Grasshopper Tea: 'Rob Thurman'

By Laughing © 2008

I don’t get sick. Despite what Niko says about my nutritional habits, I don’t get sick. Something about the combination of supernatural blood and Niko shoving vitamins down my throat has given me an immunity to all illnesses. Until now, that is.

Now, I was laying in bed at three in the afternoon, which is a little late, even for me, moaning to myself about how awful I felt. It was my day off, thanks to my lucky stars, and Niko had left before I woke up to go to the dojo he now worked at. He hadn’t been home all day, and probably wouldn’t be for a few more hours, so I was left to fend for myself. Fending for myself pretty much consisted of trying to decide whether or not getting up to find the phone to order food would be worth it. In the end, realizing that that plan would require me to get up a second time to answer the door and pay for the food, I decided I could wait for Niko. He wouldn’t let me have anything that didn’t bear a resemblance to grass, but I didn’t care too much at that point. Food was food, and Nik loves me enough not to take advantage of my weakened state to force too much vegan hippie crap on me. Maybe.

I was feeling feverish, and my skin was clammy, and I was freezing, so I curled into a fetal position and tried to fall asleep. I kept coughing, and my throat was killing me, but again, retrieving water or cough syrup would require getting up. I couldn’t wait for Niko to get home. However, that didn’t happen until five. Having been unable to fall back asleep, I had my ears trained on the door, trying to pick up any sounds of movement. When I heard keys being inserted into locks, I relaxed and scooted deeper under the blankets. It occurred to me that I was only assuming it was Nik at the door, and that he would disapprove of me not being prepared to fight off a slimy swamp monster, but the thought only lasted for a second because the door opened and my nostrils picked up on the familiar scent of my brother. The door to my bedroom wasn’t closed all the way, and I could hear him dropping his keys onto the table and taking off his shoes.

“Cal?” he called out.

I didn’t answer. I opened my mouth, but that only irritated my throat further, and I decided to just let him come to me. Sure enough, within seconds he was poking his head into my room. “Cal,” he said, his voice exasperated. “You are still in bed? Please tell me you haven’t been there all day.”

I lifted the blanket from my head and peeked out at him. “I think I’m sick,” I rasped out.

“I think you’re lazy. Since when do you get sick?” he asked, flipping on the light.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the brightness. “I’m not kidding, Nik. I feel like crap on toast.” I accentuated this with a small coughing fit that had Niko moving closer to my bed and sitting down on the edge. He brought his hand to rest on my forehead. It felt cold, and I leaned in to the touch. Niko frowned and pushed back my hair.

“You do feel warm…” he said reluctantly. “You look rather awful, too.” He drummed his fingers against his thigh. “I must say, this is unexpected. I can’t remember the last time you were sick.”

I nodded. “It’s cold.”

Niko stared at me for a moment. He seemed like he was unsure of what to do, which is something I’d rarely seen in him before. “Nik?”

He shook his head. “I’ll go find a thermometer, then. Do you want anything?”

“Water,” I said in a small voice. “Please,” I added, feeling truly pathetic.

The corner of Niko’s mouth turned upwards slightly and he ran a hand over my hair. “Sure. I’ll be right back.”

He left, and I curled myself back under the blanket, coughing a little. I let my eyes close, knowing I wouldn’t fall asleep, and waited for Nik to get back. When he did he was carrying a plate that held a thermometer, water, various pills, and a cup of tea. Or at least, I think it was tea. It probably was once upon a time before Niko added all sorts of weeds and dirt and grasshoppers to it. Maybe not grasshoppers, but still. It smelled awful. He handed me some of the pills—I didn’t bother asking what they were—and the water. I dutifully swallowed them, and allowed Niko to place the thermometer under my tongue.

“’oo know, thwey ‘ave disital oons now,” I said around the thermometer.

Niko glared a little and snatched it back. “What?”

“I said, ‘you know they have digital ones now’. Because they do. You just stick it in your ear and then it beeps and you’re done,” I said hoarsely.

“Unnecessary amenity,” he said. “Now we get to start all over.”

I held up a finger and gulped down some water before I let him put it back in my mouth. My throat was killing me. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the pillows. It really was cold, and I must have shivered, because Niko left and came back with the blanket from his bed and covered me with it. I smirked at this, because he was literally tucking me in, super ninja that he was.

Nik sat and stared at me for remaining two minutes that it took to be able to read my temperature, then removed the thermometer. Holding it up to read it, he frowned again.

“What’s it say?” I asked.

“That you have a fever.”

“Maybe I don’t. I could have a different ‘normal’ body temperature than you.”

“That’s a valid point. Moot, for the moment, since we don’t know, but we can find out later once you’re well again.”

I nodded, and he handed me the cup of tea. I made a face. “I don’t want to,” I stated.

Niko merely raised an eyebrow. I took the cup. “It’s good for you,” he said in what I’m sure he thought was an encouraging tone. Fighting off the urge to plug my nose, I took a drink. It tasted vile, but it actually soothed my throat a little, so I gagged the rest of it down.

“There’s a good boy,” Niko said.

I waved him off and settled back against the pillows.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked.

I shook my head and watched him get up. I guess he was going to leave me alone for a while. He left, and the room felt lonely. I barely had time to sigh, however, before he was back. Mythology book in hand, he sat down on my bed again. Situating himself against the foot of the bed and stretching his legs out to rest beside me, he opened the book.

“I think that this is an opportune time to learn, and I don’t think you should miss it,” he said. I groaned. He was trying to kill me. “Now, we’re going to start at the beginning, with the Greeks. With Chronos, the god of time.” Niko had taken on his teacher’s voice, and it was scaring me. “Chronos was the father of Zeus, along with several other children, but it was Zeus who really changed things around.” Niko droned on and on and on and on and on about Chronos eating his children and being imprisoned, etc. etc., and Zeus coming to power, etc. etc. He didn’t stop until he finished the chapter about Prometheus. By that time I was mostly asleep, which may or may not have been Nik’s original intention.

--

“Keep it down, Robin. Cal’s going to wake up,” I heard Niko say. I shook my head and sat up. I could hear Robin singing, and that was never ever a good sign. I really didn’t want to get up, but I needed to take a leak, so I suffered through the vertigo of standing, and made my way to the bathroom. I’d successfully managed to not attract any attention on my little voyage, but Promise caught sight of me as I made my way back to the room. I guess Nik was having a little party now that I was sick. Considerate.

“Cal’s awake,” she said pointedly. Niko and Robin both turned around to look at me and I gave a little wave.

“You should be in bed,” Niko said, and I rolled my eyes.

I tried to say that I was on my way there, but no sounds came out of my mouth. I cleared my throat and tried again, but the only result was a painful, scratching sound that might have passed for a whisper. I shrugged, took a disinterested sweep of the room, and turned around to go back to bed. I knew Niko was following me, but I didn’t even try to acknowledge him before falling onto the bed and burrowing under the blankets. Niko handed me a pad of paper and a pen. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

I gave him a look, then scrawled, ‘I can’t talk. How do you think I’m feeling?’

“Hm,” he said, looking at me like I was some kind of confounding science project. “Do you want tea to help with that?”

I shook my head miserably, suddenly losing all sarcastic feelings. I just wanted to feel better, and I would give up all sardonic tendencies if it would help me to achieve that. ‘Drugs?’ I wrote hopefully.

Niko considered me for a moment before grabbing the pills that he hadn’t given me earlier from the tray. He gave me three small red ones that seemed normal enough, and then a large yellowish one that smelled like…well, let’s just say it smelled like something that I would not want to put into my mouth. I did anyway, of course, because of Niko’s wrath stare and, well, my inability to verbally protest. The pill tasted just how it smelled, so that was just plain ecstasy on the taste buds.

“You want to eat something?” Niko asked.

I shook my head vehemently ‘no’, but Nik left anyway and I waited for him to return with a tray of whole grain toast that we have to keep in the freezer so that it doesn’t sprout, organic orange juice, and soy pudding. Damn it. Niko pulled the chair from my desk and scooted it close to the bed. “Don’t even think about feeding this to the dog,” he said, handing me the tray.

I couldn’t resist. ‘You mean Robin?’ I wrote, raising a halfhearted eyebrow.

I was rewarded by a subtle quirk of his lips and the tray being pushed into my small intestine. Point taken. I picked up a piece of bre…yeah, okay, I guess I’ll call it bread…a piece of bread and lifted it to my mouth. It tasted similar to the yellowish pill. I glanced up at my brother, who was still sitting there, watching me like some kind of bodyguard or pedophile. I tried to push the tray away a little, but Niko pushed it back relentlessly. “Eat,” he said. I picked up the pen and began to write, but Niko snatched it away from me before I could write any more less than wholesome comments. I glared at him, but it was half-hearted. I noticed that there was a new cup of tea on the tray, and I picked it up. Bracing myself, I took a sip, and was surprised. It wasn’t any of Niko’s freaky brewed weeds, but some kind of sweet tea with honey in it. It felt great on my throat and I tried talking again. “Thanks,” I said, my voice still a little raw, but at least it was a voice.

Niko nodded in satisfaction and pointedly pushed the tray towards me again. I didn’t want it. My head was pounding, and my stomach was starting to feel weird, like something was pulling at it. Nevertheless, I picked up the spoon and tried to eat the pudding. I knew Nik wasn’t going to leave until I’d eaten something. However, the more I ate, the more the pulling sensation at my stomach increased, and the more nauseous I felt. I wasn’t going to be able to keep this down. I made a vague gesture to Niko, which he somehow understood and he calmly passed me the trash can and removed the tray from my lap. The movement made it worse, and I vomited. A lot. When I was finished, I glanced weakly up at Niko, but he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking behind me. His face held a look of recognition and dread, and I was afraid to turn around.

“Cal,” he said softly, gently, as if talking to a scared child. “I need you to calm down, okay?”

Calm down? I was calm. Calm as a…clam. I was so calm I could be a friggin’ yogi. I did feel entirely too hot, though, and that realization brought a memory back that I had been all but praying to forget about. “Shit,” I said, even before I saw it. I could feel it in every pore of my body. I’d opened a gate.

I began to panic. “Nik,” I said urgently, meeting his eyes. “What do I do?”

Niko quickly moved onto the bed with me and placed a hand on my knee. “Cal, just trust me okay?”

I nodded without hesitation. I’d always trust Niko.

“Okay. Now look at me. Forget about everything else, and just focus on me, alright?” he said. “Good Cal, good.” Not once did he glance away from my face to check the portal. He just stared at me, imploring me silently to find the off switch. Trusting me to, because with Niko, trust is a two-way street. As soon as he’d asked me to trust him, he’d placed all of his own trust in me. He gave me a small smile. “Do you remember going to the park when we were kids?” he asked. I nodded stiffly, unable to relax. “Tell me what you remember,” he said.

My breathing was getting erratic. I knew that by now the door must have been bigger, and that any second now, I would be pulled in. Niko probably would too, since he was touching me, I thought irrationally. The park, I told myself. Think about the park. “Um,” I choked out in a slightly desperate tone, grasping for any memory involving a sandbox or swing set. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. “I—I can’t remember, Nik,” I said quickly, and rather hoarsely. It didn’t register that my throat was still pretty swollen until much later. My eyes were burning, and I was still panicking.

Niko grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Cal,” he said in an affectionate tone that he hadn’t used since I was a kid. That brought me back a little, and I took a deep breath.

“The monkey bars,” I said finally. “I couldn’t get all the way across. After the first four or so, I would always fall.”

“Right,” he said softly. “You kept falling and falling, and after a while, you refused to even try. You told me you didn’t want to get hurt anymore.”

The memory was becoming vivid now. I could see Niko putting a band-aid on my knee and telling me that someday, if I ate all my vegetables, I’d be able to make it all the way across. He was so manipulative when I was a kid. Always with the vegetables. I thought he would have given that up by now.

I was aware of my blood pressure lowering and heart pounding a little less, but I didn’t linger on that too long. Instead I continued talking. “I remember you finally convincing me to do it—”

“Yes, bribery was a big hit with you,” he said dryly.

I smiled a little. “Right. You told me I could have an ice cream or something. Anyway, once I decided to try, you came with me. You held on to my feet until I made it all the way across.”

Niko nodded and patted my hand. “Cal,” he whispered.

“What?”

“It’s over.”

“It’s gone?”

“Yeah. You did good, little brother.”

I was afraid to turn around and make sure, but I did it anyway, because knowing is always better than not knowing. It was gone. I let out a sigh of relief and coughed a little.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Nik, what the hell happened? Since when does a sore throat warrant an entry to Tumulus?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure. This was unexpected.” I rolled my eyes. He was still calm, completely unshaken.

Nik turned around to look behind him. “What do you think?”

I looked too. Robin and Promise were standing in the doorway, looking significantly more shaken than Niko. Promise recovered first. “I’ve never seen a… virus do something like that.”

“Assuming that it is a virus,” Robin said.

“If it’s not a virus, then what could it be?” she retorted.

“I highly doubt any kind of bacterial infection could cause this,” Niko said. “Nor a fungus, or any kind of food poisoning. Of course, we’re also assuming that the illness is linked to Cal’s…episode.”

I was beat, and I was tired of them talking about me and my virus as if I wasn’t there. “My ‘episode’?” I said, raising an eyebrow. I shook my head. “Whatever I do or don’t have, could you all discuss it somewhere other than my bedside? I think I’m due for a nap.”

