by Rob Thurman
I looked down automatically and scowled at perfectly dry jeans. “I repeat, you suck.”
“So you keep saying. Do you remember anything?” he asked, pulling my face back up to get my eyes on his. “You acted like you remembered something. From before.”
“Before” meant only one thing with us. When the Auphe had me for two years. I frowned and for a second . . . I had known something when I took out the Auphe. Remembered something, hadn’t I? To kill it like I had, I would’ve had to, because that wasn’t me. I was good at killing, but not like that. Not that fast, not that hungry to see death. I held my breath, scared shitless, that I did remember. That the flood-gates would open and wash me away. But it didn’t. My head hurt and felt weirdly empty and dark, but no lost memories lurked there. At least not anymore. “No.” I slumped slightly in relief. “Not a damn thing.” I looked over to see five remaining Vigil, not counting Samuel, rolling the Auphe up in a tarp to put in one of their vans that was pulled up to the now-open door. “They took out twenty-five Vigil in, what, two seconds? Twenty-five men with machine guns. How the hell did we pull it off?”
“You said you would outthink them.” Nik helped me to my feet. “You kept your word.” He sounded as if he hadn’t expected anything different. Like I said, big brothers. They had faith in you when you’d forgotten what the word meant.
With an emotion so huge I didn’t have a name for it, I watched as the last Auphe in the world was hidden from sight. The hell with the dizziness, the bile burning my throat, my brain turned to red-hot cinders. They were gone. Jesus Christ, they were gone.
Except for one half-blood who for at least a minute had been every bit the Auphe he had killed.
“Think we got them all?” Samuel said, his still-smoking Uzi in one hand, as he steadied me as I swayed with his other hand. Niko allowed it . . . barely.
With Nik on one side, his hand now gripping my upper arm in protective support, and Samuel on the other, they managed to keep me upright as the relief faded a little. “I thought that once. I’m not sure I’ll ever think that again.” But the darkness in me told me different—they were gone.
“But for now . . .” Nik said.
“Yeah, for now.” It wasn’t a grin. It was too twisted for that, but it was satisfied, like I’d never been so satisfied in my life.
“Time for you to go,” Samuel said. “Even around here someone was bound to notice this.” The Vigil were already bagging up their own dead now. “And I think you might want to consider us even now. At least from the Vigil’s point of view, if not mine. No more favors.”
Then he let go of me, face serious. “Stay strong. Keep your head down.” Then he walked toward the doors and passed through.
Keep it down, because the Vigil had seen what I’d done. I didn’t think I could do it again, had no idea how I’d done it at all, but in their eyes, half Auphe might be too much Auphe.
As I steadied myself on my feet, the dizziness and headache were fading fast. Too fast for a human. But probably about right for the last Auphe. The Vigil might be right, saw what Niko didn’t want to. That was definitely a thought for another time. I wasn’t ruining this. Nothing could ruin this. I said, “I think I want a beer. If Ish will let me in the place. I want one beer, and I want to feel normal.”
“No bar. No beer. Convulsions and beer do not mix,” Niko retorted. “And you always were normal.”
I cocked my head. “Cyrano, seriously, you have delusions only massive drugs could explain.”
“Normal to me,” he countered firmly. “As far as I’m concerned that’s all that counts.”
As we walked outside, the dizziness disappeared as did the headache, and I was good as new in record time . . . the sort of time that definitely wasn’t normal, no matter what Nik said or thought. I ignored the feeling and felt around for more Auphe out there. None. We were clean. Suddenly, I felt good. Right. This was right.
“You going to Promise and Cherish’s new hide-out?” I asked as we kept walking. A taxi might take you here, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be cruising here for pickups. We could’ve called, but walking felt good and right too.
“No. This is our night. Tonight we go home,” he said as if there was no other choice. No hot vampire girlfriend waiting. He was right, though. It was our night. The Leandros brothers, who’d turned survival into an art form like nobody else ever had.
