The Thief

by J. R. Ward

  "Here, my man. Use this."

  "Thanks, true."

  The cop nodded and leaned back against the pale blue wall. "Welcome."

  V tied it around his waist, using the body to cover his cheeks, and the long sleeves to hang in front of his hey-nannies.

  "So we find the book," Wrath announced. Like that was going to be as easy as locating a can of franks and beans in a supermarket's Shit-Through-a-Goose aisle. "If it tells you how to manifest these things, it probably has a way to get rid of them, right."

  Not a question. More as if the King had decided how this was going to go. And Vishous liked that in a leader. He just had a feeling they weren't going to get lucky on this one.

  Then again, he was the only asshole without pants on in the room, so...

  "Last item," Wrath announced. "Turns out there was a complication with that civilian who was killed last night."

  "Other than the fact that he woke the fuck up after he died and tried to eat Vishous?" someone piped in.

  "Is that where your bottoms went--"

  "Not the complication I'm talking about," Wrath said sharply. "Saxton, how about you tell the group what's doing."

  The King's solicitor stepped out of the crowd. Saxton was dressed not in the garb of the sword, but that of the pen, the male's trim figure sporting a tweed suit the color of the Highland moors, a cravat at his throat.

  Given that everyone else, except for V, was in black leather and weapons, he was like a GQ model walking into an MMA fight.

  "Thank you, my Lord." Saxton bowed to the assembled, his blond head dropping low. "The civilian who died last evening was named Whinnig, son of Stanalas. He and his bloodlines, on both sides, are members of the glymera, his mahmen having passed at his birth, may she rest unto the Fade. Although the attack was clearly random, it has created a trusts-and-estates issue. Whinnig had been recently named the sole heir of Groshe, his mahmen's brother. I was in the process of settling things, having run into conflict with Groshe's second mate, Naasha."

  "The one who had the blood slave," Wrath interjected. "Who died."

  Saxton cleared his throat. "The house, as you recall, was burned down that evening."

  As the solicitor quieted so that the others could fill in the blanks--namely that Assail and Zsadist had gone in there and not just lit the fire, but settled the score with that female for what she had done to Markcus, the poor kid--V wondered why the hell this mattered.

  They were talking about the war here, not domestic issues among the upper classes.

  "The estate is very sizable," Saxton continued. "And again, Groshe had provided for Whinnig in favor of his mate, Naasha. She had been prepared to contest the will given her long association with the deceased."

  V cracked his neck and decided if the damn attorney didn't get to the point, he was going to have to sneak out for a cig. And pants.

  "She was aided in this endeavor by her paramour at the time, Throe." Muttered curses paused the solicitor. "Her own death, however, superseded these ambitions--"

  "Where did that piece of shit Throe end up," Vishous asked. "Other than coincidentally in that alley next to the first shadow attack?"

  Saxton cleared his throat. "We believe he is residing as the paramour of another member of the glymera. It is not a dissimilar arrangement to that which he had with Groshe and Naasha--namely, an elderly hellren with a younger shellan who is not getting...adequate attention...shall we say, in some regards."

  Saxton did not need to mince words in this crowd, V thought. The guy should just lay it out that Throe was a banger of trophy wives, true.

  "So he moved on when that funding stream dried up," somebody muttered.

  "Or, put another way," another chimed in, "whatever his faults, at least he's not into necrophilia."

  "Anyway," Saxton gently re-steered, "with the death of Whinnig, Groshe's estate will go to his secondary heir."

  A strange ripple went through V, his tuning fork struck, and he braced himself for a portent--

  All at once, a vision of a gracious Southern mansion, the kind with plenty of porches and live oaks with Spanish moss hanging off of them, barged into V's mind.

  "Who's his next heir," he heard himself demand.

  Saxton cleared his throat again. "It is Murhder, formerly of the Black Dagger Brotherhood."

  Absolute. Fucking. Silence.

