Nevermore: A Cal Leandros Novel (31 page)

“I couldn’t force myself to do it for sheer practice. They spoke about four words and grunted a great deal, granted they made those four words work for them. Sex. Hungry. Stranger. Kill and eat the stranger for he is different from our kind, which causes fear among our community—dibs on his liver. I take it back,” he commented. “They did a lot with that fourth word. It was the rest that wasn’t that impressive.” He opened and closed the fingers of his bandaged hand. You didn’t want any wound to stiffen up, but especially not a hand wound when you’re ambidextrous in the use of weapons of many kinds, which we all were. “Speaking of hungry, while liver doesn’t sound appetizing, I did skip breakfast.” Lie. I’d been covered in his breakfast before my shower. “Could someone feed the guest?”

Cal didn’t know what to do with the first part. We should’ve studied the evolution of man more when we were kids. He’d have known if Robin was lying then. I
knew he wasn’t lying about the million years and I didn’t care about the home life or nutrition of
Homo erectus
. Niko, however, was interested. Goodfellow, sooner or later, would be drained dry of all the knowledge he’d let Niko pry out of him. Cal, seeing what I did, gave up on that one. He knew the unstoppable thirst for learning his brother had. He made a quick subject change before Niko could get started and went straight to the second portion of Robin’s rebuttal.

“He’s treating us like the sole reason we exist as more than amoebae”—he had to get his shot back on the
Homo erectus
name-dropping—“is to scrub his toilet. He’s ordering us around like he’s the richest asshole in the city and we’re the kind of human lapdog that follows him around hoping for his greasy used Armani-clothing crumbs. If he wants food, there’s a fridge with one shelf of food, health food, which is all we have since Nik threw out my leftovers. You, dick, can get your junk off our couch, which you’re
defiling
, and make yourself a carrot juice, yogurt, tofu parfait for all I care.”

Goodfellow shuddered. I think he’d have rather eaten one of the rats from the sewer. Raw. I didn’t blame him. “You are too kind, but I’ll pass. My appetite has miraculously vanished. And, for future reference, I
am
the richest asshole in the city. That’s what my tricks gave me.”

“Richest man in the city? Then why aren’t you ordering all of us lunch and a new couch on the side?” Cal was on the canvas and the referee was counting him out. From the creasing of his forehead, his headache must’ve been hugely painful. He gave up and washed his hands of the puck for the moment. Goodfellow could drive a person to that with impressive skill and speed.

“That’s an excellent idea. My phone was destroyed in a wading pool of sewage the likes of which I’ve not smelled in my long life. Caliban apparently knows all the places in New York that no one wants to see or experience. He has an aptitude unparalleled. I’ve not seen its equal. Could I borrow yours?” He directed the question to Niko with a pornographically predatory smile that this Nik was destined to see for years. He did the smart
thing, tossing it to him while staying out of reach. He also ignored the sexually charged smile to mouth “no meat” at Robin and tilt his head to indicate me. I exhaled, too tired to want to do this over again.

“What tricks? He said I should’ve noticed your ‘little tricks’?
What
tricks?” Cal pressed, from me now, circling the couch and past it to where I slumped opposite in the chair to get directly in my face. “How does he know I’m complaining, conniving, and like to shoot things? And he does know, doesn’t he, because he said don’t shoot. He didn’t say anything about the stabbing part . . . Wait, how the fuck do you even know I was going to knife him in the kidney?” Cal demanded, face tight with irritation and mistrust. I could easily picture the matte black KA-BAR combat knife in the hand hidden behind his back. “You weren’t even watching. You want to tell me before I put it in your kidney instead?”

It was official. Goodfellow had pushed one too many buttons.

“You know you’re trying to intimidate yourself, don’t you? We aren’t intimidated by much of anyone, you and I, are we? I know
I’m
not by my diaper-wearing younger self, yeah, not happening.” Stretching out my legs, I crossed my ankles that were covered, half my feet as well, in another pair of Niko’s too long sweatpants. This time travel crap was hell on clothes. Lazarus and his shadow weasels. “Forget the tricks. They’re harmless or you’d have noticed by now. Picking up on the complaining and conniving is thanks to him spending the first part of the morning drinking beer while I scared off three wolves who wanted to rob Talley’s place. I complained, connived, and threatened to shoot them.” I hadn’t threatened to shoot. I’d threatened worse, but I’d displayed enough guns to show they were more than a hobby.

