From The Dead

by Bottle Red Rosie

Cal and Niko believe their day can't get any worse after they see their dead mother walking down Eighth Avenue. They're wrong. Very wrong. Warnings only for language. Set some time before the last novel. One shot. Complete. Cal and Niko POV.

Rating: T
Words: 19,000
Spoilers: General references to plot points throughout the series.
Warnings: Language, mild violence.
Summary: Cal and Niko believe their day can't get any worse after they see their dead mother walking down Eighth Avenue. They're wrong. Very wrong.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: The second of three Cal and Niko fics that have been sitting around on my computer for a while. Whether number three ever gets finished remains to be seen!

FROM THE DEAD

CAL

The last thing you expect to see walking towards you on a sunny Saturday morning in New York City is your dead mother.

Unless you're us.

I didn't notice her at first.

Just felt Nik stop dead by my side.

And when I turned to look at him his face was the color of ash.

I followed the direction of his gaze, across the roofs of a hundred yellow taxi cabs gridlocked along Eighth Avenue, to where a woman was walking down the opposite sidewalk.

One woman in a hundred.

And she was all either of us saw.

Tunnel vision, everything grayed out around her.

She stopped when she drew level with us.

Turned.

Looked directly at us.

And smiled.

Smirked.

Grimaced.

And walked away.

She was heading down into the subway before I even thought to go for my Desert Eagle, but Nik's hand was on my arm, stilling me.

His hand was shaking.

"Nik?" I heard myself murmur. "You saw that, right? I didn't just make that up?"

Niko sucked in a slow breath. Blew it out again just as slowly. Swallowed and shook his head.

But didn't speak.

And didn't move.

And his hand was still on my arm, fingers twisting in my leather jacket.

My brother wasn't scared of anything.

Except losing me.

And her.

He was scared of her.

Which is probably why he didn't sense the guy sneaking up behind him until it was too late.

I didn't see his face.

He had on a hood which was pulled down low, and all I really had eyes for, as he shoved me halfway across the sidewalk, was the razor sharp blade he suddenly had pressed against my brother's neck.

Niko didn't move, his expression still blankly unreadable from our encounter with whatever that was wandering down the street wearing our mother's face.

Unreadable to anyone but me, that is.

To me, the apparently inscrutable expression on my brother's face was a mix of bitter disappointment and anger. All directed at himself.

"Call yourself a warrior?" a deep voice intoned from behind Nik's right ear, where the guy in the hood had snaked a powerfully muscular arm around his shoulders and yanked him a step backwards. The fingers of his other hand entwined in my brother's braid as he pulled back his head.

All the better to expose his jugular.

Nik swallowed slowly as my fingers inched carefully towards the Desert Eagle beneath my jacket.

Hoodie guy laughed hollowly as he pressed the sword harder against Nik's neck, a small trickle of my brother's blood idly beginning to coat the blade.

"I've seen pre-schoolers with better reflexes than you two gadje," the asshole in the hoodie continued.

Nik briefly met my gaze.

"You're Rom?" he asked carefully, picking up on his assailant's use of the Rom word for "outsider."

Nik could speak several languages, but Rom wasn't one of them. On principle. But we both knew that word. Had it thrown at us often enough.

Hoodie asshole snorted again. "Unlike you two losers. You know how nothing you are? You're not even really worth my time."

"Then why are you here?" Nik asked. "Wasting time on worthless gadje?"

The guy's hood slid back just a little bit, and I saw him clench his jaw tightly.

His fingers tightened in my brother's braid, yanking back and up until Nik was on tiptoes.

Nik was tall, but the bastard with the grip on him was a good couple inches taller.

"I have a debt to pay," hoodie guy hissed into Nik's ear. "I owe you and your—" he glanced dismissively in my direction, "—brother."

"We did you a service?" Nik asked carefully.

Hoodie guy snorted. "You did me a disservice, filthy gadje," he ground out, giving Nik's braid another yank for emphasis.

"If you must insist on pulling my hair," Nik said coldly, "perhaps we should move this little interaction to the nearest schoolyard."

Hoodie guy actually snickered at that. "If you'd known me when we were children," he said, "you might have grown up to be more of a man."

Niko set his jaw, but his brow furrowed just slightly. "And why is that?" he asked casually. "Do I know you? Should I know you?"

Hoodie guy was giving nothing away. "I want you to remember this moment," he said instead, one last yank on Nik's braid as he pressed the flat of his blade harder against his throat. "Our first introduction. Remember who was master and who was gadje trash. And remember this."

Quicker than I had ever seen anyone move with a blade—besides my brother—the sword pressed against Nik's throat was behind him, and then gone.

Along with his braid.

"What the—?"

Nik stumbled forward as his shoulders were abruptly released, his hand going to the back of his head where his braid had been seconds earlier.

The last time I saw Niko with short hair was when he cut it all off whilst in mourning for me.

And although it wasn't quite as short as that, even a Niko with shoulder length hair didn't look quite right.

His jaw was clenched as he spun in the direction of where hoodie guy had been standing, but he moved as fast as his blade, and I figured my brother had no more idea where the guy had gone than I had.

"Well that's something you don't see every day," I said, holstering my Desert Eagle abruptly.

Nik didn't respond. Not at all.

"Nik?" I prompted him. "What the hell just happened?"

My big brother, the one who had an explanation for everything and was always more than happy to tell you all about it, just looked at me.

"You need to be more specific, little brother," he said, his voice only trembling a tiny bit. "Do you mean regarding our dead mother walking along the street apparently quite alive, or are you speaking about my impromptu haircut?"

I shrugged.

And Niko shrugged back.

Niko Leandros shrugged.

"Hell if I know."

---

Nik didn't speak all the way home. Not one word. Not a single, "It's okay, little brother, everything's going to be fine," or even a, "We'll work this out, Cal, like we always do."

By the time we reached our apartment, his jaw was so tense I was pretty sure I could hear him grinding his teeth into diamonds.

He entered the apartment first, stopped short when he was barely over the threshold, so much so that I nearly ran right into him.

And then he just stood there, staring into space.

"Nik?" I said carefully. "You with me, big brother?"

After what seemed like half a millennium, but was most likely twenty seconds, Nik murmured through gritted teeth, "She can't be alive."

As if the other thing never even happened.

His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and I suspected that was an attempt at self-control.

If he let go, he'd be reaching for his blades and destroying half our apartment.

"I saw her. She was burned to ash," he continued.

I swallowed. "And the guy?" I said, instead of what I probably ought to have said.

Nik glanced up at me.

"The one who was obviously so jealous of your hair he had to cut it off."

Nik reached around the back of his head for probably the fiftieth time since his encounter with the demon barber of New York City. "I don't know who he was," he admitted. "Or what that was."

"Certainly seemed to have a hard-on for you, big brother—"

"And who could blame anyone for that?"

I turned as Robin Goodfellow entered the apartment, his lock-picking skills having delayed him by at least three seconds.

He stopped when he drew level with me.

Looked once at Niko.

Opened his mouth.

Closed it again.

Took another long look at Niko.

Before demanding, "Who died, and why wasn't I notified?"

"Nobody died," Nik told him, once again scratching at the back of his head. "I'm not in mourning,"

"And his new look is the least of our worries," I added. "Because the 'nobody dead' thing apparently includes our mother."

---

"So explain this to me one more time," Goodfellow demanded. "You see your dead mother—" he shuddered involuntarily, having met Sophia when Niko and I were kids, "—walking towards you on the opposite sidewalk. And then Niko, the human with the fastest reflexes I've ever seen, is jumped by some anonymous guy with a sword who cuts off his hair?"

Niko raised an eyebrow, his fingers unconsciously ghosting at his shoulder where his braid usually hung. "Yes," he said shortly. "That about sums it up."

"And this 'guy' just grabs you and assaults you without you doing anything about it or having any clue who he is?"

Niko shrugged, and the fact that he didn't launch into a lengthy explanation as to why the hoodie asshole managed to surprise him like that was more disturbing than if he had. "I was distracted," was all he managed.

Robin frowned at him.

"I don't believe you."

Nik glanced up at him, but still made no comment.

"You better not be calling my brother a liar, Robin…" I began to threaten.

Goodfellow waved me into silence. "Niko?"

Nik sighed. Looked away. Ran his fingers through his suddenly too-short hair. Shrugged again.

"Nik?" I put in suddenly. Because maybe Robin was right, maybe Nik did have some idea what was going on, and that was all kinds of disturbing.

Niko lowered his head, apparently unable to meet my gaze.

"It was a Polish saber," he said at length, as if that should explain everything.

I blinked at him.

"Huh?"

Niko finally looked up at me. "His blade. It was a Polish saber."

I blinked at him once again. "Okay. And?"

He sighed, and this time, if I hadn't known him any better, I might have thought he sounded a tiny bit irritated.

"He had a Polish saber," he repeated.

"So…" I began, frowning. "What? What does that mean? He's Polish?"

Just for a change it was Robin who swatted the back of my head.

"Don't be obtuse, boy," he said. "You remember who else used a Polish saber?"

I frowned, inclining my head uncertainly. "Uh…?"

"Emilian Kalakos," Robin supplied shortly.

I sucked in a breath. Glanced back to Niko, who was studiously not looking at me again.

"I'm sure your sperm donor wasn't the only person who ever used a Polish saber," I pointed out.

"Undoubtedly," Niko agreed. "But it had an insignia on it," he finally non-explained.

"And?" I prompted.

Sometimes getting Niko to talk made getting blood out of a stone look like a walk in Central Park.

Nik met my gaze awkwardly.

He still rarely spoke about his father, about his betrayal. About almost being used as Janus fodder because his father believed him worth less than nothing.

You know how nothing you are?

I swallowed.

"It was the same insignia," he explained at length. "On my attacker's sword. As the one on Kalakos' sword."

I nodded slowly. "That could mean anything—"

"He said we did him a disservice. He was looking for revenge."

"You think he knew Kalakos?"

Nik shrugged again.

"I know a way we can find out," Robin put in suddenly.

---

I remembered Mr. Chen, the kindly Chinese greengrocer, from when he hid us, fed us, and tried to get me blind drunk on lighter fluid the night Hephaestus tried to turn us into hamburger meat.

He hadn't aged in the intervening couple of years, and if I hadn't known any better I might have thought the tubs of fruit and vegetables piled up outside his store were the exact same ones that had been there the night he let us lie low in his basement.

Niko's dad had been with us then, too. Just like the ghost of him appeared to be now.

I shuddered involuntarily, and I could see Niko felt similarly uncomfortable at the memory.

"You cut your hair," Mr. Chen waved in the direction of Nik's head. "Who die?"

Niko shrugged. He'd been doing that a lot today.

Another elderly Asian male stepped forward then. He looked about three hundred but was probably around seventy.

He was tall for an Asian guy of his years, as tall as me, and he still held himself lightly on the balls of his feet, like someone who had once been a soldier or a warrior of some kind.

"This is Zho," Mr. Chen introduced the man.

I could see Nik appraising him out of the corner of my eye.

He bowed his head slightly, and Zho returned the gesture.

"Zho has produced some of my finest blades over the years," Robin explained. "If anyone knows anything about this saber or its owner, it will be him."

Zho made no comment, but cast his eye over the drawing Nik had made of the insignia he had seen on the wooden hilt of the sword.

It looked to me like a slightly squashed waffle, but then Nik had never really been an artist.

