Rob Thurman - Doubletake

“They’ll bring more when we finish,” Robin promised. “Here. Try it. It’s honey fragrance. It will help with the pain until more Tylenol takes effect. Oh, and it’s not like sake. You shoot it. No sipping. Treat it as a shot. It enhances the flavor.”

I should’ve known by his offering me the first one. But I was tired, hurting, and if this took the edge off, I’d take that. I tossed it back and promptly choked, positive that kindly Mr. Chen had put diesel fuel in that innocent bottle. My throat was liquid lava and for a moment I thought I saw a tunnel and a bright light. “Honey fragrance?” I coughed several times before gasping. “Then their bees must be flying around sipping paint thinner instead of nectar.”

“But it’s such a small amount.” Robin grinned, pouring one of his own and throwing it down as if it were mother’s milk. “I’ll be sure to tell Chen how disappointed you were. He’s a good host. He’ll hurry with more and stand there until you drink it to make sure all is satisfactory.” He gave up taunting me long enough to point to a small dark alcove in the back of the room. “There’s a shower. It’s not much, but finding underground facilities bearable to use as an emergency bolt-hole isn’t easy. However, I learned a long time ago that it pays to keep them. I’m hoping that in whatever manner Janus senses Vayash, buildings on top of buildings on top of the ground and us beneath it might slow him down.”

“It’s almost night, when he can travel unseen. We will find out then.” Kalakos rummaged for clothing and claimed the shower first.

I didn’t mind. I was more hungry than worried about the blood and dirt. I left the alcohol alone and moved to the trays of food. There was rice, several bowls of different soups, dumplings, a dish of poached vegetables I passed to Nik, a hot pot of steaming beef, and on and on. It was less a dinner for four than a buffet for ten. I grabbed a fork and started loading up a plate. As long as it didn’t look like fried chicken feet, I scooped it up.

“Had your time to think about Grimm?”

“You couldn’t eat your grass clippings and let it go, could you?” I kept eating but with less appetite.

“I can listen and graze both,” Nik said, dry as dust, but serious too. I’d had my time to think and come to terms. And the thinking had been done. The terms, they were harder to swallow than Mr. Chen’s alcohol.

The room was too small for Robin to give us any privacy, making the assumption that he cared about anyone’s privacy. He didn’t. But this time he turned on the TV and kept drinking to give us the illusion of it. That was a first, but we were all having a bitch of a time with relatives these past two days, including one he didn’t want to talk about either. This once he understood and gave us a break.

I took another bite of something spicy and loaded with chicken. After swallowing, I used the fork to push the next bite around the small pot. “Grimm has a damn good shot of taking me out anytime he wants—he could gate circles around me and cut me to pieces, but he needs me to build the new race. The Bae.”

The puck immediately gave up pretending he wasn’t listening. “No. The Bae.”

I frowned. “‘Succubae’ or ‘succubi’ is plural for ‘succubus.’” And they sounded the same whether spelled different or not.

“Yes, that was true until copyright law came into effect and I copyrighted the word and/or syllable ‘bi’ used in any remotely sexual way, which includes a succubus. You may call them ‘Bae.’” Pronounced ‘bay.’”

“You really are a freak, aren’t you?” I considered stabbing him with my fork. It wouldn’t be the first time…or the second. “But whatever, okay. Anything if you’ll go back to watching TV.” I addressed Niko again. “He needs me to build the Bae . And he needs me cooperative.”

Which the Auphe, when they had tried this same plan over a year ago, hadn’t required. They’d had access to Tumulus, a place that would drive me insane in minutes. Frothing at the mouth or catatonic, I didn’t know, but insane enough that they could’ve either used my crazed rage or a catatonic body, posable and reactive as any other male body—but without anyone home in there.

Grimm, an assumed failure, hadn’t been taken to Tumulus. He didn’t know the way. He couldn’t get there. And if he could, he wouldn’t have known its effect on me. He probably didn’t know I’d spent two years there at the mercy of the Auphe while being trained for the big day—gating them back far enough in time to wipe out the human race.

So that was out.

No insanity equals no involuntary cooperation.

“And since the succu bae aren’t willing and I’m not willing—it ain’t happening. I don’t think he’ll try to hurt you or Promise, Robin, or Ishiah. He’s been watching me since I put down the other half-breeds in Nevah’s Landing. He knows there’s no way in hell he’d get me on his side if he did anything to you. I don’t know how many succubae he has or how many Bae offspring, but replacing the Auphe as top ruling race on the planet is going to take a long time. He can’t hold you all hostage while I help him knock up”—I let go of the fork and said it for what it really was—“while I rape succubae for a few hundred years or so.” Assuming I inherited the Auphe longevity. “Robin, Ish, and Promise would still be around, but you’d be…gone. It’s not smart or efficient and Grimm is both.”

“You think he is that much more of a threat than the Auphe? They deserved their place at the top of the evolutionary ladder when it came to predators. We were lucky, very lucky to beat them. That and you were incredibly stubborn, as usual.” Niko tapped my plate and bowl with his fork. I might not feel like eating but I couldn’t fight if I didn’t fuel the machine.

“The Auphe were cunning. Grimm is smart. He has a goddamn degree. What kind of Auphe gets a goddamn degree?” I ate some more. “The Auphe had no problem dying for their cause, bringing the good old days of murder and mayhem back. Grimm will live for his cause. If he thinks you or I are about to take off his head, he’ll gate and come back to play the game later.”

“That is troublesome.” Now Niko stopped eating, but he’d nearly finished his meal, depriving me of fork vengeance. “What do you mean by ‘game’?”

“Trying to kill each other,” I said uncomfortably. This was something new: to Nik and me. It was something I’d not felt with the pure Auphe and probably wouldn’t feel with Grimm if I hadn’t given up part of my humanity months ago to get back all of my memories and to save Nik’s life.

“I thought you said he needed you alive and cooperative, and trying to kill each other is a game?” he demanded.

“Yeah.” I speared a piece of chicken and looked at it instead of my brother. He had never looked at me with disappointment, but I didn’t want to see the first time if it came. “It’s the only game Auphe play with one another. I didn’t know before the Nevah’s Landing amnesia-fest.” I heard the rasp of Niko’s hand touching cloth and knew he was touching the tattoo through his shirt. I didn’t regret it, becoming less human and more Auphe. It’d been for Nik. Even without a single Auphe gene in me, I wouldn’t have been much of a human being if Niko hadn’t been around all my life. Mom would’ve needed a dictionary to look up the phrase “good influence.”

“But now I feel it, felt it when I saw Grimm. I want to kill the bastard because he’s Auphe, a murderer, a monster, because it’s justice, but I also want to…play.”

“If one of you kills the other, how does that help the son of a bitch’s plan?” Niko asked with an edge of confusion and of that anger he rarely showed…until Kalakos had shown up, which was yet another problem to be handled.