None of his men knew the identity of his supplier, and he needed to keep it that way. He’d been where they were now—last thing he wanted was someone making a run at him.
And the fact that his wholesaler was a vampire?
Funny shit.
This week’s exchange was scheduled for ninety minutes after sundown, out near, but not too close to, the quarry. It took him a good forty-five minutes to highway-travel it to the vicinity, and then it was a case of slow-as-you-go. The road into the thousand-acre parkland was a single-laner that was as well-traveled as an abandoned goat path, and maintained about as good as a crack house. Trees and underbrush choked the shoulder, turning the thing into a tunnel, and Wetlands warning signs glowed in his headlights.
He cut the illumination about two hundred yards in. As with his suppliers, he’d had the SUV modified to operate on blackout, and his eyes took only a second to adjust.
Thank you, Omega.
The turnoff he was looking for came a quarter of a mile up on the left, and he took the dirt path even slower. In the past, when he’d been a human and he’d pulled this exchange shit, his heart had always beat fast as he rolled up on it. Now, not only didn’t he have any cardiac equipment left in his chest, but there was no getting juiced in the slightest. Thanks to his boss’s modifications to his chassis and his brain chemistry, he could handle anything that went down, with or without conventional backup like guns and ammo.
So nah, he weren’t worried. Even though nearly a million dollars was about to switch hands between two criminal elements.
When he finally got to the meeting place, his “partner’s” Range Rover was already in the squat clearing, having crushed the saplings and bushes in a K-turn so it was headed out. As he pulled up driver’s side to driver’s side, they both put their windows down.
The vampire who ran the importing side of the business was straight-up Dracula: black hair brushed back, eyes that were like the laser sight on a Glock, mouth full of fangs, vibe like he enjoyed hurting people.
His brain functioned as Mr. C’s did, however.
“Four hundred,” Mr. C said, reaching over and snagging the duffel.
As he held it out the window, the vampire took it and traded an identical one. “Four hundred.”
“Forty-eight?” Mr. C asked.
“Forty-eight. One forty-nine and forty?”
“Sundown. Ninety.”
“Sundown. Ninety.”
They put their windows up at the same time and the vampire hit the gas, heading off without any lights on.
Mr. C pulled the same efficient about-face and followed the way out; the second they came to the paved lane, the supplier went left and he went right.
No witnesses. No complications. Nothing out of sync.
For two confirmed enemies on opposite sides of the war, they got along damn good.
Abalone, son of Abalone, re-formed in front of a historic house in one of Caldwell’s wealthiest zip codes.
This was the two hundred and seventy-first night he had come unto the beautiful manse.
It was daft to count, of course, but he couldn’t help it. With his shellan having passed, and his daughter on the verge of being presented to the glymera for mating, this position of his as First Adviser to Wrath, son of Wrath, was the only anniversary he had to look forward to.
There was not a night that he did not take pride in living up to his father’s legacy of service to the throne.
Or at least that was typically the case. For the first time, however, he felt as if he were letting both his sire and his King down.
Approaching the front door, he swallowed hard and fumbled with the copper key the Brotherhood had given him nearly a year ago. As he pushed his way into the mansion, he took a deep breath and smelled Murphy Oil Soap and beeswax and lemon.
It was the scent of wealth and distinction.
The King had yet to arrive, and Abalone took out his cell and checked to make sure he hadn’t missed any callbacks. None. Those three times he had dialed Wrath and left voice mails had not resulted in any return communication from the King.
Unable to remain still, he went into the parlor on the left with its soft yellow decor, life-size painting of a French king, and the newly arranged stuffed chairs that lined the walls like it was a luxury doctor’s waiting room. Signing into his computer at the desk by the archway, he could not sit down.
Wrath had reassumed the venerable tradition of taking audiences with civilians, and what had long been a vital connection between the rulers of the Race and their citizenry had evolved into a curious mix of the old and the new. Appointments were now arranged by text and e-mail. Confirmations were sent in the same manner. Inquires were cataloged on an Excel spreadsheet that could be sorted by date, issue, family, or resolution. Old Law statutes were likewise searchable not in their ancient tome form, but as part of a database created thanks to Saxton.
