Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)

A deadly attention.

"Abbagor!" I yelled, my voice promptly echoing into the distance as a distorted gibbering howl. I had no problem with attention. After all, that's what we were here for. And quite frankly, I would rather have Abbagor front and center where I could see him, no matter how pissed he was, than lurking unseen in the darkness contemplating us with empty, soulless eyes. How did I know they were soulless? Hell. I didn't have a clue. But I knew. And when Niko's hand floated out of the darkness to fasten on to my arm and pull me closer, I could see he knew too. Niko always looked out for me, but he also knew in most cases I could more than take care of myself. This… this did not have the smell of most cases.

"I can't see a damn thing," Robin said, his voice tense. Apparently, he hadn't been lying when he'd said the troll was no friend. "Abbagor, we don't have all night. We want to talk with you. And could you take pity on us lesser beings and shed some light on the situation?"

"Afraid of the dark, randy little goat?" A cold, cold voice drifted from above. "Be very sure the dark isn't afraid of you."

"Come on, Abbagor, old buddy, old pal," Robin wheedled, slipping smoothly into his sales persona without a hitch. "Help me out, for old times' sake, and we'll be out of your tendrils in no time. My word on it."

"Older times. Moldered times. In all times, Goodfellow, you are the same. A boil refusing to be lanced." The words were amused, but it was the humor of a fat spider curled in its web with all the patience in the world. "If only you would hold still, I could remedy that."

Despite the less-than-comradely words, it looked as if Robin's request was being carried out. Light was slowly creeping into the air around us. It was a leprous and sickly pale green glow that seemed to be cast by a particularly repulsive mold sliming the walls with an infinite number of greedy fingers. It was just enough illumination to sketch a vision of a ceiling that arched nearly three stories above our heads. We must have passed into an area under one of the masonry towers. Abbagor had hollowed himself out quite a roomy lair. Shifting on frozen feet to sink a few inches deeper in the muck, I searched the artificial cavern with wary eyes. The troll was talkative enough, sure, but where the hell was he?

"Abbagor, Abbagor," Robin clucked his facile tongue with a practiced ease that would've been believable if not for the skin stretched tight around his eyes. "You'll make me think you haven't missed me these past, what, fifty years now?"

"Missed." The word was shaped with contemplation. "So many interpretations to be lavished there. Yes, I did miss you. Perhaps this time I won't." There was movement in the deepest shadows high above us, coiling and sinuous. "You may have slowed in your old age, little goat. Be assured I have not."

And that's when Abbagor came knock-knocking on our door.

I was wrong when I'd guessed the troll would have the soulless gaze of Eden's resident serpent. For that he would've needed eyes. He had none. But even without them, I was convinced he could see every inch of us, from the glistening sheen of our own eyes to the pulse beating in our throats, in rich predatory detail. "Holy shit." I wasn't sure if I said it aloud or not, but I stood by the sentiment. Abbagor was holy shit and a whole lot more.

He descended from on high like a skyborne plague. Thick dark gray filaments kept him suspended nearly ten feet above us. It wasn't far enough, not by a long shot. I'd never seen a troll before—didn't really have a clue what one looked like—but this was nothing I would've pictured. Abbagor was vaguely man-shaped, with hulking shoulders, and massive arms and legs. All right. No problem, that was doable. No different from a hundred other monsters out there. What was different was that he looked to be made of a convolution of fleshy cords knotted and wrapped around themselves, a mass of twisted tendrils given shape and form. Shape, form, and a hideously twitching life.

"I don't remember that in your goddamn mythology book," I gritted in a low tone to Niko.

"That would be assuming you'd actually read it, little brother. A rather optimistic assumption at best." His hands still stood empty, his shoulders were relaxed, and there was no tension audible in his voice. You'd think the son of a bitch was stargazing at the planetarium, the way he looked up with calm curiosity. Oh, the Big Dipper, you say? How interesting. And if it weren't for the fact that somehow, without even seeming to move, he'd managed to ease a protective shoulder in front of me, it might even have been believable.