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Practical. Like Cal. It was time to be practical.

There was an old Rom saying I’d once heard Sophia mutter: teach a dog to bite once and it will bite a hundred times. When you cross your line, that line disappears. You couldn’t retreat back behind it again if you wanted. You cross it, you erase it.

A hand patted my back, a patch of warmth. “It’s okay, Nik. It is. I promise. I’ve been bruised worse when I used to play dodgeball.”

That was a lie. As deep and purple-black as the bruise was, the bottle that hit him must have been heavy. Full. Sophia didn’t throw full bottles of any alcohol no matter how drunk she was. She must have been furious. I straightened and wrapped an arm around Cal’s shoulders. He was eleven
years old. He was a child. If she’d hit him in the head, she could’ve killed him. She would be lucky if I broke only one of her arms. She would be lucky if I didn’t break her neck. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again, and tried for the discipline I’d been learning in dojo after dojo, gym after gym. Tried for calm.

It wasn’t there.

I needed a distraction. “Why exactly was Sophia so angry?” Not that she needed much of a reason.

Now he flushed red, not guilty anymore; he was mad. Furious. “She was stealing your college money. You need that money. It’s
yours
. So I called her a c—” His eyes slid sideways. “A dirty word. Like I said, she wasn’t as drunk as usual or she wouldn’t have tagged me.”

“
Cal, you don’t provoke her. She’s insane.” She wasn’t. She was worse—evil, the Old Testament kind. Grendels and Sophia, they did their best to change my mind about the Fire. “It’s not worth it,” I said, touching a light fingertip to his bruise. “This isn’t worth it.”

The rest of what he said caught up with me. “And you don’t use that word. I know you’re getting older and hearing words like that at school. I know you’ll start using them sooner or later whether I like it or not, but never that word. Girls and women don’t like it and I don’t blame them.”

He leaned his head against mine with an unconscious affection Sophia hadn’t yet managed to tear out of him and considered. “I guess I could’ve called her what the old ladies down the street do. See You Next Tuesday.”

I swallowed an unexpected laugh.
“No.”

See You Next Tuesday. That was as bad as when he’d bitten another kid in the first grade. The note he brought from school had said that was often a sign of acting out over issues at home—of which we had more than our fair share. A very unfair share in fact. When I’d asked Cal why he’d done it, he’d answered all innocence, “Because I wanted to know what he tasted like.”

All right, we had different issues from most people. When I broke Sophia’s arm, we’d have more, but that was life.

Our life anyway.

“Back in bed. I’ll get some ice for your bruise and get Mrs. Spoonmaker to call us in sick. No school for us today.” Whenever we moved, I made friends with the older ladies on the block starting the first day. They all ended up hating Sophia, but Cal and me, they felt sorry for us. And if I paid them five dollars, they’d pretend to be our grandmother and call us in sick if needed as Sophia was passed out most mornings.

He was back under the covers as quick as a cat finding a patch of sun and already yawning, looking forward to a lazy morning. “Mrs. Spoonmaker? She smells like kitty litter and Vaseline, but I like her. She always has Oreos. Bring me back some.”

“If anyone can teach me to find the silver lining, it’s you,” I said. Cal didn’t stop surprising me with his ability to bounce back from anything. And, yes, his ball bounced in strange, wild directions compared to everyone else’s, but what did that matter? “Cal, this won’t happen again. I’ll take care of Sophia. I promise.”

“I know that, Nik.” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, with faith unbreakable in every word. He then pulled the covers over his head, blocking out the pale morning light and the chill that came with it. It made his next words muffled. “And it’s the chocolate lining. Look for the chocolate lining. It’s better than silver.”

I snagged his pajama top off the fan and stuffed it under the covers with him. “Thanks for the lesson, grasshopper.”

My instructors had given Cal the nickname when I’d first talked my way into free lessons at the age of ten. Whether it was karate, jujitsu, Krav Maga, kickboxing . . . every master took one look at a six-year-old Cal tagging along with me and he was grasshopper from then on. I picked up the habit. I even knew where it came from. It wasn’t as if we could afford cable. They played a whole lot of shows made before I was born on the four channels our Sophia-boosted TV received.

