Chapter Seven

Cal

Ironically, the first time I met Delilah, she'd saved me. A Redcap long thought dead decided an Auphe hybrid was a perfect appetizer and took a hunk out of my chest...with his teeth. Fucking cannibal. I might have survived the night without her aid, but I probably wouldn't have survived the impending infections. Hospitals and doctors were a no go for me, as proven by the Vigil.

Some humans knew what went bump in the night, despite the entire human government and the Vigil's desperate need to hide it from the kids, but for the most part the Vigil did their job well. They stopped uprisings where they could (outsourcing guns-for hire most of the time), kept tabs on the naughty and nice, and cleaned up Niko and my messes on more than one occasion. Only we found out the hard way that wasn't their only job. The zealot group of humans had questionable sanity to begin, but there was always more to it.

I had no idea if the Vigil was funded by the government, but it made sense that they would be and the US government wouldn't waste money on just watching. Not when they could try and create living weapons. Last year, the Vigil netted me, tagged me, and only set me free because we exploded their facility. It wasn't a fun ride, despite the fact that Cassie had been there in the thick of it with me.

No, hospitals would led to me becoming a lab rat again and we didn't want to chance it. Though when Sawney Beane bit me we hadn't even known about the Vigil. We didn't need to. We weren't stupid; we knew the humans would snatch me up and cut me open way back when mom still lived to call me monster.

Delilah was my savior that night years ago; using the healing accelerators in her werewolf saliva, she literally licked my wound clean. It left some sort of impression on her. A taste for the crazy half-monster perhaps. But we started having sex shortly after and not long after that we started trying to kill each other. I'd intended on finding her and trying to get information about the Wendigo's kid, sure, but that intention was for nightfall when I didn't have a toddler spitting like a cat behind my legs.

"What do you want?" I snarled, bearing my teeth. She pursued me this time, so honestly this would have been the perfect opportunity to turn the tables and get information. Less suspicious for me to ask questions when she came to me, but my concern was Dante right now. I had to get him to safety; away from the wolves.

"To meet new addition to family," Delilah teased. Her voice was playful; the strange accent, which wasn't really an accent, but her voice chords being more wolf than human, seemed stronger with the musicality of it. "You think you can hide him from us? We smell him from miles away. Pungent little bird. Smells like poison and sugar." She said it as if she was dying for a taste of the newest pastry craze. I flipped my phone out behind my back and texted Niko a distress call, or at least I hope I did. I either texted him 9-1-1 or 8-#-#, but I figured he could get the gist and he could ping my location via GPS on his phone. Get here quick, Superman. Batman needs you before Catwoman decided to catch little Robin in her jowls. Huh, that analogy worked entirely too well. Of course, Delilah would have been furious to be compared to a cat.

Delilah prowled into the alleyway, one booted foot crossing in front of the other –both predatory and sexual, of course those things went hand in hand with werewolves. Eat, mate, kill; sometimes all three at the same time. The Kin especially loved mixing business with pleasure. I eyed the other two wolves with caution. Both were considerably attractive. Of the few I'd seen of Delilah's pack and the dozens upon dozens I'd seen of female Kin, the sex appeal surprised me. One had sleek black hair in a braid down her back, a scar trailing from collarbone to deep under her tight jacket, the other was a brunette as well, but with a rusty hue and eyes of brassy bronze. Both were tall, lean, and ready to rip my throat out upon Delilah's command.

Delilah was taking her time and pleasure with this. She knew she had me cornered, both physically and with her new knowledge. Dante was not leverage I wanted her to have. I never intended for her to everknow about him. I knew it was a pipe dream, but I had it nonetheless, and like all the others it was torn to bits at my feet. "I don't really have time for introductions, 'Lilah. So I guess we'll just have to set up a play date for some other time."

"Play now," she argued. She stood directly in front of me and touched her finger to the tip of my blade, flicking it with her nail so it hummed lightly in my hand. "You take job from Wendigo?" I clenched my jaw; well, there went the element of innocence. There was no way she would tell me where the kidnapped child was now, not even a hint. "Yes, you did. Little hero, little half sheep."

