Lassiter, page 22
Lassiter tried to imagine the scene without George’s gentle presence.
And couldn’t.
God… he loved Rahvyn so damned much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Down in the Brotherhood’s training center, the knock upon the recovery room door was soft and respectful—yet Rahvyn sat up in a rush and put her hand to her skipping heart.
“Yes?” she said over the thumping in her chest.
Although what exactly did she think was coming through that door?
Ehlena, the clinic’s nurse, put her head in. The female had strawberry blond hair and toffee-colored eyes, and always seemed, with her warm smile, a calming and competent presence.
“Hi! You still okay?” When Rahvyn nodded, the female pointed to the bedside table. “You’ve got a call on the phone there? It was transferred in from the main switchboard. Just push the blinking light and pick up.”
“Oh.” She glanced over at the unit. “Oh, thank you.”
“No worries. And remember, I’m just two doors down if you need anything.”
After the female gave a little wave and ducked out, Rahvyn looked at the telephone that sat on the bedside table. She had seen such landlines in use at Luchas House, and yet she had to remind herself how to pick up the heavy handheld unit that linked one’s ear and mouth. When there was no sound, she remembered—the light. She pushed the little square and there was a clicking and a quiet hiss.
“Hello?” she said.
“Rahvyn?”
She frowned. “Shuli?” As the male started speaking, a distortion cut into the connection. “Shuli, I’m having difficulty hearing you—”
“—where are you?”
“In the Brotherhood’s clinic. Is there something wrong?” Stupid question. She might not be able to hear all his words, but the tension in his voice was obvious. “Are you okay—”
There was a crackling that made her flinch and take the phone away from her ear. When she put the unit back, he was much more clear.
“I need your help with Nate,” the male said. “He’s gone off the rails. Maybe you can talk to him.”
“Where is he?” Another stupid question. “Where are you, rather?”
“Outside his house. He just took off.” Now with a fuzzy sound, as if perhaps he were in a breeze that had just intensified. “He says he’s going to go get drunk. I think you’re the only one who can reach him. He’s fucking lost it.”
This was all her fault. “But wherever did he go?”
“Out to the clubs somewhere. Do you know his address? Come here and meet me, we’ll look for him together.”
“I’m afraid that at one point, he told me where he lived, but I disregarded the coordinates?”
There was a pause. “Okay, meet me at Dandelion. You remember where that is, right? We’ll start there.”
As her gut tightened, she thought about suggesting they convene somewhere, anywhere else. “All right. I shall leave the now.”
“You’re sure you know where the club is?”
Between one blink and the next, she saw Nate falling to his knees onto the sidewalk, a small hole in the front of his sweatshirt, a haunted look in his eyes, her name leaving his lips on a gasp.
“As if I can forget,” she said roughly.
“Okay, I’m going to move my car and then dematerialize over. Gimme ten minutes.”
She was about to tell him to be careful when the call was cut.
After replacing the heavy plastic communicator in its cradle, she shifted off the bed and looked down at herself. She had put on some of those baggy blue clothes for comfort, but her jeans and sweater were folded on the chair, and she quickly changed back into them.
When she stepped out into the hallway, she heard people talking a couple of doors down, but she was disinclined to ask for directions to depart from the facility. Closing her eyes, she carried herself away, not in the method of dematerialization, but in her fashion, whereupon she stepped through time and molecular space, entering that nether region of a boundary that buffered and protected the here and now from existential manipulation, similar to how the atmosphere insulated the earth from the cold void of space.
Having transferred her energy thus, it was the work of a moment to step back out of the boundary.
Across the street from what would always be a place of horror to her.
The club Dandelion was as it had been that night Nate had been shot—but as if she should have expected it to be different? It was the same spring green entrance, the same human man in the green and brown uniform, the same wording over the door and line of people awaiting admittance.
“Hey.”
Rahvyn jumped and spun around. “Oh. Hello.”
Nate’s best friend was as different from him as could be, and as with Dandelion, that had not changed, even though, given the course of events, it felt as though everything should be altered, the bellwethers of the young male’s appearance and countenance transformed in material ways.
Alas, the tiger-print silken shirt and the fine suede pants, like the gold watch that gleamed upon the wrist, were exactly the sartorial theme of wealth and eccentricity she associated with Shuli. His face did seem to have aged, however, the jocular insouciance nowhere to be seen in the well-bred planes and angles that stared back at her. And the pants had dirt stains on the knees and tendrils of foliage clinging unto their soft nap. He rather looked as though he had been through a physical trial as well as a mental one.
“I need to know something first,” he said.
“Whatever is that?”
“What did you do to him back at the clinic,” the male demanded. “And before you tell me it was CPR, I just watched him shoot himself in the head tonight and then walk away like it never happened. That ain’t normal.”
Rahvyn put her hands over her eyes, sure as if such violence was before her and she was seeking to avoid its gruesome visuals. “Oh, Nate…”
“That night the meteor supposedly hit the ground out in the forest behind Luchas House—that wasn’t a fucking rock from space, was it. That was you, coming from fuck all knows where. He and I saw you in the crowd that night and you were the only one who wasn’t ooh’ing and ahh’ing. What the fuck are you and what did you do to my friend.”
