Nevermore: A Cal Leandros Novel (34 page)

“Now.” He stood and held down a hand to pull me up, not that I needed it, but wasn’t that always what he’d done? Whether I needed it or not? “We work on finding Lazarus, saving the three of us—the only worthy part of the world worth saving honestly—and getting you home.”

“I miss my Goodfellow.” God, there was an understatement, but . . . “I think I’m going to miss you too, conceited jackass that you are, because the same as the same is not the same. Eight years makes a difference, even in million-year-old pucks.”

This grin was nothing but glee and cheer. “I’ll mail you a Valentine’s Day card every year to a PO Box then
give you the number when we see each other again at the end of those eight years. Sparkly, tacky, pornographic, singing cards. It’ll be a thing of beauty.”

“Jackass,” I repeated. “I take it back. I won’t miss you at all.” Plus, he would be there. He’d be home with Niko and all the others: Ishiah, Promise, Ham, Mama Boggle and the kids, Rafferty and Catcher.

Home. And I would make it there. For when we all survived, the Niko and Robin here and now and the Niko and Robin in the future, my misplaced present, rising from the flames like a true phoenix. Not the fake phoenix I’d imagined at the explosion, one that brought death, ended in death, and never rose again.

They’d rise, if they hadn’t done so from the moment I’d dropped the letters off yesterday, and were already waiting for me.

Unlike the whiny slacker in the poem Robin’s coffin-buddy-with-benefits had written, I wasn’t sitting around hoping for someone to bring them back. I wasn’t asking when they’d bring
themselves
back. I wasn’t playing Twenty Questions with a goddamn bird instead of going out, kicking the universe in the balls until it gave them back. And when would I give up? Like that obnoxious bird said:

Nevermore.

Robin had a client. He was evasive on what he did for this client or who they were, which was weird as he loved bragging and name-dropping every opportunity he had. Whoever they were, they weren’t using their penthouse for a few months—or years—and Robin set us up. In more ways than one. A temporary safe house, new clothes—the scorched odor from the security guard was on the ones I was wearing and I stripped them off while still on the stairs before entering the penthouse floor. I hadn’t borrowed any of Niko’s underwear, brotherly codependence only goes so far, which meant it was me, my holster, guns, knives, and birthday suit waiting for Robin to do the same. He did with alacrity. Naturally. I went rummaging around his client’s penthouse that took up the entire floor for the clothes he’d promised would be waiting for us.

He’d lifted a phone from someone he passed to call his “people.” He’d lost his in the sewer and, despite the alcohol wipe down mine had been given by Niko, Goodfellow would sooner steal one than touch mine, which hadn’t been lost, but had bathed in sewage. Then again, my phone was also stolen, looted from the body of the junkie who’d tried to kill me and who I’d killed first and better. I couldn’t claim the high ground on stolen phones. Robin had made a call minutes before we had caught the cab and arranged for clothes, toiletries, stocking the refrigerator, extra ammunition as it was mundane
ammunition and easily available, and anything else his people might think of.

While I was hunting for the clothes, I’d let him make the call to Niko and Cal with directions to the penthouse and instructions to do the same with their clothes I’d insisted we do with ours. I could hear Cal bitching in the background as Robin talked to Niko. Nude conspiracies were mentioned. I told Goodfellow flatly that Cal could be naked for two minutes and live or wear the clothes he had on and die. And it wouldn’t be Lazarus who did it. If he tried to come on this floor wearing those same funeral pyre stinking clothes, I’d shoot him myself before he made it off the top stair. Pass it on.

The bitching and complaining was dire, but they both did as they were told, bringing only their weapons and getting new clothes from Robin or from me from Robin as Niko had a condition of his own. He’d stand in the foyer directly off the stairs in front of the penthouse door all day and night nude if I didn’t lock Goodfellow up until Niko was dressed. Niko was being as patient with Robin’s quirks now as my Niko had been, but being patient did not mean he lacked self-preservation.

The clothes had been delivered before Goodfellow and I had made it there. His employees, people,
paien
, or hyperintelligent—and hyper
active
to be that quick—cockroaches, excelled at their job. It was all what I would’ve picked out for myself and was perfect for night work. The puck had gone so far as to bite the bullet and let us have our generic jeans, T-shirts, and leather, no Armani or Ralph Lauren. He’d remembered how I’d DIY’ed Cal’s T-shirt and went the extra mile to have one either printed up personally for me or picked out with my personality in mind. No magic marker needed.

YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE BAD WITH THE GOOD.

I
, M
OTHERFUCKER, AM

THE BAD

Nice.

