"Good is a relative term. As long as you don't kill him." The arm fell away as Niko amended grimly, "At least not quite yet."

Not yet. I could live with not yet… just barely.

Niko crouched beside the fallen Flay. He took in the blood, the lips locked in a rictus of pain, the ruby quartz eyes full of seething fury. "Not a good day for you," Niko observed icily. "Quite a shame."

"Oh, I don't know." Still leaning against the kitchen counter, Robin examined his latest manicure. "Caleb seems like a progressive creature. Perhaps our hairy friend here has a nice worker's comp package. This may be a dream come true for him." The smile he flashed was vulpine. "Then again, funeral benefits might be even better."

"Now… I'm certain Caleb has long deserted his office, but why don't you verify that for me." Niko straightened the collar of the wolfs black jacket with exquisite care, then wrapped his hand lightly around his already bruised throat. His fingers rested on the carotid pulse. "If you lie, I'll know it, and then… well, then I'll have to hurt you. Perhaps even maim you for life. And I don't want that. I don't enjoy setting a bad example for my impressionable younger brother. So, please, do cooperate."

It was a long speech for Nik, and he meant every word of it. Standing behind him, I watched as white lashes blinked with an uneasiness the automatic snarl couldn't hide. Working his mouth, Flay turned his head cautiously in Niko's grip and spit blood onto our floor. Oversized pointed yellowed teeth showed as his lips peeled back and he gave a strangled hiss. "Gone. Caleb… gone."

Big surprise.

"Do you know where he is?" The long fingers tightened on the pale throat until they almost sank from sight. "And, Flay, do think carefully before you answer. An albino wolf might not ever be Alpha in the pack, but a paralyzed wolf is five steps below a lame sheep."

Flay didn't have to think. His options were extremely limited at the moment and he knew it. With hatred warping the lines of his face into a violent mask, he told the truth. "No. Don't. Don't… know. Gone."

Caleb was gone and damn unlucky Flay was left in his place. Murderous, stupid, and too loyal for his own good—it wasn't a combination tailor-made for survival. Now ask me if I give a shit. Braced on one knee, my brother continued to study the increasingly blue wolf under his hand. When the blue shaded to a delicate lilac and Flay's heels began to drum against the floor, Niko released him. "Annoying." Standing, he repeated, "Very annoying." Insinuating a toe under the wheezing, coughing wolf's side, he expertly flipped him over onto his stomach and pulled his hands behind him. "Handcuffs," he said tersely.

Despite being in the midst of emotions as malignant as any cancer, I felt my eyebrows rise. We didn't have handcuffs. It wasn't as if we were going to drag a howling, jaywalking ghoul down to the local jail. If any eventuality could be prepared for, Niko would be standing at the front of the line. But this? But before I could ask what the hell he was talking about, Goodfellow dangled a pair from a finger. "I could show you something in a velvet-lined manacle," he offered matter-of-factly, "but I doubt you would be interested."

With a sideways glance, I took them and handed them to Niko, murmuring into his ear, "I know you two bonded while I was off trying to destroy the world, but exactly how did you go about it?"

The provoked indignation narrowing Nik's eyes was faked, but it helped. It did. As much as it could. "Needlepoint, mainly," he said with a quirk of his lips. "Backgammon on occasion." Cinching the cuffs tight enough to draw a protesting groan, he yanked the panting wolf to his feet. Pointing at the couch, he ordered, "Sit." Foam on his lips, both from near strangulation and fury, Flay staggered, then obeyed. "Good boy. Behave and I won't kill you. Misbehave… and I still won't kill you." Niko didn't smile often, and this tiny, lethal curve of the lips was no exception. "But, Flay, my fluoride-challenged friend, this not killing of you? It will last a week… minimum."

Flay wasn't at the top of his puppy class by any stretch of the imagination, but he got the drift. Ducking his head, bone ivory and scarlet, he stared sullenly downward. White lips writhed. "Behave."

"That is so what Daddy likes to hear." Robin moved over to Niko, then leaned past, and with a motion so fast that I barely caught the blur of it, he rammed a butcher knife from the kitchen into the millimeters-thick space separating Flay's legs. George was cherished, and by more than just me. With the handle resting snugly against his goody bag, the wolf went instantly green. It wasn't as if he could get much paler. "Simply because I'm third in line for your company, you parasite-ridden cur, I don't want you thinking I'll miss my turn," the puck said silkily. Straightening, Goodfellow tilted his head in Nik's direction. "Sorry. I know you chop your tofu with that." Then his eyes cut to me and he gave a disparaging sniff. "Or trim your toenails."

More desperate humor that fell flat, but I appreciated the effort. I appreciated anything that for a split second kept me from picturing George in Caleb's keeping. His not-so-gentle keeping. He'd fooled me, the son of a bitch. I should've known teeth like that are never purely decorative.

"Snowball." I wiped Flay's blood from my hands onto my jeans. "Snowball, Snowball." Resting my foot against the coffee table, I rammed it hard enough against his knees that the wood splintered and he howled in pain. Oddly enough, that fell squarely in the category of things I just didn't give a shit about. When he was done moaning, and it was fairly quick—

Caleb had hired a tough bastard—I asked in a voice empty and sterile, "So, what does the son of a bitch want?"

Flay's voice droned. On and on. A broken chunk of word here, a bit of twisted-metal phrase there—he coughed up Caleb's instructions… along with the occasional spray of blood. Yeah, wasn't that a shame? Not too surprisingly, it wasn't going to be simple. That didn't mean we couldn't do it. We could. To get George back we could do anything. And afterward, Caleb wouldn't live long enough to enjoy his little trinket.

"A crown?" Robin echoed disparagingly. "Really? That look went out long before toupees and polyester did, but if Caleb is so determined, I'm sure any rhinestone-loving street vendor can help him out."

"It… special. Special," Flay pushed out doggedly. He'd already said that. Trouble was, he didn't know what type of special it was. He had a description; hell, he had a full-color sketch in his pocket, but why Caleb lusted after the damn thing… on that, he couldn't guess. That was making the generous assumption Flay had the brain cells to even wonder at his boss's motivation.

On the paper, Caleb's desire was depicted as a simple circlet of metal, an oddly rosy gold. It didn't look like much, but that didn't change the fact that to get it was going to take some doing. Cerberus had it. The Cerberus we'd thought we were dealing with all along. Caleb didn't work for him, but Flay did. Snowball, double agent. It was laughable and even Flay knew it. Niko had asked him why he couldn't sniff around and find the thing himself since he was one of Cerberus's own. "Stupid." Bloody lips twisted. "Stupid. Caleb say. Cerb… erus say." The eyes flared in dull outrage, but there was also acceptance. Flay recognized his limitations, no matter how he might resent them. Since both his bosses derided him, Caleb must've been paying the most. Betraying someone like Cerberus couldn't come cheap.

Flay might not have been smarter than your average toilet fungus, but Caleb was. He'd planned this all perfectly. We'd proved we could take on a wolf as powerful as Boaz. In the same stroke we'd also been given an in with Cerberus. We'd kicked Boaz's ass, maybe killed him. Cerberus couldn't help but have at least a mild interest in someone who had taken down his rival. It would get us an audience with His Furry Majesty if nothing else.