hope. You fought fire with fire; and you fought a hyped-up, homicidal, megalomaniac Rom Kevorkian with another healer—and not the kind healing warts for God and five bucks at a tent revival either. You needed the real deal.
Unfortunately, per his answering machine, Nushi had returned to his homeland two months ago—on a sabbatical—and was unreachable at this time. There was no forwarding number or address. Niko tried calling Promise, who in turn called in some favors from the nonhuman crowd—nothing. She even tried the other side of her life, the insanely rich—some of whom had buildings at Columbia named after them. Her luck wasn’t any better there. Nushi liked his privacy. No one knew where he was or how to contact him. “Now what?” I checked my watch. It was almost nine, close to time for me to be heading to work. Until Niko’s pals at the university finished burning the prime-time viewing oil, we didn’t even have a direction to start driving.
“Go to work. I’ll try Rafferty. It’s bound to be pointless, but he’s all we have left.” Rafferty was a healer we’d met about three and a half years ago, maybe longer. If anyone could give Suyolak a run for his money, it would be him. Rafferty had kept me alive when I’d had a single drop of blood left in me. He’d also put me to sleep by merely thinking it and stopped my heart and restarted it without breaking a sweat. But he had a sick cousin and was, as far as we knew, traveling looking for a cure even he couldn’t provide. We’d called a few times, but he hadn’t felt much like communicating, because he hadn’t answered a single call, had abandoned his house, and no one, not even Goodfellow with his network of fellow tricksters across the country, had seen hide of him nor hair of his cousin for more than a year.
Rafferty’s cousin was a werewolf, same as Rafferty—a Wolf healer; weird, I know. They seemed made to savage, not heal, but, like people, Wolves were all different. But that was the only way they were like people. Werewolves were born, not made; they were a completely different species from humans, although the switching from one form to the other could understandably fool those in the past who had passed on the legends. Unfortunately, the cousin was stuck in wolf form. He was also slowly losing the human reasoning werewolves carried with them while wearing the fur. Rafferty was determined if he couldn’t save his cousin, there had to be someone out there who could. He had his mission and he wasn’t straying from it. I understood that. I understood family. But talk about bad timing.
“Go to work,” Nik ordered, as he punched a number into his cell. “Watch out for the Kin—all of them.” After what the revenant had told me, it wasn’t something my brother had to tell me twice. Until I knew what the Kin’s price would be, I’d be looking over my shoulder more than usual. I pushed up off the soft couch with regret at a lost nap, wished for once we’d catch an easy break, and was just grabbing my jacket when Niko said with a surprised tone I didn’t often hear from him, “Rafferty? Is that you?”
Holy shit. Forget the break. Forget the lotto.
We’d just hit the jackpot.
4
Catcher
My name is Catcher.
My parents named me after Catcher in the Rye , the book on which they’d had to team up to do a class presentation. Until then, they hadn’t been that interested in each other. But that book about teen angst and a loss of innocence had brought them together, and from then on they had been small-town high school sweethearts—depressing book; nice story.
But that’s not the point.
My name is Catcher.
I thought that every morning when I woke up—every single one—to make sure I was okay; all there; in my right mind; not having an episode. I could picture the air quotes around that last word clear as a bell. “Episode”—what a stupid thing to call it. I snorted and opened my eyes to see the morning light
Unfortunately, per his answering machine, Nushi had returned to his homeland two months ago—on a sabbatical—and was unreachable at this time. There was no forwarding number or address. Niko tried calling Promise, who in turn called in some favors from the nonhuman crowd—nothing. She even tried the other side of her life, the insanely rich—some of whom had buildings at Columbia named after them. Her luck wasn’t any better there. Nushi liked his privacy. No one knew where he was or how to contact him. “Now what?” I checked my watch. It was almost nine, close to time for me to be heading to work. Until Niko’s pals at the university finished burning the prime-time viewing oil, we didn’t even have a direction to start driving.
“Go to work. I’ll try Rafferty. It’s bound to be pointless, but he’s all we have left.” Rafferty was a healer we’d met about three and a half years ago, maybe longer. If anyone could give Suyolak a run for his money, it would be him. Rafferty had kept me alive when I’d had a single drop of blood left in me. He’d also put me to sleep by merely thinking it and stopped my heart and restarted it without breaking a sweat. But he had a sick cousin and was, as far as we knew, traveling looking for a cure even he couldn’t provide. We’d called a few times, but he hadn’t felt much like communicating, because he hadn’t answered a single call, had abandoned his house, and no one, not even Goodfellow with his network of fellow tricksters across the country, had seen hide of him nor hair of his cousin for more than a year.
Rafferty’s cousin was a werewolf, same as Rafferty—a Wolf healer; weird, I know. They seemed made to savage, not heal, but, like people, Wolves were all different. But that was the only way they were like people. Werewolves were born, not made; they were a completely different species from humans, although the switching from one form to the other could understandably fool those in the past who had passed on the legends. Unfortunately, the cousin was stuck in wolf form. He was also slowly losing the human reasoning werewolves carried with them while wearing the fur. Rafferty was determined if he couldn’t save his cousin, there had to be someone out there who could. He had his mission and he wasn’t straying from it. I understood that. I understood family. But talk about bad timing.
“Go to work,” Nik ordered, as he punched a number into his cell. “Watch out for the Kin—all of them.” After what the revenant had told me, it wasn’t something my brother had to tell me twice. Until I knew what the Kin’s price would be, I’d be looking over my shoulder more than usual. I pushed up off the soft couch with regret at a lost nap, wished for once we’d catch an easy break, and was just grabbing my jacket when Niko said with a surprised tone I didn’t often hear from him, “Rafferty? Is that you?”
Holy shit. Forget the break. Forget the lotto.
We’d just hit the jackpot.
4
Catcher
My name is Catcher.
My parents named me after Catcher in the Rye , the book on which they’d had to team up to do a class presentation. Until then, they hadn’t been that interested in each other. But that book about teen angst and a loss of innocence had brought them together, and from then on they had been small-town high school sweethearts—depressing book; nice story.
But that’s not the point.
My name is Catcher.
I thought that every morning when I woke up—every single one—to make sure I was okay; all there; in my right mind; not having an episode. I could picture the air quotes around that last word clear as a bell. “Episode”—what a stupid thing to call it. I snorted and opened my eyes to see the morning light
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