Table of Contents 22 страница

Boom.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were crossing the bridge into Caldwell, and as Assail drove along, he was reminded of why bringing the cousins here had been an inspired idea: Not only were they good backup, they were not inclined to waste breath on useless conversation.

The silence was a welcome fourth passenger in their transport.

Over on the downtown side of the Hudson, he got off at an exit that curled around and emptied out beneath the Northway. Proceeding parallel to the river, he entered the forest of thick pylons that held up the roads, the landscape bald, dark, and essentially empty.

“Park over here to the right about a hundred meters,” Ehric said from the back.

Assail pulled to the side, popped the curb, and stopped on the shoulder.

The three of them emerged into the cold, their overcoats open, guns in hand, eyes scanning. As they walked forward, Ehric’s twin brought up the rear, the three Hefty bags from the garage in one of his hands, the black plastic making a rustling noise as they all went along.

Above them, traffic growled by, the cars moving at a steady pace, an ambulance siren wailing in a high-pitched scream, a heavy truck rumbling over the girders. As Assail inhaled deeply, the air was icy in his sinuses, any smells of dirt or dead fish killed by the cold.

“Straight ahead,” Ehric said.

They calmly and steadily crossed the asphalt and entered upon more of the hard, frozen ground. With the great concrete slabs of the road blocking out the sun, nothing grew here, but there was life—of a sort. Homeless humans in makeshift dwellings of cardboard and tarps were hunkered down against the winter, their bodies wrapped up so tight, you couldn’t tell which way they were facing.

Considering their preoccupation with staying alive, he was not worried about interference from them. Besides, no doubt they were used to being peripherals in this sort of business, and knew not to intrude.

And if they did? He would not hesitate to put them out of their misery.

The first sign that their enemy had shown was a stench on the wind. Assail was not particularly well versed in the ways of the Lessening Society and its members, but his keen nose was not able to ascertain any nuances within the bad smell. So he took that to mean that instructions had been followed and this was not a case of thousands arriving at the scene—although it was possible that the Omega’s denizens had only one bouquet.

They would soon find out.

Assail and his males stopped. And waited.

A moment later, a single lesser stepped out from behind a pylon.

Ah, interesting. This one had been a “client” before, coming with cash to accept measures of X or heroin. He’d been right on the edge of being eliminated, his volume of purchasing just under the cutoff of middleman qualification.

Which was the only reason he still breathed…and had therefore, at some point, been turned into a slayer. Come to think of it, the fellow hadn’t been around lately, so one could surmise that he’d been adjusting to his new life. Or non-life, as the case may be.

“Jesus…Christ,” the lesser said, clearly catching their scents.

“I meant it when I said I was your enemy,” Assail drawled.

“Vampires…?”

“Which puts you and me in a curious position, does it not.” Assail nodded at the twins. “My associates came here in good faith last night. They were equally surprised with what they discovered when your men arrived. Certain…aggressive behaviors…on our part were exhibited before things were sorted. My apologies.”

As Assail nodded, the three Hefty bags were tossed over.

Ehric’s voice was dry. “We are prepared to tell you where the rest of them are.”

“Pending the disposition of this transaction,” Assail added.

The lesser glanced down, but otherwise showed no reaction. Which suggested he was a professional. “You brought the product?”

“You paid for it.”

The slayer’s eyes narrowed. “You’re gonna do business with me.”

“I can assure you I’m not here for the pleasure of your company.” As Assail motioned with his hand, Ehric took out a wrapped package. “A few ground rules first. You will contact me directly. I will not accept calls from anyone else within your organization. You may delegate drop-off and pickup to whomever you wish, but you will provide me with the identity and number of the representatives you are sending. If there is any kind of ambush, or if there is any deviation from my two rules, I will cease to transact with you. Those are my only stipulations.”

The lesser looked back and forth between Assail and the cousins. “What if I want to buy more than this?”

