“Wasting your time, doll,” she replied with a midwestern accent that said she’d never seen Russia, much less drowned unwary travelers in its lakes and rivers. “Grandma was from the homeland. I was born in good old Omaha. But enough small talk. So . . . tell me now, what exactly can I get you?” She leaned toward us and her breasts leaned with her. The Russian might not have made an impression, but Robin himself did. Her smile was every bit as hungry as his. Niko and I might as well not have existed.
“I think that would be our cue.” Niko took my arm and we were up and back in the parking lot before I had time to grab frantically at the door handle of the bathroom, which I needed desperately.
“What the hell?” I protested. “I’m starving and unlike you, I can’t meditate my piss into good karma points.”
“Let him make his choice and then we’ll get you all the deep- fried everything you can swallow while still maintaining a continuous stream of constant complaint.” He folded his arms and stood at the curb like a statue nobly gazing into the west. Onward, wagons ho! I, on the other hand, leaned against the wall beside the glass doors. It didn’t turn out to be a wise decision. “I’ll even give you the Heimlich if the two activities conflict,” he continued.
Let him choose? I was not waiting for Robin to sort out his feelings about monogamy and hot rusalka waitresses that might drown you in a kitchen sink or a toilet if a dull moment or cultural nostalgia came along. My stomach and my bladder didn’t have that kind of time. Then again, this was Goodfellow we were talking about. He might think with his dick, but that thing must’ve had at least two hundred PhDs in field experience alone. If he was going to make up his mind, he’d be quick about—
The door swung open and I barely kept it from slamming me in the face as the puck stomped through before I had time to complete my thought. “She’s not my type. Order me the least offensive thing on the menu,” Robin snapped, and kept going. Not his type? Everyone and everything were his type.
“Monogamy,” Niko said, a hint of surprise in his voice . . . Niko who was never surprised. “He is actually considering it.”
I was more than surprised. I was utterly blown away in addition to nearly being flattened by the door. I felt my nose carefully, but it seemed unsquashed. “Holy crap,” I marveled, pushing the door back. “Goodfellow . . . Robin . . . just one person . . . monogamy?” Just one person in his life? He rarely screwed just one person in the same moment. He went through mattresses like most people went through Kleenex. “Even temporary monogamy? I think my brain just exploded.”
“Doubtful. I think you need at least two brain cells to rub together for combustion.” Nik gave me a light push. “And no matter which way he is leaning, it’s his choice. Not ours to push on him. Now, food. Bathroom. Go.”
By the time I got back to the car carrying eight or nine bags, I was in a better mood. They didn’t have a Merry Monogamy balloon in the gas station, just in case he did do something so unpucklike, but that wouldn’t stop me from having a little fun. Unfortunately, it ended up that the fun had to wait. Robin, Niko, who’d left me to do the food chore, and Salome were out of sight, which meant they were in Abelia-Roo’s RV parked on the far side of the lot. She would naturally have parked it there to limit the contamination as much as possible.
Near me—near Catcher and Rafferty, more precisely—were three truck drivers. As I dumped the bags in the front seat, one of the truckers, a brawny guy who hadn’t been on the road long enough to have made pear shape yet, said, “That ain’t no damn dog. I’ve been to zoos. I’ve seen wolves. That’s a wolf and that shit’s not legal.” The two guys with him were muttering agreement and about calling the cops and saving God’s blessed little children, like they really didn’t have anything better to do. They couldn’t go inside and eat a gallon of grease, buy some porn, and live and let live. They were the kind who could find trouble anywhere they went and make it out of thin air if it was scarce.
I knew Rafferty and Catcher didn’t need any help. Catcher could leap out of the backseat to tear out their throats in seconds. Raff wouldn’t have to move at all. He could have them gushing fluids from every orifice in their bodies with a thought . . . if he was in a good mood. If he wasn’t, hell, he might tie their balls in knots that no surgeon could untie. He wouldn’t, though, not really. He wasn’t Suyolak, as much as he threatened. But he was still a Wolf. Rafferty and Catcher could take care of themselves; I had no doubt. Or I could do them a favor because they were doing us a major one, what with the world saving and all.
