by Rob Thurman
“Promise, don’t.”
Different words, but in a way they were the same. Exactly the goddamn same. I opened my eyes to see Niko’s forbiddingly impassive face tilted down toward the only person in his life he had loved aside from me. There he was, my big brother, doing what he invariably did . . . throwing his life away. Same as always.
Thanks to me.
“No,” I said quickly, straightening. “No, she’s right. I should tell you what I can, even if it’s only guesses . . . impressions.” And with that admission they came, whether I was ready for them or not. Triggered by the doorway to Tumulus, they’d been waiting in the wings poised for the faintest hint of an invitation. Stupid me, I gave it to them.
I swallowed convulsively as I tasted air not of this world. It was cold and acidic, and it tasted of slow, lingering suffering. Not death. Death was easy. What I tasted made you long for the pillow over the face, the cleansing shot of potassium chloride to stop your heart. My fingers dug into the cushion beneath me, but I felt the grit of an alien soil that was more cutting than ground glass. I heard hundreds of voices whispering words I couldn’t understand. Consonants that cut the throat, vowels that made your ears want to bleed. It was when I began to repeat the words over and over, strangling on their unnatural shape, that the hard slap rocked my head back.
The world came back. The good world—bright and warm. Plaid curtains, the hum of an engine, the smell of musky wolf. Good. Even the blood on my lip was welcome. In comparison with what I had tasted, it was wine . . . chocolate. Wholesome and so normal, salty but clean. I touched a tongue to it and reveled in the tang of it.
“Cal, can you hear me? Stay with me, all right? Stay with me.” Niko didn’t look too happy as his hand gripped my shoulder, and as I saw the tiny wisp of winter fog roiling in the air before me, I could see why. It was small, the size of an orange. It wasn’t a door, not yet . . . a keyhole at best, but it was the last one you wanted to peer through.
“You don’t want to go there,” I said in a low and shaky echo, my eyes locked on the eddy and swirl of it. “But I guess maybe it wants to come here.”
“Can you close it?”
I felt it inside of me, the way it turned . . . how it fed off of my energy, how it grew strength from my concentration and focus. It was in control, not me. “Knock me out,” I said sharply as it doubled in size, gobbling up air and space. “Now.”
Niko didn’t hesitate. He knew a little temporary pain was nothing compared with what would come crawling out of that rip once it grew large enough. It didn’t hurt much. He didn’t have the time to painlessly choke me out, but I barely saw the fist that flashed at my jaw with surgical precision, and I scarcely had time to register the crunch of knuckle against bone before I was gone where pain couldn’t follow. I could only hope I took the door to hell with me.
18
The pain hadn’t followed me into unconsciousness, but it was waiting for me when I woke up. My jaw ached, but less than I would’ve imagined. It was no worse than the throbbing of a sore tooth, and the stillness within me was more than worth it. The doorway was gone. The passageway to Tumulus was shut. We were safe. Of course, it took a few minutes to corral a confused brain into making that conclusion, but I got there.
Just as I did, there was a freezing touch on my jaw. “Hey,” I mumbled, and slitted eyes in annoyance. “Cold.”
“Ice packs most often are,” Niko said levelly. He tapped a finger on the back of my hand. “Take it.”
I obeyed, holding it in place as I slowly sat up. The inside of the RV spun once, then settled into place. We were alone—as alone as you could be in a hotel room on wheels. I could see the chiaroscuro of Promise’s hair up front, and I had a feeling she hadn’t moved of her own accord. Damn. Cautiously, I worked my jaw back and forth, then moved the ice pack a little higher. “You did a good job, Cyrano. Everything’s where it should be.”
“Considerably different from the last time, then.” He pinched the bridge of his long nose as the briefest of grimaces crossed his face.
You could say that. The closing of that particular doorway hadn’t been brought about by a simple punch. Instead, it had involved Niko’s sword burying itself in my abdomen. As Niko had saved the world with that move, I didn’t hold any grudges. It had been the right thing to do. Even if it hadn’t spared the world, with the shape I’d been in, it still would’ve been the right thing. I wished, not for the first time, that he could see that as clearly as I did.
