Deathwish

7

Guts stink.

Human, monster . . . it didn’t matter. They were rank, nasty, and had long ago lost the ability to bother me. They say nurses can wipe a patient’s ass with one hand and eat a sandwich with the other. It’s all in what you get used to, right? I lived a life where I was used to guts on the floor. Lucky me. Yeah, lucky, lucky me.

A pair of rubber gloves, a garbage bag, and I was good to go. I wasn’t wasting a Samuel favor on a mess this small, and as I was the only one not wounded, it fell to me. I doubted Promise’s cleaning service would’ve really understood. We don’t do windows and we don’t do body parts. Sorry.

“She’ll have to move. Between the cadejos and this, the stench will never come out.” Robin sat carefully at one of the dining room chairs. The flesh over his ribs was clawed and clawed deep, but other than that he and Promise had held off the second Auphe long enough that it hadn’t had time to turn its attention to Niko until the first one fell. Promise was worse off than Goodfellow, bitten on her shoulder and hip, and clawed from the nape of her neck to the small of her back, but she would heal a whole lot faster than he would, and feel it less.

Nik had a good swipe across his chest and a shallow bite on his neck. As it was right over his jugular, it would have to be shallow, wouldn’t it? A little deeper and he would’ve bled out before we could’ve done a damn thing to stop it. He would’ve died on the floor next to the Auphe and that . . .

Hell, that would’ve been that.

There’s another fact besides the guts-stink one. Sometimes you get pushed so far. . . . So much shit happens that you end up with three choices: You can eat your gun, you go catatonic and wear a diaper the rest of your life, or you can suck it up and go on.

For Nik, I picked the last option. I couldn’t have done anything else no matter how tempting another choice might have seemed for a second. Only the Auphe could make torture and death seem like a trip to Coney Island. Only they could make you wish that was the prize you won, being slowly ripped to pieces. That was the winning number and I could rip that lotto ticket up, because I’d lost big. But, hey, here’s the consolation prize. I got to be the last male Auphe in the whole damn world. Hybrid or not, pathetic half-sheep mutt that I was, I was all the Auphe had to rebuild their race. Which went to prove I didn’t know them quite as well as I thought I did. No suicide for them. The Auphe were mad, sure . . . join the crowd. But they were relentless too. They’d thought of a way to destroy the world before. Give them time and they might come up with another.

I was the time. Robin said Auphe lived nearly as long as he did, if not longer, but even twenty—no, eighteen now—Auphe might have trouble with world domination. But they could bide their time and breed. Build the race back up. And each successive breeding would slowly wipe out the human taint of the hybrid sire.

And Goodfellow thought he was a stud.

I bit back the jagged dark laughter. If I started that, then I would be in diapers when the Auphe came to drag me to Tumulus, and I didn’t want that. Because if they did manage that, then Niko would be gone and any promises I made would be gone with him. I wasn’t going to hell again, not to visit and not to live. The fact that I’d be insane the minute clawed hands threw me on ground glass sand under a dirty, piss yellow sky didn’t make a difference. I wasn’t adding to the Auphe population. I wasn’t making another monster, not a single one. Worse yet, I wasn’t making another one like me. Through Auphe arrogance I’d been left with Sophia for my childhood. Niko had raised me. What if the Auphe had instead? What would that baby have grown up to be?

The urge to laugh hysterically changed to the burn of bile against my throat, and I stopped thinking about it. Any of it. I had to focus on the here and now or I wasn’t going to make the next five minutes, much less long enough to come up with a way to save all our asses. See me suck it up. See me save my friends and brother. See me completely ignore reality so I didn’t lose my fucking mind.

I skirted my eyes around Niko’s blood on the floor as I kept scooping Auphe insides and tossing them in the plastic bag. Of all the blood I’d seen in my life, that was the blood I could never get used to—my brother’s. “If you think it smells, bring your deodorizer cat over here. That’ll fix it up,” I said grimly to Robin. “Maybe she could eat this . . . thing for us.” I didn’t even want to say the name. I definitely didn’t want to be touching it, but as I was the most mobile, I wasn’t going to let anyone else do it. And Niko had tried. He’d tried to push me into another room. Out of sight, out of mind. If he actually could’ve pulled the memory of the fight and the Auphe words out of my head, I think he would have. Hell, I know he would have. He’d suspected what those bitches wanted. Not that he’d told me. Never given me a single clue.

He was one goddamn good brother.

Niko wanted the truth in life. More often than not, I was happy with the lie.

“She’s dead,” Robin said with a snort at my ignorance. “Dead cats don’t eat. She only purrs, claws my furniture, and kills man-sized dogs.” He frowned at the last bit, then sighed. “What can you do? We are all true to our nature. It’s how Zeus made us.”

“Then Zeus can go screw himself if he’s responsible for this.” I knelt beside the body of the Auphe Niko had killed. She . . . it didn’t look any less against God-and-nature dead than it had alive. Empty red eyes and metal teeth slowly losing their mirror sheen, it gave death’s gaping grin. Against God . . . yeah, right.

“If I ever needed proof there’s no God”—and I didn’t—“here it is. No Zeus. No Allah. If there were, they wouldn’t let this kind of evil walk the earth.”

I heard the chair creak as Robin stood and walked away. Moments later he returned with a mop and bucket and slowly took care of the puddle of blood I couldn’t force myself to look at. When that was done, his hand braced itself on my shoulder as he squatted beside me, wincing as he did. “I don’t know. I did meet Buddha once, the skinny version, in India. He gave me half his rice, laughed at my clothes, and told me if I could stay celibate for an entire week I’d reach enlightenment.”

“In other words, he was screwing with you.”

“In other words,” he agreed, green eyes nostalgic. “But he made me laugh. I didn’t laugh much in those days, not and mean it. Maybe laughing is better than a god.” His hand squeezed, then let go. “Now, let’s do something about dumping this pasty bastard . . . ah . . . bitch in the river. I have a feeling Niko wants to pick up a LoJack while we’re out and strap it to your wanderlust ass.”

Robin had heard what I’d said about Nik letting me go, but he’d taken it at face value. He thought I wanted to leave in hopes the Auphe would follow me—the same idea I’d had earlier when fighting the eel. Probably for the best that he thought that. I didn’t need a twenty-four-hour suicide watch with someone holding my hand while I took a piss. Niko knew I wouldn’t break my promise. Goodfellow might not be so trusting. I didn’t clue him in, instead settling for a noncommittal shrug. And, truthfully, it still wasn’t the worst idea—except for the fact Niko would track me down faster than the Auphe, and we’d be right back where we started.

“Leaving might work,” he continued. “They may follow you and forget about us. And then again, they may locate you in a few weeks or months and dump our dead bodies at your feet. The Auphe have far more patience than you give them credit for. They don’t have to choose either/or. They can have their cake and mutilate it too.”

