Sitting in her private quarters, Payne stared out over the Far Side's landscape. The rolling green grass and the tulips and honeysuckle reached only so far before they were cut off by a ring of trees that encircled the lawn. Above it all, the arching milky sky stretched from fluffy treetops to fluffy treetops, the lid on the wardrobe trunk.
From personal experience, she knew that if you walked to the edge of the forest and penetrated its shadows, you ended up emerging... right where you entered.
There was no way out, except through the Scribe Virgin's permission. She alone held the key to the invisible lock and she wasn't going to let Payne go--not even to the Primale's house on the Other Side, as the others were allowed to do.
Which proved that female knew well what she had birthed. She was very aware that once Payne got loose, she was never coming back. Payne had said as much--in a yell that made her own eardrums hum.
In retrospect, her outburst had been a victory for honesty, but not the best strategy. Better to have kept that to herself, and perhaps been allowed to traverse to the Other Side--and stayed there then. After all, it wasn't as if her mother could force her back to the land of the living statues.
Well, at least theoretically.
On that note, she thought of Layla, who had just returned from having seen her male. The sister had been glowing with a kind of happiness and satisfaction that Payne had never felt.
Rather justified the urge to leave here, didn't it: Even if what awaited her on the Other Side was nothing like she remembered from her small slice of freedom, she would have choices to make on her own.
Verily, it was a strange curse to have been born and yet not have a life to live. Short of killing her mother, she was stuck herein, and however much she hated the female, she wasn't going to take that trail. She wasn't sure she'd win in such a conflict, for one thing. For another... she had already disposed of her sire. Matricide was not an experience that held any new or particular fascination for her.
Oh, the past, the painful, wretched past. How awful to be stuck here with an infinite, bland future whilst burdened with a history that was too awful to dwell on. Suspended animation had been a kind gift when measured up against this torture--at least in the frozen state, her mind hadn't been able to wander and tangle with things she wished hadn't transpired, and things she would never get to do--
"Would you care for some victuals?"
Payne looked over her shoulder. No'One was in the archway of the room, bended into a bow with a tray in her hands.
"Oh, yes, please." Payne shook off her moribund musings. "And won't you join me?"
"I thank you kindly, but I shall serve you and depart." The maid put the provisions down on the window seat beside Payne. "When you and the king set to your physical conflicts, I shall return to collect--"
"May I ask you something?"
No'One bowed again. "But of course. How may I be of service?"
"Why have you never gone on to the Other Side? Like the others?"
There was a long silence... and then the female gimped over to the pallet on which Payne slept. With shaking hands, No'One straightened the bedding into a precise order.
"I have no particular interest in that world," she said from under her robing. "I am safe here. Over there... I would not be safe."
"The Primale is a Brother of stout arm and fine dagger skill. No harm would e'er befall you under his care."
The sound that drifted out from the hood was noncommittal. "Circumstances have a way of spinning into chaos and strife there. Simple decisions have ramifications that can be shattering. Here, everything is in order."
Spoken as a survivor of the raid that had taken place in this sanctuary some seventy-five years ago, Payne thought. Back on that horrible eve, males from the Other Side had infiltrated the barrier and brought with them the violence that often existed in their world.
Many had died or been hurt--the Primale at the time included.
Payne looked back out at the static, lovely horizon--and at once understood the female's thinking, and yet wasn't swayed by it. "The order herein is precisely what galls me. I would seek to avoid this kind of falsity."
"Can you not leave when you wish?"
"No."
"That is not right."
Payne's eyes shot over to the female--who was now at work refolding Payne's modified robes. "I never expected you to say something counter to the Scribe Virgin."
"I love our dearest mother of the race--please do not misunderstand. But to be imprisoned, even in luxury, is not right. I choose to stay herein and ever will--you should be free to go, however."
"I find myself envying you."
No'One seemed to recoil under her robes. "You must never do that."
" 'Tis true."
In the silence that followed, Payne recalled her conversation with Layla by the reflecting pool. Same exchange, different twist: Then, Layla had been the one to envy Payne's lack of desire when it came to sex and males. Here, it was No'One's contentment with inertia that was of value.
And 'round and 'round we go, Payne thought.
Turning her head back to the "view," she regarded the grass with a jaundiced eye. Each blade was perfectly formed, and precisely the right height such that the expanse was less a lawn than a carpet. And the result was not gotten by mowing, of course. Just as the tulips stood in their beds with everlasting blooms upon their slender stalks and the crocuses were perpetually unfurling and the roses were always fat-headed with petals, so too were there no bugs or weeds or disease.
Or growth.
Ironic that it appeared to be all cultivated and yet was attended to by no one. After all, who needed a gardener when you had a god capable of engineering everything to its best state--and keeping it there.
In a way, that made No'One a miracle, didn't it. That she had been allowed to survive her birth herein and permitted to breathe the nonair, even though she was not perfect.
