Hell, the shift had happened already. Ever since the Omega had created the Lessening Society aeons ago, vampire numbers had shrunk until now there were only a few enclaves of population left. Their kind was flirting with extinction. Even though the brothers were deadly fine at what they did.
If Wrath had been a different kind of king, one like his father, who wanted to be the adored, revered paterfamilias to the species, maybe the future would have seemed more promising. But the son wasn't as the father had been. Wrath was a fighter, not a leader, better on his feet with a dagger in his hand than sitting around being adored.
He refocused on the brothers. As the warriors stared back at him, they were looking to him for direction. And their deference made him edgy.
"I'm taking Darius's death as a personal attack," he said.
There was a low grunt of approval from the brothers.
Wrath took out the wallet and cell phone he'd liberated from the Lessening Society member he'd killed. "I took these off a lesser earlier tonight behind Screamer's. Some of you mind doing the honors?"
He tossed them into the air. Phury caught both and passed the phone to Vishous.
Wrath started pacing. "We need to go raiding again."
"Damn straight," Rhage growled. There was a metallic shifting and then the sound of a knife being driven into a table. "We need to get them where they train. Where they live."
Which meant the brothers were going to have to do some recon. Members of the Lessening Society weren't stupid. They changed their centers of operation regularly, constantly moving their recruiting and training facilities from place to place. Because of this, the vampire warriors typically found it more efficient to make themselves targets and fight what came after them.
Occasionally the brotherhood had gone on raids before, killing dozens of lessers in one evening as a pack. That kind of offensive tactic was rare, however. Full-scale attacks were efficient, but they were also a tricky proposition. Big battles tended to attract the attention of human police, and keeping a low profile was in everyone's interest.
"There's a driver's license," Phury muttered. "I'll scope the address. It's local."
"What's the name?" Wrath demanded.
"Robert Strauss."
Vishous cursed as he examined the phone. "There's not much here. Some shit in the call log, some speed dials. I'll hit the computer and find out who's been calling and what's been dialed."
Wrath gritted his teeth. Impatience and rage were a hell of a cocktail to swallow. "I don't need to tell you to work fast. There's no way to know whether the lesser I picked off tonight was the one who did it, so I'm thinking we need to do a clean sweep of this whole area. Kill them all no matter how messy it gets."
The front door swung open, and Zsadist strode into the house.
Wrath glared. "Nice of you to show up, Z. Busy tonight with the females?"
"How about you get off my dick?" Zsadist went over to the corner, staying away from the rest.
"Where you going to be, my lord?" Tohrment asked smoothly.
Good old Tohr. Always trying to keep the peace, whether by distraction, intervention, or flat-out bullying.
"Here. I'm going to stay here. If the lesser who nailed Darius is alive and interested in playing some more, I want to be available and easy to find."
After the warriors left, Wrath pulled on his jacket. In the process Darius's envelope poked him in the side, and he took it from his waistband. There was a strip of ink on the front, which he assumed was his name. He cracked open the flap. As he drew out a creamy piece of paper, a photograph fluttered to the ground. He picked it up and had the vague impression of long dark hair. A female.
Wrath stared at the paper. The writing ran together, a meaningless, blurry scrawl he had no hope of deciphering no matter how hard he squinted.
"Fritz!" he called out.
The butler came rushing in.
"Read this."
Fritz took the sheet and bent his head, falling into silence.
"Aloud," Wrath bit out.
"Oh. My apologies, master." Fritz cleared his throat. " 'If I haven't spoken to you already, ask Tohrment for details. Eleven eighty-eight Redd Avenue, apartment one-B. Her name is Elizabeth Randall. P.S. The house and Fritz are yours if she doesn't survive to adulthood. Sorry it had to end so soon. D.'"
"Son of a bitch," Wrath muttered.
Chapter Five
Beth had changed into her nocturnal wardrobe of boxers and a T-shirt, and was pulling the futon out flat when Boo began to meow at the sliding glass door. The cat paced in a tight circle, eyes trained on something outside.
"Are you trying to get at Mrs. Di Gio's tabby again? We did that once and it didn't go well, remember?"
