by J. R. Ward
Trez's voice was low. "I got an issue."
"What's doing?"
"Incapacitated lesser in my club. I've done a scrub job on my bouncers--especially the one who fought him--but this ain't going to keep."
Rhage got to his feet. "Be there in five."
"Thanks, man."
Ending the call, Rhage nodded at V. "Come on, I know we're red-shirted, but this is not a fight situation."
"Don't need to ask me twice. Where are we going?"
Lassiter straightened from his grind. "Field trip!"
"No--"
"No--"
"I can be useful as well as decorative, you know."
V started to arm himself, grimacing as he strapped on his dagger holster and slipped in a pair of sharp-and-shinies, handles down. "Doubt we'll need a battering ram."
"Maybe we'd get lucky." Rhage headed for the door. "But I wouldn't bet on it."
"I don't want to stay here by myself--"
"And you ain't that decorative, angel."
Outside, the night was all about the fall, cold, crisp September air, making Rhage's sinuses hum and his beast surge under his skin as he walked across the courtyard to the great stone mansion's entrance.
Man, he couldn't wait for his Mary to get home from her work at Safe Place.
All that talk about tongues and females liking them in certain places--okay, it had only been about three sentences, but that had been more than enough--had gotten him tight.
Ten minutes, two forties, a pair of daggers, and a three-foot length of chain later, he dematerialized down to Caldwell's meatpacking district with V, both of them re-forming across the street from Trez's new joint. shAdoWs was located in a rehabbed warehouse, and as usual with any of the Shadow's places, there was a line snaking down the block, humans standing like cows about to go into a feeding shed. As music bumped, flashing lights and laser beams pierced the thousands of glass panes, making the place look like a three-story-tall psychedelic trip trapped under a tin roof.
As the pair of them walked around back, there were all kinds of turned heads, but whatever. Human women had a way of noticing vampires--maybe it was a hormonal thing; maybe it was the black leather.
Certainly wasn't that goatee. C'mon, now.
And yeah, there might have been a time in the past when he would have had to take advantage of the dubious wares, but no more. He had his Mary and that was more than enough for him. V was the same with his Jane.
Well, Jane plus a "healthy" dose of whips and chains.
Sicko.
The rear entrance of the club was a double-doored, triple-locked stretch of Staff Only, and it obvi had a security camera somewhere, because the instant they approached, a bouncer opened things up.
"Are you . . . ?"
"Yeah." V barged in. "Where's Trez at?"
"This way."
Dark halls. Dumb, drunk humans. DD working girls. And then there was Trez, standing outside a black door under a black light.
The Shadow made an impression, even from thirty dim feet away. He was tall and had an inverted triangle for a torso, big heavy shoulders dumping into a tight waist, with thick thighs and long legs holding the production off the floor. His skin was the color of the mansion's mahogany dining room table, his eyes black as midnight, his hair trimmed down to nothing but a pattern on his skull. All of that was just pretty window dressing, though.
The truth was that he was more dangerous a commodity than anything you could buy at a gun show.
Shadows were deadly, capable of tricks even members of the Brotherhood were impressed by--and their kind usually kept to themselves, sticking to the s'Hisbe's territory way outside of the city. Trez and his brother, iAm, were exceptions to that rule.
Something to do with Rehvenge. Not that Rhage had ever asked.
"Where is it?" V asked as he clapped hands with the Shadow.
"In here."
Rhage did the same, greeting the Shadow with a hard embrace. "How you doin'?"
"We got ourselves a complication." Trez stepped back and opened the door. "And not like you're thinking."
The "dead" slayer was moving on the floor, writhing its arms and legs slowly. Things were broken in various places, one foot pointing in the wrong direction, an elbow cocked at a wonked-up angle, and there was a good deal of leaking going on, the floor puddling with the Omega's oil-black blood.
"Nice work," Rhage said, taking a grape Tootsie Pop out of his jacket and popping the wrapper. "Bouncer did this?"
"Big Rob." Trez put his hand out. "And here is the complication."
In the center of his palm were a bunch of nothing-special packets of drugs--
Wait a minute.
V picked up the things with his gloved hand. "Just like the ones you gave to Butch, true?"
"Exactly."
"Yeah, this is dealing."
"Did anything come of this shit earlier?"
"Butch talked to Assail, and Assail denied, denied, denied he was doing business with them. And that was it. With nothing else to go on, we had other priorities, feel me?"
Rhage bit down to the chocolate center as he leaned in and did some WTF-ing of his own. The drugs were marked with a red stamp . . . of the Old Language symbol for death.
The chrih.
Assail was going to be in some serious ass-shit if he was using the enemy to get his product onto the streets.
V dragged his free hand through his black hair. "Now I know why you didn't just stab this thing back to the Omega."
"My bouncer said the slayer came in with the crowd and worked his way around, doing bit deals. He was asked to leave, argued, attacked, and then it was time for some lights-out when Big Rob took care of business. First time this particular lesser's been around, but that's not saying much, because it's opening night. Bottom line, though, is I don't let people deal in my joints, human or otherwise. Don't want to be on the CPD's list of things to do any more than we already are . . ."
