Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(59)

“And you excel at pointing out the obvious. Let’s go. We learned nothing we didn’t already know, that he might be a storm spirit, but no one knows for certain. I’m annoyed. Plus I imagine I’m going to have a hangover. I’d rather have it in my bed than facedown on the grass.”

That I agreed with. It wouldn’t do to leave the vodka bottles for whoever wanted to risk the vyodanoi slime for them. The homeless wouldn’t be a problem. Some overly curious biologist who’d never seen slime of that particular consistency and color before so let’s get that puppy under a microscope would be. I picked up a bottle in each hand and we turned to start slogging home through the park. The sky was now the color of snow melting into a sewer drain. It didn’t bode well for blue skies and a sunny day. That was good. Sunny days were hell on a hangover.

Minutes later Niko took my arm. “Stop.”

I knew that tone even in this state. I dropped the vodka and had a hand inside my jacket and resting on the butt of my Desert Eagle almost before the bottles hit the ground. There was a time I wouldn’t have carried something in both hands; I always kept a hand free. When I was a little more human, a little less Auphe, and a lot less arrogant.

Maybe a little less drunk too.

My eyes narrowed. Not against the sun, which was practically nonexistent, but against two pieces of knowledge. The first being the uneasy fact I was going to have to come clean with Nik about what had happened at the Ninth Circle. The second being that I might have f*cked up. It wasn’t guaranteed, but it was enough to cut through the haze of alcohol blurring my vision with a spike of adrenaline. What were the odds of a paien obsessed with punishing the wicked and a bunch of humans talking about prayer and Heaven with knives in their hands and death in their hearts?

I’d sent eight of them out of this world three nights ago, if only temporarily, and now here were ten more to replace them. That made me question that “temporarily” issue with the others. They were the same as the others. Once-white hoodies, the smell of homelessness but not the smell of drugs or alcohol, fairly young, and each one with a knife that glittered as brightly as the judgment in their eyes.

They stood between us and the edge of the park and how did they know that’s where we’d be? A storm spirit that could appear and disappear at will would be good at following its targets, high enough not to be seen or smelled. Shit. I had f*cked up. No way around it. But why would Jack have a human posse at his heels when a human was only another wicked scrap of flesh to be squirreled away and drooled over later? If there was logic in that, I wasn’t seeing it.

One of the men, this one with dirty brown dreads, stepped closer. “Have you prayed? Have you prayed to Heaven to be lifted up?” He was staring at Niko, who had set his feet and looked much steadier than he had moments ago—definitely mind over matter. The man’s question as earnest as it could be when framed by psychotic eyes and a knife.

Luckily there was no one in this part of the park this early—barely dawn. “What about me?” I drawled. “Isn’t Heaven concerned about me?” . . . anymore.

That brought the attention of ten pair of eyes to me. The leader of this Eat, Pray, Kill club answered. “Heaven cannot hear your prayers, Godless creature. You are a blot on the earth.”

Apparently once Jack had found out about the Auphe in me he had spread the good word. Heaven didn’t want me, loathed my very existence, and I’d thought it had sucked to be picked last at dodgeball.

They were connected all right. Yep, I’d f*cked up. Fucked up bad.

Now they were moving toward us. It seemed they’d happily stab Niko and sing a hymn or two as his soul was lifted up unto Heaven, but they’d also just as happily kill me and where my soul went, they didn’t give a crap. As I wasn’t sure I had a soul or that souls existed at all, I didn’t much give a crap myself, but I would like to stay alive—screw the philosophical debate.

I pulled the Eagle and aimed it at the one in front. My hand wasn’t as steady as I’d like, but at least I didn’t have double vision. “Okay, Nik, time for a little guidance. They’re killers, but they could be insane so technically it might not be their fault. This is one of those gray areas where someone with a better handle on morality should call the shots. My decision might be extreme.” I’d already proven that once before. “Do we kill them or not?”

I personally thought that if they were crazy, it wasn’t a kind of crazy you could fix. It was a kind of crazy they had chosen. They’d picked up knives instead of pamphlets. If they had chosen Jack on top of the rest of it, hell, there was no pill for that. Also, I didn’t like being stabbed. It was one of my least favorite injuries. Avoiding that would be good.

“No killing.” Niko had his sword out. “Even impaired, you’re more than good enough to take them down without necessarily killing all of them.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it was what I expected. Unless one of them got very lucky there was still more than enough distance to do as Nik wanted. The same hadn’t necessarily been true at the Ninth Circle, but, then again, whose fault had that been?

“You will not touch us. We are sanctified, soon to be apprentices. You took once, but you will not be allowed to take again,” said the one still striding toward us.

Yeah . . . that sounded good. But he was wrong. The crazies usually are. I liked that dependable quality in them.