TWELVE

V should be home by now, Butch thought, as he stared into space at the Pit.

"He should be here," Jane said behind him. "I talked to him nearly an hour ago."

"Great minds, great minds," Butch muttered as he checked his watch. Again.

Getting off the leather couch and walking around the coffee table, he went over to his best friend's computer setup. The Four Toys, as those high-tech bastards were called, were worth a good fifty grand - and that was about all Butch knew about them.

Well, that and how to use a mouse to locate the GPS chip in V's phone.

No reason to zero in. The address told him everything he needed to know ... and also gave his gut a whirl. "He's still down at the Commodore."

When Jane said nothing, he glanced up over the monitors. Vishous's shellan was standing by the Foosball table, her arms crossed over her chest, her body and profile translucent so that he could see the kitchen on the far side of her. After a year, he'd gotten more than used to her various forms, and this one usually meant she was thinking hard about something, her concentration consumed by things other than making herself corporeal.

Butch was willing to bet they were thinking the same thing: V's staying late at the Commodore when he knew his sister had been operated on and was safely here at the compound was sketchy - especially given the brother's mood.

And his extremes.

Butch went over to the closet and got out his suede coat.

"Is there any way you could - " Jane stopped and laughed a little. "You read my mind."

"I'll bring him back. Don't worry about it."

"Okay. All ... right. I think I'll go and stay with Payne."

"Good idea." His quick response was about more than just the clinical benefits to V's sister's doctor staying on site - and he wondered if Jane knew it. Then again, she wasn't stupid.

And God only knew what he was going to find at V's place. He'd hate to think of the guy cheating with some skank, but people made mistakes, especially when they snapped from stress. And better that someone other than Jane get an eyeful of what might be doing.

On his way out, he gave her a quick hug - which she immediately returned, solidifying herself and squeezing him back.

"I hope ..." She didn't finish the sentence.

"Don't worry," he told her, lying through his teeth.

A minute and a half later, he was behind the wheel of the Escalade and driving like a bat out of hell. Although vampires could dematerialize, as a half-breed, that handy I Dream of Jeannie trick was not in his repertoire.

Good thing he didn't have a problem with breaking the speed limit.

Into pieces.

Downtown Caldwell was still in sleep mode when he got to it, and unlike on a weekday, when the delivery trucks and the early-bird commuters would start streaming in before sunrise, the place was going to stay a ghost town. Sunday was a day of rest - or collapse, depending on how hard you worked. Or drank.

When he'd been a homicide detective with the Caldwell PD, he'd gotten very familiar with the daily - and nightly - rhythms of this maze of alleys and buildings. He knew the places where bodies tended to get dumped or hidden. And the criminal elements that made either a profession or a recreation out of killing folks.

He'd made so many trips into town like this, at a dead run, with no clue what he was getting into. Although ... when he put it like that, his new job inhaling lessers with the Brotherhood? Old frickin' hat when it came to the adrenaline rush and the grim knowledge that death was waiting for him.

And on that note, he was a mere two blocks from the Commodore when his sense of impending whatever sharpened into something specific ... lessers.

The enemy was close by. And there were a number of them.

This was not instinct. This was knowledge. Ever since the Omega had done its thing with him, he'd been a divining rod for the enemy, and though he hated that evil was inside of him, and purposely didn't grind on that bone very often, it was one hell of an asset in the war.

He was the Dhestroyer prophecy made manifest.

With the back of his neck going hair-shirt wild on him, he was cuffed between two polars: the war and his brother. After a good stretch of the Lessening Society chilling out, there were slayers popping up everywhere in the city, the enemy having pulled a Lazarus and revived itself with new members. So it was entirely possible that some of his brothers were pulling an end-of-the-night special with the enemy - in which case he was probably going to be hit up soon to come do his thing.

Hell, maybe it was V? Which would explain the late routine.

Shit, perhaps this wasn't as dire as they'd all thought. It sure as hell was close enough to the Commodore to justify the GPS reading, and when you were going hand-to-hand, it wasn't like you could hit a pause button and text an update on your ETA.

As Butch rounded the corner, the Escalade's headlights swung around into a long, narrow alleyway that was the urban equivalent of a colon: The brick buildings that formed its walls were grungy and sweaty, and the asphalt lane was pocked with filthy puddles - "

What the ... fuck?" he breathed. Taking his foot off the accelerator, he leaned into the wheel ... like maybe that would change what he was seeing.

At the far end, a fight was in progress, three lessers going hand-tohand with a single opponent.

Who wasn't fighting back.