“Sorry about the door,” I said, kicking his ankle with a foot covered by a dirty sock. I hadn’t been too concerned about putting on shoes when I’d made my mad dash out into the clear Florida morning.
“It wasn’t your fault.” He stopped my antics with an unrelenting heel that pinned my foot to the floor.
“Wasn’t hers either.” I pointed my chin toward the front and immediately regretted it as a sliver of pain branched through my face.
“She knows what happened when Goodfellow hypnotized you to access your lost memories.” His voice was low, but I knew it was easily audible to a vampire if she cared to listen. “I told her.”
“Hearing about it and seeing it are two different things, Nik,” I pointed out, feeling the tingling stretch of swelling skin as I talked. “And, hell, it wasn’t that bad this time. Robin didn’t toss his cookies and I didn’t try to gouge your face off.” There’d been no screaming, no clawing through walls, no huddling in a corner unseeing and unknowing. A quick and easy pop to the jaw was nothing in comparison with that. Certainly nothing to lose Promise over. Niko wanted her, he deserved her, and if things went as badly in the future as I thought they might, then he was going to need her.
“We need better memories, little brother, if you’re making this one out to be less than absolutely shitty,” he said somberly.
He sounded like me and that was never a positive sign. Time to give a little push of my own. I let the ice pack fall and passed it back and forth between my hands. “Then go make some.”
Releasing my foot, he looked away with an uncustomary avoidance, then shifted his shoulders. “She wanted you to know that she was sorry.”
“I am, Caliban. I cannot tell you how much.” Promise had drifted over to us, so silently that I didn’t know she was there until I felt the touch of her fingers on my shoulder, her lips brushing over my bruised jaw. “I let my concern for Niko get the better of me—the better of you. The blame for what happened lies with me, no one else.”
The apology was as gracious as Promise herself, and she meant it wholeheartedly. A few hundred years would give anyone more than a few chances to learn how to lie. I knew Promise was no different there, but I’d lived with a woman who lied for a living for the first fourteen years of my life. I’d also spent a lot of time in Goodfellow’s company in the past year. If you listened to him, he’d all but invented the lie. The bottom line was I knew bullshit when I heard it, whether it came from a talented amateur or a ranking pro. Promise meant what she said. And even if she hadn’t, I still would’ve been tempted to swallow it for Niko’s sake . . . although his bullshit detector was as honed as mine.
“You thought it was for Nik,” I said matter-of-factly. And in my book, that trumped any transgression known to man. I gave an awkward pat to her hand, then gently removed it from my shoulder as I stood. For the first time I noticed it was dark outside the windows. I narrowed my eyes in disbelief. No wonder the pain was muted. “Jesus, how long have I been out?”
“Thirteen hours. We’re about five hours from home.” As Niko filled me in, I became aware of another sign of the passing time. A bursting bladder. “I didn’t hit you with that much force. Robin said that opening that door must have drained you and to let you sleep.”
It made sense. Tumulus had to be more than a hop, skip, and jump from our world. Opening a doorway from the Brooklyn Bridge to our apartment . . . no big deal. Opening one to a place that existed outside our own was markedly different. It was an issue worth explori
ng, if exploring just that type of thing hadn’t been what had gotten us here to begin with. Besides, my bladder was a damn sight more insistent than any curiosity.
“Trouble is, there are some parts it didn’t drain.” I dumped the ice pack in Niko’s lap and headed for the small bathroom. “Take my seat, Promise. I might take a shower while I’m in there.” The warm water might unknot muscles that were suddenly protesting thirteen hours of inactivity. It did, a little too well. The second time I woke up it was to the sound of a shower knob being turned off and the distinct smell of wet dog.
I blinked and swiped at the cool water washing over my eyes. I was sitting on the shower floor, propped in the corner. I’d been sound asleep, although it couldn’t have been for too long. The water wasn’t cold, only cool. “Unh,” I said with a not-so-amazing lack of coherence. Opening that door really had taken it out of me. What a relief to know if I ever did shape another one and go through, I’d sleep through the following torture and mutilation.
