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Ti for V to get back Finally, unable to shake the Scotch haze and still dizzy as shit, he went in and lay down on his bed As he closed his eyes, it was ht than with any hope of sleep

Surrounded by a dense quiet, he thought about his sister Joyce and that new baby of hers He knehere the baptism had been held today: Same place he&039;d been dipped Same place all the O&039;Neals had been dipped

Original sin washed away

He put his hand on his stoht that evil had certainly coht inside of hiold until it cut into his skin, and decided he needed to go back to church Regularly

He was still gripping the crucifix when exhaustion took hi theness he would have been relieved by if he&039;d been conscious

Solanced at the clock He&039;d slept for two hours straight, and noas in the hangover phase of things, his head one big, dull ache, his eyes supersensitive to the light co in under the door He rolled over and stretched, his spine cracking

An eerie moan drifted down the hall

"V?" he said

Another moan

"You okay there, V?"

Fro heavy had been dropped Then choking sounds, the kind you made when you were too hurt to cry out and scared to death Butch sprang off his bed and ran into the living room

"Jesus Christ!"

Vishous had thrown himself off the couch and landed face-first on the coffee table, scattering bottles and glasses As he flailed around, his eyes were squeezed shut and his aped with screarabbed on to those heavy arod-awful hand of his was glowing like the sun, burning holes in the wood of the table and the leather of the couch

"Fuck!" Butch leaped out of the strike zone as he nearly got swiped

All he could do was call out Vishous&039;s narip of whatever h Maybe the sound of Butch&039;s voice Maybe V knocked hih to wake himself up

As Vishous opened his eyes, he was panting and shivering, covered with fear sweat

"My man?" When Butch knelt down and touched his friend on the shoulder, V shrank back, cowering Which was the scariest part "Hey easy, you&039;re home You&039;re safe"

V&039;s stare, usually so cool and callassy "Butch oh, my God Butch the death The death The blood down the front of o easy We&039;re going to cool out here, big guy" Butch claht armpit and hoisted the brother back on the couch Poor bastard flopped against the leather cushions like a rag doll "Let&039;s get you a drink"

Butch headed for the galley kitchen, picked up a fairly clean glass off the counter, and rinsed it out He filled the thing with cold water, even though V would no doubt rather it be Goose

When he caarette with hands that were like flags in the wind

As V took the glass, Butch said, "You want soood Thanks, man"

Butch sat down on the other end of the sofa "V, I think it&039;s ti"

"Not going there" V inhaled deeply and let out a steady streaood news Kind of"

Butch would rather have stayed on the V drea "So talk And you should have woken me up as soon as you¡ª"

"Tried You were out cold Anyway" Another exhale This one ht?"

"I figured"

"Had to knoas doing, if you were going to live with me¡ªwith us I traced your blood back to Ireland Lot of pasty-white bog people in your veins, cop"

Butch got real still "Did you find anything else?"

"Not when I searched nine o"

Oh Buzz kill Although, Christ, as he thinking? He wasn&039;t a va about this?"

"You sure you don&039;t have any weird-ass stories in your family? Especially back in Europe? You know, sonancy that cahter who disappeared and maybe came back with a child?"

Actually, there hadn&039;t been a lot of O&039;Neal lore passed along For his first twelve years, hisas a nurse Then after Janie&039;s murder, Odell had been too shattered to carry stories And his father? Yeah, right Pulling nine to five for the telephone couard didn&039;t make for a lot of quality chat time with the kidlets: When Eddie O&039;Neal had been ho or asleep

"I don&039;t know of anything"

"Well, here&039;s the deal, Butch" V inhaled, then talked through the sot any of us in you"

Whoa "But you know ht? And wouldn&039;t hout ?"

"Not necessarily and I have a very precise way of finding out It&039;s called ancestor regression" V brought up his glowing hand and clenched it into a fist "Godda But this is hoe do it"

Butch eyed the scorched coffee table "You&039;re going to torch "

"I&039;ll be able to channel it to the purpose Not saying it will be fun for you, but it shouldn&039;t kill you Botto and the way you reacted to it? The fact that you&039;re telling od knows, you&039;re aggressive enough Who knoe&039;ll find"

So like hope "And what if I have a vaht"V took a very deep drag on the hand-rolled "We ht you couldn&039;t do that"

V nodded over at a thigh-high stack of leather volu in the Chronicles If you&039;ve got soive it a shot It&039;s very risky, but we could try"

Man, Butch was so on board with that plan "Let&039;s do the regression Now"

"Can&039;t Even if you have the DNA, we need to get clearance fro any kind of change That kind of shit is not to be done lightly, and there&039;s the added complication of what the lessers did to you If she won&039;t allow us to proceed, it won&039;t s, and I don&039;t want to put you through an ancestor regression if there&039;s nothing we can do about it"

"How long until we know?"

"Wrath said he&039;d talk to her tonight"

"Jesus, V I hope¡ª"

"I want you to take soo through Your brain&039;s going to stroke out on us and I understand the pain&039;s no party And you ht want to talk to Marissa about it, also"

Butch thought of her "Oh, I&039;ll get through it You don&039;t worry about that"

"Don&039;t get cocky¡ª"

"I&039;h" V stared at the lit tip of his hand-rolled "Assuression okay, and we can find a living relative of yours to use to jue, you could die in the middle of the transition There&039;s only a small chance you&039;ll survive"

"I&039;ll do it"

V laughed in a short burst "I can&039;t decide whether you have serious balls or a death wish"

"Never underestimate the power of self-hatred, V It&039;s a hell of a motivator Besides, we both knohat the only other option is"

As their stareshe was: Nowas better than Vishous having to kill hioing to Marissa now"

Butch paused on his way out the door to the tunnel "You sure there isn&039;t so we can do about these dreah on your plate"

"I&039;m an excellent multitasker, buddy"

"Go to your female, cop Don&039;t worry about me"

"You&039;re such a pain in the ass"

"Said the SIG to the Glock"

Butch cursed and hit the tunnel, trying not to be totally pu house, he went up to the second floor and passed by Wrath&039;s study On i called out, Butch was in there maybe ten minutes tops before he went on to Marissa&039;s room

He was about to knock when someone said, "She&039;s not there"

He pivoted around and saw Beth co room at the end of the hall, a vase of flowers in her hands

"Where is Marissa?" he asked

"She ith Rhage to check out her new place"

"What new place?"

"She&039;s rented a house for herself About sevenout And she hadn&039;t even told hiave him the address and assured him the rental was safe, his first instinct was to race over there, but he canned that idea Wrath was going to the Scribe Virgin right now Maybe they could get the regression over with and there&039;d be good news to share on the other side

"She&039;s coht?" Man, he wished she&039;d told hioing to ask Vishous to work on the security system, so she&039;ll stay here until that&039;s done" Beth frowned "Hey you don&039;t look so good Why don&039;t you coet soh he had no idea what she&039;d said to hiht?" he blurted, not sure why he was going there

"Yes, I do And she loves you"

Then why didn&039;t she talk to him?

Yeah, and just how easy had he made that for her lately? He&039;d freaked out about the feeding Taken her virginity while he was drunk Hurt her in the process Christ

"I&039;ry," he said "But I&039;ll watch while you eat"

Back at the Pit, Vishous stepped out of the shower and yelped like a nancy, slaainst thein the bathroooddamned Escalade

"Christ, my lord Scare a brother, why don&039;t you"