Nightlife (20 page)

Bingo.

Boggles were big and they were fierce fighters, but you couldn't accuse them of being the smartest mud pies around. Tactics escaped them and their attention span wasn't all it could be. They weren't exactly fish in a barrel, but neither were they at the top rung in life's pantheon of creepy-crawlies. With a shred of perseverance and just a bit of forethought, it wasn't that difficult to get the better of them. With guidance from me, though, my particular boggle would do in a pinch.

Pocketing the money, I hailed a cab to the nearest pawnshop. The backseat was as smelly as Bog's pits and not quite as hygienic. The driver was a
ghul
. I hadn't seen one of those in a while. This one was masquerading as a shriveled older woman with matted locks, John Lennon glasses, and a mouth like a rat trap. Most
ghuls
originally came sweeping out of the deserts of the bedouin like a foul wind. They lived to bedevil and annoy travelers, to lead them off the beaten path and on occasion eat them. What better disguise for that than a taxi driver? And what could be more annoying than being eaten?

It rolled a bloodshot eye back in my direction and decided it would just stick with overcharging me. I was in such a good mood that I actually paid the fare. It was the city. I loved it. The atmosphere was charged with the energy of supernatural beasts in the thousands. In an age where we had come to be few and far between, there was a heady jolt to being among so many non-humans. When I closed my eyes, the electricity was visible, crackling in blue and green bolts. It was like the old days. I hadn't realized I'd missed it like I did. On the other hand, I was also rolling in the biggest concentration of cattle on the East Coast. There was a time when that would've been entertaining as hell. Unfortunately, humans were not as fun as they'd once been. They were softer and slower now. They had better weapons, it was true, but as they no longer believed in us, it didn't do them much good. The challenge there had been when they were savages was gone, but soon enough, it would be back. The entire landscape would change, physically, culturally, and in every other way. Thanks to the Auphe, we had the technology; we could unbuild them.

The pawnshop guy was a human, but not as soft and slow as most. He peered at me with pebble eyes from behind rusting bars. "Yeah?" A shaved head gleamed faintly under dim fluorescent lights. Pocked skin was marked with the shadow of a heavy beard, and a black tattoo of barbed wire circled the thick neck. Here and there a drop of blood was shaded in crimson dripping tastefully from the barbs. It was sharply ugly and jaggedly brutal. I touched the pad of my thumb to the side of my throat and considered how one might look on me.

Dropping the jewelry into a metal tray, I watched as it was pulled with a jerk back through an opening through the bars. "Grandma left me some of her baubles," I said with a winning smile.

The guy held up one thick chain with an oversized gold pot leaf hanging from it. "I'll bet," he grunted as he continued to root through the tangle of precious metal.

"Hey, Granny was a progressive broad." Adjusting my sunglasses, I drawled, "So what will you give me for them?"

"Eight hundred," he responded with disinterest.

I rocked back on my heels and folded my arms. "Let me rephrase that. What's it
worth
?"

Yellowed teeth showed in the frozen grin of a rabid dog. "Nine, ten thousand. You, valuable customer, get eight hundred. You want it or not?"

I'd like to say I dickered with him, got the cheap bastard up to at least three thousand. Didn't happen. My persuasive powers, awesome though they were, bounced off this block of concrete without result. I could've shot him, if I hadn't lost my gun and the bars weren't sandwiched between two layers of bulletproof glass. Just yesterday I would've been able to slither through the molecules and strip his flesh into yummy bite-sized bits. But today, I was different… We were different. So I swallowed my pride, accepted the money, and started to leave. Pausing, I asked him, "You have some matches, smiley?"

Tossing a book into the tray, he pushed them out to me with an oily gloat sheening his eyes. "The least I could do for you, buddy."

Well… not the very least. I moved into the back alley beyond the shop, and as luck would have it, I found a homeless guy curled up in a doorway with an almost full bottle of vodka. I hummed happily. It saved me a trip to the local liquor store. Within two minutes the back of the building was in flames, the bum was scuttling for safety, and hopefully Smiley was roasting like a pig at a luau.

