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With little effort, the slayer flipped him over so they were face-to-face, then cranked Butch into a submission hold, immobilizing him.
Okay... now would be a great time for V to show up.
Except then the lesser looked down and met Butch's eyes, and the world just slowed down. Grinded to a halt. Stopped. Dead.
Another kind of vise action bolted them together, but this was a locking of stares and Butch was the one in control, even though he was on the bottom of the body pile. The lesser became transfixed and Butch followed his instincts.
Which meant he opened his mouth and began to inhale slowly.
But he wasn't taking in air. He was taking in the slayer. Absorbing him. Consuming him. It was as before in the alley, but now no one stopped the process. Butch just kept sucking in an endless draw, a streaming black shadow passing from the lesser's eyes and nose and mouth and going into Butch.
Who felt like a balloon filling up with smog. Who felt like he was assuming the mantle of the enemy.
When it was over, the slayer's body just disintegrated into ash, the fine mist of gray particles falling onto Butch's face, chest, and legs.
"Holy shit."
In utter despair, Butch shifted his eyes around. V was leaning in through the front door, holding on to the frame as if the house was the only thing keeping him standing.
"Oh, God." Butch rolled over onto his side, the ugly carpet scratchy on his cheek. He was wretchedly sick to his stomach, and his throat burned like he'd been hammering Scotch for hours. But worst, the evil was back in him, running through his veins.
As he breathed through his nose, he smelled baby powder. And he knew it was him, not remnants of the lesser. "V..." he said with desperation, "what did I just do?"
"I don't know, cop. I have no idea."
Twenty minutes later, Vishous shut himself and his roommate in the Escalade and hit all the locks. As he dialed his cell phone and put it up to his ear, he eyed Butch. The cop was looking multifactorially ill in the passenger seat, like he was seasick and jet-lagged and coming down with the flu all at the same time. And he reeked of baby powder, as if he were sweating out the scent through every one of his pores.
While the phone rang, Vishous started the SUV, threw it into drive, and thought back to Butch working some kind of mojo shit on that lesser. To steal a phrase from the cop, Holy Mary, Mother of God.
Man... that suck job was a hell of weapon. But the complications were legion.
V glanced over again. And realized it was to reassure himself that Butch wasn't eyeing him as a lesser would.
Fuck.
"Wrath?" V said as his call was answered. "Listen, I - shit... our boy here just consumed a lesser. No... not Rhage. Butch. Yes, Butch. What? No, I saw him... consume the thing. I don't know how, but the lesser disappeared into dust. No, no knife involved. He inhaled the damn thing. Look, just to be conservative, I'm going to take him to my place and let him sleep it off. Then I'm coming home, true? Right... No, I have no clue how he did it, but I'll give you the blow-by-blow when I get to the compound. Yup. Right. Uh-huh. Oh, for God's - yes, I'm fine and quit asking me that. Later."
As he hung up and tossed the phone onto the dash, Butch's voice drifted over, all weak and hoarse. "I'm glad you're not taking me home."
"Wish I could, though." V took out a hand-rolled and lit it, drawing hard on the thing. As he blew smoke, he cracked one of the windows. "Jesus Christ, cop, how did you know you could do that?"
"I didn't." Butch coughed a little, like his throat was bothering him. "Lemme have one of your daggers."
V frowned and looked at his roommate. "Why?"
"Just give it to me." As V hesitated, Butch shook his head with sadness. "I'm not going to come after you with it. I swear on my mother."
They hit a red light and V shifted his seat belt out of the way so he could unsheathe one of his blades from his chest holster. He gave the weapon to Butch handle first, then checked the road ahead. When he glanced back over, Butch had shoved up his sleeve and was slicing himself on the inside of his forearm. They both stared at what came out.
"I'm bleeding black again."
"Well... not a surprise."
"I smell like one, too."
"Yeah." Man, V did not like the way the cop was fixated on that dagger. "How 'bout you give my blade back, buddy?"
Butch handed the thing over and V wiped the black steel on his leathers before resheathing the weapon.
Butch wrapped his arms around his middle. "I don't want to be anywhere around Marissa when I'm like this, okay?"
"No problem. I'll take care of everything."
"V?"
"What?"
"I will die rather than hurt you."
V's eyes shot across the space between them. The cop's face was grim and his hazels were dead serious, the words not a mere expression of thought but a vow: Butch O'Neal was prepared to take himself out of the game if shit got critical. And he was fully capable of doing the job.
V inhaled on his hand-rolled again and tried not to get even more attached to the human. "Hopefully it won't come to that."
Please, God, let it not come to that.
Chapter Nineteen
Marissa paced another circle around the Brotherhood's library and ended up back at the windows that looked out over the terrace and the pool.
The day must have been a warm one, she thought. There were patches in the snow that had melted through, revealing black slate at the terrace or brown ground over the lawn -
Oh, who the hell cared about the goddamned landscape.
Butch had left after First Meal, saying he had a quick errand to run. Which was fine. Dandy. A-okay. But that had been two hours ago.
She wheeled around as someone came into the room. "Butch - oh... it's... you."
Vishous stood in the archway, a full-blooded warrior framed by the extravagant gold-leaf molding around him.
Dear Virgin in the Fade... his expression was utterly blank, the kind of thing you put on your face when you had bad news to deliver.
"Tell me he is alive," she said. "Save my life right here and now and tell me he is alive."
"He is."
Her knees buckled and she grabbed on to one of the wall-to-wall bookshelves. "But he isn't coming, is he?"
"No."
As they stared at each other, she noticed absently that he was wearing a fine white shirt with his black leathers: a Turn-bull and Asser button-down. She recognized the cut. It was what Butch wore.
Marissa wrapped an arm around her waist, overwhelmed by Vishous even though he was all the way across the room. He seemed like such a dangerous male - and not because of the tattoos on his temple or the black goatee or that fearsome body. The Brother was cold to the core, and someone that removed was capable of anything.
"Where is he?" she asked.
"He's okay."
"Then why isn't he here?"
"It was just a quick fight."
A... quick... fight. Her knees loosened again as memories of being at Butch's bedside crashed over her. She saw him lying on hospital sheets in that johnny, beaten up, almost dying. Contaminated by something evil.
"I want to see him."
"He's not here."
"Is he at my brother's?"
"No."
"And you're not going to tell me where he is, are you?"
"He's going to call you in a little bit."
"Was it with the lessers?" When all Vishous did was continue to stare at her, her heart kicked into overdrive. She couldn't bear for Butch to be involved in this war. Look what had already been done to him. "Goddamn it, tell me if it was with the slayers, you smug bastard."
Only silence. Which of course answered the question. And also suggested that Vishous didn't care whether or not she was pissed off at him.
Marissa gathered up her skirts and marched over to the warrior. Up close, she had to crane her neck to look at his face. God, those eyes, those diamond white eyes with the midnight blue lines around the irises. Cold. So very cold.
She did her best to hide her shiver, but he caught it. Tracked it in her shoulders.
"Scared of me, Marissa?" he said. "Exactly what do you think I'd do to you?"
She ignored that. "I don't want Butch fighting."
One black eyebrow cocked. "Not your call."
"It's too dangerous for him."
"After tonight, I'm not so sure about that."
The Brother's hard smile made her take a step back, but anger saved her from a full-on retreat. "You remember that hospital bed? You saw what they did to him last time. I thought you cared about him."
