Nightlife

by Rob Thurman

  But in my world that wasn't an option. You might think it, but the second that you acted on it you were dead… or worse. Hell, what was it anyway? A singing mirror? Objectively, how scary was that? Movies and little-kid terrors aside, how did a mirror stack up against all the other things I'd faced in my life? Not very damn high. So I did my best to forget my cold sweat and my slamming heart, and I looked.

  The crooning stopped, and once again I was staring at my own image. This time I looked less sheepish and more annoyed. A hard smile touched the corners of my mouth, and even in the gloom my eyes reflected brighter and colder, almost silver. "Alice," I said grimly. "You are really starting to piss me off." I flipped the knife in my grip with every intention of smashing the glass with the hilt. After all, what was seven years' bad luck compared with living with a possessed mirror? At the last moment, however, I stopped, the knife only tapping the surface. It wouldn't do any good. It wasn't just this mirror after all. I couldn't go through life breaking every mirror I saw. In the end I just covered it up with a towel, meticulously tucking the cloth under the edges. There you go, Alice, I thought with a healthy dose of self-derision. Let's see you get past that. Forget brick walls or steel; I had the best protection terry cloth had to offer.

  The towel might have actually held Alice back the rest of the night, but it wasn't going to do a thing to stand between me and Niko now. When he got out of the shower, I'd have some serious 'splaining to do. I couldn't say why I was reluctant to tell him. It wasn't as if he'd doubt me. It would just be one more thing in a lifetime parade of creepy-crawlies, even if it gave me an odd feeling of déjà vu. We had so much going on right then, though, and that could've been what was bugging me. We were already swimming in so much crap, we didn't need a few more gallons of it dumped on our heads. And while I knew ignoring it wasn't going to make it go away, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend that much time dwelling on it either. I had a musical stalker, so what? As long as it only whistled at me, I could deal.

  By the time there was a knock at the door, I'd almost decided to try to slide the whole thing under Niko's radar. I wasn't too optimistic about my chances, but I was going to give it a shot. That thought disappeared quickly as I stared, nonplussed, at the door. Who in the hell could that be? Granted the front door was busted and the buzzer pointless, but Niko and I had never told anyone where we lived. The more anonymous you were, the safer you were. Outside of the odd Girl Scout selling cookies or a Jehovah's Witness selling salvation (and I couldn't remember the last time either of those had braved our neighborhood), there shouldn't have been anyone knocking at our door: When I leaned against the wood and peered suspiciously through the peephole, I got an eyeful of waggling fingers waving in a careless hello. "Jesus Christ," I muttered in surprise.

  "Not quite," the muffled comment came through the door. "I dated his cousin, though. Great gal. Had a set of yabbos like you would not believe."

  Rolling my eyes, I unlocked and opened the door. "Goodfellow, what the hell are you doing here?" Before he could answer, I added, "And how did you know where we live?"

  Robin walked into the room, folded his arms, and gave me a neutral green glance. "Niko called me about half an hour ago. Invited me over. Being that he didn't try to kill me, I didn't see why I shouldn't come."

  "Yeah, there is that," I said blandly. It seemed Niko had been up to something before he made it into the kitchen. Sneaky bastard. Turning, I strode to the bathroom door and pounded on it, hard. "Nik, get your ass out here. You have a visitor." When I walked back into the living room, Robin was standing in front of our bookshelf with a bemused expression.

  "Quite the diverse selection." He touched a finger to one of Niko's many occult volumes and then to another book on European history. "History, mythology, chemistry, mathematics. Someone is well-read."

  "Niko," I replied briefly. "If it's worth knowing, he knows it. If it's not worth knowing, chances are he still knows it."

  He cocked his head in my direction as I sat on the edge of the coffee table. "None are yours, then, O member of the ignorant masses?"

  I grinned caustically. "That's me. Dumb as a box of rocks."

  "Don't believe that for a second." Dressed in fresh clothes, Niko stood in the entrance of the hall braiding his wet hair with skillful fingers. "I homeschooled the brat for a few years. Stupidity is not something I would tolerate. Laziness, however, defeated me. Thank you for coming, Goodfellow. Can I offer you something to drink?"

