FOURTEEN

As Vitoria got off the Northway at downtown Caldwell’s Third Street exit, she felt her jet lag ease off. The sight of the city’s shimmering towers rising so high into the night enlivened her.

Yes, she thought. This was why she had come, this commerce, this population, this just-north-of-Manhattan metropolis that would feed her ambitions, not starve them.

The traffic was light on the roads, given that it was nearly midnight, and after following a series of one-ways, she located the correct avenue and…there it was. Her brother’s art gallery.

The building took up an entire block, its contours bold and proud, its exterior covered in brushed steel with blackened panes of glass, big as barn doors, set into the walls.

BENLOISE ART GALLERY was spelled out in capital letters backlit by a neon blue glow.

Turning onto a side street just before the gallery, she pulled around to its rear, where signage delineated where the staff parked and deliveries were made. After she killed the rental sedan’s engine, she fumbled to get the keys disengaged from their insertion point—and was reminded of how much she despised driving herself. Opening her door, she extended a Gucci stiletto—

Slush, like a cold, oozing hand from the grave, grasped on to her foot, seeping easily through the satin strapping and causing her to glare down at what should have been clean pavement. Instead, the ground cover appeared to be a combination of motor oil, city sludge, and snow that was past its expiration date.

She glanced over at the pair of rear doors, one of which read STAFF ONLY. It seemed a mile away, and she considered re-parking herself closer to it. But no, that was too much work, she decided. Besides, these shoes were from last season. Shifting her other heel, she threw out a hand to steady herself—and landed the bare skin of her palm on the cold exterior steel of the car.

As she recoiled and shook off the burn, a stream of vile Spanish, unfit for her brother’s sister, left her lips. The past couple of days, however, had been a trial. She had had to unpack her own clothing; her bed had not smelled fresh; there had been no one to draw her bath this afternoon; and she had had McDonald’s for a repast.

At least she had liked the fries.

But she had hated everything else. Her hardscrabble youth was a long-faded memory not just due to time, but circumstance. When one was used to being waited on, transitioning to self-sufficiency, no matter how transitory she intended the state to be, was an unpleasant awakening.

And there had been other problems, too. She had called the gallery to inform them she was coming in, and an annoying woman, Margot Fortescue or some such, had been highly resistant to the idea that things were going to change. The Benloise family was back, however, and yes, although Ricardo and Eduardo’s absences had permitted things to run themselves, that time was over now—

The door to the building opened and a large shape filled the jambs. “I didn’t think you was gonna show,” a male voice said.

“How perfectly articulate of you,” Vitoria muttered into the cold.

“Huh?”

Madre de Dios, she thought as she pulled her St. John wool coat closer. Could he be any more stupid?

Then again, one didn’t expect ground beef to have an elevated command of the English language—something that had taken her a master’s degree to achieve. And she wasn’t hiring him for his grammar, was she.

As Vitoria made her way around the car, she picked and chose her footings as if her life depended upon it—and one slip might well be a mortal event given all the ice. Why had she worn these shoes? It was so much colder up here than she had packed for, her Chanel woolen suit and this coat as flimsy as two sheets of tissue paper against the chill.

“You are Streeter, then,” she said as she finally arrived at the entrance.

“Yeah.”

With the light streaming behind him, it was impossible to see his face. But she approved of the size of his shoulders and the fact that his waist was not that of a heavy drinker. What she didn’t appreciate was when he failed to move.

“Are you going to step aside,” she demanded.

“Why you here?”

“I told you on the phone. I am Vitoria. This is my brother’s business and so it is mine.”

“He didn’t tell me you was coming. He ain’t told no one nothing for a while now.”

“Get out of my way,” she snapped. “We have business to discuss—unless you’re making too much money currently to know how to spend it all.”

Streeter didn’t hesitate for long. And he complied because that was what men like him did. They were like backhoes, in this regard: power in need of direction, motivated by cash. Left to his own devices, as he no doubt had been since Ricardo or Eduardo had last called him into service, he was liable to have devolved into an inanimate object that was having trouble covering his bills.

As she entered, he shut the door behind them, and she looked around. The back of the gallery was much as she expected, a high-ceiling’d space with exposed electricals and ductwork that hung like stalactites from open metal rafters. Larger installations awaiting their time out where the patrons milled about were like passengers lined up to board a bus, some in packing crates, others draped with cloth. Cubicles for minions were arranged between filing cabinets, the office equipment and silent phones sleeping on the off time. A break area with a table, coffee maker, microwave, and mini-refrigerator was to one side.

