Downfall Read online

  Finally, I tired of the noise and the mess as his attempt at flailing about caused his intestines to begin to pour free from his abdomen. With my dagger, I indicated his cock and balls lying in the dirt and sand beside his head where he could turn for an excellent view. “Not a man, you say? How much of a man do you feel with your manhood itself gone?” I hissed. While the day was warm, I was cold—a creation of ice. “What? No answer?” Nothing he could say now would move me, not that he didn’t try. The screams had faded to moans and now became begging. I hated when those as worthless as him begged, and today wasn’t the day to spend much time on this son of a whore. This was Achilles’ day.

  I was crouching beside him now, and I rocked back on my heels for a better look at the display I had made of him—the pageantry of what precisely was not a man. “I’m going to kill you, but first you watch. If you don’t, you won’t die for as many agonizing days I can drag from you no matter how you whine and plead.”

  The pain already had his skin tight against skull, as if he’d been dead for years. He did watch as told, as I knew he would. First I reached down and hefted his cold and shriveled prick in my hand to hold before his eyes. “The merit and value of a man . . . I hope for your sake it isn’t measured by the length of your dick. You would fall short to say the least.” I tossed it on the funeral pyre. “What you thought made you a man, I sacrifice to one who was born knowing with his first breath what truly makes one.” Bravery, courage, loyalty—that was what made men.

  “As for these. . . .” I ignored his whimper as there was a faint sizzle when his flesh entered the fire, “These shall be for Patroclus.” I showed my teeth in a rictus of a grin I knew couldn’t possibly reflect the current insanity inside me. I picked up the testicles and whistled. All the camp dogs came running and I tossed the Persian’s balls to the nearest one. “Patroclus liked dogs. I think he would’ve appreciated you giving them a scrap, no matter how tiny, of meat.”

  He was crying and had been since the first cut to his stomach. So much for that portion of his definition on what defined manhood. The base coward was not an offering worthwhile of Achilles here now or of the ghost of Patroclus days gone. I hoped they took it in the spirit in which it was offered. Defeat of the dishonorable and a laugh for Patroclus who had genuinely loved that pack of dogs.

  I’d exhaled, abruptly too exhausted to care if I took another breath. My dagger slashed, cutting the mercenary’s throat deeply enough that his head tilted back to show bone cut through. It was only the few strips of flesh and tendons that left it attached to his body by the scarcest of tethers. Unimportant. The only thing of importance now was the silence.

  There was quiet and it was good. Not a sound could be heard but the crackle of the flames. No one laughed. Not that they didn’t want to learn the lesson the Persian had—that wasn’t the reason. They too knew and fought with Achilles. They were his men and they mourned as well.

  There were no more gathered around who lacked respect for the greatest warrior of his time.

  The rest of the body I left for the dogs to devour. They’d had the smallest of tastes, they were ready for more. It was a good day to be a dog. I turned back to kneel again by the pyre. There I would stay until the fire burned to nothing, until the last charred splinter of wood was cold.

  The Persian had known nothing.

  If you’ve never wept at the funeral of a friend, then you have never had a friend.

  * * *

  Memories. They were but memories, that was all. I pushed them aside with long practice to return to the present in time to hear Cal’s next words.

  “He’s gone through too much for our sakes.” I heard the rattle of empty bottles against one another. Cal cleaning up? That was unlikely, but it could happen. Unlikely as the sun turning purple, but vaguely possible. “We’re not like him. Haven’t you noticed? All those people we were or the ones we know about, they died young and who knows how long it takes him to find us to begin with? He was careful not to let us know anything about this reincarnation crap when we were kids in this life. That means he did that in all our other lives. He waited for us to grow up and become whoever the hell we were supposed to be.”

