John whipped out a paper towel from the wall dispenser, took his pen from his pocket, and wrote some bold words. Before she could take off, he went over and forced what he’d scribbled on into her hand.

She looked down at it. “You want me to read now or later.”

Later, he mouthed.

As he pushed through the door, he was a lot more sober. And he had a big-ass, I’m-the-man smile on his face.

When Lash reappeared in his parents’ foyer, he kept still for a little bit. His body felt as though it had been pressed between two sheets of waxed paper and hit with an iron, a fallen leaf captured and preserved artificially, and not without some pain.

He glanced at his hands. Flexed them. Cracked his neck.

The lessons from his father had begun. They were going to meet regularly. He was ready to learn.

Curling his hands into fists and releasing them, he counted the tricks he had now. Tricks that were… not tricks, actually. Not tricks at all. He was a monster. A monster just beginning to understand the usefulness of the scales on his body and the flames in his mouth and the barbs on his tail.

It was kind of like it had been after his change. He had to figure out who he was again and how his body worked.

Fortunately the Omega was going to help him. As any good parent should.

When he could stand it, Lash turned his head and looked up the stairs, picturing where John had been standing.

It had been so good to see his enemy again. Positively heartwarming.

Hallmark really needed to start up a line of revenge cards, the kind that let you reach out to those you were going to come after with a vengeance.

Lash stood up carefully and did a slow turn and review, taking in the grandfather clock in the corner by the front door and the oil paintings and the generations of family shit that had been carefully stewarded.

Then he looked toward the dining room.

The shovels, he thought, were in the garage.

He found a pair of them lined up against the wall beside the pegboard that had the garden trowels and shears hanging on it. The shovel he chose had a wooden handle and a broad red-enameled palm.

When he stepped outside, he was amazed to see it was still dark, as he felt like he’d been with the Omega for hours and hours. Unless this was tomorrow? Or even the day after?

Lash went around to the side yard and picked a spot under the oak tree that offered shade to the study’s wide windows. As he dug, his eyes occasionally flicked up to the panes of glass and the room beyond them. The couch still had bloodstains on it, although what a ridiculous thing to notice. What, like they would evaporate out of the silk fibers?

He dug one grave that was five feet down into the earth, seven feet long, and four feet across.

The resulting pile of dirt was bigger than he’d thought, and it smelled like the lawn did after a heavy rainstorm, musky and sweet. Or maybe he was the sweet part.

The gathering glow in the east had him tossing the shovel out of the hole and leaping up to level ground. He had to move fast before the sun came up, and he did. He put his father in first. His mother was second. He angled them so they were spooning, with his father doing the holding.

He stared down at the two of them.

He was surprised that he needed to do this before he could get another squadron of men in here to try and empty the place, but whatever. These two had been his parents for the first part of his life, and though he’d told himself he didn’t give a shit about them, he did. He wasn’t going to have those lessers desecrating their rotting bodies. The house? Fine, fair game. But not the bodies.

With the sun rising, and golden rays spearing through the oak’s leafy arms, he made a phone call and then put the dirt back where it had been.

Holy shit, he thought when he’d finished. The thing really looked like a grave, with its domed bread-loaf top from all the displacement.

He was returning the shovel to its home in the garage when he heard the first of the cars pull up to the front door. Two lessers got out just as a second sedan eased onto the driveway, followed by a Ford F-150 and a minivan.

The bunch of them smelled as sweet as the sunshine while they filed into his parents’ house.

The U-Haul moving truck, driven by Mr. D, was the last to arrive.

As the Fore-lesser took charge and the looting commenced, Lash went up and took a quick shower in his old bathroom. While he was drying off, he went over to his closet. Clothes… clothes… somehow, what he’d been wearing lately didn’t strike the right note anymore, and he took out a spank Prada suit.

His military minimalist-chic stage was so over. He wasn’t the Brotherhood’s good little soldier-in-training anymore.

Feeling all sexy beast and shit, he went over to his bureau, opened up his jewelry drawer, and-

Where the fuck was his watch? The Jacob amp; Co. with the diamonds?

What the hell had…

Lash looked around and sniffed the air of his room. Then he flipped his vision to blue so that the prints of anyone who had been touching his shit showed up pink, just as his father had taught him.

Fresh, characterless prints, ones more vivid than those he’d left days ago, were on the bureau. He inhaled again. John had… John and Qhuinn had been here… and one of those miserable motherfuckers had taken his fucking watch.

Lash picked up the hunting knife on his desk and, with a roar, pitched it across the room, where it landed blade-first in one of his black pillows.

Mr. D appeared in the doorway. “Suh? What’s wrong-”

Lash wheeled around and pegged the guy with his finger, not to make a point but to use another one of his real father’s gifts.

But then he took a deep breath. Dropped his arm. Straightened his suit.

“Make me…” He had to clear the rage out of his throat.

“Make me breakfast. I want to take it in the sunroom, not at the dining table.”

Mr. D left, and about ten minutes later, when Lash wasn’t seeing double anymore from fury, he went downstairs and parked it in front of a nice spread of bacon, eggs, toast with jam, and OJ.

Mr. D had squeezed the oranges himself, evidently. Which, considering how good the shit tasted, was justification enough for not having blasted the fucker right out of his combat boots.

The other slayers ended up all gathered in the sunroom’s entryway, watching him eat like he was pulling off a magic trick and a half.

Just as he took a good last long suck from his cup of coffee, one of them said, “What the fuck are you?”

Lash wiped his mouth with his napkin and calmly removed his jacket. As he stood up, he undid the buttons down the front of his pastel pink shirt.

“I am your motherfucking king.”

With that, he opened the shirt and willed his skin to slit down the sternum. With his ribs cranked wide, he bared his fangs and exposed his black, beating heart.

As a group, the lessers jumped back. One even crossed himself, the fucker.

Lash calmly closed up his chest and rebuttoned his shirt and sat back down. “More coffee, Mr. D.”

The cowboy blinked stupidly a couple of times, doing an excellent impression of a sheep confronted with a math problem. “Yes… yes, suh.”

Lash picked up his cup again and met the pale faces in front of him. “Welcome to the future, gentlemen. Now get your asses moving, I want the first floor of this place empty before the mailman comes at ten thirty.”