Book 88, 2021 (I wasn't good or bad. I was only me, and I was neither.)

[chez_jae]

Slashback by Rob Thurman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Since I didn't have to work today (government holiday, for the win!) I used my day off to read Slashback, which is the 8th book in Rob Thurman's "Cal Leandros" series. Lest you think I didn't read any Cal books last month, hah! I spent most of October skim-reading the previous seven. Again. Yes, I am addicted. Moving on...

Before Cal and Niko made monster killing their livelihood, they were nearly victims of a human monster--a serial killer. They survived that encounter, but the killer didn't. What they didn't know was the man had been the protege of a malevolent, supernatural killer, the legendary Spring-Heeled Jack. Now Jack has arrived in NYC, and he is gunning for the Leandros brothers. It takes awhile before Niko, Cal, and Robin figure out this current killer is the same as the one of yore, and even longer to realize they locked horns with him once before, if only via his underling. In the meantime, they are trying to flush their quarry out, with disastrous results. It's going to take a combination of grits, guns, and guts to put this monster down, and the Leandros brothers may also need the help of the angels...if angels actually exist.

Whew, okay. "Fast-paced" doesn't begin to cover it. The story is told in alternating povs again, but this time, Niko's point of view is from twelve years ago, when he was fifteen and Cal eleven. It's the recounting of their encounter with the serial killer. Cal's pov is from the present, as he and Nik and Robin seek to identify and eliminate Jack. In spite of the subject matter (and the fact that Cal and Niko got their asses handed to them more than once) this was probably the most humorous book in the series. I lost count of how many times I said aloud, "Poor Niko!" and then laughed. You couldn't help but feel sorry for a teenage Nik having to deal with a snotty, sarcastic, snarky tween brother. Promise was not as prevalent in this story, but when she was, she tweaked Cal's tail but good, which, while hilarious, seemed somewhat out of character for her. Ishiah was more prevalent, and we finally learn his true nature (and that of all peris).

Other things I enjoyed...
- The fact that Niko and Cal met Robin twelve years ago, in passing. It was amusing to learn it was Niko who set him on the path of becoming a used-car salesman, and that Cal (the little shit) stole his watch.
- Robin dropping hints about their shared pasts, and I'm not talking about 12 years ago. I'd already known (not from skipping ahead in the series, but from cheating by reading reviews of later books) that Cal and Niko have lived several (doomed to be short) lives, always together (as brothers, cousins, or blood-brothers) and that Robin has encountered them, befriended them, and fought with them in each incarnation. In fact, he recognized them when he first met them 12 years ago. He finally told them, at the end of this book. I had thought that wouldn't come out until the next book, but it was fun to see their reactions. I cannot believe, though, that nobody thought to ask Robin if he'd ever banged Niko in any of his prior incarnations. Hah! If I were Cal, I would have been all. "Sooooo...did you and Nik ever get it on?" LOL!
- Not so enjoyable is that towards the end of the story, when I was saying, "Poor Niko!" for the nth time, I truly meant it. Poor Niko.

Characterizations were stellar, the narrative was pell-mell-er (hee!), fight scenes were exciting and violent, there was the humor interwoven to balance it out, and the emotions were heartening and heart-wrenching all at once. Niko has always taken care of Cal, but now Cal is stepping up more and more to take care of Niko, and he doesn't care if that means letting his inner-Auphe off the leash. The only thing that allows him to rein it in at all is his love for Niko.


♦ I lightly ruffled his black hair, shaggy in length but with a gloss like silk. Thanks to Cal being a good brother, he let me without complaint.
♦ You show respect to a warrior. For Cal to have survived our childhood, he was a warrior. I gave him his due. Anything else would have made me less of a brother.
♦ Cal would know in a heartbeat if I tried to pull the wool over his eyes, especially if the wool was made of bullshit.
♦ And rain was wet, grass was green, the sun set in the west; also, reality shows caused brain tumors.
