And that was when the miracle happened.
A light fell from overhead, sheltering her, warming her, suffusing her with something that was just as the love she had felt for Vishous had been: a benediction.
As she was pulled upward like a daisy plucked from the ground by a gentle hand, she realized that she could still love who she loved, even though she wasn't with him. Indeed, their divergent paths did not dissect and desecrate what she felt. It layered her emotions with a cloak of bittersweet longing, but it didn't change what was in her heart. She could love him and wait for him on the far side of life. Because love, after all, was eternal and not subject to the whims of death.
Jane was free… as upward she flew.
Phury was about to lose it.
But he had to get in line if he was going to go mad, because all the brothers were on a thin edge. Especially Butch, who was pacing around the study like a prisoner in solitary confinement.
No sign of Vishous. No calls. No nothing. And dawn was coming like a freight train.
Butch stopped. "Where would you do a funeral for a shellan?"
Wrath frowned. "The Tomb."
"You think maybe he'd taken her there?"
"He's never been too keen on the whole ritual deal, and with his mother having forsaken him…?" Wrath shook his head. "He wouldn't go there. Besides, he'd have to know that's one of the places we'd look for him, and he's so damned private. Assuming he's putting her down, he wouldn't want an audience."
"Yeah."
Butch started up with the pacing again as the grandfather clock rang in four thirty a.m.
"You know what?" the cop said. "I'm just going to check it out, if that's cool. I can't stay in here a second longer."
Wrath shrugged. "Might as well. We've got nothing else to go on."
Phury stood up, unable to take the waiting any longer either. "I'm going with you. You'll need someone to show you where the entrance is."
Because Butch couldn't dematerialize, the two of them got in the Escalade, and Phury powered the SUV over the lawn and into the forest. With the sun coming up so soon, he didn't bother with a roundabout way, but gunned right for the Tomb.
The two of them were utterly silent until Phury pulled up to the entrance of the cave and they got out.
"I smell blood," Butch said. "I think we've got them."
Yeah, there was the barest trace of human blood in the air… no doubt from V having carried Jane inside.
Shit. Jogging into the cave, they headed for the back, slipping through the disguised entrance and going down to the iron gates. One side was open, and there was a trail of wet footsteps down the center of the hall of jars.
"He's here!" Butch said, relief carrying his words more than his breath did.
Yeah, except why would V, who hated his mother, bury the female he loved according to the Scribe Virgin's traditions?
He wouldn't.
As they started down the hall, Phury's sense of doom was triggered… especially as they got to the end and he saw an empty spot on the shelving, where a lesser's jar was missing. Oh, no. Oh… God no. They should have brought more weapons. If V had done what Phury feared he had, they were going to need to be armed to the nines.
"Hold up!" He stopped, tore a torches from the wall, and handed it to Butch. After he nabbed one for himself, he grabbed Butch's arm. "Be prepared to fight."
"Why? V might be pissed off that we came, but he's not going to get violent."
"Jane's the one you're going to want to watch for."
"What the fuck are you talking ab-"
"I think he might have tried to bring her back-"
A brilliant flash of light exploded up ahead, turning everything into noontime.
"Fuck!" the cop barked in the aftermath. "Don't tell me he would?"
"If Marissa died and you could pull it off, wouldn't you?"
The two of them took off and burst into the cave. Only to stop dead.
"What is that?" Butch breathed.
"I… I have no idea."
On slow, quiet feet they walked down to the altar, transfixed by the sight ahead. Sitting in the middle of the lintel stone was a sculpture, a bust… of Jane's head and shoulders. The composition was done in dark gray stone, the likeness so exact it was like a photograph. Or maybe a hologram. Light from candles flickered over the features, casting shadows that seemed to animate them. At the far right end of the slab there was a smashed ceramic jar, the Brotherhood's sacred skull, as well as what looked like a mangled, oil-covered heart.
On the far side of the altar, V was propped up against the wall of names, his eyes shut, his hands in his lap. One of his wrists was tied up tightly with a strip of black cloth, and one of his daggers was missing. The place smelled like smoke, but there was none in the air.
"V?" Butch went over and knelt down next to his roommate.
Phury left the cop to deal with V and headed for the altar. The sculpture was a perfect likeness of Jane, so real it could have been her as she breathed. He reached out, compelled to touch the face, but the instant his forefinger came into contact with it, the bust lost all form. Shit. It wasn't made of stone but ash, and now it was nothing more than a loose mound of what must be Jane's last remains.
Phury looked over at Butch. "Tell me V's alive?"
"Well, he's breathing, at any rate."
"Let's get him home." Phury looked at the ashes. "Let's get them both home."
He need something to carry Jane in, and he sure as hell wasn't going to use a lesser jar. He glanced around. There was nothing.
Phury took off his silk shirt and spread it flat on the altar. It was the best he could do and they were out of time.
Daylight was coming. And there was no negotiating with its arrival.
Chapter Fifty-one
Two days later Phury decided to go over to the Other Side. The Directrix had been hammering for a meeting, and he didn't want to put her off any longer. Besides, he had to get out of the house.
Jane's death had brought a pall to the compound, affecting all the bonded males. The loss of a shellan, which was what she'd been even though she and V hadn't been formally mated, was always the greatest fear. But to have her killed by the enemy was nearly unendurable. Worse, to have it happen less than a year after Wellsie was likewise murdered-was all a horrible reminder of what each of the males knew to be true: Mates of the Brotherhood faced a special threat from the lessers.
Tohrment had learned this firsthand. Now so had Vishous.
God, you had to wonder if V was going to stick around. Tohr had taken off right after Wellsie had been killed by a slayer, and no one had seen or heard from him since. Though Wrath maintained that he could feel that the brother was still alive, they had all pretty much given up on the idea of him reappearing in this decade or the next. Maybe in some future era he would come back. Or maybe he would die out in the world alone somewhere. But they wouldn't see him again anytime soon, and, hell, the next place might well be the Fade.
Shit… Poor Vishous.
Right now V was in his room at the Pit, lying next to the brass urn Phury had eventually put Jane's ashes in. The brother hadn't spoken or eaten anything, according to Butch, though the guy's eyes were apparently open.
It was clear he had no intention of explaining what had happened in the Tomb. To Jane. Or to his wrist.
With a curse Phury knelt by his bed and put the Primale's medallion around his neck. Closing his eyes he traveled directly to the Chosen's sanctuary, thinking of Cormia along the way. She too stayed in her room, eating little and saying less. He checked on her frequently, though he didn't know what to do for her-other than bring her books, which she seemed to like. She was particularly into Jane Austen, although she didn't quite understand how something could be fiction or, as she put it, a constructed lie.