by Rob Thurman
Delilah shook her head at her Alpha’s beckoning. “I fight the cute foxes, Cabal. The Auphe, he is yours. A challenge. My gift.”
Her words were phrased so Cabal couldn’t refuse, for if he refused this “gift,” he would lose his pack’s respect. And if he lost that, then Delilah wouldn’t be the only one jumping at the chance to replace him. Every member of the pack would look at him with different, dubious, opportunistic eyes. No Alpha could afford that. He bared human teeth and growled. It was a signal to his pack and they flowed forward, side by side among the Ördögs. It was a companionable joining. The Ördögs had their objective and it was the same as the Wolves. It was too bad for the Wolves that they didn’t realize what might be waiting for them if they did kill us. While they had to smell Suyolak, they apparently had no idea how much worse he was than I could be.
For now.
Not that that would happen, a Wolf taking me down. Delilah was right. Suyolak might be too much for me, but I was too much for your average Wolf. Whether Cabal was above average or not, we’d see—if the Plague of the World didn’t get me first.
I shifted my focus back to the healer battle. Both Rafferty and Suyolak were dripping with blood, but Rafferty was wavering, weaving as if he were drunk. He was fighting and having to protect us all at once . . . and he wasn’t as good as Suyolak. He’d told us so. Now he was showing the toll of doing double duty. But he’d also said he could stop the bastard. Right now we didn’t have any other choice but to believe him.
The Ördögs and the Wolves were seconds from sweeping over us. I aimed the Eagle with one hand and tugged Niko’s braid with the other. He didn’t need to have his attention sidetracked by double duty the same as Rafferty. “I’ll be fine, Cyrano. Only adult, responsible decisions.” Allowing Delilah along had been adult—the rated XXX kind of adult, and perhaps not the most responsible thing. I thought she’d wait until it was all over to make her move, not in the midst of it. Although the move had turned out to be for me instead of against me, it was damn inconvenient all the same—and truthfully, the move was more for her than for me. Whether her pack died or I did, she still won.
“I know you will.” The response was prompt and confident; his sword was between him and the leaping horde.
“Because you’re my brother or because you’ll kick my ass if I don’t?” I shot two Ördögs in the head, fifty or so feet out. They fell so quickly, their eyes so instantly empty, it was hard to picture them having been alive at all.
“Both,” he answered matter-of-factly before continuing. “Don’t forget either option. Goodfellow, keep Catcher out of this if possible.”
Keeping a Wolf, especially one with only the loosest hold on his mind, would’ve been a trick, but it was one Robin didn’t have to pull off. It was too late; the Catcher we knew was temporarily on vacation . . . gone… and the body that had held him was gone as well—into the midst of the Ördögs and the other Wolves, ripping and tearing flesh right and left. It could’ve been worse. He could’ve gone after Suyolak. Delilah was a fraction of a moment behind him. She’d shed her leathers for fur in seconds and was as caught up in the fight as Catcher. Luckily he was the only red Wolf in the mix. That could’ve been awkward. Shooting your ally’s cousin. Rafferty wouldn’t be any more forgiving of that than I imagined I would be if someone took out Nik for being one of too many blonds in a crowd.
I hit the ground as two Ördögs sailed over me, missing me by inches. I heard them hiss and mutter in annoyance. “Food. Food gone. Food hide. Food like rabbit.” That was fine. Insult me all you want in a fight. I did it too, but it was only worth doing if you were the one walking away afterward. As they turned, literally in midair before landing—bodies slithering into a serpentine U—I shot them both. Other than bleeding and dying in the next breath, they had no further comment. In that same moment I was hit from the side by a big gray Wolf. When you couldn’t get your gun up in time, there was one move to save your throat from being ripped out. I’d done it before, but it didn’t mean I looked forward to doing it again. It worked, but it hurt like hell.
I rammed my forearm into the Wolf’s open jaws, back to the teeth that ground bone, not the ones up front made for tearing the meat. It kept my throat in one piece and let me put one bullet into its right eye. Werewolves were tough and could recover from most wounds, but the brain and the heart were as vulnerable as a human’s. Lead also did the job fine and was a whole lot cheaper than silver.
