Epilogue

Cal

My oracle had told me I would be happy. I had smiled rueful and said I had been, briefly. And I had been. She said I would be with the mother of my child. She said she'd looked farther into the future than the moment I was standing with her. The moment that I had thought the mother of my child was dead. George had been right. I was happy again, briefly. I had been happy with the mother of my child curled up in bed with me, our son playing with her long waves of hair and teething on the leather edge of my gun holster. I had been happy.

And life saw that and it said to itself: Well, that is simply unacceptable.

So my son was murdered by a fleabag with tail-rot, burned to embers in a fire that rocked Manhattan all the way from the Financial District to Battery Park. So the mother of my child kissed me goodbye and went to avenge his death. She murdered every living relative of that fleabag and then some. From what I've heard it was danse macabre in fur and fire. She was unstoppable…until she was shot down. A bullet to the heart by a human sniper. The most feared creature of earth taken out by a single rifle and a high vantage point.

And life said: There, that's better. Fuck you, life.

If I knew where to find them, I would have sought out a Nepenthe spider. I would bare my neck to them and hope to…whatever that it would erase every memory I had of them. Of what I had. Of what had made my oracle say I would be happy. I was done. I didn't want it anymore. I didn't want the memory of her smile or her scent. I didn't want the memory of his weight in my arms, his nose to my neck. And I didn't want the memory of Catcher leaned over my cot and tearfully apologizing for failing me. For letting them kill her. I hated him for several hours. Until Robin showed me the video of the fight on his cell. When I asked him to play it again it had already been stripped from the internet, probably by the very men who put her down. That was another memory I could do without. Seeing her violence, her perfectly calm rage. Seeing her so lost…Niko wouldn't even look at it; I must have looked frighteningly similar dropping from the gate into his arms all those years ago.

Catcher couldn't fight that, for that matter he was nearly severed in two when the gates lashed out without control as she fell. The sheer will of the human world closed them, pulling the tears back together desperately and leaving the street still. No one could fight that…no one but a bullet could…or maybe me.

I cried. Admitting it meant nothing. I cried in the darkness of the surgery. No one dared move me, as close to death as I'd been myself. So I was imprisoned in a room that gave me nightmares with more to come. The werewolves of the house had to hear me, but my only true witness was the presence always at my side. My brother. My keeper. He rested his hand to my crown as I buried my face in my pillow and shook the cot with silent sobs of both fury and remorse. I couldn't be sure, but I think I heard his heart breaking.

Two weeks and they moved me back to our apartment. The Kin would be avoiding us for a while, we all assumed. Four more weeks and I was back on my feet making the usual messes around the house. Niko watched me. Subtle, but keen. Waited for me to break down. I refused. Killing every werewolf in the city would only make me feel better in the moment and rushing into the fray was obviously not a good idea. So my revenge would be like my brother, subtle and deadly. I would hate the Kin until the day I died and hopefully they would be but a legend by then. And the Vigil…

I couldn't hate the Vigil for killing the mother of my child. She was a threat to humanity at that point, their panic was warranted, but they were assholes for not even considering other routes. Tranquillize her, lock her up, until I could reach her. It would have been just as simple as a bullet to her heart…they pinned Catcher to the ground and took her body away from him, no, away from me. They gave me the ashes in a black urn as if it made the wound heal. I gave it to Goodfellow. No, I loathed the Vigil for more than their humanistic panic of being the middle rung on the food chain. I loathed them for their hypocrisy, for being the catalyst to all of this. And they would pay as well. Somehow, I would find a way. Opening a gate to Tumulus in the bowels of every single one of their facilities was as inventive as I could get currently and that just had horrible repercussions to deal with.

"Am I not off suicide watch yet, because I'm beginning to feel like you're one of those paintings that follows you with its eyes no matter where you are in the room." Niko's gaze focused directly on me then, as I wrapped another paper towel around my micro-waved burrito.

"You were never on suicide watch, you aren't that stupid," Niko replied dryly and tried to pretend to go back to reading his book. It had been the same tome-looking novel for the last week; there was no way it would take him that long if he was actually reading it. And I knew he wasn't monitoring me because he was afraid I'd off myself –he was right, I wasn't that stupid. That thought had only crossed my mind once and it was when I was threatened to become a breeding stud for Auphe females. Definitely thought about eating a bullet then, but losing…this fight was something that occurred in life. Life's endgame was death. No escape. You could whine all you wanted, but it didn't change its mind when it came.

I wondered how I'd avoided it when they didn't. Why I'd had five near-deaths and my son only got one. But…you know…thinking rarely helped anything when it came to me.

Niko wasn't worried about melodrama, he was fretting over a psychotic, homicidal break. That had been pretty close to being realized for a few days. Lucky those days were when I could barely move as half my internal organs knitted back in place. Now I wanted torture. Slow, unexpected torture. The Kin deserved no less. The Vigil deserved no more. I didn't tell Niko that. I just bit into my burrito and gave him a wave.

His feet dropped to the ground and he crossed the studio in what seemed like three steps. "Where are you going?"

"Work," I answered simply. I looked at my watch; I was already going to be ten minutes late.

"Work," Niko repeated.

I lifted my eyebrows at the echo. "You have a problem with that? Me attempting to earn my keep? I'll be at the Ninth. You can come, but you need to order something other than water."

"Cal, are you sure you're up for it?"

"Why wouldn't I be? I'm up for anything."

"They'll be a lot of paien there."

I snorted and grabbed for my new leather jacket. It desperately needed to be broken in. "I'd assume so, it is a paien bar after all." He continued to stare. I continued to collect my wallet and the .38 that I latched onto my ankle holster. There had been so much unsaid between us, but it never needed to be said before and I didn't want to say it now. Loved ones died. It happens. Neither of us could change that. "Nik, I'll be alright." I would be alright. Right now, I hated life and it kicks, but I would be alright. I tried to give him a surly smile; it probably just looked half-maniacal. "Besides, the world's better off with just one half Auphe, right?"

"Depends on the half Auphe," he muttered.

It made a lump form in my throat, but I swallowed it back before I felt anything more. I turned from him and headed for the door. If he wanted to come to the Ninth Circle there was nothing I could do to stop him, but I wasn't waiting around. "Well, there's just one now. Get used to it."

That's right. Get used to it, Cal.