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"You have no idea—oh, God!" Havers's whole body shook. "You're compromised now. You could be contaminated."

  "Contaminated?" She looked down at Butch.

  "Surely you felt it when you came in!" Havers launched into all kinds of words, none of which she heard.

  As her brother kept at it, her priorities realigned themselves, steel locking into steel. It didn't matter that Butch had no idea who she was. If the mistaken identity kept him alive and fighting, that was all that mattered.

  "Marissa, are you hearing me? You're contam—"

  She glanced over her shoulder. "Well, if I'm contaminated, then it looks like I'm staying with him, doesn't it."

  Chapter Seven

  John Matthew squared off at his target and tightened his grip on his blade. On the far side of the gym, across a sea of blue mats, there were three punching bags hanging from the bottom lip of the bleacher section. As he concentrated, the middle one became a lesser in his mind. He pictured the white hair and the pale eyes and the pasty skin that haunted his dreams, and he started to run, his bare feet slapping over thick plastic skin.

  His little body had neither speed nor strength, but his will was enormous. And sometime in the next year or so, the rest of him would catch up to the power of his hatred.

  He. Couldn't. Fucking. Wait. For his transition to hit.

  Lifting his blade over his head, he opened his mouth to scream a war cry. Nothing came out, because he was a mute, but he imagined he was making a whole lot of noise.

  As far as he was concerned, the lessers had killed his parents. Tohr and Wellsie had taken him in, told him what he really was, showed him the only love he'd known. When those bastard slayers had murdered her and Tohr had disappeared, John had been left with nothing but his revenge—revenge for them and the other innocent life that had been lost back in January.

  John approached the bag running flat out, with his arm above his shoulder. At the last instant, he ducked into a ball, rolled on the mats, then shot up off the ground with the blade, hitting the bag from underneath. If it had been a real combat scenario, the knife would have gone into the lesser's gut. Deep.

  He twisted the hilt.

  Then he sprang to his feet and spun around, imagining the undead falling to its knees, holding on to the hole in its abdomen. He stabbed the bag from up top, seeing himself bury the blade in the back of the neck—

  "John?"

  He whirled around, panting.

  The female who approached made him tremble—and not just because she'd surprised the shit out of him. It was Beth Randall, the half-breed queen, the female who was also his sister, or so blood tests proved. Strangely, whenever she was around, his head went on a little vacation, his brain seizing up, but at least he didn't pass out anymore. Which had been his first reaction to meeting her.

  Beth came across the mats, a long, lean female dressed in jeans and a white turtleneck, her dark hair the exact color of his. As she came closer, he could smell Wrath's bonding scent on her, a dark perfume specific to her hellren. John suspected the marking happened through sex, as the spice was always strongest at First Meal when they came down from their bedroom.

  "John, will you join us up at the house for the last meal of the night?"

  I have to stay and practice, he signed in American Sign Language. Everyone in the household had learned ASL, and the concession to his weakness, to his lack of voice, irked him. He wished they didn't have to make any allowances for him. He wished he were normal.

  "We'd like to see you. And you spend so much time here."

  Practice is important.

  She eyed the blade in his hand. "So are other things."

  As he continued to stare at her, her dark blue eyes looked around the gym as if she were trying to find an appealing argument.

  "Please, John, we're… I'm worried about you."

  At one time, three months ago, he would have loved to have heard those words from her. From anybody. But no more. He didn't want her concern. He wanted her to get out of his way.

  When he shook his head, she took a deep breath. "All right. I'm going to leave more food in the office, okay? Please… eat."

  He inclined his head once, and when she lifted her hand as if to reach out, he stepped away. Without another word, she turned around and walked back across the blue mats.

  When the door shut behind her, John jogged back to the far side of the gym and crouched to start running. As he took off once again, he lifted his blade high, rank hatred powering his arms and legs.

  Mr. X flipped into action at high noon, walking into the garage of the house he recharged in, getting into the don't-notice-me minivan that disguised him among Caldwell's human traffic.

