All of it.
And fighting it was senseless. There’d be no more wondering who I was. No wondering if I was Halloween Cal. I was thinking bad things, wrong things, because all the knots unraveling in my brain were confusing me; that was all. I wasn’t wasting any more time on the imaginary right and wrong of them. I’d spent only days in this life. How the hell could I know right from wrong in this bizarre world in just days? When I woke up, I would be who I was meant to be. No more doubts, no more freaky voices or hallucinations of shadows that didn’t exist. I’d had enough, and I didn’t mind telling myself or my brain so. I yanked the covers up and rolled over as the afternoon light spilled down from above. I closed my eyes and yawned. The pain, wherever it was, head or heart, was suddenly fading, slipping away like sand between my fingers—Egyptian sand. The sickness and pain disappeared along with the last grain to fall. God, that was better.
I was coming home, all the way this time, I thought, foggy and dim.
For better or worse? I didn’t know. I’d find out soon enough.
The next time I opened my eyes, I’d know.
The next time I opened my eyes …
8
I opened my eyes and had no fucking clue where I was.
There were twilight shadows spilling around me. They came from windows almost two stories up. Damn. Too high. Dropping my gaze, I faced a wall full of holes where Screw you was spelled out, connect-the-dot style. There was a flash of pain behind my eyes and I grunted, sucking in a breath. Don’t panic. Think it out. Okay, okay, what was all this? What … Leandros. I exhaled harshly in relief. That was right. Leandros, my brother. He’d found me at the diner in Nevah’s Landing and had brought me back. I was in his apartment. My apartment too, he’d said. We’d gotten here yesterday, or had it been the day before, two days before? I wasn’t sure. Goddamn it, I couldn’t remember. Shit, keep it together. Let it go and concentrate on something you are sure of.
Monsters.
There’d been monsters, a shitload of monsters. We fought monsters for a living. Giant lizards in Central Park, a Wolf who’d jumped me from the top of a building—a beautiful predator and gone now. Hopefully to a place that welcomed the wild when they died. Then there’d been a mummy. It was mostly clearing up until the mummy part—that memory cut out almost instantly to the smallest of bits and pieces. There’d been someone choking me, a fire, and an axe. That was all mixed up. Fuzzy and distant.
I was leaving it that way. Whatever memory I was not having, I was completely happy to not be having it. It felt wrong, as if something best locked in a box and shoved under the bed. The smell of burning frankincense, myrrh, and wine—I could forget that too, because I didn’t know what frankincense and myrrh smelled like, did I? How would I know that?
Oh. The cat. The damn dead mummy cat from the bar. She’d smelled like the world’s most expensive deodorizer. Leandros had used her as a tool to bore me with a lesson in how mummies were made and what ingredients were used in the process. He’d said it was the fourth time he’d told me and I could blame only one of those times on amnesia.
The mummy in the basement and the mummy cat smelled the same—if you took away the smell of burned flesh, which I did. Or tried and failed. All right then, the smell I couldn’t forget, but everything else I could. We’d been in a museum basement. There was a talking mummy and somewhere along the way a fire. I could’ve tried to push past that, but I didn’t want to. If I didn’t want to, then I probably had a good reason.
“Cal, are you feeling better?”
My hand started automatically for the gun under the pillow. I managed to stop it halfway. It was Leandros. Niko. My brother. At the diner, he’d disarmed me. I stabbed a guy with a fork… . Goodfellow; all monsters weren’t bad; NYC; peris; vamps; Wolves—it all ran through my head. It was faded, not nearly as sharp as I thought it should’ve been, but it was all there—a little muddled, but not gone. I moved my hand back from the gun, although I knew the shadowed figure standing in my doorway had seen the movement. I ran the gun hand through my hair instead. It flopped into my eyes, making me feel like a predator peering through the grass on the plains waiting for its next meal to pass by. Or I could be an ill-groomed Shetland pony. I was going to get that barber one day.
“Cal?”
I tried again with the hair and this time succeeded in actual sight. “Not bad. Why?”
