FORTY - FIVE

Vishous got home in the blink of an eye, and after he checked in with Jane in the clinic, he headed for the big house through the underground tunnel. As he came out in the foyer, all he heard was a resounding nothing-much-at-all and he was uncomfortable with the silence.

So frickin' quiet.

Of course, typically, this would be because it was two a.m. and the Brothers would be out in the field. Tonight, though, everyone was hunkered down, probably having sex, recovering from sex, or in the midst of doing it again.

I feel like I've made love to you for the very first time.

As Jane's voice came back at him, he didn't know whether to smile or kick his own ass. But whatever, it was a brave new world for him, starting tonight - not that he was entirely sure what that meant, but he was on it. He was so on it.

Hitting the grand staircase, he beelined for Wrath's study, while patting every pocket he didn't have. He was still in the damn johnny. With the bloodstains. And no damn cigs.

"Son of a bitch."

"Sire? Do you require aught?"

As he stopped at the head of the stairs, he looked over at Fritz, who was cleaning the banister, and nearly kissed the butler on the piehole. "I'm out of my tobacco. Rolling papers - "

The old doggen smiled so widely, the wrinkles in his face made him look like a Shar-Pei. "I have more of it all down in the pantry. I shall be right back - are you going in to meet with the king?"

"Yeah."

"I shall bring them to you there - as well as a robe, perhaps?"

The second half was said delicately.

"Shit, thank you, Fritz. You're a lifesaver."

"No, you are, sire." He bowed. "You and the Brotherhood save us all each night."

Fritz scurried along his way, going down the staircase with more spring in his step than you'd expect. Then again, he loved nothing more than to be of service. Which was very cool.

Right. Time to go to work.

Feeling like a total reject in the johnny, V marched over to the closed doors of Wrath's study, curled up a fist and knocked.

The king's voice came through the heavy wood panels: "Come in."

V pushed inside. "It's me."

"S'up, brother."

At the far end of the pansy-ass colored room, Wrath was behind his massive desk, sitting on his father's throne. Down on the floor beside him, lying on a personalized Orvis dog bed in royal red, George lifted his blond head and pricked his perfect triangle ears. The golden retriever thumped his tail in greeting, but did not leave his master's side.

The king and his Seeing Eye dog were never apart. And not just because Wrath needed the help.

"So, V." Wrath eased back in the carved chair, his hand falling down to stroke his dog's head. "Your scent is interesting."

"Is it." V took the seat across from the king, putting his palms on his thighs and squeezing in an attempt to distract himself from his nicotine craving.

"You left the door open."

"Fritz is bringing me some smokes."

"You're not lighting up around my dog."

Fuck. "Ah ..." He'd forgotten the new rule ... and asking George to take a breather was a no-go - after all, Wrath may have lost his sight, but the fucker was still deadly, and V had gotten enough of the S and M tonight, thank you very much.

Fritz came in just as the king's black brows dropped behind his wraparounds.

"Sire, your tobacco," the butler said happily.

"Thanks, my man." V accepted the rolling papers and the pouch ... and the lighter that the doggen had thoughtfully provided. As well as the robe.

The door shut.

V looked over at the dog. George's big boxy head was down on his paws, his kind brown eyes seeming to apologize for the shutdown on the whole light-up routine. He even gave a tentative tip-of-the-tail wag.

Vishous stroked the bag of Turkish delicious like a pathetic loser. "Mind if I just rolled up a couple?'

"One flick of the flint and I'll pound you into the carpet."

"Roger that." V lined things up on the desk. "I've come to talk about Payne."

"How is your sis?"

"She's ... amazing." He cracked open his pouch, took an inhale and had to suck back his mmmm. "It worked - I'm not sure how, but she's up and around, true. On her feet, good as new."

The king eased forward. "No ... shit? For real?"

"One hundred."

"It's a miracle."

Named Manuel Manello, evidently. "You could say that."

"Well, this is great fucking news. You want to get her a room in here? Fritz can - "

"It's a little more complicated than that."

As those brows disappeared under the wraparounds again, V thought, man, even though the king was fully blind, he still appeared to focus like he always did. Which kind of made you feel like you had a gunsight trained on your frontal lobe.

V started laying out little white squares. "It's that human surgeon."

"Oh ... for shit's sake." Wrath popped his sunglasses onto his forehead and rubbed his eyes. "Do not crank my crap out and tell me they've hooked up."

