Free Blackout by Rob Thurman Page B

shit. “You.” I pointed at Niko with the fork. At least, I attempted to point at him. Things were still a little blurry. As much as I wanted to hold the two of them responsible for that, I knew better. This was my fault. I’d let myself forget one basic fact, the very first fact I knew about myself—the one that nobody, not even Miss Terrwyn, had to tell me. “We have a last name? Same last name? Fuck it. Who cares? What’s your last name?”
    “Leandros of the Vayash Clan. Our last name is Leandros.” He reached down, slid his hands under my shoulders, and sat me up.
    “Whatever.” I closed my eyes and let the world stop whirling. “You, puck. Go back and get my food. I’m still starving.” I wasn’t, not anymore, but it was a matter of principle. “Leandros, get me back to the motel so I can throw up.”
    “Are you dizzy? Nauseated? You could have a concussion.” The last possibility sounded accusatory, and Goodfellow countered in the same tone.
    “He tried to stab me with a fork, Niko. For the third time, I might add. He is as my own family, and I’m willing to take one for the team, but taking syrup-coated metal like a spear through my throat is a lot to ask for.” I felt a hand gingerly pat the top of my head. “I’m sorry, kid. I’d have steered you toward the waitress’s bountiful bosom if she’d been out here. Oh, here she comes now … with the manager … who’s calling the police. Skata , it’s always something. Take him back to the room, Niko, and I’ll clear this up here.”
    Just that quickly I was on my feet and across the road before I was able to get my eyes open. Then we were in the room, and I was sitting on one of the beds. Vampires, werewolves, other crap, gods. Gods . Goodfellow was on the money. I wanted the world back where and when I thought spiders and pucks were all I knew. Although I had known when I’d woken up in the Landing that the world was full of monsters, not only spiders, I simply didn’t have names to put to them and proof that I was right. I’d let myself think in those four normal days that I might just be a little crazy, because crazy was better than a world made of nightmares.
    “Are you all right?”
    I stopped rubbing the small lump on the back of my head and looked up at Niko. No. Leandros. Leandros was easier right now. There was too much to absorb and I needed some distance to do that. I needed to be able to breathe and to think. “I just found out that the world is one big frigging horror movie. I might need at least thirty seconds to process that, okay?”
    “I can understand that,” he said slowly. “But you do need to know that being a vampire or a Wolf,”—as werewolves apparently preferred to be called. Good for them—”or a puck or a peri or any other number of things, doesn’t necessarily mean they are monsters. The majority are like people. Some are good; some are not. And some …” He let the rest of the sentence trail away.
    “And some are?” I prompted.
    He exhaled and sat beside me. “And some are monsters with no thought other than killing and no more soul than lies in the bullet of a gun. That doesn’t make the world a horror movie. It merely makes it like it already is, only with a few more layers that ordinary people will never see.”
    “Just lucky ones like us,” I said grimly. “Whoopee.”
    The puck came through the door then with my food in a Styrofoam container. “I paid off the manager, but I’d advise we leave as soon as possible. You, Junior, now owe me an extra three hundred on top of the damage to my pants.”
    “Okay, I have to hurl.” Not from the bill or his obsession with his pants, but from the smell of the food. It looked as though I’d bought myself a slight concussion after all. I made it to the bathroom, slammed the door behind me, and vomited into the toilet. It wasn’t much. I’d had but half of my lunch, no supper yesterday, and not much of breakfast today before having my world—and