I used some of my newfound wealth to get a real hotel room, one with chocolates on the pillows instead of drool stains. I also bought a cell phone. All work and no play made Cal a dull boy. We wouldn't want that. I could keep my eye on the prize and still indulge myself. A fine line, but I had faith that I could walk it. But more than that, more than the confidence I had in myself, I wanted to walk it. I wanted to live life as half of me always had… with reckless abandon. It was who I had been and who I still was to a large extent. Without risk the eons could get boring as hell. Humans had a natural adrenaline. Nonhumans… the majority of us had to manufacture our own.
On first guess you might think that it was safe to say that Niko would've abandoned the apartment after it was trashed by the Auphe. A logical conclusion, but a wrong one. Who had stuck like glue to the burned remnants of a cheap trailer, all that was left of a Grendel slaughter? Though it was years later, I knew the same would hold true now. After all, if he left, how would poor kidnapped Cal find him again? No, he'd be there. Part of the day anyway… the part he wasn't out scouring the city for me. Niko hadn't been able to follow me through the gate, but it wouldn't stop him from the grim hope that, like before, I'd make my way back. Smart boy. He was right.
But when I called he wasn't the one to answer the phone. That put a nasty crack in my polished conviction. It was that son of a bitch Goodfellow, who I'd had every expectation would've been halfway across the country by now, if not the world. Damn flashy peacock, who would've thought he had it in him? Just as he knew my reputation, I knew his—shallow and self-serving, with a highly developed survival instinct, not that there was anything wrong with that. Those were stellar qualities in my opinion, but he had no appreciation for the finer things in life, the same ones on which the Auphe and I saw eye to eye. He actually liked humans, believe it or not. Liked them a little too much. Goodfellow should've run when he had the chance. Too bad. For him, there wouldn't be another.
"Goodfellow," I said smoothly. "When did you get a backbone? Are they selling them on eBay now?"
I heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end and then his words, wrapped in glowing red wires of anger. "Darkling, what the hell are you doing? You cursed son of a bitch, what could you possibly have to gain from this?"
"Language, language." Bending down, I broke open the minibar and helped myself to a bottle of beer and a bag of pistachio nuts. After a long, cool swig, I continued. "I'm doing what I've always done. I'm looking out for number one and getting paid in the bargain. Isn't that what you do, Loman? Isn't that what you've always done?" I tossed a few nuts back and washed them down. Two tastes, both salty but wonderfully different, mixed on my tongue. "And that leads me to a curious question. Why are you changing your ways now?" I tsked sorrowfully. "Had enough of this life, have you? Don't they have medications for that sort of thing?"
"Loman," he came back after a moment of silence, tone subdued but still set. "You called me Loman."
"I'll call you Mary Margaret if I want to. Or Danny boy. That's more appropriate, don't you think?" I hummed a few bars of the legendary dirge before deciding I'd had enough of Goodfellow and his changing ways. New backbone, midlife crisis, whatever. All that mattered was the end result, and the result would be his end. "Nik around, old friend? I'd like a word."
"I'm not your friend," he countered vehemently in my ear. "I was never a friend to you or any of your kind. I can't believe I didn't recognize it when Cal told me. I can't believe I didn't guess it was you."
It wasn't really that hard to understand. The mirrors were a relatively new thing for me, as I'd picked that up only in the past five hundred years or so. The other male banshees had never pulled that trick and now that I was one of the last, they never would. So it wasn't all that surprising Goodfellow didn't know of it. It didn't keep me from twisting the knife, however. "Yeah, that's too bad, huh?" I offered genially. "You could've saved Mr. Morose. You probably could've gotten a few more years of whining out of him, at any rate. What a tragedy." I finished the beer in one last swallow. "You might have saved him, but you were drunk and you didn't. I'll bet Niko's really loving you on that one."
Silence. But sometimes silence can be as sweet as any melody.