by J. R. Ward
“Okay. Yeah. You want me to bring you some food?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
As he started to leave, Blay glanced over his shoulder. Qhuinn was stripping his leathers off, his ass making a spectacular appearance.
With his head still cranked around, he made it out of the bathroom okay, but slammed into the desk, and had to catch the lamp from falling to the floor. Righting the thing, he peeled the shirt off the shade and, like a pathetic nancy, brought the soft cotton to his nose for an inhale.
Closing his eyes, he cradled what had been on Qhuinn’s chest to his own and listened to the sound of the water falling in flips and flops as the other male washed himself.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, dangling in the purgatory of so-close-yet-so-far-away. What got him on the move again was the fear of getting caught being a sap. Carefully replacing the T-shirt to its former drape, he forced himself to go to the door.
He was about halfway there when he saw it.
On the bed.
The white sash was tangled in the sheets, just one more rumpled stretch of cloth.
As his eyes went upward, he found two head indentations on a pair of pillows that were close together. Clearly, the Chosen Layla had forgotten the tie to her robe when she’d left. Which could happen only if she’d been naked while she was here.
Blay put his hand to his heart once more, a sense of constriction making him feel as if he were underwater . . . with the surface of the ocean far, far above him.
The shower was cut off in the bathroom and a towel flapped around.
Blay walked passed the well-used bed and ducked out the door.
He was unaware of having made a conscious decision, but his feet had direction; that was obvious. Going down the hall, they stopped two rooms over and then his hand lifted of its own volition and knocked quietly. When a muffled answer sounded out, he opened the door. On the other side, the room was dark and it smelled divine . . . and as he stood in the light from the hall, his shadow reached the foot of the bed.
“Perfect timing, they just left.” Saxton’s husky voice was a promise of things Blay wanted. “Have you come to see how I am?”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause. “Then shut the door, and I’ll show you.”
Blay’s hand tightened on the knob until his knuckles cracked.
And then he stepped inside and closed them both in. As he kicked off his shoes, he threw the lock.
For privacy.
SIXTY-ONE
On the Far Side, Payne sat on the edge of the reflecting pool and stared down at her own face in the still water.
She recognized well the black hair and the diamond eyes and the strong features.
Was all too aware of who had sired and birthed her.
Could recite the days of her history thus far.
And yet, she felt as though she had not a clue as to who she truly was. In many ways, more than she took comfort in adding up, she was naught but this echo on the surface of the pool, an image that lacked depth and substance . . . and would leave nothing of permanence in her wake when she departed.
As Layla came up from behind her, she met the female’s eyes in the mirror of the water.
Later, she would consider that Layla’s smile was what changed everything. Even though of course, ’twas more than that . . . but her sister’s radiant expression was what ultimately cast her upon the winds of change, the subtle push that had her tumbling off the cliff.
That smile was real.
“Greetings, my sister,” Layla said. “I have been searching for you.”
“And alas you have found me.” Payne forced herself to turn about and stare up at the Chosen. “Please. Sit and join me. I infer from your good cheer that your time with the male continues apace.”
Layla lowered herself for but a moment, and then her kinetic joy had her up on her feet again. “Oh, yes, indeed. Indeed, yes. He is to call me anon this day and I shall go to him again. Oh, dearest sister, you cannot imagine . . . what it is like to be held within a circle of fire and yet emerge unscathed and o’erjoyed. ’Tis a miracle. A blessing.”
Payne turned back to the water and watched as her own brows tightened. “May I ask you something intrusive.”
“Of course, my sister.” Layla came over and settled once more on the pool’s white marble edge. “Anything.”
“Are you thinking of mating him? Not just mating with him—but becoming his shellan?”
“Well, yes. Of course I am. But I am waiting to find the right time to broach it.”
“What shall you do . . . if he says no?” When Layla’s face froze, as if she had never considered such a thing, Payne felt as though she had crushed a rosebud in her palm. “Oh, damn me. . . I don’t mean to upset you. I just—”
“No, no.” Layla took a bracing breath. “I am well aware of the construction of your heart and you have not a cruel chamber within it. Which in truth is why I feel as though I may speak with such candor to you.”
“Please forget I asked.”
Now Layla stared into the pool. “I . . . we have yet to actually have relations.”
Payne’s brows popped. Verily, if just the precursor to the actual event was eliciting such elation, the act itself must be incredible.
At least for a female like the one before her.
Layla brought her arms around herself, no doubt because she was remembering the feel of another, stronger set. “I have wanted to, but he holds back. I hope . . . I believe it is because he wishes to mate me properly first, in ceremony.”
Payne felt the awful weight of premonition. “Beware, sister. You are a gentle soul.”
Layla got to her feet, her smile now saddened. “Yes, I am. But I would rather my heart be broken than unopened and I know that one must ask if one is to receive.”
The female was so certain and steadfast that in the shadow of her courage, Payne felt small. Small and weak.
Just who was she? A reflection? Or a reality?
Abruptly, she stood up. “Will you permit me my leave?”