Assail had considered this probability. He hadn’t spent the past twelve months getting middlemen to shoot themselves in the head for nothing—and he wasn’t about to cede his hard-won power to anyone. This was a unique opportunity, however. If the Lessening Society wanted to make some money on the streets, he was fine with providing them the drugs to do so. It wasn’t as if this foul-smelling son of a bitch was going to be able to get to Benloise because Assail was going to make sure that didn’t happen. More to the point, Assail had a rate-limiting issue inherent in his business model—with just the three of them, he had more product than he had sellers.

So it was time to start outsourcing. His stranglehold on the city complete, the next phase was to handpick some third parties for contract work, so to speak.

“We’re going to start slowly and see how it goes,” Assail murmured. “You need me. I’m the source. So it’s your choice how we proceed. I am certainly not…how do you say…disinclined to increase your orders. Over time.”

“How do I know you’re not working with the Brotherhood?”

“If I were, I would have them ambush you right now.” He indicated the bags at the feet of the slayer. “Further, as a gesture of good faith, and in recognition of your losses, I have credited you three thousand dollars in this delivery. One grand for each of our, shall we say, misinterpretations from last night.”

The slayer’s brows popped.

In the silence that followed, the wind blew around them all, coats sweeping out, the lesser’s jacket collar whistling.

Assail was content to wait for a reaction. There were one of two answers: Yes, in which case Ehric was going to throw over the package. No, at which time the three of them opened fire on the fucker, disabled him, and stabbed him back to the Omega.

Either was acceptable to him. But he was hoping for the former.

There was money to be made. For both sides.

Sola kept her distance from the quartet of men who had gathered under the bridge: lingering on the fringes, she used her binocs to focus on the meeting.

Mr. Mystery Man, a.k.a. the Great Roadside Houdini, was backed up by two huge bodyguards who were mirror images of each other. From all appearances, it seemed that he was running the meeting, and that was not a surprise—and she could guess at the agenda.

Sure enough, the twin on the left stepped forward and gave a package the size of a child’s lunch box to the man who was on his own.

As she waited for the deal to wind down, she knew she was taking her life into her own hands on this one—and not because she was under the bridge after dark.

Considering the run-in she’d had with the man the night before, it was highly doubtful he was going to appreciate her getting on his tail, following him out here, and playing third-party witness to his illegal activities. But she had spent most of the last twenty-four hours thinking about him—and getting pissed off. It was a free fucking country, and if she wanted to be out here on public property, she was allowed.

He wanted privacy? Then he should take care of business somewhere other than out in the goddamn open.

As her temper resurged, she gritted her teeth…and knew that this was her worst character defect at work.

For her entire life, she had been the type to do whatever she was told not to. Of course, when that involved things like, No, you can’t have a cookie before dinner, or, No, you can’t take the car out; you’re grounded, or…No, you should not go see your father in prison…the implications were very different from what was going down in front of her.

No, you may not go back to that house.

No, you may not watch me anymore.

Yeah, whatever, big shots. She was going to decide when she’d had enough, thank you very much. And at the moment? She had not had enough.

Besides, there was another angle to her tenacity: she didn’t like losing her nerve, and that was what had happened last night. As she’d pulled away from her confrontation with that man, it had been from a place of fear—and that was not going to be the way she ran her life. Ever since that tragedy, oh, so long ago, when things had changed forever, she had decided—vowed, was more like it—that she would never again be afraid of anything.

Not pain. Not death. Not the unknown.

And certainly not a man.

Sola tightened up the focus, closing in on his face. Thanks to the city’s glow, there was enough for her to see it properly, and yup, it was just as she remembered. God, his hair was so damn black, almost as if he’d colored it. And his eyes—narrowed, aggressive. And his expression, so haughty and in control.

Frankly, he looked too classy to be what he was. Then again, maybe he was cut from the Benloise cloth of drug dealer.

Shortly thereafter, the two sides went their separate ways: the single man turned and walked in the direction he’d come from, a collection of barely filled trash bags slung over his shoulder; the other three recrossing the pavement, returning to the Range Rover.

