Lassiter, page 27
A piece of glass had carved a jagged hole in his sole, and he picked it out with a grimace. As silver blood welled, he tossed the shard over his shoulder.
“You okay?” Ad asked. “You need a Band-Aid?”
“I’m good.” Staring at the wound, he watched as it sealed itself up. Then he looked at the pair. “So that happened.”
And he wasn’t talking about his boo-boo.
Eddie’s expression was reserved, his burgundy eyes hooded, his mouth tight. “Helluva night.”
“Nothing out of the norm.” Lassiter put his foot back down on the cold pavement. “Sometimes I feel like Caldwell, New York, is the starship Enterprise, everyone grabbing on to consoles to stay upright, shields failing, Scotty screaming that he’s giving the engines all he’s got as Kirk barks orders and redshirts die.”
He glanced to the exit of the club. The bloodstains were still on the pavement where the male had died.
“So, no,” he said gruffly, “I’m not going to leave this. And it’s not just about Rahvyn.”
The words that came back at him from Eddie were soft and defeated: “I feel for you. I really do.”
But clearly, the angel was going to hold his course with his mission, even if Ad was next door, shaking his head like he disagreed with that decision.
“Okay, fine.” Lassiter shrugged. “But I’m not going with you. Tell the Creator you found me. Tell Him where I am, even though He obviously already knows it. He’s going to have to come get me Himself, and I’m going to fight Him tooth and nail.”
In the pause that followed, he was ready for an argument. Instead, Eddie just nodded once. “Will do.”
Then the angel put his hand out.
After a moment, Lassiter clasped the palm that was offered, “Thank you.”
Eddie shrugged as they released their grips. “It’s not exactly a gift.”
“But at least you see where I’m coming from. You know my history. I’ve been a fuck about for eons. Finally, though, I’m where I can do some good, even if it breaks the rules on occasion.”
Off in the distance, a siren bubbled through the night. A human shouted a greeting. A car was started. And meanwhile, in the club, the thumping music continued, and he thought of the men and women inside—and vampires—all of whom were still drinking and yukking it up and dancing.
Like nothing had happened.
Then again, in their lives, nothing had.
Talk about different planes of existence.
“I didn’t think it was going to end this way,” Eddie said, “I gotta confess.”
Lassiter smiled at the other angel. “Oh, come on. When have I ever done anything I was supposed to.”
“No, I didn’t think you’d find… a family. With anybody. And that’s what this is, for you. For them. The vampires have embraced you and you the same. It makes this hard because what are they going to do after you’re gone.”
Goddamn, he didn’t want to think about that.
“Could you do me a favor?” he said.
“Yeah,” Eddie replied. “I’ll wait to tell Him for a little bit. But I can’t keep it to myself forever.”
“Twenty-four hours. If you could just give me a full day and night.”
After a moment, Eddie nodded. “You got it. Twenty-four hours.”
Ad stepped up. “It was good to see you again.”
As the guy pulled things in for a hug, Lassiter said over that heavy shoulder, “You’re lying now.”
“Not this time.”
As they stepped back, they both looked up. Overhead, and in spite of the ambient illumination of the city, a shooting star flared in an arc, bright enough to beat the glow of electricity.
He knew damn well that Rahvyn had arrived on the night that a meteor had supposedly landed in the forest behind Luchas House.
With a sickening dread, he thought… it looked like she had left in similar fashion.
Maybe his going back to the Creator wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
It wasn’t like he had death, in the traditional sense, to look forward to.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Tracking the box van into the property, Lash was very careful to stay downwind and out of sight as he re-formed behind a hedge that had been pruned into the shape of a rabbit up on its hind legs. With his aggression firing on all cylinders, disappearing himself wasn’t possible, so he was glad that his new suit was dark gray—and to make sure that he wasn’t seen, he unbuttoned his white shirt and pushed it into the jacket’s confines so it didn’t create a visual clue. Then he disappeared himself up to the next topiary—a lion. And after that, the third in line, which was a—well, he wasn’t sure what it was.
Maybe the gardener had had a stroke halfway through the trimming. There was a gopher feel to things, but also a raccoon vibe, although neither was the kind of fauna typical of pretentious property owners.
As he continued on, he was careful to stay waaaaay back. He was alone and there was no backup coming, and as much as he would have loved a fight with one of the Brothers who had taught him everything he knew, he needed the intel more. Members of the Brotherhood were precious commodities, so if Vishous was out and about in the world?
This had to be important, and he had to know what was going on.
The estate’s layout was not dissimilar to that of the one Lash had just tried on for size, the drive long and winding, the gardens professionally cultivated and maintained. The mansion was a Tudor replica, but it had been built in the early twenties—of the previous century—so there weren’t the cheap materials, distorted angles, and rinky-dink details of new McMansions. And this was a vampire house. Had to be, if Vishous himself was tooling up and making some kind of a delivery.
