insulin. A steady stream of both helped keep him level, but they didn't always do the trick. And when he lost it, things got nasty for everyone, himself included.
God, he was tired of being stuck inside his body, managing its demands, trying not to fall into a brutal oblivion. Sure, his stunner of a face and the strength were all fine and good. But he would have traded both to a scrawny, ugly mo'fo, if it would have gotten him some peace. Hell, he couldn't even remember what serenity was like. He couldn't even remember who he was.
The disintegration of himself had started up pretty quick. After only a couple of years into the curse, he'd stopped hoping for any true relief and simply tried to get by without hurting anyone. That was when he'd started to die on the inside, and now, over a hundred years later, he was mostly numb, nothing more than glossy window dressing and empty charm.
On every level that counted, he'd given up trying to pretend he was anything but a menace. Because the truth was, no one was safe when he was around. And that was what really killed him, even more than the physical stuff he had to go through when the curse came out of him. He lived in fear of hurting one of his brothers. And, as of about a month ago, Butch.
Rhage walked around the SUV and looked through the windshield at the human male. God, who'd have thought he'd ever be tight with a Homo sapiens?
'We going to see you later, cop?'
Butch shrugged. 'Don't know.'
'Good luck, man.'
'It'll be what it is.'
Rhage swore softly as the Escalade took off and he and Vishous walked across the parking lot.
'Who is she, V? One of us?'
'Marissa.'
'
'I don't ride him about it. And neither should you.'
'Aren't you curious?'
V didn't reply as they came up to the bar's front entrance. 'Oh, right. You already know, don't you?' Rhage said. 'You know what's going to happen.'
V merely lifted his shoulders and reached for the door. Rhage planted his hand on the wood, stopping him. 'Hey, V, you ever dream of me? You ever see my future?'
Vishous swiveled his head around. In the neon glow of a Coors sign, his left eye, the one with the tattoos around it, went all black. The pupil just expanded until it ate up the iris and the white part, until there was nothing but a hole.
It was like staring into infinity. Or maybe into the Fade as you died.
'Do you really want to know?' the brother said.
Rhage let his hand drop to his side. 'Only one thing I care about. Am I going to live long enough to get away from my curse? You know, find a slice of calm?'
The door flew open and a drunken man lurched out like a truck with a broken axle. The guy headed for the bushes, threw up, and then lay facedown on the asphalt.
Death was one sure way to find peace, Rhage thought. And everyone died. Even vampires. Eventually.
He didn't meet his brother's eyes again. 'Scratch it, V. I don't want to know.'
He'd been cursed once already and still had another ninety-one years before he was free. Ninety-one years, eight months, four days until his punishment was over and the beast would no longer be a part of him. Why should he volunteer for a cosmic whammy like knowing he wouldn't live long enough to be free of the damn thing?
'Rhage.'
'What?'
'I'll tell you this. Your destiny's coming for you. And she's coming soon.'
Rhage laughed. 'Oh, yeah? What's the female like? I prefer them—'
'She's a virgin.'
A chill shot down Rhage's spine and nailed him in the ass. 'You're kidding, right?'
'Look in my eye. Do you think I'm jerking you off?'
V paused for a moment and then opened the door, releasing the smell of beer and human bodies along with the pulse of an old Guns N' Roses song.
As they went inside, Rhage muttered, 'You're some freaky shit, my brother. You really are.'
CHAPTER 3
Pavlov had a point, Mary thought while she drove downtown. Her panic reaction to the message from Dr. Delia Croce's office was a trained one, not something logical. 'Further tests' could be a lot of things. Just because she associated any kind of news from a physician with catastrophe didn't mean she could see into the future. She had no idea what, if anything, was wrong. After all, she'd been in remission for close to two years and she felt well enough. Sure, she got tired, but who didn't? Her job and volunteer work kept her busy.
First thing in the morning she'd call for the appointment. For now she was just going to work the beginning of Bill's shift at the suicide hotline.
As the anxiety backed off a little, she took a deep breath. The next twenty-four hours were going to be an endurance test, with her nerves turning her body into a trampoline and her mind into a whirlpool. The trick was waiting through the panic phases and then shoring up her strength when the fear lightened up.
She parked the Civic in an open lot on Tenth Street and walked quickly toward a worn-out six-story building. This was the dingy part of town, the residue of an effort back in the seventies to professionalize a nine-square-block area of what was then a 'bad neighborhood.' The optimism hadn't worked, and now boarded-up office space mixed with low-rent housing.
She paused at the entrance and waved to the two cops passing by in a patrol car.
The headquarters of the Suicide Prevention Hotline were on the second floor in the front, and she glanced up at the glowing windows. Her first contact with the nonprofit had been as a caller. Three years later, she manned a phone every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. She also covered holidays and relieved people when they needed it.
No one knew she'd ever dialed in. No one knew she'd had leukemia. And if she had to go back to war with her blood, she was going to keep that to herself as well.
Having watched her mother die, she didn't want anyone standing over her bed weeping. She already knew the impotent rage that came when saving grace didn't heel on command. She had no interest in a replay of the theatrics while she was fighting for breath and swimming in a sea of failing organs.
Mary heard a shuffle over to the left and caught a flash of movement, as if someone had ducked out of sight behind the building. Snapping to attention, she punched a code into a lock, went inside, and climbed the stairs. When she got to the second floor, she buzzed the intercom for entrance into the hotline's offices.
As she walked past the reception desk, she waved to the executive director, Rhonda Knute, who was on the phone. Then she nodded to Nan, Stuart, and Lola, who were on deck tonight, and settled into a vacant cubicle. After making sure she had plenty of intake forms, a couple of pens, and the hotline's intervention reference book, she took a bottle of water out of her purse.
Almost immediately one of her phone lines rang, and she checked the screen for caller ID. She knew the number. And the police had told her it was a pay phone. Downtown.
It was her caller.
The phone rang a second time and she picked up, following the hotline's script 'Suicide Prevention Hotline, this is Mary. How may I help you?'
Silence. Not even breathing.
Dimly, she heard the hum of a car engine flare and then fade in the background. According to the police's
