by Rob Thurman
"Especially since you seemed to have nearly every Auphe living keeping an eye on you then." Robin rubbed a finger along his upper lip, lost in thought.
"Every Gr—every Auphe?" Niko repeated. "I thought you said they were legion. We saw many, far too many, but they were hardly countless."
"I said they were countless. That changed long ago." Robin stood and walked restlessly around the room, straightening sales awards on the wall as he went. "Changed for us all. Man." He shrugged his shoulders diffidently. It made me realize he had some memories he probably would've as soon forgotten as thoroughly as I'd managed with mine. The green eyes flicked toward Niko, excepting me from humanity without thought. "You breed like rabbits on aphrodisiacs. One moment you were the occasional star in the early-evening sky and the next, a smothering blanket snatching ownership of the very air itself. None of us had a chance, not even the wretched Auphe."
"Ah," Niko acknowledged with a philosophical regret. "Unfortunately, it is basic biology. When one only lives a short time, reproduction is a built-in priority."
"Every nine months versus every ninety years or so. It makes a difference." Robin blinked, then shook off the past to check his watch. "Sorry, compadres, it's been nice rehashing old times with you, but I have an appointment. There's still a living to make. Takes money to wine and dine the virgins nowadays. Devastating good looks and a big dick just aren't enough anymore."
I quirked the side of my mouth in dark humor as Niko sympathized with mock gravity, "Yes, a tragedy of epic proportions. However, the vast importance of your social life aside, I don't believe we are finished here. Do you?"
His knife might have been out of sight, but Niko was more than capable of making his point without it. Straightening his tie, Robin gave us both a jaundiced look and a reluctant promise. "We'll meet tomorrow, all right? Come by about eight p.m. That'll give me time to think on the situation anyway. I don't have my finger on the Auphe pulse, but I might know someone else who possibly could."
We were almost out the door when I turned and asked one last question. "Loman. Sorry… Robin. You seen any Auphe in the city lately?"
His hand, still on his tie, tightened involuntarily like the hand of the condemned on the hangman's noose. "Here? Auphe here? Katadikazo, no. Never."
Too bad for Robin, too bad for us all, but never had just gotten a whole lot shorter.
Chapter Six
Entertainers, with a capital E, axe a whole different breed. They're about five steps below your local slime monster on the evolutionary ladder if you ask me, but they were a major portion of Niko's bread and butter. Unfortunately for us have-nots, big money did pave the way for a lot of self-centered, outrageous behavior. Of course with Niko that kind of crap simply rolled off his back, water to a particularly phlegmatic duck. When you could kill someone with a dirty tube sock, you couldn't afford a careless temper.
That didn't mean those nut jobs didn't succeed in bugging the living shit out of me. "Niko, come on," I wheedled like a whiny twelve-year-old, as opposed to the whiny adult I was. "Why do you have to drag me along to the freak show? It's my night off. I'm supposed to be lying on the couch, eating pizza and watching TV. It's the high point of my week. Hell, it's a God-given constitutional right."
"Thank you, John Hancock." He tossed me a pony-tail holder. "Put your hair up. Tonight you're a professional. A professional what, I wouldn't even want to wager a guess, but at least you'll be clean-cut. In any event, since our car-buying venture was unsuccessful, we should try to salvage what remains of the day. You lazing about corrupting your mind and body is not what I consider productive."
"And who died and made you boss?" But I knew a lost cause when I saw it and was already pulling my hair back with nimble fingers.
Niko slapped a shoulder holster against my chest. "No one. Like all truly great dictators, I seized that power myself. Now finish up. We leave in five minutes."
I slipped on the holster loaded with two knives. Niko had already tucked away his fifth blade and wasn't half done yet. "Who are we slaving for tonight?" It wasn't the first time I'd helped out Niko and I had a mental list of the prima donnas, drama queens, and jackasses that I was sincerely hoping to never suffer through again.
"I think I'll let you be surprised." Niko shrugged into his black suit jacket, forgoing a tie against the gray silk shirt. "It will make the walk over less trying."
