by Rob Thurman
“Not embracing the serpent intimacies, then. That’s probably better for you in the long run.” He tilted his head curiously. “Taste bad as in you actually, physically, taste bad, or was it your energy that was too much for her delicate palate?”
It had been the energy. Apparently mine was too Auphe for comfort. What does that say when even a succubus would sooner send out for General Tso’s than suck you dry? What the hell does it say? “Moving on,” I said grimly, “I need you to talk to her. See what you can find out.”
“I see.” He replaced the glasses. “You want to use me. You want me to be a gigolo . . . to whore myself for your convenience.”
“Pretty much,” I admitted without compunction.
He laid an arm along the back of the bench and gave a grin birthed in vice. “Who could say no to that?”
The warehouse was as deserted as it had been that morning. Most of the crew were keeping as low a profile as possible after yesterday’s failure. They would trickle in around dark, heads down and tails tucked. Cerberus was gone. High-level Kin meeting, stress-relieving massacre up north—I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I simply seized the opportunity. And after said opportunity spit me out I was back with reinforcements. “She’s in the office,” I muttered, scanning the gloomy interior for any unexpected visitors. “She’s bound to be suspicious, though, a strange puck just showing up out of the blue. How are you going to get around that?”
Managing to swagger and limp at the same time, Goodfellow shot the cuffs of his shirt. “Succubi don’t think like that. They’re interested in eating and sex and they never have to work very hard at either. She won’t think twice about me walking through the doors. She’ll just light a few candles and put on a bib.” He ran a smoothing hand over his hair. “Snakes don’t wonder where their food comes from. They simply accept it. It’s all about the ego.”
“Too bad they’re not humble like you,” I said dryly, stopping in front of the door. “You want an introduction?”
“No.” Linking his fingers, he extended his hands to pop knuckles. “It would only slow me down.” He opened the door, then closed it behind him, disappearing into the office. Exhaling, I leaned against the wall and did my best to not picture what might be going on behind that door. I doubted I’d ever look at a snake again without feeling the phantom sensation of cool scales under my fingers and a slithering tongue twisted into a noose around my own. And the taste. Wet sulfur, it had tingled in my mouth like venom. Still did.
I’d bent over to spit when the sounds started from behind the wall. A rattle filled the air, buzz saw sharp and spine twisting in its intensity. A hundred pissed-off rattlers or a hundred orgasmic ones—I didn’t even want to guess. Moving several feet away, I fervently hoped that was a good sound and not an indication that Robin was being swallowed whole by a supernaturally horny boa constrictor. Covering my ears would’ve been the cowardly thing to do; instead I folded my arms and tried to keep my head down . . . mentally speaking. I counted floor tiles, roaches, whatever I could lay my eyes on . . . anything to keep my mind occupied and out of the office.
When the door opened, I automatically checked my watch. Twenty minutes. Only twenty. I would’ve sworn it’d been an hour at the very least. Hair still immaculate, Goodfellow stepped out into the hall and shut the door quietly behind him. Unfolding my arms, I straightened out of my slouch. “You find out anything?” That’s when I noticed the stains on his shirt. Deep blue, they were splashed liberally over a sleeve and half the chest. Not Robin’s blood. I’d seen that and it was ordinary crimson. Ah, shit. “What happened?” I demanded.
The hand that had been hidden behind his back appeared holding a knife. It was a match for the shirt, dripping cobalt. Ignoring my question, he countered with one of his own, “Who here deserves to go down the most?”
“What the hell happened?” I repeated as I stepped closer. Now I could see the claw marks on his neck. They bled sluggishly. “Jesus, Robin.”
“She wasn’t in the mood,” he replied with grim savagery. “Now, who deserves to go down? Aside from Cerberus, who is the most evil son of a bitch here?”
It was a question that didn’t require much thought. Flay or the revenant, and we still needed Flay. “The revenant,” I said automatically. “You killed her? You couldn’t just . . . damn. Haven’t you ever heard of no means no?”
“She was in the mood for sex,” he snapped, heading past me. “She wasn’t, however, in the mood to talk. She was more afraid of Cerberus than she was stupid, and that’s saying something. This revenant keep any personal things here?”
