Lover Reborn

“Of what?

He laughed with a hard edge as he hobbled forward and began inspecting the stacks. “Exactly. We got the Fade. We got Dhund. Two opposite ends that I assumed were the only choices when you die. I’m looking for any evidence that there’s another option. Damn it… yup—these are chronological, not by subject. Is it different elsewhere?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“Any index system?”

“Only by decade, I believe? I am not an expert, however.”

“Shit, it could take years to go through all this.”

“Perhaps you should speak with one of the Chosen? I know that Selena was a scribe—”

“No one needs to know about this. It’s about my Wellsie.”

The irony of that phrasing seemed lost upon him. “Wait… there is another room.”

Leading him down the center aisle, she then took him left, into what was essentially a vault. “This is the most sacred place—where the lives of the Brotherhood are kept.”

The heavy doors resisted the invasion, at least when she tried to open them. Before Tohrment’s strength, however, they yielded to reveal a tight, tall room.

“So she kept us locked away,” he said dryly as he inspected the names on the spines. “Look at these. …”

He drew out one of the volumes and cracked the spine. “Ah, Throe—father of the current Throe. Wonder what the old man would think of who his son’s in bed with.”

As he replaced the volume, she made no bones about staring at him, his brows tight in concentration, his strong yet refined fingers handling the books with care, his body leaning into the shelving.

His dark hair was thick and glossy, and cut very short. And that white stripe in front seemed shockingly out of place—until she thought of his tired, haunted eyes.

Oh, those eyes of his. Blue as the sapphires in the Treasury—and just as precious, she supposed.

He was very handsome, she realized.

Funny, the fact that he was in love with someone else made it possible for her to even assess him on that level: With him feeling as he did for his shellan, he was… safe. To the point where she no longer felt awkward that he had seen her unclothed. He would never regard her with anything sexual. That would be a violation of his love for Wellesandra.

“Is there anything else in here?” he said, bending low while balancing on the crutch. “I just see… biographies of Brothers…”

“Here, allow me to help.”

Together they went through it all, and found no reference volumes pertaining to heaven or hell. Just Brother after Brother after Brother…

“Nothing,” he muttered. “What the fuck is a library good for if you can’t find anything in it?”

“Perhaps…” Gripping the lip of a shelf, she awkwardly bent downward, tracking the names. Finally, she found what she was looking for. “We could search your own.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he appeared to gird himself. “She’d be in there, wouldn’t she.”

“She was a part of your life, and you are the subject.”

“Pull it.”

There were several devoted to him, and No’One slid the most current one out. Cracking the spine, she flipped past the lineage declaration in the front, and scanned through the various pages that were focused on his prowess in the field. When she got to what had been written last, she frowned.

“What does it say.”

In the Old Language, she read aloud the date and then the notation: “ ‘Upon this eve, he did lose his mated shellan, Wellesandra, who was with young, from the earth. Subsequently, he extricated himself from the communal society of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.’ ”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

She turned the book around so he could read for himself, but he slashed his hand through the air. “Jesus Christ, I get ruined, and that’s all they wrote.”

“Perhaps they were being respectful of your grief.” She put the book away. “Surely that is best kept private.”

He didn’t say anything further, just stood there, pitched against the crutch that kept him up on his feet, his angry eyes locked on the floor.

“Talk to me,” she said softly.

“Fucking hell.” As he rubbed his eyes, the exhaustion radiated out of him. “The only peace I have in this whole nightmare is that my Wellsie’s in the Fade with my son. That’s the one thing I can live with. When I get crazy, I tell myself she is safe, and better I go through the grief than her—better that I’m the one doing the missing down here on earth. ’Cuz, hey, the Fade is supposed to be all peace and love, right? Except then that angel comes along and starts talking about some kind of In Between—and now, suddenly, my single solace is… poof! And to top it off? I have never heard of the place and I can’t verify it—”

“I have an idea. Come with me.” When he just stared at her, she wasn’t about to take no for an answer. “Come.”

Tugging on his arm, she drew him out of the vault and back into the main part of the library. Then she went deep into the stacks, ticking down the dates of the volumes, locating the most recent ones.

“What was the day when she…” When Tohrment gave her the month and day again, she pulled out the appropriate volume.

Leafing through, she felt his looming presence above her—and was not threatened. “Here—here she is.”

“Oh… God. What.”

“It just says… yes, the same as it was noted in your volume. She was lost from the earth… wait a moment.”

Going backward, then forward, she traced the histories of the other females and males who had died on that date: So-and-so passed unto to the Fade… unto the Fade… unto the Fade.…

When No’One looked up at him again, she felt a moment of true fear. “In fact, it does not say she is there. The Fade, that is.”

“What do you mean—”

“It just says that she is lost. It does not say that she is in the Fade.”

Deep in the cold, gritty heart of Caldwell, Xcor tracked a single lesser.

Traveling over a park’s dead, scratchy grass, he moved silently behind the undead, scythe in hand, body poised for striking. This was a stray, one who had broken from the pack that he and his band of bastards had attacked earlier.

The thing was obviously injured, its black blood leaving a trail that was, as it turned out, eminently obvious.

He and his soldiers had killed all its colleagues back in the alleys; then they had taken some souvenirs upon Xcor’s command, and he had split off to find this lonesome deserter. Throe and Zypher, meanwhile, had gone back to the tattoo shop to organize the females for feeding, and the cousins had returned to base camp to tend their battle wounds.

Mayhap, if the women were dispatched with suitable alacrity, they could find another squadron of the enemy before dawn—although squadron was the wrong word. Too professional. These current recruits were nothing like the ones in the Old Country back in the heyday of the war there; fresh from their inductions, these hadn’t even paled out, and they didn’t seem to be well organized or capable of working together during an engagement. Further, their weapons were largely of the street variety: box cutters, switchblades, bats—if they had guns, the pistols were mismatched and often ill shot.

It was a cobbled-together army the strength of which appeared to be mainly in numbers. And the Brotherhood could not beat them? Such a disgrace.