Authors: Rob Thurman
The next morning I called the car lot looking for Goodfellow only to find out he'd called in sick. Sure, he'd been injured, but too hurt to lie, cheat, and steal from the masses of clueless consumers? Knowing Robin, that freaked me out a little and had me at his place checking on him. From the way he was going on about our visit to Ham, I might've been wasting my time. Then again, he was in bed. Unless it was for sexual acrobatics, seeing Robin in bed was damn rare. So many orgies, so little time.
"Ah, he wanted to be Promise's
special
friend, eh?" Robin said gleefully. "Tell me more. Did Niko actually emote? Did righteous jealousy cause a slight twitch of one eyebrow? I cannot wait to …
skata."
His face grayed as Seraglio efficiently ripped the bandage from his upper arm. The revealed puncture was knitting but still puffy and reddened. It looked painful as hell.
"I'm no nurse, Mr. Fellows," the housekeeper said as she swabbed the wound with a mixture of half peroxide, half sterile water. "And I never claimed to be, now, did I? But it's either me or this tale-carrying young man."
"Sorry, ma'am," I drawled. "Healing's not exactly where my talents lie."
"Ma'am, is it? Don't you have the sugary tongue." She applied an antibacterial ointment with a slightly gentler touch than the one used to remove the bandage. "At least your mother taught you proper manners."
No, but my brother had. I waited until she finished up dressing all the wounds, helped clean up the leftover supplies, and then closed the bedroom door behind her. "She makes me feel like a kid." Which in a way was rather nice. It was a feeling I hadn't had too often in my life.
"She does have the essence of the Earth Mother about her." There was a weary quality to the satyr quirk of his lips. "Soft hands, sharp tongue, and breasts like sun-warmed velvet."
"Like you'll ever know." I grinned. "You've finally found the one woman who's too much for you." I watched as he slowly pulled the pajama leg down to cover the last bandage applied. I was torn between mocking his choice of sleepwear and asking a question. I went with the question. "Why are you lying around in bed anyway? Why aren't you at work stealing some poor guy's last dime?"
"I like being waited on hand and foot. It is only my due." He pulled the covers back up to his waist and leaned back against the pillows.
That was true enough … as far as it went. But with his face still the color of clay, there was obviously further to go on the subject. "Niko said it wasn't that bad," I said, oddly irritated, although I wasn't sure if it was at my brother for not being right or at Robin for proving him wrong. Not that I was worried.
Ah, shit.
I shot a brief look at the door and escape … escape from concern and emotional entanglement. Applying these things to others outside of Niko was still new and scary as hell to me. I didn't know if I even knew
how
to do it.
But, in the end, that was nothing but piss-poor cowardice. Goodfellow, who'd saved my life at least twice, deserved better. I looked away from the door, shoved hands in jean pockets, and scowled. "Something's wrong. Tell me." And quick before I bolted.
"It's nothing." He closed his eyes and laced his fingers across the mound of covers.
"If it's nothing, then tell me, goddamn it," I demanded, "before I kick your horny ass."
He cracked an eye. "Can you feel my waves of unadulterated terror from there? I'm doing my best to suppress them, but I fear I'm wholly unsuccessful."
"Fine." I gave him the finger and headed for the door, making my escape. "Screw you."
He sighed and untangled his hands to push up to a more upright position. "Wait."
I already had one hand on the doorknob, brass and cold, and I could've kept going. An object in motion tends to remain in motion. It's physics, that's all. It can't be cowardice or the easy way out if it's physics, right? I let myself believe that for several seconds before I dropped my hand to my side and turned, exhaling, "Damn it."
"I do have that effect on many, many people. And I'm not used to any of them wasting worry on me. I've not built up a habit of gracious acceptance." He gave a tired grin. "Although in all other aspects of etiquette, I am without parallel. The Don Juan of decorum."
"Yeah, right, and I'm not worried. Just…gathering all the facts," I said with obstinate wariness. "Now give them to me already."
He did. It was poison. The sirrush was venomous with toxic claws and fangs. It could be fatal, but pucks were extremely resistant to poison, so for Robin it was only painful and slowed recovery by a few days. Now, there were some nice mutated super-genes for you. What'd I get? Super-smelling. No wonder I didn't have my own comic book.
