Mary rose to her feet and had to settle for two almost-theres in the composure department: one, she retucked her silk blouse and ran her fingers through her hair, which she was growing out; and two, she Halloween-masked her features, freezing everything into a semblance of concerned, warm, and not freaking out over her own past trauma.
When she stepped into the second-story hall, the scent of melting chocolate and baking sugar, butter and flour announced that Toll House Cookie Night was in full swing—and for an insane moment, she felt like popping open a bunch of windows and letting the cold October air scrub the smells out of the house.
The contrast between all that homey comfort and the hammer she was about to drop seemed disrespectful at best, one more part of the tragedy at worst.
Safe Place’s facilities had started out as a three-story, turn-of-the-twentieth-century roof-and-four-walls that had all the grace and distinction of a bread box. What it did have were bedrooms and bathrooms in abundance, a serviceable kitchen, and enough privacy so that the human world was never going to get tipped off that vampires were using the thing in their midst. And then came the expansion. After Tohr’s Wellsie died and he made a gift in her name to the facility, the Wellesandra Annex had been built by vampire craftsmen out back. Now, they had a community room, a second kitchen that was big enough for everyone to eat together in, and four more suites for additional females and their young.
Marissa ran the facility with a compassionate heart and a fantastic logistical head, and with seven counselors, including Mary, they were doing necessary, purposeful work.
That, yes, some times broke your heart in half.
The door to the attic made no sound as Mary opened it because she had WD-40’d the hinges herself a couple of nights before. The stairs, however, chattered the whole time as she ascended, the old wooden planks popping and squeaking even as she made sure her flats didn’t land too hard.
It was impossible not to feel like some kind of Grim Reaper.
On the landing above, the yellow light from the old-fashioned brass fixtures in the ceiling brought out the red tones of both the hundred-year-old unpainted wainscoting and the braided runner that led down the narrow hall. At the far end, there was an oval oculus, and peachy illumination from the exterior security light above it bled in and got sliced into quadrants by the divides of its panes.
Of the six suites, five doors were open.
She went to the one that was shut and knocked. When a soft “Hello?” came, she cracked the panels and leaned in.
The little girl sitting on one of the two twin beds was working the tangles out of a doll’s head with a brush that was missing a number of bristles. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her loose dress was handmade of a blue material, well-worn, but with seams that had stayed strong. Her shoes were scuffed, yet tied carefully.
She seemed very small in what was not a very large space.
Abandoned not by choice.
“Bitty?” Mary said.
It was a moment before pale brown eyes lifted. “She’s not doing well, is she.”
Mary swallowed hard. “No, sweetheart. Your mahmen isn’t.”
“Is it time to go say good-bye to her?”
After a moment, Mary whispered, “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”
TWO
“Are you fucking kidding me!”
As Hollywood’s massive body and stupid frickin’ pea-brained head broke rank and took off toward the dorms, Vishous was of half a mind to run after the guy just so he could beat the living shit out of his brother. But nooooooooooo.
You couldn’t snatch and grab a bullet after the trigger had been pulled.
Even if you were trying to save the piece of fool lead from its grave.
V whistled into the night, but it wasn’t like the rest of the fighters weren’t also watching the bastard’s backside go bat-out-of-hell rogue.
Members of the Brotherhood and the other males exploded free from behind their covers of trees and outbuildings, falling into wing formation behind Rhage, guns up and daggers ready. Shouts from the enemy announced that the attack was noticed almost immediately, and everyone was only halfway to goal when lessers began streaming out of doorways, wasps from the hives.
Cluster-fuck much? Hollow pops! sounded as Rhage discharged his weapon all over the place, nailing slayers in the face, his big-bore bullets blowing out the backs of those skulls and dropping the undead into tangles of writhing arms and legs. Which was great—but couldn’t possibly last as the slayers sought to close off behind the guy, isolate him, and create a second front line against the rest of the brothers.
Thank you, Mr. Premature Charge and your early-work-release, independent-study project that bent over the plan they’d worked on for nights.
Total chaos took over, although unlike Rhage’s bolt, that was expected: Just as you could trust every hand-to-hand combat to eventually end up on the ground, you could guarantee that the best-planned attack would, after a while, spin into the land of goatfucks and goddamn-its. If you were lucky, that inevitability took some time to land on your head, and your enemy sustained crippling losses beforehand.
Not with Hollywood around
Oh, and P.S., when someone tells you you’re going die tonight, how about you don’t run headlong into a triple digit of your enemy? You fucking asshole.
“I was trying to save you!” V hollered into the fight. Just because he could now that their covers were blown.
Rhage was such a hothead. And knowing this, V should have confronted the idiot back at the mansion, but he’d been too distracted getting his own shit together to plug into the vision. It wasn’t until he’d gotten out to the abandoned campus that he’d blinked a couple of times … and realized, yes, this was when it happened for Rhage. Tonight. In this field.
Keeping quiet about it would have been like putting a bullet into the guy himself.
Of course, saying something had worked out so fucking well.
“Fuck you, Hollywood!” he yelled. “I’m coming for you!”
’Cuz he was going to get that bitch off this field if it was the last thing he did.
V held his fire until he got within a ten-foot range of his first target—it was either that or run the risk of hitting one of his brothers or another of their fighters. The lesser that he bull’s-eyed was one with dark hair, dark eyes, and the kind of aggression you’d find in a grizzly bear: lumbering with a lot of spit spools. One bullet into the right eye socket and the bastard was good as lawn on the ground.
There was no stabbing the thing back to the Omega. Vishous jumped over the still-moving, but no longer mobile, piece of meat, and gunned for his next one. Identifying a blond slayer about fifteen feet to the left, he quick-checked the peripheral to make sure the Brotherhood wasn’t getting wagon-wheeled. Then, using his glove-covered trigger finger, he picked off the guy who looked like Rod Stewart, ca. 1980.
On to numbers three to infinity. V hit whatever was safe to take out, making sure that he didn’t cross-hair or impair friendly fire while still remaining effective. Some hundred and fifty yards of video game later and he’d reached both cover and danger: the first of the dorms, which they had originally planned to ambush. The damn thing was a hollowed-out shell with plenty of hidey-holes only a fool would assume were empty, and he was careful to monitor his six as he back-flatted down the side of the brick building, ducking under windows, jumping over low bushes.
The cotton-candy/rancid-meat stench of lessers leaking everywhere swirled around in the cold gusts, mixing into a war salad with the echoes of gunshots and the shouts of the enemy. Anger in his gut drove him forward and kept him focused at the same time as he tried to drop targets without getting shot himself.
As soon as he got to Rhage, he was going to fat-lip that goddamn beauty queen.
Assuming destiny didn’t black-shroud the SOB first.