Praise for Andrea Speed’s
Prey “When I picked up Andrea Speed’s Infected, I definitely did not expect to completely fall in love with the writing, the characters, and the plot.” —Blackraven’s Reviews “…a masterful job…” —Dark Divas Reviews “If you are looking for a fascinating mystery suspense story with shapeshifters that actually shift, pick up a copy of Infected: Prey.” —Literary Nymphs
Bloodlines “The deep emotion and love that Paris and Roan have for each other comes through from some very vibrant, strong, and powerful story telling.” —Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews
Life After Death “This is a book that a reader should not read fast. Instead, sip it like a fine wine and draw it out to savor the experience for the full effect.” —Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
By ANDREA SPEED
NOVELS THE INFECTED SERIES Infected: Prey Infected: Bloodlines Infected: Life After Death Infected: Freefall Infected: Shift
NOVELLAS The Little Death
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Copyright
Published by Dreamspinner Press 4760 Preston Road Suite 244-149 Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Infected: Shift Copyright © 2012 by Andrea Speed Cover Art by Anne Cain
[email protected] Cover Design by Mara McKennen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ ISBN: 978-1-61372-506-1 Printed in the United States of America First Edition May, 2012 eBook edition available eBook ISBN: 978-1-61372-507-8
The author would like to give credit to the Comics Curmudgeon site for the laughs and for the use of the “I Don’t Understand Your Hostility Towards Me” mug, which just had Roan’s name written all over it (in a figurative sense). Also, I should throw a shout out toward Threadless for their many terrific T-shirts. If you want to follow Roan’s wonky sartorial style, this site won’t lead you wrong. Thanks to everyone at Dreamspinner for their infinite patience with me. And for not breaking out the cattle prods. (Yet.) And, as always, this is for the readers.
Book One
Shift
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1 Lost at Birth ROAN was so bored he’d decided that Tanning Salon Pervert would be the perfect name for his biography. As he’d flipped through the TV channels last night, the information bar had been visible at the bottom of the screen, and as he surfed past one news magazine program, he saw their episode was titled “Tanning Salon Pervert.” He didn’t watch it—on general principle he refused to watch anything that called itself a news magazine—but the words intrigued him. They sounded wrong in a wonderfully obtuse way, like “peanut butter hut” or “purple elephant pedophile.” Now, he’d never been in a tanning salon, and whether he was a pervert or not was subjective and almost totally hinged on your personal interpretation of the Bible (if you even had one), but the phrase just stuck with him. He bet he’d sell thousands of copies to disappointed people actually wanting the sordid tale of a man who got off on watching women fry under UV lights or get sprayed with fake bake. Instead, they’d get the mundane story of a gay ex-cop with anger management issues who could change into a lion at will. Come to think of it, not that mundane. But nowhere near as interesting as a tanning salon pervert. Perhaps Dylan was right. Maybe he was way too blasé about hate. Here he was, standing in front of a crowd that was chanting “Kill the cat!”, some waving homemade signs reading Drown Them in the River! (and some brought sacks—how cute) in front of the county hospital, along with a cordon of other cops, trying to keep them back from the doors. Grant Kim was out of cycle and was being transferred to a special holding cell at the county courthouse until he could be arraigned for several counts of second-degree murder (all killings committed while in cat form were charged as second degree). Imprisoning infecteds was difficult, mainly because no one felt safe releasing them into a prison’s genpop (not only was their blood super infectious, but they were obvious targets for harassment by other inmates), and the erratic natures of the viral cycles made it difficult to say for sure when they’d change. Most were kept in
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special hospitals, although lawsuits had been filed over that. (There was only one prison specifically made for infecteds, and that was in—of course—Texas.) Normally, he wouldn’t be part of the cordon, but Chief Matthews was seriously concerned about the threat level and asked him to come in and help. He was glad to do so, even though Dylan was afraid: “If someone recognizes you, Roan, they will target you.” What he didn’t tell Dylan was that was fine with him. He had always been one of those aggressive queers. Instead of adopting a victim mentality, whenever anyone shouted “You’re a fag!”, his response would always be along the lines of “What of it?” He was the same way as an infected. He was supposed to be ashamed because he had some fucking mutant virus? Because he was born with it? Fuck them. Yeah, he was infected. What of it? If someone wanted to attack him for it, they were free to, but he’d only let them leave a bruise. A bruise was all he needed to legally prove self-defense, even if he ended up kicking the living shit out of them. Which he would do, definitely; he’d make them pick their teeth up off the street. If they were very lucky, the lion wouldn’t come out. The other cops were uneasy about having him around. He thought maybe it was because he wasn’t actually on the force anymore (adviser just didn’t count), or because he was gay or infected (or both), but he discovered the real reason from a rookie, Hawkins, a cute little shorthaired bottle blonde who seemed almost too darling to be a cop. (That could actually work in her favor in some cases—some men might be reluctant to hit her. Others would attack her eagerly, though, so it was a give and take.) She came up beside him to take her place in the cordon, and after looking him up and down said, “So, you’re Batman.” Ah, so that was it. Everybody had seen the security tapes, and now everyone just assumed he was superhuman or something. He’d deny it, but he wasn’t sure if he was being completely honest. Not that he was superhuman, but other than human? Yeah, he might be in the other category. It was a sunny but cool day, and he was trying to look as butch as possible to discourage any of the lunatics. He wore mirrored sunglasses to fit in with most of the other cops, but he was dressed in biker boots, jeans, and a black These Arms Are Snakes T-shirt, but that was kind of tight, to show off a well-developed torso. (Which he got through a bit of muscle manipulation. Okay, so he wasn’t supposed to ever let the lion out or risk a blood vessel popping in his brain, but again, his attitude was fuck it—he was going to live his life as always, and if it killed him, it killed him. So he
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let out the lion just enough to make him seem a bit more muscular than he actually was.) It was cold enough he had to cross his arms over his chest, allowing him to do some subtle bicep flexing to make them look bigger, and the short sleeves showed off most of the new tattoo on his arm, Dylan’s tiger sketch now made permanent in blue and black ink. It was so new he’d just taken off the bandage this morning. It didn’t hurt, but then again, as full of Vicodin as he was, he’d have been surprised to feel anything. (Now he felt vindicated in his pill popping. Downers lowered blood pressure, right? So downers might keep his blood vessels from going off like fireworks on Chinese New Year. Yes, it was self-serving and probably wrong, but he wanted to believe it, and that might just be enough denial to make it so.) He was wearing an earpiece radio, just like the rest of the cops, which was how he knew that, finally, things were underway. Two different handcuffed men, surrounded by cops and with jackets over their heads, were going to be hustled out of the hospital and into the back of a goddamned paddy wagon (a “prisoner transport”—nice way of saying paddy wagon). One of them would be Grant, and the other was an undercover cop. That was how vicious and serious the threats were against Grant Kim: a decoy had been employed. How had a scrawny Asian kid who was barely a hundred pounds soaking wet and generally as harmless as all fuck become public enemy number one? Roan had gotten him a lawyer, one of Dennis’s protégés, and Dennis’s office got sent a bit of white powder in an envelope with a note that said all kitty fuckers had to die. (It was soap, not anthrax, but that wasn’t the impression he wanted to leave.) There had been a bomb threat against the hospital last week. Threats had been issued on the web against cops, or at least those who stood in the way of them getting Grant. Why this case had turned so ugly in the public eye was unknown. Was it because a teenage boy was a victim? A father of two? The number of victims? Because Grant and the first two victims were living in a relationship most found horrifyingly immoral? (The troika of Curtis, Tiffany, and Grant, with Grant still getting some on the outside of their threesome.) Maybe all of the above, maybe none. Roan had come to expect a certain amount of hysteria in these cases, but this seemed more excessive than normal. He was so sorry he'd ever advised Dylan to have Seb bring Grant in, although if the cops had eventually caught him and brought him in (likely), it would have been so much worse for Grant.
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Would someone have actually been stupid enough to attack Grant with about a dozen cops on the scene? Considering how foaming at the mouth this crowd looked, Roan could believe it was a good possibility. There was an ugly feeling in the air, a sense of impending violence. It made the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and it was all he could do not to growl. He was wearing an obvious gun and had a Taser on the side of his jeans, but he wondered if he’d actually use them if or when something went wrong. Lately, his instincts had led him to go hand to hand. Perhaps that was just another reason for the guys to call him Batman. The cops stood shoulder to shoulder, making a human blockade, not only hiding the men being hustled to the van from view, but also trying to intimidate anyone who might be thinking about attacking. Roan made sure he was in the center so he was both the most exposed and had the best view of the restless crowd. Somewhere near the person with the Where Is Our Civil Right To Be Safe? sign, a chant of “Kill the cats!” began anew, and Roan wondered what was wrong with him. In the face of this incoherent mob violence, he should have been afraid, but he honestly wanted to anger them more. He wanted to grab Lieutenant Ramirez and tongue kiss him before transforming into a lion, and he really didn’t even like Lieutenant Ramirez (he was way too fidgety, and Roan hated his porn stache). Something in him just lived to be contrary. If he couldn’t have their respect, he’d accept their hate. As the officers started coming out with Kim and the undercover stunt double, Roan noticed an almost Brownian motion in the crowd, and he saw the ghostly pale scalp of a man pushing forward, so wan his skin was almost the exact same color as his off-white hooded sweatshirt. He was elbowing people aside and reaching into his pocket, and Roan knew in that second he wasn’t going for his phone. “Gun!” he shouted, diving into the crowd. There was screaming, cops shouting in their radios, people running one way or another, but the man was focused on Grant, and Roan was focused on him, so much so that the crowd of people around him, even those he was reflexively shoving aside, dwindled away to mere spots in his peripheral vision. Noise was nothing—all drowned in the blood pounding in his ears and the growl burbling up from his throat. The man had managed to pull the gun out of his pocket before Roan was on him, tackling him and riding him to the ground, hands firmly
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grabbing his wrists and pinning them to the asphalt parking lot. The man, tall and lean but still fairly strong, tried to buck him off, but Roan had had too much experience riding guys (ha) and wasn’t moved. “Motherfucker!” the man shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. “Cat-fucking fascist p—” To Roan, the bones in the man’s wrist felt like fish bones, fine and fragile, and with just the tiniest squeeze they crackled like dead leaves under his fingers. The man screamed incoherently, arching in pain, as the gun fell out of his useless hand. Roan saw a fast-moving blur in his peripheral vision, a bigger, chunkier guy pulling a baseball bat out of one of the cat-drowning sacks and charging him. He was vaguely aware of a cop—maybe more than one—yelling “Freeze!” But he ignored it as much as the man did. With a snarl, he jumped, and slammed bodily into the man, who was too surprised and hit too swiftly to react. He went crashing to the parking lot, still managing to hold onto the bat, and as he brought it up, Roan caught it and yanked it out of his hands, throwing it across the lot. Although the Vicodin was helping to keep his anger in check, he still felt a sharp, deep pain in his jaw as it shifted, and tasted blood. “Who else wants some?” he roared at the onlookers. The ones who didn’t want trouble had already fled; those who were considering whether or not to join the fray if there was any chance of winning were still loitering about, and most were in the dangerous demographic of men in their late teens and early twenties, the probable age group of the would-be assailants. The sideliners stared at him in goggle-eyed horror, and he could smell the sudden fear like a toxic spill of vinegar. The fight was over; no one wanted to chance it. “Jesus fucking Christ, Batman, couldn’t you leave some for us?” Thompson carped. He was the cop that looked not unlike a young Jim Brown and had been at the head of the escort line. Roan wouldn’t have minded tongue kissing him; he was much more attractive than Ramirez. “Oh, he’s always been a show-off,” Dee said, kneeling beside Roan and putting his EMT kit on the ground. Yep, ambulance teams were standing by, and since they were at a hospital, it seemed almost silly. There were doctors inside—why couldn’t they use them? Probably some damn insurance thing. Dee looked him in the eye, an eyebrow raised in concern, and asked, “You okay, Ro?” It was probably the Vicodin, but he felt much more in control of himself. The lion hadn’t come out enough to run away with him. It had just come out enough to distend his jaw a bit. Oh, and allow him to throw
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a body slam on a guy trying to assault him with a bat. And break a man’s wrists like they were made of spun sugar. Okay, so the lion had come out a bit more than he intended. At least no one was dead, himself included. Roan wiped the blood away from his mouth and said, “Peachy.” “I can’t breathe,” the man beneath him gasped, obviously breathing but wincing in pain all the same. Roan got off of him, and he rolled over on his side and curled up into a fetal position, holding his ribs. “You know, if you just Googled this red-haired bastard, you’d have saved yourself a world of hurt,” Dee scolded him, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. Roan stood and noticed Shep and some other paramedic he didn’t recognize were attempting to work on the gunman, who was still screaming and writhing in pain. Three cops were standing around them, but only one still bothered to have his Taser out. Roan visually confirmed the paddy wagon was gone; Grant and the other cops got away, as they were supposed to have done. Mission accomplished. He rubbed the back of his neck and scanned the rest of the lot, freezing as soon as his eyes fell on a cameraman for Channel Five standing crouched beside an SUV, the helmet-haired “action news reporter” beside him (his name was Chip or Flip or some damn cartoon name). Roan only needed to see the blow-dried wonder’s mouth moving in profile to know he was saying to his cameraman, “Tell me you got that.” Oh shit.
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2 Altered Beast ROAN wondered how he could be so naïve. Did he really think Dylan being angry with him was the worst thing that was going to come of this? For the first few hours, it was. Dylan had seen the news footage and figured out that he'd put himself front and center, making himself the number one target. He admitted he hadn’t told him that was his plan because he knew it would piss him off, and that didn’t make Dylan any happier. He didn’t even get brownie points for honesty. Roan assumed he’d be sleeping on the sofa, but no, he hadn’t. Dylan didn’t say it—he never had to say it—but he was terrified of losing Roan; he was afraid Roan was going to up and die on him any second. On the one hand, it was touching; on the other, it was fucking annoying. Dylan accused him of wanting to hasten his own death, which was just the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. What he wanted to do was protect Grant— the rest of it was bullshit. He didn’t know if Dylan believed him or not; ultimately, he didn’t care. Randi had asked him to help her brother, and he was. Dylan could believe it or not. It was his choice. Roan was woken up at six in the morning by the phone—that was the beginning. The beginning of publicity hell. It started with local media, but some national media tried to contact him too. He just hung up and unplugged the phone, turning off his cell as well. He had no comment, wanted to do no interviews. He just wanted to be left alone. He turned the sprinklers on to get the local action news team off his lawn. Fiona volunteered to become his PR person—she told the news people politely to fuck off, on his behalf. Doctor Rosenberg called to cuss him out for almost transforming in spite of his aneurysm warning. (It was hard to tell on camera he was starting to transform; luckily, it just looked like he was jutting his chin out, and for some reason was bleeding from the mouth, but Rosenberg knew what it meant. Sadly, the oddly inhuman jump and show of strength was the thing getting him the attention.) Somebody called from a local production company suggesting that they might be
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open to turning his life into a film. Pissed off beyond all measure, he asked Dylan if he wanted to go to Vancouver with him for a week. Dylan, who was starting to get bugged by reporters at Panic (they had found him), happily agreed. They ended up spending ten days in Vancouver. Roan showed Dylan around and surreptitiously loaded up on painkillers and downers, which were so much cheaper in Canada. They stayed in a nice hotel just off the water, small but quaint and very gay friendly, so they didn’t get any shit over that. Their third night there, as they were sitting on a pier people watching and boat watching, Dylan guessed that this was a special place for Roan and Paris. Roan said it was, but only because Paris was from British Columbia; Roan had come to think of it as a second home. He felt better in Vancouver for no reason he could ever name. He thought if he ever got tired of Washington State, he would move up here. He thought about paying a visit to Paris’s parents, just to say hello, but ultimately decided against it. What would he do besides remind them that their son was dead far before his time? Best to just leave it. Roan had never done “touristy things” in Vancouver because he was always with a native who knew where to go if you wanted to score crack at two in the morning, or pick up scalped tickets at ten at night (not that they ever bought crack, but it was good to know). But he did a couple of touristy things with Dylan, at Dyl’s urging, and it was kind of nice to pretend to be brain-dead for a while. They had a really good time, and it was good not to have the subtle but obvious subtext of “You’re gonna die soon” influencing everything. After ten days, they had no choice but to come back. Dylan could get no more time off work, and Roan’s viral cycle was fast approaching. Fiona had said either it was starting to blow over or people were getting the message that he had no interest in participating in a media circus. She also said she had fielded a couple of really good offers and had written them up in case he wanted to look them over. She was holding out hope he’d do an interview with Anderson Cooper and drag him kicking and screaming out of the closet. (A CNN researcher had called, not Cooper. But Fi insisted she could dream.) He intended to go back to work, but as soon as he saw a news van in the parking lot, he decided to return home. Instead, he asked Fi to man the office and give him a ring if a genuine client—not a media plant (which had happened)—showed up. He did wonder if, this close to his cycle, he should bother working, but fuck it. If he didn’t die this time out, he still
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had bills to pay. As a professional courtesy, Dennis drew up legal papers for him, gratis. He hadn’t told Dylan, but he was leaving him the house and a couple other things. He was leaving stuff to Fi and Dee and Randi as well, and at the last minute he threw in some books and stuff for Holden, as he would appreciate them. He also left a note for Matt, because he still felt bad how that all went down. He learned he was lucky that he had no living family to contest the will, as leaving stuff for your boyfriend wasn’t always seen as legitimate. Roan had no idea leaving stuff to other people was for heteros only, but hey, you learned something new every day. And while he said he wanted to be ultimately cremated, he had actually left his body to Doctor Rosenberg and her institute. If they wanted to chop him up and see if they could find what made him different from all other virus children, why he didn’t get the same kiss of brain-damaged death as the rest of them, they were free to go nuts. Pulp him in a blender for all he cared. A dead body was just a piece of meat, and dead people didn’t give a shit what you did with them. The bright side of being dead, as far as he could tell, was no longer having to give a shit about anything. It wasn’t long before he was going out of his mind. He had no idea what was wrong with him. He’d bought a lot of used books at a bookstore in Vancouver, and he had lots of shows to catch up on, but after a pointlessly big breakfast (scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese, bacon, spicy sausage, toast with cinnamon sugar, chai tea liberally cut with cream—fuck it, if he was dying, it wasn’t going to be on a diet), he found himself full of restless energy. He popped a couple of Vicodin, along with the experimental meds Doctor Singh gave him. He had no idea if they were working, if they would prevent an aneurysm, and he wasn’t sure she knew either. All he knew was sometimes they left him with an odd, lightheaded feeling that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. As side effects went, this one he didn’t mind. He’d started working out on his heavy bag, but gently, because he didn’t want to accidentally bring out the lion and he didn’t want to wake Dylan, who had closed the bar last night and hadn't got home until almost four in the morning. He was thinking of quitting the bar, but not until he found another job. Sadly, there wasn’t much out there for an art major, but maybe he could get in at another bar where they would let him wear a shirt. When the phone rang, Roan let it go to machine, but he heard Doctor Rosenberg cussing at him, so he picked it up. “You were gonna let me go to machine, you bastard,” she carped. “Here I am trying to save your life,
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and this is the thanks I get. Shmendrek.” “Hey, you get bugged by the press and answer your damn phone.” “I have been. I’m the expert in infecteds, remember? They all want to talk about you. Luckily, I get to point out you’re a patient and confidentiality rules prohibit me from discussing you or anything about you. So they go to that shithead Riley, and he makes these outrageous statements like infecteds can take on psychosomatic feline tendencies. What fucking bullshit. I bet he gets a book deal and goes on Doctor Phil.” He had no idea who Riley was, but he assumed a rival doctor. “So I’m a psychosomatic lion? Interesting. What about the bleeding?” “I dunno. Maybe he thinks you bit your lip. Look, you’re gonna go into cycle this week, aren’t ya?” She really wasn’t much for foreplay. “Yeah. I’m not turning myself in to the hospital.” “Turn yourself in to me. Come by tomorrow. I’m gonna chemically induce a coma.” “Pardon?” “Listen to me: you need more time for the meds you’re on now to work. You know we got safe rooms here, private safe rooms. You’ll still change while in a coma, but it shouldn’t be as hard on your system. If your blood pressure was absurdly low, raising it twofold won’t matter. This will work.” “You’re guessing.” “But it’s a good guess. Look, fuck your pride—you wanna live another month or not?” Man, she was relentless, wasn’t she? That was why he liked her, but also why he hated her at the same time. “Yeah, of course, but—” “So get your ass down here tomorrow. I’d prefer morning, but, knowing you, I’ll have to settle for afternoon. Now, you gonna do it, or do I tell Dylan?” “You wouldn’t dare.” “Wouldn’t I?” He sighed. “Oh, goddamn it.” “See you tomorrow, Roan. Or else.” She rang off, and he wondered why he kept her as a doctor. Because she was smarter than everyone else and seemed to treat him like an actual
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person and not a piece of meat. Surely there was another doctor who was like that. He just hadn’t looked hard enough. Ah, fuck it. He just liked people who didn’t take shit, and Rosenberg didn’t take shit from anyone. He should have kept in mind that included him. He’d only been working on the bag for another five minutes when the drugs started to really kick in, and then his cell phone rang. He’d changed the number to one only three people knew: Dylan, Fiona, and Dee (he’d have to give it to Holden one of these days, or Fi would), so he had no problem answering this phone. “Yeah?” “Oh, you have to come in,” Fi said, keeping her voice low. “We got an actual customer, and Christ on a stick, you hafta look at this guy.” “Cute?” “No—huge. I mean, shit, you need a guy your own size to pick on? This may be him. He also has fresh stitches in his chin, but he doesn’t look like an assassin otherwise.” Fresh stitches in his face? Possible domestic violence and/or bar fight was the most likely answer, but if the guy was a professional troublemaker, he might be wearing his work home with him. “You’re not getting a bad vibe off him, are you?” “No, he’s been as pleasant as can be. Looks like he’s had his nose broken a while ago. Could he be one of those MMA cage fighters?” “You tell me. I’m on my way.” He hung up and a quick sniff told him he hadn’t had enough of a workout to stink, so he simply changed into more presentable clothes and took the bike out, since it was a clear day and it was much easier to outrun news teams on the Buell. The Vicodin gave him a pleasantly mellow feeling. He parked out behind the cemetery (oddly, there was one across the street from the office park, kind of run-down and overgrown—if it was a statement of some kind, he wasn’t sure what) and walked into work still wearing his mirrored motorcycle helmet, so if there was someone snapping photos in the lot, they got a shitload of nothing. Once inside his office, he took off the helmet. “Ah, here he is,” Fiona said, gesturing to him, as a huge man got up from the front room’s chair and approached him with his hand out. He was six foot three at least, maybe two ten, all muscle, his shoulders and chest nearly Paris broad. He was wearing a baggy black T-
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shirt and baggy jeans, so he wasn’t trying to show off, and his worn Converse sneakers and even more worn brown leather jacket seemed to indicate he either had no money or nothing approaching fashion awareness. He had a beat-up olive-drab backpack slung over one shoulder. His brown hair was cut short and streamlined, but it did inadvertently highlight a face that had seen many fights. He had the ghost of a white scar on his forehead, something of a divot in his right cheek, a bump on the bridge of a strong nose (definitely suggesting at least one previous break), and those fresh stitches Fi had mentioned, stretching out for an inch and a half in a rough, perpendicular line across his chin. He was neither handsome nor ugly, but his many facial wounds made him interesting to look at and strangely fascinating. His eyes were that odd watery blue you sometimes encountered and could never quite believe was real. He was in his early to mid-twenties at a best guess, but he was one of those guys who had probably never looked boyish. “Hey, hi, I’m Grey Williams,” the big man said, shaking his hand. He almost crushed his fingers, and Roan knew he was actively trying not to. Hell of a grip. If Roan heard the flatness of his vowels correctly, he was either originally from Minnesota or spent a lot of time there. “Hello, Roan McKichan. Why don’t we go into my office?” “Sure,” he agreed amiably. He followed him in, saying a polite “Bye” to Fiona as they went. What the hell was he, a brawling farm boy? “So what brings you here, Mr. Williams, and who beat the shit out of you?” Roan asked as he shut the door. Grey looked back at him, surprised and briefly confused. “Huh? Nobody’s—oh! Y’mean the stitches? Nobody hit me, I just stopped a puck with my face. Didn’t mean to, but hey, shit happens.” For a moment, Roan wasn’t sure Williams had said “puck,” but that was the only thing that made sense. “You a hockey player?” “Yep, defenseman for the Seattle Falcons.” Roan sat behind his desk and gestured to the chair in front. Grey sat down, sliding his backpack to the floor. “Oh. Defenseman’s code for 'enforcer,' isn’t it?” The Falcons were a minor league team, or at least they weren’t in the NHL. Roan honestly didn’t know how these things worked, as sports had never been a passion of his. All he knew about hockey he knew from Paris, who, as a Canadian kid, was forced to like it under penalty of death. Grey chuckled at this. “Can be. Is in my case. What gave it away?” “Besides you being just incredibly fucking huge? You look like
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you’ve been in a few fights in your life.” “Yep, and won all of them. Well, not in the third grade, but I don’t think that counts. Ain’t much of a scorer, but shit, can I hit people.” He grinned with a kind of goofy pride, revealing a missing tooth in the lower half of his mouth, pretty much parallel with part of the stitches. The puck must have taken out a tooth too. Ouch. “And by the way, I gotta say, really impressed by the whole crowd thing. Y’know, where you took out the Nazi and his friend? Really cool.” The man who had tried to shoot Grant was a self-professed neoNazi, along with his bat-wielding pal. They had a manifesto posted on their respective Facebook pages calling infecteds the “Armageddon of the human race,” but best of all, nearly every other word was misspelled. They were so fucking stupid they couldn’t even spell “believe” right. “Just doing my job. Now, what’s this about? I take it you’re not married, so this can’t be about your wife.” He had lifted his backpack to his lap but froze, cocking his head at Roan curiously. “How d’ya know I’m not married?” “No ring.” “Oh.” Grey looked down at his own hand and chuckled faintly. He had big hands, and the knuckles were slightly calloused. He hadn’t been lying about getting into lots of fights, but Roan wondered if they were all on the ice. “Oh yeah. That’s pretty obvious, huh? It’s just, I’ve heard things about you, and I thought you were doing some Sherlock Holmes shit on me.” “No, no Sherlock Holmes, just basic observation.” He was going to let it go, but damn it, he couldn’t. “What have you heard about me?” Grey shrugged as he unzipped the backpack. “Just that you look into weird cases, y’know, strange stuff. You don’t scare easy. That right?” The look in his eyes was almost challenging, like he was daring Roan to be honest. Sure, he was a big boy, but he was going to have to do better than that. “Yeah, it is.” Grey stared at him for a moment before nodding, as if seeing what he wanted to see in Roan’s eyes, then pulled out a folder held closed with a rubber band stretched precariously around its bulging sides. He placed it on Roan’s desk, right in front of him. “About a year ago, my oldest friend’s sister was killed. She was murdered, execution style, in an alley beside her apartment building by two men. It remains an open case: no
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suspects, no leads.” Roan glanced at the file but didn’t open it. “If it’s an open case, I can’t get involved.” Grey didn’t react. He remained stone-faced, which was actually pretty intimidating considering the number of facial wounds he had. “Can you if the police did it?” Okay, this just went in a direction he hadn’t anticipated.
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3 Killer in the World “YOU think the police killed her?” Roan repeated, wondering how many shots to the head Grey had had in his life. He must have heard the doubt in Roan’s voice, because he sat forward with a grim look on his beaten face. “I know it. She’d just filed a million-dollar lawsuit against them.” That sounded vaguely familiar. Who’d had a million-dollar lawsuit filed against them in the last couple of years? “Are we talking about the Eastgate PD?” Grey nodded, lips thinned so much that Roan could see a secret scar, a tiny cut to his lower lip that only appeared when bloodless. “Is this the Jasmine Hawley case?” Now that had been a hard-to-miss case a couple years back. Jasmine Hawley—nee James Hudson—was a pre-op transsexual in her late teens who was arrested by the Eastgate PD, supposedly for solicitation, but Hawley claimed not only to not be a prostitute but that two police officers beat her while in custody. The police department claimed she’d resisted arrest and got most of her bruises from fighting with other prisoners, which didn’t quite ring true with Roan. Put a pre-op in with your regular perps, they’d get the shit raped out of them. Pre-ops were usually thrown in a special “whore pen” (the holding cell where all the prostitutes were stashed) with the women, because otherwise there was no end to the abuse they’d suffer. Would female prostitutes beat someone that badly? Maybe, but it was unlikely the cops wouldn’t break it up. Still, there were some cops who had a special revulsion saved for transsexuals. Oh sure, they hated fags, but they hated men who wanted to be women (or women who wanted to be men) more than anything on Earth. Rumor had it there was a piece of videotape that caught part of the beating on film. A gay rights group helped Jasmine file a million-dollar lawsuit against the police department and two officers in particular who she said beat her down. Less than two weeks after this, Jasmine was killed. The lawsuit continued.
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Roan opened the overstuffed folder and looked. Yep, news clippings, an arrest report, statements Jasmine made for the lawsuit, photos of Jasmine’s beaten face and body. “I was born in Bellingham,” Grey said. “The Hudsons lived across the street. I went to school with Ben Hudson, Jamie’s older brother. We moved when I was ten, packed up to Saint Paul, but we always kept in touch. This was before the Internet too, so it was kinda weird, I guess. What I remembered about Jamie was he was kinda a goofy kid, a class clown without a class. I was in college at the University of Minnesota—I was a Gopher—when Ben was killed in a car accident. Ben had always asked me to keep an eye out for Jamie ’cause I was always a kinda big freak, and I guess I still felt kinda responsible for him. But this whole mess happened before I ended up with the Falcons and I came back to Washington, so I was no fucking good at all. I guess I’m tryin’ to make up for it now.” Roan found what he was looking for: the names of the accused officers. Michael Brand and Carey Switzer. Neither rang any particular bells, but he was pretty sure he didn’t know anyone at the Eastgate PD. “You have no problem with Jamie’s switch of gender?” Grey shrugged. “Whatever gets you through the night, y’know? Besides, when I thought about it… it kinda made sense. You know? I could see him wanting to be a girl. First time we went trick-or-treating as kids, he was Sleeping Beauty.” It was probably Roan’s own prejudice, but he would have thought a big macho jock like this would be the first to beat up or disparage a transsexual. But maybe not when it was your best friend’s brother (sister— he was using the right pronoun too). “I’d be the first to admit this case sounds as suspicious as hell. The timing of the murder is also incredibly suspect.” “No shit. To me, they’re being pretty blatant about it. I’ve talked to some other cops in the department, to see how the investigation’s going, and one told me, off the record, that the case is ice cold and has been given to a homicide detective with too many cases, with the instruction that it was low priority. He hasn’t looked into it once since he got the case. They ain’t doing shit.” “Who’s the investigating officer?” Grey sat back and slumped in the chair, legs spread wide and shoulders thrown back. It was a man’s man pose, but also the body language of someone with nothing to hide. Roan wondered if that was
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true, although he had no reason to think he was lying. “Don’t remember the name.” “Who told you this?” “I said I wouldn’t rat ’em out.” “If I’m even going to attempt to look into this, I need a place to start inside the department. I’d say they’re my best shot. Otherwise I shouldn’t bother.” Grey scowled, glancing down at his own calloused hands, then said, “Fine. The name’s Sid Fisher.” Roan scribbled that down on a sticky note and attached it to the top of the arrest report. “Okay, here are the ground rules, and they are nonnegotiable. I will look into this, but the legal admissibility of most of it will make much of it useless. I can’t directly muscle into the case without jeopardizing my license, but I will rattle a few cages and see if anything falls out. I can make a few phone calls now, but I might have to put off any direct investigation until next week.” That made Grey’s heavy brows dip into a sort of V. “Why?” “If you saw that footage of me and the neo-Nazis, you probably know I’m infected. I’m about to enter my cycle.” “Y’mean turn into a cat? Cool,” Grey said, with something approaching enthusiasm. “So what are ya?” Roan gave him an evil look, but Grey didn’t seem to realize he was being rude. “Lion.” “Oh, awesome! One of the big ones. I kinda feel bad for the people who turn into cougars. I mean, I know they’re deadly and all, but they don’t seem that impressive, do they? Not when compared to other cats. If I was a cat, I’d wanna be one of the big ones.” It seemed to be intended as a genuine compliment, but once again, Roan wondered how many shots to the head Grey had taken in his lifetime. It also made him wonder how old he was. So he asked. “Twenty-two,” Grey said without blinking. He reached for his wallet, and as he pulled it out, he added, “I stopped at the cash machine before I got here. You don’t mind bein’ paid in cash, do ya?” “Don’t want to leave a paper trail?” He paused, that confused look scudding over his face again. “Huh?” Roan shook his head. “Nothing.” Was he a bit naïve, or just, as the British said, gormless? Safe to say he got into college on a sports
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scholarship, or perhaps his parents footed the bill. At least, daft or not, he seemed an amiable and unbiased sort. Still, he managed to fill out the paperwork without printing anything and only glancing at his Social Security card to confirm the number (he said he had a bad head for numbers, and Roan could sympathize). He’d gotten up to leave, but at the door he turned back and asked, “You wanna spar sometime?” “Huh?” “You know, box? I think’d be awesome to face a guy as strong as you, as long as you promise not to break somethin’. I’m usually at 24 Hour Fitness in the afternoon, if I don’t have a road game or an afternoon skate.” He then gave him another goofy smile, and Roan got a strange feeling. It was almost like he—in a very odd way—was flirting with him. Nah. Just some straight guy, macho bullshit bonding. It was an easy mistake to make, though. As soon as the man left, Roan started to look up information on Grey Williams. Lexis-Nexis had a surprising amount on him. He might have been a self-professed low scorer, but he’d made it into the World Junior Hockey Championship three years ago on the U.S. side. There’d also been a feature on his parents in a Minnesota paper around that time. Apparently his dad was Merritt Williams, who briefly held some kind of college football record, although injuries kept him out of the NFL. He was the uber-jock dad who had five sons and pushed at least four of them into sports: oldest son Jensen had followed his dad into a football career but blew out his knee while in college and now owned and ran a sports bar in Syracuse; second son Lorne played college basketball but was apparently not that great at it and now coached junior high school basketball in Florida; third son Alden played minor league baseball with a team called the Reading Phillies; Grey was the fourth son. Interestingly enough, the fifth son was almost never mentioned, although one article gave his name, Rayne. He didn’t follow the family dictate of going into sports? Bad show. Didn’t he know that would make him a pariah? A separate search on Rayne Williams did eventually turn up something: he was the lead in his high school’s musical production of Little Shop of Horrors. Oh dear. Could you say “big flamer”? Okay, maybe that was a stereotype, and an unjust one—Roan, for example, was no fan of musicals, possibly because the only science fiction musical he knew of was The Simpsons’ wonderful “Stop The Planet of The Apes, I
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Want To Get Off!”—but it might explain why Grey was accepting of Jamie’s/Jasmine’s proclivities if he had a gay younger brother. Fiona briefly knocked on the door before coming in. “So, was he a Mafia hit man?” “Close. Hockey player.” “Really? Huh. Guess that explains the haircut.” That made him chuckle. “So mean.” “What? Come on, you were thinking the same thing.” “Actually, I’m glad you’re here ’cause I need you to hit up your sex worker pals.” “For money?” “For information. I need to know if Jasmine Hawley really was working the streets and how unfriendly the Eastgate PD is to anyone they decide they don’t like.” “Jasmine Hawley?” she repeated the name like it meant something, and then recalled it. “Holy shit, he was asking about Hawley?” “The younger sister of his friend. There’s no rush on this. I’m off to the hospital tomorrow.” She looked briefly concerned. “Are you—” “Rosenberg wants to put me in a coma. She thinks that’ll keep me alive another month.” She considered that, shrugging. “Might work. Worth a shot. Dylan know?” “Not yet. I suppose I should go tell him, huh?” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’ve had how many relationships?” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, Ms. Dominatrix, give me relationship advice.” “That’s Mistress, Slave, and don’t you forget it,” she said crisply, before giving him a big, cheesy grin. Weird friends and weird cases. At least his life had a recognizable pattern. Roan stopped on the way home and got a pizza, as he felt like a pizza. He made sure it was vegetarian, even though he was dying for pepperoni, and he then had to figure out how to take it home on the bike. (Okay, that was a detail he should have worked out in advance.)
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Dylan was up when he got home, but he was still in his underwear, drinking his morning (afternoon) tea. But since he hadn’t eaten yet, he was willing to have pizza with Roan while they discussed what Rosenberg had in mind for him. Dylan was thrilled, or as thrilled with the idea of someone putting Roan in a coma as one could get. He honestly thought Rosenberg was trying to save him, and Roan was sure she was trying, but he also knew there was a lot of guesswork involved. It was desperation, pure and simple, and there were no guarantees whatsoever. But he let Dylan have his enthusiasm, because he owed him that much. Dylan volunteered to go to the hospital with him tomorrow afternoon, and Roan agreed, although he didn’t know why Dylan would even want to come. They were just going to drug him until he was unconscious (which now, in retrospect, sounded like fun), and what was Dyl going to do, hold his hand? Of course, if it didn’t work, it might be the last time Dylan saw him alive, so okay, he supposed he understood. Dylan called Ty, one of the other bartenders at Panic, and got him to cover his shift so he could take the night off. Again, he was acting like this was Roan’s last night on earth… but you know, fuck it. Roan decided he didn’t care. It was or it wasn’t; Dylan had a fifty-fifty chance of being right or wrong. Let him do what he wanted. Roan had already found his peace with all of this. They had dinner, watched TV, and went to bed—nothing really remarkable, except the possibility he might actually be dead this time tomorrow night. Apparently someone else called, suggesting his life story might make fascinating viewing (ha!), and that led to him and Dylan discussing who they’d like to play them in a film. Dylan seemed horrified by Roan’s initial choice to play himself: Robert Carlyle, whom Dylan insisted looked nothing like him. Roan knew that. He’d just always liked him as an actor since Trainspotting, and of course, he was a Scot, which Roan kind of was (look at his mysteriously hard-to-pronounce surname). Dylan picked John Barrowman to play Roan (Captain Jack? Flattering, but no, he couldn’t see it….), and Gael Garcia Bernal to play him. Now, Roan agreed Gael was kind of cute, but nowhere near cute enough to play Dylan, in his opinion, and also way too short. Roan figured if they could somehow lump Gael together with a younger Javier Bardem, they’d have the perfect Dylan. They both agreed Taye Diggs would have to play Diego. Not that Dee actually looked like Taye, it was just that Dee would die if anyone
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else played him. They figured Fi would want Meryl Streep. Again, no physical resemblance, but Fi would insist on quality over resemblance. Holden could go either way on that—he’d either want a porn star or a British stage thespian playing him (one who wasn’t afraid of nudity in either case, and he’d probably insist the guy would have to at least be bi; straights would be kicked off by Holden personally). Roan was sad Jerry Orbach was dead, because he’d have made a perfect Gordo. Judi Dench with an American accent, a wig, and a foul mouth could probably carry off Doctor Rosenberg. It was fun. They were amusing themselves immensely, until he idly wondered who would play Paris and all the fun went out of it. Just like that. Dylan initially chided him for being “no fun anymore,” then he must have guessed why Roan went all quiet, and he began talking about the strange people who wanted to buy any art relating to Roan that he had. Dylan had lied to them all and said he had none because none of them were pieces he wanted to sell, especially not to bizarro fetishists. Fame was a weird thing, especially when it was “freak of the week” fame. Roan just sort of hoped the new freak would hurry up and appear already, because he was getting tired of all the bullshit. But then again, if he didn’t survive the procedure tomorrow, he’d have nothing to worry about, would he?
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4 Halo HOLDEN was a little surprised when Dylan answered the door in his boxer shorts, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Having stopped by Panic last night, he knew that Dylan hadn’t been up late working. “Is something wrong?” he wondered, looking beyond him to try and see the living room. Dylan shook his head, yawning, “Roan’s in the hospital. I stayed there as long as I could, but eventually I got kicked out.” Holden stared at him. “He’s in the hospital? Did he have another aneurysm?” “No. Oh, you don’t know.” Dylan then made a sort of scoffing noise as he said, “Right, yeah, he barely told me. Come in, I’ll explain.” Well, it couldn’t have been a huge emergency if Dylan wasn’t freaking out about it. Holden followed him inside, noting from a purely clinical perspective that he had a nice ass and a nice back. (It was long and lean, a little dimple near the small of the back, no overt hair.) If he wanted to do the high-class prostitute thing, he could probably make a mint. “Have a seat,” Dylan said, gesturing to the sofas as he disappeared into another room. Holden sat, trying to decide what things were Roan’s and what things belonged to Dylan. The only things that seemed like Dylan were the painting now hanging up over the stereo—one of those bizarre ones, of a wall with a huge hole in it that appeared to be bleeding, like a crime scene detail with only the body missing—and the Bloc Party CD currently playing softly. Roan just never struck him as a Bloc Party kind of guy. Dylan came back wearing sweatpants and pulling on a T-shirt of a Roy Lichtenstein-type woman crying and firing a machine gun while saying “It’s not you, it’s me….” He had a feeling Roan had bought that for him, or it was one of Roan’s T-shirts; he was the wacky T-shirt master around here. “Want something to drink?” Dylan asked, crossing to the kitchen. “I’m just getting myself some green tea.”
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Green tea—oh boy! What a hedonist. But he was the Buddhist vegetarian around here. You’d think an artist/shirtless bartender at a gay nightclub would have a much wilder life, but he seemed to work hard to cultivate a lifestyle more suited to an ascetic. “No thanks, maybe later. So what’s up with Roan?” “Doctor Rosenberg put him in a coma ahead of his transformation. She’s fairly certain it’ll keep him alive.” “Oh.” There was a phrase you didn’t hear every day. How were you supposed to react to that? “It went okay?” “Fine. When I was finally kicked out, he was sleeping… well, comatose. But his vitals were good, and there were no problems. He takes to drugs like a duck to water.” Holden smirked at this, aware there was a bit of hollow anger in that last statement. “Sadly, yes. How are you doing?” Dylan returned, curling up on the sofa across from him, legs tucked under him as he cradled the mug in his lap. It wasn’t straight green tea; there was a fruity scent to it, citrus and berry. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. “Honestly? I’m fucking pissed off.” Now that he hadn’t expected. Dylan was such a mild guy that, in spite of being as gorgeous as he was, he was easily forgettable. In Holden’s mind, he just sort of blurred into the wallpaper. While his calm peacefulness was surely beneficial to Roan, who probably needed all the peace he could get, Dylan’s somewhat introverted nature left him an afterthought to many of Roan’s friends. He was the polar opposite of the bright explosion that was Paris. That was probably deliberate. “About what?” “About Roan and his attitude. He’s acting like he wants to die.” “He was put into the coma, wasn’t he?” “Yes, but only because Doctor Rosenberg didn’t give him a choice. He’s been acting like he wants to die since he found out about the aneurysm. He denies it, but… it’s just been freaky. It’s so irritating. I can’t even get properly mad at him, because I honestly believe he doesn’t know it. He’s living in denial or a Vicodin haze. One of the two.” See, this was why Holden was so glad he didn’t do relationships. These little wars, these little deaths… was a regular fuck buddy and shared rent worth it? Didn’t seem like it. Give him solitude, a cold bottle of gin, a decent piece of Internet porn, and he was good. “Is this because he went after the neo-Nazis?”
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“No, but that was one of the more flashy bits.” “Tell me about it. And people don’t know he’s gay? My God, he was wearing a gun. Just pull it and tell ’em to freeze, don’t jump on ’em like a big flaming drama queen. Jesus.” Dylan snickered at that, enjoying the joke. But his good humor faded fast, and he ended up looking kind of sad. “He’s never been a quitter. He’s not a man who quits easily or quietly. So why has he consciously or unconsciously decided to die?” Paris. That was Holden’s first thought, and he knew Dylan was thinking the same thing and didn’t want to think it. He wanted some other reason than his boyfriend still being in love with a dead man. So Holden thought of another reason to give him, which sounded very plausible. “He’s burned out. He’s been told he’s going to die most of his life, and he hasn’t yet. So fuck it. He probably feels close to invincible as it is. He’s the closest thing to a superhero I’ve ever met.” “Yeah. And there’s Paris.” So Dylan said it. Good for him. “Roan pretends he’s not haunted by his ghost, but clearly he is.” “Yeah. I really can’t compete with a dead man,” Dylan admitted, and it sounded like admitting defeat, which it was. He sighed and idly stirred his tea, the spoon softly ringing off the sides of the mug. The mug had a smiling cartoon bear on it hugging a heart, with the words I Don’t Understand Your Hostility Towards Me encircling it. Holden knew that was Roan’s mug. Dylan made the decision to change the subject, and then he did. “So why the house call? You could have phoned.” “Yeah, except my cell phone battery’s dead, and I just got in from Sea Tac late last night. I’ve spent the last few days in Vegas with my pilot client.” “Really? Did he pay you, or—” “Oh hell yeah he paid me. He also gave me a free ticket. Get this— he told the flight staff I was his nephew.” “He didn’t.” “He did, and they seemed to buy it. Except for this queeny air steward who seemed to know instinctively I was a hustler and gave me the cold shoulder.” Dylan squirmed uncomfortably, shifting on the couch and taking a sip of his tea before asking hesitantly, “Isn’t he the one who, um—”
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“Pays me to tie him up and humiliate him? Yes. He remains a curious client, but a loyal one. And I can’t say he didn’t show me a decent time, as he gave me free run of his minibar and room service.” “You have a strange life.” He said it so deadpan and mild Holden almost laughed. “Tell me about it. I did check my messages, and I discovered Fiona had called me and left me a message about Roan’s latest case. I’ve got people out looking for more info, but I had some for him anyways. I also had a gift.” “Oh boy, did you get him a tacky souvenir?” “More like a tacky trinket I picked up in a Las Vegas pawn shop. And no, I didn’t pawn anything. I don’t gamble. If I wanted to waste my money, I’d buy lottery tickets like everyone else. I was just doing a bit of window-shopping with everyone else’s misery.” He pulled the gift out of the pocket of his jeans and put it on the coffee table. Dylan sat forward and examined it curiously. “Oh, how ’bout that. It is very tacky.” “And one hundred percent pewter. If that’s worth anything, and I don’t think it is.” It was a ring shaped like a lion’s head, with a mane large enough to cover the lower half of the finger. “I’m sure he’ll love it. Which bothers me.” “You’re not alone.” “So what information did you have for him?” “Hawley was no walker. Might have been trans, but not a hooker, not to anyone’s knowledge, and we would know.” “Would you? I mean, you’re not unionized.” “No, but there’s always a way to find out who’s working what corner. No hooker is ever alone on a street, and we use a lot of the same motels. It’s a smaller world than you’d think.” “I’m sure. If the johns knew, they might be a little scared by it.” “A little? A lot. For good reason.” Dylan nodded, looking down at his mug, his attention wandering elsewhere. They were silent for a moment, and Holden felt that something was going desperately wrong here. Dylan was depressed and probably sleep deprived, but he wasn’t the type to open up to him. He knew that Dylan really didn’t like him that much, and yet he seemed to be confiding in him. Was he that lonely? Was he feeling that lost? Dylan sagged back on the sofa and stared at him almost boldly, his
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dark brown eyes set like stone. “You love him too. What would you do if you were me?” Holden stared back at him, but he was so flabbergasted by what Dylan had said it took him a moment to speak. “Uh, what? I don’t love Roan. I like the guy, but—” “Oh please, I’ve had enough self-deception from Ro. Please don’t you do it too.” “Dylan, I don’t. I don’t want him and he doesn’t want me. He’s all yours.” He scoffed faintly. “You’re a gay man. I don’t have to explain the difference between love and desire to you. You can want a person without loving them, but the opposite also holds true. Look, I know you’re not a threat to our relationship, so I’m not gonna go crazy-ass jealous on you. I just want to know why you haven’t given up on him yet.” Holden wasn’t sure if he should be angry, offended, or amused. All three? (And actually, he wouldn’t mind doing Roan. Yeah, it’d be pretty weird considering their relationship now, but he’d always left the invitation of doing him for free open. Well, he was a good-looking guy, there was no getting around that, and Holden was always impressed by his humor, which could be incredibly sexy on a guy. And it was probably the lion pheromones or something, but he did have a mysterious kind of magnetism. You kind of wanted to follow him, let him take the lead.) “Why not get crazy-ass jealous? I mean, that’s the least a guy could want.” “Because Roan isn’t like that. He’s a nester. He grew up without a home, and now all he wants is a nice, stable home.” “Let me guess—you minored in psychology.” “I was trying to understand my dad,” he replied, a roundabout way of saying yes. “It didn’t work. And I’m not trying to offend you, although why you’d be offended by me saying you loved someone is a bit puzzling.” “I’m offended because you couldn’t be more wrong. He’s a friend, that’s all. I’m not capable of much more.” “Bullshit.” Dylan said without rancor. His voice was as weary as his posture, as the expression on his face. “You’d kill for him. I saw that when we were trying to solve the Newberry case without him. Even Dee saw it, and he gave me the oddest look. He asked me later if I was worried about that, and I said no, because I’m not. In a strange way, I wish I was.” Holden felt something cold settle in his gut, a twinge and a twist.
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This had all suddenly gone somewhere he didn’t want it to go, and he wasn’t a hundred percent sure why. It almost felt like the walls were starting to close in. “I’m not explaining myself to you. I like the guy a lot, but that’s the end of it. Full stop. And if you want my opinion, you either get used to him or pack your bags now. Is he a moody son of a bitch? Hell yeah. Either he’ll snap out of this on his own or he’ll need a shock to snap him out of it, but he’s been a morose-leaning bastard since I’ve known him.” Holden stood up, feeling angry now. Maybe because he always hated being told how he felt about something. It seemed presumptuous, insulting, and arrogant to tell him how he felt. He’d hated it when his parents did it, and he had grown no fonder of it as an adult. Dylan looked up at him with something like surprise, eyebrows rising slightly. “Holden, I didn’t—” “Save it. I’m not the person you should be talking to anyways. You want Roan to get over himself? Tell him. He won’t be happy, but he’s not an idiot. Spell out your terms, and if he can’t live with them, leave.” Dylan made a noise of disbelief and put his mug down heavily on the coffee table. “Oh yeah, he could only be dead in a month. I should walk out on him.” “Oh please. He’s been dying since you met him. If you stay with him out of pity, he will resent the shit out of you. If you don’t like things, do something about it, or just sit down, shut up, and live with it.” He headed for the door, hoping he wasn’t storming out like a big drama queen, but… yeah, there was probably no avoiding that. Still, he had to leave because he was so angry he was sure he’d say something they’d both regret. Dylan said something, but Holden just ignored him. He hadn’t even told Dylan he knew the name Carey Switzer. In fact, he knew Switzer very well. And he could easily imagine him being a killer.
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5 Psychosomatic IT WAS day three when Dylan decided the Way of Water was just not going to work for him this week. It was something to strive for. It was the essence of Taoism basically: to be fluid, essential, give without taking, to be strong without being violent, to be calm and placid. Yeah. Not this month. Not that he didn’t want to be. Without Roan here, and with Doctor Rosenberg only letting him stay long enough to see Roan was fine before shooing him out of the hospital, he’d spent a lot of time at the Buddhist temple, working on his meditation techniques. But then he’d get frustrated, his mind wandering all over the place, so he’d come home and paint; but he found himself not wanting to paint, so he’d fill in for someone at work and find himself too exhausted and distracted to deal with customers. It was a vicious cycle that continued without ceasing. He even slept badly, so he was always tired. He’d come to the conclusion that living in Roan’s house without Roan here made him feel like a trespasser, or worse, a living ghost, haunting someone else’s house. What would he do without Roan exactly? What if he never came back? His mind just shied away from it. He couldn’t think it. It seemed impossible that Roan, probably the largest of the larger-than-life figures he’d ever met, could simply die, disappear, go away. He seemed almost mythical now. Or if he did die, it would be doing something big and splashy, something heroic and needlessly violent. He wasn’t the type to die in his sleep. So when Doctor Rosenberg called him on day three, his heart lurched, but she said quickly, in her smoke-husky voice, that nothing was wrong with Roan; she just needed Dylan to come down to her office as soon as he could. That happened to be the moment he’d given up on the Way of Water (fuck his laundry; he could do that any time), and he raced
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there in the rain, finding all the traffic lights working against him as he tried to figure out why she’d want to see him. Was she lying about nothing being wrong? She must have been. She just didn’t want him to freak out. So he tried very hard not to freak out in traffic, and when he parked his car, he made sure no one was around before screaming at the top of his lungs. Sometimes it was cleansing to let out the pain and fear, but today all it did was make his throat hurt. Dylan was shaking a little when he finally got up to Doctor Rosenberg’s office at the university hospital, but she thought he was just soaked from the rain and chided him in a motherly fashion for not wearing a warmer coat. Her office smelled faintly of cigarettes, although there were no ashtrays in evidence. There was a small explosion of paper covering her desk, little drifts of mail, a flat-screen computer, and a complicated-looking phone. Her carpet was dark green, her walls an off gold like old ivory, and along with framed degrees was what looked like a picture of a fractal in a metal frame but was apparently a microscopic photo of a virus. She had a half-dead ficus tucked away near the window, which had a fantastic view of the back quad parking lot. No family photos? No personal photos of any kind. Did she even have a family? There was something about her intensity that screamed “meddling grandma” to Dylan, but on the other hand, that single-minded focus and dedication to her work could have left her alone. Considering the sheer number of degrees and awards on her wall, he had no idea when she would have had time to get married or start a family. That just ate up too much time. As soon as Dylan sat in the worn, padded chair she had in front of her chipped wooden desk, she started typing, her fingers flying over the keyboard, chewing on a pencil like she wanted a cigarette. Just as Dylan was about to break the silence, she took the pencil out and said, “I’m just gonna give it to you in layman’s terms, okay? Roan doesn’t need to be here. He never needs to be here again.” Maybe it was sleep deprivation, but that made no sense to him. “Huh?” “He’s out of viral sequence. Permanently, as far as I can tell.” She was speaking neither English nor Spanish; she wasn’t speaking a language he could understand. “What? Are you saying he’s cured?” “Oh God no! How would that happen? I’m just saying he isn’t a slave to his viral cycle anymore. I think it’s a slave to him.” “Again—huh? What are you saying?”
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“I’m saying he’s not changing this month, not without conscious thought. There are certain hormones, viral proteins, and neurotransmitters that increase when a change is imminent. Did Roan ever tell you he almost agreed to a clinical trial a few years ago? It was during Paris’s last days. He only came in to test for it ’cause he wanted to see if it would save Paris, but he was too sick to participate, and Roan wasn’t gonna do the trial without him. I took blood samples then, and I compared them with blood samples I took from Roan just an hour ago. And his virus has changed shape. In the last couple of years, it’s… mutated. Or been forced to mutate, perhaps by the increase of CD8+ T cells in his system. He can change basically at will. We all know that, right? By doing this, he’s disrupted the natural rhythm. There isn’t one anymore, not for him. His viral protein levels, hormones, and neurotransmitter levels are now naturally higher than normal because he needs to be ready to go at any point. His body and the virus have both adapted to this new reality.” Dylan decided he was going to be like stone, and the information, like water, would flow over him, and he would make sense of it as it went by. He tried very hard. But the conclusions he reached didn’t make much sense. “You’re saying he doesn’t need to change a few days a month anymore? He doesn’t need the cage?” “Exactly. No point.” “But he just changed last month. For four days!” She nodded, like she expected to hear this. “Yes, because he thought he was going to.” Being stone was just as hard as being water. There was surely a lesson in that. “What? Are you saying he… he did it to himself?” “In a sense. Not deliberately. He expected it to happen, and it did, because he was expecting it to. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. He’s probably been psychosomatically changing for… well, fuck if I know. But for a bit, certainly.” “This is insane,” he blurted, too confused to worry about offending her. But she just nodded. “Isn’t it? I don’t get it at all. Medically, this is a first. But then again, Roan has been a medical oddity since I first started seeing him. He’s fairly atypical, unique. If I actually introduced these findings to the world at large, he’d be an instant celebrity in medical circles overnight. But I don’t want to see him as an animal in a freak show any more than he wants to see that happen.” He was sure there was something strange about that statement, but
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he couldn’t quite decide what. “You’ve never told anyone about him?” “Oh, I have. I’ve written papers about Patient X—as I call him—and shared it with a few colleagues, but most think it’s my attempt at fiction. They don’t believe he could exist, that a medical oddity this extreme is even possible. But that’s what they said about the virus when it first appeared, so what the hell?” Dylan just sat there in the chair, wondering if he was going to wake up at home on the sofa, where he must have fallen asleep trying to decide if he should cut his latest canvas in half or set it on fire. This couldn’t actually be happening, could it? “Is, um, there any chance the virus will mutate further?” She did something you never wanted to see a doctor do: she shrugged. “I wouldn’t think so, but I didn’t think it could mutate further to begin with, so who knows?” He scratched his head, wondering what the appropriate response was here. Surely throwing a chair through the window was out of bounds, but the fact that he felt like crying made about as much sense. “Why, um, why did you ask me here?” “Because I’m gonna get him out of his coma tonight, and I want you to lie with me that his cycle came to a sudden end. Then, once he’s had a day to prove that he won’t change, I’m gonna call him back in here and tell him the truth. You don’t have to participate in that. I’m sure it won’t be pretty, but I’ll tell him I set you up for it so he won’t be mad at you.” He nodded and found himself blinking tears away from his eyes. “Okay, sure.” “You’re upset.” “I don’t know. I don’t know why I would be upset.” He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. Calmness; he had to think calm thoughts. He was water, he was stone. “’Cause it’s hard to be the loved one of an infected, especially when you’re normal.” “I’m normal?” he replied, almost laughing. “You’re not infected. And the fact that he’s been living under a death sentence must have added nothing but stress.” “He’s not going to die,” he said, and his voice cracked. He was water, and now it was coming out of his eyes. “Well, the possibility is still there. Aneurysms will always be a threat, and I’m sure he’ll die just like we all die. But we don’t have to
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worry about it on a month-by-month basis anymore. Here, have a tissue.” “I’m okay,” he lied, not sure why he felt like curling up in the corner and bawling like a little kid. Maybe because this should have been good news, extraordinary news, but he was afraid that Roan wouldn’t take it that way. If he really wanted to die, this actually made it easier to accomplish. He would have to decide between the living and the dead. And Dylan was pretty certain that was an argument lost before it was even made.
HOLDEN wondered if fighting was the only thing that kept people from realizing hockey was kind of gay. All the skating, all the body contact, guys hugging after a winning goal… kinda gay. But maybe that was his own prejudice talking. Maybe he was seeing everything through a gay glass. But no one could deny there were obvious homoerotic overtones, although not as much as in mixed martial arts fighting—now that was totally, completely fag-tastic. Guys in shorts, sweaty and grappling with each other in a cage as other men cheered them on… it was like soft-core porn at times. You could jerk off to it. Holden caught the end of a home game between the Falcons and the curiously named Wheat Kings (“All bow before the mighty Wheat King, or I will blight your crops with fungus!”), which the Falcons lost in overtime. Holden didn’t care, as he was just trying to spot the client, which he did when he came off the bench. It helped that he was very nearly the tallest dude on the ice, and that he drew attention to himself by pasting a guy so hard to the boards that he thought the glass—Plexiglas, plastic, whatever it was that surrounded the rink—was going to shatter. Grey’s number was twenty-two, but Holden thought 666 might be more appropriate, since he tried to make that guy a pancake. Did they teach you that in hockey school? Not plastering someone, but continuing to skate and play even though the right side of your rib cage has just collapsed and your lung is deflating? That Wheat Kings guy was amazing for not passing out, although he did go to the bench and seemed to sit there for a bit before he got out on the ice again. Holden noticed the client mostly seemed to be on the ice when that guy was, and when the Falcons were on a penalty kill, or the Wheat Kings (“Bring me your rice! Hear the lamentations of your
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oats!”) were really trying hard to score. He ended up loitering for almost two hours behind the arena before the Falcons started to emerge. The weird thing about hockey players was they looked so big and thick in their padded uniforms, their body armor protective gear, that out of it they seemed almost ludicrously skinny. Generally fit as hell and as hard as brick walls, but wispy all the same. You wouldn’t know there was a good chance they could break your jaw with one punch until they actually did it. Finally, he saw the client coming out, talking to two other guys, all three with gear bags slung over their shoulders. “Grey Williams?” he asked, coming up. The three men stopped, but Holden only noticed one guy tense, the thinnest of the group and also the shortest, who still had wet hair. Holden hadn’t seen everybody’s faces, not with those helmets and visors and his generally lousy seats, but he didn’t recognize the little brunet guy at all. “Who wants to know?” Grey asked casually, but there was a hint of menace in the tone. “I’m Holden Krause. I work with Roan McKichan. I’m doing some follow-up, and I was wondering if I could talk to you?” Williams’s tensing had been very subtle. Holden only realized it now as his shoulders slumped slightly and the murderous look in his eye gave way to a slightly goofy grin. “Oh, sure.” He looked at his companions, the wiry little brunet and the crew-cut blond with a knife blade of a face, and said, “See you guys tomorrow, okay?” There were okays and yes —the brunet had a French accent —and as they left, the Frenchy was still giving him a suspicious glare, like he didn’t trust him. Once they were out of sight, Holden asked, “Was that French guy gonna hit me?” Williams laughed. “Tank? Eh, he knows I’m up to something, so he’s become protective. I protect him on the ice, so he’s decided he’s gonna protect me off. Don’t know how, but I appreciate the thought.” “Tank? I assume that’s a nickname.” “Yeah. His name’s Thibault, but we just call him Tank ’cause he kinda is one.” “I didn’t see a Thibault on the ice tonight.” “’Cause that’s his first name. His last name’s Beauvais.” Holden recalled where he'd seen that name. “Holy fuck, that guy was the goalie? I thought he was bigger than that.” Williams genuinely chuckled. “They wear like eighty pounds of
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gear, man. If they were bigger than that, there’d be no net to shoot at.” After a moment’s pause, Williams asked, “So what d’ya need to know?” “Can we go somewhere and talk?” “Sure. There’s a bar down the street.” And what a vaguely seedy bar it was. There was worse along the way—a strip joint and a sports bar (there were a lot of masculine addendums around the sports arena)—but this was a more traditional bar, a tiny dive with lots of dark wood and neon beer signs, and a jukebox playing a Tom Waits song, which seemed a little too on the nose. There was a tiny TV over the bar, but it was currently mute and seemed to be showing some kind of local weather report. The bartender, a busty woman with pink and bleached blonde raver kind of hair, greeted Williams as if she knew him, and a guy at the bar who looked like a professional drinker told him he played great Monday night. Williams thanked him politely before they disappeared to a small back table, where they were far from any of the boozy stragglers. The busty raver came over to take their drink orders, and Holden ordered a scotch and soda while Williams just ordered a grapefruit juice with extra ice. As soon as she was gone, taking her tremendous ta-tas with her, Holden asked, “You don’t drink?” “No, I do, but I’m on a training regimen right now, so I don’t.” “Ah.” So he had some discipline. Probably a mark in his favor. “So is Roan, uh—” “Indisposed. I’ve been looking into Jasmine Hawley while he’s out. I do the street beat, and he handles the cops and all those other official types.” “So you’re like a junior investigator or something?” “Assistant investigator. Although I guess if you want to get technical, I’m more like his Huggy Bear.” Williams gave him a blank look. “Teddy bear?” “Huggy Bear. Oh, come on, Starsky and Hutch?” Williams shook his head as the bartender came back, dropped off their drinks, and moved on. Holden sighed. “Thanks for making me feel old, Grey.” “You don’t look old,” Williams offered, with almost heartbreaking innocence. In his notes, Roan had written in the margin of the case form “Gormless?” Holden now had an inkling what he was getting at. “Thanks. What I needed to know was if Jasmine had a drug problem.
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I’ve heard conflicting testimony.” “Huh. No. I mean, I don’t think so. Jamie didn’t seem the type to go for that shit, y’know?” Holden nodded, but wasn’t ready to buy it. Although a lot of users were obvious—you could usually smell a serious meth head before you even saw them—not all were. And since Grey was in a different state, he had no way of knowing what Jasmine’s life was really like. “I know Jamie was living in an apartment at the time of her death. Where did her things go? Did her parents take them?” That made Williams scoff loudly, although it was almost more of a cough than anything else. “Yeah, no. Her parents wanted nothing to do with her after she decided she was a woman. He was a woman. Anyways, I think her roommate put ’em in storage.” “Roommate? You didn’t mention a roommate.” “I didn’t? Oh shit, I guess I forgot. Um, yeah, Jamie was living with this guy, Brandon something or other. I think he might still be there.” Holden nodded, grimacing, and wrote that down in his notebook. (He didn’t take notes like Roan took notes, but he agreed to at least take some when he had to.) He then had a sip of his scotch, which tasted a bit like off-brand mouthwash. He added the note “Don’t drink scotch in a dive bar” before asking, “This Brandon wasn’t a boyfriend, was he?” Williams had been taking a sip of his pink juice then, and it looked like he almost choked on it as he hastily put the glass down. “No! I mean, I don’t think so. Jamie never mentioned it. And she complained a lot that she was alone, so if he was, I think she’d have said. Maybe.” He scowled down at the table, which had the echoes of many drink rings and the scars of past cigarettes etched into its top. If you read Braille, there might have been a dirty limerick here. “So does Roan have, like, a boyfriend or something?” Weird question out of nowhere. “Yes. So you know he’s gay then?” “Well, you’d be surprised how often they called him gay before mentioning he worked for the cops.” “No, I probably wouldn’t. He always assumed he was an affirmative action pickup: gay, infected. A twofer.” Williams nodded like that made a lot of sense. “I noticed he had some scars on his face. How’d he get those?” “Honestly? No fucking idea. That’s not something he talks about. But I know he’s been shot a couple of times, and he once got a beer bottle
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broken across his face, so maybe he got a scar from that. That’s not even counting the amount of fights he’s been in.” “Tough guy?” “Like beef jerky left behind the radiator for weeks.” Williams smirked and glanced around the bar. Holden sat back and asked, “What about you?” Williams’s translucent blue eyes scudded back to him. “Me? Well, I got the one on my forehead from a hockey stick—” “I’m not talking scars. I’m asking if you’re gay.” That startled a short, sharp laugh from Grey. “Hell no. I got nothin’ against ’em, I mean, you a homo, be a homo, why should I give a shit? I was just curious.” Holden pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering how he even started to address this. “Homo?” “Is that a bad word?” “Unless you, yourself, are a big ’mo, yes.” “Oh. I didn’t know. Sorry.” “It could have been worse,” he admitted. He was picking up a strange vibe from Grey. Not a “john-is-a-psycho-who-will-kill-you” vibe, but one of… dishonesty, maybe? Not overt, just something he wasn’t saying, little pieces of information he was leaving out. Perhaps not even deliberately. Maybe this guy had taken one too many shots to the head, or perhaps he popped steroids or some equivalent. Drugs could fuck you up in funny ways. “Well, thanks, I think that’s all—” “I got an e-mail,” Williams suddenly said. Holden raised an eyebrow at that. “And?” “Somebody threatening me. They seemed to know I went to Roan. How I don’t know. It’s not like I told people. Even Tank isn’t sure what I’m doing. Here, I printed it out, and I’ve been keeping it in my wallet ’cause I was afraid I’d lose it otherwise.” He got a battered Velcro wallet, partially covered with hockey tape, out of his pocket and opened it to slide out a crumpled piece of paper folded poorly into a rectangle. He tossed it out on the table, and Holden grabbed it, opened it, and smoothed it out. It was a brief message, simple and to the point: “the fag can’t help you leave it or you’ll regret it.” The e-mail address it was from was just a bunch of letters and numbers jumbled together randomly, ending in homedot-nu, suggesting a phony e-mail address, or at least one with a
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convoluted trace trail. The date indicated he got it yesterday. “You report this to the cops?” Williams scoffed again, but this time grapefruit juice didn’t threaten to come out his nose. “No. Why would I?” On a hunch, Holden asked, “You didn’t respond to this, did you?” “Course I did. I told him to bring it if he was so fucking tough.” Gormless. Gormless, gormless, gormless. “Are you fucking serious? A guy sends you what may be a death threat, and you tell him to bring it?” He shrugged. “If he shows his face, I’ll beat the shit out of him. I’m not afraid.” “Are you afraid of a gun? You can’t beat the shit out of him, tough guy, if he shoots you from a distance.” He made a noise of exasperation as he folded the note back up and shoved it in his pocket. Of all the nights to not be carrying the “clean” gun he bought from Burn. Not that he would ever grow accustomed to carrying a gun. He had his lucky knife, of course, but you knew what they said about guys who brought knives to gun fights. “If they’re gonna kill me, they’re gonna kill me. Can’t worry about it.” “Now I see why you hired Roan. You’re just perfect for him. You gotta car around here? I’ll walk you to it.” “I don’t need babysitting.” “Yes, you do, if you’re gonna do stupid things like this.” Williams shrugged again and finished his grapefruit juice. Holden had to suppress the urge to reach across the table and slug him or just kick him under the table. They paid and left and started walking back toward the arena. Williams had to walk ahead. He was leading the way, but Holden tried to keep an eye on the street. There weren’t too many cars or people out right now, which bothered him. More people meant more witnesses and less of an opportunity to try something, so maybe it was a positive. Then again, more people meant better ways to hide yourself and avoid being spotted until it was too late. Oh God, Roan’s paranoia was rubbing off on him. “Since the cops killed Jamie, why would they take me on? I got a scout from the Predators checking me out. I die and it could go national if it’s a slow news day,” Williams argued. “National stories usually get solved.” Before Holden could add some doubts to his reasoning, there was a
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screech of tires, sudden acceleration on a slightly slick road, and gunshots rang out in a muted, pathetic fashion, like someone was throwing firecrackers at them. Holden grabbed Williams and threw him down to the sidewalk as the parked car they were now behind had its windows blown out. In the blink of an eye, they were covered in safety glass. “You were saying?” Holden shouted, as he heard the tires scream and the throaty rumble of a car engine as it sped away from the scene. Gormless indeed.
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6 Available IT WAS really disturbing to know your doctor was lying to you, and yet not be able to prove it. Doctors, much like lawyers and politicians and detectives, got very good at lying after a while. The tells other people had often disappeared after a certain amount of time spent perfecting it, doing it for a reason you believed was just (or at least explainable or profitable). So while he was relatively sure Rosenberg was lying to him about his viral cycle being over early, Roan couldn’t prove it. She also said the words he always dreaded— they were looking at some test results—but once he was awake, he was cleared to go home with Dylan. She just wanted to see him again soon, which is another thing you never wanted a doctor to say to you. Considering he had just been through a cycle, Roan felt great. Of course it was probably all the drugs and not being conscious after the snapping of so many bones, tendons, and joints. Always helpful, that. But, true to form, he was ravenous, so he asked Dylan if they could stop on the way home to get a bite to eat. He had no problem with that, and they stopped at Gracie’s, the all-night diner, which he suddenly remembered was the first place that he and Dylan actually had a conversation with each other. Did this make Gracie’s “their” place? He hoped not, because it was a classic greasy spoon, and as a vegetarian, there wasn’t a lot for Dylan here. Roan was not a vegetarian and rather glad about it at the moment. He wolfed down two cheeseburgers and split a plate of fries with Dylan, who barely had any. He seemed troubled about something, but he wouldn’t say what. He just said he was tired, as he hadn’t been sleeping well since Roan went into the hospital. It made Roan feel horrible. Had he been worrying about him this whole time? Goddamn it. It would be so much easier if he were single, then he wouldn’t have to worry about someone worrying about him. But that would be dead boring too, so he wasn’t sure how to swing that.
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Dylan told him that Holden had been looking into the case for him, and that he may have accidentally offended him. Roan asked him how, and Dylan, oddly, shrugged diffidently and said he wasn’t actually sure how, but he thought Holden thought he was being arrogant. “Why?” Roan pressed again, dunking a greasy fry in running ketchup. Yes, it was all very disgusting—and tasted so good it was hard to believe. Dylan sighed wearily. He really didn’t want to tell him. “I suggested that perhaps he had feelings… for a certain client.” “Doug?” “Who’s Doug?” “The pilot he ties up and smacks around.” Dylan raised an eyebrow at that. “Do you think he has feelings for him? He did just go to Vegas with him.” “Did he? I didn’t know that. But, no. I mean, I don’t know, but it seems unlikely. Holden enjoys his cynicism. Emotions would ruin his cool.” “Oh, is that the problem?” “What?” “He’d rather want something he can’t have because if he actually had it, he’d have to do something about it.” Roan looked over his shoulder, and then looked back at Dylan. “I think this conversation fell through a hole in the space-time continuum. What the hell are we talking about?” Dylan smiled quietly, and Roan was glad to see it, even though he had no idea what they were discussing. Yes, it was about Holden, but he was sure there was a subtext he was missing. “I think I’m trying to figure out Holden,” Dylan said. “I’m not doing well.” “What’s to figure out? He’s a control freak who’s afraid of losing control, so he uses a mix of charm and aloofness to always control the situation. And I should know, as I have control freak tendencies myself.” “Tendencies?” Dylan repeated, giving him a sly grin. “Oh sweetheart, we are so beyond tendencies.” “Quiet, you,” Roan mock threatened. Dylan just smiled at him, taunting him with his eyes. He knew Roan wasn’t going to do anything. Cheeky bastard.
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As they headed home, Roan wondered why Dylan would feel the need to try and figure out Holden. It seemed needlessly frustrating. Roan would never understand Holden, and he didn’t even want to try. It was late, and when they got home, he wondered if it was too late to call Holden or if he was off on a client call. Or maybe just sleeping for once, although he seemed to be a true night owl. It was probably a street kid habit that he never shook, but it would serve him well as a detective. He was going to tell Dylan he needed to make a phone call, but as soon as they were in the door, Dylan grabbed him and gave him a long, deep kiss that he could feel all the way down to his toes. Wow. He pulled back in a kind of a daze and asked him, “What was that for?” Dylan cupped the back of his neck, giving him a wistful, lazy smile as he rested his forehead against Roan’s. “I’ve missed you.” “I’ve only been gone three days.” “I still missed you,” Dylan said, and leaned in to kiss his neck. He then bit him, not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to make Roan involuntarily growl. He had no idea why a bite would do that to him, turn him on beyond all reason. It was probably very kinky and unsavory, but it seemed as unconscious as his growling. Roan grabbed Dylan and kissed him back just as hard as he’d been kissed when they came through the door. You know what? Screw the phone call. The job could wait until later.
ONLY when the sound of the doorbell woke him up did he remember he had one. Did anyone ever use the doorbell? Roan stumbled into the bathroom for a piss and tried to remember the last time anyone had used it. The UPS guy? Yeah, that must have been it. Not many people bothered. He glanced out the bathroom window to see if it was the UPS guy again, but all he saw was a silver Chevy Cavalier parked out front. It took a moment for him to remember that was Holden’s new (well, new-ish; it was several years old) car. He'd sold his old one, why Roan didn’t know, but surely Holden had a reason. It was a sunny day. The rain had retreated for now, but there was a slightly opalescent cast to the air that suggested both cold and the impending return of showers. Figured.
