The Sinner (Black Dagger Brotherhood 18)

As he caught up to the box van, Butch wound down his Top 50 list of endurance metaphors. They weren’t really making him feel much better about this, anyway. Besides, destination reached. No more hypotheticals.

Rhage got out from behind the wheel of the stink-mobile, bent over, and braced his hands on his thighs. Between slow, deep draws of fresh air, he said, “Fuck those Febreze commercials. There is no nose blind for that shit.”

Qhuinn stumbled out of the other side of the van, retching. “And I thought switching out the Diaper Genie was bad.”

While the pair of them tried to recover their olfactory equilibrium, the full complement of the Brotherhood arrived, the leather-clad males materializing in the darkness, stepping forward one by one. Everybody came. Z and Phury. Tohr, obviously. Murhder. John Matthew, the newest inductee.

V was the last to re-form and he walked over to Butch. “I cleaned the site.”

“Good. Oh, quick question. Did you kill that immortal angel when he let you out of the bouncy cage?”

“No, the fucker’s fast on his feet. But it’s coming, true?”

Butch was about to switch gears and address the group, when one more person arrived.

Wrath walked forward into the clearing and everybody shut the fuck up. It was a shock to see him outside of the mansion—and a safety risk. Not even the mhis here seemed secure enough to protect the King. Plus there was no George to guide him.

Not that the male hadn’t been here plenty of times over the last three centuries, dropping off the jars of the lessers he’d killed, adding to the collection of a thousand or more vessels that were already on those shelves in the ante-hall. Plus there had been the inductions of late. And disciplinary actions. But still.

“Will you stop looking at me like that,” Wrath muttered. “Even blind, I can feel your stares. And I’m allowed to fucking be here.”

Like anybody was going to argue with the guy?

Tohr stepped up. “Of course you are.”

When Wrath glared over at the brother—although, to be fair, that was kind of a pat-on-a-toddler’s-head placation—Butch felt the need to intercede.

“Will someone open the gates for us? We gotta move this load.”

The refocus worked, Tohr leading Wrath over to the Tomb’s hidden entrance. As the pair of them penetrated the fissure, Butch popped the latch on the back of the van and—

During shipping, the stacked and slacked lessers had settled right against the double doors, likely the result of the ascension up the mountain, and as a result, they spilled out like fish guts at Butch’s feet. Jumping back from the tide of black stank and body parts, he cursed and kicked off some kind of anatomy from his shitkicker—looked like intestines?—before turning to V.

“We shoulda brought a goddamn shovel,” he said to his roommate.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Among the truly strange things about destiny… fate… God’s will… whatever you wanted to call it, was the location where major shifts in a person’s life happened. Sometimes, the place made sense. Like a hospital, where someone was born or died. Or a stage, where you graduated from high school, from college, from grad school. Maybe an altar, where a person got married.

But other times?

As Jo glanced around at the break room, with its vending and soda machines, its self-serve buffet spread, its bowls of fruit and boxes of cereal, she knew she would never, ever forget anything about it. Not the round tables and the chairs. Not this cluster of sofas where she was sitting. Not the linoleum floor or the fluorescent lights in the ceiling or the TV that was up there in the corner, an episode of The Simpsons playing mutely.

It was one of the early Treehouse of Horror episodes.

At least that seemed apt considering what she had just learned about herself.

And well, she wouldn’t forget anything here assuming they let her keep these memories.

She refocused on Syn. He had been silent most of the time. “So we’re enemies if I don’t turn.”

Considering the fact that she had just learned she might not be human at all, she figured she’d start with some of the more basic realignments. Her brain simply wasn’t able to cope with the bigger ones.

Dracula, who? Dracula, what?

“Answer me,” she prompted him. When he didn’t respond, she feared everything he was keeping to himself.

“He can’t.” Manny, as he’d asked to be called, shook his head. “The enemies question depends on a lot of things.”

After she’d interrupted their argument, cooler heads had prevailed, and the three of them had ended up in this land of consumables. She was glad for the change in location. They were both big guys and those exam rooms were claustrophobic to begin with. Plus, hello, she couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.