“Drinking at six something in the morning?” Niko asked, tone both skeptical and disapproving at once. If you hadn’t grown up with him, it could be confusing. He wasn’t skeptical about six a.m. beer. He was skeptical that availability of alcohol was why I’d chosen Talley’s. He’d guessed—no, he
knew
I’d gone there to purposely
draw out Lazarus and he did not approve of me doing it without him. Cal was his to protect and maybe I was too, if in a strangely skewed manner. I’d thought Lazarus would show up searching for Cal and I would get a look at him. See what he was. I hadn’t thought he’d try to lure me into a trap and kill me. It was pointless for Lazarus to kill me now, only killing Cal would reset it all. It was useless, killing me, but the Vigil was having no problem holding a grudge beyond the grave.

“Talley’s? Is
that
what happened to my keys?” Cal wasn’t hiding the knife any longer. He was using the blade to tap an annoyed and annoying rhythm on the arm of my chair.

Robin murmured, “That would be one of the little tricks.” He went straight into Chinese on the phone, putting in an order for, the longer he went on, what sounded like a lot of food. I didn’t speak Chinese so I had no idea what kind of food, but that it was food was all I needed to know. I waved my hand at him, a “none for me, thanks” total dismissal. He disregarded it and me entirely.

Cal growled, “You thieving asshole.”

“You were just telling Robin you’d steal anything not nailed down. Where’d that pride go? And we’ve both been stealing since we were four. You do get we were the same exact person, from your point of view, until yesterday? I’ve explained it. Niko probably explained it again this morning when I was gone. We’re not the same person now, but from birth until yesterday of this year,
same
fucking person,” I groaned. I knew I hadn’t been this bad and while I had hated myself for a while, that had been a mental tangle of self-loathing from what the Auphe had done to me, what I had done for the Auphe. I hadn’t hated myself simply to be petty and spiteful. “Should I say it slower? Every insult you throw at me for something we both did and still do is like kicking
yourself
in the balls.” I blinked. “I finally get what everyone was always saying.”

The tapping of the blade picked up its pace.

“People told me I was a dick, went out of my way to be a dick, would climb a mountain to find a hermit at peace with the world and be a dick just to fuck it up for him. I don’t get peace, no one gets peace. They were right.” I’d known they were right. I was a dick, it came naturally, why fight it? But I was somewhat stunned at seeing in a living mirror the depths of my dickery. Unfathomable depths where my insults, attitude problems all swam down so far they should be albino, blind, with glowing tentacles, and weird enough to have Jacques Cousteau gleefully crawling out of his coffin to examine them.

“Huh. You don’t get life revelations that profound very often.” I examined it thoroughly, three Mississippis at minimum. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three—fine, two at minimum. Three would be excessive and unnecessary. I’d come to a conclusion. “All right. I’m over it. We were born dicks. We’re good at it. Best of the best. Keep up the good work. Refusing to exercise our gift would be spitting in the eye of God.”

“You don’t believe in God.” Niko wasn’t letting it slide, leaving them behind while taking on Lazarus, but he was more relaxed and amused, less disapproving.

My lips twitched. “Dick, remember?”

Goodfellow was tossing Niko’s phone back to him while simultaneously giving me a dubious sidelong glance. “There are some life choices I’m suddenly questioning.”

“That shows a firm grasp on reality,” I said. “Be proud.” The nonstop tapping of the knife finally made its way to my last pluckable nerve. It was strung taut as piano wire, piano wire I could wrap around Cal’s neck for a little quiet time. I took it from him the same as I’d taken the other in the bar. Same in that the result was identical. I took his toy. He was more prepared, counting on it. I wasn’t any slower though and he wasn’t any faster despite his anticipation. He did wrap a hand around mine, trying to pry my fingers off the grip. It helped him, but not enough. His other hand had disappeared behind
him again. Yesterday I would’ve guessed, but yesterday had been decades ago or that’s how it felt. Today I was too damn tired to speculate or care what weapon he had squirreled away.

Exasperated, I tightened my grip until my knuckles were bone white. I’d added muscle and Nik had taught me how to use it more effectively in those eight years. The knife was going nowhere unless I wanted it to. But none of us were getting anywhere either. We needed to talk about Lazarus.

It was time to settle out of court.

