Then he was up and on me as inexorable as the tide. Lashing out, one blow from the heel of his hand hit my chest and knocked me backward. Despite our precautions, I took out a lamp. Hula skirt and generous hips shattered beneath me to gyrate no more. It was my favorite lamp, one I'd picked up at a secondhand store in the Village. "You did that on purpose, you son of a bitch." I glared.
"It's conceivable," Niko admitted mockingly and without remorse. The bastard had never shared my taste for the classier things in life. He didn't wait for me to get back to my feet; he only kept coming. Just like real life.
I aimed a blow at his knee, hoping to crumple his leg beneath him, but he knocked my foot aside before it reached its target. I lunged past him only to receive a roundhouse kick to my hip that had me flying through the air… and not with the greatest of ease. The wall broke the first part of my fall and the couch finished up the job. It was a familiar feeling, the give of the cushions under my back. It was where I usually ended up during our practice sessions. And that had given me an idea the last time it had happened. Normally I came up with a groan and mumbled curse. This time I came up with a shotgun. Tucked behind the cushions for a week now, awaiting the perfect moment.
This moment.
Swinging the muzzle his way, I pulled the trigger on the first barrel and then the second. Click. Click. Snarling, I said, "Bang, bang, Professor. Your ass is grass."
He blinked at me and then the corners of his mouth curled slightly, for him a wide smile. Placing a hand to his chest, he then held it up to show imaginary blood. "You got me."
"First time ever." I grinned, dropping the weapon's muzzle toward the floor. "Is there some sort of prize? Weekend in Maui? Year's supply of veggie burgers?"
"I can now let you out without a leash." He sat on the couch. "Trust me, that's prize enough."
I sat beside him and laid the gun on the floor. "Kind of weird… pointing a gun at you again." When Darkling had taken me over, I'd done my level best to kill Niko… our level best, rather. It had gone down in Central Park. I'd been armed with a gun and a boggle, Niko with a sword and a happy little surprise. It wasn't precisely a fair fight, and I'd still lost. Best loss of my life.
"I know." His hand tugged at the dark tail of hair gathered at the nape of my neck. There was a comfortable silence for a few minutes and then he asked quietly, "You want to talk about it?"
Only a brother would know he wasn't referring to the time that the only thing that saved him from a bullet from my gun had been a pricey piece of body armor. No, Niko was all too aware that there was something else on my mind that had prompted my request for a workout. I hesitated, then groaned, "George."
His lips twitched. "My little boy, all grown-up."
"I knew I should've kept my mouth shut," I griped, leaning back into a boneless slouch.
Sobering, he tilted his head toward me. "She's been chasing you for nearly a year now, Cal, and she's as stubborn as you. You know what that means, don't you?"
"What?" I asked with more dread than curiosity.
"That sooner or later she's going to catch you." Gray eyes lit with amusement, he went on. "And would that be so terrible?"
Yeah, it would, but Niko wouldn't be able to see that, no more than George herself could. My brother wanted things to work out for me; he wanted that so damn bad. One of the most aware people in the world teamed with a psychic, and both of them were blind as bats. Utterly. But did I call him on it? No. My day was already ruined; I had no desire to trash his too. I shook my head noncommittally and changed the subject. "We have time for supper before we meet Rover. You want to grab a pizza?"
"The meeting's tonight?"
"Yeah, Promise left a message on the machine. Seven at the accountant's office." I gave the word the sarcastic emphasis it deserved. "Apparently Cerberus treats the 'business' like an actual business. Go figure. Are we sure we want to get into the middle of some Kin mess? Whether it's self-defense on his part or not, he is still Kin. He's still a crook. I can live with it, but I know you, Nik. You like things a little more black-and-white."
"I'm that predictable, then?" Not offended, he slapped my shoulder lightly and then got to his feet. "At the very least, we can hear his flunky out. If we find his rival isn't planning anything nefarious, then we prevent a possible war within the Kin. That can only be to the good."
"If you say so," I said skeptically. Leg-humping, crotch-sniffing mutts with a license to steal—it was a strain to see the good there. But as long as we were paid, it didn't make much difference to me what the fleabags did to each other. "Pizza?" I repeated hopefully. "It's the least you could do for breaking the almighty hula lamp."
"The least I can do. Really?" Dark blond eyebrows lifted. "How very wrong you are."
Chapter 4
With a stomach comfortably stretched with vegetarian Chinese, I shifted impatiently in the overstuffed chair. We'd gone to Niko's favorite place on Sixteenth Street and despite its being meatless they served a nice plate. George had seemed to like it. That's right; she had shown up, had been waiting for us by the door. Trying to avoid a psychic—talk about an exercise in futility. Christ.
She had wielded her chopsticks with aplomb, stolen food from my plate, and said it was a shame Niko had felt the need to tag along on our very first date. That had immediately led to me choking on a piece of broccoli while Niko poured her a fresh cup of green tea and apologized gravely for his intrusion. As her hand patted me helpfully on the back, I had finally managed to swallow. But while I'd been able to dislodge the broccoli, I had less luck dislodging George. She'd stuck around for the whole meal despite my pointed remarks about curfews and pissed-off mothers and then waved a cheerful good-bye as we had walked away to our meeting. I'd looked over my shoulder once to see her give me a smile so bright and warm… funny how it felt exactly like a bear trap snapping shut on my leg.
Shifting again, I tried not to think about the logistics of gnawing through a leg made purely of emotion, and checked my watch. "How long is he going to keep us cooling our heels out here?"
"Patience, Grasshopper."
I rolled a jaundiced eye in Niko's direction. He and Promise sat side by side, a matched set in cool composure. "So, you two got a late-night financial-planning session later?"
That shut him up… for the moment, anyway. But Promise regarded me with the same amusement with which one would look at a puppy that had piddled on the carpet. I was a bad boy, but I was just so darn cute she couldn't bear to smack me with a rolled-up paper. She had met us outside of the building, her driver dropping her off. It was a business meeting, she had pointed out firmly, and as such all the partners attended. Her hair pulled back into a sleek twist, she wore an outfit in the deepest violet that managed to be both businesslike and subtly provocative. Don't ask me how she pulled that off, because I didn't have a clue.
The three of us were cooling our heels in the waiting area of the accountant's office in the Flatiron District. And it really was an office. I'd been picturing the back of a bar with the stink of alcohol, cigars, and wet dog in the air. I couldn't have been further off the mark. I didn't know what the inside of the sanctum sanctorum looked like, but our tiny bit of it was pretty nice. I was sure Cerberus's would be far more plush, but this was passable. It reminded me of an insurance office, a ritzy one, but nonetheless… there were chairs of deep blue and wine, and what looked to be a genuine Persian rug on the wood floor. Sedate prints, walls of pale ivory, and subdued lighting—it was all more than I expected. And it held my attention for an entire minute. I checked my watch again. A quarter of an hour this guy had kept us waiting. Despite what Promise had said earlier, this guy wasn't impressing me much with his manners. He must have missed that day in obedience school. "Fido," I drawled, "are you sure he's actually back there and not out watering a fire hydrant somewhere?"