by Rob Thurman
We reached Promise’s limo minutes later. She’d brought the larger car this time to accommodate the extra passengers. I opened the door. Robin promptly climbed in out of the cold. I waited and Cal gave a mock-aggrieved sigh. “Cut the cord already, Cyrano. I just kicked ass.”
“Revenants,” I said with disdain. “That hardly counts. The day you spar a full three hours with me is the day I let you watch your own back,” I retorted, looking down a nose that I had no problem admitting was Romanesque, if not Cyranoesque.
He gave a grin. It was a faint one, but considering the day he’d had, I’d take it. “Never gonna happen.” He followed Goodfellow, and I followed him, closing the door behind us. Robin was sitting opposite us, beside two wolves. He brushed at his shirt as if ridding it of fur, but that was just Robin being the ass he was so often very good at being. These wolves were high breeds or fine-breds. They were of completely human shape and features when they wanted to be, not like the wolves in the bar. That didn’t stop them from baring their suddenly elongating teeth at Cal, who sat on one side of Promise, as I sat on the other.
“These are your bodyguards?” I asked with eyebrows raised.
She gave an elegant nod. “Courtesy of Delilah. They are Kin, but loyal to her.” Which was good. The Kin, the equivalent of a werewolf Mafia, had strong suspicions we’d been involved in the death of one of their Alphas. They were right.
Delilah was the sister of the wolf who had helped us. She, unlike her brother, was still in good standing with the Kin . . . for now. She was playing a dangerous game to advance her rank, making allies on any side she could. She was also sleeping with Cal. Whether that was a good thing was debatable, but it wasn’t my business. Having sex simply to have it was what being twenty was all about—as long as I didn’t have to hear any of the more furry details.
There was a soft kiss to my jaw. I turned to Promise and smiled. “I see you dressed for the occasion.”
She’d hidden her glorious and definitely noticeable hair under a black cap that matched her sweater, snug pants, and boots. She would blend into the typical art crowd, which is where we would be. Seamus was attending an art show opening and we would be there to spot anyone who might be following him. Although, like Cal, I had my doubts.
With her warm weight against my shoulder, we arrived soon enough at yet one more converted loft in the Lower East Side. We left the wolves in the car and paired up to move into the crowd. As Cal moved off and Robin started to follow, I took his arm. “Watch him,” I said quietly. “Watch him every moment. Are we clear?”
“It’s too crowded here for the Auphe, but I will. I swear it,” he returned as quietly, before heading off in Cal’s wake.
Slim fingers looped around my wrist. “He’s right. The Auphe won’t come here.”
“Never take anything for granted.” I reached over with my other hand to tuck a willful strand of blond hair behind her ear. “Georgina?”
“Delilah was kind enough to send two wolves to her as well.” She ran the soft pad of her thumb, like silk, along the inner part of my wrist, then let her hand fall. “There’s Seamus, the center of attention as always.” There was part exasperation and part affection in her voice.
“Nostalgic?” I asked. She’d made it clear to Seamus where her loyalties lay, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have fond memories.
She thought about it for a moment, eyes distant. “He was a friend when I needed one,” she said finally, “but never more than that, although I thought differently. It simply took me several years to realize that. And the jealousy was the last straw.”
“He’s still jealous,” I pointed out as I focused on him, surrounded by enough women to give Goodfellow a run for his money.
“Oh no. He hasn’t attempted to behead a single person.” She smiled, eyes now bright, bold, and entertained. “He changed for the better over a century ago, I’m glad to say. I wouldn’t have let him near you otherwise.” And of the group, I was thought to be the protective one. “Now”—she bent to check the dagger in her boot—“I’ll go ask if one of his mysterious followers is here.”
I looked over the crowd as she vanished into it. It wasn’t an extraordinarily large amount of people, but it was crammed into a small space with art that even several university classes in the subject couldn’t help me appreciate. There didn’t seem to be anyone especially interested in Seamus besides the women. . . .
Wait.
