The King

As the Chosen’s pale green eyes shifted back to the television screen, she appeared far older than her youth.

It was a good reminder, Beth thought to herself. Nobody had it perfect—and as much as Beth was struggling, at least she wasn’t carrying the baby of the man she loved … while he was happily with someone else.

“I can’t imagine how hard this is for you,” she heard herself say. “To love someone you can’t be with.”

Wide eyes shot back to her own—and there was an echo of something she couldn’t decipher in them.

“Qhuinn’s a good male,” Beth said. “I can understand why you care about him.”

Awkward moment. And then the Chosen cleared her throat. “Yes. Indeed. So … Patti appears displeased with this gentleman.”

Great, Beth thought. So far she’d made her brother pass out, gotten on her husband’s case … and now she was clearly upsetting Layla.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, hoping to make things better.

“Thank you,” the Chosen replied after a moment. “I would be ever grateful for that.”

Forcing herself into a refocus, Beth found that, yup, Patti Stanger was chewing some greasy-haired lothario a new one.

They’d probably violated her “Nothing in here, here, or here” rule. Either that or he’d jackassed out big-time on the date.

Beth tried to get into the blow up, but the vibe was off in the room, sure as if there were someone else in with them, a specter or a ghost, and not in the Doc Jane sense.

No, a weight had settled in the very air itself.

As the episode concluded, Beth checked her watch even though the TV flashed the time. “I think I’ll go see how Wrath is. Maybe it’s break time.”

“Oh, yes, and I’m tired. Mayhap I’ll sleep.”

Beth got off the bed and collected the empty bowl and carton, returning them to Fritz’s tray. Over at the door, she glanced back.

Layla was sitting against those pillows, eyes staring at the television as if she were mesmerized. But Beth didn’t buy it. The female was a chatterer when it came to viewing, prone to lively discussion about everything from what people were wearing to how they expressed themselves to whatever drama she found shocking.

In this moment, however, she was pulling a Wrath—here but not here, present and disappeared at the same time.

“Sleep well,” Beth said.

There was no response. And there would be no sleep for the female.

Beth slipped out into the hall of statues … and stalled.

In fact, she wasn’t going to go see Wrath. She didn’t trust herself at the moment. She was too up and down and back and forth emotionally—and she wasn’t entirely sure she could not bring up the baby thing with him the second they were alone.

No, before she saw him, she needed some equilibrium.

It was in her best interests.

And everybody else’s.

SEVEN

Assail killed his fourth human a moment after he dropped number three.

And the Scribe Virgin help him, he was itching to off the last of the trio who had arrived with such alacrity. He wanted to discharge a bullet into the man’s gut and watch him writhe and suffer on the driveway. He wanted to stand over the dying and breathe in the scent of the fresh blood and the pain. Then he wanted to kick the corpse when it was over. Maybe light it on fire.

But Ehric was right. Whom would he question then?

“Retain him,” he ordered, nodding to the remaining human male.

Ehric’s brother was more than happy to oblige, stepping in and craning an arm around that thick neck. With a vicious crank, he bent the man backward.

Assail closed the distance to his prey, taking a puff from his Cuban and exhaling it into the bodyguard’s face. “I should like to gain entrance into that garage.” He pointed to the outbuilding, thinking mayhap they had her in there. “You are going to make that happen. Either because you supply the key or because my associate uses your head as a battering ram.”

“I don’t f**king know! What the f**k! Fuck!” Or something to that effect. The words were strangled.

Such crude language. Then again, given the Cro-Magnon cast of that brow ridge, one could assume one was dealing with very little in terms of higher reasoning.

It was easy to ignore all the babbling. “Now, will we be using a key or garage opener … or some portion of your anatomy?”

“I don’t f**king know!”

Well, I have the answer to that, Assail thought.

Turning his cigar around, he regarded its glowing orange tip for a moment. Then he moved closer and put that hot spot a thin inch away from the man’s cheek.

Assail smiled. “’Tis a good thing my associate is holding you so tight. One jerk the wrong way and…”

He pressed the embers into the man’s skin. Immediately, a scream pealed into the night, flushing an animal from the undergrowth, ringing in Assail’s ears until they stung.

Assail retracted his cigar. “Shall we attempt a reply again? Do you wish to use a key? Or something else?”

The muffled answer was as unintelligible as the scent of burned meat upon the air was clear. “More oxygen,” Assail murmured to his cousin. “So he may communicate, please.”

When Ehric’s brother relented, the man’s answer exploded out of his mouth. “Opener. Visor. Passenger side.”

“Help this man retrieve it for me, would you.”

Ehric’s brother was as gentle as a hammer to a nail head, dragging his captive around with no regard as to where the contours of the car were—in fact, it appeared as though he were using the man’s body to test the structural integrity of the hood and engine block.

But the opener was procured and offered by a shaking hand—and Assail knew better than to put the thing to use. Booby traps were something he was very familiar with, and far better for someone other than him to do the triggering.

“Oblige for me, will you?”

Ehric’s twin shoved the man toward the garage, keeping his gun within inches of the side of his head. There was rather a lot of tripping and falling, but missteps aside, the bodyguard did manage to get within range.

The man’s hands were trembling so badly it took him several tries to depress the correct button, but soon enough two of the four doors were rising up. And what do you know, that sedan’s headlights were flashing right into them.

Nothing. Just a Bentley Flying Spur on one side and a Rolls-Royce Ghost on the other.

Cursing, Assail strode toward the building. Undoubtedly, some kind of silent alarm was going off, but he was not overly worried about it. The first round of cavalry had already arrived. There was going to be a lull before a second squad came.