I kicked the body off me and was back up a split second before going down under three Ördögs. You wouldn’t think at the time, Christ, this was not my damn day. A murderous antihealer, a failing good healer, werewolves, Ördögs, and give a guy a break already. No, you might think that later . . . if you survived . . . while lying in bed nursing your wounds, because that was easier to swallow than what you actually thought at the time, which would be more of a less manly “Shitshitshitshitshit.” But that didn’t sound quite as macho, so you ran through the things you would’ve thought, might’ve mentally said, if you hadn’t been A) fighting for your life and B) not to be repetitive, but fighting for your fucking life.
My other hand already held my favorite revenant slicing combat knife. I sliced one sleek black body from jaw to tail and the fact it moaned, “No. Hurts. Hurts,” made me hesitate for less than a second before shooting the other two. I made it to my feet again, wearing a good deal of the Ördög I’d all but turned inside out, and this time, instead of being a target, I saw another one. A brown Wolf, a damn big one even by Wolf standards, was in midleap toward Niko’s back. Nik was taking care of four more Ördögs facing him and two more to the side. That didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of the Wolf and it didn’t mean he couldn’t take care of the Wolf, but he had a lot on his plate. I didn’t like to take chances if I didn’t have to, not when I had so few to take. I hit the Wolf from the side and rode it to the ground while pulling the trigger and putting one in its heart.
“Your charity, not that I need it, is appreciated.” Niko’s back hit mine as I climbed, again, to my feet. We were ringed by Ördögs and three more Wolves. We’d faced worse . . . not more times than I could count. I could in fact count the times our asses hadn’t been quite so far up the creek, but there had been a few worse, and I didn’t doubt we could handle this . . . until I heard the gunshot. I looked in confusion at my finger on the trigger on a gun that abruptly felt heavy. My finger hadn’t moved. I hadn’t fired the shot, and no one else was carrying a gun.
And how had I gotten on the ground? I hadn’t lost my gun. Never lose your gun. Over and over, Nik had told me that, because I wasn’t like him. I wasn’t Bruce Lee with an honorary license to kill from Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I was . . . I coughed and tasted blood. I was a good fighter hand to . . . shit . . . hand? Tentacle? Paw? Whatever I was up against, I could give it a run for its money, unless it was human, and then I could kill it without much effort. I’d never killed a human with my bare hands . . . not yet. I could, though, but I’d never be as good as my brother and he knew it. Always hold on to your weapon, he told me, and there was that shitshitshitshit again when I finally realized.
Someone had shot me.
“Traitor!” The howls began. “No Wolf is such a coward. No Wolf kills out of reach. No Wolf.” The howls were everywhere now. “You are not a true Wolf. You are not our Alpha. You are not Wolf.”
It wasn’t Delilah’s voice. It wasn’t a single voice either. Three, maybe four. The rest of the pack, those left alive. They didn’t sound happy with Cabal. No, not happy at all. A white Wolf leaped over me and was gone—on a mission, not from Buddha, but I heard the sounds of that mission being completed. Snarls and growl after growl that would send shivers down your spine at how it took up every molecule of air around us. They call them a pack of wolves. They should call them a storm. A storm of wolves rolling over an ex-Alpha to wash this place clean of him. I didn’t shiver at the sound; I didn’t have the energy. I swallowed blood, touched my chest to feel more of
it, and resumed my standard shit . . . shit . . . shit—only slower and with less enthusiasm.
Besides the sounds of Wolves fighting one another and dying, I heard the slice of metal sizzling through the air to hit flesh with a meaty thud. “How is he?” The voice cracked. “Merciful Charon, turn away. Another time we need a thrice-damned healer and he’s currently occupied dying himself.” Robin . . . Robin talking about Rafferty’s dying, talking about my dying. Well, hell, give a guy the benefit of the doubt. But it was also Robin protecting me while I was down, giving Niko a chance to check me out. Because there was nothing else for Nik to do. Like Robin with Ish, Niko couldn’t say good-bye. He’d done it once. I didn’t think he could ever say that again.