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Roan pulled on his boxers and glanced at the clock, surprised that it was almost noon. Dylan was still sleeping hard, suggesting he really needed the rest. Seeing him sprawled on the bed on his stomach, the blankets pooled around the small of his back, Roan remembered what a lucky guy he was. Not just because he had a hot young guy, but because he had a hot young guy who actually cared about him. He was damn lucky he had anyone who cared about him at all because—to be brutally honest—he could be insufferable at times. (At times? Was he being generous?) On the stairs, he heard the doorbell again, and Roan snapped, “Knock it off!” Dylan deserved the sleep. Besides, he still hadn’t figured out the whole Holden thing yet. He opened the door to find Holden standing there with his hands on his hips, head cocked to the side, a slightly haughty look on his face. He was dressed very casually, in jeans, a blood-red T-shirt, and a black leather jacket, with his sunglasses already pushed up on his head. The only odd note was the fact that he was wearing hiking boots. “Knock it off? Who’s a grumpy pants today?” Holden looked him up and down. “A grumpy pants in his underwear. Are those silk?” “Satin. Get in here before someone snaps a photo of me.” He stood back, holding the door open, and Holden came in, now looking amused. He shoved the door shut and said, “Dylan’s sleeping, okay? I don’t want to wake him.” “Ah. I thought you smelled like sex. Have you ever had a cycle this short? I was amazed. Think being in a coma helped?” Roan sighed wearily, realizing he wasn’t up to Holden just yet. He walked to the kitchen and waved at the living room, hoping Holden would figure out for himself that was an invitation to sit. “I dunno. How’s the case going?” “That’s what I came to see you about. I’m guessing you haven’t seen the paper today?” He got a bottle of vanilla Frappuccino from the fridge, and felt weariness settle on his shoulders like a wet cloak. His detective spidey sense was telling him bad news was incoming. “Is someone dead?” “No, but not for lack of trying.” When Roan came back into the living room, Holden was holding up part of the paper, folded over to highlight the section of interest. The headline screamed “Local Sports Star Involved In Drive-By Shooting.”
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“Holy shit,” Roan exclaimed, snatching the paper out of his hand and quickly skimming the article. “Grey? How is he?” “Absolutely fine. He was just lucky I was there, and I am very calm, having been shot at before.” Roan plopped on the sofa to read it. “Since when were you shot at?” “Okay, not shot at per se, but I’ve been in the area when drive-bys have gone down and a drug deal went bad. I think that counts.” Holden sat on the edge of the sofa and said, “Last time I was here, Dylan offered me tea.” “You want tea? Go make it yourself. You know where the kitchen is.” “You’re a sparkling host.” “I’m a grumpy pants, remember?” “A grumpy pants in awesome underwear. I take it, from the red foil lipstick print, it was a Valentine’s Day gift.” “Score one for you, Sherlock.” Although Roan was reading the article, he couldn’t help but note, out of the corner of his eye, that Holden seemed to be staring at him. Or at least studying his chest. Did Dylan leave a hickey? He glanced down to see. “What are you looking at?” “That scar,” he said, and didn’t clarify. Which one? “Is that from a bullet wound?” Roan shrugged. “Yeah.” Well, two were, so it was a decent guess. But if Holden meant the scar near his collarbone or the one near his left hip, no. But he wasn’t getting into his scars with Holden. He had no idea why he considered that a form of intimacy, the true story behind most of his scars, but it was just something he didn’t like to discuss. You could get past and get over your childhood, but some things just brought it all back a little too clearly. “Unidentified friend. Is that you?” “It is. Luckily I knew the reporter who wrote the article. I told him to leave my name out, or his wife would discover what he was actually doing when he was supposedly working late on a story.” “Oh no, not another closet case.” “Nope, not this time. He’s straight, to the best of my knowledge. He just visits the S&M clubs. A lot. If they had a punch card, he’d be on his second free whipping by now.” An S&M punch card? That brought up an amusing image that made Roan smirk. “You know, having dirt on a lot of people is a good way to get offed. It’s why Danny DeVito got killed in L.A. Confidential.”
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“I try not to advertise the amount of dirt I have. I try and fly under the radar. Speaking of dirt: Carey Switzer. We really need to talk about him.” The article said that the car was unidentified—apparently neither Grey nor Holden saw it—and the police were still looking for witnesses, as well as perusing tapes from nearby CCTV cameras to see if they’d caught anything. That told him the cops had pretty much nothing to go on. He wondered if Grey being a “local sports star” would encourage some witnesses to come forward. Roan folded up the paper and tossed it on the coffee table, enjoying a swig of sugary caffeinated goodness. “Okay, so you know Switzer.” “He’s infamous on the East side. He’s one of those ones who wants freebies.” That was seemingly cryptic, until you realized you were talking to a sex worker who used to hustle on street corners, and then its meaning was nauseatingly clear. “He extorted sex?” Holden nodded, looking disgusted at the whole thing. “He’d deliberately pick up newbies, youngsters, mostly female, some male, some just street kids and not even prostitutes. He’d say he’d arrest them and bring them in, but he’d let them off if he got a freebie.” “A fuck.” “From the boys, a blow job. But yeah, that was the deal. If you turned down his oh so generous offer, he’d rough you up, take you in, and say you were beaten when he found you. One woman claimed he planted a rock on her.” A rock being meth, of course. Roan rubbed his eyes, and wondered if he should just track this motherfucker at home. Nowadays departments cracked down hard on this kind of shit, but bullies with a badge still existed, and when they did, they were horrendously foul little despots. They all deserved to be taken out and shot. “No one’s filed a complaint against him?” “Not until Jasmine sued, no.” “Shit.” There was motive. His little fiefdom was threatening to come crashing down, so he takes out the only witness brave enough to say something. “And he really hated gays. Even if he got what he wanted from a boy, it wasn’t unusual for him to beat them up anyways. Once he beat one up and ran him in, said he resisted arrest, pulled a knife on him. I can’t imagine what he’d do to a transsexual.”
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“Will any of these people be willing to testify against Switzer?” Holden grimaced, his hands tightening like he wanted to make a fist but didn’t dare. “I don’t know. It would depend.” “On what?” “On how much protection they’d get.” “They’re that scared of him?” “He’s a complete fucking asshole.” “Well, being a bully and a rapist will get you that reputation.” He sighed wearily and dry washed his face. “What about Michael Brand?” Holden shook his head. “No one’s heard of him. Switzer generally works alone.” Roan didn’t know how to ask it, so he decided to just try and brazen it out. “Were you victimized by Switzer?” Holden tensed and gave him a sidelong look of disbelief. “I’ve never been a victim of anyone, Roan.” “I’m willing to believe you’ve always been supernaturally canny, but you were a newbie kid once yourself. That couldn’t have been a great time.” And the way he’d tightened up, the thin filament of disgust in his voice when he talked about Switzer… something about that felt intensely personal. Holden stared at him straight on, his eyes flinty and jaw taut. “These are my people, Ro. I may not be on the street anymore, but I still feel that these are my kids, and I don’t like anyone exploiting them. Especially not prick cops with a Napoleon complex.” Was that really it? Part of it, but Roan was sure Holden was holding back on him. Still, if he didn’t feel like talking about it, who was he to press? He didn’t want to talk about his scars either. So Roan held up his hands as if in surrender and sat back against the sofa. “Fair enough. I’ll make some inquiries, see if I can find out if there’s anyone in the department who’s heard some gossip about Switzer. Cop shops are as gossipy as any other place where there are too many people with not enough to do.” Holden relaxed in increments. “I can tell you Jasmine wasn’t a hooker. There’s rumors of a drug habit that I’ve been unable to concretely prove. Oh, and our helpful hockey client finally remembered Jasmine lived with a roommate who may still be living in the same apartment. Can we have him tested for brain damage?”
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“Wait for the checks to clear first. He give you a name?” “Brandon something or other.” “Wow, that’s illuminating. I should have that pared down to a few thousand people by lunchtime.” “Too late, it’s already lunchtime. Have you two been at it all morning or what?” The usual sparkle in Holden’s eyes returned, and it figured sex was the trigger. “No.” Not all morning. He had stamina, but at a certain point, you needed sleep. And fluids. “You know, if you want to do a three-way, I’m up for it. Couple of hot guys like you? That’s a freebie. I’m good in three-ways. A couple once hired me for an entire weekend.” Oh, the sordid things you learned about people. “A gay couple?” He scoffed. “Yeah. I don’t do women. I have nothing against them, but ever since that one time in high school, I don’t even attempt to sleep with them.” “One time in high school? So you gave it a try?” “I tried. It didn’t work. Nothing screams “gay boy” like having a raging teenage hard-on twenty-three-and-a-half hours of the day, and then suddenly being unable to get it up around a naked woman.” Ouch. “If you didn’t know you were gay before….” “Yeah, that’s an eye-opener. I always felt I deserved credit for trying, but no one would give it to me. Certainly not my preacher dad. Apparently, if I prayed enough, I could’ve gotten wood.” He rolled his eyes in disgust. “Is that how it works? No wonder I’m gay—I’m an atheist.” “There you go. Damned from the start. What was my excuse? Oh yeah—according to my dad, my junkie mother. Gotta love hypocrites, don’t you?” “Love wasn’t the word I would have chosen.” “Please note the sarcasm.” There was a muted mechanical hum, and Holden reached into his jeans pocket, pulling out a very slim cell phone that Roan recognized as his “work” phone. Meaning the one only his clients used. Holden checked the number curiously before answering. “Ben, how is my guy today?” His voice had dropped to a sexy, slinky tone, and Roan had to suppress the urge to snicker. He got up and walked back to the kitchen, mainly because he didn’t
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want to eavesdrop on this conversation, but also because he was starving. The Frappuccino just seemed to be pointing out to his stomach that there was a meat and starch quota not being filled here. After a couple of minutes, during which it seemed Holden was negotiating both a meeting time and a price rate (What was Ben asking for? Oh God, he so didn’t want to know…), Roan had just pulled some croissants out of the microwave when Holden said to him, “Gotta roll. I’m meeting Ben at two. But I should be free by three thirty if you need me for anything.” “I’ll keep that in mind.” “Hey, you have a closeted cop friend, right?” Roan was careful never to mention Kevin by name to anyone in a way that might shed light on his hidden sexuality. But apparently it was known that one of his police contacts was a mutual friend of Dorothy. “Yes. Why?” “’Cause we should really conspire to hook him up with Ben. He’s a great guy, an IT nerd, a bit overweight and the beard does him no favors, but really sweet. Just lonely as all hell and a bit repressed. So your repressed guy and my repressed guy getting together could be dynamite.” “I’m actually imagining the most awkward Starbucks meeting of all time.” “Oh sure, Studly, you scoff, but not every guy is as hot or as confident as you. Some need a push. More like a shove.” Studly? “This sounds more like a handcuffing.” “Ben’s not into the kinky shit. Although he could probably be persuaded if you ply him with enough schnapps and weed.” Roan just hadn’t had enough caffeine yet to deal with him right now. “Bye, Holden.” That just made Holden grin, showing off his whitened teeth. Roan didn’t understand why anyone wanted to whiten their teeth until they looked like sun-bleached bones, but there was much about current trends he didn’t understand. It probably just meant he was old. “No need to throw me out. I got the message. Be seeing you.” “Adios.” Roan had bitten into a steaming hot croissant and was letting the pastry melt in his mouth when Holden paused and turned back. “Oh, one more thing. About the client? A bit obsessed with you.”
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Roan almost choked. “What?” “Not in a gay way, although I’m not a hundred percent certain about that. But he’s definitely fascinated by you. He asked about your scars, if you had a boyfriend, and when we were in the cop shop giving our statements, he asked if any of those cops knew you. He’s way into you.” He didn’t know what to think about that. “Are you sure you’re not projecting here?” “Nope. It’s your macho allure, I think. He’s in awe. And why not? You are Batman, after all.” Roan glowered at him—Holden knew damn well he hated being called that and seemed to enjoy him getting pissed off about it—but he finally came up with a comeback. “Does that make you the Boy Wonder?” Holden returned the glower. “I will be dead before you get me in elf shoes.” It was nice to know Holden drew a line somewhere.
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7 Helpless ROAN was kind of surprised Shithead wasn’t Switzer’s middle name, because it should have been. A little digging turned up a ton of maggots. Switzer was considered something of an asshole even within the Eastgate department, but according to Kevin (yes, he had called him, but he didn’t mention Holden’s idea about setting him up with his IT guy), Eastgate PD was known as a swaggering boys’ club, and the chief there, Charles Horne, was either a friend or relative of Switzer’s (it wasn’t clear which; he’d heard different stories). According to Kevin, the Eastgate PD was probably one of the more corrupt precincts in the entire state, but with a very high crime rate and a low budget, most people were content to look the other way. It was a perfect storm of ennui and bureaucratic clusterfucking. A lot of the cops that ended up at Eastgate had been bounced from other precincts, often as discipline problems. As for his personal life, Switzer was in the middle of a messy divorce with his wife April. She was claiming he was abusive and had been harassing her through the use of his cop friends; he was claiming she was a sex addict and a poor mother and wanted sole custody of their two kids, Zachary and Ashley (seven and five, respectively). What little he’d been able to turn up seemed ugly and awful. Roan was inclined to believe April, and Switzer wanting the kids? Pure power play and vindictiveness on his part. If he was a little despot, he’d want to control every fucking thing. Maybe he loved his kids, and Roan rather hoped he did, but possession of them would only be a tool to hurt his wife. He’d seen guys like Switzer too many times to think anything they did was ever as straightforward as it seemed. Kevin knew someone at the Eastgate PD, and it was through her that he got word that Switzer was technically on leave from the department, mainly while investigation of his supposed use of other cops to stalk his wife was going on, but this same friend said it was known that Switzer was still hanging around on Carson Street, which was part of his old beat.
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It was also three blocks away from where Jasmine lived and was killed, which was a hell of a coincidence. So he got everything he could on this guy and prepared to track him down. Roan felt like a good fight today. He showered and dressed, going for a casual wardrobe of jeans and a T-shirt, leather jacket and leather boots. He grabbed his Vancouver Canucks baseball cap so he could hide his hair (that was the problem with having such a distinctive shade of reddish-brown) and found a pair of absurdly black sunglasses in his top drawer. Undercover wear, only he didn’t think he’d have to be too inconspicuous. He thought about it for a long minute before grabbing his Sig Sauer and his belt holster. He doubted he’d have to use it, but best be prepared. He was glad Dylan was still asleep and didn’t see him put it on or grab his gear bag containing his camera with the telephoto lens and the directional mike. He decided to take the GTO and drove out toward the Eastgate precinct, wondering if the whole place could be rotten. If this was the ’60s or ’70s, maybe, but cop shops had gone a long way toward reform for a very good reason: nobody liked a bad image. And through allowing corruption, racism, sexism, and homophobia to run rampant, it diminished everyone and everything associated with law enforcement. They’d come a long way, but you had to be pretty naïve to think you still wouldn’t run into these types. Hell, wasn’t it one of those “bag a fag” stings that had caught Larry Craig? Taxpayer money spent on trying to catch consenting adults having sex while you had a less than fifty percent chance that the guy who broke into your house and stole your stuff would ever get caught. Fucking amazing, some people’s priorities. He knew from Switzer’s DMV file (okay, so technically he shouldn’t have been able to see that…) that he was driving an ’09 Ford Ranger, and he’d just turned the corner on Carson Street when he saw a black Ranger pull out into the intersection up ahead. He confirmed two of the letters on the plate matched Switzer’s and decided just to follow him and see where he went. If he was honest with himself, he had no idea why he was following Switzer, except he wanted to start some shit. He was away from Carson Street, so he couldn’t catch him in the act of trying to extort sex from a prostitute… unless he was going to do this same shit on another corner. Surely his beat didn’t start and end at one. Okay, now he had a reason beyond simply starting shit with King Asshole. Except after ten minutes, he knew he was kidding himself. Switzer
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went out onto the freeway going south, so far out of his area he was crossing jurisdictions, but Roan decided to follow him anyways. After what Holden and Kevin had told him, and what he could find himself, he just wanted to sit this guy down, talk calmly and rationally, and then beat him so bad his grandkids would be born dizzy and bleeding from the eyeballs. Some people were such pieces of shit you had no idea why they existed—except to make misery for others. Did they get enjoyment out of that? They must have, because there was simply no other explanation for their hideous behavior toward their fellow human beings. When he saw Switzer was taking the Federal Way exit, he realized he must have been heading home. Or was it to his wife’s home? The divorce petition and subsequent stories about it did mention their Federal Way home, but it didn’t mention who was living in it. Roan assumed it was April and the kids, but maybe not. Maybe she had decided there were too many bad memories and left for her mother’s or something. It certainly happened. Confronting him at home just might be ideal. If he was as big a douchebag as Roan suspected, he probably had evidence lying about, assuming no one would find it and that he was untouchable. Bullies with badges always thought they were untouchable. He parked just up the street as Switzer pulled into the driveway of an unremarkable two-story house, white with grayish-blue trim, a large, spreading oak providing some shade over a well-tended lawn. He watched Switzer get out of his truck carrying a shopping bag with a bright blue ribbon trailing out of the top. A birthday present? Was it one of the kids’ birthday today? Well, shit—maybe he didn’t live here. So where did he live? A quick glance at his notes showed that he had no fucking clue. So maybe if he followed Switzer when he left, he might lead him to the place he was staying. What if he was crashing with one of his cop buddies? Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to beat on the guy first anyways. He’d provoke Switzer into taking a swing at him, and then everything after was self defense, as long as he didn’t kill him. Yes, okay, that was very weaselly of him. But working the system every now and again wasn’t a bad thing, especially if you could use it against a dickwad like this guy. Roan was settling into a long stakeout, seeing what reading material he had in the car (he always stashed a couple of paperbacks in each car, on the off chance he’d have a lot of time to kill somewhere), when he heard a
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woman scream, “No!” There was an astonishing amount of emotion packed into that onesyllable word: fear, hatred, rage, desperation, sorrow. Every internal alarm Roan had was going off, and he was already lunging out of the car as he heard the gunshot. Just one, a small pop muffled by both distance and being inside a house, but that was followed by children screaming and a man yelling at them to “Shut up!” Roan had his Sig Sauer out, safety thumbed off, and in his other hand he had his cell phone. He’d already punched up 9-1-1, and as soon as the operator picked up, he said tersely, “Shots fired, 154 Sycamore Drive, Officer Carey Switzer’s house.” He then dropped the phone on the front lawn as he took the gun in a two-handed grip and ran toward the front door like a charging bull, intending to break it down whether it was locked or not. It would make him an instant target, but he didn’t care—in fact, that’s exactly what he wanted. Drawing Switzer’s fire would mean the kids were clear. And he knew this scenario, didn’t he? Before he caught the scent of blood, before he burst through the wood-framed door, he knew Switzer had just killed his wife, and now he was either going to kill the kids or kill himself, or all in sequence. He had either picked a bad day to follow Switzer—or a good one. Roan exploded through the door shoulder first, wood splintering from the frame as he allowed his sense of smell to immediately orient him toward the rank stench of blood and flop sweat, the keening wail of frightened children, and he brought his gun up at the same time Switzer leveled his police issue Beretta at him. “Drop the gun now!” Roan shouted, focusing on him and shoving everything else to the side. In his peripheral vision, he was aware there was a woman lying on the living room floor, only her legs visible to him from where he stood, and the kids were cowering in a corner behind Switzer, the little girl behind the little boy. The shopping bag Switzer had brought had been tossed casually on the sofa. Switzer was a solid but chunky man, probably hard fat, but there was some doubt as to whether he could pass a department physical now. His round face was ruddy and plump, his hair a thinning bird’s nest of strawberry blond, his eyes just pissholes in snow, curiously hot and hollow. There was some wetness on his cheeks, but they were angry tears. “They’re mine,” he shouted angrily, skin flushing. A tear was suspended in his close-cropped mustache like a bead of silicone. Somewhere a clock
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ticked loudly, the only noise beyond the whimpering kids. Roan nodded, as if declaring children property was the most natural thing in the world. “Drop the gun, Carey, and we can work this out.” How crazy was he, how far gone? If he could be reached through talk, Roan wouldn’t have to execute him in front of his own kids. Switzer was aware enough to realize he was talking to a strange man with a gun, but not sane enough to think it through. “Get out of my fucking house.” “Put down the gun and I will,” he lied. Switzer’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. He stank of sour fear, of alcohol, chemicals indicating something more prescription, and emotions too hard to categorize correctly. It was chemical imbalance, exacerbated by the introduction of other chemicals. “You’re him, aren’t you? The one she was fucking.” “No, Carey, I’m a private investigator—” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the little boy looking toward the gaping hole of the front door and tensing, like he was going to make a run for it. Sadly, Switzer noticed it too. “Get out of my house!” he roared, swinging the gun back toward the kids. Roan squeezed the trigger, and a hole exploded in Switzer’s chest, blood spraying out the back and splattering the sofa. The little girl screamed again, and Carey fell like a toppled redwood, hitting the floor on his side, the gun bouncing out of his hand on impact. Roan edged inside, gun aimed down at the floor, and went to check on April. As soon as he saw her splayed faceup on the floor, clots of brain tissue splattered out on the butterscotch carpet behind her, he didn’t bother checking for a pulse. Switzer had got her with an almost point-blank shot to the forehead; her head resembled a partially deflated basketball, lopsided in a way it never should have been, the neat little round hole like a third eye socket in her forehead, misleadingly dainty for all the damage the exit wound had done. She may have been pretty once, but you couldn’t tell anymore. There was the stench of death, but it was almost smothered by blood and gunpowder and fear. He didn’t check Switzer for a pulse, just kicked the gun farther out of his reach. Even though his ears were still ringing from the shot, he could hear faint sirens outside. He looked at the kids and holstered his own gun. “Zachary, Ashley, why don’t we go outside and wait for the ambulance, okay?” He needed to get them out of the house. They didn’t need to keep
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staring at their dead mother or watch their father bleed out on the carpet. The kids had the glassy hundred-yard stare of shock victims, which was understandable. From the sharp ammonia scent, one or both of them had pissed themselves, but that, too, was understandable. Finally, Zachary asked, “Who are you?” “I’m Roan McKichan, a private detective. I was investigating your dad. I’m sorry I didn’t begin sooner.” “Not a cop.” Almost a question. “Used to be. I’m not anymore. I didn’t play well with others.” It was an attempt at a joke, but there was no laughing now. “Come on, we need to get Ashley outside.” That was the tack to take—make the boy feel like he was taking care of his sister. He agreed with that and lead his sister toward the door. She was holding his hand so tightly that it looked like she’d cut off blood circulation. He followed them out at a respectful distance, sure not to get too close to them and spook them further, and retrieved his phone off the lawn, where he heard the tinny voice of the 9-1-1 operator repeatedly asking if he was there. “I’m here,” he told the man. “Switzer just killed his wife. I shot him before he could turn the gun on the kids. He’s still alive, but he has a GSW in the upper left quadrant of his torso. I’m Roan McKichan, a private detective. Tell the police I will be waiting out front with the children and will fully cooperate with being taken into custody.” He would be taken in, that was unavoidable, but once the circumstances were checked out, he’d be released. Or hopefully he would, at any rate. He’d never dealt with the Federal Way PD before. Boy, they were going to love him.
IT TURNED out not to be so bad. The first cop on the scene was a big, corn-fed kid with a buzz cut who looked barely twenty, but he was clearly old enough to hold a rank, and he was hardly out of the patrol car when he exclaimed, “Holy shit, you’re him. The guy from the news. The Grant Kim thing. I thought your name sounded familiar.” Roan assumed a beating would soon commence, but as it turned out, the guy treated him like a fellow cop, respectful and with an almost obscene amount of trust.
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Roan recounted what had happened, saying that he was looking at Switzer as a suspect in a case and was intending to follow him home and question him about his involvement (some of the questioning would be with his fists, but he wasn’t about to admit that until he absolutely had to), but then he heard April scream, followed closely by the gunshot. None of this was a lie—you could argue it was a sculpting of the facts, but he could live with that. Neighbors started gathering before the ambulance arrived, and he wondered where they had been during the shooting. He gave the kid— whose name turned out to be Nate Dougherty; his partner was a surprisingly slight Chinese woman named Mira Chin—his Sig Sauer and knew he wouldn’t be seeing it until forensics was done with it. Oh, why couldn’t he have worn his Glock today? Okay, it was weird to like one gun over another for something other than technical reasons, but he did. So there. He wasn’t handcuffed, although he rode to the station in their squad car, ahead of any press. On the way there, it was Chin who wondered why Roan hadn’t shot him first thing coming through the door. “He could have shot you or the kids first.” “No, he couldn’t have. He couldn’t pull the trigger faster than me.” Dougherty snickered faintly and eyed him in the rearview mirror. “Little cocky, huh?” “No. Catlike reflexes.” There was doubt in his pale blue eyes that quickly cycled to concern as soon as Dougherty grokked he wasn’t joking. The cops were quiet for the rest of the ride in, and Roan was glad. He was asked to tell his version of events several times, but he was never close to being booked, and most of the cops seemed to extend him a curious deference. On the one hand, it made him feel old; on the other, it was kind of a relief. The adrenaline rush of the shooting had worn off, and all he wanted to do was curl up somewhere and take a nap. He was in no mood to scrap with macho bullshit cops. A few things became clear, slowly but surely. Roan had dropped the phone close enough to the house and had such good reception (he thought it paid to get a good phone if you had to have one of the fucking things) that the 9-1-1 tape picked up a few things, including Roan shouting to Switzer to drop the gun, as well as his response, “They’re mine”. They felt the tape could be enhanced to pick up other things, none of which would probably be good for Switzer. April Switzer had talked to an officer at the
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station several days ago, saying she was frightened of her ex-husband, but didn’t get a court order against him for fear it would make him violent. (Sadly, sometimes these control freak assholes didn’t need a reason; the fact that you were opposing them was reason enough to go psycho.) Switzer had left a suicide note in his truck, described as “angry, rambling, and pretty bugfuck” according to a detective named Hollenbach, and it explained why his kids had to die, proving he had planned to go the murder-suicide route with his entire family. The main motivation seemed to be his anger over the collapse of his marriage and his certainty his career as a police officer was over. (Was it the raping or the wife beating? There was a plethora of career killers to choose from.) Switzer died in the ER, but a weary public defender who happened to be at the station for another client—and looked like a younger, thinner Ned Beatty with darker hair—admitted that because Roan had technically trespassed, he could be charged with something. But it was unlikely, because it fell within the realm of justifiable homicide, and also “No way is anyone bringing this to trial, unless they really want to be humiliated in open court. You might want to push this to trial. Not only would no judge or jury convict you, but you’ll probably get a street named after you. And not in the bad part of town either.” Nice to know. Press were gathering. None had been let in, but the cops were telling him if he actually wanted to avoid cameras, he’d have to leave soon and out the back. The public defender, whose name turned out to be Andrew Gillis, said he knew a good way out, having gone out with clients who attracted more than a fair share of attention. Roan decided he’d have to bite the bullet and call Dylan. He was hoping he wouldn’t have to, that he could catch a lift back to his car and just go home and be able to tell him what happened over dinner, but that wasn’t going to happen if the “action news team” motherfuckers were already circling the wagons. Dylan was up when he called, which he was glad about, but he hadn’t been watching the news. That was good, and that was bad. With a sigh, Roan asked, “Guess where I am.” Dylan’s pause seemed strangely portentous. “One day. You’re not even out of the hospital one day and you’re back in?” “No, not the hospital.” He gasped. “You’ve been arrested?” Roan must have lived his life wrong, since the first two guesses were hospital and jail. “No, not arrested. But I am at Federal Way police department headquarters. I decided to trail one of the cops in the Hawley
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case to see where he called home. He decided today to pay a visit to his soon-to-be ex-wife’s house and kill her and the kids.” Dylan was silent for a long moment, then said harshly, “Tell me this is a sick joke.” “I got him before he could get the kids. Sadly, it seems I’m attracting press like sharks to chum. Could you come pick me up?” Dylan was silent again, this time for even longer. When he found his voice again, he asked, “Are you alright?” “Unhurt. You know me, Dylan—I’m only half human. He never had a chance.” “The kids?” “Surely traumatized for life. But physically unharmed.” He sighed heavily. “I’ll be right there. Just… is he dead? The guy?” “Yeah, just died in the hospital.” “Good,” Dylan spat, with an astonishing amount of venom, and then hung up the phone. That wasn’t very Buddhist of him. Roan felt like such a dumbass. He was getting a cup of coffee from the communal coffee pot when he remembered that Dylan’s dad was a troubled cop who had killed his wife and himself. Right before Christmas, for fuck’s sake. No wonder Dylan was glad he was dead; it was his childhood, two point oh. The only good thing that Dylan’s dad did was not kill the kids, just his wife and himself. He’d probably brought it all back, the horror and the trauma. He should have called Holden, damn his IT nerd—he’d probably deeply upset Dylan without even meaning to. Roan ended up having the disgusting cup of coffee with Dougherty and Gillis, as Gillis seemed to have an amicable relationship with the cops. They were hardly on the same side, but there was a grudging respect, and he didn’t seem like a bad guy. Neither did Dougherty, who still had a fresh-faced rookie-like aspect to him. Gillis asked him jokingly if he didn’t want the publicity, why he was always getting involved in these types of cases. It was an excellent question—not one Roan had an answer for either. Dylan arrived wearing a blue hoodie with the hood pulled over his head so his face was mostly obscured, probably so no one in the press would recognize him as Roan’s boyfriend. He shoved it back, but had a pained look on his face, like he didn’t want to do this and didn’t want to be here. Roan stood and hugged him, tight enough that he could feel how Dylan’s heart was thundering in his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispered into
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his neck, just below his ear. He stroked Dylan’s hair, feeling the heat radiate from his skin like waves of anxiety. “It’ll be all right. I promise you.” Dylan seemed to relax into him, holding him like he was the only thing keeping him from drowning. “It better be,” he whispered back, into his shoulder. Roan was suddenly aware of the eyes, of people staring at them, mostly cops, some surprised as if they’d totally forgotten or just didn’t know he was gay. Finally, one of the detectives said, in a mostly joking manner, “Get a room, girls.” Dylan stiffened at this, but he wasn’t familiar with the ultramacho world of cops. Roan met the cop’s gaze and said, “We would, but your mom’s booked the motel in advance of Fleet Week. She just can’t wait.” Other cops began to jeer at the detective, and as he told them to fuck off, someone winged a balled-up piece of paper his way, and another added, “Yeah, she does like a man in uniform, doesn’t she?” So clearly they ragged on this guy’s mother a lot. But mother insults were as big in a cop shop as they were on a street corner, so it was a good way to go. Easy too, but hey, now he was just one of the guys, gay or not. You just had to know the language. Gillis led them out the back way, away from prying camera eyes, although Roan didn’t relax until he was in Dylan’s homely little car. Free to talk finally, Dylan asked, “Does this mean the case is over?” He asked it with a great deal of hope. It would have been nice. Hell, it would have been a nice vacation. But he had a sinking feeling that it not only wasn’t over, but had just gotten a hell of lot more complicated.
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8 Mr. Hurricane SOMETIMES hunkering down against the press felt like trying not to be seen. They still had a bunch of Dennis’s business cards, which Dylan would hand out to any of the press that came to the door. Anything Roan said would have to be filtered through “his attorney,” which was total bullshit. Dennis would put them on hold until they hung up. But it was just his way of getting rid of them while leaving the dirty work to someone else. Hey, Roan could work being a weasel if he had to. They also had to unplug the phone, so only people who had his or Dylan’s cell numbers could call (not a big list, certainly not press). Which meant he fielded calls from Dee (asking if he’d emptied his gun into the bastard, which he hadn’t, which wasn’t the answer Dee wanted to hear—he was only the first of many who would ask him why he hadn’t unloaded a full clip into Switzer. The answer that it wasn’t actually necessary seemed to please no one), Fiona, Holden, Dennis (“How many of these idiots am I handling? You should really pick one to talk to, control the spin the Eastgate PD are gonna put out about Switzer…”), Gordo, Dropkick (“I always knew you’d shoot a cop, but I thought it would be Sikorski….”), and Jay (“If I autopsy him, I’ll save you something to hang on your rearview”). Holden said he’d be by later, but he was willing to come through the back so no one caught a “man whore” coming to their door. Roan told him he didn’t care. By about six, things had tapered off, and Dylan was suggesting dinner, which Roan was in no mood for. Maybe it was all the hard caffeine, or maybe it was the fact that he'd killed a man, but he had no appetite. He needed to eat something if he wanted to pop a pill though, so he was considering toast when there was a rather loud knock at the door, and a voice bellowed, “Hey, Roan, it’s me!” Dylan jumped slightly at the sound of the booming bass voice, looked at him, and mouthed, “Who’s that?”
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“I do believe that’s the client, Grey Williams,” Roan told him and walked over to the door. As soon as he unlocked it and opened it, Grey shouldered his way in and grabbed Roan in a huge bear hug. In fact, he lifted him off his feet as he came in the door. He remembered to kick the door shut behind him. “You got the motherfucker!” Grey crowed happily, shaking him like a cat might shake a mouse in its jaws. “Fucking awesome, man! You shot the fucker!” Good lord—he was all muscle. Did he shoot steroids in his eyeball? “You’re crushing my ribs,” Roan wheezed. Grey actually was; he had a vise grip around Roan's waist, like he was giving him a reverse Heimlich, and his arms felt like stone. It was like being crushed by marble. “Oh, sorry.” Grey put him down and let him go, but not before giving him a big kiss on the cheek. He then gave him a goofy, happy grin. “You shot the fucker!” “Only because I had to,” he pointed out. “It wasn’t because of Jamie.” Grey’s smile faded a bit, but his eyes were still big and bright, as if he were feverish. “I know. Sorry about his wife. At least you got the kids out, though.” “It was the one good thing about it all,” Dylan commented. Grey looked at him as if noticing him for the first time. “You the boyfriend?” He raised an eyebrow at that. “The name’s Dylan.” Grey either missed the implied rebuke or ignored it entirely. He walked over to Dylan with his hand out. “I’m Grey Williams. I bet you know that.” Dylan shook his hand, showing some kindness. “I do.” From the way Dylan grimaced, Grey must have not held back enough on the grip. “You guys have lifetime tickets for all the Falcons home games,” Grey announced, looking between them. “As long as I’m on the team. Good seats too. If I get picked up by the Preds, I’ll make sure you get tickets there too, although I guess that means you’d have to come to Nashville.” Roan shrugged. “Might for Argent.” Grey smirked, and Dylan asked, “Who?” “Jason Argent, the team captain. Wouldn’t kick him out of bed.”
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Grey laughed at this, and Dylan looked curious. “Really? This guy I gotta see.” And Dylan went and picked up Roan’s laptop, sitting on the sofa to have a Google. “You follow hockey?” Grey asked him. He shook his head. “My husband was a fan of the Canucks, but he watched enough games that I picked a few things up. One of which was Jason Argent is perhaps the handsomest hockey player I have ever seen. He looks like he could have been a movie star in the ’70s.” Grey got a quizzical look on his face that made him look about sixteen. “Husband? You were married? So, you guys are divorced now?” “No, I’m a widower. He died.” “Oh, fuck. Sorry dude.” Roan shook his head. “Wasn’t your fault.” “Oh,” Dylan said in a meaningful way. “Yeah, he’s definitely your type, Ro.” That made him chuckle. “He is, huh?” “Dark haired, manly, solidly built, big—holy fuck, six four? They’re making you hockey players bigger these days, aren’t they?” “Only the goalies are short,” Roan told him, shooting Grey a slight smirk. He grinned back, apparently getting that Holden had reported the aggressive vibe he got from “Tank” Beauvais. “He’s a bit older than you go for though,” Dylan said, teasing him. “Thirty-four? Man, he’s almost a grandpa in your books.” “Yeah, very funny,” Roan replied darkly, as Grey did actually chuckle. His manners finally kicked in and he asked Grey, “Wanna drink? We have sodas and bottled teas, juice.” “Umm, got diet?” “Diet cherry Pepsi.” “Fine, I’ll take one of those. Thanks.” “I didn’t take you for a diet soda drinker,” Dylan told him, as Roan retrieved one from the fridge. “I’m on a training regimen,” he replied. “I’m watching my sugar intake.” “Always smart,” Dylan said. Roan handed Grey the can and sat on the sofa beside Dylan. Grey sat on the love seat across from them, his muscular frame making it look more like a chair. “So what kind of diet are you on?”
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Grey shrugged a shoulder as he gulped down half the can. He put it on the coffee table as he said, “Mainly high protein, but I generally carbo load on game days.” That probably explained why he felt more like a statue than a human being. “I’m going to be turning the bulk of the investigation over to Holden,” Roan told Grey, deciding to just get it out of the way. He had a sneaking suspicion subtle wouldn’t really work with Grey anyways. “The fact that I shot and killed Carey Switzer in his former home will mean I will be the star of the shit list at the Eastgate PD for the next hundred years or so. No one will talk to me, except to call me a few choice names.” “But isn’t he just your street guy?” Grey asked, still confused. “Is that what he told you?” Grey just nodded, and looked momentarily like a golden retriever. “He is, but he has a way of cozying up to people that can get results. I’m not very good at cozying.” “Probably because your idea of cozying is usually punching someone,” Dylan pointed out sardonically. “Not always,” he protested. “Sometimes I just cuss them out.” “Or scare the shit out of them,” Dylan countered. Grey stared at him with a crooked half smile. “Sure you never played hockey?” “My infected status would make me iffy for a game schedule. I’ll still be working your case. I’ll just be more behind the scenes. So you can continue to contact me, and I’ll give you updates. Meetings will probably be best done here, since I’ll probably have media camped out at my office until all of this blows over.” It wasn’t that he wanted to be in the backseat of his own investigation, but now he had a visibility that was a real hindrance to a working detective. And as much as the Eastgate PD would be shaken up and happy to throw Switzer to the wolves, he wasn’t stupid enough to think that meant he would be off the hook. They’d hate his fucking guts for the rest of his life—he killed a cop. No matter that it was a cop who was rotten to his very soul, he’d broken rule one of the handbook for cops: no eating your own, whether it be shopping them to Internal Affairs or blowing their putrid, stinking head away. But didn’t they expect that of him? He was a kitty fag, and never quite one of them anyways. Grey finished his soda and went to use the bathroom, and it was then that Holden showed up, appearing at the front door just for the hell of it. He must have just come from a gig, because not only was his hair still
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damp (he smelled like hotel shampoo), but he was wearing a tight white, red, and black Lycra shirt that no decent human being would ever wear outside of a marathon, along with his usual tangle of about six necklaces (Roan was able to make out a silver wing, a piece of rock, and what could have been a frog among the pendants). On top of that were tight jeans with strategic holes, a black leather jacket, and black sneakers that didn’t quite match the rest of him. “Costume party?” Dylan asked. Holden just gave him a razor-blade grin. “Yep. I went as a badly dressed whore. I won first place.” He then looked at him and asked, “So, did you empty a clip into him?” “No.” “Shoulda emptied a clip into him.” Grey came back from the bathroom, and they all sat down and discussed how this was going to continue. The problem with Holden not actually having a detective’s license wasn’t brought up because, for the moment, nothing could be done about that, and besides, Roan didn’t know if he could get Holden officially licensed for anything. He seemed to like being unofficial. Roan was going to follow up on Jasmine’s roommate, leaving Holden to follow up on Michael Brand, which was actually the harder thing. From what Roan had been able to discover, Brand was a nonentity; while he had been briefly partnered with Switzer, he’d been partnered with a cop named Wilson for much longer, and while Switzer’s story got uglier the more you dug into it, Brand could be argued not to exist at all. It wasn’t so much that his record was clean, more that a record for him hardly existed. He could have been a made-up personage. Except a photo existed of him with an ill-suited mustache, so he was probably real, just unremarkable. Roan knew that Holden would have to investigate under an assumed name, and he confirmed that, although Holden also added he’d never been arrested anywhere near Eastgate. Grey asked him jokingly, “Been arrested a lot?” Holden shrugged, settling back on the couch. He was sitting on Grey’s right side, so Roan was wedged between him and Dylan. For some reason he couldn’t name, it made him feel uncomfortable. “Just a couple times, for the usual.” “The usual?” “You know. Loitering, solicitation, resisting arrest. Petty stuff.”
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Grey chuckled as if Holden was kidding, and Holden had flashed him his big, sly smile, so it was easy to see why Grey thought he was joking. He wasn’t, of course, but it was better Grey never knew that. Yeah, he seemed cool with gays, but a gay prostitute? There was no way of telling how he’d react to that. Most people’s reactions to sex workers weren’t positive and often led to very weird questions. Roan wasn’t even sure he could honestly answer the question of why he had a hustler as his assistant: Holden was the king of liars, and the dirt he could find on people was extraordinary. He was, honestly, a born detective. If this was the ’50s or ’60s, he could have been a real life Sam Spade. Only flamingly gay. Yeah, maybe that wouldn’t have worked. Grey had to go, as the team was traveling to Spokane for a game (what a thrill), but they exchanged cell phone numbers and worked out the best time to call. As soon as he left, Roan got up and got a microbrew from the fridge. He felt funny about drinking in front of a client, but especially a client on a regimen. It seemed like taunting. Holden also sighed and shucked off his jacket, revealing that the spandex shirt was sleeveless, and he had a henna tattoo on his right upper arm, a sort of vague, flaming phoenix shape. “When did you get the henna?” Roan asked. He could feel the alcohol settling in his stomach, transfusing into his bloodstream, and he decided to have that toast. He found the loaf of sourdough in the cupboard, and then wondered why Dylan always had to get the unsliced kind. Goddamn it, he had to go for a guy with hippie tendencies. “Before I got here. I have a friend who’s trying to branch out into body painting, and she’s been recruiting test subjects. That’s why I was late. She said it would take her ten minutes, and it took her almost thirty.” Dylan put the laptop on the coffee table, and leaned over to look at it. Holden helpfully turned toward him so he could have a better view. “Pretty nice. But it usually takes a while to set, doesn’t it?” “Yeah, by putting on the jacket I probably made it crumble early.” The bread was crusty, but as Roan bit into his ragged slice of toast, he realized the interior was soft as a pillow. So maybe there was a reason why Dyl bought the bakery bread instead. Damn hippies, being right about some things. Holden looked at him still standing out in the kitchen and asked, “Was there something you wanted to tell me about Brand now that the client is gone?”
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He shook his head, washing down his toast with a gulp of beer. “No. I got nothing on Brand. I mean nothing. It’s really weird.” “Think he’s hiding something?” Roan scowled as he thought about it and was forced to shake his head. “It’s possible, but if so, he’s hidden it well. The only blip on the radar is Jasmine naming him as one of the cops who assaulted her. Otherwise, he’s honestly nothing. There’s a couple of possibilities. One, Jasmine mistook Brand for another cop. He does have that bland kind of everyman face.” “Could she have made a mistake like that?” Holden countered. “People do. Everyone thinks eyewitnesses are reliable, especially when it’s you, but the truth is, memory is always funny, especially in a high-stress situation. Your mind can sometimes fill in gaps that are missing without any intention of doing so. Your brain wants to see a pattern.” “What’s possibility number two?” Dylan asked. “He’s the quiet, gray man he appears to be, but that one night he snapped. He’s been good ever since, but that night he totally lost it.” “More likely if he’s super-repressed,” Holden said. “When they go, they go big. They’re bombs waiting to go off. The only trick who really seriously tried to kill me was a good Baptist boy who couldn’t understand why he wanted dick so much when he was married to a good woman. Just couldn’t handle his own sexuality and reconcile it with his religion.” “He tried to kill you?” Dylan asked, surprised. Holden nodded, as if it was something that happened all the time. “He gave me fifty bucks to suck my dick, then he freaked out, sobbing and slapping himself in the head, and then out of nowhere—okay, probably from under the car seat—he pulls out a pistol and says we have to die because we’re wicked.” Dylan seemed really engrossed in the story. “What happened?” “As soon as I saw that gun coming up, I knew this fucker had gone from batshit to psycho, so I grabbed his wrist as he brought it around and forced it up toward the ceiling. He had that crazy strength, you know, but he was still a wiry little string bean. I had almost fifty pounds on him, slightly more than half of it muscle. He pulled the trigger and the gun went off. The bullet went through the top of the windshield, not shattering it but putting a pen-sized hole in it. I knew I wasn’t getting out of the car until he let go of the fucking gun, so I punched him as hard as I could in the gut.
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He retched and lost enough of his grip that I was able to yank the gun away and threw myself out of the car. I aimed the gun at him and he sped off.” “Jesus.” “I know. The coda to this I found out a couple days later, that he was the guy they found dead on the freeway. He deliberately rammed his car into a concrete barrier at sixty miles an hour. I recognized the car. Found out his dad was a Baptist preacher, and hey, mine was an Evangelical preacher. Same diff, really.” “What’d you do with the gun?” Roan wondered. “Pawned it to a guy named Burn. I didn’t need to ever get caught with a gun.” That made a name float up from the recesses of Roan’s mind. Oh sure, he’d forget his ATM PIN number, but he remembered this. “Aka Anthony Morretti?” “Yeah. Know him?” “I arrested him once.” “Huh. Small world.” Roan shook his head, sure the beer was getting to him more than it should have. When was the last time he ate? He couldn’t remember. “Or we have a case of the Jim Jones effect here. Brand fell under the sway of a man with a more forceful, charismatic personality and did something he wouldn’t normally do.” “How are we ranking them by likelihood?” Holden asked. He could only shrug. “I’d have to know more about the guy. All I know is he’s a very average cop, thirty-five, divorced with two kids, lives in Kent. He could be anyone.” “But we’re on the same page here, right? Switzer killed Jasmine.” It wasn’t a question. The look on Holden’s face was resolute. Roan sighed. “A rapist who can kill his family with no remorse? Yeah, he’s easily capable of murdering anyone else. He’s certainly vaulted into the most likely category. But tomorrow I’m gonna call Jay, see if he can find out if the same gun that killed April killed Jasmine as well. If I can get a ballistics match, I’ll be happy to declare him a fucking murderer twice over.” Holden’s look turned skeptical, his eyes narrowing as he studied him. “You actually think there’s a possibility he didn’t?”
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“I want to prove it. I’m happy to pillory him as king asshole of the world—well, duke; I suppose Dick Cheney is king—but I want to make sure he actually did it. What if we stick it to him, and the actual murderer gets away with it? I wouldn’t be happy with letting someone slide on a charge this big.” Holden rolled his eyes and sighed, as if Roan was being a deliberate pain in the ass. “Do you always have to make things so difficult?” “I ask him that all the time,” Dylan said, not without some affection. It was a fair cop, he supposed. But it wasn’t like he enjoyed being difficult…. Oh, who the hell was he kidding? Of course he enjoyed being difficult. He just wasn’t about to admit it.
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9 Rough Boys ROAN woke up when Dylan slammed down the phone, cursing in Spanish. That was how you knew you’d really pissed him off—he cursed in Spanish. He didn’t do that often. Roan turned over onto his stomach, snuggling into his pillow, and asked, keeping his eyes closed, “What’s wrong?” “Those fucking press monkeys tracked Sheba down at work,” he exclaimed angrily, while putting a gentle hand on Roan's back. It was warm and comforting. “She told them she didn’t know you well enough to comment on you.” “Nice of her,” he muttered into the pillow. It had been two days since he'd sent Holden after Brand, and he remained sequestered in his house, hoping to bore the press to death. Obviously he’d just sent them in another direction. Dylan rubbed his back idly, then asked, “You okay? Sure you’re not mad at me?” “Why would I be mad at you? I’m fine, Dyl. I should be ecstatic. No more cage.” Doctor Rosenberg had called him into her office yesterday. He had snuck out and met her at her office, and she told him the unbelievable: he no longer had a viral cycle. Being ready to transform all the time had seemingly kicked him out of it, and now he no longer had to worry about transforming without warning. So no more cage, no more worrying that the viral sequence would kick in sooner than he expected. He should have been thrilled. So why wasn’t he? Maybe because his identity as King Freak was permanently cemented now. He was now a permanent outcast in a segment of society that should have accepted him to some degree. He’d always felt like an outsider, and now he knew why: he wasn’t them. Not really. No more than they were him. Maybe the gays would accept him; they were his last hope for any sense of unity. And he didn’t hold out much hope there, since he never got the homosexual agenda newsletter that every member of the
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religious right seemed to get. Dylan rested his head on his back, between his shoulder blades, and said, “I know you should be happy, maybe, but you’re not.” “I’m okay with it, really. I’m just still processing it.” Did he believe him? Probably not. Dylan was too perceptive. So before he could call him on it, he asked, “What time is it?” “A bit after eleven.” “What?” He finally lifted his head and opened his eyes, looking at the alarm clock as Dylan sat up, taking his weight off of him. Oh yes, he wasn’t lying—it was slightly less than an hour to noon. “Oh shit, I have to get going.” “Looking for Brandon?” “I’m outta leads. I’ve got to talk to Grey.” “He’s back?” “Told me yesterday they would be doing an afternoon skate at the Grind ice rink.” Roan was on his feet, heading toward the bathroom in a half-dazed stumble, when he heard Dylan ask, “That’s an ice rink? I thought that was a skateboard place. Or a strip club.” “I know. I didn’t believe it either, but apparently they do ice too.” Roommate Brandon had turned into a huge pain in the ass. He had lived in the apartment he'd shared with Jasmine several months after the crime but, according to the landlord, moved out a few months ago, she wasn’t sure where. She also couldn’t describe him, beyond a “fragile, girly-looking Mexican boy” (Roan assumed she meant Hispanic). He gave his name as Brandon John Fallows, and the SSN matched… a teenage boy killed a little over thirty years ago in a car accident and buried in a cemetery in Burien. Now Fallows, who only seemed to pop into existence—after the thirty-year absence—a couple months before he'd moved in, seemed to cease to exist two weeks after moving out. An experienced identity thief, but beyond that was the troubling fact that Brandon—or whatever his name actually was—was obviously concealing his real identity, and no one did that without good reason. He’d now worked his way onto the bottom of the suspect list. What was he running from? Could it have gotten his roommate killed? He had to get everything Grey knew about Brandon and try and find a lead from it. He wanted to do it in person, mainly because he wanted to make sure Grey didn’t lie to him, either intentionally or unintentionally. This case had gotten more complicated than he’d expected. And to
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be honest, he was glad for the distraction right now. Roan ended up parking in the back lot of Grind, which was almost as large a quadrant as the parking lot at the Seahawks stadium. Why? Was skating that popular in the Seattle area? Or had each player, crew member, and hanger-on driven here in their own car, but not before inviting a hundred random people to come watch them? There was a bus stop nearby, and he wondered if that was the reason. As he walked the lot, he saw a bald guy (a white guy who shaved his head) in a denim jacket giving him the stink eye, like he recognized him as the guy who ran over his dog several times with a combine harvester. Roan gave him a sarcastic little wave, and the guy muttered something into a cell phone. Roan mimed a kiss, and the guy turned away. Yep, blowing a kiss at them usually did it. There was a guy in a nylon jacket standing at the rear entrance of the rink, arms folded in the traditional security guard posture. But he was more lumpy than muscular, like the Falcons sweatshirt and the slacks he was wearing were full of mashed potatoes instead of prime beef. Not only was Roan sure he could take him, but that anyone over the age of thirteen had a fair shot at taking him. He was bald, but unlike the guy giving him the stink eye, it wasn’t by choice. “Help you?” he muttered, making it one word: hepyu. “I’m Roan McKichan. I’m here to see Grey Williams.” Roan tried not to stare, but the guard’s head was almost perfectly egg shaped. He wanted to ask him if he’d ever had a hen sit on him by mistake. “Uh huh.” “Ask him. He knows who I am.” With great reluctance, the man lifted a walkie-talkie to his mouth and said, “Ryan, there’s a guy named McKeen out here, says Grey knows him.” “McKichan,” Roan corrected, but figured Grey would know who was meant. If he was lucky. There was a burst of static over the walkie-talkie, Ryan saying something, but it was impossible to make out what he said. Even the Eggman scowled at his unit, like if he frowned hard enough he could have made sense of it. After almost a minute, the door behind the Eggman cracked open, and he stepped aside as Grey stuck his head out. “Oh, hey, man. Thought that might be you.” He came out dressed in dark sweatpants and a
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sweatshirt, none of which had a Falcons logo. His hair was damp, and his skin was slightly flushed. “I didn’t pull you off the ice, did I?” “Oh, hell no. There was some kinda scheduling snafu, so we had to do our skate early. We’re packin’ up. In fact, I thought I was gonna hafta call you and reschedule.” “They got something else going in here? It explains why the parking lot is so full.” Grey looked around, as if noticing it for the first time, and shook his head. “Yeah, it’s some ice skating thing. There’s a buncha MILFs in the lobby.” Ah, straight people. As he was wondering what he should say to that, the door opened again, and a tall, slender guy came out. “Hey, Grey, this the detective?” “Oh, yeah. Roan, this is Scott Murray, our team captain. Scottie, Roan.” Scott held out his hand, and his handshake was dry and firm but not over-the-top bone breaking. “Hi. Really wanted to meet you. You were really impressive taking on those Nazi fucks.” “Thanks.” How many people had Grey shown the video to? Well, it probably wasn’t his fault—it was shown ad nauseum on television for about twenty-four hours, until a more interesting story hit the news cycle. And considering this was a nice distraction from the fact that Scott was fucking cute. He had a round face that ended in a squared-off jaw that wasn’t heavy, with sleepy blue eyes that softened his rugged looks and short black hair that was actually reasonably stylish, not harsh. He could have been his ex-lover Connor’s half brother, that’s how handsome he was, and Roan wanted to slap himself but didn’t dare. This wasn’t at all fair. The stereotype was hockey players had the best bodies—lean, hard—but the homeliest faces. Hadn’t Scott been given the memo? He was even better looking than Argent. “Vancouver, right?” he asked. Scott nodded. “Burnaby originally, but close enough. Accent gives it away, huh?” “I’m very familiar with it.” How old was he? He looked barely twenty, but he had a bit of stubble suggesting that at least he was shaving age. Now it seemed to be a “meet the team” party, as several other
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players dribbled out. In order: a tall, blond Russian called Sandy (who could have been a body double for Dolph Lundgren in that Rocky film), “Tank” Beauvais (who seemed oddly placid and yet gave off the vibe that he was a grenade waiting for his pin to be pulled), a guy named Richie whose nose had been broken so often it was now permanently crooked, and a guy with an astonishingly stereotypical New York accent named Jeff. (He’d learned from the Falcons own web page that there were only three American-born players on the team: Grey, Jeff, and somebody named Rozanski. Nearly all the rest of the team was from Canada, save for Sandy and a Finn named Henrik.) Roan felt like a trained monkey—were they expecting him to dance? Another guy came out, but he was talking to the Eggman, and he was too old to be a player, deep in his mid-thirties. Also, he wasn’t wearing anything approximating workout gear, and Roan caught a glimpse of a silver watch that was reasonably expensive. Not sure there was a subtle way to do this that Grey would catch, he told him bluntly, “I’m here to talk to you about the case. Should we go somewhere private?” He shrugged. “No need. The guys know.” “Okay.” Did they know he was looking into the murder of Grey’s best friend’s transsexual sister/brother? Maybe they honestly didn’t care. Most of the younger generation wasn’t as hung up on sexual roles as the older generation. “I need to know if you ever met Jamie’s roommate, Brandon Fallows.” “No.” “Know anything about him at all?” He considered that, grimacing slightly. “Not really. Jamie hardly mentioned him in his letters.” Roan stared at him blankly. “Letters? Jamie wrote you letters?” “Yeah. For a while there I didn’t have an Internet connection, so that was easier.” “Why didn’t you tell me that before? Can I see the letters?” He was trying very hard not to get mad at Grey, not in front of so many big teammates (only Tank was about his size—short, his ass!) but it was difficult. Did he really want to sabotage his own case? It was hard to believe anyone could be this dumb. “I didn’t save ’em.” He scratched his head, then added, “There might be one or two, though. I packed up a whole buncha stuff. I’m not sure
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about everything I packed.” “If you could check, I’d really appreciate it.” Roan had no idea why, but his personal alarm bells started going off as soon as he heard the rumble of a truck engine. Or maybe it was just he was being stared at, and usually he knew when eyes were on him. He looked over his shoulder to see a flatbed white Ford pulling to a stop in a parking lane almost twenty feet away (well, there weren’t a lot of places left to park), and the engine was left running as eight men of various sizes and ages—mostly older teens, most burly—hopped out onto the pavement, some carrying pipes or bats. Roan instantly recognized the skinhead who’d been giving him the stink eye earlier. “You’re that kitty fucker, ain’t cha?” the skinhead asked, although it wasn’t a question. “Helped that motherfucking gook cat escape justice.” “Vigilantism isn’t justice,” Roan corrected, although he knew he was a) being a hypocrite, and b) there was no way in fucking hell this asshole would understand it. “You’re one of them, ain’t cha?” A guy who could have been Skinhead’s younger brother snapped. “Kitty fag. These your bang buddies?” Oh no, he didn’t just say that. “Get back in your piece of shit truck and leave. You don’t want this kind of trouble.” “You threatening us, faggot?” “He said leave,” Scott said, his voice oddly flat. It was kind of fun to watch. You knew the guys had been teammates for a while because they all glanced at each other and instantly knew what battle formation to take. Sandy and Tank started slowly drifting right while Jeff and Richie started slowly drifting off left, leaving Grey and Scott (and himself) right in the middle. Wedge formation. As soon as the skinhead and his buddies went for Roan (and Grey and Scott), they’d be instantly surrounded. None of them were new to fighting, even off the ice. “You his boyfriend?” the skinhead taunted and made a kissy face at Scott, evoking derisive laughter from his followers. Scott didn’t take the bait, just glared at him. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with, do you?” “Buncha fuckin’ kitty fuckers.” “Ever seen Slap Shot?” Roan wondered. This seeming non sequitur stopped the skinhead in his tracks. “What?”
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“I thought it might give you some idea what’s about to happen to you. Ah, those who don’t watch classic movies are doomed to repeat them.” “That’s a great film,” Scott replied. Roan nodded. “Can hardly go wrong with Newman.” Confusion briefly clouded the skinhead’s face, but it quickly sharpened to annoyance. “You fags are nuts.” They closed in, but there was a strange hesitation, and Roan knew why when he glanced back at Grey and saw him smiling ear to ear, showing off his gap-toothed grin. He was so happy he was almost laughing. And why not? He was an enforcer—his ability to fight (and squash and manhandle) was why he was on the team in the first place. This was where he shined. Technically they were outnumbered, and these guys did have weapons. But Roan figured they’d have them all down in three minutes. As it was, that was a generous estimate. Grey threw the first punch, a snap to the jaw that knocked out the skinhead’s brother instantaneously. He hit the asphalt like a bag of meat. In fact, his head had snapped around so sharply it was a minor miracle it wasn’t thrown off his shoulders. Grey hit like a jackhammer, and Roan suspected he was actually holding back a bit. “Next,” he said cheerfully. A guy with a bat swung, but Tank blocked it with his arm and gave the assailant what Roan knew was called a “Glasgow kiss”—he brought his forehead down sharply on the bridge of the man’s nose, breaking it with a sickening sound of crunching cartilage. As blood burst from both nostrils and he stumbled back screaming, Tank ripped the bat from his hand and threw it away (Roan heard it break glass—someone’s taillight?) as he cursed him out in his French-accented broken English, “That a pussy weapon, you piece of shit redneck motherfucker!” Tank then started beating on the guy, big roundhouse slugs to the head that made one of his earlobes burst open and start spurting blood. He had no technique at all, but he had a surprising amount of rage and fearlessness that pretty much tagged him instantly as the crazy guy to avoid fighting at all costs. (Strong could be dealt with—but crazy? Oh no. You never knew what the crazy were going to do.) As the guy was now on his knees, shrieking, a friend ran in to try and help, and Tank threw an elbow that caught him flush in the mouth as he was running toward him, and teeth tumbled out of the man’s mouth like candy from a broken piñata. What amateurs. Didn’t they know you didn’t fight the crazy guy?
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If the skinheads ever got a chance to use their weapons, it wasn’t obvious. Sandy and Jeff seemed to be having fun pummeling the cretins, shoving them between themselves like human Frisbees, Richie was lecturing the fallen (“You start a fight, you should know how to fucking fight, assholes!”), and Scott had simply grabbed the youngest guy and pulled his shirt up over his head, both blinding him and locking up his arms so he couldn’t take a swing at anything, putting him in an odd, bentover position. As he tried to squirm free of his shirt so he could get in the fight, Scott grabbed the back of his neck, squeezing hard, and said, “Don’t make me break your jaw.” Scott pressed his knee up against the man’s shirt-covered face, just to let him know how easily he could do it. The boy wisely stopped struggling. “You’re dropping your left, Jeff,” a man said, and Roan looked to see the guy with the watch was filming the fight on his camera phone. The supposed bodyguard was watching, seemingly bored, as if this happened a lot and he was sad to be left out. Roan almost laughed. This was kind of like Slap Shot, and he was with the Hanson Brothers—all six of them. He hadn’t even had to do anything yet. Richie was currently slamming one man’s head repeatedly into the tailgate of an SUV, shouting, “Who’s the faggot now?” He actually seemed to be waiting for an answer, but since the guy seemed half conscious and was bleeding from almost every orifice, an answer probably wasn’t forthcoming. Grey, who had knocked three guys out and had yet to break a sweat, cracked his knuckles, and asked, “You want this guy?” Someone had just gotten out of the passenger seat of the Ford and was stalking toward them, reaching into his coat pocket. Over the smell of so much testosterone, fear, and freshly spilled blood, Roan didn’t know if he had a knife or a gun, but either way he didn’t want to wait to see. “Yeah, leave him to me.” Roan sprinted to meet him, not wanting that weapon out of his coat, and upon seeing Roan coming for him, the man stopped and pulled it out. But he was still bringing it up as Roan grabbed his wrist and snapped it as easily as if the bones had been made of plywood. (It had been a gun, a small Saturday night special that probably would have been more annoying than lethal; he’d have to get up close to use it with any kind of accuracy). He took a breath to scream, and Roan slammed his forehead into his face, which made Roan almost black out, but the pain was something he could live with (especially since his morning Vicodin was just kicking in). The would-be gunman just hit the parking lot, unconscious, and Roan dropped his wrist, kicking the gun toward Grey. “Want a souvenir?”
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A guy reeled away from Sandy, escaping his grasp, and Roan decked him with a casually thrown jab. He then looked around, shaking his hand (that guy had a face like concrete), and realized the only people left standing were him and the Falcons. All the skinheads were down and out, or, if at all smart, had run away screaming like kindergartners from a haunted house. A glance at his watch showed that barely two minutes had passed. Had any of the skinheads even landed a successful punch? The driver still in the Ford took off so fast his tires squealed as he got out of there, leaving a shit-stain skid of rubber, and Tank threw one of the pipes at him, hitting the open rear tailgate of the truck (great throw.) It took a crazy bounce and caromed off into the sea of parked cars. “You pansy piece of shit, come back here!” Tank raged. Considering splashes of someone else’s blood colored his face, the front of his shirt, his sleeves, and his hands, he looked like a slasher in a horror film. A wild-eyed French slasher in a brown Puma T-shirt. “Bring your redneck family, and I’ll have my sisters beat you up! You limp dick ignorant pig shit!” Roan found himself struggling not to laugh. Tank was great. He was going to start a Tank fan club. As he covered his mouth so he didn’t laugh, Grey came up next to him and whispered, “Goalies are all insane. Every one of ’em.” Considering they volunteered to stand in front of frozen pucks being winged at their heads at roughly a hundred miles an hour, he could see why that might get you a reputation for insanity. If they weren’t before being goalies, they would be after. “Nice right. You skate?” The guy who asked him turned out to be the guy filming the melee on his camera phone, the one who had told Jeff helpfully that he was dropping his left. “No.” “Too bad.” Sandy clapped his hands together and said, “That was fun. We should do this more often.” He wasn’t being sarcastic. “It’s a rush,” Jeff agreed. Scott, who no longer had the kid (Roan figured he let him run for it, but he couldn’t be sure), looked at all the fallen, bleeding men littering the parking lot and asked, “What do we do now? Call an ambulance?” “Nah. One of the skating moms’ll probably do it,” phone guy said, snapping it shut and putting it in his pocket. What was he, the coach? Assistant coach?
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Tank clapped Roan hard on the back, almost making him jump with the shock of it, and said, “Pansy not a gay thing. You gay, but you not a pansy. These guys, they probably not gay, but they pansies.” Roan nodded, smiling, trying not to laugh. Again, Tank was fucking hilarious. “Anyone hurt?” the assistant coach (?) asked. “I think my arm’s bruised,” Tank volunteered, rubbing the arm that deflected the bat blow. “Think I jammed my pinkie,” Richie said, examining the digit. Looked fine to Roan. “You’re fine to skate. You’re at the arena at three.” “We got it,” Scott assured him. He gestured back to the door and said, “Tank, Sandy, why don’t you guys clean up. Then we’ll go get lunch.” “I don’t need clean up,” Tank insisted. He saw the blood on his shirt and shucked it off, using it to wipe the blood off his face and hands. He revealed a surprising set of six-pack abs and a small heart tattoo between his pecs. If someone had tried to punch him in the gut, they’d have probably broken their knuckles. “I just need another shirt.” He walked back, and going in the door, handed the bloodied shirt to the assistant coach. “Frame this for me.” Sandy followed Tank back into the rink but kept his shirt on. “He’s a goalie,” Grey explained. “They don’t get to fight a lot.” “Does that explain the rage?” Roan wondered. Grey shrugged, and Scott said, “That might be from yesterday’s game.” “Oh,” Grey replied, as if remembering. “That asshole who butted him.” Roan guessed that was some hockey terminology he didn’t know. “Pardon?” “Hit him with the butt end of his stick,” Scott explained, making a gesture with his hands that looked like he was poking someone with an invisible stick. “It’s a shitty thing to do, but some guys do it, and the ref doesn’t always catch it.” “Tank gave him a facewash for it and shoved him on his butt, and he got a game misconduct for it,” Grey said, finishing the story. “He wasn’t happy.”
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“I wasn’t happy,” Scott said. “I argued so much with the ref he threatened to toss me in the penalty box.” “I’m having a hard time imagining anyone deliberately trying to piss off Tank right now,” Roan admitted. Grey grinned again, such a goofy expression that it made him look deceptively harmless. “Yeah, I know. He’s something off the leash, ain’t he?” Scott sighed wearily and scrubbed a hand through his hair, mussing it up and making him look even more adorable somehow. Damn it, he needed to stop that! Scott looked at him, and Roan was afraid for a moment he'd caught a hint of the lustful ogling, but instead he asked, “Wanna come to lunch with us? We should buy you a drink.” Grey threw an arm around his shoulders and threatened to crush him in a sideways bear hug. “Yeah, c’mon! Afterwards, we can stop by my place and I can see if I can find any of those letters.” Put that way, he didn’t see how he could say no. Besides, as bizarre as it was, he may have just found his people. No, he wasn’t a jock, but he was a lunatic, and he could see himself fitting in perfectly with the Falcons.
