It was twelve noon when Xcor's cellular device went off, and the soft chiming roused him from his light sleep. With awkward jabs, he hunted and pecked around for the green send button, and after he hit it, he put the thing to his ear.

In practice, he hated the damn things. In practical terms, they were an incredible benefit, one that made him question why he had ever been so resistant.

"Aye," he demanded. When a haughty voice answered him, he smiled into the dim candlelight of the basement. "Greetings, gentlemale. How fare thee this day, Elan?"

"What... what..." The aristocrat had to marshal more breath. "Whatever have you sent me?"

His source on the Council had a rather high voice to begin with; the care package that had obviously just been opened lifted the male's tone into the stratosphere.

"Proof of our work." As he spoke, heads began to lift off of bunks, his Band of Bastards waking, listening. "I did not want you to think that we had overestimated our effectiveness - or, the Scribe Virgin preserve us, been untruthful with respect to our activities."

"I... I... Whatever shall I do with... this?"

Xcor rolled his eyes. "Mayhap some of your servants could parcel it up and share it among your fellow Council members. And then I imagine your carpet will need to be cleaned."

Inside the three-foot-by-three-foot cardboard box he'd had delivered, Xcor had put some of the souvenirs of their kills, all manner of bits and pieces of lessers: arms, hands, that spinal column, a head, part of a leg. He had been saving them up, preparing for the right moment to both shock the Council... and prove that the job was getting done.

The gamble was that the grotesque nature of his "gift" would backfire and they would be viewed as savages. The potential payoff was that he and his soldiers would be seen as effective.

Elan cleared his throat. "Indeed, you have been... rather busy."

"I realize that it is grisly, but war is a grisly business that you should merely be the beneficiary of, not a participant in. We need to save you - " Until you are no longer useful. " - from such unpleasantness. I should like to point out, however, that that is but a small sampling of the very many we have killed."

"In truth?"

The bit of awe there was gratifying. "Aye. You may be assured that we fight every night for the race, and we are highly successful."

"Yes, clearly, you are... and I would stipulate that I require no more 'proof,' as it were. I will say, however, that I was going to call you late this afternoon anyway. The final appointment with the king has been scheduled."

"Oh?"

"I called the members of the Council because I have scheduled for this evening a gathering - keeping it informal, of course, so that there is no procedural requirement to include Rehvenge. Assail has indicated he cannot attend. Clearly, he must have an audience with the king - or he would come unto my home."

"Clearly," Xcor drawled. Or rather, clearly not. Given Assail's nightly pursuits, which had only intensified since the summer, he was likely busy enough. "And I thank you for the information."

"When the others arrive, I shall exhibit this... display," the aristocrat said.

"Do that. And tell them that I am ready to meet with them at any time. You just call upon me - I am your servant in this as in all things. In fact," he paused for effect, "it shall be an honor to associate with them under your introduction - and together, you and I may ensure that they understand adequately the vulnerable state they are in under the rule of the Blind King, and the safety that you and I can provide for them."

"Oh, yes, indeed... yes." The gentlemale perked up at all that verbiage - which was precisely why it had been used. "And I am very appreciative of your candor."

Amazing when calculation was mistaken for that.

"And I for your support, Elan." As Xcor hung up the phone, he glanced over his soldiers and then focused on Throe. "After sunset, we coalesce upon Assail's property once again. Mayhap it will come to aught this time."

As the others growled their readiness, he mutely raised his cell phone... and inclined his head to his second in command.

"Sire, we have arrived. The door is shutting behind our vehicle."

As Fritz's voice came through the van's intercom, the butler's report wasn't a news flash, even though Tohr couldn't see anything of where they were from his vantage point in the back.

"Thanks, man."

Drumming his fingers on the floor's Duraliner, he was still buzzed from all those beers he'd had with Lassiter, and his stomach was a sour pit thanks to that marathon of plastic butter and Milk Duds.

Then again, maybe the nausea was more about where they were.

"Sire, you are free to extricate yourself."

Tohr crab-walked to the double doors, and wondered why the hell he was doing this to himself. After he and Lassiter had finished their homage to John McClane, the angel had taken off to go crash, and Tohr had... come up with this great idea, for no apparent reason.

Opening the way out... he stepped into his darkened garage and closed things up behind him.

Fritz put his window down. "Sire, mayhap I shall just wait here."

"No, you go. I'm going to hang until sunset."

"Are you certain the drapes are pulled indoors."

"Yup. That's protocol, and I trust my doggen."

"Mayhap I shall simply go through and double-check?"

"That's really not - "

"Please, sire. Do not send me home to face your king and your Brothers without my knowing you are safe."

Hard to argue with that. "I'll wait here."

The doggen hustled his old bones out from behind the wheel and headed across the way with admirable speed - probably because he was worried Tohr would change his mind.

As the butler slipped into the house, Tohr wandered around, inspecting his old lawn equipment, his rakes, his salt for the driveway. The Stingray convertible had been relocated to the mansion's garage... back on the night he'd brought Wellsie's gown over for Xhex.

He hadn't wanted to return here to drop off the dress after it had been cleaned and pressed.

Wasn't sure he wanted to be here now.

"All is secure, sire."

Tohr pivoted away from the empty space where the Corvette had been parked. "Thanks, man."

There was no waiting for the butler to leave before he went in - too much sunlight on the other side of the garage doors. So with a final wave, he pulled himself together... and walked into the back hall.

