But speaking from the ant’s perspective, I wished she had less wisdom and a more human perspective, because now people she could’ve saved were dying. I’d thought that might make a difference. It seemed I thought wrong.
“The Auphe killed one of Cal’s co-workers at the bar,” I said. “Did you know that?”
“I knew when you called. I am so sorry for Cambriel.” She plucked his name from the air like a bit of drifting dandelion fluff. “I wish it were different, Niko. Please know I do, but we all have to walk the road before us. I can’t change that.” She sounded genuinely sorrowful.
“I had my sympathy for your position, Georgina.” But it was gone. “But do you know what they plan to do to Cal? Do you know it’s a thousand times worse than any torture, any death? If they take my brother when a few words from you could’ve stopped it, I’ll have nothing at all for you then. Not one damn thing.” My hand tensed to stone under hers. “For once break a rule. If not for me, then for Cal.”
She withdrew her hands. “I can’t,” she said with a sudden and sharp flash of anger. I might wonder at her humanity, but she reacted the same as anyone when pushed into a corner. “Do you think I haven’t tried? When I was a child, before I knew better? You think I didn’t try to save my best friend or my grand-mother? Or the nice neighbor who made me cookies and didn’t deserve to burn alive in her apartment? I did try, and it was for nothing.” She slapped a small hand on the table. “Nothing. You can change the twists and turns, you even can make the way smoother, easier, but you can never change what lies at the end.”
“You haven’t looked, then, to see how all this will end?” I persisted. “You can’t at least give us that? You can’t at least look?”
“No. I told you I can’t. I tried, but I can’t. Call me a coward if you want.” She lifted her chin. “I know I’ve heard it before, but I just can’t look for endings anymore. Do you think I’d want to live whatever happens twice?” The anger disappeared as suddenly as it had come, melting to sorrow and regret. “I might have to accept the end of the path, but that doesn’t mean I don’t cry for it.” She wrapped her coat tightly around her, as if it were cold. It wasn’t. She looked away. “I miss Cal. Don’t tell him. It would only hurt him. But I do miss him.” And he missed her, but there was little to be done about that now. Both had stubbornly tied a knot in their relationship there was no getting around.
“Georgina, please.” It wasn’t a word I said often. I said it now with an angry desperation you didn’t need psychic powers to sense.
She pulled the coat tighter around her neck. “Good-bye, Niko, and take care.”
A singularly useless thing for her to say, I thought more savagely than I was proud of. Tumble into your razor-lined pit of destiny, but take care as you do so. My friend, my lover, and my brother gathered under Damocles’ sword . . . a hair from brutal and bloody death, all of them, and that was what she offered me.
“Just look,” I said sharply.
She slid out of the booth and began to walk away. I thought I saw tears. I didn’t care.
“Look.”
She disappeared into the back of the store. I gripped the edge of the table hard for a moment, then surged to my feet, flipping it over with a crash that sent the owner scrambling for the phone. The wolves watched me warily. They knew who I was through Delilah, and they knew I wasn’t Auphe. But they also knew I was dangerous. They slunk past me and followed Georgina out of sight, leaving me with the wreckage of my futility.
Outside the store I walked the ten blocks to Cal, who looked at my face and said warily, “What? What happened?”
I took his arm and pushed him into motion, saying brusquely, “I lost my temper. I imagine the police are on their way. Let’s go.”
It was dusk as we pulled up to the Seventy-second Street pedestrian entrance to Central Park to wait for Mickey. When we’d dropped him off on his mission, we’d set this as the time and pickup place for his retrieval. Not that it was easy to know it from what lay outside the car. A full-on blizzard had us surrounded by blowing white snow. You could barely see five feet, and it didn’t look to be letting up anytime soon. It could be dusk or midnight for all one could tell. The winter wonderland I’d been so skeptical of earlier in the day had shown up with a vengeance.
We’d killed several hours checking to see if our landlord had replaced our door yet, getting more clothes from our apartment, eating lunch, and buying more ammunition for Cal. Not once did he bring up the subject of the scene at the ice cream shop after I’d filled him in, which, to be fair, I’d been tempted not to. Now I wasn’t sure if I was grateful, or worried that he’d had some form of mild stroke that had robbed him of the information. He hadn’t even said anything about my throwing of the table, true harassment fodder I’d never thought he’d let pass.
“Are you drooling?” I asked abruptly, tapping one of my small throwing knives against the steering wheel. “Numbness in one side? Any incontinence I should be aware of?”
Eyelids half-mast and lazy lifted all the way. “No more so than usual, Nik, but you’re a helluva brother just for asking.”
“Mmm.” I flipped the blade, slid it under my sleeve, back out, and then flipped it again.
He straightened in the seat. “Not that you were exactly the poster boy for meditation yourself there, but do you really want me to give you hell over something I’ve wanted to do a few times myself?” He planted a knee against the dashboard and exhaled. “I kept thinking she and I, maybe . . .” He shook his head. “If she’d have just looked, but hell, no. That que-frigging-sera-sera thing. What’s the point of seeing if you can’t change the big things, the things that matter? I used to think it was me that kept us apart, but it’s not. It’s her. It’s always been her.” This time his fist hit the dashboard with considerably more force than his resting knee had.
“Infinite insight,” I said thoughtfully, “brings only infinite annoyance.”
“So it sucks?”
“Yes, indeed it does.” I put away the knife before I was tempted to follow my brother down the primrose path to automotive destruction. Just as I did, there was a scrabbling at the door to the backseat, and Mickey scrambled in. There was a splatter of wetness as he shook off melting snow, saying immediately, “Give to me. Now.”
Cal passed back a Styrofoam container of the best Thai in the city. “Ah. Is good. Yes, is good.” The pointed muzzle was buried in coconut curry chicken. “You starve me with this work. The park, it is picked clean. Oshossi’s clan, they devour all. No squirrel, no rabbit. Boggles take the one or two revenants left.” Black eyes focused on us both. “Hungry.” The hunger sounded as black and ravenous as the eyes appeared.
“Okay, Jesus. Hold on. I’ve got more.” Cal gave him two more containers, and I think counted his fingers when he drew his hands back. It wasn’t long before Mickey finished and began grooming his hands and whiskers.
“Well?” I tried for patience, but considering the day so far, I don’t think I achieved it. “What of Oshossi?”
“I did not see him. He is not in park that I know, and his creatures? They are not quick to speak to others. Not quick to trust. Even for the handsome and suave such as me.” The five-inch incisors snapped in a rat grin. “But I talk of the city. Of how to get around. The tunnels. The abandoned places. They listen. But they are not like me. They are not so smart; they are only few steps above animals. They are clever in ways of hunt. Very, very clever. But they know few words. Simple.” He yawned, and beside me Cal stifled a gag at the stench of it, rolling down his window a few inches for fresh air. “Finally, finally, they say, Oshossi only comes to park to send them on hunt. Where he is other time, they will not say or do not know.” He looked sleepy now, the gloss of his eyes dulling.