Nightlife

  And then it was too late. Mr. Gladhand Luke was on us like shark on chum. "Gentlemen, beautiful day, isn't it? Rob Fellows, at your service. What can I put you in today?" Cards were slipped in our hands with the quicksilver finesse of a Vegas magician. "Sports car? SUV? Maybe something thrifty with the gas? Foreign and domestic, we've got it all." He waved a hand. "You leaning toward a color? Red is popular, naturally, but you two…" He leaned back an inch and framed us with his hands. "I'm thinking simple black. Good color. Can't be beat. I have a brand-new Camaro over in the far corner. A jewel it is, a veritable glory. And, here we go. This way. Watch your step."

  Okay, here was a man for whom caffeine wasn't an occasional indulgence; it was the actual fluid pulsing through his veins. He was a veritable whirlwind and it was distracting as hell, almost distracting enough.

  But not quite.

  He smelled weird. Different. Not human. He looked human, though, thoroughly. In his early thirties, he had short curly chestnut hair and revealed the cheerfully amoral green gaze of a fox when he pulled off his sunglasses to indicate a gleaming black car two rows over. His smiling, wide mouth was constantly in motion. He was the grown-up frat boy next door who'd conducted the panty raids, set up the keg, and knew everyone's name. Ex-BMOC. But in this case it stood for "Big Monster on Campus," because there wasn't a drop of human blood in him. The pungency of his scent was completely alien, oddly earthy, and like nothing I'd ever smelled before.

  It didn't take much to tip off Niko, just the briefest of glances and a minute shift of my stance. He narrowed his eyes a millimeter in acknowledgment, and almost before Fellows could make his pitch, Niko and I were ready to sign the papers. He seemed pleased, not suspicious in the slightest, smugly secure in his position as salesmonster of the year. There was probably even a plaque on his wall.

  Actually there were nearly twenty. I whistled lightly at the sight of them and settled into the chair on the other side of his desk as Niko drifted around the room. "Aren't you a regular Willy Loman?"

  That ever-present blinding smile became pained. "I like to think I'm more successful than that, Mr… er…" He leaned across the desk to extend his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't get your name."

  I took his hand, then wrist, in an iron grip and bared my teeth in a wolfish grin. "Caliban. Nice to meet you, Loman."

  The smile had melted off his face even before Niko ghosted up behind him, placing a knife at his throat. "What the hell?" He started to struggle against my hold but froze as a tiny thread of scarlet trickled down the line of his neck.

  "Sharp, isn't it?" I said sympathetically. "Niko does like to take care of his toys."

  "Not toys," Niko admonished, his blade as still and unmoving as stone. "They're more of a way of life. A philosophy." His mouth moved closer to Fellows's ear as he murmured serenely, "Perhaps even a religion."

  That'd put the chills up anyone's spine. Hell, make those vertebrae get up and take a walk, for that matter. I tilted my head and suggested lightly, "Maybe we should have a chat, Loman, before Niko decides to baptize you. What do you say?"

  I don't know what gave me away. He didn't smell the difference in me or he would've caught on much sooner. Maybe it was the way I quirked my head or my pale, pale skin? Could have been the near-murderous curve of my lips. Whatever it was, he knew. Somehow Fellows knew. The green eyes widened; the mobile face tightened. "Auphe. You're Auphe." There was wariness and a thread of sheer revulsion in his voice as the smooth cheer fractured into a hundred crystalline shards.

  Elf. Auphe. Grendel. A rose by any other name would still draw blood if you didn't watch the thorns. Niko's tranquillity vanished in a heartbeat as he hissed coldly, "He is not." Lifting the blade away, he fisted his hand in Fellows's suit to yank him out of his chair and slam him up against the wall. "But he can kill you as quickly as one, and so can I."

  Moving up shoulder to shoulder with my brother, I touched a fingertip to the small rivulet of blood on Fellows's skin and sniffed it. "Funny. It looks like human blood, but it sure as hell doesn't smell that way." I wiped it off on my jeans. "So, Loman, tell us… just what kind of monster are you? You eat children? Haunt graveyards? Drink blood and howl at the moon?" I shook my head before he could answer. "No. You don't smell like any of those things."

