by Rob Thurman
The warning claws sank deeper in my flesh, a catch-all deterrent. “Betrayed your kind,” the Auphe hissed. A strand of colorless hair touched my cheek. It was slippery and it burned, a track of cold fire. “Betrayed your own.”
He wasn’t wrong. I had betrayed the Auphe. Biggest and best accomplishment of my life to date. I’d participated, although not as much as I’d have liked, in the wholesale destruction of what remained of their race. Niko, Robin, and I had kept them from turning this world into what it had once been before humans had ruled. We’d stopped them from taking us back to when the supernatural was natural, the water and air were perfume sweet, and humans were at best toys and at worst a mild nuisance. While a world run by the Auphe might be more ecologically sound, the murder and mutilation ratio would be a definite downside.
“Did you think we were all gone, traitor child?” I could taste blood in my mouth as the elongated fingers continued to tighten around my throat. “Did you think there would not be consequences for one such as you?”
No. I’d never thought that. I’d been living with the consequences of the Auphe all my life. Only recently had I been dealing with the consequences of their death. I would take the second over the first any damn day. Or I would have done that until now. Of course, none of my thoughts were quite that coherent. Rapidly disintegrating, bits and pieces of them would roll and surface briefly, silvered fish in a storm-driven sea, before vanishing under an ever-rising swell of sickened disbelief. It was a disbelief that refused to die despite the evidence before me. It couldn’t be a live Auphe. Couldn’t be.
“Did you think you would be safe?”
Could.
“Did you think you would escape your beloved family?”
Not.
“You shall not.”
Be.
Nails were ripped free from my neck with callous efficiency. Bloodstained, they were held up for my examination. “But it will not be this simple. For you, never this simple. Never this painless.
“Every moment.” Lipless teeth touched my forehead in a hideous parody of a paternal kiss. “Of every day.” He took a step back, graceful as a striking snake. “We will watch you. We will take all from you. All and everyone.” A red-tinted claw traced the circlet on his head. “As I took this.”
I tried then. I really did. It was as if I’d forgotten how to make my body work. Nerves were sluggish . . . joints fixed and rusty, but in a pathetic, drunken fumble, I was able to reach out with a numb hand.
Slow, too slow.
“This, betrayer, is only the beginning. We have such games planned for this world.” The grin was as bright and cold as a slice of winter sky. “What a pity your sanity shall not survive to see them.” One more step and he balanced on the edge of the roof, then plummeted off.
Niko’s sword, still wet with wolf blood, struck the edge a fraction of a second after the Auphe’s plunge. “Fuck,” came the viciously spit curse. That sounded like me, not my calm, cool, collected brother. At any other time I would’ve been amazed and amused that Niko would admit to knowing the word, much less using it. At this particular time, however, I didn’t feel amazement. I damn sure didn’t feel amusement. In fact, I suddenly felt nothing at all. My legs gave way and I fell to my knees.
“Cal.”
I didn’t feel the rough surface beneath me, or the way it scored my flesh raw as I methodically beat my fists against it.
“Cal.”
I didn’t feel the pressure of hands on my shoulders or the hard motion that shook me. I could see it all, distant and hazy, but I felt absolutely nothing and that was fine with me. Hands stopped my fists from their pounding, then wound around fistfuls of my shirt to pull me effortlessly to my feet. The keen of a siren floated over Nik’s voice, giving the words peculiar halos of red light. “The police are coming, Cal. We have to go.”
Go? Where could we possibly go? In a world where the Auphe still lived, where could we go? We’d already learned the hard way that we couldn’t hide forever. Not from the Auphe, and not from what I had done. George’s best chance of coming home, George’s only chance . . .
And I’d just lost it.
13
Numbness can’t last, as much as you might like it to.
Too bad.
I sat on the edge of the tub and focused on the tiled floor as Niko finished mopping the blood from my skin. He’d removed the torn stitches from my arm and cleaned the half-healed bite, but otherwise left it alone. The copper that had filled my mouth when facing the Auphe had been from a savagely bitten tongue; I kept that less-than-heroic gem to myself. The only real damage had been done to my neck, and that wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been. The Auphe had made it clear my death would be the least of my punishment. They didn’t want to try to use me again to bring an end to this world. They knew I was a less-than-reliable tool, and from the sounds of it, they had other ways in mind. No, they didn’t want to use me anymore; what they wanted from me was far more simple than that: pain.
