Downfall

by Rob Thurman

  “A monster?” I asked, cold and not at all surprised of his opinion.

  He turned and punched the wall. It was a sturdy wall, but that didn’t stop him from creating a crater in it. “No! A child. I felt like the worst sort of cowardly shit, but I knew the Auphe, and I knew standing against them was death guaranteed. I wanted Robin to live because I’m selfish, and I knew against the whole of the Auphe he wouldn’t. I knew he had no idea they were there and . . .”

  “And if he did know, he’d try to hide us, try to save us.” I put the glove down and let the Auphe thoughts go with them. “Promise fought with us once against them and she’s a vampire, not an angel. Robin fought with us and he was the swiftest sword in action to this day. You were just a coward,” I said, matter-of-fact. “You were a bastard and a coward who left two kids under the hand of the Auphe. You gave me that bullshit about how your kind wasn’t allowed to kill paein, but that’s only in New York City. Hell, you could pick a bridge, go over it, and kill the first paien you saw if you wanted and you were in fucking Arkansas. You were in Arkansas and you left us there like, I repeat,” I hissed, “the fucking coward you were.”

  “He would hate me, if he knew what I’d done, though I did it to save him. He’d hate me and repudiate me.” Guilt, anger, fear, loss; Ishiah knew all the emotions now, didn’t he?

  “Repudiate? That’s a fancy word to say he might fucking kill you,” I growled, then cocked my head, hair falling loose that I’d not bothered to pull back up. “After all, he’s known us a lot longer than he’s known you. Thousands of years more. He’s known us before you were even created. We’re his family. And family trumps sex and fuck buddies every time.”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  I thought about it before saying in casual dismissal, “Yeah, you were a coward and worse. Hell, maybe you still are.” But this was the time—the Grimm time—for second chances. If not for Ishiah, then for Robin, who could need someone very soon, someone like Ishiah, to be at his side as the future of Niko and I was nothing but a bleak and rapidly approaching ending. Absently I noticed the taste of blood-tainted copper pennies in my mouth.

  The taste of blood, the taste of tomorrow.

  “But I’m going to give you a break,” I said flatly to the ex-angel. “You helped us with that serial-killing bastard Jack. You helped save Nik’s life, but that’s not why I’m letting this go, because now I don’t know if you risked anything on that at all anymore. Ex-angels and compromised angels . . . you could be the same. Here’s your break: I’m not going to mention this to Robin, any of it—how you knew the Auphe were after us when he didn’t, how you were a craven chicken-shit with wings. And how you fucking left us to die or worse . . . and it was much fucking worse than dying . . . but I’m not telling that to him. Not for your sake; don’t think that for a goddamn second. It’s for him. It would hurt him, and after what he’s done for us, I won’t do that. I won’t hurt him.”

  “I fought Jack. I helped to fight that storm spirit paien and then thought I’d be banished from New York by all paien for doing the forbidden, of killing it. I did that because Robin, Niko, and you had taught me what true courage was. In the past five years I’ve learned more from all of you about bravery and honor than I ever learned in my four thousand years.” He raised his eyes, closed them, and his fist twitched as if he wanted to punch the wall again. I was thinking Heaven had disappointed him. But that was his problem, not mine. “I wish I’d known those qualities earlier, at the carnival, but I didn’t. Or I had them, but not enough of them,” he admitted gravely, opening his eyes. “I can’t change what I did then, but I will not let you down now, Caliban. Yours and Niko’s and Robin’s. I won’t betray you again.”

  Blah, blah, blah.

  He could be telling the truth; he probably was. Did I care? Not so much. Redemption didn’t come as easy as he thought it did. For what he’d done, for my two years in Auphe Hell, redemption might not come at all.

  I lifted my ass off the bed to reach my wallet and pulled out two twenties and a ten to wad up into a ball and toss at his chest. “There’s your fifty bucks you gave me then. Thanks for the loan. And, no joke, my mom really would’ve sucked your dick for twenty-five.” I gave him a grin, because my gift of silence to Robin or not, forgiveness wasn’t in my nature. The grin, ferocious and warped, was less lethal than ripping out his throat, which I did consider. That’s when I felt the metal teeth, all one thousand of them, drop over my human ones.

