They were going at quite a clip, Trick Daddy's Thug Matrimony thumping like a jackhammer, when V hit the brakes. In a clearing, back about a hundred yards from the road, there was something hanging from a tree.
No, someone was in the process of hanging something from a tree. With an audience of pale-haired, black-clothed tough guys watching.
"Lessers," V muttered, easing off onto the shoulder.
Before they came to a full stop, Rhage exploded out of the car, running flat-out toward the group.
Vishous looked across the front seat. "Cop, you might want to stay - "
"Fuck you, V."
"You armed with one of mine?"
"No, I'm going out there naked." Butch grabbed a Glock out from under the seat, flipping off the semi's safety as he and Vishous jumped to the ground.
Butch had seen only two lessers before, and they freaked him out. They looked like men, they moved and talked like men, but they weren't alive. One look in their eyes and you knew the slayers were empty vessels, the soul gone somewhere else. And they stank to high heaven.
But then again, he never could stand the smell of baby powder.
Out in the clearing, the lessers assumed attack positions and reached into their jackets as Rhage covered the yards of meadow grass like a freight train. He fell upon the group in some kind of suicidal surge, no weapon drawn.
Jesus, the guy was nuts. At least one of those slayers had taken out a handgun.
Butch leveled the Glock and tracked the action, but couldn't get a clean shot. And then he realized he didn't need to play back-up.
Rhage handled the lessers by himself, all animal strength and reflexes. He was ripping some kind of martial-arts hybrid, his trench coat flaring out behind him as he kicked heads and punched torsos. He was deadly beautiful in the moonlight, his face twisted into a snarl, his big body pummeling the tar out of those lessers.
A holler lit off to the right and Butch wheeled around. V had taken down a lesser who'd tried to run, and the brother was all over the damn thing like white on rice.
Leaving the Fight Club stuff to the vampires, Butch headed over to the tree. Strung up from a thick branch was the body of another lesser. The thing had been worked over but good.
Butch loosened the rope and lowered the body, checking over his shoulder because the smacks and grunts of fighting were suddenly louder. Three more lessers had joined the fray, but he wasn't worried about his boys.
He knelt down to the slayer in front of him and started going through its pockets. He was pulling out a wallet when a gun went off with an awful popping sound. Rhage hit the ground. Flat on his back.
Butch didn't think twice. He shifted into firing position and aimed at the lesser who was about to plow another slug into Rhage. The dock's trigger never got pulled. From out of nowhere, there was a brilliant flash of white, like a nuke had gone off. Night turned to day as everything in the clearing was illuminated: the autumnal trees, the fighting, the flat space.
As the brilliance receded, someone came running at Butch. When he recognized V, he lowered the gun.
"Cop! Get in the fucking car!" The vampire was hauling ass, legs pumping like he was about to get served.
"What about Rhage - "
Butch didn't get the rest of the sentence out. V hit him like a piledriver, doing a grab and drag that ended only when they were both in the Escalade and the doors were shut.
Butch turned on the brother. "We're not leaving Rhage out there!"
A mighty roar split the night, and Butch slowly turned his head.
In the clearing he saw a creature. Some eight feet tall, it was built along the lines of a dragon, with teeth like a T- rex and a slashing pair of front claws. The thing flickered in the moonlight, its powerful body and tail covered with iridescent purple and lime-green scales.
"What the hell is that?" Butch whispered, fumbling to make sure the door was locked.
"Rhage in a really bad mood."
The monster let loose another howl and went after the lessers as though they were toys. And it... Good Lord. There wasn't going to be anything left of the slayers. Not even bones.
Butch felt himself beginning to hyperventilate.
Dimly, he heard the sound of a lighter being teed off, and he glanced across the seat. V's face caught and held the flare of yellow