The Thief

by J. R. Ward

  Sola recognized the doctor instantly, and that was when the trembling started. What was her name...Jo? Jules?

  With a shaking hand, Sola opened her door. "Hey, Doc."

  The woman smiled. "Hey there, yourself. You're looking well."

  Jane, she thought. They called her Doc Jane.

  "Thanks." Sola went over and felt an absurd impulse to hug the female as if they were friends. Which they were not. "I feel good."

  Liar. As the time she had spent in the clinic came back, she felt her inner Fiona Apple come on, all sorts of deep emotion warping her consciousness in ways she did not appreciate: She remembered arriving here, bloodied, bruised, and with a gunshot wound, Assail by her side. She had been seen by this doctor, assessed medically, and patched up. How long had she stayed? She couldn't recall.

  Everyone had been perfectly nice and professional, and all she'd wanted to do was see the last of them.

  Doc Jane nodded a greeting at the men and then addressed Sola. "So Ehric's told me you'd like to see Assail?"

  "Yes." She cleared her throat. "I don't know how I can help, but...that's why I'm here. Yes."

  Stammer much?

  The doctor put her hand on Sola's arm. "I'm glad you came. Let's go down to him."

  As Sola stepped into a long corridor that was wider than a train tunnel, Doc Jane asked, "Tell me, how much do you know about his condition?"

  "I know that he is dying."

  Ehric joined them. "We're hoping that she will inspire him."

  "Miracles can certainly happen," Doc Jane said. "And I am open to anything at this point."

  After the blond guy with the Disney tracks came inside, they went forward in a group, their footfalls echoing throughout the concrete hall. The men said a few things, Doc Jane answered, and Sola heard nothing of it. She was too busy looking around, trying to get her bearings, and praying that she kept her shit together when she saw Assail.

  He had to be in really bad shape.

  They went by many closed doors, none of which had any signage. And at one point, she could have sworn she smelled popcorn, like there was a mess hall or a break room somewhere close, but then the doctor was stopping.

  "I want you to be prepared." The woman smiled gently. "He'll know you're here, I promise you. Just talk to him as you would normally, he'll hear you--"

  "Wait, he isn't awake?" Sola asked.

  Doc Jane glanced at Ehric. "No. He's not conscious."

  "Oh."

  "Are you ready?"

  Sola stared at the door they'd halted in front of. It was such a generic one, the flat metal panel painted a soft gray, and yet her tangled emotions turned it into an obstacle course that was miles long.

  Do it, she told herself. Go on. You drove for a day and a half straight to get here.

  "This is harder than I thought," she heard herself say.

  "Do you want some extra time?"

  What was really going to change, though? "No. I'm ready."

  Doc Jane opened things slowly, and at first, what was up ahead in the small, bare room didn't calibrate. The hospital bed was expected, and so were the beeping machines, but what she saw underneath the thin blankets was not...

  "Assail," she choked out.

  Stumbling forward, she caught her balance just before she fell, and then she simply stood there, unable to move.

  If she hadn't been told it was him, she would not have found one...feature...that was Assail's in the patient lying, bald and shrunken, in that bed. His skin was white as snow, his cheeks hollow, his cracked lips parted as he barely breathed--

  As Sola became aware of a pressure on her own mouth, she realized she had put her palm to her face to keep her reaction in.

  How had this happened? she thought. How had he gone from being that healthy, strong man...to this?

  Then again, cancer was a fucker.

  "Talk to him," Doc Jane prompted quietly, before raising her voice. "Hello, Assail. You have a visitor."

  As if he were a hundred years old in a nursing home.

  Sola lowered her hand and tried to find something, anything, to say.

  "It's still him in there," Doc Jane whispered. "The physical body may seem different, but the soul remains the same."

  "Oh, God...what do I say?"

  "If you were lying there, what would you like to hear?"

  I love you. You are not alone. I am not going to leave you. As her heart pounded and she felt sick to her stomach, those three simple sentences went through her mind over and over again. I love you...

