Downfall

by Rob Thurman

  He swatted the back of my head lightly as I’d done to Robin as Niko had done to me and on and on. “We did, little brother.” His smile was small but . . . at peace. For Niko the smile was equal to my grin, and the peace . . . this was a first for that.

  I’d thought right before I died that shit happens. I’d thought it every hour of every day of my life and it does. Shit happens. All the time. All my life. But sometimes, while I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it here, miracles do happen. Even if a trickster has to make one out of thin air. Sometimes you do get to ride off into the sunset, whole and alive, even if ironically enough you have to die and be brought back to life to do it.

  All we had to do was saddle up.

  And watch us ride.

  17

  Goodfellow

  Niko and Cal were talking with Rafferty, Catcher, and Flay, who were all quite complimentary to Slay when he trotted back with a plump dead rabbit. The brothers hadn’t asked me how I’d been positive Grimm would let Cal walk away. You’d think they would be more than curious, as they would be and then some, had they a gram of sense.

  Cal had said about himself: He was a killer; why wouldn’t he be a liar as well? That was the truth. Yet they weren’t thinking about that truth. It could be that they didn’t want to offend me to insinuate that after saving their lives, I would then risk them all over again on the belief and my word that Grimm wouldn’t keep his. That he wouldn’t be the same as Cal—a killer and a liar. They would want to have faith I had him in a bind, to have faith in me instead of what they knew of Grimm—liar, cheater, killer. They would want to believe that I’d gotten the better of him and somehow forced him to keep his word. They would want to believe in me, as I’d not given them the reason to think otherwise.

  That I was the same as Grimm . . . liar, cheater, killer . . . they didn’t mention. Family members are like that, aren’t they? Always thinking the best of you. That was quaint. They shouldn’t have worried about my emotions. My feelings.

  I wasn’t the same as Grimm.

  I was so much worse.

  I only needed the opportunity to prove it.

  The Wolves had kept quiet as I’d asked them to, which I appreciated. I’d have to tip them, despite the fact that Rafferty’s bill would be exorbitant. His always were. Barkers without Borders was a myth to him. He charged more than a concierge doctor who came with a complimentary bottle of aged scotch. Not that it mattered as long as he kept his mouth shut. What did matter was the fact that I thought it was best like this for Cal and Niko. That they trusted that Grimm would hopefully keep his word to me, but staying alert and sharp for him to attack out of nowhere nonetheless.

  Alert, sharp . . . safe.

  With their history, it wouldn’t do any harm at all for them to stay vigilant and observant. Whether that particular bogeyman showed up, they had to know, there’d be others. Better safe than sorry.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder as Ishiah returned from deep in the woods where he’d dragged the body. “Hidden away?” I asked.

  “Hidden away,” he confirmed. “Until the wildlife eats it or it rots.”

  Earlier with help from some still current angel companions, Ishiah had been able to bring me here. We’d beaten Grimm’s gate and I’d watched at a distance alone as Cal’s and Niko’s bodies had been dumped out of midair to lie dead in the snow. Unmoving in the crystal white, they’d been as unmoving as gravestones of flesh as blood seeped seemingly from every pore, covering them in a blanket of crimson, staining the snow with death. I’d seen their blood time and time before . . . in the dirt, in the sand, in the grass, drifting in the salt water of the ocean. I hadn’t wanted to see it again. Instead I’d shifted my scrutiny to the one beside me.

  Grimm.

  I had stood by him but not too close. No, not close, as I was not a fool. He would’ve thought me one if I had, and it would’ve been true.

  But I was anything save a fool.

  “He wins this round, little goat,” he’d said to me as Rafferty began to work on restarting their hearts, repairing the infinite damage that Cal’s killer gate could’ve done within them . . . putting them back together, cell by cell. “But this is better as there will be more. He lives and I get to torture him over and over until he gives in or dies in agony.” He gave me a mirror/metal-bright smile of murderous anticipation. “Wasn’t that the deal?”

