Lassiter, page 43
With that, she stood L.W. up on her lap. “That is how we are going to handle this. It is not only what my hellren would wish us to do, it is the best thing for those he served and his father served and his father before that.”
Lassiter swallowed through a tight throat. Holy fuck, he thought. These two females just saved the whole fucking vampire race—
It was hard to know which of the fighters unholstered his dagger first. But soon enough, those who were sitting were up on their feet, and every warrior, whether they were a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, or of the Band of Bastards, or one who had fought alongside the others… they were all raising their blades overhead.
As Lassiter caught an image of all those daggers, black and steel alike, a chill went through his entire body.
And then came the war cry, so loud that it surely blew the mansion’s roof off.
So loud… that surely Wrath heard it in the Fade.
Moving as one, with a coordination that was as if practiced, the whole of them dropped to one knee before the Queen and the image of her beloved hellren—
And buried those blades through the fancy rug, and into the solid floor beneath it.
The sound, like the sight of all those proud heads bent in supplication, was something, for all his immortal life, he was never, ever going to forget.
The Black Dagger Brotherhood and their allies, unified, once again.
Serving Wrath’s bloodline, as always.
Ready to fight for the survival of their kind.
Forever.
EPILOGUE
Thirty-three years, nine months, three days…
… and nine hours in the future.
I.
The pair of black shitkickers tromped through the snow, leaving treads that were unseen, and not only because of the strong wind that almost immediately covered them with drifts. For the male who had arrived, the change in season was a shock, and confusion was the name of the game—and neither had anything to do with his blindness.
Where the fuck had spring gone? Wrath wondered.
The last thing he had felt was a blast of heat, and then an elemental turbulence. After that… nothing.
And now he was here and it was winter?
Stopping, he moved his head left to right, his hair whirling around his face, lashing at him. There was a strange smell under the familiar currents of pine up on the mountain… burning dirt and something like soggy firewood?
He kept going, without panicking. Then again, he knew where he was—
Clonk.
The steel toe of his shitkicker hit something hard, and his shin followed along for the ride, the cracking impact turning his body into a tuning fork for ow. As he dropped another f-bomb and jacked over to rub away the pain, he put his hand out. More snow—yeah, no shit—but the curve and scale of the marble feature that had done him in was unmistakable: The fountain in the mansion’s courtyard.
Navigating with his fingertips, he continued around to the far side and knew the distance and direction to the first of the grand entrance’s stone steps. As he walked straight ahead, the whistling sounds in the mansion’s eaves confirmed his rock-solid instincts, and in a way, it was as if he could see. In his mind, he conjured from memory the variegated roofline and the diamond-paned windows, the gray stone walls and the gargoyles.
A piercing longing went through his chest, the emotion so vast, so fundamental, he faltered. For some reason, he felt as if he hadn’t been home for a very, very long time, and he didn’t get the sentiment. Where the hell had he been?
He was halfway up the steps when his bullshit meter started firing. Nope, this wasn’t right. Nothing about what was going on with him made sense, not the weather, the way his mind was working, or that fucked-up smell.
And then he was at the carved cathedral-worthy door that opened into the vestibule.
Just as his hand reached forward, he heard a voice right beside him… an old, familiar voice that he hadn’t had in his ears for a long time.
The King returns.
He looked to the right. “Analise, what the fuck is going on here.”
The Scribe Virgin had never allowed questioning of her, and her name was something that he had only used once before in his life, but he didn’t give a shit about all that right now. And anyway, that was a demand, not an inquiry, he’d put out there.
As always, your charm precedes you, the mahmen of the race communicated dryly.
“Look, I don’t… understand what’s happening.”
All at once, she appeared in the dense void of his blindness, and not because he’d conjured her out of memory. The diminutive entity draped entirely in black robing, with a brilliant white glow emanating from under the hem of what covered her from head to foot, appeared sure as if she was standing before him. As ever, she was floating just off the ground—
And that was when he realized…
The architectural details of the mansion were emerging, sure as if an artist’s hand was penciling in its entrance. He saw the aged brass handle he had been reaching for, and the carvings in the panels… the hinges that were big as a male’s forearm, and the molding that was so deep that snow collected in the curls of the acanthus leaves.
Stepping back, he looked up… waaaaaay up.
The roofline he’d just imagined was now really visual before him, as were those diamond-paned windows—and also the mythical creatures that were poised in stone, rearing their ugly heads forward to frighten the unwise who were not welcome.
Fumbling with his wraparounds, ripping them off, Wrath twisted on his hips and looked out to the fountain and the Pit, the snowflakes biting into his eyes.
That was when he saw the steaming crater in the earth, like something from outer space had landed on the front lawn.
Now he felt terror as he turned back.
I don’t belong here, he thought.
“Why are all the windows dark,” he said roughly as a growing awareness clawed into his chest, conclusions striking through him like bullets.
He turned to the Scribe Virgin. “Why.”
Allow me to help you with the doors.
