Lover Revealed (28 page)

Butch started walking. Then fell into a jog.

Together they ran through the shadows of the peaceful subdivision, staying out of the pools of light thrown by porches and streetlamps. They cut through someone's backyard. Dodged around an aboveground pool. Sidled past a garage.

The neighborhood got shittier. Dogs barked in warning. A car passed by with no headlights on and rap thumping. And then an abandoned house. Followed by an empty lot. Until finally they came up to a decrepit two-story from the seventies that was surrounded by a nine-foot-high wooden fence.

"In here," Butch said, looking around for a gate.

"Give me your leg, cop."

As Butch grabbed the top of the fence and cocked his knee, V tossed him over the thing like he was the morning newspaper. He landed in a crouch.

There they were. Three
lessers
. Two of whom were dragging a male out of the house by his arms.

Butch went into an instant overboil. He was radioactive angry about what had been done to him, frustrated by his fears for Marissa, trapped by his human nature—and those slayers became the focal point of his aggression.

Except V materialized next to him and grabbed his shoulder. As Butch wheeled around to tell the brother to fuck off, Vishous hissed, "You can have at them. Just keep it quiet. We've got eyes everywhere and without Rhage around, I need to fight on all cylinders, true? So I can't pull off no
mhis
. I'm not going to be able to mask this one."

Butch stared at his roommate, realizing this was the first time he'd ever been given free rein to go fight. "Why are you letting me in now?"

"We gotta be sure whose side you're on," V said, unsheathing a dagger. "And this is how we'll know. So I'll take the two with the civilian and you hit the other one."

Butch nodded once, then sprang forward, aware of a great roaring between his ears and within his body. As he gunned for the
lesser
that was about to move in on the house, the thing turned like he heard the approach.

The bastard merely looked annoyed as Butch ran up on him. "About time you backups showed." The slayer pivoted away. "There are two females in here. The blonde's really fast, so I want her—"

Butch tackled the
lesser
from behind and made like a vise, clamping on to the fucker's head and shoulders. It was like mounting a rodeo horse. The slayer went shit wild and spun around, grabbing at Butch's legs and arms. When that didn't work, the thing slammed the two of them back against the house hard enough to dent the aluminum siding.

Butch stayed locked on, his forearm tight against the
lesser's
esophagus, his other hand on his straining wrist, pulling back. To get an even better hold, he linked his legs around the slayer's hips, crossed his ankles, and squeezed with his thighs.

It took a while, but asphyxia and exertion eventually slowed the undead down.

Except, holy hell, by the time the
lesser's
knees started to wobble, Butch knew what a pinball felt like. He'd been knocked against the house's exterior, then its front doorjamb, and now they were in the hall and he was getting banged back and forth in the narrow space. His brains were pinging around the inside of his skull and his internal organs were like scrambled eggs, but, goddamn it, he was not letting go. The longer he kept the
lesser
occupied, the more chance those females had to escape—

Oh, shit, it was Tilt-A-Whirl time. The world spun and Butch hit the floor first, the lesser turtling over on top of him.

Bad place to be. Now he was the one who couldn't breathe.

He threw out a leg, kicked against the wall, and slid out from under, wrenching the
lesser's
torso. Unfortunately, the bastard pulled a twist move, too, and the two of them started rolling around and around on the nasty orange carpet. Finally, Butch's strength wore out.

With little effort, the slayer flipped him over so they were face-to-face, then cranked Butch into a submission hold, immobilizing him.

Okay… now would be a great time for V to show up.

Except then the
lesser
looked down and met Butch's eyes, and the world just slowed down. Grinded to a halt. Stopped. Dead.

Another kind of vise action bolted them together, but this was a locking of stares and Butch was the one in control, even though he was on the bottom of the body pile. The
lesser
became transfixed and Butch followed his instincts.

Which meant he opened his mouth and began to inhale slowly.

But he wasn't taking in air. He was taking in the slayer. Absorbing him. Consuming him. It was as before in the alley, but now no one stopped the process. Butch just kept sucking in an endless draw, a streaming black shadow passing from the
lesser's
eyes and nose and mouth and going into Butch.

Who felt like a balloon filling up with smog. Who felt like he was assuming the mantle of the enemy.

When it was over, the slayer's body just disintegrated into ash, the fine mist of gray particles falling onto Butch's face, chest, and legs.

"Holy shit."

In utter despair, Butch shifted his eyes around. V was leaning in through the front door, holding on to the frame as if the house was the only thing keeping him standing.

"Oh, God." Butch rolled over onto his side, the ugly carpet scratchy on his cheek. He was wretchedly sick to his stomach, and his throat burned like he'd been hammering Scotch for hours. But worst, the evil was back in him, running through his veins.

As he breathed through his nose, he smelled baby powder. And he knew it was him, not remnants of the
lesser
. "V…" he said with desperation, "what did I just do?"

