It wasn't that I knew for a fact that Georgie Porgie was going to be trouble. In some ways she was in this deeper than perhaps even she was aware. That was the trouble with psychics—you never really could know for sure. Georgina might not go to Niko, but it was a dead certainty he would go to her. Grasping at any and every straw to locate me, Nik would get around to George sooner or later, if he hadn't already. She had certainly stonewalled him earlier when he went to talk to her about the soda shop incident, and she'd definitely known then more than she was saying. There was no telling what she'd do now. Maybe she'd continue to keep it zipped up, and maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she actually knew something, and maybe she didn't. Either way I couldn't take the chance. Besides, an adorably wise little red-haired psychic? Please. She was simply too cute to live. I was doing the world a favor.

I was just that kind of guy.

Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses. I still needed to check in again with the Auphe and see how things were progressing before they got antsy and paid me another visit—or, worse yet, started spying on me again. I'd kept a careful eye open this time and hadn't seen any sign of them. Hopefully, it would stay that way. As for the roses, I had managed to divvy up some of my work. Things were getting accomplished on schedule and I didn't see any reason I couldn't enjoy myself for a bit. In this city there were a thousand and one entertaining things to do and amazingly enough not all of them were violence related. It was time I played tourist and took advantage of the place while it was still around.

I watched the fights for a while, hit on Fang much to Wolfie's displeasure, and had a few drinks. When I surfaced on the streets again, evening was a dusky tint in the sky, and the twilight chill was cool fingers sliding along my skin into my hair. I inhaled the cold air with a scowl and a strong desire for my warm hotel bed with its scorching hot electric blanket. Deciding not to let the weather spoil my good time, I headed down the block listening for one of my favorite things, music. It was a given I was a fan. Had to be with my banshee sisters. Male banshees sang too, just for different reasons. No lurking on a castle turret bemoaning the approaching death of its lord or lady, not for us. No, thanks. Bringing death was one thing. Just sitting around and waiting for it, that was another. I mean, shit, how passive-aggressive can you be?

Yeah, I liked music. All music. It all had something to offer in one respect or another. It was the one thing in which humans had no equal. They might not have their own innate magic, but when it came to music, they made magic. Rock was the best, but I wasn't choosy. Over the years I'd managed to find something to appreciate in all the genres. If it had a beat, if it got my blood pumping, and if I could kill to it, it met all my requirements. It was while on the hunt for all three that I ran into something that distracted me. It was something that I'd thought about earlier but had forgotten until I saw it staring me in the face.

The Painted Lady was a tattoo parlor, wonderfully grungy and chock-full of bad, bad boys. Not as bad as me, of course, but then again, who was? There were more muscles, chains, and leather than you could shake a dick at. At least that was what Goodfellow would think. That soured my good mood almost instantly. I still wasn't at all thrilled about the puck's change of behavior. I thought I'd had him figured. The fact that I was wrong didn't sit well with me at all. And it wasn't just ego, although I had to admit that was a big part of it. No, the real problem was Goodfellow throwing one big anomalous monkey wrench in what I'd thought to be a perfectly running plan. If I couldn't depend on him to perform according to his reputation, what else couldn't I depend on? More specifically, who couldn't I depend on?

Or was that "whom"?

Either way, the answer was the Auphe. They were a lot like me, that was true. And that was also the problem. Know thyself… It was a good philosophy. It often kept thyself from biting the big one. I did want to be on the winning side, but just how long the Auphe would want me there might be a different matter altogether. There's no honor among thieves or monsters. But if I did have faith in anything, it was in my ability to come out on top. Still, life could abruptly get more interesting as things went along, no doubt about it.

Shrugging it off, I concentrated on the matter at hand. Picking out my tattoo. There was plenty to choose from, all artful in their own right. Snakes, skulls, skulls vomiting snakes—which was meant to be an ironic twist, I suppose—and hundreds of other macabre gems. I was as torn as a kid in a candy store, but in the end I chose one of the classics. It was a word. Just one word surrounded by a candy red heart, the letters as black as what passed for my soul.

MOM.

"You should honor your mother, Cal," I murmured to myself as the needle stitched its happy way along my flesh. "If it weren't for her, we wouldn't be here. Neither of us." The design was about an inch and a half high on my bicep, cheerfully stark against my pale skin. It was worth every sting of the needle, every smear of blood on the rough textured gauze. It was enough to make me wish that for a moment we weren't one simply so I could see the look on his face. I touched a finger to a pinpoint of blood and then tasted it. My blood now, but the taste was deliciously strange and new.

The tattoo artist gave a minute shake of his head as he finished up the last letter, but remained silent. In this place he'd probably seen more bizarre behavior by far than some self-sampling. From around me as I reclined in the chair, a few rough looks were shot my way. It didn't go any further than that, though. Too bad. Menacing expressions didn't provide much in the way of entertainment, not enough to bring me up out of the chair. I was feeling nicely lazy, a lion content to let the gazelle pass by.

When the masterpiece was complete, I admired it in a mirror that hung crookedly on the wall. It certainly wasn't a mirror I would've been caught dead in, fly-specked and murky, but it cast an adequate enough reflection. I traced the letters ruminatively on my skin and then the surface of the glass. I couldn't help the sly self-satisfied grin that split my face. It may have contained something more than satisfaction if you went by the sideways twitch the guy gave as I paid him. The sheep tended to startle so easily.

When I hit the streets it wasn't with a new purpose, but with a reaffirmed definition, you might say. Next stop would be Auphe central. See what was up on the Grendel side of things. They most likely wouldn't be ready for a few more days yet, but best to touch base. It didn't pay to make the clients any crankier than they already were. And since I'd already pissed them off, not to mention shooting one of them, it was definitely time for my best behavior. Such as it was.

As I headed for the subway to catch the R train, I considered the Auphe. They'd really thought they had it all planned out and in most ways they'd done a bang-up job. There'd been the breeding program, of which Caliban had been the only viable result. You had to give them points for that. I would never have thought it was feasible—if they could even find a human who'd cooperate. Not that cooperation was strictly necessary, but in this day and age of technological beginnings and endings, cooperation was often more fruitful. So after a few decades or so of trying they had their hybrid Auphe-human. But although his mother had been the very spirit of helpfulness, the son was not. The Auphe had every expectation they'd be able to "convince" him to go along with their grand plan. You couldn't blame them. That was one bet I'd have guessed to be surefire myself.