"That bad? Damn." I pulled on my own blazer, a slightly more rumpled version of Niko's that I'd borrowed from him last time I'd helped him out. It was a given I wouldn't have spent good money on it myself. If the occasion called for more than jeans and a casual shirt, it was safe to say I had no interest in it. Tugging irritably at the collar of the also borrowed turtleneck didn't do anything to relieve the feeling of being choked by a pair of unrelenting polyester hands. "This Robin Goodbar, you believe his spiel?"
"I think you mean Robin Goodfellow." With an exasperated shake of his head, Niko went to the shelf against the far wall and removed a book about the size of the Titanic. He had entirely too many thick, esoteric volumes, all educational and all devoted to research on my behalf. When we moved they usually took up the whole backseat of the car. Mythology, ancient civilizations, five thousand ways to slice and dice your opponent—it was all represented.
Niko's library was a stark contrast to mine, if you could even call my books a library. I had a handful of ratty paperbacks to my name, fiction exclusively. There were Westerns with the half-naked saloon girls on the cover, sci-fi with the half-naked three-breasted alien women, and pulp detective fie with the half-naked femmes fatales, anything that caught my discerning eye. No fantasy, though, and no horror. That would've been nothing but a waste of good déjà vu.
"I know what I mean." I staggered under the weight as he dumped War and Peace's big brother into my arms. "Okay, he's definitely not human, but it's still kind of hard to believe Studly McGee's been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth."
"Not all creatures evolve at the same rate, Cal. Be kind." He began to turn the pages with a fast thumb.
I had to snort at that one. "He's an arrogant SOB. Shallow as a parking-lot puddle, not to mention vain as hell." I suppressed a sneeze as the musty smell of a lonely, deserted library wafted up from the pages. More subdued, I added diffidently, "George told me we needed a car. Funny we should run into this guy looking for one."
"Did she?" Nik said without surprise. "Georgina is wiser than we'll ever comprehend. She may have known that Goodfellow could help us in some way." Sparing an exceedingly sore spot for me, he didn't push the subject any further. "In any event, Robin is certainly something of a peacock, I'll give you that. But considering how long he's survived, flourished even, perhaps he has some reason." A preemptory finger landed on the page in front of me. "You should try literature that contains words of more than two syllables, little brother. You might just learn something."
" 'Voluptuous' has more than two syllables." Turning the book right side up, I scanned the page. "So does 'nymphomaniac,'" I added, distracted by what was before me. It was Robin as Puck. No, it was Pan, his earlier incarnation. The caption read that the picture was from a temple painting discovered in the ruins of Pompeii. It wasn't exactly a Polaroid, but the artist had obviously known Robin. Not known of him, but been acquainted with him personally. The sly glint in green eyes, the wildly curling brown hair, the smugly lascivious grin, it was our Loman to a T.
"Yes, but 'trash' has only the one." Niko retrieved the book and closed it with a decisive snap. "And your five minutes are up. I suppose you'll be going without shoes?"
I had to put on my black sneakers, the closest thing I had to a dress shoe, one at a time as I hopped down the hall. It was that or go in my socked feet. Niko never had been one for idle threats. Five minutes was five minutes; he had an infallible inner clock… and no snooze button.
By the time we hit the street, I was more or less put together and still curious, in a morbidly apprehensive kind of way, who we
were covering tonight. It was simpler to think about that than what we might find out from Robin the next day. They say not knowing is the worst and maybe that's true most of the time, but if anyone could prove that theory wrong, it would be me. Running from the Grendels was bad; losing two years of my life, worse. Being half of a thing so twisted and evil that it was feared even by other legendary creatures, that was the topper. Or was it? It could be that if we did find out why I came to be, did find out what the hell the Grendels were playing at, it'd make our lives now seem like a walk in the park.
And the park was a good place. Green and full of trees, blue skies and Frisbees, hot dogs and Sno-Kones. Okay, sure, the occasional mugger with sharp claws, needle teeth, and maniacal red eyes. You dodged, you ran, you fought, and you went on. The park had its shadows, but it might be better than the alternative. The devil you know…
So contemplating what god-awful psychotic pseudo-celeb Niko was throwing our way was a distraction I wasn't about to turn down. I ran through my mental list, wincing with almost every entry. My brother's clients might've been short of true fame, but they were long on character, 99 percent of it bad. It was a regular mixed bag of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Or more realistically, the bad, the worse, and the plastic surgeon's Porsche payment. "It's not Glenda Glamstein, is it? Jesus, please tell me it's not her."
