Sooner would be my bet, and those, unfortunately, were always the bets I won.
I drove on while Niko meditated. I didn’t see Bigfoot, not until we arrived at the RV park, and then I saw them everywhere. Campers with their shirts off and backs hairier than any Sasquatch, Yeti, or woolly mammoth combined. My trigger finger twitched because, honestly, was someone with a carpet on his back, plaid shorts, socks and sandals, any less of a threat to the world—at least visually? But I drove past them and didn’t shoot a single one. I wished for a Weedwacker or a little temporary blindness, but I didn’t shoot, and that got chalked in the success column.
I followed Abelia- Roo’s directions via Nik, who’d gotten them from her when he’d spoken with her on the phone. He’d written them down for me in his neat, precise handwriting. “Hey, we’re here. Nap’s over.”
“Meditation isn’t a nap and if you think it is, maybe once an hour isn’t enough for you.” Niko nodded toward a gravel road to the right.
Hourly was doable. Five, ten minutes and I zipped right through the mantras counted on my mala, but zipping through them probably wasn’t the point. But flying through them or not, it was obviously working, or the meditation combined with the death of the Auphe was working. I’d made those three gates in the past six months without any of the Auphe side effects of the past. It was simple. I didn’t lose myself to it or to something buried in me. I owned it now. It didn’t own me. Only getting Niko to see that was going to be a trick, because he had seen the times it had owned me. And the memory of an Auphe-hissing brother, teeth stained with blood, and sanity on a temporary vacation, stuck with a person. It had stuck with Nik; that was for sure.
I just had to get him to see the light, and with his being equally as stubborn as I was, that was going to be a problem. When he was smarter than I was and capable of picking me up off the ground by my neck à la Darth Vader without the asthma—not that he would, but he could—that meant I rarely won an argument. At least I had the upper hand in knowing he wouldn’t actually kill me—no matter how much I deserved it.
I stopped the car before a half circle of about thirty RVs. There wasn’t a single person outside. That was different from the last time. They’d been wary, but I’d seen women, kids, and the not-so-shy-and-retiring muscle Branje who’d almost lost his nose to my temper. “How much do you think they have? The Sarzo Clan? Like down to the penny?”
“Fair-sized clan.” He took in the condition of the RVs. “Their homes aren’t too old, definitely not decrepit. Important enough to have several antiques lying about for sale.” Like the Calabassa crown that had nearly been the cause of his death. “Liquid assets, probably a hundred thousand. Abelia- Roo is sharp in all ways. I doubt her money-making skills are any less effective.”
“Okay then.” I pulled the key from the ignition and tossed it to him. “In case you want to listen to the radio,” I said, smirking.
His eyebrows went up. “You think I’m going to let you do the negotiating without me? You wanted to pistol-whip her last night. Both of us would provide a more balanced approach.”
“Is that your tactful way of saying we play Good Ninja, Bad Monster?” I asked. I opened the door and climbed out of the oven. Draping over the top of the immovable window, I leaned down. “I need this, Nik. Because of her, you almost died. All she had to do was say a few words to warn us. Just a couple and she didn’t. If it had been me instead of you, wouldn’t you want to make her pay a little?”
That brought the brows down, the expression disappearing from his face. “I would want her to pay more than a little. I would want her to pay a great deal, which is why I don’t think your being alone with her is a good idea.”
“I won’t lay a finger on her, swear,” I promised.
He tilted his head, face still impassive.
“Or a knife or a gun,” I added reluctantly. “Just talking, but I want to be mean and I want to be nasty. If you’re there, I won’t be able to be all that. Unfortunately, big brother, you bring out the best in me.” And while the best wasn’t much, it might be enough for me to see her—just for a second—as an ancient old lady, somebody’s great-grandma, instead of the malicious piece of work she was, one who nearly lost me my only family.
“I want payback,” I finished. “But I won’t touch a hair on her balding, snapping turtle head to get it, okay?”
He sighed. “Ten minutes. I’ll go ahead and start regretting my decision now and get that out of the way, but in ten minutes to the second I am coming in for you.”
