"Let him go, Nik," I said quietly. Because, really, wasn't that the best thing for the puck? It wasn't every day you survived a troll and a Grendel. Best to consider yourself lucky and hit the road before anything else tried to kill you. The devil you knew and the devil you didn't—both were dangerous in this world. Robin was old enough to know that. And if he'd forgotten, I had just succeeded in reminding him damn thoroughly. Yeah, I was a regular humanitarian.
Considering I wasn't even human.
Chapter Nine
It was just a normal night at home. A Bud, an evening snack, lounging around in sweats and relaxing—it didn't get any better than that. The first aid, okay, that was a slight hiccup, but it wasn't the first time that had happened. Not for either of us. And one way or the other, it probably wouldn't be the last. Unfortunately, that was a positive thing. Considering our lifestyles, if there were no more injuries, it could mean only one thing: We were dead. I guess life was all about taking the bad with the good. This time Niko had taken the fall; next time it might be me. Hell, it probably would be me. To give myself credit where credit was due, I could kick ass with the best of them. But Niko, his reflexes were sharper, more honed, and his cool… well, at least he had a cool to keep. I thought cool was something to keep your beer frosty.
I took a swallow of said ice-cold beer as Niko, with one towel wrapped around his hips and another in his hands, finished gingerly drying off from his shower. The red areas on his shoulder, neck, and back were raw and looked painful as hell. The small welts on my arm stung viciously and they were nothing compared with what marred Niko's skin. "Did you get all the blood off?" I asked as I went to the sink and scrubbed my hands with an antiseptic soap.
He nodded, folded the towel, and placed it on one of the kitchen chairs. "Yes, I'm clean."
"You sure?" I persisted. "That stuff's like acid." The top of the tube of burn cream untwisted easily. I then flipped open a packet of sterile gloves, squirted the ointment onto the inner surface of the packaging paper, and pulled on the gloves, coating the fingers in the ointment in the process. Nice time-saver.
"Trust me, Cal. I was thorough, uncomfortable though it was." He settled in a chair, leaning forward as his arms rested on his legs. "Uncomfortable" happened to be Niko's euphemism for "excruciating," not that you would've known that from the way he sat tranquilly, his face impassive, and as unmoving as a statue.
Scooping some of the cream up in my gloved hand, I applied it to the chemical burn on his back. I used the lightest possible touch, but I could still feel him tense beneath my hand. Even so, his voice remained placid. "Did you dispose of my clothes?"
"Bagged them and tossed them into the incinerator," I confirmed. When Niko had been inside of Abbagor he must have been near a ruptured tendril or whatever passed as a blood vessel in the troll. The purple ichor had soaked through his coat and shirt, searing the skin beneath. And as agonizing as that must have been, I had to think it was probably not the worst part of being swallowed by Abbagor. But that was something that had to wait for the moment. We had to fix the outside before starting on the inside.
As I finished applying the cream to his back and then his shoulder and neck, I laid a light gauze bandage over the worst of the burns. "All done, Patches." I grinned faintly at the white dressings, stark against the olive tint of his skin. I might have the coloring of my father, but Niko was all Sophia. If it weren't for our eyes being the same, anyone would be hard-pressed to physically link us as brothers.
"Florence Nightingale had nothing on you, Cal, I'm sure." Niko straightened and that olive tone turned to white laced with green. He could school his face to the end of time, but even Niko wasn't master of his own complexion.
Stripping off the gloves and tossing them onto the table, I reached for a pill bottle I'd already retrieved from the cabinet. Shaking two into my hand, I held them out to him. "Take these. I'll get you some water."
He automatically balked. It wasn't anything that I hadn't expected. He was damn predictable in that respect. No alcohol, no drugs, nothing that would blunt the edge or dull the senses. Not even painkillers, no matter how much pain he might be in. "No problem," I said smoothly. "If the Grendels come tonight, you can just barf on them. Very ninja of you." I slapped the pills on the table in front of him. "Asshole. Suffer all you want."
Niko pursed his lips. "I'm not sure Nurse Nightingale had your bedside manner. But the point is taken." He picked up one pill and raised an eyebrow at me. "Compromise?"
Considering this was the hard stuff, definitely not over-the-counter, I knew enough to quit while I was ahead. "Compromise." I opened the refrigerator and handed him a bottle of water. Niko wouldn't touch tap water. I'd gotten rather used to the metallic taste myself. The delicate bouquet of chlorine and lead, what's not to like? "You had a tetanus shot about three years ago, right?"
He chased the pill with a swallow from the bottle. Aiming an assessing glance at me, he stated, "You're hovering, little brother." The gaze softened. "I am all right, Cal. I promise you."
I was hovering… some. There was no reason to. Niko was fine, in some pain, sure, but he wasn't going to be pushing up daisies anytime soon. Not from this, anyway. No, there was no reason to worry, no reason to consider this a grim reminder that without Niko I was alone in the world. There was no reason to dwell on the fact that without Niko there wasn't a single person alive that I could depend on. For that matter there wasn't a single one who even knew who I was, exactly what I was. Boggle knew and now Abbagor, but no one who had an untarnished soul. Except… except now there was Robin. But I'd managed to finish any trust there before it could even start.
"Of course you're okay," I said brusquely. "You're too damn pompous to die." Sweeping up the mess from the tabletop, I dumped it in the garbage. Grabbing my beer, I headed for the living room. "I'm going to watch the tube. Let me know if you need help dressing."
"If Goodfellow were here, I'm sure he would offer his help as well," Niko offered dryly as he eased himself to a standing position.
"I don't think that'll be a problem anytime in the near future." Turning on the TV with the remote, I surfed through several channels without actually registering them. Robin was as conceited as a male model, horny as a dog the day before it's neutered, and generally a pain in the ass, but he had tried to help us. And considering we had all but blackmailed him into it, it had to have been against his better judgment. Despite all of that, he'd stood his ground when Abbagor went on his homicidal rampage. At least he'd stood it until I gave him a nice big shove. Then he was just damn lucky not to end up buried in that same ground he'd made his stand on.
"I gathered that." Niko broke my train of thought and settled onto the couch beside me. He was careful to keep his back from resting against the threadbare cushion. The grooves bracketing his mouth said the pain medication hadn't even begun to kick in yet. "What happened while I was… unavailable? Did you tell him his shirt was so very last year?"
I snorted and gave a reluctant laugh. "That would've really gotten his goat, wouldn't it?" In my mind I could hear the faintest bubbling echo… Aupheling, little goat, come baaaaaaack. It sobered me instantly. "Yeah," I said absently. "Insulted his shirt. That's exactly what I did." I clicked the remote again.