It was important to feel small and insignificant when you talked to God.

Taking a deep breath, he smelled incense and lemon-scented cleaner. There was also the faded pastiche of the colognes, perfumes, and fabric softeners of everyone who had left the midnight service that had concluded about forty-five minutes ago.

He should probably head out, too. In spite of V’s shut-in proposal, Butch was allowed to go into the field tonight. He was allowed to search for lessers, and he was going to be on hand if any of the brothers or the others found any. And every time he inhaled one of those sonsofbitches down, they were one step closer the end—

Butch winced and focused on the depiction of Jesus’s downcast face. “Sorry,” he whispered to his Lord and Savior.

You shouldn’t cuss in church. Even in your head.

Taking a deep breath, he exhaled long and slow. In his mind, he pictured himself standing up. Hitting the center aisle. Going out into the narthex. Going out into the night. Going over to the R8 in the parking lot.

At which point, he would head downtown and—

The creak of the pew refocused him, and he jumped a little as he realized he was no longer alone. A nun had joined him, taking a seat about three feet away. Funny, he hadn’t noticed her walking in.

“Forgive me, Sister. Do you need me to leave?”

The nun had her head lowered, the hood of her habit falling forward so he could not see her face. “No, my son. You stay as long as you wish.”

The voice was soft and gentle, and he closed his eyes, letting the peace of the place, of his faith, of this woman who had given her life in service to the church and to God, wash over him. The resulting cleanse of his anxieties was similar to what Vishous did for him. The strengthening, too.

It made him feel like he could handle what was coming. Later tonight. Tomorrow night. Up until the last moment.

“What do you pray for, my son?” the nun asked him from under her habit.

“Peace.” Butch opened his lids and stared at the altar which was draped in red velvet. “I pray for peace. For my friends and my family.”

“You say that with a heavy heart.”

“It will not come easy, and there’s a lot on me alone. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though.”

“What is on your conscience?”

“Nothing.”

“A pure heart is a blessing. Mostly because it does not require us to tarry after services for this long.”

Butch smiled a little. “Sister, you are right.”

“So speak unto to me.”

“Are you from Italy?” He looked over and found himself wishing he could see her face. “The accent.”

“I am from a number of places.”

“I’m from Southie. Boston. In case you can’t tell from my own accent.” He exhaled again. “And I don’t know if it’s something on my conscience. It’s more like I can’t control the outcome.”

“We never can. That is why our faith is important. Do you believe, do you truly believe?”

Butch took his gold cross out from his shirt. “I truly believe.”

“Then you will never be alone. No matter where you are.”

“You’re so right, Sister.” He smiled again. “And I have my brothers.”

“Then you come from a big family?”

“Oh, yes.” He thought of Vishous. “And I can’t do . . . what I have to . . . without them.”

“So you worry about them?’

“Of course.” Butch rubbed his cross, warming the solid gold with the heat of his mortality. “My roommate in particular. I literally cannot do this without him. He is . . . well, it’s hard to explain. But without him, I can’t go on, and that is not hyperbole. He is integral to me. To my life.”

“It sounds like a close relationship.”

“He’s my very best friend. My other half, in addition to my sh—my wife. Even though that sounds weird.”

“There are many different kinds of love in a person’s life. Tell me, you say that you worry about him. Is this because of your relationship or because he is in danger himself.”

Butch opened his mouth to answer that which had seemed to be expressed as a rhetorical—and then closed things with a clap. As his mind started to connect some dots, he saw a pattern emerge that was so obvious, he should have noticed it before. Other people should have noticed it.

And somebody should have fucking—frickin’—done something about it.

Butch burst up to his feet. “Sister, I’m so sorry. I gotta—I gotta go.”

“It is all right, my child. Follow your heart, it will never steer you wrong.”

The nun turned her head and looked up at him.

Butch froze. The face that stared at him was no one face. It was a hundred female faces, the images shifting on top of each other, blurring into an optical illusion. And that wasn’t all. From beneath the black folds of the habit, a brilliant, cleansing light pooled on the floor, making the prayer stools glow.

“It’s . . . you,” Butch breathed.