"And it's a rare excuse to have Seraglio mother me and to catch a glimpse down her polyester shirt at the Promised Land. That's worth a little pain." He reached for a half-empty glass of wine on the nightstand and added smugly, "I told her I was injured saving a nun from being mugged. There were orphans involved as well. I'm quite the hero."
"I'll bet." Seraglio was far too sharp to swallow that, I knew, but it was possible she had a soft spot for her employer. "You're okay, then? A few days in bed and you'll be annoying the hell out of us as usual?" The relief was sharp. This whole having a friend thing, damn, it was work.
"It's my calling in life, and, yes, I will." After draining the glass, he rolled it between his hands. "Now that you're done
not
worrying, shall we hug? Isn't that what one does in emotionally fraught situations as this? I'll keep my hands above the belt. I am still mooning after your brother after all. Blonds, they always break my heart."
He seemed ridiculously pleased with himself, grinning despite the lines of pain creasing his forehead. I strongly considered grabbing handfuls of sheet and blanket and yanking his ass onto the floor, but that was before I figured it out. Robin had said it himself: He wasn't used to people worrying about him. Concern—I wasn't in the habit of giving it and he wasn't accustomed to receiving it. He wanted to be, though. That was plain to see in the grin, the humor-lightened eyes, and the quirk of eyebrows under wildly curly bed hair.
"I'm not hugging you. So shut up. Jesus." But I did stay and filled him in about Ham and how he was going to investigate the homeless situation for us. Naturally, it wasn't the homeless theory that he concentrated on.
"A musician," he said with interest. "Wild and willing groupies, how can one go wrong?"
"About that …" I was sprawled in a chair by the window. "Remember what we talked about before George was taken?" It seemed forever and it seemed like only yesterday. And wasn't that a trick? "About me not passing on the family name?"
The Auphe might not have a family name—I'd never bothered to ask—but they did have genes. They'd given them to me, but that's where it stopped. I wasn't taking a chance of making any more like me … or worse than me. And worse than me was definitely a possibility. It was one reason George and I weren't for each other. Robin had given me the usual options—rubbers, the big snip—but I didn't have the faith in them that I had in the Auphe will to be born.
"I remember." He leaned toward me. "Don't tell me. You're finally casting aside celibacy and embracing the nasty, oily arts. Thank the Minotaur's massive member. It's about thrice-damned time."
Facing down a sirrush was nothing compared to the level of predatory attention now aimed my way. "Hold up. I don't want orgies or sadomasochistic role-playing weirdness," I said cautiously. "I just want to get laid, pure and simple. Being half Auphe doesn't mean I want to spend my whole life not getting any." No one with a dick, working or not, wanted that. And I was twenty. You could
make
little blue pills out of what was running through me. I wanted George more than I'd ever wanted anyone, but I couldn't have her. Maybe, though, I could have someone else, even if they meant so much less. And if anyone knew someone it would be impossible for a human-Auphe hybrid to reproduce with, it would be Goodfellow.
Robin nodded and laced fingers to crack his knuckles in preparation—the mental kind, I fervently hoped. "Actually, I've been contemplating your horrifying, nay, catastrophic situation for a while now and I'll be happy to—"
I interrupted hastily, "Yeah, thanks, but no, thanks."
He snorted, "You should be so privileged. No, you braying ass. As I was saying, I'd be happy to introduce you to some open-minded females." Leaning back, he relaxed. "Let me think on it. There are those out there who would fit your situation. However…" He paused and the sly cheer faded. "Some would know about you and some wouldn't. Both come with issues."
I answered the unspoken question. "I'll stay in the Auphe closet if I have to." Some would know and some wouldn't, he'd said. The ones that did know wouldn't fuck me on a bet. The ones that didn't know were my only chance, and if I were stubborn about hiding what I was, Robin would have a real challenge ahead of him. Stubborn and stupid, I knew the difference between the two.
"Then take your vitamins and get ready, Forrest Hump," he ordered, cheer reignited. "You're in for a wild ride."
