Hey people! I know I have been posting stories at the speed of light over here but I promise I am going to lighten up! For two reasons: 1) I have actual work to do again... fail 2) I don't want to take up the whole first page of Cal Leandros fiction in a week, that is just overkill and a little to much of me than you guys want I bet ;)

So yeah, but I hope you guys enjoy this. It is placed after Cal is kidnapped and before they run into each other again with that whole Promise debacle. Yes its angsty. What did you expect? ;) Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Cal Leandros series, it is property of Rob Thurman.

Niko POV

Gone. He was gone.

My little brother, my best friend, the only person that made my shit hole of a life worth living… We had spent four years running, four years training, four years believing that we had some chance, no matter how miniscule, no matter how improbable. We always thought we had a chance, I had thought we had a chance.

I thought wrong.

I ran my fingers through my hair and stared down at the wood of our cheap kitchen table. It was perfectly clean, not a speck of food or a bit of dust. For the first time since we had lived here it was practically glowing with cleanliness. I could smell the lemon and bleach that came with the cleaners I had used when I attacked the apartment with cleaning supplies. I had nothing else to do while I waited for Goodfellow to return with news from his latest informant. Not that it would do any good…

I forced the dark thoughts from my mind. I couldn't think like that, I wouldn't allow myself to think like that. I would get Cal back, there was no question in my mind. I couldn't… I refused, to think of the alternative.

Unfortunately I couldn't master my mind quite as completely as I mastered the dirt and dust in the apartment.

My mind drifted back to the events of a few days ago, I wasn't really sure how many days ago. The arrival and passing of the sun meant little to me right now. There was nothing but my brother, finding him, saving him, and never losing him again. I felt my short nails dig into my palms as the memory overtook me.

I sat at the kitchen table gently cleaning my blade. I twisted it slightly to watch the light glint off the shining silver. It was perfectly clean, and I enjoyed the sight of my blade completely free of blood and restored to the perfect silver it was when I first purchased it. I ran a finger along the edge and felt it open a tiny cut in the pad of my fingertip. I brought the cleaning cloth up to the small smear I had made and quickly wiped it off. It was just as sharp as it was when it was brand new. If I had any vanity it lay in my blades. As Cal had once told me 'I fucking loved pointy things'. I felt my lip twitch up, I couldn't have put it better myself.

Suddenly there was pounding on the door and I jumped up from the chair and gripped my newly polished blade tightly.

"Nik!" Cal's voice cracked with desperation as he pounded relentlessly on the door.

There was only one creature that could inspire that type of terror in my brother. I yanked the door open and gripped Cal's arm tightly as he fell on me.

"Grendels?" I asked in a tight voice though I already knew the answer.

"Right behind me." He gasped out his grey eyes wide and desperate. Behind the desperate fear there was another emotion, an even darker one.

"They were at the bar. Merry…" He trailed off for a moment as his face tightened with pain and his lips pressed firmly together. "Meredith is dead. They ripped her to shreds." I gripped his arm harder at the painful mix of emotion in his voice. Cal had cared about Meredith. He complained about her and rolled his eyes at her annoying habits but he had known her and he had cared about her and the Grendels took that away from him. They always took everything he cared about.

I pushed back the fear and held on to the rage, it would help me fight and if the Auphe were finally coming after us we could use any help we could get. We were probably going to die, but we were going to go down fighting because I wouldn't let them take Cal from me again, I refused.

"Bastards." I spit the word out harshly as Cal righted himself and ran to get one of my spare swords, a gun wouldn't do much good against Grendels, especially not in such close quarters.

Goodfellow was behind me and had no choice but to stay for the fight. Truthfully I am not sure what path he would have chosen if given the choice. He seemed rather invested in our problem. He grimaced as he dutifully choked out some of the bravado that him and Cal always seemed to carry with them before raising his own sword.

Then the Grendels came. They swarmed through the apartment their faces mad with dark glee and their lava eyes wide and hungry. They were distracted by their excitement and though they fought they didn't seem very focused. They weren't trying all that hard to kill me or Goodfellow, they were just keeping us busy. That could only mean…. No.