♦ If I said it out loud, my brother would do more than kick my ass. He'd remind me I had human in me too by dunking me in the East River, holding me under for a good three minutes, and calling it negative reinforcement training instead of the overgrown swirly that it was.
♦ The guy could not take a hint if they were giving them away free with a hooker and a six-pack.
♦ I needed an outlet for my monster, a specific one. One that would challenge me and take all my effort to put down. I hadn't had a distraction like that in a month now, which meant things tended to spill over in all directions. Then, wham, I was all "put the lotion in the basket" and no one, but no one was happy with that attitude.
♦ "I am both ethically and morally challenged at the best of times. And you annoying me with your festive little homicidal ways doesn't come under the category of best of times."
♦ My nearly getting killed inevitably turned him into a hybrid of babysitter/bodyguard/and human Terminator.
♦ I'd been waiting for him, but naturally I hadn't heard him. Nik was too good for that, too good for me. I had smelled him though. The faint tang of oiled metal and the farm fresh smell of goat-milk soap. The man could slice out your heart and hold it in his hand before you even noticed he was there, but he was addicted to goat-milk soap because it was "all natural". It was embarrassing as hell is what it was.
♦ There I stood, carrying the two guns I hadn't used earlier, a fancy new garrote, and four knives concealed in various easily accessible locations--all of which I could wield as automatically as I could breathe, and yet I was being schooled like a three-year-old thrown into a mixed martial arts caged death match.
♦ I left my phone in my pocket. I didn't want pictures, I sucked at research, and if I had pulled it out, Niko would've most likely inserted it in a place I was saving for my colonoscopy when I turned fifty.
♦ We all developed coping mechanisms. Niko imposed order on chaos. I imposed chaos on those not fast enough to get out of my way.
♦ I raised my eyes to the narrowed ones fixed on me. We had the same gray eyes, but I hadn't to this day managed to pull off that look of solar-flare-heated annoyance yet.
♦ I yawned and levered up off the couch. After another jaw-cracking yawn, I said, "Bed. Make me a happy-face pancake for breakfast. Put me in the mood for serial killer hunting tomorrow." // "I have one use for a spatula and you and it does not involve pancakes, Would you like me to explain it in detail for you?" // "I'm lazy, Cyrano, not stupid." I grabbed my holster, left the jacket on the couch and automatically tugged Niko's long braid.
♦ Cooking was for wusses who couldn't fuel homicidal fury on pure sugar alone.
♦ This was only the Kin. Granted, they could lick their own junk and run the supernatural crime in NYC at the same time, but they were still the Kin. The day we couldn't handle the werewolf mafia with one hand while jacking off with the other was the day it was time to hang it up and get out the walker. Our multitasking beat theirs every time.
♦ New York may be low on ambience, but it knew how to do a dog right. As I took an enthusiastic second bite, Niko asked, "Why? I don't have anything approaching your sense of smell and even I am offended." // I loved onions enough that my enhanced scenting abilities had accustomed themselves to the smell over the years. They didn't bother me at all now. "First, I like onions. Second, it pisses off Wolves. Third, I like pissing off Wolves."
♦ I tightened the choke chain on my inner darkness, gave it a mental smack, and a "naughty bastard" with my usual resignation--maybe even fond resignation. It was the same reaction you'd show your pet great white when he brought back half of a surfer instead of the beach ball you'd thrown into the water.
♦ Later, when he unsheathed his sword, he'd find amusement enough. Not that he'd admit that. Not even on the inside, and, on the outside, he was always setting the example. One day he was going to realize it was a lifetime too late for that. He could make a katana dance and defy gravity like no man on earth, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do about genetics, mine or his. When he realized that, then I hoped he'd realize something else...If you were born a warrior and your career was basically combat, you might as well enjoy it.