Hearing the wail of approaching sirens, I strolled after the bum. It was possible Smiley would make it out, and it was a shame I couldn't hang around to make sure that didn't happen. Even so, I was betting nine thousand dollars' worth of my gold wasn't going to pay for the skin grafts, much less rebuild the shop. As I passed a plate glass window, I touched a finger to my temple and gave my reflection a snappy salute. Now you're a monster, Caliban. Ain't it great?

Ain't it just friggin' great?

I used some of my newfound wealth to get a real hotel room, one with chocolates on the pillows instead of drool stains. I also bought a cell phone. All work and no play made Cal a dull boy. We wouldn't want that. I could keep my eye on the prize and still indulge myself. A fine line, but I had faith that I could walk it. But more than that, more than the confidence I had in myself, I
wanted
to walk it. I wanted to live life as half of me always had… with reckless abandon. It was who I had been and who I still was to a large extent. Without risk the eons could get boring as hell. Humans had a natural adrenaline. Nonhumans… the majority of us had to manufacture our own.

On first guess you might think that it was safe to say that Niko would've abandoned the apartment after it was trashed by the Auphe. A logical conclusion, but a wrong one. Who had stuck like glue to the burned remnants of a cheap trailer, all that was left of a Grendel slaughter? Though it was years later, I knew the same would hold true now. After all, if he left, how would poor kidnapped Cal find him again? No, he'd be there. Part of the day anyway… the part he wasn't out scouring the city for me. Niko hadn't been able to follow me through the gate, but it wouldn't stop him from the grim hope that, like before, I'd make my way back. Smart boy. He was right.

But when I called he wasn't the one to answer the phone. That put a nasty crack in my polished conviction. It was that son of a bitch Goodfellow, who I'd had every expectation would've been halfway across the country by now, if not the world. Damn flashy peacock, who would've thought he had it in him? Just as he knew my reputation, I knew his—shallow and self-serving, with a
highly
developed survival instinct, not that there was anything wrong with that. Those were stellar qualities in my opinion, but he had no appreciation for the finer things in life, the same ones on which the Auphe and I saw eye to eye. He actually liked humans, believe it or not. Liked them a little too much. Goodfellow should've run when he had the chance. Too bad. For him, there wouldn't be another.

"Goodfellow," I said smoothly. "When did you get a backbone? Are they selling them on eBay now?"

I heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end and then his words, wrapped in glowing red wires of anger. "Darkling, what the hell are you doing? You cursed son of a bitch, what could you possibly have to gain from this?"

"Language, language." Bending down, I broke open the minibar and helped myself to a bottle of beer and a bag of pistachio nuts. After a long, cool swig, I continued. "I'm doing what I've always done. I'm looking out for number one and getting paid in the bargain. Isn't that what you do, Loman? Isn't that what
you've
always done?" I tossed a few nuts back and washed them down. Two tastes, both salty but wonderfully different, mixed on my tongue. "And that leads me to a curious question. Why are you changing your ways now?" I
tsk
ed sorrowfully. "Had enough of this life, have you? Don't they have medications for that sort of thing?"

"Loman," he came back after a moment of silence, tone subdued but still set. "You called me Loman."

"I'll call you Mary Margaret if I want to. Or Danny boy. That's more appropriate, don't you think?" I hummed a few bars of the legendary dirge before deciding I'd had enough of Goodfellow and his changing ways. New backbone, midlife crisis, whatever. All that mattered was the end result, and the result would be his end. "Nik around, old friend? I'd like a word."

"I'm not your friend," he countered vehemently in my ear. "I was never a friend to you or any of your kind. I can't believe I didn't recognize it when Cal told me. I can't believe I didn't guess it was you."

It wasn't really that hard to understand. The mirrors were a relatively new thing for me, as I'd picked that up only in the past five hundred years or so. The other male banshees had never pulled that trick and now that I was one of the last, they never would. So it wasn't all that surprising Goodfellow didn't know of it. It didn't keep me from twisting the knife, however. "Yeah, that's too bad, huh?" I offered genially. "You could've saved Mr. Morose. You probably could've gotten a few more years of whining out of him, at any rate. What a tragedy." I finished the beer in one last swallow. "You might have saved him, but you were drunk and you didn't. I'll bet Niko's really loving you on that one."

Silence. But sometimes silence can be as sweet as any melody.

