Yeah, this was improving my headache. I closed my eyes and knuckled my forehead for a few seconds. "Brilliance. Worship. Gotcha. Now how about we get down to business?"

"Aren't we especially cranky today? And after I took a bolt in the leg for you too." Sighing, he sat up and waved an imperious hand. "What do you need, ungrateful supplicant?"

I ignored that little rewriting of history and focused on the matter at hand. The humiliating matter at hand. "It's the succubus."

That perked him up. "Today was the day, then? Niko mentioned this morning that you were going to pump her for information." Eyebrows rose suggestively. "So very unselfish of you, throwing yourself on the grenade like that. What nobility, what fortitude." He gave a lecherous smirk. "Tell me all the filthy, filthy details."

Details. He wanted details. I looked up at the sky. It had been clear earlier; now it was a morose gray. I wondered if the sun was disappearing along with George. Gunmetal gray and heavy with heat, the clouds hung low… almost as low as I was hanging right then. Finally, I turned back to Goodfellow with a scowl. "I taste bad," I gritted between clenched teeth. "There's your detail. I taste bad. Happy?"

Mobile lips twitched with surprise and something less flattering. Slipping off the sunglasses, he looked at me with suspicious blandness. "You taste… bad." He rolled the statement over his tongue and repeated, "Taste bad."

I was glad he was so fucking entertained by this. "Yeah, taste bad," I snapped. "But, hey, that's okay because the snake sex is not me." I suppressed the shudder before it made it to the surface. The tongue had been bad enough, forked and slick and cold. Ice-cold. Bad enough all right, so much so that I had absolutely no desire to know what lurked under her clothes… what little of them there were. I'd gone in with no idea how far I would go. I did know how far I couldn't go. I wasn't willing to risk birthing another Auphe/human mix, and I damn sure didn't think an Auphe/succubus/human mix would be any better. I didn't know if it could happen or not, but it was one lottery I wasn't going to play. But thanks to my genes, push hadn't come to shove on the carpet of the warehouse office. For George's sake, I shouldn't have been relieved, but, goddamn it… I was. This time the shudder did surface as a twitch in my shoulders. "Very much not me."

"Not embracing the serpent intimacies, then. That's probably better for you in the long run." He tilted his head curiously. "Taste bad as in you actually, physically, taste bad, or was it your energy that was too much for her delicate palate?"

It had been the energy. Apparently mine was too Auphe for comfort. What does that say when even a succubus would sooner send out for General Tso's than suck you dry? What the hell does it say? "Moving on," I said grimly, "I need you to talk to her. See what you can find out."

"I see." He replaced the glasses. "You want to use me. You want me to be a gigolo… to whore myself for your convenience."

"Pretty much," I admitted without compunction.

He laid an arm along the back of the bench and gave a grin birthed in vice. "Who could say no to that?"

The warehouse was as deserted as it had been that morning. Most of the crew were keeping as low a profile as possible after yesterday's failure. They would trickle in around dark, heads down and tails tucked. Cerberus was gone. High-level Kin meeting, stress-relieving massacre up north—I didn't know and I didn't care. I simply seized the opportunity. And after said opportunity spit me out I was back with reinforcements. "She's in the office," I muttered, scanning the gloomy interior for any unexpected visitors. "She's bound to be suspicious, though, a strange puck just showing up out of the blue. How are you going to get around that?"

Managing to swagger and limp at the same time, Goodfellow shot the cuffs of his shirt. "Succubi don't think like that. They're interested in eating and sex and they never have to work very hard at either. She won't think twice about me walking through the doors. She'll just light a few candles and put on a bib." He ran a smoothing hand over his hair. "Snakes don't wonder where their food comes from. They simply accept it. It's all about the ego."

"Too bad they're not humble like you," I said dryly, stopping in front of the door. "You want an introduction?"

"No." Linking his fingers, he extended his hands to pop knuckles. "It would only slow me down." He opened the door, then closed it behind him, disappearing into the office. Exhaling, I leaned against the wall and did my best to not picture what might be going on behind that door. I doubted I'd ever look at a snake again without feeling the phantom sensation of cool scales under my fingers and a slithering tongue twisted into a noose around my own. And the taste. Wet sulfur, it had tingled in my mouth like venom. Still did.

I'd bent over to spit when the sounds started from behind the wall. A rattle filled the air, buzz saw sharp and spine twisting in its intensity. A hundred pissed-off rattlers or a hundred orgasmic ones—I didn't even want to guess. Moving several feet away, I fervently hoped that was a good sound and not an indication that Robin was being swallowed whole by a supernaturally horny boa constrictor. Covering my ears would've been the cowardly thing to do; instead I folded my arms and tried to keep my head down… mentally speaking. I counted floor tiles, roaches, whatever I could lay my eyes on… anything to keep my mind occupied and out of the office.

When the door opened, I automatically checked my watch. Twenty minutes. Only twenty. I would've sworn it'd been an hour at the very least. Hair still immaculate, Goodfellow stepped out into the hall and shut the door quietly behind him. Unfolding my arms, I straightened out of my slouch. "You find out anything?" That's when I noticed the stains on his shirt. Deep blue, they were splashed liberally over a sleeve and half the chest. Not Robin's blood. I'd seen that and it was ordinary crimson. Ah, shit. "What happened?" I demanded.

The hand that had been hidden behind his back appeared holding a knife. It was a match for the shirt, dripping cobalt. Ignoring my question, he countered with one of his own, "Who here deserves to go down the most?"

"What the hell happened?" I repeated as I stepped closer. Now I could see the claw marks on his neck. They bled sluggishly. "Jesus, Robin."

"She wasn't in the mood," he replied with grim savagery. "Now, who deserves to go down? Aside from Cerberus, who is the most evil son of a bitch here?"

It was a question that didn't require much thought. Flay or the revenant, and we still needed Flay. "The revenant," I said automatically. "You killed her? You couldn't just… damn. Haven't you ever heard of no means no?"

"She was in the mood for sex," he snapped, heading past me. "She wasn't, however, in the mood to talk. She was more afraid of Cerberus than she was stupid, and that's saying something. This revenant keep any personal things here?"

We clattered down the stairs with Robin using his free hand on the banister to keep his leg from giving out beneath him. "How the hell should I know?" I shot back. "I've been here a grand total of two days. If the Kin passes out employee lockers, I haven't got my combination yet."

"Think." He hit the bottom and whirled to face me.

"If we don't pin it on someone else, you'll go down for it. You're the new one and all suspicion will fall on you. I did get some information, but we'll need you in at least one more day to verify it. So think."

"Son of a bitch," I hissed under my breath, more at the situation than at Robin himself. Scanning the warehouse, I tried to replay yesterday. Where had the revenant stood? Where had he come from when he'd slunk over? I focused on one area hidden behind a row of dusty, empty crates. "Over here."