"So where did you dump the bodies?" V demanded as he strode out of the training center's rear exit.

As Qhuinn waited for John and Blay to get out of the flatbed, he let one of them answer V's question. He was too done to bother - matter of fact, as he glanced out the windshield and took a gander at the facility's underground parking lot, he considered just stretching out across the truck's front seat and going to sleep.

Too fucking tired to bother with anything else.

In the end, though, he followed John's lead and shifted his sorry ass out the driver's side door. He had to go check on Layla, and that wasn't going to happen from here.

Roadside confron notwithstanding, at least he and John and Blay had worked well together on the way home. About ten miles before the cutoff to the Brotherhood compound, they had pulled off onto a lumbering road, stripped the two dead men, and launched the bodies into a natural sinkhole that had no bottom that anyone could see. Then it was a case of backtrack, K-turn out on the road, and ghost away, allowing the snow, which had started to fall in earnest once again, to cover their tracks, as well as the various leaks that had left a trail of bright red blood. By noontime, assuming the accumulation estimates were correct, it would be as if nothing had happened at all.

A perfect snow job. Har-har.

He supposed he should feel bad for the dead dudes' families - no one was ever going to find those remains. But anecdotal evidence suggested the two guys had lived on the fringes, and not because they were hippies: guns, knives, a switchblade, weed, and some X had been found in their various pockets. And God only knew what was in those backpacks.

Violent lives tended to come to violent ends.

" - son of a bitch," V was saying as he walked around the Hummer on its flatbed pedestal. "What the fuck did they run into? A cement barricade?"

John signed something, and V looked over sharply at Qhuinn. "What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed."

Qhuinn thumped his own chest. "Still beating."

"Dumb-ass." But the Brother smiled, flashing sharp fangs. "Meh, I would have done the same thing."

Out of the corner of his eye, Qhuinn noted that Blay was quietly and unobtrusively drifting toward the door that opened into the facility. He was going to disappear in another second and a half, finished with the drama that had once again been dropped at his feet.

Qhuinn felt a sudden, striking urge to follow the fighter into the hall and away from prying eyes. But like he needed to take another go at -

Your cousin is giving me what I need. All day. Every day.

Oh, Jesus, he was going to throw up.

"So any more personal effects?"

Qhuinn snapped out of the bullshit and got his useful on. "I'll get 'em."

Hopping up onto the flatbed, he forced open the crumpled rear door of the Hummer and squeezed through a twelve-inch gap to the backseat. It felt good to jam his body into places it didn't belong and didn't fit - gave his mind something to do, and the little ouchies from his injuries were another fantastic diversion.

The two backpacks had been bounced around pretty damn good. He found the one they'd seen first in the wheel well behind the passenger's seat, and the other was up in front on top of the brake and the accelerator. Weird luggage for those two as far as he could tell; the pedestrian vibe didn't go with all the other kinds of urban tuff guy that the stiffs had been sporting.

Way more middle school than middleman in the drug trade.

Unless they needed a place to put their meth lab merit badges or some shit.

As Qhuinn crabbed his way back into the rear seat, he made an abrupt decision not to go out the way he came in. Twisting himself around, he lay out on the ruined leather and brought his knees to his chest. With a sharp inhale, he punched his shitkickers into the other side door and blew it open, the metal hinges ripping free with a scream, the panel bouncing with a crash on the concrete.

Satisfying.

While the sounds echoed through the parking garage, V lit one of his hand-rolleds and leaned into the hole Qhuinn had just made. "You know they have door handles for that, true?"

Qhuinn sat up - and realized he'd just kicked open the only side that hadn't been wrecked.

Well, if that wasn't a metaphor for his whole fucking life at this point.

Throwing the pair of packs out, he launched himself free, landing hard as John caught the payload and started to unzip.

Crap. Blay had left. The door into the training center was just closing.

Cursing under his breath, he muttered, "Any cell phones still gotta be somewhere inside - even though the windows are shattered, the glass is still intact, so there should have been no fly-out."

"Well, well, well..." the Brother said on the exhale.

Qhuinn frowned and looked over at what John had found. What the...hell..."Are you kidding me?"

His best friend had just pulled out a ceramic jar - a cheapo one, like what you'd get from the housewares department at Target. And what do you know. The other guy had packed one, too.