♦ I changed into sweatpants and flopped on my back on the bare mattress of my bed. I'd been forced two weeks ago to wash my sheets and blanket at knife point, Niko's knife, but I'd forgotten them at the Laundromat. I had a short attention span if carnage wasn't involved. I'd wandered off to find some. By the time I remembered what I'd been doing, the sheets were long gone. I'd have to end up buying new ones. Whenever I got around to it. Or I'd wait for my birthday. Nik was a practical gift giver.
♦ Lying in the warmth of my own spilled blood, I gathered his understanding of "save" was a hop, skip, and a fucking minefield away from my definition.
♦ Niko gave my shoulder a light shove. "You're dripping on the floor. Stitches. Go." As I turned toward my room to give him something to bitch about--that always cheered him up--he nudged me again. "To the room without the bubonic plague-ridden filthy mounds of clothing on the floor."
♦ Robin picked our lock, walked in, and dumped a Styrofoam container on the sand-colored kitchen counter. I lifted the lid immediately and grinned. He had brought me a smiley face pancake. "That puts you one up on Nik." Hell, it even had "Cal" incised across the happy, syrup-drenched forehead.
♦ Pucks were not known for being slow or bringing up the rear--unless it was in a sexual context.
♦ "Niko? Did he mention your hair? The rumor also goes that he tends to associate blond hair with whores and whores also with wickedness. Red hair, too. Whores, whores everywhere. It's a theme with him. He is a judgmental bastard. He cannot abide wickedness. Odd in a killer, isn't it?" // Niko gave a forbidding frown. "You wish to know if he called me a whore? Is that what you're asking?" // "Yes, yes. Don't be so sensitive. In deference to your prejudicial ways, let me rephrase: did he mention the color of your hair or call you immoral?" // "We will go with immoral. Yes, he may have mentioned it."
Poor Niko!
♦ Robin was worried, but Robin was also still Robin. If he had but one finger out of the grave he'd still be using it to yank our chains.
♦ The covers were tossed to the side and Cal got up in stages. There was the "five minutes more", the "no", the whiny enhanced "noooooo" with the "go away," and finally the "you're rotten" followed by him sitting up with a gloomy huff of outrage and despair.
♦ "Just remember, don't get laid until we move again. Stay a virgin and everything will be okay. I told you, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers wouldn't lie." // Watching the fake butter refuse to melt on the bread, I lost any appetite for the toast or life in general...if only for a second. Laid. Sophia had gone from verbally to physically abusive. The first inevitable Grendel had shown up. The serial killer issue still hadn't been solved, and now my eleven-year-old brother had just told me not to get laid. Why me? Honestly, why me?
Poor Niko!
♦ "When have the two of you not dragged my wit, wisdom, charisma, and impeccably formed ass along in the wake of your bloody misfortune?"
Poor Robin!
♦ "I do have a preoccupation with licking the velvet-skinned throats of blond women and blond men. Blond anything really." // "Put it back in your pants." I snorted. "Even you couldn't leave a hickey the size of a hand." // Apparently I was wrong as he continued to grin. Niko frowned impatiently. "Goodfellow, we have a vicious paien serial killer roaming free skinning people alive. Focus. And if you continue with your lecherous behavior, I'll tell Ishiah."
♦ "I will need more alcohol. It's far too early to be thinking. Morning mounting is mostly muscle memory and a nice alliteration, but thinking...for that I'll have to bribe my brain."
♦ I considered five thirty a.m. an abomination. If Hell existed, it would always be five thirty there.
♦ I finished my Dr Dew. When I came back with a second one, my knife that had been on the coffee table was gone. I glared at Niko, who was drinking soy milk with the obvious delusion there was some sort of taste to it. // "When you stop twitching like a lab rat with electrodes in his brain, you'll get it back," he responded calmly. "Stir your poisonous concoction with your finger and if it eats the flesh from your bone don't come crying to me." // I stirred, drank, and growled. My finger turned slightly red but that was probably psychosomatic. When I said so, Niko told me I didn't have the depth of imagination for a psychosomatic disorder. I poured half the Dr Dew in his grass milk. He poured all his milk over my head. Normally he would've flipped me over the couch, but this was his way of being considerate of my stitches.
