Chapter SIXTY-SEVEN

As Ehlena materialized up north along with the Brothers, she couldn't get Bella out of her mind. The female had seemed strangely transparent as she'd stood in that grand, regal foyer, surrounded by males who were strapped with weapons. Her eyes had been vacant, and her cheeks pale and hollow, as if her will had been tested horribly.

But she wanted her brother back.

The nature of lying was such that its working components were always the same: The objective truth was twisted or hidden or downright overwritten with the intent to deceive. What was murkier were the motivations behind the falsifications, and Ehlena thought of what she'd done in getting those pills for Rehvenge. She had intended to do good, and although that didn't make her actions right or proper or get her out of deserving the consequences, at least she hadn't had malice in her heart. The same was true with Rehvenge's choices. They weren't right or proper, but he'd been protecting Ehlena and his sister and the other people in his life, given what the Old Law mandated and how destructive the princess was.

This was why Ehlena chose to forgive Rehvenge-and she hoped his sister would do the same.

Of course, that forgiveness didn't mean Ehlena was going to end up with the male-the stuff about Rehv being her hellren had been to make sure she went to the colony; it didn't reflect reality. Besides, who knew whether they were even going make it back to Caldwell in one piece.

Lives could be lost tonight.

Ehlena and the Brothers took form in the lee of a thick stand of pines, a protected spot chosen after Xhex had detailed the area. Up ahead, just as the female had described, was a picturesque white farmhouse with a sign that read, TAOIST MONASTICAL ORDER, EST. 1982.

On the surface, it was hard to believe anything other than jam and quilt making went on inside those pristine clapboard walls. Harder still to think that the charming place was the entry to the colony of symphaths. But there was something very wrong about the whole setup, as if a force field of dread surrounded all the come-on-in.

As Ehlena looked around, she could feel that Rehv was close, and just before Xhex spoke, she focused on an outbuilding that was about a hundred yards away from the farmhouse. There...yes, he was there.

"We'll enter through that barn," Xhex said quietly, pointing where Ehlena was drawn to. "It's the only way into the labyrinth. Like I said last night, they'll already know we're here, so when we go face-to-face, our best shot is to approach this in an ostensibly diplomatic fashion-we're merely taking back what is ours and want no bloodshed. They'll understand and respect the reasoning-before they start fighting-"

A stench of sweetness drifted over on the cold breeze.

As all heads turned, Ehlena frowned at the sight of the male who had appeared out of nowhere on the farmhouse lawn. His blond hair was slicked back from his forehead, and his eyes glowed with an odd shining blackness. As he strode toward the front porch, his gait was anger in motion, his powerful body tight, as if he were ready for battle.

"What the fuck," V breathed. "Is that Lash I'm looking at?"

"Apparently," Butch answered.

Xhex cut in. "You didn't know?"

All the Brothers stared back at her as V said, "That he was alive and a lesser? Er, that would be a hell no. And why are you not surprised?"

"I saw him a couple of weeks ago. Just assumed the Brotherhood knew."

"Ass. You. Me."

"That would be just you-"

"Cut the crap," Z hissed. "Both of you."

Everyone went back to focusing on the male, who by now had leaped up onto the porch and was banging on the door.

"I'm calling the others in," V whispered. "The lesser presence has to be neutralized before we can go in."

"Or it could create a diversion that helps us," Xhex said with a lot of duh.

"Or we could call for backup and not be idiots," V snapped.

"That would be tough for you."

"Fuck y-"

Z forced a phone into V's gloved hand. "Dial." Then he pointed at Xhex. "Stop pushing his buttons."

As V talked and Xhex shut up, daggers and guns were unsheathed, and a moment later, the others appeared.

Xhex stepped over to the Brother Tohrment. "Look, I really think we should split up. You guys take care of Lash and I'll go in for Rehv. The chaos of the fighting will split the colony's attentions. It's better this way."

There was a pause as everyone looked at Tohr. "I agree," he said. "But you don't go in alone. V and Zsadist are with you and Ehlena."

There was a collective nod and...holy shit, they were on the move, out in the open, jogging across the snow.

