And then she would die. Or worse. Delilah or Charm would never die for me, not if they could avoid it.
We all ran on, slowing when it was clear Boggle wasn't following us but delving farther into the depths for Sawney. When we finally hit a maintenance tunnel, we had three half wolves—one in my jacket and two naked. None of them minded. The two males were partially covered with patches of fur here and there, one with a stub of tail and the other with a misshapen jaw and joints. Badly bred or not, they ran far faster than the rest of us did, although I knew Promise could've kept up.
They disappeared around a turn and I turned to • Delilah. "Sorry about your friends."
She was wearing my jacket with casual flair. It fell past her hips and hung open enough that I saw the curve of her apricot-colored breasts. I'd already seen them in their entirety; it didn't change the fact I was still looking.
"Friends?" Her amber eyes slanted in my direction. After she'd changed back from what Wolves considered their true shape, her silver-blond hair had fallen free to hang like a wedding veil in color and sweep. "Keep up with the pack or don't. Die for the pack when needed. Pack is all. There are no friends." With that, she was gone too. Despite her sly glances and my hazily half-ass thoughts on the matter, I didn't know if I'd see her again or not. Delilah was Delilah. She lived, like most fur creatures, in the here and now. Planning ahead wasn't a priority or a concern.
"Furry women are tricky, kid." Robin was waiting for us. "I suggest a spoonful of butter before and after any snorkeling activities. Hairballs. Also, diamond-studded flea collars? They are a bitch to find for anniversary gifts." He'd put away his sword under his coat and continued with a more serious and uncertain shrug. "On the other hand, her abdomen. You know…she may be infert—"
I waved him off with a growl. "I think the fact Sawney got away again is a little more pressing, okay?" We were letting down a dead little girl right and left. It was in my pocket, my reminder—the sunny barrette of a girl who would never see the sun again. My social life and the lack thereof paled in comparison to that.
"And he nearly slaughtered a boggle to do it. Single-handedly." Niko had retrieved his cello case from where he'd left it, dry and safe. We hadn't been hit with a random search yet, but our luck would run out sooner or later. If Sawney stayed down here, we were going to have to find a different access. "The fact that he did it with a hole that ran the entire depth of his body isn't encouraging either." Closing the case with a snick of buckles, he looked at me steadily. "Next time, go for the head shot."
I was a good shot, not Olympic quality or anything, but competition-wise, I could've held my own. A head shot, though, on a moving target wasn't easy under the best of circumstances, and I'd yet to see anything remotely less than absolutely crappy circumstances demonstrated during our recent battles. Niko knew that as well as I did, if not better.
"Head shot," I confirmed solidly.
"No wiseass remarks?" he asked, hefting the case. There was no mockery in the comment, no faked surprise; he knew what he was asking of me.
"Too bad Halloween's over. We could use his head as a pumpkin. Stick a candle in there and scare the kiddies." I put the Eagle in its holster. "That work for you?"
It wasn't much of an attempt, a letdown of my smart-ass tongue. But the entire night had been a letdown. Other than taking out more revenants and losing two wolves and a fair piece of Boggle, we hadn't taken care of Sawney, hadn't learned anything new. That the rest of us were alive was our only achievement.
15
The walk from forgotten to abandoned and maintenance tunnels, then to the new construction took a while, and Delilah had peeled off after her Wolves long before that point. Without my jacket to hide it, I handed off my holster to Niko to conceal in the cello case. I tucked my gun in the back waistband of my jeans and covered it up with my sweatshirt before we hit the street level. Then minutes later it was back underground to hit the 6 train home. We had just stopped to stand on the platform, ignoring the sideways glances at our soaked clothing, when I heard it.
It wasn't loud, the bang. Barely audible over the train that roared out. A small sound, a stumble, and then Robin was falling face-first on the floor. It looked as if he had tripped. Only now, instead of bitching and groaning about scrapes and bruises, he was unmoving.
God.
I could tell that his torso wasn't moving because he wasn't breathing and he wasn't talking. You don't breathe, you don't talk. Goodfellow—with no words? Not a single one? I believed in monsters, I believed in the grimmest of fairy tales, but I couldn't believe that.
Strange that I wasn't breathing either, but I was still alive, could still feel the ragged pump of my heart, the acid burn in my lungs. And when I raised my eyes from that unmoving back to stare at Niko, I could still see. If I could do all those things without breathing, why couldn't Robin?
Niko's face was completely blank and devoid of anything…killing machines don't need emotions to get the job done. "Left," he said with a voice as empty as he turned and moved in that direction.
"Right." My face wasn't empty. It was full of bad things, hidden things that I hadn't let myself feel since George was taken, Niko almost sacrificed. They'd been shoved down, smothered, dismissed, but they were still there. They'd been waiting for their chance, and here it was.
With speaking came oxygen and with that came the ability to drive my body to the right through the mass of people. Some had picked up on the faint sound of the shot and run, but most hadn't caught it and were hovering around Robin. Maybe it was his heart, maybe drugs, maybe goddamn mutated pigeon flu … the muttering and whispering swelled. I drove through the vultures with lowered shoulders and vicious elbows as I went right.
Niko had already gone in the opposite direction. I thought I heard Promise call from behind me as she bent protectively over Robin's body, but it was lost in the sound of the crowd, the rush of the train, and the blood raging in my ears. I ran on. He wasn't getting away, the murderer who had done this. Sawney had, but he wouldn't. It didn't matter that I hadn't seen who had pulled the trigger; I would recognize him when I saw him. I would know him.
I tackled a cop moving toward me with wary eyes and steely intent, rode him to the ground, choked him out, and kept going. That the bastard assassin was human wouldn't save him.
And he was human.
I saw him—walking a little faster than those around him. As I got closer I could see and smell the human in the tiny beads of sweat winding down the back of his neck from his hairline. He didn't hear me behind him. It's almost impossible to run silently across concrete and tile, sneakers or not, but with people milling and stomping about like cattle, I had the perfect auditory camouflage. Perfect, yet it failed me. Although the killer didn't hear me behind him, he looked over his shoulder anyway. Professionals don't look and they don't sweat. Amateurs hold the patent on that. They also run instead of taking the offensive, as my amateur did. He bolted the moment his eyes caught mine. Not used to killing. Too bad for him I was.
Let the bastard run. Let him run all goddamn night. At the end of it, he would still be dead. A sirrush, Hameh birds, this son of a bitch—they were all the same. Monsters. I couldn't get rid of my gene, but that didn't mean I gave a shit if his were one hundred percent normal. For what he'd done…
He was dead.
I almost pulled out the Eagle, but that was bound to attract its fair share of attention from at least some of the commuters. As it was now, they were only clearing a path for us as we ran. The dead man, so goddamn dead, snatched another look over his shoulder, shoved a woman who hadn't meandered out of his way quickly enough, and then vaulted her when she fell to her hands and knees. He hadn't taken out his gun either, which led me to believe he'd already dumped it. He didn't want to be caught by the cops with a weapon, now, did he?