Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(13)
I loved onions enough that my enhanced scenting abilities had accustomed themselves to the smell over the years. They didn’t bother me at all now. “First, I like onions. Second, it pisses off Wolves. Third, I like pissing off Wolves.”
Almost as much as killing them.
I tightened the choke chain on my inner darkness, gave it a mental smack, and a “naughty bastard” with my usual resignation—maybe even fond resignation. It was the same reaction you’d show your pet great white when he brought back half of a surfer instead of the beach ball you’d thrown into the water. He was a bad boy, true, but he was also only doing as he was created to do. How could you hold that against him?
Just keep your grip tight on that leash and make sure it didn’t happen for real.
I took a third bite of the hot dog and it was as amazing as the first two. “Tastes good and pisses off Wolves. There is no downside.”
And I proved that when we arrived at the office of the Beta Ivar. Alphas were too high up to muddy their paws with Niko, a human sheep, or me, a sheep deep-fried in Auphe Hell with his own bogeyman squatting in his brain. That meant poor Ivar, icy blue eyes watering copiously from my onion breath, had to deal with hiring us. When it came to Wolves, I was used to the lack of respect and the occasional yellow squirt of fear from the ones who’d actually seen an Auphe before they were erased from the earth. Except for my pale skin, I didn’t look anything but human—slate eyes, black hair—but I smelled like Auphe to those who had the noses sharp enough to tell.
Even under the onions, to a Wolf it would come through as easily as a scalpel slicing flesh. Fortunately for Ivar, he, like many Wolves, had never come across a true full-bred Auphe. He’d only heard the legends and he only knew my smell was wrong. I saw it in his face twisting in disgust. Wrong. Didn’t belong in this world . . . didn’t belong in any world. It was a battlefield scent—a legion of marching grim reapers shoved into one body, and Ivar didn’t care for it, didn’t care for any of this at all.
But you had to be smart to be Beta in your pack, especially if your pack was Kin, and that had him concentrating on other things—things that were annoying. Things that he could react to while he ignored the rest and did as his Alpha ordered.
He growled, “A sheep who grazes in an onion field is not a very smart sheep.”
Ivar sat behind a battered desk in the office of what I liked to think of as a CAW—conveniently abandoned warehouse. Movies were full of them. Reality was as well . . . except they weren’t genuinely abandoned; they only appeared to be. The Kin bought up the ones on the edge of being condemned and used them for various purposes. Members of the pack not high up enough to have their own place slept in them. Drugs and prostitutes from other cities sometimes were unloaded there. A location to hire non-Kin sheep that weren’t good enough to see where Ivar or his Alpha actually lived—another good use. And sometimes the Kin used them to store food. Fresh food. The kind that was still capable of screaming.
You never knew though. Some packs ate people and some would consider that on par with stealing creamed carrots from a baby’s spoon. Too easy. A humiliation to a predator. Until we saw differently, we’d assume Ivar’s pack were predators with the ballsy taste to hunt only those that challenged them. If we didn’t, we’d have to do extensive background checks on every single job we took—checks that would take longer and cost more than the job itself. The strong survived, sure, but it was the practical that let you put the food on the table, that kept you upright and mobile.
Ever see a starving man kick a monster’s ass? Me neither.
“I doubt Niko said I was smart when he agreed to a meet.” I slouched in a chair as battered as the desk, the morning light a hazy glow through the dirty window. “I’ll bet he did say we could take care of your business if you didn’t screw around with us. Satisfaction guaranteed or your next of kin gets your money back.”
Nik didn’t bring up the fact I’d started the back and forth, irritating Ivar with the hot dog. He didn’t like to waste time on petty insults. He wanted the facts, the money, and to get to work. He didn’t see the entertainment value in baiting the clients. Later, when he unsheathed his sword, he’d find amusement enough. Not that he’d admit that. Not even on the inside, and, on the outside, he was always setting the example. One day he was going to realize it was a lifetime too late for that. He could make a katana dance and defy gravity like no man on earth, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about genetics, mine or his. When he realized that, then I hoped he’d realize something else. . . .
If you were a born warrior and your career was basically combat, you might as well enjoy it. He’d be happier for it.
Hell, I knew I was.
Where I slouched, Niko didn’t sit at all. He stood perfectly upright, back straight, alert and ready—a general facing his troops . . . or one criminally minded Wolf who might or might not want to give us some money. He suggested, clearly short of patience, “May we move this along past the interview stage so that we can find out the exact nature of the job?”
That’s when Ivar did screw around with us. But this kind of screwing around was expected. It was the annoying part of dealing professionally with Wolves. It was the pack way. You had to prove you were tough enough to deserve their business. And “interview” was defined as Ivar and three other Wolves doing their level best to rip us apart.