  He had no interest in his assignment, but you acted when the master called in a command and you were the Fore-lesser. It was either that or you got canned, something Mr. X had been through once before and not enjoyed: Having the Omega slap a pink slip on you was about as much fun as eating a barbed-wire salad.

  The fact that Mr. X was back on the flipping planet and in this role once again was still a shocker to him. But it seemed as if the master had grown tired of his revolving door of Fore-lessers and wanted to make one stick. As Mr. X had evidently been the best of the lot in the last fifty or sixty years, he'd been called into service for another round.

  Reissued out of hell.

  And so he was going to work today. As he pushed the key into the ignition and the Town & Country's anemic engine coughed over, he was utterly uninspired, no longer the leader he'd first been. But it was hard to get motivated in this kind of lose/lose situation. The Omega was going to get pissed off again and take it out on his number one. It was inevitable.

  In bright noonday sun, Mr. X headed out of the fresh and perky subdivision, passing by Monopoly houses that had been built in the late 1990s. The things all shared a common architect, the gene pool of features locking the homes into cheap variations on duck-and-bunny adorable. Lot of front porches with insubstantial molding. Lot of plastic shutters. Lot of seasonal decorations, this time themed out on Easter.

  Perfect hiding place for a lesser, a bramble of frazzled soccer moms and hassled midmanagement daddies.

  Mr. X took Lily Lane out to Route 22, pausing at the stop sign to the big road. Using a GPS tracker, he got a ballpark location on the place in the woods that the Omega had asked him to pay a visit to. Travel time to destination was twelve minutes and that was good. The master was all impatient, eager to see if his plan with that Trojan human had worked, all jonesing to know if the Brotherhood had taken their little pal back.

  Mr. X thought about the guy, sure that the two of them had met before. But even as he wondered about the where and when of it, none of that mattered today. And it hadn't mattered when Mr. X had been working the tough bastard over, either.

  Jesus, that had been a hard SOB. Not one word about the Brotherhood had passed the man's lips, no matter what was done to him. Mr. X had been impressed. Guy like that would have been quite an asset if they could have turned him.

  Or maybe that had already happened. Maybe that human was one of them now.

  A little later, Mr. X parked the Town & Country on Route 22's shoulder and hoofed it into the woods. Snow had fallen last night in some freak March storm, and it padded the pine boughs, like the trees had geared up to play football with each other. Kind of pretty, actually. If you were into the nature shit. The farther he went through the forest, the less he needed the tracker because he could feel the master's essence, sure as if the Omega was up ahead. Maybe the human hadn't gotten picked up by the Brothers—

  Well, what do you know.

  As Mr. X emerged into a clearing, he saw a scorched circle on the ground. The heat that had flared there had been great enough to melt the snow and mud-up the ground for a time and the now refrozen earth showed the contours of the burst. All around, remnants of the Omega's presence lingered, like the stink of summer garbage long after the trash had been picked up.

  He breathed
in through his nose. Yup, there was something human in the mix, too.

  Holy shit, they'd killed the guy. The Brotherhood had exterminated that human. Interesting. Except… why hadn't the Omega known the man was dead? Maybe there hadn't been enough in him to have him get called home to the master?

  The Omega wasn't going to like this report. He was allergic to failure: it made him itchy. And itchy led to bad things for Fore-lessers.

  Mr. X knelt down to the withered earth and envied the human. Lucky bastard. When a lesser bit it, what waited for him on the other side was an endless liquid misery, a horror bath that was every Christian's vision of hell times a thousand: After slayers were killed, they returned to the veins of the Omega's body, circling and recircling in an evil swill of other dead lessers, becoming the very blood the master put in you when you were inducted into the Society. And for these reconstituting slayers there was no end to the burning cold or the driving starvation or the crushing pressure because you remained conscious. For eternity.

  Mr. X shuddered. An atheist in life, he hadn't thought of death as anything other than a dirt nap. Now, as a lesser, he knew exactly what was waiting for him when the master lost patience and «fired» him again.

