by J. R. Ward
Mr. X looked over his shoulder before getting behind the wheel. The prostitute he’d killed was lying across a storm drain, her heroin-saturated blood seeping into the sewage system. The dear girl had even helped him with the needle. Of course, she hadn’t been expecting 100 percent pure H.
Or having enough of it pumped into her vein to put a moose into a deep nod.
The police would find her by morning, but he’d been very neat, just like before. Latex gloves. Hat pulled down over his hair. Densely woven nylon clothes that should leave no fibers.
And God knew, she hadn’t struggled at all.
Mr. X calmly started the engine and eased out onto Trade Street.
A fine shine of anticipatory sweat broke out above his upper lip. The arousal, all the adrenaline pumping through him, made him miss the days when he could still have sex. Even if the vampire had no information to give, the rest of the evening was going to be enjoyable
He’d start with the hammer, he thought.
No, the dental drill would be better. Under the fingernails.
That should wake the male right up. After all, there was no sense torturing the unconscious. Like kicking a corpse, that would just be an aerobic workout, and even then, only a mild one. He should know.
Considering what he’d done to his father’s body when he’d found it.
From the back he heard a flopping sound. He glanced over his shoulder. The vampire was moving under the blanket.
Good. He was alive.
Mr. X looked back out to the road and frowned. Leaning forward in his seat, he gripped the wheel.
Up ahead, there was the flare of brake lights.
Cars were stopped in a line. A bunch of orange cones were set out. And blue and white flashes announced a police presence.
An accident?
No. A roadblock. Two cops with flashlights looking into cars. A sign that read, INTOXICATION CHECKPOINT.
Mr. X hit his brakes. He reached into his black bag, took out the dart gun, and fired another two into the vampire to keep the noise down. With the windows darkened and the black blanket as cover, they had a shot at making it through. As long as the male didn’t move.
When it was Mr. X’s turn, he put the window down as the cop approached. The man’s flashlight hit the dashboard, casting a glow.
“Evening, Officer.” Mr. X assumed a pleasant expression.
“You been drinking tonight, sir?” The cop was your basic middle-aged nobody. Doughy around the middle. Fuzzy mustache that needed a better trim job. Gray hair poofing out from under his hat like a weed. He had all the aspects of a sheep-dog except for the flea collar and the tail.
“No, Officer, I have not.”
“Hey, I know you.”
“Do you?” Mr. X smiled more broadly while eyeing the man’s throat. Frustration made him think of the knife he had in the car door. He reached down and ran his finger over the handle, soothing himself.
“Yeah, you teach jujitsu to my son.” When the cop leaned back, his flashlight swung to the side, hitting the black bag in the passenger seat. “Darryl, come meet Phillie’s sensei.”
While the other cop ambled over, Mr. X checked to make sure the bag was zipped up. No sense flashing the dart gun or the nine-millimeter Glock he had inside of it.
For a good five minutes, he made nice-nice with the boys in blue while fantasizing about the ways he could shut them up.
When he finally put the minivan in gear, he discovered the knife was in his hand and almost in his lap.
He had some serious aggression to work off.
Wrath stared hard at the blurry contours of the single-story commercial building. For the past two hours, he and Rhage had been watching the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy, waiting to see if it got any nocturnal action. The facility was located at the far end of a strip mall, on the edge of a stretch of woods. Rhage, who had cased the place the night before, estimated it was about twenty thousand square feet in size.
Plenty big enough to be a center for the lessers.
The parking lot ran down the front of the academy, and there were about ten to fifteen spaces on one side. There were two entrances. Double glass doors in front. Side ingress with no window. From their vantage point in the woods, they could see both the empty lot and the ways in and out of the building.
The other sites had been dead ends. The Gold’s Gym hadn’t yielded anything other than a revolving membership of steak-heads. It closed at midnight, opened at five A.M., and had been quiet for the past couple of nights. The paintball arena was the same, just an empty building from the moment it closed its doors. The best bets were the two academies, and Vishous and the twins were across town at the other one.
Although lessers could go out in the day, they did their hunting at night because that was when their targets moved around. As dawn got close, the society’s recruitment and training centers were often used as places to congregate, but not always. Also, because the lessers shifted locales frequently, one spot could be hot for a month or a season or a year and then be deserted.
As Darius had been dead for only a few days, Wrath was hoping the society hadn’t moved on yet.
He felt for his watch. “Damn it, it’s almost three.”
Rhage shifted against the tree he was behind. “So I guess Tohr isn’t showing up tonight.”
Wrath shrugged, hoping like hell the subject would get dropped.
It didn’t.
“That’s not like him.” Rhage paused. “But you’re not surprised.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why?”
Wrath cracked his knuckles. “I took a piece out of him. When I shouldn’t have.”
“I’m not gonna ask.”
“Wise of you.” And then for some absurd reason, he tacked on, “I need to apologize to him.”
“That’ll be a surprise.”
“Am I that awful?”
“No,” Rhage said without his usual bravado. “You’re just not wrong that often.”
Candor was a surprise coming from Hollywood.
