When they came up to where the TV van was parked, there was your typical crime convention, with two Caldwell Police Department cruisers parked at the entrance to Twentieth Avenue's dead-end alley. As a reporter stood spotlit and addressing a camera, men in uniform walked around within a circle of yellow tape, and kibitzers huddled together, drama-feeding and yakking.

The gust of wind barreling down the alley carried the smell of V's blood as well as the sweet baby-powder stench of lessers.

"Oh, God…" Butch's anguish rolled out into the cold night air, adding a sharp, shellaclike tang to the mix.

The cop lurched forward toward the tape, but Phury grabbed the guy's arm to stop him-only to blanch. The evil in Butch was so palpable, it shot up Phury's arm and landed in his gut, making his stomach roll.

He held on to his friend anyway.

"You stay the fuck back. You probably worked with some of those badges." When the cop opened his mouth, Phury talked right over him. "Pop your collar, pull your brim, and hold tight."

Butch tugged on his Red Sox hat and tucked his jaw in. "If he's dead-"

"Shut up and worry about keeping yourself on your feet." Which was going to be a challenge, because Butch was a ragged mess. Jesus… if V was dead, not only would that kill each and every one of the Brothers, but the cop had special problems. After he pulled that Dyson routine with the slayers, V was the only thing that could get the evil out of him.

"Go on, Butch. It's too much exposure for you. Go on now."

The cop walked off a couple yards and propped himself up against a parked car in the shadows. When it looked like the guy was going to stay there, Phury went over and joined the hangers-on at the edge of the yellow tape. Surveying the scene, the first thing he noticed were the residuals from where a lesser had been offed. Fortunately, the police weren't paying attention to them. They probably thought the glossy puddle was just oil spilled from a car and the scorched place leftover from a homeless person's makeshift fire. No, the badges were concentrating on the center of the scene, where Vishous had clearly lain in a pool of red blood.

Oh… God.

Phury glanced at the random human next to him. "What happened?"

The guy shrugged. "Gunshot. Some kind of fight."

A young kid dressed in rave clothes spoke up, all hyped out, like this was the coolest thing ever. "It was in the chest. I saw it happen, and I was the one who called nine-one-one." He waved his cell phone like it was a prize. "The police want me to stick around so they can interview me."

Phury looked over at him. "What went down?"

"God, you wouldn't have believed it. It was right outta The World's Most Shocking Moments Caught on Tape show. You know that show?"

"Yeah." Phury checked out the buildings on either side of the alley. No windows. This was probably the only witness. "So what happened?"

"Well, all's I was doing was walking down Trade. My friends ditched me at Screamer's and I got no ride, you know? Anyway, I'm walking and I see this bright flash of light up ahead. It was like a massive strobe thingy coming out of this alley. I walked a little faster, 'cause I wanted to see what was going down, and that's when I heard the gunshot. It was like a pop sound. Actually, I didn't even know it was a gunshot until I got here. You'd think it'd be louder-"

"When did you call nine-one-one?"

"Well, I waited a little bit, 'cause I figured someone would come running out of the alley and I didn't want to be shot. But, like, no one came, so I figured they'd disappeared out some back way or something. Then when I walked down here, I saw that there's no other way out. So maybe he shot himself, you know?"

"What the guy look like?"

"The vic?" The kid leaned in. "Vic is what the police call the victim. I heard 'em."

"Thanks for the clarification," Phury muttered. "So what did he look like?"

"Dark hair. With a goatee. Lot of leather. I stood over him while I called nine-one-one. He was bleeding, but alive."

"You didn't see anyone else?"

"Nope. Just the one. So, like, I'm going to get interviewed by the police. Like, for real. Did I tell you that?"

"Yeah, congratulations. You must be thrilled." Man, Phury totally had to resist popping the kid a fat lip.

"Hey, don't hate. This is cool stuff."

"Not for the guy who got shot, it isn't." Phury looked over the scene again. At least V wasn't in lesser hands, and he hadn't been dead at the scene. Chances were the slayer had shot V first, but the brother had still had enough strength to poof the bastard before passing out.

From the left, Phury heard a well-modulated voice: "This is Bethany Choi of the Channel Six NewsLeader team reporting live from the scene of another downtown shooting. According to police, the victim, Michael Klosnick-"

Michael Klosnick? Whatever, likely V had copped the lesser's ID and it had been found on him.

"-was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest…"

Okay, this was going to be a long night: Vishous injured. In human hands. And they had only four hours until daylight.

Rapid-evac time.

Phury dialed the compound while he walked back over to Butch. As the cell rang, he talked at the cop. "He's alive at St. Francis with a gunshot."

Butch sagged and said something that sound like, Praise God. "So we're going to get him out?"

"You got it." Why wasn't Wrath picking up? Come on, Wrath… pick up. "Shit… those goddamned surgeons must have gotten the surprise of their human lives when they opened him up-Wrath? We've got a situation."

Vishous came awake in an out-of-it body, becoming fully conscious, though he was trapped in a cage of comatose flesh and bones. Unable to move his arms or legs, and with his eyelids shut so tight it was like he'd been crying rubber cement, it appeared that his hearing was the only thing working: There was a conversation going on above him. Two voices. A female's and a male's, neither of which he recognized.

No, wait. He knew one of them. One of them had ordered him around. The female. But why?

And why the hell had he let her?

He listened to her talk without really following the words. Her cadence of speech was like a male's. Direct. Authoritative. Commanding.

Who was she? Who-

Her identity hit him like a slap, stunning some sense into him. The surgeon. The human surgeon. Jesus Christ, he was in a human hospital. He'd fallen into human hands after… Shit, what had happened?

Panic energized him… and got him exactly nowhere. His body was a slab of meat, and he had a feeling the tube down his throat meant a machine was working his lungs. Clearly they'd sedated the shit out of him.

Oh, God. How close to dawn was it? He needed to get the hell away from here. How was he going to-

His escape planning came to a crashing halt as his instincts fired up, took the wheel, grabbed control.

It wasn't the fighter in him coming out, though. It was all those possessive male impulses that had always been dormant, the ones he'd read about or heard about or seen in others, but had assumed he'd been born without. The trigger was a scent in the room, the scent of a male who wanted sex… with the female, with V's surgeon.

Mine.

The word came from out of nowhere and arrived with a matched set of urge-to-kill luggage. He was so outraged his eyes flipped open.

Turning his head, he saw a tall human woman with a short cap of blond hair. She wore rimless glasses, no makeup, no earrings. Her white coat read, JANE WHITCOMB, MD, CHIEF OF TRAUMA DIVISION in black cursive letters.

"Manny," she said, "this is crazy."

V shifted his stare to a dark-haired human male. The guy was also in a white coat, with his reading, MANUEL MANELLO, MD, CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY at the right of the lapel.