“I can wait.”
“Please don’t. She didn’t look so hot.”
Lassiter bent at the waist in a bow. “I’ll take care of it right now.”
V opened his mouth to say something. But then he closed it as the angel went through the door and the panel shut in his wake.
It was hard to be a douche to the guy when he was actually helping. Even though Payne had done the healing thing before, and had fallen into similar states of molecular exhaustion, it seemed like there was some kind of cumulative effect on her, each intercession on her part taking her closer to an edge nobody wanted her anywhere near.
“What the hell happened to that angel,” Butch murmured. “It’s like he’s running out of battery strength.”
Shaking his head, V went back into his phone. “Betty White did die. Maybe that’s why he’s in a decline.”
“Yeah, that’s got to be it. The last thing we need is more turnover in that role. I wonder who he would turn your mother’s job over to.”
“Not me.” V started thumbing through results of his Internet search. “I am not in the running for that thankless position.”
“You don’t want to be in charge of the Other Side?”
“Fuck no.”
“Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.” V glanced over. “But you know the Scribe Virgin, and then Lassiter, and then whoever is next, can’t play favorites when it comes to the hard graft of destiny. That’s not how it works.”
Butch took a draw off of his soda. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about pulling rank like that. It’s the closet space.”
“Excuse me?”
“Payne told me that your mother had the mother of all closets in her bedroom up there. I figure I could use some of them. Or, you know, most of them.”
Cursing, V went back to the search. “You’re a sick man.”
“And there are twelve seasons of weather in Caldwell. Jus’ sayin’.” Butch tilted his head all the way back and finished his soda. “Here. I’m done with this. You can use it to ash in.”
As the male set the empty red can between them, V had to smile. That was the thing with your best friend. They knew when you needed somewhere to tap your cigarette before you did.
They were also the type to sit outside a hospital room, when you were shitting your pants about your sister but didn’t want to admit that to anybody, and talk to you about anything but what was really on your mind.
“Thanks,” V said as he took his hand-rolled to the little hole.
“Anytime,” his roommate replied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Apex re-formed back at the wolven’s clearing, ready to get some advice from Callum about where they could go for medical supplies. As soon as he was corporeal, he caught the scent of vampire blood and followed it around to where he’d left the drama.
Well, what do you know, Lucan had a belt on. And they were trying to get him to feed, his female’s wrist over his mouth.
“I didn’t find anything,” Apex announced as all kinds of faces turned to him. “Where’s Callum.”
“He hasn’t been back yet,” Kane said. “So there wasn’t anything down there?”
“Oh, there was shit. Just nothing that’s going to help, not unless you think he’s going to need a parka to shovel snow in or some target practice.”
“Goddamn it—”
Apex took the other prisoner’s arm and urged him out of range. “So Callum hasn’t been back?”