Sophia didn’t have much room to talk. She’d broken ties with her clan when she’d run off, and they’d done the same to her years later when they found out what perverse bargain she’d made with the Auphe. As for the “old ways,” she had never purposely taught us a thing, not once Niko had refused to be part of her scams. As young as the age of six, Nik already had an unwavering moral compass; he was a regular Dalai Lama of the trailer park. Whether we were involved or not, though, it didn’t matter—the lessons were still there for the taking. She’d run a fortune-telling con at the kitchen table while we watched cartoons four feet away. At night she’d run a different kind of con and the walls were much thinner than four feet.
“Her rules, your rules.” I shook my head. “I don’t care. We should’ve lived by them. I should’ve. You wanted to leave. I was the one who said we should stay in New York.” I frowned at him. “Usually when I’m an idiot, you don’t listen to me.”
“If that were true, I would be selectively deaf every hour out of the day,” he stated, hitting my knee with a not-quite-painful flick of his finger. “Besides, you were right. We thought the enemy destroyed and we had made a life here. Granted it was a life of only a few months and we both broke the rules in doing so, but it was still a life. We had an ally and friend in Robin. We had the potential for more in Promise and Georgina. Why give that up for no reason at all?”
“Sanity is a reason,” I countered, scraping a bruised knuckle along the silken fibers of the rug.
“Pretty good one too.”
We should’ve known better. Seeing their destruction with our own eyes aside, we still should’ve known better. The Auphe were still out there, and they wouldn’t stay hidden forever. Then there was Robin. Someone wanted him dead, and that was probably a fairly frequent event. Jesus. As for Sawney…we’d made him our problem and it was possible he could take one or more of us out. I’d managed to survive the uncertainty of George’s and Nik’s disappearance months ago. Managed, as in, just goddamn barely, and only by becoming the coldest son of a bitch that I could be.
Deal?
What a lie. After sitting, pacing, sitting again, and thinking of other things to bash over Robin’s head while he slept, I obviously wasn’t dealing.
“I have to get out of here for a while.” I got up more quickly from the couch than I should have, my body groaning from multiple revenant blows.
“It’s four a.m.,” Niko pointed out, unmoving.
“Where will you…ah.” He gave an approving nod.
“An excellent idea, if she cooperates. If she will ‘look.”’
“Yeah.” I started toward the door. “That’s a big if.” But if I had my way, she wouldn’t get away with not looking.
Not this time.
16
George was sitting on the stoop of her apartment building waiting for me. For that, she had looked. Or maybe for the little things, she didn’t look. Maybe she just knew without any effort at all.
She was wrapped in a robe. Hundreds of patches were stitched together in a tapestry of velvet, silk, simple polished cotton—any material you could think of. Some were embroidered, some not; the only requirement was they were all a shade of red. Scarlet, garnet, crimson, ruby, candy-apple, every hue you could imagine was there. That combined with her deep gold-brown skin and copper hair reminded me of a painting we’d passed in the museum while looking for Sawney. Some artist, the name began with a K, but I remembered the repeating pattern of squares, the vibrant colors, the tranquil face.
At almost five a.m. we were as alone as you could be in the city, and I looked at her silently. She knew. About Charm, she knew, and I didn’t think that had anything to do with being psychic. It had to do with being a woman. I ducked my head and then sat two steps below her.
She rested a hand on my hair, smoothing it. “We all have to learn our own way. Make our own passage.” She dropped her hand and said with anger and disappointment, “You always were and always will be one for the difficult path.” She squared her shoulders and shook her head. “There is the road traveled, the road less so, and the cliff. You head straight for the cliff, Caliban. Every time. Every single time.”
She tightened the robe around her and clasped hands around her knees. “When you tire of hitting the bottom, let me know. Maybe I’ll still be here. Maybe I won’t, but I can tell you this: The only things that you’ll find on the difficult path that aren’t on the smoother one are bruises and regrets.”
Like I didn’t know that.