"Let the kid go, Delilah. It's underhanded even for you. You want to fight, duel with the Wendigo." I grinned at her. "Hell, I'll even put in for a mud pit if you'd like. I'm sure you'd make the Kin some mad cash with that event. Better than a pit bull fight."

Delilah glared, tilting her head to one side to fully emphasize just how disappointed she was with me. The line between love and hate really was thinner than a hair. Or in our case the line between lust and loath was thinner than a layer of flesh. "Stay out of Kin business. We will get to you eventually. No need to rush."

"You're a coward." She seethed at that as I knew she would. "You hide behind a child so that Wendigo won't tear you apart. You've tied her hands and bridled her lover. Doesn't seem like a fair fight. And I don't mean in the usual Kin way. It seems easy. The pussy's way out."

Delilah knocked the knife to the side and made to slap me; still playing with her food. The slap never came, though I only prepared for the air to breeze by my cheek when I dodge anyway. Instead she leapt back three feet, hackles up and white teeth bared. Her leather pants were torn at her calf, four sharp lines weeping red. I could smell the blood and, between my legs, saw it dripping from black claws three inches long that split the flesh of my son's fingertips. Yeah, Cassie was definitely the mother.

Delilah stared at Dante in new assessment. He wasn't the defenseless blue jay she'd thought him to be, but hardly was he a threat. Her almond-shaped eyes flickered up to meet mine, studying still. Trying to figure out just how much of this kid was Auphe, since I obviously couldn't do that. She'd never known Cassie was half Auphe too; when they fought Cassie had fought as peri and only peri and she still managed to kick Delilah's ass. So I could only image the confusion, because in her mind Dante was mostly peri with an Auphe/human twist. Surprise, surprise, bitch.

"You know if you really want to meet the family, Delilah. I can arrange that."

"Auphe are dead, you said—"

"I was wrong. Not so uncommon. Just like I was wrong to think you deserved a chance. I was wrong to think you'd take it. And I was wrong to think you were the best sex I'd ever have." I smirked at her rolling her shoulders in agitation. They had to smell him; as silent as he was my ninja brother was no match for a wolf's nose. And that was probably why he took the rooftop entrance, sliding down the fire escape and landing with a soft thump behind me. He heard his sword leave its sheath, judging by the wide ring of it, it was probably the thick one he hid between his shoulder blades. Better for these cramped quarters than a katana or broad sword, so I applauded him for the choice.

The wolves didn't attack, which meant they never had the intention to. If they had wanted me dead, Delilah would have torn my throat out herself and she would have done it before I got my hands on my cell phone. She'd never admit it, but she was more leery of my human brother than me. With good reason; she watched him slaughter a menagerie of baddies to get to the boss monster by himself without breaking a sweat let alone his stride. He'd lost focus since he thought I was dead, or rather he had his focus pinpointed on the bastard he thought did me in. It was frightening; I saw it too. So since she let me call big brother that meant this was reconnaissance work. She saw something that made her curious or someone tipped her off that I was on a father son outing and she'd come to see for herself.

"When I told you to talk to Delilah, I didn't mean for you to take him with you."

"Sorry, I missed that memo," I grumbled. Niko stepped up beside me, then in front of me. He tossed glinting metal behind his back without looking and I caught it. My Glock. I smiled; my brother would put every Boy Scout in the world to shame. I scooped Dante up with one arm, nudging him up my side with a knee and looping the same arm under his rump. He clutched onto me for the ride, seemingly a master at the grab and run. No doubt this wasn't new to him. I backed up against the wall so they wouldn't be able to efficiently circle, gun level with Delilah's forehead.

"Protect little bird as much as you want. For this I will taste his blood and your pain," Delilah hissed motioning to her pants as Robin would when monster guts got on his favorite shirt. "Maybe I find new hobby in collecting hybrid vermin. Rare meat, they are."

"Fuck you, Delilah." Eloquent I was not, but I was building up to rage. "You touch my son and I swear you'll wish I killed you right now."

