by J. R. Ward
"Wrath," she said into his shoulder. "Wrath, honey, I can't… I can't breathe."
He loosened his hold immediately and looked down into her eyes, trying to force his to focus. The strain pulled the skin of his temples tight.
"Wrath? What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You didn't answer my question."
"That's because I don't know the answer."
She seemed taken aback, but then arched up onto her tiptoes. She kissed his lips. "Well, however long I've got, I wish you would stay with me tonight."
There was a pounding on the door.
"Yo, Wrath?" Rhage's voice carried through the steel. "We're all here."
Beth stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself. He could sense she was closing up on him again.
He was tempted to lock her in, but he couldn't bear to keep her as a prisoner. And his instincts told him that however much she might wish things were different, she was resigned to her fate, as well as his role in it. She was also safe from the lessers at this point, as they would see her only as a human.
"Will you be here when I get back?" he asked, drawing on his jacket.
"I don't know."
"If you leave, I need to know where to find you."
"Why?"
"The change, Beth. The change. Look, it'll be safer if you stay."
"Maybe."
He kept his curse to himself. He wasn't going to beg.
"The other door out in the hall," he said. "It opens into your father's bedroom. I thought you might like to go in there."
Wrath left before he embarrassed himself.
Warriors did not beg. They rarely even asked. They took what they wanted and killed for it if they had to.
But he really hoped she'd be there when he got back. He liked the thought of her sleeping in his bed.
Beth went into the bathroom and took a shower, letting the hot water soothe her nerves. When she got out, she dried off and noticed a black robe hanging on a hook. She put it on.
She sniffed the lapels and closed her eyes. Wrath's smell was all over it, a combination of soap and aftershave and…
Male vampire.
Good lord. Was she actually living this?
She walked out into the chamber. Wrath had left the closet open, and she went over to look at his clothes. What she found was a cache of weapons that petrified her.
She eyed the door that led out into the stairwell. She thought about leaving, but as much as she wanted to go, she knew Wrath was right. Staying was safer.
And her father's bedroom was an enticement.
She would go there and hope that whatever she found didn't give her palpitations. God knew, her lover was providing one shock after another.
As she stepped out onto the bottom landing, she pulled the lapels of the robe closer together. The gas lanterns flickered, making the walls seem alive as she stared at the door across the way. Before she lost her nerve, she walked over, grabbed its handle, and pushed.
Darkness greeted her on the other side, a wall of black that suggested either a bottomless pit or an infinite space. She reached past the jamb and patted the wall, hoping she'd hit a light switch and not something that would bite her.
No luck on the switch. But a minute later her hand was still attached to her arm.
Stepping into the void, she moved slowly to the left until her body hit something big. Given the clapping of brass pulls, and the smell of lemon wax, she figured the thing was probably a highboy. She kept going, feeling her way around until she found a lamp.
It came on with a clicking sound, and she blinked at the glow. The lamp's base was a fine Oriental vase, and the table under it was made of mahogany, and very ornate. No doubt the room was done in the same fabulous style as the upstairs.
When her eyes adjusted, she looked around.
"Oh… my… God."
There were pictures of her everywhere. Black-and-whites, close-ups, colored ones. She was all ages, from infancy through childhood and into her teens. In college. One was very recent, having been taken while she was leaving the Caldwell Courier Journal's office. She remembered that day. It had been the first snowfall of the winter, and she'd been laughing as she'd looked up at the sky.
Eight months ago.
The idea that she had missed knowing her father by a margin of seasons struck her as tragic.
When had he died? How had he lived?
One thing was clear: He had great taste. Great style. And he obviously liked the finer things. Her father's vast private space was resplendent. The walls were a deep red that set off another spectacular collection of Hudson River School landscapes set in gilt frames. The floor was covered with blue, red, and gold Oriental rugs that glowed like stained glass. But the bed was the most magnificent thing in the room. It was a massive, hand-carved antique with dark red velvet drapes hanging from a canopy. On the bedside table to the left, there was a lamp and yet another picture of her. On the right, there was a clock, a book, and a glass.
He'd slept on that side.
She went over and picked up the hardcover. It was in French. Underneath the book there was a magazine. Forbes.
She put them back and then looked at the glass. There was still an inch of water in it.
Either someone was sleeping here… or her father had died very recently.
She looked around, searching for clothes or a suitcase that would suggest a guest. The mahogany desk across the room caught her eye. She went over and sat in its thronelike chair, getting swamped by carved arms. Next to the leather blotter there was a small stack of papers. They were bills for the house. Electric. Phone. Cable. All in Fritz's name.
So… normal. She had the same things on her desk.
Beth eyed the glass on the bedside table.
His life had been abruptly interrupted, she thought.
Feeling like an interloper, but unable to resist, she pulled open the shallow drawer under the desktop. Montblanc pens, binder clips, a stapler. She slid it back into place, then reached down and looked into a larger drawer. It was full of files. She picked one out. They were financial records—
Holy shit. Her father was loaded. Really loaded.
