Nightlife (12 page)

A bright flash I saw from the corner of my eye turned out to be Robin with his own sword. Where in the world he'd hidden it was a trick only Siegfried and Roy could've solved. "I've had fights that have lasted longer than your entire short life," he countered grimly, hefting the weapon. "Take care of your own ass, Caliban, because I can certainly take care of mine." Good to know, because in this battle it looked like the devil would take the hindmost, and I wasn't at all sure that the devil had anything on Abbagor.

"You could let us walk out of here, troll." Niko's poker face didn't shift an iota, but that didn't keep a carnivorous light from flashing in his eyes. "Not, mind you, that we wouldn't enjoy dicing you to a fine purple spray, but we are on a tight schedule. I'm sure you understand."

"Now, what kind of host would I be if I let you leave without providing some entertainment?" Abbagor bounded from the ground to adhere high to one concrete wall without any regard to gravity. Hanging with his head down, he twisted it to aim his python smile at us. "And mutilation can be so very entertaining." Then he was on top of us like a falling mountain.

And that's exactly what it felt like when he hit. I was the lucky one; he struck me with only a glancing blow—and that was more than enough to catapult me through the air and slam me into the far wall. I impacted on my left shoulder and hip and then landed hard on my stomach. Mud splattered up into my face and mouth as I gritted my teeth against a groan. My hip ached viciously and my shoulder felt on fire, maybe dislocated. Pushing up on one arm, I managed to slowly get the other one to follow suit. Not dislocated, then, just sprained or badly bruised. Either way, it didn't matter. What was going on in front of my eyes pretty much banished any pain to the back of my mind. "
Shit
."

Robin was half buried in mire, an enormous foot planted on his back and shoulders. His head was completely under the muck and I could see his arms flailing as his body twitched frantically for oxygen. Niko… Niko hung from Abbagor's own huge fist. Other hands, tattooed and not, grabbed blindly at my brother's body, restraining his legs as he kicked with desperate but controlled strength. His face was turning blue as his hands tore at the steely gray flesh around his neck. Abbagor must've landed directly on him, half crushing him, before hoisting him high in the air. It was the only way Niko would've lost his sword. And the only way he would be in danger of losing his life.

Knife still in my hand, I shot to my feet. My left leg nearly buckled under me, but it still managed to hold as I ran. It probably hurt like hell, and maybe later I'd have the luxury of noticing it. But not now. Not when my brother was having the life systematically choked out of him. After a few steps the leg stabilized and I sped up. Just before I reached Abbagor I dived toward the ground, rolled, and scooped up Niko's fallen sword. "Niko!" I tossed the blade up with the unshakable faith that he would catch it. Absolute, utter faith, but that didn't keep me from saying a silent prayer. The second I saw his hand close around the grip, I turned and slammed my knife in the troll's leg, the one that was currently entombing Goodfellow in a makeshift grave.

"Naughty. Naughty." The leg didn't move, not even a millimeter, as dark blood coursed down it. The knife hadn't fazed Abbagor in the slightest. However, when Niko's sword embedded itself in the pulsing gray throat, that became a different story. Abbagor reeled backward one step, and then another. As he did, Robin came up out of the filth, spitting mud and spitting mad. He swung his own sword, slicing Abbagor across the muscled thigh. Blood sprayed several feet as Niko fell from the troll's grip to land beside Robin. I grabbed a handful of his coat to steady him as he caught his breath. He coughed, the blue fading from his face.

"You okay?" I demanded sharply. A single strand of long blond hair hung free from his braid as he sucked in deep breaths. It was the most disheveled I'd seen him since Meredith had last trapped him in the storage room. "Niko?"

"I'm all right." He squared his shoulders and went on calmly, if hoarsely. "Annoyed, quite annoyed. But basically in one piece. You?"

I didn't have a chance to reply and play the stoic hero as Abbagor gave a gurgling roar and spit blood. "Red rover, red rover, who shall I dare over?" It wasn't a roar after all. It wasn't even a growl. It was a laugh. The son of a bitch was laughing. He was having fun. Hell, he was having the time of his life. Wiping at the blood pouring down his neck, he licked it from his fingers as if it were the finest wine.

