Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(84)

“As there were three creatures trying to kill us then, including my own father,” he said dryly, “and Jack now, I’ve been a shade distracted. Forgive my unmindful ways.”

“Were we anyone else famous besides Achilles and Patroclus?” I asked curiously.

Goodfellow rolled his eyes upward. “The wonder of the afterlife revealed to you, your personal afterlife, mind you and that is the question you ask. How vain. If you’re good, I’ll tell you later. However, I was Robin Hood and my john was anything but little.”

On that somewhat horrifying note, Niko held up his bottle and Robin joined in, ignoring the fact his was empty. I raised mine to meet theirs and Niko said soberly, “To friends. They go and they come. The going must be difficult, but know we will always come back.”

Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of history repeating itself, but in this one case . . .

I made an exception.





18



Cal

Nine Years Ago It came when I was in bed for the night.

A tap at the trailer window, harmless. It could’ve been one of those giant summer beetles. They were everywhere this month. Then one more tap, soft, like the beating of a moth against the glass. They were out this summer too, some as big as your hand. They left a shimmering dust against the glass every night.

I looked up from where I’d been pounding my pillow into submission, not worried. As the years pass, you forget the things you should remember. Forget promises made. It wasn’t a moth, but it hung in the window all the same—the Grendel outlined by a bright full moon, its skin scrubbed even whiter by the lunar glow. The narrow face, the slanted red eyes, the thousand needle teeth bound by the same gleeful grin I remembered from Junior’s attic. This time it wasn’t here to only watch. It tapped again and it spoke, the voice the same too, the gargle of glass wrapped in a serpent’s complacent hiss. “Mine.”

Three years was a long time.

Nik had saved his money. He had college now and his plan for our future. The wheels were in motion and finally we were leaving Sophia. He was the happiest he’d ever been and I’d gotten to see that. That was something to be grateful for. I’d gotten to f*cking see that. He would be all right eventually. I hoped. He’d miss me, more than anything—I knew that. I knew my brother. But afterward, in time, he’d have a life, a real one. Normal. That was something he wouldn’t have with me in it. No goddamn way. That’s the way it was and I’d known that long before I was eleven. Long before I was fourteen.

A hand with spidery fingers and black talons exploded through the glass, the nails hooking into my flesh. It hurt and I was scared. I was so damned scared, but I held on to it: three years was a long time. Three years had been long enough for Nik to be happy.

“Time to go home,” the Grendel crooned.

Three years.

I’d had my big brother for three more years.

A serial killer had almost taken that from me. A Grendel had given it back, but nothing is free. I’d known that all my life.

“Time to go home,” it reminded me with a laugh as it snatched me through the window, all my struggling and screaming less than nothing to it.

Three years.

I hung in the night air, terrified, my sweatpants wet with piss, feeling the sanity pour out of me like water out of a pitcher, but despite it all . . .

I thought it was worth it.

It had to be worth it.

It was for Nik.

Two years later when I escaped the Grendels to come back through my own hole in the world and found my brother still waiting, I knew it was worth it. And the years we had coming to us after that, each one we’d take for our own no matter how hard we had to fight for them, run for them, rip the world apart for them, they’d be worth it too. We’d find that life I’d wanted for Nik. We’d have friends we could trust with the truth someday. We’d have the not quite normal but normal enough for us. We’d have all of that, no matter what we had to do to take it for our own. That’s what we did, Nik and me. That’s what we always did.

We survived.

And that was worth everything.

Lions didn’t play to win. Lions didn’t play at all.

Lions survived.

—Niko Leandros





ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rob Thurman lives in Indiana, land of cows, corn, and ravenous wild turkeys. Rob is the author of the Cal Leandros novels, the Trickster novels, the Korsak Brothers novels, All Seeing Eye, and several stories in various anthologies.

Besides ravenous wild turkeys, Rob has three rescue dogs (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)—one of which is a Great Dane/Lab mix that weighs well over one hundred pounds, barks at strangers like Cujo times ten, then runs to hide under the kitchen table and pee on herself. Burglars tend to find this a mixed message. The other two dogs, however, are more invested in keeping their food source alive. All were adopted from the pound (one on his last day on death row). They were all fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy.

For updates, teasers, music videos, deleted scenes, social networking (the time-suck of an author’s life), and various other extras such as free music and computer wallpaper, visit the author at www.robthurman.net.