Lassiter, page 40
None of them seemed to care one way or the other about the equal-opportunity thing with the sexes. They were all just ready to fight because it was in their nature. As humans, they hadn’t cared about vampires—hell, they hadn’t known that the species existed. But it was a case of right person for the job. Each was on a hair trigger, in the best sense of the word. At least from his vantage point.
They hadn’t cared one way or another about what the target was.
As he turned back to the fragile glass expanse of the mansion’s conservatory, he fucking hated that the demon had been correct.
Except Devina had been. Thanks to her advice and efforts, he was so much further ahead than he had any right to be. But he couldn’t think about that right now. As a huge shadow passed by in a darkened parlor, he thought that the Brotherhood were so fucking stupid. Like anybody would be fooled into thinking what was currently inside the mansion were the aristocrats who owned the place?
Come on.
Nope, the Brothers had taken over the site, as if they’d known that Lash had intended to use the family who was supposed to be there as a training ground for slaughter techniques.
Alas, no time to develop skills.
The war restarted properly… now.
As he triggered the charges, the explosions went off all around the mansion, brilliant fireballs and loud sounds breaking through the night.
And talk about kicking a bees’ nest. What came out of the house was vengeance personified.
The Brothers streamed out onto the lawn, not from the doors that had been blown apart but from all around the roof, the second floor, the first floor.
As his slayers started shooting and there were shouts, he shoved his phone into his pocket, palmed his own gun—
And joined the fray with a bloodthirsty war cry.
* * *
In the wake of the explosions, Eddie broke out onto the grass, took a bullet to the shoulder, and kept right on steaming. Pile-driving into one of the dozens of slayers that were shooting, he fell immediately into a hands-on ground game, the undead possessing incredible strength—
As he felt himself get flipped over, he looked up and lost his concentration.
It was… a woman… on top of him, her long dark hair braided in rows on her skull and flowing down the back of her leather jacket, her face, though full of rage, set with very definite feminine contours.
And yet, she was clearly a lesser, the stench of baby powder rolling off of her—
A gun shoved in his face cured him of the momentary check-out. He was immortal, sure, but damage was damage and his utility was in continuing to fight. Getting a bullet up his nose and into his frontal lobe was not the kind of mental health evaluation he was looking for.
With a quick slap, he put his palms on either side of the barrel, but she was ready for him. She brought out another gun as he redirected the first off to the side.
Sonofabitch—
A quick duck and twist, and he was out from under, slipping a bar-hold around her neck and hauling back. She immediately started choking, and through the pungent smoke that was drifting all around from the explosions, he caught a quick glimpse of Ad engaging with a male with a bald head. And Vishous with a woman who had dyed-red hair. And Tohrment with a guy who had tattoos on his face.
Gagging sounds came out of the woman—slayer—and one of her guns was lost as she clawed at his forearm. If he could get her to lose consciousness for even a split second, he had a steel hunting knife on his belt and he could—
The grip on his braid was sudden and powerful, and the jerk brought his head so far back, it nearly popped off his spine.
A massive male with blond hair stood over him.
As Eddie looked into a pair of eyes that were all wrong, a pall went through him. This was not a mere lesser. This was the master of them all.
The born son of the Omega.
The scourge upon the earth.
As recognition landed with a terrible pall, the evil put out his palm, and in the center of it, a black swirling smoke coalesced and began to build in size. As he lifted his arm over his head, and the angle of impact was directed at Eddie, his smile was cold as first sin.
This is where I end, Eddie thought as the sights, sounds, and smells of the battle around him began to recede.
Whatever was in that hand was the kind of thing that took the im- away from mortal.
Death had appeared, unexpected and dispositive, when he had least expected it, but wasn’t that the way with fate sometimes. You were living… and then you were gone—
The yell was so loud, so furious, that even the evil paused and looked over toward the source of the sound.
Well, what do you know, Eddie was suddenly transfixed, too.
From out of nowhere, appearing right in front of them both, Lassiter was larger than life, his wings outstretched, his powerful body tensed for an attack, his face drawn with such rage that he was nearly unrecognizable.
The angel surged forward before the evil could react, and the impact was so great, he blew the blond entity off his feet and through what was left of the conservatory’s glass wall.
The shattering was yet another explosion, sending shards into the air where they fell back to the earth in a shimmer, like diamonds.
But there was no time to watch the fight, or more importantly, help.
Another gun, from another slayer on the right, was pressed directly onto Eddie’s temple.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he spat as he got back into the fight.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The why didn’t matter.
Who gave a fuck about the why.
And Wrath didn’t even ask about the when. The who… that was obvious, and all that mattered really: Fritz had left the mansion and gone down to town, and was making a stop, for a valid reason given the way the old male thought, at the Audience House.
Where he was going to die.
