by J. R. Ward
CHAPTER FIFTY
Among the truly strange things about destiny… fate… God’s will… whatever you wanted to call it, was the location where major shifts in a person’s life happened. Sometimes, the place made sense. Like a hospital, where someone was born or died. Or a stage, where you graduated from high school, from college, from grad school. Maybe an altar, where a person got married.
But other times?
As Jo glanced around at the break room, with its vending and soda machines, its self-serve buffet spread, its bowls of fruit and boxes of cereal, she knew she would never, ever forget anything about it. Not the round tables and the chairs. Not this cluster of sofas where she was sitting. Not the linoleum floor or the fluorescent lights in the ceiling or the TV that was up there in the corner, an episode of The Simpsons playing mutely.
It was one of the early Treehouse of Horror episodes.
At least that seemed apt considering what she had just learned about herself.
And well, she wouldn’t forget anything here assuming they let her keep these memories.
She refocused on Syn. He had been silent most of the time. “So we’re enemies if I don’t turn.”
Considering the fact that she had just learned she might not be human at all, she figured she’d start with some of the more basic realignments. Her brain simply wasn’t able to cope with the bigger ones.
Dracula, who? Dracula, what?
“Answer me,” she prompted him. When he didn’t respond, she feared everything he was keeping to himself.
“He can’t.” Manny, as he’d asked to be called, shook his head. “The enemies question depends on a lot of things.”
After she’d interrupted their argument, cooler heads had prevailed, and the three of them had ended up in this land of consumables. She was glad for the change in location. They were both big guys and those exam rooms were claustrophobic to begin with. Plus, hello, she couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.
Not that she was hungry.
“Like how successful my memory loss is over time, right?” When Manny shrugged, Jo burst up from her chair. “And because no one knows whether or not I’ll go through it, I’m being treated as though I’m just a regular human. That’s why my memories were taken from me.”
“That’s right. Half-breeds are wild cards. There’s no telling what side of the divide you’ll end up on.”
“Except you’re in this world. And you’re still human.”
“I’m a special case. And there have been a few others.”
“But it’s not a run-of-the-mill kind of deal, right?”
“No, it’s not. Separate is better, generally speaking. For both species.”
She looked over at Syn again. “And that’s why you didn’t tell me what you are. Because if I don’t change, I can’t know you.”
After a moment, he nodded. And she couldn’t decide if it was because he wanted to say more and couldn’t because they weren’t alone. Or if it was a case of him wiping his hands of the whole damn thing.
Walking over to the vending machine, Jo stared at the Hershey bars lined up in their corkscrewed chute. “So all the cravings I’ve been having. The restlessness. The fatigue. It’s all part of this… change?”
“Yes.” Manny turned around on his sofa so they could continue to make eye contact. Syn, on the other hand, stayed where he was, staring down at the floor in between his boots. “It’s the prodromals. It’s an indication that the hormones are waking up. But it’s not a true predictor of what happens next. Sometimes they just regress back into dormancy.”
“Is that why you’re not a…” Sooner or later, considering all things, she was going to have to get that V-word out of her mouth. “Is that why you didn’t change?”
“I’ve never experienced what you’re going through. But again, everyone like us is different.”
Jo thought about that thick file in her father’s desk. It seemed bizarre that for all the sheets of paper in there, the real truth had remained hidden. The important truth.
God… she couldn’t seem to make her head work. Everything was a mess under her skull, half-formed questions about her birth mother and father, her health, her future, like paintballs flying around and staining everything into a mess.
But there was one thing that superseded all of the rest.
Jo stared at Syn. And then she heard herself say, “I want a minute alone.”
Manny cleared his throat. “Syn, will you give us a—”
“Not with you.” She went back and sat down where she’d been. “With him.”
* * *
Syn expected the dismissal to open the door to another argument with the surgeon. Hell, he’d just learned firsthand exactly how good Manny was at the high-volume, point-counterpoint shit. Turned out the guy was a hot-blooded sonofabitch, and under different circumstances, a male might have respected that.
But not tonight.
And never when it came to Jo.
There was some conversation at that point, and then Manny was peeling off from the sitting area and striding for the break room’s exit.
Before he stepped out, he said over his shoulder, “Come find me if he passes out from blood loss. I’ve still got to stitch him up.”
Then they were alone. Because it was hard to meet Jo in the eye, Syn watched the door ease shut as if its repositioning against the jamb held the secrets to the universe. Or maybe it was more that he was hoping the slab of wood could coach him on what to say.
Only one thing was coming to him at the moment.
“I’m sorry,” Syn murmured into the silence.
“You keep saying that.”
“It’s so apt in this situation.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “I’m also not good with… a lot of things.”
Jo was sitting across from him, but he felt as though they were separated by the ocean. She looked exhausted and jumpy at the same time, her heel bouncing on the floor, one of her hands fiddling with the sleeve of her coat. Her red hair was tangled, part of the length tucked inside her lapels, and her face was pale, way too pale.
Her eyes were what killed him, though. They were wide and white-rimmed, frightened as if she were being stalked by a madman with a knife—and though he had not brought her genetic destiny unto her, he sure as hell had delivered a number of other bad news packages.
And she didn’t know the half of it.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
Syn jacked forward, and had to stop himself from taking the movement even further. “It’s going to be okay.”
“Is it? I’m not so sure… I never knew who my birth mother or father was, and I thought that was bad.” She laughed in a short, tense rush. “Turns out not knowing what species I am is so much worse. I almost can’t comprehend… anything.”
“You’re the same person you’ve always been.”
“No, I’m not.” She put out her hands and turned them over. “Because I didn’t know what I was in the first place.”
“Nothing has to change.”
“Then why is it called ‘the change.’ ”
Shit. He completely sucked at this.
Abruptly, Jo tucked her hands under her legs, as if she couldn’t bear looking at them. “Is this why the urgent care center called me and told me they couldn’t read my blood sample?”
“Did you see a doctor?”
“Yes. I already told you. And their office called and said there was a lab error and I needed to come for another try at it. But my blood wasn’t contaminated at the lab, was it.”
“No. The readings would be off compared to humans.”
“I wish I knew whether the change was actually coming.”
“I think it is.” Syn tapped his nose. “I can smell it. Others of my kind can as well.”
“And that’s how the other one, the Boston guy, recognized me?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes locked on his. “Do you think I’ve been hunting for vampires because I am one?”
“I think you’ve been looking for yourself.”
“How many memories have you taken from me?”
“None.”
Jo was quiet for a time, and Syn found himself getting to his feet and moving over to her side of the divide, her side of the coffee table… her side of the conflict. Even though, when it came to her transition, there really wasn’t a conflict to be had. Her body was her future, its internal mechanisms of oxygen exchange and heart rate, hormones and DNA, a mystery that was going to solve the mystery. And no one and no test and nothing was going to force the outcome.
But he was with her, no matter what.
“Before Manny left just now…” She cleared her throat. “He said I was going to have to take a…”
When she didn’t go any further, he finished things for her. “Take a vein. I’m sorry, I know it must repulse you. But if it happens, you need to have the blood of an opposite member of the species or you will die—”
“I want it to be yours.” As Jo’s eyes glowed with unshed tears, she wrapped her arms around herself. “No one else’s.”
Syn shook his head as he tried to get over his shock. How could she ever pick him? “Jo… there are so many better choices.”
“Then I’m not doing it. It’s you or no one.”
“I don’t think you understand what’s going to happen. Your body is going to make up your mind, not the other way around. Bloodlust is nothing to negotiate with.”
“You’re the only person in this world I know. I don’t want some stranger…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “This is like a nightmare. I literally can’t get my head around any part of this. And you think I’m going to choose a stranger?”
“It doesn’t have to be sexual.” Syn’s molars ground together as the bonded male in him started to scream. “The feeding, that is.”
“How will I know? When I have to…”
“You will know.”
“And you did this? I mean, it happened to you?”
Syn pictured the female from the Old Country. “Yes. And there was nothing sexual in that first feeding for me.”
“How long ago was it?”
“Three hundred years. Give or take.” As her eyes bulged, he nodded. “Our life expectancies are different.”
“Will mine change?” When he nodded, she chewed on her bottom lip. “Is the transition dangerous?”
“I’m not going to lie to you.”
“So that’s a yes.”
Syn slowly nodded, fear gripping his chest at the idea he might lose her. Even though she never really had been his.
“Isn’t there a blood test or… something… that can tell me precisely when it will hit?”
“No.” He wanted to reach out. Hold her. Ease her in any way he could. “You just have to wait. And again, because you’re part human, it could be a while.”
“Or it could never happen, right?” When he nodded again, Jo looked around the break room. “Tell me they don’t expect me to just sit around and wait here, like I’m some kind of prisoner? I have a job… a life… to get back to. Especially if this never happens.”
“They won’t keep you here against your will. They can’t.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.” Because he was damn well going to make it so. “I’m sure.”
Jo seemed to relax at that, her shoulders easing some.
Except then she pegged him with a level stare. “So are you saying you won’t do it? That you won’t… give me your vein if I need it?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Fuck the shovel, Butch thought. What they really needed was a wheelbarrow.
As he dragged the first of the slayers into the cave by the ankles, he was aware that he had cherry-picked his payload. Unlike a lot of the other undead, this one was fully intact, with the arms and legs and the head still attached to the torso. Most of its sieve-like comrades did not pass this basic inventory test, and under different circumstances, he would have felt bad for leaving the lesser-than lessers for his brothers.
Except he knew he was going to go back for more. And then there was what was ahead of him.
The inside of the smaller cave behind the fissure was a black hole, but there was an orienting glow around the corner so he had enough to go on when it came to light. As he rounded the turn, his undead followed along with him, that head bumping over the rocky, uneven ground.
Like Butch gave a shit about the back of that skull.
When he came up to Tohr and Wrath, they had just opened the way into the Tomb, having slid back the rock wall and gone forward to the first set of thick gating with mesh that prevented access to anyone who wasn’t supposed to be there.
As the two turned to him, torches flared to life in the corridor beyond, willed to flame by Tohr. Or maybe it was Wrath, even though the King didn’t need illumination.
“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Butch muttered as he dropped the ankles, the heels of the slayer banging into the packed dirt. “But the good news is, once these fuckers are consumed? I think we only have four left.”
“Four?” Wrath frowned. “Four slayers in the Lessening Society, and that’s it?”
“There were thirteen on-site or close to it when I arrived. I could sense them. One got away on the bike that was still operational. Another was in a car that I almost had a head-on collision with. And two turned back before they got there. That’s four left. All the others we’ve got in that van out there.” Butch looked down at the still-animated remains at his feet. “Plus this ball of fire right here.”
“But how do you know that’s all of them,” the King asked.
“Tonight was a meeting called by the Fore-lesser. It’s the only explanation for why so many of them were in a place outside of the field downtown. The only other congregations of that size have been inductions, but there was no evidence that anyone had been turned tonight—and more to the point, the Omega never uses the same site twice for that shit. He’d already used that groundskeeping building. No, it was a meeting, convened by the Fore-lesser. A gathering of the troops and resources which we found by luck thanks to Syn and that woman—so the count is the count. Thirteen.”
“But the Omega could make more. He could be holding an induction as we speak.”
As the other brothers came into the cave with more chum, Butch glanced down again at his little buddy with the bleeding problem. “I’m not sure he can anymore. He’s got to have enough energy inside of himself to propagate, and he was looking a pale shade of half-dead when I saw him the other night. I don’t think there’s any strength left for that.”
“Four slayers.” Wrath shook his head. “I can’t fucking fathom it. Did anyone get a bead on the Fore-lesser?”
“Not that I’m aware of, and he isn’t among the fallen.” Butch rotated his sore arm. “I’d recognize him from when I…”
As he trailed off, he leaned around the King. And promptly lost his voice to shock.
“What is it?” Tohr asked.
“Cat got your tongue, cop?” Wrath said.
On a sudden surge of panic, Butch pushed Tohr back and jumped in past the gating. Behind him, Tohr said to the group sharply, “Weapons out.”
The chorus of shifting metal on metal ushered Butch down the hall.
But he didn’t have to go far to be overcome by an unheard-of act of vandalism, the kind of thing that was so shocking, it made him doubt the information his eyes were feeding him.
All of the jars that had been set upon all of the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the ante-hall, well over a thousand, had been thrown to the stone floor of the Tomb’s entry corridor and shattered. Every single one.
Butch stopped as his shitkickers crunched over the first of the shards… that soon grew into a mountain.
“What is it—”
As Tohr abruptly stopped talking, Butch dropped down on his haunches and picked up a piece of enameled pottery. It looked old, but some of what had been broken was quite new, the sort o
f vases you could buy at Target.
“What the fuck?” someone else said as they got a look at the mess.
Butch stared up at the shelves. There was not one single jar left.
For generations of fighting, the Brotherhood had collected these vessels from the lessers they had slain, taking the hearts that were stained with evil as trophies of triumph. Whether it was a case of lifting the ID off the body before it was stabbed back to the Omega or actively torturing the enemy for information on where they stayed, claiming the jars had always been part of the victory ritual.
When Butch had joined the war, he had done it himself.
“Who the fuck got in here?” another brother said. “And why did they break all of this shit?”
Butch eyed the mound of shards and shrapnel that swelled to a point in the center of the corridor. As the torches on the walls threw strobing illumination on the jagged pile, he couldn’t imagine who could have found—
“Oh, shit!” he barked.
As everyone else fell silent behind him, he wasn’t thinking straight as he plunged into the pottery and porcelain debris, shifting through the pieces with hands that were cut by sharp edges, digging… clawing… praying.
“No, no, no…” He heard someone saying that word over and over again, and became dimly aware that it was him. “No… no…”
As people started to talk behind him, he ignored them.
Butch went all the way down to the stone floor. All the way down.
Then he gave up in utter defeat, twisting around to his brothers as he let himself fall back on his ass in the clearing he had made with hands that now bled red.
For a moment, all he could do was stare up at the group of males who had been enemies to him first, and then friends… only to culminate in blooded brothers. He knew their faces as well as he knew his own, and he loved each and every one of them as much as he could love another male.
And it was because of that love that he was suddenly completely and utterly terrified.
Tohr looked over and held his hands up in confusion, all WTF. “Cop, what’s going on here?”