The Sinner

by J. R. Ward

“Whatever you like,” he said—and re-shut the door.

  Jo blinked as she faced off at a whole lot of fake wood paneling. “Sounds good.”

  * * *

  On the other side of the bathroom door, Syn turned around and leaned back against the fragile barrier between him and his female. After a moment, he sensed her moving away, and then, over the falling water of the shower, his keen ears picked out her dialing her phone and ordering something that had pepperoni on it. Closing his eyes, he told himself he needed to leave her in peace, but it was an internal argument he’d already lost the second he had gotten into her car.

  For the first time in his life, he did not want to be alone.

  Actually, it was worse than that.

  He specifically wanted to be with Jo.

  He wanted to tell her that he’d just jumped the Omega in a back alley, even though she didn’t know who that was or why that kind of reckless shit was a bad idea. And he wanted to tell her that the people he lived with were going to think he was a hero for saving Butch’s life, even though she had no frame of reference for the Black Dagger Brotherhood or the Dhestroyer prophecy, and even though that altruistic crap had not been his motive for his attack. And he really wanted to confess that he killed people to regulate his emotions, not because he had a monster in him, but because he was a monster himself.

  Just like his father.

  And yup, all of this winning personality and character of his? He’d brought it and a bag of chips right through this poor female’s door. In the middle of an impending personal crisis for her that she had no idea was coming.

  He was such a fucking hero, wasn’t he.

  With hard pulls, he shucked his leathers off his legs and then he put himself under the blistering hot water. The nerves in his skin immediately flared with agony, and he had to bite his lower lip to keep from cursing at the pain. But he wanted the punishment. He had earned it.

  For never being the hero.

  Syn used whatever soap she had, running the bar all over his body and his hair and his face. After he rinsed off, he stood there under the slicing heat to make extra sure he was clean, and then he cut the boiling spray and stepped over the lip of her plastic tub. Using one of the two towels that hung on the rod by the toilet, he wanted to tell her she should burn the thing after he was done.

  He felt as if he was contaminating her entire living space with his mere presence.

  When there was nothing left to dry off, he stared down through the lazy, swirling mist at the pool of black leather and moisture-wicking nylon formed by his discarded clothes. He did not want to put them back on his soaped-and-rinsed skin. Not while he was under her roof. The set had been worn when he had slaughtered lessers who had deserved his killing, as well as a number of humans who had begged for mercy that hadn’t come unto them. His togs were bloodstained, sweat-soaked, and carrying the residue of gunpowder and death.

  And yet she spoke of cologne.

  Humans clearly had inferior noses—

  The shriek outside the bathroom was high-pitched and could only have come from Jo.

  Syn grabbed the gun that he had put within reach on her counter, ripped open the door, and jumped out with the muzzle up and his finger on the trigger.

  Over by the door, Jo and a teenage human male both froze. Then the delivery boy’s eyes popped wide and his hands went up. Jo, who was bent to the side and holding a pizza box awkwardly, looked like she would have done the same if she could have.

  Then her eyes dropped down.

  And… not to his weapon. As they peeled wide, she was clearly shocked at his nakedness.

  “I just dropped the p-p-p-pizza,” the teenager stammered. “I swear. That was all.”

  Jo moved slowly, righting herself. “I was taking the change from him at the same time—”

  “—that the box slipped—”

  “—out of his hands.”

  Syn breathed in and smelled absolutely no fear at all coming from his female. Putting his weapon down by his thigh, he nodded.

  “Y-y-you want a refund?” the delivery boy asked. “I can give you a refund. I mean, I messed up—”

  “Whatever she wants goes,” Syn said as he stepped back into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Hanging his head, he wondered what the hell was wrong with him.

  Oh, wait. He knew that list all too well.

  And one of the entries was that a gangster had ordered Syn to kill the very female… he had insisted on going home with.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Mr. F ran in a straight line. He ran fast. He ran quiet.

  With the speed of a sprinter and the endurance of a marathoner, he went deeper into the rough areas of Caldwell, to the places where he wouldn’t have trod back when he’d been on his wanders as an addict. He passed by apartments and then tenements and then crack dens that sprouted like weeds in abandoned buildings. And still he kept going, his breathing even and steady, his legs churning, his feet landing solidly.

  No, no, no—

  The word banged around his head to the rhythm of his footfalls, and every time it hit the inside of his skull, he saw an image of those dirty white robes, that spilling shadow under the hem, the menace that contaminated the night air with its arrival. He did not know its name, yet he recognized who it was.

  The one who had found him under the bridge. The one who had taken him to that abandoned strip mall. The one who had drained him and filled him with something terrible—

  The end of the alley arrived with no preamble. One minute Mr. F had an endless, shitty road ahead of him through the forest of tenements and drug houses. The next, his path was blocked by a twenty-foot-high chain-link fence littered with plastic bags, off-kilter “No Trespassing” signs, and random pieces of faded, dirty clothing. Like the thing was a strainer in a drain.

  At least he knew this flimsy barrier wasn’t going to be a problem.

