The fangs in my shoulder began to withdraw and I knew the next target would be my throat. If it took out my carotid artery, I would be unconscious in minutes and bleed to death in five. I needed a move, no matter how desperate, and I needed it now. However, when it was made, it wasn’t mine. There were two consecutive twangs and the revenant jerked on my back . . . once, twice, then fell. The other revenant I’d knocked from its feet was starting to rise only to be bowled over with a quarrel through an eye. Staggering with the loss of weight from my back, I regained my balance and then bent over to rest hands on my legs until my breathing evened out. “Thanks,” I said hoarsely, and in the same breath, “Don’t tell anyone.”
Promise materialized beside me, her eyes tranquil and her unpainted mouth a gentle curve. “We all have our bad days.” Extending her crossbow to indicate Caleb’s mutilated body, she added, “He would no doubt agree with me.”
Stripping off what remained of my outer shirt, I twisted it rapidly and tied the makeshift bandage tightly around my waist. It would stanch the blood trickling from the Hob-inflicted slash in my back until I could get Niko to stitch it up. “It wasn’t Caleb,” I said with a poisonous quiet as I bent down and ruthlessly yanked free the two poniards that pinned his dead hands. I offered them to Promise. “It’s the puck. That slimy piece of shit that runs this place. You know, Hob, the one I talked to without a fucking clue he was even involved?”
“Hob?” she repeated in disbelief. “That was Hob? Hob of legend? Hob of old?” It was a Promise I hadn’t seen before, one well and truly shocked.
“Yeah, and apparently that’s not a good thing.” Hurriedly, I scanned the floor. I found only the Eagle. The .38 was missing in action and I didn’t have time for an in-depth search. I also retrieved my knife from the chest of the revenant. “Slay, you little fuzzbutt, get out here now,” I snapped off toward the bar. “We’re going.” Where, I wasn’t sure. Up after Goodfellow or out front to where Niko was still fighting the good fight. Maybe Promise and I would split up and do both.
“You found.” It wasn’t a question; it was a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. “You found boy.”
Flay hovered in a doorway behind us. Blood stained his white fur liberally and although he stood upright, more or less, he was in his wolf form. His clothes were gone and his back legs were the graceful curve of a greyhound’s. His ears perked slowly from their flat position against the wedge of his skull as he sniffed the air and then he crooned. As difficult as it was to picture a gore-stained predator crooning, that’s what it was, and it received an immediate answer.
Slay came rocketing into view. He ran so fast he was little more than a pale orange blur, and then he jumped. When he landed in Flay’s arms, he was a boy—a small, naked boy with vodyanoi blood smeared around his mouth and coating his tiny white teeth. But he was also a boy with freckles, a thick shock of apricot hair, and a grin that wouldn’t quit. Small arms were wrapped around his father’s throat and he put his round face close to the pricked white ear to whisper.
No matter what you thought of Kin wolves or of cubs that might grow to raging carnivores, it was a bright moment. And there was no damn time left to appreciate it. Making a fast decision, I told Promise to take the back while I took the front. Flay could stay here with his cub. Whether Hob and the trailing Robin ended up outside or back here, we would be there. We would be ready. What a lie. I wasn’t ready for what I found. I wasn’t ready at all.
Niko was gone.
20
Bodies littered the cracked sidewalk in front of the building. Vodyanoi, revenants—there were at least twelve of them. It wouldn’t have been enough to overcome my brother. But in the midst of the bodies there was the spore of something that had been. Slim and silver, another poniard lay. By the gross, I thought numbly. He bought them by the gross. It didn’t lie there alone; Niko’s sword was beside it. Both were bloodied. And both were what it took to split me in half.
I’d held it together, mostly, this past week. I’d found a place within me to hide, carved out a craven sanctuary. I was stunned at how quickly that sanctuary crumbled, and I was almost immolated by what swelled free of it. Fear, red and raw. Hatred, black and suffocating. And over it all, fury—white-hot and blinding.
Blood sacrifice.