The moon gone from orange to red radiated a light so bloody, I wouldn’t have known where my own ended and the light began. Did I really want to see it pouring out of me that badly? Wasn’t suffocating in it enough?
“Cal.” Hands pulled me up so damn carefully until my head and upper shoulders were supported against him. Nik, on his knees, bent down the rest of the way to murmur in my ear. “It’s all right. Cabal shot you, but it’s all right. Rafferty will heal you.” Because Niko could never admit to himself again that I could die on him. It took months to drag him back from the hallucination of it, back to himself. I refused to let him go back there again. I wouldn’t let Cabal put him back there for real.
Cabal, a Wolf with a gun . . . a Wolf with a gun and damn good aim. His pack was right. That wasn’t the Wolf way. My reputation preceded me and that had caused a Wolf to do what a Wolf would not do, which in turn had a bullet proceeding into my chest . . . into one of my lungs from the blood that kept rising in my throat. Preceding and proceeding and hadn’t he bothered once to look past me to see the real monster? Rafferty was dying, Robin had said, and Niko refused to believe. If Rafferty did die, Suyolak would kill us all . . . to a man and to a Wolf, and my keeping my brother sane, instead of the usual other way around, wouldn’t be a problem.
Niko’s hand rested on my chest. I saw the dark fluid that ran between his fingers, instantly covering his hand. With his other, he dug in my left jeans pocket. “Messy. I can always depend on you to be so damn messy . . . yes. Your sheer lazy ways save your life. Why am I not surprised?” He pulled out a Twinkie wrapper, uncovered the wound by pulling up my shirt with bloody fingers, and spread the plastic wrapper to cover the gunshot wound with it. The air that had been whistling in and out stopped. A Hostess wrapper wasn’t the next best thing to sterile, especially with a bit of crème still left on it, but it did get the job done. I could breathe the tiniest bit better. One death by sucking chest wound slightly delayed. Go team.
Nik kept his hand pressed to the wound, keeping the plastic airtight. “Rafferty, now. Kill that bastard now!” The Ördögs were dying in droves around us, Robin no longer looking as if he didn’t know what to do with his sword. He was an avenging angel, righteous with fury. An avenging, very horny angel. Ishiah was rubbing off on him, the avenging part at least. The metal flashes of the blade were so fast, so damn quick, I didn’t know if I saw it at all or if it was the streaks of light that heralded the darkness of approaching unconsciousness.
“Nik?”
He looked down at me, grim and furious, at fate . . . at me. I didn’t blame him either way.
Six months ago I had died . . . only I hadn’t.
And I didn’t plan on doing it for real this soon either. I wouldn’t put him through that again. Not now. Not for as long as I could avoid it. I wouldn’t do that to my brother. That was the easy way out, and while I liked easy, for Nik, I would and could do the impossible.
I wasn’t going to die and neither was Rafferty.
I spoke again before he could, feeling the blood trickle down from the corners of my mouth, hearing the faint gurgle behind my words. “I fought with . . . my girlfriend today.” I sucked in a breath and kept going. “Ate a Big Mac. Lost part . . . of me. A good part. Human part. I fought . . . for my . . . life.” I grinned at him, more blood in the back of my throat, rising higher. “Don’t you . . . fucking dare . . . think I’m . . . done yet.”
His hand, calloused from years of training, fighting, weapons sparring, rested on my forehead. “Promise, you bastard?” His mouth had always been home to the most fleeting of smiles, the wry quirk of lips, the angry line when someone crossed his, the twist of pain, the curve of belief. It was curved now. He believed. Of all the times I’d almost died, I wasn’t going to let a simple bullet accomplish where far less mundane motherfuckers had failed.
“Promise.” My grin became something else—not the grin of a little brother, but one of what Rafferty had labeled me: old and new; chaos and control. I let my head fall to one side to see Rafferty and Suyolak. Rafferty was on his knees. Good, ruthless, and maybe he could’ve taken Suyolak if it hadn’t been for Catcher and the rest of us pulling him into the depths like an anchor. He was on his knees protecting us while he had one breath left in him, but protecting and fighting were too much against the Plague of the World.
