This story takes place six months after Cal comes back from Tumulus, while he and Niko are on the run from the Auphe.

I rested back against the headrest and put my feet up on the dashboard with a sigh. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of movement, which made sense after I heard a sharp "thwack" and felt a harsh sting against my thigh. "Ouch! Nik!" I protested.

"Put your feet down," Niko said. "What if we got in an accident? You'd lose 'em."

"Not the way you drive, Grandpa," I grumbled, but softly, since I'd rather not get another love-tap for good measure. I put my feet back on the floor. "Anyway, you'd have to drive faster than twenty miles an hour to send me through the windshield," I added, a little more loudly.

Niko spared me a look. "You think so, do you?" he asked.

I reconsidered. My brother, the ninja? He didn't need a car to send me through the window. "Never mind," I said, not wanting an object lesson on physics.

"Good choice." He continued to drive at a snail's pace.

"You could drive faster, Cyrano," I suggested helpfully. "The speed limit is fifty-five."

"Cal, if you don't shut up, you will be moving a hell of a lot faster than fifty-five, without the benefit of the car." He was irritated, but to an outsider, his voice would have sounded calm and collected.

I let out a sigh, and shifted around, trying to find a more comfortable position in the junk heap Niko called a vehicle. We'd been driving for hours, and except for a short break to piss, had been confined to the Jeep, which had started small and gotten smaller as the hours got longer. I was bored out of my mind.

I stared out the window. "Gas station," I said, pointing. "Can we please stop? Pretty please?" I'm not above begging. "Can you hear my stomach? I think I'm starving to death over here."

"Cal, we stopped two hours ago and you ate three chili-cheese dogs and a Big Gulp. I'm sure that noise is your stomach's final death throes," Niko said.

"C'mon, Nik, I'm a growing boy!" I protest.

"Yeah. Growing out," he said, with a gentle (for Niko) elbow to the gut. He turned onto the on-ramp for the interstate and finally gunned it to a brisk sixty. Of course, the speed limit was seventy-five...

I sunk back into my seat with a sigh, shielding my stomach with my crossed arms.

"Well, I gotta pee," I tried again. And I did, actually, once I said it.

"You do not." Yep. He was frustrated now.

"I do too!" I protested. I saw Niko roll his eyes.

"Well, you're going to have to wait," Niko said. "That was the last city for forty miles."

He had a little smirk on his face.

"You jerk," I said. "You could at least turn around."

"We're on the interstate now," he pointed out needlessly. "I can't exactly flip a U-turn here." And he turned up the radio. Classical. It was official-I was riding in the Hell-mobile.

I pulled my knife from my pocket and began to play with it, tossing it in the air and catching it. Every once in a while, Niko's hand would dart out without looking and intercept it, before tossing it again for me to catch. It was not, unfortunately, distracting enough to keep me from noticing my filling bladder.

"Nik..." I whined. "I'm gonna piss myself if we don't stop soon."

"Do it in my car and see how long you live," Niko replied grimly.

"You wouldn't kill me now; you've spent too much time trying to keep me alive." He gave me a look that said I shouldn't be so sure. "Anyway, I've really got to go!"

I tossed the knife again. Niko grabbed it and with a flick of his wrist, sent it blade first into the dashboard in front of me. I glared at him and wiggled it until the blade came free. Another inch deep scar on his already scarred dashboard. Niko didn't do bad habits; he was much too Zen for such a thing. But he did throw my blade there more often than was probably strictly healthy. At least for the dashboard.

"Look! Rest stop!" I crowed, pointing at a blue sign out the window.

"Fifteen miles," Niko said. "Alright. We'll stop there."

"Fifteen miles?" I hadn't seen that part. "The speed you're driving, that will take half an hour!"

"Stop whining about it already," Niko replied. "It's the best we've got."

I crossed my legs, looking for a position that didn't press on my already full bladder. It was useless.

"Stop wiggling," Niko said. "I feel like I'm in the car with a two year old."

"I could sit still if, you know, I wasn't about to burst," I said acidly.

