“Never send a samurai to do a street punk’s job,” I grumbled, slamming into the door as Robin treated the exit like a snowless slalom and he was shooting for the Olympics. “Don’t lose them.”
“Lose them? I was a charioteer in Ben-Hur. A car is nothing compared to four recently gelded and consequently highly pissy horses.” He maneuvered around a slow-chugging Toyota and a slightly faster-moving, rusted-out pickup truck with a ruthless speed that would’ve had a New York cabbie bawling like a baby. The black truck missed them both as well. Maybe it wasn’t a Seattle professor, but Charlton Heston behind the wheel.
It was not the best moment to pass the sheriff, but pass him we did. He was going in the opposite direction as we followed the truck at high speed. The department car slammed on its brakes, turned, and was after us for about fifteen seconds. Then it slowed, slowed further, and gradually veered off the road. He might not have shot the sheriff, but Suyolak had done something to him, and to the deputy too if he was with him—something probably permanent and considerably worse than what was in the song. And again I wondered—if he could do that with weak coffin seals, what would he be able to do if he did get out of that coffin?
I didn’t want to put it to the test, with Rafferty on our side or not.
“Shoot the tires,” I suggested.
“No.” Nik had checked the SIG to make sure one was in the pipe. Where was the trust? “Let’s see where he goes. Hopefully it will be someplace a little less conspicuous and less lethal to the local bystanders.” It truly was another four-way stop-ville as I said, but there were two gas stations and a tiny pizza place, or what passed for pizza in Utah. There were people—only a handful, but it was a handful that didn’t have to die because of Suyolak if we confronted him and whatever else was in that truck farther out.
“The salt of the earth, these people,” Robin said with a cheer that made me wonder how many times in his long life he’d chased after death with a smile and an immaculate wardrobe. “Ever made love to a Utah woman? Or man? They actually do taste like salt. I don’t know if it’s the salt flats or the air, but they’re like the very best potato chips. You can’t eat just one.”
“Does he ever shut up? Damn it, ever?” Rafferty looked close to desperate behind Niko’s seat.
“Whatever. You’ve spent two days with him. Try the past three years of your life. Or is it four? It’s too traumatizing to remember.” I hit the door again as we turned right. “And maybe you should concentrate on why Suyolak isn’t trying to do to us what he did to the cops back there.”
“He is.” Rafferty’s face was drawn now that I bothered to take the time to notice, his knuckles white where he clenched the seat beneath him to stay upright during the rough ride. “Just consider me your force field of cold, flu, and goddamn plague repellant and try not to distract me.” He closed his eyes, the better to concentrate, I hoped. I didn’t have a desire to have my body try to drown itself again. “Particularly you, Goodfellow.”
Robin had already opened his mouth for another comment. I didn’t have to see him to know that. I only had to know him. He kept quiet, though. I didn’t know what diseases pucks could catch, if any, and I knew they were resistant to poison, but he had a heart the same as the rest of us. And it could stop the same as the rest of ours. He could lose his life. The following silence was a sign of the high premium he put on that life. He might be a trickster, but he was up- front with his priorities and
I respected that.
I respected his driving even more as we took another turn. I didn’t think we took it on two wheels, but there was no way we took it on all four. I knew it the same as I knew Rafferty was keeping Suyolak from inserting invisible fingers into our brains, our blood, our bones, and contaminating them with his touch. I wouldn’t call it faith; I’d call it fact, the fact that we were still alive. That made Goodfellow one helluva driver and Rafferty one helluva healer. It also made me tired of sitting on the sideline. That’s not who I was, not what I did.
So instead I took a chance, one stupid, reckless chance. It was also one I was lucky to survive, but I didn’t care. I didn’t think “lucky” at the time, because it was what I was supposed to do, and who I was supposed to be, and it felt so damn good that I couldn’t have not done it if I’d tried.
Being unable to not do something is a bad sign that should make you think, and think hard, but I didn’t. Not then.
Because I was free.
