Rob Thurman - Deathwish

Yeah, I’ll bet the Vigil was watching—or what was left of them. “He still sucks,” I mumbled. I tried to get my hands under me to push up. The dizziness was sharp, my muscles like spaghetti, and I nearly fell, but Nik braced me with one hand behind my back. My legs weren’t cooperating yet. “I think I’m going to puke.” I closed my eyes. “Or die. Or both.” A hand grasped my face and shook it carefully until my eyes opened. Niko looked into them. Apparently, what he saw satisfied him and he exhaled with more emotion than he usually let show. “I think you’ll recover, wet pants and all.”

I looked down automatically and scowled at perfectly dry jeans. “I repeat, you suck.”

“So you keep saying. Do you remember anything?” he asked, pulling my face back up to get my eyes on his. “You acted like you remembered something. From before.”

“Before” meant only one thing with us. When the Auphe had me for two years. I frowned and for a second . . . I had known something when I took out the Auphe. Remembered something, hadn’t I? To kill it like I had, I would’ve had to, because that wasn’t me. I was good at killing, but not like that. Not that fast, not that hungry to see death. I held my breath, scared shitless, that I did remember. That the flood-gates would open and wash me away. But it didn’t. My head hurt and felt weirdly empty and dark, but no lost memories lurked there. At least not anymore. “No.” I slumped slightly in relief. “Not a damn thing.” I looked over to see five remaining Vigil, not counting Samuel, rolling the Auphe up in a tarp to put in one of their vans that was pulled up to the now-open door. “They took out twenty-five Vigil in, what, two seconds? Twenty-five men with machine guns. How the hell did we pull it off?”

“You said you would outthink them.” Nik helped me to my feet. “You kept your word.” He sounded as if he hadn’t expected anything different. Like I said, big brothers. They had faith in you when you’d forgotten what the word meant.

With an emotion so huge I didn’t have a name for it, I watched as the last Auphe in the world was hidden from sight. The hell with the dizziness, the bile burning my throat, my brain turned to red-hot cinders. They were gone. Jesus Christ, they were gone.

Except for one half-blood who for at least a minute had been every bit the Auphe he had killed.

“Think we got them all?” Samuel said, his still-smoking Uzi in one hand, as he steadied me as I swayed with his other hand. Niko allowed it . . . barely.

With Nik on one side, his hand now gripping my upper arm in protective support, and Samuel on the other, they managed to keep me upright as the relief faded a little. “I thought that once. I’m not sure I’ll ever think that again.” But the darkness in me told me different—they were gone.

“But for now . . .” Nik said.

“Yeah, for now.” It wasn’t a grin. It was too twisted for that, but it was satisfied, like I’d never been so satisfied in my life.

“Time for you to go,” Samuel said. “Even around here someone was bound to notice this.” The Vigil were already bagging up their own dead now. “And I think you might want to consider us even now. At least from the Vigil’s point of view, if not mine. No more favors.”

Then he let go of me, face serious. “Stay strong. Keep your head down.” Then he walked toward the doors and passed through.

Keep it down, because the Vigil had seen what I’d done. I didn’t think I could do it again, had no idea how I’d done it at all, but in their eyes, half Auphe might be too much Auphe.

As I steadied myself on my feet, the dizziness and headache were fading fast. Too fast for a human. But probably about right for the last Auphe. The Vigil might be right, saw what Niko didn’t want to. That was definitely a thought for another time. I wasn’t ruining this. Nothing could ruin this. I said, “I think I want a beer. If Ish will let me in the place. I want one beer, and I want to feel normal.”

“No bar. No beer. Convulsions and beer do not mix,” Niko retorted. “And you always were normal.”

I cocked my head. “Cyrano, seriously, you have delusions only massive drugs could explain.”

“Normal to me,” he countered firmly. “As far as I’m concerned that’s all that counts.”

As we walked outside, the dizziness disappeared as did the headache, and I was good as new in record time . . . the sort of time that definitely wasn’t normal, no matter what Nik said or thought. I ignored the feeling and felt around for more Auphe out there. None. We were clean. Suddenly, I felt good. Right. This was right.

“You going to Promise and Cherish’s new hide-out?” I asked as we kept walking. A taxi might take you here, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be cruising here for pickups. We could’ve called, but walking felt good and right too.

“No. This is our night. Tonight we go home,” he said as if there was no other choice. No hot vampire girlfriend waiting. He was right, though. It was our night. The Leandros brothers, who’d turned survival into an art form like nobody else ever had.

“Tomorrow I’ll see them. I especially want to discuss the Oshossi situation, which I’m finding more questionable as time goes on.” He looked back through the door at the dark stains of blood that were scattered across the floor. “It’s over.” There was an odd note in his voice, part satisfaction, but mainly puzzlement.

I knew he meant, How can it be over?

It was a good question, and one I could still hardly understand. One with an answer I wasn’t sure I could admit to. After all that had happened, after a lifetime of watching for, running, or fighting a nightmare, how could it really be over? It was almost unbelievable.

“You want a hug?” I drawled, just as unsure myself. “Will that bring you closure?” Normally he would’ve swatted me a good one on the back of the head, but convulsions gave me a free ride there for now. And I was bullshitting anyway, because I felt the same. Relieved, strong, yet . . . how? The Auphe were dead. They were gone. But I was like Nik. How could it be over? After all these years . . .

How could we be free?

But I knew one thing: Their whole race had nearly been destroyed in a warehouse. It was goddamn poetic we could send the last ones out in one just like it.

We went home, a place truthfully I didn’t think we’d ever see again. There was a new door and a bill taped to it courtesy of our landlord. Hell, I was relieved it wasn’t an eviction notice.

There we were with our battered couch, battered table and lamps . . . battered everything. Right then it was better than a mansion in my eyes. We didn’t have to worry about watching, waiting. We didn’t have to stay alert every second for death to come tearing out of the air. We could relax. We could sleep, not that half-assed dozing you do when something’s breathing down your neck. We could really sleep.

Neither one of us did.

We sat on the couch until the sun lightened the morning sky. Who wanted to waste the first real taste of freedom on sleep? I had my brother. I had my life. I was going to enjoy every damn second of it. All that was missing were the fish sticks and cartoons.

The sky streaked with tangerine, pink, and violet-blue, and the sun peered through the shadow-black buildings. It looked to be a damn gorgeous day.

One of the best of my life.

Robin called me that afternoon after Niko had already left to see Promise and Cherish. He wanted to meet at the bar and get the story up close and personal. We’d called everyone the night before to clue them in on the survival thing, but Goodfellow liked details. Lots and lots of details. It was the next best thing to being there. And he would’ve been there if we’d needed him to be, but I thought he was damn glad we hadn’t, especially once I mentioned the nuke. He’d taken that about as well as I had.