Sola jogged back to her rental car, her dark bodysuit and ski mask helping her blend into the shadows. Getting behind the wheel of the Ford, she ducked down out of sight and used a mirror to monitor the one-way that ran underneath the bridge.

The road was the only exit available. Unless the man was willing to risk a pullover by the CPD for going against traffic.

Moments later, the Range Rover passed her by. After allowing it to get slightly ahead, she hit her own gas and slid into position about a block behind.

When Benloise had given her the assignment, he’d provided her with the make and model of the man’s SUV, in addition to that address out on the Hudson. Not the name, though.

All she had was that real estate trust and its single trustee.

As she tracked the threesome, she memorized the license plate. One of her friends down at the police station might be able to help with that; although, given that the house was owned by a legal entity, she surmised he’d done the same with automobile.

Whatever. There was one thing she was sure of.

Wherever he was going next, she was going to be there.

FORTY-SIX

The shout blasted through the dim bedroom, loud, sharp, unexpected.

As it reverberated in her ears, Layla didn’t immediately know who had woken her up with it. What had—

Glancing down, she knew she was sitting upright, the sheets crushed in her tight hands, her heart pounding, her rib cage pumping.

Looking around, she found that her mouth was wide open…

Closing her jaw, she knew she must have made the sound. There was no one else in the room. And the door was shut.

Lifting her hands, she twisted her wrists so they were palm up, then palm down. The illumination in the room, such as it was, was not coming from her flesh anymore. It was the bathroom light.

Jerking herself to the side, she peered over the edge of the bed.

Payne was no longer lying in a heap. The female must have left—or been carried out?

Her first thought was to go and find Vishous’s sister, just jump up and start searching. Although she hadn’t understood exactly what had transpired between them, there was no doubt that it had cost the fighter dearly.

But Layla stopped herself, as worry for her own well-being took over: Her awareness shifted from the external to the internal, her mind burrowing into her body, searching out and expecting to find the cramping, the warm welling between her legs, the strange lagging aches that rode her bones.

Nothing.

As a room could go silent when all who were within it went quiet, so too could the corporeal form when all its component parts had no complaints.

Shifting the covers from herself, she moved her legs over so that they dangled off the edge of the high mattress. Subconsciously, she braced herself for the god-awful sensation of blood leaving her womb. When there was nothing of the sort, she wondered if the miscarriage hadn’t concluded itself. But hadn’t Havers said that it would be another week?

It took courage to stand up. Even though she supposed that was ridiculous.

Still nothing.

Layla went into the bathroom slowly, expecting at any moment for the onslaught of symptoms to return and take her down to her knees. She waited for the pain to strike, for those rhythmic cramps to come back, for that process to once again establish dominance over her body and her mind.

I don’t know whether it will work, but if you’re willing, I’d like to do what I can.

Layla all but ripped off her clothing, shedding what covered her in a mad dash. And then she was on the toilet.

No bleeding.

No cramps.

Half of her went into a sorrow so deep, she feared there was no bottom to the emotion—in a strange way, during the process of the miscarriage, she’d felt as though she’d still had some kind of connection with her young. If it was over? Then the death was complete—even though logically she knew there was naught that had lived or was capable of survival; otherwise, the pregnancy wouldn’t have terminated itself.

The other half of her was struck by a resonant hope.

What if…

She took a shower quickly, in spite of the fact that she didn’t really know why she was rushing, or where she would go.

Looking down at her stomach, she ran her soapy hands over the smooth, flat stretch of skin.

“Please…anything you want, take anything you want…give me this life inside of me, and you can take anything else….”

She was talking to the Scribe Virgin, of course—not that the race’s mother was listening anymore.

“Give me my young…let me keep it… please….”

The desperation she felt was nearly as bad as the physical stuff had been, and she stumbled out of the shower, drying herself roughly and throwing on clean something-or-others.

From what she’d watched of the television, human women had tests they could take themselves, sticks and whatnot apparently designed to inform them of their body’s procreational mysteries. Vampires had nothing of the sort—at least, not of which she was aware.

