Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(90)

"I sincerely doubt they would go, Almighty One. Even now they stand with you instead of shunning you as they should. They know what you have done now. Where is the shock and horror at your shame?" She shook her head. "No. They are not your kind, but they are like you. Take them as your servants into whatever afterlife a god claims." The smile was reflected by those who stood beside her, her tribe. Not one of the smiles was a pleasant one.

"How'd you find us?" Niko asked abruptly. "And how did you find Robin at the subway? We weren't followed." And we hadn't been. Any one of us would've picked up on that.

"A GPS tracker in his cell phone. The modern age is a marvel of technology. The following of a god becomes simplicity. A human outwits the divine. The world has come full circle."

"But finding Robin to begin with had to be a bitch." Kind of like her. "Over two thousand years. Way to hold a grudge."

"It's retribution. Only blood will answer the debt." It was hard to believe this woman had once made me breakfast. She and the others were all the same unyielding stone. I guessed if you were going to be a hard-ass, seeing your living, breathing runaway god before you would be the time for it.

"If you give a damn, I am sorry," Robin said quietly to them. "Whether you believe it or not, I truly am. Not for what you think, but I am sorry." Sorry for what he'd done and sorry for what was coming.

There was no give, in their eyes or their faces, and I realized: We were going to have to kill them. All of them. Humans. It didn't sit right. I didn't think it ever would, but it was getting easier. After all, I'd been more than happy to kill that bastard in the subway. Of course, here we might not get the chance to. We were good, but we were facing seven guns. Promise could take a number of hits and stay on her feet. The same wasn't true of the rest of us. At least one of us was going down; it was a fact, one that sat hard and undigested in my stomach. We were thoroughly f*cked.

Unless…

Unless I could get behind them. Get the drop on them. It might make the difference.

And that's when I discovered another difference, the one Sawney had made, what he'd pushed me to. I guessed I owed that murdering bastard a favor, because the knot tied in my brain was gone as my mind got the second wind my body had. The effort to head him off, the mind-rending strain to be faster, the necessity of ripping reality time and time again had finally punched through the scar tissue that had held me back these past weeks. It was wide open. I was wide open.

And it was easy this time. It was so damn easy. There was no blood, no pain, and it was so right that I wondered how I'd survived this long without it. As Seraglio extended her gun with a "No, my god, we do not give a damn. Not for you or your apologies," I was suddenly behind them, and I felt good, really good, and…predatory. Content and hungry for violence, with a blood that felt as if it scorched my veins. As if it were a heat that only killing could cool. Then the feeling was gone, because I had more important things to think about, or maybe it wasn't gone. Maybe it just let me do what I had to.

Was it me? Was it not?

Who gave a rat's ass?

It was definitely me, though, who shot the first two in the back before two others turned. No honor. The only thing honor got you was killed. I saw Nik roll and come up from the floor to impale the man on the far side of Seraglio. Promise, although she took two bullets first, took out the woman beside him with a quick snap of her neck. Goodfellow produced two daggers and two more fell with metal in their throat. I saw blood bloom on Robin's neck, red dripping down Niko's hand, I saw Seraglio begin to pull the trigger of the gun aimed at Robin's head, and then I saw wings.

Wings, pale blond hair, and a blade moving as fast as he fell. Ishiah.

Seraglio's gun flew to one side immediately followed by her head. As her small body crumpled, I could've staggered with relief that I hadn't had to be the one to do it. She'd made me pancakes. She was a hunter and a psychotic killer, but she smelled like cinnamon and honey, and she'd made me pancakes.

Then I forgot about the pancakes and remembered the blood on Niko and Robin. I knelt beside my brother. Promise was there as well, ripping at his sleeve and getting blood on her hands in the process. "Later," Nik ordered, voice controlled. No pain. No panic. "Security. Police. We have to go now. Take Robin." He was right, I knew that, but seeing the blood still coursing down his hand, I opened my mouth to say we could take one second. "Cal, now."

Damn it. I shut my mouth and turned to Robin as Nik got to his feet and he and Promise moved quickly toward the door. Goodfellow was upright, hand pressed to his throat. He pulled it away to look at a palm wet and red. "Gods bleed." He gave a liquid cough. "Seraglio would be pleased." Then he dropped or he would have if I hadn't caught him on one side and Ishiah on the other.

"Jesus." He had blood on his lips and his eyes had gone unfocused and hazy. I slapped my hand over the torn flesh of his neck. "I thought you had a prior commitment," I snapped at Ishiah. It was easier to snarl at him than concentrate on the warm wetness pouring through my fingers or the drowned gurgle to Robin's ragged breathing. So much for the damn bulletproof vest.

"This was it." If there was any regret over killing Seraglio, I didn't hear it. I didn't expect to. He'd done it to save Robin. If he hadn't done it, I would've done it myself, and you wouldn't have heard any regret in my voice either. It was pointless to show what you couldn't change.