Lover Avenged (32 page)

Or a member of the undead bleeding black blood from a head wound.

There was no way Pizza Guy wasn’t going to see what was doing across the way. And that meant he would have to be dealt with.

After having spent what was left of the night roaming around downtown Caldwell looking for a lesser to fight, John took form in the courtyard at the Brotherhood’s mansion, next to all the cars that were parked in an orderly row. Bitter wind shoved at his shoulders, a bully wanting to knock him down, but he stood tall against the onslaught.

A symphath. Xhex was a symphath.

As his mind churned over the revelation, Qhuinn and Blay materialized beside him. To their credit, neither had asked him what the hell had happened back at ZeroSum. Both, however, continued to look at him like he was a beaker in a science lab, as if they were waiting for him to change colors or froth up all over himself or something.

I need some space, he signed without meeting either of their stares.

“No problem,” Qhuinn replied.

There was a pause as John waited for them to go in the house. Qhuinn cleared his throat once. Twice.

Then in a choked voice, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you again. I-”

John shook his head and signed, It’s not related to sex. So don’t worry, k?

Qhuinn frowned. “Okay. Yeah, cool. Ah…you need us, we’re around. Come on, Blay.”

Blay followed, the two of them walking up the shallow stone steps and going into the mansion.

Standing alone, finally, John had no idea what to do or where to go, but dawn was coming soon, so short of a quick jog through the gardens, he had few outdoor options.

Although, God, he wondered whether he could even go inside. He felt contaminated by what he’d learned.

Xhex was a symphath.

Did Rehvenge know? Did anyone else?

He was well aware of what the law required him to do. He’d learned that in training: When it came to symphaths, you reported them for deportation or you were deemed an accomplice. Pretty damn clear-cut.

Except what happened then?

Yeah, no guessing at that. Xhex would be shipped off like trash to a dump-and things would not go well for her. It was clear she was a half-breed. He’d seen photographs of symphaths, and she looked nothing like those tall, thin, creepy-ass SOBs. So chances were very good she’d be killed up in the colony, because from what he knew, symphaths were like the glymera when it came to discrimination.

Save for the fact that they liked to torture what they derided. And not in the verbal sense.

What the fuck did he do…

When the cold had him shivering under his leather jacket, he went into the house and directly up the grand staircase. The doors of the study were open, and he could hear Wrath’s voice, but he didn’t stop to see the king. He kept walking, going around the corner to the hall of statues.

He wasn’t heading for his room, though.

John pulled up in front of Tohr’s door and paused to stroke his hair flat. There was only one person he wanted to talk this through with, and he prayed that for once there would be something coming back to him.

He needed help. Badly.

John knocked softly.

No answer. He knocked again.

As he waited and waited, he stared at the panels of the door and considered the last two times he’d burst into rooms uninvited. The first had been over the summer when he’d barged into Cormia’s bedroom and found her naked and curled on her side with blood on her thighs. Result? He’d pummeled the holy hell out of Phury for no reason, as the sex had been consensual.

The second had been Xhex, tonight. And look at the situation that had put him in.

John knocked harder, his knuckles banging loud enough to wake the dead.

No answer. Worse, no sounds at all. No TV, no shower, no voices.

He stepped back to see if there was a glow coming from under the door. Nope. So Lassiter wasn’t in there.

Dread made him swallow hard, as he slowly opened the door wide. His eyes went first to the bed, and when Tohr wasn’t lying there, John flat-out panicked. Racing across the Oriental rug, he shot through into the bath, fully expecting to find the Brother sprawled out in the Jacuzzi with his wrists cut.

There was no one in either room.

A strange, giddy hope flared in his chest as he went back into the hall. Looking left and right, he decided to start with Lassiter’s bedroom.

No answer, and, looking inside, he found a whole lot of neat and tidy along with the dimming scent of fresh air.

This was good. The angel had to be with Tohr.