Layla seemed surprised and bowed low. “But of course. And please, I mean no offense by my ramblings—”
On impulse, Payne embraced the other Chosen. “You have given none. Worry not. And best of luck with your male. Verily, he would be blessed to have you.”
Before anything more could be said, Payne walked off, moving quickly past the dorm and surmounting with ever gathering speed the hill that led up to the Primale Temple. Going beyond that sacred bedding place, which was never used anymore, she entered her mother’s marble courtyard and strode down the colonnade.
The modestly sized door that marked the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters was not what one would expect to herald such a devine space. But then when the whole world was yours, you had nothing to prove, did you.
Payne did not knock. Given what she was about to do, the inappropriateness of bursting in uninvited was going to be so far down her list of sins, it was barely going to count as one.
“Mother,” she demanded as she stepped into the empty white room.
There was a long wait before she was answered and the voice that came to her was disembodied. “Yes, daughter.”
“Let me out of here. Now.”
Whatever consequence came upon her head from this renewed confrontation was better than such a castrated existence.
“Throw me out,” she reiterated to the blank walls and the nonair. “Let me go. I shall never return herein if that is your wish. But I shall not stay here anon.”
In a flash of light, the Scribe Virgin appeared before her without the black robing she usually wore. Indeed, Payne was quite sure no one ever saw her mother as she truly was, energy without form.
Bright no longer, however. Dim now, barely more than a ripple of heat to the eye.
The difference was arresting and tempered Payne’s rage. “Mother . . . let me go. Please.”
The Scribe Virgin’s response was long
in coming. “I’m sorry. I cannot grant you your wish.”
Payne bared her fangs. “Damn you, just do it. Let me out of here or—”
“There is no ‘or,’ my dearest child.” The Scribe Virgin’s thready voice drifted off and then returned. “You must remain here. Destiny demands it.”
“Whose? Yours or mine?” Payne slashed her hand through the paralytic stillness. “Because I am not truly living here, and what kind of destiny is that.”
“I am sorry.”
And that was the end of the argument—at least as far as her mother was concerned. With a sparkle, the Scribe Virgin disappeared.
Payne hollered into the vast blankness, “Release me! Damn you! Release me!”
She half expected to be slain on the spot, but then the torture would be over, and where was the fun in that.
“Mother!”
When there was no reply, Payne wheeled around and wished to Dhunhd there was something to throw—but there was nothing to set her grip upon and the symbolism was a scream in her head: nothing for her, there was absolutely nothing for her here.
Approaching the door, she unleashed her anger, ripping the thing from the hinges and throwing it backward into the cold, empty room. The white panel bounced twice and then skidded freely across the unobstructed expanse, a pebble upon the surface of a still pond.
As she stalked out toward the fountain, she heard a series of clicks, and when she looked over her shoulder, she saw that the portal had fixed itself, magically resealing its empty jambs, forming exactly what had been there before with nary a scratch to show for what she’d done to it.
Fury rose within her such that it choked her throat and made her hands shake.
In the corner of her eye, she saw a black-robed figure coming down the colonnade, but it was not her mother. It was merely No’One with a basket of offerings for the Scribe Virgin, her limp shifting her gait from side to side.
The sight of the misfortunate, excluded Chosen fueled her rage even further—
“Payne?”
The sound of the deep voice whipped her head around: Wrath stood by the white tree of colorful songbirds, his massive form dominating the courtyard.
Payne sprang at him, turning him into a target she could fight. And the Blind King clearly sensed her violence and her vicious approach: In the blink of an eye, he fell into his fighting stance, becoming powerful, prepared, and ready.
She gave him everything she had and more, her fists and legs flying at him, her body becoming a whirl of punches and kicks, which he deflected with his forearms and dodged by ducking his torso and head.
Faster, tougher, deadlier, she kept at the king, forcing him to return what she was putting to him or risk getting seriously injured. His first hard strike caught her in the shoulder, his fist crashing into her, throwing her off balance—but she recovered quickly and spun around, leading with her leg and foot.
The impact to his gut rocked him so hard he grunted—at least until she spun once more and struck him in the face with her knuckles. As blood exploded, and the dark lenses o’er his eyes skittered away, he cursed.
“What the fuck, Pay—”
The king didn’t have a chance to finish her name. She plowed into him, catching him around the waist, driving his huge weight backward. There was no true contest, however. He was twice her size, and he took charge with ease, peeling her off of him and flipping her around to hold her, back to his front.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he snarled in her ear.
She slammed her head backward, nailing him in the face, and his grip loosened for a split second. Which was all she needed to break away. Flipping free of him by using his oak-strong body as a platform to fly from, she—
Vastly underestimated her momentum. Instead of landing with her weight perpendicular to the ground, she pitched forward—which meant she hurt one foot badly, her body tumbling wildly to the side.
The marble edge of the fountain kept her from hitting the ground, but the impact was worse than if she’d fallen flat.
The crack of her back was loud as a scream.
And so was the pain.
SIXTY-TWO
When Lash woke up at his hideaway ranch, the first thing he did was look at his arms.
