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  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF ROB THURMAN

  THE CAL LEANDROS NOVELS

  Slashback

  “Cal Leandros, who is half human and half Auphe (a monstrous version of elves), and his human brother, Niko, make their living by hunting the supernatural creatures who prey on humans. Now a serial killer with ties to Spring-heeled Jack is on the prowl, and he has a grudge against Cal. The eighth addition to this urban fantasy series (after Doubletake) should please Thurman’s many fans.”

  —Library Journal

  “This combo thriller and mystery will send your readers back into the stacks looking for more from this New York Times bestselling author.”

  —Booklist

  “This dark and dynamic urban fantasy series continues to not only maintain but exceed the expectations of its fans.”

  —Smexy Books

  “A roller-coaster ride of horror and humor.”

  —Bookshelf Bombshells

  “[The Leandros brothers] are back in style in a way that surpasses the last book on every level.”

  —Bookin’ It Reviews

  “Thurman does her usual stellar job of combining wisecracks and violence, but the relationship between Cal and Niko remains the heart of the series.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “The book quickly became a page-turner, just like all of the previous books have been. This is a great series and I highly recommend it to readers who like gritty and violent urban fantasy with undertones of noir humor.”

  —Fang-tastic Fiction

  Doubletake

  “Rob Thurman conjures up one of the grittiest tales of the Leandros brothers yet.”

  —SFRevu

  “Another wonderful addition to an intriguing series.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  Blackout

  “Thurman delivers in spades . . . as always, a great entry in a series that only gets better with each new installment.”

  —SFRevu

  Roadkill

  “Readers will relish this roller-coaster ride filled with danger. . . . The unexpected is the norm in this urban fantasy.”

  —Alternative Worlds

  Deathwish

  “Thurman takes her storytelling to a whole new level in Deathwish. . . . Fans of street-level urban fantasy will enjoy this.”

  —SFRevu

  Madhouse

  “Thurman continues to deliver strong tales of dark urban fantasy.”

  —SFRevu

  Moonshine

  “[Cal and Niko] are back and better than ever . . . a fast-paced story full of action.”

  —SFRevu

  Nightlife

  “A roaring roller coaster of a read . . . [it’ll] take your breath away. Supernatural highs and lows, and a Hell of a lean over at the corners. Sharp and sardonic, mischievous and mysterious.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Simon R. Green

  THE TRICKSTER NOVELS

  The Grimrose Path

  “Thurman’s comic timing is dead-on [and] well-targeted in Trixa’s cynical, gritty voice . . . a fast-paced urban adventure that will have you cheering.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Trick of the Light

  “Rob Thurman’s new series has all the great elements I’ve come to expect from this writer: an engaging protagonist, fast-paced adventure, a touch of sensuality, and a surprise twist that’ll make you blink.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris

  “A beautiful, wild ride, [and] a story with tremendous heart. A must read.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Marjorie M. Liu

  THE KORSAK BROTHERS NOVELS

  Basilisk

  “Thurman has created another fast-paced and engaging tale in this volume. . . . Fans of great thriller fiction will enjoy Basilisk and the previous novel Chimera quite a bit.”

  —SFRevu

  “Basilisk is full of excitement, pathos, humor, and dread. . . . Buy it. You won’t be sorry. It is one heck of a ride!”

  —Bookshelf Bombshells

  Chimera

  “Thurman delivers a fast-paced thriller with plenty of twists and turns. . . . The characters are terrific—Stefan’s wiseass attitude will especially resonate with the many Cal Leandros fans out there—and the pace never lets up, once the two leads are together. . . . Thurman shows a flair for handling SF/near-future action.”

  —SFRevu

  “A touching story on the nature of family, trust, and love lies hidden in this action thriller. . . . Thurman weaves personal discovery seamlessly into the fast-paced action, making it easy to cheer for these overgrown, dangerous boys.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A gut-wrenching tale of loss and something so huge that the simple four-letter word ‘hope’ cannot begin to encompass it. . . . Chimera grabs the reader’s attention and heart immediately and does not let go. . . . This is a masterpiece of a good story and great storytelling.”

