Driving out from under the bridge, his eyes were bouncing around. But shit. . . every car he saw, from the ones on the surface roads to the traffic that whizzed by on the highway, every single one of them was a Caldwell PD unmarked.
He was sure of it. They were police. Humans with badges looking into his car. The police, the CPD, the police, the CPD. . .
As he headed for the ranch, he hit every single red light in Caldwell, and as he was forced to brake it, he stared straight ahead, praying that all the police behind and in front of him didn't sense he had a dying man and a fuckload of drugs in the car.
It would take too much effort to deal with being pulled over. Besides, talk about buzz kill. He was finally feeling like himself, every single heartbeat drumming through his veins, the steel-shod hooves of all that cocaine trampling through his brain, creating a cacophony of creative inspiration--
Wait. What had he been thinking of?
Aw, hell, what did it matter. Half-formed ideas winged around his mind, plans forming and disintegrating, every single one of them brilliant.
Benloise, he had to get to Benloise and reestablish the connection. Make more lessers of his own. Find the little Shit and stab him back to the Omega.
Fuck his father like the guy fucked him.
Fuck Xhex again.
Go back to the farmhouse and fight with the Brothers.
Money, money, money--he needed money.
As he passed by one of Caldwell's parks, his foot eased off the accelerator. At first, he wasn't sure whether he was actually seeing what he thought he was. . . or whether his coked head was warping reality.
But no. . .
What was going down in the shadows by the fountain presented the opportunity he'd planned on manufacturing for himself. Or infiltrating if need be.
Pulling the Mercedes into one of the metered parking spaces, he turned off the car and got his knife out. As he went around the hood of the AMG, he was vaguely aware he wasn't thinking straight, but as he rode the cocaine rush, that felt just fine.
John Matthew took form in a stand of pines and bushes along with Xhex and Qhuinn, and Butch, V and Rhage. Up ahead, the ratty farmhouse with the yellow crime scene tape around it looked like something out of Law & Order.
Although if that were true, without Smell-o-Vision, you wouldn't get an accurate pic even with great camera work. Despite the acres of fresh air around, the scent of blood was strong enough to make you clear your throat.
To properly cover Lash's intel dump, the Brotherhood had split in half, with the others staking out the address which had been tied to the license plate on that souped-up Civic. Trez and iAm had just taken off to handle their own biz for the night, but they were ready to come back at the drop of a text. And according to the Shadows, there was nothing too special to report since Xhex had left them except for the fact that Detective de la Cruz had returned, spent an hour, and left again.
John searched the scene before him, focusing on the shadows more than what the risen moon illuminated. Then he closed his eyes and let his instincts bleed out from him, giving that indefinable, invisible sensor in the center of his chest free rein.
In moments like this, he didn't know why he did what he did; the urge just came upon him, the conviction that he had done this before--to good effect--so strong it was undeniable.
Yeah. . . he could feel something was off. . . . There were ghosts in there. And the certainty reminded him of what he'd felt when he'd been in that dreaded bedroom where Xhex had been so close and so far away. He had sensed her too, but been blocked from making the connection.
"The bodies are in there," Xhex said. "We just can't see or get to them. But I'm telling you. . . they're in inside. "
"Well, le
t's not fuck around out here then," V said, dematerializing.
Rhage followed, poofing it right into the farmhouse while Butch took a more labor-intensive approach, hotfooting it across the scruffy lawn, with gun drawn and down at his thigh. He looked in the windows until V let him in the back.
"You going in?" Xhex asked.
John signed carefully so she could read his hands. You've already reported what's doing inside. I'm more interested in who's going to show up at the front door.
"Agreed. "
One by one the Brothers came back.
V spoke softly. "Assuming that Lash isn't just showing off his induction efforts, and assuming Xhex is right--"