Forever, page 3
Glancing over his shoulder, he remembered him and Lydia getting stalked through a forest just like this. They’d hidden up in a deer stand, and he’d known better than she had the whys of it all. Dropping down from their perch, he’d attacked the aggressor, taken control of the man, and then told her to head back out to the main road and get the sheriff—and after she’d left, when he was sure she wouldn’t see or hear anything, he’d put a gun with a suppressor on its muzzle to the head of the threat to her life. Pulling the trigger, he’d stripped the body of weapons and hidden it in a shallow cave. When he’d returned to where he’d killed the guy, he’d looked up to the heavy gray sky and asked for rain to give things a little wash just in case any small-town lawmen decided to go CSI on the scene.
But that wasn’t because he’d been worried about murder charges. Back then, Lydia hadn’t known what he was, and he’d wanted to keep it that way.
He hadn’t known what she was, either.
Returning to the present, it was a relief to pivot and plant his bony ass on the fallen tree. Reaching into his pocket, he took out a black pouch with a corroded zipper. Inside? Two things. Well, one object and a group of things.
The root cause of his own black fungus, as it were.
After he put his Jack and soda aside on the bark, he shook out a cigarette from the red-and-white pack, the paper tube with its packing of tobacco and blunt, buff-colored terminal, at the very core of his health issues. Putting the business end of the coffin nail between his lips, he remembered the first time he had broken his post-diagnosis nicotine quit. It had been two weeks ago. He’d wandered out of that stone fortress of Phalen’s, a fresh cellophane pack in the pocket of his coat, his just-need-to-clear-his-head lie still floating in the air back at the big house, the anxious eyes of the woman he loved more than anything else boring into his back as he’d hobbled to the woods.
Like maybe she’d known what he intended on doing.
The fact that his hand didn’t shake as he brought the lit Bic to the tip seemed to suggest that some part of him had a suicidal impulse. And the inhale went okay, the familiar suck and swallow of smoke a reflex, the soothing sensation that came over him a Pavlovian response, his central nervous system already anticipating the effect of the nicotine even before the chemicals changed his internal—
The exhale did not go well. A coughing fit hit him like a linebacker, his diseased lungs flat-out rejecting the smoke. Choking, gagging, he knew enough to keep the liquor off to the side even though there was a temptation to try to ease things with a sip. The irritants of smoking and alcohol were a one-two punch that was going to drop him, and as he finally caught his breath, he didn’t need the results of all that nuclear medicine testing from this morning to know what was going on.
The second treatment option of immunotherapy hadn’t worked any better than the chemo had, and now he had exhausted all conventional avenues.
Like a complete jackhole, he tried the inhale thing again, and on the exhale, he turned the cigarette around and stared at the lit tip—while he wondered why, if he was willing to smoke, he couldn’t get on board with the experimental drug C.P. had cooked up in her lab—
When he started coughing again, he tried to get control of the bronchial spasms. As they got worse and worse, to the point where he began to cough up blood, he tripod’d, tilting over his thighs, planting his palms on his knees, holding himself at an angle so his lungs had the best chance of expanding fully in his rib cage. He had to time the sucks of cold air with breaks in the hacking, his face flushing from the workout, a sweat breaking out under his jacket—
It should have passed by now.
Usually, it was over by—
In the back of his mind, a flare of panic went off. He was too far out for anyone in the house to hear him, and though there were security cameras out here in the acreage, there was no telling whether anyone was monitoring them, with no imminent threat present.
With a fumbling hand, he went for his phone, and as he dropped it, his watery eyes refused to focus and he thought…
Maybe this was it. And how stupid. To come here away from everything and smoke in the cold and die.
Just as his sight started to go dark and his head spun, as his body began to list to one side, as he considered the horrible idea that he would be found out here in the woods, a frozen block of cancer, dead for a dumb reason—
He caught a full(ish) breath. And another. And a third.
As the coughing jag sputtered out into nothing more than sporadic huffing, he did not try it again with the cigarette. He just watched the thing burn, the stalk of ashes distorting on the end like the finger of a wicked witch. When the cinders fell off because of the wiggly rabbit ears of his fore- and middle fingers, he bent down and got his phone from the bed of leaves at his feet. Wiping the screen on his jeans, he stared at the dark face of the thing—and remembered a plan he’d had months ago.
It had been a good plan, a plan to help Lydia after he was gone, a way to connect her with her community. And he’d been really frickin’ urgent about it all. Unfortunately, medical tests, medications, and side effects had wiped him out, and then bad news after bad news had eaten into not just his time but his energy, too. The slog through the various protocols had been a blur and also an eternity, the days and nights flying by at the same time he trudged through them, the end result being that spring, summer, and almost all of the fall had passed without him following through on what he’d intended on doing right after he’d been diagnosed.
And maybe there was another reason he hadn’t met up with that mysterious contact. In a quiet, secret place in his heart, one that he didn’t even let Lydia into, he had hoped that it would all work, that the drugs would do their thing and kill the cancer cells, and he’d be around to participate in her life.
And protect her if she needed it.
Nope.
