Chapter Six
So you don’t know their names?” Xcor asked.
As the bitterly cold wind changed direction in the alley, Allhan shook his head at the heavily armed fighter in front of him.
The leader of the Band of Bastards, the male was one of the Brotherhood’s closest allies, and it was obvious why.
He was calm and rational, in spite of the horror in the passageway.
“I’m really sorry,” Allhan said. “Th-they’re Shuli’s friends. Were… Shuli’s friends. I’m not their type, but you know, he let me hang if I was down here, and th-they were okay with me. But I d-don’t actually know them.”
The patient nod that came back at him had all kinds of handle-the-kid-easy in it. “That’s all right. We’ll contact him.”
“I have Shuli’s number if you need it?” What the fuck was he saying. Of course they had Shuli’s digits. “And what about the two who were taken alive?”
“The descriptions you gave are very helpful, and I’ve sent them around to everyone. We’ll find them, I promise.”
The vow was spoken with the kind of banked aggression that nobody needed a translator for, and Allhan glanced up at the cameras that were mounted on the club’s flank and the surrounding buildings’ eaves.
The true power of the Black Dagger Brotherhood was about so much more than fighting.
They had ways of operating in and around Caldwell that put human surveillance to shame, and he had no doubt that his boss, the Brother Vishous, was going to co-opt every single monitoring device in the entirety of the fucking zip code if he had to.
Allhan also knew that he himself would be at the forefront of that effort.
He’d spent the last six months positioning himself for exactly this kind of work.
As his stomach went sour, a set of brilliant headlights pierced down at him, sure as if he were the target of an interrogation.
Lifting his arm to shield his eyes, he turned his head and discovered he was standing at the start of the passageway.
As the glare of the approaching vehicle penetrated the narrow chute, the bodies on the snow became as obvious as screams in silence and he relived rolling each one of them over.
A sudden suffocation had him taking some deep breaths that did shit for the congestion in his lungs, even as the cold registered in his nose and the back of his throat.
“Can you dematerialize?” the fighter asked him.
“Ah… yeah.” Maybe? “Sure.”
“We’re going to take this from here.” Xcor’s hand eased down on Allhan’s shoulder. “I want you to head back to the Wheel.”
“Okay.”
Except he stayed, lingering on the fringes, as the Brothers John Matthew and Qhuinn got out of an enclosed box van.
They had bundles in their arms, and at first he wondered what they were carrying as they walked by him and entered the passageway.
When he heard flapping and caught a whiff of plastic, he realized it was the body bags.
When his shoulders bumped up against the club’s cold, concrete flank, he realized he’d backed away, and without thinking, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie.
The cigarette he took out had been hand-rolled, and the Bic that came with it was red.
He had nicked both of them from the home he’d been welcomed into for the last couple of months.
Vishous had so much of both the coffin nails and of the lighters that there was no way he’d miss them.
And it was weird. First, Allhan had gotten used to the scent of Turkish tobacco because wherever V was, there was usually a cigarette lit, one being put out or another getting readied for the smoking.
After he’d gone through his transition, he’d noticed whenever he took a deep breath and the smoke was in the air, he felt better somehow. Calmer. More relaxed.
He’d been worried about tonight, even before all of this heartbreaking tragedy. So that’s why he’d taken what he had from the Brother.
With hands that shook, he flicked the lighter and put the cigarette between his lips. Leaning into the little flame, he did what he’d watched V do a million times, sucking in—
The hacking cough came out of nowhere and nearly snapped his torso in half.
As he doubled over and had to hold himself up by bracing against one knee, he was aware of everybody looking over at him.
The two Brothers. Xcor. Payne, who had also shown up.
Then again, he was loud enough to wake the dead, and wasn’t that a fucking depressing thought rather than a bad joke.
When he could breathe halfway normally again, he straightened and put the cigarette right back to his lips.
This time, he was more cautious with the inhaling, and though things burned their way down and his lungs felt like concrete, he managed to hold for a moment and exhale without too much of a problem.
One by one, the bodies were taken out of the passageway.
Meanwhile, he smoked his first cigarette all the way down to the tips of his fingers and then he dropped what was left in the snow and stomped on it with his damp Converse. With no filter, the hand-rolled was biodegradable so he left it where it was.
And wished he had another as the last of the remains were taken over to the rear of the box van.
The way the bags sagged in between the holds at the head and feet ruined him.
Then he made the mistake of looking in the back of the vehicle just before John Matthew closed the double doors.
The sight of the black plastic sheaths stacked so neatly made him want to throw up.
Or maybe that was also the firsthand smoke.
As the red taillights glowed and the engine came to life, he cleared his throat. “I’m going to go home.”
He made the announcement to anybody who might be listening, and only because he didn’t want them flagging him as their next issue to deal with.
Before there was any response, he closed his eyes, and took a number of deep breaths through his nose.
Even with the wind blowing all kinds of fresh air down the alley, all he could smell was the blood—
With a jerk and a sizzle, he felt himself break apart into component molecules.
As with so many of his transition’s changes, he was still getting used to dematerializing.
He did not like any of the sensations, not the weird dislocation, not the tumbling flight, and definitely not the terror that he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back together again.
As with the other five times he’d done it, however, he did in fact re-corporealize himself, and fucking hell, you couldn’t beat the convenience.
It was the work of a moment for him to go from down on Market Street to the woody clearing he’d been coming to on his electric bike for the past six months.
Much easier way to travel.
His senses took a second to come back online, and then he was smelling the pines, and listening to the creak of the branches as the wind whistled by, and tracking a startled deer as it bounced off through the snow drifts in quick retreat.