"I don't want this," Payne said. "I truly do not."
When there was no comment, she looked over her shoulder... and frowned. The female had left as she had come in, without noise or fuss, leaving the surroundings bettered by her careful touch.
As a scream welled inside of her, Payne knew she had to be freed. Or go mad.
Back in Caldwell's farm country, Xhex finally got a shot to have inside the house when the police left at five in the afternoon. As they walked out, that bunch of blue unis looked ready not so much for a night off, but a week's vacation--then again wading through congealing blood for hours'll do that to a guy. They locked everything up, put a seal over the front and back doors, and made sure there was a ring of yellow crime scene tape around the yard. Then they got in their cars and drove away.
"Let's get in there," she said to the Shadows.
Dematerializing, she took form smack in the middle of the living room and Trez and iAm were right with her. Without needing to talk, they fanned out, traipsing through the mess, searching for things the humans wouldn't have known to look for.
Twenty minutes of ooey-gooey on the first floor and nothing but dust on the second left them with a whole lot of nada.
Damn it to hell, she could sense the bodies and the emotional grids that were marked with suffering, but they were like reflections in water--and she just couldn't get to the forms that were throwing the wavy images.
"You hear from Rehv yet?" she said, lifting one boot and measuring how far up the sole the blood came. Onto the leather. Great.
Trez shook his head. "Nope. But I can call again."
"Don't bother. He must be crashed." Shit, she was hoping that he'd gotten her message and started hunting down that license plate already.
Standing in the front hall, she looked around the dining room, and then focused on the pitted table that had clearly been used as a cutting board.
The Omega's little buddy with the Vin Diesel ride was going to have to come back for the new recruits. They weren't useful hidden like this, because, assuming the lockdown worked as hers had with Lash, they couldn't get out of the parallel plane they'd been relegated to until they were released.
Unless the spell could be called off from afar?
"We've got to stay longer," she said. "And see who else shows."
She and the Shadows took up res in the kitchen, pacing around and leaving fresh, bloody footprints on the cracked linoleum--ones that were no doubt going to fuck with the level, earnest heads of all those cops.
NHP.
Not. Her. Problem.
She checked the clock on the wall. Measured the empty kegs and the liquor bottles and the beer cans. Glanced over the tail ends of joints and the talc-y residue of coke lines.
Rechecked the clock.
Out in the back, the sun seemed to have stopped its descent, as if the golden disk was scared of getting skewered by the tree branches.
Stalled in her pursuit, she had nothing else to think about other than John. He must be climbing the damn walls right now, all up in a headspace that was hardly what you wanted somebody to meet the enemy with: He was going to be pissed off at her, distracted, revved up in the wrong way.
Wasn't like she could call and talk to him. He couldn't answer her.
And what she had to say wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to text.
"What's the matter?" Trez asked, as she began to fidget.
"Nothing. Just ready to fight with no target."
"Bullshit."
"Annnnd we can stop the chatter right here, thank you very much."
Ten minutes later, she was staring up at the clock on the wall again. Oh, for hell's sake, she couldn't stand this.
"I'm going back to the Brotherhood's for a half hour," she blurted. "Stay here, will you. Call my cell if anyone shows."
As she gave them her number, the peanut gallery did themselves a favor and didn't ask any whys--then again Shadows were like symphaths in that they tended to know where people were at.
"Roger that," Trez said. "We'll hitchu the second anything happens."
Dematerializing, she took form in front of the Brotherhood mansion and crossed the pea gravel to the basilica-size steps. After she went into the vestibule, she put her face to the security camera.
Fritz opened the way after a moment and bowed low. "Welcome home, madam."
The H-word sent a jolt through her. "Ah... thanks." She looked around at the empty rooms off the foyer. "I'm just going to go upstairs."
"I've prepared your previous room."
"Thanks." But she wasn't heading there.
Drawn by the sense of John's blood, she jogged up the grand staircase and went down to his crib.
Knocking, she waited, and when there was no answer, she cracked the door into the darkness and heard the hush of a running shower. Across the way, a lateral strip of light showed at carpet level, indicating he'd shut the way into the bathroom.
Crossing the Oriental, she shed her leather jacket and left it on the back of a chair. At the bath, she knocked again. Without hesitation. Loudly.
The door opened by itself, swinging free and revealing humid air and the dim glow of the inset lights above the Jacuzzi.
John was facing her behind the glass enclosure, the water rushing down his chest and his six-pack and his thighs. His cock sprang up into a massive erection the moment her eyes met his, but he didn't move and he didn't look glad to see her.
In fact, his upper lip curled in a snarl, and that wasn't the worst of it. His emotional grid was completely closed off to her. He was blocking her and she wasn't even sure he was aware of doing it: She couldn't get a bead on anything that she had always sensed so clearly before.
Xhex lifted up her right hand and spelled out awkwardly: I came back.