As the pair of them kept talking, Rhage sucked the white stick clean and found himself sizing up the Shadow.
Cutting into the convo, he demanded, "Why don't you come to Last Meal anymore."
V's diamond-hard glare swung around. "My brother, focus."
"No, I'm serious." He propped his hip on the black wall. "What's up, Trez. I mean, our food not good enough for you?"
Cue the throat clearing on the Shadow's side. "Oh, no, yeah, I'm just . . . busy, you know. Opening this . . ."
"And when was the last time you fed? You look like shit."
Vishous threw up his hands. "Hollywood, will you get in the game--"
"You know, I used Selena tonight and her blood is amazing--"
It all happened so fast. One minute V was jawing at him while he was bringing up the very salient point that the Shadow needed to take a vein.
The next, Trez's racket-size palm was locked on his neck, cutting off all his air supply.
While the guy bared his teeth and snarled like Rhage was the enemy.
In the blink of an eye, and in spite of that nasty shoulder wound, Vishous counter-attacked the Shadow, tackling him in a total body slam as Rhage grabbed at that thick wrist to pull the grip free. Incredibly, it got them nowhere. Even with V's close to three hundred pounds trying to pry Trez off and all of Rhage's tensile strength getting thrown into the mix, the Shadow was brick-wall-going-nowhere, barely moving.
And then the three of them had something to really worry about.
Rhage blinked, and when he opened his eyes, brilliant light flooded the cramped, black space.
"Fuck," V gritted. "Let him fucking go, Trez! We got problems!"
Beneath Rhage's skin, his beast surged to life, awoken by the mortal threat.
"Trez! Let go!"
Something got through to the Shadow--whether it was all that light, or the fact that Rhage's features were already starting to morph--and he loosened his hold just a little.
V took it from there, throwing the Shadow to the slick floor a
nd jumping on him, a black dagger flashing out and being put directly to the jugular.
On a sagging curse, Rhage coughed and breathed deep a couple of times. Shit. His beast had a hair trigger on a good night, when he was well-fed, well-fucked, and properly exercised. But when someone tried to kill him?
Even if there might have been a good goddamn reason for it?
Clearly, the Shadow had bonded with the Chosen. 'Cuz that reaction had male hormones all over it.
"I'm sorry," Trez mumbled. "I don't know what came over me. Swear on my brother's life."
"Why didn't you"--Rhage tripped over his own words--"tell us you bonded with her?"
There was a pause. Then Trez said, "I . . . shit."
V added a string of curse words. "You gonna stay put, Shadow, or am I slicing the front of your throat open?"
"I'm good. Swear."
A moment later, V came over. "Rhage . . . ? My brother?"
Rhage put his palms to his face and let himself slide off the vertical until he was ass-on-the-floor. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
They already had a lesser in the club.
His beast was the last kind of patron they needed.
Breathe in.
Breathe out--
"What's going on with him?" Trez asked.
"Don't ever aggress on that motherfucker," was the last thing Rhage heard before the world receded like smoke in a draft.
THREE
In the most sacred hall of the s'Hisbe's Grand Palace, s'Ex stood on the far side of a door that had no knob, no handle, hardly any seam to distinguish the panel from the wall it was set into.
On the far side, he could hear the infant crying, and the sound, that plaintive entreaty for help, aid, succor, went into his ears and through to his soul. His hand shook as he put it to the cool expanse. His daughter. His offspring. The only one he would probably ever have.
The infant was not alone in the ceremonial room. There was the high priest, AnsLai; the Chief Astrologer; and the Tretary, a position charged with witnessing and recording events such as this.
The baby had been wrapped in a pure white blanket of woven wool by the nursemaid before being taken in there and left behind with those three males.
To cry for a father who would not come to save her.
s'Ex's heart pounded so violently the whites of his eyes registered the rhythmic pressure. He had not expected this reaction, but mayhap this precise fervor was why he had not been allowed to touch the child--or be alone with her. Ever since the Queen had given birth to her approximately six hours ago, he had been permitted to view her twice: once after she had been cleaned, and just now, as she had been rendered into that white marble room that had no windows and only one door . . . that locked from the inside.
The second of her birth had determined this, demanded this. That was what custom dictated. The stars had aligned in such a way that his daughter was not to be the heir to the throne, and thus she had to be . . .
Get in there! his heart screamed. Stop this, stop this before--
Silence.
Suddenly there was silence.
A sound like that of a wounded animal vibrated up his throat and out of his mouth, and s'Ex curled a fist, banging it into that door so hard, fissures formed in a star pattern, radiating outward from the point of impact.
Distraught and deadly, he knew he must needs retreat before he did something as unthinkable as what had just been done. Tripping over his black robing, he wheeled around and stumbled down the corridor. He was dimly aware of banging into the walls, his momentum bouncing him left and right, his shoulders slamming into the more slick white marble.
For some reason, he thought of a night many years before, at least two decades ago, when he had waited by the exit for TrezLath, the Anointed One, to come down and attempt to escape. Now he was doing what that male had done then.
Escaping.
Whilst in fact not freeing himself at all.
