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When Mr X caa on the other side, he felt like he had heartburn Which seeical, as he&039;d been fed his own ass

The s He wanted ress, iven, he would always be unsatisfied Maybe that was his curse

Whatever The calculus of Mr X&039;s failure was up on the blackboard, the mathematical equation of his destruction outlined in chalk The unknown in the algebra was tiot recalled for eternity?

Things needed to et on board and in place ASAP

Mr X went over to his laptop and fired the Dell up Sitting down next to the dried brown stain of a blood pool, he called up the Scrolls and found the relevant passage The lines of the prophecy cal the end before the hter of modern time found in the seventh of the

twenty-first,

and he shall be known in the numbers he bears: One h ht, Three lives has he,

Two scores on his fore,

and with a single black eye, in one ill he be birthed and die

Mr X eased back against the wall, cracked his neck, and looked around The stinky remnants of the meth lab, the filth in the place, the air of bad deeds done without remorse were like a party he didn&039;t want to be at but couldn&039;t leave Just like the Lessening Society

Except it was going to be okay At least he&039;d spotted the lesser exit

God, it had been so weird how he&039;d found Van Dean X had gone to the ulti brawls to troll for new recruits and Van had i special about hi that elevated hiuy ht he&039;d spotted an important addition to the Society until he&039;d noticed thein anyone with a physical defect

But the ht, the more clear it was that an absent pinkie was no liability at all Then a&039; couple nights later he saw the tattoo Van always fought with a T-shirt on, but at one point the thing got shoved up around his pecs On his back, in black ink, an eye stared out from between his shoulder blades

That had been what sent Mr X into the Scrolls The prophecy was buried deep in the text of the Lessening Society&039;s handbook, an all-but-forgotten paragraph in the midst of the rules of induction Fortunately, when Mr X had becoes thoroughly enough to re was there

As with the rest of the Scrolls, which had been translated into English in the 1930s, the wording of the prophecy was abstract But if you were ht hand, then you had only four points to make "Three lives" was childhood, adulthood, and then life in the Society And according to the fight crowd, Van was horown, born in the city of Caldwell, which was also known as the Well

But there was more The man&039;s instincts were twitchy as hell All you had to do atch hi to know that north, south, east, and ere only part of what he was sensing He had a rare talent for anticipating the way his opponent was going to ift that set him apart

The clincher, however, was the appendix removal The word score could be construed in a variety of ways, but it very conceivably referred to scarring And everyone had a belly button, so if you&039;d had your appendix removed as well, you&039;d have two scars on your "fore," wouldn&039;t you?

Plus it was the right year to find him

Mr X reached for his cell phone and called one of his subordinates

As the line rang, he are that he needed Van Dean, that ered bastard, more than anyone he&039;d met in his life Or after his death

When Marissa ray mansion, she put her hand up to her throat and tilted her head back God, so ather the load And solike bars And then there was the twenty-foot-high retaining wall that wrapped around the courtyard and the grounds And the security caates

So secure, So cold

The place was precisely as she&039;d expected it to be, a fortress not a home And it was surrounded by a buffer of what in the Old Country was called mhis so that unless you were supposed to be here, your brain couldn&039;t process the location well enough for you to find your way around Hell, the only reason she&039;d made it to the Brotherhood&039;s compound was because Wrath was inside After three hundred years of living off his pure blood, she had so much of hih the mhis

As she faced thestalked, and she looked over her shoulder In the east, the light of day was gathering momentum, and the radiance made her eyes burn She was almost out of time

Hand still on her throat, she walked up to a pair of massive brass doors There was no doorbell or knocker, so she tried one side It opened, which was a shock¡ªat least until she stood in the vestibule Ah, here here you were screened

She put her face in front of a caone off when she&039;d breached the first door, so someone would either come and let her in or refuse her In which case she was on to her second choice At a dead run

Rehvenge was the only other person she could have turned to, but he was complicated His lyhly offended by Marissa&039;s presence

With a prayer to the Scribe Virgin, she s, but she&039;d assumed that Wrath wouldn&039;t turn her away this close to dawn For all she&039;d endured with hiured he could spare her one day under the cover of his roof And he was a male of honor

At least Butch didn&039;t live with the Brotherhood as far as she knew He&039;d stayed at another place souessed he still had it Hoped he did

The heavy wooden doors ahead of her opened, and Fritz, the butler, seeen bowed low "Are you expected?"

"No, I&039;ot "I, ah¡ª"

"Fritz, who is it?" caot closer, Marissa clasped her hands together and lowered her head

Oh, Lord Beth, the queen It would have been so much better to see Wrath first And now she could only assu to work out

Surely her e? God, did she even have time to dial?

The doors creaked open even wider "Who is Marissa!"

Marissa kept her eyes on the floor and curtsied, as was custom "My queen"

"Fritz, will you excuse us?" A moment later Beth said, "Would you like to coh the door She had a peripheral sense of incredible color and warmth, but she couldn&039;t lift her head to take it all in

"How did you find us?" Beth asked

"Your hellren&039;s blood lingers within me I I have come to him for a favor I would speak to Wrath, if it would not offend?"

