Glass bottle held in front of his lips, Nik froze, then laughed. Yep, the Buddha-loving bad-ass actually cracked a smile and laughed.
I smiled to myself and took a bite of my hot dog. Things were going to be okay. They really were. It might be months before Niko was completely his old self again, or as close as this life would let him be, but we’d get there. I doubted a lot of things in this world, but I didn’t doubt that.
That night I went back to work too. It was the first time I’d been back since Robin and Ishiah had exited in a storm of feathers and angry, sexually charged words. Ishiah wasn’t there, which was a good thing. I would’ve had to say something, then he would’ve had to kill me, which would make finding another job a bitch.
Robin did show up, though, and I sat down with him on my break and had a beer. Before he could open his mouth, I held up a hand. “No details. I don’t want even a hint of a detail, okay? I have to work with this guy. If he looks over and sees me picturing you, him, and a feather duster, he’ll ram a beer tap into my neck and serve me up until I run dry.”
Goodfellow smiled slyly. “Coward.” But he drank his Scotch and didn’t even mention how far down a peri’s feathers went. Relieved, I told him how the move had gone, that Cherish was still missing in action, and that Nik was mostly Nik again. He’d already heard what Cherish had done, what Xolo was, why Oshossi was really chasing the vampire.
“I still can’t believe she fooled me. Me.” He stared broodingly into his glass. “I’m losing my touch.” Sighing, he finished the Scotch and said, “There’s one thing I still wonder about. Not about Cherish, but about Seamus. Who killed him?”
Well, damn, that was out of nowhere.
“Seamus?” I took a pull of the beer, bored. “Old news. Who cares?”
He persisted. “I’ve come to the conclusion that Samuel and his colleagues didn’t do it. They wouldn’t have called us before the cleanup in that case. They were suspicious of him becoming blatant with his killings, but they hadn’t made their move yet. I wonder who did. Was it someone who caught wind of Seamus’s off-the-wagon ways even before the Vigil confirmed it? And the Vigil were watching Seamus. How’d the killer get in without being seen by them?”
Robin and his curiosity. He couldn’t let anything go. No one else had even thought about Seamus in the midst of all this mess.
Almost no one.
I said nothing, just rang the glass of the beer bottle with my finger.
“You?” he hissed quietly. “It was you? Does Niko know?”
“He knows.” I rolled the bottle between my hands. “I didn’t tell him, but by now he knows.”
“How?”
The same way I knew he was across the street, watching the bar, watching me. Keeping me safe.
Nik was mostly Nik again, but at the finish line wasn’t across it. He needed time. If he needed to spend that time watching me, that was fine. No, I didn’t have to see Niko to know he was there. I knew. Just as he knew about Seamus.
I gave Robin a shrug and steadfast gaze. “He’s my brother.”
I’d killed Seamus before I knew about the dead girl in his bathtub. Killed him before I knew he’d gone rogue. I’d smelled the blood, but I didn’t know she was dead. Didn’t know it wasn’t some voluntarily given juice. I did know he was trying to kill Niko, and that wasn’t going to happen. My brother had integrity. He wanted to face him head-on, wanted to face that ambushing son of a bitch fair and square. As if Seamus gave a rat’s ass about face-to-face and honor, but Niko did.
Niko had the honor that he always denied existed in battle. It was true in a way, that denial. . . . He was the only man or monster alive that had that kind of honor. The rest of us were just doing whatever it took. Nik was better, and I wasn’t going to let him die for it. Wasn’t going to let some vampire bastard have the chance to kill him for it. I hadn’t been willing to wait until the Auphe were gone. Seamus had the time that we didn’t. My brother—a good man, the best man—could take the high road all he wanted. Seamus was different. He was about the low.
How’d you do it?” he asked with disbelief. “He was one hell of a fighter and you didn’t have a mark on you those following days.”
Simple. It had been so simple. I’d opened up a gate in Promise’s guest room late the night Cherish had shown up—that night I’d thought those god-awful things trying to anticipate the Auphe. God-awful thoughts they were, yeah, but clarifying. The clarity had carried past Cherish’s arrival. Seamus and the Auphe were one thing. Add Cherish and her trouble to the mix . . .
Too much. It was too much to handle at once. Too many ways for things to go from sugar to shit. But there was an easy solution to that.
While Niko slept and Robin kept watch, I’d traveled to Seamus’s loft. I came out right behind him. Luck, you can’t buy that kind. He hadn’t known I was there. Never saw it coming. Too bad for him. I took his head with one brutally fast and forceful swing of the sword. Guns were practically useless against vampires unless you nailed the brain or the heart. I like guns, but sometimes a sword is better. As I’d watched his head bounce as it hit the floor, I’d thought, Yep, sometimes a sword worked just fine.
Then I was back in my room, gate closed. I cleaned my sword, went to bed, and slept like a baby.
“How?” Robin demanded again.
“I’m sneaky.” I gave a grin, dark, secretive . . . and maybe just a little Auphe.
Yeah, Seamus had been all about the low road. And if that’s what it took to save my brother . . .
Then so was I.
Robin had leaned back slightly at the sharp curve of my lips, so I touched the beads at my wrist to remember who I was—who I really was—and let the grin slide into something less lethal. “Okay, give me at least one story to hold over Ish’s head. Just nothing that’ll make my ears bleed or swear off sex for the rest of my life. Can you do that?”
Seamus and the Auphe in me instantly forgotten, Goodfellow gave a grin equally as scary as anything I’d shown, I was sure, and drawled, “Let’s start off with a hypothetical question: If someone endowed with flammable feathers cooks in the nude, is that a lifestyle choice or a death wish?”
I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.
I hoped Niko was having a better night of it than I was.
16
The bar didn’t have any uncovered windows to speak of. The Ninth Circle’s patrons liked their privacy, but it did have a few tiny stained-glass panes here and there that gave little away . . . unless you were very observant. I was. Through one triangle of grape-colored glass I saw Robin’s arm gesticulate wildly. In annoyed surprise or shock, I guessed. He’d been caught up on the entire ordeal in the past week. Now, what could possibly surprise him to that extent?
Ah.
Seamus, I thought with a little annoyance of my own. Resigned amusement as well. Cal. He did for me what I did for him. Hard to take him to task for that. I would at some point certainly, for going without my knowledge and for using a gate when it was still quite dangerous. Although, considering the efficiency he’d shown, it was hard not to want to reward him with one of his favorite cardiovascular-damaging foods. Positive reinforcement—it truly was the best way to train children and animals, and I’d say Cal fell about halfway between those two.
Yes, he’d handled Seamus well. I’d rather he’d have let me handle it, but spilled milk is just that. I leaned back against the cold surface of the building directly across the street from the bar and folded my arms. I was surprised, however, that it had taken Goodfellow this long to figure it out, although we most definitely had been occupied. I supposed he could be forgiven the lapse of his usual inquisitiveness.