That was an option I hadn’t considered on the beach. Seems I wasn’t the only one who could think like an Auphe. But I was the only one who could breed like one. Good old science experiment Cal. A male Auphe could impregnate a female human, but apparently a male human couldn’t impregnate a female Auphe . . . or at least not as quickly as I could. Sure, I was better, being half Auphe, but it’d be easier grabbing a random guy with no gun, fighting skills, or lethal brother. Although good luck on him getting it up for a nightmare of pale skin, bone-cracking teeth, and eyes of blood. As for me . . . the Auphe and Tumulus would send sanity bye-bye on me. Madness, torture, the memories of probably the same from the past; the Auphe would get what they wanted from me. One way or the other. I just didn’t know if being insane would make it better or worse.

“Are you all right? You look like you might . . .” Robin made an obvious gesture with one hand, while patting my shoulder with the other and leaning away from me all at the same time. The guy had talent.

“Fine. I’m fine.” Frigging dandy. “I won’t run. Nik would find me and make me wish I was dead before the Auphe actually had the chance to do it.” It wasn’t a lie, just a rehashing of what Nik and I had talked about on the beach . . . before I knew what I knew now. We hadn’t told Robin and Promise that I’d understood what the Auphe had said, and when I’d told Niko I was the last male Auphe, it had barely been a whisper, and a garbled one at that. Robin and Promise didn’t know that while the Auphe still wanted them dead, they had different plans for me. And I didn’t want them to know. That kind of pity I couldn’t take. If I saw that on their faces every time I turned around, it would only make all of this more real. And right, now reality was the last thing I needed.

I stripped off the gloves, tossed them on the newspaper-covered table, and reached back to wipe a sweaty hand across the top of my back. My bloody back. Half dried, the sticky residue of Niko’s blood was rough against my palm. Before it had itched; now it burned. “Shit,” I said. I’d been unable to look at it, but here I was feeling it. The Auphe wanted me, but not yet. First I got to see the big show. Death and despair, and you want popcorn with that?

They wanted Nik first. They wanted me to watch. Wanted me to see. Wanted me wearing his blood.

And I was.

I moved for the bathroom and the shower without another word. I stood under steaming hot water, letting it wash the blood away. I was there a good five minutes before I thought to take my sweatpants off, and it was nearly half an hour before I stepped out nude from behind the curtain. Niko was waiting to toss me a towel.

He leaned against the double vanity as I silently dried off and wrapped the cloth around my hips. He hadn’t made a sound when he came in. I hadn’t heard him or the door over the thundering water, and I fully expected a swat for it. I didn’t get it. “Are you speaking to me yet?” he asked, folding his arms.

“ ‘Goddamn you, you son of a bitch’ was speaking,” I told him wearily.

And that’s what I’d said to him after revealing I was the Last Damn Mohican, my head burrowing into his chest like when I was a kid, and Sophia had told me another bedtime story about how the monster wasn’t under my bed—it was in it. That’s what I’d said to him for not letting me go out the quick and easy way.

That was me, shouldering my part and stepping up to the plate as I’d promised myself I would. Way to be a man. Really showing I’d meant it when I’d said things would be all right. Thinking like an Auphe, I’d said I could do it and I hadn’t, not by a long shot. Only I could manage to pull off being a monster, but not monster enough. I put the toilet lid down and sat, the back of my head thunking back carelessly against the wall.

“Pity party for yourself?” Niko asked dryly, but behind the sarcasm I could see the shadow of worry.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I exhaled. “BYOA. Bring your own angst. It’s festive as hell.” The bandage was white against the olive of his skin, but he was alive, and I felt the mental knot unravel a little at that thought.

“Perhaps I’ll join you. My brother . . .” He stopped, took a long calming breath—probably to keep from banging my head repeatedly against the wall—and then started again, voice steady as a rock, worry to anger in a heartbeat: “My brother threw himself between me and the jaws of a shark. And if that wasn’t enough, he asked the shark to eat him first. Can you imagine how I would’ve felt if the shark had taken him up on it?”

“I’m guessing grateful’s not it.” Water—not Niko’s blood, just water—dripped from my hair and down my back. Cool and clean.

“No,” he replied grimly.

“Going to punch him in the nose? I hear he punched you.” The bruising under his eyes was more noticeable in the bright light of the bathroom. It’d been a good punch—short and precise with the exact amount of power I’d meant to go into it. Just as I’d been taught.

“No. That would be far too easy on him.” He loomed. Niko could loom like nobody’s business. “On you.”

“Nik, it wasn’t that big a risk. Hell, no risk at all.” The dripping water pooled in the small of my back, still cool, but not as cool as Niko’s expression. The cooler it got, the more pissed he would be. “We know better now. They won’t kill me.” No matter how much I demanded. “That’s not in their playbook anymore.”

“And as the Auphe are completely sane and utterly logical, we’ll depend on that? No, I don’t think so. It only takes one Auphe to get the taste of your blood and lose sight of its goal.” His lips tightened. “Just one. A shark can be docile, but throw one in an ocean of blood and all it would know is slaughter. The Auphe are the same. You can’t depend on madness. Or worse yet, they might not be as mad as we think. In that case, they might lose patience with vengeance and just take you. Leave the rest of us for later and take you to where I can’t get you back.”

It was true, although I had my doubts the Auphe would ever lose their lust for vengeance. If anyone could be mad and patient, it would be them.

“You’d have done the same thing,” I pointed out, going around an argument I didn’t want to have and crap I didn’t want to think about. Not yet. I wanted a few hours of denial. Just a few. Was that so bad?

“Logic? You? Now I know you’re desperate.” He tossed me another towel from the counter. “And it’s my responsibility to keep you safe. The right of the firstborn. Part and parcel of being the big brother.” His jaw set. “It could’ve taken you, Cal, do you understand? It could’ve taken you or killed you.”

I took the towel and scrubbed at my damp hair before countering, “It could’ve killed you too.” I swiped at my wet neck with the cloth. And it had come close. So goddamn close.

He exhaled, “This is getting us nowhere. And waiting to be picked off one by one isn’t the best strategic plan spawned in history. We need to find them. Go after them for a change. Surprise them.”

Go after them? Okay, that wasn’t just crazy talk. That was Hannibal Lecter eating his own foot with Dijon mustard wacko. “They live in Tumulus, Nik. Hell’s ghetto.” It wasn’t really hell, but it was a place—far from this world—that would make any mythological hell look like an amusement park. Two years of my life had been swallowed up by a nightmare dimension where time ran in all different directions, which explained how I’d come back to Nik only two days after my kidnapping but two years older. That was the one thing I did know about Tumulus. The rest was so thoroughly blocked out, I had only the faintest of impressions left. Rock and sand as red as blood, a sky the color of pus, and the cold of a long-closed tomb. But I didn’t have to remember to know that sticking your dick in a bucket of acid was a better idea than going there.