Dropping her arms, she looked across the street at the club just as a line of automobiles came at once, released at the head of the block by a light that had gone green.
“He’s lost himself,” Shuli said gruffly. “You brought back somebody different than who he was.”
“No, his soul is as always the one you knew.” Although she feared the experience had irreparably reshaped him. “But now is not the time for inquiry. We must find him.”
As she started to cross the street, Shuli grabbed her arm and loomed over her. “You owe me an explanation.”
She nodded. “After we make sure he’s safe.”
Having arrived at an accord, together they jogged across the four lanes, and as they approached the human who guarded the entry of the club, the man winced and put his hand up to his head as if in pain: Ah, yes, erased memories, trying to surface. They were always uncomfortable.
Shuli stepped forward, and took something out of his pocket. “My guy.”
When he held his hand out, the guard put his own palm forward, even as he blinked like he was having difficulty focusing his eyes.
“G’head,” the man in the green shirt said.
Rahvyn looked the human in the face, remembering how, just prior to the shooting, she had rushed over to him when he had been lying on the concrete no more than a couple of feet away. And then the gun went off and Nate fell unto his knees and said her name—
“Let’s do this,” Shuli muttered as he pulled her through the door after him.
Inside, she had the clear sense of a beat of music and the vague impression of all the flowers. The latter were on the walls in vases of countless varieties, and along the base of the counter that ran the entire length of the club. Behind that divider, more were slotted between the bottles of libations that lined a long set of shelves, and the ceiling was likewise bouquet’d with them.
They were all fake, however, just silk petals and plastic stems. She had investigated them during that fateful night, and had been disappointed that they were but an illusion.
Meanwhile, encouraged by the electronic rhythm, humans were pec-to-breast on the dance floor, moving to the waving music that was unlike anything that had been produced during her time. Among the density of bodies, she searched for Nate, his height and broad shoulders a combination that should have been easy to spot, and she was aware that there were vampires interspersed with the other species, her kind unnoticed by the men and women, but instantly recognized among those who were like her.
No Nate, however.
“Come on, we need to go down the bar,” Shuli announced as he drew her forth.
All kinds of patrons were crowded up to the counter, bunching in mini-groups of two and three, the ones in pairs looking into each other’s eyes as they waited for drinks that were pink, green, and yellow. There was such a chaos to the environment, with all the people milling about, a charged air of anticipation buzzing along with the strange treble notes and thunderous bass percussions piped in from overhead. When she had first come that night, she had wondered how such noise would facilitate greeting and socialization. But then she had realized that the deafening volume required the men and women to lean into each other to hear and be heard.
And that was the point.
At the far end, where money was exchanged for the drinks, Shuli shook his head. “He’s got to be here. He hasn’t been to any other clubs really, and none of the hard-core ones are his vibe. Wait while I check the bathroom. And don’t leave if you find him.”
Shuli urged her over to the start of a hallway, and as she resumed her scanning, he strode into the dim chute and disappeared through a door.
Crossing her arms, she felt within her a restlessness rooted in her regrets. Unable to stay where she was, she processed down the hall a little—and was promptly interrupted by a pair of women emerging from the females’ bathroom in a collective giggle and whiff of mingled perfume.
“Oh, sorry—”
“ ’Scuse us—”
Tripping and recovering their balance by turns, they collaborated their way back to the dance floor.
Rahvyn looked to the door Shuli had pushed through, but knew she could not breach its barrier.
“—my ex. That’s who—”
“Ah, fuck, you’re a pussy-whipped fool—”
“You don’t know what she’s like.”
“No, I remember all the reasons you broke up with her.”
As the pair of male voices registered, she glanced back toward the club proper. Two vampires were coming toward her, and they were dressed… well, like Shuli, in pastel silk shirts and thin-legged slacks. They did a double take when they noticed her, but nodded as they passed. Acknowledging them with a dip of the head, she watched them continue all the way down to a solid steel door with a glowing red EXIT sign above it. There was a brief flash of light as the portal was opened, and in the glow, one of the males took out what appeared to be a small pipe. Then things closed, the illumination cutting off—
A woman came out of the males’ room, and stopped in the process of pushing her breasts back into place under a tight pink bodice. Her blond-streaked hair was tangled, and after adjusting her upper body, she attended to her tresses, her hands shoving the waves around in a similar fashion.
Her perfume registered first, fruity and overpowering. But under it… there was a scent that was instantly recognizable—
Nate didn’t so much exit the males’ room as he was pushed through the door by Shuli, and his stumble in the hall was something he didn’t right with any alacrity. He just let the momentum take him where it did, the opposite wall of the corridor halting him.
There was lipstick around his mouth and his hair was tousled. Unlike the woman, he didn’t bother fixing either. His cologne was… gin, she believed it was.
