Lassiter, p.39
Lassiter, page 39
“I didn’t seduce you—”
“Oh no? You did not tell me everything I wanted to hear, knowing that if we’re together, your vampires are safer?” She put her hand up again. “I believe that you feel bad about this. When I think about those moments, especially in the beginning when you were kissing me, there was tension in you. I know now that it was because you were aware you were doing a job and you are not completely cruel.”
Frustration, fury, terror… a toxic swill invaded his body, as he knew she was both right… and totally wrong.
“I have your name in my back,” he snapped.
“Just more proof of what you have said all along. There is nothing you won’t do for your vampires.”
He shook his head. Over and over again. “You were there with me in the meadow that night with the flowers, you know how hard that was for me, to leave you.”
“The issue is not why you left me. The problem is why you came back.”
Lassiter leveled his eyes on hers. “So there’s nothing you’ll let me say to you in my own defense.”
“You are not evil. You’re actually… the best kind of savior there is, willing to sacrifice himself on any and all levels.” She got to her feet. “I expected our forever to last a little longer than it did. But I should rather know the truth than live a lie, even if it is a noble one. And I shall say this the now, for having arrived at your truth, I have found my own. If what was between us was just duty to you… then that is all it was for me, too.”
At the end, her voice failed, but she cleared her throat again. “Goodbye, Lassiter.”
And with that, she up and disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
They were back at it and on post the following nightfall.
As Eddie walked through the Tudor mansion’s front door, he immediately fell into his routine. Well, okay, fine, he’d done this when he’d been on-site the one other time, but it was a good practice and he was an angel who liked repeated processes. Striding through to the back of the house, he went straight into the kitchen, and started a loop that took him around all the rooms on the first floor. And hey, the architect had made good choices. The place had obviously been built with efficient servants in mind—because there was an unobstructed circle of access.
Which meant he could have started anywhere, but the kitchen was first because, coffee.
Ad stuck right with him as the Brothers fanned out, some heading to the second and third floors, others sweeping the basement. Command central was manned by Vishous and set up in the very center of the house, at a console table tucked in behind the stairs in a males’ bathroom. The location was the perfect spot because there were no windows, but two ingress/egresses. So yup, that was where the backpacks of extra ammo, the flamethrowers, and the bombs were dropped.
Following his caffeine grab, he proceeded into the library, where they’d had that meeting with that poor sire who’d lost his son. Then it was out into the ballroom. Into a ladies’ parlor. Off on a sidetrack to the conservatory.
All around the mansion, he could hear the footsteps of the Brothers doing the same thing he was. Maybe they had their own prescribed routes, too.
Eventually, there was a reconnoitering in the front foyer. Nobody said anything because it was clear nothing was out of place. With that, the shutters were raised by V. The pattern of lights that had been left on was similar, but not identical, to the evening they’d been on-site delivering the bad news—you know, so if the slayers were watching already, it would seem like there was nothing odd going on, as if the family of aristocrats were inside moving on—or trying to—with their lives.
Come on in, boys, nothing but a bunch of rich folks mourning the son they’ve lost. You slayers really need to breach the house and finish the job.
In the lull that followed, a bunch of the Brothers took up res in the darkened dining room, and the library that was likewise kept lights-out, and the ladies’ parlor. Eddie and Ad were the ones who moved around, and now when they did, they traveled by air—and they did not stick to the ground level. They went upstairs, even out onto the roof.
It was like pacing on a grand scale.
As the hours crawled at a snail’s pace.
And meanwhile, not a slayer or essence of evil was to be seen.
The sense that something was coming was undeniable, however, as tangible a presence as any physical attacker, and it was fucking with Eddie’s head. Fucking with everybody else’s, including Adrian’s.
Even the angel was being quiet.
For the most part.
During one of their transitions from the upper levels back to square one on the ground, just as Eddie returned to his physical form, his best friend lost it.
“I can’t fucking stand the waiting.”
This happy little missive was sent out into the airwaves at the very moment Vishous started cursing over in command central.
Hustling around the base of the staircase, the pair of them screeched to a proverbial halt.
“Please tell me I can hit something,” Ad begged.
The Brother looked up from his phone. “Fucking aristocrats.”
“Oh, so there’s a list.” Ad cracked his knuckles. “Even better.”
Tohrment stalked around from the back. “What’s going on?”
“The glymera are organizing again.” Diamond eyes, narrowed and nasty, went back down to the glowing screen. “They’ve sent a letter to Wrath about the death of that young male, about the resurgence of lessers. They’re questioning his leadership at the same time we’re cooling our jets in this fucking house, waiting to fight.”
“Strongly worded memos have always been their primary offense,” Tohrment muttered.
“They’re conflating the death of this family’s son and the fact that the Audience House is on pause as evidence that Wrath is unresponsive. For crissakes, we’re working on setting up another location—and like any of those fuckers come to see their King?”
