The Black Dagger Brotherhood (68 page)

“He's hurt,” Butch and I say at the same time. V glares at me. Then soothes the cop by running his hand down the male's spine.

“Meet me in our room when you're finished,” Jane says to her
hellren.
“I'm going to check you out.”

“Now, that's what I'm talking about,” V replies on a husky purr.

I follow Jane down the hall because it's starting to feel a little voyeuristic staring at V and Butch together. (I'd like to put in here, by the way, that Jane isn't bothered at all by how close the two males are, and neither is Marissa. Which shows you how secure those two females are. How secure and how well loved.)

“So Safe Place is really coming along,” Jane says as we go into the book-filled bedroom she shares with her male. The place could be a library if not for the kingsizer in the center, and the two of them are happy with it that way. They are both big readers.

“Yeah, I've heard.” I pick up the title on the bureau. It's a biochemistry textbook. Grad school level. Could be either of theirs. “You have how many females now?”

“Nine mothers, fifteen children.”

Jane starts to talk, and her enthusiasm and commitment are obvious in her animation. I let her go on, but I'm only half listening. I'm thinking back to a conversation she and I had about three months ago, in June.

It was about death. Hers. I asked her whether she was disappointed with where she'd ended up. As a ghost. Her answering smile held a lot of well-duh in it, and she said to me something I haven't been able to get out of my mind since: “Forty years as a human versus four hundred with him?” she'd murmured, shaking her head. “Yeah, I have a real hard time doing that math. Right. I mean, the tragedy gave me life with the man I love. Where's the disappointment?”

I guess I can see her point. Yes, there are some things they don't have. But Jane was very well into her thirties when the two of them met. Which means she'd have been lucky to get another two to three decades with him before the aging process really sank its teeth into her. And that's assuming she didn't get cancer or heart disease or something else god-awful that either killed her or crippled her. Also, she's already lost her sister and both her parents and, jeez . . . countless trauma patients. After all the death she's seen, I think it's kind of nice that she gets a pass on that from now on. And she doesn't have to worry about V's dance with the Reaper. She can go back and forth to the Fade. They will always be together. Always.

So she's living eternity. With the male she loves. Not a bad deal.

Plus . . . erhm, from what I understand the sex is still out of this world.

“Off with your clothes,” she says.

I look down at the black outfit I have on and wonder if I spilled anything on myself. But no, it's Vishous. He's finished with Butch.

I get out of his way as he comes in, and yeah, I look down at the floor as I hear the rustle of clothes getting removed. V laughs in a throaty way, and I smell his bonding scent. I'm willing to bet the second I leave they're going to . . .

Erhm . . . yeah.

Great, now I'm blushing.

Jane curses, and I hear a box getting flipped open. I look up. It's a first-aid kit, and after she finishes cleaning what seems like an enormous gash in Vishous's thigh, she takes out a needle and black surgical thread and a syringe I'm thinking is full of lidocaine.

Okay, I'm so looking down again for this part. I love to watch medical shows on TV, but I always have to avoid the gory sections—and as this is happening right in front of me, it seems twelve times more vivid. Or maybe twelve hundred times more so.

I hear V hiss and Jane murmur something.

Crap. I have to watch. I glance up. Jane's hands are very much solid, and she's stitching up her man with quick precision, like she's done this a million times. Vishous is staring at her, a dippy little smile on his face—

“It's not dippy,” he cuts in. “I do not have a dippy little smile on my face.”

Funny, now that he's in Jane's presence, he's softer all the way around. He's not exactly nice to me, but I don't wish I were wearing body armor anymore.

“It's kind of dippy,” I say as Jane laughs. “But I mean, sure, it's dippy in a very I'm-a-warrior-vampire-I-eat-
lessers
-for-lunch sort of way. You're straight-up gangsta. No one's going to mistake you for a lightweight.”

“Wise of them,” he says as he reaches up to Jane's hair with his glowing hand. It's kind of cool what happens. The instant the light of him hits any part of her she becomes solid, and the longer he touches her the greater the area becomes. If the two of them are cuddling on the couch—and yes, he does cuddle with her—she'll become wholly solid and stay that way for a time afterward. His energy pulls her form together.

Which is kind of romantic.

Out in the hall I hear a door open and shut and footsteps coming toward us all. I know it's Marissa because I can smell the ocean . . . and because I hear Butch start to growl with an erotic kind of welcome. Marissa pauses and pokes her head into V and Jane's room. Her hair is cut now so it's just down to her shoulder blades, and she's wearing a very nice black Chanel suit that I wish were in my closet.

The four of us talk a little, but then Butch gets impatient and calls out for his female, and Marissa smiles and leaves. She's taking off her jacket as she turns away. Probably because she knows her clothes aren't going to be on for long.

“There,” Jane says as she snips the thread. “All better.”

“I have something else that needs attention, true?”

“Oh, really? Would that be the graze on your shoulder?”

“Nope.”

As V reaches for her hand, I clear my throat and make for the door. “Glad everyone's okay. Maybe we can reschedule the interview. Yeah . . . um, take care. I'll see you later. Have a good—”

I'm saying all these things because I'm feeling awkward. Like the intruder I am. Jane replies with some nice words as V starts to pull her down to him. I shut their door.

I walk down the hall and take a last look around the Pit's living room. Change is good, I think. And not just because in this case there is less Frat and more Home to this place now. I like the change that's happened, because those two guys are settled and happy and their lives are better because of who they ended up with. And Butch and Vishous are still together.

