To keep the peace, you had to get your hands dirty every once in a while.
And, considering all the hair product this bigmouth used, she was so going to need to wash up after this was over.
When she got to the side exit by the Brotherhoods table, she paused to open the door, but John got there first. Like a total gentleman, he swung the thing wide and held it that way with his long arm.
Thanks, she said.
Out in the alley, she flipped the bigmouth asshole over on his back and went through his pockets. As he lay there blinking like a fish in the bottom of a boat, the search was another infraction on her part. She had police powers on club property, but the alley was technically owned by the city of Caldwell. More to the point, though, the zip code of this hand job was irrelevant. The search would have been illegal, as she didnt have probable cause to believe he had drugs or concealed weapons.
According to the law, you couldnt frisk someone for just being a cocksucker.
Ah but, see, this was where instinct paid off. In addition to his wallet, she found a nice load of coke on him, as well as three tabs of X. She dangled the cellophane bags in front of the mans eyes.
I could have you arrested. She smiled as he started to stammer. Yeah, yeah, not yours. Dont know how they got there. Youre innocent as a two-year-old. But look up over that door.
When the guy didnt respond quickly enough, she clamped a hand on his jowls and pushed his face around.
See that little red blinking eye? Thats a security camera. So this shit She jogged the packets at the camera, then flipped open the wallet.this two grams of cocaine and three hits of Ecstasy that came out of the breast pocket of your suit, Mr Robert Finlay has been digitally recorded. Huh check this out, you have two nice-looking kids. Bet theyd rather have breakfast with you tomorrow morning than eat with a babysitter because your wife is trying to spring you out of jail.
She put his wallet back in his suit and held on to the drugs. The way Id like to suggest we handle this is to go our separate ways. You dont ever come into my club again. And I dont send your dime-sized balls to jail. What do you say? Deal or no deal?
As he pondered whether to take what the Banker offered or open another case, Xhex got to her feet and backed up a little so she had a clear kick shot if she needed it. She didnt think that shit was going to be necessary, though. People who were going to fight had tense bodies and sharp eyes. Bigmouth was loose as dishwater, clearly having run out of gas and ego.
Go home, she said to him.
And he did.
As he lumbered off, Xhex put the drugs in her back pocket.
You enjoy the show, John Matthew? she said without turning around.
When she looked over her shoulder, her breath stopped in her throat. Johns eyes were glowing in the darkness as the kid stared at her with the kind of single-minded focus males got when they wanted sex. Hard-core sex.
Holy shit. This was no little boy she was looking at.
Without being aware she was doing it, she reached into his mind with a lick of her symphath nature. He was thinking of him on a bed in tangled sheets, his hand between his legs on a gigantic cock, his mind picturing her as he pumped himself off.
Hed done that a lot.
Xhex pivoted and walked over. When she came up to him, he didnt step back, and she wasnt surprised. In this raw instant, he was no awkward youngling to cut and run. He was all male animal, meeting her head-on.
Which was oh, fuck her, it was not attractive. It. Really. Was. Not.
Shit.
As she looked up at him, she meant to tell him to go train those glowing blue marbles on the human women in the club and leave her out of it. She meant to say that she was beyond off-limits and to let his fantasy go. She meant to warn him off, as she had all others except for the hardened, half-dead Butch ONeal before hed become a Brother.
Instead, she said in a low tone, Next time you think of me like that, say my name when you come. Itll get you off even better.
She let her shoulder brush across the front of his chest as she leaned to the side and opened the door to the club.
His harsh suck of breath lingered in her ear.
As she went back to work, she told herself her body was hot because of the effort shed just expended dragging that dickhead out the door.
It had absolutely nothing to do with John Matthew.
As Xhex walked back into the club, John stood there like a frickin idiot. Which made sense. Most of his blood had rushed from his brain to the arousal in his brand-new, old-looking A amp; F jeans. The rest of the shit was in his face.
Which meant his brain was running on empty.
How the hell did she know what he did when he thought of her?
One of the Moors who guarded Rehvenges office came over. You in or out of this door?
John shuffled back to the banquette, downed his Corona in two swallows, and was glad when one of the waitresses came over with a freshie without his even asking.
Xhex had disappeared into the main part of the club, and he searched for her, trying to see through the waterfall that separated the VIPs from the others.
He didnt need his eyes to know where she was, though. He could sense her. In the midst of all the bodies in the club, he knew which one belonged to her. She was over by the bar.
God, the fact that she could manhandle a guy twice her size without breaking a sweat was hot as hell.
The fact that she didnt seem offended that John had fantasized about her was a relief.
The fact that she wanted him to say her name when he came was making him want to come right now.
