by Rob Thurman
I ignored the jab at my not being well read unless the books came with lots of pictures and big print—hey, I’d known Shakespeare, hadn’t I? Instead, I concentrated on the first moments that I could remember. When I’d woken up on the beach, the second before as I’d drifted in and out of consciousness, what had I seen in the darkness?
Pirate ships. Princesses. Waterfalls. Tree houses. A safe place. You couldn’t get there if you couldn’t fly, and the pirates were ridiculously easy to defeat. The crocodile, though, that white crocodile—it whispered to me, with an unbelievably wide stretch of toothy smile and jack-o’-lantern eyes. They were only whispers, but it could do other things if it wanted. What those things were a seven-year-old boy couldn’t imagine, and it told me things; things I didn’t remember. But it also said it was my friend. Who’s going to tell a phantom crocodile no when he tells you that? No seven-year-old I could think of. That was one scary damn thing to put in a kid’s book, that ghost of a crocodile.
“My own personal safe place. That’s why I, what? Trucked in some eight-legged monsters so I could fight in a place that was comfy-cozy? Or I went there for another reason and happened to find giant spiders splashing around in the surf without their water wings? No one knew me there. I hadn’t been staying there. Did I track the monsters there and decide because I had so much fun in Never Land as a kid I’d give them a free exterminator job?” Although I didn’t mind the thought of killing monsters for free—a community service—I had a damn lot of weapons, and those cost. I couldn’t have bought them on diner tips. “And what about the amnesia? Care to explain that one? Did I catch a cliche virus and just kept killing because deep down I wanted to be monster killer of the month?” My lips flattened. “Peter fucking Pan doesn’t answer a single one of those questions.” I could see Goodfellow on his way back to the car. “And what about him? He’s not human. If you’re my brother, if you know about the monsters, why are you hanging out with him?”
“Because, as he said, he’s a friend and a good one.”
I grunted, “He’s a monster. Not only is he a monster, but he’s one that never shuts up. What’s good about that?”
“He grows on you.”
“Like a fungus?” I snorted.
“More like a sexually transmitted disease.” He opened the door and swung a leg out. “Now, let’s get in the room, eat, and I’ll tell you the rest of the story, amnesia and all. You’ll get your memory back, Cal. This isn’t permanent. You’ll remember. I promise.” Strangely, it didn’t sound like a promise he was one hundred percent sure about. Maybe it was only hope. Hope and monsters, what a mix.
The room was practically a carbon copy of the one I’d had back in the Landing, except this one had two beds instead of the one, but two still weren’t enough. “I’m not sleeping in a bed with either of you.” I folded my arms. “I don’t care if we were all Siamese triplets separated at birth. It’s not happening.”
“Conjoined, not Siamese, you politically incorrect Neanderthal.” Goodfellow sat at the table and rubbed at his leg while giving me a pointed glare. “And, when you’re returned to your normal state of mind—not that I ever considered it normal until now—you owe me twelve hundred dollars for these pants. Tine puncture marks don’t go well with fine couture.” I had some thoughts on his “couture,” but he chose that moment to pull a sword out of his long brown coat, rotate it with a deceptively lazy speed, and slap it across the table. “Also, I don’t accept checks or plastic, especially not yours, as I faked most of them myself.”
That was a big sword, and he handled it as if it weighed nothing. He moved with the same lethal grace the Niko guy did. I wasn’t quite the hot shit I thought I was, the killer born on a South Carolina beach. Not in this company. At the very least I had some competition. “Jesus, were you born with that in your hand?” I asked with reluctant admiration.
He grinned wickedly. “Kid, you don’t want to know what I was holding when I was born.”
“We need only two beds, because Robin and I will take turns keeping watch. Besides, you didn’t mind sleeping with me when you were four and were afraid of the neighbor’s dachshund,” Niko said as he stripped off his own coat.
“Keep watch? You afraid I’ll try and run or … I was not!” I said with automatic outrage when I caught up to the important part of the conversation.
