Deathwish

The universe, in its infinite indifference, didn’t care either way. The Auphe came that evening.

Filthy, malevolent monsters.

I was oiling the katana when the first whirlpool of tarnished silver light formed before me. I had the dining room table covered in newspaper with the rest of my blades fanned in a semicircle, waiting their turn. I heard a door slam against a wall, the sound of spraying water, and Cal shouting, “Auphe!” If a gate was opened close enough, within a few blocks of him, he’d feel it . . . just as he felt this one.

And the one that followed.

Cal came running down Promise’s hall, dressed only in sweatpants, still soaking from his interrupted shower. His face was already set, frozen and blank. He had the knife he kept with him always and the gun he must’ve taken into the bathroom with him. Prepared. He had believed what I hadn’t been able to drive from his head. That Auphe blood was Auphe blood. That Auphe was Auphe.

Two gates . . . one less than he had said. It was a small number, and I was afraid that made me right and him wrong. On the other hand, two Auphe were enough for a suicide run, as Cal had guessed. We would see.

I stood with katana ready. I’d seen my first Auphe when Cal was three and I was seven. I was sure they’d been there since Cal was born, spying, but that was the first time I actually saw one. It had been at our kitchen window while we ate supper. Sophia had been out doing what she did: drinking, conning, or whoring. All three at once, maybe. I’d known from a younger age than seven that that’s what her life was. This time she’d gone out instead of bringing her work home with her. It was better that way. Fish sticks and cartoons for Cal. A sandwich and a book for me. Sixteen years later, I thought wryly, things weren’t so very different.

I hadn’t minded being home alone then. It was safer. There was no yelling or slurred insults or thrown whiskey bottles. There were none of Sophia’s “friends,” the kind that paid before they walked through the door. There was quiet, Cal’s occasional laugh at the tiny TV screen, and The Lord of the Rings. The librarian said it was too much book for me, and I’d told her she was wrong. But when I’d lifted eyes to see what shared the winter night against the small dingy window, I wondered if I’d been the one who was wrong.

The glow of red eyes, the triangular white face with tarnished silver teeth so wickedly fine you couldn’t begin to count them all. It could’ve come straight from the pages in front of me. It smiled as I froze. Smiled and then tapped a black nail against the glass. The sound convinced me of what my eyes couldn’t. It was real. Monsters were real. Those awful things Sophia said about Cal’s father . . . I’d managed to turn my head to see my brother. He was on his last fish stick, face bright and happy as the TV burbled. I jerked my eyes back to the window. Empty. I’d swallowed hard and felt warm wetness at my crotch.

Real. It was real.

I’d put Cal to bed, which was my bed too. Sophia wasn’t wasting money on two beds when we both fit in one. It was the first time I was glad she was cheap; it let me watch Cal, protect him. And now I knew he really needed it. Sophia was a liar, but the one time I wished she had lied, she did worse. She told the truth. I had cleaned up and washed my pants in the bathroom sink. I didn’t sleep a minute that night, and I didn’t say a word to Sophia when she came home, but it didn’t matter. She saw it the next day—the spidery handprint on the window. Cal was sitting at the table with the bowl of oatmeal I’d fixed him when she bent down to be face-to-face with him. “Daddy came, didn’t he?” Her smile had less teeth than the monster’s, but it was as cold and hard. “Daddy came to see his special little boy. His little half-breed freak.” I still remembered the crumpled look of confusion on Cal’s small face—his eyes wide and wary with dread behind long black bangs.

Every time I saw an Auphe, I saw my first monster. I felt that echo of that first knowledge that there were things foul and hideous in the world. But now? Now I was ready for the monsters . . . the murderers . . . the dealers of death. And when the Auphe came through the light, I was ready for it as well. I couldn’t think of it as female, no more than I would’ve thought of a shark as male or female—just as death. I sliced at it, but the narrow head and pale flesh slithered under the blow so quickly that it was inside my guard almost before my eyes registered the move. The predator unparalleled.

Almost.

As it lunged at me, it impaled itself on the dagger I held in my other hand, close to my hip. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing in an Auphe worth wasting words on, but I did smile. It was a Sophia smile, cold, hard, and satisfied. Then I ripped the blade upward, from abdomen to bony sternum. Where Cal’s blood had been warm on my hand a year ago, this blood was cool and slippery.

“You are quick.” It moved an inch closer, giving me a smile of its own as bone scraped and caught on steel. “For a sheep.”

I was. I was quicker than Cal and Promise, and close to a sober Goodfellow. I excelled at what I did. I was a scholar, a friend, and a brother, but beneath it all I was a killer, pure and simple. Better at taking lives than anyone or anything you’d meet walking the street. I’d made sure of it. And this evil was the reason why.

I ripped the blade free and slashed it across its throat. But its throat wasn’t there. I was quick.

Auphe was quicker.

I felt the claws ripping across my chest and I dove for the floor. Ignoring the puddle of Auphe blood pooled on the wood, I swung both blades outward in an open scissors motion and caught its legs. Barely. Trailing more blood, it leapt on top of the table and then back onto me, taking me down. For all the damage I’d done, to an Auphe it was superficial. It could live with it. I didn’t plan on letting it. This time my blade punctured its chest, but not its heart. They didn’t carry their hearts in the same place as humans, and suicide run or not, this Auphe had no plans on going anywhere without me.

The Auphe laughed from above, tasting its own blood as if it were wine. “A worthy piece of prey. Struggle all you wish. We shall take you, we shall take them all, and only then shall we take him.” This time teeth found my throat just as my other blade, strapped to my thigh, found its heart between its ribs from behind. I felt a jolt of satisfaction as strong as the pain that flared under my jaw. Getting a knee between us, I heaved it off.

With my blood flowing down my neck, I was halfway up when it came back with my knife embedded in its heart. Still fighting. Essentially dead, but still fighting. I pulled my blade out of it and sliced it across its abdomen, spilling its guts to the floor. It kept coming, taking one step, another, until it fell. Finally, it fell. It was the first time I’d ever seen shock in the eyes of an Auphe. A human had killed it, a sheep with mere blades.

Then came the second one.

There was silencer gunfire. . . . Cal . . . But the Auphe was as quick as the first. It came across the hall—touched with some blood, but not much, and moving so fast that I only managed to get the knife in my hand up bare inches before it was on me.

But Cal was on me first.

He wasn’t as quick as the Auphe, but he knew where this one was going. Cal had a head start and he made use of it. He hit me hard, his back slamming against my chest, and almost simultaneously the Auphe hit him. We impacted the dining room wall and hung there, pinned. Cal gave a guttural, “No. Me first. You take me first.” A human shield between the Auphe and me, protecting me where his gun had failed to. I tried to push him off, but in this he was as strong as I was, if not stronger. Cal would die for me. I knew it, but I didn’t have to accept it. I shoved again. Neither he nor the Auphe moved.

Despite the strained bulge of Cal’s bicep, one brutal clawed hand held Cal’s wrist down and the gun along with it. The other hand closed around Cal’s neck. That narrow jaw dropped to reveal its ripping capability in all its savage efficiency. Cal faced it head-on. “Me first,” he snarled again. “Take me, you bitch. Go on. Do it.”