“You said you felt sick before you went to bed and slept through the afternoon and all night. Are you running a fever?” The figure formed from shadows into my brother, braid and sparring sweats, as he stepped into my room. I didn’t know if he was going to go for the mom’s-hand-on-the-forehead TV commercial, whip out a thermometer, or wave a hand around me to judge the ambient temperature of the air in my immediate area. All sounded as if they would kick me several slots down the list of most macho badasses in the city.
I slid out of bed on the other side, keeping it between us. “No, no fever. I’m not sick.” I barely remembered going to bed. Only a bad feeling … dread—good old hokey Edgar Allan Poe type of black houses, withered graveyard trees, ravens-at-your-door dread, and pain. Hadn’t there been pain? I couldn’t remember. There had been the darkness of sleep, and now I was up and I felt okay. Not fantastic, but all right. “I think,” I said, hesitating, but he was my brother. If anyone had a right to know, he did—my primary babysitter. A babysitter. Jesus, how embarrassing. “I think I might’ve had some kind of relapse with the spider venom. When I woke up, things were foggy. They cleared up for the most part. I remember you finding me in South Carolina, bringing me back. I remember this place and going to a bar where a Wolf tried to kill me. I remember nearly everything trying to kill me, including Ammut. And then I remember the museum and that there was a talking mummy, but that’s about it. Once I hit the mummy, things are gone. I don’t remember much of any of that or after that. There are a lot of gaps. I don’t remember what the mummy said. I don’t remember leaving the museum. I remember getting back here … a little. I think Goodfellow was here.” I shook my head. “And then I went to bed.”
Because it had all been coming back. Coming in your sleep. The best place to keep hidden treasures.
The best place to lock up the worst nightmares.
I was within seconds of grabbing the gun and smacking my own head with the butt. Amnesia was enough. I was tired unto death of dealing with squabbling inner voices too, especially when it was literally my own voice I was hearing. I was actually beginning to hate the sound of my voice. Enough was enough.
“Come here.” A hand reached over my bed to pull me around it and across the hall into the bathroom. “Sit.”
I put the toilet lid down and sat. That, at least, ruled out one less-manly place to get my temperature taken. Niko’s hand pushed my head with care to one side as he examined the puncture with gloved fingers. Whoa. “Um … Where’d the surgical gloves come from?”
“Goodfellow. He’s a proctologist on the weekends.” Before I could comment on how wrong that was, how very, very wrong, he continued. “Amnesia and gullibility, I didn’t know they went hand in hand. We have gloves because we have many medical supplies as our on-thejob injuries are frequently the kind the hospitals rarely see, which would lead to questions we can’t answer. We make do with our own medical skills.” Now there was the cool feel of ointment being rubbed on the bite, as casually as he’d done it a thousand times before. The question he asked was less casual. It should’ve sounded casual… . It was only hair, but that wasn’t the vibe I was getting. “Why did you cut your hair?”
Could they come more out of the blue than that one? “To get the Goodfellow seal of approval?” I snorted. I already knew there was something wrong with my haircut if the puck liked it. “It’s just hair. What’s the big deal?”
“Our clan, the Vayash, some intermingled a time or two with the Northern Greek centuries ago. We picked up a custom of theirs—when someone dies, you cut your hair to mourn their passing.” That … That was
yet less casual than before. But before when? When no answer was forthcoming in my memories, I let it go.
I could see his point, why it was important to him and not casual at all. In a way someone had died when I’d first woken up—me. But that person would be back. Resurrected, although it was taking longer than three days. I ran a hand over the mop of jaw-length hair. “I had spider goop stuck in it. I couldn’t get it out for anything. That stuff is worse than superglue. I had to chop it off. Nobody died but a bunch of spiders, and I think those bastards had it coming.
“That they did.” Discussion over. I couldn’t tell for sure if he was relieved or not at my answer, but I thought he was. No, I knew he was. Leandros had a labyrinth of a brain, no getting past that, but I was getting better at navigating it. “The bite isn’t infected,” he said. “I would say your immune system is still fighting off the venom, but even at whatever reduced dose you received, it’s a challenge. As with any other allergic reaction or flu, you’ll get better, get worse, and get better again.” He taped a square of gauze over it. “As you remember the important things such as where you keep your guns and how to use them, this is nothing but an inconvenience.”