“I think her name was Princess Poochika. She was brown with short legs. She looked like a Ho-Ho with a pink rhinestone collar. You thought she was the reincarnation of Cujo.” He sat on the bed and dropped his head in his hands to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands. He was more than tired. He was exhausted—because of me. Because he’d been looking for me. I’d wondered every day in Nevah’s Landing if anyone had given a shit I was gone. Now I had my answer.
“You can be forgiven. She was a little temperamental. Nipping little kids’ ankles was her favorite activity.” He raised his head. “Come here, Cal.”
I unfolded my arms just so I could fold them again stubbornly. “Why?”
He exhaled. “Just come here.”
“Why?” I repeated.
“Cal.” One patient word. My name … my real name. Caliban. He’d told me that. If I owed anyone, it was him. It was too bad for us all that I didn’t have the trust in me to owe anyone anything. Whether the color of our eyes said we were related, even brothers, I, this version of me, had been born on that beach—my first emotion had been a general “What the fuck?” My second one of suspicion. You could be a not-so-bad guy and be suspicious too, in certain situations. In the past few days suspicion had worked well for me. I was sticking with it.
I cocked my head with attitude and skepticism. “If there’s no why, there’s no Cal.”
Niko rubbed his face again and said for what would be the last time, “Cal, I need you to come here.” He didn’t sound irritated. He only sounded more tired. I almost felt bad for the guy, almost. Shit, I did feel bad for the guy, but I was still beach Cal, and beach Cal didn’t trust anyone without proof—especially when that anyone knocked you out and kidnapped you. That was what I thought, but my body had opinions of its own. Without any orders from my brain, I took the few steps between us.
Stopping, I asked warily, “So, what do you want?”
His hand moved toward me, and I flinched, but it was too late. He cupped the back of my head and turned it to one side. He was looking at my neck, the healing bites. “You were bitten by one of the Nepenthe spiders. That’s why you have amnesia.” It was good information, if utterly meaningless, to have. But before I could move, Niko pulled me down in one quick motion to rest my forehead on the top of his blond head. “Missed you, little brother.” That I didn’t immediately pull away was a thought I did think and then promptly tried but failed to unthink.
Moving back, I asked, trying for some control of the situation, “What the fuck is a Nepenthe spider?”
Niko removed his shoes, moved up farther in the bed, and closed his eyes. “Your turn, Goodfellow,” he murmured, before falling asleep between that breath and the next. He hadn’t gotten under the covers or beat the pillow at least once to soften it up. He was just here and then gone. It was sort of … Zen, I guess. I am awake; now I am asleep. I’ll chant later. Now that—all that—felt vaguely familiar too. This Niko—my brother, shit, denial was beginning to fail me—was as ninja/samurai on the inside as well as the out. How’d you become one of those these days? Climb a mountain and live in a cave for ten years? Take a class in an online school of dubious accreditation? Who knew?
Goodfellow had taken his foot and scooted a chair over so he could prop his legs up, ankles crossed. “I need to keep the weight off it,” he explained. “There was no doubt some sort of mustard-spawned Ebola on that fork you stabbed me with.” I stared back at him, wholly unimpressed. “Which,” he continued, “might have a civilized being slobbering heartfelt apologies in my direction.” The sly green eyes fixed on me in anticipation. When nothing was forthcoming, he tapped his chest. “If y
ou’re confused, this is my direction. You don’t need a compass, kid.”
“You’re a monster,” I pointed out, as he seemed to keep forgetting.
“I’m a monster? That’s rather … interesting.” The interest wasn’t the amusing kind as the cocky smile faded and the eyes darkened. “How about we agree that I’m not human, but not necessarily a monster either.” He folded his hands across his stomach. “Oh, and before I forget, I do have to tell you that no matter how incredibly hot you find me, I am in a monogamous relationship.”
That overrode any monster issues instantly. “Dude!”
He grinned. “It’s simply my standard disclaimer. In the past you have never tried to ‘get with this,’ as they say. Although you have seen me naked. You couldn’t look me in the eye for days.”
“Dude!”
