Lassiter, page 10
Aware Rahvyn was waiting for a response, he didn’t know what to say. The last thing she needed was to get tangled in the ugliness, and he was going to have to protect her on a lot of levels.
“Thank you for your help tonight,” he hedged.
Her long exhale told him his dodge disappointed her. “I’m sorry I followed you.”
“I’m sorry I put you in a position of having to.” He smiled a little. “Look at us, apologizing left and right.”
“Are you well?” She motioned over her head. “Your injury was quite severe.”
Lassiter banged on his skull with a fist. “Right as rain—”
She put her hands out. “Do not hurt yourself further!”
“You know, you might have a point.” He rubbed the spot as his head pounded a little. “Seriously, though. I’m okay.”
Rahvyn finally came all the way up to him. And when he reached out his palm, she hesitated—but then took what he offered in a firm grip.
“I am… very sorry,” he whispered.
As the words came out of his mouth, he was aware that only he knew their full significance. Only he knew he was apologizing for being a coward. For being ashamed. For… needing an external impetus to act on his heart’s desire.
“For what do you apologize,” she said.
“Running from you.” And himself. “I don’t… I’d like to stop running. That’s why I’m not going anywhere. That’s what’s changed.”
Funny, that demon had robbed him of so much, but she’d given him a kind of gift as well. If allowing himself to fully fall for Rahvyn got them all where they needed to be with Devina? Then yes, he did feel as though he had permission to be selfish and express his emotions, let himself go.
Kind of a fucked-up way to heal, wasn’t it.
Rahvyn leaned her hip against the mattress. “What about the others.”
“You mean Eddie and Adrian?” As her face tightened, he switched his grip and stroked the inside of her wrist. “I’m not worried about them and neither should you. I’ll take care of it.”
“All right,” she said as she nodded.
A strange sensation uncoiled in his chest, warm and loose, and he went with it. “I think it’s time for me to get out of this bed.”
With a groan, he sat all the way up and started shifting his legs out from under the thin sheets. Things were going great—until his bare feet hit the floor and he realized he was naked.
“Ah…” He glanced around. “Clothes.”
“Oh.”
The flush that hit Rahvyn’s face put color back in her cheeks, and he had to fight not to reach up and touch her hair—and then his eyes lingered on her lips. He wanted to kiss her. He always wanted to kiss her.
Except even as an anticipation thickened his blood, memories of Devina came between them, sure as if the images and echoed sensations were bricks that were tangible, his revulsion the mortar that made solid that which was all in his mind.
Fuck you, Devina, he thought.
“Can I take you somewhere beautiful?” he said hoarsely.
Squaring her shoulders, Rahvyn cleared her throat. “You do not have to be nice to me just because I tried to help.”
“That’s not why I’m being nice to you.”
Rahvyn opened her mouth. Then closed it again. When she crossed her arms over her chest, he could feel the distance return.
“Indeed, I am more accustomed to your departures than your presence,” she said roughly. “Therefore you will understand my hesitation. The only thing more painful than your leaving is the prospect of getting further attached only to have you disappear once more.”
“Further?” he prompted.
“I have made no secret of my…”
When she shook her head sharply, he hung on, hoping to hear the words he wanted her to speak. That was such bullshit, though. She was right. He had been more reliable for his absences than a male who deserved her inner thoughts.
“I haven’t stopped thinking of you,” he said. “I might have been gone, but I took you with me.”
She looked up. “For true?”
He nodded slowly. “On my soul, for true. And I just want to take you to a place that’s peaceful. There’s been too much drama tonight. Too much… pain, for too long.”
And that was the God’s honest on so many levels.
Rahvyn tensed her shoulders, as if she were leaping off into waters that might prove to be too shallow. “I would like that.”
Lassiter started to smile. “After I get some pants on, of course.”
* * *
This place was a fetid mess.
Back in downtown Caldwell’s seedier zip code, where most of the structures were abandoned and humans with good sense didn’t venture out after dark, Lash regarded the entryway of a filthy, four-level walk-up with all the enthusiasm he’d have greeted an outhouse in the wilderness. The building was Victorian in derivation, with bays on each floor that extended forward, and ornamentation at the eaves, but the shithole showed every bit of its age, city sludge striping down its facade, chips out of its stone steps, slates missing from its roof.
