by Rob Thurman
“If he kills him, it could make things worse.” Goodfellow’s voice came faintly through the haze, sounding indifferently musing and not particularly sympathetic to a certain albino wolf. “Of course, could isn’t necessarily would.”
While Robin didn’t have strong feelings either way about Flay living or dying, Niko did. A hand fisted itself in the back of my shirt and lifted me off the wolf. “Cal, stop it.”
With the sound of tearing cloth, I pulled away from his grip. The rage was a white-hot noise in my brain that blocked any other emotion from penetrating. But that was fine by me. I loved rage. It was better than fear or pain or agony. Better than despair, guilt, and desperation. Yeah, rage was my friend right now, and I wasn’t ready to turn loose of it yet.
But before my hands could regain their grip I was yanked backward again, this time with an unyielding arm around my throat. “Don’t make me choke you out, little brother,” Niko warned quietly at my ear, “because I will.”
Sucking in a breath that did little to tame the bubbling acid rising through my stomach and lungs, I rested my chin on Niko’s arm. I stared down at the blood on my hand that made the fist I formed slippery and warm. The stitches that wreathed my other arm from elbow to hand were torn in spots and leaking my own blood to mix with Flay’s. “Okay.” It came out strangled and hoarse and that had nothing to do with the arm pressed against my neck. “I’ll be”—the grin that twisted my face was carved with the darkest of knives—“good.”
“Good is a relative term. As long as you don’t kill him.” The arm fell away as Niko amended grimly, “At least not quite yet.”
Not yet. I could live with not yet . . . just barely.
Niko crouched beside the fallen Flay. He took in the blood, the lips locked in a rictus of pain, the ruby quartz eyes full of seething fury. “Not a good day for you,” Niko observed icily. “Quite a shame.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Still leaning against the kitchen counter, Robin examined his latest manicure. “Caleb seems like a progressive creature. Perhaps our hairy friend here has a nice worker’s comp package. This may be a dream come true for him.” The smile he flashed was vulpine. “Then again, funeral benefits might be even better.”
“Now . . . I’m certain Caleb has long deserted his office, but why don’t you verify that for me.” Niko straightened the collar of the wolf’s black jacket with exquisite care, then wrapped his hand lightly around his already bruised throat. His fingers rested on the carotid pulse. “If you lie, I’ll know it, and then . . . well, then I’ll have to hurt you. Perhaps even maim you for life. And I don’t want that. I don’t enjoy setting a bad example for my impressionable younger brother. So, please, do cooperate.”
It was a long speech for Nik, and he meant every word of it. Standing behind him, I watched as white lashes blinked with an uneasiness the automatic snarl couldn’t hide. Working his mouth, Flay turned his head cautiously in Niko’s grip and spit blood onto our floor. Oversized pointed yellowed teeth showed as his lips peeled back and he gave a strangled hiss. “Gone. Caleb . . . gone.”
Big surprise.
“Do you know where he is?” The long fingers tightened on the pale throat until they almost sank from sight. “And, Flay, do think carefully before you answer. An albino wolf might not ever be Alpha in the pack, but a paralyzed wolf is five steps below a lame sheep.”
Flay didn’t have to think. His options were extremely limited at the moment and he knew it. With hatred warping the lines of his face into a violent mask, he told the truth. “No. Don’t. Don’t . . . know. Gone.”
Caleb was gone and damn unlucky Flay was left in his place. Murderous, stupid, and too loyal for his own good—it wasn’t a combination tailor-made for survival. Now ask me if I give a shit. Braced on one knee, my brother continued to study the increasingly blue wolf under his hand. When the blue shaded to a delicate lilac and Flay’s heels began to drum against the floor, Niko released him. “Annoying.” Standing, he repeated, “Very annoying.” Insinuating a toe under the wheezing, coughing wolf’s side, he expertly flipped him over onto his stomach and pulled his hands behind him. “Handcuffs,” he said tersely.
Despite being in the midst of emotions as malignant as any cancer, I felt my eyebrows rise. We didn’t have handcuffs. It wasn’t as if we were going to drag a howling, jaywalking ghoul down to the local jail. If any eventuality could be prepared for, Niko would be standing at the front of the line. But this? But before I could ask what the hell he was talking about, Goodfellow dangled a pair from a finger. “I could show you something in a velvet-lined manacle,” he offered matter-of-factly, “but I doubt you would be interested.”
