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  “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 ar
e 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. Deja 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.

  Did I mention it was a flaming sword? Angels were a myth, but the seed that had started the myth, the peris, were close enough for shagging your ass toward the Promised Land without stopping to think maybe a map and a timetable would be good things to ask for first.

  In this case, the Promised Land was a street shrouded by the cloying breath of dangerous night and the less poetic ammonia stench of were-cat urine sprayed on the curb. I didn’t care what anyone said. No one moved to New York for the ambience-except for monsters and they had considerably more leeway when it came to ambience.

  I checked my watch. I had thirty minutes before the end of my shift. That meant I could do my brother a favor and try to keep his love life from going down in flames. Or at least toss him a fire extinguisher because he was already in the doghouse and that, too, was my fault. I walked toward the next block. Cabs didn’t come down this street, unless a monster shrouded in human clothes was driving one. You could call this street the point of no return, the edge of the earth like the old days, and it was for oblivious humans. Luckily, nature kept most humans from wandering onto a feeding ground. Some subconscious sense of ill-ease had them veering off to safer streets where shadows were only that.

  But sometimes you run into something different. With monsters there was always something different, but with humans, open book-open, harmless pop-up kiddie book. Except for Nik, who fell in a category all his own, there were rarely any surprises with humans.

  Tonight I was surprised.

  They lined up on both sides of the street, barely an inch from where open season on sheep began. They knew. They were human and they knew and not just subconsciously. Not that the inch was more than a suggestion. Nearly any creature would kill a human anywhere in NYC, much less an inch or so off pure monster-ville territory. But, the fact these men knew there was a territory at all. . huh. Suddenly I wasn’t quite as bored as I had been.

  There were eight of them, four on each side until four walked over and it was eight on one side-my side. I smelled the youth on them. It made it past the stink of living on the streets: filth, and rotting food, cigarette smoke and decaying teeth, but oddly no alcohol. No scent of heroin, a sleepy smell, or meth, tinfoil and edgy. They were homeless, but not too old and not too young. In their twenties it looked like under the hoods of their identical white hooded sweatshirts and the scruff of beard. What kind of homeless managed to team up to wear white? That’s what it was under the patches of grime and it made no sense. Their world was a dirty one and white had no place in it. It was odd as was the fact that they were all in their prime, as much as the underfed and unsheltered could be.

  It was interesting.

  This wasn’t a mugging. I hadn’t had anyone try to mug me since I was sixteen. Pit vipers and me, we both gave off an unspoken, “You want to screw with me? Really? Because I would fucking love that.” We had the time and the tools and we were more than happy to put them to use. Muggers tended to veer off for easier-appearing targets.

  No, this wasn’t like that. This was different entirely. For one, there were eight of them. Even for this city that was more than your usual dose of daily violence aimed at a single source.

  I stopped and let them circle me, catching another smell as they came closer. Metal. On every one of them was the sharp, sweet singing whiff of a good chunk of metal. Knives or guns. I didn’t smell cordite or gun oil. Only knives then, but all armed, and that made them more interesting.

  Interesting.

  Fun.

  Playtime.

  No, no. I was bored, but there were other ways to entertain myself. None were coming to mind, but there had to be at least one or two. And these were humans, not sheep. Humans.

  “You guys here for some exercise?” I checked my watch again. “You should probably look elsewhere. I’m having identity issues right now, which is frustrating, and I tend to express my emotions with bullets. It’s so much cheaper than therapy.”

  I needed an outlet for my monster, a specific one. One that would challenge me and take all my effort to put down. I hadn’t had a distraction like that in a month now, which meant things tended to spill over in all directions. Then, wham, I was all “put the lotion in the basket” and no one, but no one was happy with that attitude.

  I was doing my best, trying to hold back. I gave them one warning, which was one more than I usually gifted unto any jackass. All they had to do was take it. . quickly, if they were smart, but they had an out.

