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  “Oshossi? A ccoa?” Her eyes suddenly black, Cherish dropped her mother’s hand and went to the slit in her skirt. A knife appeared in her hand. “What did Oshossi say?”

  “Threats,” Niko answered. “Very inventive threats. I doubt you’d want to hear them.”

  “No, probably not.” The eyes stayed black. “I can handle a ccoa. You should go.”

  “You could.” Promise lifted her hand to touch a smooth strand of Cherish’s hair, but dropped it before she did. Her expression clouded. “You were always brilliant at whatever you’ve done. Fighting, dancing, riding. . . .”

  “Lying, stealing.” Which Promise had remembered, if not said. The dimple disappeared and the smile turned rueful. Her eyes cleared. “Go, Madre. I’ll send you its fur when I’m done. It’ll make a nice coat.”

  “No.” Promise shook her head. “You could handle a ccoa, but a ccoa and Oshossi, I’m not so sure.”

  It damn sure hadn’t been a walk in the park for us.

  “He’s impressive and he seems clever,” Niko remarked, as neutral with the daughter as he was the mother. “Is he?”

  “He is. He is very, very clever. The stupid rarely have anything worth stealing, but if I’d known how clever he is and how determined. How proud . . . No one who steals from him shall go unpunished. And I was a fool not to have determined all this beforehand.” She shook her head. “But it is done now. Until he kills me or I kill him, these attacks will never stop.”

  That pretty much said it all.

  Niko said, “Tell us more about Oshossi. How did you meet him? What weapons does he favor besides machetes, or does he prefer to let his animals do his killing for him?”

  “It was at a party. An embassy affair—not your sort of party at all,” she aimed at Goodfellow. “The nudity was partial at best.”

  “It’s not the quantity, it’s the quality,” he said loftily, “but go on. Tell us how you circled in on your mark.”

  She went on to describe meeting Oshossi—an embassy party, he must’ve invested in some seriously inventive dentures to cover those pointed teeth. Both immediately recognized the nonhumanness of the other. They enjoyed each other’s company, each rolling in the dough. Jewelry for her, fancy suits for him. Cherish’s stolen, Oshossi’s his own. “He’s handsome,” she said, toying with her necklace again. “Yet . . . not. He’s hard planes and angles, much like an Aztec statue. But I’m sure you saw that for yourself. I never saw him carry a weapon.” She frowned. “I should’ve known by his eyes.”

  “What about his eyes?” I asked. Those cold leopard eyes. Predator through and through.

  “They were my eyes. Not the color, but the weighing and measuring. The assumption that everything is yours for the taking. That the world is for you to pick and choose.” She yanked the necklace from her throat in one fierce motion and let it fall carelessly to the floor. “I took my measure in mirrors of gold and found myself wanting. Too bad I only realize that now.”

  “Yeah, too damn bad,” I commented with a lack of sympathy that had Promise giving me a glance of exasperation. I understood she wanted to protect Cherish, especially as Cherish seemed to be trying to change her ways. So I could see her wanting to protect her, just like I wanted to protect Nik, but the difference was Cherish had brought this upon herself. She could have a change of heart, but she couldn’t change that.

  Too goddamn little, too goddamn late, and, worse yet, at the wrong goddamn time.

  Niko folded his arms in consideration for a second, then told Robin, “Try looking among your kind for Oshossi.”

  Goodfellow frowned, “The pucks?”

  “No, the rich assholes with money to burn,” I said. “He’s probably staying at some fancy hotel if he’s not in the park. Nobody knows the room service in the city like you do.”

  He smiled in fond memory. “The Once and Future King, that is I. If the food is worthy of eating and the bed of breaking, then I have ruled there. I’ll make some inquiries.”

  Cherish looked surprised we were still considering helping her. She had finally managed to put herself in Promise’s place and seen the picture wasn’t one you wanted hanging on your refrigerator. Not the slightest bit bright, pretty, or optimistic. No rainbows or kittens—not one damn puffy cloud or shining yellow sun in sight.

