Okay, now, that just hurt. My lips peeled back in a manner reminiscent of my earlier visitor. They ignored the snarl and they ignored me. That was worse. I think it was safe to say in my entire long life I'd never been ignored. Reviled, cursed, feared, but never… never ignored. Turning away from me, they continued with what passed for conversation among the sheep. Baa baa baa.
"How're the ribs doing?" Rafferty didn't wait for Niko's reply. Reaching over, he laid a hand on my brother's arm and let his eyelids fall in concentration. A second later he opened his eyes and grunted, "They're knitting. Hurting some, though, huh? How 'bout some Tylenol?"
Amusement a pale watercolor wash across his face, Niko said, "And here I thought you would simply slap the whammy on me."
"Trust me, I save the whammy for bigger and better things." The microwave dinged and he stood, calling over his shoulder, "Catcher, bring us the Tylenol!"
Minutes later, there was the clatter of nails on the worn wood floor and the wolf trotted into the kitchen holding a large red-and-white plastic bottle in his mouth. Robin raised his eyebrows. "That is one smart dog."
I saw Rafferty's shoulders tense and thanks to Cal's memories I knew why. Pretending as if he hadn't heard the comment, he went on to drop the dinners along with silverware on the table before taking the bottle and wiping the outside with a kitchen towel. Shaking out two, he dumped them in Niko's palm. "Dig in. Grub's on."
Peeling back the plastic film, Robin poked at the steaming dinner with a fork and made a face. "A grub or two wouldn't be much of a surprise. Neither would a rodent part or the occasional human thumb."
"You bitched at breakfast, bitched at lunch, and here we go again. You could always cook, Goodfellow. Nothing's stopping you." Rafferty began shoveling food into his mouth with relish.
"Nothing but the lack of even the most rudimentary of the basic food groups." Robin discarded his fork and pushed the uneaten dinner away. "Your pantry is empty and the refrigerator is developing new life and new civilizations as we speak. Perhaps your friend could share his doggy chow with us."
Niko tapped a finger on the back of Robin's hand warningly. "Not a good subject, Robin. Let's move on for the moment."
Goodfellow looked puzzled and his confusion was understandable. Nonhumans, whether monsters or human wannabes like the puck, could sense their own. Some could smell the difference, some could see it in a rainbow-chased aura, and still some sensed it in a way they couldn't even explain. Either way, you knew… You always knew. But there was nothing around Catcher that hinted of anything but the canine-slash-lupine… not to the paranormal senses.
There was silence after that. Apparently no new subject had enough appeal to pop into anyone's mind. Robin sat with chin in hand gazing absently into space.
Rafferty had confiscated the spurned microwave dinner and was making his way steadily through it. Niko had given his to Catcher, placing it carefully on the floor. The wolf stared at it dubiously, then fastened his teeth delicately around the edge, lifted it, and promptly dumped it in the garbage can by the back door.
"Not exactly a ringing endorsement, is it?" Robin drawled.
"Shut the hell up." Rafferty glared at Goodfellow and then turned his scowl back to me. "And you… go to sleep, damn it." If I'd ever needed a sign as to just how powerful the healer was, I received it. Like a light switch had been flicked, I tumbled from light to darkness. He hadn't even needed to touch me. From nearly twenty feet away he'd been able to put me down. It would've been humbling to anyone with less recognition of his own superiority. As I fell, I heard him shift from annoyed to defensive. "Sorry. But he was spooking me with those silver eyes. Jesus, they're freaky as hell."
I wondered dreamily what he would think of his own eyes when I plucked them from his sockets and fed them to him. Then, once again, I was gone.
The next time I awoke, the house was dark. The only illumination was a dull yellow light that spilled dimly down the hallway. It probably came from the den. Rafferty was much too practical to have a living room. He would be harder on the furniture than Catcher.
My position had changed; I was now on my side with a pillow behind my back supporting me. They might hate me, but they couldn't seem to bring themselves to hate what they still thought of as Cal's body. They were taking awfully good care of it. I immediately went to work trying to break the paralysis that held me. It was most likely pointless, but you never knew what the power of sheer rage could accomplish. And I was as coldly furious now as I had ever been. Locked like a falcon in the cage of my own body—it had long since passed irritating and was now just this side of unbearable. I wanted to rend; I wanted to shred; I wanted to kill. I bared my teeth and shook my head violently. But the most I accomplished was one absolute bitch of a headache. I tried to curve my hands into claws, tried to kick free of the covers. Nothing. I was as petrified as a centuries-old piece of wood. Dead and gone.