In unwitting imitation, Robin wiped a hand across his grimacing face, making a muddy mess even worse. His disgust, however, turned instantly to anguish as he looked down to see what was left of his cherished shirt.

And although he'd been as cyanotic as Niko, the lack of air didn't keep him from snarling at Abbagor, "I've always hated you, you walking piece of rancid calamari. Did I ever tell you that? You make my flesh crawl, every homicidal, putrid inch of you. You make me want to vomit until my insides beg for mercy. The very sight of you fills me with a repugnance so strong that—"

Niko flicked Robin's ear and suggested firmly, "You may want to save your breath for fighting, Goodfellow. I believe you're going to need it."

"The wise words of a dead man." The troll executed a spectacular backward flip off the wall to land behind us. I wheeled about as fast as I could with the mud dragging me down. It was just in time for a monstrous hand to seize me by the shirt and shake me like a rag doll. My T-shirt tore almost immediately and I dropped back to my feet. Lunging to one side, I managed to avoid another swipe and plunged my knife to the hilt in Abbagor's arm. This time I lost it. Tendrils lashed around my wrist and it was all I could do to pull myself free. The knife was history.

Niko instantly moved between Abbagor and me, lopping off two of the imprisoned arms with one stroke. I knew they couldn't belong to people, not people as we knew them anyway, not anymore. But it still sent an atavistic shiver down my spine. With fingers curled over the palms, the naked hands lay on the ground, leaking blood that was a nauseating mix of human red and troll purple. Robin didn't spare them a glance as he broke right to come around to Abbagor's flank and aimed a blow at his back. He managed to slice away a large portion of slithering flesh and received a punishing swat that sent him flying for his trouble.

And Abbagor continued to laugh. It was a dark gloating sound that filled the cavern with the peal of satanic church bells. It was nice to know somebody was enjoying himself. I figured I might have a better time if I rearmed myself. Dropping to one knee, I pulled up the leg of my sweatpants. I felt metal under my fingers, but my hand froze as I saw Niko disappear before my eyes. One moment he was there, the next gone.

Just gone.

Hundreds,
thousands
, of gray filaments hit him, cocooned him, and pulled him into Abbagor's body in less time than it took me to blink. Then there was nothing left of my brother but a sword half swallowed by the swamp under our feet. My throat was scorched by rising bile as I felt everything around me fade away to insignificance, everything but the monster before me. "Nik?" It wasn't my voice. It couldn't have been. That strained shadow, harsh and desperate? No.

How I made my way to my feet I didn't remember. One moment I was crouched on one knee; the next I was shoving Robin out of my way. His hand was on my shoulder trying to push me back and he was shouting something. "He's gone," I think it was. I wasn't exactly hearing straight, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it was "He's gone." No shit, Sherlock. No fucking shit.

I snarled silently and decided that it was time Robin stepped up and took one for the team. Without another thought I took a fistful of his shirt and gave him a hard push directly at Abbagor. He still had his sword. It was possible he could hold out for a second or two, and that was all I needed. The troll was reaching out for Good-fellow with a long arm, lethal claws slicing the air, when I ran past him, the air burning in my lungs. When I came up behind Abbagor I leaped. No fancy somersaults for me. I simply vaulted onto his back and using the tentacles as handholds, I climbed to his neck. Over his shoulder I could see Robin trying to fend him off with a blade that was now broken to half its length. Still alive. He'd proved already that he was tougher than he looked. But that was just a background musing, white noise, Muzak. I had only one thought, one goal. The cool metal in my hand was going to take me one step closer to it.

Pressing the muzzle of the semiautomatic SIG Sauer P226 against the back of Abbagor's head, I rasped, "I'm not quite as old-school as my brother, Abby." Then I emptied the clip into his mammoth skull.

