He had been preparing himself for this terrible moment ever since he had found her outside of the Sanctuary’s cemetery, subconsciously bracing himself, trying on the grief as one would test how hot a stove burner was or how toxic a smell.
The reality was indescribably worse than he had predicted even in his most pessimistic moments.
In reality, he was just another piece of glass in the room.
Utterly shattered, beyond repair.
SIXTY-NINE
Well, now he knew what it was like to see someone you love get mowed down by a car, iAm thought as he watched his brother sob.
Trez’s emotions had put the clinic into a deep freeze, the air so cold, breath came out of everyone’s mouths in puffs and stripped whatever clothing they had on to metaphorical shreds. Glancing up, iAm noted that the three medical professionals were likewise in extremis, Manny rubbing his eyes with his thumbs, Ehlena taking a tissue out of the shirt pocket of her scrubs, Jane wiping her face with her palms.
iAm sat up on his knees and massaged his brother’s back. He wasn’t sure whether the contact was annoying or helping—more likely, it was a neither-here-nor-there that wasn’t even noticed.
Eventually, Trez took a shuddering breath and eased back.
There was a table stand within iAm’s reach, and on it, there was a stack of folded white and blue towels. Snagging one, he put it up toward his brother.
Trez was outside of any Kleenex capability at this point.
The guy scrubbed his face and took a number of deep breaths. Then he sat back in the chair he’d been using and stared ahead.
“I want to go through the preparations,” he said hoarsely.
“You got it,” iAm replied. As the medical staff gave a collective brows-up, he said to them, “I have everything he needs. I put it in the locker room a couple of days ago.”
It had been something he’d done before he’d left to go to the Territory, just in case he didn’t make it back.
Although that had been kind of stupid. If he’d been captured and held there, he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone where to find the shit.
“Is it okay for him to use this room?” iAm asked, even though it wasn’t really a request.
“Absolutely,” Jane said. “He can be assured of privacy.”
“Thank you.” iAm patted his brother’s knee. “I’ll be right back, okay. I’m going to go get the supplies.”
“Thanks, man,” Trez said dully.
iAm got to his feet, and as his knees cracked, he realized he’d spent quite a while crouched on the tile floor.
He couldn’t bear to look at Selena. It was just too damn hard.
Going over to Manny, he hugged the guy in a manly way, and then gave Jane and Ehlena something gentler.
“Thanks for taking such good care of them.”
Manny just shook his head. “Outcome would have been different if we’d been able to do that.”
“Some things…” iAm shrugged. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Heading for the door, he pushed on the panel … and frowned as paint chips came off in his hands. Jesus, the steel had warped, the fit in the frame no longer right.
Outside, there wasn’t, as the saying went, a dry eye in the house.
“What can we do?” the King asked, stepping forward and putting his palm out into thin air.
Approaching Wrath, iAm gave what was offered a shake, and then was surprised to find himself yanked in against that incredibly huge chest. For a moment, he allowed himself to sag into all the strength of the King’s body, to the point where he was quite certain Wrath was holding him up off the floor.
But then he needed to pull it together. There were practicalities that had to be dealt with.
As he stepped back, the group of Chosen in their robes registered, and he felt a special kinship to them as a sibling himself.
“Trez is going to tell you later,” he said, “but she wanted you to know she loved you so much. It was hard, at the end … she couldn’t really communicate. The love for you all was there, though.” He focused on Phury’s yellow eyes. “And you, too.”
“She was a female of great worth,” the Primale said in the Old Language. “A credit to her tradition and duties, and also an individual who mattered for her own special gifts. There is a place in the Fade open to her this night and e’ermore.”
iAm nodded, because he just couldn’t bear to think that the female’s life was just over. That one moment a person was in her body and then … poof! … she was gone as if she had never been, nothing but the translucent, ever-fading memories of others to testify she had, in fact, been born and had lived.
“I have to get something for him. In the locker room.” God, he felt like he was talking through molasses. “It’s for our way of tending to…”
He left the rest of that one just dangling in the breeze.
