Lover Enshrined (Black Dagger Brotherhood 6)

He liked paperwork, so he liked his job. Usually he spent his time recording grades, updating files with training injury reports, and keeping track of the curriculum's progress. It was nice to make order out of chaos, to have everything where it needed to be.

He checked his watch. Blay and Qhuinn were working out in the weight room and they'd be in there for another half hour, minimum.

What to do... what to do...

On a random impulse, he went through the computer directory and found the folder marked, Incident Reports. Opening it, he called up the one Phury had filed about the attack on Lash's house.

Jesus... Christ. The dead bodies of the parents had been seated around the dining room table, moved there from the sitting room where they had been killed. Nothing else was touched in the house, except for a drawer up in Lash's room, and Phury had jotted down a side note: personal effect? but of what value as jewelry remained?

John called up the other reports from the houses that had been attacked. Qhuinn's. Blay's. Three other classmates'. Five other aristocrats'. Total death toll: twenty-nine, including doggen. And the looting had been extensive.

Evidently it had been the most successful series of raids since the sacking of Wrath's family's estate back in the Old Country.

John tried to imagine what Lash had been put through to have those addresses come out of his mouth. He'd been a shit, but he'd had no love for the lessers.

Tortured. He had to be dead.

For no particular reason, John went into the guy's computer file. Phury, or someone, had already filled out the death certificate. Name: Lash, son of Ibix, son of Ibixes, son of Thornsrae. DOB: March 3, 1983. Date of death: approx. August 2008. Age at time of death: 25. Cause of demise: Uncon firmed; assumption torture. Location of body: Unknown, assumption - Lessening Society disposed. Remains released to: N/A.

The rest of the file was extensive. Lash had had a lot of disciplinary issues, not just at the training program, but at glymera retreats. It was a surprise to see them in the record at all, given how secretive the aristocracy was with imperfections, but then again, the Brotherhood had required full disclosure of all trainees' histories before you could enter the program.

The guy's birth certificate had been scanned in as well. Name: Lash, son of Ibix, son of Ibixes, son of Thornsrae. DOB: March 3, 1983, 1:14 a.m. Mother: Rayelle, blooded daughter of the soldier Nellshon. Certification of live birth signed by: Havers, son of Havers, MD. Young released from clinic: March 3, 1983.

Too weird that the guy was gone.

The phone rang, making him jump. When John picked up the call, he whistled, and V's voice said, "Ten minutes, Wrath's study. We're meeting. You three be there."

The line went dead.

After a moment of holy shitting, John ran into the weight room and got Qhuinn and Blay. The two of them pulled the same kind of whoa pause, and then they all raced for Wrath's study, even though his buddies were still in their workout sweats.

Up in the king's pale blue digs, all the Brotherhood was there, filling out the room until everything dainty and proper about it was overpowered: Rhage was unwrapping a Tootsie Pop over by the mantel, a grape one going by the purple wrapper. Vishous and Butch were together on an antique couch, the spindly legs of which you had to worry about. Wrath was behind the desk. Z was in the far corner, arms crossed over his chest, eyes staring straight ahead into the middle of the room.

John shut the door and stayed put. Qhuinn and Blay followed his lead, the three of them barely in the room.

"Here's what we got," Wrath said, putting his shitkickers up on the paper-covered desk. "The heads of five of the founding families are dead. Most of what's left of the glymera is scattered around the eastern seaboard and in safe houses. Finally. Total losses of life are in the high twenties. Although there's been a massacre or two throughout our history, this is a hit of unprecedented gravity."

"They should have moved faster," V muttered. "Damn fools didn't listen."

"True, but did we really expect anything different? So here's where we are. We should expect some kind of negative response from the Princeps Council in the form of a proclamation against me. My guess is they're going to try to marshal up a civil war. Granted, as long as I'm breathing no one else can be king, but they could make it damn hard for me to rule properly and keep things together." As the Brothers muttered all kinds of nasty things, Wrath held up his hand to stop the chatter. "Good news is, they've got organizational problems, which will give us some time. The Princeps Council's charter says that it must be physically seated in Caldwell and convene its meetings here. They created the rule a couple of centuries ago to make sure the power base didn't go elsewhere. As none of them are in town, and - hello - conference calling didn't exist in 1790 when they drafted the current charter, they can't convene a meeting to change their bylaws or elect a new leahdyre until they drag their asses back here, at least for an evening. Given the deaths, that'll be a while, but we're talking weeks, not months."

Rhage bit down on his Tootsie Pop, the crack ricocheting around the room. "Do we have an idea of what hasn't been hit yet?"

Wrath pointed to the far edge of his desk. "I made copies for everyone."

Rhage went over, picked up the stack of papers, and handed them out... even to Qhuinn and John and Blay.

John looked at the columns. First was a name. Second was an address. Third was an estimate of the number of folks and doggen in the household. Fourth was an approximate value of what was in the place based on the tax roll. Final was whether or not the family had vacated the premises and how much looting had or had not occurred.

"I want you to divvy up the list of the ones we haven't heard from," Wrath said. "If there's anyone still in those houses, I want you to get them out, even if you have to drag them by the hair. John, you and Qhuinn go with Z. Blay, you're going with Rhage. Any questions?"

For no good reason John found himself looking over at the ugly-ass avocado green chair that was behind Wrath's desk. It was Tohr's.

Or had been.

He would have liked Tohr to see him with the list in his hand, ready to go out and defend the race.

"Good," Wrath said. "Now get the f**k out of here and do what I need you to do."

On the other side, in the Temple of the Sequestered Scribes, Cormia rolled up the parchment she had been sketching houses and buildings on and placed it on the floor next to her stool. She had no idea what to do with the thing. Maybe burn it? Wastepaper baskets didn't exist in the Sanctuary.

As she moved a crystal bowl that was full of water from the Scribe Virgin's fountain in front of her, she thought of the ones Fritz had brought her with her peas in them. She missed that hobby of hers already. Missed the butler. Missed...

The Primale.

Palming the bowl, she began to rub the crystal, creating ripples in the surface of the water that caught the light of the candles. The warmth of her hands and the subtle movement created a swirling effect, and from out of the gentle waves came the vision of exactly who she wanted to see. Once the image appeared, she stopped agitating the water and let the surface smooth out so she could watch and then describe what she saw.

It was the Primale, and he was dressed the way he'd been that night he'd met her at the top of the stairs and looked at her as if he hadn't seen her for a week. But he wasn't in the Brotherhood's mansion. He was racing down a corridor that was marked with streaks of blood and black heel prints. Bodies were crumpled on the floor on either side, the remains of vampires who had been living just moments before.

She watched as the Primale gathered a small group of terrified males and females and put them into a supply closet. She saw his face as he locked them in, saw the dread and the sadness and the anger in his features.

He'd scrambled to save them, to find a way to safety, to take care of them.

When the vision dimmed, she palmed the bowl once more. Now that she had seen what had transpired, she could call it up again, and she watched his actions once more. Then again.

It was as the movie had been back on the far side, only this was real; this was past that had transpired, not a constructed fictional present.

And then there were other things she saw, scenes tied to the Primale and the Brotherhood and the race. Oh, the horror of the killings, of those dead bodies in luxurious houses...the corpses too numerous for her to comprehend. One by one, she saw the faces of those who had been killed by the lessers. Then she saw the Brothers out fighting, their numbers so small that John and Blay and Qhuinn were being forced too early into the war.