Guess this answered whether he liked sunshine or thunder better, didnt it. And told him exactly what he would be doing as soon as he got home.
Chapter Nine
Out past the sprawling patchwork of Caldwells rural farms, farther north than the towns along the Hudson Rivers winding flanks, about three hours from the Canadian border, the Adirondack Mountains spring up from the earth. Majestic, carpeted in pines and cedars at their heads and shoulders, the ranges had been created by glaciers that had stretched down from the Alaskan frontier before it had been known as Alaska and before there were humans or vampires to call it a frontier.
When the last ice age retreated into history books that would be written much later, the great valley gouges that were left in the land filled with the melt-off from the icebergs. Over generations of humans, the vast geological pools were assigned names like Lake George and Lake Champ-lain and Saranac Lake and Blue Mountain Lake.
Humans, those bothersome, parasitic rabbits with their many, many children, settled in the Hudson River corridor, seeking the water, as many other animals did. Centuries passed and towns sprouted up and civilization was established, with all its intrusions into the environment.
The mountains remained the masters, though. Even in the age of electricity and technology and automobiles and tourism, the Adirondacks dictated the landscape of this stretch of northern New York.
So there are a lot of lonesome stretches in the midst of all those forests.
Heading up I- 87, a.k.a. the Northway, the exits get farther and farther apart until you can go five miles, ten miles, fifteen miles without having a way off the road. And even if you do put your blinker on and ease onto a ramp that takes you to the right, all youll find is a couple of stores and a gas station and two or three houses.
People can hide in the Adirondacks.
Vampires can hide in the Adirondacks.
At the end of the night, as the sun readied itself for a big, splashy entrance stage right, a male walked through the dense woods of Saddleback Mountain alone, dragging his withered body over the ground as he would have a bag of garbage in his earlier life. His hunger was all that moved him, the primordial instinct for blood all that kept him on his feet and fighting through the branches.
Up ahead in a tangle of pine boughs, his prey was twitchy, nervous.
The deer knew it was being tracked, but it couldnt see what it was hunted by. Lifting its muzzle, it sniffed at the air, ears pricking forward and back.
The night was cold this far north and this high up on Saddleback. Given that the male didnt have much left on his back except rags, his teeth chattered and his nail beds were blue, but he wouldnt have put more clothes on if hed had them. Feeding his blood hunger was the extent of his concessions to existence.
He would not take his own life. Hed heard long ago that if you committed suicide, you couldnt make it into the Fade, and that was where he had to end up. So he passed his days in a narrow bandwidth of suffering, waiting until he either starved to death from malnutrition or was grievously injured.
The process was taking too damn long. Then again, his escape from his old life months and months ago had brought him to these woods by erratum rather than engineering. Hed meant to send himself somewhere else, somewhere even more dangerous.
Couldnt remember anymore where that had been, though.
The fact that his enemies were not this far and this deep in the Adirondacks had first saved, but now frustrated him. He was too weak to dematerialize around trying to find slayers, and he wasnt strong enough for long walks, either.
He was stuck here in the mountains, waiting for death to find him.
During the day, he hid from the sunshine in a cave, an abscess in the mountains granite his shelter. He didnt sleep much. Hunger and his memories kept him mercilessly alert and aware.
Up ahead, his prey took two steps away from him.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to gather his strength. If he didnt do this now, he was finished for the night, and not just because the sky was beginning to lighten to the east.
In a rush, he disappeared and took form around the deers neck. Clamping onto its slender withers, he sank his fangs into the jugular that ran up from its flickering, panicked heart.
He didnt kill the lovely animal. Took only enough to see him through another black day and into another blacker night.
When he was done he opened his arms wide and let the thing bounce off in four-footed flight. Listening to it crash through the forests skirt, he envied the animals freedom.
There was little return of strength for the male. Lately, it was nearly a wash between the energy he expended to feed and what he got in return. Which meant the end had to be coming soon.
The male sat down on the forests bed of decaying pine needles and looked up through the boughs. For a moment, he imagined that the night sky was not dark, but white, and that the stars above were not cold planets reflecting light, but the souls of the dead.
He imagined he was looking up at the Fade.
He did this often, and among the great scattering of sparkles overhead, he found the two that he counted as his own, the two that had been taken from him: a pair of stars, one larger and glowing superbright, the other smaller and more tentative. They were close together, as if the little one were seeking the shelter of its m-
The male couldnt say that word. Even in his head. Just like he couldnt say the names he associated with the stars.
Didnt matter, though.
Those two were his.
And he would join them soon.
Chapter Ten
The clock next to phury ticked over so that the digital readout formed a pattern of toothpicks: eleven eleven in the morning.