As a cold breeze weaved around his legs, a woman screamed an obscenity somewhere behind him and there was a crash. Then the wind changed direction and he caught a whiff of human urine and rotten food.
Imagining that stench in August, he reflected on how he had grown up, in a mansion full of doggen, every need anticipated and tended to, the decor gleaming of generational wealth, the voices in the grand rooms soft and accented with the proper lilt that only came with distilled knowledge and privilege—
A blaring horn cut through his replay of things long past, and then a vehicle barreled around a corner a couple of blocks down and headed in their direction.
“I want that SUV,” he ordered his subordinate. “Get it.”
“What?”
For a split second, he nearly slapped the dumb bastard security guard he’d turned outside Devina’s version of Bergdorf’s. But both his hands were busy with his duffle bags of stolen weapons and gear. The Dick’s Sporting Goods they’d broken into and five-finger-discounted had dressed them both properly and given them some basic armaments. It hadn’t done shit for the raw material that was not in the dipshit beside him.
“Get. That. SUV—”
“How do I—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Drop your haul and stop the fucking thing.”
The command was followed with all the gumption of a teenager, a muted metal clanging chiming on both sides of the moron, after which Lash’s one and only inductee into the Lessening Society loafed out into the middle of the road. As the slayer put both hands up and winced, like he was trying to bring a baby buggy to a standstill and worried about his fucking shins, Lash wondered how, in a city of two-million-plus humans, he’d managed to recruit such a total waste of space.
But the lame-ass got the job done.
The blacked-out Suburban hit its brakes, and there was no moment of confusion for its driver and passenger. Without missing a beat, two men put down their windows, stuck their guns out—and opened fire, the pop-pop-pop echoing around the decrepit Grand Canyon of the street.
Now that is more like it, Lash thought.
His slayer was hit in the chest too many times to count, a three-D torso target getting practiced on by a pair of experts. And talk about cinematic. Spotlit by the headlights, the security-guard-now-lesser’s arms raised up as he jerked to the rhythm of the impacts, the assault salsa driving him back until he fell over onto the pavement.
As the stinging aroma of gunpowder and weed replaced the neighborhood’s piss scent, laughter bubbled out of those open windows.
When Lash dropped his duffles, the driver looked over at the clanking, and a pair of dark eyes narrowed in a way that suggested a new target had been isolated and identified. It was not possible to assess the man’s height, but the shoulders were thick and so was the tattooed neck. More than that, the cunning stare and the way the guy was so comfortable using his firearm affirmed value.
“You owe me,” Lash said.
The human shifted the muzzle of his autoloader over so that it was pointed toward Lash’s torso. “You want some?”
“Yes,” Lash drawled, “I do.”
There was a moment of pause, as if the response was a surprise. And then the human began to empty what was left in his clip.
Walking forward, Lash put out his palm and collected the slugs one by one, their trajectories shifting as they were called home by the center of his hand, the jingling sweet and soft as the projectiles collected in a little lead puppy pile.
The trigger finger that had been so busy eased off, and as a swill of gaseous emissions curled up from the tip of the gun, Lash closed a grip around the payload.
“What the fuck…” the human breathed.
On the far side of the driver, the passenger was pulling a pole-axe, too, his stare wide in the glow of the dash.
“Do you want to live forever,” Lash said in a low voice.
“Get the fuck back, man—”
“I asked you a question.” Lash stopped at point-blank range, and to help things along, he positioned the human’s arm so that the muzzle of the gun was precisely in the center of his own chest. “What is your answer. Do you want to live forever.”
When the driver tried to yank the weapon away, Lash put his thumb on the forefinger that was wrapped around the trigger—and forced the discharge of the last bullet in the magazine.
The sound was loud at such close range, the impact such that Lash’s entire body jerked. Ah, yes, .45s packed quite a punch.
He held those dark eyes the entire time, not even blinking.
On the far side of the center console, the guy riding shotgun decided he was done: “I’m out!”
As the man fumbled for the door release, Lash glanced over and willed the lock to hold tight. Meanwhile, out in front of the grille, the lesser who’d played Smith & Wesson pincushion sat up on the pavement and pulled open the hunting jacket that draped his soft body. Looking down at his sternum, he probed the black ooze that was staining the front of his camouflage t-shirt.
“What… the fuck is…” The driver did not finish. Could not finish.
Prepared to settle the debate, Lash worked his shoulders, rolling them back and forth; then he swallowed, over and over again. Finally, he coughed into his hand.