I slashed at a Grendel and my once gleaming blade became awash in black monster blood. I kicked the still writhing monster off the end of my sword and glanced behind me to search for Cal. Suddenly I noticed a loud humming coming from behind me. What the hell was that? It seemed vaguely familiar, as though I had heard it in a dream fairly recently. Then I realized I had heard it before, that night after we fought Abbagor.

Cal came bursting into the room and swung his sword at a nearby Grendel but it only jumped away from him laughing. He slashed another across the stomach and it hissed in pain and dove for him but stopped a second before its jagged claws could reach the skin of his throat. I slashed another monster across the neck and tried to move to where he was but another creature rose in place of the fallen one. They were trying to keep me from reaching him… No. Damn It, no. I didn't know what was going to happen, but whatever it was everything inside me was rebelling against it.

No.

Suddenly an all black vaguely humanoid creature ran into the room on all fours. It was ebony all over except for shining mirror bright silver eyes. What the hell? As if we didn't have enough to deal with. I quickly ran through my mental list of monsters but this one didn't seem to match any of their profiles. We did not need an unknown at this point in the game. What were the Auphe playing at?

Fear shot through me as I saw the creature head straight for Cal. I shouted his name and he turned in time to face the creature as it leapt on him and ran its tongue gently across his chin.

"Little piggy." It almost whispered in a smooth musical voice. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. No.

It tackled him backwards and they fell over the recliner shattering it. I couldn't see him and I couldn't hear him and I couldn't get to him. More and more Auphe were blocking my way, they weren't even trying to fight me, only just keeping me back laughing their faces split with thousand toothed grins.

"Cal!" I shouted in desperation. Goodfellow gasped out a word I didn't recognize, possibly the name of this new monster. It didn't matter, all that matter was getting it the hell away from my little brother.

But I couldn't move and I couldn't get away, there were too many Grendels, and I was no match for all of them. I was swinging my swords wildly, slashing at the monsters who wouldn't let me through.

Cal stood and for a moment I was relieved. He had killed it, he had won. Then he opened his eyes, but they weren't his eyes. The grey that matched mine was gone and in its place was mirror bright silver eyes.

The monster peered out at me through my brothers face and in that moment my heart stopped. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't understand what was happening.

"Caliban." I whispered, because in that moment Cal was gone, and in his place was this grinning silver eyed monster. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't move. I just stared at a hideous parody of my brother with my sword pointed uselessly at the ground and my arms hanging weakly at my sides. The monster spoke through my brother lips and grinned darkly at Goodfellow while waggling my brothers fingers. A cruel silver eyed puppet master and he was pulling my brothers strings. No… no.

No damn it.

"Give him back. Whatever you are, give my brother back." I gripped my sword tightly but it was no use. I couldn't use it on him, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't stand to look at him like this a second longer, I couldn't stand this terrible creature that had infested my brother's body and forced it to do its will. I felt bile in the back of my throat and the sensation that everything behind my rib cage had been ripped out leaving me gaping and empty. I felt unsteady as though the world had titled on its axis but I hadn't moved with it.

The monster laughed at me and shook Cal's head. It used his lips to speak hateful words that tore down my hope and used the nickname Cal had always called me and I had never felt more hatred in my entire life than I did in this very moment. It consumed his mind and body and stole his memories and mocked us with them and this wasn't a monster I could fight, it wasn't one I could cut down, because my brother was in there trapped behind the mirror eyed monster and held hostage by this cruel creature.

I was helpless. I had my strength, my speed, my training, my intellect and I had nothing to do with them. I had nothing to do with all my rage and all my strength and I hated this creature for it. I hated it more than I had ever hated anything in my life.

Then I lost my brother again. It took him and jumped out the window with all the Auphe following in its wake. It had forced Cal to shoot at me and then took him back to Tumulus, the one place I swore he would never have to go again. Suddenly the ground rushed up to meet me. I realized distantly that I had fallen to my knees. My sword, now covered in black blood, clattered to my side where it lay useless. Just like me.