  But while it was nice she didn’t want to get her mother killed, it didn’t much matter. Promise was her mother. I’d heard that makes a difference. Maternal instinct. I’d read about it in a book once. Could’ve been a fairy tale for all that it related to me and Nik, but with normal people—and vampires—I guess it did exist. Promise was sucked into Cherish’s problems. She’d stood firm earlier, knowing that the Auphe were worse than anything Cherish faced. And they were, but you didn’t have to face the Auphe to die. Lesser things can kill you. The cadejos were one thing. Now there were ccoas and Oshossi, who, like the Auphe, wasn’t ever going to give up. Cherish was up to her neck in it, no doubt about it.

  And so were we . . . times two.

  But there was Promise, reclaiming Cherish’s hand with a mixture of determination and resignation, and Niko, who was looking at me with a bemused quirk of his lips. Promise wasn’t ready to give up on Cherish, and Niko wasn’t ready to give up on Promise. That could only mean one thing. I sighed, went over to the couch, swiped the remote from the chupa, and started surfing for porn.

  It was going to be a long night.

  I woke up to the low mumble of the TV and a light touch on my skin. I reacted instantly. Promise’s hand caught the heel of mine before it hit her nose and rammed shards of bone into her brain. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Caliban.” With one hand she put aside the remote she had retrieved from my sleep-loosened fingers, and with the other she squeezed my hand. “It’s your watch.”

  I pulled free from her grip, yawned, and ran a hand through tousled hair. “Yeah? Okay.” I yawned one last time. “Sorry about trying to kill you. I’m not a morning person.”

  It was the plus side of not knowing any normal people. They could handle it. Although I didn’t usually come out of sleep in a homicidal flurry. But when the Auphe were around or I had a nightmare or I was running on fumes, instincts were difficult to hold back. Hard to explain to your average-Joe roommate why you crushed his larynx when he snuck in your room to borrow your jacket.

  “So I’ve heard.” She watched as I sat up and pulled my hair back into a ponytail with a holder I took from my jean pocket. “It’s almost morning. I don’t believe Oshossi will be coming. Not yet. Maybe when the night comes again.”

  “Can’t wait,” I grunted. “I hate to say it, Promise, but your daughter is almost as much trouble as the Auphe.” Actually, I didn’t hate to say it. It was true. No, I didn’t mind saying it one damn bit, not when that trouble was one more burden Nik didn’t need right now. I cared about Nik, I cared about Robin, I even cared about Promise, although I trusted her a whole lot less now. But Cherish? Her I didn’t have room for.

  “I know. She’s nearly as much trouble to me as you are to Niko.” The smile was gentle, but it cut with the best of any of my knives. “But we both love you all the same.”

  Damn it. Promise was so smart too.

  “If you start saying things like that, being a liar will be the least of your problems,” I said matter-of-factly.

  I wasn’t pissed that she’d said it. It was true. I hadn’t asked to be born, much less born a freak, and I hadn’t asked for the Auphe to first use me, then to try to kill me and everyone around me, and now want me as a sire to renew their goddamn race. No, I hadn’t asked for any of that on my Christmas list, but I’d gotten it anyway. And because I had, so had Nik. I was the very worst kind of trouble to him—I knew it. But I couldn’t tell him that, because he wouldn’t listen. No one else could tell him either, especially Promise—because he would listen then. And he’d be extremely unhappy with what he heard.

  Niko was the most practical, grounded person in the goddamn world. Self-delusion wasn’t someth
ing he gave in to, but he did have one huge-ass blind spot. Me. He knew me, faults and all, better than I knew myself, but he didn’t know—refused to believe—he’d be better off without me. And pity the person who suggested it, even if the person was Promise.

  He wouldn’t let me go, but he might turn Promise loose. If she pushed it. She had pushed me once before and had sworn never to again. She had one lie on board now, a big one. Add betrayal to that and it would sink her—permanently; it didn’t matter if she was telling the truth. If Nik had the faintest suspicion she might betray me for his own good, they would be over and done with just that fast.

  She flushed, then the color faded along with the anger as she backed down. “I know she brought it on herself,” she said solemnly, “but she is my daughter. I don’t want to hear the truth about her any more than Niko wants to hear it about you. Even if it is a different truth.”