A pounding on her front door brought her head around and kick-started her heart.
She walked over and put her eye to the peephole. When she saw who it was, she rolled over and pressed her back against the cheap wood panels.
The pounding started again.
"I know you're in there," Hard-ass said. "And I'm going to keep this up."
She flipped the locks and threw open the door. Before she could tell him to go to hell, he barged past her.
Boo lifted his back and hissed.
"Pleased to meet you, too, Panther Boy." Butch's deep drawl seemed totally out of place in her apartment.
"How did you get into the lobby?" she said as she shut the door.
"I picked the lock."
"Was there any particular reason you chose this building to break into, Detective?"
He shrugged and sat down in her tattered wing chair. "Thought I'd visit a friend."
"So why are you bothering me?"
"Nice place you got," he said, looking at her stuff.
"You're such a liar."
"Hey, at least it's all clean. Which is more than I can say about my own hovel." His dark, hazel eyes went to her face and stayed there. "Now, let's talk about what happened when you left work tonight, shall we?"
She crossed her arms over her chest.
He chuckled softly. "Man, what's Jose got that I don't?"
"You want a pen and some paper? It's quite a list."
"Ouch. You're cold, you know that?" His tone was amused. "Tell me, do you only like the unavailable ones?"
"Look, I'm exhausted-"
"Yeah, you left work late. Nine forty-five-ish. I talked to your boss. Dick said you were still at your desk when he went to Charlie's. You walked home, didn't you? Down Trade Street. Just like I'll bet you do every night. And you were alone. For a while."
Beth swallowed as a soft sound brought her eyes to the sliding glass door. Boo was back to his pacing and meowing, his eyes reaching out into the darkness.
"Now, are you going to tell me what happened when you hit the intersection of Trade and Tenth?" His eyes softened.
"How do you know-"
"Just talk to me. And I promise, I'll make sure that motherfucker gets it right good."
Wrath stood in the still night, staring at the shape of Darius's daughter. She was tall for a human female, and her hair was black, but that was all his eyes could tell him. He breathed in, but he couldn't catch her scent. Her doors and windows were shut, and the wind blowing from the west carried the fruity decay of trash.
He could hear the drone of her voice through the closed door, however. She was talking to someone. A man whom she apparently didn't trust or didn't like, because her words were clipped short.
"I'll make this as easy on you as I can," the guy was saying.
Wrath watched as she walked over and looked outside through the glass door. She was staring right at him, but he knew she couldn't see him. He was deep in the shadows.
She opened the door and put her head out, blocking a cat's exit with her foot.
Wrath felt his breath catch as her scent came to him. She smelled positively beautiful. Like a rich flower. Night-blooming roses, maybe. He dragged more air into his lungs and closed his eyes as his body reacted, his blood stirring. Darius had been right; she was nearing her transition. He could smell it on her. Half-breed or not, she was going to go through the change.
She slid the screen in place and turned back to the man. Her voice was much clearer with the door open, and Wrath liked the husky sound of it.
"They came at me from across the street. There were two of them. The taller one pulled me into the alley and"
Wrath snapped to attention.
"I tried to fight him off. I really did. But he was bigger than me, and then his friend pinned my arms." Her breath hiccupped. "He told me he'd cut out my tongue if I screamed, and I thought he was going to kill me, I really did. Then he ripped open my shirt and pushed up my bra. I came so close to being But I got free and ran. He had blue eyes, brown hair, and an earring, a square cut diamond, in his left ear. He was wearing a dark blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. I didn't get a good look at his shoes. His friend was blond, short hair, no earrings, dressed in a white T-shirt that had the name of that local band, Tomato Eater, on it."
The man got up and went to her. He put his arm around her and tried to hug her against his chest, but she pulled away and put distance between them.
"Do you really think you'll be able to get him?" she said.
The man nodded. "Yeah. I do."
Butch left Beth Randall's apartment in a foul mood.