Unlike Trez, who had not been allowed to leave the palace, s'Ex, as the Queen's executioner, was permitted to. He was also the one who was responsible for monitoring all comings and goings.
There would be no delays for him.
And that would save lives this night.
That silence, that horrible, resonant silence, cannibalized his mind as he wound through the maze of halls, nearing the very exit Trez had sought. That male, too, had been condemned, the position of the stars the moment he was born more dispositive than nature or nurture.
Those constellations, so distant, so unknown at the time of birth and unknowable in maturity, determined everything. Your status. Your work. Your worth.
And his daughter, like Trez, had been born to a portent that had been a death sentence.
Nine months they had awaited her birth, society coming to a kind of standstill with the Queen pregnant. Such fanfare, as there had been only one other pregnancy in the two centuries of the current monarch's reign--and that had yielded the Princess. Of course, the fact that the current conception had been by the Queen's executioner had been far less momentous and never publicly acknowledged. Better that it had been an aristocrat. A second cousin of royal blood. A male marked as significant by his birthing charts.
Or even better, some kind of immaculate miracle.
Alas, no. The sire had been he who had started as a servant and gained trust, access, and, much later, the sacred act of sex. But that was all largely insignificant in their matriarchal tradition; the male was as always a secondary afterthought. The result--the infant--and the mother were the most important.
There had been a chance, when the child had come out, that as a female, she might surpass the current heir to the throne, depending on the stars.
Although that would have resulted in another death, as there could be only one heir to the throne--the sitting Princess would have had to be ritually killed.
All had waited for news. With the time and date properly recorded, the Chief Astrologer had retreated to his observatory and completed his measuring of the night sky . . .
s'Ex had learned the fate of his infant before the general population, but after the courtiers: The birth would not be announced. The Queen would reaffirm her current daughter. All would continue as it had been.
And that was that, the personal tragedy for him buried under court protocol and reverence for royalty and long-standing astrological traditions.
He'd known all along that this was a possibility. But either through arrogance or ignorance, he had discounted the terrible reality.
This terrible reality.
When he finally burst out into the night, he drew breaths that he released in puffs. He had never expected an intersection between his personal history and this star-determining system that ruled everything.
Rather stupid of him, really.
Bracing his hands on his knees, he bent over and vomited into the cropped, dying grass.
The expulsion seemed to clear his head a little, to the point where he almost wanted to do it again. He needed to do something, anything . . . he couldn't go back into the palace--he was liable to kill the first Shadow he came to just to cleanse the pain.
His rescue, such as it was, came from duty. With this event, there was official business to be conducted, which, in his role as enforcer, he was required to discharge.
It was quite a while before he could calm his mind and emotions sufficiently to dematerialize, and when he was able to scatter his molecules, he proceeded out of the walls of the Territory with a strange sense of commiseration.
He was quite certain that the Queen was feeling nothing at this moment. As a result of that star chart, the innocent life that had been cut short had been devalued to the point of worthlessness, in spite of the fact that what had been born had come out of that royal womb.
The alignment of stars was more significant than the alignment of DNA.
That was the way it had always been. Would forever be.
In spite of the fact that i
t was but September, as he traveled toward downtown Caldwell, it was the coldest night he had e'er known.
FOUR
The Chosen Selena entered the training center through the back of the office's supply closet, and as she emerged, she jumped at the tremendous figure behind the desk.
Tohrment, son of Hharm, looked up from the computer. "Oh, hey, Selena. Surprise."
As her heart rate regulated, she put her hand to her chest. "I didn't expect to see anyone herein."
The Brother refocused on the blue glow of the screen. "Yeah, I'm back to work. We're going to open things up again."
"Open what?"
"The training center." Tohr leaned back in the ugliest green leather chair she had ever seen. And as he spoke, he stroked the arm as if it were a precious work of art. "Back before the raids, we had a good program set up here. But then so many members of the glymera were killed during the attacks, and those who did survive left Caldwell. Now, people are returning, and God knows we need the help. The Lessening Society is ramping up like rats to a warehouse."
"I wondered what all these facilities were for."
"You're going to see it firsthand."
"Maybe," she said. But only if they moved fast--
"Are you all right?" the Brother asked, jumping up.
With an abrupt spin, the world tilted around her, twirling her head on her spine--or was that the room itself? Either way, Tohrment caught her before she hit the floor, scooping her up in his arms.
"I'm okay, I'm all right . . . I'm fine," she said.
At least, she thought she spoke those words out loud. She wasn't sure, because Tohr's lips were moving and his eyes were locked on hers like he was talking to her, but she couldn't hear his voice. Her own. Anything.
Next thing she knew, she was in one of the examination rooms and Vishous's shellan, Doc Jane, was peering down at her, all dark green eyes, short blond hair and roaring concern.
The chandelier overhead was too bright, and Selena raised her palm to cover her face. "Please--this is unnecessary--"
All of a sudden, she realized she could hear herself, and the world, once dulled and diluted, came back in sharp detail.
"Honestly, I am fine."
Doc Jane put her hands on her hips and just stood there, as if she were a barometer making some kind of a reading.
For a moment, Selena was struck with fear. She didn't want them to know that--
