by J. R. Ward
V put his hand over Butch's and squeezed. "I know you didn't, my man. I know you wouldn't."
"Good."
As they both let go, V's eyes went to Butch's fingertips, as if he were imagining what had been done to them. "What do you remember?"
"Only the feelings. The pain and the… dread. Fear. Pride… the pride is how I know I didn't squeal, how I know they didn't break me."
V nodded and drew a hand-rolled out of his pocket. Just before he lit up, he looked at the oxygen feed, cursed, and put the cig back. "Listen, buddy, I gotta ask… you okay in the head? I mean, going through something like that—"
"I'm cool. Always was too dumb to have PTSD or some shit, and besides, I've got no real memory of what went down. As long as Marissa can walk out of here okay, then, yeah, I'm fine." He scrubbed his face, feeling the itch of his beard growth, dropped his arm. As his hand landed on his abdomen, he thought of the black wound. "You have any idea what they did to me?"
When V shook his head, Butch cursed. The guy was like a walking Google link, so him not knowing was a bad thing.
"But I'm on it, cop. I will find an answer for you, I promise." The brother nodded at Butch's stomach. "So how's it look?"
"Don't know. Been too busy being in a coma to worry about my six-pack."
"Mind if I?"
Butch shrugged and pushed the covers down. As V lifted up the hospital johnny, they both looked down at his belly. The skin was not right around the wound, all gray and puckered.
"Does it hurt?" V asked.
"Like a mother. Feels… cold. Like there's dry ice in my gut."
"Will you let me do something?"
"What?"
"Just a little healing thing I've been throwing at you."
"Sure." Except that when V brought up his business hand and started talking off that glove, Butch recoiled. "What are you going to do with that thing?"
"Trust me, true?"
Butch barked a laugh. "Last time you said that I ended up with a vampire cocktail, remember?"
"Saved your ass. That's how I found you."
So that had been the why of it. "Well, then, fly me some of that hand."
Still, as V put the glowing thing close, Butch winced. "Relax, cop. This isn't going to hurt."
"I've seen you toast a house with that bastard."
"Point taken. But the Firestarter routine isn't going down here."
V hovered his tattooed, glowing hand over the wound, and Butch let out a ragged groan of relief. It was as if warm, fresh water was pouring into the wound, then flowing over him, through him. Cleaning him out.
Butch's eyes rolled back in his head. "Oh… God… that feels good."
He went limp, and then he was floating, free of the pain, sliding into some kind of dream state. He let his body go, let himself go.
He could actually feel the healing, as if his body's regenerative processes had kicked into high gear. As seconds passed, as minutes went by, as time drifted into the infinite, he felt like whole days of rest and eating well and being at peace were coming and going, leapfrogging him from the battered state he was in back to the — miraculous gift of health.
Marissa tilted her head back and stood right under the showerhead, letting the water fall down her body. She felt shaken loose and thin-skinned, especially after watching Vishous carry Butch to the bed. The two of them were so close, the mutual bond clear in the way their eyes met and held.
After a long while, she got out, toweled herself off roughly, then blew her hair dry. As she reached for a fresh set of undergarments, she looked at the corset and thought, the hell she was putting that on. She shoved it back into a bag, unable to bear having that iron grip around her rib cage right now.
As she put her peach gown on over her naked breasts, it felt strange, but she'd had it with being uncomfortable. At least for a little while. Besides, who would know?
She folded up the pale blue Rodriguez and put it into a bio-hazard bag along with her old underwear. Then she braced herself and opened the door out into the patient room.
Butch was sprawled on the bed, the hospital gown pushed up onto his chest, the sheets down around his hips. Vishous's glowing hand was resting about three inches above the blackened wound.
In the silence between the two males, she was an intruder. With nowhere to go.
"He's asleep," V grunted.
She cleared her throat, but couldn't think of anything to say. After a long silence, she finally murmured, "Tell me… does his family know what's happened?"
