Basilisk

of my own kind had killed Stefan when he was less than ten feet from me.

I wouldn’t kill for myself, but I would kill for my brother.

And I didn’t regret it, not for a moment. It didn’t make me a monster or a freak, saving my family. It made me what I’d wanted to be all along.

It made me human.

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Epilogue

Raynor did as I told him, if only to save his own life from Ariel’s work. He died two and a half days later. I checked the obituaries. He had a nice-looking picture and an Armani suit. I wasn’t surprised. Saul went back to Miami and if he blocked our numbers from now on, I wouldn’t blame him. We took our time in picking another town. It didn’t matter where it was really, only that it was home. We chose different names and jobs. I went with Wyatt, and Stefan was John Henry. Although Doc Holliday was rolling over in his grave at Stefan’s poker skills and I still didn’t care much about guns, my love of Westerns and Western aliases would never die. Instead of being a house painter, Stefan was a car salesman and surprisingly good at it despite his wolfish looks. Once he pounced on them in the car lot, I thought people were afraid to not buy a car from him. He was employee of the month more than once, which embarrassed the hell out of him. I had a copy of the picture made and hung it in the living room to give him shit. That’s what brothers do—give each other shit.

And we were brothers. What he knew and what I knew in the privacy of our own hearts didn’t change that.

I had two jobs. I worked at the library part-time and spent four days a week at what had to be the last video store left in America—what could be more perfect? I could both feed and entertain the mind. I’d moved movie night from Wednesday to Sunday, but I didn’t give it up. I loved the fantasy of movies, maybe more so now.

After all, what had reality done for me lately?

Stefan watched the movies with me now that Ariel was gone, provided he didn’t have a date. I’d gotten over that no woman was good enough for my brother and stopped giving the ones he asked out acid reflux on date night. He was surprised at how much easier dating was here than it had been in Cascade Falls. I didn’t clue him in. Of all the lies I’d told or truths I’d omitted, I could live with that last one. The brotherly ass kickings were still in full force after what I’d pulled on the dam at Cascade Falls. While they were deserved, taking it on myself to be a cure for my fellow chimeras when there was no other, I’d skip further punishment if Stefan found out what I’d done to his dates in Cascade. Besides, if he missed a movie or two with me, it wasn’t that bad. Godzilla took his spot and hogged his share of the popcorn. And if I missed someone who was a killer, a sociopath, and had a smile I’d not forget until the day I died, that was my right.

It was five months later that I finally admitted defeat, finishing what I’d started more than half a year ago, and was at my laptop, hacking into Lolcats, crashing the site, and removing any mention of it from the Net. It was evil. It had to go. My eye was caught by the sudden flash of a white IM box at the bottom of my screen as I typed. It flickered blankly for a second; then a question appeared in flowing pink and green script with a familiar winking mermaid as punctuation:

Hey, sexy, want to watch a movie?

About the Author

Rob Thurman lives in Indiana, land of cows, corn, and ravenous wild turkeys. Rob is the author of the Cal Leandros novels; the Trickster novels; the Korsak Brothers novels; and a story in the anthology Wolfbane and Mistletoe.

Besides wild, ravenous turkeys, Rob has a dog (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)—one hundred pounds of Lab/Dane mix. She has the bark of twenty German Shepherds, a head the size of a horse’s, teeth straight out of a Godzilla movie, and the ferocious habit of hiding under the kitchen table and peeing on herself when strangers come by. By the way, she was adopted from a shelter. She was fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy. Rob also has two other dogs who are slightly more invested in keeping their food source alive.

For updates, teasers, music videos, deleted scenes, social networking, and various other extras, visit the author at www.robthurman.net.

Also by Rob Thurman

The Cal Leandros Novels

Nightlife

Moonshine

Madhouse

Deathwish

Roadkill

Blackout

The Trickster Novels

Trick of the Light

The Grimrose Path

The Korsak Brothers Novels

Chimera

Basilisk

Anthologies

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

EDITED BY CHARLAINE HARRIS AND TONI L. P. KELNER