  —Bitten by Books

  BOOKS BY ROB THURMAN

  The Cal Leandros Novels

  Nightlife

  Moonshine

  Madhouse

  Deathwish

  Roadkill

  Blackout

  Doubletake

  Slashback

  Downfall

  The Trickster Novels

  Trick of the Light

  The Grimrose Path

  The Korsak Brothers Novels

  Chimera

  Basilisk

  Anthologies

  Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

  EDITED BY CHARLAINE HARRIS AND TONI L. P. KELNER

  Courts of the Fey

  EDITED BY MARTIN H. GREENBERG AND RUSSELL DAVIES

  Carniepunk

  PUBLISHED BY GALLERY BOOKS

  Kicking It

  EDITED BY FAITH HUNTER AND KALAYNA PRICE

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Robyn Thurman, 2014

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN 978-1-101-63468-4

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Books By Rob Thurman

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapte
r 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  About the Author

  Never give a sucker an even break.

  —Latin proverb

  This book was written to Robin Goodfellow and for Robin Goodfellow. In respect for all the times he hid behind the curtain, saving the day if not also the world with unseen cons, scams undiscovered, and deceptions none could begin to fathom. For his unparalleled trickery and a loyalty unmatched, I devote this long overdue limelight to him.

  Without his tireless if grumbling efforts, the Leandros brothers would never survive long enough to

  entertain us.

  If you reread the first eight books of the series, look more closely this time. Goodfellow’s tricks are everywhere—unnoticed by readers and characters alike—and always have been.

  Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.

  —Virgil (19 BC)

  If Heav’n thou can’st not bend, Hell thou shalt move.

  —Alexander Pope (1728)

  If I cannot move Heaven, then I will raise Hell.

  —Clarence Darrow (1910)

  If I can’t tear down Heaven, I’ll raise fucking Hell.

  —Cal Leandros (2014)

  Never give a sucker an even break.

  —Latin proverb

  There’s a sucker born every minute.

  —David Hannum (1869)

  Prologue

  Cal

  They said if you couldn’t tear down Heaven, then you’d have to raise fucking Hell.

  I thought they, the infamous and forever “they,” were shortsighted.

  Why couldn’t I do both?

  That’s what I thought absently, caught by the spectacle of fire when the sun fell from the sky. Heaven was falling, and Hell was rising to meet in mutual destruction. I wondered if I’d get a free apocalyptic hot dog with those fireworks?

  My brother would say the sun was only setting, the same as it had done every day before us and the same as it would do every day after us. He’d go on to point out it had set on the days when the planet was a barely cooled mass of lava and no living thing was there to see the sun at all. He was like that, my brother. Full of words, full of knowledge, full of things he had never seen but could visualize more clearly than what I could manage with what was right in front of my face. He was the smartest man—not to mention the most willing to share any and every fact whether you wanted to hear it or not—that I knew.

  But this time he would’ve been wrong. Now, at this moment and for me alone, the sun was falling. Heaven was falling, and so was I—falling as I’d always known I would do. Falling because sometimes that’s the only choice. Falling, but not falling alone—my brother wouldn’t allow that. Considering where we were, I was damn glad to have that choice and that presence at my side. We stood tall in the tower, surrounded by a thousand teeming monsters, serpentine and scaled in snow-blind white, eyes as bloody murder red as the dying sun, and with curved dark metal fangs as long as my hand. They were never still, a constant undulation of hills and valleys. If I could stand in the middle of the Arctic with nothing but mound after mound of ice as far as the eye could see, it would be like this.

  Of course the Arctic might have less mutilation, blood, and death than was circling us now.

  Fuck if it isn’t the details that get you every time.

  Am I right?

  Yeah . . . thought so.

  I took one last look at an indigo sky, a fiery orange and vermilion veil settling over the dark horizon, and then focused back on the giant scarlet pyre that inched downward. Falling for me. Waiting for me. Waiting for Caliban.

  Caliban, who had once been something new and something old and something unlike anything on this earth.

  But the earth wasn’t everything. I was no longer unique, and Niko was right. It wasn’t Heaven but the sun that called my name. It knew who I was—what I was and what I was not. Completely human, no. Wouldn’t that be boring? Wouldn’t that be dull? But I wasn’t entirely—there is such a thing as too much fun—a manically gleeful monster either. I was monster enough, though, and, in a way, human enough as well—at least for this.

  I wasn’t alone in my monster cred.

  Some of us monsters, part or pure, had a talent, both stunning in theory and terrifying in reality. We could make the fabric of reality our bitch, tear it in two like the cheapest of tissue paper and pass through. We could travel to where we’d been, even if it had only been the once . . . and some of us could travel to any place we could see.

  And I could see, my eyes full of the sun’s fire.

  Damn straight, I could see.

  Strange. I always thought I’d die in the dark—at night, when the monsters most typically come out.