  "And you thought I wanted to kill you," I grunted. "He'll finish the job with carrot juice." I had a good idea what Niko was up to and I wanted no part of it. All I wanted to do was forget about yesterday—every moment of it.

  "I never thought that you wanted to kill me, only that you tried." Robin looked away from me to nod at Niko. "Whatever you have will be fine, even"—he made a face—"carrot juice."

  "Don't worry. We're all out of carrot juice." Walking into the kitchen, Niko returned with a glass of dark green liquid. "Luckily enough, we do have an entire bottle of wheatgrass juice."

  "Your sense of humor isn't all that it could be, you know that?" Goodfellow took the glass and stared into it morosely. He took a sip and the green in the glass was transferred to his face. "Holy Bacchus," he sputtered. "That is against nature and all things divine."

  "But it's good for you," I pointed out with dark cheer. I might not particularly enjoy Goodfellow's company, but I did get a kick out of seeing someone besides me suffer Niko's peculiar nutritional habits.

  "No doubt. Otherwise it wouldn't taste like warm liquid cud." Running a finger around the rim of the glass, he then flicked a finger against it. The glassy ring filled the room with its echo. It was unsettlingly reminiscent of the mirror creature's impromptu concert last night. "So, Niko, I appreciate the invitation and fungus juice, but what exactly is it you want? Auphe Junior here wasn't precisely expecting me."

  I didn't blink at the insult. It was getting more and more difficult to be insulted by the truth. Besides, Goodfellow was more than entitled to a few cheap shots. Niko seemed less inclined to agree. His jaw tightened, but he let it go that time, saying evenly, "We still need a car. We're leaving town and we're without transportation."

  "Ah. Business. Goody." He gave us both a mockery of his killer salesman smile. "How soon do you need it?"

  Niko's "Immediately" was simultaneous with my "No hurry."

  "Cal, do not even start," he admonished sharply.

  I shrugged and sat on the couch. "Fine. Get a car. There's no guarantee you'll get me in it."

  "I think you'll be amazed at how fast your idiotic ass is thrown into that car and at how little you'll have to say about it."

  Robin put his glass down on the table and clucked his tongue. "Do I have to separate you two?"

  "If only it were that easy," I grumbled. "Ask him what he has to trade, Goodfellow. You'll have to tow it in off the curb."

  Oddly enough, the cutthroat businessman part of Robin seemed uninterested. "Why are you guys taking off anyway? It's not Abbagor, is it? He never leaves the bridge. You should be safe if you steer clear."

  It hit me then. Goodfellow wanted us to hang around. Despite what I'd done, he wanted us to stay. He was lonely. Sure, there were monsters aplenty in the city, but Goodfellow wasn't a monster, not really. As we'd never run into any other pucks, I guessed they were few and far between. It had to be a solitary existence, surrounded by the monsters who cared nothing for him and by humans who could never even know him. It was a feeling I was more than familiar with. But for all my bitching, I was the lucky one. I had a brother. I had at least one person in the world, and that was one more than Robin seemed to have.

  Now that I knew, I could see it in his eyes. Behind the slyness, past the pompous strutting and overgrown libido, in the shadows the color of a shaded green forest, I could see a loneliness that was only a short step away from madness. I couldn't imagine it. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years spent, for all intents and purposes, alo
ne. Cut off from mortals and monsters alike because of what he was. So desperate to stop his descent into a living hell that he actually chose to be with those who could blackmail him, those that he thought would only use him.

  He chose to be with us. God help the poor bastard.

  "It's not Abbagor," I denied quietly. "It's the Auphe. Niko saw one in the park."

  It was a good thing he'd put down the glass, because otherwise it would've shattered in the spasmodic clench of his fist. Face frozen, he pushed out words through stiff lips. "Auphe. An Auphe is here?"

  "Was here," Niko corrected. "That is why we asked you if you'd seen Auphe in the city. We wanted to know if it was a solitary occurrence. But regardless if it was or not, we've decided we cannot take the chance."

  "You killed it?" Robin pinched the bridge of his nose tightly. "Please tell me you killed it. If it's alive…" He shook his head and let the words trail away.