Niko's eyes flickered toward me in fleeting disappointment. It didn't matter, she had to know, Delilah could figure this out. She was a smart puppy, deserved a treat. Maybe a tasty bullet to the brain. She knew Dante was my son, from his claws and probably his appearance, but she smelled him as peri too. She knew I was sleeping with Cassie and knew Cassie as a peri. It wasn't a far cry to figure out the great who bore who mystery.

Delilah laughed, low and rumbling and somehow still sexy despite my feral urge to rip her eyes out and choke her little friends with her intestines. "When we meet again we see if you can fight with hands tied. We see if you can fly to your little bird." With that she and the other two leapt and bounded up the sides of the alley, flipping onto the fire escape railings and taking the roofs as their escape. Niko flipped his blade back into its invisible sheath beneath his duster and spun to look me and Dante over.

"He's bleeding," Niko murmured taking the hand that had been clawed moments ago. There were little smudges of blood on the pads of his tiny fingertips, but it wasn't his.

"Its Delilah's," I told Nik. His gray eyes –same as mine, same as Dante's– widened in mild surprise. "Our kitten has claws."

"The mark on her leg?" I nodded. Niko smirked and dotted a kiss to Dante's forehead. "Good job, half-pint, but you should have gone for the eyes." Honestly, he probably would have if I'd been holding him. "Let's get him home."

I nodded, shoved my Glock in the back of my waistline, following after him with rocks rolling about in my stomach. The only consolation was Dante's nose wrinkling in distaste when he lapped a bead of blood on his fingers. He proceeded to wipe in on my shirt, but I was just glad he didn't suck at his dirty fingers with relish. He was normal, shocker. He was just your average little destructive, curious, bad-ass one year old. I hugged him to me as he walked back to the apartment.

Niko had dealt with this before. The constant fear that one monster or another would catch scent or sense of what I was and decided the world was better off without that bit of evil or that they wanted my blood for power. Other than the Auphe we never had much problem with the nonhumans unless we messed with them, but that fear was always there. That terrible nightmare that I would be there and gone in the next second. I remembered one day, one of many, I played hooky from school with my 'girlfriend'. I used the term loosely because at the time I was twelve and girlfriend merely consisted of holding hands and making doe-eyes at each other. Things had changed since then, if one looked at the statistics of teen pregnancy, but apparently I grew up in a simpler time.

I didn't even go home after school was over, like I usually did, and when I did get home Nik wasn't there. I didn't think much of it —probably at the library or off at some dojo or studio honing his ninja skills. I flopped down in front of the television and flipped through the basic channels as I munched on crackers. Back then, that was our version of chips; the closest thing I could get with our allowance or lack thereof. Niko stumbled through the door around dinnertime an absolute mess. Sweating in the fall cold, I could smell it on him when he dropped to the couch and wrapped his arms around me. I was at the stage where I would normally push him away with a complaint about him being so touchy-feely, but something stopped me. Something being the break in a usually unflappable calm. Nik had been scared, terrified, that the Auphe had gotten me. He scoured the little town for hours, blindly hoping his little brother was safe somewhere anywhere. Needless to say, I never stayed out without telling him first after that; not that I stopped playing hooky. Even the scholarly Nik couldn't stop me from being a rebellious teen.

Now I understood. I understood profoundly what he went through and I regretted every moment my stubborn ass made him doubt for one second I was okay. The Kin knew. The Kin knew that I had a son, that he was young and vulnerable and that I would do anything to keep him safe. They would use that, abuse that, in hopes that it would kill me. In hopes that they could take down the half-Auphe and claim his head as their achievement. No, Delilah wouldn't share that glory. It wouldn't be the Kin, just her and her pack of furry bitches. She would harbor that knowledge, but she would still use it against me. She threatened to take him from me. Just like she did the Wendigo and Púca's daughter. She threatened to kidnap him and torture him to torture me. But I wouldn't let her, because Nik had done this before and Isurvived. I had big brother at my side and no one would lay one finger on his nephew.