  Back when he had been healthy and she had been centered, when time had seemed like a river without beginning or end, it had been so important to keep herself from saying those words. Now? Impending death wiped out all that self-protection and that illusion of choice and free will, giving her a courage she had lacked.

  Forcing herself to go around to him, she reached out to take his hand--

  Frowning, she looked back. "Why is he restrained?"

  "It was for his safety and ours--"

  Without warning, Assail's lids popped open and he looked at her--and Sola gasped. His silvery eyes were dilated so wide, there was no color around the pupils, and the sclera was red, as if his skull had filled up with blood and drowned out the white.

  As he stared through the pain of his suffering, he began to pant, his hollow chest pumping up and down and his arms rising against the binds that kept them in place.

  Sola took his hand and squeezed his cold fingers. "Assail? I've missed you."

  His mouth moved as if he wanted to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, his response was a single crystalline tear that formed in the corner of his eye...and dropped silently onto the pillow.

  "Assail," she begged. "Can you stay with me? Don't go now. Stay here with me for a little while?"

  She had no idea whether he could see out of those eyes, but the doctor was right. He knew it was her. He absolutely knew she had come.

  THIRTEEN

  "You're hurt, my man."

  Instead of responding to Butch's co-dependency, V leaned forward between the front seats of the Hummer. "Yo, Q, this piece of shit go any faster?"

  Qhuinn shot a glare over his shoulder. "We're doing seventy in a forty-five. And I just blew through two red lights. This is not the Millennium Falcon--what else do you want."

  "Cut through the park up here. Just punch over the curb and plow through the bitch--"

  "Next time, you drive. Until then, shut up."

  Sitting back, V crossed his arms over his chest and refused to meet the cop's annoyingly steady stare--which was being beamed across the backseat like a laser. Instead, he glared out at the small, chic shops they were tooling by. When his upper arm burned, he repositioned the damn thing, and then had to move it yet again.

  So yeah, fine, the cop might have a point, but V wasn't going to see what was doing with his biceps, that was for damn sure.

  At least not in front of witnesses. Besides, there was no blood--and the sleeve on his leather jacket wasn't even broken. So what could possibly be wrong under there?

  As his cell phone went off, he checked the text and hid a grimace as that arm of his let out another holler. "Wrath is ready for us."

  "Everyone's coming in?" Blay asked from the passenger seat up front.

  "Yeah, even the Bastards." V put his phone away. "So can you drive faster there, Grandma?"

  Qhuinn bared his fangs in the rearview mirror. "Put a patch on, asshole, if you can't handle being without your nicotine."

  As Qhuinn turned up the Guns N' Roses, V wanted to lob a fuck-off with plenty of spin on it at the brother, but it was hard to argue with the logic. He was, in fact, pissy because he was jonesing for a cigarette, and by the way, he couldn't wait until Qhuinn got off this rock kick he was on. How about some Bryson Tiller, FFS.

  Butch elbowed him in the wound, making him hide a groan. "Take this," the cop said.

  As V's vision checkerboarded on him, he grabbed whate
ver the cop was offering. Wait, Nicorette?

  "When did you start this?" V asked as he popped a piece of gum out of its plastic tile.

  "About a month ago. I won't smoke in front of Marissa, it's too nasty. But you know, old habits die hard, and lately, I've been stressed the hell out."

  V put the square in his mouth and gave his molars a workout. The taste wasn't bad, but it wasn't Wrigley's, either. What mattered was that after a little bit, he did feel considerably less like playing target practice with their driver, true? And yeah, sure, he could have dematerialized to the Audience House, but Butch, as a half-breed, couldn't ghost out, and V never felt right about deserting the guy during transports.

  "You got any more of that?" he asked.

  "Sure. Take another if you want."

  As Butch sent a flat of the things in his direction, V popped every piece out and put it all in his mouth.

  "Pay you back," he said around the basketball-sized wad in his mouth.

  When Butch didn't reply, he glanced over at his roommate. The guy was staring at him in utter disbelief.

