“If you leave, right now,” Butch said, “I’ll stab this piece of shit back to you. You hang around? I’m going to suck him down like a milkshake on a hot summer night. And something tells me by the look of your robe you can’t afford to lose much more.”

An unholy growl rose up, emanating from under the dirty white folds. “You mortal scourge—”

“Enough trading insults.” Butch leaned down, putting his mouth over the still moving lesser’s. “So what’s it going to be?”

“You need to learn the real meaning of power.”

With surprisingly quick reflexes, the Omega curled back an arm-like extension, and cast a dense, shadowy projectile through the air, the buzzing sound of its flight like that of a wasps’ nest riled up, the dark magic coming fast and on-target. The force hit Butch like a ton of bricks, throwing him off the gurgling, useless pile of slayer, slamming him against the building behind him.

There was no time to recover. Before the Omega could pitch a second strike, Butch surged forward, grabbed the mangled face of the lesser, and made out with the oily mess of anatomy, inhaling like he had been underwater for a half hour, like not only his life depended on it, but like the lives of every single one of the brothers and the fighters who Qhuinn was going to drag here in the next thirty seconds would be saved by the suck.

The Omega let out a high-pitched howl that was so loud, it knocked out Butch’s hearing and went straight down his spine.

But he did not look up. Did not stop. Did not slow down.

It was his only shot… to save his brothers who were going to come running, regardless of that all clear he’d sent.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Syn re-formed a block away from the coordinates that had been sent out by Qhuinn, but the instant he resumed his physical form, he received a contradicting message that all was clear from Butch.

Flaring his nostrils, he scented the air.

The stench of lesser was so loud, it could only be explained by a juicy kill. So maybe Qhuinn had brought one down, but been worried about backup on the slayer side or something? Only to have Butch take care of round two?

Beneath his skin, his talhman surged, and it was the need for bloodshed that sent him forward at a jog—just like it was the need for a kill that had made him get up from that table at the bar, when he hadn’t wanted to leave Jo. He was desperate to release his inner burn, however. Overdue to let his bad side express itself.

Maybe there was something left over for him to play with. Maybe there would be others. Maybe this wouldn’t take long and he could go back and find Jo—

Syn came around a tight corner and stopped dead.

Even as his eyes focused on the figure in dingy white robing, and his instincts told him what it was, his brain refused to believe the conclusion he drew.

Yet the draped figure with evil spilling out from under its hems could be one, and only one, entity. And the Omega was in attack mode, its form reared back as if it were gathering strength to throw something… at Butch.

Who was inhaling a slayer like he was trying to draw a tire through a straw.

Syn didn’t hesitate.

With a powerful surge, he bum-rushed the evil, taking three huge strides and throwing all his body weight at the damn thing. And the Omega, for all its omnipotence, didn’t seem to notice him—at least not until Syn was on the entity, his body tackling the master of all lessers off its feet.

Or whatever held it up off the ground.

Everything went in slow motion at that point. As whatever spell or magic the Omega had been aiming at Butch went haywire and blew a car off its tires, Syn was aware of a horrible feeling swamping through his body, waves of sickness and death and toxic, snarling pain going through him. And then Butch looked up from the slayer and yelled something, his arms reaching out as if he were trying to save someone.

Probably Syn. But no time to think about that.

The Omega slung Syn away like he weighed nothing, and the landing was rock hard as he bounced on his pecs and his palms, just barely keeping his face from being his tarmac as he went head-first toward a brick wall. Putting his hands out, he front-bumper’d the building just before he got his skull cracked open.

After which… silence.

Syn tried to lifted his head, but he was curiously weak, his body lax as a damp towel. The best he could do was roll over and try to get his eyeballs to work properly—and that was how he discovered that the alley had only two people in it.

Well, three if you counted the hot mess of the slayer Butch was still straddling.

No Omega.

Before Syn could say anything or check for injuries, his own or Butch’s, he was overcome with nausea. Turning back onto his stomach, he propped his hands and threw up what he’d eaten with Jo—and then kept going until he was dry heaving and seeing stars.

Hands reached out to him. Someone talked to him—Balz, his cousin. And then there were lots of people around.

He couldn’t hear anything, though, the rushing of the blood in his ears like nothing he’d ever experienced before. And meanwhile, his heart was doing bad things in his chest, its rhythm uneven and way too strong. As his awareness zeroed in on what was going on behind his sternum, he had an image of a boulder bouncing down a rocky hillside, boom!, ba-boom!, ba-ba-boom!—and then dizziness came on him like it was a physical force with three dimensions. As the world spun so badly he keeled over onto his side, he got a terrific close-up of his cousin’s shitkicker.

From a vast distance, he watched Balthazar holler at somebody, and Syn had a thought that his cousin was a good male, in spite of the thief stuff. Sure, the bastard might have a more narrow conscience than most, but that didn’t mean—

A dark-haired guy in surgical scrubs came running over and crouched down.

Well, this was handy. It was Dr. Manny Manello, the human surgeon mated unto Payne, V’s sister.

Syn was so knocked out, he almost greeted the healer. Which was a strange impulse as he was more of a Fuck-off than Cheerio-ol’-chap kind of person. Then again, he wasn’t in his right mind at the moment, and the doctor seemed to agree, shaking his head and holding up his hands as if there was nothing he could do.

Huh, Syn thought. Looked like he might be dying.

Driven by an impulse he couldn’t deny, he forced his arm out and slapped the pavement in front of Balz’s shitkicker. The male’s face immediately came down to level.

Syn started talking. At least… he thought he was talking. He still couldn’t hear anything—his cousin’s ears seemed to be working okay, though. The male’s face went from worried… to confused… to shocked.

Whatever. All that mattered was…

From out of nowhere, the brightest light Syn had ever seen coalesced right in front of him, and even in his delirium, he knew what it was. It was the Fade, arriving to claim him, and somehow, that was the biggest surprise of all. He had assumed he would go unto Dhunhd.

Then again, having just made the acquaintance of the Omega, maybe the evil didn’t want his sorry ass—

As he was bathed in the heavenly illumination, the relief that suffused his body was so complete it was unfathomable. It was as if the sickness inside of him was erased, and in its absence? An exhausted peace and calm, like he had come to the end of a long trial.

But that had been his life. A slog that had seemed infinite on a good night, and a curse on a bad one.