The Thief

And this meant the Brotherhood and its affiliated fighters were now functioning once again as the King’s private guard. Even though the vast majority of males and females who were seen here were perfectly law-abiding, no one was taking chances with Wrath’s life. Two of the brothers were always on site with him, with everybody else ready to come at a moment’s notice.

When you considered the rotation necessary to give brothers a night off, the fact that the training center needed to be manned, and then all the guarding here? Even with the addition of the Band of Bastards, they were short-staffed covering everything—especially given that the Bastards couldn’t guard Wrath by law, and they weren’t used in the training program, and the trainees were too green still to be of much use. Add in some injuries?

V thought about that shadow out on the streets and felt a ripple of unease that was about as characteristic of him as the urge to bake bread. Paint by numbers. Crochet.

We need more fighters, he thought. Xhex and Payne were going to have to come in on this.

As he started to mine his brain for more people they could pull into service, Abalone, First Adviser to the King, arrived, and so did Saxton. And then there was a quieting, the heat under the boil of chatter turned down.

When Wrath walked in with George, his seeing-eye dog, the King’s looming presence was the sort of thing that changed the energy in the room sure as an electrical storm. But he wasn’t alone.

Oh…great, V thought. This night kept getting better.

Lassiter, the fallen angel, that male with the silver blood, the sunshine fetish, and the hideous taste in clothes and television, was a grim shadow of his usual jackass-self, his blond and black hair braided down his back, the gold at his throat and wrists the only thing that was glowing on him.

Fuck. He was looking like someone had just broken the news that RHONJ had been canceled.

Wrath and George went over to the armchair on the right of the open flames. As the King sat down, the golden retriever curled into a ball at his shitkickers, the dog tucking his muzzle into his long tail.

“So,” Wrath said in V’s direction. “I hear you met a new friend tonight.”

As everyone looked at him, V went to cross his arms over his chest, but thought better of it because of his wound. “I’m not the one who needs to be talking here.”

“Passing the buck,” Wrath muttered. “Not like you.”

“The details of the attack, I can go into,” he said. “But they’re not the problem. The main issue is…it’s not the Omega, is it. It is not from the Lessening Society.” He focused on Lassiter. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be lookin’ like that, would you.”

* * *

—

Back at the training center, Jane couldn’t believe that Assail was conscious. His eyes did appear to be focused on Sola, however, and he did seem to be listening to the woman, but given those brain scans? Jane was looking for signs that this was reflexive.

The longer he stayed “aware,” though, and the more he followed the subtle shifts of Sola’s head as she spoke with him, the more the evidence suggested a miracle had in fact happened—and so Jane stepped away from the hospital bed. She didn’t go far, however. The violent outbursts could come on without warning, a lesson hard learned, so given this unforeseen and un-assessed change in neurological status, she wasn’t taking any chances. God only knew what Assail was capable of.

He definitely seemed to recognize who was with him, though. His eyes were locked on Sola, her mere presence beside him doing what all their medicine had not been able to. She had brought him back—except for how long?

Jane glanced over her shoulder at Ehric, who was standing just inside the door. Guess the cyborg wasn’t so removed after all: A sheen of tears was brightening his eyes, the flush of his emotion turning his face red. He had been right to bring the woman here.

He had done the right thing.

Yes, she thought as she turned back to the couple. This was the miracle that love could bring, the soul reaching out of a broken body to connect, perhaps for one last time, to its other half.

I had that once, she thought with a lump in her throat. I knew that bond…I have held that blessing and gift in the center of my chest and it warmed me.

As sorrow came to her sure as the shadow of death, she told herself to go back to the anger she’d been stewing in since she’d left Vishous on his penthouse’s terrace.

Righteous indignation was where she needed to stay. This sadness was dangerous.

A gasp from the bed got her attention—

Just as she looked up, Assail kicked his head back on the pillow and started to seize, his arms jerking against their ties, his legs kicking at their restraints under the blankets.

“Step back,” Jane ordered Sola.

As the other woman jumped out of the way, Jane hit the call button and lunged for a bite guard, which she forced between Assail’s front teeth. The anti-epileptic meds were right by the bed, the needle preloaded with a benzodiazepine, and she grabbed it, and put the drug directly into the IV.

“What we got?” Manny said as he rushed in.

“Just administered the lorazepam.” Doc Jane checked the heart rate on the monitor. “It should kick in quick—”

The blood-pressure alarm started going off, indicating a critical drop.

“Everyone out of the room!” she barked.

Ehric didn’t have to be asked twice, but Sola shook her head and pressed herself against the wall. “I am not leaving. Do not make me go.”

Jane cursed, but didn’t argue. She had other things to worry about. “Damn it, he’s got a heartbeat so we can’t shock him.”

“We’re going to lose him,” Manny muttered as he readjusted the IV drip. “If this keeps up, he’s not going to—”

“Give me the epinephrine.” She looked at Ehlena, their nurse, who had come in. “Give me the goddamn EpiPen.”

As Ehlena went for the handoff, Manny put himself between them. “Jane, you’re moving fast here—”

“You think this is trending in a good direction?” She pointed to the monitor with a jab of her forefinger. “He’s going to die on us—”

“He can’t handle that epi.”

“You’re wrong. This is what I’ve done before with him—give me that.” Jane ripped the pen out of Ehlena’s hold. “I know what I’m doing.”

Epinephrine could be administered through the IV line either in a series of pushes or as a continuous infusion with D5W. But she didn’t want to throw him back into a seizure, either—and she had been through this with him. Intramuscular was the only safe option when he seesawed back and forth between coma and spasm.

With the EpiPen in her hand, Doc Jane pushed Manny aside, ripped the sheet free, and exposed Assail’s withered thigh. With his weight loss, the skin was loose around the shrunken muscles, and she grabbed as much of the thigh meat as she could, pinching up a pad of a target. Then she popped the top using her teeth, drove the pen down, and sent that epinephrine into his system.

Dimly, she recognized a scent in the air. Something like dark spices. But before that could really register, his blood pressure took another dip downward.

She looked at Ehlena. “Give me another pen.”

“You’re going to kill him,” Manny snapped.

She looked directly at her partner. “He’s going to die anyway. But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing about it. Ehlena, get me another pen!”

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.