V remained silent, grabbing the pouch and busying himself with the pinching stage of things.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me I got it wrong." Wrath let his glasses fall back into place. "Still waiting."

"She's in love with him."

"And you're okay with this?"

"Of course not. But she could date a Brother and the motherfucker wouldn't be good enough for her." He picked up one of the loaded papers and began rolling. "So ... if she wants him, I say live and let live."

"V ... I know what angle you're going to take and I can't allow it."

Vishous stopped in mid-lick and considered bringing Beth into the happy convo. But the king already looked like he was getting a headache. "The hell you can't allow it. Rhage and Mary - "

"Rhage got beaten, remember? For a reason. Besides, times are changing, V. The war is heating up, the Lessening Society is recruiting like a motherfucker - and on top of that, there's the sliced-not-diced, halvsie shit you found downtown last night."

Goddamn it, V thought. Those slaughtered slayers ...

"Plus I just got this." Without looking, Wrath patted to the left and held up a page of Braille. "It's a copy of a letter that was e-mailed to what's left of the Founding Families. Xcor has relocated with his boys - which was why you found those lessers in the condition you did."

"Fucking ... hell. I knew it was him."

"He's setting us up."

V stiffened. "For what?"

Wrath sent a get real over the desk. "People have lost entire branches of their families. They've fled their homes, but they want to come back here. Meanwhile, things are getting more dangerous, instead of safer in Caldwell. Nothing should be taken for granted right now."

Read: He wasn't assuming his throne was secure. No matter what he happened to be sitting on.

"So it's not that I don't understand where Payne's at," Wrath said. "But we've got to circle the wagons and hunker down. Now is not the time to layer on the complication of a human in here."

Things grew quiet for a moment.

As V considered his counterpoints, he picked up another square, rolled it tight, licked the flap, twisted. "He helped my Jane last night. When the Brothers and I came back here after the melee in that alley, Manello was hands-on and then some. He's a spectacular surgeon - and I should know. He operated on me. He's far from useless." V looked across the desk. "If the war intensifies further, we could use an extra set of surgical hands down in the clinic."

Wrath cursed in English. And then in the Old Language. "Vishous - "

"Jane is awesome, but there's only one of her. And Manello has technical skills she doesn't."

Wrath popped up his glasses again and rubbed. Hard. "You telling me that guy is going to want to live here in this house day and night for the rest of his life? Lot to ask."

"So I'll ask him."

"I don't like this."

Loooong silence. Which told V he was making headway. He knew better than to push, however.

"I thought you wanted to kill the bastard," Wrath groused. As if that would be preferable as a goal.

Abruptly, the image of Manello on his knees in front of Payne blazed into V's mind, until he wanted to snag a pen and poke his own eyes out. "I still do," he said darkly. "But ... he's who she wants, true. What am I gonna do."

Another loooong silence, during which he made a satisfyingly tall pile of light-ables.

Finally, Wrath dragged a hand through his mile-long black hair. "If she wants to see him outside of here, that's none of my business."

Vishous opened his mouth to argue, and then shut his trap. This was better than a flat-out no, and who knew what the future held: If V could evolve to a place where, even after The Shower Nightmare, Manello remained aboveground and breathing, anything could fucking happen.

"Fair enough." He resealed the pouch. "What are we going to do about Xcor?"

"Wait until the Council calls a meeting about him - which will be in the next couple of nights, no doubt. The glymera is going to eat this shit up, and then we've got real problems." In a dry voice, the king tacked on, "As opposed to all our half-assed ones."

"You want the Brotherhood up here for a meeting?"

"Nah. Give 'em the rest of the night off. This is not going away."

V stood, pulled on the robe and gathered up his smoking para. "Thanks for this. You know, about Payne."

"It's not a favor."

"It's a better message to carry back to her."

Vishous was halfway to the door when Wrath said, "She's going to want to fight."

V pivoted around. "Excuse me."

"Your sister." Wrath put his elbows on all the paperwork and leaned in, his cruel face grave. "You need to prepare yourself for when she asks to go out and fight."

Oh, hell, no. "I'm not hearing that."

"You will be. I've sparred against her. She's as lethal as you and I are, and if you think she's going to be content prowling around this house for the next six hundred years, you're fucked in the head. Sooner or later, that's what she's going to want."

