Time for a new paradigm.
And though Autumn had no idea what it was, she was damn sure going to figure it out.
"Listen, I have to hustle," Xhex said. "But I'm hoping this won't take long - I'll come back as soon as I can."
Autumn glanced over her shoulder. "Do not rush on my account. I need to get used to being on my own - and I might as well start tonight."
As Xhex left the cabin, she was careful to lock up behind herself - and wishing she could do more for her mother than just turn a dead bolt: Autumn's emotional reorientation was extreme, the female's interior grid turned upside down on itself.
But then, that was what happened to people when they finally got a clear picture of themselves after aeons of sublimation.
Not a happy place. And it was hard to witness. Hard to leave behind - but Autumn was right. There came a time in everyone's life when they realized that in spite of how hard they'd been running from themselves, everywhere they went, there they were: Addictions and compulsions were nothing but marching bands of distraction, masking truths that were unpleasant, but ultimately undeniable.
The female did need some time to herself. Time to think. Time to discover. Time to forgive... and move on.
And as for Tohrment? There was a part of Xhex that really wanted to take whatever had been said to her mother out of his hide. Except she had been around him, and he was suffering in ways that a bruised jaw couldn't compete with. Tough to know how much of it was the shit with Autumn and how much was Wellsie - her instinct told her they'd all find out soon enough, however: The Brother had only started by dismantling that house and giving away Wellsie's clothes.
His end game was pretty damn clear.
Then they'd see just how much he cared about Autumn.
On that note, Xhex dematerialized and headed to the east. She had spent the entire day on Xcor's home turf, never getting closer than a quarter mile away: The male's grid had been clear to her as soon as she'd gotten within range, and she'd been careful to get beads on those of his soldiers as well before she'd headed north to the mansion and reported to the king.
And now she was back under the veil of the night, moving slowly through the forest, throwing out her symphath senses.
Closing in on the area where the grids had been concentrated during the daylight hours, she dematerialized at clips of a hundred yards, taking her sweet time, using the pine boughs as cover. Man, shit like this made her really appreciate evergreens, their fluffy branches not just concealing her, but providing a snowless ground cover that hid her footprints as she went from trunk to trunk.
The empty farmhouse she eventually came across was exactly what she would have expected. Made of coarse old stone, it was sturdy and had few windows - the perfect bunker. And of course, the irony was that with its snow-covered roof, and its cheery chimneys, the place looked like something off a Christmas card.
Ho-ho-ho, Season's Beatings.
As she cased the environs, the van that was parked off to the side seemed to belong somewhere else, an unwelcome shot of the modern in what appeared to be a resolutely antiquated picture. And the same was true for the electrical lines that came in and were anchored at the rear corner.
Xhex ghosted to that back flank. It was impossible to know whether or not the power was live: No lights had been left on, the house dark as the inside of a skull.
The last thing she wanted to do was trigger an alarm.
Except a quick look at the glass of a window had her frowning. No shutters - unless they were on the inside? More important, no steel bars. Then again, the underground would be the priority, wouldn't it.
Going around, she looked in every window, then dematerialized up to the roof to check the dormers on the third floor.
Totally empty, she thought with another frown. And not well fortified.
Back down on ground level, she took out both her guns, grabbed a deep breath, and...
Re-forming inside the house, she was in full attack mode, her back to the corner of the empty, dusty living room, autoloaders up in front of her.
The first thing she noted was that the air was as cold inside as out. Did they not have heat?
Second thing was... there was no sound of an alarm.
Third: No one appeared from out of nowhere, ready to defend the territory.
Didn't mean this was a lickety-split sitch, however. What was more likely was that they didn't give a crap about anything on this floor or above.
With care, she dematerialized over to the doorway of the next room. And the next. The logical location of basement stairs would be the kitchen - and what do you know, she found what she assumed were them right where she expected them to be.
And gee-fucking-whiz, the door keeping her out was sporting a brand-new solid lock made of copper.