  Like Grimm’s.

  There were triggers and then there were triggers. Leaving a thirteen-year-old me at the not so tender mercies of the Auphe was one damn big trigger.

  I tasted the metal and blood of my smile and I didn’t care. I kept going. “I hope you kept the bear I gave you at the carnival.” My voice was the Auphe guttural rock slide of the shattered glass when they deigned to speak human. “After all, you and your fifty bucks earned it.”

  He gave up, bright guy that he was, and disappeared nearly as quickly as Grimm—although Ishiah used the door. I felt the teeth slide back up and I licked the blood from my human ones where my gums had been punctured. Ishiah could be a better person now.

  He hadn’t been with Robin then, over a decade ago. He’d been an admirer at best, not that he would admit that to Goodfellow’s face. Then again, maybe he would. And Robin would make you a better person if you ignored the stealing, lying, conning, whoring, and tricking and concentrated on the loyalty, bravery—suicidal bravery, especially as he wouldn’t be reincarnated—generosity, and willingness to do anything for his friends.

  Not that I minded the stealing, lying, conning, whoring, and tricking, as that’s who my friend was: Robin Goodfellow, once the Great God Pan, and once Hob the first and worst. He was a puck and I liked him for all the parts of him. Ishiah was an ex-angel, though, and maybe Goodfellow had improved on Ishiah’s past rampant self-preservation skills and willingness to let children be eaten by Auphe, changed him with what the nonjudgmental would consider the puck’s finer qualities. Anything was possible. And as I’d told Ishiah, I wouldn’t hurt Robin that way, hell, in any way, not after all he’d done for me.

  I would hold a grudge, though. I might lose my mind, my soul, but never my grudges. They were something I’d forget. If one day Robin tired of Ishiah on his own with no influence from me, huh . . . we’d see.

  Hopefully the peri was a higher creature than he had been. I didn’t know that I’d be able to see it or recognize it if he were—my conscience had never been completely functional and shiny—and gauging his path was something that I could barely hope for at the most, right?

  You could hope.

  Niko and Robin, both had taught me that. I did genuinely hope he was, Ishiah, what I wished for because Goodfellow deserved that. I wished the universe would get off its ass for once and make sure that he got it.

  “Time to go?”

  I grinned at Niko in the doorway, a proper grin . . . human teeth, no blood. A good grin. Slipping on the glove, I stood. “Grimm agreed to the time and place. What am I saying? Robin got through to him on the phone. Talked to the potential conqueror of the world on the phone? That’s . . . freaky. Yeah, pretty fucking freaky.” I decided not to think about it. Better for my sanity. “Then off to see the Bae kiddies? Should we get some balloons?”

  “Only if they’re filled with acid,” he said, face grim and eyes dark.

  For the grin I bestowed on him this time, I had to make a conscious effort to keep the second layer of hypodermic needle teeth up and out of sight, but I managed. He had to see the hair and my eyes. The teeth too, no. Other than skin color, there would be no difference between me and Grimm . . . physically. I’d hold back on that sight as long as I could. “Acid and baby Bae. You made my day. Think we can get some before we go?”

  He snorted. “Just be ready to fight, little brother. I have your favorite weapon ready to go with us. Let’s
not get cocky.”

  “You had to say it, didn’t you?” I drawled seconds before Goodfellow popped his head in and said, “Cocky? Cock-meister? Did someone call me by name? Want a demonstration? I have a pair of Velcro pants somewhere that come off with one yank. Ah, let us talk about the word ‘yank’ for a moment. . . .”

  Going to see Grimm in the far-off desert wasn’t that bad, if one thought about it, not in comparison.

  Was it?

  Hell, no.

  14

  Goodfellow

  I’d called some friends in Canada, thanks to Georgina’s tip, to track down some other friends. I’d called an RV full of fur and dander and sent them in that direction, although they were close already. I knew Canada and I’d made a few educated guesses. The fact that I’d had to talk to Canadians . . . unholy. Human or paien, they were good-hearted and good-natured and everything good. Hearing a wendigo say “aboot” was horrifying all on its own.