He exploded. Not literally, but it felt that way. As he convulsed wildly I was thrown off. Hitting the ground, I rolled and was back on my feet before the troll even fell. And fall he did, shaking the cavern like an earthquake. By the time Handed on his chest I'd jammed another clip into the gun. Nothing like progress, is there, Abbagor? I thought savagely. Ramming the gun under his chin, I held the trigger down until there was a smoking silence. And with that silence, Abbagor stopped moving. God bless Charlton Heston and the NRA.

Shoving the gun into the waistband of my sweats, I used both hands to tear at the now limp tendrils. Within seconds I found a familiar black coat and purple-stained head of blond hair. Sucking a painful breath into lungs that refused to work, I yanked with all my strength. Joined by Robin, I pulled Niko free. His face was transparently pale; his eyes were closed. The breath that had never been accepted by my lungs exhaled harshly on his name. "Nik?" My hand clenched of its own volition in his black shirt. "Niko?"

Slowly his eyes opened, bloodshot and more than a little irritated. "What… took… you so long?"

I dropped my forehead onto his shoulder. "You son of a bitch," I laughed shakily. At least I tried for a laugh. I wasn't at all sure I pulled it off. "You goddamn son of a bitch."

His ragged breaths hit my ear as he regained his wind. "Where's the troll?"

I straightened and eased hands under his arms to help sit him up. "You're lying on him."

Niko frowned as he looked down on the limp pile Abbagor had become. "He's dead?"

Robin spoke up, tone as brittle and cutting as glass. "Hardly. I would advise we get our well-shaped asses out of here while we have the chance."

"Not dead?" I snorted. "You've got to be—" Kidding? Nope, he wasn't. Abbagor chose that moment to twitch beneath us. "Okay," I said hastily. "The exit's in the rear. How about we use it?" Keeping a hand on Niko's arm, I jumped down and hit the ground running. I didn't have to support my brother for more than a few seconds before he steadied and kept up without difficulty. Goodfellow was hard on our heels before passing us without a backward glance. I didn't take it personally. In the scheme of things it wasn't nearly as amoral a consideration as that I'd shown him. For all Niko's denial that I was Grendel, Robin had just discovered I was more Auphe than Niko liked to let on.

Behind us I could hear a now familiar slithering and a voice choked with blood and brain matter. "Aupheling… little goat. Come baaaaaaack."

Needless to say, we didn't.

Standing on my shoulders Niko managed to clamber out of our reeking pit. Then tossing down a rope, he reeled Robin and me out. Where'd he get the rope? His coat, the same place he got his multiple blades, stakes, and the occasional throwing star. That coat had more concealed weaponry than the entire state of Texas.

And then we were on the streets, free and alive. Of course, I was shirtless, Niko was liberally coated with purple blood, and Robin was five steps below a street person in the category of personal hygiene. In addition, we all looked as if we'd been on the losing end of a mud-wrestling match. But none of that mattered. We were free.

Wincing at the movement, Niko straightened his coat as best as he could and shook his head. "Well, we didn't learn much, but the effort is appreciated, Goodfellow." Brown hair plastered to his skull, green eyes as opaque as stone, Robin ignored him and kept walking, pulling away from us. Niko's blond brows drew into a puzzled V. He turned a curious look on me.

"Let him go, Nik," I said quietly. Because, really, wasn't that the best thing for the puck? It wasn't every day you survived a troll
and
a Grendel. Best to consider yourself lucky and hit the road before anything else tried to kill you. The devil you knew and the devil you didn't—both were dangerous in this world. Robin was old enough to know that. And if he'd forgotten, I had just succeeded in reminding him damn thoroughly. Yeah, I was a regular humanitarian.

Considering I wasn't even human.

It was just a normal night at home. A Bud, an evening snack, lounging around in sweats and relaxing—it didn't get any better than that. The first aid, okay, that was a slight hiccup, but it wasn't the first time that had happened. Not for either of us. And one way or the other, it probably wouldn't be the last. Unfortunately, that was a positive thing. Considering our lifestyles, if there were no more injuries, it could mean only one thing: We were dead. I guess life was all about taking the bad with the good. This time Niko had taken the fall; next time it might be me. Hell, it probably would be me. To give myself credit where credit was due, I could kick ass with the best of them. But Niko, his reflexes were sharper, more honed, and his cool… well, at least he had a cool to keep. I thought cool was something to keep your beer frosty.

