Rob Thurman - Deathwish

I didn’t care about Cherish’s age, and I barely heard Promise’s words.

Samuel and his colleagues had come and gone. They’d taken the cadejos with them as well as the rug that was ruined beyond repair. They hadn’t said a word other than a murmured “careful of the teeth” amongst themselves as they rolled the bodies in tarps. They were knowledgeable; Samuel hadn’t been wrong about that. He didn’t ask any questions when he arrived or when he left. He simply did the work, paying his debt.

If he thought he was done, he was mistaken. He may have helped to save Cal, but he had helped to betray him first. Seeing him made me remember things I’d sooner not. The sensation of my sword’s blade sliding into Cal’s abdomen. The absolute certainty that I was going to have to kill my brother to save his soul. That I had failed him. Knowing I chose to die with him hadn’t changed what had twisted my gut, had frozen my brain . . . the feeling of . . .

There were no words.

I, who had read so many of them in my life, had no words for it. The blade slipping through the resistance of his flesh. The blood. On me, Cal’s blood, warm and flowing. Dripping from my hands to the floor. Red with a quick patter like rain. Images and sensations; I had those. So many. But no words. Words were for defining, capturing. I didn’t want that moment defined. I only wanted it gone. Over a year later and I still just wanted it gone.

Samuel could clean up every dead body in the city if he desired. I didn’t know that it would ever be enough.

I leaned my forehead against the glass and watched the lights below, the nearly empty street. Promise’s bedroom was large, her apartment spacious, but now it felt tight and small. I wanted to be down there running. Running was like meditating. It stilled your mind, sank your thoughts in a pool of calm until there were no thoughts at all. There were only light and peace and the ground thudding beneath your feet. Clarity.

Sometimes.

It should’ve put Promise’s deception in perspective, the dark memory of my brother dying in my hands . . . by my hand. Yet somehow it didn’t.

“She didn’t know.” Hands rested on my shoulders and a warm weight leaned into me from behind. “I promise you, Niko. She didn’t.”

“I know.” But Cal didn’t. He thought it was written on his forehead. Son of a whore. Gypsy trash. Monster. All the lies Sophia had told him for fourteen years were always waiting for the opportunity to whisper: They know. They look at you and they know. Everyone knows. No one was quicker to think the worst of my brother than he himself.

But he dealt with it. He always had; he always would. He was strong. Promise knew that and she knew this wasn’t the conversation I was going to have. Not now.

“But Cal doesn’t know.” The breath at my ear was touched with regret. “I’ll have her apologize.”

“Promise,” I said coolly as I straightened. “Stop.”

When she’d asked in the past—most often among tangled sheets, I’d told her about my life, childhood, and time on the run. I told her about Sophia, amorality made flesh, a woman who’d tarnished our lives as equally as the Auphe. The reason I required absolute trust, the reason Cal thought everyone but me lied. I talked more about Cal, the things he wouldn’t have minded her knowing. She’d already inadvertently learned the worst. I told her all. From the beginning of our relationship, I had given her only the truth. And when I asked her about her past . . . I received quick snapshots. The Great Plague of London in the 1600s. How blood was hard to come by then. It was the only time she’d ever mentioned feeding. How you drank to survive and tried not to kill. “Dead cows don’t give milk, do they?” she’d said with a sadly bleak smile. Yes, you tried not to kill, but trying wasn’t always succeeding.

Ugly truth, but truth.

She told me how she had come to America following the Civil War, how vampires blended into the larger cities. Her parents were long dead, or so she’d heard. Vampires didn’t stay together long in large groups. They didn’t crave the contact of their own kind the way humans do. Nature’s way of keeping the predators from outbreeding their food source. She didn’t talk much of her lovers. The hundreds of years she’d lived, I didn’t expect to hear of every one. She hadn’t mentioned Seamus.

She did tell stories of her five human husbands. Elderly and wealthy, but she’d been fond of each one. She’d lived through the Great Plague. I didn’t blame her for wanting to be surrounded by beauty and life after that. I could understand her wanting to feel safe no matter what might arise. And if it took millions for her to feel that way, I didn’t judge. I understood and I trusted—me, who, like Cal so very rarely trusted anyone.

Cherish might have shattered more than a window tonight. I didn’t know. Not yet.

We all had our needs. Promise needed safety. I needed trust. Complete trust. No daughters swept under the rug. No lovers so close that she’d considered them uncle or father to that daughter. She had an entire family and hadn’t told me. Had us work for the vampire who’d once been her mate and hadn’t felt the need to mention it. I had always been honest with her, and it seemed now she had been anything but.

I moved from beneath her and took my sword from the bed. “It’s my watch.”

“Wait.” Regret was still there, stronger than ever, but so was temper. The ivory sheath of a nightgown rippled as she turned over to face me. Waves of hair were twisted into a loose braid for sleep, and a rainbow-chased black pearl choker was fastened around her neck. She slept in pearls. She always slept in pearls . . . even when she slept in nothing else. A slim nude form and pearls—proof that poetry could live and breathe. And keep secrets.

Like Sophia.

She took a handful of my shirt to hold me still. She was strong enough that she might succeed if I put it to the test. “You should’ve told me,” I said without compromise. Because wasn’t that who I was? Niko Leandros, who had his brother and his honor. You fell between the two or you fell outside. It sounded inflexible and it was, but Cal and I had shared that same lying, manipulative mother. We both had survived her in different ways. I doubted I could change my ways now.

“I should have but . . .” She took a deep breath. “You, Niko. You raised a good man. Despite all that he had against him, you did that with Cal. I raised a thief, one who has little care for anyone but herself. I raised a predator who was reluctant to give up drinking when the rest of us did. I raised a liar, who would say anything to get what she wanted.” Her hand released the cloth and flattened on my chest as she went on somberly, “She’s also charming and bright and loves me . . . I hope.” Her eyes clouded. “I didn’t do well. It shames me. I keep hoping she’ll mature. She was loved, and yet right and wrong are only words to her. My failure, and it’s hard to live with, much less tell.”

Cherish wasn’t so different from Goodfellow, then. But that wasn’t true. Robin did have a care. They were few and far between, but he did care for us and stood with us when we needed him. And if we needed him to stand away, he would do that as well. Cherish didn’t seem inclined to go anywhere. She feared the Auphe, but they were legend to her. She’d not ever seen one, and consequently, in her mind, this Oshossi was as much of a threat. Survival—it was pass or fail. She’d thrown herself decisively on what might be the failing side—and was dragging our chances ever further down.

I waited as she looked away and then back, eyes blacker than the night outside. “And Seamus . . . Seamus, Cherish, and me, we lived in the time of blood. We were a family of predators. We took blood wherever we found it. Sometimes we didn’t kill, but sometimes we did. Three take so much more blood to nourish than just one. I endured it. Cherish wasn’t old enough to know it was wrong, and Seamus . . . Seamus enjoyed it. I didn’t see it in him at first, but more and more he showed it. He had a passion for killing, far more than he had for his art or for me. And because of that, I left him, but not as soon as I should have. I was fond of him. Cherish and I were safer with him than alone, so I closed my eyes when I should’ve been running.”