“Out.” Flay shook the water from his arm and then threw me a towel. “Out.”
Flay didn’t strike me as the shy type. I had no doubt I’d see more than I wanted to if I lingered. I didn’t. As the door closed behind me, I kept one hand holding up the towel around my hips and the other juggling my clothes.
“Summarily evicted, eh?”
Goodfellow was sprawled on the couch adjacent to the kitchen booth, the same couch where I’d recently spent so many unconscious hours. He looked as tired as I still felt. “Yeah.” I yawned with only a twinge of my jaw. Niko, undisputed master of the surgical-strike fist. “You too?”
“It’s Promise’s turn. Flay drove eight. I drove five.” He waved a hand at his leg and schooled his face into a saintly expression of noble suffering. “In deference to my hideously painful wound.”
“Is that thing healing on an installment plan or what?” I dressed quickly and flopped down beside him.
“Unsympathetic brat.” He yawned as well and regarded me with eyes that while sleepy were still wary. “Quite the trick you’ve developed.”
“Sure, if you want to spend your summer vacation in Tumulus.” I considered my dirty socks and discarded them, leaving my feet bare. “That’s not for me, but, hey, whatever floats your boat.”
“Aren’t you the cool one?” he mused, wariness transmuting to something close to reproof. “You’re walking a precarious road, Caliban, and it’s one that is going to end in a very messy explosion or a nice, padded room at the local loony bin.”
“Uh-huh,” I remarked with disinterest, and nodded toward the front. “They make up yet?”
The green eyes darkened. “I’m serious. I know something of this; I’m not an amateur.”
“Yeah, yeah, you taught Freud everything he knew. I remember.” I leaned over and snagged a box of cereal sitting on the booth table. My stomach felt as neglected as my bladder and I poured a generous quantity of dry cereal onto my hand. Studying it, I recognized his effort, then dismissed it. “You can’t help me, Robin. Not right now. Maybe later . . . after all this shit is over.” I filled my mouth and chewed methodically.
He didn’t comment for a moment; then he folded his arms and sniffed disparagingly, “You assume I wanted to help. I’m simply giving advice. Whether you take it is up to you.” I was getting better at pushing people away, but Goodfellow could give me some serious competition. Too bad for the both of us that trying seemed to be the best that we could accomplish.
“And, yes, they seem to be working through their differences,” he continued. “Curse my luck.”
I offered him a handful of cereal in sympathy. When he sneered at the culinary effort, I ate it myself. “You and Flay bond while I was out?”
The sneer faded. “He talked about his boy.”
“Oh.” That couldn’t have been a happy conversation. “What was his name again?”
“Slay.” Despite his somber expression, that brought a subtle quirk to his mouth. “I suppose it’s better than Flay Junior.” As I gave a noncommittal crunch, he sighed, “Anyway, we talked or rather, he did. It’s a curse, this face. Understanding, compassion, it radiates from every perfect pore.”
He would’ve gone on—with Goodfellow that was a given—but Flay came out of the bathroom and he was looking marginally more wolfish. “Hungry.” He slammed the bathroom door. “Food. Now.” He scowled at the box in my hands. “Meat. No sawdust. No chicken. Red meat.” We’d had a chicken dish with the Rom, spicy and filling, but not filling enough for a wolf apparently.
“We’re almost to the city,” Robin pointed out. “Perhaps you could wait until—”
“Now.” Fangs and claws lengthened, and the mane of hair bristled.
Okay, those were some severe hunger pangs. “Nik, Promise,” I called. “I think we need a burger stop, like, pronto.”
Three hours and about forty rare burgers later we were home.
It was night and what I once thought to be a hot summer had a much less vicious bite than the heat that we’d faced at the Rom camp. I’d missed the concrete, the lights . . . the ability to hide in the midst of millions. You had to be practical even in the grip of a homesickness you would never have guessed you could experience. Niko and I had learned a long time ago not to get attached to any place, any person. It wasn’t only being on the run from the Auphe. Before that, Sophia had moved us from place to place at the drop of a hat. She’d been on the run too. The police, angry clients, unpaid rent, responsibility—you name it and Sophia had shown her heels to it.