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10 Dark Skies A
TERRIBLE mistake had been made with Michael Brand’s name. It should have been Bland. Holden knew he couldn’t do any investigation inside the cop shop, although he did attempt a follow-up with the officer who had supposedly helped Grey out, Sid Fisher. Grey, as was usual with this guy, had left out an important detail: Sid was Sydney Fisher, a woman. A not-unattractive brunette who wore a too-tight ponytail and baggy dress blues that made her look like she was wearing her big brother’s uniform. She met with him at a coffee shop, but mainly to confront him about not having a detective’s license, at least not under the name Holden Fox (the name he gave her). He admitted it was a false name because he was afraid if she found out he worked with Roan McKichan, she wouldn’t talk to him. Like he had hoped, Roan’s name freaked her out, although that only showed in a paling of her face and a sort of crazed look in her eye. She clearly wanted to leave, and yet she was torn. Switzer was a fucker who deserved to die—they all knew it—but because he was a cop, they all had to pretend it was a great tragedy. He got her to stay long enough to drink half her latte and admit that she didn’t know why Hawley named Brand in the report. Yeah, Switzer was a given, but Brand? It was assumed to be a mistake or perhaps part of a vendetta against the department. She barely knew him. She said he was a quiet guy, and no one had any complaints about him. Which was suspicious to Holden because the quiet guy was always the one you needed to worry about. People probably described his client Doug as quiet and unassuming, unaware that he liked to be tied up with scarves and have a male prostitute beat him with surgical tubing while calling him a cum-swilling dog fucker. Admittedly, Doug’s fetish was relatively harmless (although Holden was sure he was getting a repetitive strain injury from whipping him so much), but he was representative of quiet guys who always hid some shocking secret. So Holden had decided to tail Brand when he got off work to see where he went. The first night, Brand went straight to his quiet suburban
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home and spent all night there, going to bed—or at least turning off the lights—shortly after midnight. Second night, same thing. Holden waited a few minutes before sneaking up to the house to try and get a look inside, see if Brand was torturing his dog with a fork or had nuns tied up in there and was painting the walls with their entrails. He finally found a window to look in, and discovered that Brand was sitting in a worn armchair in front of the TV (watching CNN), eating a frozen dinner. His guess was Lean Cuisine. Holy shit—this guy was a dead end. He couldn’t have been more boring if he tried. Holden went back to his car and tried to figure out his next move. Roan had said stakeouts were often boring, but staking out Brand added boring on top of boring. It was like watching paint dry—white paint. On a white wall. Yeesh. So what was the idea again? Brand snapped, or got misled by a charismatic man, or was misidentified. The first two were impossible to prove; the third might be easier. He went through all the notes and files that Roan had compiled on Switzer’s other cop shop partners. One was immediately eliminated because he’d moved to Colorado four years ago, but the others didn’t look anything like Brand. Even assuming a head injury, it was impossible to mix any of these shocking specimens of humdrum humanity up with Brand. Were they missing something here? Could it have been a friend of Switzer’s mixed up with Brand? Did Switzer have friends? Damn, there were no notes on this. Holden sat there, trying to figure out what angle to take, where to look. But you know, he wasn’t Roan. He wasn’t an experienced investigator, and he didn’t know how to tackle this from an oblique angle. All he knew how to do was face this head on. After putting the files away and tucking them under the driver’s seat, he went up to the front door of Brand’s neat little house and knocked. After thirty seconds or so, Brand opened the door and looked out at him blankly. “Yes?” “Hello, Officer Brand. You don’t know me, but you know my associate, and I was hoping we could talk.” His thick eyebrows furrowed in suspicion. They were the only thing that gave his otherwise bland face character, although they also
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highlighted how rapidly thinning his walnut-colored hair was, giving him a monumental forehead. “Who are you?” “My name is Holden Fox, and… will you promise me you won’t slam the door in my face when I tell you who I work for?” Brand’s suspicious look intensified, but he only nodded. “I work for Roan McKichan. Can I come in? Just to talk, I promise.” Brand blinked rapidly and backed up a step at Roan’s name, and it seemed like he was maybe considering slamming the door in Holden’s face, but he seemed to think better of it. “Is this about Carey?” “Yes. Please, may I come in?” Holden figured there was still a fifty-fifty chance Brand would slam the door in his face. But after a moment during which he appeared to consider it, he said, “I didn’t know. About his wife. I hardly knew him at all.” “I believe you.” And he sort of did, even though Brand was sounding super-defensive. Brand scowled and asked, “What d’ya want?” “Just to talk about any friends or acquaintances Carey might have had. That’s all.” He still seemed suspicious. “This off the record?” “Of course. I’m totally off the record, all the time.” No lie, that. After a moment, Brand stood aside, inviting him in by default. Stepping into a relatively neat home with lots of Ikea furniture, Holden wondered if anything in this place had been bought within the past year. He actually thought not. He sat on a homely old sofa in a homely living room where the scent of lemon chicken almost covered up the faint odor of stale cigarette smoke. Brand had once smoked, perhaps, but he didn’t anymore, or he was trying to quit. A newsman was interviewing someone, poorly, in the background. Although he hardly made Holden feel welcome, Brand also had a needy quality about him that suggested he wasn’t exactly eager to have Holden leave either. He gave off loneliness like some men gave off cheap cologne, a feeling Holden had picked up before from occasional customers. They weren’t all married men who spent their lives in the closet; some were genuinely lonely men who, for one reason or another, could only get a lover they paid for. He honestly hoped Brand was as straight as he seemed. Brand surprised him by saying, “McKichan was investigating him
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for something, right? To be tailing him. What?” “Client confidentiality. I’m not at liberty to say.” Brand fixed him with a look that strived for menacing but actually seemed more bitchy. Poor soul—some people just couldn’t manage menacing. Roan should have shared some of his. Normally no, he wasn’t, but when he started growling and partially transforming, when his eyes and the shape of his face started to change, he was the fucking scariest thing on planet Earth. Partly because the human mind wanted to reject something that strange, and partly because the mind, unable to reject reality, just started freaking out about it. He was capital W Wrong, and people just weren’t sure how to handle that. Even Holden, and he considered himself Roan’s friend. (But not the lion. No, he didn’t know the lion, and he wasn’t sure anyone was its friend.) “Come on. You could give me a hint.” “It involves Carey and violence. Which I realize doesn’t narrow it down, but we can pretend it does.” He seemed to stew about that for a moment. “Is this about the transvestite?” Holden looked surprised. “He was involved with a transvestite?” Brand shook his head vehemently, and his fingers twitched like he was holding an invisible cigarette. Yeah, he was trying to quit. “I mean, uh… the transsexual.” “You realize they’re different things.” He nodded again, in an impatient way. “Yeah, yeah. I just… yeah.” How articulate. “Did Carey have any friends outside of work?” “I dunno. I wasn’t partnered with him long. I asked to be partnered with someone else ’cause… he was kinda intense.” “Aren’t most cops?” Brand frowned again, shook his head, and before he could say what he was bound to say, Holden decided to pounce. “Was it the raping of prostitutes you objected to?” Brand’s head snapped back like he’d been slapped. “What? No—I mean, Carey didn’t—” “He did. I have friends who were raped by him.” Brand stared at him, truly baffled. “Prostitutes?” “They do have friends, you know.” “I know! It’s just—” He fidgeted uncomfortably, his eyes roaming his charmless little house like they were seeking an escape route. His gaze
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was finally caught by the television’s white and blue strobe. “I didn’t know that. I had nothing to do with that.” “I know. What I’m trying to figure out is why Hawley named you in the lawsuit.” Was there such a thing as a full body flinch? Holden was sure he had just seen one. Brand scratched his neck rather violently, and Holden saw that Brand had a bit of a rash on his neck. His nails left red marks on his own throat. “I dunno. I never got that either.” Was he lying? Oh, Roan needed to interview this guy. He had a way of sniffing out truth. Literally sniffing—how you could smell a lie he had no idea, but Roan could. And there was something about Brand that seemed off. Not majorly off, not “shoot a woman in cold blood” off, but something wasn’t ringing quite true here. And what was that flinch about? It was like a muscular dry heave. “He have friends outside of work? Beyond Barry.” According to news reports, since he and April started divorce proceedings, Carey had been staying with an old college buddy, Barry Braun. He said he had no idea that Carey was going to “snap” like that. Brand was still scratching at the rash on his neck, and it made Holden feel itchy in the way that all displays like that did. “He didn’t stay here, if that’s what you’re getting at.” “What?” “Those two days—” He trailed off, stopped scratching, and stared at Holden. “That’s what you were asking about, right?” “Of course.” Two days? What, Carey wasn’t actually staying with Barry? (Or Larry, or Sherry, or anyone else with a rhyming name?) Barry was covering for him? Now why would he do that when it would get him in a shitload of trouble? “So, no secret girlfriend or anything?” “Y’mean Carey?” Brand shook his head. “If so, he didn’t tell me.” “And you have no idea where Carey was for those two days?” “No, no more than anyone else. I’d like to know, actually.” “Would you be willing to talk to Roan? I realize he’s not much liked by your department right now—” “He shot Carey.” He glared at him like he was the stupidest person in the world. Holden met his glare with one of his own. “And he shot him in the chest. Do you know what a good shot Roan is? He could have easily taken a head shot and closed the book on this instantly, but he took a chest shot,
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because for some unfathomable reason he gave that scumbag a chance to survive. If it was me, I’d have blown his head off and pissed down his neck hole.” Brand sat back, looking stunned, like he didn’t know whether to cry or beat the shit out of him. “I realize he was an ex-partner and perhaps a friend, but from what I know of Carey, he was a lost cause even before he blew his wife’s head off in front of his own kids. Do you have a defense for that? No, I didn’t think so. In Roan’s place, would you have done differently? Would you have let him shoot his kids too?” He actually waited for a response, never looking away from Brand’s soft, colorless eyes, and the man’s mouth opened and closed silently for a moment before he found his voice. “N—no, of course not—” “So why judge Roan so harshly for something you would have done as well? Hardly seems fair, does it?” He stood up, and said, “Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch.” Holden showed himself out, leaving Brand to chew that one over. Of course, now he had something to chew over as well. For two days, Switzer wasn’t with Braun. Who gave a damn? Well, you’d give a damn if it was the two days before he killed his wife. Okay, so where would an otherwise friendless man go? He’d want privacy, and just maybe to plan the death of his wife and kids. Where did one go to do that? Holden’s first thought was Disneyland, but that was in another state. Fox News? Again, no, not here. Damn it. He sat in his car for a few minutes and wondered if he should just call it here, let Roan pick up the loose threads. No—was he an assistant investigator or not? He could do this. What would Roan say about this? Probably that Switzer would go somewhere he felt safe, somewhere familiar… but it was unlikely April would let him stay at their home. So…. Scene of the crime? No, not his house, not Jasmine’s apartment building, but the Alley Cat Motel. Switzer mostly raped prostitutes in his patrol car, but he was also known to occasionally hide out in the Alley Cat, as if afraid of being seen with a hooker while on duty. It was a shining paragon of no-tell motels—it only did business in cash (nope, credit cards weren’t welcome), and notations were made in the front office only to tell what rooms were in use for how long. No real names were given or expected. Hookers liked it a lot, as did sex traffickers, the occasional drug mule, and fugitives. If Switzer wanted to be alone to plot and target practice, there was no better
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place—besides maybe a sealed nuclear bunker. And the owner would never come forward to say Switzer had stayed there because media attention was the last thing he’d want. As a cop, Switzer would know that as well as any of the whores. Holden took off for the Alley Cat and wondered when he’d last been there. How old was he then—nineteen? Good lord, it seemed like another lifetime. It was, wasn’t it? He was a different person then. It was hard to imagine they were even related. In all that time, the Alley Cat hadn’t changed at all. A simple wooden sign with a poorly drawn winking cat on it had a buzzing “vacancy” sign flickering underneath in dim red letters, the shabbylooking collection of parallel rooms laid out like a speed bump in peeling white and green paint. The parking lot was cracked and filled with holes, litter occasionally filling one up and making it seem almost even, while standing puddles of liquid remained even days after the last rain. It looked like the very last stop on your way to skid row, the bottom of the barrel before you fell into your own grave. The manager’s office was out front, which was unusual, but it had a nice window that allowed the manager to see the cop cars coming. The glass door let out a heavy cowbell noise as Holden opened it—that’s what was on the door, two cowbells, because chimes just weren’t good enough—and it revealed a cramped and dingy office with walls the color of tobacco-stained teeth and a waist-high front desk that cut the room in two. Immediately, the pale blue curtain separating the back of the office from the front parted, and he was genuinely shocked to see Mr. Jankowiak was still running the place. Shouldn’t he be dead by now? He eyed Holden suspiciously. “You look familiar, yeah? Can’t place ya, though.” Mr. Jankowiak—or Janko, as everybody called him—was anywhere between sixty and eighty, an age that varied along with the strength of his Polish accent. (There were even times he pretended only to speak pidgin English.) He was bald and plump and wrinkled, with a head like an ugli fruit and a stomach that looked like he was smuggling a bowling ball beneath his stained polyester shirt. His skin had a strangely enduring tan, even though he never seemed to get out of the perpetual gloom of his office, making Holden figure it was spray on, makeup, or a sign of some obscure illness. Today, he wore a white polyester shirt with blue and red pinstripes that was the ugliest thing Holden had seen outside of a theme restaurant. It had a big mustard stain near the bellybutton, but that actually
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seemed to make it look better. “I’m Fox. Remember me?” He frowned in thought, scratching his head. How did you have a waxy scalp and dandruff at the same time? Janko managed. “One of Maldonado’s people, yeah?” “No.” Who was Maldonado? “Look, I need you to tell me what room Carey Switzer stayed in while he was here, and if he left any stuff in it, I want to see it.” Janko looked at him blankly with rheumy eyes that used to be blue but were now more gray. “Huh? I don’t know who you’re talking about.” His accent had just increased tenfold. Holden scowled at him. “Don’t, Janko. Maybe you don’t remember me, but I remember you. Now either you tell me, or the cops are going to get an anonymous tip telling them all about your hidden cameras in the rooms. They’re gonna be interested in all your tapes, don’t you think?” Janko was a voyeur, and generally a skilled one, although if you knew where to look you could find the cameras. His look turned stony and hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Holden smirked, and dug a twenty out of his pocket, which he tossed on the counter. “Let me see his stuff and the cops never have to know. It’s up to you.” Janko looked like an evil gnome—he was about five five at best— but he snatched up the money quickly with his sausage-thick fingers, and spat, “Now I remember you. You’re that smart-mouthed whore, the one who thought he was better than everyone else.” “I never thought I was better than everyone else, just better than this. Now, where’s the stuff?” Janko sighed heavily and cursed under his breath in Polish as he unlocked and lifted up the portion of the front desk that could actually move (it wasn’t immediately apparent), heading out of the office. Holden followed, although he kept his pace slow, otherwise he’d have trampled the old man. He got around fine, he just had a kind of awkward gait, like maybe he was wearing prescription shoes. (That would explain a lot.) He took Holden around back of the motel, where, standing alone on the cracked asphalt (well, besides hidden parked cars) was what looked like an equipment shed, and certainly the stained mop and crusty bucket leaning against the side of the structure added to that impression. But it was also where Janko kept stuff he stole from rooms and patrons. He
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didn’t do it a lot, but it was a side enterprise. The door had a heavy industrial padlock on it, and Janko made a production of taking out the keys and unlocking it. Once he cracked the door open, it let out a puff of stale air that reeked of cheap, lemon-scented cleanser and body odor. Janko reached overhead and pulled a dangling chain, making a naked light bulb burn with all sixty watts of its power. Holden had to stand outside the shed while Janko was inside, because it wasn’t big enough for two people. Janko had to move aside a very oldlooking upright vacuum as he surveyed cardboard boxes that lined the built-in shelves, all marked according to a system that only Janko could figure out. Finally, he pulled out a box that still had the Dole logo on the side and said, “You may look, but no stealing. If you steal, I’ll know.” Holden was tempted to point out stealing was Janko’s job, not his, but instead he gave him a sarcastic salute, which made the old man look at him funny as he left the shed. Holden went in and half closed the door behind him, leaving it open just enough to let some fresh air in. There wasn’t really a lot in the box, just some random clothes (all men’s), a box of ammo (oh hey—Holden took out his cell and took a photo of it), and a cheap watch. Out of deference to Roan’s scouring every damn thing, he searched the pockets of the clothes and found some receipts that were less than insightful (oh, so he got a Whopper combo meal—Carey had struck him more as a Big Mac man) and a crumpled cigarette pack. Out of reflex, he squeezed the pack of Marlboro’s before returning them to the pants pocket and felt something solid in it. He opened it and shook it, and a small silver key fell out. What was this? Locker key? Safe key? Something like that. And the very fact that Janko didn’t have it meant he didn’t know it was here. Holden pocketed it and put the crumpled pack back where it had been. He took a picture of the gathered items loosely piled in their box, in case Roan could see something of interest that he had missed, and then put the box back. After a brief thought of pillaging the others—what could Janko do to him, seriously?—he decided to leave it. He no longer needed to scavenge to survive, and picking the bones of such sad carcasses seemed beneath him. He reached up and turned off the light before shoving the door open, and it was that that probably allowed him to see the shadow coming for him. Holden was too far out of the shed to go back in (if that was even the wise move here), but he turned to meet the figure as it impacted with him, and he felt a solid blow to the gut. Although stunned, he still had enough
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presence of mind to punch the fucker in the face. His attacker reeled back and Holden backed up as a couple of things occurred to him simultaneously: namely, the guy was wearing a ski mask, Holden could feel something wet and warm running down his leg, and his abdomen felt cool in the otherwise humid night. Had he just been stabbed? He put a hand to his gut and felt warm wetness, so yes, that would be his guess. The punch hadn’t stunned the guy enough; he came back at him, and Holden could now see the flash of a silver blade in the dim reflection of a streetlight. Holden grabbed his wrist, stopping him before he could stab him again, but the guy was strong and tried to muscle him down. He stumbled on the cracked asphalt and fell to his knees, but he almost dragged his assailant with him. He wrenched his arm free, and Holden knew he was going to attack him again, so he threw a punch with all his strength right at the guy’s crotch. It sounded like he tried to scream, but instead he dropped the knife and fell back on his ass, making a sort of squealing, retching noise, grabbing his dick like he was afraid it would fall off. Holden was pretty sure he'd ruptured a testicle, which was a fair trade for a stab wound. “You a shitty mugger, or is this personal?” he wondered, considering he and Grey had been shot at. He heard the footfall behind him but was in the process of turning when something wooden and solid hit him on the head, sending him crashing to the pavement. “Fucking faggot,” the new guy said, and brought the baseball bat down on his back, sending a shock of pain down his spinal cord. Okay, they knew him. Holden reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his lucky butterfly knife as the second man hit him again with the bat. He was going for body blows, which hurt like fuck, but it would have been smarter to go for the head. No, he wasn’t Roan, but he wasn’t helpless. All he could see of the second man was his legs and his shitty Nikes, but that was all he needed to see. With a single motion, he flicked open his knife and stabbed it deep in the fucker’s leg, just above the ankle. He then ripped up, as far as he could before the bat hit his arm hard enough for him to lose his grip, numbness traveling like a lightning bolt through his fingers. “Motherfucker!” the guy shouted, falling backwards and dropping his bat. Holden had hit something major—he was spurting blood all over the lot. “He fuckin’ stabbed me!” “No shit,” Holden muttered, feeling a lancing pain in his side. Still
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he forced himself to move, grabbing his knife with still numb fingers and shoving himself back up to his knees. He was feeling woozy, his head was throbbing, but he wasn’t going to die without taking them with him. The first assailant—the leader, presumably—got that, and considering both of them could barely stand, he apparently didn’t like their odds. Still holding his bat with one hand, he staggered up to his feet and grabbed his friend by the shoulder. “C’mon, we gotta get out of here.” Holden had already pulled out his cell from his other pocket. “Don’t go on my account,” he said, and his words sounded slightly slurred to his own ears. “Party’s just getting started.” He took a picture of them as they staggered away, helping each other, stupidly leaving their weapons behind. They’d be caught in no time. He was pretty sure guy #1 had a prison tattoo, meaning his prints were in the system. He dialed 9-1-1, and a woman asked, “How can I direct your call?” “Well, I’ve been stabbed, so ambulance please.” Distantly, Holden was amazed at his own calm. He tucked his knife away in his pocket and put a hand over his stab wound, sitting up against the door of the shed so no one else could attack him from behind. He hurt all over, and he could feel blood seeping, warm and sticky, through his fingers. He was inexplicably tired for some reason. He wasn’t sure if he should blame the calm on shock, or on Roan really rubbing off on him.
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11 Orestes IT HAD been a pretty strange day. Lunch with much of the defensive lineup of the Falcons had led to them all but insisting Roan attend the game that night, so he called Dylan and asked if he wanted to attend a game with him. Dylan thought it was an odd request to come straight out of the blue, but he’d never been to a hockey game and had no plans, so he figured why not. The comped seats Roan got put them right behind the Falcons’ bench, and the players could see them through the Plexiglas. During the warm-up skate, Grey gave him a thumbs-up, and Tank waved his hockey stick at them as he skated out to the goal net. Dylan asked, somewhat jokingly (and somewhat not), if Roan was the adopted gay of the team. Perhaps. For a bunch of jock boy straight guys, they were all right. They were certainly the guys you wanted at your back when you were jumped by a bunch of skinheads. Roan told Dylan all about the time Paris took him to his first hockey game, a Canucks game. The audience was almost more entertaining than the game itself, as three men became so drunk and rowdy they were escorted out during the course of the game. Paris said it was the Canadian way. Dylan gave him a funny look but turned toward the rink in an attempt to hide it. “What?” Roan asked. Dylan shrugged, and said, “That’s the first time you ever told me a Paris story without tearing up.” Was it? Oh shit. Roan didn’t know what to say or how to react to his own general stupidity. It was rather painful to even think his name, never mind say it. But he felt so good today, right now, it just sort of got away from him. He was going to apologize, but that seemed weird, and the loud music over the arena speakers spared him from any further conversation. It was a good game. The Falcons won easily—Grey got a goal and even Tank got an assist, which was kind of rare for a goalie. After the game, as the team was filtering back into the locker room, Scott pressed a
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towel against the Plexiglas with the words written on it hastily with a Magic Marker: “Meet us around back”. Roan nodded and gave him the high sign, letting him know he got the message. “We being invited to an orgy?” Dylan asked on their way out. “Think we’d be welcome at one of their orgies?” “Well, all sports seem to have an air of homoeroticism to them.” “True. But it’s acceptable homoeroticism, nothing overt.” “Technically, yeah. But I betcha there’s at least one gay guy on the team.” He wouldn’t have been surprised really. But he asked, smiling, “What you wanna bet?” Dylan grinned right back at him. “What’re you offering?” They discussed possibilities as they went around to the back of the arena and loitered. The guard at the door was the one with the egg-shaped head, and he acknowledged Roan with a nod. Some other people loitered, but not many; it wasn’t like a Broadway show or a rock concert. Some of them were kids with hockey gear, wanting it signed. The players started filtering out, and some signed stuff for the kids, chatted with them a bit, and then Scott came out. After talking to a couple of kids, he came over to them, and Roan introduced Dylan to him. They shook hands and exchanged pleasant smiles, but they both seemed to be sizing each other up. Why? Did Dylan think Scott was going to punch him? Conversely, did Scott think Dylan was going to kiss him? Whatever that was, it came and went quickly, and Scott told them that because they had a couple of days before their next game, some of the guys were going out drinking tonight, and he was wondering if they wanted to come along. Roan was tempted to ask if they just wanted them along in hopes of getting in a fight, but since Roan hadn’t mentioned the fight to Dylan yet, he kept it to himself. Instead, he exchanged a questioning glance with Dylan. He knew Dylan would beg out, as he had work in two hours, but Dylan seemed curious if he’d accept the invitation without him. Roan was wondering that himself when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He held up a finger, indicating they should wait, and pulled out his phone. He thought it might be Holden, but it was Dee. “What’s up?” he wondered. Dee exhaled, and that was a bad sign. “Holden’s been attacked, Ro. We just brought him in to County.” Why did he never expect these sorts of phone calls? “What? How is
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he? What happened?” Roan turned away from them, not to be rude but just to focus more on what Dee was saying, but he saw the alarmed look that flashed on Dylan’s face—he knew something had gone wrong. “He’s stable. He was stabbed in the abdomen and hit with a bat, but I know why you’ve made him an assistant, Ro—I think he’s the world’s toughest whore. He fought them off, and from the amount of blood at the scene, one of them is going to need medical treatment immediately. Hospitals and emergency clinics are being alerted now.” Yeah, Holden never struck him as an easy target. Good for him. “Stable doesn’t tell me a lot. How’s the prognosis?” “Pretty good. He lost a bit of blood, but it looks like nothing major was hit. He has a concussion, though, possibly broken bones in his hand.” “Shit.” “Look, he gave me some stuff to give you. He was conscious when we got to the scene, which just adds to his tough whore reputation. He told me to tell you that Brand lied, and you’d know what he meant. He means Brand as in a person’s name, doesn’t he? Otherwise I don’t get that sentence at all.” “Yeah, he does.” Roan rubbed his eyes, trying to think dispassionately. So he went to talk to Brand and felt he was lying—about what? “He didn’t identify his attackers, did he?” “No. But one has a ruptured testicle and the other has a serious leg wound, so they’ll be identified soon enough.” Roan felt a hand on his back and knew it was Dylan, because there was no way Scott would touch him in such a familiar way. “I’m on my way. Tell him to hang on.” He closed up his phone and said to Dylan, “Holden’s been attacked. Dee and Shep ended up picking him up.” “Oh shit. But he’s going to be okay, right?” “I hope.” He turned back and faced Scott. “We gotta go. Sorry. Rain check?” He nodded, looking vaguely concerned. “Can we help?” That struck Roan as funny. What, he had backup now? Was he going to saunter coolly into a room and say, “Have you met my hockey team?” The idea was amusing, but he wasn’t really in a laughing mood right now. “Thanks, but no.” He and Dylan headed out, and in the car Roan told him everything that Dee had said. Otherwise they drove to the hospital in complete silence. There wasn’t much to say, was there? Dylan had a hand on his
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shoulder the whole way, and that was comforting enough. The traffic was bad, but not quite as bad as in the hospital lobby, where the victims from a four-car pileup were being brought in. Still, Roan easily spotted svelte Dee, half swallowed by his big paramedic’s jacket, and they met in a corridor beyond the ER so they were theoretically out of the way. Dee gave him what Holden had given him: a cell phone and a key. The phone was clearly Holden’s—he could even smell a tinge of his blood on it—but he had no idea about the key. “What’s this?” Dee shrugged helplessly. “He said he found it and thought you might want it.” “Found it where?” “He didn’t say.” “Where was he attacked?” “The Alley Cat Motel.” “That dive?” Talk about the worst of the worst. He was probably lucky he didn’t get an STD along with a stab wound. “What was he doing there?” Dee gave him that look, that one that lets you know you’re an asshole without a single curse being uttered. “I’m not really the one to ask, am I? All I know is what I’ve already told you.” “Can we see him?” Just the way he grimaced told Roan all he needed to know. They hadn't dated for long—just a few weeks—but long enough that they could communicate an awful lot with just looks. “They’re still working on him. No.” “Why are they still working on him?” Dylan asked suspiciously. “How hurt is he?” Dee took a deep breath before continuing, settling down into his professionally calm paramedic voice. “They want to make sure he doesn’t have a spinal injury, and they have to be careful with him, as he has a broken rib and they don’t want to accidentally puncture his lung. So things are going rather slowly at the moment.” “Motherfuckers,” Roan fumed, his hands clenching into fists. Somebody was going to pay for this. Maybe he had cause to bring his hockey team along now. Dylan put a hand on his back, not trying to be comforting this time
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but trying to will some calm into him. He must have known he was ready to go bash some heads in, whether it would help or not. Then again, anyone who knew him would have guessed that. “Don’t fly off the handle,” Dee said, obviously knowing him too well. “Yeah, he’s hurt, but considering he was jumped by two guys, he’s in remarkable shape. Again, the dude is the toughest whore in the world. I know why you work with him now.” “When can I speak with him?” Dee shook his head and shrugged at the same time—never a good sign. “I don’t know. Not for a couple hours at least.” “Shit.” He looked down at Holden’s phone, and wondered why he wanted him to have it. Flipping it open, he went through the call log—he called 9-1-1 for himself?—and found nothing illuminating, so he started going through the other features. Dee went to help a nurse who was having trouble with a surprisingly combative injured man (no, he didn’t work at the hospital, but he wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing), leaving Roan and Dylan alone in the hall. Dylan was right beside him, looking over his shoulder. “What are you looking for?” Dylan wondered. “Whatever he wanted me to find.” Not much of an answer, but the only one he had. Eventually he found the pictures. The first was of a box of ammunition, the second of what looked like a box of clothing, but the third picture was interesting. It was of two men running—limping—away, slightly blurred at the edges, but only one was visible in profile. “Is that what I think it is?” Dylan asked. How about that—Holden got a photo of his attackers. Sly dog; they didn’t call him Fox for nothing. “I don’t know, but I know who to ask.” He started off, but Dylan grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Tell me this isn’t a revenge thing.” “It’s not. I don’t recognize these guys. I’m going to ask someone who might, though.” “Who?” Dylan didn’t trust him? Well, yeah, maybe he was right not to. It wasn’t like he was notorious for his Gandhi-like temperament. “The guy who runs the Alley Cat. I bet he saw the attack, too, but he’d be the last to report it to the cops.” His look was skeptical, which was fair enough, but Roan thought he was lying quite well. “And you’re just going to talk to him?”
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“Give me credit, hon. The owner of the Alley Cat must be nearly seventy by now. I don’t bully those who can’t fight back.” He nodded in agreement, but was only slightly mollified. Maybe because he’d already guessed that Roan might not be telling him the whole truth. “I can come with you—” “No, I know you have to go to work. Go, and be careful.” “I can take the night off.” “And get fired? No, go. I’ll keep you informed of any developments. And you—you feel any suspicions about anyone, you don’t feel right about a customer or someone loitering in the parking lot, you call me immediately. I’m not sure what’s going on, but there’s been too much violence already.” “I can take care of myself, you know.” “I know. I just… don’t get hurt, okay? You’ve gotten hurt before ’cause of one of my stupid cases, and I don’t want you hurt again.” That seemed to soften his wariness slightly. “I won’t be. But I don’t want you hurt either, so don’t play action hero when you don’t have to, right?” “I’ll do my damnedest.” Dylan embraced him, and they shared a sweet kiss before Roan pulled away and then headed out of the hospital. A woman standing near the emergency room gave him such a dirty look that Roan was half convinced she was going to yell “Faggot!”, but the dirty look he gave her in return seemed to discourage her. Of course, Roan wasn’t going to go see the owner of the Alley Cat. Maybe later. Right now, the man he wanted to talk to was cooling his heels in the suburbs. Brand’s house was dark for the night, along with every other house on the street. It didn’t stop Roan from parking in his driveway and storming toward the door, restraining the urge to knock it down. He’d give Brand a chance to open the door, then he’d knock it down. He pounded on the door with a closed fist, trying to swallow his rage. More violence was no answer, it wouldn’t solve anything, but damn, it would make him feel better for a little bit. Finally a light came on and the door opened a crack. A single grayish eye stared at him over a security chain. “What do… you.” His eye hardened, and Roan was sure he was going to slam the door on him. “I wouldn’t,” he warned Brand. “I’m not going away.” Brand glared at him through the crack in the door. Roan knew he
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could shove open the door easily, snapping the chain, but he had to play this right. He was in Eastgate jurisdiction, after all. “Are you going to shoot me if I lock you out?” “Are you gonna shoot your wife?” Roan snapped back. Brand flinched, and Roan took advantage of that weakness, holding up Holden’s phone. “Who are these men, Officer?” Brand was disoriented, half asleep and now deeply confused. Roan wanted him that way—truth had a tendency to spill out when your guard was down or at half mast. “What? What are you talking—” “Holden, my assistant, is in the hospital. These men tried to kill him. You know who they are, don’t you?” “What?” he sounded genuinely horrified. “No! He was just here… this evening, he came by—” “And he was attacked shortly after he left. He was stabbed and beaten with a bat.” Brand was shaking his head, his sleepy eyes now awake with horror. This was an honest shock—he didn’t know about this, and he couldn’t believe it. “You’re making this up.” “I’m not. Now, are you going to let me in to discuss this, or do your neighbors get to hear all about it?” He was sweating, and had gone so pale Roan was afraid he might pass out or have a heart attack. He closed the door, but Roan heard the scrabbling of a sloppy unlocking before the door opened again, wider this time. Brand still looked like he was going to vomit while fainting. He said nothing—maybe he couldn’t speak—just motioned him in. As soon as Roan came in, he almost backed out again. Brand reeked of fear; he smelled like vinegar-drenched piss. It was appalling. He couldn’t have possibly scared the man this much, not in this amount of time. Brand had been scared for a long time, long enough that it permeated the walls of his home. What the hell had been going on? Brand shut the door and wandered to the living room in a fog, acting as if Roan wasn’t actually here. He was wearing a worn maroon bathrobe that he cinched up tight around a doughy gut, and it didn’t help. As he shuffled to his sofa like a man twice his age, he asked, “How is he?” “Holden? Still alive, last time I checked. But how many people have to die here, Brand?” He sat down on the edge of his sofa, and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know—” he began, his voice muffled.
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“I have to admit I didn’t expect this, but you’re the crux. Hawley dies, April Switzer dies, some assholes try to kill Holden, and the only common denominator is you.” “I had nothing to do with April—” “I don’t care!” Roan snapped, exasperated. Not with him, not really—it was the smell of this place. It was putting him on edge. The lion in him wanted to come out and rampage. Animals did react to the smell of fear; they saw it as invitation. You were advertising you were weak. You were asking to be eliminated from the food chain. “I know you’re scared, and you’ve been scared for a long time. Do you need protection? I can get that for you. Just tell me what’s going on here.” He wondered briefly how Brand would feel traveling with a minor league hockey team. It would be weird, yeah, but he’d be safe as houses. Brand was keeping his face hidden in his hands, but Roan could see he was shaking. It wasn’t a cold shiver—it was fear trying to burst out of his skin while Brand was trying hard to hold it in. “I don’t know what you mean—” “Stop it now!” he shouted, and it came out a partial roar. He’d tried to keep it in, but the miasma of fear was drawing out the lion, and it was hard to rein it in. Brand must have heard it because his eyes were wide and white in his pale face, staring at him over the hands cupped around his nose and mouth. He was almost too shocked to be scared. “I want the truth, damn it! Who are these men?” When he remembered he could speak, that it was okay, it still took a moment for Brand to find the words. “I—I don’t know what you want from me—” “Their names! Who tried to kill Holden?” “I don’t—” “Cut the bullshit! Who are you protecting?” He was shaking so hard it looked like he was going to fall apart. “II’m not—” “Yes, you are!” There was a growl in the back of his throat. Roan tried to swallow it, but Brand was so upset that he probably didn’t hear it anyways. “My brother!” he finally exclaimed, a shout that morphed into a sob at the end. “It’s my brother, Sean.” Oh great. More family shit.
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12 Run Like Hell EVEN though it took more time than it should have, Roan eventually got some answers out of Brand, although not enough. He was completely broken down, which made him useful and useless at the same time. He didn’t know who the second man was; Brand guessed one of Sean’s friends from prison. Roan speculated that Sean had done time for assault, and this was apparently true. Brand added that he was only a half brother, but that wasn’t wildly helpful. By this time, Brand was sobbing like a schoolgirl, and it was hard to understand a single thing he said. Roan knew he was shitty at calming down the hysterical, so he called Fiona and told her to look up everything she could on a Sean Brand. Fiona asked him who the howling girl in the background was, and he told her he’d tell her later. Brand was officially useless. Roan wasn’t sure he was speaking English anymore; he was just a mess. Roan wanted to know why Sean would be so eager to protect Michael from whatever the fuck he thought he was protecting him from, but Brand was no longer coherent. At first he pressed Brand to tell him if he had some Valium or something, but there was no talking to him. So he searched his bathroom cabinet and found nothing but over-the-counter stuff, so he was stuck searching the kitchen for booze. He found an old bottle of bourbon tucked in a back cabinet, and he poured a huge measure of it into a plastic tumbler. He gave it to Brand and all but forced him to drink it, and considering how it smelled, Roan didn’t blame him for balking at drinking it. Once he did, and once he got over his coughing fit, he seemed to calm down, but he remained useless. Roan encouraged him to go to bed, and he eventually did, but Roan remained in his house. He wasn’t going to search it, not while the guy was here, but maybe there was some hint here about what the fuck was going on. Oh, fuck it. He needed to get info and he needed to do it now.
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He’d found Brand’s home computer and had just booted it up when his phone hummed in his pocket. Since it was Dee, he answered. “We got one,” Dee said immediately. “One of the attackers?” “Oh yeah. He turned up at the free clinic downtown, said he cut his leg while fixing his car, but that didn’t track with the injury, and he’d lost so much blood he was barely conscious. They gave fake names, and his friend split as soon as he got wind that they weren’t buying it. One of the nurses there said he had a black eye. They figured there’d been a fight and these guys didn’t want the cops called.” Roan looked at the cell phone photo again and tried to determine which one had the leg wound and who had the broken ball. The one looking back, he seemed to be dragging the other guy—the one with the leg wound was being dragged. It was Sean with the broken ball. “Free clinic? The one down on Virginia?” “Yeah. Why?” “Just curious. Not that far from the Alley Cat. I wonder if there’s a blood trail.” “I doubt they walked in, Roan. What are you up to?” “Nothing. Where are they bringing the guy in? County General?” “Yeah, it sounds like it. He’s lost enough blood that he’s in danger of shock. Ro, what are you doing?” “Nothing, like I said. How’s Holden?” “Still stable. Roan—” “Gotta go. I’ll check in later.” “Roan—” Dee said warningly, but he hung up on him. Dee knew him too well; he couldn’t trust he would play along. On his way out to the car, he called Kevin and asked him to find the address of Sean Brand, whom he knew was in the system. Kevin wanted to know why, and he told him simply that he was desperate to find him. Kevin was understandably suspicious, but it didn’t take him long to find him, as he had also once been arrested on a vice beef (he propositioned an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute). He lived at an apartment on Division, a pretty shitty place and not far from the free clinic either. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to go home… would he? Maybe he would. He probably wasn’t a genius.
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Roan got in his car and wondered if he knew what he was doing. He took a couple of codeine from the glove compartment, hoping to keep his anger in check. If Michael could give him no answers, maybe Sean could. He went straight to West Elm, the surprisingly upscale name for a glorified tenement, and found Sean’s apartment on the second floor. The lock was easy to pick, but once inside, he knew no one had been here for hours. There was no scent of blood, and the Human smell was stale. A cursory glance showed him a sad bachelor’s place, with the living room also the bedroom, the kitchen a piece of the living room, and only the bathroom a separate room with a door. He could come back and search at his leisure—right now, he wanted to find the motherfucker. But where did he look? He was a lowlife scumbag with a hurt nut and an idea that the cops were probably looking for him. He might have friends from prison who’d be willing to hide him, at least for the moment. He was looking at this from the wrong angle, wasn’t he? If the fucker had gone to ground, he needed to muddy the ground. This was a bad part of town; in fact, it was fucking terrible. To be out on the streets when you could actually be somewhere else verged on suicidal. He'd once worked a beat down here; he believed Holden once worked a corner around here. Given that, he had an idea. He found the bar by looking for the darkest pool of shadows. It looked like it was trying to hide; its door was unlit, painted black, and seemed almost like an optical illusion tucked in among the rundown buildings. It was a bar that seemed to be trying very hard not to be seen, and for a very good reason. The shit that went on in here could boggle the mind. There used to be a gay bar a couple blocks over, called the Eagle, that had also had a dark, hidden door, but it used its secretive digs for atmosphere. It was actually a quite nice bar—cramped, a bit too small— but there wasn’t really room to dance, although you could on the upper level if you moved the tables back. Mostly, it was just a place to drink and talk to other men who were also gay. You could hook up, people did, but really it was a place to relax among like-minded people. They had really good margaritas there. He'd gone there sometimes after work when he was on the force; Connor had really been impressed with the place. Sadly, it had closed up a couple years ago, as the owner died and his family contested the will that left the bar to his partner. It was now in legal limbo, and the doors had been shut.
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Now that had been an oddly nice dive bar. This bar, technically named Chuck’s (Why? No one knew—there’d never been a Chuck associated with it) was a dive bar that gave dive bars a bad name. It was so dark inside it was like walking into a black hole, and everyone in there looked like they’d gladly step over your rotting corpse to get a second beer. You could get drugs, weapons, and a sexually transmitted disease here, often without trying. Roan took a moment to let his eyes adjust, and he saw a whole bunch of evil death stares coming his way. Either they knew he used to be a cop, or they just didn’t like newcomers around here. He was cruising for a bruising. He recognized someone trying very hard to hide in the shadows, and he wondered if this was proof of karma, because hadn’t they discussed this guy just a couple of days ago? Roan headed straight for him. “Hey Burn, how’s it going?” Burn was just his street name, of course, but it was what everybody but arresting officers knew him by. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” he said sullenly, trying very hard to become one with his torn vinyl seat. Roan slid into the booth on the opposite side and felt something sticky on the rickety table between then. It smelled like beer, and he sincerely hoped that’s all it was. Burn looked fucking horrible and smelled even worse—ammonia and rot seemed to waft from his pores, his hair was lank and greasy, splattered on his head like a skinned pelt, and his face looked as pitted as the surface of the moon, his cheeks sinking in as his face slowly collapsed inward. You’d think the amount of meth this guy did would have killed him by now, but somehow he was still hanging on and still acting as an all-around wheeler dealer/weasel. “I’m not here for you, Burn. I’m here because of Fox.” He sniffed, and Roan wondered how his septum was still intact. “Haven’t seen Fox.” “He got knifed tonight. He was jumped.” Burn had been looking down at the table, but now he looked up, his eyes sunken black holes that glittered like pennies at the bottom of a deep well. “By who?” “The cops have corralled one, but another guy is still on the run. Name’s Sean Brand. He’s got a cop brother, but he won’t protect him. I want you to tell everyone he tried to kill Fox. Tell everyone. Get it out there as fast as possible. He’s out on the streets somewhere, trying to lay low. I want him flushed out.”
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Burn gazed at him warily. “You know it don’t work like that. Fox has some friends in low places. If word gets out, there’s no guarantee he survives the night.” “I know. That’s what I’m counting on.” The streets could be a very funny thing. Gays weren’t really liked there either—were gays liked anywhere?—but everything was a matter of degrees. Holden may have been a hustler, but he looked out for his people on the streets, taking care of them, and no matter his customers, he never ratted on them to their congregations, constituents, or wives. Not being a snitch was a highly valued commodity on the streets. It was a key to grudging respect, and Fox had managed to earn a lot of it. He was smarter than most, he could play the game and people well—hence his street name, Fox. He might have been a fag, but he was a crafty and respectable one. He had a cachet on the streets that few fellow hookers—or fags—had, and Roan intended to cash in on it. Burn gave him a look that suggested his personal opinion of him just went up a couple notches. “You want him dead?” “Ideally, I want him to run screaming to the local cop shop. But if he doesn’t, I’m willing to live with the alternative.” Roan stood up, and dug a ten dollar bill out of his pocket, which he tossed on the table. He hoped it didn’t land in the puddle. “Get yourself some food, huh? You look like an Olsen twin.” “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Burn said, grinning with a mouth full of rotting teeth. Roan had no plans beyond this, so he walked back to his car, a bit amazed that no one tried to mug him, and wondered about his next move. He could go through Brand’s apartment, but it looked like a shithole, and he wasn’t sure it would have any answers for him. Sean had been in prison, and his brother—half brother—was a cop. He knew better than to leave incriminating evidence about. His brother. Roan suddenly wondered if Sean would be that stupid—or desperate—to seek out his brother’s help. But he’d helped him before, hadn’t he? Now that he’d set the street dogs off on him, he might not have any other place to go. He sped back to Michael’s house, glad the streets were relatively clear this time of night. Instead of parking in the driveway, he drove up the street and parked in front of someone else’s darkened house. No sense in alerting Sean that someone else was here.
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Brand was still asleep in his bedroom, so Roan decided to make himself at home while he waited. He discovered that Brand was just what he'd thought he was: a lonely, sad man. He seemed to eat nothing but TV dinners and cans of chili, which Roan could actually understand, as he was no good at cooking, and when he didn’t have boyfriends, he usually ate out or just nuked something. Connor hadn’t cooked much, but he usually drank instead or, while trying to be sober, simply tore his hair out and chewed pack after pack of gum. Dee didn’t cook either, but then again he rarely had time to do so. But there were few signs of takeout food in his fridge. His computer wasn’t very interesting either, although Roan eventually discovered, in his history, an interesting porn website. At first he thought it was Asian women (straight men and Asian women—he really had to ask Randi what that was about), but then he realized that what he was looking at were Thai “lady boys”—young men who dressed and lived as women. Some had had surgery (breast implants, mainly), some had not, but all were uniformly persuasive. They looked like women. Lovely women. You couldn’t see Adam’s apples or stubble or any other sign of masculinity. Roan wondered if this meant anything. He ended up waiting hours—hours in which he found out Michael had a decent cable TV package—before finally he heard a jingle of keys outside the door. He turned off the set and got up, hearing someone cursing under his breath as Roan approached the door. Oh, was Sean having a bad night? It was about to get so much worse. Roan opened the door and found Sean Brand standing on the doorstep, his keys in his hand. As soon as he saw Roan, fear registered—it spiked in a sharp scent not unlike cider vinegar. Roan grinned at him hard, knowing full well it went nowhere near his eyes. “Just the man I wanted to see.” Did Sean recognize him? Roan was pretty sure he did. He turned and bolted for his car almost instantly. Good. He really liked it when his prey ran for it. Although Sean was closer to his car in the driveway and there was no way, theoretically, Roan could beat him to it, Roan knew there was a way. He started after him at a dead run, then veered off to the side and jumped, springing from the lawn onto the back of Sean’s shitty Nissan, making the car rock on its shocks as he turned to face Sean. He was still in a half crouch, feeling his muscles lengthen and harden, a deep pain radiating through his jaw as a growl welled up in his throat and his eyes
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aching as he felt his vision shift. “Where you goin’? You just got here.” Sean stopped awkwardly, his momentum almost carrying him straight into the side of his own car. “How did you—fuck, man, fuck. What are you?” The pain in his jaw was almost intolerable—ripping off the lower half of his jaw by brute force would be much more comfortable—but he had a strange distance from it. The codeine? Maybe, but it was hard to say. He felt good. He knew his mouth was split into a grin, but he also knew his mouth was bleeding. The pain was too great; he had no idea if his teeth had started changing or not. “You know what I am, Sean. A man you never should have fucked with. You’re gonna talk, and maybe then I’ll just let the cops have you.” “Fuck you,” Sean snapped, but there was a tremor in his voice, and his eyes seemed riveted to Roan’s face. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. Sean took a step back and Roan lunged, pouncing on him before he could make a run for the house, and as he brought him down on the lawn, he grabbed Sean’s arms and pinned them down with undue force. “We’re not done here, Sean.” “Get off me, faggot!” he shouted, trying to squirm and buck him off. Roan dug his knees into Sean’s side and gripped his wrists so tight Roan could feel the bones starting to give. He eased off a little as Sean squirmed and made a noise of pain, but he didn’t let up. “So, you do know me,” he snarled, and his blood dripped down, splashing Sean’s neck. Sean tried to squirm away as if Roan’s blood was diseased… which it was, now that he thought about it. “Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t talk?” From the fear in his eyes, Sean had some idea.
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13 Painless THE sun was just starting to come up when Roan knocked on Grey’s door, and he suddenly wondered if he should be bothering him right now. But he was just so wired he wasn’t sure what else to do. In spite of the codeine and partial transformation, his heart was thundering in his chest, making it look like his hands were kind of shaking, and he did wonder if he should be worried about having an aneurysm explode in his brain any second. But you know, if he was going to die, he was going to die. No point in worrying about it. Grey lived in an old house that had been partitioned into apartments, and he lived on the upper floor, so Roan had to use a staircase around the back—it used to be someone’s patio deck, now an oddly spacious landing—and then he knocked on a wooden door that felt kind of flimsy under his hand. Either he was knocking too hard, or it was made for internal as opposed to external use. At least there was a very big hockey enforcer living here—anyone who broke in would be very sorry very quickly. Roan heard a lock being unlatched before the door opened, and he was surprised to find Scott there. “Roan? Hey man, what’s up?” he asked before yawning extravagantly. Oh, goddamn straight boys who appeared in their underwear and never realized how hot they were. Scott was wearing nothing but jockeystyle red underwear (Red?), and he had that long, lean, hard body of the dedicated athlete, muscles slender but strong enough to make him look like he’d be a good blast shield in case of explosion. He didn’t have a six pack of abs but a two pack, his stomach flat as an ironing board, and Roan really wanted to bite his knuckle. His weakness was men with those wonderfully solid, flat stomachs. Six packs were impressive and could be attractive, but not as much as these sandwich board guys. Why, he had no idea, but that was just the way his libido went. He was suspicious of gym bunnies and men built too much like marble statues.
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His hair was sleep mussed, and he had a dark stain of stubble along his jaw… crap, crap, crap. He was cute enough to give Dylan a run for his money. “I, uh, didn’t realize you lived here too,” Roan said, aware that if Scott was more awake, he might have noticed Roan had looked at him a bit too long for comfort. (But damn, he was cute. It really caught him by surprise. At least he could console himself with the knowledge that a straight man, confronted with a hot woman in her underwear, probably would have been flustered for much longer.) But Scott had probably been on sports teams most of his life. He probably thought nothing of casual nudity and near nudity, unaware of the fact that he was smoking hot and could have been a model for a gay calendar or underwear ad. Scott nodded, yawning again and running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s easier to split the rent, and we’re used to rooming together on the road.” After dry washing his face, he honestly opened his eyes, and he squinted at Roan’s shirt. (Did he wear contact lenses?) “Is that blood?” Roan looked down and checked. “Um, yeah.” “Yours?” “Some.” He didn’t react to that admission at all. “Give it to me. I’ll getcha a clean shirt.” “You don’t have to—” “Yeah, I do. You don’t wanna walk around in a bloody shirt. Besides, I got this great stuff that gets out bloodstains.” At Roan’s look, he clicked his tongue in impatience. “I play hockey. I better know how to get bloodstains outta clothes.” Roan was going to point out he thought the equipment manager did stuff like that, but hell, at the minor league level it might be more DIY. So Roan shrugged off his leather jacket, tossing it on the front room’s homely blue Goodwill couch, and peeled off his shirt, which was a bit more damp than he thought. But the bleeding from his mouth was always much more than he expected, and he had no idea why. Shouldn’t he be used to it by now? He turned the shirt inside out and tried to hand it over on a dry side, but Scott gasped in shock. Roan suddenly and horribly remembered his scars. Oh shit, how did he forget about these things? “That is fucking awesome,” Scott said, coming over and grabbing his arm. He was, it turned out, looking at the tiger tattoo Dylan had drawn for him. “Oh my God. Where’d you get that done?”
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“Actually, it was drawn by my boyfriend. Someone else tattooed it on, but she followed his design.” “Wow. Could he do one for me?” “Umm, I don’t know. You could ask.” “Yeah, I will. That’s beautiful.” He stared at the tiger for a moment, and then unconsciously caressed it with his thumb before letting his arm go. It raised goose bumps on Roan’s arm, and he really wanted to hit him. Damn straight boy—he had no fucking clue, did he? He walked away, holding Roan’s bloody shirt, and Roan couldn’t help but notice what a great ass Scott had as he called back, “You’re here to see Grey, right?” “Right.” Scott headed down a short hall that was parallel to the small, open kitchen. It may have been the apartment of two straight bachelors, but it seemed remarkably tidy, and all the pale stained hardwood suggested a warmth reinforced by the hominess of the mismatched but not inelegant Goodwill furniture. The only thing that really gave this away as a guy’s place was the sheer number of remotes scattered across the coffee table. Scott pounded on the door as if trying to bust it down, and shouted, “Grey, get the fuck up! Roan’s here!” He could have done that from here. Well, not the pounding on the door, but everything else. There might have been a grunt of acknowledgment, but Roan couldn’t tell. Scott went in the room, and after a moment, there was a thud—like a body hitting the floor—and a startled, “’M up, I’m up.” After a moment, Scott came out, pulling on a pair of loose gray yoga pants, and he tossed Roan a dark shirt. “Did you shove him onto the floor?” Scott half grinned, still sleepy and still so thoughtlessly sexy Roan wanted to pound his own head through the wall. “Sometimes it’s the only way to get him up. I gotta warn you, he’s useless until his first Red Bull.” “He doesn’t do coffee?” Roan finished pulling the shirt on, and probably shouldn’t have been surprised that it had the Seattle Falcons logo emblazoned across the chest. “Not enough caffeine for him. He likes to start his morning with a heart attack.” He padded off to the kitchen, and Roan felt awkward, so he sat on the arm of a slightly threadbare but oddly elegant dark-blue velvet
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armchair and looked around the apartment, not at all staring at Scott and his long, lean back, or the way those yoga pants sat so lightly on his hips it looked like they could fall off at any second. (He probably didn’t know it at all, but he was a total cocktease.) What was he doing? Why had he come here so early? It could have waited—there was no reason it couldn’t have. Okay, if he was honest, he was so keyed up and wired he probably wasn’t thinking straight. No pun intended. He heard a toilet flush, and Grey came shuffling out like a zombie, eyes barely open. By the time he reached the living room, Scott shoved a can of Red Bull in his hand and pointed him toward the sofa. “There he is. Now go sit and talk.” Grey grunted and shuffled forward. Scott stayed by the entrance of the hall and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna go back to bed.” “By all means. Sorry I woke you.” “It’s okay. If we had a skate this morning, we’d have been up.” “Skate?” Grey said, plopping down on the couch. The way he said it reminded Roan of the decrepit Father Jack in the sitcom Father Ted (although he said “Drink?” not “Skate?”), and he had to bite back a grin. “No, not today. Today’s a day off. Now drink your Red Bull.” Scott gave him a wave, which Roan returned, and then he disappeared back into his room. Were all team captains like that? He gave orders and Grey followed them without question. Maybe it was just the nature of their relationship irrespective of the team, or Grey was too tired to question anyone’s orders. Still, Grey popped the top of his Red Bull and took a healthy swallow, which made Roan grimace. He’d only had it once, but he thought that it—and most energy drinks of that kind—tasted like piss. But if it got Grey going, he could hardly criticize. Grey was big enough that he made Scott look svelte. He had a Vshaped torso, a broad chest narrowing to a slim waist, and he wore dark boxer shorts that covered about half of his tree-trunk-thick thighs, although none of the rest of his sinewy legs. He looked a bit more like a boxer than a weight lifter, and that made perfect sense. While he wasn’t overly bulked out with muscles, he still looked like he could stand in for a retaining wall if the need ever arose. How did anyone ever hit by him get up again? Roan was kind of relieved he did nothing for his libido, but maybe that’s because he was a client. Roan was sure never to even mildly
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entertain the notion that a client was attractive. That was only asking for trouble. Grey cleared his throat and opened his eyes a bit more. “Okay, I think I’m up now. Wow, you’re wearing our shirt. I can get you a better one….” “Thank you, but that’s not what I’m here about.” “Didn’t think so. Just sayin’.” “What I want to know, Grey, is if you just wanted to know who killed Jamie. Aside from getting the guy chucked in prison.” “Huh?” “I know who killed her. But I don’t think I can legally prove it.” Grey just stared at him, and Roan wondered if he was awake enough for that to really sink in. But he must have been, because he said, “Yeah, I wanna know. It was Switzer, right?” “Switzer and Sean Brand.” There was a pause. “The guy’s name was Michael, wasn’t it?” “The guy Jamie named in the suit, yeah. But he wasn’t the killer.” Grey stared at him blankly again. He was slowly waking up. “Huh?” Roan sighed and wondered how to best put this. It took Roan a bit to understand it too, but Sean was a stammering mess, terrified of him and his transforming face and diseased blood. “From what I was able to get out of Sean, it seems Jamie had met someone she was seeing but hadn’t told you about yet: Michael Brand. Switzer, his cop partner at the time, found out and discovered that Jamie was a pre-op transsexual. Switzer knew Sean casually and passed this on. Sean didn’t want a fag in the family any more than Switzer wanted a fag as a partner, so one night Sean and Switzer beat the shit out of Jamie and bullied Michael into silence. Jamie turned around and filed a charge of police brutality, but named Michael. Probably because Sean wasn’t a cop, and probably because Jamie wanted to force Michael out, make him fess up about his asshole partner and halfbrother. But you know what happened instead: Switzer and Sean killed Jamie, and Michael just gave up.” Grey listened with his head tilted to one side, listening like a parakeet. The same amount of understanding appeared in his sleepy eyes, but it seemed to connect. “So Michael Brand knew.” “He must have. Suspected is hard to swallow, especially since he must have known that Sean and Switzer beat Jamie.”
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“He was dating Jamie? Why didn’t he do anything?” Roan shook his head. “That I can’t say. But having met him, I’m gonna say he’s been broken. By who and why I don’t know. It’s possible Jamie’s death sent him into a spiral, and he simply didn’t want to—or just couldn’t—rat out a fellow officer.” Grey’s head straightened up, and his eyes seemed to darken. Is this what his opponents on the ice saw? It was wonderfully intimidating. “Where’s he live?” “No, Grey, that’s not how we’re doing this.” “I’m paying you, yeah? I just want his address.” Roan shook his head. “Hurting him won’t bring Jamie back. It probably won’t even give you any satisfaction—he’s too easy an opponent.” “Michael or Sean?” “For you? Both. At the same time, with a head start.” He seemed to consider that, chew it over like it was a piece of gristly meat. “How come you can’t go to the cops and tell them this?” “I can. I will. But Sean’s confession to me was under duress—it wouldn’t hold up in court. Also, he blames Switzer for everything, which I know is a lie, but it’s his word against my sense of smell. It’s only been legally cleared for identifying people’s scent and blood—I’ve never been legally cleared for smelling lies, although I can. Unless Sean confesses to them—or Michael fingers his brother, which I wouldn’t bet money on— there’s nothing to tie him to the scene, especially since Switzer is now dead. If he was alive, it would be easy to turn them against one another, but Switzer took the easy way out.” “You shot him.” “Yes. That was easy.” Grey was still rolling this around and didn’t like the taste of it. “Under duress? Did you torture him?” “Do I look like Jack Bauer? No, I just scared him so badly that he started talking. He even pissed himself, which is why I may smell a bit like piss.” Grey gave him a lazy half smile that was somehow very unsettling. “You scared him that badly?” “I have my moments.” “We could use you on the team. Stand you at the blue line and have you stare down the opponents.”
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“It would be extra comic too, since I can’t skate.” “We’ll prop you up.” He wiped his fist across his mouth, and the dark shadow had yet to leave his eyes. He was still calculating the odds of finding the Brands and beating them to a pulpy mush. “You telling me they’re gonna get away with murder?” “Not exactly. Sean is gonna go down for assaulting Holden; I got him arrested for that. And since he’s a repeat offender, most likely any judge will throw the book at him. Also, since I let it be known that he hurt Holden, it’s possible there are friends of Holden's behind bars, friends that will make life very ugly for Sean as soon as he’s in the door.” “But what about Michael?” “Michael’s already dead. I’ve never seen such a miserable ruin of a man. Killing him would probably be a mercy; it’s more punishment to keep him alive.” Grey gave him a dubious look. “I don’t like this, Roan.” “I’m not crazy about it either. But there’s a couple of other things still in play.” “What?” “Best you not know.” Mainly because Roan honestly had no idea what he was talking about. He just had to make up something to keep Grey from going off and beating the Brands down to a bloody carpet stain. He could point out he had worked so hard to get this far in his hockey career, and he couldn’t just toss it away because of these assholes, but Roan wasn’t sure such a pitch would have worked. Would it have worked on him? “Let’s just let it play out and see what happens, okay?” Grey’s look remained skeptical, but finally he sighed and his shoulders sagged as he sank back into the couch. “Yeah, okay. And thanks for giving me the info. You did in days what the Eastgate PD hasn’t done in over a year.” “The Eastgate PD are hopelessly corrupt. Luckily, it looks like the fallout from the Switzer case is going to take the chief down, and maybe some others. Switzer was rotten to the core, and his rot spread on contact. A housecleaning is what Eastgate needs. Maybe with officers who are actually going to do their jobs because they’re being watched, the case will finally be cracked.” “Maybe. But I won’t hold my breath, ’kay?” He rubbed his eyes and added, “Fuck, I’m tired.” “Go back to bed. I shouldn’t have come over so early. I was just buzzed.”
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“I understand, man. I get that way after a really good game.” He levered himself up, and Roan stood as well. They shook hands, and since he was convinced Grey wasn’t going to run off and do something stupid just yet, he left. Could Grey let it be? Could Roan? The entire drive home, he wondered. Michael really was pathetic; as much as he wanted to beat the shit out of him, he couldn’t shake the persistent, nagging feeling that Michael would probably enjoy it too much. People got away with murder every day. It was sad, but it was true. People fell through the cracks and murderers escaped, not because they were criminal masterminds but because they got fucking lucky. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, but it was reality in its ugly, stinking glory. It was just a bitter, barbed pill to swallow. The buzz wore off as he fought the morning traffic home, and by the time he reached the house he was ready to pass out on the floor. He’d been up all night and a headache was blooming deep inside his brain, a dull ache that he knew would become a full-blown migraine later on. The sun lightening the sky was making it worse. He popped a couple of Percocet before going up and taking a quick shower to wash the remaining scent of blood and piss and fear off him. Dylan was a lump under the covers, apparently sleeping, and he tried his damnedest not to wake him up. He dried off hastily and slipped naked into bed, but he woke Dylan, or Dylan was already awake but playing dead, because he had just pulled the covers up to his shoulders when Dylan rolled over and snuggled against him, pressing up against his back and draping an arm around his waist. He was nice and warm. “Do I want to know why you’re coming home just now?” he mumbled. Roan closed his eyes against the light bleeding in around the fringes of the curtains, and he could feel the painkillers taking hold, wrapping the pain in his head in cotton wool, softly pushing it down. It was a lovely feeling. “No, I don’t think so.” “I was afraid you were gonna say that.” He sighed, his breath a warm rush on Roan’s neck. “How’s Holden?” “Last time I called, still stable. He’s doing better than the guy he stabbed in the leg.” “Karma in action?” “Maybe. Or maybe just a vital lesson in being careful who you fuck with.”
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“Did you know he carried a knife?” “Holden? No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. He was a street kid, after all.” He was settled into his soft pillow, and between that and the heat of Dylan’s body, he was drifting off already. “I thought he was a preacher’s son.” “That too. He’s been a lot of people.” “The cops get the other guy, the one who ran?” “I got him.” Roan knew the fact that he was half asleep was why he admitted that; otherwise, he’d have just said the cops grabbed him and left it at that. “I kinda figured,” Dylan admitted. “You didn’t partially transform, did you?” “Why would I do that?” From the way Dylan sighed heavily, he already knew. “I’m too tired to get mad at you right now. But we’re having an argument later.” “I’ll pencil it in.” You knew you’d probably been in a relationship too long when you were actually scheduling arguments. But you know, right now he was too damn tired to care.
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14 The Commander Thinks Aloud ROAN was having a very nice dream about Paris licking honey off his chest when he was woken up by Dylan saying his name and gently shaking him, a hand on his back. Roan didn’t look up from his pillow, just grunted a “What?” “Umm, Detective Murphy is downstairs. I think she wants to arrest you.” “She just threatens to do that all the time. Don’t worry about it.” Of course she usually did it over the phone. Doing it in person was kicking it up a notch. “What did you do?” “Nothin’.” Strange how much you could pull from a single moment of silence. Dylan wasn’t at all pleased, with him or with that answer. Dylan sighed and then, lowering his voice, spit out every word like a bullet. “What. Did. You. Do.” Yeah, they’d been together too long. Was there any bullshit he could sneak past him? Wait a minute—had he ever snuck any bullshit past him? “It’s probably about the guy who attacked Holden.” “What did you do to him?” “Nothing.” “She’s here about nothing. You expect me to believe that.” The chill in his tone could have given him frostbite. Roan turned over onto his back and risked looking up at Dylan, who was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was fully dressed and freshly shaved, his hair glossy black and neatly brushed, dressed in loose jeans, an orange T-shirt with a black “Om” symbol on it, and a black denim jacket. Roan didn’t have to look down to know he was wearing his red sneakers. It was Dylan’s attempt at levity when he was doing something that could otherwise be kind of depressing. That confirmed it was Wednesday. “Hon,
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I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything to that guy. I wanted to—believe me, I wanted to put my fist through his chest cavity—but I figured killing one person was enough for a week.” It was so unfair. He knew it would make Dylan flinch, and he did. Dylan looked away and rubbed his eyes, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion. “I don’t—I hope this case is over with soon enough. It’s been a nightmare from the beginning.” “Tell me about it.” He reached out and touched his arm, just about the only part of him he could reach at the moment. “I promise, it’s just about done. Okay?” He tugged lightly on Dylan’s jacket, and Dylan finally looked back at him with a small smile that faded quickly. He reached out and stroked Roan’s chest tenderly. “What’s been happening lately… I don’t like what this case is doing to you. On top of everything else, it seems like too much.” Now that he didn’t get. “What d’ya mean you don’t like what the case is doing to me? What’s it doing to me?” Dylan grimaced in that way he did when he knew he’d said something he really didn’t want to have to explain. His fingers lightly traced shadows over Roan’s skin, and it was wonderfully distracting. “You’re getting reckless. You may not change on a schedule anymore, but that doesn’t make you bulletproof.” “I know, and I got the bullet wounds to prove it.” “Not what I mean and you know it.” Impatience flashed through his eyes but didn’t stay long. Roan hated that Dylan worried about him, especially since he didn’t think he was worth worrying about. “I swear, I’m keeping under control, and I’m not doing anything stupid. It just seems that way when the cameras catch me.” Dylan fixed him with a skeptical look, lips thinning to a hard line, but he decided to accept that for now, or at least postpone the argument. “Just be careful, okay?” “Okay.” Dylan leaned in and kissed him on the forehead before getting up and leaving the room. Through the open bedroom door, he heard Murphy shout from the living room, “Don’t try and hide, motherfucker!” “You want me to come down naked?” he shouted back, finally bothering to get out of bed. He was still tired, but he knew Murph wasn’t going to leave it alone.
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“You do and I’ll shoot you!” “Now you’re just giving lesbians a bad name,” he accused, grabbing a pair of boxers from his dresser and putting them on. He had to piss like a racehorse, so he went and did that before stepping into a pair of jeans. He didn’t bother putting on a shirt, because if she was going to arrest him, he was going to go shirtless, barefoot, and bellowing, like any random redneck on Cops. Or Ronnie Dobbs, patron saint of bellowing shirtless rednecks. As he came down, Murphy came over to meet him at the base of the stairs, dressed in a demure navy suit with a cream-colored blouse and sensible shoes, her arms crossed over her chest and her toe tapping impatiently. Her expression was sour enough that if he didn’t know her, he might have started shitting his pants. Her badge was just visible on her belt, but her gun was still hidden. “I hope Dylan didn’t leave on my account. Did he leave on yours?” “No, it’s Wednesday. He always does charity work with the temple, bringing meals to the ill and the elderly. He’s the only bartender I know bucking for sainthood.” Her brow furrowed in consternation, deep enough that she almost forgot to be pissed at him. “The temple? Beth El?” “No, the Buddhist temple. The one on Park Street?” “Oh. Yeah, I didn’t think he was Jewish.” She shook her head and got back to being angry as he walked to the kitchen to get a drink. He was too tired to brew anything, so he just got an organic ginger ale from the fridge. Organic ginger ale—the kind he picked up in health food sections of stores—wasn’t anything like that Canada Dry shit. This had real pieces of ginger in it, and it was spicy. It also gave him his appetite back when migraines or too many downers took it away. Luckily Dylan liked it too and didn’t question why he bought so much of it. “Sean Brand has been raving about how you are a vampire. He’s probably going to end up at Rosewood for a psych eval.” “If he thinks I’m a vampire, he should.” The look she gave him could have burned paint from the walls, so he turned to paw through the cupboards for breakfast. Or was it lunch? He checked the time on the stove’s clock. Yeah, lunch. What did they have in the freezer? “He says your eyes changed and your teeth grew, and you were inhumanly strong and fast. Everybody thinks he’s trying to get declared incompetent, but I know what happened. If Sikorski wasn’t off on
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leave, he’d know too. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He looked at the box in his hand and said, “Nuking a sandwich.” The death glare she gave him indicated she didn’t think his honesty was funny. “Look, asshole, I get that you’re a superhero—” He scoffed. “No, I’m not. I’m a freak.” “Fine, you’re a superfreak. But if you don’t want everybody to know about it, stop showing off. So far you’ve been fucking lucky. Most people think those YouTube videos are fake, and most are willing to believe you took out the skinheads by simply being super-athletic. But you are pushing it. Do you want to be exposed?” “You know I don’t.” Superfreak? Yeah, he was super-freaky, yow. “Then get a cape and a mask, Batman, because you can’t keep doing this. The legal system can hardly handle people who turn into big cats five days a month—we can’t handle you.” “A superfreak.” “A guy who can change at will, who can turn it on and off like a faucet.” She threw up her hands and sighed, her body language betraying total frustration. “You’re special, and that’s cool, but if you keep acting like you are, everyone will know. If Peter’s informant is to be believed, word is already getting around about you on the streets.” “What are they saying about me? Beyond kitty fag.” “They’re saying you should be avoided at all costs, that there’s something not right about you, and that there isn’t an ass you can’t kick.” “That’s flattering.” “It shouldn’t be. Some guys are gonna see that as a challenge.” The microwave dinged, but Roan ignored it. “You think they’re gonna try and make their bones offa me? They’re welcome to try. Everybody gets one free shot.” She fixed him with a stern look. “You’re fucking impressive, I’ll give you that, but you’re still hurt by bullets. One of these days, some fucking gangbanger homophobe or kitty-hating psycho is gonna take a shot, and you won’t recover. Don’t you care?” He shrugged, aware he should be concerned, and also aware that he should be bothered that he wasn’t concerned. “Hazard of the job. You face it too.” “I’m a cop. You’re not anymore.” “Yeah, I know.”
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“Fine, you don’t give a shit about yourself? What about Dylan? Have you ever considered—” “Don’t you dare play that card,” he interrupted angrily. It was a fucking low blow and she knew it. It didn’t stop her, though. “— he lives with you! If someone decides to target you, they may go after him instead. And how do you think he’d feel if you got yourself killed—” “How would Kim feel if you got yourself killed?” he roared back. Not literally, but it was a close thing. “This is fucking unfair!” “Maybe, but it’s an honest question. Have you even asked him how he feels about this?” Dylan didn’t even know, although he probably suspected, but to tell her that would give her a victory. “He doesn’t like it.” “I bet he doesn’t. What are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to get caught? Do you want to die?” The questions, asked in her low, level cop voice, just infuriated him. But he knew if he showed too much rage, she might start picking away at the lies. “I’m just doing the job I was hired to do.” “You were hired to lion out on a guy?” He gave her the paint-blistering stare this time. “I was hired to find out who murdered Jasmine Hawley, and I did. It was Sean Brand and Carey Switzer.” She put her hands on her hips, but otherwise didn’t seem surprised by that revelation. “Switzer’s probably gonna be nailed for it.” “Of course. He’s dead and it doesn’t matter anymore. But Sean killed her too. He told me.” “While you were turning into a vampire?” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, you don’t need to tell me it’s inadmissible. I know. But he did it, Murph.” “I wouldn’t be surprised. He seems like the kind of asshole who would. But can you prove it beyond saying he did it?” He finally took his nuked sandwich out of the microwave, shaking his head all the while. “You know I can’t. “Then back off. Brand will be going down for the attack on Krause and for the ounce of coke they found in his apartment, and it ain’t a murder charge, but he might do more time.” “Very cynical.”
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“Tell me it isn’t true.” He couldn’t, so he didn’t say anything. Because of that, he heard the faint buzz of her cell phone vibrating in her pocket, and she pulled it out and looked at it before heading for the door. “Let it go, and stop trying to get caught, Superman.” “That’s Batman, missy,” he corrected sarcastically before she went out the door. He took his sandwich and ginger ale and retreated to the living room to eat. He found he’d left a book cracked open on the coffee table, a copy of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. It took him a moment to figure out why, but then he remembered. There was a piece of it he wanted as his next tattoo. A broken phrase, but it had all he wanted in it: “clear to me at last that the dark I have always struggled to keep under is in reality my most unshatterable association….” If the text was small enough, he could probably fit it anywhere. He initially thought it’d be good on his back, but he’d never see it. Could he get away with it on his arm? It probably depended on the design. He was going to sketch out some ideas, some way to put it on him and have it not appear as if he'd written a memo on himself. Why had he gone from having nothing but a tiny tattoo of warning on his inner wrist to wanting to cover himself with the things? They hurt, they took time, and they were almost ubiquitous in the culture, past the point where he would have dismissed them as a poser’s affectation. So why? If he thought about it, the catalyst was Paris’s death. After that, he just wanted to cover his skin with ink, drown himself in it until nothing of his original flesh remained. He wanted pretty things to hide the ugly truth of himself. Maybe he could hide underneath the pictures. It was an awful revelation, and he was ashamed by the depth of the cowardice it revealed. Ironically, it made the Beckett quote doubly appropriate. The sandwich he was eating tasted a bit like hot cardboard, but he wasn’t sure if the sandwich was that bad or if he was in that kind of mood. The phone rang, and he almost didn’t pick it up, but eventually he did. It turned out to be Holden, who had apparently conned a nurse into letting him borrow his cell. (Figured.) Holden complained of boredom and wanted him to swing by his place and bring him his iPod and some books, as well as a Dick’s (burger) and maybe something with papaya juice in it. If he was well enough to complain of general ennui, then he was fine. He also requested his cell back, and Roan had forgotten he still had it. But he did. He was still on the phone with Holden when his own cell phone
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went off, and a quick look at it showed it was Grey calling him. He had to answer it, mainly because they hadn’t settled the Brand problem. As it turned out, it wasn’t anything that serious… yet. He was just going to the gym and wondered if Roan wanted to spar with him. A basic invitation, but Roan couldn’t help but wonder if this was where Grey wanted to discuss it. So he said okay and then told Holden he’d be by in a couple of hours, that he had to run an errand first. Roan finished getting dressed and shoved some shorts, a jock, and a tank in a duffel bag before getting out of there. He remembered to grab a bottled water so he had something to take his Vicodin with. The gym was a relatively decent place. It seemed more dedicated to actual working out than hooking up or meeting people (a lot of gyms were, quite frankly, dating spots for the vain), and there wasn’t an overabundance of mirrors, which was refreshing. Place still smelled of about a million different kinds of sweat, though. (Mainly to him, probably.) The sparring place tried to replicate the look of an old-time boxing gym, but it was as phony as a three-dollar bill. They had deliberately aged boxing posters slapped on the walls beside speed bags and heavy bags, a separate area for jumping rope and minor weight training, and then the squared circle of a boxing ring, although the padding was abnormally thick, and you didn’t step up into it—it was level with the floor. It had its own isolated changing area with metal lockers and a single bench running most of the length of the room, quitting before you reached the showers, but there was also a collection of gloves, helmets, and other safety equipment in a separate cubby, with a hamper for used equipment beneath. That wasn’t in any old-time boxing gym that he knew of. Neither were separate showers for privacy, or posted warnings about MRSA and using someone else’s towel. Grey was there, working a heavy bag, wearing a Falcons shirt and shorts with a similar evil bird head logo. There were about half a dozen people scattered around the boxing area, and Grey was the only one who actually looked like a boxer. (He wasn’t, but he was close enough. He was a boxer on skates.) Grey grinned at him and asked, “How good of a boxer are you?” He shrugged. “Decent. I have my own heavy bag at home.” “Whoa. Hardcore. Wanna open it up, go mixed martial, or stay traditional?” Something glittered in his eyes, mischievous and ever so
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slightly dangerous, and Roan couldn’t see saying no to a challenge, even if he knew that it was stupid. “If you’re up to it, let’s go mixed.” Ah, even gay men could fall into the macho man trap. Testosterone was poison. Grey scoffed. “Yeah, I’m up to it. But I warn ya, I took judo as a kid.” “I warn you, I turn into a lion when I get cornered.” Grey laughed, as if he was joking. He wasn’t, of course, but if Grey didn’t know that by now, he’d learn. Roan went off and changed into his shorts, jock, and tank top, finding gloves, headgear, and the special padded boots the kickboxers wore. He had his own mouth guard from when he used to spar in the gym, before he got his own heavy bag. He felt like a bit of a dick walking out to the ring, but he was no more or less a dick than anyone else in the place, and Grey was already waiting in the ring, dressed in a similar manner, and no one would ever call him a dick for fear of getting beaten to a fine paste. Once he ducked under the rope and got in the ring, Grey asked, “You a righty or a lefty?” “I’m right-handed, but I have a nasty left hook. What about you?” “I’m a righty too, but I can shoot from either side. Call me ambiguous.” Roan pondered that a moment. “Do you mean ambidextrous?” He considered that a moment. “Maybe. Probably. I’m not great with big words. I’m not paid to be.” Fair enough. They both popped in their mouth guards (Grey had a red one, and Roan was roughly sure that that was the one he wore on the ice), and they met in the center of the ring, where they bumped boxing gloves together. Since Grey was the client, Roan let him take the first punch, a huge roundhouse that smashed into the left side of his safety helmet and still made him stumble. It was probably a quarter of the power Grey put behind his hits, but damn, it was a concussion machine. Grey worked a corner of the mouth guard out with only his teeth and tongue (having to wear one all the time on the ice made him an expert at this), and he asked, “Too hard?” Roan smirked, recovering, and shook his head. If Grey wanted to play rough, he was more than happy to play along. He approached Grey warily, stepping in toward him on his right, and Grey threw a right, which
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he blocked with his arm, and nailed him in the stomach with a right of his own. Grey doubled over and backed away, and he said something muffled by his mouth guard, but Roan worked out what it was: “Sneaky.” They both exchanged a couple of blocks and hits, testing each other out, seeing how hard the other was willing to hit. Pretty hard, but they both had no problem taking it. Roan could feel his adrenaline flowing, and was having to tamp down the urge to growl. Grey was bigger and had more of a reach, as well as arms that could double for steel cables, but off the ice he was reasonably slow, and he had a tendency to telegraph his moves, possibly because finesse in hockey fighting was gilding the lily: all you needed to do was punch, hard, and if you had some wrestling skills, that could only help. There was not a lot of punch blocking in a hockey fight, usually because the guys were hanging on to each other’s jerseys so they didn’t get away or fall down. Finally Grey decided to throw a kick, see what happened, but Roan saw it coming when he shifted his stance, and blocked his kick with his arm. Grey backed off with a wolfish grin, and Roan spun into his own kick, aiming for his face. Grey saw this coming and grabbed his foot, so Roan—by reflex alone, really his only excuse for it—launched off his remaining foot and turned in midair, slamming the foot right in Grey’s face, making him drop him and reel back in surprise and impact. Roan hit the mat on all fours and quickly jumped back up to his feet, fists out, ready to go. Grey was slumped against the ropes, holding the side of his jaw and apparently laughing. Roan hadn’t realized it until then, but just about everyone else in the boxing area had come to watch them, gathered around a few feet away from the ropes. “Holy shit, how’d you do that?” A goodlooking, shaven-headed black guy in gray sweatpants asked. “You a martial arts guy or something?” In retrospect, Roan realized he probably should have dislocated a leg or a hip with a move like that, and how the hell did he turn in midair in that short a space to land on his hands and knees? Well, cats always landed on their feet, right? Ha. He shook off a glove and pulled out his mouth guard. “Grey, you okay?” Grey was still laughing, but he worked his mouth guard out. “Yeah, I just didn’t expect that. So you did have some kickboxing training, huh?” No, no he hadn’t. He had no actual explanation for what had just happened. Watching too many Jet Li films? Should he be worried? “Little bit,” he lied, just deciding it was easier.
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Grey shook his head—shook it off—and stood up. “Wow, rattled my cage. That hasn’t been done since… fifth grade, I think. You’re stronger than you look.” “I get that a lot.” He decided to back off, just let things calm down. He was doing, unconsciously, what Murphy just accused him of doing: showing off. But after getting almost taken down, Grey had some pride on the line. He answered back with a flurry of punches, half of which Roan blocked, and half of which hit the target. He was mainly going for body shots, and still holding back, but the landed shots would probably leave bruises. But Roan landed some shots of his own that he knew would leave bruises as well, and would probably piss off Grey’s coach. There was an occasional comment from the crowd, but both he and Grey ignored it. This was a sparring match that had become oddly intense and serious. He winged Grey with an uppercut—he just caught the very edge of his chin, lifting it, letting him know that he could have punched his head off his shoulders if he was serious, and as Grey stumbled back, slightly off balance, the crowd “oohed.” “You tryin’ out for the UFC, dog?” someone asked. Roan wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or Grey. Grey faked a left that Roan committed to, and surprised him with a right to the jaw that made Roan stumble to keep his balance. The crowd “oohed” again, and Roan turned into a low kick that hit Grey on the side of the knee and got enough of the back to make Grey’s leg buckle, dropping Grey involuntarily to his knees. Roan then tapped him on the top of his padded headgear, letting him know he could have done something worse, and Grey started chuckling again. Roan had finally figured out that Grey was so startled when someone got the drop on him, he laughed rather than got mad. If it was a game, he’d get mad, but this was basically practice. So he laughed. Roan realized suddenly he was growling and stopped. Hopefully it was noisy enough that no one else noticed. Roan offered him a hand up, and Grey took it. “Man, you got moves. If there’s ever a bench-clearing brawl, you have my permission to jump on the ice and help.” “I’m an honorary Hanson brother?” “Hell yeah.” They were both sweaty and a bit short of breath—and achy—so they
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decided they’d sparred enough for the day. Hell, had it really been twenty minutes? It seemed like five. He could have kept going for the rest of the hour. The crowd gave them a smattering of applause for being entertaining, and Roan flashed them a middle finger after he got a glove off, but that just made them laugh. He had the approval of the gym’s boxing straight guys. Not that he needed it; he was confident he could kick all their asses without much trouble, and wasn’t that a nice thought? In the locker room, as they were changing out of their gear, Grey said, “I’ve never lost a fight, like, ever. I gotta spar with you until I can beat ya. It feels like a challenge.” “Yeah, that was fun. I usually just work the heavy bag at home.” “Ever punch it off its chain?” Roan paused taking off his tank top. His back was to Grey—he was facing his locker—and he was suddenly glad. “Once, maybe.” Actually, four times, but who was counting? “Why?” “Lucky guess. You punch like a wrecking ball. You really gotta teach me your stuff, man. It’s awesome.” What could he teach him? How to get infected and make your inner beast work for you? He didn’t even know how to do that, it was just something that happened to him. He was the superfreak, after all. He was still trying to figure out how he’d get out of that when he heard a weird noise. It took a moment to figure out it was his cell, humming away in his jacket inside the locker, vibrating against the metal wall. It was Murphy, and he didn’t want to answer it, but he knew he’d better. “Yeah, Dropkick, calling to lecture me some more?” She sighed heavily. “Oh, you bastard, you wish. Michael Brand is dead.” Yeah, she was right: he did wish she had called to lecture him.
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15 My Mistakes Were Made for You ROAN listened as Dropkick mostly berated him, but kind of told him a bit about Michael Brand’s death. Apparently it looked like a suicide, but those were the operative words: looked like. She didn’t trust it, which was why the investigation was continuing. After the call, Roan lay on the bench and looked up at the ceiling, wondering how best to ask what he wanted to ask and what he would do about it. Luckily, Grey had gone off to take a quick shower, so he had a couple minutes to think. As soon as the water stopped, Roan asked, “What happened after I left this morning?” “Huh?” “Did you go out or something?” “No man, I went back to bed. I probably would have slept all day except the neighbor started his leaf blower. Then I figured I had some energy to burn and decided to come here, which is when I called you. That’s about it. Why?” “I suppose Scott is your alibi.” The ever-loyal team captain, looking out for his men. Roan could count on him to say Grey was home sleeping, whether he was or not. “Yeah. Why?” He stopped staring at the ceiling and sat up with a sigh. It was incredibly hard to judge veracity by smell in a gym. The smell of sweat was far too prevalent, and the fact that Grey had just had a quick shower only added another layer of complications. He was going to have to go on other things. He glanced at Grey, who was at his locker, getting dressed. He flashed Roan his hard ass without any kind of humility—again, longtime athlete, locker room nudity was nothing to him—and while Roan noted clinically you could probably bounce a quarter off the thing and it was nice, he still felt no attraction to Grey. Maybe his mind just wasn’t in that space right now. He felt an invisible cloak of doom settling on his
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shoulders. “Michael Brand’s dead.” Grey finished stepping into his underwear—sporty black boxer briefs—and looked back at him, not surprised but still a little confused. “Oh, yeah? What happened?” “They’re not sure. It looks like a suicide, but homicide’s investigating. Did you kill him, Grey?” The funny thing was, the question didn’t faze him in any way. He was either extremely innocent or terminally guilty. “If I did, I’d be bragging about it, the spineless little fuck. Somebody killed my girlfriend, I’d fucking kill them, not sit down and shut up.” “Yes, I suppose. But I note there wasn’t an actual denial in that statement.” Now a look of annoyance flashed across his face. “No, I didn’t kill the fuck. How could I? I don’t even know where he lives.” In the days of ubiquitous GPS units and Google Earth, did he trust that? Grey knew his name—he could find out the information easily. He didn’t seem like he was lying, but then again, he could just be very good at it. Why would he feel any guilt? He’d just said he’d kill anyone who touched his girlfriend. He’d kill anyone who hurt his friend’s little brother. Huh. Why did that just put a weird thought into his head? Roan asked, “Jamie was just a friend, right? No more?” Grey had stepped into his jeans and was in the process of putting on his T-shirt when he paused and looked at Roan again, shrugging his head through the shirt’s collar. “What d’ya mean?” “I think you know what I mean.” He scoffed, but mostly in a humorous way. “I ain’t gay, dude.” “You don’t have to be. I could sleep with a woman once and it wouldn’t make me straight.” There was something in his eyes, a sparkle, maybe mischievous, maybe humorous. He was amused by this. “Have you ever slept with a woman?” “No. Have you ever slept with a man?” His grin became wolfish. “Nope.” “Let me rephrase that. Have you ever slept with a transsexual?” “I think you’ve got the wrong angle on this. Jamie was like my little brother, you know? That’s all.”
