by J. R. Ward
An hour before dawn, they'd taken the body to the very edge of town, to a good-looking house set way back in the woods. An older civilian couple had answered the door, and their terror at finding two warriors on the other side had smelled like burning garbage to Wrath. When they'd confirmed that they had a son, Vishous had gone back to the car and picked up the remains. The father had burst from the doorway, going for his boy, taking him from Vishous's arms. Wrath had caught the mother as she'd crumpled.
The fact that the death had been avenged had calmed the father a little. But it hadn't felt like enough. Not to Wrath.
He would see all lessers dead before he could rest.
Wrath closed his eyes, listening to the beat of Jay-Z's The Black Album, trying to let go of the night before.
A rhythmic knocking broke through the music, and he willed the door open. "What's up, Fritz?"
The butler came in carrying a silver tray. "I took the liberty of preparing a repast for you, master."
Fritz put the food down on the low table in front of the couch. As he lifted the top off a covered dish, Wrath caught a whiff of herbed chicken.
Come to think of it, he was hungry.
He went over and sat down, picking up a heavy silver fork. He eyed the flatware. "Man, Darius liked expensive shit, didn't he?"
"Oh, yes, master. Only the best for my princeps."
The butler hovered as Wrath focused on getting some of the meat off the bone with the utensils. Fine motor skills were just not his bag, and he ended up picking the leg off the plate.
"Do you like the chicken, master?"
Wrath nodded as he chewed. "You're damned handy with the stove."
"I'm so glad you've decided to stay here."
"Not for long. But don't worry, you'll have someone to look after." Wrath pushed the fork into what looked like mashed potatoes. It was rice, and the stuff scattered. He cursed and tried to marshal some on the tines with his forefinger. "And she'll be a hell of a lot easier to live with than I am."
"I rather like looking after you. And master, I won't prepare the rice again. I'll also make sure your meat is cut up. I didn't think."
Wrath wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. "Fritz, don't waste your time trying to please me."
There was a soft laugh. "Darius was so very right about you, master."
"That I'm a miserable son of a bitch? Yeah, he was a perceptive one, all right." Wrath chased a piece of broccoli around with the fork. Damn it, he hated eating, especially if someone was watching him. "Never could figure out why he wanted me to come stay here so badly. No one could be that starved for company."
"It was for you."
Wrath narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. "Really."
"He worried that you were so alone. Living by yourself. No real shellan, no doggen. He used to say that your isolation was a self-imposed punishment."
"Well, it's not." Wrath's voice sliced through the butler's gentle tone. "And if you want to stay here, you'll keep the psych theories to yourself, got it?"
Fritz jerked as if he'd been hit. He bent at the waist and started backing out of the room. "My apologies, master. It was grossly inappropriate of me to address you as I did."
The door closed quietly.
Wrath leaned back against the sofa, Darius's fork gripped in his hand.
Ah, Christ. That damn doggen was enough to drive a saint crazy.
And he was not lonely. Never had been.
Vengeance was one hell of a roommate.
Mr. X eyed the two students sparring with each other. They were well matched in size, both eighteen years old and built strong, but he knew which one was going to win.
Sure enough, a side kick came out fast and hard, putting the receiver on his back.
Mr. X called an end to the match and said nothing more as the victor reached out and helped the loser struggle to his feet. The show of courtesy was irritating, and he felt like punishing them both.
The first code of the society was clear: That which you put on the ground, you kicked until it ceased to move. It was just that simple.
Still, this was class, not the real world. And the parents who were letting their sons dabble in violence would have had something to say if their precious children came home fit to be buried.
As the two students bowed to him, the loser's face was brilliant red, and not just from exertion. Mr. X let the class stare, knowing that shame and embarrassment were important parts of the corrective process.
He nodded at the victor.
"Fine job. Next time you bring him down faster though, right? He turned to the loser. He passed his eyes from the guy's head to his feet, noting the heaving breaths, the tremble in the legs. "You know where to go."
The loser blinked rapidly as he walked over to the glass wall that looked out to the lobby. As required, he stood facing the clear panels, head up high so everyone who entered the building could see his face. If he brushed the tears off his cheeks, he would have to repeat the discipline during the next session.
Mr. X separated the class and began to put them through their exercises. He watched them, correcting stances and arm positions, but his mind was on other things.
Last night had been less than perfect. Far less.
Back home, his police scanner had informed him when the prostitute's body had been found sometime after three A.M. There had been no mention of the vampire. Perhaps the lessers had taken the civilian away to toy with him.
It was a shame things hadn't gone the way he'd hoped, and he wanted to get back out into the field. Using a newly slain human female as bait was going to work fine. But the tranquilizer darts needed to be calibrated better. He'd started with a relatively low dose, concerned about killing the civilian before he could work him over. Clearly the strength of the drug needed to be increased.
Tonight was a bust, though.
Mr. X eyed the loser.
This evening was all about recruiting. The ranks needed to be filled out a little following the disintegration of that new recruit two nights ago.
