As Ruhn walked up the Audience House’s cleared front pathway, he burrowed into his old wool peacoat. He hadn’t bothered with gloves when he’d left the Brotherhood’s mansion, and inside the pockets, his hands were sweaty in the clenched fists he made.
Stopping at the top of the steps that led to the entrance, he couldn’t help but remember the first time he had arrived at the gracious antique house.
He had come in search of his niece, Bitty, after he’d heard about a Facebook posting about his sister, who had passed. Back then, he had stood before these great doors with little hope, but much desperation, his long quest for news concerning his blooded relations presenting him with a new turn in what had otherwise been a barren, sad journey.
To what ultimate end, he had not known. In fact, however, it had proved to be one blessing after another, the sum total nothing short of a miraculous run of good fortune, fellowship, and generosity.
But perhaps that was all over now, and he had been expecting such a reversal. Sooner or later, the natural order of balance had to be brought to bear, and that meant that all of this must inevitably shift back, somehow.
An official summons to the Audience House by the King? What else could it be other than bad news?
And actually, he suspected he knew what this was about—
The door opened wide and the Brother Qhuinn stood to one side. “Wassup. You need something?”
Ruhn bowed low. “Forgive me. I have been summoned. Is this about the shoveling?”
“What?”
“The snow?”
As the two of them stared at each other—like both were hoping a translator would step in and clear up the confusion—Saxton, the King’s lawyer, emerged from the Audience Hall along with a civilian male and female. The attorney was speaking in his usual calm and aristocratic manner.
“—you will receive an email from me detailing the remedies, and explaining the ramifications as to your cause of action—”
Saxton stopped short the second he saw Ruhn. And then his eyes did a quick up-and-down, as one would if they were sizing up an undesirable.
The male cleared his throat. “Greetings. Would you be so kind as to go in now? His Lordship is waiting for you, and I’ll join you both in a moment?”
Ruhn looked at the couple. The Brother Qhuinn. And then took a quick glance behind himself at all the Absolutely No One Else behind him.
All right. Clearly, he was the one being addressed here.
He bowed to the solicitor. “But of course. Thank you.”
Stepping through the tremendous crowd of people in the foyer—okay, fine, there were only four plus himself, in a space that was big enough to park eight cars in, but holy hell, he felt as though there was no room to breathe—Ruhn entered the great Audience Hall on quiet feet.
The King sensed his presence immediately, the great ruler straightening from a water bowl he was putting down by the fire for his dog.
As George gave a wag and then started in for his drink, the King looked directly at Ruhn even though Wrath was sightless.
“Hey.” The ruler of all vampires indicated one of the armchairs by the fire without turning his head that way. “Sit.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
Ruhn bowed low and then hustled across the great patterned carpet. As he lowered himself into the armchair, he tried not to put all of his weight down too fast. He was well aware of his size, and the last thing he wanted to do was break the thing.
“So how you been?”
Ruhn fidgeted as the King came over. “I beg your pardon?”
Wrath sat down as the dog’s rhythmic lapping continued in the background. “Pretty clear question, isn’t it?”
“Ah…I am quite well, my Lord. Thank you.”
“Good. That’s real good.”
George lifted his head and tongued his jowls back into order over the bowl, as if he didn’t want to leave a trail of drips. Then he headed for his master, curling into a sit so Wrath could stroke his ear.
Unable to stand the silence anymore, Ruhn cleared his throat. “My Lord, if I may…”
“Yeah?” Wrath rolled his shoulder so it let out a crack that was so loud, Ruhn had to wince. “G’head.”
“Do you wish me to vacate your premises?”
Those dark slashing brows dropped behind black wraparounds. “I asked you here. Why would I want you to leave?”
“The mansion, my Lord.”
“What?”
“I can remove my things, if you wish, although I would like to stay in Caldwell to keep up with Bitty—”
“What the fuck are you talking about.”
Not a question. More like a gun pointed to his head.
In the silence that followed, Ruhn glanced at the golden retriever—who promptly lay down as if he didn’t want to be rude to the guest, but he had to vote with his master and therefore had to stay out of things.
“I assume this is about the shoveling last night?” Ruhn said.