"It's your own fault, you know," Niko replied. "I told you that Big Gulp was a bad idea."

"No, you said that I was 'poisoning my temple'," I said, making exaggerated air quotes. "That's not the same as 'a bad idea'. And anyway, I was thirsty."

"Because 64 ounces of corn syrup and artificial flavoring does wonders for dehydration," Niko replied, his own voice laden with sarcasm.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "Otherwise, why would I have to pee so bad?"

"Your logic isn't exactly sound, little brother," Niko said.

He proceeded to lecture me on why. Something about caffeine and diuresis, and blah, blah, blah...I tuned it out, concentrating only on not popping like an over-filled water balloon.

"NIK!" I finally interrupted.

"Yes?" he said.

"If we don't pull over right now, I really am going to piss myself."

I was serious, and Niko must have heard it in my voice. "We're here," he replied shortly, and pulled onto the off-ramp.

I squirmed, resisting the urge to grab myself like a four year old who has got to go only by sheer strength of will. And the knowledge that Niko would never, ever let me live it down.

It seemed to take ages to drive the twisting road that ended at a small building. I jumped from the jeep before Niko even stopped the car, and ran for the door.

The men's room was only steps inside the building, and I skidded to a stop in front of the first urinal and struggled to undo my fly.

I let out a small moan as I relieved myself; it had been close. It felt better than an orgasm. And that was saying a lot. I mean, I'm sixteen. Enough said, right? I sighed and started to button my jeans again.

And then, I felt a hand touch the small of my back. I jumped, letting out a very undignified squeal that would shame a seven year old girl, and spun around, hands out and ready to defend myself.

It was a woman-kind of. If women had scales like a snake and could move without bones. And the scent was purely reptilian. How hadn't I known she was there? Her blue-black hair shimmered in the flourescent lighting.

"Hi there, pretty young thing,"she whispered, a trace of a hiss in her voice. "Are you interested in checking out what I have to offer?" And without another word, she pulled her shirt aside, exposing scaly (but still hot) breasts.

My jaw dropped. I couldn't help it; I was entranced. My first boobs outside of a Playboy-I wasn't about to complain.

"I'd say you like," she whispered in a hiss. She took two steps forward and closed the space between us, wrapping her arms around my neck. Then she made a face.

"That scent," she said with a flick of her tongue. "What is that-"

And then her head went flying from her shoulders, showering me with a spray of blue blood. I looked into my brother's steel grey eyes and gulped. There was fire in them.

He stepped over the headless body that had once been a living, breathing...something. "What was that?" I squeaked. The spell she had over me had dissipated as soon as her head had left her shoulders.

Niko looked less than pleased. "I would congratulate you for realizing she wasn't human, but any toddler could have told you that." He pulled a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and cleaned the worst of the blood off the blade of his katana. "Explain how a succubus managed to pull you into her spell."

"S-succubus?" I stuttered. "Like, sex-energy-stealing hell-whore-that succubus?"

Niko's look became more exasperated. He pulled a neatly folded cloth from one of the infinite pockets of his jacket to finish field-cleaning his blade. "While I'm glad to see you have listened to at least one of my lessons on the supernatural world, if only because it involved sex, the fact that you didn't notice she was there is troublesome to me. Did you check the bathroom before relieving yourself?" he asked, in that tone that said I had better have. There was a long silence as he polished and I tried to think of an explanation that wouldn't result in an ass-kicking of extraordinary magnitude.

He slid the katana back into its sheath and pulled his coat over to cover it. Then he focused his gaze on me. "I'm waiting," he reminded me.

"I was desperate!" I blurted. "I really had to go!" Not elegant, but certainly true.

His eyes switched from exasperated to angry. He took a step forward and grabbed me by the shoulders. "So you didn't check? She could have bitten off something vital and stolen your life force, Cal!"

We were practically nose to nose, and as always, Cyrano had the advantage there. He shook me, hard enough that my teeth rattled. "You ALWAYS check! What if the Grendels had been here?"

