As Niko raised his eyes upward and Promise pressed fingers to her forehead, the albino wolf guarding the connecting door fixed me with a baleful ruby stare. Apparently, Cerberus was helping out his fellow nonconformists. Yeah, he was all about the civil rights of the differently abled wolf. It didn't make this guy's stare any less rude. Unbroken direct eye contact was a sign of aggression and dominance in both canines and lupines. How did I take it? Pretty much the same way. And this version of it was beginning to piss me off. I leaned forward and watched as the movement caused the wolf's broad nose to wrinkle distastefully. Apparently, the smell of Auphe wasn't exactly sweet as roses to this guy's nose. He was one of the wolves stuck with a paw in both worlds. He had a mostly human face, with the exception of round wolf eyes colored blood-rage red, a wicked wedge of forehead, and very slightly tapered ears. A shock of white hair fell to his shoulders in a wolfish ruff and crept silky fingers onto his transparently pale jaw. That hair he kept trimmed to long pointed sideburns. From a distance, he could pass. From a few feet—no way. Even your average clueless citizen would think him exotic, unusual, oddly beautiful, and nowhere near human. Especially when he opened his mouth to reveal a brace of fangs that would make any orthodontist lose his lunch. They were also bound to make speech difficult. Despite his subtle wolf features he stood upright and with the body of a man. However, the cold intelligence behind those eyes was anything but human.
"No? You don't speak?" I said when he remained silent with a snarl locked onto his pointed face. I patted my pockets. "Maybe I have a nummy-num here somewhere. Lemme check."
A hard swat on the back of my head put an end to my antics. "Stop playing," Niko ordered. "This is business, not pleasure."
"Right now it doesn't seem to be either one," I groused, sliding down in the chair and tapping an impatient foot.
Suddenly, Snowball turned his head toward the door and, hearing something we couldn't, gave a nod before laying a hand on the handle to push it open. The wicked punch of claws painted black weren't exactly human either, but they'd be good for opening the occasional brewski. I noticed he was exceedingly careful not to scratch the finish on the shiny brass. "Go." Fixing those alien eyes on us, he repeated, "Go. In." As I'd thought, the words sounded like chunks of glass vomited forth to shatter in the air. As I started to get to my feet, his throat moved convulsively to produce one more. "Now."
"Yeah, right. Now you're in a hurry," I snorted, but picked up the pace as Niko moved up beside me. Snowball I could deal with. I had no such illusions regarding my brother. The doorway was actually large enough for all of us to have walked through side by side—this really was some place—but I hung back and let Niko and Promise pass through before me. We might hold equal partnerships in this new business, but I was aware of my interpersonal-relationship skills. I didn't have any and I couldn't be bothered to pretend. We all have our talents, some darker than others. Niko was a leader, through and through. And Promise had obvious string-pulling abilities. Me? I was a loner, who by some miracle of fate wasn't alone. I was also a smart-ass, and oddly enough that didn't seem to pay the bills.
The inside office matched the outside. Expensive, but not especially memorable… a lot like the guy behind the desk. Promise hadn't mentioned that he wasn't a wolf and I gave her a sideways look and received a dainty shrug in return. Yeah, I was surprised by Caleb, but then again, with Cerberus's mysterious "difference" making him more receptive to wolves like Snowball, who's to say it wouldn't bleed over onto different races? He was the Albert Schweitzer of monsters, all right, good old Cerberus.
For whatever reason, the accountant wasn't a wolf. In fact, I didn't know what he was. He looked human, even smelled human. He was in his late twenties, early thirties. What with his short dark brown hair and amiable blue eyes, lean face, fair complexion, and suit and tie, you would've passed him on the street without a thought. Until he smiled.
Bingo. Membership card in the nonhuman club if ever I'd seen one.
It was the teeth. They weren't anything like Snowball's, not a wolfish array crammed into a small primate mouth. No, numbers boy had the regular amount; they were simply pointed. All of them. He looked like a cheerful piranha, albeit one with an MBA. It was weird, but on the scale that I measured my life against, it barely registered. There were more monsters in the world than could be counted. I had better things to waste my time on and not enough fingers and toes to make the attempt.
"Brothers Leandros, Madame Promise, please, have a seat. I'm Caleb," the piranha said pleasantly, straightening a stack of folders on the desk. "Would you care for coffee? Drinks? Blood? Drugs? No? Very well." He laid his hands flat on the desk and gave us his undivided attention. "Your lovely colleague here has said that you can assist us."
Taking a seat in one of the three chairs facing the desk, I leaned back as Niko seated Promise. "We may," he said noncommittally, settling in the center chair. "However, we'd like to hear more details before we commit."
"Details?" Caleb leaned back as well and picked up a pen to tap it thoughtfully on the desk. "That's certainly fair enough. I thought I'd given all I knew to your ever-gracious partner, but feel free to ask away." He was so goddamn polite and earnest it made my teeth hurt. The Kin were really lowering their standards. Sure, this guy had the teeth and a fast calculator, but where was his homicidal mania? Where was his bloodlust? It was unnatural.
"There can never be enough details, not in a situation such as this," Niko said firmly. "To begin with, we want to know precisely what the result of our actions will be. We certainly won't be involved in setting up an innocent, rival of your employer or no. Our services are for sale, not our souls."
"Innocent" was putting a broad interpretation on any member of the Kin, but Caleb seemed to get Niko's drift. And it amused him; at least I thought that's what caused the curl of lips until he spoke. "Souls," he echoed the word, and fixed his mild blue gaze on me. "How very optimistic of you."
It was a sore point with me; there was no denying it. I wasn't sure what I believed about life, death, and the postparty. Even hanging around George, I didn't know if death was the end and neither did she. Or if she did, in tried-and-true annoying seer fashion she wasn't saying. I suspected this was pretty much it. The whole enchilada. You're born, you live, you get a cheeseburger lodged in your heart, and then you're fertilizer. Anything else would be just too damn easy. You got one chance; blow it and it's over. Don't blow it and it's still over. If I was wrong, that only led to other questions, or one very personal question. I doubted seriously that Auphe had souls, and what did that mean for me? Half soul? No soul? Only James Brown knew for sure.