As the King opened his mouth, his incredulous expression suggested there was more misunderstanding ahead, instead of less. “Lemme try this again. What the fuck are you talking about?”
Saxton entered and closed the double doors behind himself. “In a way,” the male said, “it is a bit about the shoveling.”
Ruhn cleared his throat and felt stupid. He should never have taken the aristocrat at his word. “I was only trying to help. I was careful so as not to score the stone steps and—”
“Okay, I don’t know what you’re going on about and I don’t care.” Wrath shoved his hair back with a slashing hand. “You’re here because Saxton tells me you’re looking for a way to earn room and board. So I’ve got a job for you.”
Ruhn looked back and forth between them. “I don’t have to leave?”
“Fuck no. What the hell gave you that idea?”
Ruhn didn’t bother keeping the exhale to himself. “Oh, my Lord, thank you. Whatever you require of me, be assured that I shall do it to the best of my abilities. I cannot abide living off of your generosity.”
“Great. I want you to take him out to visit a civilian of mine who is having problems with some humans.”
Ruhn had to frown. “Forgive me, my Lord, but I cannot read or write. How could I ever help the Royal Solicitor with his work?”
Saxton stepped forward, and as he did, his scent reached Ruhn’s nose—which seemed a strange thing to notice. Then again, none of this visit seemed normal at all.
“Our King,” the male said, “would like me to be accompanied for the purpose of protection on my visit to the civilian. The Brothers, soldiers, and trainees are otherwise occupied in the field, guarding this house, or resting, and assigning one of them to this task would be a misappropriation of sorts.”
Wrath put his palm up. “Look. I just want you to be there in case any of these humans comes down with a terminal case of the stupids. This is not a wartime situation, but I also don’t like the idea of Saxton out there without anyone watching his back. And word has it…you know how to fight—very fucking well, indeed.”
As Ruhn looked away, he could feel Saxton staring at him—and there was a temptation to deny or…at least diminish the past. Of course, he couldn’t do that without contradicting his King—and outright lying. Besides, surely the solicitor had been told about him.
“Again, I don’t anticipate either of you being in danger,” Wrath pronounced, “but I can’t promise that you won’t find a little conflict. It is nothing you can’t handle, though—not with what you’ve already faced.”
As an old, familiar exhaustion settled with the weight of a mountain on his shoulders, Ruhn let his head drop and grew silent.
“You don’t have to,” Wrath said in an even tone. “This is not a condition for you to remain in the house.”
After a moment, Ruhn looked up at his ruler. The great Blind King was staring across at him with such fixation, you could have sworn he had sight. And then his nostrils flared as if he were scenting something.
Abruptly, Wrath turned his head in the direction of his solicitor. “It’s okay, I’ll get you someone else—”
“I’ll do it,” Ruhn said roughly. And then he switched into the Old Language. “I owe you a great debt already for allowing me unto your blessed home and permitting me to reside therein. To do this service unto you is an honor.”
Ruhn forced his body out of the chair and he walked forward to kneel at his King’s boots.
But Wrath did not put the great black diamond out for the vow. “You sure about this. I’m not into forcing people to do shit—well, not people I don’t want to kill for survival or sport.”
“I am certain.”
Those nostrils flared again. And then the King nodded. “So be it.”
As the ring was proffered, Ruhn kissed the massive stone. “In this and all things, I shall not fail you, my Lord.”
When he got back up to his feet, he glanced at Saxton. The solicitor was still staring at him, an inscrutable expression on those features that were so perfectly handsome, they were intimidating—and that was before you added in all those intelligent words he was always speaking or his perfect mannerisms or his fine and fancy clothes.
“If you will permit us, my Lord,” the male said, “I should like to walk him out? And now would be a good time for you to take a break for some sustenance. We have three more hours ahead of us.”
Ruhn was vaguely aware of Wrath saying a few things and Saxton answering back.
All he could focus on was the fact that he had gotten pulled in again.
The last thing he wanted to do was fight with anyone or anything, whether it was offensively or defensively.
He had left all that behind.
But he couldn’t deny his King. Or the fact that yes, he could see why anyone would want to keep that solicitor safe. The gentlemale was so smart, and so integral to everything the King did here. Ruhn had heard the stories around the dinner table at the mansion. Saxton was indispensable.
