As he moved through the first floor, he took cover behind doorjambs, corners, and the stairs, his boots leaving prints in the congealing puddles that had formed—and not everything was red. The Omega’s black, oily essence was all over the place, too. Then again, no one had ever accused the evil of being a nasty neat when he was turning humans into soulless vampire killers.
Coming up to what had been a pantry, he looked through into a kitchen that still had appliances from the forties—
Creak!
Darius wheeled around, and in mid-spin, threw his dagger at a hulking shape that had snuck up behind him in the shadows.
Slap!
The instant he heard a pair of palms clap together, he knew who it was. Goddamn it. He’d rather have run into a squadron of lessers—
A figure stepped out into full view, and sure enough, Darius’s dagger was caught between hands that were directly in front of the rib cage the black blade would have pierced. The scarred vampire behind the wartime parlor trick was thinner than he should have been by at least fifty pounds, but his big frame was nonetheless powerful—and he wasn’t wearing a coat or a jacket even though there was a chill in the air. Accordingly, an arsenal was on full display, the weapons that were belted and strapped on freely visible instead of hidden.
“Zsadist.”
Even though the two of them were brothers by virtue of being in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, there was no flash of recognition in the empty, shark-like black eyes staring back at him.
Then again, verticality and animation aside, the male was not in fact alive. And hadn’t been for years and years.
Darius focused on the S-shaped scar that ran down that too-lean face and distorted his mouth. Then he looked at the tattooed slave band that marked the neck like an iron collar.
“You should have announced it was you. I could have killed you—”
As the male stalked forward, Darius shifted his remaining blade from his right hand to his left, dominant grip. Just in case. But the brother merely stopped about five feet away—and dearest Virgin Scribe, those bottomless-pit eyes gleamed with menace: Of all the Brotherhood, Zsadist was the most dangerous, capable of killing at a moment’s provocation or impulse, and not because he was hungry or protecting something or doing a job.
Because he liked it.
And no one was quite sure where he drew the line when it came to friends and foes—
Footfalls on the stairs announced Vishous’s descent, and at the base of the steps, he stopped, and didn’t put his guns back in their holsters. He just stayed right there, his stare locked on what should have been backup for them, but might as well be another enemy.
“Where’s your twin,” Darius asked Zsadist.
“Right here,” came a rough reply.
Phury stepped inside the house from the front entryway, and he was as he always appeared to be: exhausted and wrung out. Also as usual, his yellow eyes were focused only on his blooded brother. Then again, Zsadist was brutally unpredictable and some things were responsibilities whether you wanted them to be or not. Whether you had the strength for them or not.
After years of being used as a blood slave, the scarred male had no conscience or morality, anything resembling either of those things having been raped and beaten out of him by his Mistress and her guards. His rescue had resulted in Phury losing part of a leg, and Zsadist falling into the salty ocean and being mutilated for life. So they were both screwed by destiny.
It was a sad state of affairs. And a deadly one.
On that note, Zsadist’s palms rotated from the vertical to the horizontal. And then he lifted the top one and presented Darius’s black dagger back to its owner—who promptly took the weapon.
His vacant stare shifted over to Vishous.
And then, without a word, like the wraith he was, he dematerialized.
Darius let out an exhale. “Jesus.”
“I have to go,” Phury muttered. “I’m not sure how he found out about this place.”
“We’ll take care of everything here.” Darius glanced at V, who nodded in return. “You just take care of your twin.”
“Would that that were possible.”
As the brother dematerialized as well, Vishous came forward, stepping around a bucket of human slop. And another. And a third.
Putting one of his guns away, he lit up a hand-rolled. “Didn’t expect Z’d be the one we needed backup against.”
“He must have caught a new slayer tonight, too.”
“Bet that interrogation got messy.”
“You’re saying yours wasn’t?”
“Touché.”
Darius kept both daggers in his hands as he went over to some discarded clothes. Riffling through the jackets and the shirts, he found no IDs, and yet he lingered over the pile. Something was ringing in the back of his head, some kind of instinct or reminder. Then again, maybe it was just residual adrenaline burping out of his endocrine system.
“We’re going to have to do something about this,” Vishous said from the kitchen’s archway.
“Well, you still believe in the prophecy. Don’t you?”
“I’m not talking about the Omega.”
Rising to his feet, Darius glanced across the induction site—and wished they could argue over something as simple as the root of all evil. “You can’t kill a member of the Brotherhood. It’s against the Old Laws.”
“This is the New World. And who’s checking anyway.”
“You just can’t. Even if it’s Zsadist.”
Those diamond eyes narrowed, the tattooed warning at the fighter’s temple distorting. “You think it’s productive for you and me to be worried about whether one of our own is going to go haywire and hurt us? We shouldn’t have to defend ourselves against a brother.”
“You kill him, you’re killing Phury, too. We lose two.”
“No, we get rid of a threat that’s a deadly distraction, and if that twin of his self-destructs in the aftermath, that’s collateral damage for the greater good. Besides, like Phury does anything but protect that sociopath?”
“There is no greater good.” Darius kicked one of the buckets, the congealing red blood sloshing up the sides. “To any of this.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it.
“Is the second floor clear?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Vishous exhaled a stream of that Turkish smoke. “The Omega had his fun and games with them on one of the mattresses. It looks like a scene from a snuff film up there.”
Glancing around, Darius felt like he was getting nowhere in life. “Time to get rid of the evidence,” he muttered.
“I don’t have any bombs on me.”
“I’ll get what we need,” he said as he dematerialized.
* * *
When Darius re-formed, it was in the back of his own property, by the detached garage. And as soon as he was fully corporeal, he intended to set out for what he’d come to get. But then he looked at the rear door.
Drawn forward, he was a moth to a flame.
Through the windows, he could see into the kitchen, and this was why he was snared: Fritz and Anne were sitting across from each other at the casual dining table, plates off to one side, fans of cards held up in front of them.