  "What."

  Butch shook his head slowly. "You are about to fly off the face of this planet, my friend. There's enough nicotine in that to take down an elephant."

  "I'll be fine," he muttered as they turned onto a street with mansions on both sides.

  Wrath's Audience House was halfway down, the yellow Federal set back on its snowy yard like something out of a catalog for fine china and crystal.

  Qhuinn pulled into the drive and went all the way back to the detached, two-story garage. As V got out, he looked at those windows on its second floor and remembered taking the three humans who had tried to kill Ruhn up there. Saxton, the King's solicitor, had more than adequately ahvenged his love, something that had been a surprise. Lawyers tended to be better with the pen-across-the-page than the dagger-across-the-throat, but motivation was the key to everything--and thanks to Saxton, those humans had not come down for breakfast, as the cop liked to say.

  V had enjoyed his job that night, for real.

  Approaching the mansion's rear door, he jumped ahead and held things open for the cop, and Qhuinn and Blay, then the four of them passed through the kitchen and went out to the front of the grand house. Except for some doggen vacuuming upstairs, the place had emptied out at the King's command, the civilians rescheduled, the receptionist dismissed.

  For what was going to be discussed, there could be no witnesses.

  Just as they came into the open foyer, V pared off and hit the loo that males used, locking himself in the one-stall room and stripping off his jacket to see what his arm looked like--

  Oh...fuck.

  No reason to lean into the mirror for a closer look. The snake-shaped wound that ran from the top of his left shoulder down past his elbow was the color of a neon bar sign, glowing ruby red in his tan skin.

  Naturally, his first impulse was to poke it--okay, ow. There was no blood, though, the epidermis not so much broken as singed--like he'd been lashed with a hot chain and gotten a third-degree burn.

  Jane should take a look at--

  Nope, he corrected himself. Not an option. Besides, he was a medic, he could take care of himself.

  Starting the faucet, he grabbed a hand towel and wiped the wound off with some soap and hot water. When he was done, he pulled his jacket back on and checked the sleeve again. The leather was truly intact. So damned weird.

  He thought about the interaction with that shadow entity, reviewing its approach, the altercation, the extermination. It was bad that he didn't know what the thing was, but there was something so much worse than the no-familiar.

  Much, much worse.

  Leaving the bathroom, he went down to where all the conversating was, entering the dining room and picking a place out of the way for a couple of reasons: No, he didn't want to talk about the attack until everyone was here--he was going to do it once and only once. More than that, no, he didn't want to explain to anyone else who might have noticed why he and Jane were not holding hands and skipping together wherever they went. And NO, he didn't want any commentary on this bulging wad in his cheek.

  So yeah, he far-cornered it and kept to himself.

  The dining room was typical Darius, elegant, old school, classy. It was also essentially empty now. Its handmade table, which had been long as a bowling alley and glossy as a mirror, had been moved out, along with dozens of chairs and two sideboards the size of SUVs. The only things left of the former way the house had functioned were the big-as-a-lawn rug and the chandelier, which hung, like a galaxy, in the center of the space.

  A couple of armchairs had been angled toward each other in front of the marble fireplace and the desk of the King's solicitor was off to the left. Every night, civilians came and went, taking their time with their leader, seeking blessings for matings and young, judgments on disputes, and guidance about matters small and large. It was the Old Ways in the modern world, Wrath stepping into his father's practice after so many eons of not having any contact at all with those he ruled.

  And this meant the Brotherhood and its affiliated fighters were now functioning once again as the King's private guard. Even though the vast majority of males and females who were seen here were perfectly law-abiding, no one was taking chances with Wrath's life. Two of the brothers were always on site with him, with everybody else ready to come at a moment's notice.

  When you considered the rotation necessary to give brothers a night off, the fact that the training center needed to be manned, and then all the guarding here? Even with the addition of the Band of Bastards, they were short-staffed covering everything--especially given that the Bastards couldn't guard Wrath by law, and they weren't used in the training program, and the trainees were too green still to be of much use. Add in some injuries?

