Slashback can-8

by Rob Thurman

  The anger was gone as abruptly as it came. I expected that. Nik couldn’t stay angry with me and, believe me, there were times he should have. Would’ve been better for the world if he did. So I wasn’t surprised when it bled out of his face and eyes.

  But what came in its wake was worse.

  He reached across the table and looped his fingers around my wrist, holding my hand down against the table. The grip was immovable. “Do you feel that? The heaviness? It’s the same in battle. You feel the consequences of killing in the weight of your gun, the heft of a blade. When you can kill with a thought, you put yourself beyond that.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible but the weight on my wrist and hand increased. “And beyond that, Cal, is the step you take to not fighting Grimm but being him.”

  Nik always said I never would become that. He wouldn’t let me. I waited to hear that certainty again.

  I didn’t.

  “When you were a child you would take some things on faith, even if you didn’t understand why I asked you to do them.” His set face softened, settling into lines of regret. I would’ve given a lot not to hear what he was saying, but he would’ve given anything at all not to have to say it. “You need to do the same now. What you’re doing is. . wrong.” There was a brief hesitation but it was said firmly. With belief but not the kind of belief Niko had always had in me.

  Wrong? Niko thought I was wrong?

  “You’ve said if you became what you didn’t want to be that I should stop you. Cal, look at me.” I only realized as I heard it that I wasn’t. I was looking past him, around him, anywhere but at him. Niko was my one true mirror and I didn’t want to see myself there. Not now. “Cal.” Reluctantly I moved my gaze back to his. I’d joked to myself about my identity crisis and now it was time to pay the piper.

  And he didn’t even know about the men by the Ninth Circle, the ones I’d thrown off the world before I’d kick-started my conscience into bringing them back.

  His grip loosened and his thumb passed over the back of my hand; then his forefinger tapped it, the same as he’d done time and again when I’d been a child. “If your first instinct is to fight as an Auphe with gates and not as a human with guns and knives, you’ll become too quick. I won’t be able to stop you. But, Cal. .

  “You will be able to stop me,” he ended.

  There was no running. I didn’t knock my chair over. I got up casually, if a little woodenly, and walked to the bathroom.

  I didn’t vomit in that bug-ridden restaurant bathroom either, but it was a near thing. Gagging and dry-heaving didn’t count. Niko was doing what I’d asked him for years now. Watching me. Making sure I didn’t become too much of a monster, because, face it, there was no escaping being somewhat of one. I didn’t blame him for doing what I told him, for trying to save me before it came to that. I didn’t blame him for anything. I blamed myself. For the first time in my life Niko thought I could hurt him. I’d known I could if the monster came. I’d known the monster would try. Cal would be gone and to the monster, to the Auphe in my place, Niko would only be meat in its way.

  I’d known, but for the first time. .

  For the first time Niko accepted the truth. I’d told him he should, more times than I could remember, but I’d never meant it. I’d said it and I’d not once meant it, because I was a fucking coward.

  His denial before had let me wallow in that same denial occasionally. Now that was gone. And denial. Jesus, denial is a fucking miracle of a thing. I had no idea how badly I’d miss it-need it like the air I breathed. I wanted it back. And I wanted Nik’s blind faith in me back. The faith that while I could change and I could try to murder the entire world, that I would not do the same to my brother. I wanted to be able to see myself through his eyes and not see the constant potential of his blood on my hands.

  But we all wanted something. I also wanted the old identity crisis back, because this new one was no goddamn fun. Life was like that. Hey, you over that whole tormented pity party about being a monster? You seeing the upside now? Feeling good about yourself? Yeah, that shit ain’t happening on my watch. Now stand still while I rip out your guts and make you wish for the good old days when self-loathing was your favorite hobby. I have bigger plans for your fucked-up psyche now.

  Fratricide-it’s a big word, but say it with the class, Cal. There’s a good boy.

  I hung my head over the toilet and retched one more time. Then that luxury was over. Soon Nik would be kicking down the door and the manager would be calling the police.

