Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(59)

Deal?

What a lie. After sitting, pacing, sitting again, and thinking of other things to bash over Robin's head while he slept, I obviously wasn't dealing.

"I have to get out of here for a while." I got up more quickly from the couch than I should have, my body groaning from multiple revenant blows.

"It's four a.m.," Niko pointed out, unmoving. "Where will you…ah." He gave an approving nod. "An excellent idea, if she cooperates. If she will 'look.'"

"Yeah." I started toward the door. "That's a big if." But if I had my way, she wouldn't get away with not looking.

Not this time.





16




George was sitting on the stoop of her apartment building waiting for me. For that, she had looked. Or maybe for the little things, she didn't look. Maybe she just knew without any effort at all.

She was wrapped in a robe. Hundreds of patches were stitched together in a tapestry of velvet, silk, simple polished cotton—any material you could think of. Some were embroidered, some not; the only requirement was they were all a shade of red. Scarlet, garnet, crimson, ruby, candy-apple, every hue you could imagine was there. That combined with her deep gold-brown skin and copper hair reminded me of a painting we'd passed in the museum while looking for Sawney. Some artist, the name began with a K, but I remembered the repeating pattern of squares, the vibrant colors, the tranquil face.

At almost five a.m. we were as alone as you could be in the city, and I looked at her silently. She knew. About Charm, she knew, and I didn't think that had anything to do with being psychic. It had to do with being a woman. I ducked my head and then sat two steps below her.

She rested a hand on my hair, smoothing it. "We all have to learn our own way. Make our own passage." She dropped her hand and said with anger and disappointment, "You always were and always will be one for the difficult path." She squared her shoulders and shook her head. "There is the road traveled, the road less so, and the cliff. You head straight for the cliff, Caliban. Every time. Every single time."

She tightened the robe around her and clasped hands around her knees. "When you tire of hitting the bottom, let me know. Maybe I'll still be here. Maybe I won't, but I can tell you this: The only things that you'll find on the difficult path that aren't on the smoother one are bruises and regrets."

Like I didn't know that.

How she knew that—now, there was a different question altogether. "You finally looked, then?" I asked cautiously, uncertain if I really wanted to know the answer to that and feeling like the absolute shit she meant me to. I'd turned her away once. I couldn't take a chance; I couldn't be with her if I didn't know how things would end up. I couldn't risk her like that. I had to know … if she were with me, did she survive the Auphe who were still running free out there? More importantly, did she survive the Auphe in me?

"Caliban," she said, her anger fading slightly to a resignation over an argument we'd had time and time again.

Of course she hadn't looked. She never looked at her own life and she never tried to change the truly monumental aspects of the lives of others. What was supposed to happen would happen. It was only the little things that could be played around with. She wasn't the only one who was angry. I'd pushed her away to save her and she wouldn't even look to tell me if it was necessary. I cut her out of my life to keep her safe, to keep her alive, and she wouldn't…goddamn it.

I looked away.

I didn't want to see the red and gold or the hurt, the anger, and the reluctant understanding that ran under it all. If I couldn't have it, I didn't want to see it. "Robin's in trouble. Someone is trying to kill him and doing a pretty good job of it. We need to know who it is." Across the street, a garbage truck rumbled. It was easier to watch than what I could sense crossing George's face. "I want to know. Robin wants to know. Even Niko, the only person more Zen than you in this world. We want to save Goodfellow, so who the hell is behind it? We got one human. Was he in charge? Was he the last one?" If she wouldn't look at the future, maybe looking at the past and present could help us.

I heard her shift and stand, her robe a rustle of warm velvet and cool silk. "Robin did something once, something quite…" Her voice trailed off, the anger now buried. This wasn't about us anymore. This was about a friend. "I imagine he has a lesson to learn. Life seems to be like that," she continued, her sympathy for him plain. "I can't change that, and I shouldn't try." Which was her way of saying she wouldn't try. "Try to have faith. Robin is clever and he has loyal friends. Trust that that will be enough."

That was the problem with George, one of many. She saw the big picture, and a single life was only a small part of that picture, only one of many lessons. For me, that wasn't good enough. Life might be all we got, as far as I knew, no matter what George sensed or thought. Lighting incense and staring at my navel while Robin got this life's lesson rammed down his throat via an axe through his neck or a sword into his gut, that just wasn't going to happen. Unlike those of George, my pictures were small, colored with finger paints, and in the here and now.

"Caliban?" she said from the door.

My eyes still on the street, I didn't look, but she knew she had my attention. She was a psychic after all.