  She was right. I’d been an ass, just as I always was an ass. This was her family and you didn’t get to talk shit about family unless it was your own. “Yeah, I get that. Sorry.” I held out a hand. Surprised, she took it, and I pulled her a few steps closer to me as the gray light behind her shimmered then blinked out of existence. Like a popped soap bubble, the gate was gone. The gate that had led to a very bad place. Tumulus. Auphe home. Auphe hell.

  One push . . .

  I hadn’t been pissed, not really. She’d only said the truth, and what was the point at being pissed at that, right? I didn’t care if that truth reminded me I was a freak. I knew I was a freak, a thing, a monster—one even acceptable to the Auphe now. Sometimes I’d forget, let Niko convince me differently, but deep down, that knowledge was always there. And in that deep is where gates are made.

  It had been there a split second before I saw it. I’d made it, and I hadn’t even tried. I hadn’t even known . . .

  One push.

  Holy fuck.

  8

  Niko

  I woke up to the sound of Cal vomiting. I pulled on my shirt and was in the hall in seconds. Robin, Cherish, and that Xolo creature were sleeping in the upper part of the two-story loft. I’d taken Seamus’s room, while Cal had the couch and Promise first watch. Now Promise stood outside the closed bathroom door, looking bewildered and not a little worried.

  “I woke him for his watch. He was fine. We talked . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, setting a hand against the wall beside the door. “And then he said he was sick.” Truly confused, she shook her head. “Humans. You get sick. Does he need a doctor?”

  Humans got sick, but Cal had only once—when he was small. At the time, I’d thought it was stomach flu, but as time passed more and more I was beginning to think he’d drunk something toxic while I wasn’t watching him closely enough. A lethal dose of Sophia’s whiskey, perhaps—something that would’ve killed a completely human child, because he’d never been sick before or again. An advanced immune system; the only good thing to ever come out of an Auphe genetic inheritance.

  And she, our doting mother, had so many bottles lying about that it was impossible to dispose of them all. Not that I hadn’t tried . . . for Cal’s sake. But Sophia had been a lost cause long before I was born.

  “No,” I said immediately. “No doctor.” No doctor to spot what shouldn’t exist in the mundane world.

  “Yes, I forgot.” She stepped back as I turned the knob and opened the door.

  “Wake Robin for watch,” I suggested as I stepped through.

  “No. I’ll wait. I couldn’t sleep anyway.” The worry deepened. “We were but talking,” she murmured, with a touch of guilt in her voice. It was a guilt I’d have to worry about later.

  I closed the door behind me. “Cal?”

  Done for the moment, he had his forehead resting on the toilet seat. He turned to look at me, sweat-drenched strands of black hair plastered to his jaw and forehead. “She never saw it,” he said hoarsely. “It was right behind her and she never saw it. Oh, Jesus.” He threw up again, more dry heaving than anything else, and when he was done, I was there with a wet washcloth and a white tube.

  “You know it’s a crappy day when you’re using a dead vampire’s toothpaste. Ultrafright—it figures.” He gave me a sickly grin to go with the bad joke as he washed his face, avoiding his reflection as always, then put an inch of paste on his finger and started scrubbing his teeth with a grimace.

  I waited until he was done spitting and rinsing before asking, “What didn’t she see?” The glance he slid me was so lost and glassy, I hated to ask again, but I did. “What didn’t Promise see? You were talking to her, you became sick. What didn’t she see?”

  “No wonder they want me. No wonder they’re so goddamn sure I’m the answer to everything. I am.” He threw the tube of toothpaste in the sink and slammed both fists against the bathroom mirror, the lost quality turning to fury. The mirror cracked, but stayed in one piece. That wasn’t true of the glass surrounding the shower when Cal ripped the toilet lid free and slung it. The glass flew inward, some down to the tile floor, some bouncing off the tile wall. If he’d had his combat boots on, the other wall would’ve been kicked in in several spots. As it was, he had to settle for a few deep breaths to regain control.

  “Done?” I asked. I didn’t dwell on how quickly he had done all that damage—how he’d been much faster than he normally was. As fast as I was, which he never had been, and nearly as fast as the Auphe.

