Madhouse (5 page)

Niko frowned, a slight downturn of tightened lips. "You know better." He'd spent a lifetime, mine at least, telling me that I was normal, that I wasn't Auphe, wasn't a monster. Though he could save my life, my sanity, and everything in between, it was the one thing he couldn't fix, couldn't change. But I'd finally come to realize that as long as I could remain
who
I was, I could survive what I was. It was only bad genes. Alcoholism gene, cancer gene, monster gene, choose your poison and work around it. Thanks to Niko, I was doing that. And when I faltered in that belief, he was there to kick my butt back on the path.

I dropped the washcloth on my leg. In the past opening a gate would drain me, exhaust me. Goodfellow had once said that he thought that would pass with practice. He was right. I was tired, damn tired, but not like I had been in the past. But the headache…shit. What the hell was with that? And the blood? The last time I'd used the ability months ago, I'd opened a gate and
kept
it open for nearly a half hour. Maybe a full-blooded Auphe could do that with ease, but I didn't think so. Ripping a hole in the world or between worlds—it wasn't something meant to be long-term. "I think I broke something." I grimaced, massaging my forehead with the heel of my hand.

Niko picked up the cloth and pulled my hand back down to fold my fingers around the damp material. Steering it to the area on my jaw by my ear, he released me and agreed, "I think you may have." He waited until I'd wiped at my skin again for a few seconds, then took the bloody cloth from me and put it aside. "Or strained it. How is the headache? Improved any?"

We'd thrown some Tylenol at it. We may as well have thrown it down the toilet and flushed. "It'll pass," I evaded. "On the plus side, I can still hear." Through the open door in the hall came a nasal snore more suited to a constipated moose than a puck. "But on the downside, I can still hear."

"You didn't rupture your eardrums, then. Do they still hurt as well?"

"Let's write off the entire area above the neck. It'll save some time." I knew what he was thinking. CAT scans, MRIs, all the things that weren't possible for me. Our mother, Sophia, had never been one for doctors or anything that cost money. We got our shots at whatever local clinic we were living near at the time, but only because the schools demanded it. If I got hurt or Niko got sick, we toughed it out. And when we were older, Niko and I had come to the realization that hospitals…any place with imaging equipment, any place that would want blood tests…were out. I was human on the outside, but it might not be the same on the inside. We'd eventually met a healer and when he'd found out the truth about me, he'd confirmed it. I was different. Subtly, but noticeably different. I didn't ask how. I didn't want to know.

The bottom line was, no hospitals for me. And as our healer hadn't answered his phone in a while, we had to make do. This was another make-do situation.

"No more gates, Cal," Niko said uncompromisingly. "None."

"Maybe if I give it a few months," I hedged. I didn't like opening them. It only reminded me of a part of myself I'd sooner forget. But there was no denying that if you had your back to a wall with a giant serpent leaping at you, it came in handy.

"It's been several months already." He stood and headed into the kitchen. "Next time it might be your brain that comes out of your ears. I'd like to avoid that." Returning, he handed me a soft pack from the freezer. "Although it would be proof there was something in your skull besides laziness and inept swordsmanship skills."

With the pack covering my eyes and the cold seeping through, I relaxed minutely. "You forgot my blinding charisma and stunning popularity."

This time he didn't play along. "No more gates, Cal. I mean it."

I gave in for the moment, peering out from under the pack at him, but I had a feeling I was making a promise I couldn't keep. More honestly, didn't intend to keep. "Okay. No more gates." I'd survived nearly my whole life without them, but there was no denying that an emergency exit like that could save my life. Something to think about…maybe later when Nik wasn't studying me so suspiciously. Sliding down another few inches, I pulled the pack back in place and waited for the cold to kick in and lessen the headache. "Robin said it was a sirrush, whatever the hell that is. So, what was it doing in the basement trying to eat us? Do you think Wahanket sent it after us? That'd be about par for the fucking course with Goodfellow's buddies."

"I asked him while dressing the puncture wounds. He said no, that it wasn't Wahanket's 'style.' "

"But did the wizened son of a bitch
know
it was there?" I pressed.

"That, Robin said, would be entirely his style," Niko said sardonically. "And a sirrush is a Babylonian creature—part snake, part cat. Why it was hunting in the basement of the Met is anyone's guess."

"Everyone makes it to the Big Apple sooner or later, huh? See the sights." The cold was beginning to work, easing the pain somewhat, and I yawned. "The Valkyrie going to pay us for the extermination on the side?"

"I've always enjoyed your sunny optimism, little brother."

I was glad someone did.

As much as I hated kidnapping cases, I wasn't a whole lot fonder of the extermination ones, but work was work, and money was money. And truthfully, extermination came up about as often as kidnapping did. Where's the cool factor in that? No-damn-where. We'd also done babysitting, and babysitting something that can eat you if you try to give it a timeout makes exterminating a fun gig by comparison. Usually. Mostly. On the whole.

Other times you just get screwed.

