by J. R. Ward
"Two-Tone fucked her a couple of times. She made like she was on the inside track or some sh--stuff. He didn't tell me no more than that."
"What a paragon of virtue the woman was." Vitoria pointed forward. "Slow down here."
Streeter hit the brakes as they came up to an intersecting road marked by a large wooden sign that read IROQUOIS MOUNTAIN RESERVE.
"This way," she ordered.
He hit the gas like the good little delegatee he was, but soon enough, forward motion was impossible. No more plowed passage. Whoever was responsible for snow removal stopped at the foot of the ascent.
"It's impassable," Streeter said. "We can't go no more. This ain't gonna work--"
"We proceed on foot."
He turned to her. "What?"
By way of answer, she leaned across, put the engine in park, and extracted the keys from the ignition.
"We walk."
"Are you crazy?"
"I have gear for us both."
As she got out of the car, the cold was downright daunting, but that would be cured readily enough. The mountain, on the other hand? Craning her neck to look up to its snow-covered peak, she was far less confident of tackling its elevation.
A half a mile, she told herself. They had to go only half a mile up.
Walking around to the trunk, she opened things up and took out the two pairs of snowshoes she had found in her brother's vast garage--which hadn't been half of the treasure trove she'd discovered therein. So many useful things. And there had also been a Bentley Flying Spur and a Rolls-Royce Ghost, both appearing to have been as meticulously maintained as the mansion.
She was looking forward to the transportation upgrade starting tomorrow. But those cars were not what one used to go out into the night, looking for bodies. No, this was her rental's last duty.
"Put these on." She threw a set of the snowshoes at Streeter as he joined her. "The harnesses are adjustable."
"I ain't walking nowhere on those."
"We will make good time."
"I'm a smoker."
"Of course you are. Now stop making excuses and let's get properly clothed. I have ski gloves and down jackets and snow pants, and other gear to aid us."
After some further grumbling on his part, they prepared themselves properly and started off, her in front, him trailing behind. The shoes proved to be a brilliant last-minute supply grab on her part, allowing them to travel across the surface of the snow as they began an ascent on the broad flat clearing that was the road. With the landscape draped in white, the moonlight that showed through the sporadic cloud cover made headlamps unnecessary, but they each had one just in case.
Progressing along, it felt good to be outside, her breath leaving her mouth and rising over one shoulder, smoke from the chimney of her body.
Behind her, Streeter was wheezing. But the exercise would do him good--and if he died, she would just leave him where he was and let him be found in the spring.
"Tell me, Streeter," she said. "Why?"
"Huh?" he gasped.
She stopped and twisted around. He was about ten feet back, and as he came up to her, his face was bright red.
"Did you honestly think I killed her?"
It took a while before he had enough air to answer her. "J-J-J-Jimmy was who called me. His brother...CPD...."
"Jimmy's the one who's a gallery security guard?"
"Yeah." More with the breathing. "He said he was pickin' up...his paycheck...and you was in Eduardo's office...he saw Margot go...in there. When she came out...she looked pissed."
Vitoria smiled, even though she was most displeased. The guard had a cop for a brother? Damn it. "I can assure you, if something happened to that woman, I had nothing to do with it. Come, let us continue."
* * *
--
Up in the Sanctuary's Treasury building, Vishous was standing strong in his shitkickers, one arm up against the marble wall and the other around his female to hold her in place at his hips. He felt like he had gotten over an illness, kicked off a rare case of human flu that had jumped the lines of the species and come knock-knock-knockin' at his immune system's door. With the symptoms gone, he felt renewed, some kind of shooting star-Disney shit going on all around and inside of him with the rainbow and unicorn brigade not far behind.
"I don't want to let go," he said.
"You must be getting tired of holding me up."
"Nah." And even if he was, he didn't care. "But you've got to be uncomfortable."
He gently set Jane back on the floor and then they just looked into each other's eyes.
