It was getting dark fast and I didn’t think that had anything to do with the natural gloom down here. You didn’t have to choke someone for minutes, unless you were an amateur. Less than fifteen seconds of pressure on the carotid arteries would have your victim out cold. Out cold and on a dissection table. Of all the memories I’d lost, that couldn’t have been one of them. Of course not.
The blackness spread and I couldn’t see Wahanket anymore, but I didn’t need to see to get a hand inside my jacket. My thoughts were getting hazy, but I didn’t need them to choose the right weapon. I only needed instinct, and instinct was all over this.
Monster.
Cat killer.
Motherfucking mummified asshole.
Instinct chose one of my backup Desert Eagles, the one having been lost in the canal. Instinct pulled the trigger. It was a few seconds later when blood made its way back to my brain and I could see again that I found out instinct had been cock-blocked. The round that should’ve shattered Wahanket’s skull had hit nothing. Niko must have kicked him off me, because the mummy was on his back several feet away with a katana skewering him to the floor. But to judge from his thrashing, strong for a pile of bones and jerky, the blade wasn’t going to hold Wahanket forever. The man who’d turned him into a temporary shish kebab didn’t strike me as that concerned. His hand disappeared inside his duster and reappeared with a can of lighter fluid. I hadn’t asked about it when we’d stopped and bought it on the way. If I asked about everything I didn’t know or understand right now, I would never shut up. I was going with a mostly wait-and-see policy until I was back to normal.
I had to say, I liked what I was seeing.
Niko sprayed the mummy from head to toe and with one flick of his thumb set him on fire. The flailing redoubled and the cursing started. I sat up. “What about your sword?”
There was a dismissive shrug. “It’s not one of my favorites. I came prepared. You never know when Wahanket will have useful information or not, the same as you never know if he’ll go from mildly cooperative to wildly homicidal.” He held down a hand to me and pulled me to my feet.
A lot of people seemed to be taking my amnesia personally—the Wolves, the boggles, and now this piece of shit. “What was he talking about? That I’m only half of what I was?” I rubbed at my throat, but it was in one piece other than the scabbed spider bite. I owed that to Leandros, who was as fast as he’d been when disarming me in Nevah’s Landing—as fast as I had the strong feeling that he always was.
“He can take life forces like Ammut, even if they’re not the same. Perhaps a meal for these kinds of predators includes it all: your life, your memories, your skills, your emotions. And you most definitely do not care for Wahanket, the same as he does not care for you.” That was fairly obvious, I thought as Niko went on. “He might have been waiting for your … dislike of him to peak before he tried to drain you.”
“The cherry on the top of a Cal sundae, huh?” Niko appeared to have no problem accepting that guess, and Wahanket was one of a kind—puzzling over it would probably be pointless, although it still didn’t explain the Wolves and boggles. I was about to bring that up when I was distracted by Wahanket—not by what he was doing, but by what he wasn’t doing.
The mummy’s cursing was indecipherable, a language I didn’t know—if he was as old as he claimed, then one that no one knew. “Shouldn’t he be screaming? If you set me on fire, don’t think less of my manliness—muy macho and all, but I’d scream like a banshee.” He was burning fast and furiously without a hint of smoke. Too bad, if you were going to eat old meat, it was better smoked.
“I doubt it hurts much. His body is dead. No living nerve endings to register pain. This is more of a temper tantrum and hopefully, once burned to a crisp, he’ll be less physically capable of attacking us in the future—the near future at least. There’s no need to kill him, if we actually could kill him. And we do need informants. He’s no more homicidal than the rest—as long as you show some sense and don’t come alone.”
Being set on fire would only slow him down and not even permanently? Well, damn, let’s see if we could slow his ass down a little more that that. “I’ll be back.”
“Good idea,” Niko commented. “Find a fire extinguisher. We don’t want this to spread. Watch out for the cats.” I had every intention, but I still thought the cats were more on our side than Wahanket’s.
When I came back, I tossed him the extinguisher, which had actually been his thought and not mine, with one hand and hoisted the fire axe with the other. I hadn’t forgotten my prechoking opinions. Tried to shoot me once and strangle me this time. Monster. Cat killer. Wannabe murderer of me. Motherfucking asshole.
