Rob Thurman - Doubletake

The jagged voice was mildly curious. “Who said I asked their permission?”

This was what I’d traded part of my humanity for…control and something else. Control for situations such as this. The something else was Niko’s life. Those months ago, while facing the Egyptian life-sucker whose pets had made me forget my life—all of it—things had taken a turn. I’d finally been on the verge of regaining my memories, and not only my memories but the biogenetic skills that resided there.

I couldn’t function properly, the useful part of me—the bad part of me—unless all was whole, memories that resided in brain cells and Auphe abilities that resided in both. I’d been close, minutes away, but they were minutes I didn’t have. Half a minute and my brother would’ve been dead. What I’d needed I’d needed right then, not in minutes.

You have to give to get.

The better Cal had pushed a part of his human self down and let the Auphe flow over it. Devour it. A small bite only, but large enough that I was myself again—less/more than myself again, the true Cal with an added cloud of a dead race. Thirty seconds then was more time than I needed to tear out the heart of that Egyptian snake goddess and watch it melt at my feet.

I’d saved my brother and gained control of my former attacks of dangerously unaware violence. The Auphe had been many things, but not unaware in their violence. They were very aware. With more Auphe in me as the human portion was swallowed up, I gained awareness.

Control: The Auphe in me spoke of obligations to what was left of our race—the Auphe in me that was yet only half, shit, maybe three-fourths as both time and genes multiplied, as I sacrificed, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough for Grimm’s plan. That was my newfound awareness.

As for permission…

He did say he hadn’t asked the succabae’s permission.

Control could also mean violently aware attacks. It wasn’t as limiting as one might think.

I didn’t ask for permission either when I sheathed the xiphos in Grimm’s stomach.

Grimm was more Auphe than I was, with their speed, but he also had another quality of theirs…enormous arrogance. That worked to my advantage. It made him assume things he shouldn’t.

Things such as: You’re my brother, because why wouldn’t you want to be?

I already have a brother, better than you.

You know you want to prove ourselves deadlier than the first Auphe.

Been there, done that. The T-shirt shop was closed.

You have to want to reclaim the world. You want to rule it and everything on it.

Rule the world? Too much damn work.

You want to kill whoever or whatever you want, whenever you want.

I already can.

You want to kill.

I do.

You need to kill.

In his conceit, he was right on that one.

At this precise moment, I did need to kill.

So thanks for the opportunity.

“What?” I twisted the blade and felt his blood pour over my hand. “Should I have asked your permission first? Like you asked the succubae?”

The talons tightened on my face. He said he liked guns, but I knew all Auphe save me liked claws and teeth the best. I didn’t want my face ripped off like a Halloween mask, yet it felt good to get down to the basics of flesh and blood, the cutting of one…the spilling of the other. As long as he died with me, it would be worth it. Here was the plate and here was me stepping up to swing the bat. I could save the world from him. Was that the martyr in me? It would sound better to say yes, but it would be a lie. It was about the world, but with the smell of blood, the warmth of it covering my sword hand, an enemy pinned by my metal and his arrogance, it was more about something else. It was about the game .

I could kill another Auphe, defeat him. He wanted to play? Let’s see who won.

But was it that easy? No. When is it ever that easy? From behind I felt five gates open. “Father?” The hiss was pure succubae/incubi, the smell mostly Auphe. Some visitors for Daddy. There went my opportunity to finish the game with Grimm.

Which pissed me off to no fucking end. Not good news for those available for me to take it out on.

I pulled the xiphos free. I was going to need it. Grimm smiled, that perfect human smile, before dropping his claws from my face. He didn’t appear upset about the black-red blood leaking from his abdomen. It was already clotting. With us human-Auphe half-breeds you couldn’t begin to know where the vital organs were. We were all different—although maybe not as different as I wished we were. “No, Caliban, we’re not ready for that game yet. We have things to do,” he said, before pointing a gleaming talon past me. “Turn and greet your new brothers and sisters.”

I did. It was the past returned to life, or very nearly. They looked as ghastly as the Auphe, but unlike the half-Auphe in Nevah’s Landing, these all appeared the same. Identical—same father, perhaps same mother. They were Auphe pale, nude, with the slippery long white hair, the whiteless red eyes, the small pointed ears, but there were no hundreds of metal needles in each narrow jaw. They had succubae/incubi fangs. Metal, but snake fangs all the same, each five inches long and curved, their black tongues forked. Here and there on their skin was the glint of a pearlescent snake scale. You couldn’t tell if a pure Auphe was male or female except by smell; the females had no breasts and the males’ reproductive organ was withdrawn until needed. It was the same with the new ones.

I usually didn’t bother to tell the difference. It was easier to think of them all as its.

It killed, it mutilated, it needed to die.

Grimm had done what he’d claimed. They appeared as deadly as the real Auphe had, but I felt a contemptuous disdain coiling in my gut. They were one-fourth Auphe, half of what I was. I felt about them as the original Auphe had felt about me and the others. They were lesser.

Pathetic corruptions.

Great. I was a monster, I had a nightmare family that would not die no matter how many times I killed them, and now the Auphe in me was not slaughter-prone alone; it was also a bigot. Whatever. It wasn’t as if I’d intended on welcoming them with a slap on the back and a six-pack anyway. And if they were sending off any cuddly-puppy vibes, I was missing them totally.

They crouched by the back basement wall, the five of them, fully grown, as Grimm had said they would be. Fangs bared; black natural talons that their father would envy were poised in the air. They continued to hiss. Despite my inner scorn, I’d try to be careful and do my best to believe that they were at least half as dangerous as the Auphe and Grimm. Arrogance had been his downfall. I wouldn’t let it be mine. There was one way to know—the tried-and-true way. The oldest way. Every Auphe proves himself an Auphe. Survival of the fittest. Time to prove myself part of a family I didn’t claim and hopefully prove it more lethally than they could, ending all of this at the same time.

I pointed the xiphos at the nearest one. “Call me Uncle Cal. It’ll make me feel all warm and fuzzy when I chop off your head.” Grimm was older than I was, but I was by far older than these new Auphe. They matured in a year?

I’d introduce them to twenty-four years of being the real bogeyman in the closet of every other weak excuse for a monster.

So much for careful.

Useless shadows. Garter-snake doppelgängers. Show them what a real Auphe is.

A real Auphe—a real predator—didn’t wait for its enemy to call it out or for its daddy to tell it what to do. It didn’t wait at all.