After all, what had reality done for me lately?
Stefan watched the movies with me now that Ariel was gone, provided he didn’t have a date. I’d gotten over that no woman was good enough for my brother and stopped giving the ones he asked out acid reflux on date night. He was surprised at how much easier dating was here than it had been in Cascade Falls. I didn’t clue him in. Of all the lies I’d told or truths I’d omitted, I could live with that last one. The brotherly ass kickings were still in full force after what I’d pulled on the dam at Cascade Falls. While they were deserved, taking it on myself to be a cure for my fellow chimeras when there was no other, I’d skip further punishment if Stefan found out what I’d done to his dates in Cascade. Besides, if he missed a movie or two with me, it wasn’t that bad. Godzilla took his spot and hogged his share of the popcorn. And if I missed someone who was a killer, a sociopath, and had a smile I’d not forget until the day I died, that was my right.
It was five months later that I finally admitted defeat, finishing what I’d started more than half a year ago, and was at my laptop, hacking into Lolcats, crashing the site, and removing any mention of it from the Net. It was evil. It had to go. My eye was caught by the sudden flash of a white IM box at the bottom of my screen as I typed. It flickered blankly for a second; then a question appeared in flowing pink and green script with a familiar winking mermaid as punctuation:
Hey, sexy, want to watch a movie?
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; and a story in the anthology Wolfbane and Mistletoe.
Besides wild, ravenous turkeys, Rob has a dog (if you don’t have a dog, how do you live?)—one hundred pounds of Lab/Dane mix. She has the bark of twenty German Shepherds, a head the size of a horse’s, teeth straight out of a Godzilla movie, and the ferocious habit of hiding under the kitchen table and peeing on herself when strangers come by. By the way, she was adopted from a shelter. She was fully grown, already house-trained, and grateful as hell. Think about it next time you’re looking for a Rover or Fluffy. Rob also has two other dogs who are slightly more invested in keeping their food source alive.
For updates, teasers, music videos, deleted scenes, social networking, and various other extras, visit the author at www.robthurman.net.
Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next Cal Leandros novel,
DOUBLETAKE
by Rob Thurman
Coming in March 2012 from Roc.
Family . . . it is a bitch.
The thought drifted out of nowhere.
Or maybe it didn’t, considering my current situation. There was no denying that it was true. Everyone thought it sooner or later, didn’t they? If there’s only you, you’re good—lonely maybe, but good. You can’t fight with yourself. If there are two of you, it can still be good. Your options are limited. You make do and appreciate what you have, unless it’s the stereotypical evil-twin scenario. Then you aim for the goatee and blow his ass back to the alternate dimension he popped out of.
A Kishi hit my back. I flipped him over and put a bullet in the back of his head.
Yeah, normally two was a doable number. It was when you hit three and higher that things started to go bad. That’s when the bitching and moaning started, the pitting of one against another, the slights that no one forgot. No one could tell me that Noah didn’t pitch a few of his relatives kicking and screaming off the ark long before the floodwaters receded. It was no familial Love Boat and I believed that to my core.
Which brought up the question: Did that wrathful Old Testament God kill the sharks? I don’t think he did. You can’t drown a shark. I think they were snacking on biblical in-laws right and left. Noah, Noah, Noah . . .
I swung around and kicked the next Kishi in the stomach as I slammed another clip home before putting three in his gaping, lethally fanged mouth as he jumped again. It sounded easy, but considering the one I also had attached to my other leg, it was a pain in the ass.