by J. R. Ward
As he thought back, he remembered driving out of Queens after Glory had come around and his intention had been to go home. Clearly, that hadn’t happened. And he had no clue how long he’d been asleep in his office. Looking at his scrubs, there were drops of blood here and there . . . and his kicked-off Nikes were in the blue booties he always operated in. Apparently, he’d worked on a patient—
A fresh flare of pain burst into his mind, causing him to brace every muscle in his body and fight for control. Knowing that biofeedback was his only friend, he let all cognitive processes go lax as he breathed slowly and evenly.
Focusing on the clock, he watched the hands click to seventeen . . . then eighteen . . . then nineteen. . . .
Twenty minutes later, he was finally able to stand up and lurch over to his bathroom. Inside, the private room was Ali Baba gorgeous, with enough marble, crystal and brass to be castle-worthy—or in the case of tonight, make him curse at all the bright-brights.
Reaching in through the glass door of the shower, he cranked the faucets on and then he headed to the sink to pop open the mirror and grab the bottle of Motrin. Five tablets at once was more than the recommended dosage, but he was a doctor, damn it, and he was advising himself to take more than just two.
The hot water was a blessing, rinsing away not only the remnants of that incredible release, but also the strain of the last twelve hours. God . . . Glory. He hoped like hell she was doing well. And that female he’d op—
As he felt another stinger coming on, he dropped whatever thought had been about to take root like it was poison and focused only on the way the spray hit the nape of his neck and split off his shoulders, falling down his back and his chest.
His cock was still hard.
Rock-hard.
The irony that the damn thing remained all wakey-wakey, in spite of the fact that his other head was totally scrambled, was no laughing matter. The last thing he felt like doing was more palm aerobics, but he had a feeling this arousal he was rocking was going to be like lawn sculpture: there for the duration unless he took care of it.
When the soap slipped off the brass holder and landed on his foot like an anvil, he cursed and hopped around . . . then bent down and picked the bar up.
Slippery. Oh, so slippery.
After putting the Dial back where it belonged, he let his hand go south to grip his shaft. As he drew his palm up and back, the warm water and the slick, soapy routine were effective, but still a poor substitute for what it had felt like to be against that woman’s—
Sharp. Shooter. Right through his frontal lobe.
God, it was like there were armed guards surrounding any thoughts of her.
With a curse, he shut his brain down because he knew he had to finish what he’d started. Bracing an arm against the marble wall, he let his head drop while he pumped himself. He’d always had a tremendous sex drive, but this was something else entirely, a hunger that punched through any veneer of civility and ran down deep to some core of himself that was a total news flash.
“Shit . . .” As the orgasm hit, he gritted his teeth and let loose against the flushed walls of the shower. The release was just as strong as the one on the couch had been, sacking his body until his cock wasn’t the only thing twitching uncontrollably: Every muscle he had seemed to be involved in the release, and he had to bite his lip to keep from yelling.
When he finally surfaced from the rock-’em, sock-’em, his face was mashed up against the marble and he was breathing like he’d sprinted from one side of Caldwell to the other.
Or maybe all the way to Canada.
Turning into the spray, he rinsed off again and stepped out, nabbing a towel and . . .
Manny looked down at his hips. “Are. You. Kidding.”
His cock was just as erect as it had been the first time: Undaunted. Proud and strong as only a dumb handle could be.
Whatever. He was done servicing it.
Worse came to worst, he could just disappear the damn thing in his pants. Obviously, the “relief” method wasn’t working, and he was out of energy. Hell, maybe he was coming down with the flu or some shit? God knew, working in a hospital you could pick up a lot of things.
Including amnesia, evidently.
Manny wrapped a towel around himself and walked out into his office—only to stop dead. There was a strange scent lingering in the air . . . something like dark spices?
Wasn’t his cologne, that was for certain.
Striding across the Oriental in his bare feet, he opened his door and leaned out. The administrative offices were dark and empty, and the smell wasn’t anywhere around.
With a frown, he looked back at his couch. But he knew better than to allow himself to think of what had just happened on it.
Ten minutes later, he was dressed in fresh scrubs and had had a shave. Mr. Happy, who was still making like the Washington Monument, was tucked up in his waistband and tied in place like the animal it was. As he picked up his briefcase and the suit he’d worn to the track, he was beyond ready to put the dream, the headache, the whole godforsaken evening behind him.
Walking out through the surgical department’s offices, he took the elevator down to the third floor, where the ORs were. Members of his staff were doing their thing, operating on emergency cases, dealing with patient setup or transport, cleaning, prepping. He nodded to folks, but didn’t say much—so as far as they knew, it was business as usual. Which was a relief.
And he almost made it to the parking lot without losing it.
His exit strategy came to a screeching halt, however, when he got to the recovery suites. He meant to go steaming past them, but his feet just stopped and his mind churned—and abruptly, he felt compelled to go into one of the rooms. As he followed the impulse, his headache was Johnny-on-the-spot with a return to life, but he let it roll as he pushed into the isolated bay that was all the way over by the fire exit.