She glanced at another page. As in millions and millions and millions loaded.
She put the file back and shut the drawer.
Certainly explained the house. The art: The car. The butler.
Next to a phone there was a picture of her in a silver frame. She picked it up, trying to imagine him looking at it.
Where was a photo of him? she wondered.
Could you even take a photograph of a vampire?
She went around the room again, looking in each of the frames. Just her. Just her. Just…
Beth bent down.
And with a shaky hand reached out for a gold frame.
Inside was a black-and-white picture of a dark-haired woman looking shyly into the camera. Her hand was on her face, as if she were embarassed.
Those eyes, Beth thought with wonder. She'd been staring at an identical pair in the mirror every day of her life.
Her mother.
She brushed her forefinger down the glass.
Sitting blindly on the bed, she brought the picture as close as her eyes would bear without her vision blurring. As if proximity to the image would close the distance of time and circumstance, bringing her to the lovely woman in the frame.
Her mother.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-eight
This was more like it, Mr. X thought as he humped an unconscious civilian vampire up onto his shoulder. He carried the male quickly through the alley, opened the back of the mini-van, and laid his prey down like a sack of potatoes. He was careful to tuck a black wool blanket over his cargo.
He knew his procurement system would work, and upgrading the strength of the tranquilizer from Demosedan to Acepromazine had made the difference. His instinct of using horse tranqs instead of sedatives calibrated for humans had been correct. The vamp
ire had still required two darts of the Acepro before he went down.
Mr. X looked over his shoulder before getting behind the wheel. The prostitute he'd killed was lying across a storm drain, her heroin-saturated blood seeping into the sewage system. The dear girl had even helped him with the needle. Of course, she hadn't been expecting 100 percent pure H.
Or having enough of it pumped into her vein to put a moose into a deep nod.
The police would find her by morning, but he'd been very neat, just like before. Latex gloves. Hat pulled down over his hair. Densely woven nylon clothes that should leave no fibers.
And God knew, she hadn't struggled at all.
Mr. X calmly started the engine and eased out onto Trade Street.
A fine shine of anticipatory sweat broke out above his upper lip. The arousal, all the adrenaline pumping through him, made him miss the days when he could still have sex.
Even if the vampire had no information to give, the rest of the evening was going to be enjoyable
He'd start with the hammer, he thought.
No, the dental drill would be better. Under the fingernails.
That should wake the male right up. After all, there was no sense torturing the unconscious. Like kicking a corpse, that would just be an aerobic workout, and even then, only a mild one. He should know.
Considering what he'd done to his father's body when he'd found it.
From the back he heard a flopping sound. He glanced over his shoulder. The vampire was moving under the blanket.
Good. He was alive.
Mr. X looked back out to the road and frowned. Leaning forward in his seat, he gripped the wheel.
Up ahead, there was the flare of brake lights.
Cars were stopped in a line. A bunch of orange cones were set out. And blue and white flashes announced a police presence.
An accident?
No. A roadblock. Two cops with flashlights looking into cars. A sign that read, Intoxication Checkpoint.
Mr. X hit his brakes. He reached into his black bag, took out the dart gun, and fired another two into the vampire to keep the noise down. With the windows darkened and the black blanket as cover, they had a shot at making it through. As long as the male didn't move.
When it was Mr. X's turn, he put the window down as the cop approached. The man's flashlight hit the dashboard, casting a glow.
"Evening, Officer." Mr. X assumed a pleasant expression.
"You been drinking tonight, sir?" The cop was your basic middle-aged nobody. Doughy around the middle. Fuzzy mustache that needed a better trim job. Gray hair poofing out from under his hat like a weed. He had all the aspects of a sheepdog except for the flea collar and the tail.
"No, Officer, I have not."
"Hey, I know you."
"Do you?" Mr. X smiled more broadly while eyeing the man's throat. Frustration made him think of the knife he had in the car door. He reached down and ran his finger over the handle, soothing himself.
"Yeah, you teach jujitsu to my son." When the cop leaned back, his flashlight swung to the side, hitting the black bag in the passenger seat. "Darryl, come meet Phillie's sensei."
While the other cop ambled over, Mr. X checked to make sure the bag was zipped up. No sense flashing the dart gun or the nine-millimeter Glock he had inside of it.
For a good five minutes, he made nice-nice with the boys in blue while fantasizing about the ways he could shut them up.
When he finally put the minivan in gear, he discovered the knife was in his hand and almost in his lap.
He had some serious aggression to work off.
Wrath stared hard at the blurry contours of the single-story commercial building. For the past two hours, he and Rhage had been watching the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy, waiting to see if it got any nocturnal action. The facility was located at the far end of a strip mall, on the edge of a stretch of woods. Rhage, who had cased the place the night before, estimated it was about twenty thousand square feet in size.
Plenty big enough to be a center for the lessers.
The parking lot ran down the front of the academy, and there were about ten to fifteen spaces on one side. There were two entrances. Double glass doors in front. Side ingress with no window. From their vantage point in the woods, they could see both the empty lot and the ways in and out of the building.
