"Gloriousness?" I grinned.

"Gloriousness… eccentricities." He rocked back on his heels. "One and the same."

"You and monogamy. There's a helluva concept. So, why didn't it happen?" Sometimes your mouth is faster than your common sense by barely a second. It's a nasty sensation. The mind does flip-flops, flailing mentally to recapture the words, but it's too late. They hit the air as garish as neon and then there's no taking them back. There's only mumbled apologies. "Sorry. I didn't think." Pompeü. Even a lazy student of history like me knew about Pompeü.

"Don't worry. It was a long time ago." From the tight set of his jaw, long was a relative term at best. He began to walk, and I followed along beside him. "Sometimes I lie in bed and try to recall her face… the feel of her skin against mine." He paused, eyes distant, before shaking his head slightly. "I can't. I remember she had black hair that fell in long curls over her breasts. I remember that her eyes were brown and her skin pale gold. I remember the color of the paints… but I can't see the picture." Matter-of-fact, he added, "Someday Niko will be that to me as well, a beautiful shadow long passed from this world." He shook his head briskly, did a Goodfellow lightning change of mood, and asked cheerfully, "How goes it with your girl? Georgie Porgie pudding and pie? Discovered what flavor she is yet?"

Cinnamon ice cream, I thought instantly before I could rein in my traitorous imagination. I hadn't kissed George. I might never kiss her, but I knew without a doubt what that kiss would taste like. "How about we don't go there?" I countered grimly.

"Oh, I beg to differ. How about we do?" His grin was simultaneously wicked and cajoling. "I'm in pain, mortally wounded. Distract me from my grief that I shall never know the size of Niko's most infamous sword."

"Jesus, Loman. I just ate. Cut it out, will you?" Still walking, I watched as his hand, featherlight and hummingbird swift, drifted out to one side and returned with a plump wallet that had belonged to a heavy-jowled businessman. Robin liked to keep up his skill in petty larceny. The original trickster, he said it paid to stay in practice… for the good of his magpie soul if nothing else. I would've checked the silverware every time he came to the apartment except for the fact we had nothing in that department worth stealing.

He thumbed through the wallet and gave a self-satisfied smile at the wad of cash that peeked free. Tucking it away, he clucked his tongue. "Come on. Tell Uncle Robin." There was a bit of a bounce to his step now, my troubles being more interesting than his own. "Of course, they do say abstinence is the best policy… 'they' being people who aren't getting any and want to spread the woe. You, on the other hand, are already all about the woe. Lighten up, kid. Do the deed already. We'll hit a place on the way home, stock up on every prophylactic known to man."

"It isn't disease that concerns me, Hef," I snapped darkly, stopping in midtrek. "It's a helluva lot worse than that. So lay off already, all right?" What I had so far managed to keep out of the limelight with Nik, Robin had managed to provoke out of me with very little effort. He was gifted in that respect.

"Well, it should concern you. Crimson creeping crud on your privates is nothing to sneeze at." An appraising gaze took me in as the people jostled past us. "So then what—ah," he said with quick comprehension. You could say many things about the puck, but one thing you couldn't say was that he was slow on the uptake. "Another potential consequence, but with a twist."

Yeah. A twist of Auphe thrown in for kick and flavor. What fun. What fucking fun. I walked on and zipped up my leather jacket to have something to do with my hands. It was a warm spring night and the leather only made it warmer, but the jacket hid my gun and my newly cleansed-of-bodach knife. Trailing after me, Robin folded his arms and offered lightly, "A potential consequence isn't a certainty. If you're careful—"

"There isn't going to be a certainty. There isn't even going to be a potential." I cut him off without emotion. Down went the jacket zipper, then up again. It was better than impotently clenching my fist. "I was lucky." Yeah… if you could call it that. "Next time it might not happen that way. You really want to try to find day care for a flesh-eating baby? I think they charge extra when your kid goes cannibal during nap time."

"I see your point," he admitted with a wince. "Regardless, I think the chances are low. If the precautions failed and if there was a baby, who's to say it wouldn't be like you? Melodramatic and sullen, yes, but obviously no Auphe."

I shook my head and walked into the side street-cum-alley that cut between Canal and Walker. It was a shortcut, if one didn't mind the small workout that went along with it now and again. "I'm not like you, Loman. I'm not a gambler, not even with the little things, and this is no little thing. The Auphe line dies with me."

He considered for a moment, the streetlights bright on his curly head. "Well then, I see two options left to you. First, find your healer friend Rafferty, and…" He scissored two fingers together with a snip-snip sound.

I had the feeling that Auphe DNA wouldn't let a minor thing like a vasectomy stop it, but it was a thought. "The second?"

"George. She is a psychic," he pointed out with a patience that wasn't usually part of his kinetic personality. "Why don't you ask her what would happen?"

Another thought, one I'd come up with on my own long before. "Maybe," I said noncommittally. The trouble was I didn't know if George would tell the truth. She wouldn't lie, but that didn't mean she would tell me what I wanted to know. George had an outlook on life that was completely at odds with my own. What should be, will be, and vice versa. There were no good moments without bad ones. No joy without sorrow. No pleasure without pain. No light without darkness. Yeah, it was all very Zen, I'm sure. She was so reconciled … so at peace with the world. That is to say, so not like me. If a bouncing baby killing machine was the result of us being together, she would accept it. She would know… without a shred of doubt… that was the way things were meant to be. Must be.

I didn't know any such goddamn thing.

"Until you decide what to do, I can think of one thing that might help tide you over." Goodfellow had stopped in the middle of the alley to remove a silk tie every bit as fashionable as mine had been cheap and ugly. He put it in his pocket and then removed his suit jacket.

"And what's that?" I asked with a healthy measure of skepticism.

"There's only one surefire substitute cure for a rabid case of horniness…" My glare had him choosing his words with more care. "Ah… lovesickness. One cure for lovesickness." He rubbed a dusting hand over the nearest garbage can lid, then laid the jacket over it and went to work rolling up his sleeves.

"Yeah? What?"

His predatory grin bared white, even teeth. "A good fight."

The guy slithered out of the shadows behind us. Not much illumination from the streetlights penetrated this narrow bottleneck of brick and concrete.

I rolled my eyes at Goodfellow, who naturally stood smack-dab in what little light there was as if it were his own personal spotlight. "They say don't swim right after you eat. I'm sure the same goes for kicking ass." I'd known someone was in the alley. Someone usually was. It was the price of a good shortcut.

"You came." The man was still only a hulking shadow, big from his outline, with a voice weaned on brutality and alcohol. "He said and you came."

I frowned. Either this guy was nuts, a good possibility, or someone was keeping a close eye on either Robin or me. I'd take nut job any day of the week over that second choice. "Yeah, we came. What the hell is it to you?"