  There was the shattering crash of glass. Cal was cleaning then, in all his carelessness, which made me appreciate the effort more. “In all our lives he waits until we’re adults and then, to thank him, we up and die after hanging around with him ten or fifteen years at fucking best. We leave him after fifteen years, and he spends hundreds alone until we can be bothered to be born and found by him again. A thousand lives or more that we’ve come and gone, a thousand, he said. How he’s not crazy as hell, I don’t know. I would be. This life right now with the Auphe by itself is too much for anyone. Hell, I wish he wouldn’t torture himself like this. I highly fucking doubt we’re worth it.”

  “He chooses this. He doesn’t have to find us and go through life after life at our side. He could ignore us if he crossed our path. He could not seek us out.” That was Niko, and Niko most often knew what he thought, but he didn’t sound certain this time. He wanted to believe what he said, but I don’t think that he did.

  “Nik, shit. If we lived forever and Robin died and lived and died over and over again, do you think we’d let him do that alone? Particularly if he had a death wish like we seem to have?” Cal snapped. “Hell, no. There’s no choice. He’s family. For all that he’s done for us in the only life we remember, imagine what he’s done for us in the thousands we don’t remember. If he did that for us, we’d do the same for him. I know I come first with you the same as you come first with me, but maybe that’s because we don’t remember Robin each time we’re reborn.” There was the explosion of glass this time. A bottle hitting the wall. Cal’s typical reaction to what he couldn’t fix, and it made me that much more fond of him, as I was that accustomed to it now. “He talked about Patroclus and Achilles and he didn’t say how we died, but as much I wish I had ignored your history lessons, I didn’t, because I know how it happened.”

  I stood at my bedroom door now. My penthouse was large and the hallway long and I could barely see a bare slice of Caliban, his now black-and-white hair hanging down as he tilted his head to stare at the floor. I watched as he combed fingers through the strands. He was worrying about me when day by day he became physically more Auphe. He wasn’t thinking of himself, desperately compromised . . . but of me. Could any god have created a more true friend? No.

  “I know Patroclus died first,” Cal asserted quietly, hoping the breaking bottle hadn’t woken me or because he was tired. That feeling I knew very well. “And I know Achilles freaked the hell out. Killed that prince and desecrated his body. I remember that because you taught it to me. That’s what I know from the history books, but what I remember now that I’ve heard most of the story from Robin.” Except for the end, for the dying part I refused to talk of, not a word. No one could convince me to do that. But my silence had been pointless. One would think after Cullen that I’d know that not telling the entire story wasn’t protection enough with Cal’s Auphe-enhanced memory. I’d been a drunken fool.

  “I remember a sword cutting my throat and then again, stabbing into my chest.”

  I saw Cal’s head fall even lower. “I saw you and Robin above me, talking, yelling.” Not yelling—screaming. We had screamed, Achilles and I. “But I couldn’t breathe,” Cal went on. “I tried, but I couldn’t fucking breathe. I felt like I was drowning, but I didn’t taste salt from the sea. It was copper. It was blood. I drowned in my own blood.” I heard him clear his throat as if he could taste that blood still. “You looked mostly like you. Your hair was a darker blond, you had scars on your face, but your eyes were the same gray.” Not surprising as Achilles had managed to fast-talk his genes into what would be the Leandros clan. “Robin . . . Robin was exactly the same.” There was a choked laugh. “He’d have to be the same, wouldn’t he? And I don’t remember that from any hist
ory lesson you taught me. Goodfellow, Puck, Pan, at the battlefield.”

  Cal’s words became louder, stronger. “You said he was to keep me safe. You said, ‘You are the Great God Pan and you swore to keep him safe, oath-breaking bastard.’ You blamed him, cursed him, hurt him, almost killed him. I think he would’ve let you. I know he didn’t try to stop you, and I couldn’t stop you. I couldn’t breathe through the blood or say a word and I couldn’t tell you to stop. I died and fuck knows what you said to him then.” There was a ragged exhalation. I heard it and saw it in the heave of his shoulders, but when he spoke, it was unbreakable steel. “Nik, don’t do that again. Don’t ever put that on him. He can’t keep me safe. You can’t keep me safe. That’s what being human is about, and even if I’m only half human now, it doesn’t matter. I will never be safe and my life will always end. Don’t blame Robin for that. He does all that he can and more. The same as you do.”

