Rob Thurman - Deathwish

I grabbed my cynical nature and pulled it back into place. She was not family. She might have come around to care for someone other than herself, but that didn’t mean I trusted her.

My phone rang, and I walked down the hall from her. I’d brought my cell out of the room with me to call Robin. I’d called him last night, and I was hoping he’d learned something between then and now. He’d beaten me to the punch. “How’s Niko?” he asked.

“Good,” I said. “Once he gets his CT scan we’re out of here. You find out anything about Oshossi yet?”

“I did indeed,” he responded smugly. “He’s renting a brownstone in Harlem, the entire thing. He apparently likes his privacy.”

“It only makes things easier for us.” I pressed against the wall as a gurney went flying by, nurses doing CPR as they ran. It was pointless. I could smell the death on the guy.

“Easier?” Robin said incredulously. “You did say he flipped over your car last night, didn’t you? I can’t see there will be anything easy about this.”

“Hell, he might just spank us and send us on our way,” I said wearily. That hour of sleep hadn’t done me much good.

“I’m going,” Cherish said over my shoulder, having moved up behind me. “That will keep him there. After all, it’s me he wants. Anything, anyone else is incidental.”

She had a point, although he’d known her location when he’d sent the ccoas after her and his cadejos had followed her. He hadn’t been there then either. The only time he’d shown up was to warn the rest of us to back off, and that’s what it had to be because he could’ve made things much more nasty for us if he’d wanted. Maybe he wanted his animals to do his work for him to show the contempt he had for a common thief.

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. With Promise involved, we were up to our necks in it. I looked back toward Niko’s room. Not that I liked it, not one damn bit.

“You coming back to the house?” I asked Goodfellow.

“No. But I’m on the move and, no offense, I’m better off on my own. I’ve honed my escape abilities over the years.” That was probably true. The fact that he’d stuck with us for so long, confined unnaturally for any puck, yet had been ready to help when the fight came, that said something about Robin. Something better than you could say about me.

“But I am staying in those hotels worthy of my presence,” he continued. “If you need help, you’ll know where to come for me.” That was the thing about traveling. I had to know where I was going. I couldn’t open a gate blindly to a place I’d never been or seen at a distance. And Robin had filled me in on what hotels were good enough to suit him. . . . There weren’t many. I knew all their locations, passed by their doors in my years in New York. “And call me when you’re ready to take on Oshossi. Just make sure there are no cars readily available when you do.” With that he disconnected.

I shoved a hand through my hair. I needed a shower too. I’d cleaned all of Nik’s blood off me in the sink last night, scrubbing until my skin was red and stinging, but there were moments where I could still feel it. It was something that was happening way too much lately. It was easier to be irritable than thinking about that, and I turned my attention to Cherish and Xolo. “Seriously,” I asked with annoyance, “what is up with that thing? Why don’t you just get a dog? Alpo’s easier to come by than goat’s blood.”

“Some of us aren’t as fortunate as the four of you,” she said with an edge of bitterness, and turned to walk back to the room. “Sometimes pets have to do.”

Not many pets played Go Fish, but she was right. I was lucky, and I intended to stay that way. No matter what I’d thought on the beach when the Auphe had taken the eel. No matter that I thought we were going to die. No matter that I’d found out it was even worse than that. Whatever happened to me happened, but I was keeping Nik safe and alive. The real shitfest had yet to come. So let it. I wasn’t going to lose what I had, even if I lost myself.

Denial: Sometimes it was all that kept you going.

I took my shower while Promise and Cherish watched over Nik, who would’ve been offended that I thought he couldn’t take care of himself even with a concussion. They came to take him to CT while I was in the shower. Promise went with him. By the time they came back I’d gotten our weapons back from Rafferty’s, where I’d tossed them before the ambulance had come. The hospital had metal detectors at the ER entrance, but Cherish had said the front doors were clear. Good news, because walking out of this place unarmed wasn’t my idea of smart. Promise and Cherish had brought extra blades for us, but I felt more comfortable with my own and I definitely felt better with my gun—not that it had done me any good with Oshossi.

I’d shoved them in the closet. With Cherish standing outside the room door guarding it, I passed over Niko’s katana and various other blades. As he dressed, he slid them into place and put his coat on to conceal them all. His clothes were clean except for a blood-stain on the shoulder of his coat and the shirt beneath. I was still in the scrub top. My jeans were all right, though, as was my jacket. The nurse came back to say the CT had come back normal, and Nik would be discharged soon. When soon dragged into the second hour, we left. What the hell? The ID they had was false, and no one noticed as we walked out.

No one but the Auphe.

We were on the stairs when the gates opened. I didn’t have to warn anyone. They opened on the landing a floor below us. A straight shot and that’s what I took, firing several shots at the first of the seven, but it had already slid to the side as my finger pulled the trigger. Then I felt two more gates open behind us. Nine of them, four of us. That wasn’t even odds, nowhere near. One of the ones who’d appeared behind us was carrying something. At first I didn’t recognize what it was. I didn’t recognize it because I didn’t want to.

Cambriel’s head.

It was held by a handful of copper hair, the normally neat braid a tangled mess, the light brown eyes filmed. “I brought you a present, treasonous cousin. Traitorous brother. To put you in the breeding disposition. We hope it pleases you.” Scarlet eyes were bright with homicidal glee. “We made sure that he knew he died because of you.” The metal teeth flashed. “He had a long time to think of that before we finished. So very long.”

I didn’t think about that. I couldn’t. If I did, I’d make a mistake, and we couldn’t afford one now. “Mi Dios,” Cherish murmured in dread. She had called me Auphe, but now she saw the real thing. Walking, talking carnage. Even vampires feared the Auphe, were their victims like anyone else.

We hadn’t been able to handle two before between four of us with Niko in top shape and Robin with his thousands of years of experience there. I didn’t think we could take nine. I knew we couldn’t take nine.

I didn’t know if I could build a gate around all of us, four and Xolo too. That would be a big one, bigger than I’d attempted before. And a half-ass gate? I didn’t know what that would do. Take half of our bodies out of here, leave the other half? It was risk that might be as dangerous as the Auphe. So I opened one behind us, between the two Auphe and us. I concentrated. I stayed in control . . . God knew how. They were there. Right fucking there, and if we didn’t get out of there someone was going to die.

My gate was open, tarnished and greedy and big enough for two people to pass through at the same time. “Go!” I rapped. Promise didn’t hesitate. Cherish did for the briefest of moments, but then followed, dragging Xolo behind her. The Auphe watched them go, unmoving—their silver teeth showing in wider, contorted grins. Then Niko and I lunged for the gray light of the gate.