“I don’t know anything about it.” I twisted the towel in my hands. “I don’t know how big it is. I could open a gate right in the middle of the Auphe, for all I know. We could drop right in their laps, and that’s not like Santa’s lap, okay? We won’t be getting any candy canes out of the deal.” Tumulus. Christ. I felt the towel rip under my grip. “Not to mention the me-going-crazy thing. But, hey, why don’t I mention that?” Only the amnesia, the defense of an adolescent mind, had saved me the other time I’d gone to Tumulus and come back. I knew it wouldn’t save me again.

“Not we, Cal. Me,” Niko said, absolute. He reached over and took the towel from me. “If you can get me through, I could do a little reconnaissance, that’s all. I doubt odds are high that I would walk into the center of the Auphe.”

Him, not me. I should’ve known that and would have if the mere thought of that place didn’t have every nerve in me firing in dread and sheer fight-or-flight panic. Nik would never consider sending me over there. It could’ve been my idea and our last hope and he still wouldn’t have allowed it.

“No.” I was as absolute as Niko. “That’s their territory. You don’t take on someone like the Auphe on their territory. You should know that. You taught it to me. They could find you. Time is weird there. You could be gone a minute or a year. There could be pockets of no air.” The air had been thin there, hadn’t it? High-altitude thin? Hadn’t I struggled to breathe when they had dragged me there from home? Hadn’t I thought I’d suffocate? I felt my lungs suddenly ache for oxygen before a black curtain dropped down, wrapped around the flicker of memory, and took it away. Banished, like always.

“No.” This time I snapped it. “Make that hell no. Fuck no. Any goddamn no you want. I’m not doing it.”

“The time component. I hadn’t considered that.” Which gave away a frustration he didn’t allow to show. Niko didn’t forget to consider all aspects of a situation. Ever. But he’d been on target. We were basically sitting around, plastic ducks lined up at the carnival waiting for a BB gun to take us out. How do you fight an enemy you can’t follow? Can’t locate? They wouldn’t keep playing with us forever. They’d get serious sooner or later, mad or not, tire of the games, and then. . . . yeah, then.

“What if you kept the gate open? Linking our world to theirs? That might keep time running consistently in both places.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was still talking about it. Fine. He could have that conversation all by himself. “We need to dump the body,” I said, as if the subject of Tumulus had never come up, never existed. In fact, Tumulus was where the Easter Bunny painted his eggs—one big damn fairy tale. “Robin said the river.”

Niko frowned, but it was for himself, not me. He’d brought up something he knew I had problems with—profound, mind-melting problems—and for nothing. But it wasn’t for nothing. He was trying, and right now that’s all we had. Grasping at the thinnest and craziest of straws. I reached over and slapped his stomach with the back of my hand. “Hey, I’m the one not speaking to you, remember?”

The frown faded. “No river. Goodfellow’s since had a better idea while you were showering. Promise needs more time to heal before riding to the river is an option.”

“How is she?” I asked. More importantly, how was Nik when it came to Promise?

“Resting. She’ll be more mobile tomorrow.”

“And will you be staying with her tonight or shacking up in a guest room?” I stood, grabbed my sweatpants from the shower, and wrung them out. “Did you decide if you can live with good enough?”

“I don’t know,” he answered quietly. “Not yet.”

Sophia . . . that bitch hadn’t done too damn well by either one of us. She’d made me a monster and made Niko the brother, father, and caretaker of that bouncing baby monster. She’d screwed us both up so badly, I didn’t think we’d ever get over it. She’d burned on earth and I hoped she was doing the same in hell.

I moved past Nik into the hall and back to my room to dress. He followed. “So what is the plan, then?” I asked, pulling on jeans and a rumpled sweatshirt I fished out of my duffel bag. “Use Samuel again?”

“No.” Niko picked up the damp towels from the floor, wadded them into a tight ball, and hit me precisely in the center of the chest with them. You wouldn’t think cotton could sting. You’d be wrong. “I’m quite sure the Vigil would like nothing more than an up-close look at an Auphe, a nice and tidy autopsy to find out their vulnerabilities. All of which is one step away from dissecting you. They want the Auphe gone, and while Samuel may be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt there, who knows what the rest of the Vigil may have in mind. The less opportunity they have to focus on you, the better.” And while I was human on the outside, the inside wasn’t quite the same. They’d have something to look it. Good times on the autopsy slab.

“No dissections; got it.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, I put on socks. “So what’re we doing with it?”

“Robin called in a favor of his own.”

That favor was at the door as we spoke. Ishiah’s voice carried when he was annoyed, and he was almost always annoyed. This was no exception. As we entered the living room, he was nose to nose with Robin. “Your laziness and sloth know no bounds, do they?” he demanded. “I have a bar to run, my own life to lead. I do not exist solely to be at your beck and call. And I most definitely do not wake up every morning with nothing but the happy expectation of running errands for you. Difficult to believe, I know.”

Robin yawned in his face. “You’re so very good at that. The temper, the scowl. Absolutely terrifying. You must drink shots of testosterone in your morning coffee.” He nudged the oversized garbage bag at his feet. “Here’s the package. Dump it wherever you like. Stuff it and mount it as a souvenir in your bar for all I care. Your choice entirely.”

“It’s not.” The wings flared, appearing from nowhere, and a few feathers flew free. I picked up one as it drifted to the floor by my feet. Between translucent and white with a dusting of gold, it was twice the length of my hand. Robin had Ishiah so frazzled that he was actually molting. The puck was one gifted son of a bitch, I had to give him that. “You are not handing me a bag of Auphe. I know you are not.”

“Think of it as a conversation piece.” Robin grinned lazily. “And I expect you to take it off my bar tab in trade.”

Refusing to believe it, Ish took a step back, bent, and untied the bag. Immediately, the blue-gray eyes darkened in disgust. “Unholy creature.” He retied the bag, then wiped the palms of his hands on his jeans. “One. You actually managed to kill one. You’ve more survival skills than I gave you credit for.” He looked past Robin as he said it . . . to Niko and me.

“I’ve killed Auphe,” Robin said in protest. “In fact, I’ve killed many whilst I saved the entire world last year. Didn’t you get the memo?”

“I’ve always known about your survival skills.” Ishiah picked up the bag with little effort, despite the weight of it. “That’s why history writes of the Last Stand of the Three Hundred, not the Three Hundred and One.”

