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Vishous pounded a fist into the Sheetrock and stepped off from Jane. “I’m coming back at the end of the night. Be naked.”

“Wouldn’t you rather undress me?”

“No, because I’d shred that shirt, and I want you sleeping in it every night until you’re in my bed with me. Be. Naked.”

“We’ll see.”

His whole body throbbed at the disobedience. And she knew it, her stare level and erotic.

“God, I love you,” he said.

“I know. Now run along and kill something. I’ll be waiting for you.”

He smiled at her. “Couldn’t love you more if I tried.”

“Ditto.”

He kissed her and dematerialized out front to Rhage’s side, making sure some mhis was in place. Oh, great. It was raining. Man, he’d so much rather be cozied up with Jane than out with his brother, and he couldn’t help but shoot a short-stack glare at Rhage.

“Like another five minutes would kill you?”

“Please. You start down that road with your female and I’ll be here until summer.”

“Are you—”

V frowned and looked at the condo next to Jane’s. The garage door was jammed halfway up, the glow of brake lights revealed. There was a slam of a car door then on the breeze the faintest scent of sweetness drifted over, like powdered sugar had been sprinkled in the cold wind.

“Oh…God, no.”

At that very moment Jane threw open her front door and came running out, his leather jacket in her hand, his shirt flowing behind her. “You forgot this!”

It was a hideous hole in one, a revelation of all the pieces he’d seen only fragments of: The dream had arrived in real life.

“No!” he screamed.

The sequence played out in a series of seconds that lasted centuries: Rhage looking at him as if he were crazy. Jane running over the grass. Him dropping the mhis as fear overwhelmed him.

A lesser ducking out from under the garage door with gun drawn.

The shot made no sound on account of the silencer that was in place. V lunged for Jane, trying to shield her body with his. He failed. She was hit in the back, and the bullet came out the other side, busting through her sternum, going into his arm. He caught her as she fell, his own chest blazing with pain.

As they crumpled to the ground, Rhage tore off after the slayer, not that V really noticed. All he knew was his nightmare: Blood on his shirt. His heart screaming in agony. Death coming…but not for him. For Jane.

“Two minutes,” she said between gasps as her hand flopped onto her chest. “Got less than two…minutes.”

She must have been hit in an artery and knew it. “I’m going to—”

She shook her head and grabbed his arm. “Stay. Shit…not going…to…”

Make it…were the words she was going to say. “Fuck that!”

“Vishous…” Her eyes watered, her color draining fast. “Hold my hand. Don’t leave me. You can’t…Don’t let me go alone.”

“You’re going to be fine!” He started to pick her up. “I’m taking you to Havers’s.”

“Vishous. Can’t fix this. Hold my hand. I’m leaving…oh, fuck…” She started to weep while gasping. “I love you.”

“No!”

“I love…”

“No!”

Chapter Forty-eight

The Scribe Virgin looked up from the bird in her hand, sudden dread startling her.

Oh…wretched happenstance. Oh, horrid destiny.

It had come. The thing she had sensed and feared long ago, the breakdown in the structure of her reality had arrived. Her punishment was now manifest.

That human…that human woman her son loved was dying at this very moment. She was in his arms and bleeding on him and dying.

With an unsteady arm the Scribe Virgin put the chickadee back on the white-blooming tree and stumbled over to the fountain. Sitting down on its marble edge, she felt the light weight of her robing as if it were heavy chains drawn around her.

The fault of her son’s loss was hers. Verily, she had brought this ruination upon him: She had broken the rules. Three hundred years ago she had broken the rules.

At the inception of time she had been granted one act of creation, and accordingly, after her maturity had been reached, one act of creation she had effected. But then she