The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood 16)

Abruptly, she looked at the egg section. “We’re almost out of these. Vovó prefers the brown ones.”

Marisol went over, picked out two cartons, and flipped open the lids to check for broken shells. As she did, she continued, “I actually got good at robbery because I wanted him to be proud of me. Pretty sick, huh? Become a better immoral deviant so Daddy will love me. I think that’s why I fell in with Ricardo Benloise. He was older, powerful, and very disapproving. He was someone for me to try to please again.”

As a vicious claw of jealousy went through Assail, he had to remind his bonded male that he had, in fact, murdered the man.

Funny how that could cheer a guy up.

“Ricardo was so like my father…except he was polished, not crude. And he was hella smart. It was a strange dynamic to be sure. They say that people find do-overs in their lives, folks who are like those who hurt us, so we can go through and do the relationship again. Get it right, or something. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

On some level, the idea they were having this intimate conversation in the dairy and egg section, across the aisle from the ice-cream freezers, was utterly bizarre. But he certainly wasn’t going to stop her from talking.

“What of your mother?” he asked.

Marisol shrugged and seemed to lose track of her shell-checking duty. But then she continued, both with the inspection and the talking. “She died when I was young. Thank God my grandmother stepped in when I was little and never left.” She leaned over the lip of the cart and placed the eggs down with care. “That’s why I will always take care of her. Plus, God, she’s had a horrible life. She is a true survivor.”

“So are you.”

That smile, that one he loved so much, came back. “I guess I am.”

Assail stepped in and embraced her against his chest. As he looked over the top of her head, he subconsciously tracked the movements of the human male and the human female down at the far end of the aisle by the precut-and-shredded-cheese displays. Both were in blue jeans and dark parkas and seemed to be arguing the merits of orange versus white cheddar strips.

As it occurred to him that that was a rather inane topic to pour so much energy into, that rippling sense of unease returned unto him.

“I think we’re done shopping,” he said as he eased back. “Shall we?”

“Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She laughed. “Just a saying.”

To pay for their purchases, they went through self-checkout, and they split the duties, her picking things out of the cart, and him sweeping the foodstuffs across the red laser crosshairs of the reader. Every time a bar code was successfully recorded, the machine let out a beep! and a disembodied female voice announced the price and told him to place it in the bag.

Every. Single. Time.

By the end, he was seriously considering taking out his gun and killing the machine.

When they reemerged into the parking lot, his unsettled feeling returned. And as he helped transfer the groceries into the back of the SUV, he pictured an endless succession of nights such as this, to’ing and fro’ing from the supermarket.

There was no challenge here, nothing to conquer or surmount. No tally growing to justify his worth.

Just root vegetables, cream in a little box, eggs in two cartons.

Assail found himself wanting to return to the jubilant glow he’d felt as he had traveled home from the clinic, leaving the psychosis, the medical staff, the patient he had been behind. The world had seemed full of possibilities then. Now, he was left wondering where all that had gone.

Except nothing about the world had changed, really. And as he and Marisol traveled the stretch of bridge again, he tried to manufacture the optimism and failed.

“What about your family?” Marisol asked. “Are they still alive?”

“My mahmen and my father both died of old age.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“It is what it is. It does not bother me anymore as it was some time ago.”

Which was the truth.

What did bother him was the fact that he had found the person he wanted to be with…but he did not know where his place in the world was anymore.

For a male who had always been self-directed, this was not a comfortable situation to be in.

“Dr. Manello is coming tonight, isn’t he?” Marisol asked.

Assail looked away from the drop down to the icy cold waters of the Hudson. “I had forgotten. But yes.”

And he was bringing Ghisele again.

God, that was another thing he didn’t want to think about. Feeding reminded him of all that he was keeping to himself. Plus he hated the idea of being close to any female other than Marisol in any manner.

Biology trumped everything, though. Or maybe it was more like trampled.

It was rather like destiny, in that regard.

FORTY

After leaving the Great Camp in response to that text, Vishous re-formed downtown about two blocks away from a techno club that was pumping music so loud, you could hear the shit all the way down the street. Z was already on scene, and so were John Matthew and Qhuinn.

There was nothing to fight, however: No lessers were anywhere in sight. None of those shadow things, either.

No, this was about the aftermath.

His two brothers and John Matthew were kneeling around a figure on the ground, and as V came in for the close-up, he cursed. It was a male civilian dressed in good clothes that were getting ruined in the salted slush.

