Roadkill

by Rob Thurman

  Normally he would’ve made it three. I wasn’t the only one getting sex. A fire axe to the neck and docking my pay were actually mellow for him. That was the good part. The bad part was he was getting it from a friend, the only one I trusted besides my brother, and this friend and frequent fellow monster killer liked nothing better than to threaten me with the details . . . and that was worse than any axe.

  When Robin Goodfellow, a puck, threatened you with sexual details, you didn’t need a porn channel and you didn’t need Hustler; when he claimed to have cowritten the Kama Sutra, you believed his bragging ass. And the last thing I needed was to have my boss see me looking at him and trying damn hard not to picture wings and legs and other things in positions you’d need Silly Putty for bones to achieve. That would make him lose his mellow real fast. Goodfellow would like nothing better than to see his adventures on IMAX, but Ishiah was probably more private.

  And my twitching at the mental picture wouldn’t liven up the bar any.

  I twitched anyway and turned my attention to wiping down the bar. It was clean, but it didn’t matter—anything to keep my thoughts from going down that road. I’d done the same twitching when Nik’s vampire girlfriend had once had some fun at my expense. There are some things about your family and friends you just don’t want to know.

  There are also things that you don’t want them to know. Different things maybe, not that it mattered. Niko found out anyway. I didn’t know why I tried. He always did. I discovered that this particular time twenty minutes later when my brother walked through the door . . . the only human who came and went at the Ninth Circle and lived not to tell the tale. I looked up the instant I smelled him . . . when I smelled the annoyance on him. More than annoyed, he was completely and totally pissed off. And it took some doing to get my brother pissed off. That didn’t mean he’d hesitate in a fight to take the head off a boggle with his sword, but he wouldn’t be angry when he did it. A job was a job. No need to bring emotion into that equation.

  There was plenty of emotion now.

  He walked to the bar, flipped open the phone in his hand, and put it down in front of me. The small screen was open to the GPS tracker connected to my cell. “I thought we had an agreement. You don’t gate and I don’t beat you within an inch of your life. Wasn’t that it?” He leaned closer. “The agreement?”

  “Shit.” I looked down at the phone blinking accusingly.

  “I had a friend of mine at the university program it to alarm every time your signal disappears and reappears approximately four seconds or less later.” Which wouldn’t pick up on the dead zone of the subway. Traveling was a helluva lot quicker than the subway. My brother was smart, probably the smartest guy I’d ever known, but just once couldn’t he have taken a little more after me?

  “Well? I’m listening. Were you in dire circumstances? Was it make a gate or die? I’ve always assumed if you escaped near death, you would give me a call afterward. Common courtesy.” He leaned farther. My calm and cool-as-ice brother had a temper too. You had to dig for it, had to push him, but it was there and it could rival Ishiah’s. Ice to fire, but when it was your butt in a sling, whether it was frozen or singed didn’t much matter.

  “There were two Wolves and a revenant.” I reached over and snapped his phone shut, tired of the betraying beep. “They attacked me in the park. . . .”

  “And?”

  I wasn’t going to lie to my brother. Don’t get me wrong; if I could’ve skipped telling him some things I would’ve, both to save him the worry and to save me the ass kicking. But lie to his face? He was my brother. No way.

  “And I handled it, was late, and traveled to the bar,” I admitted.

  His eyes narrowed. “Because lateness was life threatening?”

  I could’ve half joked and said that with Ishiah it could be, but that would have been shitty of me. And while I had no problem being shitty with anyone else, I damn sure wasn’t going to be shitty with Nik. He was the sole reason I was alive, the sole reason I was sane.

  In the face of that, how could I be shitty? How could I lie? I couldn’t, not to him. “No, but, hell, Nik, I need to stay in practice. How can I do that if I don’t open a gate once in a while? How can I save our lives if I can’t do it fast enough or if I start foaming at the mouth and become worse than what we’re running from? How do we know if the meditation works if we don’t test it?” I fingered the mala bracelet around my wrist as I asked. I’d gotten it from Nik—one of four that belonged to the Buddha-loving badass himself.

