Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(58)

But for now that was off-limits. The Auphe were clear on that. There couldn't be any mistakes. It had taken years beyond the telling to get a breeding to work. They didn't want to lose their one and only mutt if I screwed up and took an accidental trip to the bottom of the ocean or the center of a volcano. So no trips without supervision. That was all right. I could be a good boy… for a while. There were other ways to travel. In fact I'd be willing to bet that somewhere out there was a sports car with my name all over it.

No more mirrors, though. Just as I wasn't coldblooded anymore, neither was I ephemeral enough for surfing the reflective waves of light. I didn't mind, though—it was more than a fair trade in my book. I'd never set up house in something alive before. I had a long, illustrious career doing this and that, sort of a jack-of-all-trades. Mostly I guarded things. You couldn't beat good pay for sitting on your ass. Have a treasure you want protected? No problem. A crumbling relic of a lost age that needs to be preserved at all costs? Can do. A castle full of smelly live squatters that you'd like turned into smelly dead ones? Where do I sign up? Hire me and I'd move into whatever you wanted for as long as you wanted. With me inhabiting your most cherished possessions, you could bet they were safe. But this time my guardian aspect wasn't the only reason the Auphe had pulled me in for this task. In fact, I'd known of Caliban long before I started shadowing him in mirrors, and I'd been doing that much longer that he had realized. I'd been on the Auphe payroll for this job even before he'd been born.

As a rule the work was good, the perks and pay even better, but now I had the feeling I wouldn't be returning to dwelling in the inanimate for a long, long time. All those years, I had no idea what I was missing. Although I could solidify to a certain extent, my natural state was more tenuous. Incorporeal. But a human body… I couldn't get over what an amazing high it was. No cool will-o'-the-wisp fluid gently sliding through corkscrew-twisted vessels that were barely more material than a thought. Humans had fiery hot blood that pumped with all the force and speed of a raging river. They had bubbling hormones that gave an unbelievable punch to every single emotion. And adrenaline, holy hell, why wasn't someone bottling that?

I liked this body. I liked it a whole helluva lot and if it survived the Auphe's scheme, I didn't think they'd mind me holding on to it for a while. If it didn't survive, it'd be a disappointment but not a genuine problem. I'd just hop to something else. My choices would be drastically reduced if things went as planned, but that was the breaks. I'd make do. I always did.

For now I had a few days to kick back and enjoy myself. The big bosses needed that time to prepare, pick a site, and pull their entire population together. Until then all I had to do was keep this body in one piece and have a good time. Oh, sure, there were some loose ends to tie up in a nice, pretty bow, but that would be a huge part of my good time. There was only so much reining in by the Auphe that even an easygoing guy like myself could tolerate. They hired me to do a job. How I did it was a matter of my discretion, not theirs. I was a professional. In other words, don't teach your grandma to suck eggs.

Was I smug? Maybe. I could blame it on the new body, but, hell, I'd always been full of myself. Conceit—that, I'd admit to—but stupid I was not. There were ways to take care of one potential problem without any personal involvement at all. It was all about subcontracting. Lesser problems called for lesser solutions. The big guns like myself I'd save for the thorniest challenge, and damn, if it wasn't going to be a bitch.

But that was half the fun.

I'd stayed in some run-down places through the ages. Believe it or not, Tumulus wasn't the worst of them either. There had been damp, pitch-black caves with only blind grubs and creeping fungi for company. There had been a chest containing the opal-encrusted bones of a queen that had lain at the bottom of a swamp for so many years I'd lost count. I'd even once lived in the petrified body of a basilisk. Long dead and turned to stone, but it still stank. Don't ask me how. And don't ask me why the client wanted that piece of yard sale crap protected, because I didn't have a clue.

But this… this made the bowels of a basilisk look like Graceland.

I sat with curled lip on the edge of the bed and tried to decide if the stain in the center of the spread looked more like William Shatner or the outline of a ravenous, bloated yeti. The carpet was shag (or had been at some point), and was the exact yellow green shade of bile. It should've clashed with the brand-spanking-new purple polyester curtains, but oddly enough it didn't. They were too far apart on the color spectrum to even meet that much. Apples and oranges. I leaned forward and touched a finger to the cloth. I'd had a sweatshirt that shade of purple years ago. Frowning, I fisted the cloth. Years and years ago. I'd packed it the night the Grendels had come to take me away.

I felt my frown deepen. What the hell was I thinking? That wasn't my past. It wasn't even our past, not anymore. We weren't two bickering halves, fighting for control. We were one. Whole. Not two separate creatures coexisting, but an entirely new one. Greater than the sum of our parts and superior in every way, just as the Auphe had said we would be.

Of course, being superior didn't mean I wasn't currently residing in the most god-awful room that existed this side of Jersey. The communal bathroom alone was scarier than the Auphe and me combined. What went on there wasn't going to up the already teeming human population any, and that was the best thing to be said about it. As for the room, I wasn't the only thing scuttling around in its confines. Five stars for the religious and brotherly attitude of the place, one for the roaches and bathroom orgies.