by Rob Thurman
Copyright © Robyn Thurman, 2006
First Printing, March 2006
Dear Old Dad
There was a sound at the window. It wasn't terrifying; it wasn't supernatural. Hell, it wasn't even scary. It was just a polite tap. One-two. Light and restrained. Your friend for the summer, your best pal at school… just passing by, you know? It was a rapping rich with familiarity and goodwill. Hey, buddy, whatcha up to?
So I looked up without alarm at the window that hung at the end of my bed. For a split second I forgot that I didn't have any friends since we moved. I didn't know anyone out here and no one lived close enough to be merely passing by.
Except family.
It hung outlined in the window by a scrubbed and shining lunar light. One hand was splayed on the glass with long thin fingers and skin as pale as the moon. A narrow, pointed face grinned at me with a thousand needle teeth and the predatory cheer of a fox in a henhouse. Slanted almond-shaped eyes glowed with sullen reds, scarlet as blood. Tapered ears pressed flat to the skull, and long hair as fine as milkweed shimmered in the air like a corona. The finger tapped again, the nail a metallic ticking against the glass, and a voice spoke. It was a serpent's hiss wrapped around the wet crunch of gargling glass. One word. Just one. It was enough.
"Mine…"
Contents
Dear Old Dad
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
About the Author
Dedication
To my mom
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank several people: first and foremost my amazing editor, Anne Sowards; my long-toiling agent, Wanda Cook; the brilliantly talented art and design team of Chris McGrath and Ray Lundgren; wonderful copyeditor Michele Alpern; fellow author Mara; webmeisters Beth (also loyal MOTG) and Terry; good pals Mikey and Lynn; the evil twins Shannon and River; and last but not least—the Pack.
Prologue
People… they do the craziest shit.
Yeah, I know. It's not the most elegant observation. But considering I was making it with a knife blade buried in my stomach, kudos to me. Although I had to say that it didn't hurt as much as I would've expected. In fact it didn't hurt at all. It just felt cold… cold and numb, like I had a bellyful of ice water.
It was the touch of a much warmer liquid on my fingers that let me know differently. It was blood. My blood. I tightened my hand over the one that held the knife handle. The blood covered both of our hands, his and mine. He had actually done it… stabbed me. Not that that was the crazy part. It wasn't, not by a long shot. No, the crazy part, the howling-at-the-moon madness bit was that he had tried so hard to avoid it. But wasn't that my brother all over? Honest, loyal, all but rolling in integrity. Too good for his own good. But, hell, in the end, too good for my good as well.
"Well," I said ruefully. "Look at that." Then my knees buckled and I dropped to them, sliding off the blade as easy as you please. There was the kiss of metal and then only gaping emptiness as I fell. Letting go of his hand, I covered the wound in my abdomen. It was strange, how the blood was so warm while I felt all but frozen. I looked up into eyes the same color as mine, pale gray as a winter sky. Curling up the side of my mouth, I gave him a half smile. "My mistake. I guess you have the balls after all. Good for you, big brother."
The blade dropped from his hand to clatter on the floor with the metallic, ringing peal of a bell.
"What? No souvenir?" I asked curiously. The words came out slurred and thick, heavy and fading. Like me. Fading and fading fast. A morning mist dissipating in the rising sun. A broken bird plunging from the sky. A scuttling dark thing fleeing the light of day. Shit, I should've been writing some of this down. Dying really brought out the poet in me.
I heard the gate close, a thunderous and oddly final sound that threatened to bring the building down. The walls shook with a peculiar rippling effect that rose from floor to ceiling, and plaster and metal began dropping like rain. If you had to go, might as well go out with a bang. "Better run, Chicken Little. The sky's falling." Fairy-tale words with a predator bite. They weren't deep, not meaningful, but they had teeth. And like any good predator I wanted to go out with the sweet taste of blood in my mouth.
