by Rob Thurman
Samuel had just made his.
Chapter Twenty-one
I was flying.
Passing through the silky night air, I soared and dipped in perfect silence. Flying on and on, I savored the freedom. I couldn't see, but I didn't need to. There was no up or down, no land or sky. No stars or moon. There was only endless space and endless darkness. And there were endless memories as well.
I was five and running barefoot down a dirt alley in a faraway town. I'd long since forgotten the name or maybe I'd never even known it. There was a warm weight against my chest and a tongue lapping enthusiastically at my chin. The milk breath of a puppy was sweet to my nose and I was laughing. Nik had given the pup to me. He'd borrowed it for five bucks from one of our neighbors. Even at that age, I knew we couldn't keep it. I knew better than to even ask. Sophia would've sold it in a heartbeat. It was mine only for the day, Niko had cautioned, only one day. It was one of the best days I'd ever had.
I was older than any human civilization and crouched languidly on a gold-and-lapis-lazuli sarcophagus. I didn't know the name of the Pharaoh who'd died a hundred days previously, and I didn't care to know. On the floor of the tomb was a scatter of limbs and crimson-soaked sand. I'd been ensconced in the burial chamber for barely two weeks and I'd already had several tomb robbers creep in. The priest had promised me frequent visitors and he'd kept his word. A wealthy ruler was to keep his treasure clasped tightly in his withered fingers, and I was using a freshly decapitated head as a pillow. It was a good day. Maybe it wasn't the very best I'd ever had, but it was nothing to sneeze at either.
I was almost as old as time itself and yet younger than a mayfly. I was waking up and wishing desperately that I had enough breath to curse at the burning pain. Struggling out of unconsciousness, I pried my eyelids open a sliver but saw only darkness. Was I blind? No. A blur of headlights flashed by and I realized I was still in the back of the car. The surface supporting me from behind was no longer cloth against my bare skin. It was now skin to skin, warm to my clammy cold. I realized why as Niko's voice came quietly. "Robin, I need your shirt. Mine's soaked through."
Soaked through with blood. I could still feel it, hot and wet against my stomach. As much as Nik was trying to hold it in, my blood just kept rushing out. It had a mind of its own, just like I did, I thought hazily, riding the waves from ache to agony and back again. I could see Robin's maneuvering in the front from the corner of my eye. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he used the other to pass his shirt back to Niko. "How's he doing?"
A saturated ball of cloth was discarded on the floorboards and replaced with a pad carefully folded from Goodfellow's shirt. Silence was the answer to Robin's question, and a neatly eloquent answer it was. "We're not far," Nik observed, the troubled note buried so deeply under his still reserve it was barely detectable. "Just keep driving."
And just where were we going? I wondered. Not the hospital. That wasn't an option on any level. They wouldn't want to expose my big bad self to civilians. And let us not forget that in a hospital setting, silver eyes wouldn't be considered just a fashion statement. They would attract attention, the wrong kind of attention to say the least. Then the X-rays, the CAT scans, the surgeon's nimble hands, would all see and notice things that couldn't be ignored. It was amazing what a human mind could circumvent given enough leeway, but with enough evidence society-at-large would no longer be able to bury their heads in the sand. No, there would be no hospital. Still, Niko was doing his best to keep me from bleeding to death for a reason. Now, where—
I didn't have a chance to finish the thought as Goodfellow shattered my tenuous concentration with another comment. "Darkling is stubborn, Nik. He won't give up any more than you will." He hesitated and went on with apology. "He's found a perch he likes. Short of killing Cal, I honestly don't see a way of shaking him loose."
"Take the Verrazano." As far as Niko seemed to be concerned, the puck may as well not have spoken. The bridge… that meant we were headed to Staten Island. It meant something, but what exactly couldn't find purchase in my hazy thoughts.
Robin's forceful exhalation was followed by a grim chuckle. "You are one exasperating son of a bitch, I will give you that. I should've given you every car on the lot and counted myself lucky to see your backs."
