Rob Thurman - Roadkill

Suddenly all the enjoyment of my calendar lust disappeared. He was right. They didn’t get it. I hadn’t gotten it either. I’d thought he’d done it for the right reason. He was a healer. Saving the world was what he did, one person at a time. I thought taking out Suyolak would put him closer to a balance again and help him see that curing me couldn’t be the end all and be all of his existence. He was a healer and that meant he belonged to everyone who needed him; not only to me. True, I’d come to regret the decision once I saw what Suyolak was capable of and wished we’d never come to be part of this. Family protecting family and the hell with the world; that’s what I thought.

That was also Rafferty’s point of view exactly. Hypocrite, me.

But it still wasn’t right-stealing life force, no matter if it was tainted-not for a healer. I was turning my cousin into something that years ago he would’ve killed in a heartbeat. But there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Nothing. I took the current calendar, swimsuit issue, grabbed it in my jaws, and tossed it aside in frustration. Cal caught it. “Whoa! Not enough tits for you? Need six more per model?”

He was in a better mood now, somewhat better; it was a subtle sniff of a difference, but I was Wolf enough to catch it. He and Delilah had come to a wary sort of trust, or so it seemed. I wasn’t poking my nose into it. After all, I had calendars to occupy me, not the real thing like some half-Auphe bastards.

Not fair. No, that wasn’t fair. Putting that on him, when I was really upset with myself. I pulled in a breath and released it, letting some of the anger go. It wasn’t Cal ’s fault.

Although, I noticed, despite the mood change, he seemed twitchy too, which distracted me from my own problems. Tapping fingers on his knee. Unloading and reloading his gun. Playing with his knives. Changing positions often. Fingering the bracelet around his wrist. Except it wasn’t a bracelet. They were mala beads for Buddhist meditation. I’d dated a Buddhist girl in college, not Wolf, but I hadn’t planned on marrying her, and I wasn’t prejudiced like most of my kind. I’d dated a lot of human girls. They were sweet and if they were jealous, they didn’t threaten to castrate you with their teeth. You couldn’t say the same about the she-Wolves you brought home to meet Mom and Dad.

This girl had been nice, with coppery hair, cheerful blue eyes, and penny-bright freckles across the top of her pale breasts. And clothes on or off, she always wore her mala beads. I knew Niko wore two or three of the bracelets as well, but unlike his brother, Cal definitely didn’t come across as the Zen kind. But he was going through the motions, fingers moving from one bead to the next while his lips framed soundless words-his mantra, because I sure couldn’t see him praying. He wasn’t the praying type. Niko was watching him and, unlike his brother, he wasn’t happy, eyes dark over his hawkish nose. I could sample it in his scent as well. He was watching Cal… closely… and when Cal caught that look, he settled down, dropping his hands into his lap and the calendar onto the floor. “It’s okay, Cyrano,” he said with an assurance I wasn’t buying. What exactly was okay? Or not okay? I didn’t think this was about what had happened to Robin. It smelled darker. Much darker.

I was about to get on the laptop and ask Rafferty what was up. If it was what we’d suspected, smelled-that Cal was more Auphe now than he had been last time we’d seen him. But that was pointless. What else could it be? I didn’t need Rafferty to verify what both our noses had told us. But life decided we got a nice close shot of it anyway.

Something else showed us in brilliant, unforgettable detail that Cal might be less human than my werewolf cousin and I.

The Ördögs.

We hadn’t been back on the Lincoln for even thirty measly miles when we saw it. A black truck. The black truck. I didn’t need the ring of my cell phone from Abelia-Roo still following us in the pink RV of the queen of con artists to tell me that. I could smell the graveyard must creeping in despite the air-conditioning. So could Catcher. And Rafferty? I imagined he could smell and sense Suyolak. Half a mile behind him… it… and where were my explosive rounds when I needed them?

It wasn’t a semi, but it was big enough to haul a coffin or two and more than several minions… ex-minions. Minions usually always ended up as ex, deceased, or late and not necessarily great. These guys had gotten their pink slip with a nice side order of cholera, and while that didn’t taste as bad as hominy or the dreaded brussels sprout, it still couldn’t have gone down too well. Read a fucking comic, for God’s sake. Watch a superhero movie and you’d know that when your boss is powerful enough and motivated enough to destroy the world, you’d have to wonder: what good are you to him in the long run? Pensions are going to be scarce.

“It’s him,” Rafferty and I said, not exactly in harmony, but it was as close as echoes came.

“Pull up beside him,” Niko ordered.

Robin gave him one of those incredulous glances that he was so good at. “On the Lincoln? Are you going to jump across and cling to the metal door like a ninja refrigerator magnet? Or is Cal going to shoot the driver? Neither of which, I’m sure, will draw any attention of the cars around us.” He shook his head. “Blonds. They do try, but…” He tapped a finger against his temple.

Niko leaned closer to Robin, something the puck would’ve normally liked, and bit off one arctic word at a time. “Pull… up… beside… him.” My brother wasn’t happy about Suyolak and was worried about me-not that he should’ve been, and he was not in the mood for making things more difficult than they had to be. If shooting the truck driver on the Lincoln was our best opportunity, he’d take it.

“Fine, fine. Hold your no doubt pristinely organic urine.” Robin moved into the fast lane and the car up next to the truck. The windows were tinted in the cab, not as black as the paint job, but enough that I couldn’t make out who was driving or inside of the cab, especially as I was on the far side of a wolf and healer. While I would’ve liked to have seen the inside so I could’ve made a little hop in there, I didn’t need to see the driver. It was a man, a stupid and desperate man, and it didn’t matter what he looked like or what his name was or even why he was doing this. It only mattered we took him out before he let loose something that could potentially eradicate life on the planet and, worse yet, do it just for shits and giggles.

“I smell something else,” Rafferty said as he studied the truck through his window.

“Me too,” I responded. It was sharp and musky, mixed with old and new blood. It was the scent of an animal, only much stronger, and not one I’d ever come across. “But I don’t have a damn clue what it is.”

Catcher was growling softly, but that was his only comment, which meant he didn’t know either. “All right then. Suyolak’s picked up some new friends. He, like me, is a popular guy,” Goodfellow said as he kept pace with the truck as it began to speed up. “Are we going to ride along until he invites us to a playdate with him and his entire tea party? Or are we going to do something productive?”

“All my plans are productive,” Nik said, holding a hand over the seat. “Cal, your SIG Sauer.”

That was the backup I’d been wearing when the other car had gotten torched. Niko was in the passenger seat. He had the better shot. “Why not the Desert Eagle?” I asked as I passed over the pistol-a 9mm SIG Sauer 226 X-Five tactical model-double action. I hadn’t quite gotten a hard-on reading the description in the gun catalogue, but it’d been close. It was a great gun-accurate and good for those who shoot to kill, not just shoot to play.