Nightlife

by Rob Thurman

  So how did history get elves from the red-eyed demons that had spawned me? Shit, who knew? How did sailors get mermaids from manatees? Manatees were great animals, sure, but alabaster breasts, sexy scaled tails, pouty lips? Not hardly.

  I never changed my way of thinking with this new info. Grendels were Grendels—no need to muddy the waters. It was kind of hard to wrap my mind around thinking of my childhood monsters as mincing fashion plates called Shealendil or Beoric the Beauteous. Hell, Grendels didn't even wear clothes, much less enough silk and lace to keep Lady Marmalade styling for years.

  "So, is 'depraved and misbegotten' just a generalization or actual solid knowledge?" Niko asked evenly as he moved closer, the grass under his shoes fading into bare dirt.

  "Just talk. The lay of the land, that's all." Talons scratched idly at rough, scaling skin. "Ain't seen any elf. I got no idea what one would be doing around here. Not their territory. They're not urban like me. The little shit was probably just passing through."

  He said it dismissively enough that I believed him. Bog was obviously bored, not trying to put anything over on us. He hadn't seen the Grendel, and had no idea one way or the other what it'd been up to. So Niko and I left him to his mud and mugger munching and finished up our run with me grumbling the entire way. Niko ignored my bitching and in fact picked up the pace. When you were on the run, you needed to be able to actually run, he was fond of saying.

  We stopped for lunch, since we were seriously destitute of all the four food groups at home. I was for burgers. Niko was set on something healthy and utterly lacking in anything that might pass for flavor. So we compromised and hit a hole-in-the-wall pizza place and ordered the vegetarian special. It was still pizza and covered in cheese so I could choke it down, and Niko could graze on the rabbit food toppings to his heart's content. Sitting with his back securely to the wall, Niko kept an eye on mine. I, on the other hand, was keeping an eye on my glass. "I think there's a bug in my Coke."

  Niko leaned forward for a look and nodded thoughtfully. "It does look that way." Settling back, he pointed out, "It is protein. Probably would be quite nutritional. You should give it a chance." Snorting, I wavered between fishing my new friend out with a spoon or sending the Coke back. Decisions. Decisions.

  Unsympathetic to my dilemma, my brother went to work on the fresh-from-the-oven pizza on the table between us. Pushing my glass away, I decided to let nature take its course. Sink or swim. Survival of the fittest. Ladling a piece of pizza onto the thick white plate in front of me, I yelped and blew on singed fingers. Looking down his not inconsiderable nose, Niko handled his steaming piece with smug aplomb and commented, "It's a simple matter of discipline. Mind over matter."

  "Yeah, and I bet you can break boards with your dick. You're a helluva man." I picked something green off the top of my slice and eyed it narrowly. Broccoli. "So, what do we do now? Hope the Grendel was sightseeing or dig into it further?"

  "I'm not looking into membership in the Optimist Club these days, Cal. Are you?"

  "That's what I thought." I checked my watch. "You teaching today?" When he wasn't pulling bodyguard duty, Niko supplemented our income by teaching at a tiny dojo. More money under the table for our running-like-little-girls fund.

  "Later perhaps," he dismissed. "If we get this resolved. Now eat your broccoli before it gets cold."

  I scowled but obeyed. "Scrub the floor, Cinderelly. Eat your broccoli, Cinderelly," I grumbled around a mouthful of cheese and bread.

  By the way… the bug made it. Good for the bug.

  Chapter Three

  Mom had been a fortune-teller in nearly every rundown carnival and one-horse town in the country, although she'd actually preferred the towns over traveling with other carnies. She didn't have to split her money when it was just her in some gloomy one-room apartment ladling out useless bits of crap and outright lies to the desperate. Yeah, the whole ball of wax was hers then. And Sophia had liked her money. Or rather, liked the things it could buy her, booze and drugs… the bright-and-shinies of her world. Safe to say that she had never kept money long and she would have done anything for it.

  And I do mean anything.

  That's how she'd ended up with me. For a while, when I was younger, I thought it could've been another way. She'd been a young woman, a girl really, beautiful in the way storms are… wild and free. Maybe so beautiful that a monster couldn't resist taking her and doing things to her that might twist her. Twist her, change her, make her care about no one but herself. Drive her to the kind of destructive behavior that tainted her and everyone around her. How could she not hate me considering where I came from? How could she forget an act so horrifying, so hideous? And how could you not forgive someone who had had that hell visited on them?

