Peter and the Wolf. Jesus, this guy was something else. "Bad breeding indeed." Identical broad noses flared to gather my scent. "A foul, disgusting joining."
The one to the right had spoken first and then the one on the left. I realized I was going to have to either designate them as Cerberus One and Cerberus Two in my head or simply go with the flow and think of them as one creature, as Cerberus seemed to think of himself.
"Foul and disgusting," I drawled, slouching down farther and crossing my ankles. "That's me. But I'm also loyal, if the money's right. I can take care of myself, not to mention pretty much anything else that crosses my path." The grin I flashed this time wasn't bitter, but it was still dark… dark and gleeful. And then I gave him the cherry on top. "And I'm mean."
In wolf terms that meant one thing. I played with my food. It was a trait with which any of the Kin would find favor—because, after all, killing is business. But torture? That's art.
"Ah, is that so?" The nails stopped tapping, fingers stilled. The eyes took in the stitches that showed on my wrist, peeking from beneath the sleeve of my jacket. "Boaz."
"A bad poker player," I snorted. "And a worse loser." He was bound to have heard of the Boaz incident and not just from Flay. I only hoped the fight had been wild enough to make the details less than clear. Promise, as she wasn't here to kick my ass, I could pass off as a lover or an employer. Niko, however…
"He plays less now that he rots in a Jersey pet cemetery." There were identical cold grins, and then a less-than-casual "I hear there was a human there who did damage as well. Blond, with a sword." The head on the right was still with me. The one on the left had let his grin disappear and his eyelids fall to a brooding half-mast, but still kept his gaze fixed on me. Fixed on me hard.
"Yeah." I gave a light sneer. "I figured he was a bouncer." Cerberus had only to check to know that wasn't true, but even if he did, I hadn't said Niko was the bouncer… only that I thought he was. Facing my prospective new employer, I'd take uninformed and not particularly bright over the label of liar any day. "A puck will hire anything. But to give credit where it's due, he was tough." My sneer deepened. "For a human."
"For a sheep," came the correction. The massive body shifted, only slightly, but it still displaced the air like an avalanche. There was an innate sense of power about Cerberus, more natural than supernatural. A force of nature—tornado, hurricane, earthquake—it could be more destructive than any monster. I could see Flay's motivation to betray him. With this holding your leash, how could you fail to be chronically pissed? No doubt Cerberus didn't react to failure well. Hell, a bad hair day probably resulted in bodies far and wide. Flay wasn't the quickest, wasn't the smartest. He had to screw up on occasion. And he was bound to pay the price. Maybe it wasn't money he wanted for his betrayal—maybe it was simply revenge. But whatever Flay's reasoning, he had gotten me an audience with Cerberus. Now it was my job to make it work.
"For a sheep," I agreed lazily.
"You're half-sheep as well." A knuckle, thick and large, rapped the satin surface of his desk once. Immediately the succubus abandoned her couch and nail file to slink over. And a very definite slink it was. It wasn't all sexual (although certainly that was a big portion of it). It was partly the snake genes. Succubi couldn't walk without a wiggle even if they wanted to. She moved behind Cerberus and began a slow massage, paying equal attention to both necks. Not stopping there, she used a forked black tongue to caress the curve of each ear. Considering my own genetic makeup, I didn't have a lot of room to talk, but that didn't stop an inner "gah" and shudder.
I tried to ignore the Wild Kingdom mating bleeps and blunders before my eyes and tilted my head slightly. "Yeah, Mom. What a woman. There wasn't a dick that wasn't her friend, demonic or not." Of course that wasn't precisely true. Sophia had done it for the money, but now was not the time to be splitting hairs.
"Human or Auphe. Hard to determine which is more objectionable." Both heads exhaled and then said together with distaste, "Human."
To them it was probably true. Auphe had been feared and loathed, but they were still reluctantly respected. Humans, though… what was there to respect about them? From a Kin point of view, absolutely nothing. "And what happened to your slut of a sheep mother—"
"Who fornicated above her station?"
I smiled. It was a happy smile. Pure, honest, and satisfied.
"I ate her."
Of course, I hadn't actually eaten Sophia, but I couldn't help thinking she would've fit in here better than I did. Flay was introducing me to creatures with no conscience and a leg-humping rampant sexuality, and that was Sophia all over. The process of introduction wasn't exactly painless, but I wasn't sure who was more put out by it: my new co-workers or me.
Needless to say, I wasn't enjoying it. But I had to pretend that I was. The story went that Flay had known someone who had known someone who was the cousin of someone who'd been at the bar when the poker game went down. Or the equivalent of it. And that's how he'd come to make my unparalleled acquaintance. It was weak, but it made more sense than that he had tracked down the presumed Boaz slayer on his own initiative. Anyone who'd met Snowball would know that was damn unlikely. So, for now, Flay and I were buds, pals… probably borrowed each other's flea collar on a regular basis. Until I could kill him, that's the way it would have to be.
Cerberus had his office in a converted warehouse on Watts Street. I didn't know why he needed all that space, but at least it wasn't quite as clichéd as setting up shop in a bar or strip club. While his office was an oasis of all that was rich and decadent, the rest of the place was typical. Concrete floor, high unfinished ceiling, the smell of sawdust and mold, puddles of suspicious fluids… I glared at Flay and shook my foot. Droplets flew through the air and I gave an annoyed hiss at the ammonia stench. "You walk upright, most of the time, and you fur balls aren't even housetrained? Jesus."
Flay bared his teeth at me. It could've been a grin, could've been a threat; it was hard to say. It was also hard to care either way. "Fenrik. Jaffer. Lijah. Mishka."
It seemed that Snowball, brain cell diminished or not, was as good at ignoring me as vice versa. He coughed up the names as if I hadn't just shaken stale piss on his leg. The four wolves they belonged to stared at me as if I'd fallen from the sky. White-eyed, lips stretched to nothing, and claws shredding the cardboard cards they held… they had me amending the thought. They stared at me as though I'd fallen from the sky to rape their women, turn their children into beer cozies, and try to sell them life insurance.
I grinned with faithless and malevolent cheer, then sketched a casual wave. "Hey, fellas, I'm the new guy. Bet you didn't smell that coming."
In the silence, a string of saliva dripped from one foreshortened muzzle to pool on the crate that doubled as a makeshift table.
"What? No fruit basket?" I leaned down and picked up a card, bending it back and forth between my fingers. "Poker again. You pups really have a thing for the game, don't you?"
"Auphe." It was the one that Flay had designated as Lijah that spoke. Jaffer, of the unhappily wet muzzle, simply continued to stare and drool.
"Really? Where?" I looked over my shoulder. Turning back, I rocked on my heels and folded my arms. "Oh, you mean me? Hardly. Half-Auphe at best. Maybe a hint in my profile." I tilted my head to give them the full effect. "Or in my sparkling personality."
"Definitely the humor of an Auphe," grunted Fenrik, a short but impressively squat wolf. "Funny as an infected anal gland." He took a handful of Jaffer's shaggy hair and shook the head without mercy. Clumps of fur flew. "You're a wolf, you neutered bastard. Act like one."