Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away "Cinderella" and her shoe fetish, "The Three Little Pigs" with their violation of building codes, "Miss Muffet" and her well-shaped tuffet—all forgotten or discounted. And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world, you have to give up the fantasies, the make-believe. The only trouble is that it's not all make-believe. Some parts of the fairy tales are all too real, all too true. There might not be a Red Riding Hood, but there is a Big Bad Wolf. No Snow White, but definitely an Evil Queen. No obnoxiously cute blond tots, but a child-eating witch… yeah. Oh yeah.

There are monsters among us. There always have been and there always will be. I've known that ever since I can remember, just like I've always known I was one. Well, half of one anyway. And regardless of what inherited nastiness I might have on the inside, on the outside I was all human. In fact Niko had said, and pretty damn frequently, that I had more human qualities than I had good sense. He never hesitated to remind me that no matter how god-awful I thought my problems were, I was still his punk-ass kid brother. If I wanted to beat up on myself, I'd have to go through him first. Niko was such a Boy Scout—albeit one with a lethal turn and a Merit Badge in deadly weapons.

Niko, for all his fascination with sharp, pointy things, didn't have a drop of monster blood in him. Of course his father could barely be classified as human in my book, but technically the man met the definition. Worthless bastard. Niko had been two weeks old when his dear old dad had taken off. He'd seen him no more than three times in his entire life. There were some true parenting skills at work. Three times. Hell, I'd seen my father more than that.