TEN

As Ehric sat at the counter in the kitchen of Assail’s glass house, his mood had scrummed down into vile territory. He had been so sure that his cousin’s woman would respond favorably to an entreaty on his behalf.

But instead, he found himself here on this stool, continuing to stare out at the lit drive, watching all of the absolutely-no-cars coming up to the back of the mansion.

“Would you care for aught?”

He shifted his focus away from that which had proven so persistently disappointing. Markcus, the freed blood slave, was standing by the sink, his thin body strung with tension, his youthful face and ancient, haunted eyes cast in shades of worry and concern.

In reply, Ehric wanted to bite the male’s head off. But not only was that unfair, it was cruel. Markcus was not like the others in the household, to war bred and trained. On the contrary, he was but an orphan in this world, and as he had only recently been freed by Assail, the male required the sort of kindness and patience that debauched mercenaries were typically unfamiliar with.

Ehric passed his eyes over the black slave band that had been tattooed around the male’s throat.

“No, Markcus,” he said roughly. “I am well in hand, thank you—”

The cell phone next to him went off with a vibration that sent the unit on a wander across the granite. When he saw who it was, he cursed, but answered.

“Healer,” he intoned.

Doc Jane, as she was known, hesitated. “Ehric, how are you?”

“I am well, thank you.” He had never understood the wasted time of pleasantries. But he did not wish to offend the female who had tried so hard and for so long with his cousin. “And you?”

“I’m good.” There was a pause. “Listen, I wanted to follow up on our meeting of the night before last about Assail. I left you a message yesterday?”

“I did not receive it.” And by that, he meant that he had not listened to what she had recorded. “Forgive me.”

“That’s all right. I, ah, I don’t want to pressure you in any way, but I would just like to clarify where you and Evale are with respect to your cousin? I’m afraid I wasn’t clear on whether or not you had made a decision.”

Unable to stay still, Ehric got up and walked out into the open seating area that faced the river, the vast space populated with furniture that his cousin had purchased with the home. As no lights were on, the sofas and chairs, tables and lamps, were nothing but shapes and shadows in a palette of blacks and grays, the decor doing nothing to improve his utter lack of optimism.

Verily, Assail’s condition had been weighing on him for weeks now, and he did not relish being the decider of the male’s fate. Yet he could not bear the suffering.

“Hello?” the healer prompted. “Have I lost you?”

Stopping up at the great glass expanse, he stared out at the snow-covered lawn that terminated at the shore of the Hudson River. Across the sluggish waterway, the city of Caldwell’s dense urban core was an uneven pattern of vertical lights that were static and horizontal ones that moved.

“No,” he muttered. “You have not lost me.”

“Would you prefer to take no action at this time? There is no rush.”

“Other than the hell he is in.” Ehric paused and reminded himself that males did not express weakness—except then his mouth moved anyway. “I hate the prison he is in. He is the last who would wish to be immobile, trapped in a body he cannot control. You say he has no brain waves…but what of his soul?”

The healer sighed with regret. “No, you’re right. He has been suffering, and his quality of life is…poor to say the least.”

“I thought perhaps I had come up with a solution. Alas, I fear that is not true.”

“What kind of solution?”

“It matters not.” As he fell silent, he waited for another idea to come unto him. “We are at the end of things, aren’t we.”

“You have as much time as you and your brother need.”

“If I were in that condition, I wouldnae favor indecision.”

“He doesn’t appear to be in pain.”

“Do you know that or just assume that?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he nodded even though she couldn’t see him. “So you are not sure.”

“His scans lead us to believe that—”

“It is time. Enough with this. Evale and I will leave now and come unto you. We will do what must needs be done, and be there when he…” As his voice cracked, he cleared his throat. “We will not desert him in his last moments.”

“I can appreciate how hard this is for you,” the healer said grimly, “and I’m glad—well, not that any of you are in this situation, but that you clearly appreciate its gravity as you do. I have been struggling myself with his case.”

Indeed, the sorrow in her voice was something that comforted him—as it suggested he and his brother were not alone in their grief.

The female continued. “While you arrange to come in, I’ll get everything ready—”

“Wait.” He closed his eyes. “What does…what happens at the end?”

“We are going to give him morphine to ensure he feels no discomfort. And then I am going to stop his heart from beating.”

“He won’t feel anything?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“In this, I am absolutely sure.”

As Ehric reopened his lids, he saw that his twin had entered the room behind him. In the glass, Evale’s reflection was still as a mountain, the light from the kitchen turning his body into a looming shadow.

“We shall leave the now,” Ehric told the healer. “And meet transport as soon as they can get to us.”

---

Vishous penetrated the alley’s throat with his guns up and his instincts on high alert. His body, unfortunately, was logy and uncoordinated, as though his blood had turned into rubber cement and his bones were struggling to hold his weight. But goddamn it, he was going to find out if there were any more of those shadows.

“You ever seen anything like that before?” Butch asked in a low voice.

“Nope.”

“Heard about something like—”

“Nope.”

“Read about—”

“What do you think,” V snapped.

The cop cursed. “You know what, I’m going to dub in a ‘yes’ at this point because I am totally freaked out by the idea you have no clue what that was.”

Breathing in through his nose, V caught a lingering scent in the air, and he stopped. Frowned. Turned to the right.

“What is it?” Butch demanded.

Sniffing like a bloodhound, Vishous closed in on the alley wall. “Cologne. Fresh. And there’s vampire under the shit. Someone was just here.”

Butch leaned in and sniffed the building’s flank like it had mortar made out of cocaine. “Acqua di Parma. Expensive stuff. And yeah, it was a male who’s one of us. Maybe a member of the glymera? But what would they be doing in this part of town?”

“No blood, though.”

“So that shadow didn’t get them.”

Vishous removed the lead-lined glove from his curse and lifted his deadly, glowing hand up. Willing illumination from the center of his palm, he lit the entire alley for the distance of four blocks.

No one was there. And the snow was so packed and ice-covered that a retreat wouldn’t leave any prints—although considering it had been a vampire, they would have dematerialized to get away.

Unless the entity could consume a mortal?

“I don’t like any part of this,” V muttered as he lowered his palm and re-gloved.

As the wind swirled and changed directions, coming at his face, he sorted through the complex, interlacing layers of scents, a job challenged by the cold because it tamped down the smells’ intensity: There was garden-variety city-nasty, which was a combination of human feces, rot, and generic decay…your typical gas and oil fumes…an electrical burn from somewhere…

Nothing remotely lesser or vampire-ish.

Whoever it was had left.

“I’ve smelled that before.” He nodded to the wall. “I just can’t frickin’ place it. No…wait. I think…”

Taking out his cell phone, he sent a text. The reply was instantaneous, and the response he was after nearly as fast: In less than a minute, two huge fighters appeared. The one with the harelip and the scythe on his back was Xcor, leader of the Band of Bastards, mated of the Chosen Layla. Next to him, his soldier Zypher was just as big, but preferred guns to big knives.

Which was a minor strike against the male. Then again, V had been making daggers for a couple of centuries, so he was biased toward the steel.

“Greetings,” Xcor said. “What is the—”

Instantly, the male’s head cranked toward the alley’s wall. And then he stepped in close.

“Throe,” he growled as he inhaled.