On the edge of the crowd, studying a hunk of metal vomiting forth several jagged pieces of glass, there was a man. Completely inconspicuous, he was of average height, average weight, with short brown hair and a brown jacket. In the midst of this crowd wearing either the ridiculously bright or all in black, he didn’t quite fit. He was too average. His body language said “Don’t look at me” so strongly that I was surprised he didn’t blend into the wall like a chameleon. I didn’t need to wait for Promise to return to know this was the one.
I looked across the room for Cal and Robin. Taller than Promise, I spotted them instantly and caught their eye. Then I moved toward our chameleon of the ordinary. He didn’t see me at first. Most don’t. By the time he did, I had his collar fisted in my hand and was moving him briskly toward the door. He gurgled as the collar of his shirt cut into his airway. He turned red but not blue, so I wasn’t too concerned about his health. I took him into the empty stairwell and gave him a shake, not hard, but not precisely gentle either. “Who are you?” I demanded.
He was turning slightly blue now—annoying—and I eased my grip a fraction as I repeated, “Who are you? Why are you following him?” No need to name Seamus. He knew whom I was talking about. I could see it in his brown eyes—completely average as well. I could also see he wasn’t going to say a word, not without some encouragement. I let the dagger slide out from my sleeve. I didn’t plan on using it—yet. I didn’t know whether he meant Seamus any harm, not so far, but a blade to the throat is one of the better bluffs.
That’s when I heard it. Below. The click of metal against metal.
I released the man as I threw myself to one side, feeling a tug that pulled at my duster and pinned it to a stair. Freed, he clattered, wheezing, down the stairs, as I yanked my coat free. Another long bolt of metal shot by, close enough to tell a story, but not close enough to kill. I listened to the story and stayed still as the footsteps faded away. When they disappeared, I looked down at the long rod of metal embedded in the stair a bare two inches from my leg. Well . . .
That was interesting.
3
Cal
“A speargun? A goddamn speargun?”
“You’ve said that five times now, little brother. I don’t think it’s going to change with repetition.” Niko had laid the two metal spears on our kitchen table to examine them. “It’s rather an ingenious weapon for fighting nonhumans . . . if it weren’t for the ammunition difficulties.”
“Yeah, they’re a little larger than crossbow quarrels. Hard to haul around. Good for a couple of bad guys; not so much for more,” I said. I was examining something myself—the hole in Niko’s coat. “You’re sure they weren’t trying to kill you?” Trying to kill him while Robin and I had been making our way through the crowd. Fast, but not fast enough. Goddamnit.
Promise’s driver had dropped Robin, then us off after our less-than-successful job. Promise went home with her wolves. Robin went home alone. Promise was one helluva fighter, but while she’d been around centuries, Goodfellow had been around almost as long as the Auphe. If push came to shove, he had enough millennia of weapons practice to take either Niko or me, maybe both at once . . . if he were sober. If any of us could handle the Auphe, it would be him . . . especially in his home territory. Although he damn sure would sooner avoid it if he could.
And while it was now two thirty in the morning in our own home territory, I was too wired to sleep. “You’re sure?” I repeated, sticking my finger through the hole in the gray cloth. If it wasn’t bad enough the Auphe were back, now som
eone had tried to spear Nik like a goddamn sea bass. Jesus.
“Yes. They had the opportunity and they didn’t take it.” He was sitting on a kitchen chair with hands folded across his stomach. “Which is quite curious. I think . . .” He frowned. “I think we’re going to have to do something neither one of us is going to like.”
“Oh, Christ, what?” I asked apprehensively. If Nik didn’t think we were going to like it, I really wasn’t going to like it. It’d be up there with a Drano enema.
He stood. “Think about it. I’m sure it will come to you. Do you want first watch?”
When we thought we’d lost the Auphe while running or when we thought the Auphe were gone for good, we hadn’t kept watch. Now here we were, the bad old times again. “Yeah, no way I’ll sleep yet.” I continued to fiddle with his duster until he pulled it from my hands.
“We have enough to occupy our minds.” He pinched the nerve right above my elbow. There was that tough love again. “No what-ifs, understand?”
“Fine. Jeez.” I rubbed my arm. “I’ll let your dry cleaner worry about it.”