"Achilles," Zho said shortly, causing Nik to blink at him mutely.

Robin squinted at the sword maker. He had previously gone into great and lurid detail about the time he had spent in company with the Greek hero who, he told us, was actually one of Niko's previous incarnations.

Of course, Nik had no memory of that.

Although I did.

"Achilles?" Goodfellow repeated. "What do you mean?"

Zho indicated Nik's drawing. "That is his insignia."

Robin frowned. "Achilles? I remember no such…"

"That is the name he is known by," Zho clarified. "The swordsman who uses a saber bearing this insignia."

Robin laughed nervously. "Ah. So not the historical Greek hero of days of yore?"

It was Zho's turn to frown. "Don't be ridiculous. This man is very much alive. I have seen him fight. He is one of the best I have ever seen. He uses this insignia to denote his family's claim to Achilles' lineage."

I saw Niko swallow.

Robin shifted very slightly. "He claims to be descended from Achilles?"

Zho shrugged. "That is his claim."

Nik was disturbingly obvious in his silence.

Robin took a short breath. Glanced at me. Glanced at Niko and frowned. "So this man didn't die a couple of years ago?" he asked casually, clearly believing Zho to be speaking of Nik's father and his use of this insignia.

Zho shook his head. "No, as I said, he is very much alive. I saw him earlier this month. He commissioned a new blade. A katana. I completed it several days ago and await his return to my workshop to collect it."

"That could be a useful coincidence," Robin observed. "So this Achilles person. He is aged perhaps in his early fifties? Rom? Looks a little like my silent friend over here?" He indicated Nik with a twitch of his head.

"Hey, come on, Robin," I said. "Bad enough our mom's apparently risen from the dead. The Universe wouldn't be cruel enough to do the same to Nik's dad."

Identical frowns creased Zho and Chen's brows.

"No, he is in his early thirties," Zho said, shortly. He glanced at Niko again, appraising him thoughtfully for a second. "But he does resemble this one. And he is Rom."

Nik took a breath. Bowed his head once again in Zho's direction, turned on his heel and exited the store as quickly as I had ever seen him move, even in the heat of battling some supernatural nasty.

Robin inclined his head, and I blinked at him stupidly.

"Go and check on him, you idiot!" he snapped, and I immediately did as instructed, heading off out of the store and back out onto the sidewalk, where my brother was nowhere to be seen.

I found him in an alley to the side of the store, retching into a dumpster.

Yeah, Niko was not having his best day ever.

He glanced up at me as I approached, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand as he struggled to regain some composure.

"He swore to me, Cal," he said at length. "I know he was a lying bastard, but he swore to me and I believed him."

I nodded.

I knew what my brother was saying without him actually having to say it.

"It would explain a lot," I returned, stuffing my hands in my jeans pockets while I tried to pretend seeing my rock of a big brother completely losing his shit didn't bother me one bit. "The whole vengeance thing. Certainly didn't seem very taken with you, big brother."

Nik shook his head. "He swore to me," he repeated. "He swore I didn't have any other siblings."

I shrugged. "Like you said. He was a lying bastard."

"And the thought of there existing another one who looks like you," Robin put in suddenly as he rounded the corner into the alley, "is certainly appealing."

Niko scowled at him.

Robin raised a brow thoughtfully. "And perhaps he might be more open to sexual experimentation than you are, my very much straight-laced friend." He clapped Nik on the shoulder good-naturedly, but Nik didn't seem particularly amused.

My brother wasn't exactly the most relaxed of people on his best day, but right now his posture was so completely rigid I wasn't sure even a bulldozer could have moved him.

And then suddenly his shoulders drooped and it was as if he deflated right in front of me.

He ran a hand through his too-short hair, turned and marched wordlessly back on out of the alleyway.

Robin looked at me pointedly.

"You want me to go after him again?"

"No, I think you should just stand there looking like an idiot. Of course I want you to go after him!"

"I think maybe he wants to be alone."

"And I think maybe he has a heretofore unknown older brother who wants to kill him and an undead abusive mother with an ax to grind lurking around New York City."

I inclined my head slightly. "You may have a point."

I followed Nik out onto the street, but by the time I got there, there was absolutely no sign of him.

"Nik!" I called out as I headed back in the direction of Mr. Chen's store. "Not in the mood for hide and go seek, big brother!"

I surveyed the street in both directions. I knew Niko was fast, but even he couldn'thavedisappeared that quickly.

And then I saw him.

He was waiting at the crosswalk just as a battered-looking blue van screeched to a halt behind him, the side door being thrown open and hoodie guy jumping out of the back.

Nik turned just as the guy grabbed him around the shoulders, and unless I was very much mistaken it looked as though he jabbed my brother in the neck with a hypodermic seconds before Niko crumpled in his arms.

I was running before I knew what I was doing, hearing someone scream my brother's name and not realizing it was me until I stopped dead, the hoodie asshole having thrown Nik into the back of the van as if he was a rag doll and dived in himself afterwards, just as the engine gunned, the tires squealed and the van zoomed away like the proverbial bat out of Hell.

And then I was running again, scattering people the width of the sidewalk in front of me as I raced after the van I had absolutely zero chance of catching on foot, but I had to try, dammit, because Niko was in there.

Someone had taken my brother.

Someone had drugged my brother, thrown him in a dirty van and taken off with him.

Without me.

And I had no idea where they were taking him or what they planned on doing to him.

NIKO

When I was younger, my mother used to shut me in the closet while she entertained her gentlemen callers.

Consequently, tight spaces were not my favorite thing in the world, so when I awoke to find some kind of ceiling only a foot in front of my face I was not entirely happy.

I took a breath.

In. Out. In. Out.

Opened my eyes again.

It was dark, I was lying on my back.

And there was still a ceiling a foot in front of my face.

Don't panic, Niko, I told myself.

I'd been in worse spots.

But maybe not tighter ones.

I blew out a slow breath and tried to remember what happened to me and how I ended up here.

I'd been in Mr. Chen's grocery store with Cal and Robin.

Swordsman calling himself Achilles.

Throwing up in the alleyway.

Older brother.

Ah.

There it was.

I'd reacted childishly, stormed away from Cal when he was only trying to help me because I couldn't deal with my younger brother at that moment. That moment when I unexpectedly found out I was a younger brother myself.

Of course, I didn't know for sure, but that same guy who I had seen with the Polish saber, the one who cut off my hair, jumping out of a van, sticking a needle in me and, presumably, driving off with me, might be a clue.

And here I was.

Also, presumably, where he'd left me.

It was dark.

I was lying on my back.

There was some kind of ceiling a foot in front of my face.

There were wooden boards within touching distance to my left and my right.

There were wooden boards beneath me.

The "ceiling" in front of me—above me—was also wood.

I was in a box.

I was in a—

Something crackled to my left, and a disembodied voice said brightly, "Are you awake, little brother?"

I swallowed hard.

Show no fear. Show no fear.

"As far as I am aware," I said slowly, evening out the tone of my voice in order to hide the tiny tremor that threatened to betray me, "I am nobody's little brother."

There was a sardonic laugh, and I tried to see where the sound was coming from.

Speaker attached to the side of the...the box.

Not a coffin, not a coffin, not a coffin…

"Ah, would that that were true," the voice replied, and I figured there must be a microphone in here somewhere too.

"You have me at a disadvantage," I pressed on.

"In oh so many ways," the voice agreed.

"I'm presuming you know who I am—?"

"Niko Leandros, son of Emilian Kalakos and Sophia Leandros. Vayash clan. Outcast. Gadje."

"—And yet I believe we have not been introduced. Apart from when you decided to cut off my hair then proceeded to drug me and abduct me."

"And bury you alive?"

I swallowed.

Not a coffin, not a—

"You don't like tight spaces, do you, Niko? Can I call you Nik?"

"Only my brother calls me Nik."

"Niko it is then."

"How do you know I don't like tight spaces?

"I know all sorts of things about you, Niko."

"I was not aware I was such a fascinating topic of study."

"I had no interest in you whatsoever. Until you murdered my father."

I swallowed. "And who was your father?"

There was a pause, and I could hear my assailant breathing.

"You know who my father was."

"Is that why you use the professional name of Achilles? Because of Emilian Kalakos' claim to his lineage?"

There was another pause, and when the voice returned, it had lost the self-satisfied, self-congratulatory tone it had previously had in favor of what I could only describe as naked fury.

"My father was Achilles reborn!" the voice hissed. "You, filthy gadje, son of a whore and a wanton, you are not worthy of his name or his lineage."

"I make no claim to either," I informed my captor calmly. "And I did not murder him."

"Liar! Like your mother."

"I am as unlike my mother as I am my father," I said coldly. "And if you had taken the time to research me properly, you would know that."

My captor remained silent.

"So you are Kalakos' eldest son?" I tried again, trying to keep my voice calm and even, despite wanting to smash the speaker with my elbow and tear open my prison with my bare hands.

"I am Kalakos' only son," the voice corrected me.

"Agreed," I said. "But as we appear to share some DNA, it seems only right that you at least provide me with a name with which I might address you."

"My name is Achilles."

"Yes, yes, but I'm sure that's not the name by which your mother called you when you were late in for dinner."

As I had no experience of a mother who ever made me dinner, I could only assume my assailant had perhaps had the kind of upbringing I had only witnessed on television.

"If you want me to refer to you as Achilles, you are going to be disappointed," I added.

Once again, I could hear my captor breathing, and he was clearly becoming increasingly annoyed with me.

Ah. This was obviously what it meant to be a little brother, a role so cherished by my own little brother.

"My name, not that you are worthy of speaking it, gadje, is Flavian. Flavian Kalakos." He paused for a second to allow that to sink in. "My father bestowed his name upon me, as fathers do the sons they claim."

"Flavian," I echoed, deliberately ignoring his belittling the fact that I bore my mother's surname, "that means 'blond' doesn't it? He named you for his hair color?"

Flavian, my apparent older brother, growled at me. "My hair is the same color as his, and that is not why he named me."

"Then your hair is the same color as mine. Is that why you felt the need to cut it off? Or was that merely jealousy?"

It appeared observing my little brother's gift for trash talking had had some effect on me.

"Why would I be jealous of a nothing such as you?" Flavian asked. "My father did not even see fit to give you his name. His hair color is probably all that he ever bequeathed you."

"And for that, I am grateful. I wanted no part of him. He abandoned me. He abandoned me and my brother. Left us in the care of a drunken harlot and at the mercy of—" I stopped myself abruptly. If Flavian did not know about the Auphe, about Cal, then there was no need for him to know. Ever.

Flavian made no comment for several seconds, the speaker crackling as if it had been switched off. Then—

"Do you know how much he paid her?"

I waited for an explanation, but when one did not appear to be forthcoming, I asked, "How much who paid what to whom?"

"My father." The self-satisfaction had returned full force to Flavian's voice. "Do you know how much he paid your mother? For sex? For the sex that led to your worthless existence?"

Flavian clearly did not like me very much at all.

And I did not like his question.

Probably because I had wondered that myself many times, both as a boy and as a man.

Of course, I had no proof that I was the product of my mother's whoring, that my father had paid her the night he impregnated her.

I had no proof because I could never bring myself to ask her.

And she would most likely have lied to me anyway.

She mentioned it once, but I hadn't believed her. One more explanation out of so many designed to hurt me.