I pushed my palms tightly against my eyes and tried to block out the memories. They would do me no good. Brooding wouldn't bring Cal back, the problem was that I wasn't sure anything would. The helplessness and the hopelessness gripped my heart with ice cold fingers and my breath gasped out of me. No.

Cal was counting on me and I wouldn't let him down, I couldn't. I couldn't leave him a slave to that monster. I refused. I pulled my face from my palms. I wouldn't rest until I had my little brother back, until I had him safe with me again.

I glanced around our apartment and saw his absence reflected back at me on every shining bright surface. Without Cal here to make a mess the apartment was immaculate, not even the tiniest bit of dirt. For someone who was OCD and obsessively clean like I was you would think it would be a relief to finally have some clean. It wasn't. As I looked around at the clean wood, the shining tile, and the bleach bright rug I hated them. I hated their cleanliness and their perfection. I hated their order and I hated their shining bright surfaces and perfectly scrubbed corners. I hated the sterile lifeless lemon scented hell that surrounded me, because it meant he wasn't here. Every clean inch of it drove the fact that Cal was gone harder and harder into my mind until I thought I would explode with it. But I had nothing to do. The rage built in me and swelled and I had nothing to do with this terrible built up energy. For the first time in my life I just wanted to throw my head back and scream, but it would be useless. Everything I was doing was useless.

I slammed my fists violently on the perfect kitchen table then stood and flipped it over.

I pulled open the cabinet doors so roughly one almost fell completely off its hinges and swung precariously on a small piece of squeaking metal. I reached into the cabinets and threw what little food there was onto the sparkling tile floor and emptied the fridge as well. Juice bottles cracking and their liquid contents splattering across the shining white surface and winding its way between the tile pieces.

I moved from the kitchen into the main room and tore that apart too. I flipped the couch and scattered the pillows. I ran to my room and ripped the drawers out of my dresser sending the clothes tumbling out to lay haphazardly on the floor like they always were when Cal was around.

I moved to the bathroom and ran my arm over the counter sweeping everything off of it to tumble to the floor. I glanced up and saw myself reflected back in the awful shining bright mirror. Like monster eyes. I tore the towels off the rack and wrapped one around my hand before bringing it forward to shatter the clean clear glass. It rained down in a million pieces falling on the perfect floor and I saw my empty broken face reflected back at me a million times over.

I fell to my knees again and felt the glass crunch beneath me. It opened tiny cuts in my knees and I could feel a miniscule amount of blood stain the fabric of my pants and sully the shining bright mirror on the shining bright floor.

I had destroyed everything, the apartment looked as though a hurricane had hit it. Never had it been such a complete disaster, not even when Cal was around.

I buried my face in my hands. I didn't feel any better and I couldn't stand the apartment any more than I could before I destroyed it, because it wasn't the mess that I was missing. It was my little brother. It was my best friend. Cal Leandros. And he was gone. I had lost him. Left him victim to the whims of a monster that forced him to do things he hated, to be something he hated.

As I knelt among the rubble of our ruined apartment I felt the pain of it so acutely it was a struggle to breathe. It was a struggle not to lie down on the wrecked floor and give in to my own brokenness, to the wreckage inside me. But I wouldn't, I couldn't. My little brother needed me and I refused to let him down. I loved him and I would get him back and there could be no other conclusion to this story.

And so I knelt broken on a broken mirror in our broken apartment and had faith that I would get my little brother back. That faith would never break.

So raise your hand if that was the most emo thing you ever read! I hope you enjoyed it anyways, I do love writing from Niko's perspective.

I probably wont be writing for a little while (let's see if I'm strong enough to keep that promise ;P) so don't worry about me taking over the whole Cal Leandros fan thing-y with my useless blather :)

Hope you guys liked it. Let me know what you think! I do love feedback, helps me improve :)

-Traveler