"Gee, thanks, Wally." I reached for another muffin, not because I was hungry. I was about the furthest thing from it. I just needed something to do with my hands. Mutilating a pastry was going better than clenching my fists until my knuckles popped. Whatever we found out about the Grendels was bound to be less than a good time. "Okay, Fellows, A is for 'Auphe.' Clue us in."
He nodded, face still somber. "Call me Robin, would you?" he requested with a wistful note. "It's been a while since anyone has. I guess I rather miss it." He propped his feet on the desk, expensive shoes gleaming in the fluorescent light, and continued. "Gather around, children. It's time for a lesson in history. Ancient history."
Figured. I'd almost flunked my last history class. Hopefully this time I would do better. My life did seem to depend on it.
Robin did his best to talk well into the late afternoon. Not all of it was related to the Grendels. Occasionally he wandered off the subject to spin some tale about wine, women, and song. Sometimes it was about wine, men, and song. I had the feeling Robin was all about equal opportunity when it came to debauchery. I was just grateful he didn't stray into wine, sheep, and song.
I didn't really mind the change of subject once in a while even if it did revolve around him. It was a welcome break from the bottomless poisonous swamp of Auphe/Grendel history. You could swallow only so much murderous lust, freezing cold rage, and soulless torture before you began to choke.
It turned out that Grendels were more than mere monsters after all; they were part and parcel of a living nightmare. They seemed to live for only one purpose, one passion, one raison d'être: violence. Destruction. Mayhem. Working separately or together, they had considered the world their personal game preserve. They'd hunted and killed with gleeful abandon, mutilating, torturing, ravaging, living as wolves among the sheep. But wolves killed for food; Grendels killed for the pure love of the game. They killed for fun.
Around since the dawn of time, they'd been here before humans, even before Robin's people. There were no Grendel cities, though, not on the surface. They preferred living either underground in the feeble light of glowing cave fungi or in a place even colder and more barren. It was a place that existed side by side, in and of the earth, but distinct and separate. If you knew just where to look, you could find a doorway. And if you knew just how to walk, you could pass through.
Or could be dragged through as a screaming fourteen-year-old kid.
It was a place sterile of life except for the Grendels. At least so Robin had heard through the mythological grapevine. He'd never been there, actually paled at the thought. Tumulus, he called it. When Niko murmured that the word was Latin, Robin nodded in confirmation. "It seemed appropriate. It means grave. Tomb. Auphe hell. Whatever you want to call it. You'd be better off dead than there, trust me."
Now, there was some information to be filed in the "too little, too late" column. "Time runs differently there too, huh?" I said neutrally. It had for me anyway.
"That's what they say." He hesitated, then furrowed his brow and asked, "You don't remember anything at all? Two years for you and you don't recall even a moment?"
Ignoring the question, I silently dumped the abused muffin on the desktop and brushed the crumbs off my hands. He took the hint and commented briskly, "Probably for the best. I doubt it'd ever rank with Club Med for vacation hot spots."
"No. You think?" I challenged acidly.
Niko was ever the peacemaker, whether with reason or the ultimate in last words, the sword. He interceded, "While their history is fascinating, in a bloody fashion, we are more concerned with why the Grendels have done what they have done. Why did they approach our mother? Why did they take Cal? What do they want? It seems all too intricate for mere random maliciousness."
"Especially since you seemed to have nearly every Auphe living keeping an eye on you then." Robin rubbed a finger along his upper lip, lost in thought.
"Every Gr—every Auphe?" Niko repeated. "I thought you said they were legion. We saw many, far too many, but they were hardly countless."
"I said they were countless. That changed long ago." Robin stood and walked restlessly around the room, straightening sales awards on the wall as he went. "Changed for us all. Man." He shrugged his shoulders diffidently. It made me realize he had some memories he probably would've as soon forgotten as thoroughly as I'd managed with mine. The green eyes flicked toward Niko, excepting me from humanity without thought. "You breed like rabbits on aphrodisiacs. One moment you were the occasional star in the early-evening sky and the next, a smothering blanket snatching ownership of the very air itself. None of us had a chance, not even the wretched Auphe."
"Ah," Niko acknowledged with a philosophical regret. "Unfortunately, it is basic biology. When one only lives a short time, reproduction is a built-in priority."
"Every nine months versus every ninety years or so. It makes a difference." Robin blinked, then shook off the past to check his watch. "Sorry, compadres, it's been nice rehashing old times with you, but I have an appointment. There's still a living to make. Takes money to wine and dine the virgins nowadays. Devastating good looks and a big dick just aren't enough anymore."
I quirked the side of my mouth in dark humor as Niko sympathized with mock gravity, "Yes, a tragedy of epic proportions. However, the vast importance of your social life aside, I don't believe we are finished here. Do you?"
His knife might have been out of sight, but Niko was more than capable of making his point without it. Straightening his tie, Robin gave us both a jaundiced look and a reluctant promise. "We'll meet tomorrow, all right? Come by about eight p.m. That'll give me time to think on the situation anyway. I don't have my finger on the Auphe pulse, but I might know someone else who possibly could."
We were almost out the door when I turned and asked one last question. "Loman. Sorry… Robin. You seen any Auphe in the city lately?"
His hand, still on his tie, tightened involuntarily like the hand of the condemned on the hangman's noose. "Here? Auphe here? Katadikazo, no. Never."
Too bad for Robin, too bad for us all, but never had just gotten a whole lot shorter.
Chapter Six
Entertainers, with a capital E, are a whole different breed. They're about five steps below your local slime monster on the evolutionary ladder if you ask me, but they were a major portion of Niko's bread and butter. Unfortunately for us have-nots, big money did pave the way for a lot of self-centered, outrageous behavior. Of course with Niko that kind of crap simply rolled off his back, water to a particularly phlegmatic duck. When you could kill someone with a dirty tube sock, you couldn't afford a careless temper.
That didn't mean those nut jobs didn't succeed in bugging the living shit out of me. "Niko, come on," I wheedled like a whiny twelve-year-old, as opposed to the whiny adult I was. "Why do you have to drag me along to the freak show? It's my night off. I'm supposed to be lying on the couch, eating pizza and watching TV. It's the high point of my week. Hell, it's a God-given constitutional right."
"Thank you, John Hancock." He tossed me a pony-tail holder. "Put your hair up. Tonight you're a professional. A professional what, I wouldn't even want to wager a guess, but at least you'll be clean-cut. In any event, since our car-buying venture was unsuccessful, we should try to salvage what remains of the day. You lazing about corrupting your mind and body is not what I consider productive."