in those holsters. It used to be when you fought the slayers you had to be prepared for any special modification out on the market for any kind of weapon. Lately? They had been going up against old-school switchblades, brass knuckles, and even-gasp-a frickin’ billy club last week-all cheap weapons that didn’t require bullets or upkeep. And now they were playing The Waltons here at Hunter-poser Farms? What the fuck?
The first bedroom he came up to was marked by a pair of perfumes, and he found two jars next to the sheetless, blanketless twin beds.
The next crip likewise smelled of a variant of old lady…that and something else. A quick sniff told Wrath it was…Christ, Old Spice.
Go. Fig. With the way those fuckers smelled, like you’d want to add anything to the mix-
Holy shit.
Wrath inhaled hard, his brain filtering out anything remotely sweet.
Gunpowder.
Following the metallic bite in the air, he went over to a closet that had the kind of flimsy doors you’d expect on a dollhouse. As he opened them up, the eau d’ammo bloomed, and he leaned down, feeling around with his hands.
Wooden crates. Four of them. All nailed shut.
The guns inside had definitely been fired, but not recently, he thought. Which suggested this might well have been a CPO purchase.
Certified preowned by who, though.
Whatever, he wasn’t leaving them behind. This stash was going to be used by the enemy against his civilians and his brothers, so he’d blow up the whole apartment before letting those weapons get palmed in the war.
But if he called this in to the Brotherhood? His secret would be revealed. Trouble was, dragging the crates out by himself was a yeah-right sitch: He had no car, and there was no way of dematerializing with that kind of weight on his back, even if he cut it up into smaller loads.
Wrath backed out of the closet and took stock of the bedroom, using touch as much as sight. Oh, good. There was a window over on the left.
He took out his phone with a curse and flipped it open-
Someone was coming up the stairwell.
He froze, closing his eyes to concentrate even further. Human or lesser?
Only one mattered.
Wrath bent to the side and put the two jars he’d macked on a dresser, finding, natch, both the third one and the bottle of Old Spice. Palming his forty, he stood with his shitkickers planted and his gun pointed down the short hallway, directly at the unit’s front door.
There was a jangle of keys, then a clang, as if they’d fallen out of a hand.
The curse was a woman’s.
As his body eased up, he let his gun fall to his thigh. Like the Brotherhood, the Society admitted only males into its ranks, so that was no slayer playing pickup sticks with those keys.
He heard the door to the apartment across the way close, and abruptly a surround-sound TV came on loud enough so he could hear the rerun of The Office.
He liked this epi. It was the one where the bat got loose-
A bunch of screams rippled over, generated by the sitcom.
Yup. The bat was flying around now.
With the woman safely occupied, he refocused but stayed where he was, praying the coming-home bit was a theme song the enemy would pick up and carry. Staying statue and breathing shallow didn’t improve the ratio of lessers in the place, however. Some fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, he was still completely surrounded by no slayers.
But it wasn’t a total loss. He was copping a nice little comedy contact buzz from Dwight’s head-and bat-bagging scene in the Office’s kitchen.
Time to get a move on.
He hit up Butch, gave the Brother the address, and told the cop to drive like his foot was made of stone. Wrath wanted to get the guns out before anyone came, yes. But if he and his brother could get the crates out quickly, and Butch could ghost the shit, Wrath might still be able to hang around the premises for another hour or so.
To pass the time, he hunted through the apartment, patting surfaces down with his palms in an attempt to find
The first bedroom he came up to was marked by a pair of perfumes, and he found two jars next to the sheetless, blanketless twin beds.
The next crip likewise smelled of a variant of old lady…that and something else. A quick sniff told Wrath it was…Christ, Old Spice.
Go. Fig. With the way those fuckers smelled, like you’d want to add anything to the mix-
Holy shit.
Wrath inhaled hard, his brain filtering out anything remotely sweet.
Gunpowder.
Following the metallic bite in the air, he went over to a closet that had the kind of flimsy doors you’d expect on a dollhouse. As he opened them up, the eau d’ammo bloomed, and he leaned down, feeling around with his hands.
Wooden crates. Four of them. All nailed shut.
The guns inside had definitely been fired, but not recently, he thought. Which suggested this might well have been a CPO purchase.
Certified preowned by who, though.
Whatever, he wasn’t leaving them behind. This stash was going to be used by the enemy against his civilians and his brothers, so he’d blow up the whole apartment before letting those weapons get palmed in the war.
But if he called this in to the Brotherhood? His secret would be revealed. Trouble was, dragging the crates out by himself was a yeah-right sitch: He had no car, and there was no way of dematerializing with that kind of weight on his back, even if he cut it up into smaller loads.
Wrath backed out of the closet and took stock of the bedroom, using touch as much as sight. Oh, good. There was a window over on the left.
He took out his phone with a curse and flipped it open-
Someone was coming up the stairwell.
He froze, closing his eyes to concentrate even further. Human or lesser?
Only one mattered.
Wrath bent to the side and put the two jars he’d macked on a dresser, finding, natch, both the third one and the bottle of Old Spice. Palming his forty, he stood with his shitkickers planted and his gun pointed down the short hallway, directly at the unit’s front door.
There was a jangle of keys, then a clang, as if they’d fallen out of a hand.
The curse was a woman’s.
As his body eased up, he let his gun fall to his thigh. Like the Brotherhood, the Society admitted only males into its ranks, so that was no slayer playing pickup sticks with those keys.
He heard the door to the apartment across the way close, and abruptly a surround-sound TV came on loud enough so he could hear the rerun of The Office.
He liked this epi. It was the one where the bat got loose-
A bunch of screams rippled over, generated by the sitcom.
Yup. The bat was flying around now.
With the woman safely occupied, he refocused but stayed where he was, praying the coming-home bit was a theme song the enemy would pick up and carry. Staying statue and breathing shallow didn’t improve the ratio of lessers in the place, however. Some fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, he was still completely surrounded by no slayers.
But it wasn’t a total loss. He was copping a nice little comedy contact buzz from Dwight’s head-and bat-bagging scene in the Office’s kitchen.
Time to get a move on.
He hit up Butch, gave the Brother the address, and told the cop to drive like his foot was made of stone. Wrath wanted to get the guns out before anyone came, yes. But if he and his brother could get the crates out quickly, and Butch could ghost the shit, Wrath might still be able to hang around the premises for another hour or so.
To pass the time, he hunted through the apartment, patting surfaces down with his palms in an attempt to find
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