“Great,” Rhage muttered, “his sense of humor’s still intact.”
Vishous exhaled. “Maybe I can try to beat it out of him.”
“Use his own arm to do it, if you can-”
Wrath glared at the two of them, who shot him back a pair of who-us? stares.
The king shook his head and addressed the lit figure. “Been a while. Thank God. How the hell are you?”
Before the man could answer, V cursed. "If I have to hear all that Keanu Reeves, Matrix, ’I am Neo’ kind of shit, my head’s going to explode.”
“Don’t you mean Neon?” Butch shot back. “ ’Cause he reminds me of the Citgo sign.”
Wrath’s head turned. “Shut the fuck up. All of you.”
The glowing figure laughed. “So do you want your early Christmas present? Or you going to keep dissing my shit until I decide to take off.”
“Christmas? I believe that’s your tradition, not ours,” Wrath said.
“So, is that a no? Because it’s something you’ve been missing for a while.” With that, the glow dissipated, like someone had unplugged the light source.
Standing in the clearing now was a man like any other… well, sort of like any other, given that he was draped in gold chains. There was someone in his arms, a bearded male with a streak of white running through his dark hair…
John’s whole body tingled.
“Don’t recognize your brother?” the figure said, then looked down at the male he held. “How soon they forget.”
John was the one who broke ranks and ran through the long grass. Someone shouted his name, but he wasn’t stopping for anyone or anything. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, the wind roaring in his ears, his blood pounding through his veins.
The meadow lashed against his jeans, and the cool August night slapped at his cheeks, and the straining fists his hands had cranked into beat at the air.
Father, he mouthed. Father!
John bounced to a halt and then covered his mouth with his palm. It was Tohrment, but it was a shrunken version of the Brother, as if he had been left out in the sun for months. His face was gaunt, the skin hanging loose from the bones, the eyes sunk deep into the skull. The beard was long and dark, the shaggy hair nothing but a black tangled nest except for the brilliant, snowy white stripe at the front. His clothes were the exact same ones he’d been wearing the night he had disappeared from the training center, all tattered and filthy.
John jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder.
“Easy, son,” Wrath said. “Jesus Christ-”
“Actually it’s Lassiter,” the man said, “in case you forgot.”
“Whatever. So what’s the price?” the king asked, reaching out to take Tohr.
“I like how you assume there is one.”
John wanted to be the person who took Tohrment back to the car, but his knees were knocking so badly he probably needed to be carried too.
“Isn’t there a price?” As Wrath accepted his brother’s body, the king shook his head. “Shit, he doesn’t weigh a thing.”
“He’s been living off deer.”
“How long have you known about him?”
“Found him two days ago.”
“Price,” Wrath said, still looking at his brother.
“Well, here’s the thing.” As the king cursed, the man, Lassiter, laughed. “It’s not a price, though.”
“What. Is. It.”
“We’re a two-for-one deal.”
“Excuse me?”
“I come with him.”
“The fuck you do.”
The man lost any levity in his voice. “It’s part of the arrangement, and believe me, I wouldn’t choose this either. Fact is, he’s my last chance, so yeah, I’m sorry, but I go with him. And if you say no, by the way, I’m going to level us all like that.”
The man snapped his fingers, a brilliant white spark flaring against the night sky.
After a moment, Wrath turned to John. “This is Lassiter, the fallen angel. One of the last times he was on earth, there was a plague in central Europe-”
“Okay, that was so not my fault-”
“-that wiped out two-thirds of the human population.”
“I’d like to remind you that you don’t like humans.”
“They smell bad when they’re dead.”
“All you mortal types do.”
John could barely follow the conversation; he was too busy staring into Tohr’s face. Open your eyes… open your eyes… please God…
“Come on, John.” Wrath turned back to the Brotherhood and started walking. When he came up to them, he said softly, “Our brother is returned.”
“Oh, Christ, is he alive,” someone said.
“Thank God,” someone else groaned.
“Tell them,” Lassiter demanded from behind. “Tell them he comes with a roommate.”
As one, the Brothers’ heads snapped up.
“Fuck. Me,” Vishous breathed.
“I will so pass on that,” Lassiter muttered.
Chapter Fifty
Phury walked through the glowing white expanse of the Sanctuary, going over to the Scribe Virgin’s private entry. He knocked once and he waited, willing a request for an audience.
When the doors opened, he expected the Directrix Amalya to be the one who greeted him, but there was nobody on the other side. The Scribe Virgin’s white courtyard was empty save for the birds in their white-blossomed tree.
The finches and canaries were out of place, and all the more lovely for it. Their colors were bright against their background of white branches and leaves, and hearing their calls, he thought of the number of times Vishous had come over here with one of the fragile things cupped in his palms.
After the Scribe Virgin had given them up for her son, the son had returned them to her.
Phury went over to the fountain and listened to the water fall into its marble basin. He knew when the Scribe Virgin appeared behind him, because the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
“I thought you were going to step down,” she said to him. “I saw the path of the Primale unfolding for another’s footfalls. You were supposed to just be the transition.”
He looked over his shoulder. “I thought I was going to step down as well. But, no.”
Odd, he thought. Beneath the black robes that shielded her face and hands and feet, the glow of her seemed dimmer than he remembered.
She drifted over to her birds. “I would have you greet me properly, Primale.”
He bent down low and said the proper words in the Old Language. Also paid her the service of staying in a bow, waiting for her to release him from the supplication.
“Ah, but that is the thing,” she murmured. “You have already released yourself. And now you want the same for my Chosen.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “You need not explain your reasoning. Think you I know not what is in your head? Even your wizard, as you call him, is known unto me.”
Okay, that made him uncomfortable.
“Rise, Phury, son of Ahgony.” When he did, she said, “We are all products of our upbringings, Primale. The constructions that result from our choices are laid upon the foundation set by our parents and their parents before them. We are but the next level in the house or paver in the path.”
Phury shook his head slowly. “We can choose a different direction. We can move ourselves along a different heading of the compass.”
“Of that I am not sure.”
“Of that I must be sure… or I’m not going to make anything of this life you’ve given me.”
“Indeed.” Her head turned toward her private quarters. “Indeed, Primale.”
In the silence that stretched, she seemed saddened, which surprised him. He’d been prepared for a fight. Hell, it was hard not to think of the Scribe Virgin as anything other than an eighteen-wheeler in black robes.
“Tell me, Primale, how do you intend to handle this all?”
“I’m not sure yet. But those who feel more comfortable here can stay. And those who want to venture forth to the far side will find a safe haven with me there.”