  And yet there was hope. Mr. X had found a little loophole, assuming the pieces fell together right.

  By a stroke of luck, he might have found a way out of the Omega's world.

  Chapter Eight

  Butch took three long, trippy days to wake up and he resurfaced from his coma in the manner of a buoy, popping out of the depths of nothingness and wobbling on top of reality's lake of sights and sounds. Eventually, he put things together enough to understand that he was looking at a white wall in front of him and hearing a soft beeping in the background.

  Hospital room. Right. And the ties on his arms and legs were now gone.

  Just for kicks and giggles, he rolled over onto his back and pushed his head and shoulders off the bed. He kept himself upright because he liked the sensation of the room going around. It distracted him from his Whitman's Sampler of aches and pains.

  Man, he'd had bizarre, wonderful dreams. Marissa at his bedside caring for him. Stroking his arm, his hair, his face. Whispering to him to stay with her. That voice of hers had been what kept him in his body, what kept him back from the white light that any idiot who'd seen Poltergeist knew was the afterlife. For her, he'd somehow hung on, and going by the steady, strong beat of his heart, he knew he was going to make it.

  Except, of course, the dreams had all been a gyp. She wasn't here and now he was stuck in this bag of skin of his until the next badass thing took him down.

  Goddamn it, just his rotten luck to have kept breathing.

  He looked up at the IV pole. Eyeballed the catheter bag.

  Then glanced over at what appeared to be a bathroom. Shower. Oh, God, he'd give his left nut for a shower.

  As he shifted his legs around, he was aware that what he was about to do was probably a very bad call. But he told himself, as he hung up the catheter bag next to his IV meds, that at least the room spins had mostly stopped.

  A couple of deep breaths and he grabbed the IV pole to use as a cane.

  Feet hit the cold floor. Weight eased onto his legs.

  Knees buckled without hesitation.

  As he fell back on the bed, he knew he wasn't going to make it to the bathroom. With no hope of hot water, he turned his head and eyed the shower with naked lust—

  Butch inhaled like he'd been cracked on the back of the head.

  Marissa lay sleeping on the floor in the corner of the room, curled up on her side. Her head rested on a pillow and a beautiful gown of pale blue chiffon spilled over her legs. Her hair, that incredible waterfall of pale blond, that medieval romance novel rush of waves, was all around her.

  Holy shit. She had been with him. She had truly saved him.

  His body had newfound strength as he stood and lurched across the linoleum. He wanted to kneel down but knew he'd probably get stuck on the floor, so he settled for standing over her.

  Why was she here? Last thing he knew, she didn't want to have anything to do with him. Hell, she'd refused to see him back in September when he'd come to her hoping for… everything.

  "Marissa?" His voice was shot to shit and he cleared his throat. "Marissa, wake up."

  Her lashes flicked open and she snapped upright. Her eyes, those pale blue, sea-glass-colored eyes, shot to his. "You're going to fall!"

  Just as his body swayed backward and he toppled off his heels, she leaped to her feet and caught him. In spite of her willowy body, she took all of his weight easily, reminding him that she was no human woman and was likely stronger than he was.

  As she helped him back onto the bed and pulled the sheets over him, the fact that he was weak as a child and she was treating him like one out of necessity bit into his pride.

  "Why are you here?" he asked, his tone as sharp as his embarrassment.

  When her eyes didn't meet his, he knew she also was uncomfortable with their situation. "Vishous told me you were hurt."

  Ah, so V had guilted her into this Florence Nightingale routine. That bastard knew Butch was a simpering idiot for her and that the sound of her voice would do exactly what it did and bring him around. But it was a helluva position for her to be in, a reluctant rope to the proverbial lifeboat.

  Butch grunted as he rearranged himself. And also from the knock his pride was taking.

  "How do you feel?" she said.

  "Better." Comparatively. Then again, he could have been dragged under a bus and still been miles ahead of what the lesser had done to him. "So you don't have to stay."