Oh yeah … the last one.
I just didn’t like him. Best reason of all.
He was more sizzling than flaming now. I barely felt the heat as I chopped off his arms and legs. Niko hadn’t mentioned it when reading me his mental list of what entertained baby brother Cal—reading, parties, yeah … lame. No, this—this was what I did for fun. And, goddamn, it was fun.
On the beach when I’d woken up, I’d known I was a killer, but I’d convinced myself along the way that I was a good killer. A noble Boy Scout of killers. But there were no good killers. There were only killers … period, and this bullshit about do the job but don’t enjoy the kill? The road to Hell … The slippery slope; why had I been embracing those idiotic cliches days ago?
What’s worse than killing for a living? Being bored killing for a living. Hell, yes, enjoy your job. Love your damn job. I was on the side of good, right? I killed monsters, kept people safe and all that crap. Why shouldn’t I enjoy it?
“A happy monster killer is an efficient monster killer,” I told Wahanket with the last chop as the yellow eyes continued to glare at me from a blackened, burned skull. He’d gone quiet, the cursing done, but that stare told me I was on his list—forever and top of. Numero uno. That was fair. He was certainly on mine.
“We wouldn’t want me to lose my edge, would we, pal? Practice makes perfect.” I pushed his arm a few feet from his torso. “As for thinking I’m not all I was, I’m catching up and quick. Good thoughts for you to think about while you put yourself back together. By the time you do that, I’ll be myself again and won’t we have some good times then?” I kicked his other arm even farther away. “Hope you have some superglue around, shithead.” I dropped the axe beside him and smiled. It felt good, that smile. Satisfied. So much so that I considered picking the axe back up and turning the mummy into some even smaller pieces. Yep, very, very satisfied.
Niko, oddly, looked anything but.
“Fun and games with Wahanket over already?” Robin, who was sitting on our apartment couch when we arrived home, checked his watch. “That was quick, quicker than Ammut trying to have Cal swimming with the fishes like mobsters of old, and, as ‘quick’ so very often means, I’m guessing you came away unsatisfied.”
“He has a key?” I jammed an elbow in Niko’s ribs. “You have to be kidding me. And you just installed the new lock this morning.”
“Kid, I was picking locks before the human race invented them … or reinvented them. Blatant patent infringement, stealing from our kind.” He stretched and propped his feet on the coffee table. “Well? Wahanket?”
“You’re wrong there. I came away very satisfied.” I grinned—it felt a little dark and a little nasty, but that was okay. Things were coming back. Feelings, no full-on memories yet, but the apartment seemed more familiar—I felt like a driver who had missed the curve but was driving over the median and seconds away from getting back on the right path. No, not the right path—the correct path.
My path.
“He cooperated then?”
“Nope, not worth a damn, which made it massively more entertaining.” I went to the refrigerator and got a beer. There was only one and as it wasn’t made of soy, I was assuming it was mine.
“Mmm. That’s unfortunate, but Wahanket is who he is. We’ve a
lways known that. We’ve always accepted that. It would be a mistake to think he could change or should change.” When I turned back, I saw the fox’s eyes settled not on me, but on Leandros, and there was an odd emphasis not on Wahanket’s name but on the word “change.”
I shrugged. “Then you’d be wrong. He has changed. He’s now a scorched Wahanket puzzle made of six pieces. Not a complicated puzzle, but one I’m not putting back together.” I took a drink. “Especially as I spent the time taking him apart.”
“Mmm,” Robin repeated, running a hand down the front of his silk shirt. I’d noticed him do that before and was now having a deja vu shimmer that it was a habit of his. I checked my weapons; he checked his clothes. “Spiders and mummies. None are spared your wrath. Tell me you didn’t do it with a fork.”