Yeah, they wished.
Soaked with futile sweat and panting with impotent rage, I heard it. Far down the hall, in the land of the light, came the explosion. It was Rafferty. "No! I won't. Goddamn it, Niko, I can't."
Niko's voice was low, audible only in part. "I know…" and "… sorry…" were all I could catch.
"No, you don't know. If you knew, you would never ask. I'm a healer. I can't kill. I won't kill."
Robin joined in then. "We've tried everything. There is nothing left to us. This would be painless. Cal deserves that. You would be saving him from further suffering. Can't the healer in you see that?"
"So you had me give him life only to turn around and take it?" Rafferty said bitterly. "Why did you bring him here then? Why didn't you just let nature take its course?"
"It was a mistake." Niko spoke louder this time, more firmly, but with as weary a tone as I'd ever heard from him. "My mistake. I thought I saw…" He let the words trail away. "It doesn't matter. It's the only way, Rafferty. If you don't do it, I will. My brother's blood is already on my hands. I'll finish what I started."
"Jesus," Rafferty said in a voice as weary as Nik's. "Sweet Jesus."
All right, this had better be a joke. One big, frigging mother of all jokes. Kill Cal? Kill this body? After all they'd gone through to avoid just that? Couldn't they make up their goddamn minds?
Apparently they could. After nearly twenty minutes of silence, the sound of footsteps reverberated down the hall. Any vestige of worthless humanity melted from me instantly. My lips remained locked in a snarl, and my eyes narrowed with a wrath that verged on madness. Humans. Sheep. Coming to take what was mine. Mine. Bastards. They had no idea what they were dealing with, even Goodfellow. Did they think they could make an end of me so easily? They were wrong. Fatally wrong.
"Cal?"
Niko stood in the door. The dark smudges circling his eyes gave mute testimony that it had been days, if not longer, since he'd slept. The lines scoring his face deepened as he stared at me. There was pain in his eyes, endless pain, but there was peace too. It was the same emotion you saw in the terminally ill. Acceptance. Letting go. Love.
Shit. They were serious about this.
He stepped into the room. "I let you down, Cal. I'm sorry." His lips curved sadly. "But you know that, don't you?" Standing by the edge of the bed, he bowed his head and rubbed knuckles over the surface of the blanket. "Kid brothers, they're a pain in the ass or so everyone says." The next words were softer, but I heard them nonetheless. "Everyone is wrong." Pulling up the covers higher on my chest, he smoothed the folds. "Good-bye, little brother."
Rafferty and Goodfellow had followed him quietly into the room. Robin moved shoulder to shoulder with Niko, a silent support. Rafferty moved to the other side of the bed and pulled the pillow out from behind me, dropping me to my back. He didn't look at me, couldn't look at me, if his clamped jaw and greenish white skin were any indication. "You two going to stay and watch me commit murder? Sure you don't want to make some popcorn first?" he spit with a near brutal antagonism.
Goodf
ellow's face solidified to ice. "If you cannot do it, then step aside." There was a knife in his hand, small but deadly. "If you won't help Caliban, then we will."
The anger melted away from his face, leaving only desperation and a numb despair. "No." Rafferty scrubbed his face hard with both hands. "No. You're right. I can set him free and I can do it without pain." Reluctantly, his eyes finally came to rest on mine.
"Touch me and it will be the last thing you do in your miserable life." Involuntarily venom began to pool and leak from the corners of my mouth. "And there'll be plenty of pain for you. Never-ending, soul-destroying pain." A thickly folded towel covered my mouth and kept me from dissolving the healer's face to a blood pudding. Niko. Always prepared. Always goddamn prepared.
Eyes still on me, Rafferty placed his hand on my chest and said soberly, "Cal… if you're in there… it'll be quick, I promise. I'll stop your heart. You won't feel a thing." Another hand, Niko's this time, was laid on my forehead in a wordless farewell.
I hated to lose. But if I had to lose, I was going to make these bleating sheep hate it every bit as much.
And just like that, it happened. I felt a coldness corkscrew through my flesh, icy fingers squeezing with a ruthlessly intangible grip. My heart staggered, skipped a beat, and shuddered to a halt. For a split second I was frozen, trapped between light and dark, life and death.