As Ehlena headed for the barn, the boots she'd been given crunched over the ground, her palms sweated in her gloves, and the backpack full of medical supplies she wore grabbed at her shoulders. She did not arm herself, having agreed not to draw her gun unless there was a good reason to. Made sense. You wouldn't want an amateur manning an emergency room; there was no reason to complicate the situation with her trying to pretend she was as comfortable at the trigger as Xhex and the Brothers so clearly were.

The barn was a good-size one, with a pair of front doors that slid back on well-oiled runners. Xhex didn't take the obvious way in, though, leading them around the side to a squat door instead.

Just before they filed into the lofty, empty space, Ehlena glanced back at the farmhouse.

The blond male was squared off at a circle of Brothers, the guy as calm and cool as someone at a cocktail party might be, his smug smile suggesting big trouble, in Ehlena's opinion: Only somebody with a lot of weapons at his disposal looked like that when he was confronting a wall of muscle.

"Hurry up," Xhex said.

Ehlena ducked inside and shivered, even though she was out of the wind. Man...this was all wrong. Like the farmhouse, there was something off about everything: no hay, no feed, no harness or tack. There was no horse in the stall, either. Natch.

The urge to flee choked her, and she clawed at the collar of her parka.

Zsadist put his hand on her shoulder. "It's their equivalent of mhis. Just breathe. It's an illusion that stains the very air, but what you're feeling is not real."

She swallowed and looked up into the Brother's scarred face, drawing strength from how steady he was. "Okay. Okay...I'm all right."

"Good girl."

"Over here," Xhex said as she headed for the stall and opened its two-part door.

The floor inside was concrete and marked with an odd geometric pattern.

"Open sesame." Xhex bent down and lifted what turned out to be a slab of stone, the Brothers coming forward to help her with the weight.

The staircase that was revealed was lit with a soft red glow.

"I feel like I'm walking down into a porn movie," V muttered as they took the steps with care.

"Wouldn't that require more black candles for you," Zsadist cracked.

At the bottom of the landing, they looked left and right down a corridor carved out of stone, seeing nothing but row after row of...black candles with ruby-colored flames.

"I take that back," Z said, eyeing the display.

"We start hearing chick-a-wow-wow shit," V cut in, "can I start calling you Z-packed?"

"Not if you want to keep breathing."

Ehlena turned to the right, overwhelmed by a sense of urgency. "He's down here. I can feel him."

Without waiting for the others, she took off at a jog.

Of all the miracles that could have been granted on the planet, of all the, OMG, you're alive!s, or, Thank you, Scribe Virgin, he's cured!s, the resurrection John was staring at was a total nut-buster.

Lash was standing in front of a Martha Stewart white colonial, dressed in slick clothes, looking like he was not only perfectly alive and as impressed with himself as ever, but as if he'd been turbocharged somehow: He smelled like a lesser, but as he stared down from the porch it was as if he were the Omega itself-nothing but evil power that was unimpressed by any mortal displays of strength.

"Hey, John-boy," Lash drawled. "I can't tell you how great it is to see your pansy-ass face again. Almost as good as my rebirth."

Jesus...Christ. Why couldn't Wellsie have been the recipient of this kind of gift? But no...psychotic ass-wipe with the narcissistic disorder got fingered to do the Lazarus shuffle.

The irony was that John had prayed for this. Shit, immediately after Qhuinn had sliced the guy's throat, John had prayed that somehow Lash would live through the massive blood loss. He could remember getting down onto the wet tile in the training center's shower and trying to plug up the wound with his shirt. He'd begged God, the Scribe Virgin, whoever would listen, to somehow fix the situation.

Lash's becoming the vampire equivalent of the Antichrist was not exactly what he'd been going for, however.

As snow started to ease down from the cloudy sky, some words were exchanged between Rhage and Lash, but the buzzing in John's head drowned most of them out.

What he did hear clearly was Qhuinn's voice right behind him: "Well, look at it this way. At least we get to kill him again."

Then the world exploded. Literally.

From out of nowhere, a meteor formed in Lash's palm and went flying, coming straight at John and the Brothers, a metaphysical bowling ball from hell. As it made contact, its glowing shock waves knocked all of them off their feet, a full strike.

Flat on his back with the others, John struggled to catch his breath as flakes settled softly on his cheeks and lips. The next blast was coming. Had to be.

Either that or something worse.

