by J. R. Ward
When he was bald he wiped the residue off his scalp and brushed off his shirt. His neck itched from some of the hairs that had fallen into his collar, and his head felt too light. He rubbed his hand over his scalp, leaned into the mirror, and looked at himself.
Then he took the dagger and put it point-first to his forehead.
With a hand that shook, he drew the knife down the center of his face, ending with an S-curve at his upper lip. Blood welled and dripped down. He wiped it off with a clean white towel.
Zsadist armed himself with care. When he was ready he stepped out of his closet. The bedroom was dark, and he walked through it out of habit more than sight, heading for the pool of light spilling out of the bathroom. He went to the sink, turned it on, and bent down over the rushing water, cupping the cold torrent in his hands. He splashed his face and rubbed his eyes. Drank a little from what he held between his palms.
When he went to dry off, he sensed that Phury had come into the bedroom and was moving around, though he couldn't see the male.
"Phury… I was going to come find you before I left."
With a towel under his chin, Z looked at his reflection in the mirror, seeing his new yellow eyes. He thought of the arc of his life and knew most of it was for shit. But there had been two things that hadn't been. One female. And one male.
"I love you," he said in a rough voice, realizing it was the first time he'd ever said the words to his twin. "Just wanted to get that out."
Phury stepped in behind him.
Z recoiled in horror at his twin's reflection. No hair. Scar down his face. Eyes flat and lifeless.
"Oh, sweet Virgin," Z breathed. "What the fuck did you do to yourself…?"
"I love you, too, my brother." Phury raised his arm. In his hand was a hypodermic syringe, one of the two that had been left for Bella. "And you need to live."
Zsadist spun around just as his twin's arm swung down. The needle caught Z in the neck and he felt the rush of morphine go right into his jugular. Screaming, he grabbed onto Phury's shoulders. As the drug kicked in, he sagged and felt himself get eased onto the floor.
Phury knelt beside him and stroked his face. "I've only ever had you to live for. If you die I have nothing. I'm utterly lost. And you are needed here."
Zsadist tried to reach out, but couldn't lift his arms as Phury stood up.
"God, Z, I keep thinking this tragedy of ours is going to be over. But it just keeps going, doesn't it?"
Zsadist blacked out to the sound of his twin's boots heading from the room.
CHAPTER 45
John lay on the bed, curled on his side, staring into the dark. The room he'd been given in the Brotherhoods' mansion was luxurious and anonymous and made him feel no better or worse.
From somewhere in the corner, he heard a clock chime once, twice, three times… He kept counting the low, rhythmic tones until he got up to six. Rolling over onto his back, he considered the fact that in another six hours it would be the start of a new day. Midnight. No longer Tuesday, but Wednesday.
He thought of the days and weeks and months and years of his life, time that he owned because he'd experienced it and therefore could lay claim to its passage.
How arbitrary, this distinction of time. How like humans—and vampires—to have to cut the infinite down to something they could believe they controlled.
What a crock. You didn't control anything in your life. And neither did anyone else in theirs.
God, if only there was a way to do that. Or at least be able to do some things over. How wonderful would it be if he could just hit a rewind button and then edit the hell out of the past day? That way he wouldn't have to feel as he did now.
He groaned and turned onto his stomach. This pain was… unparalleled, a revelation of the worst kind.
His despair was like an illness, affecting his whole body, making him shiver though he was not cold, tossing his stomach though it was empty, causing aches to bloom in his joints and his chest. He'd never considered emotional devastation to be an affliction, but it was one, and he knew he was going to be ill from it for quite some time.
God… He should have gone with Wellsie, instead of staying home to work on tactics. If he'd been in that car, maybe he could have saved her… Or maybe he'd just be dead too?
Well, that would be better than this existence. Even if there was nothing in the afterlife, even if you just blacked out and that was it, surely that would be better than this.
Wellsie… gone, gone. Her body, it was ashes. From what John had overheard, Vishous had laid his right hand upon her at the scene and then taken what was left behind. A formal Fade ceremony, whatever that was, would be performed, except no one could do that without Tohr.
And Tohr was gone, too. Disappeared. Perhaps dead? It had been so close to dawn when he'd taken off… In fact, maybe that had been the point. Maybe he'd just run out into the light so he could be with Wellsie's spirit.
Gone, gone… everything seemed gone.
Sarelle… lost to the lessers now, too. Lost before he had really known her. Zsadist was going to try to get her back, but who knew what would happen?
John pictured Wellsie's face and her red hair and her little pregnant bump. He saw Tohr's brush cut and his navy blue eyes and his broad shoulders in black leather. He imagined Sarelle poring over those old texts, her blond cap of hair hanging forward, her long, pretty hands working the pages.
The temptation to start with the tears again rose, and John sat up quickly, forcing the urge to level off. He was through with the crying. He would not weep again for any of them. Tears were utterly useless, a weakness not worthy of their memories.
Strength would be his offering to them. Power his eulogy. Vengeance the prayer at their graves.
