A/N: I do not own anyone from the Cal Leandros series. I do not own the song lyrics used to start this piece!

Thanks to Obi the Kid for the uber-prompt review! Thanks also to Kin-outcast1, halesgirl101, and Comuterale for reviewing! You guys are awesome!

Chapter Ten: Reset

It's a thief in the night to come and grab you
It can creep up inside you and consume you
A disease of the mind, it can control you
I feel like a monster
-"Disturbia," Rihanna

I woke up bundled in Niko's arms. He was carrying me to bed. I lifted my head off his shoulder. He stopped and looked down at me. "Hey," he greeted, softly.

"Hey." I hadn't dreamed. I was surprised by that. I'd half-expected nightmares of epic proportions. "Robin?"

"Left for now. He's going to talk to some people, though. And he swears he'll bring me better whiskey tomorrow." Niko raised an eyebrow. "I think he's attempting to court me."

That startled a laugh out of me. Niko was straight as they came. The idea was, hell, ludicrous. "He'll be disappointed. Down?"

Niko let me down onto my feet. I wobbled a little, found my balance. I felt...weirdly calm again, balanced on my eggs. I looked up at Niko. He brushed a thumb over my bruised cheek, then dug it in until the bruise burned and my eyes watered. There, that felt more normal, after all the affectionate goop we'd flung at Goodfellow. I looked down at his wrist, bandaged well. I touched the gauze.

"Will it scar?" I asked, knowing he had scars from my teeth already.

"Do you want it to?"

I shied away from the question, the implications. Sometimes Niko got a little too sick, a little too broken for me to stand. I shook my head mutely. No, no I didn't want it to scar because if I wanted it to scar Niko would make me help him force it to scar. That was the one habit of his I really just couldn't stomach.

Niko nodded. "No. It won't. How about yourself?"

"I..." What did I feel like? Was it going to scar? A little late to ask that question, maybe. I shook my head, a little, reached up to rub at my sore throat. "I think I'm going insane."

Niko made a contemplative humming noise. "I think, if anything, you've suddenly become very sane. Very focused." He pinched the back of my neck until my eyes watered and my knees buckled. Goddamn that stung.

"I don't think I like it much, either way." I shifted my weight and scowled as my bladder made it known that it was very full, thanks. "I'm hungry and I gotta piss."

Niko rolled his eyes. "Midnight snacks it is. Need me to go with you?"

I hesitated, until he pulled my Walther PPK from his back pocket and handed it to me. I grinned at him, thankful, and shoved the gun into the waistband of my sweats. He nodded and turned to go to the kitchen. I had a paralyzing moment of wild terror and had to throttle the urge to chase after him, grab his arm and hang on.

I'd spent almost a year like that. I was over it, right? I could stand a few minutes apart.

I really, really had to piss.

That more than anything was what decided me. I went alone, in the dark, and shook only a little. I did my dirty deed and was about to wash my hands when I heard it.

A soft humming started, perfectly melodic. It was easy to hear in the quiet bathroom. In an instant my gun was in my hand, the safety off. I looked around wildly, but I couldn't see anything. Nobody but me was here...

….me and Alice, I realized, raising my eyes to the mirror.

There was nothing reflected in the mirror but I could tell that was where the humming was coming from. The foregone conclusion was that I'd gone crazy at last. Niko's confident words told me different and after dragging in a gasping breath, I managed to get out his name in a hoarse dry whisper. He'd never hear that, I was a goner, the mirror-monster was probably going to eat me or suck me into Wonderland and he'd never know because it was just like one of those awful awful nightmares where I couldn't make a sound...

Niko came charging down the hall with a sword drawn.

How he'd heard me I'll never know.

He came to a perfect halt on a dime just before the threshold. His eyes widened. I looked at the mirror, gun trained on the glass, and looked back at him. Niko nodded, and stepped into the room.

The humming stopped.

