by J. R. Ward
The white-robed figure was of modest height and modest build, but it made no sense to apply standards of human size and strength to the entity. Beneath the shroud—which Mr. F noted was stained and frayed at the bottom and torn up one side—the evil was a dense promise of suffering and menace and depravity.
“Have you no words of greeting for your master,” came a warping voice.
Then the evil looked past Mr. F, at the vampire. “And greetings to you, mine enemy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
So tell me honestly,” Jo said as she put a French fry in her mouth. “What do you really do? Not wrestling, I know. And I’m thinking you’re not in the military at the present. And you can’t be a drug dealer or you wouldn’t be so comfortable in here.”
“I am a protector.”
She thought about his response to that Honda Civic with its backfiring. “Okay, I can see that. Like a bodyguard? For who? Who do you guard?”
“There is a male.” Syn took another precise bite of his cheeseburger and wiped his mouth. “He and his family.”
“Would I have heard of him?”
“No. I live with him and I am not the only one who watches over him.”
The waitress came back over with more water. And no offense, but the woman needed to give it a rest with that damn pitcher of hers. Every time Syn took a sip, Ms. Tap Water felt the need to re-level his damn glass.
Jo took a deep breath and told herself to quit it with the territoriality. She didn’t even know the man’s last name, for godsakes.
“Can I get you more ketchup?” the waitress asked him.
I swear to God, Jo thought. I will cut a b—
“No, thank you.”
“Thanks, we’re good,” Jo emphasized.
When they were alone again, she muttered, “Do you always get this kind of service in restaurants?”
Syn finished his burger and wiped his mouth. “I don’t eat out usually.”
“Neither do I, but it’s because I’m cheap. I’ve got to be frugal with money. It’s just me at the end of the day.”
“How long have you been on your own?”
“Since after college.”
“What of your parents?”
“I was a social experiment that failed them.” She glanced over at a table of laughing cops. “Actually, that’s not right. I don’t think they adopted me because they wanted to do some poor unwanted kid a solid. I think my mom felt like she needed a daughter. It was an accessory to go with her estate and her husband and her lifestyle. I was an accessory.”
“They do not watch over you?”
“You have a funny way of phrasing things sometimes.” She shrugged. “And it’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Do you not have male relations who you can go to?”
“Like I’m living in a Dickens novel?” Jo smiled. “And I don’t want to go to anyone. I don’t need to be rescued from my own existence. I’ve handled things okay this far and I’m going to keep the trend going.”
“We all need support.”
“So who do you go to?”
Syn frowned and shifted in his seat. Shaking his head, he took out a cell phone that had a privacy guard on its screen—not that she would have peeked. As his eyes moved slowly over whatever had been texted, she had a thought that he might be dyslexic.
“I have to go,” he said.
Jo nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Of course—” When he started to get some twenties out of his pocket, she put her hand on his arm. “Nope. This is my treat. I’ll cover it.”
He froze and stayed that way. To the point where she removed her touch. Maybe she had offended him—
“I don’t want to leave you,” he blurted.
Something about the way he said the words made her feel warmth in the center of her chest. Or maybe it wasn’t the way he said them. It was the fact that he said them at all.
I don’t want to be left by you, she thought to herself.
Knowing that she only had another couple of seconds to stare at him, she drank in his face, that hard, harsh face that she knew she was going to see in her dreams—assuming she ever slept again.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Really.”
“I’m a friend.”
Ouch, she thought as she sat back.
The pain that shot through her rib cage made her realize that sometime between when he’d been prepared to shoot at some innocent Civic owner to keep her safe, and the ordering of their cheeseburgers and fries, she’d made a decision she wasn’t prepared to look too closely at. But it seemed like that was a door being shut on his side.
Well, he’d have sex with her. It wouldn’t mean anything to him, however. Friends, benefits, all that.
Syn slid out of the banquette, and now he got serious about the water. He took the glass and downed everything that was in it. Even the ice.
“Are you going out to fight?” she said.
“What’s your number? I’ll call you.”
Jo had a thought that she didn’t want him to die. Which was hyperbolic and silly. Then again… two dead bodies in as many nights? Kind of made catastrophizing look like a sensible attitude to take about life.
“Are you married?” she asked.
The recoil he pulled would have broken the neck of a lesser built man. “No.”
Okay, that was a relief. At least she wouldn’t be fantasizing about someone else’s husband. Not that she was going to be imagining anything. Nope. She might be reckless, but she wasn’t a masochist.
I’m a friend.
The three most crushing words in the English language when you were attracted to someone. Then again, given that she shouldn’t be with someone like him anyway, maybe they were a lifesaver.
“Take care of yourself,” she said softly.
Syn nodded his head, and then he was gone, striding out of the bar, out into the night. As if he hadn’t really wanted her phone number. As if the fact that they wouldn’t see each other again didn’t matter.
Where did all those only-I-can-help-you’s go? she wondered bitterly.
And P.S., how come she was turning into a chick? Real women didn’t wait for Prince Charmings to come along and give their lonely, spinster existences meaning. Chicks did, though. They got doe-eyed in the wake of departures and they finished their dinners by their lonesome in mourning and they waited to be called.
