BDB 13 The Shadows (25 page)

There was no talking.

And yet their disapproval of his consumption rate was obvious in the grind of their lower jaws.

’Twas no matter to him, however. Whether they wasted breath on words, or simply glowered as they were the now, he had no intention of changing his usage.

The sound of a single-engine boat going at a slow speed came so quietly that, at first, one could not distinguish it from the ambient noises of the forest and the river. But soon enough, the troller came around the bend of the shore, flat and low to the water. There were two individuals sitting in its open hull, both dressed as nothing-doing fishermen in their caps and camo, only the black masks they wore hinting at anything nefarious. Fishing poles were likewise mounted on either side to promote the appearance of innocuous activity, the invisible lines trawling into the current, stretching out behind the stern.

The captain brought the humble craft in bow-first, toggling down on the engine so they landed with a kiss, not a punch.

The cousins closed in as Assail hung back, his own forty at the ready. The scents from the two human males identified them as different, but related, to the two that had come the last time. And the time before that. And so on.

“Where are the others?” Assail demanded.

The men stopped in the process of picking up three out of the five black duffels that had been hidden beneath a camo tarp.

Assail smiled thinly at their surprise. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

“I am brother,” the one on the left said in heavily accented English. “He is cousin.”

Assail inclined his head, accepting the explanation. In truth, he did not care who delivered his product as long as they did so on a timely basis, for an agreed price and potency, and without interference from human law enforcement.

So far, so good with this pair.

Moments later, Ehric and his brother accepted the bags and walked off, one facing forward, the other backward so they provided each other cover.

“A moment,” Assail drawled. “If you don’t mind.”

The human men stopped again, and he felt their anxiety sure as if it were a reverberation on the surface of a table, the transfer of energy traveling easily through the air that separated their bodies.

“What else is under there?” he said, pointing to the tarp. “There are two more duffels, are there not.”

The smaller of the pair, the cousin, jerked the cover back into place and went around to the boat’s controls.

“The schedule next month,” the other said. “The same?”

“I’ll be in touch with your bosses.”

“Very good.”

Just like that, they were on their way,
putt-putt-putt
ing against the sluggish current of the cold water—with someone else’s merchandise along with them.

Frowning, Assail watched as they cut across the waterway, and proceeded parallel to the opposite shore.

A moment later, he returned to the Range Rover, and when he knocked on the front passenger-side window, Ehric put the thing down.

“Yes?” the male said.

“I’m going to follow them.” Assail nodded in the direction of the boat. “They’re dealing with somebody else. I want to find out who.”

With a curt nod, Ehric dematerialized over into the driver’s seat and put the SUV in gear. “I saw that, too. Call if you need aught.”

As the Range Rover took off, Assail turned away and strode back to the water. Closing his eyes, he had to fight his cocaine buzz in order to calm himself, and it was a while before he could spirit himself away on the cold wind. When he reformed some kilometers down the river, he waited until the boat came into view once more. The men were oblivious to his presence as he stood in stillness among the colorful trees and contrasting brown vegetation, watching as they progressed by.

Same engine speed. Same protocol for delivering the goods to him. The question was: who was their next client.

And what kind of drugs were they selling?

Their bosses had agreed to deal with him exclusively in this part of New York state. And whereas competition was good for capitalism, it was not welcome in his territory—also unnecessary to their income statement. His requirements were sufficiently large and established enough that he represented a book of business worthy of respect.

The bastards.

Indeed, it was necessary for there to be honor amongst lawbreakers. For everyone’s good. And he had held up his end of the bargain, arriving consistently with the cash. Month after month after month.

He was prepared to fix this problem, however.

Readily.

Mortally.

Rhage, Tohr and V headed back to the mansion not long after meeting Applebottom’s pride and joy, with Butch following in the Range Rover. As the three of them resumed their physical forms in the courtyard, a light shining among the lineup of cars got their attention.

Rhage strode over to the open door of the pale blue Mercedes. “Layla—?”

Except there was no one inside fiddling with her purse or bundling up before she headed across the courtyard for home.