"Yeah. The Brotherhood all know."
"No, I mean… his human family."
"They are irrelevant."
"But shouldn't they be—"
V looked up with impatience, his diamond eyes hard and a little mean. For some reason, it occurred to her now just how fully armed he was with his black daggers crossing his thick chest.
Then again, his sharp expression went with the weapon.
"Butch's 'family' doesn't want him." V's voice was strident, as if the explanation were none of her business and he was elaborating just to shut her up. "So they are irrelevant. Now come over here. He needs you to be close to him."
The contradiction between the Brother's face and his command to come closer tangled her up. So did the reality that that hand was the biggest help.
"He most certainly does not need me or want me here," she murmured. And wondered once again why the hell he'd called her three nights ago.
"He's worried about you. That's why he wants you to go."
She flushed. "Wrong, warrior."
"I'm never wrong." With a quick flash, those navy-rimmed white irises flipped up to her face. They were so frigid that she stepped back, but Vishous shook his head. "Come on, touch him. Let him feel you. He needs to know you're here."
She frowned, thinking the Brother was crazy. But she walked to the far side of the bed and reached out to stroke Butch's hair. The instant she made contact, he turned his face toward her.
"See?" Vishous went back to staring at the wound. "He craves you."
I wish he did, she thought.
"Do you really?"
She stiffened. "Please don't read my mind. It's rude."
"I didn't. You spoke out loud."
Her hand faltered on Butch's hair. "Oh. Sorry."
They grew quiet, both focused on Butch. Then Vishous said in a hard tone, "Why'd you shut him down, Marissa? When he came to see you back in the fall, why'd you turn him away?"
She frowned. "He never came to see me."
"Yeah, he did."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You heard what I said."
As they locked eyes, it occurred to her that although Vishous was scary as all get out, he was not a liar. "When? When did he come to me?"
"He waited for a couple weeks after Wrath was shot. Then he went to your house. When he got back, he said you wouldn't even come down in person. Man, that was a cold move, female. You knew he was feeling you, but you turned him away through a servant. Nice."
"No… I never did that… He didn't come, he… No one told me he—"
"Oh, please."
"Do not take that tone with me, warrior." As Vishous's eyes shot to her face, she was too pissed off to care who or what he was. "At the end of last summer I was flat on my back with the flu, thanks to feeding Wrath too much and then working in the clinic. When I didn't hear from Butch, I assumed he'd had second thoughts about us. As I… haven't had a lot of luck with males, it took me a while to work up the nerve to approach him. When I did, three months ago here in the clinic, he made it clear he didn't want to see me. So do me the favor of not blaming me for something I did not do."
There was a long silence and then Vishous surprised the hell out of her.
He actually smiled at her a little. "Well, what do you know."
Flustered, she looked down at Butch and resumed stroking his hair. "I swear to you, if I had known it was him, I would have dragged myself out of bed to answer that door m
yself."
In a low voice Vishous murmured, "Good deal, female. Good… deal."
In the silence that followed, she thought about the events of the previous summer. The convalescence she'd taken hadn't been just about the flu. She'd been overwhelmed by her brother's attempt on Wrath's life—by the fact that Havers, ever the calm, even-tempered healer, had gone so far as to betray the king's location to a lesser. Sure, Havers had done it to ahvenge her because of the way she had been cast aside for the queen, but that in no way excused the actions.
Dear Virgin the Fade, Butch had tried to see her, but why hadn't she been told?
"I never knew you came," she murmured, smoothing his hair back.
Vishous removed his hand, and yanked up the sheet. "Close your eyes, Marissa. It's your turn."
She looked up. "I didn't know."
"I believe you. Now close."
After he had healed her, V walked over to the door, his big shoulders rolling with his gait.
