Doubletake

a coliseum. Where was Russell Crowe in his leather skirt when you needed him?

Grimm hadn’t specified where at Fort Tilden he wanted us, but he wouldn’t have any difficulty. Either he would pick up our scent or Janus would find us, however Janus did that. We had problems, but that wasn’t one of them. After walking another hundred feet out of the first battery, I put down the bags and started opening cake boxes to mold gray bricks around the base of the powder magazine that sat square on the combination concrete road and track. It was about twenty feet high and had a large square entrance that the ammunition train would’ve gone through.

“How do you know for certain that’s where they’ll be?” Niko asked.

“Looking down on my victims, held up like an emperor, with my unstoppable gladiator beside me. It’s where I’d stand…if I were Grimm. Arrogant, remember?” I activated the receivers and handed Niko one of the two detonators I had. “Just in case.”

In case I lost mine or had no heartbeat or fingers left to press the button. The customary precautions. Then I took one of the two duffel bags we’d given a mystified Kalakos to carry and took out a can of spray paint. Neon glow-in-the-dark red. Another prop to Grimm’s ego. Niko had been right.

Practical was the way to go.

Playing the Auphe game for a human reason wasn’t.

And I thought people couldn’t change. This was me changing my ways.

As Niko observed, I shook the can and sprayed a large circle around the magazine. I’d stomped down the shorter grass that had sprung up through the cracks in the concrete and the paint went on fairly evenly. Outside of the circle I sprayed symbols. They looped, came to odd points, tangled with one another, turned jagged, insane, and forbidding as anything written.

“And that would be?” he questioned. I hadn’t mentioned this part to Nik. It wasn’t a weapon, unless you counted psychological ones. It might not do shit, but then again it might. If ever there was a time to pull out all the stops, this was it.

“Grimm can’t speak Auphe.” I started spraying the English translation in yet another ring around it. “He hates that. He hates that I can. From the two years they had me, I know some. I don’t remember it, like I don’t remember anything else from then. If I tried to say something in it now, I couldn’t. It just comes to me… sometimes. But Grimm doesn’t know that.” He’d know…know that I thought I was more Auphe than he was, mouthing their dead words, but Grimm didn’t know anything about what I felt when it came to that.

It didn’t mean it wouldn’t burn his ass.

For a guy who thought he was superior to the Auphe, he had a thing about which of us had the most of them in us. He was a conflicted son of a bitch. Black sheep often were. Your family of monsters throws you in a cage and has you tortured and you hate them for it. Your family of monsters throws you in a cage and has you tortured, but you want their acceptance.

Now, that was pathetically human.

“How often is sometimes?” Niko inquired, hiding that he was uneasy about that. But not hiding it very well.

“Hardly ever. Like two or three times when I was really pissed off, but only with Auphe.” Or the Auphe in me. “Nobody else brings it out.” I finished up and stood to look at my masterpiece. The English read, “It’s only an illiterate human half-breed with the cock of a herpes-ridden, snake-raping sheep who can’t speak or read the tongue of the First.”

“Grammatically atrocious, but effective,” Niko admitted.

“Grimm is as conceited as you”—I elbowed my brother—“about his intelligence. This has a chance of pissing him off so badly that control will be the last thing on his mind.”

Kalakos glanced at the circles and rapidly away. “Evil magic,” he said with dark accusation. “Those are the words of demons. They will drive us to madness.”

“Unless I spray it in your eyes, it won’t do shit to you or anyone.” I snorted and tossed the empty can of paint to Nik. “The Auphe spoke, but they didn’t write. No written language. I copied this from that spooky little girl two blocks down who’s always writing on the sidewalk. It’s gibberish.”

“Actually I think it’s Hungarian.” Niko tilted his head.

Huh. “Could be. Her place smells of goulash a lot. The good spicy kind.”