Back centuries ago, when there were many more vampires, the society had had hundreds of members, spread far and wide over the European continent as well as in the fledgling settlements in North America. Now that the vampire population had dwindled, however, so had the ranks of the society. It was a matter of practicality. A bored, inactive lesser was a bad thing. Chosen specifically for their capacity for violence, their murderous impulses couldn't be put on ice just because there weren't enough targets to go around. Quite a number of them had had to be put down for killing other lessers in competition for superiority in the ranks, an aggressive response more likely to occur if there was too little work. Or just as bad, they'd started taking out humans for sport.
The former was a disgrace and an inconvenience. The latter was unacceptable. It wasn't that the Omega was concerned with human fatalities. Quite the contrary. But using discretion, moving in the shadows, killing swiftly and returning to the darkness, these were the tenets of slayers. Human attention was bad news, and nothing got the Homo sapiens stirred up more than a bunch of dead people.
Which was another reason why new recruits were tricky. They tended to have more hatred than focus. Seasoning was critical so that the secret nature of the aeons-old war between vampires and the society could be preserved.
Still, their ranks needed to be filled.
He eyed the loser and smiled, looking forward to the evening.
Shortly before seven o'clock, Mr. X drove out to the suburbs, easily locating 3461 Pillar Street. He put the Hummer in park and waited, passing the time by memorizing the split-level's details. It was typical Middle America. Twenty-four hundred square feet, sitting smack-dab in the center of a tiny lot with one big tree. Neighbors were close enough to be able to read the writing on the kids' cereal boxes in the morning and the labels on the adults' domestic beer cans at night.
Happy, clean living. At least from the outside.
The screen door swung o
pen, and the loser from this afternoon's class bounded out as if he were getting free of a sinking ship. Mom followed, lingering on the front step and regarding the SUV in front of her house as though it were a bomb ready to go off.
Mr. X put down the window and waved. She returned the greeting after a moment.
Loser leaped into the Hummer, eyes shining with greed as he looked over the leather seats and the dials on the dashboard.
"Evening," Mr. X said as he hit the gas.
The kid fumbled to get his hands up and bow his head. "Sensei."
Mr. X smiled. "Glad you could make yourself available."
"Yeah, well, my mother is a pain in my ass." Loser was trying to be cool, punching the curse words hard.
"You shouldn't talk about her like that."
Loser had a moment's confusion as he was forced to recalibrate his tough-guy act. "Ah, she wants me home by eleven. It's a weeknight, and I gotta go to work in the morning."
"We'll make sure you're back by then."
"Where are we going?"
"To the other side of town. There's someone I want you to meet."
A little later Mr. X pulled into a long, curving driveway that wound among spotlit specimen trees and ancient-looking marble sculptures. There were boxwood topiaries on the grounds, too, standing like decorations on a green marzipan cake. A camel, an elephant, a bear. The clipping had been done by an expert, so there was no question as to what each one was.
Talk about upkeep, Mr. X thought.
"Wow." Loser gave his neck a workout looking left and right. "What's this? A park? Look, at that! It's a lion. You know, I think I want to be a vet. I think that would be cool. You know, saving animals."
Loser had been in the car for less than twenty minutes, and Mr. X was ready to see the last of him. The guy was like lint in food: an irritation that made you want to spit.
And not only because he said you know constantly.
They came around a turn, and a great brick mansion was revealed.
Billy Riddle was out front, leaning against a white column. His blue jeans hung low on his hips, flashing the waistband of his underwear, and he was working a set of keys in his hand, whipping them around on a string. He straightened when he caught sight of the Hummer, a smile pulling at the bandage on his nose.
Loser shifted in the seat like he'd been set up.
Billy headed for the front passenger door, moving his muscular body with ease. When he saw Loser sitting there, he glowered, nailing the other guy with a vicious stare. Loser undipped the seat belt and reached for the handle.
"No," Mr. X said. "Billy will sit behind you."
Loser settled back against the seat, picking his lip.
When Loser didn't vacate shotgun, Billy yanked open the rear door and slid in. He met Mr. X's eyes in the mirror, and the hostility changed to respect.
"Sensei."
"Billy, how are you this evening?"
"Good."
"Fine, fine. Do me a favor and pull your pants up."
Billy jacked his waistband as his eyes shifted to the back of Loser's head. He looked as if he wanted to drill a hole in it, and going by Loser's twitchy fingers, the other guy knew it.
Mr. X smiled.
Chemistry is everything, he thought.
* * *
Chapter Twelve
Beth leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms out. Her computer screen glowed.
Boy, the Internet was handy.
According to the title search she'd performed online, 816 Wallace Avenue was owned by a man named Fritz Perlmutter. He'd bought the property in 1978 for a little over $200,000. When she'd Googled the Perlmutter name, she'd found a number of people with F as a first initial, but none of them lived in Caldwell. After checking some of the government databases and coming up with nothing worth a damn, she had Tony do some hacking.
It turned out Fritz was a clean-living, law-abiding kind of guy. His credit report sparkled. He'd never had any trouble with the IRS or the police. Never been married, either. And he was a member of the private client group of the local bank, which meant he had plenty of money. But that was about all Tony could find.