With any luck, he told himself, he wouldn’t have to kill anybody this time. He truly hated that part.
Even though he was very, very good at it.
Just humans.
As Novo and John Matthew rematerialized in the shadows downwind from the pair of winter night-wanderers, it was amply clear that they were not the enemy. Which didn’t mean the two men weren’t a potential threat and, therefore, killable. But proper provocation by them was required, and as much as she might have been able to engineer the shit, that was a pussy move—as well as against the rules.
Live and let live, unless forced into engagement.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
John Matthew nodded. Then pointed back to where they had been.
“Yeah, we better stay on track.”
Twenty minutes later, they had covered the first leg of their sector and it was time to double-back. And it was so funny—while they cut over one block, she remembered the first couple of nights she’d been in the field. One of the big challenges to this kind of work was in not becoming frustrated that you weren’t in a bare-knuckler every single minute you were out here.
Somehow, she’d assumed she’d be fighting all the time.
Yeah, not by half. The discipline to it all—and something she was still working on—was in staying sharp without becoming worn out as minutes turned into quarter hours and then half hours. You needed to be as fresh at the last second of the night as you were at the first, because you never knew when you—
As her new earpiece went off, she brought up her gloved hand and pushed it farther into place. “Shit.”
Be careful what you wish for, she thought as she got her gun back out again.
John Matthew tapped her shoulder and she nodded. “Yeah, I’ll flank left.”
Seconds later, they dematerialized into a dogfight. Paradise and Phury were holding their own against a slayer, pushing the lesser back in the alley. But two more had showed up at the far end.
Novo made a quick calculation and lunged forward, going on the attack. There was too great a chance of collateral damage if she used her gun, so as she ran, she re-holstered that weapon and unsheathed one of her daggers.
With her fangs bared and a great rage in her heart, she hit the lesser on the left like a train, plowing it down before it knew what the fuck was happening. She stabbed it in the throat at the Adam’s apple, and then, with her free hand, grabbed the front of its leather jacket and began to drive the back of its skull into the iced-over snowpack, again and again and again.
Black blood splattered up into her face, getting in her eyes and her mouth, the sickly sweet taste mixing with the frigid inhales that burned a path to her gut.
In the dim recesses of her mind, she knew she needed to move on to the other one. She needed to drive her dagger blade into the center of this goddamn thing’s chest so it could go back to the Omega—and then she had to continue to help in the fight.
Her arm was like a piston, though, and the black stain in the snow under the impact spot grew ever wider. The fucking fantastic part? The slayer was aware of everything that was happening, the pain she was causing registering in its shocked expression and gagging breaths.
There was only one way to “kill” a lesser.
You had to stab them through the non-existent heart. So she could keep this up for a year and the piece of shit, this immortal murderer of her kind, would feel fresh agony with each and every strike—
A bullet sizzled by her left ear and she looked up. About fifteen feet away, another slayer had come into the alley, ready to play, and he had a poodle shooter in his palm.
Which would have been a joke, except he was aiming the gun right at her—any closer, it would have been point-blank.
Novo went into a roll, pulling the incapacitated slayer on top of her as a shield. In the process, she lost her dagger, but she had other options—digging for her hip, she took out her gun, shoved it through the various body parts flopping around her face, and started popping off rounds.
She caught the newest arriving slayer in the shoulder, the impact pitching him back on that side, but the wounding didn’t slow the bastard down much—so she kept on shooting until her clip ran out. Good news? She blew the slayer right off his feet. The bad? In the next heartbeat, the undead was back and popping—bringing out a second gun.
Motherfucker—Novo scrambled through the floppy-limbed, stinking, oozing half-corpse on top of her for her own fresh clip.
Too late. Too uncoordinated.
She was going to be dead—
From the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement, and it didn’t take more than a second to ID it: Paradise was bolting out of the shadows in a crouch, clearly ready to tackle the shooter.
Thank God. But Novo was taking nothing for granted. She managed to slap her backup clip into the butt of her gun and raise the muzzle, except she held her trigger, as she didn’t want to hit Paradise—
Somebody passed right in front of Novo’s gun—and directly into the bullets the slayer was discharging. The flash came from the left and moved so fast, she couldn’t track whether it was friend or foe.