My throat caught in fear; a Pavlovian response. "Don't say their name," I choked out. His thumb rubbed the side of my neck for a flash of a second, a comforting little gesture. Then Nice Nik was gone, and Kick-Ass Nik was back with steel in his voice.

"I'm trying to keep you safe, Cal! But you've got to do your part, you hear me?" He gave me another shake. "How many times do I have to remind you that you always check? No matter where, no matter what. You enter a room, you check!"

I'd rarely seen Niko so upset. My usually Zen brother was as close to panic as he ever got, his voice hard as granite and half a decibel louder than usual. His usually smooth, untroubled face had a small crease between his eyebrows. And most telling, he was grinding his teeth, the muscle in his jaw working overtime.

"I had pressing personal needs, Nik," I repeated defensively, despite that little voice in the back of my head that insisted now would be a good time to shut my mouth, duck, and cover. Instead, I tried to smile. "It turned out okay, anyway. All my most important body parts are still attached."

Wrong words.

"Dammit Cal, do you take anything seriously?" And then my ninja brother went into motion.

I don't know what he did-it wasn't a move that he'd taught me yet-but he had me twisted up like a pretzel and tucked under his arm faster than a sneeze. I struggled to no avail. I couldn't move-hell, I could hardly figure out where my arms were in relation to my torso. Unfortunately, I'd been in this position before, and knew it boded trouble for my ass. "Nik!" I yelped. "C'mon! I'm way too old to be-"

Niko's hard ninja hand came down onto my butt with a resounding SMACK! and I bit back a yelp.

Damn that hurt! SMACK! SMACK! He continued to beat my butt as he launched into his lecture.

"Just because you mysteriously gained two years of growth doesn't mean your brain accelerated at the same pace," he lectured, as smoothly and calmly as if we were driving in the Jeep. "And I hate to say it, little brother," he continued, sounding as though he actually enjoyed saying it very much, "but until you have matured past the point of needing physical reinforcement of verbal lessons, you'll never be too old for me to spank."

I groaned, half in exasperation at his words and half from physical pain. Nik's hand felt as hard as an oak slab and about as unyielding.

"Ow! Okay, I get it!" I whined. Sure, I've been through stuff that hurt worse, but that wasn't the point.

But Niko wasn't finished. "I can deal with you being lazy, Cal. I can deal with you making a mess, eating stuff that no one in his right mind would classify as food, and whining like a little girl every time we do a workout. But I cannot deal with losing you."

Fair to say, but not very nice. Yeah, the man ran ten miles a day and lifted weights like it was going out of style, whereas I moaned, groaned, and slacked as much as Niko would allow through those same workouts, but I couldn't help that my brother was a nearly supernatural Vayash ninja, and I was just a lazy, half-monster kid with a supernatural appreciation of sleep and junk food.

My ass felt like it was burning off, and still there was no sign he was slowing; each smack was as hard and as fast as the one before it. I squirmed despite knowing that there was no way for me to break out of his hold; my body had a mind of its own, and that mind was only concerned with getting away from the blazing pain he was dealing to my vulnerable posterior.

He dealt out a particularly hard swat that kicked my mouth into gear. "Come on, Nik, I get your point!"

My eyes were starting to water. If he kept this up, I was going to cry despite the fact that I was sixteen and too old to cry like a baby over a couple of swats to the ass. Although, I was sure we'd climbed way into the double digits by now. Which maybe made it better, or at least understandable, I told myself grimly, trying to soothe my ego. It's hard to do when you're bent over in a public restroom being spanked like a five-year-old. "You're overreacting! She was just a,a-ow! Dammit! You wouldn't lose me!" I hollered. I'd tried to say it as calmly as Niko was lecturing, but again-not in the greatest position here, literally or metaphorically.

And then he stopped, and pulled me up to face him, his hands clamping over my shoulders again. I grabbed my burning butt with both hands and breathed a sigh of relief but it was short-lived. When he spoke, his voice was hard again and deadly quiet.

"i sat there outside of the burned rubble of the trailer for two days, Cal. The longest two days of my entire life. And when, miracle of miracles, you returned, I swore I would never lose you again."