  For once, no one made any cracks. But there were also no curses. No one even moved or breathed.

  Finally, Vishous closed his eyes and shook his head. "Sonofabitch."

  Saxton took the comment as the cue to drop the other shoe. "Legally, I am required to give Murhder notice of his inheritance, and as I have no phone numbers or email addresses for him, it appears as though I will have to go down and see him in person."

  "You do not want to have contact with him," Rhage said grimly. "That's a bad idea. I love the brother, but he's completely insane."

  There was no levity in Hollywood's voice--and nor should there be. In the history of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, only one male had ever been removed from the roster for losing his mind, and Murhder held that illustrious distinction.

  V shifted his stare to another side of the study. John Matthew was listening intently, but it seemed to be out of professional duty.

  Did the guy have any idea that they were talking about Xhex's ex?

  Shit. Things were so about to get complicated.

  "You don't go alone," V said. "Some of us will go with you."

  "No." Wrath shook his head. "If any brothers show up down there, he'll think we're hunting him and he could attack. Saxton and Ruhn will go and speak to him. Send a letter to the addy first, and then go--so he's got some warning. Besides, it's good fucking news. Who doesn't want to be rich."

  "Someone who's clinically goddamn insane." V headed for the door. " 'Scuse me, but if I don't go have a smoke, my head is going to explode."

  "Put some pants on," somebody called out.

  Vishous flipped whoever it was the bird as he marched the fuck out of that study and dematerialized down to the foyer. Stepping through the vestibule, he walked right out into the snow, with only Butch's fleece and a muscle shirt on.

  He didn't even feel the cold. Which was what too many pieces of WTF news did to a guy.

  Passing by the winterized fountain, and then the lineup of cars, he went to the Pit's front entrance and let himself in. Before the heavy weight even closed, he was at his desk, lighting a hand-rolled, and then he was leather'd up, shitkicker'd, and gun-gathered. He was almost back out the door, with plenty of cigs in his pockets, when his phone went off with a text.

  As he saw what it was about, he muttered, "Motherfucker."

  * * *

  --

  As Sola stood in that concrete corridor, she wasn't sure she wanted to go anywhere with the doctor. All she knew was that she couldn't stand being where she was, her grandmother wouldn't let her in that room, and she couldn't leave the facility without the older woman.

  Screw thinking this facility was the government's. These people weren't just outside of the law, the law didn't even apply to them.

  Vampires?

  As the word ricocheted around her head, Doc Jane came out. "Everything looks good right now. But that spike means we want to watch her a little longer. We need to make sure she's stable before we release her."

  Sola stared at the woman's face, tracing everything from her hairline to her nose, her eyelashes to her chin. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but she knew one of the problems she now had was why the hell she'd hadn't known that Assail was a--

  "Come on," Jane said quietly. "Let's take a walk. You need to get out of here for a minute. I know exactly where your head is at, and it is a really tough place."

  It was the understanding and the compassion being offered that set Sola's feet into motion. She was so confused right now, and the idea that someone, anyone, had walked this absolutely fucking bizarre path her life had veered off ont
o was...well, not a relief, exactly. Because her situation was still the same. But at least she wasn't totally alone.

  Jane took them down into an office that looked--well, perfectly normal. Like the kind you'd see in a school. A business. A home when the person worked out of their house.

  There was a chair. A desk. Cabinets. A phone and a lamp. An overhead fixture with fluorescent lights in it.

  As Jane opened the door to what appeared to be a supply closet, Sola shook her head at all the essentially average--and decided it was just like Assail. On the surface, nothing seemed different or unusual. But the underlying purpose, the truth beneath the appearance of "usual," was a wormhole from which there was no escape.

  Vampires. In Caldwell--

  Shit, they had to be other places, too. All over the world--

  "Through here, Sola," Jane prompted.

  Sola followed the command on autopilot, her higher reasoning too engaged on the extent and implications of everything to concern itself with why she was walking into a shallow space of shelves full of pads, pens, and printer cartridges. But then the back wall, which certainly looked to be solid, opened to reveal a dark space.

