Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(15)

After that, Erika had descended the curving staircase alone, passing by all the modern art on the walls, arriving at the first floor and…

She was back upstairs with the widow, telling Mrs. Cambourg everything was fine, that it was a false alarm, that no one was down there.

After which Erika had left.

Rubbing her eyes, she reviewed it all again: Watching the footage from the trailer with the widow. The alarm and the stay-here-I’ll-go-check. Then the descent—

Back up with the widow. Then leaving.

The sequence of events was just like the footage playing again on her computer screen, something she knew each second of, something that, no matter how hard she mentally probed, did not change. And her conclusion at this moment was as rock solid as it had been the first time she’d come to the realization.

There was a black hole in her memory.

Sure as if her recollections were a tape that had had part of its recording spliced out… no matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn’t remember actually walking around the first floor and checking that nobody was—

As a sharp pain pegged her over the left eye, she groaned, but she was not surprised. For reasons that made no sense, the sudden spiking headache happened every time she tried to break through the amnesia. And yet she couldn’t resist trying to pull something, anything, out of the void. But wasn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result?

On that note, she fired up the video for a third time, sat back, and watched the mouse run across the windowsill, and the man enter the trailer, and…

Even though she was getting nowhere, she reminded herself it was better than going home alone.

Too many demons waiting for her there.





CHAPTER FIVE




The Black Dagger Brotherhood Mansion

As Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, stood with his shitkickers planted on the mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom, the Bastard who was in front of him in the mansion’s grand foyer looked like shit on a Triscuit. Which was not only an hors d’oeuvre even Rhage wouldn’t amuse his bouche with, but a very real commentary on what under better circumstances was a male with a lot going for him in the Cary Grant department. Syphon, son of some other guy-who-had-been-good-with-a-rifle, had dark circles under his baby blues, and lids that were half-mast and sinking, and hollows in his cheeks.

And the streaked-back hair thing he’d been rocking on and off for the past month was just reinforcing the facial wreckage, making him look like the “before” in a skin-care ad.

“Anyway, that’s it,” the male was saying. “Oh, and he’s out of your smokes, assuming my cousin wasn’t patting around all his pockets looking for change. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have got to get a kombucha tea and some kale chips—”

V caught the Bastard’s arm. “Hold up, what was that? I didn’t follow.”

Syphon looked confused. Then clearly assumed he’d mumbled his report.

“My cousin, Balthazar,” he said on slow-repeat, “the one who’s been missing? I just found him at Mae’s burned-up house lot. He still believes the demon and the Book have not been destroyed—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got all that shit. And the hand-rolleds request. But kombucha? Why are you drinking that shit without an axe over your head. Have you never heard of Grey Goose—fuck it, Budweiser? Hell, tap water? Jesus.”

The Bastard blinked like his brain was having trouble downshifting from his current Crisis of Demon-ish Derivation to the Whole-Foods-gastronomic virtue signaling that seemed to be his voice box’s favorite octave. “I—it’s healthy. Why wouldn’t I eat healthy?”

“You eat fucking sad.”

“My body is my temple.”

“Then why are you feeding it compost. You need to have a Twinkie and lighten up, true?”

Syphon made a dismissive noise—which was as close to “fuck” as he ever got outside of the field, the exhale containing some combination of syllables that equated to “fudge” or “feronica” or “fizzle.”

Kinda like kombucha or kale was a cousin of anything actually edible.

And what the fuck was a feronica, anyway?

“It’s harmonica with an f,” Syphon said with an arched brow.

Oh, V’d spoken that out loud. “Okay, Ben Stein, you realize that don’t make no sense. In spite of your everybody-knows-that tone, which I’d take offense at except for the fact that you’ve clearly had a crap night and I’m feeling sorry for you—‘feronica’ is not a real word.”

“Yeah, well, ‘true’ isn’t a question mark, either.”

V took a pause. Because he’d been working on his temper lately. “Don’t make me slap the stupid out of you.”

“Lately, I feel like stupid is all I’ve got. At least I’m giving you a big target.”

Syphon, the heartbroken assassin, turned away and started hoofing it for the pantry entrance to the kitchen.

Just as he rounded the base of the grand staircase, V said, “Sy.”

The Bastard glanced back. “What.”

“I believe him. Balthazar. If he says we still got problems, I take him at his word, and I’ll make sure I’m not the only one who does. If the Book and that demon are still around, we’ll take care of them.”