The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,194

the birch trees and maples that retained few of their leaves. With quick circles of the wheel, he turned the rental around so they were facing out and waited, leaving the car running. He hated that the headlights remained aglow, but there was naught to be done about that.

The Brothers’ presence had made taking his Range Rover impossible.

“He’s late,” Ehric said a little later.

“He’ll be here.” There was too much at stake for the Forelesser not to show. “He shall not fail us.”

And sure enough, moments later, a dark shape came forward through the field, following their path. No running lights. So he knew it was the one for whom they were waiting.

“You know where to go,” he said softly as he cracked one of the back windows an inch.

Just like that, the cousins dematerialized out of the backseat … and the Forelesser arrived, coming to a stop. As usual, Assail and his business associate both put their windows down at the same time.

“Where’s your Range Rover, vampire?”

“In the shop.”

“Be fucking real. Have you been trailed?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

The slayer frowned, his dark brows falling down over his dark eyes. For a moment, Assail mourned the Old Country, where you knew the bastards not just from their stench, but because they had been in the Lessening Society long enough for their coloring to pale out. Not in the New World. No, here, in the disposable culture of American humans, the undead did not last long enough to have their pigments fade.

“ATF?” the slayer demanded. “Or CPD.”

As if during his years as a human he had often found inconvenience from those two organizations.

“By the Black Dagger Brotherhood. And the Blind King, Wrath.”

The undead threw his head back and laughed. “Whatever, my man, that’s on you.”

“No, I’m afraid that shall be on you, mate.”

Without warning, Assail lunged out of his window and stabbed the slayer in the eye, using the dagger he had discreetly placed upon his thigh. As the Forelesser screamed, Assail wrenched the blade free and slashed across the front of the throat. Gurgling sounds and copious amounts of black blood filled the interior of the slayer’s SUV, and Assail was forced to awkwardly extract his upper body or be drenched in the mess.

Ehric rematerialized with his cousin and made quick work of searching the vehicle as Assail looked around, ensuring that there were still no witnesses. As the slayer choked and clawed at the second mouth that had been made in his neck, Ehric emerged with three AKs and many rounds of ammunition. Without conversation, the weapons and lead were placed in the trunk of the Taurus, and the cousins opened both rear doors and got back into that vehicle.

Assail reached through the window and pulled one of the Fore-lesser’s arms out. Finding an unstained section of sleeve, he wiped off his dagger, reholstered the thing … and extracted a serrated hunting knife from his belt.

Quick work to sever the head completely.

He left the body where it was, behind the wheel of the SUV, its hands and feet as yet moving, the right hand even flopping up and gripping the wheel.

Going to be rather difficult to drive, considering there was no brain and no vision to direct things.

No, he had the CPU by the hair.

Walking around to the front passenger’s-side door, he opened things up and placed the still-blinking, still-mobile head into the cardboard Amazon box that had been lined with Hefty bags.

Then he went across and got back behind the wheel of the Taurus. Before the interior lights extinguished themselves, he peered over the lip of the box and met the rolling, shocked eyes.

“You were a fine partner,” Assail murmured. “Such a shame we must needs part association.”

With that, he put the sedan in drive and headed off.

SIXTY-SIX

Trez let himself fall back on his brother’s bed, his arms flopping out to the sides, his eyes focusing on the ceiling above. Goddamn it, that frickin’ curse of his was never going to stop haunting him. Here he was, trying to do right by the one female who had ever mattered to him … and that s’Hisbe shit was, as ever, a noose around his neck.

“You have been … without a female?” Selena asked. “Since…”

He lifted his head and stared across the empty bedroom at her. “Why would I have been with one? Ever since I had you? Nobody’s been of interest.”

There was a long pause. “Really?”

“Really.”

She put her hands to her face. “That is…” She shook her head.