Perhaps if it had been anybody but Rip, he might have escaped notice anyway.
But the brown eyes of one of his former partners swung up.
Rob was already on the move though, and when he alit on the ground a few moments later, Rip had his staff in hand.
Rob came down in a crouch, grinning.
Nothing pleased him as much as a fight and it didn’t matter if it was friend or foe. He just needed the fight, needed the rush, needed the escape.
The dark-haired woman at Rip’s side lifted a hand, pressed it to his arm, but Rip blocked her with the staff. “You sane in there today, Rob?” Rip asked conversationally.
Rob took the question at face value.
With a slow, easy smile, he shrugged. “Saner than I was a day ago. Maybe not as sane as I could be tomorrow. Or I could be talking to sheep tomorrow…you never know.”
“As long as you aren’t trying to bugger them, then we’re good.” Rip lowered the staff and Rob straightened.
“You’re sullying my reputation, Rip,” Rob said. “I’ve never tried to bugger sheep—kill them and eat them raw, maybe. But bugger them?”
The woman at Rip’s side made a face of distaste and Rob cocked his head, studying her. After a moment, recognition hit. “You’re Will’s pet.”
“I’m nobody’s pet,” she said, voice hard.
“As close as anything.” Rob shrugged. Semantics and courtesy and boundaries were some of the things he’d never bothered to understand. “You were his though. Weren’t you?”
“I…” She blinked and then nodded. “I was. I am.”
“Love,” Rob said, shaking his head. He sighed. “Will’s gone. In a few more months, a few more years, we’ll all be joining him. Toes up in hell. It’s open season on all of us.”
“He’s not dead.”
Without moving his head, Rob slanted his eyes back to Rip. “Ain’t he?” he asked.
“No. Greta saw him, Rob. He’s alive. Will’s alive.” Now Rip took a step toward Rob and something that might have been excitement burned inside the broken Grimm’s heart. “And we want you to help bring him back.”
He was crazy.
There was no denying that.
He didn’t even act human.
There was something completely other about him, from the way that he moved to the way that he talked to the way that he stared at people.
Robin acted as though people weren’t truly there. He saw them, but he also saw through them.
It was like a person had to make themselves real to the man.
Rip was real.
But I wasn’t.
I suspected Will was real.
A few short minutes later we were strolling into the house and, judging by the way he caught Greta up in a tight swirling loop of a hug, I knew that she was real for him. But he stared through Sina. She wasn’t real to him either.
Luc was real. So was Krell. The dog lunged for him, knocking him to the ground and covering his face with ecstatic doggy kisses.
Sina wasn’t happy to see him and she was even less happy when we settled out in the back. I gave Rip a questioning look when he announced that Rob had news for Sina and he caught my hand, squeezed. That simple gesture said Trust me.
Okay. I’d trust him, but if he screwed me over…
Luc brought out buckets of beer, ale and cider as well as a couple of bottles of wine. I helped myself to a bottle of cider and sat down, waiting. Rob didn’t keep us waiting long. He took up a perch on the railing—and when I say perch, I mean perch. He crouched there, hands dangling loosely between his thighs as he glanced from one face to another. His gazed roamed restlessly as if he couldn’t handle looking at any one person for longer than a few minutes. Abruptly, he lunged forward.
The movement was so unexpected, I found myself drawing back as far as my seat would take me, although that wasn’t far.
Rob didn’t move in my direction.
He stopped in front of Sina and braced his hands on the surface of his desk. “I’m going back,” he said softly.
“No.” The word was simple and cold.
He smiled. “You can’t stop me, Sina. Not unless you kill me, and you know you won’t do that.”
“You would disobey a direct order?” She rose now, leaning forward until they were nose to nose.
“Well.” He made a face, his head moving from side to side as if he couldn’t quite decide what to do with it. In the end, he rocked back on his heels and held his hands up, palm outstretched. “Here’s the thing…I told Will from the beginning that I was a bad bet, terribly bad at following the rules and a bad soldier altogether. I told him I’d never be one for following orders, especially when certain instincts of mine dictated there were other options that were smarter, sharper.”
In another one of those displays of inhuman speed and grace, he leaped, straight up, and came down in a crouch on the table. “Sina, sweet, we both know that this is one of those times.”
She jerked back.
Rob leaped off the table.
He moved like he was controlled by an invisible string, all strength and speed and grace.
Sina’s gaze slid to Rip and Greta. “Well, I guess you get your wish,” she said pithily.
“No.”
Rob glanced at me, that other smile on his face.
A pin drop could have been heard.
Slowly, Sina’s gaze fell from Greta and came to me.
“Mandy.” She cleared her throat and shook her head. “You will not—”
“I will.” Inclining my head, I stared at her. “And if you attempt to stop me, then…” I reached up and traced the pendant around my neck. “I’ll simply give this up.”
“You…” She stopped and clamped her lips together. “Fine. Give it up. At least I know you’ll live out something of a life. I’ll have kept my promise.”
The only one who didn’t react was Rob. He continued to smile, looking obscenely amused. Luc swore and grabbed Sina’s arm. Greta lunged for me. “Don’t,” she warned. “Don’t you dare.”
