Moonshine

Chapter 4

With a stomach comfortably stretched with vegetarian Chinese, I shifted impatiently in the overstuffed chair. We'd gone to Niko's favorite place on Sixteenth Street and despite its being meatless they served a nice plate. George had seemed to like it. That's right; she had shown up, had been waiting for us by the door. Trying to avoid a psychic—talk about an exercise in futility. Christ.

She had wielded her chopsticks with aplomb, stolen food from my plate, and said it was a shame Niko had felt the need to tag along on our very first date. That had immediately led to me choking on a piece of broccoli while Niko poured her a fresh cup of green tea and apologized gravely for his intrusion. As her hand patted me helpfully on the back, I had finally managed to swallow. But while I'd been able to dislodge the broccoli, I had less luck dislodging George. She'd stuck around for the whole meal despite my pointed remarks about curfews and pissed-off mothers and then waved a cheerful good-bye as we had walked away to our meeting. I'd looked over my shoulder once to see her give me a smile so bright and warm… funny how it felt exactly like a bear trap snapping shut on my leg.

Shifting again, I tried not to think about the logistics of gnawing through a leg made purely of emotion, and checked my watch. "How long is he going to keep us cooling our heels out here?"

"Patience, Grasshopper."

I rolled a jaundiced eye in Niko's direction. He and Promise sat side by side, a matched set in cool composure. "So, you two got a late-night financial-planning session later?"

That shut him up… for the moment, anyway. But Promise regarded me with the same amusement with which one would look at a puppy that had piddled on the carpet. I was a bad boy, but I was just so darn cute she couldn't bear to smack me with a rolled-up paper. She had met us outside of the building, her driver dropping her off. It was a business meeting, she had pointed out firmly, and as such all the partners attended. Her hair pulled back into a sleek twist, she wore an outfit in the deepest violet that managed to be both businesslike and subtly provocative. Don't ask me how she pulled that off, because I didn't have a clue.

The three of us were cooling our heels in the waiting area of the accountant's office in the Flatiron District. And it really was an office. I'd been picturing the back of a bar with the stink of alcohol, cigars, and wet dog in the air. I couldn't have been further off the mark. I didn't know what the inside of the sanctum sanctorum looked like, but our tiny bit of it was pretty nice. I was sure Cerberus's would be far more plush, but this was passable. It reminded me of an insurance office, a ritzy one, but nonetheless… there were chairs of deep blue and wine, and what looked to be a genuine Persian rug on the wood floor. Sedate prints, walls of pale ivory, and subdued lighting—it was all more than I expected. And it held my attention for an entire minute. I checked my watch again. A quarter of an hour this guy had kept us waiting. Despite what Promise had said earlier, this guy wasn't impressing me much with his manners. He must have missed that day in obedience school. "Fido," I drawled, "are you sure he's actually back there and not out watering a fire hydrant somewhere?"

As Niko raised his eyes upward and Promise pressed fingers to her forehead, the albino wolf guarding the connecting door fixed me with a baleful ruby stare. Apparently, Cerberus was helping out his fellow nonconformists. Yeah, he was all about the civil rights of the differently abled wolf. It didn't make this guy's stare any less rude. Unbroken direct eye contact was a sign of aggression and dominance in both canines and lupines. How did I take it? Pretty much the same way. And this version of it was beginning to piss me off. I leaned forward and watched as the movement caused the wolf's broad nose to wrinkle distastefully. Apparently, the smell of Auphe wasn't exactly sweet as roses to this guy's nose. He was one of the wolves stuck with a paw in both worlds. He had a mostly human face, with the exception of round wolf eyes colored blood-rage red, a wicked wedge of forehead, and very slightly tapered ears. A shock of white hair fell to his shoulders in a wolfish ruff and crept silky fingers onto his transparently pale jaw. That hair he kept trimmed to long pointed sideburns. From a distance, he could pass. From a few feet—no way. Even your average clueless citizen would think him exotic, unusual, oddly beautiful, and nowhere near human. Especially when he opened his mouth to reveal a brace of fangs that would make any orthodontist lose his lunch. They were also bound to make speech difficult. Despite his subtle wolf features he stood upright and with the body of a man. However, the cold intelligence behind those eyes was anything but human.