  "Nothing will hurt you," Jane said. "Come on."

  Sola stepped through...and found herself in a tunnel. A...tremendous tunnel that was big enough to drive two SUVs side by side through, and long enough so she had absolutely no sense of where it ended in either direction.

  "I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't care." Jane started walking off to the left. "It's not going to hurt anyone."

  Sola fell into stride with the woman and put her hands in her fleece's pockets. She looked around incessantly even though the walls were smooth and unadorned, the floor was concrete and nothing else, and the rows upon rows of ceiling lights were just the identical boxes of fluorescents over and over again.

  "The species has existed for as long as humans have been on the planet," Jane said. "They're an evolutionary offshoot of us--or, depending on who you ask, they were created by the Scribe Virgin as a superior species. For me, as a scientist, I reconcile the two creation theories by believing that the mother of the race probably interjected a little of herself at a certain time in human history, introducing a variation to our double helix that took things in her direction."

  "The Scribe Virgin?" Sola asked weakly.

  "My mate's mother, actually. But that's a story for another time."

  They came up to a shallow set of stairs that led to a steel door with a pass-code pad next to it--but Jane just kept going.

  "The thing is," the woman continued, "you've got to ask yourself why all the vampire myths? Everything has a basis in truth--and the two species have been coexisting and interacting for eons. Vampires, however, don't want to be known. They have no interest in courting notice--they have enough to worry about with the Lessening Society."

  Sola glanced over at the woman. "Lessening...?"

  "It's the enemy. The Omega has been trying to eliminate the vampire race for centuries. It's a family thing--again, long story." Jane shrugged. "I found it all hard to believe, too, trust me. It's also very scary to learn that something you thought was only a Halloween joke is in fact just like you and me. Except with fangs, of course."

  As they came up to a second set of shallow steps, Jane paused. "The thing you have to remember is that they only want to live their lives in peace. They're like all of us in that regard. They want to grow up, and fall in love, and settle down--have a family. Deal with the ups and downs of life. They keep themselves separate because, let's face it, as much as the human race tries to pretend otherwise, at its core, we are self-interested, dangerous, and unreliable. We can't even treat each other with respect and tolerance--and vampires are a micro-minority."

  Jane turned away, did something, and a bolt shifted free with a clunk. Then they were leaving the tunnel for a small stairwell that opened up into a...

  Sola recoiled.

  It was a wood-paneled hallway...that was full of clothes. No, really, she thought. She was looking at racks of what seemed to be--yes, they were men's clothes--and the suits and slacks, shirts and jackets, were hanging on a series of metal department-store racks that ran the distance of the tall, thin space.

  "Don't mind Butch's wardrobe. He tries to keep it in his and Marissa's room, but it's just gotten to be too big. We've learned to live with his shopping addiction."

  Jane went to the left again and Sola hurried to catch up, although it wasn't like there was far to go.

  It also wasn't as if she were walking into a Vincent Price-worthy Gothic mansion or anything. Nope, this was just a simple house. A perfectly normal single-story kind-of-cabin-ish place, with an open space and a galley kitchen in the front, and what was clearly a couple of bedrooms in the back--

  "A foosball table?" Sola murmured.

  "Butch, V, and Rhage love to play." Jane went into the little cooking area. "How'd you like some non-caffeinated herbal tea? I think you've had enough jolts for this evening, don't you agree?"

  Sola didn't answer, but went over to check out a desk full of computers...and then the black leather sofa...the rug...the lamps...the coffee table with copies of The New England Journal of Medicine, Sports Illustrated, and the Sharper Image catalog on it...

  "I'll take that as a yes," the woman said as she started filling up a kettle.

  "May I sit down?"

  "I think that would be a wise idea, my friend."

  Sola was careful as she put her weight down on the sofa--but as it felt like a normal couch under her butt, she realized she was being weird.