  Not so.

  For the monsters or me.

  “Are you ready?” my brother asked.

  I knew what Niko saw when he looked at me. Red eyes instead of gray. Silver hair, not black. It didn’t matter. It never had to him. That made me the luckiest bastard in the world. I dropped my guns—who needed weapons when you were one? The smile I gave him was all teeth. Not happy, but not afraid. Satisfied, definitely. Vengeful as hell—yes, yes, yes. I’d known this was coming. I’d known how our lives would end since I was ten years old. Now, fifteen years later, I was inevitability made flesh. “We haven’t made a last stand in a while. Think we can make this one stick?”

  “We can.” Niko smiled back. His sword was dripping with black blood, but his eyes showed only peace and determination. He’d known the same as I how our lives would play out; it had only taken him longer to see. Hope was impractical, but it was also a damn stubborn son of a bitch when it came to brothers. “Time for a new game, little brother,” he said with a familiar lifetime-long fondness. “Time to hitch another ride.”

  Yeah, I was the ticket to ride all right.

  And my rides? No one did rides like I did.

  I looked back at the sun. Nik was right. It was time. Off into the sunset we’d go.

  Reaching for the sun, I took that ride.

  1

  (Rescheduled due to unforeseen circumstances.)

  Goodfellow

  Ten days ago

  There’s a sucker born every minute.

  Engrave that on every brain cell. Write it on every neuron firing in your . . . Wait.

  Was that a sniper on the roof? Across the street from the bar where I was reaching for the door handle, what was that I saw in the deepest of shadows? A sniper with a gun that could destroy a tank? Yes, it was. Ares, God of War, save me from human idiots who’d kill a newly born rabbit with a nuclear warhead to overcompensate for their one-inch dick and the shriveled raisins that made up their testicles. It was beyond annoying.

  And the night had only begun. I had drinking ahead of me, along with a gloriously dire internal monologue that I’d been planning for days. One that had it been external rather than internal would make all those about me fall to their knees at the glory and the tragedy of it. I’d taken the precaution of writing some of it down to prevent what would be a catastrophic loss to history if I somehow lost the future opportunity to speak it aloud.

  Gamou.

  Nonetheless, it seemed there were other things to take care of first. I’d return to the bar and my soliloquy . . . now that I considered it, some would think that sounded somewhat conceited even for me. Soliloquy . . . hmmm. My thoughts, then, for the judgmental, I meant, and they were barely self-centered thoughts at that. No, not egocentric and narcissistic at all. Thus, I merely had to do away with the sniper while keeping the opening line of my fatefu
l and earth-shaking contemplations prepared in my mind. . . .

  There’s a sucker born every . . .

  Hephaestus’s sweaty pits and fiery forge, did the streetlights deceive me? Was that a rocket launcher propped up beside the roof-dwelling idiot sniper?

  I let go of the doorknob and made my way across the street, loved and hidden by the dark as I ever was when I wished to be. Obviously this train of thought would have to be continued later. Although suckers and idiots . . . They weren’t all that different, were they?

  I didn’t have to memorize that.

  (Goodfellow: the rest of the chapter has been rescheduled due to oblivious Cal’s irritating and unforeseen circumstances and my solution of them—as always.)

  2

  Caliban

  Ten days ago

  It’s what’s on the inside that counts.

  Remember that.

  It’ll come up later. Pop quizzes aren’t out of the question.

  Not that I was thinking that now. I had other things on my mind. Someone trying to kill me was one of them.

  It wasn’t that someone was trying to kill me was anything to get excited about, not really. That had been happening half of my life. Most of the supernatural world didn’t like me—or didn’t like my kind. To them we were one and the same and were treated as such. Attempted murder, mutilation, or a one-Cal massacre, it was part of life. Truthfully, it was hard to scrape up any actual annoyance, much less get pissed off about it anymore. It was the same as complaining about rush-hour traffic: pointless and likely to make things worse when your cabdriver lost his shit and tried to stab you in the eye.

  As someone was already doing their best to stab me in the eye or close enough, I didn’t need to add to that particular theoretical scenario. Yeah, it wasn’t the homicidal mayhem aimed at me that had my temper exploding. It was the large shard of mirror thrown at my face that disturbed me—disturbed me enough in fact that while I’d only planned on using the axe I was carrying for a threat or two, I’d now changed my mind. If they wanted to play “Here’s Johnny!” then who the hell was I to deny their scaly little bitch hearts?