  Of course it hadn't been that way. This was real life, not a made-for-TV movie, chock-full of bland, overwrought nobility. But I'd been young and stupid and looking for any way to… hell… absolve her. One of Niko's fancy words, but it rang true. Because no matter how tough you are, how jaded, every kid wants a mommy. Every kid.

  Like all things with Sophia, though, it had been about money. No victim. No aggressor. Just a simple business arrangement. And, she'd said, the worst one she'd ever made. The money hadn't lasted any time, not to mention the trouble it took to convert raw gold and silver to cash. She had laughed harshly over an empty glass and said, "But you're still here, Caliban. The money is gone and you're still goddamn here." The laugh had smelled of whiskey and truth. Guess I'd been lucky she'd waited until I was ten to let that particular truth slip. Sophia might have been a fortune-teller, but she saved all her truths for me.

  I guess you could say I didn't have a whole lot of faith in fortune-tellers after being raised by one. Me or Niko. But we'd both gotten a bit of a surprise when we'd first wandered to New York two years ago. We'd met George. George was a genuine talent, a seer. George was truth and faith. George was hope and warmth. George was belief when you had none.

  George was also seventeen. So we had to wait until school was out to talk. Holding court in an ancient icecream parlor run by a wizened old man who turned a blind eye to the constant stream of people who came in and out, George always politely suggested the clients buy a soda or milk shake before they left. It probably kept the place open and in the black. We were waiting in a booth when George came in, spotted us, and with a gentle smile slid into the seat opposite us. Everything about George was gentle, and in a world where that quality is more myth than fact, I had learned to cherish every glimpse I could steal.

  "Hey, Georgie Porgie." I grinned. "How's the freckle queen?"

  I had a routine with George, a trick that I liked to think kept me on the straight and narrow. Kept me sane. I treated her like a little sister—a kid barely off her Big Wheel. Hell, she was petite enough to pass for one. I teased; I called her affectionate yet annoying nicknames. Rolled my eyes at her stories, tugged her curls, and all but patted her on the head. I did my damned best to make the two-year difference between us seem like ten. But despite all the production, all the arm waving—"Look over here; look over there. Just don't, whatever you do, look at me. Don't see me, and don't… don't see what I'm trying so hard not to think." Despite it all…

  None of it did me a damn bit of good.

  Georgina shook her head, dark red curls corkscrewing wildly about her delicate shoulders. "The boys in my class are more mature than you, Cal," she said with soft humor.

  Niko elbowed me sharply without mercy. He was aware of why I behaved the way I did, and he did me the remarkable favor of never saying a word about it. Neither I nor my inner monster was ready for that particular subject, and he knew it. "Something I have been telling him for years, Georgina. He refuses to listen."

  George gave him a sympathetic look from huge velvet brown eyes. "Kids." As always she turned the tables on me so neatly that I couldn't stop the faint flush that burned over my cheekbones. Rough, tough, and capable of kicking anyone or anything's ass… and this gir
l had me squirming in my seat.

  While they sympathized with each other over my immature ways, I retreated to the counter and snagged us three ice-cream sodas. Pineapple for George, boring vanilla for Niko, and chocolate cherry for me. Ignoring the fact it was almost bigger than she was, George went to work on hers immediately. She never took money for her readings. Absolutely refused. But she would take ice cream. With as many people that came to her, it was a miracle she wasn't a four-hundred-pound psychic.

  "How is your family, Georgina?" Niko asked gravely as he slowly swirled a straw through the vanilla soda. "Your father?"

  She touched the back of her hand to her mouth, blushing slightly under faintly freckled, caramel skin, and reached for a napkin. "He's doing okay," she replied with equal gravity.

