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  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.

  Well, shit.

  Chances were you were supposed to be worried about identity crises, not embrace them. If I were the hugging type, I’d say I’d just given my slow and gradual defection to the monster side a big one.

  I couldn’t say I hadn’t meant to do it. I didn’t know what I’d meant to do, but I had planned on thinking about it for at least another fraction of a second. Debating the right and wrong of it, the thousand shades of gray, the thousand hues of justification, as there was a chance . . . a small one . . . that I was wrong.

  I sighed and brought them back.

  It had only been a second, but they looked as if they’d been gone a while. Time ran oddly in the Auphe world. A day here could be two years there—I knew that all too well. The seven of them appeared a little thinner and were curled up in moaning, whimpering fetal balls on the street. I knew that feeling too. Tumulus wasn’t Hell—no, it was Hell’s big brother. Not a pleasant place to be. My best guess was they’d been there a few days in Tumulus time.

  That was enough that I didn’t think they’d be attacking anyone else anytime soon. Someone official would eventually come scoop them up and stick them in the real world’s version of Arkham Asylum. After what they’d seen on the other side, they’d be lucky to regain enough coherence to use a spoon again, much less a butcher knife, in the next few months.

  Now, though, it was time to get on with what I was doing before a bizarre street cult thought I didn’t look holy enough, that I needed to pray more. That was New York for you. Not many Jehovah’s Witnesses jumping you on the street, but Jehovah’s pseudo-ninjas willing to kill you to save your soul, those we had. Pretty presumptuous ones too. How did they know what I did or didn’t do? I could pray. I could be holy. They didn’t know.

  My grin widened despite my uncertain conscience. It felt like a tangle of razor wire decorating my face. Yeah, I guess maybe they did know. Apparently my ability to blend in with your average, harmless humans wasn’t all it’d once been. Of course I wasn’t all I’d once been. I was more or I was less, depending on your point of view.

  Either/or, I’d have to work on passing for a little more normal. I still had to shop. Beer and porn didn’t buy itself.

  I checked my watch again. Still on schedule. For good or bad, right or wrong, eight wannabe psycho-killers had been taken care of in less than a minute. I had plenty of time left to deal with Nik.

  Although I did wonder how they had known precisely where the theoretical line of the danger zone ran between monster versus human New York. Knew consciously instead of instinctually, unlike most humans, and knew to the inch. That was peculiar. But as none of them were remotely close to coherent, there was no point in asking. Plus, they were no longer my problem or the problem of any annoying innocent bystanders. As my curiosity on most situations was fairly nil once the potential violence was over, I let it go. Maybe I’d think about it later, maybe not. Psychos in my world were a dime a dozen. Who had the time to think about them all?

  Besides, Nik came first.

  Soon enough I was waiting at the third landing in the stairs of Promise’s building. A very rich and exclusive building it was with a condo board that would reject the queen of England for not keeping a low enough profile. They liked their privacy here, their quiet, and a certain appearance. I made it past the doorman only because Promise, who was Niko’s love life I was there to save, graciously slipped . . . I mean, tipped him two hundred bucks a month for me sullying the atmosphere.

  Leaning against the wall I waited for Niko to climb down the twenty flights of stairs, which he would be doing, I knew for a fact. For the past four weeks he had shown up nearly every night I worked at the bar at closing to make sure I made it home in one piece. Sadly for his sex life, this was not new behavior for him. Not at all. My nearly getting killed inevitably turned him into a hybrid of babysitter/bodyguard/and human Terminator. It was past time to break that cycle. For his sake.

  As for the walking instead of the elevator, it wasn’t all about the cardio. Never take the elevator. Ask anyone who’s killed someone in one of those steel boxes—yeah, that’d be me holding up my hand—they’re nifty death traps with limited opportunity of exit.

  “You should be at work.”

  I’d been waiting for him, but naturally I hadn’t heard him. Nik was too good for that, too good for me. I had smelled him though. The faint tang of oiled metal and the farm fresh smell of goat-milk soap. The man could slice out your heart and hold it in his hand before you even noticed he was there, but he was addicted to goat-milk soap because it was “all natural.” It was embarrassing as hell is what it was. The fact that I used it as I was too lazy to buy my own soap wasn’t embarrassing at all. That was just practical.

  “Cyrano, it’s been a month now. Nothing’s happened. You need to take a break. I’m here to make sure you take it,” I said with exasperation as I looked up at him moving halfway down the stairs from the fourth floor and waited for him to join me. He did need a break, although I hadn’t had much luck convincing him of that. The guy deserved a life of his own that was more than rolling out of Promise’s warm bed at three a.m. to look after me, but once a big brother, always a big brother. That his little brother was a monster in his own right didn’t put a dent in his determination.

  Promise had been patient about the protectiveness issue several times now, but everyone’s patience runs its course. Promise with her knowing eyes, fields of lavender under moonlight, and her ability to snap a neck as gracefully as the movement of any Renaissance dance, was good for Nik. She was a mirror of his calm and control, and being a vampire helped if our work spilled over into our private lives. Promise had no difficulty taking care of herself. I didn’t want him to lose the sanctuary he had in her because of me. The very reason he needed a sanctuary was thanks to me after all.

  “Grimm waited twelve years to find you,” he pointed out, stopping beside me. “I doubt a month of laying low will be much of a strain for him.”

  Grimm was the problem I’d gifted Niko with, the reason I’d blown off Ishiah and his serial killer. Grimm was actually my problem, the outlet for the worst part of me—he did double duty. He was not Nik’s trouble, but brothers, like company, loved misery. Or was that the other way around? Whatever. Grimm was half Auphe like me, the result of the same experiment in genetic engineering spawned by a race that had once ruled and ravaged the earth long before man had yet to be the next best thing to a tadpole. Now, thanks to Niko, some friends and myself, the Auphe were extinct, but part of their experiment remained. Grimm and me.

  Grimm wanted to kill me and he wanted my help in fathering a new race to replace the Auphe. And being half Auphe he saw no reason h
e couldn’t have both things. It was something of a blind spot, but not a surprising one when the Auphe had been the worst of the worst when it came to monsters. They had lived only to murder and mutilate and do so as frequently as possible. Our childhood name for them, Grendels, had fallen damn short of the reality.

  Now Grimm thought he had the balls to step into their jockstrap—and he was right.

  As problems went, Grimm was a big one. I was a monster, no matter what Nik said to the contrary, but there were degrees of monster. Grimm was the better monster. A month ago I’d sent him packing with a chest full of bullets, but I’d been able to do it only because I’d set my human part to one side and let all my monster come out to play. A dangerous thing that.

  A fun thing.

  That too, but my kind of fun came with a price tag. Every time I let it off the leash, there was more to chain back up when I was done. More monster equaled less room for the human in me—the sanity in me. There were monsters and then there were monsters. I didn’t want to become the latter . . . if I had a choice . . . at least not this soon.

  What I’d done to the eight killers on the street—that was nothing to what I could do. Nothing. I could have done so many things. . . .

  Not the time nor the place.

  No longer a member of the human race was the singsong rhyme in my head.

  I snorted at the childishness of my own subconscious before shoving it down hard and slamming the lid on its box. I had once made a mental box when I was a kid to store bad thoughts, bad memories, bad desires. Now I had thousands of boxes. That was good, in my opinion. It meant that I was in control. I would fight to my last breath to keep it that way—identity crisis or not.

  Not that it mattered now, because this was Niko time. I needed to make the most of it. Niko deserved a personal life that didn’t involve playing bodyguard to me and I wasn’t giving up on that.