“—don’t know what you’re bitched about,” he was saying as he shoved himself around. “This is what you always want me to do. Come out and drink. Get fucked. Bust my cherry—”
Nate broke off the tirade as he saw her. Then he glared at Shuli. “Fuck you.”
With an abrupt coordination, Nate marched off in the direction of the red EXIT sign—and Rahvyn didn’t need any urging to follow him.
“Nate,” she called out. “Wait!”
As he punched his way free of the club, there was that flash of light again, and Rahvyn caught the door as it started to close. Absently, she noted there was a red and white sign on the panel: “Emergency Use Only—Alarm Will Sound.”
There was no ringing to be heard against the backdrop of the dimmed music. Then again, there was enough of a warning screaming in her head so she could cover it on her own.
Outside, there was an open area of asphalt on which a collection of rather battered vehicles were parked, the rears of the other buildings facing on other streets forming a gritty, dirty courtyard. The two vampires who had gone by her were in a tight clutch over on the left, huddling in the shadows around the smoking instrument which they passed back and forth.
Nate was heading in their direction, and when she called out his name again, he spun around and jabbed a finger at her.
“No. I’m not doing this.”
She rushed over, and tried to catch his hand. “Nate, listen to me—”
“Oh, I listened plenty.” He held his arms out of her reach. “I got your voicemail. Real poignant shit, thanks for the sign-off. So what the hell are you doing back here.”
“May we go somewhere to talk—”
“You’ve said plenty. We’re done—”
Shuli came up to them. “Look, I’m just worried about you—”
“I am not your problem!”
As a fetid scent came over on the breeze, Rahvyn glanced back toward the other vampires, and thought perhaps it was whatever they were imbibing in.
No, that wasn’t it.
“Shh,” she hissed as Nate and Shuli got louder in their argumentation. “What is that smell.”
It was like a dead animal… and a certain… sweetness.
“That’s a lesser!” she exclaimed.
“Nah, the war is dead,” Nate said in a bored tone. “I got to hear alllll about the triumph.”
At that moment, something came around the corner of the club. Bent over, shuffling, oozing a black, glistening substance, the undead stopped beside the pair of vampires who were passing that pipe back and forth. Its hair was dark, its clothing stained, its condition such that one wondered how it remained upon its feet—
As Shuli cried out a name, the deadly attack was so fast, neither of the males had time to react.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Standing outside the Gucci boutique in Saks, Devina wondered whether she’d conjured an image of Lash out of thin air, her unassuaged angst creating its own kind of Band-Aid on things she couldn’t control or change by making him the fuck up. Except then she scented him and watched as his eyes narrowed like he was as surprised as she that they’d run into each other.
And come on, if she were pulling this shit out of her ass, her created-Lash would have prostrated himself on the polished marble floor, gone into a seizure of forgive-me-for-being-a-douchebag, and kissed her feet.
As opposed to stand there all annoyed like she was some stranger killing his vibe.
“What the hell are you doing here.” In response to his rude demand, she tossed his question back at him. As if this Saks Fifth Avenue was her own private backyard and he was the one crashing the party.
Her lover’s autocratic brows arched. “I’m getting a suit.”
With a spear of pain, she thought of him showing up to her lair with those red roses. It had been mere nights past, but felt like a lifetime ago. “You already have one.”
“You ripped it off me, remember.”
“That was you—”
“Maybe I did the shirt. But tearing the pants was all you.”
Memories of them naked and straining, sweaty and desperate, made her blink quick as she wondered who he was dressing up for. And fucking hell, but he looked good. His blond hair had been tousled by the wind, the waves thick and pale over his high forehead. Likewise, his cheeks were flushed as if he’d been outdoors, and she wanted to know what he had been doing for the last twenty-four hours with an aggression as if the information, like him, was her property.
“Why are you here,” he said.
“Excuse me? This is my store.”
“I was unaware your last name was Avenue.”
She pointed over his shoulder, toward the exit. “You can go get what you need at Macy’s. Matter of fact, you can get the fuck out of Caldwell.”
“So can you.”
Devina leaned forward. “The reason you’re back on this planet is because I summoned you with that spell.”
His eyes dipped down to her cleavage for a split second. Then he looked at her breasts again—and everything about the involuntary movement was a weakness on his part.
Well, what do you know. The antidote to her anger was him wanting her, even if he didn’t like it. Especially if he didn’t like it.
“Why do you need a suit,” she said in a calmer tone.
“I have a meeting.”
“Job interview? As a fuck boy?”
As he cocked that arrogant eyebrow of his, she wasn’t about to tell him that if he said “date,” there would be a whole lot of ruined retail space around them both. And what a loss of some good Italian leatherwork, the chain barrier notwithstanding.
“What kind of meeting,” she pressed.
“Have a good night,” he drawled as he started walking for the escalator.
“You still want to fuck me,” she ground out.
She assumed he would just ignore her, but he stopped. Put his hands on his hips. Stared off toward the Prada kiosk like if he could have changed one thing about himself, it would have been the fact that, yes, he wanted to bang her until they were both dripping.
