Cal and Niko - Moonshine Part 8

"Certainly you are," she said solemnly, patting the back of my hand lightly. "Big and strong and ever so brave."

"Yeah, that's me all over. I got here a little early and decided to put my head down. It wasn't as if I were napping or anything." Yet. Belatedly I remembered to stand. She gave me a gracious smile that ignored my defensiveness, and sat in the cheap plastic chair. The diner was practically a fishbowl, the front all gla.s.s, and Promise kept on her cloak. She seemed to have an endless supply of them; I guessed all vampires did. At least all the ones that didn't want to end up in a burn unit. This one was the same deep brown as the glossy streaks in her hair. The hood shadowed her ivory pale face, but not her eyes. Warmly glowing and heather purple, they rested on me with patient a.s.sessment.

"I hear I'm to advise you on how to win a woman's heart without annoying the love of her life, the captain of her heart and mate of her soul." Tiny fangs were revealed with the curve of her lips. "More precisely, her meal ticket."

If anyone would be qualified in the subject, it would be Promise. And I didn't mean that in a derogatory way. I had no idea what had gone on with her and her husbands-her many, many husbands-but I did know Promise well enough now to know that she would've been honest with them. Not honest about being a vampire, let's be realistic. But she would've been honest about her emotions, about what she offered and what she expected. Although I had the feeling Promise's expectations were high. Very high.

"Yeah, well..." I tried for a grin, but I could feel the humorless stretch of it. "I haven't had much experience with girls. You know, other than trying to kill them."

"The two aren't as different as you might think." She patted my hand again and picked up a menu. "Now, tell me, before we discuss the way to a succubus's heart, do they have anything here that is as delicious as your pancakes?"

There wasn't a hint of dimple in that smooth cheek, but the high arch of a delicate brow had me scowling suspiciously. "In your dreams," I muttered as I reached for my own laminated list of heart attack specials. "I am the pancake king."

There was no comment. A very tactful no comment.

After a careful study, Promise decided to go the safe route with a m.u.f.fin and gla.s.s of orange juice. Coward. I ordered the bacon grease special. Bacon, eggs fried in bacon grease, and fried potatoes with bacon and onions. I took a runny yellow bite of egg and a forkful of potatoes, then ignored the rest for a cup of lethally strong and pathologically bitter coffee. Promise sipped orange juice from a squat, ugly gla.s.s, treating it as if it were the finest crystal. Blotting her lips delicately with a napkin, she encouraged, "Eat, Caliban. You're not doing anyone any favors by starving."

I shook my head and replied honestly, "I'm not hungry."

"Really? That's very interesting," she said lightly. "Now eat."

I couldn't describe the tone of that last command. It was no longer cajoling or encouraging and it d.a.m.n sure wasn't a suggestion. On the other hand, I wouldn't call it threatening, not quite, but there was definitely steel under it. Whatever it was, it made me feel simultaneously sullen, weirdly appreciative, and about thirteen years old. Pulling the plate closer, I grumbled, "d.a.m.n it, you're pushy. Are you this pushy with Nik?"

"I thought that particular subject was one you didn't wish to discuss." Her eyes glittered with warm amus.e.m.e.nt.

Oh, man. I glared at her as I ate a piece of bacon. I hadn't been hungry-that had been the truth-but once I started shoveling it down, my appet.i.te woke up fast. I b.u.t.tered a biscuit and ate it in two bites before mumbling, "So, what about that crown?"

"So, how about those Yankees?" She shook her head and smiled. "Master of the conversational segue, I bow before you." She didn't wait on a response. It was a good thing because other than an egg-choked snarl, I didn't have one. "There wasn't much that I could discover. Apparently the crown is so ancient that it has been mostly forgotten. I was able to match the description we received from Caleb, although I was unable to discover its origin. The crown is actually one of a paired set and they were called, I believe, the Calaba.s.sa. At one time both were highly sought after. But that was thousands upon thousands of years ago. They've apparently been long separated, and in this time, few have heard of them, no one knows what they do, and no one particularly wants them, together or apart."

"Except Caleb." My lips thinned and I stabbed a chunk of ketchup-covered potato with unnecessary force and malevolence.

