by J. R. Ward
Closing her eyes, she hated the fact that, by all that was reasonable, she should turn and walk out of the room right now. This male, this resplendent male who was capable of melting even her stiff limbs, was not her future. Not any more than the Primale was--or any male, for that matter.
Her future had been determined even before she had been swaddled in her first robing as a Chosen.
After a long moment, he shook his head. "No. But thank you."
The rejection made her nauseous. Mayhap he sensed the inappropriate desires on her part? And yet ... she could have sworn he felt similarly. He had stopped her by the stairs that one time, and she had been so sure he had wanted ...
Well, at least then she'd been in her right mind enough to try to warn him off.
After they'd parted awkwardly, however, the way he'd looked at her had lingered, and that was when she'd begun to watch him from the shadows.
He was not staring at her like that now, though.
And it had all changed for him with her offer. Why?
"You'd better go." He nodded to the door. "I just need to eat something and I'll be fine."
"Have I offended you?"
"Oh, God, no." He shut his eyes and shook his head. "I just don't want to..."
She couldn't catch the rest of whatever he said, because he rubbed his face and muffled the words.
Abruptly, Selena thought about the books she had read in the Sanctuary's sacred library. So many details of lives lived down here on Earth. So rich and surprising, the nights and days. So vivid the histories, until it had seemed as though she could reach out and touch this other plane of existence. She'd been hungry for this other side, developing an addiction to its stories in all their glory and their sadness: Unlike many of her sisters, who merely recorded what they were shown in the seeing bowls, she had been voracious in her free time, studying the modern world, the words used, the manner in which people conducted themselves.
She had always had the conception that that was as close as she would ever get to having freedom of choice and any kind of destiny.
And that was still true, even after Phury's liberation.
"Goddamn, female, don't look at me like that," Trez groaned.
"Like what?"
He seemed to roll his hips, and when he mumbled something she also couldn't catch, she breathed deep--and, dearest Virgin Scribe, the scent that was poured of him was nothing short of ambrosia in the nose.
"Selena, you gotta go, girl. Please."
He arched back into the pillows, his magnificent chest tightening, the veins in his neck standing out. "Please."
Obviously he was in pain--and she was somehow the cause.
Selena fumbled with her robing to keep it in place as she got to her feet. With an awkward bow, she dropped her head. "But of course."
She didn't remember leaving the room or closing the door, but she must have: She ended up out in the hall, standing halfway between the locked vault that led into the First Family's private quarters and the stairwell that would take her back down to the second floor ...
Next thing she knew, she was up in the Sanctuary.
Bit of a surprise, actually. Usually, when she was done with any duty upon the Earth, she would wend her way north to Rehvenge's Great Camp. She enjoyed the library there--its fictions and biographies were just as gripping, and somehow less intrusive, than the volumes up above in the Sanctuary.
But something in her had taken her to her former home.
How different it was, she thought as she looked around. No longer a bastion of monochromatics--now only the buildings, constructed of pristine marble, were white. Everything else glowed with colors, from the emerald of the grass to the yellow and pink and purple of the tulips to the rushing pale blue of the baths. But the layout was the same. The Primale's private temple remained close to both the scribing cloisters and the enormous marble library as well as the locked entrance into the Scribe Virgin's private quarters. Off farther in the distance, the dormitories where the Chosen had had both their repose and their meals were adjacent to the baths and the reflecting pool. And then opposite all of that was the vast treasury with its objects, oddities, and bins of precious stones.
Oh, the irony, though. Now that there was color to please the eye? Everything was empty of life, the Chosen having flown the coop and spread their wings.
No one had any clue where the Scribe Virgin was--nobody dared ask, either.
The absence was strange and disconcerting. And yet welcomed as well.
As Selena's feet set to walking, it was clear that she had some sort of destination in mind, but she was unaware of it consciously. At least that was not unusual. She was always one to be in her head, usually because she was thinking about what she had watched in the seeing bowls or read in between the spines of those leather-bound volumes.
She was not considering the lives of others at the moment, however.
That dark-skinned male was ... well, there didn't seem to be enough words to describe him in spite of her extensive vocabulary. And the recalled images from just now in his bedroom were like the newly arrived color up here--a revelation of beauty.
Locked in thoughts of him, she kept on strolling, proceeding past the scribing center, down the lawn to the dormitories, and then farther onward until she approached the forested boundary that, if entered, magically spit you out in exactly the same place you had walked into.
It wasn't until it was too late that she realized where her feet had taken her.
The hidden cemetery was bracketed on all sides by an arbor, the knoll purposely shut off from view by a netting of leaves that was verdant and thick as a vertical lawn. The entryway was likewise obstructed by an arch strung with vine roses and the pebbled path that snaked into the interior was barely wide enough for a single person.
Selena had no intention of going in--
Her feet broke that covenant of their own volition, moving forward as if the servants of some larger purpose.
Within the confines of the bracketing trees, the air was as temperate as ever, and yet a chill went through her.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she hated everything about the place--but mostly the stillness of the monuments: Set up upon white stone pediments, the female forms were in various poses, their graceful arms and legs angled this way and that about their naked bodies. The expressions on the statues were serene, their unblinking eyes gazing upon the afterlife in the Fade, their lips turned up in identical, wistful smiles.
