Chapter FORTY-FIVE

As Xhex came up the steps and into the VIP section, at first she wasn't sure what the hell she was seeing. It looked like John and Qhuinn were going into the back with Gina. Unless, of course, there happened to be another two guys just like them, one of whom had a tat in the Old Language on the back of his neck and another who had shoulders as big as Rehv's.

But that absolutely was Gina in her red-don't-mean-stop dress.

Trez's voice came through Xhex's earpiece. "Rehv is here and we're waiting for you."

Yeah, well, they were going to wait a little longer.

Xhex turned around and headed back for the velvet rope-at least until her path got blocked by a guy wearing wannabe Prada.

"Hey, baby, where you going so fast."

Dumb move on his part. The coked-up piece of Euro-irrelevance picked the wrong female to step in front of.

"Get out of my way before I move you."

"What's the matter?" He reached out for her hip. "Can't handle a real man-Ow."

Xhex turned the guy's grope into a knuckle-crusher, twisting his hand in her fist until his arm flamingoed on him. "Right," she said. "About one hour and twenty minutes ago you bought seven hundred dollars' worth of coke. In spite of the amount you've been doing in the bathrooms, I'm wagering you have enough left on you to get popped for possession. So get the fuck out of my way, and if you try to touch me again, I will break all these fingers, then go to work on your other hand."

She let him loose with a shove, sending him skipping into his buddies.

Xhex kept going, leaving the VIP area and striding past the dance floor. Under the stairs to the mezzanine floor, she went up to a door marked SECURITY STAFF ONLY and entered a code. The hallway on the other side led her by her staff's locker room and to her destination, the security office. After she entered another code, she walked into the twenty-by-twenty room where all the monitoring equipment dumped data into computers.

Everything on the property, except for Rehv's office and Rally's scale den, which were on a separate system, was digitally recorded here, and gray-blue screens showed pictures from all around the club.

"Hey, Chuck," she said to the guy behind the desk. "You mind if I have a minute alone?"

"No problem. Have to have a bathroom break anyway."

She traded places, sinking down into the Kirk chair, as the boys called it. "I don't need long."

"Neither do I, boss. You want something to drink?"

"I'm good, thanks."

As Chuck nodded and hulked out, she focused on the monitors that showed the bathrooms off the VIP section-

Oh...God.

The trio from hell were crowded in together, with Gina in the middle, John kissing his way down to her breasts, and Qhuinn, who was standing behind the woman, slipping his hands around to the front of her hips.

Pinned between the males, Gina did not look like she was working. She looked like she was a woman getting off in a big way.

Damn it.

Although at least it was Gina. Xhex had no particular relationship with her, as the woman had just come on staff, so it wasn't much different than if John had banged some chick from the dance floor.

Xhex eased back in the chair and forced herself to review the other monitors. People were all over the wall, flickering images of them drinking, doing lines, having sex, dancing, talking, staring off into the distance, filling her sight.

This was good, she thought. This was...good. John had lost his romantic delusions and was going elsewhere. This was good-

"Xhex, where are you?" came Trez's voice in her earpiece.

She yanked up her arm and spoke into her watch. "Give me a fucking minute!"

The Moor's response was typically calm. "You okay?"

"I...Look, I'm sorry. I'm coming now."

Yeah, and so was Gina. Christ.

Xhex stood up from the Kirk chair, her eyes going back to the screen she had pointedly not stared at.

Things had progressed. Fast.

John was moving his hips.

Just as Xhex winced and went to leave, he looked up into the security camera. Whether he knew it was there or whether that was just where his eyes ended up, it was hard to know.

Shit. His face was grim, his jaw set hard, his stare soulless in a way that saddened her.

Xhex tried not to see the change in him for what it was and failed. She had done this to him. Maybe she wasn't the only reason he'd turned to stone, but she was a big part of it.

He looked away.

She turned away.

Chuck put his head through the door. "You need more time?"

"No, thanks. I've seen enough."

She clapped her man on the shoulder and left, going out and to the right. At the end of the hall there was a reinforced black door. Entering yet another code, she took the passageway to Rehv's office, and when she came through his door, the three males around the desk all looked at her warily.

She took up res against the black wall across from them. "What."

Rehv leaned back in his chair, crossing his fur-clad arms over his chest. "Are you getting ready to go into your needing."

As he spoke, Trez and iAm both made the Shadow hand motion for warding off disaster.

"God, no. Why do you ask?"

"Because, no offense, you're cranky as fuck."

"I am not." As the males looked at one another, she barked, "Stop that."

Oh, great, now they all just pointedly didn't look at each other.

