are now wholly responsible for any and all of your decisions, no matter how catastrophic.”
The sun was falling in the sky, spearing me directly in the eyes. I put on my sunglasses and groaned, “All of them? Is that even possible?” I meant it too. I might have made it to adulthood in Niko’s eyes, but being an adult didn’t mean I was a competent one. I was a gate-building architect extraordinaire and the Traveling King, but that didn’t mean I still wasn’t a screwup in a few other areas of my life. “Cyrano, can’t we sort of ease into the responsibility part? One screwup at a time maybe?”
The Roman profile didn’t shift from its serious set. “You’re an adult, Cal. Embrace it. All little monster killers grow up. I saw it six months ago. I see it now. You can handle it. I have faith.”
Niko’s faith was different from my faith and a little less faith might be good. Killing, tending bar, trying to decide if I was more monster than human, and giving a shitload of bad attitude—that I was good at. Everything outside that was a different story, but if Nik thought I could handle the fallout of my occasionally wildly massive mistakes, then I’d give it my best shot. I’d make him proud—or do my best not to make him regret it.
“You’re right. I’m old enough to kill for my country, die for my country, vote for president, and to be drunk while doing all three.” I leaned back in the chair that worked, enjoying the air through the open window. Damn right I was ready.
“Yes, the very definition of responsibility,” he commented dryly.
Maybe not, but considering my past record, it was a start.
When we made it back to the loft it was almost dark. Niko had already put his university contacts to work as we rode back to the city, starting the calls before we had made it out of the Rom camp. It seemed he had one contact in the anthropology department in whom he had special confidence. If anyone had a chance of knowing the foremost experts in Rom culture, this guy, Dr. Penjani, would know about it. Next was a tiny woman I’d met once who taught mythology. Her name was Sassafras Jones, Dr. Sassy Jones, and she was sassy too. Loud, big, fond of pink . . . lots and lots of pink, but it looked better on her than on Abelia-Roo. I was surprised there wasn’t a tinge of pink to her wild halo of silver curls and in the icing on the horrible diet cardboard cookies she shoved on me. Not only did she know all the big mythology, anthropology, any-kind-of-ology experts in the country who’d have come across Suyolak in their studies, but she’d also be able to find out if any of them had terminally ill relatives. When it came to academia, Niko said, she was the equivalent of the neighborhood gossip . . . for the entire country.
“So what do we do when we find him?” I demanded, flopping on the couch and turning on the remote. Or rather pressing buttons in thin air as the remote disappeared from my hand more quickly than Houdini could’ve managed on his best day. Niko laid it on one end table. “Fine,” I grumped. “No TV. Doesn’t change the fact that if we find him and whoever took him has let him out, we’re just a puddle of hemorrhagic fever goo on the ground. Or he might be nice and only explode our hearts or melt our brains, all before we get within a hundred feet of him. Even if I manage to shoot him before I go down or travel closer and break his neck, I still think he’ll have time to take us all with him.”
“Which is why we need a healer, and since we cannot reach Rafferty, we’ll have to try our former client at Columbia, Dr. Nushi.”
Who was in reality a Japanese healing entity called O-Kuni-Nushi. He was known to his less than observant human colleagues as Ken Nushi and worked as a doctor and special seminar instructor for the premed upperclassmen at Columbia University. With the only other healer we’d known, Rafferty Jeftichew, now missing for almost a year, Nushi was our only
The sun was falling in the sky, spearing me directly in the eyes. I put on my sunglasses and groaned, “All of them? Is that even possible?” I meant it too. I might have made it to adulthood in Niko’s eyes, but being an adult didn’t mean I was a competent one. I was a gate-building architect extraordinaire and the Traveling King, but that didn’t mean I still wasn’t a screwup in a few other areas of my life. “Cyrano, can’t we sort of ease into the responsibility part? One screwup at a time maybe?”
The Roman profile didn’t shift from its serious set. “You’re an adult, Cal. Embrace it. All little monster killers grow up. I saw it six months ago. I see it now. You can handle it. I have faith.”
Niko’s faith was different from my faith and a little less faith might be good. Killing, tending bar, trying to decide if I was more monster than human, and giving a shitload of bad attitude—that I was good at. Everything outside that was a different story, but if Nik thought I could handle the fallout of my occasionally wildly massive mistakes, then I’d give it my best shot. I’d make him proud—or do my best not to make him regret it.
“You’re right. I’m old enough to kill for my country, die for my country, vote for president, and to be drunk while doing all three.” I leaned back in the chair that worked, enjoying the air through the open window. Damn right I was ready.
“Yes, the very definition of responsibility,” he commented dryly.
Maybe not, but considering my past record, it was a start.
When we made it back to the loft it was almost dark. Niko had already put his university contacts to work as we rode back to the city, starting the calls before we had made it out of the Rom camp. It seemed he had one contact in the anthropology department in whom he had special confidence. If anyone had a chance of knowing the foremost experts in Rom culture, this guy, Dr. Penjani, would know about it. Next was a tiny woman I’d met once who taught mythology. Her name was Sassafras Jones, Dr. Sassy Jones, and she was sassy too. Loud, big, fond of pink . . . lots and lots of pink, but it looked better on her than on Abelia-Roo. I was surprised there wasn’t a tinge of pink to her wild halo of silver curls and in the icing on the horrible diet cardboard cookies she shoved on me. Not only did she know all the big mythology, anthropology, any-kind-of-ology experts in the country who’d have come across Suyolak in their studies, but she’d also be able to find out if any of them had terminally ill relatives. When it came to academia, Niko said, she was the equivalent of the neighborhood gossip . . . for the entire country.
“So what do we do when we find him?” I demanded, flopping on the couch and turning on the remote. Or rather pressing buttons in thin air as the remote disappeared from my hand more quickly than Houdini could’ve managed on his best day. Niko laid it on one end table. “Fine,” I grumped. “No TV. Doesn’t change the fact that if we find him and whoever took him has let him out, we’re just a puddle of hemorrhagic fever goo on the ground. Or he might be nice and only explode our hearts or melt our brains, all before we get within a hundred feet of him. Even if I manage to shoot him before I go down or travel closer and break his neck, I still think he’ll have time to take us all with him.”
“Which is why we need a healer, and since we cannot reach Rafferty, we’ll have to try our former client at Columbia, Dr. Nushi.”
Who was in reality a Japanese healing entity called O-Kuni-Nushi. He was known to his less than observant human colleagues as Ken Nushi and worked as a doctor and special seminar instructor for the premed upperclassmen at Columbia University. With the only other healer we’d known, Rafferty Jeftichew, now missing for almost a year, Nushi was our only
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