  So normal, she thought. It was all so...just average and everyday.

  She must have sat there for a while, because suddenly a steaming mug of something that smelled divine was in front of her.

  "Try this. Lavender and rose hips and wonderful things." As she glanced over, Jane sat down and took a sip from her own mug. "It's very calming."

  Sola took the thing and drank from it, and as the warmth hit her belly, she worried for a second she was ingesting some kind of brew. But when, ten minutes later, she was perfectly fine, she felt foolish.

  Sola turned and faced the doctor. "The ghost peppers. God--now it makes sense."

  "I'm sorry?"

  Sola stared into her tea. "Ehric and Evale...they, ah, they were able to eat ghost peppers like they were just potato chips. You remember? I couldn't understand why they didn't end up doubled over and drooling from the pain."

  "They are anatomically very different from us. They have six-chambered hearts, for example. Their pregnancies last eighteen months. They need to feed--"

  "Feed?" Sola said.

  "A vampire has to take the blood of the opposite sex on a regular basis to stay strong. So yeah, they do have fangs for a reason, but not because they are trying to kill innocent virgins or 'convert' people. You can't get 'turned' into one. You either are a vampire or you aren't--well, that's not entirely true. Half-breeds do happen, but they are rare and the rules are even stranger for them. They tend to have a hodgepodge of characteristics from both species."

  Sola reached up and touched the side of her throat. "Is that why Assail..."

  "Did he try and take your vein?" When she nodded, Jane said, "It's an instinct in the bonded male. He must be horrified, but he no doubt couldn't help it--especially if he was aroused at the time."

  "Wait...bonded?"

  "When a male finds his mate, he bonds. It's very different than the whole fall-in-love thing humans do. Vampire males kind of click into place with a particular female, and when that happens, they're like that for life. They emit a bonding scent--which fortunately smells faaaantastic--and they want to take your vein. It's their instinct. Oh, and God help anyone who screws with their female. They will kill without hesitation and with very little provocation. They can be dangerous."

  Abruptly, Sola thought back to her getting free from Benloise's kidnapping. Assail had stayed behind...and then somehow magically me
t them all at that rest stop on the highway later. And yes, when he had gotten in the car, there had been blood dripping from his chin.

  He had killed to protect her, she thought. To protect...what he thought was his.

  "I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that living on this side is easy," Jane said. "I mean, it's a violent, war-filled life, what between the Lessening Society and now...well, there's a new threat, we think. And even if you can get past all of that, you still have to handle the normal stuff in a marriage." The woman laughed softly. "Trust me, there are all kinds of things that people have to work out and love each other through, and that's true whether you're human or vampire. But I can tell you, I'm happier now than I've ever been. And I'm with the right male. V's not perfect, and neither am I, but we love each other--and at the end of the day, the soul's need to connect is what it is."

  "I can't believe I didn't know." Sola sat back. "I mean, now that I think about it...there were so many clues."

  "The brain has a way of confirming its own hypotheses. It's how we function in our world. That which fits within our definition and perspective of our existence is retained, if not amplified. That which does not is either rationalized or cast aside until an event so great or profound occurs that we must rethink everything."

  Like your boyfriend coming out as Dracula, Sola thought.

  And then she frowned. "Wait, so that other nurse...Ghisele?"

  "Assail has taken her vein as he's recovered, yes. She's a Chosen, so her blood is especially pure and powerful. It's why he was able to rebound so fast."

  "Oh, great," Sola muttered. "So he cheated on me as well--"

  "He didn't have sex with her. Absolutely not. Feeding in those contexts is just like a blood transfusion. It's a medical event, not an intimate one. Vishous has to do it with someone of his own species. Rhage, too. Payne--because she can't get the strength she needs from Manny. It's necessary, but unpleasant for them, because they would always rather be with their mate. With us."

  There is no "us" for me, Sola thought.

  She sat forward and put her mug on the coffee table. "Well, it doesn't matter."