Madhouse

23

"Did he let you in this time?"

"No. Stubborn bastard." Two days later I was spreading out the supplies on the kitchen table and gesturing for Nik to strip off his long-sleeve gray T-shirt. The six-month-old circular scar on his chest was still a bright contrast against his olive skin. It wasn't the best of memories and I looked away to the ugly furrow on the outer aspect of his biceps. It wasn't bad, not nearly as bad as I'd thought when I'd seen the blood coating his arm and hand. Still, one more not-so-great memory. "He wouldn't even answer this time."

My own wounds, Sawney's going-away present, ached as I moved, but they were much less deep than Niko's bullet wound. Thin slices, they'd heal soon enough. "Damn pucks," I muttered as I cleaned the wound.

"I think this situation applies to only one puck…ours," Niko corrected as I applied the antibiotic cream. "I don't think many others would be too ashamed to show their faces."

"They do love showing them off," I snorted. I put the gauze and tape into place and sat as he pulled his shirt back on. I pushed my half-empty glass of hours-old morning orange juice back and forth. "You'd think the son of a bitch would at least let us in long enough to see that he's okay."

"Ishiah and Nushi both said he was healed." He added with a sliver of humor, "And I would think the sheer volume of his cursing us to Hades through the door would reassure you. It's not the voice of a dying man."

No, it wasn't. Neither was the mocking of our fighting skills, lack of drinking capabilities, and pretty much everything about our personal appearance. It was razor-sharp, sliced as fine as Sawney's scythe, and was definitely not the voice of a sick puck. But I'd felt his unconscious weight against my arm and the blood pouring through my fingers. I'd sensed the cool slither of death sliding through him. That was hard to forget, almost as hard as the fact you'd inspired an entire tribe of people to hunt you through the centuries with the burning desire to kill you. As many times as we'd pounded on his door in the past days, he'd refused to open it, refused to face us.

A hand looped around my wrist. "He'll come around, Cal. He simply needs time to come to terms with what he did."

"And that we know what he did," I exhaled, with understanding.

Ishiah, with Robin's permission, had finally told us the whole story. I doubted Robin would ever tell us face-to-face himself, and as I'd suspected, there was more to it than just playing god. Had that been all there was, I was sure Robin wouldn't have been that ashamed. He was a puck, born to lie, steal, and fool. The storm and disease weren't his fault. He hadn't been responsible, no matter what the tribe and their descendants had thought, not for those deaths.

But there were two others…

It wasn't boredom after all that had him leaving. It had never occurred to Goodfellow that the more attractive members of the tribe might not want to "service" their god. Who wouldn't possibly want some of that, right? He still had that attitude today, but now maybe it was tinged with a weariness I just hadn't noticed.

There had been one woman, particularly beautiful and with an even more particularly possessive husband. She had gone to the god as requested. She hadn't fought. She hadn't said a word. He was charming and handsome and he was her god. She'd done what her new faith said was her duty and she did it willingly … if a god wanted you, who were you to say no? To even think no? And when it was done and she had gone back to her husband's tent, he hacked her to death with his sword. Possessive, obsessive, maybe even insane, because he had tried to kill the god as well.

When Robin had left what he really had come to think of as his people, there had been two bloody bodies in his wake. Two deaths because of a puck ego. Two deaths that might still have happened had he not been there; abuse is abuse and insane is insane, but there was no doubt they had happened at that moment because of him. The tribe hadn't blamed him for those deaths, but he damn sure blamed himself. After thousands of years, he still blamed himself enough to not want to face us.

I understood that, but that wasn't going to stop me from kicking down his door tomorrow. Enough was enough. He was our friend. That pretty much said it all. No matter what he had done, he was a friend. Yeah, tomorrow, absolutely…foot through his door. I told Nik so.

"Which is probably exactly what he needs." He squeezed my arm and let go to frown at the table. "Leftover eggs and antibiotic cream. I could do without the mix. You're a hopeless slob, you know that, little brother?"

"Yeah, yeah." He'd spent the night at Promise's and this was his first look at my morning mess. I took a drink of the warm juice. "How's Promise?"

"Healing well." It was a myth that vampires healed immediately, but they did heal much faster than humans did.

As we'd stood and watched Ishiah and Robin disappear into the night, we'd heard the wail of an approaching siren. I'd built a gate instantly and taken us all back to the apartment. I couldn't take Goodfellow to Nushi. I'd never been in his place before…didn't know the way, and there was a way to every gate—twisting and true as an arrow to the heart. On the other side of our doorway, Promise's wounds, one high to the shoulder above her clavicle and one at her hip, had already stopped bleeding. The one to the hip was a through and through and best to just leave the other bullet in, she'd said.

Vampires, balls of steel or one helluva tolerance for pain—it was one of the two. With villagers chasing your ass with pitchforks and torches, you would've needed at least one of them.

As for the gate…that sensation, the Auphe-ness I'd felt with the first one or two, it hadn't returned with the very last one—our escape exit. Maybe because I was watching for it. But I was afraid it'd be back. Sooner or later. At least I wasn't Frodo, foaming at the mouth every time I put on the ring. I had to be careful, though, careful as hell. Even though I didn't want me to be—it didn't want me to be. "Nik," I said diffidently, "I think you might be right. No more gateways for a while might be a good thing." I pushed the glass away. As much as I'd denied it, I was my father's son. Because of that I couldn't let my guard down. Not as long as I lived. "No more traveling, Sawney would say. I think I might like it a little too much."

