Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(34)

Despite the less-than-comradely words, it looked as if Robin's request was being carried out. Light was slowly creeping into the air around us. It was a leprous and sickly pale green glow that seemed to be cast by a particularly repulsive mold sliming the walls with an infinite number of greedy fingers. It was just enough illumination to sketch a vision of a ceiling that arched nearly three stories above our heads. We must have passed into an area under one of the masonry towers. Abbagor had hollowed himself out quite a roomy lair. Shifting on frozen feet to sink a few inches deeper in the muck, I searched the artificial cavern with wary eyes. The troll was talkative enough, sure, but where the hell was he?

"Abbagor, Abbagor," Robin clucked his facile tongue with a practiced ease that would've been believable if not for the skin stretched tight around his eyes. "You'll make me think you haven't missed me these past, what, fifty years now?"

"Missed." The word was shaped with contemplation. "So many interpretations to be lavished there. Yes, I did miss you. Perhaps this time I won't." There was movement in the deepest shadows high above us, coiling and sinuous. "You may have slowed in your old age, little goat. Be assured I have not."

And that's when Abbagor came knock-knocking on our door.

I was wrong when I'd guessed the troll would have the soulless gaze of Eden's resident serpent. For that he would've needed eyes. He had none. But even without them, I was convinced he could see every inch of us, from the glistening sheen of our own eyes to the pulse beating in our throats, in rich predatory detail. "Holy shit." I wasn't sure if I said it aloud or not, but I stood by the sentiment. Abbagor was holy shit and a whole lot more.

He descended from on high like a skyborne plague. Thick dark gray filaments kept him suspended nearly ten feet above us. It wasn't far enough, not by a long shot. I'd never seen a troll before—didn't really have a clue what one looked like—but this was nothing I would've pictured. Abbagor was vaguely man-shaped, with hulking shoulders, and massive arms and legs. All right. No problem, that was doable. No different from a hundred other monsters out there. What was different was that he looked to be made of a convolution of fleshy cords knotted and wrapped around themselves, a mass of twisted tendrils given shape and form. Shape, form, and a hideously twitching life.

"I don't remember that in your goddamn mythology book," I gritted in a low tone to Niko.

"That would be assuming you'd actually read it, little brother. A rather optimistic assumption at best." His hands still stood empty, his shoulders were relaxed, and there was no tension audible in his voice. You'd think the son of a bitch was stargazing at the planetarium, the way he looked up with calm curiosity. Oh, the Big Dipper, you say? How interesting. And if it weren't for the fact that somehow, without even seeming to move, he'd managed to ease a protective shoulder in front of me, it might even have been believable.

Robin sketched a salute upward with a broadly artificial smile. "Abbagor, you're looking good. You been working out? You seem…" He swallowed. "Bigger. Definitely bigger than I remember."

"Big" was not the word. If he'd been on the ground, he would've stood at least nine feet tall and would've been nearly as broad. But you know what they say… Size isn't everything. Of course the people that say that are divided into two categories: dickless wonders and those not facing the troll that could've eaten New Jersey.

Okay. He was big. So was Boggle, and we kicked his ass on a regular basis, I told myself sharply. Get a grip, change your shorts, and move on to the task at hand.

"Yeah, he's huge." I elbowed Robin pointedly in the ribs. "Buff as hell. The Brothers Grimm on steroids. Can we get on with this?"

The large head crowned with the upswept ears of a vampire bat turned in my direction. "An infant Auphe." The tiny slit of a mouth suddenly unhinged, dropping open like that of a python preparing to swallow a pig whole. "A bad choice of pets, Goodfellow. They always bite the hand that feeds them." Abbagor dropped closer, the tendrils reeling him down for a better "look." "It seems to have lost its collar. What a bad, bad boy."

That was enough, more than enough. Next he'd be suggesting I be neutered for a better temperament. Robin seemed to realize how close to the edge we were and spoke up before I could say anything stupid or inflammatory. And it would have been both—there was not a friggin' doubt in my mind. The relationship between my brain and my mouth tended to be casual at best. "Caliban isn't Auphe," Goodfellow denied hastily. "Not so much anyway. But that is why we came. We were hoping you could tell us about the Auphe. You've been around much longer than I have. Almost as long as the Auphe. If anyone knows them, it would be you."

"Slippery flattery from a slippery tongue." Abbagor's feet hit the ground and despite the thick cushion of mud I still felt the impact. The remaining filaments that had held him up wrapped around his body, wriggling and twisting, until they became part of the whole. It was enough to guarantee I never ate spaghetti again. "Why do you care about the Auphe? They are nearly gone from this world, entertaining though they were."

True. There was nothing quite like rabid homicidal mania. Better than cable, even. "Yeah, them and the dodo. And won't they be missed?" I shifted until I was shoulder to shoulder with Niko. I ignored his narrow-eyed look of disapproval and went on. "That doesn't keep me from wondering why the hell they made me."