It took her a good five minutes to pick the bitch, and by then her nerves were twitchy. Every sixty seconds she stopped and listened hard, even though her symphath side was out in full force the whole time, her cilices left behind at the cabin.
When she finally worked the lock, she opened the door but a crack - and had to let out a dry laugh: The hinges squealed loud enough to wake the dead.
It was a reliable, old-fashioned trick - and she was willing to bet every door and window in the place was likewise unoiled; stairs probably creaked like an old woman if you put any weight on them, too. Yup, just like folks had done before electricity had been invented - a good ear and a lack of WD-40 was an alarm that never needed a battery or a power source.
Putting her penlight between her teeth so she could keep a gun in each hand, she searched what she could see of the rough wooden staircase. Down at the bottom there was a dirt floor, and she flashed herself to it, pivoting quickly into a defensive stance.
Lot of bunks: three sets of uppers and lowers with a single off to one side.
Clothes in big sizes. Candles for light. Matches. Reading materials.
Cell phone charging cords. One for a laptop.
And that was it.
No weapons. No electronics. Nothing that offered any true identification.
Then again, the Band of Bastards had started out as nomads, so of course their personal effects were few and very portable - and this was part of the reason they were so dangerous: They could relocate at the drop of a hat and leave no meaningful footprint behind.
This definitely was, however, their inner sanctum, the site where they were relatively vulnerable during the day - and they did protect themselves accordingly: The walls and the ceiling and the back of the door were covered with steel mesh. No getting down here, or out of here, but through that opening way above.
She went around slowly, looking for trapdoors, a tunnel entrance, anything.
They'd need an ammunition storage facility somewhere in here: Even as mobile as they liked to be, there was no way they could go out night after night buying just enough bullets to get them to the dawn.
They'd need a cache.
Refocusing on the single cot, she guessed it was Xcor's, as their leader, and it didn't take a genius to figure that if there was any hiding place, it would be in his area - he had just the kind of suspicious mind to not fully trust even his own soldiers.
Investigating the bed with her light, she searched for triggering mechanisms either to an alarm or a bomb or a trapdoor. Finding none, she sheathed her guns for a moment and lifted up the metal frame, moving aside. Taking out a miniature handheld metal detector, she scanned the dirt floor and...
"Hello, boys," she murmured.
Her handy-dandy piece of equipment picked up a perfectly square outline that measured about four by two and a half feet. Kneeling down, she used one of her knives to displace the soil around the peripheral edges. Whatever it was, was buried deep -
Xhex froze as her acute hearing informed her that a car had pulled up.
It was not one of the Bastards or their cohorts, however. The emotional grid was far too uncomplicated.
A doggen, arriving with provisions?
Flashing up to the head of the stairs, she shut the door as much as she could without reengaging the lock and then went back to the buried box. Moving at triple time now, she kept one ear pinned on the footsteps creaking around on the first floor....
On the long side of the delineated rectangle, she used her knife point to probe the packed dirt for a handle. Finding nothing, she repeated the investigation on the short -
Bingo. Brushing the earth away, she gripped a circular ring, put the penlight back between her teeth and heaved with everything she had. The lid weighed as much as a car hood, and she had to swallow her grunt -
Wow. Talk about an arsenal.
In the large box below there were handguns, shotguns, knives, ammunition, munitions cleaning supplies... all of it in a well-ordered, obviously watertight environment.
Among which was a long, black, hard-plastic rifle case.
She took the thing out and put it on the dirt floor next to her. One look at the lock and she cursed. Fingerprint activated.
Whatever. The damn thing was big enough to house one or maybe two long-noses. So it was coming with her.
With quick, sure hands, she shut the lid, kicked dirt back over it, and patted the surface so it was packed hard once more. Covering her tracks took less time than she thought, and before she knew it, she was moving the bunk into place again.
Picking up the case with her left hand, she listened. The doggen was moving around upstairs, the female's grid as unremarkable as it had been when she had arrived: She had heard nothing, knew nothing.