I couldn’t make a gate inside the car, but I could build it around myself, and I did. Between one breath and the next, I was on the hood of the truck. I snared one hand on the rim of the windshield wiper well and pulled the Eagle with the other. I felt exhilaration as the wind hit me, as I saw a glimpse of a pale face and silver hair behind the glass, and most of all as I started to pull the trigger. The feeling didn’t disappear as the truck slid in a circle to leave the road, and I slid myself. I lost my grip and flew through the air. It could’ve been nasty, that fall.
Jack and Jill went up the hill. . . . Weren’t things broken when they came back down?
But I wasn’t Jack. I wasn’t going to break. The truck had braked next to a creek bank, the creek rocky and ten feet down. I tumbled through the air toward it and into the second gate I’d made in three seconds. Passing through, I came out on the other side standing in knee-high water. I was about to go through the third gate and back up when the fight came to me.
There was a willow-type tree lining the banks of a creek, many of them, but they were wispy like feathers and didn’t block much of my view. I saw the back of the truck burst open, but it wasn’t Suyolak who came out. He must’ve been still trapped in the coffin—one for the home team. The driver, being sapped of life, was still enough of an expert in folklore to know Suyolak could have the cure for his wife, but he could also be the death of the husband if he escaped before the truck made it home. He hadn’t opened the coffin. How he planned to negotiate with Suyolak and depend on the bastard to keep his word was his business. Or an impossible dream, because we weren’t going to let it happen, no matter the flood of night that poured out of the truck when the doors opened.
I still didn’t know what they were. They were as big as werewolves and somewhat similarly shaped, but sharper, leaner, with muzzles as pointed as the end of a sword. They were like foxes . . . if foxes were bigger than Great Danes, black as crows plucking at the eyes of a dead man, and their own eyes—gray. They were gray like mine and Niko’s, only paler, but I wasn’t in the mood to claim them as kissing cousins.
They slithered out of the truck in waves. I didn’t know how many of them managed to fit in there, but they were emaciated, as if they’d run a long way. The truck started moving again while they were still coming out, its tires spinning, churning dirt and grass. It was out of sight in seconds, the same amount of time it took for the creatures, a tsunami of shadows, to cover Niko’s replacement car. Several split off from the pack to come for me, vaulting through the trees and down the embankment with a speed that said they weren’t only starved; they were ravenous.
Goddamn, this was going to be fun.
They were almost beautiful in their own way. A lot of things that could kill you were. It didn’t stop me from shooting the first two in the head, then ripping space and appearing behind them to shoot two more. The four remaining ones hit the water, turned, and leaped back toward me. They weren’t cowed by the deaths of three of their own or the one still thrashing in its death throes. They came for me so quickly that I didn’t see the surface of the water ripple under their paws. Their bones showed under their black coats, but it didn’t mean they were weak. Water didn’t curve under them and my eyes could barely follow them—hardly frail; the opposite in fact. Did that make it less fun? Hell, no.
It made it better.
“Come and get me,” I said, and traveled again, a fraction of a second before they would’ve reached me. This time when I appeared I was on the other side of Nik’s new car, firing as soon as the world mat
erialized out of silver light. I killed two and injured one, and it was easy. It was so easy that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been doing this every time I came across a bad guy or a creature that wanted to eat me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been doing it every damn day just for the on-top-of-the-world, king-of-the-goddamn-universe feeling. It was good—so good, it was simple, and it was effective. It hadn’t always been, but it was now and not using it would be practically criminal.
Two more ebony heads turned in unison away from the car and toward me, their eyes reflecting me . . . a distorted, twisted image of me, at least. Or maybe it was a true one . . . and that didn’t bother me either. Both of them gave a yowl so high-pitched it could’ve been responsible for the shattering of the back window behind them, but it wasn’t. Catcher got credit for that as he sailed through the glass. He landed on one of them, rode it to the ground, and snapped its neck with his massive jaws. He might have liked beach bunny calendars, playing hangman, and sticking a cold wet nose in your ear just as you fell asleep to see you jump out of your skin, but Catcher was also a Wolf—a born predator, and genes would tell. They always did.
