Moonshine (12 page)

"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.

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.

Both of the heads had zeroed in on me now, and I made a mental note to kick myself later on for not wondering how Cerberus had gotten his name. The three-headed dog guarding the gates of hell… this Cerberus had only the two heads, but, hey, who was I to bitch? Humans produced conjoined twins on occasion and so did the animal kingdom, but I'd never heard of the wolf community producing any. As I'd thought to myself earlier, weakness was not tolerated in lycanthropic society, and as a rule a wolf like Cerberus should've been promptly killed at birth with one swipe of its mother's jaws. How these two had survived was a mystery, a damn unnerving one. There had to be a name for that type of conjoining. Niko would know it… if he were here. One heavily built body, two sleek heads with identical vulpine faces, short black hair slicked back into an impenetrable pelt over well-shaped skulls—that was the human form of Cerberus. I wasn't looking forward to seeing the wolfen version. Unlike Snowball, Cerberus was of the old breeding; he could choose to be either wolf or human.

The twins wore a suit in charcoal gray, expensive even to my untrained eye, and, beneath that, an ebony-colored shirt with two mandarin-style collars. It must have been a bitch to accommodate the unnaturally broad shoulders and bifurcated spinal column, but the unknown tailor had risen to the challenge. Thick but immaculately manicured nails tapped the desktop in a vaguely familiar rhythm. Then it hit me.

Peter and the Wolf
. Jesus, this guy was something else. "Bad breeding indeed." Identical broad noses flared to gather my scent. "A foul, disgusting joining."

The one to the right had spoken first and then the one on the left. I realized I was going to have to either designate them as Cerberus One and Cerberus Two in my head or simply go with the flow and think of them as one creature, as Cerberus seemed to think of himself.

"Foul and disgusting," I drawled, slouching down farther and crossing my ankles. "That's me. But I'm also loyal, if the money's right. I can take care of myself, not to mention pretty much anything else that crosses my path." The grin I flashed this time wasn't bitter, but it was still dark… dark and gleeful. And then I gave him the cherry on top. "And I'm mean."

In wolf terms that meant one thing. I played with my food. It was a trait with which any of the Kin would find favor—because, after all, killing is business. But torture? That's
art
.

"Ah, is that so?" The nails stopped tapping, fingers stilled. The eyes took in the stitches that showed on my wrist, peeking from beneath the sleeve of my jacket. "Boaz."

"A bad poker player," I snorted. "And a worse loser." He was bound to have heard of the Boaz incident and not just from Flay. I only hoped the fight had been wild enough to make the details less than clear. Promise, as she wasn't here to kick my ass, I could pass off as a lover or an employer. Niko, however…

"He plays less now that he rots in a Jersey pet cemetery." There were identical cold grins, and then a less-than-casual "I hear there was a human there who did damage as well. Blond, with a sword." The head on the right was still with me. The one on the left had let his grin disappear and his eyelids fall to a brooding half-mast, but still kept his gaze fixed on me. Fixed on me hard.

"Yeah." I gave a light sneer. "I figured he was a bouncer." Cerberus had only to check to know that wasn't true, but even if he did, I hadn't said Niko was the bouncer… only that I thought he was. Facing my prospective new employer, I'd take uninformed and not particularly bright over the label of liar any day. "A puck will hire anything. But to give credit where it's due, he was tough." My sneer deepened. "For a human."

"For a sheep," came the correction. The massive body shifted, only slightly, but it still displaced the air like an avalanche. There was an innate sense of power about Cerberus, more natural than supernatural. A force of nature—tornado, hurricane, earthquake—it could be more destructive than any monster. I could see Flay's motivation to betray him. With this holding your leash, how could you fail to be chronically pissed? No doubt Cerberus didn't react to failure well. Hell, a bad hair day probably resulted in bodies far and wide. Flay wasn't the quickest, wasn't the smartest. He had to screw up on occasion. And he was bound to pay the price. Maybe it wasn't money he wanted for his betrayal—maybe it was simply revenge. But whatever Flay's reasoning, he had gotten me an audience with Cerberus. Now it was my job to make it work.

"For a sheep," I agreed lazily.

"You're half-sheep as well." A knuckle, thick and large, rapped the satin surface of his desk once. Immediately the succubus abandoned her couch and nail file to slink over. And a very definite slink it was. It wasn't all sexual (although certainly that was a big portion of it). It was partly the snake genes. Succubi couldn't walk without a wiggle even if they wanted to. She moved behind Cerberus and began a slow massage, paying equal attention to both necks. Not stopping there, she used a forked black tongue to caress the curve of each ear. Considering my own genetic makeup, I didn't have a lot of room to talk, but that didn't stop an inner "
gah"
and shudder.

I tried to ignore the
Wild Kingdom
mating bleeps and blunders before my eyes and tilted my head slightly. "Yeah, Mom. What a woman. There wasn't a dick that wasn't her friend, demonic or not." Of course that wasn't precisely true. Sophia had done it for the money, but now was not the time to be splitting hairs.

"Human or Auphe. Hard to determine which is more objectionable." Both heads exhaled and then said together with distaste, "Human."