How she knew that—now, there was a different question altogether. “You finally looked, then?” I asked cautiously, uncertain if I really wanted to know the answer to that and feeling like the absolute shit she meant me to. I’d turned her away once. I couldn’t take a chance; I couldn’t be with her if I didn’t know how things would end up. I couldn’t risk her like that. I had to know…if she were with me, did she survive the Auphe who were still running free out there? More importantly, did she survive the Auphe in me?
“Caliban,” she said, her anger fading slightly to a resignation over an argument we’d had time and time again.
Of course she hadn’t looked. She never looked at her own life and she never tried to change the truly monumental aspects of the lives of others. What was supposed to happen would happen. It was only the little things that could be played around with. She wasn’t the only one who was angry. I’d pushed her away to save her and she wouldn’t even look to tell me if it was necessary. I cut her out of my life to keep her safe, to keep her alive, and she wouldn’t…goddamn it.
I looked away.
I didn’t want to see the red and gold or the hurt, the anger, and the reluctant understanding that ran under it all. If I couldn’t have it, I didn’t want to see it. “Robin’s in trouble. Someone is trying to kill him and doing a pretty good job of it. We need to know who it is.” Across the street, a garbage truck rumbled. It was easier to watch than what I could sense crossing George’s face. “I want to know. Robin wants to know. Even Niko, the only person more Zen than you in this world. We want to save Goodfellow, so who the hell is behind it? We got one human. Was he in charge? Was he the last one?” If she wouldn’t look at the future, maybe looking at the past and present could help us.
I heard her shift and stand, her robe a rustle of warm velvet and cool silk. “Robin did something once, something quite…” Her voice trailed off, the anger now buried. This wasn’t about us anymore. This was about a friend. “I imagine he has a lesson to learn. Life seems to be like that,” she continued, her sympathy for him plain. “I can’t change that, and I shouldn’t try.” Which was her way of saying she wouldn’t try. “Try to have faith. Robin is clever and he has loyal friends. Trust that that will be enough.”
That was the problem with George, one of many. She saw the big picture, and a single life was only a small part of that picture, only one of many lessons. For me, that wasn’t good enough. Life might be all we got, as far as I knew, no matter what George sensed or thought. Lighting incense and staring at my navel while Robin got this life’s lesson rammed down his throat via an axe through his neck or a sword into his gut, that just wasn’t going to happen. Unlike those of George, my pictures were small, colored with finger paints, and in the here and now.
“Caliban?” she said from the door.
My eyes still on the street, I didn’t look, but she knew she had my attention. She was a psychic after all.
“I won’t wait forever.” Then the door shut on me, just as I’d once shut it on her. It wasn’t a good feeling…no matter what side you were on.
It was two hours later, six a.m., and my turn to open the bar. Sleep—who needed it? The Ninth Circle kept irregular hours. Some patrons like the night, some the early morning, some all damn day long. Ishiah switched it around enough that everyone could find what they needed on one day or another. It made for weird hours, a weirder schedule, and no damn dental either. Figured.
Delilah showed up barely twenty mi
nutes after I unlocked the door. She looked the same as when she’d healed me…goddamn amazing. Wild and exotic, polished and lethal as a sword. She sat on one of the stools, picking up a feather from the bar. No matter how often you cleaned the place, there were always feathers. This one was Cambriel’s—Cam’s, cream and copper. He had the same copper hair in a long plait and a scowl that could clear the bar in a second. He also molted like an ostrich with mange. Considering the peri temper, I didn’t mention it…much.
“Pretty boy.” Funny that I minded Sawney calling me a boy, but with her I didn’t mind so much. She twirled the feather and smiled at me. Delilah’s smile wasn’t your usual smile. It was more that of the cat that ate the canary or the fox that ate the henhouse—then had the farmer for dessert. It was satisfied and more than a little wicked.
“Delilah.” I was surprised. I hadn’t been sure I’d see her after the subway fight. Not that I hadn’t seen a lot of her then. A whole lot. “Come to give me my jacket back?”
“No. I like the jacket. I keep it,” she announced.
I’d liked it too, but what are you going to do? She liked it, I’d seen her naked…it was a fair trade.