Then I split in two. Half of me ripped away, leaving a gaping, raw wound inside that felt large enough to swallow me whole. Darkling was in the air above me, looking down at me with round silver eyes. It was like double vision. I was me and I was him. I was half of a whole and God, oh, God, it felt like dying. I convulsed once and did… I died. I died and was sucked down an infinite whirlpool of blackness shot with radiant light. There was no air, but I didn't need any. There was no sound, yet it was all around. I was sound, a single note resonating throughout eternity. I was in a place utterly strange to me, yet I was home.
And then I was back. I shivered in waves, though I dimly sensed my heart was beating again. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to breathe. It was harder than it sounded. Every breath was thick and unwilling and my chest ached with an inner frostbite. But I was alive. And if I was alive, then I wasn't dead.
I wasn't dead?
I wasn't dead. Way to bluff, Niko. Too bad we never set up shop in Vegas. Nice acting, Rafferty, Goodfellow. You two get an Oscar. I slitted my eyes to see Rafferty's face close to mine with ill-concealed worry written all over it. "Cal?"
"Raff," I started before coughing weakly. "My 'magination… or… did you just… kill me?"
"Just for a second, I swear." His grin wobbled but was sincere.
I started to grin back instinctively, but the smile wilted away as my memory caught up with the rest of me. I remembered it all in one blinding flash… everything I'd said, everything I'd done. Darkling had been right. I'd finally learned what it meant to be a monster. And it was a knowledge I wasn't sure I could live with.
Off to the side, I heard Robin curse and Darkling cackle with maniacal pleasure. Fighting down the acrid bile that scorched my throat, I rolled over on my side. Avoiding Rafferty's hands, I tumbled off the bed and landed hard on the floor. The jolt cleared my head slightly and I focused on the scene only half a room away. Darkling was toying with them. He crouched on the ceiling, his head twisted at an unnatural angle. "Jump, doggies," he sneered. "Jump higher." Taunting them like a school yard bully, he could've left at any time. There weren't any mirrors in the room, but he didn't need any. Mirrors were much faster for traveling, but he could still swim through the atoms of the wall as if it were a river. But no, he was choosing to stay solid. Dissipate? Leave? Where would be the fun in that? He'd wanted them to pay before… prior to his rushing through the trapdoor in my mind. Now? Now that he knew how they had fooled him, tricked him? "Pay" wasn't even the word.
They'd figured it out, the three of them. They'd known Darkling wouldn't die with me, no matter how fond he was of our shared body. I grabbed a handful of covers and tried to pull myself up to a sitting position. My gaze went up to Rafferty, who was leaning over the bed to assist me. "How'd you… ?" I swallowed and shook my head.
"Know that he'd leave himself an out?" The healer's lips twisted ruefully. "We didn't. We didn't know anything for sure. We only hoped."
With his help I'd managed to get my feet under me in a half-assed squatting position that was shaky at best. "Give me a weapon," I ordered grimly, keeping my eyes on the fight before me.
"Not in this lifetime, buddy." Rafferty's hand was like iron on my shoulder. "If I may remind you, yours is now barely a minute old."
"Weapon. Now." Niko would've left me something, on the off chance their crazy plan worked. He wouldn't leave me unarmed. Not with the eater of my soul roaming free.
Rafferty sighed and muttered, "Damn stubborn son of a… under the bed."
Without looking, I slid a hand under the bed behind me. As my fingers touched cold metal, I watched Darkling drop from the ceiling. His back claws buried themselves in Goodfellow's shoulders as the silver eyes sought mine. "Déjà vu all over again, yes?" he purred. "Do you miss me, Cal? Because I miss you." The serpent tongue tasted the air between us. "But I won't for long." It was a promise that I knew he meant to keep.
Never. I didn't say it to him and I didn't say it to myself. I didn't have to. It was as unspoken but true as the rising and setting sun. The sword in my hand was for my own personal monster. But if worse came to worst… I'd been dead once today. It wasn't so bad.
Bending his head, Darkling's curved fangs snapped at Robin's neck. Niko seized the black throat and pulled him off Goodfellow. A few scattered drops of blood dribbled from the jet claws as he tore free of Niko's grip and somersaulted through the air. Hitting the wall feetfirst, he raced along the length of the room with the speed and grace of a greyhound. Robin whirled, led his target, and tossed his knife. It spun with deceptive laziness and slammed point first into the plaster, missing Darkling by scant millimeters.
