Rob Thurman - Moonshine

Looking at the container of brown liquid dubiously, I said, "Yeah, thanks anyway. What ails me I don't think your wheatgrass can cure."

"And torturing an unconscious wolf will?" he retorted.

I felt the burn behind my skin spread to tingle in my mouth. Shame. What had seemed completely justified only minutes ago now seemed far less so under my brother's gaze. So I did the very least I could do. Taking the glass, I drank. Expecting the usual healthy concoction, I nearly choked on the scorch of whiskey. Considering our mother, it was the last thing I'd expected Niko to slip me, but oddly enough it was just what I needed. One swallow was enough. Hot as my rage, the alcohol burned a path down to my stomach and woke me up. That was the best way to put it. It woke me up, jarring the cycle of fear and hate and letting me step free of it for a moment.

"Let me make myself perfectly clear, Cal." He put his hands on the table and bent down to fix me with an unwavering look. "I don't give a damn what you do to Flay. I do, however, give a damn what you do to yourself. All right?" He didn't give me time to respond. "Now…" After removing the still half-full glass to the sink, he sat down opposite me. "Goodfellow called. He's had an idea."

Justifiably suspicious of any patented Goodfellow scheme, I asked, "What kind of idea?"

"Abbagor."

That had been the original Goodfellow extravaganza that had birthed my suspicious nature to begin with. To hear it repeated was the nastiest sort of déjà vu. "You've got to be shitting me." I jerked back in the chair so abruptly I nearly tipped it over. "Jesus. Tell me you're shitting me."

"Would that I could," he said impassively.

"He tried to kill us last time, Nik. You do remember that, right?" I said caustically. I sure as hell did and as memories went, it wasn't among Christmas Day and the smell of puppy breath for warm and fuzzy. Abbagor was… Shit, Abbagor was Abbagor. A mass of living flesh, buried victims, and an appetite for violence and blood that was legendary. He was also a troll, but not like any fairy-tale troll I'd seen in any book. He was not like anything I'd seen ever… anywhere. And what he had nearly done to Niko… Christ. "He tried to kill us, and he tried pretty damn hard."

"As Goodfellow reminded me, with considerable condescension, he'll most likely try to kill us this time as well. But apparently Abbagor knows everything about anything," he said with distaste. "He is our best chance at tracking down the other crown."

"The other crown?" I frowned. "You think it still exists?"

"It's possible. The first survived. Why not the second? I think it at least bears looking into. And the best place to look into it happens to be with Abbagor. He, as he's proven before, knows something about everything."

I closed my eyes. Unfortunately it was true. The troll was an information miser. If there was something worth knowing, he knew it. Hell, even if it wasn't worth knowing, he knew it. "Great. Just… great. I don't suppose you'd do me a favor and hang around topside when we go visit the son of a bitch?"

"Considering the three of us barely walked away last time, I would have to say no," he said dryly.

What went unsaid was that the previous year we'd been at top form. No wounded arm for me, no Goodfellow limping around like a lame horse. "Wonder where I can get a bazooka on short notice," I said, grimacing.

"Sufficient unto the day the ass kicking therein." Nik's hand landed on my shoulder, then urged me up. "We'll worry about it later. Facing Abbagor without sleep isn't wise."

Facing Abbagor at all wasn't wise. As a matter of fact, it wasn't anything less than suicidal. And it didn't matter a damn. We were backed in a corner; we were drowning. If Abbagor was the only straw within reach, then…

We'd just have to grasp it.

Abbagor dwelled in a labyrinth of tunnels under the Brooklyn Bridge. Where else would a troll live? How long he'd been there, I didn't know, but it didn't really matter. From the housewarming on, he'd made the place his own. It was his hunting ground and playground all in one—think about that the next time you haul your butt over to Brooklyn. Night was the worst. It was the time Abbagor ranged the length of the bridge, looking for food… looking for pets. Better to be food. If your car stalled there some night late, you'd better keep your ass inside with doors locked and pray. Pray hard.

Not that anyone seemed to be listening.

Behind a shielding abutment rested the door to Abby's summer, winter, and forever home. Last year when we'd come seeking information about the Auphe, there had been a heavy layer of mud over concrete around the entrance. And the smell… I hadn't hurled, but it'd been a close one. It was better this time, the ground hard and dry at our feet. The grate we had dropped through was back in place and secured with a shiny padlock. I looked down at it and kicked the lock, saying fatalistically, "Maybe it's a sign."

"If only." Robin pulled his wallet out and teased out a small piece of metal. In less than three seconds the lock was history. Goodfellow with a lockpick was faster than I was with a key. "There," he offered with a healthy dose of self-conceit. "It's the least I can do."

I cut him some slack; he wasn't nearly as smug as he normally would've been. Niko and I were going below, but Robin was staying behind. My arm and sore ribs were bad enough, but Goodfellow couldn't run. That crossbow bolt had torn up a good chunk of his leg muscle when we were attacked in that alley. I still wasn't sure who was behind that, although I had some ideas. It was either another one of Caleb's happy little tests to prove we were tough enough to take on the Kin or a dark and twisted game of the Auphe. There was no real way of knowing one way or the other, but from the rambling of our attacker, I was betting Caleb. "He said and you came," the guy had said. " He said…" Caleb appeared almost human. He was a "he." Faced with an Auphe, I doubted two things: that the man would've been at all coherent about what the Auphe said, and that he would've called an Auphe "he." Your average human with both feet in the mundane and normal world would've gone with "it," combined with a few throat-tearing screams for punctuation. Besides, when the Auphe subcontracted, they did a whole lot better than a nut job with a crossbow.

Since Robin couldn't run, a high priority when in Abbagor's lair, he was sitting this one out up top. Moral support in five-hundred-dollar sunglasses. The lawn chair he had carried from his car had cost considerably less. I watched as he unfolded it and took a seat. Lacing fingers across his stomach, he leaned back and turned his face to the sun. "Comfy?" I inquired caustically.

"Nearly." He yawned. "Have Abby send up a margarita, would you? Frozen with salt."

"Yeah, sure," I snorted. "No problem." As Niko bent, hooked his fingers in the grate, and tossed it aside, I rubbed at weary eyes. Through my own dark glasses the sun seared my retinas with the pain and brilliance of a laser. I'd slept another night, despite my dismal expectations, but it had left me feeling hungover and a headache throbbed steadily at the base of my skull.

"Ready?" Niko prodded.

I pulled off my glasses, tossed them in Goodfellow's lap, and grunted, "So where's that bazooka?"

"You've one good arm left, little brother." Niko crouched on the lip of the opening and scanned the darkness below. "I'm quite sure you can arm-wrestle Abbagor to his death if it comes to that." With that, he slipped over the edge and disappeared from sight.

I sighed and trudged to the reeking black square. "Have a good nap, Loman."

He waved me off. "Scream if you need anything." Unfortunately, if it came to that, there wasn't a single, solitary thing Robin could do to help us. He knew that as well as we did, and if he wanted to pretend this was going to be a walk in the park, who was I to screw up his sun-worshipping, margarita-chugging psychological defense mechanism? Facing Abbagor was going to suck, no two ways about it, but the helpless waiting, that was no picnic either. We all knew, from past and current experience, that waiting was a special hell all its own.