His steely eyes bored into my own. The intensity of emotion in them made me look away, swallowing a sudden lump in my throat. Lightning fast, Niko grabbed my chin.

"No. Look at me, Cal." Again, he stared me down, and I couldn't look away. "Since the first time you cried and Sophia put you in my arms, I swore I'd take care of you. But you're not a baby that I can wrap in a blanket and protect from the world anymore. And dammit, I do the best I can to keep you alive and away from those THINGS, but you have to do your part too. Because I won't lose you again. I can't."

I rubbed at my ass, which did exactly nothing for the pain. "I'm sorry, Nik," I said, voice low. And I was. Yeah, when I slept, I woke screaming often as not, but I didn't remember a damn thing from when the Grendels had me. But Nik had watched me disappear right in front of his eyes, had seen me reappear two days later looking two years older, covered in blood and bruises and wild as an animal. He'd had to remind me who I was and show me that I was safe with him. It had taken three months before I slept through the night even once, and six months later, I was still waking up screaming half the time. He had taken it upon himself to teach me how to fight, how to use a katana, how to shoot a gun. He never said a word when I crawled into bed next to him like I had when we were kids, even though most of the motel rooms we stayed in had two beds. He pretended I was normal. Hell, he let me be normal-or at least as normal as someone with half-monster DNA could be.

He let go of my chin and yanked me into a quick, hard hug. "You'll check next time," he said. It wasn't a question but I answered him anyway.

"Yeah," I said. My voice was a little shaky, but Niko pretended not to notice. He released me and turned to open the door.

"Nik? The body?" I asked. I was fine with leaving it to rot, personally, but Niko was a stickler about cleaning up after himself. And the blue blood was obvious against the dirty tile of the floor.

"Go get the gas," he said, gesturing for the doorway. "I'll carry the body out. There's a barbecue pit out front."

I passed him, heading to grab the little can of gas we kept in the back of the Jeep for just these kinds of emergencies.

"Mmm...barbecued snake. My favorite," I snarked. Niko made like he was about to smack me again, and I bolted from the bathroom to get the can of gas before he decided to go another round on my poor, abused ass.

####

I hissed as I settled into my seat, but Niko was unrepentant. "Sit down and buckle up," he said.

Grumbling, I did, and he pulled away from the merrily roaring blaze in the barbecue pit. "You could at least pretend to be sorry," I groused, shifting so most of my weight was on my hip.

Niko gave me a look. "Nope. Not sorry." He turned up the radio, and Mozart blared in my ears.

I dug in the back and pulled out a clean tee shirt, stripping off the neon-blue-blood-spattered shirt I'd had on all morning. I shrugged into the clean one and threw the bloody one in the back. Niko was a wizard with blood-stained laundry...although, blue was a new color...

I sighed as another need made itself apparent. "Hey, Nik?"

He was humming along to the radio. "Yes?"

"I'm thirsty."

The look he gave me was pure poison. "No way."

"Come on. I'm probably dehydrated. You can't deny me something to drink." I thought it was a reasonable assumption. "I'm really thirsty."

"No," Niko repeated.

"But Nik!"

"No." He was gripping the steering wheel so hard I wondered if it would break.

"But I haven't had anything to drink for hours. My tongue feels like the Sahara! I could sand paint off the Jeep with it!" I get most creative when I am whining.

Niko took a very slow, deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was very, very calm. Too calm. "Okay, Cal. We will stop. You can get something to drink. But I swear, if we have one more supernatural run-in today due to your excessive personal needs, I will turn you over my knee and beat your ass with the flat of my katana. Do you understand me?" His gray eyes flashed in my direction.

"Crystal clear," I said. He put on his turn signal. "But um...what if it isn't my fault? I mean, supernatural happens, and I don't think its fair to beat me for it if there's no way I could have prevented it. I mean, what if-"

"Cal?" Niko interrupted.

"Yeah?" I said.

WHACK! Quick as a snake, he smacked me upside the head hard enough that my ears rang. I winced.

"Shut. Up. And go get your drink." He shoved a dollar bill in my direction.

So I did