Moonshine (11 page)

Caleb's message was stained with blood, fresh and red.

It wasn't George's blood. No, the warm liquid flowed freely from another source, the message itself. That would be Flay, or, as he was better known, our old pal Snowball. A message, he wasn't bright enough to be a messenger. Inert piece of shit was the best he could hope for.

He had come to our door only minutes ago. After two days… two days of no sleep as we scoured the city. Endlessly falling. Two days of hating myself for not telling her what she wanted to hear, not telling her the truth of what I felt for her. I could've been honest with her for once. I could've made her happy. Could've made myself happy, but no. Why the fuck would I want to do that?

And then Caleb had called this morning. He'd accepted our deal when Niko called days ago, accepted it promptly. We would waive our fee for the Boaz job and the Kin would help search for George. He told us that Cerberus would be sure to go along. Not a problem. The Alpha knew a good business deal when he saw it. We should've been suspicious, but we weren't. It
was
a good deal for them. Yeah, we just didn't know how good. At least, for Caleb.

He'd said he'd send Flay, his wolf, with information on what they'd found so far in their search. He lied. That wasn't the information Flay had come bearing at all, and what he had brought was now causing the living shit to be beaten out of good old Snowball. We'd thought Cerberus had a spy in his organization. He did and he didn't. The spy was Caleb, but he wasn't in the organization. Wasn't Cerberus's accountant. Didn't work for Cerberus at all, although he coveted something of his pretty fiercely, it seemed. He
was
the one, however, who had leaked the information to Boaz that we were coming. He'd wanted to know if we could "handle" ourselves. Lucky us, we proved that we could. And when we did, he had taken George. Now he wanted to make a trade. He wanted us to do the dirty work, and it was Flay's bad luck he got to pass along this little tidbit of joy. Get me what I want or your little psychic dies. "Dies"—that wasn't the word Flay had dutifully parroted in his shattered-glass voice. It was something far worse than that.

My hands circled the wolfs throat and slammed his head one more time against the floor. Crimson bloomed brilliantly against the blank canvas of his white hair and trailed from the corner of his mouth across transparently pale skin. And with the next thudding blow our floor turned red as well. The contrast wasn't as striking as it could be, but it still made me happy. Very, very happy. Goddamn ecstatic, in fact.

"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 wolfs 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 thing… 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."