  There had existed no deal in which Grimm would willingly let Cal walk away forever. That would be a dream and a fantasy and a lie. I hadn’t bothered to bring it up in our earliest negotiations for the waste of time it would’ve been. That white lie was one I’d created for the brothers. White lies are always better than the truth. I frankly couldn’t believe that they’d bought it, all in all.

  “More, Grimm? Why?” I wouldn’t have stood even as near him as I had if I hadn’t seen Cal rip him open from navel to sternum with his metal claws. I didn’t know how fast an Auphe could heal, but it wasn’t this fast. Grimm was standing with his intestines either held in with surgical or duct tape, pure will holding him up. Add to that the gate he’d promised and delivered,which had pulled the brothers out of Cal’s own gate long before they reached the sun, separating them from all the Bae—that would’ve drained him to the dregs. He was weak, weaker than he’d ever been, slower than he’d ever be, at his most susceptible, and blind to his vulnerabilities. That was conceit for you. His ego wouldn’t let him believe it, and he thought I didn’t know it.

  He’d been mistaken.

  A puck was made to spot weaknesses, and I was nothing if not a product of my race. I didn’t have the power of a god. I didn’t need it. I was a trickster, and we had gods bowing at our feet with the force of our words alone.

  “Honestly, why?” I’d repeated. “Aren’t you tired of it yet? The never-ending killing. The game. World domination. All of it. It’s dull after a while. I’ve done it. Trust me. I have ruled and I have rampaged. I’ve been the throne and the power behind it. I know,” I’d said, and meant it. I had done it all and tiresome it had never failed to become.

  “It’s all we have.” His metal slice-of-hell grin that chilled all that breathed and lived widened into a nightmare where you could see a thousand of your reflections. “It’s what we are made to do whenever we gather together. What we were born for, Caliban and I.

  “Caliban said it himself. We are something new and something old and something unlike anything on this earth,” he’d finished with his grin twisting with vicious spite, scornfully annoyed at my questions.

  Impassioned in his dark belief.

  Distracted by the thought of future games.

  Was that opportunity knocking?

  I thought that it was.

  Distraction is for children.

  I’d barely had time to think what a naïve child he truly was when Ishiah’s sword had cut through his neck from behind with a swiftness that left Grimm grinning yet when his head hit the ground, followed a fraction of a second later by his body falling onto the snow. Perhaps I hadn’t been as alone in my distance as I’d seemed, but I was a liar too as I’d said, in words and impressions. I’d felt no obligation to emphasize to Grimm what he should have already known.

  I had been careful to give Ishiah that necessary swing room for his blade, but I thought I felt something splash my chin. I’d bent down and studied my reflection in Grimm’s gleaming silver teeth as his decapitated head tilted to one side on the frozen white beneath it. Ah, there it was. Wiping the drop of blood from my chin, I echoed, “Mmm. Whenever you gather together. Pity there is only one of you left. No more gathering now.”

  I’d straightened and inhaled the pine and glacier scent in the air. It smelled good. Fresh and clean, like a new beginning. I wouldn’t mind one of those.

  “Something new and something old and something unlike anything on this earth.” My laughter had been superior, yes, and con
descending, somewhat, but I’d earned that attitude. I’d then given his separated head a contemptuous kick into the depths of the thickly growing trees. “Actually you’re the same as everyone else, and guess what. There’s one of you born every minute.

  “Sucker.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rob Thurman lives in Indiana, land of cows, corn, and ravenous wild turkeys. Rob is the author of the Cal Leandros novels, the Trickster novels, the Korsak Brothers novels, All Seeing Eye, and several stories in various anthologies.

  Besides ravenous wild turkeys, Rob has three rescue dogs (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)—one of which is a Great Dane/Lab mix that weighs well over one hundred pounds, barks at strangers like Cujo times ten, then runs to hide under the kitchen table and piss on herself. Burglars tend to find this a mixed message. The other two dogs, however, are more invested in keeping their food source alive. All were adopted from the pound (one on his last day on death row). They were all fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy.

  For updates, teasers, music videos, deleted scenes, social networking (the time-suck of an author’s life), and various other extras such as free music and computer wallpaper, visit the author online.

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