The Black Dagger Brotherhood (36 page)

A note on the names. The English words such as rage, fury, vicious, sadist, torment and wrath are derived from the traditional vampire warrior names which came first.

The Lessening Society is a totally self-contained, self-supported group of vampire hunters that operates outside of the law. Members of the society, called lessers, are humans who have traded their souls in return for a hundred years of sanctioned killing. They are vicious sociopaths, soulless killers with violent backgrounds or psychiatric pathologies who hunt for pleasure and like to torture. They have a high death rate so there is a constant demand for new society members. These recruits are drawn from a number of arenas, typically self-defense- or sports-related because the society favors the physically strong. In this book, a martial arts academy provides a fertile training and proving ground for new recruits.

Lessers can move around freely during the day. On occasion, they fight with each other over territory. They are physically stronger after their indoctrination and live to be a hundred while showing no signs of aging. They are also impotent and smell a little like baby powder.

Mr. X is an up and coming leader in the Lessening Society. He started training in the martial arts when he was in his teens, and when he was indoctrinated as a lesser, he went through a spec ops military program and then returned to the Society. He's brought a new level of technology and violence to the society's endeavors.

Darius, one of the band of brothers, asks Wrath to meet him out at a Goth bar in downtown called Screamer's. He knows that Wrath's unlikely to help his half-human daughter through her transition to a vampire. But Darius is desperate. He loves his daughter and she has a better chance of surviving the transition if she can be with Wrath because his blood is pure. Darius waits for Wrath to arrive, thinking of how much he hopes she's spared agony of the change and the life of a vampire.

At the same moment, his daughter, Beth Randall, walks home from her job at the local paper down Trade Street. She walks by the bar her father is in. While she's thinking about the lonely evening ahead, she's followed by two college boys. At first, she's not afraid when they approach and start to harass her. But then one of them grabs her and drags her into an alley. She fights but ultimately they pin her against a building behind a dumpster. While one holds her arms, the other rips her shirt off and starts to fondle her. Even though she's terrified, she forces herself to pretend that she's willing to have sex with the primary attacker. When he lets his guard down, she strikes him where it hurts most and then knees him in the nose as he doubles over. His friend is so surprised that he doesn't stop her escape. She runs home.

Back at Screamer's, Wrath finally appears. As he makes his way to Darius, humans trip over themselves to get out of his way. He takes a seat with Darius and waits for the other vampire to speak. When he hears what Darius wants, he flat out says no. He hates himself for turning his warrior brother down, but he wants no part in the transition of a half breed. That would require a compassion that he just doesn't have.

Wrath leaves the bar because he has to meet Marissa, his
shellan,
or female mate. Unlike most vampires, he does not have a sexual relationship with her, they merely feed off each other as they need to. Because he's consumed with hunting his enemies, there's no room in his life for. Her brother, Havers, with whom she lives, disapproves of the relationship which was established by Wrath's parents four centuries ago. So Marissa won't have to deal with her brother, Wrath frequently meets her in a room in Darius's mansion.

Wrath is headed for a dark alley to dematerialize to Darius's when he senses he's been tracked. It's a member of the Lessening Society, a group of humans who have sold their souls to become vampire killers. He draws the
lesser
into the shadows, slits its throat with a martial arts throwing star, and takes its wallet and cell phone. Wrath stabs the lesser through the heart, causing it to disintegrate. Wrath then dematerializes to Darius's guest chamber. Marissa comes to him and feeds. In their scene, the dynamics of their relationship are very clear. Marissa is very attached to him, hoping that someday he will turn to her and realize that her love is what is missing from his cold, warrior existence. He's strained by her devotion and loyalty and loathes himself for all he cannot give her. Before he can take her back to her brother's house, there's a knock on the chamber door. It's Darius's butler. Darius has been killed by a car bomb outside of Screamer's. Wrath tames his rage so that he can get details and asks Fritz to call the band of brothers together. Before the butler leaves, he gives Wrath an envelope from Darius. When Wrath is alone, he lets out his vengeance, causing a black whirlwind of anger to swirl around him.

When Beth gets home, she takes a forty-five minute shower and finds that though her nerves are shot, her body is recovering. She's starving. After she eats, she's sitting with her cat, thinking that she should file a report with the cops, when the phone rings. It's Jose De La Cruz, one of the policemen who's taken her under his wing. He tells her about a car bomb that's just exploded outside a bar downtown. He urges her to be careful when she shows up on the scene because Hard Ass, a.k.a., Homicide Detective Butch O'Neal, is on the case. Though she tries, Beth finds herself unable to talk about what happened for fear of breaking down. She tells Jose she can't go to the crime scene tonight and has to reassure him that she's fine when he gets worried about her. After she hangs up, she decides she must make a report after all and heads out, taking pepper spray with her.

The band of brothers show up at Darius's. Wrath must give the wallet and the cell phone to someone else because he can't see well enough to go through them. The wallet yields a driver's license and the cell phone has a call log that one of the brothers says he'll investigate. The brothers are looking to Wrath for leadership and for once this doesn't annoy him. He tells them that they are going to go raiding in retaliation. Typically, large scale battles with
lessers
are to be avoided because the carnage attracts the notice of human police. But Darius's death can not go un-avenged. The immediate quest for the brothers therefore is to find the nearest Lessening Society training and recruiting facility and take it out. These facilities move often and typically take the form of some kind of legitimate business in the human world as a shield.

