THIRTEEN
“You’re hurt, my man.”
Instead of responding to Butch’s co-dependency, V leaned forward between the front seats of the Hummer. “Yo, Q, this piece of shit go any faster?”
Qhuinn shot a glare over his shoulder. “We’re doing seventy in a forty-five. And I just blew through two red lights. This is not the Millennium Falcon—what else do you want.”
“Cut through the park up here. Just punch over the curb and plow through the bitch—”
“Next time, you drive. Until then, shut up.”
Sitting back, V crossed his arms over his chest and refused to meet the cop’s annoyingly steady stare—which was being beamed across the backseat like a laser. Instead, he glared out at the small, chic shops they were tooling by. When his upper arm burned, he repositioned the damn thing, and then had to move it yet again.
So yeah, fine, the cop might have a point, but V wasn’t going to see what was doing with his biceps, that was for damn sure.
At least not in front of witnesses. Besides, there was no blood—and the sleeve on his leather jacket wasn’t even broken. So what could possibly be wrong under there?
As his cell phone went off, he checked the text and hid a grimace as that arm of his let out another holler. “Wrath is ready for us.”
“Everyone’s coming in?” Blay asked from the passenger seat up front.
“Yeah, even the Bastards.” V put his phone away. “So can you drive faster there, Grandma?”
Qhuinn bared his fangs in the rearview mirror. “Put a patch on, asshole, if you can’t handle being without your nicotine.”
As Qhuinn turned up the Guns N’ Roses, V wanted to lob a fuck-off with plenty of spin on it at the brother, but it was hard to argue with the logic. He was, in fact, pissy because he was jonesing for a cigarette, and by the way, he couldn’t wait until Qhuinn got off this rock kick he was on. How about some Bryson Tiller, FFS.
Butch elbowed him in the wound, making him hide a groan. “Take this,” the cop said.
As V’s vision checkerboarded on him, he grabbed whatever the cop was offering. Wait, Nicorette?
“When did you start this?” V asked as he popped a piece of gum out of its plastic tile.
“About a month ago. I won’t smoke in front of Marissa, it’s too nasty. But you know, old habits die hard, and lately, I’ve been stressed the hell out.”
V put the square in his mouth and gave his molars a workout. The taste wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Wrigley’s, either. What mattered was that after a little bit, he did feel considerably less like playing target practice with their driver, true? And yeah, sure, he could have dematerialized to the Audience House, but Butch, as a half-breed, couldn’t ghost out, and V never felt right about deserting the guy during transports.
“You got any more of that?” he asked.
“Sure. Take another if you want.”
As Butch sent a flat of the things in his direction, V popped every piece out and put it all in his mouth.
“Pay you back,” he said around the basketball-sized wad in his mouth.
When Butch didn’t reply, he glanced over at his roommate. The guy was staring at him in utter disbelief.
“What.”
Butch shook his head slowly. “You are about to fly off the face of this planet, my friend. There’s enough nicotine in that to take down an elephant.”
“I’ll be fine,” he muttered as they turned onto a street with mansions on both sides.
Wrath’s Audience House was halfway down, the yellow Federal set back on its snowy yard like something out of a catalog for fine china and crystal.
Qhuinn pulled into the drive and went all the way back to the detached, two-story garage. As V got out, he looked at those windows on its second floor and remembered taking the three humans who had tried to kill Ruhn up there. Saxton, the King’s solicitor, had more than adequately ahvenged his love, something that had been a surprise. Lawyers tended to be better with the pen-across-the-page than the dagger-across-the-throat, but motivation was the key to everything—and thanks to Saxton, those humans had not come down for breakfast, as the cop liked to say.
V had enjoyed his job that night, for real.
Approaching the mansion’s rear door, he jumped ahead and held things open for the cop, and Qhuinn and Blay, then the four of them passed through the kitchen and went out to the front of the grand house. Except for some doggen vacuuming upstairs, the place had emptied out at the King’s command, the civilians rescheduled, the receptionist dismissed.
For what was going to be discussed, there could be no witnesses.
Just as they came into the open foyer, V pared off and hit the loo that males used, locking himself in the one-stall room and stripping off his jacket to see what his arm looked like—
Oh…fuck.