I shrugged. “It did look good on you.” And damn, had it. “You want a drink?” Six a.m.. It was late for the vamps, early for the wolves, but you never knew.
“No. Want this.” She dropped the feather, reached across the bar, pulled me closer, and kissed me. It wasn’t like George. That kiss had been warmth and sun and the gentle silk of tongue. This was hot, with teeth and a taste like night under a bloodred moon. It was enough that when we broke apart I didn’t have a clue how much time had passed. I didn’t much care either.
Okay, now I was in the deep end of the pool. Auphe rug rat phobia and all, I hadn’t had much experience in this area. Well, being hunted, and Delilah was definitely a hunter—that I had plenty of experience in. But this…it definitely wasn’t a comforting warmth and a red and gold girl on a pedestal. It wasn’t the clover and sweet songs of a nymph either. It seemed like I should’ve said something; I know I should’ve said something, but “holy shit” didn’t seem appropriate. I said it anyway—with feeling and a stinging lower lip that I suspected had the faint dents of sharp teeth in it.
She smiled again. “You smell of her. One who could not run with you in the dark places.” She slid off the stool. “You smell like her but now you taste like me.”
And with that she left. There was the swing of the long silver ponytail as she moved and the shutting of a door. If you could say one thing about Delilah, it was that she said what she had to say, did what she had to do, and then she was done. Boom. Gone.
I said it again. “Holy shit.” The kiss combined with the still very vivid mental picture of her nude in the tunnels had me glad there were only two customers so far and that the bar came up waist high. By the time Promise came in an hour had passed. Luckily.
Delilah and now Promise. I was Mr. Popularity this morning.
Promise came into the place dressed in a snug scoop-necked sweater, sleek pants, boots, and a matching hooded cloak to protect from the sun. Gray, violet, and black, it all had reminded me of her rug I’d sat on, the one under her piano. Also the one that was probably being cleaned quite thoroughly at this very moment.
She smiled, sat on the same stool Delilah had, carefully arranged her cloak on the one beside her, and started in on me about George before I could get a word out. Not that my word-slinging ability was so hot at the moment. It’d been one helluva morning.
“So.” She tilted her head slightly. “What of Georgina? What did she tell you?”
I shifted my shoulders. “Nothing.” The bar was filling up a bit and I handed off a drink to a vodyanoi in a trench coat, scarf, and hat that had him passable on the street, just barely.
“She wouldn’t tell you a single thing?”
Running on absolutely no sleep, I gave Promise a weary glance over the bar. I was beginning to slouch, as you could be while still technically being counted as upright. “George isn’t big on hints. Robin did something bad. Karma is kicking his ass. Lessons to be learned. Embrace the whatever. In other words, we get squat in the way of help. Why are you here anyway?” I asked curiously. “Nik is usually the one who likes to point out my tactical errors. You know, the where and why of how I fucked up. You’re depriving him.”
“I’m sure he’ll discuss that with you later,” she said with amusement and absolutely no pity. “Right now he’s playing nursemaid to Goodfellow. Those pity-me eyes of Robin’s.” She cast her own upward in vexation. “He doesn’t know how to stop, I swear. It’s pathetic. I refuse to suffer any longer.” She rested pearl-colored nails on the bar surface. “And I nursed in the war. I have put in my service several times over. I am done with that.”
“Which war?” I straightened up a few inches with interest. Long enough ago and Promise could’ve drained as many soldiers as she tried to save. I didn’t know when the vampires had started living hunt-free lives. It involved human-style nutrition, four food groups and all, combined with massive supplements of iron and several other elements. It worked…now. It wasn’t something available over a hundred years ago. I would’ve liked to think that if the war had been before the nineteen hundreds, Promise had only taken the lives of those who would’ve died anyway. I liked to think, but what did I know really? Besides that, it was none of my business. “World War Two? The Civil War?”
“Asking a woman her age. You shame your gender. And, Caliban?” Sable lashes dropped over languid eyes. “There is not enough wine in this establishment,” she said with an inscrutable smile. “Perhaps not in the entire city.”