That’s what Hob had said when I’d been more concerned with trying to kill him than paying attention to his cryptically poisonous words. And now Niko was gone. He wasn’t lying wounded or dead by his sword. Hob, who wouldn’t lift a finger himself to do anything that he didn’t absolutely have to, had taken him. Hob, who needed a sacrifice. I’d tried to guard Niko from the Auphe when something else wanted him as badly. This was what Abelia-Roo had kept from us, out of pure, malicious spite. We’d sensed the crone was holding back something about the Calabassa. We should’ve guessed. We should’ve goddamn known. The world is about sacrifice, our world even more so. For the crown to take, someone would have to give. It would grant George’s gift to Hob, and it would take Niko’s life in return. The Rom and the Bassa had been allies, according to Abbagor . . . their lives intertwined. It took the blood of one to make the device of the other work. Elegant, logical . . .
And not going to happen.
I couldn’t hear anymore, or perhaps there was nothing to hear. Velvety silence surrounded me as I bent down and reverently cradled Niko’s sword. It was his katana, modern but with the heart of the ancient implicit in its spare form. He would’ve said he didn’t favor one weapon over the other, that they were tools to be respected and admired . . . nothing more. That’s what he would’ve said, but I knew better. He did play favorites with his edged family and this one was his pride and joy. It wasn’t made in the old way—no one did that these days—but it was as close as you could come. He loved that damn sword, and guess what? He was getting it back.
At the hesitant touch on my shoulder, the hilt found its way into my hand and I whirled, surrounded by a halo of silver steel. There were flashes, disjointed and vague. Brown, green. Fox face and mobile mouth. To carve all that from the face of the earth wasn’t a decision I made. It simply happened. The sword flew and I followed.
“Cal, don’t!”
The words beat at the layer of pulsing rage that cocooned me. Sound had come back. It faded in and out, but it was there. Real. The sight that was before me was real too—as little as my anger wanted it to be. Robin, not Hob, was on his knees in front of me. He was panting with exertion as his white-knuckled fists gripped his own sword and kept Niko’s blade from his neck by bare millimeters.
“Don’t,” he repeated between clenched teeth. “Don’t make me hurt you. Please, don’t make me.”
I didn’t delude myself into thinking it was only talk. Goodfellow very probably could hurt me. He predated swords; he’d had a lot longer to practice with them than I had. Not that it mattered. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than he wanted to hurt me. I saw what my rage was slow to recognize; it was Robin. It was my friend. Not the monster who’d taken Niko.
Not Hob.
I let the tip of the katana fall toward the ground. My hands shook and cramped from the anger that had no outlet. “Nik’s gone.” If I hadn’t felt my mouth move, I wouldn’t have recognized the thick, choked words as mine.
“I know.” Robin let gravity take his own blade and sat back to rest on his heels. Head down, he passed a hand over his face. “I know.”
“Where would he take him?” The twitch of one of the downed revenants was visible from the corner of my eye. I swiveled, gave a vicious swing of the sword, and turned back before the brown blood had time to drip from the blade. “Where?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t a goddamn inkling.” In a sudden explosion of frustration, he threw his sword against the asphalt. “He was supposed to be dead. Why couldn’t he stay dead?” he said savagely before looking up at me. “And why Niko? Why not take just the crown? He already has a hostage. What would he need with another?”
“For the Rom blood.” M
y mouth twisted. “For the damn Bassa, who made sure there was a price to be paid for what you took.” I had the key in me as well, so why hadn’t Hob taken me instead? He might know who was dogging my steps lately and not want the added distraction of vengeance-crazed Auphe dropping in on the ceremony. Or maybe the Auphe gene in me was so strong it tainted all the rest, made the Rom half of me unrecognizable to the Calabassa. It would be a chance that a scheming son of a bitch like the puck wouldn’t want to take.
“Niko?”
Promise had moved up silently behind us. “Hob took Niko? No.” She shook her head in denial. “He couldn’t overcome Niko. No one could.” Then her gaze touched the katana in my hand and pansy-colored eyes turned velvety black, even the whites swallowed whole by the dark cloud. “The first of your kind, Robin, but he will not live long enough to be the last. I’ll kill him myself.”
