We did make it out, blending into the panicked while taking turns helping Robin along. This time, we shelled out the bucks for a cab and headed to Promise's penthouse at Park Avenue and Sixtieth to recuperate. Promise had offered. I was beginning to think she was fonder of Robin than she let on. They were both long-lived, although he was much older by far. They had a common bond that Niko and I couldn't be part of. Actually, the jury was still out on whether I had inherited the Auphe longevity. It could stay out as long as it wanted. I wasn't outliving Niko; I wasn't outliving my only true family, not by hundreds or thousands of years. No. Just…no.
By the time we climbed out of the taxi and were ushered into the building by an imposing, silver-haired doorman with an equally imposing sweep of mustache in pure white, Goodfellow's cursing had grown louder, but his movements came with more ease. A bruised or cracked rib, that was what he'd managed to escape death with—a dark purple splotch on the left of his back…precisely over where his heart would be.
The key to his survival had been the memories of our boggle, which had been triggered by his mate, and by Darkling. Darkling, at one with my body and my mind, had set up an ambush in Central Park. While Boggle had attacked Goodfellow, Darkling…I … we had shot Niko. Point-blank range. I leaned toward guns. Knives were okay, but guns were the top of my comfort level, and Niko hadn't forgotten that. When I'd been taken by Darkling, my brother had worn a bulletproof vest in anticipation of just such an event. It had saved his life.
Robin knew that he was an assassination target of two attempts already. When we'd told him we were bringing in another boggle, it had brought the fight of the past year to mind. While Niko had expected the gun then, Goodfellow hadn't. Darkling wasn't human; he would have no particular attachment to a gun. Nonhumans rarely did. That type of thinking would've gotten Robin killed if he'd been in Nik's place. As lessons went, it had made an impression on the puck.
Hameh birds, a sirrush … a man with a gun was a long way from creatures such as those. Long way, long odds. But pucks, gamblers to the last one, knew all about odds and they knew their payoffs. I'd wondered how someone as long-lived as him had gone down so easily. Now I knew. He hadn't. After the Hameh, he'd bought a bulletproof vest and started wearing it under his finely woven fall sweaters. The damned things probably matched, cashmere and Kevlar.
Reclining on overstuffed pillows and a sage green silk cover, Robin was lounging in Promise's guest room with a distinctly superior smirk on his pointed face. Look at me. Look how clever. The breadth and reach of my intelligence are so unfathomable to the average brain that I must appear godlike to you lesser mortals. Whether it was only in my head that I heard it or he'd actually said it aloud, it didn't matter. My hand was already closing around something on the dresser to toss at him. Gilded French vase, crystal decanter, statue of Venus, I didn't look. I didn't care. I hefted it and cocked my arm back as if I were trying out for the majors when Niko took me by the scruff of my shirt and began to hustle me out of the bedroom.
"He really doesn't deal with the unexpected well, does he?" Robin commented as if I and my makeshift weapon weren't there. Rolling onto his stomach, he hissed at the cold as Promise, who didn't look particularly pleased to be playing nurse, placed an ice pack over the spreading bruise. Fondness only went so far. Seeing a half-naked Goodfellow was apparently the outer limits of that affection. "In his world there are no good surprises and all pi?atas are filled with evil-tempered tarantulas and poison-spitting snakes." I heard the clucking of his tongue before he rested his face in the pillows for a muffled finish. "We do need to work on that attitude or he'll never be able to enjoy the true…"
I didn't hear anything further as the bedroom receded behind us. Promise's home had soft and gloriously woven rugs, draperies, and tapestries on the wall that all worked to soak up noise like a sponge. I looked at what was in my hand as Niko kept marching me along. A candelabra, silver and gold. It would've made a nice dent in that curly head. "He deserves it," I said, knuckles whitening as my grip tightened.
"Why?" At the end of the hall, we went down the winding stairs as the metal was deftly worked from my clenched hand. "Why does he deserve it? For being a self-righteous ass, which is nothing new, or"—he put the candelabra on the nearest table— "for scaring you?"
"I have Sawney and the Auphe to scare the shit out of me," I dismissed stiffly. "Goodfellow doesn't come close to making that list." After depriving me of my expensive puck swatter, Nik released me, and I promptly began to prowl the living room in ever-widening circles. I plunked the keys of an ivory-colored small piano, glanced at several pictures in simple polished silver frames, and kept walking.