“Would you like this back,” he said as he offered the man’s bullet to him.
The guy made the sign of the cross over his sternum. “Madre de Dios. What are you.”
Over the flapping of the passenger, who was pumping the door handle like he was performing CPR on that side of the SUV, Lash said, “You don’t need to worry about that. All you have to answer is one simple question.”
“Wh… wha… what?”
“Do you want to live forever.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was around ten a.m. the following morning that Beth, née Randall, mated of Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, rushed down the subterranean tunnel to the back entrance into the training center. When she got to the reinforced steel door, she shifted her son onto her other hip so she could punch in a passcode. As the copper lock retracted, she glanced over her shoulder with a sickening feeling.
“We’re here,” she said to Wrath. Even though he would already know that by the shifting sounds.
Opening the heavy panel and revealing the supply closet, she propped the weight with her whole body and tried to get herself out of the way.
Wrath was big under any circumstances. Carrying his beloved golden in his arms, he required even more space—but just like the announcement of their arrival, any commentary on how he was going to have to duck and curl around the dog to squeeze past the reams of papers and the stacks of folders, pen boxes, and printer cartridges was unnecessary. Though his eyes did not function anymore, his senses always fired on all cylinders, and sure enough, he navigated through the jambs with no problem, turning to the side, lowering his stance, shuffling George into the cramped space.
Now it was Wrath’s turn to play wallflower, and he was less successful than she’d been at shrinking. As he pressed back against the shelving, she wedged by with L.W. and opened the way into the office.
On the far side of Tohr’s administrative space, she did her duty for the last time with a glass panel, and the second they stepped into the concrete tunnel that ran the length of the facility, Doc Jane leaned out of one of the clinic’s doorways.
“Down here,” V’s mate urged.
Wrath led the way now, and Beth checked on how their son was doing because there was nothing she could do about any of this and sometimes you needed to feel like you could help something, someone. Her son was rock-solid. Even though they’d woken L.W. up and disturbed his sleep, he wasn’t crying and cranky. He was staring forward at his father and the dog with those grave, now-green eyes of his, his expression that of an adult who recognized that something was very wrong with the dog—and if anything happened to George, his father, the King, was never going to get over—
Stop it, she told herself.
George was fine. The animal was young, only what, five years old? Six, tops? It just felt like he and Wrath had been a pair for a lifetime, the two of them so symbiotic in their movements and silent communication it was as if they were one person.
Grath. Weorge.
Whatever.
The golden was probably just suffering from an upset stomach. No doubt he’d been slipped something at Last Meal by Fritz. The household’s elderly butler had a thing for him, but who didn’t? Heck, maybe Rhage had given him a gallon of ice cream under the table.
“Thanks for this,” Wrath said in a grave voice as he came up to Doc Jane.
“No problem. I just hope I can help.”
Wrath did another duck and shuffle, and then they were all in the exam room together. To locate the table, he moved more slowly now, shifting his hold on the blond-furred bundle of paws and tail, putting one arm out, his hand at waist level. When his fingertips came in contact with the examination bed, he explored the contours, got a bead on its dimensions, and gently laid the dog on the padded cushion.
“So what have we got,” Jane said as she unlooped her stethoscope and went to stroke George’s head. “We’re not feeling so hot?”
The golden offered her a lackadaisical nudge with his muzzle and a half-hearted wag.
“There’s something wrong with him, but I don’t know what it is,” Wrath said. “He sleeps next to us on his bed. About twenty minutes ago, I woke up because I heard him whimper and I found him sitting in this really weird position, all braced forward, his mouth open though he wasn’t panting. He kept whimpering, like… he was trying to tell me something was wrong.”
Beth went over and sat in one of the chairs against the long wall. Settling L.W. on her lap, she made sure he was facing outward so he could see what was happening. He’d never been a kid to cuddle into a chest, seek comfort on a shoulder, nuzzle into the neck. He wanted to be confronting whatever was before him.
Not exploring. Confronting.
“Well, I’m not a vet,” Jane murmured as she plugged her ears with her instrument. “But let’s take a look at our breathing and our heart rate.”
As Wrath went to stand at his head, George licked his master’s hand, as if he were trying to be brave—and when Wrath murmured to him, the golden laid his head back down, his mouth going slack, his breathing slow and irregular.
“He’s going to be okay,” Beth murmured in her son’s ear.