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Did he believe him? “Those letters Jamie sent to you… I thought perhaps he had an unrequited crush on you. Maybe it wasn’t so unrequited.” “You don’t believe me.” Not a question, as he slipped on a windbreaker with the Falcons logo on the back. “I don’t know. I think you’re very loyal to your teammates, Grey, to anyone you see as family. I think anyone hurts one of them, you will find them and make them pay, off the ice as well as on. I totally respect that, and I’m probably the same way. I think you have a bright future in the NHL, and I think Sean Brand is best left to the legal system, don’t you?” He shrugged, not quite committing to it. “Guess it depends on what the legal system does to him.” “He’s a dead man walking. Everybody on the streets knows he hurt Holden, and Holden surely has friends in prison. The end result won’t be pleasant.” “Good. He doesn’t deserve pleasant.” “No, he doesn’t. But I am telling you, for the sake of your future, walk away. Let this be done now. Jamie wouldn’t want you throwing everything away on this.” Grey gave him a measured look, one of intensity that confirmed Roan’s gut suspicion: Grey was a lot smarter than he let on. “You’re not gonna believe I’m innocent, huh?” “Would you believe I was?” He smiled again, but this time it was almost charming, far more gentle, and less calculated. “Guess not. If we’re giving out advice, can I give you some?” “If you’re gonna tell me to fuck off, you can skip it.” He was still all good-natured smiles. “No way. You’re a good guy, Roan, and you’re really good at your job. That’s awesome. But why don’t you stop holding back?” He honestly wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “Huh?” “I’m at peak fitness, you know? I’ve trained hard to be, and I got what, about twenty pounds of muscle on you? But you kicked my ass out there. You kicked the ass of those skinheads while everybody just stood back and gawped, and you weren’t afraid of their redneck buddies who jumped us over at Grind. Switzer and Brand never had a chance, did they? You shouldn’t hide it.”
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“Hide what? I’m a freak, Grey. I thought that’s why you hired me.” “It’s a gift.” Roan scoffed at that, but Grey seemed oddly sincere. “It’s a talent. If the world ain’t ready for it, fuck ’em. They need you, they just don’t know it. Show ’em.” Roan shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re asking.” “Course I do. The world needs its enforcers too. Someone has to keep the jackholes from preying on the weak. Sometimes you need a predator to take out the other predators.” He donned his iPod but only stuck one earbud in, letting the other dangle around his neck. When he turned it on, Roan recognized the song. “You listen to These Arms Are Snakes?” “Well, I wondered about that shirt you were wearing, so I Googled the name. They rock, man. I was gonna see if I could play ’em at our next warm-up skate. They’d get us pumped. Oh, and the offer still stands, you know—whatever team I’m on, you and the boyfriend get free tickets. You’ll always be on the list.” Grey headed for the exit, and Roan’s head was reeling. He’d thrown so much at him in so little time. It was feasible that Michael, ruin of a man that he was, finally couldn’t take it anymore and had killed himself. It was equally likely Grey had killed him. He was a big man, and he honestly could have forced Michael to hold a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Michael was so broken, and Grey was so forceful, he could have easily made him do anything. He could have even berated him into suicide, shoved pictures of Jamie into his face until he snapped from the guilt. Absolutely anything was possible. And the worst part? Roan didn’t want to know the truth. He was content to leave it here, as long as nothing happened to Sean before sentencing. “Walk away, Grey,” he said. Grey glanced at him over his shoulder. “That’s exactly what I’m doin’,” he replied, still smiling, and winked as he tucked in his loose earbud and walked out the door. Well, whatever team ended up with Grey, they were going to get a guardian off the ice as well as on. He honestly hoped that they were ready for it. For a time afterwards, Roan sat in his car, trying to figure out what to do. Not about the case; the case was closed. He was wondering what to do with himself. Once the Vicodin kicked in, he kind of didn’t care. It was funny, the dichotomy of his day. Dropkick telling him to hide his lion tendencies and now Grey telling him to show them off. One was a
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friend of his for quite a few years, the other a client who just might have calmly killed someone before showing up to spar with him. It was obvious who he should listen to, but did he want to? He shoved it aside and went to Holden’s place to pick up his iPod and get him some clothes. He looked in his bedroom closet for a bag, finding a backpack, but at the same time he saw Holden’s closet had an obvious division in it: the left half had some clothes in it, pretty much average, everyday clothes, while the more crowded right side held what must have been his hooker gear. Leather, tight T-shirts, spandex shirts even, designer jeans, camouflage clothing, a couple of random whips. (He already knew about it, but it was always a little surprising to see it. Although he was used to Fiona carrying a riding crop in her purse, because in her hands it was a weapon of self-defense.) But how weird was it that Holden kept the closet sides separated like that? There was a huge empty space in the middle, so none of his regular clothes touched his hooker gear. There was Holden’s dichotomy in an obvious, visible form; he kept his Fox identity so different from his Holden identity that he wouldn’t even allow their clothes to touch. How did he keep from going insane or using crack? Roan then swung by a used bookshop on the way and picked up a couple of paperbacks, mostly for Holden, good stuff he thought he should read, and then went to Dick’s Drive-In and got a couple of monstrously greasy and unhealthful—but oh so good—burgers, one for himself. He ate his in a QFC parking lot before running into the store to pick up a can of papaya nectar imported from Mexico. Hey, Holden wanted papaya juice, and he was going to get it. Sadly, they all knew him at the hospital. Busy nurses waved him past, at least one doctor (and possibly an intern) said hello to him in the corridor, and no one looked at him twice as he walked into Holden’s room. Holden must have been doing okay, because even though he was hooked up to at least one IV, he was sitting up, flipping through a magazine he must have gotten from a waiting room. “Can you believe there are people in the world who actually give a shit about Miley Cyrus?” he asked, tossing the magazine onto the floor. “It’s a fucked-up world,” Roan admitted, slipping off the backpack and gently plopping it on Holden’s lap. “You got my food, right?” “Look in there, greedy.” He unzipped the backpack and found the grease-stained brown bag
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first, eagerly tearing into it as Roan made sure the curtain separating Holden from his roommate blocked the view of the illegal food. Whoever they were, they must have been on decent drugs, as they were very faintly snoring. “Thank you,” Holden said around a mouth full of burger, cracking open the can of papaya nectar. “I’d marry you if I believed in monogamy.” Roan found a chair and brought it over and sat there as Holden inhaled his cholesterol bomb in a few big bites. After he was done, wiping the grease off his face and hands with the paper napkins, he gave Roan a funny look. “What?” Roan asked. “You okay, Roan? You seem… gone.” He looked down at himself to make sure he hadn’t suddenly become a hologram. “I believe I’m here.” “You know what I mean. Has something gone wrong with the case?” He shook his head. “Case is closed. Sean and Switzer killed Jasmine. Switzer will get blamed for it, and Sean will go to jail for assaulting you. It’s done. How are you feeling?” Holden stared at him for a long moment, as if studying him. Finally he said, “Okay. I’m a little achy, but I’m on heavy-duty painkillers, so it’s all good. What about you?” He shrugged. “I’m okay.” “No, I was asking if you were on heavy-duty painkillers too.” Roan gave him an evil look, but Holden was already going through the backpack. “Ah, thanks for the clothes. I can’t wait to get out of here. What’re the books?” “Ken Bruen and Joseph Hansen. Classics that will probably never make it into any literature class.” Holden looked at the cover and the backs of the books, frowning in thought. “Mysteries?” “Yes, but not Agatha Christie. Also, gay people apparently exist, and not just as villains or sissy hairdressers.” He gasped in mock horror. “No! Those filthy perverts?” “It takes all kinds.” “Apparently.” Holden put the books aside, and stared at him in an eerily intense way. “What’s wrong?” “What makes you think something is wrong?” “Your thousand-yard stare, for one. I mean, it could be pills, but you usually function amazingly well on pills.”
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“Fuck you.” “Take it as a compliment. Now what’s wrong?” Roan wasn’t going to tell him, but was he really going to be mad at Holden for accusing him of being on pills? He was on pills! He supposed Holden should get points for being observant. “I think my life is slipping out of control.” Why on Earth did he say that? Holden gave him a look suggesting he was thinking much the same thing. Then he sighed and scratched his head, making his IV line wiggle. “Wow, I expect that from clients, not from you. Three things spring to mind: One, you’ve finally noticed? Two, you didn’t use the past tense, suggesting some further illumination is necessary. Three, do you want a hit from my IV?” “Are you done?” “I think so. No, wait… yeah, I’m done.” “Good, ’cause I think I have to go to the office. I have things to do.” “Like what? Slip further out of control?” “See if I ever tell you anything again.” He got up but was too tired to feign anger. He was a little annoyed, but not angry. Maybe because all Holden’s hits were painfully on target. “You’ll have to. I’m your assistant investigator.” “Then you’d best learn pig Latin.” Holden shook his head and gave him a strangely weary, affectionate look he was more accustomed to seeing from Dylan. “Thanks for the stuff. And maybe you need to take a break, step back, and decide what you want in life.” “What I want? That’s easy. To pay my bills on time.” A nurse showed up then, and Holden hid the burger wrappers as Roan kept her momentarily distracted by asking what the time was. He was shooed out, but Holden had successfully stowed away the evidence. Even though he’d told Fiona to take the day off, Roan went back to the office and cleaned up some paperwork, as well as running a background check he’d put off, along with a skip trace. All painfully boring, which might have been why he fell asleep at some point. Presumably, the Vicodin and the adrenaline crash didn’t help either. He woke up to find it had become night on him. Already? That was quick. He’d also drooled a bit on his desk, but on papers that didn’t matter. He had several messages waiting for him on his cell, but he didn’t bother to check them. He wasn’t ready to face anyone just yet.
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Still, he closed up the office and stopped in the first fast-food place along the way (a Jack In The Box) and scarfed down a breakfast burrito and a shake, as he was utterly famished. He hadn't partially transformed during the sparring match—at least not to his knowledge—but his body was behaving like it had. Which was fine, it always kind of did its own thing anyways. He looked out the windows at the traffic driving by, eating in his car so he didn’t have to listen to that fucking pop music everybody pumped everywhere nowadays (he missed the days when stores were quiet—good lord, how old was he?), and wondered what he wanted from life beyond paying bills. He wasn’t sure anymore. Probably not a good thing. He checked his phone. A couple of messages were from Murphy, and he wasn’t sure he could take her yet; one was from Grey, and again, not ready; the last one was from Dylan, and he listened to it. “Where are you?” he asked, sounding equally worried and annoyed. “I hope you’re okay. I was expecting you back by now. Murphy’s called, she says you’re not answering your cell… she doesn’t sound happy. So if you’re ducking her, I understand, but… oh shit. I’ll see you after work, I hope.” Dylan was worrying about him again. He hated that. He also hated that Murphy calling in high dudgeon probably made it worse. He called Dylan, but got his message, and checking the time, Roan knew that was because he was at work and away from his phone. So he decided to pay him a visit instead. Since it was midweek, he found a place close to Panic to park and was mildly surprised to see a few people waiting to get in. Mighty Mouse—the huge bouncer with the tiny voice—saw him and waved him in, bypassing the line, which made the crowd complain. “He’s security,” Mighty Mouse told them, quieting them down. That was actually an in joke. Since he periodically stopped by Panic to see Dylan, he was now referred to as security by the staff. He wasn’t— certainly no one paid him—but apparently management liked having him around. It suddenly occurred to Roan, as Matteo waved him on inside, letting him skip the cover, that maybe this was what Grey meant by calling him an enforcer. That’s how the people at Panic saw him, as a tough guy who could take care of any problems for them. If things got ugly, they had their own ugly guy to take care of it. Roan was strangely numb to the electronic music that washed over him, and while neon-hued colors predominantly lit up the club, he could see a couple of queens staring at him and talking to each other. He could
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lip-read if he wanted to, but he didn’t. They were either saying “That’s the infected freak” or “That’s the infected freak who let that other infected freak get away” (Grant Kim). Either way, he didn’t need to know. He found an open space at the bar and leaned in, and he was spotted instantly by Rodrigo. He was, as de rigueur for Panic’s bartenders, shirtless, but he was also wearing a leather vest, suggesting he was cold. “Toby!” he shouted. “The cops want to see you!” Rodrigo was teasing, but since Murphy had probably chewed his ear off earlier, it wouldn’t be appreciated. Dylan looked down the bar, alarmed, but visibly relaxed when he saw it was just Roan. “Thank God,” he said, coming down to Roan’s end of the bar. “I thought something had happened to you.” He leaned over the bar and gave Roan a quick peck on the cheek. “No, I was just catching up on paperwork, and I turned off my phone so I wouldn’t have an excuse not to do it. I desperately wanted an excuse not to do it.” “I know, sweetie. You’re okay, right?” “Hey, if I give you a big tip, can I get a kiss?” A drunk guy a couple of feet away asked. Roan was about to tell him what he could do with that suggestion when Rodrigo came over and said, “He is not for sale. But I’m negotiable.” As Rodrigo flirted with the drunk boy, Dylan leaned in and said, “Murphy sounded really pissed at you.” “Yeah, well, they found Michael Brand dead this afternoon. It looks like suicide, but they think it might be homicide. She thinks I did it.” “Did you?” he asked, and then looked horrified. “Oh shit, no. Ro, I didn’t mean—” “Yeah, you did, and it’s okay. I killed Switzer, so why wouldn’t I kill Brand? Make it a twofer.” “You killed somebody?” the guy standing next to him asked. He was a soft-looking man—ten to one he worked on a computer all day, or at the very least behind a desk—and he was giving him a look of wide-eyed horror. Roan stared at him, dead eyed. “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” He paused briefly. “It was kind of disappointing. Boring, actually.” Still openly terrified, the man grabbed his beer and retreated deeper
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into the club, out of sight. “Did he actually believe me?” Roan asked Dylan, slightly mystified. “It looked like it, didn’t it?” “It’s Johnny Cash! I don’t even listen to Johnny Cash, and I know it’s Johnny Cash!” “Hon, sometimes you’re too hip for the room.” “You think I don’t know when I’m being pat—” “Holy shit,” a guy shouted, stumbling in the entryway. “There’s a fucking leopard out there!” “What?” Someone shouted. “I think it’s attacking someone across the street.” “Roan—” Dylan exclaimed, but Roan was already running for the door. The guy who reported the cat said, “Dude, don’t—” but Roan ignored him too as he burst out the door. Mighty Mouse was still out front, but the boys had scattered. “What the fuck do I do?” Mouse asked him. “Get inside,” he said, scanning the street, scenting the wind. There it was, across the street, growling and attempting to burrow under the lid of a closed Dumpster. Was someone hiding in there? The guy was also wrong. It wasn’t a leopard, it was a panther, but with a dark muddy-brown color that looked faintly reddish in the dim glow of the streetlight. A fellow redhead? Roan whistled sharply, stepping out into the street. “Pick on someone your own size.” “Man, what are you doing?” Mighty Mouse squeaked. “Get inside!” he shouted, as the panther charged toward him, snarling. Roan roared in response, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise, and the panther did an almost comical stumble midway across the street, not scared but perplexed. It lifted its head, sniffing the air, still snarling, but Roan was growling too as he approached it. Luckily they were working on the neighboring road (a huge sinkhole had opened up during the last torrential downpour), and traffic was sporadic at best. The panther got over its shock and started to lunge again, but Roan sensed it coming and roared once more with the force akin to a scream, feeling his throat grow raw and bloody as a result. It was loud and angry enough that the cat’s ears swiveled back, its lips skinned over its snaggled
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ivory teeth. When he could talk, he growled, “I’m the alpha here. Get down.” The cat continued growling at him and stalked forward cautiously. “I said get down,” Roan snarled, his fingers wanting desperately to curl into claws, his muscles starting to twitch in his arms and back. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and he felt a sharp pain bracketing his jaw as he started tasting blood in his mouth. Roan was dimly aware that there were people watching from Panic, idiots who wanted to gawk at the loose big cat. He knew the stupid thing was going to jump before it actually did, so he got his arm up and let the panther sink its teeth into his forearm, and Roan, feeling rather out of control of himself, reflexively bit the panther on its shoulder. He stopped as soon as he tasted blood, and as the cat loosened its bite to squall in pain, he snapped his arm and sent the panther flying. It slammed into the facade of the closed antique store across the street and hit it hard enough you could hear the dense, meaty thud over the hiss of tires on asphalt farther down the way. “Stay down!” Roan roared, the words almost lost in the noise. He could feel the slick warmth of blood running down his arm, but bizarrely, it didn’t hurt, not at the moment. Maybe later, after the adrenaline wore off. He turned his head and spit out blood that was half his and half the panther’s. The cat wasn’t dead; they were amazingly resilient to damage, a bit more than their Human forms. But it was clearly dazed as it got on its feet, wavering slightly, shaking its head like it had a bee in its ear. It was growling, but it was an automatic response—there was no force behind it at all. He approached it slowly, still growling, and when he was nearly close enough to reach out and smack it, he snarled, “I’m the alpha. Submit.” The cat looked up at him with glazed amber eyes, growling weakly, but it seemed to understand that there was no winning this battle. It settled on the sidewalk, resting its head on its paws, its growl dying in its throat. Roan stood over it, still growling, jaw still hurting, the urge to rip out its throat not quite dying. He clenched his hands at his sides and felt the muscles shifting in his fingers. He struggled to keep the change from going any further, and repressing it was almost painful. It nearly hurt worse than his jaw. The thing had fucking bit him. He should rip it in half.
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He heard the noise of an engine and tires, and headlights blindsided his peripheral vision as it came up, slowly enough to let him know it would stop before it ran him over. He looked away, blinking afterimages from his eyes, and heard a car door open. It was funny, but from the scent of the exhaust he knew that it was a cop car. How weird was that? Exhaust really didn’t vary all that much. “Roan, you got it under control?” a familiar voice asked. It was Seb, which was definitely a good thing for him. Roan realized he was still growling deep in his throat, and he actually had to remember how to speak. He was sliding down. “Yeah.” He heard the pneumatic hiss of a drug gun, and assumed the panther had been drugged. Would they shoot him next? he wondered. “What the fuck’s this guy?” A male voice he didn’t recognize asked. It had the hard authority of a cop. “Stand down. He works for the department,” Seb replied in an equally firm manner. So he had a replacement partner while Gordo was on leave. Guy sounded like a prick. “Roan, you okay?” Seb had not gotten any closer, and his voice had a soothing quality, like he was trying to keep him from spooking, and he kept using his name, like the cop handbook said in dealing with volatile people. Use their name a lot, try and forge a connection, make them think they know you and can trust you. A brief surge of anger—he could rip Seb in half too, him and that dick partner of his, who was exuding testosterone like a cheap cologne—gave way to a sudden cascade of despair. Oh fuck, what was going on? Why had he even thought that? “’m fine,” he grumbled, turning completely away, dry washing his face with his hands so no one could see any lingering signs of transformation. But he felt the blood on his chin, and his fingers ached as if they’d all been broken. His arms burned and so, inexplicably, did his back, his heart beating out a staccato rhythm in his chest that seemed to vibrate through his entire body. Only now did he realize he had come closer to a full change than he realized. He heard a smash—something mostly plastic impacting the asphalt with force—followed closely by, “Hey man, what the fuck—” “No pictures!” A voice exclaimed angrily, and it took him a second to realize the man who said that was Dylan. Roan turned to look at the crowd, a hand on his face covering his mouth (and most of the blood, although he could feel a slick of it on his
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neck, growing cold in the chill night), and he caught Dylan’s eyes. He looked anguished, as if he had seen what Roan had only just realized, his chocolate-brown eyes shiny with unshed tears. Dylan turned away and quickly disappeared back inside Panic, followed by Rodrigo, who must have picked up on his despair, if not precisely the reason for it. Roan wanted to call after him but didn’t. He didn’t feel he had the right to do so anymore.
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16 Airport Surroundings IT TOOK several minutes for Seb to question him about the incident, and someone found a bar towel for him, which he used to clean the blood off his face and then tie around the bite on his arm. Roan still hurt, still felt like he was full of broken glass, and he wanted desperately to get to his car and break into his Percocet stash. He also desperately wanted to go into Panic and find Dylan. He had no idea what he was going to say to him beyond “sorry,” but he felt it was paramount he find him as soon as possible. It turned out there was a man hiding in the Dumpster, a homeless guy who had been scratched up pretty badly but would undoubtedly survive. He’d lost a lot of blood, but he was so drunk he didn’t seem to notice. That was probably for the best. But at one point, his glazed eyes settled on Roan, and he pointed at him and said to the EMTs, “He’s a werecat. Did’ja know that? Shouldn’t he be locked up or somethin’?” If they answered him, Roan didn’t hear it. As soon as Seb wrapped the interview up, Roan stopped by his car, gulped the pills, and found himself confronted by staring men on his way back to Panic. “Wow,” one guy said. He had bleached-blond hair and smelled of that so-called “pheromone” cologne that Roan knew was complete bullshit. (He could smell pheromones, and while there were some in the mix, not enough to make any difference to anyone.) “That was… what did you do? Aren’t you hurt?” Roan cut through the men without saying anything. Yes, he was hurt, but he didn’t care. And what had he done? He'd nearly turned into a lion, and he'd freaked Dylan out. Why had he freaked Dylan out? He’d seen him half transformed before… right? Oh fuck, he couldn’t even remember anymore. Maybe Dylan was just upset because he thought his head was going to explode from an aneurysm or something. Roan was growing convinced that the longer it didn’t happen, the less likely it was to happen. His body had probably adapted to the new reality, like it adapted to most things. Would Dylan buy that?
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Once inside Panic, he found Rodrigo back behind the bar, trying to calm down customers who weren’t really freaked out, just vaguely excited that something violently odd had happened in their vicinity. But he couldn’t see Dylan. “Where is he?” he asked Rodrigo, aware that he would know the “he” he was referring to. Rodrigo shot him a sympathetic look. “He headed home. Look, what you did out there—” “Is what I do. There’s only room for one big cat around here.” He headed back out, and the crowd miraculously parted for him. Was this how Moses felt? Dylan heading home without him—ahead of the end of his shift, in fact—was bad news. He drove home as fast as legally possible, an accident at another intersection holding him up for what seemed an unconscionable amount of time. It didn’t look too bad, it was mainly just broken glass and a ruined fender, so why the fucking holdup? Sometimes it seemed like the world conspired against you. He arrived home, relieved to find Dylan’s car still in the driveway, but where did he think he would go? The pills were kicking in, and the edges of the pain had dissolved, melted like ice cream in the sun. It was really nice; he could move his fingers without feeling a lightning bolt of pain sizzle down each nerve. His head felt hollow, but the throbbing at the temples had ceased. Once inside, he found that only the foyer light was on, and the rest of the house was dark save for a sliver of light in the upstairs hallway. “Dylan?” He charged upstairs and opened the door on the bedroom, the only lit room in the house. Dylan was standing at the end of the bed, zipping up a backpack. “Hon, what’re you—” “I can’t do this anymore,” Dylan said, his voice sounding congested. He wiped his face with his hand before shouldering the bag, but his face was still wet with tears, his eyes red rimmed, beads of saline collecting in the stubble dusting his upper lip. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll come back and get the rest of my stuff eventually, okay? I just can’t do this—” “Do what?” he exclaimed, astonished. Dylan was walking out on him? “Live with a freak?” “Fuck you!” Dylan snapped, with so much rage Roan reflexively took a step back. Dylan almost never got angry, so when he did, it was explosive and astonishing in its rawness. “You are not a freak to me, and you have never been a freak. Goddamn it, why don’t you treat yourself with more respect than that? Why do you hate yourself so much?”
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“I’m not dumping me, so I don’t think my hate is an issue.” “I am not—” Dylan paused and seemed to gather his thoughts. He was still crying; he had never actually stopped crying. “I love you, you stupid asshole, and I wish I didn’t. I can’t stand aside while you kill yourself a piece at a time. I can’t. I didn’t want to leave you because you could—I didn’t know what would happen, but I thought I could brazen it out, I thought you’d realize what you were doing or… God, I’m such a fucking idiot. I thought maybe you’d love me enough not to hurt me like this. But you don’t love me, and—” “What? Of course I love you. What the hell kind of thing is that to say?” “You like me, and maybe you’re used to me, but you don’t really love me. And please, no, don’t deny it, okay? I was good with that. I was willing to accept that ’cause that’s how much I loved you. You’re still in love with Paris, and I get that. I know you think the very idea is bullshit, but he was your soul mate, and I accepted that. I just can’t accept that you’d rather die than be with me.” “This is bullshit!” Maybe it was the drugs—perhaps four Percocets was one too many—but he felt like half this argument was just rushing past him. “I had to stop the fucking panther, Dyl. What would you have me do? Let it maul someone to death, let the cops kill it? I thought—” “It’s not about that! You’re giving it power—you want it to take over!” “What?” Now he really was missing a piece of this argument. “What the fuck? You’re not making sense! When I’m around other cats, it—” “It is you! You are the lion, Roan! It’s a part of you, and you wouldn’t have to fight it so hard if you didn’t unconsciously want it to take over.” He was feeling a lot of things right now—comfortably numb, upset, sad—but now pissed off was letting its presence be known. “Don’t psychoanalyze me! You have no idea how hard it is to live with this!” “No, I don’t, and that’s why I let the drugs go! I don’t know the kind of pain you live with, and if it takes it away, fine! Drown yourself in fucking pills, Ro! But I can’t watch you kill yourself anymore!” “Fuck you! If I wanted to kill myself, I’d shoot myself in the head! Or slice my arms open like you did!” Even as he said it, he winced. Stupid, wrong, low, mean—why had he gone there? Dylan’s jaw tightened, and there was genuine pain in his eyes. He’d
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hurt him with that. That was a confidence he'd shared with him, his suicide attempt after the death of Jason, and to use it as a weapon was beyond the pale. “Jesus, fuck, Dyl, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” “No, you did, and it’s okay. At least it’s out now.” He ran his hand beneath his nose and sniffed. “I have to go now before things get worse.” “Please, no, Dylan, I—” “Don’t, just don’t. If you care about me at all, let me go.” “But—” But what? What was he going to say? He stood aside and let Dylan pass, feeling like utter shit. He was angry, both at himself and at Dylan, but the drugs made it seem oddly abstract. “I love you, goddamn it!” he roared. Not literally; he was too drugged and too tired to manage it. There was no response besides the opening and closing of the door downstairs. Damn it. “Would I put up with this shit if I didn’t?” Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. If he’d set out to deliberately destroy this relationship, he couldn’t have done a better job. Angrily, he slammed the closet door shut, but that wasn’t satisfying. So he went downstairs and headed for his office, where he landed three or four punches on the heavy bag before snapping the chain and sending it thudding into the wall and collapsing onto the floor. Now he had something to fix. Great. That would keep him occupied for about ten or twenty minutes. “Fuck!” he shouted, feeling his heart beat in his ears. He was an idiot; he was a world-class moron. Why did both Dylan and Murphy think he wanted to die? Why did they think he was suicidal? He wasn’t! His last overdose wasn’t his fault— some asshole had tried to kill him with animal tranquilizers. Didn’t they remember that? That wasn’t his fucking fault. And that lion shit—Dylan had no fucking clue what he was talking about. The lion was… well, it wasn’t a thing, really, it was an impulse, an urge, an irresistible urge. He fought it, and it wasn’t as easy as he seemed to imply—he couldn’t make it roll over and play dead. How stupid was he? For a man who had taken years of college, he could seem totally clueless. He was exhausted, his adrenaline was almost gone, and the drugs were really weighing him down. His stomach was growling, twisting itself in knots, so he had a piece of toast and wondered where Dylan had gone. To D’Andra’s? Probably. She was perfect, mainly because, as far as Roan could tell, she had never liked him. Maybe she was a rather militant
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lesbian, but she seemed oddly proprietary of Dylan. Possibly because they were both artists, although D’Andra’s art wasn’t painting but sculpture and performance pieces. Dylan at least had talent—he was more than half convinced D’Andra was being awful on purpose as a sort of “fuck you” to the art world. And really he respected her for that. He lay down on the couch and turned on the TV, making himself stare at it, but for some reason nothing was getting through. He saw images but couldn’t connect them; they might as well have been flashing lights. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. He remembered he had phone calls to return, and as if on cue his cell hummed, but as soon as he saw it was Murphy calling, he turned it off. She’d probably just heard about the panther thing, or finally had a piece of evidence that pointed toward Michael’s death being murder, and he was just not in the mood right now. He couldn’t deal with it. Roan had no idea when he fell asleep. The drugs were so heavy in his system, weighing him down like his blood was liquid iron, that there seemed to be no segue between consciousness and sleep. It was actually kind of nice, at least until he found himself sitting on the back porch, on a deck that didn’t actually exist in real life, watching the sun filter through the interlaced web of the trees. Sitting beside him was Paris, of course, drinking a beer and waiting for things to happen. “I’ve really fucked this up, haven’t I?” he asked, although he knew he was just talking to himself. “It is a minor talent of yours,” Par admitted, giving him a smartass grin. Well, that was certainly true. Roan had a beer bottle in his hand, but it seemed to be empty. What a bastard. “Maybe this is for the best. I was no good for Dylan anyways. He could do better.” “Of course he could. But he wanted you, you stupid fuck.” Paris cuffed him on the back of the head, a small slap that could have been more forceful but was just firm enough to get its point across. “Hey!” “And he’s right, you know. He and Murphy don’t agree on a lot, so the fact that they agree on you being a reckless and stupid asshole seems to indicate that you are being a reckless and stupid bastard.” Roan gave him a dirty look. “Aren’t you supposed to be my soul mate?” Par gave him a look that he knew all too well, one that made him
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feel a twinge in his gut even in this dream world. It was the look of a kindly old mentor about to kick your ass and honestly sorry he has to do it. “You’re so depressed you’ve come out the other side of it, Ro. You know you could die at any second, so you push it. All your life, that’s what you’ve done. Someone says you can’t do something, you go out and do it, and go spin doughnuts on their lawn, giving them the middle finger and insulting their mothers. That’s the beauty and the terrible pain of you: you’re a contrary bastard.” “Yeah, well….” He didn’t know what to say. There was nothing he could argue with here. “You say you don’t want to end up a sideshow attraction, a freak show, but you go out of your way to use these abilities where they will get a lot of attention. Subtlety has never been your strong suit.” “It’s who I am. It’s what I am. Ask me to not be gay while you’re at it, or a redhead. I’m a freak. World might as well get used to it.” “I agree. But are you ready for what will happen? The media attention, the medical attention?” Par actually seemed to be expecting an answer. “Well, no….” “Are you ready to die half transformed?” “No, but that’s not gonna happen.” “Oh really? Why not?” He shrugged, and suddenly realized he wanted badly to wake up. “I’ve adapted. It can’t kill me. It won’t.” “Really? Then go all the way. If you won’t get any more aneurysms, go for a full change. What’s holding you back?” “Stop it.” “You’re not a coward, Ro. Hell, you go out and pick fights, that’s how not a coward you are. So why don’t—” “Just shut up, all right?” he snapped angrily. He would have felt terrible if this was really Paris, but it wasn’t. He knew he was talking to himself, that the mean bastard taunting him could never be Par, but it could be him. Yes, he was contrary, but he could also be fucking vindictive. “You want Dylan back? You tell him the truth, and you get help.” “There’s no help for me.” “You’ve never tried, so you don’t know. Try before you give up. Or are you actually a coward, Ro? Is that your dirty little secret?”
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The ringing of the phone woke him up, shattered his reverie, and he was honestly grateful. His subconscious was a bitch. He didn’t answer the phone, he just let it go to machine, and it was Murphy, like he suspected (it was either her or Dee—there was no way Dylan would be calling him so soon). He listened to her talk and felt water on his face. Was he crying? Yes, he was, but he hadn’t been aware of it. The drugs still had a velvet stranglehold on him, but he wasn’t sure he could totally blame them. Apparently the Brand case was being shut. They’d found nothing that indicated foul play, and since he’d killed himself with his service revolver and left a note on his computer, it looked pretty legit. She still didn’t trust it—she said it looked like there might have been another person in the house—but there was no way to make a timeline for that. He wondered idly if she’d found the bottle of booze he took out of the back cupboard. It was unlikely Michael had cleaned up. She wasn’t happy— was she ever?—but it was done, unless he wanted to tell her something. He didn’t, so the case was closed. Maybe Grey was telling the truth—maybe he had gone back to bed and never paid Brand a visit. Would he ever know for sure? Truth be told, he was fine not knowing. Michael had been dead in every way save physically. Poor bastard. That was where Hamlet syndrome killed you— you couldn’t live with things as they were, but you couldn’t make yourself change them either. Indecision as mental illness and self-destruction. Roan must have fallen back to sleep, or just slipped into some druginfused fugue state, as the next time he found himself staring at the curtains that were closed over the glass patio door, there was weak sunlight behind them, making them faintly glow. He still felt tired and empty, but now that the drugs had mostly worn off, his joints ached ever so slightly, like he was getting over the flu. His stomach rumbled to let him know toast had been nowhere near enough last night. He went upstairs and took a long bath, letting the warm water relax his muscles and take out the residual aches. His face was itchy, and he noticed he’d gotten a two days’ growth of beard overnight. He was too tired to shave, so he didn’t. He almost didn’t bother to get dressed, except he was cold, so he put on sweatpants before going downstairs. He threw a frozen dinner in the microwave and nuked it, not looking at what it was and not caring. After it was done, he still wasn’t sure what it was, and again, didn’t care. Eating it didn’t provide further illumination. So he was supposed to tell Dylan the truth? The truth about what?
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He knew he was a freak; they had covered that part. So what was there to say? There was a knock on the door, and he wasn’t going to answer the door, but Dee shouted, “I know you’re in there!” So, fuck, word was getting around. He got up and let Dee in, not surprised he was in his paramedic gear. “Dylan called me and told me he might need me to pick up some stuff for him. So he’s left you? What did you do?” He glared at him but stalked back to the sofa, not even in the mood to argue with him. “Didn’t you hear what went on last night?” “The cat outside Panic? Yeah, I heard. That’s it? Gotta be more than that.” “He seems to think I hate myself and I want to die. Or I want the lion to take over full time, or some shit like that.” “And you’re saying that’s not true?” He gave Dee a scathing look that he knew would do no good, as it never did any good with Dee. “No, it’s not. Just get his stuff and go. What stuff does he want?” Dee came and stood in front of him in the living room, hands on his hips. “No, you’re fucking not.” “Not what?” “You are not giving up.” “I can if I want.” What was he doing? He didn’t even know. It was all reflex. Dee glared down at him, imperious and angry. “He’s right, isn’t he? You want to die. Dylan leaving is the final excuse you need.” “Fuck you.” He couldn’t even work up enough energy to make it sound angry. It was anemic and could have been anything. It didn’t even sound like an insult. Dee gave him a curious look, one only an ex could possibly give you, and sat down on the sofa beside him. He put his hand on Roan’s leg in a comforting, friendly manner and asked in his most consoling EMT voice, “What’s wrong?” A good question. He didn’t know. But he found himself admitting, “I’m so tired,” and for reasons unknown to him, he burst into tears. Stupid fucking asshole—why was he crying? Dee pulled him into a hug and let him cry into his shoulder, and in that moment, Roan really did want to die.
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17 You Could Have It So Much Better ROAN tried to stop crying because it was fucking humiliating enough without bringing the whole “ex” thing, but on the bright side, he couldn’t actually humiliate himself further in front of Dee. Been there, done that, posted it on his blog. As it was, he couldn’t actually stop crying, so Dee eventually asked if he wanted a sedative. Roan heartily agreed, and after Dee came back from his car and gave him the shot, he asked, “Why have you never offered me a sedative before?” “’Cause I knew if I did, you’d expect one all the time,” Dee told him, wiping the injection site down with an alcohol-soaked cotton swab. He then looked at Roan’s forearm and frowned at it. “Is this where you were bit?” Whatever Dee gave him, it was working already. His heart started racing in his chest, the preamble to its slowing down, to all his systems gliding into a lower gear. Roan actually had to look at his arm to remember. “Uh, yeah.” Dee lifted his arm and looked at it up close, as if trying to see each individual pore. “The report said your arm was bleeding, but you refused treatment at the scene.” “Yeah.” “So why aren’t there puncture wounds?” “Magic?” Dee gave him a light backhand slap across the chest. “Don’t smartass me. This is, what you call it, forcing a change? You forced a change and healed it.” “No.” Actually, now that he thought about it, he never did that. So when did it happen? “I got mad, after Dylan left.” “And?”
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“I probably did a partial change without realizing it at the time. That can happen when I get pissed off.” He gave him a skeptical look. “So you’re the Hulk now?” “No! I’ve never owned a pair of purple pants in my life.” Dee’s glare was ceaseless. “I’m gonna beat the shit out of you. I swear to God I’m gonna knock you out and beat the shit out of you. I’m gonna put you in a body cast.” “Where’s your sense of humor?” Roan belatedly realized he’d stopped crying. He wasn’t sure it was the drugs more than the distraction. “You’ve driven away the sweetest hot guy currently on the planet, and you are making smartass jokes. Jokes that aren’t even that funny. You should be figuring out how to get him back.” “I shouldn’t.” At Dee’s disbelieving look, he explained. “You’re right, he is sweet, and hot, and he deserves so much better than me. I’ve brought nothing but pain into his life. He deserves to have some fun, meet another nice hot guy and have hot Buddhist sex, not be weighed down with a diseased old freak like me.” “I agree. But he seems to like you, proving he’s crazy and has a thing for hot old guys who are nothing but trouble.” “You think I’m a hot old guy? Hey, is that an insult or a compliment?” “A little of both.” “Ah. Well, fuck you. Kinda.” Dee put his hand on his forehead—which was a mild relief, as he thought for a moment he was going to slap him—and asked, “You all right? You’re flushed.” He shrugged. “Happens with drugs sometimes. It’s my Irish blood.” “I thought you were Scottish.” “Mostly Scottish, but some Irish, and probably some alley cat as well.” “That explains a lot.” “That it does.” “So, are you going to clean yourself up and go throw yourself on Dylan’s mercy?” He actually thought cutting Dylan loose was the kinder thing. Did he miss him? Hell yes, he did. He wished he was here right now. But that was
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selfish of him, wasn’t it? But what was a relationship besides a compact of mutual selfishness? Or was he so incredibly wrong it wasn’t even funny? “He’s at D’Andra’s?” “Of course he is. She’s a scary person who will rip your head off if you bother her Dylan.” “So you’re scared of her too?” “Yes, but I can drug her, so it’s limited.” “Your answer is always drugs, isn’t it?” Dee glared at such an obvious invitation, and opened his mouth to say something mean, but Roan was saved by his beeper going off. Dee checked it and cursed. “Gonna kick your ass later,” he promised, standing up. “This isn’t over.” “Is it ever?” Dee didn’t answer that, just gave him a knowing, dark sort of look on his way out the door. It said “You’re an asshole” without actually saying the words. They were never really necessary. Roan lay on the couch for a while, trying to determine his next move, wondering why it was always so easy to just crawl in a hole and never come out. He would really love to never do anything, just sit here and rot. It was honestly what he deserved. He had things to do. He had laundry and probably shopping, and a buttload of apologies to make. What could he possibly say to Dylan to make it better? “Sorry I want to die.” That didn’t sound like it would make it better. He decided to call Doctor Rosenberg’s office. He thought he’d leave a message, but she picked up the phone. Didn’t that always figure? He took a deep breath, bracing himself, glad for the heavy-duty medication, and told her what he knew about himself: that he could change whenever he wanted, that he could alter his own muscle density, that he could half change, make his eyes turn and his teeth come out, his jaw distend, that sometimes when he was angry or upset it could occur of its own accord, that his vocal chords could change shape and become inhuman, that triggering a change could heal minor injuries, that when his adrenaline got pumping his reflexes could go off the charts. She just listened, occasionally making a soothing noise to let him know she was still there. When he stopped, she finally said, “I know.” He had expected a lot of potential responses. That wasn’t on the list. “What?”
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“You think I’ve never seen YouTube? I’m old, I’m not dead.” “You got all that from videos?” “No. Some from past tests, some from general assumptions on my part. The virus is in your DNA, Roan, and not as an invader but as a cohabitant. You are one strange fellow.” “Isn’t that an understatement?” “A bit. But don’t take that as bad. You’re remarkable. A once-in-alifetime biological event.” She paused to take a drag off her cigarette. “Wait, what’s the world population again—six billion or some such number? Okay, you’re technically a three or four in a lifetime event, but most infecteds don’t live that long.” “Which is a bit of the problem I’m having now.” “Hmm? You think you’re dying?” “I’m wondering why I’m not. I should be dead. I’m almost forty.” She clicked her tongue impatiently. “Jesus Christ, only you could find the dark streak in a silver lining. So you could die any second. So what? Who isn’t always at risk of death? You get up in the morning, you could slip in the shower and die. You could step out and get hit by a bus. You could get E. coli from your burger or MRSA from the gym. You could get flesh-eating bacteria after getting a paper cut. Some meshuggenah could go postal while you’re in line to buy stamps. So fucking what? Live while you can. Don’t worry about what could be—live in the now, you stupid schmuck.” That made him smile. “Is that what you do?” “Of course I do. Why do you think I’m still sucking on these cancer sticks?” “I thought it was nicotine addiction.” “Well, that too. But it sounds better if I make it seem like a choice.” “Do you think you can give that death speech to Dylan?” “Man up and talk to your own damn boyfriend.” Fair enough. Doctor Rosenberg also gave him the name and number of a therapist she thought he might want to talk to. Yes, he was technically alone among infecteds, but she thought talking to someone about his unique predicament would be good for him, and besides, with doctorpatient confidentiality, there was no way she could share the information about him with anyone. He didn’t like therapists and she knew it, but she reminded him he was a miserable, depressed bastard and probably needed to talk to someone. It was another fair point.
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He had just about convinced himself to get off his ass and do something when there was a knock at the door. Had Dee finished already and come back to administer the ass beating? He was tempted not to answer the door, but it spurred him off the couch, so he did. He was deeply surprised to find that it was starting to sprinkle, the sun occluded by temporary clouds, and that it was Scott at his front door in a pair of jeans, a Flyers logo T-shirt, and a worn-looking brown leather jacket. He looked as casually, shockingly handsome as he had in only underwear and bedhead hair. “Hey,” he said casually. “Hey,” Roan said, only realizing he was still shirtless when Scott’s eyes glided over his tattoos again. “What are you doing here?” “Grey thinks you’re mad at him,” he said matter-of-factly and pulled a piece of paper out of his front pocket. “So he sent me over with a check.” “What? Oh, fuck.” Grey had left about six messages that he hadn’t listened to yet. He wasn’t honestly sure if he was mad at him or not; more disappointed, really. “Um, come in.” As he waved him in and held the door open, he still took the check. Hey, who didn’t need the money? In the day of all-over cameras, intrusive software, and economic free fall, people weren’t so eager to hire private detectives anymore. He needed to get the money where he could. “Why does he think I’m mad at him?” Roan asked, wondering if Scott would honestly tell him. He shrugged and looked around the living room as Roan closed the door. “He wouldn’t say. But I know him and figured he was rude without realizing it.” “He wasn’t. I just felt he might have been disingenuous about his reasons for hiring me.” He opened the check and glanced at the sum. Yeah, that would cover his fee and expenses. Scott gave him a curious look. Roan could now see he had a faint, ghostly scar just under his left eye. You could only see it in a certain light and when you were close up to him. He should have figured that you couldn’t play hockey for so long without getting visibly injured. But the ghost scar just made him look hotter, the bastard. “What d’ya mean?” He shook his head dismissively. “I’ll leave that to Grey. He can tell you or not.” He raised an eyebrow at that. “Client confidentiality?” “Something like that.” Roan tossed the check on his kitchenette counter and wondered if he should ask. It didn’t matter, he should really just leave it, but he asked anyways. “Did Grey go back to bed after I left?”
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Scott shrugged again, and from the brief grimace, must have found the question odd. “I got no idea. I went back to bed, remember? I slept until after noon, and when I got up he was gone.” He was so casual about it, it most likely wasn’t a lie. “Oh, speaking of which, he’s talking to the coach about hiring you to teach the youngsters some fighting techniques.” “I don’t know any techniques that could be applied to hockey fights.” “Doesn’t really matter. He said he thought you were anticipating his moves before he made them. That’s always useful.” Roan leaned against the kitchenette counter and sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s flattering, but I can’t teach anyone anything. If I did anticipate anything, it was due to being infected.” That made Scott scratch his head and look adorably befuddled. “Uh, how?” “Catlike reflexes. As my adrenaline levels rise, my senses heighten.” Scott gave him a brief smirk that quickly collapsed as he realized Roan wasn’t joking. “You’re not kidding.” Not a question. “Nope.” “Umm… huh. I didn’t think infected people reacted like that. I mean—” “They don’t. I’m abnormal.” “Why?” What an excellent question. “I don’t know. I was a virus child whose DNA didn’t react badly to the virus’s incorporation.” “That’s it?” Roan was forced to shrug. “They don’t know why I am the way I am. Maybe I was exposed to gamma radiation or hummus in the womb, and that made all the difference. My parents aren’t around to ask.” Scott blinked, as if he’d said this angrily. He hadn’t, but it seemed to strike him that way. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know.” “It’s okay. I don’t care. It’s hard to miss people you’ve never met.” Scott nodded but looked a bit uncomfortable. “Whoa. Grey’s right, you’re pretty hard core.” Because he didn’t have any feelings for his parents? If Scott only knew the whole story, about how a succession of shitty foster homes had taught him parents were severely overrated, as were heterosexuality and marriage. (“Sacred” his rosy red ass.) “He thinks that only because I kicked his ass.”
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“Well, that helps.” “Why did that impress him so much? If it happened on the ice, he would have found a way to leave me as a puddle of blood and teeth.” “Yeah, but that never happens—no one kicks Grey’s ass. He’s not only big, but he’s a decent boxer. I kind of wished I had been there to see it.” “The coach probably should have filmed it.” That made him smile. “Yeah. Actually, the whole team would have loved to watch. Could’ve made a night of it.” “Agree to buy me dinner, and I’ll reenact it live. Assuming Grey is willing.” Scott was still smiling, in a sort of mischievous way that made him look about seventeen. He seemed like a nice, slightly milquetoast Canadian guy, a good team captain, but Roan was willing to bet that secretly this guy was hell on wheels. Or skates, as the case might be. “I’m sure he would be. He’s very competitive.” “That makes sense, being a sports guy and all.” Scott glanced upstairs, nodding his head in that direction before approaching him. “Boyfriend here?” That momentarily threw him. “Um, no, not at the moment.” “Too bad. I was gonna ask him about that tattoo.” “Oh, right.” “I was thinking of getting something like a phoenix, but is that too common?” “Depends on the design.” Scott was close enough to touch his tiger tattoo again, which he stroked softly with his thumb. “I’m not sure where to get it, though. How much does it hurt to get one on your chest?” Roan shrugged, and couldn’t help but notice that Scott was way too close. He wasn’t just invading his space, he was close enough to walk right through him. “Not that much,” Roan told him, wondering if this meant what he thought it did. “No matter where you get it, a tattoo is gonna hurt.” “I’m a hockey player. I can take a little pain,” he admitted, then confirmed what Roan suspected: Scott kissed him. Not just a peck on the cheek, but a full-on, sloppy, wet kiss. Okay—he had found the gay player on the team. He now owed Dylan an apology and twenty bucks.
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18 Daredevil ROAN knew he should have pushed Scott away immediately, but he didn’t. In his defense, Scott was a great kisser, and when Roan grabbed the back of his head, he discovered his hair was silky soft. It was actually kind of nice. But Roan only allowed one kiss—well, Scott kissed him and he kissed him back; as far as he was concerned, it was one kiss total—before he reluctantly pushed him away. “Okay, that answers that,” Roan said, keeping Scott at arm’s length. “You’re a deliberate cocktease.” Scott looked amused at the accusation. “Excuse me?” “That morning when I dropped by—that was an act. You were putting on a show.” “No, I’d just woken up. Although I have to admit your chest was better than caffeine.” Scott let his fingers trail down Roan’s torso, stopping only at the waistband of his sweatpants. Barely. He could feel the heat of his palm through the fabric. “Does Grey know you’re gay?” Scott chuckled faintly as Roan picked up Scott’s hand and moved it away from his groin. “I’m not gay. I just like variety.” He rolled his eyes in exasperation. “God, save me from hot bisexuals.” “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” “My husband was one. He was also a Canadian as well. Is being bi a Canadian thing I’m unaware of?” “Judging from my high school experiences, I’m gonna say no.” Kind of what he thought, but he had to be sure. “Does Grey know about your love of variety then?” Scott seemed to get the idea that there was going to be no more making out right now and took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking a hip in a way that suggested he wasn’t sure whether or
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not to kill him or kiss him. “I dunno. We’ve never talked about it.” “What about the team?” “What about them? Look, I know some guys aren’t gonna be comfortable changing out or showering around me if they know I like guys too, so it’s not somethin’ I’m gonna say around just anyone. I mean, I like my women exotic and I like my guys older, but I wouldn’t count on them to believe me.” “Older,” Roan repeated, feeling his ego deflate ever so slightly. “You’re a silver queen?” Scott just stared at him. “I have no idea what that means.” “You chase old guys.” “I don’t chase. I don’t have to chase.” He grinned at this admission. “And I don’t go after guys in old-age homes. I just like guys older than me… thirty-ish, forty-ish. Guys who know what they want, who aren’t interested in game playing. And, um, I didn’t mean hockey.” “Yeah, I know what you meant.” Roan rubbed his eyes and tried to figure out how he felt about this. Basically, by not telling anyone he was bi, he was remaining in the closet. But then again, he did play a macho sport, among macho guys, and it might hamper his career if word got out that he was a fag (even just a half fag). Yes, it probably had some gay boys in its ranks it didn’t even know about, and someone needed to be the first one out, but no one said it had to be Scott. Oy, this was difficult. Yes, he’d been out all his life, but he couldn’t say it didn’t bring him a whole ton of shit that he wouldn’t have gotten if he had just pretended to be straight. It wasn’t up to him to make life judgments for other people. “You think I’m a closet case.” “I didn’t say that.” Scott met his gaze, and it was merciless. “You’re thinking it.” “No.” His clear blue eyes narrowed, and they had the frostiness that many an opponent must have seen from time to time on the ice. It was wonderfully nasty; it gave him a minor chill. Scott would only last three seconds in a fight against him, but it would be a bloody, hard three seconds. “You think you’re the only one who can spot a liar?” Roan threw up his hands in surrender. “I’m not lying. I’m not going to make that decision for you. You don’t want to spread it around, I get it, I know why. It’s not a decision I would make for me, but I’m an asshole
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who doesn’t give a flying fuck what people think of me. Obviously. And I have no career to speak of, since I pissed it away a long time ago. So you’re making the right decision, if I’m anything to go by.” He turned away and retreated behind the kitchenette, glad he had somewhere to hide, and glad he was so sedated that he probably couldn’t get a hard-on right now without help from a hydraulic lift. Although Scott was just the kind of guy who might be able to get through the drugs. Scott frowned at him, seemingly aware of his cowardly escape, but his softened expression seemed to suggest he forgave him for it. “Were you just putting yourself down there? Fuck, man, how brave are you? You’re the bravest guy I’ve ever met.” “How do you figure?” “’Cause, like you just said, you don’t give a shit—you’re you, and if people don’t like it, they can fuck off. And I’m not only talking about the gay thing. I mean, you’re infected.” “Thanks for the news flash.” Scott gave him an evil scowl for that, and Roan had to admit to himself he deserved it. “There are a whole bunch of people who still think if an infected brushes up against them in the elevator, they’ll get it. People freak out, and most infected people, unless they’re one of those church people or something, stay quiet about it. You don’t hide, and that’s pretty cool.” Roan just shrugged. It wasn’t cool, it was who he was, but he knew what Scott meant. Infecteds were the modern-day lepers—you admitted it at your own peril. He already felt like a leper—being orphaned, unwanted, stranded in the foster care system, a medical oddity, and gay—why the fuck did one more thing matter? After a certain point, it didn’t matter that the sinking ship had leaky faucets and a shitty buffet. He dry washed his face, and wondered if that was the point where he went from being odd to being totally fucked up. Did it even matter? When he looked back at Scott, he was giving him a lopsided, sad smile. “So I guess you don’t wanna fuck me, huh?” “Of course I want to fuck you. Straight guys would want to fuck you. But my boyfriend’s already fed up with me; this would be the final nail in the coffin.” “He wouldn’t hafta know.” “I would know. That’s enough.” Scott shrugged, grimacing slightly. He didn’t like it, but he had to
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live with it. “You know where to find me in case you change your mind. Although make it quick. It looks like Tank and I are going to be moved to the Bruins’ farm team soon.” “Hey, the Bruins. Congrats.” He shrugged again, but this time there was a kind of assumed nonchalance about it, like he was trying very hard to be cool when in fact he was very tense about it. “It’s not the big leagues yet. But it’s close.” “Say hi to Tank for me, that crazy bastard.” Scott’s grin was genuine and very sweet. “I know. He’s… something else. Even if he sucks, he’s gonna be a star in the NHL. He’s too much of a character not to be. I wish I was that interesting.” “Are you kidding me? Out bi hockey player? That’s news.” “That might be a little too interesting.” “Never know ’til you try.” Scott gave him a sad smile and headed for the door. Maybe he wasn’t ready now, but maybe, in a year or two, he would be ready. Roan had no idea, but he was hoping that maybe, in another year or two, it wouldn’t even matter anymore. Deciding it was about fucking time to get moving, Roan went upstairs and got dressed, then grabbed his helmet, got the bike out of the garage, and headed for D’Andra’s apartment. He was kind of hoping she wasn’t there, but didn’t count on it. It was a good thing, as she answered the door. Her head was still shaved, and she’d gotten another facial piercing in her chin. Good lord, how did you get that without surgery? Nail gun? They argued a bit, mainly because he wanted to talk to Dylan and she insisted Dylan didn’t want to talk to him, but she wouldn’t let him talk to Dylan to confirm this. It was a silly, pointless argument that went on much longer than it should have and probably entertained the neighbors with its childishness. Finally, Dylan came out, looking sleep disheveled, and exclaimed, “D’Andra, would you just shut the hell up and let him in before someone calls the cops?” She looked like she wanted to argue with him but let it go. It helped that D’Andra apparently had an appointment at a gallery or some such, although Dylan had to encourage her to leave. (Really, she got work? She had an artwork of her own design tucked in the corner of her living
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room—it was a papier mâché papaya, as large as an end table, split open and painted in orange and red glitter with tiny penises cut out from skin mags scattered about the inside and a mannequin’s head at the base with knitting needles sticking out of its green painted scalp. Dylan told him it was titled “Domino Effect.” What the fuck? Seriously, Roan wanted to take a baseball bat to it and light it on fire, and he had no idea why.) When she did finally go, she gave Roan a look so dirty he felt frostbitten. But as soon as that front door closed, an awkward silence descended, and Roan wondered if he’d made a mistake. He had been so gung ho after having Scott hit on him, but now he wondered if he was just shifting guilt around. He’d obviously woken Dylan up. He was wearing gray sweatpants that sat low on his hips and an oversized yellow T-shirt with a bottle of ketchup on the front. (Why? Who knew?) He scratched his head and rubbed his eyes in that way he did when he’d just gotten up. Sometimes he also scratched the back of his right shoulder, which he was doing now. There was a tiny scar on that shoulder, hard to see, but it was the only remaining sign of the car crash that had killed Jason. The fact that Dylan almost always scratched it was unconscious and probably very telling from a psychological point of view. As was Roan keeping a couple of Paris’s old shirts in the back of his closet, unwashed, just so he could occasionally smell his scent. They had ghosts between them, and maybe that was the ultimate problem. “I need to say this in one go,” Roan told him. “Don’t interrupt, just listen. You know how I hate talking about my feelings, and this is going to be hard enough as it is.” “Roan—” He held up a hand to silence him, and then just launched into it, looking at Dylan’s throat, his stubble-riddled cheek, his forehead, pretty much everywhere but directly at his eyes. Not because he was lying, but because he was sure he’d freeze if he saw a reaction he couldn’t deal with. “Let me just get this out of the way first. I love you, you stupid bastard. I’m sorry you don’t think I do. I’m sure that’s my fault. Do I still love Paris? Yes, and I always will. That’s not going to change, but you know that. Just like I know you still love Jason too. Now, the other thing.” He took a deep breath, then plowed on. “Am I depressed? Yes. Have I been acting recklessly and stupidly lately? Yes. The fact that I’m asking myself questions confirms that. But I’m not suicidal. I’ve talked with Doctor Rosenberg, I’ve agreed to see if seeing someone regularly will do me any
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good at all, but you knew when you met me I am stupid, Dyl. You can’t be shocked now.” “Ro—” “Let me finish.” Now Roan looked him in the eye, because this was the part where he would stand or fall, and he had to know the answer before Dylan gave him one. “I fight. It’s what I do. I wish I could take my final years off and sit on a porch with my feet up, watching the sun go down, but I’m not that kind of person. I’ve always lived by the sword, and I’m gonna die by it. We all know an aneurysm could kill me at any time. It could kill me in my sleep. Yes, physical stress can set one off early, but if that blood vessel is going to pop, it will pop. Being propped up on a sofa and watching TV won’t stop it. I have a time bomb in my brain that could go off at any moment, no matter what I’m doing or where I am. I’m taking the meds, I’m doing what I can to stave it off, but we know it’s not a cure. There is no cure. I’m the oldest living virus child in recorded history, and in nearly forty years there hasn’t been a cure. There probably won’t be in my lifetime, no matter how long or short it is. I want to spend time with you, Dylan. You can have as many of my last hours as I can give you, but don’t ask me to stop. Don’t ask me to be something I’m not. I love you, but I’m not going to be treated like I’m fragile, and I’m not gonna act like I am. If you can’t live with that, I understand. But don’t tell me I wanna die when all I’m doing is living my life.” This was all so very hard. Yes, he got it out, he said what he wanted to say, but tears were starting to spill from Dylan’s warm brown eyes and a lump was forming in Roan’s throat. He hated it when Dylan cried. It made him want to go to him and hold him, lie and say it was all right when they knew that it wasn’t. He was a dead man walking, and wishing he wasn’t wouldn’t change one fucking thing. “You still have your key, so if you wanna come home, you can, any time. If you’d rather just get the rest of your stuff and move on, you can do that too. Just think about it. I love you regardless, but I’m not going to live a lie. I just don’t have enough time left to compromise.” He turned away, because he didn’t want Dylan to see him getting teary eyed; it would seem weak. He quickly left, mainly so Dylan didn’t make a rash, knee-jerk decision he would regret later. So he’d either torpedoed this relationship or he hadn’t. He wondered when he’d know for sure if he’d fucked things up permanently or managed to save the sinking ship.
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19 Flathead ROAN had to take his mind off things as depressing and all consuming as a relationship, so he stopped by a deli and picked up sandwiches before dropping by the hospital to visit Holden. Holden seemed to appreciate both the sandwiches and the company. They discussed the Bruen book for a while (Calibre—a fast read, but really enjoyable), and then Holden asked for a lift tomorrow, as he was getting kicked out of the hospital then. He had the state’s health insurance, which wasn’t very good but was marginally better than nothing. And Roan found it amusing that Holden actually thought far enough ahead that he got himself health insurance—he probably listed himself as unemployed, since listing himself as “prostitute” wouldn’t have gone over well—as he couldn’t imagine many hookers did that. They should have. They probably needed health coverage more than anyone, but it was a general reality that people who needed health care the most didn’t get it. Roan told him he was due for a raise since he broke the case, but Holden pointed out that he didn’t actually break it, just got attacked by the right guy. Roan felt it didn’t matter. He had the presence of mind to get a photo, and you had to reward that kind of quick thinking, especially when it was quick thinking done when you were bleeding out from a stomach wound. Not many people could do that. He wondered briefly if a relationship with someone like Holden would work any better. He knew Holden liked him—how much was a guess; Roan was sometimes under the impression he had a serious crush on him, but he was afraid that was his ego talking—and Holden would accept him without question. Holden accepted everyone, warts and all, which was why he had so many oddball friends. The negative side of this was he’d have to accept Holden selling himself, as he would expect to be accepted without question as well. No, it couldn’t work; they both had too much control freak in them, and he wasn’t sure he could ever live with a guy selling himself to strangers, even if he did make more money than Roan did.
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It wasn’t an office day, but Roan went there and finished up the paperwork he’d fallen asleep on the other day and discovered an odd message on his machine. Not the usual death threat—he erased that without bothering to listen to it beyond the “you faggot” part—but one from a potential client who refused to leave his name. He just said he’d stop by tomorrow, as he wasn’t comfortable leaving this on a machine. Leaving what? His name? That was weird but not unprecedented, especially not with the paranoid. It made Roan wonder exactly who would show up tomorrow, and if he’d have a gun. He called Fi and left a message on her machine, letting her know they’d be open tomorrow. That way, if the mystery man did turn up to kill him, he’d also have a dominatrix to deal with, and for whatever reason, men who didn’t even know she was a dominatrix seemed immediately cowed when she barked out orders. Maybe it was just attitude, like she claimed. Roan realized he was being a coward. He was putting off going home, and he had turned off his cell phone. He wanted Dylan to just make up his mind and get it all over with—maybe it wasn’t too late to score a mercy fuck from Scott—but he was afraid of his answer at the same time. Idiotic, schizophrenic, and cowardly. He hoped he got some kind of brownie points for realizing that, but probably not. He stopped by a bar, a decent bar, one with lights and everything, although it was a bit of a fern bar and made him feel even gayer just being there. Still, at least they served passable microbrews, and the music they played was easy to ignore. He sat at a table near the window and watched people walking by. He saw a lot of people talking on their cells or texting. Some people actually were talking to each other, but he saw no obvious couples. When a waitress—a young, slim blonde who looked like a college student and wore an honestly astonishing amount of makeup— started flirting with him, he figured it was time to go. If she was serious, he felt bad for her; if she was just doing it for a bigger tip, he felt vaguely disgusted. Either way, it wasn’t ideal. He stopped by the store on the way home, but since he’d taken the bike he got very little, just some apples to replace the ones that had gone soft in the crisper drawer (crisper his ass) and an industrial-sized bottle of Excedrin, as he went through it like some people went through mints. And did it help? Sometimes. But it seemed like nothing next to Percocet. He came back to a quiet, darkened house, not really surprised but a tad disappointed. He put in another call to Fiona, got her in, and discussed the odd phone call and the possible scenarios that could play out
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tomorrow. He refused to give her a gun but agreed to wear one, and he said he’d consider her suggestion about calling some of his “hockey friends” to come and loiter in the lobby. It was a good idea, actually: Grey was big enough to scare any ne’er-do-wells on sight, and while Tank’s natural placidity would fool them, as soon as they caught his hawklike, slightly insane gaze, they’d run screaming from the office like their ass was on fire; doubly so if he brought his big-ass hockey stick. It was amusing to think about. He had a beer and vegged on the couch, attempting to watch television, eating one of the apples he’d bought. He had to admit, organic apples tasted a bit more like actual apples and not just cold, vaguely sweet fruits of uniform texture. That was a nice improvement. He was insane, wasn’t he? He was insane. He’d lost one of the few guys who would put up with him on a daily basis. That was a small group, growing smaller by the day. And all because he was a stubborn asshole. That’s probably what he needed a cure for, not infection. He was just getting into the BBC World News when he heard a jingle of keys, and the front door opened. He looked around and saw Dylan coming in through the door. It wasn’t easy to judge if he was here to tell him to go screw himself or was sticking around; he wasn’t carrying anything. “Hey,” Roan said, trying to be casual. “Wanna apple?” Dylan fixed him with a slightly disbelieving look, but then he grimaced in a way that was just as good as an eye roll. He was accustomed to Roan and his bullshit. “Not those ones you let rot in the bottom drawer.” “No, I got new ones. They’re organic, so they should rot sooner.” “That’s thinking ahead.” Actually, Dylan bought nothing but organic produce, so he was just letting him have the joke. That was a good sign. But there was no sign of happiness as he sighed heavily and put his hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket before approaching the sofa. Roan shut off the set and turned to face him, trying very hard not to start begging. Dylan sat on the opposite end of the sofa, his shoulders rounded with weariness. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I expect an honest answer, okay?” Did any conversation that started that way ever add up to anything good? “Sure.” He seemed to steel himself. He took a deep breath and sat up straight before asking, “Does the change ever really sneak up on you?”
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He was bracing himself for that? But come to think of it, Dylan was probably trying to see if he could adjust to having such a freaky boyfriend. “Yes and no. I mean, it always hurts like fuck—imagine having your jaw just snap on its own, shift out of socket like an invisible person has grabbed it and yanked on it—but sometimes if I’m angry, it just happens so fast.” Roan snapped his fingers, and Dylan flinched slightly, mainly in reaction to the description of the broken jaw. “I really can’t hold it back when it comes on like that. I can put the brakes on, but only after it’s started. It’s a nice idea that I can totally control it, but it isn’t close to reality. It’s an impulse, and sometimes it has a mind of its own. I can force a change, but sometimes a change comes on of its own.” “If you’re upset.” “Yeah. Sometimes fellow cats can bring it close to the surface too.” “Why?” “Rivals. I’m the King Cat, and if they don’t acknowledge it, I make them. You saw that for yourself.” Dylan gave him a quick glance out of the corner of his eye before gazing back down at the carpet, hands held together between his knees. “I had this idea for a painting. You leading an army of cats. Could you do that?” “Lead a bunch of cats? I dunno. I’ve never tried.” “But they obey you, don’t they? What’s stopping you from assembling your own pride of altered infecteds?” He would have been pissed off by this line of questioning normally, but he knew Dyl was still trying to understand this. Dylan didn’t mean anything nasty by it. “In theory? Absolutely nothing. But altered infecteds don’t understand language in that form, so I have no idea how I’d give them an order.” “But you managed with the panther. You told it to submit and it did.” “That was more of a ’tude thing. The roaring helps.” Dylan sat back with a sigh, sinking into the sofa. “That’s a hell of a roar you got there. I wouldn’t have believed a human could make that sound.” “I’m not Human.” “Stop that shit. Of course you are. You’re just human plus a little extra.” He paused briefly. “The change hurts, I get that, but you change a
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lot. I know you’re not into S&M, so why do it if it hurts so much? There has to be something in it for you.” Oh, he could be so good at spotting the little details sometimes. “Yeah. Maybe it’s the endorphins responding to all the pain, but along with the change comes a… a rush. I feel so fucking powerful when the change comes. The pain is kind of irrelevant. I feel like I could fight the world and win.” Dylan just nodded, like it was something he suspected. “You had that look in your eye.” “My cat eyes, you mean?” “They’re just your eyes, Roan. You can see it’s you. The pupils change shape, but that’s all.” Roan stared at him in disbelief. “Really?” He nodded. “You didn’t know?” “No. I don’t look in a mirror when I change.” He considered that and wondered why it bothered him. Maybe it had been mentioned before, but he always thought they were joking. “Fuck.” “I don’t want you to die,” Dylan said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. “I don’t want to die. But I can’t just sit down and shut up.” “Oh, I know. If you shut up, I’d know you’d been replaced by a pod person.” He scowled at Dylan for that, but he got an affectionate, sad smile in return. “You hafta be patient with me. I never signed up to be the boyfriend of a superhuman or a shapeshifter, whichever you prefer.” “I’m not a proper shapeshifter, ’cause I can only do the one shape.” “Now you’re nitpicking. You can call yourself whatever you want. Except freak.” “But I am a freak.” “No, you’re not. Stop that.” “But—” “No,” Dylan warned, giving him a hard-edged look. But it only lasted a second. “Don’t try me, pendejo. Don’t even think about it.” Roan held up his hands in surrender. “I quit.” “I wish you’d quit. But you won’t.” Again he sighed, impatiently this time, but his eyes were kind when he looked at him. Roan wanted to touch him, but wasn’t sure he had the right. “I don’t know if I can live
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with this. But I miss you, and I can’t stand the idea that something will happen to you and I won’t be there. So….” He trailed off, but Roan felt confident enough to put a hand on his shoulder. Dylan didn’t stiffen up or object. “I missed you too. I’m an idiot.” “No. You’re smart when it comes to other people. You’re just an idiot with yourself.” Wow—that was it. Him in a nutshell. “But that’s why you love me, right?” he joked, giving him an encouraging smile. Dylan rolled his eyes. “No, that’s why I want to punch you sometimes. You just lucked out that I’m a Buddhist pacifist.” They sat in silence for a moment, but it was a comfortable silence. Roan heard a clock ticking and wondered where the hell he had a ticking clock. His office? “You coming back?” Dylan stared him straight in the eyes so Roan had no chance of trying to weasel out of a genuine answer. “Let me into your world. Stop keeping me out.” Did he know what a tall order that was? He must have, as he expected him to balk. But Roan didn’t. “Okay, I’ll try.” “You’d better. My next snit, I’m throwing your stuff on the lawn.” “Try it. I wanna see you pick up my desk.” Dylan shook his head and looked away, smiling. “Such a smartass.” “But a smartass with a rockin’ bod,” he teased and turned Dylan’s face to kiss him. Dylan slipped his arms around him, and relaxed into his kiss like he’d been waiting for it all day. Roan knew he had been. No matter what happened tomorrow, at least he hadn’t totally screwed things up with Dylan. Yet.
Book Two
Bloodbath
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1 Bear Away ROAN wondered why anyone bothered with razor wire. It was so easy to defeat. If you had a thick enough coat (leather preferred), you just threw it over the stuff and could climb over it quite easily. It might rip the shit out of your jacket, but you were fine if you were careful. That’s what Roan did, even though he had other options. He could have used bolt cutters to cut the chain around the rusty gate, or even just attempted a jump over the chain-link fence, as he was hardly a normal human. But that would have been a bit too Six Million Dollar Man for him, and he honestly didn’t know if he could jump that high. The rest might have ruined any sense of surprise. He didn’t kid himself—there were probably CCTV cameras out here, hidden somewhere in the fourth of a mile of desert scrub up to the house, and the element of surprise was one he couldn’t count on for long—but he wanted to keep it for as long as humanly (or inhumanly) possible. He didn’t know how many people were there (although judging from all the scents he was picking up, many), and he didn’t know how well armed they were, but he knew these weren’t men who cared much for laws. They had killed before, and what was one more body? But if he could get in close before they knew he was there, if he could get to the main house, he had a better-than-average shot of taking them down. In close quarters, he had all the advantage. It was a time of day he usually tried to avoid—the cusp of morning, the sky gently cycling through many shades of indigo and blue as the sun started lighting the edge of the horizon. It was not proper morning, just frighteningly early, the chill bite in the air enough to raise goose bumps on his arms. In a handful of hours, it would be so hot out here it would be a nightmare (especially to one with as much Scottish blood and genetic paleness as him), but right now Roan was shivering as he walked along the ocher sand, scanning creosote bushes and tenacious Scotch broom for any hiding crepuscular snakes or any signs of cameras or electrical gear. Snakes had no smell—not really, not unless they were poisonous—but
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electrical equipment often had an ozone scent. He saw faint tire tracks, guessed they were from a jeeplike vehicle, and he was still studying them when he caught the scent of exhaust on the wind and heard the faint hum of a motor. There wasn’t a lot of cover out here—this location was picked specifically for that reason, for the fact that if anyone came for them, they’d have a good half-mile head start—but there was enough scrub brush clumping together and enough lingering darkness that he figured he had some temporary cover as long as he didn’t move. He was wearing all black, his ninja gear as Paris would have called it, but here it had a very specific purpose. In full daylight, he’d stand out in a desert, but right now, in the ass crack of dawn, he was just another shadow. He crouched down behind the sour-smelling scrub in a hybrid kneeling/runner’s crouch, one leather-gloved hand flat against the sand. He would probably have surprise on his side here, but he would have to move fast—he didn’t want to risk gunshots until he absolutely had to. His muscles were thrumming like wires, ready to go, as he’d been priming his own adrenaline since before he reached the fence. His rage was a cold, constant variety, murderous and yet strangely clinical, and sometimes that actually made it harder to keep the cat out. It worked best in sudden, emotionally homicidal bursts, but who was the boss here? If it wanted to keep surviving, it would work with him. The jeep pulled up about twenty feet away from the scrub—the open-topped kind with no side windows, Army surplus jeep, the kind that gave you better views and more angles at which to shoot at people out of your vehicle. The man who got out was pudgy but had a kind of utilitarian heft, part muscle and part fat. He was wearing a T-shirt that advertised a local titty bar and worn jeans that hung in a way that suggested he had french fry legs holding up his potato-shaped body. In spite of his leather jacket, he was also visibly wearing a gun, what looked like a .45 S&W in a worn belt holster done up in cowboy drag, and a hunting knife in a camo holder on the opposite hip. He was smoking a cigarette, holding a battered old red plaid thermos, which he poured out onto the sand—smelled like coffee, and since it didn’t steam, he assumed it was cold and disgusting. What Roan initially took for a cell phone on his belt appeared to be a walkie-talkie on second glance. He had a nothing face, the kind you forgot while you were talking to him, soft and doughy, eyes as empty and glassy as potholes filled with rain, a ratty beard and mustache combo that looked from a distance like he painted his face with mud. He looked like he should have been wearing a
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cowboy hat, if only to cover up the bald spot in the direct center top of his scalp. He smelled like stale smoke, body odor, cordite, and arrogance. The man glanced at the fence line, a casual look, routine, but he froze when he saw the coat over the top of the razor wire. He was about fifty yards away from the fence, and it could have been a person strung up there from this distance, at least if you didn’t look too hard. He squinted at it, hand reaching blindly for his walkie-talkie, and that’s when Roan decided to make his move. He felt the power gathering in his legs, coiling like springs, before he charged out of the brush, sprinting toward him as straight as an arrow. It was all a blur really, although he saw it in slow motion, as he did often when the lion came out to play. The guy turned instantly toward him, reaching for his gun instead of his walkie-talkie, but he didn’t make it. Roan crashed into him like a bullet train, shoulder to the sternum, and the man didn’t fall back so much as get thrown back hard into his jeep, making it rock, his air leaving him in a pained grunt. He had enough presence of mind to slam a meaty fist into Roan’s back, which hit near the small of his back and hurt like fuck, sending an electric thrill of pain down his spine, but that was his first stupid mistake: pain made the lion come out stronger, faster, harder to control. He snarled as the man gasped, “Faggot freak—” confirming he recognized him. Roan suspected they knew his face, that the guy in charge of this operation had made sure everyone knew it. Roan jammed a knee hard into the guy’s balls, and as he doubled over in reflex pain, punched him square in the jaw. He felt the bone shatter beneath his fist—too much strength in the punch (the muscles of his forearm and hand were twitching, liquid steel hardening to stone)—and the guy hit the edge of the hood of the jeep so hard on his way down he left a dent in the metal. He was out long before he hit the sand. Roan checked to make sure he was still breathing—he was, but holy hell, a flap of his scalp was hanging off his head like a poorly glued toupee; there must have been something sharp where he hit the hood—and then took his gun, his knife, and his walkie-talkie. He turned him over onto his side so he didn’t choke to death on his own blood, which was now sluicing out of his misaligned mouth at a healthy (but not life-threatening) pace, and then threw the knife far away, close to the fence. He wouldn’t need the knife in any scenario—if he got close enough to use a knife, he could use his hands instead, or even the fangs that were aching to spring through the soft meat of his gums. They were far more deadly weapons
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than that dull-edged piece of metal. He considered taking the jeep, but then decided it wasn’t smart. They could clearly see he wasn’t the man who had left driving it; it would have to be pitch-black with zero visibility for him to even momentarily pass as the man he’d just beaten to unconsciousness. Different complexions, builds, hair color, clothes—nothing fit, and in a jeep with nothing but a windscreen, there was no place to hide. No, it would just draw attention to him. Better to continue on foot. He did and ate up about twenty-five more yards before he scented the dogs. They were pit bulls, about eighty pounds of muscle, teeth, and ugly, bred to be vicious and stupid—stupid enough to come after him even though he didn’t smell right. They were all the same dull brown color, probably from the same litter, and all trained to kill and do nothing else. One lunged ahead, and as it jumped he kicked and caught it hard in the stomach, sending it flying backwards. The second had launched itself higher, possibly going for the throat, but he punched it right in the side of its head in midair. He felt something burst beneath his knuckles, and the dog was dead before it smashed down to the ground, its head oddly flat on one side, blood and other fluids oozing out its nose and ears and out the hole where its left eye used to be. The third pit bull had pulled up short, confused by the whimpering of the dog he had kicked (it was trying to get up, but kept falling over—a hip had been dislocated or a leg had been broken, possibly upon landing) and the smell of death coming from its other companion. Roan snarled at it and said, in a half roar, “Come on, if you’re hard enough.” He met its growl with a growl of his own, flashing the teeth that now filled his mouth with pain and blood, lips pulled back, and the attack dog faltered, ears swiveling back in obvious confusion. Roan roared, the sound ripping up his throat like aural vomit. It took a couple steps back, still snarling, drool dripping from its mouth, but Roan took a couple of steps closer, growling louder, and that was enough. The dog took off running, sand kicking up like smoke in its wake. It was a shame, because he was salivating at the idea of ripping out its throat with his teeth, finding out what its blood tasted like. The pain radiating throughout his jaw, spreading up his scalp and down his neck, was nuclear, but it was also oddly cleansing. He could focus now; he could see the very lip of the ground almost two hundred yards away where the desert gave way to an indent too tiny to call a valley—a depression?—where the main house probably was, hidden away
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from immediate view. Total privacy in a stretch of land not too far from the “down-winder” area, where waste from the nuclear plant had tainted the land and most people had cleared off, save for those too poor to move or too dangerous to be interested in leaving. These were not poor people with no options. They wanted to be here, where no one could see what they were doing. The wounded dog cowered as he stalked by, but he had no interest in it. “Don’t feel bad. You don’t send a dog to fight a lion.” The dog simply whimpered. Roan thought about putting it down—one punch and it was done—but it could probably survive the injury, and he hated to kill an animal when he didn’t have to. In the aftermath, some animal association could pick it up and nurse it back to health and see if there was any way to love vicious killer out of a dog. It wasn’t its fault—that’s what it was trained to be. Not the case with him. He was born this way, caught between Human and virus, lion and man, a hybrid compromise between two incompatible states. The fact that the perimeter guard knew who he was suggested they knew he would probably be paying them a visit, but there was no way they’d expect him to come like this: alone, in the dead of dawn, creeping up like a thief. You’d have to be crazy to attempt such a thing. Which was exactly the point. He was crazy—he was a thing that shouldn’t have been. And whereas they had made a choice to be the brutal, heartless bastards they were, he'd never had a choice. He flexed his hands and felt bones crack in his jaw as his vision shifted, making the landscape appear as if in bas relief, every flaw and contour of the land brightly visible. His blood tasted like pennies in his mouth. May the best animal win.