John got off the bed, used the bathroom, then dressed, slipping his feet into the Nikes Wellsie had bought for him. Within moments he was downstairs, going through the secret door that led into the underground tunnel. He walked quickly down the steel labyrinth, eyes straight ahead, arms swinging in a soldier's precise rhythm.
When he stepped through the back of the closet and out into Tohr's office, he saw that the mess had been cleaned up: The desk was back where it had been before, and the ugly-ass green chair was tucked in behind it. The papers and the pens and the files and everything were tidied up. Even the computer and the phone were where they should be, though both had been broken into pieces the night before. They must be new ones…
Order had been restored, and the three-dimensional lie worked for him.
He went to the gym and flipped on the cage lights in the ceiling. There were no classes today because of everything that had happened, and he wondered with Tohr gone whether the training would stop altogether.
John jogged across the mats to the equipment room, his sneakers smacking against the tough blue skins. From the knife cabinet he took out two daggers and then snagged a chest holster small enough to fit him. Once the weapons were strapped on, he went to the center of the gym.
Just as Tohr had taught him, he began by lowering his head.
And then he palmed the daggers and started to work them, clothing himself in anger against his enemy, picturing all the lessers he was going to kill.
Phury walked into the theater and took a seat in the back. The place was crowded, chatty, filled with young twosomes and legions of frat boys. He heard hushed voices and some that were loud. Listened to laughter and candy getting unwrapped, and slurping and munching.
When the movie came up the houselights dimmed, and everyone started yelling out lines.
He knew when the lesser approached. Could smell the sweetness in the air, even through the popcorn and the girlie perfumes emanating from the dating pairs.
A cell phone appeared in front of his face. "Take it. Put it up to your ear."
Phury did and heard harsh breaths on the line.
The crowd in the theater yelled, "Damn it, Janet, let's go screw!"
The lesser's voice came from right
behind his head. "Tell her you're going to come with me without a problem. Promise her that she'll live because you're going to do what you're told. And do it in English so I can understand you."
Phury spoke into the phone, the exact string of words he used unknown to him. All he tracked was the fact that the female started sobbing.
The lesser yanked the phone back. "Now put these on."
Steel handcuffs dropped in his lap. He cuffed himself and waited.
"You see that exit to the right? That's where we're headed. You're going first and there's a truck waiting just outside. You're getting in the passenger-side door. The whole time I'm right behind you with the phone to my mouth. You fuck with me, or I see any of your Brothers, and I'm going to have her slaughtered. Oh, and FYI, there's a knife at her throat so there's no time delay. We clear?"
Phury nodded.
"Now stand up and get moving."
Phury rose to his feet and headed for the door. As he walked along he realized he'd had some thought of coming out of this alive. He was vicious good with weapons, and he'd packed a few in hidden places. But this lesser was smart, hog-tying him, trapping him with the life of that civilian female.
As Phury kicked open the theater's side door, he knew without a doubt that he was kissing his ass good-bye tonight.
Zsadist came to by force of will, reaching out through the drug haze and grabbing onto consciousness. With a groan he dragged himself across the bath's marble floor and onto the rug in the bedroom. Clawing his way across the carpet, pushing with his feet, he barely had the strength to will the door open when he got to it.
As soon as he was in the hall of statues, he tried to yell. At first it was only hoarse whispers, but then he got a holler out. And another. And another.
The pounding, running footsteps made him dizzy with relief.
Wrath and Rhage knelt by him and rolled him over. He cut through their questions, unable to follow all the words. "Phury… gone… Phury… gone…"
When his stomach heaved, he lurched back onto his side and threw up. The voiding helped, making him feel a little more clearheaded after it stopped.
"Have to find him…"
Wrath and Rhage were still firing questions, talking fast, and Z thought they were probably the cause of all the buzzing in his ears. Either that or his head was about to explode.
As he pushed his face off the carpet his vision spun, and he thanked God that dose of morphine had been calibrated for Bella's weight. Because he was a mess.
His gut spasmed and he vomited again, losing it all over the rag. Shit… He never had been able to handle opiates.
More feet pounding down the hall. More voices. Someone wiping his mouth with a wet cloth. Fritz. When Z's throat started working up another round of gags, a wastepaper basket was shoved in his face.
"Thank you," he said as he threw up again.
With every heave, his mind was coming back online, his body, too. He stuffed two fingers down his throat to keep himself going. The faster he got that drug out of his system, the sooner he could go after Phury.
That heroic motherfucker… God. He was going to kill his twin for this, he really was. Phury was the one who was supposed to live.
But where the hell had he been taken? And how to find him? The movie theater was the starting place, but they wouldn't have stayed there long.
Zsadist started to do the dry-heave thing, because there was nothing left in his stomach. It was in the middle of the retching that the only solution came to him, and when it did, his stomach rolled from something other than the drug. The way to his twin violated every instinct he had.
More pounding down the hall. Vishous's voice. A civilian emergency. A family of six trapped in their house, surrounded by lessers.
Z lifted his head. Then his torso. Then he was up on his feet. His will, ever the only saving grace he had, came to the rescue again. It threw off more of the drug, focused him, cleared him out better than the vomiting.
