On their second step, Boggle got them. He catapulted through the covering earth like a heat-seeking missile. One swat of his massive hand had Goodfellow flying through the air as weightless as a child. Green yarn hung snagged on the long black claws as they swiped at Nik in turn. The blow missed. I wasn't surprised. Bog had never been a match for my brother, not alone. Fortunately, he wasn't alone now. As Niko twisted with liquid grace out of Boggle's reach, I stepped out of the brush, aimed, and fired all in one motion. It would've been a great time to say something sharp, something witty, some catchphrase that made box office gold. Damn satisfying, but it could've slowed me down. I was a kick-ass monster, but my brother could kick some serious ass in his own right. One on one, I could take him. Since the days of apple-peddling snakes there hadn't been anyone or anything I couldn't put down. Cyrano wouldn't be any exception, but… he could hurt me. He was almost as deadly as I was and he could do some damage. The Auphe wouldn't be too appreciative of any delay because I happened to get my ride banged up. They wouldn't be appreciative of any of this if they found out.
So… no warning. No smart-ass comments. No wisecracks. Nothing but silence and a bullet to the chest. The impact knocked Niko backward several feet before he hit the ground hard. He lay sprawled motionless on his back with legs and arms spread. His face was blank and his eyes even blanker. They stared up at the sky, not surprised or shocked, not swimming with pain or fear, not full of the glory of heaven or the horror of hell. No, there was none of that. There was only emptiness.
It was disappointing, I didn't mind admitting. A complete lack of drama. With the sharp smell of cordite perfuming the air, I gave Boggle a pat on his crusty shoulder in passing. "Good job, Bog. Now go rip a leg off the other one, would you? I want to pay him some personal attention in a minute, and I don't want him scampering off." Goodfellow had his chance to run and he'd wasted it. Now I had a chance to take his ass to school, and that I was not wasting. Shoving the gun, another of Boggle's souvenirs, into my waistband, I savored the heat of the muzzle against my skin. It warmed me against the chill in more ways than one. Kneeling on the ground beside Niko's still form, I took a handful of the blond braid and gave it an affectionate tug. "Strike one, big brother. I'll bet you never guessed the bigger man would turn out to be a monster." I laid the tight twist of hair on his chest and straightened the collar of his coat. "I always told you I was one, didn't I? But you never listened." It was as the hand suddenly looped around my wrist that I noticed… no blood. On his chest, there was no blood, only charred cloth.
The eyes blinked, the emptiness transmuting into something far more dangerous. "You are a monster." The voice was hoarse, roughened with pain. "But my brother isn't."
Bulletproof vest… the bastard was wearing a bulletproof vest. Abruptly, I realized that as well as I knew Niko, he knew half of me equally as well. He knew Cal's heart wasn't in the way of the sword, but rather in the way of the gun. When push came to shove, Cal could use any weapon, but personal preference was always going to tell. All that familial intimacy had come back to bite me in the ass. The grip squeezing my wristbones until they ground painfully together wasn't too pleasant either. Sticking around didn't seem like the best idea at the moment and I flashed my other hand toward the gun at my waist. My hand was on the rubber grip when I felt a sharp pain over my breastbone. Half an inch of Niko's favorite dagger was sticking into my shirt—not to mention my flesh. A quarter-sized stain of blood blossomed around the metal as I released the gun.
"Ouch," I said mildly, touching a finger to the edge of the blade. "You play rough, big brother."
The gray eyes, a memory of what mine had been, narrowed, but Nik remained silent as he let go of my wrist, retrieved my gun, and tossed it far into the bushes. He had sat up confidently without the gingerly motion I would expect from a cracked rib or two. Stoic, hiding his pain, both the physical and the mental. The knife didn't shift in position as he moved, not even a millimeter.
"What would Mom say about all this?" I clucked my tongue in rebuke. "Oh, I know. That she should've drowned me at birth. And you know what? She'd have been right." Leaning forward purposely, I felt the blade press harder against my chest. Slowly, I took off my sunglasses and dropped them to the grass. Pewter eyes met silver. "You know something else, Nik?" Placing a hand over his, I playfully pulled at the dagger until it buried itself just a shade deeper in me. "You don't have the balls."
"Maybe he doesn't, you misbegotten nightmare, but I do." Goodfellow's voice came behind me, sharply furious. A hand buried itself in my hair and yanked me backward. On the ground in a position that echoed the one Niko had just occupied, I looked up to see Robin, the worse for wear. His coat was shredded as well as his sweater. Bloody gashes crossed his chest and his eyes were dilated black with rage. It was the same rage that had his sword swinging toward my throat so fast I could all but hear the air hiss in its wake. It occurred to me that I might have made a slight miscalculation. Niko would hesitate to kill me outright, for Cal's sake. Goodfellow didn't have any such problem. He might have liked Cal, sure, but I was pretty certain he liked himself a whole lot more. With him, sympathy was going to take a backseat to self-preservation every time. It was the son of a bitch's one good quality. It was too bad the one thing I admired about him was the one that could get me killed.
Could, but not necessarily would.