“Someone had to live to tell the tale. There’d be no heroes if there wasn’t anyone left to talk them up, now, would there?” Goodfellow gave an arrogant tilt of his lips before muttering, “All I wanted was the company of a few hundred half-naked, oiled-up men, and out of nowhere I’m facing the entire Persian army. Where is the luck?”

“I’m certainly getting none my way.” Ishiah headed toward the door. “The next call I expect will request an anecdote for your eulogy. Anything else, and don’t bother.” He put his all in the growl, but as he’d been the one to save Robin’s life days ago, I had a hard time buying it.

Closing the door behind him, I asked Goodfellow, “Did you ever thank him for saving your ass?”

“Gods, no,” he denied, appalled. “That’s not our dynamic.”

“And what would that be?” Niko said. “Rabid annoyance alternating with intense loathing?”

“Exactly.” He yawned again. “One shouldn’t mess with a proven formula. Wake me for my watch.” Yeah, good luck to Nik there, because I had no desire for a dreaming Robin to mistake me for a Spartan, naked or clothed.

Hours later, I was pulling my sentry duty, moving through the apartment quietly. Niko could remain still for hours at a time if he wanted and stay completely alert. Not me. I was a pacer. If I was off watch, I could snooze on the couch with the TV blaring, no problem. But waiting—that wasn’t my strong suit. And staying still after this last Auphe attack? That wasn’t going to happen. So I walked with skin itching and stomach on edge, waiting to feel the tidal pull of a gate opening. I ignored the faint feeling of being watched. After a battle, paranoia and adrenaline went hand in hand. It just came with the territory.

As for trying to anticipate their next move, I couldn’t do it. To give me some credit, I’d been half right about the last one—too bad half wasn’t nearly good enough. But right now, even with the knowledge of a partially new motive on their part, I still couldn’t begin to try. Not yet. Just . . . not yet.

Coward.

As I moved from the kitchen to the living room and down the hall, I saw them. The door was cracked open enough to let me see Niko sitting on the edge of Promise’s bed. I couldn’t make out many details in the dark, but I could see his hand resting on her hair as she slept. Couldn’t live with, couldn’t live without . . . Nik deserved better. A whole helluva lot better. But I couldn’t help him make this decision, just like he hadn’t been able to help me with George. Everybody had that line . . . the one you couldn’t cross. I’d reached mine, which had led to a loss I didn’t know I’d ever get over. Of course, it also led to Delilah, a wolf with benefits. Life—what could you do?

I didn’t know where Nik’s line would take him, but two days down the road, cabin fever was taking us all someplace. “Why the car lot?” I groaned as Promise’s driver pulled up into the lot Robin owned. “It’s not my idea of a good time.” Although at this point I wasn’t sure anything would be a good time. I would be happy if something just took my mind off the Auphe for a while. I’d given myself a night of denial before forcing myself far from the shores of humanity to where only monsters dwelled, thought, and planned.

But what were those plans? The thoughts came easier. Much too easy. If I could think those same blood-soaked thoughts, maybe I was treading water out where I belonged. I did know if I stayed too long, I wouldn’t make it back to shore again. The more I tried to think like an Auphe, the more I was an Auphe, and I couldn’t deny it. Niko could, but I knew better.

“Yes, yes. I’m sure your idea of a good time is us dropping you off at that werewolf’s place and waiting in the car while you bump furries,” Robin scowled. “But if I’m not getting any, no one is getting any. And for your information, as much as I dislike work, I have a business to run. One that keeps me in fine suits, a magnificent apartment, and wine that would make one weep.”

“Work,” Niko said. “Don’t you mean robbing innocent consumers blind?”

“Caveat emptor. If you’re brainless enough to be ripped off, then you deserve it. Pure economics. Survival of the fittest. Besides, I’m a trickster. It’s my calling.” It was twilight, and the lot was closed for the day. Robin used his key to let us in. We’d come at this time of day for Promise. She was already almost completely healed, but a wounded vampire was extra sensitive to light. Her hooded cloak wouldn’t be protection enough for another day or so.

We followed him into the building and I got a look at a few cars way beyond our reach, although with the pearls we had . . . nah. Niko had a freakish attachment to his beat-up old car. So obsessively neat in every other way, he always drove a piece of shit. When I asked him why he was so fond of something that didn’t work half the time, he’d answered, “I’m fond of you, aren’t I?” And he called me a smart-ass.

“Look at the toys.” Robin waved his hand. “I’ll be in my office. And Cal, do try not to drive through the display window again. As a matter of fact, try not to touch anything. My insurance agent is only so understanding.”

“Ass,” I muttered as he walked away. He was never going to let me live that down. Possession didn’t cut it as an excuse for driving through the plate glass in one of his cars. Just for his comment, I ran a hand along the sleek red hood of a classic Mustang. “If you’re going for old, why can’t you buy something like this?” I asked Niko.

“Because eating and paying rent is preferable,” he answered.

Yeah, the money from those pearls was going into the bank, no doubt about it. No new toys for us. Unless it was a weapon, but those could be fun too. I opened the car door and slid in. Nice. Very nice. “You know, we could really mow down some monsters in this. It’d take them out better than my Glock.”

“Stop dreaming, little brother, and get out of the car. We live in New York now. One car is more than plenty.”

Parking, she was a bitch. We were lucky Robin let us keep Niko’s antique at his lot for free, because New York was definitely far more city than we’d been to when Sophia had dragged us around. She preferred the smaller towns. The cops weren’t as sharp there when it came to con artists. Although there’d been nights, sometimes weeks, we’d spent alone when she was in jail. Niko and I had gotten good at telling any nosy neighbors that Mom was at the store or the post office, or at the homeless shelter serving up goddamn soup.

I ran a hand over the steering wheel, sighed, and got out of the car. Maybe a motorcycle. The great monster fighter cruising around on his hog . . . that wasn’t a cliché, no. Fine. I’d be a monster fighter who rode the bus. It didn’t get any more bad-ass than that. Yet I didn’t have a problem picturing Delilah on a motorcycle, and it didn’t seem a cliché at all.

“You can always drive my car,” Niko reminded.

“I can drive the crapmobile. Jeez, how’d I get so lucky?” Of course, I could take some of the money and buy one if I really wanted it, and Nik wouldn’t say a word after the fact. It was our money after all, but it would be a toy. While we might be flush with money now, who knew when our next paying job would be? But Niko being right didn’t mean I couldn’t give him a hard time. “I could feel the wind in my hair as I pushed that stalled piece of shit down the road. Can’t get a thrill bigger than that.”

