Roadkill

ready to suck it up.

I looked around at the pink and green checkered couch with its small coffee table. There wasn’t a crystal ball or pack of tarot cards in sight. Only ruffles, a flower-patterned rug under the table, and the fading smell of cinnamon from that morning’s breakfast. All that was missing were big-eyed kitten teacups. “Damn, Abelia, you’ve gone all Martha Stewart on me. Where’s the good stuff? The ‘love spells,’ the cards, the paste engagement rings, the hexes? How does all this Bible Belt country charm not dissolve you into a puff of smoke?”

That brought a glare out of her. “We do our work and we do it well. If the buyer is a fool, that is no fault of mine if they end up with less than they expected.”

True enough. But I wasn’t a fool and I’d still ended up with something I hadn’t expected when she’d sold us the Calabassa-the near sacrifice of my brother.

I pulled out my knife and balanced it on its tip in the center of the table, then rotated it slowly with a lazy back-and-forth twist of my wrist. I’d told Nik that I wouldn’t use it; I didn’t say I wouldn’t show it. “Against my better judgment,” I said casually, “and, oh, despite our general loathing and hatred of you, my brother and I have decided to take the job. It’ll cost you fifty thousand dollars.”

She snorted, but it was a weak imitation of her usual snap. “Even a Vayash, even a gadje barters better than that-to start so impossibly high.” Idly I noticed that matching candy pink curtains were drawn over the tiny window. Petal pink and this poisonous centipede of a woman; it would make you think twice about that old saying about stopping to smell the roses. There was no telling what would scuttle out and bite you when you did.

I smiled as the knife continued to turn… just as the gate began to turn behind me. I started it small, out of her sight hidden by my back, and let it grow until it was a full-sized mass of writhing gray light. “But I’m not gadje, at least not the kind of outsider you mean, am I?” I let my curved lips peel back to show my teeth. Some would’ve called it a grin, but only those like me-born in the world’s shadow.

“Fifty thousand, take it or leave it.” I turned my head slightly, letting my eyes slide toward the tarnished light. “Or you could go through there. Trade instead of money. Would you like to see what’s on the other side, Abelia-Roo? Step through there and maybe we’ll take care of your ‘tiny’ problem for free. You won’t find a better deal than that.” I showed more teeth. “Go on. Aren’t you even curious?”

Her wattled neck convulsed as she swallowed, blackbird eyes surrounded by white. She managed to look anywhere but at the gate… or at me. “That… that is more than half of everything we have.”

“You almost cost me my brother, who is the whole of everything I have. It seems more than fair to me.” I stopped spinning the knife and slapped it flat on the table as the gate crept closer behind me. I could feel it. Eager but contained, and good; it felt damn good and nothing like before-no thirst for blood, no shredding of my control, no consuming hunger.

All right. Maybe a little hunger.

But mainly the feeling I could do anything; be anything; was everything. “You pay or we leave.” I stood but braced my arms on the table. “I really don’t give a shit either way. But when I do leave”-I looked at the gate again, thinking fondly what a good boy it was-“I’m leaving my friend behind.”

I took my knife, slid it into its sheath, and headed for the RV door. “Enjoy. I opened it in the middle of a boggle nest. Have anything in your little bags for a boggle?” She didn’t move, frozen-the mighty Abelia-Roo, who ruled with an iron fist and hadn’t bothered to spare a word to save my brother’s life, finally facing something she couldn’t control, couldn’t curse, and couldn’t con.

“I didn’t think so.” I swung the door open. “Tell Mama Boggle you’re a friend of mine when she comes through. She really loves me. I’m like the half- Auphe bastard son she never had.”

I was letting the door swing shut behind me when she let out a strangled, “No, we’ll pay.”

Because she thought I’d actually do it, and it could be she was right. My brother brought out the best in me. People who messed with my brother brought out the very worst.

