Page 62 of The Archer


  wearing. “Damn, I’d love to speak to Thiago,” Remy sighed as he walked slowly over to the bed and ran his hand over the duvet.

  Shawn was a bastard. Every night they’d ever spent together down here was

  a lie. Remy looked up to check once more that the door was closed and they weren’t likely to be caught. They weren’t making much noise, but someone should have been on watch. Someone should know they were here by now. The others were getting lax.

  Remy idly wondered if they even knew they were being watched by that bastard

  down on the street.

  “Seven Dwarfs, huh?” he murmured as he looked at the door.

  “Gropey, Sappy, Humpy, Sleazy, Creepy,” Gray murmured as he counted on

  his fingers. “Can’t think of two more.”

  Remy snorted softly and bit his lip to keep from laughing. “That about sums

  it up,” he agreed as he turned from the door and looked back down at the bed. “You know, I was going to have you fuck me, but now I’ll be thinking about the

  goddamned Seven Dwarfs and trying to remember the names of the last two,” Remy

  told him testily.

  “Tease,” Gray whispered affectionately.

  “Mmm,” Remy responded noncommittally as he lowered his head again and

  stared at the pattern of the duvet.

  “I think you get off on the rush,” Gray observed.

  “What rush?” Remy asked distractedly.

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  “Of having sex with the seriously uptight trained killers in the next room,”

  Gray whispered in amusement. “Romeo.”

  “Spoilsport,” Remy accused with a huff as he moved away from the bed and

  back toward the window.

  Gray smirked and watched Remy in the darkness for a long moment.

  “How’s your arm?” he asked after a while.

  Remy looked down at his right arm and shrugged lopsidedly. The wound

  from Shawn’s shot was healing nicely, but the newest one, the one from the knife

  fight he and Gray had inexplicably found themselves in just the night before, was still worrisome. The gauze around his bicep was stained red with blood, and the arm hurt like fuck to move.

  “Hurts,” he admitted as he looked out the window once more to see if their

  guest was still out there. “I think he’s a Paint, Boss,” he murmured as he looked down at the man. “A Painter.” It was hard to see his features, but the dawn was approaching and soon they’d be able to make out more. The downside, of course, was that they too would be visible.

  “Hmm, c’mon then. We’ll find out,” Gray muttered. Remy followed him out

  of the room, giving it one last sweep to make sure it was left as they had found it.

  They made their way back to the staircase, but where Gray should have

  turned he continued on. Remy couldn’t call to him, so he simply followed him

  curiously. Gray had a shit sense of direction, but surely he couldn’t get lost in a hallway with one stairway down.

  Gray stopped outside the first two doors and pointed to his right. Remy

  looked at him curiously, then stepped forward and looked left, taking in Carl and Brandt and Nikolaus as they slept curled around one another. Remy’s stomach

  flipped. Lord, he had missed them.

  He turned his head slowly to the right to peer into the other bedroom and felt

  his breath catch. Shawn and Thiago were there, both sleeping peacefully. The only anomaly was the handcuffs. Why was Shawn handcuffed? Had Thiago found him out

  and exposed him to the others? Was he a prisoner now?

  Remy was about to gesture to Gray to check out the third bedroom when a

  crash sounded downstairs.

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  XIV.

  “THIAGO!” the voice yelled in something close to a panic. Thiago was instantly

  awake and when he rolled over, he met two wide green eyes staring at him. “Unlock me, Thi!” Shawn urged as he strained against the cuffs they’d forced him into the night before. “Someone’s in the fucking house! Let me loose!”

  “Vampires!” someone shouted from the other room as Thiago deftly

  unlocked the chains and then sprinted out the door. He and Carl ran into one another in the hallway and went tumbling to the ground.

  “Move, y’wankers!” Shawn grunted as he jumped over the tangle of limbs

  Thiago and Carl created and made his way down the stairs.