“Ten is all I’ll need.” That was big talk when our first bargaining encounter with the Sarzo had included Robin, who had ripped off anyone and everyone for the entirety of his long life, my knife up Branje’s nose, and about five hours total of cursing, dickering, haggling, and the traditional imbibing of blackberry brandy. Maybe I should’ve been worried. I wasn’t. I’d been pretending to be human then.
I wasn’t now.
I closed the car door and headed straight for her RV. I recognized it from last time. It was the only one with a cotton candy pink door. It’s the baddest of witches that always have the best candy, isn’t it? I didn’t bother knocking. I wasn’t a polite kind of guy. Opening the door, I walked in to find her waiting at the small kichenette table. “I don’t see Hansel or Gretel. Did you eat them already?”
“You talk to your elders like that? Have you no shame?” she said sharply, the dark skin over her cheek-bones faded to a dirty pale gray.
Well, well. Look who didn’t like me anymore.
“Nope, not one tiny bit. And that’s a real pity for you, Abelia-Roo.” She was gray- faced, hands twisted in what looked like a painful knot before her on the table, the rank smell of fear floating around her like a cloud. Her eyes were looking at me, sliding away quickly, then looking again.
She knew all right—knew about me.
They all knew. That’s why every single Sarzo was hiding in his camper, hiding from the monster, hiding from me. Once it would’ve eaten away at me. Once I would’ve despised the unnatural within. Now I just used it and, quite frankly, didn’t care if these people thought I was worse than any story-tale demon—worse than a vampire, werewolf, boggle, troll, or revenant. The Rom knew what most people didn’t. They knew what lurked in the shadow of the world. They knew all the creatures that lived secret lives and they knew the Auphe—first predator, first murderer, first monster. All that meant they thought they knew me.
And that was going to make negotiations so much easier. After all, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t planned on telling her myself, but this worked even better. Someone had done me a favor. She’d had a while to think about me and this meeting, and none of those thoughts would’ve been too pleasant. They really wanted that Suyolak guy back badly if they were willing to pay the devil times ten to do their dirty work.
Payback’s a bitch, Abelia, I thought as I slid into the booth opposite her, just like you. So get ready to suck it up.
I looked around at the pink and green checkered couch with its small coffee table. There wasn’t a crystal ball or pack of tarot cards in sight. Only ruffles, a flower-patterned rug under the table, and the fading smell of cinnamon from that morning’s breakfast. All that was missing were big-eyed kitten teacups. “Damn, Abelia, you’ve gone all Martha Stewart on me. Where’s the good stuff? The ‘love spells,’ the cards, the paste engagement rings, the hexes? How does all this Bible Belt country charm not dissolve you into a puff of smoke?”
That brought a glare out of her. “We do our work and we do it well. If the buyer is a fool, that is no fault of mine if they end up with less than they expected.”
True enough. But I wasn’t a fool and I’d still ended up with something I hadn’t expected when she’d sold us the Calabassa—the near sacrifice of my brother.
I pulled out my knife and balanced it on its tip in the center of the table, then rotated it slowly with a lazy back-and-forth twist of my wrist. I’d told Nik that I wouldn’t use it; I didn’t s
ay I wouldn’t show it. “Against my better judgment,” I said casually, “and, oh, despite our general loathing and hatred of you, my brother and I have decided to take the job. It’ll cost you fifty thousand dollars.”
She snorted, but it was a weak imitation of her usual snap. “Even a Vayash, even a gadje barters better than that—to start so impossibly high.” Idly I noticed that matching candy pink curtains were drawn over the tiny window. Petal pink and this poisonous centipede of a woman; it would make you think twice about that old saying about stopping to smell the roses. There was no telling what would scuttle out and bite you when you did.
I smiled as the knife continued to turn . . . just as the gate began to turn behind me. I started it small, out of her sight hidden by my back, and let it grow until it was a full-sized mass of writhing gray light. “But I’m not gadje, at least not the kind of outsider you mean, am I?” I let my curved lips peel back to show my teeth. Some would’ve called it a grin, but only those like me—born in the world’s shadow.