I wasn't thinking about that wild ride when I left. Okay, that was a lie and a half. I was thinking about it all right, but I was thinking about something else too. I was thinking about how the sirrush came out of nowhere, and what if pucks weren't resistant to poison? I was also thinking about all the times things could've gone very differently for Niko and me. The close calls, the near misses…we were good but we'd had them. And how one day a near miss might not be a miss at all. Niko was one of the best out there, and I was good enough. But I thought about the revenants. The best, the good enough, someday that wasn't going to get it. Get thirty or so really pissed-off revenants or fifteen wolves or just one nearly undefeatable troll, get cornered by that, get boxed in and that very well could be all she wrote.
Unless we had an emergency exit, a way out.
And we did have it. If my Auphe ability saved Niko or Robin, if it could save us all, I didn't care about headaches or if I bled like a stuck pig. It was worth it, and if Niko was right and my brain did go down for the count, hell, it was still worth it.
Robin's stairwell was empty. Not surprising. It was daytime; most were at work. I took advantage of it, and sat on the landing off Robin's floor and let the door close behind me. When I'd built the gate around Robin and me to escape the sirrush, I'd done it in a mixture of effort and instinct. I didn't have a monster charging me now, so I was going to have to depend on effort. Every gate I'd ever seen or built had been big enough to walk through. But maybe if I started small there'd be fewer nasty side effects.
I held out a hand, tried not to think about the pain from last time, and focused. It came, a little slowly, but it came. It was small like I'd concentrated on— the size of an orange. Gunmetal gray, the light of it was a sluggish whirlpool—spinning as if it wanted to suck you in. It was an ugly thing. Ugly and repulsive. And it lived in me. Hard to come to terms with that, but I was going to have to.
Gateways had to lead somewhere, so this one went to the tiny closet in my room. No one would see it there. Not Nik, who would be highly unhappy about my breaking my word…even if I'd never meant to keep it in the first place.
I felt the touch of liquid warmth on my upper lip, but the headache that began to throb was bearable. So, okay, the bigger the gate, the worse the side effects. Maybe easing up to a size we could get through would help. A slow and steady progress.
And think what I could do with it besides escape. I could do what I'd done to Hob, the puck kidnapper who'd taken Niko and George. I could build one between us and our attackers and let them rush into the Auphe home away from home. Tumulus. Hell. They'd be ripped to shreds there. Turned to a pile of blood and guts and I imagined they'd live for a while as it happened. Strangled with their own intestines. The Auphe did like to play with their food. Why not get them to do the dirty work? Why not let them murder and maim? Why not let them mutilate…
I blinked and let the gate go. Now, where the hell had that come from? If you were attacked, if someone wanted you dead, you did what you had to do. But maim?
Mutilate?
I wouldn't do that. Wouldn't send someone to that god-awful fate. That wasn't me.
Never mind that I'd done it to Hob. That was different. He'd defeated Niko and hung him up like an animal to be slaughtered. He had George tied up across the room. I couldn't get to them both to get us out of there, and Hob would've defeated me.
Was
defeating me, slicing me to ribbons. Niko, one of the best. Me slightly less. I'd had no choice. But to do that when I did have a choice…no.
No.
I felt the blood drip down my chin, catching it at the last minute with a wad full of paper towels I'd shoved in my pocket before I left Robin's place. I'd known then what I'd planned to do. I mopped up the blood and held the stained towels to my nose until the bleeding stopped. With the paper saturated, I pulled off my jacket and carefully scrubbed my lower face with my sleeve. It was black; any leftover blood wouldn't show, which in turn would keep me from a Niko ass-kicking of righteous proportions.
Half of me thought I deserved it. Half of me knew I was doing what I had to. All of me thought the same thing over and over.
That wasn't me.
Not me.
Never.
While Robin recuperated, plotting and planning things for me that would make Hugh Hefner cry for his mommy, I ended up in an abandoned warehouse. I'll say it again. … It sounded trite, and, hell, it was, but one phone call from Promise had sent Niko and me to one. According to any mystery or cop show, these rat-infested, echoing places are a dime a dozen. They're not, but you can find one if you put your mind to it. Sawney had. How did I know?
Bones.