  George's father was sick, so sick that okay was the best that could be hoped for. Full-blown AIDS. He hadn't been such a great father to George or her brothers and sisters when they were younger. But he'd shaped up, pulled himself out of the deepest pit of hell, and given up the drugs. It just turned out it was too late. George and her family had gotten him back only to be on the verge of losing him again, this time permanently. Still Georgie was Georgie and she saw things in a light most people were blind to their whole lives. At least that's what Niko said. I was one of the nearsighted. If there was a light, I hadn't seen it, not even one dancing mote of it. The light was the big picture, the whole enchilada, life's puzzle. And I had two, maybe three pieces, none of which fit together.

  "I'm very glad to hear it." Niko, a solid corner piece if ever there was one, laid his hands flat on the table. "Georgina, we need a reading."

  "I know," she said simply before giving him a cheeky grin. "I am psychic after all."

  Niko curled up one side of his mouth in a rare smile. "So you are." He held out a hand. "Shall we begin?"

  Wiping her hand carefully on the napkin, she then laid it on Niko's, palm to palm. Her small hand dwarfed by his, she closed her eyes and hummed softly under her breath. It was a familiar process, one I'd seen several times before… with other people. This was our first reading, a fact that hadn't seemed to surprise Georgie at all. I'd considered, God knew how many times, finding out if George could see where I'd been those two years I was missing from my life. But in the end two thoughts always stopped me. The first being, wherever I'd been, whatever had happened to me, I was damn sure it was nothing she should have to see. And the second, I wasn't sure I even wanted to know. Maybe the Grendels had made sure I wouldn't remember or maybe I had. Whatever my life had been in that missing time, you could bet your balls it hadn't been all wine and roses. If my mind was the one refusing to remember, there had to be a helluva good reason. A helluva good one or a thousand god-awful, mind-shredding ones.

  "Misty, water-colored memories," my ass.

  George's humming had drifted away to a still, vibrant silence. Then one word, a distant bell, dropped into that silence like a stone down a well. "Ask." Niko didn't waste any time. Succinctly he asked if we should leave the city, if our enemies had caught up with us. George wasn't quite as quick with a reply. Eyes still closed, she tilted her head as if in thought or as if she could hear someone… someone just a little to the left, a little back, a little ways off. Maybe that's what the future was… a place just off from ours, just the tiniest bit askew. After a long moment she straightened and shook her head.

  "No," came her light voice. "You are safe. The Grendels can't see you here. Too many people. Too much noise and light. You're just one grain of sand on an endless beach, one leaf in a vast forest, one star in the distant sky." She opened her eyes and dimpled. "Literature was sixth period."

  "Very poetic," Niko complimented with dry amusement. He didn't comment on George's pulling the Grendel name out of nowhere. Grendels they were to us, so Grendels they were to her. I wondered if she could see what they looked like in our minds or if they were just a word she'd seen painted in our thoughts. I also wondered, more than I should, if she looked at me and saw something less than human. If she did, she didn't say anything and the smile she gave me was just as sweet and open as always.

  Ah, Jesus.

  We finished our sodas while George chatted about girl things. Cute guys and clothes. Cute guys and her impossible brothers, not to mention hopelessly vain sisters. Then finally back to cute guys again. And all the while she would watch me with reassuring eyes. See? she seemed to say. You don't have to worry. I'll be a child for you. I'll be safe and distant in the normal soap opera world of high school romance. You don't have to worry. You don't have to be afraid.

  And she was doing it for me—to ease my mind. I suspected it was an exaggeration at best. I'd yet to see a potential boyfriend around the soda shop. With someone like George—a high school stud would crap his pants at the thought of approaching her. She was… hell, she was a glory. It was the only way to put it. A glory.

  Even with his so-called iron discipline, our glory had finally pushed Niko to the edge with her faux teenage chatter. My brother was beginning to look amusingly glassy-eyed by the time we managed to polish off the ice cream. He thanked George as politely and precisely as any British butler, while I gave her a casual wave and a "So long, Freckle Queen." She scowled cheerfully at me and waved back as we passed through the doors, the bell overhead giving a rusty tinkle. I felt better about the Grendel. When it came to news, good or bad, George was as reliable as they came, better than CNN any day. If she said we were safe, then we were. My belief in George was as firm as any I was capable of.

  At least it was until I turned my head for one last look at the little seer. She wasn't smiling anymore. She was crying. Head pillowed on her arms, her shoulders shaking, she was crying in eerie silence behind the plate glass. Weeping as if she'd lost a friend or family or maybe even a piece of her soul.