  Taking a running jump, he sprung some ten feet up and gripped a hold into the links with fingers like steel cables. Hand over hand, he climbed for the coils of barbed wire at the top, his upper body strength so great that he could allow his legs to hang free—

  A hand clamped on his ankle.

  And as soon as the contact was made, the wash of feelings that went through Mr. F was horrible, every sadness he had ever felt, all the fears he had ever had, each regret that had ever dogged him, coalescing in the center of his chest, a pneumonia of emotion. As strangled gasps came out of his mouth and he pulled at the fencing, trying to get himself free, tears came to his eyes.

  Because he knew who had come for him and he knew he was not getting out of it. And not just the grip on the bottom of his leg.

  He had made a bargain, and the fact that it had been one-sided and he had not known what he was agreeing to, was not going to matter—

  “Did you honestly think you could run from me?”

  The voice didn’t come from under Mr. F’s feet. It came from back in the alley proper behind him. Craning a look over his shoulder, he saw the dingy robes standing some thirty feet away, and there was nothing corporeal that he could see on his ankle. Yet the grip was even stronger now, pulling him down, dragging him back to the asphalt, back toward the evil.

  “Truly,” the warping voice said. “Did you think you could get away from the likes of me, your creator. Your master.”

  Mr. F fought the drag with everything he had, his fingers ripping down the links, the fence rattling, a black stain streaking on the vertical as his skin was broken. Losing purchase, he crashed down to the pavement and was dragged backward through dirty puddles and oil stains. With his bloody fingers, he fought the claiming and got nowhere—

  All at once he was up off the ground and spun around. Suspended in midair, his feet dangling to a point, his arms were pinned to his sides and his body became immobile, though there was nothing on him.

  The robed figure didn’t walk to him. It drifted, hovering above the filthy ground.

  “I chose you,
” it said in that weird voice, “because you were the only one with a brain. This may have been a mistake on my part. Brawn usually works better. One would think I would have learned that after all these centuries.”

  With a flick of the wrist, the evil sent Mr. F flying through the air, and the momentum stopped only when he slammed face-first into the side of a tenement, his nose busting wide open, the impact of his chin such that it nearly dislocated his jaw joints. Pressure on his back increased until he couldn’t draw a breath, and he had some thought that he should be suffocating. He didn’t, though the pain made him see stars.

  The voice of evil closed in on him as he was once again dragged down to the ground, the rough brick wall shaving off layers of skin on his cheek. “You are a summary disappointment.”

  As his feet registered a return to the asphalt, he strained his eyes to see what was behind him.

  “I shall give you one more chance to dazzle me,” the evil said in a bored tone. “And then I shall move on.”

  Mr. F squeezed his eyes shut. “Let me go—”

  A hand palmed the back of his head and pushed so hard, he could feel his cheekbone start to give way against the brick.

  “I will not let you go. And you need to be punished for your transgressions—”

  “Against what?” Mr. F gritted out.

  “Against me!”

  “How have I transgressed…” A toxic sickness flooded into Mr. F’s body, and he told himself to stop talking, but his mouth wouldn’t listen. “I have done nothing—”

  “And that is your transgression.” The horrible voice was right next to his ear. “You are supposed to serve me.”

  “How?” Mr. F groaned. “You never told me how. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  The evil relented some of the pressure, as if it were briefly reconsidering the condemnations it leveled. “Listen to your mind, it will tell you what I want. And in the meantime, I know what you can do to service me now.”

  There was a pause.

  And then something was driven so far into him that Mr. F screamed from the pain.

  * * *

  Back at the Brotherhood’s mansion, Butch was in the process of opening the door into the vestibule to leave when a gloved hand slammed the thing shut on him and stayed put like it was a car parked grille into the wood.

  “Where do you think you’re going,” V said grimly.

  Butch pivoted around, and had to catch himself to keep on his feet. “I’m picking up Marissa.”

  V looked confused. “What?”

  “I’m going to go pick up Marissa.”

  Those diamond eyes narrowed. “You think you’re picking up Marissa?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Not even close, my guy.” V linked an arm through Butch’s. “And you’re going nowhere this drunk—”

  Butch meant to separate himself from his roommate, but it was weird. The mosaic floor seemed to be made of liquid, everything shifting under the soles of his loafers. As he went off-kilter, he ended up pulling himself back to rights on V’s biceps.

  “I have to go pick her up at work.”

  “You mean pick her up from work? It’s not four a.m.”

  “Yes, it is?”

  Now Butch was the one frowning. And things got even more confusing as he lifted up his wrist and looked down at his Audemars Piguet. The Oak’s famously eight-sided dial was all smudged, and the numbers appeared to be moving instead of the hands.

  “I think my watch is broken.”

  “You wanna try that again?”

  “Is your hearing bad?”

  Vishous gave him a bored look. “If what you just asked me was whether my hearing is a problem, I think it’s more your mouth. ’Cuz what just came out of it was something like ‘Ian Ziering mad.’ ”

  “Huh. Weird. Maybe he is mad, though. They’re not doing any more Sharknados.”

  “Gimme that.”

