Rob Thurman - Roadkill

It was a two-and-a-half-hour trip late that same afternoon and Niko actually let me do the driving. We retrieved his car from where Robin let us park it at his lot, although in the back, far separated from the other cars like the old days of leper colonies. To give Goodfellow credit, it did look contagious: patches of different-colored paint, older than either Niko or me; no MP3 player; no disk player, cassette player; not even an eight track player. I wasn’t exactly sure what that last was, but it would have to be better than the AM radio, which is all we managed to get. And with that luxury option, the big brown and maroon monstrosity was slightly better than his last car, which had bit the dust six months ago.

I was still surprised my brother let me drive his latest shitmobile. This one was a Cadillac Eldorado convertible back from the days when they were apparently made to double as tanks in case war broke out on the Jersey turnpike. He was possessive of each and every one of his massive, beat-up babies, although he’d yet to clue me in on why he kept his weapons, his clothes, his routine, his bedroom, his life immaculate, but the cars-they were the opposite. When I asked, he always said with a faint trace of condescension, “One day you’ll understand, Grasshopper.”

There were many one day s. I just chalked up the car one with the others and was grateful I actually made it in the big-boy seat. Granted, my window didn’t roll down and the air conditioner… There was no air conditioner. I sat and sweltered in the heat, which had climbed since morning. “Jesus”-I mopped sweat from my face-“let me break the window. Come on, Nik, I’m begging you.”

“And won’t that be refreshing when January arrives?” He gave the rearview mirror an annoyed look at the bright red cubes that swung back and forth as I swatted them his way. “And what did I tell you about the fuzzy dice?”

“Hey, they’re from Goodfellow. You’ll take it up with him. Besides, if you drive a car that looks like fuzzy dice were in the option package, you’re going to get fuzzy dice.” I slammed the heel of my hand against the radio to shut it off. It stayed on. It always did. “Who the hell is Air Supply and why do they hate me so much?”

“Did you tell him what you learned from the revenant? And it’s a band from the seventies.”

Music before we were born and an evil that made revenants look like fuzzy puppies fighting over a chew toy. “How do you know that? You couldn’t possibly listen to that crap.”

“Because I know everything,” he said as if it were the most simple of conclusions. And with Niko, yeah, it was. “And Robin?” he said, pushing.

“I told him. Better safe than sorry when dealing with the Kin.” I trusted Robin with my life and he’d come through every time. That kind of trust was a huge step for me, and Goodfellow had never made me doubt he deserved it… at least not since the first time he’d saved Nik and me. Trust didn’t have anything to do with why I almost hadn’t told him, changing my mind only at the last minute. The reason was simple enough: I just hadn’t wanted to talk about it. I had thinking to do. I also didn’t want to do that. Not yet. My Zen, one-with-the-universe, happy-frigging-lucky mood had disappeared in that hangar-no getting it back, but it didn’t mean I wanted to dwell on it.

It was hard to lose something that was almost impossible to find to begin with.

But I had told him all the same. The revenant had said the Kin had found out about Delilah and me, all of the Kin-not just her former screw du jour that I’d neutered in the park. “I didn’t have to tell you though, did I?” I asked Nik.

And I hadn’t. I’d walked into the apartment and he’d seen it, what I’d learned, behind my blank eyes and blanker face. He’d known, because he could read me like a book. He had asked what the revenant had said the Kin were going to do about it, though. But, that, the revenant hadn’t known. It was easy enough to guess. They’d either kill Delilah or give Delilah the opportunity to redeem herself by killing me. Simple. To the point. The Kin weren’t much on Machiavellian-style schemes. Hump it, eat it, or kill it-that was good enough for them.

Niko didn’t dwell on it after the short discussion, which was what I needed. He let me drive the car too, which I’d thought I’d needed, but now I was wishing for his side with the window that worked. Cooking in a sauna was a distraction, but not the most entertaining one. I’d switched to short sleeves and left the Eagle and Glock at home. This time I was carrying my SIG Sauer. I had to rotate my toys so they all got action. My jacket was in the backseat in case we were pulled over or had to stop at a public place and I needed to cover up the holster. The bandage taped over my forearm did the same for the revenant bite. I wouldn’t have bothered hiding it behind a bandage after cleaning it; it had stopped bleeding early on, but people tended to notice what looked like a human bite mark on your arm. Oddly enough, that kind of thing didn’t label me friendly, cheerful, and trustworthy to the world at large.

“It is unfortunate,” he began, deciding the subject needed more discussing after all. “I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner,” he said, echoing Robin’s earlier comment and my own thoughts. In sympathy, I guessed, he hit the radio with a much lighter tap of his hand and this time it immediately shut off. “When are you going to talk to Delilah about this?”

“You’ve had this car six months and you couldn’t do that before now? And when I absolutely can’t avoid it,” I griped, annoyed at the months of horrific excuse for music I’d suffered through. I was scarred. My eardrums were scarred. From what I could tell, the seventies had been a time of singers whose balls hadn’t dropped yet. Voices so high I couldn’t believe they hadn’t shattered every window in the Titanic ’s rusty cousin we were cruising in. Although at the moment that would’ve been a good thing, since even with the top down the heat was god-awful. I mopped at the sweat again dripping along my hairline, thankful I’d pulled the now-damp strands back into a short ponytail.

“What fun would that be-not torturing my little brother?” He eased his seat back. “And avoiding it only makes the uncertainty last longer. This is something I would think you wouldn’t want to be uncertain about.” He closed his eyes, lecture over. “I’m going to meditate. If you see a Sasquatch looking for a ride on the side of the road, keep going. There’s not enough legroom in the back.”

I didn’t bother asking if Bigfoot was real. I’d stopped asking questions like that when I was eighteen. Sooner or later you’d find out one way or the other. Why spoil the surprise? In other words, my brain couldn’t begin to store all that was real, all that wasn’t, and the rest no one had a clue about one way or the other. I left that to Nik. It was easier than getting a pocket encyclopedia entitled When to Shoot, When Not to Shoot, and When to Run Away Like a Little Girl in Pigtails . Not to say a little girl in pigtails couldn’t be scary in her own right, especially if her teeth were pointed and her eyes glowed green in the dark. And you could bet your ass there were some out there like that. I might not have known the name or have seen one before, but the world was full of nightmares I hadn’t seen yet. It didn’t mean they didn’t exist.

Diversity: It made the world go round.

“Meditate away, Cyrano.” I tried to put my seat back. Naturally it was frozen completely upright and made for the comfort of the anal-retentive driver, stick up the ass a luxury option. “If I go through a drive-through, I’ll ask for a bag full of grass and oats for you. Maybe a lactose-free, chemical-free, flavor-free shake to go with.”