Lover Arisen (Black Dagger Brotherhood #20)(52)

Peter Phillip Markson, who had gone as Poopson in elementary because he’d had diarrhea at school once—and didn’t that seem like a predicator for this job’s uniform—blinked like he was fact-checking the run and shocked to find that it was all correct. And Lassiter could have gone on with how Pete had lost his virginity at sixteen in the back of his first cousin’s car with his first cousin’s best friend, and then continued with the bout of mono he’d shared with five other members of his frat because he was always drinking out of soda cans whether they were his or not. And also mentioned the STD he’d gotten last summer. But really, that would just be showing off, wouldn’t it.

“Jesus… Christ.”

“Yeah, still not me.” Lassiter glanced at the club. “Look, can you just chill with the attitude out here? You’re not exactly protecting the Presidential motorcade.”

And it had almost gotten you killed.

“That’s what Franny says,” Pete mumbled.

“You should listen to her.”

“Thanks…?”

With a nod, Lassiter turned away and just started walking. He didn’t care where he was going, as long as the inevitability rule didn’t pivot him back around and replant him on the threshold of the club again—

As he came up to the end of the block, he stopped at the curb even though the pedestrian signal was counting down to a light change so he should have hurried across the intersection while he could.

He pivoted and raised his voice. “Check your watch, Pete.”

Pete, who was still looking stunned, did as he was told. “It’s eight-twenty. Well, two. Eight twenty-two?”

There was a pause. And then Lassiter said, slowly and clearly, “In thirty-two minutes, a car is going to come around this corner.” He pointed to his feet to emphasize the location. “There are going to be two guys in hoodies in the front seat. As soon as you see it, I want you to hit the concrete and stay there. Cover your head and do not look up. Let it pass you by and take off. It’s not you they’re after, but bullets don’t use discretion when they’re flying through the open air.”

“Wh… at?”

“You heard me. Thirty-two minutes from now. Thirty-one, actually.”

Lassiter resumed his ambling, aimless stride, stepping off the curb and heading into the intersection even though the pedestrian warning system was beeping like it was about to explode.

But that was the thing with free will.

You were free to make bad decisions.

And better ones.



* * *



“This makes no goddamn sense.”

As V made his pronouncement over the roar of a powerful engine, his brother-in-law, Dr. Manny Manello, was leaning across the treatment table in the back of the mobile surgical unit, examining a six-inch-long horizontal throat wound that had somehow magically healed up.

Like the anatomy had knit itself back together, sui generis.

The evac from the bookstore had been quick. V and Xcor had extracted Balz from the grimy storeroom, hand-and-footing the fighter out the back and into this operating room on wheels. As Manny had hooked up the monitoring equipment to their comrade, and Xcor had hopped behind the wheel, V had gone back and picked the human woman up.

He wasn’t sure he agreed with Xcor on the whole she’s-his bullshit, but he wanted answers and she had seen what had gone down in there.

Before taking off, he’d also assessed an elderly human who was clearly dead; then he’d killed the lights and locked up. There’d be time to return and retrieve weapons and clean the scene before the human police were called. There were bigger-and-betters to worry about at the moment.

“I can’t disagree with you,” Manny muttered as the RV went over some kind of pothole and they swayed to catch their balance like something out of a Star Trek episode. “I mean, you vampires are good at the self-repair, but nothing like this.”

In spite of the fact that Balz had been lying facedown in twelve quarts of his own plasma, all the skin, the veins underneath, the tendons and ligaments were sealed up. Which wasn’t to say that there hadn’t been a hell of an owie there. The red line of the injury was very evident, the slice a clean and deep one given the amount of blood loss.

“We’ve got to get him fed,” Manny said as he took out his cell phone. “His blood pressure is for shit, and he’s tachycardic. Oxygen stats are in the basement. He’s out of the woods by inches, not feet, and if he stays where he is much longer, he’s going to have brain damage.”

As some other obstacle in the road was run over, V had to catch his balance a second time, throwing out a hand to a grip that was bolted on the ceiling. The second he was steady, his eyes went back to Balz’s naked body. They’d cut off his leathers, in search of other wounds to explain the bleeding. But except for some lashing burns on his arms and abdomen, a handful of contusions consistent with having been in a close-contact fight, and a couple of cuts worthy of Band-Aids, there was nothing obviously wrong with the fighter.

That mysterious throat injury was what had caused him to bleed out.

“How are we?” Xcor called back from the driver’s seat.

“We’re arranging for a Chosen,” V answered.

“Good. We’re pulling into the garage now.”

More lurching, the IV bag swinging on its pole, Balz’s body lolling in its restraints on the table. V glanced over to the shallow bench he’d put the human woman on. He’d strapped her into the seat, and she was clearly not too with it, her head jerking up like the rough ride had roused her out of a coma.