ith a curse, V disengaged from his memories, his eyes flying around the alley he was standing in, like old newspapers caught in the wind. Man, he was a wreck. The seal on his Tupperware had cracked open and his leftovers had leaked out all over the place.

Messy. Very messy.

Good thing he hadn't known then what a crock of shit the whole my-mommy-who-loves-me thing was. That would have hurt him more than any of the abuse coming his way.

He took the Primale's medallion out of his back pocket and stared at it. He was still looking at it minutes later when the thing dropped to the ground and bounced like a coin. He frowned... until he realized that his "normal" hand was glowing and had burned through the strap.

Goddamn, his mother was an egomaniac. She'd brought the species into being, but that wasn't enough for her. Hell, no. She wanted herself in the mix.

Fuck it. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of hundreds of grandchildren. She'd sucked as a parent, so why should he give her another generation to screw over.

And besides, there was another reason why he shouldn't be the Primale. He was, after all, his father's son, so cruelty was in his DNA. How could he trust himself not to take it out on the Chosen? Those females were not to blame, and didn't deserve what would come between their legs if he were their mate. He wasn't going to do this.

V lit a hand-rolled, picked up the medallion, and left the alley, hanging a right on Trade. He badly needed a fight before the dawn came.

And he banked on finding some lessers in downtown's concrete maze.

It was a safe bet. The war between the Lessening Society and the vampires had one and only one rule of engagement: No fighting around humans. The last thing either side needed was human casualties or witnesses, so hidden battles were the name of the game, and urban Caldwell presented a fine theater for small-scale combat. Thanks to the 1970s retail exodus to the burbs, there were plenty of dark alleys and vacated buildings. Also, what few humans were on the streets were primarily worried about servicing their various vices. Which meant they were otherwise occupied, giving the police plenty to do.

As he went along, he stayed out of the pools of light cast by street lamps and splashed by cars. Thanks to the bitter night there were few pedestrians around, so he was alone as he passed McGrider's Bar and Screamer's and a new strip club that had just opened. Farther up, he walked by the Tex-Mex buffet and the Chinese restaurant that were sandwiched between competing tattoo parlors. Blocks later he went by the apartment building on Redd Avenue where Beth had lived before she met Wrath.

He was about to turn around and go back toward the heart of downtown when V stopped. Lifted his nose. Inhaled. The sent of baby powder was on the breeze, and since old biddies and babies were out of commission this late, he knew his enemy was close by.

But there was something else in the air, something that made his blood run cold.

V loosened his jacket so he could get at his daggers and started to run, tracking the scents to Twentieth Street. Twentieth was a one-way off Trade, bracketed by office buildings that were asleep this hour of night, and as he pounded down its uneven, slushy pavement, the smells got stronger.

He had a feeling he was too late.

Five blocks in he saw that he was right.

The other scent was the spilled blood of a civilian vampire, and as the clouds parted, moonlight fell on a gruesome spectacle: A posttransition male dressed in torn club clothes was beyond dead, his torso twisted, his face battered past any hope of recognition. The lesser who had done the killing was going through the vampire's pockets, no doubt hoping to find a home address as a lead for more carnage.

The slayer sensed V and looked over its shoulder. The thing was white as limestone, its pale hair, skin, and eyes matte like chalk. Big, built rugby-player solid, this one was well past his initiation, and V knew it not just because the bastard's natural pigmentations had faded out. The lesser was all business as he leaped to his feet, hands going up to his chest, body surging forward.

The two ran at each other and met as cars crashing at intersections did: grille-to-grille, weight-to-weight, force against force. And in the initial meet-and-greet, V took a ham-handed smash to his jaw, the kind of punch that made your brains slosh around in your skull. He was momentarily dazed, but managed to return the favor hard enough to spin the lesser like a top. Then he went after his opponent, grabbing onto the back of the bastard's leather jacket and flipping him off his combat boots.

V liked to grapple. And he was good at the ground game.

The slayer was fast, though, popping up off the icy pavement and throwing out a kick that shuffled V's internal organs like a deck of cards. As V stumbled backward, he tripped on a Coke bottle, blew his ankle out, and took a seat on the express train down to the asphalt. Letting his body go loose, he kept his eyes on the slayer, who moved in fast. The bastard went for V's off ankle, grabbing the shitkicker attached to it and twisting with all the power in his massive chest and arms.

