Lover At Last (Black Dagger Brotherhood 11)

"Someone's already been by here."

As Rhage spoke, Qhuinn got out his penlight and shone the discreet beam down onto the ground. Sure enough, the prints through the snow were fresh, not airbrushed with loose flakes...and they went directly out into the clearing in the forest. Clicking the light off, he focused on the hunting cabin up ahead that seemed to be abandoned to the cold weather: no stream of smoke curling out of its stone chimney, no glow of illumination - and most important, no scents of anything.

The five of them closed in, circling the clearing and sidling up with a wide-angle approach. When there was no defensive reaction from anything, they all mounted the shallow porch and scoped out the interior through the single-paned windows.

"Nada," Rhage muttered as he went to the door.

A quick test of the handle - and it was locked.

With a thrust, the Brother slammed his massive shoulder into the panels and set the thing flying, fragments of the locking mechanism falling in a scatter along with splinters of wood.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," Hollywood shouted as he marched inside.

Qhuinn and John followed protocol and stayed on the porch as Blay and Z filed in and searched.

The woods were quiet around them, but his keen eyes traced those footprints...which, after a sojourn to the cabin, headed off in a northwesterly direction.

Damn well suggested someone was out here with them, searching the property at the same time.

Human? Lesser?

He was thinking the latter, given all the shit in that hangar - and the fact that this whole property was remote, and relatively secure because of that.

Although they were gonna want to bring Stanley Steemer into that building for a cleanup first.

Blay's voice drifted out the open door. "I got something."

It took all of Qhuinn's training not to break covenant with surveying the landscape and turn to look inside - and not because he particularly cared about whatever had been found. Throughout their searching, he'd been constantly checking on Blay, measuring to see if that mood had changed.

If anything, it had only gotten worse.

Soft voices went back and forth in the cabin, and then the three of them emerged.

"We found a lockbox," Rhage announced as he unzipped his jacket and slid the long, thin metal container in against his chest. "We'll open it later. Let's find the owner of those boots, boys."

Dematerializing at fifty- to sixty-foot clips, they fanned out through the trees, tracking the prints in the snow, following silently.

They came across the lesser about a half mile later.

The lone slayer was marching through the snow-covered forest at a clip that only a human with Olympic training could have sustained for more than a couple hundred yards. Clothes were dark, a pack was on the back, and the fact that he was navigating by sight alone was another clue that it was the enemy: Most Homo sapiens would not have been able to move that fast in such little light without battery-powered illumination.

Using hand signals, Rhage orientated the group into a reverse triangle formation that cupped around the lesser's trail. Continuing to advance along with him, they observed for about a football field's length and then, all at once, they closed in, surrounded the slayer, and blocked him at contrasting compass points with gun muzzles.

The lesser stopped moving.

He was a newer recruit, his dark hair and olive coloring suggesting that he was of Mexican or perhaps Italian descent, and he got points for showing no fear. Even though he was looking at a hurting, he merely calmly glanced over his shoulder, as if to confirm that he had in fact been ambushed.

"How you doing?" Rhage drawled.

The lesser didn't bother to answer, which was in contrast to what they had been seeing lately. Unlike the others, this was no young punk to talk smack and flash his gat. Calm, calculating...controlled, he was the kind of enemy that improved your job performance.

Not exactly a bad thing...

And sure enough, his hand disappeared into his coat.

"Don't be stupid, my man," Qhuinn barked, prepared to put a bullet in the bastard at a moment's notice.

The lesser didn't stop moving.

Fine.

He pulled his fucking trigger and dropped the bitch.

The instant the lesser hit the snow, Blay froze with his guns in place. The others did the same.

In the silent seconds that passed, they kept eyes locked on the downed slayer. No movement. No response from the periphery. Qhuinn had incapacitated the thing, and it appeared to have been working alone.

Funny, even if Blay hadn't heard the shot in his left ear, he'd have known Qhuinn was the shooter - everyone else would have given the enemy another chance to think things over.

