“Died,” she repeated.
We could’ve died anytime in the past week, but I thought it wiser not to bring up that point. Promise, normally cool and collected, rarely showed her temper, but when she did it was best to ride it out. Perhaps do a mantra or two during the experience. Focus on the lotus . . . an expression of beauty from the dull mud that spawned it. Trace the soft colors of its petals. Regard the glitter of its inner jewel. Or, as a change of pace, imagine the precise sweep of the blade required to disembowel a revenant. The silver shimmer . . .
I realized several seconds of silence had reigned, and I refocused to see fangs bared and her eyes, black as night, on me. “Are you listening, Niko, because I would hate to think that you are ignoring me.”
Buddha had no teachings I knew of on domestic disputes with vampire partners, so I went with silence and a raised eyebrow. Cherish reclined nearby on a black silk couch, and laughed. “Where is the celebrated strategist now?”
“Discretion has always been the better part of valor.”
Promise’s eyes didn’t turn any less black at my words. “Tell me again. Every detail. I want it all.”
I repeated it all, minus the first exception and Cal’s urination phobia. I didn’t think the last was a revelation he would appreciate my sharing. Promise paced, murmuring words under her breath that were no doubt unladylike. With her long life, she probably could’ve taught my brother a few obscenities. “There were so many ways that it could’ve gone wrong. So very many.”
“But it didn’t. It worked as planned,” I pointed out, finally sitting. This was looking as if it might take some time, and I still had Cherish to interrogate.
“Because Cal did something he shouldn’t have been able to do. Shut eighteen gates. One day he won’t be so fortunate,” she said, facing me.
He hadn’t looked particularly fortunate seizing on the floor, but I knew what she meant. “Now that the Auphe are gone, truly gone, he shouldn’t have to go to such extremes.” I wouldn’t let him push himself that way again. There could be no reason desperate enough and no call to close any gates ever again. Gates in general . . . we would have a very long talk about those and their use. More importantly, their disuse.
“He won’t have to do what he did again,” I countered. “There will be no other gates to close.”
“Only his own,” she said. Implacable and true, and as I’d said to myself, I would take care of it.
“Cherish.” I looked away from Promise. There was no further place for the conversation to go. Cal was my responsibility. I would help him take care of the monsters in his life, even if only their shadows remained. “I want to talk to you about Oshossi.”
She curled her legs under her, much as I’d seen her mother do many times. The smile was different, however. Cooperative but wicked, with a quick flash of pointed canines. “What do you wish to know?” Xolo had climbed on the couch and leaned into her side. Beauty and the beast. Granted, a very small beast—a very small beast with very large eyes. Amazingly deep and large.
“I find it difficult to believe even the proudest of creatures would chase you across country after country, transporting all his creatures, to take vengeance over one piece of useless jewelry.” I finished flatly, “Very difficult.”
“Not so difficult, if you know the kind of creature he is. How his sense of pride is his greatest treasure. How none can defeat him. His ego simply won’t allow it.” Her fingers stroked the pale cheek of the chupa, its eyes brighter than usual. “You can see how that might be.”
Promise, who’d once called her daughter a liar and a thief, a shame to her, agreed immediately. “There are those like that. Niko, you’ve told me yourself. Wasn’t Abbagor the same?”
Actually, Abbagor had not been the same. The troll’s tastes had run to slavery, and to his final battle looked forward to the majority of his life, but vengeance over a necklace? It was beneath him, and I would’ve thought beneath Oshossi.
“No,” I responded. “I would think only madness would lead to extremes, and Oshossi seems anything but insane.”
“Pride can be a kind of insanity,” Cherish said lightly. “Can’t it? Can’t you see that, Niko?” Xolo leaned his head against her shoulder, his eyes still on me—dreamy and drifting.
Perhaps . . .
Perhaps she was correct there. Madness could take many forms. We’d seen that over the years. Although Oshossi didn’t seem that way, it was possible I could be wrong. And even if it weren’t a necklace that had inspired Oshossi to such radical methods, maybe it had been something else. Something . . .
But was that really important? I shook off a sudden spell of light-headedness. Lingering effects of the concussion, no doubt. But that wasn’t important either. Wasn’t dealing with the problem now more important than anything else? Anything at all? The dizziness began to dissipate.
Yes, it was much more clear now. With the Auphe gone we would be able to concentrate more on helping Cherish. Because whatever she’d done, she shouldn’t be hunted like an animal. She was Promise’s daughter. Helping her was simply the right thing to do. Hadn’t I thought nearly the same thing at the Harlem brownstone? There was no need to doubt now.
We spent the rest of the day into the evening discussing Oshossi, plans to track him in Central Park—nearly impossible—and any other information Cherish had about him, what I’d gathered from mythology books, and what little more Robin had provided through acquaintances. Once or twice more the vertigo returned, but my train of thought would shift and the feeling would eventually vanish. The time passed quickly and it was nearly two a.m. before I was home. I’d taken the PATH train into the city and ran the rest of the way for the exercise. It was cold, but unlike Cal, I didn’t mind the cold. It scoured your lungs, made you feel alive, aware, calm, and free.
And we were free.
The pound of the pavement under my shoes, the chill air against my face, it was a return to normality. As close to normal as Cal and I would come, and it was good. Up to then we’d had to search for the good . . . the light, but it was here and now. No matter how long it lasted, it was here and now.
I ran up the stairs in our building, the cold streaming away. Our hall was empty, and the walls were painted a battleship gray. The same as it always was. Normal.
Until I saw our door, partially open.
It was never unlocked and it was never open unless we were walking through it.
I silently drew my sword and slid into the apartment, only to see Cal lying on the floor. For a second I was annoyed. He’d ignored our safety protocols, leaving the door open. He’d ignored some of the most important rules of our lives. Defeating the Auphe was no reason to ignore the rules. Besides, we had work to do, finding Oshossi, and my brother was taking a nap. He was always napping. Lazy as a cat, had been his whole life. This time he hadn’t even bothered to get on the couch. He just lay there in a pool of dark red, staring at the ceiling as if he hadn’t heard me come in.
My breath burned my throat.
As if I wouldn’t notice the mess.
I felt the katana fall from my hand.
As if I wouldn’t give him hell.
As if I wouldn’t . . .
Wouldn’t . . .
“Cal?”
The floor was hard beneath my knees. There was blood on my hands, soaking my shirt as the heavy weight of his head rested against my shoulder, black hair covering his face . . . except the eyes. They were half open, the gray dull. Not the cocky and sly eyes that looked at me across sparring swords. Not the ones I’d seen as I walked him to the first day of first grade—clear and solemn. Or the roll of them with his first glimpse of NYC, combined with the sarcastic drawclass="underline" “One helluva roach motel.”
Not the terrified madness of them as I yanked the steering wheel under my hand to drive us away from the burned-out shell of our trailer—a teenage Cal curled in a fetal ball in the passenger’s seat, twitching whenever I spoke and pulling out of reach desperately if I unexpectedly tried to touch him. Months later I’d seen his first smile fleeting in the gray after being taken by the Auphe; a year later I saw his first laugh catch there. I saw his determined stare at his first gun, his grip uncertain. His first kill, a grip like iron and eyes just the same. I saw the ferocity in them the first time he’d saved my life; I saw defiance there the first time he had died.