"No? You don't speak?" I said when he remained silent with a snarl locked onto his pointed face. I patted my pockets. "Maybe I have a nummy-num here somewhere. Lemme check."

A hard swat on the back of my head put an end to my antics. "Stop playing," Niko ordered. "This is business, not pleasure."

"Right now it doesn't seem to be either one," I groused, sliding down in the chair and tapping an impatient foot.

Suddenly, Snowball turned his head toward the door and, hearing something we couldn't, gave a nod before laying a hand on the handle to push it open. The wicked punch of claws painted black weren't exactly human either, but they'd be good for opening the occasional brewski. I noticed he was exceedingly careful not to scratch the finish on the shiny brass. "Go." Fixing those alien eyes on us, he repeated, "Go. In." As I'd thought, the words sounded like chunks of glass vomited forth to shatter in the air. As I started to get to my feet, his throat moved convulsively to produce one more. "Now."

"Yeah, right. Now you're in a hurry," I snorted, but picked up the pace as Niko moved up beside me. Snowball I could deal with. I had no such illusions regarding my brother. The doorway was actually large enough for all of us to have walked through side by side—this really was some place—but I hung back and let Niko and Promise pass through before me. We might hold equal partnerships in this new business, but I was aware of my interpersonal-relationship skills. I didn't have any and I couldn't be bothered to pretend. We all have our talents, some darker than others. Niko was a leader, through and through. And Promise had obvious string-pulling abilities. Me? I was a loner, who by some miracle of fate wasn't alone. I was also a smart-ass, and oddly enough that didn't seem to pay the bills.

The inside office matched the outside. Expensive, but not especially memorable… a lot like the guy behind the desk. Promise hadn't mentioned that he wasn't a wolf and I gave her a sideways look and received a dainty shrug in return. Yeah, I was surprised by Caleb, but then again, with Cerberus's mysterious "difference" making him more receptive to wolves like Snowball, who's to say it wouldn't bleed over onto different races? He was the Albert Schweitzer of monsters, all right, good old Cerberus.

For whatever reason, the accountant wasn't a wolf. In fact, I didn't know what he was. He looked human, even smelled human. He was in his late twenties, early thirties. What with his short dark brown hair and amiable blue eyes, lean face, fair complexion, and suit and tie, you would've passed him on the street without a thought. Until he smiled.

Bingo. Membership card in the nonhuman club if ever I'd seen one.

It was the teeth. They weren't anything like Snowball's, not a wolfish array crammed into a small primate mouth. No, numbers boy had the regular amount; they were simply pointed. All of them. He looked like a cheerful piranha, albeit one with an MBA. It was weird, but on the scale that I measured my life against, it barely registered. There were more monsters in the world than could be counted. I had better things to waste my time on and not enough fingers and toes to make the attempt.

"Brothers Leandros, Madame Promise, please, have a seat. I'm Caleb," the piranha said pleasantly, straightening a stack of folders on the desk. "Would you care for coffee? Drinks? Blood? Drugs? No? Very well." He laid his hands flat on the desk and gave us his undivided attention. "Your lovely colleague here has said that you can assist us."

Taking a seat in one of the three chairs facing the desk, I leaned back as Niko seated Promise. "We may," he said noncommittally, settling in the center chair. "However, we'd like to hear more details before we commit."

"Details?" Caleb leaned back as well and picked up a pen to tap it thoughtfully on the desk. "That's certainly fair enough. I thought I'd given all I knew to your ever-gracious partner, but feel free to ask away." He was so goddamn polite and earnest it made my teeth hurt. The Kin were really lowering their standards. Sure, this guy had the teeth and a fast calculator, but where was his homicidal mania? Where was his bloodlust? It was unnatural.

"There can never be enough details, not in a situation such as this," Niko said firmly. "To begin with, we want to know precisely what the result of our actions will be. We certainly won't be involved in setting up an innocent, rival of your employer or no. Our services are for sale, not our souls."

"Innocent" was putting a broad interpretation on any member of the Kin, but Caleb seemed to get Niko's drift. And it amused him; at least I thought that's what caused the curl of lips until he spoke. "Souls," he echoed the word, and fixed his mild blue gaze on me. "How very optimistic of you."