  "It's not alive. All the king's horses and all the king's men…" A humorless smile touched the corners of Niko's mouth. "Well, I think you get the picture."

  "It's a good picture. I like that picture." Goodfellow sat with a graceless thump on the coffee table and dropped his face into his hands. Then he threaded fingers through wavy brown hair and sat up with a harsh exhalation. "Abbagor's big and homicidal, but for sheer deviousness, you do not want to screw with the Auphe. They're psychotic, they hold a grudge, and they're mobile as the plague." He rubbed at his eyes. "I realize you know that better than anyone, but it bears repeating."

  "I'm not so sure Abby doesn't give them a run for their money." I kicked a foot lightly against the corner of the table and went on awkwardly. "About the troll, Goodfellow, I want to say… shit… you know."

  He turned his head to study me soberly. "All you had to do was ask, Caliban. I'm something of a coward, but I would have stood firm. You only had to ask."

  Niko had moved up beside me to rest his hand on my shoulder. "We're not used to depending on anyone else," he offered to Robin while giving me a reassuring squeeze. "Either of us. It doesn't come easy. I know that's not much of a justification perhaps, but we are sorry."

  He was apologizing, Niko, who'd done nothing wrong. He was apologizing for me because I was too stubborn and too chickenshit to get the words out myself. I felt even lower than I had before… until Niko's hand left my shoulder to thwap me in the back of the head. "Aren't we, Cal?" he prompted sternly.

  The self-recrimination flowed out of me as fast as water. Who needed a conscience to keep me in line when I had my brother around to do it for me? "Yeah, sorry," I muttered with a sullen scowl for Niko and a slightly softer one for Robin.

  The killer smile returned, showing more teeth than an Osmond family reunion. "Forgiven and forgotten," Robin said expansively. "How about I treat you gentlemen to lunch and we can discuss your transportation situation."

  It struck me then that Goodfellow could turn out to be an ally. He wanted us to stay, and I wanted to stay; now all we had to do was convince Niko. That shouldn't be too hard—no more difficult than convincing the sun to rise in the west and set in the east. "Lunch sounds great," I responded with alacrity. "Let me grab my shoes." I could feel Niko's frown aimed at my back as I bent down to root under the couch for my sneakers.

  "I'm not sure we have the time for this. In fact, I know we do not have time for this."

  I jammed the shoes on my feet and bolted for the door. "It's only lunch, Nik. Forty minutes isn't gonna make or break us." That wasn't necessarily true. In the scheme of things, forty minutes could turn out to be a lifetime, but at the moment that wasn't something I wanted to contemplate.

  Niko wasn't too happy about it, big surprise, but despite that, we did end up at the nearest Italian restaurant. I snorted as Niko studied the menu with obvious ill grace. "Don't pout, Cyrano. You're scaring the waiter."

  "I do not pout," he hissed between clenched teeth as he closed the menu shut with a snap. "Children pout. Brainless runway models pout. You pout. I do not." Turning his attention to the waiter, he went on more calmly. "I'll have broiled fish, no herbs, no sauce, and salad. No dressing."

  That was Nik, living life on the edge as always. What a wild man. I ordered lobster ravioli with a side order of chicken parmigiana. Hey, it was Goodfellow's dime. I'd probably load up on a dessert or three while I was at it. Robin ordered in rapid-fire Italian, handing his menu back with a smooth "Grazie, grazie."

  "Exactly how many languages have you picked up over the years, Goodfellow?" Niko questioned curiously.

  "All of them." He shook out his swan-shaped napkin with a smug flourish. "I'm a bit rusty on a few regional dialects of the African bush, but otherwise I get by. And of course when it comes to the language of love, I have no equal."

  Buttering a chunk of bread as soft and fluffy as a cloud, I groaned. "Jeez. Oh, well, it was a whole twenty minutes of peace anyway. That has to be a record. You know, Loman, they have a twelve-step program with your name all over it. 'Hi, my name is Robin and I'm a sexaholic.'"