♦ This wasn't the place if you wanted a quick fifty-buck suck-and-fuck.
♦ "We're three little kittens who've lost our mittens. Ah, the hell with it. It's a whorehouse." I pounded on the door again. "Kits who need tits. Open up."
♦ "Cal is his own person. I learned at a young age to accept that or step in front of a bus and move on to my next incarnation."
♦ Stunning feline humanoids tried to feed Niko peeled grapes and tiny dead shrews from a golden bowl. He didn't seem pleased.
Poor Niko!
♦ Cal perched on her couch covered in faded orange and red roses. Covering him were her seven cats. Cats liked him, loved him, really. The moment they smelled him they would swarm. Now wasn't any different. They draped over his shoulders, lap, and feet. If they happened to have a dead mouse tucked away, they'd present it at his feet like an offering. Cal didn't mind. Affection from anyone but me was rare. He knew when to appreciate it--even in the form of a dead rodent. He stroked the cats, surrounded by a cloud of purring and flying fur. Each one took a turn bracing on his chest to stare into his eyes. I didn't know what they were hoping to see, but they always seemed satisfied when their turn was over.
I am honored that the author worked me and my seven cats into the story!
♦ "And, sugar, I'm forty. You might want to look me in the face, appreciate me for my brain, because when this top comes off my brain is still in the same place but my tits will be four inches lower." // It took me a second to realize that last part was directed at me and I could feel my skin flush hot and mortified. // "Hold it in," Cal whispered. "Virgins live. Horn-dogs die." // "Horn-dogs? You're eleven. Do you know how much trouble you are..." I swallowed the rest.
Poor Niko!
♦ "Once I go to college and we get away from Sophia, we'll have a normal life," I said. "And if you stop cursing like a forty-year-old bouncer there's no reason girls wouldn't like you." There also wouldn't be any reason that I couldn't let myself like some girls without our wonderful mother trying to steal their jewelry, wallet, or their hair to sell to a wig maker. That wasn't advice I wanted to give to anyone I brought home: please keep moving at all times or you'll wind up penniless and bald.
♦ When the half blind knew what you were and what you weren't, maybe it was time to stop calling it an identity crisis and just go with identity.
♦ "You ran into a wall simply because I stepped out of the way." // Flipping me over his shoulder--hell, nearly over his damn head--was not "stepping out of the way". But in our version of a sparring routine it was close enough to the truth that I let it slide. // Crouching next to me, he swatted the side of my head. "Do not be an idiot, little brother. You're still you. I'll make damn certain you will stay Cal. Now and always." His lips quirked fondly as he gave me a light pat to the chest. "The once and future king of smart-ass." // I grinned up at him. "You're getting your feelings all over me. It's disgusting." // "There are many times, uncountable really, that I've mentally replaced you in this scenario, Caliban. You can't imagine." Robin had drifted silently, as always, through our locked door to lean against the concrete wall and watch us. // "You're right. I can't imagine. Don't want to imagine. Your fantasies have to have been banned by the Geneva Convention as psychological torture." I sat up. "And even you can't find being smacked and lectured a turn on." // The smirk was so rapacious I could see the neon XXX pop up over his head like an old Acme cartoon...with an added huge dash of porn. "Do you think I've not been so naughty in my life that I didn't deserve some discipline?" // The images of Catholic uniforms, rulers, the principal's office--basically every porno cliche I'd seen in my life with the addition of Goodfellow and my brother shut my brain down instantly.
Robin and Niko porn?! Hang on while I pop some corn...
♦ "Shop for a gift for Promise. She's hundreds of years old and has gone through five elderly husbands in the past fifteen of them. Do you think she might not want something to tuck away in the nightstand drawer for nights when you're not there or for nights when you are--" // Niko snared the handful of suit collar again and this time dragged the puck along. "This looks familiar," I drawled. "Oh yeah, you're usually doing that to me." // "I have two hands. Do not test me."