“Fifty thousand, take it or leave it.” I turned my head slightly, letting my eyes slide toward the tarnished light. “Or you could go through there. Trade instead of money. Would you like to see what’s on the other side, Abelia-Roo? Step through there and maybe we’ll take care of your ‘tiny’ problem for free. You won’t find a better deal than that.” I showed more teeth. “Go on. Aren’t you even curious?”
Her wattled neck convulsed as she swallowed, blackbird eyes surrounded by white. She managed to look anywhere but at the gate . . . or at me. “That . . . that is more than half of everything we have.”
“You almost cost me my brother, who is the whole of everything I have. It seems more than fair to me.” I stopped spinning the knife and slapped it flat on the table as the gate crept closer behind me. I could feel it. Eager but contained, and good; it felt damn good and nothing like before—no thirst for blood, no shredding of my control, no consuming hunger.
All right. Maybe a little hunger.
But mainly the feeling I could do anything; be anything; was everything. “You pay or we leave.” I stood but braced my arms on the table. “I really don’t give a shit either way. But when I do leave”—I looked at the gate again, thinking fondly what a good boy it was—“I’m leaving my friend behind.”
I took my knife, slid it into its sheath, and headed for the RV door. “Enjoy. I opened it in the middle of a boggle nest. Have anything in your little bags for a boggle?” She didn’t move, frozen—the mighty Abelia-Roo, who ruled with an iron fist and hadn’t bothered to spare a word to save my brother’s life, finally facing something she couldn’t control, couldn’t curse, and couldn’t con.
“I didn’t think so.” I swung the door open. “Tell Mama Boggle you’re a friend of mine when she comes through. She really loves me. I’m like the half- Auphe bastard son she never had.”
I was letting the door swing shut behind me when she let out a strangled, “No, we’ll pay.”
Because she thought I’d actually do it, and it could be she was right. My brother brought out the best in me. People who messed with my brother brought out the very worst.
I caught the door. “Is that so? Damn. I’d been hoping you’d say no.” I let the gate thin to nothing. I thought about it first, a long moment, but finally I did let it go before I motioned out the door to Nik. This time I did let it swing shut and went back to my former seat. “Who told you about me? Not that it matters. It’s not a big secret these days. I’m just curious. And don’t I rate any of that blackberry brandy?” She forked the evil eye at me. I forked my own economy version right back—just the one finger needed. “What do they say? The pot calling the kettle black?” I drawled.
“The Vayash told us,” she said between disgusting puckered lips. “I called them after contacting you at the bar. I wanted to know if you were hard workers, would do well by us. Instead, they warned us and revealed to us what you are. Your clan revealed their shame to protect their fellow Rom. It is the kind of loyalty and honor our people share with one another, not that a creature like you could understand that.”
“The same loyalty and honor you showed us at our last business arrangement?” Niko asked as he came through the door. “And if you think my brother is so lacking in it, why do you want to hire us?”
“Sometimes only evil can find evil, can detect its blackened wake.” She looked as if she wanted to spit to cleanse her mouth of a bad taste, but that wouldn’t have done her squeaky-clean linoleum any good.
“Takes a monster to catch a monster. Maybe I can get that on a T-shirt.” I wedged myself in the corner to give Niko’s longer legs some room, then promptly elbowed him for having the audacity to be a few inches taller than I was. Not my usual “on the job” behavior, but I wasn’t looking to impress Abelia-Roo. She was impressed enough. Impress her any more and I might short out that shriveled black wad of phlegm she called a heart. While that might do the world a favor, it wouldn’t get us fifty thousand dollars or save the world from a murderous, psychotic, and by now, claustrophobic, antihealer.
Niko did something under the table that cut off all feeling below my right knee. Catholic nuns had their rulers; Niko had his one hundred seventy- six ways of making you regret you had nerve endings. I winced and reluctantly tried for a more businesslike demeanor. “Nik, Abelia here, loving and generous granny that she is, is paying us fifty thousand dollars to find their lost jack-in-the-box, killer-in-the-box, whatever you want to call it. Where do we start?”