  He was giving me a moment, but it would pass. He’d think he’d broken me when it was the other way around. Okay, yeah, I had to give up a few patches of denial. Suck it up. Niko was giving up what he’d thought was the truth and having to live with a new one-his brother might not always be his brother.

  That if that happened I could kill him with less thought than it took to make a gate.

  Straightening, I grabbed a paper towel as cheap and rough as they came and dry-scrubbed my face hard enough to hurt. I wanted that tiny bit of pain. It distracted from the mass that roiled through me, a dirty whirlpool filled with the debris of doubt, fear, and the sharp and terrible thought that being a monster would be better. Easier. Painless.

  That I’d process later. Actually, that wasn’t me, not how I rolled. I would pack it away in one of those mental strongboxes and that would be good enough. Dealing was for heroes. I was no hero. For now I would do exactly as Nik told me. If that made Grimm the better Auphe, that was how it had to be. I would do anything, stop anyone who tried to hurt my brother and that included myself. I wasn’t going to let it get to the point where Nik had to do it for me. I’d always asked him to be ready and it had not once been fair to put that weight on him. I was responsible. No one else. That he had to tell me was bad enough. How that felt for him, I couldn’t imagine.

  All I could do was make sure he didn’t have to feel it again.

  Tossing the wadded paper in the general direction of an overflowing garbage can, I reached for the door handle. Time to see if my brother needed gluing back together.

  I underestimated him-mentally. I knew better than to underestimate him physically.

  Rubbing my shoulder where it had impacted the wall instead of the mat, which was what I got for not paying attention, I grumbled, “Sneaky bastard.”

  Folding his arms, not a bead of sweat on him, he looked down at me with raised eyebrows. “Would you like to tell me what you did wrong with that particular move? Everything. Every single thing you did was utterly wrong.”

  “Isn’t it usually?” I rolled from my side to my back, making no effort to get back to my feet. The sparring area of our converted garage apartment was generally the most humbling place around for me. Nik was right. If I stopped using the gates as first line of defense or offense-offensive on so many levels-that was me. If I did stop and then went sideways in the worst possible way, he could handle me-the same way he was handling himself now. With perfect ease.

  Nik was good. Fine. Better than I’d begun to hope back at the restaurant.

  I, conversely, wasn’t doing such a bang-up job. Unless you counted the banging-into-the-wall part of the workout.

  His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “You’re thinking. When you should be thinking, you don’t. When you shouldn’t be, you do. Research puts you in a virtual coma. There have been times I’d have been tempted to check your pulse if I couldn’t see your drool spreading over my antique books. And this”-his bare toe prodded the bottom of mine-“should be pure muscle memory by now, but your brain is bouncing so hard inside your skull that you ran into a wall simply because I stepped out of the way.”

  Flipping me over his shoulder-hell, nearly over his damn head-was not “stepping out of the way.” But in our version of a sparring routine it was close enough to the truth that I let it slide.

  Crouching next to me, he swatted the side of my head. I’d been thinking all right and as usual Nik knew what about. “Do not be an idiot, little b
rother. You’re still you. You told me you needed my help to keep you that way. I should’ve listened. I didn’t, not like you needed me to. Now I know. I’m not humoring you any longer and that means I’ll make damn certain you will stay Cal. Now and always.” His lips quirked fondly as he gave me a light pat to the chest. “The once and future king of smart-ass.”

  Knowing the truth and feeling exactly the same about me, wasn’t that better than denial? Hell, yes. It was the best. If you got that in your lifetime from anyone, you were damn lucky. Feeling an ugly knot of bristling barbed wire unwind itself in me, I grinned up at him. “You’re getting your feelings all over me. It’s disgusting.”

  “There are many times, uncountable really, that I’ve mentally replaced you in this scenario, Caliban. You can’t imagine.” Robin had drifted silently, as always, through our locked door to lean against the concrete wall and watch us.

