Nightlife

Chapter Two

When morning finally dragged its tired ass in, I was making breakfast. My watch had passed without incident. It'd been just me, an exceptionally bright apartment, and a lingering nightmare.

"I'll take soy waffles with fresh fruit." Niko, already dressed, stepped out of the hall as he pulled his hair back into a ponytail that hung nearly to his waist. "And some freshly squeezed orange juice, if you please."

"Scrambled eggs and beer it is," I said matter-of-factly. "I guess it's my turn to make a grocery run, huh?"

"You could say that." Niko set the table with two plates, forks, and glasses. He also retrieved the ketchup from the fridge for me. "In fact you could say that for every week for the past two months." He raised his eyebrows mockingly. "Not that I'm counting of course."

"Uh-huh," I commented skeptically. Moving over to the table, I ladled out the eggs between the two plates. Dumping the frying pan into the sink, I pulled a chair out, turned it backward, and straddled it. A nice healthy squirt of ketchup on the puffy yellow eggs and I was good to go. A glass of frothy white milk was placed firmly in front of me. Narrowing my eyes, I mumbled around a mouthful, "That doesn't look like a Bud, Nik."

"Just think of it as white beer from a bovine keg. Maybe that will help." Niko sat and began to eat his eggs and drink his own glass of cow juice. After swallowing, he clinked his fork lightly against the plate. "I was thinking that after we eat we might go to Central Park and talk with Boggle, ask him about the Grendel."

"Boggy?" I brightened and curled up the corner of my mouth with savage cheer. "Just talk? Couldn't we kick some muddy ass too? Doesn't hurt to stay in practice." I might not be the deadly, precision fighter that Niko was, but I could hold my own. Long gone were the days when I'd avoided fighting, afraid it would bring out the monster half of me. After the Grendels had taken me years ago I had finally figured it out. You can't bring out something that's already snarling in the forefront.

Niko gave me a faintly reproving look. "As long as he's still only eating muggers there's no need to complicate matters." As I groaned in disappointment, he added casually, "Unless, of course, he doesn't cooperate with us."

"Here's hoping." I saluted him with the glass of milk.

Yeah, monsters were everywhere. Considering the world we lived in, that wasn't all that surprising. But it was astounding that most people didn't have a frigging clue. The monsters were there for anyone who just opened his eyes and looked. But ignorance is bliss and there were billions of blissful people in this world. Regardless, it was mind-blowing to be on the street and see a ghoul slinking along in the shadows or a werewolf cheerfully ignoring the curb law and absolutely no one noticing. Once I saw a grinning lupine half again bigger than any wolf on Animal Planet trotting down the sidewalk and checking out the nightlife. And nobody thought that was somewhat out of the ordinary? I even saw one pudgy animal lover chasing after it to check it for an ID tag. Maybe stupidity was a demon all its own.

In the park the chill of last night's air had mellowed to a brisk autumn cool. Niko and I jogged along a path for nearly twenty minutes before cutting through the woods to a more secluded area—a grassy, marshy spot where thick pale brown sludge coagulated into a mud-hole only a pig could love. Or a boggle.

I leaned against a tree, folded my arms, and whistled two notes. "Ding-dong, Boggy. You've got visitors. Rise and shine." The mud remained placid and unmoving. There was the sound of metal being unsheathed as Niko wordlessly drew a short wide blade the length of his forearm. He kept the sheath strapped between his shoulder blades under his clothing. "See, Boggy?" I drawled. "You've made Niko cranky. That's not a nice thing to do. Not especially smart either." Moving away from the tree, I stepped to the edge of the slime and crouched down, arms resting on my upper legs. "I know you're there, Bog. I can smell you. I'm like my dad that way."

Two softball-sized yellow orange eyes blinked lazily from the mud. A deep voice rumbled and gurgled sluggishly. "You're an asshole that way too. Ain't that a coincidence?"

I had no idea how long boggles lived, but I was betting it was a damn long time. This piece of land had been Bog's home long before it'd been called Central Park. I guess that's how he'd picked up his New Yawk accent—from the various joggers, in-line skaters, and mugger lunchables. Rocking back on my heels, I snorted. "No genetics involved there. I'm an asshole in my own right. Don't ever doubt that."

The mud boiled and cascaded off massive shoulders as Boggle lurched upward. "Shit. When you bust my balls every time I turn around? Not friggin' likely." Upright he stood over eight feet, a massive hulking figure covered in oozing brown liquid and encrusted with petrified mud. Neckless, his head melted into his shoulders. His lipless mouth was full of large serrated teeth that angled backward like that of a shark. Each platter-sized hand was equipped with two fingers, a thumb, and thick black claws that stabbed outward to the length of nearly ten inches. Quite the specimen, our Boggy. A delicate dewdrop. A hothouse flower. A giant litter box come to horrific, murderous life. "What the hell do you bums want now?"

"A little polite conversation." Niko tapped the blade against his knee. "You wouldn't have a problem indulging us in that, now, would you?"

Soulless eyes, as empty of anger as they were of empathy, considered the bright glitter of the steel in Niko's hand for a long moment. Then the sloping shoulders shrugged indifferently. "Shoot the breeze. Yeah, living for that. So, whatta you want to know?"

"A Grendel," I volunteered. "It was hanging around the park yesterday." Tossing a glance in Niko's direction, I amended, "For a while anyway. We're curious to know why."