Ten days earlier
FIONA came to work primed for battle. She wore her black leather jacket, knee-high black leather boots, black leggings with black leather accents on the side, and a black T-shirt with a pile of skulls on the front. That didn’t include the riding crop with the metal tip hidden in her purse, which was also black leather with silver
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grommets. She wanted to send the subliminal message of dominatrix, but Roan felt she had successfully sent the message “I am a biker and I’ll kill you,” which still worked. Roan was in average gear for their mystery, phone-phobic client, but wore his HK in a holster hidden under his jacket, in case he needed to threaten the guy. He could have just triggered a change, but he wasn’t sure Fiona had seen that (Did YouTube count? Not really, not considering the quality of the videos) and didn’t want to freak her out now. There were some things it was best to keep from your employees. They ended up waiting a couple of hours, and during that time they made a small betting pool on who could be walking into MK Investigations. The odds-on favorite was aggrieved husband, as the caller was a man, and men were slightly more likely to react in homicidal violence if you dissolved their marriage by getting glossy photos of them with their mistress or with the girls down at the Happy Dragon massage parlor. Next up was a cat hater, as there were many of those, and the Grant Kim incident—if it taught you nothing else—taught you these guys weren’t afraid to resort to stupid-ass violence in front of armed cops. Third in line was some homophobe who was so threatened by the idea of a gay man with any power, he had to kill him before the urge to suck a dick overwhelmed him (also known as the Dan White defense). Fiona insisted it could be an ex of his, but Roan had to admit that, sadly, he didn’t have that many exes. Dee, whom he was still friends with, a couple guys he’d had tricks (one-nighters) with who probably didn’t even know his name, one who had moved to New York ages ago and didn’t hate him anyway (Evan), and the others were dead (Connor, Paris). So no homicidal exes, although frankly it would have made it easier if that had been the answer. (Oh, wait—what about Collin? Well, he was theoretically straight, and they’d been teenagers, so it probably didn’t count either way. Wow, he hadn’t thought about Collin in ages.) After hour two began, the call being a prank had entered the betting pool. Even though the guy sounded serious and kind of dour on the phone, that didn’t mean it wasn’t some asshole making a joke. Maybe the guys who called with their usual threats realized he was paying no mind to them and decided to get juvenile. Well, more juvenile. Roan had just decided that if no one showed up by the time the lunch hour rolled around, he was just going to send Fi home and maybe wander home himself. He could sit on his ass doing nothing just as well there, and there he wouldn’t be taunted by paperwork, the bane of his existence.
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There he’d only be taunted by bills, the second bane of his existence. But most likely he’d just put on a Simpsons DVD and forget about it. He then heard someone at the door before it opened and stood up, ready to draw if the guy came in blasting (he had no doubt he could draw faster than the other guy could pull the trigger—his cat reflexes were good for that if nothing else), but the man who appeared was unarmed, unless you counted the Bluetooth phone clipped to his left ear more of a weapon than an asshole tag. “Hey, you look familiar,” Fiona said, just as Roan was thinking it. He did look familiar. He was an average-sized middle-aged man, not overweight but not really slender either, remarkable instantly for his exquisitely tailored designer suit and three hundred dollar sunglasses. His hair, bless it, was still a bit of a mess—wavy, dun brown, and refusing to conform to whatever style seven hundred dollars could buy you. Perhaps in a bid to seem daring, he wore a dark-blue tie with a paisley pattern on it. He took off his sunglasses and looked around the office like it wasn’t quite what he was expecting. He had sharp brown eyes over a hawk’s beak of a nose and radiated an intensity that Tank would have recognized as a kindred spirit. His gaze seemed to devour the room in two sweeps and stuttered over Fiona as if she was an anomaly he couldn’t reconcile. Well, yeah—biker babe as receptionist. Bit of a head-scratcher to most people. (And the truth was even weirder.) Finally, Roan placed a name to his face, even though, really, it was just the intensity of the eyes that gave him away. When you saw a man with eyes like that, he was either a serial killer or a genius. Roan figured which one you considered this man depended on your point of view. “Robert Hatcher?” Roan asked, not sure he was right. The man’s laser gaze fixed on him, and he gave the tiniest nod in response. “Roan McKichan. I’d heard you did things a bit differently than your average investigator, but I had no idea.” Was that aimed at Fiona? He wasn’t sure. But then again, he had no idea what a software billionaire like Hatcher could be doing in his office.
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2 Satan ROAN led Hatcher into his office and almost instantly regretted it. His eyes scudded over everything like the place was an open sewer pit and he was just trying to find the rats before they attacked him. As Roan took a seat behind his desk, he noticed Hatcher’s eyes seemed to stick on the far corner, where he had his old-fashioned file cabinet, as well as his Simpsons animation cel and a sexy photo of Paris. “I knew you kept a low profile, but I hadn’t imagined you sunk this low,” he said acerbically. He had a kind of staccato deadpan that made everything sound bitter or sarcastic. “It’s an office park, not the gutter,” Roan replied. Hatcher gave him a look that suggested he saw no difference. “If you say so.” Hatcher studied the guest chair before sitting down, as if he expected to see a puddle of vomit or semen on it. Roan began wondering if he could afford to just punch this bastard. “Mr. Hatcher, I know you have security staff, so I’m curious why you’re here.” “Ah, good, you don’t like bullshit either. I need this done in private, as quietly as possible, and I don’t know if I trust my staff not to eventually leak this to the press.” He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it on the desk. Roan saw it was a flash drive no bigger than a thumbnail, a black, flattened oval, which he pulled the cap off of and plugged into the USB port of his computer. “That will tell you everything you need to know—and many things you don’t—about my son.” “So this is a family issue?” He hated them, but he wasn’t going to say so now. Hatcher sighed as if he didn’t care much for these kinds of issues either. “My son Jordan, a seventeen-year-old fuck-up who is fucking up at an advanced rate. He’s fucking up enough for two people twice his age.” Files popped up on Roan’s screen, but he was too engrossed in the general contempt coming from his client to look. “What’s he done?”
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He rolled his eyes. “Besides spent enough on nose candy to keep the nation of Columbia solvent for the next twenty years? He’s gone missing, and either he’s making a half-assed attempt to extort more money out of me, or he might have finally gotten his stupid ass in trouble. There’s an audio file on the drive, the last phone call I received from him three days ago.” Roan looked at his computer screen and found the WAV in the files. He didn’t want to smile, but Hatcher’s open contempt for his son was almost amusing, in a sick sort of way. The WAV was a good recording. He could hear a slightly staticky connection, and then the faintly tremulous voice of a young man, sounding either very high, very scared, or both. “Hi, um, Dad? I really fucked up. I think I’m in trouble here, could—” The connection dropped off so abruptly it was incredible. Bad cell phone? Somebody cutting a line? No one hung up. “Did you try and follow up on this?” Roan asked, although he suspected the answer. Hatcher dipped his chin toward his chest, a hidden, burning contempt deep within his hooded eyes. Was there anyone he liked? The world must have been one disappointment after another for him. “I did. The number was blocked, so there was no caller ID, no star 69, and talking to the phone company was a total waste of my fucking time.” “I’d ask why you taped the phone call, but I know better.” His eyes narrowed, and Roan could almost feel the psychic spike he was trying to mentally shove through his chest. “After some asshole tried to sue me three years ago, I find it’s in my best interest to record incoming calls. You never know when somebody’s going to try and claim you have an oral agreement with them when you don’t.” “Fair enough. But I still don’t see why you couldn’t trust your staff security to look into this.” This earned a tsk and a sigh. “Most of my staff hate Jordan and would happily humiliate him. Some might be tempted by money to leak it to a journalist or slap it on a blog. In case that idiot is just trying to get money out of me, it’ll make us both look bad. I’d rather not have that.” Roan considered that, sure it was true but not sure he liked it. “I guess I shouldn’t ask about the police for the same reason. Why me?” “I like the best, Mr. McKichan. And let’s face it—most people are too stupid to realize what you are.”
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Wow—he really didn’t like this guy. He even hated his software, whatever the fuck it was. “Meaning what?” His eyes were frosty and hard, two pieces of hail nestled into his eye sockets. “Meaning I know your secret, although it’s not a secret, is it? People just don’t want to believe it. After all, you’re diseased, and you’re a butt pirate. You’re not supposed to be superhuman.” Wow. He was so glad he’d mastered the poker face while a cop, otherwise he’d have let on his shock. This guy had big brass balls, and he was as obnoxious as Rush Limbaugh denied both his OxyContin and his bucket of KFC. He didn’t know if he even wanted a client who was this much of a prick. “Only my friends can call me a butt pirate. And no one is superhuman outside of a comic book.” “Good. I almost believed it. But you seemed faster and stronger than everyone else at Grant Kim’s perp walk because—duh—you are. People are, in general, morons, and they’re willing to ignore what they don’t like or don’t get. I didn’t get where I am denying facts simply because I don’t like them.” “So, not a Fundamentalist then?” “I don’t know why you are the way you are. There’s no way the virus could be responsible. But then there’s no way the virus can exist either, so we’re at a logical impasse, a place where what we know breaks down into so much noise. That’s where you are. It must be fascinating.” “So are you hiring me ’cause you think I’m Batman, or are you hiring me to find your son?” “Don’t be stupid. Batman isn’t superhuman. He’s just a man with gadgets. You’re more like Mystique.” “Okay, yeah, this interview is done. No thanks.” He should have guessed a software designer would be a great huge nerd. But he hadn’t really expected this turbo-powered arrogant asshole of industry to be a comic geek. He yanked the drive out of the port and tossed it back in Hatcher’s lap. “You’re offended by the truth?” “The truth, breeder?” he snapped. “You don’t know me. Don’t pretend you do.” Anger briefly flashed through Hatcher’s eyes, but it dissipated quickly, and he looked almost remorseful. For a second. He wasn’t used to taking shit from anyone, and probably hadn’t had anyone say no to him in some time. “Fine. Perhaps I presumed too much. I apologize.” He put the
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drive back on the desk and pulled out a wad of cash, held together with a rubber band. That he also placed on the desk. “I’ll pay in cash so no one on the staff notices the payments. I assume that’s enough of a retainer to get you on board.” “I honestly don’t know if you can pay me enough,” Roan told him, sitting forward. “I am not one of your staff, and I’m not a peon. You treat me in any way less than respectful, and I’ll throw your money back in your face and walk. Understand?” Hatcher nodded, but didn’t try and look humbled, which was a good thing, as it wouldn’t have worked. “It wasn’t my intention to offend you.” “No, it was just your intention to try and intimidate me by being King Asshole. I could’ve countered with ‘No wonder your kid’s so fucked up,’ but I held back. Doesn’t that make me the bigger man?” Hatcher winced at the son crack, which was good, as it showed he had some feeling other than contempt. “I’m sure I deserved that.” “You deserve much worse. And believe me, I can be more of an ass hat than you can ever dream. I was a cop, remember? No one’s a bigger ass hat than a cop. So get the fuck over yourself.” From the stiffness of his posture and rigidity of his shoulders and his jaw, Hatcher wasn’t used to people talking to him like that. But he wanted something from Roan, so he was just going to have to bend over and take it. In a manner of speaking. “Are you taking the case?” Roan made a show of thinking about it. He really didn’t want this dick of a client, and he had a feeling there was more to his need to go outside his staff than just their hatred of Jordan. But there was no getting around the fact that he needed the money. Gay guys were supposed to be affluent, right? No kids and no wife supposedly meant more disposable income. So how come that wasn’t working for him? Yet another stereotype he couldn’t seem to live up to—that was grossly unfair. (Then again, Dylan was even poorer than he was, being a bartender/artist. He was living up to the starving artist stereotype, though, so he got a pass.) “I suppose. But any more shit and—” “You walk. I get it.” “Good.” He should have told Hatcher he was just lucky he needed the money, but he didn’t want to give him the upper hand. Roan reached across his desk and grabbed the flash drive again, but made sure he didn’t even look at the wad of cash. He didn’t want Hatcher to even guess he might be in this for the money.
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Hatcher stood, unfolding in a manner that might have been considered menacing if Roan didn’t think he could kick his ass without having to stand up (yeah, Hatcher had a ’tude, but he also obviously had a desk job… and yet, could buy and sell Roan’s ass a million times over, so he ultimately won). “My private number is on a text file. I’d appreciate you destroying it once you don’t need it anymore.” “I’ll wipe the drive.” “Good.” At the door, Hatcher turned and looked back at him. He had an almost feral grin, all teeth and confidence, and Roan found it deeply unnerving. “You’re exactly the type of man I thought you would be. Good for you.” Roan wasn’t sure how he was supposed to take that. It almost felt like an insult. So he said nothing, but as it turned out, Hatcher hadn’t expected a response—he’d already swanned off out of Roan’s office. As soon as the outer door closed, Fiona appeared in the doorway, holding her riding crop. “Wow, what a massive tool. I’m surprised you didn’t kill him.” “Me too.” He nodded at the riding crop. “Were you gonna be my backup?” “Nah, I was just hoping to hit him.” He couldn’t blame her. He told her the next time Hatcher came to the office, she should have a whip standing by, just for fun. He’d take his goddamn case. But as soon as he was done with it, nobody said he couldn’t deck the bastard.
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3 Squalor Victoria ROAN figured that Jordan could be excused for being an asshole due to his dad. But there was absolutely no doubt that he was an asshole. He was a spoiled trust-fund brat, from what Roan could tell. He went to a very pricey private school from which he had been suspended multiple times, for incidents ranging from bullying to being intoxicated in class (he could understand the impulse, but not a smart move). He probably would have been expelled if his dad wasn’t Robert Hatcher. He must have taken after his mother in looks, because he was lean and very tall, a string bean, with straight black hair and hazel eyes set in a narrow oval of a face. He had a strong chin, and while he was a good-looking kid now, he would probably start looking craggy in his early thirties; he had both the type of face and temperament best suited to youth. Once you were twenty-five, that behavior and face would get old fast. The files Robert had included on his son were remarkable and creepy for their thoroughness. His son had run away before but always come home within forty-eight hours, mainly because he ran out of money. (Once, he was in a drunk tank in Enumclaw, and his dad had to go pick him up.) He ran track and was fairly decent at it, but not great; he was an also-ran more often than a star. His habit of keg standing on a weekly basis probably had a lot to do with that. His list of ex-girlfriends was enormous, especially considering he was only seventeen. The most recent one had only a first name listed, Brittney, with question marks afterward. Robert had attached what appeared to be a grainy security camera photo (grainy enough to be absolutely useless) along with a note he must have typed himself: “White trash gold-digging whore. Eighteen, looks twenty-five, tits fake. Seeing her to annoy me.” In a strange way, Roan despaired at this. Fake tits? At eighteen? He sincerely hoped Robert was being a catty bitch, but considering straight men seemed to know all about tits, probably not. Jesus, what kind of dirtbag bought fake tits for a teenager?
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The huge problem here was he needed a last name. If he was going to check and see if Jordan had run off with this girl—a really good likelihood if he’d run away again—he needed a last name. There was no way the school—the Rutherford Academy, which almost sounded like a possible sequel to The Stepford Wives—would turn over any records. To him. He was going to have to call Robert and ask him to get the school to turn over a list of names of all the girls named Brittney who went there. That was a hideous breach of privacy, but money talked, and Hatcher had enough to scream. He would get the list; they probably kissed his ass in every manner possible. But Roan didn’t feel like calling him just now. He’d wait until later, when there was a possibility he’d get his voice mail and not him in person. He felt he needed a few pills or a beer before he could deal with the ass hat again. Because of his mystery (at the time) client, he wasn’t able to pick up Holden from the hospital; he’d called Dee and asked him to get him instead. Luckily, it was a break day (he didn’t have weekends off; those were boom times for the paramedics), and Holden didn’t mind as long as he got out of there. But they would be visiting him later, as Dylan insisted it was the polite thing to do. So when he got home, he walked in to the delicious aroma of spicy cooking. “Goddamn, I hope that’s for me.” “Sorry, but it’s for Holden. It’s a ‘Welcome home, sorry you got stabbed’ tamale pie,” Dylan replied, his voice wafting from the kitchen. “Wow. Now that’s a specialized cookbook.” “Very funny. Wanna drink, Krusty?” “Beer me, bartender, and pour yourself one while we’re at it.” “You bastard.” Dylan didn’t like being reminded he was a bartender at home. If Dyl could ever talk him into having a house party, he wouldn’t serve drinks. Roan flopped down on the couch and closed his eyes, feeling both tired and irritated. He had to call the douche bag and get those student records. What was bothering him was the WAV file of Jordan’s last phone call to his dad—it sounded very real. Very confused, distressed, the voice of a teenager who had the sudden, terrible awareness that his best friend has been the psycho killer all along, and yet he knows if he lets on, he’s dead next. There was also that teenage boy need to be macho and cool even though he was shitting himself. You couldn’t fake that, no matter how good an actor you were.
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It was very easy to believe Jordan had run away willingly, to escape his butt crack of a dad, but maybe something went wrong along the way. He hated Hatcher, but Jordan, chip off the old douche that he was, couldn’t help who he was born to. “Tell me about it,” Dylan said, joining him on the sofa. He pressed a pale ale into Roan's hands and lay down on the couch so his head was on Roan’s thigh. Roan took a swig of the cold beer and then looked down at Dyl, who was looking up at him curiously. “Tell you about what?” “What’s bothering you. That little vein is standing out on your temple.” “Is it?” He reached up and touched it, but he didn’t know why—he couldn’t actually feel it. “Ah fuck.” He had no choice but to tell Dylan about the case, recounting how much he honestly hated Hatcher and how much Jordan was hardly different, but since he was a kid he felt bad for him. He stroked Dylan’s hair this entire time, unconsciously, although he was aware how soft it was. Dylan listened politely, as he always did; Roan sometimes wondered if he went away on a private meditation in his head while he was yammering away about something, but Roan didn’t know a way to ask that wouldn’t sound rude. Finally, when Dylan spoke, he was still looking up at him curiously. “You dislike this guy enough to screw up your own investigation?” Roan stared down at him, beer bottle halfway to his lips. “Huh?” “Someone goes missing. What’s the first thing you do? The first thing you’ve done since I’ve known you.” He had the sudden, sick feeling he’d stumbled into a trick question. “Um….” “Search their house, or in this case, room. You look for physical clues to where they’ve gone. You haven’t done that yet.” He could only nod. Dylan was perfectly correct. How many pills had he had today? “I’m afraid I’ll just start beating him as soon as I see his obscene Medina home.” Dylan shook his head and frowned in disappointment. “Keep your eye on the prize, hon. Missing boy.” “It’s hard to keep your eyes on the prize when you realize his garage is the size of your house, and he’s one of the least deserving people on the planet.”
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Dylan sighed and patted him on the leg in a sympathetic manner. “Would it help if I came along and distracted him while you searched Jordan’s room?” “He’s not gay. He may be homophobic.” “So? I’m a bartender—I’m used to dealing with jerks, idiots, and morons. They’re not always drunk.” He had a point. He had a couple, actually. Roan hated to think he could be as much of an idiot as his clients. So they headed out, after Dylan took the tamale pies out of the oven (he’d cooked one for them; he figured Roan would want one too) and Roan took an emergency pill in hopes that it would keep him from losing his temper and smashing in Hatcher’s smug face. Was there a pill in the world capable of that? He supposed they’d find out. The drive out to Hatcher’s place was actually enjoyable, which was extra surprising considering how long a drive it was. But Dylan distracted him with talk and fed him pieces of an apple, which they split (of course, Dylan almost always had an apple with him—Roan had decided he wasn’t going to ask). Dylan actually had some stuff still at D’Andra’s place, and hadn’t gone back to get it yet. Had he thought he'd made a mistake by leaving? Roan didn’t ask, and Dylan didn’t say, but there seemed to be some sort of implication in the fact that he had yet to leave the house (save to go to the store and get ingredients for tamale pies). Roan lost all his breath as he saw Hatcher’s home for the first time, like he’d taken a two by four to the gut. A long, winding private road led up to what could have been a modified castle on Lake Washington, with its own private dock and stretch of beach. But it was all green, relentlessly green, from the sprawling golf course lawn between the house and the dock to the landscaping and well-tended “woods” behind the home, acting as a natural fence. It was a temple of wood and glass; the windows were huge, and while mostly coated to keep prying eyes out, it still sparkled like ice between wooden slats. The house was three stories, and Roan had no name for the architectural style—postmodern, perhaps modern, who the hell knew? The house lolled in the greenness like a colossal alien church, abrupt angles and steepled roofs giving way to glass window walls as empty as a bureaucrat’s soul. He had been wrong—his house wouldn’t make up Hatcher’s garage, it would make up Hatcher’s closet. Kitchen closet, not even bedroom. Just walking the grounds would be a workout for the dedicated athlete.
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“Holy fucking Christ,” Dylan said upon seeing the glass castle. “Does the Pope live here?” That about said it all. The private road ended before a broad drive that was cut off by a metal gate as decorative and high as a medieval portcullis. Roan found himself looking around for the enfilade shields, and when he told Dylan that, Dylan just stared at him until Roan was forced to ask, “What?” “I’ve never heard anyone use that word in a sentence before. I think I’m stunned.” “I did try out for Jeopardy, you know.” He shook his head. “How can you possibly be an action hero and the world’s biggest geek at the same time? It doesn’t make sense.” “I’m a complicated man.” He just about managed to say that with a straight face. There was a speaker in the gate, and a voice demanded to know who they were. Roan identified himself—the voice was brusque, not Hatcher’s; it invoked a mental image of a ’roided-out shaved ape, perhaps newly sprung from some kind of zoological prison where he'd spent twenty years for killing a tank full of sharks with his bare hands—and said he had been hired by Hatcher and had to speak with him. There was a very long silence, a silence long enough for he and Dylan to battle each other by throwing out medieval terms they knew (Dylan opened with “hornwork,” Roan countered with “ballista”), and finally the guard ape grunted something that couldn’t be discerned, and the gate started automatically opening. “Oh boy! We get to see the wizard,” Dylan said, with a ton of false cheer. “Nuh-uh. I don’t care that we’re gay—no Wizard of Oz references or I’m pulling this car over.” “Spoilsport. You just don’t want me to make any cowardly lion jokes.” “Oh my god, I didn’t even think of that.” He hadn’t. He was just in full idiot mode today. The lake glittered off to the right like a dream forever out of reach, the private dock an elongated L-shaped shadow in the water’s glare. Eventually, a deliberately planted scrim of tall, willowy trees reduced the view to shards of silver between the branches. The house loomed bigger and bigger, until the horizon was just its icy gleam. Roan deliberately tried to mentally blank out, go away on a little
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vacation, so he didn’t notice too many details, so he didn’t get overwhelmed by fury. This was a different world, one that kind of baffled him. When people insisted there was no class system in America, they obviously hadn’t seen the rarefied air of these places, so out of reach for the average person that they never even crossed their radar unless they happened to catch a particularly egregious episode of Cribs. There were the very rich, and everyone else. Although the very rich were a small percentage, they had a disproportionate amount of power—they must have, otherwise why weren’t the proletariat storming those oh-so-pretty gates? That was his own radical tendencies; he was aware of that. He may have once been a cop, but he still felt the urge to throw a garbage can through a Starbucks window at times. He struggled with the duality of keeping the peace and wanting to completely sabotage the system at the same time. No wonder he'd turned to pills. They heard the harmonic splash of running water when they got out of the car, and they traced it to a copper sculpture that looked like an ancient cave wall, only with rainbows hidden in its burnished earth tone and water cascading down its flank. Dylan leaned in and whispered, very softly, “You can fight the man at another time. He’s your client, remember that.” What gave him away? The tensing along his shoulder blades? His hands clenching into fists? His jaw tightening until he heard his own teeth creak under the strain? The door opened before they reached it, and they were met by a man who seemed to ooze officiousness from every steam-treated pore. He was in his late twenties, five five and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, in a crisp gray suit so pale it was almost silver, a color like ash and regret. His shirt was as white as a new envelope and its folds just as sharp, his tie skinny and conservative navy, a Bluetooth asshole tag affixed to his right ear, his hair the hue of smoker’s teeth and cut supershort but in an acceptably mainstream fashion. His eyes were supercaffeinated and bright as lasers, blue diluted by clouds, his lips thin and almost bloodless, appropriate for a man who probably avoided smiling in case it cracked his entire facade. “Mr. Hatcher will see you, but next time you should schedule an appointment,” the man said, his voice sharp and brittle and hiding the vaguest hint of a lisp. “He’s a very busy man.” Roan opened his mouth to respond, but the man had already spun on
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his heel and retreated into the house, not requiring a response. He exchanged a look with Dylan, and whispered, “He has his own Smithers.” “Don’t all megalomaniacs?” “He’s gay. He should have better taste.” Was it a stereotype that the high-powered, super-efficient aide de camp was a frustrated and vicious queen? Absolutely. But it came about for a good reason, and even Dylan didn’t doubt that this man was one of their tribe as they followed his bubble butt down the hall. That made Roan want to take him aside and smack the shit out of him for betraying his own people, but how he was betraying them wasn’t clear. He just wanted him to sabotage Hatcher in some way, or at the very least be a bit more out. He probably wasn’t; he probably pretended to be totally asexual for his asshole of a boss. The house was all pale wood and light spilling in from multiple and sometimes improbable angles, sun painting everything like they were in a forest glade. Expensive furniture and knickknacks surrounded them but kept to a rather severe aesthetic, so the rooms looked half empty. Again, Roan tried not to focus on any of it. Smithers led them to a large room that must have been some kind of home office for Hatcher. The floor was hardwood, polished to a high gloss, and while there was a desk of black metal and plate glass, it seemed like little more than a way station for computer towers. A widescreen TV was mounted on one cinnamon-colored wall, and it seemed to be slightly longer than his Buell. The sound was muted, but some kind of Japanese financial news report was playing out in incongruous silence. Sunlight spilled in through the far window wall, which was totally surrounded by trees, both blocking the view from prying eyes and filtering the light to a soft glow. Hatcher was sitting in a black leather armchair across the room, working on his laptop. Barely looking up, he said, “Do you always bring friends with you?” “This is my assistant and smoking-hot boyfriend Dylan Harlow. Dylan, this is the client.” He had to throw the boyfriend thing in, just to see the reaction. Smithers flinched slightly and looked scandalized—oh, come on, queen!—while Hatcher looked up, an unreadable expression on his face. “Dylan Harlow? The artist that makes those morbid pictures?” This caught them both off guard. Hatcher knew who Dylan was? “Um, well, I wouldn’t call them all morbid. I paint some expressionist—”
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“I know, but you do those pictures with bleeding walls and whatnot, right? You don’t sell them.” Dylan nodded with obvious trepidation. He seemed to know what was coming. “I rarely sell them. They’re personal to me.” “I want one.” It wasn’t a request; it was a demand. And it was absolutely the wrong tack to take with Dylan, who may have been a peace-loving Buddhist, but was as stubborn as all get-out. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “I’m not here about art. I’m here to assist in the investigation of your missing son.” “And how exactly are you going to help?” “He’s going to keep me from killing you,” Roan told him, pointblank. Smithers’s jaw dropped and his complexion turned to curdled cream, but Hatcher snickered derisively. “What do you want, Mister McKichan?” “I need to search Jordan’s room.” “I’ve already done that.” “Perhaps, but I still need to do it for myself.” He considered that, eyes glancing past them and at the Japanese news anchor behind them on the big screen, a rugged man who could have been Dan Rather’s bastard son. “Fine. Andrew, show him to the room. Mister Harlow, I have to ask that you stay here.” “Why?” “He’s afraid we’ll start fucking,” Roan said. Smithers—Andrew—looked like he’d just punched his grandmother, and Dylan didn’t look overly amused either, but Hatcher just smirked. “You don’t know me well enough to have such a low opinion of me,” Hatcher replied. “I’m an investigator. Gut instinct counts for a lot.” He then looked at Andrew and gestured impatiently, wanting him to lead the way out, and Andrew glanced at Hatcher for confirmation—an ever so obedient dog— before giving him a pissy little scowl and all but swishing out of the room without a word. As Roan followed, Hatcher added, “Don’t take anything.” Roan’s only response was a flashed middle finger, which made Hatcher snicker again. Roan noticed tiny black dots in the corners or walls of every room as lithe little Andrew led him up a sweeping blond wood staircase, and realized they were cameras. Security cameras? Probably, but maybe more.
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Hatcher seemed like a man who wanted to be in charge of everything. Did that extend to other people’s lives? Yes, this was a fabulous dream of a place, and any kid would have been thrilled to live in such a luxuriously appointed gilded cage. But maybe Jordan got tired of having a backseat driver in his own life. Too bad Hatcher would probably never give him access to the camera feeds, because he felt there was a YouTube scandal there just waiting to happen.
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4 Cream and Bastards Rise ROAN remembered searching Danny Nakamura’s room and despairing that he had more expensive stuff than Roan did. Jordan Hatcher made Danny look just this side of homeless. By God, it was disgusting. Wall-mounted plasma screen, insane computer setup, home theater system, speakers big enough to be footlockers… holy shit, no kid should have this much money. He had a metal book rack that contained no books, just movies and video games, and the only pictures on the wall were the occasional pinup. All he could tell from the room was that its occupant was rich and a maid had been through it recently. There was little in written material, and he didn’t bother looking for any. If he was a modern teen, if he had a journal, it would be online. He booted up the kid’s super-charged computer system and started going through the history, the most visited links. Jordan had a Facebook page, but he hadn’t updated it in two weeks. His last note on there was just to say that he thought this season’s American Idol sucked. (Didn’t it always suck? But then again, Roan was an aging punk rocker, and was there anyone more sad than an aging punk rocker? Well, maybe an aging metalhead. At a certain point, it was just sad in both cases.) He also had a Twitter page, but again, not updated in more than two weeks and just full of nothing, post after post of nothing. No help here. The last site he’d visited—and the one the history indicated he visited a lot—was a website called Tabu-xxx. It demanded a credit card number right away to enter, with no hint of what could be waiting inside. (Except, of course, porn.) Roan copied two days’ worth of popular URLs into a text file and printed it out, deciding that he’d ask Holden—purveyor of all smut, in person or online—to check it out. If he needed a credit card number to get in Roan would give him one, but knowing Holden, he wouldn’t. It was probably just a bunch of “horny” Asian girls, but who knew? Might as well cover the bases.
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Especially since Jordan had left him no clues. Or should he say the maid who cleaned the place? Either way, no clues to be had. Bit of a bummer. A wasted trip. Except, was it? Seeing this place, he was struck by the feeling that he knew why Jordan fled and equally couldn’t imagine him fleeing. This place was a wonderland of materialism. Roan could see himself enjoying this for a bit, and then snapping and going crazy. Maybe Jordan felt the same way. Could he blame him? Once downstairs, he found Dylan still standing in Hatcher’s study, his posture stiff, arms folded across his chest like he was trying so very hard not to leap across the room and strangle the smug bastard, who was still working away on his laptop while the Tokyo news played on in deathly silence. “I’m done here,” Roan said. Dylan looked relieved, and Hatcher barely glanced at him. “Find anything?” “Not really. It would have helped if the maid hadn’t been through.” “It didn’t matter. Jordan didn’t want to be found so easily.” Hatcher said. “Jeeze, I wonder why.” After a brief pause, he added, “I need to access the Rutherford Academy’s records. Get on that.” Hatcher looked between them before his gaze came to rest on Roan, then he asked, “You’re the top, aren’t you?” Roan glared at him, and Dylan tore up something in his hand, ripping it to confetti and letting it fall on the polished floor. Belatedly, Roan saw it was Hatcher’s business card. Hatcher just looked amused. “The offer still stands, you know.” Dylan didn’t reply, just turned and left, and Roan followed. Andrew showed them out, at least in theory, but neither he nor Dylan actually noticed him. Once outside, Dylan erupted. “That fucking asshole! Why didn’t you beat the shit out of him?” Roan grabbed him by the shoulders, and said, “Focus, honey. You’re the Buddhist, remember? Take a deep breath.” Dylan did, clearly trying to focus and wipe out the negative emotions. “Namaste. You okay now?” He closed his eyes and took another deep breath in through his nose, and then nodded. “Okay, I’m okay. Thank you.”
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“You’re welcome. Now, what was his offer?” “A thousand dollars for a bleeding hardware painting.” Roan almost stumbled on his way back to the car. “What the fuck…? And you said no?” He then shook his head and admitted, “Yeah, I would too, just to piss him off.” “I really don’t want to give anything that means something to me to that obnoxious jackass, no matter how much he offers me.” As soon as they were in the car, Dylan admitted, “I would probably have sold him my entire catalog for five thousand.” Again, he could understand that. Pride was one thing, but a buttload of money was another. They got the food back at the house and then went off to visit Holden. At least now, Roan had a job for him that wouldn’t require him leaving his place. Holden looked pretty good, considering, and joked that he now had a sexy scar. Roan countered that his scars weren’t sexy, and Dylan begged to differ, giving him a coy look. Was he being kind, or was he serious? Kind of hard to tell when he couldn’t pin him to the bed and tickle him until he told the truth. (Wow, that sounded like fun right now.) They ate the vegetarian tamale pie—which was quite good—and Roan caught Holden up on the case before giving him the URL of the website in question. “Taboo triple x? Oh yeah, that’s porn.” He scowled at the printout. “But spelled with a U? The Taboo site I know is spelled correctly and touts barely legal girls who are really in their early twenties, but you’re not supposed to notice.” “Porn is a tricky thing.” “It is. More than you know.” Holden went ahead and got on his computer, looking up the site. “You might need a card—” Roan began. But Holden cut him off. “Don’t worry about it, I got it covered.” Roan didn’t ask, but he had a feeling that Holden wasn’t using one of his own cards. Holden had many shady connections from his years on the street, and he was never afraid to use them when it benefited him. He was a hooker, not a fool. He and Dylan were cleaning up the plates, carrying them to the sink and putting them in (the least they could do), when Holden exclaimed, “Holy shit.”
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Roan went over and joined him. “What is it?” He looked over his shoulder, but Holden had already closed the window. “Shit. It’s snuff.” Roan gave him a suspicious look. “Fake snuff porn? Who cares?” Most supposedly “snuff” films were, in fact, fakes. Good fakes sometimes, but fakes all the same. There was no—or very little—profit in actual murder. There was also the problem of getting caught, which was made infinitely easier when you actually filmed yourself killing someone. “This is pretty realistic snuff,” Holden said and opened the window. “Well, I’ll look around. Maybe I’ll see someone I know. Thor’s into all kinds of kink.” “Thor?” Dylan repeated, raising an eyebrow at him. “The god of thunder?” “It’s a nickname,” Roan told him, returning to Holden’s cramped kitchen. “How do you get that nickname?” “Long blond hair?” Roan guessed. “You got it,” Holden confirmed. While some street names were creative, others were so easy to guess you hardly needed to be conscious to guess them. He helped Dylan continue to clear up and put leftovers away, a delicate dance in such a small space, but it also made it strangely intimate. It also made Roan realize something that he’d probably unconsciously known but only thought of now, which was how much the thought of Dylan leaving him had scared him. If Dylan had wanted to put fear in him, he had succeeded. And why? Because it was the boyfriends that kept him human. It was an awful thought, but he had never quite gotten the knack of being human, had he? He was always a freak, a lab rat, a leper, and a virus; he even saw himself as a thing. It was the men who accepted him as what he was who allowed him a window into normalcy, into what it was like to actually be human. He really didn’t know, and on his own, he could lose the plot a bit. Roan slipped his arms around Dylan’s waist and rested his head on his shoulder, making him pause and put his hand over his. “You okay?” Dylan wondered. “Yeah. I’m just sorry.” “About what?”
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“Everything.” “You should be,” he replied, but with kindness softening his voice. He leaned back against him briefly and whispered, “I’m trying to be strong enough to live in your world, Ro. Give me time.” “You’re strong enough. I just may be too weird.” He kissed Dylan’s neck, tasting the soap on his skin, something scented supposedly of blood oranges, but it just seemed vaguely citrusy to him. Still, not bad, and yards better than most soaps aimed at men, which often smelled of cheap cologne. His warmth and wiry strength were comforting, and his hair smelled of ginger and apples. There was probably a joke here, him smelling so fruity, but Roan wasn’t about to make it. “Speaking of weird, we were invited out tomorrow night.” Dylan said. “Were we? By who?” “Hockey players. Seems after tomorrow night’s game they have a couple days off, so Scott called today and said he and some of the guys were going bar hopping, since a day off pretty much gives them a license to drink. He said the guys would love it if we came along. I should add I know he meant just you solo, but I was included to be polite.” “You know he’s the gay guy, right? Well, bi. But still.” Dylan snorted. “Oh yeah, I knew.” Roan looked at him sidelong. “How’d you know?” “Are you kidding? When we first met, he sized me up as competition. It wasn’t competitive jock sizing, it was ‘what’s he got that I haven’t’ sizing. I know when a guy wants my man.” After a brief pause, he asked, “He hit on you?” “Oh yeah, full throttle.” Dylan was quiet for a moment, and Roan was pretty sure he was going to ask how far that attempt had gone. But then suddenly, he seemed to let it go. It was all mental, although Roan was pretty sure he could feel it in his posture, the tightening of muscles and a sudden smoothing out. “You almost have to feel sorry for him, don’t you? Lying to everyone.” Just like that. Dylan had decided to trust him. He could be so very kind. “It is a pity, but he may be playing for the Bruins next year, so I can’t feel that sorry for him.” “Hockey players don’t have long careers, do they?”
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“Now that you mention it, no, I guess they generally don’t.” “So he makes his money now, and it has to last him through the rest of his life, including replacement teeth, bad knees, and concussion problems. Good luck to him.” That was a hell of a point. “Does this mean you don’t want to go bar hopping with a bunch of straight—or quasi-straight—hockey players tomorrow night?” “Hell yeah I wanna go. Maybe we can take ’em to Panic, show ’em how the other half lives.” That made Roan laugh. “Oh God. We might cause a riot.” “Or they might like it.” “That idea is slightly worse.” He could actually see Grey—who may or may not have had sex with a transsexual—enjoying it. Again, could be good or bad, depending on a variety of circumstances. “Roan!” Holden suddenly exclaimed from the living room, sounding equally angry and horrified. Roan immediately let Dylan go and went to see what the problem was. Holden, his face a grim mask of rage and disgust, just pointed at the computer screen. A small film, clearly shot on home video, was playing—a group sex sequence that ended in a couple of the guys killing another. Gay snuff? There was a menu on the side that seemed to offer all sorts of couplings: opposite sex, same sex, mixed, group and couples, with animals and without. It looked like they really wrapped a garrote around the guy’s neck, a skinny guy with a few obvious track marks and a flaming skull tattoo on his right bicep, and he was certainly putting up a good fight, but they couldn’t really see a face until the cameraman got closer. That’s when Holden said, “That’s Coyote.” “What?” “The kid—that’s Coyote. I know him. He used to work the strip….” He put a hand to his mouth and closed the window again, his eyes squeezing tightly shut. “Holden?” “Roan, he’s dead,” he told him, struggling with tears. “He was found dead two weeks ago.” He paused briefly before saying, “He was strangled.” Son of a bitch. A real snuff film? This was a bit more ugly than he had ever anticipated.
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5 Misfits and Mistakes HOLDEN looked around a bit more, trying to see if he recognized anyone else in any of the clips. The problem was there were hundreds of hours of film to see. Still, before they left, Holden thought he got another hit: a female hooker this time, a woman who went by the street name Lacey, but Holden said her real name was Karen. (He had no last name for her.) It looked like the footage was assembled from different places and involved different assailants, although it appeared that Coyote and Lacey were both killed in a similar basement, probably the same one. Was Lacey actually dead, though? Holden kept in better touch with his boys than any of the girls working the strip, and the female hookers he knew now mainly worked out of the same escort company as him, putting them in a higher echelon. Higher whore echelon? Okay, pseudo-alliteration was among the lowest form of humor, but this was pretty bleak shit here. Holden said he’d ask around, see if he could find out where Coyote might have picked up his last john—they probably wouldn’t talk to a cop or an investigator, but they’d talk to one of their own—and find out if anyone had seen Lacey lately. Roan had his own sources and would try and work them (okay, Kevin and Dropkick, but they were still sources), but he was sure Holden would probably get more usable information. Admittedly, this had nothing to do with the Hatcher case, but he’d be completely fucked if he let wholesale murder go. He called Hatcher and thankfully got his machine. He left a message saying he needed him to find out who owned the Tabu-xxx site, and that he’d explain the attachment to Jordan’s case later. Roan had no idea what he’d say. He figured he’d burn that bridge when he came to it. While Dylan was getting ready for bed, Roan checked his e-mail, and saw that Hatcher had sent him one, saying “Rutherford.” Opening the e-mail, he saw there was nothing but a link. He clicked it, and after a very strange moment where something briefly flashed on his screen and died (had the bastard sent him a virus?), he suddenly found himself at what
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looked like a root directory. Hatcher had sent him a hack. He was inside the Academy’s computer database. It was as illegal as all hell, and while he was sure software “genius” Hatcher had a way of protecting him from a back trace, he still knew he had to get out of there as quickly as possible. He had broken into an occupied house, and he was just lucky they were heavy sleepers. He sifted through the Brittneys, and when he found photos, he started comparing the most likely suspects to the girls he'd found in photos with Jordan on his Facebook page. Eventually he found her: Brittney Selfridge, a seventeen year old from Bellevue, a bottle blonde who wore way too much makeup with way too much glitter, and her face was so slender and narrow it seemed like her cheekbones were razorblades that could cut you on casual contact. She was trying very hard to look like a divorcee in her early thirties for some reason, and Roan couldn’t imagine that was popular among kids now. He decided he’d try and bother the Selfridges tomorrow. He called Kevin and Murphy, but he got both their answering machines. Could they both be out on a call? Still, he asked them both about Coyote (aka Roman Smith) and Lacey (aka Karen). He assumed they’d be intrigued enough by his vague message to call back as soon as possible. He searched for information about Coyote’s murder, but there was almost nothing to find. He got one of those one-and-a-half inch brief columns inside the local section of the newspaper, and all it described was a “transient” killed by “homicidal violence,” which could have been anything from a stabbing to a beating. The fact that Holden knew he had been strangled meant that he'd either heard about it from some of the boulevard boys (most likely) or he’d read or heard an account that he just couldn’t dig up online. Most likely it was the boys. Street people had their own network, a way of talking between themselves that usually wasn’t open to outsiders. This is why Holden was such a good point man for this info. He wasn’t a part of them anymore, but he used to be and was thought of fondly, and that was enough. Once they were in bed, Dylan asked him why anyone would be into snuff, whether fake or real. That was a good question that Roan couldn’t answer, except some people just liked the idea of fucking a corpse and/or having the ultimate power of taking someone else’s life got their rocks off. Having actually killed people, Roan couldn’t imagine taking such pleasure in it. It wasn’t fun; it was an awful feeling. (Although—and he’d never
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admit it to anyone—there were times when it was a relief. Killing Switzer had felt like something that should have been done a long time ago, if not by him then by someone else. He had been the human equivalent of a mad dog.) But then again, Roan wasn’t a psychopath. Oh, he flirted with sociopath at times, but at least he wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t see it. He slept well, except for the time he woke up and found his heart racing around his chest like it was being chased by a bunch of skinheads. It actually left him panting and sweating, and he lay there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if this was a precursor to a heart attack. Was it a heart attack? He didn’t think so, because he wasn’t in pain. He was just a little short of breath, and waking up due to a racing heart was always a bit disconcerting. He was just glad he hadn’t woken up Dylan, because he might freak about it. He got up, went into the bathroom, and after taking a piss, dug out the hidden stash of downers he had inside an old anticlotting agent bottle, and took a Valium to bring his heart rate down. Was this confirmation of what he’d already guessed? The rules of infecteds had stopped applying to him, and that meant he probably wasn’t going to die like one. Oh, maybe he might die midtransition, but he wasn’t going to slowly waste away like Paris. No, he might just die suddenly in his sleep, which should have been a relief but wasn’t. Because how fair was that to Dylan? To wake up one morning next to a corpse. He should have left him and stayed gone, for his sake. Roan just knew he was never going to be anything but a temporary bit of respite before the huge disappointment. When he felt the drugs settle in and envelop him like a warm cloak, he went back to bed and snuggled next to Dylan, who smelled good (he almost always smelled good, and Roan had no idea how he did that), and wondered if there was any way he could make this, if not right, better. How did you prepare someone for your own eventual death? Paris had managed to do it pretty well, but it was long established that he wasn’t Paris. Paris had probably decided Dylan was perfect for him and set it all in motion, matchmaking after death. Again, terribly creepy, but also kind because Paris knew how lousy he was when he had no one to force him to go out in the world and interact with people. Dylan didn’t need help with that—he wasn’t that fucked up. Roan must have fallen asleep, because before he had anything approaching a course of action, he found himself waking up to a ringing phone. He felt a great impulse to pick up the phone, say “I didn’t do it,” and hang up, but he should probably find out who it was before he did
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that. The call might be for Dylan. As it turned out, it was Dropkick. With no preamble, she asked, “How did I know you’d get involved in the dead hookers case?” “I’m very predictable.” He rubbed his eyes, and suddenly realized what she’d said. “Hookers? Plural? So Lacey is dead.” “You mean Karen Ramirez? I thought you knew she was dead.” “I knew she was missing, and I suspected she was dead, but I didn’t know for sure. How long?” “How long what?” Now she sounded pissed off. Maybe because she had just accidentally leaked information. “Has she been dead.” There was a long silence, in which Roan felt psychic, because he knew she was considering hanging up on him. Finally she sighed, and said, “Do you want the coroner's report? I ain’t givin’ it to you.” “I don’t want a report, just when she was found.” He knew when she was in this mood, he shouldn’t push his luck. “Three days ago.” So fairly recent. That wasn’t good. “Strangled like Smith?” More pointed silence. “How did you know that?” “I was talking with Holden, he—” She groaned in disappointment. “Fox. I shoulda guessed.” “It’s all over the street. They know about Roman.” “And how the fuck do they know? That information wasn’t shared.” “How the fuck do they know anything? Nine out of ten times they know when a drug bust is going down, and I assume vice isn’t advertising that. It’s just one of those weird things.” “Why a hustler, Roan? This isn’t something I should be worried about, is it?” “What? Holden’s an assistant investigator now. I thought you knew that.” “And that bothers the hell out of me. They aren’t the most well adjusted people in the world, you know.” “Neither am I, so that works. Will you at least tell me if you have a suspect in either killing?” “No suspects. How can there be? We can’t even get a decent timeline tracing their last known whereabouts.” “What about Kevin? He got anything for you?”
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“He tried, but all we have is that Smith may have been seen hustling near Antique Row about a day before his probable death, or he was seen hitchhiking out of the city near a freeway overpass. Both are impossible to confirm.” This was where Holden could come in handy. Either no one knew for sure and the cops had heard two different stories, or someone knew and was deliberately not telling the cops. Holden wasn’t a cop, so he’d be in at a chance for the truth. And it would make sense that Smith might be at Antique Row as, in spite of its name, a lot of young male hustlers did business down there. “If I find anything out, I’ll let you know.” “You better.” That almost sounded like a warning, and probably was. Downstairs, he found Dylan brewing tea and looking unusually snazzy in a pale-blue button-down shirt and neat black jeans that could have passed for classy. That’s when Roan remembered, “Oh yeah, you’re going to interview for Silver today.” Silver was an upscale restaurant/bar that had recently opened but also had a vacancy in its bartending staff. Dylan looked almost embarrassed as he took a bite of his toast. “Yeah. Is it wrong that I might go work for hets just because they’re offering dental?” “You know, I’m sure there’s a dirty joke somewhere, but I’m too tired to find it.” Dylan grimaced and gave him a dirty look, but there wasn’t much anger behind it. “Thanks for the support, hon.” “Hey, I’ll support you ’til you can’t stand anymore.” That got a small, reluctant snicker out of Dylan. “You’re horrible, you know that?” “Says it on my business card.” He helped himself to toast and tea and flipped through the paper, scanning it, wondering how Karen’s death fell through the cracks. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe her body was found on a busy news day, and report of it just got bumped. It could happen. After a moment, Dylan said hesitantly, “Did you read the thing on the new domestic partnership registry?” “You mean the ‘no marriage for you, fags’ act? Yes, I did. Why?” “Well, um, it says it covers hospital visitation, you know, meaning a doctor would have to let your partner see you like they were actually
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family or something. I was thinking maybe that would be something we should look into. I mean, we’ve been lucky so far, what with Dee’s friends and the fact that most of the hospitals know you already, but what happens if we run into some stickler for regulations who just doesn’t care who you are or who you know?” “Like Nurse Ratched.” “Exactly.” He paused briefly. “Do I add that to your movie reference list or your book reference list?” “Could go either way. You pick.” He considered what Dylan was saying, and what he actually meant. What he meant was “what if they won’t let me see you if you’re hospitalized again?” and that was a concern. If he was going to be unfair to Dylan by possibly dying on him in his sleep, he owed him at least that much. “Does it say what dreary government office we trek to, to do this?” “Umm, I don’t know. You want to do this?” “I do. Find out where we go, and we’ll go.” “How do you know it will be a dreary office building?” “Because it’s an unwritten law that all government bureaus should be bleak hellscapes straight from Kafka’s or Orwell’s worst nightmares. And yes, that’s two for the literary reference pile.” Dylan gave him a disarming, sweet grin, and Roan instantly felt bad for him. He should have had better taste in men than Roan. Talk about taking up with a lost cause. Dylan left cheerful, which Roan figured was the least he could do for him, and only then did he put in a call to the Selfridges. He was prepared for a machine, but the mother picked up. (He knew from looking at Brittney’s school records her name was Elizabeth, but he wasn’t going to tip his hand so early on.) “Hello, Mrs. Selfridge? I’m Roan McKichan, a private detective, looking into the disappearance of Jordan Hatcher, and— ” She interrupted him with a disdainful snort. “Oh, she ran off with him, did she? I’m not surprised.” “So Brittney’s gone?” He actually knew from the school records that she had missed two days in a row, unexcused. He’d guessed she was gone, but again, it was safer to pretend he was an idiot. People generally opened up more to idiots than to know-it-alls. “Of course she’s gone. And good riddance. Mouthy little brat.” Wow. Bad relationship there, huh? “How long has Brittney been
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gone?” There was a noise like a drag off a cigarette before she said, “Three days, Mr. McKichan. After we got her out of her last shoplifting charge. And before you ask, no, we have no idea where she ran off to, and I can’t say I much care. I’m sure you think I’m a horrible mother, but ever since she turned sixteen, she’s been out of control. Drinking, drugs, shoplifting, and going out with boys she knows damn well her father and I won’t approve of. She’s trying to make us angry, and why? We give that ungrateful bitch everything, and she only gives us headaches.” “Teens rebel. They’re good at that.” “Perhaps, but she doesn’t have to be so obnoxious about it. The only thing she’s actually dedicated herself to over the past year is pissing us off. If only she’d work so hard at her studies.” “Has she run off before?” “Once, but that was just to her aunt’s in Santa Clara. She was packed up and sent home within a day. Kate can’t stand her anymore.” “So she’s unlikely to have gone there again.” Not a question, but she seemed to take it as such. “No, I’d have had an angry phone call by now if that was the case.” “Can I have her name anyways?” She sighed heavily, as if just talking to him was a burden. “Katherine Norris. But she’s not there, and there’s no way in hell she’d take that dirtbag boyfriend of hers down there.” “You don’t like Jordan.” “He’s an idiot. I know his father is supposedly some kind of genius, but it must not run in the family. That boy’s as dumb as a post, and as close to white trash as you can get for a pampered rich boy.” That just confirmed a suspicion on his part, and he wanted to say the father had an air of white trashiness about him too, but didn’t because it didn’t matter. “So you really don’t have any idea where they might have gone?” “No, I do not, and you know what? I don’t care. I hope for your sake you find Jordan, but if you find Brittney, don’t bother letting us know.” And with that, she hung up on him. Well then—two poor little rich kids who hated their families. (And vice versa?) If that wasn’t a recipe for runaways, he didn’t know what was.
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6 D Is for Dangerous HOLDEN sat in one of the saddest motel rooms he had ever seen, and considering he was a hooker, that was saying something. A tiny television that probably dated back to the ’80s provided the only light in the room, a flickering, inconstant illumination that scudded by in eerie silence. It looked like a game show. The whole room smelled like bong water, body odor, dust, and failure. Holden sat in the small room’s only chair, as Javier sat on the bed in his underwear, black shorts that he preferred because they hid the stains and could go a couple days without being washed. He was a bit on the short side, but slender and wiry, and he looked fragile and much younger than he was. He said he was seventeen, but he was actually twenty-four and starting to show it around the eyes. He usually shot drugs between his toes or in other visually inaccessible places. He had a few track marks on his legs that he usually hid with Band-Aids, but they had all fallen off onto the messy bedspread like pieces of sunburnt skin. He scratched his slightly sunken chest before picking up the bong he’d made out of an empty Coke can, and his red plastic lighter. He often shaved his chest, but even when he didn’t, the few hairs that grew in were wispy and almost pubic, gathering just beneath the hollow of his throat like a clutch of crabgrass. Javier—real name Brody Walker—held the flame briefly to the tiny hole in the center of the can where the dried lump of pot sat and took a deep breath of smoke through the mouth of the can. He held it until his coughing became convulsive, and then it all came out in a single spasmic cough. He then held out the can, his brown eyes glazing over, and asked in a harsh voice, “Want some? This is good shit.” Holden shook his head. “Nah, I don’t like to mix booze and pot. Gets me too fucked up.” He hadn’t been drinking, but he wasn’t interested in getting high right now. He was on a mission. He was also on painkillers. Being stabbed in the stomach at least got
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you that, even though these were so mild he bet Roan could down the whole bottle and think they were Flintstone’s Vitamins. Brody nodded, and Holden pretended not to notice the glass meth pipe sitting on the nightstand, right next to the potato chip bag and crumpled pack of Camels. No one became a hustler if they were overly concerned about their health, or had any other way of getting the money they needed. A good thing in Brody’s case, as right now he looked like a corpse waiting to happen, propped up on a messy motel bed. “Cool. More for me.” “So Cowboy told me you’d been working gigs with Coyote.” “Some, not a lot. I wasn’t with him on the last one.” “I assume not. Do you know what it was?” Brody took a swallow of his energy drink (Wouldn’t that be a counter to the pot?), and had a potato chip before telling him, “Couldn’t do it. I’m not into group sex.” “So it was a gang bang gig?” That tracked with what he'd seen on the snuff site. “Yeah. Not my thing, even though it mighta been a way into movies.” “So it was a porn gig?” “Nah.” He paused, frowned. “Maybe. It was hard to say.” Holden didn’t know if the pot had made Brody’s natural inclination toward vagueness any worse than it already was. Even though he had been born and raised somewhere in Kansas (he refused to name the city, saying no one had heard of it anyways), he always spoke like English was a foreign language to him, like he wasn’t sure what half the words actually meant. “Who was the gig for?” “Dunno. Some guy he met on Craigslist.” “Coyote had a Craigslist ad?” He was taking another hit, so he simply nodded and didn’t speak until he let the smoke out. “Yeah. He said he was tired of doin’ it curbside, that there was more money doin’ it online.” Not a bad idea actually. Although cops had started cracking down on Craigslist prostitution ads, they mostly focused on underage and female. They didn’t seem to give too much of a damn about male prostitutes. Maybe because no one wanted to be seen doing “faggy stuff” like that. “Do you know what Coyote’s e-mail address was?”
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Brody’s glazed eyes settled on the television, which was now running an ad for “natural male enhancement.” Also known as boner pills. It was hilarious really. They couldn’t cure cancer, HIV, infection, or the common cold, but goddamn, they could give eighty-year-old men who really shouldn’t be having sex anymore hard-ons until the day they died. What was extra hilarious was that this also solved the boner problems of male prostitutes—now they didn’t have to pretend to be into it, they could just use pharmaceuticals to fake attraction. Coincidence? “Umm, yeah. It was—” He scratched his head, and used his foot to scratch an itch on his opposite leg. Considering how stoned he was, that was an amazing bit of coordination. “—Coyote404 at, umm… I wanna say ‘sexmail’? But that ain’t right.” Holden had to think about that for a moment. “You don’t mean ‘hotmail’, do you?” He snapped and pointed at him, a stoner’s lazy smile creasing his face. “Yeah, man, that’s it. He gave it to me in case I wanted to get in on the Craigslist stuff with him, but I dunno. I mean, it sounds good—God knows I don’t like street cruisin’— but… fuck it. Seems like work. And I don’t wanna hang around some public library so I can answer e-mails from ugly dudes who can only get it over a computer, you know? Maybe I’m old-fashioned.” “How many cute clients do we get on the street, Jav? Last I counted, it was between zero and minus two.” That made him chuckle and nod knowingly. “Yeah. Ain’t like the movies, is it?” “Depends on the film.” He wanted to make a joke about a horror movie, but didn’t. “You stayin’ here for a while?” He nodded. “Coupla days. I needed a break, you know? So I’m havin’ a vacation.” He snickered at the idea. “It’s over when I run outta money.” Brody was homeless. Not really a shock. People would probably be surprised to learn how often male prostitutes were homeless, or at least constantly in housing flux. It was a hard life, especially if you were supporting as many addictions as Brody was. “If you need a place to crash for a while, I can find you something.” He shook his head again. “Naw. After what happened to Coyote, I’m moving on. Place seems dangerous, you know? I heard from this guy I know that Salt Lake City has a desperate need for boys, so I thought I’d check it out.”
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“Makes sense. Ultra-repressed Mormons probably can’t wait to suck a dick.” “That’s my theory.” “Go where the repression is. That philosophy of life has never steered me wrong.” Holden reached into his coat pocket and hesitated. If he gave Javier this, he had no guarantee he’d spend it on what he asked him to; he could turn around and spend it on more drugs. But what if he did? He had a shitty life, and one of his friends was just murdered (online for all to see, although he was unaware of this, and Holden wasn’t going to tell him). Let him have all the fucking drugs he wanted. He pulled out the money—two twenties and a couple of fives—and stood up, putting it on the nightstand beside the ashtray. “Buy a bus ticket, get something to eat that doesn’t come out of a vending machine. Okay?” Brody’s eyes seemed to move slowly and deliberately to the money, and then up to his face. “Thanks dude. Wanna come with me?” “No, I have enough clients as it is. But if it ever dries up, I just might.” “Awesome.” Holden turned toward the door, and Brody said, “Hey, you leavin’? You don’t hafta leave. I wouldn’t mind the company.” He gazed at him with soft eyes, putting a hand on the empty side of the bed, in case he didn’t realize this was a come-on. It was much, much subtler than his last one. Brody didn’t talk about his past or himself ever. What Holden knew about him was the sum total of what everyone else knew: he was from Kansas, had a stepsister in a wheelchair for some reason (undisclosed), and ended up on the West Coast because he wanted to get as far away from Kansas as humanly possible before falling in the ocean. That was it. But Holden didn’t need Brody to acknowledge he’d been sexually abused in his life, from a young age and often. Sometimes you could just see it, the empty hunger of the walking wounded, but it was more the way they treated sex. For some, like Brody, it was the equivalent of a handshake: there was no pleasure in it, it was expected, and they obliged because that was all anyone ever wanted from them. The funny thing was, Holden was pretty sure Brody wasn’t gay. He wasn’t straight either. He had no sexuality whatsoever; it had been robbed from him along with nearly everything else. He was asexual, but could fake sexuality with anyone, because it meant nothing to him. Not now, not ever. Maybe that’s why he always felt bad for Brody. His abuser had left
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him hollow, and he’d never recovered from it. He was a doll always waiting to be posed. “I have a gig in a half hour, but thanks.” “Rain check?” “Rain check.” Of course he would never collect, and Brody probably knew that too. That’s probably why he smiled at him. This was a huge lead. With Coyote’s e-mail address, all he had to do was hack into his account, and it was more than likely, if this was a Craigslist gig, there’d still be e-mail evidence of who he was supposed to meet and where. And then they could kill this fucking bastard.
ROAN had spent his day discovering a new definition of futility: finding friends of Jordan and Brittney. Now, he had names of best friends—Darren Brewster and Bethany Stevens, respectively—but finding them turned out to be a huge pain in the ass. Bethany was apparently off in Europe with her parents and had been since last month. The woman who answered at their home thought they might have been in Sweden right now but wasn’t sure. They weren’t due back for another two weeks. Darren was another story. He was the son of Sidney Brewster, a guy who had made part of his fortune in a private security service that only worked with wealthy executives and politicians. (You know, armored limos, mercenary ex-soldiers who became bodyguards and armored limo drivers.) They weren’t Blackwater—they didn’t care about national security in the least, and foreign wars held no appeal. They were still a bunch of fucking bastards, though. Brewster’s firm had been doing some business down in Mexico, protecting businessmen who could afford something better than the police force, and as such there were some concerns that he had run afoul of one of the drug cartels down there. Because of that, apparently there wasn’t a single member of the Brewster family who didn’t travel around with bodyguards. (Even here? Oh sure, the cartels had feelers everywhere, but it seemed pretty damn silly.) On top of this, Darren was impossible to get a hold of. Roan tried calling the Brewster compound, but he was told to make an appointment if he wanted to speak to Mr. Brewster. When he said he wanted to talk to Darren, not Sidney, he was told he’d have to see
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Sidney to get permission (!) to speak with Darren. Did Jordan have to go through that process? He doubted it. Frustrated beyond belief, he started scouring Darren’s Facebook page and attempted e-mail. He pretended to be a girl who went to Rutherford and wanted to hang out with him sometime. He waited to see if Darren would take the bait. If he was at all security savvy, he’d recognize it for the security breach it was, but he was counting on Darren being your average hormonal teenage boy (i.e., dumb). But after that, it was their bizarro night out with the (mostly) straight hockey players. Not that they were planning a bizarre night, but how could it not be? These guys were younger than them (well, Dylan was closer to their ages), most were from other countries (Canada being the dominant one), and of course they were uberjocks. Why did they want to hang out with a couple of gay guys who weren’t uberjocks? He hated to think that Dylan’s tease about him being their “gay mascot” was true, but to some degree it probably was. Oh, and also there may have been hopes of getting involved in a huge fight. Roan had expected Grey and Scott, maybe Tank, but there were many more guys involved in the bar crawl. Yes, Grey, Scott, and Tank, but also Jeff the New Yorker, Sandy the tall blond Russian, Richie with the oft-broken nose—all members of the big parking lot fight—and there were two new guys as well (new to Roan, at any rate): Barrett and Zach. Barrett was a light-skinned black man with broad shoulders and a lean frame, who said defensively, even though neither he nor Dylan had said anything, “Yes, there are black guys playing hockey. Not a lot, but a few. I’m not the only one.” “I didn’t think you were,” Roan replied. “I’ve seen Jarome Iginla.” He was the captain of the Calgary Flames, and while not the only black man in hockey, he was probably the most well known. That made Barrett blink in surprise. “Oh, yeah. I thought you weren’t a big hockey fan.” “Canadian husband. I know my Canadian hockey teams.” He seemed to accept that, mildly impressed. Zach looked almost prepubescent. He had a round face and wheatcolored hair so pale it was more of a suggestion of color than an actual hue. To confirm Roan’s suspicion, Richie put an arm around Zach’s shoulders and said, “He’s only nineteen. He can drink in Canada but he can’t drink here, so we’re gonna try and fake him in.”
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“Might be hard,” Dylan said. Since he was a bartender, he had a great idea of who was at risk of being carded and who wasn’t. “Let me get him through,” Sandy said, his Russian accent making his words sound more exotic than they actually were. “I’ll pretend I don’t speak the language and start getting belligerent. That usually works.” “Only ’cause you’re a scary big Russian,” Jeff replied. “If you were from Moosejaw, no one would care.” “What’s wrong with Moosejaw?” Zach asked, his brow furrowing. Oh, was that where he was from? Because there were so many of them, they took two cars, but because he and Dylan were taking the GTO, they were able to fit Tank, Grey, and Scott in their car. All three of them praised the mix CD he’d put together for Grey and wanted Roan to make them each one. Grey had asked him to put together a mix CD they could listen to at practices, since Grey was so impressed by These Arms Are Snakes. Roan couldn’t imagine anything sillier, but was able to throw something together quickly and give it to him. Roan actually thought Grey might trash it, because he'd thrown on songs that he knew might offend some people, such as the two Pansy Division songs (“Hockey Hair” and “Manada” the French language version) and ones with buttloads of obvious cursing (“Stoopid Ass” was probably the most egregious offender there). But astonishingly, most of the team enjoyed it, and thought the Pansy Division songs were funny. The coach claimed the Nirvana song gave him a headache (“Scentless Apprentice”) and made them turn it off, but the guys in general loved it. Dylan told them not to encourage him, since he loved perplexing people with his obscure and bizarre music choices, but Dylan flashed him an affectionate, exasperated look as he said it. Roan told them he’d see what he could do in his free time. It was a pub crawl of great scope. They started off in a sports bar where almost all the Falcons guys were recognized (not Zach), and then they moved on to a trendy nightclub that was often difficult to get into, although not for local sports guys. It was slightly Eurotrash, filled with lots of neon and glass and metal, and everyone in it seemed coated in fake bake and wore clothes so tight they could have been sprayed on, even the guys. Although about half the (straight) crew chatted up some women, it was astonishingly dull. Even Tank made a face and said, “This reminds me of a club I went to in Montreal for my eighteenth birthday. That place sucked.”
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Scott grunted an affirmative and swirled the dregs of his drink around in his glass. Most of the guys were pacing themselves, save for Jeff, who was knocking his drinks back like they were all ice water. But to his credit, it hadn’t had any effect on him yet. So they moved on to a slightly dingier bar that was marginally more entertaining, although there was a baseball game playing on the TV over the bar. Sandy and Jeff watched it for a couple of minutes, and Jeff suddenly exclaimed, “Why does everyone love that fucking sport? My dad once took me to a Mets game, and I was bored out of my fucking skull. Nothin’ happened. For hours, nothin’ happened. At least in hockey, there’s always the potential of a fight.” “I don’t get it either,” Sandy admitted. “But if I were getting paid as much as they are, I’d learn to put up with it.” Jeff shrugged and grimaced. “Good point. So what does that tub o’ guts on the mound make? A couple million?” “I bet he gets winded walking to the clubhouse,” Grey said, smirking at his own bitchiness. But, to be fair, all the Falcons at the table were lean and hard, toned to perfection. If you had need of a cement wall but no cement, they could easily stand in for it. They were in so much better shape than the star pitcher being featured on the screen it was sort of comical and grossly unfair. Dylan wasn’t drinking any booze, as he really didn’t like alcohol (funny for a bartender), and Roan only had a drink if they had a decent microbrew available. So far, he’d only had one. Next bar over, when Dylan disappeared to the bathroom, Sandy asked him, “So who’s the woman?” Grey punched him in the shoulder, almost knocking the Russian out of his chair. “Dude, you don’t ask shit like that.” He rubbed his shoulder and flashed him an indignant look. If Grey could hurt a guy as big as Sandy, that was impressive, especially since he obviously held back. “What, you’re not curious?” “Neither of us are women, so neither of us are,” Roan told him. Wasn’t the first time he’d been asked such a thing, probably wouldn’t be the last. Sandy scowled. “You know what I mean. Who—” “Shut up,” Scott said in a low, deadly voice. Sandy glanced at his team captain, and Roan saw immediately that he was giving up. Obeying a
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direct order from his captain, or did he really not like the murderous look in his eyes? Both? “Fine,” he said, sulking. “I just wondered.” Another boring bar awaited them, and it was at this point that Dylan offered to take them all to Panic. Although Sandy, Jeff, and Barrett didn’t seem thrilled with the idea, the fact that Scott, Grey, and Tank wanted to go seemed to clinch the deal (Zach and Richie didn’t seem to care either way). So they all went to Panic, where it was trance night, meaning they were greeted by high-energy dance music and an amused Luis behind the bar. No one seemed to recognize the guys as hockey players, although they all recognized Dylan, and some recognized Roan. They got lots of free drinks, inspiring the guys (not him and Dylan, though) to dare each other to drink the “girliest” drinks possible. Tank won the contest with a “pink confetti daiquiri,” which he actually said wasn’t bad and ordered a second one to prove it. Dylan told him it had pomegranate juice in it, but he had no idea what the “confetti” part of it was or even meant. A cute guy who looked like a James Franco stand-in came to the table and asked Scott to dance. Sandy and Jeff burst into howls of laughter, but Scott’s guard was obviously down from the several drinks he'd already had, and Dylan and Roan watched as he smirked and visually sized the guy up. “Sure,” Scott said, getting up and following him to the dance floor. This made his teammates laugh even harder. Apparently they thought this was Scott playing along and being silly, confirming that none of them knew he was bisexual. Except perhaps Grey—Roan wasn’t convinced he didn’t know. Not only because he was Scott’s roommate, but also because Grey wasn’t as dumb as he liked people to think he was. After watching Scott dance for a bit (he wasn’t bad), a rather drunk Zach proclaimed, “I wanna dance!” “No you don’t, jailbait,” Jeff said, and it sounded funny and vaguely threatening in his thick New York accent. A twink at the bar overheard Zach’s proclamation, and came up to the table. “I’ll dance with you, sweetie.” He was probably barely legal himself. “Awesome,” Zach said, scraping his chair back. As he stood up unsteadily, he added, “Don’t get grabby. I’m straight.” “You know what the difference between a straight guy and a gay guy is?” the twink replied. “A six pack.”
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Zach looked at him blankly, confirming how drunk he was. “Huh?” But the twink just headed to the dance floor, and Zach followed. They watched for a moment, and then burst into laughter, as Zach was no Scott—his idea of dancing looked a lot like a seizure, with some kind of abortive robot moves thrown in. Now everybody knew for certain he was straight. “I thought you Canadian dudes could hold your liquor better,” Jeff said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Depends on the Canadian dude,” Barrett said. “If he was Quebecois, he could,” Tank, the only Quebecois at the table, insisted. “If he was Quebecois, he’d secede from the team,” Richie replied. Grey slapped a twenty dollar bill in the center of the table and said, “I betcha before we head outta here, he dances on a table.” So they started throwing money in a pool, betting on whether he would dance on a table (or the bar) or pass out first. Jeff bet he’d vomit first; Barrett thought he might actually make out with a dude. Roan skirted the dance floor on his way to the bathroom, as his couple of beers had finally caught up with his bladder, and he chuckled to himself, mainly because he never thought he’d have such a good time with a bunch of straight jocks. He still had no idea why they wanted to hang around with him, but there was some fun to be had in male bonding. And these guys were friends as much as teammates, which made them easy to be around, even though they taunted and razzed each other as only macho male guys could. (Although nobody really razzed Scott or Grey—probably because Scott was their captain, and probably because Grey was essentially a sentient pile of muscle.) He’d just entered the bathroom when he heard behind him, “Holy fuck. This is a men’s room?” Grey had come with him. Why he didn’t know. Panic’s men’s room was impressive. It was pressed blue glass tile and strips of ice blue neon lighting supplementing the white lighting overhead. The sinks and stalls were stainless steel, the urinals a snowwhite porcelain. It was kept so clean you could probably eat off the floor. The management actively discouraged hooking up in the bathroom, although Roan knew it must have happened from time to time. Even so, there was a small laminated sign on the wall next to the automatic hand dryer that said explicitly, “No fucking around.” “Depending on the gay club, you get a really nice bathroom or a really disgusting one,” Roan told him.
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“I’ve never been in a bathroom this nice,” Grey admitted, still looking around. “Wow. Think I could rent it?” “Doubt it.” Although he wasn’t great about having people watch him pee, he really had to take a piss before his back teeth started floating. He thought Grey needed to take a piss too, but basically all he did was study the condom machine, which did have an impressive laundry list of sizes, colors, and attributes, and then said, “I just wanted to let you know, yeah, I know.” “Know what?” “About Scott. Tank does too, I think. No one else does.” Yep—smarter than he admitted. Tank too. “You don’t let on to the others?” Grey shook his head. “It’s Scott’s business. If he wanted to tell anyone, he would.” “Does Scott know you know?” That made him snort a laugh. “Doubt it.” So he’d never talked about it with him. No surprise there, really. But did that mean that Roan was the only person he’d ever admitted his bisexuality to? That would be weird. Roan knew someone else had come in, but as he was zipping up he paid them no mind. But then he got the oddest sense that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Was the guy staring at him? Why did his mental alarm bells go off? It happened so fast that by the time Roan turned away from the urinal, it was all over. The man pulled something out of his jacket but either hadn’t noticed Grey or hadn’t cared. He’d moved for Roan, but Grey was on him before he could advance more than an inch or two. Grey slammed him viciously face first into the blue glass wall over the urinals, pinning his hand to the wall along with it. Whoever the assailant was, Grey had a solid half foot and roughly a hundred pounds on him. “Not tonight, fucko,” Grey told him, in the most deceptively calm voice ever. Blood was dripping down the wall from the man’s shattered nose. “Nice save,” Roan admitted, still surprised a guy as big as Grey could move that fast. The man was struggling, but Grey was making him kiss the wall, and there was no way he could get his hand free. He wasn’t moving until Grey allowed him to move. “You missed your calling in security.”