  The bracelet was made of steel beads, each one a meditation mantra. It was supposed to keep me centered and in control of my nonhuman side, because in the past when I traveled, it wanted to come out and play. Meditation helped me push it back down. Control. It was all about control, because, believe it or not, they don’t make a pill or a patch for wanting to tear people apart thanks to over a million years of genetic tendencies.

  His gaze didn’t shift a millimeter. “And that’s what you were thinking when you traveled from the park to here? Practicing?”

  Yeah, in a sling big- time. “Sit down. You’ll need a good hour to ream me.” I sighed. “Beer or tea?”

  He didn’t sit and he didn’t speak. I went and brought back both. Brewing the tea took a few minutes, an opportunity for Niko to become a little less furious. I brought the tea that I kept for him under the bar, some mix that cost a ridiculous twenty dollars an ounce, but desperate times called for criminally overpriced tea. Kind of like throwing a virgin on some old god’s altar in hopes he would cure that pesky leprosy. Probably wouldn’t work, but didn’t hurt to try.

  I put down the tea. He looked at it, the beer, then me. “I can’t decide which would be the more effective lesson: a bottle smashed over your head or hot tea thrown in your face.”

  Maybe it did hurt to try. I took the beer for myself. “I just . . . needed to. I feel like a hawk stuffed in a cage. I needed, I don’t know, out.”

  “A hawk,” he snorted. “A parakeet on your best day.” But he sat down and wrapped his hands around the mug of tea. “You need to?”

  “It’s like a rubber band in me, stretched tight enough to snap. If I travel, I feel normal again.”

  Better than normal.

  “And I haven’t foamed at the mouth or tried to eat anyone even once, swear. I think with the Auphe all dead and losing the mental connection with them, I’m okay. Either that or the meditation is kicking in, but either way, I’m good. I am. And I’ve only done it twice in the past six months.”

  “Counting tonight?” he prodded.

  “Three times,” I corrected, and glumly drank more of the beer.

  “I should’ve had the phone reprogrammed sooner. Meditation works, but not that quickly and not for one of your skill level . . . virtually nonexistent,” he said darkly. “But we’ll discuss this later. We’re meeting a client here in a few minutes.”

  “Who?” It’d been three weeks since our last job. I’d been getting bored. Niko and I, and sometimes Promise and Robin, made up what Niko called Preternatural Investigations. I was convinced he called it that because I could barely pronounce preternatural. My nice, simple Ass-kickers, Inc. had been voted down. “Someone Promise recommended?” I asked. Promise, Niko’s vampire girlfriend, sent the majority of our clients our way, although since they’d only recently reconciled, I didn’t expect it to have come from her. They were taking things slowly from what I could tell, feeling their way carefully. With her daughter, Cherish, having almost killed or made mental slaves of all of us, it was for the best. And with Niko having bypassed the “almost” in killing when it came to Cherish, you’d want to make sure the foundation of the relationship was solid first.

  “Actually, someone called my cell and asked for the meet.” He decided drinking the tea instead of scalding me with it was the better plan and took a swallow. “He wouldn’t say anything more.”

  That was weird. It wasn’t as if we wrote our number on bathroom walls or paid for
subway ads. Monster Maimers, Inc. Call 555-5555. Our work tended to come by word of mouth . . . from either Promise or Robin. “He, huh? Did he say what he wanted?”

  “No. Think of it as a surprise.”

  It was a surprise. A helluva surprise.

  One: It wasn’t a man.

  Two: She was human . . . in the Ninth Circle and not afraid.

  Three: We knew her. And maybe she was human, but she was also one of the scariest humans I’d come across. A hundred if she was a day and a greedy, manipulative, borderline psychotic witch . . . and I didn’t mean the Wizard of Oz kind. The only thing magical about her was the level of her pure vile nastiness. She liked me—I think because I’d been a little psychotic myself when I’d first met her.

  Abelia-Roo.

  Head of the Sarzo Clan. Rom. Toothless, wizened, maybe four foot ten, and didn’t give a rat’s ass who died as long as she got money out of it. She’d once sold us something we’d needed as ransom in a hostage situation and hadn’t bothered to mention that activating it took the blood of a gypsy. That blood had turned out to be Niko’s and that I definitely gave a rat’s ass about—a giant rat’s ass; big, furry, and pissed. It made me wonder how socially unacceptable it was to break the kneecaps of an old lady with her own intricately carved cane.