"It probably would have been the wiser thing to do." Niko bowed his head against mine as he said soberly, "Don't think I don't know what you've done for us, Goodfellow. Without your help Cal and I would be dead now." The "if we were lucky" hung in the air, implied if not spoken.
"Don't forget the part where I helped save the world," Robin pointed out, recovering his cockiness in a heartbeat. "Robin Goodfellow, hero. It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"
I almost snorted in unison with Nik at the flagrant preening. My eyelids had drifted shut some time ago and I'd not noticed. The darkness of that wasn't so different from the darkness of our rushing through the night. And that in itself wasn't so different from flying. I was slipping slowly and surely back into the swaddling arms of a state much deeper than sleep. As I went, I heard my brother's whisper in my ear. "Stay with me, Cal. We're almost there. Stay with me."
He'd known that I was awake. He'd known all along, just as he now knew I was sliding away. Gravity had seemingly doubled, pressing down with the weight of a cave-in. The air was becoming thicker, moving in and out of my lungs like sludge. Each breath took more effort, each one farther away than the last. Cal might not know what it felt like to die, but I did. Vicariously speaking. I'd inflicted enough death in my day to recognize in intimate detail every shuddering breath, every failing heartbeat. This body, this joined life, was hovering, and it wasn't long before it stopped hovering and started falling. I was hoping I made the right decision, and I was banking on Niko to save my ass. Banking hard.
I don't remember much of anything after that. Pain. The heavy touch of suffocation. And then finally there was the suggestion of motion. As I was carried along, I made one final effort, one last push to a glittering surface far above my head. I was swimming upward with everything I had in me, but I was dragging chains and concrete weights behind me. As I struggled through a still black water, a voice impacted on my ears. It was a moment before I could actually process the sounds, turn them into the gruff demand that they were. "Quick. Lay him down on the bed. What the hell happened, Niko?"
The voice, it was familiar. I felt a hand laid urgently on my abdomen. It was warm. No, it was hot… almost painfully hot. That brought the memory out. There was the mental impression of shaggy auburn hair, impatient amber eyes, and a quirked eyebrow bisected with a fine-lined scar. It was the healer. It was Jeftichew. Rafferty Jeftichew. Staten Island… bingo.
"He was stabbed. Nearly a half hour ago." That would be Niko, succinct as always and on this occasion perhaps even evasive. "He's lost quite a bit of blood. I couldn't stop it."
" 'Quite a bit' being every damn drop in his body." Rafferty didn't sound too hopeful. What kind of gloomy bullshit bedside manner was that? I ask you. Then again Rafferty had never been one to sugarcoat bad news, and he hadn't the time or the inclination for the niceties. He and Nik, they were two peas in a pessimistic pod. The heat of his hand passed through my skin and traveled deeper. "You. Curly. Grab two IV bags from the top shelf of the refrigerator for me."
That made me wish I had enough strength left to open my eyes. I would've loved to seen the sour look I was sure decorated Goodfellow's perpetually smug face. Curly. I'll bet that chafed the vainglorious shit to no end. It gave me a glow even warmer than the scalding hand that was trying so desperately to knit back my insides. There was the slosh of liquid and the squeak of plastic as Curly apparently hopped to it. "What is this?" Goodfellow asked quietly.
"Fresh frozen plasma," Rafferty answered absently. "Now shut up and let me work, would you?" He might not have finished med school, but he had the attitude and sharp-edged tongue down pat. There was a hush after that. Deep, velvety, and peaceful, enough that I kept trying to drift a
way. I was attempting to set foot on that sinuous path that led nowhere yet everywhere all at once, but every time I did, there was an insistent force pulling me back. Hand over hand, the grip continued to reel me in with ruthless obstinacy.
