“I would’ve done that sober,” Nik said placidly.
“True. You suck.” I shook water off in the tried-and-true dog method and managed to splatter him in the process.
“So you have told me many times. Many, many, many . . . enough that I am considering buying duct tape for your mouth . . . times.”
“You would be the one person, Nik, who doesn’t change at all when drunk.” I snorted and flung off more water. “I was hoping you’d loosen up and do some crazy shit. Crazy for you anyway—like try to trim Ishiah’s wings into those creepy topiary shapes from The Shining if he was around. Or whip up some soy pi?a coladas—but, you know, manly pi?a coladas, then sit on me and force me to watch a Kung Fu marathon. But, nope. You’re the same.”
“And you excel at pointing out the obvious. Let’s go. We learned nothing we didn’t already know, that he might be a storm spirit, but no one knows for certain. I’m annoyed. Plus I imagine I’m going to have a hangover. I’d rather have it in my bed than facedown on the grass.”
That I agreed with. It wouldn’t do to leave the vodka bottles for whoever wanted to risk the vyodanoi slime for them. The homeless wouldn’t be a problem. Some overly curious biologist who’d never seen slime of that particular consistency and color before so let’s get that puppy under a microscope would be. I picked up a bottle in each hand and we turned to start slogging home through the park. The sky was now the color of snow melting into a sewer drain. It didn’t bode well for blue skies and a sunny day. That was good. Sunny days were hell on a hangover.
Minutes later Niko took my arm. “Stop.”
I knew that tone even in this state. I dropped the vodka and had a hand inside my jacket and resting on the butt of my Desert Eagle almost before the bottles hit the ground. There was a time I wouldn’t have carried something in both hands; I always kept a hand free. When I was a little more human, a little less Auphe, and a lot less arrogant.
Maybe a little less drunk too.
My eyes narrowed. Not against the sun, which was practically nonexistent, but against two pieces of knowledge. The first being the uneasy fact I was going to have to come clean with Nik about what had happened at the Ninth Circle. The second being that I might have fucked up. It wasn’t guaranteed, but it was enough to cut through the haze of alcohol blurring my vision with a spike of adrenaline. What were the odds of a paien obsessed with punishing the wicked and a bunch of humans talking about prayer and Heaven with knives in their hands and death in their hearts?
I’d sent eight of them out of this world three nights ago, if only temporarily, and now here were ten more to replace them. That made me question that “temporarily” issue with the others. They were the same as the others. Once-white hoodies, the smell of homelessness but not the smell of drugs or alcohol, fairly young, and each one with a knife that glittered as brightly as the judgment in their eyes.
They stood between us and the edge of the park and how did they know that’s where we’d be? A storm spirit that could appear and disappear at will would be good at following its targets, high enough not to be seen or smelled. Shit. I had fucked up. No way around it. But why would Jack have a human posse at his heels when a human was only another wicked scrap of flesh to be squirreled away and drooled over later? If there was logic in that, I wasn’t seeing it.
One of the men, this one with dirty brown dreads, stepped closer. “Have you prayed? Have you prayed to Heaven to be lifted up?” He was staring at Niko, who had set his feet and looked much steadier than he had moments ago—definitely mind over matter. The man’s question as earnest as it could be when framed by psychotic eyes and a knife.
Luckily there was no one in this part of the park this early—barely dawn. “What about me?” I drawled. “Isn’t Heaven concerned about me?” . . . anymore.
That brought the attention of ten pair of eyes to me. The leader of this Eat, Pray, Kill club answered. “Heaven cannot hear your prayers, Godless creature. You are a blot on the earth.”
Apparently once Jack had found out about the Auphe in me he had spread the good word. Heaven didn’t want me, loathed my very existence, and I’d thought it had sucked to be picked last at dodgeball.
They were connected all right. Yep, I’d fucked up. Fucked up bad.