Wheeling away from the two maids at the sink, Wrath didn’t think. There was no time. He ran to the vestibule door, punched his way out, and dematerialized off the mansion’s front steps. As fast as traveling through thin air was for him, it wasn’t nearly fast enough, and he told himself he had to calm the fuck down.
The last thing he needed was to have his concentration broken to such a degree that he snapped back into being corporeal, re-formed in midair, and plummeted to his death over a mountain.
Navigating by memory and practice, he went directly to the Audience House’s backyard. He had been to the property plenty of times when he’d been sighted, so as he returned to a solid, he knew he was at the rear, facing the entry into the kitchen.
Fritz’s scent was obvious.
So was the click of the handle on the back door as the loyal butler went to turn the—
“Nooooooo!” Wrath screamed.
With a powerful lunge, triangulated by instinct and a spatial awareness that never let him down, he shot forward and shoved the doggen out of the way.
Right as the explosion went off.
In the split second between making sure Fritz was free of the impact and hearing the click of the detonation’s ignition, he braced himself for the blast of heat—but when it came, it was so overwhelming, it didn’t even hit as any kind of warmth. Like the pain was so great, his body literally could not register it.
And funnily enough, there was no sound. At all.
Just a weird, sickening swirl as he was carried up, up, and away.
His final thought was…
Oh, shit. Beth, I’m so fucking sorry.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Lassiter held nothing back as he and Lash went at it, two immortals throwing each other around the inside of a conservatory. Bouncing off furniture and miniature fruit trees. Getting scraped up, silver blood mixing with black. Glass breaking, sculptures knocked over, vases shattered.
After one particularly violent kick, Lassiter went into a tap-dancing retreat he did not intend—and when he hit something very hard on the small of his back, a ripple of discordant music played out.
Piano. A Steinway had caught his fall.
Across the ruined space, Lash was gearing up for a running offensive, the evil sinking down into his thighs and wiping the black blood off his mouth with the back of his hand. Malicious eyes stared forward with maniacal glee, and as he opened his mouth to hiss, his fangs were a pair of enameled daggers, long as elephant tusks.
The Omega’s son started across the black-and-white marble floor, and Lassiter, who’d managed to get one hell of a thigh wound, needed to find his breath before he could keep going with the goddamn arm wrestling.
So he picked up the motherfucking grand piano and slung that bitch right at the piece of shit with the bright ideas.
Talk about your sonata in the key of ouch.
The ringing cacophony was satisfying, even if rough on the ear, and the force sent Lash pinballing into the next room.
Lassiter glanced over his shoulder. Out on the side lawn, battles were ongoing in the smoke and the shadows, the Brotherhood and fighters engaging with what seemed to be an army of slayers. He could hear guns discharging, and saw a good news pop-and-flash as someone managed to stab one of the enemy. But there were so many lessers.
No rest for the weary.
And really, given what had happened up in the Sanctuary with Rahvyn, he didn’t give a shit—he was so in his feels, fighting was the only release that could distract him for even a moment from his pain.
Bleeding, limping, pissed off and violent, Lassiter went in search of his prey—
Without warning, he was tackled from behind, Lash’s attack so competent that he was on the ground and sliding like a floor mop down some kind of hallway before he knew what hit him.
The rest of it was a blur of ruined furniture, paintings that were shredded, carved doorjambs that were cracked, and walls punched through with bodies. They were so equally matched as they hand-to-hand’d it through the first floor of the house that they might as well have been a pair of wrecking balls. And then he picked up Lash by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants, and threw him, headfirst like a battering ram, at the front fucking door.
The evil opened the way out nicely.
Well, not nicely at all, really. The evil blew the heavy oak panels right off their fucking hinges.
The shot of fresh air was reviving, and Lassiter dragged himself across the foyer, sidestepping a crystal chandelier that had fallen in a crash, lagging a leg because one of his ankles was probably broken.
The last thing he did before he stepped out was glance up, for no particular reason. Well, what do you know. His own blood was smeared across the ceiling. Guess the ground game had taken to the roof for a bit.
As he stepped outside, he looked at the sky and took a deep breath to try to ease his panting, sawing respiration. The pain that shot through his sternum was intense, but not because he was physically wounded. No, that was his broken heart, fuck him very much.
How was he going to go on without his female…
That was the thought that went through his head as Lash pulled his own sorry, wounded ass off the ground and faced off, again.
Lassiter didn’t know how much more he had in him—or what exactly was going to happen if he stopped, or more likely couldn’t go on. He had seen what the evil had conjured up in his hand when he’d been about to do in Eddie.
That black void shit was lights-out time, whatever the hell it was.
And maybe he wanted that, he reflected as he gave the enemy time to get back on its—
The explosion that went off was distant, not on the property, but close enough that the noise gathered attention.