“Of course, Cal,” Promise said. “Sleep well.”

“Sweet dreams,” Robin said, winking half-heartedly. With a last glance at me, they left.

I collapsed back on my pillow and let Niko rearrange my blankets. “So…” I said hesitantly. “What, uh, what do you think is…happening to me?” I asked him.

He glanced at me. “Nothing we can’t handle,” he said confidently. “Just sleep and get better, alright? We’ll discuss this when you wake up.”

“Okay,” I said, because I really was exhausted. I may not have carried the portal full term, but it was still taking a lot out of me. Niko nodded and turned to leave. On his way out, his hand found my foot and he gave it a little shake. I’ll help you make it all the way across, it said. He left, and I laid there, staring at the ceiling.

--

A weapon in every room. A weapon in every room. A weapon in every, goddamn room. Right? So where the hell is it? Why isn’t there anything, here, in my bedroom?

My heart is racing. I can hear their footsteps outside the door. They’ve been out there for almost a minute now. It’s been long enough for my adrenaline to all but shrink away to the fear that’s threatening to completely overtake my body.

I know they’re coming. They know I’m here, and they have to know that I know that they’re here.

I can hear the blood pulsing in my eardrum. I’m all too aware of the smallness, and thus, vulnerability, of my room. My first instinct when I heard them was to grab something, anything, to protect myself. Where’s the Glock? Where’s the knife Nik gave me last year? Nothing is where it should be, and I’m all too aware of the mess that is my room. Perhaps the gun is buried somewhere under that pile of clothes…? It would take too long to find it.

I’m doing my best to be utterly silent. I was standing, but I feel so lightheaded that I sit down on the bed. I have an inane desire to draw my knees up in front of myself like a small kid, but I don’t. Defenseless I am, but that doesn’t mean I should dwell on it. No, I should be resourceful and find something to—

The doorknob is turning. They’re here. They’re here and they’re coming for me, and I don’t know where Niko is, and this time, if they take me to Tumulus, I’m not coming back.

I have a second-long urge to throw myself under the bed or into the closet and hide, but I don’t do it. I dismiss the thought as quickly as it came, and I stand. The door opens. There, standing before me, is an Auphe. He’s huge, and that’s scary enough as it is, but it’s the deranged look in his eye that really makes me lose my shit. The Auphe coherent are brutal, unmerciful, and unreasonable, but they do have something inside of them that recognizes what they’re doing, and understands that it’s awful. This has never stopped any of them from doing what they came to do as far as I know, but knowing that your torturer is aware of what he is doing gives you some shred of hope. Knowing that your torturer has no idea what’s going on, and that he’s going by his deepest instincts—to ravage—gives you nothing but the darkest sense of despair.

I’m shaking. I, Cal Leandros, slayer of all things evil, am shaking at the sight of one paternal relative. Two paternal relatives. Three. Four. Five. Six. Shit.

They’ve entered the room now and are lining up in front of me to reiterate that there will be no escape. None. All I can do is stand there. I have nothing but a tube sock to defend myself, and no feasible means of getting the hell out of Dodge. So I stand there. I try not to look at their faces, because I know the expression they’ll be wearing. It’ll be one of malicious contempt, and it’ll be just for me. To be loathed that much, by that many beings, is in itself something to write home about.

I’m barefooted, and I feel something move over my toes. I jump. It begins to crawl up my sweat pant leg and I realize that it’s a spider. I can’t look down, but I know it is. I can feel its soft, hairy legs scuttling up my own and I want to die right then. I don’t mind spiders, but that doesn’t mean I want one slowly crawling up my calf and over my kneecap, onto my thigh. I want to close my eyes, or run, or, hell, get the spider off of my leg, but I can’t because I can see the Auphe slowly moving, as one, closer to me. I make a mistake and I meet the gaze of one of them. It can’t be described as anything but hungry. Bloodthirsty and voracious, that’s my family. It intends to eat my flesh, to desecrate me to the point of nothingness, for how I betrayed him. In literal senses, this could be my half-brother, my cousin, my uncle. I’m a traitor to him, and if nothing else, at least I’ll know that when I die.

I haven’t moved since I stood up, and I still don’t, even when the leader—the first Auphe to enter my bedroom—reaches out and strokes my face. His hand is ice, and it burns me like frostbite. His fingers trace my jawbone backwards, then move over my throat, resting finally on the back of my neck, where Niko’s hand has rested so many times before. I feel bile rise up in my throat, but I push it back down. I try to focus on anything other than the cool hand lingering on my neck. The spider, I remember. Where is the spider? As if in answer, I feel it move over my stomach. I have no idea how it got past the waistband of my sweatpants, but I don’t care. I’m grateful for its presence—something that’s not quite as evil as the thing caressing my neck. Finally, I shudder. It’s the first movement I’ve made yet, and it breaks the spell. The Auphe in front of me smiles and emits a deep, deep growling sound from the bottom of its throat. This is the ‘go’ signal. The others leap at me. I register the feeling of their teeth on my skin as I fall.

The leader’s face appears above my own and I can see into the back of his throat as he lowers his head to mine. His teeth close around my ear. I can hardly stand it as I feel the cartilage rip. He lifts his head again so I can watch as he chews it.

My eyes popped open as Niko’s yelling registered. Well, not yelling so much as using an inside voice very forcefully. “Cal!” he said again.

“What?” I asked, irritated. His hands were on my shoulders, and I could tell he’d been shaking me. It’s not a pleasant way to wake up, and I hadn’t been having an entirely pleasant dream, either. I shivered and tried to let the lingering memories fade away. I shrugged Niko off of me and stood.

“You’re doing it again,” he said simply, and I nearly groaned. I was too tired to deal with this right now. I turned, and let loose a string of curses that would have made Robin grin. The gateway that I’d inadvertently opened was almost big enough for an Auphe to pass through. I could have cried. My nightmare was coming true.

I turned back to Niko to see him pulling the sword from under my bed and holding it out to me.

I was in denial. I felt like I’d already gone through this whole ordeal with the Auphe, and I’d survived, and I’d like to just keep it that way for a while. “Come on, Nik,” I whined softly. “Can’t we stop it? Knock me out again, okay?”

Niko gave me a thoroughly confused look. I didn’t back down from a fight. Hell, sometimes I went out looking for them. But I didn’t ask for the easy way out, not from a fight. But Nik, being Nik, just shook his head and murmured, “It’s too late, little brother. We’re doing this.”

My body sagged and I accepted the sword. I wasn’t in the shape—mentally or physically—to successfully take on the Auphe. I knew I wasn’t. Niko understood, but he knew that not fighting was hardly an option. His hand grazed my back fleetingly to remind me that he was in top condition, and could make up for my weaknesses. I locked eyes with him for an instant, then turned to face my portal.

--

I was trembling. Truly trembling. I knew I had to lift my sword, defend myself, but moving forward was kind of out of the question. My arms weren’t cooperating with my brain, and the only comprehensible thought I could process was terror. The Auphe were the only thing that could invoke this kind of fear in me, and I had trouble even admitting that I was capable of being this scared, but I was. It was the blinding, dumbing, deafening fear that takes complete hold of your body so that all you can do is tremble. I knew they were coming towards me, and that they would be looking at me just as they had in the dream, so I didn’t look. I was staring straight ahead, seeing nothing, and all I could hear was the blood pounding in my eardrums. And then a hand landed on my shoulder. I jumped about three feet.

“Cal,” said a voice urgently. A body appeared in front of me, and my chin was lifted to face it. It was Niko, I realized a second later than I should have, and after another second I remembered that I wasn’t scared of him. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself, but they were still coming. Hell, they were already here, feet away from me. My gaze shifted over his shoulder and all I saw were Auphe. I frantically moved backward, backing away from them as fast as I could.

“Cal!” Niko said, his voice breaking through the haze. I jerked my head towards him, in time to see the hand that connected with my cheek a moment later. He’d slapped me hard enough to sting, but the pain helped clear my head, and I knew that was why he’d done it. I took another breath, focusing only on Nik, and I regained some of my judgment and thought processes.

“Sorry,” I said quickly.

“You’re alright?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now get it together,” he said softly. “You can do this.”

I nodded again, wide eyed, and readied myself. The Auphe were out of the portal and practically on top of us within seconds. I guess eons of existence helps you with the speed. Nik hasn’t been around nearly as long, but he wasted no time in swiftly removing two of their heads in quick succession. One, two, like clockwork. I plunged my own sword into one of their stomachs, then removed it and stuck it in its throat before moving on to the next one. We took out the first round pretty easily—we’d been practicing. A lot. However, the monsters were fast. Supernaturally fast. More darted from the portals and were instantly in front of me, staring me down with those red eyes. After a second or two, they decided they’d had enough looking and began to dive in. On me. Luckily, though, that second or two was more than enough for Nik to swoop in on them and he was hacking away before they got even one little bite of me. They seemed completely disinterested in my brother this time, though, and were fully focused on me. I was holding my own—for the moment. They were throwing themselves at me, on top of me, around me. Before long, they had encircled me. Nik was caught somewhere in the throng, taking out as many as he could, and that was a lot. But still, by all practical means, I knew that I should have been dead by now. I hardly had any room to swing the sword, and I was wishing for my Glock or the Eagle. Guns weren’t great at this close of range either, but they were easier to manipulate than a sword when you’ve got no elbow room. But the thing was, I wasn’t dead. There had been several opportunities for one of them to kill me already, and they hadn’t. I could attribute this to my superb fighting skills, but who was I kidding? The Auphe were a challenge even to the best of the best. So why was I still here? They were fighting, and were by no means going easy on me, but I couldn’t help but have the feeling that they had something other than immediate death in mind for me, and I’d seen enough to know that there were plenty of things worse than death.

I heard a gunshot, and I pivoted, shoving my knife through the throat of an Auphe as I went. My arm didn’t stop moving, but my eyes did when I found the source of the sound. It was Niko. He’d retrieved my Glock from the dresser somehow, and had moved a lot closer toward me than I’d realized. There was a pile of corpses surrounding him, enough to give him a few seconds before another Auphe could attack, and he used them to throw the gun to me. I’d taken down the few Auphe in front of me, and desperately threw up a hand to catch the gun. I could feel claws at my back, and I spun around once more, this time to meet one of my kin with a bullet to the face. I emptied the rest of the clip on the remaining Auphe, and I saw a few rip open a hole in the air and escape. I didn’t care. Let them go.

I scanned the floor of my room. It was littered with bodies, a few of which were still twitching. I stepped over the corpses on my way to the dresser and grabbed the extra clip, loaded it, and subsequently emptied it on the last few bastards that were still alive.

I turned around again and saw more portals opening and Auphe practically skipping out. They’d found us, and they’d found us vulnerable, and nothing makes an Auphe happier than that. There were about twelve of them coming toward us. I was scared, and fighting was almost the last thing I wanted to do right now. I still felt lousy, and I knew that I had sustained more than one wound in the last few minutes. My right shoulder was throbbing, I had a few slashes on my back, and I knew my ribs were bruised, but that was the worst of it so far.

Niko moved to stand beside me, and I was grateful. The Auphe were stalking slowly, tauntingly, toward us. As they had before, they formed a circle around us, closing us in. Nik brushed his shoulder against mine, then stepped behind me, so that the only thing we had our backs to was each other. Moving as one, we went forward a little and began the fight, thinking it better us be the ones to initiate it. These Auphe were not only slow, but stupid as well, it seemed. The first that I raised my sword to lifted its hands to block the blow, and lost a few fingers in the process. It gaped down at its hands, and I took the opportunity to remove its head from its body. It never saw what hit him. The two on either side of the slain one charged me, trying to knock me down. I staggered backward into Niko, who pushed back with his upper torso, never glancing back at me. I regained my balance and thrust my sword into the first one’s chest. Its neighbor had found a friend and they were both advancing on me, so I made haste in digging the sword in and to the left, breaking through the spinal cord. I don’t know if it was the softer bones of the Auphe or my terror-laced adrenaline that allowed me to do, but I did. The Auphe died and slumped down, my sword still in him. I wasn’t letting go though, and, ignoring the monster that was attempting to climb onto my back, I braced the body with my foot and removed the blade. The Auphe that was still standing raised its arms to make a swipe at me, but he’d barely grazed my neck before I stabbed him in the stomach. I detracted my sword faster this time, and he fell to the ground. I kicked his dying body as hard as I could to get it out of the way, and froze when I felt the creature on my back lay its hands around my neck. He was trying to choke me, I knew, or at least hold me still to bite me, but it was the revulsion I felt at having him touch me that gave me the motivation to pivot sharply, swinging his body from mine. He’d maintained the grip on my neck, and I felt blood being drawn from the claws he was digging into my flesh. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t care. I swung my sword up and cut partway through one of his arms. He released me, and I pushed my blade through his internal organs. It felt good. Cutting a hole in his midriff, I let him fall and moved on to the next one. I saw one behind Nik use its claws to make a slash down my brother’s back. I placed a roundhouse kick to his side, and he staggered away. I took off his head. Niko was taking on two at once, and the last one was readying itself to charge toward us. I met it head-on with my sword to its gut and I killed it. By the time I turned around again, Nik was done, and he was checking the surrounding bodies for any sign of life. I did the same, panting, but they were all dead.