“Tomorrow I’ll see them. I especially want to discuss the Oshossi situation, which I’m finding more questionable as time goes on.” He looked back through the door at the dark stains of blood that were scattered across the floor. “It’s over.” There was an odd note in his voice, part satisfaction, but mainly puzzlement.
I knew he meant, How can it be over?
It was a good question, and one I could still hardly understand. One with an answer I wasn’t sure I could admit to. After all that had happened, after a lifetime of watching for, running, or fighting a nightmare, how could it really be over? It was almost unbelievable.
“You want a hug?” I drawled, just as unsure myself. “Will that bring you closure?” Normally he would’ve swatted me a good one on the back of the head, but convulsions gave me a free ride there for now. And I was bullshitting anyway, because I felt the same. Relieved, strong, yet . . . how? The Auphe were dead. They were gone. But I was like Nik. How could it be over? After all these years . . .
How could we be free?
But I knew one thing: Their whole race had nearly been destroyed in a warehouse. It was goddamn poetic we could send the last ones out in one just like it.
We went home, a place truthfully I didn’t think we’d ever see again. There was a new door and a bill taped to it courtesy of our landlord. Hell, I was relieved it wasn’t an eviction notice.
There we were with our battered couch, battered table and lamps . . . battered everything. Right then it was better than a mansion in my eyes. We didn’t have to worry about watching, waiting. We didn’t have to stay alert every second for death to come tearing out of the air. We could relax. We could sleep, not that half-assed dozing you do when something’s breathing down your neck. We could really sleep.
Neither one of us did.
We sat on the couch until the sun lightened the morning sky. Who wanted to waste the first real taste of freedom on sleep? I had my brother. I had my life. I was going to enjoy every damn second of it. All that was missing were the fish sticks and cartoons.
The sky streaked with tangerine, pink, and violet-blue, and the sun peered through the shadow-black buildings. It looked to be a damn gorgeous day.
One of the best of my life.
Robin called me that afternoon after Niko had already left to see Promise and Cherish. He wanted to meet at the bar and get the story up close and personal. We’d called everyone the night before to clue them in on the survival thing, but Goodfellow liked details. Lots and lots of details. It was the next best thing to being there. And he would’ve been there if we’d needed him to be, but I thought he was damn glad we hadn’t, especially once I mentioned the nuke. He’d taken that about as well as I had.
“So it’s over.” Reliving it all hadn’t been as tough as I’d imagined. Skipping one part of it had certainly made it easier. I’d managed it so thoroughly I kept half forgetting where I’d lost my dirks. Not the eye sockets of an Auphe, nope, and it was the end of the Auphe. How could that be bad? Forget it and go on.
I had a flash of a thought that the real end of them might not come until I was gone, but what we’d done the night before . . . it was good enough. I’d made the decision not to rain on my own parade, and I was sticking with it.
Despite Nik’s order from last night, I had a beer. Last night was last night and today was seventeen hours later. That was a long time—in my book anyway. I nursed it, though, as it was the single one I tended to allow myself. Sophia had been the type of alcoholic that would’ve needed a 112 step program. It didn’t pay to tempt fate.
“Thank Zeus, it’s
about damn time.” Robin was working on a bottle of wine, fancy glass and all. “The Vigil came through, eh? I suppose Samuel is as remorseful as he says he is.”
“Sorry is sorry, but I think he probably considers thirty Uzi-armed Vigil and a nuke cleans the slate.” I took another swallow of beer.
“Nuclear weapons.” He shook his head and swirled the wine in his glass. “I’m not sure humans are too far from the Auphe in some ways.”
Being both, I wasn’t much in the position to make that call. “How was the orgy?” I asked instead.
“Actually, I picked up Salome and spent quality time with the shriveled feline.” He went on defensively, “I didn’t want her snacking on the neighbors.”
Sure. That was the reason. I grinned into my beer.
