Nightlife (18 page)

"You don't look like a treasure," came the molasses-coated purr. The head tilted curiously to one side as talons drummed casually on the glass. "Value is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose." An eye winked slyly. "Just like beauty."

Then it exploded through the mirror to land on my chest, slamming me against the tiled wall. Shattered shards of silvery glass stung my face before falling with a tinkle to the floor. Eyes just as silver stared into mine from bare millimeters away. "Remember me?" it asked conversationally before laving my skin with its tongue. "You look lonely in there. Mind if I join you?"

I had no idea what it meant by that, but I did know it didn't sound good. Waiting around to discuss it didn't seem like the smartest option. Grabbing it by the throat, I flung it away before lunging at it with the blade. I missed. Of all goddamn things, I
missed
. The evil little shit was quick, I had to give it that. It flipped over my head with blurring speed to land high where the wall and ceiling met. Gazing at me complacently from an upside-down position, it mocked in a singsong, "Little piggy, little piggy, let me in."

I narrowed my eyes and balanced loosely on the balls of my feet. "I've got something you can blow all right, big bad wolf. So come and get it." The splintering crash of the front door interrupted my bravado. An inarticulate shout from Goodfellow and the meaty thud of steel in flesh had me turning my back on Alice. I fully expected the burning pain of claws in my spine as I raced down the hall to the living room, but only its laughter followed me. I wish I could've been as carefree, but the sight that met me as I exited the hall fixed that fast enough.

Grendels were everywhere. There had to be at least twenty swarming through the apartment. They were unarmed except for the weapons of nature, but slashing claws and a myriad of shredding teeth were weapons enough. Robin had speared one Grendel in the stomach, but another had a pale sinewy arm wrapped around his neck, its teeth buried in his shoulder. Nik… Nik was already surrounded by bodies. Four of the dead lay scattered at his feet as he swung a blade to take off the head of a fifth. The dislike of dulling his blade on bone had apparently been forgotten. With my brother in full swing and surviving, I charged the Grendel on Goodfellow's back. Cutting its legs from beneath it, I grabbed a handful of oddly silky hair and jerked the monster off Robin before heaving it across the floor. Grunting a thanks, Robin plowed into two more, wielding his sword with a desperate and deadly skill.

Turning my back to his to protect our flanks, I prepared to fend off some monsters of my own. God knew there were plenty left. But strangely enough, they didn't seem to want to cooperate. Concentrating on Niko and Robin, they either ignored me or skipped out of my reach. After an entire lifetime of being watched and then pursued, now that I was actually caught the Grendels seemed oddly uninterested. Growling with frustration, I lunged at the nearest one, slicing it across the rib cage to spill blood. It hissed with pain and outrage and started to swing jagged claws at my throat. Bare inches away from my skin, it stopped, its hand hovering in the air with fingers flexing. Then it smiled and grated, "Not so easy for you, brother. Never so easy for you."

Not disinterested, then. They didn't want to hurt me, simple as that. After all, they had plans for me, didn't they? And whatever those involved, it was apparently better for them that I was in one piece. Better for them, but no way in hell it could be better for me. Being dead was an option; going back with the Grendels was not. If they wouldn't fight me, fine. I didn't have a problem taking the fight to them. I lunged at the bleeding one, intent on slicing the smug son of a bitch in half. Niko was still on his feet with one hand clutching the throat of a Grendel as he buried his sword in its belly. Robin was holding his own as well, although he had a streak of blood on his face and one on his neck. The odds were bad; shit, they were goddamn awful. Still, I wasn't about to give up. I would live here or I would die here, but with Nik and Goodfellow at my side, the odds might just take a beating. The Grendels were tough, a force to be reckoned with. So were we. We had a chance. It wasn't much of one, but I'd take any port in a storm, any straw I could grasp.

Then that straw slipped through my fingers as what I thought was the least of my problems suddenly turned out to be by far the worst. Alice came loping along the wall. It was on all fours and moving with the speed and intensity of a greyhound. The big bad wolf was done playing and ready to get down to business. It was just my bad luck that its business seemed to be me.

I did try to get away. I'd been in enough fights not to freeze and I'd seen shit a damn sight scarier-looking than Alice. The trouble was that even though my brain agreed with all that, every other part of me was screaming a warning. It made my attempt to dive to one side seem impossibly slow, as if I were a fly trapped in amber. I heard Nik shout my name and heard Robin say a word I didn't recognize, and all the letters crept snail slow into my ears.