As Rhage whistled in a short burst, that was the cue to close in. The five of them moved like a pack of wolves over downed prey, swift and sure, crossing the snow with guns up. The slayer remained utterly still - but there hadn't been a death in the family, so to speak. You needed a steel dagger through the chest for that.

But this was the desirable state. You wanted them to be able to talk.

Or at least, in a condition to be forced to talk -

Later, when he replayed what happened next...when his mind churned and burned over the facts obsessively...when he stayed up days trying to piece together how it all rolled out in hopes of divining a change in procedure that would ensure something like it never, ever went down again...Blay would dwell on the twitch.

That little twitch in the arm. Just an autonomic jerk seemingly unconnected with any conscious thought or will. Nothing dangerous. No signal of what was to come.

Just a twitch.

Except then, with a move that was blinking fast, the slayer outted a gun from somewhere. It was unprecedented - one second he was deadweight on the ground; the next, he was shooting in a controlled manner in a fat circle.

And even before the popping sounds faded, Blay caught the horrific image of Zsadist taking a slug right in the heart, the impact strong enough to stop the Brother's forward momentum, his torso throwing back, his arms ripping out to the side as he flipped off his feet.

Instantly, the dynamic changed. No one was looking to interrogate the bastard anymore.

Four daggers flashed high. Four bodies jumped in. Four arms slashed down with cold, sharp blades. Four impacts struck, one right after another.

They were too late, however.

The slayer disappeared right out from under them, their weapons stabbing the black-stained snow beneath where the enemy had landed, instead of an empty chest cavity.

Whatever - there would be time to question the unprecedented disappearance afterward. At the moment, they had a fighter down.

Rhage all but launched himself on top of the Brother, putting his body in the way of anything and everything. "Z? Z? Oh, mother of the race - "

Blay got out his phone and dialed. When Manny Manello answered, there was no time to be wasted. "We have a Brother down. Gunshot to the chest - "

"Wait!"

Z's voice was a surprise. And so was the Brother's arm shooting up and shoving Rhage to the side. "Will you get off me!"

"But I'm giving you CPR - "

"I will die before kissing you, Hollywood." Z tried to sit up, his breathing heavy. "Don't even think about it."

"Hello?" Manello's voice came through the phone. "Blay?"

"Hold on - "

Qhuinn dropped to his knees next to Zsadist, and in spite of the fact that the Brother didn't like to be touched, took hold under one armpit and helped the male get his torso off the snow.

"I have the clinic on the line," Blay said. "What's your status?"

In reply, Z reached up and unhinged his dagger holster. Then he dragged down the zipper of his leather jacket and ripped his white T-shirt in half.

To reveal the most beautiful bulletproof vest Blay had ever seen.

Rhage sagged in relief - to the point that Qhuinn had to catch him with his free hand and keep the guy off the ground, too.

"Kevlar," Blay mumbled to Manello. "Oh, thank God, he's wearing Kevlar."

"That's great - but listen, I need you to take the vest off and check to see if it held the bullet, 'kay?"

"Roger that." He glanced over at John and was glad to find the guy up on his feet, two guns out straight, eyes scanning the environs while the rest of them assessed the situation. "I'll take care of it."

Blay shuffled over and crouched down in front of the Brother. Qhuinn might have had the balls to make contact with Zsadist, but he wasn't going to do that without express permission.

"Dr. Manello wants to know if you can remove the vest so we can see if there was any injury?"

Z jerked his arms, and then frowned. Appeared to give things another try. After a third attempt, the Brother's hands managed to lift as high as the Velcro straps, but they couldn't seem to do much.

Blay swallowed hard. "May I take care of it? I promise not to touch you as much as possible."

Great grammar there. But he was serious.

Z's eyes lifted to his. They were black from pain, not yellow. "Do what you have to, son. I'll keep it tight."

The Brother looked away, his face screwed down hard into a grimace, the scar that made an S-curve from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth standing out in harsh relief.