“My limo is always at your disposal,” Promise said, still paler than normal. Niko offered her the receptionist’s chair, but it was done more with courtesy than the affection he’d shown her two nights ago while she slept. I wondered if she even knew about that. I still didn’t know which way Nik was going to go, and I wasn’t exactly sure which way would be best. He had been happy with Promise, and I liked that. But she’d broken his trust and that I didn’t like . . . at all. Not my decision, not my relationship on the line, but it didn’t stop me from trusting her less. I’d thought she’d always do what was best for Nik. I wasn’t so sure now. Then again, considering Cherish’s personality defects . . . the selfishness of a vampire teen, and the late, great ex-mate Seamus’s homicidal ways, maybe she was—in her own way. It just wasn’t the right way in Nik’s eyes.

“No, thanks,” I told her. “I’d feel like the oldest guy at the prom.”

“Junior prom,” Niko corrected. “At best.”

“Yeah, yeah. We hear from the anal-retentive chaperone.” I wandered off, moving between the cars. I took a look into the empty offices, more out of boredom than curiosity. Framed pictures of happy families, happy kids living their happy, happy lives.

Good for them. Life wasn’t looking that rosy for us right now.

I shook my head and put the picture I’d been holding back down. I needed to try harder to see through Auphe eyes. Seeing . . . knowing, it came from a place I couldn’t go to, not here. I needed to be alone. I needed quiet. Swimming with the monsters in my subconscious wasn’t enough. I needed talons clawing their way through my mind, gray light, and a twist of black shadow pulling it all together. And even then I might not know any more than I knew now. Only one way to find out.

Later.

“Cal.”

Niko’s voice was low and serious. Instantly, I moved back into the showroom. “What?” I said, putting a hand inside my jacket and pulling the Desert Eagle from my holster. This time I’d brought the big gun, but not explosive rounds. After the eel, the cadejo, and the Auphe, I was ready for some sheer destructive power—but it was hard to justify blowing a hole through a wall and taking out Mom, Dad, and baby in a stroller on the other side. Hard to justify to Nik anyway. I, myself, was on the fence about it.

“Ten o’clock.” He didn’t look in the direction of the glass wall he was indicating, and I made sure to grab only the quickest of glances from the corner of my eye. White eyes were studying us . . . white with elliptical black pupils.

“Robin, get your ass out here,” I said. Casual. Oblivious. “Now.” Whatever it was, it was big. The eyes were the size of lemons. And whatever it was, it wasn’t buying my act. It came through in an explosion of glass as Cherish and the cadejos had. I heard Robin swear as he came out of his office, “Skata. Caliban, you bastard. Not again.” But then he saw it wasn’t me in one of his cars. It was a cat, the kind that was way too fucking big for any litter box. The size of a panther, one damn huge panther, it was black except for thin silver stripes at its shoulders. The tail whipped as white eyes fixed on us, the pupils dilating . . . a giant tabby focusing on dinner. Us.

“All right,” Robin said, freezing in place, “I don’t enjoy at all that kind of puss—”

“If you value your life, do not finish that sentence,” Promise warned, rising carefully from the chair. I had the Eagle at my side and I pointed it very slowly at the cat’s chest. Quick moves weren’t good with your regular pissed-off cat. I didn’t think it’d be any different with this one. The tail continued to thrash as it took a step forward, its head lowering and its jaw dropping. My finger tightened on the trigger before Niko ordered, “Cal, no.”

“No? You gotta be shitting me,” I said incredulously. “Fluffy is coming for our asses.”

“No, he’s sampling our scent.” True, it was chuffing air in and out and not snarling, but it didn’t make me feel any better or any less like a zebra about to get its neck snapped.

It took another step and another, this time toward Promise. Niko drew his sword as slowly and carefully as I’d raised my gun. The black lip wrinkled up to show teeth that weren’t pantherlike at all . . . unless a panther was crossed with a school of piranha. No way it came from the local pet store.

My finger tightened again, but as before, the cat only drew in air. Then it snapped its jaw shut and growled. Apparently, it was a signal, because someone who had to be Oshossi appeared.

About six inches taller than me, maybe more, and two or three taller than Nik. Dark skin, black hair. Kind of weird there, though. Slick like a cat’s fur. Gold eyes, bright gold. Leopard’s eyes. He also had the pointed teeth of a cannibal. They showed in a coldly satisfied smile. “I see we’ve tracked down the mother. Now where is the thief?” The cat could pick out a relative of Cherish’s from smell alone? In this city? That was one talented bad-ass kitty. Cherish was lucky Oshossi and his pet had picked Brooklyn to search first, or she’d probably be cat chow right about now.

Glass crunched under black boots as Oshossi stepped forward. He wore a long black coat, black pants and shirt, and a choker-style necklace of small off-white beads. No. Teeth. They were teeth. And you could bet your ass they were human teeth, because, hell, that’s just the way things worked in our life.

“Give me the thief.” His voice was smooth as glass. It was the voice of a boa constrictor. “Come, walk right into my open mouth. Don’t mind the fangs. Just decoration, that’s all.” Then one swallow and you were gone—your dumb ass gobbled up while you thought, Gee, what a nice guy.

This nice guy was carrying two machetes. Big, shiny, and as capable of chopping through our limbs as if they were trees. I had to make a decision: Keep the gun on the cat or on Mr. Slice-and-Dice. I kept it on the cat. No matter how fast Oshossi was, I was betting the cat was faster.

“The thief.” The gold eyes flared and the pupils dilated just like the cat’s.

“You cannot have her,” Promise said.

“No?” The pointed teeth were shown in another smile, this one feral and savage. “I think I can. I think I can skin her alive if I choose. Rip her organs free and feed them to my pets before she dies. Tear away her eyelids so she has no choice but to watch. I think I can do all those things and you can’t stop me.” The smile widened, upper and lower teeth separating widely—I’d never seen a mouth open so wide on a human-looking face. I heard the jaws pop like firecrackers. Through that mouth they came. His voice was as hypnotic as a snake’s, and that’s what boiled free. A small river of serpents.

Six feet long and as big around as a rattlesnake. They were as black as the cat, and the venom-dripping fangs were the same color. They hit the floor and slithered in our direction. “All right,” Robin said as he backed up, “that is more than a little disturbing.”

“No shit. You think?” I pulled the trigger on the cat. We had more than enough to worry about. We didn’t need Fluffy too. The first three shots hit it in the chest, blowing ragged holes the size of silver dollars in it. It didn’t faze it one damn bit. My next shot missed as it leapt literally over our heads and ended up behind us. The snakes were in front of us, the cat behind, and Oshossi . . . Oshossi turned and walked off into the night. As if we weren’t worth his time. He’d left us a few presents, and so long, suckers. The son of a bitch. It wasn’t enough to leave his pets to kill us, but he insulted us too? Saying that’s all we were worth? Like siccing a Chihuahua on the mailman. A definite lack of respect.

Then again, giant cat, a carpet of snakes . . . that did beat a Chihuahua—in deadliness, if not crankiness.