L.W. didn’t pay any attention to her. He just stared at his father as Wrath stayed right by his dog, his dagger hand on George’s head.
“I’m just going to take a listen, good boy,” Jane murmured as she pressed the metal disk around the area right behind George’s elbow.
When she frowned and kept moving the stethoscope around, Beth’s stomach did another bottom-out, like she was on a rollercoaster that was flying over a dip in its rails.
“What is it?” Wrath asked, like he’d caught the shift in the doctor’s energy.
Jane didn’t answer him. She lifted George’s jowl and peered at his gums.
They were gray.
Oh, God, Beth thought.
This wasn’t indigestion. The dog was dying.
* * *
Mortals, particularly of the human variety, existed in such a narrow bandwidth of understanding.
This was a good thing, Devina reflected as she re-formed at a secluded exterior corner of the Galleria Mall’s T-rex footprint. Such ignorance and all its blinded bliss kept nonessentials out of the way, and if things had to be done in their midst, camo and cover-up was much, much easier than dealing with supernaturals.
On that note, she brushed at her black leather pants and rearranged the form-fitting black cashmere sweater she’d changed into. Even though it was April, there was a nip in the air this morning, and besides, wearing a bustier for this investigation felt too close to the desperation that was squeezing her tits.
Squeezing not in a good way.
Glancing up, she noted the skies were laden with clouds, the sun’s warmth nowhere to be felt, the churning weather promising a cold, bracing rain.
So the vibe was right, according to her mood.
Stepping out of the shadows, she proceeded down the sidewalk, measuring the acres of empty parking lot. The Jurassic Park metaphor was apt on another level. These dying shopping centers were dinosaurs in retail fact as well as scale, their anchor stores lifting up off of the plains of concrete and rebar, floating off, some to the ether of the web, others into the purgatory of bankruptcy, many into liquidation and nonexistence.
Proof that the habit patterns of discretionary income spending could cause extinction events for whole sectors of the economy.
As she rounded the corner, she was very aware that she was attempting to distract herself with inane thoughts, and hey, that was fucking self-care, thank you very much. Just like the two guys she had gone out and fucked last night. And the eleven pints of Häagen-Dazs she had woofed back over the course of the last few hours. And the $119,863.95 she had put on her American Express black card at NeimanMarcus.com.
“Thank you for your help tonight,” he hedged.
Her long exhale told him his dodge disappointed her. “I’m sorry I followed you.”
“I’m sorry I put you in a position of having to.” He smiled a little. “Look at us, apologizing left and right.”
“Are you well?” She motioned over her head. “Your injury was quite severe.”
Lassiter banged on his skull with a fist. “Right as rain—”
She put her hands out. “Do not hurt yourself further!”
“You know, you might have a point.” He rubbed the spot as his head pounded a little. “Seriously, though. I’m okay.”
Rahvyn finally came all the way up to him. And when he reached out his palm, she hesitated—but then took what he offered in a firm grip.
“I am… very sorry,” he whispered.
As the words came out of his mouth, he was aware that only he knew their full significance. Only he knew he was apologizing for being a coward. For being ashamed. For… needing an external impetus to act on his heart’s desire.
“For what do you apologize,” she said.
“Running from you.” And himself. “I don’t… I’d like to stop running. That’s why I’m not going anywhere. That’s what’s changed.”
Funny, that demon had robbed him of so much, but she’d given him a kind of gift as well. If allowing himself to fully fall for Rahvyn got them all where they needed to be with Devina? Then yes, he did feel as though he had permission to be selfish and express his emotions, let himself go.
Kind of a fucked-up way to heal, wasn’t it.
Rahvyn leaned her hip against the mattress. “What about the others.”
“You mean Eddie and Adrian?” As her face tightened, he switched his grip and stroked the inside of her wrist. “I’m not worried about them and neither should you. I’ll take care of it.”
“All right,” she said as she nodded.
A strange sensation uncoiled in his chest, warm and loose, and he went with it. “I think it’s time for me to get out of this bed.”
With a groan, he sat all the way up and started shifting his legs out from under the thin sheets. Things were going great—until his bare feet hit the floor and he realized he was naked.
“Ah…” He glanced around. “Clothes.”
“Oh.”
The flush that hit Rahvyn’s face put color back in her cheeks, and he had to fight not to reach up and touch her hair—and then his eyes lingered on her lips. He wanted to kiss her. He always wanted to kiss her.
