But it wasn’t exclusively a bachelor pad anymore. Lingering in the air was Marissa’s signature perfume—something Chanel?—and Doc Jane’s medical bag was on the coffee table. Those vodka deadies? Only from this afternoon and tonight, and V was going to pull a tidy-up before he crashed. And then there were the Journal of the American Medical Association and the People magazines.
Oh, and the kitchen was clean, with fresh fruit in a bowl and a refrigerator full of things other than Arby’s leftovers and soy sauce packets.
Rhage had dipped his toe into that Frigidaire pond as soon as he’d come in, snagging a half gallon of mint chocolate-chip ice cream. That was about a half hour ago, and he was feeling peckish again. Maybe it was time to head back to the main house—
As Jeezy’s “Holy Ghost” broke in, Lassiter started rapping.
Rapping.
“Why did you invite him over?” Rhage asked—just as V extended his tongue to lick one of his hand-rolleds shut. “And Jesus, when the hell did you pierce that?”
“I didn’t. He followed us across the courtyard. And a month ago.”
“Why would you do that to yourself?”
V shot an evil smile across the sofa, his lids falling low over his diamond eyes. “Jane likes it.”
Rhage went back to his newspaper. “TMI, my brother.”
“Like you wouldn’t do the same if Mary wanted it.”
“Doc Jane asked for that? Like your goatee ain’t enough shit going on with your piehole? Come on.”
All he got was another of those smiles.
“Moving on…” He focused on the horoscopes. “Okay, so what sign are you, Lassiter?”
“I’m fabulous”—the fallen angel flashed to the other side—“with the sun rising in the Kiss My Ass quadrant. And before you keep asking, I was made, not born, so I don’t have a birthday.”
“I’ll give you a funeral date,” V cut in.
“How about a shirt.” Rhage turned to the next page. “Just a shirt. Would it kill you to cover up, angel? No one needs to see that.”
Lassiter gave things a pause … and then started pulling a Channing Tatum against the table, going all Magic Mike over the goal while he moaned like he was orgasming.
V covered his eyes. “Never thought I’d pray for blindness.”
Rhage wadded up the paper and threw it at Lassiter. “Oh, come on, asshat! I wanna use that thing sometime—”
Rhage’s phone threw off a seizure, vibrating against his ass until he leaned to the side and dug it out of the back pocket of his leathers. “Yeah,” he said without looking at the number.
Trez’s voice was low. “I got an issue.”
“What’s doing?”
“Incapacitated lesser in my club. I’ve done a scrub job on my bouncers—especially the one who fought him—but this ain’t going to keep.”
Rhage got to his feet. “Be there in five.”
“Thanks, man.”
Ending the call, Rhage nodded at V. “Come on, I know we’re red-shirted, but this is not a fight situation.”
“Don’t need to ask me twice. Where are we going?”
Lassiter straightened from his grind. “Field trip!”
“No—”
“No—”
“I can be useful as well as decorative, you know.”
V started to arm himself, grimacing as he strapped on his dagger holster and slipped in a pair of sharp-and-shinies, handles down. “Doubt we’ll need a battering ram.”
“Maybe we’d get lucky.” Rhage headed for the door. “But I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“I don’t want to stay here by myself—”
“And you ain’t that decorative, angel.”
Outside, the night was all about the fall, cold, crisp September air, making Rhage’s sinuses hum and his beast surge under his skin as he walked across the courtyard to the great stone mansion’s entrance.
Man, he couldn’t wait for his Mary to get home from her work at Safe Place.
All that talk about tongues and females liking them in certain places—okay, it had only been about three sentences, but that had been more than enough—had gotten him tight.
Ten minutes, two forties, a pair of daggers, and a three-foot length of chain later, he dematerialized down to Caldwell’s meatpacking district with V, both of them re-forming across the street from Trez’s new joint. shAdoWs was located in a rehabbed warehouse, and as usual with any of the Shadow’s places, there was a line snaking down the block, humans standing like cows about to go into a feeding shed. As music bumped, flashing lights and laser beams pierced the thousands of glass panes, making the place look like a three-story-tall psychedelic trip trapped under a tin roof.