The other sites had been dead ends. The Gold's Gym hadn't yielded anything other than a revolving membership of steak-heads. It closed at midnight, opened at five A.M., and had been quiet for the past couple of nights. The paintball arena was the same, just an empty building from the moment it closed its doors. The best bets were the two academies, and Vishous and the twins were across town at the other one.
Although lessers could go out in the day, they did their hunting at night because that was when their targets moved around. As dawn got close, the society's recruitment and training centers were often used as places to congregate, but not always. Also, because the lessers shifted locales frequently, one spot could be hot for a month or a season or a year and then be deserted.
As Darius had been dead for only a few days, Wrath was hoping the society hadn't moved on yet.
He felt for his watch. "Damn it, it's almost three."
Rhage shifted against the tree he was behind. "So I guess Tohr isn't showing up tonight."
Wrath shrugged, hoping like hell the subject would get dropped.
It didn't.
"That's not like him." Rhage paused. "But you're not surprised."
"No, I'm not."
"Why?"
Wrath cracked his knuckles. "I took a piece out of him. When I shouldn't have."
"I'm not gonna ask."
"Wise of you." And then for some absurd reason, he tacked on, "I need to apologize to him."
"That'll be a surprise."
"Am I that awful?"
"No," Rhage said without his usual bravado. "You're just not wrong that often."
Candor was a surprise coming from Hollywood.
"Well, I sure as hell did a number on Tohr."
Rhage clapped him on the back. "Lemme tell you, as someone who offends folks regularly, there ain't much that can't be fixed."
"I brought Wellsie into it."
"Not a good idea."
"And how he feels about her."
"Shit."
"Yeah. Pretty much."
"Why?"
"Because I…"
Because he'd felt like an idiot trying to pull off even a sliver of what Tohrment had managed to do so successfully for two centuries. In spite of Tohr's calling as a warrior, he'd sustained a relationship with a female of worth. And it was a good, strong, loving union. He was the only one of the brothers who'd been able to do that.
Wrath thought about Beth. Pictured her coming up to him, asking him to stay.
Man, he was desperate to find her in his bed when he got home. And not because he wanted to take her. It was because then he could sleep beside her. Rest a little, knowing that she was safe and with him.
Ah, hell. He had a terrible feeling he was going to have to stick around that female. For a while.
"Because?" Rhage prompted.
Wrath's nose tingled. A faint whiff of sweetness, like baby powder, floated by on the breeze.
"Get out your welcome mat," he said, opening his jacket.
"How many?" Rhage asked, pivoting around.
The sounds of sticks snapping and leaves rustling softly broke the night. Got louder.
"Three. At least."
"Yee-haw."
The lessers were coming straight at them, through a clearing in the woods. They were loud, talking and walking without care, until one of them stopped. The other two pulled up, shut up.
"Evening, boys," Rhage said, sauntering out into the open.
Wrath took the stealth approach. As the lessers circled his brother, crouching, drawing knives, Wrath skirted around the edge of the trees.
Then he reached out of the shadows and plucked on
e of the lessers off the ground, starting the fight. He slit its throat, but there was no time to polish off the kill. Rhage had engaged two, but the third was about to nail the brother in the head with a baseball bat.
Wrath fell upon the undead Sammy Sousa, taking it down to the ground and stabbing it in the throat. Juicy, strangled noises bubbled up into the air. Wrath looked around, in case there were more or his brother needed help.
Rhage was doing just fine.
Even to Wrath's poor eyesight, the warrior was a thing of beauty when he fought. All fists and kicks. Rapid motion. Animal reflexes. Power and endurance. He was a master of hand-to-hand combat, and the lessers hit the ground again and again, the length of time it took them to get up growing longer and longer.
Wrath went back to the first lesser and knelt over the body. It writhed as he went through its pockets and took all the ID he could find.
He was about to stab it in the chest when he heard a shotgun go off.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-nine
"So Butch, you gonna hang around until I get off tonight?" Abby smiled as she poured him another Scotch.
"Maybe." He didn't want to, but after a couple more he might change his mind. Assuming he could still get it up while he was drunk.
With a shift to the left, she looked behind him at another guy, shooting the man a little wink while flashing some cleavage.
Covering her bases. Probably a good idea.
Butch's cell phone vibrated on his belt, and he grabbed it. "Yeah?"
"We've got another dead prostitute," José said. "Thought you'd want to know."
"Where?" He leaped off the bar stool like he had somewhere to go. Then sat back down, slowly.
"Trade and Fifth. But don't come over. Where are you?"
"McGrider's."
"Ten minutes?"
"I'll be here."
Butch pushed the Scotch away as frustration tore through him.
Was this how he was going to end up? Getting drunk every night? Maybe working a PI or a security job until he got fired for being a derelict? Living alone in that two-room apartment until his liver kicked it?
He'd never been one for plans, but maybe it was time he made some.