"Don't quit your day job," Rafferty grunted over my shoulder.
Annoyed, Robin flashed him a frozen glare that thawed instantly as he caught sight of me. "Caliban?" The moment of distraction cost him. Darkling hit him with enough force to lift him bodily several feet off the floor and slam him into the far wall. Hissing in pain, Goodfellow managed to get his knee up and push him off a few inches. It wasn't much, but it was just enough for Robin to pull another knife seemingly out of nowhere. He jammed it toward the scaled stomach. Sinuous as a snake, Darkling twisted and avoided the blow. Almost. The point of the blade caught the webbing of arm and side. With a gaping grin, Darkling yanked the weapon from Robin's grasp and touched the metal to his tongue, tasting his own blood. It was almost white, the blood, with a peculiarly thin and foamy consistency. It reminded me of the leaking fluid of a caterpillar accidentally crushed by my Keds fifteen or more years ago.
Pale eyes glittered as even paler liquid was licked from a lipless mouth. "Like a fine wine. Here… have some." Spinning, he punched the blade into Niko's shoulder like an ice pick through wet cardboard. Nik had been drifting up silently behind him, sword readied for a decapitating blow. There wasn't any way Darkling could've heard him, preternatural hearing or not. Nik was genetically human, but there were aspects to him, skills he possessed, that were beyond human. How did Darkling know, then? How was he aware of Niko's flanking motion?
Because of me.
He'd shared my mind for long enough to know Nik as I knew him. What I could predict in my brother, Darkling would see just as clearly.
Niko reeled backward with the knife still firmly embedded in his shoulder. He didn't make a sound, simply steadied himself and transferred his sword to the other hand. With a face as set as that of a stone statue, he moved back into the fray. He didn't spare a moment for the pain and he didn't spare a glance for me. He didn't have to. He was as aware of me as he was of Darkling. And right now he was focused on saving me.
Trou
ble was… I was tired of being saved. I was tired of my ass being in a sling because Mom had needed extra cash and had diddled the boogeyman. I was tired of running and I was damn tired of getting caught. One way or the other, this was the end of it. One way or the other, the monster was no more. Was I referring to Darkling or myself?
I didn't know.
My fingers felt clumsy on the hilt of my borrowed sword, and my legs felt like someone else's as my squat became the distant, inbred cousin to a crouch. Rafferty's hand was still clamped on my shoulder, but his attention was fixed on the battle. Robin had dropped to the floor and rolled out from under Darkling, reaching for another dagger tucked against the small of his back as he went. Darkling himself had done a backward flip away from the wall into the center of the room. The venom he spat at Niko was a glittering mist in the air. Nik ducked to one knee, dodging it, then lunged up again. The toll of the metal penetrating his flesh was beginning to tell. The upper part of his shirt was soaked in blood and shock sweat was beginning to dampen his hair. It wouldn't stop him, though, I knew. Nothing short of death would.
"You're quick," Darkling commended, clapping his dark hands lightly. "For a sheep. But it didn't help you before, Cyrano, and it won't help you now." He cocked his head sideways. "I own him, you know. Little brother belongs to me. I've been in every part of him… every cell of his body, every fiber of his being. He's mine to use as I want. Mine. And there's nothing… nothing you can do." His voice was a thousand times more deadly than his poison. Soft, conspiratorial, and utterly soulless. "I'll take him just as before. You can't stop me. You can never stop me."
"But I can."
The sword that I plunged through his back came out his chest spraying foamy blood like milk. My voice was rusty as I repeated, "I can, you son of a bitch. I can."
The reptilian head swiveled, the silver eyes disbelieving. Didn't expect that, did you? I thought savagely. Didn't expect this half-dead sheep to do anything but lie down for you. I yanked the blade back out of him, the action half turning him. It was just enough for me to bury the sword in his stomach this time. I felt it catch and grind on his spinal column. "And you're not quick." The smile I felt split my face felt as unnatural as the white fluid cascading to the floor. "Not even for a sheep." I leaned sideways and jammed a foot under the point of entry, pushing him off the weapon. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nik restrain Robin from coming to my aid.