Not that she was hungry.

“Like how successful my memory loss is over time, right?” When Manny shrugged, Jo burst up from her chair. “And because no one knows whether or not I’ll go through it, I’m being treated as though I’m just a regular human. That’s why my memories were taken from me.”

“That’s right. Half-breeds are wild cards. There’s no telling what side of the divide you’ll end up on.”

“Except you’re in this world. And you’re still human.”

“I’m a special case. And there have been a few others.”

“But it’s not a run-of-the-mill kind of deal, right?”

“No, it’s not. Separate is better, generally speaking. For both species.”

She looked over at Syn again. “And that’s why you didn’t tell me what you are. Because if I don’t change, I can’t know you.”

After a moment, he nodded. And she couldn’t decide if it was because he wanted to say more and couldn’t because they weren’t alone. Or if it was a case of him wiping his hands of the whole damn thing.

Walking over to the vending machine, Jo stared at the Hershey bars lined up in their corkscrewed chute. “So all the cravings I’ve been having. The restlessness. The fatigue. It’s all part of this… change?”

“Yes.” Manny turned around on his sofa so they could continue to make eye contact. Syn, on the other hand, stayed where he was, staring down at the floor in between his boots. “It’s the prodromals. It’s an indication that the hormones are waking up. But it’s not a true predictor of what happens next. Sometimes they just regress back into dormancy.”

“Is that why you’re not a…” Sooner or later, considering all things, she was going to have to get that V-word out of her mouth. “Is that why you didn’t change?”

“I’ve never experienced what you’re going through. But again, everyone like us is different.”

Jo thought about that thick file in her father’s desk. It seemed bizarre that for all the sheets of paper in there, the real truth had remained hidden. The important truth.

God… she couldn’t seem to make her head work. Everything was a mess under her skull, half-formed questions about her birth mother and father, her health, her future, like paintballs flying around and staining everything into a mess.

But there was one thing that superseded all of the rest. caught up to the box van, Butch wound down his Top 50 list of endurance metaphors. They weren’t really making him feel much better about this, anyway. Besides, destination reached. No more hypotheticals.

Rhage got out from behind the wheel of the stink-mobile, bent over, and braced his hands on his thighs. Between slow, deep draws of fresh air, he said, “Fuck those Febreze commercials. There is no nose blind for that shit.”

Qhuinn stumbled out of the other side of the van, retching. “And I thought switching out the Diaper Genie was bad.”

While the pair of them tried to recover their olfactory equilibrium, the full complement of the Brotherhood arrived, the leather-clad males materializing in the darkness, stepping forward one by one. Everybody came. Z and Phury. Tohr, obviously. Murhder. John Matthew, the newest inductee.

V was the last to re-form and he walked over to Butch. “I cleaned the site.”

“Good. Oh, quick question. Did you kill that immortal angel when he let you out of the bouncy cage?”

“No, the fucker’s fast on his feet. But it’s coming, true?”

Butch was about to switch gears and address the group, when one more person arrived.

Wrath walked forward into the clearing and everybody shut the fuck up. It was a shock to see him outside of the mansion—and a safety risk. Not even the mhis here seemed secure enough to protect the King. Plus there was no George to guide him.

Not that the male hadn’t been here plenty of times over the last three centuries, dropping off the jars of the lessers he’d killed, adding to the collection of a thousand or more vessels that were already on those shelves in the ante-hall. Plus there had been the inductions of late. And disciplinary actions. But still.

“Will you stop looking at me like that,” Wrath muttered. “Even blind, I can feel your stares. And I’m allowed to fucking be here.”

Like anybody was going to argue with the guy?

Tohr stepped up. “Of course you are.”

When Wrath glared over at the brother—although, to be fair, that was kind of a pat-on-a-toddler’s-head placation—Butch felt the need to intercede.

“Will someone open the gates for us? We gotta move this load.”