Niko and I looked at eachother, and he walked up to look in the mirror. There was nothing there, only our reflections. Holy hell, I'd had no idea my eyes could get that big - I looked like a terrified Furby. Niko examined the glass, then raised his hand and slammed the hilt of his sword into the mirror. It shattered with a terrific crash and I nearly jumped into the tub. I hadn't expected that and it had been loud! Niko examined his handiwork, then tapped a few more times to shatter the whole surface into crazy cracks and glittering shards.

"Fuck off, Alice," he said, with all seriousness, to the remains of the mirror.

I snorted, then burst out laughing. It was so absurd I just couldn't help it. I laughed and laughed and all of a sudden I was crying too and Niko slapped me open-handed. It made more noise than hurt and I coughed, stopped crying, and blinked at him with my face wet with tears and snot.

"Wipe your face and go eat your supper. I'll clean this up," Niko instructed.

Shaking, I tucked my Walther back in the waistband of my paints and did as he said. Weirdly, I felt better. I sat down at the kitchen table and ate the grilled cheese sandwich he'd made me and drank my milk. Yeah, I thought, I did feel better. Freaked out as all fuck, yes. Well aware the Auphe were on my tail and wanted me, well aware I was a kind of monster - a half-breed freak - that no-one should ever try to protect. But Niko was. Niko was protecting me with all he had, and he wouldn't ever stop. He loved me too much to ever give me up. And that was a sappy thought but hell, it was true and it was comforting.

By the time Niko rejoined me in the kitchen, I wasn't shaking anymore. I finished off the milk and looked up at him as he reached for the vodka in the cabinet, moving stiffly.

Oh shit, his burns!

"Hey, whoa, your burns..."

Niko shook his head and uncapped the bottle of vodka. He took a long pull. "You popped most of the blisters holding onto me earlier. Robin helped me rebandage them. From all the comments he made about my 'damn fine ass,' I think he enjoyed it a little too much."

I blinked. "Ew."

Chuckling, Niko nodded, and offered me the bottle. "Agreed. Think we can go to bed now, Cal?"

I got up, took the bottle, and drank. Burn of alcohol and it seared my sinuses like acid. I passed the bottle back and tugged on his ponytail, a loose handful of thick silk. "We can try." I didn't know if I would sleep, or if I'd be having nightmares. Niko just nodded, and tilted the bottle back.

We went to bed. I spent the rest of the night staring blankly at the bedroom door, one hand on the grip of my gun, and listening to Niko breathe deep and slow in sleep.

Niko went to work in the morning. I did my chores. Niko came home at lunch and stayed home. We did a little sparring, which went badly because we were both sore and stiff and aching all over...but there was just this sense of pressure on us. We had to do something. I mean, hell, the Auphe had found us and we weren't running. Niko was ready to take a hammer and nails to the windows, but I stopped him. It didn't matter, I told him.

"Why not?" he asked.

"They can travel." I swallowed. "Gating, they call it. That's what they did when they took me. When I came back."

Niko frowned a little. "That tear?"

"Tear in reality, yeah." I took a deep breath. Tried not to shake. "Gates. They can gate anywhere they want. Anywhere they've seen."

Niko considered this, and nodded. "What about you?"

I couldn't help the flinch, hands flying to the jagged scars that striped my shoulders; scars from barbed Auphe-claws. I swallowed hard. Niko reached out and laid his hands over mine, holding my arms crossed over my own chest. I took a deep breath, smelling him, feeling the steady strength in his calloused hands. "I can. They made me. But it hurts, Nik, it hurts bad." Like my head was going to split open.

Niko nodded, slowly. "I see." He stood there a moment, gaze meeting mine. There was a hardness in his gaze, a fire too. This...planning a fight, shifting resources, getting ready to kill; this was something he loved and it just lit him up. He would have made a hell of a war general, my brother. I felt a little hope rise at the thought, and pride. My brother would do all he could to save me.

We collected weapons, cleaned them. Armed ourselves.

