The Thief

by J. R. Ward

  Sniffing like a bloodhound, Vishous closed in on the alley wall. "Cologne. Fresh. And there's vampire under the shit. Someone was just here."

  Butch leaned in and sniffed the building's flank like it had mortar made out of cocaine. "Acqua di Parma. Expensive stuff. And yeah, it was a male who's one of us. Maybe a member of the glymera? But what would they be doing in this part of town?"

  "No blood, though."

  "So that shadow didn't get them."

  Vishous removed the lead-lined glove from his curse and lifted his deadly, glowing hand up. Willing illumination from the center of his palm, he lit the entire alley for the distance of four blocks.

  No one was there. And the snow was so packed and ice-covered that a retreat wouldn't leave any prints--although considering it had been a vampire, they would have dematerialized to get away.

  Unless the entity could consume a mortal?

  "I don't like any part of this," V muttered as he lowered his palm and re-gloved.

  As the wind swirled and changed directions, coming at his face, he sorted through the complex, interlacing layers of scents, a job challenged by the cold because it tamped down the smells' intensity: There was garden-variety city-nasty, which was a combination of human feces, rot, and generic decay...your typical gas and oil fumes...an electrical burn from somewhere...

  Nothing remotely lesser or vampire-ish.

  Whoever it was had left.

  "I've smelled that before." He nodded to the wall. "I just can't frickin' place it. No...wait. I think..."

  Taking out his cell phone, he sent a text. The reply was instantaneous, and the response he was after nearly as fast: In less than a minute, two huge fighters appeared. The one with the harelip and the scythe on his back was Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards, mated of the Chosen Layla. Next to him, his soldier Zypher was just as big, but preferred guns to big knives.

  Which was a minor strike against the male. Then again, V had been making daggers for a couple of centuries, so he was biased toward the steel.

  "Greetings," Xcor said. "What is the--"

  Instantly, the male's head cranked toward the alley's wall. And then he stepped in close.

  "Throe," he growled as he inhaled.

  ELEVEN

  Six stops.

  Sola and her grandmother made six stops on the fourteen-hundred-mile, thirty-six-hour-long trip. Other than that, they had steadily moved north on the highway system, through the never-gonna-frickin'-end, long-and-thin of Florida, into Georgia and the Carolinas, and finally up to the almost-theres of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

  The idea that they could have come in to Caldwell's zip code at ten in the morning had been craziness. Especially given that, after some thirteen hours of driving, she'd had to get out from behind the wheel and grab a crash of about six hours at a La Quinta. But then they'd kept right on going after her sleep, and man, she'd enjoyed a shot of thank you, Jesus triumph as they'd finally passed into New York State. Talk about your premature celebrations. There had still been hours to go at that point, and by the time she'd battled through Manhattan traffic to shoot out the other side, she had reached the cold-storage suffering part of any long trip.

  It Was Never Going To Be Over.

  Like all things, however, the rule of beginning, middle, and end applied to their travel and signs for Caldwell had started to appear, like the lights of a rescue plane to someone who had been Tom Hanks-stranded for the longest time.

  "We are here," her vovo said as the Northway made a turn and the city's bridge over the Hudson River appeared like the promised land.

  Or, at least, the land of less-likely-to-get-a-DVT-blood-clot-in-your-leg-because-you-can-finally-get-out-the-car.

  "Yes, we made it."

  There was only a moment of relief, however, that balm to her aching neck and stiff shoulders immediately replaced with an OMG. She had no idea what was going to happen when they got to Assail's: For one, they were not expected. His cousins hadn't left her with a way of getting in touch. And then there was the unknown of Assail's condition and the shock of seeing him after a year.

  Why hadn't she thought to get a phone number from Ehric? Then again, she hadn't seen this turn of northbound events, had she.

  As she took herself and her grandmother over the bridge to Caldwell's quieter side, she looked to the left, searching for Assail's glowing glass house on its peninsula. She couldn't see anything but tiny clusters of lights on the shore, and God knew, his big place lit up like the Kennedy Space Center at night.