Seeing a woman who'd been clocked in the face was not a part of his job he liked. And in Beth's case he found it particularly disturbing, because he'd known her for a while and he was kind of attracted to her. The fact that she was an unusually beautiful woman didn't make it any more egregious. But her swollen lip and the bruises around her throat were glaring defects within the otherwise perfection of her features.
Beth Randall was flat-out, hands-down gorgeous. She had long, thick black hair, impossibly bright blue eyes, skin like pale cream, a mouth just made for a man's kiss. And she was built. Long legs, small waist, perfectly proportioned breasts.
The men at the station were all in love with her, and Butch had to give her props: She never used her attractiveness to get inside information from the boys. And she kept everything professional. She never dated any of them, even though most would have given their left nut just to hold her hand.
One thing was for sure: Her attacker had made a hell of a mistake when he'd picked her. The entire police force was going to be gunning for that fool when they found out who he was.
And Butch had a big mouth.
He got into his unmarked car and drove to the St. Francis Hospital complex across town. He parked at the curb in front of the emergency room and went inside.
The guard at the revolving door smiled at him. "You heading for the morgue, Detective?"
"Naw. Just visiting a friend."
The man nodded him through.
Butch walked past the ER's waiting room with its plastic plants, dog-eared magazines, and anxious people. Pushing open a set of double doors, he headed into the sterile, white, clinical environment. He nodded to the nurses and docs he knew as he went to the triage desk.
"Hey, Doug, you know that guy we brought in with the busted nose?"
The attending looked up from a chart he was reading. "Yeah, he's about to be released. He's in the back, room twenty-eight." The internist let out a little laugh. "I tell ya, that nose of his was the least of his problems. He's not going to be singing low notes for a while."
"Thanks, buddy. By the way, how's the wife?"
"Good. She's due in a week."
"Let me know how it goes."
Butch headed for the back. Before walking into room twenty-eight, he looked up and down the hall. It was quiet. There were no medical personnel around, no visitors, no patients.
He opened the door and put his head inside.
Billy Riddle looked up from the bed. There was a white bandage running under his nose like the thing was holding his brains in. "What's up, Officer? You find the guy who got me? I'm about to be released and I'd feel better knowing you had him in custody."
Butch shut the door and quietly flipped its lock.
He was smiling as he crossed the room eyeing the square cut sparkler in the guy's left lobe. "How's the nose, Billy boy?"
"Good. And the nurse was a piece of ass-"
Butch grabbed the front of the punk's blue polo shirt and yanked him to his feet. Then he slammed Beth's attacker against the wall so hard the machinery behind the bed wobbled.
Butch put his face so close they could have kissed. "Did you have fun tonight?"
Wide blue eyes met his. "What are you talking-"
Butch slammed him again. "I've got a positive ID on you. From the woman who you tried to rape."
"That wasn't me!"
"The hell it wasn't. And given your little threat about her tongue and your knife, I might even have enough to send you to Dannemora. You ever have a boyfriend before, Billy? I bet you're going to be popular. Nice white boy like you."
The guy went pale as the walls. "I didn't touch her!"
"Tell you what, Billy. If you're honest with me, and if you tell me where your buddy is, you might actually walk out of here. Otherwise I'm going to take you down to the station on a stretcher."
Billy seemed to consider the deal for a moment. And then the words came out of his mouth fast. "She wanted it! She was begging me-"
Butch brought up his knee and pressed it into Billy's crotch. A high-pitched yelp cut through the air. "Is that why you're going to have to piss sitting down for the next week?"
As the punk started babbling, Butch dropped him and watched him slide down onto the floor. When Billy saw the handcuffs come out, the whining got louder.
Butch flipped him over roughly and was none too gentle as he pulled the guy's wrists together. He clipped the cuffs in place. "You're under arrest. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney-"
"Do you have any idea who my father is!" Billy yelled, as if he'd gotten a second wind. "He's going to have your badge!"
"If you can't afford one, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I've stated them?"
"Fuck you!"
Butch palmed the back of the guy's head and pressed that busted nose into the linoleum. "Do you understand these rights as I've stated them?"
Billy moaned and nodded, leaving a smear of fresh blood on the floor.
"Good. Now let's get your paperwork done. I'd hate not to follow proper police procedure."