And then I remembered I was signed up to go to work tonight.

Niko and I discussed it, and Niko decided I should go, at least for a little while. Make a pretense at normality. Said it was good for my psyche. I wanted to know how soul-shaking paranoia was good for my psyche, and he gave me a goddamn atomic wedgie.

After that I decided going out to face the Auphe was probably safer for my balls.

With guns, knives, and some liquid courage inside me, I set off for work.

I was nervous but hell, what else could I do? I was jumpy and twitchy but I was going, and all by myself! What a big boy! Yeah maybe I was just a little drunk. Mixed drinks, Niko and I could mix with the best of them. We'd been doing it since we were both under the age of twelve. Thus, I was a bartender, and a damn good one. I took the subway for a little while, then shouldered my way through the crowded streets and headed into the bar. The doors were unlocked but Merry had been supposed to open...

...blood. Blood thick and heavy in the air.

Oh fuck.

I was shaking again. My feet were moving on their own. Closer to the smell instead of away oh fuck what if it wasn't the Auphe? (But I knew it was.) Blood and blood and long red hair.

Merry.

Merry dead and gutted and ripped nearly to shreds, spread over Talley's desk like a sacrifice on an altar. Her throat was slashed to the bone. Her skin was shredded and her internal organs draped down the sides of the desk. Talley himself was on the floor, intestines spilling out across the floor, the rank smell of shit and blood everywhere. Dead as dead, and so was I for standing here staring at the drying gore. Faces I'd known, people I'd known, dead at the hands of monsters I was bred from. Dead and dead and I'd good as killed them. I was dead too, I needed to run...

A gate opened and an Auphe stepped out. It bared adamantine teeth at me, and drew ebony claws through Merry's tacky blood. "Cal-i-ban," it grated. "No more running, wretched boy."

I could smell it over the blood, a scent that wasn't even unpleasant: wet leaves, damp earth, the acrid sizzle of ozone after a lightning strike. It was grinning in a hungry eager way, red eyes gleaming. I was absolutely fucked.

I felt the others come in, but I had already spun on my heel. Time to make like a bat out of hell. I was charging towards the door when an Auphe pounced in front of me. My knife was in my hand before I could think about it; I slashed as I ran. I gutted the Auphe like they'd gutted Merry. Delicate ropy strings of intestines spilled free in a wash of black blood.

I hit the door and I was gone. You'd be surprised how fast you can run when you're flat-out terrified and I was booking it like hell. I shoved past people and realized I was never going to make it back home to the apartment in Queens in time. Not on the subway. Not taking a taxi. Hell I was in deep shit and I'd die before I ever reached Niko. Fuck fuck fuck I needed to get to Niko I needed to get to Niko...

Reality screamed.

I missed a step and fell headlong.

Instead of turning myself into raw hamburger on the asphalt, I smacked into the cheap hardwood floor of our apartment.

What the flying holy fuck?!

The pain hit and I screamed. I felt like someone had just taken a red-hot sledgehammer to my skull.

Niko came bolting in with a sword in his hand, Robin right behind him similarly armed. I balled up on the floor and clutched my head, trying to breathe and not vomit I needed to tell them needed to let them know-!

"The Auphe," Niko hissed, and darted to stand over me, nudging me with a foot.

"They...the bar...coming!" I gasped. I could barely see straight, the world fuzzy at the edges. My head my head my head fuck! I couldn't fight was a goddamn liability we needed to get out get away they were coming they were coming to get me Niko don't let them get me!

I came awful close to blacking out, sick and dizzy as the world faded dark and light again in nauseating waves. I could dimly hear Niko calling my name, fuzzy and distant. Hands grabbed my shoulder and sat me up and I promptly puked all over Robin's fancy shoes. He pulled me up to my feet and Niko grabbed me by the shoulder and I fumbled after my guns. I'd need them we needed to fight oh God Almighty my head was going to split in two.