It was a sore point with me; there was no denying it. I wasn't sure what I believed about life, death, and the postparty. Even hanging around George, I didn't know if death was the end and neither did she. Or if she did, in tried-and-true annoying seer fashion she wasn't saying. I suspected this was pretty much it. The whole enchilada. You're born, you live, you get a cheeseburger lodged in your heart, and then you're fertilizer. Anything else would be just too damn easy. You got one chance; blow it and it's over. Don't blow it and it's still over. If I was wrong, that only led to other questions, or one very personal question. I doubted seriously that Auphe had souls, and what did that mean for me? Half soul? No soul? Only James Brown knew for sure.

Niko, a sure bet for being chock-full o' soul, stood the instant the words passed from Caleb's lips. He was pissed at Caleb's disparagement of my spiritual status, and the fact that it showed was an indicator of just how pissed he truly was. "Your business is not our business." The words couldn't have been colder. "We'll see ourselves out."

Instantly, the accountant changed his tune. "I apologize," he said with immediate obsequiousness. Meek and submissive, fawning and scraping. He might not have been a wolf, but he worked with them. He recognized an Alpha when he saw one. Niko was just as capable as Cerberus of fucking him up but good. And if he failed Cerberus in this little task… having the crap beaten out of him by my brother would be the very least of his concerns, I knew. Niko might hurt him for the insult; Cerberus would bury him for the result. "I've let internal prejudices get the better of me."

That he had, and, hell, he wasn't the first. I wondered how he'd known about the Auphe in me. First Goodfellow had spotted me, and now this guy. Werewolves and other related monsters smelled me. Robin and this one had simply looked at me and known. How did they do it? Then again, did I even want to know?

Probably not. I did know I didn't want to work for this guy or Cerberus. With his slobbering smiles, "internal prejudices," and rabid lapdog guarding his door, Caleb annoyed me. I'd seen worse. I'd been worse… easily. But this was a job. We didn't have to take it. There were other scum of the earth out there dying to hire us, I was sure. Maybe we hadn't seen them yet, but they were there. Hopefully they'd show up before the rent was due. Or Nik's tuition.

Goddamn it.

Exhaling, I looked up at Niko and suggested with grim reluctance, "Maybe we should hear him out." Promise remained silent. The insult was mine and so would be the decision, although from the flare of annoyance behind her eyes, she was offended on my behalf. Empathetic even. Maybe vampires had soul questions of their own.

"No," Niko said flatly.

"Nik…" I started.

He didn't glare, only repeated calmly but adamantly, "No. Not for any reason."

Caleb decided to get in on the fun. "Fifty thousand dollars."

"Any," it's a word you really shouldn't throw around. Fifty thousand dollars for what would probably be a night's work. Maybe two. Shit. Still in my chair, I raised my eyebrows at my partners. The "Whatta you think?" might have been unspoken but hung in the air clearly enough. What Promise thought behind her tranquil mask was anyone's guess. But what Niko thought of it was crystal clear—not much. In some ways he was more sensitive about my Auphe heritage than I was, and I was pretty goddamn touchy. Sometimes there were digs. Sometimes fascination, revulsion, or out-and-out terror. I'd seen them all over the years. Auphe had occupied the top rung of the food chain for a long, long time; even other monsters feared and hated them. I understood that; I had feared and hated them myself… before their extinction in a warehouse explosion last year. Hell, who was I kidding? I still feared and hated them, historical footnote though they were.

But the bottom line was that this sort of reaction was something I was going to see my entire life. Getting worked up over it was only going to take money out of our pockets. This business meant a lot to Nik… and me. Promise didn't need the money or the partnership. She enjoyed it, but she didn't need it. We did. And both it and Niko deserved a fair shake. I gave him a rueful twist of my lips, then an almost imperceptible shrug and nod of my head toward his chair. He frowned and turned toward Promise. She spread her fingers and left this decision up to Niko.

He sat back down. He didn't want to and it was obvious from the stiff line of his back, but he sat. "Fifty thousand is one detail," Niko said flatly. "Now let's hear the more pertinent ones."