I could feel Niko watching me, but I didn’t want to meet his gaze. I knew what his face would show, and I didn’t want to see it. Of course, he didn’t let me get away with this for long, and I could hear him moving the bodies aside with his foot to make a path to me. I looked at him, but just long enough to see him open his mouth. Before he could get any words out, however, he nudged my elbow and nodded at the single portal opening a few feet away from us. I let my body sag for a moment before bracing myself once more. This last Auphe was running even as he came out of the portal, and he was vicious. He had me down on the floor before I even had time to register that he had hit me. Niko swung his sword, but the Auphe shifted and only sustained a cut to the side. He ignored his wound and firmly clasped my ankle. I could see Niko swinging his sword faster than I ever could, but the Auphe made the minutest movements at the last possible instant and received only flesh wounds. He was exceptionally fast, and his body was soon a blur along with Nik’s sword. I was doing some swinging of my own, but I was even less successful than Niko. I barely managed to tap him with my sword, he was swinging his body back and forth so fast. Through it all, he never loosened his death grip on my foot. Blood was pulsing from his body, but he never flinched. He did, however, begin to open a door behind him, and I understood. They were going to bring me back to Tumulus, and deal with me there. And this Auphe was the martyr—the one sent as the last resort, to sacrifice himself in order to get me through the portal. Well, two can play at that game. I felt a pull at my stomach and began to open a gate of my own. The Auphe saw this and I could feel him begin to drag me toward his gate. I saw Niko raise his sword over his head and bring it down with such a force that no matter where it hit the monster, it would slice right through him, and it did. It hit him on his ribcage, and I could hear the bones breaking. The sword passed through him, leaving a gaping hole in his side. The Auphe’s only reaction was to make a sound between a growl and a hiss, and to abruptly bite me on the opposite leg of what he was holding. I cried out, partly from the surprise, and partly from the pain. His teeth went through my jeans and into my flesh, effectively peeling a layer of my skin off. And with that, I lost all self-control and dignity and I began to do everything I could to get him off of me. I kicked, and stabbed, and hit, and all but tried to crawl away. I was panicking. I registered vaguely that I shouldn’t have had the energy to do this, but adrenaline was flowing through me, and I embraced it. Bucking and writhing, that was how the Auphe was going to take me. He resumed dragging me, ignoring the blood that was now flowing liberally from his body.

“Die, damn it,” Nik gritted out, plunging his sword into the wounded monster’s body for the thousandth time. And it was dying, slowly, but it was obvious that it didn’t care. Getting revenge on me for betraying them, just like in my dream, was the only thing the Auphe were after.

This particular Auphe was now partially inside the gateway, bringing my foot with him. I heard the clatter of a sword being thrown down, and I saw Niko drop to his hands and knees beside me. He tucked his arms beneath mine and locked them there, wary of the gate behind me. He wasn’t letting me go alone. The Auphe glanced back at me, and saw what Niko was doing. And thus, a terrifying game of tug of war ensued. The Auphe gave a yank, and my feet brushed against the piercing blades of grass that filled Tumulus. With that touch, I remembered. Not all, but enough. I knew that going back there was worse than Hell, worse than dying. Desperation flowed through me, and landed a kick to the bastard’s head that made him loosen his grip enough for Nik to yank me away and through my own portal. It only went to the kitchen, but that was enough. We landed on the floor near the sink, and Niko promptly dragged himself up and vomited into it. That had been the first time he’d traveled through a portal, and he apparently didn’t take to it. He finished quickly, though, and looked down at me. I hadn’t bothered with moving. He must have been satisfied with my condition for the moment, because he began to move out of the kitchen, back to my bedroom. He picked up one of my guns that I’d left laying on the table as he passed it, and continued out of the room. The portal must have really taken something out of him though, because he was walking considerably slower than usual, and with a hand subtly resting on his stomach. He returned less than a minute later with my gun tucked into his pants. That told me that the Auphe had been gone, back to Tumulus, and that for now, the coast was clear.

“Can you stand?” he asked.

“Yeah…” I said from my back on the floor. I couldn’t even begin to deal with what had just happened. I would need help with that, and that was what Nik was for. He reached down a hand and it grasped my good arm. I let him pull me up, putting most of my weight on my right side because my left thigh was still bleeding where the last Auphe had taken a bite. Niko placed a hand on my left shoulder, sighed, then pulled me toward him. He was careful of my injuries as he hugged me, and I was careful of his as I hugged him back. I would never admit it, but I’d needed that hug more than anything right then.

“You scared me,” he admitted softly. I let my forehead rest on my brother’s shoulder as I felt a shudder go through me. Nik squeezed me tighter, then let go. I lifted my eyes to his and he shook his head sorrowfully. He took a breath to regain his composure and glanced around. “I’m not precisely sure how their communication works, but my best guess is that they now we’re here. We need to go…”

“Okay,” I said. I still had my blade and he had his katana and my gun. It was enough. I slung an arm around Nik’s shoulder and let him help me out of the apartment. He closed the door behind us and we hobbled together down the stairs. Nik got his cell phone out and dialed Robin’s number.

“Robin?” he said. “We need to stay at your place. Can you pick us up a few blocks from our apartment?” Robin must have answered to the affirmative because Niko thanked him and hung up. I knew he was sweeping the building with his eyes as we were leaving it, but we were putting more effort into haste than being 100 sure we were alone. I nearly slipped on the last stair as my knee buckled, and Niko wrapped his arm around my torso to brace me.

“Alright?” he asked.

“Mm,” I grunted. I was hurt worse than I had been in a while, but I was alright for a while. I couldn’t be truly sick and hurt until we had a safe place in which to be that way.

We stayed in the shadows as we moved quickly along the street lamp-lit sidewalk of New York City, and I hoped to God that no one would get the bright idea to try to mug us. Now was not the time.

Niko had us moving sporadically down the street, going in and out of the stores and bars that lined it, desperately hoping that if something was following us, it would be enough. I was sagging, and Nik was practically dragging me along. I don’t know how he had the strength to do so because he was hurt pretty badly too. Eventually, I gave in to my body just stopped walking.

“Cal?” he asked, turning to look at me.

“I…” I shook my head. It was embarrassing, but I really couldn’t go any further.

Nik got it, though, and he reluctantly sat us down at a nearby bench to wait for Robin. I knew it was about 60 miles to Chelsea, give or take, but I also knew that Robin would probably be breaking a few traffic laws getting here. Niko was tense, and completely on alert, aware of everything that moved around us. I tried to do the same, but, damn, I could barely keep my eyes open. The adrenaline was pretty much gone, and I was feeling everything now. Robin better hurry, I thought, or he’ll be dragging our lack bodies to his car.

--

Robin had eventually arrived, and I remember getting into his car, but not much after that until we got to the apartment. I guess the exhaustion had pretty well kicked in by that point, and the lulling car drive hadn’t done much to keep me awake. As soon as we stopped though, I jerked to consciousness, and we walked solemnly to Robin’s apartment. I felt numb, and several times, in the few feet from the curb to the door, Nik had to help steer me in the right direction. The amount of blood that I’d lost tonight wasn’t helping either, and I was aware of blood trickling not only from my shoulder, but also from my thigh, my neck, and my back. I kept veering off the path because I was doing my best to simply walk in a straight line. Unfortunately, Robin’s apartment isn’t directly across from where we parked. I felt Nik’s hand touch my shoulder again, and I flinched slightly. Seeing the Auphe always put this ice-cold terror in me, and I was paranoid about everything. Nik knew that, though, and made sure to stick close to me.

When we finally got to the door, Robin let us in, made an offhand comment about the mess, and instructed us to sit at the kitchen table while he left the room to fetch a first aid kit. I appreciated that he hadn’t asked what had happened—he knew it wasn’t important just yet.

I let myself slump into the nearest chair and buried my face in my hands. I didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to feel, because I knew that if I did, I would feel the grass of Tumulus again, grazing its ultra green blades against my ankle. I didn’t even try to hold back the shudder that passed through me. The harder I tried not to remember, the more vivid the memory became.

“How are you doing?” Niko asked in a low tone.

I heard him, but the words didn’t register. All I could feel was the grass, the damned grass. It was all I could think about.

“Cal,” Niko said softly, lowering himself in front of my chair. His hands wrapped around mine and he pried them from my face. He gave my hands a light squeeze before letting go and lifting my chin up, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were full of empathy, and mine were full of defeat. “Are you in there, little brother?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and focused desperately on Nik. Nik, my brother. Nik, who had pulled me away from the grass, away from Tumulus. Slowly, I nodded.

“I’m okay,” I said hoarsely, my throat raw.

Niko opened his mouth to say something, but we could hear Robin’s footsteps in the hall. He briefly laid a hand on my cheek, then said, “We can talk later.”

“Well,” Robin said, re-entering the room. “Who wants to go first?”

Niko inclined his head toward me, and Robin gave me a once-over. “Yes…let’s start with your arm. Oh, but first—a surprise.” He moved toward a very large cabinet, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of amber liquid. “I don’t have any anesthetics, so this will have to do. I hope you’re not too disappointed.” Alcohol. Perhaps that would bring back the numbness. With a quick glance to Nik, whose face remained neutral, I accepted the glass Goodfellow was holding out to me and drained it in one swallow. It was strong, and the kick woke me up a little, breaking through the haze. I gathered my bearings, and let out a breath. Robin waited a few minutes before starting to let the liquid’s numbing properties settle in, and laid out everything he though he would need. He had gauze, scissors, surgical thread, needles, creams, pills, rubbing alcohol, real alcohol, and cotton swabs. All in all, it wasn’t a particularly comforting spread. Apparently satisfied with the amount of time that had passed, he turned toward me. I went stiff as he applied a warm washcloth to my shoulder, trying to clean away some of the dried blood. I’d gotten used to being around the puck, but having him dress my wounds? Not so much. The washcloth, however expensive it was, was still rough, and it still hurt the tender skin around the hole in my shoulder. I held my hand out for another pull of the whiskey, ignoring Niko’s low grunt of disapproval. He’d accepted it the first time, because he knew it would wake me up, but now that it was just to make the process more comfortable, he’d rather I didn’t. Robin, however, was the one who had to clean up the wounds, and apparently wanted his patient subdued. Still, though, he didn’t dismiss Niko entirely. He poured me a smaller amount this time, and ignored my requests for thirds. He went back to work, and after he’d cleared away as much of the blood from the open wound as he could, he muttered an apology under his breath and ripped away the part of my shirt that was stuck to my skin. This caused the already weeping wound to bleed fresh, and I hissed at the pain. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth while he poured peroxide over it. It felt like it was on fire, but the whiskey helped a little.

It was killing Niko, I knew, to have to just sit there and watch as someone incurred pain on me. Usually when he was the one sewing me up he found some consolation in knowing he was in control, and that he could tell if the pain was getting too bad for me to take. But he was as bone-tired and hurt as I was, and I knew he didn’t trust himself to do as a good a job as Robin could right now. So instead, he moved his seat directly behind me, so that he could rest his chin on the back of my chair. Having Nik so close kept me calm, and I was able to sit through all of Robin’s ministrations on my shoulder without a word. Goodfellow taped a piece of gauze over the wound to keep it protected, then pulled up a chair to sit facing me. “Let me take a look at your neck,” he said, squirting a liquid sanitizer onto his hand. I extended my neck so that my head could rest beside Nik’s on the back of my chair. I gave him a sidelong glance, and he held my gaze. The look in his eyes surprised me—he was worried. Or scared. I would bet on worried though, since it was Nik and all. Still, that he wasn’t covering it up told me that what had happened tonight had had just as profound an effect on him as it had had on me. I knew that that was his fear—me being taken back to Tumulus—and that he’d almost seen it happen had to have screwed him up a little. Or, looking at his face, a lot. I curled up one side of my mouth a little, trying to convey that I was okay, but I’m not sure that it came out as anything more than a grimace.

My focus shifted to Robin when he began to dab peroxide onto the bite marks on my neck. This burned as well, and was hard to ignore.

“These are not so bad,” Robin commented. “Not deep at all.”

I snorted halfheartedly. “Yeah?” I brought my head back down to its normal position.

“Yeah,” Robin assured. “So…what else? Are you hurt anywhere else besides your thigh?”

“He has cuts down his back, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some ribs bruised or cracked,” Niko answered for me.

Robin was still dabbing that damn peroxide into the cuts, and no matter how “not so bad” they were, it hurt like hell. I think it was because the Auphe’s claws tend to scrape, instead of cut, so it shreds your skin along with piercing it. This not only irritates the perforated flesh, but all of the surrounding skin as well. I wanted to just peel off the whole layer and be done with it, but no, the cuts were “not so bad”, and Robin wasn’t even bandaging them. He just kept at it with the peroxide.

“They’re fine,” I gritted out. My levels of frustration were rising with each damned dab, and my nerves were on edge. I was ready for Robin to leave me and my wounds alone, thank you very much.

“Just let him check it out, Cal,” Niko said in a voice that very quietly demanded patience from me. I ignored it.

“I’m not undressing for you, Goodfellow,” I said without humor.

“Did I ask you to?” he snapped back, sensing my mood change. I glared. He could get all pissy if he wanted, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit back and play the perfect patient to his Florence Nightingale.

“It’s fine,” Nik said, sighing and sitting up straight. I knew he just wanted to avoid a fight, but I still appreciated that he was letting it go. “I can do it.”

However irritated and tired I was, I still felt kind of bad about Niko having to fix me up. But that still didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t taking off my clothes in front of Robin. I sighed too. “Let him fix your boo-boos first, Nik,” I said.