And that morning we ended up so very, very screwed. After three hours out on Staten Island, we'd taken the ferry back to Manhattan and made our way home with clothes singed and hair covered in bird shit all courtesy of an Aitvaras, otherwise known as a demonic chicken from hell. A fire-breathing, crap-slinging half rooster, half serpent that weighed all of sixty pounds had nearly served our asses to us on a silver platter. It'd also burned down one-third of the house of our less than completely satisfied client. And a less than completely satisfied gargoyle isn't a pretty sight. A satisfied one isn't either for that matter, but they hawk up less granite-sprinkled phlegm when paying the bill.

After cleaning up and changing, we jumped on the 6 train and headed up to Promise's penthouse for some brainstorming. I tended to not be so good at that type of thing, but I sucked it up. And there was food there. That always helped. Promise had a turkey and bacon club sandwich for me and some sort of vegetable soy cheese thing for Niko along with an antioxidant carrot-cranberry juice mixture. I could smell the healthiness of it from across the table and gave an internal
blech.
Taking a huge bite of my sandwich, I wondered who made the food. I never saw a cook there, but the thought of a vampire slaving over a skillet wasn't an image I could wrap my mind around. Especially an extremely wealthy vampire. They did eat food, though apparently not very much, along with massive doses of iron and some kind of other supplements, but Promise making a casserole? Nope, couldn't see it.

Niko took a drink of his red-orange stuff, ignored the face I made, and then said, "Sawney can't go on the way he has. He's going to be noticed. The police will certainly suspect a serial killer at some point. Although there's been nothing in the paper about the bodies in the park." He frowned, puzzled. Niko didn't like to be puzzled either. It tended to interfere with things like surviving. "They've disappeared, apparently." Puzzlement could also lead to annoyance when you were as anal-retentive as my brother, but he tucked it out of sight and went on. "But that's a mystery for another time. It's not the fifteenth century anymore and eventually Sawney will realize he can't just kill whoever he wants. Once he settles on a territory, he'll be even more wary. He won't want that home to be found and I think he'll start to go after victims who won't be missed."

"Like those that don't have families to raise a stink with the police." I chased a bite of sandwich with Coke. About as un-antioxidant as you could get and I was damn happy about that.

"Such as the homeless." Promise sat down next to Nik at the polished dining room table. An actual dining room in NYC, could you believe it? "But how would we track something such as that?"

"Goodfellow would say I had the clothes for the undercover work," I snorted. "But those guys aren't so trusting of strangers, I'll bet. And, hell, it's New York. How would we cover all of the city asking if any of them had disappeared? There's no way."

"True." Niko pushed his plate away, finished. "There's the shelters, the encampments, the streets themselves. There's bound to be gossip among them if there have been disappearances, but as you say, they're not going to talk to us."

"A big waste of our time and for nada." I was still hungry and eyed what was left on Niko's plate. Nah, I wasn't
that
hungry. Then I had an idea … it happened occasionally…and it wasn't from any antioxidant crap making my brain cells sit up and take notice either.

"Hey, I know a guy." I leaned back in my chair. "Ham. He comes into the bar sometimes and plays the sax. Just for kicks. He doesn't get paid or anything, but he's damn good. He says he plays the subways and streets too. Not that he needs to from the looks of him. Wears some pretty flashy clothes."

"And if he plays the subways and the streets, he may be familiar with some of the homeless." Promise gave a nod of approval, wrapping a string of dusk-colored pearls around a finger.

"If he's amenable to helping us. Not too many are." He was right. A human and a half Auphe weren't going to ever win any popularity contests. "What exactly is he?" Niko asked.

I frowned. "I don't have a clue. He looks human. Doesn't smell human, but he seems okay. Drinks whiskey, plays the sax, has a thing for pretty women, especially vampires…seems fairly laid-back to me." And considering what I'd done to a few customers that had pissed me off, that was saying something, not to mention my automatic suspicion of anyone I first met. "I don't know how the hell we'd get in touch with him, though. He comes and goes at the bar. Sometimes I won't see him for weeks. There's no predicting it."

"Perhaps Ishiah knows his last name," Niko suggested.

Nonhumans didn't have last names or if they did I hadn't run into one. "You're kidding. And so what if he did?"

Nik shook his head. "One idea and your brain shuts down for the day. It is a pity." He went on to explain, "If he is that good a sax player, he probably plays at clubs as well. And if he plays at clubs, I imagine he'd want to be available for gigs." He gave that faint smile of his. "In other words, he'd be in the book."

Jeez, the phone book. Maybe there was something to that carrot-cranberry juice after all. "I'll give Ish a call."

Luckily he was at the bar, and he did know Ham's last name. I didn't need any brain cells at all to think it was maybe more than coincidence. "Piper," I said after shutting off the phone. "Now, I know I'm no genius, Einstein." I gave Niko a mock glare. "But even I can guess that one."

"The Pied Piper of Hamelin." Niko stood and began to clear his dishes. "If nothing else, this should be interesting."