The roar that lit off across the landscape originated from in front of him, and at first he assumed Lash had transmogrified into some kind of five-headed horror that was going to eat them all alive.

Except...well, it was a beast, but as purple scales flashed and a barbed tail swept through the air, John was relieved. It was their Godzilla, not the Omega's: Rhage's alter ego had come out of him, and the massive dragon was good and pissed off.

Even Lash seemed a little surprised.

The dragon inhaled with a great dragging pull on the night air, and then it stretched its neck forward and let out a burst of fire that was so intense the skin on John's face tightened like shrink-wrap-even though he was well out of range.

When the flames dissipated, Lash was standing between porch supports that were singed, his clothes steaming, his body otherwise unharmed.

Great. Fucker was flame-retardant.

And ready to serve up another round of H-bomb. Like something out of a video game, he palmed up another serving of hot-and-heavy and sent the energy rolling right at the beast.

Who took it like a man. Rhage's other half stayed strong against the onslaught and gave the rest of them the break they needed to get on their feet and be ready to shoot. It was a bold, sweet move-but then again, when you could spit out a bonfire, you had to be able to stand the heat or your burps were going to immolate your ass.

John started shooting, as did the others, even though he suspected that they were going to need more than bullets to take down the new and improved Lash.

He was slipping another clip in when two carloads of lessers showed up.

Chapter SIXTY-EIGHT

Xhex was willing to follow Ehlena directionally, but she didn't feel comfortable having the female in the lead as they hotfooted along. In a burst of speed, she overtook Rehv's mate.

"You tell me if we take a wrong turn, 'kay?" As Ehlena nodded, the Brothers fell in behind her to guard against a rear ambush.

As they went down the rock corridor, Xhex didn't have a good feeling about any of this. She couldn't sense Rehv at all, which from a vampire standpoint was not surprising-Ehlena had been the last female he'd fed from, so her blood superceded Xhex's. The problem was that symphath to symphath she couldn't get a bead on him. In fact, she was unable to pinpoint where he or anyone else in the colony was. It didn't compute. Symphaths could pick up on anything with emotions, anywhere. So she should have been finding all kinds of grids.

She glanced at the wall as she hurried along. When she'd been here last, it had all been rough-cut stone, but now it had a smooth surface. Guess they'd improved things over the decades.

"The corridor is going to branch out in another hundred yards," she whispered over her shoulder. "They keep the prisoners to the left, and their quarters and common rooms are all to the right."

"How do you know?" Vishous asked.

She didn't answer the Brother. No reason to mention she'd been in one of their jail cells. She just kept going, following the rows of black candles, going deeper into the colony, closer to where its inhabitants slept and ate and played with one another's minds. And still she sensed nothing.

No, that wasn't quite true. There was a strange kind of static. At first she'd assumed it was the softly flickering red flames atop all that black wax, the subtle currents in the air fluffing the lit wicks. But no...it was something else.

When they got to the hall's three-way branch, she automatically headed to the left, but Ehlena said, "No, straight ahead."

"Doesn't make sense." Xhex stopped and kept her voice down. "That's where the HVAC rooms are."

"That's where he is."

Vishous shoved his way to the front. "Look, let's go where Ehlena says. We need to find him before the battle going on outdoors ends up down here."

As the Brother shot off, Xhex's ass was frosted that he was out in front. But short of throwing down over it, which was a waste of time, she was in the number two position and that was that.

They went at a clip, going into a network of smaller tunnels that led to the heating system and the air draw and all the blowers. The colony was built along the lines of an ant farm, a sustainable, underground living environment that had grown and expanded over time, with more offshoots burrowing deeper and deeper through the earth. The construction and the upkeep rested on the backs of the working class of symphaths, who were nothing more than slaves who were encouraged to breed so their numbers doubled over time. There was no middle class. Next up from the servants was the royal household and the aristocrats.

And never the twain would meet.

Xhex's father had been of the servant class. Which made her beneath Rehvenge, and not just because he was royal. Technically, she was one step up from dog shit.

"Stop!" Ehlena called out.

They pulled up short, facing...the stone wall.

As one, they reached forward, running their hands over the smooth surface. Zsadist and Ehlena found fissures at the same time, the nearly hidden seam forming a tall square.

"How the fuck do we get in here," Z said as he prodded the rock.