As he and Lash both looked to the horizon, in the back of Lassiter’s mind, he had a thought that they really needed to take this whole business elsewhere. The estates were big in this neighborhood, but a couple of acres was not going to insulate this kind of light and sound show from the neighbors completely.
Sooner or later, cops were going to show up. Or security guards. And he was familiar with the only rule the Lessening Society shared with the vampires.
No human involvement—
The strangest ripple went through Lassiter’s chest.
And what was weirder was that Lash also glanced down at himself… and put a hand on his own sternum.
Time slowed. Then stopped. And all the fighting ceased, like some siren call that could be heard by both sides of the war had registered, the smoke from the fires that were kindling all around the house billowing about on the cold spring breeze, making ghostly figures out of those on the battlefield.
Overhead, a shooting star traveled across the night sky.
Then the evil threw its head back and started laughing. The sound was so rich and triumphant, so unexpected, that all eyes turned in his direction.
Lash re-leveled his malevolent stare, whistled—
And the entire army disappeared.
In the utterly bizarre vacuum of presence and movement, the chiming of cell phones going off all over the property was as loud and obvious as a marching band.
With a frown, Lassiter glanced over his shoulder. Vishous happened to be standing in the busted-ass doorway of the mansion as he checked his phone.
And there was no forgetting, ever, the expression on his face as he looked up in numb shock.
“Oh… my God,” he breathed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Where’s Daddy?” Beth said as she handed another block to her son. “Hm? Where’d he go?”
L.W. didn’t pay any attention to her. He was like that when he was focused on something, those dark brows down over those now pale green eyes. She thought back to the early months after his birth, the whole first year really. They had been blue, then, and that had been a source of relief for Wrath. He’d wanted his son to not take after him with the blindness, like the so-called defect was a curse he hoped not to pass on.
They had changed, though. And now they were just like his father’s.
Who knew whether he would end up blind, however—and if he did? It was not something that could not be embraced and integrated into a full, vibrant life. Wrath was proof of that.
“You’re just like your dad,” she murmured as she smoothed his cap of black hair and checked her watch. “Jeez, it’s been well over a half hour. Where has he gone?”
Then again, Wrath was like that, always getting pulled into things as King. She wished they had more time together, and remembered what he’d said. Yup, they definitely needed a little private time down in Manhattan in that bolt hole of theirs. A good two whole nights of nothing but them naked in that bed—
Initially, the footfalls did not really register. She just assumed someone, probably Rhage given how heavy they were, was going next door to the movie theater because he was off rotation and bored out of his mind. But then the sheer number of them made an impression.
“Like a frickin’ army is coming, huh, L.W.”
She handed him another block. The construction he was working on was a tower that was way over his head, the levels stretching up from the ground a good four feet. He needed his little step stool with the railing to keep building, and she’d brought it over for him, but they were reaching critical mass. He was smart, and he’d built a solid base, but things were getting tippy and the fall from that height was going to do some damage if the whole thing toppled onto his head.
“I think we gotta be done with this one, my guy.”
L.W. looked up.
At first, she assumed he was meeting her in the eye to argue even though he was essentially nonverbal. Because he was like that. In spite of the fact that he had yet to speak—because vampire young mature differently than human kids—he seemed to understand things way before his time, and he certainly communicated his thoughts with her through that stare of his—
Abruptly, she realized her son was not focused in her direction.
He was looking over her shoulder. To the door.
Through the glass inset, she saw Vishous’s face, pale and hollow, and a ripple of unease made her fumble the block she’d been about to give to her son.
The door opened, and when she saw what was on the other side, she started to shake her head slowly. “No…”
One by one, the Black Dagger Brotherhood funneled into the children’s playroom. That they were dressed for war would have been bad enough against the innocence of the toys and the colorful murals. That they were injured and bleeding, stinking of lesser, made their presence downright horrific.
And there was one, and only one, reason, for all of them to come to her at once.
“No, no, no—” She put her hands up to stop them and closed her eyes. “No! Fucking no!”
Next to her, the tower fell in a clatter.
“Don’t you say it, don’t you say it, don’t you say—”
She popped open her lids on the chance that maybe—maybe—she wasn’t seeing anything right. But the Brothers were crowding in, and behind them, out in the hall, the other fighters were clustered around: All of them, the Band of Bastards, those two angels… Lassiter, who was bleeding silver from a head wound.
There was a milling of the big bodies, a breaking of the crush, as someone came through them.
It was Tohr. And George was mincing with stress at his side, the golden panting hard.
That was not what she noticed most, however. What registered in her mind, with all the impact of a blow to the head… was Tohr’s dagger hand on George’s harness grip, the one thing, for all the petting the dog received from everybody, no one ever, ever, touched.
Beth fell forward onto all fours.
And screamed.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Three nights later…
The Tomb was the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s sanctum sanctorum, a place deep within the earth on the mansion’s mountain, a secret location where the ancient rituals and traditions of the membership could be carried out in private.