It was the usual. I didn't have but the one wolf acquaintance, non-Kin, so how did I know? I watched mob movies, same as any other guy. You have the weak and the strong, the loyal and the sneaky, the constant jockeying for power; it was the same for humans and wolves. Cerberus had a "friendly" rival, Boaz, in the East Side territory who he suspected was less friendly than the guy liked to pretend. They were supposed to be working paw in paw under their Alpha, but Cerberus had suspicions that if he was out of the way, Boaz wouldn't exactly be crying at his funeral and would have a larger section of the territory carved out to boot.

"So Cerberus is wanting to take this guy on a ride, then?" I asked. "Put the kibosh on him. Have him sleeping with the fishes."

Blue eyes blinked; looking bemused, Caleb said, "No. He wants to kill him."

Apparently Caleb didn't watch a lot of TV.

"And his Alpha wouldn't care for that? I thought that was the general method of advancement among his pungent kind," Promise pointed out.

"Normally. You know the wolves well." The pen continued to tap and the smile continued to beam. Slimy, ass-kissing toad. I was surprised he had the balls to even think that soul remark, much less to have let it slip. "However, Cerberus is in a unique position among the Kin. What he does is scrutinized far more thoroughly. A misstep on his part will not be tolerated." And there was the smile again. So polite, so helpful… it made the old Tarzan movie flashbacks I was having even more bizarre. A leg falls into the river and is cleaned to bloody bone by teeth precisely like that. Terribly sorry to have eaten you, dear fellow. Mea culpa.

Niko paid little attention to the bowing and scraping as he demanded, "And if we obtain proof that Boaz intends to make the first move, that will put Cerberus in the right with the Alpha."

"He believes so."

There were more details, just as Niko had asked for: where would be the best place to catch Boaz off guard and loose of lip. Who he ran with. How best to introduce Cerberus into the conversation. "He likes to gamble, poker specifically," Caleb said with an accountant's disdain for a waste of good money. "And when he gambles, he drinks. And when he drinks, he talks. Endlessly." There was a roll of blue eyes.

I could see Niko turning it all over in his head, every fact and nuance. There wasn't much the man would miss in the way of strategy and consequences; I had faith in that. Finally, he folded his arms and slid a glance toward Promise.

Immediately, she stood and said coolly, "We shall discuss it and get back to you."

Caleb was disappointed, very much so, but tried to take it manfully. Or monsterfully, depending on your point of view. Already fair, he paled to a transparent white and his hand shook hard enough that the pen tumbled from his fingers. But he swallowed and said tightly, "I bow to your business protocol, of course. Please, call me when you've made your decision. Day or night. I'll make myself available."

From the looks of it, Cerberus would be even more disappointed, which obviously didn't bode well for our favorite accountant, but color me unsympathetic. When the door was shut behind us and we were making our way out of the building, I said with a grimace, "I'm thinking Cerberus is one big, bad puppy dog. Caleb is all but pissing his pants."

"Disgusting, but accurate," Promise agreed, her full lips twisting slightly. "Obsequious creature. I apologize, Caliban. He was much more socially acceptable at the first meeting. If I had known he would bring up your…" She hesitated and then finished, "I would never have considered him as a client."

I shook my head at the words. "Hey, don't worry. It's not the first time it happened and it won't be the last." It never would be the last, so I'd better suck it up and learn to deal. "So, Nik, what do you think?" I added ruefully, "About the job, not our piranha-toothed pal."

His lips thinned in distaste, but he allowed himself to be moved on to the more financially pertinent subject. "I think that the question would be, is Boaz worse than Cerberus?"

"That's what it comes down to, huh?" I snorted. "Bad against worse." I wasn't surprised. Life usually did end up on that particularly nasty seesaw. It was the way of the world. I gave a mental shrug and kept walking down the hall. I passed the bank of metal elevator doors without slowing. Promise, already familiar with my brother's ways, followed along with a gentle sigh.

Niko wasn't one for elevators. He always said if something was trying to kill you, a metal cage isn't the place to be. It made sense… assuming my brother wasn't just an ass who enjoyed watching me sweat and swear my way up and down twenty flights. He opened the door to the stairs to wave me ahead with a bow, and then offered Promise his arm. "As our client would be sure to tell you," he said dryly, "every dog has his day. We simply have to make sure it's the correct dog." I had a feeling that would be easier said than done.

And for once I wasn't wrong.