“I was careful. I was sneaky. You know I’m good at that,” he replied matter-of-factly, pencil moving to write a sadly sloppy number. Cal’s handwriting wasn’t all it could be and that extended to numbers as well. That he was actually smart, if not “freakishly smart” as he labeled me, but lazy as the day was long made my back teeth grind enough that I thought I’d be in dentures by the time I was twenty. Now, however, my teeth were grinding for a different reason.
“Yes, I know you’re good at that,” I echoed and the urge to destroy my molars disappeared just that quickly. I only wish I didn’t know why he was so good at it. Cal was talented at being careful and sneaky as that was the best way to not be hit by one of Sophia’s bottles. The malicious verbal abuse she gave him, that was harder to dodge. She’d slapped me more than once when I was younger and smaller, but I was five eleven now, taller than she was. She didn’t slap me anymore. She had never slapped or hit Cal. She didn’t have any desire to touch him physically and if she accidentally did, she rubbed her hand against her skirt as if she’d touched a toad or a snake.
Cal noticed that more than her words. Cal noticed everything that I wish he didn’t.
Although she didn’t use skin on skin in a fit of temper, a drunken rage had Sophia quick to throw a whiskey bottle at the nearest moving target. It was fortunate for her she didn’t come close to hitting anything or anyone. Very fortunate for her. “But Sophia can’t hit anything when she’s drunk,” I pointed out to Cal as if that was something to be thankful for, tasting the blood of a bitten tongue for my punishment.
I did the best I could. I did the best I could in a very bad situation.
Didn’t I?
“And you know Sophia is a big difference than a sober man with a gun. Don’t go over there again, all right? Promise me,” I finished.
Cal snorted. At times despite my skipping a grade, reading books thick enough that he casually used them as stools, and being at the top of my class, my little brother thought I was incredibly slow when it came to common sense. He kept me humble. “He’s a serial killer, Nik. Why would I go back? He could get out his chain saw and chop me up into pieces. Except I’m a virgin so I might get away.” Not-quite-under his breath, he added, “You don’t watch enough movies. You don’t know anything.”
“Fine. You’re the expert on all things serial killer,” I said dryly, less than glad to know my birds-and-bees talk had ended up as nothing but misinformation about murderers letting the abstinent escape. “But I still want to hear you promise.”
He exhaled, obviously aggrieved at my dense ways. “I promise.” He drew out “promise” until it lasted as long as if it had twice its normal syllables.
“Good.” And it was good. I’d put Cal’s first diaper on him the day he was born. Fed him his first bottle. Imagining him shot dead in some asshole’s—damn, keep the language clean for impressionable minds—some person’s backyard wasn’t a picture I wanted to take to bed with me that night.
“Now that’s taken care of,” I continued, “let’s talk about what this man could be other than a serial killer.” Cal knew there were monsters in the world. He’d seen them. He searched the window every night for them. So did I. He didn’t need to think he was sleeping next door to a serial killer on top of that. The shadows hid enough already.
“First, he could work at a slaughterhouse,” I started the list. “Even if he changed and showered at work, you’re special. You could still smell the blood. And his basement might be full of bloodstained aprons with pieces of rotting meat on them. He’s lazy—like you, little brother.” I couldn’t resist a teachable moment. “He doesn’t do his laundry. That would explain all the blood and the smell of rot. Wouldn’t it?”
I was trying for logical. Cal would know in a heartbeat if I tried to pull the wool over his eyes, especially if the wool was made of bullshit. Bullshit, damn. Hell, impressionable minds. I had to remember that: impressionable minds. My thinking words like shit were the next step to saying them and once Cal heard one of them slip from my mouth, it was all over. I couldn’t stop what he picked up at school, but I could set the example here at home. Sophia said the filthiest of words all the time, but that was Sophia. Cal knew nothing good or right came out of her. But his big brother, although slow in serial killer mythology, could do little wrong and more importantly he was not above using that big brother worship to his advantage the first chance he got. Nik did it and if Nik did it then it wasn’t bad and Sophia didn’t count.