With a sideways glance, I took them and handed them to Niko, murmuring into his ear, “I know you two bonded while I was off trying to destroy the world, but exactly how did you go about it?”
The provoked indignation narrowing Nik’s eyes was faked, but it helped. It did. As much as it could. “Needlepoint, mainly,” he said with a quirk of his lips. “Backgammon on occasion.” Cinching the cuffs tight enough to draw a protesting groan, he yanked the panting wolf to his feet. Pointing at the couch, he ordered, “Sit.” Foam on his lips, both from near strangulation and fury, Flay staggered, then obeyed. “Good boy. Behave and I won’t kill you. Misbehave . . . and I still won’t kill you.” Niko didn’t smile often, and this tiny, lethal curve of the lips was no exception. “But, Flay, my fluoride-challenged friend, this not killing of you? It will last a week . . . minimum.”
Flay wasn’t at the top of his puppy class by any stretch of the imagination, but he got the drift. Ducking his head, bone ivory and scarlet, he stared sullenly downward. White lips writhed. “Behave.”
“That is so what Daddy likes to hear.” Robin moved over to Niko, then leaned past, and with a motion so fast that I barely caught the blur of it, he rammed a butcher knife from the kitchen into the millimeters-thick space separating Flay’s legs. George was cherished, and by more than just me. With the handle resting snugly against his goody bag, the wolf went instantly green. It wasn’t as if he could get much paler. “Simply because I’m third in line for your company, you parasite-ridden cur, I don’t want you thinking I’ll miss my turn,” the puck said silkily. Straightening, Goodfellow tilted his head in Nik’s direction. “Sorry. I know you chop your tofu with that.” Then his eyes cut to me and he gave a disparaging sniff. “Or trim your toenails.”
More desperate humor that fell flat, but I appreciated the effort. I appreciated anything that for a split second kept me from picturing George in Caleb’s keeping. His not-so-gentle keeping. He’d fooled me, the son of a bitch. I should’ve known teeth like that are never purely decorative.
“Snowball.” I wiped Flay’s blood from my hands onto my jeans. “Snowball, Snowball.” Resting my foot against the coffee table, I rammed it hard enough against his knees that the wood splintered and he howled in pain. Oddly enough, that fell squarely in the category of things I just didn’t give a shit about. When he was done moaning, and it was fairly quick— Caleb had hired a tough bastard—I asked in a voice empty and sterile, “So, what does the son of a bitch want?”
Flay’s voice droned. On and on. A broken chunk of word here, a bit of twisted-metal phrase there—he coughed up Caleb’s instructions . . . along with the occasional spray of blood. Yeah, wasn’t that a shame? Not too surprisingly, it wasn’t going to be simple. That didn’t mean we couldn’t do it. We could. To get George back we could do anything. And afterward, Caleb wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy his little trinket.
“A crown?” Robin echoed disparagingly. “Really? That look went out long before toupees and polyester did, but if Caleb is so determined, I’m sure any rhinestone-loving street vendor can help him out.”
“It . . . special. Special,” Flay pushed out doggedly. He’d already said that. Trouble was, he didn’t know what type of special it was. He had a description; hell, he had a full-color sketch in his pocket, but why Caleb lusted after the damn th
ing . . . on that, he couldn’t guess. That was making the generous assumption Flay had the brain cells to even wonder at his boss’s motivation.
On the paper, Caleb’s desire was depicted as a simple circlet of metal, an oddly rosy gold. It didn’t look like much, but that didn’t change the fact that to get it was going to take some doing. Cerberus had it. The Cerberus we’d thought we were dealing with all along. Caleb didn’t work for him, but Flay did. Snowball, double agent. It was laughable and even Flay knew it. Niko had asked him why he couldn’t sniff around and find the thing himself since he was one of Cerberus’s own. “Stupid.” Bloody lips twisted. “Stupid. Caleb say. Cerb . . . erus say.” The eyes flared in dull outrage, but there was also acceptance. Flay recognized his limitations, no matter how he might resent them. Since both his bosses derided him, Caleb must’ve been paying the most. Betraying someone like Cerberus couldn’t come cheap.