  There had also been a call made to the Lupa that for three million more, I would pay them to take down every member of the Vigil in NYC. That was for Cal, yes, because they wouldn’t stop coming after him, not as long as he lived. Every member of the Vigil agreed his control was gone and he had to die. I’d been told that by an informant, gone by now from the city. My mole in the Vigil, Samuel, was a man who took no money for what he told me. He owed a debt to Cal but especially to Niko, who had made clear that debt would never be paid, but Samuel had best keep trying.

  For Cal and for Niko, I’d paid the money, but it was for the paien as well. We could police ourselves on whether humans knew about us or not. If one of us ran amuck among the humans under the bright sun to be seen by all, we would make the decision of who could be saved and who could not. That was not for a human organization to do. I’d had enough of it, and helpful as they’d been in the past, they’d been so for their convenience . . . not ours.

  The Vigil could play their games in all the other cities, but we had made New York an angel-free, demon-free zone, and we would make it a Vigil-free zone as well. This could be Paien City in time and if I had a legacy, if I died during all this, that would be it. I couldn’t save Rome from falling, but I could raise up New York to a place for our kind to be more free than anywhere else on this world.

  “You seem pretty damn happy,” Cal said suspiciously, as of course Cal in the here and now was always wary of happiness . . . or drugs, sex, and rock and roll.

  I bounced on my heels. “I wish I could’ve seen you at Woodstock. That would’ve been memorable.” I searched for the word. “Epic. Jimi Hendrix was a fan of fire too, as you probably do not know, as you are an ignorant fetus.”

  “All right. Pizza makes Goodfellow high. Keep that in mind. Niko, you have the baby ready?” Cal asked. “She’s temperamental. Treat her right.”

  “‘She’ is a flamethrower. They are sturdy, I promise you,” came his brother’s exasperated reply as he hefted the tanks on his back. He could only carry one katana now, and I did not imagine he was content with that.

  “Be grateful I didn’t name her. Sylvia. That’s what I didn’t name her. Sylvia, and if she has problems with fuel injection, whisper that non-name to her and she’ll come around.”

  * * *

  Grimm’s location was in Arizona. Cal had been confident about finding it and had gone off to the bathroom to give himself an added boost of epinephrine and I saw him put several more syringes in his jacket pocket. I hoped the combination of the extralarge box—the way I like my condoms—I’d obtained for him and my not so subtle hint early of a poorly told legend would do the trick.

  When he came back out, he already had Grimm’s phone in his hand and was halfway through punching in his number. When it connected, he said immediately, “I’m on my way.”

  He’d told us that he wasn’t about to let Grimm open a gate for him and let us walk through, but there were a few desert locations he’d been to as a kid and a few he remembered well enough to get to combined with the Google Map Nik had printed for him.

  That and the call I’d make to Grimm later should we survive this.

  Flipping the phone shut without waiting for a comment from Grimm, he said, “Let’s go jack this motherfucker up. I’m opening the gate about six feet up in the air. Figure it wouldn’t hurt to drop on them like the Wrath of God—if they’re aboveground first.”

  Frowning at the phrase, Ishiah had his sword out and seemed ready. I’d given consideration to telling him not to come, as, if Cal did lose his grip, I wasn’t at all positive he wouldn’t consider Ishiah simply another Bae. But Ishiah had been determined and Cal had absolutely no comment one way or the other than to say with a peculiar curve of his lips, “If he wants to roll the dice, his choice.”

  That? That in no way was reassuring. “Can you be at all sure that you won’t get . . . uh . . . excited, think of him as a Bae with wings and kill him?” I asked.

  “Nope, I can’t guarantee that at all.” The peculiar stretch of Cal’s lips widened and I thought I saw a glimpse of silver.

  Wonderful. He was already excited and not in the manner that I favored best.

  Before Ishiah could argue, I ordered, “Close it behind me, Cal. Don’t let him through.”

