“Hello, Brenner,” he said.
“I think I’d like to have a worrrrd with you,” drawled the assassin.
“I’m sure you would.” He set the bucket down. “You’re not planning on killing me or you’d have done it already, so perhaps you could move the knife?”
“Mmmm.” The knife pressed a little harder, the point creasing the skin just under his left ear, then moved away.
Caliban turned around, letting his hand drop to the hilt of his sword.
“Getting a bit comfortable with our Slate, are we?”
Dreaming God’s bones. We’re on a suicide mission, we’ve got carnivorous tattoos, we’re supposed to stop monsters that are like nothing I’ve ever seen…and now we’re going to have a fight because we’re both interested in the same woman.
On the one hand, it probably said something inspiring about the human spirit that it could rise above such things in pursuit of love.
On the other hand, it was pure bleedingidiocy.
“I’m sorry, would you have preferred I let her freeze to death in the rain? Or perhaps just let the horse carry her off to a broken neck?”
Brenner frowned. It was a different expression from his habitual scowl, and Caliban liked it a lot less. Dark hair fell into his face like a curtain.
Is this jealousy, or something else? How close are they, anyway?
“If you’re getting any ideas,” said Brenner softly, “I would keep them to myself, if I were you.”
Caliban put up an eyebrow. “Why do you care, anyway? You’re sleeping as cold at night as the rest of us.” He shifted his feet, and heard pine needles crunch underfoot.
Why am I baiting him? This is stupid. I should just say, “No, no, I’m not interested, all yours.” Do not bait the assassin. Did I take a blow to the head when I wasn’t looking?
Brenner tilted his head. His eyes flickered, but the point of the knife never wavered. “Oh, I won’t deny I wouldn’t like another chance at our Slate. She’s a dear thing when she’s not waiting to die.”
Caliban wasn’t surprised. He’d been more than half sure they’d been lovers once—there were too many intimacies between them that friends never achieved. This was only confirmation after all.
Whatdidsurprise him was the sudden knot in his stomach, and the hot, dizzy feeling inside his head.
What the hell is wrong with me?
What a stupid question. You’d need quite a list.
Nha, ghaa, ngh’aa…
The demon’s voice alone should have stopped him, but he could still taste the knot of—yes,fine, it was jealousy, or maybe only envy, that the assassin had done what he could not.
How had she looked at him when they were together? You could read every emotion on Slate’s face, usually from a mile off. What expressions had crossed it when the assassin had been in her bed?
Oh Dreaming God, we’re being fools and she’d kill us both if she knew.
“Fine,” he rasped. “Plead your case to her, not me. She won’t be best pleased if we stab each other.”
“Oh no. That’s not my point,” said Brenner, smiling now, which was even more ghastly than the frown.
“It isn’t?”
“It’s an odd thing,” he continued in a light, conversational tone, “but every killer I’ve ever known who killed for pleasure rather than money—and I’ve known a few—had the same thing going on in their heads. They got sex and death all tangled up, and if they couldn’t get the one, they’d have the other.”
Caliban had expected anything from a brotherly threat of bodily harm to a former lover’s outrage, and had thought he was prepared to weather it.
He hadn’t expected this.