At the air lock, he looked back over his shoulder. "Don't think I was the only reason he healed. You're his light, Marissa. Don't ever forget that." The Brother's eyes narrowed. "But here's something to keep in mind. You ever hurt him on purpose and I will consider you my enemy."
John Matthew sat in a classroom that was right out of Caldwell High School. There were seven long tables facing the blackboard, and all but one had a pair of trainees plugged into them.
John was alone in the back. Which was also just as it had been at CHS.
The difference between this class and the stuff he'd taken in school, though, was that now he took careful notes and stared up front like the chalkboard was running a Die Hard marathon.
Then again, geometry wasn't ever the subject on deck around here.
This afternoon, Zsadist was at the head of the class, pacing back and forth, talking about the chemical composition of C4 plastic explosives. The Brother was wearing one of his trademark black turtlenecks and a pair of loose nylon track pants. With that scar down his face, he looked exactly like he'd done what people said he had: killed females, desecrated lessers, attacked even his Brothers without provocation.
But the strange thing was, he was a helluva teacher.
"Now for detonators," he said. "Personally, I prefer the remote variety."
As John turned over a fresh page in his notebook, Z sketched a 3-D mechanism on the board, some kind of box with wiring circuits. Whenever the Brother drew, what he put up was so detailed and realistic you could almost reach out and touch the thing.
When there was a lull, John checked his watch. Another fifteen minutes then it was time to have a light meal and hit the gym. He couldn't wait.
When he'd started school here, he'd hated the mixed martial arts training. Now he loved it. He was still last in the class in terms of technical skills, but lately he'd more than made up for that in rage. And his aggression had caused a realignment in social dynamics.
Back in the beginning, three months ago, his classmates had ridiculed him. Accused him of sucking up to the Brothers. Derided him for his birthmark because it looked like the pectoral star scar of the Brotherhood. Now the other guys watched it around him. Well, everyone except for Lash. Lash still rode him, singling him out, cutting him down.
Not that John cared. He might be in this class with the rest of the trainees, he might technically be living in the compound with the Brothers, he might supposedly be linked to the Brotherhood by the blood of his father, but ever since he'd lost Tohr and Wellsie, he was a free agent so far as he was concerned. Bound to no one.
So the other folks in this room were nothing to him.
He shifted his stare to the back of Lash's head. The guy's long blond hair was in a ponytail that rested smoothly down a jacket made by some fancy designer. And how did John know about the designer thing? Because Lash always told everyone what he was wearing when he walked in for class.
Had also mentioned tonight that his new watch was iced out by Jacob the Jeweler.
John narrowed his eyes, getting juiced up just thinking about the sparring the two of them would do in the gym. As if the guy felt the heat, Lash turned, his diamond earring sparkling. His lips lifted into a nasty little smile, then pursed as he blew John a kiss.
"John?" Zsadist's voice was hard as a hammer. "Mind showing me some respect here?"
As John flushed and looked up front, Zsadist continued, tapping the board with a long forefinger. "Once a mech like this is activated it's triggered by a variety of things, sound frequency being the most common. You can call in from a cell phone, a computer, or use a radio signal."
Zsadist started drawing again, the scratch of chalk loud in the room.
"Here's another kind of detonator." Zsadist stepped back. "This one is typical of car bombs. You wire the action box into the car's electrical system. Once the bomb's armed, whenever the car's started, tick, tick, boom."
John's hand suddenly gripped his pen and he started to blink fast, feeling dizzy.
The redheaded trainee named Blaylock asked, "Does it go off right away after ignition?"
"There's a delay of a couple of seconds. I'd note also that because the car's wiring has been redirected, the engine won't catch. The driver will turn the key and hear nothing but a series of clicks."
John's brain began firing in a rapid, flickering sequence.
Rain… black rain on a car's windshield,
A hand with a key in it, reaching forward toward a steering wheel column.
An engine turning over but failing to catch. A feeling of dread, that someone was lost. Then a bright light—
John flipped out of his chair and hit the ground, but he was unaware he'd gone into a seizure: Too busy screaming in his head, he didn't feel a thing physically.
