by J. R. Ward
No one flaked. No one wasted any time with dumb-ass questions.
They were as prepared as much as any bunch of newbs could be.
And each one of them had known this night was coming.
"Axe," Butch said, "you're with me. Paradise, you go with Tohr. Z gets Boone. Craeg is with John Matthew. Peyton, you're with Qhuinn. Blay is functioning as a scout for this mission, going out on the rooftops ahead of us all. Keep your guns up, your eyes peeled, and your phones live."
Nobody said anything as the pairs linked up, with him falling in line with Butch as each team got assigned a street. The plan was for everyone to proceed through their given territory until the neighborhood started to improve, approximately thirty blocks up. Then the entire system would move six streets to the north, away from downtown--because the war tended to steer clear from the skyscrapers due to the exterior security cameras and internal security teams in all that expensive real estate.
Security shit meant humans potentially all over the fuck, and nobody needed that.
It was the only rule of engagement that both the Brotherhood and the Lessening Society adhered to: no human interaction, if at all possible. And if you did interact? You cleaned that up quick.
Axe and Butch were the farthest out of the pairings, the two of them setting off at a jog because Butch, as a half-breed, was not able to dematerialize--not that that really mattered. As the Brother was of the King's own bloodline, he was bulldog strong, his shitkickers covering the pavement at a fast run that Axe had to keep up with.
When they came to Fifth Street, Butch palmed both his guns. Axe did the same.
"We go down this side, son," the Brother said in his Boston accent. "Be wicked fuckin' careful."
Together, they strode forward in a flanking position, sticking to the fronts of the brick buildings--which was to say they were pretty much sitting ducks. But Axe kept his eyes on the windows across the street, covering Butch as the Brother provided the same service for him: Both of them were looking for any flashes or figures moving around in the windows of the law offices, social service agencies, philanthropic organizations....
This was the nicest of the real estate they were going to see.
And yup, the denigration and depression of monetary values started up pretty damn quick. Soon, the five-and six-story walk-ups were displaying signs of age and decomposition, front stoops exhibiting cracked steps like teeth that were on the verge of falling out, paint jobs flaking off, and, even farther on, missing windows beginning to make appearances.
Now, he was tromping across a slushy debris field of trash, hubcaps, random beer cans and booze bottles, parts of engines, fuck only knew what else. But he didn't give a shit. He had good treads on his combat boots, sure footing, and razor-sharp instincts that were firing like cannons. In fact, his whole body was humming, his blood crackling through his veins, his trigger fingers ready to party.
And all the time, his eyes scanned the buildings across the way and then flicked to what was ahead of him and then returned to those fucking rooflines and dirty glass panes.
To say he fell into a rhythm was not accurate. There was no rhythm to be had when you were aware that you might have to start either shooting or bleeding at any fucking moment. But he was definitely in a zone--
He caught the scent first.
Just as he was crossing a thin alley opening, a gust brought something that smelled like three-day-old roadkill topped with fake vanilla icing and baby powder.
He knew better than to stop, even though his feet faltered. Instead, he jumped across the opening and back-flatted it against the far corner of the next abandoned building. With a short whistle, he got Butch's attention--and he didn't need to explain what it was.
The Brother was already on it, reversing so that he was on the far side of the urban aperture.
Axe was aware of his heart pounding, but he kept his breathing slow and steady. If he started panting, it was going to decrease the accuracy of his hearing and that was not going to help.
Finally, he was going to engage with the enemy--
Shit, he thought as he caught another scent on the breeze.
Blood.
There was vampire blood down there.
At that very moment, his phone went off in his sleeve and he popped his elbow up, reading the screen that showed through the clear pocket retrofitted onto his combat jacket.
Fuck, Qhuinn and Peyton had engaged.
Almost immediately, another text came through. So had Tohr and Paradise. And John Matthew and Craeg.
It was a cluster-fuck.
And as he realized that Rhage wasn't among them, he thought...fucking hell, what if the Brother was down there fighting alone?
--
Deep in Allishon's closet, Elise had worked herself all the way around the space, and what she left in her wake was Macy's display-worthy, the garments tidy and orderly on the rods, even if some were wrinkled or so deliberately tattered that they barely had enough to hold themselves together on the hangers. She'd also sorted the things on the carpet, putting the bags and shoes in a lineup according to type and color.
As she stepped back to measure her success, she frowned. There seemed to be a wad of something in the far corner, so she got on her knees and pulled the...it was a bundle of cloth, like a large, loose bag, or a--no, it was a black cloak. That smelled like--
Oh, yeah, no. Cigarettes, alcohol, other things.
Elise folded the thing on the floor and was about to put it back when she leaned down and looked into the corner again.
There was something else there.
Reaching forward, she really had to stretch her arm back--
"What the hell?" she muttered.
A box. Metal, by the cool feel of it.
She tried to pull the thing out, but it weighed a great deal. Two hands. She needed two hands, and she grunted.