What were the chances...?

"We need to find those phones," Qhuinn muttered, jumping up onto the flatbed again. "Anyone got a flashlight?"

Vishous took off his lead-lined leather glove and held up his glowing hand. "Right 'chere."

As the Brother hopped up on the thin edge of the bed, Qhuinn went into a tuck and got back in the Hummer's rear compartment. "Don't hit me with that thing, will ya, V?"

"It'd be a spanking you'd never forget, I promise you."

Man, that hand was handy. As V put it inside, the whole interior was lit up bright as day, all the carnage inside throwing sharp, dark shadows. Crawling around, Qhuinn reached under seats, patting with his palms, stretching into corners. The smell was god-awful, a nasty combination of gas, burned plastic, and fresh blood - and every time he put a hand down, it fluffed up the residue from the air bags' powder.

But it was worth all the pseudo yoga positions.

He emerged with a pair of iPhones.

"I hate these things," V muttered as he put his glove back on and took the matched set.

Returning to the relatively fresh air, Qhuinn caught his breath and cracked his neck, then jumped down again. There was some kind of conversating at that point, and he nodded a couple of times like he knew what the fuck was being said.

"Listen, you mind if I take a T.O. and check in for a sec," he interjected.

V's diamond eyes narrowed. "With who?"

Right on cue, John jumped in, asking about the Hummer and its rehab plan - like somebody waving a torch in front of a T. rex to redirect it. As V started talking about the SUV's future as lawn sculpture, Qhuinn nearly blew a kiss at his buddy.

No one knew about Layla except for John and Blay - and things needed to stay that way during this early period.

As Qhuinn was John's ahstrux nohtrum, he couldn't go far - and he didn't. He eased on over to the door Blay had put to good use and got out his phone. As he dialed one of the house extensions and waited through the rings, he stared at his ruined vehicle.

He could remember the night he got the damn thing. Although his parents had had money, they hadn't felt a great burning need to provide for him as they had for his brother and sister. Before his transition, he'd gotten by selling red smoke on the sly, but he hadn't done a huge amount of traffic - just enough to close the gap of his paltry allowance, and keep from mooching off Blay all the time.

The cash crunch had ended as soon as he'd been promoted to John's personal guard. His new job had come with a serious salary - seventy-five grand a year. And considering he didn't pay taxes to the bullshit human government, and his room and board were paid for, he had a lot of green leftover.

The Hummer had been his first big purchase. He'd done his research on the Internet, but the truth was, he'd already known what he wanted. Fritz had gone out and done the negotiating and the official purchasing...and that first time Qhuinn had gotten behind the wheel, cranked the key, and felt the rumble under the hood, he'd nearly teared up like a pussy.

Now it was ruined: He was hardly a mechanic, but the structural damage was so severe, it just made no sense to save it -

"Hello?"

The sound of Layla's voice snapped him back to attention. "Hey. I'm just back. How you feeling?"

The precise enunciation that came back at him reminded him of his parents, every word perfectly pronounced and chosen with care. "I am well, thank you very much. I have rested and watched television, as you suggested. They had a Million Dollar Listing marathon."

"What the hell is that?"

"A show where they sell houses in Los Angeles - I thought for a little bit that it was fiction, but it turns out it's a reality show? I thought they made it all up. Madison has great hair - and I like Josh Flagg. He's rather shrewd and very kind to his grandmother."

He asked her a couple more questions, like what had she eaten and had she taken a nap, just to keep her talking - because in between the syllables, he was looking for clues of discomfort or worry.

"So you're okay," he said.

"Yes, and before you ask, I have already requested that Fritz bring me up Last Meal. And yes, I will eat all my roast beef."

He frowned, not wanting her to feel caged. "Listen, it's not just for the young's sake. It's also for yours. I want you to be well, you know?"

Her voice dropped a little. "You have always been thus. Even before we...yes, you have only ever wanted the best for me."

Focusing on the car door he'd busted, he thought of how good it had felt to kick the shit out of something. "Well, my plan is to hit the gym for a while. I'll check on you again before I crash, 'kay?"

"All right. Be well."

"You, too."

As he hung up, he realized V had stopped talking and was looking over at him like maybe something was way off - hair on fire, pants around the ankles, eyebrows shaved.

