Deathwish can-4 Read online

Promise was a vampire and George a psychic, when she wanted to be, and they weren’t helpless against the Auphe. Not completely. It didn’t make me feel any better. The Auphe were the Auphe.

  Now we were here to warn the third person in our lives. He was a cocky, annoying, conceited, lazy son of a bitch. He was also a friend, one who’d had a few bad days of his own this week. He was currently holed up in his apartment and had been for three days. No one went out; no one went in. For a chronically social, not to mention horny, puck, that was alarming behavior.

  I pounded on the door of his Chelsea apartment. I was slowly drying off; the rain had stopped not long after we’d left the park. “Goodfellow, open the hell up!”

  There was silence, then a muffled but cutting reply. “How did you get in the building? You can’t afford to piss on the topiary out front much less walk through the door. Go away.” I heard something hit the door with a shattering of glass. “When I want to see belligerent, fashion-impaired monkeys, I’ll go to the zoo and watch the feces fly.”

  That would be Rob Fellows, car salesman of the month, year, decade. Better known to us as Robin Goodfellow . . . Pan . . . Puck, whatever name he’d been passing off at the time. Immortal, stubborn, and could talk shit with the best of them. He’d also saved our lives more than once. That made his nonstop mouth a little more bearable.

  “This lost its entertainment value as of yesterday.” Niko folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Kick in the door.”

  Unlike most siblings, I listen to my big brother. I kicked in the door. It was a good door—solid, thick. It took a few tries to get it open. There was quite a bit of damage—splintered wood, locks ripped free of the frame—none of which I planned on paying for. Goodfellow was right. I couldn’t afford to piss on his bushes, and he had money to burn. Besides, tough love was tough love. And right now that’s what the infamous Robin Goodfellow needed.

  “Oh, good.” Wavy brown hair disheveled, green eyes bloodshot, the puck was sprawled on his couch in pajama bottoms and an open, wrinkled silk robe. “The Hardy Boys are here to show me the light.”

  I walked into the apartment, which was an unholy mess. Considering his housekeeper, Seraglio, had been killed just days ago, that wasn’t much of a surprise. As she had been trying to kill us all at the time, I wasn’t crying a river over that. On the other hand, I still remembered how she’d made me peach pancakes. It was a concept that was hard to fathom. Pancakes and assassination. What a mix.

  There were empty wine bottles everywhere I looked, littering the floor, the granite counters, and there was even one embedded in the screen of the plasma TV. Damn, I’d loved that TV.

  I nudged a bottle out of my path, moved closer, and winced at the sheer volume of alcohol fumes seeping through Goodfellow’s pores. I had a good nose, as good as your average dog, thanks to my Auphe sperm donor. But even a normal human nose could’ve picked this up easily. “Jesus.” My eyes watered as I squinted at him. “How are you not dead?”

  “I was there when the first grape was fermented,” he grunted. “It makes for a tolerance a fetus like you couldn’t begin to comprehend.”

  “So you were the one who taught Bacchus to drink?” Niko asked with a gleam of skepticism in his gray eyes that came from a year’s familiarity with Goodfellow and his . . . er . . . exaggerations. He didn’t wait for the answer, instead making his way to the kitchen.

  “Actually, I did. Of course, I think he’s in AA now.” Mournfully, he lifted a bottle into the air, then drank. “It is to weep.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” I sat on the massive rock crystal coffee table in front of him. “Okay, Robin, you deserved a little holing-up time, but now you’ve got to shake this off. The Auphe are back playing their games. They messed with Nik and me in the park. They could come here next. They were toying with us. They might be more serious with you. As in rip you open and get drunk on that alcohol you call blood. You have to be ready. Sober your ass up.”

  “Gamo the Auphe.” Goodfellow had known the Auphe when people were still living in caves, gnawing on mammoth bones and picking fleas off one another. He had a healthy fear of and respect for them. Very healthy. At least up until now, apparently. “Bring them on.” He took another drink. “Lead their pasty asses hither. I’ll give them something to chew on.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he meant his sword or himself, and that worried the hell out of me. He’d been through it, I knew, but I wasn’t sure how to deal with a depressed and ashamed puck. I’d never seen him less than confident—brazen as hell. Cocky and way too willing to show you why that word was appropriate in more ways than one. Anything different from that, I wouldn’t have been able to picture as of last week. Now . . . now I’d seen it and it wasn’t right. It wasn’t puck—it wasn’t Robin. I didn’t like it. Goodfellow had lived a long, long time. Now wasn’t the time to give up.

