chez_jae

Doubletake by Rob Thurman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I took Friday off work, just for the hell of it, and I spent most of the day reading Doubletake, which is the 7th part of Rob Thurman's "Cal Leandros" series. Main character, of course, is our favorite snarky half-Auphe, Caliban "Cal" Leandros. Note that I mentioned he's our favorite; this becomes important later. Foreshadowing!

Family is a bitch, and no one knows that better than Cal. He's one-half of a monster so horrific that all other supernaturals live(d) in fear of it. This time around, however, it's his brother, Niko, who is feeling the familial pain when his previously absent father shows up, needing a big favor. Cal takes an immediate dislike to Emilian Kalakos, but he steps aside to let Niko handle the situation as he sees fit. In the meantime, Robin Goodfellow, the puck of legend and a friend to Cal and Niko, has his own family issues to deal with. The entirety of his race is descending on NYC for their once-in-a-millennium reunion. The gathering is called, appropriately enough, the Panic. Every other non-human has the sense to leave town, which means that Robin has only Cal and Niko to call on in order to serve as bartenders/security for the Panic.

The Panic and Kalakos would be enough of a headache, but Cal is also confronted by family--another half-Auphe who is keenly interested in seeing which of them is the better monster. Cal must play along to keep his family and friends safe, even if it means shedding more of his own humanity to do so.

Let me just say this upfront: Enough. I am growing weary of the Auphe. Cal (and the readers) deserve respite. In book 1, the Auphe were destroyed. In book 2, oh hey, some of them managed to survive. In book 4, the rest of the Auphe were destroyed. Yay! In book 6, Cal learns there are other halfbreeds, so he finds them, caged and insane, and delivers a quick coup de grace. Phew! Now, here we are in book 7, and, oh no, there's another evil half-Auphe out there. Better yet, he's found the perfect source of "broodmares", and he's amassing his own, diluted Auphe army. *head desk*

That's not the only thing that bothered me; my Logic Brain kicked in once again to ruin a good story.
- First of all, why would Grimm look anything like Cal? Yes, they both had Auphe sires, but their human mothers wouldn't have looked similar.
- Second, if (as Cal learned in book 4) the Auphe always knew where Cal was, why would they not have been keeping tabs on Grimm? Enough to learn that he was becoming what they had tried to force Cal to be, and that Grimm would be more amenable to their plans.
- Third, if Grimm spent the first 18 years of his life in a cage, being beaten and tortured, how was/is he able to assimilate among humans at all? One would think he'd be like a rabid animal when he escaped. Cal was, after only 2 years of captivity and torture, and it was only Niko's patience and perseverance that brought him back from the edge of madness.
- Fourth, since the last of the Auphe (all females) were desperate to use Cal for stud service, would they not, once again, have chosen Grimm instead? Again, he's just as Auphe as Cal, but in a better breeding disposition.
- Fifth, since Cal realized in book 4 that he had always subconsciously been as aware of the Auphe as they were of him, why did he not sense Grimm? Or be able to sense Grimm's grim offspring?
- Finally, if it took the blood of a Vaysh Rom to activate and then deactivate the Janus automaton, why didn't spilling Cal's blood cause it to shut down?

I wish authors wouldn't forget their own plot devices or, as may be the case, simply choose to ignore what they'd laid out in earlier books. It would be like JK Rowling having Harry Potter Apparating in and out of Hogwarts, even though she'd earlier specified no one could do such a thing. I dunno. Not happy about the never-fucking-ending saga of the Auphe.

Okay. All of that aside, I did enjoy the book. How could I not? It's Cal and Niko and Robin! Again, I would have loved to get some of this in Niko's point of view. He was keeping it together rather well but for a marked increase in cursing. Even Cal was impressed. Ha ha! We learned more about Robin, and it was funny to find out that he'd foisted three of his mummified cats off on Promise...and that Promise was unable to evict them from her penthouse because they were too fast for her to catch. LOL! Cal and Niko are still as devoted to one another as ever, maybe even more so in the face of family neither one ever wanted to meet. The plot caromed along at a frenzied pace, and there were some stunning twists and surprises.

♦ No one could tell me that Noah didn't pitch a few of his relatives kicking and screaming off the Ark long before the floodwaters receded.
♦ I watched my brother's back; he watched mine. We were a Hallmark card dipped in blood and made of unbreakable steel.