I took a swallow of said ice-cold beer as Niko, with one towel wrapped around his hips and another in his hands, finished gingerly drying off from his shower. The red areas on his shoulder, neck, and back were raw and looked painful as hell. The small welts on my arm stung viciously and they were nothing compared with what marred Niko's skin. "Did you get all the blood off?" I asked as I went to the sink and scrubbed my hands with an antiseptic soap.

He nodded, folded the towel, and placed it on one of the kitchen chairs. "Yes, I'm clean."

"You sure?" I persisted. "That stuff's like acid." The top of the tube of burn cream untwisted easily. I then flipped open a packet of sterile gloves, squirted the ointment onto the inner surface of the packaging paper, and pulled on the gloves, coating the fingers in the ointment in the process. Nice time-saver.

"Trust me, Cal. I was thorough, uncomfortable though it was." He settled in a chair, leaning forward as his arms rested on his legs. "Uncomfortable" happened to be Niko's euphemism for "excruciating," not that you would've known that from the way he sat tranquilly, his face impassive, and as unmoving as a statue.

Scooping some of the cream up in my gloved hand, I applied it to the chemical burn on his back. I used the lightest possible touch, but I could still feel him tense beneath my hand. Even so, his voice remained placid. "Did you dispose of my clothes?"

"Bagged them and tossed them into the incinerator," I confirmed. When Niko had been inside of Abbagor he must have been near a ruptured tendril or whatever passed as a blood vessel in the troll. The purple ichor had soaked through his coat and shirt, searing the skin beneath. And as agonizing as that must have been, I had to think it was probably not the worst part of being swallowed by Abbagor. But that was something that had to wait for the moment. We had to fix the outside before starting on the inside.

As I finished applying the cream to his back and then his shoulder and neck, I laid a light gauze bandage over the worst of the burns. "All done, Patches." I grinned faintly at the white dressings, stark against the olive tint of his skin. I might have the coloring of my father, but Niko was all Sophia. If it weren't for our eyes being the same, anyone would be hard-pressed to physically link us as brothers.

"Florence Nightingale had nothing on you, Cal, I'm sure." Niko straightened and that olive tone turned to white laced with green. He could school his face to the end of time, but even Niko wasn't master of his own complexion.

Stripping off the gloves and tossing them onto the table, I reached for a pill bottle I'd already retrieved from the cabinet. Shaking two into my hand, I held them out to him. "Take these. I'll get you some water."

He automatically balked. It wasn't anything that I hadn't expected. He was damn predictable in that respect. No alcohol, no drugs, nothing that would blunt the edge or dull the senses. Not even painkillers, no matter how much pain he might be in. "No problem," I said smoothly. "If the Grendels come tonight, you can just barf on them. Very ninja of you." I slapped the pills on the table in front of him. "Asshole. Suffer all you want."

Niko pursed his lips. "I'm not sure Nurse Nightingale had your bedside manner. But the point is taken." He picked up one pill and raised an eyebrow at me. "Compromise?"

Considering this was the hard stuff, definitely not over-the-counter, I knew enough to quit while I was ahead. "Compromise." I opened the refrigerator and handed him a bottle of water. Niko wouldn't touch tap water. I'd gotten rather used to the metallic taste myself. The delicate bouquet of chlorine and lead, what's not to like? "You had a tetanus shot about three years ago, right?"

He chased the pill with a swallow from the bottle. Aiming an assessing glance at me, he stated, "You're hovering, little brother." The gaze softened. "I
am
all right, Cal. I promise you."

I was hovering… some. There was no reason to. Niko was fine, in some pain, sure, but he wasn't going to be pushing up daisies anytime soon. Not from this, anyway. No, there was no reason to worry, no reason to consider this a grim reminder that without Niko I was alone in the world. There was no reason to dwell on the fact that without Niko there wasn't a single person alive that I could depend on. For that matter there wasn't a single one who even knew who I was, exactly
what
I was. Boggle knew and now Abbagor, but no one who had an untarnished soul. Except… except now there was Robin. But I'd managed to finish any trust there before it could even start.