The bite of antiseptic stung under my jaw and I hissed. It was the first thing I’d felt since the rooftop and my first real reaction. “Welcome back,” Niko said with quiet relief, opening a package of small butterfly bandages.
Not exactly happy to be back, I shifted my shoulders and remained silent. Turning over my hands, I gazed at the skinned knuckles. Niko had saved them from worse. Time and again, he’d saved me from all kinds of worse . . . including the Auphe. This wasn’t any easier for him than it was for my worthless ass—to say the least. And he didn’t have the luxury of going catatonic. Raising my eyes to his, I asked diffidently, “Are you okay?” The question came out stiff and uncertain as if I’d spent days mute instead of only hours.
“I’ve had better days.” He applied several of the bandages. “Many, many better.” Sliding the flat of his hand around to the nape of my neck, he squeezed lightly. “How are you?”
How was I? Now, there was a question. “Me?” I flipped my hands back over to see callused but undamaged palms. Our psychic was gone; there was no one left to read the lines and creases. “I’m fine. Just fine. Couldn’t be fucking finer.”
“Well, goody for you, because I am anything but,” Goodfellow said, appearing in the doorway with his mobile face pale and set. Robin had the distinct displeasure of having been around nearly as long as the Auphe. He knew them as well as my brother and I did and hated them almost as much. “Niko, you may want to look at Flay. He’s out here bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig, and he’s doing it all over your carpet. I personally don’t care if he lives or dies, but you may have some things to discuss with him.”
“Flay?” Nik’s face darkened. His hand gripped my neck tighter, then dropped away. “This promises to be interesting.” As Robin turned and walked away, my brother watched me carefully as I stood. I wasn’t sure if it was physical or mental balance that he was worried about. “We’ll survive this, Cal,” he offered with absolute certainty. “I swear it. We defeated the Auphe once. We’ll do it again.”
And George? How are we going to get George back now? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. I didn’t know that I was ready to hear the answer.
I didn’t remember Niko phoning Goodfellow or Promise, but he must have, as both were in the living room. Flay was as well, looking like extra-large roadkill. “How did he get here?” I asked impassively, leaning against the wall with folded arms and watching as Promise and Niko knelt beside him. Yeah, Snowball may have saved my life—emphasis on may—but I didn’t delude myself into thinking that was his goal. He’d wanted Cerberus dead. Helping me had been an accidental by-product at best.
“From the looks of the hallway, dragging himself on his stomach while vomiting blood the entire way,” Robin answered grimly. He’d retrieved our mop and bucket from the kitchen. “By the way, I do not do windows.” He exited to dispose of the evidence, slamming the door behind him to underline his displeasure at the bout of manual labor.
Promise pressed another folded sheet
to Flay’s chest and turned to Niko. “I didn’t know if you wanted him alive. If not, I apologize for your ruined linen.” Her normally temperate voice was briskly businesslike. She wasn’t wasting any Florence Nightingale sympathies on the half-dead wolf. Her hair hung in a tail down her back, tightly disciplined and smooth, but her clothes were a set of delicate lounging pajamas. Spiderweb fine, the white material wasn’t snug, but it definitely molded her petite form. The long cloak she’d worn over it had been discarded on the couch in a jumbled hurry. She clearly hadn’t wasted a moment rushing over upon receiving Niko’s call. Her eyes when they lifted to mine were as soft as the silk she was wrapped in and full of an empathy I wasn’t prepared to deal with. I dropped my eyes toward Flay instantly.
“I’m not precisely sure myself,” Niko returned acidly as he used a thumb to pry open one of Flay’s closed lids. Flay was still in his quasi-wolf form, his best chance of healing himself, and his fur-covered face was fixed in a rictus of pain. He was hanging on, but only just. At Niko’s prodding the glassy red eyes opened. Surrounded by a line of nude baby-pink skin, they looked oddly vulnerable. “What are you doing here, Omega?”
