t was a week later that Van learned something important about himself.

His humanity was gone.

As a moan echoed through the empty basement, he glanced at the civilian vampire who was strapped on a table. Mr. X was working the thing over and Van was watching. Like this was nothing more than someone getting a haircut.

He should have thought it was wrong. In all his years as a fighter, he'd inflicted a lot of pain on opponents, but he'd avoided hurting the innocent and had despised people who went after the weak. Now? His sole reaction to this base cruelty was annoyance... because it wasn't working. The only thing they'd learned about O'Neal was that a human fitting the man's description had been seen among males suspected to be Brothers in some of the clubs downtown¡ªScreamer's and ZeroSum in particular. But they'd known all that already.

He was beginning to suspect the Fore-lesser was working out his frustrations at this point. Which was such a waste of time. Van wanted to go after vampires, not play armchair quarterback at a scene like this.

Except, shit, it wasn't like he'd had a shot at killing one of those bloodsuckers yet. Thanks to Mr. X keeping him off the field, all he'd taken out since joining the Lessening Society were other frickin' lessers. Every day, Mr. X lined him up against another one. And every day, Van beat his opponent into submission, then stabbed the guy. And every day, Mr. X got more and more wound up. It was like Van was letting the Fore-lesser down, although with a seven and oh record, it was hard to figure out precisely how.

As gurgling sounds drifted over on the blood-scented air, Van cursed under his breath.

"Am I boring you over there?" Mr. X snapped.

"Not at all. This is really great to watch."

There was a short silence. Then a disgusted hiss. "Don't be such a lightweight."

"Whatever. I'm a fighter, man. I'm not into this captive-beating shit, especially when it's not leading to anything."

Those flat, pale eyes burned. "Go patrol with some of the others, then. Because if I have to look at you any longer, you're going to find yourself on this table."

"Finally." Van headed for the stairs.

As his combat boot hit the first step, Mr. X spat, "Your weak stomach is such a disgrace."

"My guts aren't the problem here, trust me." Van kept going.

Butch stepped off the treadmill in the gym and wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt. He'd just run eleven miles. In fifty minutes. Which would be a sustained pace of about a five-minute mile. Holy... shit.

"How you feel?" V asked from the bench press.

"Like Lee fucking Majors."

There was a clang as nearly seven hundred pounds came to rest on the stand. "Six Million Dollar Man reference dates you, cop."

"I grew up in the seventies. Sue me." Butch sucked back some water, then looked to the doorway in a flash. His breath caught, and a split second later Marissa walked in.

God, she was gorgeous in black slacks and a cream jacket¡ªbusinesslike yet feminine. And her pale eyes sparkled across the room.

"Thought I'd come by before I left for the night," she said.

"Glad you did, baby." He did the best he could to towel himself off as he went over to her, but she didn't seem to mind him hot and sweaty. At all. Her palm cupped his chin as he bent down and said a hello against her mouth.

"You look good," she whispered, running her hand down his neck and over his bare pecs. She traced his cross with light fingers. "Very good."

"Do I." He smiled as he hardened in his running shorts, remembering how an hour and a half ago he'd woken her up from the inside out. "Well, I'm not as good as you."

"I could debate that." He hissed as she stepped up against him.

With a growl, he ran through the layout of the training center in his mind, trying to figure out where they could disappear for ten minutes. Um... yeah, there was a classroom nearby with a good lock on the door. Perfect.

He glanced over at V, about to throw his roommate an I'll be right back, when he was surprised to find the brother staring at the two of them, lids low, expression unreadable. Vishous looked away quickly.

"So, I have to go," Marissa said, stepping back. "Big night."

"You can't stay for just a little longer? Five minutes, maybe?"

"I would love to, but... no."

Wait a minute, he thought. There was something different about the way she was staring at him. In fact, her eyes were locked on the side of his neck and her mouth was slightly open. Then her tongue made a quick sweep of her lower lip, as if she were tasting something good. Or maybe wanting to taste something.

A bolt of mad lust shot through him.

"Baby?" he said roughly. "You need something from me?"

"Yes..." She stood up on her tiptoes and spoke into his ear. "I gave you so much when you were going through the transition that I'm a little weak. I need your vein."

Holy shit... what he'd been waiting for all along. The chance to feed her.

Butch grabbed her around the waist, popped her feet off the floor, and carried her toward the door like the weight room was on fire.

"Not yet, Butch." She laughed. "Put me down. You're barely a week out."

"No."

"Butch, put me down."

His body obeyed the command, even though his mind wanted to argue. "How much longer?"

"Soon."

"I'm strong now."

"I can wait a couple of days. And it's better if we do."

She kissed him and looked at the watch she wore. It was his favorite from his collection, the Patek Philippe with the black alligator band. He loved the idea that she had it with her wherever she went.