♦ "Can you get this one off of my leg before I need sexual assault counseling?"
♦ "If you can't do a minimum of three tasks at once, I have failed you with all my training and instruction. I'd blame myself, but clearly it's entirely your fault, your laziness, your total ineptitude." // It wasn't as if I hadn't heard that all before. If adults heard lullabies when they slept, that would be mine.
Cal finds his brother's scolding to be soothing...how cute!
♦ I wasn't good or bad. I was only me, and I was neither.
♦ "Three seconds and he's a rug under the coffee table. Your move, Cyrano." Did Niko have a proud, hawklike nose? Yes, he did. Did I give him hell over it? What do you think?
♦ I had a high pain tolerance--you learned to in this business--but to balance it out, my tolerance for nearly everything else remotely irritable in the universe was low. Damn low.
♦ But hand held to the empty, godless space that filled the sky, if I killed you, you usually had it coming. Or you just weren't that quick. In my world, the two were practically the same.
♦ "I'm paying your bill this time. I'm a puck, a trickster, and a used-car salesman. Don't think I won't squeeze every penny out of Niko's well-shaped ass if you don't perform this job to perfection."
♦ "Robin is hiring us for a job, and I'm thinking seriously about taking a dive in the fifth, because it's your ass on the line if we screw up." // "Goodfellow will be a good client. He wouldn't cheat us. And let us leave my ass out of it. Why I claim you as my blood, I will never know."
♦ It was a goddamn shame my booty-call werewolf, Delilah, or Puppy Le Screw, as Robin liked to call her, had tried to kill my family and friends, and was considering the same for me if she had the chance, because I really really needed to get laid.
♦ After nearly a hundred thousand years of debauchery and extreme horniness, he'd embraced monogamy. I suspected it was a puck brain tumor. Or it would pass in another few months. A monogamous Goodfellow was as if aliens came to Earth and didn't want to hunt you, eat you, or screw your women. Extremely unlikely.
♦ I stood pounding on Goodfellow's door. "Porn and pizza. Asses and anchovies delivered in thirty minutes or it's free." // Niko had threatened to kill me in my sleep if I wore any more T-shirts with obscene, violence-encouraging, or just plain fun-with-chainsaw slogans on them. I had to get my entertainment somewhere else now. // I banged against the door again. "Pony play and pad thai. Get it while it's hot." I didn't have to see Niko's hand to know it was aiming for the back of my head. I ducked with the instinct of a thousand received swats.
♦ (Salome) was a Grim Reaper on four paws and I liked to stay on her good side. So a few months ago I brought her a boyfriend. "Spartacus," I called. "how's it hanging?" I caught him as he slithered out from under the couch and leaped through the air, a zombie feline missile.
♦ He'd gone to serious trouble to tempt us, and Goodfellow didn't go to serious trouble to do anything. He manipulated, deceived, lied, but not this. Honesty, money, and snacks? This was bad.
♦ "It's my family reunion. The whole of the puck race here in New York City. Tomorrow." // I choked on the bite of meatball, feeling the suck of it into my airway, and halfway hoping it would do the favor of killing me before I could cough it out. Niko gave me an unconcerned smack on the back, which only had the hunk of meat lodging deeper, while murmuring, "We should have asked for more money." // "You haven't asked for any money yet," Goodfellow pointed out. // "It doesn't change the fact that we should have and will ask for more." Niko slapped a hand between my shoulder blades again, saying, "One more cough and if that doesn't do the trick, Robin gives you the Heimlich. The key concept in Heimlich being 'from behind'." // I promptly expelled the chunk of Gino's finest onto the table.
♦ "So? Fifteen thousand dollars? Does that sound good?" // "Thirty," Niko corrected. If Robin was offering fifteen, it was worth at least two to four times as much. "And you haven't mentioned precisely what you want us to do." // "Babysit mostly." He handed over the check with a sharkish smile that said Niko should have asked for fifty thousand. "All our well-deserved high self-esteems"--unbearable egos from hell--"in one place tends to lead to disagreements...some verbal abuse...small fights...attempted murders...large riots. That sort of thing. You'll be like bouncers, keeping everyone in check."
♦ "I'm more concerned about the Panic." "Concerned" was a good euphemism for metaphorically shitting my pants.