No reason to lean into the mirror for a closer look. The snake-shaped wound that ran from the top of his left shoulder down past his elbow was the color of a neon bar sign, glowing ruby red in his tan skin.
Naturally, his first impulse was to poke it—okay, ow. There was no blood, though, the epidermis not so much broken as singed—like he’d been lashed with a hot chain and gotten a third-degree burn.
Jane should take a look at—
Nope, he corrected himself. Not an option. Besides, he was a medic, he could take care of himself.
Starting the faucet, he grabbed a hand towel and wiped the wound off with some soap and hot water. When he was done, he pulled his jacket back on and checked the sleeve again. The leather was truly intact. So damned weird.
He thought about the interaction with that shadow entity, reviewing its approach, the altercation, the extermination. It was bad that he didn’t know what the thing was, but there was something so much worse than the no-familiar.
Much, much worse.
Leaving the bathroom, he went down to where all the conversating was, entering the dining room and picking a place out of the way for a couple of reasons: No, he didn’t want to talk about the attack until everyone was here—he was going to do it once and only once. More than that, no, he didn’t want to explain to anyone else who might have noticed why he and Jane were not holding hands and skipping together wherever they went. And NO, he didn’t want any commentary on this bulging wad in his cheek.
So yeah, he far-cornered it and kept to himself.
The dining room was typical Darius, elegant, old school, classy. It was also essentially empty now. Its handmade table, which had been long as a bowling alley and glossy as a mirror, had been moved out, along with dozens of chairs and two sideboards the size of SUVs. The only things left of the former way the house had functioned were the big-as-a-lawn rug and the chandelier, which hung, like a galaxy, in the center of the space.
A couple of armchairs had been angled toward each other in front of the marble fireplace and the desk of the King’s solicitor was off to the left. Every night, civilians came and went, taking their time with their leader, seeking blessings for matings and young, judgments on disputes, and guidance about matters small and large. It was the Old Ways in the modern world, Wrath stepping into his father’s practice after so many eons of not having any contact at all with those he ruled.
And this meant the Brotherhood and its affiliated fighters were now functioning once again as the King’s private guard. Even though the vast majority of males and females who were seen here were perfectly law-abiding, no one was taking chances with Wrath’s life. Two of the brothers were always on site with him, with everybody else ready to come at a moment’s notice.
When you considered the rotation necessary to give brothers a night off, the fact that the training center needed to be manned, and then all the guarding here? Even with the addition of the Band of Bastards, they were short-staffed covering everything—especially given that the Bastards couldn’t guard Wrath by law, and they weren’t used in the training program, and the trainees were too green still to be of much use. Add in some injuries?
V thought about that shadow out on the streets and felt a ripple of unease that was about as characteristic of him as the urge to bake bread. Paint by numbers. Crochet.
We need more fighters, he thought. Xhex and Payne were going to have to come in on this.
As he started to mine his brain for more people they could pull into service, Abalone, First Adviser to the King, arrived, and so did Saxton. And then there was a quieting, the heat under the boil of chatter turned down.
When Wrath walked in with George, his seeing-eye dog, the King’s looming presence was the sort of thing that changed the energy in the room sure as an electrical storm. But he wasn’t alone.
Oh…great, V thought. This night kept getting better.
Lassiter, the fallen angel, that male with the silver blood, the sunshine fetish, and the hideous taste in clothes and television, was a grim shadow of his usual jackass-self, his blond and black hair braided down his back, the gold at his throat and wrists the only thing that was glowing on him.
Fuck. He was looking like someone had just broken the news that RHONJ had been canceled.
Wrath and George went over to the armchair on the right of the open flames. As the King sat down, the golden retriever curled into a ball at his shitkickers, the dog tucking his muzzle into his long tail.
“So,” Wrath said in V’s direction. “I hear you met a new friend tonight.”
As everyone looked at him, V went to cross his arms over his chest, but thought better of it because of his wound. “I’m not the one who needs to be talking here.”
“Passing the buck,” Wrath muttered. “Not like you.”
