I blinked and swiped at the cool water washing over my eyes. I was sitting on the shower floor, propped in the corner. I'd been sound asleep, although it couldn't have been for too long. The water wasn't cold, only cool. "Unh," I said with a not-so-amazing lack of coherence. Opening that door really had taken it out of me. What a relief to know if I ever did shape another one and go through, I'd sleep through the following torture and mutilation.
"Out." Flay shook the water from his arm and then threw me a towel. "Out."
Flay didn't strike me as the shy type. I had no doubt I'd see more than I wanted to if I lingered. I didn't. As the door closed behind me, I kept one hand holding up the towel around my hips and the other juggling my clothes.
"Summarily evicted, eh?"
Goodfellow was sprawled on the couch adjacent to the kitchen booth, the same couch where I'd recently spent so many unconscious hours. He looked as tired as I still felt. "Yeah." I yawned with only a twinge of my jaw. Niko, undisputed master of the surgical-strike fist. "You too?"
"It's Promise's turn. Flay drove eight. I drove five." He waved a hand at his leg and schooled his face into a saintly expression of noble suffering. "In deference to my hideously painful wound."
"Is that thing healing on an installment plan or what?" I dressed quickly and flopped down beside him.
"Unsympathetic brat." He yawned as well and regarded me with eyes that while sleepy were still wary. "Quite the trick you've developed."
"Sure, if you want to spend your summer vacation in Tumulus." I considered my. dirty socks and discarded them, leaving my feet bare. "That's not for me, but, hey, whatever floats your boat."
"Aren't you the cool one?" he mused, wariness transmuting to something close to reproof. "You're walking a precarious road, Caliban, and it's one that is going to end in a very messy explosion or a nice, padded room at the local loony bin."
"Uh-huh," I remarked with disinterest, and nodded toward the front. "They make up yet?"
The green eyes darkened. "I'm serious. I know something of this; I'm not an amateur."
"Yeah, yeah, you taught Freud everything he knew. I remember." I leaned over and snagged a box of cereal sitting on the booth table. My stomach felt as neglected as my bladder and I poured a generous quantity of dry cereal onto my hand. Studying it, I recognized his effort, then dismissed it. "You can't help me, Robin. Not right now. Maybe later… after all this shit is over." I filled my mouth and chewed methodically.
He didn't comment for a moment; then he folded his arms and sniffed disparagingly, "You assume I wanted to help. I'm simply giving advice. Whether you take it is up to you." I was getting better at pushing people away, but Goodfellow could give me some serious competition. Too bad for the both of us that trying seemed to be the best that we could accomplish.
"And, yes, they seem to be working through their differences," he continued. "Curse my luck."
I offered him a handful of cereal in sympathy. When he sneered at the culinary effort, I ate it myself. "You and Flay bond while I was out?"
The sneer faded. "He talked about his boy."
"Oh." That couldn't have been a happy conversation. "What was his name again?"
"Slay." Despite his somber expression, that brought a subtle quirk to his mouth. "I suppose it's better than Flay Junior." As I gave a noncommittal crunch, he sighed, "Anyway, we talked or rather, he did. It's a curse, this face. Understanding, compassion, it radiates from every perfect pore."
He would've gone on—with Goodfellow that was a given—but Flay came out of the bathroom and he was looking marginally more wolfish. "Hungry." He slammed the bathroom door. "Food. Now." He scowled at the box in my hands. "Meat. No sawdust. No chicken. Red meat." We'd had a chicken dish with the Rom, spicy and filling, but not filling enough for a wolf apparently.
"We're almost to the city," Robin pointed out. "Perhaps you could wait until—"
"Now." Fangs and claws lengthened, and the mane of hair bristled.
Okay, those were some severe hunger pangs. "Nik, Promise," I called. "I think we need a burger stop, like, pronto."
Three hours and about forty rare burgers later we were home.
It was night and what I once thought to be a hot summer had a much less vicious bite than the heat that we'd faced at the Rom camp. I'd missed the concrete, the lights… the ability to hide in the midst of millions. You had to be practical even in the grip of a homesickness you would never have guessed you could experience. Niko and I had learned a long time ago not to get attached to any place, any person. It wasn't only being on the run from the Auphe. Before that, Sophia had moved us from place to place at the drop of a hat. She'd been on the run too. The police, angry clients, unpaid rent, responsibility—you name it and Sophia had shown her heels to it.
The apartment was as we left it. There were no new presents waiting at the doorstep, and I felt something inside me unclench as I opened the door. We had dropped Goodfellow and then Promise off at their respective apartments. Niko had escorted the vampire to the front of the building with a grave and correct courtesy that let me know that while things were improved between them they still weren't right. Flay drove off with the RV, saying he would return in the morning. Where he thought he would park that borrowed leviathan in the city, I didn't have a clue.
Inside the apartment there was the faintly stale smell that spoke of abandonment. We'd been gone only two and a half days; I would've sworn it was much longer. My bed was also as I left it… wrinkled and unkempt. That didn't stop me from eyeing it wistfully. I was still wiped. Finishing the sweep of our small space, I rejoined Niko in the kitchen. "Okay, we have the crown. Now what?"
"We wait for Caleb to contact us. He's obviously keeping a close eye on our activities." He looked toward the window in the apartment. Too large for blinds, it had been covered days ago by an obscuring sheet. "He'll know we're back. By tomorrow evening this could all be over."
"Except for the Auphe."
"Let's focus on one life-threatening disaster at a time. Multitasking at this level of catastrophe isn't quite feasible." He stretched, working out the kinks of the long trip. "I'm going to take a quick run to loosen up."
"Hold on." Mentally groaning at the thought, I went to retrieve the sneakers I'd discarded in my bedroom and tried not to look at the bed.
Eyebrows lifted as I reappeared. "You're running? Voluntarily?"
"Have to keep an eye on you," I explained, bending over to tie laces with quick jerks. "This isn't like the good old days, Cyrano, when they only wanted me. Now they want you." To hurt me, and to punish us both. "This time around I get to be the babysitter."
"You don't believe I can take care of myself?" The eyebrows came down, but there was an affectionately mocking flavor to the question.
"You didn't think I could handle myself these past couple of years?" I countered.
"I said so often enough, didn't I?" He pulled me upright by the scruff of my shirt. "But point taken. I'll try to be as graceful about it as you were." As he let that jewel of a threat sink in, he went on, "You're tired, I know. For you, I'll cut it back to a quick five miles."
"You're one generous son of a bitch," I gritted as I followed him out the door.
By the time we got back, I was as stiff-legged as the Frankenstein monster. It wasn't the length of the run—for a Niko one it was short. But the exhaustion that hadn't been much relieved by my long sleep was making itself known with a vengeance. I barely made it to my bed and fell across it. You've heard people say they fell asleep the instant their head touched the pillow? I think I fell asleep midair. On our run Niko had said he would stay up and keep watch. I'd told him it wasn't necessary. If an Auphe opened a door, I would know it… now. But, as he'd brought up, if it opened one down the block and scuttled to our place, that would kill our advance notice. It was good thinking, and I hoped it kept him company on his watch, because I was down for the count.