“You know, you always were one of my favorites,” the entity said as the faces smiled together. “In spite of all the questions you asked me. Now go, and follow your impulses. You are correct in all of them, especially the one involving my son.”

Between one heartbeat and the next, the Scribe Virgin disappeared, but she left the glow of her goodness behind, the beneficent illumination of her presence remaining for a moment before it faded.

Left alone once again, there was the temptation to replay the interaction, mine it for more clues, bask in the fact that he had been sitting right next to the creator of the vampire race.

That of everyone, she had come to see him.

No time, though.

Shuffling out of the pew, Butch went for his phone as he hauled ass out of the sanctuary and through the narthex. The number he dialed was in his favorites. He prayed that it was answered.

One ring . . .

Two rings . . .

Three rings . . .

For fuck’s sake, Butch thought as he burst out of the cathedral’s heavy main door. V was downtown right now. Looking for lessers. And the Omega wasn’t stupid.

The evil had to know how the prophecy worked because no mortal entity, vampire or human or combination of the two, could survive taking a part of the Omega inside of itself. There had to be a way to get the evil out of a mortal, and there was.

The Omega’s nephew, Vishous, was the key. And surely this was going to dawn on V’s uncle. Any tactician would put the two and two together at some point, and the fact the Omega hadn’t done so already meant the dawn-on-Marblehead, switch of strategy, was long overdue.

“Pick up, V,” Butch muttered as he broke out into a run down the stone steps. “Pick the fuck up.”

Butch wasn’t the one who needed to be kept off the streets in safety.

His roommate was.

As Syn re-formed in the damp, cold night, he was frustrated. Twice a year, all fighters had to have physical exams down in the Brotherhood’s training center. It was a colossal waste of time. If you were upright and nothing was in a sling or a cast, or had been stitched back together within the last twenty-four hours, you needed to be out in the field. For fuck’s sake, back in the Old Country, you fought as long as your dagger hand was steady. Here? In the New World? People worried about things like biomechanics, nutrition, performance.

Such snowflake bullshit.

Especially when he had things he had to do before he could go downtown into the field.

The back end of Jo’s apartment building was quiet. Just like the front had been when he’d looked for her car, and been reassured to find it was parallel parked three spots down from the sidewalk that led to the front door. She was safe. She was indoors. She would be as such until dawn.

He had no more business here.

He’d had none as soon as he’d arrived.

Why had he come back here then—

Syn frowned as his palm found the butt of his gun and he crouched down. He was behind a commercial-grade dumpster off to the side of a small, common area terrace—so he had cover, both optically and olfactorily. And he was going to need it.

He was not alone.

Flaring his nostrils, he scented the wind that had abruptly changed directions.

About fifteen feet away, a tall, powerfully built figure in black was standing outside Jo’s bedroom window, its back to the building, its eyes trained on the glass if it were trying to see between her venetian blinds without giving its presence away. Light slicing through the slats created enough of a glow so that its goatee and temple tattoos were obvious to someone who had seen them plenty of times before.

What the fuck was Vishous doing here?

As Syn’s fangs descended and his upper lip peeled off his teeth, he had to force himself not to trade his gun for his dagger. Guns were for when there was an emergency. Daggers were for when you wanted to stare your kill in the face as you took their life from them.

And he wanted to murder the Brother. Straight up.

Hell yeah, he respected the male in the field. How could anyone in the fighting business not value Vishous’s kind of backup? The Brother was no joke with that glowing palm of his, and even better, he kept to himself except for the occasional, spot-on, sarcastic kick in the mouth he was always ready to give anyone who deserved it.

But all of that shit didn’t mean a goddamn thing when the male was lurking next to the private sanctuary of Syn’s female.

Not a goddamn thing at all—

V shoved a hand inside his leather jacket. Taking out his cell phone, he cursed and stepped away from the window. As he answered whoever was calling him, he kept his voice low, but Syn’s ears caught the syllables just fine.

“Butch, lemme call you back for fuck’s sake. I’m just checking on that half-breed to see if she’s any closer to her trans—” Vishous frowned. “Wait, what? Cop, slow down—what are you talking about?”

During the silence that followed, the Brother frowned so hard, those tattoos around his eye distorted. “You saw who? My mahmen? What the fuck.”