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Wrath shrugged. “Might as well. We’ve got nothing else to go on.”

Phury stood up, unable to take the waiting any longer either. “I’m going with you. You’ll need someone to show you where the entrance is.”

Because Butch couldn’t dematerialize, the two of them got in the Escalade, and Phury powered the SUV over the lawn and into the forest. With the sun coming up so soon, he didn’t bother with a roundabout way, but gunned right for the Tomb.

The two of them were utterly silent until Phury pulled up to the entrance of the cave and they got out.

“I smell blood,” Butch said. “I think we’ve got them!”

Yeah, there was the barest trace of human blood in the air…no doubt from V having carried Jane inside.

Shit. Jogging into the cave, they headed for the back, slipping through the disguised entrance and going down to the iron gates. One side was open, and there was a trail of wet footsteps down the center of the hall of jars.

“He’s here!” Butch said, relief carrying his words more than his breath did.

Yeah, except why would V, who hated his mother, bury the female he loved according to the Scribe Virgin’s traditions?

He wouldn’t.

As they started down the hall, Phury’s sense of doom was triggered…especially as they got to the end and he saw an empty spot on the shelving, where a lesser’s jar was missing. Oh, no. Oh…God no. They should have brought more weapons. If V had done what Phury feared he had, they were going to need to be armed to the nines.

“Hold up!” He stopped, tore a torch from the wall, and handed it to Butch. After he nabbed one for himself, he grabbed Butch’s arm. “Be prepared to fight.”

“Why? V might be pissed off that we came, but he’s not going to get violent.”

“Jane’s the one you’re going to want to watch for.”

“What the fuck are you talking ab—”

“I think he might have tried to bring her back—”

A brilliant flash of light exploded up ahead, turning everything into noontime.

“Fuck!” the cop barked in the aftermath. “Don’t tell me he would?”

“If Marissa died and you could pull it off, wouldn’t you?”

The two of them took off and burst into the cave. Only to stop dead.

“What is that?” Butch breathed.

“I…I have no idea.”

On slow, quiet feet they walked down to the altar, transfixed by the sight ahead. Sitting in the middle of the lintel stone was a sculpture, a bust…of Jane’s head and shoulders. The composition was done in dark gray stone, the likeness so exact it was like a photograph. Or maybe a hologram. Light from candles flickered over the features, casting shadows that seemed to animate them.

At the far right end of the slab there was a smashed ceramic jar, the Brotherhood’s sacred skull, as well as what looked like a mangled, oil-covered heart.

On the far side of the altar, V was propped up against the wall of names, his eyes shut, his hands in his lap. One of his wrists was tied up tightly with a strip of black cloth, and one of his daggers was missing. The place smelled like smoke, but there was none in the air.

“V?” Butch went over and knelt down next to his roommate.

Phury left the cop to deal with V and headed for the altar. The sculpture was a perfect likeness of Jane, so real it could have been her as she breathed. He reached out, compelled to touch the face, but the instant his forefinger came into contact with it, the bust lost all form. Shit. It wasn’t made of stone but ash, and now it was nothing more than a loose mound of what must be Jane’s last remains.

Phury looked over at Butch. “Tell me V’s alive?”

“Well, he’s breathing, at any rate.”

“Let’s get him home.” Phury looked at the ashes. “Let’s get them both home.”

He needed something to carry Jane in, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to use a lesser jar. He glanced around. There was nothing.

Phury took off his silk shirt and spread it flat on the altar. It was the best he could do, and they were out of time.

Daylight was coming. And there was no negotiating with its arrival.

Chapter Fifty-one

Two days later Phury