“I’m fine,” Niko said.

Robin gave him a look, as did I. “Those slices down your own back need to be looked at as well,” Robin said.

Niko shook his head. “Merely flesh wounds.”

“He doesn’t want to take his clothes off for you either, Loman,” I quipped tiredly.

Robin shot me a sour look, but Niko, the eternal peacekeeper, tactfully cut him off before he could retort. “Could you just give us a moment, Robin? Cal and I need to discuss some things anyway.”

Robin, dramatic as ever, threw the gauze into the air before leaving the room. “Fine. Since it seems you only wish to undress for each other, I’ll take my leave.”

Once we were alone, Niko stood. “You know,” I said, stifling a yawn, “you really do need to get your back cleaned up.”

“But for you to do that would require excessive movement of your arm, and I wouldn’t want for you to desecrate Robin’s handiwork with your bandages.”

“Slapping a few band aids on you isn’t going to require ‘excessive’ movement,” I countered.

“I appreciate the concern, but my injuries are minor. It’s your thigh that I’m worried about. Heaven knows where that thing’s mouth has been.”

With all of the tension that had been building up that night, I was due to snap at any time now, and Niko’s refusing help was just frustrating me further. “Christ, Niko. Stop being so damn altruistic. It’s annoying.”

He raised an eyebrow and gave me a strange look.

“What?” I snapped.

“You never call me Niko.”

What…? “It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you don’t call me by it. I can’t remember the last time you used it.”

I thought about it. I guess I did usually call him ‘Nik’ or ‘Cyrano’. I shrugged indifferently. “So?”

“So nothing. It was merely an observation,” he said as he used a pair of scissors to cut away what was left of my shirt. The Auphe had ripped it up in the back pretty badly.

“I like nicknames,” I said defensively.

“Yes, I know.”

“Well it’s not like you call me by my real name either,” I said, then almost immediately regretted it. I’d been broken of the ‘Caliban’ habit years ago, and I really hadn’t meant to bring it up again. Nik had worked hard to rid me of the fixation, and he would be disappointed if he thought he had failed.

“That’s true,” he said with carefully measured words. I remained silent as he cleaned the wounds. ‘Caliban’ meant monster, and we’d seen enough of those for tonight. I was sorry I’d mentioned it.

Niko finished up, but didn’t bandage my back just yet, probably to avoid irritation to the cuts. He threw away the used gauze and pulled out a sutures kit from Robin’s first-aid box. Finally, he took a seat in front of me. His eyes were gentle, and he gave me a knowing look. I glanced away, and he looked down at the bite on my leg. My jeans, although stained with blood, were salvageable. The hole was small enough that it didn’t warrant being thrown away. Fingering the fabric, Niko seemed to agree. “I think cutting these up would be a waste, don’t you? They’ll be fine again once they’re washed and mended.” He quirked an eyebrow. “Plus, I’m not buying you a new pair unless I have to.”

I took the subtle offer to lighten the moment. “Cheapskate. You planning on sewing up this shirt, too?”

“I think that that would exceed my skills as a housewife. Wouldn’t you say?”

I mocked horror and felt most of the tension fade away. Whether that was from the whiskey or Niko, I wasn’t sure. “Exceed your skills? Never. You’re a regular Donna Reed.”

“Cute,” he said with a faint roll of his eyes. “Take off your jeans. I need to see how bad this is.”

Nik scooted his chair back and I hoisted myself out of mine. I quickly undid my jeans, and painfully worked them off. I sank back down into the chair and let Nik peer at the bright red, slightly oozing, wound. The Auphe had taken a small piece of my flesh with him, and had left behind countless germs in his saliva.

“Hmm…” Nik said in his best doctor impression. “If it isn’t already, it’s going to become infected. What do you think the odds are that Robin has anti-Grendel ointment?”

“Grendel,” I said, rolling the word around in my mouth. We’d been using the proper name for the Auphe for some time, and so our childhood pseudonym seemed almost nostalgic now. It was better when we only knew the “Grendels” from afar. I sure could have done without our recent up close and personal meeting.

Niko gave me a small, sad smile. “Names are funny things, huh?”

I shifted uncomfortably and nodded. Nik didn’t say anything else about it. He did, however, find a satisfactory tube of ointment and began to apply it to my leg. Having his fingers probe around the area hurt—a lot. I let out a low moan at the pain, and he automatically let up some of the pressure he’d been applying. “So,” he said quietly, screwing the lid onto the tube. “What happened tonight? When I came in, you were tossing around and the gate was already nearly big enough for the Auphe to come through. Do you remember anything before then?” He opened the suture kit and threaded the needle, and I knew that he was asking me about this now to try to distract me. I hated stitches. And I knew I’d have to tell him anyway, so, averting my eyes from the needle, I began.

“Well…I was having a nightmare.”

“A nightmare?” he asked, beginning the first stitch. “What was it about?”

“The…Auphe,” I said. Two stitches down. If nothing, Niko was quick. “They…came into my room and…tried to eat me.”

Niko finished the last three stitches in quick succession, then tied off the thread before looking up at me. “So…something must have triggered a strong emotion, and that caused you to…subconsciously create a door,” he said, stating it in a way that it could be taken as a sentence or a question.

“I guess,” I said, shifting awkwardly. “Then we had a little family reunion, and that’s that. Case closed.”

Niko gave me a look. “Cal. I saw you. I know how the Auphe affect you. You’re afraid of them, and you have every right to be,” he said, continuing gently, “And now, you just had an experience with them in which they came into your bedroom, and—”

“Okay!” I said quickly. “I get your point. I remember. I was there.”

“And you’re repressing everything that happened.”

“Well, Nik, maybe I’m saving up stuff to tell Oprah.”

He gave me that look again. I caved. “Look, yes, our visit with the ‘Grendels’ freaked me out a little. Maybe a lot. But I’ve opened two doorways tonight, and been through hell—and so have you—so could we maybe finish this later?”

Nik sighed. “Alright.” Before he stood, though, he placed a hand on the back of my neck. I managed to repress the shudder at the memory from the dream of the Auphe doing the same thing, and I met his gaze. He looked worried again. “When I saw you being pulled back into there…” he shook his head. “I don’t know if I can do that again,” he murmured.

Yeah. It had scared the crap out of me too. I looped a hand over his wrist and squeezed. “I’m okay, big brother,” I lied.

After Niko finally let me clean up his back and the other odd scratches he’d gotten, he ventured out to find some clothes for us. I would’ve helped, but…I was in my underwear, and nothing else. I’d thought about putting my jeans back on, but the scratchy denim would not have been a pleasant thing going over the bite. So I didn’t. Turns out Robin wasn’t there, though. Nik had returned a few minutes later with expensive-looking jogging pants for the both of us, and a note from Robin saying that he would be back later. I shrugged and changed into the pants, then began to gravitate toward the couch. Nik stopped me though, with a hand on my shoulder.

“Robin has two open bedrooms,” he pointed out.

I changed directions and made my way to the ‘guestroom’. Nik could take his chances and sleep in Goodfellow’s bed if he wanted, but I wasn’t that brave. Maybe Niko wasn’t either, though, because he was following me into the spare room. We did a quick sweep of the room, just to be sure, and then I climbed into the bed. Niko didn’t move. I gave him a questioning look.

“I’ll take first watch,” he said.

“Okay. Wake me in four hours.”

Niko nodded, turned out the light, and then made himself comfortable in the plush armchair that was in the corner of the room.

“What are you doing?” I asked in the dark.

“Keeping watch,” he said slowly, as if I was moronic.

“Over me?”

A pause, then, quietly, “yes.”

“Oh.” I was surprised, but infinitely relieved. I had not been looking forward to being alone in the dark bedroom. I was afraid of my own dreams, and what could happen to me if I had one. I didn’t want a repeat of what had just happened, so I’d been planning on staying awake. “Nik?”

“Hmm?”

“If I…you know… Stop me, okay? I don’t care what you do, but just stop it. I don’t want them getting to us again.”

“I will,” he said with enough certainty that I believed him. Believed him, yes, and trusted him, but I still wasn’t going to sleep any time soon. I stared up at the ceiling for a while, unwillingly replaying the night’s events.

After a while, Nik spoke up. “You can go to sleep, Cal. I’m staying right here.”

Yeah, Nik was one of the good ones. He was willing to sit up all night with his twenty-year-old brother who was afraid to go to sleep, and I knew he wouldn’t give me any crap about it. “Thanks,” I said, meaning it. “But I don’t think I’m gonna be able to.”

“I never thought I’d see the day,” he said dryly.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position and turned on the lamp Goodfellow had on the bedside table. “This is pointless.”

“You could at least rest,” Niko said in a motherly kind of way.

I rolled my eyes, but stayed in bed. We heard sounds coming from the living room a few minutes later, and Nik was up in an instant. “It’s only Robin,” I said, smelling him. Niko still walked cautiously from the room, returning a few seconds later with Robin at his side. The puck had a bag on his back, which he set on the floor as he entered the room. “Well aren’t we all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed? Caliban, you are aware that it’s not yet noon, right?”

“Huh. Yeah, I was wondering why it was so dark,” I said derisively.

“Different hour, same sunny disposition,” he said, perching himself on the end of the bed.

I kicked the blankets off of me. “Don’t you have AC, Robin? It’s burning up in here,” I complained, starting to sweat a little.

Robin raised an eyebrow, sitting comfortably in a thick turtle neck sweater and pants. Apparently he wasn’t hot.

Niko glanced at me, eyes narrowed. “I keep forgetting that you’re sick,” he muttered, “and I still don’t understand how you caught this in the first place. You don’t exactly go calling on many people, and none of us are sick.” It was bugging him that I’d gotten sick under his watch, and that he had no idea how. That in itself almost made it worth it. He placed the back of his hand on my forehead. “I think you probably have a fever. But whether that’s from your virus or your bite, I don’t know.”

I shrugged and scooted over so that he could sit beside me. He relaxed a miniscule amount, leaning his head back onto the pillows. I understood. Robin was here now, and he could head off the fight if need be.

“So. Anyone care to fill me in on what happened tonight?” Robin asked, eyebrows raised in expectation.

I gave Nik a small nod, and let him tell the story. I’d lived it, and that was enough for now. Plus, after everything had settled down, my body fully remembered every miserable fiber, and my nerves concentrated on those fibers. I would normally just let myself fall asleep, but the chance that I might have another dream like that stopped me. Instead, I just listened to Nik’s voice, and rested my head on the pillow.

“So basically, the sickness made Cal less able to control the doorways, and more susceptible to feelings that might cause them…and since he had accidentally formed a few that led to Tumulus, the Auphe figured out where you were and came to pay a visit?” Robin summed up after Nik had finished.

“That’s my theory,” Nik said.

“Interesting. And I’m so glad that you felt the risk to my home was worth it and called me instead of, oh, I don’t know, your vampire girlfriend.”

“You’re always first on our minds, Robin,” I said wryly.

“As much as that warms me, and as much as I enjoy your company, I’m going to bed. Unlike some people, I have a job that I have to get to in the morning,” he said with a pompous air to his words.

“Night night,” I said

“Robin?” Niko called after him as he was leaving. The puck stopped and turned.

“Yes?”

“What’s in the bag?” Nik asked.

Robin waggled his eyebrows. “Look and see.” And with that, he left.

--

Surprisingly, what Robin had put in the bag wasn’t anything dirty. It was actually kind of a nice thing. He’d gone to our apartment, apparently, and salvaged some stuff. Nik’s clothes, the Desert Eagle, a few other weapons, and that stupid sweatshirt of mine that I’d worn when he’d tried to hypnotize me. It meant something though, that Robin had gone out to do this. It was that whole friendship thing again. I mean, it was pretty dangerous for him to go over there, and he was damn lucky that the cops hadn’t been there with all the noise we’d caused, and even luckier that the Auphe hadn’t been waiting around. He really was an idiot for having gone in the first place, though. Lucky, stupid, whatever.

We were grateful, though, and Niko showed that gratitude by not commenting on the fact that all of his underwear was at the very top of the bag. I complained a little about the sweatshirt being the only article of clothing of mine that Robin had saved, but Nik had dismissed that, saying it was for the best. He’d never liked my wardrobe.

Nik had stayed with me for about an hour until I finally convinced him that I wasn’t going to sleep any time soon. He left only after assuring me that he’d be in the next room, “discussing grown-up things with Robin”.

So I’d laid here, my nerves tenser than ever, and my mind on high alert. No matter how much I wished it was, sleep was just not an option. I’d take this mucus river of a cold any day over the possibility of a repeat of the Auphe’s visit. Hell, I’d stay this sick and hurt for the rest of my life—and my longevity is still quite undetermined—if it meant never having to see a demonic white face crawling out of a rip in space to come see me. And you know what else? I’d become a vegetarian. That’s how much I would sacrifice to be rid of the Auphe. But seeing as how that’s a little far-fetched of an idea, I damn sure wasn’t going to sleep any time soon.

Of course, Nik had other plans. When he’d come back into the room to check on me, he’d been annoyed that I wasn’t asleep yet. He was now demanding that I close my eyes and try, as if I was a three year old, and I was flipping him off. Well, not literally, but I wasn’t complying with him, and that may as well have been the same thing.

