Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(138)

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 353

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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 f*ck 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 354

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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.