Phury took form at the amphitheater because he didn't know the layout very well yet and figured it was a good starting point. Man, it felt bizarre to be standing in the middle of all the white. Weirder still to walk around the back of the stage and get a gander at the various white temples. Goddamn, the place was an ad for Clorox. No color anywhere. And it was so quiet. Freaky quiet.
As he picked a direction and started walking, he worried about getting mobbed by a bunch of Chosen and was not exactly in a hurry to go head-to-head with the Directrix. To blow some time, he decided to take a look at what was inside one of the temples. Picking one randomly he went up its shallow marble steps, but found that the double doors were locked tight.
Frowning, he bent down and looked at the large, oddly shaped keyhole. On impulse, he took the Primale medallion off and stuck it into the door.
Well, what do you know. The thing was a key.
The double doors opened without a sound, and he was surprised at what was inside. Lining both sides of the building, and sitting six or eight deep, were bins and bins of precious stones. He walked around the riches, every once in a while stopping and putting his hands into the sparkling gems.
But that wasn't all that was inside. In the back, at the far end, were a series of glass cases such as you would find at a museum. He went over and checked them out. Naturally they were dust free, although not, he sensed, because they'd been cleaned. He just couldn't imagine there being any pollutants in the air around here, even those of the microscopic variety.
Inside the cases the objects were fascinating, and clearly from the real world. There was an old-fashioned pair of spectacles, a porcelain bowl of Oriental origin, a whiskey bottle with a label from the 1930s, an ebony cigarette holder, a lady's fan made from white feathers.
He wondered how they got over here. Some of the things were quite old, though they were in perfect condition and, of course, everything was sparkly-frickin' clean.
He paused over what looked like an ancient book. "Son… of a bitch."
Its leather cover was tattered, but the embossed title was still evident: Darius son of Marklon.
Phury leaned down, astounded. It was D's book… probably a diary.
He opened the case, then frowned at the smell inside. Gunpowder?
He looked at the assembled objects. In the far corner there was an old handgun, and he recognized the make and model from the firearms textbook he'd been teaching the trainees from. It was a 1890 Colt Navy.36-caliber, six-cylinder revolver. That had recently been used.
He took the thing out, cocked the chamber open, and palmed one of the bullets. They were spherical… and uneven, as if they were handmade.
He'd seen the shape before. When he'd been erasing V's medical results from the computer at St. Francis, he'd looked at a chest X-ray that had been taken… and seen a spherical, slightly irregular hunk of lead in his brother's lung.
"Were you here to see me?"
Phury looked over his shoulder at the Directrix. The female was standing in the double doors, dressed in that white robe they all wore. Around her neck, on a chain, was a medallion like his.
"Nice collection of artifacts you have here," he drawled, turning around.
The female's eyes narrowed. "I would think the gems would interest you more."
"Not really." He watched her carefully as he lifted the book in his hand. "This looks like my brother's diary."
As her shoulders eased up ever so slightly, he wanted to kill her. "Yes, that is Darius's diary."
Phury tapped the cover of the book, then waved his hand around at all the gems. "Tell me something-is this place kept locked all the time?"
"Yes. Ever since the attack."
"You and I are the only ones with keys, right? I'd hate to have anything happen to what's in here."
"Yes. Only the two of us. No one may gain entry herein without my knowledge or presence."
"No one."
Her eyes flashed with annoyance. "Order is to be maintained. I have spent years training the Chosen unto their proper ministrations."
"Yeah… so a Primale showing up must be a real buzz kill for you. Because I'm in charge now, aren't I?"
Her voice dropped low. "It is right and proper for you to rule herein."
"I'm sorry, could you say that again? I didn't quite hear you."
Her eyes seethed with venom for a split second-which confirmed to him her actions and her motive: The Directrix had shot Vishous. With the gun from the case. She wanted to continue to be in charge, and knew damn well that if a Primale came in at best she would be second in command under a male. At worst she could lose all her power just because the male didn't like the color of her eyes.
When she'd failed to kill V, she backed off… until she could try again. No doubt she was smart enough and nasty enough to defend her territory until either the Brothers ran out or the Primale role started to look cursed.
"You were about to say something, weren't you?" he prompted.
The Directrix smoothed the medallion hanging from her throat. "You are the Primale. You are the ruler herein."
"Good. Glad we're both straight on that." He tapped Darius's diary again. "I'm taking this back with me."
"Are we not meeting?"
He walked over to her, thinking that if she had been male he would have snapped her neck.
"Not right now, no. I have something I have to take care of with the Scribe Virgin." He leaned down, putting his mouth next to her ear. "But I'll be back for you."
Chapter Fifty-two
Vishous had never cried before. Throughout all his life he had never, ever cried. After all this shit he'd been through, it had gotten to the point that he'd decided he'd been born without tear ducts.
The events leading up to now hadn't changed that. When Jane had lain dead in his arms he hadn't wept. When he'd attempted to cut off his hand in the Tomb as a sacrifice and the pain had been astonishing, there had been no tears. When his hated mother had cast him back from the deed he'd been about to do, his cheeks had been dry.
Even when the Scribe Virgin had put her hand upon Jane's body and he'd watched in a daze as his beloved had been reduced to ash, he had not wept.
He did now.
For the first time since his birth, tears rolled down his face and soaked his pillow.
They had started when a vision of Butch and Marissa on the couch in the Pit's living room had come to him. Vivid… so vivid. V could not only hear their thoughts in his head, but he knew that Butch was picturing Marissa on their bed in a black bra and blue jeans. And Marissa was imagining him taking off her blue jeans and putting his head down between her thighs.
V knew that in six minutes Butch was going to take the orange juice Marissa had in her hand and put it on the coffee table. He was going to spill it, because the glass was going to land on the corner of a Sports Illustrated, and the juice was going to get on Marissa's jeans. The cop was going to use this as an excuse to take her down the hall and get her good and naked.
Except on the way, they would stop by V's door and lose their sexual impulses. With sad eyes, they would go to their mated bed and hold each other in silence.
V put an arm over his face. And wept uncontrollably.
His visions were back, his curse of the future returned to him.
The crossroads in his life was over.
Which meant this was his existence from now on: he was to be nothing but an empty shell that lay next to the ashes of his beloved.
And sure enough, in the midst of his crying he heard Butch and Marissa come down the hall, heard them pause in front of his bedroom, then heard them shut their door. No sounds of sex got muffled by the wall between the rooms, no headboard banged, no throaty cries sounded.
Just as he'd foreseen. In the silence that followed, V wiped his cheeks, then looked at his hands. The left one still throbbed a little from the damage he'd done to it. The right one glowed as it always did-and his tears were white against the backdrop of his inner illumination, white as the irises of his eyes.