"I was under the impression Emilian Kalakos did not pay for sex," I said. "If it was not forthcoming for free, then the impression he gave me was that he took it anyway."

"My father did not rape your mother."

"Do you know that for sure? Did you ask him?"

There was another long pause.

"I did not ask him. But I'm sure he paid much, much less than the Auphe paid to impregnate your mother with Caliban."

I swallowed.

He knew.

"Anyway. Why don't you ask her yourself? I wouldn't want you to be lonely while you lie buried here, running out of air. And I have far more important matters to attend to than you, Niko Leandros. I wish I could say it was a pleasure meeting you, but it was not. I hope your death is more meaningful and dignified than your life."

The speaker crackled again, and while Flavian might no longer be talking, I wasn't convinced he was no longer listening.

"Niko?"

They say there are certain sounds that can instantly return you to an earlier place and time, flood you with memories, or haunt you with terrors you believed you had long since laid to rest.

My mother's voice was one such sound.

"Niko, can you hear me? I'm here to witness your death, just as you witnessed mine."

I didn't reply.

I knew she couldn't be real, couldn't be here.

My mother had been reduced to a pile of ash the day the Auphe took Cal to Tumulus.

She could not be here.

"Niko? Do you know what it's like in Hell? The TV, the movies, even the Bible. They all undersell it. Do you know what was done to me? How I was tormented? Tortured. Someone needs to pay for that, for what happened to me, and the Auphe are all dead. That leaves you, dearest, eldest son. That leaves you and your abomination of a younger brother."

I did not, could not, speak to her, real or not.

"If you won't talk to me, maybe he will."

Man up, Niko…

"You're not real," I managed. "And if you were, I would tell you any punishment you received in Hell was nobody's fault but your own. You sold yourself to monsters who sought to end the world. There is no punishment great enough to fit your crime."

"If I'm not real," my mother's voice said, "then how did you see me? I know you saw me. Both of you. On that sidewalk. Your brother is still beautiful for a monster."

"My brother—my younger brother—" I amended, "—is not a monster. He's a hero. He has saved this world more times than you will ever know."

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"You could have been the greatest warrior of your age. Instead you're his babysitter and always will be."

"I don't regret any of my life choices. Do you?"

"I regret that the Auphe didn't bring you to Hell with me."

I laughed sarcastically. "Now you actually sound like Sophia."

"Do you think you're above punishment? That Nirvana awaits you? You've done some questionable things too, Niko. Do you remember when you broke my arm…?"

Despite myself, I sucked in a startled breath.

I'd never told anyone what I'd done to Sophia after myself and Cal were nearly murdered by Junior Hammersmith. Only Cal and I knew and I made Cal promise not to tell because I would have been dragged off to juvenile hall so fast my feet wouldn't have touched the ground.

I wasn't afraid of juvenile hall.

I was afraid of leaving Cal alone with Sophia.

"How do I know about that if I'm not your mother, Niko?"

It was a fair question, and one I couldn't answer at present.

"So this is how you get your revenge?" I asked instead. "You help my sperm donor's son murder me?"

"He sent someone looking for me. I saw an exit. I took it."

"Who came looking for you?"

"One who could walk through the gates of Hell and leave with me in his company."

"And Flavian?"

"A means to an end. I would not willingly assist the son of my rapist if I had any other course of action open to me."

Whether Sophia—or whoever—had merely heard me speaking to Flavian and put into words what she knew would hurt me most I didn't know.

Part of me wanted to ask.

Part of me knew she couldn't be real.

Part of me didn't want to know.

Part of me knew she would lie.

But I asked anyway.

"Did he force himself on you or did he pay you?"

Honestly, I wasn't sure which one was worse from my point of view.

There was a pause.

"He would not pay me what I asked. So when I refused he took me anyway and paid me nothing."

Ah. Raped and whored. The best of both worlds.

Somehow I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for her.

"You came into this world as the son of a rapist."

"And leave it as the son of a whore? That is not an auspicious pedigree."

"I should have guessed I would receive no sympathy from you."

"Because you were so sympathetic to myself and Cal when we were children?" I said. "Self pity does not become you."

"When you run out of air and breathe your last I will feel no sorrow. You may be beautiful like your brother but you are also just as worthless."

"I shall take the compliment," I said. "And if I am about to breathe my last I would appreciate being allowed to do so in my own company. You are not my mother. I have no desire to speak to you—or her—any further."

"You always were a sulky boy, Niko. Remember how you cried when I let our landlord put his hands on you in exchange for a week's free rent?"

Even Cal didn't know about that.

No one knew.

I'd been seven years old.

"You may leave now," I said tightly.

And she laughed.

Like she laughed when I cried because I didn't like him touching me.

Like she laughed when she beat me, when she threw bottles at me, burned me, locked me in the basement and left me there for days.

I wasn't afraid of much in this world.

Losing Cal.

Our mother.

This.

"Let me out of here," I said softly, calmly.

"I think I need to speak to your brother."

"Let me out."

"Your younger brother, that is. I wonder what Caliban will have to say to me?"

"Let me out!" My voice became a little bit more insistent.

"When I slit his throat."

"Let. Me. Out."

"Goodbye, Niko. I look forward to the time we will spend together in Hell."

The speaker crackled and clicked and I knew she had gone.

But still I screamed at her.

"Let me out, you bitch!"

CAL

"If Niko's father had another son, then that is a place to start looking," Robin said as I paced up and down our apartment.

I don't know what Niko's stupid pommel horse had done to deserve it, but I put six rounds in it anyway.

"Cal! Are you listening to me?"

"It's my fault!" I burst out, suddenly aware I was waving my Desert Eagle in Robin's direction.

I holstered it abruptly.

"How is this your fault?" Robin demanded. "Are you the one who kidnapped your brother?"

"No, I'm the one who killed his kidnapper's father."

"To save his life!"

"To save my life!"

"Janus would have killed you both. Now is not the time for self-recrimination."

"I need to find him. Now."

"We will find him," Robin assured me. "But not if we panic and start shooting at shadows." He nodded pointedly in the direction of the pommel horse. "Now the van that took Niko. Did you see the license plate?" I shook my head. "Don't worry. I know someone. Traffic cams. I need to make a call."

Robin withdrew his cellphone and headed off towards our front door.

Returning sooner than I'd expected with a knife to his throat and his hands in the air.

I swallowed.

"Hey, Mom," I said cheerfully, smiling in a way that would have put the fear of God—or, at least, the fear of the Auphe—into every Paien from New York to San Francisco.

My mother merely sniffed, reaffirming her grip on the knife she had to Robin's throat.

"Your locks are very easy to pick, Caliban," she told me offhandedly. "You don't seem to have learned as much from me as I thought you had."

"Didn't realize I still needed to keep you out," I returned, trying not to look at her too closely in case it actually was her. SophiaLeandros. My mother.

She smiled slyly as I squinted at her from behind long bangs.

"I sure look like her, don't I, little monster?"

Nobody had called me that since I was fourteen years old.

I shifted from foot to foot, fingers straying towards my shoulder holster.

"Uh, uh, uh!" she said, wagging her finger at me. "You wouldn't shoot Mommy, would you, sweetie?" She reaffirmed her grip on Robin, pressing her knife harder against his throat.

"Shoot her!" the puck burst out. "Do it now!"

I drew my Desert Eagle and pointed it at her head, just as she started to laugh.

"Shoot me and you'll never find Niko."

I virtually growled at her, my finger a millimeter away from pulling the trigger.

"You're bluffing."

"You think this is all a coincidence? My showing up at the same time as he gains a fratricidal older brother?"

I swallowed. "Did you know?" I demanded. "That he had another brother?"

Sophia—the thing that looked, sounded like Sophia—shrugged.

"His mother was called María Antonides. She was the equivalent of the Vayash's very own Homecoming Queen. All the boys wanted her. All the adults wanted their boys to marry her. Why she chose that bastard Kalakos I shall never know."

"They were married?" I asked, and I didn't know why that seemed important to me.

"Yes. She died when her son was five years old. That was when Kalakos sought out new employment as a one-man hit squad, rapist and murderer. He must have had every girl in our clan, paid for, willing or otherwise. It's a wonder Niko doesn't have thirty older brothers and sisters."

"Did he...did he force himself on you?"

Sophia looked at me. "Do you care?"

"I care about Niko."

She shrugged. "No. He got me drunk and screwed me senseless in the back of his truck with two other girls."

I swallowed.

Nik did not need to know that.

"He was a real catch, that one."

"Niko's nothing like him. If you're really our mother, you should know that."

"Yes, so I've heard. Saint Niko. Read you bedtime stories with your milk and cookies."

"He was more of a mother to me than you ever were."

"Like the time he spent the rent money buying you those sneakers you'd been after for weeks because the other kids in your class were teasing you about the holes in the ones you had?"

I blinked at her.

"How did you…?"

She shrugged. "I'm your mother. I was there when we had to skip town because we couldn't make the rent."

How did she know that? How could she have known that? Unless…

"She's not your mother, Cal," Robin put in suddenly. "Don't fall for her lies."

I turned my attention back to the—whatever—that was holding a knife against his jugular. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

Sophia shrugged. "It honestly means nothing to me whether your brother lives or dies. But I suspect it means the world to you. If you kill me, you'll never find him. And you need to find him soon."

My stomach did a backflip with a twist. "Why?" I demanded, seizing on her words. "Why do we need to find him soon?"

Sophia rolled her eyes. "He doesn't like tight spaces, does he? Your big, bad brother."

I took a step towards her, regardless of her proximity to Robin and, perhaps more importantly, his proximity to her knife. "What did you do?" I demanded.

She held her free hand aloft. "I did nothing. Flavian, on the other hand…"

"Flavian?" I echoed. "Who the hell is Flavian?"

"That's his brother's name. His older brother. The one who wants to kill him slowly."

"That's kind of a wussy name for the son of a Rom assassin," I observed.

"He's the best swordsman I've ever seen."

"You've never seen Niko," I pointed out. "Now tell me where the hell he is!" I took another step towards her, baring my teeth a little, although I was pretty sure she would never be scared of me even if she hadn't been raised from the dead.

"Buried," Sophia said at length. "In a pine box."

Jesus.

Niko used to have nightmares when he was younger about being buried alive. He told me our mother used to lock him in the basement in the dark when he was really little and that's what it felt like to him.

"I'll kill you," I ground out. "Again. If anything happens to him."

She glanced up at me coyly through lowered lashes. "I already told you, I can take you to him."

I was an arm's length away from her now, taller than she was as I hadn't been when I was fourteen. I hoped I was looming, but Niko was always much better at that than I was.

"Tell me where he is," I growled. "Tell me right now."

Sophia nodded, beckoning me closer conspiratorially, and I took another step towards her just as…

Her right hand darted out, gripping my upper arm as she shoved Robin away from her, the knife skittering across the floor as she suddenly raised her left hand and plunged something sharp into my neck.

I sucked in a surprised breath, jumping backwards and away from her, losing my balance and falling on my ass as she just stood there laughing at me.

I put my hand to my neck, pulling out the hypodermic she'd left embedded there.

"What the hell…?"

"Stupid and gullible," Sophia snorted. "You two can't be sons of mine!"

"What did you do?" I demanded again.

Sophia sneered down at me. "Now you're as dead as your brother. When you find him—if you live that long—he'll already have suffocated. And you won't be far behind him. Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer. Thank you for letting me get close enough to you to inject you. Flavian said he would never have been able to get within six feet of you, whether Niko was here or not."