Then Alice hit me and all wondering stopped.

"Little piggy." A tongue touched my jaw again as gently as that of a mother nuzzling her newborn.

The body slam had knocked me over our recliner. I lay stunned in its splintered ruins with Alice crouched on my chest. The sword had flown far from my hand as my breath had been knocked painfully from my lungs.

With pale eyes staring into mine, I struggled to breathe and I struggled to say one word. "No." I didn't even know what I was saying no to. But I did know Alice wasn't looking to do me any favors. The weight on my chest, the trail of saliva on my face, the eyes as hypnotic and consuming as a cobra's—it was all
wrong
. Wrong in the way murder is wrong, wrong in the way torture is wrong, wrong in every way there is to be wrong. "No," I repeated, my voice brittle as glass. "No, you son of a bitch.
No
."

Talon-tipped fingers cupped my chin, holding my head still. "Don't worry, Caliban. You don't have to open the door," it soothed before giving me a smile brilliant with triumph and vicious with glee. "After all, no lock has ever kept me out."

Alice was right. My locks held less than a second before it helped itself and moved on in. I tried to fight. God, I fought like ever-living hell. Every inner touch, every one of its fingerprints on my brain, burned like acid. It shredded the walls of my soul like tissue paper, tore aside my willpower like the filmiest of curtains. As it clawed its way to my very center, I couldn't tell anymore where it began and I ended. It poured into me like a river into the sea, mixing, melding, until we were one. One. For better or worse.

Until death do us part.

Suddenly I saw the world in a whole new light… and it was goooood. Sitting up, I held my hands in front of my face and wiggled my fingers. Warm-blooded. It was a weird feeling, at once odd and familiar. Looking a little farther down, I took in the result of that warm blood mixed with adrenaline and grinned. "Humans. Gotta love the horny little bastards." Rising, I pulled at my sweatshirt, snorting in disgust at the faded material.

"You have
got
to be kidding." Well, there was time enough for that later. After all, world domination came with a schedule and if I didn't get my ass in gear, I'd throw the Auphe off before they even got started. Couldn't have that. The customer's always right and all that bullshit.

Niko was still yelling my name, although now he was held back by seven of the Auphe. Goodfellow stood alone. What he knew, what he saw before him, held him just as solidly as the Auphe held Nik. His blade hung slack in his grip, the point resting on the floor. His mouth shaped a silent word. It was the same word I hadn't recognized only moments ago, but now I knew it as well as my own name. Because, hell, it
was
my name.

"Darkling." This time he got some air behind it so that I actually heard it.

I waggled my fingers at him in a cheerful wave and gave him an acknowledging wink. "He shoots; he scores. Too bad 'Better late than never' doesn't apply here, eh, Goodfellow?"

"Darkling" it was… or "banshee"—I went by both. Not that I got a lot of face time in any mythology book. The female banshees, whiny bitches that they are, were all over the place, but me? Their humble brother, one of the few male banshees in existence? Jack shit, that's what I got. I was robbed, I tell ya, robbed. For a creature of my talents to be toiling in relative anonymity, it was a crying shame.

"Caliban."

I turned to look at Niko. As the King would say, he was all shook up. I couldn't remember him ever calling me Caliban. He knew I linked the name with being a Grendel and that was an idea he wouldn't ever give validity to. Nik lived his life denying my heritage, denying that I was a monster. Now, there was a thought that made me smile. Monster. When I thought of all the long years that I'd moaned and wailed about being a monster… shit. Now I knew what a monster really was. Now I knew what I'd been missing.

But… business before pleasure.

I sighed regretfully and reached for the gun stowed in the waistband at the small of my back. "Sorry, big brother. I'd love to stay and shoot the breeze, but I've got places to go, worlds to destroy. Busy, busy, busy."

Niko's face hardened. "Give him back. Whatever you are, give my brother back." His eyes, promising all sorts of dire consequences, were locked on mine. I knew what he was seeing, once-gray eyes now turned mirror bright.