  “You’re right. I can’t imagine. Don’t want to imagine. Your fantasies have to have been banned by the Geneva Conventions as psychological torture.” I sat up. “And even you can’t find being smacked and lectured a turn on.”

  The smirk was so rapacious I could see the neon XXX pop up over his head like in an old Acme cartoon. . with an added huge dash of porn. “Do you think I’ve not been so naughty in my life that I didn’t deserve some discipline?”

  The images of Catholic uniforms, rulers, the principal’s office-basically every porno cliche I’d seen in my life with the addition of Goodfellow and my brother shut down my brain instantly. For my own protection. Minutes later when it rebooted or whatever computers do when you turn them off and then back on after kicking them viciously, I was still sitting on the mat and Niko and Robin were talking about Jack.

  “No,” the puck was saying. “I’ve had no luck. The paien community wants nothing to do with him. They’ve a good track record of they leave him alone and he sticks to humans for the entire skinning and horrific deaths situation. If they knew anything, which they don’t, they wouldn’t help. They’re quite big on survival instinct.”

  Niko had sat down on the couch to pull his socks back on. He made that simple action look deadly. Considering how many times he’d threatened to kill me with one of them, that wasn’t surprising. “Cal and I did find out some further information on his victims. They were all involved in behavior that the strictly moral with no shades of gray could find objectionable. There is no centralized location from where he chose them however.”

  Goodfellow frowned. At least he wasn’t looking at Nik’s feet. A foot fetish might’ve finished me off right there. “That will make him impossible to hunt down. Over eight million people in the city and call me cynical, but you can take it to the bank at least four million are doing something morally objectionable in Jack’s eyes. Even jaywalkers aren’t safe. Some hipster might dine and dash and be skinned before he had a chance to digest that stolen appetizer. There isn’t any possible way to anticipate where he might go and his next victim. There simply is no way to narrow it down.” Then a smile flashed across his face. It was more lascivious than the one he’d given while watching the aftermath of our workout.

  “I was wrong. There might be one place that would draw him in. I had my annual reminder in my e-mail this morning.” The smile widened far enough that I didn’t need to worry about Jack. My skin was ready to leap off my body and leave without me all on its own.

  “Oh God,” I said involuntarily.

  “Keep that thought. You’ll be saying it repeatedly over the next few hours. Get dressed.” He frowned. “There will be a pat down involved. Weapons might be a problem. And, Niko, any coat like your dusters that resemble trench coats well loved by flashers will probably be frowned on.”

  “Oh God,” I repeated. “Let Jack have New York. We’ll move.”

  Goodfellow slapped my shoulder. “Be brave. We’re going on a field trip.”

  The Javits Convention Center was hardly a field trip, but what was inside was a different world, I’d give the puck that. We’d come to the sane conclusion that we’d need our weapons if Jack did show up. That meant getting into the center via a fire door locked from the outside and avoiding security while getting the badges necessary to wander around without paying for them.

  For a trickster that took less than ten minutes.

  That there was a storm system brewing above looked promising on the Jack front, but what was inside was so much more promising I may have forgotten about Jack temporarily.

  I moved through a not particularly busy crowd but a very enthusiastic one and did my best not to walk right over anyone who stopped in front of me because my attention was elsewhere. Too many elsewheres to keep track of.

  “What did you say this was called again?” Niko asked Robin as they walked beside me. That’s where it sounded like they were, best guess. I wasn’t going to waste any of my vision on them to confirm it. My vision was all booked up, thank you very much.

  “The Triple-Xpo. It’s a yearly event that applauds quality in the adult film industry and the sexual lifestyle industry that goes with it,” Goodfellow replied as smoothly as if he were president of it all. Hell, he probably was.

  “Ah,” Niko said at the same time I summed it up. “Porn stars.” And they were everywhere. This was a thousand times better and easier than trying to stake out ten thousand prostitutes, most of them in Brooklyn.

