The Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8

by J. R. Ward

  To properly cover Lash’s intel dump, the Brotherhood had split in half, with the others staking out the address which had been tied to the license plate on that souped-up Civic. Trez and iAm had just taken off to handle their own biz for the night, but they were ready to come back at the drop of a text. And according to the Shadows, there was nothing too special to report since Xhex had left them except for the fact that Detective de la Cruz had returned, spent an hour, and left again.

  John searched the scene before him, focusing on the shadows more than what the risen moon illuminated. Then he closed his eyes and let his instincts bleed out from him, giving that indefinable, invisible sensor in the center of his chest free rein.

  In moments like this, he didn’t know why he did what he did; the urge just came upon him, the conviction that he had done this before—to good effect—so strong it was undeniable.

  Yeah . . . he could feel something was off. . . . There were ghosts in there. And the certainty reminded him of what he’d felt when he’d been in that dreaded bedroom where Xhex had been so close and so far away. He had sensed her too, but been blocked from making the connection.

  “The bodies are in there,” Xhex said. “We just can’t see or get to them. But I’m telling you . . . they’re in inside.”

  “Well, let’s not fuck around out here then,” V said, dematerializing.

  Rhage followed, poofing it right into the farmhouse while Butch took a more labor-intensive approach, hotfooting it across the scruffy lawn, with gun drawn and down at his thigh. He looked in the windows until V let him in the back.

  “You going in?” Xhex asked.

  John signed carefully so she could read his hands. You’ve already reported what’s doing inside. I’m more interested in who’s going to show up at the front door.

  “Agreed.”

  One by one the Brothers came back.

  V spoke softly. “Assuming that Lash isn’t just showing off his induction efforts, and assuming Xhex is right—”

  “No assumption there,” she bit out. “I am.”

  “—then whoever turned the poor bastards has to come back.”

  “Thank you, Sherlock.”

  V glared in her direction. “You want to dial back the attitude, sweetheart?”

  John straightened, thinking that however much he loved the Brother, he was so not appreciating that tone.

  Xhex evidently agreed. “Call me sweetheart one more time and it’ll be the last word you ever speak—”

  “Don’t threaten me, swee—”

  Butch stepped behind V and clapped his palm over the guy’s piehole while John put his hand on Xhex’s arm, urging her to calm down as he glared in Vishous’s direction. He’d never understood the enmity between the pair of them, even though it had been there since he could remember—

  He frowned. In the aftermath of the flare-up, Butch was looking at the ground. Xhex was focused on a tree over V’s shoulder. V was growling and staring at his fingernails.

  Something is off with all this, John thought.

  Oh . . . Jesus . . .

  V had no reason to dislike Xhex—in fact, she was precisely the kind of female he’d typically respect. Unless, of course, she happened to have been with Butch . . .

  V was known to be possessive about his best friend with everyone but the guy’s shellan.

  John stopped his extrapolations right there; he so didn’t need to know any more. Butch was one hundred percent about his Marissa, so if anything had happened with Xhex . . . it was a lifetime ago. Probably before John had even met her—or maybe when he’d been just a pretrans.

  Past was the past was the past.

  Besides, he shouldn’t—

  Any further thoughts on the sitch were mercifully derailed as a car drove by the farmhouse. Instantly, all their attention was crosshaired on a ride that was done up like an outfit some twelve-year-old girl might have wanted to find in her closet. In, like, 1985.

  Gray and acid yellow and hot pink. Really? You really think that’s hot? Man . . . assuming that was a slayer behind the wheel, John just had another reason to kill the Flock of Seagulls motherfucker.

  “That’s the souped-up Civic,” Xhex whispered. “That’s it.”

  All at once there was a subtle shift in the scenery, like a screen had been pulled into place from above. Fortunately, visual acuity suffered only until what shielded them was settled; then everything was clear again.

  “I’ve fired up the mhis,” V said. “And what a fucking asshole. That ride is too flashy to be in this part of town.”