But males knew. They always knew.

Bursting out of her room, she hurried in the direction of the hall of statues, praying that she ran into someone, anyone—

Except Qhuinn.

No, she didn’t want him to be the one who figured out whether a miracle had happened…or nothing had changed. That was just too cruel.

The first door she came to was Blaylock’s and she knocked on it after a hesitation. Blay had known about the situation all along. And at his core, he was a very good male, a strong, good male.

When there was no answer, she cursed and turned away. She hadn’t checked the time, but given that the shutters were up and there was no scent of dinner being served down below, it was probably in the middle of the night. No doubt he had gone fighting—

“Layla?”

She wrenched around. Blay was leaning through the doorway of his room, his expression one of surprise.

“I’m so sorry—” As her voice cracked, she had to clear it. “I…I—”

“What’s wrong? Are you—whoa, easy, there. Here, let’s get you to sit down.”

As something came up and caught her bottom, she became aware that he’d settled her on the gold-leafed bench just outside his room.

He knelt down in front of her and took her hands. “Can I get Qhuinn for you? I think he’s—”

“Tell me if I’m still pregnant.” As his eyes peeled wide, she squeezed his palms. “I need to know. Something…” She wasn’t sure whether Payne wanted her to talk about what had gone on between them. “I just need to know whether it’s over or not. Can you…please, I need to know….”

As she started to babble, he put his hand on her upper arm and stroked it. “Calm down. Just take a deep breath—here, breathe with me. That’s it…okay…”

She did her best to comply, focusing on the steady, even tone of his deep voice.

“I want to call Doc Jane, all right?” When she started to argue, he shook his head firmly. “You stay right here. Promise me that you won’t go anywhere. I’m just going to grab my phone. You stay here.”

For some reason, her teeth started to chatter. Odd, as it wasn’t cold.

A second later, the soldier came back and knelt down again. He had his phone up to his ear, and he was talking.

“Okay, Jane’s coming right now,” he said as he put the thing away. “And I’m going to hang here with you.”

“But you can tell, can’t you? You can tell, you can scent it—”

“Shhh…”

“I’m sorry.” She turned her face away, dropping it down low. “I don’t mean to drag you into this. I just…I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. You don’t worry about that. We’re just going to wait for Doc Jane. Hey, Layla, look at me. Look at me.”

When she finally glanced into his blue eyes, she was struck by his kindness. Especially as the male smiled gently.

“I’m glad you came to me,” he said. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll take care of it.”

Staring into that strong, handsome face, feeling the reassurance he offered so generously, sensing the marrow-deep decency of the fighter, she thought of Qhuinn.

“Now I know why he’s in love with you,” she blurted.

Blay went positively white, all the color draining out of his cheeks. “What…did you say…?”

“I’m here,” Doc Jane called out from down by the head of the stairs. “I’m right here!”

As the doctor came running down to them, Layla closed her eyes.

Shit. What had just come out of her mouth.

Downtown, at the warehouse Xcor had spent the day in, the leader of the Band of Bastards finally emerged into the cold darkness of the night.

He had his weapons on his body, and his phone in his hands.

Sometime during the long daylight hours, the sense that he’d forgotten something had finally resolved itself, and he’d recalled that he’d told his soldiers to decamp from the location. Which explained why none of them came before dawn.

Their new lair was not downtown. And upon further reflection, it had been a miscalculation on his part to try to establish a headquarters in this part of town, even if things had appeared deserted: Too much risk of discovery, complication or compromising circumstances.

As they had learned the night before with that visit from the Shadow.

Closing his eyes briefly, he thought it was odd how events could cascade so far beyond one’s original intentions. If it hadn’t been for that Shadow’s intrusion, he wondered whether he would ever have been able to track his Chosen. And if he hadn’t followed her to that clinic, he wouldn’t have learned that she was with young…or made his discovery about the Brotherhood.