I thought about asking her of the little girl in the picture that had been placed so carefully on the piano, but I had a feeling the question wouldn’t be any better received than the other. “Okay,” I gave in, “no wine, then. You want some fancy morning thing with champagne?”
“Yes, a Bellini would suit, if you would be so kind.” The bar had few windows and they were covered with blinds and curtains for the sun-intolerant among the clientele. Promise had used the opportunity to remove her cloak and shake her hair free. It wasn’t often I saw it loose and unbound. It was something to see. The stripes poured and rippled down her back to past her hips as she sat…a tiger on a wooden perch.
By the time I returned with her drink, she was ready to reveal why she was really at the bar. “So”—she took the smallest of sips—“you got what you wanted, then. Niko told me where you were going, and once Georgina saw you, she would know.” She studied me over the glass filled with sun and champagne. “And she did, didn’t she? Does that make you happy, getting what you wanted?”
The words were uncompromising, but behind them I heard a reluctant sympathy. Promise knew my reasoning, but she also thought I was a twenty-year-old idiot hanging on to past teen angst for all I was worth—like a baby with a pacifier. She knew my reasons were valid, but she, like the others, thought there were ways around them. Vasectomy, contraception, cross your fingers and hope for a bouncing baby non-flesh-eater. Let’s say I didn’t trust any of the three. No one knew what the Auphe body was capable of regeneration-wise; condoms broke—as Sophia had once carelessly said, Niko was proof of that; and as for the last option: No. No way.
The only thing that would work, George wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t cheat. And as much as I cared for her, sometimes I didn’t much like her.
“Yeah, I’m happy. I got exactly what I wanted.” I didn’t snap or snarl. I said it in a perfectly even tone, which in some way was worse than the other two would’ve been. It was true. I’d gotten what I wanted. George safe. Safe from me. Safe from monster offspring. Safe from the Auphe, because if I didn’t care about her, then neither would they. If I didn’t see her, then they wouldn’t notice her. It was very much in her best interest not to be noticed.
She dipped her head in apology. “I, who never have the slightest urge to meddle in anyone’s personal a
ffairs, cannot seem to help myself with you.” She extended a hand to lay it across mine. “After all, Caliban, you are family.” She’d said that, done that, the hand thing, once before and I hadn’t reacted very politely. I tried to do better now. I left my hand under hers for three seconds (I knew…I counted) and then turned it to clasp hers briefly before quickly letting go. Like I’d said to Niko, I wasn’t good at this shit. I just wasn’t, but I would try. For Promise, I would try.
“Want another Bellini?” I asked gruffly, ignoring the fact hers was still three-fourths full.
She pondered the glass gravely, then said before taking another small sip, “Perhaps in a moment.”
A hand abruptly landed on the junction of my shoulder and neck. It wasn’t a friendly grip either. “What now, boss?” I said with a groan. “I haven’t impaled a customer in days.”
“No,” he agreed with bunched jaw. “You did, however, serve a vodyanoi a margarita on ice.”
“So?” I shrugged, not seeing the problem.
“With salt,” he added.
“And?” I twirled my fingers in an impatient come-on-already gesture.
“And half his face melted onto the bar.” He bent slightly to put his head even with mine. “Salt tends to do that to them.”
“Oh.” I winced. I hadn’t done it on purpose, although it was a good one to remember. As a matter of fact, Robin had mentioned that once the last time we’d dealt with them—salting them like a garden slug—but I’d thought he’d been joking.
“But, honestly, how can you tell about his face? I mean, come on.” I grimaced. A vodyanoi was not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. Mythology says they look like scaly old men with green beards. In reality, they appeared more like humanoid leeches. Neckless, they did have a sketch of a human face to draw in their prey. A mottling of colors. Small liquid eyes, a dark mark on gray flesh to imitate a nose, and a sucker mouth they used to slurp out your blood. Quick in the rivers and lakes, they were slow and awkward on land, which is why they rarely left the water. Why this one had donned a coat and hat and lumbered his rubbery way to the Ninth Circle for a drink, I had no idea, but I would’ve thought he would at least know what salt looked like…for facial preservation if nothing else.