A glymera family that had somehow escaped Lash’s raids.
He must know the owners from his previous life, but he hadn’t ever been here before—so this had to be something that had been purchased as a relocation after all the aristocratic landholdings had been compromised when he’d attacked them.
The van drove directly up to the front entrance and the mansion’s door was opened, not by a servant, but by a female in a gown. She was all done up, her hair in orderly waves, diamonds at her throat and wrists, even white gloves to her elbows. Her makeup was a mess, however, black streaks melting down her face, her lipstick partially wiped across her jaw. She stumbled as she ran out to the back of the van, one of her heels flipping off her foot, her stride going entirely lopsided. A male in a tuxedo quickly caught up with her, and all but carried the female the rest of the way.
Vishous disembarked from behind the wheel, and as he went to meet the pair at the rear of the vehicle, he scanned the environs. He was heavily weaponized, those black daggers on his chest, multiple guns holstered on his waist, extra ammo locked in at the small of his back. He wasn’t wearing a Kevlar vest, and there was no leather jacket to cover the show.
He had come directly from the field.
One by one, other Brothers arrived, re-forming out of the darkness, and he recognized them from his time at their training center: Zsadist and Phury, the twins who looked alike except for the hair and that scar; Tohrment, the second-in-command who had disappeared for a while, but was clearly back; Rhage with his movie star looks and blond hair. They formed a protective semicircle around the tableau of suffering.
To get a better look, Lash dematerialized to another position, ever mindful of which way the wind was blowing. And as a gurney with a body in a bag was rolled out the back, he caught the scent—
Baby powder and rancid meat.
“What the fuck,” he breathed.
As a shot of pure fury went through him, his hand instinctively went to the hunting knife at his belt. But he didn’t follow through on any attack—because what the hell had his subordinates gotten into while he’d been at Saks?
See what happens when you bang demons in department stores? a disapproving voice pointed out in the back of his head.
And then he realized… the sinking spell he’d just had. Had one of his lessers been stabbed back to him? If that was the reason for his collapse, he was going to need to get over that shit quick.
As a trickle-down of implications made him growl softly, he cut the sound. What he did not need right now was a one-on-five fight with the Brothers. Yes, he was the very definition of special weapons and tactics, but he’d just weebled his wobble and he was monstrously outnumbered.
Plus it wasn’t like there was any cavalry he could call. Not yet.
God only knew what the Lessening Society had gotten into behind his back.
The body was rolled over to the entry of the mansion by Vishous, the other Brothers processing behind what had to be the parents at a discreet distance as doggen spilled out of the glow of the house, the weeping audible, many of the maids, cooks, and chauffeurs grasping on to each other.
In this moment of sad arrival, there was unity between upstairs and downstairs, and as the remains were taken inside, the wave of grief receded along with the deceased into the interior, the door shutting behind them all, including the flanks of Brothers.
With the cargo transfer complete, an elderly figure got out of the passenger front of the van, walked around the rear, got behind the wheel, and started off on a departure.
Well, wasn’t this an unexpected gift.
Lash recognized the old doggen from the training center program. His name was Fritz, and he had not only supervised the cleaning of the facility, but performed the pickups and drop-offs of trainees, and provided food for breaks. He was the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s butler.
And servants went home.
Didn’t they.
* * *
As Rahvyn stood before the last of the training center’s barricades, she still wasn’t sure whether she was going to go inside. Though she had come through all of the previous gates, from the ones that were made to look like nothing more than rotting wood rails to the later, far sturdier constructions, at each pause point, her internal debate had escalated.
And now she was here, in the oddly buffered forest landscape, before the most vigorous of the collection, the concrete and steel-meshed fortification so intimidating, so vast, so solid, surely an army could not breach its dimensions.
She supposed she could have tried to enter through the venting system by dematerializing. That seemed risky, however, given that there had to be steel mesh set within it. And yes, she could have returned as she had departed, working through the planes of existence. The truth was, she felt like she needed the time to think.
’Twas fortunate that she had surmised the physical location from her previous excursion.
As an owl hooted overhead, and a cold breeze curled around her legs, she hunkered into her sweater and glanced up the towering expanse of the gate. As she felt minutes go by, she thought, alas, it appeared she was going to have a sufficiency of rumination opportunity unless someone permitted her entrance. There were plenty of cameras mounted where she could see them—and undoubtedly where she could not—
The clunk and quiet whirring suggested that she had been approved for entry, and as the reinforced panels slowly slid back, she did not need to wait for them to complete their retraction. She was not a double-wide vehicle and could fit well enough with only a narrow space.
She waited anyway.
No more dithering, she thought. In or out.
Yes… or no.
In the end, her body made the decision, her feet starting to walk again, her mind and her emotions following suit because, no matter how many powers she possessed, she had yet to be able to separate the two.
