Lover Revealed

and he was even starting to like Marissa a little. It just hurt to be around them.

The thing was… although it was totally inappropriate and creeped him out, he thought of Butch as… his. He'd brought that man into the world. He'd lived with him for months. He'd gone out to get the guy after the lessers had done their business all over him. And he'd healed him.

And it had been his hands that had turned him.

With a curse, Vishous weaved his way over to the four-foot-high wall that ran all the way around the penthouse's terrace. The Goose bottle made a little scraping noise as he put it down, and he swayed as he brought his glass up to his mouth. Oh… wait, he needed another refill. He palmed the vodka and spilled a little as he poured. Again with the quiet scraping noise as he set the Goose back on the ledge.

He drank the stuff down, then bent over and looked at the street thirty floors below. Vertigo grabbed him by the head and shook him until the world spun and from out of the twirling mess, he found the term for his particular brand of suffering. He was brokenhearted.

Shit… what a mess.

With a total absence of mirth, he laughed at himself, the hard sound getting sucked away by the gusting, bitter March wind.

He put a bare foot up on the cold stone. As he reached out to steady himself, he glanced down at his ungloved hand. And froze with terror.

'Oh… Jesus… no…'

Mr. X stared at Van. Then shook his head slowly. 'What did you say?'

The two of them were standing in a wedge of shadow at the corner of Commerce and Fourth Street, and Mr. X was very glad they were alone. Because he couldn't believe what he was hearing and didn't want to look too stunned in front of any of the others.

Van shrugged. 'He's a vampire. Looked like one. Acted like one. And recognized me immediately, although how he saw me I have no idea. But the slayer he took out? See, that was the weird thing. The guy just… vaporized. Not at all like what happens when you stab one of us. And the blond Brother was totally shocked. So does any of this kind of thing happen often?'

None of it happened often. Especially the part about a guy who had been a human but now apparently had fangs. That shit just went against nature, and so did the inhalation routine.

'And they just let you go?' Mr. X said.

'The blond was all worried about his buddy.'

Loyalty. Christ. Always loyalty with those Brothers. 'Did you notice anything about O'Neal? Other than that he seemed to have gone through the change?'

Maybe Van was just mistaken—

'Um… his hand was fucked up. Something's wrong with it.'

Mr. X felt a tingle go through him, like his body was a bell that had been struck. He kept his voice deliberately calm. 'What exactly was wrong?'

Van brought up his hand and curled the pinkie in tight to the palm. 'It's kind of bent like this. The little finger's all stiff and curled up, like he can't move it.'

'Which hand?'

'Ah… the right. Yeah, the right one.'

In a daze, Mr. X leaned back against the side of the Valurite Dry Cleaners building. And the prophecy came to him:

There shall be one to bring the end before the master,

a fighter of modern time found in the seventh of the

twenty-first,

and he shall be known in the numbers he bears:

One more than the compass he apperceives,

Though mere four points to make at his right,

Three lives has he,

Two scores on his fore,

and with a single black eye, in one well will he be

birthed and die.

Mr. X's skin tightened all over. Shit. Shit.

If O'Neal could sense lessers, maybe that was the one more than the compass he apperceived. And the hand thing fit if he couldn't point using his pinkie. But what about the extra scar—wait… the entryway where the Omega had put a part of himself into O'Neal… including his belly button that would be two scores. And maybe the black mark that had been left behind was the eye the Scrolls had mentioned. As for the born and die, O'Neal had been birthed in Caldwell as a vampire and would probably find his death here at some point, too.

The equation added up, but the real kicker was not the math. It was that no one, but no one, had ever heard of a lesser being offed like that.

Mr. X focused on Van, realization sliding into place and realigning everything. 'You are not the one.'

'You should have left me,' Butch said as he and Rhage pulled up outside of V's building. 'Left me and gone after that other lesser.'

'Yeah, right. You were looking like roadkill, and there were more slayers on the way, I guarantee it.' Rhage shook his head as they both got out. 'You want me to walk you up? You're still sporting that special dead-squirrel glow.'

'Yeah, whatever. Go back out and fight those fuckers.'

'I love it when you get all hard-core on me.' Rhage smiled a little, then grew serious. 'Listen, about what hap—'

'That's why I'm going to talk to V.'

'Good. V knows everything.' Rhage put the Escalade's keys in Butch's hand and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder. 'Call me if you need me.'

After the brother disappeared into thin air, Butch went into the lobby, waved at the security guard, and grabbed an elevator. The ride up the building took forever and he passed the time feeling the evil in his veins. His blood was black again. He knew it. And he fucking reeked of baby powder.

When he stepped out, feeling like a leper, he heard music thumping. Ludacris's Chicken N Beer was all over the place.

He pounded on the door. 'V?'

No answer. Hell. He'd already barged in on the brother once—

For some reason, the door clicked and eased open half an inch. Butch pushed it wider, every cop instinct in him screaming while the rap grew louder.

'Vishous?' As he stepped inside, a cold breeze shot through the penthouse, barrelling in through an open sliding glass door. 'Yo… V?'

Butch glanced at the bar. There were two empty bottles of Goose and three caps on the marble counter. Binge time.

Heading for the terrace, he expected to find V passed out on a lounger.

Instead, Butch walked into a whole lot of heaven-help-us: Vishous was up on the wall that ran around the building, naked, swaying in the wind and… glowing all over.

'Jesus Christ… V.'

The brother wheeled around, then stretched his radiant arms wide. With a crazed smile, he slowly turned in a circle. 'Nice, huh? It's all over me.' He lifted a bottle of Goose to his lips and swallowed good and hard. 'Hey, do you think they'll want to tie me down and tattoo every inch of my skin now?'

Butch slowly crossed the terrace. 'V, man… how 'bout we get you down from there?'