I was stretched out on the couch, as it was that or wait a few more minutes until my legs folded bonelessly under me. The one with the weasel slash was less painful as in no pain, none. There wasn’t a twinge or an ache, nothing. I couldn’t exactly
feel
that leg or the other one, but it was a fair trade. Robin’s people, damn, I loved his people, loved their huge compassionate drug delivering cockroach hearts. They’d provided me with real pain meds. The bottle was labeled with a long complicated name that would mean something to a pharmacist, but not to me. Goodfellow told me it was Vicodin, gave me a bottle of water to chase two down, and told me if that didn’t help there was a morphine pump in one of the closets somewhere. From the looks of the place, I believed him.

Every piece of furniture was upholstered in a material with a different animal pattern on it. Tiger stripes but purple against blue, cheetah spots that were forest green against a black that reflected colors like a raven’s wing, and a bizarre chair that was covered in something similar to chameleon scales except chameleons didn’t come that large or change color randomly. All fake with those colors except maybe the chair. That could be from a
paien
creature or an alien for all I knew.

“By the way, is this velvet?” I knew it wasn’t fur. I ran my hand over the cushion beside me. It was—the thick plush velvet you saw in the high-class pornos—which meant it was equally tacky as hell, but cost considerably more. As in crazy-stupid-money that could feed the hungry of every single third world nation on the planet and have enough left over to buy Canada for the skiing. I’d heard the rich like to ski.

“Holy hell. Is your secret client Hugh Hefner? How many drugs was his decorator on? Although the velvet, I asked if this was velvet, didn’t I? This velvet is the most comfortable thing I’ve laid on . . . except for Delilah’s naked body. I miss her naked body.” I mourned as I kept on petting the velvet like the dogs that ran before I could pat them, hating the Auphe in me so much. I cheered when the idea came to me and I asked. “Is it the
paien
version of Hugh Hefner?”

“No, that would be me, except I’m infinitely more attractive, far younger in appearance, and without need of erectile dysfunction medications.” Goodfellow patted me on the head with the fond gaze you’d give a puppy who hadn’t quite gotten down the walking part yet.

“You are damn good-looking. If I weren’t straight and we didn’t have this brotherly bond thing going, I’d screw you. No, wait, forgot. You have that weapon of mass destruction in your pants. Sorry, no matter my orientation, you’d have to keep Godzilla to yourself.”

“What the fuck,” Niko cursing again—unbelievable, “did you give him?” He had the puck by the arm with a grip that had to be painfully tight. I should share my drugs with him.

I held up the bottle in my other hand that wasn’t fascinated by the velvet. “Vicodin. Want some,” I asked the puck, “for your arm? Niko, want some for your mood? You’re not this pissy that often. Well, more pissy than you think you are, like dirty dishes are the call to release the Four Horsemen. Jesus, let it go just once.” I yawned. “But you’re my brother and I love you. If I’d had to raise me, I’d be pissy, too. Actually if I’d had to raise me, I’d have sold me in the Walmart parking lot when I was a baby and still cute. Hadn’t started biting ears off my classmates yet, which did not taste good. Cold and clammy and the ear wax was no fucking A.1. Sauce.” I waved the bottle at Goodfellow. “Remember, start with the feet. The screaming is like A.1. Sau—”

Niko’s hand clamped over my mouth and he let go of Robin to seize the bottle out of my grasp. He read the label and of course he recognized it as he’d probably gotten a pharmacy degree in two weeks, saving up the time by skipping bathroom breaks. Meditation had given him complete control over all bodily functions. “This is the generic name for Vicodin, but what did you
actually
put in the bottle?”

“Oh, that’s nothing. MS Contin, oral morphine, and he took only two. The recommended dose,” Goodfellow dismissed. “It was what was in the water. Thorazine, Ativan, an entire handful of Rohypnol, and ten or so
doses of MDMA, ecstasy if you’re not familiar, to make him happy. He deserves a little happy after the two days he’s had.”

“Won’t that kill him? Really, fifty times over, kill him? Deader than dead? That seems over the top. If it seems over the top to me, when I want to slam his head against the wall over and over until Jimmy Hoffa or D. B. Cooper falls out of his ear, it has to be classified as excessive as fuck.” Cal, who had to be worried if he thought I was dying, hid it well . . . and deep, incredibly deep, too deep I assumed as the concern hit rock bottom and bounced back straight into curiosity.

He snapped his fingers and for the first time showed some enthusiasm toward Goodfellow. “This is like that Russian guy. Were you hanging around Rasputin? Which one were you? The one who poisoned him, stabbed him, shot him, cut off his dick, or threw him in the river? Or did you do them all?”

“No one cut off his penis. I am beyond exhausted of hearing that rumor.” Robin headed in toward what I vaguely remembered as being the direction of the kitchen. “His hygiene was far too lacking for anyone to entertain the idea of undoing his pants, much less touching what nested in the filth underneath. Dogs could smell him coming from miles away and would flee howling.”