  There was a long pause and Cal didn’t raise his head. “I said that?” Niko questioned quietly, the remorse blatant, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want his guilt. I didn’t deserve it.

  Why this? Why now? Cal remembered Cullen and now he remembered the sands of Troy. I sighed. Auphe-human racial memory or not, why was it only the worst things he remembered?

  “Yeah.” Cal straightened and I backed away from the door. I didn’t want him to see me and I didn’t want to see any more. “And I know in this life you would never say that. In this life you wouldn’t blame him. But every life is different, isn’t it, every time is different, and we are different, at least a little. Just . . . if I die first this time and with a thousand Bae, hell, we’re both probably going to die, but if I do go first, don’t blame him. It’s not his fault. It’s not your fault. It’s no one but Grimm’s fault. Feel free to take it all out on him if you get the chance.”

  I heard the smile. I even somehow heard the crooked, boldly wicked nature of it. I smiled myself, whether I meant it or not, and went into my master bath to wash off the residue of wine and the sweat of old and new fear.

  When I was done, we’d think of somehow to fix this.

  We would.

  I’d accept no less.

  Not this time.

  * * *

  “For the love of all that is holy.” Niko aimed his scrutiny toward the kitchen, almost opposite from me. “Buddha, help me concentrate on Nirvana and cast aside these earthly dismays.”

  Cal blanched and twisted around to head rapidly toward that filthy shovel he’d brought in with him the day prior. “Has a puck been killed by a garden tool before? Would I be the first? Is there some sort of award that would go with that?”

  I shook my head and turned to go back to my bedroom. “This is my home,” I called over my shoulder, naked shoulder—naked everything actually, but as I’d said, this was my home. “I could walk about naked or worse all day long, especially if I was hungover, and that would be perfectly in my right.” It was true. I could walk about dressed in whatever could be paid for and delivered via the Internet, no matter how disgusting I might find it. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was “my home, my right to walk about nude or in whatever made you wish I were nude.” And if I had to walk about in something revolting to prove it was my right, then I would. I was obstinate in that manner.

  Plus, I’d been drunk, and sleeping drunk and naked was invariably the rule. But until something horrendous could be thought of and delivered to prove nudity wasn’t a quarter as shocking as they thought it to be, I came back out in brown slacks and a green shirt. “I expect breakfast is ready. I provided several thousand dollars of alcohol last night. The least one of you could do is cook. Oh, and watch out for the hole in the floor.” Where I’d ripped up the wood I’d carved a plea for forgiveness. Niko could read Greek and I had not been in the mood to explain my small break from this current reality. “Termites.”

  Cal released the shovel and it thunked heavily against the wall. “I don’t cook. It’s boring.”

  “You appear to be living with me with no invitation that I recall, and I do not customarily give out keys unless the person I give them to makes sexual areas of me thrilled to exist. Specifically my cock. There is that option or you can cook.” I pointed at the refrigerator. “Pancakes. Blueberry. Now.” I began to undo my belt. “Or there is this. . . .”

  Hopeful my temper and sexual demands in exchange for keys would subside, Cal dived into the refrigerator muttering the foulest of filth under his breath. I’d come up with far worse ones to spread across various continents. Less than impressed, I gave him a wolfish grin, refastened my belt, and sat at the island to wait for the feast to be delivered unto me. I tapped fingers on the granite and glowered at him. I’d not seen a mostly Auphe hurry about to cook breakfast to prevent inducing further ire in me. Then again, my ire was fierce. It was entertaining to view his reaction to it.

  “Robin.” Niko had sat on the stool next to mine and kept the conversation quiet and low to avoid Cal’s attention. “What of the Vigil? We have too many problems to name, but the Vigil has made two runs at Cal. We need to solve that in some manner or we won’t have a chance of surviving Grimm and the Bae.”

