Rob Thurman - Blackout

Was that CPR?

Was that Goodfellow giving me CPR? Please God no. It’d been a rough day already. Mouth to mouth from the puck would never be lived down.

The same hands were slapping my back firmly, only making me barf more. I appreciated the effort. Puking wasn’t great, but I didn’t want any of that putrid, tainted water left in me, not a damn drop of it. I didn’t know how chemicals could taste like death, but they did. I doubled up, knees to chest, and went from vomiting to coughing, which hurt worse.

“Cal? Can you hear me? Damn it, little brother, can you hear me?”

Actually, I could barely hear the words. The pounding in my ears underwater had gone to a ringing so loud that I was surprised I heard anything at all. I kept coughing and slanted my eyes up to see a blurry Leandros kneeling over me, hands keeping me on my side. On his shirt, coat, and braid, he was wearing the chili dog I’d eaten at the bar since he’d starved me at his tofu diner, and I was dimly pleased I’d found the time to sneak it in.

“What?” I coughed again, vomited again, then glared at him. “What … you … do?”

He held up something I recognized—a grenade with a smirking smiley face on it. This one was red with devil horns. Have a not so nice day! That would explain the ringing in my ears. “I borrowed a few from you. Inelegant but effective.” It disappeared and a hand wiped at my mouth as I kept coughing. Good for him. I was too weak to do it myself and he deserved more puke. “She had you. Ammut. I could see the wake where she was pulling you through the water, too fast for me to stop her. I threw a grenade in front of her. It was the only thing left to do.” He sounded apologetic, despite the fact I’d driven him to more cursing. The man didn’t swear much, I’d noticed, even in situations when he should’ve been whipping them out nonstop. Swearing or not, he should sound sorry. Damn, damn sorry. Boggles, homicidal Wolves, dead clients, Ammut nearly drowning me, and my brother blowing me up to finish the job. As workdays went, not a good beginning.

“I almost lost you. Again.” He was blurry, yeah, and his voice faint, but I heard. He meant what he said. The blame was as solid as the concrete beneath me and as dark as the water he’d pulled me from—and it was aimed in one direction. “Ammut. This fucking bitch is going to be sorry the universe ever spit her into existence.”

The f-bomb. Now we were cooking. Forget the other cursing, this was serious language from an equally seriously upset, vengeance-bound brother … who had almost lost me twice in a week. He did deserve more than barf. Any brother who’d gone through that would. I was getting back the finer movements of my arms and legs, and I managed to lift my hand to snag it in his coat. “Leandros …” I coughed spastically, grabbed what air I could, then tried for the most annoyed, pissy little-brother-worthy expression I could manage. As I didn’t remember what that looked like, I hoped I got it right.

He bent closer to catch my hoarse words. “I’m here, Cal.”

Sucker.

“Worst … fucking … first … day … ever.” Then I threw up on him again.

As punctuation went, it was perfect.

“What do I do for fun?”

This time it was me waking Leandros up too damn early in the morning. Not that I hadn’t already woken him up walking into his room in socked feet. I didn’t hear any noise of my own making, but while I’d heard a killer she-Wolf above, I was learning my brother heard almost everything. If a squirrel burped in Central Park, this guy heard it half a city away. He was sleeping on his stomach, one arm hidden under the covers.

My well-intentioned last puke by the canal hadn’t distracted him from thoughts of lost brothers as much as I’d hoped. He’d had a long night, what with checking on me every hour to make sure I didn’t die of secondary drowning. I’d asked what that was and he told me if I did die of it, then he’d tell me. Until then it wasn’t pertinent knowledge for me and might interfere with my sleep. Considering we’d run—I’d staggered—to get away before the cops arrived to investigate an explosion and it had been the longest day of my life, I did need the sleep. Unfortunately, the grenade hadn’t injured Ammut as we didn’t spot any unrecognizable chunks of whatever she looked like floating in the water. If we had, I’d have slept a lot sounder.

Good thing I hadn’t.

“Betcha have a sword under your mattress and you sleep holding on to the hilt.” I grinned as an eye slitted at me, fully aware. “That’s what I would do if I were a sword guy.” But a pillow and a gun were what helped me sleep at night. Warm milk didn’t cut it in this business.

“You’re extremely observant of people’s behavior and the general area around you or you’re remembering more.” He sat up and laid the sword on the bed as he swung his legs to the ground. He wore black cotton pajama pants but was bare chested. He had a scar there that wasn’t as deep and ugly as mine. It was plenty odd, though—a round circle of silvery scar tissue as big as a dinner plate as if someone had drawn a giant O on his chest. I guessed they had, only they’d used a knife instead of a crayon to do it. “How are you feeling? Any more coughing?”

“No more coughing and no more remembering, but things are more … eh … deja vu-ish.” His room was as clean, feng shui-ed out the ass, painted in a calm, serene silver green with not a single dust mote daring to rear its fuzzy head. Same as yesterday and the day before. He had a low bed and an equally low and discreet dresser. No mirror, though. There was one mirror in the place—in the bathroom, and it was a small one with a towel rolled up and propped on top of it. The towel was to wipe off the mirror if the shower steamed it up or to cover up the mirror for no good reason at all, which I did before I went to bed last night after showering twice to sluice the canal taint off me.

Leandros hadn’t mentioned the mirror; I followed right along in his nonverbal footsteps. I didn’t like monsters and I wasn’t that fond of mirrors. I’d work on the monster thing first. I imagined the mirror thing, if I brought it up, would only embarrass me or make me look like a phobia-ridden nut job—maybe both. All humiliation in its own time.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out. “What do I do for fun?”

“Why are you up so early?” he countered. “One of the primary extracurricular activities of your life is sleeping, not to mention running, fighting boggles, Wolves, and doing your best to die yesterday. I’d expect you to sleep extra late today.”

Oh, as if it were my fault, almost dying. That made me enjoy what was coming next all the more.

“Eh, there was this thing.”

Yeah, there had been this thing all right, and it was getting more and more annoying.

“And I was hungry anyway. Ate some cereal. Knew we had some shit to do early and then I thought, hey, what’s a guy like me—when I don’t have amnesia—do for fun? I’m curious,” I said, then added, “Wouldn’t you be?”

He took the ponytail holder out of his hair, then pulled it back again, straightening the sleep fuzz. “I work as a TA teaching history at NYU part-time and part-time at a dojo as an instructor. I train you so that you can fight off a toddler should one escape the local preschool. I meditate. Read. Research. Spend time with Promise.”

That was all fascinating. The life of Niko Leandros, multitasking modern samurai. He was stalling. If this guy valued perfection, and he did, he valued it in all things, including excruciatingly accurate (and long) answers to easy questions. That made me wonder why he’d stall at all, much less over such a simple question. “But I’m not you,” I said, boosting myself up to sit on one end of the dresser. “What do I do?” Slouching, elbow on knee and chin resting in hand, I waited for the answer.