Casting himself into the brisk wind, he materialized on the rooftop of the highest skyscraper in the city. The gusts were vicious at the high altitude, whipping his full-length coat out around his body, his scythe’s holster all that kept it on his back. His hair, which had been getting longer and longer, tangled and obstructed his vision, obscuring the view of the city stretching out beneath his feet.

He turned in the direction of the King’s mountain, the great rise distant on the horizon.

“We thought you were dead.”

Xcor pivoted on his combat boots, the wind plastering his hair back from his face.

Throe and the others were standing in a semi-circle around him.

“Alas, as I live and breathe.” Except, in truth, he only felt dead. “How fare the new accommodations?”

“Where were you?” Throe demanded.

“Elsewhere.” As he blinked, he remembered searching that odd, foggy landscape, going around and around the base of that mountain. “The new accommodations—how are they?”

“Fine,” Throe muttered. “May I have a word with you?”

Xcor cocked a brow. “Indeed, you appear anxious to do so.”

The pair of them stepped to the side, leaving the others in the wind—and coincidentally, he happened to face the direction of the Brotherhood’s compound.

“You cannot do that,” Throe said over the loud, frosty gusts. “You cannot just disappear for the day again. Not in this political climate—we assumed you’d been killed, or worse, captured.”

There was a time when Xcor would have countered the censure with a sharp rebuff or something far more physical. But his soldier was correct. Things were different between the bunch of them—ever since he’d sent Throe into the belly of the beast, he had started to feel a reciprocal connection with these males.

“I assure you, it was not my intention.”

“So what happened? Where were you?”

In that moment, Xcor saw before himself a crossroads. One direction took him and his soldiers to the Brotherhood, into a bloody conflict that would change their lives forever for good or ill. The other?

He thought of his Chosen being held upright by those two fighters, as carefully handled as cut glass.

Which was it going to be.

“I was in the warehouse,” he heard himself say after a moment. “I spent the day in the warehouse. I returned there distracted, and it was too late to take myself anywhere else. I passed the daylight hours beneath the floor, and my phone had no reception. I came here as soon as I left the building.”

Throe frowned. “It’s well past sundown.”

“I lost track of time.”

That was the extent of information he was willing to give. No more. And his soldier must have sensed that line of demarcation, for although Throe’s brows remained tight, he followed up no more.

“I require only a short tally here and then we shall depart to find our enemies,” Xcor declared.

As he took out his phone, he could not read the screen, but he knew how to check his voice mails. There were some hang-ups—Throe and the others, in all likelihood. And then there was a message from someone he’d been expecting to hear from.

“It is I,” Elan, son of Larex, announced. There was a pause, as if in his head, he was piping in a trumpet fanfare. “The Council is meeting on the morrow at midnight. I thought you should know. The location is at an estate here in town, the owners of which having recently moved back from their safe house. Rehvenge was quite insistent with regard to the scheduling, so I can only guess that our fair leahdyre is carrying a message from the king. I shall keep you fully informed of what transpires, but I do not expect to see you. Be well, my ally.”

As he hit delete, Xcor bared his fangs, and the resurgence of his aggression felt good—a return to normal.

How dare that effete little aristocrat tell him to do anything.

“The Council is meeting tomorrow night,” he said as he put his phone away.

“Where? When?” Throe asked.

Xcor looked out over the city toward the mountain. Then he turned his back upon that compass point.

“The fine Elan has determined we shall not be there. What he fails to realize is that that will be my choice. Not his.”

As if neglecting to impart an address would keep him away if he desired otherwise?

“Enough conversation.” He strode over to the gathering of his soldiers. “Let us go down onto the streets and engage as warriors do.”

Between his shoulder blades, his scythe started talking to him once again, her voice keen and clear in his mind, her blood-thirsty words like a lover’s entreaty.

Her silence had been strangely unsettling.

It was with no small relief that he dematerialized from the lofty heights of the skyscraper, his iron will training his molecules toward the ground and into the field of engagement. In so many ways, the prior twenty-four hours had felt as though they had been lived by another.

