Going around, Wrath opened the rear door of the Escalade. “Heal your boy. I’ll deal with the body.”

As he lifted the civilian’s lifeless weight up and turned, V’s stare locked on a face that was beaten beyond recognition.

“Goddamn it,” V breathed.

At that moment, Butch stumbled out from behind the wheel looking like a hot mess. As the smell of baby powder wafted over, his knees went loose and he barely caught the door for support in time.

Vishous flashed over and took the cop into his arms, holding him close. “Shit, man, how you doing?”

“Ready…for anything.” Butch clung to his best friend. “Just need to be under the heat lamp for a bit.”

“Heal him,” Wrath said as he started for the clinic. “I’m going in.”

As he walked off, the doors of the Escalade shut one after the other, and then there was a glow like clouds had broken free of the moon. He knew what the two were doing inside the SUV, because he’d seen the routine once or twice: They were wrapped around each other, the white light of V’s hand suffusing them both, the evil that Butch had inhaled leaching out into V.

Thank God there was a way to cleanse that shit out of the cop. And being a healer was good for V, too.

Wrath came up to the first door of the clinic and just stared up into the security camera. He was buzzed in immediately, and the instant the air lock had resealed, the hidden panel to the stairs popped open. It took no time at all to get down into the clinic.

The king of the race with a dead male in his arms wasn’t stopped for a nanosecond.

He paused at the landing as the last door lock was sprung. Looking into the camera, he said, “Get a gurney and a sheet first.”

“We’re coming right now, my lord,” said a tinny voice.

No more than a second later, two nurses opened the door, one turning a sheet into a privacy curtain while the other rolled a gurney right up to the bottom of the stairs. With strong and gentle arms, Wrath laid out the civilian as carefully as if the male had been alive and had every bone in his body fractured; then the nurse who’d handled the gurney flapped another sheet out of its folded square. Wrath stopped her before she draped the body.

“I do that,” he said, taking it from her.

She gave the thing over to him with a bow.

Speaking sacred words in the Old Language, Wrath turned the humble cotton sheath into a proper death shroud. After he was done praying for the male’s soul and wishing it a free and easy carry unto the Fade, he and the nurses had a moment of silence before the body was draped.

“We don’t have ID on him,” Wrath said quietly as he smoothed out the edge of the sheet. “Do either of you recognize his clothes? The watch? Anything?”

Both nurses shook their heads, and one murmured, “We’ll put him in the morgue and wait. It’s all we can do. His family will come looking for him.”

Wrath hung back and watched as the body was rolled away. For no particular reason, he noticed the wheel on the front right wiggled as it went along, like it was new on the job and worried about its performance…although this was not because he saw the thing clearly, but rather from the soft whistle of its miscalibration.

Out of whack. Not pulling its weight.

Wrath could so relate.

This fucking war with the Lessening Society had gone on too long, and even with all the power he had and all the resolve in his heart, his race wasn’t winning: Holding steady against your enemy was just a case of losing by increments, because innocents kept dying.

He turned around toward the stairs and smelled the fear and awe of the two females sitting in the plastic chairs of the waiting area. With a mad shuffle, they got to their feet and bowed to him, the deference resounding in his gut like a kick in the balls. Here he was delivering the latest, but far from the last, casualty in the fight, and these two still paid him respect.

He bowed back to them, but couldn’t marshal any words. The only vocabulary he had at the moment was full of George Carlin’s best, and all of it was directed at himself.

The nurse who’d been on shield duty finished folding up the sheet she’d used. “My lord, perhaps you would have a moment to see Havers. He should be out of surgery in about fifteen minutes? It appears you are wounded.”

“I have to get back to the-” He stopped himself before the word field slipped out. “I’ve got to get going. Please let me know about that male’s family, okay? I want to meet with them.”

She bowed at the waist and waited, because she wanted to kiss the massive black diamond that rested on the middle finger of his right hand.

Wrath squeezed his weak eyes shut and held out what she was seeking to pay homage to.

Her fingers were cool and light on his flesh, her breath and her lips the barest of brushes. And yet he felt flayed.

As she righted herself, she said with reverence, “Fare thee well this night, my lord.”

“And you with your hours as well, loyal subject.”

He wheeled around and jogged up the stairs, needing more oxygen than there was in the clinic. Just as he hit the final door, he ran into a nurse who was coming in as fast as he was busting out. The impact knocked her black shoulder bag off, and he barely caught her before she hit the ground along with it.

“Oh, fuck,” he barked, dropping to his knees to get her stuff. “Sorry.”

“My lord!” She bowed deeply to him and then obviously realized he was picking up her things. “You mustn’t do that. Please, let me-”

“No, it’s my fault.”

He shoved what seemed to be a skirt and a sweater back into the bag and then nearly cracked her with a head butt as he shot to his feet.

He grabbed onto her arm once more. “Shit, sorry. Again-”

“I’m fine-honest.”

Her bag changed hands in a messy scramble, going from someone who was in a rush to someone who was flustered.

“You got it?” he said, ready to start begging the Scribe Virgin to get outside.

“Ah, yes, but…” Her tone shifted from reverent to medical. “You’re bleeding, my lord.”

He ignored the comment and took his hand away from her experimentally. Relieved that she stood steady on her feet, he bade her good night and farewell in the Old Language.

“My lord, shouldn’t you see-”

“Sorry I plowed into you,” he called out over his shoulder.

He punched open the last door and sagged as the fresh air seeped into him. Deep breaths cleared his head, and he allowed himself to lean back against the aluminum siding of the clinic.

As the headache started up behind his eyes again, he popped his wraparounds up off his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Right. Next stop…the addy that had been listed on the lesser’s fake ID.

He had a jar to collect.

Dropping the glasses back into place, he straightened and-

“Not so fast, my lord,” V said, materializing smack in front of him. “We’ve got to talk, you and me.”

Wrath bared his fangs. “Not in a conversating kind of mood, V.”

“Tough. Shit.”