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“Yeah, well, if the hockey job ever goes south, I figure I can bodyguard or something. I know judo, you know.” “I know.” The man spoke, but his voice was so nasal and muffled by glass it was hard to tell what he said at first. After thinking about it a moment, Roan realized he’d asked, “Since when do you have a bodyguard?” “Weren’t you paying attention to our conversation? He isn’t my bodyguard. He’s my hockey enforcer.” “I prefer defenseman in mixed company,” Grey said wryly. “My mistake.” He looked at the weapon the man was still holding, even though blood circulation to his hand was starting to cut off. Roan pried a finger loose and said, “If you don’t drop it, I’ll start breaking fingers.” With reluctance, the man dropped it. It clattered on the floor, looked almost like a mini sickle, with a solid black plastic handle leading up to a wickedly curved blade and a sharply pointed tip. “What the fuck is that?” Grey wondered. The assailant gurgled. He wasn’t trying to talk, he was simply trying to breathe while his face was being ground into the wall. “It’s a tile cutter,” Roan told him, having seen Paris use one enough on his various home renovation projects. He also knew that those bastards were far sharper than your average knife. In theory, a clumsy weapon. But if you really wanted to kill someone, a great choice.
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7 Walking Spanish Roan had little to no familiarity with organized sports, so he had no idea if the reaction of the rest of the Falcons was par for the course. But if it was, he missed out on having teammates. Tank noticed they’d been gone for a bit and needed to piss anyways (those pink confetti daiquiris catching up with him), so he came in shortly after Roan had put in a call to 9-1-1 to report that he’d been almost stabbed, but had his assailant pinned down in the bathroom of Panic. To say the dispatcher wasn’t sure how to handle that was an understatement. As soon as Tank saw Grey holding a bleeding guy pinned to the wall, he opened the door and shouted in his hockey voice—the one that carried across a rink to his teammates when the crowd was loud and the music was booming—“Avant!” Grey explained later that that was a kind of a code. It was a bit of French that everyone knew, meaning “before” or “forward,” but Tank used that to call in defensemen. Not all the Falcons on the pub crawl were defensemen (Jeff and Zach were wingers, whatever that meant precisely, Sandy was a center, and of course Tank was the goalie), but within seconds they all crowded the men’s room, ready for a fight. Save for Zach, who was a little too drunk to respond so rapidly. Grey explained the situation while the guys crowded around the assailant, giving him the stink eye, and Roan almost felt bad for the guy, especially since Grey let up on him so he could get a good look at how totally fucking screwed he was, surrounded by big, angry men. Of all the nights to try and attack him, he had to do it on the one night he was doing the town with half a hockey team. That was the definition of bad timing. Or karma, perhaps, depending on your perspective. Dylan followed them in too, and was shocked that someone would try for Roan at his place of work. Roan tried to get the guy to talk, but he wouldn’t. Grey and the guys offered to “make him talk” (how ominous did that sound?), but luckily the cops had arrived by then. Also luckily, he knew the cops who showed up, Parker and Kinney, and they didn’t seem
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the least bit surprised to find him with a group of guys in the men’s room. When they discovered the guys with him were part of the Seattle Falcons, Parker started laughing and didn’t stop until he was crying. Finally he got a hold of himself and slapped the cuffs on the guy, telling him, “You hafta be the stupidest guy I’ve arrested this week. And I get all the stupid ones, so that’s something.” The guy still wasn’t talking. When asked his name, why he wanted to attack Roan, he only said, “I wanna lawyer.” “Of course you want a lawyer,” Parker replied. “You guys always want lawyers.” As the cops led him out, the club members applauded them. But when Roan and the guys came out of the men’s room, they were greeted with applause and wild cheers. Drunk Zach raised his arms and let out an explosive, “Wooo!” He then casually leaned over, vomited behind a table, and then half staggered, half collapsed against the bar. “Woo,” he added anemically. “Fuck, I’m tired.” Jeff grabbed him under the shoulders, propping him up with a single arm (how strong was Jeff? That was a bit unexpected). “Lightweight. You’ve just shamed Saskatchewan. But thanks, ’cause I won the pool.” Grey pulled out a small clump of bills and tossed it on the bar. “Sorry for the cleanup,” he told Luis as he gathered the money. Luis scanned the bills, and replied, “Honey, you tip like this, you can puke on our floors any time.” “I’m not a lightweight,” Zach argued belatedly. “I haven’t shamed Skacth… Suchcutch… home.” “I told him not to order the Tie Me To The Bedpost,” Dylan said. That was the name of the drink Zach had ordered in the girlie drink contest. According to Dylan, it had rum, vodka, and Midori in it, which sounded disgusting and could fuck you up pretty fast. Zach may have been living proof of that. “He shoulda went with the Royal Fuck,” Tank added. Sadly, that was a drink too. Roan didn’t even want to know what was in that. In spite of the fact that it seemed like the night had ended on a sour note, the guys were eager to do it again sometime soon. Roan happily agreed, as he had had fun. Dylan gave him a look, the kind of look only a person who loved you could give you. It said, without words, “You’re fucking crazy.” And yes, he understood he was. After dropping off Grey,
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Scott, and Tank at Grey’s and Scott’s place, Dylan said it out loud: “You know, they mean well, but I think they’re all a bit nuts.” “They play hockey. Of course they’re nuts.” After a brief pause, he admitted, “That’s probably how come we get on so well, even though we have absolutely nothing in common.” “Except a love of trouble.” “I don’t love it. It loves me.” Dylan was driving, since he hadn’t had any alcohol. Roan didn’t feel at all tipsy but figured it was easier to surrender the keys than argue. “Did you recognize that guy?” “The one who tried to attack me? No.” “Any idea what that was about?” He was forced to shrug. “A lot of people hate me. I couldn’t even begin to narrow down the list.” “Shit, that’s sad.” “Tell me about it.” What did you do about that? Public apologies, start handing out money, a little bit of both? And even then, that probably would only cut down his enemies list marginally. He wondered if it was the church. Yeah, they’d backed off since he'd almost ripped that guy’s arm clean off, but they were never going to be best buddies, and some followers got overzealous. It was always the religious nutcases who were the most dangerous people: they honestly believed God was on their side, so nothing they did was wrong, even if that included massacring kindergartners on a playdate. It’s one of the reasons he always distrusted religion as a whole. No one should ever feel that right about something, so justified in their righteousness that nothing they did was out of bounds. No, the guy hadn’t been infected. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the Church of Divine Transformation. It only meant he hadn’t been infected yet. The combination of alcohol and downers was a risky one, and by the time they got home he just decided to fall into bed. Dylan joined him and seemed to hold him tighter than he usually did. Scared? Possibly. He even asked, as Roan was falling asleep, “Do you think Hallmark makes a ‘Thank you for saving my boyfriend’s life from the psycho’ card? I should send one to Grey.” “He didn’t save my life. I coulda took him.”
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“You’re hard to kill, hon. You’re not invincible.” “I know, but it wasn’t stepping in front of a bullet.” After a moment, he added, “You could probably make him a mix CD for practice.” “I’m leaving that to you, alt-rock fan.” “Hey, they’re a hockey team. They like the harder stuff.” In the morning, Roan checked his phone messages and e-mail messages and got a couple of surprises. The guy arrested last night was named Charles Crosby—the name meant nothing to him—and it turned out there was a warrant on him in California, for assault and domestic violence. So he was most likely going to take a trip across state lines, and Roan wouldn’t have to worry about it for a while. He still never said why he went after Roan. E-mail wise, Darren had responded to him with some wariness. Roan had already picked out his assumed identity from the Rutherford database: a student named Chelsea Yamamoto, a cute younger student who could have no class overlap with Darren, so there was little chance they’d met before. Pretending to be her, she talked about having seen him hanging with his friends, and how she thought he was kind of cute but was afraid to talk to him for fear of being embarrassed. Darren responded before he got off-line: he would be at Club Amsterdam tonight, in one of the VIP rooms, and she was invited to join him. Horny bastard. It was so nice to know teen boys were the same, whether gay or straight or somewhere in between. Club Amsterdam was a hell of a place to invite a sixteen-year-old girl, though. It was a strip club that tried to present itself as classy and exclusive, but really only it’s even more absurd prices and large building separated it from its competition. Supposedly, its dancers were “screened,” but for what Roan didn’t know—STDs, dependent children, track marks, well-tucked-away dicks? No idea. He wasn’t looking forward to going there. Then there was the added problem that Darren would probably have his bodyguards with him, as silly as that was. As soon as he realized Roan wasn’t Chelsea, he’d order them to sling him out. He needed something to tip the balance, something that would make them pause and not be so fast to act. He needed bodyguards of his own. Well, that was a no-brainer, wasn’t it? He called Grey, who picked up almost immediately and sounded very chipper. No hangover for him—he had the alcohol tolerance of Charles Bukowski. (Or maybe he didn’t drink that much—come to think
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of it, Roan could only remember him having three alcoholic drinks last night. Mostly he drank water.) Roan asked him how everyone else was doing, and he said everyone else was fine, save for Zach, who was greener than Shrek, but who was surprised there? Anyways, Roan told him the deal: he had to question a kid who always traveled with professional goons, ex-military bodyguards who probably mainlined steroids for breakfast and were most likely armed. He really didn’t want to get into a fight with them. All he wanted was a stalemate. Would he be interested? “Oh hell yeah,” Grey volunteered almost instantly. “Should I pick you up?” “You know where Club Amsterdam is?” “We took Carty there for his birthday last year.” He had no idea who Carty was. Probably an unmet teammate. “How was it?” “Weird. How can a strip club be arrogant?” Roan had no answer for that. Did anyone? He put in a call to Holden, who said he thought he had some leads, but until he tracked a solid one down he was not going to get his hopes up. Holden was being elusive for some reason, and Roan really didn’t trust it. Trying to pry it out of him turned out to be wasted time, as he claimed a client at three and begged off. Roan bet there was no client. What was that bastard up to? Yes, he was a surprisingly good investigator, but he'd just got stabbed going off on his own. Did he want history to repeat itself? Before totally committing to this course, Roan tried to get in touch with the Brewsters again. No dice. He couldn’t get past the receptionist, no matter what lie he tried on. He found that Hatcher had called and left him a message. The bank had called to say that Jordan’s card had been used last night (yes, he had a credit card at his age—unbelievable), and the place it was used at was Club Amsterdam. Huh. What was going on there? Roan felt better about this deception now. Grey picked him at five thirty, after Dylan was gone—Roan hadn’t wanted to tell Dylan what he was up to. To his surprise, Tank was in the car as well. “You need at least two,” Grey said, referring to bodyguards. “Scott woulda come, but he promised his girl he’d take her out tonight.” “His girl?” Roan repeated. He had a girlfriend, all this time? The little slut. “Aria,” Tank said. “Fucking hot. He gets all the hottest tail.” “Well, he’s hot,” Grey replied. “He would.”
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There was no arguing with that logic. Club Amsterdam was far away from the part of town sometimes known as “strip row”—there were three strip clubs and ten bars within an eight-mile radius of each other. It was a sad part of town. But Club Amsterdam was downtown, near the business district, trying very hard to put on airs. Which truly baffled Roan, because it was a titty bar—guys came here to see tits. How exactly did you class that up? In the parking lot up the street from the club, he briefed Grey and Tank on everything again. It wasn’t that he thought they didn’t get it; he just didn’t want to get them hurt. He told them that the guys were exmilitary and had guns, so he really didn’t want to start a fight. This was all about fight prevention. “Is that why you’re wearing a Butthole Surfers Tshirt?” Grey asked wryly. “I just grabbed a shirt,” Roan lied. Okay, no, he didn’t. When going into aggressively heterosexual places, he always liked to wear something gay. The Butthole Surfers weren’t gay to his knowledge, but their name kind of was. “Do you have your gun?” Grey continued, the tiniest of smirks on his face. He was wearing a Seattle Falcons T-shirt, navy blue and a little too tight so his well-defined pecs were showing and you got some hint of the six-pack abs hiding beneath. In a sense, he had dressed gay, but mostly he dressed just to show what guys who wanted to start shit with him would be getting into. “No. I’m not getting into a gun battle in a crowded place. Even drawing a gun in such a situation is idiotic, but I wouldn’t put it past these assholes.” “Guns are pussy weapons,” Tank proclaimed. “You wanna fight, just fight. Don’t hide behind shit like a dickless wonder.” “Says the goalie,” Roan teased. “Hey, he starts shit sometimes,” Grey said. “I think he has the most penalty minutes of any goalie in the league. It’s well known if you encroach on his crease he’ll send you flying. He’s the Ron Hextall of French-Canadian goaltenders.” “I love how you say that like I know what it means,” Roan said, getting out of the car. Grey just chuckled at that. He also shucked off his jacket and left it in the car, exposing his well-muscled arms, another bit of fair warning to any opponent, but really, shouldn’t the scars on Grey’s face been warning enough?
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They walked into the club, which was disappointingly pedestrian: metal, neon, clear acrylic, spotlights on small stages centered around long poles, which women who were predominately blonde wrapped themselves around. There was a bar off to one side, long and wooden, with mirrors behind it reflecting light and bodies, and near the back, hidden by shadows, was a doorway. Standing in front of the doorway, which was cut off by a velvet rope, was a huge Samoan man, maybe six four and three hundred pounds, with a blue flame tattoo crawling up the side of his neck. As they neared, Grey suddenly took the lead, and said, “Hey, remember me? Grey Williams of the Seattle Falcons.” The bouncer looked unmoved—perhaps the Britney Spears song was too loud—but then he said, “The soccer team, right?” “Hockey. Sounders are the soccer team.” He shook his huge head, a dismissive gesture if there ever was one. Grey went on, regardless. “That’s Tank Beauvais, goaltender, and this is Ron Hextall, our center.” Oh good. He was now the butt of some hockey joke, he was sure of it. The Samoan pointed at him. “You look familiar.” “I’m legendary,” Roan replied, deadpan. Grey was grinning at him in the spastic light, almost laughing. Tank suddenly exclaimed something in French, his words tumbling together so fast Roan had no hope of understanding any of it. (Not that he actually spoke French.) Grey made a calming gesture with his hand and told the bouncer, “Tank wonders what’s up.” Tank added something else in French emphatically and pointed at one of the nearest dancers. “Dude, chill,” Grey said, then added, “Elle ressemble à ta mere.” “You speak French?” Grey shrugged. “You play hockey, you gotta speak some.” “Darren Brewster is expecting us,” Roan added, realizing that the guys were actually doing a decent job of buffaloing this guy. He was a bit confused, and Tank’s French outbursts—which he was beginning to suspect were nonsensical and/or insulting—were making it worse. The bouncer raised his eyebrows. “Really? He mentioned he was expecting someone… huh.” “Is Jordan with him?” Roan added, trying to keep it casual.
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“Who? Oh, you mean that skinny rich boy? Naw, I ain’t seen him in weeks.” He lifted up the velvet rope and said, “C’mon. He’s three doors down, on the left.” As they crossed beneath the rope, the bouncer added, “What is it with hockey anyways? You skate around, you hardly score, and it’s kinda dull, ain’t it?” “Not from our perspective.” “Mangez moi,” Tank told him. Roan was fairly certain he just told the guy to eat him. But in French it sounded classy. “Huh?” “It’s not for everyone,” Roan told him, mimicking sympathy, but in all honesty he was clamping down hard on the urge to laugh. “Guess not. I prefer football.” Once they were in the back room, a maze of underlit corridors, Grey said, “Yeah, guys who shoot ’roids in their ass until they’re too big to fit through a normal doorway, with their junk shrunk to the size of raisins. Sign me up for that.” “I know you told him to eat you, Tank, but that’s the limit of my French. What else did you say?” “I was complaining,” he admitted. “I said the place was cheap and ugly, it smelled bad, and expecting ten bucks for a soda was a joke.” All fair points. “When you pointed at the stripper…?” “I said she looked like his mom.” Grey laughed then but tried to stifle it. “You bastard, I almost lost it then.” Tank just smiled in a pleased, slightly unbalanced way. Again, Tank seemed like the mellowest guy in the world, but he gave off an energy that suggested that was a trap. Both he and Grey exuded the quiet confidence of men who never had to worry about anything, but Tank still had an edge to him that made him harder to read. Either he was honestly just a bit nuts or really liked people to think that he was. Roan led the way to the room, one door among a few, none particularly indicative of what was inside. But he could smell sweat in the air, arousal, frustration. What was that Chris Rock joke? Something about there never being sex in the champagne rooms? Well, these were the equivalent of the champagne rooms, and no, there was no sex, although there was anticipation and disappointment. Roan opened the door without knocking, not sure what he was going
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to see. What he saw was a sleazy/cheesy-looking lounge, with velvet sofas in a semicircle, mirrors on the wall, and some kind of pop style R & B music blocking out the sounds of the club or any noises from the other rooms. A scantily clad brunette waitress in a gold bikini (Really? Tacky.) was serving drinks off a silver tray to Darren and his “posse.” The posse consisted of three steroided-out muscleheads—one shaven headed, one with a crew cut, the last with a type of protomullet (he mentally dubbed them, in order, Curly, Moe, and Larry)—and a stacked blonde in a skintight purple sheath dress who probably worked for the club. Darren was unimpressive, your average frat boy type with a soul patch and unruly dun brown hair that suggested he was vain and trying hard not to come off that way. Something in his eyes had the smug arrogance of the terminally bored, but he looked sour at their entrance. “Dudes, occupado,” he said. Wow, that just made Roan hate him more. “I’m Chelsea Yamamoto,” Roan told him. “You were expecting me.” Darren’s eyes narrowed. “What?” Larry, Moe, and Curly all stood up, and Grey and Tank took a couple steps forward, as if ready to charge them. The fact that there were three of them and that at least two of them outweighed Tank by a hundred pounds didn’t seem to faze them. Grey was physically relaxed, a total lie (no good fighter ever really tensed), and Tank seemed almost semiconscious, save for his eyes, which seemed to eat up the room with every glance, sorting details and tossing them aside based on irrelevance. His laser-like focus was impressive; he was a sniper waiting to happen. “I’m a private detective, and I’m looking into the disappearance of Jordan Hatcher. I wanted to talk to you, but all I seemed to get was the runaround. Which I think I understand now. So why are you using his credit card, Darren? Surely your dad’s loaded.” Darren was holding a beer bottle, which he rested on his knee as he looked at him with contempt. “What? What the fuck? Get out of here or I’ll have you removed.” “You’re welcome to try,” Grey said casually. A threat that didn’t sound like one. “Who are these fucks?” Darren demanded. “I thought Jordan was your best friend. What happened?” Darren looked confused and pissed off. “I don’t hafta talk to you. I can have you arrested.”
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“And get yourself arrested? You’re seventeen. You can’t drink; you can’t legally be here. You’ll get the club shut down, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Now, what did you do to Jordan?” Belligerence flashed through his gaze, as if it had never occurred to him that there was something he couldn’t do. The woman in the sheath dress suddenly looked nervous—she hadn’t known he was seventeen? Yeah, it was kind of shitty of him to put her job at risk. “Get them out,” Darren said to the Three Stooges. He then, with almost no telegraphing, flung the beer bottle. “Fucking asshole.” Roan saw it coming and wasn’t concerned, he knew he could duck it, but he never had a chance. Suddenly a hand snapped out and snatched the bottle out of midair, and in almost the same motion flung the bottle back with double the force. It was Tank, showing off nearly super-human reflexes of his own. Darren saw it coming, eyes widened in horror, and attempted to scramble off the couch to avoid the bottle but wasn’t fast enough. It shattered on his shoulder, surprising a yelp out of him. “Chickenshit motherfucker!” Tank yelled. “Get up and fight, you piece of shit dog sucker!” Grey leaned over and whispered, “Is he an awesome goalie or what?” Roan actually wanted to select the “or what” but really didn’t have the time, as that’s when shit started to happen. Moe dove for Tank, attempting a tackle, but Tank was clearly in “game” mode, ready for anything, and people just moved too slow. He stepped aside and punched Moe right in the gut, his own forward momentum making the punch that much worse. Moe dropped right to his knees, retching, while Tank taunted, “Stupid fucking shit licker! A twolegged pig moves faster than you!” Tank then punched him in the back of the neck, sending him sprawling onto the floor. Larry went for Grey, who simply grabbed his extended arm and twisted under it, and when he was behind Larry, he rabbit-punched him right behind the ear. Larry went down like a ton of bricks, unconscious on his feet. Roan knew there was a sweet spot there, and so did Grey, apparently. Maybe that was the judo training. Curly initially seemed to go for Roan, but stopped and reached into his coat instead, going for his weapon. Moron. Roan grabbed his arm as he started bringing it out, gun in his hand, and twisted hard. Too hard. It
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wasn’t just that the bones snapped, they crackled like bubble wrap, tendons tore, and Curly started turning shades of purple. He kicked, catching Roan in the leg, and it hurt enough that Roan lashed out a kick of his own in anger. And that was a mistake, as he was a little too angry. His kick hit the man’s knee with enough force that it shifted, and his knee seemed to bend the wrong way, back to front. He collapsed, still conscious, his right arm a twisted ruin and his left leg no better, making strange, truncated keening noises somewhere between yelps and moans. His gun had fallen on the floor and he was still trying to grab it with his good hand, but Grey snatched it up and winced. “Fuck, dude, you really messed him up.” Roan shook his head, ashamed of himself, trying to swallow back the anger, the adrenaline, the growl bubbling up from the base of his throat, the pain snaking through his lower jaw. That shouldn’t have happened; he shouldn’t have shifted so easily, with so little provocation. What the hell was that? Moe was still face down on the floor, but his arm was reaching under his jacket. Roan pointed, and Grey took the hint. He dropped down knee first on the guy’s back, and put his hand on the back of his head, pushing his forehead to the floor. “Dude, I can knock out your front teeth, or you can just chill out and wait for this to be over. Do you have good dental?” The guy stopped struggling, but muttered, “Goddamn motherfucker.” “That’s Mr. Motherfucker to you,” Grey corrected. The girls had left the room quietly, slipped out without notice. Perhaps there was an emergency protocol, learned in case of altercations, but that also told him that security were probably on their way. They needed to get this done now and get out ahead of any bigger thugs. Not that they couldn’t handle it—he had a two-man wrecking crew here—but he wasn’t sure what was happening to him, and another fight could make it worse. Darren was crouched behind the sofa, blood leaking from a small glass cut on his cheek, his eyes wide and terrified, especially since Tank was advancing on him, hands balled into fists at his side. “Who are you guys? You mob? You want money? My dad’s got money, but he won’t pay if you hurt me.” “Stuff your money up your ass, you cowardly piece of shit,” Tank snapped. “You wanna fight, stand up.”
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“I don’t wanna fight,” Darren said, almost shrieking, cringing further back behind the couch. Roan moved forward, giving Tank a pat on the shoulder, letting him know he could back off. “We don’t want money. We didn’t even want to fight.” “I did,” Grey volunteered. “I just want to know what happened to Jordan. Where is he? Why do you have his credit card?” “I don’t!” he shouted, nearly hysterical. “I don’t know where Jordan is, all right? He stopped talking to me!” “’Cause you stole his card?” “Why do you keep saying that? I didn’t! I swear to God, man, Brittney just does shit, okay?” “Brittney? Selfridge?” Suddenly it clicked: Brittney’s mother had said she was a shoplifter. Maybe she was just a thief in general. “She’s with you, isn’t she? She left Jordan for you.” “It’s not her fault,” Darren insisted. He was almost crying; the smell coming off him was sharp and metallic with fear. “We didn’t know he’d run off. We didn’t!” So what it came down to wasn’t his stifling life or his asshole of a father, but betrayal by his best friend and girlfriend. It would have been depressing if it wasn’t so pedestrian.
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8 Falling Sky ROAN let Darren know that bringing the cops in on this was against his best interests and that surely his daddy’s people knew how to take care of everything without official involvement. Darren seemed to get that, but it was hard to tell, as he was so fucking terrified of Tank that he would have agreed to anything. This was doubly funny because Darren was taller than Tank by at least six inches, but it was attitude, and Tank was just exuding it at near toxic levels. Who on earth would mess with this guy? Even if it was just a front, it was a good one. They left just as the big Samoan and several other security guys of similar builds (like large appliances) arrived, and Grey put himself forward, as if daring them to grab him. He was a sports guy, not as big as them but semifamous locally, giving him an edge, and it made them pause. “There was a misunderstanding, but it’s settled,” Roan said, walking down the hall. Tank followed, saying something in French. Tank would tell him in the car that he said, “Suck my jock, assheads.” “Shame if the club lost its license,” Grey said casually. “Him being underage and all. If someone called the cops, this could go real bad, don’t you think?” “You’re barred,” the Samoan said darkly. “Don’t come back.” “Wouldn’t if you paid me,” Grey replied with a small, contemptuous smile. Darren had told Roan little, but enough. Jordan had found compromising photos of Darren and Brittney on Brittney’s cell, and after a brief scuffle, Jordan stormed off. Darren and Brittney (supposedly) hadn’t seen him since. Roan had already decided he needed to talk to Brittney. He just needed to decide on a plan of action. If she was staying at the Brewsters, it wouldn’t be easy. In the car, Grey asked him, “Learn what you wanted to know?” “Pretty much. Are you guys afraid of anything?” “Root canals,” Grey offered.
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“Being eaten by sharks,” Tank said, settling in the backseat. Roan glanced back at him to make sure he was serious. He was. “I saw Jaws when I was six,” he explained. “I never got over it.” Well, okay, that might do it. “Wow, sharks are a huge problem in Quebec,” Grey noted sarcastically. “You musta been terrified all the time.” Tank leaned forward and flicked Grey on the back of the head, which only made him chuckle as he started the car. For a moment, Roan was almost jealous of their friendship. He wasn’t sure he’d ever met two straight guys who were so close. They were on the road, driving toward his house, when Tank said, “It’s okay, you know. Everybody loses control now and then. It’s hard to ride the line of being passionate about what you do and being mental about it.” It took Roan a moment to understand what he was talking about, and then he got Tank was referring to him breaking the arm and leg of that bodyguard. He rubbed his eyes, trying not to let on how embarrassed he was, and admitted, “I don’t know what happened. I shouldn’t have been that strong.” “You forget your own strength,” Grey said, with the kind of casualness that suggested he’d experienced it many times. “You overestimate the other guy’s strength and you just paste him. I’ve been in that boat, believe me.” “Rhody’s concussion,” Tank replied. He nodded. “Rhody’s concussion. I felt so shitty about that. You never want to see a guy carried out on a stretcher.” They didn’t understand. He really shouldn’t have been that strong. It wasn’t the same—Grey just hit a guy far too hard. Roan hadn’t realized his muscles had started shifting, that he was beyond Human strength. But he wasn’t about to explain it, mainly because he wasn’t sure how. “Isn’t that your job, though? Enforcing?” “To a degree. But you never want to hospitalize someone. That’s just thuggery.” Hockey was subtler than he thought. After a moment, Tank noted, “For ex-military, they were kinda crap.” “They underestimated us,” Grey explained. “You do that, you’re just
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asking to get your ass kicked.” They dropped him off at his house, and he walked in to find the lights on and the rich smell of Italian cooking coming from the kitchen. “Oh, you’re back,” Dylan said. He was putting things away in the kitchen. “I didn’t know if you would be home for dinner, so I ate already. But I made enough for you.” “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.” He was actually, but he didn’t feel like eating right now. How could he have started a change and not felt it? Changing hurt; it also made his mouth bleed, neither of which had happened. He hadn’t taken that many pills, and besides that, the painkillers never really did much more than take the slightest edge off. Only really pure opiate derivatives numbed the pain, and not that well and not for long. Something new was happening to him. He woke up out of breath the other night, now he was changing with no warning. Was this it? He was going to die in some freakass way. He noticed Dylan looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out where to go from here.” He knew Dylan would be dubious, so he told him what he’d discovered, that Jordan had been two-timed by his best friend and girlfriend, and that’s why he ran off. But with Brittney probably hunkering down in the Brewster compound, he wasn’t sure how to contact her. Dylan kept working, cleaning up the kitchen diligently. He wasn’t a slob like Roan; he always cleaned up his work area. “Well, there’s school.” “She’s been skipping.” “Oh. Crap.” But after a moment, he said, “She’s a trendy rich girl, isn’t she? She’s gonna shop, go out with her boyfriend.” “Yeah,” he agreed. “Wonder if I can narrow that down to specific areas.” She had a Facebook page, she probably had a Twitter feed, maybe she’d tell him where she’d be. That would be insanely helpful of her. “Yeah, maybe I can.” He went to the kitchen to get a drink, and put a hand on Dylan’s shoulder as he put dishes in the sink. “Where were you anyways?” Dylan wondered. “Questioning Darren. I get any phone calls?” “Nope. Expecting any?” “Nope.” He’d hoped Holden would have called by now, but he was
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definitely up to something. He was going to have to pay him a visit. He wrapped his arms around Dylan and rested his head on his shoulder, pressing his body against his, wondering if he should apologize. Dylan wasn’t even thirty, and here he was saddled with a dying freak. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me things?” “Because I’m a secretive bastard.” He kissed the side of his neck, enjoying the taste and scent of his skin, and he could feel the heat and pulse of his blood beneath the flesh. The urge to tear into it with his teeth was still strong, but it was amazing how he could ignore it now and the urge no longer bothered him. He knew it should have, but somewhere along the way it had ceased. He had to feel Dylan’s skin, so he slipped his hands beneath his shirt, running his hands over Dylan’s flat stomach, and he felt so warm and good. He missed him, and he would miss him, if he was at all capable of missing things when he was dead (which he wasn’t, but he was feeling generous at the moment). “How long ’til you’re due at work?” he wondered, kissing the curve of Dylan’s jaw, working his way up to his earlobe. Dylan groaned, reaching behind him to run a hand down his back, and said, “A couple of hours, you dirty old man.” “Who’s old?” Dylan shrugged him off, just enough to turn his head and kiss him, a strong, hungry kiss that surprised him with its intensity. Dylan had missed him too, huh? Less than an hour later, they were lying on their bed, trying to catch their breath, sweat cooling on their skin. Roan saw a sliver of light painting the ceiling, as the bedroom curtains weren’t totally closed and the porch lights were on light sensors and came on immediately at night. “You ever gonna tell me what’s wrong?” Dylan asked. He had his head on Roan’s chest, arm draped over his abdomen, leg crooked over his. Roan stroked his hair by habit, wondering how his hair always felt so soft. “What? I thought that went well.” “Don’t you dare make a joke of this.” Okay, so the sex was only a temporary distraction. He should have known it wouldn’t last forever. Roan knew he was in a bit of a bind here, as he had promised Dylan that if he came back he’d be totally honest with him. Fuck. He considered what he would say, he didn’t honestly know, so
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he was a little surprised when he heard himself say, “I’m scared.” Dylan propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at him in concern. “Of what?” “Disappearing. Of the lion coming out and never going away.” Dylan frowned, gently brushing hair off Roan’s forehead, his dark eyes full of touching concern. “That’s not going to happen.” “I’m beginning to think it could.” “Why?” Yes, great question. Could he tell him the truth? That he meant to just beat a guy senseless and he ended up mauling him, crushing his arm and snapping his leg like it was made of pretzel sticks? That the change seemed to seize him suddenly and he hardly felt it? “The rules no longer apply to me, Dyl. I could—” The phone rang then, making them both start. By the second ring, Dylan said, “I bet it’s for you.” “Probably. I wish it was good news for once.” Reluctantly, he reached over to the nightstand and snagged the phone by the fourth ring. “Yeah?” “I need you at 725 154th Street, off Hill Road,” Gordo said with no preamble. “The faster you get here the better, ’cause it seems the press has already got wind of this.” “Hey, you’re back on the job,” Roan replied, honestly surprised. As far as he knew, there were two kinds of cops, those that couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there, and those that wanted to stay on the job until they died. Gordo was one of the latter, those crazy sons of bitches who became their job. He was on medical leave under protest, and must have finally convinced everyone he was fine to return to the cat crime squad. “How you doing, Gordo?” At the sound of the name, Dylan kissed his chest, sighed, and rolled off the bed. He knew a call from Sikorski was never good. Roan watched him walk to the shower with envy. “Don’t you ask me that,” Gordo snapped. “I’m tired of answering that question. Now move your ass. Time’s wasting here.” “How bad is it?” There was something in his voice that told him it wasn’t just people worrying about him that was pissing him off. “Probably the worst scene of the year. Now stop stalling and move it.” He hung up abruptly, but Roan was sort of expecting it by then. He rolled off the bed himself, stopped in the bathroom to have a piss
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and throw the condom away, and told Dylan he was off. Dylan told him to be careful, which struck Roan as funny. The crime was over; all that was left was the cleanup of the bodies and the identification of the cat that did it. But he appreciated the sentiment. He got dressed hastily, careful to not grab a T-shirt that was in any way silly (no need to be disrespectful at a murder scene), and didn’t care that he probably smelled like sex and sweat. They expected him to show up any time of day or night, they were going to have to live with him as is. He was starving, though, so he stopped in the kitchen to wolf down a croissant and wash it down with a Diet Pepsi, which he also took his Percocet with. He went out to the garage, grabbed his motorcycle helmet off the workbench, and wheeled the bike out. It was drizzling now, a piddly sort of rain that did no good at all except fuck up traffic. Luckily, since it was now past ten, traffic wasn’t bad enough to be really fucked. It took him ten minutes to reach the site, and down the street from it he saw the cherry-red lights that indicated a police presence. That was never good. Even at this time of night, in this weather, there were rubberneckers, people trying to get a glimpse of death and misery over the police tape and shoulders of beat cops roped into playing guards. There were some people he vaguely recognized from the twenty-four-hour local news channel, and as he parked his bike across the street and crossed to the scene, the reporter shouted at him, “So it is a cat crime scene.” “No, it’s a gay one,” he shouted back, wearily crossing a cracked parking strip and sodden lawn. “Disco balls all over the place.” Another guy close to the reporter, one he didn’t recognize, stage whispered, “Is that true?” He must have worked for Fox News. You knew when you approached a doorway and found a rookie blowing chunks in the rosebushes that you were in for a fun scene. Of course, the smell had already hit him, the meaty smell of spilled blood, coppery and hot, the shit smell of death, and it made his gorge rise and his stomach growl simultaneously, the lion making itself known in the hair rising on the back of his neck and the growl welling in his throat. He felt muscles tensing all up and down his body, ready to feast or fight, whatever presented itself first. Sikorski met him at the door with a snarky, “Took you long enough.” Technically, he looked better than he had when Roan had last seen him, but the heart attack had taken a toll on Gordo. He had never
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been really fat, so now he looked gaunt, his cheeks hollow, giving his face an unintentional ghoulish look. He looked his age now too, which was saying something. He stepped back, and said, “Welcome to Blood Castle.” Easy to see what he meant. Blood slathered the living room of this single-level manufactured home like someone had decided to paint with it, but then decided to just throw the stuff around instead. Arterial blood had arced up the side wall, splattering the television, while a blackish-red puddle pooled around the coffee table tipped over on its side, almost obscuring a severed hand from view. Great crimson skid marks seemed to extend out into the next room, while dribbles of brighter, redder blood smeared the kitchen tile. Seb was standing with one of the forensic techs in the far corner, discussing something in an evidence bag. It looked like a chunk of random flesh. Among all this blood and death, it was hard to determine nuance, but he could if he focused, and oddly enough the Percocet helped there. It not only calmed and numbed him, but it kept his brain from racing around, trying too hard. “Why do you think this is a cat killing?” he asked. Gordo raised his snowy-white eyebrows at him. Pre-heart attack, they were silver. “We found a paw print in the back bedroom and in the kitchen. We’ve got it tentatively identified as a cougar, but we wanted confirmation.” Roan shook his head and advanced carefully toward the kitchen, staying on a plastic runner someone had put down to keep people from tracking blood out on their shoes. “How many victims?” “We found two in the bedroom, but all this blood seems to indicate a third—” “Four victims,” Roan told him. Blood was blood, but everyone’s smelled just a little different. In the kitchen, he caught a whiff of something new. “Make that five.” “Five?” Gordo’s exclamation was one of horror, not disbelief. Roan had come through too many times to be disbelieved on these kind of things. “Where the fuck are the bodies? No way a single cougar could have eaten that many people.” “No way indeed. This is a frame job.” “What?” Roan looked at him and shook his head again. “It’s all uninfected blood I’m smelling, all pure Human.” And one of them had sweetishsmelling blood, indicating diabetes, but he felt that level of detail was far
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too fucking creepy to ever admit. “No cat has ever been here.” Some of the techs still working paused and looked at him with the same kind of bewilderment that was on Gordo’s face. “Bullshit. We found paw prints.” “Two. Planted. Shit, Gord, look at the way the blood’s splattered. If a cat did this, it would have had to hit a major artery every time it bit someone. This is a setup. Someone slaughtered this family and wanted people to think a cat did it.” Gordo’s look was stark and hot with doubt and anger, but he wasn’t really angry with Roan. He was just angry at the idea that someone would conceive of such a thing, and that he didn’t grasp it immediately. “Who the hell would do that? And why?” Excellent questions. Roan was wondering about that himself.
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9 The Unshakable Demon ROAN hadn’t sought out an argument with the cops, but he kind of ended up in one anyways. He viewed the paw prints, but scenting the room, he only caught the scent of blood and death. And there was something about the paw print, its placement, the way the blood soaked into the impression of the pads, that struck him as false. He was trying to imagine a large cougar—it would have had to have been a large cougar—standing here, in the position required to leave the print, and he couldn’t imagine why the cougar would have stood in such a position… and only left a single print. There may have been others, partials, but they didn’t take. There was a bit of an argument, enlivened by the fact that no one was sure how someone could leave fake prints anyways, but he eventually headed back into the kitchen, where he realized that fifth blood scent was bothering him. He knew why after a couple of seconds—it was too faint. All the blood was heavy, except for one person’s, which was just a trace. At this crime scene that made no sense, so he decided to ignore the bullshit and follow it. There was a trail to follow. It wasn’t always visible, but he could smell it if he crouched down, close to the ground. Gordo thought he was losing it, but followed along with Seb, staying back a respectful distance. Roan followed the scent out into the backyard, through a broken fence, and eventually, coming over the crest of a very tiny hill, he knew exactly where his trail would lead, or at least get lost. “Empty it,” he told them, pointing at the small but deep drainage area in front of the power substation. It glittered in the gloomy night like quarters in a gutter. “You’ll find bodies.” Gordo and Seb looked at it with wonderfully stoic cop expressions. “Were we following a corpse?” Gordo wondered. Seb shook his head. “We were following the killer, weren’t we? He cut himself.”
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Roan nodded. “Or someone cut him before they died. It’s a man, or a woman with so much testosterone she must have nascent balls. But not an infected. An infected in cat form wouldn’t carry someone out to the water anyways.” “No, a cat wouldn’t bother,” Seb agreed. “It might. Leopards can sometimes drag prey up a tree,” Roan pointed out. They both scowled at him. Okay, he probably hadn’t needed to say that. Still, he felt he had to, just to be a smartass. By the time they got back to the scene, there was far more press and a few more cops too. As he walked to his motorcycle, a couple of the press people got up in his face and asked, “How many cats did it? Was it a group?” The light from a video camera nearly blinded him, and he gave the unseen filmmaker an evil frown. “There were no cats involved in this crime. Go chase another ambulance, will you?” “Why are you here if cats aren’t responsible?” a female voice accused. “’Cause someone fucked up.” There—he’d guaranteed that footage wouldn’t end up on the news. He drove home running through the gory scene in his head, wondering who would stage something like that. Kill four people, splatter their blood all over the walls, dump two bodies but leave two partially dismembered at the scene, then stage a couple of paw prints… why? He suddenly wondered if any of the cuts could have been made with a tile cutter. No, that guy was still locked up, if not in transit to California. But how interesting that these things occurred so close to one another. Could be coincidence. Should he count on that? At home, Dylan was gone to work, and it was later than Roan had thought anyways; he’d spent longer at the scene than he’d realized. He took a bath and tried to wash the scent of blood off of him, which lingered even though he hadn’t gotten any on him. It was probably all in his head. Was someone targeting cats again, but in an entirely new way? He was an obvious infected, being rather “out” about his status (and his gayness), so if they wanted a cat target, he’d be ideal, and Panic would be a good place to find him. And if they wanted to ramp up common sentiment against cats even more than the Grant Kim case—which was
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still a powder keg—a big ugly slaughter would do it. It didn’t feel perfect, but there was enough truth to it that it seemed like solid ground. Yet that was incredibly troubling, wasn’t it? It meant that Charlie the tile cutter wasn’t working alone. After his bath he went downstairs and nuked some of the food Dylan had made earlier, because gruesome scene or not, he was still hungry. His head was starting to get that slow ache that it sometimes did before a migraine sank its talons into his brain, so he popped a couple of more pills after eating a couple of forkfuls of vegetarian rigatoni. It was good, but he had to nuke some Italian sausage he had hidden in the fridge, because the leftover lion urges wanted flesh between his teeth. Sometimes there was nothing for it but to indulge it. After eating, the exhaustion hit hard, so he went to catch some z’s, and even though he didn’t take anything heavy, he slept right through a phone call from Hatcher. According to the message he left, that web site Roan had asked about was hard to track down, but the server was somewhere in Romania, which was common for sites trying to get around certain legal restrictions. He was trying to find out the real name of the owner, but the bastard was tricky. He also volunteered that he assumed this meant he’d discovered Jordan’s fascination with Internet porn. So Hatcher was aware of it? Did he know about Brittney and Darren too? He was contemplating whether to call him back or not when he heard an unfamiliar car in the driveway. He looked out the window to see a beat-up old hatchback the color of mold green and primer gray, which hardly seemed like a threatening car, but he knew who it belonged to as soon as he saw a whisper-thin man with expertly coifed hair get out of the driver’s side. It was Luis, and honestly, shouldn’t the “Save a horse—ride a cowboy” bumper sticker have been the giveaway? He ran downstairs and managed to open the door just before Luis and Dylan reached it. He smelled blood and saw Dylan at the same second. “What the fuck happened?” he blurted, swallowing back a growl of rage. “It’s a good thing I’m looking for a job, ’cause I think I just got my ass fired,” Dylan admitted, clenching bloodstained teeth. His left eye was swelling shut and discolored by a bruise that was mostly dark burgundy, slowly shading toward a livid purple. His upper lip was nearly bisected by a bloody cut that was just starting to scab, and there was an abrasion on his cheek that would probably turn into a minor bruise in the next couple of hours. A dribble of blood was visible on the navy blue Seattle Falcons Tshirt he wore (hey, they got them as freebies, so why not).
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“Oh, that pendejo deserved worse,” Luis insisted. “Too bad your straight hockey friends weren’t there tonight. Although I swear I’ve seen that one before.” “The one that looks kind of like a darker Matthew Mitcham?” Dylan replied. Roan wished he knew who that was. At Luis’s nod, he said, “Oh, that’s Scott. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in Panic before.” “He’s gay?” Luis asked with an awful lot of hope. “Switch-hitter,” Roan told him, scowling at them both. “Now who the fuck beat you up?” “Actually, he did the beating,” Luis told him. “You’d have been proud of him, honey. You should see the other guy.” “You probably will see the other guy if he presses charges,” Dylan admitted sheepishly. He slipped past Roan and into the living room like he was trying to escape an awkward situation. Like it was going to be that easy. “If he presses charges, you press ’em right back,” Luis argued. “I’ll say he threw the first punch, and I can get a whole bunch of people to back me up.” “Is anyone going to tell me what happened?” Luis gave him a funny look, which he didn’t quite get the meaning of until he said, “Nice undies.” Roan had forgotten he was sleeping in his Homer Simpson boxer shorts. Oh well, at least he wasn’t naked. Then Luis's eyes focused on his chest and arms, and he asked, “Wow, you got a lot of tats. Some of these are new, aren’t they? I didn’t think you had that much ink.” Roan ignored him, and not just because he didn’t want to talk about it. Dylan had flopped on the couch and leaned his head back, eyes closed, seemingly tired. Roan went to the kitchen to get an ice pack and proclaimed, “If someone doesn’t start telling me now, I’m calling the cops myself.” “This total fuckhead queen started bad-mouthing infecteds,” Luis said, finally getting back on topic. “I mean he sounded all Glenn Beck crazy, like infecteds should all be in camps and shit like that. And he said… well, shit, I didn’t hear all of it. Just enough to know there musta been gay Nazis at some point.” Okay, Luis had deliberately derailed his own answer. Why? Because Dylan must have told him not to mention something to him. And what could that possibly be? Roan sat carefully on the edge of the couch and
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gently put the ice pack on Dylan’s bruised eye. While he was careful, Dylan still let out a small hiss of pain through his teeth. “He mentioned me by name, didn’t he?” Roan guessed, looking down at Dylan. He opened his one good eye and looked up grimacing. “If I say no, will you call me on it?” “Yes.” He closed his eye and groaned. “I just snapped, okay? I think this week has been harder on me than I’ve been willing to admit.” “The guy said you were a freak,” Luis cheerfully supplied. From the way Dylan tensed, he’d really been hoping that Luis would keep his mouth shut. (Shouldn’t he have known that Luis wasn’t the type to keep his mouth shut? Even Roan knew that, and he barely knew the guy.) “He said you were inhuman and the fact that you weren’t locked in a lab somewhere was political correctness run amok.” “Please,” Dylan groaned, but Luis totally ignored him. “He said you were giving us gays a bad name ’cause now everyone thinks all gays are infected, and you’re just a freak of nature who—” “Shut up!” Dylan snapped, with so much anger that Luis looked like he’d just slapped him. It stunned Roan too, mainly because Dylan wasn’t a huge yeller. (But then again, when did he smack a bitch for talking smack?) “Well, sorr-ree,” Luis said, with an edge of sarcastic bitterness. To complete this, he crossed his arms over his narrow chest and cocked his hip, although since Dylan was lying down on the couch he didn’t see this. “But he asked what happened and I was telling him.” “It was just hater bullshit,” he snapped back, his anger waning but still obvious. “And it’s fucking disgusting to hear it coming from a gay man who should know damn well what it’s like to be stereotyped.” Roan patted Dyl’s arm, kind of touched he’d give up his Buddhist principles to punch out a bitter queen for him. “There’s bigots in every race, creed, and orientation. Idiocy is universal.” “I know. But still… disappointing.” Roan could only nod, although very little that people did shocked him anymore. He was so fucking jaded it was a minor tragedy. He got up and skirted the couch, holding his arm out toward the door. “Thanks for bringing him home, Luis.” He got Roan's not-so-subtle invitation and nodded. “Dylan, if they fire you, I’ll quit. Fucker needed his head smashed in.”
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“I sunk to his level,” Dylan replied, sounding disappointed in himself. “No way. You can’t sink lower than the sewer,” Luis replied. All he needed to do was give a sassy head wobble and snap a Z formation in the air, and he could have been any gay friend in a sitcom or bad movie. Still, Roan kept that thought to himself as he escorted Luis out, and even though he was only in boxer shorts and it was fairly cold, he stepped outside and briefly closed the door behind him. “What’s his name?” Luis gave him a measured look. “You gonna beat his ass? Honey, you could break that fuckhead in half with your arms tied behind your back. Hell, if you just spit on him he’ll probably faint in terror.” “No, I’m not interested in that. I’m just wondering if something’s going on.” “What do you mean?” “I almost get stabbed in Panic the night before. Now someone picks a fight with my boyfriend there. Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” Luis’s thin eyebrows quirked up. “Oh, hey, now that you mention it… shit, yeah, that does seem kinda funny, doesn’t it?” He frowned in thought and after a moment said, “I don’t know his name, but I can find out.” Roan had figured as much, which was why he’d asked him. Luis might have been a standard template for a Latino party boy twink, but it was exactly that kind of presumed harmlessness that got people to drop their guard. It also helped a lot that he loved to gossip, because people often traded in one story for another—gossip was like a barter system, and he was king of the market. “Thanks. E-mail it to me, okay? I’ve got a website, MK Investigations, just e-mail me there. If Dylan finds out—” Luis held up his hand. “Oh, I know. And I’d get the brunt of it, ’cause he’d expect you to ask, but he’d also expect me not to tell. So keeping this on the DL is cool with me. Now go inside before your balls freeze off.” He must have noticed Roan shivering. Well, that kind of thing was hard to suppress. “Thanks.” Luis waved at him as he headed toward his car, but Roan ducked inside without saying anything except commenting to Dylan, “It’s fucking freezing out there.” “He didn’t tell you his name, did he?” He couldn’t have heard them, they were whispering, so Dylan had just guessed. He knew him too well. “No.”
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“Good. I know he’s a blabbermouth, but he can keep a few secrets.” Roan returned to the couch, but he sat on the floor leaning against it, so he could put his head on Dylan’s chest. Dylan put an arm around him reflexively, and his cold fingertips on Roan’s back made him shiver again. “So did you leap over the bar, or—” Dylan groaned in embarrassment. “I am the world’s worst Buddhist.” “Everybody slips. No one’s perfect.” “I think I knocked one of his teeth out. Or loose anyways. It was awful, Ro. It was like I found this place inside of me that just wanted to crush his head like a beer can. I almost wanted to lose control, you know? It was like this black well of rage, and it… it almost felt kind of good to let it go.” “Anger is human. We all have it. You just handle it better than most.” Dylan stroked his back idly, not responding to that, and they were quiet enough that they could hear the ticking of a clock. Which was funny because he wasn’t sure they actually had a ticking clock in the house, but he’d heard it before, so they must have and he’d simply forgotten about it. Finally, Dylan asked, “How do you fight it, Roan? How do you keep from giving in completely?” He almost felt like pointing out he was inhuman, but Dylan probably wasn’t in a joking mood. Eventually, he coaxed Dylan upstairs, where he cleaned the blood off his face and got him to take half a Vicodin for the pain. Dylan had said all he was going to say about the fight for now, so Roan let it go. He’d get it out of him later, when he was more in a mood to spill his guts. He lay with him until he felt asleep, the half a Vicodin kicking in big time, and then he got up and made some phone calls. First he called Gordo. He got his call messaging, and he figured he was asleep by now anyways, but he told him he was convinced that there was a new anti-cat hate group operating in the city, and it had ties both to his (would-be) assault and the murders that had just occurred. No, he had no name for him, but he was determined to find one. The sun was now up and the rain had disappeared, at least for now. He got dressed and scarfed down an English muffin while glancing at the paper, aware that he was probably the only person in a twenty-mile radius that got the paper delivered to his house anymore. The killings had made the front page, and yes, cats were named as a possible suspect when Roan
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knew for certain that wasn’t true. It was possible the cops were keeping that to themselves for now to give the real killer a false sense of security, but it would only increase anti-cat sentiment. For a moment he figured it was too early, and then he figured fuck it, it wasn’t like he kept normal hours anyways and took the bike out to Holden’s place. He had to bang on the door twice, but finally Holden answered the door, yawning extravagantly, dressed only in powder-blue boxer briefs. “Wow, you’re up early,” Holden said, scratching his belly and holding the door open. “I haven’t heard from you, which usually means you’re up to something.” “Little ol’ me? But I’m so sweet and innocent.” At Roan’s skeptical look he grinned maniacally. “Man, even I can’t believe that.” “So what’s going on?” “You first. Was that really a cat killing?” “No. Now it’s your turn.” Holden invited him in for coffee, but then remembered he didn’t drink coffee too much. Roan accepted a soda, but only for the caffeine. Holden told him he’d found out Coyote’s last gig was arranged via Craigslist, so he worked at hacking Coyote’s e-mail address. It took a while—much longer than he expected, in fact—but he finally got through and found e-mail messages from the guy he supposedly met, who identified himself as “Billy.” He arranged to meet Coyote at a Burger King over on South King Street, where he’d pick him up and take him to the “film site.” It was the last e-mail Coyote got that wasn’t spam. Holden looked on Craigslist for the exact ad and couldn’t find it. So he responded to the same e-mail address that Coyote had responded to, as if he was answering the ad. Roan glared at Holden, for all the good it would do. “You did this without telling me?” “I was going to,” he responded indignantly. “I’m just bait. I’m going to need backup to spring the trap.” Roan raised an eyebrow at that but shook his head in disgust. Yes, Holden was a surprisingly good detective, but damn if he didn’t like to insert himself into the most dangerous situations possible. “Have you gotten a response?” “Just last night,” he replied proudly. “Sent him the link to my escort page so he could check it out and make sure I’m not a cop. I expect to get another e-mail shortly, arranging times for the meet.”
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Oh, yes, his escort page. He'd almost forgot about that, but the escort agency Holden worked for did have a website and a page devoted to each hooker, along with photos of them in various states of undress (although not full nudity—that you had to pay for). He hadn’t seen Holden’s in a long time, but what had struck Roan was the amount of fiction on the page, all devoted to serving the john. Holden’s name was listed as Fox (of course, as no real names were used), and he was described as a sweet farm boy who came to the big city and became just a bit wicked (he was into light BDSM as the dominator). Supposedly he was from Minnesota, when Roan knew he was actually from Lynnwood. But when you paid as much for an escort as the agency clients, you were paying for a fantasy as much as anything else. Roan rubbed his eyes and wished he’d taken an extra codeine before coming here. “We need to work out a plan.” “What plan? I go to the meet and go with the guy. You follow. At the site, we beat the ever-living shit out of these assholes, and if you’re willing, kill them and bury them in cement.” “Okay, you know how many holes there are in that plan? We don’t know how many people are involved in this, and we don’t know where you’re going or what they’ll do to you on the way there. We’re flying totally blind and you could get hurt.” “I don’t care. These fuckers killed Coyote. I want them to mess with me. I want to show them exactly what happens when they target the wrong victim.” He sat forward on the sofa, elbows on his knees, a slightly maniacal look in his eyes. “I’ll take pain as long as I can give it back.” Now there was a new fantasy category—hooker vigilante. He bet some people would pay big bucks for that.
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10 Breed TECHNOLOGY was putting private detectives out of business. But at the same time, it was making their lives significantly easier. Case in point: the consequence of sharing too much information online. Brittney did have a Twitter page, and she filled it with the most mundane things imaginable, often misspelled. But that allowed him to figure out where she was whenever she posted. (He refused, on principal, to call it “tweeting.”) A quick read revealed her to be at the mall, complaining about fashion (he thought—he honestly wasn’t sure; she was complaining about something), and a past read of her Facebook and Twitter page had revealed she favored the Bellevue Mall. So as soon as he read she was bitching about it, Roan rushed there and hoped he could find her. Sure, he knew what she looked like, but it was a big mall, and she didn’t exactly say what shops she was in. He got lucky and found her in the food court, texting as she drank a diet soda out of a cup nearly as big as her head. She looked like she weighed all of ninety-eight pounds, lost in a thin turquoise dress that could have doubled as lingerie and a pink leather jacket that barely reached her waist. Her hair was long and dyed to golden blonde, a pair of large black sunglasses perched on her head like an oversized barrette. She wore way too much makeup and seemed to be trying to look thirty, which perplexed him. Didn’t most straight men go for jailbait? So why try and look older, unless you were trying to get into a club? He sat at her table without asking and identified himself as she looked at him with an expression that was equal parts bored, sullen, and utterly blank. She interrupted him to say, sounding about two minutes away from a deep sleep, “You’re the guy Jordan’s dad hired, right?” “That would be me.” He had to wrinkle his nose and hold back a sneeze, as her perfume threatened to both send him into a sneezing fit and trigger a migraine. He couldn’t identify it by scent, but oddly enough, he could smell the trace of chemicals in her bloodstream coming through her
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pores, in spite of all the warring food smells drifting over the food court. Prozac? An antidepressant of some kind. Perhaps that explained her air of drugged ennui. She blinked at him, eyelids smeared with faintly glittery purple eye shadow like a metallic bruise. “You come with your goons? Darren said you had goons that attacked him.” “They weren’t goons, they were hockey players.” “What’s the diff?” Ouch. “Hey. I’ll have you know Tank Beauvais is perhaps the coolest straight man I have ever known.” That almost surprised a genuine reaction from her. “You’re gay? You beat up my boyfriend and you’re gay?” There was a slight sneer to her voice that annoyed him. It seemed to suggest that all gay men were limp-wristed hairdressers who would scream and faint if they saw a spider in the bathtub. That irritated him enough to reply, “I didn’t touch him. I didn’t need to, ’cause he collapsed like a Walmart endtable. I’m just trying to find out where Jordan ran off to.” “I don’t know and I don’t care. Now leave me alone.” She looked back down at her BlackBerry and kept texting. All the competing smells were annoying him more than she was. His sense of smell often fluctuated, usually due to if it was his “time of the month” or not, but since he no longer had a normal viral cycle, he had no idea why his sense of smell was stronger on some days than others. Probably still a viral load variance, but now inherently unpredictable since he could instigate a change at any time. Sharp odors—perfume, teriyaki, beef tallow, french fries, pepperoni, pho, cinnamon rolls, pretzels, overcooked chicken, icing, coffee, yeast, oatmeal raisin cookies, corn syrup, seared animal fat, garlic, a dozen different perfumes, colognes, hair sprays, gels, conditioners, deodorant, acne cream—all combined to make him alternately hungry and nauseous, with some scents traveling straight up his sinus passages and lodging in his brain like a bullet. He hadn’t taken enough painkillers before he came here, and he desperately wanted to swallow a couple more Vicodin, but not in front of this girl. “What I don’t get is why you’d fuck around on your boyfriend and take pictures of it with your cell.” Now she looked annoyed. “I haven’t fucked around on Darren.” She considered a moment, frowning, and then said, “Oh, you mean Jordan. I didn’t take those photos, Darren did.”
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“With your phone?” She shrugged. “His battery was dead.” Oh sure, that made a ton of sense. He rubbed his eyes, trying to will away the nausea. Did he have some Promethazine with him? He was pretty sure he did. Brittney noticed his struggle and must have thought it had something to do with her, because she said, suddenly and defensively, “Jordan was a creep, you know. I had to change my e-mail several times ’cause he kept hacking into them and reading my e-mails.” That made him raise an eyebrow. In spite of the fact that he was being overwhelmed by smells, he knew she wasn’t lying. He hadn’t heard about this side of Jordan before. “He was controlling?” She gave him a dead-eyed stare that was both challenging and disinterested, a sort of bipolar look that only teens and true psychopaths could pull off. “He was a creep. And if he hadn’t run off I’d have dumped his ass. It was sorta flattering at first, but it got old.” How could abusive behavior be considered flattering? At least he took after dear old dad. “He was good with computers then?” Again that shrug, that look of bored disaffection. “Guess so. He talked about ’em a lot, talked about setting up an Internet business.” “What kind of business?” Another shrug. God, he wanted to throw her diet soda on her just to see if he could startle something genuine out of her. “How the fuck do I know? I didn’t care. Are we done? I have to meet Heaven at Hot Topic in a few minutes.” “You have no idea where he could have gone?” Again that starkly bored bipolar look. “No. Are we done?” He sighed and slumped back in the hard plastic chair, aware that she had given him little worth the trouble of following her Twitter page and running down here. “Yeah, fine.” She got up and left, not saying anything or giving him a backwards glance. He figured as much. How could she be so jaded so young? He tried to remember if he had been. Maybe, or at least he was heading that way. He decided to buy something to drink so he could have some pills, but while he was waiting in line, his cell vibrated in his coat pocket. A glance at the readout showed it was Gordo calling him, so he decided to go
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ahead and answer it. Maybe they knew who had tried to frame the cats for the murder. “Yeah?” “How close are you to downtown?” Roan was pretty sure he heard sirens in the background. Oh, this wasn’t good. “North or South?” “North.” “Pretty damn close.” “Get to Stewart and 19th ASAP, and maybe you can beat the SWATs. We have a multiple cat incident inside the Arcadia building, with several wounded, deaths unconfirmed, and a number of cats anywhere between three or a dozen—no one inside the building can decide on a number.” “Oh fuck.” Arcadia. They’d been in the news lately for their underhanded manner in kicking all infecteds off their policies. They couldn’t technically discriminate, so they’d find little niggling things to get people off their rolls and never pay for anything. They weren’t the only insurance company doing this—in fact, they were all doing it—they were just the most egregious. “How’d they get so many cats in a building?” “How the fuck do I know, Roan?” Gordo snapped, sounding really pissed off. Not at him, not really, just pissed off at the situation. “Get here if you still have the power to control cats.” Gordo hung up abruptly. He didn’t have “power” over cats, they were simply afraid of him. But maybe that was considered much the same thing. Roan got out of line and ran for the exit as soon as he was clear of the crowds. The only way there could be a multiple cat incident in a place like an office building was if it was planned in advance. So basically this was a rampage, but done in animal form. Shit. Why did they have to do this now? People who didn’t already loathe them—a small number— would now. He avoided as much of the bridge traffic as he could and managed to reach the Arcadia building within eight minutes. They had cordoned Stewart and 19th off to incoming traffic, so he parked over on Madison and ran around the corner. The cops had parked their cars on the sidewalk to make a cordon holding pedestrians back, but they also needed to access the scene and let the paramedics through, so there were spaces to let them through and uniform cops on crowd duty, standing there to keep any unauthorized people from gaining access. He didn’t recognize either cop he saw as he shoved through the crowd, but they must have recognized
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him as they stood aside and impatiently waved him through, briefly splitting so he could squeeze past them. They weren’t the only ones who recognized him, as some man shouted, “Infecteds suck!” Roan didn’t glance back, he simply held up his middle finger, which earned some illtempered grumbling and cursing from the crowd. One man had the decency to laugh. Gordo and Seb were loitering in the shade of an ambulance. “Still making friends and influencing people?” Gordo asked sarcastically. “People love me. Now what’s the situation?” “Same as before. Cats loose in the building, an unknown number, but people have separately identified a cougar and a lion. Someone’s suggested an entire pride, but I’m not sure it works like that. Anyways, the lowest reported floor they’ve supposedly been seen on is the fifth, and all floors below have been evacuated. We believe some people maybe have been injured attempting to corral the cats.” “Morons.” “SWAT team ETA is seven minutes, so if you wanna try and save any, get to it.” While Gordo was talking, Seb handed Roan a tranquilizer gun, which he took, if only to convince the SWAT guys that the cats were no longer a threat. He tucked it into the waistband of his pants as Gordo also handed him a radio. “Stay in touch. We’ll give you a heads up when they ingress.” Roan nodded and spun around, tensed, as something impacted the sidewalk behind him. It was a half-empty Starbucks cup that spewed cold coffee all over the mica-flecked sidewalk in front of the Arcadia building. Gordo pointed into the crowd and barked, “Arrest that asshole.” One of the boys in blue plunged into the crowd, which parted uneasily, as the man who had thrown it yelled, “You fuckin’ cats are murderers! You should all be drowned!” “Shut the fuck up!” Gordo snapped. Roan ignored it and headed into the glass-fronted tower of Arcadia. Deciding he and Paris weren’t so bad had done wonders for Gordo’s sympathy toward infecteds. Roan found himself in an eerily empty lobby, where signs of how much fucking money these people made were everywhere, from the marble floor to the mahogany reception desk and the super-quiet air conditioning system that always kept the lobby just a couple of degrees above arctic chill. He could smell fear and panic, but it was quickly dissipating in the chilled air, and it was all Human. He smelled that no cats had been in the lobby.
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How had they gotten in and where had they hidden? Someone who used to be an employee here, or a customer who had been in the building enough to get a solid idea of its layout (perhaps on purpose). They knew where they could go and hide out until the change. And the change took about an hour, give or take a few minutes (not for him, but for everyone else), so they had to be places where no one would go during their change. This was a plan with a lot of “ifs” that shouldn’t have worked with so many cats, and yet it seemed to have worked. Was it an inside job? Did they have a current employee (infected or not) helping them? You’d think they’d have to. Roan ignored the elevators and found the door to the fire stairs, which was hidden absurdly well. He felt like running, and that’s exactly what he did, pelting up the stairs like he was running a marathon. He barely felt any of the exertion, but when he reached the second floor and started up the third, a bit of a Clash song just floated through his head for no reason at all: “London calling to the imitation zone/forget it, brothers, you can go it alone!” Now why had that occurred to him? It was either his subconscious attempting to be funny (or just entertaining), or a precursor to another aneurysm. (The last thing he genuinely remembered before feeling that deep, stabbing pain in his head was a These Arms Are Snakes lyric that just floated into his head for no reason. Either this was his brain’s fucked up way of trying to warn him bad things were a-brewin’ in his blood vessels, or just some random thing, a coincidence. At least it had good musical taste.) He stopped dead as he smelled blood. Now that he had stopped, he could hear harsh breathing too, echoing in the narrow metal stairwell. It was above him, but not far. “I’m on my way,” he announced. “Can you hear me?” At first he was sure the guy (it was a guy; you could tell from the blood) was unconscious, but when he was within view of the fourth floor landing, the guy said, gasping and weak, “You shouldn’t go up. I don’t know where they are.” The man was infected, Roan knew that from the blood too. Panther strain. He was in Human form though, splayed on the fourth floor landing, partially slumped against an exit door, bloody scratch marks on his face, arms, and torso, but most of the blood was coming from a neck wound that, while not spurting, was losing blood in copious amounts that couldn’t be healthy for anyone. A puddle had already formed around him, dyeing his jeans black. His T-shirt was previously black, but it gleamed wetly and
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clung to his torso like he was a model, except models usually weren’t drenched in blood. He was an average-looking guy in his early twenties, with the only odd thing about him being his strawberry blond hair and hazel eyes, as red hair and hazel eyes was an unusual combination. When his eyes locked on his, Roan thought he saw recognition in them, which was confirmed when he said, “Oh, you’re him.” Before asking what that was supposed to mean—and his inflectionless, tired voice gave no tells—Roan pulled out his radio, and said, “Got a guy bleeding out on the fourth floor landing of the emergency stairwell. The area’s clear to this point. Send in the paramedics.” “Roger,” Gordo replied. Roan tucked the radio into his waistband (which was getting crowded at this point, but fuck it), and then covered the throat wound with his hand, putting as much pressure on it as he dared. He should reach into the man’s neck and pinch off whatever vein was leaking out so much blood, but he wasn’t a medical professional and there was a good chance he’d pinch off the wrong damn thing. Also, he would probably cause this guy pain, and he’d undoubtedly been in enough pain. There was blood on the stairs from the fifth floor, suggesting he’d dragged himself to this point or fallen. “Do we know each other?” Roan asked, sure they didn’t. “No,” the guy confirmed. “But I know you. You’re Roan McKichan.” He mispronounced the last name, but since he was dying, Roan let it go. “It’s my day for being recognized. What’s your name?” “Ben. Ben Sawyer.” “Well, Ben, what happened? How are you the only member of the cat hit squad who didn’t change?” All he had was his eyes now. His posture was limp, there seemed to be no strength in his body, and most of his face was obscured by blood. But his eyes, as tired as they were, still told him all he needed to know. He saw the denial, but then he saw the surrender, the decision to just tell him the truth. “We weren’t a hit squad.” “So what were you? You had to know people might die.” “Not if they weren’t idiots. We had nothing to lose, we’re all as good as dead anyways, and we figured it was time someone noticed what these greedy bastards were doing, letting our people die—” “By killing some of them? Not smart.”
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“No, we just wanted to bring attention to them.” He paused briefly. “You could.” He ignored that. “What happened to you?” “I dunno. I was supposed to change like everyone else, but somehow I didn’t. I mean, fuck, I’ve never had a cycle be so short. Why didn’t I change?” “How long was it?” “Three days,” he scoffed. “Three fucking days.” That was the absolute least of a cycle. It didn’t happen a lot. It was rare, but it did occasionally occur. Obviously, it did to this poor bastard. “One of your friends attacked you?” “I thought I could leave without getting noticed, but I shoulda stayed put. It was Brandon, I think, but I don’t blame him for what happened. Shit happens.” Roan wondered where the EMTs were, but thought he heard noises below them. They probably were having trouble finding the door. Roan was kneeling beside Ben and felt blood soaking into the knees of his pants even as it ran down his hand. The funny thing was there was so much blood in a person; you really had no idea how much until you had one bleeding to death right in front of you. Ben stared at him, and Roan could almost see him falling somewhere deep inside his eyes. He wanted to sleep, and Roan knew he couldn’t let him, had to keep him conscious. He could hear the EMTs pounding up the stairs, but they were taking much longer than Roan had. But to be fair, he wasn’t lugging equipment, and also he wasn’t quite Human. “You should be our leader,” Ben said. Roan gave him a quizzical look. “Excuse me?” “We need a leader. Most groups have them, but we don’t. And you’d be perfect.” “I doubt it.” “You would. Most normals are afraid of us because of what we could give ’em. They’re afraid of you ’cause of what you can do to them.” His gaze was steady and strong—he honestly believed what he was saying. But that could have been the blood loss. “You’re dangerous because you remind them they’re just prey.” Finally the EMTs reached the landing, huffing slightly. “He’s infected,” Roan told them. Both of them, a far-too-handsome man and a woman built like a fireplug, nodded as they put their kits down. Roan
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waited until EMT Handsome was ready, and then quickly removed his hand from Ben’s neck wound, where just a bit more blood spilled out before Gorgeous George put his gloved paramedic hand over it. He had a thick gauze pad too, but it would probably last only a few seconds before it was soaked with blood and utterly useless. Roan stood up, and Ben’s hazel eyes followed him even as the female paramedic shined a penlight into his eyes and asked him basic response questions. Roan felt bad for the kid, but there was nothing he could do for him now, and he still had friends upstairs. Which reminded him to ask, “How many?” “Four,” Ben replied, still ignoring the EMTs. Roan nodded and skirted them, heading for the fifth floor. “You’ve got blood on you,” Paramedic Sexy said. Bizarrely, he had a British accent, which he didn’t expect. But why not? Paramedics could be British. “It’ll draw the cats right to you.” “Good.” He wanted them to come to him, to leave the Humans alone and respond to their alpha. It might be the only way to save them before the normals killed them all.