The apartment was as we left it. There were no new presents waiting at the doorstep, and I felt something inside me unclench as I opened the door. We had dropped Goodfellow and then Promise off at their respective apartments. Niko had escorted the vampire to the front of the building with a grave and correct courtesy that let me know that while things were improved between them they still weren’t right. Flay drove off with the RV, saying he would return in the morning. Where he thought he would park that borrowed leviathan in the city, I didn’t have a clue.
Inside the apartment there was the faintly stale smell that spoke of abandonment. We’d been gone only two and a half days; I would’ve sworn it was much longer. My bed was also as I left it . . . wrinkled and unkempt. That didn’t stop me from eyeing it wistfully. I was still wiped. Finishing the sweep of our small space, I rejoined Niko in the kitchen. “Okay, we have the crown. Now what?”
“We wait for Caleb to contact us. He’s obviously keeping a close eye on our activities.” He looked toward the window in the apartment. Too large for blinds, it had been covered days ago by an obscuring sheet. “He’ll know we’re back. By tomorrow evening this could all be over.”
“Except for the Auphe.”
“Let’s focus on one life-threatening disaster at a time. Multitasking at this level of catastrophe isn’t quite feasible.” He stretched, working out the kinks of the long trip. “I’m going to take a quick run to loosen up.”
“Hold on.” Mentally groaning at the thought, I went to retrieve the sneakers I’d discarded in my bedroom and tried not to look at the bed.
Eyebrows lifted as I reappeared. “You’re running? Voluntarily?”
“Have to keep an eye on you,” I explained, bending over to tie laces with quick jerks. “This isn’t like the good old days, Cyrano, when they only wanted me. Now they want you.” To hurt me, and to punish us both. “This time around I get to be the babysitter.”
“You don’t believe I can take care of myself?” The eyebrows came down, but there was an affectionately mocking flavor to the question.
“You didn’t think I could handle myself these past couple of years?” I countered.
“I said so often enough, didn’t I?” He pulled me upright by the scruff of my shirt. “But point taken. I’ll try to be as graceful about it as you were.” As he let that jewel of a threat sink in, he went on, “You’re tired, I know. For you, I’ll cut it back to a quick five miles.”
“You’re
one generous son of a bitch,” I gritted as I followed him out the door.
By the time we got back, I was as stiff-legged as the Frankenstein monster. It wasn’t the length of the run—for a Niko one it was short. But the exhaustion that hadn’t been much relieved by my long sleep was making itself known with a vengeance. I barely made it to my bed and fell across it. You’ve heard people say they fell asleep the instant their head touched the pillow? I think I fell asleep midair. On our run Niko had said he would stay up and keep watch. I’d told him it wasn’t necessary. If an Auphe opened a door, I would know it . . . now. But, as he’d brought up, if it opened one down the block and scuttled to our place, that would kill our advance notice. It was good thinking, and I hoped it kept him company on his watch, because I was down for the count.
I woke up to the smell of doughnuts and fresh coffee. Someone else had to be in the apartment. Refined sugar and caffeine? Niko would sooner chop off a hand. I thought about taking a shower before investigating, but decided that for all of us who’d spent days shut up with Flay, I was smelling like a rose in comparison.
Returned as promised, our musky companion himself sat at the kitchen table proving that wolf did not live by red meat alone. He had a gallon-sized cup in one hand and a bear claw nearly as big as his head in the other. Niko, nursing a steaming tea and dry toast, was watching with critical eye as sticky pecans rained onto the floor. I sat down and helped myself to one of the gooey pastries from the box resting on the table. My body welcomed the sugar rush with gratitude. “All quiet last night?” I asked Niko around the mouthful.
“All quiet,” he confirmed.
Swallowing, I moved on to Flay. “You actually parked Goodfellow’s bachelor pad on wheels downstairs?”
“No.” He drained about half the coffee in one long gulp. “Decide keep it. For Slay and me. New home. Travel . . . leave this place.”
“Lone wolf and cub, eh?” I took another bite and said thickly, “You know that’s not Goodfellow’s to give, right? He borrowed it.”