The Black Dagger Brotherhood (72 page)

Read The Black Dagger Brotherhood Online

Authors: J. R. Ward

 
The Brothers keep talking, and I don't really get asked much more, which is fine. I'm struck as they banter by how much they care about one another. The razzing never cuts to the bone; even V, who's perfectly capable of cleaving someone in half verbally, sheathes his bladed tongue. As their voices bounce around the empty room, I close my eyes, thinking that I don't ever want them to go.
When I open my lids again, the Brothers are gone. I am alone in my new old house, sitting cross-legged, staring at the blank wall where seconds before I saw Wrath so very clearly. The silence is a stark, sad contrast.
I stand up and my legs are stiff as I go over to the stairs and put my hand on the rail. I have no idea how long I've been up here, and when I look back to where we all sat, I see nothing but a stretch of wall-to-wall carpet under a row of ceiling lights.
I turn off those lights as I go down the stairs, and I pause at the second-story landing. I still don't know where I'm going to write after we move in—which is causing agitation. There's a bedroom that has a great view, but it's small. . . .
I reach the first floor and turn off more lights, making a circle around all the rooms. Before I leave the dark house, I pause in the den and look through the foyer and the living room out to the sunporch—which is the other candidate for my writing place.
I'm staring across the way when a car makes the corner down below on the street. As its headlights flash up through the banks of windows on the porch, I see Zsadist standing on the tile. He points downward with his finger a couple of times.
Right. I will write out there. I lift my hand and nod my head, so he'll know the message has been received. With a flash of his yellow eyes he's gone . . . but I'm not feeling so alone, even though the house is empty.
The sunporch is going to be a great place to work, I think to myself as I walk out to my car. Just perfect.
In Memoriam
What
follows below is the last interview of Tohr and Wellsie together, which
I
conducted during the short time span between
Lover Eternal
and
Lover Awakened.
I'm reproducing it below in
Wellsie
'
s memory
and in
memory
of their unborn son.
D
ecember in Caldwell, New York, is a hunker-down kind of time. The days get dark at four in the afternoon, the snow begins to pile up as if it's in training for January's onslaughts, and the cold seeps into the very foundations and load-bearing walls of the houses.
It is in days after Thanksgiving that I come into town for more interviews with the Brothers. As usual, Fritz picks me up in Albany and drives me around in circles for two hours before taking me to the Brotherhood's mansion. Tonight's trip is even longer, but not because he's obscuring the path more: To my discredit, I pick the first storm of the season to travel through. As the butler and I go along, the snow lashes against the Mercedes' front windshield, but the doggen isn't worried, and neither am I. For one thing, the car is built like a tank. For another, as stated by Fritz, Vishous has put chains on all four tires. We chow through the thickening blanket on the roads, the sole sedan out amidst municipal plows, trucks, and SUVs.
Eventually we pull into the Brotherhood's compound and come to a stop in front of the massive stone castle they live in. As I get out of the car, snowflakes tickle my nose and land on my eyelashes, and I love it, but I'm chilled instantly. This doesn't last long, though: Fritz and I go in through the vestibule together, and the outrageously beautiful foyer warms me just by its very sight.
Doggen
rush over to me as if I'm in danger of hypothermia, bringing slippers to replace my boots, tea for my belly, and a cashmere wrap. I'm stripped of my outdoor clothes like a child, wrapped up and Earl Grey'd and marched toward the stairs.
Wrath is waiting for me in his study. . . .
(edited out)
. . . At this point, I leave Wrath's study and head down to the foyer, where Fritz is waiting for me with my parka and my snow boots. Tohr is my next interview, and the butler is going to take me to the Brother's house, as evidently he's off rotation tonight.
I'm rebundled in my nor'easter clothes and get back in the Mercedes. The partition goes up, and Fritz and I chat using the intercom that links the front and the rear of the car. The trip is about twenty minutes, and man, the Merc holds steady in all the snow.
When we stop and stay that way, I figure we're at Tohr's and I unlatch my seat belt. Fritz opens my door and I see the low-slung modern house the Brother and Wellsie and John Matthew live in. The place looks incredibly welcoming in the snow. On its roof two chimneys are gently smoking, and in front of each of the windows pools of yellow light condense on top of the thick white ground cover. On their travels from cloud to earth, flakes hit these patches of illumination and are spotlit for a brief time before they join legions of their accumulated brethren.
Wellsie opens the back door, motions me in, and Fritz escorts me over. After bowing to Wellsie, he heads back to the Mercedes, and as the car turns around in the driveway, my hostess shuts the house's door against the wind.
J.R.:
What a storm, huh?
 
Wellsie:
God, yes. Here, off with the coat. Come on.
 
I'm unwrapped again, but this time I'm so distracted by the smell coming from the kitchen that I barely notice my parka disappearing.
J.R.:
What is that? (inhaling) Mmm . . .
 
Wellsie:
(hanging up my coat and dropping a pair of L.L. Bean moccasins at my feet) Boots, off.
 
J.R.:
(kicking the boots free and putting my feet into—ahh, bliss—soft lamb's wool) It smells like ginger?
 
Wellsie:
You warm enough in just that sweater? You need another? No? All right. Just holler if you change your mind, though. (Heading into the kitchen and over to the stove.) This is for John.
 
J.R.:
(following) He's home? Were classes canceled tonight for the storm?
 
Wellsie:
(lifting lid off a pot) Yes, but he wouldn't have been able to go anyway. Let me finish this real quick and then we'll go get Tohr.
 