She continued to grin at me as she backed towards the door.

"Have a nice life, Caliban," she said. "Or, you know. Not."

And then she was gone and it was just me and Robin, both of us sitting on the floor looking at each other without the slightest clue what just happened.

"She's not your mother," Robin said at length. "A trickster knows another trickster. Whoever she was, I believe she was using a glamour to mask her true appearance."

I shook my head. "She knew things. Things only our mother would know. I don't—"

Robin shrugged. "We'll work this out," he told me decisively. "Once we've found Niko. If they really have buried him alive, he won't have long. His air will be almost gone by now."

I swallowed hard. "I'll kill them," I growled. "I will kill them!"

"I believe you," Robin said, hauling himself to his feet before holding out his hand towards me. "But first we must find Niko and then figure out what they just did to you." He took the hypodermic from my hand and examined it closely. "Look at this," he said. "Hypodermics aren't usually sturdy enough to pierce Auphe—half-Auphe—skin. But this one did. Because it was engineered to."

I glanced at the needle, far less interested in what just happened to me than what was about to happen to Niko. "No time!" I told him. "Right now I feel fine, but Niko might be suffocating. We need to go!"

"One second." He fumbled in his pants pocket for his cellphone, picking up where he left off earlier.

Before I was even fully armed, he was back.

"The license plate's fake and the traffic cams lost the van somewhere around the Battery Park Underpass," he said with a shake of his head. "However," he added brightly, just as I was about to put my fist through something—anything, "Zho just called. Our mysterious Rom swordsman had him courier his shiny new katana to a warehouse, coincidentally down near the Battery," he told me. "We should go."

The Battery was a way to go in traffic or on the subway, but Robin already had a car waiting outside for us.

As we left the apartment, he put a gentle hand on my arm and held my gaze for a second.

"We'll find him," he told me.

I virtually snarled. "We better," I said. "Otherwise he's not gonna have a big brother for long."

NIKO

"Are you dead yet, little brother?"

There are some skills you learn during your life's journey that you think you will never use.

A sensei I studied under whilst living in Nebraska for a couple of months taught me how to mimic death by slowing my heartbeat and breathing to virtually nothing.

When one is growing short of air, little tricks like that could save a person's life.

Of course, when that extra borrowed time means your older brother has more of an opportunity to gloat over your imminent demise, then perhaps one might have been better off suffocating more quickly.

Still, as long as I knew Cal was still out there and in danger, giving up wasn't an option for me, so slowing my breathing and consuming less oxygen was all I could do until a way out presented itself.

I drew in a slow breath, rousing myself out of my state of reduced consumption.

"Sorry to disappoint you," I said sarcastically.

"Oh, you've been disappointing me ever since I found out you existed," Flavian said.

I clenched my jaw, pleased there was no camera in here along with the microphone. I didn't want to give the asshole the satisfaction.

"You never gave me the opportunity to gain your approval, brother," I said calmly.

"That's something you'll never have," Flavian told me. "In the same way as you'll never have another conversation with your precious Caliban."

I sighed. "I don't intend expiring before Cal gets here to kick your ass," I said, not expecting to hear the sound of Flavian's sardonic laughter in response.

"Oh, I wasn't talking about your imminent death, Niko," he said. "I was talking about Caliban's."

Despite myself, I felt my muscles go suddenly taut.

Through gritted teeth, I managed to grind out, "His name is Cal."

"Not anymore," Flavian told me.

I took a shallow breath. "Are you going to reveal your evil plan to me or merely keep hinting like a third rate vaudeville villain?"

"You like your flowery language, don't you, Niko? So unlike your mother."

"That woman—" I hissed, "—is not my mother."

"Keep telling yourself that, Niko. But soon she'll be all that's left of your pathetic, miserable, gadje family."

I had no wish to rise to Flavian's bait, but I needed to know whether he was merely trying to rile me or whether something had actually happened to Cal.

"I don't believe you can have done anything to harm Cal," I said, as calmly and casually as I was able. "He would have seen you coming a mile away."

Flavian laughed again. "Oh, it wasn't me who acted as the delivery system," he said. "Because you're right. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near Caliban. It was your dear mother. Bless her whoring heart."

Another skill I had practiced over the years that I had had far more cause to utilize than slowing my breathing was the ability to keep my expression and my voice completely neutral and devoid of all emotion.

This was fairly simple when it wasn't your little brother's life hanging in the balance.

I bit my tongue so hard I drew blood.

"You'll find Cal is much harder to kill than ordinary people."

"Humans, you mean?" Flavian said with a sneer. "I'm aware. But don't worry. I had something special arranged for your little brother."

I drew in another slow breath. "I see. And why would you be interested in Cal? I thought we were not worthy of your time?"

"You are not worthy, little brother. Your little brother, on the other hand…"

I swallowed and considered biting my tongue again. "If I'm of no interest to you, then why have you gone to such extreme lengths to get my attention?"

Flavian actually laughed at that. "Oh, it was never about you, Niko. You're just a means to an end."

"And what end might that be?" I asked, as casually as I was able, considering I was digging my nails into my palms in an effort to control the growing impulse to tear my prison apart with my bare hands.

"Well isn't it obvious?" he said with a condescending sneer, as if I were a simpleton who needed everything explaining six times. "I'm here to continue my father's work."

Emphasis on the "my," I noticed.

"Rape, pillage, torture and murder?" I asked shortly.

I was pretty sure I heard Flavian grind his teeth.

"The Vayash Burden. You know what that is, right?"

If it was possible for my blood to turn to ice water in my veins, it did.

"In an abstract sense?" I asked, beginning to struggle to maintain my facade of cool indifference. "Every Rom clan has a duty that must be performed above all—"

"You know exactly what I mean, little brother," Flavian hissed, his own facade of disinterested calm beginning to falter.

"Maybe I'm just too stupid and beneath your notice to have any clue what you're talking about," I returned.

"Your brother," Flavian said through gritted teeth. "My father tried to dispatch him before—"

"Using me as a means to an end to achieve that goal," I pointed out. "It didn't work out so well for him. What makes you think the same tactic will work for you?"

Flavian sniggered like a triumphant schoolboy. "But it already has, brother. Your little brother is already dead."

If I'd tried to say something just then, I'm not entirely certain I would have been able. So I remained silent.

"Nothing to say?"

"Prove it," I managed. "Until I see his lifeless body I have no reason to believe you."

No reason to tear you apart with my bare hands. Yet.

"Why do you think I took your hair, Niko?" he asked suddenly.

"I've yet to see you without your hood," I pointed out. "Perhaps you're bald and needed hair to fashion a toupee of some kind."

I heard the speaker click off for a second, and derived some odd satisfaction out of having annoyed him so much.

When the speaker crackled back into life, my older brother, so-called, growled, the sneer back in his voice. "Ever heard of a targeted DNA toxin?"

I knew exactly what a targeted DNA toxin was, but I wasn't giving him the satisfaction of telling him so.

"Something out of a science-fiction novel?" I hazarded. "Or maybe something imagined by Ian Fleming or Tom Clancy perhaps?"

"Oh, it's very real," Flavian said. "Unfortunately I had no Auphe DNA to hand with which to instruct my chemist to create a weapon, but it was easy enough to get my hands on some Leandros DNA." He sniggered. "Snip, snip."

"If that were true," I returned, "and that woman you claim to be my mother really is my mother, then why not use her DNA to make your impossible weapon? Why go to all the trouble of taking mine?"

"That's a good question," Flavian admitted.

"And one for which you have no answer?"

"I could have used her DNA," Flavian admitted. "But tormenting you is so much more fun."

"Of course it is," I sighed. "So you made some kind of weaponized toxin aimed solely at my brother?"

"Ah. Perhaps you're not as stupid as you appear to be."

I let that comment slide as I had other more pressing issues. "And you used Sophia—fake Sophia—to deliver it?"

"Hypodermic to the neck. Administered, oh, twenty minutes ago. I'm assured the toxin should take effect within thirty minutes. If he's lucky, your Caliban has approximately ten minutes of life left to him."

I swallowed. Bit my tongue again. Took a couple of very deep breaths.

"Nothing to say, little brother?"

"You lied to me," I managed at length. "You told me Cal was dead."

"He may as well be. Like you."

"They say where there's life, there's hope."

"They say that in the movies. In real life, there is no hope. Not for you and your brother. I estimate you have five minutes left of air. It would take them longer than that to dig you up, even if they could find you. And it's not like I buried you in a clearly signposted graveyard."

"Then you need to let me out," I told Flavian shortly.

"And why would I do that?"

"Because I'm your brother. I'm your family. Your blood!"

Flavian actually snorted. "You didn't think that would actually work did you?"

I sighed. "Rom are big into family, so I hear. I would think they weren't very happy with you when Emilian failed in his task. The sins of the fathers. Spit on you much? Like they did me and Cal?"

"I am not Gadje—"

"Not yet, perhaps," I said. "But you will be. When you return to the clan empty-handed."

"And what makes you think that will happen?"

"You might be willing to kill a brother," I said, "but I am not. When I get out of here, I will spare you, if only so that you might spend the rest of your life as an outcast. Gadje."

"You are never getting out of there," Flavian told me.

I took another short breath. "Watch me," I said.

CAL

The warehouse was old, abandoned, smelled like piss, and looked like something out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

If the place wasn't haunted to Hell I would have been surprised.

We entered through a broken window round back...or rather, I did.

"I'm not crawling through broken glass in an Armani suit," Goodfellow had protested.

I only humored him because without his help I would have had no idea where my brother had been taken and probably wouldn't have made it there in under an hour.

As it was, somehow we made it down to Battery Park in twenty-five minutes, which was kind of a miracle.

As was the fact I didn't seem to be suffering any ill effects from whatever that bitch pretending to be my mother had injected me with.

Yet.

As I let Robin in through a badly secured fire door, I glanced over my shoulder at the sound of a rhythmic banging noise that seemed to be increasing in both volume and tempo.

"Someone invite a thrash metal band to the party?" I asked, drawing my Desert Eagle and heading in the direction of the noise.

Robin frowned.

"That doesn't sound like music," he said quietly. "It sounds like desperation."

I wasn't sure what the puck meant, until I picked up on another sound underlying the thumping.

Screaming.

But not screaming in pain.

Screaming in anguish.

Anger.

Desperation, just as Robin had said.

"What the…?"

We followed the sound through the warehouse, prepared for a firefight, or at least Niko's asshole of a brother—his other asshole of a brother—bearing down on us with a Polish saber and a shiny new Katana.

When neither happened, I murmured, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"I told you not to eat those two chili dogs this morning," Robin commented, causing me to scowl at him.

Eventually we followed the noise to a stone staircase which looked like it led down into a basement of some kind, slowly, silently slipping down the steps before coming up against a thick chain strung six times between the door handle and the metal railing opposite.

Someone did not mean for this door to be opened.

I blew it to smithereens without thinking about it, Robin frowning at me as I kicked away the remnants of the chain and shoved my way through the door.

Beyond looked like ordinary cold storage space, empty but for a metal locker, maybe seven feet long by four feet wide, a couple of feet high, which was shoved against the far wall.

This appeared to be where all the noise was coming from.

And it sounded like someone was going completely mental inside.

