Lover Mine(79)

"Look, I don't want to pressure you." Shit. Fuck. "And if you want to deny that you've had anything but complete hunky-dory in your life, I will totally accept it and move on. But I just . . . Most people would have at least flinched. Hell, even Doc Jane came in with a tread-carefully on her puss after I lost it. You, though? You just hung in there." She stared into his hard, closed face. "I looked into your eyes, John, and there was more than hypothetical understanding in them."

After a long pause, he flipped to a new page on the pad and wrote quickly. When he flashed what he'd written, she could see his point, but she wanted to curse:

Tell me what they did in the OR. Tell me what was wrong with you first.

Ah, yes, classic tit for tat.





It only took Lash about an hour to get himself, the whore, and the Mercedes from the farmhouse back to the ranch in town. He was in raw survival mode, moving fast and decisively, making only one stop on the way.

And that was at a cabin out in the woods where he picked up some mission-critical shit.

When he pulled into the ranch's garage, he waited until the door was shut before getting out and dragging the prostitute from the backseat. As he carried her squirming body in through the kitchen, he threw up a good dose of what he'd imprisoned Xhex with.

The magical barrier was not for Plastic Fantastic, however.

The Omega knew where his lessers were on this side. Could sense them as echoes of his own existence. And along those lines, slayers could tweak to their fellow members.

So the only chance Lash had at keeping hidden was to in effect imprison himself. Mr. D hadn't known that Xhex was up in that bedroom--his say-what? confusion had been obvious every time he'd been told to leave food there.

Of course, the big question was whether the masking would keep the Omega at bay. And for how long.

Lash threw the whore into the bathroom with all the care and concern he'd show toward a cheap duffel bag full of dirty laundry. As she landed hard in the tub and moaned against the duct tape over her mouth, he went back out to the car.

Unpacking took about twenty minutes and he put the shit in the basement on the concrete floor: seven sawed-off shotguns. A Hannaford plastic shopping bag full of cash. Three pounds of C4 plastic explosives. Two remote detonators. A hand grenade. Four auto loaders. Ammo. Ammo. Ammo.

As he came up the stairs and shut off the cellar light, he went to the back door, opened it, and put his hand out. The cool air of the night infiltrated the shield just fine, but his palm sensed the restriction. It was strong . . . but needed to be stronger.

Hellllllllllllo, 'hood rat.

Lash shut the door, dead-bolted it, and stalked to the bathroom.

He was all business as he took out his knife, sliced the bindings that held her wrists behind her back and--

She flailed around until he punched her in the head, knocking her out cold. Slice. Slice. Slice. He made three deep cuts in her wrists and in her neck and then sat back to watch the blood drain out of her in a sluggish ooze.

"Come on . . . bleed, bitch, bleed."

As he checked his watch, he thought maybe he should have kept her compos mentis, because that would have ensured a higher pulse rate and blood pressure. And shortened this do-nothing wait while she drained out.

Watching the process, he had no idea how dry she had to be, but the red pool beneath her was rising, her pink basque staining dark.

His foot was going a mile a minute as time droned on . . . and then he noticed that her skin was not just pale but gray and the blood wasn't really getting any higher on the walls of the tub. Calling it done, he cut open her basque, exposing a truly awful set of implants, and stabbed open her chest, the blade of his knife going right through her sternum.

The next cut he made was in his own flesh.

Holding his wrist over the gaping hole he'd made, he watched black drops free-fall into her motionless heart. Again, he wasn't sure how much he should be giving her, and tried to err on the side of overdoing it. Then it was a case of summoning energy into his palm, his will forcing air molecules to start spinning in a tornadic circle until they became a unit of kinetic power that he could control.

Lash looked down at the whore, her body all defiled, her makeup smudged on her cheeks, her ratty hair more fright wig than anything you'd expect to see on the street.

He needed this to work. Already, with nothing more than the barrier spell in place and this little fireball in his hand, he could feel his strength ebbing.

This had to fucking work.

He cast the blast into her chest cavity and her dead limbs flopped like fish tails against the sides of the tub. As the flash of light lit off and then dispersed, he waited . . . praying to--

The gasp she let out was god-awful. And also a godsend.

He was fascinated as her heart began to pump and his black blood was absorbed into the raw meat of her rib cage, the reanimation causing his cock to twitch in excitement. This was power, he thought. Fuck the shit money could buy.