“I can’t be held responsible for your shame at your own shortcomings or your puritanical sexual mores.” The grin was wider, definitely wider and considerably more evil. “Now, do you want to order pizza or Chinese?”
I decided I wanted to go to bed. The hell with the food. The hell with the Nep … Nef … whatever fucking kind of amnesia spider it was. I’d find all that out from Niko or from them both when Niko was awake. Goodfellow made the monsters from the beach seem like one tiny ladybug I’d crushed under my boot. They didn’t scare me. He did. My curiosity could wait and so could my hunger. It was only as I’d kicked off my own boots and crawled under the covers of the other bed, fully clothed—very fully clothed—that I realized I’d never gotten an answer as to why one of them was keeping watch. Was it to make sure I didn’t take off, or something else? Considering how easily Niko had taken me down, I had the uneasy suspicion it was not my sneaking off they were worried about.
4
“I don’t want to go back to New York,” I repeated, spearing a sausage patty with my fork. A patty to go with my petty, and I was feeling petty.
Goodfellow had one eye on that very same fork, smart of him, and one on the waitress with more breasts than she, God, and her bra knew what to do with. “I am sorry,” he told her, “but despite your wealth of exquisite mammary tissue, I am in a monogamous relationship. Disappointing for you, I know, but I have faith that after a grieving process, you’ll learn to live again.”
“I heard you the first time,” Niko snapped at me before going after Goodfellow, “and, Robin, let the woman refill your orange juice and get on with her day, as bereaved as she is over your unavailable status, all right?” He began to whip his granola and yogurt into more of a froth than was called for. The Zen Niko was having issues. I was one of those issues. “Why, Cal, do you not want to go home?”
I chewed the sausage and swallowed, using some of my own orange juice to chase it down. “I was attacked by giant spiders, I’ve lost my memory, I carried more weapons than the Deathstar, and I woke up on a beach a few minutes before I would’ve drowned. If that’s what I do in New York, why would I want to go back? I worked four days at a diner and no one tried to kill me once. The money wasn’t great, but, again, no one tried to kill me. If I’m some kind of monster exterminator, I have to think there’s a better way to make money. And you still haven’t explained why I was fighting the spiders, who for, did I get paid, and what was I doing in South Carolina if I live in New York.” I took a bite of my waffles and said, muffled, around the mouthful, “Or if you’re keeping watch at night for me or for something else. Don’t think I forgot about that because you sicced Mr. Monogamy on me.”
Niko put his spoon down with a sigh. “We, not just you, are working for a coalition of the preternatural in New York. Something is sending the Nepenthe spiders to kidnap werewolves, vampires, revenants, lamia, succubi, incubi, on and on—anything nonhuman. Sometimes their bodies are found, sometimes not, but none are ever seen alive again. We were hired to stop the creature behind this.”
“God, not creature. Well, goddess. Ammut,” Robin said cheerfully, slicing his ham to small pieces. “She’s supposedly an Egyptian goddess, which, of course, I, personally, figured out from the Nepenthe spiders. I was in Egypt hanging at the court of Ramses for a while. That obelisk he built, let’s just say I personally might be the reason he was obsessed with large phallic objects. But I digress. The spiders are from Egypt, originally birthed before the time of the pyramids. Their venom, greatly diluted, can bring forgetfulness to the sorrowful. It was called the nepenthe elixir—psychotherapy for the pharaohs. It was all the rage for the royalty who could afford to lose several servants to catch one of the spiders. However, a direct bite will make an animal or human forget how to run, to stand, to move, to think, to breathe even, making them easy prey. Snap, snap and all the baby spiders have dinner that night. Very efficient.”
Goddess? We were after a goddess?
The next bite of waffle on my fork slowly slid off to splat in a pool of syrup on the plate. “What … the … fuck?” I said with what I classified as extraordinary calm before throwing that calm out the window and trying to stab Goodfellow with the fork—again.
