Four hours later, I was in an Atlantic City hotel. Mickey had managed to make it back to his junkyard after Oshossi had flipped our car by the park. He hadn’t been too enthusiastic about getting involved until I told him Oshossi and all his creatures were dead. Then—for a price, naturally—he came along. I’d borrowed one of the cars from Robin’s lot. Aside from the clumps of rat fur in the passenger’s seat, I didn’t think he’d mind.

In the past year, I’d had Robin teach me some of the more rudimentary points of lock picking. When it came to a casino hotel door complete with keycard, I accessed the lock via the heel of my boot. I did it as quietly as possible, and at four in the morning the hall was empty, if you didn’t count the woman passed out by the elevators.

Mickey, huddled in a hooded trench coat, streaked past me into the darkened room, and by the time the lights flashed on scant seconds later, he said, “Is done.”

I could see it was done. Mickey was nothing if not quick. He had swaddled Xolo up in the bed comforter. Covered from head to toe, there was no chance of those large hypnotic eyes catching mine. As Xolo had never met Mickey, he hadn’t mapped his brain yet. He couldn’t control the rat before he was contained, not like he could have me.

I closed the door quietly behind me. Cherish stood beside the other bed, where she’d been sleeping. She was dressed in a white silk nightgown and held a sword in her hand. She could’ve tried lying or playing innocent, but with one look at me she knew. Lying, charming, thieving—none of that could help her now.

Once when Cal was seven, he’d been chased by a dog. Hammer. A vicious giant of a canine, it had broken its chain and leapt on Cal. It had ripped his backpack off with one tear of its massive jaws, and I knew my brother’s neck was next. Hammer was the first thing I’d ever killed. I’d run, snatching a rusty pickax off the rickety porch of one of the trailers, and with one swing buried the sharp end between the dog’s amber eyes, deep in his brain. That was the first time. I’d killed for Cal many times since.

This time I did it for myself.

She could rule masses of people with Xolo. It was true. I could say there was the threat she could come back for us. With what Cal could do, with the way I could fight, if she could have the chupa control us, there wasn’t much in this world she couldn’t have. That was true as well. Saving the world like a genuine hero. It was a good reason for what had to be done.

But it wasn’t mine.

“I can make you see him die every minute of every day for the rest of your life,” she hissed, the normally beautiful face twisted and ugly as murder itself. “He’ll scream for you, and you’ll fail him. Every time he dies. Every single time.”

Once had been enough, and that was my reason.

It wasn’t long before I was looking down at her fallen body. Her sleep-tousled black hair was spread around her now still face, Promise’s violet eyes wide and empty, the smallest amount of blood staining the white silk over her heart. Her sword at her side. I’d given her a chance, warrior to warrior, and she’d wielded the weapon admirably. She’d been almost as skilled as she was beautiful. She’d also been intelligent, charming, charismatic, clever, and with the potential for so much more.

I’d felt worse about killing Hammer.

He couldn’t help what he was. She could have. A monster, her own mother had labeled her. She could’ve gotten Promise or any of us killed with her lies. She nearly had. She’d been a kidnapper and a thief, made me an assassin, killed Oshossi, and counting all that, I doubt she had even warmed up. But worst of all, she’d cost me my brother. Temporarily or not, she’d taken him away from me.

Now when I closed my eyes, maybe I’d see her body instead of his.

I turned to Xolo, wrapped passively in a blanket as Mickey watched it all with ink-spot eyes. I suppose the chupa belonged to me now. Oshossi was gone, Cherish as well. All that was left was a living weapon that could rend your mind in half. A living, breathing nuclear bomb. We didn’t need any more of those.

I took his head swiftly and painlessly. With the muffling blanket he never saw it coming. Like Hammer, it wasn’t his fault he was what he was, but he was too dangerous to let live. I suppose there were those who thought the same about me.

It’s all perspective, and you did what you had to do.

Cherish’s eyes were beginning to film over. Her mother’s eyes fading from purple to an ordinary dark blue behind the fog. I wondered whose choice it would be now. Would I ever be able to look at Promise again without feeling my world fracture? Would she be able to look at me without seeing a little girl with dark hair holding her hand and smiling the sweetest of smiles? She’d known what had to be done, she’d given her consent, but consenting and facing the one who’d carried out that consent? Vastly different things.

Would either of us be able to look at one another again without seeing our families die?

Five months later I found out.

It took two months before I stopped waking up knowing Cal was dead and gone—seeing it. Although once in a while his note hit me before the memory did. Pain-in-the-ass little brothers—occasionally they knew what they were doing. It didn’t mean I fixed him waffles every morning. Rewarding good intentions; encouraging laziness. It was a fine line.

It took another three months before every monster—every revenant, every sylph, every djinn—that I killed no longer had Cherish’s face. Three months before I could kill and not enjoy the killing. When that happened, I chose an afternoon and went to her door. I knocked, and when she opened it, I saw her. Not Cherish. Not Cal, bloody and limp. I saw her. Promise. Pale skin, unpainted mouth, wise eyes, the coffee-and-cream tumble of her hair. I saw all the things between us, the good and the bad, and the more I hoped to come.

What did she see?

Past her I saw her piano. The picture, the old-fashioned photo of her and the little girl, was gone. In its place was a single calla lily I’d once given her. Both it and the vase that held it were crystal. The brilliant glassy shine of the petals was the same color as her eyes. A long-lived flower for a long-lived love, I’d thought when I’d given it to her. I hadn’t said it aloud. That wasn’t my way. She knew all the same, though, because she’d seen me. She had seen me then.

And she saw me now.

She smiled and held out a hand.

I took it.

Watch out, Cal and Niko,

there’s a new girl in town . . .

123

About the Author

Rob, short for Robyn (yes, he is really a she) Thurman lives in Indiana, land of rolling hills and cows, deer, and wild turkeys. Many, many turkeys. She is also the author of the Cal Leandros Series: Nightlife, Moonshine , and Madhouse; has a story in the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe; and is the author of the yet-to-be-released Trick of the Light (fall 2009), the first book in a new series.

Besides wild, ravenous turkeys, she has a dog (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)—one hundred pounds of Siberian husky. He looks like a wolf, has paws the size of a person’s hand, ice blue eyes, teeth out of a Godzilla movie, and the ferocious habit of hiding under the kitchen table and peeing on himself when strangers come by. Fortunately, she has another dog that is a little more invested in keeping the food source alive. By the way, the dogs were adopted from shelters. They were fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy.

For updates, teasers, deleted scenes, and various other extras, visit the author at www.robthurman.net and at her LiveJournal.