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11 Troubled Son ROAN entered the fifth floor angry, and he wasn’t completely sure why. Well, maybe the helpless feeling of someone bleeding to death, of someone dying pointlessly for an honestly stupid cause. Insurance companies were bastards. They could only profit if people died, and people hated infecteds, so why would anyone else care if infecteds died? They wouldn’t. People hated insurance companies too, but the treatment of infecteds wouldn’t sway them one way or another. He wished it would. On the floor, he could smell panic, fear, blood, and cat, tainting the otherwise cold and business-bland hallway that still had faint traces of coffee, toner, and ozone. He let out a challenging roar, channeling his anger into the scream, but it didn’t work—it made him angrier. There was a responding roar down the hall, and he heard claws clicking on the floor, running for him. He ran for it, wondering if this was Brandon, if this was the cat that had accidentally killed his own friend. He couldn’t hate it if it was; it wasn’t his fault. But that was logic, and he was too angry to be logical. He ran toward the noise, still roaring, feeling the pain in his jaws, in his gums, tasting blood in his mouth and hearing bones crack in his cheeks. He thought briefly of dropping to all fours, of trying to summon the change so he could sink his teeth into its fur and rip the flesh off its bones, but he somehow managed to hold that back. It was a lion charging down the hall toward him, and he roared another challenge at it, continuing to run toward it. Something made the animal hesitate, stop so suddenly its claws skidded on the shiny, slick floor, and Roan almost didn’t stop, but then he was dimly aware that if he didn’t, the lion would run and he’d have to chase the damn thing. They exchanged growls and snarls, the lion a squat one with streaks of mud brown through its ruffled mane. Roan felt the muscles boiling in his arms, the tendons stretching, the bones dislocating and cracking in his hands and feet. One side of the hall had offices and conference rooms with opaque glass inserts in them, and he was aware of Human-sized shadows in his peripheral vision, people quarantined in their offices trying to see
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what was happening. If he saw nothing but shapes through the glass, that was all they saw too. The lion was confused, probably because he smelled like different kinds of blood, and Roan found himself distracted by his own internal fight. The last time he'd partially changed, it hadn’t hurt at all, but he hadn’t been fighting it then. (He hadn’t realized it’d been happening, but that was beside the point.) Fighting it was nearly as painful as simply transforming. The lion sensed the hesitation in him and lunged, which was fine with him. He caught its muzzle in one hand, forcibly shutting its jaws, and while its claws tore into his arms and chest, he punched it straight between the eyes, hard enough that he heard something crack in his hand. Or maybe its head—maybe both. But he was in too much pain to feel any more pain; the circuits were overloaded and couldn’t accept any more signals. He knocked the lion out. It sagged heavily in his grip, and he was the only one holding it up. So he dropped it, and he knew it wasn’t dead. He just hoped he hadn’t done any serious damage. But part of him didn’t give a fuck. He heard himself growling but couldn’t seem to stop. Needles of red-hot pain seemed to have settled in his eye sockets, and thin tendrils of it were worming their way through his jaw, down his throat, settling deep into his spine. He was aware that if he didn’t fight it, it might not hurt so much. He didn’t trust himself to take the stairs, so he went to the elevator and then had to take a few seconds to remember how to work it, how to use his hands beyond hitting or grabbing. He wondered how many IQ points he dropped when the beast took over, or if he could even remember how to talk. He was trying hard to see if he could, but his output was currently limited to growls and snarls. The elevator had mirrored surfaces in it, and he saw himself, but he didn’t quite believe what he saw. It was him, kind of, but his eyes were all wrong, the pupils bloated and more oval than round, and his mouth… well, no. He wasn’t seeing things clearly, and that must have been it, because his lower jaw looked like it belonged to another creature entirely, certainly not a Human. Blood caked his mouth, covered his chin, and hid some of his teeth, of which there were too many, and some were pointing at broken angles. He attempted to close his mouth and couldn’t, his teeth clicking awkwardly and his jaw feeling dislocated. He’d cut his tongue—
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on his teeth?—and it hurt. His vision was kind of blurry up close, so he was convinced he wasn’t seeing correctly—he just couldn’t be seeing correctly—but the shock of it felt like cold water thrown into his troubled mind. He didn’t know what he’d seen in the reflection of the elevator door, but it looked like a freak, some kind of lame rejected demon from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. The glimpse of… well, whatever it was he thought he saw, threw him enough that he hadn’t expected the lift to stop and the doors to open, but as soon as he smelled blood and cat his mind snapped back into focus. There were two cats on this floor, a cougar and a leopard, and he shouted a roar that tore up what was left of his throat. He heard an incongruous soft, pattering sound, and figured out it was his own blood dripping from his chin. The taste was so constant he’d stopped noticing it about two minutes ago. There was a responding roar, and the leopard tore down the corridor to see what new cat was in its territory. Roan was happy to meet it halfway down the hall, where it stopped upon seeing him but still kept growling. They exchanged snarls until he heard the click of claws down a side hall, and Roan found that he was surrounded, with the leopard in front of him and the cougar behind him. He should have cared, but he still didn’t. He had opposable thumbs and they didn’t, which meant he’d always win, as long as he didn’t get stupid or change completely. He stood with his back to the wall and crouched down, so he was closer to eye level with the cats, hoping he gave off the appropriately wounded air. He wanted them to close in, thinking he was wounded prey. He briefly wondered why they hadn’t attacked each other, but one was male and one was female. They were different species, sure, but the leopard female was bigger than the cougar male, giving the male more impetus not to get overly territorial. (Only tigers would attack their opposite gender members as a matter of course, but that was generally because tigers were the most territorial of all cats.) The cats were falling for it, coming in warily, snarling and sniffing at him, when he heard an office door open. Ah fuck. Why did people have to mess up perfectly good plans? What the person intended he had no idea. Did they actually think Roan was in trouble? Did they think he was with SWAT? The leopard was closest and lunged for the person in the open door (all Roan saw was a dark suit—just the scent alone told him it was a man, but other than that he wouldn’t have known). Roan was forced to jump for it, screaming
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(roaring), “Shut the fucking door!” He didn’t know if what he intended to say even came out as words; he heard the roar, slightly modulated, but little else. He caught the leopard in midair, centimeters from the man, and the door slammed shut as he and the squirming leopard rolled down the hall, the leopard’s claws raking his chest and throat as he fought the urge to sink his teeth into its exposed neck and end it all now. The cougar took this opportunity to lunge, but even though he was only peripherally aware of it coming in, a tawny blur, he somehow kicked it out of midair and sent it flying down the hall as he sunk his teeth into what was essentially the leopard’s cheek. Blood that wasn’t his for a change flooded his mouth, and the leopard squalled and squirmed away from him, gaining its feet but turning to face him as Roan got on all fours and spit out a mouthful of blood, growling at the leopard as it snarled at him, baring uneven teeth. He’d hurt the cougar, so it came after him again like the stupid beast it was, and as it jumped he dropped and rolled over onto his back, so as the cougar came down on him he grabbed it and slammed it headfirst into the wall. It went limp almost instantaneously, and he tossed it aside before rolling back up to his feet. The leopard was looking at him warily, growling low, but the fact that it hadn’t tried to attack him while he was dealing with the cougar told him she wasn’t as dumb as her male counterpart. “I don’t wanna kill you,” he snarled. “Stay down.” The leopard was still growling at him, but it lay down on the floor, taking a submissive position. He pulled out the tranquilizer gun and shot it, although it took him a minute to remember how to use it. He was stalking back to the elevator, aware he was bleeding more and still not caring, when Gordo’s voice came out of nowhere and startled him. “SWAT incoming.” Okay, yes, SWAT were bad. He needed to get to the cats before them, or they’d simply kill them on sight. He had three of them, now he just needed to find the fourth. In the elevator, he remembered how to talk and said, “Got it.” “Whoa,” Gordo replied. “Was that you, McKichan, or did a demon just come on the radio? What’s up with your voice?” He didn’t answer. He’d figure it out or he wouldn’t. The next floor—The sixth or seventh? He couldn’t remember; his mind refused to work that way—was empty of cats (couldn’t smell any;
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his roar brought no response), so he simply went up to the next floor. There, as the elevator door opened, was a panther in the hall, sleek black but kind of stocky, sitting facing conference rooms with their doors wide open. No Humans were here, meaning people had been successfully able to evacuate or this floor just hadn’t been in use yet today, meaning whoever he was, this infected had picked the wrong floor to hide out in. The cat looked at him with empty hazel eyes and a twitching tail, and Roan came out of the elevator, growling, “Some people have no luck at all.” The cat snarled and got to its feet, looking ready to fight or run, but Roan had enough awareness to pull the tranquilizer gun and simply shoot it. Proving that this poor son of a bitch had no luck in any form, the dart hit it right on the bridge of his nose. He was aware enough to recoil and try and knock the dart out with a paw, shaking his head, but the dart was in deep, and the drugs finally kicked in and laid it out. Roan crouched down and concentrated on his sense of humanity. What was his sense of humanity? He focused on the pain—or at least tried—but that didn’t seem to be it. What was his humanity? Did he actually have any? His tongue still hurt. An odd detail, but one he focused on, trying to bring himself back. He wondered if he should bite it or if the resurgent pain would make his cat side worse. A bit of a song ran through his head, almost mocking his current predicament—“If I bite my cheeks long enough I figure I could chew right through the skin.” You know, he just might be able to. He always thought that maybe in midtransition he could rip the skin off his face and maybe find out if there was a lion under there. Insanity. Insanity and These Arms Are Snakes lyrics. They went together so perfectly, no wonder he listened to them. He was grasping at something—awareness, some sense of self, even if it was only a mocking sense—when he heard the elevator door open again. He could smell gun oil, body armor, hear the hiss and click of radios. He knew guns were aimed at his back, the clicks of firing positions being taken, as a super-macho male voice barked, “You McKichan?” He raised a hand and nodded, not sure if he could speak yet, the pain finding laser focus in certain parts of his body: jaw, teeth, hands, chest, eyes. He heard a familiar voice snap, “Would you let me through? Can’t you see he’s bleeding?” Dee? Of course. There’d be more than one ambulance needed, and he probably guessed he’d be needed, so he'd either nagged, coerced, or got
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the okay to come along with the SWAT team. “There’s the cat,” a voice said, butch but surprisingly female. The macho voice from before said into his radio, “Floor secured up to the eighth. Advance agent found.” Advance agent? Oh, was that him? Must have been. Better than kitty fucker, he supposed. Dee knelt beside him, thunking down his heavy EMT kit. “You get caught by a cat? You getting slow in your old age?” Roan looked at him, still snarling, but even though he thought he saw the briefest reaction in Dee’s dark eyes, his face remained stony professional, all business. The good EMTs made natural poker players, as they learned to keep all emotion from their faces. “Don’t you snap at me, mister,” Dee replied, using an antiseptic cloth to wipe the blood off his face. He examined the scratches on his face, and said, “Not too bad. Those should heal up good.” Dee lifted up his chin with his fingertips and wiped his throat with the same cooling, stinging cloth. “Might need to get some surgical glue on a couple of these. Lucky it missed your windpipe.” He then frowned at him. “Why is your mouth bleeding?” “Bit my tongue,” he grumbled, pretty sure he could talk now. He could, but it still sounded gravelly and inhuman. “Let’s see.” Dee put a thumb on his lower lip, and Roan let him open his mouth. He got out his penlight and had a good look, squinting slightly. If his teeth still weren’t right, Dee gave no sign of it. “Goddamn, you took a real chunk out of it.” He rummaged in his kit and took out a small square of gauze, which he put over the cut in Roan’s tongue. “Nothing we can do about it. It’ll have to heal on its own. But knowing you, that’ll happen fast.” The gauze tasted terrible, and he could feel it filling up with blood already, but conversely it made him feel a bit more sane, a bit more Human. Even having Dee here helped. Yeah, having your ex tend to you in a medical sense was off-putting, but at least there was little Roan could do (or become) that would shock him. Dee lifted up his shirt and clicked his tongue at all the bloody scratches on his chest, but that was when Roan told him, “Don’t worry about it. I can heal.” “Seriously? Your torso looks like ground chuck. I don’t—” “I can, but not here,” he assured him, feeling more like Roan McKichan, Human being, instead of Roan McKichan, lion. Dee finally met his eyes. He hadn’t before now, which Roan only
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realized in retrospect. His eyes must have been more Human now, or Dee was at least confident they were. “Are you sure? You don’t look so good.” “I’m in so much pain, I don’t think I can move without screaming.” Dee gave him a slightly dubious look. “You’re not just saying that for free drugs, are you?” “I don’t need your drugs. I have better at home.” That honesty got him a shot of something. He didn’t honestly know what, but after a couple of minutes he began to feel warmth in his hands and feet, and the edges of the pain smoothed, became smaller and more manageable. Dee insisted on taping some big bandages to some of the worst scratches on his chest, so he let him as the pain continued to ebb, and finally he asked, “The guy in the stairwell, the one bleeding out. How is he?” Dee shrugged. “He was stable when they loaded him. That’s all I know.” Stable meant nothing; stable only meant he was still alive when they put him in the ambulance. But the way Dee said it seemed to imply “don’t get your hopes up”—stable was the best possible diagnosis for him. Asking for more was too much. You could only lose so much blood before you were honestly a lost cause. Roan knew that and didn’t know why he cared. Dee helped him up and helped him down to the street, where things were noisier and more cops had showed, their flashing red and blue lights bouncing off mirrored buildings in such a way that all they needed was a DJ spinning to make this an official dance party. He was aware of TV news vans, but they had been pushed back to a distance that must have pissed off many a cameraman and segment producer. He heard some arguments, some cursing, but since he focused on none of it, it was kind of an angry white noise. He balked when he realized Dee was taking him to his rig, but he told him, “I’m not letting you drive home on Demerol, and besides, there’s no better way to lose the press.” Fair enough. He got into the back of the ambulance, where Shep was, and he exclaimed, “Fuck, man, what happened to your shirt?” An excellent question. Roan had just noticed it was not much more than fabric tatters, held together by random threads and blood. As Dee closed the ambulance doors, he made a hand gesture of some sort to Shep,
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who nodded in understanding. Roan got that Dee had asked him to check his vitals without knowing how he knew that’s what he asked. The Demerol—was that really what Dee gave him?—was kicking in big time, and it was very pleasant. So he lay back on the stretcher as Shep put a blood pressure cuff on his arm, and asked, “Saved the cats?” “Saved ’em. Don’t know why, but I did.” “Cats are people too,” Shep said with no irony. But it did sound kind of funny. He heard Dee get in the front of the rig and felt them drive off as Shep looked at readouts and wrote some numbers in pen on his latex glove. Blood pressure numbers probably, possibly temperature, as he’d briefly put some machine on his forehead. “So am I dead?” Roan wondered. “You still taking calcium channel blockers?” Those were the meds he was given in an attempt to stave off another aneurysm. He had no idea if they were helping or not, but he took them. “Yeah.” He nodded, still writing numbers on his hand. “You have an appointment with your doctor soon?” He’d wanted to go see Doctor Rosenberg and ask her about that sudden change, the one he didn’t quite feel. Did that count? “Soon enough.” “Good.” Laconic Shep was yet another good paramedic, one who didn’t give too much away, one who could beat you in a poker game with nothing but a pair of twos. “Rest and lots of fluids tonight, okay? No fighting, no serious narcotics. Understood?” “Aye aye, captain.” Shep raised a blond eyebrow at that. “Yeah, I guess you’re on the serious narcotics already.” Oh, ha ha. The Nelson laugh seemed so appropriate right now, he wished he could do it. He must have dozed off for a bit, because it seemed like a second later he was home, and there was a small argument over whether Dee should help him inside or not, but Roan insisted he was walking to his own front door, and finally Dee just let him. He watched him all the way, though, arms crossed over his chest, his face as sour as an upset schoolmarm. Once inside, he shut the door and locked it, in case Dee
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changed his mind and decided he needed to go to the hospital. Dylan was home, but the reason he didn’t meet him was obvious, as Roan could hear the water running upstairs. Shower or bath? Bath most likely. Roan sat at the bottom of the steps and tried to force enough of a change to heal some of the scratches. It was extra hard, probably due to the drugs, but he felt an itchy burning in his chest as he felt a new pain knife into his jaw and figured he’d pushed it as much as he could. Veins seemed to pulse in front of his eyes, little black capillaries that appeared and disappeared with every beat of his heart, and he knew he was done. Any further attempts, and he would pay for it dearly. He still had bloody scratches on his chest and arms, and his hand still hurt (had he broken something?) but it was all something he could live with. He gave himself a few seconds of rest, then went upstairs. In the bedroom, he tossed his coat in the closet and threw his shredded shirt in the garbage, grabbing a T-shirt out of the dresser and pulling it on. If Dylan noticed it was a different shirt, he’d just say he spilled something on the other. He knocked on the bathroom door before walking in where Dylan was relaxing in the tub. The air was warm and smelled strongly of the peppermint and eucalyptus bath salts he usually used after yoga class. He said it was a muscle soother, and Roan had no information to the contrary, so he let it go. Dylan opened his eyes, and said, “Hey, I didn’t—holy shit, what happened to you?” Roan caught a glimpse of himself in the medicine cabinet mirror, and while he was almost afraid to look, he still managed. He looked human, himself, with light, long scratches across his cheek and just beneath his eyes, one almost bisecting his lip where an older scar was. Dee had cleaned him up nice, and his partial change had closed some of the scratches up. But he was very lucky he hadn’t lost an eye. “Cat incident downtown,” he told him, and he was so tired, his legs so rubbery, he sat on the floor beside the bathtub. “Some protest gone horribly wrong. Had to get four cats out of a building.” Dylan had sat up and was now looking at him over the lip of the tub. “Are you okay?” Stupid question. Of course he was okay, he was always okay. People died around him, other infecteds died, but he just wouldn’t go down. But
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who was it that was hanging on so hard—the Human or the cat? Maybe neither; maybe it was just the virus. “No,” he admitted, and for whatever reason, he started crying. Why the fuck was he crying? He wanted to stop it, but the drugs had sapped him of all his will, and as Dylan reached out and brought him into a clumsy embrace, he was too stoned to fight it. He sagged into him, into his warm, wet skin, and wished he could be a normal human being.
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12 Temporary People ROAN felt like a moron and wondered if Dee had lied about giving him Demerol and given him something else, something that made him as maudlin as a drunk. Dylan remained as sweet as he always was, comforting him and soothing him. When Roan admitted that he felt like he should be doing more for his people, Dylan rightly asked, “Which ones?” A good point. He was always in the middle of a reverse tug of war, with the gays saying, “You have him,” and the infecteds replying, “No, you have him.” But he'd always said he didn’t want to be a member of any group that would want him, so at least he could belong to either with a clear conscience: neither wanted him. He meant infecteds, but sure, gays too. He did nothing for anyone. Dylan pointed out that wasn’t true, that just by being the first infected to join the police force he’d been a trailblazer and broken down a lot of doors, but how much good had it done? There weren’t any other infected cops that he knew of on the force right now. And openly gay? Well, he knew of one downtown, not counting Dropkick, but he knew many more were still in the closet. It was a Pyrrhic victory at best. A combination of drugs and posttransformation crash made him tired, but his hunger (also a posttransformation symptom) let him know he was going to be up for a while. So he called for a pizza and noticed he had a couple of messages on the machine already. In fact, if he hadn’t turned the ringer off for the phone, he might have noticed it going off almost nonstop. (He discovered this when he turned the ringer back on. Dylan answered the phone a couple of times, and after reporting he had no comment and didn’t wish to speak to the press, they just turned the ringer off again.) He kept smelling blood and thought it might be psychosomatic, but then he realized his pants were soaked with it. He stripped them off, a bit relieved to see the blood hadn’t soaked through to his skin. Rather than put on pants, he figured fuck it, being down to his boxers was good enough. Dylan didn’t care; he’d seen so much worse. Dylan decided to go downstairs and check on what was happening
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on the news, and Roan decided to stay upstairs and try and get some work done. A joke, since he was still incredibly stoned and not really in a good headspace for it, but he was convinced he could try and force himself to go there. He blasted Pansy Division, mainly because it sometimes helped. He assembled everything he had about Jordan in a computer file. It basically boiled down to “spoiled brat.” In that case, he probably would have run off to Tijuana or something, was having the time of his callow life with cheap hookers and tequila. Could he convince Hatcher he needed to take an all-expenses-paid vacation down there to find him? The pizza guy came, but Roan hadn’t heard him, so Dylan, dressed only in a green tank top and matching yoga pants, brought him his large pepperoni pizza (he was going to eat all of it and Dylan didn’t feel like pizza, so he didn’t feel bad about it). “You know, there’s this guy on the news saying you’re a hero.” “What kind of attention whore is he?” “He said a cat tried to attack him and you caught it. He said you were fighting two cats at once.” He paused to consider that as he opened the pizza box, and the smell of grease, tomato sauce, cheese, and processed meat hit him face-first and nearly made his stomach turn inside out with need. “Oh, he must have been the fuckhead who opened the door. He wasn’t in any danger he didn’t put himself in with his sheer idiocy.” “Is that how you got so scratched up?” He shrugged, but he had the excuse of having about half a slice of pizza in his mouth. (He was so hungry, he wanted to shove a whole piece in.) Once he’d finished chewing, he said, “It was a combination of things. Mainly I got angry and lost control. I had to constantly fight myself to stay focused.” Dylan had brought him a can of root beer, which he took with a grateful nod. Yes, root beer was disgusting and sickly sweet, and yet he really liked it. Dylan sometimes looked at him like he was crazy, but he humored him, just like he humored his carnivorous ways. “How much did you change?” Oh shit. Talk about a question he didn’t want to answer. Luckily, he could give him an honest answer. “I dunno. Too much.” Dylan nodded, and looked distracted enough that Roan asked between mouthfuls of pizza, “What’s wrong?” He sighed heavily and sat on the end of the bed. “They said there
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was a near riot by the Arcadia building. Twenty-five people were arrested.” “That’s not what’s bugging you. Well, not everything.” “I gave my notice at Panic today. I’m not going back.” “Not because of me, I hope.” “No. I’m not sure it’s safe there anymore. Best to pack it up and try somewhere new.” “Your fan club’s gonna miss you.” This made him smile faintly, staring down at the carpet. “My fan club is horny drunk men. They’ll miss me for approximately ten seconds, until the new guy with the pecs passes through their field of vision. Then they won’t be able to pick me out of a lineup.” “I’ll still be your number-one fan.” He looked up at Roan, giving him a genuinely amused and adorable smile. “You’d better be.” He paused briefly, then added, “Should we check the dressings under your shirt, Rambo?” Roan looked down, and he could kind of see the irregular lumps of bandages, but not well. “Ah. I bet I can’t blame an ill-fitting bra, can I?” “You can, but I know damn well you’re not a cross-dresser.” Roan took off his shirt, and Dylan got up and went to the bathroom, emerging from it with gauze and medical tape. Dylan did his best to take the bandages off carefully, but Roan had a reasonably hairy chest, so there was just no way to do this painlessly. At least the Demerol (or whatever) was still working. He’d done a decent job using the partial change to heal himself, as his chest didn’t look like ground chuck anymore. It was still bad enough to make Dylan grimace, though, and two of the gauze pads Dee had slapped onto him were saturated with blood and needed replacing. “Maybe I should do it,” Roan told him. “Infected blood and all.” “I don’t have any cuts on my hands,” Dylan replied, with a brief but fussy frown. “Still—” “I’ll be careful,” he snapped. And to give him credit, he was. Dylan was always careful and always gentle, and he let out an empathetic hiss of pain when he had to pull the tape off Roan’s chest hair. (With the hair, of course. At least growing hair had never been a problem for him, especially when a transformation was involved. As proof, even though he'd shaved
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this morning, he now had about a two day’s growth of beard on his face, thanks to his partial transformation.) Dylan cut the gauze and the medical tape very carefully and said, more to himself than anything, “I guess I’d better get used to this. These are the kinds of skills you need when your boyfriend’s a superhero.” “Don’t you start that shit.” “Oh stop kidding yourself, hon. You’re the closest thing to a superhero in this world and you know it. See, a real superhero wouldn’t be lauded and loved; a real superhero would be seen as a freak and threatened with lawsuits at every turn.” “Shit. Put it that way, and you have a point.” “Of course I have a point. I have a BA and an unemployment check. I know everything.” He then flashed him a brilliant smile, and Roan couldn’t help but grin back. “Can I call you my boy wonder?” Roan teased. “Only if you like sleeping on the lawn.” “Ah. And it’s too soon for you to have an unemployment check. You’ve just left.” Dylan gave him a self-deprecating kind of smirk. (It was possible. Roan had seen it several times.) “A boy not so wonder can dream.” If he was a superhero, he was a super-lame one. But hey, someone had to be Aquaman. And who would want to be Superman anyways? Red underpants over blue tights? No one was that gay, not even Paul Lynde. He finished his pizza sitting in front of his computer wearing boxer shorts and bandages, wondering if all superheroes ended up like this, when he decided to check on his many phone messages before the damn thing filled up. Anyone who identified themselves as a reporter got their message instantly erased. He had nothing against the press; he just had nothing to say about the incident today or in general. Except Arcadia sucked, but odds were they wouldn’t print or show that. Dee had left him a very simple message. “See Doctor Rosenberg soon, or I’m going to talk to her myself.” And that was it; he'd hung up. Did that mean he’d seen the numbers Shep had written on his glove and didn’t like them? The call from Dropkick was slightly more interesting. “If you’re finished being a cat wrangler, call me back. I think our hooker killer is a serial.” And then she had just hung up.
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Well, he had to return that call. He did, and luckily he caught her at her desk. “Has another body turned up?” he asked. It’s the only reason why she’d jump to the conclusion that the killer was a serial. “Yeah,” she sighed wearily. She sounded tired. “I started searching for fairly recent murders that shared many of the same characteristics as the previous one, and I found a really sad one. Seventeen-year-old girl, possibly raped, strangled and found in a drainage ditch off some abandoned government land outside of Spokane two months ago. Probably an illegal, as she was never identified by anyone, and they weren’t able to find anyone in the databases matching her fingerprints or description.” Roan closed his eyes and lay on the bed, rubbing his forehead. The Demerol was finally wearing off, and he felt a dull ache deep in his head. “Not a hooker.” “Not to anyone’s knowledge, but in the same general category of disposable people. A person no one would miss or look too hard for. Fits the general profile of such a bottom-feeder killer.” “Yeah, it does.” She scoffed, and he heard a soft, dull noise in the background. Had she thrown some paperwork on her desk? “They pawned the case off on some overloaded detective who did all he was supposed to do, and absolutely not one thing more.” “So it’s a cold case.” “If she was a seventeen-year-old white girl, maybe someone would have given a fuck.” “Now now, we’re not supposed to play the race card. Or the sexuality card. Or the gender card. What cards can we play?” “Do not pass go.” “That’s it? I was hoping for Community Chest at least.” She sighed again, long and low, but afterward she said, “I wish you were back on the force, Angus. For a crazy asshole, I think you were the sanest one here.” “Holy shit, are things that bad?” “It seems like it sometimes. Ignore me, it’s been a shitty day.” “Tell me about it.” The pain in his head was getting worse. It felt like the slow-motion explosion of a migraine. The problem with that was migraines usually gave more warning. Still, his partial transformation could have fucked up the schedule.
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bad.” “I’m fine.” He really didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “Yeah, macho man, you always say that.” “Like you don’t.” “Yeah, well, I’m a woman. We always handle these kinds of things better than you wimpy men.” “Sexism! I could have your badge.” “You can have it.” After another frustrated sigh, she said, “It’s been a day for crazies. I got called out to a scene first thing this morning—it’s probably on the news, if you bother to watch it—where a guy took a shotgun to his family in a mobile home.” “No.” More of sympathy than disbelief. He had little trouble believing it occurred. “Bad scene?” “Four kids under thirteen, his wife, and then himself. It looks like the ten year old tried to fight back and escape through the bathroom window, but she never had a chance.” “Jesus.” He rubbed his eyes, which now had the dull, hollow hurt of a migraine. This fucker was coming on fast, like it was just waiting for the drugs to wear off so it could jump into the fray. “So what excuse did this dirtbag fuckjob leave behind?” “Well, from what I can tell, he thought his wife was cheating on him. Did I mention he married her when she was fifteen and pregnant? He was twenty-two at the time.” “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess controlling, abusive, immature bastard.” “Also guess unemployed and eighty pounds overweight and yeah, you’ve got a good picture of him. Fuck, I hate this job sometimes, you know? It’s not about catching the bad guy. It’s about picking up the pieces and throwing them away. The worst part was the false hope we could pillory this guy, you know? A neighbor called it in, ’cause they thought they saw a body through the window—nobody heard the gunshots; a shotgun in a fucking mobile home park and yet no one fucking heard the thing—but the guy was gone, and I thought maybe I’d get to string the bastard up by his balls, show pictures of his ten-year-old’s head splattered across a shower curtain until every juror wanted to beat him to death with the gavel… but then the fucker’s car gets spotted by the highway patrol in a lot behind a bar. He killed himself there, God knows why. And now I
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have all this disgust and I have no one to vent it on. I just have pictures of entrance wounds and exit wounds, when there was enough of a body left to call it an exit wound, and I have these e-mails and phone messages left by the killer that show me what a selfish, immature, hideous prick of a man he was. Fuck.” “Know what helps? Working the heavy bag. Or any punching bag really. Go now, hit the gym, beat the shit out of an inanimate object until you’re ready to drop.” “Like I don’t fucking know that?” She made a noise of frustration, one he was very familiar with, and he let her have a few seconds. Finally, she said, “Sorry, yeah, I probably oughta. My victories feel smaller and smaller.” “I know the feeling. It happens to us ex-cops too, if it’s any consolation.” “It’s not, but thanks.” There was a long silence, but it wasn’t awkward. It was the silence of two people who really wanted to help people and often found themselves wondering why. Why would anyone want to help people when they were so fucking awful? You had to ask yourself that question a hundred times, and maybe Dropkick sometimes came up with an answer. Roan knew he almost never did. Dropkick broke the silence once more, clearly trying to get her mind off the wholesale family slaughter she had to sort out this morning. “Can you ask Holden and his hooker pals about any customers they have in the military, or maybe among truckers? I’m thinking our serial will be among them, since if I’m right about Jane Doe, this guy travels.” “Yeah, I was wondering about that.” Spokane was in Eastern Washington, and Coyote and Karen worked here, on the Western side. But there was that serial killer in the military—was he Air Force? Roan couldn’t remember—who killed mainly in Eastern Washington but had a couple of known victims in Western Washington when he was stationed here. There was also a trucker serial killer, although he spread his handiwork along the I-5 corridor from California through Oregon and to here, pretty much leaving investigators an obvious clue to his profession. “I know Holden’s had a military client or two, one gave him his dog tags. I’ll see what he can find out.” He didn’t tell her it seemed to be a porn site that was doing genuine snuff films, mainly because it sounded like something out of a Dennis Cooper novel. Also, because the Feds would have to be brought in, and they might escape. Well, no, they’d probably
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get caught. But Roan didn’t want them caught. Did he want to kill them? He didn’t know. His impulse was to hurt these fuckers, hurt them for seeking out and killing some of the most vulnerable adults (near adults, if Jane Doe was indeed a victim) and filming it for the sexual gratification of equally sick motherfuckers. But if Jane Doe was one, how did that work? A snuff film site didn’t travel, didn’t change locations… … or did it? Why was he assuming they were doing this only at one place? Why did he assume anything when he had so little to go on? “You’re not gonna do your usual thing, are you?” “What’s my usual thing?” “Getting your own brand of revenge instead of turning him over to the correct authorities. That ring a bell at all, Roan?” “I deny that. Since when have I ever gotten revenge on anyone?” She snorted derisively. “You can play the game. You know how to rig the system. You may not do anything actionable, but come on. How weird is it that all the guilty parties you finger end up… punished?” “I’m The Punisher now?” Wow, his head was really bad right now. He was trying to keep things light, but the pain was really throbbing, becoming nuclear, sending hot filaments through his gray matter. Jesus, he could have used Dee and his Demerol right now. “I hope not. What a shitty film.” After a brief pause, she asked, “Are you okay? You sound funny.” “Bit of a headache,” he admitted. “Probably oughta go now.” “Yeah, okay. But Roan, about the usual thing… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this time around. Take care of yourself.” And before he could say a word, she hung up. Wow, she must have had a bad day if she was giving him license to kill the bastards. She didn’t even know about the snuff film angle of all of this. He needed painkillers, and he needed them now. He attempted to sit up, but the pain was so bad his head felt like it was filled with molten lava, and sitting up seemed like a pipe dream, something bizarrely out of reach. Oh, no—something was wrong. He rolled over on his side and gritted his teeth against the pain just as Dylan came in. “I was gonna run to the store, we’re out—holy shit, Ro? Hon, what’s wrong?” “Oh fuck, Dyl, my head hurts so much,” he said, feeling like he was
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going to have to hold his skull together with his hands to keep it from bursting apart. “Can you get the Percocet? I’ll be fine if I have a couple of those.” Dylan looked down into his face, and Roan could see the horror in his eyes. “You’re flushed, your eyes—” He didn’t finish the sentence, he simply reached for the phone and snagged the handset. He punched in a couple of numbers, so few that Roan knew he could only be calling 9-1-1. “I need an ambulance,” he said, keeping his voice as emotionless as possible. “What’s wrong with my eyes?” Roan asked through gritted teeth. But in immediate retrospect, he realized he didn’t want to know. He thought he’d been flirting with an aneurysm. But you know, he'd thought the danger was over. So much for wishful thinking.
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13 Dramamine ROAN woke up in bed and was so warm and cozy, he decided he wasn’t getting up. Except things started nagging at him, little things he couldn’t quite dismiss as easily as he wanted to. Like the fact that the body cuddling him was a bit too large to be Dylan and also smelled ever so faintly of tiger. Paris would do this a lot, not so much snuggle against him as cover him like a blanket. He rather liked it, actually. He loved the smell of him and the feeling of his weight, the way his warm skin felt against his. It felt like Paris was trying to protect him even in their sleep, and while he would normally balk at the idea of anyone protecting him, he still liked the comfort of it. He was aware this was all wrong, yet at the same time he actually didn’t give a shit. “Am I supposed to think I’m dead or something? ’Cause you know, even if I believed in an afterlife, I know this wouldn’t be it.” “Why?” Paris asked in his teasing voice. “Am I not divine?” He sighed heavily, although he felt a twinge in his chest. That was exactly the kind of cheesy joke Paris would make. “I’m brain damaged, is that it? I had an aneurysm, and a section of my brain has died. Now I think you’re here, or I’m imagining it as a comforting fantasy.” Paris stroked his hair and nuzzled his neck, which was familiar and nice. “You have to be cynical about everything, don’t you?” “I know this is my subconscious or unconscious, or a hallucination. I’m just wondering how bad it is.” “How would I know? I’m you.” “Good point.” Paris’s hand was on his stomach, so he picked it up and kissed his palm before letting it fall back on his chest. “I miss you.” “I know, sweetheart,” Paris replied sympathetically. “But you have Dylan now. You love him, don’t you?”
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“Of course I do.” It was funny, but while he could easily lie to himself, he couldn’t while he thought he was talking to Paris. “But not like you. It’s different.” “It would be. But you be good to him. Hear me?” “I hear you. But if I’m a drooling vegetable, there’s no way I can be.” “Like that would ever happen to you,” he said, giving Roan a quick kiss on the nape of his neck. “You’re a superhero, remember? You can only die on television.” Roan was puzzling over that cryptic comment when he woke up, not overly surprised to be in an uncomfortable bed, surrounded by the horrible smells of a hospital. But having Tank in his room? Yeah, that was a surprise. For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming, but then Tank noticed he was awake and said, “Bonjour, Roan. How you feeling, ’ey?” Tank had started growing facial hair that looked like a combination between a soul patch and a goatee; it was hard to say if it was intentional or accidental. It was also, oddly enough, a reddish gold, whereas the unruly mop of hair on his head was a sort of a polished-cedar color. He was standing up near the back corner of the room, and it looked like he’d been checking a text message on his phone. Only now, with this new weird facial hair, did Roan see an oh-so-slight resemblance to the late Alice In Chains singer Lane Staley, although Tank was shorter, more muscular, and undoubtedly much more Quebecois (and less heroin addicted). Roan stared at him a moment. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t seem at all offended by the slightly confrontational nature of the question. “I heard you were in the hospital, yeah? So I thought I’d drop by, see how you were doing.” He picked up a big bouquet of flowers wrapped in blue paper off the room’s lone chair. “I brought you these.” Again, this remained so weird he wasn’t sure he was awake. But why would he dream that facial hair? “I’m not really a flower kind of gay.” “There’s a beer in it.” He reached into the bouquet and slid out the top of a beer bottle, which seemed hidden by a large yellow spider mum. “I love you.” “I’ve visited lots of people in hospitals,” he said, putting a strange emphasis on the final syllable. “I know ways around things.” He put the
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bouquet down on the chair again, carefully, as if he was afraid the beer might roll out. “Microbrew?” He nodded. “Canadian, not that watery American piss.” “Will you marry me?” That made Tank grin at him, and it was oddly childlike. And unlike many hockey players, he appeared to have all his teeth. “If I was gay, I’d be all over you. I gotta thing for redheads.” What on Earth did you say to that? He didn’t know, so he switched topics. “Where’s Dylan?” He was here, wasn’t he? What if he wasn’t here? He’d taken it for granted that Dylan would be here, but that wasn’t right, was it? Maybe this was what Paris—his subconscious—was trying to warn him about. What was in all this worry and stress for Dylan? He might come to his senses and decide that he simply wasn’t worth all this pain. “He went to talk to a doctor I think. He wanted to—” He paused and his face screwed up briefly, like he didn’t like the taste of the word. “— damn. If he mentioned it, I forgot. Sorry. If I’m not in game mode, my attention wanders sometimes.” “You don’t have ADD, do you?” This was a joke. Tank shrugged as if the question was serious. “I exhaust my concentration. Sounds funny, doesn’t it? But I focus so tightly during games it’s like I don’t wanna do it if I really don’t hafta.” “I believe it. You have sniper-like concentration.” “Hardest part of being a goalie. It’s not guys lobbing shit at you or gettin’ in your face, it’s concentrating on a tiny, fast-moving piece of rubber while noise and people and lights are all around you, and just knowing without looking too hard who your guys are and who aren’t. I’d rather catch hundred-mile-an-hour slap shots than have to deal with a three on five with really hungry players and an angry, noisy crowd.” This was all very interesting, mainly because Roan only knew that goalies were generally considered to be nuts; he had no idea of their perspective on things. As he sat up, he said, “Your reflexes are great, you know. I think they’re equal to mine.” Again, that unselfconscious grin. Roan couldn’t help but think of most jocks as total assholes, but there was something very likable about Tank. There was something very off-putting too, but once you got to know him, it seemed like less of a worry. He was just an odd man, not scary odd
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(not constantly), just weird. “I’d hope they’d be better. You know how hard I’ve trained?” Roan was going to point out he was super-human, therefore Tank shouldn’t feel bad about a draw, but that seemed both arrogant and presumptuous, so he didn’t say anything. He simply sat up and looked at the IV drip in his arm, trying to determine if it was just saline or something more. Then Roan decided to ask, “Why have you visited lots of people in hospitals? Is it sports related?” Tank shook his head and scratched his arm. He was wearing jeans and a powder-blue T-shirt that seemed to be advertising a seafood place in a city called Trois-Rivieres (he was guessing because the words on the shirt were all in French), and where he scratched Roan could see both an old inoculation scar (?) and a tiny tattoo of a blue sun, with rays like starfish arms. “Sometimes. But mainly it was ’cause of my grandpa and my mom. My grandpa had emphysema that eventually killed him, and my mom got pancreatic cancer when I was a teenager, and she spent the last two months of her life in a hospital.” He shrugged again, but there was a little moment of pain in his eyes, hidden in a frown. “I’m sorry.” Pancreatic cancer was a real bitch too. All cancers were bad by definition, but some were worse than others. He shook his head, and the darkness that had briefly clouded his vision disappeared with the return of a friendly smile. “Nah, it’s okay. I learn things. Like how to steal meds from the supply closet. Wow, did me and my friends get high on the hospital’s dime.” “You still do that?” He shook his head. “Don’t know American hospitals so well.” “Too bad. I was gonna have you go get me some Demerol.” He tossed him a wink. “I’ll see what I can do.” He meant it too. Now that was a friend. Why he’d been adopted by a possibly crazy goalie he had no idea, but at least he was a cool guy. The door to the room opened, and Dylan came in, looking to Tank before he noticed that Roan was awake and sitting up. “Roan!” he exclaimed, immediately coming to his side and embracing him in a powerful hug. He almost got tangled in Roan’s IV line. Roan hugged him back and realized that that two day’s growth of beard he'd had after the transformation seemed thicker. Not only that, but Dylan had a dark fuzz of stubble on his cheeks as well, which he hadn’t
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had earlier. When Dylan pulled back, tears glimmered in dark chocolate eyes. “How are you feeling?” “A little drugged, but okay. How long have I been here?” “Only since yesterday.” “Yesterday?” He’d been out for, what, twelve hours? Could he blame the drugs they gave him or not? Before he could ask, a familiar voice said, “It should have been a lot worse.” Doctor Rosenberg came in, looking at his chart and shaking her head. “God, your luck. I’d play the lottery if I was you.” She looked up, noticing Tank. “You’re a new one.” He must have guessed that was an invitation to introduction. “Tank Beauvais.” “Your name is not Tank.” “My real name is Thibault.” She studied him for a moment. “Tank it is.” She pushed her tortoiseshell glasses up to the bridge of her nose and said, “I need to be alone with Roan for a few minutes.” Dylan gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and told him, “I’ll be right outside.” Roan nodded at him as Dylan gave him a small smile and a comforting squeeze on the arms before leaving the room, Tank falling in behind him without comment. The way Dylan acted, he couldn’t help but think Rosenberg was here to give him bad news. “What’s with the Frenchman?” Rosenberg wondered. “He’s a goalie. I’ve been adopted by a hockey team.” “The Falcons?” “You know of them?” “I’ve seen the logos. I’m not locked up in my office all the time.” There was no help for it—he had to just come out and ask. “I had another aneurysm, didn’t I?” She gazed at him steadily, her hazel eyes giving him nothing. “Yes and no.” Of all possible answers, this one was the most unexpected. “Well, that’s definitive.” She rolled her eyes and tapped the clipboard holding his chart like somehow the answers on it were his fault. “The long and the short of it is,
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you probably did have an aneurysm, but beyond the burst blood vessels in your eyes, your blood pressure upon arrival, and initial head CT readings, we can no longer prove it.” He mulled over everything she said carefully before answering. “Huh?” “You’ve totally recovered.” He considered this again. Yes, he was drugged. “Umm… didn’t I fully recover last time?” “You weren’t brain damaged, but you did suffer some aftereffects. Now—” She shrugged with her hands, almost flinging the clipboard by accident. “Well, fuck me sideways. I don’t get these readings at all.” It was always a little shocking when your small, grandmotherly doctor said “Fuck me sideways.” He rubbed his head, wondering if he was still dreaming. If he slapped himself, would she have him committed? “So… why I am here? I mean, if I’m all right….” “We had to determine that. You did pass out. Besides, I wanna figure this out.” She lifted a page on the clipboard, scanned it, and then shrugged again. “I’m gonna give up, though. Life’s too short. Besides, I know you’ll wanna get out of here as soon as possible. So what I want you to do is give me the weekend.” Lost. He felt totally lost and at sea and drugged without actually being drugged. What was going on here? “Are you speaking in riddles, or am I actually brain damaged?” “I want to check you into Willow Creek this weekend,” she continued, as if he hadn’t actually said anything at all. Willow Creek was an infecteds-only hospital, the one where Paris spent a week recovering after he first met him. “I want to run a full battery of tests: PET scan, MRI, EEG, all the acronyms. It’ll just be me and a couple of trusted assistants. Scientific American won’t get their greedy little hands on you.” “I’m on a case. I can’t do this weekend. Why the hell do you want to poke and prod me some more? Didn’t you do that enough when I was a kid?” “Sorry, but you’ve grown up and adapted far beyond my comprehension. I can’t wrap my head around it. I feel like a moron, quite frankly.” He grabbed onto the only word that really alarmed him. “Adapted? Meaning what exactly?” She shrugged with her hands again, less violently this time. “Haven’t
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you noticed? Evolution takes thousands of years, millions, but you’re making it look like a lazy idiot. You’re adapting to your new situation, Roan, just like you adapted out of having a viral cycle.” “That isn’t possible.” Was that why he'd started changing without realizing it the other night? Was he starting to adapt? That was insane. Bodies didn’t work like that—the virus didn’t work like that. “Isn’t it? You’re the impossible man. The virus shouldn’t have incorporated into your DNA the way it did, and from there it’s just been an avalanche of impossibilities with you. Do I really need to point out that most virus children are ten years dead at your age? Or that all infected have viral cycles, except you? Come on. I think we’re both too old to dick around. You are a….” She didn’t have the word. “Freak?” he suggested. “Hybrid,” she replied with an evil scowl. “If you were at all an optimist, we could say you were the best of both worlds.” “My mother was a human and my father was a virus,” he replied sarcastically. Before she could tell him to knock it off, he held up the IV line. “So what’s this, then, if I’m fine?” “Fluids. You were dehydrated and, believe it or not, mildly malnourished, and probably exhausted considering the way you slept. You’ve got to remember the way your metabolism changes even during partial shifts. It’s playing holy hell with every system in your body. You probably need ten hours sleep on days of change, and fuck knows how many calories, maybe ten thousand or so. You can’t act like it’s just a normal day, because it’s not.” “Could it have been a migraine?” She shook her head but then shrugged. “Can’t actually rule that out. We don’t know for sure how the change affects your migraines, so it’s possible there could be a trigger mechanism. But dehydration is definitely a trigger, so keep your fluids up, damn you.” He dry washed his face, trying not to notice how hot and itchy his beard was, and wondered why he was so mad. What was he mad at? Her? Himself? His virus? “Am I in danger from aneurysms anymore?” “Honestly, I don’t know. I think you started having one, and it stopped.” “Stopped?” She nodded. “Makes no fucking sense to me either. Maybe it was just some weird kind of seizure. I can’t rule that out either.”
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“It hurt like fuck.” “No reason a seizure couldn’t.” That was a fair point. “But you don’t think it was.” “No. I think you almost had an aneurysm, and your body fought back. But since that’s illogical and can’t be proven, that’s pure speculation on my part.” This was frustrating and threatened to make his head start hurting all over again. He noticed that there was one of those reusable shopping totes sitting on the floor beside the chair—Tank had accidentally been blocking his view of it. (Goalies made better doors than windows, even off the ice.) Were there clothes in it? He was pretty sure there were, as he thought he recognized the color of his zombie T-shirt (burnt orange). Dylan brought clothes, and Tank brought beer. He knew some great guys. If Dylan had also included his cell phone (he seriously needed to call Holden if he’d lost a day), he’d have to marry him later today. “You’ve already tuned me out, haven’t you?” Rosenberg asked. It wasn’t accusatory, just weary. “Am I going to drop dead of an aneurysm or not?” “I don’t know. You could live until one hundred or die in sixty seconds; there are limits to adaptation. That’s why I want to get you into Willow Creek and scan the shit out of you.” He got out of bed, taking a moment to steady himself, and then hauled the IV stand across the room with him as he walked to the bag of clothes. Yeah, he was wearing a stupid paper gown and his ass was hanging out, but Rosenberg had pretty much seen every inch of him so it didn’t matter. As he stepped into his jeans, he told her, “I have a case to finish. Once I’m done… fine, Willow Creek. But only to find out how much of me is still Human.” “Don’t be an asshole. You’re Human.” “Yeah, a Human who can change into a lion and stop his own aneurysms.” “Speculation on my part,” she replied archly. “Don’t go on a selfpity trip.” He ripped off the paper gown and tossed it aside before pulling on his shirt. “Holy hell, when did you get so many tattoos?” “A weird side effect of my self-pity trips. What did you say to Dylan? He looked upset.” Here she paused, long enough for him to feel a warning spasm in his gut. What had she said? “I might have mentioned the thing about not knowing if you were all right or on the precipice.”
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“So he thinks I could drop dead any minute. Terrific. Did you have to scare my boyfriend? Was it emotional blackmail to get me into Willow Creek?” He got the evil scowl again, but probably for a good reason. Doctor Rosenberg could be a huge pain in his ass, but she usually wasn’t that manipulative. “I was thinking aloud. I’m worried about you, you stupid prick. And I’m not alone.” He had to give her that. He was kind of worried too. In theory, this should have been good news. Maybe he wasn’t about to drop dead, maybe his head wasn’t going to implode. So why didn’t it feel like good news?
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14 Diamond Dogs ROAN pulled out his IV and then excused himself to sneak into the bathroom, mainly because he had to take a piss, but he also wanted to have a look at himself in the mirror. He held a wad of toilet paper to the IV exit wound until he forced a minor change, and got the skin to heal up enough that he didn’t have to worry about it. Yeah, his beard was way too thick, and frankly it made him look a bit crazier than usual. But the worst part was his eyes. His blood vessels had healed, so his eyes were normal white, shot through with a couple of typical red capillaries. They looked fine, normal, except he knew they weren’t. His eyes were a lie, hiding a nature that was inhuman and inconstant. “Stop being such a freak, freak,” he muttered to himself, quietly so no one else heard and had him committed. When he stepped out, Doctor Rosenberg had gone, and Dylan and Tank were back. It was like an odd version of visitor musical chairs, except no one was sitting. Dylan did have the now-empty tote bag slung over his shoulder, though, and Tank was holding the flowers. “Ready to go?” Dylan asked, trying to be chipper. He nodded. “I’m starving. Can we stop somewhere on the way home?” “Of course. What do you feel like?” “Good question.” Roan held out his hand toward Tank, and he handed him the bouquet. Roan took the beer out, and handed it to Tank. “Hold on to that for me ’til we’re out of the hospital, okay?” “Sure.” Dylan eyed it in shock. “You brought him a beer?” “He likes beer.” “I like beer,” Roan echoed with a nod. Dylan rolled his eyes and shook his head, and as they headed out into the hall, he asked Tank, “Is he a member of the team now? Did I miss a press conference?”
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“He’s an honorary member,” Tank told him, struggling with the pronunciation of “honorary” for a moment. That was a hard word for those with pronounced French accents. “We expect him to jump on the ice and participate if there’s ever a bench-clearing brawl.” They were walking down the hall, more or less shoulder to shoulder, but Roan could tell Dylan wasn’t overly pleased with this. “Do you expect any?” “No, but it is hockey, so it could happen. And I hope it happens when we’re playing the Wheat Kings. I’d love to unleash Roan on this center, Constantin Bourdin. He thinks he’s Sidney Crosby, but the only thing he has in common with him is whining like a little puss. He needs to be beaten like a piñata full of Krugerrands.” That made Roan stop to laugh, and it was one of those overwhelming, hard laughs that almost paralyzes you. It took him a moment to get himself under control, to find Dylan and Tank waiting for him, Dylan looking mildly concerned and Tank faintly, absently smiling. “That is the best metaphor I have ever heard. Can I use that?” “Knock yourself out.” “Awesome.” He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, and as they started down the hall again, he held out the flowers toward a passing nurse. “Can you give these to someone who needs them?” The nurse started at them and then him, but after a moment seemed to recognize him. “Oh, Roan, sure.” She took the flowers and moved on down the hall. “Who was that?” Dylan wondered. Roan shrugged. “No idea.” Dee seemed to know so many nurses and paramedics, Roan just assumed they knew him until it was obvious they didn’t. They said good-bye to Tank in the parking lot, where he gave Roan the beer, and, much to his shock, a slightly clumsy hug. Roan patted him on the back and thanked him, letting him know he could visit him and bring him beer any time. As soon as he and Dylan were in the car, he opened the beer and took a swig and told Dylan, “I’m not going to drop dead any second, so you don’t have to worry about that. I’ve adapted.” Dylan gave him a steady gaze that Roan had learned to interpret as “What the fuck are you on about?” It was close enough. “What does that mean?”
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“Fuck if I know. Rosenberg told me I most likely had an aneurysm, but it stopped because I continue to adapt.” His mysterious anger returned, and he started to rant like a crazy person on a bus. Tears blurred his vision, but he wasn’t sure if they were sad or angry—probably both. “I’m gonna be the longest living infected ever. I’m gonna outlive them all, maybe as a human, maybe as a cat, maybe as a huge fucking bipedal virus—” Dylan cupped his cheek with his hand, and that’s all he did, but it startled him into silence. He then leaned over and kissed him softly on the forehead. “I love you, no matter what. You know that.” Roan rested his forehead against his and put a hand on his chest. Sweet man, one he didn’t deserve. “I’m sorry.” “For what?” “The insanity that is my life. Me.” “Hey, I signed up for this ride. I knew from past experience that sexy men were always trouble, and it wasn’t like your reputation didn’t precede you. I have no one to blame but myself.” “You think I’m sexy?” “Don’t fish for compliments.” He gave Roan another kiss, then sat back in the driver’s seat. As he put the keys in the ignition, he asked, “You’re one hundred percent certain that Tank is straight?” “What are you implying?” He took another swig of the beer. If it was this good warm, it must have been a thousand times better cold. He looked at the label, but alas, it was in French. It had a picture of a sword and shield on it, though. What the hell was it, Gladiator Beer? (Motto: “For Those About To Die, We Beer You.”) Dylan shrugged a single shoulder and shook his head, but as he started his car he just sat and stared at the windshield for a moment. “He’s fascinated by you. It’s definitely a man crush in one sense or another.” “At least it’s mutual.” Dylan raised an eyebrow at that. “C’mon, he’s fucking cool. Anyone who can catch a thrown bottle before it smashes me in the face and stop a fight simply by scaring the shit out of the opponents is in my good books.” The surprised look turned alarmed. “He did what now?” He patted Dylan on the shoulder. “You should be glad he was there. When he does his intense crazy man act, no one wants to fight. They just want to run away and hide.” “The fact that he has an intense crazy man act is alarming.” “He’s a goalie. He’s gotta do something to defend himself.” “They have big sticks.”
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“If they hit someone with it, they’re penalized.” “Oh. Is it because they could decapitate someone?” Roan shrugged. “No idea. But you’d think.” Once they were on the road, Roan turned on the radio, which was on one of the alternative stations (ah, Western Washington—there were a couple of “alternative” stations, but what it was the alternative to he had no idea), and they were playing Modest Mouse. When he heard the line “It coulda been, shoulda been worse than you will ever know—” he almost laughed. That was his medical diagnosis for the day. They discussed where they’d stop for a bite to eat, and they decided on a nearby bakery, as Roan felt like sugar. He also asked Dylan if he’d found out about all that domestic partnership registry bullshit, and he said he had, which was good, as Roan figured they’d need to get that done before he disappeared into Willow Creek to be scanned within an inch of his life, in case something went wrong or the CDC decided to lock him up as a public menace. Dylan hadn’t brought Roan's cell phone, but he’d brought his own, so he borrowed it to call Holden. Dylan was off at the glass-topped counter, ordering pastries and a green tea, while Roan sat at one of the tiny corner tables, feeling as gay as he had ever felt. Even when he married Paris, he didn’t feel this gay. It was probably all the lace tablecloths and the delft teapots with flowers on them. He suddenly wanted to camp it up like Pat Robertson was in the room. He fought back the urge and called Holden (the gay hustler—well, this was a pretty fucking gay thing to do). The phone rang four times, and he thought he was going to get shunted to his call messaging when he finally picked up. “Hey, Roan, I was gonna visit you later,” he said, sounding slightly breathless. “Did I interrupt something?” He felt intensely weird calling during one of Holden’s “dates.” It seemed like a grotesque invasion of privacy that he wanted no part of, even from a distance. “No, I was just doing my crunches,” Holden said, audibly taking a drink. “Hundred a day. Can’t get six pack abs, but I still have to work to keep the flab away. It’s fucking unfair.” Roan grunted an affirmative. As much as he found flat stomachs sexy, he actually felt working toward them was too much bother and not worth it. Which was why he’d probably lucked out in having his wonky metabolism, which sometimes made it difficult to keep weight on (especially when he transformed all the time). But wasn’t he just partially hospitalized for undernourishment, even though he’d eaten a whole pizza?
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It was a fucked-up world, and he couldn’t see eating like Mr. Creosote just to keep the pounds on. Life was too short (more in some cases than others), and frankly, he probably didn’t have the budget for it. If only being a superhero paid. “I was afraid you’d gone to meet snuff guy without me.” “Oh hell no. I’m just bait, the sidekick who gets kidnapped and has to be rescued. You’re the macho hero who rides in and kicks ass.” “Says the guy who stabbed the two asshats who assaulted him.” “I never said I was completely helpless. I’m just not the demolition man that you are.” “Ha.” “So you out?” He could only mean out of the hospital, as he’d been out forever. “Yeah. It wasn’t bad as it could have been, I just pushed myself too hard.” “Wow, that’s new,” he replied sarcastically. “Don’t you start.” Dylan came to the table, bearing a tray of pastries and a cup of mango-scented green tea. Roan gave him a nod of thanks and reached for the gooiest pastry, the one coated in what looked like chocolate icing with almost tarlike consistency. Of course, nothing here was a doughnut, everything had a French or Italian name, but damn it, it was a doughnut under an assumed name. He took a bite and enjoyed a minute of sugar-coated bliss. Here were those ten thousand calories that Rosenberg wanted him to eat in a single pastry. “Snuff guy hasn’t gotten back to me yet,” Holden admitted, with a disappointed sigh. “I don’t know if I’m not the type he was looking for, too professional, or too old.” “Old? Come on, you’re not old.” “Yeah, I am. In hooker years, I’m like eighty. So I’m trying to get someone else in on this. I’m thinking Phoenix will be up for it. He’s a tough kid. He did a gig or two with Coyote so he’s good for the revenge angle, and he’s twenty-three but looks seventeen, so I can’t see them ignoring this bait.” Roan scowled down at the neat lace tablecloth. He didn’t like exposing someone he didn’t know to a bunch of murderous assholes. He didn’t feel good exposing Holden to them either, but at least he took some consolation in the fact that Holden was a much harder target than he looked. He could play up his lisp and seem super-harmless, but people really had to not be paying attention to the look in his eyes, which was
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hooker hard and merciless. Everything had a price. “We don’t even have a workable plan. How can you bring someone else into this?” He was careful not to look at Dylan, as he knew the look Dylan would be giving him. “I don’t like it either, but letting them get away is not an option.” Well, he had to give him that. They’d killed three people that they knew about—who knew how many more that hadn’t been found? If they’d found one body for every two killed (a low estimate), that still put the body count at six. “Oh, there was something I wanted to show you. You on your phone?” “I’m on Dylan’s phone.” “Web enabled?” He checked. “Looks like it. Why?” “I’m gonna send you a screen capture. I’ve been trying to comb through the films, trying to spot any recognizable faces. I’ve heard from a couple of girls working the street that Ebony has just dropped off the map, so I’ve been looking for her, and I noticed this kid and he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I thought you might know him.” “Send it on.” He did, although it took a minute, and the screen cap wasn’t the greatest. (Although he didn’t blame Holden for that; the snuff filmmakers were clearly using bargain basement cameras and often lit things so the faces of the participants weren’t visible.) But he could make out what was essentially a profile shot of a kid—teenager, or someone in their early twenties—with close cropped black hair and a pointy sweep of bangs that almost made him look like an anime character. But what gave him away was his strong chin—not square but heavy, strangely rugged on such a young man. Roan felt a shock down to his toes, and the pastry turned to cement in his gut. Why did things always get worse? Was he cursed? That was it, wasn’t it? Some angry anti-cat hetero cursed him to have a life full of drama. If he believed in any sort of god, he’d have happily blamed it. “Was he a participant or a victim?” he finally asked Holden. “Participant, at least in the film I caught him in. Why? Who is he?” He rubbed his eyes, wondering what he was going to do with this information. It was probably too late to save him. “It’s Jordan Hatcher, the boy I was hired to find.” The question was, how did he get mixed up in this? And how much did his father know?
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15 Wish ROAN wouldn’t have minded talking to Hatcher this time, but of course he got the bastard’s answering machine instead. He ended up calling him three times that day, only to get nothing but machine. Was he off on holiday or something? No client technically had to let him know when they were jaunting off to Vegas, but it was common courtesy, especially if you were looking for their son. But he was wondering a lot about Hatcher right now. When they got home from the bakery, he checked his e-mail, and while almost thoroughly entranced by the spam message with the header “Become a porkmaster general” (there was the new title of his autobiography, displacing Tanning Salon Pervert), he realized Luis had emailed him. It was a very simple e-mail, with only a name in the message: Sander Lewis. The man Dylan got into a fight with at Panic, the one who seemed to have baited him for unknown but possibly sinister reasons. He called Kevin, but got his machine. (Was it his day for machines?) He asked him to run this guy through the system, see if he had a record or if he could in any way be connected to Charles Crosby, the guy who tried to stab him in Panic. It was a long shot in theory, but he was beginning to sense a pattern. He wished whoever was after him would show themselves, make themselves known, but that was the strategy, wasn’t it? They knew they couldn’t take him on directly, so they hid. It was a good strategy, but already it was starting to unravel. He took phone calls from a concerned Fiona and Dropkick, assured them he was okay, and while he was itching to get out and do a bit more pavement pounding, he backed off for Dylan’s sake. He wanted Roan to take it easy, so, damn it, he supposed he owed him that much. He shaved off his beard (God, that was a relief), caught up on some backed-up television, and made spaghetti for dinner, as he could make spaghetti without fucking it up too much. By this time, he got a call back from Kevin. He couldn’t officially link him with Crosby, but Lewis was
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definitely known in the system. He had done time for assault in Idaho and had a handful of arrests for various minor things, from public drunkenness to disturbing the peace to vandalism. He was what Kevin called a “little shit,” a guy who would probably spend his life in and out of the system, but most likely never for anything major unless he escalated. Right now, he just appeared to be a middle-echelon douchebag. Maybe that should have been reassuring, but it wasn’t. Hadn’t Crosby done time for assault too? He asked Kevin to double check where they had done time, but no, they’d done time in different states—Crosby in California and Lewis in Idaho. Still, wasn’t that odd? Two men, known for their violence, attack him and Dylan on different days in the same place. There was something off about this, but he couldn’t nail it down, couldn’t name the equation that would make this make sense. Dylan’s black eye was getting better too; the bruise had mellowed to a reddish color with undertones of green and yellow, which Dylan described as a “fruit salad throwing up on my face.” Roan assured him that all black eyes seemed to go through that phase, as he was intimately familiar with black eyes (and an entire variety of bruises, contusions, and cuts). At least it didn’t hurt as much as it had before. While Dylan did his yoga, Roan worked the heavy bag in his office, challenging himself with two tasks: not to knock the damn thing off the chain rig, and not to let the lion out the least little bit. Dylan said next time he’d work the heavy bag if Roan did the yoga. He agreed but wasn’t serious. They had time to discuss over dinner whether or not they should tell anybody about the domestic partnership bullshit. It wasn’t like they were getting married or anything—it was just for legal purposes. It was a business transaction, more or less, a relationship boiled down to its most base form: I have stuff, you may share my stuff, a judge can’t say you can’t have my stuff if I die. That’s all marriage was too, even if the fundies wouldn’t admit it. (Nope, nothing to do with having kids either; marriage was, at its root, a way of inheriting real estate, and no born-again could obliterate its capitalist foundation if they tried.) He didn’t think it mattered one way or another. Dylan figured they could probably tell close friends without making a big deal about it, but then he wondered if anyone would try to get them a gift and how awkward that would be. Although stuff was always nice, neither of them actually wanted to deal with the bullshit of a “fake wedding” present. And although neither intended to dress up for what was basically going to a government office to sign papers, Dylan still made him promise he wouldn’t wear his “Stabby McKnife” T-shirt (the
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one that had a cartoon knife with feet happily exclaiming “Hey Kids! Put me in your enemies!”) or his Murder City Devils one. Dylan would have preferred all his rock T-shirts stay at home, but he realized some of those were the least silly ones Roan had. Oddly enough, while they were watching Doctor Who, Dylan apologized for “freaking out and running off.” Roan tried to stop him, but he insisted he had to say it. He also added that he was deeply ashamed that Roan had honestly scared the shit out of him in his partially transformed state. Although it made his heart hurt a little to hear it, he had to give Dylan credit for being brave enough to say it. He got very Buddhist on him by saying, “But it’s you. I don’t care if you’re fully transformed, it’s still you, and I have to be mature enough to see that. You are not the shape of your body. You are you, with or without fur. It’s up to me to ignore the outer shell and just see who you are.” He picked up Dylan’s tea mug and sniffed it. “LSD or ’shrooms?” “Don’t try and make a joke out of this. I’m being profound here.” “Profoundly full of shit?” Luckily, he’d said this just right, and Dylan laughed, giving him a gentle elbow in the ribs for being a jerk. But Dylan had no idea how close he’d come to poking him in what was for him a profound identity issue: was there a difference between him and the lion? He felt like there was when he was actually wrestling with the beast, but other times he wasn’t sure. He was the lion and the lion was him, and they all lived together in a yellow submarine, or some bullshit like that. He didn’t know. He wasn’t even considering the virus in this, but maybe he should have, especially considering how the virus was altering him. (Or was he altering the virus? Fuck it, he wasn’t stoned enough to contemplate this.) It was a peaceful night, kind of boring, and it ended with them watching the Colbert Report in bed. Dylan nodded off, half propped up against him, and Roan held him for a while, stroking his soft hair (always fun—how come his hair was always so silky? He must have been born with it), trying to imagine what it must have been like to be a perfectly normal person dating a person like him. He couldn’t do it. He could barely live with himself as is. Imagining himself as genuinely normal was a bridge too far. Very carefully, he slid out of bed without waking Dylan up and went to do some work on the computer. He’d slept for about a day and just wasn’t tired.
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The fact that Hatcher hadn’t gotten back to him about the owner of the server shouldn’t have struck him as suspicious, because Hatcher was just the type of asshole who would have given him a phony name rather than nothing at all and risk him using alternate channels if he was up to something. But Jordan being found on a website he clearly used often? That meant something. Did Jordan seek out the site location? How could he have known it was in Washington? There was no clue to location—a basement is a basement, whether in Berlin or Bellingham. Unless Jordan recognized someone in a clip. Or investigated the site himself? How good were his computer skills? Even if he was only half as good as his dad, that put him years ahead of most people. Had Jordan discovered the location, and then when he discovered Brittney and Darren were fucking around on him, did he run off to join the snuff circus? It sounded slightly implausible, and yet, teenage boy? Definitely could have done something that stupid. Even as a teenager he might have done something that dumb, and he’d been a total nerd. All teenagers were stupid, but there was something about having a Y chromosome that added an extra level of danger to the mix, a layer of self-destruction and total immolation that most females might actually pull back from. He went back to the flash drive Hatcher had given him when he hired him and combed through the info again. What had he missed? He was suddenly certain there was something vital here that both he and Hatcher had missed. The telephone plea from Jordan took on a chilling new significance. Did he decide he couldn’t murder someone or just didn’t like it? Either way, he didn’t think there was any quitting a snuff film set when the snuff films were genuine and you knew who the bodies were, if not where they were buried. Would they be stupid enough to kill Hatcher’s son and film it? If Jordan was dead, he kind of hoped so, just so there was ample evidence that these fuckheads deserved everything that was coming to them. The house was dark because it was late, with only the lights outside on and the glow from the computer monitor not visible, which probably made the house a nice target. Only because he wasn’t listening to anything on the computer or his iPod did Roan hear what happened. It was a gentle noise really, glass breaking from a distance and a strange, soft “whoomp.” But the smell hit his sensitive nose almost instantly: grain alcohol, gasoline, fire. He was on his feet and headed for the window when he heard a loud pop outside and a more immediate noise of shattering glass. A glance through the blinds showed a brief flash of
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muzzle fire before glass shattered again. Someone across the road, firing a gun at his house. Flames were boiling on the porch, small now but impressively bright. He shook Dylan awake, and gave him the telephone handset. “Call 9-1-1. Someone’s thrown a Molotov cocktail at the house, and now they’re shooting at it.” “What?” he asked, muzzy but awake enough to be startled. Another booming gunshot—rifle? Definitely rifle—woke him up even more, and he sat up straight. “You’re serious?” “Sadly.” As he darted out the bedroom door, Dylan called out, “Where are you going?” “To shove that rifle up his ass.” He ran down the stairs and went out the back door into the backyard, which was eerily peaceful, although smoke and gunpowder tainted the air, giving it a sharp tang. He hopped the fence and crept around the side of the house, letting the lion come out enough to give him everything he needed: better night vision, sharper senses, power infusing his limbs as his muscles twitched and hardened, changing shape and flooding him with adrenaline to counter the pain. He could already taste blood in his mouth. The asshole was in a Ford pickup, a beater that wasn’t a rental. Part of him that was still Human enough marveled at the stupidity, but maybe he thought they were gone, or so deeply asleep that even this wouldn’t wake them in time to catch a glimpse of the truck or the plate. Roan made no mental note of the plate because the lion wasn’t any good at number recall, and besides, he wasn’t letting him get away. The guy must have realized he had pressed his luck, because he stomped on the gas and wrenched the steering wheel, pulling him off the soft shoulder with a squeal of burning rubber. But Roan was already running, across the lawn and onto the edge of the road, and that’s where he lunged, jumping for the truck as it did a Uturn and started back the way it had come. He landed feet first in the flatbed, with a big enough noise that the driver turned, startled, and glanced out the window in time for Roan to kick it in, sending safety glass flying around the cabin. The man fishtailed the truck but Roan hung on, a growl in his throat as the man tried to swing his rifle around one handed, and Roan grabbed the stock and made the man eat it, smashing it brutally into his face. His nose snapped and blood spurted as he let out an aborted cry of pain and the truck slewed off the
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road, slamming into a thick tangle of blackberry bushes as tall as the truck itself. If Roan had been standing, he might have been thrown forward off the truck, except he was already wedged in the window, trying to crawl into the cab. The man had realized the danger as soon as he was unable to yank the rifle out of Roan’s hand, and once the truck came to a jolting halt, he blindly scrabbled for the door handle and all but fell out of his truck. He attempted to run, but Roan quickly pulled out of the cab and pounced on him with an angry roar, tackling him and throwing him to the gravel berm. He was a nothing man, doughy, with thinning brown hair on an almost comically round scalp, a full face that probably turned beet red when he was drunk, an anonymous sack of meat in a world full of anonymous sacks of meat, cigarette-smelling dirtbag. He could have been anywhere between thirty and forty, with fifty ruled out simply because he wouldn’t have been physically capable of doing this. He struggled and attempted to pull out a handgun, but Roan grabbed his wrist and with a simple squeeze crushed all the tiny bones in it; he could feel them popping under the skin like bubble wrap. Now the man screamed, and since he was on his back, partially choked on his own blood from his broken nose. Roan meant to question him, ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing, but all that came out was a loud roar, and the dirtbag squirmed beneath him, trying to both buck him off and avoid the blood dribbling from Roan’s mouth, but Roan had his knees dug firmly into his ribs, pressing his full weight into the base of his spine and his pelvis. “Freak motherfucking faggot get offa me!” the dirtbag shouted, and the several words almost blurred into one. The fear stink coming off of him almost blended in with the gasoline. Roan concentrated until he could speak, but he still did so while growling, unable to suppress that much rage. “I should infect you,” he snarled, the words like gravel in his mouth. The man’s eyes widened in fear, bloodshot blue, as pale as a smog-choked sky. “Make you what you hate.” “N-no—” “You come to my house, attack me at my house, attack my boyfriend—” The growl drowned out the final words, so he had to have a second pass. “—you better hope the cops show up before I rip your throat out.” He let the blood dripping from his mouth splash dangerously close to
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the sluice of blood from the man’s broken nose, the one currently pouring into his mouth, and he continued to writhe, trying to get away from Roan but unable to. He gave off a strong scent of urine as he pissed himself. “Roan, get off him,” Dylan said. Roan heard his footsteps slapping the asphalt as he walked up the street. “No.” “Get off him so I can get a clear shot,” he said, and Roan looked up to see Dylan standing there, still dressed in nothing but his boxer shorts, but now aiming Roan’s Sig Sauer down at them. This surprised Roan enough that the growling died down in his throat. Dylan pulled back the slide casually, as if he’d been handling guns all his life, racking a bullet in the chamber, and Roan recalled that Dylan had fled to Buddhism for peace away from his own violent tendencies. He was a cop’s son—he knew how to handle guns. And the look in his black eyes was one he’d never seen before, hot and hard as slivers of volcanic rock, burning like they were going to destroy the world. He came closer, aiming the gun down at the man beneath him. “If I kill you, will you finally leave us the fuck alone?” he asked, his voice low and cold. “Is death the only thing that stops your kind?” The man’s eyes had a wild look, like a cornered animal, and he still kept squirming, trying to get out from under Roan. “Get him offa me.” Dylan knelt down, and planted the gun barrel on his forehead. The man instantly fell still, his eyes as wide and shiny as new silver dollars. “A plea for mercy? Really? Oh yeah, I’m a fag. I’m supposed to be wimpy and let you off, huh? Piece of shit motherfucker, you won’t leave him alone, will you? You won’t be happy until he’s dead. I’ll kill you first.” This startled Roan enough that he came back to himself a bit more. “Dyl,” he said without growling, even though his jaw didn’t feel quite right. “I’ve got him. It’s okay.” “It’s not okay. He tried to burn down our house. These fuckers aren’t going to leave you alone.” The police siren he thought he heard moments before was now growing louder, as was the even-louder fire engine siren. He watched a muscle in Dylan’s jaw jump, saw the slightest tremor in his arm as he tried to get a hold of his own voluminous rage. Roan thought he had a corner on the market? Not at all. “It’s my gun. I’m licensed to carry it. Give it to me before the cops get here.”
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“I really want to kill him,” Dylan admitted, half-angry, halfdespairing. Not a threat, but a simple statement of fact. This was when the guy shit himself; Roan could, sadly, smell it. “Why don’t they leave you alone?” He had managed to shove the lion almost completely down now. Everybody had a breaking point, and it was kind of startling to learn that he was Dylan’s. “Because they don’t. But we have to be stronger than they are. Hon, give me the gun.” Dylan’s arm was really trembling now, and it seemed he was fighting himself not to pull the trigger. Unshed tears made his eyes glisten. Roan gently put his hand on Dylan’s and slipped it around the gun. The sirens were almost on top of them. Dylan slid his hand out from under his, ceding the gun to Roan, but as he stood up he kicked the guy in the side of the head just as tires crunched gravel behind them. “This the moron?” A familiar voice, dripping with cop authority, asked. It was Thompson, and Roan figured he should be glad it was a cop he knew. The lion was gone from his face; he felt it. He wiped the blood off his mouth and stood up, tucking the gun in the back of his sweatpants (the only clothes he was wearing; he’d almost forgotten he was barefoot until he stepped on a sharp piece of gravel). “He threw a Molotov cocktail on my front porch and then fired several rounds into my house, breaking windows. The rifle’s in the truck.” “How smart was that?” Thompson asked, looming over the man. He already had his cuffs out, but hadn’t bothered with drawing his weapon, maybe because he saw how injured the man already was. He flipped him over onto his stomach and pulled his hands behind his back. “Fuckin’ with Batman at his own house. Man, you’re just askin’ to get your ass beat.” “He isn’t Human!” the guy yelled, the police being here actually giving him his courage back. “He couldn’t’ve reached my truck, but he did! And that faggot put a gun to my head! He—” “You have the right to remain silent,” Thompson interjected, firmly and loudly. “I suggest you start usin’ it right now, dumbass.” The fire truck roared up, but it was unnecessary, because he could see for himself the fire was out and could smell water in the gasoline smoke. Dylan must have put out the blaze with the garden hose before joining them with the gun.
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Roan turned to see Dylan with his back to all of them, his posture unnaturally rigid. Roan went up to him and took him in his arms. “Dylan—” He turned and clung to Roan desperately, burying his face in the side of his neck. Roan felt tears on his skin. “What did I almost do?” he asked, sounding like he was in agony. “It’s okay,” he reassured him, stroking his neck. But it wasn’t, although not for the reason Dylan would have guessed. Roan had never seen him so angry. And while he was sure now he should get Dylan to leave him for the sake of his own mental health, Roan was also fairly sure he couldn’t possibly love him more. What did you do with a dichotomy like that?
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16 Bride of the Elephant Man IT WAS probably a good thing he wasn’t tired, as there was no sleep that night. They gave their statements to the cops, and the firemen made sure the fire was indeed out. Roan saw for himself that the damage to the porch was slightly worse than he’d thought. The entire door was charred, the paint blistered on the jamb where it wasn’t burned, and the pine near the front door had several branches burned to black stumps, needles curled in on themselves. He told Dylan they’d have to hit Lowes in the morning and get themselves a new door. He was trying to distract Dylan, who was still miserable and now shivering in spite of the blanket a kind fireman gave him to drape over his shoulders. Roan sat with him against the side of his car, arm around his shoulders, occasionally whispering encouragement to him or just giving him a quick, surreptitious kiss. He wasn’t a fan of public displays of affection (straight or gay—he’d been tailing cheating spouses too long to have any romantic notions left), but he sensed that Dylan needed it right now, the reassurance and the comfort. He was cold, too, but didn’t care. The cops, as he guessed (especially since it was Thompson and Bragg as the arresting officers), ignored everything the guy ranted about before shoving him in the back of the prowler. It was an open and shut case of asshattery, what with the rifle and the gasoline can in the front cab of the truck and his constant ranting references to “faggots” and “freaks” and “abominations” (all guaranteed to get you viewed as the crazy asshole they arrested about seven times a day), and Thompson just ignored him until suddenly he told him to call Fox News and walked away from the patrol car, shaking his head in disgust. “I know I can’t treat ’em differently, but I hate that shit.” “What shit?” Roan didn’t think it was anything the perp said, as he hadn’t changed his tune (second verse, same as the first), but he doubted the basic injustice of this harassment was getting to Thompson now (especially since he still insisted on calling him Batman).
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“He’s got a swastika tat,” he said and slapped his upper arm, where the tattoo presumably was. And that little bit of information sent his synapses firing. Swastika tattoo? And Sander Lewis did time in Idaho, home of the Aryan Nation compound? “Oh holy fuck,” he exclaimed. “They’re white supremacists.” Thompson snorted. “Nazis? Yeah.” “No. These guys who have been harassing me? That’s the connecting thread. They’re white supremacists.” And he hoped the fact that two black police officers had arrested that bastard was making him choke on his own bile. Thompson smirked faintly. “They know you’re white, right?” “I’m gay and infected. Both of those things—infected edging out gay—make me a pariah to them. I’m honorarily not white.” “Lucky you.” Thompson then edged closer and indicated Dylan without pointing at him. “Ain’t he Mexican?” he whispered. “Mixed.” “Could they be after him?” He shook his head and filled Thompson in on everything, starting from the attempted stabbing incident in Panic to the guy getting in a fight with Dylan to now. Thompson listened with an ever-deepening frown and finally said, “Maybe you should talk to Chief Matthews. If you’re really being targeted, you might be able to get some protection.” He meant police protection, which ran the gamut from random prowler patrols to a marked car sitting outside his house for several hours each day. He honestly didn’t like either idea but said, “Yeah, maybe I should talk to her.” He didn’t need protection. But Dylan? He was worried about Dylan. He’d resent being tailed by the cops, though, being protected. He may have been a cop’s son, but his father did murder his mother—he had no great love of cops. He decided not to worry about it at the moment. As Thompson and Bragg drove off with the offending neo-Nazi and the fire truck following in short order, he wondered why a bunch of racist fuckheads would suddenly take up a campaign of arms against him. Hate him, sure, but actively try and hurt him? Why after all this time? He asked Dylan if he wanted to go somewhere else and spend the night, go to a hotel, and he angrily refused, saying those fucks weren’t scaring them out of their home. Which was good, as that was the response Roan was hoping to hear.