"Back?" I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. "I haven't even gone for a test drive yet. Besides you act as if this is some sort of
Exorcist
rip-off. That you can throw a few splashes of holy water on me and poof, all gone. Sorry, Cyrano, it doesn't work that way." Abruptly, I turned and fired the gun.

The panoramic window shattered. A fiercely frigid wind whipped into the apartment. It tore at my hair, scattered an evening paper, and whipped away drops of blood from where the Auphe's claws had punched through Niko's skin. Glass glittered like shards of ice on the floor, and outside darkness beckoned. I could smell the city, smell the freedom. It was a wonderful moment, goddamn
great
in fact. Only one thing could possibly make it better. Swiveling around, I placed the muzzle of the thirty-eight lightly against my brother's chest. "Time to go, Nik." I couldn't leave him alive. He would never give up searching and that could put a bit of a crimp in the plan. I couldn't have that. "For me and for you."

"You couldn't." He seemed very sure of that, jaw set. Too bad he was wrong.

"You mean he couldn't, but
we
can." I curled up the corner of my mouth. "And we will." Pulling the trigger was easy, so damn easy.

Hitting the target, though, turned out to be more difficult. Where Niko had been, suddenly an Auphe was standing, whom I unfortunately ventilated. It wasn't the most respectful way to treat an employer. "Whoops. Sorry about that, boss," I apologized. "Totally my fault." It crumpled, the light fading from its eyes. There went any chance of a bonus.

Niko had managed to wrest himself free of some of the Auphe, but was still entangled in several rolling around on the floor. It was a vicious fight and I wished I had time to watch, but orders were orders. I couldn't get a clear shot at Nik, and Robin wasn't much of a threat. My reputation preceded me there and I fully expected Goodfellow to pack his bags to hop the nearest plane. He was out of here, no doubt, and although Niko would definitely still be a problem, there wasn't anything I could do about it now. Later, though… we'd see.

Turning, I ran. I heard the the clink of metal against wood as the gun hit the floor behind me… It was like the peal of a bell. I kept running, took a deep breath, and dived. I don't know if Nik got away from the Auphe or whether they let him go to follow me. Either way, it didn't matter; I knew it was his fingers tugging at my shirt. I knew it was his fingers trying to hold me back, but I still slipped free.

And then I was soaring.

Through the window and into the night. Air rushed up past me as I fell. Lights dopplered as the street rose beneath me with dizzying speed. Behind and around me I could hear the Auphe, laughing as happily as a weasel in a nest of baby rabbits, their white hair streaming like the tail of a comet. We plummeted together, joined by a murderous purpose and the sheer joy of raising hell. Then the gate opened and we exited the world together. But we would be back, to remake that same world into a new image, or rather an old one… very, very old. For now, however, to this place we were no more. Elvis had left the building.

There are a lot of truths in this world.

When it rains it pours. It's always darkest before the dawn. He who smelt it dealt it. There was no limit to the little homilies, the facile and easy words. If humanity was good at anything, it was shooting off its collective mouth. They had a saying for literally every situation under the sun. Although there was one in particular that had always stuck with me. Choose your friends wisely. It bore repeating. Choose your friends wisely.

That and everyone has their price. That was a good one too. Right up there.

Combine the two and that pretty much summed up my philosophy in life: Pick the right side and get paid to do it. Calling the Auphe my friends might have been an exaggeration. Still, they had once been a reigning force and the way things were shaping up they would be again. I could take care of myself—that was a given—but being on the Auphe's bad side was no way to start a millennium. Besides, as I said, I had my price and they were more than willing to pay it. It was just too damn bad the assignment had called for a stop in their summer home. Which led us to another truth.

Tumulus was no Vegas.

The warm-blooded half of me was more intimate with that fact than either one of us cared to be. And so was my cold-blooded self. We had both been in Tumulus at the same time years ago… for exactly the same reason. Working for the Auphe. There wouldn't be any other reason to grace that pit. The place hadn't improved an iota since then either. Vegas? Hardly.

No buffets, no babes, no gambling. Hell, there was barely air. An hour there refining the details of the Auphe scheme and I was more than ready to be on my way. Not that I wasn't having the time of my life yukking it up with the black sheep of the Fae, but the Auphe did tend to be pretty damn intense. I enjoyed a good slaughter, same as the next guy. Wasn't I doing dirty work for the Auphe? There weren't many that could claim that particular distinction, doing the evil deed for creatures who had practically invented the phrase. Yeah, I could hang with the baddest of the bad, but even I had my limits.