"Yes, except for him." Copper-colored nails pa.s.sed over the m.u.f.fin she held in her hand. "And Cerberus. He has it, does he not? If it has a function, he may know what it is. Then again, the onyx and rose gold it's made of, while not overly valuable, might make an interesting bauble. He may have it as a plaything for his mistress with no idea it could be more."

And we knew it had to be more. All this for some cheap trinket? No. Caleb was a ruthless and amoral son of a b.i.t.c.h, but he wasn't stupid. After all, he'd gotten the better of us... for the moment. This time, I really was finished with breakfast. I dropped my fork on top of the food, and Promise didn't try to push any further. I suppose she recognizes an angst-ridden snit when she sees one, I thought as I abruptly shoved away from the table. "I'll be right back."

In a diner, a nice bathroom wasn't precisely like winning the lottery, but it was close. As the door opened, I grimaced. Still a loser, all the way around.

It wasn't dirty, simply gray and bleak and smelling strongly of Lysol. It matched the rest of the eatery. I was surprised Promise had picked a place like this to meet. The entire joint wasn't as big as the living room of her apartment. And the bathroom? h.e.l.l, she probably had makeup cases bigger than this. It was a few steps down from a penthouse on the Upper East Side, no doubt about it. I closed the door behind me and took a cold, calculating look around. Something had to go. There was no way around it. Garbage can, empty paper-towel dispenser, the mirror... the G.o.dd.a.m.n gleefully, horrifically bright mirror. I automatically averted my eyes and stood with impotently clenched fists. I shook minutely as the rage inside struggled for release. It wanted out.

And it wanted out now.

When I finally returned to my chair nearly ten minutes later, Promise tilted her head and asked with resignation, "Can the damage be covered in cash or do I need to write a check?"

"Neither." I picked up the coffee mug and drained it. "I was a good boy." Not that it hadn't been close; it had been... right down to the wire. But just before my fist would've hit the mirror, I changed my mind. I wanted to save my rage, every molecule of it. It was all for Caleb. I wasn't going to deprive the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of that, and I wasn't going to deprive myself. Reaching into my pocket, I fished out a tie and pulled back my hair. "You know, I was wondering," I said, once again master of the segue, "why this place? Why'd you want to meet here? It's kind of..." I let the words trail off as I took another look around. There were overweight waitresses with straggling hair and spider vein legs, and a cook with a shaved head and homemade tattoos who slouched behind the counter with a toothpick between his thick lips and a floor so coated by grease fumes that it was as slick as an ice rink.

"Dingy, unsanitary, cheap?" she filled in archly.

"Not you," I temporized with a tact I didn't know I had in me.

"I think you might be surprised." She popped a cranberry from the m.u.f.fin into her mouth and crushed it between white, white teeth. "This is a palace in comparison."

"In comparison to what?" I asked with genuine curiosity. All I knew about Promise was the here and now. Her history, her past... it was a mystery.

Her hands began to pink in the spill of sun reflecting on our table, and she quickly tucked them back under her cloak. "To where I was born." Her face was as smooth as always, but beneath that, I thought I saw an almost imperceptible tightening.

I couldn't remember precisely when I found out vampires were bom and not made, how old I was. I thought it was our first year on the run. Maybe. Part of that time was a little fuzzy. Two years in the tender loving care of the Auphe will do that to a person. I hadn't remembered any of those two years when I'd returned, still didn't, not consciously anyway. But it was clear that in the muck and slime beneath the conscious, something had lingered. For months after I'd reappeared, I'd slept under the bed, a tightly wedged fetal ball with a knife in hand and nightmares that were never remembered in the light of day.

Sixteen then. I would've been sixteen when we ran across the vampire children in the park. They were playing beneath a midnight sky. Running, jumping, laughing, they were just like human kids, except they were faster. And they could jump higher. Flat-footed they would leap into the branches of a tree, swing, and giggle. They were cute... bows, barrettes, and tiny baby fangs. It could've been a scene from one of those creepy horror novels with all the velvet, h.o.m.o-erotic vampire nooky, and tormented vampire children who could never grow any older. And for a second I'd actually bought into that. Sickened, I'd stood beside Niko and waited for them to drop out of the tree and drain some night jogger dry.