  She leaned that cane against the bar, sat her tiny frame on the stool next to Niko, and arranged the red fringed shawl over her sacklike black dress. “Niko and Caliban Leandros of the Vayash Clan.” Her black eyes glittered. “You enjoyed our hospitality once. I expect to be as well treated.” She knotted her gnarled hands on the bar and rattled off something in Romany, which neither Niko nor I spoke. Sophia had never bothered to teach us the language. She had left her clan before we were born and when the clan had found out what she’d done to produce me . . . well, they hadn’t exactly welcomed us with open arms.

  Abelia-Roo grinned, showing her gums. “But I forget. You do not speak your own tongue. A disgrace. I will have a glass of your best wine. And if it is not your best, I shall know.”

  “I’ll have to get a wineglass and scoop some water out of the toilet. Give me a sec,” I growled, my eyes slits. “Or better yet, haul your wrinkled old ass back to Florida or wherever you’ve set up camp. And tell Branje hey.” I’d threatened to slice off the nose of Abelia-Roo’s main muscle man. Then again, when you had him on the ground, knee in his gut, the tip of your knife up a nostril and you fully intended to do it, I guessed it wasn’t a threat.

  The gums showed again, this time specifically in my direction. “Still a real man. It’s difficult to believe the Vayash Clan ever produced one.” The Vayash Clan also hadn’t seen the need to spread around that they gave birth to a half-breed Auphe. The rest of the clans would’ve had serious words to say about that. She still didn’t know about me then. “If I were ten years younger, my boy, I’d give you the ride of your life.” She patted the white bun at the back of her head with a coy hand. It didn’t do anything to cover up the pink-brown skin that peeked through the strands covering her scalp.

  It was hard to stay pissed when you were trying not to spew all over yourself and the bar. I managed. I liked to think of pissed as number one in the repertoire that made up my general crapfest of moods. I was really, really good at it. Pulling in at the last of that emotional list would be forgiveness. “That’d still put you at nine hundred,” I said with distaste. “No thanks. The only thing I want from you is to get the hell out of here. Thanks to your not telling us about the Calabassa, my brother almost died, you evil bitch.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Samyel blink at my laying the b- word on what looked like a sweet old granny. But this sweet old granny would’ve drugged Samyel and sold his feathered butt to a chicken farmer. As a poor egg producer, he would end up an extra-crispy wing and thigh with a side of coleslaw before he even knew what happened.

  “A man you may be, but worthless as a Rom,” she scorned. “You buy an RV without looking at the engine and you come crying when it won’t run because it doesn’t have one? Pssssh.”

  “You—” I had my finger up and was ready to poke her in her bony chest.

  Niko caught my hand and slapped it lightly down on the bar. “Pistol-whipping elderly women isn’t precisely our mission statement, Cal.”

  I hadn’t been going to pistol-whip her. Yell at her a little more, then pick her up and toss her out into the street. Some risk of a broken hip there, but that wasn’t pistol-whipping . . . unless she tried to come back in. “You almost died because of her,” I snapped, eyes still on her.

  “Maybe I did not know,” she said, the canny expression on her face replaced with all the innocence of the witch stuffing Hansel in the oven.

  “Know what?” Niko asked pointedly.

  “Whatever it is you think I knew,” she answered promptly as she started pulling cloth bags out of the depths of her shawl—three of them and good sized. She placed them on the bar. “Now, I wish my wine and to discuss a business opportunity for you. Although, being that you are Vayash and half Vayash half gadje, I should spit at your feet.” Niko was pure Vayash as far as we knew. The clan had passed through Greece generations ago and intermarried with the Northern Greeks before moving on, which is where the occasional blond one popped up. That and the darker complexion gave Niko Vayash cred. My black hair was Rom enough, but the pale skin—that would never pass.

  She went on. “But, no, I am here to give you a chance to earn money, although I could’ve found much better to do the task. Remember that. But I am sentimental in my old age.” She looked at me again and winked or had a ministroke; I wasn’t sure which. “But not too old.”

