Read Online Doubletake by Rob Thurman - Free Book Online Page B

kind of clothes Robin would wear”—I kept up the crumbling defense—“and all of them smell the same.” I hadn’t inherited the Auphe ability to see in the dark, but I had inherited their sharp sense of smell. “Every one of them smells like frigging Irish Spring. All green and minty. It’s not my fault.”
    He put the glass down and patted my back. “It was nice knowing you, little brother. When Goodfellow is through with you and if there’s enough left to bury, I’ll find you a nice plot.” The pucks kept pouring through the door and, immune to pheromones or not, I felt pretty damn panicked as they kept coming and coming. And I wasn’t touching that double entendre with a ten-foot pole…or
that
one either.
    Another puck came pushing through the crowd. As soon as the others spotted him they started singing some ancient seventies song: “‘Do you like piña coladas? And getting caught in the rain…’” The tone was pure derisive malice, obviously not a “Hey, great to see ya, brother. Congrats on the boyfriend” song.
    A fist banged against the bar, rattling the glasses. “Who told them?” this puck demanded with a poisonous hiss that would’ve done any rattlesnake proud.
    “Goodfellow?” Niko asked dubiously.
    “Yes, Goodfellow. Goodfellow who has been outed as a freak monogamist whose shame will follow him to his dying day. Now
who
told?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He grabbed a handful of my shirt. “Why do I even ask? We are pucks. Didn’t that one brain cell you possess wake up long enough to let you know
we
all lie?
We
alldeceive?
We
all hate one another’s attention-snatching guts and would do anything to humiliate one another?”
    He didn’t give me a chance to respond. “Ah, what did I expect? You’re a Boy Scout in a con man convention. If con men had the drive and conscience of Jack the Ripper.”
    Me? A Boy Scout? With the things I’d done? That was a first, but considering this company, he could be right. Releasing my shirt, he dropped his forehead onto the bar and mumbled, “We should’ve worked out a safe word. Give me three bottles of scotch.”
    A hand slapped his shoulder and squeezed. “Would you like a mercy killing? I’d hate for a tainted monogamy cell to enter the race should you lose the lottery.”
    It was the one who’d masqueraded as Robin. I could tell only by what he was wearing. Otherwise he and Goodfellow were beyond identical. It was creepy. The bar was full of about seventy of them, and besides length of hair, clothing, and the occasional scar, they were as Nik had said: clones. Your brain squirmed at the sight of it. It was unnatural—mirrors within mirrors. “No, thank you, Faunus,” Goodfellow said smoothly, sitting up. “I’d rather discuss how you haven’t had sex
at all
in a year. Did you take vows or is it true that an incubus bit off your penis in disappointment at your pathetic performance?” He grabbed the hand on his shoulder, slammed it on the bar, and pinned it there with a beautiful Spanish poniard gleaming silver and needle sharp. “Let us check and see.”
    I turned my back just in time to hear the slide of material as pants were yanked down and then a pained groan from the entire bar. Apparently the incubus story edged out the taking-vows one.
    “Is this the type of fight you hired us to prevent?”Niko questioned. I didn’t know where his gaze was, on Goodfellow or Faunus, because I remained with my back to the Panic. I might work that way the entire night if it was feasible—serving the customers without facing them.
    “Hardly,” Goodfellow dismissed. “A fight will be when one of us genuinely tries to kill another. We need alcohol to lubricate that into motion. Give us an hour. And you can look again, Cal—not that there was anything to see.” There was a wicked gloat at the monogamy revenge in the words. “His pants are back up. Luckily he does have a belt, as there is nothing else to hold them up.”
    Warily, I