Another human got a little too close to me, smiling sweetly at the little bundle in my arms. I glowered; it was a small achievement for me to not bare my teeth at her. She ducked into her boyfriend and urged him along a little more quickly, muttering about the jerk with the baby. Niko's hand clamped on my shoulder, no doubt hearing the comments. "Calm down, we'll figure this out. Getting social services called on us will not help."

I stopped short on the sidewalk, no comeback at the ready and any that I might have had caught in my throat. Nik's hand was still to my shoulder so he stopped fluidly beside me. "Cal...I didn't mean...," he sighed and brushed a hand over Dante's messy crown of deep chocolate brown hair. He knew what I was thinking. The same thing I'd been thinking the moment 'this might be my son' came into my head. I wasn't fit for this. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I was lazy, inconsiderate, boorish, stubborn, and half monster. I couldn't raise a kid. I couldn't raise him right at least.

"Cal, listen to me," Nik ordered. He flicked my forehead to get my attention away from the sidewalk. Dante giggle at the action and my cringe. "Listen to me and look at him. Barely an hour with you and you were the only one he would let touch him. He clings to you because he trusts you, because he likes you. Because you are doing everything right. Yeah, our life sucked, as you would say, balls, but that just means we know exactly what he needs because we never had it. And we can give it to him."

Lecture done, he smacked me lightly on the side of the face. "Let's go."

Niko didn't find Mickey. The strange rat-like snitch had apparently relocated without telling us, but at least the junk yard Niko had been prowling through to find him was close to me and Dante. We were at square one with new stakes much higher than we anticipated. So we did what we always did. We called in for informational back up.

Both Promise and Goodfellow had been around for a while. Promise at least 600 hundred years and Robin, well, we never got a number out of him, but close to the dawn of time probably wasn't much of an exaggeration. They had connections of the nonhuman and monster variety. Of course, asking over Promise and Robin at the same time was a little ballsy, since Promise had a bit of hostility toward Robin for trying to jump her boyfriend's bones constantly and Goodfellow didn't like being told what he could and couldn't have. So we separated them. I even let Robin cut Dante's hair to get him out of the living room where Promise and Niko were talking. I told him what happened that morning, leaving out my surprise visit from George (which I didn't do with Nik). I didn't feel like dealing with Robin talking endlessly about the mistakes I made with her. Because Goodfellow was the end all know all when it came to relationships...right.

"So it wasn't even a veiled threat. The lupine vixen just bared her fangs and told you she was taking your son. And why would you even confirm that? Regardless to if or when she comes to that conclusion, it was not the wisest decision to reveal your weaknesses like that. I would have thought Niko taught you better." I took in a deep breath, letting Robin go on an on as consistent as the snip, snip of the scissors. Thick chunks of Dante's hair were dropping into the sink and I was beginning to fear Robin had a buzz cut in mind.

Dante didn't seem fazed at all, though he didn't really sit still. We had him perched on the side of the sink so the hanks of hair fell into the basin, but he kept turning around to grab the tuffs and tossed them in the direction of the toilet. Needless to say our premeditation of a clean task was null. Little trails of hair dusted all over the floor and toilet seat, very little actually made it to the bowl. "Or were you merely showing your paternal pride in the little scamp? Boasting that your son can turn Hercules onto his back."

"Keep it up and I'll tell him to turn you on your back," I grumbled. I knew my mistake when I made it. Even if Delilah had known Dante was my son (and at this point I was pretty damned certain he was, as impossible as that should have been) I shouldn't have confirmed. I shouldn't have showed that protectiveness since that was just another weakness to use against me.

Goodfellow rolled his green eyes and brushed his fingers through Dante's hair to free it of the loose clippings. He ducked and tilted his head to check out his work and smirked when Dante met his eyes straight on, no fear at all. "Did you show her, little man? Spit on her furry hide?"

He'd interrupted me before I could tell him about Dante's retaliation and/or act of defending me. So even I had to smile with sinful pride when I answered for my kid. "Actually he split her leather hide." I tickled his calf where he'd slashed the bitch. "Right here, with the cutest little Auphe claws in the world."

Robin paused in evening out the hair at the nape of his neck to peer over at me curiously. I continued smirking, knowing exactly how sadistic it probably looked. "Takes after mama in that way."