Death was coming, V thought as he got down on his haunches. And fast. The male’s skin was chalky, his lips curled back from pain, his arms and legs flopping as if he were searching for positional relief that refused to come.

“What the fuck happened,” V muttered as he leaned over and picked up a gun that was in the snow.

Checking the clip of the autoloader, he found three bullets left.

“Shot at it,” the male was mumbling. “Shot…at it…but the bullets did nothing…they did nothing to it…”

Fucking lessers, V thought.

“Hold on,” Qhuinn muttered as he took the male’s hand. “Stay with us. We got help coming.”

A scatter of talk came around the corner, and V stood up. Four humans—three men and a woman—stopped short.

“Oh, hell, he take that shit Johnny did?” one of them said.

“Yo, you need an ambulance? They can’t arrest you if you’re getting help for an OD—”

Vishous approached the group and didn’t waste time or oxygen on them. He reached into their minds onetwothreefour and shut them all down. Wiping their memories clean, so that they would not recall seeing anything at all, he sent them on their drunken way by ringing hunger bells in their brains.

They were going to go on a mad search for Dunkin’ Donuts. And would recall nothing else.

Where the fuck was the medical help? V thought as he refocused on the downed male.

Right on cue, the mobile surgical van arrived on scene, and his Jane was behind the wheel. With quick efficiency, she assessed the civilian, and then V helped her get the poor kid up on a stretcher and into the treatment space.

“I’ll drive,” Qhuinn said as he went forward into the cockpit and got behind the wheel. “John Matthew and Z are going to search the area.”

“Let me assist you,” V said to Jane.

“Can you have his chest cleared for me so I can monitor his heart?”

“Roger that.”

As Jane turned away to get equipment out of locked cupboards, Qhuinn hit the gas and V worked to strip off the kind of clothes that Butch would have worn: everything was expensive and handmade. Too bad he had to treat the stuff like it was disposable. When he was down to the silk shirt, he didn’t bother with the buttons, but jerked the two halves apart and—

“Oh…fuck,” he muttered.

Jane wheeled around. “Do we have an open injury—shit.”

Shit was right. The male’s well-developed chest was lashed with welts, the skin swollen up in strips.

Just as V’s had been when he’d two-stepped with that shadow.

V put his face into the civilian’s. “What was it? What did it look like?” tly, she looked at the egg section. “We’re almost out of these. Vovó prefers the brown ones.”

Marisol went over, picked out two cartons, and flipped open the lids to check for broken shells. As she did, she continued, “I actually got good at robbery because I wanted him to be proud of me. Pretty sick, huh? Become a better immoral deviant so Daddy will love me. I think that’s why I fell in with Ricardo Benloise. He was older, powerful, and very disapproving. He was someone for me to try to please again.”

As a vicious claw of jealousy went through Assail, he had to remind his bonded male that he had, in fact, murdered the man.

Funny how that could cheer a guy up.

“Ricardo was so like my father…except he was polished, not crude. And he was hella smart. It was a strange dynamic to be sure. They say that people find do-overs in their lives, folks who are like those who hurt us, so we can go through and do the relationship again. Get it right, or something. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

On some level, the idea they were having this intimate conversation in the dairy and egg section, across the aisle from the ice-cream freezers, was utterly bizarre. But he certainly wasn’t going to stop her from talking.

“What of your mother?” he asked.

Marisol shrugged and seemed to lose track of her shell-checking duty. But then she continued, both with the inspection and the talking. “She died when I was young. Thank God my grandmother stepped in when I was little and never left.” She leaned over the lip of the cart and placed the eggs down with care. “That’s why I will always take care of her. Plus, God, she’s had a horrible life. She is a true survivor.”

“So are you.”

That smile, that one he loved so much, came back. “I guess I am.”

Assail stepped in and embraced her against his chest. As he looked over the top of her head, he subconsciously tracked the movements of the human male and the human female down at the far end of the aisle by the precut-and-shredded-cheese displays. Both were in blue jeans and dark parkas and seemed to be arguing the merits of orange versus white cheddar strips.

As it occurred to him that that was a rather inane topic to pour so much energy into, that rippling sense of unease returned unto him.

“I think we’re done shopping,” he said as he eased back. “Shall we?”

“Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She laughed. “Just a saying.”

To pay for their purchases, they went through self-checkout, and they split the duties, her picking things out of the cart, and him sweeping the foodstuffs across the red laser crosshairs of the reader. Every time a bar code was successfully recorded, the machine let out a beep! and a disembodied female voice announced the price and told him to place it in the bag.