Reaching up to her lips, she thought of the kiss they’d shared.
“You’re just going to get hurt if you go after him,” she said.
Jo lasted another second and a half.
Shoving her hand into her purse, she grabbed some cash. Tossing however much it was on her half-eaten cheeseburger, she took her coat and jogged through the tables, through the patrons, through waiters. Breaking out into the spring chill, Syn’s name was on the tip of her tongue.
She didn’t let it fly.
Looking left… looking right… looking straight ahead, she saw nothing but an empty four-lane city street, and sidewalks without anyone on them, and a parking lot across the way that had two cars in its slots and a kiosk without an attendant.
“Where did you go?” she whispered into the night wind.
* * *
The evil is here. Oh, Jesus… the evil is here.
Butch ran as fast as he could, blocks of city streets flying under his shitkickers as he skidded around corners, and tore down straightaways. He was breathing like a freight train, his fists clenched and pumping, his leather jacket flared out and flapping behind him, his weapons moving with his torso in their holsters.
As he rounded a left-hand turn, he ran into some kind of a human and shoved them out of his way. When they shouted at him, he didn’t bother to apologize.
Faster, for fuck’s sake, he needed to be faster—
Peeling onto Eighteenth Street, he ran up a car that was parked on the sidewalk, pounding over the hood, the roof, and somersaulting into the air above the trunk. He landed in mid-stride and kept tooling, a barrage of self-i
nflicted criticism spurring him on.
Fucking half-breed, motherfucker, loser, piece of shit—
The last turn was one he lost traction on, the treads on his boots pried loose thanks to the centrifugal force of his body weight at an angle. As a result, he skidded into home on his ass, his feet out in front of him, his torso and legs continuing the trajectory while his head cranked to the side in the direction of what had called him.
The Omega was front and center in the middle of the alley, the evil’s presence like a stain on the night itself, the density of the bad news so great there was a warping of the air around it. Yet the master of all lessers was actually second on Butch’s list of things to worry about.
Qhuinn was a mere fifteen feet away from the Omega, standing frozen over the body of a slayer, his attention fixated on the dark deity like behind his mismatched eyes he was considering a defensive response—or worse, an offensive one.
As Butch did the math on any confrontation between the two, the only thing he thought of was those kids, Rhamp and Lyric… those beautiful kids that the brother shared with Layla. If Qhuinn died right here, right now, at the hands of the Omega, the adults of the Brotherhood household would mourn and move along, eventually. But that sweet little girl and that sturdy little guy? They would never know their sire. They would grow up with only the memories of other people filling the void of who their brave, strong, incredible father was.
Fuck. That. Shit.
As Butch back-flat’d into Qhuinn, he jumped up in the midst of his momentum, grabbed the brother by the jacket, and yanked them face-to-face.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Butch hissed. “Now!”
Qhuinn started to argue, of course. But nope. Not up for discussion. Shifting their bodies around, Butch made sure Rhamp and Lyric’s father was behind him—and then he torqued with every ounce of body weight and power he had, sending the huge male pinwheeling through the air away from the juncture of an alley, a vampire Frisbee.
There was a crash—like some trash bins had been bowling ball’d—and then Butch barked into his shoulder communicator.
“All clear,” he said. “All clear. Repeat… false alarm.”
Qhuinn stood up down the street and Butch glared at the guy, sending all kinds of GTFO in the male’s direction. And what do you know, something must have clicked. The brother dematerialized.
“Repeat, all clear,” Butch stressed as he refocused on the Omega—
Oh, looksee, looksee, there was another slayer right by the master, the Fore-lesser. A BOGO.
“Isn’t this lovely,” the Omega said in a voice that weaved through the unnaturally still air. “We meet again.”
“That’s a line from a bad movie.” Butch unsheathed both his black daggers. “I expect more from the likes of you.”
“Such credit. I’m tickled. And I’ve missed you.”
“Can’t say the same over here.”
“You downplay your emotions.”
“Not when it comes to hating you.”
The Omega drifted over, leaving the Fore-lesser behind. “You know, you are one of my few regrets. If I hadn’t made you, you wouldn’t be such a problem.”
“We’re almost done here. The prophecy nearly complete.” Butch knelt by the slayer Qhuinn had taken down. “You come any closer, I’m going to go to work. And not with these daggers.”
The Omega paused. “Do as you wish. I like to watch.”
“If you leave, right now,” Butch said, “I’ll stab this piece of shit back to you. You hang around? I’m going to suck him down like a milkshake on a hot summer night. And something tells me by the look of your robe you can’t afford to lose much more.”
An unholy growl rose up, emanating from under the dirty white folds. “You mortal scourge—”
“Enough trading insults.” Butch leaned down, putting his mouth over the still moving lesser’s. “So what’s it going to be?”
“You need to learn the real meaning of power.”
With surprisingly quick reflexes, the Omega curled back an arm-like extension, and cast a dense, shadowy projectile through the air, the buzzing sound of its flight like that of a wasps’ nest riled up, the dark magic coming fast and on-target. The force hit Butch like a ton of bricks, throwing him off the gurgling, useless pile of slayer, slamming him against the building behind him.