We clattered down the stairs with Robin using his free hand on the banister to keep his leg from giving out beneath him. “How the hell should I know?” I shot back. “I’ve been here a grand total of two days. If the Kin passes out employee lockers, I haven’t got my combination yet.”
“Think.” He hit the bottom and whirled to face me. “If we don’t pin it on someone else, you’ll go down for it. You’re the new one and all suspicion will fall on you. I did get some information, but we’ll need you in at least one more day to verify it. So think.”
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed under my breath, more at the situation than at Robin himself. Scanning the warehouse, I tried to replay yesterday. Where had the revenant stood? Where had he come from when he’d slunk over? I focused on one area hidden behind a row of dusty, empty crates. “Over here.”
Behind the crates was a messy conglomeration of blankets, empty bottles, spilled cards, and other mounds of discarded garbage. The employee lounge. One blanket was off a little from the others. In the midst of the wool nest was half of a desiccated human leg. Bite marks were evident in the long dead limb, and graveyard dirt was a litter beneath it. “There.” I indicated the blanket with a grimace of distaste.
Goodfellow ignored the leg and shoved the blade under a fold of cloth. “All right. Let’s go.”
“Won’t they smell you? On the blade or upstairs?”
“Do you smell me?” he challenged, wiping his hand on his pants without a single wince for the ruination of fine fashion.
As a matter of fact, I didn’t. There was only the sharp smell of musk and spice. Cologne, and a strong cologne at that, to cover up any hint of puck scent. “Neat trick,” I admitted reluctantly.
“It’s a special mixture. I’ve been wearing it since this whole debacle started. I prefer to stay nameless and scentless until all of this passes. I’m a survivor.” He moved toward the door at the quickest pace his limp allowed.
I studied the blood on his shirt as he passed me. “Yeah, I noticed.”
That stopped him in his tracks. Green eyes hit me, harsh and uncompromising. “Do you want George back?” He leaned closer. “Well? Do you?”
It struck me that I might not know Robin as well as I thought I did. Complacent in his loyal but breezy friendship, I’d forgotten who he was. Who he’d been. Who he would always be. Pucks were good at most things, but they were absolutely exceptional at one. No matter what they had to do, they got their own way. Luckily, Robin’s way was fairly benign. Comfort, luxury, a wildly varied sexual life, all of that came easily to him with little effort expended. But now . . . now he wanted George back.
Guess what. So did I.
“I want her back,” I replied levelly. “I want her back and I don’t give a shit how we do it.”
When she’d first been taken I’d worried how she might feel if bad things were done to get her back. As the days went on and she remained lost, I decided I just wanted her back. Period. Bring on the bad things. Bring them the hell on.
The dark gaze lightened, then ran clear. “And we’ll get her back.” We moved on to pass from the warehouse into the light. “Don’t waste any tears on the succubus. She’d killed more humans in her long life than you could begin to count. A predator falls. It’s the way of the world.”
“Law of the jungle?” I snorted with dark skepticism.
“If you want to be clichéd
about it.” He gave a weary sigh, rubbing at the weeping claw marks on his neck. “Let’s get something to drink, several some-things in fact, and I’ll tell you what I learned.”
Goodfellow usually chose bars that reflected his personality, upscale and pretentious. This time he threw image to the wind and picked the first one we came across. We lucked out. It was dark, as all good bars are, but it was clean—from what I could tell. Plants were everywhere . . . hanging in baskets, creeping over the tables, casting branches toward the ceiling. And I’d have sworn there was a bird on every one of those branches. Parrots, finches, parakeets . . . and a shitload of others I couldn’t identify. I wasn’t much on our fine-feathered, jet-force-crapping friends. These seemed well behaved enough, chirping or squawking only occasionally, but I still shot a wary eye upward when I grabbed a spot at the bar. “Weird place,” I commented, checking the pretzel bowl suspiciously for white streaks.
“Bacchus be damned,” Robin groaned. “It’s a peri bar. Just my luck. My catastrophic, bowel-churning luck.”