  Thiago finally managed to disengage himself, and when he and the other

  three got to the bottom of the stairs, Thiago stopped dead in his tracks.

  Gray Kincaid and Remy Bergeron stood in the middle of the great room,

  panting and bloodied and looking a little worse for the wear. Shawn was vapor-locked at the bottom of the stairs, his gun held limply at his side, and no one seemed to be moving at all. Thiago was afraid to blink. He and Carl and Brandt and Nikolaus stood tiered on the stairs like kids on Christmas morning, peeking in to see if Santa had come, and Thiago felt rather ridiculous for being so stunned by the scene.

  An older man lay on the floor, looking even more bloodied than Gray and

  Remy did. Everyone tensed when he moaned and rolled and looked up at Remy and

  Gray accusingly.

  “I knew it was you,” the man said in an English accent. “Bloody… traitors,”

  he spat.

  Shawn moved with the speed of a striking snake, raising his gun and aiming

  at Gray before Thiago could even open his mouth to speak. The popping sound of the silenced gunshot resounded throughout the old house.

  Thiago blinked in disbelief as he watched Shawn fall back against the wall of

  the stairwell and slide slowly to the ground, leaving a red trail of blood smeared against the wall as he fell.

  Remy stood like an Angel of Death in the middle of the room, his long

  leather coat hanging off his shoulders like a cape and his eyes black and lifeless, his gun smoking as he kept it trained on Shawn.

  XV.

  CARL watched the scene in horror. It was like the whole thing was happening in slow motion, and all of them were powerless to stop it.

  Shawn slid slowly down the wall, as if his body knew that it would never be

  upright again and was trying to remain so for as long as possible, and he looked out at

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  Remy in shock. He dropped his gun, sending it clattering to the ground, and he

  reached down and covered the wound with his hand.

  Remy watched him impassively, only lowering his own weapon after Shawn

  dropped his.

  The rest of them all stared raptly at Shawn, as if watching him fall and

  mentally willing him to get back up again would do any good. He looked down at the blood on his hands like he couldn’t understand where it was coming from, then back up at Remy as he finally sank to the ground with a soft thump.

  “You shot me,” he stated in a hoarse, surprised voice.

  “That’s right. Asshole,” Remy responded heatedly as he finally moved. He

  stalked closer to Shawn and pointed the gun in the stricken man’s face. “And that is what getting shot in the ass feels like!”

  Everyone stared at Remy in shock. Carl was pretty sure that no one even

  blinked.

  “You sort of missed his ass there, Romeo,” Gray murmured out of the side of

  his mouth as he looked at all of them warily and held the stranger down with his foot.

  “Well, I couldn’t very well ask him to turn around and wait while I took aim,

  now could I?” Remy snapped as he waved his gun through the air in an expressive

  gesture. Everyone on the staircase ducked and covered and Remy glared at the
m all.

  “You,” he said to Gray. “Are an ungrateful prick. I just saved your life. Again! And you,” he said accusingly as he whirled around and pointed his gun at Shawn. “Are a bastard. And stop bleeding on my floor!”

  “That’s uh… kind of difficult to… you fucking shot me!” Shawn murmured

  in disbelief as he tried to stop the bleeding from the wound in his shoulder.

  “Well fuck, Beignet, you’ve been trying to do it for weeks now,” Brandt said

  as he carefully descended the steps. “What’s the difference in who does the job, right?

  As long as it gets done.”

  “Stop moving, Wally,” Remy said, his tone of voice suddenly all business

  once more. Carl still covered Nikolaus protectively on the stairs, and he didn’t intend to move until someone explained to him just what the fuck was going on. But if Remy kept waving that gun around, someone was getting his ass kicked.

  “You gonna shoot me too, Dixie?” Brandt asked nonchalantly as he took

  another step toward Shawn and looked at Remy challengingly.

