"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.

We dragged Goodfellow rapidly toward the door and out into the cool night air. "Nushi. We need to get him to Nushi to be healed. Promise?" I said with desperate demand.

"Hundred and ninetieth Street and Fort Washington, apartment number twelve-C," she said swiftly as both she and Niko looked back at the limp puck with grim worry. They didn't have long to look. Within a second he was gone, pulled upward and out of my hands. Ishiah took him. Powerful wings bunching with muscle, he lifted a now-unconscious Robin into the air and soared away. Going to Nushi. Right now he was the only one fast enough. And he would be.

He had to be.

23

"Did he let you in this time?"

"No. Stubborn bastard." Two days later I was spreading out the supplies on the kitchen table and gesturing for Nik to strip off his long-sleeve gray T-shirt. The six-month-old circular scar on his chest was still a bright contrast against his olive skin. It wasn't the best of memories and I looked away to the ugly furrow on the outer aspect of his biceps. It wasn't bad, not nearly as bad as I'd thought when I'd seen the blood coating his arm and hand. Still, one more not-so-great memory. "He wouldn't even answer this time."

My own wounds, Sawney's going-away present, ached as I moved, but they were much less deep than Niko's bullet wound. Thin slices, they'd heal soon enough. "Damn pucks," I muttered as I cleaned the wound.

"I think this situation applies to only one puck…ours," Niko corrected as I applied the antibiotic cream. "I don't think many others would be too ashamed to show their faces."

"They do love showing them off," I snorted. I put the gauze and tape into place and sat as he pulled his shirt back on. I pushed my half-empty glass of hours-old morning orange juice back and forth. "You'd think the son of a bitch would at least let us in long enough to see that he's okay."

"Ishiah and Nushi both said he was healed." He added with a sliver of humor, "And I would think the sheer volume of his cursing us to Hades through the door would reassure you. It's not the voice of a dying man."

No, it wasn't. Neither was the mocking of our fighting skills, lack of drinking capabilities, and pretty much everything about our personal appearance. It was razor-sharp, sliced as fine as Sawney's scythe, and was definitely not the voice of a sick puck. But I'd felt his unconscious weight against my arm and the blood pouring through my fingers. I'd sensed the cool slither of death sliding through him. That was hard to forget, almost as hard as the fact you'd inspired an entire tribe of people to hunt you through the centuries with the burning desire to kill you. As many times as we'd pounded on his door in the past days, he'd refused to open it, refused to face us.

A hand looped around my wrist. "He'll come around, Cal. He simply needs time to come to terms with what he did."

"And that we know what he did," I exhaled, with understanding.

Ishiah, with Robin's permission, had finally told us the whole story. I doubted Robin would ever tell us face-to-face himself, and as I'd suspected, there was more to it than just playing god. Had that been all there was, I was sure Robin wouldn't have been that ashamed. He was a puck, born to lie, steal, and fool. The storm and disease weren't his fault. He hadn't been responsible, no matter what the tribe and their descendants had thought, not for those deaths.

But there were two others…

It wasn't boredom after all that had him leaving. It had never occurred to Goodfellow that the more attractive members of the tribe might not want to "service" their god. Who wouldn't possibly want some of that, right? He still had that attitude today, but now maybe it was tinged with a weariness I just hadn't noticed.

There had been one woman, particularly beautiful and with an even more particularly possessive husband. She had gone to the god as requested. She hadn't fought. She hadn't said a word. He was charming and handsome and he was her god. She'd done what her new faith said was her duty and she did it willingly … if a god wanted you, who were you to say no? To even think no? And when it was done and she had gone back to her husband's tent, he hacked her to death with his sword. Possessive, obsessive, maybe even insane, because he had tried to kill the god as well.

When Robin had left what he really had come to think of as his people, there had been two bloody bodies in his wake. Two deaths because of a puck ego. Two deaths that might still have happened had he not been there; abuse is abuse and insane is insane, but there was no doubt they had happened at that moment because of him. The tribe hadn't blamed him for those deaths, but he damn sure blamed himself. After thousands of years, he still blamed himself enough to not want to face us.

I understood that, but that wasn't going to stop me from kicking down his door tomorrow. Enough was enough. He was our friend. That pretty much said it all. No matter what he had done, he was a friend. Yeah, tomorrow, absolutely…foot through his door. I told Nik so.

"Which is probably exactly what he needs." He squeezed my arm and let go to frown at the table. "Leftover eggs and antibiotic cream. I could do without the mix. You're a hopeless slob, you know that, little brother?"

"Yeah, yeah." He'd spent the night at Promise's and this was his first look at my morning mess. I took a drink of the warm juice. "How's Promise?"

"Healing well." It was a myth that vampires healed immediately, but they did heal much faster than humans did.

As we'd stood and watched Ishiah and Robin disappear into the night, we'd heard the wail of an approaching siren. I'd built a gate instantly and taken us all back to the apartment. I couldn't take Goodfellow to Nushi. I'd never been in his place before…didn't know the way, and there was a way to every gate—twisting and true as an arrow to the heart. On the other side of our doorway, Promise's wounds, one high to the shoulder above her clavicle and one at her hip, had already stopped bleeding. The one to the hip was a through and through and best to just leave the other bullet in, she'd said.

Vampires, balls of steel or one helluva tolerance for pain—it was one of the two. With villagers chasing your ass with pitchforks and torches, you would've needed at least one of them.

As for the gate…that sensation, the Auphe-ness I'd felt with the first one or two, it hadn't returned with the very last one—our escape exit. Maybe because I was watching for it. But I was afraid it'd be back. Sooner or later. At least I wasn't Frodo, foaming at the mouth every time I put on the ring. I had to be careful, though, careful as hell. Even though I didn't want me to be—it didn't want me to be. "Nik," I said diffidently, "I think you might be right. No more gateways for a while might be a good thing." I pushed the glass away. As much as I'd denied it, I was my father's son. Because of that I couldn't let my guard down. Not as long as I lived. "No more traveling, Sawney would say. I think I might like it a little too much."

No one in the world could read me like my brother could. No one ever would. We'd grown up with the Auphe at our window and around every corner. We'd grown up with the monsters outside and the monster inside me. If I said I liked it too much, he knew what I meant.