  "I've said it before and I'll say it again." He raised his wineglass to me. "You absolutely have to get laid." It was a nice restaurant, nicer than most I'd been to. That didn't stop me from lobbing the buttered roll directly at Goodfellow. He caught it easily, took a bite, and washed it down with the wine. "Delicious. Thank you. Now, gentlemen, I've been thinking about your problem and I may have come up with something."

  "Nothing too sporty," Niko cautioned. "We don't wish to be too noticeable."

  "What? No, no, it's not about a car." He waved a dismissive hand and took another bite of my bread. "Actually I was thinking… if you could find out what had happened to Caliban while he was with the Auphe, perhaps you wouldn't have to run. If you knew what they planned, you would have more options. Knowledge is power, after all."

  Sudden dread killed my appetite instantly. "I don't remember. I can't remember. I've tried." And I was pretty sure I didn't want to remember.

  Placing his half-empty glass on the table, Robin made haste to say earnestly, "I'm sure you did. try, but if the Auphe did muck about with your memory, it would be nearly impossible for you to recover what was lost."

  "If it's impossible, then why are we having this conversation?" Niko asked with thinly veiled impatience. He'd come to accept the fact that I wasn't ever going to remember what had happened in that missing time. At first he'd prodded me to try to recall, but in the end he'd let it go. Between my frustration over my inability to remember and our joint suspicion that whatever had happened might be well worth blocking out, we'd both left my past in the past.

  "I said it would be impossible for Caliban to remember on his own. But with my help… a completely different story." Goodfellow stabbed a fork into his salad, then waved it about with enthusiasm. Chunky blue-cheese dressing flew, landing in tiny mounds on the pristine crimson tablecloth. "I picked up hypnosis long before Svengali gave anyone the evil eye. Hell, I taught Freud. I'm more than proficient in the art, trust me."

  Niko looked at him askance. "Recovering repressed memories isn't quite like convincing random women to cavort around naked while clucking like chickens. If the Auphe did indeed tie Cal's memories into a knot, I'm not at all confident you could unravel them. I'm not even sure that you should be trying."

  "O ye of little faith." The lean, mobile face sobered, all zeal channeled into determination. "I asked you to trust me and you can. I've had more practice at this than the most celebrated psychiatrist or hypnotherapist. I promise you. You pick up more in a long life than just bad habits."

  Exhaling, Niko shook his head dubiously. "I don't know, Goodfellow. It strikes me as somewhat risky. I'm not entirely sure that the information gained would be worth Cal remembering his time with the Auphe."

  "If worse comes to worst and it's that unbearable, I'll leave the memories locked in his subconscious. He wouldn't remember a thing once he came out of it."

  Nice conversation these two were having over me. It could be I had something t
o say about it if only I could get a word in edgewise. "Guys," I said quietly.

  Niko held up a hand to stall me while he countered Robin. "It sounds easy enough in theory, but theorems and proofs are two distinctly different entities. I don't especially want my brother used as a guinea pig."

  "It simply isn't as dangerous as you're making it out to be." Clearly frustrated, Robin pushed his plate aside. "Getting the memories out might be difficult. Leaving them hidden isn't. That's their natural state now, be it an Auphe construct or a Caliban one. If I don't want him to remember, he won't."

  I tried again, this time slapping the palm of my hand hard on the table. "Guys!"

  Both turned their startled attention to me, Niko with his pale eyebrows quirked in concern and Robin with the hopeful expression of a cat with one paw in the fishbowl.

  "Believe it or not, I think this is my decision. Not yours, Niko, and definitely not yours, Goodfellow." I pinned them both with an annoyed gaze. "Got me?"

  "And what have you decided?" Robin leaned back in his chair, going for casual. He failed miserably.

  "I'm still thinking." The thought of remembering was not appealing, but neither was running for the rest of my life. Ignoring Niko's silent look of disquiet, I motioned toward our approaching food. "Let's eat. Hey, Loman, tell us. Just how freaky was Freud anyway? Were you the one who got him on that penis envy path? Or did you go to high school with Electra and Oedipus?"

  Giving in for the moment, Robin eyed his plate of pasta with pleasure and then gave me a snort. "Forget Sophocles. Let's talk Homer. Now, there was a bastard who could hold his liquor, damn near drank me under the table. And Sappho? That chick could party like there was no tomorrow."