Nothing ruined a good hobby faster than talking it to death with a bunch of drooling fanatics. If the Auphe had a problem, in my book it would be that they were just too single-minded. There was nothing wrong with having more than one interest in life. Carnage could be a wonderful thing, but there were other fish to fry out there that were almost as tasty. I liked to think of myself as a Renaissance creature… as a Renaissance
man
now. The Auphe were not, and even if they had been, their shit hole was definitely not my idea of luxury accommodations.

By the time I stepped through the door to Central Park I was more than ready to bid a fond farewell to icy, screaming winds, sullen red skies, and the fetid stench reminiscent of a hundred thousand rotting bodies.

Corpses were nice to look at and fun as hell to make, but I could do without the smell. Bad for my sinuses.

Not that the air in New York smelled much better, but it was warmer… barely. The temperature had taken a major nosedive since I'd been gone. Time in this world and in Tumulus had no real correlation. Step from one place to the other and minutes could've passed or weeks, and it was never the same. The Auphe understood how it worked, but I damn sure didn't and barring a handheld Einstein and the most expensive calculator money could buy, I wasn't going to. Quite frankly, I wasn't too concerned over it. From the looks of things a week or two had passed, and that guess was good enough for me. Around me winter had started to gobble up fall. Folding my arms against the chill, I shook off the effect of the rip the Auphe had opened for me and started walking. Theoretically, I should be able to open up a doorway myself now. This body was genetically hardwired for it. And after all, that was what I'd been hired to do… open the mother of all gates.

But for now that was off-limits. The Auphe were clear on that. There couldn't be any mistakes. It had taken years beyond the telling to get a breeding to work. They didn't want to lose their one and only mutt if I screwed up and took an accidental trip to the bottom of the ocean or the center of a volcano. So no trips without supervision. That was all right. I could be a good boy… for a while. There were other ways to travel. In fact I'd be willing to bet that somewhere out there was a sports car with my name all over it.

No more mirrors, though. Just as I wasn't coldblooded anymore, neither was I ephemeral enough for surfing the reflective waves of light. I didn't mind, though—it was more than a fair trade in my book. I'd never set up house in something alive before. I had a long, illustrious career doing this and that, sort of a jack-of-all-trades. Mostly I guarded things. You couldn't beat good pay for sitting on your ass. Have a treasure you want protected? No problem. A crumbling relic of a lost age that needs to be preserved at all costs? Can do. A castle full of smelly live squatters that you'd like turned into smelly dead ones? Where do I sign up? Hire me and I'd move into whatever you wanted for as long as you wanted. With me inhabiting your most cherished possessions, you could bet they were safe. But this time my guardian aspect wasn't the only reason the Auphe had pulled me in for this task. In fact, I'd known of Caliban long before I started shadowing him in mirrors, and I'd been doing that much longer that he had realized. I'd been on the Auphe payroll for this job even before he'd been born.

As a rule the work was good, the perks and pay even better, but now I had the feeling I wouldn't be returning to dwelling in the inanimate for a long, long time. All those years, I had no idea what I was missing. Although I could solidify to a certain extent, my natural state was more tenuous. Incorporeal. But a human body… I couldn't get over what an amazing high it was. No cool will-o'-the-wisp fluid gently sliding through corkscrew-twisted vessels that were barely more material than a thought. Humans had fiery hot blood that pumped with all the force and speed of a raging river. They had bubbling hormones that gave an unbelievable punch to every single emotion. And adrenaline, holy hell, why wasn't someone bottling that?

I liked this body. I liked it a whole helluva lot and if it survived the Auphe's scheme, I didn't think they'd mind me holding on to it for a while. If it didn't survive, it'd be a disappointment but not a genuine problem. I'd just hop to something else. My choices would be drastically reduced if things went as planned, but that was the breaks. I'd make do. I always did.

For now I had a few days to kick back and enjoy myself. The big bosses needed that time to prepare, pick a site, and pull their entire population together. Until then all I had to do was keep this body in one piece and have a good time. Oh, sure, there were some loose ends to tie up in a nice, pretty bow, but that would be a huge part of my good time. There was only so much reining in by the Auphe that even an easygoing guy like myself could tolerate. They hired me to do a job. How I did it was a matter of my discretion, not theirs. I was a professional. In other words, don't teach your grandma to suck eggs.