I gave Cal ice wrapped in a ragged dish towel, locked the door behind me, and headed across the street. Mrs. Spoonmaker was sympathetic about Cal’s “flu” and quick to take the five bucks. Cal had been right. Sophia had taken my money, but only some of it. I had several stashes. Sophia could smell money. I’d be an idiot to put all my eggs in one basket. Mrs. Spoonmaker also gave me Oreos without my having to ask. Cal was hitting her up hard and often. I should warn him not to take advantage, but if we didn’t—if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have made it this long.

I was walking back, plastic bag of cookies in hand, when I spotted our neighbor. Cal’s serial killer. He was picking up his paper from the tiny scrap of front yard. He was in sweats like me and a ragged terry cloth robe, but slightly blue bare feet. It was going to be full-on winter in another month or so. No bare feet then.

I seized the opportunity. “Excuse me, sir.” I didn’t believe he was a killer, but there was no harm in being polite. Just in case. He lifted his head from the paper and blinked at me. He had soft brown eyes, drooping at the edges, like a tired old hound dog. Friendly and happy, but ready to leave the running to the pups while he lay on the porch. In reality he was likely in his mid-thirties. It didn’t matter. Most people in this neighborhood looked at least ten to twenty years older than they were. They were either honest and worked far too hard for far too little or they were into drugs and nothing aged you like that, selling or buying.

This tired old dog also had a bit of a beer belly or fast-food flab and a receding jaw to match his receding hairline. He also had a small silver cross around his neck that looked like it had been worn to the brightest of shines from frequent fingering. He gave me a tentative smile that showed a gap between his two front teeth. “Can I help you, son?” He had a slight stammer, his eyes blinking more often as he spoke. Embarrassment, he hadn’t outgrown. Obvious signs and easy to read. Sophia was no kind of mother, but watching her work taught you things that were helpful. Since I didn’t use those things to steal, I didn’t feel guilty for using it for other things.

“Yes, sir. I was wondering where you worked. I’ve been looking for a job.” Not true. I had two part-time jobs already, but a harmless lie was the best way to bring Cal around to the truth.

“Sir?” He blinked again, more of a hound dog than ever. “I ain’t sure anyone’s ever called me sir. You can call me Junior.” He turned the paper over in his hands. His accent was a little Southern. We’d been all over the country. His wasn’t as far south as Georgia, more like Kentucky somewhere. His watery eyes looked me up and down, wary. While Cal looked younger, I looked older. I could pass for seventeen easily. And seventeen in this neighborhood was more than old enough to force you back in your house, take everything not nailed down, and stab you with a rusty five-dollar switchblade. I tried to look harmless, another trick I’d learned from Sophia—who was anything but.

Junior seemed reassured. “Well, son, I work in the hospital cafeteria. No openings there, sorry ’bout that. But if you go by human resources, they post pages and pages of jobs on a bulletin board outside the office. Might find something there.”

“Thank you, sir . . . Junior.” I gave him a friendly smile with no thought behind it. My mind was already elsewhere as I moved the fifteen feet over to our rented house. I didn’t think orderlies took a shortcut through the cafeteria to the morgue with the deceased patients, but hospitals were all about the sick and the dying. Maybe Cal’s nose had picked up on that. Or the smell of blood passing from a surgeon to this guy dishing up his mashed potatoes and gravy.

It was possible.

Cal didn’t agree.

He’d already wolfed down a cookie while telling me with a full mouth that was bullshit at the same time I was telling him eggs first, dessert later. No teacher could instruct you in multitasking and how to fail at it spectacularly as raising a preteen. Cal had deserted his bed to follow me to the kitchen. Followed the bag of cookies rather as I started scrambling an egg. “So why is it bull . . . I mean, not true? And I told you about the bad language.”

“You’re such a grandma. It
is
bullshit.” He shrugged, eyes fixed on the Oreos I kept close and safe while I pushed the egg around with a spatula. “I smelled dead people.” Then he forgot about the cookies and grinned. “Hey, I smell dead people. Why don’t I get a movie, huh?”