  “Don’t call me that,” Remy said in a flat, lifeless voice just before he pulled

  the trigger. The bullet thumped into the wall right in front of Brandt, and Brandt stumbled backward and fell back onto the uneven steps. Carl growled wordlessly and stood up. Remy had either lost his mind or turned on them, and either way, Carl

  figured he needed a refresher course in loyalty. Nobody tried to kill Brandt but him, goddammit!

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  Remy swung his eyes in Carl’s direction as Carl drew the throwing dagger

  he had strapped to his thigh before going to bed, and for an instant Carl thought Remy was going to shoot him as well. Remy’s eyes flickered hesitantly, and he lowered the gun deliberately. Carl lowered his arm warily in turn, and they stared at one another for several tense seconds.

  “Please don’t fucking throw that thing at me, mate. I think right now a paper

  cut would do me in,” Remy said in a tired voice.

  The stranger whom Gray was keeping pressed to the floor with his foot

  laughed wickedly. Remy stalked over to him and kicked him. Hard.

  “Remy!” Gray shouted in reprimand.

  “Gray,” Remy responded mockingly as he glared at the other man.

  “Jesus, Carl, do you sleep with a full arsenal?” Thiago whispered in a

  slightly horrified voice as Remy and Gray bickered over the proper treatment of a prisoner.

  Carl looked down at Thiago and then at the knife ashamedly and shrugged as

  he slid it back into its sheath. “Kinda antsy tonight, is all,” Carl murmured.

  “Antsy?” Thiago hissed.

  “Yeah, with the….” Carl blushed slightly as he realized that everyone else

  was listening.

  “Vampires?” Gray provided with a smirk and they all turned to glare at him.

  He cleared his throat and then looked at Remy and shrugged nervously. “Sorry.”

  Remy rolled his eyes and looked down at the man on the ground, who was

  wheezing and carrying on about his ribs, then he looked up at the rest of them.

  “The next person who attempts to shoot, stab, strangle, maim, maul, or

  manipulate me in any way, shape, or form is going to have one fuck of a hissy fit to deal with!” he shouted angrily and actually stomped his foot in the process. “That goes for you too!” he shouted at Gray as an afterthought.

  Gray shrugged innocently, and Carl watched Remy warily. His behavior was

  odd: erratic and almost sluggish. He’d implied that he was low on blood, and it was obvious he was injured, but he appeared to be drunk as well. Or high. Or all of the above, perhaps?

  “Christ,” Shawn said in a weak voice. “You’re fucking stoned.”

  Brandt took another step toward him and Remy whirled around to glare at

  them both.

  “I’ve had a bad fucking month, Shawn!” he shouted. “Would you rather I

  had been completely sober when I shot you? Would that make you feel a bit better? A little more fucking secure with your position in life?” he spat angrily.

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  “Remy, calm down, man,” Gray requested quietly, and Carl tried his best to

  keep an eye on everyone at the same time.

  Thiago and Nikolaus were in vapor lock; neither had moved since they had

  ducked away from Remy’s erratic movements, and both still knelt on the stairs.

  Brandt had eyes only for Shawn, and Shawn was holding his shoulder and looking at Remy like a dog following its master’s movements and hoping to be noticed.

  Gray divided his attention between the mystery man on the ground and

  trying to get Remy calmed. Said mystery man had ceased his whining, and Remy was

  practically vibrating, he was so keyed up. All in all, it looked to be a disaster waiting to happen.

  “Calm down?” Remy repeated disbelievingly. “This fucker just whacked me

  over the head with a piece of priceless fucking artwork!” he yelled, gesturing to the splinters of wood and ripped canvass on the floor that Carl had failed to notice before.

  “Is that an art attack?” Gray asked, seemingly unfazed by Remy’s ranting.

  “Priceless!” Remy shouted with emphasis, ignoring the other man as they all

  stared at them both. “And he just… we just… everyone’s fucking sound asleep when

  we… we just waltzed right in here,” he continued heatedly. He was gesticulating wildly as he ranted and he was definitely a little altered. His accent was heavy and his words were coming almost twice as fast as normal.

