As Wrath started down for the foyer, he walked with a limp, the result of something he did over on the Far Side at the Scribe Virgin’s. No one knew who he saw or why he sported a black eye or a split lip on a regular basis, but everyone, even John, was glad for the sessions. They kept Wrath on an even keel and away from the field.
With the king descending, and some of the other Brothers coming through the door John had just used, he had to make his escape. If those Shadows had sensed he had fresh ink, the people gathering for last meal would pick up on it in a heartbeat if they got close enough.
Fortunately, there was a wet bar in the library and John went there and helped himself to a shot of Jack Daniel’s. The first of many.
While he started to make deposits into his buzz account, he braced himself against the marble slab and wished like hell he had a time machine—although it was hard to know whether he’d choose to go forward or backward with it.
“You want any food?” Qhuinn said from the doorway.
John didn’t look in the guy’s direction, just shook his head and poured some more liquid relief into his squat glass.
“Okay, I’ll bring you a sandwich.”
With a curse, John pivoted around and signed, I said no.
“Roast beef? Good. And I’ll hitch you some carrot cake. Tray’ll be left in your room.” Qhuinn turned away. “If you wait about five more minutes in here, everyone will be seated at the table, so you’ll have a clear shot up the stairs.”
The guy took off, which meant short of braining him with the glass, there was no other way of expressing his I-am-an-island opinion.
Although really, that would just be a waste of good booze—Qhuinn was so hardheaded, you could have hit his frontal lobe with a crowbar and made no impression on him whatsoever.
Fortunately, the alcohol began to take effect, its numb blanket settling on John’s shoulders first before sweeping up and down his body. The shit did nothing to quiet his mind, but his bones and muscles did ease out.
After waiting the suggested five minutes, John took his drink and his bottle and hit the stairs two at a time. As he ascended, the subdued voices from the dining room followed him, but that’s all there was. Lately, there hadn’t been much to laugh about over meals.
When he got to his room, he opened the door and walked into a jungle. There were clothes draped on every conceivable surface—the dresser, the wing chair, the bed, the plasma-screen TV. Kind of like his closet had thrown up all over everything. Empty bottles of Jack cluttered up the two side tables by the headboard, and the dead soldiers spread out from there, clustering on the floor and nesting in the twisted sheets and duvet.
Fritz and his cleaning crew hadn’t been let in for two weeks, and at the rate things were going, they were going to need a backhoe when he finally threw the doors open to them.
Undressing, he let his leathers and shirt fall where they did, but his jacket he was careful with. At least until he took his weapons out—then he dumped the thing on the corner of the bed. In the bathroom, he double-checked his two blades and then he swiftly cleaned his guns with the kit that he just left out by the second sink.
Yeah, he’d let his standards slide lower than even frat-boy levels, but his weapons were different. Utility had to be maintained.
His shower was quick, and as he worked the soap over his chest and abs, he thought back to the time when even the brush of warm water over his cock was enough to make him hard. No more. He hadn’t had an erection... since the last time he’d been with Xhex.
He just didn’t have the interest—even in his dreams, which was a new one. Hell, before his transition, when he wasn’t supposed to have any awareness of his sexuality, his subconscious had kicked up all sorts of hot and heavy. And those sex-fests had been so real, so detailed, it was as if they were memory and not REM-induced fabrications.
Now? All that played on his internal screen was Blair Witch Project chase scenes where he was running in a jerky panic but didn’t know what was after him... or whether he would ever get to safety.
When he came out of the bathroom, he found a tray with a roast beef sandwich and a big-as-your-head wedge of carrot cake on it. Nothing to drink, but Qhuinn knew that he was taking his liquid refreshment from Mr. Daniel alone.
John ate standing up in front of the bureau, naked as the day he was born, and when the food hit his stomach, it sucked the energy from him, draining everything from his head. Wiping his mouth with the linen napkin, he put the tray out in the hall and then headed for the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth only from habit.
Lights off in the bath. Lights off in the room.
Him and the Jack sitting on the bed.
As exhausted as he was, he was not looking forward to lying down. There was an inverse relationship between his energy level and the distance between his ears and the floor: Even though he was cross-eyed, the second his head hit the pillow, his thoughts were going to start spinning and he was going to end up wide awake and staring at the ceiling, counting hours and aches.
He polished off what was in his glass and propped his elbows on his knees. Within moments, his head was bobbing, his lids slamming down. When he started to list to the side, he let himself go even though he was unsure which direction he was going in, toward the pillows or the wadded-up duvet.
Pillows.
Shifting his feet up on the bed, he dragged the covers over his hips and had a moment of blissful collapse. Maybe tonight the cycle would break. Maybe this glorious sinking relief would suck him down into the black hole he was hoping for. Maybe he’d...
His eyes popped open and he stared into the thick darkness.
Nope. He was exhausted to the point of being jittery, not just wide awake... but goosed-in-the-ass alert. As he rubbed his face, he figured this contradictory state of things was the cognitive equivalent to bumblebees being able to fly: Physicists maintained it wasn’t possible, and yet it happened all the time.
Rolling over onto his back, he crossed his arms over his chest and yawned so hard his jaw cracked. Tough to know whether to turn on the light. The darkness amplified the whirling in his skull, but the lamp stung his eyes until he felt like he was crying sand. Usually, he alternated between clicking on the bulb and turning it off.
From out in the hall of statues, he heard Zsadist and Bella and Nalla walk down to their room. As the couple talked about the dinner, Nalla cooed and squeaked in the way babies did when their bellies were full and their parents were right with them.
Blay came down the way next. Aside from V, he was the only other person who smoked in the house, so that was how John knew it was him. And Qhuinn was with the guy. Had to be. Otherwise Blay wouldn’t have lit up outside of his own room.
It was payback for that receptionist at the tat shop and who could blame him?
There was a long silence out there. And then a final pair of boots.
Tohr was heading to bed.
It was obvious who it was by the quiet more than the sound—the footfalls were slow and relatively light for a Brother: Tohr was working on getting his body back into shape, but he hadn’t been cleared for fieldwork, which made sense. He needed to put on another fifty pounds of muscle before he had any business going toe-to-toe with the enemy.
There wouldn’t be anyone else coming down. Lassiter, a.k.a. Tohr’s golden shadow, didn’t sleep, so the angel usually stayed down in the billiard room and watched highbrow television. Like paternity tests on Maury and The People’s Court with Judge Milian and Real Housewives marathons.
Silence... silence... silence...
When the sound of his heartbeat started to annoy him, John cursed and stretched up, turning on the light. As he settled back against the pillows, he let his arms flop down. He didn’t share Lassiter’s fascination with the boob tube, but anything was better than the quiet. Fishing around the empty bottles, he found the remote, and when he hit the on button, there was a pause like the thing had forgotten what it was used for—but then the picture flared.