by Rob Thurman
From the flying foam and outraged growls, I was guessing he didn’t buy that. His paws paddled frantically and he kept snapping at air. His mother must have been of classic breeding; he was all wolf. If and when he wanted, he would be all human as well. Too bad that wasn’t now; it would make it easier to haul his homicidal little butt along.
Around his neck was a braided rope fastened with a metal clamp. The straggling end had been chewed through. As thick as it was, it must’ve taken the pup a while. Baby fangs were better for shredding legs than well-made rope. I took a quick look in the room where he’d been imprisoned. There was a bowl of water, scattered newspapers, and empty cans of dog food piled in a corner. Dog food. Jesus. There was also the reek of old urine and shit, but the room was fairly clean. It didn’t make it any better. He was a kid, no matter how he looked. He’d been there a while and treated like an unlucky street mutt, given the minimum of care to keep him healthy. Caleb had to keep him that way if he wanted to continue to manipulate his father. However, I imagined, once Flay was no longer in the picture, his son wouldn’t be long behind him. Poor damn kid.
That poor damn kid managed to whip his head around and snare my shirt. With a jerk of his muzzle, he tore a grapefruit-sized piece free and promptly ate it. While his jaws were occupied, I seized the opportunity to switch him under my other arm to keep my knife hand unencumbered. I gave serious thought to ripping a strip of shirt and tying it around his muzzle to keep him quiet. There were only two problems with that plan. First, I’d probably lose an appendage doing it. Second, Flay would take the ones I had left once he saw what I’d done.
I gave it one last shot. “Seriously, kid. Be quiet. Your dad’s here and we’re going to find him right now, I swear. But if you keep making noise, the bad guy might find us first.” “Bad guy” is a relative term, but hopefully to a three-year-old it might still hold some meaning.
It did. The eyes remained wild and wary as ever, but the growls gradually died down. They continued to vibrate his rib cage, but none escaped the teeth that remained fiercely bared. It was the best I could hope for and I took it.
The door at the end of the hall wasn’t locked; like the one to Slay’s room it didn’t even have a lock. Sounded like good news, but it wasn’t. Caleb wasn’t expending the slightest effort to make things difficult for intruders, and that didn’t make me want to jump for joy at what might lie beyond. For a second I considered taking Slay back to his room and tying him back up. Fighting one-handed was hazardous as hell, for both him and me. I hesitated, then shook my head. In the end, he was marginally safer with me than left alone at the mercy of whatever might pass by. Caleb wasn’t alone here. Couldn’t be. He was too goddamn smart for that.
I retrieved the penlight I’d dropped when taken down by Flay’s ankle biter and shut it off before shoving it in my pocket. The darkness was nearly complete as I shifted my knife over to my right hand. There was only the dimmest of gray illumination seeping from beneath the door. Turning the knob with the heel of my hand, I set my shoulder against the wood and nudged lightly. There was the creak of rusty hinges, but it was faint and couldn’t be heard more than a few feet. The air was heavy with the same smells I’d noted when I entered the building—alcohol, the olfactory remnants of those who had drunk it, and apparently something else. There was an eager snuffling at my hip as Slay pulled air into his nose and then, before I could guess it was coming, a ringing howl that split the air like a siren.
I didn’t speak wolf, but I didn’t have to. I knew a scream for Daddy when I heard it. I also recognized the vanishing element of surprise. At least, thanks to the pup, I knew that one of us was definitely inside. Flay’s return howl wasn’t necessary. I got it anyway. Wolves. Ruled by emotion, unfettered by brain cells.
“Goddamnit,” I muttered as I automatically dodged to one side and sought cover. It kept the machete from taking off a good chunk of my skull. The metal thudded into the frame of the door and a bubbling hiss of disappointment followed. Sloppy. I instantly homed in on the sound and slashed. The light was still all but nonexistent, but my eyes were adjusting. As the jolt of blade impacting meat traveled up my arm, I saw the vaguest outline of my attacker. Curved lines, flesh that was cold and clammy, blood that smelled of rank river water—it was a vodyanoi. I’d seen one only once before. They rarely left the water, although they were happy enough to eat anyone who might be unlucky enough to fall in. Picture a humanoid leech the size of a man. They were as quick as sharks in the water, but on land they were slower, hence the machete. If I had to choose, I’d rather be chopped to bite-sized pieces than have my internal organs liquefied and sucked out. Personal preferences, there’s no accounting for them.
