Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood #8)(148)

"Dearest Virgin Scribe . . ." Darius breathed. "What a shot."

Tohrment knelt down. "I wouldn't have pulled the trigger if I hadn't been sure."

They both leaned toward the female. She too was staring at the galaxy 377

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above, her pale eyes locked and unblinking.

Had her throat been cut after all?

Darius rifled through her frothy, once-white nightdress. There was blood on it, some of which had dried, some of which was fresh.

The tear that spilled forth from her eye twinkled silver in the

moonlight.

"You are saved," Darius said. "You are safe. Be not afraid. Be not of sorrow."

As her pale stare shifted over to meet his own, her despair was as cold as a winter wind and just as isolating.

"We shall take you back from whence you came," Darius vowed.

"Your family shall--"

Her voice was nothing more than a croak out of her throat. "You should have shot me instead of him."

378

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FIFTY-FIVE

As the countdown hit "one," Xhex took form in the farmhouse's living room, thinking that the concerns of an ambush were right--except the slayers were the f*ckers getting jumped. Facing off at the nearest lesser and falling into hand-to-hand with the guy, she knew she had to work fast.

You had the element of surprise only once in any given fight, and she and her crew were outnumbered four to one--in a sitch where no guns could be used. Bullets were accurate only if you had clean shots on static targets and there was none of that going down. Arms and legs and bodies were flying all around as the Brothers and John and Qhuinn did exactly what she was doing--picking a random inductee and going Bruce Lee on their ass.

Xhex had her dagger out in her left hand while she threw a right hook at the slayer in front of her. The cracking blow knocked the guy senseless, and as he slumped against the wall, she drew her arm back and aimed the tip of her blade right for the chest of--

With a slap, Butch caught her wrist. "Let me finish it."

Positioning himself between them, he locked eyes on the slayer and

put his mouth down close. On a slow, steady inhale, he began to draw the essence out of that body, a nasty cloud--like smog transferring from the lesser to Butch.

"Jesus . . . Christ . . ." she whispered as the slayer who once had had form disintegrated into ash at the Brother's feet.

As Butch wobbled and reached out for the wall like he was having

trouble standing, she took his arm. "Are you okay--"

A shrill whistle from John brought her head around just in time--

another lesser was rushing at her, prepared to use the switchblade in its hand. Thanks to John, she ducked down and lunged forward, grabbing a

thick wrist and taking control of the weapon while she stabbed upward, catching the slayer under the ribs.

Bright lights, big bang.

And on to the next.

She was all in the zone with the fighting, fast on her feet, quick with her hands. And even though she was going a mile a minute and she'd poofed 379

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off that one slayer, she was going to respect Butch's role in this showdown.

She didn't understand precisely what that ashes-to-ashes routine was all about, but she was willing to bet that it was a special end for the enemy.

In that vein, she took to slicing the backs of knees and the fronts of thighs. Incapacitation was something she had excelled at as an assassin, because a lot of times she'd had a message to share before she struck mortally. And sure enough, as she left moaning bodies in her wake, Butch swept up behind her, inhaling and turning to fine powder that which they had come to kill.

As she carved and slashed her way through the inductees, she found

herself keeping a second eye on John and . . . holy hell. He was one slick fighter.

Who seemed to specialize in snapping necks. He was lethal for

closing in behind the enemy, grabbing on and then with brute strength--

The blow came from out of nowhere, catching her on the shoulder and

sending her spinning into the wall, her knife popping from her hold as all kinds of Looney Tunes stars bloomed in her vision.

The slayer who had hockey-checked her lunged forward and nabbed

her dagger from the bloody living room floor, palming the weapon and

coming at her with it.

At the last minute, she bobbed left so that he stabbed the wall she'd hit, trapping the blade in the Sheetrock. As he went to try to get the thing free, she whirled around and nailed him in the gut with her backup blade, springing a hole in his lower intestines.

Meeting his shocked stare, she said, "What, like you didn't think I'd have a second knife? Fucking idiot."

She punched him in the head with the butt of her backup, and as he

crumpled at the knees, she unsheathed her primary from the plaster and faced off at the fray. As grunts and smacks resounded around the house, she shifted through the fighting to find what was being unattended to--

One of the slayers was flying through the front door, on a bolt for the great outdoors.

She dematerialized out of the house and right into his path. As he

went Three Stooges and pinwheeled to a stop, she smiled. "No, you may not be excused."

The lesser took off again and headed back for the fight--which was stupid because there was no one who would help him in there. Well, not to survive, that was.