The lid of the locker was also secured with chains, which I would have blown to kingdom come like the ones securing the door had the thing not suddenly exploded upwards at one end and a booted foot appeared, which seemed to have been kicking the crap out of it for some time, judging by the noise and the numerous dents in the metal.

There was a pause as the noise stopped.

Then a yell, possibly of triumph, I wasn't sure.

And then the chains were abruptly yanked out of their moorings and the whole lid was kicked halfway across the room, landing with a metallic clatter at our feet.

I blinked.

Just as Niko emerged from the locker, breathing hard, his skin even paler than mine, and covered in a mixture of sweat, dirt and blood.

And wood chips.

"Holy crap. You look like shit, Cyrano."

And wasn't that the understatement of the century?

Niko blinked at me, leaned over the side of the locker and started to laugh almost hysterically.

Then he threw up.

Wiping his mouth on his hand he ground out, "Where there's life there's hope you fucking asshole," in a voice that sounded like he'd been gargling acid laced with broken glass.

Or screaming.

A lot.

And I was pretty sure his comment wasn't aimed at myself or Robin.

It was only then I noticed the state of his hands, pretty much ripped to shreds and bloodied to all Hell, with maybe only one or two nails still attached to his fingers.

And I also noted that not only was he sitting in a metal box, but within the metal box was another box. A pine one. Shaped like a coffin. The lid of which had been reduced to matchwood, presumably by Niko's bare hands, his booted feet, and his sheer bloody willpower.

"I hate tight spaces," he growled, and I saw Robin raise one eyebrow despite the dire circumstances we were quite probably still in.

"You should spend the afternoon screaming more often, Niko," he said, a lascivious grin sliding across his face. "It makes your voice incredibly sexy."

Niko just looked at him, presumably too worn out to even chastise the puck for his continued and continuous sexual harassment.

"He told me he'd buried me," Nik said instead. "Asshole. I knew he was lying because that might have been an airtight metal box, but the coffin sure as Hell wasn't, and if he'd buried me I would have smelled earth and it would have felt damp and it just felt small and goddamned dark and did I mention I freaking hate tight spaces and that bitch is in no way our mother, Cal, and he said she'd injected you with something that would kill you within a half hour, but you're standing here, so he must have lied about that too, and…"

He trailed off as his voice finally petered out.

"I think you may have just used up your dialogue allowance for an entire year," I told him, finally reaching into the storage locker and helping him out of the thing.

He was shaking, and I didn't know if that was from shock, fear or anger.

I didn't ask.

His shirt sleeves were absolutely shredded, as was a good proportion of the skin underneath.

"I can't believe you fought your way out of a coffin, not to mention a chained metal box. Maybe I should change your nickname to Houdini."

Niko gazed at me a second, hanging onto me like his life—or maybe my life—depended on it. "He said he killed you."

I swallowed.

"He didn't lie. Fake Sophia injected me with something," I admitted. "But I feel fine."

"He said it was a toxin targeted to your DNA," Nik told me, still kind of breathless and pasty and looking very much like he might fall over if I wasn't holding him up. "Made from my DNA. Which is why he cut off my hair."

I glanced at Robin. "Is that possible?" I asked him. "Could that kill me?"

Robin considered for a second. "He used your DNA only, Niko?" he asked.

Nik nodded.

Robin inclined his head slightly. "Didn't quite catch that?"

Niko scowled at him. "I am not talking to you just so you can get off on it."

Robin mimicked something that could very well have been his orgasm face, but I in no way wanted to find out for sure.

"Too late," he groaned theatrically.

Nik looked like he might be sick again.

"So when you're done getting off on Nik's porno voice—" Nik swatted me to the back of the head, "—Am I going to die or anything? Just wondering."

Robin shrugged. "If he only used human DNA then the toxin could only target your human DNA. Your Auphe DNA would eat the thing for breakfast and ask for another stack of pancakes after."

Niko frowned. "Surely Flavian's chemist would have known that?"

"Not if he'd never had any experience with the Auphe."

"Sooooo...I'm okay?" I hazarded.

Robin shrugged again. "How sure can we be of anything in this life?"

"Robin!" Nik and I both managed to yell in unison.

"I'm ninety percent certain of it."

"Well that's comforting," I muttered. "So we just carry on and hope I don't drop dead?"

"Pretty much so, yes."

"Robin," Nik growled. "We need more than that."

"Well it's been thirty-five minutes," Robin pointed out. "Perhaps you and I could pass the time whilst we wait for any further developments with you whispering sweet nothings into my ear while I perhaps take off your shirt to inspect your injuries a little more closely?"

Again, Niko didn't even dignify Robin's unsubtle advances with a response.

Instead he turned to me.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

I considered for a second. "Hungry," I replied. "And a little bit stressed that your big brother tried to kill us both."

"We need to find him," Niko agreed. "And 'Sophia'."

"Robin thinks she's some kind of trickster using a glamour to look like our not-so-dearly departed mother," I explained.

Nik nodded, but shifted a little uncomfortably. "She knew things…"

"Like how you were conceived in the back of Emilian's truck during a foursome?" Robin hazarded.

I scowled at him. "I told you—" I growled, "—Nik did not need to know that!"

Niko didn't seem especially perturbed. "She told you that?"

I nodded. "I wasn't exactly surprised as she once told me something similar when I asked about your dad one time."

I kind of expected Nik to be mad, but he just nodded thoughtfully. "She told me Emilian wouldn't pay her asking price, so he took her anyway."

I frowned. "Why would she tell you one thing and me something completely different? Unless she actually is Sophia, because that was kind of her MO…"

"No," Nik said. "She merely repeated to me a story Sophia once told me when I was nine."

Even Robin seemed taken aback. "She told you you were conceived when your father raped her? When you were nine?"

Niko shrugged dismissively. "The point is, Fake Sophia gave me a version of events Sophia actually told me, and gave Cal a version Sophia actually told him."

I frowned. "So?"

Robin nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting," he said. "So you think perhaps she read your thoughts in order to tell you something only your mother would know?"

I frowned some more. "Huh?"

"What else did she say to you?" Nik asked. "That only Sophia would know?"

I mentally rewound everything the imposter had said to me. "She mentioned that time you spent the rent money on new sneakers for me and we had to skip town because we couldn't make the rent."

Nik nodded. "Oh she did?" he said. "When we find her, we'll have to have a chat with her about that."

"How do we find her?" I asked.

Nik glanced from me to Robin. "Shouldn't we find this chemist first? In case Cal needs an antidote?"

"Trust me, Niko," Robin said, "your brother is in no danger. Flavian underestimated him. Actually—" he glanced over at the wreck Niko had made of his supposed final resting place, "—he underestimated both of you. Just like his father did."

"That doesn't help us find them," I pointed out.

"Maybe I can be of assistance?"

All three of us spun towards the door, me grabbing my Desert Eagle, Robin brandishing his sword and Nik somehow managing to snatch my Glock out of my shoulder holster despite the desperate state of his hands.

A mousy guy stood silhouetted in the doorway, his hands raised.

He was maybe five feet two with a shiny bald head and huge black spectacles that looked like they'd been made out of the bottom of two pickle jars stuck together with duct tape and Superglue.

"Who the hell are you?" I demanded, not exactly sounding friendly and welcoming.

"The name's Pfizer," he said. "I think you might have been looking for me."

"You're the chemist?" Niko asked.

I squinted at him. "How the hell did you figure that?" I asked.

Niko indicated the man's raised hands. "Look at his fingers."

They were yellowed, but more a sulfur yellow than a nicotine yellow.

"I could whip you up something for that throat if you'd like?" the chemist offered.

"Thank you, no," Niko declined politely. "You did just try to murder my brother after all."

"Oh pish," Pfizer said. "He was never in any danger. It's as your puck friend over there surmised. Whatever toxin I could have created to attack his human side would never have stood a chance against his Auphe side."

I frowned at him. "And you knew that? All along?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "No offense, young man," he said, addressing Niko, "but your older brother is—how can I put this delicately?—an idiot."

"No offense taken," Niko agreed with a nod. "I had reached the same conclusion myself. I can only presume he takes after our father."

"You played him?" I burst out incredulously. "He's kind of a homicidal nutjob, as well as an idiot."

"An idiot is always an idiot, at the end of the day," Pfizer said with a shrug. "He offered me a lot of money to produce a toxin targeted at specific DNA. I played my part. It was not up to me to inform him it would have absolutely no effect on anyone with Auphe DNA. I have experienced the Auphe." He shuddered. "No toxin anyone, even myself, could produce could ever have achieved what you boys achieved when you rid the world of them."

Niko shifted against my side. "You know about that?"

"I have worked for many Paien," he said. "I'm not just a chemist. How do you think your brother's fiancée was able to appear as your deceased mother?"

"Holy shit, she's his fiancée?" I burst out.

"And you're a potion maker?" Robin put in. "You concocted the glamour she's hiding behind?"

Pfizer nodded.

"So she's a psychic?" Niko hazarded.

"Yes. One of the Vayash's best, so I'm told."

"And she's Vayash," I echoed. "Figures. They're all nutjobs."

"And she's not one of these carnival frauds like that terrible woman she was pretending to be, either," Pfizer added.

"Our mother, you mean," Niko pointed out.

Pfizer blinked at him. "Ah. Again, no offense. You do not originate from the best gene pool, do you my friend?"

Niko shrugged.

"At least he's only half idiot, half charlatan," I put in. "I got half monster thrown into the cocktail."

Niko squinted at me uncertainly and I blinked innocently at him. "Like the man said, no offense."

"What's the woman's name?" Robin put in suddenly. "And how do we find them?"

"Her name is Rosina Ioannou," Pfizer replied. "As to how you find them. They left me here as they demanded proof of your deaths. I just need to give them a call and they will come to you. All I need do is tell them Caliban expired after he found his brother suffocated to death."

"Charming scenario," Robin commented. "A Greek-Rom tragedy."

"Make the call," Nik said.

"And then what?" I asked. "Do we kill them?"

Nik considered me for a second. "I am still contemplating," he said. "When I reach a decision you may be the first to know."

"May be?"

"If I put a bullet in Flavian's brain, then you will be the second to know."

NIKO

The chemist was true to his word, and while we waited for our erstwhile murderers to arrive, he also treated my hands and arms with ointment he happened to have in his medical bag.

I had been skeptical, but the pain had been relieved quickly, and he had wrapped the wounds with almost as much expertise as myself or Cal would have wrapped them.

Our first indication that our quarry had arrived was the sound of a car pulling to a stop outside and our mother walking into the warehouse.

Of course we knew now she wasn't our mother at all, and part of me was, I was forced to admit, disappointed that Flavian was not with her, but the fact that she was by herself in some ways made things easier.

"Is Flavian not here?" Pfizer asked, stepping out from where he had been waiting at the top of the stairs which led down to my former prison.

"No," I heard my mother's voice still. "He had business elsewhere."

"Business more important than checking the corpses himself?"

"Once I provide proof he can show the Vayash elders. Then we will receive payment."

Now that actually did sound like something Sophia would say.

"They're down here," Pfizer said, indicating the basement. "The younger one barely made it here before he expired."

"At least it makes clean-up easier," the psychic commented.

"Yes it does," Cal agreed, stepping out from where he had been lurking behind the doorway.

Rosina spun in his direction, her complexion suddenly ashen.