When the brothers leave, Wrath takes out Darius's envelope and opens it. Inside is a sheet of paper and a picture of what appears to be a dark-haired female. Wrath calls Fritz in to read the note to him. Darius has left his mansion, Fritz and his half-breed daughter in Wrath's care. Wrath curses.

Downtown, Beth arrives at the bomb scene, looking for Jose. She's not there as a reporter, she's come to file a report on her attacker so that he can't hurt some other woman. Jose's not around but Butch O'Neal comes over, annoyed that she's arrived on the scene. When he sees her split lip, he pulls her into a quiet corner and demands to know what the hell happened to her face. She prevaricates and asks to talk with Jose. She doesn't want to relive the trauma of the attack with someone like Hard Ass O'Neal. Butch pressures her and doesn't back off until she threatens to do an expose on his heavy handed interrogation techniques. He leaves her and she goes back to her apartment in a cab.

An hour or so later, Beth is getting ready for bed when her cat starts acting oddly. He's pacing in front of the sliding glass door which opens out to the cruddy little courtyard behind her place. A knock on her front door gets her attention. She looks through the peephole and groans. It's Butch O'Neal. She opens the door and he barges in, looking around and taking a seat. Earlier in the night, Butch responded to a report of a guy down and bleeding in an alley off Trade Street. Putting it all together, he's deduced that Beth was attacked on her way home and he's come to try and help.

Outside, in the courtyard, Wrath is in the shadows watching. When Beth opens the sliding door to let some air in, he catches her scent and is enthralled. He also recognizes that the change, her transition, is coming on fast. He overhears her and the cop talking.

When Beth finishes recounting her attack, Butch leaves her place and goes to the local emergency department. He finds her assailant, who's dressed exactly as she described, and does a hard number on young Billy Riddle. At the end of the meeting, Butch has Billy pinned on the floor of the hospital room and is rubbing the kid's nose into the linoleum. He arrests Billy.

After the cop leaves Beth's apartment, Wrath comes into her home. He terrifies her so badly, he's forced to erase the memory of him from her mind so he can try again. Early in the morning, she wakes up from what she assumes is an awful nightmare, grateful that the horrible night is finally over.

Wrath goes back to Darius's house and down into the guest chamber. He showers and shaves and then takes out a black marble slab. After pouring pebble-sized, rough cut diamonds onto the platform, he knees on the rocks naked, prepared to observe the death ritual in honor of Darius. He will sit in the position unmoving for the whole day and reflect on the proud warrior who's now gone. Before Wrath goes into his trance, he thinks of Beth and vows that not only will he protect her, he will help her through her transition.

After Butch books Billy Riddle into holding, he leaves his office, headed for his squalid apartment. On the way out, he meets up with a prostitute named Cherry Pie who's a regular overnight guest in the women's holding cell. They talk and go their separate ways. On impulse, Butch heads back to the Screamer's neighborhood and pulls up in front of another bar. A woman comes out and they drive over to the river, parking underneath the bridge over the Hudson River. While the woman is having sex with him, Butch looks out at the river, thinking how beautiful the sunlight on the water is. When she asks him if he loves her, he says, yeah, sure. He knows she doesn't care that he's lying and he feels the desperation of his life intensely.

The next scene features the
lesser
who set up the bomb under Darius's car. Mr. X is a martial arts instructor working out of an academy in town. He's decided that to win the war against the vampires, spec ops techniques should be used and he posts the details of his bombing on a secured Lessening Society website. His good mood lasts all day long. When his four o'clock Kung Fu class arrives, he's still smiling. He's about to start his students sparing when one comes in late. It's Billy Riddle. His nose is bandaged and he has to sit out the session. Mr. X lets Billy lead the class's warm-up.

Towards the end of the day, Beth goes to the police station. Butch tells her that her attacker's been sprung on bail. Butch has discovered that Billy has a juvenile record and is the son of a powerful businessman. Beth tells him that she will take the stand and testify if the plea bargaining negotiations fall through. When Butch asks her how she's doing, she deflects his concern by asking about the bombing. He counters by asking her whether she's had dinner. She tells him she's not eating with him but he dangles a detail about the bombing in front of her and walks out of the office. She ends up following him.

Across town in Darius's mansion, Wrath is getting ready to go out when Marissa materializes in his chamber. She's sensed his pain over his loss and has come to try and ease his suffering. Caught up in his drive to avenge Darius, and his need to get to Beth to talk to her about her transition, Wrath tells Marissa to go home. He goes to Beth's apartment, and while he waits in the shadows for her, he reflects on his own transition. This flashback is important to establish one of his essential internal conflicts. Prior to his transition, he was a weakling, incapable of protecting his parents when they were slaughtered by
lessers
in front of him. After the deaths of his mother and father, he struck out on his own, unable to bare the reverence with which he was held by other vampires solely by the accident of his birth and his pure blood. When he emerged from the change, his body having mutated into a tower of strength, he was on his way to becoming a warrior. But it would be a cold, hard path.

Beth comes home having found dinner with Butch to be surprisingly relaxing. She changes for bed and gets annoyed with her cat who's back to pacing and purring at the sliding door. She's about to get in bed when Wrath comes into her home. This time, he's smoking a drug which has relaxing properties, and as he exhales into the air, Beth finds that she can't run from him. Her body won't move. And then she discovers she's not all that interested in bolting. As he comes up to her, she's overwhelmed with lust for him. They end up making love and it's explosive. An important note: the drug Wrath uses has no aphrodisiac properties, it's just a relaxant and the reader knows this. I thought it would be very unattractive of him to seduce her with some kind of sex drug and take advantage of her.