There was no time to recover. Before the Omega could pitch a second strike, Butch surged forward, grabbed the mangled face of the lesser, and made out with the oily mess of anatomy, inhaling like he had been underwater for a half hour, like not only his life depended on it, but like the lives of every single one of the brothers and the fighters who Qhuinn was going to drag here in the next thirty seconds would be saved by the suck.
The Omega let out a high-pitched howl that was so loud, it knocked out Butch’s hearing and went straight down his spine.
But he did not look up. Did not stop. Did not slow down.
It was his only shot… to save his brothers who were going to come running, regardless of that all clear he’d sent.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Syn re-formed a block away from the coordinates that had been sent out by Qhuinn, but the instant he resumed his physical form, he received a contradicting message that all was clear from Butch.
Flaring his nostrils, he scented the air.
The stench of lesser was so loud, it could only be explained by a juicy kill. So maybe Qhuinn had brought one down, but been worried about backup on the slayer side or something? Only to have Butch take care of round two?
Beneath his skin, his talhman surged, and it was the need for bloodshed that sent him forward at a jog—just like it was the need for a kill that had made him get up from that table at the bar, when he hadn’t wanted to leave Jo. He was desperate to release his inner burn, however. Overdue to let his bad side express itself.
Maybe there was something left over for him to play with. Maybe there would be others. Maybe this wouldn’t take long and he could go back and find Jo—
Syn came around a tight corner and stopped dead.
Even as his eyes focused on the figure in dingy white robing, and his instincts told him what it was, his brain refused to believe the conclusion he drew.
Yet the draped figure with evil spilling out from under its hems could be one, and only one, entity. And the Omega was in attack mode, its form reared back as if it were gathering strength to throw something… at Butch.
Who was inhaling a slayer like he was trying to draw a tire through a straw.
Syn didn’t hesitate.
With a powerful surge, he bum-rushed the evil, taking three huge strides and throwing all his body weight at the damn thing. And the Omega, for all its omnipotence, didn’t seem to notice him—at least not until Syn was on the entity, his body tackling the master of all lessers off its feet.
Or whatever held it up off the ground.
Everything went in slow motion at that point. As whatever spell or magic the Omega had been aiming at Butch went haywire and blew a car off its tires, Syn was aware of a horrible feeling swamping through his body, waves of sickness and death and toxic, snarling pain going through him. And then Butch looked up from the slayer and yelled something, his arms reaching out as if he were trying to save someone.
Probably Syn. But no time to think about that.
The Omega slung Syn away like he weighed nothing, and the landing was rock hard as he bounced on his pecs and his palms, just barely keeping his face from being his tarmac as he went head-first toward a brick wall. Putting his hands out, he front-bumper’d the building just before he got his skull cracked open.
After which… silence.
Syn tried to lifted his head, but he was curiously weak, his body lax as a damp towel. The best he could do was roll over and try to get his eyeballs to work properly—and that was how he discovered that the alley had only two people in it.
Well, three if you counted the hot mess of the slayer Butch was still straddli
ng.
No Omega.
Before Syn could say anything or check for injuries, his own or Butch’s, he was overcome with nausea. Turning back onto his stomach, he propped his hands and threw up what he’d eaten with Jo—and then kept going until he was dry heaving and seeing stars.
Hands reached out to him. Someone talked to him—Balz, his cousin. And then there were lots of people around.
He couldn’t hear anything, though, the rushing of the blood in his ears like nothing he’d ever experienced before. And meanwhile, his heart was doing bad things in his chest, its rhythm uneven and way too strong. As his awareness zeroed in on what was going on behind his sternum, he had an image of a boulder bouncing down a rocky hillside, boom!, ba-boom!, ba-ba-boom!—and then dizziness came on him like it was a physical force with three dimensions. As the world spun so badly he keeled over onto his side, he got a terrific close-up of his cousin’s shitkicker.
From a vast distance, he watched Balthazar holler at somebody, and Syn had a thought that his cousin was a good male, in spite of the thief stuff. Sure, the bastard might have a more narrow conscience than most, but that didn’t mean—
A dark-haired guy in surgical scrubs came running over and crouched down.
Well, this was handy. It was Dr. Manny Manello, the human surgeon mated unto Payne, V’s sister.
Syn was so knocked out, he almost greeted the healer. Which was a strange impulse as he was more of a Fuck-off than Cheerio-ol’-chap kind of person. Then again, he wasn’t in his right mind at the moment, and the doctor seemed to agree, shaking his head and holding up his hands as if there was nothing he could do.
Huh, Syn thought. Looked like he might be dying.
Driven by an impulse he couldn’t deny, he forced his arm out and slapped the pavement in front of Balz’s shitkicker. The male’s face immediately came down to level.
Syn started talking. At least… he thought he was talking. He still couldn’t hear anything—his cousin’s ears seemed to be working okay, though. The male’s face went from worried… to confused… to shocked.
Whatever. All that mattered was…