Vishous opened his mouth. Then shut it.

Well, he'd had a rockin' good time enjoying life for about ... twenty-nine minutes. "Don't tell me you'd allow it."

"Xhex fights."

"She's Rehvenge's subject. Not yours." Wrath's brows made a third disappearance. "Different standard."

"Number one, everyone under this roof is my subject. And two, it's not any different just because she's your sister."

"Of course" - It. Is. - "not."

"Uh-huh. Right."

Vishous cleared his throat. "You're seriously thinking about letting her - "

"You've seen what I looked like after we worked out, right? I was giving her no leeway at all, Vishous. That female knows what she's doing."

"But she's ..." My sister. "You can't let her go out there."

"Right now, I need as many fighters as I've got."

Vishous put a hand-rolled between his lips. "I think I'd better go."

"Good idea."

The second he was out and had shut the door, he flicked the gold lighter Fritz had given him and inhaled like a Dyson.

As he thought about his next move, he supposed he could flash back to the Commodore and deliver the happy news to his sister - but he was more than a little afraid of what he'd materialize into. Besides, he had until dawn to convince himself that Payne out in the field was not an Edsel-like idea.

Also, he had someone else he had to see.

Taking the staircase down, he crossed the foyer, and hit the vestibule. Outside, he walked fast through the pebbled courtyard and entered the Pit through its stout front door.

The familiarity of the couches and the plasma screen and the Foosball table eased him.

The sight of the empty bottle of Lag on the coffee table? Not so much.

"Butch?"

No answer. So he went down the hall to the cop's room. The door was open and inside ... there was nothing but Butch's huge wardrobe and a messy, empty bed.

"I'm in here."

Frowning, V doubled back and leaned into his own room. The lights were off, but the sconces in the hall gave him enough to go by.

Butch was sitting on the far side of the bed, his back to the door, his head hanging, his heavy shoulders curled in.

Vishous stepped inside and closed them in together. Neither Jane nor Marissa was going to show up - both were busy with their jobs. But Fritz and his crew were probably going to sweep through here some time, and that butler, God love him, never even knocked on closed doors. He'd lived here too long.

"Hey," V said into the darkness.

"Hey."

V went forward, rounding the foot of the bed, using the wall to navigate. Lowering his ass onto the mattress, he sat beside his best friend.

"You and Jane okay?" the cop asked.

"Yeah. S'all good." Such an understatement. "She arrived right around the time I woke up."

"I called her."

"I figured." Vishous turned his head and looked over, even though that hardly mattered in the pitch black. "Thank you for that - "

"I'm sorry," Butch croaked. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry...."

The hoarse exhale that came out was a sob barely covered up.

In spite of being blind, V put his arm out and curled it around the cop. Pulling the male close to his chest, he laid his head down on his buddy's.

"It's okay," he said roughly. "It's all right. It's okay.... You did the right thing...."

Somehow he ended up moving the guy around so that they were stretched out together and he had his arms around the cop.

For some reason, he thought of the first night they'd spent together. It had been one million and a half years ago, back at Darius's in-town mansion. Two twin beds side by side upstairs. Butch had asked about the tats. V had told him to mind his own biz.

And here they were in the dark again. Given all that had happened since then, it was almost unfathomable that they'd ever been those two males who had bonded over the Sox.

"Don't ask me to do that again anytime soon," the cop said.

"Deal."

"Still. If you need it ... come to me."

It was on the tip of V's tongue to say something like Never again, but that was bullshit. He and the cop had done rounds on this psychiatric floor of V's too many times, and although he was turning over a new leaf ... you never knew.

So he just repeated the vow he'd made to himself back with Jane. From now on, he was letting shit out. Even if it made him uncomfortable to the point of screaming, it was better than the bottle-up strategy. Healthier, too.

"I'm hoping it won't be necessary," he murmured. "But thanks, my man."

"One other thing."

"What."

"I think we're dating now." As V barked out a laugh, the cop shrugged. "Come on ... I got you naked. You wore a damn corset. And don't get me started about the sponge bath afterward."

"Fucker."

"To the end."

As their laughter faded, V closed his eyes and briefly shut his brain down. With his best friend's big barrel chest up against his own, and the knowledge that he and Jane were tight again, his world was complete.

Now, if he could just keep his sister off the streets and out of the alleys at night ... life would be frickin' perfect.