"It is not Ms. Glamstein," he responded obediently. "Though I'm sure she would be quite disappointed at your lack of enthusiasm if it were."
The sky was a sooty purple, at the cusp of twilight as the sun tumbled into its grave. There were more people on the sidewalks rushing home to dinner, their hobbies, their pets, their families. They all looked annoyed; it didn't say much about their home lives. I bumped my shoulder against Niko's. Most people didn't know how lucky they had it, and most didn't have a clue what family was all about. "Right, and you were so ready to go along with her uniform code."
"It would be tricky to hide very many weapons in a leather codpiece." He pursed his lips and looked down the length of his long nose. "For the less endowed among us certainly. I suppose I could've lent you a penknife." Before I could defend myself, not that Cal Junior needed it, Niko delivered the news early. "But have no fear, your virtue, such as it is, is perfectly safe. Your assets aren't liquid enough to draw the attention of Ms. Nottinger."
At the name I relaxed slightly. Tonight wouldn't be too bad after all. Promise Nottinger was one of the more well behaved of Niko's clients. Never mind that she was more commonly known as Promissory Note. As long as you were under the age of seventy and had less than fifty mil in your bank account, you weren't even a blip on the horizon. She might have been the human version of a succubus, but she was one with very specific tastes. As far as she was concerned, bodyguards were professionals there to do their job, nothing more or less, and she wasn't going to interfere with that. You can't really marry five doddering millionaires and their money without making an enemy or two. Keeping the bodyguard's mind on his business could only be in her best interest. There were plenty of disgruntled and disinherited family members out there just itching to have a go at Promise.
Not that she was a black widow from the "Late Late" movies. No, she didn't drop a subtle poison in hubby's warm milk or give him and his wheelchair a push down the stairs. As far as I knew, they had all died the natural death of the truly elderly. Then again there was more than one way to skin a cat. And if the majority of them had died in bed, shortly after their honeymoon or even while on it, who's to say they didn't get what they paid for? They probably died happy, happy men. To every husband, Promise kept her promise. But more importantly, to me anyway, she was quiet and restrained, and let us fade into the background. She didn't treat us like a circus act or a badge of fame and wealth. Promise was always a lady.
From the first wedding to the last funeral… always a lady.
We got on the 6 train and then made our way up to Sixtieth Street. Promise's place was on the Upper East Side, naturally, and thirty stories up in a building on Park. It wasn't the absolute best money could buy, but instead comfortably sandwiched between the obscenely wealthy and the disgustingly rich. There were shining wood floors, jewel-bright rugs, soft misty paintings, and plump grapes on wafer-thin crystal. Not a television or a bag of Cheetos in sight. Maybe the rich don't have everything after all. Niko liked it, though; I could tell. It wasn't necessarily his thing. Even if we'd been swimming in money, his ideal would be much more spartan, more utilitarian. Still, from the tilt of his blond head to the quicksilver flash in his eyes, I could see he appreciated its beauty, though it was entirely too elaborate for his taste.
Promise herself was much simpler than her apartment. Mink brown hair pulled back tightly from her face, pale skin, a full but unpainted mouth—she was saved from anonymity only by cheekbones that could cut glass and a pair of arresting purple eyes the color of blooming heather. In those eyes you could easily get lost, drowning in a field of summer wildflowers. It was easy to see how five rich men had fallen, and fallen hard.
We'd barely arrived at her place before we were leaving again. Always unfailingly prompt, she swept out the door, cloaked in silence as shimmering as her silk shawl. Promise wasn't much on the spoken word. If she had something especially pertinent to say, she would. If not, she let her eyes speak for her. And they did, in volumes that had even the most jaded, sneering maître d' scrambling frantically to smooth her path with verbal rose petals.