The bed against the wall was neat as a pin, the sheets tucked in so tight they were all but ironed flat across the mattress. There were no staff notations on the dry-erase board; no beeping of machines; and the computer wasn’t logged into.
But the scent of Lysol lingered in the air. And so did some kind of perfume . . . ?
Someone had been in here. Someone he’d operated on. Tonight.
And she had—
Agony overwhelmed him, and Manny pulled another sag-and-grab, latching onto the doorjamb and leaning in to keep standing. As his migraine, or whatever it was, got worse, he had to bend over—
Which was how he saw it.
Frowning against the pain, he stumbled over to the bedside table and got down on his haunches. Reaching underneath, he patted around until he found the folded, stiff card.
He knew what it was before he looked at the thing. And for some reason, as he held it against his palm, his heart broke in half.
Flattening the crease, he stared at the engraving of his name and title and the hospital’s address, phone, and fax. In his handwriting, in the white space to the right of the St. Francis logo, he’d written his cell phone number.
Hair. Dark hair in a braid. His hands undoing—
“Mother . . . fucker.” He threw out a palm to the floor, but went down anyway, hitting the linoleum hard before rolling over onto his back. As he cradled his head and strained against the agony, he knew his eyelids were bolted open, but damned if he could see anything.
“Chief?”
At the sound of Goldberg’s voice, the sharpshooter at his temples faded a little, as if his brain had reached out for the auditory lifesaver and been dragged away from the sharks. At least temporarily.
“Hey,” he moaned.
“Are you all right?”
“Yup.”
“Headache?”
“Not at all.”
Goldberg laughed briefly. “Look, there’s something going around. I’ve had four nurses and two admins take to the floor just like you have. I’ve called in for extra staff and sent the others hom
e to bed.”
“Wise of you.”
“Guess what.”
“Don’t say it. I’m going, I’m going.” Manny forced himself to sit up, and then, when he was ready, he pulled his sorry ass off the floor by using the rails of the hospital bed.
“You were supposed to be gone this weekend, Chief.”
“I came back.” Fortunately, Goldberg didn’t ask about the horse race results. Then again, he didn’t know there were any to be shared. Nobody had a clue about what Manny did outside the hospital, mostly because he’d never thought it was important enough compared to the work they did here.
Why did his life feel so empty all of a sudden?
“You need a ride?” his chief of trauma asked.
God, he missed Jane.
“Ah . . .” What was the question? Oh, right. “I took some Motrin—I’ll be fine. Page me if you need me.” On the way out, he clapped Goldberg on the shoulder. “You’re in charge until tomorrow at seven a.m.”
Goldberg’s response didn’t register.
Turned out that was a theme. Manny wasn’t tracking at all as he found the north bank of elevators and took one down into the parking garage—it was almost as if that last round of the owies had TKO’d everything but his brain stem. Stepping out, he put one foot in front of the other until he got to his designated space. . . .
Where the fuck was his car?
He looked around. The chiefs of service all had assigned parking spots, and his Porsche was not in its slot.
His keys were not in his suit pocket, either.
And the only good news was that as he became royally incensed, the headache backed off completely—although that was obviously the result of the Motrin.
Where. The. Hell. Was. His. Goddamn car.
For shit’s sake, you couldn’t just bust a window, roll start it with the clutch, and head out. You needed the pass card he kept in his—
Wallet was gone, too.
Great. Just what he needed: a stolen billfold, a Porsche on the way to an illegal chop shop, and a go-around with the cops.
The security office was down where you checked out of the garage, so he hoofed it along instead of calling because gee-frickin’-whiz, his cell phone had been taken, too, natch—
He slowed. Then stopped. Halfway to the exit, in the row where patients and families parked, there was a gray Porsche 911 Turbo. Same year as his. Same NYRA sticker on the back window.
Same license plate.
He approached the thing like there was a bomb taped to its undercarriage. The doors were unlocked, and he was cautious as he popped the driver’s side open.
His wallet, keys, and cell phone were under the front seat.
“Doc? You all right?”
Okaaay. Apparently, there were two theme songs of the night: no memories and people asking him the one question he was guaranteed not to answer truthfully.
Looking up, he wondered what exactly he could say to the security guard: Hey, has someone turned my marbles in to Lost and Found?
“What you doing parked down here?” the guy in the blue uni asked.
I don’t have a clue. “Someone was in my spot.”
“Damn, you should have called, my man. We’d have fixed that quick.”
“You’re the best.” At least that wasn’t a lie.
“Well, take care—and get some rest. You don’t look so hot.”
“Excellent advice.”
“I shoulda been a doctor.” The guard lifted his flashlight on a wave. “Night.”
“G’night.”
Manny got into his phantom Porsche, started the engine, and threw her into reverse. As he drove over to the garage’s exit, he took out his pass card and used it without a problem to open up the gate. Then on St. Francis Avenue, he hung a louie and headed downtown for the Commodore.
Driving along, he was certain about one and only one thing.
He was losing his ever-loving mind.
TWELVE
U should be home by now, Butch thought, as he stared into space at the Pit.
“He should be here,” Jane said behind him. “I talked to him nearly an hour ago.”