Naturally he didn't run. Heroes don't do that. And apparently neither do brothers. Hands gripped me and I was flung over a shoulder in a fireman's carry before I could even take a swing at him. Of course, that was making the assumption I had enough life left in me to make a fist. As assumptions went, they didn't come much bigger. Then he was running, jolting me up and down. Behind us I could see the monsters boiling in frustration, rushing at where the gate hung, impenetrable. This time it was closed for good and they knew it. To a one every narrow, pointed face turned in our direction, every molten-lava eye seething with bloodlust and a poisonous, black hatred. Like an ocean wave they came after us, a riptide of murderous intent. Monsters, they didn't handle disappointment well. I should know. I was one.
Chapter One
Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away "Cinderella" and her shoe fetish, "The Three Little Pigs" with their violation of building codes, "Miss Muffet" and her well-shaped tuffet—all forgotten or discounted. And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world, you have to give up the fantasies, the make-believe. The only trouble is that it's not all make-believe. Some parts of the fairy tales are all too real, all too true. There might not be a Red Riding Hood, but there is a Big Bad Wolf. No Snow White, but definitely an Evil Queen. No obnoxiously cute blond tots, but a child-eating witch… yeah. Oh yeah.
There are monsters among us. There always have been and there always will be. I've known that ever since I can remember, just like I've always known I was one. Well, half of one anyway. And regardless of what inherited nastiness I might have on the inside, on the outside I was all human. In fact Niko had said, and pretty damn frequently, that I had more human qualities than I had good sense. He never hesitated to remind me that no matter how god-awful I thought my problems were, I was still his punk-ass kid brother. If I wanted to beat up on myself, I'd have to go through him first. Niko was such a Boy Scout—albeit one with a lethal turn and a Merit Badge in deadly weapons.
Niko, for all his fascination with sharp, pointy things, didn't have a drop of monster blood in him. Of course his father could barely be classified as human in my book, but technically the man met the definition. Worthless bastard. Niko had been two weeks old when his dear old dad had taken off. He'd seen him no more than three times in his entire life. There were some true parenting skills at work. Three times. Hell, I'd seen my father more than that.
Yeah, I'd seen mine at least once a month. It watched me. There were no father-and-son chats, no invites to see the monster cousins, no interaction of any sort. There was just a shadowed figure lurking in an alley as I passed. Or maybe a silhouette with lithe, sinuous lines and sharp, sharp teeth cast against my window at night. Of course, it wasn't like it was
wearing a name tag that said "Dad" on it or leaving me birthday presents topped with a bow tied by unnaturally long, clawed fingers. I had no proof it was my demonic sperm donor, but come on. When your mother is quick to tell you you're a freak, an abomination that should've been aborted on cheap bathroom tile, you have to think… why else would this monster be stalking me? Funny, that monster had more interest in me than my mother ever had.
Over the years I got used to it, the shadowing. A couple of times I tried to approach it—out of curiosity, or a morbid death wish, who knew? But it always disappeared, melting into the darkness. Mostly I was relieved. It was one thing to be part monster, another altogether to embrace that less-than-Mayflower heritage. Then when I was fourteen that all changed. After that, I didn't look for monsters.
I ran from them.
Actually we ran from them, Niko and I. For four years that felt more like forty, we ran. Ran until it was a way of life. It wasn't the kind of life Niko deserved. But did he listen to me when I told him so? Shit. Hardly. My brother had made a career out of trying to protect me. Talk about your minimum-wage, no-benefits occupations.
Sort of like the one I had now, I thought glumly. Dumping the mop back in the battered bucket, I swirled it around once in the gray foul-smelling water, then flopped it back on the scarred wooden floor. You'd be amazed at how much vomit a barful of drunks could produce. I was, at first. Now I was just amazed at how damn long it took to clean it up. It was rather ironic that the fake ID that aged me up from nineteen to twenty-one had me cleaning up alcoholic chunks rather than spewing them myself.
"Cal, I'm heading out. Close up for me?"
I cast a jaundiced look over my shoulder. Good old "Close up for me" Meredith. You could always put your faith in her—that is, the faith that she would leave you high and dry to duck out early. "Yeah. Yeah." I waved her off. One day I'd tell her to bite me and stick around to do her job, but I was guessing that day would come when she was wearing a top that was a little less tight or a shade less low-cut. "Want me to walk you out?"