  Her hand drifted off the sheet and she took a slow breath, her breasts rising under the expensive bodice of her gown. As she wrapped her arms around herself, her body became an elegant s-curve.

  He looked away, ashamed because part of him wanted to take advantage of her pity and keep her with him. "Marissa, you can go now, you know."

  "Actually, I can't."

  He frowned and glanced back at her. "Why not."

  She paled, but then lifted her chin. "You're under—"

  There was a hiss and an alien walked into the room, the figure dressed in a yellow suit and a breathing mask. The face behind the molded plastic was female, but the features indistinct.

  Butch looked back at Marissa with horror. "Why the fuck aren't you wearing one of those getups?" He had no idea what kind of infection he had, but if it was bad enough that the medical staff was pulling a Silkwood, he had to imagine he was deadly.

  Marissa cringed, making him feel like a total thug. "I… I'm just not."

  "Sire?" the nurse interrupted gently. "I'd like to take a blood sample if you don't mind?"

  He kicked out a forearm while still glaring at Marissa. "You were supposed to be wearing one of those when you came in, weren't you? Weren't you?"

  "Yes."

  "Goddamn it," he snapped. "Why didn't you—"

  As the nurse nailed him a good one in the crook of his elbow, Butch's strength ran out of him like she'd popped the balloon of his energy with that needle of hers.

  Dizziness slammed into him and his head fell back against the pillow. But he was still pissed off. "You should have one of those on."

  Marissa didn't respond, just paced around.

  In the silence, he glanced over at the little vial that was plugged into his vein. As the nurse swapped it for an empty one, he couldn't help noticing that his blood seemed darker than usual. Much darker.

  "Good God… what the hell's coming out of me?"

  "It's better than it was. Much so." The nurse smiled through the mask.

  "Then what color was it before," he muttered, thinking the shit looked like brown sludge.

  When the nurse was done, she shoved a thermometer under his tongue and checked the machines behind the bed. "I'll bring you some food."

  "Has she eaten," he mumbled.

  "Keep your mouth closed." There was a beeping n
oise and the nurse took the plastic-covered stick from his lips. "Much better. Now, is there anything you'd like?"

  He thought of Marissa risking her life because of guilt. "Yeah, I want her to get out of here."

  Marissa heard the words and stopped walking around. Easing back against the wall, she glanced down at herself and was surprised to find that her gown still fit her the same. She felt half her usual size. Small. Insubstantial.

  As the nurse left, Butch's hazel eyes burned. "How long do you have to stay?"

  "Until Havers tells me I can go."

  "Are you sick?"

  She shook her head.

  "What are they treating me for?"

  "Your injuries from the car accident. Which were extensive."

  "Car accident?" He looked confused, then nodded at the IV as if he wanted to change the subject. "What's in there?"

  She linked her arms over her chest and recited the antibiotics, the nutrients, the pain meds, and the anticoagulants he was on. "And Vishous comes in to help as well."

  She thought of the Brother and his disarming diamond eyes and the tattoos at his temple… and his obvious dislike of her. He was the only one who came into the room without protective clothing on and he dropped by twice a day, at the beginning and the end of night.

  "V's been here to visit?"

  "He lays his hand above your belly. It eases you." The first time that warrior had stripped the sheets from Butch's body and pulled up the hospital johnny, she'd been speechless both at the intimate sight and the Brother's authority. But then she'd grown mute for another reason. Butch's belly wound had been frightening—and then Vishous had scared her, too. He'd taken off the glove she'd always seen him wear, revealing a glowing hand that was tattooed front to back.

  She'd been terrified about what would happen next, but Vishous just hovered that palm of his about three inches over Butch's belly. Even in the coma, Butch had sighed raggedly in relief.

  Afterward, Vishous had rearranged the hospital johnny and the bedsheets and turned to her. He'd told her to close her eyes, and though she was scared of him, she did. Almost immediately a profound peace had come over her, as if she were bathed in white, calming light. He did that to her each time before he left, and she knew he was protecting her. Although she couldn't think of why, given that he clearly despised her.