  Funny thing about faith… it goes a lot faster than it comes.

  To tell Niko what I'd seen or not to tell—actually, Hamlet, that was not the question. It wasn't so much a matter of whether Nik would find out as a matter of when. He had X-ray vision, my brother. He'd know, sooner or later, that I was hiding something, and I was betting on sooner. So if I wanted a chance to brood darkly over the situation in true Heathcliff fashion, I was going to have to manufacture my own opportunity. And I was going to have to do it quick.

  I fell back on a tried-and-true plan that had never failed. Ten seconds after we hit bur apartment I was out like a light on the couch. It was the perfect plan because there wasn't an ounce of deceit in it. I was the next best thing to some sort of friggin' yogi, able to enter a coma at the drop of a hat. When I woke up hours later the front door was securely locked and Niko had gone to the dojo to teach. At least that's what his note said, along with a scathing reminder that dishes didn't wash themselves and the fungus in the bathroom was one day away from evolving into sentient life. I folded the note into an airplane and sailed it across the room. It ended up perched jauntily on top of the ancient television. It looked good there and I left it as a tribute to freedom-loving fungi everywhere.

  Pulling a half-empty peanut butter jar from the cabinet, I sat at the kitchen table and went to work. Just me, a spoon, and some peanut butter long past its prime. You can always tell… It's crunchy, but you bought smooth. Texture aside, it still tasted the same. More or less. Taking a bite, I let my eyes unfocus and thought about Georgina. I'd trusted her, almost as much as Niko. And that was huge in my book. Hell, in any book.

  But she had lied to us. Lies were like acid, corrosive: They could dissolve trust in a heartbeat. And while I always had a wary eye out for betrayal, I wouldn't have thought to look in George's direction. I'd seen her help a lot of people, seen her bring so much hope into bleak, empty lives. I'd seen her deliver hard truths as well. They'd always been softened with George's calm words that told of the beautiful and vibrantly colored bigger picture. But she'd delivered the truth, softened or not. Always.

  Until now.

  And I had to wonder what had ha
ppened. Why would George turn her back on an integrity that was as much a part of her as that curly red hair? I took another bite and grimly ignored the thick sensation as it stuck in my throat. Maybe I should forget the why and focus on the what. She'd obviously lied, but what exactly was the lie? Were Grendels actually here and combing the city for me? Was it that neither Niko nor I was safe? Hell, maybe it was both. Pushing the jar away, I rested my chin in my hand, my elbow on the cheap plastic surface of the table. Shit. Whatever it was, it meant bailing and fast.

  I closed my eyes and swore out loud this time. The why refused to be buried under thoughts of moving on again. You'd think I'd just chalk it up as nothing new and start packing my bags. But it was George, and her hands had a tight hold on me, much tighter than I ever should've allowed. Jesus, Georgie, what are you doing? I pushed the jar away and dropped the spoon with a clatter. From day one we'd met her, George had had a light around her. Corny as hell, but true. She'd been at the fish market on Pier 17, a well-worn dog collar clutched in her hands. An old man had been with her, his sparse white hair standing on end from the frantic combing of agitated fingers. With ratty bow tie and stooped shoulders he'd been saying, "She slipped her collar. She's never done that. Never. Venus is a good girl."

  Niko and I had been down there looking for work when we'd noticed the quiet little drama of man loves dog; man loses dog. Nudging Niko's ribs with an elbow, I'd given him a grim snort as I watched the little girl work the old guy. I'd seen this a thousand times with Sophia. "I've lost my wife, my fortune, my mom, my dad, my child. Help me. Guide me. Save me." The goddamn heartbroken, they were everywhere. I had to say I'd never seen Sophia "search the spirit world" for a mutt, though. Not that she wouldn't have given her spiel if there'd been money involved. She'd have channeled a guinea pig for the right price.

  This chick had her own moves down pat. Hands stroked the collar; dark eyes had looked inward. A small face all but glowed with a light so pure that it had to be faked. She'd give the old man a few lines, a practiced patter, take the money he'd slide into her greedy hand, and then she'd be gone. And the old man would still be alone. Nothing but an empty collar to keep him company.