"Of course you're okay," I said brusquely. "You're too damn pompous to die." Sweeping up the mess from the tabletop, I dumped it in the garbage. Grabbing my beer, I headed for the living room. "I'm going to watch the tube. Let me know if you need help dressing."

"If Goodfellow were here, I'm sure he would offer his help as well," Niko offered dryly as he eased himself to a standing position.

"I don't think that'll be a problem anytime in the near future." Turning on the TV with the remote, I surfed through several channels without actually registering them. Robin was as conceited as a male model, horny as a dog the day before it's neutered, and generally a pain in the ass, but he had tried to help us. And considering we had all but blackmailed him into it, it had to have been against his better judgment. Despite all of that, he'd stood his ground when Abbagor went on his homicidal rampage. At least he'd stood it until I gave him a nice big shove. Then he was just damn lucky not to end up buried in that same ground he'd made his stand on.

"I gathered that." Niko broke my train of thought and settled onto the couch beside me. He was careful to keep his back from resting against the threadbare cushion. The grooves bracketing his mouth said the pain medication hadn't even begun to kick in yet. "What happened while I was… unavailable? Did you tell him his shirt was so very last year?"

I snorted and gave a reluctant laugh. "That would've really gotten his goat, wouldn't it?" In my mind I could hear the faintest bubbling echo…
Aupheling, little goat, come baaaaaaack
. It sobered me instantly. "Yeah," I said absently. "Insulted his shirt. That's exactly what I did." I clicked the remote again.

"The man takes his wardrobe very seriously." Niko reached over and slid the remote from my hand and clicked the mute button. "But in spite of that, I think there may be more to the story."

"Too bad," I grunted, folding my arms and slouching bonelessly. "Because I'm not in the mood to tell any stories. Try channel fifteen. I think
Charlie's Angels
is on. All the martial arts your heart desires."

"Only in your perverse little mind would any of that pass for martial arts." A finger flicked the side of my head with a thump that connected hard enough to sting. "Then again, perhaps more perverted than perverse."

I gave him a glare and rubbed the spot with a knuckle. "My perversions are all that keep me going sometimes."

"That and a facile knack for changing the subject." Niko tapped the remote on his knee thoughtfully. "I could guess if you wanted. I'm rather good at that."

As if I didn't know. He was hell on wheels when it came to anything involving intellectual muscle flexing.

When we were kids he was busy dragging Colonel Mustard off to jail while I was still trying to figure out what the hell a conservatory was. What I'd found necessary to do to Robin wouldn't take many guesses on Niko's part. He was too goddamn smart and he knew me too well. "I needed a distraction." I shrugged. The gesture wasn't quite as careless as I wanted it to be. "I didn't have much to choose from. You survived. He survived. All's well that ends well, right?"

He grasped in an instant what had happened. For that matter, he may have known all along. Placing the remote on the table, Niko commented neutrally, "He's a good fighter. You saw that, and you had to know on some level that he could hold his own for the few moments you needed."

"Could probably hold his own" would've been a more accurate way to put it. And even though he'd chosen his words judiciously, Niko was as aware of that as I was. "It didn't matter whether he could or not, Nik," I said with bald honesty. "You know that."

He nodded slowly, eyes serious and calm. "I do. I also know I have a brother who would do anything to save my life. Anything at all. And that, Cal, is not such a bad thing to know." He stood, one hand using my shoulder for leverage. "You mind taking first watch? We're both going to need our rest for tomorrow. We still have a car to locate and I'm sure you haven't even begun to shovel your belongings in a pile for packing."

I stared fixedly as actors mouthed silent words on the television screen. My own weren't much louder. "I think we should stay."

The fingers on my shoulder tightened almost painfully. It wasn't often I surprised Niko; this time I'd managed in spades. "Stay," he repeated. "Cal, considering what we learned from Abbagor, not to mention the Grendel in the park, I don't think staying is an idea that promotes our continued health."