I step out into the September night and have to wrap my arms around myself. It's cold in Caldwell; I've forgotten how upstate New York gets cold so early. I find myself hoping my rental car has heated seats.

I'm getting behind the wheel when the front door to the mansion opens and Fritz comes rushing out. He's like Tattoo from
Fantasy Island
, holding my bag up while he runs, calling through the dark, “The purse! The purse!”

I get out of the sedan. “Thanks, Fritz, I would have forgotten.”

The
doggen
bows low and says in a heartbroken tone, “I'm so sorry. So very sorry. I couldn't get the pen mark out.”

I take my bag and look at the strap. Yup, the little blue streak is still there. “It's okay, Fritz. I really appreciate your trying. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

After a little bit more soothing, and my declining the offer of a picnic basket of food, he goes back into the house. As I hear the door
thunch
shut, I stare down at my bag's defect.

The moment I first noticed the pen streak, I wanted to get a new purse. Totally. I kind of like things perfect, and I was so frustrated I'd messed up my own bag . . . its imperfection made it less in my eyes.

Now I measure the thing in the moonlight, looking at all its little dings and faults. Man . . . it's been with me for almost two years now. I've taken it to New York City to meet with my editors and my agent. On vacation to see my two best friends in Florida. It's been to signings with me in Atlanta and Chicago and Dallas. It's held my two cell phones: the one I use for my friends in the States and the one for my friends overseas. I've put in it receipts from car tows and bank deposits and dinners out with my husband and movies with my mother and my mother-in-law. It's held pictures of people I love and change I didn't want and the business cards of folks I needed to keep in touch with. It's been locked in my car during walks with my mentor and quick trips into shops for bottled water and . . .

I smile a little and toss the thing onto the front seat of the Toyota Prius I rented from Enterprise. I get in and close the door and reach for the key I'd left in the ignition.

A knock on the Prius's windshield scares the shit out of me, and I nearly dislocate my neck to look toward the sound. It's Vishous with a towel around his hips and a bandage on his shoulder. He points down like he wants me to disappear the window.

I do. A cold breeze comes in, and I hope it's just the night and not him.

V gets down on his haunches and puts his massive forearms on the side of the car. He's not making a lot of eye contact. Which gives me a chance to study the tattoos on his temple.

“She made you come out here, didn't she,” I say. “To apologize for being a prick.”

His silence means yes.

I run my hand up and over the wheel. “It's okay that you and I don't get along. I mean . . . you know. You shouldn't feel bad.”

“I don't.” There's a pause. “At least, not usually.”

Which means he actually does feel bad.

Jeez. Now I don't know what to say.

Yeah, this is awkward. Very awkward. And frankly, I'm surprised he's staying out here with me and the car. I expect him to go back to the Pit and to the two people he feels comfortable with. See, V doesn't do relating. He's a thinker, not a feeler.

As time passes, I kind of decide that his presence with me now proves that yeah, in his own way, he really does care that it's been rough between the two of us. And he wants to make amends. So do I.

“Nice bag,” he says, nodding to my purse.

I clear my throat. “It has pen on it.”

“You can't really see the mark.”

“I know it's there, though.”

“Then you need to stop thinking so much. It's a really nice bag.”

V bounces his fist against the car's panel, as a little good-bye kind of thing, and gets to his feet.

I watch him go into the Pit. Across his shoulders, cut into his skin, are the Old English letters: JANE.

I glance at my purse and think of everything it's held and everywhere it's been. And I start to see it for what it does for me, instead of what it lacks because of that imperfection.

I start the car and turn it around, being careful not to hit Rhage's purple GTO or that giant black Escalade or Phury's sleek M5 or Z's Carrera 4S. As I leave the compound's courtyard, I reach into my bag and take out my cell phone and call home. My husband doesn't pick up because he's asleep. The dog doesn't answer because he doesn't have opposable thumbs (so operating the handheld is difficult for him).

“Hi, Boat, I didn't get the interview, but I got something to write about, anyway. I'm wired, so I'm just going to drive until I get to the other side of Manhattan. Probably end up crashing in the middle of the day in Pennsylvania. Call me when you're up.”

I tell my husband I love him; then I hang up. Phone goes back in my bag. I focus on the road ahead, thinking of the Brothers. . . .

There's nothing new in that. I'm always thinking about them. I start to get stressed about Phury.

On a whim, praying to get my head to shut up, I lean forward and turn on the stereo. I start to laugh. “Dream Weaver” is on.

Cranking the music as loud as the Prius can bear, I turn the heater on full bore, put the windows down, and floor the accelerator. The Prius does what it can. It's no GTO, but the effect for me is just as good. Suddenly I'm enjoying the night, just like Mary did when she needed to get away from herself.

Racing through the darkness, hugging the curves of Route 22, I am the bird that fly, fly, flies away. And I hope this stretch between Caldwell and real life lasts forever.

If you come to one of my signings, the Q and As are the best part. I get pelted with questions about the Brothers, the books, what's coming, what's happened, Boo, the coffins, whether the
shellans
have girls' night out, how in the hell Jane works. . . . The lawyer in me loves it, and man, the readers are SMART. They don't miss a thing, and I have mad respect for them. When it comes to stuff that has already occurred in the books, I'm straightforward with my responses. When it pertains to the future of the series, though, lawyer that I am, I am careful with my words. Undoubtedly the “leaf,” as they say, slips and I'll reveal a secret or two. But most of the time I give a KEEEEEEEEEEP READDDDING, or I answer exactly what they asked—and not one word more.