Ruthless, obstinate, and with a devotion to healing that left Hippocrates himself in the dust—it was a short but accurate description of Rafferty. That and he did not suffer fools gladly. In fact, he did not suffer fools at all. Niko and I had crossed his path two years ago. I'd smelled the talent on him instantly. He in turn had known there was something different about me, although I'd never given him the chance to touch me and find out for sure. The laying on of hands would've resulted in his knowing something we didn't want him to know. Chances were it was something he didn't particularly want to know either. And if seeing Cal for what he truly was would've been a shock, seeing what I was now was bound to knock his socks off.
"How is he?"
Rafferty's sharp, frustrated exhalation followed on the heels of Niko's question. "Two phrases come to mind. 'Crashing and burning' and 'train wreck.' Take your pick." The heat of his palm intensified. "The son of a bitch sliced him up good. Who the hell did it?"
There was silence, and then Nik's unflinching answer. "I did."
"Ah." The healer was either absorbing the information or letting it flow over him, water off a duck's back. "I'm guessing that's why you skipped the hospital."
"No." There was the sound of skin on skin, a hand being rubbed wearily over a face. "That's not the reason. Be careful in there, Rafferty. Cal isn't precisely alone."
"Fine time to tell me," came the annoyed grunt. "I'm already in. I'm committed now."
Which would be exactly what Niko had planned all along. The reptilian part of me admired the insidious nature of the move and roundly despised the softer emotion behind it. The rest of me simply recognized it as Niko, through and through, and something I would've done in a heartbeat myself. At one time. Needless to say, if I survived, those days were long gone.
"Then the sooner you heal him, the sooner you can get out," Nik pointed out brusquely.
I didn't catch Rafferty's reply, but it was guaranteed to be scathing. It dawned on me slowly that I was healing. It was a snail-like process due to the severity of the wound, but it was happening. The sounds around me were growing sharper and even though I was still fading in and out, I was becoming more aware. Feeling stronger. In fact I felt strong enough to lever up my eyelids for a bleary glance around me. Light russet eyes took me in. "Damn, Cal," Rafferty said grimly. There was a tightening around the corners of his wide mouth, a spasm of distaste at what he was sensing as he healed me. "You look as creepy as you feel."
Thank you, Marcus Welby. Beside him Niko stood, his short hair still startling to my eyes. I saw the sick despair that lay under the tranquil surface of his smooth face, the sluggish movement of black water under ice. And I saw it fade slightly as he watched me open my eyes. His face loosened a slight amount and for one second he closed his eyes and let his shoulders sag. Then he pulled in a deep breath, straightened his shoulders to a ramrod stiffness, and snapped open his eyes. "Put him to sleep," he ordered without emotion.
Rafferty slid him a disbelieving look. "What? I'm still healing him. He's a long way from out of the woods. Sleep is the least of my concerns here."
"Put him to sleep, Rafferty. Do it now," Niko repeated harshly.
Goodfellow stepped up to add his two cents. Nosy bastard. "You might have trouble healing after Darkling here has bitten off your hand at the wrist. At the moment it's best to let sleeping monsters lie."
I could see that Rafferty wasn't used to being told what to do, and it was clear he didn't care for it one bit. But he ignored his bruised ego for the moment and laid his other hand on my forehead. His lips shaped one word. "Sleep." It wasn't audible to my ears, but I heard it ring in a series of echoes through my mind. Sleep. Over and over again until it was a never-ending litany. Sleep. Sleep.
And I did.
Chapter Twenty-two
It was an unnatural sleep. There were no dreams, no sense of time passing. It was less like sleep and more like nonexistence. When I woke, I expected that somehow Niko, Goodfellow, and Rafferty would still be standing in the same positions. They weren't. I was alone. A rustle at the doorway had me amending that. Mostly alone. A wolf stood there, its round yellow eyes fixed unblinkingly on me. The upper lip was raised enough to show a hint of pearly white teeth. Reddish brown fur bristled along its neck and the ears were flat to its skull. It was huge, male, and pissed off.