Chapter Six
Boo! Would you cut that out?" Beth punched her pillow and rolled over so she faced the cat.
He looked at her and meowed. In the glow from the kitchen light she'd left on, she saw him paw at the glass door.
"Not likely, Boo-man. You're a house cat. House. Cat. Trust me, the big outdoors isn't as grand as it seems."
She closed her eyes, and when the next plaintive meow came, she cursed and threw off her sheet. She went to the door and stared outside.
That was when she saw the man. He was standing against the back wall of the courtyard, a dark shape much larger than the other, familiar shadows cast by the trash bins and the moss-covered picnic table.
With shaking hands she checked the lock on the door and then went to her windows. Both were locked as well. She pulled the shades down, grabbed her portable phone, and went back to stand over Boo.
The man had moved.
Shit!
He was coming toward her. She checked the lock on the door again and backed away, catching the edge of the futon with her foot. As she tumbled into space, the phone fell out of her hand and bounced away. She hit the mattress hard, head bobbing on her neck from the impact.
Impossibly, the door slid open as if the lock had never been turned, as if she'd never clicked it into place.
Still flat on her back, she pumped her legs wildly, knotting the sheets as she pushed her body away from him. He was tremendous, his shoulders wide as I beams, his legs as thick as her torso. She couldn't see his face, but the menace coming off him was like a gun aimed at her chest.
She whimpered as she rolled over on to the floor and crawled away from him, her knees and palms squeaking against the hardwood. His footsteps behind her landed like thunder, getting louder. Cowering like an animal, blinded by fear, she knocked into her hall table and felt no pain at all.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she begged for mercy and reached for the front door-
Beth woke up, mouth open, a terrible noise shattering the dawn's silence.
It was her. She was screaming at the top of her lungs.
She clamped her lips together, and sure enough her ears stopped hurting. Shuffling out of bed, she went to the sliding door and greeted the sun's first rays with a relief so sweet she got light-headed. As her heart slowed, she took a deep breath and checked the door.
The lock was in place. The courtyard was empty. Everything was normal.
She laughed tightly. Of course she'd have a bad dream after what had happened last night. She was probably going to have the heebie-jeebies for a while.
She turned and headed for the shower. She felt half-dead, but the last place she wanted to be was alone in her apartment. She craved the bustle of the newsroom, wanted to be around all of its people, and phones, and papers. She'd feel safer there.
She was about to step into the bathroom when a lick of pain shot through her foot. She cocked her knee and picked a piece of pottery out of the tough skin of her heel. Bending down, she found the bowl she kept on the hall table in pieces on the floor.
Frowning, she cleaned up the mess.
She must have knocked the thing off when she'd first come home after the attack.
As Wrath walked down into the earth under Darius's man-sion, exhaustion followed. He closed and locked the door behind him, disarmed, and drew out a battered trunk from the closet. Flipping the lid back, he grunted as he lifted up a slab of black marble. It was four feet square and four inches thick, and he put it down in the middle of the room. He went back to the trunk, picked up a velvet bag, and tossed it on the bed.
Stripping down, he showered and shaved, then walked back into the room naked. He grabbed the bag, untied the satin ribbon at its neck, and poured out the rough-cut, pebble-sized diamonds onto the slab. The empty satchel fell from his hand and floated down to the floor.
Wrath bowed his head and spoke the words of his mother tongue, the syllables rising and falling with his breath as he paid tribute to his dead. When he finished speaking, he knelt down onto the slab, feeling the stones cut into his flesh. He settled his weight back on his heels, placed his palms on his thighs, and closed his eyes.
The death ritual required him to pass the day without moving, to bear the pain, to bleed in memory of his friend.
In his mind he saw Darius's daughter.
He shouldn't have gone inside of her home like that. He'd scared her half to death, when all he'd wanted to do was introduce himself and explain why she was going to need him soon. He'd also planned to tell her he was going after that human male who'd fucked with her.
Yeah, he'd handled it beautifully. Smooth as gravel.
