Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(2)

Yeah, I'd seen mine at least once a month. It watched me. There were no father-and-son chats, no invites to see the monster cousins, no interaction of any sort. There was just a shadowed figure lurking in an alley as I passed. Or maybe a silhouette with lithe, sinuous lines and sharp, sharp teeth cast against my window at night. Of course, it wasn't like it was wearing a name tag that said "Dad" on it or leaving me birthday presents topped with a bow tied by unnaturally long, clawed fingers. I had no proof it was my demonic sperm donor, but come on. When your mother is quick to tell you you're a freak, an abomination that should've been aborted on cheap bathroom tile, you have to think… why else would this monster be stalking me? Funny, that monster had more interest in me than my mother ever had.

Over the years I got used to it, the shadowing. A couple of times I tried to approach it—out of curiosity, or a morbid death wish, who knew? But it always disappeared, melting into the darkness. Mostly I was relieved. It was one thing to be part monster, another altogether to embrace that less-than-Mayflower heritage. Then when I was fourteen that all changed. After that, I didn't look for monsters.

I ran from them.

Actually we ran from them, Niko and I. For four years that felt more like forty, we ran. Ran until it was a way of life. It wasn't the kind of life Niko deserved. But did he listen to me when I told him so? Shit. Hardly. My brother had made a career out of trying to protect me. Talk about your minimum-wage, no-benefits occupations.

Sort of like the one I had now, I thought glumly. Dumping the mop back in the battered bucket, I swirled it around once in the gray foul-smelling water, then flopped it back on the scarred wooden floor. You'd be amazed at how much vomit a barful of drunks could produce. I was, at first. Now I was just amazed at how damn long it took to clean it up. It was rather ironic that the fake ID that aged me up from nineteen to twenty-one had me cleaning up alcoholic chunks rather than spewing them myself.

"Cal, I'm heading out. Close up for me?"

I cast a jaundiced look over my shoulder. Good old "Close up for me" Meredith. You could always put your faith in her—that is, the faith that she would leave you high and dry to duck out early. "Yeah. Yeah." I waved her off. One day I'd tell her to bite me and stick around to do her job, but I was guessing that day would come when she was wearing a top that was a little less tight or a shade less low-cut. "Want me to walk you out?"

"No, the boyfriend's outside." She tugged at my short ponytail as she headed toward the door. "See you tomorrow." And then she was gone, her long cascading red hair and curving figure lingering in the air to dazzle the eye like a fluorescent afterimage. Meredith was all about a look. She'd sculpted herself with the passion and precision of any artist. I doubt that even she had a clue what her original hair color was—or her original breast size, for that matter. She was a walking, talking advertisement for better living through plastic surgery.

And despite 99 percent of it being artificial, it was a damn good body. Fantasizing about it made the unpleasant chore of mopping up human bodily fluids pass a little faster. I actually didn't mind pulling "close up" duty at the bar. After bartending all night it was kind of nice to be surrounded by nothing but silence and empty space. I was beginning to think working at a bar was ruining my appreciation of a good party. Drunk people were starting to lose their charm; hell, they were even starting to lose their comedic ways. You can watch a wasted guy fall off a barstool and crack his head open only so many times before it's just not funny anymore. Well, not as funny anyway.

At the moment the bar was quiet. It was a comforting quiet, the kind that wrapped around you like the thickest of fleecy blankets sold at stores you couldn't even afford to walk through the front door of. It was nice… peaceful. It was also dangerous and Niko would kick my ass if ever I didn't recognize that. Being alone, being distracted, that all added up to being a walking, talking target. I was a fugitive, hunted, and not for one minute, one second, could I forget that. Other things I'd forgotten, in a big way, but never that. Putting away the mop, I finished locking up and ended up on the sidewalk about four thirty. Even at that late hour the streets of New York weren't totally empty, but they were sparser… for a few hours the road less traveled. With the chill of October already a vicious bite in the air, I zipped up the battered black leather jacket I'd picked up from a street vendor in Chinatown for twenty-five bucks. A knockoff of a knockoff, but all I cared about was that it let me blend in with the night.

Keeping my hand in my pocket and firmly gripping a deadly little present Niko had given me, I walked home. It wasn't too far, about five blocks over to Avenue D. It wasn't the best part of town by any means, but neither were we the best type of people. I kept my eyes open and my senses as sharp as those of any rabbit that smelled the wolf. Although to give myself some credit, I was a rabbit with teeth. Not to mention one helluva kick. This time, however, I made it back with no sign of anything with claws, molten eyes, or a hunger for my blood—a good night in my book. Niko and I lived in an older apartment building, pretty run-down but not a complete slum. Depending on your definition. The front door had been secure at some point in time, I suppose, but now it usually hung ajar by a few inches, the gap-toothed grin of a dirty old man. I took the stairs up, seven stories, grumbling and cursing under my breath. There wasn't an elevator; apparently our landlord considered housing laws not exactly a must-read. Not that it mattered. Even if there were one, it probably wouldn't work and if it did, an elevator was no place to be trapped. A metal box of guaranteed death for someone on the run, Niko had said on occasion. And as my brother had absolutely no talent or inclination for exaggeration, I tended to stay out of elevators. Picturing what might drop through the roof or burrow through the floor wasn't the kind of thought I liked to entertain. Making my way down the hall to our door, I slid the key into the lock and opened the door to a dark room. Finding the roughly aged plastic of the light switch with my fingers, I flipped it on.