Glancing around, Xhex thought it was unlikely that the maid had the key to get down here. Xcor would be too cagey for that. But still, it wasn't safe to just hang out. Even if they gave the doggen the run only of the upstairs, one of the Bastards could get injured in the field at any time, and though she had no hesitation in fighting any one of them, or every f**king one, if the rifle was in fact in this case, she needed to get the weapon out immediately.
Time for a meet-and-greet.
As she dematerialized up to the head of the stairs, her weight on the top step released a creak from the wood.
On the far side, the doggen called out, "Sire?" There was a pause. "Wait, I shall assume the position."
What. The. Fuck?
"I am ready."
Xhex palmed the doorknob, opened the way, and stepped out, expecting to find some kind of Kama Sutra nightmare going on.
Instead, the older female was standing in the corner of the kitchen facing the juncture of the walls, with her eyes covered by her hands.
They didn't want her to be able to identify them, Xhex thought. Smart. Very smart.
Timely, too, as she would have had to waste precious minutes screwing with the female's head. Further, that "position," as it were, was going to save the doggen's life later, when Xcor eventually found out that his lair had been infiltrated while they were gone.
If you didn't see anyone ever, there was no way you were protecting an intruder.
Xhex shut the door, and the lock triggered itself, reengaging. Then she dematerialized right out of there, carrying the gun case against her chest.
Good thing it wasn't that heavy.
And God willing, Vishous was going to be off rotation for the night.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Back at the Brotherhood compound, Tohr held the basement door open and stood aside as John passed by and hit the stairs.
Descending after the other male, Tohr's body was stiff, especially his back and shoulders. His nightly workouts as a furniture mover were finished, though. After a final three-hour push this evening, his and Wellsie's house was officially empty, and on its way to being entered into Caldwell's MLS system. Fritz had met with the Realtor during the day, and the price they had set was aggressive, but not crazy. If Tohr had to carry the costs of the place for another couple of months, or even through the spring, that was fine.
Meanwhile, the furniture and rugs had been moved into the mansion's garage; the paintings and etchings and ink drawings were up in the climate-controlled part of the attic; and the jewelry box was in Tohr's closet above the mating dress.
So it was... done.
At the bottom of the stairs, he and John set off at a resolute pace that took them through a cavernous room and by the massive boiler that not only kicked out enough heat to keep the main part of the house warm, but threatened to fry his face and body as he strode into its orbit.
Continuing onward, their footsteps were loud, the air cooling fast as they left the boiler's range and hit the second half of the basement. This part was cut up into storage rooms, one of which would soon hold the balance of his and Wellsie's furniture, another of which was V's private workspace.
No, not that kind of work.
He used his penthouse for that shit.
Vishous's forge was down here.
The sound of the Brother's fire-breathing monster started off as a low hum; by the time they turned the final corner, the dull roar was loud enough to drown out the sound of their shitkickers. In fact, the only thing that cut through the din was the tink-tink-tink of V pounding a hammer on red-hot black metal.
As they stepped into the doorway of the cramped stone room, V was hard at work, his bare chest and shoulders gleaming in the orange light of the flames, his muscled arm rising up to strike again and again. His concentration was fierce - and it should be. The blade that strip of metal was becoming would be responsible for keeping its owner alive, as well as getting the enemy good and dead.
The Brother looked up as they appeared, and nodded. After two more strikes, he put down his hammer and cut the oxygen feed to the fire pit.
"What's doing?" he said as the great growl settled into a purr.
Tohr glanced over at John Matthew. The kid had been a star throughout the whole process, never faltering in the grim work of dismantling a lifetime's worth of keepsakes, mementos, and collections.
So hard, this was. On the both of them.
After a moment, Tohr looked back at his brother... and found himself at a loss for words - except V was already nodding and getting to his feet. Removing the heavy leather gloves that went up to his elbows, he stepped free of his station.
"Yeah, I've got them," the brother said. "Back at the Pit. Come on."
Tohr nodded, because that was all he had to share with anyone. Still, as the three of them filed out and walked in sad silence back for the stairs, he clapped his hand on John's nape and kept it there.