“Get in line.” I started back toward the club. I didn’t expect to find clues or hints to Hob’s location, no bullshit like that. Hob wouldn’t be anywhere close to that stupid. But there was something in the building that would help. Had to help, because it was our only shot. I quickly grabbed what I needed and hauled it back outside.
Stopping by the pile of Niko’s attackers, I gave Flay’s fur-covered arm a hard shake. “Niko,” I snapped. “Find him.”
When his cub had been taken, Flay had come home to discover shattered furniture, blood, and Slay’s dead grandmother broken on the floor. The kidnapper’s scent turned out to be that of Caleb, but the wolf wasn’t able to determine that at first. Too many changes of cars were made; too many hours had passed. He lost the trail. He hadn’t been able to find his son. But while the trail had been old then, and degraded, it was fresh now.
“Find him.” I shook him again.
Slay, resting against his father’s shoulder, growled. It was a wholly lupine sound emitting from wholly human lips. With clawed hand cupping the ginger head tenderly, Flay made a wordless soothing sound before wrinkling his upper lip at me to reveal red-stained teeth. “You find mine.” He put his blunt muzzle up and drew in great draughs of air. “I find yours.” There was one more sampling, and then he ran. Slinging the boy to sit up on his neck, he went down on all fours and became the wind.
Goodfellow ran for our transportation while Promise and I followed Flay on foot. Three blocks away the van caught up with us. It slowed and we both climbed in while it was still moving. Robin then careened us around a corner and up onto the curb to take out a newspaper box, and kept going. He wasn’t the only one scorning the streets. Flay and his passenger didn’t stick to them either. Alleys, vacant lots—it was all fair game. We managed to keep him in view, flickerings of phantom white our guide.
There were other flickerings . . . red and yellow ones ringing my vision. The rage wouldn’t die, wouldn’t subside. The fear was side by side with it. It wouldn’t let me take a breath without squeezing my lungs with acid-coated fingers. Without Nik, I was nothing. Living life to prove your genes wrong wasn’t worth doing. Living life to be the reflection of who your brother thought you were, thought you could be, that was worth it. That made the price of existence not quite so steep.
“Won’t Hob suspect we’ll use Flay to follow him?”
Robin addressed Promise’s question with a logic that proved familiarity breeds contempt. “I strongly doubt it. He’ll assume Flay has what he’s come for and will move on. Hob doesn’t understand the concept of loyalty. He especially wouldn’t apply it to one who runs with the Kin. Arrogance, it’s the downfall for my race. For every last thrice-damned one of us.”
I had something else planned for Hob’s downfall. The metal glimmered across my lap with the coldest of comforts. Goodfellow went on. “He wants George’s ability so he can rise to power again. With it, he could blackmail anyone, manipulate everyone . . . be what he once was. It’s not as it was in the old days. The brightest, the most respected, even the most cunning, they don’t always win anymore. He needs an edge if he wants to play in these politically unenlightened times.” If it had been any other situation, he would’ve waxed poetic about the time when all you needed was a toga and an in with the Roman army. But it wasn’t any other situation. It was this one.
This one.
“Drive faster,” I ordered gutturally. It whirled in me, the rage, bright and furious. An emotion so intense that it was nearly an entity all its own. Aware . . . plotting. When your subconscious has a mind of its own, things happen. They fucking do indeed.
“I can’t. This is as fast . . .” The words trailed away as Goodfellow checked my reflection in the rearview mirror. His shoulders twitched and he hissed, “Not the time. So very not the time.”
The shadows swirled out of Promise’s eyes as she turned and looked behind me. “No. Not now. Not now.” As I gazed back at her implacably, she said with a worry strained to near desperation, “You’re doing it again, Caliban.”
Like I didn’t know. As if I didn’t feel the turn and suck of the gateway behind me. It was small, no larger than the size of my hand. I didn’t have to see it to know that either. It was mine and I knew it, inside and out. The shifts and eddies of it, the ferocious bite. It was an attack dog, only mildly loyal and completely untrained. I had a choke chain on it for now, but the leash was slipping through my fingers so fast I could feel the burn.