Me? I was lucky to get a grunt from the local pizza delivery girl. And I had nice eyes too, not to mention a killer ass. There truly was no justice in the world.
How did I know that? Aside from the ass thing, one clue was how our easy night went downhill as fast as a runaway sled. The first hour went well enough. Tedious enough to have my jaw aching with restrained yawns, but it was better than a kick in the head. Just barely.
I started out circulating throughout the reception at the Waldorf. Art for art's sake, save the starving ring-tailed dingoes, eliminate tennis elbow—it was for some charity or another. And if in reality it was just a social opportunity for the bored rich, I guess the money was spent all the same. I'd long given up on pulling on my collar for oxygen and now my hands hung loose and easy at my sides as I moved through the crowd. Niko and I swapped every twenty minutes. He'd cover the client and I'd run the room looking for possible threats and then if all was quiet, we'd switch out. It was the same routine I'd worked with Niko several times before and I had it down pat enough that half my mind was on the job while the other played a little what-if.
Watching all these people socializing, living their lives for the better part oblivious to the dark undercurrent that ran beneath all our feet, made me think. What would it have been like for Niko and me if I'd been normal, your average Harry Human? Okay, probably not like this. And Niko, who was smart as hell, could've achieved anything he turned his mind to. In the end, though, I had a feeling Niko had certain priorities, not to mention a certain edge, that would've led him in a particular direction. Considering his martial knack combined with a driven intellect, I imagined my brother kicking criminal butt on a federal level.
Either that or teaching college medieval history, dressed in tweed and waving around a broadsword. Swallowing a grin, I didn't dwell as much on what my life would've been like. Where Niko's might-have-been was painted in bright and vivid if whimsical strokes, mine was a canvas of murky shadows. It could be it was just harder to take yourself out of context. Or it could be the realization that if I were human, I wouldn't be me. Not even a through-a-glass-lightly version. A whitewashed, demon-free Caliban was a concept I simply couldn't wrap my mind around, no matter the effort I put into it. College and frats, girlfriends and road trips, it was a make-believe landscape that flourished fine until I inserted myself into it. Then it just faded away. For better or worse I was Grendel, American, and that was one gene pool no lifeguard could pull you out of. My imagination knew that as well as I did.
So I tucked it and the fantas
ies back where they belonged and directed my attention, all of it, back to the job at hand. I did another circuit of the reception without incident. Since all seemed relatively quiet and assailant free, I decided on a quick pit stop. Unfortunately even bodyguards of steel had all-too-human bladders. After giving Niko the high sign from across the room, I drifted through the throng, snatching a crab-stuffed mushroom from a silver server as I went. By the time I walked into the bathroom the hors d'oeuvre was nothing but a mellow, smoky memory on the back of my tongue. The taste, rich and potent, matched my first glimpse of the bathroom.
Walls the color of ancient parchment met a marble floor shot through with gold and a rich toffee brown. A nearly full-sized chandelier hung from the ceiling, muted topaz gems glittering softly. The long countertop was one vast piece of lovingly polished wood embedded with several beaten-brass sinks. The mirror that hung above it all dominated the eye. Framed with a twisted line of copper and brass that blossomed into leaves at the four corners, it covered nearly the entire top half of the wall.
I doubted I'd ever pissed in a place so fancy.
Unimpressed, my bladder let me know there was no time like the present. Once I'd finished business and zipped up, I went over to a sink to wash my hands. Several folded towels, thick and fleecy, balancing on a stool showed someone else was on a break as well. Good for you, buddy, I thought. Helping myself to a chocolate-colored towel, I was drying off when I saw it.
Out of the corner of my eye, a dark slithering as subtle as a coyly beckoning finger. Like most things glimpsed in the periphery it had my heart slamming in a way something seen face-to-face wouldn't have. The towel dropped from my hand as my knife sprang into my grip practically of its own accord. I turned fast half crouched on the balls of my feet with my blade close to my body to face… nothing.
Nothing, that is, but my own reflection. It stared at me grimly as we both drew in lungfuls of air as suddenly thick and choking as river mud. "Damn," I muttered. I had not lost it over my own image in the mirror; that jumpy I wasn't. I refused to believe it.