The face-to-face interaction, however, remained unchanged and ancient, nothing but the subject and the King, communicating in privacy, reaffirming that important bond and strengthening the fabric of the Race.
Abalone had created, and was maintaining, the new modern record-keeping procedures, and the system was proving invaluable. With the volume of requests ever increasing, however—the number had more than quadrupled in the last three months alone—he was beginning to drown in the paperwork and the scheduling.
The delays were unacceptable, a disrespect to both Wrath and the petitioners.
Accordingly, it was becoming evident that he was going to need help. He had no idea where to find it, though.
Trust was an issue. He needed someone in whom he could place absolute faith.
The trouble was, he didn’t know where to start the search—especially as the only people he knew were aristocrats and the glymera had not only been the source of the treasonous plots that had nearly taken Wrath off the throne, they were also disenfranchised from having had their political power stripped from them.
It would be folly to assume the dissenters had magically disappeared.
And that was just one of the reasons Throe’s uninvited appearance on his doorstep at dawn had been so disquieting.
Forcing himself to focus, Abalone printed out the evening’s dockets and then went into the makeshift throne room to check that all was as it should be. It was. The space that had been previously used for dining was now where audiences with Wrath were held—but, typical of the King, everything was low-key. There were no golden seats nor ermine robes nor velvet drapes nor carpets of grand majesty. Just a number of armchairs set facing each other in front of a fireplace that threw off cheerful flames in the autumn and winter, and sported fresh flowers from the garden during the spring and summer.
The logs were already set and he went over and lit them.
The true throne, the one that Wrath’s father had sat in, and his sire before that, and his sire before that, was back at the Brotherhood’s mansion. Or at least that was what Abalone had heard. He had never been to the secret compound and had no interest in knowing its location or paying the facility a visit.
Some information was too dangerous to be worth knowing.
And in the end, that was the only reason he hadn’t kicked out his cousin halfway through the day when it became obvious that the King was unreachable.
Even if Throe o’ertook Abalone? The male would learn nothing of consequence, nothing that could harm Wrath or the Brotherhood. This location was guarded by Brothers whenever Wrath was on the premises, and the Brother Vishous had insisted on installing bulletproof glass, flame-retardant siding, steel mesh around the dining room and kitchen, and other security measures that Abalone couldn’t begin to guess at.
This residence was now as fortified as Fort Knox.
He was not afraid of the Band of Bastards here. Or the Lessening Society.
Besides, Throe had merely retired to a guest room and slept as if recovering from a vital injury. As aggression went, he had been no more trouble than any other guest could have been.
Yet.
As minutes continued to pass, Abalone paced around the audience room—
“You all right?”
Abalone wheeled around so fast, his Bally loafers squeaked on the polished floor. “My lord…!”
Wrath had somehow managed to make it not just into the house, but into the very room, without making a sound—and not for the first time, Abalone found himself in awe of the male. The King was nearly seven feet tall, and so broadly muscled, his warrior nature was a physical presence that made one want to put one’s hands over one’s head and submit just to get that out of the way. With his black hair falling from a widow’s peak down to his hips, and black wraparounds hiding his blind eyes from everyone but his beloved Queen, he was both aristocratically handsome and brutally overbearing. And then there were the tangible representations of his exalted station: the black diamond ring on the middle finger of his dagger hand, and the dense tattoos of his lineage that ran up his inner forearms.
The male was always a bit of a shock, no matter how many hours Abalone spent in his presence. But that seemed especially true on a night like tonight.
The King bent down and released his Seeing Eye dog, George, from his halter, and then he looked over his shoulder. “Butch? Give me a minute in here, will ya?”
“You got it.”
The Brother with the Boston accent pulled closed the sliding doors, and as the panels locked into place, Abalone could honestly say that he never thought he himself would seek an audience with his ruler.