"I'll get Phury," he told his brothers. "You go take care of business."
There was a brief pause. Then Wrath said, "So be it."
CHAPTER 46
Bella sat in a Louis XIV chair, her legs crossed at the ankles, her hands in her lap. A blaze crackled in a marble fireplace to the left, and there was a cup of Earl Grey tea at her elbow. Marissa was across the way on a delicate sofa, drawing a strand of yellow silk up through an embroidery mesh. There was no sound to the movement.
Bella thought she was going to scream—
She leaped up, energized by instinct. Zsadist… Zsadist was close by.
"What is it?" Marissa said.
Pounding on the front door lit off like a drum, and a moment later Zsadist came into the parlor. He was dressed for his business, guns on his hips, daggers strapped on his chest. The doggen right on his heels looked scared stiff of him.
"Leave us," Marissa was told. "And take your servant with you."
As the female hesitated, Bella cleared her throat. "It's okay. It's… Go."
Marissa inclined her head. "I won't be far."
Bella held herself in place as they were left alone.
"I need you," Zsadist said.
She narrowed her eyes. God, those words she had wanted to hear. How cruel that they came so late. "For what."
"Phury took your vein."
"Yes."
"I need you to find him."
"Is he missing?"
"Your blood is in his veins. I need you—"
"To find him. I heard that. Tell me why." The brief pause that followed chilled her.
"The lesser has him. David has him."
Her breath left her lungs. Her heart stopped. "How…?"
"I don't have time to explain." Zsadist came forward, looking as if he was going to take her hands, but then he stopped. "Please. You're the only one who can get me to him, because your blood is in him."
"Of course… of course I'll find him for you."
It was the chain of blood ties, she thought. She could locate Phury anywhere because he'd fed from her. And after she'd been at Zsadist's throat, he would be able to track her for the same reason.
He put his face right into hers. "I want you to get within fifty yards of him, no closer, we clear? And then you're dematerializing right back here."
She looked him in the eye. "I won't let you down."
"I wish there were another way to find him."
Oh, that hurt. "No doubt you do."
She left the parlor and got her coat, then stood in the foyer. She closed her eyes and reached out into the air, piercing first the walls of the entryway she was in, then the outer structure of Havers's house. Her mind cast out over the shrubs and the lawn and cut through other trees and houses… Through cars and trucks and buildings and across parks and rivers and streams. Out farther still to the farmland and the mountains…
When she found Phury's energy source, a screaming pain assaulted her, as if that were what he felt. As she swayed, Zsadist gripped her arm.
She pushed him away. "I've got him. Oh, God… he's—"
Zsadist grabbed her arm again and squeezed. "Fifty yards. No closer. Are we clear?"
"Yes. Now let me go."
She went out the front door, dematerialized, and took form about twenty yards away from a small cabin in the woods.
She felt Zsadist take shape at her elbow. "Go," he hissed. "Get out of here."
"But—"
"If you want to help, leave so I don't have to worry about you. Go."
Bella took one last look into his face and dematerialized.
Zsadist sidled up to the log cabin, grateful for the cold air that helped him throw off a little more of the morphine. As he flattened himself against a rough-hewn wall, he unsheathed a dagger and peered into one of the windows. There was nothing inside, just some rustic, shitty furniture and a computer setup.
Panic washed through him, a cold rain in his blood.
And then he heard the sound… a thump. Then another.
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There was a smaller outbuilding with no windows about twenty-five yards back. He jogged over and listened for only a split second. Then he traded his knife for a Beretta and kicked down the door.
The sight before him was out of his own past: A male chained to a table, pounded raw. A demented psychopath standing over the victim.
Phury lifted his battered face, blood glistening on his swollen lips and beat-to-hell nose. The lesser with the brass knuckles whirled around and seemed momentarily confused.
Zsadist aimed his gun at the fucker, but the slayer was right in front of Phury: The slightest miscalculation and the bullet was going to drill into his twin. Z dropped the muzzle, squeezed the trigger, and nailed the lesser in the leg, shattering his knee. The bastard screamed and dropped to the floor.
Z went for him. Except just as he got a hold on the undead, another popping sound went off.
The blaze of pain shot through Z's shoulder. He knew he'd been plugged a good one, but he couldn't think about that right now. He focused on getting control over the lesser's gun, which was the same thing the SOB was trying to do to Z's Sig. They struggled on the floor, each trying to get a grip on the other in spite of the blood that was oiling them up. Punches were thrown and hands grabbed and legs thrashed. Both guns were lost in the grappling.
About four minutes into the fight Z's strength started to flag with alarming speed. Then he was on the bottom, the lesser sitting on his chest. Z gave a push, willing his body to throw the weight on it off, but though his mind gave the command, for once his limbs refused to obey. He glanced at his shoulder. He was bleeding out, no doubt because that slug had hit an artery. And that shot of morphine didn't help.
In the lull of the fighting, the lesser was panting and wincing, like his leg was killing him. "Who… the fuck… are you?"
"The one… you want," Z shot back, breathing just as hard. Shit… He had to work to keep his vision from phasing out. "I'm the one… who took her… from you."