I turned, knowing Nik would protect my back, and fired at the cat again. I only clipped it as it leapt again at the same time I fired. It landed close enough to take a swipe at me, the kind of swipe that would open you like a giant can opener and spill your yummy gravy ’n’ nuggets on the floor. I dove, hit the carpet, and rolled. Not under it. I’d seen what cats do to prey that end up under them. Those hind feet would rip me from breastbone to lower abdomen. Once again . . . guts on the floor.

There are lots of ways to go. That wasn’t one I’d pick. I fired again into its side as triple rows of teeth were bared in a snarl that sounded like a hundred lions. I was suddenly sorry Niko had made me watch the Discovery Channel, because I could all too easily picture those teeth buried in my stomach. Hot breath on torn flesh, what should be inside of you would be outside instead . . . in efficient jaws. The gazelle bites the dust. I didn’t want to be the gazelle.

The bullets hit a rib bone. I heard one break and shatter the two around it. Lucky me? Not so much. I was aiming for something a lot more vital. It jumped again, and this time I dove over the receptionist’s desk, which promptly shattered under the muscular black bulk.

Shit.

I turned at the enraged hiss by my face. One of the snakes was about a foot away. The venom falling from its fangs was sizzling and burning holes in the carpet beneath it.

Shit.

There was a quicksilver slice and the snake’s head spun free of its body and landed on the floor. Its body continued to thrash, but I didn’t have time to enjoy the show. I jerked my eyes back to the cat. Promise was on its back with a dagger in her hand. The point was aimed at the thick neck as she slammed it home. The cat hissed and twisted, throwing Promise off, and then it was gone after its master. Did I mention I was in the way? I shot it again as it hit me. It sent me flying from the shoulder that connected with me, and I was on the floor again. The bullets I fired went through its throat. It narrowed eyes back at me and sneezed a mist of blood into the air, bared its teeth again, and then was gone. The night swallowed it up.

I wasn’t sorry to see it go. I was all for finishing a job, but when a Desert Eagle barely makes a dent, that is one tough pussycat. Next time I’d try for about ten rounds in its brain and see what happened.

I sat up, this time on the other side of yet another desk, with three more headless snakes’ bodies finally stilling, then disintegrating. Like the venom, it burned the carpet when it went, leaving an S-shaped scorch mark. Niko appeared and held down a hand and pulled me up. All over the room I could see similar brands. The smell of acid-singed carpet was in the air as Promise and Robin moved over to us. I assumed no one was bitten as no one was down and writhing in agony. Humiliation maybe, but not agony.

Robin wiped his sword on the carpet and slipped it back under his coat. “Cherish,” he said, looking around at the broken glass, destroyed desk, and smoking carpet with irritation. Extreme irritation, if the audible grinding of his teeth meant anything. “Promise, I fully expect your daughter to reimburse me for damages incurred, along with punitive damages for my emotional trauma and suffering. Intense trauma and suffering.” He shook his head as he focused on the desk. “I just bought that. Five hundred dollars for what is supposed to be the sturdiest one on the market, and that ccoa takes it out like a catnip mouse. Skata.”

“A ccoa?” I lowered the gun to my side, sucked in a breath still soaked in adrenaline, and cocked my head toward Niko. “You’re really lying down on Name That Monster. And by the way, you are never making me watch Discovery Channel again.”

“Educational channels are good for you. It kept you ungutted, didn’t it? And I’m aware it was a ccoa,” he said in annoyance. “Usually found in Peru. It appears that Oshossi has shipped an entire zoo from South America.”

“And where is he keeping it?” It was a stupid question. Central Park was the only place big enough, although the mama boggle there was notoriously territorial. “Boggle won’t be happy.”

“You might be surprised, little brother. This Oshossi seems to have a way with predators, and she is nothing if not a predator,” Niko disagreed. He didn’t resheath his sword, just as I didn’t put away my gun. Oshossi and the ccoa appeared to have left, but appearances were nothing if not deceiving.

Boggle, murderous and unsanitary as hell, wouldn’t be at all pleased if we tried to question her. As a matter of fact, she and her brood might try to eat us, and they might succeed. There were enough of them and they had every reason not to like us. “We could ask her,” I said, lip curling in doubt and disgust as I remembered the stench of her mud pit.

“Ask her?” Robin echoed with a disbelieving snort. “You and Niko are responsible for her being half skinned alive. She’s practically summer sausage. Talking is iffy, and spooning is completely out of the question.”

Which was true. We’d hired her to help us with our Sawney problem two weeks ago and things hadn’t gone quite the way we’d planned. Boggle was the shit, Central Park’s Queen of the Jungle, but Sawney . . . he’d been nearly indestructible. And almost as insane as an Auphe.

“Robin’s right. Flippant and annoying, but right.” Niko turned the katana until the flat of the blade caught the light, studied the flash. “You do know where the ccoa is going next, don’t you?” He looked up at Promise, his gaze like a winter river—reflecting nothing. Any emotion he might be feeling was caught deep in the undertow.

“Yes, I know,” she answered, a shadow of worry passing over her face. “Will you come?” It was said without desperation, said proudly. Even injured, Promise was more than a fighter in her own right. Together she and Cherish could probably take the ccoa. Maybe.

If there was only one.

This Oshossi who had sent in a whole pack of cadejos . . . I doubted he’d send only one ccoa to do the deed next time. We’d sent this one running for its life—that was my story and I was sticking to it. Oshossi would know better in the future. He was smart. As for helping Cherish . . . Niko had said before he would help, but that was days ago when Promise’s lie was fresh.

Funny thing about lies: They don’t get better with time. They fester and turn and chew a raw hole in you; they make you wonder if it was only one lie or were there others. It didn’t help we’d spent three years living a lie ourselves. Niko wouldn’t have told those lies if it weren’t for me, but he couldn’t help but remember how easy it was. People see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. Hell, they all but lie to themselves. There was hardly any work involved at all. We practically never needed our fake IDs.

And, really, did anyone ever just tell one lie? Then again, weren’t Niko and I lying now? Or at the very least not giving all the information we had on the Auphe—on me. It wouldn’t make a difference in Promise and Robin’s fate that they didn’t know mine. But it was a damn slippery slope. Niko and Promise had already seen that.

I spoke up before Niko could. Made the choice so he didn’t have to. “Yeah, we said we would. Let’s go kick Garfield’s ass. Maybe catch one and take it home to breed with Robin’s cat.”

