Not life. Lives.
Numbly I clinked my bottle against theirs and watched Niko go from shaken to intrigued, then rueful in less than a second flat. “And I the Buddhist—in this life at least—never caught on.”
My brother believed in life after death, many lives. I believed in nothing. It looked like I might be wrong.
“What the hell are you saying? You knew us? You’ve always known us? That we were your friends, comrades in arms, buddies, whatever, reincarnated over and over throughout history? That we knew you and hung out with you on purpose God knows how many times? Reincarnation I’ll buy. Maybe. But choosing to spend all of history listening to your egomaniacal ass sounds more like Hell to me.” I grinned at Robin because at the moment he appeared as if he could really use it. After the angels, telling us another truth was bound to be nerve-wracking. He couldn’t know how we’d take it.
On the whole, I thought we were damn lucky.
Life after life? I had no religious beliefs or philosophies, but if Niko wanted to drag me behind him through reincarnation after reincarnation, I did owe him, didn’t I? In this life and most likely every other one.
“Yes, because you’ve been such a delightful companion throughout the ages. Of the six hundred and seventy-eight times I’ve nearly been killed, six hundred at minimum have been your fault.” He turned to Niko to say one word, one name actually, “Achilles.”
Niko, the alcohol shall not profane my holy temple having gone out the window with Boris and now this, Niko, took another quick swallow before saying with disbelief, “Last month, when my father was here”—late father, for which I happily took full credit—“and you told him that you were there when Achilles cut his hair to mourn his cousin Patroclus, you were actually saying I was Achilles?”
“Simply because of how I, and even Cal, whose entire knowledge of history could be collected in a comic book, compare you to Achilles on a monthly basis? Oh, and the legend in your clan that your blond hair and exceptional genetic tendency toward lethality in a fight comes from a descendant of Achilles playing hide the loukaniko with a winsome Rom maiden when your clan was in Greece a few centuries ago?” Robin snapped, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his free hand. “Zeus’s golden shower, you’re as thick as your brother. Of course you were Achilles.”
“And I’m guessing I was the dead guy, Patroclus,” I muttered. “Great. Just my luck.” I had a feeling that history did love to repeat itself. But at the same time . . . once I’d been human. Not Auphe, not monster. I’d been human. That was worth knowing.
“Live by the sword, die by the sword. That little Jewish fellow with the big feet knew what he was talking about there. The two of you were mortal and warriors—always. Soldiers, mercenaries, fighters of all stripe, with nothing save a vulnerable human body to keep you alive. The combination makes for short life spans.” This time he finished the bottle rather than face us. “And shorter friendships.”
He peered at the empty bottle and sighed, bereft and despairing. That meant he was too lazy to get a replacement. I groaned and fetched one for him. “How’d you even figure this out? We looked different, right? We probably weren’t always brothers, were we?” A feeling of loss, icy and sharp, spiked in me at that thought.
“Strangely enough, you are brothers most often. Sometimes cousins. Occasionally, as I told you when you were younger, friends bonded by blood and battle. As for me noticing, it started when I kept crossing paths centuries apart with a string of humans of foul and sarcastic attitude. These were the days when there was little law, rare enforcement, and a smart-ass mouth was reason enough for someone to be beaten to death, anyone would agree. That I kept running into this same nonsurvival-prone personality type began to make me somewhat suspicious. Nature should’ve weeded this strain out hundreds of years after I first encountered it for the sake of the species.”
That was harsh. I didn’t think my personality was species dooming. Not necessarily.
“That this annoying persona was invariably accompanied by another saner character who kept him from being beaten to death as he deserved, I began to think I’d gone insane. Older pucks do once you’ve lived a million or so years. Then after sharing a meal and a conversation with Buddha, the thin Indian version, that conversation we had about sex—enlightenment is very overrated—I think I’ve mentioned this story before. Ah, yes, by the constipated look on Cal’s face I have told this one. Irregardless we discussed other things as well and I knew. I was cursed”—he coughed—“ah . . . blessed with eternal companions to fill the long years of an eternal life. One way or the other fate draws us together time and time again.”
When we’d first met him, or when I’d thought we’d first met him, at the car lot, Robin had seemed the most unwillingly solitary person or creature I’d known. Sex partners he had in plenty—he’d made certain we knew that in the first five minutes, but with the majority of the paien hating pucks and pucks absolutely despising each other, friends were definitely a seller’s market. He’d seized on us like a life preserver. For a moment I wondered how he could’ve been lonely if we’d been there all along and then I knew. We’d been mortal and he was not. We were seemingly eternal but present for a handful of years at a time. How many times had he seen Niko and me fall to that sword? How many times had he seen us die? How long were the stretches when we weren’t around? Tens of years, hundreds, thousands? Was he lonely or was it truer to say he was abandoned?
Now I felt guilty for dying—repeatedly—instead of feeling as if I’d fallen through the rabbit hole, which would be a far more normal reaction. Fuck. I gave him a light shove. For once, I’d try not to make everything about me. “Short, but apparently we always eventually turned back up . . . like a bad penny, the kind coated with the supernatural Ebola of rotten luck.”
“True.” His smile was solemn enough to make the unspoken words etch themselves in the air as sharp as diamond-cut crystaclass="underline" although sometimes it took a very long time before you did.
There was nothing to be done about it—except taking it up with Niko’s Buddha and universe-at-large and I had a feeling that wasn’t an option. That meant I did with it what I did with all problems I couldn’t solve: I ignored it and moved on. “So since we met you at the car lot. No, hell, since you showed up on our porch when we were kids, you thought . . . knew who we were to you and you didn’t bother to say anything? Didn’t think we’d like to be clued in?”
“Naturally I didn’t tell you when you were children. First, you kept calling me a pervert.” He glared. I might have forgotten most of it but he hadn’t. Neither forgiven nor forgotten. “And second, it would’ve interfered with your development.”
Niko picked up the thread of conversation. “Who we’d become, who we were meant to be. A person has the same basic core of personality in each life, but there are some differences based on environment, genes, the paths we choose, things such as that.”
In this life, yeah, genes were in the driver’s seat on that one. In this life, for once, I wasn’t mortal, but I was as likely to have that short life span. More likely in fact.
“Did you know I was Auphe . . . when I was a kid?” I asked abruptly. I didn’t stop with one swallow of Scotch on that question.
“No.” Goodfellow sounded . . . hell, sounded as if he’d thought about this more nights than I’d care to consider and found himself guilty every time. “No. If I had known about them, if I’d known about Sophia, if I’d known how bad it truly was, I would’ve interfered and gamisou personality development. I could see you were poor, but I didn’t see the rest. I am sorry for that. You don’t know how sorry.”