  “Okay, Nik, you’ve got to let me pistol-whip her.” I glared at her as I spoke. A vodyanoi stumping past in its oversized trenchcoat caught the edge of my molten expression, moaned, and headed for the back of the room—as far away from me as he could get. Abelia-Roo? Her, it didn’t faze. Then again, I hadn’t once killed quite a few of her kind with a sword and guns and one unfortunate margarita incident. Vodyanoi take to salt pretty much like a garden slug does—not too damn well.

  “Cal.”

  “You almost died,” I repeated, but with his tone I was in a losing argument. With Niko I usually was.

  “But I didn’t, and I’m curious.” Niko tilted his gaze down by more than a foot to take her in. “You’d have to know, Abelia-Roo, that we’d have very little desire to deal with you after last time. You must be in quite a situation.”

  “A little trouble.” She shrugged. “So tiny, it is too insignificant for one of my people to bother with.” She took one of the bags and emptied it in a semicircle around her stool. It was salt. That would keep the next vodyanoi at a distance.

  “Tiny.” Niko didn’t have to lift an eyebrow or use any of the tones he used on me. He only said the word and it may as well have been carved out of doubt.

  “Perhaps very small would be a better term, but still quite simply solved.” She clucked her tongue. “Strapping men and afraid of a little work. Your laziness puts all Rom to shame.” Opening the next bag, she pulled out a tranquilizer pistol. I recognized it because I’d once had one used on me. Turning on the stool, she selected a vampire at a table by himself, hefted the pistol capably in her gnarled hand, and fired.

  The vampire exploded.

  Okay, maybe not literally, but close enough to get the job done. Every orifice, every pore, they all poured out blood so fast and furiously that within seconds he was a blood-covered limp body draped over the table. “Heparin,” she said with wicked cheer. “Gadje magic.” She gave the incubi an eye and went for the third bag. From that came a large pair of silver scissors that she snapped at the incubi with enthusiasm. They crossed their legs hurriedly and hissed, showing their snakelike, curved fangs. That along with the occasional glitter of pearly scale with their blue and black hair was the only thing that gave them away as not your everyday, average male hooker.

  “Heparin?” I asked Nik.

 
“Blood thinner,” he explained. “I didn’t know it would have that effect on vampires.”

  “Is he dead?” I looked to see if he was breathing, because vampires did breathe, just like their hearts beat—although I wasn’t too sure about this guy anymore. “Only staff are allowed to kill the customers. And then the boss likes us to have a good reason.”

  “He’ll live,” she said dismissively. “It was a light dose. He’s lost only half his blood volume. He’ll have to break into a blood bank when he wakes up. Those vitamins they take now won’t help him, but that’s not my concern. Keeping the gunoi in their rightful, fearful place is.”

  “These ‘feces,’ as you call them, are my patrons,” Ishiah said from behind me. He spoke Rom and we didn’t. Then again, he knew Robin Goodfellow from thousands of years back. You’re going to pick up a few things along the way. Niko would know it himself; he knew a couple of languages, but Rom—he refused, with good reason.

  “Do you think I don’t have a bag for you too, little birdy?” she snorted. “Or stories of your kind to tell?”

  How she knew he was a peri I didn’t know. Both he and Samyel had their wings out of sight. Peris could do that. The wings came and went in a glitter of light. Where exactly they went, I didn’t have a clue. I did know Ishiah wouldn’t back down from a tiny withered woman. But it didn’t come to that. Suddenly Abelia- Roo was done playing. “Shoo, little birdy. I’m ready to talk business with these two, words not for your ears. Fetch my wine and I’ll be the sweetness and light of an angel itself.” She spread her hands above her head. “See my pure gold halo? See the bright sparkle?”

  Ishiah scowled, the long scar on his jaw stretching to a gleaming white, then bit off, “See that you are.” He looked at me. “You owe me.” He was gone before I could say I’d be just as happy if he tossed her out—happier, in fact.

  “So . . . this business,” Niko said, “that is too insignificant for you to be bothered with. What is it?”