Under my breath for only Cal to hear, I said, “If you pull out from behind your back a gun, a knife, or an empty cardboard toilet paper tube, I’m going to hurt you. I’d actually, considering my mood, which is not fucking good, like to cut off one of your toes. No empty threat like at the bar. I will cut it off and regret it not one iota. One of the smaller ones I wouldn’t miss. It’d keep you out of my face for a while and wouldn’t hurt me at all. Eight years and time heals all wounds they say. But Niko wouldn’t like it. He’d stop me. Then we’d likely all three kill one another making this Lazarus shit fucking moot. So back off, stop screwing with me, I’ll stop baiting you, and we’ll catch an assassin. The sooner we do, the sooner I’m gone. I know we both want that.”

He hesitated, then dropped his hand to his side. It was empty. No weapon in sight. “I’m not sharing my brother,” he responded, his voice as quiet as mine had been. “Not with you, I don’t care if I will
be
you someday. That day isn’t today. And I’m not sharing him for one day, much less eight damned years with some horny, conceited, rich asshole. He’s mine. He’s the only family I have, the only person I trust. If anyone knows that, you should. The puck has to go. If he won’t on his own, I’ll make him.”

I’d be gone soon, one way or another. He’d be fine there. But when it came to Robin? Robin had to go? And Cal, my toddler-self thought he could
make
him? The same Robin I’d tried to kill, for a good cause, on the second day we’d met, when on the first day I’d threatened to have Nik slit his throat in the office of his car lot?
And he turned back up on the third day with a “bad start with you trying to murder me, it
was
a good cause, but you can ask next time, still forgive and forget, let’s go drinking”? I turned borderline hysterical laughter into a fit of coughing, rubbing my throat as if the “strangulation” was responsible. I’d laughed in my life before, not often, but I had. I had never laughed at anything approaching that level of hilarity. When I saw my Nik again, and I would, I couldn’t wait to tell him that one.

Recovering, slowly, but shoving it back down, I advised solemnly, “For a con man and trickster, he’s a reasonable guy.” Add “least” before reasonable and “in the history of time” after guy and it was the truth and nothing but the truth. “Talk to him. He’ll understand you needing space for family and family only. I would give him the year to save your life, but after that? Free as a bird. And he’s rich. He can travel anywhere, buy anything, has all those orgies. He’ll forget about the two of you in an hour, maybe two. It’ll work out.”

Or he’d buy people-sized plastic hamster balls and seal Niko and Cal in them—for their own protection, of course, and his own entertainment as they wouldn’t fit back out his penthouse door once drugged and trapped in the balls constructed around them as they slept.

“Pax?”
Goodfellow asked as he swiveled on the couch to recline, being nonchalant enough with his sheet placement that Cal went from wanting to put a knife in some sensitive part of me to wanting to put it in any part of the puck
except
the most sensitive part.

“Pax,”
I confirmed. “Now cover up, you pervert, before Cal throws over the couch, traps you under it, and starts stabbing you through it.”

Niko hadn’t interfered with the hushed conversation between Cal and me. I hoped he would’ve interfered some if Cal had gone through with bringing another weapon to the game, but as Cal hadn’t, it was over and done. “Now that peace is upon the land,” he said dryly, “care to finish?”

“Why not? I stole Cal’s keys. I know that lock. I remember it. It was halfway to impossible to open the door
with a key. Ever try to pick a lock that old or that rusted? That’s halfway
past
impossible. It’s easier to kick in the door, but I didn’t think the boss would be too happy about that.

“Wolves showed up to rob the place”—more or less. “We scared them off. The rest of the morning was like I told you. We avoided being eaten by Lazarus’s minion weasels of death. How he had enough time to scoop up evil worker bees to do his bidding, I’ve no idea. What would you pay a shadow weasel? But—” I let my eyes unfocus as I thought on all the monsters,
true
monsters, we’d faced. They’d all had one thing in common. “The down and dirty, narcissistically lethal, ‘My name is Legion’ shits do love their minions though.” I shrugged and kept my smirk to myself. “We saw Lazarus himself in the sewer with the weasels, but just an outline. It was too dark.”

“Do not forget the light show,” Robin reminded me. “I was not all there, to be certain, but that made an impression I didn’t need much consciousness to hold on to. From behind him, a continuous halo of lightning as large as the sewer would fit. They weren’t strikes. Not one of them stopped the entire time we attempted not to soil our pants.” He narrowed his eyes as if recalling only now how we had escaped. There was one way and one way only. “I told you not—”