♦ Goodfellow had been at our side for three or four years now. He was the most loyal son of a bitch around, to us anyway, but every encounter with him put you one step closer to a mental hospital.
♦ I'd seen him naked three times, accidentally, and I didn't give a shit which way the guy swung (he swung all ways...he swung in directions and dimensions scientists hadn't plotted yet) as long as he didn't hit on me. He did chase Niko in the beginning, but as much as I loved my brother, he was on his own there. And good luck.
♦ Niko stayed up to read or meditate or trim his bonsai tree while thinking of ten ways to kill a revenant with its tiny gnarled branches and leaves.
♦ I was still in bed when I heard the knocking, but I staggered up, cursing at the hair hanging down past my eyes and wearing nothing but sweat pants and two pairs of socks. My feet got cold. Hercules probably had acid reflux. We all had our weaknesses.
♦ "All right. Extremely important. Before the others get here you are not to mention, hint, or even think about how I'm in a monogamous relationship. Are we clear? It would ruin my reputation among the Panic. They'd hang me from the ceiling and beat me like a piñata."
♦ The pucks kept pouring through the door and, immune to pheromones or not, I felt pretty damned panicked as they kept coming and coming. And I wasn't touching that double entendre with a ten-foot pole...or that one either.
♦ I felt like I'd asked someone what time it was and they beat me to death with Big Ben. Someone was cranky.
♦ Both of us had started pouring drinks when one of the pucks shouted, "Where's the entertainment? The strippers! The whores! I've ten thousand dollars in fives and a crotch on fire! Bring on the orgy!" // "Oh God," I croaked. The glass in my hand fell to shatter on the floor. // And Niko didn't catch it. Niko and his unmatched reflexes didn't catch the glass. For the first time in his adult life, I thought my brother was frozen with fear.
♦ I thought about shooting myself in the head. I thought about shooting the puck, but taking out seventy wasn't going to happen. I decided on the simple: running out the emergency exit doors, if Niko didn't beat me to them. But it was too late. There were three reasons for that. One was the commitment we'd made to Robin--by commitment I meant the money we'd taken and had no intention of giving back. The second was the chains I saw wrapped and locked around the emergency exit door push bars. Goddamn mind-reading Goodfellow. The third was the worst. The entertainment had arrived.
♦ "I'm surprised Goodfellow didn't go all out and bring in chandeliers from which they could swing," Niko said. // I pointed to a corner where a leather swing was being set up to hang from the ceiling. "Ah." Niko exhaled, to center himself--I'd seen him do it many times before. "You're fascinated with the porn channel. Now you get the three-dimensional version. I'd think you'd be enjoying yourself." // "I like a candy bar once in a while too. This is being stuck in Willy Wonka's Perverted Sex Factory." I started pouring drinks. It was a job. Muscle through it.
♦ Robin wasn't going to be forgiven for this, not until the day I died and was a year in the ground. Niko was fending off probably the twentieth puck of the night--they definitely liked blonds--with his sword. "Bartenders are off-limits," he was repeating. "Tell your brothers. No means no. It also means I will remove a very different kind of sword from them if they don't respect that."
Spoilsport
♦ I had a gun in each hand, arms extended to press the muzzles against two puck foreheads. "Drop the swords and go sit the fuck down. This establishment is losing patience with its customers, and when it does, it doesn't refuse them service, it refuses them life. Got it?"
♦ Niko circled the next potential mass murder--five pucks squabbling--waiting to see if it got out of hand. // "Did I mention at the last reunion that I screwed Lady Godiva?" // "No, you credit-thieving maggot, I did." // "No, I did, and I have a lock of her hair to prove it." // "I didn't care for her. Stuck-up bitch with the worst horsehair wig in the hemisphere. Now let's talk Eve..." // "Eve? You are an idiot. I was there. That whole show was mine, all mine. It was hilarious. I kept pelting her with apples and shouting, 'Eat it! Come on, you apple-hating nudist, Eat it!' Then I'd hiss a few times from the bushes to throw suspicion elsewhere. I thought I was going to lose my pitching arm before I finally hit her in that incredibly empty head with the tenth one, but she at last took a bite. I know I gave her a fruit phobia for the rest of her life--not to mention death, menses, and painful childbirth, but, more important, that bet was won. I had Michael, Gabriel, Azrael, and Lucifer handing over their flaming swords and then their other flaming swords, if you get my drift and I know you do. Now, that was a party. I'll bet their daddy paddled their asses good when they dragged themselves home a week later."
