"Yeah," I said raggedly. "He did. Smarter than Socrates, quicker than Hermes …"
"With the stamina of Hercules and Priapus combined," the familiar voice croaked from several feet away. From the gloom, Robin appeared. He was leaning heavily on Promise, but he was moving under his own power. Moving, breathing, bragging…he was alive. The son of a bitch was alive. All those roiling emotions tearing through me finally had an outlet, and until I reached Goodfellow I had no idea if they would result in violence or something worse.
It was the something worse.
I'd jumped to my feet and moved in to push him hard. Then I grabbed a handful of his shirt to pull him back and shake him, and finally, growling as loudly as any wolf, I wrapped an arm around his neck and squeezed until his face began to turn vaguely purple.
Yeah, I hugged him. It didn't get any worse than that, did it?
Shoving him back again before he had time to blink in surprise, I demanded harshly, "Why aren't you dead?"
"At this rate, I soon will be." He raised a hand between us, wary at any further welcome. "I can tell you are overcome with relief at the reunion, Caliban, but, please, don't strain any hitherto unused emotional muscles on my behalf. I'm not sure my neck can stand it." Matted brown hair stuck to his sweaty forehead as he leaned back with a wince to give more weight to Promise's supportive arm. "And I'm not dead because of Boggle." His pale face became a little more animated beneath the discomfort. "Also because of that bastard Darkling. Wouldn't he have loved to know that, that wretched wad of lizard mucous?"
"I think this would be better explained in a location where our chances of being arrested"—Niko rested a hand on my shoulder—"and dissected are a little less." The hand gripped and then pointed. "Gun. Only rude little boys leave their toys lying about."
And I wouldn't want to be rude, would I? Or dissected. I walked over, avoiding the third rail that still sizzled with leather and flesh, and recovered the weapon with fingers that felt oddly clumsy. Hard fight, long night, friends dying and rising again, that sort of thing played hell on a person's nervous system. Understanding that didn't stop me from cursing my numb fingers, the suddenly much heavier than normal Eagle, and Lazarus frigging Goodfellow. After tucking the gun in my jeans, I pulled off my shirt, turned it inside out, and put it back on. I'd gone from a dark-haired maniac in a black shirt, to just an average guy in a red one. The difference was enough to fool any nonprofessional eye, and here was hoping that cop I took out was still unconscious.
We did make it out, blending into the panicked while taking turns helping Robin along. This time, we shelled out the bucks for a cab and headed to Promise's penthouse at Park Avenue and Sixtieth to recuperate. Promise had offered. I was beginning to think she was fonder of Robin than she let on. They were both long-lived, although he was much older by far. They had a common bond that Niko and I couldn't be part of. Actually, the jury was still out on whether I had inherited the Auphe longevity. It could stay out as long as it wanted. I wasn't outliving Niko; I wasn't outliving my only true family, not by hundreds or thousands of years. No. Just…no.
By the time we climbed out of the taxi and were ushered into the building by an imposing, silver-haired doorman with an equally imposing sweep of mustache in pure white, Goodfellow's cursing had grown louder, but his movements came with more ease. A bruised or cracked rib, that was what he'd managed to escape death with—a dark purple splotch on the left of his back…precisely over where his heart would be.
The key to his survival had been the memories of our boggle, which had been triggered by his mate, and by Darkling. Darkling, at one with my body and my mind, had set up an ambush in Central Park. While Boggle had attacked Goodfellow, Darkling…I … we had shot Niko. Point-blank range. I leaned toward guns. Knives were okay, but guns were the top of my comfort level, and Niko hadn't forgotten that. When I'd been taken by Darkling, my brother had worn a bulletproof vest in anticipation of just such an event. It had saved his life.
Robin knew that he was an assassination target of two attempts already. When we'd told him we were bringing in another boggle, it had brought the fight of the past year to mind. While Niko had expected the gun then, Goodfellow hadn't. Darkling wasn't human; he would have no particular attachment to a gun. Nonhumans rarely did. That type of thinking would've gotten Robin killed if he'd been in Nik's place. As lessons went, it had made an impression on the puck.
Hameh birds, a sirrush … a man with a gun was a long way from creatures such as those. Long way, long odds. But pucks, gamblers to the last one, knew all about odds and they knew their payoffs. I'd wondered how someone as long-lived as him had gone down so easily. Now I knew. He hadn't. After the Hameh, he'd bought a bulletproof vest and started wearing it under his finely woven fall sweaters. The damned things probably matched, cashmere and Kevlar.
Reclining on overstuffed pillows and a sage green silk cover, Robin was lounging in Promise's guest room with a distinctly superior smirk on his pointed face. Look at me. Look how clever. The breadth and reach of my intelligence are so unfathomable to the average brain that I must appear godlike to you lesser mortals. Whether it was only in my head that I heard it or he'd actually said it aloud, it didn't matter. My hand was already closing around something on the dresser to toss at him. Gilded French vase, crystal decanter, statue of Venus, I didn't look. I didn't care. I hefted it and cocked my arm back as if I were trying out for the majors when Niko took me by the scruff of my shirt and began to hustle me out of the bedroom.
"He really doesn't deal with the unexpected well, does he?" Robin commented as if I and my makeshift weapon weren't there. Rolling onto his stomach, he hissed at the cold as Promise, who didn't look particularly pleased to be playing nurse, placed an ice pack over the spreading bruise. Fondness only went so far. Seeing a half-naked Goodfellow was apparently the outer limits of that affection. "In his world there are no good surprises and all piñatas are filled with evil-tempered tarantulas and poison-spitting snakes." I heard the clucking of his tongue before he rested his face in the pillows for a muffled finish. "We do need to work on that attitude or he'll never be able to enjoy the true…"
I didn't hear anything further as the bedroom receded behind us. Promise's home had soft and gloriously woven rugs, draperies, and tapestries on the wall that all worked to soak up noise like a sponge. I looked at what was in my hand as Niko kept marching me along. A candelabra, silver and gold. It would've made a nice dent in that curly head. "He deserves it," I said, knuckles whitening as my grip tightened.
"Why?" At the end of the hall, we went down the winding stairs as the metal was deftly worked from my clenched hand. "Why does he deserve it? For being a self-righteous ass, which is nothing new, or"—he put the candelabra on the nearest table— "for scaring you?"
"I have Sawney and the Auphe to scare the shit out of me," I dismissed stiffly. "Goodfellow doesn't come close to making that list." After depriving me of my expensive puck swatter, Nik released me, and I promptly began to prowl the living room in ever-widening circles. I plunked the keys of an ivory-colored small piano, glanced at several pictures in simple polished silver frames, and kept walking.
"There is more than one type of fear, little brother. You had a not so healthy taste of that with Georgina and me, and you did your best to forget about it." His gaze drilled into mine, letting me know what he had thought and still did think of that idea. Very damn little. "To push it down where you wouldn't have to look at it, to think about it." He leaned against the wall as I shifted my wary glance away from him to the floor and kept pacing. "Or to deal with it."