I snorted but didn’t discourage the humor. It wasn’t often Cal laughed about his other side. “You’re too talented for your own good. Hollywood is jealous.”

“Probably.” His eyes went back to the cookies and his mind to our neighbor. “I didn’t smell sick people. I smelled something, a lot of somethings rotting in his basement. Hospitals don’t let dead people hang around their cafeteria and rot, do they? Even I might have trouble eating through that. Hey, can I have onions in my eggs?”

“We’re out of onions. We do have half a piece of cheese left. How about that?” Junior, damn it, why couldn’t your hefty, religious ass work at a funeral home? It would make convincing Cal much easier. And it would allow me to stop the internal cursing while getting Cal to stop his outer cursing.

“Cheese is good,” he agreed. I looked at the ice pack lying on the table and when that didn’t work, pointed at it with the spatula. Cal sighed but put it back up to where his shirt covered the bruise.

“Your ‘serial killer’ neighbor is also religious from the looks of the cross around his neck.” I stirred the egg again, then scraped it onto a plate I’d set in front of him. “How many serial killers are devout Christians?” I was really hoping to slide this one past him.

“The Spanish Inquisition?” he said promptly.

“I’d be impressed if I thought that was from your history class and not Monty Python reruns.” I handed him a fork. “He also has a gut on him. I doubt he could catch anyone if he tried.”

“If lions are fat it means they’re the best hunters.” He took a bite of cheesy eggs.

I could not win. “You’re
not
suggesting he’s eating them?”

“Nope. If he did, his house would smell like barbeque, not roadkill. I just like lions. They’re cool.”

Absolutely could not win.

I sat down with my own plate of three pieces of toast. The last egg had gone to Cal. I couldn’t keep him away from the SpaghettiOs when I was at work or school, but I could make him eat one healthy thing a day when I was home. “Cal, give me the benefit of the doubt on this one, would you? He’s a flabby, churchgoing man who stutters. He’s not a raging homicidal maniac. He is not storing dead bodies in his basement. It’s simply not likely. Just trust me on this, all right?”

“I always trust you, Nik. But sometimes you’re not practical,” he said matter-of-factly. He also said it frequently. He didn’t know as of thirty minutes ago when I’d first seen the spill of dark blood under his skin I was a true believer of the concept.

Cal’s definition of practical had always both covered and absolved many sins. As he’d committed them on my behalf when I’d twice been sick enough not to be able to take care of myself, I had trouble getting him to see that his practical was most people’s criminal. As my little brother came first with me, his big brother came first with him. I thought I was smart, but in some ways Cal was far more so than I’d ever been.

He popped in the last bite of eggs. “Just remember, don’t get laid until we move again. Stay a virgin and everything will be okay. I told you, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers wouldn’t lie.”

Watching the fake butter refuse to melt on the bread, I lost any appetite for the toast or life in general . . . if only for a second.

Laid.

Sophia had gone from verbally to physically abusive. The first inevitable Grendel had shown up. The serial killer issue still hadn’t been solved, and now my eleven-year-old brother had just told me to not get
laid
.

Why me?

Honestly, why me?

5

Cal

Present Day

“Why me?”

The faux leather/duct tape combo squeaked as Goodfellow leaned back and covered his eyes with an olive-skinned hand. “I have a limitless number of people to lie to, cheat, and rob. I’m a trickster. I have a
calling
and no time for this. Sweet Fortuna, goddess of luck, tell me, why me?”

Let me fucking count the times I’d heard this song stuck on the radio. But, on the other hand, it was nice having a constant in a world of chaos. The brash ego, the bravery in the face of imminent death, and the accompanying bitching during the bravery in the face of imminent death, never changed. Which was good. Change was rarely for the better.

I tossed the now empty pancake container in the garbage. “Why you? Why us? Why Niko and me? What’d we do to him? Damn straight no one hired us to put him down. Hell, Niko didn’t know he existed until a body fell out of the frigging sky. What’s any of that have to do with you?”

