Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(71)

It was disappointing, I didn't mind admitting. A complete lack of drama. With the sharp smell of cordite perfuming the air, I gave Boggle a pat on his crusty shoulder in passing. "Good job, Bog. Now go rip a leg off the other one, would you? I want to pay him some personal attention in a minute, and I don't want him scampering off." Goodfellow had his chance to run and he'd wasted it. Now I had a chance to take his ass to school, and that I was not wasting. Shoving the gun, another of Boggle's souvenirs, into my waistband, I savored the heat of the muzzle against my skin. It warmed me against the chill in more ways than one. Kneeling on the ground beside Niko's still form, I took a handful of the blond braid and gave it an affectionate tug. "Strike one, big brother. I'll bet you never guessed the bigger man would turn out to be a monster." I laid the tight twist of hair on his chest and straightened the collar of his coat. "I always told you I was one, didn't I? But you never listened." It was as the hand suddenly looped around my wrist that I noticed… no blood. On his chest, there was no blood, only charred cloth.

The eyes blinked, the emptiness transmuting into something far more dangerous. "You are a monster." The voice was hoarse, roughened with pain. "But my brother isn't."

Bulletproof vest… the bastard was wearing a bulletproof vest. Abruptly, I realized that as well as I knew Niko, he knew half of me equally as well. He knew Cal's heart wasn't in the way of the sword, but rather in the way of the gun. When push came to shove, Cal could use any weapon, but personal preference was always going to tell. All that familial intimacy had come back to bite me in the ass. The grip squeezing my wristbones until they ground painfully together wasn't too pleasant either. Sticking around didn't seem like the best idea at the moment and I flashed my other hand toward the gun at my waist. My hand was on the rubber grip when I felt a sharp pain over my breastbone. Half an inch of Niko's favorite dagger was sticking into my shirt—not to mention my flesh. A quarter-sized stain of blood blossomed around the metal as I released the gun.

"Ouch," I said mildly, touching a finger to the edge of the blade. "You play rough, big brother."

The gray eyes, a memory of what mine had been, narrowed, but Nik remained silent as he let go of my wrist, retrieved my gun, and tossed it far into the bushes. He had sat up confidently without the gingerly motion I would expect from a cracked rib or two. Stoic, hiding his pain, both the physical and the mental. The knife didn't shift in position as he moved, not even a millimeter.

"What would Mom say about all this?" I clucked my tongue in rebuke. "Oh, I know. That she should've drowned me at birth. And you know what? She'd have been right." Leaning forward purposely, I felt the blade press harder against my chest. Slowly, I took off my sunglasses and dropped them to the grass. Pewter eyes met silver. "You know something else, Nik?" Placing a hand over his, I playfully pulled at the dagger until it buried itself just a shade deeper in me. "You don't have the balls."

"Maybe he doesn't, you misbegotten nightmare, but I do." Goodfellow's voice came behind me, sharply furious. A hand buried itself in my hair and yanked me backward. On the ground in a position that echoed the one Niko had just occupied, I looked up to see Robin, the worse for wear. His coat was shredded as well as his sweater. Bloody gashes crossed his chest and his eyes were dilated black with rage. It was the same rage that had his sword swinging toward my throat so fast I could all but hear the air hiss in its wake. It occurred to me that I might have made a slight miscalculation. Niko would hesitate to kill me outright, for Cal's sake. Goodfellow didn't have any such problem. He might have liked Cal, sure, but I was pretty certain he liked himself a whole lot more. With him, sympathy was going to take a backseat to self-preservation every time. It was the son of a bitch's one good quality. It was too bad the one thing I admired about him was the one that could get me killed.

Could, but not necessarily would.

Niko came through, protecting me just as he'd always done. Deflecting Robin's blade at the last second with his own, he said quietly, "No."

Panting with exertion and frustration, Robin turned and looked over at Niko, who now stood with an arm held unconsciously close to his side in a protective gesture. He could try to hide it all he wanted, but I had hurt him, even if only a little. Hopefully, I'd be able to hurt him a lot more… hurt him unto death.

Goodfellow kept the point of his sword hovering above my neck. "Nik, you have to see. You have to realize." Calming slightly, his breath slowing, he continued almost unwillingly. "Your brother, he wouldn't want to live like this. Everything I've seen of him, everything you've told me… he would hate it. He would despise it with all his soul."

I relaxed against the grass, putting my hands behind my head and raising my eyebrows." 'Nik'? 'Everything you've told me'?" I repeated with cynical incredulity. "You two have gotten awfully cozy since I've been gone. You haven't dumped Promise already, have you, big brother? Please, God, at least tell me it wasn't some sort of clichéd affirmation-of-life thing. I'll save you the trouble of shish-kebabing me and just die of embarrassment instead."

"I'd advise you to leave Promise out of this, much in the way you did not leave Georgina out of it." Niko regarded me impassively. "What we did to your friends we could easily do to you. I don't believe Cal would hold a thorough beating against us, considering the situation."