"Robin's changing. After all this time." I couldn't read the emotion on Ishiah's face. A coma victim wasn't as deadpan as my boss could be when he wanted. Whatever lurked behind the current stony façade was well hidden, but from the phrase "after all this time," I could guess. "And I do have many years of perspective on our friend," Ishiah apprised us as he studied Goodfellow's slumped form. "More than he would probably like, and I don't mean that in a neg—"
He didn't get a chance to finish. Robin had started talking again, seeming oblivious of both Ishiah and the crowd noise that swelled at his back like a wave. "Let me tell you a story," he muttered into his glass.
Second verse, same as the first.
"Yeah," I groaned. "You've been telling it awhile now." And he'd yet to get past the word "story."
"This story"—his gaze meandered up, then in an uncertain circle until it managed to find me and attempted to scorch me with a fuzzy glare—"features a god of unparalleled charm, unsurpassed wit, with a male beauty unseen in this or any other world…" He took another swallow of his drink. "And who was hung like the Trojan horse."
"No relation to you, I'm sure," I commented blandly.
Ishiah had moved from my back to beside me at the bar to say with quiet intensity, "Robin, you don't want to tell this one."
It was rather serious talk for what sounded like one of Goodfellow's usual cock-and-bull stories— heavy on the cock, light on the truth. His glare expanding to include Ishiah, he ignored the warning and went on. "And this god, so very perfect in every damn way as he'd be the first to tell you, met a people. Warm, friendly, open-minded…always a plus…and too unbelievably stupid to possibly kn—"
"Enough!" Ishiah's hand slammed down on the bar with a force that temporarily halted all conversation in the room. If he had actually been feeling some sort of satisfaction, it was gone now. His wings were visible as well and that wasn't a good sign. "Caliban, take him out of here now. Do not let him near another drop of alcohol. And"—as he leaned in toward Robin, the scar at his jaw blanched bone white—"if this seems to be a problem for you, Puck, if you wish to be difficult, I'll be happy to help your friend carry your shiftless, corrupt, and unconscious body out of here."
The next few minutes proved to be a learning experience.
First: Bar fights are the same, human or otherwise. The enthusiasm is identical; only the level of violence changes. Second: Peris can fly. Really. Third: Peris, flying or grounded, have hellacious tempers. Four: Pucks don't let anyone tell them what to do. Five: Even blind drunk, said pucks can kick some serious ass.
Before it was all over, there were chunks of fur, scales, feathers, and some things I didn't recognize littering the floor. There were also pools of blood and splatters of vomit, all covered with the glitter of shattered glass in an unpleasant kaleidoscope that I had no intention of cleaning up. Finally, there were Ishiah and Danyeal. They were flinging drunken fighters through the door while hovering in midair with wings fiercely beating, and it was something to see: The biblical exit from Eden meets a caged death match. I pushed up, sat on the bar, drank half a beer, and enjoyed the show. Meanwhile, Goodfellow took on two wolves with a bar stool and a glass mug. One fur ball ended up choking on ground glass, while the other poor fuzzy bastard ended up impaled with a wooden stool leg. Both would live…werewolves were sturdy.
"I challenge you all." One of the remaining legs of the stool was waved aloft, Excalibur in the hands of Arthur. After all, if anyone could've seduced it out of the Lady of the Lake, it would be Robin. "Every last one of you impotent, parasite-ridden, Yeti-toe-loving…yes, I said it. You suck their hairy toes. You suck them with enormous relish. Now come to me! Come to me, you…gama mou," he abruptly cursed, and ducked.
I was taking another swallow rich in hops when I deciding ducking wasn't such a bad idea. As I did, Danyeal came hurtling over my head. He hit the wall behind the bar wings-first and slid down. He twitched once, then lay frozen, copper head tilted to one side, but eyes still blinking slowly. The Amadán who'd done the throwing started toward the bar to finish the job. Amadán, some sort of faery if I remembered right, were nasty. They excreted a venom through their skin. One touch and you'd be paralyzed for at least an hour. It made hand-to-hand combat rather tricky, as Danyeal had been so helpful in demonstrating. Hand-to-hand combat always had been seriously overrated in my book. I pulled the Glock, pointed it between opaline almond eyes, and peeled my lips back in a welcoming grin. "Interesting fact. I get paid whether the customers are alive or not."
With shining waves of silver and black hair, lithe figures, and ever-changing eyes, the Amadán were the supermodels of the unnatural world. Skinny, hungry as hell, and couldn't buy a brain cell with a bucketful of credit cards. Fortunately for this one, he was capable of wrapping the empty space between his ears around the fact that a bullet bouncing about in the confines of his skull might be undesirable. He faded back into the seething mass of the crowd, everyone he touched skin to skin falling at his feet as he moved.
Goodfellow, who had fallen during his lunge to avoid Danny, was staggering back up and still looking to defend King and Country. "Come to me…" Then as Camelot fell, so did Robin. I caught him by the back of his shirt before he hit the floor. His head hung as slackly as that of the paralyzed Danyeal with his chin resting on his chest. He was out cold, but unconscious or not, he still kept talking. "I was a god," came the barely decipherable murmur.
"I'm sure you were," I snorted as I pulled him up and over the bar. Depositing him in relative safety beside Danyeal, I went to help Ishiah shut the place down. What was left of it.
Two hours later I was home, Goodfellow was on the couch, and I barely made it to bed. I paused only to touch the barrette on my dresser. A reminder…a promise to a dead little girl. Neither Nik nor I had ever gotten to be a normal kid with a normal life. Ours had been taken away before we even had one. This girl's had been taken away too, and in a far more brutal fashion. I wasn't going to forget that and I wasn't going to forget her.
I stripped, fell into bed, and five seconds later was listening to Niko explain his plan. At least it seemed like five seconds—six, if you were generous. Definitely not the hours it had been. Blinking against harsh daylight, I felt the cool rub of the sheet against my face and rocked a little at the firm nudge to my shoulder. "Then we're clear?" Niko said.
"What? Yeah. Clear," I mumbled. "Crystal. Bye."
"You've committed every word to memory?"
"Right next to The Road Not Taken.' Swear." I rolled over and pulled the sheet over my head. I hadn't heard Nik come in or the door shutting. It didn't worry me. I hadn't heard him precisely because he was Nik. The door would've been shut with complete silence, and I tuned out the sound of the key turning in the lock as only he, Promise, and Robin had a key. If I'd heard a different sound, the stealthy one of claws skittering against wood or the scrape of a metal pick against the lock, I'd have woken up instantly. I wouldn't have answered that door alone either. I slept with a knife under my pillow, a gun under the mattress, and a sword under the bed. If I could have litter-box-trained an alligator, I would've had one of those under there as well.
But since my subconscious did know it was Niko— here we were. I'd slept through the plan and was attempting to sleep through the post-game. I knew better, but hope and laziness spring eternal.
"Good. Then I'll leave the recruiting the boggle up to you."