Robin, eyes slanting in Niko’s direction, caught my line of thought, tucked that ball under his arm, and ran with it. “Oh yes, another wonderful idea from the man whose refrigerator spawned the cheddapet, the cheddar-based life form with a thick and luxurious coat of mold. Magnifique.” He was walking, gesturing to us with an impatient hand to follow, and already on his cell phone with his lieutenant sales pitbull. “Yes, yes, Jackson. You’re mother is in a coma. I’m aware,” he said crossly. “So she won’t even notice you’re gone then, will she? Now come down here to the lot and get the glass fixed before someone makes off with the inventory, your job, and what little ass you’ll have left after I’m through kicking it.” He snapped the phone shut.

“Pure evil,” I said. “Not that I’m surprised.”

“That’s the fifteenth time in two months that his mother’s been in a coma. That may work with the teary-eyed customers, but not with me.” He gave his patented sales-shark sly grin. “Besides, I was the one who taught him that line. Great salesman, rotten short-term memory.” He opened the door to the limo and looked back at me. “There’s still a position available, you know.”

Talk about Get thee behind me, Satan. I used a little of my Rom half to fork the evil eye at him. “How many souls a week to I have to rack up? Is there a quota? Do I have to sign anything in blood?”

“That Faust, he never could keep a secret.” He gave a slick smile and got in the car.

We beat the giant hairball hacker to Seamus’s loft. I could still smell the faint trace of death when we arrived. Old blood. Scrub as hard as you want, the scent still lingers. As for Cherish’s scent, my nose wasn’t good enough to detect relatives. I had no idea if she smelled like Promise at the genetic level or not. I could only detect a mix of pears and brandy. She smelled exactly like a dessert Robin had ordered once when he’d dragged us . . . well, me . . . to some expensive restaurant. Niko and Promise had enjoyed it, but I’d had to break out my good shoes: the black sneakers. What a pain in the ass. I’d take pizza any day. You can eat that in jeans. Hell, you can eat it buck naked on the couch if you want. As long as no red-hot cheese dripped on the important parts, you’re good to go.

“Madre.” She stood at the door, dressed all in white this time. There was a long white silk skirt that skimmed below her navel to reveal an amethyst on a silver hoop. She also wore a high-necked top that was a backdrop to a web of more silver and amethysts. Unlike the fake vampires that hung around the Goth bars, there wasn’t a whip, leather bra, or thigh-high boot in sight.

She kept us waiting for a second and then shook off the surprise to step back. “I’m sorry. Come in. I’m glad you’re here.”

Once we were inside, I smelled new blood thick over the scent of the old. I also smelled goat. The chupa, Xolo, was sitting on Seamus’s couch, watching a television, which looked new. I hadn’t noticed one in the loft the last time we were there. Seamus probably hadn’t spent a lot of time watching TV, what with all the painting and murdering. That kind of thing’s time consuming.

The chupa’s mild brown eyes were dazed and content as he drank the goat blood from a large glass. Apparently, that beat the tequila that they normally drank hands-down. The things were smart enough to carry around money, dress themselves, go to a bar, and point to a drink—I’d never heard one speak—but that seemed to be the sum total of their brain power.

“You sure he doesn’t need a sippy cup?” I asked. The whole thing was weird. Did Cherish want it as a pet, or the next best thing to a kid? Was her biological clock ticking, but she didn’t want the commitment of the real thing? Did she have a rhinestone collar for it, or a college fund? Did I actually care either way?

Nope.

She ignored me. Closing the door behind us, she fingered one of the teardrop amethysts on her necklace as she faced us. “I wanted to . . .” She trailed off and smiled, mostly at herself. “How awkward to find fault with yourself. I wanted to apologize to you, Madre. I’m a selfish creature, I know. But even I go beyond the pale to put my mother in danger when she’s already there to begin with. I am selfish, but not so selfish I want to see anything happen to you.” She dropped the amethyst and reached for Promise’s hand. “You are my only family. Thirty years may pass between my visits, but you are my corazoín. You gave me life. I don’t want to have a part in taking yours.”

Promise curled her fingers around her daughter’s hand as I drawled, “What about the rest of us?”

That dimpled smile reappeared. “Oh, the rest of you are as disposable as last month’s fashion.”

“Excepting the whole millstone around our necks dragging us to certain death, you’re quite entertaining.” Robin gave her what looked like a leer to me but probably had a more sophisticated name. I didn’t waste time trying to guess what it was. With Robin all roads led to Rome, and Rome was apparently in his pants.

Cherish’s own smile slid to something with more heat in it. “You aren’t wrong, cielito.”

“Little heaven?” He raised his eyebrows. “Not so little, anasa mou. And you owe me several thousand dollars. Perhaps we could arrange a trade?”

“We did come here for a reason,” Niko said, with little patience for the flirting. “Although I’m sure Oshossi and his ccoa would happily wait to let you consume each other before they consume you.”

“Oshossi? A ccoa?” Her eyes suddenly black, Cherish dropped her mother’s hand and went to the slit in her skirt. A knife appeared in her hand. “What did Oshossi say?”

“Threats,” Niko answered. “Very inventive threats. I doubt you’d want to hear them.”

“No, probably not.” The eyes stayed black. “I can handle a ccoa. You should go.”

“You could.” Promise lifted her hand to touch a smooth strand of Cherish’s hair, but dropped it before she did. Her expression clouded. “You were always brilliant at whatever you’ve done. Fighting, dancing, riding. . . .”

“Lying, stealing.” Which Promise had remembered, if not said. The dimple disappeared and the smile turned rueful. Her eyes cleared. “Go, Madre. I’ll send you its fur when I’m done. It’ll make a nice coat.”

“No.” Promise shook her head. “You could handle a ccoa, but a ccoa and Oshossi, I’m not so sure.”

It damn sure hadn’t been a walk in the park for us.

“He’s impressive and he seems clever,” Niko remarked, as neutral with the daughter as he was the mother. “Is he?”

“He is. He is very, very clever. The stupid rarely have anything worth stealing, but if I’d known how clever he is and how determined. How proud . . . No one who steals from him shall go unpunished. And I was a fool not to have determined all this beforehand.” She shook her head. “But it is done now. Until he kills me or I kill him, these attacks will never stop.”

That pretty much said it all.

Niko said, “Tell us more about Oshossi. How did you meet him? What weapons does he favor besides machetes, or does he prefer to let his animals do his killing for him?”

“It was at a party. An embassy affair—not your sort of party at all,” she aimed at Goodfellow. “The nudity was partial at best.”

“It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality,” he said loftily, “but go on. Tell us how you circled in on your mark.”

She went on to describe meeting Oshossi—an embassy party, he must’ve invested in some seriously inventive dentures to cover those pointed teeth. Both immediately recognized the nonhumanness of the other. They enjoyed each other’s company, each rolling in the dough. Jewelry for her, fancy suits for him. Cherish’s stolen, Oshossi’s his own. “He’s handsome,” she said, toying with her necklace again. “Yet . . . not. He’s hard planes and angles, much like an Aztec statue. But I’m sure you saw that for yourself. I never saw him carry a weapon.” She frowned. “I should’ve known by his eyes.”