He shut the door. “She’s not—”

“Layla!” Tohr barked. “Oh, shit!”

Rhage looked up to the mansion’s entrance. The heavy door into the vestibule was cracked open, a leg extending out at ground level, the ankle and foot propping the panels open.

The three of them bolted up the stairs. As Rhage cranked wide the tremendous weight, V, with his medical background, jumped over the Chosen’s collapsed body and started checking vitals.

“Tohr,” Rhage said. “Call—”

But his brother already had his cell phone up to his ear. “Yeah, Jane? We need you up here in the vestibule. Layla’s collapsed—V, stats?”

As the brother put the phone in V’s face, Vishous said to his mate, “Heart rate’s steady, but slow. So is the breathing. No sign of trauma that I can see.”

“You hear that?” Tohr said, resuming speaking. “Good. Thanks.” As he ended the call, he immediately started dialing again. “She’s bringing Manny and Ehlena.” Back up to the ear. Waiting. Waiting.

He was obviously calling Qhuinn—

For some odd reason, the world went wonky on Rhage: One minute, he was staring down at Layla, and thinking there was nothing more terrifying than a pregnant female facedown on any kind of flooring. The next, the vestibule was spinning around him like a ball on the end of a string, his head the center point of the whizzing-by, his balance oddly uncompromised by the—

“He’s going over!”

Huh. Guess he wasn’t quite as steady as he thought.

When there was a bite on his upper arm, he looked down and saw Tohr’s hand lock on his biceps and hold him up.

Wow. This was manly, Rhage thought.

A round of the Victorian vapors just because a female was—

“Layla!”

Qhuinn’s panicked appearance right next to him gave him the wakey-wakey he needed, his mind clearing as the male shoved his way in to get to the female who was carrying his child. Blay, as always, was right behind him, ready to do whatever to support his mate.

“What the hell happened?”Qhuinn demanded.

V started talking. Doc Jane and her team arrived. Medical equipment was outted from a black, old-fashioned doctor’s bag.

Turning to Tohr, who was still holding him up, Rhage heard a strange version of his voice say, “I’m having trouble breathing, my brother.”

Tohr swung his head around. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I can’t … seem to breathe.” He massaged his chest with his free hand. “It’s like there’s a balloon in here. Taking up all the space.”

As the medical peeps rolled Layla onto her back, there was cursing from the peanut gallery. Her arm was at an all-wrong angle, the part below the elbow showing a nasty break which must have happened when she fainted.

“Rhage?” someone said to him. “Hello?”

He glanced over at Tohrment. “What?”

Tohr leaned in. “You want some fresh air?”

“Aren’t we outside?” To answer his own question, he looked up to the heavens. “Yeah, we’re—”

“How ’bout we take a little walk.”

“Want to help.”

“Yeah, I get that. But I think going for a stroll’s a really good idea. You’re white as a sheet, and if you pull a lights-out, I can’t guarantee you’re not going to turn someone into a carpet underneath you and we don’t need any other patients right now.”

“Huh?”

“Come on.”

As his brother pulled on his arm, Rhage kept rubbing his heart. “I don’t know why I can’t breathe…”

The last image he had, as he was pulled away, was of Layla’s face flopping to the side, her eyes wide-open, but unseeing.

“Is she dead?” he whispered. “Has she died—”

“Come on, my brother—”

“Is she?”

“No, she’s not. She’s alive.”

Every time he blinked, he saw her blond hair on the marble tile like a liquid spilled, her lips as pale as her cheeks, those jade-green eyes opaque and unmoving.

“Mary? Yeah, Mary, I got a situation with your boy. Can you come home now?”

Who was that talking? Oh, yeah, Tohr. On his phone. The Brother had taken out his phone.

Rhage started shaking his head. “No, she can’t come. The mother at Safe Place. She needs to stay—”

“Okay, thanks.” Tohr ended the call. “She’s heading back now.”

