Free Lover Enshrined by J. R. Ward Page A

his dazed eyes next door. The drug dealer was doing a meet and greet with the Grim Reaper, his last breaths escaping through the gaping second mouth at the front of his throat. The guy smelled like crack, as if he were a user as well as a peddler.
    This is my world , Phury thought. This world of Baggies and wads of cash and using and worrying about the next fix consumed more of his time than even the Brotherhood’s mission.
    The wizard popped into his mind, standing like Atlas in that field of bones. Damn right it’s your world, ya fried daft bastard. And I am your king.
    The lesser hauled on the chain, cutting off the wizard and making the stars in Phury’s head even brighter.
    If he didn’t get back in the game here, asphyxiation was going to be his best and only friend.
    Bringing his hands up to the links, he gripped the fuckers in two thick fists, jacked into a tuck position, and roped his prosthetic leg around the steel leash. Using the foot for leverage, he pushed against the links that ran under the sole of his shitkicker and created some slack so he could breathe.
    The slayer leaned back like a waterskier, and the prosthesis weakened under the pressure, the angle of his fake foot changing. With a quick unhook, Phury freed his leg from the chain, dropped the slack on his end and braced his neck and shoulders. As the slayer went flying against the brick wall of a Valu-rite Dry Cleaners, the undead’s force and body weight yanked Phury up off the ground.
    For a split second the chain went loose.
    It was just enough for Phury to spin around, get the thing off his neck, and palm a dagger.
    The lesser was stunned from getting body-slammed by the building, and Phury took advantage of its struck-stupids, lancing forward with his blade. The steel-composite tip and shaft went deep into the lesser ’s soft, empty gut, springing a leak that ran glossy and black.
    The slayer looked down in confusion, as if the rules of the game had changed in the middle and no one had told him. His white hands came up to stem the flow of sweet, evil blood and got nowhere against the deluge.
    Phury wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, as a tingling anticipation lit him up from the inside.
    The lesser took one look at his face and lost his out-of-it expression. Fear seeped into his pale features.
    “You’re the one . . .” the slayer whispered as his knees went wonky. “The torturer.”
    Phury’s can’t-waits faded a little. “What?”
    “Heard . . . about you. Mauls first . . . then kills.”
    He had a reputation in the Lessening Society? Well, duh. He’d been making messes of lessers for a couple of months now.
    “How do you know that’s me?”
    “By the way . . . you’re . . . smiling.”
    As the slayer slid down onto the pavement, Phury became aware of the gruesome grin he was sporting.
    Hard to know what was more horrific: that it was there or that he hadn’t noticed.
    Suddenly, the lesser ’s pupils shot to the left. “Thank . . . fuck.”
    Phury froze as a gun muzzle pressed against his left kidney and a fresh wave of baby powder shot into his nose.
    Not more than five blocks to the east, in his private of fice at ZeroSum, Rehvenge, aka the Reverend, cursed. He hated the incontinent ones. Hated them.
    The human man dangling in front of his desk had just pissed in his pants, the stain showing up as a dark blue circle at the crotch of his distressed Z Brands.
    Looked like someone had nailed him in the hey-nanny-nannies with a wet sponge.
    “Oh, for God’s sake.” Rehv shook his head at his private guard of Moors, the ones who were playing hanger to the piece of shit. Trez and iAm both sported the same disgusted expressions that he did.
    Only saving grace, Rehv supposed, was that the guy’s pair of Doc Martens seemed to function okay as a pair of punch bowls. Nothing was dripping.
    “What’d I do?” the guy squeaked, the pitch of his voice suggesting his balls were somewhere north of his wet boxers. Any higher