"Can we get this meeting over with," she said, trying to moderate her tone.

Rehv unfurled his arms and sat forward. "Yeah. I'm about outtie to go meet with the council."

"You want us to come with you?" Trez asked.

"As long as we don't have any big deals scheduled after midnight."

Xhex shook her head. "The last one on the books for this week happened at nine and went off without a problem. Although I will say our buyer was extremely nervous, and that was before it came over the police scanner that another drug dealer's been found dead."

"So out of the six major subcontractors who buy from us, there are two left? Man, that's a turf war, right there."

"And whoever's pulling this shit is probably going to try to work his way up the food chain."

Trez spoke up. "Which is why iAm and I think you should have someone with you twenty-four/seven until this shit shakes out."

Rehv seemed annoyed but he didn't disagree. "We got any intel on who's leaving all those bodies around?"

"Well, duh," Trez said. "People think it's you."

"Not logical. Why would I kill off my own buyers?"

Now Rehv was the one getting the hairy eyeball from the peanut gallery. "Oh, come on," he said. "I'm not that bad. Well, okay, but only if someone fucks with me. And I'm sorry, but the four who've died? Straight-up businessmen. No bullshit. They were good customers."

"You talk to your suppliers?" Trez asked.

"Yup. Told them to hang tight and confirmed I was expecting to move the same amount of product. Those who we lost will quickly be replaced by others, because dealers are like weeds. They always grow back."

There was some discussion about the market and pricing, and then Rehv said, "Before we run out of time, talk to me about the club. What's going down?"

Right, great question, Xhex thought. And our survey says? Ding-ding-ding: John Matthew, most likely. On his knees in front of Gina.

"Xhex, are you growling?"

"No." She forced herself to focus and gave a quick overview of the incidents thus far tonight. Trez reported on the Iron Mask, which he had been put in charge of, and then iAm talked finances and about Sal's Restaurant, another of Rehv's holdings. All in all, it was business as usual-considering they were breaking the kind of human laws that got you felony convictions if you were caught.

Still Xhex's head was only partially in the game, and when it came time to leave, she was the first to hit the door, even though she usually lingered.

She walked out of the office at the perfect time.

If she'd wanted to get kneed in the balls.

At just that moment, Qhuinn appeared at the head of the hall of private baths, his lips swollen and red, his hair tousled, the scent of sex and orgasms and dirty deeds done with finesse preceding him.

She stopped, even though that was a dumb-ass idea.

Gina was next, and she looked like she needed a drink. As in Gatorade. The woman was boneless, not because she was in her deliberate trolling-for-sex mode, but because she'd been worked out properly, and the soft smile on her mouth was far too private and honest for Xhex's liking.

John was the last out, his head held high, his stare clear, his shoulders back.

He had been magnificent. She was willing to bet...he had been magnificent.

His head turned and he met her eyes. Gone was the shy regard, the blush, the awkward fawning. He nodded once and looked away, composed...and ready for more sex, given the way he sized up another one of the prostitutes.

An uneasy, unfamiliar sorrow rippled through Xhex's chest, screwing up the even beat of her heart. In her drive to save him from the chaos her last lover had gone through, she'd ruined something; in pushing him away, she'd stripped him of something precious.

His innocence was gone.

Xhex put her wristwatch up to her mouth. "I need some air."

Trez's response was straight-up approval. "Good idea."

"I'll be back right before you leave for the council meeting."

When Lash returned from his father's lair, he gave himself only about ten minutes to come fully back to life before he got in the Mercedes and drove over to the shitty ranch house where the drugs had been packaged. He was so groggy he thought it was a wonder he didn't hit something, and he almost did. While rubbing at his eyes and trying to dial his phone, he didn't brake fast enough at a stoplight, and it was only because the city of Caldwell's salting trucks had been out earlier that his tires had anything worth grabbing hold of.

He put the phone down and concentrated on the behind-the-wheel shit. Probably better not to speak to Mr. D anyway, given that he was in father fog, as he called it.

Shit, the heater was making him even logier.

Lash put down the windows and cut off the hot breeze wafting into the sedan's front seat, and by the time he pulled up to the piece-of-shit house, he was much more alert. Parking around the back, so that the Merc was shielded by the screened-in porch and the garage, he went in through the kitchen door.

"Where are you?" he called out. "What's the update?"

Silence.

He put his head into the garage, and when he saw only the Lexus, he figured Mr. D, Grady, and the other two were probably on their way back from jumping that other dealer. Which meant he had time to grab something to eat. As he went to the fridge that was stocked for him, he called the little Texan's phone. One ring. Two rings.