Except even as an anticipation thickened his blood, memories of Devina came between them, sure as if the images and echoed sensations were bricks that were tangible, his revulsion the mortar that made solid that which was all in his mind.
Fuck you, Devina, he thought.
“Can I take you somewhere beautiful?” he said hoarsely.
Squaring her shoulders, Rahvyn cleared her throat. “You do not have to be nice to me just because I tried to help.”
“That’s not why I’m being nice to you.”
Rahvyn opened her mouth. Then closed it again. When she crossed her arms over her chest, he could feel the distance return.
“Indeed, I am more accustomed to your departures than your presence,” she said roughly. “Therefore you will understand my hesitation. The only thing more painful than your leaving is the prospect of getting further attached only to have you disappear once more.”
“Further?” he prompted.
“I have made no secret of my…”
When she shook her head sharply, he hung on, hoping to hear the words he wanted her to speak. That was such bullshit, though. She was right. He had been more reliable for his absences than a male who deserved her inner thoughts.
“I haven’t stopped thinking of you,” he said. “I might have been gone, but I took you with me.”
She looked up. “For true?”
He nodded slowly. “On my soul, for true. And I just want to take you to a place that’s peaceful. There’s been too much drama tonight. Too much… pain, for too long.”
And that was the God’s honest on so many levels.
Rahvyn tensed her shoulders, as if she were leaping off into waters that might prove to be too shallow. “I would like that.”
Lassiter started to smile. “After I get some pants on, of course.”
* * *
This place was a fetid mess.
Back in downtown Caldwell’s seedier zip code, where most of the structures were abandoned and humans with good sense didn’t venture out after dark, Lash regarded the entryway of a filthy, four-level walk-up with all the enthusiasm he’d have greeted an outhouse in the wilderness. The building was Victorian in derivation, with bays on each floor that extended forward, and ornamentation at the eaves, but the shithole showed every bit of its age, city sludge striping down its facade, chips out of its stone steps, slates missing from its roof.
As a cold breeze weaved around his legs, a woman screamed an obscenity somewhere behind him and there was a crash. Then the wind changed direction and he caught a whiff of human urine and rotten food.
Imagining that stench in August, he reflected on how he had grown up, in a mansion full of doggen, every need anticipated and tended to, the decor gleaming of generational wealth, the voices in the grand rooms soft and accented with the proper lilt that only came with distilled knowledge and privilege—
A blaring horn cut through his replay of things long past, and then a vehicle barreled around a corner a couple of blocks down and headed in their direction.
“I want that SUV,” he ordered his subordinate. “Get it.”
“What?”
For a split second, he nearly slapped the dumb bastard security guard he’d turned outside Devina’s version of Bergdorf’s. But both his hands were busy with his duffle bags of stolen weapons and gear. The Dick’s Sporting Goods they’d broken into and five-finger-discounted had dressed them both properly and given them some basic armaments. It hadn’t done shit for the raw material that was not in the dipshit beside him.
“Get. That. SUV—”
“How do I—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Drop your haul and stop the fucking thing.”
The command was followed with all the gumption of a teenager, a muted metal clanging chiming on both sides of the moron, after which Lash’s one and only inductee into the Lessening Society loafed out into the middle of the road. As the slayer put both hands up and winced, like he was trying to bring a baby buggy to a standstill and worried about his fucking shins, Lash wondered how, in a city of two-million-plus humans, he’d managed to recruit such a total waste of space.
But the lame-ass got the job done.
The blacked-out Suburban hit its brakes, and there was no moment of confusion for its driver and passenger. Without missing a beat, two men put down their windows, stuck their guns out—and opened fire, the pop-pop-pop echoing around the decrepit Grand Canyon of the street.
Now that is more like it, Lash thought.
His slayer was hit in the chest too many times to count, a three-D torso target getting practiced on by a pair of experts. And talk about cinematic. Spotlit by the headlights, the security-guard-now-lesser’s arms raised up as he jerked to the rhythm of the impacts, the assault salsa driving him back until he fell over onto the pavement.
As the stinging aroma of gunpowder and weed replaced the neighborhood’s piss scent, laughter bubbled out of those open windows.
When Lash dropped his duffles, the driver looked over at the clanking, and a pair of dark eyes narrowed in a way that suggested a new target had been isolated and identified. It was not possible to assess the man’s height, but the shoulders were thick and so was the tattooed neck. More than that, the cunning stare and the way the guy was so comfortable using his firearm affirmed value.
