finished
with the slayer he had fought with, done his special business, and now he would do it again.
The cop looked both motivated and in pain as he sank to his knees, planted his hands on either
side of the lesser's pasty face, and leaned down. Opening his mouth, he positioned himself above
the slayer's lips and began a long, slow inhale.
The lesser's eyes flared as a black mist rose out of its body and was sucked into Butch's lungs.
There was no break in the inhale, no pause in the draw, just a steady stream of evil passing out of
one vessel and into another. In the end, their enemy became nothing but gray ash, its body
collapsing, then fragmenting into a fine dust that was carried away by the cold wind.
Butch sagged, then gave out altogether, falling to his side onto the alley's slushy road. Phury
went over and reached his hand-
«Don't touch me.» Butch's voice was a mere wheeze. «I'll make you sick.»
«Let me-«
«No!» Butch shoved at the ground, pushing himself up. «Just gimme a minute.»
Phury stood over the cop, guarding him and keeping an eye on the alley in case more came.
«You want to go home? I'll go look for V.»
«Fuck, no.» The cop's hazel eyes lifted. «He's mine. I'm going to find him.»
«Are you sure?»
Butch got up onto his feet, and though his body waved like a flag, he was nothing but green
light. «Let's go.»
As Phury fell into step with the guy and the two of them went down Trade Street, he didn't like
the look on Butch's face. The cop had the loose-goose expression of someone whose blender was
on frappe, but it didn't seem like he was going to quit unless he fell over.
And as the two of them scoured the urban armpit of Caldwell and came up with jack shit, the no-
V situation clearly made Butch even sicker.
They were on the very fringes of downtown, all the way out by Redd Avenue, when Phury
stopped. «We should turn back. I doubt he'd come out this far.»
Butch stopped. Looked around. In a dull voice he said, «Hey, check it. This is Beth's old
apartment building.»
«We need to double back.»
The cop shook his head and rubbed his chest. «We've got to keep going.»
«Not saying we stop looking. But why would he be this far out? We're on the edge of residential
land. Too many eyes for a fight, so he wouldn't come here looking for one.»
«Phury, man, what if he got jacked? We haven't seen another lesser out tonight. What if
something big went down, like they bagged him?»
«If he was conscious, that would be highly unlikely, given that hand of his. Helluva weapon,
even if he got stripped of his daggers.»
«What if he was knocked out?»
Before Phury could respond, the Channel Six News-Leader van tore by at a dead run. Two
streets down its brakelights flared and the thing hung a louie.
All Phury could think was, Shit. News vans didn't show up in a rush like that because some old
lady's cat was in a tree. Still, maybe it was just human shit, like a gang-related lead shower.
Trouble was, some horrible, crushing prescience told Phury that wasn't the case, so when Butch
started walking in that direction, he went along. No words were spoken, which meant the cop
was probably thinking exactly what he was: Please, God, let it be someone else's tragedy, not
ours.
When they came up to where the TV van was parked, there was your typical crime convention,
with two Caldwell Police Department cruisers parked at the entrance to Twentieth Avenue's
dead-end alley. As a reporter stood spotlit and addressing a camera, men in uniform walked
around within a circle of yellow tape, and kibitzers huddled together, drama-feeding and
yakking.
The gust of wind barreling down the alley carried the smell of V's blood as well as the sweet
baby-powder stench of lessers.
«Oh, God…» Butch's anguish rolled out into the cold night air, adding a sharp, shellaclike tang to
the mix.
The cop lurched forward toward the tape, but Phury grabbed the guy's arm to stop him-only to
blanch. The evil in Butch was so palpable, it shot up Phury's arm and landed in his gut, making
his stomach roll.
He held on to his friend anyway.
«You stay the fuck back. You probably worked with some of those badges.» When the cop
opened his mouth, Phury talked right over him. «Pop your collar, pull your brim, and hold tight.»
Butch tugged on his Red Sox hat and tucked his jaw in. «If he's dead-«
«Shut up and worry about keeping yourself on your feet.» Which was going to be a challenge,
because Butch was