Flay might not have been smarter than your average toilet fungus, but Caleb was. He’d planned this all perfectly. We’d proved we could take on a wolf as powerful as Boaz. In the same stroke we’d also been given an in with Cerberus. We’d kicked Boaz’s ass, maybe killed him. Cerberus couldn’t help but have at least a mild interest in someone who had taken down his rival. It would get us an audience with His Furry Majesty if nothing else.
There was more from Flay, but it was all repetition. Useless bullshit. I walked away as Flay mumbled on. Just . . . walked away. Down the hallway, into Niko’s room, and out of the window. The metal of the fire escape clattered under my weight as I sat. The evening air was thick and humid, unwilling to cool, and the snarled traffic moved sluggishly like a turbulent river of overheated metal. I rested folded arms on raised knees and let my eyes unfocus. I kept my eyes on the river, traveling with it as the light disappeared from the sky and hundreds of lights blossomed below. Yellow, white, and eye-searing blue, a river full of stars.
“Is there room?”
Wordlessly, I moved over and Niko settled beside me, shoulder to shoulder. “Goodfellow left to see if he can trace Caleb with his much vaunted ‘connections,’ ” he said quietly after a moment. “He’s also taking care of Flay.”
I didn’t ask what he meant by that. I’d like to have hoped it was shorthand for Robin shoving the wolf headfirst down the garbage disposal, but unfortunately I had my doubts. My brother was too smart for that. Whether we liked it or not, Flay was our only real connection to Caleb and Cerberus. Keeping him alive was the only choice we had, as much as I hated it. Maybe Robin would board him at the nearest kennel and have him neutered while he was at it. Hell, I could dream, couldn’t I?
“We have a starting point, Cal. It’s something.”
I gave a distant nod. Sure. It was something. And the river flowed on.
With olive-skinned hands clasped loosely over a knee, Niko waited. He patiently sat with me in silence, and it was what I needed; it was all I was capable of right then. I didn’t try to guess how many hours I was out there or how many Niko sat at my side, but when I finally spoke my voice was rusty with disuse. “What’s one more undercover gig, right?”
His eyes moved from the flowing lights to me. “After what you’ve been through, I never thought there would be a time that I would wish I weren’t human. Yet lately it seems to happen more and more.”
Niko couldn’t go with me. A half Auphe might be reviled, but a human was less than nothing. You don’t fraternize with your food. And you definitely don’t hire it. “Promise would never let you around all those foxy were-babes anyway.” I tried for a grin but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the window frame. “You’ll still be there, Cyrano, in all the ways that count. Every ass I kick will be thanks to you.”
“It should be enough for a teacher.” There was the faintest whisper of cloth against cloth. “It’s not.”
It was a bitch of position for Niko to be in, worse than the poker game. This time there would be no wire, no bailout if I got into trouble. No way to even know if I was in trouble. While a wire could go undetected for the few hours a poker game would take, it wouldn’t do for deep cover, the kind where you lived and breathed your role every minute of the day. But I’d be all right. Hell, I’d only be faking what I’d been in reality the year before.
“You don’t have to go in alone.”
But I did. Robin couldn’t go. Most of the monsters considered pucks inveterate liars and thieves, capable of bleeding you dry between one breath and the next. Greedy, rapacious, and incurably light-fingered. Goodfellow wasn’t like that. Well, okay, maybe he was, but he was also a friend. But even if the wolves thought Robin was pure as the driven snow and worthy of a friendly butt sniffing or two, I didn’t want him in the direct line of fire. Promise either. Look what had happened to George. Just goddamn look.
“Yeah, Nik, I do,” I said solidly, opening my eyes and turning to him.
“No.” He exhaled and forged on without visible emotion. “I can’t go, but you’re forgetting Flay. Robin’s turning him loose in the morning.”
“Rover? You’ve got to be kidding,” I said incredulously. “He’s a crotch-sniffing moron.”
“Yes, but he’s Cerberus’s crotch-sniffing moron. Caleb gave him to us for a reason. We would be stupid not to use him.” A pigeon, silver and white, flashed overhead in the twilight. “And right now we can’t afford to be stupid, for Georgina’s sake.”