I dropped the last bag and walked around to the back of the car as the lead sack of shit opened his mouth one more time. Maybe he was going to say he was calling the cops for sure or the dogcatcher. Maybe he was going to get his face in Catcher’s and get it ripped off, potato-shaped nose and all. I didn’t wait to see. I pulled my Desert Eagle from beneath my jacket and pressed the muzzle to his thigh where the car blocked it from sight of anyone in the restaurant. “Go away,” I said without emotion. I’d been in this situation too many times to bother to emote in Shakespearean style all over it. To shoot or not to shoot. To kill or not to kill. Whatever. I wasn’t Hamlet. I knew what I would do, and I wasn’t wringing my hands over it. “Go away now.”
Catcher’s teeth were bared, but Rafferty didn’t seem bothered, his arm stretched along the back of the seat. “Subtle’s not your middle name, is it, Cal?”
I bared my teeth along with Catcher. “Not lately. If I leave people alone, I expect the same in return. I also expect the same for my friends.” I focused on the trucker, his skin pale and sweating from the sight of the gun.
“You . . . you fellows from New York?” He must have seen the license plate.
“Bubba, you have no idea where we’re from. No . . . fucking . . . idea.” My grin twisted. “I wish I were carrying my Magnum. I love that flinch when I cock it. That’s damn good stuff. But, what the hell, this is fun too.” I couldn’t chamber a round. I lived with one in the pipe. Always. I could pull the trigger to the halfway position and savor the soft click, though. The trucker tried to swallow, couldn’t, then pissed himself. The wet patch was clear on his faded jeans and large, down to his knees at least. He must’ve had a Big Gulp not long ago. “Did I do that, Raff, or did you?” I asked lazily.
Rafferty leaned forward and took a few bags from the front seat. “Eh, does it matter?”
No, it didn’t. “I repeat,” I said softly, “one last time, and that’s one more time than I usually give any other piece of shit nosy-ass bastard like yourself. Go away now or go away permanently. I’m fucking peachy with either option.”
They left pretty damn quickly. Rafferty had unloaded his and Catcher’s food while I was just opening mine, when my brother and Goodfellow returned. “Good, you’re back,” the healer said around a mouthful of chicken-fried steak. “Your brother almost shot a few truckers, I had to muddle a few memories by frying a few brain cells that, trust me, couldn’t be spared, and Catcher doesn’t like liver and onions, so somebody swap with him.” He pointed the plastic fork at me. “Killing in broad daylight. Appreciate the sentiment, but would appreciate not being mobbed by the villagers more. Kill them in the dark.”
I swapped my lunch with Catcher. “I didn’t kill them.”
“But would you have?” That was Niko, a pissed Niko, and there was no lying to Niko, no matter what mood he was in. That mood, I was forced to admit, had been annoyed since day one of the trip and it was ninety-nine point nine percent my fault.
I exhaled. “No, and before you add the ‘but,’ yeah, I wanted to shoot him . . . just in the leg, though, which hardly counts. He was an ass. He was looking for trouble. I’m a nice guy.” And wasn’t I, though? “I like to give people what they want.”
I missed lunch.
Niko thought that if I had that much excess energy, not to mention excess stupidity, I needed a workout. Behind the truck stop we sparred hand to hand for about forty-five minutes until every part of me ached, sweat soa
ked my hair, and the only person I had a desire to shoot was myself to put myself out of my misery. Yet there was my brother, trying to ground me and giving the Plague of the World extra time up on us because he thought it was worth it—I was worth it. It was at times like this I almost wished he didn’t think I was. I groaned, “Sadist.”
Niko looked down at me as I lay on my back on the asphalt and gulped air. We’d had a ring of spectators for the first half-hour. More nosy bastards. Back in New York, no one would’ve given us a second look unless we were blocking the entrance to the Internet café or a bar. “A gun, a potential shooting, in broad daylight in a highly public area? You might pretend to be less intelligent than you really are, but this is not excusable. They were idiots and easily handled without a penknife, much less your gun du jour.”
