The King(25)

Blinking slowly, he discovered that at least he could see, the ceiling above coming into clear focus first before a lineup of concerned faces registered. Xhex was right by his side, his dagger hand in between her palms, her brows down as if she’d wanted to come into the midnight of his pass-out and drag him back to her.
As half-symphath, maybe she could do that. Maybe that was the reason he’d returned so quickly? Or had he lost consciousness for hours?
Doc Jane was next to her, and on his other side were Qhuinn and Blay. Wrath was down at his feet with Beth—
The moment his sister’s presence registered, the electrical activity started up again, and as a second go-around with the nightie-nights threatened, all he could think was, Damn it, this hadn’t happened for so long.
He’d assumed this shit was over with.
Seizures had never been a problem for him until he’d met Beth for the first time—and after that there had been other episodes, always out of the blue, never with any kind of pattern he could discern. The only good news? They hadn’t ever happened during fighting and had not endangered his life—
Unbidden, his body drew upward, his torso lifting itself off the carpet sure as if there were a rope tied to his rib cage and somebody far above was hauling him up.
“John?” Xhex said. “John, lie back.”
Something welled inside his chest, some kind of cresting emotion that was both out of his reach and utterly visceral. Reaching for Beth, he willed her to take his hand—and as she crouched down and did, his mouth started moving, his lips and tongue finding unfamiliar patterns over and over again … even as no sound broke through his muteness.
“What is he trying to say?” Beth demanded. “Xhex? Blay?”
Xhex’s expression became impassible. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
John frowned and thought, Bullshit. And yet he didn’t know what it was any more than Beth did—and he certainly couldn’t seem to stop the communicating.
“John, whatever it is, it’s all right.” His sister squeezed his hand. “You’re okay.”
Looming above his shellan, Wrath’s face shifted into an implacable mask—as if he’d picked up on some vibe and didn’t like it.
Suddenly, John could feel his mouth moving in a different pattern, other things getting expressed now; although damned if he had a clue what they were. Meanwhile, Beth was frowning … so was Wrath …
And that was it.
As his brain began to short out again, his vision closed in on Beth until all he saw was her face.
For no good reason, he felt like he hadn’t seen her in a year or two. And the significance of her features, the big blue eyes, the dark lashes, the long dark hair … resonated in his chest.
Not romantically, no.
This was something else entirely—and yet just as powerful.
Too bad he couldn’t hang on to consciousness any longer to figure it out.
“We are ready.”
As Assail finished his second line of cocaine, he straightened from his granite countertop and regarded his cousins: Across the kitchen of his glass house on the Hudson River, the two of them were dressed in matte black from head to foot. Even their guns and knives didn’t catch the light.
Perfect for what he had planned.
Assail screwed the top of his vial shut and tucked the stash into his black leather jacket. “Let us go, then.”
Leading them out the back door by the garage, he was reminded of why he’d brought them over from the Old World to Caldwell: Ever prepared and never questioning.
In that regard, they were exactly like the autoloaders they carried upon their able bodies night and noon.
“We’re going south,” he ordered. “Follow my signal.”
The twins nodded at him, their perfectly identical faces composed and grim, their powerful bodies prepared to uncurl and dispatch whatever was needed for any situation. In truth, they were the only ones he trusted—and even that pledge, grounded in their communal blood, wasn’t an absolute.
As Assail pulled a black mask over his face, they did the same—and then it was time to dematerialize. Closing his eyes to concentrate, he regretted the coke. He hadn’t really needed the buzz—considering where they were going, he was amped up more than enough. Lately, however, doing the powder was akin to pulling his coat on or holstering a forty under his arm.
Rote.
Focus … focus … focus …
Intent and will coalesced a heartbeat later and his physical form fragmented into a loose association of molecules. Zeroing in on his destination, he clouded toward it, sensing his cousins traveling through the night skies with him.
In the back of his mind, he recognized that this excursion was out of character. As a businessman, life for him was calculated on the basis of ROI: everything he did was predicated on a return for the investment made. Which was why he was involved in the drug trade. Hard to have better margins than selling black-market chemical products to humans.