  Maybe he was at a hospital? She had no idea where he was being treated.

  After they came off the bridge, she took the first exit and then the turnoff for the peninsula's road was a split from a curve that narrowed things down considerably. Finally, she passed that little hunting cabin, which was the last structure before Assail's mansion.

  Now her heart began to beat hard, the beautiful, transparent house appearing like the bird's nest of a Swarovski finch.

  But yup, everything was dark inside, which didn't exactly inspire confidence. Although at least, as she rolled around to the garages in back, there were lights on in the kitchen and someone was standing at the sink.

  "You stay here," she ordered her grandmother as she stopped the car and ran a check of her gun.

  Nine times out of ten, she deferred to her elder. Okay, fine, nine and nine-tenths out of ten. But when it came to physical safety, she was always going to be in charge and her grandmother recognized those instances.

  "Lock up," Sola said as she got out and shut the door.

  She waited until there was a thunk sound that meant the car was secure. Then she walked over to the rear entrance of the mansion, her running shoes squeaking in the snowpack, her breath coming out in puffs of white, her sinuses humming and her ears tingling.

  Ah, January in upstate New York. You might as well have been on the arctic circle.

  Especially when you'd been living in Miami.

  Before she could knock or otherwise make herself known, the back door opened and she gasped. The dark-haired man standing before her was half the size Assail had been, with the arms and legs of someone who was starving to death. Or dying.

  "Assail..." she whispered.

  "May I help you?" a voice she didn't recognize asked.

  Wait--what? Okay, no, that was not Assail--which was a relief. "I'm a--I'm a friend of Assail's. This is still his house, right?"

  "Yes."

  When nothing more was offered, she cleared her throat. "May I see him?"

  "He is not here."

  "Where is he?"

  "Who are you again?"

  Sola glanced back at the road-grime-covered car and saw her grandmother sitting there, buckled into the passenger seat, her pocketbook clutched to her bosom. Thirty-six hours. Sola had driven that poor old woman thirty-six hours in a car that had the shock absorbers of a cardboard box and a heater that smelled like an electrical fire if they were going over sixty miles an hour.

  All that for, Who are you again?

  Ehric and Evale had come down, hadn't they? She and her grandmother couldn't possibly have had an identical bizarre dream.

  "If Assail's not here, are his cousins available," she said, her voice growing strident.

  "They have just departed."

  "Can you reach them?"

  The man shook his head, and he took a step back, as if he were uncomfortable keeping the door open and not just because it was letting cold air into the house. "No. They are--it is private business. Please come back another time--"

  She caught the heavy panel with a strong hand and looked the guy right in the eye. "You get on your phone, right now, and you tell Ehric I'm here. And then I'm going to help my grandmother out of that car and escort her in here. She's eighty damn years old, we've been on the road for a day and a half, and she's not staying in there one goddamn minute longer. Are we clear?"

  And if he didn't do what she said? She was going to p
ull her gun on him. She was done with the games and utterly over being polite.

  Not that she and Emily Post had ever been besties, anyway.

  TWELVE

  Five minutes. Maybe less.

  Within five minutes, Sola and her grandmother were in the house, using the ladies' room, and getting the kinks out. And two minutes after that? Ehric and Evale came through that back door like they had been shot from a cannon.

  The two men stopped dead when they saw her, as if they were shocked that their request had been actualized.

  "You're here," Ehric said in a strangely flat voice.

  "Yes." She glanced at his twin. "Where's Assail?"

  Ehric bowed so low, he nearly kissed his heavy combat boots. "Let me take you to him."

  "Which hospital? I'll drive myself." She glanced at her grandmother. "Vovo, let's go--"

  "I stay here." Her vovo took off her coat. "Bring me the groceries from the trunk. I send him for more things."

  As she pointed at Evale, the man assumed a look of messianic zeal, and Sola debated putting her foot down. But Assail's cousins had never been anything less than respectful, and besides, it didn't seem fair to drag her grandmother to a hospital and ask the woman to wait around while Sola tried to inspire a dying man. That could be hours.