To them it was probably true. Auphe had been feared and loathed, but they were still reluctantly respected. Humans, though… what was there to respect about them? From a Kin point of view, absolutely nothing. "And what happened to your slut of a sheep mother—"

"Who fornicated above her station?"

I smiled. It was a happy smile. Pure, honest, and satisfied.

"I ate her."

Of course, I hadn't actually eaten Sophia, but I couldn't help thinking she would've fit in here better than I did. Flay was introducing me to creatures with no conscience and a leg-humping rampant sexuality, and that was Sophia all over. The process of introduction wasn't exactly painless, but I wasn't sure who was more put out by it: my new co-workers or me.

Needless to say, I wasn't enjoying it. But I had to pretend that I was. The story went that Flay had known someone who had known someone who was the cousin of someone who'd been at the bar when the poker game went down. Or the equivalent of it. And that's how he'd come to make my unparalleled acquaintance. It was weak, but it made more sense than that he had tracked down the presumed Boaz slayer on his own initiative. Anyone who'd met Snowball would know that was damn unlikely. So, for now, Flay and I were buds, pals… probably borrowed each other's flea collar on a regular basis. Until I could kill him, that's the way it would have to be.

Cerberus had his office in a converted warehouse on Watts Street. I didn't know why he needed all that space, but at least it wasn't quite as clichéd as setting up shop in a bar or strip club. While his office was an oasis of all that was rich and decadent, the rest of the place was typical. Concrete floor, high unfinished ceiling, the smell of sawdust and mold, puddles of suspicious fluids… I glared at Flay and shook my foot. Droplets flew through the air and I gave an annoyed hiss at the ammonia stench. "You walk upright, most of the time, and you fur balls aren't even housetrained? Jesus."

Flay bared his teeth at me. It could've been a grin, could've been a threat; it was hard to say. It was also hard to care either way. "Fenrik. Jaffer. Lijah. Mishka."

It seemed that Snowball, brain cell diminished or not, was as good at ignoring me as vice versa. He coughed up the names as if I hadn't just shaken stale piss on his leg. The four wolves they belonged to stared at me as if I'd fallen from the sky. White-eyed, lips stretched to nothing, and claws shredding the cardboard cards they held… they had me amending the thought. They stared at me as though I'd fallen from the sky to rape their women, turn their children into beer cozies, and try to sell them life insurance.

I grinned with faithless and malevolent cheer, then sketched a casual wave. "Hey, fellas, I'm the new guy. Bet you didn't smell
that
coming."

In the silence, a string of saliva dripped from one foreshortened muzzle to pool on the crate that doubled as a makeshift table.

"What? No fruit basket?" I leaned down and picked up a card, bending it back and forth between my fingers. "Poker again. You pups really have a thing for the game, don't you?"

"Auphe." It was the one that Flay had designated as Lijah that spoke. Jaffer, of the unhappily wet muzzle, simply continued to stare and drool.

"Really? Where?" I looked over my shoulder. Turning back, I rocked on my heels and folded my arms. "Oh, you mean
me
? Hardly. Half-Auphe at best. Maybe a hint in my profile." I tilted my head to give them the full effect. "Or in my sparkling personality."

"Definitely the humor of an Auphe," grunted Fenrik, a short but impressively squat wolf. "Funny as an infected anal gland." He took a handful of Jaffer's shaggy hair and shook the head without mercy. Clumps of fur flew. "You're a wolf, you neutered bastard. Act like one."

Jaffer cowered under the treatment and hastily wiped his mouth with a hairy arm. Fire engine red, the pelt sprang up in tufts from his arms and beneath the collar of his Yankees sweatshirt. The hair on his head he kept cut to about an inch in length, but it stood straight up. It looked like a brush fire was racing across his skull. His eyes were round and yellow and his face a furred expanse of muzzle and wet nose. Jaffer didn't go out much, I was guessing. For all intents and purposes he was an upright wolf with a buzz cut. There was no way he could pass. Not at night, not among the drunkest of humans. I felt an unwilling tug of sympathy for him. The rest of us monsters in the room could. I could fool any human. And Flay, Fenrik, Lijah, and Mishka, while not completely normal, could walk the streets with no more than a few curious glances. Actually Fenrik appeared nearly as human as I did except for his eyes. Almost white, the silver blue was the same color as a husky's eyes. His hair nearly matched. Despite that, he wasn't old, late thirties maybe. When he looked at me, I thought I saw a glitter of interest behind the repugnance. He might not love the Auphe, but he was curious to see one close-up… even the bastardized shadow of one. Fenrik would bear watching. He was smarter than the others.

Mishka had to be related to Jaffer. His hair was a lesser red, more of a dull copper, and his muzzle was really just a pronounced overbite, the nose human. His eyes were a green-and-gold hazel. Lijah was more greyhound than wolf. Whipcord lean, he had a sleek fall of brindled hair. Black flecked with gold and brown, it fell loose past his shoulders. It did a good job of concealing a pair of pointed ears and a jawline far too narrow for any distant relative of a primate.