Streeter locked them in together. “How’d you get my number?”

“I know all of my brother’s employees.” Or rather, she had remote-accessed the gallery’s server about three months before and gotten the information then. “And how to reach them.”

The man came into the light and crossed thick arms over his chest. His nose had been broken a couple of times and his skin was marked with acne scars.

Disappointing, really. His body contours had suggested their association might have been multi-layered.

“You will take me to my brother’s office, where we will discuss your employment.”

“I get a paycheck just fine from UPS.”

“And you are satisfied with your standard of living? Possess all that you would choose to own?”

There was only a brief pause, during which he no doubt considered the specifications of the latest American muscle car. “Mr. Benloise’s office is upstairs. But it’s locked and I don’t know the code. Nobody been there since he dint come in no more.”

“Lead the way,” she said dryly. “I will have no trouble getting in.”

After entering the gallery space, they crossed over to an unmarked door which revealed a set of stairs that were unmarked and uncarpeted, little more than a steel ladder painted black. As they ascended, with him in the lead, she noted that the walls on either side were likewise matte black and the motion-activated lights that came on were inset into a ceiling that was the same.

At the top, she put her body between the keypad and Streeter, and entered her mother’s birth date. As the lock slid free, she shot a glare over her shoulder.

“My brother would not appreciate the way you are looking at my legs. I am also armed and a very good shot. You can get rich or get buried. Tell me, what is your choice.”

Before he could move, she outed the nine she kept hidden in her coat and shoved it right into the man’s crotch.

As Streeter gasped and defensively went to grab the weapon, she took out her second nine and placed it to his throat.

“Do not doubt me. Ever,” she said. “I have no attachment to you whatsoever. You live or die, it matters not to me. If you are useful, however, you will benefit greatly.”

There was a tense silence. And then Streeter muttered, “You are so his sister.”

“Did the dark hair and eyes not give me away?” she drawled. “People back home always say that Ricardo and I have the same-shaped face, too. Now apologize.”

“I…I’m sorry.”

She gave him a moment to truly absorb his reality. And then she stepped away and pulled open the door. As she entered her brother’s office, lights came on sequentially, illuminating a long, thin chute of a space…that culminated in a raised platform upon which a grand desk had been placed like a jewel box upon a bureau.

There were no computers. No files. No clutter upon the smooth expanse. Just a lamp and an ashtray for her brother’s cigars. And two chairs only, Ricardo’s and that of a visitor.

On the approach, sadness choked her, images of her and her brothers coming one after the other, from their shared childhoods and then later, when they had been adults. Ricardo had always been the one she respected, much as his dictates had smothered her. Eduardo had been fun, however, a buffer between her and their eldest’s clashes.

Gone. All gone. And with their presumed passing, she had lost a bit of herself, as well.

But that would not stop her.

Stepping up onto the platform, she turned to Streeter and leaned her weight back against the desk. “There are employment reports filed on all of you. My brother Ricardo was quite meticulous about these things.” And this was true for the real employees and the hired thugs. “Yours were quite exemplary. That is why I contacted you, as I am looking for a personal guard and will pay well for it.”

“What are we talking about for cash.”

“I will pay three times what you were earning with Ricardo.”

“I’m in.”

“Good.”

Vitoria smiled and glanced around the barren room. Then she focused on him. “Now, tell me, what do you think happened to my brothers.”

---

“It’s the bonding.”

As the Brother Rhage spoke up, Ehric looked across the training center’s corridor. The pair of them were outside Assail’s room—and he was trying to ignore the arguing he could hear through the closed door. “What?”

“That scent. Can you smell it? I can. It’s his bonding for that woman—good call bringing her in.”

“We’ll see how successful it is.”

With a curse, Ehric paced up and down, but didn’t go far. The healers were still having an angry exchange and he wondered what in Fate’s name was being done to his cousin.

The Brother tapped the outside of his perfectly straight, perfectly proportioned nose. “Nah, when she came into the room, it woke him up. She did what nothing else could.”

“She sent him into a death rattle is more like it.” Ehric rubbed his eyes. “I had thought she might revive him with less trauma.”

“Love will bring him through. And then it’ll all be cool.”