  Years ago I tried to avoid killing people if I could-whether they deserved it or not. It seemed like an important distinction. Monsters go down, humans go to the hospital. Sometimes I couldn’t get around it, but most of the time I managed to wound instead of kill. Recently I’d begun to wonder if that was bad decision making. There were human monsters that were every bit as bad as the real deal, some worse. I’d known that my whole life. Did they deserve a free ride?

  Nope, I was thinking they did not.

  Their genetic makeup didn’t come into it at all. I treated all monsters equally. After all, that was only fair, right?

  I was one step off the Ninth Circle open buffet invitational, but the streetlights were out, the shadows dense. This was a human street, but it wasn’t a safe one by any means. One of the men, this one wearing the same white sweatshirt as the others with the hood up, almost like a monk, with filth-covered jeans, and ratty sneakers, stepped closer to me. He had reddish stubble, a pockmarked face, and remarkably clear eyes. Too clear. Eyes that focused, that bright, that shining usually meant there was one thought and one only in the gray matter behind them. When you have only one thought-a single unwavering incandescent unshakable goal-that made you generally ape-shit. The ape-shit could rarely be reasoned with.

  People: can’t live with them. Can’t destroy them with the power of your mind.

  Oh wait. I could.

  “Heaven says you should pray.” His breath was what I expected and forevermore would the word “heaven” be linked to the rank stench of tooth decay in my mind. Joy. His knife was out now and swinging toward my throat. I took it from him with a simple block and twist, slammed it into his chest, punching through the bony crunch of sternum into his heart, and used his momentum to flip him over my shoulder. It’s an amazing world when a dead man can fly. I’d given him an out, and he’d chosen it. Too bad it was the wrong one. That left seven knives slashing at me and seven more foul-smelling huffs of exhaled air carrying the same word and then more of them.

  “Last chance for the rest of you.” I looked around the circle. “I am both ethically and morally challenged at the best of times. And you annoying me with your festive little homicidal ways doesn’t come under the category of best of times.”

  “Child of God, on your knees and pray.”

  “Pray for deliverance.”

  “Pray for mercy.”

  “Pray.” “Pray.” “Pray.” “Pray.”

  I was praying all right. Praying for a round of breath mints. Jesus Christ.

  “I should pray, huh? Hate to tell you assholes, you should’ve prayed for better directions. This is not a part of town for a good churching up.” I grinned, sharp and gleeful. “Not a steeple in sight.”

  Seven men, young but malnourished. No problem. Seven knives out and slashing if not with trained efficiency, then with wild enthusiasm. More of a problem, but it could be handled. Seven sets of eyes burning with the fire
of the martyr. Seven psychos willing to die for something, who the hell knew what, willing to die like their buddy if they could take me with them. Seven knives against two guns and more rounds stashed on me than World War II would’ve needed. It was doable. Even as close as I’d let them get, to see-you know-just to see what could happen. Did that make me a bad boy? Yes, it did. But all in all, the entire situation still very doable. But eight bodies to clean up, and they were too close to me to be anything but bodies now, that was different.

  Fun was in the execution of some easily justifiable violence. Fun was not in the cleanup. Not that I should think that. I shouldn’t.

  Really, really shouldn’t.

  I could leave. I could go-in the way the Auphe did-and leave them behind, but, entertainment aside, I needed to do more than exercise my skills. I needed to stretch them. I had someone after me who could do the same as I could, only better, quicker, years ahead of me in experience. If I was going to survive him, I needed to level the playing field. I had to catch up. I needed the practice. Practice made perfect. But did I need to use seven men. . homicidal, but still men. . as an exercise? Was that right?

  Playtime. Playtime, playtime, playtime.

  What the hell.

  I sent them away. All of them.

  Nice and tidy.

  As I said-skills.

  The world screamed, my attackers screamed along with it. Reality ripped as my gate opened, and the night itself came alive as ravenous gray light ate them. Eight hungry mouths made of lightning and death tore through the shadows turning them the purple of coagulated blood and took the men to where they could pray to their hearts’ content. Not that it would do them any good and not that they would last long, depending on how much time had passed in that particular hell and how much radiation lingered there. Then the mouths closed and the night was only the night again.