Rob Thurman - Blackout

That was what Delilah had meant when she’d said I didn’t need to wear my cologne. I had that spray Robin had given me last year to cover up my Auphe smell from Wolf noses when I’d meet to hook up with Delilah. I hadn’t used it in a long time now. When she’d smelled me in that stairwell at her attempted massacre of our clients, she’d been smelling the mostly human me; the Auphe part of me had been on vacation—gone fishing, buried, or busy.

My best guess was the Auphe in the rest of my genes had become more or less dormant while the ones in the memory portion of my brain—if Niko had been there, he would’ve provided the medical word for that—had become hyperactive trying to repair the venom damage. All my Auphe channeled its energy to that one area. For a while, I was more human than I’d ever been in my entire life.

Or would ever be again.

The Auphe immune system wasn’t like a human one, it was far more efficient and goal-oriented, or there had been many things over my life that I wouldn’t have survived. Those were thoughts for other times though. For now, I was sticking with the original problem—Ammut and her arachnid posse.

Above the penthouse was the rooftop terrace, which was essential. Half the guests were human and taking out monsters was a private thing unless we wanted a shitload of humans convinced they’d been slipped some illegal hallucinogenic. Or we’d have a shitload of dead humans because the Wolves and vamps were certain to make sure the humans wouldn’t be spreading the news of the supernatural—who were natural and not super at all. Either way, shit was involved and it was far too much trouble. That was why we had the terrace… . It was prime cage-fighting territory, minus the cage, with the addition of the possibility of falling to a splattery death on the sidewalk far below.

Eh. Details.

Speaking of Wolves and vamps, we were quickly surrounded by them. One Wolf made a move on my platter of bacon goodies. I growled. He snapped, and I snapped back. He was in completely human form, a high breed—no All Wolf for him—and I looked as human as anyone else, but no matter how human we both looked, snapping at each other like hungry bears over a platter of hors d’oeuvres drew a bit of attention.

“Stop it. Be good. No treats for you tonight,” Goodfellow hissed at the two of us. The Wolf had brown hair pulled back into a short ponytail and ice blue eyes. Average, ordinary, if not for the eyes. If you saw past the unusually pale eyes and smelled what lay beneath, then you’d know much more. He was an Alpha, a big and bad one. “We are wolves amidst the sheep, but the sheep rule this world now. Don’t forget it,” the puck warned.

The vamps, including Promise, who was standing with Niko, looked resigned at the food-aggressive behavior as they gathered around us. Puppies, always piddling on the carpet, always making a mess, always wanting attention. In the spirit of unity, I let the Wolf take a handful off my platter. “Yeah, like you fang manglers never fought over food … while it was still kicking and screaming,” I said with scorn to the other vamps around us. At least the Wolves were honest about it. You’d think the vamps never ordered their steak rare, much less had eaten a person in the old days. “All the dental bonding and porcelain veneers in the world can’t cover up how you used to get your food in the old days.”

Niko lost all expression, not that he usually had much to lose. He knew something was up, which meant he also knew my Nepenthe venom blood levels were down. But there was no chocolate-mint toothpaste here and that meant my brother was up the creek without a toothbrush, a spider, or a hope. I grinned at him, then handed off the platter to my new Wolf friend and opened my Armani-Brioni some kind of hyperexpensive tux jacket to reveal the black T-shirt beneath: IF BEING A DICK IS WRONG … I KNOW I’M NOT RIGHT.

The Wolf growled again when he caught sight of it. “Lighten up, Fido,” I said. “I gave you some Snausages, so shut your Alpo-hole.”

“Ammut is here,” Niko added, stepping forward with a look for everyone except me. “We will kill her and you will pay us the other portion of our fee. If you feel this is a problem, take it out of the Lupa’s earnings. They’re responsible for at least half of this mess.” Not that they were, but if they were going to claim to be, then why not make them cough up the price? “If you don’t exert some domination soon, they’ll be the only ones of you left to make any messes at all.”

Promise had those pristine, perfectly manicured violet nails of hers through the tux of what looked like the lead vampire, a small, unassuming bald man with the blackest, most empty eyes I’d seen. I think her nails went through skin and flesh as well, because there was a pained flicker at the corner of his mouth. “We are civilized now,” she said in a voice that was silk over titanium. “We cooperate with others. We pay our debts. We are beings of reason, not of bloodlust. Do not make me remind each and every one of you why I was the sole vampire to survive the Black Death without being burned alive. Show the Leandros brothers and their companions the respect they are due and perhaps no more of us need perish.” She stepped back, already with a small strip of silver gray cloth to wipe the blood from her nails. She tucked it into the bald vampire’s jacket. “I take blood from no one now. Not even the likes of you.”

A hand grabbed my arm and yanked me into motion. “Let’s do a circuit of the room and see if you’re any closer to finding Ammut’s scent than while standing about stuffing your face with all the work ethic of a minimum-wage slushie operator,” Niko ordered.

“Do you know how hard it is to make the perfect slush—” I didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. It was for the best.

“You’re starting to remember, aren’t you?” he demanded in an undertone. “What you did to Wahanket. The cats. Resorting to violence over bacon, a bigger giveaway than all the others. It’s coming back.”

I kept my eyes focused on every woman we passed. Ammut was an Egyptian legend, but with those bronze scales and the myth of a lion’s mane, I had her pinned as a blonde. “Yep. Just like you said it would. You said it would wear off and you were right.” The grip on my arm tightened. It felt like the grasp of denial at odds with one of hope, and the double-strength grasp was beginning to hurt.

How did I read emotions from a grip, from the clench of bone, and the ripple of muscle? I’d been hit a damn lot in this job. You picked things up. I could close my eyes and tell you what kind of monster had punched me in the face and if it was because he wanted to eat me, kill me for fun, or was showing off for his girlfriend. I’d been educated in the ways. “I know … No, I remember how much you love being right,” I said, but not rubbing it in too much. After all, he was always right—almost. He’d find out soon enough that this “almost” was one goddamn big one he might never live down. “I also know if you don’t ease up, I won’t be able to use this arm to shoot anything, much less an Egyptian fake goddess. And, most important of all, bacon is worth fighting over.”

He released me. “I suppose I didn’t expect that it would happen this … quickly. I thought that flash with Delilah at the brownstone was a fluke.”

“Right now, it doesn’t much matter. When I’m all the way back, we’ll have a party. Celebrate my homecoming and Ammut’s going. Oh shit, there she is.” I’d been wrong. She did appear Egyptian and she was a goddess. By one of the long stretches of windows, she stood with a champagne glass in hand. She was alone, a long fall of black hair rippling in waves to the middle of her back. Her skin was dark, but only a shade darker than Niko’s, her lips full and painted a dark red-bronze, and her eyes as black as her hair. Her dress was familiar; green-andgold scales that molded her from a high neck to an inch or so above the floor. She knew it was a trap—anyone with one brain cell would—but she was confident that we would fail and she’d scarf us up the same as those bacon appetizers. I couldn’t blame her. We hadn’t been much of a challenge earlier, and bacon … Damn, it was bacon. How could you not risk a little to get a pound of that for breakfast?