The moment he'd come inside, she'd bolted in terror and he'd had to strip her memories and put her in a light trance to calm her down. After he'd laid her out on her bed, he'd meant to leave right away, but he hadn't been able to. He'd stood over her, measuring the blurry contrast between her black hair and her white pillowcase, breathing in her scent.
Feeling a sexual stirring in his gut.
Before he'd left, he'd made sure her doors and windows were locked. And then he'd looked back at her one more time. He'd thought of her father.
Wrath focused on the ache that was already setting up shop in his thighs.
As his blood turned the marble red. he saw his dead warrior's face and felt the tie they'd shared in life.
He had to honor his brother's last request. He owed the male at least that for all the years they'd served the race together.
Half-human or not, Darius's daughter was never going to walk the night unprotected again. And she wasn't going to go through her transition alone.
God help her.
Butch finished processing Billy Riddle around six A.M. The guy was offended by the class of drug dealers and thugs he'd been put into the holding cell with, so Butch was careful to make as many typographical errors as possible on his reports. And what would you know, Central Processing kept getting confused about exactly which forms needed to be filled out.
And then the printers had gone on the fritz. All twenty-three of them.
Still, Riddle wasn't long for the station house. His father was indeed a powerful man, a U.S. senator. So some fancy lawyer was going to get Billy sprung quicker than shit through a goose. Probably in the next hour.
'Cause that was the criminal justice system for you. Money talked, and creeps walked.
Not that Butch was bitter or anything.
As he walked out to the lobby, he ran into one of their regular overnight guests. Cherry Pie had evidently just been released from the women's side. Her real name was Mary Mulcahy, and from what Butch had heard, she'd been working the streets for about two years.
"Hey, there, Detective," she purred. Her red lipstick had pooled into the corners of her mouth, and her black eyeliner was smudged. She would have been pretty, he thought, if she put the crack pipe down and slept for about a month straight. "You going home alone?"
"As always." He held the door open for her as they went outside.
"Don't your left hand get tired after a while?"
Butch laughed as they both paused and looked up at the sky.
"So how you been, Cherry?"
"I'm always good."
She put a cigarette between her teeth and lit it while eyeing him.
"You know, your palms ever get too hairy, you could call me. I'd do you for free, 'cause you sure are a handsome SOB. But don't tell Big Daddy I said so."
She blew out a cloud of smoke and absently fingered her ragged left ear. The top half was missing.
Man, that pimp of hers was a rabid dog.
They started down the concrete steps.
"You check out that program I told you about?" Butch asked as they reached the sidewalk. He was helping a friend start up a prostitute support group that would encourage women to get free of the pimps and out of the life.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Good stuff." She flashed him a smile. "I'll see you later."
"Take care of yourself."
She turned away and slapped her right butt cheek with her palm. "Just think, this could be yours."
Butch watched her sashay down the street for a little while. And then he got into an unmarked car and, on impulse, drove across town, back to the Screamer's neighborhood. He pulled up in front of McGrider's. About fifteen minutes later a woman in a tight pair of blue jeans and a black belly shirt came out of the joint. She blinked myopically at the brightening light.
When she caught sight of his car, she fluffed her auburn hair and walked over to him. He put the window down and she leaned in, kissing him on the lips.
"I haven't seen you for a while. You lonely, Butch?" she said against his mouth.
She smelled like dried beer and maraschino cherries, every bartender's perfume at the end of a long night.
"Get in," he said.
She went around the front of the car and slid beside him. They talked about how her night had been as he drove out to the river. She was disappointed that the tips had been light again. And her feet were killing her from running back and forth behind the bar.
He parked under the span bridge that crossed the Hudson River and linked Caldwell's two halves. He made sure they were far enough away from the homeless men lying in beds of rags. There was no reason to have an audience.
And he had to give Abby credit: She was fast. She had his pants undone and was working his erection with a good stroke before he even had the engine off. As he pushed the seat back, she straddled him and nuzzled his neck. He looked past her kinky, permed hair and out to the water.
The sunlight was so beautiful, he thought, as it dappled over the surface of the river.
"Do you love me, baby?" she whispered in his ear.