Along with his hands and wrists, his forearms were now shadows as well, a kind of smog-like form that moved as he told it to, and either be nothing more than air or could bear weight at his command.
Sitting up, he shoved off the blanket he’d pulled over himself and stood. What do you know, his feet were pulling a disappear, too. Which was good, but . . . shit, how long was the transformer bit going to take? He had to assume that if his body still had physical form, with a heartbeat and needs like food and drink and sleep, he wasn’t completely safe from bullets and knives.
Plus, frankly, given all the pieces that had fallen off him, bio-waste management was really fucking messy.
He’d turned the mattress he’d slept on into the biggest Depends on the planet.
A squeak from outside drew him over to the blinds and he parted a seam with his nonfingers. Through the crack, he watched humans going along their lame-ass days, driving by, biking along. Frickin’ morons with their simple little lives. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Bitch about their day. Wake up and do the same thing again.
As a sedan went by, he implanted a thought in the driver’s mind . . . and smiled as the Pontiac swerved out of its lane, bumped up over the curb, and gunned right at the two-story across the street. The fucking POS powered straight into a bank of windows, smashing through the glass and the wood framing, air bags exploding inside the car.
Better than a cup of coffee to start the day.
He turned away and went to the shitty bureau, firing up the laptop he’d found in the back of the Mercedes. The drug deal he’d interrupted on the way home had been worth the effort. He’d grifted a couple thousand dollars as well as some OxyCs, some X, and twelve crack rocks. More important, he’d thrown the two dealers and the one customer under a trance, gotten them back to the AMG, brought them here, and turned them.
They’d trashed the hall bath by throwing up all night long, but frankly he was about done with this house and was thinking of burning it down.
So . . . he had a team of four. And whereas none of them had been volunteers, once he’d drained them and brought them back to “life,” he’d promised them all kinds of shit. And what do you know. Junkies who dealt to supply their own habits would believe just about anything you told them. You just had to sell them on a future—after you’d scared the colons out of them.
Which was a no B.F.D. for him. Naturally, they’d been shitting themselves when he’d unmasked his face, but the good thing was they’d hallucinated so many times on acid trips, it wasn’t completely outside their experience to talk to a living corpse. Plus he was persuasive when he wanted to be.
Damn shame he couldn’t brainwash them permanently. But that parlor trick with the Pontiac driver was as far as he could go with the influence: brief and unsustainable for longer than a couple of seconds.
Fucking free will.
After the computer booted up, he went to the Caldwell Courier Journal site. . . .
Hello, front page. The “Farmhouse Massacre” was covered in a number of articles—the blood and the body parts and the strange oily residue garnering all kinds of Pulitzer-light description. Reporters also interviewed the police who’d been there, the postman who’d called 911 in the first place, twelve kinds of neighbors, and the mayor—who was evidently “calling upon the fine men and women of the CPD to solve this terrible crime against the Caldwell community.”
Consensus was: ritual deaths. Perhaps tied to an unknown cult.
All of which was just background chatter obscuring what he was really looking for—
Bingo. In the last article, he found a short two-paragrapher reporting that the crime scene had been broken into the night before. The “fine men and women of the CPD” had grudgingly allow
ed as how one of their late-night patrol cars had done a drive-by and found that person or persons unknown had ransacked the scene. They were quick to point out that relevant evidence had already been removed and they were putting a black-and-white there full-time from now on.
So the Brotherhood had followed up on his little message.
Had Xhex gone there, too? he wondered. Maybe waited to see if he’d show up?
Shit, he’d missed a goddamn shot at her. And the Brothers.
But he had time. Hell, when his body went full-on shadow? He had an eternity.
Checking his watch, he got his hustle on, changing quickly into black slacks and a turtleneck and that hooded raincoat. Drawing on his leather gloves, he slid his black baseball cap on and gave a gander in the mirror.
Yeah. Right.
Rummaging around, he found a black T-shirt that he ripped to ribbons and wound around his face, leaving room for his lidless eyes and the cartilage that was left of his nose and the gaping maw that was now his mouth.
Better. Not great. But better.
First stop was the bathroom to check and see how his troops were getting along. They had all passed out in a heap on the floor, their arms and legs intertwining, their heads here and there . . . but the fuckers were alive.
Man, they were so bottom-of-the-barrel, dregs-of-humanity types, he thought. If they were lucky, collectively their IQ might creep into the triple digits.
They were going to be useful, however.
Lash locked the house up tight with a spell and stepped out into the garage. Popping the Mercedes’ trunk, he lifted the carpeted panel, took out the bundle of coke, and loaded up both his non-nostrils before getting behind the wheel.
Gooooooooood mornnning! As a choir of chaos lit him up from the inside, he backed down the drive and headed out of the neighborhood, going the opposite way from the cops and ambulances that had arrived at the house across the street.
Which now had a drive-through as opposed to a living room.
Once he hit the highway, the trip downtown should have been ten minutes, but because of rush-hour traffic, it was more like twenty-five—although with the racing in his mind and his body, he felt like he was at a total standstill the entire time.
