Dark Lover

Phury glanced at his brother and then did all the talking. "Three-room apartment over the river. Lived alone. Didn't have a lot of shit. Couple of guns under the bed. Some silver ammo. Kevlar vest. Porn collection he obviously wasn't using anymore."

"Did you grab his jar?"

"Yeah. It's back at my place. I'll take it to the tomb later tonight."

"Good." Wrath regarded the group. "We split up. Case the businesses. I want to get inside those buildings. We're looking for their center of ops in this area."

He paired up the brothers, taking Vishous with him. He told the twins to go to Gold's and the paintball arena. Gave Tohr and Rhage the martial-arts joints. He and Vishous were going to scope out the mechanics shop, and he hoped they'd get lucky.

Because if someone were going to wire a bomb to a car, wouldn't a hydraulic lift be handy?

Before they all left, Hollywood came over, looking uncharacteristically serious.

"Wrath, man, you know I can be an asshole," Rhage said. "Didn't mean to offend. Not going there again."

Wrath smiled. The thing with Rhage was, he had piss-poor impulse control. Which explained both his fly mouth and his sex addiction.

And the problem was bad enough when he was himself. Forget about the minute the curse flipped his psycho switch and the beast came roaring to life.

"I'm serious, man," the vampire said.

Wrath clapped his brother on the shoulder. On the whole, though, the SOB was a total keeper. "Forgiven, forgotten."

"Feel free to hammer me anytime."

"Believe me, I do."

Mr. X drove to an alley downtown that was unlit and open to streets at both ends. After parking the minivan face out behind a Dumpster, he threw Cherry Pie over his shoulder and walked twenty yards away from the car. She moaned a little as she bounced on his back, as if she didn't want her high disturbed by movement.

He laid her out on the ground, and she didn't fight him as he slit her throat. He watched for a moment as her glossy blood seeped from her neck. In the darkness it looked like Quaker State motor oil. He put his finger down, getting some on the tip. His nose detected all manner of disease, and he wondered if she'd known she had an advanced case of hep C. He figured he was doing her a favor, sparing her an unpleasant, creeping death.

Not that killing her would have bothered him had she been perfectly healthy.

He wiped his finger on the edge of her skirt and then moved away to a pile of debris. An old mattress was just the ticket. Propping it up against the brick, he settled into the juncture, unbothered by the stinky, sweaty smell of the thing. He took out his dart gun and waited.

Fresh blood brought out civilian vampires like crows to roadkill.

And sure enough, not long thereafter a figure appeared at the end of the alley. It looked left and right and then rushed forward. Mr. X knew that what approached had to be who he was after. Cherry was well concealed in the darkness. There was nothing to draw anyone in her direction except for the subtle scent of her blood, something human noses could never have picked up.

The young male was greedy in his thirst, and he fell upon Cherry like someone had laid out a buffet for him. Busy drinking, he was taken by surprise when the first dart popped out of the gun and went into his shoulder. His immediate instinct was to protect his food, so he hauled Cherry's body behind some mangled trash cans.

When the second dart hit him, he wheeled around and leaped up, eyes trained on the mattress.

Mr. X tensed, but the male came forward with more aggression than competence. His body was disorganized in its movements, suggesting he was still learning how to control his limbs after his transition.

Two more darts didn't slow him down. Clearly the Demosedan, a horse tranquilizer, wasn't enough to do the job. Forced to engage the male in a fight, Mr. X stunned him easily by kicking him in the head. The male let out a howl of pain as he went down to the dirty asphalt.

The commotion attracted attention.

Fortunately, it was only two lessers, not curious humans or, even more annoying, the police. The lessers stopped at the end of the alley and, after quick consultation, moved in to investigate.

Mr. X cursed. He was not prepared to reveal himself or what he was doing. He needed to work the kinks out of the information-gathering strategy before he came forward with it and assigned his lessers roles. After all, a leader should never delegate that which he had not done before and done well.

There was also a matter of self-interest. There was no telling who among the slayers might try to go around him to the Omega, either copping the idea as his own or bitching about preliminary failures. God knew the Omega was always receptive to initiative and new directions. And would have benefited from some Ritalin when it came to loyalty.

Even more to the point, the Omega's version of a pink slip was quick and horrific. As Mr. X's former superior had learned three nights ago.