His brow twitched. Then he signed much more smoothly and quickly: With intel for Wrath and the Brothers, right. Feel like a hero? Congratulations.
He shut off the water, stepped out, and leaned for a towel. He didn't cover himself, but dried off, and it was hard not to notice that with each move and arch, his erection bobbed.
She never thought she'd curse her peripheral vision.
"I haven't talked with anyone," she said.
This left him pausing with the towel stretched across his back, one arm angled up, the other down. Naturally, the pose popped his pecs and pulled the muscles that ran over his hip bones out in stark relief.
He snapped the towel free and draped it over his shoulders. Leaving it to hang, he signed, Why did you come here?
"I wanted to see you." The ache in her voice made her wish she'd used ASL.
Why.
"I was worried--"
You want to see how I'm hanging together? You want to know what it was like to spend the past seven hours wondering if you were dead or--
"John--"
He ripped the towel free and snapped the end in midair to shut her up. You want to know how I handled the idea that you were dead, fighting alone, or worse, back where you'd been? Your symphath side need a little diversion for kicks and giggles?
"God, no--"
You sure about that? You're not wearing your cilices. Maybe you're feeding that hunger, coming back here--
Xhex wheeled around for the door, her emotions too much for her to handle, the guilt and the sadness choking her.
John caught her arm and they ended up against the wall, his body holding hers in place while he signed up close to their faces.
Hell no, you do not get to run. After what you put me through, you do not get to run the fuck out of here just because you can't deal with shit you created. I couldn't run from today. I had to stay caged here and you can damn well return the favor. Her eyes wanted to focus elsewhere, but then she couldn't track what he was saying with his hands. You want to know how I am? Fucking resolved, that's how I am. You and I are turning a corner tonight. You say you have a right to go after Lash? I do, too.
That locker room, in the shower, she thought. The betrayal that she didn't know the details of, but that she sensed had everything to do with what had happened to John when he'd been young, and alone, and defenseless.
Here's the deal and it's nonnegotiable. We work together to find him and get him and kill him. We work as a team, which means where one of us is, the other goes. And at the end, whoever takes him to ground gets the honors. That's where we stand.
Xhex exhaled with relief, instantly knowing it was the right answer. She hadn't liked how it felt being at that farmhouse without him. It had seemed wrong.
"Deal," she said.
His face didn't register surprise or satisfaction--which told her whatever he'd planned if she said no must have been a doozy.
Except then she learned why he was so calm.
After it's over, we go our separate ways. We're done.
The blood drained out of her head and abruptly, her hands and feet went numb. Which was such bullshit. What he was proposing was the best arrangement and the best outcome: two fighters working together and once their goal was accomplished, there was no reason to retain any tie between them.
Matter of fact, this was precisely what she'd seen of the future when she'd first come out of that nightmare with Lash. Get him good and dead. Then end this fiasco of life.
Trouble was... her plans that had been so clear were foggy now, the path that she had set with her head the instant she got free obscured by things that had nothing to do with what was in her skull and everything to do with the male who was naked against her.
"Okay," she said hoarsely. "All right."
Now that caused a reaction in him. His body relaxed against hers and he planted his hands on the wall on either side of her head. As their eyes met, her body roared with a blast of heat.
Man, desperation was gasoline to a match for her when it came to John Matthew--and given the way he subtly rolled his hips against her, he felt the same way.
Xhex reached up and clamped a hold on the side of his neck. She wasn't gentle and neither was he as she pulled him down to her mouth, their lips crushing together, their tongues not so much meeting as dueling. When she suddenly heard a tearing sound, she realized he'd grabbed both sides of her muscle shirt and ripped it in half down the front--
Her breasts came up against his bare chest, her nipples rubbing against his skin, her core weeping for him. To hell with desperation; the need to have him inside went farther than that, until her emptiness without him was an agony.
Her leathers were on the floor a split second later.
Then with a quick hop, she jumped up and locked her thighs around his waist. Reaching down, she positioned him against her sex and squeezed her heels into his ass, making the penetration so very real. As his arousal sank deep, she took all of him, the sliding push enough to make her orgasm wildly.
Riding her release, her fangs shot out into her mouth, and John broke the kiss to tilt his head and flash his vein.
The puncture was sweet. The strength that came from him meteoric.
With hard draws, she drank as his body hammered into her, pitching her off that cliff again, sending her into a crazy descent that somehow had no hard landing--and he followed her, making that glorious leap without a parachute, his orgasms shuddering into her.
There was only the briefest of pauses... and then John started pumping again--
No, he was carrying her to the bed in the darkened room, the motion of his striding thighs pushing him inside of her and pulling him free and pushing him back.
She remembered every single sensation, storing each one deep in her mind, making the moment infinite and ageless by virtue of the power of memory. And as he settled on top of her, she did what he had done for her: offering her vein to him, she ensured that they were the most powerful team they could be.
Partners.
Just not the permanent kind.
