A Warm Heart in Winter(11)

The BMW rolled away from the snowbank it had been planted in, and he made sure not to run over Qhuinn as he righted its trajectory down the city street. Hitting the park button, he went to get out—

Like a butterfly, a small hand landed on the battered leather sleeve of his wartime jacket. “Mister?” the younger girl said.

He didn’t want to look into her eyes. So he stared at the speedometer. “Yeah.”

“You’re really strong.”

Z got out and took his sleeve with him. Facing the older of the pair, he said, “Go home. Don’t do this shit again. Your father loves you, that’s why he’s got rules. You think he wants to ruin your life? He’s just trying to make sure you live long enough to trash it on your own terms.”

The girl blinked at him. When she didn’t move, he opened the door wider and indicated the way in with a hand motion that was more annoyed than gallant elder statesman.

“What’s going to happen to him?” the girl asked of Qhuinn.

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“But it’s my fault. All of this is.”

Zsadist frowned. “Why would you care about us?”

As he heard himself speak, he stamped his shitkicker. He was supposed to have kept that as an internal thought.

“Are you going to call the police?” she asked.

She was so worried. So horrified. So full of self-blame. And even though humans were of less than no concern to him, he had been through those exact trails of brambles so many times. Especially that last one.

“I’m going to take care of him,” he told her. “Now you gotta go.”

“Promise?” she whispered.

He was about to do another round of what’s-itto-you, but of course she didn’t have a clue they were vampires. How could she?

“Do you know how to get back to the highway?” he demanded.

“I go that way?” she said as she pointed deeper into town.

“No.” He put his hand on her shoulder and pivoted her around to the river. “That way.”

The girl nodded, and for a moment, she seemed like she wanted to give him a hug. Or maybe get one from him. He took a step back.

As a set of headlights flared and the deep rumble of Manny Manello’s mobile surgical unit came down at them, she got into her dad’s car. Going around to that back bumper again, Z pushed to help with traction as she turned the BMW in a circle to face the Hudson. At the last moment, just before he let go, he reached into her and her sister’s brains. Not only did he scrub their memories, he made sure the one with the provisional driver’s license knew exactly how to get back on the highway. Past that, though, she was going to have to get herself to the ’burbs.

“You weren’t all that nice to her,” Qhuinn muttered as the car rolled off at a snail’s pace.

Like its driver was worried that the other snowbanks might spontaneously animate and decide to retaliate for what she had done to their comrade-inheaps.

Z looked down at his brother as Manny’s RV pulled up to them. “Are you going to die right now?”

“Nope. And did you hear what I said?”

“I got them going. That’s all that matters.”

“You have a daughter. Some night, she may need help from a human. How’d you like him to treat her?”

Zsadist refocused on the taillights as the BMW’s brakes were hit and then a turn signal—to the left, which was the correct way to go—started to blink.

“Whatever,” Z said under his breath. “Haven’t we got enough to worry about right now?”

“You think Nalla is never going out into the world on her own?”

“No,” Z announced as Manny disembarked with his Little Black Doctor Duffle of poke-and-tickle toys. “That will never, ever happen.”

As Qhuinn started to chuckle, and Manny began to rapid-fire questions of the how-are-we variety, Z decided that the night was going to get a job-satisfaction rating of zero.

Maybe less than zero.

Then again, it could have been worse. Given his history, you’d think he’d remember exactly how creative destiny could get with the bad news.





Blay ran down the underground tunnel toward the Brotherhood’s training center, the clapping sound of his leather-soled loafers like a round of applause for his haul-ass. Inside his skin, he was screaming. On the outside, his rigid composure was his armor, the thing he was going into a battle with, and his rational mind was his ammunition, his primary line of defense.

Too bad fate wasn’t the kind of thing you could actually fight against.

When he came up to the locked door to the facility, he punched in a code and ripped through a supply closet kitted out with all kinds of OfficeMax. Out the other side, he scrambled by the desk, and from habit, smacked the Fuck No! button next to the computer.

As the tinny voice expressed what he was feeling, he punched through a glass door and jogged down the concrete corridor. Doc Jane’s medical area, which had been constructed and outfitted as an engagement present by V, was state of the art. Thank God. With its fully stocked examination rooms, ORs, and patient rooms, it was the best place an injured vampire could be.

Like, for example, if one had been stabbed in the gut.

Going by the scents, Blay knew exactly where his mate was, and when he came up to the exam room, he wanted to throw his body through the closed door. He forced himself to slow that roll. The last thing he needed was for his panic to cause a golf-sprinkler bleed— The door in front of him opened and Manny Manello, Doc Jane’s clinical partner and Payne’s human hellren, jumped back. “Oh, good, you’re here.”