  “Ride?” Rhage snorted. “Please. That thing is a sewing machine with an air dam taped to it. My GTO could dust the fucker in fourth gear from a dead stop.”

  When there was an odd sound from behind, John looked back. So did the three Brothers.

  “What.” Xhex bristled and crossed her arms over her chest. “I can laugh, you know. And that’s . . . pretty damn funny.”

  Rhage beamed. “I knew I liked you.”

  The sewing machine went past the house and then came back . . . only to turn around and do a third drive-by.

  “I’m getting really bored with this.” Rhage shifted his weight back and forth, his eyes flashing neon blue—which meant his beast had a case of the snores and was getting twitchy as well. Never a good thing. “Why don’t I just hood-ornament it and drag the fucker face-first out the windshield.”

  “Better to chill and lay the trap,” Xhex murmured just as John thought the very same thing.

  The guy behind the wheel might have been color-blind when it came to car paint, but he wasn’t a total moron. He drove on and about five minutes later, just as Rhage was practically pulling a split personality he was so itchy, the slayer who’d been doing the drive-bys came striding out across the rear cornfield.

  “That kid’s a ferret,” Rhage muttered. “A little, shifty ferret.”

  True enough, but the ferret had a pair of reinforcements with him, of a size that wouldn’t have fit in his ride. Clearly, they’d met up elsewhere and dumped another car.

  And they were smart about their approach. They took their time and looked all around the lawn and house and forest. But thanks to V, when they saw the stand of trees their enemy was among, their eyes wouldn’t register anything but landscape: Vishous’s mhis was an optical illusion that effectively fogged out the shitstorm the enemy was walking into.

  As the trio went to the back of the house, their boots made a crunching sound over the cold, stiff grass. A moment later, there was a shattering sound . . . glass breaking.

  To no one in particular, John signed, I’m going to close in.

  “Wait—”

  V’s voice didn’t slow John in the slightest and neither did the cursing he left behind as he dematerialized right to the side of the house.

  Which meant he was the first to see the bodies as they became visible.

  The instant the ferret climbed through a window in the kitchen, the house shivered and . . .

  Hello, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

  Stretching from the living room to the hall to the dining room, there were some twenty guys lined up with their heads facing the rear of the house and their feet toward the front. Dolls. Grotesque naked dolls with black vomit on their faces and slowly pinwheeling arms and legs.

  John felt Xhex and the others take form right behind him at the window just as the ferret strode into view.

  “Fuckin A!” the kid hollered as he looked around. “Yes!”

  His triumphant, skittering laughter bordered on hysteria—which might have been disturbing, except for the fact that he was surrounded by blood and guts and gore. As it was? The keening cackle was a bit of a snooze—a horrible cliché.

  But then, so was the bastard’s car. Vin Diesel much?

  “You are my army,” he shouted at the bloodied guys on the floor. “We are gonna rule Caldwell! Getcha asses up, it’s time to go to work! Together we are . . .”

  “I can’t wait to kill this
little shit,” Rhage muttered. “If only to shut him up.”

  Too. Right.

  The fucker was on a serious Mussolini kick, all blah-blah-taking overblah, which was all well and good for the ego but ultimately didn’t mean shit. The response from the sorry sons of bitches on the ground was the critical thing. . . .

  Huh. Maybe the Omega had chosen well: The dolls appeared to be drinking the Kool-Aid. The assembled drained, butchered, reanimated, and now soulless former humans stirred, lifting their torsos up off the floorboards, struggling to their feet at the ferret’s command.

  Too bad for them it was going to be a wasted effort.

  “On three,” Vishous whispered.

  Xhex was the one who counted it down. “One . . . two . . . three—”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  As soon as night fell o’er the landscape and granted its dark grace upon the good earth, Darius dematerialized from his modest abode and took form on the shore by the ocean with Tohrment. The “cottage” the symphath had described was in fact a stone manse of some size and distinction. There were candles lit inside, but as Darius and his protégé tarried amid an outcropping of foliage, there were no overt signs of life: No figures walked past the windows. No dogs barked a warning. No scents from the kitchen wing wafted on the cool, calm breeze.