V popped out a holler as he flipped face-first onto the ground, but he shut out the pain. Using his bad ankle and his arms as leverage, he pushed himself off the asphalt, brought his free leg up to his chest and hammered it back, catching the motherfucker in the knee and shattering his joint. The lesser flamingoed, his leg bending in the absolute wrong way as he fell on V's back.

The two of them clinched up hard-core, their forearms and biceps straining as they rolled around and ended up next to the slaughtered civilian. When V was bitten in the ear, his shit really got cranked out. Tearing himself free of the lesser's teeth, he fisted the bastard's frontal lobe, laying a bone-on-bone crack that stunned the fucker long enough for him to get free.

Kind of.

The knife went into his side just as he was pulling his legs out from under the slayer. The sharp, shooting pain was a bee sting on 'roids, and he knew the blade had broken skin and penetrated muscle just below his rib cage, on the left.

Man, an intestine had been nicked, things were going to go bad, fast. So it was time to put the fight to bed.

Energized by the injury, V grabbed the lesser by the chin and the back of the head and twisted the sonofabitch like he was a beer bottle. The snap of the skull popping free of the spinal cord was like a branch cracking in half and the body went instantaneously loose, its arms flopping to the ground, its legs going still.

V grabbed his side as his crest of power faded. Shit, he was covered in cold sweat and his hands were shaking, but he had to finish the job. He quickly patted down the lesser, looking for ID before he poofed the bastard.

The slayer's eyes met his, its mouth working slowly. "My name... was once Michael. Eighty... three... years ago. Michael Klosnick."

Flipping open the wallet, V found a current driver's license. "Well, Michael, have a nice trip to hell."

"Glad... its over."

"It's not. Haven't you heard?" Shit, his side was killing him. "Your new town house is the Omega's body, buddy. You're going to live there rent-free for fucking ever."

Pale eyes cracked wide. "You lie."

"Please. Like I'd bother?" V shook his head. "Doesn't your boss mention that? Guess not."

V unsheathed one of his daggers, heaved his arm up over his shoulder, and drove the blade square into that wide chest. There was a burst of light bright enough to show off the whole alley, then a pop and... shit, the burst caught the civilian, lighting him up as well thanks to a heavy gust of wind. As the two bodies were consumed, all that was left on the cold breeze was the thick smell of baby powder.

Fuck. How could they notify the civilian's family now?

Vishous searched the area, and when he didn't find another wallet, he propped himself against a Dumpster and just sat there, breathing in shallow sucks. Each inhale made him feel like he was being stabbed again, but going without oxygen was not an option, so he kept at it.

Before he got out his phone to call for help, he looked at his dagger. The black blade was covered with the inky blood of the lesser. He ran through the fight with the slayer and imagined another vampire in his place, one not as strong as he was. One who didn't have the breeding he had.

He brought up his gloved hand. If his curse had defined him, the Brotherhood and its noble purpose had shaped his life. And if he had been killed tonight? If that blade had gone into his heart? They'd be down to four fighters.

Fuck.

On the chessboard of his godforsaken life, the pieces were lined up, the play preordained. Man, so many times in life you didn't get to pick your path because the way you went was decided for you.

Free will was such bullshit.

Forget his mother and her drama¡ªhe needed to become the Primale for the Brotherhood. He owed the legacy he served.

After wiping the blade on his leathers, he resheathed the weapon handle down, struggled to his feet, and patted down his jacket. Shit... his phone. Where was his phone? Back at the penhouse. It must have slipped out when he'd tossed his coat down on the bed back at the penthouse¡ª

A shot rang out.

A bullet hit him right between his pecs.

The impact popped him off his heels and sent him on a slow-mo fall through thin air. As he went back flat on the ground, he just lay there as a crushing pressure made his heart jump and his brain fog out. All he could do was gasp, little quick breaths skipping up and down the corridor of his throat.

With his last bit of strength, he lifted his head and looked down his body. A gunshot. Blood on his shirt. The screaming pain in his chest. The nightmare realized.

Before he could panic, blackness came and swallowed him whole... a meal to be digested in an acid bath of agony.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Whitcomb?"

Dr. Jane Whitcomb looked up from the patient chart she was signing and winced. Manuel Manello, M.D., chief of surgery at St. Francis Medical Center, was coming down the hall at her like a bull. And she knew why.