Too bad I was the Plague of the World as well or what was left of them. Or better yet, something the world had never seen. Suyolak was wrong. It had seen him, a long time ago. It had only just seen me, the new me.
Something old, something new, something unlike anything on this earth. I would keep one promise to Nik, I thought, but I’d have to break another to do it. I’d thought I’d need a compelling reason or an act of God to open another gate.
Suyolak was the compelling reason.
I was the act of God.
I couldn’t open one and appear next to Suyolak to shoot him before he stopped my heart. He would kill me before I pulled the trigger as much as I’d wanted to believe differently. He’d kill me if I even aimed my gun. But he couldn’t kill me before a thought was sent flying his way. After maybe, but there’d be no after for him. There was something I could do all right . . . something he wouldn’t anticipate. Something no one would think of. Something I’d only this moment thought of. Something fun.
I opened the gate.
I opened it in him . . . inside of him.
Ever see Fourth of July fireworks?
This was better. He glowed, bright as the scarlet moon, then brighter, brilliant as the sun, if the sun were an explosion of blinding silver light. Now there was a silver lining to a dark day. The light shone through his skin, his eyes, his open mouth as he screamed. And he did scream, the Plague of the World. He screamed until every Ördög and Wolf left screamed with him.
Me?
I laughed. It wasn’t much of a laugh as it fought its way through the tide of blood. Fun? Goddamn, yes, it was fun. I meant it, too, and I felt it in every part of me. He’d been a disease that had enjoyed every death he’d caused. Rafferty was supposed to be his cure. I wasn’t anything close to a cure. I was the fire that made the scorched-earth policy what it was. If you burned it, you killed it. If you ripped a hole in reality that sucked the majority of Suyolak’s internal organs and torso into a radioactive dimension that no one had the key to but me, it was close enough.
He exploded. Fourth of July again. This time it was one big-ass M-80, those brutes no self- respecting adult would let a kid have. We hadn’t known any self-respecting adults when I was at the age when blowing up things was damn cool. I was twenty-one now and it was still damn cool. There was nothing left of Suyolak but arms, one leg, and his head lying on the ground with the amputation marks cauterized to a crunchy bacon crisp. I’d never been the freak—the Frankenstein’s monster—who cared about the neatness of my kills, but this time I did a nice job. Good for me. A for effort.
My grin faded when I saw Rafferty drop to his knees, grab the head, and then lift Suyolak face-to-face. There was the moon, but moonlight can be deceiving. I saw it, but I didn’t want to believe it. So I blamed it on the night and the shadows cast by the gory moon. I didn’t see Suyolak blink . . . although he did. I didn’t see Rafferty’s fingers sink through hair, flesh, an
d bone up to his knuckles, but they did. He wasn’t only mentally in Suyolak’s brain—he was physically there too. And suddenly the good time of watching Suyolak go to pieces in the most literal way passed and I slurred, “That’s so . . . not . . . right.”
“No, it is not, but it might be necessary and that’s good enough for me.” Niko called sharply, “Rafferty! Now! We need you now!”
The healer turned and I could see red-amber eyes turn Rom black and then back. Suyolak’s own eyes filmed a solid white and his head tumbled toward the ground, dust before it made it there. Rafferty was done with him. He had what he’d wanted all along: Suyolak. That was what made him tick—what made him creation and death all tangled into one immense tidal wave of power.
He moved to my side and knelt. “Great. What did you do? Shoot yourself?” His hand replaced Niko’s.
“Yeah.” The word was wet, as soaked as the oxygen in my lungs. Where he’d saved me from drowning in my own mucus before, now he had to stop me from drowning in my blood. No matter in what you drowned, the sensation sucked. “Watching . . . you pretend . . . to fight . . . made . . . me”—I gulped air—“suicidal.”
“You did a good job of it,” he grumped, enough like his old self that I almost forgot the flash of Suyolak that had passed through his eyes. But monsters, we always knew one another. He was Rafferty, but he had something else in him now: a reaper. He was a healer harboring a grim reaper and he couldn’t live like that. But right then I didn’t feel like I could live at all. It might be better to concentrate on that. I’d told myself I wasn’t letting Nik down and I meant it.