Niko dragged me backward out of the diner, which was across the street from the motel, with his arm in a chokehold around my neck. Goodfellow followed, though, with enough lag that I was guessing he paid the check. I stumbled purposely as he came through the doors, felt the hold on my throat ease slightly—brotherly love turned out to be a great weakness—flipped Niko over my shoulder, and went after Goodfellow again. Who needed guns and knives—forks were my new weapon of choice.
As I hit Goodfellow, he twisted in a move I’d swear no one, unless they had Silly Putty for bones, could accomplish, and I somersaulted over his hip to land flat on my back. My head bounced on the asphalt in a manner I didn’t at all enjoy. Hissing in pain, I blinked against the double vision to bring into focus the two faces peering down at me. One was concerned and one puzzled.
“Was it something I said?” Goodfellow questioned, all innocence. He tilted his head toward Niko. “It could’ve been you. Vampires, werewolves, revenants, yadda yadda. Perhaps you blew a circuit in his view of a two-monster world: spiders and the magnificence that are pucks in all our glory.”
Right then I hated them both equally enough that Goodfellow had a good argument in the blame department. No, not Goodfellow. Puck. He was a puck. He didn’t deserve a name, the annoying shit. “You.” I pointed at Niko with the fork. At least, I attempted to point at him. Things were still a little blurry. As much as I wanted to hold the two of them responsible for that, I knew better. This was my fault. I’d let myself forget one basic fact, the very first fact I knew about myself—the one that nobody, not even Miss Terrwyn, had to tell me. “We have a last name? Same last name? Fuck it. Who cares? What’s your last name?”
“Leandros of the Vayash Clan. Our last name is Leandros.” He reached down, slid his hands under my shoulders, and sat me up.
“Whatever.” I closed my eyes and let the world stop whirling. “You, puck. Go back and get my food. I’m still starving.” I wasn’t, not anymore, but it was a matter of principle. “Leandros, get me back to the motel so I can throw up.”
“Are you dizzy? Nauseated? You could have a concussion.” The last possibility sounded accusatory, and Goodfellow countered in the same tone.
“He tried to stab me with a fork, Niko. For the third time, I might add. He is as my own family, and I’m willing to take one for the team, but taking syrup-coated metal like a spear through my throat is a lot to ask for.” I felt a hand gingerly pat the top of my head. “I’m sorry, kid. I’d have steered you toward the waitress’s bountiful bosom if she’d been out here. Oh, here she comes now … with the manager … who’s calling the police. Skata, it’s always something. Take him back to the room, Niko, and I’ll clear this up here.”
Just that quickly I was on my feet and across the road before I was able to get my eyes open. Then we were in the room, and I was sitting on one of the beds. Vampires, werewolves, other crap, gods. Gods. Goodfellow was on the money. I wanted the world back wh
ere and when I thought spiders and pucks were all I knew. Although I had known when I’d woken up in the Landing that the world was full of monsters, not only spiders, I simply didn’t have names to put to them and proof that I was right. I’d let myself think in those four normal days that I might just be a little crazy, because crazy was better than a world made of nightmares.
“Are you all right?”
I stopped rubbing the small lump on the back of my head and looked up at Niko. No. Leandros. Leandros was easier right now. There was too much to absorb and I needed some distance to do that. I needed to be able to breathe and to think. “I just found out that the world is one big frigging horror movie. I might need at least thirty seconds to process that, okay?”
“I can understand that,” he said slowly. “But you do need to know that being a vampire or a Wolf,”—as werewolves apparently preferred to be called. Good for them—”or a puck or a peri or any other number of things, doesn’t necessarily mean they are monsters. The majority are like people. Some are good; some are not. And some …” He let the rest of the sentence trail away.
“And some are?” I prompted.
He exhaled and sat beside me. “And some are monsters with no thought other than killing and no more soul than lies in the bullet of a gun. That doesn’t make the world a horror movie. It merely makes it like it already is, only with a few more layers that ordinary people will never see.”
“Just lucky ones like us,” I said grimly. “Whoopee.”
The puck came through the door then with my food in a Styrofoam container. “I paid off the manager, but I’d advise we leave as soon as possible. You, Junior, now owe me an extra three hundred on top of the damage to my pants.”