  “Orange juice,” I demanded loudly, and Cal had it poured in a glass for me within moments. That was nice. I approved of that service. I hope it lasted long enough for a meal before Cal decided strangling me with my own belt would be less embarrassing. I took a swallow of the juice, full of pulp and tartness. “Don’t worry about the Vigil, Niko,” I advised, passing him my glass of juice. The man was uptight to an unfathomable degree. Perhaps juice could aid him. Did vitamin C reduce anal-retentive behavior? I would have to research it.

  “The reason the Wolves are attacking the Vigil is that I paid them to do so.” I yawned and took my juice back, as Niko was only staring at it and then me, confused. “I paid them a great deal. They will do their best, not that I’m saying that is the highest effort in the world, but given what they have to work with, they are offering their paramount endeavor.”

  Cal started to turn from the stove. “What . . . ?”

  “Pancakes!” I snapped.

  He reverted immediately to a cooking position. I saw him glance at the knives in the butcher block before deciding against taking me on. That was wise. I could give him a buzz cut with one of those knives before he had a chance to twitch.

  “You paid the Kin to stop the Vigil from killing Cal?” Niko asked, more quiet than the pop and sizzle of the grease Cal was using to cook my pancakes.

  “Yes, although to be politically correct they are called the Lupa now.” I could smell the blueberries and they smelled amazing. They’d smell better with bacon, I thought. “Caliban! Bacon!” He lunged for the freezer. “I rather enjoy him like this,” I murmured, low enough that Niko could hear, but not his brother. “Terrorized by my sexuality and guilted into a cooking frenzy.”

  “Should he feel guilty?”

  “No.” He clearly did or my belt would’ve been around my neck fifteen minutes ago, but he shouldn’t. “Neither ought you. All lives are different. Achilles had an inexcusably abusive father I would wish on no one, and that bastard instilled a sense of perfectionism in his son that was not achievable by anyone, human or no.” I rested against Niko’s shoulder. “In this life you carry Cal. In that life, he carried you. That didn’t turn out well when he died, but I couldn’t save Patroclus. You couldn’t save Patroclus. Patroclus couldn’t save himself. It was no one’s fault. Let it go.”

  “You heard us.” Niko didn’t comment any further on something that was obvious. “You heard that Cal is remembering things he shouldn’t.” He wouldn’t want anyone to know that he raised his eyes before looking away at the sight of the spreading silver in Cal’s hair. He wouldn’t want anyone to know, and that meant I didn’t say anything. He behaved as if the moment hadn’t happened, his face a mask of flat determination before speaking again. Niko was Niko.
All things were to be borne, and buckling under their weight wasn’t acceptable, not to him. “Then let us pay you back for what you gave the Lupa.” He changed the subject. Niko was excellent at that when he wanted to divert his train of thought. “What you paid to stop the Vigil.”

  I shook my head, drank more juice, and laughed. “No.”

  He was offended at that. It was Niko. I knew he would be with his unbending pride. He and Cal had both taken showers as I had. Niko’s blond hair spread around his shoulders and down his back to his waist. It was damp yet, but that didn’t stop him from gathering it up to braid it. I’d noticed Niko did that when irritated. He would either unbraid or braid his hair to keep his hands from fastening around your throat to choke the life from you. It was a polite coping mechanism. I approved. Cal would simply have, once again I mention it, just strangled you. “Why?” he demanded. “We don’t want to take advantage of you.”

  Finishing my juice, I propped my elbows on the island counter and smiled winningly. “Niko, first, it’s kind of you to not want to take advantage. If I were less manly, virile, and brimming with machismo, I’d go so far as to say it’s rather adorable that you think you could.”

  That anyone in the world could. I was the first and then the second trickster born and the oldest left alive. I did not get taken advantage of . . . unless it was sexually and I wanted to be, of course. I had no qualms about separating irritating people from their lives and their money. No regrets, not one. That’s who I was. If you warranted death, and regrettably most humans did, and could be convinced to hand over your fortune as you “passed on” with my assistance, I was more than happy to usher your wealth unto a better place. Such as my offshore Cayman bank account.