“He’s going to die. We can’t take him to the hospital. They’ll know he’s different. His blood work, he’s only half human, who knows what the blood work will show. If they could save him, it would to be to dissect him later.” Niko, every inch of visible skin a dirty gray except his lips, pressed to a bloodless white. His katana was slicing toward Goodfellow at an angle to separate his head from his shoulders. “You’ve killed him.” Robin dodged beneath the blade. “Murdered him.” This time he jumped back and flipped over the lizard chair. Niko went right over the top after him, spitting venomously, “When he swore you were his friend, that you were loyal.” Look at that. Niko was trusting me more and more. I had to die to get there, but it was worth it. He swung the katana in from the side where it was promptly snared in a metallic
bronze and silver zebra striped rug. Niko was thrown back over the chair landing facedown, the rug-wrapped sword kicked out of sight, the chair’s cushion yanked free to drop on Niko’s back, and Robin took a seat on it.

“Told you he was a good fighter,” I said, unfazed by this or anything: the world, life, death. It would work itself out. “Try the morphine, Nik,” I urged, enjoying the placid, floating sensation. “You’ll feel no pain.” I shook the bottle at him again before I realized I didn’t have the bottle any longer. He’d taken it.

Cal, who I was beginning to think didn’t much like me . . . the little prick, was pointing his Glock at Robin. “Get off of him. I know you’re not going to hurt him, and I know Caliban isn’t going to die. You said it yourself. You both had eight years to pull that off and neither of you did. But get off my brother or this crap will go on all night and I’m hungry. I couldn’t save any of the Chinese.”

Goodfellow grimaced. “Disgusting child.” He stood, caught the cushion that Niko flung at him with ease, and held down a hand. “Caliban told you. I could kill all three of you with a sheet. Imagine the horrors I could inflict with a cushion.” Niko ignored the hand and gained his feet without the assistance, not that he needed it. Robin sighed, “Pissy indeed. Caliban will be fine, but he has not been fine the past days, has he? He went through”—his eyes slid toward Cal, who’d lowered the gun—“some trauma, and time travel with the
Kyntalash
is not meant for humans or anyone with a single cell of
Homo
sapiens
in them. It’s extremely debilitating. He should’ve dropped after the first step he took into this time, dropped and stayed out for a day at minimum. Instead he’s been fighting skin-walkers, shadow weasels, running like mad carrying my half-conscious self through sewers and up flights of stairs. He hasn’t slept, that’s easy to see as he appeared to have two black eyes before I broke his nose. Apologies again, Caliban. And from his reaction to my ordering of the Chinese food, he hasn’t eaten. By the time we go to face Lazarus, Caliban might trip and kill
himself
falling down the stairs.”

Niko was putting out fewer waves of rage, which I’d
not realized you could see if you tried hard enough. They were purple. I’d have thought red. Every book says so. I saw red. My vision was red with rage. Nope. Purple. “And you decided to what? Put him in a coma?”

“Hardly. He told me the things I need to know about the coming eight years. He told me about having the Auphe resistance to poisons and venoms, how that’s increased as he matures and with repeated exposure to a multitude of said poisons and venoms.” He paused for a quick aside to Cal. “You, at this age and little exposure to poisons, I might have killed. So do not drink any bottled water you see in here to be on the safe side. Tap only, or sample the wide variety of juices, sodas, and ales of the world all in the refrigerator.”

And he was back to Niko. “Also he’s building up an inconvenient tolerance to various drugs, which is becoming a problem when he needs minor to moderate surgery. You have been forced to use more and more anesthesia to keep him under while you stitch him back together, but that’s a problem for another time and another you.”

Niko had been getting his color back. He lost it again instantly at that revelation. I was proud. My brother the black market illegal doctor. Robin was going strong yet. “He told me where the levels of his various tolerances are. I knew how much to use. I had no plans on killing him or inducing a coma,
skata
, distrustful bastards that you are. This is what is going to happen.” He held up a finger. “
Prota
, we’re going to feed him now that he’s in such an amenable mood.” He held up a second finger or it could be a fourth one. Things were becoming blurry. “
Defteros
, he’ll sleep until we go for Lazarus. Four a.m. seems the best time for the least possible number of people at the Pier.” Another finger went up. I didn’t attempt to estimate which number that was. There were fingers everywhere now. He was an octopus there were that many. “
Trítos
, one of us will sit with him at all times while he sleeps. We can take shifts, however you like, but he will not be alone. Not for a bathroom break, not to get a snack from the kitchen thinking as you can still see
him, what could go wrong? Not for a single second is he to be alone, and if you have but the smallest scrap of a soul, then while you sit with him, you will hold his hand. Are we clear,
sas agnoeí paidiá
?” Waiting for an answer wasn’t part of his big plan. That would mean there was a chance they wouldn’t do what they were told.

When Robin Goodfellow was pissed, everyone did as they were told.