“Cal,” he growled menacingly. Now, my name is one syllable long, but when Niko says it like he just did, he might as well have been saying the full first-middle-last combo. I really wasn’t sure why he was being so adamant about this—usually he was growling at me to wake up, not fall asleep. Except that was a lie—I did know why he was insisting on this. He was being his usual 70 year old grandma self, worrying about me more than what was natural, and since I was sick and bandaged, everything he knew was telling him that there would be hell to pay later if I didn’t rest. Which, you know, was true, but I’d live with getting sicker if resting meant dreaming, which it probably did.

“No, Nik,” I repeated for the third time. “Look, I don’t even feel tired,” I said, getting out of bed and standing up.

However, as soon as I stood I went back down again. The floor came up to meet me before I could even register that I was falling. The sudden movement had angered my stomach and it was roiling around all over the damn place. This was not going to be good.

Niko was at my side almost before I hit the floor. I slowly rolled over to look up at him, and even through his mask of stoicism, I could tell he was concerned. He held out a hand and pulled me into a sitting position, causing me to promptly puke all over him. I felt like shit, and managed to turn away from Nik before the second round of heaving hit. Surely this excavation of my internal organs was going to leave a stain on Goodfellow’s carpet, but I didn’t care. Once I had completely emptied my stomach, the heaving mostly stopped. I took a shaky breath and slowly turned my head away from the mess. I looked at Niko who had his hand on my back, and I grimaced. I’d gotten sick all over his shirt. “Sorry,” I said sincerely, if not hoarsely.

“It’s fine. Go back to bed and go to sleep. I’ll clean this up.”

I shot him an apologetic look which he ignored, and he helped me back onto the bed. “This sucks,” I moaned, lying on top of the blankets. I felt like I was burning up—a feeling I wasn’t particularly accustomed to.

Niko slipped off the dirty shirt and placed it in a laundry hamper. He also fished out a rag and cleaned up the carpet. When he was finished he washed his hands and found a clean shirt to put on. “Do you need anything?” he asked, walking over to me.

I shrugged, feeling like crap but not wanting to sound pathetic.

“Hmm,” Niko murmured, placing a hand on my forehead. “Cal, you feel really hot.”

I shrugged again. “I think that comes with the territory.”

“I’ll get you some aspirin.” I watched him walk into the adjoining bathroom and I could hear him opening up cabinets and pulling out a bottle of pills. He came back and handed me two of them before giving me a very pointed look. “You need to sleep. It’s been a long night.”

I melted into the mattress. I felt miserable, and terrified, and exhausted. Nik tempting me with the idea of sleep was sadistic of him because he knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold out long. Sleeping was pretty much my favorite thing to do. But…still. The terror was outweighing the sleepiness priority-wise.

I shook my head. “I can’t.”

Nik pierced me with a glare, and I shrunk down under his gaze. I didn’t have it in me to be sarcastic or obnoxious, so I just slid down further. Nik must have sensed some of my pathetic-ness because his eyes softened a little. He sat down on the edge of my bed. “What’s going on Cal?”

I looked away from him, feeling my cheeks begin to heat up in embarrassment and not wanting him to be able to see my eyes because in just that small action, Niko would be able to conclude a lot more than I really cared for him to.

“Cal?” he asked softly, raising his fingers to lift my chin up. I jerked my face away and shook my head.

“It’s nothing Nik. I just don’t feel like sleeping, okay?”

“But it’s past your bedtime,” he said, half-heartedly making an attempt at humor.

I tried to smile, but all my thoughts were filled with monsters, and there was nothing funny about that.

Niko sighed. “Listen to me, Cal. The Auphe are gone for tonight. Robin went back to the apartment, as you know, and nothing happened.”

I glanced warily up at him, and when our eyes met, his posture changed, just like I’d known it would. His eyes softened the rest of the way, but none of his determination was lost.

Mine was though. I gave up trying to hide it. “I just…we thought they were gone, remember? And then they came back, but they left us alone for the most part. I wasn’t ready for what happened,” I admitted. “I let my goddamned guard down, and they sent a fucking army to my bedroom. And I’m sick. Do you think they had something to do with that? I mean, I don’t know how they could, but I don’t know how they do half the things that they do.” My words were coming fast and half frantic, and now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. “The bastards are invincible, aren’t they? We’re never going to be able to beat them. We blew them up, damn it, and they came back. Niko they came back,” I said urgently. “They weren’t supposed—I thought—” my voice caught. “They just weren’t supposed to come back,” I managed. I was breathing fast—too fast—and the panicked feeling was coming back. I was struck by the horrifying thought that I was expressing all the signs of someone who’s about to cry. I mean, I wasn’t going to cry—I couldn’t—but it looked like I was about to. Having a panic attack was something that I might do, but crying was not. Not here, not in front of Nik.

At least, I hope not.

He could tell how was close to veering off the edge, though, even if I didn’t start up the waterworks. “Sit up,” he murmured, and I did, and he scooted over so that he was sitting in front of me. We were both sitting cross-legged, and he placed a steadying hand on each of my knees. “Take a deep breath,” he suggested, and I did that too. At this point I’d pretty much do anything that he told me to except go to sleep. The burning in my eyes went away a little with the new oxygen, and I focused on calming down. “Now,” he said once I’d gotten my breathing a little bit under control, “I’m a little confused. All of that happened months ago. I know that you thought the Auphe were gone—we both did—and they did come back, but I thought you were okay.”

“I mostly was,” I said, “but then…”

Niko nodded. “They aren’t invincible, Cal. Hear me when I say that, because they aren’t. Someday we’ll win, I promise you.”

I looked up at that. Niko didn’t make promises very often. I gave a small nod.

“And no, I do not think that the Auphe had anything to do with you getting sick. I think that you eating two chili cheese dogs a day had something to do with you getting sick, and nothing else. Understand?”

I gave another nod.

“Good. Now tell me why those things add up to you not being physically capable of going to sleep.”

That was Nik, through and through. Address every issue I had, fix them, and still have time to get back to the real subject at hand. “If I fall asleep,” I began quietly, “then I’ll dream about them. And if I dream about them, then I’ll open a portal again, and they’ll be back.”

Nik placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “I promise that that won’t happen.”

He was just full of promises tonight. He said it with so much authority though, as if he actually had the power to control what I dreamed about, that I gave in and believed him.

“Okay,” I said tiredly. “Fine. You win.”

His lips quirked upwards. “I always win.”

Niko moved to the end of the bed and stretched his legs out on the left side. I shook my head. We’d tried this once before, and it hadn’t worked out. “It’s okay, Nik. You don’t have to.”

“I know,” he said and didn’t move. “But I’m going to stay here until you fall asleep and have slept at least eight full hours. You can’t get rid of me this time.” He accented this with a sharp stab to my knee, and the familiarity of the action made me feel infinitely better.

I threw a pillow in his general direction, which he caught and placed behind himself. I stayed above the blankets because I was still hot, but I relaxed, and even closed my eyes. The images of the Auphe that had previously been burned into the inside of my eyelids were mostly gone, and they disappeared completely when Niko spoke again. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you Cal,” he said in a last attempt at reassurance. It worked, corny as it was, because I knew that even thought he was hurt, my brother would still be able to take on almost anything. And with that thought, I finally gave in completely and fell asleep.

--

I woke up several times during the night, jumping at every little noise that I heard or dreamed or imagined. Niko was still there though, every time, and I was convinced that he awoke every time that I did. If whatever I had heard freaked me out more than something causing my eyes to briefly fly open then I could feel Nik’s hand come to rest on my leg to remind me that he was still there and to go back to sleep. I don’t know how many times that happened, but we’ll just say that it was more than two. Nik never complained though, or said anything, for that matter, and with him nearby I was able to get a decent night’s sleep.

When I woke up for good, however, Niko was gone, and Promise had come to take his place. She was gracefully perched on a plush armchair that decorated Goodfellow’s elaborate guest room, watching me.

“Hey,” I said, my voice cracking and straining my throat. I coughed a few times and Promise politely waited until I was done to speak.

“Good morning,” she greeted. “Niko wanted to me to tell you that he wished he could have stayed, but he had class.”

“Teaching class or learning class?” I asked, frowning at the pre-pubescent pitch my voice had taken on.

“He’s teaching a class at the dojo. Kata, I believe.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll probably need the extra dough since we’re going to have to get a new apartment now,” I commented.

“Yes, that’s what he said as well.”

I nodded and sat up against the pillows at a little more. “So you got stuck with the babysitting gig?”

A trace of a smile flickered across her face. “Precisely. Robin, naturally, wanted to stay,” she hid the sarcasm so well that I almost missed it, “but he also had to work.”

“A used car salesman’s work is never done.”

Promise moved to sit on my bedside and affectionately placed a cool hand on my forehead. “Your fever seems to be less—are you feeling any better?”

“I feel more in need of painkillers than cough drops, if that’s what you mean,” I said.

“Oh, of course. The mighty Cal Leandros—not one to be taken down by only a virus or just a vicious battle, but both at the exact same time,” she said this in a motherly chiding kind of way, as if I could have been more careful and prevented all her worrying.

“Technically I was sick first, but more or less, yeah, you’ve got it. But about those painkillers…?” If I didn’t get something in the form of a morphine drip and soon, then I was likely to tear off my leg and slit my wrists. My ribs that had dulled to a slight aching last night were now full on throbbing, and I was pretty sure that some of Nik’s meticulous stitches had come loose during my tossing and turning of the night, not to mention the inflamed, possibly infected, Auphe scratches on my back. The cut on my shoulder wasn’t bad though, as long as I didn’t move. I glanced up at Promise expectantly. “Please?” I added.

She sighed, but got up and retrieved her purse from the bureau. She pulled out several large orange bottles of prescription medication before she found the one she was looking for and returned the rejected bottles. I was staring at her in awe. “What are you?” I asked. “Some kind of traveling apothecary? Mary Poppins, even?” That would make Nik Dick Van Dyke and a chimney sweep, I mentally added with glee.

“I was simply prepared. Robin mentioned that his medical supply was rather low, and so I brought the basic necessities. Aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, codeine,” she began listing them as she poured out three white pills into her palm, “some lidocaine, morphine, vicodin, percocet, et cetera. Oh, and more specifically for your virus, I have sudafedrines, cough syrup, dyphenhyrdramine, and vitamins.”

“What the hell is dyphenhydramine?” I asked, sneezing.

“Gesundheit. It’s Benadryl.”

“Oh. Well can I have some of those too?”

She arched a delicately curved eyebrow and added one of the small pink pills to the white ones already in her hand. “I think this is enough for now.”

I didn’t ask what she gave me. I figured it was best that I didn’t know. I dry swallowed them quickly and turned back to my brother’s vampire girlfriend-turned-nursemaid.

“What next?” I asked.

She held out her pale hand once more. I picked up the reddish vitamin. It was shaped like Fred Flintstone. “Please tell me Niko put you up to this and that you didn’t just have these lying around your house.”

She gave a small shrug. “I find them to be very…effective.”

I rolled my eyes and popped it in my mouth. “Whatever. Nik gave you these—I know, because he bought me a bottle of them about ten years ago, and I never used them, and he’s not one to waste. Those things must have a damn long shelf life.” I bit down on the chewable tablet, and the pill completely crumbled to fill my mouth with a gritty powder. I grimaced in distaste. “Or not.”

Promise gave a small shrug and put the pills away. “So,” she said, giving me a meaningful look. “How are you?”

“Peachy keen. You?”

“Cal,” she said in a frighteningly good imitation of Niko. “Niko told me that you seemed a bit…worried…last night.”

“Worried?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I guess ‘worried’ was an okay euphemism for how I’d felt last night. ‘Terrified’ would’ve worked just as well though. ‘Pathetic’. ‘Miserable’. ‘Scared as hell’. Whatever. “Yeah, I mean, I guess you could say that.”

“Are you feeling less worried now?”

“Sure,” I said nonchalantly, and I did feel less scared. Niko had helped with that, and so did the fact that it was daytime right now. Everything’s less scary during the day.

“Good,” she said briskly, as if she could check my mental health off her list. “Is there anything else you need?” I shook my head no. “Alright. I have a meeting,” she said, “so I suppose I should go and let you rest. Niko will be back in about an hour to check on you.”

An hour? I glanced at the clock. It was past noon already—I’d slept longer than I’d thought. “I don’t need to be checked on,” I grumbled, but Promise ignored me.

“Now, Robin’s apartment is very secure, so anything that has to get in the normal way—through doors or windows—won’t be able to. Things that have more interesting methods of transportation won’t have that hindrance, but I have a witch friend who came in this morning after Robin left. She has put charms over all the rooms, and I trust her. Most anything will have a very difficult time getting past the spells. However, if anything does, there’s a gun in that drawer to your left, a knife under the pillow, and you’ve got our numbers in your cell phone. Call if anything in the slightest is out of order. I can be back here in five minutes—three, if it’s really desperate. Alright?” She gave me a slightly guilty look, as if she felt bad for leaving me, so I grinned.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Have fun at your meeting,” I said.

With one last hesitant look, she nodded and brushed her lips across my forehead. “Be careful,” she said, and left.