The refocus worked, Tohr leading Wrath over to the Tomb’s hidden entrance. As the pair of them penetrated the fissure, Butch popped the latch on the back of the van and—

During shipping, the stacked and slacked lessers had settled right against the double doors, likely the result of the ascension up the mountain, and as a result, they spilled out like fish guts at Butch’s feet. Jumping back from the tide of black stank and body parts, he cursed and kicked off some kind of anatomy from his shitkicker—looked like intestines?—before turning to V.

“We shoulda brought a goddamn shovel,” he said to his roommate.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Among the truly strange things about destiny… fate… God’s will… whatever you wanted to call it, was the location where major shifts in a person’s life happened. Sometimes, the place made sense. Like a hospital, where someone was born or died. Or a stage, where you graduated from high school, from college, from grad school. Maybe an altar, where a person got married.

But other times?

As Jo glanced around at the break room, with its vending and soda machines, its self-serve buffet spread, its bowls of fruit and boxes of cereal, she knew she would never, ever forget anything about it. Not the round tables and the chairs. Not this cluster of sofas where she was sitting. Not the linoleum floor or the fluorescent lights in the ceiling or the TV that was up there in the corner, an episode of The Simpsons playing mutely.

It was one of the early Treehouse of Horror episodes.

At least that seemed apt considering what she had just learned about herself.

And well, she wouldn’t forget anything here assuming they let her keep these memories.

She refocused on Syn. He had been silent most of the time. “So we’re enemies if I don’t turn.”

Considering the fact that she had just learned she might not be human at all, she figured she’d start with some of the more basic realignments. Her brain simply wasn’t able to cope with the bigger ones.

Dracula, who? Dracula, what?

“Answer me,” she prompted him. When he didn’t respond, she feared everything he was keeping to himself.

“He can’t.” Manny, as he’d asked to be called, shook his head. “The enemies question depends on a lot of things.”

After she’d interrupted their argument, cooler heads had prevailed, and the three of them had ended up in this land of consumables. She was glad for the change in location. They were both big guys and those exam rooms were claustrophobic to begin with. Plus, hello, she couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last.

Not that she was hungry.

“Like how successful my memory loss is over time, right?” When Manny shrugged, Jo burst up from her chair. “And because no one knows whether or not I’ll go through it, I’m being treated as though I’m just a regular human. That’s why my memories were taken from me.”

“That’s right. Half-breeds are wild cards. There’s no telling what side of the divide you’ll end up on.”

“Except you’re in this world. And you’re still human.”

“I’m a special case. And there have been a few others.”

“But it’s not a run-of-the-mill kind of deal, right?”

“No, it’s not. Separate is better, generally speaking. For both species.”

She looked over at Syn again. “And that’s why you didn’t tell me what you are. Because if I don’t change, I can’t know you.”

After a moment, he nodded. And she couldn’t decide if it was because he wanted to say more and couldn’t because they weren’t alone. Or if it was a case of him wiping his hands of the whole damn thing.

Walking over to the vending machine, Jo stared at the Hershey bars lined up in their corkscrewed chute. “So all the cravings I’ve been having. The restlessness. The fatigue. It’s all part of this… change?”

“Yes.” Manny turned around on his sofa so they could continue to make eye contact. Syn, on the other hand, stayed where he was, staring down at the floor in between his boots. “It’s the prodromals. It’s an indication that the hormones are waking up. But it’s not a true predictor of what happens next. Sometimes they just regress back into dormancy.”

“Is that why you’re not a…” Sooner or later, considering all things, she was going to have to get that V-word out of her mouth. “Is that why you didn’t change?”

“I’ve never experienced what you’re going through. But again, everyone like us is different.”

Jo thought about that thick file in her father’s desk. It seemed bizarre that for all the sheets of paper in there, the real truth had remained hidden. The important truth.

God… she couldn’t seem to make her head work. Everything was a mess under her skull, half-formed questions about her birth mother and father, her health, her future, like paintballs flying around and staining everything into a mess.

But there was one thing that superseded all of the rest.