  I reached over and snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Okay, fine, you fooled some people into worshipping you as a god. And, yeah, their descendants chased you for thousands of years, wanting to kill you for deserting them. So what? They failed. Get over it already.”

  The glassy eyes blinked several times before he gave a slurred drawl. “You know, say it that way and it doesn’t sound so bad.” Of course it had been more than that. Two people had died—died very bloody, terrible deaths because of his massive puck ego, when he had been their “god.” He hadn’t meant for it to happen, but it had and that’s what had him in the bottle, not being worshipped and nearly killed by the last of his followers’ tribe. Speaking of bottles, he grabbed at it and missed. I’d seen Robin drink, but I’d only ever seen him drunk twice before. The first time had been when he’d met us, and the last time had been days ago. Both had been for only a few hours. This time, I would bet he’d spent every minute of these past three days like this.

  “Look,” I said sharply, “we don’t care what you did back then. We only care what you do now. You’re a friend, and you were a friend to us when any person with the sense God gave a mentally challenged rock would’ve run the other way.”

  He let his head flop against the back of the couch. Looking up at the ceiling, he exhaled, then reminded me with a faint note of nostalgia, “Don’t forget that you threatened to slit my throat when we first met.”

  “And even that didn’t dissuade you from talking endlessly.” Niko appeared and deposited a plate on Robin’s lap. There was a sandwich on it and what looked like homemade potato salad. I tried not to think how Seraglio had no doubt made it herself. “Now eat, sober up, and face up to the fact that what you did was wrong, but not wrong enough to justify your murder as penance.”

  Goodfellow remained motionless, either thinking about it or ignoring us entirely. Niko leaned in, planted a hand on each side of Robin’s head, looked down at him, and asked silkily, “Did I or did I not say ‘now’?”

  Yeah, the tough love. Niko was all about it.

  There was more silence, a grunt; then the puck straightened marginally and reached for the sandwich. “I hate you both.” He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and added grudgingly, “But I’m glad the Auphe didn’t kill you. The massive hero worship you have for me brightens my day.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine.” I pushed a few bottles off the coffee table and spread out a little while Niko distanced himself to stand at the other end of the couch from Robin. I doubted it helped with the alcohol reek, but I gave him credit for trying.

  Making his way methodically through the sandwich, Robin looked us both up and down, and then asked between bites, “The Auphe came at you and neither of you have a scratch? How did you manage that? Are you carrying nuclear armament now, Caliban? Did you give up on the pop guns?”

  “Like I said, they were just playing with us. Talking shit.” I did have a few claw marks, but in our work if you could still walk and talk, that didn’t count. “They were on the roof of our apartment building when I came home, and then they traveled to the park where Nik was practicing.”

&
nbsp; I often thought of going through the gates as traveling now. I’d been called “traveler” repeatedly by a homicidal asshole in the past two weeks. Sawney, mass murderer and one seriously crazy son of a bitch, was dead and less than ash now, but the term had stuck with me. It was as good a description as any for what the Auphe did . . . for what I could do. And as it also covered my other half—Rom—it fit.

  “And you”—he grimaced—“traveled after them?” He’d gone through a gate with me on one occasion. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation for non-Auphe; not unless you were into puking your guts out.

  “No. I ran my ass off.” Traveling, once difficult, had suddenly become easy. Too easy. It put me in touch with my homicidal Auphe roots more than was good for me . . . or for anyone around me. I’d told my brother I wouldn’t do it again if I could avoid it, but if I hadn’t been in the midst of a sidewalk full of people I would’ve done it in a hot second. He was a helluva lot more important than wrestling with the wrong half of my Jekyll-and-Hyde issue. He was worth losing a piece of my soul. . . . If I had one, it was only because of him anyway.