Butch threw the SUV into park and broke out of the driver's side, hitting the pavement at a dead run. The slayers had triangled Vishous, and the motherfucking idiot was slowly turning in the circle - but not to kick ass or to watch his own back. He was letting each of them have a go at him ... and they had chains.

In the permaglow of the city, red blood was flowing on black leather as V's massive body absorbed the licking strikes of the links that flew around him. If he'd wanted to, he could have snagged the ends of those chains, pulled the slayers in, and dominated his attackers - they were nothing but new recruits who still had their own hair and eye colors, street rats who had been inducted an hour and ten minutes ago.

Christ, given V's self-control, he could have focused himself and dematerialized out of the ring if he'd wanted to.

Instead, he was standing with his arms out at the shoulders so there was no barrier between the impacts and his torso.

Bitch-ass bastard was going to look like a car-crash victim if he kept this up. Or worse.

Coming up to the ass whipping, Butch pulled a run and jump and pancaked the nearest slayer. As the pair of them hit the pavement, he grabbed onto a fist of dark hair, yanked back, and sliced deep across its throat. Black blood exploded out of the thing's jugular and it flopped around, but there was no time to roll the slayer over and inhale its essence down into his lungs.

Time for cleanup later.

Butch leaped to his feet and caught the ripcord end of a flying length of chain. Giving a good pull, he leaned back and rocked a spin of his own that whipped the lesser out of V's flagellation zone and Tasmanian-deviled it into a Dumpster.

As the undead saw stars and made like a welcome mat for future garbage hauls, Butch pivoted around, and was ready to end this thing - except surprise, surprise, V had decided to wake up and take care of biz. Even though the brother was clearly injured, he was a force to be reckoned with as he spun out a kick and then attacked with his fangs bared. Closing the distance with his incisors, he bit into the lesser's shoulder and locked on like a bulldog; then he black-daggered the fucker in the gut.

While the thing's intestinal tract hit the pavement in a sloppy mess, V cut the Colgate hold and let the slayer slump down and sprawl.

And then there was nothing but raw breathing.

"What the hell ... were you ... doing?" Butch bit out.

V bent at the waist and braced his palms on his knees, but clearly that wasn't enough relief from the agony he was in: Next thing Butch knew, the brother went down on his knees next to the slayer he'd gutted and just ... breathed.

"Answer me, asshole." Butch was so pissed, he was of half a mind to kick the SOB in the head. "What the fuck are you doing?"

As cold rain began to fall, red blood dripped out of V's mouth, and he coughed a couple of times. That was it.

Butch dragged a hand through his dampening hair and turned his face up to the sky. As dappling drops hit his forehead and cheeks, the cooling benediction calmed him down some. But did absolutely nothing to relieve the pit in his stomach.

"How far were you going to let it go, V?"

He didn't want a reply. Wasn't even talking to his best friend. He was just looking up at the night sky with its washed-out stars and vast, answerless expanse hoping for some strength. And then it dawned on him. The weak sparkles up above were not just about the city's ambient light - they were because the sun was about to flex its brilliant biceps and go Lite-Brite all over this part of the world.

He had to move fast.

As Vishous spit another load of plasma onto the asphalt, Butch snapped into focus and got his dagger in hand. No time for inhaling the slayers, but that was beside the point: After he was finished with his Dhestroyer shit, he had to be healed by V or he wallowed in the land of dry heaves with the Omega's sooty remains consuming him. Right now? He barely trusted himself to sit next to the brother on the trip home.

For fuck's sake, V wanted a good beating?

Well, he was feeling like just the bastard to give him one.

As Butch stabbed the lesser with the intestinal leaks back to the Omega, Vishous didn't blink at the pop and flash that went off next to him. And he didn't seemed to track as Butch went over and disappeared the one who had the neck slice.

Last slayer left was Dumpster Boy, who had just enough strength to pull himself up against the car-sized bin and hang off the edge like a zombie.

Jogging over, Butch raised the hilt of his dagger above his shoulder, so ready to get this -

Just as he was about to strike, a scent drifted into his nose, one that was not just eau d 'enemy ... but something else. Something he was all too familiar with.

Butch followed through on the stab, and as the flare faded, he looked at the top of the Dumpster. One-half of the lid was closed. The other part was hanging cockeyed off to the side, as if it had been peeled by a passing truck, and the dim light that shone in was enough for him to go by. Apparently, the building serviced by the bin had some kind of metal-working thing going on because there were countless curls of thin metal in it, like crazy-ass Halloween wigs -

In and among them, there was a dirty, pale hand that had small, thin fingers ...

"Shiiiiiiit," he whispered.