Then we saw their mother.

Or maybe it was their nanny, babysitter... Who knew? There were quite a few kids, and as long as vampires lived, I couldn't believe they'd breed that fast. Whoever it was, she was pregnant. A pregnant vampire, elegant in white maternity wear-no black velvet for her. With glossy blond hair coiled on her head and large, dark eyes, she was the picture of contentment and impending motherhood. That is, until she saw us. Hormones-it was the same for pregnant humans and pregnant vampires. Cranky, cranky, cranky. She must've sensed we were different from the average park goer, whether it was the Auphe in me or the hunter in Niko. We ran. What else were we going to do? Stake a mom-to-be? As options went, it wasn't so hot. To sum it all up, vampires reproduce, not recruit, and pregnant vampires can still run pretty d.a.m.n fast.

Live and learn.

"Where were you born?" The waitress refilled my cup with more coffee-flavored sludge. I dumped three sugar packets in it and waited for it to cool. Caffeine and sugar, they were my new best friends.

"Seven hundred years from here," she said obliquely before giving me the shadow of a smile. "I'm an older woman. Don't tell your brother."

I was sure he already knew. I was sure he knew more about Promise than I would ever know. "You know Nik," I offered, curling up one side of my mouth. "He's mature for his age. A geezer on the inside." I rolled the mug between my palms. "Seven hundred years, huh? That means you used to... you know..." Lifting my upper lip, I bared nonexistent fangs.

"Yes," she replied simply. "I once did." From the nineteen hundreds on, most vampires discovered a different way to live. That was a story I'd already heard from Promise. They had discovered what drove the vampire thirst for blood, and it wasn't that different from a human condition known as porphyria, which caused a sensitivity to light and a less proved craving for blood. Some vampires even thought they and humans might share a common primitive ancestor. A genetic mutation had occurred, a species had split, and voila: Humans clubbed their prey by day to eat the flesh, and vampires clubbed their prey by night to eat the flesh and drink its blood. After some time that blood didn't satisfy the physiological need. It was too different from their own. Who did that leave? Yep, you bet. That's when the humans became the prey. Hey, no hard feelings. It's just biology. The mammoth in his boneyard no doubt laughed his woolly a.s.s off. After all, turnabout is fair play.

But science does march on. For the better part of the last hundred years, the majority of vampires depended on ma.s.sive doses of iron and other chemical supplements to fill the need for blood. That wasn't to say some didn't still indulge. Blood became like alcohol, not needed for survival, but a pleasurable vice nonetheless. Of course, there are always psychos... in every species, in every walk of life. The vampire ones needed the kill more than they needed the blood.

But that was the psychos. Still, you couldn't escape the fact that any vampire over a hundred years old had once drunk blood. Human blood.

But that had been a hundred years ago for Promise, and I was all out of stones in my roomy gla.s.s condo.

"Seven hundred years, huh?" I drawled. "No wonder you're so short." It was an exaggeration. The top of her head reached Niko's chin, which put her at about five six. It wasn't tall by any means, but it wasn't short either... quite.

"I'll have you know I was an amazon in the old days, a veritable giant," she said with mock outrage. Then she rested her fingers lightly on the back of my wrist and went on to say softly, "Thank you." She didn't have to elaborate. I knew why she was thanking me.

"I'm a lot of things, Princess." A lot of nasty, nasty things. "But a hypocrite is not one of them."

An emotion, so fleeting that it was impossible to identify, shimmered behind her eyes and then was gone. "No, never that," she responded sadly. Straightening in her chair, she moved on briskly. "Now, let us plan a little romantic strategy for seducing your succubus."

"Flowers and candy?" I said with a grimace.

"Oh, Caliban." Eyes bright with humor, she shook her head. "The only use a succubus would have for flowers is to lay them on your grave."

Sounded about par for the course.

It was hours later when I realized Promise hadn't gotten around to telling me where she was born, the place that made that diner look like a palace. Unintentional oversight? Doubtful. Promise wasn't the type for unintentional anything. Always careful, always discreet, every action a.n.a.lyzed before it was performed... every word considered before it was said.