“Where does it go?” Robin asked with a desperation that mirrored that of Promise.
I smiled.
“Ah, gods,” he breathed, “what are we going to do?”
The smile grew and I bared my teeth in a death’s-head grin that would’ve done any Auphe proud. “Drive faster.”
He did. At one point he nearly ran down our wolf. I heard the yip and snarl of surprise through the metal walls of the van. It didn’t restrain Goodfellow’s driving. The gate was traveling with us . . . with me . . . and that concerned him more than a close call with Flay’s hairy ass. Fifteen more minutes passed and I wondered in the back of my mind, the only portion that still had the smallest grip on rational thought, how long the wolf could keep up the brutal pace. He was lupine, but even a wolf couldn’t run forever. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. We stopped at a church, old but lovingly maintained.
“A house of God. Appropriate,” Goodfellow murmured. “He always considered himself one of the first.”
He’d killed the lights a block down when he’d seen Flay begin to slow. The van rolled quietly to a stop and the panting wolf flowed inside to deposit a grinning three-year-old into a seat. “Again!” Slay demanded, bouncing on the cushion. “Again!” Someone, at least, had enjoyed the headlong rush.
Flay’s eyes widened to show the whites as he saw the now cantaloupe-sized whirlpool of gray light behind me and he put himself between it and his son. “Inside church. Puck, brother, girl. Others.”
“What others?” Promise had discarded her cloak and stepped out as a singular figure of black silk and cold steel.
“Same. Revenant. Vodyanoi. Many.” He shifted uneasily on splayed feet as I passed him on my way to the street. The gateway followed me, a luminous shadow. “I not go.”
I hadn’t expected him to. He had his family to protect now. He had his life back, and I hadn’t anticipated his risking it again. I nodded in acknowledgment. “Keep the engine running. Just in case.”
Unease and impatience twisted his face as his features slid into something closer to human, but he nodded. “Fifteen minutes. Then we go.”
It was a fair offer and I took it. I turned and headed toward the church, making no effort to hide. How the hell could you begin to hide a rip in reality itself as it trailed behind you? And it was still there. Hungry, impatient, and growing inch by slow inch no matter how I tried to rein in the process. It was pulling at me harder now, every minute. I didn’t have much longer. “Heel,” I murmured under my breath. “That’s a good boy.”
Robin came up beside me, giving me a little more personal space than usual. “I say we forget splitting up,” he suggested. “
It didn’t precisely net us many gains last time. Let’s go in the front, the three of us, and take whatever comes. It would be the last thing Hob expects. Brute force over cunning.”
“I don’t have a problem with that.” I’d taken out the Eagle as we walked. Reaching the bottom of the church stairs, I aimed at the front set of double doors and fired . . . all ten rounds. It was impressive, to say the least. Sheer destruction, how can that not do a vengeful heart good? Running up the stairs through the sharply acrid smell and smoke, I kicked aside what remained of the doors and entered the church. I didn’t wait to see if Goodfellow and Promise were behind me. Truthfully, it wouldn’t have mattered either way.
I holstered the gun and concentrated on the weapon in my other hand, Niko’s katana. It knew me. Inanimate object or not, it knew me. I swung it double-handed and sliced through the neck of the first revenant with quicksilver ease. Another loathsome jumble of spidery arms and legs began to leap for me only to reverse and tumble away at the sight of the gateway at my back. “Auphe,” it hissed, crouching on its haunches.
“Yeah,” I snarled. “Auphe. Tell all your little friends.”
It recoiled and scuttled away. Too bad I hadn’t been hauling my badge of dishonor around at the club. It could’ve saved me some work. Several more revenants plunged from between the pews and followed the first. The only illumination was candlelight and it dappled the wet flesh as they rippled out of sight. The vodyanoi weren’t so easily impressed. They dealt very little with the dry world, rarely creeping from their rivers. They had knowledge of the Auphe, but to them it was mostly rumors. Legends. It wasn’t an intimate acquaintance.