He checked his stash. It was getting a little low, and even as cooked as he was, he got a case of the cardio-shimmies. As he worked the math, he tried to smoke slower. Hed been dipping into the open Baggie of red smoke for about seven hours now so if he did some extrapolating, he was going to run out around four in the afternoon.
Sun went down at seven thirty. He could be at ZeroSum no earlier than eight.
Four-hour dead zone. Or, more accurately, four hours that he might live a little too clearly.
If youd like, the wizard said, I could read you a bedtime story. Its the dogs bollocks. Male models self after alcoholic father. Ends up dead in an alley. Is mourned by no one. Classic, practically Shakespearian.
Unless youve heard it before, mate?
Phury turned up Donna non vidi mai and inhaled hard.
As the tenors voice soared according to Puccinis dictations, he thought of Zs singing. What a voice that brother had. Like a church organ, his range went from liquid highs to basses so deep they turned your marrow into an ear-drum, and if he heard something once, he could replicate it perfectly. Then put his own spin on the melody or think of something entirely new. Everything was his forte: opera, blues, jazz, old-fashioned rock and roll. He was his own XM Radio.
And he always led the chants in the Brotherhoods temple.
Hard to fathom that Phury would never hear that voice in the sacred cave again.
Or around the house, come to think of it. It had been months since Z had sung anything, probably because worrying about Bella didnt put him in a Tony Bennett kind of way, and there was no telling whether his impromptu concerts would return or not.
Bellas destiny would be the decider on that.
Phury took another hit off the blunt. God, he wanted to go see her. Wanted to reassure himself that she was okay. Visual confirmation was so different from an abundance of no-news-is-good-news.
But he wasnt in visitation shape, and not just because he was toasted. Reaching up, he put his hands to his neck and prodded the residual injury from that chain being wrapped around his throat. He was a quick healer, but not that quick, and Bellas eyes were working just fine. No reason to upset her.
Plus Z would be with her, and going eyeball-to-eyeball with his twin was way too bullet-to-chamber, considering the way things had been left in that alley.
A rattling sound from over on the bureau brought his head up.
Across the room, the Primale medallion was vibrating, the ancient gold talisman acting like a beeper. He watched as it moved around on the wood, dancing in a little circle as if it were looking for a partner among the silver brush set hed put it next to.
He was so not going over to the Other Side. No way. Getting bootlicked out of the Brotherhood was enough for one day.
Finishing his blunt, he got up and left his room. As he stepped into the hall, he looked to Cormias door out of habit. It was slightly ajar, which was unusual, and he heard a flapping noise.
He walked over and knocked on the jamb. Cormia? Are you okay?
Oh! Yes yes, I am. Her voice was muffled.
When she said nothing further, he leaned in. Your doors open. Well, wasnt he Einstein. Do you want me to close it?
I didnt mean to leave it like that.
As he wondered how shed gotten along with John Matthew, he said, Mind if I come in?
Please.
He pushed the door wide-
Oh wow. Cormia was sitting cross-legged on her bed, braiding her damp hair. There was a towel next to her, which explained the flapping, and her robe her robe was open in a deep V, the soft swells of her breasts in danger of being fully exposed.
What color were her nipples?
He quickly looked elsewhere. Only to find a single lavender rose in a crystal vase on the bedside table.
As his chest grew tight for no good reason, he frowned. So did you and John enjoy yourselves?
Yes, we did. He was quite lovely.
Was he?
Cormia nodded as she wrapped a white satin ribbon around the end of the braid. In the dim light of the lamp, the thick rope of her hair glowed as if it were gold, and he hated to see her wrap the long stretch in circles at the base of her neck. He wanted to stare at it some more, but had to take solace in the wisps that were already appearing around her face.
What a picture she made, he thought, wishing he had some paper and his quill.
Strange she looked different, he thought. Then again, maybe it was because there was color in her cheeks. What did you guys do?
"I ran outside.
Phury felt his frown get deeper. Because something frightened you?
No, because I was free to.
He had a quick vision of her racing over the grass in the backyard, her hair streaming behind her. And what did John do?
He watched.
Did he.
Before Phury could say anything, she continued, Youre right, hes very kind. Hes going to show me a movie this evening.
He is?
He taught me to use the television. And look at what he gave me. She extended her wrist. On it was a bracelet made of lavender beads and silver links. Ive never had something like this before. Ive always just had my Chosen pearl.
As she touched the iridescent teardrop at her throat, he narrowed his eyes. Her stare was guileless, as pure and lovely as the rosebud across the room.
Johns attention to her made Phury see his neglect all the more clearly.