John hot-stepped it down to Wrath’s study and, after he knocked on the jamb, he put his head in, doing a quick review of the spindly sofa and the armchairs and the mantel by the fireplace that the Brothers liked to lean against.

Wrath looked up from the desk. “Hey, son. What’s doing?”

Oh, nothing. You know. Just…excuse me.

John headed down the grand staircase at a jog, knowing that if Tohr was having his first foray back into the world, he wouldn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He’d probably start simple, just going into the kitchen for food with the angel.

Downstairs, John hit the foyer’s mosaic floor, and when he heard male voices to the right, he looked inside the billiards room. Butch was bent over the pool table about to take a shot, and Vishous was behind him, heckling. The wide-screen was showing a whole lot of ESPN, and only two squat glasses were out, one with amber liquid in it, the other with crystal-clear stuff that was not water.

Tohr wasn’t there, but he’d never been big into games. Besides, with the way Butch and V went after each other, they were not the kind of company you’d want if you were just dipping your feet in social waters again.

Turning away, John hurried through the dining room, which had been set for Last Meal, and went into the kitchen, where he found…doggen preparing three different kinds of pasta sauces and taking homemade Italian bread out of the oven and tossing salads and opening bottles of red wine to breathe and…no Tohr.

Hope decanted out of John’s chest, leaving behind a sour tightness.

He went up to Fritz, butler extraordinaire, who greeted him with a brilliant smile on his old, wrinkled face. “Hello, sire, how fare thee?”

John signed in front of his chest so no one else could see. Listen, have you seen…

Shit, he didn’t want to make a panic in the household for no reason other than that he was jumping to conclusions. The mansion was huge and Tohr could be anywhere.

…anyone? he finished.

Fritz’s fuzzy white eyebrows pulled together. “Anyone, sire? Do you refer to the ladies of the house or-”

Males, he signed. Have you seen any of the Brothers?

“Well, I have been here preparing dinner for much of the last hour, but I know that several have come home from the field. Rhage had his sandwiches as soon as he returned, Wrath is in the study, and Zsadist is with the young one in the bath. Let’s see…oh, and I believe Butch and Vishous are playing pool, as one of my staff served them drinks in the billiards room just a moment ago.”

Right, John thought. If a Brother who no one had seen out and about for, oh, say, four months had shown up, surely his name would have been at the top of the list.

Thanks, Fritz.

“Was there anyone in particular you were searching for?”

John shook his head and went back out into the foyer, this time moving with heavy feet. As he walked into the library, he didn’t expect to find anyone, and what do you know. The room was full of books and completely devoid of any Tohr.

Where could-

Maybe he wasn’t in the house at all.

John bolted from the library and skidded around the bottom of the grand staircase, the soles of his shitkickers squeaking as he turned the corner. Ripping open the hidden door beneath the steps, he took the underground tunnel away from the mansion.

Of course. Tohr would go to the training center. If he were going to wake up and start living, that would mean he was going back into the field. And that meant working out and getting his body back into shape.

As John emerged into the facility’s office, he had fully returned to hope-land, and when Tohr wasn’t at the desk, he wasn’t surprised.

That was where he had been told about Wellsie’s death.

John hauled ass out into the corridor, and the dim sound of weights clanking together was a fucking symphony to his ears, relief blooming in his chest until his hands and feet tingled.

But he had to be cool. Approaching the workout room, he shook off his smile, and opened the door wide-

Blaylock glanced over from the bench. Qhuinn’s head bobbed up and down on the StairMaster.

As John looked around, both stopped what they were doing, Blay resetting the weight bar, Qhuinn slowly sinking down to the floor.

Have you seen Tohr? John signed.

“No,” Qhuinn said while wiping his face with a towel. “Why would he be in here?”

John left in a hurry and headed into the gym, where he found nothing but caged lights and glossy pine floors and bright blue mats. The equipment room had only equipment in it. PT suite was empty. Jane’s medical clinic was the same.

He broke out in a run as he gunned back for the tunnel to the main house.

