hand, wasn’t as bothered by the cold—one of the benefits to already having died.
Lash reversed out of the parking lot and headed off to where he stayed in town. His place was just a shithole ranch in a development full of old people—with windows that only had drapes from, like, Target to shut out his walleyed, Depends-wearing neighbors. The only advantage was that no one in the Society knew what the address was. Although he slept at the Omega’s for safety reasons, coming back to this side left him logy for a half hour or so, and he didn’t want to be caught unawares by anyone.
Thing was, sleep was a misnomer for what he needed. He didn’t so much close his eyes and snooze away; he all but passed out, which, according to Mr. D, was what happened when you were a lesser. For some reason, with his father’s blood in them they were like cell phones that couldn’t be used when they were charging.
As he thought about going back to the ranch, he got depressed and found himself driving into the wealthiest part of Caldwell instead. The streets here were as well-known to him as the lines of his own palm, and he found the stone pillars of his old house easily.
The gates were shut tight, and he couldn’t see over the tall wall that went around the property, but he knew what was inside: the grounds and the trees and the pool and the terrace…everything perfectly kept.
Shit. He wanted to live like that again. This downmarket existence with the Lessening Society felt like a cheap suit of clothes. Not him. On any level.
He put the Mercedes in park and just sat there, staring at the drive. After murdering the vampires who’d raised him and burying them in the side yard here, he’d stripped the Tudor of everything that wasn’t nailed down, the antiques being stored at various lesser houses around and outside of town. He hadn’t been back since he’d gone to pick up this car, and he assumed that through his parents’ wills, the property had passed to whatever blooded relative of theirs was left after the raids he’d performed on the aristocracy.
He doubted the estate was still in the race’s name. After all, it had been infiltrated by lessers and was therefore permanently compromised.
Lash missed the mansion, though he couldn’t have used it as HQ. Too many memories, and more to the point, it was too close to the vampire world. His plans and his accounts and the Lessening Society’s intimate details were not the kind of shit he wanted to risk falling into Brotherhood hands.
There would be a time when he met up with those warriors again, but it would be on his terms. Since he’d been murdered by that mutant defective Qhuinn, and his true father had come for him, no one but that fucker John Matthew had seen him—and even with that mute-ass idiot it had been in only a hazy way, the kind of thing that, considering they’d all seen his dead body, someone would write off as a misperception.
Lash liked making big entrances. When he came out to the vampire world, it was going to be from a position of dominance. And the first thing he was going to do was avenge his own death.
His future plans made him miss the past a little less, and as he looked up at the leafless trees getting blown around in the stiff wind, he thought of the force of nature.
And wanted to be exactly that.
As his cell phone went off, he cocked it and put it to his ear. “What.”
Mr. D’s voice was all business. “We’ve had an infiltration, suh.”
Lash’s palms squeezed the wheel hard. “Where.”
“Here.”
“Motherfucker. What did they get?”
“Jars. All three of them. That’s why we done know it was the Brothers. Doors are solid, windows, too, so no idea how they got in. Must have happened sometime in the last two nights, because we ain’t been sleeping here since Sunday.”
“Did they get into the apartment below?”
“No, that is secure.”
At least they had one thing going for them. Still, lost jars were a problem.
“Why didn’t the security alarm go off?”
“It was not engaged.”
“Jesus Christ. You’d better fucking be there when I pull up.” Lash ended the call and wrenched the steering wheel around. As he floored the Mercedes, the sedan shot toward the gates, the front bumper raking across the iron slates.
Fucking wonderful.
When he got to the apartment, he parked right by