Rob Thurman - Deathwish

Goodfellow frowned, “The pucks?”

“No, the rich assholes with money to burn,” I said. “He’s probably staying at some fancy hotel if he’s not in the park. Nobody knows the room service in the city like you do.”

He smiled in fond memory. “The Once and Future King, that is I. If the food is worthy of eating and the bed of breaking, then I have ruled there. I’ll make some inquiries.”

Cherish looked surprised we were still considering helping her. She had finally managed to put herself in Promise’s place and seen the picture wasn’t one you wanted hanging on your refrigerator. Not the slightest bit bright, pretty, or optimistic. No rainbows or kittens—not one damn puffy cloud or shining yellow sun in sight.

But while it was nice she didn’t want to get her mother killed, it didn’t much matter. Promise was her mother. I’d heard that makes a difference. Maternal instinct. I’d read about it in a book once. Could’ve been a fairy tale for all that it related to me and Nik, but with normal people—and vampires—I guess it did exist. Promise was sucked into Cherish’s problems. She’d stood firm earlier, knowing that the Auphe were worse than anything Cherish faced. And they were, but you didn’t have to face the Auphe to die. Lesser things can kill you. The cadejos were one thing. Now there were ccoas and Oshossi, who, like the Auphe, wasn’t ever going to give up. Cherish was up to her neck in it, no doubt about it.

And so were we . . . times two.

But there was Promise, reclaiming Cherish’s hand with a mixture of determination and resignation, and Niko, who was looking at me with a bemused quirk of his lips. Promise wasn’t ready to give up on Cherish, and Niko wasn’t ready to give up on Promise. That could only mean one thing. I sighed, went over to the couch, swiped the remote from the chupa, and started surfing for porn.

It was going to be a long night.

I woke up to the low mumble of the TV and a light touch on my skin. I reacted instantly. Promise’s hand caught the heel of mine before it hit her nose and rammed shards of bone into her brain. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Caliban.” With one hand she put aside the remote she had retrieved from my sleep-loosened fingers, and with the other she squeezed my hand. “It’s your watch.”

I pulled free from her grip, yawned, and ran a hand through tousled hair. “Yeah? Okay.” I yawned one last time. “Sorry about trying to kill you. I’m not a morning person.”

It was the plus side of not knowing any normal people. They could handle it. Although I didn’t usually come out of sleep in a homicidal flurry. But when the Auphe were around or I had a nightmare or I was running on fumes, instincts were difficult to hold back. Hard to explain to your average-Joe roommate why you crushed his larynx when he snuck in your room to borrow your jacket.

“So I’ve heard.” She watched as I sat up and pulled my hair back into a ponytail with a holder I took from my jean pocket. “It’s almost morning. I don’t believe Oshossi will be coming. Not yet. Maybe when the night comes again.”

“Can’t wait,” I grunted. “I hate to say it, Promise, but your daughter is almost as much trouble as the Auphe.” Actually, I didn’t hate to say it. It was true. No, I didn’t mind saying it one damn bit, not when that trouble was one more burden Nik didn’t need right now. I cared about Nik, I cared about Robin, I even cared about Promise, although I trusted her a whole lot less now. But Cherish? Her I didn’t have room for.

“I know. She’s nearly as much trouble to me as you are to Niko.” The smile was gentle, but it cut with the best of any of my knives. “But we both love you all the same.”

Damn it. Promise was so smart too.

“If you start saying things like that, being a liar will be the least of your problems,” I said matter-of-factly.

I wasn’t pissed that she’d said it. It was true. I hadn’t asked to be born, much less born a freak, and I hadn’t asked for the Auphe to first use me, then to try to kill me and everyone around me, and now want me as a sire to renew their goddamn race. No, I hadn’t asked for any of that on my Christmas list, but I’d gotten it anyway. And because I had, so had Nik. I was the very worst kind of trouble to him—I knew it. But I couldn’t tell him that, because he wouldn’t listen. No one else could tell him either, especially Promise—because he would listen then. And he’d be extremely unhappy with what he heard.

Niko was the most practical, grounded person in the goddamn world. Self-delusion wasn’t something he gave in to, but he did have one huge-ass blind spot. Me. He knew me, faults and all, better than I knew myself, but he didn’t know—refused to believe—he’d be better off without me. And pity the person who suggested it, even if the person was Promise.

He wouldn’t let me go, but he might turn Promise loose. If she pushed it. She had pushed me once before and had sworn never to again. She had one lie on board now, a big one. Add betrayal to that and it would sink her—permanently; it didn’t matter if she was telling the truth. If Nik had the faintest suspicion she might betray me for his own good, they would be over and done with just that fast.

She flushed, then the color faded along with the anger as she backed down. “I know she brought it on herself,” she said solemnly, “but she is my daughter. I don’t want to hear the truth about her any more than Niko wants to hear it about you. Even if it is a different truth.”

She was right. I’d been an ass, just as I always was an ass. This was her family and you didn’t get to talk shit about family unless it was your own. “Yeah, I get that. Sorry.” I held out a hand. Surprised, she took it, and I pulled her a few steps closer to me as the gray light behind her shimmered then blinked out of existence. Like a popped soap bubble, the gate was gone. The gate that had led to a very bad place. Tumulus. Auphe home. Auphe hell.

One push . . .

I hadn’t been pissed, not really. She’d only said the truth, and what was the point at being pissed at that, right? I didn’t care if that truth reminded me I was a freak. I knew I was a freak, a thing, a monster—one even acceptable to the Auphe now. Sometimes I’d forget, let Niko convince me differently, but deep down, that knowledge was always there. And in that deep is where gates are made.

It had been there a split second before I saw it. I’d made it, and I hadn’t even tried. I hadn’t even known . . .

One push.

Holy fuck.

I woke up to the sound of Cal vomiting. I pulled on my shirt and was in the hall in seconds. Robin, Cherish, and that Xolo creature were sleeping in the upper part of the two-story loft. I’d taken Seamus’s room, while Cal had the couch and Promise first watch. Now Promise stood outside the closed bathroom door, looking bewildered and not a little worried.

“I woke him for his watch. He was fine. We talked . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, setting a hand against the wall beside the door. “And then he said he was sick.” Truly confused, she shook her head. “Humans. You get sick. Does he need a doctor?”

Humans got sick, but Cal had only once—when he was small. At the time, I’d thought it was stomach flu, but as time passed more and more I was beginning to think he’d drunk something toxic while I wasn’t watching him closely enough. A lethal dose of Sophia’s whiskey, perhaps—something that would’ve killed a completely human child, because he’d never been sick before or again. An advanced immune system; the only good thing to ever come out of an Auphe genetic inheritance.