Rob Thurman - Blackout

If she was irritated, it was because she’d been left in the dark, and not the kind vampires cared for either. “You don’t know. He didn’t tell you.” Across the massive foyer, Niko, fidgeting himself, gave a careful smooth to the front of his own tux. Two Zen peas in a Zen pod.

“Tell me what?”

Her eyes, violet before, were now dark purple with concern. They were the same color as the dress she wore that fell to the floor, the flash of the same color reflected in the black pearls wrapped around her neck. Such an … I don’t know … elegant woman. Not for my kind, but for Niko, yes. He deserved her, and I didn’t want to hurt her, but I needed to know. If I was wrong, many more people than Promise would get hurt. “You didn’t know he started drugging me a few days ago? With the Nepenthe venom? Trying to keep all my old memories gone for good? He’s been trying to keep me … shit, happy, I guess.”

“Without telling you? No. He wouldn’t do that,” she denied, her head shaking in the negative instantly. “Niko’s honesty is … insurmountable. Trust me. I lied to him once and that was all but the end of us.”

I came close to remembering that too, but it wasn’t important, not now. “And what would he tell me, Promise? What reason would he give me for getting me to take the drug voluntarily? What’s the truth he doesn’t want me to know?”

She looked away for a moment, then back and remained silent. Goodfellow and Ishiah had been willing to give me clues, but she was completely loyal to Niko. I didn’t mind. In fact, I preferred it.

“I don’t want to ask you this,” I continued, “particularly since I only half remember knowing you, but I have to. It’s coming back, all of it—mainly because Niko is a shade less smart than he thinks he is at drugging people and because part of me has been breaking through all along, even when drugged. But that’s a small part.” I took her hand. It was warm and why wouldn’t it have been? Vampires were alive, not dead. Born, not made. I remembered. I turned it over and traced the lifeline. It didn’t look any different from mine. “Niko has taken care of me my entire life, from diaper one.” I quirked my lips. “And I’ll always do the same for him, but I can do that better the way I was before.” The way I was close to being now. “I know that. But what I need to know is, in the end, is it worth it? Or am I like your daughter was? Am I beyond redemption? If I try to save Nik, will I end up doing … things? Bad things? Things he couldn’t live with?” Things he couldn’t let me live with. “You raised a monster, Promise. You know one when you see one.” I looked at Niko again. “Am I a monster worth its life because I can save my brother’s? Or am I just a monster—period?”

She took her hand from mine, cupped my cheek, and as Niko had been constantly doing to himself for me, she threw me under the bus for him. It was symmetry. “You do whatever needs to be done to save Niko. You do that, Caliban. You do anything. Do you hear me?”

In a way, it was the answer I’d been looking for, but not the reassurance I’d wanted. That was life. With the good came the bad. It was all about balance.

I knew she loved him, though, which made it better. She loved him more than she loved anything or anyone. Good for him. Good for them both. I held out my arm. “Is this how they do it? I’ve seen it on TV.”

She slid her hand into the crook of my elbow, already having second thoughts. “Cal, I shouldn’t have… .”

“I won’t tell him.” If I did, that would indeed be the end of them. It wouldn’t be very brotherly, and it wouldn’t be right. “What’s to tell? With my memory?” I grinned. “You’re good for him, Promise. Better than I’ll ever be. We were just talking about you adopting a mummy cat. That’s all.”

“A what? A mummy …” Goodfellow walked up in time to hear her confused remark.

“Ah, good. I’ll pick out a nice one for you. Two would probably be better. To keep each other company, less bored, less inclined to kill your neighbors. Would you prefer male or female? Not that it matters. Death and mummification are the ultimate spay and neuter program. I’ll have someone drop them off at your place tomorrow, should we survive tonight.”

Niko took Promise’s other arm and led her away from the dead-cat discussion. Since I’d come back, he hadn’t had much time with her and I knew why. He’d expected honesty from her. How could he then be with her when he was being anything but honest even to himself?

A conscience … More and more they seemed a pain in the ass.

Goodfellow, Ishiah, and I watched them go, dark blond head bent to the brown/blond one. “She looks like a tiger with that hair,” I mused.

“And she’ll eat you like a tiger if you piss her off onefifth as much as you’ve pissed me off,” Robin growled.

I gave him a narrow-eyed glance and an equally narrow smile. “Do you really want to play, puck? I can make the time.”

Surprise flashed behind his eyes and as quickly was gone. Pucks were much better than my brother at playing a part, and he didn’t want to have to tell Niko the show was over. That he gladly would let me do. “You’re back then?”

My smile—only half of what I’d pretended it was, I hoped—widened. “About seventy, seventy-five percent.” I hooked an arm around his neck and squeezed, messing up his tie and collar mostly on purpose. “I missed remembering you, you horny bastard. Besides, think about it. Would a ‘good’ Cal dump eleven dead cats in your apartment? Or turn Wahanket into a dust pile that could double as an ant condo?”

“ Good Cal tried to stab me with a fork,” Robin pointed out as he tried to straighten his tie, but he didn’t shake off my arm. Before Nik and I had shown up, and before Ishiah had come around to admit his own stupidity, Robin hadn’t had many friends—any friends. There were prejudiced bastards even among the supernatural kind. Tricksters weren’t favorites by any means.

“Good Cal thought you were a monster,” I reminded him. “Now I know what a monster is.”

“Ammut?” Ishiah standing beside us murmured, and although I couldn’t see the wings, I heard them rustle.

“Her too.” But she wasn’t the only one. I let go of Goodfellow and straightened my suit jacket to feel the weight of my weapons in place. I smelled her all right. She was here, and my grin now? I didn’t think there was a word for it. Not in these modern days. Not anymore. The first to invent, create, conceive. The first to smile for all the wrong reasons.

“Come on, guys,” I said. “Let’s go kick some Egyptian ass.”

The penthouse party was the same as all penthouse parties—this being my second, which made me an expert. It was fancy; everyone was rich and snooty; it had great views of the Manhattan skyline; there was food … absolutely fantastic food. I’d taken over a platter of bacon, mushroom, and crab bits I couldn’t begin to pronounce but could eat by the bucketful, and I was hoarding the platter for myself.

“Does Niko know you’re almost you again?”

“Can you picture the invisible cross he’s dragging around on his back,” I asked, “hear the splish-splash of Pontius Pilate lathering up with hand sanitizer?”

“Yes.”

“That’d be a no then,” I snorted.

“Blasphemy,” Ishiah muttered under his breath at my exchange with Robin as a feather wafted out of nowhere to land in Goodfellow’s wineglass.

“I’m beginning to have serious doubts about this nonangel crap you peris are spouting.” Other than that comment, I went back to concentrating on the room. Ammut was here. I had the musty corpse taste of her in the back of my throat, under the bacon, but the entire room reeked of Wolves, vamps, other supers who could pass for human, and humans themselves soaked in perfume or cologne.