Rob Thurman - Roadkill

His other hand rested on the side of my head. “And you went and built another gate. After I practically rewired you. Now not only are you bleeding out, but your blood pressure is all but liquefying your brain and making you bleed out even faster while your temperature would blow up a thermometer.”

“Like… Suyolak.” I closed my eyes and curled my lips. “Boom.”

“Boom all right.” Robin was on my other side now. All the Ördögs were gone. When their master had died, they’d given one last shriek that shook the trees left standing and had poured away into the darkness. “Please endeavor not to get drunk and try that as a party trick. I don’t wish to be a five- hundred-piece puzzle with four hundred ninety-seven pieces missing. I would greatly appreciate the restraint. But if you must, there is one piece I wish you to promise to leave in place. I believe you know the one I refer to. That would be the glory that is…”

“Mercy killing.” I shaped the words to Rafferty, to Niko… anyone who could get the job done. My head hurt, I couldn’t breathe, and I was racked with cold from the fever. And through all that, Robin’s voice was still able to cut like a knife. It was comforting. Locations change, enemies change, even my wiring changed, but Goodfellow, his mouth would never change.

There was a snort in the darkness. “Like you deserve a mercy killing. Not today. Sorry about your luck,” Rafferty sniped. Then the heat that flared in his hand on my chest arced through me to the one on my head. I didn’t know if I was glowing like Suyolak had when my gate had gobbled him up, but I felt as if I was. I felt like the sun… hot, intense, and far up in the sky. Floating. Not that the sun floated, but I did. And the air that I floated in flowed in and out of my lungs. The pain was gone too, as were the headache and fever. Rafferty had given me that last gate for free.

I opened my eyes and saw the blackness of Suyolak shadowed behind Rafferty’s eyes. “It’s good, isn’t it?” I said knowingly. “Being bad. Ironic, huh?” I coughed and was pushed up in time for the residual blood to spray on my jeans.

“He’s in there. In you.” Niko reached over and almost touched the healer’s forehead, but at the last minute decided against it. “You were supposed to cure the world by killing him.”

“Instead you ate him.” There was blood all over my shirt and, black cotton or not, the color wasn’t helping. I felt the warm stickiness of it everywhere. I peeled it off over my head, then wrapped my no- longer wolf-gnawed arm-Rafferty had healed that too-around Niko’s shoulder and we were up. I got my “living legs” under me again. “Did he taste good?” I asked as if I genuinely wanted to know. And, darkly… dreadfully, I did.

“I can’t imagine that he did. Death, any death, is not a taste anyone should want, crave, or have.” Robin hadn’t lowered his sword. “You were to be the cure, not the replacement.”

“It’s for Catcher. With what I took from that murderous bastard I can bring Catcher back. It’s worth it, and when I’m done, I’ll get rid of the rest of Suyolak. And that’s the way it’s going to fucking be, got it?” Rafferty snapped, a wolf snap-one with flashing teeth.

He started to stand until I caught him by the arm and caught him quickly-a little too quickly. I’d noticed that. I kept getting quicker and quicker. “Could you-” I ducked my head to swallow the growl that wanted out, but the Auphe in me could growl all it wanted. On this, I ruled. I pulled Rafferty closer and asked my question close to his ear-where no one could hear if the answer was no. So no one could feel sorry for me, because that’s the last damn thing I wanted.

He considered my request. “Yeah, maybe. I can’t guarantee they’ll stay that way, but I’ll try.” His hand came up to cover my eyes for a second. One second. He had Suyolak in him all right, a supernatural battery that could level this entire park if that’s what Rafferty wanted.

Dropping his hand, he leaned in for a look and grunted. “Good as new, but, like I said, that could change.” They were gray again then, no russet or scarlet marring them-but pure gray, the same gray Niko and I had shared all our lives. If someone looked at us, it was the only sign they would see that we were related. I wanted to keep that. I couldn’t keep the happy, I couldn’t keep the human, but I could keep part of my brother. In the end, that made this a win.

Rafferty had risen immediately after changing my eyes back. He was scanning the area for what it was that he wanted to keep. I hoped he was as lucky as I’d turned out to be. “Catcher? Catch?” He caught sight of the one red Wolf, flanked by a white one, in the middle of more dead Wolves. I’d had the feeling that Delilah wouldn’t let there be any survivors. She and the others or just the others had killed Cabal, and Delilah had put down the rest of them. She was born a killer, born a queen, and now she had crowned herself both. I’d known, whichever way that it went, she wasn’t going to lose. She never did.

Catcher lifted his head, although I didn’t know if he understood his name or not. He might have recognized the scent of his cousin; the call of the same whispering in his brain. He catapulted toward Rafferty, leaping over bodies, making a sound I couldn’t identify except for “happy wolf” roo roo. His fur was even more red under the moon and Delilah moving leisurely in his wake was now a nude human statue carved from amber, her white hair now the color of fire.

Rafferty caught the boisterous Wolf that hit him, nearly bowling him over. “Catch. Concentrate. Come back, okay? I need you. I need you now.”

Standing on his back legs with his front hooked over Rafferty’s shoulders, Catcher snuffled, his eyes blinked, confused, and he bared his teeth. But then he butted his head against his cousin’s chest and left it there for several minutes. The first time that Goodfellow or I tried to say something, Niko knowing better not to, the healer glared us into silence. Finally Catcher looked up, face-to-face, eye to eye. It didn’t take a Wolf to see it or a healer. Anyone could see the intelligence in those eyes. Smart guy, he was a smart guy. He knew the scientific names of orchids, had a master’s degree in biology, had gone to college, bought a car, had girlfriends, went on spring break, wanted to save the planet. Hogger of fries and Twinkies, he was blazing with intelligence and he was trapped. No one could fix me, but to see his cousin fix him, that would make things a little better, a little brighter.

Rafferty smiled. It wasn’t much of one, the faintest movement of his lips, but it was the first I’d seen out of him. It counted. “Okay, Cuz. You’re coming home.” He rested a hand on each side of Catcher’s head, his thumbs curving under the Wolf’s eyes, the rest of his fingers cupping the round fur-covered head. I didn’t see the energy that passed from Rafferty, but I felt it in the air. At first it was warm… the warmth I’d felt when he’d healed me. I touched the bullet hole in my chest that looked as if it had been healed for years; warm, comforting, right.

But then it wasn’t the same anymore. When Catcher didn’t change, Rafferty did and what was left of Suyolak came out. This power wasn’t the heat and the sun that had coursed through me. This was cold and black. You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it. Catcher felt it too. He snarled, thrashed, and ripped his head out of Rafferty’s grip. “ No ,” Rafferty protested. “Catcher, I’m getting somewhere. I know it.” He reached out again and Catcher snapped at him, fastened on to his arm, and drew blood. The right- in-his-head Catcher tore a chunk out of his cousin’s arm and looked ready to do worse.