"Caliban!" she burst out. "You're alive! It's a miracle! They told me you were dead. That—that awful man who forced me to inject you with his poison—"

"Now you actually do sound like our mother," I said, stepping out from the shadows towards the rear of the room.

If it was possible for the imposter to become even paler she did.

"Thank the gods!" she cried. "You're both safe!"

"Thank the gods indeed," Robin agreed. "Luckily your little toxin was no match for Cal's immune system and an airtight metal box was no match for Niko's fists and feet."

"No, it wasn't me!" she protested. "He raised me from the depths of Hell and forced me to become his accomplice—"

"You can drop the act, Rosina, we know you're not our mother," Cal said.

The girl shook her head. "Of course I am! And you should respect me as your—your elder, the woman who brought you into this world, who—"

"Generally treated us like shit?" Cal supplied.

"You mentioned to Cal that time I used the rent money to buy him new sneakers," I said. "You remember that?"

She blinked at me, and I'm not sure whether she was trying to read my memory of events rather than what she had previously read of Cal's.

"Yes," she said slowly.

"Then perhaps your memory is at fault," I told her.

She raised her chin a little defiantly and a chill ran down my spine at exactly how much she looked like Sophia. That was usually the expression she got on her face before she hit you or took a swing at you with the nearest heavy object.

I glanced at Cal despite myself, and he was already looking back at me, his own expression no doubt mirroring mine.

"I have no problem with my memory, Niko," she told me imperiously. "Perhaps it is you who remembers wrongly."

"Perhaps," I agreed. "I did take the rent money to buy Cal new sneakers after all."

She sneered at me triumphantly.

"However, that was not the reason we had to leave town."

Cal squinted at me. "It wasn't?"

"I distinctly remember—" Rosina started to protest before I cut her off.

"No, Cal distinctly remembers. You've not had the opportunity to probe my memory of events, have you? He was six. He remembers it as Sophia told him it happened. He doesn't remember her telling me either I put the money back from my college fund, which I had been planning to do anyway—"

"You had a college fund at age ten?" Goodfellow interrupted me incredulously.

I shrugged at him. "That was the only way I saw out of our situation. At that point in time it totalled sixty dollars."

"And the sneakers were forty," Cal said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Except Sophia demanded all sixty dollars or—" how to phrase this so as not to make Cal want to gate Rosina to Tumulus for something that wasn't actually her fault. "Or she said I would have to pay the building Super in services rendered."

Cal frowned at me. "Services…?"

I sighed. I loved my brother, but subtlety was utterly lost on him. "Oral services," I clarified.

Cal continued to frown at me.

"And by that I do not mean he wished to converse with me."

Cal's frown deepened. "He...you...didn't…?"

"I gave Sophia the money," I assured him. "Which she then spent on booze and pills. Which meant we still had no rent money and I had no intention of letting the building Super anywhere near me. He smelled of cigarettes and urine most of the time."

"Now that I do remember," Cal said. "And he wanted you to…? When you were ten?"

"I believe he was arrested some years later. Put on a register."

"I should hope so," Robin murmured.

I turned back to Rosina. "So you remember wrongly," I repeated. "Because you only remembered it as Cal remembered it. Sophia would have known what happened and would have gleefully reminded me what a squeamish little girl I was and how I should have taken one for the team. Followed in my mother's illustrious footsteps."

Rosina swallowed.

Cal was still looking at me a little oddly, but suddenly seemed to shake himself out of it. "The jig's up, honey," he said, turning to Rosina. "You may as well lose the face."

Rosina grimaced at us with our mother's well-practiced scowl. "You think you're so clever," she snarled, her voice changing pitch even as she spoke, just as the image of Sophia Leandros guttered in front of our eyes, and suddenly we were looking at a pretty young woman in her twenties with long, raven-black hair and dark brown eyes.

She looked nothing like Sophia.

And I was glad for that.

Glad she'd gone.

Glad I didn't have to look at her anymore.

"Now my brother here is still trying to decide whether to kill you and your boyfriend," Cal informed the girl. "Right now you don't get a vote. But you could help yourself."

"I'm listening," she said.

"Tell us where that asshole Flavian is and maybe we let you go."

"Back to the Vayash?" she sneered. "Empty handed? Do you know what they'd do to us?"

"Perhaps we know only too well," I pointed out. "They would certainly consider you outcasts. Gadje. Not that we have much experience with these things."

"And they sure like to spit," Cal agreed. "You'd enjoy that. Them spitting on you. We sure did."

Rosina set her jaw. "I won't tell you where Flavian is," she insisted, raising her chin a little and, oddly, she still kind of reminded me of Sophia. "Just so you can kill him."

"I told him I'd never kill a brother," I pointed out. "While your fiancé might not honor such promises, I do."

I wasn't entirely convinced that was true—yet—but I needed Rosina to believe it.

"Then what do you plan on doing with us?" the girl asked.

"I am not decided," I repeated what I'd said to Cal. "But I can't have Flavian out there trying to kill me or my brother. You must understand that?"

"I understand that you're gadje trash and there is no honor amongst outsiders," Rosina told us decisively. "Even if you told me you would release us, I would not believe you and I would not help you. You are dead to our clan, dead to our people, dead to your brother and dead to me."

She punctuated her pronouncement by spitting at me, although she couldn't even manage to get that right, the offending spittle landing several centimeters short of my feet.

"What is it with these people and all the spitting?" Cal demanded. "I mean, it's just nasty, not to mention unsanitary, and at this point in proceedings it's most likely going to get you killed."

Cal drew his Desert Eagle from his shoulder holster and pointed it at Rosina's head.

She did not even flinch, and it reminded me of a time one of my mother's gentlemen callers had done the same to her when he wasn't impressed by her terms of service. I'd been maybe seven or eight, had Cal hitched up on my hip, and even when the guy had pointed his revolver at me she hadn't been moved.

It was only when he threatened Cal that Sophia had come to an agreement with him.

Not out of love, obviously.

Sophia never protected Cal out of love.

He'd made us watch, which was the stipulation of their agreement Sophia hadn't been particularly happy about.

Not that I hadn't seen it all before.

I placed my hand on Cal's arm, and he lowered the weapon grudgingly.

"She is more like Sophia than we would have initially believed," I told my brother. "I am guessing Flavian is not." I glanced over at Pfizer, who had been standing quietly in the corner with Robin. "You have his number?"

Pfizer nodded, handing me his cell phone wordlessly.

"What are you going to say to him?" Cal asked me, and, honestly, I really wasn't sure.

Could I kill a brother?

Robin stepped forward then, a slight frown crinkling his brow.

"I have an idea," he said. "But you're not going to like it."

CAL

"I don't like this idea," Niko repeated for possibly the tenth time since Robin had proposed his plan.

To be fair, I wasn't particularly wild about it either, but Nik and I were kind of in a lose-lose situation right now, and Robin's plan was better than anything either of us had been able to come up with so far.

Damn my big brother and his pesky moral compass.

I'd had no qualms about feeding his father to the Janus automaton, but when it came to killing a brother, Niko was unaccountably squeamish.

Anyone who didn't know him would think he looked oddly relaxed right now, his katana held loosely in his right hand as he stood on the roof of Robin's building, waiting.

I knew better.

Niko rarely relaxed, and even when he looked as if his posture was loose and at ease, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way he held himself lightly on the balls of his feet, ready to dive to my defence at a second's notice, whether I needed him to or not.

A coiled spring had nothing on my brother.

A couple of spots of rain started to fall as the light began to fade out of the sky above us, evening coming on quickly with the rapidly approaching bank of storm clouds visible just beyond the horizon.

Niko usually came up here to meditate when we had been forced to crash at Robin's for any length of time. Mostly to escape from Robin constantly propositioning him, truth be told. But it was kind of nice up here. There was a small roof garden with some mismatched beach chairs over in one corner, and someone had set up a pigeon coop behind the little room housing the furnace. The birds were cooing, but somehow they sounded about as restful and relaxed as Niko looked. Something was spooking them, and I figured maybe it was the weather, not what was about to happen just beyond their deluxe Manhattan accommodations.

Niko moved from foot to foot, his version of pacing, running through a few practice moves with his blade while he waited.

"I never said it was a good idea," Robin murmured from his position on one of the beach chairs, Rosina our pretend mother tied to one opposite.

Her scowl was as dark as the encroaching storm clouds.

"You're deluding yourself if you truly believe you can best him, gadje," she hissed at my brother, but Niko ignored her in the same way he used to ignore Sophia when she taunted him with being stupid or useless or drunkenly told him she only kept him around because he was cheaper than a babysitter.

Niko had heard it all growing up, and while our mother's disdain for him might have hurt him when he was younger, he never showed it, and could care less what she had thought of him now.

Rosina's goading was nothing compared to Sophia's.

He continued to move lightly from foot to foot, glancing occasionally at the fire door that led up onto the roof.

We were taking a risk and he knew it.

"Zho said he was the best swordsman he had ever seen," he pointed out softly, pausing for a moment to fiddle with his mala bead bracelet.

A self-satisfied smile crept across Rosina's face, and I moved the barrel of my Desert Eagle a little closer to her head just for the hell of it.

"As I said before," Robin countered, "Zho has never seen you. And Flavian has underestimated you repeatedly. His over-confidence will be his undoing."

"Flavian Kalakos is Achilles reborn," Rosina told us imperiously. "You gadje are not fit to worship at his feet."

I sighed. "Honey, you can't have it both ways," I told her. "Flavian's asshole father said he was Achilles reborn too. If that was true—" and I knew for a fact it wasn't, "—then his baby boy can't also be the same guy, right?"

Rosina sniffed at me. "Emilian was mistaken."

Damn right he was.

"Emilian was an idiot," I said instead. "A little like your boyfriend. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." I thought about that for a second, before glancing over at Niko, who was looking over his shoulder at me pointedly.

Grinning.

"Please continue, little brother," he said lightly. "When we get out of this you do realize how many laps I'm going to make you run, don't you?"

I groaned. "I never thought I'd say this," I told him, "but maybe having Leandros DNA ain't all that bad?"

He snorted. "Maybe I'll take ten laps off in that case. As the chemist said, I do not originate from the best gene pool."

"Forget genetics," Robin said. "When you've saved the world as often as you two have, no one has the right to comment on where you came from, only where you've been and where you're going."

"That's kinda profound there, Plato," I told the puck, who was clearly surprised I knew who the hell Plato was.

Occasionally I listened to my brother when he was trying to teach me boring stuff.

Just then the metallic grinding of the fire door signaled we had company, and Niko was instantly in warrior mode again, Katana still held at his side, but all his attention focused on the doorway and the man emerging out of it.

Flavian's katana was not held at his side. It was held in front him, more threatening than defensive, but Niko didn't alter his stance in response.

"You're alive, little brother," Flavian pointed out the obvious, and Nik merely shrugged.

"Where there's life there's hope," he said instead, repeating what he'd said when he emerged from Flavian's ad hoc coffin.

"So it would seem," Flavian agreed, glancing over in my direction. "And your abomination lives also. When I'm done with the two of you, the chemist will be next to feel the steel of my blade against his neck."

Niko sighed and rolled his eyes. "Did you take classes in acting like a third-rate, bargain basement villain, or is it just a natural talent?" he asked.

Wow. My brother sassing someone. I was obviously rubbing off on him at last.

Or maybe he just really didn't like Flavian.

