Free Downfall by Rob Thurman Page B

thought with vicious recrimination. I should’ve lied for all that we rarely ever lied to each other. Hadn’t since we were kids, but he shouldn’t have to hear this. He shouldn’t have to know. Wasn’t it enough that I did? Then again, he was going to see it, see me change sooner or later, and how to explain that away? Sometimes there are no options. That should’ve made me feel better.
    It didn’t.
    Nik stayed frozen that way for one excruciatingly long moment, long enough for my gut to roil in a riptide of rage and grief for him. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, for all that we had known it was coming someday. Like the world itself—it wasn’t
fair
. Nik who thought he could fix anything for his brother, but he knew this . . . no one could fix this. He shouldn’t blame himself for not doing the impossible. It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t . . . My inner fury faded somewhat as I saw it. I saw him. I saw all the tension in him melt away as if it had never been. In an instant, he went from stone to as relaxed as he’d been minutes before. Eyes warm, he gave me a rueful smilethat said that life was no different now than it had been yesterday or the day before—and it wasn’t.
    My brother, he knew everything. And he knew this too. He knew how it was and how it’d always been. Our whole lives had been lived as if each day were our last.
    This was the same.
    It didn’t mean he’d give up; Nik didn’t have that in him. But he wouldn’t insist on carrying the weight alone like he once would have, and he wouldn’t let it break him. We’d both learned our lesson there.
    He continued with his breakfast, ordering casually, “Stop pulling them out. You’ll end up bald. Not to mention that it’s unsanitary, especially when I’m trying to eat.” Unsanitary. Not the end of us or possibly the end of the world. It was unsanitary. Of course it was.
    “There is some good news. I’m not rabid on the inside. I feel more like I did years ago. If I had to look like an Auphe on the outside but get to stay human on the inside, it’d be worth it. Face it, neither one of us knows exactly what’ll happen. But anything is better than unsanitary, right?” I wiped a hand across my mouth and nose to cover my amused and relieved snort.
    Niko disregarded all sanitary issues as he went on after me without pause. “Tomorrow . . . today rather . . . we have to check out the new drug.” The drug, epinephrine, was Niko’s idea based on my reactions in the past and was meant to return me to a somewhat more Auphe state, in a way. It was ironic, but in our lives more than somewhat necessary and an Auphe talent that was as useful as deadly. We were concentrating on useful, but I’d rather think about it later, as I had plenty to think about now. More than enough. I’d consider the pros and cons of it for the tenth time when I used it, and that was hours yet. Sleep came first.
    “Then we have that job chasing down a
Bakeneko
.You’ll enjoy it. They can throw fireballs and unhinge their jaws like a python to swallow a human whole. They can walk upright on their hind legs if they desire. Interesting creature.” Man-eaters who could throw fireballs? Niko wasn’t giving me a hard way to go. This was almost a present. He knew that I would have a good time. “Although this one is younger, not as strong or large as an adult, and tends to eat children.”
    That was not a present, but if we killed it, we’d save some future victims. There would be kids who’d live to grow up; that was something. Not to discount the fireballs. I wanted to see the fireballs.
    “I do enjoy fire,” I confirmed in the wildest of understatements. I enjoyed it more when I was the pyromaniac in charge, but being on the receiving end was fun for a challenge now and again. Arson—it wasn’t a compulsion, but it was an entertaining hobby.
    “How does it lure kids out where it can steal them?” I questioned curiously. “I wasn’t the