Eddie thought about what had been in that envelope the other night. And how much Wrath clearly cared about his people.
“We made it clear that there’s just been a delay in audiences,” Tohrment said as he curled a fist around one of the black daggers that were holstered to his chest—like it was an unconscious tic. “It’ll be a week, tops. We communicated that in our announcement—”
“They’re calling the Council back into existence.”
“What,” someone else bit out.
As the other Brothers on the first floor pulled in and closed ranks, Vishous showed his screen, not that anybody could see the email or the text or whatever it was. Then he went back to reading aloud.
“Yup, and they are challenging Wrath to try to disband it.”
“There’s no critical mass of them anymore,” another Brother pointed out. “This is bullshit. After the raids, there are what, five families left?”
“Ah, but here’s the kicker.” The laughter that came out of Vishous was as aggressive as a right hook. “They’re going egalitarian. They’re…”
As the words drifted, everyone leaned in—except for Adrian.
The angel abruptly went in the opposite direction, wandering off instead of closing in. Then again, he was known for his short attention span—and really, he was looking to fight, not wallow in the social posturing of vampires.
“They’re opening up their ranks,” V stated.
“I’m sorry, what?” Tohrment asked.
Eddie looked over his shoulder and frowned. Where the hell was Adrian?
“They’re reestablishing their criteria based on net worth. They literally have a financial cutoff—if a bloodline has over that amount, they’re on the Council.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun for them,” Tohrment shot back. “One self-made guy who doesn’t know which fork to use and they’ll throw an embolism. Besides, Wrath might be democratically elected now, but he has all the powers he ever had. He can just disband it again, so the fuck what.”
Vishous frowned and shook his head, falling silent as he continued to read. Then he looked up. “They’re filing a vote of no confidence and going to pass it at their first meeting.”
“There is no such thing—”
“According to them, the very fact that there was an election and Wrath won means that they can dethrone him. And there’s some twenty families involved in this already, going by this list of signatures. It’s a classic power grab with, at least in their view, the resources to back the shit up.”
“Jesus,” somebody muttered. “It never rains but it pours—”
“We have company,” Adrian announced grimly from the library. “Out here on the side lawn, and it’s not FedEx looking for the front door.”
Instantly, guns were in hand, conversation ended, and everybody got ready to fight.
Be careful what you wish for, Eddie thought as he jogged over to his best friend.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
It all started with the cat.
Or rather… the end began with the cat.
Wrath was standing in the doorway to the second story playroom, talking to Beth as L.W. stacked his emotional support blocks, when he heard the first of the meows. The sound was off in the distance, somewhere out in the Hall of Statues, and he didn’t pay much attention at first.
But then it came again.
And again.
Out of habit, he glanced over his shoulder, which was, from a sensory perception perspective, incredibly inefficient. Unsighted, he gained nothing from his eyes pointed in that direction, and he’d turned his ear, which functioned very well indeed, toward the doggen wing, which was where the sound was not coming from.
But old habits dying hard and all that.
“Something wrong?” his shellan asked.
Other than the fact that the vast majority of the brothers and the fighters were out in the field, waiting to fight, while he was stuck in this house like a veal?
“No, it’s just Boo talking,” he murmured.
“That cat. I love him so much.”
Wrath thought back to the first time he’d gone to see his Beth. Darius, her father, had enlisted him to ensure she made it through her transition. As a half-breed, she was in danger of dying when the change hit, and with Wrath’s pure blood, she had a much better chance of surviving. The kicker? She’d had no idea what she was. There’d been a hope she wouldn’t flip over to her sire’s side, but want in one hand, shit in the other, as the saying went.
He’d showed up at her little apartment, in that backyard where the picnic table was, and watched her through a sliding glass door.
Boo had known instantly he was there, and had started pacing in front of the exit—
Meooooow.
“I’m going to go check on him,” Wrath said as he once again turned his useless eyes in the direction of the noise. “I’ll be right back, leelan.”
“We’ll be here,” Beth countered happily. “Taking care of business with these blocks.”
As he strode off, George followed, the golden padding along, ready for any new adventure.
“Helluva mission,” he bitched. “Feline patrol.”
It was as he punched through the doors and left the staff part of the house that awareness coalesced in his mind.
An odd sense of urgency made him walk faster. “Boo?”
But the sudden surge of paranoia wasn’t about the cat. None of this was about… the cat.
The next meow was out by his study. And then there was one halfway down the staircase.
As Wrath descended, a sense of unreality came to him, and when he got to the bottom, he pivoted to the left without the sound guiding him.
Progressing through the dining room, he was aware of feeling like he was being swept by a tide, carried through the spaces, though technically his feet were walking. At the flap door in the back corner, he pushed through, the scent of silver polish thick in his nose—
“—insisted on going,” a female doggen was saying.