  A hank of hair had broken free of the tie to hang down several inches past his jaw as he turned his head to stare at me. “We have to go. Just for an hour or two, but we have to go.” He moved past me, flung the door open, and was yelling Robin’s name.

  It happened in a remarkably short period of time. Robin, as well as the others, was told that Cal and I were leaving. When Robin protested about what had happened to the staying together to save our lives scenario, Cal had replied, “Call my cell. One ring and I’ll make a gate. We’ll travel back. Nik and I both will. We’ll be here in seconds.” He knew how I felt about that and shot me a darkly desperate look, and I’d given a nod of agreement. Something was wrong, obviously. The sooner I found out what it was, the better. Ignorance is never bliss, it’s only ignorance—often with a less-than-tasty coating of your oblivious blood.

  It’s always better to know.

  And I still thought that when we sat on the outskirts of Seward Park and Cal told me what had happened. He huddled under his jacket against the cold. “I wasn’t mad.” He’d hooked his fingers through the metal of the park bench on either side of his legs and clenched them there until the skin blanched white. “I wasn’t even that pissed. Hell, I’d started it, trash talking her kid. I wasn’t mad,” he repeated, dropping his head with that still-loose piece of hair swinging low.

  “You weren’t angry,” I said, though I knew better.

  Weren’t angry? He was still angry.

  I reached over and pulled the tie from his hair, letting the rest of the mess fall free, and put the holder in my coat pocket. “Not at Promise, who brought up feelings about your past and about who you are. Who was saying you’re a burden to me.” Which I did not expect to hear repeated—would not tolerate being repeated. Not about my brother. “But more importantly, not at Promise, who has hurt me.” I rested a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed. “There are so many layers within us, Cal. Stairs, really. Standing at the top, you were fine. Truth is truth, uncomfortable or not. But go down those stairs and on every one something is waiting. Me, Promise, you yourself—with two monsters as parents. Go down far enough and anyone who’s lived your life will find anger. You said something unkind; Promise said the same back. And then, to make matters worse . . .” I moved the hand from his neck to briskly swat his head. “You want to protect me. Ass. Rest assured, whatever happens with Promise, I can protect myself fine.”

  He rubbed the back of his head, but not with much spirit. “The human half of me might know that, but the Auphe part didn’t get the e-mail. I don’t remember doing it. Swear to God,
Nik. I don’t remember.”

  “Of course you don’t. You didn’t do it purposefully.” I sat for a moment, trying for just the right analogy . . . one that could make him understand. “Do you see that squirrel?”

  He looked up and saw it scampering in long dead leaves across the way. “Yeah. Fluffy. Cute. Whatever.”

  “Watch.” I took his ponytail holder and tossed it at the rodent. It ran immediately, scuttled up the tree, and cursed me fiercely. Dye it black, and it would be a good imitation of Cal and his morning bitching. “It ran. Did you see?” Before he could respond, I asked, “What do you think a cat would’ve done? Would it have run?”

  He shrugged, the wind whipping his hair. “Nah, he would pounce on it. It’s a cat thing.”

  “It’s an instinct thing,” I corrected. “Humans and Auphe have instincts too. Humans get angry and they snap, turn red, maybe yell, maybe even hit . . . maybe on a very rare occasion, kill. An Auphe gets angry . . .” I inclined my head toward him.

  “It always kills,” he finished slowly. “It gets angry and it always kills.”

  “You can’t erase evolution.” I went after the tie and brought it back to him. “You have some Auphe instincts; there is no way to avoid that. You’re like the cat, only you didn’t pounce. You started to, a half-grown instinct drove you to, but you didn’t. And you won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.” He took the tie and shoved it in his own pocket.

  “I do know that,” I countered without a shred of doubt. “You could’ve kept silent and she would’ve stepped backward through the gate, but you took her hand. You closed the gate and you kept her safe. You were sleepy, annoyed, about two hours away from real consciousness, and you still ignored instinct and kept her safe. You have an unbreakable will, Cal.”

  It was true. The Auphe had once broken his mind, but they had never broken his will.

  He shook his head, not completely convinced. “You always think the best of me. When it comes to the Auphe part anyway. One day you’re going to be wrong, Cyrano.”