Years of training and experience shot him right into detective mode, but he had to remind himself that there was no time left for him in this alleyway. Dawn was coming, and if he didn't get his groove on and go back to the compound, he was up in smoke.

Besides, his days as a cop had long passed.

This was human business. Not his anymore.

In an absolutely foul mood, he raced over to the SUV, put the cocksucking engine in drive, and floored the gas even though he had to cover only about twenty yards. When he slammed on the brake, the Escalade screeched and fishtailed on the damp pavement, stopping a mere foot from V's bent form.

As the vehicle's automatic wipers swept back and forth, Butch punched the passenger-side window down.

"Get in the car," he ordered, staring straight ahead.

No response.

"Get in the motherfucking car."

Back at the Brotherhood's place of healing, Payne was in a room other than the one she'd started out in, and yet everything seemed the same: She was lying motionless on a bed that was not her own in a state of impotent agitation.

The only difference was that her hair was loose now.

As thoughts of her last moments with her healer barged into her mind, she let them run amok, too tired to fight the surge. Whatever state had she left him in? Covering up his memories had felt like an act of robbery, and his blank stare afterward had terrified her. What if she had done harm to him ...

He was utterly innocent in this - they were using him and then all but discarding him, and he deserved so much better. Even if he hadn't fixed her, he had done his level best, of that she was certain.

After she had sent him off to wherever he was most likely to go at that time of night, she had been racked with regret - and very aware that she could not be trusted with any information on how to contact him. Those electric moments between them were too much temptation to turn away from, and the last thing she wanted was to have to steal more memories from him.

With strength that had come from fear, she'd unbraided what he had plaited for her ... until his little card had fallen to the floor.

And now she was here.

Verily, the only course for the pair of them was to cut off communication. If she survived ... if she had indeed been made whole by him ... she would seek him out ... and for what purpose?

Oh, whoever was she kidding. The kiss that had never happened. That was why she would seek him out. And they wouldn't stop there.

Thoughts of the Chosen Layla came forth, and she found herself wishing she could go back to the conversation the two of them had had at the reflecting pool mere days ago. Layla had found a male with whom she wished to mate, and Payne had thought she'd gone daft in the head - a stance forged in ignorance, as it had turned out. In less time than it took to have a meal, her human healer had taught her that she could feel for the opposite sex.

Fates, she would never forget what he looked like, standing o'er her bed, his body so thickly aroused and ready to take hers. Males were magnificent like that, and what a surprise to learn such a thing.

Well, her healer was magnificent. She didn't imagine she would feel the same if it had been anyone else. And she wondered what it would have felt like, to have his mouth upon hers. His body within hers -

Ah, what fantasies could be spun when one was alone and feeling morose.

For truth, what future could they have? She was a female who didn't fit in anywhere, a warrior stuck within the tepid skin of a Chosen's body - to say nothing of the paralysis problem. Meanwhile, he was a vibrant, sexual male of a species different from her own.

Fate would ne'er see fit to put them together, and mayhap that was a good thing. It would be too cruel for them both, because there could never be any mating - of the ceremonial or the physical kind: She was ensconced here in the Brotherhood's secret enclave, and if the king's protocol didn't keep them apart, her brother's violent streak certainly would.

They were not to be.

As the door swung open and Jane walked in, it was a relief to focus upon something, anything else, and Payne tried to summon a smile at the ghostly mate of her twin.

"You're awake," Jane said, coming over.

Payne frowned at the female's tense expression. "How fare thee?"

"More important, how are you?" Jane set a hip on the bed, her eyes tracing the mechanicals that monitored every pump of blood and draw of lung. "Are you resting comfortably?"

Not at all. "Indeed. And I thank you for all that has been done on my behalf. Tell me, though, wherever is my brother?"

"He is ... not home yet. But he will be soon. He's going to want to see you."

"And I he."

V's shellan seemed to run out of words at that point. And the silence said so much.

"You do not know where he is, do you," Payne murmured.

"Oh ... I know the place. All too well."

"So you are worried about his predilections, then." Payne winced a little. "Forgive me. I am e'er too blunt."

"It's all right. Actually, I do better with blunt than polite." Jane's eyes shut briefly. "So you know ... about him?"

"Everything. All of it. And I loved him afore I e'er met him."

"How do you ... did you - "

"Know? 'Tis the work of a moment when you are a Chosen. The seeing bowls have allowed me to watch him through all the seasons of his life. And I daresay that this time, with you, is by far the best."

Jane made a noncommittal noise. "Do you know what happens next?"

Ah, always the question - and as Payne thought of her legs, she found herself wondering along similar lines. "Alas, I cannot say, as 'tis only the past that is shown, or the very nearest moment-to-moment of the present."

