It would be an act of mercy. Did he deserve mercy?
Doubtful, very goddamn doubtful. It didn't matter; I gave it to him anyway.
I emptied the remaining four rounds into his skull. It was amazing what you could accomplish with the luxury of aim and a handheld cannon sturdy enough to survive a four-story fall. Bone disintegrated, flesh peeled away in chunks, and a giant fell. A look of incomprehension flickered in swirls of black and copper and then died along with Cerberus. He changed back. That part of the legend was true. A nude heap sprawled in a tangle of muscular limbs and cold metal. He was still larger than life, but the misdirection of size didn't change the fact that now he looked human. Odd, yeah, but human. An unsettling quirk of chance had caused the two ruined heads to roll toward each other, and rest forehead to shattered forehead. Brothers. I tightened my jaw and slid my gaze away, focusing on Niko. "You want your sword back?"
"A given. I'll retrieve it." He looked me up and down, then zeroed in on my gore-covered face with a concerned frown. "Is any of that yours?"
"No, believe it or not." Putting the gun away, I swiped a sleeve across my face. "Miracles do happen."
"Yes, they do." He dipped a hand into his snug black jacket, then extended it toward me. "Here. Something else you misplaced."
It was the crown. I'd known he would find it below, but I couldn't deny the relief that thumped behind my ribs, liquid and warm. I accepted it, turning it in my hands, one way, then the other. The metal was cool to the touch, the stones even colder. That flash of heat I'd thought I felt before was nowhere to be found. "Hard to believe," I said softly. The unsaid conclusion echoed my earlier thought. Hard to believe this was worth George's life. Nik's hand gave my shoulder a brief squeeze of agreement before he moved over to Cerberus to work his sword loose. I moved as well, toward the far edge of the roof. There the illumination from the streetlight was brighter as it drifted up from below. The dark gold appeared brighter, but things weren't any more clear. It was just a… thing. A piece of crap. Nothing.
And then it was. Literally nothing. In my hand… nothing.
He came out of nowhere… like all bad dreams do. He must've been perched on the side of the building, waiting. They were good at that—waiting. One moment I stood alone and the next he flowed up over the edge to stand before me, a horrifically distorted reflection.
I froze. I'm not proud of it, but it's a fact—one of those cold, hard ones you're always hearing about. He stood there before me, simply stood… as if he wasn't a ghost. Wasn't a figment from a life now led only in nightmare. Wasn't Auphe.
Transparently white skin, narrow face, sullenly burning molten eyes. Flaxen hair lifted on a nonexistent wind, and a thousand needle teeth bared and washed with a foaming saliva. It was a sight I'd thought I'd never see again. "Traitor." The voice was flat and harsh, the dry rasp of scales across a stone floor. "I've been searching for you." He crowned himself with the gold circlet that had been so easily snatched from my paralyzed fingers before he flashed a taloned hand toward my throat. "High and low." The claws punctured skin without the restraint Cerberus had shown. "Far and wide." The face leaned close to mine until its fetid breath soured the air in my lungs. "Here and now."
My eyes closed involuntarily. They believed wholeheartedly what my mind wanted to. It wasn't true. It was an illusion. It was a dream. I'd open my eyes and it would be gone. Just like that… gone. Only it didn't happen that way.
"I am the way, tainted cousin." The grip on my airway tightened. "I am righteous vengeance. You cannot close your eyes to that."
Transfixed, immobile… fucking useless. I should've shoved the fear and terror down. I should've concentrated on the loathing… the hate. Submit to an Auphe? Lie down for this pasty-ass shithead? No. No. I could snap the heel of my hand under his pointed chin and shove him away. I could plant a foot in his gut and throw him over the edge. The motions were so clear in my mind. I could see them, but I couldn't move. He was half the size of the Cerberus wolf, and still I couldn't move. Everyone has something in their life, in their world, that can break them. You might not be able to imagine it or to even fathom it exists… but it's there. For every single person, it's there. Mine, however, couldn't break me. It was far too late for that.
Couldn't break what had already been broken.
"Get away from him." Niko's taut voice was behind me. It couldn't have been far; the roof wasn't that large. There was no reason he should sound a world away. "Get away from him now."
The warning claws sank deeper in my flesh, a catch-all deterrent. "Betrayed your kind," the Auphe hissed. A strand of colorless hair touched my cheek. It was slippery and it burned, a track of cold fire. "Betrayed your own."
He wasn't wrong. I had betrayed the Auphe. Biggest and best accomplishment of my life to date. I'd participated, although not as much as I'd have liked, in the wholesale destruction of what remained of their race. Niko, Robin, and I had kept them from turning this world into what it had once been before humans had ruled. We'd stopped them from taking us back to when the supernatural was natural, the water and air were perfume sweet, and humans were at best toys and at worst a mild nuisance. While a world run by the Auphe might be more ecologically sound, the murder and mutilation ratio would be a definite downside. I "Did you think we were all gone, traitor child?" I could taste blood in my mouth as the elongated fingers continued to tighten around my throat. "Did you think there would not be consequences for one such as you?"
No. I'd never thought that. I'd been living with the consequences of the Auphe all my life. Only recently had I been dealing with the consequences of their death. I would take the second over the first any damn day. Or I would have done that until now. Of course, none of my thoughts were quite that coherent. Rapidly disintegrating, bits and pieces of them would roll and surface briefly, silvered fish in a storm-driven sea, before vanishing under an ever-rising swell of sickened disbelief. It was a disbelief that refused to die despite the evidence before me. It couldn't be a live Auphe. Couldn't be.
"Did you think you would be safe?"
Could.
"Did you think you would escape your beloved family?"
Not.
"You shall not."
Be.
Nails were ripped free from my neck with callous efficiency. Bloodstained, they were held up for my examination. "But it will not be this simple. For you, never this simple. Never this painless.
"Every moment." Lipless teeth touched my fore-head in a hideous parody of a paternal kiss. "Of every day." He took a step back, graceful as a striking snake. "We will watch you. We will take all from you. All and everyone." A red-tinted claw traced the circlet on his head. "As I took this."
I tried then. I really did. It was as if I'd forgotten how to make my body work. Nerves were sluggish… joints fixed and rusty, but in a pathetic, drunken fumble, I was able to reach out with a numb hand.
Slow, too slow.
"This, betrayer, is only the beginning. We have such games planned for this world." The grin was as bright and cold as a slice of winter sky. "What a pity your sanity shall not survive to see them." One more step and he balanced on the edge of the roof, then plummeted off.
Niko's sword, still wet with wolf blood, struck the edge a fraction of a second after the Auphe's plunge. "Fuck," came the viciously spit curse. That sounded like me, not my calm, cool, collected brother. At any other time I would've been amazed and amused that Niko would admit to knowing the word, much less using it. At this particular time, however, I didn't feel amazement. I damn sure didn't feel amusement. In fact, I suddenly felt nothing at all. My legs gave way and I fell to my knees.