I caught the door. “Is that so? Damn. I’d been hoping you’d say no.” I let the gate thin to nothing. I thought about it first, a long moment, but finally I did let it go before I motioned out the door to Nik. This time I did let it swing shut and went back to my former seat. “Who told you about me? Not that it matters. It’s not a big secret these days. I’m just curious. And don’t I rate any of that blackberry brandy?” She forked the evil eye at me. I forked my own economy version right back-just the one finger needed. “What do they say? The pot calling the kettle black?” I drawled.

“The Vayash told us,” she said between disgusting puckered lips. “I called them after contacting you at the bar. I wanted to know if you were hard workers, would do well by us. Instead, they warned us and revealed to us what you are. Your clan revealed their shame to protect their fellow Rom. It is the kind of loyalty and honor our people share with one another, not that a creature like you could understand that.”

“The same loyalty and honor you showed us at our last business arrangement?” Niko asked as he came through the door. “And if you think my brother is so lacking in it, why do you want to hire us?”

“Sometimes only evil can find evil, can detect its blackened wake.” She looked as if she wanted to spit to cleanse her mouth of a bad taste, but that wouldn’t have done her squeaky-clean linoleum any good.

“Takes a monster to catch a monster. Maybe I can get that on a T-shirt.” I wedged myself in the corner to give Niko’s longer legs some room, then promptly elbowed him for having the audacity to be a few inches taller than I was. Not my usual “on the job” behavior, but I wasn’t looking to impress Abelia-Roo. She was impressed enough. Impress her any more and I might short out that shriveled black wad of phlegm she called a heart. While that might do the world a favor, it wouldn’t get us fifty thousand dollars or save the world from a murderous, psychotic, and by now, claustrophobic, antihealer.

Niko did something under the table that cut off all feeling below my right knee. Catholic nuns had their rulers; Niko had his one hundred seventy- six ways of making you regret you had nerve endings. I winced and reluctantly tried for a more businesslike demeanor. “Nik, Abelia here, loving and generous granny that she is, is paying us fifty thousand dollars to find their lost jack-in-the-box, killer-in-the-box, whatever you want to call it. Where do we start?”

“Fifty-thousand? That is generous. Most generous indeed.” The gaze Nik turned on me let me know I was lucky he didn’t do something that didn’t paralyze me from the neck down instead of the knee and then pound my head against the table. He didn’t ask how I’d managed to get such a good deal-he knew. Big brothers could always look at their little brothers and not only know they’d been bad, but how they’d been bad. And brothers didn’t come any sharper than mine.

I’d been aware of what I was going to do when I got out of the car and I’d been aware I’d have to pay the price, not from the gate itself, but from my brother. I’d done it anyway. If I had to pay a little for Abelia to pay a lot, then that was the way it had to be.

“Fifty thousand,” I confirmed. “But no brandy. Although with your being pure Rom and human to boot, I’d think you’d rate.”

“Forget the brandy.” Niko turned back to Abelia-Roo, one more narrowed glance letting me know other things wouldn’t be so easily forgotten. Those things were starting to add up at a fast and furious rate. I had four gates to pay for now. “When was Suyolak taken? Do you have a description of the men and the truck they transferred the coffin into? And were there any strangers around beforehand, asking questions about Rom culture or history?”

“A researcher, you mean. A professor and, yes, one did. We are Rom, not naive sheep. Of course we know he was behind it. He came to talk of our legends. He brought up the legend of Suyolak over and over. Could he really heal any wound, any illness? We took his money, spun him nonsense tales, and sent him on his way. We’d planned on moving on the next day anyway, but the next day was not soon enough.” She pounded her fist sharply against the table. “Johai! The card he gave us was false. The name equally false. He was a tall man, silver hair, dark eyes.” Her hands fluttered about, then disappeared and reappeared with one of her infamous tiny bags. “That night they came, night before last. The truck had no license plate. The men wore jeans, black shirts, and ski masks. They shot five of our clan; shot them dead and carried Suyolak away.”