“Great minds, great minds,” Butch muttered as he checked his watch. Again.
Getting off the leather couch and walking around the coffee table, he went over to his best friend’s computer setup. The Four Toys, as those high-tech bastards were called, were worth a good fifty grand—and that was about all Butch knew about them.
Well, that and how to use a mouse to locate the GPS chip in V’s phone.
No reason to zero in. The address told him everything he needed to know . . . and also gave his gut a whirl. “He’s still down at the Commodore.”
When Jane said nothing, he glanced up over the monitors. Vishous’s shellan was standing by the Foosball table, her arms crossed over her chest, her body and profile translucent so that he could see the kitchen on the far side of her. After a year, he’d gotten more than used to her various forms, and this one usually meant she was thinking hard about something, her concentration consumed by things other than making herself corporeal.
Butch was willing to bet they were thinking the same thing: V’s staying late at the Commodore when he knew his sister had been operated on and was safely here at the compound was sketchy—especially given the brother’s mood.
And his extremes.
Butch went over to the closet and got out his suede coat.
“Is there any way you could—” Jane stopped and laughed a little. “You read my mind.”
“I’ll bring him back. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay. All . . . right. I think I’ll go and stay with Payne.”
“Good idea.” His quick response was about more than just the clinical benefits to V’s sister’s doctor staying on site—and he wondered if Jane knew it. Then again, she wasn’t stupid.
And God only knew what he was going to find at V’s place. He’d hate to think of the guy cheating with some skank, but people made mistakes, especially when they snapped from stress. And better that someone other than Jane get an eyeful of what might be doing.
On his way out, he gave her a quick hug—which she immediately returned, solidifying herself and squeezing him back.
“I hope . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“Don’t worry,” he told her, lying through his teeth.
A minute and a half later, he was behind the wheel of the Escalade and driving like a bat out of hell. Although vampires could dematerialize, as a half-breed, that handy I Dream of Jeannie trick was not in his repertoire.
Good thing he didn’t have a problem with breaking the speed limit.
Into pieces.
Downtown Caldwell was still in sleep mode when he got to it, and unlike on a weekday, when the delivery trucks and the early-bird commuters would start streaming in before sunrise, the place was going to stay a ghost town. Sunday was a day of rest—or collapse, depending on how hard you worked. Or drank.
When he’d been a homicide detective with the Caldwell PD, he’d gotten very familiar with the daily—and nightly—rhythms of this maze of alleys and buildings. He knew the places where bodies tended to get dumped or hidden. And the criminal elements that made either a profession or a recreation out of killing folks.
He’d made so many trips into town like this, at a dead run, with no clue what he was getting into. Although . . . when he put it like that, his new job inhaling lessers with the Brotherhood? Old frickin’ hat when it came to the adrenaline rush and the grim knowledge that death was waiting for him.
And on that note, he was a mere two blocks from the Commodore when his sense of impending whatever sharpened into something specific . . . lessers.
The enemy was close by. And there were a number of them.
This was not instinct. This was knowledge. Ever since the Omega had done its thing with him, he’d been a divining rod for the enemy, and though he hated that evil was inside of him, and purposely didn’t
grind on that bone very often, it was one hell of an asset in the war.
He was the Dhestroyer prophecy made manifest.
With the back of his neck going hair-shirt wild on him, he was cuffed between two polars: the war and his brother. After a good stretch of the Lessening Society chilling out, there were slayers popping up everywhere in the city, the enemy having pulled a Lazarus and revived itself with new members. So it was entirely possible that some of his brothers were pulling an end-of-the-night special with the enemy—in which case he was probably going to be hit up soon to come do his thing.
Hell, maybe it was V? Which would explain the late routine.
Shit, perhaps this wasn’t as dire as they’d all thought. It sure as hell was close enough to the Commodore to justify the GPS reading, and when you were going hand-to-hand, it wasn’t like you could hit a pause button and text an update on your ETA.
As Butch rounded the corner, the Escalade’s headlights swung around into a long, narrow alleyway that was the urban equivalent of a colon: The brick buildings that formed its walls were grungy and sweaty, and the asphalt lane was pocked with filthy puddles—
“What the . . . fuck?” he breathed. Taking his foot off the accelerator, he leaned into the wheel . . . like maybe that would change what he was seeing.
At the far end, a fight was in progress, three lessers going hand-to-hand with a single opponent.
Who wasn’t fighting back.
Butch threw the SUV into park and broke out of the driver’s side, hitting the pavement at a dead run. The slayers had triangled Vishous, and the motherfucking idiot was slowly turning in the circle—but not to kick ass or to watch his own back. He was letting each of them have a go at him . . . and they had chains.
In the permaglow of the city, red blood was flowing on black leather as V’s massive body absorbed the licking strikes of the links that flew around him. If he’d wanted to, he could have snagged the ends of those chains, pulled the slayers in, and dominated his attackers—they were nothing but new recruits who still had their own hair and eye colors, street rats who had been inducted an hour and ten minutes ago.
Christ, given V’s self-control, he could have focused himself and dematerialized out of the ring if he’d wanted to.