"I'll be at Safe Place all night," she said. "We have a new female and two youngs coming, and I want to be there when they check in. I'm also calling my first staff meeting. Mary's coming and we're going to do it together. So I probably won't be back until dawn."

"I'll be here." He caught her as she turned away and spun her back into his arms. "Be careful out there."

"I will."

He kissed her deep, wrapping his arms around her slender body. Man, he couldn't wait until she came back. And missed her the moment she left.

"I am a total sap," he said as the door closed.

"Told you." V got up off the bench press and picked up a pair of stacked one-hander weights. "Bonded males are a thing."

Butch shook his head and tried to refocus on what else he wanted to accomplish in the gym tonight. For the past seven days, while Marissa went off to her new job, he stayed at the compound and worked on how to handle this new body of his. The learning curve was steep. In the beginning, he'd had to re-learn the most simple functions, like how to eat and how to write. Now, he was trying to get a sense of his physical limits to see when... if... he would break. The good news was, so far, everything worked. Well, almost everything. One of his hands was a little messed up, though not in any serious way.

And the fangs were fabulous.

As were the strength and endurance he now had. No matter how far or how hard he pushed himself in the gym, his body took the punishment and responded with growth. At meals, he ate like Rhage and Z, sucking back some five thousand calories every twenty-four hours... and even still, he was always hungry. Which made sense. He was packing on muscle like he was shooting 'roids.

Two open questions remained. Could he dematerialize? And could he handle sunlight? V had suggested holding off on both of those for a month or so, and that was fine. There was enough to worry about in the meantime.

"You're not quitting, right?" V asked as he looked up from the bicep curls he was doing. The weight in each of his hands was probably two seventy-five. Butch could pull them that heavy now, too. "Nah, I still got juice." He went over to an elliptical machine and got on to stretch his legs out.

Man, on the topic of juice... he was totally and completely sexed out. All the time. Marissa had moved into his bedroom at the Pit and he couldn't keep his hands off her. He felt so bad about it, and he tried to hide the need, but invariably she knew when he wanted her and she never turned him away, even if it was only to finish him.

She really seemed to relish the sexual control she had over him. And so did he.

God, he was hardening again now. All he had to do was think of her and he was ready even if he'd already gone four, five times that day. And the thing was, what made his sex drive such a pleasure was that it wasn't just about needing a release. It was all about her. He wanted to be with her, inside of her, all around her: not sex for sex's sake, but... well... making love. To her.

Man, he was a total frickin' sap.

But, hell, why should he front? This had been the best week of his whole miserable life. He and Marissa were so good together¡ªand not just in the sack. Aside from training himself in the gym, he'd spent a lot of time helping her with the social services project, and the common purpose had brought them even closer together.

The Safe Place, as she'd named the house, was ready to start running now. V had wired the Colonial up but good, and though there was still a lot to do, at least they could begin accepting folks in earnest. Right now there was just the mother and the child with the leg in a cast, but it sounded like there would be a lot more.

Man, throughout everything, all the changes, all the new things, all the challenges, Marissa was amazing. Smart. Capable. Compassionate. He'd decided his vampire nature, that previously buried part of him, had chosen his female very wisely.

Although he still had some guilt over mating her. He kept thinking about everything she'd walked away from¡ªher brother, her old life, all that fancy glymera shit. He'd always felt like an orphan after leaving both his family and where he'd grown up behind, and he didn't want that for her. But he wasn't going to let her go.

Hopefully, they could finish the mating ceremony soon. V had said it wouldn't be a good idea cutting into him during the first week, which was fine, but they were going to do the carving ASAP. And then he and Marissa were going to walk down the aisle, too.

Funny, he'd started going to midnight Mass all regularlike. Wearing his Sox cap, and keeping his head down, he sat in the back of Our Lady and stayed to himself as he reconnected with God and the Church. The services eased him immeasurably, in a way nothing else could.

Because the darkness was in him still. He was not alone in his skin.

Inside of him there was a shadow, something that lurked between the spaces of his ribs and the disks of his spine. He sensed it there always, shifting around, pacing, watching. Sometimes it actually looked out of his eyes, and that was when he feared himself the most.

But going to church helped. He liked to think the goodness in the air there seeped into him. Liked to believe that God listened to him. Needed to know that there was a strength outside of himself that would help him stay connected to his humanity and his soul. Because without that he would be dead though his heart still beat.

"Hey, cop?"

Without losing a stride on the elliptical, Butch looked over to the weight room's door. Phury was standing in it, that amazing hair of his shining red, yellow, and brown under the fluorescent lights.

"What up, Phury?"

The brother came in, his limp hardly noticeable. "Wrath wants you to come to our meeting tonight before we go out."

Butch glanced at V. Who was studiously lifting and keeping his eyes on the mats. "What for?"

"Just wants you there."

"Okay."

After Phury left, he said, "V, you know what's doing about this?"

His roommate shrugged. "Just come to the meetings."

"Meeting-s? Like every night?"