Every. Single. Time.

By the end, he was seriously considering taking out his gun and killing the machine.

When they reemerged into the parking lot, his unsettled feeling returned. And as he helped transfer the groceries into the back of the SUV, he pictured an endless succession of nights such as this, to’ing and fro’ing from the supermarket.

There was no challenge here, nothing to conquer or surmount. No tally growing to justify his worth.

Just root vegetables, cream in a little box, eggs in two cartons.

Assail found himself wanting to return to the jubilant glow he’d felt as he had traveled home from the clinic, leaving the psychosis, the medical staff, the patient he had been behind. The world had seemed full of possibilities then. Now, he was left wondering where all that had gone.

Except nothing about the world had changed, really. And as he and Marisol traveled the stretch of bridge again, he tried to manufacture the optimism and failed.

“What about your family?” Marisol asked. “Are they still alive?”

“My mahmen and my father both died of old age.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“It is what it is. It does not bother me anymore as it was some time ago.”

Which was the truth.

What did bother him was the fact that he had found the person he wanted to be with…but he did not know where his place in the world was anymore.

For a male who had always been self-directed, this was not a comfortable situation to be in.

“Dr. Manello is coming tonight, isn’t he?” Marisol asked.

Assail looked away from the drop down to the icy cold waters of the Hudson. “I had forgotten. But yes.”

And he was bringing Ghisele again.

God, that was another thing he didn’t want to think about. Feeding reminded him of all that he was keeping to himself. Plus he hated the idea of being close to any female other than Marisol in any manner.

Biology trumped everything, though. Or maybe it was more like trampled.

It was rather like destiny, in that regard.

FORTY

After leaving the Great Camp in response to that text, Vishous re-formed downtown about two blocks away from a techno club that was pumping music so loud, you could hear the shit all the way down the street. Z was already on scene, and so were John Matthew and Qhuinn.

There was nothing to fight, however: No lessers were anywhere in sight. None of those shadow things, either.

No, this was about the aftermath.

His two brothers and John Matthew were kneeling around a figure on the ground, and as V came in for the close-up, he cursed. It was a male civilian dressed in good clothes that were getting ruined in the salted slush.

Death was coming, V thought as he got down on his haunches. And fast. The male’s skin was chalky, his lips curled back from pain, his arms and legs flopping as if he were searching for positional relief that refused to come.

“What the fuck happened,” V muttered as he leaned over and picked up a gun that was in the snow.

Checking the clip of the autoloader, he found three bullets left.

“Shot at it,” the male was mumbling. “Shot…at it…but the bullets did nothing…they did nothing to it…”

Fucking lessers, V thought.

“Hold on,” Qhuinn muttered as he took the male’s hand. “Stay with us. We got help coming.”

A scatter of talk came around the corner, and V stood up. Four humans—three men and a woman—stopped short.

“Oh, hell, he take that shit Johnny did?” one of them said.

“Yo, you need an ambulance? They can’t arrest you if you’re getting help for an OD—”

Vishous approached the group and didn’t waste time or oxygen on them. He reached into their minds onetwothreefour and shut them all down. Wiping their memories clean, so that they would not recall seeing anything at all, he sent them on their drunken way by ringing hunger bells in their brains.

They were going to go on a mad search for Dunkin’ Donuts. And would recall nothing else.

Where the fuck was the medical help? V thought as he refocused on the downed male.

Right on cue, the mobile surgical van arrived on scene, and his Jane was behind the wheel. With quick efficiency, she assessed the civilian, and then V helped her get the poor kid up on a stretcher and into the treatment space.

“I’ll drive,” Qhuinn said as he went forward into the cockpit and got behind the wheel. “John Matthew and Z are going to search the area.”

“Let me assist you,” V said to Jane.

“Can you have his chest cleared for me so I can monitor his heart?”

“Roger that.”

As Jane turned away to get equipment out of locked cupboards, Qhuinn hit the gas and V worked to strip off the kind of clothes that Butch would have worn: everything was expensive and handmade. Too bad he had to treat the stuff like it was disposable. When he was down to the silk shirt, he didn’t bother with the buttons, but jerked the two halves apart and—

“Oh…fuck,” he muttered.

Jane wheeled around. “Do we have an open injury—shit.”

Shit was right. The male’s well-developed chest was lashed with welts, the skin swollen up in strips.

Just as V’s had been when he’d two-stepped with that shadow.

V put his face into the civilian’s. “What was it? What did it look like?”