a car off its tires, Syn was aware of a horrible feeling swamping through his body, waves of sickness and death and toxic, snarling pain going through him. And then Butch looked up from the slayer and yelled something, his arms reaching out as if he were trying to save someone.
Probably Syn. But no time to think about that.
The Omega slung Syn away like he weighed nothing, and the landing was rock hard as he bounced on his pecs and his palms, just barely keeping his face from being his tarmac as he went head-first toward a brick wall. Putting his hands out, he front-bumper’d the building just before he got his skull cracked open.
After which . . . silence.
Syn tried to lifted his head, but he was curiously weak, his body lax as a damp towel. The best he could do was roll over and try to get his eyeballs to work properly—and that was how he discovered that the alley had only two people in it.
Well, three if you counted the hot mess of the slayer Butch was still straddling.
No Omega.
Before Syn could say anything or check for injuries, his own or Butch’s, he was overcome with nausea. Turning back onto his stomach, he propped his hands and threw up what he’d eaten with Jo—and then kept going until he was dry heaving and seeing stars.
Hands reached out to him. Someone talked to him—Balz, his cousin. And then there were lots of people around.
He couldn’t hear anything, though, the rushing of the blood in his ears like nothing he’d ever experienced before. And meanwhile, his heart was doing bad things in his chest, its rhythm uneven and way too strong. As his awareness zeroed in on what was going on behind his sternum, he had an image of a boulder bouncing down a rocky hillside, boom!, ba-boom!, ba-ba-boom!—and then dizziness came on him like it was a physical force with three dimensions. As the world spun so badly he keeled over onto his side, he got a terrific close-up of his cousin’s shitkicker.
From a vast distance, he watched Balthazar holler at somebody, and Syn had a thought that his cousin was a good male, in spite of the thief stuff. Sure, the bastard might have a more narrow conscience than most, but that didn’t mean—
A dark-haired guy in surgical scrubs came running over and crouched down.
Well, this was handy. It was Dr. Manny Manello, the human surgeon mated unto Payne, V’s sister.
Syn was so knocked out, he almost greeted the healer. Which was a strange impulse as he was more of a Fuck-off than Cheerio-ol’-chap kind of person. Then again, he wasn’t in his right mind at the moment, and the doctor seemed to agree, shaking his head and holding up his hands as if there was nothing he could do.
Huh, Syn thought. Looked like he might be dying.
Driven by an impulse he couldn’t deny, he forced his arm out and slapped the pavement in front of Balz’s shitkicker. The male’s face immediately came down to level.
Syn started talking. At least . . . he thought he was talking. He still couldn’t hear anything—his cousin’s ears seemed to be working okay, though. The male’s face went from worried . . . to confused . . . to shocked.
Whatever. All that mattered was . . .
From out of nowhere, the brightest light Syn had ever seen coalesced right in front of him, and even in his delirium, he knew what it was. It was the Fade, arriving to claim him, and somehow, that was the biggest surprise of all. He had assumed he would go unto Dhunhd.
Then again, having just made the acquaintance of the Omega, maybe the evil didn’t want his sorry ass—
As he was bathed in the heavenly illumination, the relief that suffused his body was so complete it was unfathomable. It was as if the sickness inside of him was erased, and in its absence? An exhausted peace and calm, like he had come to the end of a long trial.
But that had been his life. A slog that had seemed infinite on a good night, and a curse on a bad one.
Giving himself up to the death, he waited for the door he had heard about to come through the light unto him . . . the door that ancient wisdom said you opened and stepped through, finding yourself in an eternity with your loved ones. Would his mahmen be there?