“No, they need her—”

“My brother?” Tohr put his face into Rhage’s. “I’m not sure you have any idea what you look like right now. Do me a solid and sit down here—yeah, right on the cobblestone. Good man, you’re doin’ good.”

Rhage’s knees were the ones following instructions, his brain too preoccupied with how much his
shellan
didn’t need to waste her precious time on him. But it looked like that bus had left the station already.

Propping his head in his hands, Rhage leaned forward and wondered if he didn’t have something wrong with his lungs. A fast-acting vampire flu. An infection. A poison in there.

The large hand of his brother made slow circles on his back, and beneath that heavy palm, the beast, in its tattoo form, surged and moved as if Rhage’s little epi was making the thing nervous.

“Feel weird,” Rhage said. “Can’t … breathe…”

F
or the first couple of miles, Assail was happy enough to dematerialize along with the boat. By the fourth time he reformed, however, he became impatient for the destination to arrive, the exchange to be made, the identity of the third-party encroacher to be revealed.

And there was another reason to be disquieted. With the ever-increasing distance traveled, the two men were getting closer and closer to Caldwell proper—which was an idiotic idea.

Even though the hours were well into the night, downtown was not the suburbs and there were bound to be humans out and about—granted, rarely those credible with the police or others of their kind, but prying eyes were prying eyes, and every asshole rat without a tail had a cell phone these days.

He might be able to spirit away, but that pair in the boat could not pull off that trick—and he wanted to be the person to teach the lesson required here, not the CPD.

Disappearing once again, he was forced to re-form in the midst of the planted trees on the edge of one of Caldwell’s shoreline public parks. And still the boat continued along.

Unbelievable.

As he waited to see whether they passed his newest position—and there was a good chance they would, because there was no further cover at the shore a’tall—that familiar itch started to twinkle at the base of his neck, triggering a need for more coke.

The urge was coming faster and faster of late. To the point where he was forced to acknowledge how fortunate he was to heal so quickly. If he were a mere human? He would have deviated his septum months ago.

Reaching into his pocket, he took his vial into his palm. Just the feel of the smooth glass container made him relax. And he wanted to pull it out and do his deed, but he couldn’t run the risk of not being able to dematerialize. The problem with his addiction was that the need for more was coming before the buzz had even started to wear off, the worm in his gut turning, turning, demanding more and more even while his body and brain struggled to deal with the racing, bracing load of drugs.

And again, the last thing he wanted was to find himself in difficulty down here because he was too jittery to get himself gone.

God, to have this in common with the Homo sapiens he dealt to was just too demeaning for words—

“Oh, you can’t be serious,” he muttered as the boat finally made a beeline to a destination of sorts.

But it was not a safe one. Certainly not one he would ever have consented to.

The two piloted their craft toward an old Victorian boathouse. Granted, its windows were dark, but there were security lights shining on its shingled exterior, and no doubt a CPD patrol making regular rounds of the park behind the structure.

He had to go inside if they did, however.

And they did.

With no idea what the interior layout was, he settled for re-forming in the shadows between those annoying outside lights, his dark clothes blending him in against the boathouse’s weathered flank. As the troller entered one of the slips, the sound of its pathetic engine echoed, sounding like an old man with the last dregs of a consumptive cough.

Twisting around to one of the windows, he focused his keen eyes through the bubbly glass. The inside was quite extensive, and as soon as he identified his spot, he dematerialized and gusted in through the very entrance the delivery boys used. He was careful as he reassumed his physical form, sticking to a tight nook in the far corner, between a stand of crew shells resting upon their bellies on racks and a forest of orange personal flotation devices strung upon hooks.

The engine was cut and the pair conversed softly in a foreign language. After they fell silent, the only sound was the water clapping and chortling underneath the boat and through the cribbing of the docks.

Assail hated the way the air smelled of old dead fish, decomposing flora, and damp canvas.

Dreadful.

After a measure of time passed, the approach of something outside got his attention—and then a flashing yellow light penetrated the interior. Locating a dusty window, he looked out to find a Caldwell Public Parks Department truck pulling up.