As all the portals, both the exterior ones and those on the far side of the vestibule, ceded to her will, he looked into the darkness on the far side.
“Turning over a new leaf, are you,” he muttered because he was shitting himself. “So helpful.”
Do not o’erstep.
She timed the words perfectly as he extended his shitkicker and stepped over the threshold into the vestibule. The security monitoring systems were still in place, but they were darkened, too, as if there was no one around to receive the information—or no expectation that anyone would show up, wanted or otherwise.
“Where are they all,” he said roughly.
Emerging into the foyer, he looked around and wondered if she hadn’t taken his vision from him again. The darkness was so dense, it was like a solid he’d have to cut through, and just as he was getting desperate for a light, a single candle flared over on a carved marble bench.
He went across the mosaic floor and picked up the antique holder, locking his forefinger through the curving hook, lifting the slight weight of the dish with its soldier of wax and tiny glowing flame. The circle of illumination was a portable aura, and he walked forward without realizing where he was headed.
The dining room.
And what he saw did nothing to reassure him: Everything was covered with custom-made sheeting, all of the chairs, the sideboards, the long table itself. Moving the candle around, he heard ghostly echoes of the clinking of silverware on china, and the ripples of talk and laughter that had always filled the space. He smelled the roasts and the bread, the wine and the flowers. He sensed the movement of doggen bringing in food, clearing plates, refilling water glasses—
Wrath wheeled around. “Where are they.”
In the darkness beyond the candle’s anemic reach, there was no glow down by the floor, and as he strode back out to the foyer, he knew the Scribe Virgin was gone.
It was as he halted that he caught the scent.
Faint, but clear now that his senses were tuned in to it.
Blood.
Holding out the candle, he flared his nostrils, tracking the copper tendrils that hung in the still, cold air.
The runner that came down the grand staircase was red, and he had to lower what light he had to the carpet’s thick pile. There, in the fibers, soaked in as if a meal for the wool nap… a drop of fresh blood. He extended his arm. Swung the glow around. Three steps up, he found another. Seven steps up… another.
He was halfway to the top when he saw the firelight.
Like a rising sun, the glow was seated at the horizon of the second story’s floorboards, and as he marched toward it, he remembered the days when he had been able to see the sun, when he’d been a pretrans and his parents had still been alive, the start of his journey which now he recognized had always meant to take him here, to this night, to this ascension…
To whatever horror was awaiting him.
Cresting the great staircase, he stood before the open doors of his study, and it was then that he scented much more blood as well as the acrid smoke of a fire.
For a moment, as the subtle cracking of burning logs registered in his ears, he felt a strange immobility, and he thought… Could this be the Fade? Is this the door?
If so, it was already open, and he felt a sweep carry him forward, as if there was a void sucking him in, no chance of escape from the powerful undertow.
As he moved toward the firelight, he felt like he was hovering above the carpet instead of walking and he had a vague, peripheral awareness of ghostly furniture, the gold-leafed benches and console tables against the gold-leafed balustrade, the ornamental chairs dotting the open area of this second-story foyer, all of it protected from dust destruction with those eerie jackets made of pale cloth.
He arrived at the threshold of his study an eternity later. Or maybe it was just a heartbeat.
The first thing he saw, across the pale blue room, was the throne that was, for some reason, uncovered, on the far side of the desk. The next was the first aid kit on the coffee table in front of the fireplace, the thing pop-topped and surrounded by bloody gauze, surgical instruments, and a spool of black thread—as well as a stained black muscle shirt.
But it was the male sitting on the covered sofa, facing away from him, who commanded all his attention.
Walking silently forward, he could not have looked away for anything in the world. And as utter disbelief clogged both rational thoughts and crazy conclusions, he moved into position so that he could see the profile against the firelight’s restless glow.
The male’s body was corded with muscle—and covered with tattoos. From the cut of his hard jaw, down his chest and arms and hands, disappearing into the waistband of his leathers, a pattern of black ink carved out a design that was not readily apparent. Injuries—some new, some in the process of healing, and one clearly just dealt with, going by the bright white bandage—marked his ribs, his biceps, his back.
The sides of his head were shaved, and the black hair on top had been pulled back and tied in a knot.
The face was… a mirror of Wrath’s own.
And the eyes, which he could not see from his angle, were trained on the throne. Like he was staring at someone even though there was no one sitting on it—
The attack was so fast, so vicious, that there was no preparing for it in advance. One moment, the male was by the fire; the next, he was bursting forward with a steel dagger above his shoulder, his green eyes spitting fury, his upper lip peeled off enormous fangs, the hatred in his face a physical presence that was one hell of a copilot.
For a heartbeat, Wrath couldn’t move, but then instincts, training, and experience took over, and he caught the thick wrist controlling the dagger and deflected all that momentum by shoving out his other hand to the throat, stiff-arming his elbow, and spinning them around so they traded places. The energy in the attack was redirected like a pool cue into an eight ball, and he stuck with the male as he stumbled backwards, staying engaged, because it was going to be only a split second before there was a recovery and a second wave of aggression.
