’Cuz who cared what their names were as long as they showed up weaponized with plenty of ammo.

The Brotherhood medical personnel were also on standby in the area, with Manny in his mobile surgical unit about a mile away and Jane and Ehlena in one of the vans at a two-mile radius.

Rhage checked his watch. Six minutes and change.

As his left eye started to do the stanky leg, he cursed. How the fuck was he going to hold his position for that long?

Baring his fangs, he exhaled through his nose, blowing out twin streams of condensed breath that were nothing short of a bull’s charging notice.

Christ, he couldn’t remember the last time he was this juiced. And he didn’t want to think about the why of it. In fact, he’d been avoiding the whole why thing for how long?

Well, since he and Mary had hit this strange rough spot and he’d started to feel—

“Rhage.”

His name was whispered so softly he wrenched around, because he wasn’t sure whether or not his subconscious had decided to start talking to him. Nope. It was Vishous—and given his brother’s expression, Rhage would have preferred to be pulling a split-personality on himself. Those diamond eyes were flashing with a bad light. And those tattoos around that temple were so not helping.

The goatee was a neutral—unless you assessed it on style. In which case the fucker was a travesty of Rogaine proportions.

Rhage shook his head. “Shouldn’t you get into position—”

“I’ve seen this night.”

Oh, hell, no, Rhage thought. Nope, you are not doing this to me right now, my brother.

Turning away, he muttered, “Spare me the Vincent Price, ’kay? Or are you trying for the guy who does the movie trailer voice-overs—”

“Rhage.”

“—’cuz you got a future in that. ‘In a world . . . where people need . . . to shut up and do their jobs—’”

“Rhage.”

When he didn’t look back, V came around and glared up at him, those fucking pale eyes a twin set of nuclear blasts that spelled mushroom cloud forward and backward. “I want you to go home. Now.”

Rhage opened his mouth. Clapped it shut. Opened it again—and had to remind himself to keep his voice down. “Look, it’s not a good time for your one-eight-hundred psychic headquarters shit—”

The Brother snapped a hold on his arm and squeezed. “Go home. I’m not fucking you.”

Cold terror washed through Rhage’s veins, bottoming out his body temperature—and yet he shook his head again. “Fuck off, Vishous. Seriously.”

He was so not interested in testing out any more of the Scribe Virgin’s magic. He wasn’t—

“You’re going to fucking die tonight.”

As Rhage’s heart stopped, he stared down into that face that he’d known for so many years, tracing those tattoos, and the tight lips, and the slashing black brows . . . and the radiant intelligence that was usually expressed through a filter of samurai-sword sarcasm.

“Your mother gave me her word,” Rhage said. Wait, was he actually talking about him kicking it? “She promised that when I die, Mary can come with me unto the Fade. Your mother said—”

“Fuck my mother. Go home.”

Rhage looked away because he had to. It was either that or have his head explode. “I’m not leaving the brothers. Ain’t going to happen. You could be wrong, for one thing.”

Yeah, and when was the last time that had happened? Eighteen hundreds? Seventeen hundreds?

Never?

He spoke over V. “I’m also not going to run scared from the Fade. I start thinking like that, and I’m finished with a weapon in my hand.” He put his palm all up in that goatee so the brother cut the interrupting. “And the third fuck off? If I don’t fight tonight, I’m not going to make it through the day locked in the mansion—not without my purple friend coming out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you feel me?”

Well, and there was a number four, too. And the fourth rationale . . . was bad, so very bad that he couldn’t entertain it for more than the split second required for the piece of shit to come to mind.

“Rhage—”

“Nothing’s going to wreck me. I got this—”

“No, you don’t!” V hissed.

“Okay, fine,” Rhage bit out as he tilted forward on his hips. “So what if I die? Your mother gave my Mary the ultimate grace. If I go unto the Fade, Mary just meets me there. I don’t have to worry about ever being separated from her. She and I will be perfectly fine. Who really fucking cares if I kick it?”

V did some lean-in of his own. “You don’t think the Brothers will give a shit? Really? Thanks, asshole.”

Rhage checked his watch. Two minutes to go.

Might as well be two thousand years.

“And you trust my mother,” V sneered, “with something that important. I never thought you were naive.”

“She managed to give me a fucking T. rex alter ego! That’s some good fucking credibility.”

All at once, a number of birdcalls sounded out around them in the darkness. If you hadn’t known better, you’d have assumed it was just a bunch of night owls going Pitch Perfect.

Damn it, the pair of them were yelling over here.

“Whatever, V,” he whispered. “You’re so goddamn smart, worry about your own life.”

His last conscious thought, before his brain went Zero Dark Thirty and nothing else registered outside of the aggression, was of his Mary.