Chains and bloody bones.
Like wind chimes, they hung high from the rafters. But no wind would make them sing. The skeletons were held together with ligaments and thin stretches of overlooked flesh, just enough meat to keep them intact. Either Sawney had planned it that way or he hadn't been as hungry as he'd thought. And they weren't bodies of the homeless. He wasn't being careful. Not yet. He was still enjoying himself way too goddamn much.
I looked up to see a stained bike that hung beside a small skeleton. There was a silver sparkle banana seat, a basket blooming with bright plastic flowers, and shiny brown hair tied around the handles like streamers.
That had had nothing to do with hunger. That was evil, pure and simple.
"How did Promise know this was here?" I dropped my eyes to the floor and the large dried patches of brown on it. It had been hours at the very least, this morning or last night. Three sets of remains, two adults and one child. A family … a bike. It had probably been the previous evening. A mom and dad taking their little girl for a bike ride in one of the parks. Katie, Sarah, Maddie…Katie. Yeah, Katie, a tomboy with freckles and brown hair in a long ponytail.
"A friend of a friend." Niko had knelt to touch a light finger to the largest pool of dried blood as I wrenched my thoughts back to the here and now. "Arelative of a friend rather. Flay's sister told her."
Flay was a werewolf acquaintance of ours. Once an enemy, he was now…hell, I had no idea what he was now. Not an enemy, but not precisely a friend either. He was long gone from New York anyway, so it didn't much matter what label you slapped on him. He was on the run from the Kin, the werewolf version of the Mafia. If he showed his furry ass in the city again, he was dead—the kind of dead that would have the human La Cosa Nostra sitting up in admiration and taking notes like a dedicated college freshman.
"Flay has a sister?" I drifted away as I began to look for more bodies. Sawney might not have hung them all up. He might've gotten tired of playing his festive little games. "A scary proposition." Flay was many things—unbelievably strong, murderously quick, a talented fighter—but he was one homely son of a bitch. No, that wasn't true. He wasn't ugly, but he was unusual, damn unusual. Exotically strange enough to draw anyone's eye.
"Do not judge." Gray eyes mocked. "We cannot all be the vision you are." He stood. "They've been dead awhile, that is clear. What isn't as clear is where they came from."
The warehouse was near the piers. It wasn't the most likely place for little girls to ride their bikes. And transporting three bodies some distance in the city would be a trick for even a homicidally clever bastard like Sawney. He couldn't put them under his arm and shamble along. Even in this city, that would be noticed. I shook my head. "No telling." There were several islands of stacked crates, but no other bodies that I'd seen yet. "Why is Flay's sister helping us? For that matter how'd she know we needed help?"
"Promise put out the word in the community with Sangrida putting up some of the museum's money as a reward for information. They can't justify a fee for tracking down a supernatural serial killer of course, but can offer rewards for the damage done to the exhibit. Creative accounting." Nik kept scanning the area. "Some wolves stumbled across the bodies a few hours ago. Kin wolves. This is a Kin warehouse, although they only use it off and on. Delilah is Kin in good standing, unlike her brother. Once she heard what had been found, she contacted Promise. As to why?" He headed toward the other side of the interior. "Money, and we did save her nephew's life or did you forget?"
Not likely. I still had the little fuzz-butt's bite marks scarring my calf to remember him by. It did surprise me that this Delilah would be grateful enough to act on it, but there was the money. The Kin did love their money. It was still risky for her, though. We weren't loved by the Kin any more than Flay was, but while Nik and I were considered enemies of the Kin, we didn't hold the special place in their vengeful hearts that Flay did. Flay had betrayed his Alpha to outsiders. If there were a worse crime to a wolf, I didn't know what it was.
"Kin will be back to clean up the area soon enough, so we need to be quick." The Kin didn't like their territory violated or conspicuous. And it didn't get much more conspicuous than bodies hanging from the ceiling. Niko had moved out of sight behind a far tower of crates, and seconds later he rapped out my name, "Cal."
