Only in this instance, he had the sense he would not be taken back down.

And it was funny. Each and every entity that had consciousness and an awareness of its own mortality inevitably wondered, from time to time, about the when and where, the how and why of its demise. Rhage had been guilty of that morbid drift of thought himself, especially during his pre-Mary period, when he’d been alone with nothing but a catalog of his failures and weaknesses to keep him company during the dense, deserted hours of daylight.

For him, those rambling questions were being unexpectedly answered tonight: “Where” was in the middle of the field of conflict, at an abandoned girls’ school; “how” was by bleeding out at the heart, as a result of a gunshot wound; “why” was in the line of duty; “when” was probably in the next ten minutes or so, maybe less.

Given the nature of his work, none of that was a surprise. Okay, maybe the prep-school part, but that was it.

He was going to miss his brothers. Jesus . . . that hurt more than the beast stuff. And he was going to worry about all of them, and the future of Wrath’s kingship. Shit, he was going to miss seeing Nalla and L.W. grow up. And Qhuinn’s twins being born hopefully alive and well. Would he be able to see them all from the Fade?

Oh, his Mary. His beautiful, precious Mary.

Terror hit him, but it was hard to hold on to the emotion as he felt himself weaken even further. To calm down, he told himself that the Scribe Virgin didn’t lie. The Scribe Virgin was all powerful. The Scribe Virgin had determined the balance needed to save his Mary’s life and had given them a great gift to counter-balance the fact that his shellan could not have children.

No children, he thought with a pang. He and his Mary would never have children in any form now.

That was so sad.

Strange . . . he hadn’t thought he’d wanted them, at least not consciously. But now that it would never happen? He was totally bereft.

At least his Mary would never leave him.

And he had to have faith that when he went to that door to the Fade, and he proceeded through it to whatever was on the other side, she would be able to find him.

Otherwise, this whole death thing would have been unbearable to go through. The idea that he could be dying and would never see his beloved again? Never smell her hair? Know her touch? Speak his truth even though she already knew how much he loved her?

All that was why death was such a tragedy, he thought. It was the great separator, and sometimes it struck without warning, a vicious thief robbing people of emotional currency that would bankrupt them for the rest of their lives. . . .

Shit, what if the Scribe Virgin was wrong? Or had lied? Or wasn’t all-powerful?

Abruptly, his panic refueled, and his thoughts began to jam up, getting stuck on the distance that had come between him and his shellan lately, distance that he had taken for granted that he had time and space to correct.

Oh, God . . . Mary, he said in his head. Mary! I love you!

Shit. He should have talked out the stuff with her, dug down deep to discover where the problem was, mended them back so that they were once more soul-to-soul.

The trouble was, he realized with dread, when your heart finally stopped beating in your chest, everything that you wished you’d said but hadn’t, all the missing pieces of yourself that you had yet to give, all the failures you had stuffed under the rug in the guise of life being so very busy . . . that stopped, too. The mid-stride step, never to be completed, was the worst regret anyone could have.

You just maybe didn’t learn that until all the things you’d ever wondered about your death actually happened. And yup, those questions you’d wondered about, the how’s and why’s, where’s and when’s . . . turned out to be pretty goddamned immaterial when you left the planet.

They had been losing ground, he and Mary.

Lately . . . they had been losing touch with each other.

He didn’t want to go out like this—

White light wiped out everything, eating him alive, stealing his consciousness.

The Fade had come for him. And he could only pray that his Mary Madonna would be able to find him on the other side.

He had things he desperately needed to say to her.

* * *

Vishous resumed his form in a white marble courtyard that was open to a milky sky so vast and bright that there were no shadows thrown by the fountain in the center or by the tree full of colorful, chirping finches over in the corner.

All of whom went silent as they sensed his mood.

“Mother!” His voice echoed, bouncing between the walls. “Where the fuck are you!”

As he strode forward, the trail of blood that he left in his wake was brilliant red, and when he stopped at the door to the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters, drops fell from his elbow and his leg with soft impacts. When he pounded and called her name some more, speckles of the shit hit the white panel like nail polish dropped on a floor.

“Fuck this.”

Slamming his shoulder into the thing, he broke into his mother’s quarters—only to pull up short. Over on the bedding platform, beneath sheets of white satin, the entity who had created the vampire race, but also bodily borne forth him and his sister, was lying in utter stillness and silence. There was no corporeal form to her, however. Just a three-dimensional pool of light that had once been brilliant as a flash bomb, but was now that of an old-fashioned oil lamp with a clouded shade.

“You have to save him.” As Vishous crossed the bare marble floor, he was dimly aware that the room was empty but for the bed. Who cared, though. “Wake the fuck up! Someone who matters is dying and you’re going to stop it, goddamn it.”