"No, the boyfriend's outside." She tugged at my short ponytail as she headed toward the door. "See you tomorrow." And then she was gone, her long cascading red hair and curving figure lingering in the air to dazzle the eye like a fluorescent afterimage. Meredith was all about a look. She'd sculpted herself with the passion and precision of any artist. I doubt that even she had a clue what her original hair color was—or her original breast size, for that matter. She was a walking, talking advertisement for better living through plastic surgery.
And despite 99 percent of it being artificial, it was a damn good body. Fantasizing about it made the unpleasant chore of mopping up human bodily fluids pass a little faster. I actually didn't mind pulling "close up" duty at the bar. After bartending all night it was kind of nice to be surrounded by nothing but silence and empty space. I was beginning to think working at a bar was ruining my appreciation of a good party. Drunk people were starting to lose their charm; hell, they were even starting to lose their comedic ways. You can watch a wasted guy fall off a barstool and crack his head open only so many times before it's just not funny anymore. Well, not as funny anyway.
At the moment the bar was quiet. It was a comforting quiet, the kind that wrapped around you like the thickest of fleecy blankets sold at stores you couldn't even afford to walk through the front door of. It was nice… peaceful. It was also dangerous and Niko would kick my ass if ever I didn't recognize that. Being alone, being distracted, that all added up to being a walking, talking target. I was a fugitive, hunted, and not for one minute, one second, could I forget that. Other things I'd forgotten, in a big way, but never that. Putting away the mop, I finished locking up and ended up on the sidewalk about four thirty. Even at that late hour the streets of New York weren't totally empty, but they were sparser… for a few hours the road less traveled. With the chill of October already a vicious bite in the air, I zipped up the battered black leather jacket I'd picked up from a street vendor in Chinatown for twenty-five bucks. A knockoff of a knockoff, but all I cared about was that it let me blend in with the night.
Keeping my hand in my pocket and firmly gripping a deadly little present Niko had given me, I walked home. It wasn't too far, about five blocks over to Avenue D. It wasn't the best part of town by any means, but neither were we the best type of people. I kept my eyes open and my senses as sharp as those of any rabbit that smelled the wolf. Although to give myself some credit, I was a rabbit with teeth. Not to mention one helluva kick. This time, however, I made it back with no sign of anything with claws, molten eyes, or a hunger for my blood—a good night in my book. Niko and I lived in an older apartment building, pretty run-down but not a complete slum. Depending on your definition. The front door had been secure at some point in time, I suppose, but now it usually hung ajar by a few inches, the gap-toothed grin of a dirty old man. I took the stairs up, seven stories, grumbling and cursing under my breath. There wasn't an elevator; apparently our landlord considered housing laws not exactly a must-read. Not that it mattered. Even if there were one, it probably wouldn't work and if it did, an elevator was no place to be trapped. A metal box of guaranteed death for someone on the run, Niko had said on occasion. And as my brother had absolutely no talent or inclination for exaggeration, I tended to stay out of elevators. Picturing what might drop through the roof or burrow through the floor wasn't the kind of thought I liked to entertain. Making my way down the hall to our door, I slid the key into the lock and opened the door to a dark room. Finding the roughly aged plastic of the light switch with my fingers, I flipped it on.
Nothing happened.
The lightbulb could be burned out; that's what your average person would think. Not me. Instantly I shrugged out of my jacket; the rustle of the leather would do its best to give me away before I moved an inch. I let it slip to the floor as silently as possible and then slid along the wall, slow step by slow step. The plaster was cool even through my shirt, a light trace of ice against my spine as I listened and listened hard. There was no sound, not the brush of a foot against the floor, not the single sigh of an exhaled breath. But something was there. I didn't need to spend $2.99 a minute on Miss Cleo to know that. I crouched slightly and started a cautious pass with my arm through the pitch-black air before me. Not a good idea.