The tone was enough to let me know he'd found something interesting. My gun was already in my hand and had been since I'd entered the building. I loped after Nik, seeing what he'd found so intriguing the moment I rounded the crates. It was a van. With its side door open and dried blood within and without, we'd discovered how Sawney had transported the bodies. It was so mundane, not to mention inexplicable. "Okay, Cyrano, riddle me this," I said. "How the hell does a Redcap from the fourteen hundreds know how to drive a goddamn van?"
He frowned under his hawkish nose. "That is an excellent question." As he clambered into the back, I opened the passenger door and leaned in the front for a whiff. Huh. Now, that was damned peculiar. "Revenant," I announced aloud. Revenants weren't what legend made them out to be … legend never got it right, but I could see how easily it had been to go wrong with these slimy pieces of shit. They weren't the dead returned to life—unpleasant, rotting life—but they did give an amazing imitation. Revenants weren't human and had never been, but they looked damn close to a man … if that man had been dug from a not-so-fresh grave. It wasn't difficult to see how someone had made the mistake. With milky white eyes, clammy slick flesh, and a black tongue, they weren't nature's prettiest or proudest moment.
"It seems Sawney is recruiting a new family." Niko finished examining the van and vaulted back out. "Logical. There are no other Redcaps in New York, and revenants, like Sawney, do not particularly care if their meals are alive, dead, or decomposing."
"And revenants can drive." They'd been around New York nearly as long as there had been people. With a coat and a hat or a hooded sweatshirt, they could pass to the casual glance through a car window. I'd seen them do it, and it was the last cab ride you were likely to take. Finding nothing in the front, I stepped back and shut the door. "I wonder why they didn't stick around here. It's not a cave, but it's empty and there's plenty of room to keep leftovers." To keep more little girls and their mommies and daddies. "Even if the revenant knew it was Kin, I can't see Sawney giving a shit. A few wolves would be a snack and rug combo to him. Dine and decorate in one shot." Something glittered by my foot and I crouched to pick it up with my left hand. It was a barrette, gold and yellow. The little girl's last touch of sun. It had the caustic humor lying like lead on my tongue.
"The revenants may have known. And they would've known that if a few Kin wolves went missing here, the rest would come en masse," Niko conjectured as he watched me put the barrette in my pocket.
"Too much light."
It came from above. The words.
"Where is soothing darkness?"
In the shadows where the stray rays of sunlight didn't penetrate.
"Where are the sheltering arms of stone?"
A bright slice of winter, sharp as ice and white as a fatal blizzard, bloomed.
"Where is Sawney Beane's home? Not here."
As my eyes adjusted I saw more … up in the rafters. An unnaturally wide killer grin. Tangled ropes of hair, white stained with red and brown. There was the impression of a sweeping bulk of a cloak or coat, but face and hands…they were nothing but blackness. Inky shadow come to life.
The impossible stretch of smile widened. "I see you." Tiny embers sparked to life, the cheery red of an autumn fire. "Travelers."
Travelers. And we knew what Sawney Beane did with travelers.
I fired instantly. The bullets hit. I knew that although the monster didn't move. There was no attempt at evasion, only the echo of gunfire and that ever-present leer. The bastard didn't flinch, didn't shift under the impact, didn't register the blows at all. If I didn't have the confidence of my aim, I would've wondered. But I hit him. … It simply didn't matter one damn bit.
"Educational," Niko mused.
"Glad you think so," I grunted as I slammed another clip home. Just another day at the office…until the late afternoon sun chose that moment to shift to twilight, plunging the warehouse into a dusky purple gloom. What few lights had been on joined the sun in disappearing, deepening the gloom to the impenetrable.
And then it began to rain blood.
The color was impossible to discern in the thick murk, but I knew the smell, knew the slick consistency against my skin. "What the fuck?"
There was the sound of rushing air and then a meaty thump inches from me. Another body, and from the sound as it hit, this one had most of its flesh intact. There was another thump and another as the charnel house above continued to fall. I didn't know how Sawney had kept them up, and I didn't care. I only wanted to get my hands on the son of a bitch.
"I'm going up," Nik said grimly. "You cover him here if he tries to escape." There was no sound of departing footsteps—this was my brother after all— but he was gone.