"So I guess I got the answer to the question I didn't want to ask," he murmured.
"What was that?"
V searched her face. "I'd worried about whether you'd still be around after my mother left. You know, whether the magic or whatever it is would still work. And it does."
"Yup." Her smile was radiant. "I'm still here."
As his eyes watered from all the fucking feels, he wanted to cut them out of his skull with spoons. "I am so glad no one else can see me like this, true?"
"Your brothers love you."
"I love them. But when it comes to shit like this, I prefer my sandbox with only you in it."
She leaned in. "Does this mean I don't have to fight with anyone to play with your toys?"
He got serious. "That's exactly what it means. You know that, right?"
"Yes, I do." She stroked his face. "I honestly do."
V cocked a smile. "And along those lines, can you just dub in, in your head, all kinds of Tonka, I-got-a-big-bucket, you-can-pull-my-stick commentary right now?"
"You got it."
After they laughed, they spoke quietly for a while, and it felt so incredible to just be normal--which, hell yeah, could happen between a ghost and a vampire.
On that theory, who else could the two of them be "normal" with?
"So should we go back down?" Jane asked as she pulled the loose leg of her scrubs back on. "Everyone's got to be worried."
"Yeah. Sure." Except after he buttoned up his fly, and she put her other boot on, neither of them made any move to leave.
To kill some time, V glanced around at all the bins of gemstones. "You know, I've never been in here before."
"I couldn't believe all these jewels."
"It's the wealth of the race."
She shook her head. "How did it get up here?"
"Who the fuck knows."
"And did you see the revolvers?" She pointed over her shoulder toward a set of antique guns. "And what do you suppose was here?"
With a frown, he shuffled over to a marble case that was empty. Something had been set within its velvet-lined interior, however. There was a rectangular singed spot in the middle of it.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
"V, you're limping. I think we need to check out your ankle."
He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his lids. "Can we do an internal exam?"
"On you or me?"
"Both."
Jane laughed as she joined him in front of the vacant case. "Weird, right?"
"It was a book. I'll bet it was a book. Even though there's no identification on the exterior."
Then again, it wasn't like this was a museum with little brass plaques explaining what everything was and where it came from.
But whatever. Not his problem. For all he knew, his mahmen had found a misplaced comma on one of the pages and fried the tome in a fit of fury.
"Come on, my female," he said as he took Jane into his arms. "Back to the land of the living. My brothers are no doubt marshaling a search party for me at this very moment."
Jane was smiling at him as he up-and-outed them to the other side, materializing them to the mansion's dour entrance. And as he let them into the vestibule and shoved his mug into the security camera, he kept his arm around Jane.
Fritz started to open the way in, but Vishous finished the job, shoving the heavy weight wide
to help the old doggen out--
Sure enough, all of the Brotherhood was milling around and arming themselves like they were about to head off to find his sorry ass before dawn made shit too late.
All eyes swung toward him, and as he saw the surprise and shock on those familiar faces, a load of aw-shucks hit him hard.
To cover that up, he gave 'em a sly grin. "I'm back, bitches--miss us?"
There were some shouts and then people were coming up and there were hugs and other malarkey that, under normal circumstances, made him want to scratch. Not tonight, though. Not tonight. After everything he had been through with Jane, and all that he had both lost and found, he wanted to hold on to his true family, to this moment, to this place in life he found himself. Sure, the war sucked, and the future was unknown, and danger was all around, but with Jane at his side and his brothers and the fighters of the house coming up and embracing him? He couldn't help but think it was all going to be okay.
As Fritz announced he was going to go gather Last Meal for everyone, and the brothers headed to the bar for celebratory drinks, Vishous put his arm back around Jane and kissed her on the mouth.
Leaning into her ear, he whispered, "I want to rechristen our bedroom."
"So do I. How long do we have to stay?"
"Dinner, no dessert."
"Deal."
He was following the crowd into the billiards room when something had him look over his shoulder.