Rip pushed between us.
I simply sidestepped. “You’re not getting it, Sina. I’ll take it off…and then I’ll go anyway.”
I nodded toward the local lunatic. “Rob’s already promised to provide me with passage, come what may.” I don’t know just how he planned to do that, but he must know where more portals were. Some of us were keyed into them. “We’ll just take ourselves a field trip.”
The noise that escaped Sina was one of sheer, unadulterated fury.
I know I’ve heard sounds more horrifying, but in that moment, I would have been hard pressed to define just when. I waited it out and watched her closely, waited for her to spin back to me.
In the past few months, her hair had started to go silver and her dark blue eyes were bleeding to gray. I wondered how long it might take for the immense power she carried to bleach away all the color from her and how much of her heart and soul it would strip away in the centuries to come…assuming we all lasted that long.
But she had Luc. She’d have him, for as long as the two of them breathed, or the world kept spinning.
Will hadn’t even had that.
I had to wonder just what the crazy-ass Rob was capable of if he thought he could actually out-maneuver or overpower Sina. Yeah, Luc seemed to be on my side in this, but he’d never strike out against his wife. She was his soul. And the two of them were more than formidable. Together, I think the only force that could prove a match for them was the one who was no longer…
Don’t think it, I told myself.
I couldn’t think it.
If I did, I’d go insane.
But how could one psychotic Grimm hope to stop Sina? And how could I hope to do the same?
As her eyes came to me, I found myself backing up a step.
“Oh, poppet,” she said, shaking her head. “Getting nervous now, are you?”
She moved toward me, all sinuous grace and deadly strength. “You would
do this—after all he did for you, after all he sacrificed. After all we all sacrificed to keep you safe,” she said. The menace in her voice was like the whisper of a dying wind through decaying bones.
I didn’t let myself react to it.
“If it was Luc, what would you do, Sina?” I angled my head toward him, although I didn’t dare look from her face. “Even if he made you promise—even if he asked the whole world to just let him go?”
She was too old, too disciplined to make much of a reaction, although I saw the faintest flicker of her lashes.
“Sometimes, sacrifices must be made. Will has to make atonement for mistakes he made.”
I curled my lip at her. “If the past two thousand, three, four thousand—however many years—haven’t been enough, then I don’t think there’s anything left he can do.” Then I leaned in and added, “And I think you know it.”
Turning, I said over my shoulder, “You might have made the promise to watch over me, but I’m a big girl, Sina. I didn’t make such a promise and you can’t strip my choices away merely out of some misguided wish to honor him. I deserve better than that.”
* * * * *
“Eat more.” Rob dumped a second sandwich on the plate in front of me.
I eyed it with more than a little trepidation. It was nearly four inches thick and piled high with more meat than I typically had in two or three days. “I’m full, thank you.”
“I don’t care.” He sat down and dug into the sandwiches he’d made for himself.
I’d already eaten one of his monstrosities. Don’t get me wrong. It was delicious, with smoked ham and turkey, roast beef and cheddar, a layer of gouda and then provolone, lettuce and tomato, as well as some kind of mustard I’d never tasted before. My body was already at work, processing all the protein and carbs, storing it away. My metabolism worked on a different level now and over the past few years, I’d realized I could actually feel some of the altered processes, if I focused long enough. Since I didn’t expend energy in the same way, the food I ate—when I chose to eat—was stored away for use at a later date, or if and when I was injured, or when I was bottoming out. That only happened if I didn’t get to rest much.
As a thought occurred to me, I looked up, saw Rob had already finished his first sandwich. “So, which is it…am I going to run my ass off or am I going to end up cannon fodder?”
Red flashed in the back of his eyes and the slightly maniacal grin that lit his face made a shiver run down my spine. “What do you mean which, love?”
I picked up my sandwich and heaved out a sigh.
“Both, then?”
“Right you are.” He winked at me. “I already told you this wouldn’t be a trip in the park.”
“It’s a walk in the park, Rob,” Rip said as he joined us at the table. He put two packs on the end of the table. By the way he moved, it would have seemed they weighed nothing, but the table groaned slightly under their combined weight.
“What are you carrying around, concrete blocks?” I asked him.
“Supplies,” he told me shortly. “Mostly food. Some clothes, some extra weapons.”
“We’re not going on a soddin’ camping trip, Rip,” Rob said, poking at one of the packs.
“No. You’re going into the netherplains and she’s young. She’ll need to eat more often and rest when she can. If she gets hurt, food will become a necessity.” Rip jerked his head in my direction and then he leaned down, shoving his face into Rob’s. “Now I like you—and I like you a sight more than most—but if you don’t bring her back, Rob, I’ll rip your guts open.”
Rob slid me a look and then went back to studying Rip. He tore off a chunk of roast beef and shoved into his mouth. After he’d swallowed it, he asked, “Think you can, mate?”
“Would you like a demonstration before you leave?”
Rob chuckled. “I would, yes. But since you want me to bring back the fancy, I’d best decline.” He shoved his plate away. He’d demolished the second sandwich to little more than crumbs. As his eyes focused on me, I had to fight the urge to squirm.