There was a long silence. And then Jane said, "I find Vishous so hard to reach sometimes. He's right in front of me ... but I can't get to him." Dark green eyes flashed over. "He hates emotion. And he's very independent. Well, I'm the same way. Unfortunately, in situations like this, I feel like the pair of us are not so much together as side by side, if that makes sense? God, listen to me. I'm rambling ... and I sound like I've got problems with him."

"On the contrary, I know how much you adore him. And I am not at all unversed with his nature." Payne thought of the abuse wrought upon her twin. "Has he e'er spoken of our father?"

"Not really."

"I am unsurprised."

Jane's eyes held hers. "What was the Bloodletter like?"

What to reply to that? "Let us just say ... I killed him for what he did to my brother - and we shall leave it at that."

"God ..."

"More like the devil, if you apply human traditions."

Jane's frown was deep enough to wrinkle her forehead. "V never talks about the past. Ever. And he mentioned only once what happened to his - " She stopped there. In truth, however, there was no reason to go on as Payne knew too well that to which the female referred. "Maybe I should have pressed him, but I didn't. Talking about deep stuff upsets him, so I've left it alone."

"You know him well."

"Yeah. And because I do, I'm worried about what he did tonight."

Ah, yes. The bloodied lovers he favored.

Payne reached out and brushed the healer's translucent arm - and was surprised to see that where she touched became corporeal. As Jane started, she apologized, but her twin's mate shook her head.

"Please don't. And it's funny ... only V can do that with me. Everyone else just passes through."

And wasn't there a metaphor in that.

Payne spoke clearly: "You are the right shellan for my twin. And he loves only you."

Jane's voice cracked. "But what if I can't give him what he needs."

Payne had no easy answer for that one. And before she could formulate some kind of response, Jane said, "I shouldn't be talking to you like this. I don't want you to worry about him and me, or put yourself in an awkward position."

"We both love him and we know who he is so there is naught to be awkward about. And before you ask, I shall tell him nothing. We became sisters of one blood the moment you mated him, and I shall e'er hold your confidence close to my heart."

"Thank you," Jane said in a low voice. "Thank you a million times over."

In that moment, an accord was reached between them, the kind of wordless tie that was the strength and foundation of all family whether they be united by birthright or circumstance.

Such a strong female of worth, Payne thought.

Which reminded her. "My healer. What do you call him?"

"Your surgeon? You mean Manny - Dr. Manello?"

"Ah, yes. He gave me a message for you." Jane seemed to stiffen. "He said he forgives you. For everything. I can only guess you know that to which he refers?"

Vishous's mate exhaled, her shoulders easing. "God ... Manny." She shook her head. "Yes, yes, I do. I really hope he comes out of this okay. There've been a lot of memories erased in that head of his."

Payne couldn't agree more. "May I inquire ... however do you know of him?"

"Manny? He was my boss for years. The best surgeon I ever worked with."

"Is he mated?" Payne asked in a voice she hoped read as casual.

Now Jane laughed. "Not at all - although God knows there are always women around him."

As a subtle growl pumped through the air, the good doctor blinked in surprise, and Payne quickly silenced the possessiveness she had no right to feel. "What ... what kind of female does he favor?"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Blond, leggy, and busty. I don't know if you're familiar with Barbie, but that was always his type."

Payne frowned. She was neither blond nor particularly busty ... but leggy? She could do leggy -

Why was she even thinking like this?

Closing her eyes, she found herself praying that the male never, ever met the Chosen Layla. But how ridiculous was that -

Her twin's mate gently patted her arm. "I know you're exhausted so I'm going to let you rest. If you need me, just hit the red button on the rail and I'll come right to you."

Payne forced her lids up. "Thank you, healer. And worry not about my twin. He shall return to you afore the dawn's call of light."

"I hope so," Jane said. "I really do.... Listen, you rest and then later this afternoon, we'll start some PT on you."

Payne bid the female good day and closed her eyes once more.

Left by herself, she found herself understanding how the female felt about the idea of Vishous being with another. Images of her healer around the likes of the Chosen Layla made her sick to her stomach - even though there was no cause for the indigestion.

What a mess she was in. Stuck upon this hospital bed, her mind tangled in thoughts of a male she had no right to on so many levels ...

And yet the idea of his sharing that sexual energy with anyone but her made her downright violent. To think that there were other females around her healer, seeking what he had seemed prepared to give her, wanting that straining length at his hips and the pressure of his lips against their mouths -

When she growled again, she knew it was for the best that she had let that card with his information go. Else she would have wrought carnage upon the lovers he took.

After all, she had no problems killing.

As history had well proven.