"Are you awake enough to understand me?" he asked neutrally.
I blinked again, then looked down to see I was sitting in a recliner in what I recognized as Goodfellow's office at the car lot. Padded metal cuffs were clamped down securely over my wrists and ankles. Ah, shit. The Auphe were going to kick my ass. I tugged at my restraints experimentally. There was no give despite the fact I was stronger than Cal had been before the merging. I lifted my gaze to Robin and raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Raid your toy box just for me, Goodfellow? I'm touched."
"Keep it up and you will be." Goodfellow clenched a white-knuckle fist and showed his teeth in a threatening mockery of a smile.
Niko ignored the exchange; that much at least hadn't changed. Leaning in close, he said softly, "Listen to me, Darkling, and listen carefully. I want to speak to my brother. The only words I want to hear are his. Do you understand?"
Unimpressed, I rolled my eyes and took in my surroundings. It was night. I'd lost nearly the whole day. The car lot was closed and blinds were pulled down over all the windows. Only the door in the outer display room showed a sliver of blackness beneath ill-fitting blinds. Turning my attention back to my captors, I looked them up and down. Niko stood unruffled and in control, ramrod straight with every hair ruthlessly scraped back from his face. But the military demeanor didn't hide the faint smudges under his eyes that told of sleepless nights and the lingering pain of cracked ribs. Goodfellow, on the other hand, hadn't fared quite so well. There was an ugly reddened slash across the front of his throat and I could make out the bulk of bandages under his sweater. It was new; the green one was history. He'd let his fist fall away and now stood impassively with arms folded. He might have thought his face was inscrutable as well, but both the muscle twitching spasmodically in his jaw and the fury banked in the far reaches of his eyes warmed my heart.
"Well, well," I drawled caustically. "The gang's all here. What's the occasion? Hope it's not an intervention. I'm a little short on shame and regret today."
Niko took a fistful of my shirt and shook me with harsh efficiency. The back of my head slammed against the recliner with only the padding keeping me from a vicious headache. "Perhaps I wasn't clear," he said implacably. "I want to speak to Cal, not a murderous hitchhiker." He shook me again. "Just Cal."
That annoyed me, this human, this flash in the pan five generations or so from a protozoan, delegating me to hitchhiker status. Treating me as if I were no more than a minor demon with a hard-on for the Catholic Church. It pissed me off enough that I decided to tell the truth. Hell, I wanted to anyway, had been dying to all this time. It wouldn't matter at this point; there'd be no immediate danger to me. Goodfellow would believe me instantly, but not Niko. Not my brother. His head might believe, but his heart would balk long enough for me to get the upper hand again. And I would, no doubt about it.
I tilted my head in a way that was utterly Caliban. "You just don't get it, do you, Cyrano? I'm disappointed in you. Here I am, running around, creating murder and mayhem. Doing things your pathetic, whiny brother would never have the guts to do. Shit, would never have the guts to even admit he wanted to do." I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips. "And yet, I have every memory Cal ever made, including a few he refuses to acknowledge. It leads one to a certain conclusion."
Niko's grip tightened on my shirt. I think he suspected what was coming. For the first time since I'd changed, he let himself see the shadow sliding across the sun. "I want to speak to Cal, Darkling," he repeated, with an unyielding steel that couldn't ward off unpleasant reality. "Now."
I let my eyelids drop to half-mast and laid my head back against the chair, as lazy as a cat on a summer afternoon. "That's just it, big brother. There is no Caliban. There is no Darkling. We are one. One new creature. One new soul." My lips relaxed into a blithe curve. "One. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it." His expression didn't change at my words, didn't even flicker.
"You lost him, Nik," I continued remorselessly, watching his face… waiting for it. "Caliban died days ago. He died on your apartment floor. He died while you watched and you never even knew it."
And there it was. Niko had never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but I could read him. I'd always been able to. The reserve, that imperturbable spirit that was as much a part of him as his genetic code, had faded away. Now in its place was a void, an emptiness so profound that it colored the very air around him. It was a vacuum swallowing everything that made Nik who he was… stubborn hope, unshakable faith, boundless determination. It was gone. All gone. And, for the most part, so was Nik.
Suck on that, you bastard, I thought with a feral satisfaction.
Goodfellow, for once, said exactly the right thing. Nothing. He simply put a hand on Niko's shoulder and steered him away toward the office door. As I watched through the glass, he closed the door behind them and left to return minutes later to hand my brother a mug of coffee. If I knew Robin, there was probably something extra in it besides Juan Valdez, but Niko drank it without hesitation. I listened with interest as Goodfellow finally spoke. "I'm sorry, Nik, but I think it's telling the truth." The words were muffled but audible, the glass conducting the sound readily.
"You said that male banshees had never possessed people, only objects," Niko stated dispassionately, his fingers blanched white on the ceramic mug. "You've not seen this before, then. How can you know for sure?"
Ah, Cyrano, he knows in the same way you know, I mused with a certain black affection. I tested the cuffs again. There was still no give in the metal, but it did result in a thought.
"I guess there is no way I can be absolutely positive." Robin ran a weary hand across his face. "But I have seen possessions in my day, Niko, though they're much more rare than television would have you believe. What I have seen doesn't match up to this. And Darkling is powerful. Malevolent and petty as a child, but very powerful. What that would do to someone, having that inside, I don't know. It very well could be irreversible." His eyes slanted through the glass to take me in. "He enjoyed telling us, telling you. He enjoyed it so much I think that it had to be the truth."
Niko bowed his head and stared silently into the contents of his mug. He was intent enough that it could have been a Magic 8 Ball with the solution to all his woes. Kill my brother or don't kill my brother? Yes, no, or try back next time? Hard choice, but then again life is all about choices. And it was just like Nik to disregard the one in front of him and sidetrack to an entirely different one. The big picture, it was precisely what I didn't want them to see.
"True or not, there's something else." Unlike Goodfellow, Nik didn't look at me. I don't believe that right then I was anything he particularly wanted to see. "Why did this thing take Cal? The Auphe are behind it; that much is clear. But why? All our lives have been spent running from this moment. I owe it to… I need to know the reason why." Now his eyes met mine. Bleak, hard, and unforgiving. "And that monstrosity knows the answer."
That was a cue the party was over if ever I'd heard it. I didn't know how far Niko would go… how far he could stomach to go, but where he left off, Goodfellow would be all too willing to take over. That, naturally, made me less than eager to stick around. So I decided to leave. It was just that simple. The decision was, anyway. The execution, however, was trickier. The cuffs were unbreakable, even with my strength, but the chair itself was a different story. I ripped away one armrest and then the other with a massive jerk. With my wrists seeping blood and still encased in the cuffs, I freed my ankles. I was stronger, but that didn't mean this body was any more durable than it had been. But this wasn't the time to bitch about the deficiencies of it. This was the time to take advantage of what it could do. As in run—run like hell. Those who fight and run away live to butcher another day, right?