The butler’s door from the kitchen opened, and Mr. D came in with two square packages wrapped in cellophane. The pair were each the size of a head, and Lash saw a whole lot of dollar signs as the lesser brought them over.
“I done found them in ’er quarter panels.”
Lash took out his switchblade and punctured a small hole in each. A quick lick of the white powder and he was smiling again. “Good quality. We’re going to cut the shit out of it. You know where to put it.”
Mr. D nodded and went back into the kitchen. When he returned, the other two slayers were with him, and Grady wasn’t the only one who looked beat. Lessers needed to recharge every twenty-four hours, and at last count, they had been going for, like, forty-eight straight. Even Lash, who could power up for days, was feeling drained.
Time to crash out.
Getting up from the chair, he drew on his coat. “I’m driving. Mr. D, you’re going sit in the back of the Mercedes and make sure Grady enjoys being chauffeured. You other two, take the POS.”
They all departed, leaving the Lexus in the garage with the plates off and the VIN stripped.
The trip over to the Hunterbred apartment complex didn’t take long, but Grady managed to fit a nap in. In the rearview mirror, the fucker was out like a light, his head lying back against the seat, his mouth open as he snored.
Which bordered on disrespect, really.
Lash pulled up to the apartment where Mr. D and his pair of buddies stayed, and craned around, looking back at Grady.
“Wake up, asshole.” As the guy blinked and yawned, Lash despised the weakness, and Mr. D likewise seemed unimpressed. “Rules are simple. If you try to bolt, my men will either shoot you on the spot or call the police and tell them exactly where you are. Nod your dumb-ass head if you understand what I’m saying.”
Grady nodded, although Lash had a feeling he would have done that no matter what he’d been told. Eat your own feet. Okay, sure, fine.
Lash released the locks. “Get the fuck out of my car.”
More nodding as the doors were opened and the bitter wind shot in. As he stepped free of the Mercedes, Grady huddled into his coat, that stupid fucking eagle getting its wings crowded as the human curled around himself. Mr. D, on the other hand, wasn’t as bothered by the cold-one of the benefits to already having died.
Lash reversed out of the parking lot and headed off to where he stayed in town. His place was just a shithole ranch in a development full of old people-with windows that only had drapes from, like, Target to shut out his walleyed, Depends-wearing neighbors. The only advantage was that no one in the Society knew what the address was. Although he slept at the Omega’s for safety reasons, coming back to this side left him logy for a half hour or so, and he didn’t want to be caught unawares by anyone.
Thing was, sleep was a misnomer for what he needed. He didn’t so much close his eyes and snooze away; he all but passed out, which, according to Mr. D, was what happened when you were a lesser. For some reason, with his father’s blood in them they were like cell phones that couldn’t be used when they were charging.
As he thought about going back to the ranch, he got depressed and found himself driving into the wealthiest part of Caldwell instead. The streets here were as well-known to him as the lines of his own palm, and he found the stone pillars of his old house easily.
The gates were shut tight, and he couldn’t see over the tall wall that went around the property, but he knew what was inside: the grounds and the trees and the pool and the terrace…everything perfectly kept.
Shit. He wanted to live like that again. This downmarket existence with the Lessening Society felt like a cheap suit of clothes. Not him. On any level.
He put the Mercedes in park and just sat there, staring at the drive. After murdering the vampires who’d raised him and burying them in the side yard here, he’d stripped the Tudor of everything that wasn’t nailed down, the antiques being stored at various lesser houses around and outside of town. He hadn’t been back since he’d gone to pick up this car, and he assumed that through his parents’ wills, the property had passed to whatever blooded relative of theirs was left after the raids he’d performed on the aristocracy.
He doubted the estate was still in the race’s name. After all, it had been infiltrated by lessers and was therefore permanently compromised.
Lash missed the mansion, though he couldn’t have used it as HQ. Too many memories, and more to the point, it was too close to the vampire world. His plans and his accounts and the Lessening Society’s intimate details were not the kind of shit he wanted to risk falling into Brotherhood hands.