With a stern lecture, Blay ordered his hands to be steady and sure, and the message was somehow carried out: He tore apart the fastening strips at the shoulders, the rips louder than the screaming in his head, and then peeled off the vest, terrified of what he was going to find.

There was a big round patch directly in the center of Z's broad, muscled chest. Right where the heart was.

But it was a bruise. Not a hole.

It was just a bruise.

"Surface wound only." Blay dug his finger into the dense webbing of the vest and found the slug. "I can feel the bullet in the vest - "

"Then why can't I move my - "

The smell of the Brother's fresh blood seemed to hit everyone's noses at the same time. Someone cursed, and Blay leaned in.

"You've been hit under the arm, too."

"Bad?" Z asked.

Over the phone, Manello said, "Get in there and look around if you can."

Blay lifted that heavy limb and flashed his penlight in at the underside. Apparently a bullet had entered the torso through the vest's small, unprotected pocket under the pit - a one-in-a-million shot that if you'd tried to re-create, you couldn't possibly pull off.

Fuck. "I don't see an exit wound. It's right on the side of his ribs, way up high."

"He's breathing steadily?" Manello asked.

"Labored but steady."

"Was CPR administered?"

"He threatened to castrate Hollywood if there was any kind of liplock."

"Look, let me just dematerialize." Z coughed a little. "Gimme some room - "

Everyone offered a variety of opinions at that point, but Zsadist would have none of it. Shoving people away, the Brother closed his eyes and...

Blay knew they had a real problem when nothing happened. Yes, Zsadist hadn't been killed, and he was a hell of a lot better off than he would have been without the vest. But he was not able to move himself - and they were in the middle of nowhere, so deep in the woods that even if they called for backup, nobody was going to be able to get an SUV within miles of them.

And worse? Blay had the sense that the slayer that had been taken down had been something considerably more than your run-of-the-mill lesser.

No telling when reinforcements would be coming in.

The sound of a text hitting somebody's phone sounded, and Rhage looked down. "Shit. The others are backed up downtown. We've got to handle this on our own."

"Goddamn it," Zsadist muttered under his breath.

Yup. That about covered it.

;Someone's already been by here."

As Rhage spoke, Qhuinn got out his penlight and shone the discreet beam down onto the ground. Sure enough, the prints through the snow were fresh, not airbrushed with loose flakes...and they went directly out into the clearing in the forest. Clicking the light off, he focused on the hunting cabin up ahead that seemed to be abandoned to the cold weather: no stream of smoke curling out of its stone chimney, no glow of illumination - and most important, no scents of anything.

The five of them closed in, circling the clearing and sidling up with a wide-angle approach. When there was no defensive reaction from anything, they all mounted the shallow porch and scoped out the interior through the single-paned windows.

"Nada," Rhage muttered as he went to the door.

A quick test of the handle - and it was locked.

With a thrust, the Brother slammed his massive shoulder into the panels and set the thing flying, fragments of the locking mechanism falling in a scatter along with splinters of wood.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," Hollywood shouted as he marched inside.

Qhuinn and John followed protocol and stayed on the porch as Blay and Z filed in and searched.

The woods were quiet around them, but his keen eyes traced those footprints...which, after a sojourn to the cabin, headed off in a northwesterly direction.

Damn well suggested someone was out here with them, searching the property at the same time.

Human? Lesser?

He was thinking the latter, given all the shit in that hangar - and the fact that this whole property was remote, and relatively secure because of that.

Although they were gonna want to bring Stanley Steemer into that building for a cleanup first.

Blay's voice drifted out the open door. "I got something."

It took all of Qhuinn's training not to break covenant with surveying the landscape and turn to look inside - and not because he particularly cared about whatever had been found. Throughout their searching, he'd been constantly checking on Blay, measuring to see if that mood had changed.

If anything, it had only gotten worse.

Soft voices went back and forth in the cabin, and then the three of them emerged.

"We found a lockbox," Rhage announced as he unzipped his jacket and slid the long, thin metal container in against his chest. "We'll open it later. Let's find the owner of those boots, boys."

