Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(9)

What I’d done to the eight killers on the street—that was nothing to what I could do. Nothing. I could have done so many things. . . .

Not the time nor the place.

No longer a member of the human race was the singsong rhyme in my head.

I snorted at the childishness of my own subconscious before shoving it down hard and slamming the lid on its box. I had once made a mental box when I was a kid to store bad thoughts, bad memories, bad desires. Now I had thousands of boxes. That was good, in my opinion. It meant that I was in control. I would fight to my last breath to keep it that way—identity crisis or not.

Not that it mattered now, because this was Niko time. I needed to make the most of it. Niko deserved a personal life that didn’t involve playing bodyguard to me and I wasn’t giving up on that.

“If Grimm shows up,” I said, “I’ll gate the hell away to parts unknown”—at least to Grimm—“and he’s screwed.”

Gating or traveling was a nice way of saying I’d tear a bleeding hole in reality, wounds of rippling tarnished light, and step through to end up a block away or a thousand miles away. My choice, although not to where I’d sent my eight attackers in questionably fashionable hoodies. I’d never go to that place. Never again.

The ability to gate came with the Auphe blood and though I hadn’t been able to use it well or often at one time, now I was cooking with gas. The Traveling King. All bow before me. Grimm could gate too, but as long as he didn’t know where I was going, he couldn’t follow.

“Ah yes, the gating,” Nik said with grim bite. “The gating that you think gives you an edge when we hunt the supernatural now. Fighters who think they have an edge often get sloppy.” A light smack to the back of my head accompanied each following word. “Do . . . not . . . get . . . sloppy.” He dropped his hand and added with a growl, “Especially with Grimm.”

There I stood, carrying the two guns I hadn’t used earlier, a fancy new garrote, and four knives concealed in various easily accessible locations—all of which I could wield as automatically as I could breathe, and yet I was being schooled like a three-year-old thrown into a mixed martial arts caged death match. Did Dirty Harry have to put up with that? Nope. Then again all Dirty Harry’s partners died on him. Nik stuck around and had all my life. That was worth a smack or two.

Plus as Nik was the one who’d taught me to use any and all weapons, he could and would kick my ass if I tried to smack back. Affectionately kick my ass of course . . . with brotherly love. Not that brotherly love made it sting any less. Which was not why I didn’t tell him what I’d done only a half an hour ago. I didn’t tell him because he already worried about my getting careless. He didn’t see that using the gates as often as possible helped me catch up with Grimm, whose experience in that was years and years longer than mine. Grimm—the better monster.

When it comes to living versus dying, you want to be the better monster. But . . .

Nik’s not always practical.

That wasn’t the voice of my inner Auphe. That was the voice of a much younger Cal who had learned at the age of four that being practical was better than behaving, because practical kept you alive. Behaving wasn’t as effective that way. Practical was a definition in a black bound dictionary, the words written in the scarlet red of fresh blood. Practical was the code I survived by.

Not that I brought that up either. Nik had worries enough now, and Nik was ruthlessly practical when he had to be.

That was the key: when he had to be. I didn’t mind being the practical one if it let him keep his hands clean. I didn’t have to think about it like he did. It was as natural as breathing to me. I was good at being a monster and Niko was good at being a man, the very best of them. I wanted him to have the chance to stay that way.

But, sooner or later, we would have to talk about the gates. Sooner, most likely. Niko was going to have to accept my practicality in this.

“Don’t get sloppy. Got it,” I said with a good nature I reserved for a very few. I didn’t smack, but I did aim an elbow at his ribs. He avoided it without seeming to move. “Now go back upstairs and bang”—his eyes narrowed and I immediately amended my sentiment—“and crochet passionately while drinking Metamucil or whatever you geezers do in bed. I’ll see you in the morning. Bring me a love-stained afghan.” These words would come back to bite me in the ass, because while I could deal with it when it was out of sight, out of mind at Promise’s place, the reverse was true when it was closer to home.

His eyes narrowed further to slits as he gave my out-of-luck elbow a disapproving glance. “You’re not inspiring faith in your fighting abilities or even your ability to bully on the playground.”

Fortunately, no one else other than Niko was standing on that landing waiting for inspiration or faith as neither of us proved much good at providing them in the next moment—the moment the body fell out of the sky.

All right, there was no sky, but it fell far—at least ten stories if not more. It plummeted to land on our feet . . . literally. Or it would have if Niko hadn’t jumped back up the stairs and I’d jumped back down, both of us with weapons drawn. The flash of descending red, gray, and white had had my Desert Eagle in my hand just as it hit. The fall hadn’t been silent. I’d heard the cacophony of bangs as it hit the metal handrails, bouncing its way down. The landing wasn’t quiet either. There was a wet, heavy thump. “Shit,” I breathed. “Where the hell did it come from?”