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Then again, the Omega didn’t exactly greet his new recruits with a handshake and a fruit basket—
A flash of movement to the left brought Darius’s head around. But it was only Vishous stepping free from the opposite side.
V held up two fingers, then tapped over his eyebrow. When Darius nodded, the male dematerialized to case the second floor.
Crouching down, Darius ducked under what was left of the porch’s overhang and did his best to navigate through the salad of rotted two-by-fours, framing beams, and flooring lengths. A couple of times, his boots splintered what he stepped on and his crotch nearly got spanked twice.
So much for the stealth approach. Any more noise and he could have brought a marching band with him—and in retrospect, he should have dematerialized through one of the windows on the side. When he finally waded through the morass, he found the front door lying flat on the floor of the modest foyer, as if it had fallen in—or been kicked in off its hinges. And oh, God, the smell of baby powder and fresh blood and new death was so thick, it felt like a fog in his lungs, like he shouldn’t be able to see through the air.
His eyes were working just fine, though… so he got a clear visual at all the drywall buckets stationed in the various rooms. They were filled with human blood, but the shit was also everywhere, splashed on the floors, speckling the walls… there were even spots of it on the ceilings.
As he moved through the first floor, he took cover behind doorjambs, corners, and the stairs, his boots leaving prints in the congealing puddles that had formed—and not everything was red. The Omega’s black, oily essence was all over the place, too. Then again, no one had ever accused the evil of being a nasty neat when he was turning humans into soulless vampire killers.
Coming up to what had been a pantry, he looked through into a kitchen that still had appliances from the forties—
Creak!
Darius wheeled around, and in mid-spin, threw his dagger at a hulking shape that had snuck up behind him in the shadows.
Slap!
The instant he heard a pair of palms clap together, he knew who it was. Goddamn it. He’d rather have run into a squadron of lessers—
A figure stepped out into full view, and sure enough, Darius’s dagger was caught between hands that were directly in front of the rib cage the black blade would have pierced. The scarred vampire behind the wartime parlor trick was thinner than he should have been by at least fifty pounds, but his big frame was nonetheless powerful—and he wasn’t wearing a coat or a jacket even though there was a chill in the air. Accordingly, an arsenal was on full display, the weapons that were belted and strapped on freely visible instead of hidden.
“Zsadist.”
Even though the two of them were brothers by virtue of being in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, there was no flash of recognition in the empty, shark-like black eyes staring back at him.
Then again, verticality and animation aside, the male was not in fact alive. And hadn’t been for years and years.
Darius focused on the S-shaped scar that ran down that too-lean face and distorted his mouth. Then he looked at the tattooed slave band that marked the neck like an iron collar.
“You should have announced it was you. I could have killed you—”
As the male stalked forward, Darius shifted his remaining blade from his right hand to his left, dominant grip. Just in case. But the brother merely stopped about five feet away—and dearest Virgin Scribe, those bottomless-pit eyes gleamed with menace: Of all the Brotherhood, Zsadist was the most dangerous, capable of killing at a moment’s provocation or impulse, and not because he was hungry or protecting something or doing a job.
Because he liked it.
And no one was quite sure where he drew the line when it came to friends and foes—
Footfalls on the stairs announced Vishous’s descent, and at the base of the steps, he stopped, and didn’t put his guns back in their holsters. He just stayed right there, his stare locked on what should have been backup for them, but might as well be another enemy.
“Where’s your twin,” Darius asked Zsadist.
“Right here,” came a rough reply.
Phury stepped inside the house from the front entryway, and he was as he always appeared to be: exhausted and wrung out. Also as usual, his yellow eyes were focused only on his blooded brother. Then again, Zsadist was brutally unpredictable and some things were responsibilities whether you wanted them to be or not. Whether you had the strength for them or not.
After years of being used as a blood slave, the scarred male had no conscience or morality, anything resembling either of those things having been raped and beaten out of him by his Mistress and her guards. His rescue had resulted in Phury losing part of a leg, and Zsadist falling into the salty ocean and being mutilated for life. So they were both screwed by destiny.
