Rob Thurman - Madhouse

Before Nik could take that next blow, Sawney exploded upward into the air above us, suddenly upright and with his feet at least three feet above the floor. The surge tossed Niko backward with the force of a vicious, storm-driven wave. Impaled by a sword and dagger, the legend hung suspended. Hung and gurgled. It was only when he pulled the dagger from his throat that I recognized the gurgle for what it was. Laughter.

I lunged at him as his hand, the one he had left, moved to the hilt of Niko's sword to pull it free. I reached him as the blade came loose and the wooden pallet clattered to the floor. "Pretty." Sawney held the sword high. "A fetching blade. Bonny. Bonnybonnybonny." The laughter ratcheted higher and higher into the crazed cackle of a hyena—bloody-mouthed, full-bellied, and happy. Two of a kind, because Sawney was that, through and through. When I jumped up and hit him, the laughter didn't stop. It kept on and on, all I could hear.

My tackle didn't move him, not an inch. How he managed to float there, I didn't know. Or care. I just wanted him dead, down, or both. With my arms wrapped around his torso, he and I hung suspended in the air, like flies in amber…until Niko joined us. He didn't add the weight of his body, though. He was smarter there than I had been. He used a more effective weight, that of a baseball bat. At least that's what it felt like, even from the other side of it. A massive blow was slammed across Sawney's back. It did what I hadn't. We tumbled through the air and hit the front of the van, the hood, and then the windshield. It cracked underneath us, but held—just barely. I grabbed for the sword in Sawney's hand, but he was already gone, disappearing upward into the darkness. Niko was in his place almost instantly, a black metal rod in his hand. Telescoping and two feet long, it wasn't a baseball bat. It was an illegal version of a police baton and a helluva lot more vicious than your average Louisville Slugger.

"New toy?" I asked hoarsely.

"I like to treat myself once in a while." He held out a hand and pulled me out of the hollow my impact had formed in the safety glass. I made it to my knees, considered trying for my feet, and decided against it. Bracing myself on the hood of the van, I looked up and saw nothing. Not a damn thing.

"Shit." I had his smell now, up close and personal. Ice, bone, and insanity. I hadn't known the latter had a specific scent. It did. "He's gone." It was true. The taint in the air had faded a fraction, from present to past.

"I'm not surprised." Nik slipped off the hood and away to return seconds later. "He took his arm and scythe with him."

"So much for souvenirs." My chest was beginning to hurt, the cotton wool ache migrating to a raw acid sear. It burned so savagely that I didn't want to look at the damage Sawney had left behind. Setting my teeth against the pain, I eased my way from the hood down to the floor. It wasn't graceful, but it wasn't a drunken stumble either. It didn't matter; Niko spotted the hesitation immediately.

He didn't waste time asking if I was hurt; he went straight to the heart of the matter. "Where?"

"He …" I gave a reluctant dark laugh as I laid the flat of my hand on my chest. It was too strange, too goddamn weird. And terrifying. It made it hard to find the words and harder to put them out there. "Jesus. He ate me."

Niko didn't laugh in turn. He didn't see the humor, dark or otherwise. Truthfully neither did I. With a pen flashlight from his pocket for the examination, he pushed aside my hand and spread my jacket. He didn't have to lift my shirt. I guessed the hole in it matched the one in me. Straight-shot viewing. For him … I didn't bother to look, not yet. Nik's face, calm, became even more so. It wasn't a good sign. "I suppose I get to be the pretty one now," he said lightly. Minutes later, I had a thick bulk of gauze taped to my upper chest. There wasn't much blood soaking through and that didn't necessarily seem a positive. And when Niko's hand fastened onto the back of my jacket to urge me into a walk, that didn't seem like one either.

"I'm okay," I insisted. I was. It hurt like hell, but I was all right. I certainly could walk. One foot in front of the other—it's not that difficult.

"I know," he said agreeably. Far too agreeably, and he didn't let go as we walked outside and hailed a cab.

"You lost your sword." He'd lost it only once before … to Hob. Hob the kidnapper. Hob the megalomaniac. Hob the shit-head. It wasn't a good memory. The homicidal puck had nearly killed Nik, and I'd used Nik's sword to return the favor. "You lost your sword," I said again, oddly shook-up over it. More than I should've been. After all, Sawney wasn't Hob and Niko was right here.

"I'll get it back or I'll get a new one. It doesn't matter." His grip on me tightened as my legs went a little rubbery…developed a mind of their own. Yet one more thing to add to the "not good" list.

"You know," I said with a sudden dawning of truth, "Mr. Goldstein would've kicked Lancelot's ass."

"The butcher?" He gave it the solemn consideration it deserved. "I believe you're right." Damn straight I was, but there was no denying I had a new empathy for the cows that Mr. Goldstein chopped into steaks and rump roasts.

Being the cow wasn't much fun.

We made it home in record time for New York traffic, which was nice. I liked home. Home was good. Sawney wasn't there and massive painkillers were. It was a win-win.

"We need a healer. Now."

"Yes, I know we need a healer, Niko," Goodfellow said with a strained patience. "But we don't have one."

We'd had a healer. Rafferty Jeftichew. He'd saved my life once upon a time. Twice upon a time actually. But he'd disappeared in the past month. Closed up his house and vanished. When your healer took off, it was bad news, especially if you didn't know if your insides matched your human outsides. And a hospital would know, Rafferty had told us, either from imaging or blood work.

"A doctor, then." It was said with determination although Niko knew better…knew it wasn't possible.

"And what?" Robin shot back. "Tell them Caliban was attacked by a small bear in the park or perhaps a large homeless man with a voracious appetite and a taste for the other white meat?"

I opened my eyes. "It's not that bad."

Goodfellow stared at me incredulously while Niko pointed out, "You haven't looked at it yet, Cal." His mouth tightened. "Reserve judgment."

"Ignorance is bliss." I closed my eyes again and let the fuzz of codeine carry me along as the discussion went on without me. After the cab had dropped us off, we still had to get up to the apartment. I almost hadn't made it. Once he'd half carried me upstairs, Niko had called in reinforcements and then turned to cleaning my wound. Or attempting to. It didn't sound as if it had gone well. When Robin had arrived, there had been talk of possible muscle damage, surgery, skin grafts. All impossible for me. While the discussion went on, I lay in bed and drifted; there wasn't much else to do. I suggested once that Robin and Nik help themselves to a few pain pills too. It really took the urgency out of things. They didn't take me up on it. Their loss.

"He can't heal like this," Niko declared emphatically. "Infection alone would kill him. We'll get a doctor, a surgeon if necessary."

"And by 'get' you mean…?" Robin asked dubiously.

"You know what I mean," Niko said flatly.

That cut through the happy-pill hoedown. "Jesus, Nik." This time I struggled to sit up. The pain swelled for several excruciating moments, then receded as I made it upright and stopped moving. I sucked in a breath and held it until I could speak without a ragged edge shaking my voice. "You can't kidnap a doctor. That's the kind of trouble we can't deal with." Monster trouble, yeah. That we could do. Human trouble was to be avoided at all cost. At best, we'd have to leave New York. We had lives here. Niko and Promise had a life. I wasn't going to cost them that.