Before I could ask what the hell a peri was, the bartender came over . . . wings and all. Dove gray barred with silver, they were tucked neatly against his back. In a black T-shirt and jeans with short wavy black hair, he looked like your typical Mario from Queens. The wings could be a gimmick of the bar and stuffed in a locker before he headed home. Could be, but apparently weren’t. Stopping opposite us, his round black eyes fixed on Goodfellow and he said without preamble, “Ishiah wants to talk to you.”
“I don’t remember asking you what Ishiah wanted,” Robin responded in a bored tone. “Two beers with a whiskey back.”
The peri’s wings rustled in annoyance, and without further comment he moved down the bar to fill the order. “What’s a peri?” I asked. Wings, feathers. Nah, it couldn’t be. It had been a long time since I’d been as naive as that. Pre-third-trimester was about where I’d place it. It didn’t stop me from yanking Goodfellow’s chain. He needed it. We both needed it. “They’re not . . .” I looped a finger over the top of my head. “Are they?”
Robin rolled his eyes in disgust and said, “You truly are an uneducated delinquent, aren’t you?” The alcohol arrived. As the peri slid the glasses in front of us, he opened his mouth to speak again. Goodfellow beat him to the punch. Holding up a finger, he said coldly, “Don’t.” Then he pointed the same finger down the bar. “Go.”
Shedding a few disgruntled feathers, the peri hesitated, then obeyed with a scowl. There were other customers waiting to be served, oblivious humans and creatures as odd as any peri. “Overgrown cockatoo,” Robin muttered. Not wasting any time, he did his shot, my shot, then chugged half his beer. Setting the mug back down, he said with reproof, “You have mythology books in your apartment, absolute reams of pertinent information. Pages and pages. Do you use them to blow your nose or to wipe your ass?”
I snorted into my beer, then took a swallow. “They’re Nik’s books. Hell, you already know they’re Nik’s books. Besides, out in the wild, he points and I shoot. It’s a good arrangement.”
“Gods. And you embrace your ignorance. That’s what so astounds me.” Goodfellow shook his head and finished his beer.
I examined a pretzel carefully and popped it into my mouth. I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t want it, but it was there. So often in life that’s what it comes down to. It was there. “Yeah, yeah. Not angels, then?”
He cast a disgusted look at me over the top of his empty glass. “Yes, that’s exactly what they are. And on Fridays they have a potluck with St. Nick, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy.” Resting his forehead in his hand, he mumbled, “You exhaust me, I swear it.”
I had another pretzel. “So,” I repeated offhand, “not angels, then?”
“Hermes, blow me.” Reaching over the bar, he snagged a bottle of whiskey and poured it with a liberal hand before starting the lecture. “The peris, as a race, have been around as long as I have. Perhaps longer. They’ve been thought to be angels, fallen angels, the offspring of demons and angels. Always colored with the brush of the holier-than-thou. Messengers. Creatures of light. Creatures of power.” He laced the labels with all the mockery in him, which was a helluva lot.
“And what are they really?”
“Publicity hogs.” He slammed another shot. “Nosy, pushy publicity hogs. Nothing more. Trust me, Caliban, I’ve seen nothing of the divine in them.” His eyes went distant and dark. “Nothing of the divine in this world.”
There he was wrong. Maybe I couldn’t touch it or be a part of it. . . . Maybe it wasn’t for me, but there was something special to be found. In George. I pushed the pretzel bowl away. We’d needed a breather from what had happened at the warehouse, needed a moment of the mundane. Now that moment had passed. “What did the snake tell you?”
Amber glowed in his shot glass as he turned it this way, then that, in his fingers. “The crown.” He drained the glass. “She’d seen it. She’d worn it. And she was not particularly impressed by it. It didn’t complement her coloring.” He looked down at the blue that had dried on his shirt. “Obviously.”
Jewels for the mistress, as Promise had conjectured. Close. My hand tightened around the mug. We were so close. “Where is it?”
“Normally, in Cerberus’s penthouse.”
“Penthouse?”
“Where did you think he lived? A doghouse?” he commented cynically. “He’s a Kin boss. That tends to keep you in kibble and wall-to-wall carpet. But that is neither here nor there. The crown is now in Cerberus’s car, luckily for you. At least, I think it is.”
“What do you mean, you think?” I demanded.