Doing the math, she figured the fine and upstanding Mr. Perlmutter must be in his seventies.
Why the hell would someone like him hang out with her midnight marauder?
Maybe the address wasn't legit.
Now there'd be a shocker. Guy dressed in black leather and dripping with weapons giving out false info? You don't say.
Still, 816 Wallace and Fritz Perlmutter was all she had to go on.
Going through the Caldwell Courier Journal's archives, she'd found a couple of articles on the house. The mansion was on the National Register of Historic Places, as a fantastic example of the Federal style, and there were some stories and op-eds about the work that had been done on it immediately after Mr. Perlmutter had taken possession. Evidently the local historical association had been dying to get inside the house for years to see what had changed, but Mr. Perlmutter had declined all requests. In the letters to the editor, the simmering frustration of the history buffs had been mixed with grudging approval at the accuracy of the exterior restorations.
As she reread an op-ed, Beth popped a Tums in her mouth and crunched it into a powder that filled the creases in her molars. Her stomach was sour again. And she was hungry. Great combination.
Maybe it was frustration. Essentially, she knew nothing more than she had when she started.
And the cell phone number the man had given her? U.n-traceable.
In the information vacuum, she was even more determined to stay away from Wallace Avenue. And feeling the echo of a need to go to confession.
She checked the time. Almost seven o'clock.
Given her hunger, she decided to go eat. Better to skip Our Lady and take nourishment of the physical variety.
Leaning to one side, she looked around the wall of her cubicle. Tony was already gone.
She really didn't want to be alone.
On a crazy impulse she picked up the phone and dialed the station. "Ricky? It's Beth. Is Detective O'Neal around? Okay, thanks. No, no message. No, I—Please don't page him. It's nothing important."
Just as well. Hard-ass was not really the uncomplicated company she was looking for.
She stared down at her watch, getting lost in the second hand's crawl around the dial. The evening hours stretched ahead of her like an obstacle course, the hours to be dodged and surmounted.
Hopefully with speed.
Maybe she'd grab some food and go see a movie afterward. Anything to delay going back to her apartment. Come to think of it, she should probably stay at a motel somewhere.
In the event that man came looking for her again.
She'd just logged off her computer when her phone rang. She picked it up on the second ring.
"Heard you were looking for me."
Butch O'Neal's voice was a gravel pit, she thought. In a good way.
"Um. Yeah." She pushed her hair back over her shoulder. "You still free for dinner?"
His laugh was a low rumble. "I'll be in front of the paper in fifteen."
He hung up before she could slide in a properly nonchalant, this-is-just-about-food comment.
After sundown Wrath walked into the kitchen, carrying the silver tray with the remnants of his meal on it. Typical of Darius, everything was the best of the best here, too. Industrial stainless-steel appliances. Plenty of cupboards and granite counter space. Lots of windows.
Too many lights.
Fritz was at the sink, scrubbing at something. He looked over his shoulder. "Master, you didn't need to bring that back."
"Yeah, I did." Wrath put the tray down on a counter and leaned into his arms.
Fritz shut off the water. "Was there something you needed?"
Well, for starters, he'd like to not be such a dickhead.
"Fritz, your job here is solid. Just wanted you to know that."
"Thank you, master."
The butler's voice was very quiet. "I don't know what I would do if I didn't have someone to take care of. And I think of this as my home."
"It is. For as long as you want it to be."
Wrath turned and headed for the door. He was almost out of the room when Fritz spoke up.
"This is your home, too, master."
He shook his head. "Already got a place to sleep. Don't need another."
Wrath walked into the hall, feeling particularly ferocious. Man, Beth had better be alive and well. Or God help whoever had hurt her.
And if she'd decided to avoid him? That didn't matter. Her body was about to need something only he could provide her. So sooner or later she would come around. Or she would die.
He thought of the soft skin of her neck. Felt the sensation of his tongue stroking over the vein that ran up from her heart.
His fangs elongated as if she were before him. As if he could sink his teeth into her and drink.
Wrath closed his eyes as his body began to shake. His stomach, full with food, turned into a bottomless, achy pit.
He tried to remember the last time he'd fed. It had been a while, but surely not that long ago?
He forced himself to calm down. Get control. It was like trying to slow down a train with a hand brake, but eventually a cooling stream of sanity replaced the whacked-out, blood-lust spins.
As he came back to reality he felt uneasy, his instincts crying out for airtime.
That female was dangerous to him. If she could affect him like this without even being in the damn room, she might just be his pyrocant.
His detonator, so to speak. The express-lane EZ Pass to his self-destruction.
Wrath dragged a hand through his hair. How goddamned ironic that he wanted her like no other female.
But maybe it wasn't irony. Maybe that was precisely how the pyrocant system worked. The urge to cozy up to what could annihilate you ensured the damn thing got a chance to go to work on your ass.
After all, what kind of fun would it be if you could easily avoid your inner hand grenade?
