Rob Thurman - Moonshine

My knife had sliced through where a man's neck would be. A vodyanoi didn't have one. Below the rough and wet charcoal sketch of a human face, nature's trickery, there was only thick, rubbery flesh. Unless you were armed with a chain saw, you could whack at it for hours without accomplishing a damn thing. I jerked my hand back, dropped my blade, and went for the Eagle. A regular bullet wouldn't do much either, but my early birthday present might.

As I pulled the gun, the vodyanoi flowed closer and raised a pulpy three-fingered hand to swing the machete again. The hiss came again from the pulsating mouth sucker, but this time it was edged with pain.

Slay, an annoying but feisty little shit, was making a meal of one of the fluttering tendrils that lined the ventral lower portion of the vodyanoi. Hell, I couldn't let the pup have all the fun. I aimed midtorso and fired.

The explosion was muffled, but the moist splat of destroyed tissue hitting the walls was less so. There was an unnatural ripple and flex of the vodyanoi's head as it peered into the massive crater in its middle. The crater must have in actuality been more of a tunnel because the leech then swayed and fell flat. As I evaded its descent, I felt the fast beat of a small tail against my back and arm. Apparently the fuzzbutt had liked that. Like father, like son.

Retrieving my knife, I moved on. There were noises now—the sounds of battle, the sing of metal, and a distant enraged growling that I recognized instantly. Flay was trying to make his way to us and, from the sounds of it, not having much luck. My eyes had become as used to the gloom as they were going to, and I could tell we were in the club proper now. The wolf wasn't there with us yet, but that didn't mean Slay and I were alone.

Caleb was here.

The monster who had taken George. The creature who had pulled our strings time and time again. The piece of shit who kidnapped children and ruined lives. Finally, here was my chance to pin his hands to the floor with Spanish poniards, rip his heart from his chest, and then cram it between those pointed teeth. As images went, it was a very specific one, wasn't it? Detailed as hell. So how, you might ask, did I come up with it so fast? I didn't.

Someone beat me to it.

The amiable piranha from our first meeting lay spread-eagled on the floor. His blue eyes were glassy and blank, empty marbles. The peculiar pointed teeth were buried in the meat of his own heart. Blood coated his hands and the palms were torn viciously where he'd struggled against the pinning metal as his chest had been cut open. The predator was now the victim.

I'd invested so much hate, so much rage, before I'd come to my frozen peace. Now I could feel it stirring far down in the murk, uncomprehending and fighting for release. My emotions might not have understood the situation, but my mind did. We'd asked Flay when he'd first told us about his son why he didn't simply force Caleb to tell him where Slay was being kept. The two of them had been together when we'd first been in Caleb's office. Why hadn't the wolf started stripping skin and flesh until that smug bastard gave up the cub between screams?

He had associates , the aforementioned piece of shit. One missed phone call and his son would die, Flay had said; Caleb's associates would take care of that. What we hadn't known was that Caleb was one of the associates. He wasn't the one behind the scheme. He was a pawn, same as us. And like all good pawns, he'd been sacrificed—not in the chess sense, but in the literal, bloodletting one.

"I really do need to put the no freaks sign in the window. My property values are plummeting."

I recognized the jaded contempt that came from behind as quickly as I'd recognized the poniards. A master of machination, someone who was as hungry for power as he was tricky and ruthless… a piranha could never be as qualified in those areas as a puck. Son of a bitch. I'd stared at him over the bar, talked to the bastard, and not once had a glimmering that he was anything but a lethally bored immortal. How lethal I was about to find out.

Before my brain's desperate command to turn could travel down nerve impulses and trigger muscles, he stabbed me. In a burst of fiery hot pain the metal entered midway down my back on the right. I more felt than heard the crunch of the blade hitting bone. Waves of nausea accompanied the ripping of flesh as I pulled free and stumbled to my knees. Slay tucked, rolled, and disappeared on fast-churning paws into the deeper darkness behind the bar. Gritting my teeth, I flipped over, crouched, and raised the Eagle. It was kicked out of my hand in a motion so swift it was a blur in the gloom. The same heel impacted under my chin, knocking me onto my back.

"Educational." Shadowed green eyes brooded from the bloody blade to me. "That's a mortal wound for an Auphe. Freaks seem to be more resilient. Keep your heart in the human location, do you?" Another poniard was in his hand; he must've bought them by the gross. He tossed it in the air, and caught it in a throwing position. "Let's test that theory."

He was Goodfellow, every inch of him. I'd half forgotten how uncanny the physical duplication was. The only thing missing was the grin. Whether it was smug, lascivious, cajoling, breezy, arrogant, salesman voracious, Robin usually had one version or another on his face. This puck never smiled. Not even with the psychotic glee of a killer. He was empty, a vessel of ice filled with the lung-suck of nothing. The pride, though, he had to have that. Any member of the race would crumple up and die without that overweening ego. It was the only weak spot I could hope for and I went for it.

"Why didn't you do it yourself?" I gritted between hard-clamped teeth. The blood was soaking the back of my shirt, but he was right. It wasn't mortal. Hell, if I was given the chance, it wouldn't slow me down that much either. "Take the crown from Cerberus? For that matter, why didn't you let Caleb do it?" My backup piece was at my ankle. I could easily reach it, if I could just distract him. It was a damn big if. Robin would've been too smart to fall for it. If the same went for his evil twin, I was well and truly fucked.

"Is it too difficult for your half-breed brain to determine, freak?" he asked mockingly. "Then let me clarify for the low functioning among us. Caleb didn't have the intestinal fortitude, which is more obvious than ever now." The eyes seemed to take on a bloody cast, a reflection of what remained of Caleb. "And Flay," he snorted disparagingly, "breeding will tell. He's barely house-trained. As for me, I wouldn't have been welcome. Unjustly labeled thief, amoral turncoat…" The grin I'd thought he didn't have in him blossomed, chilling and dead. Whatever emotion had lived in him had curdled and died long ago. "Who am I kidding? I'm the original reason there is no honor among thieves. Cerberus wouldn't accept me.. No member of the Kin would."

"That's one good thing you can say about them." I inched fingers farther down my leg and kept my eyes unwavering on his. I couldn't deceive like a puck—no one could—but I wasn't an open book either. If I could fool him long enough…

But of course I couldn't.

"As much as I enjoy playing this tedious game with you"—his gaze flicked to my ankle and back—"I have things to do." He cocked his head, gauging the sounds around us. Flay in some other part of the building. Screaming and howling out front, meaning Niko had yet to make it through the door. "Psychics to drain. Blood sacrifices to make. Freaks to kill." His foot slammed down on the gun at my ankle, pressing the flesh and bone beneath it to the breaking point. Before I could make a suicidal lunge at him an identical voice stopped us both.

"Hobgoblin."

It came from above and then from next to us as Goodfellow plunged down through flimsy ceiling tile. He landed neatly, doing what had to be everything in his power to conceal his weakened leg. His own blade, not as elegant as the poniard, but as deadly, came to rest along the neck of his carbon copy. "Long time no see," he finished silkily. "I thought you dead. Justly dead."