It turned out to be one of those lockbox, mini-safe things, the kind with the heavy reinforced sides and top. There was a keyed entry to it, and when she tried the latch on a whim, she didn't expect--
Except it did open: With enough pressure, the top half cracked and then started to come fully up. She stopped her hands from following through, however.
Falling back on her butt, she moved the lockbox between her legs and thought about what she was doing. This was maybe private...something that Allishon's parents should see first. Yet as she tried to picture bringing anything of their daughter's to them, she knew that was never going to go well--and though she had mixed feelings, she did peek inside.
Just a bunch of folded-up papers, legal-size. That was it.
Taking them out, she flattened the bundle. It was a real estate contract. For the lease of...what looked like a condo. That was downtown, going by the address of a numbered street?
Was that where Allishon had gone all those nights and days she hadn't come home--
"We rented that for her."
With a gasp, Elise wrenched around.
Her aunt was standing in the closet's archway, and dear Lord...the female looked as if she had been in a car accident--or maybe one involving a motorcycle with her as the cyclist: her hair, once always coiffed and sprayed into a beautiful fall onto her shoulders, was a ragged mess, with roots showing that were two shades darker than the streaky California blond so popular in the glymera. And instead of a fashionable little Escada suit or St. John knit, with plenty of pearls at her throat and on her ears, she was in a stained, wrinkled nightgown that once had been made of silk but now seemed to have more in common with a crumpled paper napkin.
Her eyes were wide and crazy.
She wasn't looking at Elise, however. She was staring at the order of the hangers.
"Did you do this?" the female asked in a wobbly voice.
And as she came in a little farther, her steps were equally unsteady.
"I'm sorry." Elise fumbled with the paperwork to get it back in the box and shut the lid. "I just...I didn't know what I could do to he
lp."
And yeah, eavesdropping had been so frickin' laudable.
"Her things..." A frail hand reached out and brushed the clothing Elise had put to rights. "God, how I hated these clothes of hers."
Elise pushed the safe back where it had been and got to her feet. "I shouldn't have come in here--"
"No, it's all right. You've done...a better job than I have."
"It wasn't my business to--"
"We leased her that apartment because we couldn't stand to have her coming and going here all hours of the night. Disheveled. Drunk. Drugged up. The stench of sex on her."
An inner Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, started to go off in Elise's head. As did a refrain of Be careful what you wish for.
This was not what she had imagined when it came to talking.
Her aunt's gnarled hand gripped and twisted one of the short skirts. "Her father felt certain that the banishment would be the corrective action for all her disobedience. That she would get out there, realize her folly, and snap out of the behavior." The laugh was madness personified. "Instead, she lived more on her own terms than ever before. I couldn't reach her. He barely tried. And all the time she got worse. She enjoyed torturing us."
"Auntie, perhaps you should speak with Uncle--"
"I hated her." The female snapped the skirt free of its clips and threw it to the carpet. "And I hate her even more in her death."
"I'm sure you don't mean that--"
"Oh, but I do. She was a filthy whore, then and always. She got what she deserved--"
"You're her mother," Elise blurted. "How can you say that?"
Her aunt moved down and made a fist out of one of the safety-pinned blouses. Ripping it off the rod, the hanger popped free and ricocheted right into her face. Not that she seemed to notice.
"Look what she's done to us! After we lost our son, we now have a murdered daughter! Who was found bloodied and half-dead in front of a domestic abuse house! How could she have embarrassed us like that!"
All Elise could do was stare into that ashen, emaciated face as her aunt began to tear the closet apart.
She was the reason for the disorder--not Allishon. She was the one who had trashed the clothes--and she was going to do it again, right here and right now.
Abruptly, Elise wanted to cry. The idea that social expectations had so completely ruined any even biological connection between mother and daughter was just...unfathomable.
And yet she never would have guessed at the splintering. Before the death, everything had been kept under wraps, her aunt and uncle showing up dressed beautifully and smiling at events, ever the perfect couple...as their daughter had self-destructed after her brother's death, first by inches, and then by yards...until the fracturing of the family unit had become obvious to the other people in this house.
The others in society.
"We are not welcomed anymore," her aunt gritted out as she pulled more and more off the rods, throwing the clothes down, trampling over them with her bare feet. "We are invited nowhere! We are outcasts and it is her fault!"
Elise swallowed hard and eyed the escape.
She was fairly certain she was going to throw up.
"Have I shocked you with my honesty," her aunt sneered. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"No," Elise whispered. "Not a ghost. I'm looking at a version of evil that I never expected to see in my own family."
Stumbling by, she shoved her corpse of an aunt out of the way and ran not just out of Allishon's room, but the mansion itself.
Out on the front lawn, she braced her hands on her knees, leaned over...and dry-heaved in the bushes.
And then she kept running down the drive, not even caring she had nowhere to go.
s Butch signaled for go-time, Axe and the Brother entered a cramped service lane behind the abandoned buildings, Axe falling in tight behind and sticking with the warrior as they efficiently progressed down toward God only knew what.
Fucking hell, it was darker than he'd thought, although Axe recognized that this was because he had no goddamn clue what was going to happen and it was reflexive to think that illumination would put him in a better defensive position.