Marissa was shocked when her hand was grasped "What&039;s happened?"

When she lifted her eyes to the queen, she nearly gasped Beth was so genuinely concerned, so worried To be greeted with any kind of warhts ht be tempted to kick her out

"Marissa, talk to me"

Where to start "I ao I have been cast out I am¡ª"

"Wait, slon Just slon What happened?"

Marissa took a deep breath and gave a condensed version of the story, one that avoided any mention of Butch The words ran out of her like dirty water, spilling onto the brilliantthe beauty beneath her feet The sha her throat

"So you will stay with us," Beth pronounced when it was over

"Just the one night"

"For however long you want" Beth squeezed Marissa&039;s hand "However Long"

As Marissa shut her eyes and tried not to break down, she beca carpeted stairs

Then Wrath&039;s deep voice filled the cavernous three-story foyer "What the hell&039;s going on?"

"Marissa isin with us"

While Marissa dropped into another curtsy, she was totally stripped of her pride, as vulnerable as if she were naked To have nothing and throw yourself on the e kind of terror

"Marissa, look at me"

Wrath&039;s hard tone was utterly familiar, the one he&039;d always used with her, the one that had e for three centuries In desperation, she eyed the open door to the vestibule even though she was by now officially out of ti had willed it so "Marissa, talk"

"Back off, Wrath," the queen snapped "She&039;s been through too ht already Havers threw her out"

"What? Why?"

Bethit from a third party only increased Marissa&039;s huled not to lose it

And the battle was lost when Wrath said, "Jesus Christ, that idiot Of course she stays here"

With a shaking hand, she brushed under both eyes, capturing her tears and quickly rubbing theertips

"Marissa? Look at me"

She lifted her head God, Wrath was just the same, his face too cruel to be truly handso hi Absently, she noted that his hair was er than when she&039;d known him, down nearly to the slad you carateful for a short tenure here"

"Where are your things?"

"They&039;re all packed up at my house¡ªer, my brother&039;s¡ªI mean, Havers&039;s house I ca I oas in boxes But it can reure out¡ª"

"Fritz!" When the doggen ca in, Wrath said, "Go to Havers&039;s and pick up her stuff You better take the van and an extra set of ar faster than you would think an old doggen could

Marissa tried to find words "I¡ªI¡ª"

"I&039; to show you to your room," Beth said "You look like you&039;re about to collapse"

The queen took Marissa over to the grand staircase, and as they went, Marissa glanced over her shoulder Wrath had an utterly ruthless expression on his face, his jaw set like concrete

She had to stop "Are you sure?" she asked hiot worse "That brother of yours has a real knack for pissing me off"

"I don&039;t ht over her words "This was about Butch, wasn&039;t it V told uess¡ªHavers didn&039;t appreciate you getting too tight with our huht?"

Marissa could only nod

"Like I said, your brother really pisses me off Butch is our boy even if he isn&039;t in the Brotherhood and anyone who cares for him cares for us So you take up residence here for the rest of your natural goddamned life as far as I&039;m concerned" Wrath headed around the base of the stairs "Fucking Havers Fucking idiot I&039;ll go find V and let him know you&039;re here Butch isn&039;t around, but V&039;ll knohere to find him"

"Oh¡ªno, you don&039;t have to¡ª"

Wrath didn&039;t stop, didn&039;t even hesitate, re Even if it was not to worry about so

"Well," Beth ht now"

"I&039;? It&039;s appalling To turn you out right before dawn? Anyway, let&039;s get you settled"

Marissa resisted the feraciously How can you be so¡ª"

"Marissa" Beth&039;s navy blue eyes were level "You saved theenough, you kept hi him your wrist So let&039;s be perfectly clear There is absolutely nothing I wouldn&039;t do for you"

As dawn arrived and light poured into the penthouse, Butch woke up fully aroused and in the process of grinding his hips into a twist of satin sheets He was covered with sweat, his skin hypersensitized, his erection pulsing

Groggy, confused as to as reality and what he just hoped was real, he reached doard Undid his belt Burrowed through his slacks and his boxers

Ies of Marissa swirled in his head, half the fantasy he&039;d been so gloriously lost in, half memories of the feel of her He fell into a rhyth the stroking Maybe it was her God, he wanted it to be her

He closed his eyes and arched his back Oh, yeah So good

Except then he woke up

As he realized what he was doing, he beca on, he handled his sex roughly until he barked a curse and ejaculated He couldn&039;t even call it an orgasm More like his cock swore out loud

With sickening dread, he braced hied fro was back to nor up with the boxers, he went into the bathroom and turned on the shower Under the spray, all he could think about was Marissa Hepain that re the year before

And shit, no Nicoderm for this

When he came out of the bath with a towel around his hips, his new cell phone was ringing He fu

"Yeah, V?" he rasped Man, his voice was always shot to shit in the ine that wouldn&039;t turn over