"What a big furry dick you have, Grandma," I sneered with a voice rusty from disuse. Opening massive jaws, it gave me a silent snarl, turned, and disappeared from my line of sight. With Red Rover gone, I turned my attention to the room and scanned it curiously. It was Rafferty's surgery. Mopping blood from the floor would be easy enough; it was cheap green linoleum chosen for that very reason. There were shelves upon shelves of medical supplies, a squat and ancient refrigerator that chugged on reliably, and no windows. The house was backed up to a nature preserve if I remembered correctly, but better to play it safe. What went on in this room wasn't for the eyes of your average Joe. There were three beds and I was lying in the one closest to the open door. They were all strictly yard sale quality, scarred, stained, and with the occasional kid's name carved into the headboards. "John." "Timmy." "Bobby loves Katie." I was dressed in faded blue scrubs with a threadbare sheet and blanket pulled up to my waist. None of it was in the style to which I'd become accustomed, not by any stretch of the imagination.
I sighed and focused on the ceiling. A crack ran from corner to corner and I followed it idly with my eyes. I'd fucked up. There was no way around that. I'd let two humans and a mutated goat get the best of me. I'd failed the Auphe, who very probably were now no more. Maybe one or two had escaped the destruction of the warehouse, but I wasn't holding my breath on it. No, I was most likely the sole survivor—on our side of the fence anyway. I was the last of the great and grand plan, which to be truthful I'd never much given a shit about. It was only the paycheck that had ever concerned me. But although I'd never cared one way or the other about the Auphe's success, I did care about myself. First, foremost, and always. I wanted freedom and I wanted revenge and it didn't matter in which order they came.
There was no time like the present. I used my hands to push up to a sitting position. Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I balanced for a moment and then stood. At least that's the way it ran in my mind. In reality, nothing happened. My arms remained still at my sides, my legs unmoving beneath the covers. The only movement I seemed to have was from the neck up. I could turn my head in either direction, tilt it back, or rest my chin on my chest, and that was the sum total of it. I might have woken up, but that goddamn son of a bitch Rafferty had made sure I wasn't going anywhere. He had paralyzed me, turned me into a temporary quadriplegic. Until he returned and lifted the hoodoo, letting my nerves talk to one another again, I was pretty much screwed. And didn't that seem to be the story of my life lately?
Now I had to wait. Eventually they would have to reverse what had been done. They had already made the decision; they hadn't let me die. It was what I'd been betting on. Niko had missed his window of opportunity. He had the chance and, from what I could tell, the absolute intention of ending my life. But he hadn't. At the last possible moment he'd shifted the angle of the blade to leave me alive, if only just barely. Since he hadn't killed me then, I didn't believe he'd let me rot now. And while Rafferty might have healed me, he wasn't about to become my caretaker, spoon-feeding me Jell-O for the rest of this body's life. At some point he would have to set me free. And then he better run like a cheetah because what I was going to do to him would make this paralysis look like a tropical vacation.
Even the fantasies of a sliced and diced Rafferty weren't enough to keep me from contemplating exactly why I'd let Niko take his next-to-best shot to begin with. However, if the fantasies weren't enough to distract
me, the approaching voices were. I was peculiarly grateful. It was a subject I wasn't sure I wanted to study, even from the far corner of my eye. Tilting my head toward the door, I could see into the kitchen across the hall. The three of them came through the back door, bringing in the smells of falling leaves, frost-singed grass, and an icy wind. Niko and Robin sat at the table as Rafferty moved over to the refrigerator. Removing three frozen dinners, he shoved them all into the small microwave on the counter. Goodfellow watched, wincing, as the dinners were stacked on top of one another and the timer was jauntily spun with a twist of the wrist.
"This does not bode well," Robin said glumly, running a hand through wind-tousled curls. "I've yet to see culinary delights belched out by one of those devices."
"O ye of little faith," Rafferty rumbled. He slid a look at me across the distance. "Well, well, the baby's awake. Want me to put him back down?" he asked Niko.
Niko shook his head. "Leave it. There's nothing it can do."