She thought again of the male in that bed. So alive. So vital.
Why had she come here. Why, why, why ... to the graveyard--
Her knees buckled at the same time tears broke free of her heart, her weeping taking her to the soft ground, the racking sobs making her throat hurt.
It was at the feet of her sisters that she felt the destiny of her early death freshly.
Over the course of her life, she had assumed all angles of her upcoming demise had been explored.
Being around Trez Latimer told her she was wrong about that.
TWELVE
The Benloise Art Gallery was located in downtown Caldwell, about ten blocks away from the skyscrapers and only two from the shores of the Hudson. The plain, unassuming building was three stories high, with a double-height gallery space on the first floor, staff offices in the back, and Benloise's bowling alley of an office just under its flat roof.
As Assail parked his Range Rover in its rear alley, he breathed in deeply. He hadn't done any coke before he'd left home because he wanted to keep sharp. Unfortunately, his body was twitchy from the lack of stimulation, and an addict-like preoccupation with what he hadn't done muddled his mind.
"You want us to come in with you?" Ehric demanded from the backseat.
"Only one."
Assail got out and waited for them to decide. Damn it, his hands were shaking, and in spite of yet another round of flurries falling from the sky, he was starting to sweat.
Should he just do the
coke? He was close to nonfunctional like this.
Ehric joined him, coming around the back of the SUV. "What ails you?"
"Naught."
A lie on so many levels.
As they approached the back door, Assail gave up. Digging into the breast pocket of his Tom Ford coat, he pulled out his dark brown vial. Unscrewing the black lid, he filled the interior spoon with a serving of white powder.
Sniff.
He repeated on the other side, and then took a single, double-barreled huff that ensured everything got home.
The fact that he immediately downshifted into "normal" was another warning sign he chose to ignore. Calm and focused was not what he should be feeling after two hits--but he wasn't going to waste time on it. Some people had coffee. Others had a different coca product.
It was all about whatever got your move on.
As he came up to a heavy steel door--which was a security measure disguised as a commentary on the industrialism of the art market--there was no reason to ring any bell, and certainly not to knock. The three-inch-thick monster was hardly something to waste one's knuckles on.
And indeed, things were opened promptly.
"Assail? What you doing?" the Neanderthal on the other side demanded.
Such an inspiring command of English grammar. And the greeting also told him that Benloise and his men didn't know who had done the kills in West Point the night before--otherwise one could assume this titan of intelligence would not be so banal.
Those black masks they'd worn had been such handy equipment. And disabling those security cameras a critical tactic.
Assail smiled without flashing his fangs. "I have something to give your employer."
"He expecting you?"
"He is not, no."
"Okay. C'mon."
"This is my associate, by the way," Assail murmured as he stepped into the office area. "Ehric."
"Yeah. I figured. C'mon."
Striding through the high-ceilinged space, their footfalls on the concrete floor echoed up to the exposed ductwork and wiring above. Talk about organized chaos. A lineup of serviceable desks, stacks of filing cabinets, and random pieces of oversize "art" choked the huge space. No workers. No phones ringing. The legitimate face of Benloise's wholesale drug business was on after-dark shutdown.
As expected.
Out in the gallery space proper, he shot a quick look around as the guard who'd let them in disappeared through the hidden door to the second floor.
No one but a pair of guards standing watch by the way up to Benloise's office.
Assail regarded the men. Their stares were sharper than usual, their weight shifting incessantly, their hands moving around as if they felt the need to constantly reassure themselves they were armed.
"Lovely evening, is it not?" Assail commented as he nodded subtly at Ehric.
As the guards froze, his cousin took the cue to go on a wee walkabout, the vampire strolling around an exhibition of shredded newsprint molded into various phallic symbols.
"A little on the cold side, of course. But the flurries are rather picturesque." Assail smiled and took out a Cuban. "May I light up?"
The one on the right pointed to a laminated notice on the wall. "No smoking."
"Surely there can be an exception in my case?" He clipped the cigar's end and let the butt fall to the ground. "Yes?"
The guy's muddy brown eyes flicked down. Returned. "No smoking."
"Nobody here but us." He outed his lighter. Popped the top.
"You can't do nothing like that."
Mayhap Benloise specifically screened them for a lack of vocabulary? "In the stairwell, then?"
The genius glanced over at his partner. Then shrugged. "Guess it's okay."
Assail smiled again and flicked up a flame. "Let me in, then."
It all happened so quickly. The one who'd been doing the talking twisted his torso and popped the latch that sprang the door--as, at that moment, the other chose to take a stretch, curling his arms out from his body.
Ehric materialized directly before the back cracker, clapping his hands on either side of his astonished face and snapping that neck around. Not to be o'ershown, Assail stabbed forward with the knife he had surreptitiously taken out of its hip holster, catching the guard who'd been enforcing the rules directly in the gut. Next move was to disappear his lighter and clap his hand over the man's mouth--stifling the grunt that threatened to give them away.
To finish things up, he freed the blade with a jerk and moved upward.
