Doubletake

brother. No. But if he did, we’d have to pay the cleaning lady fifty extra bucks to scrub Kalakos’s brain off the wall.

Money well spent.

I finished the pizza as Kalakos spoke, barely breathing hard from the exertion. “I did desert you. I did know Sophia was…as she was. But I hunt clan criminals and return them for punishment, or deliver that punishment if the crime is grave enough.”

Niko didn’t bother to reply. The fight went on. I hadn’t seen any human in my life who came close to my brother. Blades, bare-handed, the occasional gun he had little respect for—no one was as good. Neither was Kalakos, but was near enough that I didn’t like it. You can be the best in the world, but everyone stumbles; everyone makes that one mistake…humans and non. I had, more than once. The fact that Kalakos was good enough to take advantage of that if Niko did…

No, I didn’t fucking care for it at all.

“You’re one of the best I’ve fought,” Niko said. “It’s a shame.”

He blocked another of Kalakos’s blows before the Polish saber whipped under the katana and slammed the Japanese blade upward toward Niko’s face; then metal circled metal as the karabela’s point plunged toward Nik’s neck. That was when Niko kicked his father in the stomach, staggering the older man back a few feet.

He then blocked the hand gripping the saber, slamming fist against fist, started to sweep his leg, then abruptly swept the other, taking Kalakos off guard and throwing him down to the mat. “Elegant move. Rare. I’ve seen it used only once before at that short distance.” Yeah, when he practiced it on me. The karabela didn’t bother to come up to block the katana that sliced toward the man’s throat.

Black met stony gray. “Not only did I hunt Rom, but I hunt the unclean, as you do when they threaten the clans. A child could not survive that life.”

“A child survived worse. A hundred times worse. Your failure has nothing to do with me.” Niko lifted his katana and walked away. But before he did, he said, “If you had learned in the beginning to fight for family instead of money, you would be even a better fighter and less of a dishonorable bastard than you are now.” He was right. Kalakos wouldn’t chase criminals and monsters for free. We didn’t either…if the client could afford us. If they couldn’t, Niko may as well have been Sonny and Cher’s lesser-known child, Pro Bono. At least fifty percent of our work didn’t earn us a dime, which was fine. Protecting others was a reward worth more than money. I was lucky that Niko had taught me that.

Killing is the true payment. Killing is the best part.

I gave an internal shrug. It didn’t matter what the darkest part of me thought. When the goals were the same, it…no, not it…I could think whatever I wanted. I was who I was. I didn’t need to change that control or the improved me with the acid erosion of denial.

Know thyself…and then know that your brother knows better than you.

At a stack of neatly folded towels on a shelf near the paper targets hung on the wall, Nik propped up his katana for cleaning when he was done with himself. Wiping the sweat from his chest, arms, and back, he added remotely, “You healed Cal. That allows you and only you a week to recover Janus. Then he becomes someone else’s problem and not ours. The Vayash will have to send others to do what you could not.”

He stood, no better off than Niko, but not much worse either. He might have sweated a little more, breathed a little harder, but the difference was small. I liked that less and less. Niko was younger and more motivated, but Kalakos would have picked up tricks along the longer years to stay alive doing what he did. The dirtiest of tricks. My kind of tricks, but I wouldn’t turn them against my brother. Would he?

Kalakos started toward Niko, refusing to give up. It was a good thing for him that he left his saber behind. “There is no one else who can—”

I gave a low whisper of a hiss before slicing a hand across my throat, and he stopped talking immediately. That smell, the trace of rotten eggs…sulfur. I looked up at the metal ceiling far above. “Shit. Niko, now!” He didn’t question. He propelled himself across the room, lunged, and landed on top of Robin and Promise, which was a Goodfellow wet dream come true, and then I threw myself off the counter onto Nik. As I landed on his back, there was the tearing of metal and the shattering of our floor as Janus came to visit.

Suyolak’s medicine had healed me, but Rafferty’s rewiring was still in place. That meant I couldn’t make a gate as fast as my first one yesterday—it took me three days to recover fully—but it was faster than it normally would’ve been. Too bad it wasn’t fast enough.

Janus’s two-faced head was swiveling, its one claw missing. It was checking the soon-to-be battlefield, slower and more cautious this time. It then moved, deciding it had all enemies in sight, and was almost on us when Kalakos threw himself in front of it. He slid a sword into one of the glowing red seams in its chest. It wasn’t the saber. This was a Greek sword, true as any ancient warrior charging Troy had held—a xiphos made of the same dark metal of the automaton. Kalakos slammed his feet against Janus’s abdomen and pushed hard, ending up half on the couch. Janus jerked and staggered back a single step, the floor cracking beneath his feet again. It was for only a second or two, but that was all I needed.

In those seconds we were as much history as Janus himself.

7

Black Sheep

I liked games. It was true few others liked the games I played, but I didn’t care what they liked. It was a waste of their breath. I had discarded my sunglasses as the rain continued to fall and the lightning flashed. It was good weather. The air sizzled and danced and it was dark enough for certain curiosities to travel roofs and not be seen by the mass of ignorant humans that clogged the sidewalks of this place, insects overrunning their anthill. I tossed down the binoculars and laughed. That thing, that metal thing, had come back and dropped through the roof where Caliban lived.

Little pig, little pig, let me come in. The first book I’d learned to read in my days of freedom. My teacher had been proud. I was a literate predator and that made me more dangerous than the first Auphe had been. When the prey was so many, you had to know them, truly know everything about them. My teacher said a mind was a terrible thing to waste. She was right, and when she taught me all she could, I ate hers. I thought it a compliment to her teachings. She thought differently.

That meant I taught her a lesson as well: You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean.

Ah, but back to the good part, the now part. That wasn’t the best part, that metal thing, metal toy, showing up. It remained as interesting as I’d thought last night, but it wasn’t on my agenda now.

I was Auphe—the New Coming.

Toys could wait.

But Caliban…I couldn’t see him. The windows were too high, the angle wrong, but it didn’t matter. Blocks and blocks away, I had smelled the blood last night…Auphe blood—much more pungent and real than human blood. It would’ve been too far to smell him, whole, but the blood…its scent traveled…and traveled yet more. But then it had faded, disappeared this morning. Somehow he had put himself back together, all those pieces, and I wanted to know how. I would know how. He’d be happy…very happy to tell me. Or I’d be happy to force him to tell me. At times I mixed up the two—a mistake easy to make when you didn’t care one way or the other. I clicked the man-made metal claws that encased my one gloved hand against the dirt. It was an apartment building, and I hid in the greenery they had forced to grow there in pots against its will, choking on the fumes of this place. Such a minor evil that I felt disgust and rage. Humans—their wickedness was so dismal and feeble that I wanted to rip out the trees and bushes and throw them over the side of the roof.

What had I been thinking again?

What had I…

Yes, games. I’d watched Caliban for three months now in this place. I’d had twelve years of freedom, but I’d returned for three years to piss around the home of my former prison—Nevah’s Landing—because I