  When a tumbler half-full of brown liquid was taken out of his hand, Butch wondered where the thing had come from. Then again, everything felt like a mystery.

  “You’re done with that.”

  Butch released his roommate and tugged his jacket down. “Probably right. Feeling a little loozy. Loser. Loosing? Goosing. Gosling, Ryan, not Reynolds. What was the question?”

  By way of answer, Vishous started walking him to the billiard room, but that was a no go. Butch protested by throwing out his anchor.

  “No, I’m going to get Marissa.”

  “I told you, it’s not time.”

  “I’ll sit and waiting. Wait. For four. For her—”

  “I’m not letting you drive drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk.” Butch stopped as he heard the slur in his words. Holding his forefinger up, he changed tactics. “I’m getting sober up. By the minute.”

  “Then you better chill here for about ten hours.”

  Determined to win the argument, Butch explained, calmly and concisely, how he didn’t need that much time, and then capped that theory of relativity off with another move to the big-ass door—which would lead him out through the vestibule, which would let him get to the R8, which was parked in the courtyard, which would give him the wheels he needed to go down off the mountain and go into town and find Safe Place’s neighborhood—

  “Butch. I’m not letting you drive a car like this.”

  V leaned back against the vestibule’s door—which was kind of a surprise. Last time Butch noticed, the guy was standing with his back to the archway into the billiard room. Guess they’d moved.

  Whatever. Butch opened his mouth—

  “You argue about this anymore and I’m going to give you a nap.”

  “I don’t need a nap.” Butch cleared his throat so he didn’t sound like a five-year-old. “I need to go be with Marissa.”

  As the name of his shellan came out of his mouth, he had to fight the emotions in his chest. Had to fight the shit in his brain, too. Something about confronting the Omega had hinged him loose in ways he didn’t seem to be coming out of well—but at least he knew the solution. He was going to go be with his female. Even if all he could do was sit in a parked car outside of her work for four hours, six hours, before she got off, that would be enough.

  He was untethered. She was his harbor. So the math was obvious—

  “No,” his roommate said. “Not when you’re this drunk.”

  “Will you drive me then?”

  “You need to stay home. That was way too close with the evil, Butch. I need you to stay in the mhis for right now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Butch snatched the tumbler back and took a gulp. And the fact that he felt absolutely no burn in his throat at all should have been a red flag concerning his current level of intoxication. But fuck it. “I’m not a prisoner here.”

  “Just until we can get a team around you.”

  “A team? Fuck that. I’m—”

  “The Omega came out to find you tonight, Butch. Unless you forgot what magically appeared in front of you in that alley?”

  “It didn’t come for me.” As V shot him a yeah-right, Butch shook his head. “The Fore-lesser was standing right beside it. The evil came for its subordinate, not for me. It was just a coincidence I was there.”

  Butch took another draw on the glass, and as he reflected on the way he’d corrected his roommate’s version of events, he congratulated himself on speaking so much better. Not that he had been bad at it before, no matter what V had said.

  “It was after you, Butch.” V shook his head. “And if the Fore-lesser was there, it was because it was working to get to you, too. The pair are always aligned, that’s the way it works.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

  “You’re not thinking straight.”

  “I am perfectly fucking fine. Now get out of my way.”

  Things got a little wonky at that point and Butch wasn’t exactly sure about the sequence of events. T
he outcome was clear. When he tried to force his way out of the vestibule so he could get behind the wheel, V ended up taking the glass away for a second time. And then he seemed to look apologetic.

  “I’m sorry about this, cop.”

  “Sorry about what—”

  The right hook came sailing through the air with the greatest of ease. And as it hit Butch solidly in the jaw, kicking his head back like a baseball struck for the stands, he had a thought that he didn’t feel a thing.

  In fact, he went on a nice little float, during which the entire mansion, in spite of its size, weight, and foundation, went on a tilt such that, as he stood on his feet, he managed to look straight ahead at the foyer’s dome ceiling three stories up.

  Wow, those warriors on their steeds sure looked like they know what they’re doing, he thought.

  And then, just as V promised, it was naptime.

  zzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZzz.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  You want to talk about some Jeopardy! theme playing? As Jo gathered two paper plates, a beer for her, and some napkins in her kitchen, she was counting down the seconds. And when she heard the bathroom door finally open, she had to force herself not to wheel around and check to see what had come out.

  And not because she was worried about there being guns involved again.

  No, it was because she was hoping there was just going to be a towel. Or maybe even less—

  Oh. He was dressed.

  To cover her internal conversation about naked things that were none of her business, Jo bustled over to the coffee table, all Suzy Homemaker without any dirty thoughts in her head at all.

  Nope. Not a one.

  “So how about we try this eating thing again.”

  It was a good goal. An appropriate one, given that it did not involve body parts (his) or hot thoughts (hers.) Still, every time she blinked, she saw him scaring the crap out of the delivery boy, that body of Syn’s so spectacularly nude, that gun in his hand so steady… that dead stare in his eyes the kind of thing she wasn’t afraid of, but maybe should be.

  So naked. So much smooth, hairless skin. So much muscle. So much…