Omega, the lowest-ranking wolf. Flay had been Beta, second-in-command, under Cerberus, but in our pack he was pulling up last all the way. When you were as intelligent as Niko, you could tailor an insult to even the most obscure of monsters. “No . . . where.” Pink froth stained the white fur around his mouth. “Else . . . go.”
True enough. He’d helped take Cerberus down, normally a good career move for a wolf. Upward mobility and killing your boss were one and the same in the Kin. But Flay hadn’t fought one-on-one. He’d joined in with a human and a half Auphe to destroy his Alpha. When the first wolf caught a whiff of Niko’s and my presence on the roof, Flay would hit number one on the Kin’s most wanted list. As for Caleb, Snowball hadn’t lived up to the expectations of that master either. I didn’t know what Caleb’s reaction would be, but judging from Flay’s appearance in our apartment, I guessed it wouldn’t be pleasant. Poor Snowball, he was a fur ball without a country.
My heart wept for him. Truly.
“Kill him,” I said coldly. “He didn’t know shit before. I doubt he knows anything now.”
Niko gave a fractional lift of his eyebrows at the remark, but his only comment was, “Perhaps Robin could use some help in the hall.”
He thought I might not be thinking precisely straight. He was right, and guess what? I was actually smart enough to know it. I left the three of them and walked out into the hall, closing the door with exquisite care. I thought that if I’d slammed it as Goodfellow had, I might not have stopped until it was nothing more than splinters.
“Good. A sour and sulky helper. Who says dreams don’t come true?” The puck tossed me the mop and leaned gratefully against the wall, shifting the weight off his healing leg. The cheap tile floor was as much of a mess as he’d said. Exhaling harshly, I dunked the mop and got to it. The work went quickly. Luckily, it was late enough that none of our neighbors were up and about to make things dicey. As a matter of fact . . . I checked my watch and blinked. Four a.m. Shit. I’d been mentally AWOL a little longer than I’d thought.
“I was thinking Angistri.”
I didn’t bother to stop the rhythmic slap and swirl of the mop. “What?” I said, incurious.
“Angistri. It’s a Greek island. Fairly secluded, utterly beautiful.” He massaged the top of his leg and smirked. “Nude beaches.” The leer faded as quickly as it had come. “It will be a long time before any Auphe finds us there. We’ll find George and off we’ll go.”
The mop continued to move of its own accord. Back and forth. I followed along with it, silent. I’d finished half the hall before I finally spoke. “I’m sorry.”
Having given up on the hopes of getting any sparkling conversation out of me, Goodfellow tilted his head. “Pardon?”
I watched as red-tinted water dripped into the bucket for several seconds before I submerged the mop again. “I’m sorry. Nik and I got you into this mess with the Auphe.” The Auphe had made it clear that he’d take what was important to me before he actually took me. The means to save George would be only the first. What would be next? My brother, my friends . . . I swallowed and clenched the wood handle with a tight fist. Even if Robin hadn’t been my friend, he’d still be on the Auphe’s shit list. He’d been just as instrumental in bringing them down, if not more, than I had been.
“Caliban.” Robin’s mouth lengthened, then turned up slightly at the corners. “No one held a gun to my head.” His eyes gleamed in reminiscence. “A knife to the throat, yes, but not a gun.” He straightened and limped over to take the mop from my hands. “I made my choice, and believe it or not, I have no regrets.” He swabbed. “Well, other than my constant exposure to what you imagine to be humor.”
“What?” I rubbed a hand over suddenly weary eyes. “No swipe at my fashion sense?”
He took in my jeans and bloodstained T-shirt and gave an exaggerated sigh. “I know defeat when it rears its ugly poly-blend head.”
As he started to clean, I pulled the tie from my hair to let the ponytail fall free. I ducked my head and strands of hair swung over my face, a curtain between me and the world. “Robin . . . thanks.”
“For what?” he asked promptly. “For allowing you the privilege of basking in my charm? Gifting you with my wit and wisdom? Of course, it could be that I’ve saved your melancholy ass on more than one occasion.”
I gave an involuntary snort, then looked up to say quietly, “I meant, thanks for sticking around.”