“Fifty-thousand? That is generous. Most generous indeed.” The gaze Nik turned on me let me know I was lucky he didn’t do something that didn’t paralyze me from the neck down instead of the knee and then pound my head against the table. He didn’t ask how I’d managed to get such a good deal—he knew. Big brothers could always look at their little brothers and not only know they’d been bad, but how they’d been bad. And brothers didn’t come any sharper than mine.
I’d been aware of what I was going to do when I got out of the car and I’d been aware I’d have to pay the price, not from the gate itself, but from my brother. I’d done it anyway. If I had to pay a little for Abelia to pay a lot, then that was the way it had to be.
“Fifty thousand,” I confirmed. “But no brandy. Although with your being pure Rom and human to boot, I’d think you’d rate.”
“Forget the brandy.” Niko turned back to Abelia-Roo, one more narrowed glance letting me know other things wouldn’t be so easily forgotten. Those things were starting to add up at a fast and furious rate. I had four gates to pay for now. “When was Suyolak taken? Do you have a description of the men and the truck they transferred the coffin into? And were there any strangers around beforehand, asking questions about Rom culture or history?”
“A researcher, you mean. A professor and, yes, one did. We are Rom, not naïve sheep. Of course we know he was behind it. He came to talk of our legends. He brought up the legend of Suyolak over and over. Could he really heal any wound, any illness? We took his money, spun him nonsense tales, and sent him on his way. We’d planned on moving on the next day anyway, but the next day was not soon enough.” She pounded her fist sharply against the table. “Johai! The card he gave us was false. The name equally false. He was a tall man, silver hair, dark eyes.” Her hands fluttered about, then disappeared and reappeared with one of her infamous tiny bags. “That night they came, night before last. The truck had no license plate. The men wore jeans, black shirts, and ski masks. They shot five of our clan; shot them dead and carried Suyolak away.”
Niko said, “He needs someone healed then.” I nodded in agreement. Whoever it was hadn’t been trying to hide that.
“It would seem.” Abelia had spilled a small mound of gray powder on the table and was stirring it randomly with a sticklike finger. “We gathered the rest of our men and drove the roads searching for them, but found nothing. The Plague of the World was gone.”
By now she’d drawn an elaborate figure in the powder, one pi
ece of it pointed at me like a spear. I snorted and passed my hand over it, wiping it out and leaving a clean surface of powder. I drew a tic-tac-toe design in the middle. The letters to “screw you” fit perfectly—it even left a nice neat space between the two words.
“Unless that’s anthrax and you’ve gotten Ebola-infected flying monkeys waiting outside for me, you’re out of luck,” I responded. “I know you fool the marks, but didn’t your mommy tell you there was no such thing as magic?” The Calabassa she’d sold us had been a thing of technology made by a race long extinct. Iron and zinc were proven to block psychics . . . by science. I knew that because Nik had made me watch some long, boring documentary on it. And mummy cats? Wahanket infused them with a tiny portion of his own life force. . . . I absolutely did not want to know how.
But magic? Spells and fairy dust? Fall into the piranha pool at the local zoo and try tossing your magic powder at them. See what happens—beyond seasoning the human soup, doubtfully much. To believe in magic, you had to have faith. I saved my faith, what faith I had, for lead and steel, guns and blades. They worked. Even monsters laughed at the idea of magic.
She swept the powder back into the bag. “I and five of my best will follow you in your search. We will need to be there to escort the coffin back to the clan.”
True. We’d need one of their RVs. People are going to give you a second look when you’re driving down the interstate with a coffin strapped to the top of your car. Then again, I’d sooner ride on top of that coffin buck naked, eating nachos and waving a Yankees foam finger, than have Abelia-Roo tagging along.
“We can rent a truck,” I said dismissively, “when we find it. Or just use the one we find it in.”
“You will also need me to make sure the seals are intact on the coffin.”
“We’ll get a padlock. There are Home Depots everywhere.” I nudged Niko with my shoulder to move the situation along. “Hand over the money. We’ll call you when we have what’s-his-name back.”