After all the volunteered-for suffering of the remedies, on top of the not-volunteered-for shit of the disease, he was now here, a bump on a log, unable to smoke or drink, having wasted most of his good quality of life on all kinds of lottery tickets that had scratched off big fat nothings.
But he was alive for this moment and he was done fucking around.
Bringing the phone up, he steadied his elbow on his knee, opened the device with facial recognition, and navigated to the note section with his palsied fingertip. The number he’d received from a clandestine contact back in April was right where he’d left it, the last entry he’d made, the only entry he’d made.
Initiating a call, he made a fist with his free hand and coughed into the thumb end. One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four—
The recording of a deep female voice cut in: You’ve reached the voicemail of Alex Hess. Leave a message.
Just as the beeeeeeep went off, he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from the tangles of dead underbrush that surrounded the clearing.
Bolting up from the fallen tree trunk, he overpitched himself into a stumble, and with no cane in his hand, his loose-jointed body landed on his knees.
So that he was on eye level with the predator who had stalked him in the night so silently, so competently.
The female wolf had beautiful gray and white and brown fur, and in the moonlight, she blended into her surroundings, the dour palette of pre-winter grisaille camouflaging her position. With her head down low and her ears back, she clearly could have killed him if she wanted to, one good lunge all it would take. But instead of attacking, she retreated quick as a blink, her lithe body executing a tight turn, her paw placement so precise there wasn’t even a rustle as she took off.
Fuck, he thought.
“Lydia!” he called out. “Lydia…!”
THREE
Market and 18th Streets
Downtown Caldwell, New York
AGAINST THE GRITTY soundtrack of Caldwell’s nocturnal symphony of distant honks, sirens, and shouts, Rehvenge swept his full-length mink coat back and knelt by a facedown body that was still warm. Given the single bullet to the back of the skull, he didn’t need forensic training to know that the hit had been a professional job, and before he rolled the dead male over, he glanced around the back alley. The buildings on either side were windowless, one of the cross streets was closed off because of a water main issue, and there was barely enough lateral room to squeeze a car through. You couldn’t get more privacy if you’d put “No Trespassing” signs on the bricks.
“I figured we’d call you, you know?”
He looked over at the male civilian vampire who’d rung the bell. The guy had been using Rehv’s sportsbook business for a while now, and he was a good bettor, regularly putting money on teams and spreads that didn’t work for him, always paying on time, never causing any trouble. And piss-poor picker aside, he was clearly doing well for himself—or had won the sperm lottery: He was dressed nicely and his white Tesla, which was parked about fifteen feet back, was pristine as a hundy right off the Federal Reserve’s printing press. Likewise, the female vampire standing next to him was a pick-me-girl cliché, breasts mounding up over her tight leather corset, her leggings spray-painted on. The smudge on the side of her red-painted mouth suggested she’d also been on her knees on the ground recently, although that was probably a metaphor.
“We were at Club Basque,” the male confessed, like he was talking to his parent. “We saw him get into trouble and get booted. But we didn’t follow him, and we certainly didn’t kill him. We just happened to come here because…”
At this trail-off, the guy put two palms forward, all I’m-totally-innocent, like he was thinking Rehv was jumping to some kind of Colt .45 conclusion. Whatever. Mr. Slim-Cut Slacks with the European tailored jacket, Bally loafers, and rule-abider vibe was never going to be at the top of the list for hired-hand enforcers.
As a siren sounded out close by, Rehv turned the victim over. The instant he saw the face, he had to keep the cursing to himself.
“We figured, you know… oh, God…”
Strangled coughing cut off the civilian’s conversation, and wasn’t that nice.
“This is not my problem,” Rehv announced as he got to his feet.
The male’s eyes went back to the corpse’s face, like he was trying to nut up with the visual—and what do you know, he had to look away again and gag.
After a couple of swallows, he choked out, “B-b-but it’s one of us.”
“So. Why does this have anything to do with me?”
“I thought, well, maybe he hadn’t paid you or something. I was just trying to…”
“Protect me?” Rehv rolled his eyes. “Thanks, but I promise you, if I have to issue a correction to one of my clients, the body isn’t going to be found by anyone.”
The civilian put his arm around his stomach like things were rolling in there. Then he glanced at his girlfriend. Sidepiece. Rando. Whatever she was to him, the female wasn’t sparing him or the dismembered dead guy a glance. She was locked on Rehv, her heavily lashed eyes low-lidded with intent like she was ready for a sexual upgrade.
Don’t hold your breath, sweetheart, Rehv thought.
“What if humans find it?” the male mumbled. “Isn’t that bad for the species?”
Rehv made a show of checking his Daytona Rollie with the rainbow dial. “Won’t be an issue in another seven hours—six and a half if there are no clouds. Daylight is the best cleaning service there is.”
As the male deflated, his good deed not as good as he’d thought it was, Rehv had to ask, “You said you were at the club and you saw him?”
The male nodded earnestly. “He got into some trouble with a human woman in the bathroom, and when he was kicked out by the bouncers, he was throwing punches. Big commotion, but it was handled. We stayed another forty-five minutes and then… found him here.”
