Ring ... ring ... ring ...
"Fucking pick up - "
"Hello?"
Manello sounded bad. Gunshot bad. Mortal-injury bad.
"Where is my sister." Because there was no way the surgeon was like that if she were in his bed.
The pause was not good news, either. "I don't know. She left here hours ago."
"Hours?"
"What's going on?"
"Jesus Christ - " V hung up on the guy, and called her phone again. And again.
Cranking his head around, he looked out to the foyer and the door to the vestibule.
With a subtle whirring sound, the steel shutters that protected the house from the sun started to ease down into place.
Come on, Payne ... come home. Right now.
Right ...
Now ...
Jane's gentle touch snapped him back to reality. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
His first instinct was to cover it all up with a crack about Rhage's impression of Steve-O in a projectile Porta-Potty. Instead, he forced himself to be real with his mate.
"Payne is ... maybe MIA." As she gasped and reached out with her other hand, he kind of wanted to bolt. But he held his feet to the Oriental rug. "She left Manello's" - hours ago - "ah, hours ago. And now I'm just praying to a mother I despise that she comes through that door."
Jane didn't say anything further. Instead, she angled herself so she could also see the way in from the vestibule and waited with him.
Taking her hand, he realized that it was a relief not to be alone as the party raged on across the way ... and his sister still did not come home.
That vision he'd had of her on the black horse, going at a screaming tilt, came back to him in the silence of the dining room. Her dark hair was flying out behind her as the stallion's mane streaked as well, the pair on a tear ... to God only knew where.
Allegorical? he wondered. Or just the yearnings of her brother that she finally be free ... ?
Jane and he were still standing there together, staring at a door that did not open, when the sun officially rose twenty-two minutes later.
As Manny paced around his condo, he was going balls. Absolute balls. He'd meant to leave his condo shortly after Payne had, but he'd run out of gas and had ended up spending the whole night staring out ... into the night.
Too f**king empty.
He'd been just too f**king empty to move.
When the phone had rung beside him, he'd checked the number and come briefly alive. Private caller. It had to be her.
And considering his mind had been going over what he'd said to her again and again, he'd needed a second to pull things together after all that useless spinning. That speech he'd rolled out had, at the time, seemed so rational and reasonable and smart ... until he'd stared down the barrel at a future that was beyond vacant and deep into black hole.
He'd accepted the call not expecting anything male on the connection.
Much less her brother. Much less the bastard going all surprise-surprise when Payne wasn't at the condo.
While Manny marched around in circles, he stared at his phone, willing it to ring again ... willing the f**king piece of shit to go off and have it be Payne telling him she was okay. Or her brother. Anyone.
Any-cocksucking-one.
For chrissakes, Al Roker could call him with the goddamn news she was all right.
Except the dawn arrived way too soon and his phone stayed way too quiet. And like a loser, he went into his recent-calls list and tried to hit back "private caller." When all he got was a dial tone again, he wanted to throw the cell across the room, but then where would that leave him.
The impotence was a crusher. A total crusher.
He wanted to go out and ... shit, find Payne if she was lost. Or bring her the f**k back home if she was out by herself. Or -
The phone went off. Private caller.
"Thank f**k," he said as he accepted it. "Payne - "
"No."
Manny closed his eyes: Her brother sounded like hell. "Where is she."
"We don't know. And there's nothing that we can do from here - we're trapped inside." The guy exhaled like he was smoking something. "What the f**k happened before she left? I thought she'd be spending all night with you. It's cool if you two ... you know ... but why did she leave so early?"
"I told her it wasn't going to work out."
Long silence. "What the f**k are you thinking?"
Clearly if it hadn't been all bright and sunny outside, motherfucker would have been knocking on Manny's door, looking to kick some Italian ass.
"I thought that would make you happy."
"Oh, yeah. Abso - break my sister's f**king heart. I'm all for that." Another sharp exhale, like he was blowing smoke. "She's in love with you, ass**le."
Didn't that stop him in his tracks. But he got back with the program. "Listen, she and I ..."
At that point, he was supposed to explain the stuff about the results of his physical and how he was all freaked out and didn't know what the repercussions were. But the trouble was, in the hours since Payne had taken off, he'd come to realize that however true that shit was, there was a more fundamental thing going on at the core of him: He was being a little bitch. What the go-away had really been about was the fact that he was shitting in his pants because he'd actually fallen in love with a woman ... female ... whatever. Yeah, there was a tremendous overlay of metaphysical stuff he didn't understand and couldn't explain, blah, blah, blah. But at the center of it all, he felt so much for Payne that he didn't know himself anymore, and that was the terrifying part.
He'd pussied out when he'd had the chance.
But that was done now. "She and I are in love," he said clearly.
And damn him to hell, he should have had the balls to tell her. And hold her. And keep her.
"So like I said, what the f**k are you thinking."
"Excellent question."
"Jesus ... Christ."
"Listen, how can I help - I can be out in daylight, and there is nothing I won't do to get her back. Nothing." Energized by obsession, he headed for his keys. "If she isn't with you, where would she go. What about that place ... the Sanctuary?"
"Cormia and Phury went there. Nada."
"So ..." He hated thinking like this. "What about your enemies. Where are they during the day - I'll go there."
Cursing. More exhaling. Pause. Then a flicking sound and an inhale, as if the guy were lighting up another cigarette.
"You know, you shouldn't smoke," Manny heard himself say.
"Vampires don't get cancer."
"Really?"
"Yup. Okay, here's the deal. We don't have a specific locale for the Lessening Society. The slayers tend to imbed themselves in the human population in small groups so it's nearly impossible to find them without serious disturbance. The only thing ... Go to the alleys by the riverfront downtown. She might have met up with some lessers - you're going to look for evidence of a fight. There'd be black oil everywhere. Like engine oil. And it would smell sweet - like roadkill and baby powder. It's pretty f**king distinctive. Let's start with that."
"I need to be able to reach you. You need to give me your number."
"I'll text you with it. Do you have a gun? Any weapon?"
"Yeah. I do." Manny was already taking the licensed forty out of his closet. He'd been living in the city all his adult life and shit happened - so he'd learned his way around a gun about twenty years ago.
"Tell me it's bigger than a nine."
"Yup."
"Get a knife. You're going to need a stainless-steel blade."
"Roger that." He headed for the kitchen and took out the biggest, sharpest Henckels he had. "Anything else?"
"A flamethrower. Nunchakus. Throwing stars. Uzi. You want me to go on."
If only he had that kind of arsenal.
"I'm going to get her back, vampire. Mark my f**king words - I'm getting her back." He grabbed his wallet and was heading for the door when dread stopped him. "How many of them are there. Your enemies."
"An endless supply."
"Are they ... male?"
Pause. "Used to be. Before they got turned, they were human men."
A sound came out of Manny's mouth ... one that he was very sure he had never uttered before.
"Nah, she can handle herself with the hand-to-hand," her brother said in a dead tone. "She's tough like that."
"Not what I was thinking." He had to scrub his eyes. "She's a virgin."