“You owe me,” Lash said.
The human shifted the muzzle of his autoloader over so that it was pointed toward Lash’s torso. “You want some?”
“Yes,” Lash drawled, “I do.”
There was a moment of pause, as if the response was a surprise. And then the human began to empty what was left in his clip.
Walking forward, Lash put out his palm and collected the slugs one by one, their trajectories shifting as they were called home by the center of his hand, the jingling sweet and soft as the projectiles collected in a little lead puppy pile.
The trigger finger that had been so busy eased off, and as a swill of gaseous emissions curled up from the tip of the gun, Lash closed a grip around the payload.
“What the fuck…” the human breathed.
On the far side of the driver, the passenger was pulling a pole-axe, too, his stare wide in the glow of the dash.
“Do you want to live forever,” Lash said in a low voice.
“Get the fuck back, man—”
“I asked you a question.” Lash stopped at point-blank range, and to help things along, he positioned the human’s arm so that the muzzle of the gun was precisely in the center of his own chest. “What is your answer. Do you want to live forever.”
When the driver tried to yank the weapon away, Lash put his thumb on the forefinger that was wrapped around the trigger—and forced the discharge of the last bullet in the magazine.
The sound was loud at such close range, the impact such that Lash’s entire body jerked. Ah, yes, .45s packed quite a punch.
He held those dark eyes the entire time, not even blinking.
On the far side of the center console, the guy riding shotgun decided he was done: “I’m out!”
As the man fumbled for the door release, Lash glanced over and willed the lock to hold tight. Meanwhile, out in front of the grille, the lesser who’d played Smith & Wesson pincushion sat up on the pavement and pulled open the hunting jacket that draped his soft body. Looking down at his sternum, he probed the black ooze that was staining the front of his camouflage t-shirt.
“What… the fuck is…” The driver did not finish. Could not finish.
Prepared to settle the debate, Lash worked his shoulders, rolling them back and forth; then he swallowed, over and over again. Finally, he coughed into his hand.
“Would you like this back,” he said as he offered the man’s bullet to him.
The guy made the sign of the cross over his sternum. “Madre de Dios. What are you.”
Over the flapping of the passenger, who was pumping the door handle like he was performing CPR on that side of the SUV, Lash said, “You don’t need to worry about that. All you have to answer is one simple question.”
“Wh… wha… what?”
“Do you want to live forever.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was around ten a.m. the following morning that Beth, née Randall, mated of Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, rushed down the subterranean tunnel to the back entrance into the training center. When she got to the reinforced steel door, she shifted her son onto her other hip so she could punch in a passcode. As the copper lock retracted, she glanced over her shoulder with a sickening feeling.
“We’re here,” she said to Wrath. Even though he would already know that by the shifting sounds.
Opening the heavy panel and revealing the supply closet, she propped the weight with her whole body and tried to get herself out of the way.
Wrath was big under any circumstances. Carrying his beloved golden in his arms, he required even more space—but just like the announcement of their arrival, any commentary on how he was going to have to duck and curl around the dog to squeeze past the reams of papers and the stacks of folders, pen boxes, and printer cartridges was unnecessary. Though his eyes did not function anymore, his senses always fired on all cylinders, and sure enough, he navigated through the jambs with no problem, turning to the side, lowering his stance, shuffling George into the cramped space.
Now it was Wrath’s turn to play wallflower, and he was less successful than she’d been at shrinking. As he pressed back against the shelving, she wedged by with L.W. and opened the way into the office.
On the far side of Tohr’s administrative space, she did her duty for the last time with a glass panel, and the second they stepped into the concrete tunnel that ran the length of the facility, Doc Jane leaned out of one of the clinic’s doorways.
“Down here,” V’s mate urged.
Wrath led the way now, and Beth checked on how their son was doing because there was nothing she could do about any of this and sometimes you needed to feel like you could help something, someone. Her son was rock-solid. Even though they’d woken L.W. up and disturbed his sleep, he wasn’t crying and cranky. He was staring forward at his father and the dog with those grave, now-green eyes of his, his expression that of an adult who recognized that something was very wrong with the dog—and if anything happened to George, his father, the King, was never going to get over—
Stop it, she told herself.