  Still, it wasn’t anything I wanted to talk about. How I felt the mental stirrings of a bloodthirsty heritage when I passed through the gray light wasn’t my favorite topic right now. The Auphe nature wasn’t mine. I wouldn’t let it be. And if I said that to myself over and over and sprinkled enough frigging fairy dust around, maybe it would be true.

  Clap your hands. Clap them goddamn hard and wish like a mother.

  “But why—” He stopped when he saw Niko’s eyes narrow fractionally, effectively ending the subject. When your overprotective big brother carries a sword, people tend to pay attention. “Moving on.” Robin tossed the plate onto the table’s surface, knocking over yet another bottle, and rubbed his eyes. “I need a new housekeeper.”

  I didn’t say anything. He’d liked her; he’d lusted after her; he’d even respected her—a rarity for Goodfellow—and she’d tried to kill him. What was there to say in the face of that?

  Actually, I did have something to say, although it was not about Seraglio. It was about what had happened in the park. I hadn’t been completely sure then. . . . No, that was a lie. I had been sure, but I didn’t know how I was sure and I didn’t want to talk about that—that the only way I could know was because of my two stolen years. The Auphe were a subject I avoided, but discussing those two years—that I avoided at all costs. I was afraid—hell, terrified—that talking about it might one day peel back the darkness that swallowed those years, which would then swallow me. And I’d lose my mind. For good this time.

  “Yeah, or you could pick up after yourself,” I said distractedly, then went on before his outraged laziness hit me in the face. “Nik, Robin, in the park . . .” I ran a thumb over the smooth stone of the table’s surface and grimaced before going on. “They were all female. The Auphe.” I tended to think of the Auphe as “he” or “it,” because physically there was no difference between male and female to the eye and because I didn’t want to give them the label of actual biological organisms. They were too goddamn horrific for that. Too alien.

  Niko frowned, both at the knowledge and the fact I hadn’t told him sooner, I knew. “What are they usually?” I could see he was annoyed with himself for never asking that question before. He was dedicated to knowing every fact about the Auphe that he could gather, because one day one of those facts might save me.

  “I don’t know.” I gave a defensive shift of my shoulders. “I usually pay more attention to not pissing my pants and staying alive, so I guess they’ve just been a mix.”

  “How do you know they were all female?” Robin asked curiously, his reddened eyes slightly more alert. “It’s not like the male Auphe keep them swinging in the breeze, and I assume they have something to swing or one couldn’t have impregnated your mother.” He considered the matter as he popped in the last bite of sandwich. “Perhaps they recede up inside the body. There are some animals—”

  “Robin,” Niko said matter-of-factly, “be quiet.”

  Goodfellow caught a look at my face, which, considering how much I wanted to hurl right now, probably wasn’t the best it had ever looked. “Ah yes. Well. Sorry,” he apologized sincerely before making a washing movement of his hands to scatter any remaining crumbs. “The male and female no doubt have a difference in scent.”

  He was probably right, but what the hell did it mean? It didn’t do jack shit for us if we didn’t know what it meant. I said as much and changed the subject abruptly. “Where do we go from here? A rehab center for Goodfellow here?”

  Niko was silent just long enough that I knew he would bring this up later when we were alone—whether I wanted to or not—but then he said smoothly, “Promise wants to talk to us. She may have some work for us.” Most of our work wended its way through our favorite vampire. “That includes you, Robin.”

  The brown head dropped into waiting hands. You could virtually see the hangover forming. “Why? I’m highly looking forward to the alcoholic coma due me, thanks so much.”

  “Because with the Auphe reappearing, we all need to stay alert. And you”—Niko flicked the side of Goodfellow’s head with enough force that I heard the thwack that was usually reserved for me—“you are not alert. Shower and dress. You have fifteen minutes.”

  “And we charge fifty an hour for babysitting,” I added, “so grab your wallet.” As green as Robin was when he swayed upright, I’d be happy just not to have a gallon of vomit hurled onto my shoes.

  There was no vomit, but the fifteen-minute timetable went right out the window. Considering the shape and smell of him, I didn’t mind waiting longer for a clean and slightly more sober Goodfellow to walk back into the room. He was as pasty as the Auphe ass he’d been referring to earlier, but he was moving under his own power. That had to be a good thing. When we reached the street he hadn’t recovered any color and he had a faint wobble to his step, but that didn’t stop him from leering at a passing woman. “Well, hello.”

