Rob Thurman - Doubletake

Deadly serious, I continued, “And who will you play with then? How are you going to get up a dead dick to make your chickenshit Bae?” It was the only threat I thought… knew would work. Grimm was smarter than the Auphe. He believed in the consequences if he broke that rule. He believed it because he knew I meant it. He’d watched me long enough now; he’d heard my history, stories of the things I’d done. I would do exactly what I said and there went all the fun and the Second Coming too.

“They’re not your family. They’re cattle, goats, pigeons, and leeches. I don’t waste time playing with cattle anymore, and goats and the others aren’t that much more entertaining. I’ll leave your herd alone.” His eyes brightened to the point that I wished he’d put on his sunglasses. It was like looking at the sun. Searing. “It’s only you and me, Caliban. In this game, this family, this soon-to-be new world, it is only us.”

“Unless one of us kills the other first, which is what will happen. I won’t choose the Coming. I won’t choose you or the Bae over my family. Hell, over anything,” I said flatly.

“But you will. You are more Auphe than you were two days ago. What will you be in a month? You’ll choose us. I hope there is a spark of the human Cal left in there when you do come to our side. I want him to know what he’s done—a thing he could once never imagine doing. I hope I can see that speck of him in your eyes screaming as he blinks out of existence. And even then I won’t kill your fake family. You know why?” This twist of lips and flash of teeth were too god-awful to be called any kind of grin. It was an executioner’s ax, one of flesh and metal and painted on a face no one could mistake for human then.

“Because I know you will.” He finished his drink. “And you’ll enjoy it. The blood, the taste, the betrayal and pain—because of you and for you.”

He held my switchblade and tasted his blood and my metal. “Good. I like the mix.”

Not done with me yet, he pointed the blade at the bathroom in the back of the bar. He’d seen the quick consideration I’d given it, no more than a tic of my head in that direction. “And don’t think you can stop any of this by going back there right now, a wolf trying so hard to be cattle, and blow your human- tainted brains over the walls. You do that and my word is done. I’ll make your nightmare happen, your so-called family die before your body hits the piss-covered floor. Three gates and you not there to warn them as I claw air and reality apart and then claw through them as easily. You wouldn’t be giving your ‘family’ any chance then.”

He held the switchblade in front of me. “A different game, Caliban, with your one more rule, but I’ll make fucking do.” The black and gray spun around him this time, not behind or in front—a demon’s aura. “Come to Fort Tilden tonight. You say you won this round. It’s my turn for the next move. Janus is a damned bitch to keep penned up. Let’s see what you can do with my toy. Better than last time or I wouldn’t have your genes in the Bae. Defective bast…”

Not bothering to finish the word, he dropped his eyes to see the katana blade that had passed through his back, anything in between, and exited where a human’s heart would be. “That is impressive. For cattle, you would’ve made a half-decent Auphe. My highest compliment.” The gate closed around him and he disappeared with about a third of Niko’s blade.

Half-Auphe were different. My heart was where a human’s would be, and the majority of the half-breeds I’d killed in Nevah’s Landing had been the same, but not all were that way. Some, like Grimm, took after the pure Auphe, who had kept theirs elsewhere.

“I thought”—I caught the towel Samyel threw me and wrapped it around my sluggishly bleeding hand—“you were going to let me handle this?”

Niko dropped the handle of the ruined katana in disgust and took the towel I was wrapping with one hand and tied it briskly and with enough pressure to stop the bleeding. “When did I say that?”

I scowled. “When I told you how the game worked, to take the back table, and to interfere only if he was going to kill me.”

“Yes, you said quite a few things, but I don’t recall agreeing to any of them.” He must have gone out the side door to the alley, back in the front, and Grimm and I were focused with such intensity on the game, neither had heard him or the door. Grimm was right. He wouldn’t make a half-bad Auphe.

My scowl deepened. Grimm was heavy shit, but he was my heavy shit. I might be hurt thanks to him, but no one else would be. With something like this, something worse than Auphe, Niko had to listen to me. For once in my life I knew more than he did.

“When did you stop following my directions?” I asked. He raised an eyebrow at the question with a comeback that was uncomfortably true.

“When did you start following mine?”

If I could respect cattle, an impossible, stupid notion, but if I could, I might almost respect the human Caliban claimed to be his brother. He was devious and sly. I liked both of those qualities. He wasn’t bad with a sword either, but he was cattle and I couldn’t respect one of them whatever their talent. And he was human, and that was the reason he wasn’t Caliban’s brother.

As if a human could be part of us. That made me want to gag. Their blood was in us, I knew, but it was disappearing. The Auphe cells are more efficient than any virus in existence. They touched the human cells or enveloped them or excreted a contagion.…I didn’t know or think about it as long as it worked.

And it did work. It turned them. Human became Auphe. We ate humans in this form, a farmer surprised in his field—he’d tasted of pork, and our cells ate human cells in turn on the inside of the form. It was a slow process by human standards, but a whirlwind to an Auphe or a half Auphe who planned to live as long as the First.

Efficiency beats fear and war on every occasion. The Auphe hadn’t known that.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

They had the tools, but not the schooling. Instead they attempted to make a thing that could make a gate and the last of the First would meet the first of the First to end humans before they barely began, or keep them cave-bound and low in numbers. They had determination and luck and then bad luck.

One of my teachers had taught that invaluable lesson on efficiency by combining biology and history. He told us of some human seaport close to a thousand years ago with walls too thick to breach…for humans. The attacking army came down with the plague and, smarter than your average cow, catapulted their diseased dead over the walls into the city. Those cowering there were then infected and that battle was over. That teacher—I had so many, learned so much—went on to say it did little good in the end, as the plague swept the continent and most of the humans died.

Flying humans: dead, rotting, and crawling with contamination. An entire continent all but wiped out. Cattle inventing a new way to kill, cunning enough to do tricks not unlike dogs do for treats.

All that comedy, and I missed it. It would’ve been hilarious.

I ate that teacher too, but I did pat him on his balding head first for the excellent job he’d done. He’d tasted of roots and rice and beans. A vegetarian. One bite and I’d spit it out. Evil. No good deed goes unpunished. That was my first and last plant eater.

I could taste the vegatation now and wished I’d broken every bone in his body instead of only his neck. And I took back the pat. Grass eaters could have all the knowledge in the world, but no one who tasted that bad deserved a pat.