  There was, however, a horse turned out in the field and a carriage by the barn.

  As well as a crushing sense of foreboding.

  “A symphath is therein,” Darius murmured as his eyes probed not just the visible, but the shadowed.

  There was no way to know whether there was more than one sin-eater within the walls, as it took only a single of them to create the barricade of fear. And no way to ken whether it was the symphath they sought.

  At least, not as long as they stayed on the periphery.

  Darius closed his eyes and let his senses penetrate what they were able of the scene afore him, his instincts beyond that of sight and hearing focusing to ascertain danger.

  Verily, there were times when he trusted what he knew to be true more than what he beheld.

  Yes, he could feel something inside. There was frantic movement within the stone walls.

  The symphath knew they were here.

  Darius nodded at Tohrment and the two of them took a chance and tried to dematerialize into the living room.

  Metal embedded in the masonry itself prevented them penetrating the stout walls and they were forced to re-form at the house’s cold flank. Undeterred, Darius lifted his leather-covered elbow and smashed the leaded glass of a window; then he gripped the dividers and pulled out the frame. Tossing it aside, he gusted in with Tohrment, becoming corporeal in the living room—

  Just in time to catch a flash of red ducking through an internal door down toward the back of the house. In silent accord, he and Tohrment took off in pursuit, reaching the exit that had been taken as the pins of the lock were turning.

  Copper mechanism. Which meant there was no moving it mentally.

  “Stand aside,” Tohrment said as he leveled the muzzle of his gun.

  Darius briefly stepped clear as a shot rang out, and then he shoulder-rushed the door, forcing it wide.

  The stairs down below were dark except for a jostling, ever-fading light.

  They descended the stone steps with pounding boots and sprinted over the packed-dirt floor, running after the lantern . . . and the scent of vampire blood that was in the air.

  Urgency thundered in Darius’s veins, wrath warring with desperation. He wanted the female back . . . Dearest Virgin Scribe, how she must have suffered—

  There was a slamming sound and then the underground tunnel went pitch-black.

  Without losing his stride, Darius powered onward, putting his hand out against the walling to keep straight on his path. Tight on his heels, Tohrment was with him in pursuit, and the echoes of their clamoring boots helped Darius determine the termination of the passageway. He pulled up short just in time, using his hands to locate the latch on the door.

  Which the symphath hadn’t taken the time to lock behind himself.

  Ripping open the heavy wooden panels, Darius got a deep lungful of fresh air and caught sight of the jangling lantern up ahead, across the grasses.

  Dematerializing and re-forming up close, he caught the symphath male and the vampire female next to the barn, blocking their escape such that the abductor was forced to halt.

  With shaking hands, the sin-eater held a knife to his captive’s throat.

  “I shall kill her!” he screamed. “I shall kill her!”

  Up against him, the female didn’t struggle, didn’t try to pull away, didn’t beg to be saved or set free. She just stared ahead, her haunted eyes listless in her bleak face. Indeed, there was no paler skin to behold than that of the dead by moonlight. And verily, the daughter of Sampsone might have possessed a beating heart betwixt her ribs, but her soul had passed away.

  “Let her go,” Darius commanded. “Let her go and we shall let you live.”

  “Never! She is mine!”

  The symphath’s eyes glowed red, his evil lineage shining in the night, and yet his youth and his panic evidently rendered him incapable of using his race’s most powerful weapon: Although Darius braced himself for a mental onslaught, an invasion of his cranium did not ensue from the sin-eater.

  “Let her go,” Darius repeated, “and we shall not kill you.”

  “I have mated with her! Do you hear me! Mated with her!”

  As Tohrment leveled his gun right at the male, Darius was impressed by how calm he was. First time in the field, captive situation, symphath . . . and the boy was right in the midst without being consumed by the drama.