Flavian snorted. "My father is gone," he intoned. "And he was mistaken. I am Achilles reborn!" He raised his katana, pulling his hood back from off of his head and standing up a little straighter. "You should bow down at my feet, gadje."

Niko blinked at him.

When Zho had said the two of them looked alike, he hadn't been kidding.

Although, from my perspective, Flavian looked a hell of a lot more like Emilian Kalakos than he did Niko. But still.

"Yeah, we just got that speech from your girlfriend," I put in, recovering from my initial shock at Flavian's appearance and waving my Desert Eagle in Rosina's general direction.

"About whose welfare you have yet to enquire," Niko added. "And I was apparently correct in my assessment that you must have been jealous of my hair."

I sniggered, despite the circumstances.

Flavian's hair was cut short to his head, obviously in an effort to disguise the fact that he was balding a little on top.

He took a breath.

"We should restate the terms of your puck's accord," he said with a growl.

"I am nobody's puck but my own," Robin put in. "And do you accept my terms?"

"As I said," Flavian continued, as if speaking to a complete idiot, "I shall restate your terms, puck. The challenge as stated is so—"

Nik rolled his eyes again impatiently, and I had to admit, I liked this sassier version of my brother, even if it meant he was a little bit more like me than I ever really wanted him to be.

"The duel is between myself, Flavian Kalakos, and you—" if it was possible for him to point his katana at Niko condescendingly, he did, "—my father's gadje bastard offspring, Niko Leandros."

Niko somehow maintained his expression of unruffled zen.

"If I am victorious," Flavian continued, and I wondered about maybe getting him and the sound of his own voice a room, as he seemed very much in love with it, "and you survive, though unlikely, I shall spare your life on the condition that the Vayash Burden is surrendered and dispatched by my hand—"

"I don't agree with that condition," Niko interrupted calmly, causing Robin to jump to his feet.

"Niko, we talked about this—" the puck began to protest, but Nik silenced him with a wave of his hand before turning his attention back to Flavian.

"I propose an amendment," he said carefully. "If you are victorious, whether I survive or not, my life shall be forfeit along with my younger brother's."

He didn't say anything else. Didn't turn to look at me. Didn't turn at the sound of Robin's immediate protest.

And I wasn't surprised.

Although Flavian was, apparently.

He considered Niko for a second, before nodding slowly. "As you wish. You may be squeamish when it comes to killing a brother but I am not. My strength shall compensate for your weakness."

Niko nodded his head once, but otherwise remained silent.

"Nik," I approached him and murmured softly into his ear. "You don't have to do this."

Niko still didn't turn to look at me.

"We both know I do," he replied, his tone as even as he could make it, despite the tiny tremor I heard on the last word.

I stepped back from him knowing that, had our positions been reversed, I wouldn't have wanted to go on without him either.

"Further," Niko continued, "you guarantee the safety of my friend Robin Goodfellow. And the chemist, Pfizer."

Flavian snorted. "I don't believe those were part of the puck's original terms," he pointed out.

"Nevertheless," Nik continued, "they're part of my terms. My life in exchange for theirs. It seems a fair trade to me."

Flavian considered him again, before nodding shortly. "Very well. The puck and the chemist shall be spared."

"And if I win—" Niko continued, Flavian snorting as if the very idea were completely ridiculous, "—you and your fiancée leave New York City immediately and empty-handed. You tell the Vayash that their Burden is no further threat to them. If they don't believe you and I see any of them within a hundred miles of us, I will hunt you down and kill you both. If you bother myself or my brother again, I will hunt you down and kill you both. If any other Vayash tries to harm myself or my brother, I will hunt you down and kill you both. Is that clear?"

Flavian nodded. "Those terms are acceptable. However if, by some unlikely happenstance, I am killed, Rosina will be allowed to leave unharmed."

Niko nodded his assent. "Naturally."

"Very well," Flavian said. "The terms are set. I would shake your hand, but I would not degrade myself so."

It was my turn to roll my eyes. "Wow, you really are an asshole, aren't you?" I told him. "He makes me sound like your sensible, grounded, more reasonable, less insane brother," I told Niko, who snorted in agreement.

"Who would have thought such a thing possible?" he observed.

Flavian scowled. "Enough talking. Now you face your better."

Niko raised an eyebrow as he raised his katana, the slowly falling raindrops causing the blade to glitter in the reflected glow of New York City beneath us. "I would say the same, but do not wish to risk sounding like a Saturday morning cartoon villain. Have at it, brother. Let's be done with this."

Much as Zho had never seen my brother fight, so neither of us had seen Flavian, and as much as I had complete faith in Niko's abilities, the pit of my stomach still gave a lurch at the clang of metal against metal, as Niko and Flavian's katanas clashed for the first time.

Flavian was a few inches taller than Niko and broader in the shoulders, but whether that was an advantage or not I wasn't sure, as Nik easily sidestepped his older brother's next lunge, bringing his own sword in to deflect the blow aimed at separating his head from his shoulders.

Flavian grimaced, stepping back and immediately taking another swing, which Niko ducked under before bringing his own sword up to slash across Flavian's chest, the fabric of his shirt tearing as it slowly seeped from grey to red.

He glanced down, smiling, trying to hide his surprise. "A mere paper cut," he said dismissively.

"First blood drawn," Robin pointed out, opening up a gigantic umbrella that had appeared out of nowhere. He shrugged at my frown. "Armani. Dry clean only," he said, gallantly holding the umbrella over both himself and Rosina, who didn't seem particularly grateful for the shelter.

I blinked raindrops off my eyelashes, glancing up briefly and noting that the downpour was increasing.

Nik and Flavian didn't seem to have noticed, the battle having increased in tempo along with the rain, Niko at the moment seeming to have the upper hand as he drove Flavian back towards the boiler house with thrust after thrust of his katana.

Flavian, clearly on the defensive, took the opportunity to grab Nik's left wrist and swing him backwards into the boiler house wall, which I was pretty sure wasn't in the rules of sword fighting Niko had taught me as a kid.

Niko grunted as Flavian grabbed him around the throat and slammed him against the brickwork before lifting him a good couple of inches off the ground and shaking him, hard.

"You're making this too easy for me, little brother," he snarled, rain mixing with the spittle flying off his lips.

"And you're cheating," Niko returned, swiftly bringing his knee up into Flavian's groin, causing his older brother to grunt, startled, dropping Nik to the ground as he doubled over in agony. "If you were really Achilles reborn," Niko continued, circling Flavian cautiously, "you would have a better appreciation for sportsmanship and a whole lot more integrity."

Flavian was laughing as he glanced up at Niko. "You fight dirty for a self-righteous nobody."

"I believe I take after both sides of my family in that regard," Niko returned, easily deflecting the blow Flavian aimed at his chest as he surged back to his feet.

Nik took a step backwards, blinking rainwater out of his eyes as Flavian advanced towards him, katana raised anew.

"This is actually more interesting than I thought it would be," Flavian said with a cheery grin, but he was breathing hard, and clearly surprised by Niko's ferocity and skill. "Our father obviously taught you the art of the sword more thoroughly than I had realized."

Niko grimaced at him, bringing his katana in take a chunk out of Flavian's shoulder. "Emilian Kalakos taught me nothing," he growled, swinging again and this time drawing a red line across Flavian's cheekbone. "I taught myself. With the help of a library book."

Flavian briefly examined the blood he had wiped from his face, before glancing down to examine the damage to his shoulder. "You fight well," he allowed begrudgingly. "For gadje scum. But I was only playing with you."

"Doesn't look that way to me, pal," I put in, fingers still flexed around the grip of my Desert Eagle.

Niko might have sportsmanship and integrity coming out of his ears, but I wasn't sure the same could be said for me.

If it looked like Flavian was going to take my brother, then I wasn't sure I'd be able to abide by the terms of their agreement.

"By all means," Niko added. "Continue. Perhaps, contrary to all appearances, you have more to teach me than I could have learned from a library book."

Flavian scowled at him, this time too incensed to bother with another pithy retort, and I was kind of reminded of that scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke starts hacking madly at Darth Vader until he finally cuts off his father's hand.

Niko, thankfully, didn't end up with his hand getting cut off, but he was forced backwards, retreating under the rain of blows being unleashed on him by his brother's desperate, angry, repeated hacking, which was unlike anything resembling swordsmanship I had ever seen.

Niko managed to fend off most of the torrent, but the last blow caught the hilt of his katana rather than the blade, sending the sword skittering across the gravel towards the small wall built around the edge of the roof.

Niko winced, Flavian's blade also, apparently, having caught his already-bandaged hand.

From what I could see, he wasn't bleeding too badly, but that could have been the rain washing away the blood before it had time to linger on his skin.

My fingers tightened around my Desert Eagle as Niko and Flavian just looked at each other for a second, before Flavian grinned insanely.

"Oops," he said, raising his sword in what even I recognized as an intended killing blow. "Time for you to die now, little brother."

Niko was clearly not down with that idea. "I don't think so," he said, spinning on one foot and aiming a roundhouse kick at Flavian's torso. "Having too much fun to give up that easily."

Flavian tumbled backwards with the force of the kick, and Nik took the opportunity to dive for his sword, bringing it up and back just in time to halt Flavian's blade literally an inch from his neck.

The two of them froze, locked in position for a second, Nik's arms shaking with the effort of keeping Flavian's blade from taking off his head, both hands gripped around the hilt of his katana as Flavian bore down on him mercilessly.

Nik glanced behind him, still prone on the ground, his upper body forced back up against the perimeter wall as Flavian brought his blade down harder and closer to Niko's throat, taking advantage of his upright position and his ability to put his whole body weight behind the force of his sword.

Nik swallowed, managing to somehow get his feet underneath him, but at the expense of having to lever his back up against the wall, his head and shoulders now hanging precariously over the several hundred foot drop to Fifth Avenue beneath him.

I gulped in a breath, taking a step towards them, but suddenly Robin's hand was on my arm and he shook his head at me decisively.

"No," he said forcefully. "You can't intervene."

"That's my brother!" I pointed out, trying to push Goodfellow away, but he held me fast.

"And that's his brother. He needs to do this."

I turned back to what was happening at the edge of the rooftop, Flavian's blade now so close to Nik's throat it had drawn a thin line of blood against Niko's olive skin.

Nik grimaced, clearly not impressed by the situation he was in, glancing down at the drop beneath him as he was bent further backwards by the pressure of Flavian's sword against his own.

"Ready to meet your Maker, little brother?" Flavian asked, and I couldn't help thinking that when he used those words to address Niko it didn't sound at all like the term of endearment it did when Niko addressed me the same way.

"I'm a Buddhist," Nik informed his older brother. "I believe in reincarnation."

Flavian inclined his head, forcing more of his body weight against his sword. "Then you believe I am Achilles reborn?" he said, as if such a thing should be obvious.

Taking a breath and closing his eyes for a second, Nik slowly started to laugh, even though apparently seconds from plummeting to his immediate and messy death on the sidewalk beneath him. "If you only knew the irony of that statement," he muttered, before bringing up his foot and slamming it into Flavian's knee so hard I was pretty sure I heard bone splinter.

Flavian howled, his grip on his katana faltering, and Niko shoved his own sword upwards, pushing Flavian's blade away from his throat and allowing him the opportunity to get back on his feet.

And I suddenly realized I hadn't been breathing for the last ten seconds.

