Basilisk (The Korsak Brothers #2)

Stefan and I threw our bags in the back and obeyed. This nighttime Saul was much more frightening than the day version. Ginger and gray chest hair, combined with his pajamas, a pair of tight purple silk boxers and that was it. He looked like an obscenely horny children’s dinosaur—but lean and quick with ropy muscle. He charged double for wetwork, he’d said. You can’t do wetwork, you can’t kill, if you’re the size of a four-hundred-pound fake prehistoric lizard.

You could have better taste in clothes and pajamas, though. You could have pajamas, period. Was that too much to ask? The color seared my night vision. I couldn’t imagine what it would do in broad daylight. Hopefully he’d cover the boxers up with clothes by then. Godzilla hopped from my shoulder, where he’d returned after the Twinkie incident, to the top of Saul’s head, curled up in the bed-hair nest and dozed off. “There is not enough money in the world,” Saul ground out.

In the backseat, I gave Stefan a visual once-over. He’d hit the asphalt with a lot of force. I knew. I’d been that force. He’d lost his bandage for the cut on his forehead. I’d been the one to clean the dried blood earlier, determine the need for stitches, apply ointment, and bandage it. I was the house vet after all. It was my job. Stefan had complained he could do it himself, but at the same time I could see the pleased look in his eyes. Missing memories or not, I’d accepted I was his brother weeks after he rescued me, but years later, he didn’t take it for granted. Plus I placated him with some cheese and peanut butter crackers while I took care of the wound. The tasty treat worked wonders in distracting cranky turtles, ferrets, and brothers.

I lightly touched the cut with one fingertip to assess how it was healing. It was a thin red line, scabbed over, and much better than before. “So?” Stefan inquired. “Add that one to my other one and I look like some grandma’s patchwork quilt, huh?” He didn’t sound too concerned. Scars didn’t bother him. Vanity wasn’t a problem for him.

“Believe it or not, it looks good. Cleaning away all that blood combined with the best prescription antibiotics that can be obtained illegally from Canada”—I shrugged—“it wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed, and I did a fantastic job—as always. Can veterinarians win Nobel Prizes? Although I’d settle for government disability for the permanent damage done to my eyes by Skoczinsky’s sleep-spandex.”

“I was going to say he hadn’t changed, the smug little bastard,” Saul grunted from up front as we passed a fire truck headed back toward our motel. “But he has. For the worse. Now he’s a smug, full-grown bastard.”

I ignored him. I had to or I would’ve reached up to touch his shoulder and paralyze his vocal cords. While I didn’t have a problem with that plan, Stefan might. Leaning back against the seat, I changed the subject. “How many more men do you think Raynor had?”

“Impossible to know. But not any more, I think, or someone would’ve shot us in the parking lot when the bomb didn’t work. I did leave that one electrocuted bastard alive, though. The smart thing would’ve been to finish him off.” Stefan shook his head and let it go. He’d killed, but he didn’t like it, and I’d never blame him for that. How could I?

“I’m more worried about how they found us,” he continued. “We torched the Institute car. We stole a new one. We swapped out license plates on it. How . . . Ah shit. We didn’t steal Saul new license plates. That mall parking lot was full of cameras. He could’ve tagged us by looking at the security tapes. I didn’t think anyone would go to the trouble, though. Hell, I didn’t know he had more men to begin with. Raynor was acting as if he was off the radar on this one. He may be the only one in the government who knows about the Institute. Jericho was smart that way. But if I had thought he had any more men, I would’ve guessed they’d assume you and I took out Raynor. And Raynor would’ve told them at least enough when he first came after us that they’d know we’d been on the run a long time—long enough to be too smart to steal a car from the same place we’d killed their boss.”

And the motel, cheap and sleazy as it was, definitely had cameras too. They probably made half their income off private detectives buying eight-by-ten glossies of cheating spouses, had a Web site with PayPal, and ran specials on double prints. That would be how the guy and his friends, if he had any, knew which car was ours and which one to plant the bomb under. They would’ve seen us on tape getting out of it. Mr. Fried-and-Crispy would’ve seen it was Saul who’d killed his boss on the mall security tapes, but Saul was nothing more than an inconvenience compared to what I was capable of. “So that guy was either smarter than we think or we’re more stupid than we think,” I said thoughtfully.

“Or just smart enough, Goldilocks,” Saul added. “Now, get this damn rat off my head before I toss him out the window. We have to find a place to dump the truck and get a new one.”

When my fingers brushed his head as I retrieved Godzilla, I made him impotent for approximately a day. He most likely wouldn’t notice and it improved my mood tremendously. “Try for a blue one,” I said ingenuously. “In feng shui, the color blue aids in success.”

Rob Thurman's books