It should've been noticed. Would've been, in fact, if Flay hadn't been helping himself to my glass on the sly. His tolerance was fine. The table was good-sized, but there were six of us with enough food for five buffets. It made for an impossible jumble of dishware. Since Flay was sitting beside me he could drain my glass without suspicion. And he did so, frequently. I slanted a sideways glance at him. No one had much faith in his intellectual skills… Caleb, Cerberus, even Flay himself, but I wondered. Did he maximize the minimal amount he had to work with? Or was it low self-esteem because of his wolf-scorned albinism?
Let daytime TV sort it out. My concern was George and only George. To get her back, I would take any help Flay would give me and be grateful for it. Right up until George was safe and Flay a badly skinned rug on my bedroom floor. As he noticed my attention and met my gaze, I tapped my fork against the edge of my plate and gave him a smile cold enough to burn my lips. White eyebrows lowered and a lip lifted just enough to reveal one jagged tooth. Genius or idiot, either one would know what I was picturing doing with that fork. Niko was more than capable of killing someone with the most innocent of kitchen utensils. I don't know if I could or not, but I was perfectly willing to throw myself into the spirit of experimentation and find out.
"More beer!"
Jaffer's slurred voice shifted my attention. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled so far over his face that I could see only the faint glitter of his eyes and the wet shine of his nose, which seemed to be getting progressively more damp. I shook my head and hoped I wasn't going to end up washing dishes before this was over. The alcohol tab alone was going to be staggering. "More beer it is." I held up five fingers for the waitress, then pointed at an empty pitcher. "Cerberus doesn't mind the liquid lunches?"
"Not so much," Fenrik grunted. "Most of our work is done at night. During the day we just make ourselves available in case anything comes up. Consider us on call."
"Like doctors," Jaffer said with a happy slurp of tongue. The spray of saliva hit me all the way across the table and I reached for a napkin to blot my face.
Yeah, just like doctors. All they were missing were the stethoscopes. Dropping the napkin, I looked to my right, where Lijah had finished his third steak while I was still working on my first. Thin as a rail, but damn if he couldn't pack it away. "You guys been with Cerberus long?"
There was a shrug of the lean shoulders. "Long enough. He's a good Alpha, as long as you do what you're told." He said it with a confidence tinged faintly with uneasiness.
"And do it well," Mishka added glumly, raising a hand to reveal three missing fingers. Doing what you're told was easy enough… if that's what you wanted. Doing it well was sometimes a little harder.
"Looks like you screwed up at least once there, Mish." I pushed my plate away, my stomach tight with food. "Or Cerberus is seriously into the finger foods."
"Cerberus is a good Alpha," Fenrik repeated stone-faced. "He gives many a chance that no other Kin would touch." He pointed his own fork at me. "Many like you."
The thing was… it was true. Well, not that there were many quite like me, but I got his point. There were all sorts of monsters, layers upon layers and always one worse than the next. Monsters being monsters, there was also prejudice, blatant and severe. If you were different, in any way, someone would be happy to eat you for it. The nonhuman were completely honest in their hatred, no government mandate required. Cerberus was a change from the norm. Overcoming his own difference—by sheer force and a river of blood, I was guessing—he'd gathered other outsiders around him. And he'd made it work. He'd made the Kin accept him and his pack. That was one helluva feat, even for a cold-blooded Kin murderer.
"You're right," I admitted as I reached for my wallet and turned it inside out over the table. "No one likes the Auphe. No one respects a human. And no one, but no one, wants to work with either one. Cerberus is the Alpha in my book." I thumbed through the pile of cash. There was enough, barely, and I wedged it under an empty pitcher. "You guys finish up the beer. I've got some business to take care of."
"What kind of business?" Fenrik asked with immediate suspicion.
I aimed a leer at the gaggle of waitresses by the bar. "Guess."
"Back… eight." Flay scowled. "Business… too. Cerberus business."
"Eight. Gotcha."
"Human?" Mishka looked at the waitresses and made a hissing sound of disgust. "They're soft. No fire."
"Hey, unlike your gals, humans are in heat all the time." I tried for a Goodfellow tone, salacious and carnal. I'd heard it so often I could probably do a reasonable imitation in my sleep. "And they make a nice snack afterward." Slapping the table, I headed out… just your average cannibalistic ladies' man. Nothing to see here. Outside, lunchtime had faded into late afternoon. The sky was blue tinged with yellow, the air heavy and thick. It glued my jacket to me with a wallpaper paste of my own sweat. It would've been a relief to sink into the dubious air-conditioning of a taxi, but in this instance comfort would have to be sacrificed for caution. Wiping at the back of my neck, I trudged into the crowd and hopefully disappeared.
The hostel room was several layers below disgusting. Or it had been. Now, thanks to my visitor, it was immaculately neat and as sterile as an operating room. Nik, only Nik. He couldn't do anything about the bedspread and carpet of hideous, clashing colors that only a clown on acid could love or the junkyard-cheap furniture, but the dirt was a different matter. He'd apparently scrubbed the place down with ruthless efficiency and an entire vat of bleach. I closed the door behind me and gave a low whistle. "Dr. Obsessive-compulsive, I presume."
"You stink of beer and red meat." He sat cross-legged on the bed, a serene statue repeatedly tossing and catching his knife so quickly that it was a silver pinwheel spinning in the air before him.
"Bonding with the boys." I grabbed the desk chair and straddled it. "They ravaged my liver and then my wallet."
The long nose wrinkled fastidiously, but he let it go. "You weren't followed?"
"No." Which was why I'd walked, taken the subway… doubled back at several stops, then walked some more. Rubbing at my eyes, I asked, "Promise or Robin get any information on Caleb or his crown?"
"Not so far." Catching his knife, he uncoiled and moved to the edge of the bed. Tapping my knee with the point of his throwing blade, he asked quietly, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," I said, dismissive. "So far I've just eaten steak and been hit with about a gallon of drool. Nothing to write home about."
There was one more tap, oddly reassuring; then the knife vanished. "And Cerberus?"
I grimaced, caught in the lie. "I didn't need a change of shorts, but it was a close thing. He's a cold son of a bitch. Or they are. Hell, I don't know."
"Ah." His mouth twitched, Niko's equivalent of a smug grin. "We may have come up empty on Caleb's location or the history behind the crown, but getting a background on Cerberus was easily enough accomplished. He has no secrets he wishes to keep hidden—on the surface, anyway. And the word you've no doubt been searching for is 'dicephalus.' One body, two heads."
"Smart-ass." The air of industrial-strength cleaner clung to the plastic and imitation wood of my chair and I swallowed a sneeze. At least it smelled clean… for the first time. I'd been staying at the hostel on the Bowery for two days now. I needed to be well and truly separated from the others if Cerberus did some cursory checking of his own. I could've stayed someplace a little more upscale, but I also wanted to give the impression I was in this for the money. Just your average working stiff willing to kill, mutilate, and wreak havoc for the Kin's version of minimum wage.