Lover Revealed (Black Dagger Brotherhood 4)

And he was clearly willing to protect that worldview at the cost of her future... her happiness... her very self.

"You are absolutely correct," she said with a strange calm. "I do have to go."

She glanced at the boxes that were filled with the clothes she'd worn and the things she'd bought. Then her eyes found him again. He was doing the same, staring at them as if measuring the life she'd led.

"I shall let you keep the Diirers, of course," he said.

"Of course," she whispered. "Good-bye, brother."

"I am Havers to you now. Not brother. And never again."

He dropped his head and walked out of the room.

In the silence that followed there was the temptation to fall on the bare mattress and cry. But there was no time. She had maybe an hour before light.

Dear Virgin, where would she go?

Chapter Sixteen

When Mr. X came back from meeting the Omega on the other side, he felt like he had heartburn. Which seemed logical, as he'd been fed his own ass.

The master had been teed up about a variety of things. He wanted more lessers, more vampires bleeding out, more progress, more... more... But the thing was, no matter what he was given, he would always be unsatisfied. Maybe that was his curse.

Whatever. The calculus of Mr. X's failure was up on the blackboard, the mathematical equation of his destruction outlined in chalk. The unknown in the algebra was time. How long before the Omega snapped and Mr. X got recalled for eternity?

Things needed to move faster with Van. That man had to get on board and in place ASAP.

Mr. X went over to his laptop and fired the Dell up. Sitting down next to the dried brown stain of a blood pool, he called up the Scrolls and found the relevant passage. The lines of the prophecy calmed him:

There shall be one to bring the end before the master, a fighter of modern time found in the seventh of the

twenty-first,

and he shall be known in the numbers he bears: One more than the compass he apperceives, Though mere four points to make at his right, Three lives has he,

Two scores on his fore,

and with a single black eye, in one well will he be birthed and die.

Mr. X eased back against the wall, cracked his neck, and looked around. The stinky remnants of the meth lab, the filth in the place, the air of bad deeds done without remorse were like a party he didn't want to be at but couldn't leave. Just like the Lessening Society.

Except it was going to be okay. At least he'd spotted the lesser exit.

God, it had been so weird how he'd found Van Dean. X had gone to the ultimate fighting brawls to troll for new recruits and Van had immediately stood out from the others. There was just something special about him, something that elevated him above his opponents. And watching the guy move that first night, Mr. X had thought he'd spotted an important addition to the Society... until he'd noticed the missing finger.

He didn't like to bring in anyone with a physical defect.

But the more he saw Van fight, the more clear it was that an absent pinkie was no liability at all. Then a' couple nights later he saw the tattoo. Van always fought with a T-shirt on, but at one point the thing got shoved up around his pecs. On his back, in black ink, an eye stared out from between his shoulder blades.

That had been what sent Mr. X into the Scrolls. The prophecy was buried deep in the text of the Lessening Society's handbook, an all-but-forgotten paragraph in the midst of the rules of induction. Fortunately, when Mr. X had become Fore-lesser the first time, he'd read the passages thoroughly enough to remember the damn thing was there.

As with the rest of the Scrolls, which had been translated into English in the 1930s, the wording of the prophecy was abstract. But if you were missing a finger on your right hand, then you had only four points to make. "Three lives" was childhood, adulthood, and then life in the Society. And according to the fight crowd, Van was homegrown, born in the city of Caldwell, which was also known as the Well.

But there was more. The man's instincts were twitchy as hell. All you had to do was watch him in that chicken-wire ring to know that north, south, east, and west were only part of what he was sensing. He had a rare talent for anticipating the way his opponent was going to move. It was the gift that set him apart.

The clincher, however, was the appendix removal. The word score could be construed in a variety of ways, but it very conceivably referred to scarring. And everyone had a belly button, so if you'd had your appendix removed as well, you'd have two scars on your "fore," wouldn't you?

Plus it was the right year to find him.

Mr. X reached for his cell phone and called one of his subordinates.

As the line rang, he was aware that he needed Van Dean, that modern fighter, that four-fingered bastard, more than anyone he'd met in his life. Or after his death.

When Marissa materialized in front of the dour gray mansion, she put her hand up to her throat and tilted her head back. God, so much stone rising from the earth, whole quarries stripped to gather the load. And so many leaded-glass windows, the diamond panes looking like bars. And then there was the twenty-foot-high retaining wall that wrapped around the courtyard and the grounds. And the security cameras. And the gates.

So secure, So cold.

The place was precisely as she'd expected it to be, a fortress not a home. And it was surrounded by a buffer of what in the Old Country was called mhis so that unless you were supposed to be here, your brain couldn't process the location well enough for you to find your way around. Hell, the only reason she'd made it to the Brotherhood's compound was because Wrath was inside. After three hundred years of living off his pure blood, she had so much of him in her that she could find him anywhere. Even through the mhis.

As she faced the mountain before her, her nape tingled like she was being stalked, and she looked over her shoulder. In the east, the light of day was gathering momentum, and the radiance made her eyes burn. She was almost out of time.

Hand still on her throat, she walked up to a pair of massive brass doors. There was no doorbell or knocker, so she tried one side. It opened, which was a shock - at least until she stood in the vestibule. Ah, here was where you were screened.

She put her face in front of a camera and waited. No doubt an alarm had gone off when she'd breached the first door, so someone would either come and let her in... or refuse her. In which case she was on to her second choice. At a dead run.

Rehvenge was the only other person she could have turned to, but he was complicated. His mahmen was a spiritual counselor of sorts to the glymera and would no doubt be highly offended by Marissa's presence.

With a prayer to the Scribe Virgin, she smoothed her hair with her palm. Maybe she'd gambled wrong, but she'd assumed that Wrath wouldn't turn her away this close to dawn. For all she'd endured with him, she figured he could spare her one day under the cover of his roof. And he was a male of honor.

At least Butch didn't live with the Brotherhood as far as she knew. He'd stayed at another place somewhere else over the summer and she guessed he still had it. Hoped he did.

The heavy wooden doors ahead of her opened, and Fritz, the butler, seemed very surprised to see her. "Madam?" The elderly doggen bowed low. "Are you... expected?"

"No, I'm not." She was about as far away from expected as it got. "I, ah - "

"Fritz, who is it?" came a female voice.

As footsteps got closer, Marissa clasped her hands together and lowered her head.

Oh, Lord. Beth, the queen. It would have been so much better to see Wrath first. And now she could only assume this wasn't going to work out.

Surely her majesty would let her use the phone to call Rehvenge? God, did she even have time to dial?

The doors creaked open even wider. "Who is... Marissa!"

Marissa kept her eyes on the floor and curtsied, as was custom. "My queen."

"Fritz, will you excuse us?" A moment later Beth said, "Would you like to come in?"

Marissa hesitated, then stepped through the door. She had a peripheral sense of incredible color and warmth, but she couldn't lift her head to take it all in.

"How did you find us?" Beth asked.

"Your... hellren's blood lingers within me. I... I have come to him for a favor. I would speak to Wrath, if it would not offend?"

Marissa was shocked when her hand was grasped. "What's happened?"

When she lifted her eyes to the queen, she nearly gasped. Beth was so genuinely concerned, so worried. To be greeted with any kind of warmth was disarming, especially from this female who by all rights might be tempted to kick her out.