“The details of the attack, I can go into,” he said. “But they’re not the problem. The main issue is…it’s not the Omega, is it. It is not from the Lessening Society.” He focused on Lassiter. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be lookin’ like that, would you.”
Back at the training center, Jane couldn’t believe that Assail was conscious. His eyes did appear to be focused on Sola, however, and he did seem to be listening to the woman, but given those brain scans? Jane was looking for signs that this was reflexive.
The longer he stayed “aware,” though, and the more he followed the subtle shifts of Sola’s head as she spoke with him, the more the evidence suggested a miracle had in fact happened—and so Jane stepped away from the hospital bed. She didn’t go far, however. The violent outbursts could come on without warning, a lesson hard learned, so given this unforeseen and un-assessed change in neurological status, she wasn’t taking any chances. God only knew what Assail was capable of.
He definitely seemed to recognize who was with him, though. His eyes were locked on Sola, her mere presence beside him doing what all their medicine had not been able to. She had brought him back—except for how long?
Jane glanced over her shoulder at Ehric, who was standing just inside the door. Guess the cyborg wasn’t so removed after all: A sheen of tears was brightening his eyes, the flush of his emotion turning his face red. He had been right to bring the woman here.
He had done the right thing.
Yes, she thought as she turned back to the couple. This was the miracle that love could bring, the soul reaching out of a broken body to connect, perhaps for one last time, to its other half.
I had that once, she thought with a lump in her throat. I knew that bond…I have held that blessing and gift in the center of my chest and it warmed me.
As sorrow came to her sure as the shadow of death, she told herself to go back to the anger she’d been stewing in since she’d left Vishous on his penthouse’s terrace.
Righteous indignation was where she needed to stay. This sadness was dangerous.
A gasp from the bed got her attention—
Just as she looked up, Assail kicked his head back on the pillow and started to seize, his arms jerking against their ties, his legs kicking at their restraints under the blankets.
“Step back,” Jane ordered Sola.
As the other woman jumped out of the way, Jane hit the call button and lunged for a bite guard, which she forced between Assail’s front teeth. The anti-epileptic meds were right by the bed, the needle preloaded with a benzodiazepine, and she grabbed it, and put the drug directly into the IV.
“What we got?” Manny said as he rushed in.
“Just administered the lorazepam.” Doc Jane checked the heart rate on the monitor. “It should kick in quick—”
The blood-pressure alarm started going off, indicating a critical drop.
“Everyone out of the room!” she barked.
Ehric didn’t have to be asked twice, but Sola shook her head and pressed herself against the wall. “I am not leaving. Do not make me go.”
Jane cursed, but didn’t argue. She had other things to worry about. “Damn it, he’s got a heartbeat so we can’t shock him.”
“We’re going to lose him,” Manny muttered as he readjusted the IV drip. “If this keeps up, he’s not going to—”
“Give me the epinephrine.” She looked at Ehlena, their nurse, who had come in. “Give me the goddamn EpiPen.”
As Ehlena went for the handoff, Manny put himself between them. “Jane, you’re moving fast here—”
“You think this is trending in a good direction?” She pointed to the monitor with a jab of her forefinger. “He’s going to die on us—”
“He can’t handle that epi.”
“You’re wrong. This is what I’ve done before with him—give me that.” Jane ripped the pen out of Ehlena’s hold. “I know what I’m doing.”
Epinephrine could be administered through the IV line either in a series of pushes or as a continuous infusion with D5W. But she didn’t want to throw him back into a seizure, either—and she had been through this with him. Intramuscular was the only safe option when he seesawed back and forth between coma and spasm.
With the EpiPen in her hand, Doc Jane pushed Manny aside, ripped the sheet free, and exposed Assail’s withered thigh. With his weight loss, the skin was loose around the shrunken muscles, and she grabbed as much of the thigh meat as she could, pinching up a pad of a target. Then she popped the top using her teeth, drove the pen down, and sent that epinephrine into his system.
Dimly, she recognized a scent in the air. Something like dark spices. But before that could really register, his blood pressure took another dip downward.
She looked at Ehlena. “Give me another pen.”
“You’re going to kill him,” Manny snapped.
She looked directly at her partner. “He’s going to die anyway. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing about it. Ehlena, get me another pen!”