He was pulling out a deli-made turkey sandwich and checking the date when D's voice mail kicked in.

Lash straightened and stared down at his phone. He never went to voice mail. Ever.

Of course, maybe the meeting had been delayed and they were right in the middle of it.

Lash ate and waited, expecting to hear back right away. When he didn't, he went into the living room and fired up the laptop, accessing the GPS software that located every single Lessening Society phone on the map of Caldwell. He set the search for Mr. D's and discovered...

The guy was traveling fast and moving easterly. And the two other lessers were with him.

So why wasn't the guy answering his fucking phone?

Suspicious, Lash called again and walked around the shithole as the ringing went on and on. There was nothing out of place in the house as far as he could see. Living room was the same and the two bedrooms and the master were tight, with all the window frames bolted in place and the shades down.

He was calling the Texan a third time when he took the hall to the street side of the house-

Lash stopped in midstep and swiveled his head to the one door he hadn't opened-which had a cold breeze shooting out all around its jamb.

He didn't have to open the thing to know what had happened, but he cracked the fucker anyway. The window was shattered and there were black streaks-rubber, not the blood of slayers-around the sill.

A quick look out the gaper and Lash saw footsteps in the thin layer of snow that were headed in the direction of the street. No doubt the hotfoot routine hadn't lasted long. There were plenty of cars around to hot-wire in this quiet neighborhood, and that kind of shit was kindergarten for any criminal worth his cock.

Grady had done a runner.

And the move was a surprise. He was not the brightest diamond in the chain, but the police were after him. Why would he risk another set of motherfuckers gunning for him?

Lash went into the living room and frowned as he looked over at the couch, where Grady had left that greased-out Domino's box and...the CCJ he'd been reading.

Which was open to the obituaries.

Thinking of Grady's busted knuckles, Lash went over and picked up the paper-

He smelled something on the pages. Old Spice. Ah, so Mr. D had half a brain, and had looked at the thing, too...

Lash scanned down the listings. Bunch of humans in their seventies and eighties. One in her sixties. Two in their fifties. None of which had the name Grady listed either as sur or middle. Three out-of-towners with family here in Caldie...

And then there it was: Christianne Andrews, age twenty-four. No cause of death listed, but the DOD was on Sunday, and the burial service had been today at Pine Grove Cemetery. The key? In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the CPD's Victims of Domestic Violence Fund.

Lash shot over to the laptop and checked on the GPS report. Mr. D's Focus was wheezing itself toward...Well, what do you know. Pine Grove Cemetery, where the once-lovely Christianne was going to rest for eternity in the arms of angels.

Now Grady's story was clear: Asshole beats the shit out of his girl regularly until he pushes the hard loving too far one night. She kicks it and the police find her body and start looking around for the drug-dealing boyfriend who's taking his job stress home to the little woman. No wonder they were after the guy.

And love conquered all...even the common sense of criminals.

Lash went outside and dematerialized to the cemetery, ready to do a meet-and-greet not only with that fool human, but the stupid fucking slayers who should have been watching the idiot better.

He materialized just ten yards from a parked car-which almost got him eyeballed by the guy sitting inside of the thing. Shifting quickly behind the statue of a robed woman Lash checked out what was doing in the sedan: A human was inside, going from the scent. A human with a lot of coffee.

Undercover cop. Who was no doubt hoping that SOB Grady did exactly what he was doing: namely pay respects to the girl he'd murdered.

Yeah, well, two could play at the wait-and-see game.

Lash took out his phone and shielded the bright screen with his palm. The text he sent to Mr. D was a holdback that he hoped like fuck the guy got in time. With the police on-site Lash was going to handle Grady on his own.

And then he was going to throw down to whoever had left the human alone long enough so he could bust free.

Chapter FORTY-SIX

Standing at the foot of the grand staircase, Wrath finished prepping for the meeting with the glymera by drawing a Kevlar vest onto his shoulders. "It's light."

"Weight doesn't always do you better," V said as he fired up a hand-rolled and snapped his gold lighter shut.

"You sure about that."

"When it comes to bulletproof vests, I am." Vishous exhaled, the smoke momentarily shading his face before it floated upward to the ornate ceiling. "But if it'll make you feel better, we can strap a garage door on your chest. Or a car, for that matter."

Heavy footsteps from behind echoed up around the magnificent, jewel-colored foyer as Rhage and Zsadist came down together, a pair of straight-up killers with the daggers of the Brotherhood holstered handles-down on their chests. As they stepped in front of Wrath, there was a chiming noise from the vestibule, and Fritz shuffled over to let in Phury, who had dematerialized down from the Adirondacks, as well as Butch, who'd just walked across the courtyard.

