"And how am I doing that?" I snorted. I'd decided against bringing up what Niko and I had found in the park. He might be my boss, but I didn't really know Ishiah, and I definitely didn't trust Ishiah. Not yet. Not that I had any reason not to trust him. Trust simply wasn't an emotion I was very good at. "By slinging drinks and making change because the cheap-ass bastards don't tip? Yeah, that's scary shit right there."
The wings flexed, shimmered with light, then disappeared. It was a neat trick. I didn't ask how he did it or how any of the peri did it, for that matter. We all have our secrets. Everyone in this bar had their secrets because there wasn't a human among them. Ishiah, now looking like just a man, albeit an unusual one, said in a lower tone for the two of us only, "You're being Auphe."
Auphe. The other half of my gene pool—my inheritance from good old Dad. The Auphe were what mythological elves would be if they were born in the ninth circle of hell and passed through the other eight on their way out. Because hell couldn't hold them—nothing could. Most had pale, nearly transparent skin, pointed ears, molten red eyes, white filaments masquerading as the flow of hair, and what seemed like a thousand needle-fine metal teeth. So fine that when they smiled, never a good occasion, you could see your hazy reflection.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most malevolent of us all?
"And how," I asked, annoyed, "am I doing that?"
The twilight eyes studied me. "Let us say you don't precisely look happy. And when you don't look happy…" He raised eyebrows in the direction of the clientele, some who knew through the grapevine and some who could smell the Auphe in me, who were either clustered on the far side of the room or at closer range silently snarling. "That happens. It's not good for business."
"Happy? I'm happy." I bared my teeth in a fixed grin. "See? Happy."
"Gods save us. I haven't seen an expression like that since Medusa went through menopause." Robin Goodfellow dropped on a stool and shook his head. "Quick. Brandy before you destroy my will to live with your catastrophically bad temper."
Ishiah immediately drifted off. He and Robin had some sort of problem with each other. I had no idea what it was, as both were silent on the subject. But with Robin's mouth, if one of them didn't leave, there'd be little left of the bar for me to terrorize with my inner Auphe. They would pull the place down around our ears.
"Catastrophic temper?" I reached for the good stuff I kept under the bar just for Robin. A hundred years old, it was still barely fetal in age to his point of view. Yet another mystery: why Ish would stock it for him. "Come on."
"Kid, everything about you is catastrophic. Your temper, your fighting skills, your attitude, and let's not even discuss your look. Simply put on the eyeliner and join the rest of the Children of the Night knockoffs at the local Goth bar."
And that was Robin. Otherwise known as Rob Fellows—car salesman without peer, Robin Goodfellow—trickster extraordinaire, and, oh yeah, our favorite puck. Considering I'd killed the only other one we'd met, it wasn't much of a contest.
"I don't need the eyeliner." I gave him a glass and the squat bottle.
"Yes, yes. Child of the Night is on your birth certificate. Six-six-six is tattooed on your infant ass. I believe I've heard it before." He poured a drink as I gave a quirk of my lips, but it was more genuine than the grin I'd flashed a few moments ago. Robin did have a way of pulling me out of a mood. It was hard to moan and groan about my bogeyman heritage when he treated me less like a monster and more like Bo Peep with a gun. I appreciated it, because there had been times he had seen what I could be. And it didn't come out of any nursery rhyme.
"So, did the case not go well?" He held the pregnant glass—all curves—sniffed the liquid, clicked his tongue, and shook his head, but took a swallow anyway.
"Eh." I shrugged. "We got paid. The lamia got eaten. Really a win-win in my book."
"And the fact that it was a kidnapping case, that doesn't even bear discussing?"
I ducked my head, letting my longish hair swing forward—black to my brother's dark blond. My skin fair to his olive. All we had that showed our common mother was our gray eyes. And I knew mine, peering through the dark strands, were now opaque. "It was months ago. Let it go, okay?" I warned.
He took another swallow. "Months. Millennia. A veritable eon. Whatever was I thinking?"
"You weren't," I said stiffly.
A werewolf came slinking up to the bar, ears flat and nose wrinkled in disgust at the Auphe tinge to my scent. It was hard to ask for a brewski with his half-human face contorted around a mouthful of teeth straight out of The Call of the Wild, but he pointed just fine. He was obviously not a fine-bred, but part of the wolf population breeding for recessive wolf genes, not that I had any prejudices about that. How could I? I gave him his beer and kept my chew toy jokes to myself. Ishiah was right. It really wasn't good for business, and he'd given me a break with this job.
I didn't know if it was as an unspoken favor to Robin or to piss him off. I had asked Goodfellow once which it was, and he had declared smoothly that if I didn't want the job, I'd make a great junior car salesman and he had a place for me waiting at his lot. Hell, no. I didn't know if I had a soul or not, but if I did, I wasn't giving it away that easily. If there were a surer path to damnation than being a car salesman, I didn't know what it would be.
"I always think. You might not want to hear what I say, Caliban, but that's your problem." He poured another glassful. "Thinking and talking are what I do best."
"I'll give you the last one all right," I grunted.
He smoothed his wavy brown hair, straightened his suit jacket, rich brown over a deep green shirt. Just the fabric of one of them probably cost more than a week of my pay. Picking up the bottle in preparation to leaving, he said soberly, "You should try talking to her."
Her being Georgina—George. She was the one who'd been kidnapped. We'd gotten her back. She'd survived. Although it had been a very close thing— for all of us. George was the local psychic, but she was the real thing…and this girl, this special girl, had thought we could be together. I had known better. And although she'd proved to be as stubborn and hardheaded as me in her own way, I still knew it.
"I talk," I countered defensively.
He stood, the amber liquid in his bottle not sloshing even a millimeter. When you'd been alive as long as he had, you tended to be pretty damn graceful and controlled in your movements. "I mean really talk to her as opposed to flapping that useless mouth once in a blue moon and saying absolutely nothing. But I wash my hands. Please, ruin any chance of a love life that you have while I go expand mine." He winked rapaciously. "Do you want to guess? Male or female? Other? One or three? I'm willing to gift my knowledge to the less fortunate."
"Yeah, thanks anyway," I refused. "I like being less fortunate." Although lately that wasn't precisely true. "Gives me something to bitch about."
"As if you need an excuse," he snorted.
"Wait," I said as he started to move off. "Niko and I came across some bodies in the park. Five. Hanging in the trees like goddamn ornaments." And wasn't that creepy as fucking hell? "Would a Black Annis do something like that?"