Someone was lost! Someone… was left behind. He'd left someone behind…
Chapter Ten
As dawn arrived and the steel shutters came down all around the mansion's billiards room, Vishous bit into an Arby's roast beef sandwich. Thing tasted like a phone book, through no fault of the ingredients.
At the soft smack of pool balls, he looked up. Beth, the queen, was just straightening from the felt.
"Nice shot," Rhage said as he lounged against a silk wall.
"Careful training." She walked around the table, sizing up her next stroke. When she leaned down again and braced the cue on her left hand, the queen's Saturnine Ruby flashed on her middle finger.
V wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "She's going to beat you again, Hollywood."
"Probably."
Except she didn't get the chance. Wrath plowed through the doorway, clearly in a mood. His long black hair, which was down almost to his leather-covered ass now, flared behind him, then came to rest on his thick back.
Beth put her cue down. "How is John?"
"Who the hell knows." Wrath went over and kissed her on the mouth, then on both sides of her neck over her veins. "He won't go to see Havers. Refuses to get anywhere near the clinic. Kid's asleep in Tohr's office now, just exhausted."
"What was the trigger for the seizure this time?"
"Z was doing a class on explosives. Kid just whacked out, ended up on the floor. Same as before when he saw you."
Beth wrapped her arms around Wrath's waist and leaned into her hellren's body. Their black hair mixed together, his straight, hers wavy. God, Wrath's was so damn long now. But word had it that Beth liked the stuff so he'd grown it out for her.
V wiped his mouth again. Weird, how males do shit like that.
Beth shook her head. "I wish John would come stay in the house with us. Sleeping in that chair, staying in the office… He spends so much time alone and he doesn't eat enough anymore. Plus Mary says he won't talk about what happened with Tohr and Wellsie at all. He just refuses to open up."
"I don't care what he talks about as long as he goes to the damn doctor." Wrath's wraparound sunglasses shifted over to V, "And how's our other patient? Christ, I feel like we need an in-house physician
around here."
V reached for the Arby's bag and took out sandwich number two. "Cop's healing up. I think he'll be out in a day or so."
"I want to know what the fuck was done to him. The Scribe Virgin's giving me nothing on this one. She's silent as stone."
"I started the research yesterday. Began with the Chronicles." Which were eighteen volumes in the Old Language, of vampire history. God, talk about your wallbangers. The damn things were about as much fun as reading an inventory list for a hardware store. "If I don't find anything, there are some other places to check. Compendiums of oral tradition that were reduced to writing, that kind of shit. It is highly improbable that in our twenty thousand years of taking up space on the planet something like this hasn't happened before. I'm going to spend today working on it."
Because as usual there'd be no sleep for him. It had been over a week since he'd REM'd out, and there was no reason to think things were going to be any different this afternoon.
Holy hell… being up for eight days straight was not good for his brain wave activity. Without going into a dream state regularly, psychosis could easily take root and rewire your circuit. It was a wonder he hadn't lost it already.
"V?" Wrath said.
"Sorry? What?"
"You okay?"
Vishous bit into his roast beef and chewed. "Yeah, fine. Just fine."
When night fell some twelve hours later, Van Dean stopped his truck underneath a maple tree on a nice, tidy little street.
He did not like this situation.
The house on the other side of the shallow lawn wasn't trouble on the surface, just another whatever Colonial in this whatever neighborhood. The problem was the number of cars parked in the driveway. Four of them.
He'd been told he was meeting Xavier one-on-one.
Van cased the place from inside his truck. Shades were all down. Only two lights on inside. Porch light was off.
But there was a lot on the line. Saying yes to this gig meant he could kick the construction shit to the curb, reducing the wear and tear on his body. And he could make more than he did now by double so he could save something to survive on when he couldn't fight anymore.