Promise’s absence was deeply felt as soon as she left. All of a sudden, I was alone. I hoped. Rationally, I knew that I was, and that the chances of anything happening weren’t very good, but whoever said I was rational? The air felt thick, and I could smell the lingering scent of Promise’s faint perfume. It usually wasn’t that noticeable, but all of my senses were heightened at the moment. My body was in full-on defense mode. Coughing, I slowly stood up. I didn’t want to stay in this room anymore. It was feeling smaller and smaller, and that wasn’t cool. So, I grabbed my phone and the gun, moved into Robin’s very spacious living room, and turned on his fancy TV. It took me a minute to figure out the remote, but once I got it, I had complete access to the thousands of channels on his satellite plan. At least a third of which were, of course, slightly (or not so slightly) pornographic, but that was to be expected. I found an old episode of Baywatch to fill the silence with, and I relaxed on one of Robin’s recliners. Promise’s Benadryl was making me drowsy, and I still felt sick. At this point, I decided that I hated being sick even more than being hurt or sad or angry or anything like that. Being sick gave you that pathetic, helpless feeling in your chest, and it made you want to do nothing but lay around and doze off. And that, as a matter of fact, was exactly what I planned on doing. This plan was interrupted by a puck.

“Robin,” I said, surprised and inwardly yelling at myself to calm down. My heart was racing and my muscles were tensed. When I’d heard someone at the door, I’d panicked, and hadn’t moved an inch. I let out an inward sigh of relief, though, when I saw that it was just Loman.

Just Loman, that is, and a few bags of food. I looked at them hungrily, realizing how long it had been since I’d actually eaten anything, and Robin grinned at me. “Getting a little hungry there, kiddo?”

“Kiddo?” I echoed dubiously.

He gave me a look. “Don’t make me count how much older I am than you. It’s at least a couple thousand years, and I don’t like talking about my age. But yes, that fact gives me the right to call you anything I damn well please.”

“And you damn well please to call me ‘kiddo’?”

Robin gave me an annoyed shrug. “Do you want some of this or not?”

I nodded eagerly, not even caring that I didn’t yet know what was in the bags.

“So,” Robin said, getting down plates from his cabinets. “What are you watching?”

“Come see for yourself,” I answered as he returned with two plates of Chinese food and one Styrofoam bowl of steaming liquid. “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the bowl.

“Chicken noodle soup. People eat it when they’re sick, right? I didn’t know if you’d be up to moo goo gai pan or not, so I got this too.”

I bypassed the soup and grabbed some chopsticks and noodles. Niko could have the soup—he liked healthy crap like that. Robin eyed the television with vague interest, then turned to look at me. “How are you doing?” he asked me with a practiced casualness.

“I’m great, Loman.”

“Great,” he said, and grabbed the remote from me. He turned up the volume and began flipping through the channels, lingering on one for a few seconds before moving on to the next. It was annoying, but I recognized the whole gesture—the food, the lack of conversation, the unspoken babysitting—for what it was: concern. So, I just sat back and ate my egg rolls without complaining. After all, there are worse things to do with your time.

After a while I must have dozed off again, because the next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of Robin yelling at someone on his cell phone. He was sitting in a chair facing me, making wild hand gestures at the person on the phone.

Some of Promise’s drugs had worn off, and my throat felt raw again. I groaned and shifted in the recliner, upsetting the bandages on my shoulder. Every move I made resulted in another splash of pain, and I longed for the bliss of ignorant sleep again. “Wanna keep it down, Goodfellow?” I grumbled, trying to get comfortable despite my bruised ribs.

“I told you that you were going to wake him,” came my brother’s voice.

“Nik!” I said with more enthusiasm than I normally would have. Some of it was out of surprise, because I hadn’t known that he was here, but a lot of it was just me being relieved that he was here. I craned my neck, pulling on the butterfly bandages that had been applied, to see him as he walked from the back bedroom into my line of vision. Even though I knew that I was mostly safe here, and that the chances of another attack weren’t exponential, and even though Robin’s continued presence had put me somewhat at ease, I felt like I could fully relax once I knew Niko was here. He was my safeguard, and my home, and nothing was more comforting than that.

The corner of Niko’s mouth turned upwards briefly when he saw me, and he sat down on the ottoman in front of me. Reaching out, he brushed his fingers over my hair. “You look better,” he said, and I guess I did. I still wasn’t healthy or healed, but I knew that I was heading in that direction, and I guess Niko knew that too.

“Yeah?” I asked, just to say something.

Niko nodded. “You should probably get some more rest though,” he added.

“But I just woke up.”

Nik raised an eyebrow at the slight whine in my voice, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. “I need to check your shoulder,” he said.

I started to pull away my shirt, but thought better of it. “Can I get some Tylenol or something first?”

His eyebrows narrowed. “When did Promise give you some?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Twelve thirtyish?”

Niko glanced at his watch. “It’s only a little past two,” he said apologetically.

I sagged. “Fine. Help me with my shirt, would ya?”

Nik glanced back at Robin as he slammed his phone shut, cursing loudly. Robin huffed and walked out of the room. My brother slid an amused look toward me, then helped me pull my shirt over my head. The gesture was familiar, from all the times he’d done the same thing when we were kids. I watched as his face faded into a frown as he saw the bruises on my torso. He ran his long fingers lightly over the bruises, checking for any extra-tender spots. When he got to my lower ribs, he probed them slightly, looking for any obvious breaks. I hissed a little when he reached a particularly nasty one, but the whole thing was over quickly. None of them were broken—at least not badly—so Nik moved on to my back. He removed the bandages covering the slices, which hurt like hell by the way, and made a disapproving tsk with his tongue.

“What?” I asked, turning my head over my shoulder to try to see.

“Some of these are getting infected.”

“Goody. Is that bad?” At his disbelieving look, I quickly added, “Well, I know it’s bad, but like, how bad?”

“It depends. If we can get you on the right antibiotic, and if we can keep these clean, then it should be okay.”

“If?” I echoed.

“These aren’t exactly medically recorded ailments, so there’s no medically recorded cure. I doubt we can go wrong with penicillin, but I’d like to wait until Promise gets back and we can ask her. She has more experience in this field than I do.”

I took a small amount of pleasure in Niko admitting that he didn’t know a whole lot about something. I just shrugged though and reclined back in the chair, being wary of the cuts.

“How was class?” I asked.

Nik was folding up the gauze into neat, anal-retentive squares. “Annoying, but productive.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wad of cash. It was mostly ones, but I spied a few tens as he fanned it out. “It’s not much, but if we scrimp a little and pull a few extra shifts, then I think we can have enough for a down payment on a new apartment soon enough. Do you think you can get an advance on your paycheck?”

I snorted. “Probably not, but I’ll try.”

Robin reappeared in the room. “You know, I could probably afford to boost you what you’d need for a new place. How much are you looking for?”

“None,” Niko said before I could even get my mouth open. “We appreciate the offer Robin, but we will be fine on our own.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. “What if I want you out of my house?”

“You don’t,” Niko said, silencing all of Goodfellow’s further objections.

For once the puck seemed unsure of what to say. He left again after a moment without having said anything.

I met Nik’s eyes. I didn’t like being in debt to people anymore than he did, but Robin did have a point. He was friggin’ loaded. “Maybe we should consider it,” I offered quietly.

Niko shook his head. “We’re fine.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No, Cal,” he said firmly.

“Look. All I’m saying is that if Robin wants to share the wealth…well, it might be more convenient. I don’t know how long this damn cold is going to stick around, and I don’t know that the customers would appreciate a sneeze beer, so I may not be working a lot for a little while. Plus, do you really want to sleep here until we can get the money? Here, where Robin can sneak in and watch you all he wants?”

I could tell Nik was a little peeved that I was arguing about this, but I didn’t care. I liked to have a place that we could call our own, and a bed that was just mine.

“I have other places I could sleep,” Niko said, implying that Promise’s bed was made and waiting for him.

I sighed dramatically. “Leave your sex life out of this.”

A sly eyebrow was raised a dangerous fourth of an inch. “If you weren’t an invalid right now…” he left the threat wide open for me to fill in with my imagination.

I smiled. “Fine. You win. We’ll just sit here and grow old with Robin, because that’s how long it’s going to take to scrounge up a down payment in New York.”

Niko smiled too—much more subtly, of course, but he smiled. “Again, I have other places I could be.”

A dozen quips popped up in my mind, but I ignored them. I may have been bedridden, but I wasn’t going to push my luck. “Right. So do you have any new place in mind?”

He shook his head and pulled a newspaper from his bag. “I thought you could help me with that.”

“Yep. I sure do read good,” I drawled.

My fragile state didn’t stop him from rolling up the newspaper and whacking me on the knee with it. Scowling, I rubbed the spot and took the paper. I handed one page of the classifieds to him, and opened up the rest for myself.

“I hate looking for apartments,” I commented after a few seconds of scanning.

“I know,” Nik said without looking up.

There was silence for awhile longer. “You know,” I said after he circled an ad, “while we’re waiting for the money, you don’t have to stay here. You can go to Promise’s.”

Niko glanced up at me. “I was only kidding about that.”

“I know, but I’m serious. You don’t have to stay here with me. I’m a big boy—I’ll be okay.”

“Yes,” he said, setting the newspaper down. “But I’ll worry less if I’m here with you.”

I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t mean it. I worried less when he was with me too.

--

Around six o’clock that night, I began to feel a lot better. I hadn’t really moved since Niko had gotten home, and I guess that had given my body a chance to catch up. I’d always suspected that my immune system was pretty awesome, but even superhuman antibodies can’t work that great while the body is being attacked by a monster. Now that I’d given myself a chance to heal somewhat, I think that my body was getting back up to speed. My ribs still hurt like a bitch of course, and my shoulder and thigh weren’t exactly feeling great, but I could deal with pain that I could see. A cut I could see, and the pain was tangible because there was a rip in my flesh. That I got. But a sore throat I couldn’t see, and that weird sickly feeling I couldn’t see, and I didn’t like having pains that I couldn’t see. So the fact that those were fading was great news to me, even if everything else was still here and in full force. Of course, with my new feeling of being close to healthy came the feeling of boredom. I’d been sitting here long enough, I decided. I got up and wandered into the kitchen where I could smell something cooking.

Nik was standing at the stove, stirring something in a skillet. It wasn’t very apparent, but I could tell that he was feeling his injuries from the other night too. He was standing up even straighter than usual, and his shoulders were ever so slightly hunched.

“Hey,” I said, announcing my presence.

“Hey. What are you doing up?”

“What? I’m not allowed to stand anymore?”

“Depends,” he said, wiping his hands briefly on the plush hand towel that was lying on the counter. “Come here.”

I moved closer and let him feel my forehead. He seemed a little surprised at the temperature, and got out the thermometer just to be sure.

“Hmm,” he murmured, pulling Robin’s electronic device out of my ear. “Ninety-eight point six.”

“Perfect, as long as we’re still assuming that I’ve got a normal temperature.”

Niko nodded. “Since you’re feeling better, you can make yourself useful. Here, stir this.” He handed me the spoon and walked away from the stove. I peered down into the pan. He was stir-frying vegetables, it looked like. I made a face, but continued to stir. Nik returned less than a minute later, carrying a syringe and a suture kit. My frown deepened when I saw this, and I put down the spoon.

“What’s that for?” I asked warily.

“Your leg is bleeding again. I think you pulled a stitch or two.”

“You know, I think that that’s just a sign that stitches and me don’t mix.”

“Nice try,” Niko said, not unkindly. “I have to fix them though.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said resignedly.

Nik turned off the stove and sat me down at the table. I shed the sweatpants that I was still wearing.

“I’ve got lidocaine this time,” Nik offered, holding up the syringe.

“Goody,” I said, and watched as he carefully injected the numbing stuff into my thigh. It wasn’t very much, I knew, but it would take off the bite of the needle as he redid the sutures.

“How did you do this?” he asked, inspecting the torn stitches.

I shrugged. “REM sleep, maybe.”

“Hmm. You need to be more careful,” he chided lightly. “We don’t want to have to do this for a third time.”

“Yes, mother,” I said petulantly.

Nik finished the stitches and this time he taped a piece of gauze over them. “Maybe this will help,” he said.

“Done?” I asked, not wanting to sit half-dressed in Robin’s kitchen for any longer than I had to. Speaking of which… “Hey, where’s Robin?”

“Yes, I’m finished. I’m not sure where Robin is, but he’s not here. I think he had something to do at work.”

“Well he kind of took an extra-long lunch break. Maybe that didn’t go over so well with the boss man,” I said, redressing.

“Maybe,” Nik agreed. He threw away the used supplies and packed up the left-over ones. “Now,” he said, getting down a plate from the cabinet. “Are you hungry?”

“For that?” I asked, pointing at the skillet still chock-full of vegetables. “No thanks. But how about I run down to—”

“No,” Niko said before I could even get out ‘the chili cheese dog cart’.

“Aw, come on. What’s it gonna hurt?”

“Your arteries. It’s this or nothing,” he said, holding out a plate toward me. I grimaced. I mean, all it was was vegetables. No meat, no noodles, no rice, no cheese. Just vegetables. It was hardly a meal. I looked up at Niko, fully prepared to insist upon the chili cheese dog, but withered under his stare and took the plate.

“Fine,” I said begrudgingly. “But I’m not gonna like it.”

The look Niko was giving me let me know how much he cared about whether or not I liked my dinner.

“You want to go sit on Goodfellow’s carpet and eat?” I suggested, grinning at the imagined picture of Robin crying over a spill on his thousand dollar carpet. I wondered if he’d seen the stain I’d left in the guest room yet…

“No, we will sit at the table like civilized people.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re such an elitist, Nik,” I said, but followed him to the table again.

