Moonshine (15 page)

Blue eyes rolling toward me, the bloody face twitched as he threw off the shock of the collision. Growling low in his throat from either pain or confusion, he pushed up to his knees and started crawling back toward the emergency exit. Flay, who'd been several seats behind me, was already kicking the rear door open with both feet. I followed in Fenrik's wake as the men and women in the bus started to come to their senses. Some began to shout for help, while others simply moaned. None, however, seemed fatally injured, and that put them heads and shoulders above where they'd been five minutes ago. I kept crawling and within seconds tumbled out onto the street, shortly followed by Jaffer, Mishka, Lijah, and that nameless, tongueless decomposing piece of shit.

A crowd was beginning to form in the deadlocked traffic and I winnowed my way through it with several well-placed elbows. Leaving the scene of the accident—in any other city it might have raised some protests. Leaving the scene with the overly hairy, the white-eyed, and the disturbingly slimy of skin—you'd think that would trigger
something
. At least one "Holy shit." But there was nothing but murmurs and the occasional whistle at the sight of the overturned bus. I wasn't all that surprised. Over the years I'd learned that people saw what they wanted to see. And what they didn't want to see, they absolutely refused to. I'd be wishing for a little of that blissful ignorance when we faced Cerberus with this news. The displeasure was bound to be nice and visual, painted in bloody scarlet strokes. Yeah, the shit was sure to hit the fan, but like those people on the bus I was still in much better shape than I had been. But unlike them I knew it, and I knew something else they didn't.

I knew who to thank.

"Where have you been? I was beginning to worry."

Same ugly room, same hideous bedspread, same bossy and demanding Niko. Okay, that wasn't strictly true. Niko looked less demanding and more concerned than anything. It would've been touching, if he hadn't had dinner set up on the small table by the bed. Vegetable lasagna, garlic bread, and a salad, it obviously hadn't come from the soup kitchen next door. "Darn, hope I didn't spoil your appetite," I sniped as I leaned wearily against one wall.

"It's for you, thankless brat." He pulled out the chair and planted me in it with a heavy hand on my shoulder.

"Thankless is right." Goodfellow's peevish voice came from the bathroom. "I'm starving and neo-ninja here wouldn't allow me even a bite." Moving into the room with a roll of duct tape under his arm, he toweled off his hands.

I looked at the tape, then him. "I knew it had a mind of its own, but you're taping it down now? Jesus."

"As if mere duct tape would hold it," he snorted, and tossed the roll onto the bed. "I fastened a little surprise to the back of the toilet tank. If you don't have a weapon hidden in every room, then your decoration skills are sorely lacking."

There was no denying the truth of that statement. I picked up a fork and took a bite of the lasagna; it was cold, but good. It was past midnight and the last time I'd eaten had been the orgy of steak and beer around noon. "Not bad, Cyrano. Thanks."

"I'm glad you're in the condition to appreciate it. I know Cerberus couldn't have been exactly pleased over what happened."

" 'Not exactly' is one way to put it." If not exactly pleased could also mean eating Fenrik alive. Someone had to take the blame for the accident and the loss of the livestock. Since he'd been driving, Fenrik had been the one to take the fall. I'd escaped relatively blameless, along with the others. We were still on Cerberus's shit list, but far enough down that we'd survived for now. If we didn't screw up in the near future, we might even live out the week. I took a bite of the garlic bread and chewed mechanically. I hadn't liked Fenrik… Hell, he was a cold-blooded Kin killer. A cold-blooded Kin killer who, in turn, hadn't much liked me either. He'd been driving those people to their deaths without a second thought. It was business to him and nothing more. Yeah, a killer, but… I dropped the bread onto the plate and pushed it all away. Within the savage circle of his life, Fenrik had been honorable. Loyal to his own. Loyal to his Alpha. It had been hard to watch him die. I'd shared only one meal with the guy and nothing that could be considered an actual conversation, but watching his entrails spill steaming onto the floor wasn't the highlight of my day. It had, in a word, sucked.

"Here, Loman," I offered with a sudden lack of appetite. "Eat up."

Robin accepted the plate with alacrity and settled onto the bed, pausing only to waggle his eyebrows at Niko in invitation. It was proof positive Promise wasn't going to join our little party or Goodfellow would've had nothing left to waggle. Niko, as always, ignored him and looked me up and down. "I'm guessing Cerberus didn't take his displeasure out on you or you would've signaled us for assistance."

Guessing, hoping. Niko had known when he'd rammed that garbage truck into the bus that he'd been taking a chance. He'd made the right choice, but it had also been the hard choice, and he deserved credit for both. "No, he saved the displeasure for someone else." I pushed the ugly mental picture from my brain and let my lips quirk upward. "How long did you wait outside the warehouse?"

The gray eyes narrowed with haughty question. "Did you
see
me by the warehouse?"