The second stab went between two ribs directly into the heart.
The man dropped to the floor in a loose shamble.
"Tell your brother to ready the Rover," Assail whispered. "And drag this out of the way. He's going to take a minute or two to bleed out and that heavy breathing is audible."
Ehric went into cleanup mode, grabbing thick ankles and pulling the dying man behind one of the vertical displays.
Meanwhile, Assail slipped into the hidden stairwell and lit the cigar, puffing up clouds of smoke as he moved the broken-necked guard's hand in the way so the door stayed propped open. Ehric joined him a split second later, accepting his own Cuban and likewise lighting up as he let things shut behind them.
The linguist who'd gone to check with Benloise peered over the banister above. "What you doing?"
So that phrase was both a greeting and an inquiry. One shall make a note of that, Assail thought.
He blew out a blue stream and indicated the closed door panels. "They said we couldn't smoke out in the gallery."
"You can't smoke in here, either." The man glanced over his shoulder as if his name had been called. "Yeah, okay." He turned around again. "He said he'll be a minute."
"I believe we'll join you, then."
The bodyguard just wasn't on his A-game tonight, was he. Instead of controlling the situation, he simply shrugged and permitted his enemy to get closer to him, to his boss.
Such a gift.
Assail typically took his damned time, but not tonight. He and Ehric hoofed it up the metal flights at a good clip.
He was halfway to goal when he realized he'd made a mistake. Likely because of the coke: There were video cameras all over the facility's interior--and yet he had done nothing about them.
"Faster," he hissed under his breath to his cousin.
Reaching the top landing, Assail bowed to the guard. "Where would you like me to put this out?"
"I don't fucking know. He shoun't told you to light up."
"Oh, well, then."
Ehric, on cue, pulled another dematerialization, appearing behind the guard. With a slap, he covered that mouth, and yanked the guard back.
Presenting Assail the perfect captive target.
With a vicious move, he sliced his blade across that throat easy and quick as a cough. Then it was another case of drag-off once again.
Assail barged through the office door, pushing it wide. Across the vast space, Benloise sat alone behind his raised modernist desk, the glow of the lamp by his side pulling his features out of the darkness so that he rivaled some of Goya's best portraits.
"...I'm coming up north right now--" Benloise stopped short, his visage becoming instantly impassive. "Permit me to call you back."
Caldwell's drug wholesaler hung the phone up so fast, the receiver banged into its cradle. "I believe I told you to wait, Assail."
"Indeed?" Assail looked over his shoulder. "Mayhap you should be clearer with your subordinates. Although, God knows, it is so hard to find good help, is it not."
The natty little man sat back in his throne-like chair, his expression unchanging. Tonight's bespoke suit was in a deep navy blue that emphasized his perma-tan and dark eyes, and as always, his thinning hair was slicked back from his forehead. One could smell his cologne from across the office.
"Excuse me for rushing you," the gentleman said in that educated, I'm-not-a-drug-dealer accent of his. "But I have another appointment."
"I wou
ld certainly hate to detain you."
"And your purpose is?"
Assail nodded once, and that was all it took. Ehric flashed behind that raised desk and locked on the wholesaler, dragging him out of his heavy chair by the head. A Taser later, and Benloise was a limp doll in that very nice-fitting navy blue suit.
As his cousin threw the man over his shoulder in a fireman's hold, no words were exchanged. No reason to--they had sketched this out beforehand: the infiltration, the securing, the removal.
Of course, it would have been so much more satisfying to stage a Hollywood movie confrontation whereupon Assail answered the wholesaler's question as to purpose in violent detail. The real world of kidnapping and intimidation, however, did not afford such immediate gratification.
Not if you wanted to get your man and keep him.
With Ehric tight on his heels, Assail fell into a jog, crossing the office's glossy black floor and descending the stairs with alacrity. As they hit the gallery space, there was a moment of pause, a quick check for sounds of incoming confrontation.
None. Just the muffled pant of the stabbed guard's dying breath and the copper scent of blood from his gut wound.
Out through the staff-only door into the office space. Passing by those desks and the hanging mobile made of mangled car parts.
The Range Rover was parked so close to the rear exit, it was practically in the building, and with sure moves, Assail opened the backseat and Ehric threw Benloise in there like a duffel bag. Then it was a case of slam, slam, screech.
They were off and cruising at the speed limit between one heartbeat and the next, Assail in the front passenger seat, Ehric sitting behind him with their cargo.
Assail checked his watch. Total elapsed time was eleven minutes, thirty-two seconds, and they had a good number of hours before sunrise.
Ehric took out a set of handcuffs and clipped them to the "art dealer's" wrists. Then it was a case of slapping the motherfucker awake.
When Benloise's eyes opened, he recoiled like he was in a bad dream.
In grim tones, Assail finally answered the question that had been posed to him. "You have something that is mine. And you're going to return it to me before dawn--or I will make you wish you were never born."
A half an hour after the epic confrontation with her husband, Beth was in the back of the Brotherhood's Mercedes S600 with her half-brother beside her and Fritz behind the wheel. The sedan was brand-new, the wonderful smell of fresh leather and varnish like aromatherapy for rich people.