Im sorry, she said in a quiet voice. Ill take the bracelet off-
No. It suits you. Beautifully.
He said it was a gift, she murmured. I should like to keep it.
And so you shall. Phury took a deep breath and looked around the bedroom, catching sight of a complex structure made of toothpicks and peas? What is that?
Ah yes. She went over quickly, as if she wanted to shelter whatever it was.
What is it?
Its what is in my head. She turned to him. Turned away. Its just something Ive started doing.
Phury walked across the room and knelt down next to her. With care, he ran his finger down a couple of the links. Its fantastic. It looks like the frame of a house.
You like it? She knelt down. I really just made it up.
I love architecture and art. And this the lines are great.
Her head tilted as she considered the structure, and he smiled, thinking he did the same thing with his drawings.
On impulse, he said, Would you like to go down to the hall of statues? I was just going to go for a wander. Its past the top of the stairs.
As her eyes lifted to his, there was a knowledge in them that took him aback.
Maybe it wasnt that she looked any different, he realized. It was that she was looking at him differently.
Shit, maybe shed really liked John. As in liked John. What a wrench that would put into the mix.
I would like to go with you, she said. I should like to see the art.
Good. Thats good. Lets go. He rose to his feet and extended his hand for no apparent reason.
After a moment, she slid her palm into his. As they tightened their grips on each other, he realized that the last time theyd had any physical contact had been that trippy morning in his bed when hed had that erotic dream and woke up with his hard body all over her.
Shall we, he murmured. And led her to the door.
When they stepped out into the hall, Cormia couldnt believe her hand was in the Primales. After shed wanted some private time with him for so long, it was surreal that she finally had not only that, but actual physical contact.
As they headed for where she had already been, he dropped her hand but stayed close. His limp was barely noticeable, just a slight shadow in his elegant gait, and as usual he was lovelier to her than any piece of art she could possibly behold.
She worried for him, though, and not just because of what shed overheard.
The clothes he had on were not the ones he wore to meals. The leathers and the black button-down were what hed been fighting in, and they were marked with stains.
Blood, she thought. His and the races enemies.
That wasnt the worst of it. There was a fading streak around his neck, as if some damage had been done to the skin there, and he had bruises, too, on the backs of his hands and the side of his face.
She thought of what his king had said about him. Danger to himself and others.
My brother Darius was an art collector, the Primale said as they went by Wraths study. Like everything else in this house, these were all his. Now theyre Beth and Johns.
John is the son of Darius, son of Marklon?
Yes.
I read of Darius. And of Beth, the queen, being his daughter. But there had been nothing on John Matthew. Odd as son of the warrior, he should have been listed on the front page with the Brothers other progeny.
You read Ds biography?
Yes. Shed gone looking for information on Vishous, the Brother shed been originally promised to. Had she known who the Primale would turn out to be, however, she would have checked the rows of red leather volumes for the ones on Phury, son of Ahgony.
The Primale paused at the head of the hall of statues. What do you do when a Brother dies? he asked. With his books?
One of the scribes marks any vacant pages with a black chrih symbol, and the date is noted on the front page of the first volume. There are ceremonies, as well. We performed them for Darius and we wait with regard to Tohrment, son of Hharm.
He nodded once and walked forward, as if they had discussed nothing of particular import.
Why for do you ask? she said.
There was a pause. These statues are all from the Greco-Roman period.
Cormia drew the lapels of her robing more closely to her neck. Are they.
The Primale bypassed the first four statues, including the fully nude one, thank the Virgin Scribe, but paused by the one with the missing parts. Theyre a little beaten up, but considering theyre over two thousand years old, its a miracle any part of them survived. Er I hope the nudity doesnt offend you?
No. But she was glad he didnt know how shed touched the naked one. I think theyre beautiful no matter whether they are covered or not. And I dont care if they are imperfect.
They remind me of where I grew up.
She waited, acutely aware of how much she wanted him to finish the thought. How so?
We had a statuary. He frowned. It was covered in vines, though. The gardens all were. Vines everywhere.
The Primale resumed walking.
Where did you grow up? she asked.
In the Old Country.
Are your parents-
These statues were bought in the forties and fifties. Darius went through a three-dimensional stage, and as hed always hated modern art, this was what he bought.
As they came to the end of the corridor, he stopped in front of the door into one of the bedrooms and stared at it. Im tired.
Bella was in that room, she thought. It was obvious from his expression. Have you eaten? she asked, thinking it would be lovely to head him in the opposite direction.
I dont remember. He looked down at his feet, which were in heavy boots. Good God. I havent changed, have I?There was an odd hollowness to his voice, as if the realization had emptied him out. I should have changed. Before we did this.