J.R.:
Is John okay?
 
Wellsie:
He will be. Have a seat. You want tea?
 
J.R.:
I'm fine, thank you.
 
The kitchen is all cherry and granite, with two gleaming ovens, a six-burner cooktop, and a Sub-Zero refrigerator done up to match the cabinets. Over in the windowed alcove there's a glass-and-iron table set, and I sit down in the chair closest to the stove.
Wellsie has her hair up tonight, and as she stirs the rice in the pot she looks like a supermodel in a magazine ad for luxury kitchens. Beneath the loose black turtleneck she wears her belly is a little bigger than when I saw her last, and her hand keeps going to it, rubbing slowly. She's glowing with health. Absolutely radiant.
Wellsie:
See, here's the thing with vampires. We don't get human viruses, but we have our own. And this time of year, as with human schools, the trainees trade off bugs. John came down with the aches and a sore throat last night and woke up with a fever this afternoon. Poor thing. (Shakes her head.) John is . . . a special kid. Truly special. And I love having him home with me—I just wish, tonight, it was for a different reason. (Looks up at me.) You know, it's so weird. I've been doing my own thing for a long time . . . you can't be mated to a Brother and not be really independent. But since John's started living here, the house is empty when he's not around. I can't wait to see him by the time he gets home from the training center.
 
J.R.:
I can understand that.
 
Wellsie:
(rubbing belly again) John says he's all excited for when the little one gets here—he wants to help out. I guess at the orphanage he was in, he liked to watch after the young.
 
J.R.:
You know, I have to say you look great.
 
Wellsie:
(rolls eyes) You're kind, but I'm, like, big as a house already. I have no idea what size I'm going to be right before the young comes. Still . . . it's all good. The young is moving all the time, and I feel strong. My mother . . . she did well with her children. She had three, can you believe it? Three. And that was before modern medicine for my sister and my brother. So I think I'm going to be like her. My sister did just fine. (looks back down at the pot) This is what I remind Tohr of when he wakes up in the middle of the day. (turns off stove and gets serving spoon out of drawer) Let's hope John will eat this time. He's been off his food.
 
J.R.:
Hey, what do you think of Rhage's getting mated?
 
Wellsie:
(spooning rice into bowl) Oh, my God, I love Mary. I think it's great. The whole thing. Although Tohr was getting ready to kill Hollywood. Rhage . . . doesn't take direction well. Hell, none of them do. The Brothers . . . they're like six lions. You can't really herd them all that well. Tohr's job is to try to keep them together, but it's tough . . . especially with Zsadist being the way he is.
 
J.R.:
Wrath said he's on a rampage.
 
Wellsie:
(shaking head and going to refrigerator) Bella . . . I pray for her. I pray every day. You realize it's been six weeks now? Six weeks. (comes back with a plastic container that she puts into the microwave) I can't imagine what those
lessers
. . . (clears throat, then hits buttons, little beeping sounds rising up, followed by a whirring) Well, anyway. Tohr's not even trying to talk sense into Z. No one is. It's like . . . something snapped in him with that abduction. In a way—and I know this is going to come out wrong—I wish Z'd find her body. Otherwise there's no closure, and he'll be completely insane by New Year's. And more dangerous than he already is. (microwave stops and beeps)
 
J.R.:
Do you think it's . . . I'm not sure what the word is . . . maybe astonishing that he cares as much as he does?
 
Wellsie:
(pours ginger sauce on the rice, puts the container in the dishwasher, then takes out napkin and spoon) Totally astonishing. At first it gave me hope . . . you know, that he cared about someone, something. Now? I'm even more worried. I can't see this sitch ending well. At all. Come on, let's go to John's room.
 
I follow Wellsie out of the kitchen and through a long living room that is done in a great mix of modern architectural details and antique furniture and art. At the far end we head into the wing of bedrooms. John's is the last one before the master suite that anchors the left side of the house. As we get closer, I hear . . .
J.R.:
Is that—
 
Wellsie:
Yup. Godzilla marathon. (pushes open door and says quietly) Hey. How are we doing?
 
John's bedroom is navy blue, and the bureau, headboard, and desk have a Frank Lloyd Wright feel to them, all sleek wood. In the electric glow of the television I see John in the bed on his side, his skin as pale as his white sheets, his cheeks flaming red from fever. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he's breathing through his open mouth with a slight wheeze. Tohr is right next to him, propped up against the headboard, the Brother's huge body making John look like a two-year-old. Tohr's arm is outstretched, and John is wrapped around it.
Tohr:
(nodding at me and blowing a kiss to his
shellan
) Not good. I think the fever is higher. (As he says this, across the way on the TV, Godzilla lets out a roar and starts trampling buildings . . . kind of like what the virus is doing inside of John.)
 
Wellsie:
(putting bowl down and leaning over Tohr) John?
 
John's eyes flutter open and he tries to sit up, but Wellsie puts her hands on his cheeks and murmurs to him to stay down. As she talks to John softly, Tohr leans forward and puts his head on her shoulder. He's exhausted, I realize, no doubt from staying up and worrying about John.
Looking at the three of them together, I am so happy for John, but also a little shaken. It's hard not to picture him in his decrepit studio apartment in that rat-infested building, sick and alone. The what-if's are just too disturbing. To keep my head from rattling, I focus on Tohr and Wellsie and the fact that they've made him part of a family now.
After a moment Wellsie sits down next to Tohr, who makes room for her by drawing up his legs. His free hand, the one John is not holding, goes to her belly.

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