TWENTY - EIGHT

Vishous's fangs elongated as a ring of slayers formed around the opening of the alley. These were old-school numbers, he thought. Half a dozen at least - and they'd clearly been given coordinates by their fellow slayers. Otherwise the mhis would have hidden the carnage from them.

Given his mood, all the hi-how're-ya should have been a great thing.

Problem: The alley's construction meant there was only one way out - apart from rushing the enemy's ranks - and that was pulling a disappearing act. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been an issue, as experienced fighters could, even in the heat of battle, calm themselves enough to focus and dematerialize - but you had to be relatively uninjured, and you couldn't take any fallen-comrade types with you when you went.

So Butch was screwed if shit got out of hand. As a half-breed, that guy was grounded, literally incapable of scattering his molecules to safety.

V muttered under his breath, "Don't be a hero, cop. Let us handle this."

"You're kidding me, right." The glare was immediate and steady. "You worry about yourself."

Not possible. He wasn't losing the only two compass points he had on the same night.

"Hey, boys," Hollywood called out to the enemy. "You just going to stand there or are we gonna do this?"

Annnnnnnnnnnd that was the ringside bell. The lessers streamed forward and met the Brotherhood face-to-face, fist-to-fist. To ensure they had the privacy they needed, V doubled up on his visual barrier, the buffering creating a mirage of nothing-doing in the event humans trolled on by.

As he started working out one of the enemy, he kept his eye on Butch. The fucker naturally got right in there, taking on a tall, lanky inductee with his bare hands. He loved to brawl, and heads were his favorite punching bags - but Vishous really wished the bastard would take up fencing or, even better, get into rocket launchers. From the rooftop. So he wasn't anywhere near the fighting. He just hated that the cop got so close, because who the fuck knew what would come out of a pocket or how much damage could be done to the guy with a gun or a length of -

The kick came out of nowhere, sailing through the air like an anvil, catching V right in the side of the torso. As he flew back and slammed into the alley's brick flank, he was reminded of what they'd taught their trainees when they'd had them: Rule number one of fighting? Pay the fuck attention to your damn opponent.

After all, you could have the best knife in the world, but if you were clueless? You ended up making like a Ping-Pong ball. Or worse.

V reinflated his lungs with a huge inhale and he used the oxygen rush to leap forward and catch the Rockette's second kick at the ankle with his hands. The lesser had spectacular skills, however, and spun a Matrix move, using V's hold as an anchor to twist around in midair. The combat boot nailed V right in the ear, his head snapping to the side as all kinds of tendons and muscles were yanked to hell and gone.

Good thing pain always focused him.

Gravity being what it was, the Rockette's hit marked the top of its arc and after that, it went down, throwing its arms out to the asphalt to keep from face-planting it. And clearly the bastard was expecting its opponent to let go of the foot, thanks to the ringing snow globe that was now V's skull.

Nope. Sorry, sweetheart.

Even with the nasty crack-and-sizzle aftermath, V tightened his grip on that ankle and wrenched it in the opposite direction of the pirouette.

Snap!

Something broke or was dislocated, and given that V was holding the foot and lower bones steady, he knew it was probably the knee, the fibula or the tibia.

Mr. High Stepper let out a scream, but V wasn't finished as the bastard flopped on the ground. Popping free one of his black daggers, he sliced through the muscle in the back of the leg and then thought of Butch. Moving higher on the writhing body, he grabbed a hunk of hair, yanked up, and gave the SOB a nice little necklace with his blade.

Partial incapacitation just wasn't enough tonight.

Spinning around, dripping knife in hand, he assessed the fights that were ongoing. Z and Phury were working out a pair of lessers.... Tohr was holding his own.... Rhage was toying with one of the enemy.... Where was Butch -

Over in the corner, the cop had asphalted a slayer and was leaning down over its face. The pair had locked eyes and the lesser's open, bloodied mouth was working like a guppy's, opening and closing slowly, as if it knew whatever was coming next couldn't possibly be good news for it.

Butch's blessing and curse went to work as he took a deep, even inhale. The transfer started on a wisp of inky smoke that passed from the slayer's mouth into Butch's, but soon grew to a river of the shit, the essence of the Omega funneling from one to another in a sickening rush.

When it was over, the slayer was going to be nothing but an ashy residue. And Butch was going to be sick as a dog and relatively useless.

V jogged over, ducking a throwing star and manhandling a pinwheeling lesser back into Hollywood's punching zone.

"What the fuck are you doing," he bitched as he peeled Butch off the pavement and dragged him out of his suck zone. "You wait until afterward, true."