He was back in his old skin now, however.

And ready to kill.

FORTY-SEVEN

Qhuinn was eleven miles into a twenty-mile run on the treadmill when the door to the training center’s workout room opened.

The second he saw who it was, he hopped off onto the side rails and banged on the stop button: Blay was standing in the jambs, his eyes jumping around, his face all fucked-up—and not because someone had beaten him or something.

“What happened?” Qhuinn demanded.

Blay shoved a hand into his red hair. “Ah, Layla’s down in the clinic—”

“ Shit.” He jumped off and headed for the door. “What’s wrong—”

“No, no, nothing. She’s just in for a checkup. That’s all.” The guy stepped to the side, clearing the exit. “I figured you’d want to know.”

Qhuinn frowned and stopped where he was. As he scrutinized the other male’s expression, he came to a conclusion that made him anxious: Blay was fronting about something. Hard to pinpoint exactly how he knew that, but then again, after being friends with someone since childhood, you learned to read their minutiae.

“Are you okay?” he asked the guy.

Blay motioned in the direction of the clinic. “Yeah. Sure. She’s in the exam room right now.”

Right, clearly, the topic was closed. Whatever it was.

Snapping into action, Qhuinn jogged down the corridor, and nearly burst through the closed door. At the last minute, though, a sense of decorum pulled him up short. Some examinations of pregnant females involved very private places—and even though he and Layla had had sex, they certainly weren’t intimate like that.

He knocked. “Layla? You in there?”

There was a pause and then Doc Jane opened up. “Hi, come on in. I’m glad Blay found you.”

The physician’s face gave nothing away—and that made him psychotic. Generally speaking, when doctors did that professionally pleasant thing, it was not good news.

Looking beyond V’s female, he focused on Layla—but Blay was who he grabbed onto, snagging a hold on the guy’s arm.

“Stay if you can?” Qhuinn said out of the corner of his mouth.

Blay seemed surprised, but he complied with the request, letting the door shut them all in together.

“What’s going on?” Qhuinn demanded.

Checkup, his ass: Layla’s eyes were wide and a little wild, her hands jittery as they played with her loose, tangled hair.

“There’s been a change,” Doc Jane said with hesitation.

Pause.

Qhuinn nearly screamed. “Okay, listen up, people—if someone doesn’t tell me what the fuck is going on, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind all over this room—”

“I’m pregnant,” Layla blurted.

And this is a change how? he wondered, his head starting to hum.

“As in the miscarriage appears to have stopped,” Jane said. “And she’s still pregnant.”

Qhuinn blinked. Then he shook his head—and not as in back and forth, as in how someone would masturbate a snow globe.

“I don’t get it.”

Doc Jane sat on a rolling stool, and opened a chart on her lap. “I gave her the blood test myself. There’s a sliding scale of pregnancy hormones—”

“I’m going to be sick,” Layla cut in. “Right now—”

Everybody rushed at the poor female, but Blay was the smart one. He brought a wastepaper basket with him, and that was what the Chosen used.

As she was heaving, Qhuinn held her hair back and felt a little dizzy.

“She’s not okay,” he told the doctor.

Jane met his eyes over Layla’s head. “This is a normal part of being pregnant. For female vampires, too, apparently—”

“But she’s bleeding—”

“Not anymore. And I did an ultrasound. I can see the gestational sac. She is still pregnant—”

“Oh, shit!” Blay yelled.

For a split second, Qhuinn couldn’t figure out why the guy was cursing. And then he realized…huh, the ceiling had traded places with the wall.

No, wait.

He was passing out.

His last conscious thought was that it was really cool of Blay to catch him as he went over like a tree in the forest.

In the context of the English language, there were many more important words than “in.” There were fancy words, historic words, words that meant life or death. There were multi-syllabic tongue-twisters that required a sort out before speaking, and mission-critical pivotals that started wars or ended wars…and even poetic nonsensicals that were like a symphony as they left the lips.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14