Initiating a search of his own, he went from abandoned building to club to tattoo parlor to tenement until he found them at the skyscraper: As he took form, they were all there, loitering as if they had naught better to do.
Violence replaced the very veins in his body, threading throughout him—to the point where he began to feel the hum of insanity within the confines of his skull.
It was the blood hunger, of course. But the root cause did nothing to temper the emotions.
“Where the fuck were you?” he demanded, the wind ripping around his head.
“You told us to wait here—”
“I told you to come find me!”
Throe threw up his hands. “Goddamn it! We all need phones, not just—”
Xcor launched himself at the male, grabbing him by the coat and throwing him up against a steel door. “Watch. Your. Tone.”
“I am right in this—”
“We are not having this discussion again.”
Xcor shoved himself away and walked off from the male, his duster getting thrown to the side from the hot, gale force blowing o’er the city.
Throe, however, would not leave it alone. “We could have been where you wanted us to be. The Brotherhood has cell—”
He wheeled around. “Fuck the Brotherhood!”
“You’d have better luck doing that if we had methods of communication!”
“The Brotherhood are weak for their technological crutches!”
Throe shook his head, all aristocrat-who-knew-better. “No, they’re in the future. And we can’t compete with them if we’re in the past.”
Xcor curled his hands into fists. His father—rather, the Bloodletter—would have pushed the son of a bitch right off the side of the building for this insolence and insubordination. And Xcor did take a step forward toward the male.
Except no, he thought with cold logic. There was a more useful way to handle this.
“We go into the field. Now.”
As he leveled his stare at Throe, there was one and only one acceptable response—and the others knew this, judging from the way they got their weapons out and readied themselves to engage the enemy.
And ah, yes, Throe, ever the dandy who appreciated social order, even in a military situations, naturally followed suit.
But then again, there were other reasons for him to follow orders over and above an affinity for consensus: It was that debt that he believed he would be working off forever. It was his commitment to the other bastards, which had grown over time and was mutual—to a point.
And, of course, it was his dearest, departed sister, who was, in a way, still with him.
Well, she was more with Xcor in practicality.
Upon his nod, he and his soldiers traveled in sprays of loose molecules down into the system of alleys. As they went, Xcor recalled that night long ago when a fine gentlemale approached him in a dirty part of London for a deadly purpose.
The disposition of the request had been rather more involved than Throe had contemplated.
To get Xcor to kill the one who had defiled his sister had required much more than just the shillings in his pocket. It had required his whole life. And servicing the debt had turned him into something so much more than a member of the glymera who had happened to have a Brotherhood name: Throe had lived up to his blooded legacy, far surpassing any expectations.
Far surpassing every expectation: In truth, Xcor had struck the deal to use the male as an example of weakness to the others. Throe was supposed to have been a humiliated foil for the true soldiers, a downtrodden, whining pussy who was broken over time and then made to serve them.
Not where they had ended up.
Down at ground level, the alley they re-formed in was rank and sweaty from the summer’s heat, and as his soldiers fanned out behind him, they filled the confines from brick wall to brick wall.
They always hunted in a pack; unlike the Brotherhood, they stuck together.
So all of them saw what happened next.
Unsheathing one of his steel daggers, Xcor gripped the handle hard. Spun around to Throe.
And sliced the male in the gut.
Someone shouted. Several cursed. Throe curled around the wound—
Xcor caught the male’s shoulder, retracted the weapon, and stabbed again.
The scent of fresh vampire blood was unmistakable.
There needed to be two sources, not just one, however.
Resheathing his dagger, he pushed Throe backward so that the male fell flat on the ground. Then he took one of Throe’s blades from its holster and ran the sharp edge down the inside of his own forearm.
Wiping his wound all over Throe’s upper body, he then forced the bloodied dagger into the soldier’s hand. Then he crouched down, locking vicious eyes with the male.
“When the Brotherhood finds you, they will take you in and treat you—and you are going to find out where they live. You are going to tell them that I betrayed you and you want to fight with them. You will ingratiate yourself with them and find a way to infiltrate their domicile.” He jabbed a finger in the male’s face. “And because you’re so fucking committed to the exchange of information, you’re going to tell everything to me. You have twenty-four hours and then you and I shall reconvene—or the remains of your sweet sister are going to come to a disgraceful end.”
Throe’s eyes popped wide in his pale face.
“Yes, I have her.” Xcor leaned down even farther, until they were nose-to-nose. “I have had her with us all along. So I say unto you, do not forget where your allegiances lie.”
“You… bastard…”
“You got that right. You have until tomorrow. Top of the World, four a.m. Be there.”
The male’s eyes burned as they met his own, and the hatred in them was answer enough: Xcor had the ashes of the male’s dead, and they both knew that if he was capable of sending his second in command into the belly of the beast, tossing those powdered remains into a garbage bin or a dirty toilet or the fry basket in a McDonald’s was nothing special.
The threat of all that was, however, more than enough to cuff Throe.
And just as he had back in another era, so, too, would he now sacrifice himself for whom he had lost.
Xcor shot up and spun around.
His soldiers were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a wall of menace that faced him squarely. But he was not worried about insurrection. They had each been raised, if one could call it that, by the Bloodletter—taught by that sadistic male the art of fighting, and of retribution. If they were surprised, it should have only been because Xcor had not done this sooner.
“Go back to camp for the rest of the night. I have a meeting to attend to—if I return to find any of you gone, I will hunt you down and not leave you injured. I will finish the job.”
They left without looking at Throe—or him, for that matter.
Wise choice.
His anger was sharper than the blades he had just used.
As Throe was left alone in the alley, he positioned his hand flat against his abdominals, exerting pressure to reduce the blood loss.
Although his body was crippled with pain, his vision and hearing were preternaturally acute as they trained on his environment: The buildings arching above him were tall and without lights. The windows were narrow and had thick, rippled glass. The air smelled of cooking meat, as if he were not far from a restaurant that grilled a great deal. And off in the distance, he heard the horns of cars and the rush of the brakes on a bus and a woman laughing shrilly.
It was still early in the night.
Anyone could find him. Friend. Foe. Lesser. Brother.
At least Xcor had left him with his dagger in his hand.
With a curse, he rolled over onto his side and tried to push himself upright—
Didn’t that solve the problem of everything registering so brightly and loudly. Upon a fresh onslaught of agony, the world receded, the bomb exploding in his gut of such magnitude that he wondered if he hadn’t ruptured something.