  Evale spoke up. "She will be safe herein. Markcus and I shall protect her."

  If Markcus was the thin guy over in the corner, it was hard to believe he'd be much help in a fight. Then again, like Evale was going to need any? He had more guns on him under those loose clothes than he had fingers and toes.

  "Okay," she said to Ehric. "Let's go."

  The man nodded, and as he headed for the mudroom and the garage, Sola glanced at her grandmother, giving the woman one last chance to change her mind. When her vovo simply went for the refrigerator to check for staples, Sola started off in Ehric's footsteps.

  As she passed by the guy's twin brother, she said in a low voice, "She's older than she thinks she is."

  Evale snapped a hold on her arm, stopping her. Eyes that were the color of a blue diamond bored into her like stakes through her skull.

  "You take care of my kin, I take care of yours."

  Sola's chest tightened, and in that moment of connection, she realized how alone in the world she was. She had never felt as though she had help keeping herself and her grandmother safe and alive--because she trusted no one, out of necessity. And yet this killer in front of her? He had just given her the kind of vow that made them...almost family.

  "Thank you," she said roughly.

  He released his vise grip of a hand and bowed. And then she was walking out on legs that were wobbly.

  In the garage, there was a blacked-out Range Rover she knew all too well. It was the SUV she'd ridden in after the abduction, and the sight of the thing took her back to that horrible night.

  "Which hospital is it?" she said as she went around to the passenger side.

  "You've been there before. It is where we took you."

  "Oh, right." Even though she had few memories of the place. Shock'll do that to a girl. "How far out of town is it?"

  "Not far. But we have to pick up someone first."

  As she got in, she felt for her gun. "Do I know them?"

  "Do not worry." Ehric glanced over from the driver's side. "I will not let ill befall you."

  Actually, that's my job, she thought. But thanks.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled into a strip mall, headed around the back, and a man stepped out from behind the mountain of snow that had been cleared from the parking areas. He was blond-haired and--yeah, wow, really good-looking. Wait...she recognized him from before.

  As the guy walked over, Ehric stared across at her. "Please remove your hand from your weapon. He is our escort or we will not be allowed to pass. If he senses your aggression, things could get...complicated."

  Sola slid her hand back into view, but kept her palm on her thigh. "Who are these people?"

  "Friends."

  File this under birds of a feather, she thought as she re-measured the blond's enormous size. And P.S., why couldn't she hang out with normal people who had normal jobs?

  The man popped the door, bent himself like a pretzel to squeeze inside, and filled the entire back seat as he unkinked his bends. "How we doing, people? Hey, Sola, I don't know if you remember me. You were pretty out of it when I saw you last. My name is Rhage, and I'll be your deadweight for this trip. Please keep all trays in the upright position and the swearing to a minimum. In the event I get carsick, I will request a transfer to the front seat, driver or passenger is fine. And if the lady wouldn't mind giving me her weapons, we can get moving."

  As she twisted around to look at him, he gave her a winning smile, his brilliant blue eyes so stunning, she was momentarily struck dumb by their color. It was almost as if they were backlit, somehow? But she wasn't fooled; good looks and charm aside, if she didn't pony up the metal, he was going to lose that easygoing facade quick as a camo sheet being pulled off an anti-aircraft gun.

  "I'd feel better if I kept it," she muttered.

  "I'm sure you would. But then you aren't going to my facility. So what's our choice? And by the way, if we get in there and I search you, which I will, and I find anything you didn't disclose? We're going to have some problems, the three of us--problems that are going to be difficult to solve amicably. Have I made things clear enough?"

  He smiled again. And waited, as if he didn't care what her decision was, either way. Her choice was going to determine what he did, and he took no ownership over whether the outcome was A) "amicable" or B) "bust a cap in your ass."

  Ehric shifted in his seat and started handing over his weapons. "It does not apply solely to you," he said. "And I trust them."

  Sola watched the show, coveting the man's pair of forties. As well as his switchblade, and his--were those throwing stars? And a...