“Snakes are liars. With their last breath they’ll tell you a lie.” He raised a hand for another beer and finished with savage bite, “We have that in common.”
It was unusual to see Robin be hard on himself. He typically embraced with a vengeance his more colorful qualities. “You’re not lying to me right now,” I pointed out as I slid my beer in his direction.
He accepted it and lowered the level steadily. “It’s more entertaining by far to tell you the truth. Watching you ignore it and fall ass over heels into the worst kind of trouble . . . it’s better than cable.”
On that note I took my beer back. “Cerberus has three cars that I know of. A limo and two town cars.” None of which had been at the warehouse today. Flay had used one the previous night to dispose of Fenrik’s body, what was left of it. He would probably have taken the car somewhere to clean it up today. Can’t dump a corpse without detailing the car the next day. Now that was the law of the jungle right there. As for the other ones, Cerberus had no doubt taken the limo this morning with some of the wolves following in the other town car.
“You up for staying under long enough to search them? Another day perhaps?”
And if the succubus had been lying, I could be under much longer than another day, assuming Caleb allowed me that much time. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” All the old movies said so, and I guessed the same was true for someone who was only half-man.
Robin grimaced. “Heroism can be so banal.” He finished the new beer deposited before him. Up, down, bang against the bar. “Let’s quit this place before we come down with a raging case of histoplasmosis.”
As we stood, the bartender said sharply, “That’s thirty bucks.”
“Put it on Ishiah’s tab,” Goodfellow replied derisively. He started to walk toward the door before reconsidering. Turning back, he picked up the bottle of whiskey and carried it away with him. “This too. It’s the least of what that bastard owes me.”
“Who’s Ishiah?” I asked as we climbed the stairs up to the street.
“Someone almost as annoying as you.” Goodfellow did have a way of ending a subject. Outside the sun was still missing in action, the claustrophobic clouds thicker and darker. It made the bloodstains on the puck’s shirt an even deeper blue. On the last stair, his leg nearly gave way and I pretended not to notice as he braced himself ag
ainst me momentarily to regain his balance. When Robin wanted attention, he’d let you know . . . very clearly and very verbally. This wasn’t one of those times. Steadied, he took a swig from the bottle. “I’m going home to take a hot shower and mourn my favorite shirt. Hold my calls.”
I moved my gaze from the choking sky to Goodfellow’s still face and said quietly, “Thanks, Robin. For what you did.” I almost said, “For what I couldn’t do,” but that would’ve been a lie. If I’d known as the puck had that it was the only way, I would’ve done it. Not as well, not as efficiently, but I would’ve done it and lived with the consequences. It hadn’t happened that way, though. The consequences weren’t mine to claim.
Robin didn’t acknowledge the thanks. After tipping the bottle again, he said without emotion, “Find the crown.” He started down the sidewalk. “Find George.” Unspoken was the message: That will make it worthwhile.
Hell, it might even make it bearable.
12
I was a hawk. Soaring high. Streetlights swung beneath me, bold as fireflies. The wind was a rushing current around me, gloating in my ear, plucking at my clothes. The sliver of a moon swam pumpkin orange off to my left, magnified in the warm air. I could’ve stretched out a hand to touch it.
Flying.
Only I wasn’t.
A hand as big as my head held me by the throat and dangled me over the edge of the warehouse roof. Eyes the same pumpkin orange as the moon studied me with the clinical interest of a vivisectionist.
The day hadn’t started out quite this crappy. I’d spent it in the warehouse, keeping my head down. It was a good idea, especially with the flying body parts. Robin had been right. Cerberus, arriving in his limo, had pinned the succubus’ death on the revenant quickly enough. The rest of the day had been spent mopping up the mess and staying out of Cerberus’s way. His mood, needless to say, wasn’t good. Not that there was undying love between the succubus and him. She’d been convenient sex to him, nothing more. But that didn’t matter. He owned her, and someone had dared pick his pocket. No Alpha was going to appreciate that. The sounds that had come from his office at various intervals had most of the wolves lurking by the door for a quick getaway. Roars of rage and the sound of furniture shattering against the walls didn’t make for ideal working conditions. And then there had been the silence. No one knew whether to be relieved or even more panicked than they already were.