♦ I liked to think two of my best qualities were persistence and the ability to hold on to resentment to my dying day.
♦ "Humans," he muttered. "You depend far too much on breathing as often as you do. Cal, up. We need to go before Mandy brings back every man, woman, and security guard who swings a mean dildo." // Niko appeared on the other side of me, took that arm, and between them they had me on my feet. "All right, little brother?" // "Anyone...else...hit...the...ceiling?" I gasped as they hurried me along... // "Yes, that was unpleasant," Niko replied, tucking my Eagle back into my holster as he and Goodfellow slung one of my arms over each of their shoulders in order to move me more quickly. // "Rather like I imagine clothing would feel in a dryer--if I were poverty stricken and didn't have everything I own including my Armani socks dry cleaned." Robin gave me a concerned glance as we exited into the night. "Did you get that, Cal? I'm incredibly wealthy and snobbish to boot. Aren't you going to comment?" // It was nice when people cared enough to rub your nose in their high-and-mighty lifestyle in an effort to provoke you and determine you're not brain damaged from hitting the ceiling. "Fuck you," I mumbled, my legs working better now that my breathing kept improving. // His lips curved upward in relief. "There's the ass we know and barely tolerate. Of course there's no need to believe a mere ceiling would leave an impression on your brother, Achilles reborn."
♦ Goodfellow was back and we were having the same conversation we'd had yesterday before the clusterfuck with Jack. Considering where we'd been while having it, clusterfuck could have several meanings, but I wasn't about to say that aloud and have Niko threaten to spar political correctness in me if it took him and my aching muscles the rest of both our lives.
♦ "I have an idea." // Niko blanched, visibly as he hadn't done at Goodfellow's plan. To be fair, he'd heard and gone along with more of my ideas over the years. His recovery, as they say, was ongoing. "I'd prefer you didn't." // "Have some faith." This could be good. "He doesn't like the ethically challenged or the morally conflicted, right?" It was a shame he didn't want me as I had all of that with a cherry bomb on top. "Fine. Since we can't narrow down crime, let's go make some crime. A big one, one he can't possibly ignore." // "Please do not tell me what you have in mind." Nik pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am not a begging man, but, Cal, please." // My grin was so wicked I was almost disappointed Jack didn't appear and promptly skin it off my face. "Let's burn some shit down. A whole lot of shit." I didn't often come up with the plans, too lazy, but when I did they were frigging spectacular. When it came to devastation and destruction...I was a genius.
♦ "Are you trying to be difficult?" // He shook his head, shaggy hair flying, the grin shameless. "Nope. Not trying. Don't have to. It's really pretty easy."
♦ Cal gave me the look again. I'd gotten it so often in the past few days I was going to start assuming anything that came out of my mouth was so utterly ignorant that it made Cal's very brain cells melt under the vast stupidity of it all.
♦ His chair finally tipped too far and began to topple backward. I'd been waiting for it. I hooked an ankle around one wooden leg and caught it. After fifty plus times it was pure instinct now. Cal, who knew I wouldn't let him fall, had never let him fall, kept talking, unfazed.
♦ "How did this happen?" I hissed out loud as my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. If I'd kept the question mental, I thought the stress and humiliation of being outthought by an eleven-year-old might trigger some sort of psychotic split.
Poor Niko!
♦ "You're smart, Nik, but sometimes I don't think you'd know the house was on fire 'cause you were waiting for the oven timer to beep."