“I know.” I pulled in more ragged breaths. It had been stupid and there’d been a hundred other ways to deal with the truckers than shooting them or even just threatening to shoot them. I knew that, but . . . “I was feeling on edge,” I admitted, wiping stinging sweat from my eyes. “Bottled up. I wanted to do something. Anything, The truckers were just in the right place at the right time”—or would’ve been if I’d actually gotten to shoot one—“to let off some steam.”
“In other words, you were feeling antsy,” Niko said, studying me, before holding down a hand to help me up. But he didn’t. He only gripped my hand and added, “It’s been almost a whole day since you gated. Your need for it is growing and that means it’s not harmless. It’s not the equivalent of exercise endorphins. It is not a good thing in any way. Do I need to point out this is a problem?”
“No,” I grunted as a boot rested in my gut, “but I have a feeling you will anyway.”
He put a little more weight on me. “Brotherly love. Embrace the concept, little brother. No more gates. No more potential mutilation of the public at large. The entire adult concept comes with responsibilities. We have a job to do. If you get antsy again . . .”
“Suck it up?”
“I was going to say meditate, but you can do both. Or I can stuff you in the trunk of the car and set my mind at ease. I saw you. . . .” He stopped speaking and pulled me to my feet. But I knew how he would’ve finished it. I saw you die once. I don’t want to see it again. I didn’t think my traveling was near the threat he did, maybe because I didn’t want to believe, but he was my brother. He was about three Nobel Prize-winning scientists smarter than I, and . . . shit, again, he was my brother. Everything he’d done in his life for me had been for me, not to me.
It was why he didn’t speak Rom. Abelia- Roo could mock him all she wanted. I’d been there when we’d gone to our mother’s clan for help when she was killed. I hadn’t been in the best shape, but I remembered what had happened. It wasn’t something you tended to forget, no matter what shape you were in.
I’d been sixteen, but still felt fourteen—the two missing years of memories a nightmarish whirlpool of black nothingness striped with chaotic red emotion. Not talking to anyone but Nik and then only one or two words at best. I’d never let go of the knife under my jacket . . . Nik’s jacket. Mine didn’t fit anymore. And Nik . . . Nik touched me at all times, now that I could bear to let myself be touched again, to let me know I wasn’t alone. He had his hand resting on my shoulder, squeezing, and standing close enough that we cast one shadow. Fourteen, sixteen, sane, insane, human, monster; I hadn’t known which of those things I was, but I’d known Niko was there. Even when I’d shut my eyes against a sun that still seemed far too bright after a month of escaping the Auphe, I’d felt the warmth of his hand burning through to my skin.
Cal.
My eyes had snapped open when he spoke, my knife already pulled.
“No, Cal,” had come the reassuring reply. “No knife. We’re here for help, remember? This is Sophia’s clan. Our clan. Family.” And because Niko was a good man even at eighteen, he’d believed that or wanted to believe it.
It was one of the few times he’d been wrong.
They’d known what I was. Sophia had left the clan, but the clan had never left her. She was Vayash. Vayash never left Vayash. They’d watched, kept track, and consequently knew about the deal she’d made with the Auphe to produce me. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have any say in the whole damn thing. The good people of the Vayash clan had spat on me, hid their children from the very sight of me, and they damn sure weren’t going to take an abomination like me under their protection. Niko . . . Niko was all Vayash, all human. Niko was welcome. He had only to cast me aside.
Or preferably kill me. After all, I was a monster, a thing, a rabid dog.
A man-eater, just not quite grown to full potential. Niko blamed them. Honestly, I didn’t.
Niko had turned his back on them, their life, their ways, their language, and hadn’t once looked back. They were as dead to him as we were to them. How do you deny someone who does that for you? You don’t. I pushed back sweat-soaked hair with an asphalt-scraped hand and gave his a tight squeeze with my other before I let go. “Sucking it up. Meditating. You got it.” I brushed dirt from my jeans. “So, did I do good? Workoutwise? Going to grade me?”
“I hear failing grades only discourage students. You’re progressing. Does that make you feel better?”
Considering Niko wouldn’t be happy unless I could protect myself with the lethal skill of a sixteen-foot-long great white, it was praise enough.