  "Because I'm not any of those things." He put a hand to his neck, wiped the blood away, and studied me with suddenly appraising eyes. "No more than you're Auphe. Not pure Auphe. I was wrong about that. But part, yes? Half?" An automatic grimace shimmered across his face. "I didn't know anything would breed with an Auphe. Even other Auphe are probably loath to do it. It would have to be a tale even the Grimm brothers would find too grim. Shakespeare would like it, though. But with a name like 'Caliban' I guess you already knew that."

  Niko lifted a disbelieving eyebrow in my direction. "He never stops. A creature that suffocates his victims with an unceasing flow of words. I don't recall that in any of the mythology books."

  "Horrible way to go." I hooked a hip on the edge of the desk and exhaled, threading both hands through my hair. "Loman, why don't you just shut up with all your goddamn questions and answer just one of ours, huh? How about it? If we like what you say, we can get on with our lives and maybe, just maybe, you can get on with yours."

  At that moment the door to the office swung open six inches and a bespectacled, wizened face topped by a lavender-tinted Albert Einstein do peered through at us with curious eyes. "Mr. Fellows, you have Steven Phillips waiting on two." Thin lips painted with a thick coat of bubblegum pink pursed as the eyes moved to Niko's grip on the monster's shirt. "Oh. You're… oh. Oh." She continued to blow bubbles like a confused goldfish until Fellows gave her a smooth, reassuring smile.

  "Everything's fine, Dorothea," he said with a genial sangfroid. "Tell Steve I'll call him back and he better have that Lexus he promised me. And could you bring my guests some coffee and some of those cranberry muffins? That's my doll."

  Dorothea gave him a flustered nod that had the glittering purple glass dangling from her earlobes ringing like wind chimes, and disappeared, closing the door behind her. And I had to wonder… when exactly did Niko and I lose control of the situation? Hell, did we ever even have it to begin with? I dropped my chin into my hand and groaned, "Ah, jeez."

  Niko palmed his blade, sliding it back into concealment, and gave me a rueful look. "It is difficult to threaten someone who doesn't have the necessary attention span to register fear."

  Fellows straightened his suit and ran a hand over his hair. "As if a pair of puppies like you could scare me," he snorted, but I noticed he gave Niko a wide berth as he moved back to his chair. Me… me, he kept in sight at all times, a combination of fascination and repulsion mixing in those cat eyes. Sitting, he placed his hands flat on the desk and made us an offer. The traditional one you can't refuse. "How about a deal, gentlemen? You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine."

  "What the hell," I sighed. "Nik?"

  He slowly nodded, and then gave Fellows an implacable order buried under a veneer of steel. "You first." Sketching a mockingly courteous bow, he added, "I insist."

  "Fair enough." He gave us another smile. This one was genuine and somewhat sad. Pensive. Definitely not the high-powered ones he'd zinged our way earlier. "It's been a long time since I've been myself with humans. It's been a long time since a human has even believed in me, believed in my kind."

  It was polite of him to include me in the human race, especially considering he still had half of me firmly chalked in the Auphe column. "Auphe," it suited better than "elf." It was a darkly acidic burst of taste on the back of your tongue… the whisper of scales sliding through the grass. The musky smell of a corpse filling your nose, sucking away your breath as clawed hands caressed the skin of your neck. Swallowing thickly, I forced my attention back to Fellows and decided to stick with "Grendels." There's comfort in the old childhood ways when monsters, even the real ones, were defined by you.

  Clearing my throat, I aske
d, "How long's long?"

  His eyes went dark and distant. "Long enough that the sky was more amethyst than blue. The moon hung closer, easily as bright as the sun some nights. The water was sweet and pure with the hint of honeysuckle in every handful. Butterflies were as big as blackbirds…" He paused, lost for a moment, then shook it off to finish slyly, "And there were more virgins than you could shake a stick at."

  Niko folded his arms and snorted disdainfully. "I'm quite sure there were far less when you were through."

  Fellows's smile moved into the scorching range. "You have no idea. Actually, however, I do remember a time when your kind was still picking fleas off one another for a nutritious bedtime snack. It was quite a while before the virgins were worth chasing. But I made up for lost time."

  "Yeah, I'll bet you did." I was losing patience, not that I'd ever been long on that quality to begin with. "Enough with the trip down memory lane. Who the hell are you anyway?"