  “Robin, no,” Ishiah refuted fiercely. “You need me and you need me fighting with all of you. You can’t—”

  Cal meanwhile was shrugging over Ishiah’s outburst. “Gotcha. No God in the Wrath of. Here we go, boys and girls.” He went on to open the gate in my living room, saying, “See you on the other side.” He walked through the tangle of colors I didn’t know he could see. Mixed in with the purple, gray, and black was the indescribable color of the world bleeding with every gate he opened. With everyone he or an Auphe had opened, it was as if you saw a little slice of the world wither and die.

  Looking back at Ishiah, I exhaled, “His control isn’t ideal. He could kill you, Ishiah, with a single thought. I’ll be back. I promise.” I had learned long ago and particularly at the gates of Troy not to make promises in war. “My tongue betrays me,” I said ruefully.

  “It most often does.” Ishiah watched me go, but there was hope in his eyes, a clear light of faith. Both were what angels did best, but this hope and faith wasn’t for Heaven. It was for me. I took a handful of his shirt and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Faith and hope. I was a trickster. I had faith in myself and hope was for the unprepared.

  “And don’t listen to Cal. It’s this side I’ll see you on again.” I turned and, carrying my own sword, was on Nik’s heels as he went next.

  I’d rather stab myself in the stomach than pass through a gate, but I was doing it more and more often. At least I no longer vomited. One took one’s blessings where one could.

  They had shown up on time. That did surprise me. Grimm and forty Bae. That was less of a surprise. I landed hard on top of the back of one Bae and reached around to slice through his throat with the dagger in my other hand. Not far from me Cal had done the same, except with the use of his man-made claws. Grimm stood off to one side on a small swell of sand, wearing his own claws and carrying a gun in his other hand. Letting the muzzle dangle toward the sand-colored twilight as the sun dropped beneath the horizon, he said to Cal with approval, “You said you’d come alone. You lied.”

  “I’m a killer. Did you think I’m not a liar too?” Now Cal was grinning and I could see why his smile had been so peculiar earlier. He had his teeth now, a legion of needle-fine metal teeth covering his human ones. He had not a single strand of dark hair left and his eyes were the same red as Grimm’s were. This gate had taken the last slivers of his physical humanity. The single difference between Grimm and him was their features, perhaps an inch in height, and Grimm’s darker, human-toned skin.

  “What are you?” Cal questioned with a scorn that couldn’t erase that hideous grin. “The audience? Aren’t you going to play?”

 
Grimm’s grin was a twin to that of Cal. “You have to earn my participation. Let’s see if you can.”

  Between the two of them, myself, the Bae, Niko was the only human. I didn’t know how that felt to him, as I was used to being the single puck wherever I went, but I saw how his gaze fastened on Cal as he hit the sandy ground and it wasn’t different from any look he’d ever given his brother—full of confidence. Then Niko, knowing the first rule of combat, struck the first blow. There was no honorably patient waiting for the Bae to attack as he swiveled, triggered, and sprayed the flamethrower back and forth, setting several Bae on fire. It was the closest batch of crouching Bae, who’d had the sense or the Grimm-ordered sense, to spread out for more difficult targets, but when it came to what Niko was armed with, the gift of Prometheus, their precautions made no difference.

  Cal had always loved that flamethrower and it was useful, but Cal was loving something much more now. He was in the midst of the Bae. He’d put his gun away and beneath his claws their black blood fell like an unhallowed rain. Three leaped and took him to the ground. In less than a second he was back up, tossing the head of the first with a cleanly sliced stump of neck down at the second one, who was still on the ground, its arms amputated to soak the sand around it. He then wrapped an arm around the neck of the third, which had been on its way back up, and tore through the scaled white flesh down its back to reveal the gleaming bone of its spine. It was instantly cut in half with titanium talons. The Bae collasped, the upper part of it twitching and the bottom dead as a graveyard.

  I’d been the one to give Cal back his clawed glove, but I wished now I’d hidden it and let him use his guns. He enjoyed his guns, and savage grins showed occasionally when he used them. His grin now with black gore dripping from his leather-and-metal-covered hand wasn’t savage. It was feral, wild, and the color of the silver cupped in the hand of Judas.