“Well, I sure as hell did a number on Tohr.”
Rhage clapped him on the back. “Lemme tell you, as someone who offends folks regularly, there ain’t much that can’t be fixed.”
“I brought Wellsie into it.”
“Not a good idea.”
“And how he feels about her.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Why?”
“Because I…”
Because he’d felt like an idiot trying to pull off even a sliver of what Tohrment had managed to do so successfully for two centuries. In spite of Tohr’s calling as a warrior, he’d sustained a relationship with a female of worth. And it was a good, strong, loving union. He was the only one of the brothers who’d been able to do that.
Wrath thought about Beth. Pictured her coming up to him, asking him to stay.
Man, he was desperate to find her in his bed when he got home. And not because he wanted to take her. It was because then he could sleep beside her. Rest a little, knowing that she was safe and with him.
Ah, hell. He had a terrible feeling he was going to have to stick around that female. For a while.
“Because?” Rhage prompted.
Wrath’s nose tingled. A faint whiff of sweetness, like baby powder, floated by on the breeze.
“Get out your welcome mat,” he said, opening his jacket.
“How many?” Rhage asked, pivoting around.
The sounds of sticks snapping and leaves rustling softly broke the night. Got louder.
“Three. At least.”
“Yee-haw.”
The lessers were coming straight at them, through a clearing in the woods. They were loud, talking and walking without care, until one of them stopped. The other two pulled up, shut up.
“Evening, boys,” Rhage said, sauntering out into the open.
Wrath took the stealth approach. As the lessers circled his brother, crouching, d
rawing knives, Wrath skirted around the edge of the trees.
Then he reached out of the shadows and plucked one of the lessers off the ground, starting the fight. He slit its throat, but there was no time to polish off the kill. Rhage had engaged two, but the third was about to nail the brother in the head with a baseball bat.
Wrath fell upon the undead Sammy Sousa, taking it down to the ground and stabbing it in the throat. Juicy, strangled noises bubbled up into the air. Wrath looked around, in case there were more or his brother needed help.
Rhage was doing just fine.
Even to Wrath’s poor eyesight, the warrior was a thing of beauty when he fought. All fists and kicks. Rapid motion. Animal reflexes. Power and endurance. He was a master of hand-to-hand combat, and the lessers hit the ground again and again, the length of time it took them to get up growing longer and longer.
Wrath went back to the first lesser and knelt over the body. It writhed as he went through its pockets and took all the ID he could find.
He was about to stab it in the chest when he heard a shotgun go off.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“So Butch, you gonna hang around until I get off tonight?” Abby smiled as she poured him another Scotch.
“Maybe.” He didn’t want to, but after a couple more he might change his mind. Assuming he could still get it up while he was drunk.
With a shift to the left, she looked behind him at another guy, shooting the man a little wink while flashing some cleavage.
Covering her bases. Probably a good idea.
Butch’s cell phone vibrated on his belt, and he grabbed it. “Yeah?”
“We’ve got another dead prostitute,” José said. “Thought you’d want to know.”
“Where?” He leaped off the bar stool like he had somewhere to go. Then sat back down, slowly.
“Trade and Fifth. But don’t come over. Where are you?”
“McGrider’s.”
“Ten minutes?”
“I’ll be here.”
Butch pushed the Scotch away as frustration tore through him.
Was this how he was going to end up? Getting drunk every night? Maybe working a PI or a security job until he got fired for being a derelict? Living alone in that two-room apartment until his liver kicked it?
He’d never been one for plans, but maybe it was time he made some.
“You didn’t like that one?” Abby said, framing the shot glass with her breasts.
Reflexively, he reached for the damn thing, brought it to his lips, and tossed it back.
“That’s my man.”
But when she went to pour him another, he covered the top with his hand. “I think I’m done tonight.”
“Yeah, right.” She smiled when he shook his head. “Well, you know where to find me.”
Yeah, unfortunately.
José took longer than ten minutes. It was a good half hour before Butch saw the detective cutting through the crowd of drinkers, a grim figure in his casual clothes.
“Do we know her?” Butch asked before the man could sit down.
“Another one of Big Daddy’s. Carla Rizzoli. A.k.a. Candy.”
“Same MO?”
José ordered a vodka straight up. “Yup. Throat slit, blood everywhere. There was some residue on her lips like she’d been foaming at the mouth.”
“H?”
“Probably. The medical examiner’s going to do the autopsy first thing tomorrow.”
“Anything found at the scene?”
“A dart. Like you’d shoot an animal with. We’re having it analyzed.” José polished off the vodka with a quick tilt of his head. “And I heard Big Daddy’s pissed. He’s looking for revenge.”
“Yeah, well, hopefully he’ll take it out on Beth’s boyfriend. Maybe a war will drive that bastard out of hiding.” Butch set his elbows onto the bar. Rubbed his achy eyes. “Goddamn it, I can’t believe she’s protecting him.”
“Man, I never saw that one coming. She finally picks someone—”
“And he’s a total lowlife.”