Vishous kept pumping, his biceps veining up hard-core under all the weight. "Yeah. Every night."

Three hours later, Butch and Rhage headed out in the Escalade... and Butch wondered what the hell had happened. He was fully strapped under a black leather jacket with a Glock under each arm and an eight-inch hunting knife on his hip. He was going in tonight as a fighter.

It was just a trial and he had to talk to Marissa, but he wanted this to work out. He wanted... yeah, he wanted to fight. And the brothers wanted him to as well. The bunch of them had talked it all through, especially the shit about his dark side. The bottom line was he was capable and he wanted to kill lessers and the Brotherhood needed more bodies on their side of the war. So they were going to give it a shot.

As Rhage drove them downtown, Butch looked out the window and wished V wasn't off for the night. He would have liked his roommate to be with him for this maiden-voyage stuff, although at least Vishous was sitting it out because it was his turn to on the rotation schedule, not because he was losing it. Hell, V seemed to be doing much better with the dreams; there hadn't been any more screams in the middle of the day.

"You ready for the field?" Rhage asked.

"Yeah." In fact, his body was roaring to be used, and used specifically like this, in battle.

About fifteen minutes later, Rhage parked behind Screamer's. As they got out and walked toward Tenth Street, Butch halted halfway down the alley and turned to the side of the building.

"Butch?"

Struck by a sense of his own history, he reached out and touched once again the blackened bomb burst pattern where Darius's car had blown up. Yeah... it had all started here last summer... at this place. And yet as he felt the scratchy, damp bricks under his palm, he knew the real beginning was right now. His true nature was uncovered now. He was who he needed to be... now.

"You okay, my man?"

"Full circle, Hollywood." He turned to his buddy. "Full circle." As the brother gave him a Huh, what? Butch smiled and started walking again.

"So how's this usually go down?" he said, as they came out on Tenth.

"On an average night, we cover a twenty-five-block radius twice. This is trolling, really. Lessers are looking for us, we're looking for them. We fight as soon as we¡ª"

Butch stopped and his head swiveled around all by itself, his upper lip curling off his fancy new fangs.

"Rhage," he said softly.

The brother let out a low laugh of satisfaction. "Where are they, cop?"

Butch started gunning toward the signal he'd picked up on, and as he went along, he felt the raw force of his body. The damn thing was like a car with a performance engine in it, no longer a Ford but a Ferrari. And he let loose as he pounded down the dark street with Rhage on his tail, the two of them moving in harmony.

The two of them moving like killers.

Six blocks away they found three lessers confabbing it at the throat of an alleyway. As a unit, the slayers' heads turned and the second Butch locked eyes with them, he felt that horrible recognition flare. The linkup was immutable, marked by dread on his side and confusion on theirs: They seemed to recognize he was both one of them and a vampire.

In the dark, grungy alley, the battle bloomed like a summer thunderstorm, the violence coalescing, then exploding out in punches and kicks. Butch took head shots and body shots and ignored them all. Nothing hurt bad enough to care about, as if his skin were armor and his muscles were steel.

Eventually, he slammed one of the slayers on the ground, straddled the thing, and reached for the knife at his hip. But then he stopped, overcome by a need he couldn't fight. Leaving the blade where it was, he leaned down, got face-to-face, and took control with his stare. The lesser's eyes popped in terror as Butch's mouth opened.

Rhage's voice came at him from a vast distance. "Butch? What are you doing? I got the other two, so all you need to do is stab that thing. Butch? Stab him."

Butch just hovered over the lesser's lips, feeling a surge of power that had nothing to do with his body and everything to do with the dark part in him. It started so slowly, the inhale almost gentle... and the breath went on forever, one steady draw that grew in strength until the blackness passed out of the lesser and into him, the transfer one of the true essence of evil, the Omega's very nature. As Butch swallowed the vile black rush and felt it settle into his blood and bones, the lesser dissolved into a gray mist.

"What the fuck?" Rhage breathed.

Van stopped running at the entrance of the alley and followed an instinct that told him to melt into the shadows. He'd come prepared to fight, called in by a slayer who said some hand-to-hand with two Brothers was going down. But as he arrived now, he saw something he just knew wasn't right.

A tremendous vampire was on top of a lesser, the two locked stare to stare as he... shit, sucked the slayer into nothingness.

As a fall of ash floated down onto the dirty pavement, the blond Brother at the scene said, "What the fuck?"

At that moment, the vampire who'd done the consuming lifted his head and looked down the alley directly at Van, even though the darkness should have hidden his presence.

Holy shit... it was the one they were looking for. The cop. Van had seen the guy's picture on the Internet in those articles from the CCJ. Except he'd been human then and he sure as fuck wasn't now.

"There's another one," the vampire said in a hoarse, ragged voice. His arm lifted weakly and he pointed at Van. "Right there."

Van took off running, not about to get smoked up.

It was so time to find Mr. X about this.