I plucked at the bottom of my T-shirt and held it out to better see the lettering. It must’ve been the one I’d worn to the museum, because I didn’t remember changing when I fell into bed last night. King of the fucking universe. That was above and beyond the one I’d been wearing on the beach, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. “I’d say being an inconvenience is something I’m good at.”
“Ah …” Leandros stalled while pulling off the glove and throwing it away, but when he was caught by my expectant stare, he gave in. “Yes, you live to exasperate, irritate, piss off, and at times enrage others, but only those you think deserve it. You were a born smart-ass, Cal. Trust me, I was there when it happened, and that will never change.”
Something had changed, though. My brain had hopped a bus and gone bye-bye again, at least for yesterday. I remembered Ammut trying to drown me. I also remembered something else. It had come back instantly when Leandros had asked about my hair. Cutting and mourning—it hadn’t made me remember anything the night had stolen, but it had brought out one emotion, a gut feeling that couldn’t be denied any more than the rising or setting of the sun.
Leandros wasn’t a man who said he was my brother. He was my brother. Le … Niko was my brother and he’d lost me days ago, almost lost me the night before, and lost more of me again last night. He could stall all he wanted, but he was floundering and badly and I knew it. My memory didn’t have to tell me that; my gut did.
“We need to go out and check with Mickey, our other informant. He might know more than Wahanket. Take a shower and get dressed. Oh, and where Mickey lives, dress down, although considering what you normally wear, I’m not sure that’s possible. And for Buddha’s sake, brush your teeth. I’m beginning to think a boggle lives in your mouth at night when you sleep.”
Yeah, ignoring my relapse was a time-honored way to cover up what he actually felt, but he wasn’t getting away with it. Memories were hard to come by, but now I did have one thing and I wasn’t letting go of it. I had a brother, and I was going to show Niko that he still did too.
“Sure,” I said agreeably. “I just need to do one thing first.”
One small thing.
Hours later I was still doing it.
“What are you looking for?”
He’d asked once before and I could tell he thought he was being extremely patient when he asked again. And he was. Just as he was being patient dragging me out of a kill shed before some mysterious organization called the Vigil (how lame was that name?) showed up and sanitized our asses; or when he made me cards so I wouldn’t kill the wrong person or jump the bones of someone who’d kill me and use my bones for jewelry. He’d been patient when I’d stabbed the puck with a fork and tried to a few more times. He’d been patient when I’d been mildly appalled that we lived together—no wild bachelor freedom for either of us. Those memories I still had in a somewhat faded fashion. The other I was less able to recall, but I grabbed hold of it, stifled by shadows as it was.
He’d been as patient as was possible when he’d shown me a picture of him and me and some other people standing around. I didn’t remember exactly why I hadn’t liked the picture or whom I’d insulted in it, but I knew I had. I’d said something harsh and nasty, and he’d been patient with that as well.
That was one thing I wasn’t looking for—that picture. It had disappeared into one of yesterday’s memory gaps and it could stay there. I didn’t want to know why it had freaked me out. Or why it had made me say things I didn’t remember, but I knew those things weren’t too nice. Not fucking nice at all. But it didn’t matter, because if I accidentally stumbled across it, I’d toss it over my shoulder without a single look and keep going.
What I was looking for took two hours to find as I tore through the garage apartment like a tornado, which was appropriate, considering the midnight black morning sky outside with crashing peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. I didn’t pay it any attention as I kept moving, leaving weapons, food, furniture, clothes, anything I could lift, in my wake. What I was looking for, well, was pretty simple—I was looking for a break. Yeah, two hours, but I finally got it. I finally got that break.
I broke Niko Leandros.
I was beginning to paw through an Oriental lacquered chest against one wall in the living room when a hand grabbed my shirt and lifted me up to my toes. With his face in mine, he was looking much less stoic than he had since I’d first seen him. Met him. Seen him again after losing my memory and missing for days. Whatever.