George was fine. The animal was young, only what, five years old? Six, tops? It just felt like he and Wrath had been a pair for a lifetime, the two of them so symbiotic in their movements and silent communication it was as if they were one person.
Grath. Weorge.
Whatever.
The golden was probably just suffering from an upset stomach. No doubt he’d been slipped something at Last Meal by Fritz. The household’s elderly butler had a thing for him, but who didn’t? Heck, maybe Rhage had given him a gallon of ice cream under the table.
“Thanks for this,” Wrath said in a grave voice as he came up to Doc Jane.
“No problem. I just hope I can help.”
Wrath did another duck and shuffle, and then they were all in the exam room together. To locate the table, he moved more slowly now, shifting his hold on the blond-furred bundle of paws and tail, putting one arm out, his hand at waist level. When his fingertips came in contact with the examination bed, he explored the contours, got a bead on its dimensions, and gently laid the dog on the padded cushion.
“So what have we got,” Jane said as she unlooped her stethoscope and went to stroke George’s head. “We’re not feeling so hot?”
The golden offered her a lackadaisical nudge with his muzzle and a half-hearted wag.
“There’s something wrong with him, but I don’t know what it is,” Wrath said. “He sleeps next to us on his bed. About twenty minutes ago, I woke up because I heard him whimper and I found him sitting in this really weird position, all braced forward, his mouth open though he wasn’t panting. He kept whimpering, like… he was trying to tell me something was wrong.”
Beth went over and sat in one of the chairs against the long wall. Settling L.W. on her lap, she made sure he was facing outward so he could see what was happening. He’d never been a kid to cuddle into a chest, seek comfort on a shoulder, nuzzle into the neck. He wanted to be confronting whatever was before him.
Not exploring. Confronting.
“Well, I’m not a vet,” Jane murmured as she plugged her ears with her instrument. “But let’s take a look at our breathing and our heart rate.”
As Wrath went to stand at his head, George licked his master’s hand, as if he were trying to be brave—and when Wrath murmured to him, the golden laid his head back down, his mouth going slack, his breathing slow and irregular.
“He’s going to be okay,” Beth murmured in her son’s ear.
L.W. didn’t pay any attention to her. He just stared at his father as Wrath stayed right by his dog, his dagger hand on George’s head.
“I’m just going to take a listen, good boy,” Jane murmured as she pressed the metal disk around the area right behind George’s elbow.
When she frowned and kept moving the stethoscope around, Beth’s stomach did another bottom-out, like she was on a rollercoaster that was flying over a dip in its rails.
“What is it?” Wrath asked, like he’d caught the shift in the doctor’s energy.
Jane didn’t answer him. She lifted George’s jowl and peered at his gums.
They were gray.
Oh, God, Beth thought.
This wasn’t indigestion. The dog was dying.
* * *
Mortals, particularly of the human variety, existed in such a narrow bandwidth of understanding.
This was a good thing, Devina reflected as she re-formed at a secluded exterior corner of the Galleria Mall’s T-rex footprint. Such ignorance and all its blinded bliss kept nonessentials out of the way, and if things had to be done in their midst, camo and cover-up was much, much easier than dealing with supernaturals.
On that note, she brushed at her black leather pants and rearranged the form-fitting black cashmere sweater she’d changed into. Even though it was April, there was a nip in the air this morning, and besides, wearing a bustier for this investigation felt too close to the desperation that was squeezing her tits.
Squeezing not in a good way.
Glancing up, she noted the skies were laden with clouds, the sun’s warmth nowhere to be felt, the churning weather promising a cold, bracing rain.
So the vibe was right, according to her mood.
Stepping out of the shadows, she proceeded down the sidewalk, measuring the acres of empty parking lot. The Jurassic Park metaphor was apt on another level. These dying shopping centers were dinosaurs in retail fact as well as scale, their anchor stores lifting up off of the plains of concrete and rebar, floating off, some to the ether of the web, others into the purgatory of bankruptcy, many into liquidation and nonexistence.
Proof that the habit patterns of discretionary income spending could cause extinction events for whole sectors of the economy.
As she rounded the corner, she was very aware that she was attempting to distract herself with inane thoughts, and hey, that was fucking self-care, thank you very much. Just like the two guys she had gone out and fucked last night. And the eleven pints of Häagen-Dazs she had woofed back over the course of the last few hours. And the $119,863.95 she had put on her American Express black card at NeimanMarcus.com.
