Slashback Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS

  OF ROB THURMAN

  THE CAL LEANDROS NOVELS

  Doubletake

  “In Doubletake, Rob Thurman conjures up one of the grittiest tales of the Leandros brothers yet. . . . In a series that constantly finds new ways to explore the bonds of brotherhood and friendship, this book takes those emotions to a whole new level. And the book is stronger for it.”

  —SFRevu

  “Amazingly, Ms. Thurman continues to create even more stirring tales of the uncannily talented duo even as she provides glimpses of the life that has honed them into the well-tempered and close-knit pair that they are. . . . The depth of love displayed by these two warriors who couch their affection in insults and physical sacrifices continues to demonstrate the allure of this fantastic series, which is filled with fantastical creatures and thrilling fight scenes combined with an imaginative story line. Another wonderful addition to an intriguing series.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “There’s no one who does dark urban fantasy quite like Rob Thurman. . . . There’s no glamour, little romance, some camp, and a whole lot of snark. Her voice is unique and utterly unmistakable, as are the tales she tells.”

  —The Ranting Dragon

  “Touching and at times hilarious, yet intensely compelling, Thurman’s story lines are among the darkest in urban fantasy but she uses that grim supernatural backdrop and the internal struggles of her antihero, Caliban, to heighten the sense of what it truly means to be a power for good. Any book by Thurman is worth the purchase.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Blackout

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

  — SFRevu

  “If you want a good paranormal detective story with quirky dark humor mixed in, give this series a try.”

  —News and Sentinel (Parkersburg, WV)

  Roadkill

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

  —Alternative Worlds

  “Thurman has broken new ground, expanding the mythology of her world in new and ingenious ways. . . . The finale of the story is perhaps the most emotionally moving bit of writing I’ve read this year.”

  —SFRevu

  Deathwish

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

  —SFRevu

  “The action is fast-paced and exciting, and the plot twists are delicious.”

  —Errant Dreams Reviews

  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

  ALSO BY ROB THURMAN

  The Cal Leandros Novels

  Nightlife

  Moonshine

  Madhouse

  Deathwish

  Roadkill

  Blackout

  Doubletake

  The Trickster Novels

  Trick of the Light

  The Grimrose Path

  The Korsak Brothers Novels

  Chimera

  Basilisk

  Others

  All Seeing Eye

  Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

  EDITED BY CHARLAINE HARRIS AND TONI L. P. KELNER

  Slashback

  A Cal Leandros Novel

  Rob Thurman

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue,

  Parktown North 2193, South Africa

  Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North,

  Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60455-7

  Copyright © Robyn Thurman 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  REGISTERED TR
ADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  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.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  To Chelsea

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my mom, who suggested why didn’t I give my old dream of writing a go? If I become a victim of artistic Darwinism, I blame her. Also to Shannon—best friend and sister with a black belt in tough love; to my patient editor, Anne Sowards; Brian McKay (ninja of the dark craft of copywriting and muse of a fictional disease we won’t discuss here . . . but did discuss at length in Roadkill); Agent Jeff Thurman of the FBI for the usual weapons advice; brilliant artist Chris McGrath; Lucienne Diver, who astounds me in the best possible way at every turn; and great and lasting friends Michael and Sara.

  A bad neighbor is a misfortune. . . .

  —Hesiod, b. 800 BC

  History repeats itself. That’s one of the things wrong with history.

  —Clarence Darrow, 1910

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

  —Latin proverb

  1

  Niko

  Twelve Years Ago

  “Our neighbor is a serial killer.”

  It was that kind of day.

  There had been tutoring no-necked football players lacking enough in brain cells that I was surprised they didn’t have calluses on their knuckles from walking on them. It would’ve gone well with their gorilla grunting. Following that had been the food poisoning caused by a casserole brought in by Mrs. Dumpfries. The teachers’ lounge had been liberally labeled a biohazard. The color of which is not orange like they tell you, but the bile green of nonstop vomiting. I stood witness to that. I’d gone through three mops.

  And now we had a serial killer.

  Or so said my little brother.

  I closed the door behind me and locked it, not because I was immediately on board with the serial killer comment just issued, but we rented in a bad neighborhood. For us, an average neighborhood would be a more truthful way to put it. We’d not lived in better and we’d sometimes lived in worse. This cramped little house with a pronounced lean, no insulation, and cracked windows in east New London, Connecticut, was nothing special in one way or the other. When we didn’t stay anyplace longer than five or six months, thanks to our mother’s “occupation,” it was all the same. I put my duffel bag containing my schoolbooks and janitor uniform by the door and took off my worn, but warm, Salvation Army coat to hang it from a rusted hook by the door.

  With everything in its place I moved to the kitchen table, which wobbled, where my little brother with pencil and paper sat in a chair, which also wobbled. I lightly ruffled his black hair, shaggy in length but with a gloss like silk. Thanks to Cal being a good brother, he let me without complaint.

  “Where’s Sophia?” I asked. She had given birth to us and I used the word “mother” sometimes, but the truth of it never quite fit in my mouth.

  “Gone. With her suitcase.” The pencil kept moving and he didn’t look up.