My knife had sliced through where a man’s neck would be. A vodyanoi didn’t have one. Below the rough and wet charcoal sketch of a human face, nature’s trickery, there was only thick, rubbery flesh. Unless you were armed with a chain saw, you could whack at it for hours without accomplishing a damn thing. I jerked my hand back, dropped my blade, and went for the Eagle. A regular bullet wouldn’t do much either, but my early birthday present might.
As I pulled the gun, the vodyanoi flowed closer and raised a pulpy three-fingered hand to swing the machete again. The hiss came again from the pulsating mouth sucker, but this time it was edged with pain. Slay, an annoying but feisty little shit, was making a meal of one of the fluttering tendrils that lined the ventral lower portion of the vodyanoi. Hell, I couldn’t let the pup have all the fun. I aimed midtorso and fired.
The explosion was muffled, but the moist splat of destroyed tissue hitting the walls was less so. There was an unnatural ripple and flex of the vodyanoi’s head as it peered into the massive crater in its middle. The crater must have in actuality been more of a tunnel because the leech then swayed and fell flat. As I evaded its descent, I felt the fast beat of a small tail against my back and arm. Apparently the fuzzbutt had liked that. Like father, like son.
Retrieving my knife, I moved on. There were noises now—the sounds of battle, the sing of metal, and a distant enraged growling that I recognized instantly. Flay was trying to make his way to us and, from the sounds of it, not having much luck. My eyes had become as used to the gloom as they were going to, and I could tell we were in the club proper now. The wolf wasn’t there with us yet, but that didn’t mean Slay and I were alone.
Caleb was here.
The monster who had taken George. The creature who had pulled our strings time and time again. The piece of shit who kidnapped children and ruined lives. Finally, here was my chance to pin his hands to the floor with Spanish poniards, rip his heart from his chest, and then cram it between those pointed teeth. As images went, it was a very specific one, wasn’t it? Detailed as hell. So how, you might ask, did I come up with it so fast? I didn’t.
Someone beat me to it.
The amiable piranha from our first meeting lay spread-eagled on the floor. His blue eyes were glassy and blank, empty marbles. The peculiar pointed teeth were buried in the meat of his own heart. Blood coated his hands and the palms were torn viciously where he’d struggled against the pinning metal as his chest had been cut open. The predator was now the victim.
I’d invested so much hate, so much rage, before I’d come to my frozen peace. Now I could feel it stirring far down in the murk, uncomprehending and fighting for release. My emotions might not have understood the situation, but my mind did. We’d asked Flay when he’d first told us about his son why he didn’t simply force Caleb to tell him where Slay was being kept. The two of them had been together when we’d first been in Caleb’s office. Why hadn’t the wolf started stripping skin and flesh until that smug bastard gave up the cub between screams?
He had associates, the aforementioned piece of shit. One missed phone call and his son would die, Flay had said; Caleb’s associates would take care of that. What we hadn’t known was that Caleb was one of the associates. He wasn’t the one behind the scheme. He was a pawn, same as us. And like all good
pawns, he’d been sacrificed—not in the chess sense, but in the literal, bloodletting one.
“I really do need to put the no freaks sign in the window. My property values are plummeting.”
I recognized the jaded contempt that came from behind as quickly as I’d recognized the poniards. A master of machination, someone who was as hungry for power as he was tricky and ruthless . . . a piranha could never be as qualified in those areas as a puck. Son of a bitch. I’d stared at him over the bar, talked to the bastard, and not once had a glimmering that he was anything but a lethally bored immortal. How lethal I was about to find out.
Before my brain’s desperate command to turn could travel down nerve impulses and trigger muscles, he stabbed me. In a burst of fiery hot pain the metal entered midway down my back on the right. I more felt than heard the crunch of the blade hitting bone. Waves of nausea accompanied the ripping of flesh as I pulled free and stumbled to my knees. Slay tucked, rolled, and disappeared on fast-churning paws into the deeper darkness behind the bar. Gritting my teeth, I flipped over, crouched, and raised the Eagle. It was kicked out of my hand in a motion so swift it was a blur in the gloom. The same heel impacted under my chin, knocking me onto my back.