It was too bad that this time her carefully considered words hadn't done me a d.a.m.n bit of good.

Goodfellow's weight settled next to me on the park bench as his long legs stretched out to bask in the nonexistent sun. "You rang?"

Oh, I'd rung all right. Pride, dignity... I'd flushed it all down the toilet and sent out a big fat SOS. I wasn't big on asking for help, yet here I was. For the first nineteen years of my life, Niko had been the only one I'd turned to. Then we had met Robin, a stranger, who oddly enough wanted to help us. That was a first. It had only taken him risking his life a few times before I actually believed it. And even when I'd believed it, I'd remained reluctant to accept it. A year later it was still difficult for me... admitting I needed someone besides my brother. Lifelong habits, they die hard, don't they? Shifting my weight, I tapped irritable fingers on the wrought-iron armrest before admitting reluctantly, "I need some help."

"I gathered that." With hands locked behind his head and eyes hidden behind sungla.s.ses, he clucked a smug tongue. "My expertise in all matters is legendary. Many worship at the altar of my brilliance and who can blame them?"

Yeah, this was improving my headache. I closed my eyes and knuckled my forehead for a few seconds. "Brilliance. Worship. Gotcha. Now how about we get down to business?"

"Aren't we especially cranky today? And after I took a bolt in the leg for you too." Sighing, he sat up and waved an imperious hand. "What do you need, ungrateful supplicant?"

I ignored that little rewriting of history and focused on the matter at hand. The humiliating matter at hand. "It's the succubus."

That perked him up. "Today was the day, then? Niko mentioned this morning that you were going to pump her for information." Eyebrows rose suggestively. "So very unselfish of you, throwing yourself on the grenade like that. What n.o.bility, what fort.i.tude." He gave a lecherous smirk. "Tell me all the filthy, filthy details."

Details. He wanted details. I looked up at the sky. It had been clear earlier; now it was a morose gray. I wondered if the sun was disappearing along with George. Gunmetal gray and heavy with heat, the clouds hung low... almost as low as I was hanging right then. Finally, I turned back to Goodfellow with a scowl. "I taste bad," I gritted between clenched teeth. "There's your detail. I taste bad. Happy?"

Mobile lips twitched with surprise and something less flattering. Slipping off the sungla.s.ses, he looked at me with suspicious blandness. "You taste... bad." He rolled the statement over his tongue and repeated, "Taste bad."

I was glad he was so f.u.c.king entertained by this. "Yeah, taste bad," I snapped. "But, hey, that's okay because the snake s.e.x is not me." I suppressed the shudder before it made it to the surface. The tongue had been bad enough, forked and slick and cold. Ice-cold. Bad enough all right, so much so that I had absolutely no desire to know what lurked under her clothes... what little of them there were. I'd gone in with no idea how far I would go. I did know how far I couldn't go. I wasn't willing to risk birthing another Auphe/human mix, and I d.a.m.n sure didn't think an Auphe/succubus/human mix would be any better. I didn't know if it could happen or not, but it was one lottery I wasn't going to play. But thanks to my genes, push hadn't come to shove on the carpet of the warehouse office. For George's sake, I shouldn't have been relieved, but, G.o.dd.a.m.n it... I was. This time the shudder did surface as a twitch in my shoulders. "Very much not me."

"Not embracing the serpent intimacies, then. That's probably better for you in the long run." He tilted his head curiously. "Taste bad as in you actually, physically, taste bad, or was it your energy that was too much for her delicate palate?"

It had been the energy. Apparently mine was too Auphe for comfort. What does that say when even a succubus would sooner send out for General Tso's than suck you dry? What the h.e.l.l does it say? "Moving on," I said grimly, "I need you to talk to her. See what you can find out."

"I see." He replaced the gla.s.ses. "You want to use me. You want me to be a gigolo... to wh.o.r.e myself for your convenience."

"Pretty much," I admitted without compunction.

He laid an arm along the back of the bench and gave a grin birthed in vice. "Who could say no to that?"

