His hand snagged my jacket before I could move, and he reproved smoothly in a line straight out of our childhood cartoons, "Honestly, Cal, are you a man or a mouse?"
"Neither, remember?" I grumbled under my breath. What a waste of time. There was nothing here we could remotely afford. It was bad enough to suffer through this crap when you actually got a car in the end. To do it for no other reason than to not look like a coward as you sprinted for safety—that just sucked.
And then it was too late. Mr. Gladhand Luke was on us like shark on chum. "Gentlemen, beautiful day, isn't it? Rob Fellows, at your service. What can I put you in today?" Cards were slipped in our hands with the quicksilver finesse of a Vegas magician. "Sports car? SUV? Maybe something thrifty with the gas? Foreign and domestic, we've got it all." He waved a hand. "You leaning toward a color? Red is popular, naturally, but you two…" He leaned back an inch and framed us with his hands. "I'm thinking simple black. Good color. Can't be beat. I have a brand-new Camaro over in the far corner. A jewel it is, a veritable glory. And, here we go. This way. Watch your step."
Okay, here was a man for whom caffeine wasn't an occasional indulgence; it was the actual fluid pulsing through his veins. He was a veritable whirlwind and it was distracting as hell, almost distracting enough.
But not quite.
He smelled weird. Different. Not human. He looked human, though, thoroughly. In his early thirties, he had short curly chestnut hair and revealed the cheerfully amoral green gaze of a fox when he pulled off his sunglasses to indicate a gleaming black car two rows over. His smiling, wide mouth was constantly in motion. He was the grown-up frat boy next door who'd conducted the panty raids, set up the keg, and knew everyone's name. Ex-BMOC. But in this case it stood for "Big Monster on Campus," because there wasn't a drop of human blood in him. The pungency of his scent was completely alien, oddly earthy, and like nothing I'd ever smelled before.
It didn't take much to tip off Niko, just the briefest of glances and a minute shift of my stance. He narrowed his eyes a millimeter in acknowledgment, and almost before Fellows could make his pitch, Niko and I were ready to sign the papers. He seemed pleased, not suspicious in the slightest, smugly secure in his position as salesmonster of the year. There was probably even a plaque on his wall.
Actually there were nearly twenty. I whistled lightly at the sight of them and settled into the chair on the other side of his desk as Niko drifted around the room. "Aren't you a regular Willy Loman?"
That ever-present blinding smile became pained. "I like to think I'm more successful than that, Mr… er…" He leaned across the desk to extend his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't get your name."
I took his hand, then wrist, in an iron grip and bared my teeth in a wolfish grin. "Caliban. Nice to meet you, Loman."
The smile had melted off his face even before Niko ghosted up behind him, placing a knife at his throat. "What the hell?" He started to struggle against my hold but froze as a tiny thread of scarlet trickled down the line of his neck.
"Sharp, isn't it?" I said sympathetically. "Niko does like to take care of his toys."
"Not toys," Niko admonished, his blade as still and unmoving as stone. "They're more of a way of life. A philosophy." His mouth moved closer to Fellows's ear as he murmured serenely, "Perhaps even a religion."
That'd put the chills up anyone's spine. Hell, make those vertebrae get up and take a walk, for that matter. I tilted my head and suggested lightly, "Maybe we should have a chat, Loman, before Niko decides to baptize you. What do you say?"
I don't know what gave me away. He didn't smell the difference in me or he would've caught on much sooner. Maybe it was the way I quirked my head or my pale, pale skin? Could have been the near-murderous curve of my lips. Whatever it was, he knew. Somehow Fellows knew. The green eyes widened; the mobile face tightened. "Auphe. You're Auphe." There was wariness and a thread of sheer revulsion in his voice as the smooth cheer fractured into a hundred crystalline shards.
Elf. Auphe. Grendel. A rose by any other name would still draw blood if you didn't watch the thorns. Niko's tranquillity vanished in a heartbeat as he hissed coldly, "He is not." Lifting the blade away, he fisted his hand in Fellows's suit to yank him out of his chair and slam him up against the wall. "But he can kill you as quickly as one, and so can I."
Moving up shoulder to shoulder with my brother, I touched a fingertip to the small rivulet of blood on Fellows's skin and sniffed it. "Funny. It looks like human blood, but it sure as hell doesn't smell that way." I wiped it off on my jeans. "So, Loman, tell us… just what kind of monster are you? You eat children? Haunt graveyards? Drink blood and howl at the moon?" I shook my head before he could answer. "No. You don't smell like any of those things."
"Because I'm not any of those things." He put a hand to his neck, wiped the blood away, and studied me with suddenly appraising eyes. "No more than you're Auphe. Not pure Auphe. I was wrong about that. But part, yes? Half?" An automatic grimace shimmered across his face. "I didn't know anything would breed with an Auphe. Even other Auphe are probably loath to do it. It would have to be a tale even the Grimm brothers would find too grim. Shakespeare would like it, though. But with a name like 'Caliban' I guess you already knew that."
Niko lifted a disbelieving eyebrow in my direction. "He never stops. A creature that suffocates his victims with an unceasing flow of words. I don't recall that in any of the mythology books."
"Horrible way to go." I hooked a hip on the edge of the desk and exhaled, threading both hands through my hair. "Loman, why don't you just shut up with all your goddamn questions and answer just one of ours, huh? How about it? If we like what you say, we can get on with our lives and maybe, just maybe, you can get on with yours."
At that moment the door to the office swung open six inches and a bespectacled, wizened face topped by a lavender-tinted Albert Einstein do peered through at us with curious eyes. "Mr. Fellows, you have Steven Phillips waiting on two." Thin lips painted with a thick coat of bubblegum pink pursed as the eyes moved to Niko's grip on the monster's shirt. "Oh. You're… oh. Oh." She continued to blow bubbles like a confused goldfish until Fellows gave her a smooth, reassuring smile.
"Everything's fine, Dorothea," he said with a genial sangfroid. "Tell Steve I'll call him back and he better have that Lexus he promised me. And could you bring my guests some coffee and some of those cranberry muffins? That's my doll."
Dorothea gave him a flustered nod that had the glittering purple glass dangling from her earlobes ringing like wind chimes, and disappeared, closing the door behind her. And I had to wonder… when exactly did Niko and I lose control of the situation? Hell, did we ever even have it to begin with? I dropped my chin into my hand and groaned, "Ah, jeez."
Niko palmed his blade, sliding it back into concealment, and gave me a rueful look. "It is difficult to threaten someone who doesn't have the necessary attention span to register fear."
Fellows straightened his suit and ran a hand over his hair. "As if a pair of puppies like you could scare me," he snorted, but I noticed he gave Niko a wide berth as he moved back to his chair. Me… me, he kept in sight at all times, a combination of fascination and repulsion mixing in those cat eyes. Sitting, he placed his hands flat on the desk and made us an offer. The traditional one you can't refuse. "How about a deal, gentlemen? You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine."