Lover At Last

by J. R. Ward

Chapter Fourteen

  Talk about a late start.

  As Qhuinn dematerialized away from the mansion, he couldn't believe that it was ten o'clock at night and they were just getting started. Then again, the Brotherhood had stayed holed up in Wrath's study forever, and when he and John had finally been let in, V's announcement that the proof against the Band of Bastards was ironclad had led to a good half hour of trash-talking Xcor and his buddies.

  Lot of creative uses of the word fuck, as well as some crackerjack suggestions for places to put inanimate objects.

  He'd never thought of doing that with a garden rake, for example. Fun. Fun.

  And Blay had missed it all.

  Reassuming his form in a woodland area south and west of the compound, Qhuinn steeled himself against making any inferences about what had detained the guy - although the fact of the matter was, the fighter had gone up to his room and hadn't come back. And whereas most accidents happened in the home, it was a good guess that he hadn't had a slip-and-fall.

  Unless Saxton had been playing throw rug on the marble in their bathroom.

  Feeling like he wanted to slap himself, he surveyed the snow-covered landscape while John, Rhage, and Z appeared next to him. The coordinates for the location had been found in the phones of those car thieves from the night before, the seemingly abandoned property about ten or fifteen miles past where he'd caught up with his stolen Hummer.

  "What the hell is that?"

  As someone spoke up, he glanced over his shoulder. What-the-hell was right: Looming behind them was a boxy building tall as a church steeple and as unadorned as a recycling bin.

  "Airplane hangar," Zsadist announced as he started walking in that direction. "Has to be. "

  Qhuinn followed, bringing up the rear in case anyone decided to pull a hi-how're-ya -

  From out of thin air, Blay made his appearance, the male suited up in leather, and as heavily armed as the rest of them. In response, Qhuinn's feet slowed, then stopped in the snow, mostly because he didn't want to lose his footing and look like an asshole.

  God, that was one grim motherfucker, he thought as Blay started walking forward. Was there some trouble in paradise?

  Even though there was no eye contact between them, Qhuinn felt compelled to say something. "What's. . . "

  He didn't finish the "doing" part of the sentence. Why bother? The guy stalked past him like he wasn't there.

  "I'm great," Qhuinn muttered as he resumed trudging through the ice pack. "Doin' awesome, thanks for asking - oh, you having probs with Saxton? Really? How'd you like to go out and get a drink and talk about it? Yeah? Perfect. I'll be your after-dinner mint - "

  He cut off the fantasy monologue as the breeze shifted and his nose got a whiff of sweet and nasty.

  Everyone got their weapons out and focused on the airplane hangar.

  "We're upwind," Rhage said quietly. "So there's got to be a big-ass mess in there. "

  The five of them approached the facility cautiously, fanning out, searching the ambient blue glow of reflected moonlight for anything that moved.

  The hangar had two entryways, one that was bifurcated and big enough to fit a wingspan through, and the other that was supposed to be for people, and looked Barbie size in comparison. And Rhage was right: In spite of the fact that the icy winter gusts were hitting them in the back, the smell was enough to tingle the insides of the nose, and not in good way.

  Man, cold usually dimmed the stink, too.

  Communicating via hand signals, they split into two groups, with him and John taking one side of the mammoth double doors, and Rhage, Blay, and Z zeroing in on the smaller entrance.

  Rhage went for the requisite handle while everyone braced for engagement. If there was a football team's worth of lessers in there, it made sense to send the Brother in first, because he had the kind of backup nobody else did: His beast loved slayers, and not in a relationship sense.

  Talk about your thin mints.

  Hollywood put his hand over his head. Three. . . two. . . one. . .

  The Brother penetrated in total silence, pushing the door open and slipping inside. Z was next - and Blay went in with them.

  Qhuinn felt a heartbeat of pure terror as the male jumped into the unknown with nothing but a pair of forties to protect him. God, the idea that Blay could die tonight, right in front of him, on this run-of-the-mill assignment, made him want to stop all this defending the race bullshit and turn the fighter into a librarian. A hand model. Hairdresser -

  The shrill whistle that came no more than sixty seconds later was a godsend. And Z's all-clear was the signal for him and John to change positions, shuffling laterally to the now open door, and going through the -

  Okay. Wow.