  “Hey, Ragin’ Cajun,” Gray huffed. “No one can understand what the hell

  you’re saying,” he pointed out.

  “What sort of fucking shoddy operation are you running here, Thi?” Remy

  continued, undeterred, as he paced back and forth. “If we hadn’t been breaking into the goddamned place ourselves, then none of you would have even heard him! No

  guard, no alarms, no tripwires no fucking anything to stop anyone from… quit

  laughing, you fucking galette!” he yelled suddenly at the chuckling man on the floor.

  “My God, can I kill him yet?”

  “No!” Gray and Thiago both yelled angrily.

  Remy looked at them all once more, his eyes still black and hard and lifeless,

  then his gaze returned to Shawn and his features finally relaxed. He looked at Brandt, who was still edging toward Shawn, and he gestured at Shawn with a flick of his gun.

  “See to him, would you?” he asked softly.

  “You shot me,” Shawn said in the same surprised voice he’d used earlier as

  Brandt knelt beside him.

  “It was only a twenty-two,” Remy responded testily. “It barely even counts.”

  “But you bloody well shot me! What the hell?”

  Remy glared at Shawn and then turned back around to look at Gray.

  “Who is this?” he asked with a flip of his gun toward the man on the floor.

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  “I don’t know,” Gray answered with a shrug. “Same dude as before,

  though.”

  “Well fuck,” Remy said in disgust just before he disappeared through the

  door to the kitchen. The man on the floor began to laugh once more, and Carl tensed inadvertently as Remy stomped back into the room and kicked him again. “Jackass!”

  he yelled for good measure as he once again exited the room in a huff.

  XVI.

  “HE’S gone mad,” Shawn murmured as he watched Remy disappear into the

  darkness of the kitchen, the long coat he wore trailing after him and flaring out as he turned the corner. “I’ve never seen him
like….” Shawn turned his eyes to Gray, who was keeping his gun trained on the stranger and looking at them all warily. “What in God’s name have you done to him?” Shawn asked in a whisper as Brandt pressed a

  handkerchief to his shoulder and made white lights of pain flash in his vision. It may have only been a twenty-two, but it still hurt like a son of a bitch.

  “What’ve I done to him?” Gray asked incredulously. “Oh, you have some

  nerve, buddy.”

  “Can you stand?” Brandt asked as he glared over his shoulder at Gray.

  “I– he shot me,” Shawn answered disbelievingly as Brandt nodded and

  pulled him gently to his feet. Shawn clung to him and allowed the bigger man to press him against the wall in order to keep him standing, but his eyes never left Gray.

  Shawn had expected anything from Sir John McTiernan to Nikolaus and

  Brandt’s dreaded vampires when he had descended the steps, but he hadn’t been

  prepared for what he had seen.

  Remy. Remy, alive and well. Alive and well, if not covered in blood and

  kicking the shit out of some stranger in the middle of the floor. Shawn’s heart had almost stopped. He’d been so sure Remy was dead. So sure, in fact, that he’d spent almost every day for the past month attempting to end his life in various creative and not so effective ways.

  Then he had seen Gray. Gray, standing behind Remy with his gun drawn and

  pointed at the man on the floor. Gray. The source of all Shawn’s mental anguish.

  Well, most of it, anyway. Possibly just a third of it.

  He’d aimed his gun without thinking, and then he’d been in pain and

  bleeding, staring at the killer shell of Remy and wondering what the fuck just

  happened.

  “All right, then?” Brandt murmured as Shawn tore his eyes away from Gray

  and looked up into Brandt’s worried brown eyes. Shawn nodded and looked over

  Brandt’s shoulder at the others.

  Thiago was staring at Gray fixedly, but Shawn couldn’t see the expression

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  on his face. Carl was watching Brandt, but his eyes kept sliding warily to the side to make certain that Gray was still doing what he was supposed to be doing, and