"If you give a damn, I am sorry," Robin said quietly to them. "Whether you believe it or not, I truly am. Not for what you think, but I am sorry." Sorry for what he'd done and sorry for what was coming.
There was no give, in their eyes or their faces, and I realized: We were going to have to kill them. All of them. Humans. It didn't sit right. I didn't think it ever would, but it was getting easier. After all, I'd been more than happy to kill that bastard in the subway. Of course, here we might not get the chance to. We were good, but we were facing seven guns. Promise could take a number of hits and stay on her feet. The same wasn't true of the rest of us. At least one of us was going down; it was a fact, one that sat hard and undigested in my stomach. We were thoroughly fucked.
Unless…
Unless I could get behind them. Get the drop on them. It might make the difference.
And that's when I discovered another difference, the one Sawney had made, what he'd pushed me to. I guessed I owed that murdering bastard a favor, because the knot tied in my brain was gone as my mind got the second wind my body had. The effort to head him off, the mind-rending strain to be faster, the necessity of ripping reality time and time again had finally punched through the scar tissue that had held me back these past weeks. It was wide open. I was wide open.
And it was easy this time. It was so damn easy. There was no blood, no pain, and it was so right that I wondered how I'd survived this long without it. As Seraglio extended her gun with a "No, my god, we do not give a damn. Not for you or your apologies," I was suddenly behind them, and I felt good, really good, and…predatory. Content and hungry for violence, with a blood that felt as if it scorched my veins. As if it were a heat that only killing could cool. Then the feeling was gone, because I had more important things to think about, or maybe it wasn't gone. Maybe it just let me do what I had to.
Was it me? Was it not?
Who gave a rat's ass?
It was definitely me, though, who shot the first two in the back before two others turned. No honor. The only thing honor got you was killed. I saw Nik roll and come up from the floor to impale the man on the far side of Seraglio. Promise, although she took two bullets first, took out the woman beside him with a quick snap of her neck. Goodfellow produced two daggers and two more fell with metal in their throat. I saw blood bloom on Robin's neck, red dripping down Niko's hand, I saw Seraglio begin to pull the trigger of the gun aimed at Robin's head, and then I saw wings.
Wings, pale blond hair, and a blade moving as fast as he fell. Ishiah.
Seraglio's gun flew to one side immediately followed by her head. As her small body crumpled, I could've staggered with relief that I hadn't had to be the one to do it. She'd made me pancakes. She was a hunter and a psychotic killer, but she smelled like cinnamon and honey, and she'd made me pancakes.
Then I forgot about the pancakes and remembered the blood on Niko and Robin. I knelt beside my brother. Promise was there as well, ripping at his sleeve and getting blood on her hands in the process. "Later," Nik ordered, voice controlled. No pain. No panic. "Security. Police. We have to go now. Take Robin." He was right, I knew that, but seeing the blood still coursing down his hand, I opened my mouth to say we could take one second. "Cal, now."
Damn it. I shut my mouth and turned to Robin as Nik got to his feet and he and Promise moved quickly toward the door. Goodfellow was upright, hand pressed to his throat. He pulled it away to look at a palm wet and red. "Gods bleed." He gave a liquid cough. "Seraglio would be pleased." Then he dropped or he would have if I hadn't caught him on one side and Ishiah on the other.
"Jesus." He had blood on his lips and his eyes had gone unfocused and hazy. I slapped my hand over the torn flesh of his neck. "I thought you had a prior commitment," I snapped at Ishiah. It was easier to snarl at him than concentrate on the warm wetness pouring through my fingers or the drowned gurgle to Robin's ragged breathing. So much for the damn bulletproof vest.
"This was it." If there was any regret over killing Seraglio, I didn't hear it. I didn't expect to. He'd done it to save Robin. If he hadn't done it, I would've done it myself, and you wouldn't have heard any regret in my voice either. It was pointless to show what you couldn't change.
We dragged Goodfellow rapidly toward the door and out into the cool night air. "Nushi. We need to get him to Nushi to be healed. Promise?" I said with desperate demand.
"Hundred and ninetieth Street and Fort Washington, apartment number twelve-C," she said swiftly as both she and Niko looked back at the limp puck with grim worry. They didn't have long to look. Within a second he was gone, pulled upward and out of my hands. Ishiah took him. Powerful wings bunching with muscle, he lifted a now-unconscious Robin into the air and soared away. Going to Nushi. Right now he was the only one fast enough. And he would be.
He had to be.
23
"Did he let you in this time?"
"No. Stubborn bastard." Two days later I was spreading out the supplies on the kitchen table and gesturing for Nik to strip off his long-sleeve gray T-shirt. The six-month-old circular scar on his chest was still a bright contrast against his olive skin. It wasn't the best of memories and I looked away to the ugly furrow on the outer aspect of his biceps. It wasn't bad, not nearly as bad as I'd thought when I'd seen the blood coating his arm and hand. Still, one more not-so-great memory. "He wouldn't even answer this time."
My own wounds, Sawney's going-away present, ached as I moved, but they were much less deep than Niko's bullet wound. Thin slices, they'd heal soon enough. "Damn pucks," I muttered as I cleaned the wound.
"I think this situation applies to only one puck…ours," Niko corrected as I applied the antibiotic cream. "I don't think many others would be too ashamed to show their faces."
"They do love showing them off," I snorted. I put the gauze and tape into place and sat as he pulled his shirt back on. I pushed my half-empty glass of hours-old morning orange juice back and forth. "You'd think the son of a bitch would at least let us in long enough to see that he's okay."
"Ishiah and Nushi both said he was healed." He added with a sliver of humor, "And I would think the sheer volume of his cursing us to Hades through the door would reassure you. It's not the voice of a dying man."
No, it wasn't. Neither was the mocking of our fighting skills, lack of drinking capabilities, and pretty much everything about our personal appearance. It was razor-sharp, sliced as fine as Sawney's scythe, and was definitely not the voice of a sick puck. But I'd felt his unconscious weight against my arm and the blood pouring through my fingers. I'd sensed the cool slither of death sliding through him. That was hard to forget, almost as hard as the fact you'd inspired an entire tribe of people to hunt you through the centuries with the burning desire to kill you. As many times as we'd pounded on his door in the past days, he'd refused to open it, refused to face us.
A hand looped around my wrist. "He'll come around, Cal. He simply needs time to come to terms with what he did."
"And that we know what he did," I exhaled, with understanding.
Ishiah, with Robin's permission, had finally told us the whole story. I doubted Robin would ever tell us face-to-face himself, and as I'd suspected, there was more to it than just playing god. Had that been all there was, I was sure Robin wouldn't have been that ashamed. He was a puck, born to lie, steal, and fool. The storm and disease weren't his fault. He hadn't been responsible, no matter what the tribe and their descendants had thought, not for those deaths.