Once he got there, he went directly upstairs to the study’s open doors, and he didn’t knock on the jamb this time. He walked straight up to Wrath’s desk and signed, Tohr is gone.

As the Domino’s delivery guy fumbled to catch the pizza box, everyone else went stock-still.

“That was close,” the human said. “Don’t want to get it-”

The guy froze in a crouch as his eyes traced the black stain on the wall to the crumpled, moaning lesser who’d made it. “…on…your…carpet.”

“Christ,” Lash spat, grabbing the switchblade out of his breast pocket, triggering the blade, and going up behind the man. As Domino’s got to his feet, Lash locked his arm around his neck and drove the knife straight into his heart.

As the guy shriveled and gasped, the pizza box landed on the floor and busted open, the tomato sauce and pepperoni in the same color family as the blood that was leaking from the wound.

Grady jumped off his stool and pointed at the slayer who was still on his feet. “He let me order the pizza!”

Lash pointed the tip of the knife in the idiot’s direction. “Shut the fuck up.”

Grady sank back onto his bar stool.

Mr. D was vicious pissed as he went up to the remaining slayer. “You let him order that there pizza? Didja?”

The lesser snarled back, “You asked me to go in and guard the window in the back bedroom. That’s how we found out the jars were gone, remember? Ass-wipe on the carpet over there was the one who let him call.”

Mr. D didn’t seem to care about the logic, and as fun as it might have been to watch him go Jack Russell on that rat of a lesser, there was not a lot of time. This human who’d shown up with the ’za wasn’t going back to make more deliveries, and his cronies in uniform were going to tweak to that soon enough.

“Call reinforcements,” Lash said, closing up his blade and going over to the incapacitated lesser. “Have them come with a truck. Then get the gun crates. We’re evac’ing here and downstairs.”

Mr. D got on the horn and started barking orders while the other slayer went into the far bedroom.

Lash looked over at Grady, who was staring at the pizza as if he were seriously considering eating it off the rug. “Next time you-”

“Guns are gone.”

Lash turned his head to the lesser. “Excuse me.”

“Gun crates are not in the closet.”

For a split second, all Lash could think about was killing something, and the only thing that saved Grady from being that guy was that he ducked into the kitchen, getting out of the visual field.

Logic took over emotion, however, and he looked over at Mr. D. “You are responsible for the evac.”

“Y’sir.”

Lash pointed to the slayer on the ground. “I want him taken to the persuasion center.”

“Y’sir.”

“Grady?” When there was no answer, Lash cursed and went into the kitchen to find the guy leaning into the refrigerator and shaking his head at the empty shelves. Fucker was either very tight in the head or truly self-involved, and Lash was betting it was the latter. “We’re leaving.”

The human shut the fridge door and came like the dog he was: quickly and without argument, moving so fast he left his coat behind.

Lash and Grady bolted out into the cold, and the Mercedes’ warm interior was a relief.

As Lash slowly eased out of the complex, because hurrying might have gotten people’s attention, Grady looked over. “That guy…not the pizza one…the one who died…he wasn’t normal.”

“Nope. He wasn’t.”

“Neither are you.”

“Nope. I am divine.”

After night fell, Ehlena dressed in her uniform even though she wasn’t going into the clinic. This was for two reasons: One, it helped with her father, who didn’t deal well with any changes in schedule. And two, she felt as though it would buy her a little distance when she met with Rehvenge.

She hadn’t slept at all during the day. Images from the morgue and memories of the way Rehvenge’s strained voice had sounded were a hell of a tag team, battering at her as she lay in the dark, her emotions spinning and flipping until her chest ached.

Was she really going to meet Rehvenge now? At his home? How had this happened?

It helped to remind herself that she was just going to deliver meds to him. This was caretaking on a clinical level, nurse to patient. For godsakes, he’d agreed she shouldn’t be dating anyone, and it wasn’t as if he’d asked her for dinner. She was going to drop off the pills and try to persuade him to go see Havers. That was it.