Dematerializing at fifty- to sixty-foot clips, they fanned out through the trees, tracking the prints in the snow, following silently.

They came across the lesser about a half mile later.

The lone slayer was marching through the snow-covered forest at a clip that only a human with Olympic training could have sustained for more than a couple hundred yards. Clothes were dark, a pack was on the back, and the fact that he was navigating by sight alone was another clue that it was the enemy: Most Homo sapiens would not have been able to move that fast in such little light without battery-powered illumination.

Using hand signals, Rhage orientated the group into a reverse triangle formation that cupped around the lesser's trail. Continuing to advance along with him, they observed for about a football field's length and then, all at once, they closed in, surrounded the slayer, and blocked him at contrasting compass points with gun muzzles.

The lesser stopped moving.

He was a newer recruit, his dark hair and olive coloring suggesting that he was of Mexican or perhaps Italian descent, and he got points for showing no fear. Even though he was looking at a hurting, he merely calmly glanced over his shoulder, as if to confirm that he had in fact been ambushed.

"How you doing?" Rhage drawled.

The lesser didn't bother to answer, which was in contrast to what they had been seeing lately. Unlike the others, this was no young punk to talk smack and flash his gat. Calm, calculating...controlled, he was the kind of enemy that improved your job performance.

Not exactly a bad thing...

And sure enough, his hand disappeared into his coat.

"Don't be stupid, my man," Qhuinn barked, prepared to put a bullet in the bastard at a moment's notice.

The lesser didn't stop moving.

Fine.

He pulled his fucking trigger and dropped the bitch.

The instant the lesser hit the snow, Blay froze with his guns in place. The others did the same.

In the silent seconds that passed, they kept eyes locked on the downed slayer. No movement. No response from the periphery. Qhuinn had incapacitated the thing, and it appeared to have been working alone.

Funny, even if Blay hadn't heard the shot in his left ear, he'd have known Qhuinn was the shooter - everyone else would have given the enemy another chance to think things over.

As Rhage whistled in a short burst, that was the cue to close in. The five of them moved like a pack of wolves over downed prey, swift and sure, crossing the snow with guns up. The slayer remained utterly still - but there hadn't been a death in the family, so to speak. You needed a steel dagger through the chest for that.

But this was the desirable state. You wanted them to be able to talk.

Or at least, in a condition to be forced to talk -

Later, when he replayed what happened next...when his mind churned and burned over the facts obsessively...when he stayed up days trying to piece together how it all rolled out in hopes of divining a change in procedure that would ensure something like it never, ever went down again...Blay would dwell on the twitch.

That little twitch in the arm. Just an autonomic jerk seemingly unconnected with any conscious thought or will. Nothing dangerous. No signal of what was to come.

Just a twitch.

Except then, with a move that was blinking fast, the slayer outted a gun from somewhere. It was unprecedented - one second he was deadweight on the ground; the next, he was shooting in a controlled manner in a fat circle.

And even before the popping sounds faded, Blay caught the horrific image of Zsadist taking a slug right in the heart, the impact strong enough to stop the Brother's forward momentum, his torso throwing back, his arms ripping out to the side as he flipped off his feet.

Instantly, the dynamic changed. No one was looking to interrogate the bastard anymore.

Four daggers flashed high. Four bodies jumped in. Four arms slashed down with cold, sharp blades. Four impacts struck, one right after another.

They were too late, however.

The slayer disappeared right out from under them, their weapons stabbing the black-stained snow beneath where the enemy had landed, instead of an empty chest cavity.

Whatever - there would be time to question the unprecedented disappearance afterward. At the moment, they had a fighter down.

Rhage all but launched himself on top of the Brother, putting his body in the way of anything and everything. "Z? Z? Oh, mother of the race - "

Blay got out his phone and dialed. When Manny Manello answered, there was no time to be wasted. "We have a Brother down. Gunshot to the chest - "

"Wait!"

Z's voice was a surprise. And so was the Brother's arm shooting up and shoving Rhage to the side. "Will you get off me!"