“Puppies done playing now?” Delilah purred from where she sat in a small patch of weeds several feet away. The remnants of her own lunch rested on a plate beside her, the bloody bones of what must’ve been two or three very rare T-bone steaks. Not one drop of red stained her leathers. “So cute. Like a bone as a reward?”
Niko wasn’t amused. He was a patient man, beyond patient, but that massive reserve was put aside for my smart-ass nature and our work in general. Right now he had little to spare for the Wolf who very probably was going to try to kill me. He didn’t like it when people and monsters and all that fell between made attempts on my life. I made my own decisions on where to sleep and whom to sleep with, but he didn’t have to like it and he didn’t have to show my possible assassin any faked appreciation of her humor.
Delilah tilted her head as she stood smoothly to move close to me, inhaling the smell of my sweat. “Wish to play more? Plague of the World can wait fifteen minutes more, yes?”
“No,” Niko said flatly. “The workout was delay enough.” He pointed at the employees’ bathrooms on the side of the building. “Clean up, Cal.” Because, of course, he didn’t have to. Sun, exertion, they were nothing. Me? I had to fucking man up, not melt into a puddle, walk away from a sure thing—sex or death—and go scrub down.
Delilah turned to look at Niko. I didn’t know if he smelled of suspicion or not. Surely even my brother couldn’t control his scent. But it didn’t matter. Delilah already knew I had my doubts, that we all did; she was a smart Wolf. She also knew a doubt wasn’t a sure thing. I was giving her a chance. Niko wasn’t feeling as cooperative at the moment. “You want to play?”
Niko didn’t pause to consider. Suspicion, distrust, it made her unworthy of sparring or conversation. And he was done with pretending. “Cal.”
I went. He was right. The Plague of the World came first. Chances, for Delilah and me, came second.
When I made it back to the car, I had hair wet from water from a bathroom sink and smelled of industrial-strength soap good for ridding the restaurant workers of E. coli. It was good for sweat too. As I climbed into the back of the car, Catcher regarded me with a horror that had him nearly climbing into his cousin’s lap. Auphe combined with the smell of twenty lemon groves mixed with bleach must’ve been worse than straight Auphe. Before Rafferty could complain about it, I put out a hand to Robin and said disgruntledly, “Give me the spray. I can’t take the bitching.”
“Speaking of bitching”—Rafferty elbowed his cousin off him and back between us—“your friend Delilah, if you can call any Kin a
friend, is getting on my last goddamn nerve. Our families cut ties with our Kin relatives before we were born. We don’t deal with the criminal trash we’re related to. Having to listen to one we don’t even share blood with is more of a pain in the ass than I’m willing to deal with. And I won’t have anything to do with her and her freak All Wolf.”
It was rare I heard the name of the cult, the All Wolf, the Wolves who bred for the recessive traits, hoping someday to get their descendants back to the very beginning. All wolf all the time, even in thought—wanting what Catcher was trying so desperately to get rid of. Up until Catcher in fact, Delilah had been sort of the equivalent of a lapsed Catholic when it came to the All Wolf. She might have had partial wolf vocal cords and who knew what else inside, but she was pure human on the outside. Her faith in the All Wolf was limited until she met Catcher. Then she was born again, raise your paws high, brothers and sisters.
“So get her to back off,” Rafferty added curtly, “or I’ll put her ass in a coma until this is all over with. Got it?” He was sounding more and more like Suyolak all the time . . . and, hell, maybe that was the way it had to be for him to win.
Catcher didn’t seem to agree, giving a mournful-sounding moan, but, yeah, I got it. Rafferty had enough to deal with. So did I, but I’d created the problem by letting Delilah come along, and I’d deal with it. I watched as Delilah rode out of the parking lot ahead of us. Later. I’d deal with it later.
But later turned out to be a little inconvenient.
It was around seven when Rafferty came out of another light doze. I was driving by now, spelling Nik. Robin and Salome were still up front. Everybody thought it best to avoid another Salome/Catcher throw down. Goodfellow, on the other hand, was in the middle of what looked like a mental meltdown. “She was comely,” he’d been muttering over and over, so many times I was tempted to slam my head against the steering wheel to knock myself unconscious. “Why did I deny her? Deny myself?” Then he would focus on me. “She was comely, wasn’t she?”