♦ One of the pucks appeared in front of the bar directly before me as I was handing Niko a leftover hundred-dollar bill that a puck had tried to shove under his apron about an hour ago. As brotherly emotions went, he was less thankful than he could have been.
♦ He waved a hand. "Go, and, Niko, feel free to keep all the dollar bills they stuffed down your apron." There were wads of them. All pucks, not only Goodfellow, had a thing for my brother. But that was a discussion for, well, not now. I took the opportunity offered and was out the door with Niko on my heels before Goodfellow had a chance to change his mind. // "You are splitting those tips with me, right?" I asked Niko as the door slammed behind us. // "As frequently as I was groped tonight, all for the greater good and the continuance of the puck race...no. You don't get a dime. I'm donating it to the spay-and-neuter program at the local shelter. It seems appropriate."
♦ Blood. It has a unique, soothing heat that lets you know you might not have bought the farm yet, but the Realtor has the contract in front of you, and the pen is in your hand.
♦ "You also have a mild burn to your face from the first explosive round you fired. Fortunately that one knocked the automaton back far enough that the flash from the other rounds didn't reach you. Although if it had happened, I'm certain Goodfellow would be the first in line with the barbecue sauce." // "You engage in one bonding incident of cannibalism to save your life from a pissed-off pack of natives and you never live it down," Robin muttered.
♦ "Doctor, samurai, weapons expert, teacher, historian, barkeep-slash-puck boy toy, monster killer. You're this generation's Buckaroo Banzai," Robin drawled.
♦ Goodfellow always had a way of getting anyone's attention, any time, anywhere, any way. I heard his cheerful comment close to my ear. "You know what surgery tends to include?" The next word went from cheerful to wickedly gleeful. "Catheters." // I opened my eyes and glared first at him, then at Niko. "You didn't let him"--I waved a hand at the general area--"play around down there. Tell me you didn't. Niko, I will kick your ass so damn far it'll rotate around the earth like a fucking defense satellite." // He shrugged. "It's a simple procedure, especially for someone like Goodfellow, with so much experience in that area."
♦ "That means we avoid it if possible until you're well enough to send it to Tumulus. I am guessing that's where you were attempting to send it." // "No, Nik, to Coney Island for a roller-coaster ride and a giant goddamn pretzel."
♦ Kalakos didn't know Nik, had never bothered to know him, but I knew him. I knew that while he rarely lost control, when he did...it was one goddamn thing to see. And he was standing on the edge. Teetering.
♦ "I'm never dead." I grinned reassuringly. "Heaven doesn't exist and hell has barricaded the door. I'm stuck here."
♦ The soap meant I'd been given a sponge bath during my narcotic sleep, ridding me of blood and betadine. I'd have been embarrassed, but then Niko would remind me of how he changed my diapers when I was a baby. The last time he said that, I'd considered beating him to death with a box of Pampers.
♦ The clang of metal against metal was audible long before I walked down the hall. // "What's going on? I thought we were leaving. Why doesn't Niko just take his head, shout, 'There can only be one' and get this over with?"// "Niko will let him live only because he made you whole again, but your brother requires working out a good deal of frustration regardless. Hundreds of years and the male psyche still escapes me."
♦ Robin folded his arms, leaned back against the armrest, and stretched out, while propping his legs across Promise's lap. He glanced at the peek of Promise's fangs over her lower lip. "Greetings, Elvira. Is that an overbite or are you just happy to see me?" He didn't wait for an answer or for her to break his neck, the second being more likely. "Now this is exceedingly more engaging. Hot, sweaty men in battle. Thank Zeus that Ishiah doesn't mind my looking." // Promise gave his legs the same regard she would have if a giant gelatinous snail had flopped across her lap, but inhaled deeply and turned her attention back to the fight. For once in their lives she and Robin agreed on something. "The only way one such as you could not look is if your eyes were plucked from their sockets." She tapped a painted nail against his chest, but he was beyond threats, his brain completely shut down. I could smell the waves of whatever was the puck equivalent of testosterone rising. He was practically one of those deodorizers they hang around car rearview mirrors. Scent: horny. Shape: I wasn't going there.