“I’m so glad you’re back up to your usual sunny self,” he said and I grinned.

“Aren’t you though? Hey, but speaking of which, can I have more painkillers now?”

The corners of Niko’s mouth turned downwards. “What hurts?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “My ribs, a little,” I said, taking a page of my brother’s book and downplaying my injury.

He didn’t buy it, of course, and he got up to retrieve a bottle from Promise’s collection. “While you’re up,” I called, “you might want to get yourself a few pills too.” I’d noticed that he was very careful not to let his back touch the chair, and I knew that his slices were worse than mine. Plus he hadn’t had the luxury of lying around all day. He’d woken up with me dozens of times throughout the night, gone to work, cooked, and doctored me. If I was him I would have collapsed by now.

“I’m fine,” he said, handing me a large pill.

“No you’re not,” I protested and swallowed the pill. He squeezed the back of my neck briefly, then sat back down again. “Seriously,” I continued, “if my back is infected, then I don’t want to see what yours looks like.”

“Well, I have wondered about that,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Mm-hmm,” I said, pushing my half-empty plate away. “You want me to take a look?”

“No, Cal. You need to rest.”

“Once again, bandaging you is not a particularly strenuous endeavor.”

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are,” I said. “Is Promise coming over later?”

Niko gave me a wary look. “She might. Why?”

“Just wondering,” I said, making a mental note to tip her off about his back.

“I’m sure. Here,” he said, pushing my plate back in front of me, “Finish your vegetables.”

I did not finish my vegetables, but I did drink the teas and assorted juices that he forced down me throughout the course of the evening. It wasn’t until after Niko was satisfied that I was fully hydrated that he let me go back to bed. While I was feeling better, the pain killers weren’t exactly caffeinated and I was tired. I’m pretty sure my head hit the pillow before the clock struck nine.

For a while, sleeping suited me fine. I didn’t dream—or if I did, it wasn’t memorable—and I didn’t wake up. But then that while ended, and a nightmare began. This one wasn’t quite as intense as the one that had sparked my ripping a hole through frigging time and space, but it was a damn close second. There were those fingers again, reaching out to me, caressing, then tearing my flesh. That grass, too. That razor-sharp, absurdly green grass that my toes had brushed against only two nights before. The blind terror that was becoming all too familiar filled me again. A hand clamped down on my shoulder and I screamed. Turning to look at it, I saw that pale, pale flesh and all of a sudden I couldn’t catch my breath. I began shaking, and the déjà vu was all too intense.

I realized that not only was I shaking of my own accord, but the hand was shaking me as well.

“Caliban!” came a voice. I shrunk back from it and the hand. “Cal,” it said, gentler. The tone of the voice registered with me as something non-threatening, and I opened my eyes. The hand that had belonged to an Auphe just a second ago was now Robin’s. The puck was standing over me, looking as worried as I’d ever seen him.

“Robin?” I croaked unsteadily.

“Cal. What’s going on?”

“Make it go away,” I said quickly.

“Make what go away?”

My eyes widened. This was not the time to be having this conversation. Could he not see the huge hole in the air?

“Cal. What’s going on?” he asked when I didn’t answer him.

“They can’t come again,” I said, shaking my head. “They can’t. I can’t do it again. And Nik’s hurt, and—”

“Slow down. What are you talking about?” he asked, his voice rising slightly in pitch.

“The gate, Loman!”

“What gate?”

“What gate? The gate right behind me! Christ!”

“Caliban, there isn’t a gate behind you,” he said slowly, evenly, as if talking to a hysterical lunatic.

“What?” I asked, on the verge of becoming said hysterical lunatic.

Robin sat down on the bed, and for some reason, the gesture felt threatening. I retreated backwards, hitting my back against the wall. The pain from my cuts coming into contact with the hard wall startled me and I swung my head backward, expecting to see the gate. There wasn’t one. Nothing was there.

“There is no gate, Cal,” Robin said softly.

“But…where did it go?” I asked hesitantly.

Robin shook his head. “I don’t think it was ever there. Cal, it was just a dream. Only a dream.”

I stared at him, disbelieving. I knew that it was a dream, but I knew that those dreams meant a visit from the Auphe. Robin looked confident about it though…

“But…” I said slowly, “I thought that if I had a nightmare like that…I thought I couldn’t control it…”

“The gates?” Robin prodded gently.

“Yeah, and, well…last time…”

“The Auphe came,” Robin finished for me.

“Yeah,” I said, deflated. “I guess I just thought it was going to happen again.”

“Yes…” he said awkwardly. “But it’s alright now. It didn’t happen, and it’s alright.”

“Yeah?” I asked, vaguely registering how pathetic I sounded.

Robin’s eyes softened further. “Yeah. It’s alright.”

I nodded rather stiffly, very aware that I had just had a full-on panic attack in front of someone who wasn’t Niko. Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to regain my bearings.

“Are you okay?” Robin asked, looking unsure of himself.

“Yeah…I just…got a little freaked, I guess.”

“Should I go find Niko?” he asked hesitantly.

“No need,” came my brother’s voice from the just outside the room. He walked in, silently assessing the situation. I was crouched up against the wall with Robin sitting much closer to me than what was usually necessary.

“Cal?” Niko asked, his voice revealing his concern. “Are you okay?”

I nodded, meeting his eyes. “Yeah…I think so.”

Nik’s little-brother-in-trouble radar must have gone off at the fact that I didn’t sound completely confident. He walked to the bed, and Robin stood.

“I think I’ll go then…” he gave a dry chuckle. “You’re in much more capable hands now.” He turned to leave.

“Hey—” I said, stopping him. He looked over his shoulder to face me. “Thanks for…you know…”

Robin smiled briefly. “Think nothing of it,” he said, and left.

I turned back to my brother, who was looking down at me worriedly. “What happened?” he asked softly, probably seeing the distress in my face.

I peeled myself away from the wall. “I had another dream, Nik. Like before. And…God, I was so sure that I had opened another gate and that they were coming again.”

A hand found its way to the back of my shoulder and rested there. “I’m assuming that they weren’t?”

“No. Robin came in and bore the brunt of my very manly panic attack and told me that I wasn’t opening a gate after all.”

The hand squeezed and, being wary of my wounds, began to work out the knots in my shoulder. I welcomed the familiar touch and turned around so that my back was facing Niko and he could massage the other shoulder too. Deftly, his hands kneaded my back and helped to work away some of the stress that had built up there. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, so it was easy for Nik to avoid the bandaged places. He worked slowly, taking his time to do the job right.

“I was afraid,” I admitted softly after a while. It was easier to say when I didn’t have to look at the person I was saying it to. “And that scared me, because I thought that the more intensely I felt an emotion, the more likely the chances were of me opening a gate.”

“I know,” Nik said, his voice full of compassion. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here when it happened.”

I shook my head, dismissing the apology. “Where were you, though?”

“In the kitchen with Promise. Robin’s apartment is widely spread out, and the carpet doesn’t help sounds to carry well. I didn’t hear you.”

“How’d you know to come in here, then?”

“I don’t know. I just…had a feeling.”

I didn’t doubt it. Niko and I were very closely linked, and if that meant we had a sort of sixth sense about each other, then so be it. “Well. All’s well that ends well, right?”

“I suppose,” he said, finishing with my back. He removed his hands and I instinctively leaned back into his chest. The massage had relaxed me, but as it had ebbed away all the stress and emotions, I felt more and more drained.

“Nik?” I said in a tired voice.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think they’re going to come again?”

“The Auphe?”

“Yeah.”

Niko was silent for a moment, thinking. “I think that if they do, it won’t be through a door that you opened. They’re smart, and they learn. They know that they caught us off guard once, but it’s not likely to happen again in the same way. I don’t think you should worry about opening another gate, because I don’t believe anything bad will happen.” He looked down at me. “Do you believe that?”

I was silent too. I wanted to believe it. It would be nice not to worry about accidentally opening a gate, not that it was bound to happen too much more after this virus or whatever it was went away. “I’ll try,” I finally said.

Nik tapped me on the head. “You’d better. I need you back in shape—both physically and mentally.”

“Aye, aye,” I said, earning myself a harder tap. I looked up at my big brother and grinned. Niko grinned back—well, one corner of his mouth stretched upward a fraction of an inch—and wrapped an arm around my torso. He squeezed once, then let me go. I sat up again and laid back down against the pillows. Niko brought the blanket up from where I’d kicked it to the floor, and spread it over me.

“I’ll be in the next room,” he said, which I knew he said to mean that if I should call out in my sleep again, he’d hear me. I also took this to mean that he was planning on kicking Robin out, since the next room happened to be where the puck slept.

“Okay. ‘Night.”

“Good night Cal.” With that he turned out the light and left the room, leaving the door open a fourth of the way to allow sound to travel. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes once more.

--

Three days later, and I was as good as new. I had not even a hiccup to ail me. I mean, a slightly infected back, a gaping bite mark in my thigh, and a piece of skin in need of a graft on my shoulder, but not one hiccup. I was happy as hell.

Happy, that is, until I was sitting at the table with Goodfellow, and he made some snarky comment about comforting me in the middle of the night. It wasn’t spiteful or resentful, and I knew that he hadn’t minded doing what he’d done, but it still embarrassed me. I could deal, for the most part, with Niko watching me melt down and him being there to duct tape the pieces back together. He was my brother, and he’d changed my diapers and given me baths and kissed me goodnight for the first part of my life. There had been an odd repeat here and there of course, but I hadn’t been used to the kind of mothering he’d been dealing out over the past few days. Feeling better now, it felt weird to see the people who had been taking care of me like that. It’s difficult to go from invalid back to tough guy, but I was sure going to try.

“Shove it, Loman,” I said in true Macho Man form.

Robin glanced up from his orange juice. “Touchy, are we?” he commented.

“No,” I insisted gruffly.

Robin hid a smile as he drained the juice. “Cal,” he said in a slightly patronizing tone, “don’t worry about it. It wasn’t a big deal, and as long as you have no permanent psychological damage, I’d say that it doesn’t need to be spoken of again.”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

Robin raised an eyebrow and stood. “It’s been a pleasure, as always, but I think I have somewhere to be,” he said, placing his dishes in the sink. “I’ll see you tonight—well, will I? You and Niko are going apartment hunting today, aren’t you?”

“Yes, we are,” Nik answered for me, walking into the room, fresh from his morning meditation and yoga routine.

“Good luck,” Robin said, looking pointedly at me in a way that hinted that Niko would need the extra help in dealing with me, rather than the landlords.

Niko looked at me, curiously assessing, and Robin left. “Is someone being a sourpuss this morning?” he asked.

“No,” I said in a way that suggested the opposite.

“I see,” he said, getting down a box of Muesli. He poured some into a bowl, added soymilk to the sawdust flakes, and took a bite. “You’re not feeling sick again, are you?”

“No,” I said vehemently. “I’m just fine.”

“Well, there are ways of dealing with a bad mood,” he said, skillfully threatening to give me an attitude adjustment if needed.

I rolled my eyes and got up to get more coffee. “So,” I said, forcing a lighter tone, “where are we going first?”

“East Houston Street.”

“Lovely. Where else?”

“There are availabilities on the Upper East side, but…” Niko let his voice trail off, not saying that never in a million years would we be able to afford any of that. As it is, I wasn’t exactly sure how we had enough money to even look at places. I knew that Nik had worked every spare minute the past few days, but no way that made enough for a down payment. Every time I asked him about it, though, he refused to tell me. “There are quite a few things on Broome Street, however.”

“Great. We’d better get going then, huh?” I pulled on the worn sneakers that Robin had stuffed in that magic bag of his, and pulled on a pretty clean shirt.

“Patience, grasshopper,” Niko said, finishing his cereal. He rinsed out his bowl, then gave me an appraising look. “It’s really a shame that Robin wasn’t able to retrieve more from the apartment.”

“Yeah, like maybe my better shoes instead of these that we bought about five years ago.”

Niko gave a miniscule sigh. “Or some of the books.”

I could have laughed. He missed his books. Those long, thick, dusty volumes full of information that I’d never care about. That was what he was grieving over. I actually felt a little bad for him. I’d never cared about them, but he always had. Knowledge was power in my brother’s eyes, and all of those books full of knowledge had been taken away.

“Sorry about all of that,” I said quietly.

“Cal, none of it was your fault,” he said, lobbing his spoon at me just for good measure. I ducked just in time, and went to pick it up off the floor.

“You shouldn’t throw cutlery, Nik. What would Emily Post think?”

“She’d think that the etiquette of it was completely appropriate for moronic little brothers who can’t see when a situation is out of control and completely not their fault.”

I shrugged and dropped the spoon into the sink. “Are you ready?”

Niko frowned and came to stand in front of me. “Cal,” he said, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Do we need to discuss this further?”

His question was sincere, but it also implied that he was willing to “discuss” with things other than just words.

“No. I just think that we shouldn’t overlook the fact that if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even know who the Auphe were, so saying that it’s completely not my fault is a little inaccurate, don’t you think?”

Niko grabbed my chin to be sure he had my attention. “Cal, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t breathe,” he said in a steely voice. “Do you understand that? Because if not, then neither will you.”

He went the more direct route with the threats this time. He was all for the tough love. “I understand,” I said, and I did, mostly. I refused to even think about living without him, too, but that wasn’t really the point.

“Good.” He slapped my cheek lightly and released me. “Grab your jacket.”