“Educational.” Shadowed green eyes brooded from the bloody blade to me. “That’s a mortal wound for an Auphe. Freaks seem to be more resilient. Keep your heart in the human location, do you?” Another poniard was in his hand; he must’ve bought them by the gross. He tossed it in the air, and caught it in a throwing position. “Let’s test that theory.”
He was Goodfellow, every inch of him. I’d half forgotten how uncanny the physical duplication was. The only thing missing was the grin. Whether it was smug, lascivious, cajoling, breezy, arrogant, salesman voracious, Robin usually had one version or another on his face. This puck never smiled. Not even with the psychotic glee of a killer. He was empty, a vessel of ice filled with the lung-suck of nothing. The pride, though, he had to have that. Any member of the race would crumple up and die without that overweening ego. It was the only weak spot I could hope for and I went for it.
“Why didn’t you do it yourself?” I gritted between hard-clamped teeth. The blood was soaking the back of my shirt, but he was right. It wasn’t mortal. Hell, if I was given the chance, it wouldn’t slow me down that much either. “Take the crown from Cerberus? For that matter, why didn’t you let Caleb do it?” My backup piece was at my ankle. I could easily reach it, if I could just distract him. It was a damn big if. Robin would’ve been too smart to fall for it. If the same went for his evil twin, I was well and truly fucked.
“Is it too difficult for your half-breed brain to determine, freak?” he asked mockingly. “Then let me clarify for the low functioning among us. Caleb didn’t have the intestinal fortitude, which is more obvious than ever now.” The eyes seemed to take on a bloody cast, a reflection of what remained of Caleb. “And Flay,” he snorted disparagingly, “breeding will tell. He’s barely house-trained. As for me, I wouldn’t have been welcome. Unjustly labeled thief, amoral turncoat . . .” The grin I’d thought he didn’t have in him blossomed, chilling and dead. Whatever emotion had lived in him had curdled and died long ago. “Who am I kidding? I’m the original reason there is no honor among thieves. Cerberus wouldn’t accept me. No member of the Kin would.”
“That’s one good thing you can say about them.” I inched fingers farther down my leg and kept my eyes unwavering on his. I couldn’t deceive like a puck—no one could—but I wasn’t an open book either. If I could fool him long enough . . .
But of course I couldn’t.
“As much as I enjoy playing this tedious game with you”—his gaze flicked to my ankle and back—“I have things to do.” He cocked his head, gauging the sounds around us. Flay in some other part of the building. Screaming and howling out front, meaning Niko had yet to make it through the door. “Psychics to drain. Blood sacrifices to make. Freaks to kill.” His foot slammed down on the gun at my ankle, pressing the flesh and bone beneath it to the breaking point. Before I could make a suicidal lunge at him an identical voice stopped us both.
“Hobgoblin.”
It came from above and then from next to us as Goodfellow plunged down through flimsy ceiling tile. He landed neatly, doing what had to be everything in his power to conceal his weakened leg. His own blade, not as elegant as the poniard, but as deadly, came to rest along the neck of his carbon copy. “Long time no see,” he finished silkily. “I thought you dead. Justly dead.”
My attacker’s head turned easily and the smile came back, that god-awful, ghastly grin. “I go by ‘the Hob’ now, a title for my inferiors.”
“Which would be everyone, yes?” Robin’s face was a mask, the skin stretched inhumanly tight.
“No one would know that better than you, Goodfellow.” His foot ground harder and I felt my ankle-bone creak under his heel.
I didn’t wait for Goodfellow to give him a warning. I yanked my leg free and rolled to one side only to discover Robin hadn’t given one at all. Instead he’d done his best to decapitate Hob—be damned if I’d call him the Hob. I looked up in time to see the end of the backswing and the whole of the follow-through. It was a beautiful blow, if anything so inherently violent and fatal can be called beautiful. Economy of motion, grace, and a stunning speed . . . yeah, it was beautiful. It was also an utter failure.
Hob was as agile as Goodfellow, if not more so, and he was unwounded. One moment he stood at Robin’s side; the next he was gone. Robin’s sword cut nothing but air. He almost stumbled on his injured leg, caught himself, and then turned just in time to catch the poniard blade on the hilt of his sword. I didn’t stand on ceremony. Grabbing the small .38 at my ankle, I fired. I thought I hit Hob, but I couldn’t be sure. As my shot rang out, he threw off Goodfellow’s attack, crouched, and then propelled himself upward, disappearing through the same opening Robin had appeared through. A flat-footed jump of nearly ten feet and he performed it with ridiculous ease. “Son of a bitch.” I aimed upward and sent five more shots after him. “You can’t do that, can you?”
