Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(6)

"Yes, yes. Child of the Night is on your birth certificate. Six-six-six is tattooed on your infant ass. I believe I've heard it before." He poured a drink as I gave a quirk of my lips, but it was more genuine than the grin I'd flashed a few moments ago. Robin did have a way of pulling me out of a mood. It was hard to moan and groan about my bogeyman heritage when he treated me less like a monster and more like Bo Peep with a gun. I appreciated it, because there had been times he had seen what I could be. And it didn't come out of any nursery rhyme.

"So, did the case not go well?" He held the pregnant glass—all curves—sniffed the liquid, clicked his tongue, and shook his head, but took a swallow anyway.

"Eh." I shrugged. "We got paid. The lamia got eaten. Really a win-win in my book."

"And the fact that it was a kidnapping case, that doesn't even bear discussing?"

I ducked my head, letting my longish hair swing forward—black to my brother's dark blond. My skin fair to his olive. All we had that showed our common mother was our gray eyes. And I knew mine, peering through the dark strands, were now opaque. "It was months ago. Let it go, okay?" I warned.

He took another swallow. "Months. Millennia. A veritable eon. Whatever was I thinking?"

"You weren't," I said stiffly.

A werewolf came slinking up to the bar, ears flat and nose wrinkled in disgust at the Auphe tinge to my scent. It was hard to ask for a brewski with his half-human face contorted around a mouthful of teeth straight out of The Call of the Wild, but he pointed just fine. He was obviously not a fine-bred, but part of the wolf population breeding for recessive wolf genes, not that I had any prejudices about that. How could I? I gave him his beer and kept my chew toy jokes to myself. Ishiah was right. It really wasn't good for business, and he'd given me a break with this job.

I didn't know if it was as an unspoken favor to Robin or to piss him off. I had asked Goodfellow once which it was, and he had declared smoothly that if I didn't want the job, I'd make a great junior car salesman and he had a place for me waiting at his lot. Hell, no. I didn't know if I had a soul or not, but if I did, I wasn't giving it away that easily. If there were a surer path to damnation than being a car salesman, I didn't know what it would be.

"I always think. You might not want to hear what I say, Caliban, but that's your problem." He poured another glassful. "Thinking and talking are what I do best."

"I'll give you the last one all right," I grunted.

He smoothed his wavy brown hair, straightened his suit jacket, rich brown over a deep green shirt. Just the fabric of one of them probably cost more than a week of my pay. Picking up the bottle in preparation to leaving, he said soberly, "You should try talking to her."

Her being Georgina—George. She was the one who'd been kidnapped. We'd gotten her back. She'd survived. Although it had been a very close thing— for all of us. George was the local psychic, but she was the real thing…and this girl, this special girl, had thought we could be together. I had known better. And although she'd proved to be as stubborn and hardheaded as me in her own way, I still knew it.

"I talk," I countered defensively.

He stood, the amber liquid in his bottle not sloshing even a millimeter. When you'd been alive as long as he had, you tended to be pretty damn graceful and controlled in your movements. "I mean really talk to her as opposed to flapping that useless mouth once in a blue moon and saying absolutely nothing. But I wash my hands. Please, ruin any chance of a love life that you have while I go expand mine." He winked rapaciously. "Do you want to guess? Male or female? Other? One or three? I'm willing to gift my knowledge to the less fortunate."

"Yeah, thanks anyway," I refused. "I like being less fortunate." Although lately that wasn't precisely true. "Gives me something to bitch about."

"As if you need an excuse," he snorted.

"Wait," I said as he started to move off. "Niko and I came across some bodies in the park. Five. Hanging in the trees like goddamn ornaments." And wasn't that creepy as f*cking hell? "Would a Black Annis do something like that?"

Niko and I had discussed it. If they were willing to catch their own food, why bother with kidnapping the lamia? We couldn't investigate for more than a few moments—the inner edge of Central Park wasn't the safest place to be pawing over bodies for clues. "Two men, three women." One had been more a girl…sixteen maybe…with long hair that had dripped blood in a gentle rain to the grass. "All were…shit…chewed on, I guess you'd say. Ripped and torn."

He considered it. "A Black Annis? It's conceivable. They're not much for delayed gratification, so taking a bite or two while waiting on you and Niko would be something they would do. Hanging them in a tree?" He seesawed a hand back and forth. "They're more for caves, but in a pinch?" He shrugged. "They are adaptable." Pausing, he added soberly, "Five people? Unpleasant." Setting the bottle back in front of me, he advised, "Just this once. Bacchus was a doctor in his own right." He then waved a hand and was gone.

Less than a moment later, Ishiah returned and watched Robin disappear out the door. He looked exasperated. Scratch that. Not exasperated—highly, profoundly annoyed. And intent, very intent. It was a peculiar combination. "Oh, hey. I get it." I grinned, pouring a small amount of Robin's gift into a glass. I wasn't a drinker, to say the least, but he was right. One wouldn't hurt; it could only help. "You have a thing for him."