Rehv shrugged. “Look, I have to go—”
“It’s the second one,” the female purred, and when he glanced across at her, she deliberately ran her fingertip over her lower lip. “That’s right, there was another.”
“Where?” Rehv demanded. “When.”
The male pulled some more head bobbing and took over the talking, clearly the hand-popper kid in the front of the class who had to get the A. “About three weeks ago. It was also close to dawn. Same thing, except it was a male who’d gotten in trouble at Blasphemy.”
Rehv closed his eyes briefly. “You left that body and let it burn?”
“Yes. I mean, what am I going to do—we, I mean.”
“Join the club.” Rehv waved off toward the electric car. “Just go, okay.”
“Thanks.” Like the guy was assuming that Rehv would handle things. “I’ve been feeling badly about just leaving the other one. Oh, and um… what’s the spread on the Eagles next week?”
“Call me later.”
The female lingered for a split sec as her BF headed off for the Tesla, as if she were giving Rehv a chance to ask for her driver’s license or something. Maybe her bra size. When there was no bait taken, she gave him a rear view and a half as she went over to the road Roomba.
When the happy couple were gone, he went back to ground, so to speak, even though the close-up didn’t change anything. The male was still dead, and under any other circumstances, Rehv wouldn’t have given a shit. He could imagine exactly the kind of “trouble” the bastard had gotten into with that woman in the loo, and assholes deserve what they got.
The problem was all in the eyes, as they say.
Or in this case, the no eyes.
Both peepers had been removed from their sockets, although not in a sloppy, messy way. There were no straggles of an optic nerve or parts of the sclera left behind; the meat had been scooped out cleanly, all melon-baller-tidy, like a spoon with a deep cup had been wielded with excellent skill.
“Damn it, Xhex. What are you doing.”
He knew the answer to that, and it was a devastating one.
Taking out his phone, he pulled her contact up and initiated a call. When it wasn’t answered, he wasn’t surprised.
He didn’t leave a message. But he knew where to go.
* * *
Club Basque
Market Street and 27th Avenue
Just another night in paradise.
As Xhex looked around the dance floor, things were going well when measured against the extremely low standards set for behavior at the club. Nobody was actually having sex, doing a line, or playing pound-per-pound push-and-shove. Now, there were a couple of throuples who were in the but-for-pants brigade, whatever clothing they’d slapped on their naughty bits the only thing stopping penetration. And she was very sure if she’d pulled a stop-and-frisk on the two hundred humans grinding to the Euro rap soundtrack, she would have liquidated all kinds of illegal assets out of pockets and cavities.
But there was no reason to get invasive.
She checked her watch. Nice. Another four hours and she could go home.
John Matthew had promised to be waiting for her in their bedroom, and she’d been specific about what she was looking for. And it did not involve any clothing, job-related discussions, or third parties.
“Do you want me to handle closing tonight?”
She glanced over her shoulder. T’Marcus Jones had come up, and he was, as always, calm, collected, composed. He was one of the few humans she trusted to keep their heads straight no matter the situation—which was why she’d brought him over from Blasphemy when Trez had opened this fifth club two weeks ago.
“That would be great.” As all kinds of naked images of her mate played across her mind, she refocused on the crowd. “And at least they’re behaving now.”
T’Marcus lined up with her and crossed his heavy arms over his chest. “Nothing like showing ’em what happens when they don’t.”
Xhex opened her mouth to say something—and promptly forgot what she’d been about to come back with. As some kind of warning crawled up the nape of her neck and knocked on the back of her skull, she jerked around. Then covered up the paranoid twist by nodding at one of the bouncers who was stationed by the bar.
When she pivoted back to the dance floor, her skin prickled, and that was when her instincts really came alive. The disturbance in the air was subtle, not the kind of thing that anyone else would have noticed. Then again, she’d picked up on it not because her hearing or her eyesight was good.
This was probably not good news, she thought.
“I’ll be right back,” she told her second-in-command.
“You okay?”
“Peachy. Thanks.”
Cutting through the crowd, she was bumped into by a guy, and instead of throwing him out of her path, she nudged him aside. And when a woman asked her for directions to the bathroom, she paused and gave them. Then one of the bartenders rushed over with his finger wrapped in a dish towel because he’d cut it opening a beer bottle. She sent him on to the first aid kit in the manager’s office and told him to get to the ER because he was going to need stitches.
Finally, she was at the club’s easterly exit, the one by the storage rooms that were locked.
“You might as well come in,” she said at the reinforced steel door.
There was a split second of pause—and then the male who opened the heavy panel with his mind made his appearance.
As usual, Rehv was wrapped up in his floor-length mink, a symphath burrito who was trying his damnedest not to leach any body heat if he could avoid it. Tough goal for Caldwell in November, but then he was also fully dressed underneath, with a dark gray suit and a black silk shirt and tie. His mohawk had been recently trimmed, so the horizontal stripe down his cranium was even shorter than usual, and his amethyst eyes seemed extra bright in the low-watt glow of the service hall.