Cal folded his math paper and stuffed it in a folder bulging with papers from two grades ago. Lazy beyond lazy, but while I could nag him about it until I wanted to bang my head against the wall, I wouldn’t force him to clean it up. I could spend my entire life fighting that battle. I had to pick them carefully. And messy or not, Cal needed to be independent, had to be. I’d taught him so. Surviving Sophia, ignoring the monsters when they did show up to gaze in the window with lava-red eyes. Cal had to be able to handle that. I couldn’t be with him every minute of every day. If sloppy but independent was the best I could manage, I’d be more than happy with it.
He rested his elbows on the folder and cupped his small chin in his hands. He was small for his age, looking at least a year if not two younger. He was due a growth spurt anytime now. “Slaughterhouse? Maybe,” he said. “What else could he be?” Only eleven and serious as a soldier going to war. Gathering intelligence. Listening to theories—not that it meant anything. Cal’s mind was made up. The intelligence was wrong. The theories bogus. Cal knew what he knew. Changing his mind had never taken less than an act of God.
But I was trying all the same. I went for number two on the list. “A butcher.” There weren’t many butcher shops open these days. You bought meat, when you could afford it, at Kroger or K-Mart or Wal-Mart; it all depended on the city we were squatting in at the time. “He could work at a grocery store, wrapping up meat behind the counter. He’d come home with blood and brisket on him. It makes more sense than him being a serial killer. They’re pretty rare in smaller towns like this. He either kills animals or he packages meat. We already have monsters. What are the odds we’d get a serial killer too? That would be winning the worst lottery of all time, right? You get that, don’t you, Cal?”
He tilted his head, staring at me. I saw emotions roiling behind his eyes. Some I recognized: worry, resignation, and others I couldn’t make out. I hadn’t failed to read Cal’s feelings, any of them, in his short life. This was the first time. “Cal? You do see?”
“I can see how you see that.” He shook his head, long bangs flopping. “But that’s not the way it is. He doesn’t work at a slaughterhouse and he’s not a butcher. He kills people and puts them in his basement.”
“Why?” I demanded, frustration peaking as hard as I was trying to hold it back. “Why are you so sure of that?” Why are you so sure that it’s all bad? Everything? I couldn’t let myself believe that, because how could I hope to find us lives someday, real lives, if he was right?
He echoed my finger tap to the back of his hand. This time his finger, almost as white as his homework paper, tapped and clashed with the dusky brown of my skin. This touch didn’t hold reassurance like mine had though—it held pity for me that I didn’t know. That I was four years older, but I was the one who couldn’t see, not him.
“Because this is the real world,” he said almost apologetically.
Plain and straightforward as it came.
“And this is just the way things are, Nik.”
He picked up his folder and headed for the bedroom. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t get it. That you don’t see.”
He paused to smile. I’d seen that smile before and it never failed to make my chest ache. It was touched with a near-adult bitterness that looked to have been carved into his face with the blade of that fictional serial killer. “But maybe monsters and half monsters are the only things that can see.”
Eleven years old and that’s what he thought of the world. What he thought
of himself.
He closed the bedroom door behind him, leaving behind emotions that this time I could read. Disappointment that I didn’t automatically accept and trust in what he thought. Worry for me that I didn’t know enough about the real world. Worry for me—a kid that could’ve been shot crawling around the back of a stranger’s house and it was me that he spent his concern on.
I pulled the black rubber band out of my hair to let my short ponytail fall free, a few dark blond strands hanging in my eyes. It didn’t help my headache like I’d hoped. I could take Tylenol for that, but there wasn’t a pill for the guilt. Guilt that I couldn’t convince Cal the world wasn’t like that, not all of it. Guilt that I couldn’t believe him and possibly ruin a man’s reputation with an anonymous call to the police—not without proof first.
Which meant I’d have to get proof—proof that our neighbor with his cologne of blood did work in a slaughterhouse or a meatpacking plant. I would show Cal that not every corner, not every house, not every street, and not every minute of our lives was touched by hungry shadows. There was sun. There was normal. You had to know only enough to look for them.