The Hudson River was mostly frozen, only patches in the ice revealing the sluggish current.
Standing about fifty feet from the shore’s lip, he’d been to this exact spot in the woods so often, he could have drawn a detailed map of all the conifers, but as his transportation was different this time, he glanced around with fresh eyes.
The city proper with its skyscrapers and twin bridges was just far away enough so that he could see the entire twinkling urban view, but he was definitely not in suburbia yet.
He was also on municipal land, so trespassing wasn’t an issue.
In the better weather, the running/biking trails had been busy with the health-conscious and the nature-loving, and he had to wonder whether he would still be doing this in the spring.
Probably not.
Before he stared across the waterway, he stomped in the snow, and then lifted one of his Converse to check the pack in the treads. The blizzard had dumped its load all over the city, although the tree canopy here had caught at least half of what had fallen.
As he looked up to the sky, he was surprised to see stars.
The storm’s retreat was fast and complete, the heavy clouds dragging off to the south and west, uncloaking the heavens on a hard cut as opposed to a gradual thinning.
Like a destructive guest who was finally leaving the house.
His gaze lowered and he regarded the opposite shore.
The modern house that commanded his attention, the one that he had been coming to see for the last six months, had been designed by its architect to take advantage of the peninsula it sat upon.
The various levels were articulated in glass, and there was an understated elegance and luxury to the simplicity of the structure.
Nothing showy. Nothing flashy. Nothing to get in the way of the views offered of the river and this forest across the way.
Why his sister had decided to move into the house was a mystery, his carefully crafted plans involving Theotore clearly a non-starter. He wanted answers.
All he had were these clandestine spy sessions. It was too dangerous to reach out to her directly—
As if he had called her name, Carmen walked into view, passing through the living room with its sleek furniture and low lighting. She was slender as ever, and wearing a pink suit with a slim skirt and fitted jacket. Chanel, still.
Chanel, always.
No males in the house. Unless they were uniformed doggen. And she seemed lonely, but maybe he was reading into that because he was lonely—
Instantly, he was back in the passageway downtown, smelling the blood, seeing that slit throat… holding the dying male in his lap. The real teeth of the bargain he’d made with the enemy locked on to his own neck, and he bent over and propped himself on his knees to keep breathing.
He wasn’t sure whether he was going to vomit or pass out.
As a logjam of bile coming up and ragged inhales going down crowded his windpipe, he heard a car approaching. Wrenching around, he wondered who the hell would be driving in these woods, especially with all the new snow?
At least he knew it wasn’t going to be his lesser contact. They always met—
What if it was the Brotherhood? What if they somehow had put a tracer on him?
Jacking to attention, he grabbed his phone to panic-check that his location was still off. Except then he realized that was stupid. One, he hadn’t changed anything, and two, the Brothers wouldn’t be coming for him in a vehicle. Somebody would rematerialize right behind him.
And probably slit his own throat.
He narrowed his eyes. No headlights or taillights. Big engine. Creeping at an idle down the widest running path.
Whoever it was… was coming right to the clearing he was standing in.
And didn’t that piss him the hell off. This was his secret place.
Stepping back into the tree line, he hid behind some boughs.
He was wearing gray, which was fairly good camo with all the snow.
Not great, but not bad. And he should probably dematerialize out of here, but an unfamiliar territoriality kept him rooted.
He felt… ready to fight whoever this was, just because they dared disturb him.
God, he did not understand his response. It was like someone else was under his skin and in his brain, and he had a feeling it was hormones kicking in after his change.
Or maybe the stress he was under was really getting to him?
The vehicle stopped about twenty feet from where he was, and he went stem-to-stern on the thing.
It was a big-ass, blacked-out Ford truck with a dual cab and tires that had the clearance of a two-story house.
The engine was cut without any brake lights flashing red, and the driver’s-side door opened.
As he immediately tested the air for scents because he was downwind, the fresh blood registered so hard and fast, he recoiled with a jerk.
Human. Male. And there was a lot of it.
What the hell was up with this night, he thought.
No surprise, the guy who came around the front of the truck was dressed for nefarious stuff. Black clothes, a black parka with the hood up, black gloves—
“See, I told you.”
Allhan frowned. That was a woman’s voice. Low and quiet, but not soft. No, that tone and cadence were definitely not “soft.”
The passenger-side door was opened. “We had a nice, safe ride, didn’t we. Kept the speed limit the whole time, like the little law abider I am.”
It was at that point that another scent hit him, one that was far more subtle: incense and flowers—and something that had to be a drug because his entire body responded in a rush of heat and a burst of awareness.
Closing his eyes, he felt cheated as he had to exhale just so he could draw more of her inside of him.
Okay, whoever that was… was not a human.
The sound of a body hitting the snowy ground as deadweight popped his lids back open, but he didn’t dwell on the man who lay face-up and motionless. Instead, he desperately tried to pull details on the female out of the darkness, anything about whatever was under that hooded parka.
Nothing. He got nothing. Not even a strand of errant hair wicking on the wind.
Without any conscious thought, he started walking forward. There was no deciding to step out of the trees. No consideration that maybe checking in on this situation might not be a good idea. No assessment as to whether his own life of chaos had room for anybody else’s drama.
Nope. His feet just got with the program like she was calling his name even though she didn’t know he was there. And he was so caught up in her scent and her voice that he did nothing to hide his approach as he—
Click.
The unmistakable sound of an old-fashioned revolver being cocked stopped him in his tracks, and he raised both his hands as if it were a stickup.
“You need any help with that?” he said into the cold breeze.