As soon as she cleared the threshold, the great gates began to close once more and she glanced behind herself to watch them. When they resealed, she faced what was before her, a gradual descent, the stretch of road continuing forth. Flat banks of lights set into the ceiling, and also the concrete walls, illuminated the way, and as she proceeded forth, her footfalls echoed all around, a lonely sound. The air smelled like chalk, and the farther she went, the warmer things became, and the louder the conversation in her head grew.
Pros and cons, though the decision had already been arrived at—
Rahvyn stopped.
The figure ahead was unmistakable, that blond-and-black hair a dead giveaway—and then Lassiter’s scent reached her nose. She breathed it in deep.
And liked it.
They were both silent as they came forward, and when they finally were face to face, she had a thought about the two halves of the gate behind her finding home, locking together, solid.
Looking into the angel’s oddly colored eyes, she had one and only one thought.
She was glad she’d come.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I’m glad you came.”
“You know… I was just thinking that, too.”
It was hard to know who reached out first, but suddenly, there was no more division between them. Closing her eyes, she turned her head to the side and rested it upon his pecs. The sound of his heart was strong and even, and there was comfort in the beat.
“You truly do not judge me,” she choked. “Neither for what was done unto me nor for what I wrought.”
“No, I don’t.”
The relief that flooded through her made her head feel as though it was full of fizz, like the soda she had learned to enjoy.
“And I really am sorry,” he murmured as he stroked her back. “That I underestimated you and got all up in your face about leaving the clinic. I was a bonded male off his rocker. It won’t happen again.”
Bonded? she marveled. For true?
Pulling back, she reached up and touched his face in awe. “You know just what I want to hear, don’t you.”
His smile was wry. “It’s not that hard to apologize for being a douche canoe.”
“Douche… canoe?” She frowned. “Does that involve oars?”
“Paddles.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and guided her farther underground. “On my own ass.”
“Oh. Well… one hopes your posterior survived.” She hesitated. “May I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“I saw you… in a cave somewhere. There was firelight, I think, and rock walls behind you. Where is that?”
He glanced over at her. “How did you know about that?”
Up ahead, the drive widened into an open area where vehicles were parked among concrete columns that anchored a low ceiling.
“It was just a vision I had,” she answered lamely.
There were reasons why even he could not know about the Book. She trusted Lassiter’s intentions always, but minds could be read and sometimes secrets were shared in the hopes of improving situations. It was safer for everyone.
Besides, the Book was done being used, and it had earned its privacy. And safety.
As they reached a reinforced door that surely led into the training center proper, Rahvyn stopped and took the angel’s hands. “I want you to know why I left here tonight. Shuli tracked me down on the phone and begged me to come out and help with Nate. The male is struggling, and part of that is my fault. I have offered him no help with the transition after… everything that happened to him. I have a responsibility unto him, for I am the reason he is the way he is.”
Lassiter nodded. “I get it, and I didn’t think about that until later. What’s going on with him?”
She started talking, and the words just kept coming—yet it was weird, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was saying. She could tell by the way Lassiter’s expression kept getting grimmer and grimmer, however, that she was accurately conveying the situation.
“Do we need to talk to Murhder?” he asked. “If Nate’s playing around with guns, his parents need to know.”
“I never got a chance to speak with Nate. Things happened really fast with the lesser.” And the male hadn’t exactly been glad to see her. “Where is he now?”
“With Murhder. He’s gone home.”
“First thing tomorrow, I shall reach out to him. If he won’t talk to me, let’s go to his sire.”
“Deal.”
Dropping one of her hands, he turned away and reached for the handle—
“Lassiter… do you think you might take me to your cave? And show me… the firelight?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Just down the road.
The blacked-out box van went less than a quarter mile away from the Tudor mansion before it pulled into a far shorter drive. The Federal house on this property was of the same caliber, however, old, grand, and kept in meticulous order and condition. In the rear, a detached garage was set way back, and the butler proceeded right to it.
As the panels of the left bay retracted up their tracks and the van disappeared into the darkness, Lash perched on the top of the next-door neighbor’s cupola. There was no way he was touching down on what potentially could be Brotherhood property, and the viewpoint was perfect, allowing him to see over the hedges that separated the two parcels while staying totally out of the way.
After the garage was shut back up, he waited. And waited. And… waited.
No butler. Was there an underground tunnel access to the house?
Studying the manse’s structure, he noted the three floors, the kitchen in the back, the gracious, fenced-in yard that was planted with some really good, well-tended-to fruit trees. Unsurprisingly, there were monitoring cameras set under the eaves of the roof, the units discreetly hidden in the architectural details, and he was willing to bet there were more inside. On that note, all of the windows were unshuttered, only drapes pulled in some of the rooms, but that didn’t mean there weren’t interior fittings for the daylight barriers that were absolutely necessary for vampire homes—and especially common in a place like this, where there had been so much money invested into things.