“What’s that have to do with me? Are you senile? When have the two of you
not
dragged my wit, wisdom, charisma, and impeccably formed ass along in the wake of your bloody misfortune?” he demanded.

He had a point.

“Lifetime after lifetime,” he moaned on. “It never ends.”

“Are you measuring months as lifetimes now?” Niko asked, deadpan, as always when it came to Goodfellow’s exaggerations.

“I may as well,” Robin complained. “It certainly does feel that way.”

“Then since you know history repeats itself, try for a more positive attitude,” Niko suggested, not bothering to hide his amusement when Robin dropped his hand from his eyes to glare at us.

“Positive attitude? Let me tell you about my opinion regarding certain death and a positive attitude. It’s the same thing I told Dickens over ale and who despite his view on workhouses was a horrible tipper.” He sat up. “I hate Tiny Tim. I hate his chirpy optimism. I hate his purity and goodness in the face of grinding adversity. The nerve of the little bastard. It’s unnatural. There. My personal view of a positive attitude.”

Niko wasn’t impressed. “When Cal was three he shot Tiny Tim on the TV screen with his finger. Six imaginary rounds if I recall. You are barely in the running on attitude. Now, why is this Jack concerned with wickedness and immorality? Those are not concepts with which the
paien
usually bother themselves. That is closer to a human judgment.”

He groaned and dug in his jacket for a gold-chased silver flask. “Absinthe. It doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, but it can make the frustration grow fainter. Sometimes.” Draining the alcohol to the last drop in three swallows, he reached for a second flask and did the same. Looking marginally less annoyed, he rang the two containers together, an alcoholic cowbell. The silver note hung in the air as he said, “First, we don’t know that it’s Jack for certain. I said I wasn’t committing to that until we have further proof and I meant it. He is that much of a nightmare.” He gazed at the empty second flask mournfully. “Second, rarely, very rarely, mind you, a
paien
can become attached to a human or a certain subset of humans. Relate to them. Embrace them. Take them on as family or worshippers. That, in turn, can have human habits and prejudices rubbing off on them.”

Something Robin had done in the past—except for the prejudices. He’d set himself up as a god. It hadn’t ended well, but he hadn’t given up on humans, which is why he hung around Niko and me. And humans long before us. He’d almost married one in Pompeii before the volcano blew. He was one of the few
paien
who considered humans worthy company.

“It most definitely wasn’t you,” Niko said, “or another puck. Besides you, vampires, and peris, I don’t know any
paien
that associate with humans. What kind of
paien
is Spring-heeled Jack exactly?”

“Not me?” Goodfellow put away both flasks and gave a predatory grin. “Are you sure? I do have a preoccupation with licking the velvet-skinned throats of blond women and blond men. Blond anything really.”

“Put it back in your pants.” I snorted. “And even you couldn’t leave a hickey the size of a hand.”

Apparently I was wrong as he continued to grin. Niko frowned impatiently. “Goodfellow, we have a vicious
paien
serial killer roaming free skinning people alive. Focus. And if you continue with your lecherous behavior, I’ll tell Ishiah.”

Goodfellow stretched his arms, spread his fingers, then linked them to put his hands behind his head. “Feel free. He accepted me as I am and although I am giving monogamy a try, it wasn’t a requirement. And I still talk the talk and look the look.” The grin grew wider. “I’d have to be dead for that to stop. As for what Jack is”—the grin disappeared—“I don’t know. I wasn’t in England then. I’ve not seen him. Let me think on it.” Rolling eyes in my direction, he continued, “I will need more alcohol. It’s far too early to be thinking. Morning mounting is mostly muscle memory
and
a nice alliteration, but thinking . . . for that I’ll have to bribe my brain.”

I raided the fridge for two six-packs: one for him and one for me. Yeah, nice alliteration and one I was going to do my best to scrub from my own brain cells. As he looked down his nose at anything as common as beer, I was pouring Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper into a glass with the beer on top of that. Beer for the amnesia, the rest for caffeinated coherence. I wasn’t good with mornings either. I considered one or two p.m. still morning. I considered five thirty a.m. an abomination. If Hell had existed, it would always be five thirty there.