Surprising how easy it was to forget that.
Another Wolf, red like Catcher but a shade lighter, followed him out the window and took down the other . . . whatever it was. It was the first time I’d seen Rafferty in wolf form. On the other side of the car, yet another Wolf, Delilah, had joined the party. I’d thought I’d heard her motorcycle. The driver’s side of the car opened and Robin climbed out with sword in hand. “Ördögs. Usually found in Hungary.” He ducked with alacrity, gutting the one that sailed over his head.
“But found occasionally these days in certain mountainous regions of the United States. Migration. Immigration. Whatever you wish to call it,” Niko finished, at my side so swiftly that I wasn’t sure if he’d come after Robin or around the car—probably around. There was already blood on his sword. He’d disdained my borrowed gun for close combat. “They have a kinship with the Rom, at least the Rom who walk the darker paths—like Suyolak. They definitely don’t have a connection with healers. Suyolak must’ve called for them, gathered them up when they caught up to him.” He swiveled and let gravity impale one on his katana. “And they came a long way, considering how malnourished they are.”
“Run.” The word was garbled, almost too mangled to understand. It came from atop the car where one Ördög crouched, teeth bared. It had only four of them, like the upper and lower fangs of a cobra—curving and longer than my hand. “He promised feast that never ends. Death that never stops. We run. No sleep. No eat.” Its eyes focused on Niko and me. “Eat now.”
In our world, it was sometimes hard to tell who was good and who was bad, and wasn’t it a matter of perspective anyway? Either way, good or bad, right or wrong, it was always easy to tell who was hungry. Hungry was always the wrong side, and when they spoke up to yell you they were hungry and going to eat you, it made it even easier to spot them.
I could’ve dived to one side or tried for a shot before the chatty one jumped from the roof. The Ördög was less than six feet away . . . but where was the entertainment in that? Niko’s hand locked on to my shoulder almost before I had a chance to finish the thought. “Cal,” he said, his voice absolute. He didn’t add “don’t,” because he knew I would listen to him. I always did. He was my brother. He’d protected me my whole life. He was one of the best fighters, if not the very best, that I’d ever seen and the best stragetician. He . . .
Shit. It didn’t matter if he was the best. It didn’t matter that he was my brother.
For the first time ever, I didn’t listen.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d on occasion deliberately not done what he thought, and strongly emphasized, was best, but I’d always weighed the pros and cons. In those cases I’d known I probably wasn’t doing the safe thing but the necessary thing. And although I’d done those things, I’d listened to him first. Not this time. This time I wasn’t listening to my gut either. I was listening to the need. It was talking louder than Nik and louder than the rest of me.
I brushed his hand off and traveled on top of the car, the gray light dappling the air around me, inches from the Ördög’s muzzle. “Boo,” I said with soft cheer. “Here’s the gravy train.” As much as I loved my guns, I didn’t use the Eagle this time. I jumped it at the same time it jumped me. We rolled off the car and hit the ground hard, me on the bottom and the Ördög on top of me with its teeth snapping at my throat. I laughed. It only kept getting more and more entertaining . . . more like a game. “Bad dog,” I whispered with a smile. Then I put my hand on its throat, called a gate around it, and passed my glowing hand through flesh and bone. Instantly dead, the light, almost silver eyes darkened to a gray the same as mine. I used my knee to fling the body off. The head, however, landed on my chest and that reflection I’d seen of myself earlier, I saw again in the mirror-shine that began to dull with every passing second. I saw my face, Auphe pale since birth with Sophia’s eyes, except for a spark of red in them. I blinked and it was gone; only the fog of death remained in the Ördög’s gaze.
I’d imagined it, because . . . because there was no other explanation. I didn’t see it. It wasn’t there and nothing was ruining the high I had going on. I jumped to my feet, my hand covered with Ördög blood. It was red, darker than human blood, but close. I’d seen enough of both or maybe I hadn’t. The feel of it, slippery and warm against my skin… it was nice. It was more than nice. I looked for more Ördögs to kill. They were hungry, but so was I. It was a different kind of hunger—a hunger for more battle, more traveling, more killing, but justified killing. Self-defense. Defense of others. Whatever. Another wave of euphoria passed through me, and concepts like justification disintegrated beneath it. I only wanted more targets, more traveling, more of this sensation, and I didn’t care how I got it.