Ham was in the book and home when I called. He remembered me fine and said in a deep, mellow voice to come on over. If I worked for Ishiah, then I was good in his book. He gave me the address: Park Slope in Brooklyn. I winced, knowing we had a transfer at Fifty-third Street and a ride on the F train to look forward to.

When we arrived, he opened the door and immediately gave a blinding smile … to Promise. Niko and I were waved in absently. "If I'd known you were bringing such a fine lady with you," he said cheerfully, "I'd have cleaned up some."

The place wasn't that messy. There were a few instruments lying around, two saxes and a guitar, and a couple of flashy suit jackets tossed over a chair and the couch. Dark red, bright blue, and the most subtle one, brown with finger-width neon yellow stripes. I looked away before my retinas were burned out of my eyes and took a look at the rest of the place. It was a loft, bigger than a musician should've been able to afford, and painted…never mind how it was painted. It made the suits look like pastels in comparison.

"Pull up a cushion." He tossed one jacket to join the others, his eyes still on Promise. He was a tall, thin black man with unusually pale brown eyes. He kept his hair in short dreds and was dressed casually in a shirt patterned in a mixture of black and dark green and black pants. It was nice to give my eyes a break from the rest of the place and I kept them on him.

"Hey, Ham, thanks for talking to us."

He patted the couch for Promise, giving her another wide smile before turning to Nik and me. "No problem. Like I said, if Ishiah lets you work in the Circle, then you're good by me. He's not one for slackers or troublemakers."

Unless you happened to be a friend of Robin's, because I fell in both of those categories. But I kept my mouth shut on that and got to the point. "There's this thing in town." It damn sure didn't qualify as anything else. "A Redcap. Sawney Beane. He's been killing some people and we'd like to chat the bastard up." Chat with a sword, a gun, a cannon…whatever it took.

"With his history, 'some people' will soon become many people and we'd like to stop that before it happens," Niko added.

It was a tricky subject. There were monsters and then there were nonhumans. Monsters ate people and nonhumans didn't—they just lived their lives. There were crossovers sometimes. A wolf could be either or. I knew both kinds. Some others qualified as well. No matter what Promise said about vamps and their vitamins, you couldn't tell me there wasn't the occasional rogue out there bleeding people for all they were worth. But the tricky part was that some nonhumans had a policy of keeping their mouths shut. The way they saw it, they weren't going to get between a monster and his meal. That was dangerous, maybe deadly, and not their job.

It was ours, though.

The smile faded as he sat down beside Promise, slinging a casual arm on the top of the couch behind her. Great. Another Goodfellow. I didn't check to see if Niko was jealous. If he was, he wouldn't show it anyway, but I doubted he was. He trusted Promise, five dead husbands aside. And if he trusted her, then she deserved it. Niko didn't often make mistakes when it came to trust. "Sawney Beane. I heard that son of a bitch was dead a long time ago."

"He was. He's back. And if you do not remove that arm, I will. Permanently," Promise said coolly.

It wasn't the type of thing to build up goodwill and useful conversation, but I didn't much blame her. Ham only flashed a smile and pulled the arm back. "No harm in trying. Didn't know one of these pups was yours." No harm, no foul. If he was the Pied Piper, we were pups to him. "That'd be the only thing that'd have you resisting my skills."

"Yes, of course that's the reason," she said dryly.

Niko steered the subject back. "We were thinking that soon enough Sawney will begin to prey on the homeless. They're more vulnerable in that they'll be less likely to be missed. He was burned at the stake once. I doubt he'll want to risk getting caught again."

"We thought you might know a few of the guys from the subways and the streets. All kinds of people hang around to hear you play at the bar. I figured it wouldn't be much different on the streets."

"Yeah, people have always lined up to hear me play." The smile was more sly than friendly now. "And for professional jobs I always get paid. One way or another."

Such as having children follow his piping out of a town some six or seven hundred years ago when he got stiffed on a job he'd done on their rat problem. But he did give the kids back once he got paid. So the story went at least. That kept him off the monster list. Barely.

"But, yeah, I know some guys and those guys know some guys. Some of them are cool enough— for humans. Just fell on hard times." His smile disappeared this time. "And if they have a nickel, hell, even a quarter, they always toss it in my case. Good guys who appreciate a little entertainment." He drummed long fingers on his knee. "Let me ask around. See what I can find out. These guys do come and go, so it may take me a few days, maybe more. Disappearing for a while isn't so unusual for them and Sawney's not the only one who thinks they're easy prey."

That was true enough. I'd seen the Kin try to take an entire busload of them once. That took balls. Furry ones, but balls all the same. Yeah, the homeless were easy prey all right, but if Sawney was still shopping around for his new "cave," he might not be as careful about not taking a lot from one place. Most monsters know better than to hunt in their own backyard. Sawney would too, but if he was still hunting around for a place, he might not be so cautious. I doubted he'd settle on the first one he found. It'd have to be just right. Deep, hidden, safe to eat your human pork chops. You know what they say: It's all about location, location, location.