“Your optimism is not something I share. And even if it does work, she will have to return to Florida.”

“Why?”

“She does not know.”

“That he lives here? I don’t get it. I thought she was—”

“What he is.” Ehric looked back at the Brother. “She does not know he is a vampire.”

Rhage frowned. “That’s not necessarily a deal breaker. My Mary didn’t know what I was and it worked out—well, it took a miracle. But they do happen.”

“ ’Tis all a moot point, if he dies the now—”

The door opened and Dr. Manello came striding out. “It worked. I can’t believe it, but it worked. For the moment, he’s back to being stable.”

Ehric all but jumped into that hospital room, except then he stopped dead. Indeed, his version of “it worked” was his cousin sitting up and asking for some pudding. Manello’s idea was clearly more along the line of a heartbeat and some respiration, and yes, one could put paid to that: Assail was lying back on that pillow, still tied down, still the color of the white sheets, still with his eyes closed.

But he was breathing on his own and that little graph of regular beeps suggested his heart was doing its job correctly. Or at least correctly enough so no alarms went off.

Doc Jane and the nurse were at Assail’s head, talking quickly, nodding and pointing to the machine readouts while they traded syringes.

Ehric looked at Marisol. The human woman was all the way in the far corner, her body shrunken in on itself, her eyes so wide she was nearly an anime version of herself.

He went over to her. “What may I get you?”

After a moment, her stare shifted to his face.

Something passed between them, something unspoken and powerful. And the next thing he knew he was opening his arms and she was in them like a sister.

“I don’t understand,” she said as she turned her face toward Assail. “This happened so fast. How much longer can he hold on?”

“I don’t know. I believe no one knows that. And let us not speak of it the now or here.”

“You’re right.” She pulled back a little. “I’m glad you came down and told me. I’m glad I’m here for him, for however long he has.”

Ehric nodded. “My cousin picked the right female.”

Marisol grabbed his arm and squeezed. “I’m not leaving. Not until it’s over. Just so you know.”

Ehric sagged in his own skin. “Thank you.”

Doc Jane came over and nodded to the door. “Let’s talk out there, okay?”

Ehric went across and held the way open. As the females filed past him, he glanced back at the nurse, who was adjusting something on one of the monitors. Then he focused on his cousin. Assail had always seemed indomitable, the sort of male who was so controlled and had such strength of purpose that whole armies might well fall before him, not because he was royalty, but because he would will it no other way.

And now there was naught left of him save a balded shell.

So this was the evil that death wrought, Ehric thought. It was the ultimate emasculator, rendering even one such as his cousin into a decayed shadow of what he had been, the essence departed with rind left to rot.

I shall take myself before I e’er allow this, Ehric thought. To hell with the Fade.

He would go unto Dhunhd before he conscripted himself to disintegrate until his heart stopped. Or better yet he would die with honor, protecting those he loved in battle—which now numbered three, he realized: Evale, Assail…and this human woman.

For loyalty shown unto his blood was loyalty earned.

As he joined the females, Doc Jane cleared her throat. “There’s no easy way to say this. But in spite of his brief return to consciousness, nothing really has changed. I’m not suggesting you take action tonight”—the doctor put her palms out toward him—“I just want to align your expectations. With the scans as they are, it is impossible—”

“He looked at me,” Marisol said in a steely tone. “He looked right at me.”

“Or he opened his eyes,” Doc Jane countered gently.

“No. You’re wrong.” Marisol went back to the door. “I’m going in there. Don’t bother saying anything else to me. I know he saw me.”

As the woman disappeared back into the room, Ehric had to smile. “He chose someone just like himself. She will not take no for an answer, Healer.”

Doc Jane shook her head sadly. “It’s not up to her, unfortunately. And I fear his body and brain have already made their decision.”

Ehric thought about all the time he had spent in this underground facility, all the nights, even some days, too. As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, he knew the doctor was right.

“I have brought her up here to say goodbye, then.”

Doc Jane put her hand on his forearm. “I’m really sorry about this.”

In an inexorable advance, exhaustion curled like a boa constrictor around his body, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing his breath and energy from him. “This is a nightmare, the ending of which is the only thing worse than its middle.”

“I wish I could have done more,” the healer said. “Just don’t feel rushed, okay? You and Sola and Evale take your time. We’re keeping him as comfortable as we can.”

Ehric looked over at the door. “I will not allow this to continue forever.”