“I’m not going to help the pair of you anymore,” the executioner said hoarsely. “Duty demands to be served.”
iAm sat up and thought that the constellations under which his brother had been born were like a disease, something unvolunteered for, embedded in the life that was lived, a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
Trez’s detonation had been put off for oh, so long. It would not be denied any longer, however.
Not for the first time, iAm wished that he had been born before Trez. He would much rather have been the one cursed, the bearer of the burden. It wasn’t that he wanted to be imprisoned for all his life, with nothing but repeatedly trying to impregnate the heir to the throne for a pastime, but he was different from Trez.
Or maybe he was fooling himself.
What he was clear on? He would do anything he had to in order to save his brother.
And he was prepared to get really damn creative.
By the time Trez came back to check the private lounge, Rhage had woken up from his coma, trance, nap, whatever it was. And although V’s verbal diarrhea had been a real ball slapper, as the owner of the club and the guy who’d attacked first, Trez felt like he needed to make sure the Brother was okay.
“How we doing in here,” he said as he reentered.
As Hollywood slowly sat up, it was clear he was trying to reenter reality, returning from some mental destination that had been far from the club.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” V muttered as he took out a hand-rolled and a lighter. “You back?”
“You can’t smoke in here,” Trez said.
Vishous cocked a brow. “What’re you going to do? Kick me out?”
“Don’t want to get shut down on my first night.”
“You got bigger problems than the Department of Public Health.”
Fuck you, V, Trez thought.
“You need something?” he asked Rhage. “I got all kinds of things that don’t have alcohol in them.”
“Nah, I’m all right.” The Brother rubbed his face and then looked over. “So you’ve bonded with that Chosen, huh—”
“I even have food, if you want—”
“Come on, man.” Rhage shook his head. “You just tried to eat my lunch.”
Trez glanced at his watch. “Actually, it was over an hour ago.”
“I mean, whatever—what’s the problem? Why don’t you get with her.”
“You’re still a little pale.”
“Fine, fine. You wanna hit the mute button, that’s your business.”
Cue. Awkward. Silence.
OMG, this was the best fucking night, Trez thought. What next, a meteor hitting Caldwell?
Nah, probably just his club.
“Sooooo . . . I’ll take the drugs,” V said, pocketing the cellophane packets. “You get any more—”
The third goddamn flash in the room was bright enough to blind, and Trez put up an arm to cover his face as he fell back into a defensive stance.
“Oh, fuck!” one of the Brothers barked.
Bomb? Deadly slayer retaliation?
All that new electrical wiring failing on an epic scale?
Or maybe he shouldn’t have given the universe a suggestion about the whole meteor thing.
As Trez blinked the spots in his vision clear, it turned out to be a case of None of the Above.
A figure was standing where the great burst of light had flared—a figure that was about as impressive as a garden gnome gone Goth: Whatever it was was four feet tall, covered from head to foot in black robing . . . and evidently the source of illumination: From beneath the hem, brilliant light glowed. Like maybe La Perla had gone Las Vegas strip under there.
Abruptly, Trez stopped breathing as he put the math together and came up with the impossible. Holy shit, that was the—
“Hello, Mother,” Vishous said dryly.
—Scribe Virgin.
“I have come for a purpose.” The female voice was hard as crystal and just as clear. “And it must be served.”
“Really.” V took a drag on his hand-rolled. “You gonna take candy from a baby? Or is it kick-a-puppy night?”
The figure turned Her back on the Brother. “You.”
Trez recoiled, his head banging into the wall. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not supposed to make inquiries of Her,” V bit out. “Just FYI.”
“Me?” Trez repeated. “What do you want me for?”
“You are summoned by one of mine own.”
“You taking him to Disneyland?” V muttered. “Lucky you, Trez—but She’s probably only tight with Maleficent, the Shadow Man, Cruella—”
“How do you know so much Disney shit?” Rhage cut in.
“Come with me,” the Scribe Virgin said, extending her robed arm.
“Me?” Trez blurted a third time.
“You have been summoned.”
“Selena . . . ?” he breathed.
Rhage shook his head. “Should I just get the marshmallows? ’Cuz you are about to get toasted for those questions, buddy.”
That was the last thing Trez heard before a swirling vortex of energy claimed him and carried him off to God only knew . . .
. . . where.
As the sense of having been transported disappeared, he steadied himself on his feet with a shout, both arms punching out from his torso, his head spinning so badly he figured he was going to dreidel it to the ground.
A sudden awareness of his surroundings stopped all that.
Parkland. He’d been relocated to some kind of postcard-perfect parkland, rolling green lawns interspersed with top-heavy trees, blooming flower beds and, in the distance, white marble buildings of Greco-Roman extraction. Except the horizon struck him as all wrong. A forest boundary offered a verdant stretch of green off in the distance, but there was an unnatural quality to it, the same trees seeming to mark the acreage, as if nature were on a repeat pattern. And overhead, the sky was likewise an all-wonky, its milky brightness appearing to have no distinct source, like there was just an enormous fluorescent light up there.
“Where am I?”
When there was no answer, he twisted around. The small robed figure was gone.
Great. Now what did he do?
Later, he would wonder what exactly made him turn and start walking . . . then running. A noise? His name? Some instinct . . . ?
He found the body on the far side of a rise in the undulating ground. Whoever it was was facedown, in the traditional garb of a Chosen female, the soles of the sandals—
“Selena!” he shouted. “Selena . . . !”
Skidding to a halt, Trez dropped to his knees. “Selena?”
Her black hair was a mess, the traditional twist of her chignon ratted and sloppy, falling over her face. As he lifted the tangle, her skin was paper white.
“Selena . . .” He wasn’t sure whether she was injured or had collapsed, and with no medical training, he had no clue what to do.
“Breathing, are you breathing?” He put his ear down on her back. Then he leaned across her and took her arm to check for a—
“Oh . . . God.”
The limb was stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in. Except . . . when he placed his two fingers on the inside of her wrist, there was a pulse.
Selena moaned and her foot twitched. Then her head jerked against the grass.
“Selena?” His heart pounded so hard, he could barely hear anything. “What happened?”
No reason to ask if she was okay. That was a resounding fucking no.
“Are you hurt?”
More moaning as she seemed to struggle against something.
“I’m going to roll you over.”
Bracing himself, he took her arm and began to try to move her—but he had to stop. Her position did not change, her contoured limbs and stiffened torso were so rigid, it was as if he were dealing with a statue made of stone—
“Oh, shit!”
At the sound of Rhage’s voice, Trez jerked his head up. V and Rhage had materialized out of nowhere, and while he had always liked the two of them, at the moment, he could have kissed the pair of warriors.