  Talk about your oil slick. And holy fuckin' A from the stench.

  The three who'd gone in first had busted out their flashlights, and the beams light-sabered around the cavernous space, cutting through the darkness, illuminating what at first looked like nothing but a sheet of black ice. Except it wasn't black and the shit wasn't frozen. It was congealed human blood - about three hundred gallons' worth. Mixed with a whole lot of Omega.

  The hangar was the site of a massive induction, the scale of which made that thing out at that farmhouse a while back look like nothing more than a play date.

  "Guess those boys who took your whip were heading to one hell of a party," Rhage said.

  "Word," Z muttered.

  As the beams of the flashlights highlighted an old, decrepit airplane in the back - and absolutely nothing else - Z shook his head.

  "Let's search the outer area. There's nada in here. "

  Given that the cabin was nothing much from the exterior, just your typical hunting/fishing shack out in the woods, Mr. C was tempted to bypass the damn thing. Thoroughness had its virtues, however, and the cabin's location, about a mile or two into the tract of land, suggested it might have been used as a headquarters at some point.

  All things considered, it would have been smarter to check out the property before he'd used that airplane hangar for the largest induction in the Lessening Society's history. But priorities were what they were: First, he had to put himself in control; second, he had to justify the promotion; and third, he had to deal with all those new lessers.

  And that meant he needed resources. Fast.

  Following the Omega's messy, grand ceremony, and the nauseous period that had lasted a number of hours thereafter, Mr. C had ordered the new recruits onto a school bus that he'd stolen from a used-truck dealership a week ago. Between exhaustion and the physical discomfort they were in, they had been such good little boys, filing on and sitting two by two like they were on some kind of fucked-up Noah's Ark.

  From there, he'd driven them himself - because you didn't trust assets like that to anybody else - to the Brownswick School for Girls. The defunct prep school was in the suburbs on thirty-five acres of ignored, overgrown, dilapidated grounds, rumors of its being haunted keeping the normal folks out.

  For now, the Lessening Society were squatters, but the For Sale sign on the corner near the road meant he could fix that. As soon as he pulled some cash together.

  With his boys finishing up their recovery back at the school, and the current slayers downtown trolling for the Brotherhood, he was out on his own, cataloging the few assets left in the Society - including this stretch of mostly empty forest north of the city.

  Although he was beginning to believe he was wasting his time.

  Stepping up on the cabin's shallow porch, he shone a flashlight in through the nearest window. Potbellied stove. Rough wood table with two chairs. Three bunks that had no mattresses or sheets on them. Galley kitchen.

  Heading around back, he found an electric generator that was out of gas, and a rusted-out oil tank, which suggested the place had had some kind of heating in it at some point.

  Returning to the front, he toggled the do
or latch and found it locked.

  Whatever. Not much in there.

  Taking the map out of the inside of his bomber jacket, he unfolded the thing and located where he was. Checking off the little square, he got out his compass, adjusted his heading, and started walking in a northwesterly direction.

  According to this map - which he'd found at the former Fore-lesser's crack house, this tract of property totaled some five hundred acres and had these cabins sprinkled around at random intervals. He gathered that the place had once been a camping area owned by multiple people, a kind of modern-day hunting preserve that had been lost to the New York State tax burden, and purchased by the Society back in the eighties.

  At least, that was what the handwritten notations in the corner said, although God only knew if the Society was still the owner of record. Considering the financial state of the organization, the good ol' NYS might well have a gorilla-size tax lien on the acreage now, or have reseized the shit.

  He paused and checked the compass again. Man, being a city boy, he hated rooting around out in the woods at night, clomping through the snow, checking shit off like some kind of forest ranger. But he had to see with his own eyes what he had to work with, and that was happening only one way.

  At least he had a revenue stream lined up.

  In another twenty-four hours, when those boys of his were finally on their feet again, he was going to start refilling the coffers. That was the first step to reclamation.

  Step two?

  World domination.