I slid an emotionless look up at him. "And what exactly did we learn from Abby anyway? That I'm the result of some bizarre experiment? That while I might be less than human, I
am
the new frontier in genetic experimentation? That's nothing new, and it's nothing we haven't suspected for a long time."

"Maybe not." His hand dropped from my shoulder to rub at his forehead. "But if nothing else, the troll put it in perspective. The Grendels, the Auphe, whatever we call them… they once ruled this place, once ruled the entire world, and they'll do anything to regain that. No matter how far we go or how long we hide, little brother, they're not going to give up. If you are somehow the key, they are not going to let you go. We have to keep running. We may never lose them, but we can stay ahead of them. And we will."

And the ones we didn't stay ahead of, they would end up like the Grendel in the park, nothing but a distant and bloody memory of Niko's sword. That had been our life up until now; that had preserved
my
life until this moment. I knew that as well as I knew anything, but I also knew something else… Enough was enough. "You're right, Nik. I'm the bright and shiny key to something, all right, and the Grendels are never going to give up on me. One day they'll catch us. What's the difference if it's here or halfway across the world?"

"The difference," Niko pointed out with grim patience, "could be a matter of thirty or forty years. The difference could be almost a lifetime."

"Some lifetime." I kicked the table hard enough that it slid several feet across the stained and scarred plank floor. "Wouldn't you like to have a real job instead of just a string of crap details? Wouldn't you like to have a home instead of some piece-of-shit apartment? Wouldn't you like to have a genuine relationship with someone like Promise instead of… shit… nothing but one-night stands?" I know I wanted it for him even if he tried to deny he might want it for himself. And I wanted other things. I wanted the hope of touching a springy red curl, of rubbing the pad of my thumb softly across amber skin. I wanted to count freckles and see if they really did number as stars in the sky. I wanted to sit across from Georgina and have her tell me why she lied, and I wanted the reason to be one I couldn't question. All fairy tales are impossible, but I wanted this one badly enough to stick around and risk the brutal slap of reality.

"Don't you want all that, Nik?" I repeated.

There was silence, not accusing, just thoughtful. When he finally spoke, the grimness was replaced by unshakable conviction. "I'd like those things, yes. But there is something I want more… my brother alive. And, Cal, if I have to knock you unconscious and drag you out of town to keep you that way, then that is exactly what I will do." And just like that, the conversation was over. I could keep talking, but it would be pointless. The set of his shoulders, the flattened line of his mouth—all indicated that Niko was not in the mood for negotiation. In spite of that, I might have pushed. I normally did. But not now, not when I could see the bedrock of his stubbornness was still iced over with pain.

"Go to bed, Nik." Leaning over, I pulled the table back into position. The remote had fallen to the floor, so I retrieved it. "Four hours, and then I kick your ass out of bed."

"Cal…"

"Nik," I mimicked softly before grinning faintly. "Your towel's slipping."

He took a grip on the wayward terry cloth and gave in. "Four hours. No more." Then he disappeared down the hallway, his step slower than usual.

Four hours he would get. Four hours and then, if I could pull it off, four more. I could stay awake for eight hours, no problem. Considering what I would see when I closed my eyes, insomnia was my friend anyway. I'd lived through Niko's being engulfed by Abbagor once already; I wasn't looking forward to any repeat showings.

Turning the television's sound back up to a soft murmur, I stood and went to double-check the lock on the door. There were no windows to check, not the sort that locked. We had only the one window, but it was a doozy, taking up most of the far wall of the living room. I had no idea what the building had been years and years ago, but our apartment definitely had an unfinished quality to it. The ceiling was high enough to have any real estate agent dancing in glee, but it was also full of exposed wiring and rusty pipes. The floor was directly out of some run-down warehouse off the river minus the fishy smell. The super had put in a bathroom and kitchenette; those were the only modern touches. It was a dump, no doubt, saved only by the window. At night a thousand city lights glittered through the glass. It was like having your own personal view of the Milky Way.