The warehouse was as deserted as it had been that morning. Most of the crew were keeping as low a profile as possible after yesterday's failure. They would trickle in around dark, heads down and tails tucked. Cerberus was gone. High-level Kin meeting, stress-relieving ma.s.sacre up north-I didn't know and I didn't care. I simply seized the opportunity. And after said opportunity spit me out I was back with reinforcements. "She's in the office," I muttered, scanning the gloomy interior for any unexpected visitors. "She's bound to be suspicious, though, a strange puck just showing up out of the blue. How are you going to get around that?"

Managing to swagger and limp at the same time, Goodfellow shot the cuffs of his shirt. "Succubi don't think like that. They're interested in eating and s.e.x and they never have to work very hard at either. She won't think twice about me walking through the doors. She'll just light a few candles and put on a bib." He ran a smoothing hand over his hair. "Snakes don't wonder where their food comes from. They simply accept it. It's all about the ego."

"Too bad they're not humble like you," I said dryly, stopping in front of the door. "You want an introduction?"

"No." Linking his fingers, he extended his hands to pop knuckles. "It would only slow me down." He opened the door, then closed it behind him, disappearing into the office. Exhaling, I leaned against the wall and did my best to not picture what might be going on behind that door. I doubted I'd ever look at a snake again without feeling the phantom sensation of cool scales under my fingers and a slithering tongue twisted into a noose around my own. And the taste. Wet sulfur, it had tingled in my mouth like venom. Still did.

I'd bent over to spit when the sounds started from behind the wall. A rattle filled the air, buzz saw sharp and spine twisting in its intensity. A hundred p.i.s.sed-off rattlers or a hundred o.r.g.a.s.mic ones-I didn't even want to guess. Moving several feet away, I fervently hoped that was a good sound and not an indication that Robin was being swallowed whole by a supernaturally h.o.r.n.y boa constrictor. Covering my ears would've been the cowardly thing to do; instead I folded my arms and tried to keep my head down... mentally speaking. I counted floor tiles, roaches, whatever I could lay my eyes on... anything to keep my mind occupied and out of the office.

When the door opened, I automatically checked my watch. Twenty minutes. Only twenty. I would've sworn it'd been an hour at the very least. Hair still immaculate, Goodfellow stepped out into the hall and shut the door quietly behind him. Unfolding my arms, I straightened out of my slouch. "You find out anything?" That's when I noticed the stains on his shirt. Deep blue, they were splashed liberally over a sleeve and half the chest. Not Robin's blood. I'd seen that and it was ordinary crimson. Ah, s.h.i.t. "What happened?" I demanded.

The hand that had been hidden behind his back appeared holding a knife. It was a match for the shirt, dripping cobalt. Ignoring my question, he countered with one of his own, "Who here deserves to go down the most?"

"What the h.e.l.l happened?" I repeated as I stepped closer. Now I could see the claw marks on his neck. They bled sluggishly. "Jesus, Robin."

"She wasn't in the mood," he replied with grim savagery. "Now, who deserves to go down? Aside from Cerberus, who is the most evil son of a b.i.t.c.h here?"

It was a question that didn't require much thought. Flay or the revenant, and we still needed Flay. "The revenant," I said automatically. "You killed her? You couldn't just... d.a.m.n. Haven't you ever heard of no means no?"

"She was in the mood for s.e.x," he snapped, heading past me. "She wasn't, however, in the mood to talk. She was more afraid of Cerberus than she was stupid, and that's saying something. This revenant keep any personal things here?"

We clattered down the stairs with Robin using his free hand on the banister to keep his leg from giving out beneath him. "How the h.e.l.l should I know?" I shot back. "I've been here a grand total of two days. If the Kin pa.s.ses out employee lockers, I haven't got my combination yet."

"Think." He hit the bottom and whirled to face me.

"If we don't pin it on someone else, you'll go down for it. You're the new one and all suspicion will fall on you. I did get some information, but we'll need you in at least one more day to verify it. So think."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," I hissed under my breath, more at the situation than at Robin himself. Scanning the warehouse, I tried to replay yesterday. Where had the revenant stood? Where had he come from when he'd slunk over? I focused on one area hidden behind a row of dusty, empty crates. "Over here."