But there were no more. Niko, Robin, the cousins, and Delilah had taken the rest of them. Black bodies littered the grass and dotted the water of the creek below, but it wasn’t right; it wasn’t enough. Then I saw her, frozen on the other side of the creek—a doe, wide black eyes surrounded by a ring of white. Mule deer, white-tail; I didn’t know which was in Utah. Nik would know. Nik always . . .
That thought disappeared as the muscles under the tan hide bunched, and the deer swiveled to bound away. She shouldn’t have done that. No. She shouldn’t have tried to run. They should never run.
You chase what runs.
It was the rule, the law, the way life was.
You chase what runs. You catch what runs. You kill what runs.
Always.
It wasn’t too clear after that. There were flashes of light, tears in reality, and there was food. Warm food that slid down my throat to heat my stomach. There was company: a red male wolf on one side of me, teeth ripping at a white and tan neck; a white female wolf on the other side, muzzle deep in a tan belly. She lifted her head and grinned at me, her white fur stained red up to her amber eyes. Good. All good. Friends and food, and maybe later those friends could become food. Why should there be a difference between the two?
Fun. It was all fun. Anything I wanted to do, everything I wanted to do, and no one could stop this feeling.
No one could stop me.
“Cal.”
I turned to look over my shoulder at the more-than-familiar voice and reality smacked me in the face—that and a hard fist. It took it all away: the dark joy, the kick-ass fun, the utter invincibility. . .
Consciousness.
There was movement, a subtle rocking. Cool air. The smell of old plastic, old carpet, old foam. There were also wolves, a human, something green and fresh like a forest . . . a puck. All familiar; it was comforting, like all my naps, and I wallowed in it, which was also something I did with most of my naps.
“Hades damn us all. There’s a five-car pileup ahead. It’ll be hours before we make it past that. Suyolak’s version of an orgy. Death and destruction. He’s no doubt postcoital
as we speak.”
Goodfellow. No way that was anyone but Goodfellow . . . wishing he were postcoital, I was sure, in a hazy way, only in the more traditional sense. No death and destruction for him there. Not like Suyolak. It was the last that had me clenching my fingers into fists, shaking my head, and trying to open my eyes.
“He’s waking up.” And Rafferty. That was Rafferty. He didn’t sound too happy.
“It’s about time. It’s been nearly an hour. I didn’t hit him hard enough for that. You could’ve woken him.” Nik . . . he sounded even less happy.
“I could’ve, but I damn well can guarantee you wouldn’t have liked it. Cal trying to gut us like he did that deer. Trust me, the quiet time did him some good. Now he is Cal again . . . mostly. A half hour ago he’d have been an Auphe trying to chew through your face.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Every word was a separate dagger of ice. If Nik cut the air with those words, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
It was hard, waking up. Harder than waking up from most naps, but what I was hearing kept me trying. Pushing. Not for me; for Nik. To be there for my brother. What Rafferty said about me didn’t mean anything. I didn’t feel it, but I felt my brother’s anger, and if Niko was angry and allowing it to show, then the situation was bad—definitely bad enough to cut through the fuzziness that surrounded me.
I managed to crack my eyelids and saw a slice of dark blond hair. Niko. That was normal, seeing him when I opened my eyes. He was the one who usually kicked my butt out of bed when I was slacking, which was almost always. Most mornings he was the first thing I saw, or I would feel him firmly rapping the top of my head with my ringing alarm clock.
Then I noticed the hand on my shoulder and the one on my leg, just above my knee. The pressure on my shoulder I recognized—I’d felt it all my life. The weight on my leg I didn’t. Or maybe I did—a distant memory of that same hand burning against a bleeding gash in my abdomen. Years ago. The hand wasn’t burning now, but I could still feel the power in it. Rafferty.