Niko was worried about me. I could tell by the way he was extra cautious—quickly scanning each square inch of any new territory we walked into, subconsciously making me stay slightly in front of him so that he could watch my back, things like that. And the tests. The constant tests. The entire subway ride he was quizzing me and smacking me when I wasn’t paying attention. All of these were things he usually did anyway, but they were just amped up about fifteen degrees. It was annoying.

“Nik, what’s going on?” I finally asked, slapping his hand away from me.

“I need to make sure that you’re up to this.”

“Up to what? Apartment hunting?” I asked incredulously.

“It’s never just apartment hunting, Cal, and you know that. There are monsters in all the closets, and I just need to know whether or not you’re still in shape—that is,” he added, “if what you were before you got sick could be called ‘in shape’.”

I ignored the wiseass remark. “I wasn’t exactly bedridden, Niko. It’s not like I need to relearn how to walk,” I said.

Niko looked up at the tone of my voice. “I know.”

“Well then stop treating me like I’ve been out of practice for a year. Christ.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Is something wrong?”

If it wasn’t my physical wellbeing, it was my mental state. I rolled my eyes. “No. I’m fine. Everything about me is fine. Great. Tip-top. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, even.”

We came to our stop, and I stood up quickly. I could feel Niko’s eyes on me, but I didn’t look back at him.

I wasn’t angry. I was more…embarrassed. I’d spent the last several days sick and hurt and pathetic, and I needed to correct that perception of myself. This—being a smartass and trying to show Nik that I didn’t need a nursemaid—was all I could think of to do.

So I acted like a brat and stayed two steps in front of Nik the entire way to the first apartment. He was going to call me on it, or at least kick my ass around a little, I knew, but that didn’t stop me, and Nik let it go for the moment. And besides, I had something to make up for it later that would remind him of my status as Little Brother of the Year. But for now, I had to prove to him that I was well again.

We walked into the first apartment building, and were greeted by the landlady. Something about her was…off. She seemed familiar, almost, but I couldn’t place why. I glanced at Nik, who was now standing next to me, but he didn’t look concerned.

“Hi boys!” she said enthusiastically. “I just know that you’ll love it here. Come on, follow me. I’ll show you the room.” She oozed fakeness and smiles. It was sickening. The permed hair, the brightly colored lips, the overwhelming perfume.

…the perfume. That was what was familiar. It wasn’t very flowery or feminine, but it was strong, and very similar to the kind that Robin wore when he didn’t want things to know that he wasn’t human.

“Well I’ll be damned,” I muttered under my breath. Niko was watching me, and his eyes narrowed and went to the woman.

“Thank you for your time,” he said politely, “but we have to go. Something’s come up.” And with that, he turned smartly on his heel and took the lead out the door before I’d even looked away from the woman. I hurried to catch up with him, leaving the poor landlady sputtering, trying to convince us to stay.

“So…option number two?” I asked cheerfully, keeping in step with Niko. He gave a slight glare that told me he was more than a little annoyed at me, but I ignored it.

“Option number two is two blocks down the street. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked this in a way that really wasn’t asking if I wanted to tell him, but if I was going to tell him the easy way or the hard way. But, like I said, it was embarrassing.

“Nothing, Nik,” I insisted. “It’s all good.”

We walked for a while more, and then he pushed on my shoulder, which threw me off balance, and I stumbled into the street. Scowling, I moved back onto the sidewalk. “That was what I was talking about,” Niko lectured. “You’re still a little off from last week, and that’s understandable. I just want you to accept that and fix it.”

“A little Auphe, you mean,” I muttered under my breath. Nik caught it anyway, what with his damn supersonic hearing, and he stopped walking.

“I really don’t want to hear you say that again. Cal…is that what this is about?”

“No,” I lied, “it’s not. There isn’t an ‘it’. Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. Oh look, we’re here. We better go in—we don’t want to be late.”

A hand reached out and snatched my shirt. “You might want to knock this off, Cal. This devil-may-care act of yours. It’s not doing either of us any good. We aren’t finished with this conversation.” He released me and I continued on into the building without answering him.

The landlord at this building was much more human than the last. He took us upstairs to the empty flat. It had a living area, a tiny kitchen, a tinier bathroom, and one bedroom. Just in our price range.

“The one bedroom thing may be a problem,” I commented when the guy left us alone for a minute in the bedroom while he went to double check that there was a phone jack in the living room.

“It may be all we can afford right now. We’re still going to have to find furniture and everything else that has to be replaced.” He walked around the perimeter of the room. “Besides, it’s not as if you and I have never shared a room before. Or a bed, on second thought, because there isn’t any feasible way to fit two beds in this room.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to sleep with me that night,” I protested, ignoring the way that the sentence sounded when said out loud.

“Oh, I wasn’t referring to that,” Niko said. “Although, my being closer by may be a good thing if what happened a few days ago ever happens again. I don’t think it will, but if it were to…”

“I don’t need my big brother to stay with me to fight away my bad dreams,” I said obstinately.

Niko sighed. “Oh really? My memory seems to suggest otherwise.”

I glared at him, and he held my gaze. I was about to open my mouth to retort, but the landlord reappeared in the doorway.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, sidestepping a cockroach that was scuttling past. He gave us the rent rates and what the down payment would cost, and Nik told him we wanted to sleep on it, but that we would call him tomorrow with our decision. The guy shrugged and led us down the stairs and out the door.

“One of us could always sleep on the couch,” Niko offered as we stepped outside.

“Yeah. It might be more convenient that way too, you know, in case Promise comes over and you two want to do a little…financing.”

Niko raised an eyebrow. “Excellent point. You can absolutely have the couch.” I rolled my eyes. “The only problem,” he continued, “is finding a couch.”

“Do we really have to take this one, though? Aren’t there any others we have to look at?” I asked.

Niko shook his head. “That was the best of the ones we can afford, from what I could tell over the phone. And the proprietor of this place was rather apathetic, and that could be an advantage to us.” Yeah, no kidding. We’d had our share of nosy landlords who showed up at the door at every sound of a broken lamp or falling body, and those things were such frequent occurrences with us that we couldn’t have another person like that. Not if we wanted to stay away from eviction notices, that is.

“Well, alright then. I have a surprise for you, by the way.”

“A surprise?” he asked warily.

“Yeah. Come on, we need a cab.”

Niko reluctantly hailed a taxi, and the driver took us to the address I gave him. We got out, and Nik looked around.

“Where are we?”

“Follow me,” I said, leading the way up the steps of the mansion we’d arrived at.

“Cal…” he growled, but followed me anyway. He really didn’t like surprises, I remembered.

I politely rang the doorbell, and a woman promptly answered the door.

“You’re Cal?” she asked.

I jerked my eyes up to her face. She was gorgeous, for lack of a better word. She was all curves, and had long, curly black hair down to there. She wore a nightgown and bathrobe that left very, very little to the imagination, and I was having trouble remembering my motor skills. Niko’s pinch to the back of my arm helped with that. “Uh…yeah,” I said, heat rushing to my face.

“It’s in the back,” she said, turning around. I hurried after her, but Nik grabbed the collar of my shirt.

“Is this some kind of drug scam, Cal?” he asked.

I waggled my eyebrows in a very Robinesque fashion. “Better.”

“She’s not a prostitute, is she? Because that is not amusing,” he whispered.

“Keep your bloomers on, Grandma. It’s nothing that will corrupt you,” I said.

The woman stopped in front of a door.

“You were informed of my fee?” she asked, holding out her hand, and from the bored way she asked me, I wondered if she really was a hooker.

I pulled out the wad of bills that I’d borrowed from Robin and handed them to her. She counted them out, nodded, unlocked the door, and walked away without another word.

“Cal, what on earth are—”

Niko cut himself off when he saw what was in the room. It was our stuff. Not all of it, but his books, our kitchenware, our towels, our clothes, his swords, and my guns were all there.

I gave a low whistle. “Robin really came through.”

Nik turned to scowl at me. “Robin? How did all this get here?”

“Magic,” I replied, and Niko took hold of my ear.

“Cal,” he said, pulling painfully on my earlobe, “how did all this get here?”

“Robin has…connections with someone with the NYPD, and well, he called in a couple of favors.” Niko released me, and my hand went up to massage the hurt spot.

Nik surveyed the room. “You know,” he said after a moment, “I don’t think I want to know any more details than that.”

“Great,” I said brightly. “Let’s just grab all this and go, then.”

“Are you going to carry it?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Oh. That could be a problem. Nik had about a thousand books, none of which were paperback. “Hmm…” I got out my cell phone and dialed Robin’s number. I asked him to come pick us up, which he reluctantly agreed to. “Mission accomplished,” I said to my brother.

“Was this your idea?” he asked, gesturing to the boxes of stuff.

I shrugged. “I needed my good shoes.”

A faint smile traced the corners of Niko’s mouth. “Thank you,” he said, and I knew he was grateful for his damn books. His damn books that he was bound to force me to read at some point in my life. I really should have thought this through better…

Goodfellow picked us up, complaining the whole way back to his apartment about how we’d pulled him away from his very important work—again. Niko ignored his laments and thanked him for “procuring our possessions.”

“The sooner you can move out, the sooner Maria Theresa can move in,” he said with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows. I was pretty surprised that he was waiting until we left, but I decided not to say so for fear of him changing his mind and me getting very little sleep tonight.

“We can move in to the new apartment tomorrow,” Niko said, also choosing not to comment on Ms. Maria Theresa.

Robin nodded. “Fine, fine,” he said conversationally. “By the way, when I was looking for aspirin last night, I found a bottle of sleeping enhancements that I’d forgotten I had. They ensure a good night’s rest with no dreams—I thought maybe you would be interested.”

It was clear that the last part was directed at me, not Niko, and that was it. I’d had enough. “I get sick for once in my life, and I have one bad night, and everyone’s treating me like I need extra help. I don’t. So Loman, you can take those pills and shove them right up your ass.”

Robin raised an eyebrow and glanced back at me through the rearview mirror. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Caliban. I was merely offering. If you don’t want them, then there’s no need to be crass about it. Truthfully, the only thing I want shoved up my ass is—”

“Robin, why don’t you pull over?” Niko interrupted gracefully. “I think Cal and I can walk from here. We have some things to discuss.”

There was still at least two miles to Robin’s apartment, but I kept quiet about that at the look Niko was giving me. Instead, I looked at Robin and shrugged. “Guess we’re walking.”

Robin gave an unsympathetic shrug in return and sped off once we’d gotten out.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and matched my stride to Nik’s. I wasn’t going to say anything until he did.

We were silent for quite a while, and then Niko gave a quiet sigh. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes. Why do you keep asking me that? I’m just fi—”

“Cal.”

I fell silent, and Nik stopped walking. He turned to face me, and tried to meet my gaze, but I looked away. He stood there, studying me, without saying a word for a while. I squirmed under his gaze because I knew that he would figure it out, and then he’d be all sympathetic, and that wasn’t I wanted. I wanted him to drop it, and for us to get on with our lives. The feelings of monsterhood would fade, and I’d be fine. Fake it till you make it, as they say.

“Opening gates does not make you one of them,” Niko said softly, his voice full of sincerity. “And getting sick does not make you weak. Being scared does not make you incapable, and it does not change anyone’s opinion of you. Not Promise’s, not Robin’s, and not mine.” He tapped my chest lightly on the last two words to get me to look up at him. “Everyone is afraid sometimes, and you have more reason to be than most.”

Just as I’d known he would, he’d seen right through me, and he’d said all the right things. “You aren’t afraid of the Auphe,” I stated. There was no emotion in the sentence. It was just fact.

“I am afraid of them taking the only family that I have. I am afraid of them hurting the only family that I have. But I’m not afraid of them for myself, if that’s what you mean.”

“Still, though…the gates, Nik. It’s just not…human, you know?”

“Perhaps not, but that’s one thing out of everything that you are. It’s wedged into your DNA between the laziness and the horrible taste in music, both of which are, unfortunately, one hundred percent human.”

I sighed, deflating. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Cal,” he said, pulling more meaning into that one word than I would have thought possible. The way he said it, emphasizing the lack of “—iban” at the end, to let me know that in his eyes, I was just his kid brother, not the half-monster, half-human burden that I liked to think of myself as.

After a moment, I nodded.

“Good,” Nik said so matter-of-factly that I almost grinned.

“That being said,” he continued, taking on a harder tone, “acting like a two-year old whenever anyone shows concern for you will lower people’s opinions of you. So stop.”

Niko held my gaze, willing me with his eyes to accept everything he’d said. I knew that he’d meant all of it, and I nodded. “Okay.”

I hadn’t thought that it would, but Niko saying the things that I knew he would say did make me feel better.

“Okay,” he said too, and it was over. He walked around me to get to the other side of the walkway, squeezing my shoulder as he passed. I watched him walk for a few steps, then caught up with him. We passed a chili dog stand, and I automatically began drifting toward it. There was a sharp smack to the back of my head, however, that prevented me from actually getting there. Instead, I felt myself being dragged into the tea shop across the street. I gave the stand which held the promise of eight inches of processed meat, cheese, pickles, and onions one last lingering look, then glanced around the café. There was a large advertisement written in chalk on a blackboard for the tea of the day: Grasshopper Tea. I shuddered and felt a small wave of nausea come over me. Nik ordered a cup and asked if I wanted anything, but I shook my head vehemently ‘no’. I’d had quite enough of that, thanks. 

The End...

 

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