"Yeah, sure." He smoothed her hair back and looked into her eyes. They were vacant. He could have been any man, and that was why their relationship worked.
His heart was as empty as her stare.
Chapter Seven
As Mr. X crossed the parking lot and headed for the Caldwell Martial Arts Academy, he caught a whiff of the Dunkin' Donuts across the street. That smell, that gorgeous, thick smell of flour and sugar and hot oil, was heavy in the morning air. He looked over his shoulder, watching as a man emerged with two white-and-pink boxes under his arm and a huge travel mug of coffee in his other hand.
That would be a nice way to start the morning, Mr. X thought.
Mr. X stepped up onto the sidewalk that ran beneath the academy's red-and-gold awning. He paused, reaching down and picking up a stray plastic cup. Its previous owner had been careful to keep an inch of soda in the bottom so his or her cigarette butts could enjoy floating around while they waited for someone else to throw them away. He pitched the nasty swill in the trash and unlocked the doors to the academy.
The Lessening Society had turned a corner in the war last night, and he was the one who had done the deed. Darius had been a powerhouse of a vampire, a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood. One hell of a trophy.
It was a damn shame there was nothing left of the corpse to mount on a wall, but Mr. X's bomb had performed adequately and then some. He'd been at home, listening to his police scanner, when the report had come in. The op was everything he had planned it to be, perfectly executed, perfectly anonymous.
Perfectly deadly.
He tried to recall the last time a member of the brotherhood had been taken out. Well before he'd joined the society decades ago, certainly. And he'd expected to get a few pats on the back, not that such accolades motivated him. He'd figured he might even get a bonus out of it, maybe an expansion of his sphere of influence, maybe a greater geographic radius in which to work.
But the reward the reward was more than he'd expected.
The Omega had paid him a visit an hour before dawn. And conferred upon him all the rights and privileges of Fore-lesser.
Leader of the Lessening Society.
It was an awesome responsibility. And exactly what Mr. X had been angling for.
Power granted was the only form of praise he was interested in.
Walking with long strides, he headed for his office. The first classes would start at nine, and there was plenty of time for him to lay down some of the new rules for his subordinates in the society.
His first instinct after the Omega had left was to send an announcement out, but that would have been unwise. A leader gathered his thoughts before he spoke; he did not rush to the podium to be adored. Ego, after all, was the root of evil.
So instead of crowing like a fool, he'd gone outside and sat down in a lawn chair, looking over the meadow behind his house. In the dawn's nascent glow, he'd reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of his organization and allowed his instincts to show him the way to manage both. From the tangle of images and thoughts, patterns had emerged, the future becoming clear.
Sitting behind his desk now, he signed on to the society's secured Web site and made it clear that a change in leadership had occurred. He ordered all lessers to come to the academy at four P.M. that afternoon, knowing that some would have to travel, but none was farther away than an eight-hour car ride. Anyone who did not show up would be excised from the society and hunted down like a dog.
Gathering the lessers together in one place was rare. At this time their numbers hovered in the fifty to sixty range, depending on the number of kills the brotherhood got in on any given night and the number of new recruits that were brought into service. The society's members were all in and around New England. This concentration in the northeastern United States was dictated by the prevalence of vampires in the area. If that population moved, so would the society.
As had been the way throughout the generations of the war.
Mr. X was aware that getting the lessers to Caldwell for an audience was critical. Although he knew most of them, and some of them rather well, he needed for them to see him and hear him and measure him. Especially as he redirected their focus.
Calling the meeting in the daylight was also important, as it would ensure they weren't ambushed by the brotherhood. And he could easily pass it off to the academy's human employees as a seminar on martial-arts technique. They would hold the gathering in the large conference room in the basement and lock the doors so they wouldn't be intruded upon.
Before he signed off, he posted an account of his elimination of Darius, because he wanted the slayers to have it in writing. He detailed the kind of bomb he'd used, the way to manufacture one from scratch, and the method for hardwiring the detonator into a car's ignition system. It was so easy once the thing was set. All you needed to do was arm it, and then the next time the engine was started, anyone in the car was turned to ash.