"You got yourself a female there, Qhuinn?" the Brother drawled.

Qhuinn looked around for a life raft, and got a whole lot of nothing. "Ah..."

V exhaled over his shoulder and came across. "Whatever. I'm going to go work on these phones. And you need to buy yourself another vehicle - anything as long as it's not a Prius. Later."

When John and he were alone, it was pretty clear the guy was warming up to say something about the showdown at the side of the road.

"I don't want to hear it, John. I just don't have the strength right now."

Shit, John signed.

"That about covers it, my man. You heading up to the house?"

Under the strict interpretation of the ahstrux nohtrum job, Qhuinn needed to be with John twenty-four/seven. But the king had given them a dispensation if they were within the confines of the compound. Otherwise Qhuinn would have been learning way too much about his buddy and Xhex.

And John would have had to witness him and Layla...um, yeah.

When John nodded, Qhuinn opened the door and held it wide. "After you."

He refused to look his friend in the face as the fighter passed, just couldn't do it. Because he knew exactly what was on the guy's mind - and he had no interest in talking about what had happened on that stretch of road he'd walked down before. Not the crap from tonight. Not the crap from...all those nights ago thanks to the Honor Guard.

He was finished with chatting it up.

Shit never helped anyone over nuthin'.

Saxton, son of Tyhm, closed the final Book of Oral History and could only stare at the fine-grain leather cover with its gold-embossed detailing.

The last one.

He couldn't believe it. How long had this research been going on? Three months? Four months? How could it be over?

A quick visual survey of the Brotherhood's library, with its hundreds and hundreds of volumes of law, discourse, and royal decrees...and he thought, yes, indeed, it had taken months and months to go through them all. And now, with the digging complete, the notations made, and the legal path for what the king wanted to accomplish carved out, there should have been a sense of accomplishment.

Instead, he felt dread.

In his training and practice as a lawyer, he had tackled sticky problems before - especially after he had come here to this vast house and begun to function as the Blind King's personal solicitor: The Old Laws were very convoluted, archaic not just in their wording, but in their very content - and the ruler of the vampire race was not at all like that. Wrath's thinking was both straightforward and revolutionary, and when it came to his rule, the past and the future did not often coexist without a good deal of reframing - of the Old Laws, that was.

This was on a whole different level, however.

Wrath, as sovereign, could do fairly much what he wanted - provided the appropriate precedents were identified, recast, and recorded. After all, the king was the living, breathing law, a physical manifestation of the order necessary for a civilized society. The problem was, tradition didn't happen by accident; it was the result of generations upon generations living and making choices based on a certain set of rules that was accepted by the public. Progressive thinkers trying to lead entrenched, conservative societies in new directions tended to run into problems.

And this...further alteration of the way things were done? In the current political environment, where Wrath's leadership was already being challenged -

"You're deep in thought."

At the sound of Blay's voice, Saxton jumped and nearly lost his Montblanc over his shoulder.

Immediately, Blay reached forward as if to calm what had been ruffled. "Oh, I'm sorry - "

"No, it's all right, I - " Saxton frowned as he regarded the soldier's wet and bloodied clothing. "Dearest Virgin Scribe...what happened tonight?"

Evidently in lieu of answering, Blay headed over for the bar on the antique bombe chest in the corner. As he took his time choosing between the sherry and a Dubonnet, it was rather clear he was preparing a sequence of words in his head.

Which meant it had to do with Qhuinn.

In fact, Blay cared for neither sherry nor Dubonnet. And sure enough, he helped himself to a port.

Saxton eased back in his chair and looked upward at the chandelier that hung so far above the floor. The fixture was a stunning specimen from Baccarat, made in the middle nineteenth century, with all of the leaded-glass crystals and careful workmanship one would expect.

He recalled it swinging from side to side subtly, the rainbow refractions of light twinkling all around the room.

How many nights ago had that been? How long since Qhuinn had serviced that Chosen directly above this room?

Nothing had been the same since.

"A broken-down car." Blay took a long swallow. "Just mechanical issues."

Is that why your leathers are wet, and there is blood down the front of your shirt? Saxton wondered.

And yet he kept the demand to himself.

He had become used to keeping things to himself.

Silence.