Shaking my head, I took another swallow and flopped on the couch next to him. “Better. Axe. And I’ve been thinking about that Wolf at the bar. I have no idea why I’d felt bad about that. She’d tried to kill me. What was I supposed to do? Pet her furry little head and tell her home? Home, girl! Drag her out to a pet cemetery and have her cremated with a shiny brass urn, bow, and framed dog treat? Jesus. My first and last ever sentimental moment.” She’d been a killer—through and through. Who cared how she’d gotten that way? Born wild, born to hunt, you still made your choices and suffered the consequences. Evolution was no free ride.
But is there anything wrong with free rides?
Things were going great, working out, and I had no time for more voices whispering in my head, especially when the two already there kept contradicting each other. I ignored them. Basically, as they were my voice times two, I was ignoring myself. That was fine by me. I finished my beer. “Maybe I could try a shift at the bar. I’m getting some stuff back up here.” I tapped my temple. “It might be … fun.” A different type of amusement than I would’ve considered this morning when I’d asked Leandros what I did for that sort of thing, but fun all the same. “Mummy fun.”
Wahanket, the boggles, Wolves; I could protect myself against them all, but I could also do more whether I had to or not. I didn’t have to kill. I could … play. Make them sorry. Didn’t they deserve it? Didn’t every one of them who’d scorned me or tried to kill me deserve a little of their own back?
Scorned me—why had they scorned me? Did it matter? For being human. For kicking their asses? For keeping monsters in line.
The one voice laughed. Monsters? There are no such things as monsters. Not to you.
It didn’t make any difference, none of it—the whys, the reasons, the schizophrenic confusion. It didn’t matter, because I was on my way. I was coming back all right.
Coming home …
I was on the path and turning that last curve in the woods, almost in sight of home. A dark path, but I liked the dark. I controlled the dark. Then there were times that it controlled me.
Fair is fair. Share and share alike.
I felt a sudden spasm in my stomach. Shit. My hand resting on my knee was shadowed where a shadow shouldn’t be—like that dark film covering my face in the Halloween picture. Leandros and Goodfellow didn’t say anything. They didn’t see it; they couldn’t see it. If they had, they would’ve said something—something like Wake up, Cal. You’re having a nightmare. But it wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a nightmare. Nightmares never are nightmares when you want them to be.
I held my hand out under the brightest light by the couch and it was still there, that murky film. The Cal of the worst day ever … pathetic, lame excuse. The Cal of the Halloween picture with ice in his eyes and a flat expression that said killing was nothing but a hobby. You—in the sights of my gun? Sorry—you’re nothing but a pastime. You didn’t come close to ranking as personal. Hope you had a littermate who cared you died, because the only thing I cared about was making sure your blood stayed off my new sneakers. Your blood? That was easy to come by. But good shoes? Much harder.
Shit. Shitshitshit. It hurt. Why the hell did it hurt? “My head …” It wasn’t my head, but I couldn’t say where exactly it was. I knew what it was, though, not that it made any sense.
It was my soul; my damn soul hurt.
“I feel wrong. Something bad is coming.” They were stupid, overly dramatic words I couldn’t stop myself from saying. I hid my shadowed hand under my leg, sandwiched by the couch cushion. They couldn’t see it, but I could. Why had I said that? Something bad is coming? What the hell did that mean?
Something bad is coming.
No, something gooooood.
“Wrong?” Niko echoed, the corners of his mouth tilting downward.
“Sick. I meant sick. Not right. Just a headache.” With my other hand I took the dish towel my brother handed me and wiped my suddenly sweaty face with it. It was a cold sweat, like beads of ice frozen to my skin. “Why did I do that to the mummy?” Because he deserved it and I’d liked it. I’d slipped my leash and let myself like it. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I’d chopped him up and I’d enjoyed every second of it. Whether it killed him or not, how could that be right?
How could it be wrong?
Jesus. If you were going to have voices, your own voices, screwing with your head, they ought to have the fucking decency to agree with each other at least once. I wiped my face again. “Why didn’t I just leave him like he was? Why’d I go that far?” I asked it aloud, to myself but not to the others.
“You see?” Leandros said to Goodfellow quietly.