"But I'm giving you CPR - "

"I will die before kissing you, Hollywood." Z tried to sit up, his breathing heavy. "Don't even think about it."

"Hello?" Manello's voice came through the phone. "Blay?"

"Hold on - "

Qhuinn dropped to his knees next to Zsadist, and in spite of the fact that the Brother didn't like to be touched, took hold under one armpit and helped the male get his torso off the snow.

"I have the clinic on the line," Blay said. "What's your status?"

In reply, Z reached up and unhinged his dagger holster. Then he dragged down the zipper of his leather jacket and ripped his white T-shirt in half.

To reveal the most beautiful bulletproof vest Blay had ever seen.

Rhage sagged in relief - to the point that Qhuinn had to catch him with his free hand and keep the guy off the ground, too.

"Kevlar," Blay mumbled to Manello. "Oh, thank God, he's wearing Kevlar."

"That's great - but listen, I need you to take the vest off and check to see if it held the bullet, 'kay?"

"Roger that." He glanced over at John and was glad to find the guy up on his feet, two guns out straight, eyes scanning the environs while the rest of them assessed the situation. "I'll take care of it."

Blay shuffled over and crouched down in front of the Brother. Qhuinn might have had the balls to make contact with Zsadist, but he wasn't going to do that without express permission.

"Dr. Manello wants to know if you can remove the vest so we can see if there was any injury?"

Z jerked his arms, and then frowned. Appeared to give things another try. After a third attempt, the Brother's hands managed to lift as high as the Velcro straps, but they couldn't seem to do much.

Blay swallowed hard. "May I take care of it? I promise not to touch you as much as possible."

Great grammar there. But he was serious.

Z's eyes lifted to his. They were black from pain, not yellow. "Do what you have to, son. I'll keep it tight."

The Brother looked away, his face screwed down hard into a grimace, the scar that made an S-curve from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth standing out in harsh relief.

With a stern lecture, Blay ordered his hands to be steady and sure, and the message was somehow carried out: He tore apart the fastening strips at the shoulders, the rips louder than the screaming in his head, and then peeled off the vest, terrified of what he was going to find.

There was a big round patch directly in the center of Z's broad, muscled chest. Right where the heart was.

But it was a bruise. Not a hole.

It was just a bruise.

"Surface wound only." Blay dug his finger into the dense webbing of the vest and found the slug. "I can feel the bullet in the vest - "

"Then why can't I move my - "

The smell of the Brother's fresh blood seemed to hit everyone's noses at the same time. Someone cursed, and Blay leaned in.

"You've been hit under the arm, too."

"Bad?" Z asked.

Over the phone, Manello said, "Get in there and look around if you can."

Blay lifted that heavy limb and flashed his penlight in at the underside. Apparently a bullet had entered the torso through the vest's small, unprotected pocket under the pit - a one-in-a-million shot that if you'd tried to re-create, you couldn't possibly pull off.

Fuck. "I don't see an exit wound. It's right on the side of his ribs, way up high."

"He's breathing steadily?" Manello asked.

"Labored but steady."

"Was CPR administered?"

"He threatened to castrate Hollywood if there was any kind of liplock."

"Look, let me just dematerialize." Z coughed a little. "Gimme some room - "

Everyone offered a variety of opinions at that point, but Zsadist would have none of it. Shoving people away, the Brother closed his eyes and...

Blay knew they had a real problem when nothing happened. Yes, Zsadist hadn't been killed, and he was a hell of a lot better off than he would have been without the vest. But he was not able to move himself - and they were in the middle of nowhere, so deep in the woods that even if they called for backup, nobody was going to be able to get an SUV within miles of them.

And worse? Blay had the sense that the slayer that had been taken down had been something considerably more than your run-of-the-mill lesser.

No telling when reinforcements would be coming in.

The sound of a text hitting somebody's phone sounded, and Rhage looked down. "Shit. The others are backed up downtown. We've got to handle this on our own."

"Goddamn it," Zsadist muttered under his breath.

Yup. That about covered it.