The impact of the male’s back against the wall was so violent, there was a crack like thunder.
And, as followed a lightning strike, there was an abrupt cessation in the storm as Wrath pinned his attacker.
The face that was in front of his own slowly transformed, the fury draining out of the features, the brows easing and then rising in shock, the mouth falling open… the dagger not lowering, but getting dropped entirely.
As it clattered to the hardwood floor at the edge of the fine antique carpet, all of the fight went out of the male, and those green eyes, eyes that were the color of Wrath’s own, grew luminous with pain.
In a small voice, the voice of a young, a single word was uttered: “Father?”
Wrath went from holding off the big body to dragging it against his own, his arms shooting around what made no sense, pulling the heavy muscularity into him.
He couldn’t breathe.
And then abruptly he couldn’t see, his vision starting to dim back into the darkness he was well used to.
In a panic, he pulled back and memorized that face, from the widow’s peak that was just like his own, to those jade eyes with the pupils that were way too small, to the tide of tattoos that crested at the jut of the jaw.
Wrath looked down at the ink pattern across the mountain of a bare chest.
It was a depiction of a skull with a dagger through the top of the cranium at an angle, the fangs viciously tipped, the empty eye sockets pits of hell, warnings in the Old Language emanating out in rows to cover all the skin there was.
He is just like I was, Wrath thought with the kind of sorrow that carved through the soul.
But then he let that go for the moment as the dots were crudely connected in his shell-shocked mind: The only thing that could explain how he had last held his son in his arms as an infant, but now L.W. was a fully transitioned male…
Was the passage of time.
“Where is your mahmen,” he choked out.
II.
Sitting at her modest kitchen table, Beth looked across to the sink. “Nalla. That pot is clean, I promise you.”
The female stopped with her scrubbing routine, her head lowering in defeat, her shoulders lifting and relenting as she took a deep breath.
“What’s going on, my girl. Talk to your favorite auntie.”
Nalla as an adult was a combination of both her parents, her long, multicolored hair and yellow eyes clearly her father Zsadist’s, her steady nature absolutely Bella all over. She was such a good person, working at Luchas House, loyal to her friends and extended family of Brotherhood cousins, a devoted daughter.
But she wasn’t happy tonight. Hadn’t been happy for a while, come to think of it.
Muttering under her breath, the female rinsed out the pot using the nozzle and put it aside on the drying rack—where it couldn’t stay. If Fritz came in and saw it there, he was going to worry that he hadn’t cleaned the thing fast enough, even though he hadn’t been at home when Beth had boiled up the potatoes about an hour ago.
She was going to have to put it away before he returned to argue in a desperate, respectful way about who was preparing Last Meal.
Nalla dried her hands on a dish towel and turned around. “You know Cellia? At the House?”
“Oh, sure.” Beth took a sip from her mug of coffee. “Mary trained her.”
“She got engaged.”
“Oh, how nice—”
“She asked me to be her maid of honor.”
“That’s great.” Beth lifted an eyebrow as the girl looked away. “Wait, is it not great? So this is bad. Okay, I hate it, it’s terrible.”
Nalla’s stare drifted around, and for a second, Beth measured her own spaces, the ones she had been living in for three decades. The ground-up floors of the house were modest, just a regular-looking Colonial in a street packed with other, regular-looking houses. It was the underground that was extensive. The house had been built specifically for her, after she’d insisted she was fine in something far less… vault-like, for lack of a better word. But the Brotherhood had prevailed, and construction had started in what had been vacant farmland just outside the ring of Caldwell’s suburbia.
There were well over a dozen houses in the neighborhood, and they were all connected by a tunnel system. Rhage and Mary were on her left. Tohr and Autumn were on her right. Across the street were Z and Bella, and all the others filled out the street. Fritz and the doggen took care of everyone, staying in underground quarters themselves.
On the surface, it all looked perfectly human, perfectly normal, just as V had designed it to be. Underneath was where the truth lived.
She just hadn’t been able to stay in the mansion, with memories everywhere haunting her. Frankly, neither had the others. But the Brotherhood had refused to scatter, and besides, they were right. The Lessening Society had come back in full force, and the demon Devina was a permanent fixture in Caldwell… so circling the wagons was a safety-first move.
“It’s never going to happen for me,” Nalla said. “The marriage thing.”
Funny, Beth thought, how assimilation had happened over time. Sure, people still used “mating” to refer to tying the knot, but now “wedding” and “husband and wife” were equally common in speech.
So was “widow.”
“Don’t say that.” She looked at the girl and swallowed through a tight throat. “You never know what destiny has in store.”
For good, and for bad.
As she took a sip to clear the block in her throat, an old, familiar pain flared in her chest. Immediately after Wrath’s death, her grief had been white-hot and paralyzing, capable of leveling her for days. Over time, the acute phase had eased into a chronic, low-level hum that was always with her. She’d come to think of her mourning like the weather, something that ebbed and flowed, and sometimes stormed, and rarely, but on occasion, destroyed her anew.
