Rob Thurman - Deathwish

The bullets hit a rib bone. I heard one break and shatter the two around it. Lucky me? Not so much. I was aiming for something a lot more vital. It jumped again, and this time I dove over the receptionist’s desk, which promptly shattered under the muscular black bulk.

Shit.

I turned at the enraged hiss by my face. One of the snakes was about a foot away. The venom falling from its fangs was sizzling and burning holes in the carpet beneath it.

Shit .

There was a quicksilver slice and the snake’s head spun free of its body and landed on the floor. Its body continued to thrash, but I didn’t have time to enjoy the show. I jerked my eyes back to the cat. Promise was on its back with a dagger in her hand. The point was aimed at the thick neck as she slammed it home. The cat hissed and twisted, throwing Promise off, and then it was gone after its master. Did I mention I was in the way? I shot it again as it hit me. It sent me flying from the shoulder that connected with me, and I was on the floor again. The bullets I fired went through its throat. It narrowed eyes back at me and sneezed a mist of blood into the air, bared its teeth again, and then was gone. The night swallowed it up.

I wasn’t sorry to see it go. I was all for finishing a job, but when a Desert Eagle barely makes a dent, that is one tough pussycat. Next time I’d try for about ten rounds in its brain and see what happened.

I sat up, this time on the other side of yet another desk, with three more headless snakes’ bodies finally stilling, then disintegrating. Like the venom, it burned the carpet when it went, leaving an S-shaped scorch mark. Niko appeared and held down a hand and pulled me up. All over the room I could see similar brands. The smell of acid-singed carpet was in the air as Promise and Robin moved over to us. I assumed no one was bitten as no one was down and writhing in agony. Humiliation maybe, but not agony.

Robin wiped his sword on the carpet and slipped it back under his coat. “Cherish,” he said, looking around at the broken glass, destroyed desk, and smoking carpet with irritation. Extreme irritation, if the audible grinding of his teeth meant anything. “Promise, I fully expect your daughter to reimburse me for damages incurred, along with punitive damages for my emotional trauma and suffering. Intense trauma and suffering.” He shook his head as he focused on the desk. “I just bought that. Five hundred dollars for what is supposed to be the sturdiest one on the market, and that ccoa takes it out like a catnip mouse. Skata .”

“A ccoa?” I lowered the gun to my side, sucked in a breath still soaked in adrenaline, and cocked my head toward Niko. “You’re really lying down on Name That Monster. And by the way, you are never making me watch Discovery Channel again.”

“Educational channels are good for you. It kept you ungutted, didn’t it? And I’m aware it was a ccoa,” he said in annoyance. “Usually found in Peru. It appears that Oshossi has shipped an entire zoo from South America.”

“And where is he keeping it?” It was a stupid question. Central Park was the only place big enough, although the mama boggle there was notoriously territorial. “Boggle won’t be happy.”

“You might be surprised, little brother. This Oshossi seems to have a way with predators, and she is nothing if not a predator,” Niko disagreed. He didn’t resheath his sword, just as I didn’t put away my gun. Oshossi and the ccoa appeared to have left, but appearances were nothing if not deceiving.

Boggle, murderous and unsanitary as hell, wouldn’t be at all pleased if we tried to question her. As a matter of fact, she and her brood might try to eat us, and they might succeed. There were enough of them and they had every reason not to like us. “We could ask her,” I said, lip curling in doubt and disgust as I remembered the stench of her mud pit.

“Ask her?” Robin echoed with a disbelieving snort. “You and Niko are responsible for her being half skinned alive. She’s practically summer sausage. Talking is iffy, and spooning is completely out of the question.”

Which was true. We’d hired her to help us with our Sawney problem two weeks ago and things hadn’t gone quite the way we’d planned. Boggle was the shit, Central Park’s Queen of the Jungle, but Sawney . . . he’d been nearly indestructible. And almost as insane as an Auphe.

“Robin’s right. Flippant and annoying, but right.” Niko turned the katana until the flat of the blade caught the light, studied the flash. “You do know where the ccoa is going next, don’t you?” He looked up at Promise, his gaze like a winter river—reflecting nothing. Any emotion he might be feeling was caught deep in the undertow.

“Yes, I know,” she answered, a shadow of worry passing over her face. “Will you come?” It was said without desperation, said proudly. Even injured, Promise was more than a fighter in her own right. Together she and Cherish could probably take the ccoa. Maybe.

If there was only one.

This Oshossi who had sent in a whole pack of cadejos . . . I doubted he’d send only one ccoa to do the deed next time. We’d sent this one running for its life—that was my story and I was sticking to it. Oshossi would know better in the future. He was smart. As for helping Cherish . . . Niko had said before he would help, but that was days ago when Promise’s lie was fresh.

Funny thing about lies: They don’t get better with time. They fester and turn and chew a raw hole in you; they make you wonder if it was only one lie or were there others. It didn’t help we’d spent three years living a lie ourselves. Niko wouldn’t have told those lies if it weren’t for me, but he couldn’t help but remember how easy it was. People see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. Hell, they all but lie to themselves. There was hardly any work involved at all. We practically never needed our fake IDs.

And, really, did anyone ever just tell one lie? Then again, weren’t Niko and I lying now? Or at the very least not giving all the information we had on the Auphe—on me. It wouldn’t make a difference in Promise and Robin’s fate that they didn’t know mine. But it was a damn slippery slope. Niko and Promise had already seen that.

I spoke up before Niko could. Made the choice so he didn’t have to. “Yeah, we said we would. Let’s go kick Garfield’s ass. Maybe catch one and take it home to breed with Robin’s cat.”

Robin, eyes slanting in Niko’s direction, caught my line of thought, tucked that ball under his arm, and ran with it. “Oh yes, another wonderful idea from the man whose refrigerator spawned the cheddapet, the cheddar-based life form with a thick and luxurious coat of mold. Magnifique.” He was walking, gesturing to us with an impatient hand to follow, and already on his cell phone with his lieutenant sales pitbull. “Yes, yes, Jackson. You’re mother is in a coma. I’m aware,” he said crossly. “So she won’t even notice you’re gone then, will she? Now come down here to the lot and get the glass fixed before someone makes off with the inventory, your job, and what little ass you’ll have left after I’m through kicking it.” He snapped the phone shut.

“Pure evil,” I said. “Not that I’m surprised.”

“That’s the fifteenth time in two months that his mother’s been in a coma. That may work with the teary-eyed customers, but not with me.” He gave his patented sales-shark sly grin. “Besides, I was the one who taught him that line. Great salesman, rotten short-term memory.” He opened the door to the limo and looked back at me. “There’s still a position available, you know.”

Talk about Get thee behind me, Satan. I used a little of my Rom half to fork the evil eye at him. “How many souls a week to I have to rack up? Is there a quota? Do I have to sign anything in blood?”