The sounds of fighting soon echoed in the distance and got more intense, as did the scents of spilled blood...both of vampire and slayer.
The first of the writhing lessers showed up about eight blocks from where they'd rerouted, and Butch barely paused as they went by the damn thing. He merely unsheathed a black dagger, lifted it over his head, and stabbed the undead right in the chest, the pop!-and-smoke show the first time Axe had ever seen it done.
No dwelling on the shit, though: the reality that he could get shot in the head at any second kept Axe focused on what was living and not what was being sent back to the Omega.
Farther down, black stains that gleamed like spilled oil showed up on the worn pavement...and then came the red splatters on the brick walls of the walkups--
Gunshots went off.
Pop! Pop! Rat-a-tat-ata-ta--
With a burst forward, they redoubled their speed until they got to yet another alley-artery, skidding around the corner and dropping into shooting position, Butch facing forward, Axe facing the other direction at the guy's six.
Axe shot a quick glance over his shoulder--oh, hell, he was never going to forget the image of the cluster-fuck going down about fifty feet away.
Rhage was in the center of three lessers, all of which had knives--and the Brother was fighting them without weapons in his hands, in spite of the fact that he had daggers strapped right to his chest.
There was also the clear indication, if that red waterfall down his left arm was anything to go by, that he had been shot at least once, probably more.
It was as if he'd had red paint poured all over him--
A lesser came running around the same corner Axe and Butch had just ridden hard, and thank fuck for training. Instead of wasting a crucial nanosecond thinking Holy fuck!, Axe went beast with his guns, hitting those triggers--
Jammed. Both of them.
"Fuck!"
Butch started shooting in the direction of the fight, trying to pick off the slayers without hitting Rhage--which was proving impossible because the Brother was still trying to fight even while bleeding out.
"Dagger!" Axe shouted. "Now!"
Again, the training worked. Butch glanced behind for a second, knew there was no choice but for Axe to engage in tight quarters, and the Brother took out an actual black dagger.
"Don't showboat! Get the fucking job done!"
With that, he flipped the weapon back and Axe caught it on the down arc, leaping forward and going right for the slayer's chest.
He didn't miss.
That fucking black blade went right where it needed to, like there was a homing device in the forged steel.
There was no celebrating, though.
A stray bullet, either on a ricochet from Butch's gun or from one of the two new slayers who'd suddenly shown up in the alley, caught Axe in the thigh, the blaze of pain as if someone had taken a red-hot fireplace poker and jammed it into his upper leg.
And then yet another slayer came around the corner.
No time to think.
Axe leaped on the fucker, taking the soulless human down to the pavement and rolling him over. But the bastard was smart, or really into survival, because he managed to grab on to Axe's fresh wound and squeeze.
Axe's vision went in and out, his switchboard momentarily overrun with so much electrical impulse that it went on the fritz.
But then he got pissed. Clamping a hand on the lesser's throat, he had a snapshot of bared human teeth with those weird flat-tipped canines of theirs, and the tattoo of a tear under one brown eye, and shaggy hair that looked like it hadn't been cut in a month.
And then he lifted that dagger over his shoulder, just as Butch had done, and stabbed it right through the frontal lobe, driving the blade through the skull and into the cake of gray matter behind the bone.
Axe rolled off and retched from the pain. But then he went to get the dagger back from where it was flag-poling right above the slayer's eyebrow--
It was stuck. There was no getting the weapon out.
He'd driven it so hard, he'd crushed the skull and buried the tip in fucking pavement.
Jumping to his feet, he staggered, and figured, Fuck it, at least the slayer wasn't going anywhere.
There was no more conscious thought.
His eyes provided him with an instant assessment of the state of the battle: Butch was now involved in hand-to-hand maneuvers, fighting for control of the gun he had been using with a slayer who looked like a defensive end for the New England Patriots...while Rhage was sinking to his knees in the center of the alley, the fighting not so much going out of him as leaking out, his blood pooling under him to such an extent that there were puddles getting splashed.
With a battle cry, Axe lunged forward, taking three running leaps even with his gunshot wound.
He attacked the first lesser he came to, jumping on its back, going bullrider-squeeze with his thighs and locking hold on its ears with his hands. Then he snapped that head so far to the right, the ligaments and tendons on the left side broke free of the neck skin.
On to the next.
Leaving the body to fall where it did, he burst forward--just as a slayer coiled up a chain and went to get Rhage around the throat. Yeah, fuck that shit. With a quick jerk, Axe outed his smaller hunting knife, and tackled the lesser to the side.
Talk about your fucking Jason-maneuvers. He stabbed so fast and so hard and so many times, he didn't just incapacitate the bastard, he tenderized it.
Then he scrambled to get to the last one. Scrambled so hard.
It had a knife. A long, serrated blade that could do a lot of damage, especially to a Brother who was clearly on the verge of losing consciousness: Rhage's hands were flopping and slapping instead of strategically hitting, his balance all wonky, his skin as white as the snow.