Was I smug? Maybe. I could blame it on the new body, but, hell, I'd always been full of myself. Conceit—that, I'd admit to—but stupid I was not. There were ways to take care of one potential problem without any personal involvement at all. It was all about subcontracting. Lesser problems called for lesser solutions. The big guns like myself I'd save for the thorniest challenge, and damn, if it wasn't going to be a bitch.

But that was half the fun.

I'd stayed in some run-down places through the ages. Believe it or not, Tumulus wasn't the worst of them either. There had been damp, pitch-black caves with only blind grubs and creeping fungi for company. There had been a chest containing the opal-encrusted bones of a queen that had lain at the bottom of a swamp for so many years I'd lost count. I'd even once lived in the petrified body of a basilisk. Long dead and turned to stone, but it still stank. Don't ask me how. And don't ask me why the client wanted that piece of yard sale crap protected, because I didn't have a clue.

But this… this made the bowels of a basilisk look like Graceland.

I sat with curled lip on the edge of the bed and tried to decide if the stain in the center of the spread looked more like William Shatner or the outline of a ravenous, bloated yeti. The carpet was shag (or had been at some point), and was the exact yellow green shade of bile. It should've clashed with the brand-spanking-new purple polyester curtains, but oddly enough it didn't. They were too far apart on the color spectrum to even meet that much. Apples and oranges. I leaned forward and touched a finger to the cloth. I'd had a sweatshirt that shade of purple years ago. Frowning, I fisted the cloth. Years and years ago. I'd packed it the night the Grendels had come to take me away.

I felt my frown deepen. What the hell was I thinking? That wasn't my past. It wasn't even our past, not anymore. We weren't two bickering halves, fighting for control. We were one. Whole. Not two separate creatures coexisting, but an entirely new one. Greater than the sum of our parts and superior in every way, just as the Auphe had said we would be.

Of course, being superior didn't mean I wasn't currently residing in the most god-awful room that existed this side of Jersey. The communal bathroom alone was scarier than the Auphe and me combined. What went on there wasn't going to up the already teeming human population any, and that was the best thing to be said about it. As for the room, I wasn't the only thing scuttling around in its confines. Five stars for the religious and brotherly attitude of the place, one for the roaches and bathroom orgies.

Regardless, it was all I could afford at the moment; the cash in my wallet hadn't gone far. I'd given serious thought to paying Promise a visit and staking her right there in her marble-floored foyer. Now, there would be some digs worth holing up in. Only one thing had given me pause, and it wasn't the fact that my brother was warm for her undead form. It was the security in her building. It was top-of-the-line. I could get in; that wasn't a problem. She'd have the front desk send me up, if Niko hadn't warned her. She might even if he had. It would make a good trap. But I doubted Promise could disappear for more than a day before some of the staff came inquiring, whether it be security or her cleaning lady. It was just too much a pain in the ass for what would probably amount to only one night of extravagance.

Pity.

I pulled off my jacket and tossed it on the wobbly table in the corner before stripping the comforter off the bed. The sheets beneath were clean and smelled strongly of industrial-strength bleach. I doubted it would keep me up; I was dead on my feet. Wadding up the mottled bedspread, I shoved it under the bed and dropped onto the mattress, resting my head on a pancake-flat pillow. I could've hit Boggle up for some dough before I left the park. He had to go through his weight in muggers every month. He was bound to have a pile of wallets and jewelry he had no use for. I really should've spared the time. If I had, I would be sleeping on Egyptian cotton now instead of what felt like woven cardboard.

Shoulda coulda woulda. The bottom line was, I'd simply been too tired. There were advantages to this body, but there were disadvantages too. No getting around that. It still needed rest, needed sleep, and denying those needs wouldn't accomplish anything except to put my ass in a sling. Niko was out there and he would take immediate and ruthless advantage of any weakness, no matter how slight. It was what I would do. It was what he had taught me. I grinned with sleepy pleasure at the blood-soaked fantasies featuring my brother that danced in my head. They sure as hell weren't sugarplums, but enjoyable all the same. Rolling over, I fell instantly into a dreamless sleep.

When life was so good, who needed dreams?