Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood 7)

Just as he gave his clean plate over to a doggen, the patient came in through the underground tunnel that ran from the ambulance garages. The EMTs were two male vampires who were dressed the same as their human counterparts were, because blending in was mission critical.

The patient was out cold, being kept alive only by the medic near his head who was fisting a bag in a slow, steady rhythm.

"We were called in by his friend," the male said, "who promptly left him passed out in the cold in the alley next to ZeroSum. Pupils nonresponsive. Blood pressure sixty-two over thirty-eight. Heart rate thirty-two."

What a waste, Ehlena thought as she went to work.

Street drugs were such an unconscionable evil.

Across town, in the part of Caldwell known as Minimall Sprawlopolis, Wrath found the dead lesser's apartment easily enough. The development it was in was called Hunterbred Farms, and the setup of two-story buildings carried an equine theme that was about as authentic as the plastic tablecloths in a cheap Italian restaurant.

No such thing as a hunter-bred horse. And the word farm was not usually associated with one hundred one-bedroom units sandwiched in between a Ford/ Mercury dealership and a supermarket shopping center. Agrarian? Yeah, right. Grass patches were losing the ground battle against the asphalt by a four-to-one margin and the one pond there was had clearly been man-made.

Damn thing had cement edges like a pool, and its thin ice cover was the color of piss, like there was a chemical treatment going on.

Considering how many humans lived in the units, it was a surprise that the Lessening Society would put troops in such a conspicuous place, but maybe this was just temporary. Or maybe the whole f**king thing was filled with slayers.

Each building had four apartments clustered around a communal stairwell, and the numbers mounted on the outside wall were spotlit from the ground. He solved the visual challenge using the tried and true touch-and-decipher method. When he found a row of upraised digits that felt like Eight Twelve in cursive letters, he willed off the security lights and dematerialized to the staircase's top landing.

The lock on unit eight twelve was flimsy and easily manipulated with his mind, but he wasn't taking anything for granted. Standing flat against the wall, he turned the horseshoe-shaped knob and opened the door only a crack.

He closed his useless eyes and listened. No movement, just the hum of a refrigerator. Considering his hearing was acute enough to hear a mouse breathe through its nose, he figured it was clear and palmed a throwing star, then slipped inside.

Chances were good there was a security system blinking somewhere in the place, but he didn't plan on being here long enough to tango with the enemy. Besides, even if a slayer showed up there could be no fighting. Place was crawling with humans.

Bottom line, he was looking for jars and that was it. After all, the feeling of wetness down his leg wasn't because he'd hit a slush puddle on the way in. He was bleeding into his boot from the fighting back in that alley, so, yeah, if anyone who smelled like a coconut-cream pie laced with cheap shampoo appeared, he was outtie.

At least...that was what he told himself.

Shutting the door, Wrath inhaled, long and slow...and wished he could power-wash the inside of his nose and the back of his throat. Still, although his gag reflex started churning, the news was good: There were three distinct sweet smells interwoven in the stale air, which meant three lessers stayed here.

As he headed for the back, where the cloying stenches were concentrated, he wondered what the hell was going on. Lessers rarely lived in groups because they fought with one another-which was what happened when you recruited only homicidal maniacs. Hell, the men the Omega picked couldn't shut off their inner Michael Myers just because the Society felt like saving a little on rent overhead.

Maybe they had a strong Fore-lesser in place, though.

After the raids of the summer, it was hard to believe the lessers were tight on cash, but why else consolidate troops? Then again, the Brothers, and Wrath on the QT, had been seeing less sophisticated shit in those holsters. It used to be when you fought the slayers you had to be prepared for any special modification out on the market for any kind of weapon. Lately? They had been going up against old-school switchblades, brass knuckles, and even-gasp-a frickin' billy club last week-all cheap weapons that didn't require bullets or upkeep. And now they were playing The Waltons here at Hunter-poser Farms? What the f**k?

The first bedroom he came up to was marked by a pair of perfumes, and he found two jars next to the sheetless, blanketless twin beds.

The next crip likewise smelled of a variant of old lady...that and something else. A quick sniff told Wrath it was...Christ, Old Spice.

Go. Fig. With the way those f**kers smelled, like you'd want to add anything to the mix-

Holy shit.

Wrath inhaled hard, his brain filtering out anything remotely sweet.

Gunpowder.

Following the metallic bite in the air, he went over to a closet that had the kind of flimsy doors you'd expect on a dollhouse. As he opened them up, the eau d'ammo bloomed, and he leaned down, feeling around with his hands.

Wooden crates. Four of them. All nailed shut.

The guns inside had definitely been fired, but not recently, he thought. Which suggested this might well have been a CPO purchase.

Certified preowned by who, though.

Whatever, he wasn't leaving them behind. This stash was going to be used by the enemy against his civilians and his brothers, so he'd blow up the whole apartment before letting those weapons get palmed in the war.

But if he called this in to the Brotherhood? His secret would be revealed. Trouble was, dragging the crates out by himself was a yeah-right sitch: He had no car, and there was no way of dematerializing with that kind of weight on his back, even if he cut it up into smaller loads.

Wrath backed out of the closet and took stock of the bedroom, using touch as much as sight. Oh, good. There was a window over on the left.

He took out his phone with a curse and flipped it open-

Someone was coming up the stairwell.

He froze, closing his eyes to concentrate even further. Human or lesser?

Only one mattered.

Wrath bent to the side and put the two jars he'd macked on a dresser, finding, natch, both the third one and the bottle of Old Spice. Palming his forty, he stood with his shitkickers planted and his gun pointed down the short hallway, directly at the unit's front door.

There was a jangle of keys, then a clang, as if they'd fallen out of a hand.

The curse was a woman's.

As his body eased up, he let his gun fall to his thigh. Like the Brotherhood, the Society admitted only males into its ranks, so that was no slayer playing pickup sticks with those keys.

He heard the door to the apartment across the way close, and abruptly a surround-sound TV came on loud enough so he could hear the rerun of The Office.

He liked this epi. It was the one where the bat got loose-

A bunch of screams rippled over, generated by the sitcom.

Yup. The bat was flying around now.

With the woman safely occupied, he refocused but stayed where he was, praying the coming-home bit was a theme song the enemy would pick up and carry. Staying statue and breathing shallow didn't improve the ratio of lessers in the place, however. Some fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, he was still completely surrounded by no slayers.

But it wasn't a total loss. He was copping a nice little comedy contact buzz from Dwight's head-and bat-bagging scene in the Office's kitchen.

Time to get a move on.

He hit up Butch, gave the Brother the address, and told the cop to drive like his foot was made of stone. Wrath wanted to get the guns out before anyone came, yes. But if he and his brother could get the crates out quickly, and Butch could ghost the shit, Wrath might still be able to hang around the premises for another hour or so.

To pass the time, he hunted through the apartment, patting surfaces down with his palms in an attempt to find computers, extra phones, more goddamn guns. He'd just returned to the second bedroom when something ricocheted off the window.

Wrath unholstered his forty again and back-flatted it on the wall next to the window. With his hand, he sprang the lock and pushed the sheet of glass open a crack.

The cop's Boston accent was about as subtle as a loudspeaker. "Yo, Rapunzel, you going to let down your frickin' hair, there?"

"Shh, you wanna wake the neighbors?"

"Like they can hear anything over that TV? Hey, this is the bat epi..."

Wrath left Butch to talk to himself, putting his gun back on his hip, pushing the window wide, then heading for the closet. The only warning he gave the cop as he winged the first two-hundred-pound crate out of the building was, "Brace yourself, Effie."