“I’m good at many, many things. Excellent really.” He finished mopping up the last bit of the blood trail and curled his lips in self-deprecation. “But sticking around hasn’t always been one of those things. So . . . gold star for me.” He opened the exit door to peer down the stairs and cursed. “All the way down. All the thrice-damned way down.” Threading fingers through his hair, he flashed me a humorless grin. “Fetch the bucket, Cinderella. We have a long night ahead of us.”
It was two hours, tops, but it felt longer. Sore and bone tired, I carried the mop and bucket back into the apartment, stepped over the bloodstain on the carpet, and fell onto the couch. No Flay on the floor meant he either was recuperating in the tub, or on one of our beds, or had been tossed out a window. The way my luck had been running it was probably one of the first two options. Damn it. Too tired to reach out and turn off the lamp, I crooked my arm over my eyes and waited for the darkness to come. Promise came first.
“He’s scared.”
I opened my eyes as her weight settled on a cushion’s edge. Her hair lay across her breast in a sleek tail; her face was pale and grave. “Flay?” I grunted. “He should be. Where is the shithead? He better not be bleeding all over my bed.”
“Flay is in Niko’s bed.” Her hand was small, but her grip was strong as she curled her fingers around mine. “But it wasn’t Flay I was speaking of.”
“I know,” I murmured. No, not Flay, but I’d wanted to hang on to the pretense for a moment or so. Niko, who feared nothing on his own behalf, took on the weight of the world when it came to me. I sat up and gently extricated my hand from hers. I’d always thought Niko would’ve been better off without me. Now I had to face up to the fact that everyone who knew me was in the same boat, including Promise. “It’s the Auphe.” An unnecessary statement if ever there was one. “They . . . shit.” I rested my head in my hands. She had seen the worst of it last year; she knew about the Auphe. But there was something I wasn’t sure that she did know. I wasn’t sure it was something that anyone but Niko and I could know. Straightening, I said frankly, “Last year was bad, but it was just the icing on the cake. The Auphe have been with us our entire lives.” My mouth twisted and I corrected, “My entire life. Nik’s first four years were monster free.” I wondered if he thought that had been long enough.
“And you thought it was over.”
“We thought it was over,” I co
nfirmed heavily. “If we hadn’t, I’m not sure . . .” I shook my head. Stupid, pointless thoughts. “You and Nik can have my bed.” If she stayed, and for Niko’s sake I hoped that she did. “I’m too tired to get off the couch anyway.”
“Caliban.” There was a touch on my hair. Sympathy, understanding, solace . . . and I wanted none of it.
Pulling away with care, I lay back down. “Good night, Promise. Take care of him.”
She sighed and stood, bending to brush a kiss over my hair. “You already do that, the same as he does for you.”
The Auphe, George, none of it could stand against the exhaustion. I didn’t need a pillow or blanket. Sprawling on the couch in the dim light of the lamp, I slept hard with no dreams. When a nightmare comes true in your waking hours, it doesn’t need to follow you into sleep. At least not this time. As tired as I was, I didn’t sleep long. The sun, bright and hot, was streaming full force through the blinds when I levered sticky eyelids open, and I put the time around ten. Four hours’ sleep. All things considered, it was more than I’d hoped for. As I pushed off the tenacious remains of sleep, I saw something else as constant as the sun. A dark blond head rested against the arm of the couch, breaths even and deep.
I groaned. “Jesus, Nik. You turn down a bed and a beautiful woman to sleep on the floor. I wonder about your priorities, Cyrano. I do.”
“Who’s to say I didn’t split my time equally?” He’d awakened immediately, probably before I managed to get the first syllable out of my mouth. Instantly alert, he sat up from the boneless slouching position he’d slept in and sheathed the knife that had been cradled in his hand. My own was still tucked under the cushion.
“Trust me. Time spent with Promise and time spent babysitting me don’t work out quite the same.” I rolled over onto my back and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “You worry about me too much, Nik.” My hand made an automatic grab for a braid that was no longer there. I missed Niko’s hair, if only for the annoyance it gave him when I tugged on it. Letting my empty hand dangle toward the floor, I went on, “You should worry more about yourself. So should Promise and Goodfellow.”