Butch curled over to the side and dry-heaved. He was semipolluted already, the stink of the enemy rising from out of his pores, his body struggling with its load of poison. He needed to be healed here and now, but V wasn't going to take the chance of their -

Later, he would marvel at getting blindsided twice in one fight.

But such introspection was hours off, as it turned out.

The baseball bat caught him in the side of the knee and the fall that came right after the blow was a yard sale in the worse way. He went down hard, his leg pretzeling beneath his considerable weight at an angle that turned his hip into a screaming ball of agony - which suggested that karma might not be about payback so much as it struggled with independent thinking: As he was felled by an injury like the one he'd just given someone, he cursed himself and the bastard with the Louisville Slugger and the Johnny-disloyal-Damon aim.

Time for some quick thinking. He was flat on his back with a leg that hummed like an engine on overdrive. And that bat could do a lot of damage -

Butch came from out of nowhere, lurching with all the grace of a wounded buffalo, the bastard's heavy body careening into the slayer just as that bat went over-the-shoulder with an aim at V's head. The pair of them slammed into the bricks, and after a beat of motionless, fuckin'-hell-that-was-a-stinger, the lesser pulled a full-torso jerk and gasped.

It was like watching eggs slide down the side of a kitchen cabinet: The slayer's bones went liquid and the thing slumped onto the pavement, leaving Butch to collapse back with his black-blooded dagger in his hand.

He'd gutted the motherfucker.

"You ... okay ..." the cop groaned.

All V could do was look over at his best friend.

As the others continued fighting, the pair of them just stared at each other against the audio backdrop of grunts and metal-to-metal strikes and inventive cursing. There should be something said between them, V thought. There was just so much ... to be said.

"I want it from you," V bit out. "I need it."

Butch nodded. "I know."

"When."

The cop nodded down at V's fucked-up leg. "Get healed up first." Butch groaned and got to his feet. "On that note, I'll go get the Escalade."

"Be careful. Take one of the brothers with - "

"Fuck off with that. And you stay put."

"I'm not going anywhere with this knee, cop."

Butch walked off, his stride only marginally better than V could have pulled off with the dislocated mess he was rocking. Craning his neck, he looked over at the others. They were prevailing - slowly but surely, the tide was turning in their favor.

Until about five minutes later.

When seven more slayers showed up at the alley.

Clearly the second wave had likewise called for backup, and these were also new recruits who were unsure how to handle the mhis: They'd obviously been provided an address by their comrades, but their eyes could see nothing but an empty alley.

They were going to get over the what-the-hell's fast, however, and breach the barrier.

Moving as quickly as he could, V shoved his palms into the ground and dragged his ass into an inset doorway. The pain was so bad, his vision momentarily fritzed out, but that didn't keep him from stripping his glove off and putting it into his jacket.

He hoped like hell Butch didn't double back and come to fight. They were going to need transport as soon as this was over.

As the enemy's next wave surged forward, he let his head flop onto his chest and breathed so shallowly his rib cage barely moved. With his hair falling into his face, his eyes were shielded, and he was able to stare through the black veil at the onslaught of slayers. Given the incredible number of fresh inductees, he knew that the Society had to be drawing psychos and socios from Manhattan - the pool in Caldwell simply wasn't big enough to account for this surge in forces.

Which was going to work in the Brotherhood's favor.

And he was right.

Four of the lessers went straight for the thick of the fighting, but one, a bulldog with thick shoulders and arms that hung like a gorilla's, came over to V - probably to check him for weapons.

Vishous waited patiently, not moving, giving off a fuckload of next-stop-coffin.

Even when the bastard went to lean down, V stayed where he was ... little closer ... little ... closer -

"Surprise, motherfucker," he bit out. Then he grabbed the nearest wrist and yanked hard.

The slayer went over like a stack of plates, right across V's bad leg. But it didn't matter - adrenaline was a hell of a painkiller and gave him the strength not just to withstand the agony, but to hold the SOB in place.

Lifting up his glowing hand, Vishous brought his curse down on the face of the lesser - no reason to slap or slam; simple contact was enough. And just before it landed, his prey's eyes popped wide, the illumination making the whites fluorescent.

"Yeah, this is gonna hurt," V growled.

The sizzle and the scream were equally loud, but only the former persisted. In the latter's place, a nasty stench like burned cheese wafted up along with a sooty smoke. It took less than a moment for the power in his hand to consume the slayer's puss, the flesh and bone eaten away as the bastard's legs jerked and his arms flailed.

When it was a case of Headless Horseman, V disengaged his palm and sagged. It would have been great to get the weight off his bum knee, but he just didn't have the strength.

His last thought, before he passed out, was that he prayed his boys kicked this one fast. The mhis wasn't going to linger if he wasn't there to support it ... and that meant they would be fighting in public on a big scale -

Lights. Out.