Reach out, she told herself. Reach out and take his hand. Just as he reached out for yours.
I should change, the Primale said quietly. I need to change.
Cormia took a deep breath, and, extending her arm, she clasped his hand. It was cold to the touch. Alarmingly so.
Let us go back to your room, she told him. Let us go back there.
He nodded but didnt move, and before she knew it, she was leading him. Or his body, at any rate. She sensed his mind had gone off somewhere else.
She took him into his room, to the marble confines of his bath, and when she stopped him, he stood where she left him, in front of the two sinks and the wide mirror. While she turned on the spray chamber they called a shower, he waited not so much patiently as with unawareness.
When the rush of water was warm enough under her hand, she turned back to him. Your grace, it is all set for you. You may wash.
His yellow eyes stared straight ahead into one of the mirrors, but there was no recognition of his reflection in his handsome face. It was as if a stranger confronted him in the glass, a stranger he didnt trust or approve of.
Your grace? she said. The stillness in him was alarming, and had he not been upright, she would have checked the beating of his heart. Your grace, the shower.
You can do this, she told herself.
May I disrobe you, your grace?
After he nodded a little, she stepped in front of him and raised tentative hands to the buttons on his shirt. One by one she freed them, the black cloth gradually parting open to expose his broad chest. When she got down to his belly button, she tugged the tails free of his leathers and kept going. All the while, he stayed still and unresisting with his eyes locked on the mirror, even as she parted the two halves of the shirt and pushed them off his shoulders.
He was magnificent in the dim light of the bath, putting all the statues to shame. His chest was enormous, the width of his shoulders nearly three times that of her own. The star-shaped scar on his left pectoral looked as if it had been engraved on his otherwise smooth, hairless skin, and she wanted to touch that place, to trace the spokes that radiated out from the center of the marking.
She wanted to press her lips to him there, she thought, press them over his heart. Over the flesh badge of the Brotherhood.
Laying his shirt out on the edge of the deep-bellied bath, she waited for the Primale to take over the undressing. He did nothing of the sort.
Shall I remove your pants?
His head nodded.
Her fingers trembled as she worked loose his belts buckle, then freed the button of his leathers. His body eased back and forth under her tugging, but not by much, and she was struck by how solid he was.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he smelled fantastic.
The copper zipper went down slowly, and she had to hold the two halves of the waistband together because of the angle she was working from. When she let go, the front burst open. Beneath the leathers, he wore a tight loin cover in black, which was a relief.
Of sorts.
The bulge of his sex in it made her swallow hard.
She was about to ask him if she should continue when she looked up and realized he was gone, for all intents and purposes. Either she kept at what she was doing, or he was going under the water partially dressed.
As she tugged the leather down his thighs to his knees, her eyes stuck to the male flesh that was cradled in soft cotton. She remembered what it had felt like when he had come up against her body in his sleep. What she was looking at now had seemed much larger then, and it had been stiff as it pressed into her hip.
That was the change of arousal, wasnt it. The previous Directrixs stern lecture on the mating ritual had detailed all about what happened when males grew ready for sex.
Had detailed too the pain females bore from that hardened staff.
Forcing herself to stop thinking along those lines, she sank into a kneeling position to do away with the pants and realized she should have taken the boots from his feet first. Fighting her way through the folds of leather at his ankles, she managed to get one boot off by leaning into his legs and forcing him to shift his weight. She went to work on the other side and found the foot that wasnt real.
She kept going, not pausing even a moment. His infirmity didnt matter to her, although she wished she knew how he had been injured so badly. It must have been in fighting. To sacrifice so much for the race
The leathers came off the same way the boots did: with an awkward series of pulls that the Primale didnt seem to notice. He simply stood on whichever foot she let him have on the marble, as steady as an oak. When she finally glanced up again, there were but two adornments on his body: his loin cover, which had the words Calvin Klein around the waistband, and the metal rods and foot that filled the gap between his right knee and the floor.
She went over and opened the door to the spray chamber. Your grace, the falling bath is ready for you.
His head swiveled to her. Thank you.
In a quick surge he swept the loin cover off and walked toward her, naked.
Cormias breath stopped. His massive sex hung soft and long from its base, the blunt head swinging slightly.
Will you stay while I shower? he said.
Wha ah, is that what you wish?
Yes.
"Then IYes, I shall stay.
Chapter Eleven
The primale disappeared behind the glass, and Cormia watched him back up to the spray, his magni ficent hair flattening down as it grew wet. With a groan, he arched his back and lifted his hands to his head, his body forming an elegant, powerful curve as the water ran through his hair and over his chest.