As the door clamped shut behind him, the first thing he saw in the mudroom was their winter coats. The damn parkas were still hung up on pegs, his, Wellsie's, and John's.

John's was tiny, because he'd been just a pretrans back then.

It was like the damn things were waiting for them all to come home again.

"Good luck with that," he muttered.

Bracing himself, he kept going, entering the kitchen that had been Wellsie's dream.

Fritz had thoughtfully left lights on, and the shock of seeing everything for the first time since the deaths made Tohr wonder if it wouldn't have been better to come in in the dark: The countertops they had chosen together, and that massive Sub-Zero she had loved so much, and that table they had bought online at 1stdibs.com, and the set of shelves he had put up for her cookbooks... all of it was on display, gleaming and clean as the day it had been installed/delivered/assembled.

Shit, nothing had changed. Everything was exactly as it had been the night she had been killed, his doggen keeping after the dust and that was it.

Walking over to the built-in desk, he forced himself to pick up a Post-it note with her handwriting on it.

Tues: Havers - checkup, 11:30.

He dropped the pad and turned away, seriously questioning his sanity. Why had he come here? What possible good could come out of this?

Wandering around, he went through the living room, the library, and the dining room, making a loop of the first floor's public rooms... until he felt like he couldn't breathe, until the alchie buzz was beyond gone and his vision and his sense of smell and his hearing were unbearably acute. Why was he -

Tohr blinked as he found himself in front of a door.

He'd come full circle, back to the kitchen.

And he was standing at the way into the basement.

Ah, shit. Not this... he wasn't ready for this.

The truth was, Lassiter and his dumb-ass movies had done more damage than good. All those couples up on the screen... even though they were contrived instruments of fiction, some of them had filtered into his brain, and triggered all kinds of things.

None of which had been about Wellsie.

Instead, he'd thought only about those days with No'One, the two of them straining with all those blankets between their bodies, she looking up at him as if she wanted so much more than he was giving her, he holding back out of respect for his dead... and maybe because he was a fucking coward at his core.

Probably equal bits of both.

Given what was banging around in his head, he'd had to come here. He needed memories of his beloved, images of his Wellsie that maybe he'd forgotten, a powerful blast from the past to compete with what felt like a betrayal in the present.

From a vast distance, he watched his hand reach out and grab the doorknob. Twisting to the right, he pulled the heavy, painted steel panel wide. As the motion-activated lights came on in the stairwell, he was hit with a whole lot of cream: the steps that went downward were carpeted in a mellow buff, and the walls were painted likewise, everything calming and serene.

This had been their sanctuary.

The first step was the equivalent of jumping off the lip of the Grand Canyon. And number two wasn't any better.

He still felt that way when he got to the bottom and there was no more descent to be had.

The basement of the house followed the first-floor plan, although only two-thirds of the space was finished with a master suite, a gym, a laundry, and a minikitchen fleshed out, and the rest functioning as storage.

Tohr had no idea how long he stood there.

Eventually, though, he walked forward, toward the closed door up ahead....

The fact that he opened the thing into a black hole seemed absolutely right -

Fuuuuck, it still smelled like her. Her perfume. Her scent.

Stepping inside, he closed himself in and braced himself as he hit the wall switch, bringing up the overheads gradually.

The bed was made.

Likely by her hands: Even though they had staff, she had been the kind of female who liked to do things herself. Cooking. Cleaning. Folding laundry.

Making their bed at the end of every day.

There wasn't a lick of dust on any of the surfaces, not the dressers, his and hers... not the nightstands, his with the alarm clock, hers with the phone... not the desk with the computer that they had shared.

Goddamn, he couldn't breathe.

To take a little break from his crucible, he went into the bathroom with the idea of catching up on the oxygen requirements of his body.

He should have known better. She was all over the tiled space, too; just as she was all over the house.

Opening one of the cabinets, he picked up a pump bottle of her hand lotion and read the label, back and front - something he had never done when she'd been alive. He did the same with one of her backup shampoo bottles, as well as a jar of bath salts that... yup, smelled just as he remembered, lemon verbena.

Back to the bedroom.

Over to the walk-in closet...

He wasn't sure exactly when the shift occurred. Maybe it was as he went through her sweaters that were stacked in the cubbies. Maybe it was as he stared at her shoes in their neat, marching order on the tilted shelves. Maybe it was as he trolled through her blouses on their hangers, or no, her slacks... or maybe the skirts or the dresses...

But eventually, in the silence, in his aching loneliness, in his perennial grief... it dawned on him that this was all just stuff.

Her clothing, her makeup, her toiletries... the bed she had made, the kitchen she had cooked in, the house she had made their own.

It was only stuff.

And just as she was never going to fill out her mating gown again, she was never coming back here to claim any of this. It had all been hers and she had worn it, and used it, and needed every bit of it - but it wasn't her.

Say it - say that she's dead.

I can't.

You're the problem.

Nothing he had done in his mourning process had brought her back. Not the agony of reminiscing, not the mindless drinking, not the worthless weak tears or the resistance to another female... not the avoidance of this place, or the hours sitting alone with an empty hole in his chest.

She was gone.

And that meant that all of this was just stuff in an empty house.

God... this was not at all what he had expected to feel. He had come here to pave over No'One. Instead? All he'd found was a collection of inanimate objects with no more power to transform where he was at than they could walk and talk on their own.

Although, considering where Wellsie was, the idea that he had been looking for a way to stop the connection with No'One was craziness. He should be rejoicing at the idea he was thinking of another female.

Instead, it still felt like a curse.

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