José looked over. “We’re going to have to call her in.”
“I figured.” Butch focused his eyes by squinting. “Listen, I’m supposed to meet her tomorrow. Give me a crack at her first, will ya?”
“I can’t do that, O’Neal. You’re not—”
“Yeah, you can. You just schedule her for the day after.”
“The investigation is moving forward—”
“Please.” Butch couldn’t believe he was begging. “Come on, José. I’ve got a better shot than anyone at getting through to her.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she watched him almost kill me.”
José looked down at the grotty bar top. “You’ve got one day. And nobody’d better find out, because the captain will have my head. Then no matter what, I gotta interrogate her at the station.”
Butch nodded while Abby came dancing back over with a Scotch bottle in one hand and a liter of vodka in the other.
“You’re looking dry, boys,” she said with a giggle. The message in her lusty smile and her vacant eyes was getting louder, more desperate, as the night crawled to an end.
Butch thought of his empty wallet. His empty holster. His empty apartment.
“I gotta get out of her,” he muttered, sliding off the stool. “I mean, here.”
Wrath’s arm absorbed the shotgun’s load, and the impact twisted his torso like rope. He went with the force of the hit, spinning to the ground, but he didn’t stay down. Moving fast and low, he got the hell out of the way, not giving the shooter a chance to nail him again.
The fifth lesser had come out of nowhere. And it was packing a heavy load in that sawed-off.
Behind a pine tree, Wrath quickly took stock of the injury. Nothing too deep. Some skin and muscle stripped off his biceps. Bone was intact. He could still fight.
He took out a throwing star and stepped into the open.
And that was when a tremendous flash of light illuminated the clearing.
He leaped back into the shadows. “Aw, Christ!”
Now they were all in for it. The beast was coming out of Rhage. And the shit was going to hit the fan.
Rhage’s eyes glowed white as headlights as his body mutated in a ghastly display of tearing and ruptures. Something horrible took his place, its scales glistening in the moonlight, its claws slicing through the air. The lessers didn’t know what hit them as the creature attacked with a full set of fangs, going after them until their blood ran down its huge chest in a river.
Wrath stayed back. He’d seen this before, and the beast didn’t need help. Hell, if you got too close, you were liable to get a body trim.
When it was all over, the creature let out a howl so loud, the trees bowed away, their branches blown asunder.
The slaughter was absolute. There was no hope of getting any identification off the lessers because there were no bodies. Even their clothes had been consumed.
Wrath stepped into the clearing.
The creature swung around, panting.
Wrath kept his voice low and his hands at his sides. Rhage was in there somewhere, but until he came out again, you couldn’t assume the beast would remember who the brothers were.
“We’re cool,” Wrath said. “You and me, we’ve done this before.”
The beast’s chest pumped up and down, nostrils quivering as it sniffed the air. Glowing eyes fixated on the blood running down Wrath’s arm. A snort came out. The claws lifted.
“Forget it. You did your thing. You’re fed. Now, let’s have Rhage back.”
The great head shook back and forth, but its scales started to vibrate. A high-pitched protest breached the creature’s throat, and then there was another flash.
Rhage fell naked to the ground, landing face-first in the dirt.
Wrath ran over and dropped to his knees, reaching out. The warrior’s skin was slick with sweat, and he was shaking like a newborn in the cold.
Rha
ge shifted at the touch. Tried to lift his head. Failed.
Wrath took the brother’s hand and squeezed it. The burn on reentry was always a bitch.
“Relax, Hollywood, you’re good. You’re doing good.” He took off his jacket and gently covered his brother. “You’re just going to hang here and let me take care of you, dig?”
Rhage mumbled something and curled into a ball.
Wrath flipped open his cell phone and dialed. “Vishous? We need a car. Now. You’re kidding me. No, I gotta move our boy. We just had a visit from his other side. But you tell Zsadist not to fuck around.”
He hung up and looked at Rhage.
“Hate this,” the brother said.
“I know.” Wrath moved the sticky, blood-soaked hair out of the vampire’s face. “We’re going to get you home.”
“Didn’t like seeing you shot.”
Wrath smiled softly. “Clearly.”
Beth stirred, burrowing deeper into the pillow.
Something wasn’t right.
She opened her eyes just as a deep male voice broke the silence. “What the fuck do we have here?”
She bolted upright. Looked frantically to the sound.
The man towering over her had black, lifeless eyes. A harsh face with a jagged scar running down it. Hair that was practically shaved it was so short. And long, white fangs that were bared.
She screamed.
He smiled. “My favorite sound in all the world.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth.
God, that scar. It ran down his forehead, over his nose, across his cheek, and back around to his mouth. The tail end of the S distorted his upper lip, pulling one side into a permanent sneer.
“Admiring my artwork?” he drawled. “You should see the rest of me.”
Her eyes darted to his broad chest. He was wearing a skintight, long-sleeved black shirt. On both his pecs, small rings were evident beneath the material, as if he had his nipples pierced. As she looked back up at his face, she saw he had a black band tattooed around his neck and a plug in his left earlobe.