Free Blackout by Rob Thurman Page A

issues. “Why, Cal, do you not want to go home?”
    I chewed the sausage and swallowed, using some of my own orange juice to chase it down. “I was attacked by giant spiders, I’ve lost my memory, I carried more weapons than the Deathstar, and I woke up on a beach a few minutes before I would’ve drowned. If that’s what I do in New York, why would I want to go back? I worked four days at a diner and no one tried to kill me once. The money wasn’t great, but, again, no one tried to kill me. If I’m some kind of monster exterminator, I have to think there’s a better way to make money. And you still haven’t explained why I was fighting the spiders, who for, did I get paid, and what was I doing in South Carolina if I live in New York.” I took a bite of my waffles and said, muffled, around the mouthful, “Or if you’re keeping watch at night for me or for something else. Don’t think I forgot about that because you sicced Mr. Monogamy on me.”
    Niko put his spoon down with a sigh. “We, not just you, are working for a coalition of the preternatural in New York. Something is sending the Nepenthe spiders to kidnap werewolves, vampires, revenants, lamia, succubi, incubi, on and on—anything nonhuman. Sometimes their bodies are found, sometimes not, but none are ever seen alive again. We were hired to stop the creature behind this.”
    “God, not creature. Well, goddess. Ammut,” Robin said cheerfully, slicing his ham to small pieces. “She’s supposedly an Egyptian goddess, which, of course, I , personally, figured out from the Nepenthe spiders. I was in Egypt hanging at the court of Ramses for a while. That obelisk he built, let’s just say I personally might be the reason he was obsessed with large phallic objects. But I digress. The spiders are from Egypt, originally birthed before the time of the pyramids. Their venom, greatly diluted, can bring forgetfulness to the sorrowful. It was called the nepenthe elixir—psychotherapy for the pharaohs. It was all the rage for the royalty who could afford to lose several servants to catch one of the spiders. However, a direct bite will make an animal or human forget how to run, to stand, to move, to think, to breathe even, making them easy prey. Snap, snap and all the baby spiders have dinner that night. Very efficient.”
    Goddess? We were after a goddess ?
    The next bite of waffle on my fork slowly slid off to splat in a pool of syrup on the plate. “What … the … fuck?” I said with what I classified as extraordinary calm before throwing that calm out the window and trying to stab Goodfellow with the fork—again.
    Niko dragged me backward out of the diner, which was across the street from the motel, with his arm in a chokehold around my neck. Goodfellow followed, though, with enough lag that I was guessing he paid the check. I stumbled purposely as he came through the doors, felt the hold on my throat ease slightly—brotherly love turned out to be a great weakness—flipped Niko over my shoulder, and went after Goodfellow again. Who needed guns and knives—forks were my new weapon of choice.
    As I hit Goodfellow, he twisted in a move I’d swear no one, unless they had Silly Putty for bones, could accomplish, and I somersaulted over his hip to land flat on my back. My head bounced on the asphalt in a manner I didn’t at all enjoy. Hissing in pain, I blinked against the double vision to bring into focus the two faces peering down at me. One was concerned and one puzzled.
    “Was it something I said?” Goodfellow questioned, all innocence. He tilted his head toward Niko. “It could’ve been you. Vampires, werewolves, revenants, yadda yadda. Perhaps you blew a circuit in his view of a two-monster world: spiders and the magnificence that are pucks in all our glory.”
    Right then I hated them both equally enough that Goodfellow had a good argument in the blame department. No, not Goodfellow. Puck. He was a puck. He didn’t deserve a name, the annoying