  Leaning back in his chair, he linked hands behind his head and gave a good-natured smirk. "Robin Goodfellow at your service. Maybe you've heard of me? Shakespeare gave me lots of press. Mostly good, I have to give him that. But that was only one of my incarnations. Puck. Pan. All one in the same. Different cultures, different times… still, it was always me. More and less than the legend."

  Niko lifted both eyebrows at once; he was that surprised. "Honestly?" Cocking his blond head, he peered over the desk with a reluctantly curious gaze. "Aren't you supposed to have the legs of a goat? Even the most talented of tailors couldn't hide that."

  His eyes rolled cheerfully. "Fur chaps. I try and make a fashion statement years before its time and this is the thanks I get."

  Luckily, the fashion commentary was interrupted by the lovely Dorothea and her plump and juicy muffins. Now, there was a combination that you really did not want to picture. I waited until she left and idly dug a succulent cranberry from the surrounding cake. Popping it in my mouth, I chewed and swallowed before saying, "You're famous, then, huh?"

  His shoulders squared as the vanity he wore like a cloak became a shade threadbare. "No," he admitted grudgingly. "Not just me. My entire kind has provided a template, I guess you'd call it, for the myth. We're all Robin. We're all Pan playing our pipes in the endless green wood."

  "Even your women?" Niko had finally deigned to relax enough to sit in a chair, although his hands were, as always, within easy reach of any number of weapons.

  Fellows shrugged dismissively and poured a cup of coffee. "We don't have any females of our own. Never have." Eyes gleaming brightly, he sipped the hot liquid. "And don't ask me how we make little pucks. You're not ready for that lesson in reproduction."

  Now, that was a statement I was wholeheartedly behind if there ever was one. "So," I started slowly, "you've been around forever and a friggin' day, longer than Dick Clark even. I'm guessing it's safe to say you could tell us a lot about Auphes, am I right?"

  "The Auphe," he corrected grimly. "Singular is plural. Just like the Book says, call them Legion, for they are many. Or were at one time. They've dwindled over the millennia and there isn't a creature out there that's not grateful for that." The serious expression retreated slightly as he leaned back in his chair. "Sure, I know about the Auphe, but I think you gentlemen owe me a story first. A deal is a deal, and I'm all about the art of the deal. So shoot. I'm all ears." He cupped both to show just how ready he was and gave us a winning smile.

  Goddamn, but he was annoying as hell. Maybe that had something to do with our so-called deal and maybe it didn't. Either way I wasn't waiting around to figure it out. Propelling myself up out of the chair, I muttered, "Think I'll see if Miss Dorothea has any more muffins."

  Ignoring the fact that four of them still rested on the desk, Niko nodded, comprehension a hidden warmth in his eyes. "I wouldn't mind some tea if it's available."

  "No problem." I didn't slam the door behind me, but it was a near thing. Leaning against the wall, I sucked in a deep breath, then pushed off. Whatever was said behind that door, I didn't want to overhear any of it, not one single, solitary word.

  There was tea, not that green grassy crap Niko drank, but still, in his eyes it would be better than coffee, I knew. By the time I carted that and more muffins back, blueberry this time, Niko was done talking. I knew he would've only sketched the bare bones of my life story, but that didn't stop Fellows from visiting a look of sheer heartfelt pity on me. I could've been generous, could've called it sympathy instead. But it didn't matter; I didn't want either one. Not from him, not from anyone.

  "What're you looking at?" I asked sharply. "I'm still a half-breed Auphe monster, same as when I left."

  Taking the tea from my hand, Niko said softly, "Cal." Just my name, nothing else. It was enough. I sat down without another word.

  Fellows had buried his empathy deep out of sight and now regarded me with only inquisitiveness. "Well, well, aren't you something to write home about? I've never heard of an Auphe-human mix. And you have no idea why it even happened?" He shook his head in amazement. "Damn, if it's not a puzzle."

  Nothing like having your whole life summed up as nothing more than an interesting riddle. "Yeah," I responded flatly. "It's a puzzle all right. Almost as big of one as why we're sitting here listening to you. If you can't tell us about the Auphe, then you're just one big fat waste of our time."

