Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(19)

A tingle went down V’s spine and sizzled his remaining testicle. “So the Omega is still around?”

“No, I told you, he’s on another plane. The Creator has many of them. The ‘reality’ we all are in at the moment is merely one.”

“Can the Omega get back here?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

A sense that time was of the essence made V not ask for even the Cliffs Notes on all that. “The demon isn’t gone then, as the result of that house fire. She’s still with us, true?”

“Flames aren’t going to do anything but inconvenience her. The Book’s the same. That’s all I can say, though.” Lassiter lifted his finger. “No, there’s something else.”

V leaned forward. “What. Tell me.”

The angel glanced around the milky white that surrounded them, and it struck V that this landscape—wherever it was—was made of the same components as the sky over the Other Side. Then he forgot about all that. The angel’s face was drawn in such tense lines that for a second, V did not envy the guy—and not just because Lassiter was an idiot a lot of the time—

“Betty White.”

V popped his eyebrows and closed his lids at the same time. “I’m sorry?”

“I had a crush on Betty White, not Bea Arthur. It’s a world of difference.”

Shaking his head, V couldn’t believe in the middle of everything, this was the point Lassiter had to elaborate on. “Listen, my guy, once you’re in Geritol territory, I’m not sure there are many degrees of separation.”

“And before you go, one other thing.”

“Rue McClanahan I can kind of see—”

“Do not open it.”

“?’Scuse me.”

“The Book. It’s a portal. When the spells on its pages are used, they open up cracks in the separation between planes. Some of what’s in it is nothing more than party tricks, but other incantations can change the course of destiny. In either case, every time it’s used, the boundary that protects our reality is weakened. You think the Omega is bad? Wait’ll you see what it’s like when you have to deal with the toxic waste of an entire other world on top of what’s on your plate now.”

Great. Christmas in April.

As V stroked his goatee and did some real Armageddon math, he was aware the angel had just confirmed that the Book was still kicking around, too. Nice.

“I’ll tell everybody to leave it closed.”

“Especially you.” As V’s brows arched, Lassiter demonstrated opening and closing with his palms. “The Book interacts with whoever is handling it. We do not want your power amplifying its own. You’re liable to blow a hole in the space/time continuum. Stay the fuck away from that thing, Vishous. I’m telling you. We do not want those kinds of consequences.”

V rubbed his hair. “Okay. Important tip.”

“You better believe it. Now, you and I? We didn’t have this conversation.”

There was a tremendous whoosh, and then the private quarters rematerialized.

As V’s body weaved from reorientation, he felt tired to the point of death. “No offense,” he muttered, “I’ve wanted to forget most of our little chats. So yeah, keeping quiet on this one won’t be a problem.”

Walking away to the double doors, which had opened again, he stopped in the jambs and stared across the white marble courtyard at the fountain.

“Thanks, angel,” he murmured.

“You’re welcome, vampire.”





CHAPTER SIX




As it turned out, Balz didn’t make it down to the bridges where the friendly neighborhood drug dealers were. He’d planned to go do a deal for some powdered energy to keep himself awake, but a sidetrack happened—and no matter how much he’d tried to get to goal, he couldn’t seem to reroute.

Which, given that his measure of bright-idea was securing a controlled substance, really said something about where he was and what he was doing.

On the where-he-was front, he was sitting on the roof of the security kiosk in the Caldwell Police Department’s mostly empty administration parking lot. And as for what he was doing?

He was being pathetic. That’s what he was doing.

Stretching his lower body out of its cross-legged position, the metal roof under his ass had no give in it at all and he grunted as his weight transferred from cheek to cheek. The good news was that there was a chill in the April air so shit back there was numb as a box of rocks. Provided he didn’t move it.

After settling into a halfway comfortable lean-back, his eyes drifted up the flank of the building once again. The structure was low and long, and as adorned as a pizza box, the rows upon rows of windows inset into the brick without any kind of flourish. Ah, yes, municipal architecture from the sixties, when four corners and a roof that didn’t cave in were considered a stylistic trend.

Then again, that decade had coughed up macramé, bell bottoms, and lava lamps. So it could be worse.

There had to be a good seventy-five to eighty offices in the sizable expanse and almost all of them were dark. Not every one, though. On the second floor, over on the left, there was an entire bank of glowing glass rectangles.

And that was why he was here. He’d checked in on a lark… and found what he shouldn’t have been looking for.