Niko put me at his back and I struggled to breathe, fighting against the pain. My vision was still blurry at the edges but goddamn if I didn't see it when the Auphe gated in. Not just one or two but a dozen, two dozen, plunging in wild patterns with red eyes gleaming with malevolence. They were laughing, gleeful, and they darted in with claws swinging. I tracked, shot, missed. The smell of gunpowder and the taste of the Auphe and I brought one down in a spray of black blood and white flesh. Robin staggered as one landed on his back, teeth sinking into his shoulder. I darted forward and grabbed it, pulled. It twisted, slashed at me. Some kind of instinct ricocheted through me and I grabbed the narrow fine wrist and with a snatch clawed its throat out with is own talons.

My head was agony and my body was moving on nothing but pure adrenaline and need and fear. They would not take me they were not going to take me...

A gate opened up, and something not-Auphe stepped through.

It was black against their white, with huge silver eyes and a face sharp and pointed as a rattlesnake's. Huge silver eyes met my own and the thing grinned at me. "Remember me?" it called in a sibilant, sing-song voice; the voice of an angel, beautiful and pure.

Beautiful, pure, and goddamn terrifying.

"Oh fuck!" I remembered it, alright.

It laughed and darted forward. I tried to get away. I did. But one of the Auphe shoved me, claws not even touching skin, and the little shit tackled me flat to the floor. My gun spun away from my hand as my head hit the floor and impacted into a really fantastic fireworks show that I sure as hell wasn't appreciating because it hurt too damn much. I couldn't see couldn't think could only hear soft laughter and that voice. That goddamn beautiful voice.

"Let me in, Caliban."

I didn't have any say in the matter anyway and I never had.

Darkness, then light. A headache like nothing else I'd ever felt. Warm blooded, a weird feeling both odd and familiar. I smiled, and rose to my feet, ignoring the headache. We had problems here and the Auphe wanted everything to run on schedule. The customer was always right and all that bullshit. Niko was pinned under at least a dozen Auphe, silent seething fury, and Goodfellow stood alone, his sword's tip sagging to the floor.

"Darkling," he managed, shocked almost breathless, voice a thready whisper.

I waggled my fingers at him in a cheerful wave. "He shoots; he scores. Too bad 'better late than never' doesn't apply here, eh, Goodfellow?" Because "Darkling" it was...or "banshee"- I went by both. Not that I'd gotten a lot of face-time in the mythological books, no. The female banshees, whiny bitches, had gotten all the attention, but me? Their humble brother, one of the few male banshees in existence? Jack shit was the amount fame I'd gotten and that was a crying shame.

"Get out of him," Niko snarled.

I turned to look at him. His teeth were bared and his grey eyes were molten fury. He was shaking with it and the only thing keeping his legendary temper in check was the weight of a dozen Auphe all pinning him to the floor. Hot damn. I pursed my lips and whistled, cheerily.

"Before I've gone for a test drive? Not hardly! Besides, I've got places to go, worlds to destroy...I'm a busy monster, see." I grinned, and bent to pick up the Glock on the floor. Plenty of bullets left - and I'd only really need one. Niko was a loose end. He'd cause trouble. And as fun as it would be to watch him essentially commit suicide by chasing after the Auphe, well, it would definitely put a crimp in our plans. I leveled the gun at his face. "Time to go, Niko. For me and you."

I pulled the trigger but it wasn't Niko I hit. No, it was the Auphe he'd dragged down, turning the pile into a writhing upset of flailing limbs and claws. Whoops. Oh well, maybe they'd still pay me anyway. It was a damn vicious brawl going on, though, and as much as I wanted to stay and watch, well, time was ticking away and I had my marching orders.

Several of the Auphe sprang free and opened a gate against the far wall. Holstering my gun, I strolled through it with them, tossing one last cheery wave over my shoulder.

Worlds to wreck, hell to raise, death and destruction to unleash for everyone...

...hell, this was gonna be goddamn fun.