Lassiter was standing in the far corner of the foyer, his face grim, his eyes intense. There was absolutely no fooling around to the guy. No laughing. No joy, either.
A warning tightened V's shoulders and shot down his spine into his ass. Something was just not right here, he thought. But he couldn't put his finger on it.
"V?"
As Jane spoke up, he shook himself--and the fallen angel disappeared into thin air.
"Are you okay, V?" she prompted.
"Yeah," he said, turning back to the poolroom. "S'all good. It's all...perfectly fine."
No doubt it was only the aftershocks of everything making him paranoid. The angel was probably upset that Stranger Things Season 3 had been delayed or some bullshit.
All Lassiter really cared about was himself and TV.
THIRTY-THREE
The dawn was beginning to hint at its arrival with a blush of pink on the horizon when Vitoria determined that they were on a fool's chase. She, along with Streeter's failing set of lungs, had mounted the foot of Iroquois and progressed, as instructed, what had to be over a half mile. Or two. Or twelve. Yet no lane, or even the offshoot of a trail, had appeared.
As Vitoria stopped, she did some panting herself--and knew a frustration that was so deep, she was cursing in Spanish in her head.
"Go...back...?" Streeter wheezed.
She looked all around and saw nothing but this singular snow-covered road that continued farther up toward whatever was at the peak--picnic spot, observatory, park ranger station.
There was a desire to blame the intel Streeter had brought to her, but that was counterproductive. And this was a lesson learned. Her desire for a given outcome had colored her analysis of the information and led them on this wild-goose chase.
A waste of time and energy.
"Yes." She allowed one, single curse in her native tongue to escape her lips. "Back to the car."
Resuming the lead, she made a little circle and continued along, putting one snowshoe in front of the other over the track they had made. And though there was some relief that came with a downward course, her anger did not permit any appreciation of the aid.
Perhaps it was best for her to abandon the search for the bodies of her brothers. If she were honest, the reason she wanted to find them was not so much the closure and burial, although she would feel she had done a right and dutiful thing if she could put them in proper graves. No, she was desirous of the knowledge that they were well and truly gone. That she didn't have to worry about her reinstating the business only for them to miraculously show up and steal her future away--
Vitoria slowed and then halted.
"What?" Streeter groaned behind her.
Well...there it was. The cut-through they had been looking for, the lane so narrow and unmarked that she had missed its appearance on the ascent due to the snow's masking properties: It was only thanks to this different viewpoint that she could pick out the break in the forest, the hole in the evergreens.
"We have found our drive," she announced.
Success gave her a burst of energy, and it certainly improved Streeter's respiration. The pair of them made quick time through the man-made tunnel in the forest and then there it was. Yes, this had to be her brother's bolt-hole: The structure was single story and unadorned, only a row of thin windows just under the roofline allowing light into the interior. A snow-covered car was parked off to one side and there was a petroleum tank the size of an outhouse cozied up to the opposite flank.
Although none of that was what told her it was Ricardo's.
The door was the telltale. It had no handle, no knob, just a security keypad that offered a choice of either a numerical grid or a thumbprint reader.
If this were just a hunting cabin in the woods almost at the border of Canada, why would you need such security?
Vitoria went forward, the piff, piff, piff of the snowshoes loud in her ear. She had never been much for premonitions, but as she came up to the door, she had one that was very clear.
Bad things happened here. Very bad. Although...not recently: the snow cover was utterly undisturbed by tire track or human print, and God knew that snow-impacted car hadn't been driven anywhere in quite a while.
Before she attempted the numerical lock, she paused and looked to the heavens. After offering a prayer in Spanish, she put in their mother's birthday--
The shift of the lock was automatic, and as if forces from the other side of the grave wanted to urge her entry, a release of interior pressure pushed at the door, causing it to open a crack.
Vitoria clicked on her headlamp, the beam a bright, burning blue that hurt her eyes until they adjusted. Extending her hand, she opened things wider, that shaft of light from her forehead penetrating the dense dark.
