Rob Thurman - Deathwish

“So it’s over.” Reliving it all hadn’t been as tough as I’d imagined. Skipping one part of it had certainly made it easier. I’d managed it so thoroughly I kept half forgetting where I’d lost my dirks. Not the eye sockets of an Auphe, nope, and it was the end of the Auphe. How could that be bad? Forget it and go on.

I had a flash of a thought that the real end of them might not come until I was gone, but what we’d done the night before . . . it was good enough. I’d made the decision not to rain on my own parade, and I was sticking with it.

Despite Nik’s order from last night, I had a beer. Last night was last night and today was seventeen hours later. That was a long time—in my book anyway. I nursed it, though, as it was the single one I tended to allow myself. Sophia had been the type of alcoholic that would’ve needed a 112 step program. It didn’t pay to tempt fate.

“Thank Zeus, it’s about damn time.” Robin was working on a bottle of wine, fancy glass and all. “The Vigil came through, eh? I suppose Samuel is as remorseful as he says he is.”

“Sorry is sorry, but I think he probably considers thirty Uzi-armed Vigil and a nuke cleans the slate.” I took another swallow of beer.

“Nuclear weapons.” He shook his head and swirled the wine in his glass. “I’m not sure humans are too far from the Auphe in some ways.”

Being both, I wasn’t much in the position to make that call. “How was the orgy?” I asked instead.

“Actually, I picked up Salome and spent quality time with the shriveled feline.” He went on defensively, “I didn’t want her snacking on the neighbors.”

Sure. That was the reason. I grinned into my beer.

Halfway through my beer, Ishiah came up to the table. He hadn’t said a word when I’d come through the door. He’d looked at me briefly, then went back to serving a customer. It wasn’t an engraved invitation or anything, but I took it to mean I wasn’t banned. He didn’t mention Cambriel when I went up for my beer. I’m not sure he ever would. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. Cambriel deserved better. To be remembered. But to think of him was to think of his severed head dangling from the hand of an Auphe, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t go there, knowing if it weren’t for me he’d still be alive.

I finished my beer in several swallows, nursing it be damned, but the memory didn’t disappear as easily as the alcohol did.

“So,” Ishiah said to Robin, “you survived the Auphe.”

“I did,” Robin said smugly, as if he’d actually been there. But I’d give him credit this time. It might not be lying, bragging, or his enormous ego. He could be referring to the entire crappy experience instead of only last night. “I was beyond brave, an unparalleled fighter, a morale booster with no equal.”

“And he didn’t get laid once,” I added, which seemed the bigger feat to me.

Ishiah raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You’re saying after all these years you’re finally listening to me?”

“Listen? To you?” Robin scoffed. “If I listened to you and your thousands of years of bitching, I’d be a monk. A poorly dressed, destitute, horrifically celibate monk.”

“I simply wanted you to behave like a halfway rational creature,” Ishiah retorted.

Oh, this was going to be good. I leaned back out of the way.

“ Behave ? Oh no, what you wanted is for me to cut back on the drinking, the lying, the stealing, the conning, and the whoring about. The very things that make me the magnificent specimen I am today,” Robin said indignantly.

“Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t have ended up on the verge of being killed by descendants of former worshippers,” Ishiah pointed out, brutal but true.

Robin sputtered, “Please. As if you weren’t chased over sand dunes by a band of Israelites desperate for a holy souvenir. They plucked you like a chicken. You looked like a mangy pigeon when I found you.”

Looking less like Niko by the second, because where Niko’s anger was cold, Ishiah’s was red-hot, Ishiah said dangerously, “I did not .”

Robin countered spitefully, “They could’ve barbecued those things and served them up in a sports bar.”

Oh yeah. This was good, all right. And I didn’t even have to pay for a ticket.

They were leaning over the table, almost nose to nose, eyes narrowed to slits, faces flushed with rage. Robin huffed out a breath and said between gritted teeth, “Are you coming back to my place or not?”

Ishiah growled, “No, we’re going to mine. It’s closer.” He tossed me the apron. “Close up the bar tonight. I won’t be back.”

I caught it, surprised. That wasn’t the way I’d thought it would go at all. Then again . . .

Niko and Ishiah resembled each other. It’d taken me a while to notice, but it was true. Dark blond to light. Dark skin to pale. Gray eyes to blue-gray, but still, they could’ve been brothers. They looked a lot more like each other than Nik and I did.

I’d always thought Robin had a thing for Niko, but now it seemed more likely that Niko had reminded him of someone else. Although he hadn’t been a substitute—from Robin’s hounding, it had definitely been a true attraction, but now . . . the truth came out. Niko would be one relieved son of a bitch.

And as soon as I closed up the bar, Robin and Ishiah wouldn’t be the only ones getting some.

I hoped.

The New Jersey location Promise and Cherish had chosen was a house much more elaborate than Rafferty’s had been. Promise was like Robin, although she would hate to admit it—she liked the luxuries in life. I scanned the arched ceilings and doorways and gave an appreciative murmur, although truthfully between spartan and opulent, I would choose spartan. But one tried stalling techniques when he could. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

Promise had been relieved we’d survived the Auphe and furious we had not let her participate in the plan. But as it had once started with my brother and me, it had ended with my brother and me. It was the way it should have been. The way it was.

“You could have died,” she snapped.

We could’ve worse than died, and what had happened to Cal . . . one more thing I hadn’t shared with her. The slippery slope, but it was what we had, and as I’d told Cal, I’d have to see if good enough was good enough. What had happened to my brother I wasn’t sharing with anyone. It had been one moment brought to life by a trip he shouldn’t have had to ever make again, and an Auphe who refused to die with the others. He had come back, though—his mind somewhat slower than his body, but he had come back. No one else would’ve had the will—the absolute stubborn hardheaded will. No wonder I could never get him to pick up his dirty clothes.

“Died,” she repeated.

We could’ve died anytime in the past week, but I thought it wiser not to bring up that point. Promise, normally cool and collected, rarely showed her temper, but when she did it was best to ride it out. Perhaps do a mantra or two during the experience. Focus on the lotus . . . an expression of beauty from the dull mud that spawned it. Trace the soft colors of its petals. Regard the glitter of its inner jewel. Or, as a change of pace, imagine the precise sweep of the blade required to disembowel a revenant. The silver shimmer . . .

I realized several seconds of silence had reigned, and I refocused to see fangs bared and her eyes, black as night, on me. “Are you listening, Niko, because I would hate to think that you are ignoring me.”

Buddha had no teachings I knew of on domestic disputes with vampire partners, so I went with silence and a raised eyebrow. Cherish reclined nearby on a black silk couch, and laughed. “Where is the celebrated strategist now?”