Behind the crates was a messy conglomeration of blankets, empty bottles, spilled cards, and other mounds of discarded garbage. The employee lounge. One blanket was off a little from the others. In the midst of the wool nest was half of a desiccated human leg. Bite marks were evident in the long dead limb, and graveyard dirt was a litter beneath it. "There." I indicated the blanket with a grimace of distaste.

Goodfellow ignored the leg and shoved the blade under a fold of cloth. "All right. Let's go."

"Won't they smell you? On the blade or upstairs?"

"Do you smell me?" he challenged, wiping his hand on his pants without a single wince for the ruination of fine fashion.

As a matter of fact, I didn't. There was only the sharp smell of musk and spice. Cologne, and a strong cologne at that, to cover up any hint of puck scent. "Neat trick," I admitted reluctantly.

"It's a special mixture. I've been wearing it since this whole debacle started. I prefer to stay nameless and scentless until all of this pa.s.ses. I'm a survivor." He moved toward the door at the quickest pace his limp allowed.

I studied the blood on his shirt as he pa.s.sed me. "Yeah, I noticed."

That stopped him in his tracks. Green eyes. .h.i.t me, harsh and uncompromising. "Do you want George back?" He leaned closer. "Well? Do you?"

It struck me that I might not know Robin as well as I thought I did. Complacent in his loyal but breezy friendship, I'd forgotten who he was. Who he'd been. Who he would always be. Pucks were good at most things, but they were absolutely exceptional at one. No matter what they had to do, they got their own way. Luckily, Robin's way was fairly benign. Comfort, luxury, a wildly varied s.e.xual life, all of that came easily to him with little effort expended. But now... now he wanted George back.

Guess what. So did I.

"I want her back," I replied levelly. "I want her back and I don't give a s.h.i.t how we do it."

When she'd first been taken I'd worried how she might feel if bad things were done to get her back. As the days went on and she remained lost, I decided I just wanted her back. Period. Bring on the bad things. Bring them the h.e.l.l on.

The dark gaze lightened, then ran clear. "And we'll get her back." We moved on to pa.s.s from the warehouse into the light. "Don't waste any tears on the succubus. She'd killed more humans in her long life than you could begin to count. A predator falls. It's the way of the world."

"Law of the jungle?" I snorted with dark skepticism.

"If you want to be cliched about it." He gave a weary sigh, rubbing at the weeping claw marks on his neck. "Let's get something to drink, several somethings in fact, and I'll tell you what I learned."

Goodfellow usually chose bars that reflected his personality, upscale and pretentious. This time he threw image to the wind and picked the first one we came across. We lucked out. It was dark, as all good bars are, but it was clean-from what I could tell. Plants were everywhere... hanging in baskets, creeping over the tables, casting branches toward the ceiling. And I'd have sworn there was a bird on every one of those branches. Parrots, finches, parakeets... and a s.h.i.tload of others I couldn't identify. I wasn't much on our fine-feathered, jet-force-c.r.a.pping friends. These seemed well behaved enough, chirping or squawking only occasionally, but I still shot a wary eye upward when I grabbed a spot at the bar. "Weird place," I commented, checking the pretzel bowl suspiciously for white streaks.

"Bacchus be d.a.m.ned," Robin groaned. "It's a peri bar. Just my luck. My catastrophic, bowel-churning luck."

Before I could ask what the h.e.l.l a peri was, the bartender came over... wings and all. Dove gray barred with silver, they were tucked neatly against his back. In a black T-shirt and jeans with short wavy black hair, he looked like your typical Mario from Queens. The wings could be a gimmick of the bar and stuffed in a locker before he headed home. Could be, but apparently weren't. Stopping opposite us, his round black eyes fixed on Goodfellow and he said without preamble, "Ishiah wants to talk to you."

"I don't remember asking you what Ishiah wanted," Robin responded in a bored tone. "Two beers with a whiskey back."

The peri's wings rustled in annoyance, and without further comment he moved down the bar to fill the order. "What's a peri?" I asked. Wings, feathers. Nah, it couldn't be. It had been a long time since I'd been as naive as that. Pre-third-trimester was about where I'd place it. It didn't stop me from yanking Goodfellow's chain. He needed it. We both needed it.

"They're not..." I looped a finger over the top of my head. "Are they?"