Proof, then. It was a plan. I liked plans. I liked order. When everything was sorted and in its place, the out-of-control became routine and the routine became tolerable. I heaved out of the chair and moved to the sink to work on the pot crusted with blackened pseudo-pasta. Self-pity was a luxury I didn’t have and it rarely made a bad day better. Besides, now I had a plan . . . for one problem at least. I looked over my shoulder at the bedroom.
“Half human,” I said quietly, trying to erase his last words. “Not half monster. Not a ‘thing.’”
He didn’t hear me through the closed door.
If he had, after a day of smelling blood and rot that no one else could . . .
He probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
2
Cal
Present Day
“There’s a serial killer in the city.”
Yeah? Really?
And rain was wet, grass was green, the sun set in the west; also, reality shows caused brain tumors.
None of it was precisely fucking news.
“Thanks for the info, boss,” I drawled, bored as I mixed a mojito for Elegua, a dark skinned, cat-eyed African trickster, and slid it across the bar. Yes, a goddamn mojito. He used to drink straight rum while smoking his foul-smelling cigars, but once he started visiting Cuba, he became high maintenance. It was getting a little too fancy in the Ninth Circle lately. I missed the days when beer and whiskey were all we had and haul your furry, scaly, or prehensile tailed self elsewhere if you didn’t like it.
Auld Lang Syne.
“But guess what, Ish?” I wiped my hands on the black apron tied around my waist. “There are probably at least three serial killers in New York. That’s why there’s police. Let them deal with it. And why do you even care? It’s human business, not paien business.” Paien was the pagan world, the supernatural world, and half human or not, the world I’d chosen to live in for five or so years now.
It had been gradual, that. From thinking I was a human with a fraction of monster in him to knowing I was a monster with just a little human seasoning the soup.
I couldn’t say I’d changed sides either. Humans didn’t know monsters existed and damn sure didn’t know about the particular monster I was. If they did, they would run screaming, piss themselves, or be caught up in enough zombie apocalypse movies to try to grab an ax to fight back—the latter never ended well. Then there were the ninety-nine percent of the paien who hated me for the Auphe I carried in my blood. But I went with the paien anyway the majority of the time, despite the fact I could’ve pretended with humans and they wouldn’t have known.
But pretending every minute of every day can be tiring. And . . .
Boring.
With the other monsters I could be myself, no matter how much they oh-so-profoundly wished I wouldn’t be.
Sheep aren’t the only ones to piss themselves came the gleeful inner mutter.
I really had to stop thinking of humans as sheep. I’d picked up that bad habit in the past month or so, from the other monsters on the outside, yeah, but primarily the one on the inside. If I said it out loud, my brother would do more than kick my ass. He’d remind me I had human in me too by dunking me in the East River, holding me under for a good three minutes, and calling it negative reinforcement training instead of the overgrown swirly that it was.
Sheep versus human . . . yeah, that might very well point to an identity crisis on my part.
When it comes down to it, I’m a monster. There was some human in me, true, although less all the time. I’d tried to hold on, but life is life. Love it or leave it.
It’s simple. I am a monster.
And I kind of liked it—which is the definition of an identity crisis.
Oh Jesus. Was Ishiah still droning on and on?
Hell. Of course he was. Serial killer. Serial killer. The guy could not take a hint if they were giving them away free with a hooker and a six-pack.
“Because, Caliban, while this serial killer preys only on humans, from what I hear it is not human itself. Very much not human and is skinning people alive. The police will not know what it is, much less be able to catch it.” The peri’s gold-barred white wings flashed into view, disturbed, and then disappeared as he continued to stack glasses. “That makes it your business, doesn’t it?”
It did. If it was supernatural and you were willing to pay enough to make it dead—then go ahead and pick out the coffin. If there were some annoying issues of conscience to be assessed, I let Niko figure that out these days. Not that I didn’t have a conscience. I did. Smaller than average, okay, but there. Unfortunately for most, it tended to be as lazy and rebellious as the rest of me. It was better for everyone to let my brother handle the moral issues while I played to my strengths:
Violence, sarcasm, and a respectable collection of pornography.