"Maa!" Dante chorus. That sobered me up quickly when he started craning his neck over my shoulder to see if she was coming in. I swallowed and brushed a few stray pieces off his cheek.

"No, Dante. Not here," I told him sadly. For the first time since he looked at me in my closest full of dirty clothes he stared with incomprehension. For the first time he truly didn't understand what I was saying. "I'm here, Ace," I assured him and touched my lips to his now visible forehead. "I'm not going anywhere."

I could feel Robin's eyes on me, but he had the courtesy to look away when I glared, resuming his task of trimming the hair of the squirmiest kid on the planet. "I don't know what you're so worried about."

"The Kin taking my son and making a buffet out of him before I can skin every last one of them? The Auphe tracking us down and turning him into a breeding stud or a portal sacrifice or worse?" And if there was a worse I knew for sure the Auphe could come up with it. "Yeah, no worries."

Robin leaned back to inspect his work again. Currently, it looked rather good; another skill set to add to Goodfellow's growing list. I was eating my sardonic words of disbelief again and again regarding him. He really was a jack of all trades, even if he wasn't a master in every level as he claimed to be. Dante's hair was now shorter at his nape and tousled to about two inches of its life the rest of the way around. A little too clean cut for my taste, but at least he didn't look like a sheepdog like I had in a similar style a few months back. His hair had a little wave to it, like his mother's. It gave the style a bit more body than my sharp-straight black hair.

"So pessimistic. It has to get tiring wallowing in self-pity as much as you do." I glared at him again, but he just gave me a wink and set the scissors down on the other side of the sink, away from Dante's idle hands. "I was referring to your insecurities in fatherhood. Whether you're getting it from the many, manymind-numbing reality shows and sitcoms you succumb to, or if it's instinct, or if it's just memories of your brother...you have nothing to be insecure about."

First Niko, now Goodfellow, man, I must have been looking like a dog who didn't realize the tennis ball was still behind its owner's back. "Thanks," I muttered. It didn't sound gracious, but the puck knew me better at this point. He knew I meant it and, as embarrassing as it was, I needed the support.

"Now," Goodfellow went on, letting the moment pass. "We just need some gel and—"

"Oh, hell no." I picked Dante up off the sink and pulled him away from Robin. "You are not putting that crap in my son's hair."

Robin's neck elongated as he straightened himself, affronted. "I supposed that means no to the Gucci suit I bought for him." I glared. "You can't seriously to wish subject the poor boy to your tragic fashion sense." I glared some more, clutching Dante to me. Robin frowned and crossed his arms. "Cassie would have let me dress him up." I walked out of the bathroom, information be damned. It was too early for jokes like that and usually I was the one making the premature, off-colored remarks. Goodfellow followed into my bedroom and called with a softer tone. "Cal, wait, I'm sorry."

Goodfellow apologized about as much as I did, and while I meant it at least half the time Robin, coming from a race of cons and tricksters was genuine in the words even less. Somehow, I still knew he meant it this time. He was using the humor as a means to get through the truth of it, I couldn't fault him for that. I'd been doing the same. He was in all black, that of itself said volumes on how he was dealing. Robin wasn't one of those flashy bastards that were stuck in the seventies with patterned shirts of cheap silk, but he still liked a varying palette of colors. He wasn't like Nik and I, who both had a wardrobe of black, black, dark gray, maybe a pair of blue jeans, and more black. But ever since I told him, or rather he deduced, that Castiella was dead, he'd been in black. He would probably proclaim it wasn't black, but 'sable' or 'midnight charcoal', but that didn't change the wardrobe's meaning. He was mourning, just like me.

I bounced Dante higher on my hip and turned to face him. "No suits, unless it's to my funeral."

One side of Robin's mouth curled. "Fine, but at least dress him in Gaultier or Scotch and Soda, the Goodwill tee shirt is making me nauseous." I paused then nodded amiably. I didn't even know what Scotch and Soda was, but it sounded gritty enough to be acceptable. And it was acceptable (because Robin wouldn't be the designer king without bringing in samples), though I didn't see much difference in those screen tees compared to the ones I'd always seen in Wal-mart. I was done arguing about it. If Goodfellow wanted to brand my kid, at least it wasn't in Ralph Lauren.