Before I could ask what he was meant to see, Goodfellow stood suddenly. “If you’re sick, then I had best be off. I can’t afford to come down with some ancient, dusty disease you picked up in that equally ancient and dusty basement. I have places to go, things to do, peris to puck.” He put on his coat. “I don’t suppose you had a chance to tell Wahanket about my monogamous ways before you roasted and chopped him into Mongolian barbecue? Don’t bother with excuses. My condition is everyone’s concern.” He tossed a handful of business cards on the table. They were green with bronze-colored lettering. Trying to cover up my confusion, reaching for casual, I picked one up with a hand that wanted to shake. I didn’t let it, and read the lettering aloud. “‘Robin Goodfellow, Monogamite, established 2010.’” Beneath that was a phone number.
“What’s the—”
“Suicide Hotline,” Robin answered before I had a chance to finish. “I’ve heard their call volume has increased tenfold.” He bowed his head in a solemn tilt. “I do what I can.” Then he was heading for the door. “Niko, I left you a few things as you’ve not been eating much while we looked for your wayward, apron-wearing brother. Enjoy. I’ll see the two of you later. I just have time to surprise Ishiah before he heads to work.” He paused as he opened the door, his eyebrows rising as he smirked. “Forget mice and men. The best-laid plans of vice and sin never go astray.”
He added more seriously, “But other things often do, well intentioned or not. Something to keep in mind.”
As the door slammed, I said, “There’s a lot I didn’t understand with that whole conversation and a lot I wish I hadn’t understood. Maybe I’ll skip the Ninth Circle.” There was no way I was going to the bar. Halloween Cal waited at the bar. I wasn’t ready to be Halloween Cal. At that moment I wasn’t ready to be any kind of Cal. “You don’t think Goodfellow and my boss have done it on the bar, do you? Where I serve drinks? Gah. I think I need a nap to wash my brain.” That was good. That sounded offhand, not on the edge of losing it at all … Never mind the sweat still soaking the back of my neck, the pain, the sickness so sharp I’d have left my own body to escape it if I could.
Leandros was already in the kitchen area, investigating the bags Goodfellow had left behind. He pulled out containers of yogurt, soy cheese, and various other inedibles, but then he tossed me a boxed tube of toothpaste. Minty fresh. Chocolate minty fresh. “You took your own with you to South Carolina and judging from the sounds of gagging coming from the bathroom last night, mine doesn’t meet your approval.”
“Seawe
ed is apparently not my dental care of choice. Hard to believe, I know.” I pushed up off the couch, steadying myself while he watched from the corner of his eye.
“Are you all right?” He tried to sound casual too, but he didn’t pull it off well. Not with me. Leandros … No … Niko. Niko—he’d always hated lying, all the lying we’d had to do as kids when we had run from … from …
The pain sharpened, leaving only thoughts of bed and collapse. “Just a headache, that’s all,” I repeated, my lie not much better than his. I avoided his face and a concern as sharp as the sickness in me and headed back for my bedroom. I didn’t stop by the bathroom … until Niko spoke up as I passed it.
“Chili cheese dog with extra onions.” That would’ve been the vendor five blocks from the museum. “I’m surprised your breath alone didn’t do to Wahanket what lighter fluid and a lighter did. Brush.”
I was barely on my feet, but I didn’t argue. That would only lead to more time wasted before I made it to my bed. I also knew bitching about it would result in an educational beat-down on the sparring mats or toothpaste squirted into an unsuspecting body orifice. I chose to brush my teeth. I wasn’t afraid of my brother, but I was aware of his limits—none that I knew of.
None that I remembered.
Memories, feelings, pain, fear—fast, coming so damn fast. I was close—God, I was right there, as if it all were on the tip of my tongue. It was, surprisingly, not the best taste in the world. Not sweet, almost bitter with a copper hint of blood. Should coming home taste of blood? I brushed quickly, but extra hard. Chocolate and mint had it all over seaweed, even if the mint had a helluva tingle. If that didn’t erase onion breath and the metallic taste of a brand-new penny, nothing would. Then I made it across the hall to my bed. I didn’t stagger, but it was close. I could feel my brain bunched like a fist, one that was getting ready to relax into an open hand. I had every expectation that a little sleep would finally reset my brain and when I woke up, it would be back.