That made it easy to understand that when I could see again, I saw my hands around the healer’s throat doing my best to strangle the life out of him. My best was good. If I hadn’t been weak from that pain, I’d have succeeded. Rafferty wasn’t doing anything to stop me. Niko reached past me to peel my fingers from the purpling flesh.
“Sorry,” Rafferty apologized, massaging his throat. “You said hurry and I needed to. If I’d had more time, I wouldn’t have let you feel that. But you were-” He coughed harshly and substituted a rough hand movement aiming toward the sky. He was right. I’d been more than halfway gone in intent and a second away from the deed.
My head still throbbed without mercy and I methodically pounded it against the front bench seat. It was that kind of pain, the sort that makes you want to knock yourself out to escape it. Hitting rock bottom, acceptance of your addiction; officially those two concepts sucked. Doing the right thing also sucked. I might think differently later, when this passed, but at the moment I wasn’t counting on it. Niko’s hand rested on my back and that should’ve made it better. He was Nik again, my brother-not just one more victim in the crosshairs.
I hit my head harder. This time I wanted the pain. I deserved it. Having that thought about the only family I had, the only one who’d given a damn about me for most of my life, I deserved pain. Being crazy was no excuse. Going Auphe was no excuse. There was no goddamn excuse for it. It was Nik.
Rafferty should’ve killed me.
But he hadn’t, and I had to deal. Niko had done everything possible to save me. I’d let him down once-shit, more times than I could count. But right now, I was going to step up to the plate. Be a fucking man, even if genetically I didn’t come close. I heard Robin move in the front seat to lay one on the back of my neck. It felt like ice through my sweat-soaked hair. My chest hurt too, my heart beating so fast I was surprised it hadn’t torn its way through my chest. Yeah, good old rock bottom. Wasn’t one of the twelve steps to recovery accepting a higher power? I didn’t believe in a higher power. I wished I did so I could hope one day to kick its ass for this.
“It’s all right, kid. It’ll pass.” He was probably guessing, but I appreciated Goodfellow’s effort. He’d been my friend for a while now, as hard as it had been to admit I could have friends-that I could trust someone besides my brother. But Robin was a friend, and a friend would lie to you when the truth wasn’t worth hearing.
“This is it,” Rafferty said quietly, words raw from a throat he felt didn’t deserve to be healed, else he would’ve done it. No bedside manner, but he’d been better off with a great bedside manner and a little less conscience. “It’s called serotonin syndrome. A little serotonin makes you feel good-like you did before-but a whole lot of it will kill you. Every time you travel, this is what you get-a shitload of serotonin your body isn’t meant to handle. The headache is from your blood pressure skyrocketing. A human might stroke out, but your human-Auphe brain can take it. The chest pain is from the tachycardia, your heart working triple time. Your body temperature will go up too, hundred two, hundred three. That’s from one jump. You make another one, you get another serotonin dump, and the blood pressure goes even higher, which your brain may not be able to handle. Your heart beats faster; your temperature goes up to one oh four or six. All of that has a good chance of killing you. A third jump…” He stopped before completing that sentence. Complete it he did though, sounding anything but proud. “A third jump means no more Cal.”
And that meant no more Auphe.
Okay then-problem solved. I couldn’t travel enough again to remotely think black and bloody Auphe thoughts about killing my brother. I’d die first, and that was fucking peachy by me. I stopped beating my head against the seat, though, and suffered through the headache. Goodfellow’s hand disappeared from my neck and I heard the gurgle of water. A moment later a bottle of water was slowly poured over my head and neck. It felt good, better than good, as my skin cooled beneath it. Taking a breath and shoving the pain down, I straightened, and what did I face?
The mirror again.
Things hadn’t changed. No, that wasn’t entirely true. The gray was still shot here and there with dark scarlet. The tiny flecks weren’t the blazing fire glow of Auphe eyes, though, but they didn’t belong in your ordinary human eyes either. Yeah, this was good. Before, there were some that could smell the monster on me. Now everyone in the supernatural world could see it. “What the hell,” I muttered, wringing my hair out as I eased back against the seat behind me. I covered my eyes with my other hand. “Great opportunity to get a few pairs of dark sunglasses. Expensive. People will think I work for the government or the Sunglass Hut.” I felt in my jacket pocket for my old pair. Nothing. Naturally. No sunglasses. No cheerful Cal. No anything. Auphe blood had made me a happy guy for a while, a short while, but it had felt nice. I should’ve known that was way too good to be true. No nice for Cal Leandros. It didn’t mean I didn’t miss the feeling-lie that it had been. But it didn’t mean I was going to let myself dwell on it either.
Dwelling on what I’d thought about doing to Nik was a different story. Getting me to open another gate was going to take one goddamn compelling reason or an act of God, and since I didn’t believe in the latter…
It wasn’t worth the risk, a Rafferty-engineered bomb in my brain or not.
“No bother, Niko,” Robin said. “I have several.” Before my brother could pass me his, I felt a pair folded into my hand. “Not quite a thousand dollars, so bang them up all you wish. I probably have twenty in my glove compartment.”
I slipped them on before opening my eyes. “I’m sorry.” The apology was for Niko. He’d trusted me and I’d blown it. Massively. Or my genes had. It didn’t matter where the blame fell. It served me right that now I could see what I’d done each time I looked in a mirror. I used to have a mirror phobia not that long ago-with good reason. I wasn’t going to let myself get away with that this time. No, this time and from now on I faced all that potential Rafferty had labeled me with.
Something new, something old, and something entirely unlike anything on this earth, Rafferty had said.
That wasn’t a lonely feeling. Not at all.
13
“You not talk to your brother.”
The accident, the ambulances, the police cars, the fire trucks; it was all still keeping us from moving. Rafferty couldn’t knock out fifty-some people, so we could drive around and follow the now-petless Suyolak. Or he could have if it hadn’t been for the energy he’d expended on me-I didn’t know and I wasn’t going to ask. I’d contributed enough drama to the situation. I wasn’t looking to add any more by making Rafferty feel guilty if he had run low on juice.
I was sitting on the edge of the highway among dirt and tufts of dusty grass here and there. I had my knees up, my arms folded across them, as I looked across the highway at nothing. Figuratively. Literally. Both applied. Although Utah wasn’t the flat-ass empty state I’d imagined. It would’ve been more appropriate if it were, because I was feeling flat and empty myself.
Delilah sat beside me, careless of her white leathers. “You not talk to me either?” She could’ve gone around the mess, blocking both sides of the highway on her Harley, but cops would’ve chased her. They wouldn’t have caught her, but then if she caught up with Suyolak, there wasn’t much she could do but die.
It was that kind of day.
No, I wasn’t talking to Delilah either. I wasn’t talking to anyone. There wasn’t much point. I was accepting. Accepting took quiet time. Quiet time let you avoid thinking, if you were exceptional in that area, and I was. It wasn’t denial; it was layaway recognition. I’d think about it about the same time I paid off Niko’s Christmas present. I was comfortable with that. Five months was a good time frame… for presents and self-realization and thoughts of blowing away a chunk of your brother’s head.