said in a low voice.

  Raw pain, the kind that threatened his balance, lit off in his chest. "I didn't fuck her. I didn't touch her."

  "Why..." She put a hand over her mouth. Then dropped it. "Vishous, why?"

  As a gust tore through the empty space between them, he heard himself say, "I don't know."

  "You don't...you don't know?" As her anger started to come out, her brows dropped low, her hard stare the sort of thing he accepted like a dagger to his chest that he'd well earned. "You meet another woman--female, whatever she is--behind my back and you don't know why you did it? You're the smartest person I have ever met, and even dumb people know why they cheat."

  Vishous shook his head. "I didn't cheat."

  "Where's your shirt."

  "I didn't mean for this to happen--"

  "You most certainly did. You asked Fritz to bring liquor here, and someone else clearly showed up."

  "I told you, I didn't touch her--"

  "Bullshit! And please spare me the denials. I won't believe you. Why should I"--she pointed to all the glowing candles--"when I get to have this lovely picture in my mind for the rest of my life? So romantic, Vishous. I hope she was properly impressed--"

  "You left us."

  Jane recoiled and then glared at him. "Excuse me?"

  "You left me even though you didn't go anywhere."

  "What the hell are you saying," she snapped.

  "I never see you. We are never together. You are more worried about your patients than--"

  "Wait." She put her palm into his face. "Are you seriously spinning what you just did like it is my fault? Oh, grow up--"

  V's voice exploded out of chest. "After the warehouse fight, I was all fucked up in your clinic with a head injury and you told me you would be back! You were going to get medication for me--but as you walked out the door of my patient room, you know what I said to myself? She's not going to come--"

  "I sat beside you while you were unconscious! For two hours!"

  "--back, and you didn't."

  "You checked yourself out AMA! When I returned, Ehlena said you'd left!"

  The two of them were leaning toward each other, screaming into the wind, faces contorted, fists clenched--and in the back of his mind, he felt a sadness that this was what they had come down to: Betrayal. Hurt. Anger. It was the flip side to everything that he had thought they had. Everything he thought they were.

  This was the kind of argument that wiped all the good parts away, he thought. Permanently.

  Jane slashed her hand through the cold air that neither of them paid any attention to. "I took excellent care of you--"

  "How long," he ground out.

  "What?"

  "How long until you ended up back in my patient room." When she looked away and crossed her arms over her chest, he nodded. "An hour, right. Maybe longer. And while you were sitting at my hospital bed, while I was out cold, were you giving orders to Ehlena? Consulting with Manny? Tell me, how many patients did you manage to triage or treat during those two hours when you were supposedly taking care of me."

  Her forest-green eyes shot back to him. "Don't you dare deflect this onto me. I wasn't the one making a date with someone else."

  "What I did was wrong, I admit it. But I didn't follow through on it. I couldn't. And even though that's no excuse--"

  "Damn right it's no excuse! You're a liar now. You're a liar forever to me--"

  Without warning, a truth came out of him. "My mother is dead. Have you noticed that? Have you stopped to think about that at all?"

  She was momentarily nonplussed. "What does the Scribe Virgin have to do with this?"

  Vishous shook his head slowly. "You never once asked me how I felt. You never even asked me how I found out she was gone."

  Jane looked away again. Swung her eyes back. "I didn't think it bothered you. You kept going like it was nothing. You hated her."

  "You never asked, is the point."

  Jane rubbed her face with what looked like exasperation, scrubbing, scrubbing. "Vishous, listen, you are not the easiest person to read, and you don't do emotions. It's like you're blaming me for one of your core characteristics. How was I supposed to know--"

  "I was in a warehouse with my brothers and the Bastards. I was in a fucking melee that could have ended a fuck of a lot differently than it did. You never asked me what it was like. You never sat down with me--"

  "It's Brotherhood business! You guys don't talk about that stuff, ever!" She threw her hands up. "You need to look at this from my side. You're knocking me for abandoning you when all I've done is take my cue from you. You never talk about fights with me. You don't tell me about the war. You disappear behind those computers like they're camouflage you're hiding in. What am I supposed to do? Sit across from you on the sofa and do needlepoint until you deign to ask me to get you a snack? Screw that 1950s crap. If you'd wanted a house pet, you should have gotten a cat."

  "Whatever, Jane. You come home after being at work for fifteen, eighteen hours straight. You're half dead, dragging, cross-eyed. I put you in bed after you fall asleep on that couch for more days than you're choosing to remember--"

  "Those patients are not strangers. Those people I'm treating are your family."

  "You're my mate. Or at least you used to be. Lately, you've been less than a roommate."

  Jane narrowed her eyes. "Do you want to consider, for even half a second--if you can spare the time in the middle of your epic rant here--what it would be like for me to lose one of those Brothers or fighters on my watch? To not take care of them well enough? To make a bad call even if I don't always have all the information or the answers? You are out battling the Lessening Society, but I'm on cleanup duty, and I would much rather be a shitty fucking wife to you than a bad doctor for them when they're dying."

  V crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. "You've made it very clear where your priorities are. I'm very familiar with them."

  "And you've handled not getting your way so admirably. If you had things you wanted to talk about, why didn't you just bring them up?"

  "Check your texts."

  "I never ignore you when you hit me up."

>   "You sure about that?"

  "Yes. I always get back to you."

  V stared down at her and felt absolutely, positively nothing like himself. He had no idea how he had morphed into this cesspool of confusion and anger, the steel dagger he always had been turning into a plastic butter knife. All he was certain of was that he wasn't going on like this anymore.

  He was not a beggar. He was not a pussy. And he was not a victim in this circumstance--neither was Jane. They were two people who had gone separate ways, a thousand incremental choices made over time taking them further from their relationship rather than deeper into it.

  His dumb decision had just turned the lights on the landscape, and all this emotion they were both feeling and releasing was the result of them finally catching up to where they had been for quite a while.

  "I've got a scream, Jane." He pointed to his head. "In here, I've got a scream and I'm going insane. It's too much for me to hold in, and in the past, I've known what I can do to help me get through until it quiets down. It sure as fuck isn't talking, and you know what? You're the only person I would ever say any of this to. I'm scrambling to keep in my own skin and I'm not proud of it--I fucking hate this. But I have to function. Do you understand? I can't let Wrath and the Brotherhood down. I have to go out there and fight and be alert and get my fucking job done, and this"--he jabbed his finger into his cranium--"needs to fall in line. I didn't touch her. When it came down to it, I couldn't do it, not because it was morally wrong, but because I want to be with you. Hate me for making a bad decision out of desperation if it makes you feel better, but I didn't fuck her and I'm never doing it again."

  Jane studied him for the longest time. "What you did or didn't do doesn't matter to me. Because as far as I'm concerned, you're a free male as of right now."

  * * *

  --

  As Jane heard the words come out of her mouth, there was a part of her that was shocked. She hadn't expected to go that far, but her emotions were way out in front of her brain, the anger, the frustration, the pain, so great that it took over.

  "You don't mean that," Vishous said remotely.

  In the silence that followed, she studied his face and found the familiar features to be foreign to her, as if the upset had caused a kind of amnesia. His cropped black hair, his white irises with their blue outer rims, the tattoos at his temple, the goatee were all the same...and yet she seemed to recognize none of his details.