“Seriously?” Goodfellow asked dubiously as he watched me mixing the brew with the combat knife that had proved useless against Jacky-boy or what might be Jacky-boy as Robin remained on the fence there. At least the puck was distracted from his own horrifyingly domestic brew.

“Dr. Dew. Good for what ails you and a barrelful will decompose a body if you’re out of sulfuric acid.” I had no idea if that was true, but it sounded true. It also felt true as the first swallow hit my stomach and became a miniature nuclear explosion. I was back on the couch and guzzling. When I felt my eyes begin to burn and my nerves do a convulsive dance, I said, “Okay, I’m awake. For about forty minutes. Jack—our monster of the month. Maybe. Go.”

Robin had finished his first, second—hell, he was on his fifth beer in less than a minute. “Black, fog or mist, possible wings, the ozone smell you said, I’m thinking some sort of storm
paien.
Too bad it’s not a parasite, looking only to drain energy. They’re more pests than anything. This one, however, sounds far above the pest category. Hopefully it’s a creature or spirit and not a god.” Yeah, we’d fought pseudo-gods before. Not fun. “Perhaps in earlier days he associated with uptight humans. Your people are quite good at that, labeling anything such as sex, gambling, and drinking as being depraved.” All of which happened to be the puck’s favorite activities. “Insanity beyond the pale. You said Ishiah was certain all the victims were human, yes? That would make sense if he clung to humankind for a pace. We hate what we love and love what we hate. Let me consider this for a moment longer.”

All human victims. Or at least partly human when it came to me. Then once tasted, I was off the menu. That hurt my feelings.

As Goodfellow closed his eyes to concentrate, I finished my Dr. Dew. When I came back with a second one, my knife that had been on the coffee table was gone. I glared at Niko, who was drinking soy milk with the obvious delusion there was some sort of taste to it.

“When you stop twitching like a lab rat with electrodes in his brain, you’ll get it back,” he responded calmly. “Stir your poisonous concoction with your finger and if it eats the flesh from your bone don’t come crying to me.”

I stirred, drank, and growled. My finger turned slightly red but that was probably psychosomatic. When I said so, Niko told me I didn’t have the depth of imagination for a psychosomatic disorder. I poured half of the Dr. Dew in his grass milk. He poured all his milk over my head. Normally he would’ve flipped me over the couch, but this was his way of being considerate of my stitches.

“This is what you do while I think?” Robin’s eyes were now open. “Squabble like children in a sandbox?”

“No, usually I kill something when I’m bored, but there’s nothing here to kill except you,” I complained halfheartedly. “And Niko hid my knife.” I tried to wring the milk out of my sopping hair.

“Lack of an immediately convenient weapon. Never was there a truer sign of friendship.” He got to his feet. “I have an idea or two and someone to verify them. Fortunately, her business is open twenty-four hours a day. She’ll be awake. Let us go.”

“How about a shower first?” I complained.

“No, leave the milk.” His lips curved in a way I long recognized as being at my expense. “She’ll like you better for it. Apollo knows, you need all the brightening of your personality that you can get.”

“But . . . milk?”

“Milk,” he confirmed at the door before pausing.

“Oh. And a dead rat if you happen to have one.”

*  *  *

“A cathouse? You brought us to a whorehouse?” Niko, arms folded and eyebrows furrowed, looked up at the face of the four-story brownstone built of warm-colored stone and accented with creamy white. Nice. Expensive. Classy. This wasn’t the place if you wanted a quick fifty-buck suck-and-fuck.

“Now you sound as judgmental as Jack-the-skinner-Sprat, if that’s who it is. And it’s not a cathouse. It is
the
Cathouse. It has existed for well over four thousand years in different locations. I have stock in it. It’s quite profitable . . . except for the kilos of catnip they go through monthly. That does eat into the profit. But we all have our vices.”

