It gave me another one.

I grinned darkly and saw the reflection of my teeth in the glass.

A really nasty idea.

One every last piece of shit of them deserved.

Timing. It was all about timing. The same way setting off a bomb is about timing, because the Auphe were a living bomb. Too late and you might miss your target. Right on time, way to go. Too soon? Too soon usually meant you weren’t going to be around to appreciate the other options. . . . You were going to be tomato-colored paste on a wall somewhere. And when the explosive had a mind and an agenda of its own, yeah, you were probably screwed. It didn’t bother me that my whole life hung on a “probably.” Hell, it always had.

The next day, Delilah, who had refused to talk on the phone, refused to fear any Auphe, now shivered with an all-over body twitch of disgust when I sat in the cubicle beside her in the main branch of the New York Public Library, the mythology section. It seemed appropriate. “You stink.” She cupped her hand over her nose. “Of suburbia.” It was as close to horrified as I’d ever seen her.

I wasn’t sure what suburbia smelled like. Pink flamingos, Virgin Marys, waving flags, and Big Wheels, maybe. “If you weren’t so damn stubborn, you wouldn’t have to smell me,” I retorted.

Every time I’d tried to talk to her on the phone she’d disconnected, until I’d finally agreed to meet her. Since I was an Auphe homing beacon, I made sure she was there a half hour before I arrived and she’d promised to stay a half hour after I left. Then again, promises and Delilah—I wasn’t sure she was patient enough to always keep them. Smart enough, yes. Patient . . . different story.

“Better clean death than your stench.” She left her cubicle to sit on the desk of mine, very obviously not there for the book learning.

“The Auphe won’t give you that.”

“Yes, yes.” She rolled copper eyes. “To wait thirty minutes. Sneak like weasel. Cower like sheep. I understand.” Her silver ponytail hung over her breast. “Where is your keeper?”

“Safe.” Nik was a lot safer alone and on the move than he was with me. Not that it hadn’t taken some convincing . . . on both sides. We’d had to convince each other and ourselves that it was the right thing to do. If I was wrong about the Auphe being imprinted on me like Satanic baby ducklings, if they were simply following with more skill than any creature should have, I could lose Nik. If I was right and the Auphe got pissed off that I was the only one they could find . . . then Nik could lose me.

Of the games they’d played with us the past week this time, I was finally dealt in. And my hand was good—aces high, because I didn’t think I was wrong.

Not this time.

And that promise I’d made to Nik, how I’d outthink them, how I’d get us out of this—I might just be able to keep it.

They were all gone now—Promise, Cherish, and Robin. They’d scattered before the sun had come up. The Auphe watching that night had been joined by another one and had stayed put as the others left. Both had melted out of existence when Niko and I had driven off that morning in his car before going our separate ways in the city. I hadn’t felt one since. Not yet. Definitely not when Niko and I had split up.

It had to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I knew the Auphe wanted him, almost more than they wanted me—because of me. Walking away from him based on a feeling, an ability I barely knew existed—“tough as shit” didn’t begin to describe it.

And for him to let me go? He almost couldn’t do it. Literally. He’d spent his life making sure I kept mine, and to not be there to watch my back now? I didn’t think he could take that first step away. He didn’t think so either. This wasn’t a fight with a mummy or a battle with a werewolf. This was the big time—the real monsters. Our monsters.

Walk away? Now?

I saw it in his eyes. Impossible conflict. My big brother, who’d guarded me since my first breath, and he couldn’t do it. Not even if it meant saving us all. He believed in me—he did—but when belief runs up against a lifetime of habit, belief can be kissing the canvas in a heartbeat. Just that one step . . .

I took it because I knew he couldn’t.

“Tell the son of a bitch Samuel hey for me.” I grinned before turning and merging into the crowd on the sidewalk. If it was the last look he ever had of me, I wanted it to be of the same cocky, cynical, stubborn bastard I’d always been. That thanks to him, I’d lived long enough to be. When I finally gave in and glanced back, he was gone.

It was the right thing to do, but I’d never felt more alone in my life. Your brother watched your back and you watched his.

Always.

God.

But he was safe. I believed it. I believed it because I had to.

“Safe.” In the library Delilah leaned down to whisper by my ear. “Safe is overrated. Safe is not fun.”

I let my thoughts shift from Nik to the image of a very nude, very limber werewolf, then gave myself a metaphorical smack back to reality. Not that doing it in the stacks with Delilah wouldn’t have been entertaining, not to mention some stress relief, but I didn’t have the time. And not really the concentration. Knowing the Auphe could appear on the top of a shelf any second and snatch me away while I was going at it was enough to take the lust out of anybody’s thrust.

“Safe is all I’ve got right now, if I want to stay above ground and kicking.” I ignored the warm press of her upper leg against my arm. And I didn’t sweat. No court in the land could make me swear otherwise. “I need a favor.”

She sighed, bored. She didn’t pout. Wolves don’t pout. They may get indigestion from eating you if you annoy them, but they don’t pout. “Favor? What favor?” she demanded with a careless yawn.

It was an easy enough one for her, just information, though for what she charged you’d think it was much harder. Before I left she did kiss me with a punishing nip of teeth and the soothing silk of tongue. It had me wanting to rethink safe, but I couldn’t. I’d been heading for this moment my whole life. Whether I lived or died, it ended now.

I left the library, hoping Delilah was smart and patient enough to stay behind as long as she’d said, because I had one of them on me now . . . watching. It had just moved into range. Of course, I wasn’t sure what that range was, so it wasn’t too helpful to me. I assumed within eyesight. I didn’t look around. We had one small advantage in this, and I didn’t want to give it away. My phone rang while I was clambering down the bottom of the stairs. I answered to hear Niko say brusquely, “You alive?”

“It’s cute how you worry.” I grinned, equally relieved to know he was in the same shape himself. “How’d it go with Samuel? Did they go for it?”

“They did. More importantly, they have the equipment upstate, although they also said officially it didn’t exist.” For some reason that seemed to amuse him, but he didn’t say why. “They flew it down from Fort Drum. I met them and was instructed on it. What’s the address Delilah gave you? I’ll call it to Samuel.”

I gave it to him. Flew it down from the army base. Damn, the Vigil did have some unbelievably serious influence. “You haven’t seen any of them following you, have you?”

“No, I’m clean as far as I can tell. You were right. They are homed in on you. Do you have any?”

“One.”

“One.” Nik didn’t say it like it was good news. To him it wasn’t. One could as easily call in the other seventeen, and he wouldn’t be there. That was the bottom line. He wouldn’t be there.

“Just one. Broad daylight. Thousands of people.” All separately might not have stopped them, but the combination could pull it off.

He exhaled, sounding calm and matter-of-fact, and absolutely not fooling me one damn bit about any of it. “Samuel said they can be ready starting tonight.”