Truth. I shoved fingers in my hair and tried to clear the thickness in my throat. “What do you think this thing is for?” I asked abruptly. “What Caleb wants.” I doubted seriously that he was into it for the fashion aspect only. There was a purpose to it, had to be.
“That’s a good question and Promise is working on that as we speak. She said it will keep her scarce for a day or two.”
“So much for romance, huh?” The dating life of vampire and do-it-yourself ninja once again took a backseat to my train wreck of a life. “Sorry,” I said briefly.
“Don’t be an ass, Cal,” he said sharply. “None of this has anything to do with you. With both of us, yes, but not just you. Caleb wanted us as a team. I may not be on the inside with you, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be idle.” No, Niko could never be that. If something happened, he would have to find another way to save George.
“Any guilt on this we share fifty-fifty,” he continued. “You understand that, don’t you?” No one had a way of turning a question into a threat quite like my brother.
“Gotcha.” I climbed to my feet and gave Niko the faintest of smiles. “You’re the king of tough love, Cyrano. All hail the king.”
The long nose snorted. “You on bended knee. Why can I not picture that?” He nudged me toward the window. “Go to bed, Cal. You need the sleep or you won’t be any good to anyone tomorrow. Not to me. Not to Georgina,” he finished seriously.
He was right. But it didn’t stop the sound of her name from hitting me like a punch to the gut. Still, I’d made a promise. No more angsting, no more wailing and beating of the breast. It wasn’t helping me, and it wasn’t helping George.
Right now, nothing was.
9
Cerberus.
Let’s talk about Cerberus. Days ago, when this shit had begun, Promise had said she didn’t know what his “difference” was, why he was considered damaged and unfit by most of his fellow Kin. And I hadn’t thought any more about it. In the beginning, I didn’t care. And in the end . . . I didn’t care, although for different reasons. Apathy versus berserk rage, yet the results were the same.
But back to my new boss, Cerberus. There were a lot of things to be said about Cerberus, but let’s focus on the primary one.
Cerberus was freaky as shit.
I wasn’t saying that I hadn’t seen some weirdness in my day. Nothing could be further from the truth. So while Cerberus wasn’t the most bizarre thing I’d ever come across, he was damn close. And would it have killed Flay to just throw out the word “twins”? Granted, Snowball was as incoherent
as your typical pot-smoking fast-food worker, but one simple word was all I was asking for. Okay, I might have wondered why twins went by one name, but I might have been a little more prepared. Because, honestly . . . I took a closer look . . . damn.
“Flay says that—” one began.
“You wish to join us,” the other finished.
I hoped that they didn’t do that a lot. It was disturbing . . . like a cutesy gum commercial gone horrifically wrong. There was no pleasure here to be doubled, that was for damn sure. Taking a seat in one of the two chairs facing the desk, I leaned back in the opulent leather and tried to give the impression that I was unruffled by what stared at me from behind the desk. “What better place for someone like me? I’ve heard you look past differences, past”—I didn’t have to fake the bitter twist of my lips—“bad breeding.”
Look at me. Cool and calm. Hell on wheels and the biggest balls around. That was on the outside. On the inside I had to wonder if I was more than a little nuts to be pitting my woefully amateur undercover skills against that. I definitely saw why that son of a bitch Caleb wanted someone else to do his dirty work. To give my own eyes a rest, I snatched a fleeting look around the office. The place was a palace. All that was missing was the harem. Although, to give credit where credit was due, Cerberus did have a good start. A succubus was filing her three-inch pointed nails while draped liquidly over a couch against the far wall. With hair of midnight blue and storm-cloud silver cascading on her shoulders, she gave me a quick pout that had her finely scaled mother-of-pearl breasts heaving. A flutter of sapphire-colored eyelashes over liquid black eyes ended the flirtation, and she went back to ignoring me.
Cerberus, on the other hand, studied me unblinkingly from behind a desk the size of a small car. At least, one of them did. One head stared at me with slanted brown eyes that flared molten gold as the other turned to address the guard at the door. “Find Orrin. He’s overdue and I want a report.” The voice was cold and utterly emotionless, just like the eyes. It was unusual for a wolf. Whether it was raging anger, murderous glee, or overwhelming horniness, the lupines usually wore their tiny hearts and even tinier minds on their sleeve for everyone to see. The difference in Cerberus was startling and a little troubling.