Wrath felt a charge go through him as he looked at his brothers. Even though two of them were still not talking to him, he could feel the common warrior blood running through all their bodies, and he relished the collective need to fight the enemy, be it a lesser or one of their own race.

A soft sound from the stairs brought his head around.

Tohr was coming down from the second story with care, as if he weren't sure he trusted his thigh muscles to catch and hold his weight. From what Wrath could see, the brother was dressed in camos that were cinched onto hips the size of a boy's, and he had on a thick black turtleneck sweater that bagged under his armpits. There were no daggers on his chest, but he had a pair of guns hanging from that hope-and-a-prayer leather belt that was holding his pants up.

Lassiter was right beside him, but the angel for once wasn't pulling any smart-ass. Although he wasn't looking where he was going, either. For some reason, he was staring at the mural on the ceiling, at the warriors fighting in the clouds.

All the Brothers looked up at Tohr, and he didn't stop, didn't meet anyone's eye, just kept on coming until he reached the mosaic floor. Still no stopping. He passed the Brotherhood, went over to the door that led out into the night, and waited.

The only echo from what he'd once been was the set of his jaw. That hard shot of bone was parallel to the floor and then some. As far as he was concerned, he was going out and that was that.

Yeah, wrong.

Wrath walked over to him and said softly, "I'm sorry, Tohr-"

"There's no reason to be sorry. Let's go."

"No."

There was a whole lot of awkward shuffling, as if the other brothers were hating this as much as Wrath was.

"You're not strong enough." Wrath wanted to put his hand on Tohr's shoulder, but he knew that would lead to a violent shrug-off, given how Tohr's fragile body was tensing up. "Just wait until you're ready. This war...this fucking war is going to be around."

The grandfather clock in the study upstairs started to gong, the rhythmic sound drifting out of Wrath's office, over the gold-leafed balustrade, and falling to the ears of the assembled. It was eleven thirty. Time to head out if they wanted to scope the meeting locale before the glymera types arrived.

Wrath cursed under his breath and looked over his shoulder at the five black-clad fighters who were standing together in a unit. Their bodies hummed with power, their weapons not just what hung from holsters and harnesses, but also their hands and feet and arms and legs and minds. Their mental toughness was in the blood; the training and the brute strength in their flesh.

You needed both to fight. Will alone got you only so far.

"You're staying," Wrath said. "And that's final."

With a curse, he punched his way into the vestibule and out the other side. Leaving Tohr behind felt wrong, but there was no other choice. The Brother was compromised to the point of being a danger to himself, and he was a bad distraction. If he were on-site? Each one of the Brothers would have him on their minds, so the whole group would be head-fucked-not exactly what you wanted when you walked into a meeting where someone might try to assassinate the king. For, like, the second time this week.

As the outer doors of the mansion thundered shut, with Tohr on the other side, Wrath and the brothers stood in the bracing gusts that cut up the face of the compound's mountain, barreled across the courtyard, and weaved in and out of the assembled cars.

"Goddamn it," Rhage muttered as they focused on the horizon beyond.

After a while, Vishous turned his head to Wrath, his profile silhouetted against the gray sky. "We need to-"

The pop of a gunshot rang out, and the hand-rolled that was between V's lips was clipped from his mouth. Or maybe it was just vaporized.

"What the fuck!" V shouted as he recoiled.

They all wheeled around, going for their weapons even though there was no way in hell their enemies were anywhere near the great stone fortress.

Tohr was standing calmly in the mansion's doorway, his feet planted solidly, his two hands gripping the butt of the gun he'd set off.

V lunged forward, but Butch steel-barred him around the chest, keeping him from taking Tohr down to the ground.

Didn't stop V's mouth. "What the fuck are you thinking!"

Tohr lowered the muzzle. "I might not be able to fight hand-to-hand yet, but I'm the best shot out of all of you."

"You're fucking crazy," V spat. "That's what you are."

"Do you really think I'd put a bullet in your head?" Tohr's voice was even. "I've already lost the love of my life. Capping one of my brothers is not the kind of chaser I'm looking for. Like I said, I'm the best we've got with a gun, and that is not the kind of asset you want benched on a night like tonight." Tohr reholstered the SIG. "And before you why the hell out of me, I had to make a statement, and it was better than shooting your ugly-ass goatee off. Not that I wouldn't kill to give you the shave your chin is begging for."

There was a long pause.