  With her suitcase . . . that meant she would be gone anywhere from three days to three weeks. If business was slow in the area, she went looking for it elsewhere. She told fortunes, picked pockets, ran scams, whored herself out if the price was right. There was only so much whiskey you could shoplift before the local liquor store owners became suspicious and you had to actually start paying for it. Yes, life was hard for Sophia. I swallowed my anger as I’d been taught. I wouldn’t let Sophia have that kind of power over me.

  And truthfully, the times she was gone were the best times.

  “Are you doing your homework?” I asked with a little disapproval for him to hear. It was six p.m.—although I couldn’t make it home at the same time he did, I made it there before dark. Always.

  The homework—he should’ve been done with it by now. There was also a pan crusted with burned SpaghettiOs in the sink, some less scorched fake pasta in spots on the cracked linoleum floor, and a purple handprint, grape soda probably, on the door of the groaning refrigerator. Cal was a good brother, but there are all sorts of definitions for good when it came to an eleven-year-old.

  “Yes, Nik. I’m doing my homework. Watching the serial killer made me get behind.” I didn’t have to see his eyes to know they were rolling with the disdain and sarcasm only an eleven-year-old could manage, and I gave him a gentle swat to the back of the head.

  I took the other chair and sat down. “All right. Tell me why our neighbor is a serial killer,” I said with a patience I didn’t have to fake. I listened to Cal when he had something to say. I always listened to him. I had even when he was three and thought a monster lived under the bed, because in our world . . .

  In our world, there was every chance that he wasn’t necessarily wrong.

  I also listened to him as he’d had to grow up very fast and deserved the respect and dignity that came from surviving a harsh road that I hadn’t been able to change nearly as much as I wished. There were times I could close my eyes and see the small bloody footprints on that blackly grim path. That my larger ones were beside his every step of the way didn’t help. Didn’t absolve.

  I was fifteen and I was smart. More than smart. I could admit that because it wasn’t boasting. Being more than smart meant knowing too much. If I’d had a choice, I would’ve chosen to be less smart. I would’ve chosen not to know all about absolution and how hard it was to come by.

  Impossible on some days.

  As for right now . . . I’d grown up as quickly as Cal, but if I hadn’t—if I’d been a normal fifteen-year-old, I would still know this: you show respect to a warrior. For Cal to have survived our childhood, he was a warrior. I gave him his due. Anything else would’ve made me less of a brother.

  He put down his pencil and raised his eyes from the carelessly rumpled paper. I swallowed the sigh and reminded myself that there were worse things than a messy nature. Cal was a good brother and a good kid when, if they’d lived his life, other children would be feral as wild dogs and amoral as sharks at dinnertime. Cal was amazingly, painfully human in comparison and not once did I overlook that.

  I reached over and gave him an encouraging tap on the back of his hand as he hesitated, something he rarely did. Cal knew his own mind about generally everything under the sun and all the other suns in at least half our galaxy. “Go on, grasshopper. Tell me.”

  Gray eyes, the same as mine and that of our mother, Sophia, blinked; then he shrugged. “I smelled it. On him.”

  That’s where the discomfort entered the picture. Cal didn’t like admitting he could do something other people couldn’t. He didn’t want to be different. I told him that sometimes different is good, sometimes it’s better. It was one of the few times in his life he hadn’t believed me.

  “Okay,” I sai
d, calm as if that was something I heard every day. I pretended not to see the flush of shame behind his pale skin. He wouldn’t want to talk about it and if I tried, it would make it worse. On certain matters Cal was determined that no positive spin could be put on it and that was that. Stubborn, so stubborn. “What exactly did you smell?”

  He shrugged again. “I got off the bus at the corner with the other kids.” To say that Cal could take care of himself better than your average eleven-year-old was something of an understatement, but I made certain he played it safe all the same. That he stayed with a crowd or a group of other people if he could. “I was walking home and he was at his mailbox by the sidewalk. When I passed him, I smelled it. He smelled like blood. A lot of blood. After he went inside, I snuck around to his backyard and got close to the house. There are tiny kinda half windows to the basement. I think they’re covered up with cardboard on the inside or painted because I couldn’t see anything.” He made a face. “But I could still smell. It’s like roadkill. His basement smells like a mountain of roadkill.”

  He gave a third shrug, a habit I was going to have to break and soon while I was still sane. “He has a basement full of dead bodies,” he declared, “and that means he’s a serial killer.”

  End of story. Which was my brother’s way. If he became a lawyer when he grew up, he’d have the most succinct closing arguments in any court system in America.

  He had already picked up his pencil again and gone back to the math problems. It wasn’t that he liked math or homework of any kind, but he knew no homework meant no TV. That motivated him to no end . . . normally. What motivated him now was the amount of trouble he knew was coming his way.

  “You went prowling around the man’s windows? Cal, how could you do something so stupid? He could’ve shot you. If he’d seen you, he would’ve shot you,” I snapped. This was the type of neighborhood where everyone, little old ladies included, had guns, and if they saw a shadowy shape that remotely looked as if it was trying to break in a window, they would shoot first and not bother to wait long enough to register the shape was the size of a child.