♦ "Shit. Niko, now!" He didn't question. He propelled himself across the room, lunged, and landed on top of Robin and Promise, which was a Goodfellow wet dream come true, and then I threw myself off the counter and onto Nik.
♦ "Isn't the absolute magnitude of the supernatural enough for you? Must you humans continually offend us with your fairy dust and your talking, colored egg-crapping rabbits? There is no magic. None."
♦ "Was I put in my place?" Niko asked me ruefully, not entirely used to the feeling. // I was, however, and didn't mind seeing someone else suffer. "You were puck-slapped but good."
♦ It wasn't the kind of weather you layered for, and I was wearing a bright green cashmere Lacoste cardigan over a pink Polo shirt, pleated khaki pants, white socks, and loafers. // "What did you do to piss off Goodfellow this badly?" Niko asked, edging away from me as if I were color-contagious. He was dressed in the black-and-gray clothes the puck had smugly given him. Normal clothes. The kind that didn't make you look like someone pulled the head off a Golfing Ken doll and stuck a catastrophically pissed-off serial killer's head in its place, which was a look I was pulling off in spades.
♦ I looked back down at the clothes that were my punishment for pissing off Robin. "Nik, if Hephaestus kills me, strip me, would you? I don't want my corpse seen like this." None of the clothes had been worn before. Robin had been waiting with this vengeance bomb for a while, and I'd been the one to set it off.
♦ There was a flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see Robin considering the picture on his phone. "I have the shot of the infamous Leandros penis--infamous like the Loch Ness monster: Most thought it a rumor. I have a preppy demon spawn armed by Nordstrom assaulting criminals. It's a start to a porn site. I just need a theme."
♦ I didn't wonder how the dead or deadish slept. When I'd discovered there were undead mummified cats that followed pucks home and made themselves queen of the condo, I stopped questioning dead right then and there as too complicated for me.
♦ No matter how old you are, big brothers, at least the good ones, never stop thinking it's their job to look out for you and to watch your back. I knew if I lived to be eighty and Nik eighty-two, sharing a room at the nursing home, he'd be asking why I sent back my tapioca pudding and beating the nurse's aide with his walker for losing my dentures.
♦ "Later," I repeated, "okay?" The "okay" was my version of "please". Nik would recognize it, but no one else would. Goodfellow already had a picture of me beating a man with a frigging loafer. He didn't need soppy dialogue to put on his planned Web site to go with it.
♦ It didn't matter how ready your body was for the fight. It was a given: If your head was up your ass and your brain didn't know up from down or what that smell was, you were dead.
♦ Niko's hand had gone from pushing to fisting my shirt--Jesus, I was going to die in this pink shirt--and yanking me to stand still. "What is he making?" // A brilliant mind asking a question with the most obvious of answers. Or let's be honest. Just a damn stupid question. // "Something to kill us, Dr Oblivious," I hissed.
♦ "I think I'm ready to shoot in the Olympics now." // "You were ready for the Olympics seven years ago. Stop stroking your ego and your penis extension and move." Niko was up and running flat-out for the entrance. I was on his heels.
♦ In the car, I made Robin sit in the back with Kalakos and hoped for one day that he could at least pretend to let the monogamy slide. Man hath no fear like a close-minded Rom chased by a puck ready to tap that, knock some boots, bang some balls, whatever those puck kids were calling it these days. If I had cut Kalakos' throat when he first showed up, as I'd been tempted to, it wouldn't approach the punishment of a horny puck thinking you reminded him of Achilles.
♦ "Part of your tattoo says 'brothers' in Latin. What does the rest say?" // "It says, 'If you're close enough to read this, I'm going to pluck out your eyes and use them as Ping-Pong balls.' Mind your own damned business."
♦ "You have a tattoo as well. Same black and red, but a different language. I do not recognize it." What does it say? went unspoken, as Niko wouldn't threaten to make Ping-Pong balls of his eyes; he'd do it first, warn after the fact. // But Niko did answer. "'Brothers Before Souls'. Cal's gift, albeit drunken, to me." // It was my promise to Niko, and he might not have wanted it, but he knew what the tattoo meant. Exactly what it said.
♦ "If I screamed or yelled every time I was cut up and Nik had to turn me into a craft project, I'd lose my voice."