This was going to get ugly.

Jane scribbled her sig at the bottom of the drug order, handed the chart back to the nurse, and watched as the woman took off at a dead run. Good defensive maneuver, and not uncommon around here. When the chief got like this, folks took cover... which was the logical thing to do when a bomb was about to go off and you had half a brain.

Jane faced him. "So you've heard."

"In here. Now." He punched open the door to the surgeons' lounge.

As she went in with him, Priest and Dubois, two of St. Francis's best GI knives, took one look at the chief, scrapped their vending-machine cuisine, and beat feet out of the room. In their wake, the door eased shut without even a whisper of air. Like it didn't want to catch Manello's attention, either.

"When were you going to tell me, Whitcomb? Or did you think Columbia was on a different planet and I wasn't going to find out?"

Jane crossed her arms over her chest. She was a tall woman, but Manello topped her by a couple of inches, and he was built like the professional athletes he operated on: big shoulders, big chest, big hands. At forty-five, he was in prime physical condition and one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the country.

As well as a scary SOB when he got mad.

Good thing she was comfortable in tense situations. "I know you have contacts there, but I thought they'd be discreet enough to wait until I decided whether I wanted the job¡ª"

"Of course you want it or you wouldn't waste time going down there. Is it money?"

"Okay, first, you don't interrupt me. And second, you're going to lower your voice." As Manello dragged a hand through his thick dark hair and took a deep breath, she felt bad. "Look, I should have told you. It must have been embarrassing to get blindsided like that."

He shook his head. "Not my favorite thing, getting a call from Manhattan that one of my best surgeons is interviewing at another hospital with my mentor."

"Was it Falcheck who told you?"

"No, one of his underlings."

"I'm sorry, Manny. I just don't know how it's going to go, and I didn't want to jump the gun."

"Why are you thinking about leaving the department?"

"You know I want more than what I can have here. You're going to be chief until you're sixty-five, unless you decide to leave. Down at Columbia, Falcheck is fifty-eight. I've got a better chance of becoming head of the department there."

"I already made you chief of the Trauma Division."

"And I deserve it."

His lips cracked a smile. "Be humble, why don't you."

"Why bother? We both know its the truth. And as for Columbia? Would you want to be under someone for the next two decades of your life?"

His lids lowered over his mahogany-colored eyes. For the briefest second, she thought she saw something flare in that stare of his, but then he put his hands on his hips, his white coat straining as his shoulders widened.

"I don't want to lose you, Whitcomb. You're the best trauma knife I've got."

"And I have to look to the future." She went over to her locker. "I want to run my own shop, Manello. It's the way I am."

"When's the damn interview?"

"First thing tomorrow afternoon. Then I'm off through the weekend and not on call, so I'm going to stay in the city."

"Shit."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," they both called out.

A nurse ducked her head inside. "Trauma case, ETA two minutes. Male in his thirties. Gunshot with probable perforated aorta. Crashed twice so far on transport. Will you accept the patient, Dr. Whitcomb, or do you want me to call Goldberg?"

"Nope, I'll take him. Set up bay four in the chute and tell Ellen and Jim I'm coming right down."

"Will do, Dr. Whitcomb."

"Thanks, Nan."

The door eased shut, and she looked at Manello. "Back to Columbia. You'd do the exact same thing if you were in my shoes. So you can't tell me you're surprised."

There was a stretch of silence then he leaned forward a little. "And I won't let you go without a fight. Which shouldn't surprise you, either."

He left the room, taking most of the oxygen in the place with him.

Jane leaned back against her locker and looked across to the kitchen area to the mirror hanging on the wall. Her reflection was crystal-clear in the glass, from her white doctor's coat to her green scrubs to her blunt-cut blond hair.

"He took that okay," she said to herself. "All things considered."

The door to the lounge opened, and Dubois poked his head in. "Coast clear?"

"Yup. And I'm heading down to the chute."

Dubois pushed the door wide and strode in, his crocs making no sound on the linoleum. "I don't know how you do it. You're the only one who doesn't need smelling salts after dealing with him."

"He's no problem, really."

Dubois made a chuffing noise. "Don't get me wrong. I respect the shit out of him, I truly do. But I don't want him pissed."

She put her hand on her colleague's shoulder. "Pressure wears on people. You lost it last week, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right." Dubois smiled. "And at least he doesn't throw things anymore."