Rob Thurman: Slashback

Long teeth bared at me in a spittle-spraying growl and snap, but the twisted combination of a hand and paw, a member of the All Wolf caught between wolf and human-neither nor, slid across the rumpled green. I counted with my free hand and frowned, all that cheer draining away. “Tips are not mandatory, but they are appreciated and guarantee you’ll be greeted with a sunny disposition next time you’re back.” I demonstrated said sunny disposition with a grin that wasn’t that different from his Nice-to-see-you, Grandma snarl-except more effective. Several more bills were shoved across. After an assessing glance, I grunted, and let him go. “Thank you, sir . Now get your cheating, cheap ass out of here, tail between your legs just the way I like.”

I watched the werewolf slink out of the door, smelling like the last-in-line Omega that he was. The other Wolves hunched over the scarred and stained tables in the bar grumbled, but let it go. We had an understanding of live and let live or, more accurately, if they fucked with me, I would goddamn bury them. “Puppies. They do try the patience, don’t they?”

“You make enough money with you and your brother’s true business. You could quit the bar.” As it was Ishiah’s bar-he’d been blackmailed into giving me a job-and I had a tendency to play rough with the clientele, he had to wholeheartedly wish that I would focus on my other higher-paying career.

“Nah. Nik says it’s good for me. Keeps me socialized.”

Apparently, just like with pit bulls rescued straight out of dog-fighting rings, socialization was job one when it came to me. I polished a glass with a towel and yawned. “And I still haven’t heard about a client willing to foot the bill for running this supernatural serial killing fuck-head to the ground.”

“Socialization. Of course. I see the improvement daily,” he muttered, fingers sheathed tightly in light blond hair. Maybe he had a headache; allergic to his own feathers. That had to be it. It couldn’t be me and my winning ways. “You and Niko have done free ‘exterminations’ before. You’ll be saving lives. What better time than now to do some charity work?”

“Yeah, we’ve done free. . when Nik knew about the problem and as I don’t plan on telling him, there’s no need for him to know about this one.”

Nik had other worries right now and as usual they were thanks to me. I had no plans of adding to them. “Why don’t you hunt down whatever bogeyman this is in your spare time?” I goaded. “I’ve seen you with a sword.” It wasn’t a sight I’d be forgetting either. Conan the Barbarian would think twice about going up against Ish. “I think you can manage.”

Ish, massaging his temples, said absently, “Peris are discouraged against killing paien -kind. . other paien -kind, I mean. We’re tolerated here in New York, but that could change if the others thought we rose above our station.”

“Station?” I snorted. “You have a station? You kick Wolf, vamp, and every other kind of supernatural butt in the bar on a daily basis. If you could wear your station on your foot, you’d have broken it off in someone’s ass a helluva long time ago.”

“Fighting is different than killing.” He let go of his head and pointed toward the door. “Go home. Your shift is close enough to being over and you are as bad for my mood as you are for business. I curse Goodfellow every day for convincing me to give you a job. Go .” He loved me like the brother he never had. I mean, didn’t everyone-when they weren’t trying to kill me?

I gave him an evil grin and drawled, “You do something to Goodfellow every day all right, but I don’t think cursing is it.” He grabbed the first thing at hand-an unopened bottle of whiskey-and threw it at my head. Deja vu. I ducked easily, some childhood habits you never lose. I then tossed my apron under the bar, pulled on my jacket over my shoulder holster, and made for the door. I didn’t want to be around if he did bring out the sword.

Did I mention it was a flaming sword? Angels were a myth, but the seed that had started the myth, the peris, were close enough for shagging your ass toward the Promised Land without stopping to think maybe a map and a timetable would be good things to ask for first.

In this case, the Promised Land was a street shrouded by the cloying breath of dangerous night and the less poetic ammonia stench of were-cat urine sprayed on the curb. I didn’t care what anyone said. No one moved to New York for the ambience-except for monsters and they had considerably more leeway when it came to ambience.

I checked my watch. I had thirty minutes before the end of my shift. That meant I could do my brother a favor and try to keep his love life from going down in flames. Or at least toss him a fire extinguisher because he was already in the doghouse and that, too, was my fault. I walked toward the next block. Cabs didn’t come down this street, unless a monster shrouded in human clothes was driving one. You could call this street the point of no return, the edge of the earth like the old days, and it was for oblivious humans. Luckily, nature kept most humans from wandering onto a feeding ground. Some subconscious sense of ill-ease had them veering off to safer streets where shadows were only that.

But sometimes you run into something different. With monsters there was always something different, but with humans, open book-open, harmless pop-up kiddie book. Except for Nik, who fell in a category all his own, there were rarely any surprises with humans.

Tonight I was surprised.

They lined up on both sides of the street, barely an inch from where open season on sheep began. They knew. They were human and they knew and not just subconsciously. Not that the inch was more than a suggestion. Nearly any creature would kill a human anywhere in NYC, much less an inch or so off pure monster-ville territory. But, the fact these men knew there was a territory at all. . huh. Suddenly I wasn’t quite as bored as I had been.

There were eight of them, four on each side until four walked over and it was eight on one side-my side. I smelled the youth on them. It made it past the stink of living on the streets: filth, and rotting food, cigarette smoke and decaying teeth, but oddly no alcohol. No scent of heroin, a sleepy smell, or meth, tinfoil and edgy. They were homeless, but not too old and not too young. In their twenties it looked like under the hoods of their identical white hooded sweatshirts and the scruff of beard. What kind of homeless managed to team up to wear white? That’s what it was under the patches of grime and it made no sense. Their world was a dirty one and white had no place in it. It was odd as was the fact that they were all in their prime, as much as the underfed and unsheltered could be.

It was interesting.

This wasn’t a mugging. I hadn’t had anyone try to mug me since I was sixteen. Pit vipers and me, we both gave off an unspoken, “You want to screw with me? Really? Because I would fucking love that.” We had the time and the tools and we were more than happy to put them to use. Muggers tended to veer off for easier-appearing targets.

No, this wasn’t like that. This was different entirely. For one, there were eight of them. Even for this city that was more than your usual dose of daily violence aimed at a single source.

I stopped and let them circle me, catching another smell as they came closer. Metal. On every one of them was the sharp, sweet singing whiff of a good chunk of metal. Knives or guns. I didn’t smell cordite or gun oil. Only knives then, but all armed, and that made them more interesting.

Interesting.

Fun.

Playtime .

No, no. I was bored, but there were other ways to entertain myself. None were coming to mind, but there had to be at least one or two. And these were humans, not sheep. Humans.