“No.” Lips a bloodless line, Goodfellow shook his head. “He’s older than I. He’s grown stronger, faster.”
I measured the jump again with my eyes as my hand impotently squeezed the butt of the .38. Ancient or not, he still had one helluva leap. “How much goddamn older?”
“The oldest. Perhaps even the first. The original Mad Hatter,” he said darkly, “without the sense of humor. He’s insane, Cal. Utterly. He wants what he wants and no price is too high, no consequence worth considering. He’s been the power behind a hundred thrones. Alexander himself bowed to him.”
“Yeah, that’s all very fascinating.” I reloaded, then shoved the gun in the back of my pants. “Boost me. Then go find the others and tell them what’s going on.”
“He’ll kill you,” Goodfellow said instantly. “I’ll go.”
Now, that was a total lack of faith if ever I’d heard one, but I didn’t have the time or the luxury to be offended. “Fine. Get your ass in gear. I found Slay, but not George. If your evil twin gets away, we’re screwed.” I cupped my hands and sent him flying up.
There was the grunt of effort as he caught the edge of the hole and heaved himself in. “Without the crown he won’t go far.”
“How about we don’t let him go a fucking inch. Now go already.” But I was talking to myself. He was already gone. But that didn’t mean that I was alone. I heard a scuttle and scrape before four revenants flowed into view, climbing over one another in the fashion of hungry rats competing for the same meal. I hadn’t liked the revenant I’d butted heads with in Cerberus’s organization, and I wasn’t looking to like these any better. What little light there was gleamed off the moist flesh and curdled in milky eyes. Curved incisors were bared with appetite, not anger. No, these were happy little pseudocorpses—right up until I put a bullet in each squirming brain. Sometimes the movies are right. They went down, tumbling and twitching. It slowed th
eir five friends waiting in the wings not in the slightest.
I had two bullets left and no time to reload. Firing twice, I dropped the .38 and scrambled to find the Glock Hob had kicked from my hand. It had gone to the right; I’d heard it skitter and slide as it hit the floor, but I didn’t see any sign of it. One of the revenants was faster than the others and made its leap. Strangely jointed arms reached out for me with grasping hands, hooked fingers, and talons like fishhooks. I ducked beneath the charge, but the revenant wasn’t as easily avoided as that. It twisted in midair with the agility of a cat and snared my shirt in its claws. I dived to the floor and rolled, dislodging it with the ripping of cloth. I still had my knife and I used the blade to slice it along the length of its torso when it threw itself on me again. The warm blood soaked me, and I kicked the revenant off as its teeth snapped at my neck. It hit one of the others, knocking it flat, but two more were still coming and coming fast.
Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed a chair from one of the tables and swung with enough force to put one over the fence. The flimsy bundle of plastic and metal disintegrated in my hands and didn’t do a damn thing to my attacker. Swearing viciously, I hooked an arm around its neck as it landed on me. Swiveling, I threw it down to the floor and planted my knife in its chest. The effort allowed the last one the opportunity it needed. It landed on my back and rode me down. I landed hard on the wounded revenant beneath me as the one on my back buried teeth in the meat of my shoulder. The one below me wasn’t about to sit this one out either, knife in chest or no. It snarled soundlessly, brown blood frothing from its mouth, and wrapped moist, spidery fingers around my throat.
Growling, I twisted the knife in the revenant’s chest, eliciting a bubbling scream, then threw myself backward. I was trying to simultaneously break the hold on my throat and throw off the one on my back. I was only partially successful. The fingers fell from my neck, but the son of a bitch on my back was hanging on for all it was worth. Its teeth ground in my flesh and its arm snaked around my chest to clamp me closer to it. It was strong as hell. They might look like skinny corpses fresh from the grave, but they had a grip like steel and bundles of muscles as strong as metal wire. As I tried for a grip behind its head to flip it over my shoulder, its legs wound around mine, anchoring itself to me. Jesus, if I let myself get taken out by a fucking revenant, it would be better to be dead. Niko would ride my ass until the end of time.