“If there’s someone forking over the fee, sure.” I reached over the bar, grabbed a handful of passing fur, and slammed the Wolf’s head on the counter hard enough to hear something crack. It could’ve been the polished wood surface or a lupine skull. I wasn’t concerned which. “Leaving, Fido?” I asked cheerfully. “But you haven’t settled your tab yet. We don’t like that. It hurts our feelings.”
Long teeth bared at me in a spittle-spraying growl and snap, but the twisted combination of a hand and paw, a member of the All Wolf caught between wolf and human—neither nor, slid across the rumpled green. I counted with my free hand and frowned, all that cheer draining away. “Tips are not mandatory, but they are appreciated and guarantee you’ll be greeted with a sunny disposition next time you’re back.” I demonstrated said sunny disposition with a grin that wasn’t that different from his Nice-to-see-you, Grandma snarl—except more effective. Several more bills were shoved across. After an assessing glance, I grunted, and let him go. “Thank you, sir. Now get your cheating, cheap ass out of here, tail between your legs just the way I like.”
I watched the werewolf slink out of the door, smelling like the last-in-line Omega that he was. The other Wolves hunched over the scarred and stained tables in the bar grumbled, but let it go. We had an understanding of live and let live or, more accurately, if they fucked with me, I would goddamn bury them. “Puppies. They do try the patience, don’t they?”
“You make enough money with you and your brother’s true business. You could quit the bar.” As it was Ishiah’s bar—he’d been blackmailed into giving me a job—and I had a tendency to play rough with the clientele, he had to wholeheartedly wish that I would focus on my other higher-paying career.
“Nah. Nik says it’s good for me. Keeps me socialized.”
Apparently, just like with pit bulls rescued straight out of dog-fighting rings, socialization was job one when it came to me. I polished a glass with a towel and yawned. “And I still haven’t heard about a client willing to foot the bill
for running this supernatural serial killing fuck-head to the ground.”
“Socialization. Of course. I see the improvement daily,” he muttered, fingers sheathed tightly in light blond hair. Maybe he had a headache; allergic to his own feathers. That had to be it. It couldn’t be me and my winning ways. “You and Niko have done free ‘exterminations’ before. You’ll be saving lives. What better time than now to do some charity work?”
“Yeah, we’ve done free . . . when Nik knew about the problem and as I don’t plan on telling him, there’s no need for him to know about this one.”
Nik had other worries right now and as usual they were thanks to me. I had no plans of adding to them. “Why don’t you hunt down whatever bogeyman this is in your spare time?” I goaded. “I’ve seen you with a sword.” It wasn’t a sight I’d be forgetting either. Conan the Barbarian would think twice about going up against Ish. “I think you can manage.”
Ish, massaging his temples, said absently, “Peris are discouraged against killing paien-kind . . . other paien-kind, I mean. We’re tolerated here in New York, but that could change if the others thought we rose above our station.”
“Station?” I snorted. “You have a station? You kick Wolf, vamp, and every other kind of supernatural butt in the bar on a daily basis. If you could wear your station on your foot, you’d have broken it off in someone’s ass a helluva long time ago.”
“Fighting is different than killing.” He let go of his head and pointed toward the door. “Go home. Your shift is close enough to being over and you are as bad for my mood as you are for business. I curse Goodfellow every day for convincing me to give you a job. Go.” He loved me like the brother he never had. I mean, didn’t everyone—when they weren’t trying to kill me?
I gave him an evil grin and drawled, “You do something to Goodfellow every day all right, but I don’t think cursing is it.” He grabbed the first thing at hand—an unopened bottle of whiskey—and threw it at my head. Déjà vu. I ducked easily, some childhood habits you never lose. I then tossed my apron under the bar, pulled on my jacket over my shoulder holster, and made for the door. I didn’t want to be around if he did bring out the sword.