Yeah, okay, they were hiding in honeysuckle. Not exactly as manly as standing behind a bunch of oaks, but the coverage was better, and besides, that was all they had for camou flage next to Blay’s back door.

John checked his watch. They’d been waiting here for a good hour or two. Eventually they were going to have to get back to avoid the dawn, and didn’t that suck. He was here to fight. He was prepared to fight.

If he didn’t get a crack at another lesser, his inner ass-kicker was going to have a serious case of the blue balls.

Unfortunately all they had was an occasional late summer breeze to balance out the drone of crickets.

I didn’t know about Blay, John signed for no particular reason. How long have you known about…you know, how he felt?

Now Qhuinn’s fingers drummed on his thigh. “Pretty much since it started… which was a long time ago.”

Wow, John thought. With all these secrets coming out, it was almost like they were going through their transitions again.

And like the changes that had taken over their bodies, the three of them would never be as they once were.

“Blay hid what he felt,” Qhuinn murmured. “Although not because of the sex stuff. I mean, I don’t have a problem being with guys, especially if there’s chicks involved.” Qhuinn laughed. “You look so shocked. You didn’t know I went like that?”

Well… I… I mean…

Holy shit, if he’d ever felt like a virgin before, in the face of all of Qhuinn’s… whatever it was… he realized now he was more like a VIRGIN.

“Look, if I make you uncomfortable-”

No, it’s not that. Hell, I’m really not that surprised. I mean, you’ve gone into bathrooms with a lot of different…

“Yeah. I kind of just let what happens happen, you know. S’all good.” Qhuinn rubbed his forehead. “I don’t plan on being like this forever, though.”

No?

“Someday I want a shellan of my own. In the meantime, though, I’m going to do anything and everything. That’s how I know I’m living.”

John thought about it. I want a female, too. But it’s hard because…

Qhuinn didn’t look at him, but the guy nodded in understanding-which was good. Funny, it was easier to talk about stuff, in a way, now that his friend knew exactly why certain shit would be difficult for him.

“You know, I see the way you look at Xhex.”

John turned beet red. Um…

“It’s cool. I mean, fuck… she’s like off-the-chain hot. Partially because she’s so damn scary. I think that one could make you eat your own teeth if you got out of line.” Qhuinn shrugged. “But don’t you suppose you might want to start off with someone who’s a little… I don’t know, softer?”

You don’t get to pick who you’re attracted to.

“Amen.”

They heard the sound of someone coming around from the front of the house, and they both came to attention, upping the muzzles of their guns and swinging them to the east.

“It’s me,” Blay called out. “Don’t shoot.”

John stepped free of the honeysuckle. I thought you were going with your parents?

Blay stared at Qhuinn. “The Brothers have been trying to reach you.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Qhuinn said, gun going down to his side.

“They want you to come back to the mansion.”

Why, John signed even though Blay still had his eyes clamped on Qhuinn. Wrath said it was okay for us to stay-

“What’s the news,” Qhuinn said tightly. “You have news, don’t you.”

“Wrath wants you-”

“My family was hit, weren’t they.” Qhuinn’s jaw tightened. “Weren’t they.”

“Wrath wants you-”

“Fuck Wrath. Talk!”

Blay’s eyes flicked to John before returning to their friend. “Your mother, father, and sister are dead. Your brother is missing.”

Qhuinn’s breath left him on a wheeze, like someone had kicked him in the gut. John and Blay both reached out for him, but he shrugged them off and stepped away.

Blay shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

Qhuinn said nothing. It was as if he had forgotten English.

Blay tried to reach out again, and when Qhuinn only took another step back, he said, “Look, Wrath called me when he couldn’t reach either one of you, and asked me to bring you both back to the mansion. The glymera is going into seclusion.”

Let’s get to the car, John signed to Qhuinn.

“I’m not going.”

“Qhuinn-”

Qhuinn-

Qhuinn’s voice was full of the emotion his face refused to show. “Fuck all of this. Fuck-”

A light went on inside of Blay’s house, and Qhuinn’s head whipped around. Through the glass of the kitchen’s windows, they all saw a lesser walk into the room in plain sight.

There was no stopping Qhuinn. He was supersonic as he shot into the house through the back door with his gun up. And he didn’t blow slow mo once he was inside, either. He leveled his H amp; K at the slayer and popped the trig over and over and over again, driving the pale bastard back against the wall.

Even as the lesser slumped and bled black, Qhuinn kept shooting, the wallpaper behind the thing going Jackson Pollock.

Blay and John rushed over and John threw an arm around his friend’s neck. As he started hauling Qhuinn back, he grabbed the guy’s gun hand in case he tried to swing around and shoot.

Another lesser came barreling into the kitchen, and Blay manned up, grabbing a carving knife from a butcher-block stand of Henckels. As he faced off at the pale bastard, the slayer palmed a switchblade from out of nowhere and the two circled each other. Blay was twitchy, his big body ready to engage, his eyes sharp. Trouble was, he was still bleeding from injuries he’d sustained before he left, his face white and drawn from everything that had gone down.

Qhuinn lifted up his gun muzzle in spite of John’s lock hold on his arm.

As John shook his head, Qhuinn hissed, “Let me go. Right now.”

The voice was so dead calm, John obeyed.

Qhuinn put one perfect bullet right between the lesser’s eyes, dropping the thing like a doll.

“What the fuck?” Blay snapped. “He was mine.”

“Not going to watch you get sliced. Not going to happen. ”

Blay pointed a shaking finger at Qhuinn. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I lost people I can’t stand tonight. Not losing someone I actually give a shit about.”

“I don’t need you to be my hero-”

John stepped in between the two of them. Home, he signed. Now.

“There could be more-”

“There’s probably more-”

All three of them went still as Blay’s phone went off.

“It’s Wrath.” Blay’s fingers flew over the keys. “He really wants us home. And John, check your phone, I think it’s not working.”

John took the thing out of his pocket. It was dead as a doornail, but now was not the time to figure out why. Maybe from the fighting?

Let’s go, he signed.

Qhuinn went over to the stand of knives, pulled out a carver, and stabbed both the lesser he’d turned into a sieve and the one he’d bull’s-eyed back to the Omega.

Moving quickly, they sealed up the house as best they could, triggered the alarm, and piled into Fritz’s Mercedes, with Qhuinn behind the wheel and Blay and John in the backseat.

As they headed over to Route 22, Qhuinn started to put up the partition. “If we’re going to go back to the mansion, you can’t know where it is, Blay.”

Which was, of course, only part of the reason that shield was going up. Qhuinn wanted to be alone. It was what he needed whenever he had a headfuck going on and why John had volunteered to Miss Daisy it.

In the dense darkness of the backseat, John glanced over at Blay. The guy was lying back in the leather seat as if his head weighed as much as an engine block and his eyes seemed to have sunk into his skull. He looked about a hundred years old.