Chapter Four

??ran?: two and a half weeks later, November 28th, Thanksgiving Day

Nyko Brun leapt back asthe gym locker next to his exploded, shooting out a cloud of snowy powder that engulfed the top half of his younger brother, Jacken.

Stunned, Jacken just stood and blinked, two black eyes peering out of a mime's mask.

Nyko snorted and quickly ducked his head to cover further laughter. Heck, that was funny as all get-out.

The other warriors in the locker room weren't as discreet, every one of them breaking into hoots and guffaws. The Costache brothers, Arc and Thomal, threw back their heads at the same time and roared with laughter, and Gábor Pavenic sagged down onto one of the benches, his left arm—the one with the bull skull tattoo on it—clutched around his middle. Even Breen Dalakis, who usually blank-faced most things in life, bowed his head in quiet laughter, his black hair hanging into his eyes.

"Man, Jacken," Dev Nichita gasped between laughs, his teeth bright white against his black goatee. "I've never seen you look so…so…"

Like a baby seal? Nyko gulped down another laugh. Jacken Brun, leader of the Warrior Class, was hands-down the toughest of their group. So this was just too much.

"I don't know…" Dev opened his own locker. "Like a—" Sh-wham. A burst of red powder shot out of Dev's locker and splatted against his bare chest and face.

With a ha-whoop, Gábor fell off his bench.

Breen clunked his forehead against the locker, his shoulders full-on shaking now.

"What the hell?!" Dev snapped.

"Whoa," Thomal said. "You look like an Om R?u got the squirts on you, man." Thomal, Dev's best friend, had tried to dead-pan that, but his lips were twitching pretty badly.

"Okay, guys, we need to watch our asses here." Sedge St?nescu, a better-looking version of the WWF wrestler Hulk Hogan, cracked open his own locker and peeked inside.

"Nah, the rest of us don't need to worry." Arc, the older and slightly taller of the Costache brothers, threw open his locker without incident. "This is just Alex using his special effects skills to mess with Jacken and Dev. His two brothers-in-law."

Nyko made a ah noise of understanding. Alex Parthen had bonded with black-haired, sweetheart Varcolac, Luvera—sister to Dev, who was now vaguely Clifford the Dog looking—a week ago, and Alex's sister Toni Parthen, illustrious co-leader of this refuge underground community called ??ran?, was wife to Frosty the Snowman over there. Guess this was how Alex said "howdy" to his relations.

"I'm going to rip Alex's head off," Dev snarled.

Arc looked taken aback. "You can't do that. This was a prank, Nichita. You have to prank him back."

Dev's eyebrows bunched together.

Arc frowned. "Didn't you ever joke around with Luvera when you two were growing up?"

"She's a girl."

And all but ignored in the Nichita household her whole life. Nyko pulled on his workout shirt. Kind of wished he'd known that about Luvera. He would've made an effort to talk to her more, even though his vow of celibacy generally had him keeping his interactions with the fairer sex on a hi, how're you doing today? level and not much more.

Arc turned toward Jacken and Nyko. "Didn't you guys prank each other?"

Nyko shrugged. "Not really." Nyko, Jacken, and their younger brother, Shon, had been born and raised in O??rat, the neighboring underground town of the demon Om R?u race. Life had been cruddy enough there without them messing with each other.

"Unbelievable." Arc rolled his eyes. "Well, we"—he gestured back and forth between himself and Thomal—"used to pull shit on each other all of the time." A light of amusement brightened in Arc's eyes as he kept his focus on Thomal. "Remember when I put pink hair dye in your shampoo?"

Thomal chuckled. "I looked like a punk rocker for a week. Till I got sick of it and shaved my head."

Arc and Thomal laughed together, their gazes holding for a moment of brotherly camaraderie.

Hmm. Maybe Nyko should have pranked his brothers.

A knock interrupted them. "Hey there," Toni Parthen called out. "May I come in?" The locker room door cracked open. "Everyone decent?"

When no one protested, Toni stepped all the way inside. She was dressed professionally in brown pants and a silky-looking blue blouse that matched her eyes. The top half of her strawberry blonde hair was tied back, the rest left to drape her shoulders. "Jacken, I need you to—my God." Her brows rose into a high arc. "Why do you look like you barely survived a Johnson's Baby Powder factory mishap?"

The warriors chortled.

Jacken's voice was brittle with annoyance. "This is your brother's idea of a damned joke."

"Alex did this? Uh, oh, you'd better not get it wet, then."

"Aw, hell!" Thomal shouted toward the showers. "Nichita!"

Dev reappeared into the main part of the locker room, the sound of water running behind him. He was naked as the day he was born, except for the twinkle of his trademark gold hoop earring in his left lobe. He spread his arms to show off a soaking wet body now stained with dripping red lava-marks. "What is this stuff, anyway?"

Another raucous burst of laughter erupted out of the men. God knew how any of them were ever going to get work done today.

"And there," Toni sighed, "is Dev's penis again."

Jacken's head whipped around so fast, white powder jet-sprayed off the top of his black hair.

Nyko snort-gulped another laugh.

Jacken pointed a rigid finger at his wife, the long black teeth tattoos along his forearm bulging. "Out!" he ordered her.

Toni's lips twisted. "You can't really expect me to take you seriously when you look like a French pastry, can you?"

With a low, rumbling growl, Jacken started for his wife.

Toni scuttled backward, her eyes sparkling. "All right, all right."

Once upon a time, back before Jacken and Toni were together, Dev had tried to seduce Toni in his bedroom—naked, so the story went—and Jacken was a little sensitive about it. Kind of understandable. Nyko wouldn't want his wife, doctor or not, glimpsing Dev's, er, the size of Dev's…you know, his, um…. Never mind. And not that he made a habit of noticing. But, heck, it was sort of like a car wreck, impossible not to at least take a glance at something like that.

Jacken body-blocked Toni out into the hallway.

"I'm going," she insisted, her voice still warm with amusement. "As soon as Your Snow Whiteness can get himself cleaned up, I need you and the men to come to my office." Toni's voice faded down the hall. "There's something you need to see."