Niko's eyes hadn't shifted even minutely. "Close the gate, Darkling. Close it or I'll open you."
"Do we really want to have this conversation again?" I snarled, my patience fast eroding. Past him I could see that the gate had solidified somewhat, a good sign. "You can't do it, big brother. We've already seen that."
Goodfellow and Samuel let loose with the other barrels and discarded the guns before reaching back inside their coats for more. These were more along the lines of automatic weapons, and I had to wonder with irritation where the flamethrowers were. Just goes to show that you can find anything in the Big Apple if you know the right people to ask. As they began to fire again, I risked another glance over my shoulder. Guns or not, I couldn't fathom the Auphe retreating now… not when they'd come so far. Apparently, they couldn't fathom it either.
They were still coming, leaping over the dead and the ?shattered, the wounded and the bloody. Covered with blood and ragged flesh, they kept coming. Lead-borne death was not going to stop them. As far as I could tell, it wasn't even going to slow them down. They were going to pass through the gate. Whether they went over the three in their way or through them, it didn't matter. It was going to happen. At this late stage in the game there was no way to stop it.
My brother refused to accept it. The bastard had always been stubborn. From the time I could walk he'd been bossing me around. For that matter, he'd done his best to boss all of creation around. But he'd never been able to make the world do what he'd wanted it to do—he had never succeeded in making it leave us alone. Now he stood in front of me, giving it one last shot, although I think he knew it was futile. Refusing to give in because that's who he was. From beginning to end, that's who he was. "Shut it down." The sword was unwavering at my throat. "I won't tell you again."
"You wasted my time telling me at all." I couldn't use my arms or hands in my defense, but Nik had taught me better than that. My own predatory talents didn't hurt either. I aimed a flashing kick at his knee that he avoided easily. It was a feint and I didn't expect it to work. What he didn't anticipate was the poison that I spit in his face. Even distracted by the blow directed at his leg, he still managed to dodge far enough to the side that the venom missed his eyes. He reeled backward as the skin on his left jaw and chin began to redden and swell. It wouldn't kill him; chances were it wouldn't even make him sick. This new body, merged though it was, was slower to produce toxins. It had taken me this long to make any at all and it was nowhere near full strength. If I'd hit Niko's eyes, however, I would've blinded him. As it was now, he'd have only an agonizingly painful allergic reaction.
Meanwhile, I could simply kick him to death. Perhaps it wasn't as festive as blindness, convulsions, and the vomiting up of internal organs, but it would have to do. With his free hand clawing at his face, Nik staggered and went down to one knee. I lashed out and slammed a blow to his thigh that took him all the way to the ground. The next one landed in his ribs. My headset tumbling off from the exertion, I was poised for another kick when I caught a flicker out of the corner of my eye. It was the first long slide into home base.
The bullets were still flying, but one Auphe passed through the curtain of them as if it were a gentle summer rain. He bolted past me and leaped toward the gate in a motion as liquid as flowing mercury. He almost made it. He was three feet from the gate and still in midair when Niko's sword cut him in two. One moment Nik had been on his side with my foot in his ribs; the next he'd flown to his feet, spun, and taken out the Auphe with one stroke. The newly sleek blond head whipped around and he snapped at Goodfellow and Samuel, "Keep them back!"
"Oh, was that the plan?" Robin countered acidly. "Perhaps I should've written it down." Swinging his gun, he slammed the stock into the face of an Auphe who'd made it too close. Ichor and mucus sprayed into the air in a peculiarly artistic fan pattern.
Samuel kept firing. He had less to say, but it was considerably more to the point. "Hurry, damn it!"
And then the blond head turned my way. There would be no more warnings, I saw. No more chances. That's when I remembered about the hair. The knowledge scurried out of the depths of my brain, and I heard the distant blue velvet chuckle of Mommy dearest. It was something she'd once told the two of us when I was young enough to think her booze-soaked ramblings were bedtime stories. This one had been about her Gypsy roots. I suppose they were partly ours too, although she never made any effort to include us. Sophia came from Greek Gypsy stock. The customs of both groups had been intertwined and one particular old Greek tradition had been adopted by the Rom of that region.
You cut your hair for those who have died. You cut your hair and you mourn.