  With deliberate composure, Darius continued trying to reason with their opponent, noting with vicious anger the way the female’s nightgown was stained. “If you release her—”

  “There is nothing you can give me worth more than her!”

  Tohrment’s low voice broke through the tension. “If you let her go, I won’t shoot you in the head.”

  It was a good enough threat, Darius supposed. But of course, Tohrment wasn’t going to fire the weapon—too much risk to the female in the event his aim was off by even a fraction.

  The symphath began walking back toward the barn, dragging the vampire with him. “I shall slice her open—”

  “If she’s so precious to you,” Darius said, “how could you bear the loss?”

  “Better she die with me than—”

  Boom!

  As the gun went off, Darius shouted and jumped forward, even though he couldn’t possibly catch Tohrment’s bullet with his hands.

  “What have you done!” he hollered as the symphath and the female landed in a heap.

  Racing over the grass and then falling to his knees, Darius prayed that she had not been hit. With his heart in his throat, he reached out to roll the male off of her. . . .

  As the young symphath flopped over onto his back, he stared in blind fixation at the heavens, a perfectly round, black hole in the center of his forehead.

  “Dearest Virgin Scribe . . .” Darius breathed. “What a shot.”

  Tohrment knelt down. “I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger if I hadn’t been sure.”

  They both leaned toward the female. She too was staring at the galaxy above, her pale eyes locked and unblinking.

  Had her throat been cut after all?

  Darius rifled through her frothy, once-white nightdress. There was blood on it, some of which had dried, some of which was fresh.

  The tear that spilled forth from her eye twinkled silver in the moonlight.

  “You are saved,” Darius said. “You are safe. Be not afraid. Be not of sorrow.”

  As her pale stare shifted over to meet his own, her despair was as cold as a winter wind and just as isolating.

  “We shall take you back from whence you came,” Darius vowed. “Your family shall—”

  Her voice was nothing more than a croak out of her thro
at. “You should have shot me instead of him.”

  FIFTY-FIVE

  As the countdown hit “one,” Xhex took form in the farmhouse’s living room, thinking that the concerns of an ambush were right—except the slayers were the fuckers getting jumped. Facing off at the nearest lesser and falling into hand-to-hand with the guy, she knew she had to work fast.

  You had the element of surprise only once in any given fight, and she and her crew were outnumbered four to one—in a sitch where no guns could be used. Bullets were accurate only if you had clean shots on static targets and there was none of that going down. Arms and legs and bodies were flying all around as the Brothers and John and Qhuinn did exactly what she was doing—picking a random inductee and going Bruce Lee on their ass.

  Xhex had her dagger out in her left hand while she threw a right hook at the slayer in front of her. The cracking blow knocked the guy senseless, and as he slumped against the wall, she drew her arm back and aimed the tip of her blade right for the chest of—

  With a slap, Butch caught her wrist. “Let me finish it.”

  Positioning himself between them, he locked eyes on the slayer and put his mouth down close. On a slow, steady inhale, he began to draw the essence out of that body, a nasty cloud—like smog transferring from the lesser to Butch.

  “Jesus . . . Christ . . .” she whispered as the slayer who once had had form disintegrated into ash at the Brother’s feet.

  As Butch wobbled and reached out for the wall like he was having trouble standing, she took his arm. “Are you okay—”

  A shrill whistle from John brought her head around just in time—another lesser was rushing at her, prepared to use the switchblade in its hand. Thanks to John, she ducked down and lunged forward, grabbing a thick wrist and taking control of the weapon while she stabbed upward, catching the slayer under the ribs.

  Bright lights, big bang.

  And on to the next.

  She was all in the zone with the fighting, fast on her feet, quick with her hands. And even though she was going a mile a minute and she’d poofed off that one slayer, she was going to respect Butch’s role in this showdown. She didn’t understand precisely what that ashes-to-ashes routine was all about, but she was willing to bet that it was a special end for the enemy.