"I don't know, cop. I have no idea."

Twenty minutes later, Vishous shut himself and his roommate in the Escalade and hit all the locks. As he dialed his cell phone and put it up to his ear, he eyed Butch. The cop was looking multifactorially ill in the passenger seat, like he was seasick and jet-lagged and coming down with the flu all at the same time. And he reeked of baby powder, as if he were sweating out the scent through every one of his pores.

While the phone rang, Vishous started the SUV, threw it into drive, and thought back to Butch working some kind of mojo shit on that
lesser
. To steal a phrase from the cop,
Holy Mary, Mother of God
.

Man… that suck job was a hell of weapon. But the complications were legion.

V glanced over again. And realized it was to reassure himself that Butch wasn't eyeing him as a
lesser
would.

Fuck.

"Wrath?" V said as his call was answered. "Listen, I—shit… our boy here just consumed a
lesser
. No… not Rhage. Butch. Yes,
Butch
. What? No, I saw him… consume the thing. I don't know how, but the
lesser
disappeared into dust. No, no knife involved. He inhaled the damn thing. Look, just to be conservative, I'm going to take him to my place and let him sleep it off. Then I'm coming home, true? Right… No, I have no clue how he did it, but I'll give you the blow-by-blow when I get to the compound. Yup. Right. Uh-huh. Oh, for God's—
yes, I'm fine
and quit asking me that. Later."

As he hung up and tossed the phone onto the dash, Butch's voice drifted over, all weak and hoarse. "I'm glad you're not taking me home."

"Wish I could, though." V took out a hand-rolled and lit it, drawing hard on the thing. As he blew smoke, he cracked one of the windows. "Jesus Christ, cop, how did you know you could do that?"

"I didn't." Butch coughed a little, like his throat was bothering him. "Lemme have one of your daggers."

V frowned and looked at his roommate. "Why?"

"Just give it to me." As V hesitated, Butch shook his head with sadness. "I'm not going to come after you with it. I swear on my mother."

They hit a red light and V shifted his seat belt out of the way so he could unsheathe one of his blades from his chest holster. He gave the weapon to Butch handle first, then checked the road ahead. When he glanced back over, Butch had shoved up his sleeve and was slicing himself on the inside of his forearm. They both stared at what came out.

"I'm bleeding black again."

"Well… not a surprise."

"I smell like one, too."

"Yeah." Man, V did not like the way the cop was fixated on that dagger. "How 'bout you give my blade back, buddy?"

Butch handed the thing over and V wiped the black steel on his leathers before resheathing the weapon.

Butch wrapped his arms around his middle. "I don't want to be anywhere around Marissa when I'm like this, okay?"

"No problem. I'll take care of everything."

"V?"

"What?"

"I will die rather than hurt you."

V's eyes shot across the space between them. The cop's face was grim and his hazels were dead serious, the words not a mere expression of thought but a vow: Butch O'Neal was prepared to take himself out of the game if shit got critical. And he was fully capable of doing the job.

V inhaled on his hand-rolled again and tried not to get even more attached to the human. "Hopefully it won't come to that."

Please, God, let it not come to that.

Chapter Nineteen

Marissa paced another circle around the Brotherhood's library and ended up back at the windows that looked out over the terrace and the pool.

The day must have been a warm one, she thought. There were patches in the snow that had melted through, revealing black slate at the terrace or brown ground over the lawn—

Oh, who the hell cared about the goddamned landscape.

Butch had left after First Meal, saying he had a quick errand to run. Which was fine. Dandy. A-okay. But that had been two hours ago.

She wheeled around as someone came into the room. "
Butch
—oh… it's… you."

Vishous stood in the archway, a full-blooded warrior framed by the extravagant gold-leaf molding around him.

Dear Virgin in the Fade… his expression was utterly blank, the kind of thing you put on your face when you had bad news to deliver.

"Tell me he is alive," she said. "Save my life right here and now and tell me he is alive."

"He is."

Her knees buckled and she grabbed on to one of the wall-to-wall bookshelves. "But he isn't coming, is he?"

"No."

As they stared at each other, she noticed absently that he was wearing a fine white shirt with his black leathers: a Turn-bull and Asser button-down. She recognized the cut. It was what Butch wore.

Marissa wrapped an arm around her waist, overwhelmed by Vishous even though he was all the way across the room. He seemed like such a dangerous male—and not because of the tattoos on his temple or the black goatee or that fearsome body. The Brother was cold to the core, and someone that removed was capable of anything.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"He's okay."

"Then why isn't he here?"

"It was just a quick fight."

A…
quick… fight
. Her knees loosened again as memories of being at Butch's bedside crashed over her. She saw him lying on hospital sheets in that johnny, beaten up, almost dying. Contaminated by something evil.