Doubletake
(The seventh book in the Cal and Niko Leandros series)
A novel by Rob Thurman
This dedication can go only to all my fans (you are an army), fellow authors, publishing staff, my family, and Web mistress Jayda—all who kept my career intact and alive while I was in the hospital and unable to do it myself. You saved me. Never will I forget it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Mike G. and Chuck W., who rescued my computer from being tossed out my car window in frustration; Jeff Thurman, my guy in the FBI for the customary weapons, explosives, and general mass destruction advice; Linda and Richard, whose generosity of spirit knows no bounds; my agent and my editor, Lucienne and Anne, without whom these books wouldn’t exist; and, finally, to my personal hero and artist, Chris McGrath. This time you gave me a cover so amazing that it knocked me on my ass at first glance. I had to edit the book ferociously simply because I didn’t think it lived up to the cover.…An artist that talented is rare. All hail Chris—the one true Art God.
“Are we not like two volumes of one book?”
“We cannot destroy kindred…”
“Unless we load our guns first.”
“What greater thing is there for two…joined for life…?”
“Exquisite death.”
1
Family…it is a fucking bitch.
Just like he was a bitch. I had seen him—wallowing amongst the game, but never tasting of the herd. More perverse, he lived with prey, had been raised by prey, had been taught the ways of the world by prey, when I’d had to teach myself. Clawing myself along, I had chewed my way through knowledge as grimly as I’d once chewed discarded putrid meat and bone. Everything I’d earned, I’d earned with blood, mine or someone else’s. I had done what no one else could do.
The castoff failure, but look at me now. Damn right, look at me. Look hard and look good—right before I gut you.
Then there was him, the golden boy, yet look at what he had done.
Naughty and bad, bad and naughty. But much worse: disobedient. Not what they’d expected of their one true success at all.
I laughed at the irony of it.
I laughed, but I hated him, hated him, hated him, hated him, hated him.
Not for what he’d done, but that he’d been the one instead of me to do it.
That was all right, though. That was fine and fucking dandy, as someone I used to know once said. Fine and fucking dandy, because I hated everyone anyway. The only difference was, I was related to this one…and that made the hate sweeter. Hate was all I’d known. All I had ever been given and all I had ever had. I was created from it, molded by it, lived by it. Hate was like air, necessary to life. I wore my hate as a second skin and let it warm me when nothing else did.
I saw him through binoculars from where I lay atop a roof far enough away that he wouldn’t know I was there. It was night, but I saw him clearly. Light was for the fearful herd; the night was for me. Not that it was ever truly dark in this immense mound of misbegotten roadkill waiting to happen.
Yes, I saw him. He had black hair, pale skin, light-colored eyes. Nothing like I was at all. That I didn’t hate. That I liked—I was better, purer, closer to the truth.
It was all about the truth.
The new truth.
My truth.
And he was part of that, whether he wanted to be or not.
Family was a hateful bitch; it was. I had the hot poker scars of that burned into my flesh to prove it, but, scars or not, sometimes family was all you had worth playing with. Maybe he would see that. Maybe he would want to play too. I played rough. I played to win.
Did he?
I’d bet he did if given the chance, not that this boring scuffle I was watching was anything to go by. It wasn’t a fraction of the challenge I’d give him.
The Unmaker of the World, they had called him.
Unimpressed, I waggled black-gloved fingers in a mocking wave. We’d see. Sooner or later, we’d see exactly what family and blood meant to him. He might look like one of the cattle, but he would never be one.
Besides, if he could unmake the world, how much more fun would it be for me to remake it instead?
2
Family…it is a bitch.
The thought came out of nowhere.
Or maybe not, considering my current situation. There was no denying that it was true. Everyone thought it sooner or later, didn’t they? If there’s only you, you’re good—lonely maybe, but good. You can’t fight with yourself. If there’re two of you, it can still be good. Your options are limited. You make do and appreciate what you have, unless it’s the stereotypical evil-twin scenario. Then you aim for the goatee and blow his ass back to the alternate dimension he popped out of.
A kishi—better known as my paycheck in the form of a supernatural hyena—hit my back with staggering force. I flipped it over my shoulder and put a bullet between its eyes.
Yeah, normally two was a doable number for family. It was when you hit three and higher that things started to go bad. That was when the bitching and moaning started, the pitting of one against another, the slights that no one forgot. No one could tell me that Noah didn’t pitch a few of his relatives kicking and screaming off the Ark long before the floodwaters receded. It was no familial Love Boat, and I believed that to my core.
Which brought up the question: Did that wrathful Old Testament God kill the sharks? I don’t think he did. You can’t drown a shark. I think they were snacking on biblical in-laws right and left. Noah, Noah, Noah…
I swung around and kicked the next kishi in the stomach as I slammed another clip home before putting three in its gaping, lethally fanged mouth as it jumped again. It sounded easy, but considering the one I also had attached to my other leg…it was a pain in the ass.
Family-wise, I had no pain in the asses. I was lucky. I had one brother and he was a damn good one. Once we were on our own, I’d escaped the curse of screaming Thanksgiving dinners.…I had a turkey pizza; Niko had a vegan one. No bitter arguments around a Christmas tree…Niko gave me a new gun; I gave him a new sword. Absent was the awkward discovery of first cousins shacking up at the summer vacation get-togethers at the lake. I didn’t have to wait for summer. I saw my brother every day when he winged my sopping towel off the bathroom floor at my head or I asked—after the fact—if I could use his priceless seventeenth-century copy of some boring book no one but him and the author had read to prop up a wobbling coffee table.