  At the f word a hand automatically went to his trim waist and Fellows scowled. That type of glower shouldn't have sat well on a foxy, blithely cunning face. But it did, perfectly. While I didn't know one-tenth of the mythology my brother did, it seemed to me that maybe good old Puck Robin hadn't been all game playing, piping, and flirting with virgins. There was a temper there, one that could be spiteful at times. And considering how we'd roughed him up even before I began sniping at him, it could be a temper we deserved.

  Sliding down a few inches, I rested my chin on my chest and gave a reluctant apology. "Sorry. I'm being a dick. I haven't exactly given you much of a chance to talk." The frown stayed in place, as did the hand on his abdomen. "Oh. And those are abs of steel if I've ever seen 'em," I added lightly. "You could bounce a quarter off those babies."

  Fellows's scowl faded as Niko's hand came over to tousle my hair. "That's a good boy," my brother said, amused.

  "Gee, thanks, Wally." I reached for another muffin, not because I was hungry. I was about the furthest thing from it. I just needed something to do with my hands. Mutilating a pastry was going better than clenching my fists until my knuckles popped. Whatever we found out about the Grendels was bound to be less than a good time. "Okay, Fellows, A is for 'Auphe.' Clue us in."

  He nodded, face still somber. "Call me Robin, would you?" he requested with a wistful note. "It's been a while since anyone has. I guess I rather miss it." He propped his feet on the desk, expensive shoes gleaming in the fluorescent light, and continued. "Gather around, children. It's time for a lesson in history. Ancient history."

  Figured. I'd almost flunked my last history class. Hopefully this time I would do better. My life did seem to depend on it.

  Robin did his best to talk well into the late afternoon. Not all of it was related to the Grendels. Occasionally he wandered off the subject to spin some tale about wine, women, and song. Sometimes it was about wine, men, and song. I had the feeling Robin was all about equal opportunity when it came to debauchery. I was just grateful he didn't stray into wine, sheep, and song.

  I didn't really mind the change of subject once in a while even if it did revolve around him. It was a welcome break from the bottomless poisonous swamp of Auphe/Grendel history. You could swallow only so much murderous lust, freezing cold rage, and soulless torture before you began to choke.

  It turned out that Grendels were more than mere monsters after all; they were part and parcel of a living nightmare. They seemed to live for only one purpose, one passion, one raison d'être: violence. Destruction. Mayhem. Working separately or together, they had considered the world their personal game
preserve. They'd hunted and killed with gleeful abandon, mutilating, torturing, ravaging, living as wolves among the sheep. But wolves killed for food; Grendels killed for the pure love of the game. They killed for fun.

  Around since the dawn of time, they'd been here before humans, even before Robin's people. There were no Grendel cities, though, not on the surface. They preferred living either underground in the feeble light of glowing cave fungi or in a place even colder and more barren. It was a place that existed side by side, in and of the earth, but distinct and separate. If you knew just where to look, you could find a doorway. And if you knew just how to walk, you could pass through.

  Or could be dragged through as a screaming fourteen-year-old kid.

  It was a place sterile of life except for the Grendels. At least so Robin had heard through the mythological grapevine. He'd never been there, actually paled at the thought. Tumulus, he called it. When Niko murmured that the word was Latin, Robin nodded in confirmation. "It seemed appropriate. It means grave. Tomb. Auphe hell. Whatever you want to call it. You'd be better off dead than there, trust me."

  Now, there was some information to be filed in the "too little, too late" column. "Time runs differently there too, huh?" I said neutrally. It had for me anyway.

  "That's what they say." He hesitated, then furrowed his brow and asked, "You don't remember anything at all? Two years for you and you don't recall even a moment?"

  Ignoring the question, I silently dumped the abused muffin on the desktop and brushed the crumbs off my hands. He took the hint and commented briskly, "Probably for the best. I doubt it'd ever rank with Club Med for vacation hot spots."

  "No. You think?" I challenged acidly.

  Niko was ever the peacemaker, whether with reason or the ultimate in last words, the sword. He interceded, "While their history is fascinating, in a bloody fashion, we are more concerned with why the Grendels have done what they have done. Why did they approach our mother? Why did they take Cal? What do they want? It seems all too intricate for mere random maliciousness."