“That shouldnae be, though. Why’d you tell him ought?”
“I did not. He o’erheard me saying that I had left my young’s blanket therein, and that the wee male was distraught and wouldnae sleep. What was I ’ta do—”
“Sire!”
There was a gasp, and then a silence, and he pictured two uniformed maids bowing at their waists.
“Where did he go,” Wrath said. “Where did Fritz… go.”
Even though he knew.
Jesus fucking Christ, the dream that had woken him up that day in a cold sweat was coming true.
* * *
Far from earth’s toil and trouble, in the alternate plane she had created for the Book’s safety and her own sequester, Rahvyn sat upon grass that was no longer colored. In fact, all was shades of gray about her. Prior, she had lackadaisically amused herself with changing chromatics. Now her suffering was such that she had no interest in such wasteful pursuits.
As the Book flapped its pages again, she thought… this was where it had all started, had it not.
“I’m not talking about him.” She shot a glare over. “Why didn’t you tell me about the spell? About my role in all this? You let me walk into heartbreak.”
The Book made some sort of response, but she did not track it. Why the hell did she care—
Another flapping. And more.
She would have left the thing, but she had no idea where to go. Certainly not down to earth, ever again—
Flappingflappingflappingflapping—
Aware that the ancient tome was giving itself a heart attack apologizing, she glanced over. But it was not an apology.
The second her eyes shifted in its direction, the open folio stopped its agitation and an image began to appear, summoned once again by symbols swirling—and of course, that reminded her of what Lassiter had gotten carved in his back.
Rahvyn shook her head and looked away. “I am done with all that. I am sorry.”
FLAPPINGFLAPPINGFLAPPING—
She twisted back around and ignored that image of Wrath and the black tide of symbols swamping his portrait. “No, I am taking care of myself from the now on! I am sorry if there is a bad destiny awaiting the King—or whate’er you are attempting to tell me! But it is not my problem!”
The Book jumped up and down on the ground, its covers popping it up off the dingy gray grass over and over and over—while that portrait, so lifelike, so real, got inundated with the black tide again and again.
Indeed, the swamping was on repeat: The moment Wrath’s face was eaten by the tide, it repaired, just to be consumed again.
Through her own pain, she had a memory that caused even more agony: She was standing on wobbly legs, witnessing her name getting carved, symbol by symbol, across Lassiter’s upper back. He had not wavered for even a moment as what surely had hurt terribly continued. He had just stared at her with what had appeared at the time to be love, his silver blood running down off his torso, those gold chains that had been loaned by members of the household hanging loose and touching the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom.
Beside her on the left… had been Beth.
Holding her up, keeping her steady.
The Queen had been so helpful, so necessary, in that moment, and yet she had been apart from it because she had not been staring at Lassiter and what was being done unto him.
The female had been looking at her hellren, the King, who was standing so proud, so true… staring back at her even though he was sightless.
Rahvyn watched as the portrait was once more covered by the symbols, and she thought of the young on the Queen’s hip.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head as she started to weep. “I cannot stop what is destiny,” she said aloud. “Whatever it is… I cannot interfere.”
It was a statement she had made many times recently. But as she spoke it now, it was not from some duty to maintain balance.
She was just too consumed by her own pain to prevent anyone else’s.
And her powerlessness increased her mourning tenfold, for the Queen would surely feel as she did the now if aught were to happen to her beloved.
“I am so sorry,” Rahvyn said unto the great gray landscape that existed… only in her own mind.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Lash stood outside the Tudor mansion with a detonator in his hands. Just before he triggered the charge, he had a thought that he had learned all about explosives from the Brotherhood. Kind of ironic, really. As a result of having been in their training center program, he had been taught about bombs—how to make them, how to buy them, how to set them, how to release their power.
Zsadist had conducted many of those classes, and he could picture the Brother even now, perched with one hip on the corner of a desk, an IED next to him, his scarred face a thing of nightmares as he described exactly how a Crock-Pot and some nails could be deadly. How C-4 could be used.
How you could set up explosives in… say, just randomly… cars. Windows.
Doors.
Lash had given himself quite the refresher course the night before. Real hands-on, in vivo sort of stuff. Fun. And now he was here—at one of the two sites he had rigged.
The Brotherhood hadn’t been around the evening before for some reason—which had given him plenty of space to work. But he knew they’d be back, and sure enough, they were.
Glancing to the left, he saw that his new crop of slayers were at the ready. He’d charged two of the women recruits to raid a black market arms dealer they knew, and they’d performed brilliantly. Courtesy of their little foray into Caldwell’s commercial underground, the rest of the Lessening Society had firepower and ammo that was worth talking about, as opposed to a couple of shotguns that had been boosted from Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Looking to the right, he saw his second and third classes of male slayers lined up with more of the women.
