Rob Thurman - Moonshine

"Yeah, yeah, smart-ass." I was sitting on the coffee table, and I crossed one ankle over the other. "When you're loaded with natural talent, you don't have to practice. I'm just making an exception to help you out." Never mind that last time he'd wiped the floor with my butt and then for an encore did it again, this time using the ceiling.

"You are quite the philanthropist." Shutting the door behind him, he moved closer and with folded arms looked down at me for a long moment, seeing probably more than I wanted him to. "Bare hands or blades?" he asked finally. "It's the humiliation of your choice."

I chose bare hands. I was many things, but stupid I was not. That's not to say I wouldn't get my ass kicked. If history was any indication, chances were high that I would. But nothing stung quite like the slap of the broad side of a blade, even the wooden ones Niko kept for practice. We could've gone to the gym or Niko's old dojo, but the few times we had we'd attracted too much attention. Crowds at the gym were split between chanting for blood and calling 911, and the dojo was thick with disapproval over our technique. Mine was nonexistent and Niko's was a mixture of many methods. We didn't fight by certain rules; we fought to live. It wasn't always pretty, but it was effective.

Now we fought either in the apartment—and didn't our neighbors love that?—or in more secluded areas of Central Park. Washington Square Park was closer, but there weren't too many private areas there and cops tended to frown on sword waving in public. This time we chose the apartment. Pushing the furniture against the walls, we cleared the center of the room. I gave the couch one last shove and straightened. His back half-turned to me, Niko had lifted his hands automatically to pull back his hair out of the way into a ponytail… hair that was no longer there. As his self-exasperated exhalation reached my ears, I was already taking him down. My foot hit the small of his back, knocking him several feet through the air and onto the floor. I would've landed on my stomach and probably promptly barfed up my lunch. Niko, of course, alighted catlike on his hands and knees. Looking over his shoulder, he offered, looking pleased, "Devious and without compunction. Nicely done indeed." The fact that he'd deliberately given me the opening didn't change his appreciation of my performance.

Then he was up and on me as inexorable as the tide. Lashing out, one blow from the heel of his hand hit my chest and knocked me backward. Despite our precautions, I took out a lamp. Hula skirt and generous hips shattered beneath me to gyrate no more. It was my favorite lamp, one I'd picked up at a secondhand store in the Village. "You did that on purpose, you son of a bitch." I glared.

"It's conceivable," Niko admitted mockingly and without remorse. The bastard had never shared my taste for the classier things in life. He didn't wait for me to get back to my feet; he only kept coming. Just like real life.

I aimed a blow at his knee, hoping to crumple his leg beneath him, but he knocked my foot aside before it reached its target. I lunged past him only to receive a roundhouse kick to my hip that had me flying through the air… and not with the greatest of ease. The wall broke the first part of my fall and the couch finished up the job. It was a familiar feeling, the give of the cushions under my back. It was where I usually ended up during our practice sessions. And that had given me an idea the last time it had happened. Normally I came up with a groan and mumbled curse. This time I came up with a shotgun. Tucked behind the cushions for a week now, awaiting the perfect moment.

This moment.

Swinging the muzzle his way, I pulled the trigger on the first barrel and then the second. Click. Click. Snarling, I said, "Bang, bang, Professor. Your ass is grass."

He blinked at me and then the corners of his mouth curled slightly, for him a wide smile. Placing a hand to his chest, he then held it up to show imaginary blood. "You got me."

"First time ever." I grinned, dropping the weapon's muzzle toward the floor. "Is there some sort of prize? Weekend in Maui? Year's supply of veggie burgers?"

"I can now let you out without a leash." He sat on the couch. "Trust me, that's prize enough."

I sat beside him and laid the gun on the floor. "Kind of weird… pointing a gun at you again." When Darkling had taken me over, I'd done my level best to kill Niko… our level best, rather. It had gone down in Central Park. I'd been armed with a gun and a boggle, Niko with a sword and a happy little surprise. It wasn't precisely a fair fight, and I'd still lost. Best loss of my life.

"I know." His hand tugged at the dark tail of hair gathered at the nape of my neck. There was a comfortable silence for a few minutes and then he asked quietly, "You want to talk about it?"

Only a brother would know he wasn't referring to the time that the only thing that saved him from a bullet from my gun had been a pricey piece of body armor. No, Niko was all too aware that there was something else on my mind that had prompted my request for a workout. I hesitated, then groaned, "George."

His lips twitched. "My little boy, all grown-up."

"I knew I should've kept my mouth shut," I griped, leaning back into a boneless slouch.

Sobering, he tilted his head toward me. "She's been chasing you for nearly a year now, Cal, and she's as stubborn as you. You know what that means, don't you?"

"What?" I asked with more dread than curiosity.

"That sooner or later she's going to catch you." Gray eyes lit with amusement, he went on. "And would that be so terrible?"

Yeah, it would, but Niko wouldn't be able to see that, no more than George herself could. My brother wanted things to work out for me; he wanted that so damn bad. One of the most aware people in the world teamed with a psychic, and both of them were blind as bats. Utterly. But did I call him on it? No. My day was already ruined; I had no desire to trash his too. I shook my head noncommittally and changed the subject. "We have time for supper before we meet Rover. You want to grab a pizza?"

"The meeting's tonight?"

"Yeah, Promise left a message on the machine. Seven at the accountant's office ." I gave the word the sarcastic emphasis it deserved. "Apparently Cerberus treats the 'business' like an actual business. Go figure. Are we sure we want to get into the middle of some Kin mess? Whether it's self-defense on his part or not, he is still Kin. He's still a crook. I can live with it, but I know you, Nik. You like things a little more black-and-white."

"I'm that predictable, then?" Not offended, he slapped my shoulder lightly and then got to his feet. "At the very least, we can hear his flunky out. If we find his rival isn't planning anything nefarious, then we prevent a possible war within the Kin. That can only be to the good."

"If you say so," I said skeptically. Leg-humping, crotch-sniffing mutts with a license to steal—it was a strain to see the good there. But as long as we were paid, it didn't make much difference to me what the fleabags did to each other. "Pizza?" I repeated hopefully. "It's the least you could do for breaking the almighty hula lamp."

"The least I can do. Really?" Dark blond eyebrows lifted. "How very wrong you are."

With a stomach comfortably stretched with vegetarian Chinese, I shifted impatiently in the overstuffed chair. We'd gone to Niko's favorite place on Sixteenth Street and despite its being meatless they served a nice plate. George had seemed to like it. That's right; she had shown up, had been waiting for us by the door. Trying to avoid a psychic—talk about an exercise in futility. Christ.

She had wielded her chopsticks with aplomb, stolen food from my plate, and said it was a shame Niko had felt the need to tag along on our very first date. That had immediately led to me choking on a piece of broccoli while Niko poured her a fresh cup of green tea and apologized gravely for his intrusion. As her hand patted me helpfully on the back, I had finally managed to swallow. But while I'd been able to dislodge the broccoli, I had less luck dislodging George. She'd stuck around for the whole meal despite my pointed remarks about curfews and pissed-off mothers and then waved a cheerful good-bye as we had walked away to our meeting. I'd looked over my shoulder once to see her give me a smile so bright and warm… funny how it felt exactly like a bear trap snapping shut on my leg.