As he passed by Tohr, he stopped. The male was white as a sheet and shaking in his shitkickers, his dark blue eyes pools of suffering.
“I’m so sorry,” iAm found himself whispering.
“Jesus, why would you say that?” the Brother choked out.
“I don’t know. I have no idea.”
He hugged the male hard, and felt a deeper connection with him. Then he pulled back, squeezed Autumn’s shoulder, and thought, Man, it was going to be a long couple of nights for the pair of them as Tohr processed his PTSD.
The Brother knew exactly where Trez was in this moment.
Rhage was the last of the line-up, and strangely, he seemed to be in the worst shape. At least his Mary was by his side.
“It’s going to be okay,” iAm lied.
The truth was, he didn’t know what the fuck was going to happen next.
“You gotta give me something to do,” Hollywood said around his gritted teeth. “I gotta … I gotta do something.”
“You’re here. That’s enough.”
iAm embraced the guy and then kept going to the entrance to the locker room. Pushing his way inside, he stilled and just breathed for a couple of moments. Then he proceeded to the lockers immediately on the right.
There were four Nike bags in four separate units, and he took them out one after another. Strapping two on either side, he hefted the heavy weights and squeezed back out through the door.
In the tradition of the Shadows, remains were cleansed with sacred minerals and purified water over and over again while a litany of prayers was said forward and backward. Then there was a wrapping process with fragrant cloth, followed by wax that had to be melted on.
He was about to pass by Rhage again when he stopped and frowned.
Looking at the Brother, he said, “What time is it?”
Rhage checked his phone. “Five in the morning.”
“Actually, there is something you can do,” he murmured. “At nightfall.”
SEVENTY
As soon as the sun was safely under the horizon, Rhage was the first one out of the mansion. Leaving through the library’s French doors, he stalked across the empty terrace, its iron furniture having been put in storage for winter. The pool had likewise been drained and covered, the umbrellas stored away, even the flower beds and the fruit trees had been battened down for the coming snow.
It seemed appropriate. Like the compound was in mourning along with the rest of them.
At his side, a Husqvarna 460 Rancher chain saw hung from his dagger hand, all ready and waiting.
The daylight hours had been torture, the strange neutral aftermath of the death coupled with everyone having to stay indoors turning the house into zombie land.
The good news was that he was finally free and he was going to get to cut things.
Striding down to the trees at the far edge of the lawn, he penetrated the line and proceeded to the twenty-foot-tall retaining wall that ran around the compound. There was a reinforced door about twenty yards over, and he went to the thing, entered a security code on a keypad, and waited for the chunking slide that meant the internal bar had retracted.
Pushing the weight open, he stepped out and left the door wide for his brothers as well as Beth, Xhex, Payne, and all the others.
The trees beyond were mostly pines, and in the moonlight, he assessed the sizes of the trunks. He was going to avoid the old growth and stick to the young’uns.
Firing up the saw, he smelled gas and oil, and he reveled in the power as he approached a conifer that was about a foot in diameter. The blade went through the bark and into the meat of the thing like a dagger through flesh, the cut as fast and clean as a surgical strike. And as the fluffy-headed pine landed with a bounce, he moved on to the next, revving up, slicing through, monitoring the landing so no one got hurt.
In his wake, Tohr picked up the first twenty-foot-long section and dragged it off to the opening in the retaining wall. Beth was next. Z. Payne. Butch. John Matthew and Xhex. Blay and Qhuinn. On and on they went, working like an assembly line, nobody saying a word.
None of them had bothered with coats or even work gloves.
The blood that was spilled on those trunks as palms were scratched was part of their tribute.
On the autumn night air, the sweet pine pitch smelled like incense.
Rehvenge had helped him with the planning during the day. In the symphath tradition, funeral pyres had two parts: A triangular base of nine nine-foot vertical posts that was topped by a sturdy platform made of nine six-foot lengths, and an upper portion that was constructed out of ninety-six logs, of which ninety were nine feet long and six were six feet long. For the top part, each of the nine-footers was set nine zemuhs apart—which was roughly nine inches—and the succeeding layers were set across the one below perpendicularly.