"No," I admitted ruefully. "Big surprise."

"Then how do you know I was there?"

"The same way I know Goodfellow's staring at your ass. It's a law of nature. Can't be changed."

Niko glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrowing further. Not bothering to look innocent, Robin shrugged and gave an unrepentant and utterly wicked grin as he continued to work his way through the lasagna. Turning back to me, Nik said, "I waited as long as was necessary."

Until he had seen me… undamaged and in one piece. And if he'd seen me, he would've seen Cerberus. They'd come out of the office this time into the warehouse proper. The office was good-sized, but for true bodily destruction you really needed room to work. "You saw them, then," I said quietly.

"Only glimpses through one poorly boarded-up window, but… yes, I saw Cerebus." As a rule, Niko took most things in stride. As far as I could tell, Niko had been born unflappable. Very little impressed him: the Auphe trying to destroy the world, Abbagor… a creature almost beyond description, and a homicidally possessed brother—it was a short list. Short, but I think Cerberus had just made it.

As impressions went, he'd definitely made one on me. To take Fenrik down he'd gone completely wolf. Only Cerberus's wolf was nothing like any other wolf I'd seen. I could see why the Kin had given him a chance; they hadn't had much choice.

"So?" A green gaze flickered between my brother and me. "You saw a wolf. Cerberus is simply another bad-tempered Kin bastard, or bastards as the case may be. Why the long faces?" The garlic bread was waved in casual punctuation. "A swat of the muzzle with a newspaper and you go your merry way."

"Yeahhh. I'll let you do the swatting, Loman." Fenrik hadn't bowed to certain death. Like any good wolf he'd gone down fighting. Fangs, jaws like a bear trap, incredible speed, and still he'd been nothing to Cerberus. Less than nothing. It could have been over in seconds, but where would be the lesson for the rest of us there? Cerberus in human form was impressive; Cerberus as wolf was… dread. Pure and simple. And having had my fill of dread for the night, I changed the subject. "Where's Promise?" I asked curiously. It wasn't like her to sit on the sidelines for very long.

"Still researching the crown with little luck. You're to meet her tomorrow for breakfast and she'll tell you what she's discovered."

"Make her pay," Goodfellow added with pointed annoyance. "I have yet to see my split from the poker game." Leaving the now-empty plate behind, he slid off the bed smoothly until he was forced to put weight on his injured leg. Straightening his charcoal pinstriped jacket and running a hand over the short brown waves of his hair, he limped toward the door. "I have another appointment," he said in farewell. "Watch the first flush, Caliban. I would hate for you to blow off anything of importance."

I made a mental note to check what exactly the puck had taped to the back of the toilet before I went to sleep. It sounded… interesting. As the door shut behind him, I tilted back in the chair. "Where's he going?"

"To watch over George's family. We've been doing our best to keep an eye on them when we can."

"Oh." I let the chair's front legs hit the floor and rubbed the back of my neck. "How are they doing?"

"Much the same as us," Niko said gravely.

"That good, huh?" I murmured to myself.

A hand gave me a light shove out of the chair and pushed the dirty discarded plate into my hand. "Make yourself useful. I don't think you want to see what this will attract in the middle of the night." As I scrubbed over the bathroom sink, we discussed what my next move should be. Niko agreed with me that it wasn't likely that the succubus would know any more than Flay did, but he pointed out we couldn't afford to overlook any potential source of information.

"I should've asked Goodfellow for pointers before he left," I said glumly.

"Talk with Promise instead," Niko suggested. "She may know a way to interrogate your new friend that won't involve a jealous Cerberus castrating you."

"Always a plus." I grimaced. The alarm clock flickered red in the corner of my eye, reminding me that time was ticking away. It had been almost a week since George had disappeared. Six days. In the real world, it was barely a week. In our world, it was more than long enough to
pass
from the world.

The next morning I was waiting in the diner, resting my head facedown on a Formica table. It was a good position for me and I was embracing it thoroughly when a hand skimmed lightly over my hair. I knew who it was. I'd smelled her unique scent the moment she'd opened the door to the diner. Promise.

"I thought I was the night dweller." There was the whisper of a kiss against my jaw. "Not sleeping well, little brother?"

Apparently I was being adopted. More family who could kick my ass; love does take some curious forms. "Little?" I yawned hoarsely, straightening and rubbing the bristle I hadn't bothered to shave. "Bigger than you."

"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 glass, 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 assessment.

"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 muffin and glass 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 glass, 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 damn 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, "Damn 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 amusement.

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 appetite woke up fast. I buttered 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 Calabassa. 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 passed over the muffin 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 bitch, 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? Hell, 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 goddamn 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 bastard 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 muffin 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, homo-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 damn 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 voilà: 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 ass 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 massive 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 glass 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."