Robin left, finally, with promises of scouring his information network for hideouts and back alleys that the Lupa pack might frequent as well as for the ones less prominently known. Nik wasn't sure if Delilah would be confident enough to cage the Wenca child in an established building or if she would hide the kid away from the curious or reckless. I knew. The pint-sized smoke monster/shape-changing horse would be somewhere obvious. Delilah was just like that. She knew her pack could take on a Wendigo or anything else that rolled up on her territory and if they didn't or couldn't they deserved to 'hunt no more' as the wolves said. Whichever warehouse or sorority row home those estrogen-driven wenches lived in was the first door I was kicking down.

But for now, I waited.

Promise took her leave as well, something about a benefit she had to attend that evening. She kissed Nik goodbye and dotted another to both mine and Dante's crowns with a gentle, "Be good, boys," on her way out the door. She locked it behind her. Funny, she never came in with the key Niko had given her, but she always locked it on her way out. It spoke clearly. Polite and proper, but viciously protective of her loved ones. And there was no doubt in my mind Nik and I were her loved ones. I mean, Nik obviously trumped her own daughter, considering he had killedher and Promise was more upset that he pulled away from their relationship than she was for Cherish's lost life. Granted, Cherish had also tried to get us all killed for her own greedy devices, mama included.

I glanced down at Niko later that afternoon, who was on his back in the middle of the living room floor –didn't see him like that very often. Dante was lifted over his head, arms out, making plane noises, or car noises I wasn't sure there was much of a difference. I was on the couch. Taking a break from running around after my energizer bunny of a son. The television was on at low volume, but had been ignored for at least an hour now, even by me. I found it more entertaining to watch Niko play with his nephew, wondering to myself how much of what I was feeling was nostalgia.

"You need to knock up Promise," I commented with a smirk. "Get this out of your system quick."

Niko lowered Dante to his chest as he looked over at me. Trying to determine if I was serious or not. I wasn't sure myself, but the thought didn't make me want to scream that he was fucking out of his mind anymore. A vampire baby couldn't be that much worse than a half Auphe baby...I didn't think. And Nik really did deserve to be a father. Hewould be a good dad, why didn't fate decided to toss him a kid? "Would you have a mental breakdown if I said we had been discussing it before Dante even showed up?"

I leaned my head back in my chair, humming in consideration. "Before Dante, yeah. Now," I shrugged, "Can't make the situation any worse. Should I start planning a bachelor party?"

Niko snorted as I wiggled my eyebrows. "I think we should wait on that, which is what I told Promise. Wait and see. If we can adapt to Dante..." It was always something. If this, then maybe that. If we survive, maybe I'll finally live my life. I was going to argue with him. Tell him he needed to start thinking about his future, if he wanted a family with Promise he needed to go for it. If we knew anything it was that life was short and then you died. Sometimes you came back or sometimes it was all just a crazy hallucination, but sometimes...you didn't.

"Just do it before you need the little blue pill," I informed him. Dante remained curled up on Niko's chest, eyelids drooping. Good, maybe I could get a nap in too. I lifted off the couch and hauled him up from my brother's body, flipping him around in the air so he was properly situated against me. "I'm putting him down for a nap, and then I'm going to pass out with him. Wake me in a couple hours if he doesn't."

Nik didn't say anything as I walked down the hall, though I knew he was watching us. Maybe contemplating his relationship, maybe just thinking about our current situation. Whatever it was he didn't think it time to talk to me about it. When he did, he would. Then we would have to have that 'when I'm old and wrinkly and she's still fit and virile' conversation. I didn't look forward to that. I never looked forward to discussing my brother's mortality. He was human, I knew, and humans died, but I preferred to think of him as the Highlander. Nothing short of decapitation would bring down Niko Leandros. Yup, that was exactly how it was. And on that note I went to sleep, Dante nestled under one arm.