I moved my own foot a few inches to one side to place the first body. As my eyes adjusted I could make out a vague outline, a crumpled form…arms, legs, a mound. Pregnant. She'd been pregnant. I couldn't make out any more than that and I didn't want to. She'd been alive; now she wasn't.
When the next body fell, I thought I was ready for it. How much fucking worse could it be? Stupid goddamn question. Sawney was the stealer of mothers, children, and babies. The taker of lives, flesh, and hope, because in New York everyone was traveling. From place to place, everyone was on the move. And to someone who preyed on travelers, that meant everyone was fair game.
Sawney hit me from above…the one body that wasn't dead, but we weren't done yet. Not by a long shot. He hit hard and with a weight I wouldn't have guessed. He was an avalanche—not one of rock, but of ice. Cold, wherever he touched me. The burn of dry ice on my neck and jaw as he tasted me. I felt the slide of the tongue over my carotid artery as hands pinned my head. "Different, traveler. You taste different."
I struggled to pull breath back into my lungs that curled abused and beaten beneath bruised ribs. But I didn't need to breathe to pull a trigger. I jammed the muzzle of the 9mm into the mass that squatted on top of me and emptied the clip I had just put in. Like before, I got jack shit for my trouble.
"Full of sulfur spice and ancient earth and a world far from here."
Auphe, he was tasting it in me. That stuttered my lungs to painful life. I wheezed and used the oxygen to propel my body into motion under him. I tried to roll, dropping my gun and pulling a knife from the calf sheath. My fingers passed through the slit in the denim and fastened around the rubber hilt. My roll was less successful. Flickers of scarlet light still burned into mine. Hanks of knotted hair smelled like a slaughterhouse and felt like rope against my skin. And that grin, that goddamned grin, was still inches from me.
Then it was in me.
Teeth went through jacket and shirt, into my chest, and ripped a piece of me away. Sawney had succeeded where the Black Annis had failed, and he had done it so easily. Had made me food, and I hadn't been able to do a damn thing about it. Food. There's a special horror in that, a particular twisted terror in a part of you being
eaten.
It hurt, but not as badly as it should. The shock of it muffled the pain, wrapped it in cotton, and let me plunge the knife into his back without hesitation. What it could do that the gun couldn't I didn't know, and when his grin widened, I got my answer. And with that answer came other things. There was blood on my face—my own blood—and the sound of a purring swallow.
"Soft and sweet, your flesh, traveler." The cold tongue lapped blood from the wound. "Sweet and spiced with madness." He laughed then. It wasn't dark or deranged, deep or demonic. It was happy as a child with ice cream, and that was worse. So much fucking worse.
If ever there were a time for a gate, promise or not, this was it. But even if I could have managed one the size I needed, and I had head-splitting doubts that I could, Sawney would only have gone with me. Eat me here, eat me somewhere else, I didn't know the difference. I did know panic, though. Sheer, kick-in-the-gut panic, and I used it. I twisted the fear into energy and momentum and I tried again to throw the bastard off. This time, I did it. I didn't take the time to get to my feet. It was time I didn't have. I got to all fours and scrambled backward with all the speed I could muster. When you can smell your blood on someone's breath, that's pretty damn fast.
He was fast too. Faster than I was. Faster than anyone I'd seen. He was ten feet away and he was directly in front of me, yanking me up with a hand on my throat. Up, not to my feet—my feet weren't touching the floor and neither were his. We hung in the air, the goddamn
air,
three feet of empty space beneath us. He had two smiles now, one sheened with my blood and one the gleam of metal. It was the scythe from the museum. Sangrida had taken good care of it. It was as capable now of carving human flesh as it had been six hundred years ago. I'd seen that in Sawney's recent victims and I was about to feel it as well.
"Traveler, abide with me." Red light blazed to bloody suns. "Abide
in
me. Special boy with the special taste. The taste of madness, the taste of me." The cheer, the horrifically affectionate cheer, was the silken touch of a spider's fatal web, and I wished he would shut the hell up. I wished I weren't so sure it was Auphe madness he was tasting in me. I also wished I had brought my Desert Eagle with the explosive rounds. Wish in one hand and shit in the other and hope you aren't facing Sawney fucking Beane when you do it.