“You’re his.”
I really wished he’d stop saying that.
He flicked a look at Rip. “She’s Will’s. Everybody knows it—and they have for a right long while, Rip. Whether I find him or not, the only thing that will stop me from bringing her back is if I’m dead—for real this time.” Rob stood up and leaned toward me, and the other that seemed to emanate from him choked the air now.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Lifting my chin, I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“I hope you heard that, precious,” Rob said. “You will come back. We’ll tear the plains up looking for him and we’ll do our best, but if and when I decide we’re done, then we are done. If I have to knock you out and drag your pretty arse back unconscious, then that’s what I’m doing. Do you understand me?”
“I understand.”
Those strange eyes studied me and then he nodded.
He turned to leave and I waited until he was almost out of sight before I called his name.
He glanced back at me.
“The name is Mandy, Rob. Not love, not pet, not poppet or anything else. Mandy. Think you can remember that?”
A brilliant grin flashed across his saturnine face. “Of course I can, pet.”
Then he was gone.
I blew out a breath as Rip took up the seat Rob had just vacated.
“How crazy do you think I am?” I asked.
“I don’t.”
Suspicious, I narrowed my eyes at him.
He shrugged and poked at Rob’s empty plate.
I shoved my half-eaten sandwich across to him.
He took it, holding off his answer until he’d taken a bite. As he did that, I rose and fetched us both a cider from the fridge. The bottles were unmarked, from a local farmer who made his own brew. It was cold and tart and perfect. I hoped it wasn’t the last time I’d have a chance to enjoy it, but if it was, then it was.
“I think you’re doing the one thing you can do if you want to be able to live with yourself, Mandy.”
Taking my time, I popped the caps off and turned back to look at him. “Of course, that one thing is likely to end with me dying.”
“Well, what’s that saying…nothing’s sure but death and taxes.” He winked at me. “We cheat death often enough, don’t we?”
I snorted. “When was the last time you paid Uncle Sam, Rip?”
“I’m not technically a U.S. citizen, Mandy.” He paused a beat and then asked, “Are you still paying your taxes?”
“Dead people aren’t required to, are we?” I offered him a bottle of cider.
He accepted and tipped it back, draining half the bottle in one long draw before he looked back at me. “If it was Greta, I’d go after her.” He blew out a breath as he placed the bottle down with a heavy thunk. “And I know Greta. It makes me sick to think of it, but it was me…she’d come after me too. That’s what love does, sweetheart. You sacrifice. You fight. You try.”
With a knot in my heart, I moved toward him.
We looked the same age, but Rip was hundreds of years older.
He was, in all the ways that mattered, my father, just as Greta was my mother. Crazy, in a way, because both of them were well over a millennium younger than the man I’d fallen in love with. When I reached him, he held out an arm and I sat down, curling up on his lap the way I might have done had I truly been his child.
He cupped the back of my head, stroking my hair.
“I’m afraid,” I said, confessing the secret that I’d guarded inside ever since I’d heard the news, ever since I’d conceived this awful, terrible, impossible plan. The only plan.
“That’s because you’re not an idiot.” He kissed my brow. “You were never an idiot, Mandy.”
My laugh was watery. Turning my face into his neck, I said, “Never? What about when I tried to bring demons into being? Or when I tried to run away? What ab
out when—”
“Okay. You had a few incidents back when you were a kid. But all of us make mistakes. That’s what makes us human—being human makes us what we are. It’s how we’re able to do what we do, and fight the way we fight. We had to be human…once. Otherwise, we wouldn’t understand why it was important.” He hugged me now. “You got closer to him than any of us, because of who you are, sweetheart. You gave him some measure of happiness, even if he couldn’t let himself acknowledge it.”
I thought of the words he’d said. You would have made me happy…
“Why did he say that, Rip? What did he do that was so terrible?”
There was a heavy silence.
Finally, Rip sighed. “Nobody knows—Sina might. There are…” He paused and I looked up to see him staring off into nothing. His brown eyes slowly came to mine. “There are rumors that some of the older demons, long dead now, knew of what he’d done. They say it was a terrible betrayal. But even the demons weren’t allowed to speak of it.”
I snorted. “Yeah, like demons care about permission.”
“No.” Rip shook his head. “From everything I’ve heard, if one of them even tried, they were silenced. Some were killed, others rendered mute, and not by Will’s hand. It’s as if whatever he did, it’s his cross to bear, and he must bear it alone. For always.”
Chapter Six
Hot sun had blistered his skin and left it rough and dry, but so many days spent under its harsh light had left him immune to its rays now. But the heat was something he hadn’t grown inured to and as the fat, fiery globe sank below the horizon, he waited in the shade of a huge outcropping of rocks, readying for the night.
Night was his companion.
He rested as much as he could during the day, his bones old now and tired.
He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t ached, hadn’t hurt.
He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t looked back on the ruin of his life and wished…
Wished.
“Useless,” he said to himself, the word inaudible in the night. There was no point in trying to undo something that was already done, undo the actions that had left his hands stained red with blood.
Grimm's End: Grimm's Circle, Book 9 Page 5