“What about his eyes?” I asked. Those cold leopard eyes. Predator through and through.

“They were my eyes. Not the color, but the weighing and measuring. The assumption that everything is yours for the taking. That the world is for you to pick and choose.” She yanked the necklace from her throat in one fierce motion and let it fall carelessly to the floor. “I took my measure in mirrors of gold and found myself wanting. Too bad I only realize that now.”

“Yeah, too damn bad,” I commented with a lack of sympathy that had Promise giving me a glance of exasperation. I understood she wanted to protect Cherish, especially as Cherish seemed to be trying to change her ways. So I could see her wanting to protect her, just like I wanted to protect Nik, but the difference was Cherish had brought this upon herself. She could have a change of heart, but she couldn’t change that.

Too goddamn little, too goddamn late, and, worse yet, at the wrong goddamn time.

Niko folded his arms in consideration for a second, then told Robin, “Try looking among your kind for Oshossi.”

Goodfellow frowned, “The pucks?”

“No, the rich assholes with money to burn,” I said. “He’s probably staying at some fancy hotel if he’s not in the park. Nobody knows the room service in the city like you do.”

He smiled in fond memory. “The Once and Future King, that is I. If the food is worthy of eating and the bed of breaking, then I have ruled there. I’ll make some inquiries.”

Cherish looked surprised we were still considering helping her. She had finally managed to put herself in Promise’s place and seen the picture wasn’t one you wanted hanging on your refrigerator. Not the slightest bit bright, pretty, or optimistic. No rainbows or kittens—not one damn puffy cloud or shining yellow sun in sight.

But while it was nice she didn’t want to get her mother killed, it didn’t much matter. Promise was her mother. I’d heard that makes a difference. Maternal instinct. I’d read about it in a book once. Could’ve been a fairy tale for all that it related to me and Nik, but with normal people—and vampires—I guess it did exist. Promise was sucked into Cherish’s problems. She’d stood firm earlier, knowing that the Auphe were worse than anything Cherish faced. And they were, but you didn’t have to face the Auphe to die. Lesser things can kill you. The cadejos were one thing. Now there were ccoas and Oshossi, who, like the Auphe, wasn’t ever going to give up. Cherish was up to her neck in it, no doubt about it.

And so were we . . . times two.

But there was Promise, reclaiming Cherish’s hand with a mixture of determination and resignation, and Niko, who was looking at me with a bemused quirk of his lips. Promise wasn’t ready to give up on Cherish, and Niko wasn’t ready to give up on Promise. That could only mean one thing. I sighed, went over to the couch, swiped the remote from the chupa, and started surfing for porn.

It was going to be a long night.

I woke up to the low mumble of the TV and a light touch on my skin. I reacted instantly. Promise’s hand caught the heel of mine before it hit her nose and rammed shards of bone into her brain. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Caliban.” With one hand she put aside the remote she had retrieved from my sleep-loosened fingers, and with the other she squeezed my hand. “It’s your watch.”

I pulled free from her grip, yawned, and ran a hand through tousled hair. “Yeah? Okay.” I yawned one last time. “Sorry about trying to kill you. I’m not a morning person.”

It was the plus side of not knowing any normal people. They could handle it. Although I didn’t usually come out of sleep in a homicidal flurry. But when the Auphe were around or I had a nightmare or I was running on fumes, instincts were difficult to hold back. Hard to explain to your average-Joe roommate why you crushed his larynx when he snuck in your room to borrow your jacket.

“So I’ve heard.” She watched as I sat up and pulled my hair back into a ponytail with a holder I took from my jean pocket. “It’s almost morning. I don’t believe Oshossi will be coming. Not yet. Maybe when the night comes again.”

“Can’t wait,” I grunted. “I hate to say it, Promise, but your daughter is almost as much trouble as the Auphe.” Actually, I didn’t hate to say it. It was true. No, I didn’t mind saying it one damn bit, not when that trouble was one more burden Nik didn’t need right now. I cared about Nik, I cared about Robin, I even cared about Promise, although I trusted her a whole lot less now. But Cherish? Her I didn’t have room for.

“I know. She’s nearly as much trouble to me as you are to Niko.” The smile was gentle, but it cut with the best of any of my knives. “But we both love you all the same.”

Damn it. Promise was so smart too.

“If you start saying things like that, being a liar will be the least of your problems,” I said matter-of-factly.

I wasn’t pissed that she’d said it. It was true. I hadn’t asked to be born, much less born a freak, and I hadn’t asked for the Auphe to first use me, then to try to kill me and everyone around me, and now want me as a sire to renew their goddamn race. No, I hadn’t asked for any of that on my Christmas list, but I’d gotten it anyway. And because I had, so had Nik. I was the very worst kind of trouble to him—I knew it. But I couldn’t tell him that, because he wouldn’t listen. No one else could tell him either, especially Promise—because he would listen then. And he’d be extremely unhappy with what he heard.

Niko was the most practical, grounded person in the goddamn world. Self-delusion wasn’t something he gave in to, but he did have one huge-ass blind spot. Me. He knew me, faults and all, better than I knew myself, but he didn’t know—refused to believe—he’d be better off without me. And pity the person who suggested it, even if the person was Promise.

He wouldn’t let me go, but he might turn Promise loose. If she pushed it. She had pushed me once before and had sworn never to again. She had one lie on board now, a big one. Add betrayal to that and it would sink her—permanently; it didn’t matter if she was telling the truth. If Nik had the faintest suspicion she might betray me for his own good, they would be over and done with just that fast.

She flushed, then the color faded along with the anger as she backed down. “I know she brought it on herself,” she said solemnly, “but she is my daughter. I don’t want to hear the truth about her any more than Niko wants to hear it about you. Even if it is a different truth.”

She was right. I’d been an ass, just as I always was an ass. This was her family and you didn’t get to talk shit about family unless it was your own. “Yeah, I get that. Sorry.” I held out a hand. Surprised, she took it, and I pulled her a few steps closer to me as the gray light behind her shimmered then blinked out of existence. Like a popped soap bubble, the gate was gone. The gate that had led to a very bad place. Tumulus. Auphe home. Auphe hell.

One push . . .

I hadn’t been pissed, not really. She’d only said the truth, and what was the point at being pissed at that, right? I didn’t care if that truth reminded me I was a freak. I knew I was a freak, a thing, a monster—one even acceptable to the Auphe now. Sometimes I’d forget, let Niko convince me differently, but deep down, that knowledge was always there. And in that deep is where gates are made.

It had been there a split second before I saw it. I’d made it, and I hadn’t even tried. I hadn’t even known . . .

One push.

Holy fuck.