Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(67)

The address I'd been given was in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. In a block that had seen better days, the large warehouse was a hulking, dilapidated brute squatting between two other deserted buildings. Brooding, sooty brick, gaping, shattered windows, and sullen atmosphere—I wasn't hearing church bells ring from this place. No, the sounds emanating from there would be more along the lines of bloodcurdling screams and sobbing pleas for help. That would be more welcome to my ears than any bell and it gave the condemned pit a whole lot of grace in my eyes. It wasn't an E ticket ride yet, but it would be. It would be the biggest, the best, and the very last ride the world took. That I was going to be in the driver's seat made it even more of rush.

Inside, the Auphe were milling about purposefully, clearing the enormous space of what looked to be a decade of debris. There were close to a hundred of them, their long hands pulling and pushing with an unnatural strength. A hundred, that must be just about every Auphe left in this world. Tumulus itself might stand empty as they gathered here. That's the breaks of having your own spot on the endangered-species list. "Hey, boss," I called to the nearest one. "What's up with the spring cleaning?" Transforming the very face of existence took some doing, but I didn't think absolute cleanliness was a prerequisite.

There was no mention of the visit paid to me earlier. The Auphe weren't used to disobedience. They were most likely assuming I was now walking the straight and narrow and saluting the almighty Auphe as I went. Dream on. I was a mercenary, not a whore.

In answer to my question, the Auphe's spidery finger pointed downward. It could've been China he was indicating, but I didn't think so. Jade, pagodas, and stir-fried noodles were nice, but not particularly helpful in our situation. Crouching, I laid a hand on the small area of floor that had been cleared. The concrete was cold to the touch, much colder than the air around us. Much colder than it should have been. It tried to leach the warmth from my flesh as it whispered black, poisonous things in my ear. Evil, horrible things that could turn a soul inside out and turn every shred of light into the darkest of despair. Nifty. "Ah," I hummed with approval. "Nothing warms my heart like a good slaughter."

That was another thing that would raise some serious power. Violent death, and lots of it. Many people had died in this spot and what was left of them was cradled deep in the earth beneath us. It had happened long ago by human standards, but it had poisoned this place so thoroughly that it was still tainted hundreds of years later. Here it had waited… waited for us, waited for just this moment. Kismet, huh? Brought a tear to the eye, it did.

It could have been Native Americans massacring the wannabes or it could've been vice versa. It may even have been before a white man ever touched this soil. Whatever it had been, it was human on human. It was peculiar how humans would kill at the drop of a hat—but they always had a justification… a reason. Defense, rebellion, justice, revenge, insanity—there were always excuses. The few that admitted the truth, that they did it just for the fun of it, those they locked up. Or they killed them, for the good of society… ironic, eh?

Heard the phrase "f*ck up a wet dream"? That was humans all over. They could take a concept like killing, something so pure and pristine, and wrap it up in a mess of psychobabble, denial, and chains of ridiculous ritual. They did their best to ruin the simple joy, the magnificent beauty of it. And yet they managed to accomplish it on a grander scale than we ever had. I had to admire that.

I patted the concrete and felt the rage, the hatred, and the horror of life abruptly snuffed out. It tickled my palm like the silky hair of a mink. Sweet. "Hang in there," I said soothingly. "Won't be long." No, not long at all before we sucked them dry. There would be no more uneasy death echoing through the years, no more unheard screams for vengeance. There would be only nonexistence. Okay, it wasn't heaven, but neither was it hell. They should be counting their blessings. They were going to be luckier than most whose paths I crossed. I gave one last pat and stood. "You can thank me later."

As for that grand murderous scale humans laid claim to… we were about to give them a run for their money. Unmaking isn't the same as destroying, not at all, but the end result was. Since our planned result was the literal undoing of the vast majority of the human race, I had to think that end was plenty good enough. The Auphe had truly been inspired to come up with this scheme, I didn't mind admitting. Since the dawn of time the Auphe had been near the top of the food chain. I wouldn't give them the very top rung, but there was no denying that they thought they occupied it. But then the humans came. They weren't much of a threat. Hell, on the contrary, they provided entertainment. Fun to play with, cunning in their own brutish way, and they didn't break too easily. There's nothing worse than a flimsy toy.

The downside was, our toys bred. In one breath there were thousands, in the next millions. And even a million grunting, dirty pigs could take out one single farmer, no matter how clever he was. Yeah, one moment the Auphe were swimming along, happy as clams; the next a tidal wave of humanity swept them out to sea. Swept over us all. They were too many and we were too few, and that's just the way it was.

Now.

So, the Auphe reasoned, why not open a gate to then? And that's why they had needed me. No Auphe could open a gate to the past. The energy needed for that was phenomenal; they simply didn't have it. And channeling energy was not a talent the Auphe possessed. It was, however, one I did. I had quite a bit of natural energy of my own, and when I channeled a huge power source in addition to that, the end result was little short of a nuclear explosion. In a perfect world I could've inhabited an Auphe, channeled, and opened the gate. It would have been a piece of cake, theoretically. But naturally, it wasn't. We tried that before the breeding program began. Our best effort had resulted in several exploded Auphe. Turns out Auphe and I weren't a compatible merging. So, several experiments later, the Auphe settled on a human as the most likely option. I could possess one of those, we discovered, and with some tinkering a human's genetics could be manipulated enough to crossbreed. The finished product would be human enough for me to take over and Auphe enough to open a gate. It was easier said than done, but eventually it'd been accomplished—"eventually" being the key word here.