“What … are … you … looking … for?” He enunciated each word with an angry pause between each one. The patience was all gone, which meant we might get somewhere. His darker skin was reddened, his eyes were slits, and he smelled how I imagined a charging rhino would smell. Rage—sheer out-of-its-cage fury.
Why had I been looking for this? One pissy superninja who could kill you with a pickle, resuscitate you, make you eat it, and then kill you again? Because Leandros was off his game. He was off his game because he’d lost his brother, and when you fight monsters, you can’t be off your game. Period. I didn’t know how I knew he wasn’t himself, but it was the same as with the other things I knew without any past associations to back them up. How my brain managed to work around my missing life to spit it out was a secret to me, but it wasn’t wrong and Leandros wasn’t right.
He was quiet. He’d been the quiet kind since he’d shown up to get me, I did recall that—not the mummy in the basement, but the quiet I did remember. He’d gotten quieter since Ammut and the canal and since I’d said what I had, whatever it had been about that picture, which made this quiet a different one. Uncomfortable, not Zen. We’d had Zen on tap on the trip from South Carolina, and then we’d had this non-Kwai Chang Caine version since this morning … since he’d asked about my hair, as if he thought I really had cut it to mourn my own death. His brother’s death. Although he’d come across to me as reassured as best as I could tell, it hadn’t changed his mood. He’d gone from right to wrong, but with the past few days and my near death. I didn’t blame him, because the man blamed himself more than I ever could. I was hoping that, as with lots of things in this world, I could fix him with one good swift kick—and two hours of destroying his obsessively clean world was just that. Now here was hoping he reacted like most appliances when you smacked ‘em.
Presto—toaster, thou art healed. Make with the English muffin.
“Me? I’m looking for a map.” I grinned before saying more somberly, “I need a map. But what are you looking for, Leandros? What do you need?”
He looked at me as if he didn’t know himself, before giving in. “My brother.” He let go of my shirt, dropping me back on my heels, and turned his back to me. “Goddamn it, I need my brother.”
“And I’m not him?” He already regretted what he’d sa
id. I saw the rise and fall of his shoulders, his head bow, and a spine stiff enough I was surprised it didn’t shatter like brittle ice. But it didn’t as he walked over to one of the cabinets next to the refrigerator and brought back a neatly folded map of New York City.
“You could be, but, no. You’re not.” I could be, but I wasn’t? Unless my memory came back and then I would be. Or would I? He said I wasn’t his brother with as much belief and conviction as if that brother truly was dead and buried, his coming back an impossibility. That was confusing and then some, especially after he’d spent so much time on the drive back from South Carolina convincing me he was my brother. He all but stopped at a drugstore to see if they had a Whozurbrudder box next to the Whozurdaddy paternity test. I’m your brother. I swear I’m your brother. Hand to Buddha, I am your brother. On and on.
The mummy I couldn’t or didn’t want to remember, but that endless debate I couldn’t forget. Figured.
But, now, wait—this guy suddenly thinks, maybe I’m not his brother after all? The “What the fuck?” thought bubble over my head was implied, because, seriously, What the fuck?
I sat down on the workout mats and he sat opposite me. He pulled apart his braid with impatient fingers. Callused hands, hair long and from another time, eyes the color of an iron sword. If it weren’t for the darker skin, I’d expect him to be leading a charge of Vikings, swinging an axe, and taking the head of everyone who passed his way. Born too late, he was meant to be a warlord or a general or a god to both, with blood-soaked altars and every first son named for him.
But this wasn’t then and he’d shown himself to be a man of control, because if he wasn’t, what might he do with what nature had given him? His mind knew that, but his body belonged to the past. Warlord, general, god. All three sounded damn lonely things to be. You couldn’t be friends with someone who might die that day or the next. If you did, you’d pay. For every friend or comrade, you’d pay. Those days were ancient history, but we were living a reflection of them now. When you fought for your life, wouldn’t you need someone—just one person—who would always be there? Who was good enough to win those fights? Wouldn’t you need to know you wouldn’t end up a sole survivor? Alone in a world where the monsters never stopped coming? Wouldn’t you need that to not go out of your damn mind?