  V thought about that shadow out on the streets and felt a ripple of unease that was about as characteristic of him as the urge to bake bread. Paint by numbers. Crochet.

  We need more fighters, he thought. Xhex and Payne were going to have to come in on this.

  As he started to mine his brain for more people they could pull into service, Abalone, First Adviser to the King, arrived, and so did Saxton. And then there was a quieting, the heat under the boil of chatter turned down.

  When Wrath walked in with George, his seeing-eye dog, the King's looming presence was the sort of thing that changed the energy in the room sure as an electrical storm. But he wasn't alone.

  Oh...great, V thought. This night kept getting better.

  Lassiter, the fallen angel, that male with the silver blood, the sunshine fetish, and the hideous taste in clothes and television, was a grim shadow of his usual jackass-self, his blond and black hair braided down his back, the gold at his throat and wrists the only thing that was glowing on him.

  Fuck. He was looking like someone had just broken the news that RHONJ had been canceled.

  Wrath and George went over to the armchair on the right of the open flames. As the King sat down, the golden retriever curled into a ball at his shitkickers, the dog tucking his muzzle into his long tail.

  "So," Wrath said in V's direction. "I hear you met a new friend tonight."

  As everyone looked at him, V went to cross his arms over his chest, but thought better of it because of his wound. "I'm not the one who needs to be talking here."

  "Passing the buck," Wrath muttered. "Not like you."

  "The details of the attack, I can go into," he said. "But they're not the problem. The main issue is...it's not the Omega, is it. It is not from the Lessening Society." He focused on Lassiter. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be lookin' like that, would you."

  * * *

  --

  Back at the training center, Jane couldn't believe that Assail was conscious. His eyes did appear to be focused on Sola, however, and he did seem to be listening to the woman, but given those brain scans? Jane was looking for signs that this was reflexive.

  The longe
r he stayed "aware," though, and the more he followed the subtle shifts of Sola's head as she spoke with him, the more the evidence suggested a miracle had in fact happened--and so Jane stepped away from the hospital bed. She didn't go far, however. The violent outbursts could come on without warning, a lesson hard learned, so given this unforeseen and un-assessed change in neurological status, she wasn't taking any chances. God only knew what Assail was capable of.

  He definitely seemed to recognize who was with him, though. His eyes were locked on Sola, her mere presence beside him doing what all their medicine had not been able to. She had brought him back--except for how long?

  Jane glanced over her shoulder at Ehric, who was standing just inside the door. Guess the cyborg wasn't so removed after all: A sheen of tears was brightening his eyes, the flush of his emotion turning his face red. He had been right to bring the woman here.

  He had done the right thing.

  Yes, she thought as she turned back to the couple. This was the miracle that love could bring, the soul reaching out of a broken body to connect, perhaps for one last time, to its other half.

  I had that once, she thought with a lump in her throat. I knew that bond...I have held that blessing and gift in the center of my chest and it warmed me.

  As sorrow came to her sure as the shadow of death, she told herself to go back to the anger she'd been stewing in since she'd left Vishous on his penthouse's terrace.

  Righteous indignation was where she needed to stay. This sadness was dangerous.

  A gasp from the bed got her attention--

  Just as she looked up, Assail kicked his head back on the pillow and started to seize, his arms jerking against their ties, his legs kicking at their restraints under the blankets.

  "Step back," Jane ordered Sola.

  As the other woman jumped out of the way, Jane hit the call button and lunged for a bite guard, which she forced between Assail's front teeth. The anti-epileptic meds were right by the bed, the needle preloaded with a benzodiazepine, and she grabbed it, and put the drug directly into the IV.

  "What we got?" Manny said as he rushed in.

  "Just administered the lorazepam." Doc Jane checked the heart rate on the monitor. "It should kick in quick--"

  The blood-pressure alarm started going off, indicating a critical drop.

  "Everyone out of the room!" she barked.