It had been a twenty-minute cab ride here and I now smelled like sour milk. I had two guns under my jacket and Niko had given me my KA-BAR knife back, but my mood was not good. There was the caffeine crash combined with the itch of new stitches and it was still too goddamn early for anyone or anything to be upright and viable for life.

Sometimes I hated my job.

I ignored the doorbell, a softly glowing button surrounded by a curved brass sleeping mouse, and pounded on the door. “We’re three little kittens who’ve lost our mittens. Ah, the hell with it. It’s a whorehouse.” I pounded on the door again. “Kits who need tits. Open up.”

“I wish I could believe he was drunk. But I know his Auphe metabolism better,” Robin grumbled as he nudged me aside to press the bell. “Are you certain you raised him or did you let Hannibal Lecter babysit him? Genghis Khan? Attila the Hun? Please, enlighten me.”

Niko was undisturbed per usual. “Cal is his own person. I learned at a young age to accept that or step in front of a bus and move on to my next incarnation.”

Goodfellow gave a peculiar hum. “You always have been a glutton for punishment. Over and over and over again.” It sounded, best guess, half smug and half melancholy and entirely more specific than his usual random comments on Niko’s Buddhist philosophy. My general annoyance factor needed no extra commentary, apparently, but before I could ask him anything he was already ringing the bell again.

“Why are we here? You wanted proof. How are we going to find proof here?” I asked.

“A den of iniquity—Zeus, how I love them—is a prime source of every rumor in the wind. I plan on speaking with my good and formerly intimate friend to see if she’s heard any such of certain
paien
being in the city.” He held up a finger. “Their presence could rule out Jack. For example, Taranis.”

“Celtic god of thunder. Usually associated with a wheel,” Niko supplied.

“He didn’t slice me open with a goddamn wheel. I’d have noticed that. And no more gods. We fought one god, that’s enough,” I countered.

“Lei Kung.” Goodfellow held up a second finger.

“A Chinese spirit known as the Duke of Thunder. He supposedly punishes mortals guilty of concealed crimes and carries a drum, mallet, and chisel.” Niko started to elbow me, remembered the stitches and accused, “You should know this. We discussed Chinese supernatural creatures three months ago.”

“You might have discussed. It’s safe to say I just nodded and watched whatever game was on TV. And neither of us was beaten, sculpted, or assaulted with a drum solo. You can probably cross off the Duke of Earl.” I yawned and fished in my pocket for a lukewarm can of the last Mountain Dew I’d had in the fridge.

Robin already had his third finger up. Our back and forth was probably like white noise to him now or, as usual, he was more interested in listening to himself. “As much as I dislike talking trash about my own kind, there is also the Lakota trickster, Heyoka, the spirit of thunder and lightning. He—” The opening of the door cut him off. That was damn lucky for us because no matter what he said, talking trash about other tricksters and how they didn’t measure up to his wild and wicked ways was one of Goodfellow’s favorite pastimes.

I recognized the species of
paien
in the doorway although I’d not come across one in person until now. The air from inside the house that flowed around it carried the smell of oranges, honey, cinnamon, and some interesting spices I didn’t recognize offhand. Oh, and sex. I smelled so much sex I was surprised the intense musk of it, as strong as a natural gas leak, didn’t cause the brownstone to explode. Then there was the smell of our friend the doorman. Doorwoman. Doorperson. Blood and flesh and decomposition rank on her breath. Someone hadn’t brushed since their last meal. The exhalation of a scavenger, the kind who made certain you were clinging to life when they started to eat you. Where would the pleasure be if you were already dead?

She stood well over seven feet tall, bending down to see us, and had eight arms, seven of which held swords. Wearing something consisting of numerous leather straps, she also had a split skirt of silk that fell to bare brown feet. Thick black hair fell nearly as far, black eyes with pinpoint white pupils, and the triangular teeth of a voodoo statue from B-movie hell in a mouth almost as wide as a bear trap. In addition, there were claws on the hands that held the blades—long, lethally curved and as black as the hair and eyes. No surprise in that. There were days the entire world was made of bloody claws and tearing fangs.