♦ "If Jack Sprat doesn't notice that then we'll get him a Seeing Eye dog and forget worrying about his homicidal and blind ass." This was perfect and going right at the top of my resume. // "You cannot have come up with that on the spur of the moment," Niko protested with what sounded a good deal like suspicion and hope mixed into one. I tried to get a fix on whether he was proud or appalled. I was hoping for both. I did love to mess with Nik. // "Sometimes I get bored. When I get bored, bam, mental mass destruction is my hobby. I've had this one on file for awhile now." Did I say that smugly? A little. I asked Goodfellow as Niko appeared too scarred for words, "It's a gift, yeah?" // "It is that. I couldn't be more proud of you if you were a trickster yourself." He took out his cell phone. "Garbage truck. Give me three minutes." // "You can locate a full garbage truck for us in three minutes?" Niko sounded curious despite his automatic caution. After a few years the combination of Robin and me was beginning to send him into Stockholm Syndrome I thought. About time. It would be better for his mental health if he closed his eyes and enjoyed the roller-coaster ride.
Poor Niko!
♦ Niko gave Robin and me both a curdled expression. Goodfellow with his smugness and me with an armful of weapons meant to make people go dead in the night. "I know the two of you want me to praise you for your excellence in thievery and your preparation to kill anything that might escape Jurassic Park." I did love that movie. "But any encouragement on my part would only push you to greater heights and the eventual destruction of Western civilization. I'm going to get dressed. Cal, unless you want to fight in a T-shirt that says 'With a good spotter, snipers can find the G-spot every time, and a pair of sweatpants, you might want to as well." // I decided that wasn't a bad idea, more as I didn't want Goodfellow volunteering for the spotter position.
♦ "Zombies!" I shouted as they rushed us. It was a slow rush, I'll give you that, but they were serious and there were a shitload of them. "Real zombies! You"--and by you I meant Niko, Goodfellow, and anyone I'd met in the paien community--"said they didn't exist. Not real. Just legends. Now I'm in the middle of every fucking crappy horror cliche known to man!" I hated zombie movies. If you couldn't speed walk, then you were too fragile a flower for this world anyway and the apocalypse had always been in your future. "Shit." There was the dull pain/teeth grinding pressure that only came from the bite of blunt human teeth at the base of my neck. "One of them bit me. I'm not only part murderous monster from the beginning of time, but now I'll be an undead one. A stinking slaughterer running amok, even more unkillable as I'll already be dead. And I thought it was bad before. Everyone happy now?" // "If your tongue would rot with the rest of you I'd be ecstatic. And I highly doubt they're infectious," Niko added, "or we'd have seen this sort of thing a long time ago. You watch too many horror movies." // "Watch? I live horror movies! Watching a horror movie is a frigging comedy treat for me, okay?"
♦ There were probably teeth there, the kind that would make a great white suck his fin and cry for his mommy.
♦ "Then let's see if we can save Goodfellow's ass as Ishiah treasures it so much. And, Cal, do not die," he ordered. "Or I'll have this Jack raise you from the dead so that I might kill you all over again." // "You're a marshmallow inside, Nik. I've always known it."
♦ Nik glared at my discarded towel. "If it weren't for your ribs, I would rub your nose in that." // "You wouldn't do that to a puppy." I grinned. There was something wrong in enjoying injury as a license to bad behavior, but I'd never claimed there was anything particularly right with me. // "A puppy is capable of learning. A puppy doesn't devote his life to seeing how far he can push me before I break mentally. A puppy does not order pizza and expect me to pay for it because he's out of money."
Poor Niko!
♦ "How are the legs?" Niko had leaned down to snag the towel and was folding it in his tragically OCD way. // "Not bad at all. I've a few scrapes. Nothing major." // "The pain pills working yet for your ribs?" He was a good brother: asking about my health, picking up my towel. I could probably get him to order that pizza for me if I looked pathetic enough. // "Feeling no pain," I answered honestly. // "Good." I was promptly hit in the face with my wet towel. Of course, good brothers know tough love inside and out.