Except then she recognized exactly who it was.
Peyton didn’t give Paradise a chance to do her job. He barreled into her and knocked her out of range and into a snowbank, eliminating the defensive strategy that had been engineered to save Novo.
The slayer with the gun got off two more rounds, which through nothing but blind luck missed, and then it took advantage of the opportunity to escape, pulling a turnaround and run-like-fuck—
He didn’t get far. Zsadist was on him, a pop! and a flash of light announcing a quick dispatch.
And with that, thanks to all the other back-ups that had come on scene, the action was over as suddenly as it had presented itself.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” the Brother Phury barked.
As he and John Matthew came pounding over in the snow, it was very clear that the silent fighter was every bit as Absolutely Batshit Rip Ass as the Brother was.
Novo shoved her lesser-blanket off to the side some and lifted her head so she could see the ass kicking roll out. Also started checking for bullet wounds on herself.
Meanwhile, Phury peeled Peyton off Paradise like he was cling wrap, and the Brother all but tossed that fighter across the city. As Peyton landed with disappointing agility, shit was on.
Phury marched across the snowpack. “You want to explain what the hell that was all about?” The Brother jabbed a finger at Paradise, who was back up on her shitkickers and brushing snow off her leathers. “You compromised our team, endangered two people’s lives, and cost us a slayer.”
Peyton crossed his arms over his chest and stared at a point over Phury’s left shoulder. Then he paced around until he happened to stand beside Novo. “Paradise was in trouble.”
“Excuse me?” the female said. “What was that?”
Peyton refused to look at her. “He had a gun. He could have swung it around and shot her in the face.”
“Except that by the time he’d have seen me,” she countered, “I would have had control of the weapon. He was fully diverted.”
“You don’t know that.” Peyton shook his head. “You totally don’t.”
“Yeah. I do.” Paradise stomped her way across the alley, meeting the male head-on. “I had made the assessment, and I was executing. If I didn’t take out that gun, he might have killed Novo.”
“And again, I’ll say that you don’t know that.”
Novo rolled her eyes. Thanks for your concern, asshole.
And, p.s., why are you two having this argument right over me?
For fuck’s sake, there was no getting up now, not unless she wanted to play full-contact ref.
Paradise threw up her hands. “But I didn’t get a chance to find out, did I. Because you decided to be a goddamn hero when I didn’t need one.”
Preach, sister, Novo thought as she shoved the barely moving slayer farther off herself and sat up.
“This is unacceptable.” Phury got his phone. “You’re out of the field until further notice.”
“What!” Done with that off-the-shoulder eye thing, Peyton glared directly at the Brother. “What for!”
“Not following protocol.” Phury put his palm out. “Shut your mouth. I can assure you, nothing you say is going to help—”
The dagger came in a fat circle from out of nowhere, the stabbing motion on a trajectory directly for the center of Novo’s chest.
A shout exploded out of her as she put her arms up to catch the forearm: The heavily wounded slayer had somehow found her discarded blade…and was doing its level best to return it to her. And the undead was hellaciously strong, even with all its leaks.
Especially as her grip slipped free because of all that black blood she had drawn—
The dagger plunged into her heart, penetrating through her bulletproof vest.
There was no pain, which was probably not good, and as she fell back down on the snowpack, she was able to lift her head and look at the inexplicable sight of the weapon’s handle, still in the grip of that slayer’s fist, sticking right out of her sternum.
Oddly, she noted the way her breath exploded out of her in a white cloud, the exhale dissipating in the night as if it had been eaten. Or maybe that was her soul leaving her body?
Her last image was of the lesser smiling down at her, its crazy eyes rapt with triumph, its lolling mouth leaking black blood as it started to laugh.
And then its head exploded, bullets riddling it from some direction or another, bone getting pulverized, a fine mist of brain matter atomizing into the bitterly cold night air.
That was it for her.
She lost consciousness, a great black void swooping in, the Grim Reaper’s robe curtaining down on her, its fabric so thick and heavy, she could neither fight nor deny it.
Her final thought was that this was the precise, inevitable outcome she had predicted from the moment she had filled out the training center’s application. The only surprise? That it had come so fucking soon.
She’d been sure she would last at least a year or two.