Flavian faltered, doubled over in obvious agony, but rather than taking off his head, Niko merely raised his katana in front of him and waited.

"Sorry, big brother," he said sarcastically. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Would you like to surrender now?"

Flavian refused to look up, just continued to grip his knee and growl murderously.

"I will enjoy killing you, bastard nobody," he grit out, suddenly rising up and running at Niko full pelt, his katana raised in front of him like a spear.

Nik raised one eyebrow, pushing Flavian's katana away from him with his own, but perhaps not completely prepared for his older brother suddenly throwing himself at him, no doubt relying on his greater mass to to win the day when his skill hadn't.

Niko dodged to one side, but Flavian caught him anyway, body slamming him to the ground and landing on top of him with enough force to drive the air right out of Nik's body.

Somehow, he managed to keep hold of his katana as Flavian grabbed him by the hair and started dragging him backwards towards the wall and the edge of the rooftop.

"Nik!" I started to yell a warning, but once again Robin's hand was on my arm, stopping me from going to assist.

And then I heard Niko grit out, "Still with the hair pulling! Honestly, anyone would think you were six years old," even as he tried to get his feet back under him, or at least dig his heels into the gravel to slow Flavian's progress.

But Flavian was not stopping, all thoughts of swordsmanship apparently driven from his mind by anger, pain, and the incessant, sudden, powerful need to kill his younger brother. Right. Freakin'. Now.

He had Niko at the edge of the rooftop once again, one hand still gripping him by the hair as he jumped up onto the wall, yanking Niko completely up off the ground and swinging him up onto the wall beside him, his hand once again wrapping around his throat as he raised his katana above his head.

The left side of Nik's face was grazed and bleeding where it had come into forced contact with the gravel, and there was a nasty cut above his eye that was going to need stitches if Flavian didn't throw him off the roof first.

"That's it," I growled at Robin. "Time to go."

And this time Robin didn't fight me.

But as I raced toward my brother's position on the wall, wet fingers scrabbling for purchase against my Desert Eagle's trigger guard, I saw not one but two things that surprised me.

Firstly, I'd forgotten Nik still had his katana in his hand.

So when he brought it up to thrust into Flavian's chest I skidded towards an uncertain halt a couple of feet away from them.

Flavian seemed a little bit surprised, but not half as surprised as Niko did, blinking back rain as his brother fell against him, unbalancing them both so they teetered dangerously on the precipice of the building.

He withdrew his katana from Flavian's chest immediately, the bandages on his hands now wet and bloody, and his grip slipping on the hilt as he pulled.

"You can't kill me, little brother," Flavian gasped, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. "Filthy gadje bastard. Do you hear me?" He'd released his hold on Nik's throat, but had resumed his grip on his hair as he raised his own katana above my brother's head, point down and aimed at his heart. "Do you hear me?" he repeated, his voice growing louder even as the sound of rumbling thunder overhead threatened to drown him out.

"That wound isn't fatal!" Niko returned, struggling, firstly, to keep from falling, and, secondly, to keep Flavian upright. "I missed all of your major organs. You will survive. But not if you take us both off the roof of this building!"

Flavian just laughed at him. "You expect me to believe you, filthy scum like you? You'll die and I'll be the one to kill you, even if it kills me to do it!"

"And the Vayash burden?" Niko queried, clearly playing for time as he glanced sideways at me. "You'll die but he'll still live."

Flavian yanked Niko even closer to him, swaying dangerously as Nik tried desperately to disengage his brother's fingers from his hair. "Then someone else will kill your miserable, filthy, disgusting abomination of a brother. But right now, I'm more interested in killing you!"

He raised his katana high above his head, clearly intent on plunging it down into Nik's heart.

Niko glanced again at me and I honestly wasn't sure whether he was saying goodbye or whether he wanted me to intervene somehow.

And then he laughed. "We picked a fine time to not know what the other was thinking, little brother," he said, closing his eyes as Flavian finally brought his sword down towards Nik's chest.

Just as the whole sky was split in two and a blinding light momentarily blinded me completely.

Which was the second thing that surprised me.

Squinting, I saw Flavian jerking spasmodically, convulsing as his katana literally exploded as an intense bolt of lightning struck it full force.

Flavian screamed in agony, his hair and his skin catching fire, the hand still gripping Niko's hair also aflame. My brother began to convulse as electricity jumped from Flavian's body to his own.

And suddenly I realized what he'd wanted me to do.

Although Niko had probably intended me to build a gate around Flavian to transport him to safety, or at least away from the edge of the rooftop, and, by extension, away from Niko, instead I built a gate around my brother, snatching him out of Flavian's grasp just as he burst into flame, his charred body teetering wildly on the edge of the wall before finally falling over the precipice, his fist still grasping a couple more inches of Niko's hair.

Nik landed with a grunt at my feet, the side of his face that wasn't ground meat now charred and blackened, the right side of his shirt still smoldering, and another chunk of his hair now burnt off almost at his scalp.

For the third time that day, Niko threw up.

Gating could have that effect on humans.

Then he looked up at me and laughed. "Not exactly what I meant, but at least you got there eventually, little brother!"

I scowled at him. "Robin told me I wasn't supposed to intervene."

"And when have you ever listened to Robin?"

I shrugged, holding my hand out to him and helping haul him to his feet. "There's a first time for everything."

"I suppose there is," Niko agreed, leaning on me heavily as his body still twitched with residual electricity trying to find a way out of him. He was shaking and soaked through and the bandages Pfizer had taken so much care wrapping around his hands and arms had fallen off, wet and bloody.

Robin approached us then, the umbrella still clutched in his hand, despite the very real chance he could be struck by lightning the way Flavian had been. He had Rosina clutched in the other hand, looking pale and terrified, and too shocked to even shed a tear for her dead fiancé.

Robin looked Niko up and down for a second before announcing, "This could be the single moment in history where I have no desire to have sex with you, Niko Leandros."

I snorted. "He doesn't look that bad," I tried to defend him.

Robin nodded. "He looks like he went six rounds with a poorly-earthed meat grinder," he decided. "But I can be selfless if you would like me to get you out of those wet clothes and dress your wounds…?"

I knew what Robin was up to. Besides the usual. And I was pretty sure Niko did too.

"That's alright, Robin," Nik said. "I'm sure I can undress myself, even in this state."

Normality. That's what Niko needed, Robin had obviously decided.

"Well if you change your mind—"

"I will not be changing my mind."

NIKO

I had not changed my mind.

Rosina would be released unharmed. That was the agreement I had made with Flavian. And I intended to honor it.

As I had not honored my intention not to kill my own brother.

Deep down, I knew that he could have survived the wound I had inflicted upon him; that it had been the lightning strike that had ultimately taken his life.

But still.

I had played a part in my own brother's death, and, in the end, I had enlisted my younger brother's help to do it.

I had not intended Cal to gate me to safety; I had intended him to gate Flavian to safety, so that I might save myself.

But at the end of the day, I could not help the fact that my survival was more important to my little brother than saving the life of a man who wanted us both dead, even if we did share a father, DNA, and, as Cal would say, a spectacular nose.

I had been surprised that Flavian had looked as much like me as Emilian had.

I don't know why.

Zho had told us as much.

Sometimes it's hard to see yourself in someone you detest.

I could never kill a brother.

But I could never love a brother such as Flavian either.

Cal knocked on the bathroom door at that second, the exact second I needed to be reminded that the brother who actually mattered to me was still here.

"Hey, Cyrano," he said, shoving his way into the room without waiting to be invited. Such was our way. "Or should that be Cyrano Junior? His conk was even bigger than yours!"

I squinted at him. "I shall take that as the compliment I do not believe it was intended to be," I told him.

He squinted back at me. "Huh?"

"What can I do for you, Cal?" I asked him indulgently.

He sat himself down beside me on the edge of Robin's cavernous bathtub. "Plenty of room in there for at least six people!" the puck revelled in telling me. Repeatedly.

"Well, you kind of already did it, seeing as I'm not dead or on my way back to the Vayash tied up in a sack right now."

I frowned. "Why would they put you in a sack?"

He shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "First thing that popped into my head. Gypsies are weird."

"Yes they are," I agreed. "And I include us in that statement."

He nudged my shoulder with his own. And I did my best not to wince, considering I had first degree burns down my right side. "So thank you for once again saving my life," he concluded. "And for not losing yours."

I returned his shrug with one of my own. "That's a big brother's job," I told him.

"Pity nobody told your big brother that," he returned, grimacing when he realized what he'd said. "Sorry," he added. "Too soon?"

I shrugged again. "I felt as little for him as he obviously felt for me," I told him truthfully. "Although I would have been happy not to murder him, which was not a sentiment he apparently shared."

"You didn't murder him," Cal said, repeating what I'd been trying to convince myself of right before he entered the room. "You kept your end of the bargain."

"And yet my brother is still dead."

Cal unexpectedly grabbed hold of my chin and turned my face towards his own. "Your brother is right here," he said, finally releasing me. "That asshole who took a dive off of the roof was no brother to you."

He was right of course.

It was just going to take me some time to acknowledge that.

We sat in silence for a second as I struggled to wrap fresh bandages around my hands, Cal finally wresting them out of my grip and taking over.

"It's a wonder you could even hold a katana, let alone fight off a fratricidal maniac with these hands." I raised an eyebrow at him and he added, "Yes, I know the word 'fratricidal,' okay?"

"Then my work here is truly done," I told him.

"Maybe I should let Robin in here to 'dress your wounds'?" he suggested.

Considering I was sitting in Robin's bathroom wearing only my underwear, that did not seem such a wise idea. "As of right now he for once does not wish to have his way with me," I reminded my brother. "We should be grateful for small mercies, however long they endure. But we should not push our luck."

Cal smirked at me, before his expression sobered. "I'm sorry you got hurt," he said. "Again. For me. Because of me."

It was my turn to nudge his shoulder. "I told you. That's what big brothers are for."

"But using Sophia…" He trailed off, shaking his head.

"Yes," I agreed. "That was...unsettling."

"Well I was going to go with, 'freaky as all hell,' but 'unsettling' works too." He paused again before finally asking, "Do you think anyone could do that? For real?"

I inclined my head uncertainly. "Raise Sophia from the dead?" I asked. He nodded, and for a second I wasn't sure how to answer. "I certainly hope not. She is the last person I would ever wish to see walking this earth once again."

"If—it—" and by "it" I presumed Cal meant his being kidnapped and taken to Tumulus when he was fourteen, "—had never happened, do you think Sophia would have let us go? You to college and me with you?"

I considered. "She didn't have a choice. And I paid her asking price."

"But do you think she would actually have left us alone?"

I shrugged. "It makes no difference now."

"Your parents were kind of assholes, you know?"

I nodded my agreement. "As were yours."

"Good thing I had you, then."

"And I you."

Cal continued to wrap my hands before moving on to examine the cut above my eye and the other multiple injuries to my face.

"You actually do look like you went six rounds with a meat grinder."

"And you look like someone who owes me a new pommel horse," I told him.

Cal's expression sobered once more. "I owe you a lot more than that, big brother."

"Well let's start with nice, neat stitches in my face and then we'll move on to the bathroom cleaning rota. And I believe I mentioned there might be a considerable number of laps in your future?"

Cal sighed as he started to clean my wounds. "Don't make me regret saving your ass."

"Don't make me regret saving yours."

But I never did. And I never would.

The End