Halfway through my beer, Ishiah came up to the table. He hadn’t said a word when I’d come through the door. He’d looked at me briefly, then went back to serving a customer. It wasn’t an engraved invitation or anything, but I took it to mean I wasn’t banned. He didn’t mention Cambriel when I went up for my beer. I’m not sure he ever would. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. Cambriel deserved better. To be remembered. But to think of him was to think of his severed head dangling from the hand of an Auphe, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t go there, knowing if it weren’t for me he’d still be alive.
I finished my beer in several swallows, nursing it be damned, but the memory didn’t disappear as easily as the alcohol did.
“So,” Ishiah said to Robin, “you survived the Auphe.”
“I did,” Robin said smugly, as if he’d actually been there. But I’d give him credit this time. It might not be lying, bragging, or his enormous ego. He could be referring to the entire crappy experience instead of only last night. “I was beyond brave, an unparalleled fighter, a morale booster with no equal.”
“And he didn’t get laid once,” I added, which seemed the bigger feat to me.
Ishiah raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You’re saying after all these years you’re finally listening to me?”
“Listen? To you?” Robin scoffed. “If I listened to you and your thousands of years of bitching, I’d be a monk. A poorly dressed, destitute, horrifically celibate monk.”
“I simply wanted you to behave like a halfway rational creature,” Ishiah retorted.
Oh, this was going to be good. I leaned back out of the way.
“Behave? Oh no, what you wanted is for me to cut back on the drinking, the lying, the stealing, the conning, and the whoring about. The very things that make me the magnificent specimen I am today,” Robin said indignantly.
“Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have ended up on the verge of being killed by descendants of former worshippers,” Ishiah pointed out, brutal but true.
Robin sputtered, “Please. As if you weren’t chased over sand dunes by a band of Israelites desperate for a holy souvenir. They plucked you like a chicken. You looked like a mangy pigeon when I found you.”
Looking less like Niko by the second, because where Niko’s anger was cold, Ishiah’s was red-hot, Ishiah said dangerously, “I did not.”
Robin countered spitefully, “They could’ve barbecued those things and served them up in a sports bar.”
Oh yeah. This was good, all right. And I didn’t even have to pay for a ticket.
They were leaning over the table, almost nose to nose, eyes narrowed to slits, faces flushed with rage. Robin huffed out a breath and said between gritted teeth, “Are you coming back to my place or not?”
Ishiah growled, “No, we’re going to mine. It’s closer.” He tossed me the apron. “Close up the bar tonight. I won’t be back.”
I caught it, surprised. That wasn’t the way I’d thought it would go at all. Then again . . .
Niko and Ishiah resembled each other. It’d taken me a while to notice, but it was true. Dark blond to light. Dark skin to pale. Gray eyes to blue-gray, but still, they could’ve been brothers. They looked a lot more like each other than Nik and I did.
I’d always thought Robin had a thing for Niko, but now it seemed more likely that Niko had reminded him of someone else. Although he hadn’t been a substitute—from Robin’s hounding, it had definitely been a true attraction, but now . . . the truth came out. Niko would be one relieved son of a bitch.
And as soon as I closed up the bar, Robin and Ishiah wouldn’t be the only ones getting some.
I hoped.
14
Niko
The New Jersey location Promise and Cherish had chosen was a house much more elaborate than Rafferty’s had been. Promise was like Robin, although she would hate to admit it—she liked the luxuries in life. I scanned the arched ceilings and doorways and gave an appreciative murmur, although truthfully between spartan and opulent, I would choose spartan. But one tried stalling techniques when he could. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
Promise had been relieved we’d survived the Auphe and furious we had not let her participate in the plan. But as it had once started with my brother and me, it had ended with my brother and me. It was the way it should have been. The way it was.
“You could have died,” she snapped.
We could’ve worse than died, and what had happened to Cal . . . one more thing I hadn’t shared with her. The slippery slope, but it was what we had, and as I’d told Cal, I’d have to see if good enough was good enough. What had happened to my brother I wasn’t sharing with anyone. It had been one moment brought to life by a trip he shouldn’t have had to ever make again, and an Auphe who refused to die with the others. He had come back, though—his mind somewhat slower than his body, but he had come back. No one else would’ve had the will—the absolute stubborn hardheaded will. No wonder I could never get him to pick up his dirty clothes.
