“Spring breaks.” Rafferty yawned, straightening from his nap. “The spring breaks were good, except this ass stole most of the girls.” Catcher was grinning again, which I took to be a smug agreement.

“Speaking of women,” Niko began, turning enough to flash a stern look at me. “ Cal?”

He was right. Catcher and Rafferty were in this. They needed to know all of the dangers, not just about Suyolak. I put the computer back in their bag and rested my hands on my knees. “Delilah,” I said matter-of-factly, “she’s going to try to kill me. I think. Hell, I don’t know. She might. She might not. But the Kin know about her and me. I have that from a reliable source-as reliable as a knife and an axe can make it anyway. She’ll have to do something.”

“What concerns me is not knowing what exactly that might be,” my brother added as he took the first exit in search of food. “With the Kin, options are limited. We assume she was offered the choice of execution by her Alpha or by her pack and her Alpha. I don’t underestimate her by any means in that regard. It would probably take them both. Her second option, the one I imagine she chose, would be killing Cal. They know he was involved in killing the Alpha Cerberus, and, amoral criminals that they are, they don’t consider him worthy of life even outside of that.” That was Niko’s polite way of saying they considered me an unnatural freak and ridding New York of me would make it an all-around better place to eat, sleep, and lift a leg.

“Our good friend Caliban was of the opinion that it would be fine entertainment to let her come along so that we might play a game of ‘Does Cal get screwed tonight or does Cal get screwed tonight?’ ” Goodfellow drawled. “The second ‘screwed’ being, of course, Delilah eating his liver with ‘some fava beans and a nice Chianti. ’ I’ve never been a fan of fava beans myself; a little too spicy. I like a calm stomach when killing or having sex or doing both simultaneously. The last,” he said pointedly to me, “is my bet on how Delilah will make her run at you. I recognize my own. She is a creature of very particular appetites.”

“You’re usually too lazy to kill unless you can’t avoid it,” I said. It was a way to escape the conversation for a few seconds, but it was also true. Robin had once done something similar to what he’d said to save a girl I’d known-and loved. He’d killed a succubus, and considering succubi were predators who killed with sex, I imagined he’d done it in the midst of the act. But I hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t told. He had done it for me and for the girl. There hadn’t been much more to say.

The puck was an unbelievable fighter with thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands, to sharpen his skills, but he didn’t much seek out battles anymore. He was satisfied with the good life unless, like now, we could use his help. Thanks to Niko and me, we’d brought him out of retirement, and while he was our friend-and as lonely as he’d been, had been desperate to be our friend, I still wasn’t sure we’d done him any favors.

“I’ve mellowed over the years,” Robin retorted. “And there were none that didn’t deserve what I gave them. At least from my point of view at the time.” His carelessly jaded smile reminded me of another puck who once had almost killed us all. It made me damn glad Robin was a friend-had fought so hard to make Niko and me accept him as one. And mellow was good. It didn’t make me like his cat any better, though.

“Anyway”-I rolled up an empty Twinkie wrapper and tossed it at him-“long story not short enough, Delilah will probably try to kill me, but I wanted to give her a choice.” That didn’t make me soft. It made me a guy who’d been given a lot of chances in my life when I’d done bad things… They could be blamed on a creature that had taken me over, blamed on genes that should never have existed, much less have been combined with human ones. It didn’t matter who or what was behind the things I’d done. What did matter was I’d been given chances to prove I was better than that. I’d be one damn big hypocrite if I denied Delilah the same.

“Very noble. Very giving and understanding. Very much reeking of bullshit.” Robin couldn’t read minds, but he didn’t have to. This was his field of expertise. “It’s the sex, Hugh Hefner. Intercourse, coitus, carnal knowledge… especially the way Wolves do it, but one thing it is not is philanthropy.”

“As if I could even touch the level of horndog you’ve reached in your life,” I snorted. “I’m surprised you have a dick left at all. That it’s not whittled down to a toothpick.”

“If this is the way it’s going to be the whole way, I’m going to get another car.” Rafferty rubbed his eyes and yawned. “This is why you meditate, Niko? To keep from ripping them to small-enough pieces that even I couldn’t put them back together? Not that I would bother to try without one helluva fee.”

“Let’s say it helps. Partially. At times. I’m looking into additional philosophies.” Niko parked at the first restaurant we spotted. A truck stop. “We should eat on the road. Except for the pneumonia in Omaha, there hasn’t been any more news of outbreaks. Suyolak could be pulling far ahead of us or have left the Lincoln altogether.”

“No. He’s still ahead of us and no farther away. He’s sucking energy from the driver, trying to get stronger, to break the seals entirely. That’s why we’re catching up to them despite their head start.” Rafferty didn’t make any move to get out of the car. “I’ve got the bastard’s trail now. I feel him. Hell, I can taste him… like that sweet-sour stench of roadkill on the back of my tongue. There isn’t a place on this earth that he could shake me. Not one goddamn place.”

“You’re positive?” Niko pulled off his sunglasses and slid them into a jacket that hid many other things, most far more lethal than eyeware.

“He’s my kind. Twisted and sick as an asylum full of sociopaths, but still my kind.” He brought out his own sunglasses and he slouched back. “Bring us four of the specials. We’ll wait for the Rom caravan and Delilah.” Catcher’s ears perked up as they did every time he heard the name. Speaking of horndogs, the fact she might try to kill me didn’t make much difference to him apparently. I let it go. The fact that he couldn’t even go into the restaurant was one more reminder in years of them that he was different now. Let him lust. Delilah was worth lusting over, and in the end, whether she tried to kill me or not, she was his kind.

Wolves were for Wolves and, temporary encounters with me aside, that wasn’t going to change.

“Four specials,” I agreed. “Still coming out of your share, Chewbacca.” He yipped an obvious “Like I haven’t heard that one before,” then focused on the entrance to the parking lot, waiting for Delilah.

Rafferty stayed in the car with him with the excuse of waiting for the Rom, but we knew better; all of us, even Catcher-especially Catcher, who hadn’t had a bad spell yet, but it was only a matter of time. Robin was bitching as usual about the quality of food coming our way. “I’ve been craving Mayan food. If we were near any place civilized, like New York, we could perhaps have that.” He then looked around, carefully noting any lack of what would pass for civility in his book. “But unless we rip the still-beating heart from our enemy and braise it over the engine block of Niko’s car, I’m thinking not.”

Niko was pinching the bridge of his nose. I fished a small bottle of Tylenol out of my jacket pocket and slid it into his. He was stubborn about taking medication… body, temple, and all that… but we’d had one hell of a ride so far. There was always room for exceptions.

The place wasn’t that crowded. The gas station had a few truckers, along with postcards, shiny Mylar balloons, and fried or jerked meat, depending on how you liked it. But it was in the restaurant part where we found out how Robin liked his. We sat at the counter to give our orders when he moaned, “Temptation, thy name is truck-stop hash slinger.”