The construction had two stories, and given its thermal-pane windows and historically inaccurate proportions, one could only assume it had been built in the current century. And stepping into the bay on the left, he was not surprised that everything was spotless, the concrete floor painted pale gray, the walls smooth as Sheetrock and white as paper. There were no lawn care apparatuses therein, no mowers, or weeders, or rakes. Undoubtedly there was a service for that kind of thing, and one wouldn’t want that sort of dirty, smelly equipment around one’s automotive babies.

As he moved quickly out of the direct lighting, the treads of his boots called his footfalls out sharply, the sounds echoing around. There didn’t appear to be a lower level. And upstairs, there was nothing but a small office that was used to store off-season tires, tonneau covers, and other automobile accoutrements.

Heading back to ground level, Assail walked out of the place at a fast clip. Approaching the bodyguard, he could feel his fangs descend, his own hands shake, his mind hum in a way that made him think of cars roaring down the Autobahn. “Where is she?”

“Where … is … who …?”

“Give me your knife, Ehric.” As his cousin unsheathed a seven-inch blade, Assail holstered his gun. “Thank you.”

Accepting the loaner, Assail put the point right to the man’s throat, getting in so close he could smell the fear-sweat blooming out of those pores and feel the heat of the breath that pumped from that open mouth.

Clearly, he was asking the wrong question. “Where else does Benloise order captives to be taken?” Before the man could speak, he cut in, “I would urge you to be of care in your reply. If you are untruthful? I will know it. Lies have a stench all their own.”

The man’s eyes bounced around as if he were making an assessment of his survival chances. “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t—”

Assail dug the knife in until it broke the skin surface and red blood welled onto the blade. “That’s not the right answer, my friend. Now tell me, where else does he take people?”

“I don’t know! I swear! I swear!”

This went on for quite some time, and tragically, there was no scent of obstruction.

“Goddamn it,” Assail muttered.

With a quick slash, he silenced the nonsense—and the fifth useless human dropped to the ground.

Pivoting around, he glared in the direction of the house. Against its backdrop of roofing angles and chimneys, past the skeletal trees on its far side … a gentle glow had appeared in the eastern sky.

A harbinger of doom.

“We must needs go,” Ehric said in a low voice. “Upon the nightfall, we will resume finding your female.”

Assail didn’t bother correcting his cousin’s choice of words. He was too distracted by the fact that the shaking that had started in his hands had moved upward, a weed spreading throughout his flesh until even his thigh muscles were twitching.

It took him a moment to label the cause, and when he did, the largest part of him rejected the definition.

But the fact of the matter was … for the first time in his adult life, he was afraid.

“Where the hell is this place? Fucking Canada?”

Behind the wheel of the Crown Vic, Two Tone was ready to eat a bullet as the bitching continued. This five-hour drive through the middle of the night had been bad enough, but the waste of skin beside him in the passenger seat?

If he wanted to do the world a favor, he’d point the gun in that direction, not his own.

There would be such satisfaction in putting out the f**ker’s pilot light, but in the organization, the role of supervisor only got you so far—and the right to coffin a chatty bastard was just over that line.

“I mean, where the f**k are we?”

Two Tone bit down on his molars. “We’re almost there.”

Like the SOB was a five-year-old on the way to Grandma’s house? Jesus Christ.

As he drove deeper into the absolute frickin’ boonies, the sedan’s headlights captured the immediate distance ahead, pulling the rows of pine trees and the two lanes that curved in and around the base of a mountain out of the night. Dawn was coming, however, a faint peachy light appearing over to the east.

Great f**king news. Sooner, not later, they were going to finally be off the road, and then they could deal with the merchandise, and get some goddamn rest.

Squinting, he leaned forward over the wheel. He had a feeling they were coming up to the turnoff …

Two hundred yards later, an unmarked dirt road appeared to the right.

No reason to hit the directional signal—or slow down. He nailed the brakes and wrenched the wheel, their cargo thumping in the trunk.

If she’d fallen asleep, she was awake now.

The ascent was steep and the going got much slower: December meant a crap load of snow had already fallen on the ground this far north.

He’d only been to this property once before—and it had been for the same purpose. The boss man was not someone you wanted to piss off, and if you did, it got you snatched and brought up here where no one would ever find you.

He had no clue what that woman had done to offend, but that was not his problem. His job was to get her, disappear her—and hold her until further instructions.

Still, he had to wonder. The last a**hole he’d delivered to the hidden place had embezzled five hundred thousand dollars and twelve kilos of coc**ne. What the f**k had she pulled? And shit, he hoped he wasn’t up here for as long as that other job had lasted.

He’d also gotten a rotator-cuff injury courtesy of that assignment.

The boss didn’t like to do the torturing himself. He preferred to watch.

Hard to claim New York State worker’s comp for the shit he’d done to the guy.

But, whatever, Two Tone didn’t mind that part of the job. He wasn’t like some guys, who were into it, and not at all like the big man, who didn’t like getting his hands dirty at all. Nah, he was in the middle, happy enough to take care of shit provided he was paid well for it.

“How much farther are we—”

“Another quarter mile.”

“It’s f**king cold up here.”

Gonna be colder when you’re dead, motherfucker.

The boss had hired this a**hole about six months ago, and Two Tone had been saddled with him a couple of times. He kept hoping that the dumb shit would be fired the good ol’-fashioned way, but so far, no luck.

Bastard would make an excellent floater in the Hudson River.

Or in a hole. Matter of fact, wasn’t his name Phil?

Talk about inspiration.

After a final bend in the road, the underwhelming goal was reached: The single-story “hunting cabin” blended perfectly into the landscape, the low-slung building all but disappearing in the midst of the snow-covered underbrush and fluffy evergreens. In fact, the exterior had been deliberately constructed to look run-down. Inside, though, it was a fortress with a lot of f**king dark secrets.