♦ When I was a kid, I used to love giving Niko shit about sex. It drove him nuts. It was better than cable. But not now. If Niko hadn't raised me in addition to being my brother, it could be different. Between the spine-shivering sensation other people had at the thought of their parents having sex and knowing my best friend was doing it with my boss, probably on the same bar where I served drinks, I was surrounded by a whole shitload of "I don't wanna know". I spent those two hours simultaneously watching for Jack and telling myself that Niko and Promise were either practicing the lost, deadly art of flower arranging or sharpening their already incredibly sharp blades. I hung grimly to those images, then slammed into my bedroom faster than I should have with my ribs when Promise appeared out of the darkened hallway with her coil of soft brown hair loose and spilling around her hips. Her feet were also bare, but bare feet were essential for flower arranging and sword care and no one could tell me differently. // The fact that she whispered as I passed her, "Who's your daddy?" made her a stone-cold bitch and had me popping an extra pain pill. If Jack killed me in my sleep I couldn't say that I'd be sorry to go.
Poor Cal! And poor me. Why couldn't that have been Robin? The 'Who's your daddy?' line would have made more sense coming from him...
♦ I was carrying a jumbo-sized plastic bottle of vodka in each hand. Niko had commented the family-sized vodka was a truly classy five a.m. purchase. I told him they were out of grape-flavored condoms and beef jerky or I'd have thrown them in just to see the look on the clerk's face at how I wined and dined my dates. Niko's reply that that was actually a step up was uncalled for. The bastard.
♦ I was either leaning heavily against Nik or he was leaning heavily against me. I didn't drink a lot, but I did drink some. With Niko's body-temple philosophy his tolerance would be zero. I was surprised he wasn't facedown in the mud. Mind over matter. Mind over alcohol. Figured.
♦ Niko raised a hand as if he was going to try to wipe away some of the goo that covered me, but then pulled his hand back. "You are a lost cause." He then slid behind me, put a boot in my ass, and shoved me headfirst into the river. // Sputtering, I climbed back out of the water. "I don't like you drunk. You do hurtful things you can't take back. PSA from me to you." I was clean of slime but not necessarily smelling much better. // "I would have done that sober," Nik said placidly. // "True. You suck." I shook water off in the tried-and-true dog method and managed to splatter him in the process. // "So you have told me many times. Many, many, many...enough that I am considering buying duct tape for your mouth...times." // "You would be the one person, Nik, who doesn't change at all when drunk."
♦ "I'd rather have it in my bed than facedown on the grass."
Wait...what were we talking about, again?
♦ "What's the lead on Jack? The sooner we put him down like a pack of plague-ridden squirrels, wretched rodents, the sooner I can stop babysitting you two and get back to the debauchery that is my life." // "Monogamous debauchery?" I tapped fingers on the arm of the recliner. "Is that possible? And what about Ish stealing all your cards from the bad old days of whoring, whoring, and a little more whoring?" // "He made that all better. Kissed it better, isn't that the saying?" The grin was all debauchery now, monogamous or not. "Would you like to know where he kissed it?" // "Nik," I said desperately, "how about you fill him in on my massive fuckup?" Forget the hundred percent bar. I would own that fuckup, propose to that fuckup, and marry that fuckup if it would stop Goodfellow.
♦ Niko, whose face was more impassive than usual, meaning his hangover was epic, was leaning against the wall while Goodfellow sprawled on the couch. I didn't blame him. The wall looked safer.
♦ "I think the time for interfering has long since come and gone and circled back to do a victory lap."
♦ "Okay, Nik, you're really beginning to freak me out." // He ran a less than reassuring hand over my hair. It wasn't the lightly stinging swat-and-tangle I usually received. It was the smoothing and affectionate motion you used on a child, that he'd used on an eleven-year-old me. He couldn't pull himself out of the past and if I wanted to kill Jack for anything, it was for that.
♦ "Of the six hundred and seventy-eight times I've nearly been killed, six hundred at minimum have been your fault."
Poor Robin!

Engrossing, entertaining, emotional, exceptional! Five stars!



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