“Good,” he nodded. “If you get bored, try reading a book instead of making paper airplanes out of the pages.”
“What? You’re not going to grill me about the park? About how they were all female? We’re not going to go over that for hours and hours until I try to skin you with a butter knife?” I asked, surprised. I’d been waiting for the discussion all day. I’d seen that unrelenting look in his eye. What had changed since then?
“No,” he paused, then shook his head. “I want to think about it first. And I’m familiar with your record of noticing details in any given situation.”
“Pathetic?” I freely admitted.
“Nonexistent,” he corrected. “Read a comic book or color if you can’t handle that. There are crayons in the desk drawer.” He disappeared down the hall to his bedroom. Crayons. Smart-ass bastard.
Naturally, I skipped any of his suggestions and went straight to why he didn’t want me thinking about the Auphe. What was that about? What happened to two heads are better than one? And you couldn’t say anyone knew more about the Auphe than I did, personally anyway. I might not be detail oriented, but those details were part of my genetic code. I couldn’t avoid them if I wanted. What was Nik up to? After contemplating that long enough to make me bat-shit crazy and getting nowhere, I distracted myself by thinking about what Niko had said before that.
With Seamus’s case—spearguns and all—what were we going to have to do that neither of us would like? It took me nearly half an hour to figure it out. And he was right.
I didn’t like it one damn bit.
I surprised myself by sleeping for a few hours after Nik took over. I’d learned to do that on the run, no matter how scared or emotionally screwed, you had to sleep or you couldn’t function. You couldn’t run from the Auphe if you can’t run at all. When I woke up and staggered down the hall in a T-shirt and pair of sweatpants to the living area, the first thing I said was, “No fucking way.”
Niko was already dressed and doing his morning katas with his sword in the living room. “Figured it out, did you?”
Yeah, I had, and there was no way. “Wahanket tried to kill us last time.” Wahanket, an informant also known as Hank when he wasn’t trying to kill us, lived in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum. It was a good place for a walking, talking mummy with a fondness for cowboy hats.
“No, he tried to kill you, although I’m sure he would’ve gotten around to the rest of us if you hadn’t taken his hand off.” He gave a quick movement of his blade, a flick to rid it of imaginary blood. “Besides, Goodfellow’s informants always try to kill us. It’s tradition.” He whirled, and I dodged the swipe of the katana. “Unfortunately,” he continued, nodding in approval at my footwork, “only the more homicidal of snitches have anything worthwhile to say.”
“Great.” I went over to the fridge and stuck my head in. There was Nik’s carrot juice, wheat-free bagels, cottage cheese, some sort of soy thing, and my week-old Chinese. I took the Chinese. “You know he makes mummy rats? Undead bony things running around.” I made a face as I stuck a fork in the cardboard container. “Can you imagine what else is down there? Gah.” I took a bite and chewed. “Then again, I could get to blow another piece off of him. There’s a plus.”
“No explosive rounds this time.” He sheathed his sword with the proper respect. “I don’t think Sangrida would appreciate that, considering all the artifacts down there. Best to stick with your Glock. No Desert Eagle.” Sangrida was a Valkyrie and the museum director. It probably wouldn’t do to piss her off. If the myths were true, she’d dragged many a warrior kicking and screaming off to Valhalla. And if the myths weren’t true, she was strong enough to take a cab from the museum curb and beat us to death with it. She was definitely tall and muscular enough to.
“If we go, and I don’t think we should.” I took another bite, considered the odd taste of the chicken, shrugged, and went on. Food poisoning was the least of my concerns. Assuming I could even get it. I never had, and I’d eaten things five seconds away from growing penicillin. “The hell with Seamus and his money. He’s not worth that kind of grief. And I don’t want to be a mummy. I definitely don’t want a certain part of me mummified. It’s just now getting some action.”
“Yes, yes, your sexual exploits aside . . . there were the whole two of them, yes?” he asked with mock curiosity. He didn’t wait for an answer and ignored my glare. “Those aside, we can’t assume this is only about Seamus. It seems odd someone would follow a vampire only to watch him. If they don’t want to kill him or me, what do they want? I don’t think this is just about him.”