"Maybe you should've asked it before you chopped off its head," Boggle grunted. "Might've been easier."

Niko's upper lip lifted a bare millimeter to reveal a microscopic slice of even white teeth. "Not quite as entertaining, however."

Yeah, Niko talked a good show. Tough as nails, cold as ice. But no matter the face Niko put on it, he'd done it for one reason and one only. No Grendel was getting near me ever again. Taking chances was not a big part of my brother's philosophy. "Did you really cut its head off?" I asked curiously.

Touching the pad of a thumb to the blade's razor edge, he shook his head. "And dull the artistry of this on bone? I think not." Without missing a beat, he went on. "What was it doing here, Boggle? Merely passing through or was it something more sinister?"

"Sinister." A rough, gargling laugh had flecks of mud flying through the air. "You got to be shitting me." Spitting a mouthful of slime, he rumbled on, "No matter what the little shit was up to, it's gonna be depraved and misbegotten. You oughta know that. That's just the way elves are."

We hadn't known what Grendels were, all those years. Even after they'd made off with me, we still hadn't known. To me they were just monsters, demons, and I really didn't care to know any more than that. Niko was different, of course. He had a tireless mind that never ceased looking for the whys and wherefores. All our lives he'd wanted to know. He'd gone to library after library, he'd studied mythology and demonology until it was coming out of his ears, but he'd never been able to pin them down. It wasn't until we ran into Boggle that we'd been "enlightened."

Elves. Grendels were elves. Maybe you thought elves had delicate features, long golden hair, mystical blue green eyes. Maybe you thought they glided along draped in filmy garments that sparkled with semiprecious gems, and rode on ethereal white horses. Could be you were more modern than that, though. Could be you pictured elves living urban lives. Dressing in leather, riding motorcycles, and hiding their pointed ears under helmets. That'd be just as good a fantasy, right? Because elves were good, well… not all elves. There was the occasional bad magical apple, to add drama. But as a rule elves were good, and elves were cool. Every D&D-playing geek drooling to be one would tell you so.

So how did history get elves from the red-eyed demons that had spawned me? Shit, who knew? How did sailors get mermaids from manatees? Manatees were great animals, sure, but alabaster breasts, sexy scaled tails, pouty lips? Not hardly.

I never changed my way of thinking with this new info. Grendels were Grendels—no need to muddy the waters. It was kind of hard to wrap my mind around thinking of my childhood monsters as mincing fashion plates called Shealendil or Beoric the Beauteous. Hell, Grendels didn't even wear clothes, much less enough silk and lace to keep Lady Marmalade styling for years.

"So, is 'depraved and misbegotten' just a generalization or actual solid knowledge?" Niko asked evenly as he moved closer, the grass under his shoes fading into bare dirt.

"Just talk. The lay of the land, that's all." Talons scratched idly at rough, scaling skin. "Ain't seen any elf. I got no idea what one would be doing around here. Not their territory. They're not urban like me. The little shit was probably just passing through."

He said it dismissively enough that I believed him. Bog was obviously bored, not trying to put anything over on us. He hadn't seen the Grendel, and had no idea one way or the other what it'd been up to. So Niko and I left him to his mud and mugger munching and finished up our run with me grumbling the entire way. Niko ignored my bitching and in fact picked up the pace. When you were on the run, you needed to be able to actually run, he was fond of saying.

We stopped for lunch, since we were seriously destitute of all the four food groups at home. I was for burgers. Niko was set on something healthy and utterly lacking in anything that might pass for flavor. So we compromised and hit a hole-in-the-wall pizza place and ordered the vegetarian special. It was still pizza and covered in cheese so I could choke it down, and Niko could graze on the rabbit food toppings to his heart's content. Sitting with his back securely to the wall, Niko kept an eye on mine. I, on the other hand, was keeping an eye on my glass. "I think there's a bug in my Coke."

Niko leaned forward for a look and nodded thoughtfully. "It does look that way." Settling back, he pointed out, "It is protein. Probably would be quite nutritional. You should give it a chance." Snorting, I wavered between fishing my new friend out with a spoon or sending the Coke back. Decisions. Decisions.

Unsympathetic to my dilemma, my brother went to work on the fresh-from-the-oven pizza on the table between us. Pushing my glass away, I decided to let nature take its course. Sink or swim. Survival of the fittest. Ladling a piece of pizza onto the thick white plate in front of me, I yelped and blew on singed fingers. Looking down his not inconsiderable nose, Niko handled his steaming piece with smug aplomb and commented, "It's a simple matter of discipline. Mind over matter."

"Yeah, and I bet you can break boards with your dick. You're a helluva man." I picked something green off the top of my slice and eyed it narrowly. Broccoli. "So, what do we do now? Hope the Grendel was sightseeing or dig into it further?"

"I'm not looking into membership in the Optimist Club these days, Cal. Are you?"

"That's what I thought." I checked my watch. "You teaching today?" When he wasn't pulling bodyguard duty, Niko supplemented our income by teaching at a tiny dojo. More money under the table for our running-like-little-girls fund.

"Later perhaps," he dismissed. "If we get this resolved. Now eat your broccoli before it gets cold."

I scowled but obeyed. "Scrub the floor, Cinderelly. Eat your broccoli, Cinderelly," I grumbled around a mouthful of cheese and bread.

By the way… the bug made it. Good for the bug.