  "Excuse me," she cut in. "Is that a grenade?"

  Ehric looked at the compact, palm-sized bomb in his hand. "Why, yes. It is."

  As that was passed back, like it was nothing more than a Halls Mentho-Lyptus being shared between cold sufferers, she knew she was solidly in drink-the-Kool-Aid-or-get-off-the-ride land.

  "I really don't want to do this," she muttered as she got out her nine and handed it over. "I mean...really."

  * * *

  --

  Annnnnnd twenty minutes later, they were out far from the city and its suburban skirting, traveling on a two-lane road through a forest of evergreens, passing by yellow reflective signs with deer leaping on them and nearly no cars.

  "Oh, yo! Turn this up!"

  The man named for the Hulk's primary emotion shot his arm out between the seats and hit the volume just as they slowed and bumped off the asphalt onto a pair of deep ruts in the snow and underbrush.

  "--you're face-to-face with greatness and it's strange--"

  Sola cranked around, and the guy took it as having an audience, flexing his biceps and singing to her, every word perfect and on pitch as if he had done this a million times before. "...It's nice to see that humans never change..."

  They began to bounce up and down over divots and dips, the music swelling as big-and-blond sang his heart out. "...What can I say except yooou're WELLLCCCOMMMMMME!"

  Sola blinked and looked at Ehric--who was bobbing his head to the beat like a dad riding tight in an Odyssey at carpool. As her brain tried to assimilate the Deadpool-meets-Disney extremes, it was impossible not to wonder why she kept falling down rabbit holes--although at least this one had a soundtrack she could stand. If it were Frozen? She would have killed herself.

  Rhage tapped her shoulder like he wanted the attention back. "My kid loves Moana. We watch it all the t-- What has two thumbs and pulled up the sky?"

  When he got to the "this guy," his leather jacket opened and she checked out a matched pair of daggers that were strapped, handles down, to his enormous chest. He had disappeared all their weap
ons into somewhere, and God only knew what else he was packing under his--

  As Ehric slowed to a stop, she glanced out the front windshield and frowned at a decrepit old farm gate that was wing-and-a-prayer'ing it at the job of keeping anyone from heading farther on the lane. Clearly, they were just going to plow through the thing--

  The old gate broke apart and moved in two halves out of the way, its structural failings clearly an illusion. And as they continued on, there was soon another...and another...and still others. With each succeeding barrier, the fortifications became newer and stronger, the ruse of no-security, this-is-nothing-special fading away.

  Wonder how many hidden cameras are in those trees? she thought, as they slowed again for a twenty-foot barrier that looked capable of keeping a velociraptor in place.

  "Are you guys with the government or something?" she asked.

  The guy in the back seat was now busy singing "Can't Stop the Feeling," so he didn't answer, but he probably wouldn't have even if there had been low-level elevator Muzak going on--

  Wait...something was wrong with the landscape, everything blurry, with the pine trees indistinct vertical blurs and the ground smudged to the point she couldn't pick out the bald bushes or boulders or fallen trunks anymore. Was it fog? Except how was that happening in the dead of winter?

  Pulling the sleeve of her heavy fleece over her hand, she rubbed her window, but there was no condensation on the glass. And leaning in closer did not help, either. God, the stuff was so thick, the headlights were illuminating a distance of no more than ten feet ahead. Past that, it was impossible to find any kind of focal point--

  Holy Moses.

  The last gate was a massive, military-worthy installation of concrete slabs, iron pinnings, and barbed wire. And as soon as they went through it, everything around the SUV became crystal clear again, the descent into an underground tunnel smooth over an asphalt road that had been professionally laid and maintained. Down at the bottom, a multi-level parking area appeared, and Ehric took them over to a reinforced steel door.

  Yes, she thought. This was where Assail had taken her after the abduction. This was where she had been treated.

  "We are here," Ehric said as he hit the brakes.

  Before Sola could unscramble herself from events a year old, the entrance to the facility swung wide, a blond woman in a white doctor's coat bracing the weight open.