“And you’re doing it for Promise.” I finished the carton and dumped it in the garbage.
“Yes. If this is about all vampires, I’d like to know as soon as possible.” He didn’t say he could go see Wahanket without me. He knew better than that.
“Okay. We’ll go.” I sighed and scratched my ass absently. “Should we take Robin?”
“I don’t know. What does the Magic 8 Ball that is your ass say?” he asked dryly.
We took Robin without any input from my ass, thanks for asking.
“We should’ve brought an offering. Hank doesn’t like it when you don’t bring an offering,” Robin said glumly. We’d managed to get him through the museum with a minimum of the I-slept-with-her, I-slept-with-him patented Goodfellow tour. When he started in on taking Cleopatra’s virginity and how the legend of the asp was simply Octavian’s Freudian longing for a penis . . . or for a bigger penis, as his was virtually nonexistent, we’d yanked him along.
“I don’t think a present and some Get Well Soon balloons are going to do the trick.” I snorted. “He’s going to be pissed. I cut off his damn hand. Only Darth Vader gets away with shit like that.”
The basement was the same as it was during my last visit, a virtual city of crates and forgotten exhibits. Robin led us through it as easily as he had before, only this time I heard several cries from different directions. The croak of dried vocal cords. There was also the sound of claws tearing at the wood of crates. Those weren’t rats. Great. Hank had gone from homicidal maniac to crazy cat lady. I wasn’t sure which was worse. At least mummified cats didn’t piss. All I smelled was the dust of years and years.
When we finally came across Wahanket’s lair, Robin had gotten bored and was now telling us Brutus hadn’t even been at the forum when Julius Caesar was killed. “A vicious rumor. And he had it all over Octavian, let me tell you. Hung like Pegasus, he was.” It was enough to make you wish for an attack of mummified cats after all.
“You.”
It was a death rattle from beneath the sand. It was Wahanket, and he sounded every bit as pissed as I expected.
“You. Mutilator. Maimer. Auphe.”
Robin’s informants really did know their shit. He knew I was Auphe. And if he knew that . . . “Then you know I came by the maiming hobby honestl
y,” I said coldly and without remorse. I might hate the Auphe, but I wasn’t above using their reputation if I had to, and why not? Most believed it anyway. “And it’s not like you didn’t deserve it, you withered son of a bitch.” I had my gun, but it was holstered. If I couldn’t use explosive rounds, I had something that would be more effective than the Glock. I held a sword, short and thicker than Niko’s katana, and perfectly capable of taking more than a hand off.
“Why not come out, Wahanket? And we can discuss things without any mutilation.” Niko said. “Perhaps,” he added matter-of-factly.
There was a moment of stillness, then Wahanket stepped into the dim light. The first thing I noticed was he had a new hand. Sort of. It was scaled with wickedly curved black claws. I had a feeling a stuffed Komodo dragon down here somewhere was missing a piece. The rest of him was the same. Blackened flesh, resin-soaked bandages, a pit of a nose, and empty eye sockets that held a faint yellow glow. He wasn’t slow like the mummies in the old black-and-white movies. He was quick when he wanted to be, with the scuttle of a cockroach. A very fast, murderous cockroach—something you definitely didn’t want living under your sink.
Robin raised eyebrows at the “hand,” but said smoothly, “See? That’s not bad at all. Caliban did you a favor. It’s very . . . ah . . . fashionable. Useful as well. A can opener has nothing on you, I’m sure.”
Dark brown teeth clicked as he moved closer. I could see a rib bone sticking through cracked flesh, and something on the claws of the dragon hand . . . brown, crusted—I had no problem figuring out what it was. Maybe we should ask Sangrida if any of her security guards had gone missing.
“What do you seek here?” he hissed with a curled scrap of leathery tongue. “What do you think I would possibly give unto you?”
Like that was fair. Yeah, sure, I had blown off his hand; there was that. But he had started it. Had tried to kill me with a malicious glee, and if you think a mummy is bad, a mummy with a gun is much worse. Luckily, he had lost that along with the hand and it seemed he hadn’t gotten a replacement yet.