He put the paint can in his bag, folded up the bakery boxes and bags, and stuffed them in there too before splitting the grenades between the two of us. “I’ll be at twelve o’clock. Kalakos at eight. You at four. Let’s not make goulash of one another. Kalakos, stay back as far as you can until we blow it all. Once the C4 goes—and if it doesn’t do the job—you won’t have accurate enough hearing to count the grenades.” He started to offer the Javelin to me, but I shook my head.

“Grimm will definitely be after me. Janus could be after us all. Better you have it. The instruction manual’s taped to the side.” One last joke.

“And I get nothing?” Kalakos demanded. “I can and have fought with the best of them. I helped Niko escape the Cyclops. If this is all you expect of me, you should’ve left me in the car until it was done.”

“You ever used a grenade?” I asked. “A rocket? A goddamn nuke? I didn’t think so. If I’m going to be killed, I’d rather it be by Janus or Grimm than because you miscounted and threw a grenade down my throat. So hang back. Niko and I will be doing the same thing. And if we’re screwed and none of the explosives do the job—here.” I gave him back his xiphos. “So far it’s the only thing that has made Janus think twice.”

I slapped Niko on his shoulder. “See you when I see you.”

He cuffed the back of my head as he walked behind me to pick up his bag. “The Javelin has night sight. I’ll be seeing you the whole time.”

“Wait.” I pulled a ponytail holder out of my pocket…the hell with Kalakos’s identical one…and yanked my hair back tightly. Praise Jesus. I could see. “And now I can see you. Later, big brother.”

He lifted his hand, his lips curled smugly, having gotten his way. “Later, little brother.”

We all separated and headed into three different directions, burrowing into the greenery. It was almost impossible, it being as unyielding and densely woven as a prison fence, but using my combat knife, I made my way in about six feet. Grimm would know I was there. He would find me by scent and feel me as well. But knowing I was there and knowing where I was within several feet weren’t the same.

Six feet back, he wouldn’t see me, as the branches, leaves, and grass had all sprung back into place—which was important. He wore those sunglasses all the time for a reason, and not just because his eyes were red. I hadn’t inherited the Auphe heightened ability to see in the dark, but it was safe to say he had. Six feet back and hidden by nature. Six feet close and ready to blow the C4 with backup grenades in the smallish bag that I had looped from left shoulder to right hip. It woudn’t interfere much if I had to unholster my Glock with my left hand while either setting off the detonator with my right or using it to throw grenades. All assuming my left hand cooperated.

I flexed it and gritted my teeth. I straightened it, then flexed it again. This time I tasted the blood of a teeth- torn bottom lip. Now I knew. Cooperation was not on the menu, but I’d make do. If it’s not broken or severed, you can make it work and the hell with the pain. I wasn’t taking the pain pills. I’d rather hurt than lose my edge. I checked my phone one more time. It was the same. Nothing. Goddamn it, Goodfellow, I thought, your horny ass had better be alive. Then I turned the phone to vibrate and slipped it in my front jeans pocket.

The sun set and Mars rose. Mosquitoes swarmed about, but after one bit me, it and the others buzzed off. Like that succubus had once made clear: They did not like the way I tasted. I was about to check the phone again when I felt him.

Grimm was here. On the beach maybe. I didn’t try to see. It would be impossible through the New York version of the Amazon jungle. And if he was on the beach, he wouldn’t be there long. I was right. I could feel him moving…gating…triangulating our scent. There was the familiar flash of gray, silver, and black light on top of the Battery East and then they were there…on the powder magazine.

The king of the Second Coming and his malignant windup toy.

It was dark, but the night wasn’t as deep as you’d think. Janus glowed. I thought it would, but not like this. The crimson, in heat and color, that outlined each metal shield that scaled him like a dragon lit up the entire top of the powder magazine. Its eyes were lamps to lead the dead, and the face with the grinning mouth and pointed ebony teeth was half turned my way. I could see the liquid twin to lava running slowly out of its mouth. Whatever