Blay finished his port and poured another with the kind of alacrity typically reserved for drunkards. Which he was not. "And...you?" the male said. "How's your work?"

"I'm finished. Well, nearly so."

Blay's blue eyes shot over. "Really? I thought you were going to be at this forever."

Saxton traced that face he knew so well. That stare he'd looked into for what seemed like a lifetime. Those lips he had spent hours locked onto.

The crushing sense of sadness he felt was as undeniable as the attraction that had brought him to this house, his job, his new life.

"So did I," he said after a moment. "I, too...thought it would last far longer than it did."

Blay stared down into his glass. "It's been how long since you started?"

"I don't...I can't remember." Saxton put a hand up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It does not matter."

More silence. In which Saxton was willing to bet the very breath in his lungs that Blaylock's mind had retreated to the other male, the one he loved like nobody else, his other half.

"So what was it?" Blay asked.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your project. All of this work." Blay motioned his glass around elegantly. "These books you've been poring over. If you're finished, you can tell me what it was all about now, right?"

Saxton briefly considered telling the truth...that there had been other, equally pressing and important things that he had been quiet on. Things that he had thought he could live with, but which, over time, had proven too heavy a burden to carry.

"You shall find out soon enough."

Blay nodded, but it was with that vital distraction that he had had since the very beginning. Except then he said, "I'm glad you're here."

Saxton's brows rose. "Indeed...?"

"Wrath should have a really good lawyer at his side."

Ah.

Saxton pushed his chair back and got to his feet. "Yes. How true."

It was with a strange feeling of fragility that he gathered his reams of papers. It certainly seemed, in this tense, sad moment, as though they were all that sustained him, these flimsy, yet powerful sheets with their countless words, each handwritten and crafted with care, contained neatly in their lines of text.

He did not know what he would do without them on a night like this.

He cleared his throat. "What plans have you for what little remains of the eve?"

As he waited for the reply, his heart pounded within his rib cage, because he, and he alone, seemed to realize that the assignment from the king wasn't the only thing that was ending tonight. Indeed, the baseless optimism that had sustained him in the initial stages of this love affair had decayed into a kind of desperation that had had him grasping at straws in an uncharacteristic way...but now, even that was gone.

It was ironic, really. Sex was but a transient physical connection - and there were many times in his life when that had been all he'd been looking for. Even with Blaylock, in the beginning, such had been the case. Over time, however, the heart had gotten involved, and that had left him where he was tonight.

At the end of the road.

"...work out."

Saxton shook himself. "I'm sorry?"

"I'm going to work out for a while."

After you've had a decanter of port? Saxton thought.

For a moment, he was tempted to push for precise details on the night, the minute whos and whats and wheres - as if they might unlock some sort of relief. But he knew better. Blay was a compassionate, kind soul, and torture was something he did only as part of his job when it was necessary.

There would be no relief coming, not from any combination of sex, conversing, or silence.

Feeling as though he were bracing himself, Saxton buttoned his double-breasted blazer up and checked that his cravat was in place. A passby of his pectoral revealed his pocket square was precisely arranged, but the French cuffs of his shirt need a sharp tug, and he took care of that promptly.

"I must needs take a break before I prepare to speak with the king. My shoulders are killing me from having been at that desk all night."

"Have a bath. It might loosen things up?"

"Yes. A bath."

"I'll see you later, then," Blay said as he poured himself another and came over.

Their mouths met in a brief kiss, after which Blay turned and strode out into the foyer, disappearing up the stairs to go change.

Saxton watched him depart. Even moved forward a couple of steps so that he could see those shitkickers, as the Brothers called them, ascend the grand staircase one step at a time.

Part of him was screaming to follow the male up into their bedroom and help him out of those clothes. Emotions aside, the physical sizzle between the two of them had always been strong, and he felt like he wanted to exploit that now.

Except even that Band-Aid was fraying.

Going over and pouring himself a sherry, he sipped it and went to sit before the fire. Fritz had refreshed the wood not long ago, and the flames were bright and active over the stack of logs.

This was going to hurt, Saxton thought. But it wasn't going to break him.

He would eventually get over this. Heal. Move on.

Hearts were broken all the time....

Wasn't there a song about that?

The question was, of course, when did he talk to Blaylock about it.