A grip as unbreakable as any bear trap snared my wrist. It pulled me away from the wall, virtually off my feet. Something hard hit me in the pit of my stomach and I flipped to land forcefully on my back, the air exploding painfully out of my lungs. An iron pressure was applied to my throat and a sibilant voice hissed, "Any last words, dead man?"
I coughed, sucked in a ragged breath, then drawled hoarsely, "You are such an asshole, Niko. You seriously need to invest in a hobby."
"Keeping you alive is my hobby. It certainly doesn't appear to be yours." There was a sharp clap and the lights flared on. Wonderful. We now had clap-on, clap-off technology in our midst. All the better to illuminate my humiliaton.
I scowled and batted in annoyance at the long blond braid that hung down in my face. "I already have the one side of my family out to put me in a box or worse. Is it too much to ask you stop playing Cato?"
"Yes, it is." With an automatic shrug he flipped the braid back over his shoulder and stood. "And Inspector Clouseau would certainly be a better student than you." Holding out a hand to me, he asked pointedly, "And where exactly is that knife I gave you?"
I took the hand and let him pull me to my feet. "In my jacket pocket." Gray eyes shifted to the puddle of leather by the door, and pale eyebrows rose skyward in silent but potent disapproval. "Yeah, well, at least with it over there I'm not tempted to make like a Cuisinart all over your scrawny ass."
"Quite the threat," he said dryly. "I'm sure you are the terror of Girl Scouts everywhere." He brushed the dust from his black turtleneck and pants with a fastidious hand. "Lock the door, Cal. Let's not make it any easier for the Grendels than we have to."
Names were f
unny things. They meant things… no matter how much you might deny it, no matter how much you might want to believe they were chosen at a whim. Niko had come up with the name "Grendels." It wasn't enough he was a blond Bruce Lee, but he was smart as hell too. One reading of Beowulf in the sixth grade and he'd labeled my stalkers Grendels. I'd been only in the first grade myself, five years younger than Niko, so it hadn't meant much to me at the time. But Grendels they became; after all, monsters were monsters.
Of course now I was just three years younger than my butt-kicking big brother. Wasn't that a trick?
"Caliban" was a helluva name too. Nice label to put on a kid, right? Mom might have lived in a dark, cramped one-room apartment over a tattoo parlor. She might've told fortunes for a living, ripping off the naive, the desperate, the flat-out stupid. And she might have been as quick with a slap as she was to tilt a bottle of cheap wine. But one thing you could give her credit for, she knew her Shakespeare. The Tempest's Caliban, born of a witch and a demon. Half monster… a slouching nightmare of a creature tainting everything he touched.
Gee, thanks, Mom. You really knew how to make a boy feel special.
I locked the door and headed toward our bathroom, saying with a grin, "What're you still doing up? You know all good little ninjas should be in bed, visions of homicidal sugarplums dancing in their heads."
With a grunt of resignation Niko retrieved my jacket from the floor. It hung from the point of one of his many, many blades until he draped it over the back of our battered sofa. "They're not completely homicidal." His lips twitched with amusement. He followed me down the tiny hall, leaned with casual grace against the wall, and folded his arms. "And I had a last-minute scheduling for bodyguard duty. An off-off-off-Broadway actress who imagines herself the target of a literal army of sex-crazed stalkers. It was exhausting."
"I'll bet." I gave him a mock leer as I leaned over the bathroom sink. As I pulled the rubber band free from my hair, the ruler-straight black strands fell forward against my face. Squeezing a generous dollop of toothpaste on my brush, I went to work, scrubbing and spitting. Niko had a casual business relationship with an agency that provided bodyguards and security around the city. Actually, the agency was one guy with a lot of contacts, some of which were even almost legal. But it was fair money and the pay was strictly under-the-table. No taxes. No government. No trail for the Grendels. Not that I pictured a Grendel in a bow tie and spectacles climbing that corporate ladder or waiting on his retirement. Still, Grendels weren't above using humans, and most humans weren't above being used.