“Died,” she repeated.
We could’ve died anytime in the past week, but I thought it wiser not to bring up that point. Promise, normally cool and collected, rarely showed her temper, but when she did it was best to ride it out. Perhaps do a mantra or two during the experience. Focus on the lotus . . . an expression of beauty from the dull mud that spawned it. Trace the soft colors of its petals. Regard the glitter of its inner jewel. Or, as a change of pace, imagine the precise sweep of the blade required to disembowel a revenant. The silver shimmer . . .
I realized several seconds of silence had reigned, and I refocused to see fangs bared and her eyes, black as night, on me. “Are you listening, Niko, because I would hate to think that you are ignoring me.”
Buddha had no teachings I knew of on domestic disputes with vampire partners, so I went with silence and a raised eyebrow. Cherish reclined nearby on a black silk couch, and laughed. “Where is the celebrated strategist now?”
“Discretion has always been the better part of valor.”
Promise’s eyes didn’t turn any less black at my words. “Tell me again. Every detail. I want it all.”
I repeated it all, minus the first exception and Cal’s urination phobia. I didn’t think the last was a revelation he would appreciate my sharing. Promise paced, murmuring words under her breath that were no doubt unladylike. With her long life, she probably could’ve taught my brother a few obscenities. “There were so many ways that it could’ve gone wrong. So very many.”
“But it didn’t. It worked as planned,” I pointed out, finally sitting. This was looking as if it might take some time, and I still had Cherish to interrogate.
“Because Cal did something he shouldn’t have been able to do. Shut eighteen gates. One day he won’t be so fortunate,” she said, facing me.
He hadn’t looked particularly fortunate seizing on the floor, but I knew what she meant. “Now that the Auphe are gone, truly gone, he shouldn’t have to go to such extremes.” I wouldn’t let him push himself that way again. There could be no reason desperate enough and no call to close any gates ever again. Gates in general . . . we would have a very long talk about those and their use. More importantly, their disuse.
“He won�
��t have to do what he did again,” I countered. “There will be no other gates to close.”
“Only his own,” she said. Implacable and true, and as I’d said to myself, I would take care of it.
“Cherish.” I looked away from Promise. There was no further place for the conversation to go. Cal was my responsibility. I would help him take care of the monsters in his life, even if only their shadows remained. “I want to talk to you about Oshossi.”
She curled her legs under her, much as I’d seen her mother do many times. The smile was different, however. Cooperative but wicked, with a quick flash of pointed canines. “What do you wish to know?” Xolo had climbed on the couch and leaned into her side. Beauty and the beast. Granted, a very small beast—a very small beast with very large eyes. Amazingly deep and large.
“I find it difficult to believe even the proudest of creatures would chase you across country after country, transporting all his creatures, to take vengeance over one piece of useless jewelry.” I finished flatly, “Very difficult.”
“Not so difficult, if you know the kind of creature he is. How his sense of pride is his greatest treasure. How none can defeat him. His ego simply won’t allow it.” Her fingers stroked the pale cheek of the chupa, its eyes brighter than usual. “You can see how that might be.”
Promise, who’d once called her daughter a liar and a thief, a shame to her, agreed immediately. “There are those like that. Niko, you’ve told me yourself. Wasn’t Abbagor the same?”
Actually, Abbagor had not been the same. The troll’s tastes had run to slavery, and to his final battle looked forward to the majority of his life, but vengeance over a necklace? It was beneath him, and I would’ve thought beneath Oshossi.
“No,” I responded. “I would think only madness would lead to extremes, and Oshossi seems anything but insane.”
“Pride can be a kind of insanity,” Cherish said lightly. “Can’t it? Can’t you see that, Niko?” Xolo leaned his head against her shoulder, his eyes still on me—dreamy and drifting.