"Whattaya see?"
She didn't bother answering Streeter. Bending down, she released the snowshoes and stepped free of them. "You stay here," she told him.
"No problem."
As she put one foot over the threshold, she turned...and her headlamp illuminated a severed human hand that lay on the floor, just inside the door, like something one might find in a gag gift store. The shriveled fingers were curled up around the palm and frozen in place, the decayed flesh gray and white.
It had been cut off cleanly.
"Be on guard," she heard herself say.
"Yeah. Okay."
As Streeter answered, she frowned and realized she'd uttered that to herself. Forgetting all about him, she went in farther and closed the door most, but not all, of the way. God knew she wasn't about to take a chance on getting locked inside...except there was no need to worry. There was the same keypad and thumbprint reader on the interior--
That was what the hand must have been used for, she thought. Someone had escaped from here, getting free of her brother's vengeance by cutting that hand off and using its print. Because they hadn't known the code.
Taking a deep breath of air that was as cold as that of the outdoors, she smelled mold and must, but not the telltale sweet stench of mortal decay. Then again, given the layer of dust on everything? Nobody had been in here in a long time--so whatever bodies there might be had gone through their decomposition process already.
She saw the boots first. Then the legs, long legs encased in blue jeans that were stained--so this was not either of her brothers, as neither Ricardo nor Eduardo ever wore those kinds of pants. The male torso plugged into the denim was clothed in a loose sweatshirt, and there were hands at the base of each arm. So this was also not the one whose
fingerprint had been used for escape.
As she inspected the grimacing face, she winced. The man had been in great pain as he had died, his gray, frozen visage bearing a stunning wound in one eye's socket.
A burn, she thought. Someone had stabbed him in the eye with a torch or a flare.
Moving her head around, she inspected the interior and found nothing surprising: Galley kitchen, tiny bathroom, cots to sleep on. There was a minor degree of inhabitation debris like wrappers for foodstuffs and soda cans, as well as some weapons, so she guessed they had been here for a time before the ruckus had occurred.
Training the headlamp higher, she noted those narrow windows all the way at the top of the walls. Smart. One wouldn't want anybody seeing inside--
Across the way, there was another door, one more akin to that of the entrance than the bathroom.
Vitoria stepped over the body and proceeded over to what turned out to be a stairwell down into a cellar. As her beam penetrated the black hole, something skittered out of the way at the bottom, and she began her descent cautiously, putting her gloved hand on a railing that was bolted into the wall.
There was a slight smell of death halfway to the lower level, the awful perfume the kind of thing that activated the most ancient part of her brain, triggering thoughts of stopping, turning around, leaving immediately. Which she refused to do.
At the bottom, she stopped and looked around.
There were three cells directly ahead, and there was a body locked in one, its arm extending out through the bars, the hand missing. The head of the man had been badly beaten in, with a pool of dried blood around it, all facial features unrecognizable between the damage and the decaying.
Vitoria took a deep breath. More blue jeans. It wasn't either of her brothers.
Turning around, she--
"Oh...dear God," she said in Spanish.
As she hastily made the sign of the cross, her stomach clenched and then heaved--and she had to cover her mouth or throw up.
A corpse was splayed against the far wall, hanging by chains that had been locked on its wrists. The male was naked, the head lolling to the side, a trail of long-dried blood running from one side of the neck down the chest to the leg, a wound of some sort in the abdomen.
She knew it was Ricardo by the hands and the pattern of hair.
But she had to be sure.
Walking forward, she shook so badly her teeth rattled together and her hands slapped against her hips. And when she leaned to the side so the beam flashed upward to the features of the face, she began to cry. The dried-up eyes were open with horror, the mouth distended as if Ricardo had cried for help that would never come, the flesh horribly wrinkled and falling off in strips because he had been dead for so long yet no one had come for his remains.