"Move back," Xhex barked.

When they were out of the way, and clearly expecting something fancy, she hauled back, slammed her shoulder against the thing, and got nothing but molars that rattled like marbles in a box.

"Fuck," she breathed with a wince.

"That had to hurt," Z muttered. "You okay-"

The wall started to vibrate and they all jumped aside, training their weapons on the door that emerged from the stone and slid out of the way.

"Guess it was scared of you," Vishous said with a hint of respect.

Xhex frowned, as the humming static suddenly increased until her ears rang. "I don't think he's in there. I can't sense him at all."

Ehlena stepped forward, clearly prepared to plunge into the darkness that was revealed. "I can. He's right-"

Three sets of hands grabbed her and held her back.

"Hold up," Xhex said, unclipping a Mag-Lite from her belt. As she hit the beam, a thin hall about fifty yards long was revealed. At the end, there was a door.

Vishous went first, and Xhex was right on his ass, with Ehlena and Z coming quickly behind.

"He's alive," Ehlena said as they came to the end of the corridor. "I can feel him!"

Xhex expected trouble at the steel panel-but no, it swung right open, revealing a room that...shimmered?

V cursed as Xhex's light sliced into the chamber. "What the...fuck?"

Hanging in the midst of a room with liquid walls and flooring was a massive cocoon shape, the black outer wrapping of which moved and glistened.

"Oh...God," Ehlena breathed. "No."

Lash had been practicing his gifts at the Omega's lair, and man, didn't all that work come in handy on a night like tonight. As the two squadrons of lessers he'd called in from the neighboring town got to work fighting with the Brothers, he faced off against a beast the size of a Ford Expedition-and traded fireballs with the motherfucker.

Jumping away from the house, because the last thing this situation needed was a visit from the Plattsburgh Fire Department, he caught sight of a splinter group of vampires heading for the outbuilding across the way. They went inside, and when he didn't see them again, he had a feeling that was the way you got into the colony.

Which meant that as nice as it was to play volleybomb with Puff the Magic, he needed to stop fighting and start going after his female. He had no clue why the hell the Brothers showed up at exactly the same time he had, but when it came to symphaths, he was willing to bet there were no coincidences. Had the princess known he was coming up here and tipped off the Brotherhood?

The dragon spat out another barrage of flames, and the blast illuminated the fighting that was going on all around the farmhouse's lawn: Everywhere he looked there were Brothers squaring off against slayers with bare knuckles swinging, and daggers flashing and shitkickers flying. The symphony of grunts and curses and pounding, cracking impacts made him feel stronger, more powerful.

His troops were fighting his teachers.

How fucking poetic was that?

But enough with the nostalgia. Concentrating on his hand, he created a whirlwind of molecules, spinning them with his mind faster and faster until the centrifugal force spontaneously combusted. As the whirling mass of energy pulled together, he kept it palmed and raced forward toward the purple-scaled beast, knowing the damn thing had to take an inhale break after it threw out its bombs.

The dragon was no dummy and crouched down, viciously clawed arms coming up to defend itself. Lash stopped just out of swiping range and didn't give the bastard a chance to pounce. He threw the energy ball right into the beast's chest, plowing it over, knocking it out cold.

He didn't hang around to roast s'mores over the smoking carcass. Sure as shit, after some deep-breathing recovery that dragon was going to pop up off the ground like the Energizer Bunny, and at the moment the coast was clear between Lash and the barn.

In a tearing rush, he raced for the outbuilding and burst into the empty, unremarkable space. In the far corner, he saw a horse stall, and he followed damp footsteps over to it. The treads disappeared into a black square.

Lifting the slab was grunt work and then some, but the sight of more prints down a set of stone steps got him juiced. Tracking them all the way to the bottom, he found himself in a stone corridor, and thanks to the red glow from black candles, he was able to follow their wet path-although his road map didn't last forever. With all the warmth being thrown off, water dried fast, and by the time he got to a three-way branch, he had no clue which way the bunch had gone.

Inhaling, he hoped to catch a scent, but all his nose picked up on was burning wax and earth.

Threre was nothing else. No sounds. No rustle of movement. It was as if the four he'd seen going down here had disappeared.

He looked left. Right. Straight ahead.

On impulse, he went to the left.