God, I sounded like such a girl. I’d grown some ovaries without noticing. The breasts couldn’t be far behind. Yet that didn’t particularly bother me either.

Robin carefully removed my hand from his shoulder and leaned back out of reach. “I’m not sure which of the three is more frightening: that Suyolak can go highdef in your head, therefore I’m assuming our heads, for sport; that if we get too close he could give us a venereal disease that would turn us into giant, walking pus boils-also merely for his entertainment; or your new mood.”

“Me?” I asked, distracted by the taste of the Cheetos. I’d always liked them. You didn’t have to cook them, they were readily available at any store in the country, and they had no nutritional value whatsoever, but kept you alive anyway. They were the Great American Food. We should’ve been shipping them to Third World countries. It would solve all their problems-well, foodwise.

“Yes, you. You and your bizarrely altered mood.” He dusted every orange particle off his shoulder with exquisite care.

“What’s wrong with my mood?” I protested.

“It’s good.” Salome jumped on his now-clean shoulder and they both studied me with identical, unblinking stares. “I expected an improvement over your usual gloom, doom, despair, and suicidal moaning and groaning when you killed the last of the Auphe, but this?” He waved a hand at me. “And now? The Kin know about you and Delilah. That’s if not almost certain death, then certainly a huge inconvenience and probable loss of furry booty. Then Suyolak played with your mind as if it were a Rubik’s Cube-before your time, I know, not to mention a thousand times more complex than your mind, but the analogy stands.” He shook his head. “And I can’t imagine what horrific things a creature such as he could whisper in your ear.”

“That he’d turn me into an Auphe. Full Auphe.” I finished the bag and dusted my hands free of orange. “Strain my human bits out like seeds from freshly squeezed orange juice. Can’t buy that off an infomercial.”

Now he did blink. “And you’re taking that quite well. You’re as happy as those Mormons Delilah compared you to. You could even say you’re cheerful. Caliban Leandros, cheerful. It’s not only wrong; it’s unimaginable. Inconceivable. Confess. Have you gotten religion? Drugs? A lobotomy? Because this is not you, not remotely.”

“He feels good after he gates,” Niko said. “Don’t you, Cal?” While Robin had leaned away, Nik leaned in close to take me in-every breath, every beat of my pulse at my carotid artery, a scrutiny closer than any microscope.

“I noticed last time,” he went on, “but this time… This time it’s more pronounced. Isn’t that right? You said you needed to fly. Back at the bar, that’s what you compared it to. Being let out of a cage. Being free.”

“Maybe it is the traveling, but so what? If it makes me feel good, it’s no different than your getting that adrenaline high after running, which, by the way, I’ve never gotten. Just a desire to puke. I think I’m due. You get it from running. I get it from traveling, and that’s only if you assume I’m never in a good mood.” I looked between the two of them. “So? Is that what you guys really think? That I’m never in a good mood?”

Niko said, “Goodfellow, hold his head. I’ll check his pupils.”

I guess that answered that.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Hey, cut it out,” I protested as I tried to duck, but when Niko was serious, there was no avoiding him. His hand secured my chin tightly as he stared into my eyes as the overhead lights of the gas station canopy flickered to life when the dusk swallowed the sun.

“They’re not dilated or pinpoint.” He frowned. His hand was on my neck. “Your pulse is elevated, but only mildly.”

“So you mean normal, right?” I demanded, my good mood-which I was allowed for once in my life, damn it-disappearing.

“I can’t imagine normal being applied to you in any way-hygiene, diet, exercise habits, literary or video preferences,” he replied immediately. “But you don’t seem drugged.” His frown deepened. “Let me do a reflex test.”

I was more than willing to prove my reflexes were fine by grabbing Salome by her tail and beating my brother over the head with her hairless, bony body, but Delilah interrupted all that. She pulled up on her motorcycle and said sharply, “Stop silly games. Found something. Up the road. Come.” She didn’t wait, roaring off. We were ten miles from Dyer, Indiana, where there had been, per the almighty Google, another meningitis outbreak-more dead, cold and still in the hospital morgue. Suyolak was still definitely on the Lincoln, and we were on his diseased trail.

Indiana was a big change from New York. Corn, corn, cows just for a change, and then more corn. It was old times all over again. Traveling from town to town with Sophia, draining the marks there dry, then moving on. Then after the Auphe took me and I came back, there was running for our lives instead of simply being pulled along in Sophia’s wake as she searched for new marks. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this road trip. In some ways it had me looking over my shoulder for creatures that didn’t exist anymore. But in another way… it felt right. Comfortable. We might not be accepted by the Rom, but we were Rom, born to hit the ground running.

While Niko followed Delilah’s taillights past the exit on-ramp and Abelia- Roo’s RV followed us, I used his BlackBerry to scan for disease outbreaks ahead of Dyer. There weren’t any, at least nothing reported yet, but I didn’t doubt they’d pop up. Leaks only got bigger, not smaller. Those seals weren’t going to repair themselves. Goddamn Abelia. It was her responsibility and she’d fucked up. Contaminated ingredients, my ass. It was pure ego. Abelia thought she was better than anyone and everyone, full concentration and effort not needed, but Suyolak was looking to prove her wrong.

Ahead of us, Delilah had pulled over a few miles from the gas station after turning onto a gravel road. “You do realize this could be a trap,” Goodfellow pointed out. “It’s back to nature. A city Wolf might enjoy killing you out here, Cal. An exotic back-to-her-roots vacation with your murder as a cherry on the top. If she is going to kill you, I’d have to commend her for choosing this spot and thinking outside the box. The Kin aren’t usually very good at that.”

“Thanks for that. You’re a true friend. Be sure to take pictures. I’d hate for you to forget any juicy details,” I growled. Although it was as Robin said… back to nature, but I thought if or when Delilah made a run at me, it wouldn’t be within sword reach of my brother. She was smarter than that. No, I thought that was something else entirely-but still about death; just not mine.

The interstate noise was gone. There was nothing but crickets and the distant low of a cow. Delilah took off her sunglasses-the moon would be more than bright enough for a Wolf-as we pulled up beside her. She shot a challenging glance toward me. “Yeah, it’s a graveyard,” I said. “I can smell it.” No matter how old they were, I could always smell them. “So what?”

She rolled her eyes as she undid the tie from her hair, setting it loose down her back-a cascade of moonlight. “Like teaching cub. Smell again.”

I did, sampling the air. “Shit, it’s closer.”

“Graveyards, as a rule, don’t move around on their own,” Niko observed, turning the ignition off and stepping out of the car to draw his katana from the sheath strapped to his back and hidden by a lightweight duster. We all suffered in the summer when it came to concealing our weapons. “ Cal, are you up for this?”

“Do you mean am I in a pissy mood again? Am I not going to hug whatever creepy-ass putrefying thing comes our way? Yeah, I am completely up for this,” I answered, irritated. If I got a little happy in my life, everyone assumed I was an alien pod person. How fair was that? “It’s not revenants,” I added. “Whatever it is isn’t alive. This is genuine decomposition on the move.” That was something we hadn’t run into yet, not in our lifetimes. But I was assuming if you were decomposing and still moving, a gun wouldn’t do much in the way of slowing you down. I went to the trunk and dug through my bag until I found a machete and then a second one.