Rob Thurman - Deathwish

“Do not worry,” she assured. “He hides well, and I’m not leaving him alone. If the Auphe discover the house, he’d have no chance at all.”

Cal was studying the brownstone, along with the rest of us, from across the street. It was midnight, with snow still piled in heaps off the sidewalk. “Nik’s right. He has the kick-ass moves of soggy breakfast cereal. You could’ve put him in a kennel. He could’ve had some nummy-nums and a nice scratch behind the ear.”

“You’re not going to get over the fact he beat you in cards, are you?” Robin drawled.

“Shut up. It was a fluke, okay?” Cal was only going through the motions. He’d seen Oshossi nearly kill me, without even making much of an attempt. He was, let us say, pissed. Or homicidal. Both words worked.

“Of course. Bowser couldn’t possibly be smarter than you,” Goodfellow said smoothly. “Perhaps you can get matching flea collars.”

If Xolo understood any of the conversation, he didn’t give an indication of it, his eyes staring dreamily as they always did. He didn’t have to understand it. I did and was tiring of it. “Enough,” I said. “Let’s go. Promise, Cherish, you take the third floor. We’ll take the first. If he’s not on either one, we’ll trap him between us.”

On the other side of the street, Robin picked the lock of the door and Promise and Cherish swiftly climbed—almost floating—their way up the stone facade, Xolo clinging to Cherish’s back. We were inside in ten seconds, and I heard the breaking of glass above us. “The second floor is mine,” I said, spotting the stairs. “You two search down here.” Cal hesitated—obviously Oshossi’s scent was everywhere in the house; unable to pin it down, he followed the command.

The runner on the stairs was as richly expensive as the first floor of the house. Oshossi apparently liked to live well. I was curious to see if he would die as well.

I had my chance to find out almost immediately. He was waiting just past the top of the stairs, his machetes in hand. “Stubborn human. I spared your life last time, ineffectual prey that you are.” The pointed teeth bared. “I make no exception this time.” Long black claws sprouted from his fingertips, curving as the machetes did.

I simply appreciated the lack of snakes. Unholy waterfalls of serpents, I could do without.

I caught the first blow of his machete on my katana; the second as well. He swung each blade with equal skill and he was quick, quicker than Seamus had been, but not as quick as he thought he was. He couldn’t use his enormous strength. The metal of his weapons would shatter as easily as mine. I continued to fend off his whirlwind of blows one-handed while I drew a throwing knife. He lunged to one side, and I missed his throat, but I didn’t miss his shoulder. He narrowed his yellow eyes. “Not so ineffectual after all.” The predator teeth flashed in satisfaction. “I will enjoy this.”

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have. Killing was a fact of life, not something to take pleasure in. But this time, having lost so many times in the past days, I was going to enjoy this as well. I shouldn’t, but I was.

I already had another knife in my hand and threw it as well. He knocked it aside with one of the machetes and lunged at me with the other, swinging it in a quicksilver blur. I came under it, then dived to one side before it could change trajectory and bury itself in my back. It tore through my coat as I rolled and sliced my katana to hamstring him, but he was already across the room. I didn’t give him any breathing space, and was on him again in an instant. He was fast, a challenge, but he was no Auphe. And he might not realize it yet, but he wasn’t me either. Not blade to blade. Hand to hand would be a different story, but for now . . . he was mine. It wasn’t overconfidence. It was fact.

I couldn’t knock either machete from his grip; he was too strong for that. But I could go around them, under them, over them. I sliced his thigh and a path across his ribs as he did across mine, then I got behind him and slammed a foot in the small of his back. He hissed in disbelief, but he didn’t give up, whirling to face me before I could bury a blade in his back. I doubted he could remember the last time he had been defeated. What was good for the ego could be disastrous in battle. Humility could go a long way toward keeping one alive.

Cal had said bullets had barely staggered him. It was time to see what a blade through his heart would do. He dropped the machetes and reached for me with hands that had flipped over a car. At the same time, I’d pulled my tanto knife and was jabbing it directly toward his heart. Or rather, where I was making an educated guess his heart might be.

And that’s when they came down the stairs: Promise, Cherish, and her shadow, Xolo. Oshossi’s gold eyes widened, his hands dropped away, and he ran, throwing himself through the second-story window before my knife could hit home. There was the crash of glass, the thud of running feet, and as I moved to the window, I saw him disappear, weaving through the traffic.

A fighter so fierce, so unyielding, that he couldn’t recognize he was seconds away from death, yet the sight of two vampires sent him running. With an ego so large, I imagined he would’ve thought he could take them as well. Yet he had fled.

“He’s gone,” Cherish said bitterly. “Maldíígalo al infierno.”

Xolo’s eyes were brighter than I’d ever seen them as he eased down the stairs behind her, but they dulled just as quickly when he saw Oshossi was gone.

“We have to go,” Cal called from below. “Cops are coming.”

All the shattering of glass was bound to have drawn attention. As for staying downstairs, he knew I’d call him if I needed him in the fight. Otherwise I needed him to stay out of the way. I needed the room. If only Promise and Cherish had known that.

I put away my katana, fetched my fallen blade, and moved down the stairs to the first floor. “For the best hunter in South America, he spends quite a bit of time either escaping us or letting us go,” I mused. I gazed over my shoulder at Cherish and wondered if she was telling the truth—the entire truth. Xolo’s hazy eyes drifted over me. Then again, Cherish was guarding what seemed the most helpless of chupas, and she was Promise’s daughter. Something completely worthless couldn’t have come from Promise. Could it?

No. No, Cherish deserved a chance.

“Nik, you okay?” Cal’s hand urged me toward the door. I’d stopped, unaware. “Your head hurt?”

Slightly foggy, I shook off my Cherish thoughts for another time and then we were on the sidewalk, moving fast. “No. I’m fine.”

“I’m surprised Oshossi didn’t pick you up and catapult you through the floor,” Robin said. “Much like a Three Stooges movie.”

“We fought with blades. He’s good.” I slid the knife back in its place. “I’m better.”

“Unless he starts throwing cars around again, that makes you hot shit.” Cal was looking over his shoulder with distant eyes. He’d been doing that quite a bit lately. With the Auphe searching for us and finding us more often than not, I wasn’t surprised.

“Cal?”

He jerked his attention back to us. “Yeah, the cars. Stay away from the cars.” He said it to Cherish. “Or start running again, because we’re done. Probably in more ways than one.”

Back at Rafferty’s, Cal watched the snow from the kitchen window. It was falling again, although in scattered swirls rather than the blizzard of before. “Are you hungry?” I asked, about to fix what few groceries we’d stopped and obtained on the way home. I’d already patched up the shallow slash on my side.

He shook his head and kept watching.