Dropping the bottle into the wastebasket, I said briskly, "Nik's not home, is he? There's no way you'd still be holding the phone if he were. That's all right—I'll call back. Nice chatting with you, Goodfellow. It'll be interesting to see how much you have to say when I see you next." I added as a cheerful afterthought, "When I rip out your heart and shove it in your mouth." Turning off the cell phone, I tossed it over my shoulder onto the bed. I could've called Niko's own cell and had another chatfest, one probably even more entertaining, but right now there were other sensations to enjoy, other pleasures to seize. And the sharp cramping of the stomach was a good indicator of which I should choose. I reached for the room service menu. The nuts and the conversation with Goodfellow had only whetted my appetite and my taste for blood. It was time to see what this place had in the way of a steak… an extremely rare one.

As I waited for room service, I went to the bathroom and stood, Caliban's pride and joy in hand, watching with interest as urine splashed into the gleaming white bowl of the toilet. Humans, they were really the most amazingly primitive pieces of work. They had a brain that elevated them almost to reasoning organisms, but still had the plumbing of the most basic of animals.

"What are you doing, worthless creature?"

I gave a surprised yelp and whirled. Luckily the shock to my system froze the stream of urine and I managed to avoid decorating the bathroom in sunshine yellow. It also did something else curious. The pride and joy became the embarrassment and shame. Like a turtle it withdrew promptly, leaving me with a lot less in hand than I'd started with. "Hey," I protested automatically. "Where did it go?"

"Be grateful I don't relieve you of it altogether." Long nails split the shower curtain with lightning speed and an Auphe stepped through, throat working to spit out the human words. "It would make your stay here less pleasing, yes?"

Upper management—the bastards were never happy unless they were busting your balls… literally, in this case. "I'm just doing the job, boss." I zipped up with alacrity. Best not to let temptation hang out there. "Everything's going according to our plan."

The head cocked and molten eyes narrowed on me in murderous contemplation. "It is the Auphe plan, never the Darkling plan. You are to do as you're told. This"—he waved and arm and hissed—"this is not as you were told."

"This" would be the hotel room, Boggle, and all the rest, I was guessing. I hadn't expected the Auphe to keep that close an eye on me. They never had during the other jobs I'd pulled for them. I should've realized that this one would be different. This was the big enchilada and they were going to try to micromanage the hell out of me. Gating into my bathroom and giving me shit was actually the very least of what they might do if they thought I wasn't taking my work seriously.

"You are making ripples." He abandoned the human tongue and reverted to Auphe, which I understood. It sounded like cockroaches had crawled into your ear canal and started mating, but I understood it. "Ripples become waves. Waves attract attention we cannot afford." He leaned close enough that I could see my reflection in the metallic sheen of his teeth. I looked pretty damn good. "Waves drown those who make them."

"All right, all right. I can lie low if I have to. But there are some things that need doing. Caliban's brother, Goodfellow—they're going to make trouble," I pointed out with annoyance. "You have to see that."

"Not if they cannot find us or you. And if you keep your rapacious ego in rein, they will not." The pointed jaw worked with the effort to keep from burying those shiny teeth in my throat. "You will do as you've been told or the next thing you animate will be your own bloody bile."

The Auphe did not usually waste their time on threats. They simply killed and went on. A threat really wasn't part of their belief system. Promises, however, were. But it was a different story now… a different situation. Whatever I did, whomever I wasted—and even if I danced in the streets buck naked—the Auphe couldn't harm me. Without me they had no plan. Without me they had no options. So I took this all with a grain of salt, smothered a yawn, and solemnly promised to be a good boy from then on. With a satisfied growl, he pulled another gate from thin air and disappeared back to the Batcave or wherever; I didn't much care.

Trying to instruct me as if I were a child. Trying to tell me how to do my job as if I hadn't been doing it since time had blinked its first sleepy eye. Trying to rein me in. I felt a muscle in my jaw bunch. Forget that I wanted to kill Nik and Goodfellow just on general principles. Never mind that seeing their blood pour free would give me a chubby of enormous proportions. That wasn't the point. I was a professional, and I knew that if those two weren't taken care of, they would ruin things. Nik's relentless determination combined with Goodfellow's sneaky ways could very well throw a wrench in the works. The Auphe might not see that, but I did. And I would do what was needed to take care of the matter. If the bosses didn't like it, they could suck my dick. If it ever reappeared, that is.