♦ "Sure, get your asses in here before Pinky brings the police running with all that blood." // Me being Pinky. Goodfellow and that damned shirt he'd forced on me would make sure that nickname stuck around for a year or so.
♦ "They suck blood through a hardened, long, tube-shaped tongue, sometimes even taking the blood directly from the heart if they strike deeply enough. They form in colonies as real bats do, but are much larger. They--" // A dark, olive-skinned hand came up to smack the back of Niko's head like the countless times my brother had smacked mine. Kalakos growled, "We are about to die. Could we do it without the enlightening voice-over." // "I still hate you, Kalakos," I said, "but that is a memory I'll keep to my dying day." Which might be this day. And dying in a pink shirt was still in my future. Goddamn it.
♦ "Holy shit, why are they sliced in half? What keeps their guts from falling out? That is disgusting. Niko..." // "If we live, you can Google it when we get home. I don't want to weigh you down with so much information that it slows your running." If we lived...I was currently on Niko's shit list, which made one not that invested in living. // "I was listening. I didn't do anything. It was Kalakos. I marvel at every fact that falls from your lips, I swear." // "You'd best hope and pray we do die." One drop of vengeance in an ocean of head slaps I'd received over the years and Niko was holding a grudge. After the past two days, the calming effects of his meditation were taking a beating.
♦ Five minutes later he'd kicked Robin off the one couch in the room and had me on it with pillow and blanket. Goodfellow complained; I didn't blame him. The cushions were soft and comfortable. The floor wasn't going to be either one. But I heard Nik telling him it was time for his shower and first aid assisted by Niko himself. My brother, he knew how to take one for the team.
Meow chicka meow meow!
♦ I started to elbow his ribs as usual, but remembered we all had weeks to go before we weren't the next-best thing to pork cutlets. I wanted to give him a hard time, not double him over in pain.
♦ "How many times do I have to say that this non-Niko cursing is beginning to worry me."
♦ She hugged me thoroughly until my bones creaked and I was inhaling sequins. I heard the click in Niko's throat he made when he was desperately trying not to laugh. His laughter was rare and I'd have wanted to hear it if it weren't at my expense and would get him shot as well.
♦ Salome and Spartacus weren't perturbed. What would perturb a dead cat, I didn't know, but they were batting around an old skull Goodfellow had given them.
♦ He'd tried to give her two undead mummified cats out of the eleven I'd dumped in his condo. When she turned them down, he'd waited until she was out at dinner with Niko one night and given her three instead. Each had engraved collars: Vlad, Spike, and Elvira. And they wouldn't leave. As strong and quick as vampires are, Promise hadn't been able to catch a single one. She was stuck with them and not a cat person. Every cat person knows that not liking them makes cats like you and enjoy torturing you all the more. I had no sympathy. If you weren't an undead mummified cat person, there was something wrong with you.
♦ "She sounded pissed," I said after he disconnected. // "She is--a good deal lately." // "Maybe it's because the cats line up on her headboard and watch the two of you when you have sex?" I suggested. // "How did you..." Niko frowned. "I meant, that does not happen."
♦ He turned sideways and fell backward beside me. After a good five minutes, he said calmly, "I think you broke me."
♦ "Shut up." That was Niko on the ragged edge. // I thought and uncrossed my arm from my chest and held it over to him. "Want to hold my hand? I think I'd feel better." // This time the laughter was real, the guilt was less, and I definitely saw stars above. // "You are such an ass." He snorted. He'd said that already, but I let it go. // "I told you not to trust a man like that. Big nose. Blond hair and dark skin, that's just weird. Way too good with a sword. Obviously exercised too much. Probably liked bonsai trees and dating vampires too. Sign of a nut job right there." // He slapped me on the stomach and said for the third time, "Complete and utter ass." This time we both laughed.
♦ Robin sat on his couch where Niko rested, Spartacus having half strangled himself in my brother's braid.
♦ "He held my hand when he thought I almost died," I told Robin, tossing back the phone. "And although it was too dark to see for sure, I think he might've cried." // "I did not. I shook you and pounded your head against the ground, which unfortunately didn't knock anything back into place." He frowned. I grinned.

This was as exciting, entertaining, and enthralling as every other book in the series, but I'm knocking one star off (Auphe?) for the lather-rinse-repeat of Cal's heritage coming to bite him in the ass. AGAIN. Four stars.

cal