  There was no ducking the smack to the back of my head. I didn’t even try. “You are to respect these women and their career choices,” Nik told me firmly.

  “I have nothing but gratitude in my heart for each and every one of them,” I said truthfully. “Do you know how long it’s been since I broke it off with Delilah?” If that’s what you called threatening to shoot your sociopathic, murder-spree-bound werewolf friend-with-benefits-broke it off, gun to the head. To-mato, ta-mato. “These women have gotten me through a very difficult period in my life. God bless them, each and every one.”

  We were meandering through a maze of booths where actresses and models autographed pictures and nobody was naked, which was more than I could say about most of the people that I’d met through Goodfellow, especially in his premonogamous days when I’d make sure to call before I dropped by his place to prevent the awkwardness of walking in on an orgy. That had happened several times, more than it ever should to someone just wanting to hang out, watch a game, and have a beer.

  There were also booths that sold “toys.” Toys for adults and I left it at that. I had no interest in toys. Nature had given me all the toys I needed.

  “This reminds me of a time when the three of us were in Greece for the bacchanalia,” Robin mused with a lascivious grin, “and. . ah, I meant when I was in Greece with some friends of mine. Fertility rites, drinking, festivals, plays. Of course this was before the modern miracle of silicone, but nonetheless, very good times.” He lifted a hand in a casual wave. “Ah. Savannah, lovely as ever,” Goodfellow addressed as we passed an autograph booth with a woman with dark hair, wry blue eyes, and a pixie smile.

  “Robin!” She waved enthusiastically.

  “Lisha,” he called at the next booth. She lifted her head from the fantasy book with a dragon and a head on a pike decorating the cover that she was reading between autographs.

  “Robin!” She said his name like a four-year-old would say “Santa Claus.”

  “Miranda Lee.” That was the next booth. Blonde, freckles. The girl-next-door type who was about to eat her dinner. New York’s biggest cheeseburger.

  It went on like that for several minutes until it ended with a run of platinum blondes.

  “Robin!”

  “Amber.”

  “Robin!”

  “Amber.”

  “Robin!”

  “Amber!”

  “Robin!”

  “All right, enough.” Niko took Goodfellow’s collar and urged him at a faster speed while I marveled at how many Ambers there were in the business. “Yes, we’re very impressed. You know every woman-”
r />   “And man. Don’t be sexist,” Robin interrupted.

  “Fine. And man in the business,” Niko went on, “but we are here to find Jack. He wouldn’t attack someone in the middle of this exhibition hall. It would be beyond noticeable. We need to find a secluded spot where those he judges so harshly might pass while alone and unseen.” I heard the faint clank of metal in Niko’s coat as he moved. Whether he’d be mistaken for a flasher or not, he had to have the coat to cover his katana and cover up the various other blades on him.

  “Very well.” Robin pulled free and straightened his suit jacket. “Although it wouldn’t hurt you to learn to enjoy yourself while on the job. Shop for a gift for Promise. She’s hundreds of years old and has gone through five elderly husbands in the past fifteen of them. Do you think she might not want something to tuck away in the nightstand drawer for nights when you’re not there or for nights when you are-”

  Nik snared the handful of suit collar again and this time dragged the puck along. “This looks familiar,” I drawled. “Oh yeah, you’re usually doing that to me.”

  “I have two hands. Do not test me.” He moved faster yet and I had to pick up the pace as he and Goodfellow began to leave me behind. In minutes we’d left the color, noise, and milling people behind us and were down a hall Robin knew had an available bathroom only those familiar with the convention center would know of.

  “The guest stars are here every year. They’ve sussed out the nooks and crannies and where best to go and not be bothered by a persistent mouth-breather. There are occasionally those who aren’t as respectful as they should be. This is the most remote of those locations.” There’d been three such remote locations but with two hastily improvised OUT OF ORDER signs, we’d whittled it down to one. Goodfellow was keeping his distance from Nik while staring morosely at the wrinkles in his jacket.