No one in the world could read me like my brother could. No one ever would. We'd grown up with the Auphe at our window and around every corner. We'd grown up with the monsters outside and the monster inside me. If I said I liked it too much, he knew what I meant.

"No more gates." Then he flicked my ear and offered easily, "Haven't I said that all along? Although don't think I didn't know you chose to ignore me."

"Know-it-all prick." I rubbed my ear. "If only I listened to your wise and sage advice, we'd be … oh yeah…dead now."

"That doesn't change the fact it was wise and sage." His eyes gleamed. "And you'll only wish you were dead when I'm finished with you. Get your gear. We're going to the park."

Time for a class in Butt Kicking 101. I was never going to graduate from that damn class. "Give me two hours. I have something I need to do."

George lived a short subway ride away. I walked it. It took forty minutes. I still had the engagement ring in my pocket, the diamond and rubies of a dead woman. I had told myself I'd bring it up in the sun for her, but it might be better to leave it where her fiancé could find it, if I could find him.

It had gone from cool to cold, an early winter. There were scudding clouds and the icy bite of an approaching snow. I used to like winter when I was a kid. We'd traveled around so much I'd seen it all. Places where it was warm in January and never snowed and then places with three feet of it. I'd liked the snow best. No school. Not that Sophia cared if we went, but my brother did. Snowball fights with him…got my ass kicked there too. I'd also liked the stillness and quiet of the snow, not to mention the fact you could see the footprints of anyone who'd hovered around your window with red eyes and metallic grins. You could be prepared…ready.

But then the Auphe took me at fourteen, and I'd come back with a profound dislike of the cold. Tumulus, Auphe hell, the place they'd kept me from what we thought, was a dimension of rock, charnel stench, and searing cold. I might not remember my time there, but I remembered Darkling's few hours of cooling his heels there. Somewhat. Bits and pieces through a blurred and hazy lens. That was my mind trying to protect me. It knew. If I remembered what happened in those two icy wasteland years I'd spent there from fourteen years old to sixteen, they'd have to pour me into one of those straitjackets we'd seen in the asylum ruins. I didn't like winter anymore, and I didn't like the cold.

But, hell, it's New York. What are you gonna do?

Suck it up and tuck your face against the wind. The subway would've been easier, warmer too, but I needed the time. Not to think…the thinking had been done on this for a while. I just needed it. You might have to jump from the third story of a burning building, but you needed to take a breath first. Because this leap wasn't one of faith. This was one of endings and a bad choice over a worse one. I needed that breath.

Sooner than I wanted to be, I was in front of her building. The steps were empty this time. I stood at the bottom one in hesitation. Five inches of concrete and it seemed like a mountain, one I suddenly didn't want to climb. She would know. The instant she saw me, she would know. It wasn't what I wanted, but it was what I'd planned. Until George was no longer a part of my life, she wouldn't be safe. She wasn't a warrior like Nik or near impervious to bullets like Promise. She wasn't Robin, sly and better with a sword than all the goddamned Musketeers and Zorro combined. She wasn't us. She was George…stubborn, determined, but gentle and vulnerable as hell. She'd fight if she had to and do it with courage and an unbreakable will. The rest of her, though, was all too breakable. To something even far less deadly than an Auphe.

And then there was me. Tainted right down to my DNA. I couldn't be with her. I couldn't be with any human woman. She wouldn't believe that, but she would believe something else. She'd believe in Delilah. Charm had been a one-night stand. A onetime thing for one particular thing. But Delilah was different. With her there was the potential for something else…something that could snare my emotions, the more primal ones, for a while. Something real— probably not especially healthy, but something genuine. That was the betrayal. And George would know it the moment she set eyes on me. Wasn't that why I was here?

Then I saw the white flutter of an envelope resting on the stone balustrade. It was weighted down by a small piece of polished glass, dusky topaz like her skin. I picked it up and saw one word written on it: ring. I opened the unsealed flap and pulled out a small slip of paper. It too had just one word written on it.

Good-bye.

She already knew.

Mission accomplished. Good for me. That had to be relief that burned in my stomach and if I walked stiffly up the steps to the lobby, well, it was cold, right?

I fished out the ring with fingers just as stiff and cold and slipped it in the envelope. Sealing it, I dropped it in George's mail slot and it was gone. Just like George was. Just as I'd planned.

I didn't remember much of the walk back. My hand held tight to the bit of topaz glass in my pocket, but my mind was as frozen as the weather as I flowed with the sidewalk crowd. And that was for the best. I didn't want to think, not about my choices, not about George. Not thinking, that would get me through this day. Committing Niko's cardinal sin— not noticing the unforgiving and dangerous world around me.

But then it noticed me.

I felt the gates open. One after the other. One, two, three…ten…fifteen. I looked up, and there they were—on top of my building. Marble skin, white hair, gunmetal teeth, they blended into the winter itself. You wouldn't have seen them if you didn't know to look. But I knew. I saw them. Lining the ledge like gargoyles, Auphe after Auphe after Auphe.

All looking down at me.

Oh, shit.