  When she didn’t respond, he switched his gaze to the man behind her. “Well, hello.”

  “Three days without sex,” I snorted. “I’m surprised your dick hasn’t deserted you for greener pastures.”

  Goodfellow glared at me as he swayed. Niko reached out to steady him and said reprovingly, “I wish, especially now, that you had not done this to yourself.”

  “Yes, yes. I’m sure you take your Metamucil shaken, not stirred,” he griped. “But some of us like the grape.” He walked . . . weaved, whatever. “We need a cab before I fall on my face.”

  By the time we reached Promise’s building on the Upper East Side—60th and Park, another place too expensive for my bladder—Robin had sobered up more. Pucks—they have one helluva metabolism. It didn’t stop Promise from taking a second look at him when we walked into her place. “You are well?” she asked dubiously.

  “I’m alive,” he said tersely. “I think that counts, but ask me again later.” Trudging to Promise’s ivory couch, he collapsed. “Perhaps I could get a little hair of the canine?”

  “No,” Niko replied firmly. Leaning in, he kissed Promise lightly. “If you have a key to your liquor cabinet,” he said to her, “this may be the time to employ it.”

  She touched her fingertips to his jaw, and then turned to look at Goodfellow. She didn’t say anything further, but I could see the sympathy in her eyes. She knew. She’d been there with us when Seraglio and her clan had nearly killed Robin. She was often exasperated with him, more often pissed as hell, but she was still fond of him—although somewhat less fond after he’d once turned her apartment into the scene of an orgy.

  Robin looked away from her gaze. It was bad enough, I knew, that Niko and I had seen him so vulnerable. One more was too much. “I’m not here for an intervention or the entertainment, and I do have my own business to run. Can we move this alcohol-free ordeal along?” Yes, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, Pan, the Goat in the Green, did have his own business that he ran with a ruthless
hand. He was worse than any monster. Worse than any beast from a mythical hell.

  Like I’d said, he was a car salesman.

  Worse still, a used-car salesman, the type of man that bragged that he could sell a condom to a eunuch or life insurance to the undead.

  “I’ll come to the point, then, so that you may return to fleecing the sheep.” With a parting kiss to Niko’s cheek, Promise walked to the darkly tinted window and pulled the curtains. In a gray silk skirt slit just above the knee and a scoop-neck sweater that was a soft shimmer of violet, she looked at us with equally violet eyes. Her hair, striped moon pale and earth brown, was pulled back in three braids, tumbling in loose waves at the crown and falling to the small of her back. “I have an old acquaintance. He wants to hire us.”

  She was generous with the “us.” Promise, like the vast majority of vampires, didn’t drink blood anymore, but she had gone through five very wealthy, very elderly husbands in the past ten years. However, I was sure every one of them had died with smiles on their wrinkled faces and gratitude in their shriveled hearts. Consequently, she didn’t need the money we brought in; she did it for the love of the game . . . or the love of something else. Someone else.

  “An old acquaintance?” Robin waggled his eyebrows. “The naked kind?”

  Promise sighed, then ignored him. “Seamus. A vampire like me. He seems to have a bit of an interesting problem.”

  “Huh. A vampire. What’s he want?” A vampire acquaintance, eh? Robin might not be so far off. Niko wouldn’t be annoyed. He wasn’t that possessive, and insecurity was only a word in the dictionary to him. But I was more than ready and willing to be annoyed for him. That’s what brothers are for.

  “Yes, a vampire.” A finely arched eyebrow lifted. “As for his situation, this is something unusual, Seamus says. This is nothing completely . . . apparent. It’s a subtle thing, and perhaps nothing at all. But to determine that I think we’ll need a team approach.”

  “There’s no I in ‘team,’ ” Robin pointed out, starting to get up, “There’s an I in ‘intercourse,’ ‘iniquity,’ ‘illegal,’ ‘intoxication,’ and did I mention ‘intercourse’? But there is no I in ‘team.’ And I’m all about the I, which means that I will see you later.”