Wrath busted out laughing. Which was, of course, insane. But the idea that he didn't have to deal with Tohr being left behind like some dog who wasn't allowed to come with the rest of the family was such a stunning relief, all he could do was bellow.

Rhage was the first to join in, throwing his head back, the lights from the mansion catching in his bright blond hair, his superwhite teeth flashing. As he laughed, his big hand came up and landed over his heart like he was hoping he didn't short the thing out.

Butch was next, the cop barking out loud and loosing his hold on his best friend's torso. Phury smiled for a second, and then his big shoulders started to quake-which set Z off until his scarred face was one big, wide grin.

Tohr didn't smile, but there was a glimmer of the way he used to be in the satisfaction with which he settled back on his heels. Tohr had always been a serious guy, the kind who was more interested in making sure everyone was chilled out and tight than cracking jokes and being a loudmouth. But that didn't mean he couldn't razz along with the best of 'em.

It was why he'd been so perfect as the Brotherhood's leader. Right skill set for a necessary job: tight in the head, warm in the heart.

In the midst of the laughing, Rhage looked over at Wrath. Without a word said, the two of them embraced, and when they pulled apart, Wrath gave his brother the male equivalent of an apology-which was a good knock of the shoulders. Then he turned to Z and Z nodded once. Which was Zsadist's shorthand of, Yeah, you were a dick, but you had your reasons and we're cool.

Hard to know who started it, but someone put his arms over the shoulders of someone else, and then another guy did it, and then they were in a football huddle. The circle they made in that cold wind was uneven, composed of different body heights and chest widths that varied and arm lengths that were not equal. But linked together they were a unit.

Standing hip-to-hip with his brothers, Wrath saw as very rare and special what he had once taken for granted: the Brotherhood together once again.

"Hey, you wanna share some of the bromance over here?"

Lassiter's voice brought their heads up. The angel was standing on the steps of the mansion, his glow casting a lovely, soft light into the night.

"Can I hit him?" V asked.

"Later," Wrath said, breaking up the clinch. "And many, many times."

"Not exactly what I had in mind," the angel muttered as one by one they dematerialized to the meeting, with Butch driving off to meet them.

Xhex took form in a stand of pines that was about a hundred yards from Chrissy's grave. She chose the locale not because she expected Grady to be standing over the headstone and sniffling into the arm of his eagle jacket, but because she wanted to feel even worse than she did already-and she couldn't think of a better place for that than where the girl was going to end up come spring.

To her surprise, though, she wasn't alone. For two reasons.

The sedan parked just around the bend, with a clear sight line to the grave, was undoubtedly de la Cruz or one of his subordinates. But there was someone else here, too.

A malevolent force, actually.

Every symphath urge she had told her to tread carefully. As far as she could tell, that thing was lesser with a nitrous oxide injection into its evil engine, and in a quick burst of self-protection, she insulated herself, blending into the landscape-

Well, well, well...another contingency heard from.

From the north, a group of men approached, two of whom were tallish and one who was much smaller. They were all dressed in black and were as fair in their coloring as Norwegians.

Great. Unless you had a new gang in town, one full of I'm-worth-it thugs who were into Preference by L'Or¨¦al, that bunch of blondies were slayers.

The CPD, the Lessening Society, and something worse, all trolling around Chrissy's grave? What were the chances?

Xhex waited, watching the slayers splinter apart and find trees to shadow themselves behind.

There was only one explanation: Grady had fallen in with the lessers. Not a surprise, considering they recruited from criminals, especially the violent kind.

Xhex let the minutes tick by, Milk Dudding the sitch, just waiting for the burst of action that was inevitable, given a movie with this sort of cast. She was due back at the club, but shit was just going to have to roll there without her, because there was no way she was leaving.

Grady had to be on the way.

A little more time passed, and there were lots more cold wind and many more clouds drifting dark blue and bright gray across the face of the moon.

And then, just like that, the lessers walked off.

The malevolent presence dematerialized as well.

Maybe they had given up, but it didn't seem likely. From what she knew about lessers they were a lot of things, but ADD was not one of them. This meant either something more important had gone down, or they'd changed their-

She heard a rustle across the ground.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Grady.

He was huddling against the cold, his arms tucked into a black parka that was too big for him, his feet shuffling through the thin snow cover. He was looking all around, searching the graves for the newest one, and if he kept going, he was going to find Chrissy's soon enough.

Of course, that also meant he was going to see the cop in the unmarked. Or the cop was going to see him.

Right. Time to make a move.

Assuming the slayers stayed gone, Xhex could deal with the CPD.

She was not going to lose this opportunity. No fucking way.

Turning her phone off, she got ready to go to work.