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Dylan was still in a kind of shell-shocked mood, stunned by his own rage, so Roan just talked to him, trying to reassure him, and held him. He wasn’t even sure what he was saying half the time, but he was pretty sure Dylan wasn’t paying attention either. Eventually Dylan fell asleep, as the sky was starting to shade to a paler violet, and Roan stared at the ceiling and wondered. He was accustomed to someone out there—some person, unknown to him or known—wanting to kill him at all times. He knew the hate was out there, he knew it occasionally manifested, and he knew some of that hate wasn’t even personal. He became a symbol, a representative of every single infected who walked the earth, everything that was wrong with the world and his kind, his sub-human kind. Some people who might consider killing him, or might actually try and kill him, didn’t know him at all; he was just a handy target. He'd accepted that when he first joined the police force and would get anonymous phoned-in death threats, find notes shoved in his locker promising to skin him alive. He had long ago made peace with it, with the fact that his death could be sudden and at the hands of a stranger, and now more than ever was confident in his ability to beat them back (because the haters were ironically kind of right—no, he wasn’t totally Human, and yes, that should really bother them). But was it fair to drag a civilian into this? At least Paris hadn’t been a civilian; he’d been an infected too, knew all about the fear, revulsion, and weirdly homicidal hatred that a medical condition (as alien as it was) could cause. But Dylan? This kind of hatred was new to him, and he didn’t deserve to be subjected to it. But how did he send him away? When he was sure he wouldn’t wake him up, Roan slid out from beneath him and went downstairs to check out the damage the fuck had done with his rifle. Glass would have to be replaced, and he’d have to spackle and repaint a couple of walls, but he’d probably be able to get money for the windows from the crime victims fund, and it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The Modest Mouse song came and went through his brain again, and he realized he was starting to acquire a skill for dodging bullets, both literal and metaphorical. He had some toast, popped a codeine, and checked his phone messages, glad he’d turned the ringer off when they went to bed, because his call messaging box was full. He deleted all the messages from reporters wanting statements and saved messages of concern from Gordo, Seb, and Dropkick, all of which were recent. Dropkick probably put it best when she asked, “Fuck Angus, whose corn flakes did you piss in?” He wished he knew. He might take it back. He considered going out to the hardware store and getting what he
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needed to sheet up the windows (temporarily), fix the walls, maybe buy another small tree to put near the door, but he realized he didn’t want to leave Dylan alone. After thinking about it for a few minutes—would he really opt for police protection? Even though Dylan would loathe it?—he called another number. With a yawn, Scott answered, “You do know what time it is, don’t cha?” “Need a favor.” “More tough guy work?” “Yeah.” He then told Scott what had transpired late last night, and soon he heard him covering the mouthpiece of the phone and repeating parts of it to Grey in the background, who went from sounding barely conscious to deeply unhappy in the space of a couple of minutes. He told Scott he needed some guys here to just kick back and keep an ear out for trouble while he was gone—and it might be work he needed on and off for the next couple of days. “Good thing for you we’re out of the playoffs,” Scott replied and said they’d be there as soon as they got dressed. That turned out to be in about ten minutes. Grey and Scott both came over and marveled at the damage done to the front of the house, which looked even worse in daylight. “Tell me you killed him,” Grey said. “No. But Dylan almost did, so maybe that counts.” They said Tank was on his way—it seemed he got laid last night (good for him) and nobody knew where he was, but he'd finally answered his cell phone—and while Richie was too hung over to be of much good, they'd left Jeff a message on his cell. Grey and Scott were discussing whether to bring Troy in on this, a “benchwarmer,” a guy who was on the team but played so little Roan couldn’t remember ever having seen him, but they described him as an “old school bruiser,” which was presumably good for guard duty. Roan wasn’t sure they needed so many guys (at least not yet), but Scott, acting in full captain mode, said it was good to have enough guys so anyone could fill in at a moment’s notice. Seemed weird, but wasn’t it weird to have a hockey team protecting your boyfriend? So he agreed the idea was sound. He asked them to be quiet and not wake up Dylan, and then asked that they call Gordon instantly (he gave them his cell number) if any trouble started. They agreed, but Grey did so with a kind of unsettling smirk, a kind that said “I’ll call the police as soon as I’ve beaten them into a chunky red smear.” Which was fine with him; Grey had already beaten one of the Aryan Moronhood before, and round two was unlikely to have a different outcome.
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He left them going through his DVD library and arguing over what they wanted to watch (Scott wanted to see Slap Shot, Grey wanted to see The Venture Brothers, and both volunteered disappointment at not finding gay porn, but Scott joked you always kept your “porn drawer” out of the living room—making him wonder if Scott had just given away where his porn was, and if his porn was all straight, which he doubted). Although you’d think watching TV would keep them distracted from guard duty, Roan didn’t see the problem—these guys loved to fight. They wouldn’t give up an opportunity through inattention. As he was leaving, he wondered why he should trust them, as really they were just acquaintances (and Scott had come on to him pretty hard—in fact, kissing him probably went over the “come-on” line), but he did have the oddest feeling that at some point they’d all become good friends without realizing it. He still wasn’t sure how. Why a bunch of young (mostly) straight boy jocks wanted to be friends with him was still utterly baffling. (Except, of course, he was a “superhero,” wasn’t he? Some people may have seen that as pretty cool.) At the home improvement behemoth, he picked up all the stuff he needed, and in the paint section (just aisles and aisles of cans—did anyone need this many varieties of paint?) he found some paint on its own standalone shelving, apparently color “mis-mixed” paint being sold for five or ten dollars a can. He noticed one had a daub of paint on the lid (signifying the color inside) that was a kind of warm reddish-brown with a hint of orange. It looked almost exactly like that “Autumn Spice” color Paris had wanted to paint his office. He bet Dylan would like this color, and how would it look in the living room? So he grabbed it and added it to his cart. Why not? Try and use the disaster to make some improvements. He had just finished loading up his car when his cell went off. Checking it, he saw it was Gordo before he answered it. “Yeah?” “You need to come down to the church,” Gordo said, his voice sounding strained. “Divine Transformation. You need to see this. We may need you for crowd control.” Roan could hear sirens in the background, people talking in raised, stern voices. “What’s going on?” “You weren’t the only person targeted,” he said cryptically and broke the connection. Not a single bit of that sounded good. On his way to the scene, he put in a quick call to the house. Everything was fine, they were all watching the Venture Brothers, Tank had apparently arrived, and they were being careful to keep it down so
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they didn’t wake Dylan. He wondered if it was okay if Tank made some toast, and Roan told him to go ahead and help themselves to whatever, although he’d appreciate it if they left Dylan’s vegetarian stuff alone. As Roan expected, that got a big chuckle from Grey. (Yeah, like those big jock boys were vegetarians.) They were not so much bodyguards right now as babysitters, but he didn’t care. They would keep Dylan safe. One attacker might be able to get past one of them, but all three, including enforcer Grey and crazyass Tank? Never. Not unless they brought submachine guns, and that was more unlikely than someone bringing a rocket launcher to a knife fight. It turned out police cars had blocked off the street down to the Church of the Divine Transformation, so he had to double park in front of someone’s house on the next block and walk in, and even then he had to weave his way through clots of rubberneckers and reporters. Some of the reporters recognized him and asked if he knew what was going on, if he had any comment, if he knew anything about the shooter. That confirmed his worst fear before he got to the front line of the cordon. One of the cops on the other side of the sawhorse recognized him and waved him through as he slowly but surely saw the scene for himself. Crime scene tape blocked off most of the front yard, although an ambulance had backed up on the main lawn, blocking most of the view from the front end of the street. Roan could smell blood, death, and cordite, hear the buzz of bees and flies periodically drowned out by the crackle of police radios and the low discussions of paramedics and evidence technicians. Camera flashes burst through the open door of the house-turned-church, and in their brief light he could spot liquid dark splashes of what could only be blood in the foyer. Gordo and Seb were loitering near the side of the stairs leading up to the wraparound porch, and from the sheer number of other cops walking around, he assumed homicide was in charge of the investigation. While Gordo and Seb may have been the initially responding officers, when it became clear this wasn’t a “kitty crime,” they got shoved off. He walked up to them and didn’t even have to ask. Gordo started telling him. “A gunman came up to the door of the church at 7:38 this morning and started firing. He killed three and injured five before he was shot by the church’s part-time security guard. He’s en route to the hospital, but he was critical. He’s probably not gonna make it. There’s a possibility he’s a disgruntled cat or something, but after what we found in the front seat of his car, we don’t think so.” Seb had it, sealed in a see-through plastic evidence envelope. Even
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from here, he could see written in blocky, almost elementary-level letters on a scrap of white notepaper: ALL ABOMINATIONS MUST DIE. “I hate to say it, but you got lucky last night,” Gordo went on. “Or maybe you’re just so damn scary, that asshole couldn’t commit to trying to kill you face to face.” “You’d have ripped his face off,” Seb noted. “Maybe he was a smarter breed of idiot.” Roan nodded, slightly distracted. It could have been purely a coincidence, but he didn’t think so. He’d bet everything he had this guy would turn out to be a white supremacist too. So why had they declared war on infecteds? And why now?
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17 Spark BEFORE Gordo and Seb were given their walking papers to leave the scene, Roan heard a familiar voice arguing at the barricades and went to find Rainbow trying to get in. Roan got the cop to let her past, but he knew that was a mistake almost instantly, as he had to stop her from rushing up to the door. No one could go in right now. So Rainbow ended up clinging to him and sobbing until his shirt was soaked with snot and tears. He still felt bad for her, as he always felt bad for Rainbow. There was just something about her, about her naive sense of belief and peace, that made his cynical side shrink back and take a seat. She wasn’t a cynical opportunist or a teenager looking for a thrill or a spoiled brat looking to shock her parents by joining a religion they would disapprove of. She honestly believed this bullshit. She wanted to be a part of something bigger than herself, and as much as he wanted to begrudge her that, he couldn’t. It’s not something he would have chosen for himself—it wasn’t something he could completely understand—but there was no malice in this, no judgment of others; she just wanted to belong to something. And he had to give her that. Eventually, a female paramedic came over—he didn’t recognize her, but Roan got the sense she knew him—and led Rainbow away from him, giving her a sedative and sitting with her on the back bumper of an ambulance, extending as much comfort as a sympathetic ear could give. He wrung out his shirt as much as possible while still wearing it, and Gordo and Seb agreed to keep him in the loop. They also agreed to check out his white supremacist angle. When he got back to his car, he just sat there a few minutes, staring at nothing, wondering what bothered him the most about this. He wasn’t sure, to be brutally honest. He hated the church and all it stood for, but did he want some psychopath to murder them? No, of course not. But he did hate them. This was the very textbook definition of mixed feelings. He checked his phone, in case Grey had called to report they were under siege (or, more likely, Tank had beaten someone half to death with
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the coat rack), but it was only Fiona who had called him in the hour (had it really been that long?) he’d been at the church. She told him he might want to stop by, as she'd found something he might like to see. With Hatcher not answering his phone calls, he'd asked Fi, when she called to ask if he was okay, to look into the site for him. He sometimes forgot, but dominatrix wasn’t her first career. She used to work at Microsoft; she had some serious computer skills, only recently displaced by her whip-handling skills. She lived downtown, in a shabby chic apartment block known as Sunrise Terrace. She was on the third floor, in apartment 318, and as he knocked on the green-painted door, he realized this was the first time he’d ever seen where Fiona lived. That seemed like an awful oversight on his part. He heard a couple of locks being thrown before she opened the door and said, “Come in you—what the hell happened to your shirt?” “I got sobbed on.” She blinked at him for a moment. “Well, that’s not the worst thing I thought of.” He didn’t dare ask what that was. Fiona was dressed in a loose navy T-shirt advertising Aero Leather, black sweatpants, and orange Crocs, suggesting she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Her apartment was only a three-room one, but not too small, and over the scent of recently heated-up cinnamon rolls, he smelled a cat. “Um—” he began, but he didn’t have time to finish. “Don’t worry. I shut Mandy in the bedroom.” “Mandy’s your cat?” “She is indeed. I didn’t know if she’d freak out on you or what, so I thought it best we didn’t find out. Now who sobbed on you?” “Rainbow.” At her look, he was forced to explain. At least he got a chance to look around her place while talking. The combined living room/kitchen area wasn’t overly neat. It had a lived-in look, but the clutter was just low level enough to be homey. She had your typical good quality thrift store couch and coffee table, a TV on a stand (that was supposed to be a nightstand, but what difference did it make), and a bare bones Ikea desk where an Alienware computer setup dominated the surface, with an extra (?) hard drive stack on the floor beside the desk and small neon lights of red and blue flashing inside the rectangular metal tower. What appeared to be a Bose-style CD/MP3 player sitting on the kitchen counter was softly
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playing Tori Amos. A dominatrix who listened to Tori Amos? Oddly enough, that sounded about right. “You a gamer?” Alienware was mostly a gamer’s computer, or at least that was his impression. “Used to be. Rather than kill my ex, I killed trolls. But lately I haven’t had the time to game, and besides, I couldn’t give a shit about my ex anymore.” He assumed she meant her ex-husband, a person she didn’t talk about at any great length—she simply said “the ex” like he was a near-fatal disease she'd once caught. “Can I get you something? I have diet soda and tap water. Pick your poison.” “I’m okay. Thanks, though.” “What about another shirt?” “Better not. Dylan smells a woman on me, he’ll get crazy jealous.” That startled a short, sharp laugh out of her as she sat at her desk in front of the computer. She had a really nice desk chair there, high-backed padded leather, and that alone told him how much time she spent on the computer. “How are you doing, by the way?” she asked as her fingers flew over her sleek, ergonomically designed keyboard. “I felt bad about calling you, but after I found this out I felt you’d wanna know.” “I’m fine. It wasn’t the first time someone’s tried to kill me.” “He tried to burn down your house.” “He scorched my porch. Which almost sounds like a Dr. Seuss title.” “How’s Dylan?” “He was a little shaken up, but I think he’ll be okay. So what did you find?” She looked up, her tight red ponytail swishing back with authority. “Well, I looked around for the owner of the domain name of that snuff site, and I eventually discovered—through means that might not be legal—that it was bought by Visionics Limited.” He chewed that over for a moment. No, time wasn’t improving it. “What the fuck kind of name is that?” “I know. But it’s a shell company, a phony thing made up by Dermot Cook.” She paused and looked up at him dramatically, like that was supposed to mean something. “Who the hell’s Dermot Cook?” “Robert Hatcher’s original business partner. The two had a big falling out, and Hatcher bought out his share of the business a couple years ago.” “So the porn site is Cook’s new business?”
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“No, he’s dead.” “What?” She turned back to her computer and called up a Wikipedia page. “He died last year. Dropped dead of a heart attack on a treadmill. Can you imagine that? Dying in a gym while exercising? Fuck that. I’d rather die face first in a pie.” He was down with that, although he wasn’t a huge fan of pie. (Unless it was shepherd’s pie, then maybe.) “This is Wikipedia. You can’t trust—” She jumped ahead to the Seattle Times’s webpage and the huge obituary they ran for Cook. Okay, now he believed it. “He bought the domain name when?” “For the snuff site? Six months ago.” “From before he died?” “No, hon, six months ago.” Yeah, okay, that didn’t make sense. “Who’s the head of Visionics Limited now?” “No one. It’s a dummy corporation.” He knew Fiona wasn’t trying to be irritating, but this kind of was. Would it kill her to just spit it out? “Who’s in charge of Cook’s estate?” “No one.” Her blue eyes gazed back up at him expectantly, as if she was hoping he would make sense of all of this. “His family was gone, he was an only child, he never married or seemingly had a serious girlfriend. I think he was closeted gay or asexual. Anyways, his will stipulated that all his money be shared between six different charities.” “So the Visi-whatever the hell name is up for grabs.” “Technically, although not a lot of people know about it.” Roan considered this all carefully, feeling he was getting closer to something big and ugly. “Hatcher had to know about the shell corp.” She bit her lower lip in thought. She wasn’t wearing makeup right now, but she was still attractive in a warm, open way that you really wouldn’t anticipate from someone with a footlocker full of whips and nipple clamps. “You’d think so. But you don’t think the snuff site is his, do you? Why would he hire you if it was? He wouldn’t want this coming out.” “How would it? He hired me to look for Jordan, not for the owner of
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a snuff site.” A couple of things seemed to suddenly pop up in his mind, like corpses finally rising to the surface of a stagnant pond. “That’s why he’s been ducking my calls. He can’t find the owner of the site ’cause it’s him, and he doesn’t want me to know. Bet the server isn’t in Romania either. Son of a bitch.” “But if Jordan’s run off to find the snuff film location, wouldn’t he know?” “Hatcher’s a busy guy. I bet he’s not hands-on with the site. In fact, he may just profit from the fucking thing, and someone else runs it. Someone who wouldn’t know Jordan on sight, especially if he gave them a phony name.” Did that sound right? No, none of this would ever sound right, but it felt sickeningly plausible. Was that how Jordan found the site in the first place? He found the name somewhere among his dad’s stuff and checked it out and discovered he liked it. But he never let his father know he was in on his dirty secret. It allowed him to hide in plain sight from his father, and who would look for him on a porn site? Certainly not Hatcher. “Then…,” she began, turning back to the computer screen. She sounded like she didn’t know what to say. “Are we dead? Is he gonna have us killed ’cause we know his dirty little secret?” “You watch too many bad movies. Killing us would just bring more attention to the problem he’s trying to sweep under the rug.” “So how would he sweep us under the rug?” She locked eyes with him, and he felt something loosen in the pit of his stomach. A man like him would delegate, would get someone— someones—with no connection to him whatsoever to take care of the problem. Like white supremacists? He suddenly wondered how you went about hiring a gang of them, and how much it cost. If Hatcher had started this ball rolling, Roan didn’t care how much money and power he had. He was going to kill the bastard.
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18 Woolen Heirs ROAN stormed out of Fiona’s place with a full head of steam (not just a cliché—it actually felt like it, like his head was a teakettle, and steam was just going to erupt through his ears at any moment). He called Hatcher’s number and got his machine again, so he simply said, “Either get back to me immediately, or this is all over the web. Hope you’ve had a colonoscopy recently, ’cause the Feds will be crawling up your ass by the end of the day. Close your eyes and think of England, you sick fuck.” He felt like throwing the phone, but he would have broken it. He made himself remember that this was his cell and not Hatcher himself. He just had to wait; then he could pick up Hatcher and throw him, hopefully from a very tall building. What if his own money-grabbing exercise had killed his own son? Would that convince him that maybe, just maybe, this was all a big fucking mistake? Hard to say with raving capitalists sometimes. He had just got in the car when his phone went off. Checking he saw it was home calling. In a way, he hoped it was trouble, because then he could vent some steam on some assholes. “Yeah.” “Honey,” Dylan said in a quiet, lilting voice. “I don’t want to alarm you, but our home has been infested by hockey players.” “Not the entire team, I hope.” “No. Actually, Tank is a hell of a cook.” That was a surprise. “Really?” “Oh, yeah! He made these buttery, cheesy omelets that were so good, I swear if he was gay, I’d have left you for him.” “That’s it. Pack your shit and get out, you disloyal bastard.” Dylan snickered. “He claims he can only cook breakfasts, though. Omelets, pancakes, crepes.” “He makes crepes? Hot damn, I’ll leave you for him first.” “I’ll try and save you some eggs, but hockey players eat like pigs.
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Scott already had to take off on an egg run.” He paused briefly. “Tank has an interesting story.” “He’s been talking?” “No, but he doesn’t have to. There’s a surprising amount of depth in his eyes. He always seems to be thinking. I bet he’s a hell of a lot smarter than he seems to be, probably—no offense to the rest of the Falcons—the smartest guy on the team. He’s also surprisingly good-natured for a man I wouldn’t trust around a loaded firearm. Speaking of which, I called my therapist.” Dylan used to see a therapist on a regular basis but had quit about two years ago. Roan scoured his brain, trying to dig up the name. “Savage, right?” “Yes, Doctor Savage. She has an opening on Thursday and can squeeze me in.” “The problem is me, not you.” “Bullshit. I learned how to manage my anger effectively, and I backslid. I don’t want to keep falling backwards.” “Then you probably need to get away from me.” “None of that. My wanting to protect you isn’t a failing on your part. It’s me needing to deal with my issues.” “You know, it’s very sweet you want to protect me. Most people figure I’m on my own.” He leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. For some reason, anger often exhausted him. “Well, you are a super-macho dude.” “And inhuman. Don’t forget that.” He sighed dramatically. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetie, but fuck you to hell.” That made Roan chuckle. Really, he deserved no less. “You okay?” “Yeah, just a little tired. I still can’t believe someone did that. Also, I can’t believe I’m entertaining a bunch of jocks from Canada.” “Grey’s American.” “Which explains so much about him. Of course he’s the team enforcer. Can we sue the Falcons for stereotyping?” “You know, you’d think we should be able to. But it’s a fair cop, and society is to blame.” It was stuffy in the car, so Roan rolled down the window and noted how much better he was feeling. When he'd first got in here, he was ready to kill someone (Hatcher). Talking to Dylan had pulled
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him back to sanity, which was probably the best thing for everyone involved. “You can’t go to the Monty Python well forever.” “You’ll pry Monty Python from my cold, dead hand.” “Wow. There’s so many things wrong with that sentence.” “Yes, well, there’s so many things wrong with me.” “Knock off the self-pity shit. But does that explain why you sounded so pissed off when you answered the phone?” “Yeah, I was expecting another call. In fact, I’d better get off. And you’d better buckle up, ’cause there might be a shitstorm after this.” “Another?” He sounded genuinely exasperated. “I know money is tight, but can we go somewhere and get you away from all this trouble you seem to be causing? Drive to California or something? What about Canada? We can go back to Canada.” There was almost a plea in Dylan’s voice that made Roan feel bad. He was putting him through the ringer, hurting the only person he really didn’t want to hurt. He had to make this right with him, but he didn’t know how, or even if he should. If Dylan was a friend, describing a relationship with someone else, he’d advise him to pack up his shit and run, put as much distance between him and this drama-magnet boyfriend as possible. It was what he should tell Dylan now, only he wasn’t that noble. “Once we get through this, we can go wherever you want. You pick the place.” Dylan thought about it a moment. “Atlantis.” He smiled weakly at Dylan’s attempt at a joke. “The place has to actually exist.” “Damn it. What is it with you and these picky loopholes?” “I’m an asshole. Now I know it’s a pain in the ass, but stick with the rough boys ’til you hear from me again.” The rough boys were, of course, Grey, Tank, and Scott (and any secondary Falcons they may have roped into this baffling guard duty). Dylan sighed heavily and seriously. He probably hadn’t been thrilled to wake up and find everyone else but Roan in the living room. “And when will that be?” “I don’t know, honey. Soon, I promise.” He paused, looking out the windshield, finally noticing it needed to be cleaned. If these Aryan fucks weren’t amateurs, he knew leaving Grey, Tank, and Scott to protect Dylan wouldn’t be enough, would just get them all killed, but they were
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amateurs, and Grey alone would be enough to take them out. But the others were just insurance, a guarantee that no matter what, Dylan would get through this okay. Physically okay, at any rate. “I love you.” “You’d better,” he replied, in mock anger. “And remember, you’re not indestructible. Don’t do anything stupid.” “You know damn well it’s too late for that.” Roan waited for Hatcher to call him back, but he didn’t, and by the time he was driving along the lake, headed for Hatcher’s extravagantly expensive house, his anger had swelled to a nearly unmanageable size. He called Fiona to let her know he was going in, and if she hadn’t heard from him within an hour, to go ahead and let it run. She was ready to post at some hard-core tech sites, giving them the breakdown of Hatcher’s connections to the website. Not only would it then spiral, as web gossip was wont to do, but she was convinced there’d be some quality Hatcherhating crackers (not hackers—that was apparently a gauche term) who’d infiltrate anything of Hatcher’s they could get their hands on. She was sure, illegal or not, they’d dig up even more dirt. He drove up to the gate and gunned the engine. As soon as the speaker clicked on, he said, “Either let me in or I bring this gate down. There’s enough steel in this car to do it.” There was. Oh, how he loved Paris and his love of Road Warrior cars even more now. He could drive this puppy through the gate and straight into Hatcher's living room, and with its huge windows, it wouldn’t even be remotely difficult. He could probably keep the GTO going until the kitchen before he met sufficient resistance. He was starting to judge how far he’d have to back up before getting sufficient momentum (Paris also made sure the engine could go from zero to sixty in almost no time at all) when there was a buzz, and the gates started automatically opening. Believed him, did they? Good; they should, because he was more than ready to do it. Oh sure, Hatcher could sue him for property damage, but fuck it—he was too poor to ever be able to pay him a cent. He probably knew that. Roan screamed up the drive, ignoring the pristine view of the water, and barely stopped before he collided with the ornamental fountain. He launched himself out of the GTO like a bullet, stomping up to the door and almost colliding with it before officious Andrew opened it and stationed his narrow, angular form in the entryway. “Mr. Hatcher does not—” he began, his voice cold and sharp. Roan snarled. Not a Human approximation, but the real thing; he let
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enough of the lion out that it was happy to make itself known. Andrew jumped, and Roan continued growling while he forced himself to spit out words, which sounded like he was trying to talk through a mouthful of broken glass. “Get out of my way or pay for it.” Roan pushed through the doorway, and Andrew was backing up in horror, mouth opening and closing dumbly, a pale hand fluttering to the base of his throat. Had he started changing? Roan honestly didn’t know. He knew his jaw hurt, he knew his vision was a little blurry, but that often happened when he was this angry. It didn’t mean he’d changed; it just meant he was on the verge of losing his shit. But the way Andrew was acting, the way the fear reek came off of him like bad intentions, maybe there was some change occurring, something (even if it was only anger) was transforming his face. They were in the sterile, expensively appointed front room before Roan was even aware of it, bathed in so much light it was like being in heaven’s waiting room. Hatcher appeared in the archway of his study, and said, “Would you stop terrorizing—” Hatcher’s sentence petered off as he stared at Roan, and his expression was a studious blank, a wonderful poker face that actually told him all he needed to know. Hatcher was scared too. Roan walked around Andrew and headed straight for Hatcher. “You motherfucker….” “I don’t know what you think you’ve found—” “Fuck you!” Roan roared, a genuine roar, and he had no idea if the words were even recognizable to anyone else. He gave Hatcher a flatpalmed shove in the chest, and he seemed to fly across the room, hitting the window wall hard enough to have all his breath knocked out of him. It was probably double paned or maybe bulletproof glass, otherwise Hatcher might have sailed right through it, although Roan thought he’d barely touched him. “Visionics Limited,” he rasped, trying to get his growling under control. “Tabu triple x. Your site, you own it.” Now Hatcher looked baffled as he gasped in breaths like a newly surfaced drowning man. “What? What the hell is this, McKichan? Why—” “People are dead because of you. They died because of you. You’ve probably killed your own son. You should join them.” Something new and genuine blossomed on Hatcher’s face, and it was enough to make Roan pause. Confusion, fear, despair, all warring for supremacy. “What? What are you talking about? Where’s Jordan? What’s happened to him?”
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Roan studied him carefully, head cocked to the side, looking for the tell, for the twitch that would let him know this was a bluff, Hatcher busting out his acting skills in an attempt to escape justice. But no, his sudden anxiety seemed genuine. Roan decided to interrogate him and make his next move accordingly. “Visionics Limited. You own it.” “No!” He exclaimed it out of reflex, and he looked like a man who had suddenly lost his footing climbing a mountain. He scrambled for a new verbal foothold. “I-I own it with Conrad Maddux. Why?” A new name. Not what he needed right now, as he always found it difficult to think like a Human when the lion was out. “Who’s he?” “A business partner. He takes care of….” Hatcher paused. “He owns the porn sites,” Roan finished for him. “He takes care of that side of the business.” He looked like he wanted to deny it, but Hatcher glanced at Roan’s face and looked away, down at the floor. It wasn’t a tell; he was too scared to look at him. Why he didn’t look at the flat screen tuned to some British financial news program, he didn’t know, but Roan could see the stock readouts scrolling out of the corner of his eye, see the blandly handsome newsreader talking to a man who looked like an animate scarecrow. “Yeah.” “The site is killing people.” “No.” He began shaking his head. “It’s fake. It’s all fake. You couldn’t—” “There’s bodies. It’s stopped being fake.” Hatcher froze, his posture stiff, his hands clenching at his sides. “What? You can’t have… it’s not here….” Wow. Maddux had fucked Hatcher; he’d changed the rules of the game and not even told him. “It is now. Where would it be?” Hatcher was shaking his head again, and it seemed pathetic, like a child trying to refuse his punishment by rejecting reality. “He wouldn’t dare. You don’t shit where you eat. You don’t bring it into America….” “He did. And Jordan’s there, Hatcher. Now tell me, where would he put it?” “Jordan?” Now he looked at him, too shell-shocked to be scared. “Why would he—” “He found the site. You went over his computer. You must’ve seen it.” “Yeah, but so? It’s a porn site! It doesn’t mean—”
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A snarl of anger escaped him before Roan reined it in. “It’s not just a porn site. It’s fake death, it’s people fucking and killing each other. Pretend or not, it’s sick. I think he may have wanted to get into the business himself but decided in the end to go hands on.” Hatcher started shaking his head again, but his eyes had the sudden shine of sickening knowledge. “No. He wouldn’t be that stupid. He wouldn’t—” “I saw him.” Roan remembered the screen cap Holden had sent him and made his hands work, made them come out of fists and search his pockets for Dylan’s phone, which he still had. He found it, but he needed to focus to get back into Human mode, to use his fingers and read words. With it, his anger faded, but it didn’t disappear; it remained in the background, as loud as the BBC, brighter than the late-afternoon sunlight. Roan found the photo still and tossed the phone at Hatcher. It bounced off his chest before he caught it in his hands clumsily, and when he looked at the phone’s screen, he didn’t seem to get what he was seeing. Finally, he said, “What—” “Friend of mine started going through the film clips, looking for recognizable victims. Jordan was taking part in one of the movies.” Hatcher didn’t react at first. Then his expression fell, and his hands started shaking. “No,” he said, his voice a stunned whisper. “He was a fucker, not a fuckee, if that makes it—” “Noooooooo,” Hatcher said louder, drawing out the syllable to a near wail, tears welling in his eyes, his hands shaking so badly it looked like he was going to throw the phone himself. He sank down the window slowly, as if melting, finally sitting on the floor, back starting to curve like he was about to become an O. He was watching Hatcher break, and Roan wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It should have been triumphant, but it was just sad. He was the world’s biggest fuckhead and his son was clearly trying to follow in his footsteps, but they were still as depressingly human as all the rest of them. He got a chokehold on the lion inside of him and pulled it back as he asked Hatcher, “Did you send someone after me? Skinheads?” He was shaking his head vehemently, but he wasn’t sure if it was at the realization his son had joined the death circus or if it was aimed at his question. “No.” Roan was a bit disappointed, mainly because he wasn’t lying. So if Hatcher hadn’t sent the white trash army after him, who had? Well, easy
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answer: Conrad Maddux, the silent partner. “Where do I find Maddux?” Hatcher almost seemed to be in a trance of despair, but after several long seconds, he said, “Osaka.” “Japan?” Okay, it wasn’t really a question—was there an Osaka, Texas?—he was just shocked. He'd expected Hatcher’s hands-on guy to be within arm’s reach. He probably should have known better. Thanks to the Internet, you didn’t need to be on the same continent as your immediate employees. “Does he have an employee, a manager doing his bidding? Who’s he? I need names.” “I don’t know.” “How can you not know? A man like you, a paranoid despot, you should know what your workers do in their free time—” “I don’t know!” Hatcher shouted angrily, despair slamming against his resolve and coming out as fury. “We keep enough distance between us that he can’t be tied to me! I don’t fucking know who works for him!” And that made sense. He was a “silent partner” after all. If he got caught up legally, he couldn’t be officially tied to Hatcher; Maddux would go down alone and keep his mouth shut if he knew what was good for him. How much money did you have to spend to get that kind of loyalty? How much of your soul did you have to sell to make money off what was essentially necrophilia porn? There was so much here he didn’t and couldn’t understand. He needed to find Dennis Cooper some day and ask him if he could explain any of this stuff to him. Hatcher bolted to his feet and lunged for his desk, anger making him move faster than he probably had in years. He clipped a Bluetooth onto his ear and called Conrad, but did he talk? No, he was leaning on the desk like it was the only thing keeping him on his feet, and he began screaming, “You fucking bastard, give me back my son! If you’ve hurt him, I swear to God I will have you killed! Do you hear—” Roan ripped the Bluetooth off his ear, and exclaimed, “Idiot! You’ve just given him fair warning to pack his shit and run.” Roan held the device up to his ear, to see what Maddux had to say to his angry boss, but there was just a mechanical voice asking if he was satisfied with his message. Hatcher had gotten the man’s machine. Hatcher glared at him, the look in his eyes wild and mad. Insane mad and angry mad; he was covering the spread. “He can’t run from me.” Hatcher certainly believed that. Roan wasn’t sure he did. Roan tossed the Bluetooth on the desk, having no further use for it,
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but Hatcher didn’t seem to notice. He was in some ugly place inside his own head, only marginally aware of the outer world. “Find him,” he said, his voice a low croak. “Find Jordan. And burn that fucking place to the ground.” Hadn’t Hatcher noticed that was exactly what he was trying to do?
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19 Ulysses HERE was the problem facing Roan now: Hatcher was a victim of his own design. What did you do in those circumstances? He still wanted to kick his ass very badly, and hey, if Hatcher hadn’t started this ball rolling, the Tabu site wouldn’t even exist. He deserved to get the shit kicked out of him before Roan left. But in the face of his truly anguished grief, it almost seemed like enough bad shit had happened to him. It hadn’t, of course, but he felt he needed to get out of there and think. But before he left, he fixed Hatcher with a stare, and told him, “I may call you, and I may need something. If I do, you don’t ask why, you just make it happen. Understand?” Hatcher, his face ruddy and slimy with rage and tears, looked like he wanted to argue for a moment, ask questions, but after a moment, he simply nodded. “Find him.” “That’s what I’ve been doing,” he said, stalking out of the room. As he crossed the expansive living room, heading toward the foyer, he saw a terrified Andrew loitering on the staircase, his hand on his Bluetooth. “You call the cops, he’ll fire your ass,” Roan said. Was that true? He didn’t know, but he didn’t think Hatcher wanted to speak with the cops right now. He checked his own phone in the car, and found a message waiting for him. It was Holden. Apparently, snuff guy had finally gotten back to him and taken the bait. He was meeting Holden at six on Thursday, in the Burger King abutting the Greyhound Station downtown. Classy shit that, but in a bizarre way, it was perfect. Yes, it was a high-traffic area, potential witnesses coming and going, but most of these were potential witnesses who wanted nothing to do with your shit and didn’t care either way. If their lives didn’t suck in one way or another, would they be at the Greyhound Station? He called Fiona and let her know not to post the stuff—or at least not yet. Hatcher was safe for now, but it didn’t mean he always would be. Roan didn’t totally trust him, and neither did Fiona.
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He didn’t bother to call Holden back. He went straight to his apartment, where luckily he found the man at home. But from the skintight jeans Holden was wearing and the almost overpowering (to him—it was probably faint to most Humans) scent of semi-expensive aftershave, he was about to go off on a gig. He answered the door shirtless but wearing his usual tangle of about a half dozen necklaces, so it was kind of like he was wearing a metallic half shirt. “Oh shit, did you lion out again?” “Why do you ask?” Holden tapped the corner of his mouth, and Roan reached up and ran a hand over his mouth. Yep, blood. “No, it was partial. I didn’t think it got that bad.” But hadn’t he sent Hatcher flying across the room with a single shove? Again, it was worse than he realized. He went to Holden’s bathroom and saw the full extent of it: he had blood caking his chin, streaks on his throat, and now his shirt had blood on it along with caked snot. Holden offered him a shirt, and he decided to take it. Holden’s bathroom was interesting. Very neat, with a variety of grooming products lined up like soldiers at parade rest on either side of the slightly chipped porcelain sink. But the interesting thing was the wallpaper—garishly loud, tie-dye stripes of pink, green, and purple, separated with tiny lines of white. It was unusually gay, even for Holden, and the clear shower curtain dotted with colorful fish almost threatened to clash with it, and yet didn’t quite. He felt it was probably a sign of Holden being rebellious with himself and his otherwise good taste. Holden stood in the doorway, holding a T-shirt (he still had yet to put one on), and Roan was telling him what had happened with Hatcher and how he thought it had become much more dangerous now because the man who was supposed to have control no longer had it, and if the snuff film guys were tipped off that they had Jordan, it could be incredibly dangerous for Jordan. He then took off his shirt, and Holden, who had been listening with an air of bemused detachment, suddenly exclaimed, “Holy shit!” Roan glanced at his reflection, at Holden standing in the doorway, and realized he was staring at his back. Oh shit, how could he forget it? It was odd what you got used to, what you forgot, even though it seemed so monstrous you’d think it would be impossible to forget. But he’d already had this conversation with Dylan about the scars on his back, and that was bad enough. He didn’t want to have it again.
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“Was it a belt or an electrical cord?” Holden asked. “How old were you?” Roan turned and yanked the shirt out of his hand. “Let’s stick to the topic at hand, okay?” How’d he guess electrical cord? He must have seen a lot of abused kids in his time on the street, heard a hundred horror stories. Nearly everyone had at least one. He shrugged the shirt on and went back to Hatcher and the fact that Maddux would probably remain forever untouchable to them, although he could still reach out and get them (apparently). Holden flashed him a dirty look, probably because he knew he was deliberately ducking the question of who had abused him as a kid and all the subsequent questions that would fall out from that, but that was all; he magnanimously let the topic go. “We always knew it would be dangerous, Roan. This hasn’t changed anything.” Roan noticed that the T-shirt Holden had given him said, emblazoned in black print across the chest, Hookers Do It For Money. Well, you couldn’t argue with that logic. “Yes, but things have gotten much uglier, and I didn’t even know that was possible. Sixty/forty Jordan isn’t alive anymore.” Hatcher’s phone call could have pushed that to seventy. “I didn’t think we were going in to rescue him,” Holden said, and gave him a look that was slightly sly and slightly sinister. It was a look that seemed to say he either wanted to seduce him or kill him, possibly both, and he hated Holden giving him that look. He thought they were beyond that now in their odd relationship. But far be it from him to ever completely understand Holden and his motivations. “We are going to rescue anyone at that place who’s not a voluntary participant, or who’s under the impression that there’s just a bit of S&M going on.” He picked up on the unspoken “But…” like Roan figured he would. “And then?” “If I give you a gun, will you not hesitate to use it if you have to?” A sly and deeply disturbing smile crept across his face. Another little reminder of how fucking dangerous Holden could actually be; beyond the striking face was a mind that could kill you the second he decided that you weren’t worth the bother. “Absolutely. If it’s us or them, they don’t have a chance.”
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“I have a Glock that’s pretty compact. Hide it in a boot and practice pulling it out and thumbing the safety off at the same time. You may need to use it in a hurry.” He nodded, his brown hair hardly moving. “Got it. I’ll bring a knife too. I’m good with those.” “I know. Can I see your phone?” Holden raised an eyebrow at that. “Why?” “Your cell. Your personal one, not the one you use for clients.” He wanted to ask why again, but he just shrugged and turned away, allowing Roan to finally escape from his bathroom. Holden probably wasn’t trying to make him feel cornered, but for a moment there he kind of did. That man and his head games. No pun intended. Out in the living room, Holden tossed him his phone, and he glanced through the menu before tossing it back to him. “Good. Charge it up. Thursday, when you go to meet the guy, have it in a pocket, with an open line to me. That way I can hear a lot of what’s going on, and in case Seattle traffic fucks up the tail, I can still get a GPS location on your phone.” “Look at you, all high tech and shit. Absolutely.” He went to the kitchen and got a cell phone charger out of one of the drawers by the refrigerator. As he was plugging it in, he said, “Dylan isn’t gonna know about this, is he?” It almost sounded like a question, but it wasn’t. “If he knew, he might leave me for good. And maybe he should. I’m a horrible person at heart.” “Bullshit.” He fixed him with an intense stare. “You know me, Roan. You know any belief I might have had in a higher power was bludgeoned out of me by my hypocritical douchebag of a father. But I believe some people are nothing but evil, human vampires who live to do nothing but cause misery to others. I saw them when I was out on the street. They were more ubiquitous than rats. There’s good out there, yeah, but there are people who are nothing but poison, and getting rid of them is doing the human race a major favor. These fuckers are murdering people, and then charging other people money to watch so they can beat off to it. You’re offering me the gun because you know as well as I do that one more death—one or a dozen, two dozen—is gonna mean jackshit to them. Everyone is expendable. We need to teach them that karma is a bitch.” “We’re not going in with the intent to kill.” Holden nodded. “I know. But do you really think this is gonna be bloodless?”
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Put it that way, he just seemed like a naïve idiot. Roan left Holden’s wondering if he was making a mistake. No, he had to shut these guys down. They could just pick up and move elsewhere, especially overseas, where life was seemingly cheaper, at least to the guy in charge of this fiasco. He could alert the Feds to this, honestly he should, but a police investigation moved at a snail’s pace, and by the time they tracked them down, they’d probably have pulled up stakes again. They should nail Maddux, as long as he didn’t flee to somewhere without an extradition treaty—which he should be doing right now if he had any brains at all. He had to make this right. Evidence would find its way into the hands of the Feds, anonymously… and after they took care of the problem. He couldn’t walk away. He should, if he had any part of his soul left, anything worth saving, he damn well should. But he just couldn’t. Damn him. God, he hated himself sometimes. On the way home, all he could think of was Dylan. He had to make sure he was safe— (he had to make sure he never found out) —and maybe he could get some protection for Fiona too. She’d resent it even more than Dylan, but she’d understand. He hoped. He hoped a lot of things, he realized. He felt like an idiot, like the biggest fool imaginable. He never thought of himself as a bad man, but now he was beginning to wonder if he was. When he got home, he was shaking and he didn’t know why. He sat in his car and watched his hand shake for a good minute or so, then he managed to suck it up and go inside, where he was greeted by the noise and boisterous good humor of half of the Falcons first line, and Dylan was just watching it all with tolerant amusement. It was infectious in its way, but Roan still felt outside it all. The guys took off eventually, leaving him and Dylan alone. Dylan smirked at him and asked, “Do I even want to know what’s behind that shirt?” Roan got a green tea from the fridge, sat on the couch, and told him everything that had happened that day, leaving out the confrontation with Hatcher and the actual substance of the conversation with Holden. Dylan hadn’t heard about the shooting at the church—the Falcons had been manipulating the TV, watching DVDs—and when he told Dylan about it, he came over, sat beside him, and then took him in his arms and held him. Roan buried his head in the side of his neck and just breathed in the scent
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of him. It was calming and deeply sad, and yet also kind of arousing. He knew it was a combination of grief and fear that he was going to lose him for good, but it wasn’t enough to throw cold water on his ardor. He nibbled Dylan’s neck, and Dylan made a noise in the back of his throat, stroking Roan’s hair. “Are you kidding me? I have to go to yoga soon. I have résumés to circulate and paintings to agonize over.” “Don’t wanna fool around?” He sighed wearily, and said, “Are you kidding me? Of course I do, you sexy beast.” Dylan pushed him down onto the couch and kissed him, pinning him down with the weight of his body. Of course, Roan could have easily shoved him off, but he didn’t want to. He sank his arms beneath his shirt, needing the friction of skin on skin, the lovely little death. The sex was great, so it should have made him felt better, but oddly enough, it didn’t. Afterwards, the melancholia came slamming back full force. They both went upstairs, Dylan to take a quick shower and get dressed for yoga—which Roan tried to talk him out of due to the skinhead thing, but Dylan refused to be a prisoner to those dickheads, which was fair enough. Roan just pulled on some boxer shorts and lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling as Dylan talked to him from the bathroom. He wasn’t actually listening to much of what he was saying; he was just lulled by the sound of his voice. Too lulled. Dylan came out, drying his hair with a towel, and as he opened the dresser drawer to pull out his underwear and pants, he looked back at him curiously. “Have you totally zoned out on me?” “No, I was just thinking.” Which was half true. “You know I love you, yeah?” Dylan had tossed the towel on the end of the bed and stepped into his underwear. “Yeah. Are you now going to confess to something terrible?” “No. I just wanted you to know that.” He didn’t look convinced. After stepping into his pants, he asked, “Are you ever gonna tell me what’s going on, Ro?” “Nothing’s going on.” “Bullshit.” He glanced at him, and wasn’t surprised to see Dylan giving him what he could only call a boyfriend look, one that was skeptical and worried and mildly pissed off. “You love me?”
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He scoffed, now looking even more annoyed. “Of course I do.” “Why?” That seemed to catch Dylan short. “What?” “You’re normal, Dyl. You’re not infected. You could have a life free from all of this. You could meet a nice uninfected guy who’s never been in a fight in his life, an art history major from the UW. You could settle down with him and an annoying little dog and have a happy, normal life. I love you, hon, but I’m thinking it would be better for you if you just walked away.” Before I break your heart, before you hate me, before I get you killed. Now he did look pissed. “Fuck you. I want to be with you. I’ve accepted all that comes with it.” “You shouldn’t have to.” Dylan angrily yanked on a T-shirt, unaware that he had just pulled on one of Roan’s Pansy Division shirts. (Not that he cared, it just seemed funny at the moment.) “Are you picking a fight? Do you want to leave me, is that it?” “I’m scared.” “Of what?” “That something’s going to happen to you because of me. If it did, I’d hate myself for the rest of my life. There wouldn’t be enough drugs to make it go away.” Dylan’s annoyed expression collapsed into one of bruised sympathy. “Oh honey, nothing’s going to happen to me. And if it does, it’s not your fault.” He leaned over him, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him softly, on the forehead, the lips, trying to soothe him. It was very sweet of him. Too bad it wouldn’t work. Dylan then stared him straight in the eyes, as if trying to will his certainty into him, and said, “Okay?” “Okay,” he agreed, pretending to mean it. Well, he did mean it, he just didn’t believe it. That was the problem with caring. It left you vulnerable, open on one side to the most hideous pain imaginable, and the only antidote was to stop giving a shit, but how did you do that? How did you turn it all off? He thought if he numbed himself with enough meds he could fake it, but that turned out to be wrong. He always thought he was more cynical than this, more inured to it all. Obviously, that was just something he wanted to believe. After Dylan left, he forced himself to get up and went to the
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bathroom to dig a couple of pills out of his hidden stash. He took them without knowing what they were, but he guessed codeine from the shape. He then went to the closet and felt around for a box on the upper shelf until he brushed it with his fingertips. He pulled down the cherrywood case with the simple locking mechanism, and opened it to make sure it was all there. It was: the Glock 26 Subcompact handgun, which had great advantages in being small enough to easily conceal and yet had a tenround magazine, as well as not being a piece of shit like your usual Saturday night special. Holden already told him he’d be dropping by after his “gig,” so Roan put the case and a spare ammo clip aside, figuring he’d be here long before Dylan came back. He got his own HK P2000 SK out of the drawer he kept it in, and because he hadn’t used it for a while, he got the cleaning kit out of the back of the closet and got to work on it. He spread an old towel on the floor so he didn’t get any oil on the carpet. As he cleaned the gun, feeling oddly phallic doing it in nothing but boxers (but hey, it was probably appropriate), he wondered why he was bothering. If he went through with this, would he ever even pull the gun out? If he unleashed the lion, clawing back to his own humanity would be difficult if not impossible. And the lion should be able to get things done. Well, in theory. He found himself thinking of that Jane Doe Dropkick had told him about, the seventeen-year-old girl found in a ditch in Spokane, possibly tied to this case. Her family was never going to know her fate, never going to know she was rotting in a Potter’s field in another country, and his resolve hardened, turning his shaky nerves to concrete. She was found but never identified; what about those who had never even been found? What about all of them? Someone had to do something on their behalf. No one said it had to be him, but who else was there? He just hoped that, if Dylan ever found out about it, he would forgive him.
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20 Red Line Season THE next couple of days were purely devoted to getting ready for the sting on the snuff guy’s place. It felt like a sting operation, only he wasn’t a cop anymore; he was going in alone. Yes, Holden would be there, but he was bait, the undercover guy in the room. It was all on him alone to ingress, to get in without getting Holden killed. He still had no idea how many people he’d be dealing with, or what manner of security precautions. It was all guesswork, therefore inherently impossible to plan for, and yet here he was trying. Was this another definition of insanity? He arranged many things. He made sure Tank and Grey knew he needed Dylan and Fiona protected on that day (night) especially and arranged a car. He couldn’t use either muscle car for the tail—they were too noticeable—but renting a car might not be a great idea. Some of them could be traced and mileage would be noted. But he still knew the guys at the auto yards that Paris had known, and he managed to arrange to pick up a car from them, a fairly anonymous ’02 Honda that was due to get torn up for parts once he was done with it. As soon as he returned it, it would be reduced to scrap. This guy in particular, Jorge, didn’t ask why he wanted the car, nor what he planned to do with it; he knew Roan was a detective and figured it was a “detective thing.” All Jorge asked was that he pay for the car if he couldn’t return it, which seemed fair enough. Roan realized he was taking way too many pills, but he felt it was probably insurance. He would be on a minimum of pills during the tail because he wanted to be as sharp as possible. That still meant a couple of pills because he was remarkably functional on pills, but not the really heavy ones. Tylenol codeine, maybe. Of course, he’d have a bottle of Percocet standing by for after, because he already guessed he’d be in so much pain he’d be moving like he was full of broken bones and acidic blood. Gordo told him the white supremacist link was confirmed, at least between the guys that had come after him and the shooter at the church. They were a little fringe group, and they had some kind of online hate
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page where they preached the usual bullshit about the Bible coming out against the children of Satan (which supposedly infecteds were), with the added tinge of racism (the infecteds would “dilute” the snowy white Aryan bloodline—like that was a bad thing with these particular inbred morons). Roan couldn’t help but ask how they could think he would pollute anyone’s bloodline, as he was one hundred percent gay and had no intention of being a breeder, but Gordo couldn’t answer that one. He admitted this had occurred to him as well and just assumed they meant viral infection or something along those lines, but again, that didn’t make a lot of sense, unless they expected him to buttfuck their members any time soon. (And while he was flattered they would think of him, he had no interest in their flabby, spotty behinds.) Dylan knew something was going on, but of course Roan couldn’t tell him what, and they fought a bit, although not as much as he'd honestly anticipated. So that’s why he decided to entertain Dylan’s suggestion that he actually do an interview with this guy who had both called and emailed him. His name was Aidan Lambert, and apparently, he wrote for some magazine Roan had never heard of. He was doing an article on ten people whom he felt were changing the world but were as of yet relatively obscure, and he wanted to throw Roan in the mix. He thought he was trying to be funny (sarcastic?), but then the guy reeled off facts Roan already knew, but were still surprising to hear. Roan was the first (known) fully functional virus child, the first openly infected police officer in the United States (really? The entire country?), was the oldest living infected to date (tell him about it), and was the only person recognized legally as a bloodhound (okay, he didn’t say “bloodhound,” but that was the gist) due to his superior and measurable sense of smell. Aidan explained that he knew the infecteds didn’t have an actual organized group, but if they did, he was pretty sure he’d be their leader, because who better? What a weird thought. Here he was, preparing to fuck some people up, and this guy was touting him as the leader of the infecteds. If that were actually true, the normals were in so much trouble. Wait a minute. Weren’t they already? He told him he’d think about it. He didn’t want to do any interview, but Dylan wanted him to, and the guy did sound weirdly sincere (and he had done his homework, which Roan had to give him credit for). Dylan said it might give fellow infecteds some hope, but if he was supposed to give them hope, they were totally fucked. But then again, they were. Could he make it worse? It was just a weird thing to throw on his “to-do” pile,
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along with Rosenberg scanning the shit out of him and him and Dylan signing up for the domestic partnership registry. He prepped the car like he would for any long stakeout: snacks, pills, and liquids, along with a piss bottle, so he didn’t have to make a stop while tailing these guys. Of course he might have to stop for gas if they went an insanely long way, but he hoped they weren’t traveling that far. He also got a hands-free headset for his phone, so he wouldn’t have to have his cell wedged up against his ear. He told Dylan he was off on another cheating husband tail and wasn’t sure when he’d be back. Dylan thought nothing of this, as he’d done similar jobs a million times before. He picked Holden up at his place, and as always, Holden looked the part he was assuming. He went with looser jeans with holes in the knee and near the crotch as opposed to tight jeans because they were more comfortable in case a fight broke out, but his shirt was white and skintight and so thin it probably became translucent when wet, and his motocross-style leather jacket said thrift store chic. His biker boots looked expensive, though, and hid the Glock nicely. His almond hair had a calculated bedhead look to it, and as he slumped in the passenger seat, he gave Roan a look of sleepy-eyed seduction. “Do I look like a porno movie manwhore or what?” “Please don’t tell me you studied for it.” “No need to study for it. I was born to play this part.” “That’s what scares me.” Roan dropped him off two blocks away from the bus station, and they checked phone reception as Holden walked toward the Burger King. It was surprisingly good, which boded well. Roan had to wait a while before a parking spot opened up that had a decent view of the Burger King and the bus station (he had no idea what the snuff guy’s car would be or which exit he would take, so he had to visually cover the biggest area possible). Then he settled in to wait, wishing he could listen to an audiobook or something to kill the boredom. But he didn’t have to wait long. The guys (Roan distinctly heard two different male voices) approached Holden not long after he settled in a window booth, where Roan could clearly see his profile through binoculars. Roan couldn’t get a good look at either man (nor could he hear them clearly; they were too far from Holden and his phone), but he got an impression of young, white, and generic. The three talked for a couple of minutes (he could only hear Holden’s side; it seemed they were setting a price), and then they left. Holden told him they were driving a black
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Range Rover by acting surprised that was their car and then complimenting it. Roan watched them drive off, then let a couple cars go before he followed in pursuit. Let them go? Traffic was nuts; he had no hope of pulling out directly behind them anyways. One guy was sitting closer to Holden than the other. He’d hear snatches of his conversation, a word here or there, and Holden got these guys to talk, so he knew they were in for a long drive. He also knew this guy told Holden (whom he called Fox, of course, because that’s how these guys knew him) to call him “Matt.” No one in that SUV was using their real name; it was a caravan of disingenuousness. The driver, whoever he was, drove like a fucking lunatic on the freeway. Roan knew he was in for a long drive. Matt lit up a joint and offered some to Holden. Although Roan didn’t think it was a smart thing to do, Holden apparently took him up on the offer. Hopefully he could hold his drugs, as he didn’t need the pot making his reflexes sluggish. It would make sense that they’d give drugs to the victims, though. It would make them more pliable, less likely to realize how dangerous things had become. The drive was insanely long. In fact, when they hit the mountain passes, Roan realized they were heading to Eastern Washington. Were there two filming sites? A basement is a basement, so if they had one in Eastern Washington and one in Western Washington, who would know? It would allow them to dump bodies in each place as well, hopefully confusing the issue. Night set in hard, and he almost lost the cell connection on the passes, but it managed to pull itself back from the brink. Holden continued chatting with the guys, asking where they were going, but Matt was evasive—he only said they were going to his uncle's place, since his uncle had moved to Florida. How wonderfully vague. He didn’t even bother to make up a plausible lie! Roan was offended on Holden’s behalf. Matt and his friend asked Holden how he got the name Fox (no one was under the illusion that they were using real names), and when he told them he got it because he was “smarter than the average bear,” the guys snickered derisively. But Holden snickered too, and all three men were laughing at something different. Matt and the driver were laughing because they knew Holden was going to his death; Holden laughed because he knew what was in store for Matt and the driver.
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Once they were through the mountains, Roan found his natural curiosity battling the exhaustion that was settling in. Where could they be headed? Yakima? At an intersection, the Range Rover ran a red, and Matt said there were never any cops around here anyways, so it didn’t matter. Roan still waited for the green and wondered how close the house had to be when he saw a glimpse of dark movement out of the corner of his eye. By the time it registered in his brain that it was a car with its lights off running the red, it crashed into him full force. Roan remembered impact, the sense of sudden force, glass breaking and metal screaming, but then he must have blacked out because he didn’t remember anything until he woke up hanging upside down, looking at the ground through a broken windshield. He was aching, especially his head, and he was tasting blood, but it was different than the blood he tasted when he changed. (Why, he had no idea. Different concentrations of chemicals? Viral load?) The sound of liquid hitting the dirt and a small hiss told him the radiator was toast. Actually, since it was a Honda, he was surprised there was anything resembling a car left. He hit the release on the seat belt and braced as it retracted, and he plunged toward the ceiling (now the floor) of the car. He felt the aches throughout his body, but he knew from being injured too many times in his life that nothing was terribly serious. He gathered up the equipment he needed to find Holden and crawled out the shattered passenger window to discover that the Honda had been knocked to a bit of grassy verge about a hundred feet away from the intersection. He looked back at the Honda and saw a distinct U bend to it. How was he walking away from this? Maybe his hybrid life form status was finally doing him some good. Or all the painkillers he was on. The car that had hit him was sitting half in and half out of the intersection, the driver sitting on the ground beside it, drinking malt liquor from a brown paper bag. The car was a piece of shit Cadillac, old enough to be mostly steel and therefore hardly scratched by impact, mostly primer gray with yellowed ivory peeling off like teeth with bad enamel. “You came outta nowhere, bud,” the guy said. He had long, lank, greasy black hair, which was thinning so much in front it looked like he was wearing a two-part wig with a missing piece. His face was round and pockmarked with acne scars, discolored by broken blood vessels, telling him this man was a career alcoholic, one so deep in addiction that he probably needed to
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down a keg or two to feel anything. His front teeth were also gone, but he probably didn’t miss them. “You T-boned my car.” He looked, his glazed eyes needing a couple of minutes to actually focus. “Really? I don’t remember that at all.” Roan felt dizzy for a minute, but it passed. He walked over to the Cadillac and peered in. The windshield was cracked, but otherwise wasn’t much worse for wear. Keys still dangled in the ignition. “What’s wrong with the car?” He made a negative noise, sort of shrugged, but it may have been a full body tremor. “Wouldn’t go.” Had it actually suffered some damage, or was it just stalled or flooded? Only one way to find out. He got in the car, ignoring the overwhelming smell of malt liquor, old puke, and even older fast-food wrappers and body odor that seemed to permeate the vehicle (he wouldn’t be surprised if roaches lived under the front seat), and tried to start the car. The engine coughed and died, but he tried again, gently giving it gas. This time the engine sputtered and didn’t exactly roar, but at least cleared its throat and kept going. The man finally noticed and said, “Hey, that’s my car!” “I’m making a beer run. Want anything?” As Roan thought, that stopped him. He’d been trying to stand up, but he plopped back down happily, and said, “Hey yeah, pick me up a coupla forties, okay?” “Gotcha.” The Honda had dead plates, so there was no way it could be traced back to Jorge. He’d just have to pay him for the lost parts. He drove off, hoping he hadn’t lost too much time on Holden and the snuff guys. And if he had, well, if God existed, it better help them, because nothing else could.
Now
ROAN ran down toward the sprawling house in the depression of downwinder land, the desert just down from the old nuclear reservation, where the snuff guys had brought Holden for a final performance. He just hoped he wasn’t too late, although he doubted he was. Holden was a
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survivor, after all, and if anyone could stay alive, it was him. He had to fight the urge to collapse to all fours, as he felt he could run faster that way. The lion was creeping through him, revealing itself in pain that distorted his bones and twisted his muscles, and as his thinking began to slip sideways, words harder and harder to conceive of, it came out more. The lion thought in concrete terms: blood, rage, hunger. It would be so easy to give in to that, and just about what they deserved. He parsed the scents, tried to determine how many people were here now, but they were overlaid with so many older scents it was difficult to tell. But he was dealing with at least a dozen; he could smell Holden’s scent here too, leading toward the nondescript ranch-style house. He had just about reached the door when it opened and a man started coming out. “… her. I’ll call her back later, I’m outta smokes.” He turned and saw Roan, but he had only a second, hardly long enough for recognition, before Roan barreled into him and sent him flying back into the house. This wasn’t smart. He had no idea how many people he was dealing with, how well armed they were, but he was furious, the animal taking over and making him lose control. He was aware only that there were other people in the room: four men, most smoking, some on drugs (amphetamines, prescription, pot, booze), two sprawled on a couch, one standing, the one he had just knocked to the floor. The standing one pulled a gun—there were speech sounds, noises, but they made no sense to him— and Roan lunged at him, roaring. There was an explosion, a burst of hot cordite he could taste/smell like peppery metal, but he didn’t know if it hit him or not. There was pain, but there was always pain, and it was impossible to tell one pain from another. Pain was a light and he was the sun, radiating pain, gifting the world with his aura of pain as his body broke and traded one form for another. He grabbed the man, pinned him against the wall, sunk his teeth into his neck before he realized what he was doing. He pulled himself away as the man screamed and threw him down, blood in Roan’s mouth and blood pouring from his neck, where Roan had torn the flesh. Someone grabbed him from behind, but he flailed, his elbow smashing into his attacker’s skull hard enough to make the man collapse as if shot. The other two men ran, one outside, the other deeper into the house, screaming something, making urgent speech sounds that Roan was no longer Human enough to interpret. But he recognized fear, the taste sweetly savory, and followed that little breadcrumb trail promising scared prey, all the more tender for their fear. Another man appeared at the end of the corridor, and he had a bigger gun, but Roan jumped the millisecond before he fired, and he heard
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bullets buzz through the air like angry hornets as Roan landed on the man, driving him to the floor, hitting hard enough to break something (Roan heard the bone snap; not his, this was a musical, beautiful sound of distance), and as he roared down into the man’s face, the man screamed, a pathetic noise of pain and terror, facing something he couldn’t understand. His fear smelled like rain, like fresh meat, like warm blood. He caught a scent deeper in the house, a smell he knew, more fear, more pain, and the faint but distinct scent of death. Roan crawled over the man and headed down the hall, farther in, following the siren’s call of death. He wanted to sink his teeth into that. He wanted to take a bite out of all of it. This was his house, his place, his territory. And they were all his prey.
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21 Animal HOLDEN was still arguing about payment when the shit went down. He’d heard the huge bang, the collision shortly behind them when they were driving in, but couldn’t see anything, as they were too far ahead. He hoped that Roan wasn’t involved in that, but if he was, he was determined to see this through without him. He had a gun, a knife, and an urge to kill these motherfuckers, who probably wouldn’t expect him to put up much of a fight—surely that was good enough. Once they got here, they sat in the living room and smoked pot, had some beers, and discussed what was going to happen. Holden was deliberately fickle, changing his mind about doing a group sex scene, and then wanting more money, which played out the time. Also, he didn’t really hold in the pot smoke, nor did he do more than sip his beer. He wasn’t going to get fucked up, but he was happy to let them think he was going to. It also helped that the pot they had was total weak sauce. He knew guys who drove in much better B.C. bud on alternate weekends. Drugs weren’t really his thing, but if he was going to do some, he liked to do the good stuff. He eventually snuck off to the bathroom and lounged in there for a bit, eating up more time. Checking the phone, he found his connection dead. Natural drop off, or had Roan really been plowed into? Shit, he hoped he was okay. What was he thinking? The guy was a superhero. He’d be fine. Holden saw a few closed doors on the way to the basement, but he had a weird feeling that he was the only true “guest” in the house today. Which meant what about Jordan? Probably nothing good. The basement was just a basement, although it seemed a bit more Western Washington than Eastern Washington to him, for reasons he couldn’t actually explain. The walls and floor were poured concrete, the lighting harsh and basically fluorescent, the set up very basic porn, what with a bed, a chair, and two digital cameras on tripods, with a computer
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setup tucked away in the back corner. It smelled like sweat, sex, ozone, and Febreze. There was the guy in charge of the cameras, “Lenny,” an average looking pear-shaped guy with thinning curly black hair and an underbite he really should have had seen to as a child, while his two fellow “performers” were “Alex,” a reasonably buffed-up guy with a bland face and a smattering of back hair, and “Rex,” a more handsome but almost tragically skinny guy who had the build of Iggy Pop. The tattoo on his calf (a rather ornate scene of the Virgin Mary, roses, and a bleeding heart) seemed to draw far too much attention to his toothpick legs. Holden recognized Alex from the video where they'd killed Coyote. They all took off their shirts and discussed what was going to be happening until Holden balked again, this time pointing out he was not a bottom unless he got paid a hell of a lot of cash, and nobody had mentioned anything about barebacking. (Honestly, if you wanted to fuck him, you really did need to pony up a lot of dough, to the point where he just solicited as a top, because most people couldn’t afford him otherwise.) They started dickering about the cash again, which he internally found hilarious, as these guys were going to give him the money, kill him, and take the money back. So why not just give it to him without a fight? Dickheads! It made him dial up the diva behavior. They had just about reached a resolution when they heard the screams from upstairs, followed by an almost simultaneous gunshot, and a roar that could chill the blood. All four of them looked at each other, Holden feigning surprise (it was really hard not to laugh), and Lenny exclaimed, “What the fuck was that? Was that a bear?” “Ah fuck, I bet it’s that fag detective,” Rex said, racing up the basement stairs. “He said he might be coming.” He? Maddux? Holden might never know. “No Human makes a sound like that,” Alex called after him, as the sound came again, more gunshots, more screams, another roar. The roar alone told him Roan was gone. When he was half transformed, you could almost hear a little bit of a Human scream of rage underneath it—just barely, a tiny little lifeline that let you know you weren’t completely fucked yet. But this was the completely fucked noise, the one that told you the Human had checked out and the lion had checked in. Doctor Jekyll had left the building, but Hyde was hanging around, waiting to start some shit. Alex was nervously peering up the stairs, and Lenny walked back to the computer, meaning neither was looking at him. Holden put his foot on the edge of the bed and reached into his boot, pulling out the Glock. He
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loved this little thing; he’d been practicing with it and found it not only easy to pull and use, but a hell of a lot of fun. He had to ask Roan if he could buy it from him, if they both lived through this. “Alex,” Holden said. “What?” he replied, annoyed, still trying to look up the stairs. “Would you at least look at me when I kill you?” That made him turn around. “What?” And that’s when Holden shot him in the chest. A hole appeared in the center of his naked torso and blood exploded all over the back wall as Alex staggered, staying on his feet, looking genuinely stunned. Lenny yelped in shock and dove behind the computer desk like a soldier seeking cover. “Coyote was one of my boys, motherfucker,” Holden told Alex before he finally tripped on the bottom stair and fell down, first against the now blood-smeared wall, then onto the concrete floor. He tried to press himself up, but his hands slipped in his own blood, and he went face-first into the floor. He coughed, choked, made one more attempt as a shockingly deep red puddle grew wider and wider around him, and then stopped trying to get up. Upstairs, more gunshots, screaming, the thud of bodies, and roars made a din loud enough to guarantee the cavalry didn’t come charging down the stairs. Holden imagined he should have felt something, but he had seen this fucker strangle Coyote, garrote him until he stopped moving. He deserved this. He honestly deserved so much worse. “Hiding, Lenny? You really wanna die wedged beneath a desk?” If it looked like the cameraman was coming up with a weapon, he was going to blow his fucking brains out. But Lenny must have known this, because he emerged hands first, shaking so badly his voice was a mass of tremors. “D-don’t sh-shoot me, p-please, don’t k-kill me. I didn’t hurt any-anyone, I d-didn’t—” “No, you simply filmed it and uploaded it for the masses, so that makes you a far better person. You wanna live through this? Gimme the hard drive.” Sweat was now streaming down his acne-spotted face. He was probably twenty-five, but he had the kind of face that would make him look awkwardly adolescent until his mid-thirties. “Wh-what?” He was running out of time. He might actually be out of time, so fuck it. “Hard drive, now!” he shouted, in a drill sergeant voice. (And he
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should know, as he had one as a client once. Really liked being spanked.) Lenny jumped and almost lunged into action, grabbing the computer stack and working its casing off. He looked up at him suspiciously, working with shaking hands, and said, “You’re not a hooker.” “Course I’m a hooker.” He seemed deeply suspicious of this. “But you’re with him.” He looked up toward the ceiling, where the monster-movie sounds of inhuman roars and all too human screams continued. “Yep. Us fags stick together.” Lenny briefly got a guilty look in his pale hazel eyes, just confirming what Holden had already guessed: not a single gay here. All gay for pay. What, couldn’t they find a gay psychopath who would happily fuck and kill another guy on screen? Surely there were a few who’d volunteer. It was discrimination, that’s what it was. He’d pried the cover off and started digging out the hard drive with no delicacy whatsoever. Luckily, Holden didn’t care what shape it was in, as long as he got it. Lenny was still shaking and trying to pretend he wasn’t. Fear had made his deodorant fail, and he was starting to give off an odor not unlike canned tamales. Holden wanted to shoot him just for that. “Can you call him off?” He didn’t need to ask what “him” he was referring to. “No. How do you call off a lion? It’s not like you can train them to heel.” And this was the only thing bothering him right now. Roan wasn’t almost transformed, he was fully transformed; bringing up Dylan or even Paris would have no effect on him now. And what great irony would that be if Roan killed him and ate him after all this? Lenny yanked the hard drive out like it was a rotten tooth. “He’s not even fucking Human. He should be locked up.” “This from the snuff filmmaker. Put the drive on the desk and start moving toward the stairs. Slowly. Any sudden moves and I kneecap you.” Lenny shot him an evil look but did as he said, keeping his hands where Holden could see them. “What kinda hooker are you?” “An action hooker.” He almost laughed as he said it. Okay, maybe the pot did have some minor effects. Lenny looked down nervously at Alex, lying face down in a pool of blood almost as big as he was. He paled, looked like he might be sick, which made Holden wonder if he tossed his cookies every time he filmed one of these snuff clips. Probably not. It was probably different when you
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actually knew the person killed. “If you don’t want me to kill you, you’d better start running.” His head snapped toward him violently. “You mean go upstairs?” As if to emphasize what a silly, suicidal prospect that was, Roan roared very loudly, a sound that chilled the blood with its mindless, animalistic rage. He was a hurt cat, and he’d be damned if he knew what had hurt him, so he was going to take down everyone in sight on the off chance he’d eventually get the one responsible. Holden wondered how many people were left upstairs. The smart ones must have run out of the house at the first opportunity, while the stupid ones went for guns. Natural selection in action. “I can’t—” “Stay here and get shot, or go upstairs and see if you can get away before he finds you. Make your choice.” It was no choice, and the evil look he gave him told Holden he knew it. But Lenny had seen him kill Alex, so he knew shooting him too would be nothing. There came a point when your sins were so great you couldn’t possibly make them worse, and Holden was there, at that zero point where he had absolutely nothing to lose. Lenny swallowed hard, probably made some attempt to gather his courage, and attempted to avoid the blood and Alex’s body as he ascended the wooden staircase. Holden kept his gun trained on it until he heard the door open, letting in the noise of someone’s stereo playing faintly, a background noise to the carnage. The basement wasn’t really well soundproofed, but out here, in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t need to be. As soon as Lenny was gone, Holden put the Glock down long enough to pull on his shirt and stick the hard drive in the waist of his jeans like it was just a bigger, bulkier gun. He checked to make sure the cameras weren’t on (they hadn’t been switched on yet), and that there wasn’t a slaved backup drive that he’d missed. He was aware of another scream upstairs and wondered if Roan had caught Lenny. The pot was giving this all a patina of illusion. It hardly seemed real, so maybe that’s why he wasn’t too worried about facing Roan. He had to go upstairs; the basement was a prison. There were no windows to the outside, no cellar door. It was go up, or be stuck in here until Roan went outside to hunt down the unlucky assholes who had to escape on foot, assuming he did. Since he could change at will, he could presumably change back at will, but since he was all lion when the cat came out, how did the Human will the change? There was a philosophical, emotional, and medical conundrum that no one had the answer to, not even Roan. He checked the cameras to make sure they didn’t have any drives he
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should remove, and found one had a portable case, so he simply put it in and slung the case over his back. The other camera he destroyed, first by throwing it against the wall, and then adding insult to injury by shooting it. He was pretty sure there’d be no evidence to salvage, but he wanted to make sure. He went to the head of the stairs and pressed his ear against the door, listening. It was hard to determine what was going on now, as it was rather quiet, but he was pretty sure he heard Roan’s low-level growl, which was enough to make your average person shit their pants. What he’d never told him, and frankly never would because he knew how badly he’d take it, was that his growl only sounded like a lion’s (or some other big cat) when he was still in some vestige of Human form. When he was fully transformed, it honestly sounded monstrous—it was a cross between lion and dragon, something sort of recognizable crossed with the unbelievable. It worked well, though; it made you want to start running and keep running until you dropped. Holden knew the bathroom wasn’t far from the basement door, and there was a window in there that, while small, was still big enough for him to pull himself through. If he could get there, he could get out of the house and check the back shed, which he had seen while walking from the car to the front door. He didn’t know if they kept people back there or what, but he knew Roan wouldn’t forgive him if he didn’t check it out. Relatively sure Roan was in another part of the house, he eased the door open, wincing as a hinge creaked and the smell of blood hit him. It had been in the basement, but it smelled even more bloody up here. The front door must have been open because dry air was blowing in from the desert, kicking up the scent of meat, moving it through the house. He went fast, slinking from the basement to the bathroom door, not running because running just encouraged a cat to come after you. (Oh, had he forgot to tell Lenny that? Oops.) He didn’t see anything in his quick shift from one room to another, save for what looked like a splash of blood on one of the walls of the main corridor and a fallen gun. As he ducked into the bathroom, a shadow crossed the head of the hall, and he heard Roan’s growl, much louder now. Holden closed the door and thumbed the doorknob lock. It was as flimsy as hell, and if the lion threw himself full force against it, the door would break like construction paper, but he didn’t need it to hold for long. Just long enough for him to get away. He heard Roan at the door, growling and snuffing, claws ripping at the carpet as if trying to reach under the door. Right now lion Roan was
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tentative, testing the borders, but as soon as he realized it was solid he would go after it in earnest until something pulled his attention away. At least this confirmed no one had got a decent shot on him. He had to stand on the toilet to reach the window latch and push the window up, then he had to punch the screen out, but none of that was difficult. It occurred to him that Roan as a lion was kind of like a guy on crack. They weren’t invincible, but goddamn, they could seem like it, as they were so inured to pain nothing seemed to stop them. It was instant kill shot or nothing. He pulled himself through the window until he could sit on the sill, then carefully pulled leg one through, then the other. He knew he was starting to put on weight—he could exercise and limit carbs all he wanted, but he was getting older, and your metabolism naturally slowed down— but at least he wasn’t so chubby that he couldn’t squeeze through the window. Not that it wasn’t a tight fit. He made sure to close the window after him on the off chance Roan broke the door down. He jumped down to the backyard, which wasn’t a proper yard at all, just barren scrub land eventually defined by a chain-link fence that glimmered silver on the horizon like a mirage. The sky was starting to lighten, the sun coming up somewhere out of his view, and already the cool bite of morning was starting to warm. It would be an insanely hot day, so Holden hoped to be far from here before afternoon could roast him alive. At least it would be a good day for burning. The shed was an extra big garden shed with peeling green and white paint that couldn’t have looked more out of place in this landscape. Since obviously no one was gardening out here, what could possibly be in it? He had a sinking feeling that it probably held something sinister. As he was walking toward it, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye and saw a guy who was crouching beside the house, holding a rifle. His head was turned toward the house, as if he was listening for Roan, so Holden saw him first. He’d raised the Glock by the time the guy finally noticed him, doing the slightest double take, and he could see the curiosity in his eyes: What’s the whore doing out here? But he didn’t let the confusion stop him from swinging the rifle around and taking aim at him. But he didn’t have a chance, as Holden had him in his sights the whole time. He pulled the trigger first, and the guy, who was dressed in all-black clothing and had one gay-ass bushy mustache, jolted as he was hit and sprawled on his back on the ground. Holden walked over to him
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and didn’t bother to see where the bullet had hit, he just saw the guy was wide eyed and staring up at him as Holden took his rifle away and slung it over his shoulder. “How many more of you are there?” When the guy didn’t answer right away, Holden kicked him in the leg. “I dunno! Some guys took off, took the car. Is it still alive?” “Alive, angry, probably about to come outside to see where its prey went. I’d find somewhere to hole up if I were you.” He was breathing hard through his mouth, panting. He had a hand over his stomach, and blood was seeping through his fingers. Having been stabbed in the stomach, Holden knew how much that hurt. “This was a setup.” Holden scoffed as he walked away, headed back toward the shed. “Your first clue should have been the fact that my name is Fox, asshole. We’re tricksters, each and every one of us.” The shed wasn’t locked, which may have been the only positive sign. Opening it, he smelled something like fertilizer and old oil and saw bags of quicklime piled in the corner. Didn’t that dissolve bodies? Okay, the bad feeling was back again. There was a freezer humming away, plugged in under the postage stamp window on the left-hand side, one of those low, horizontal ones like his mom had tucked away in the garage when he was growing up. It usually held sides of beef, trout his dad’s friends would bring him after fishing trips. He bet the odds that there was something that innocuous in there were low. He shut the door and dragged a bag of quicklime over, putting it in front of the door. It wouldn’t keep anyone out, but it would make opening the door difficult, giving him time to pull his gun and shoot first. He tucked the Glock in the front pocket of his jeans (it kinda fit, mainly because these were his slightly oversized pants), and took a moment to steel himself before opening the freezer. The banality of the contents almost shocked him. Frozen pizzas, Popsicles, pre-made frozen beef patties in plastic bags—it was just food. Guy food certainly (were there no women involved in this enterprise, beyond victims?) but just food. He let out a sigh of relief and almost laughed when he saw something odd tucked up against the near side of the freezer. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a human thumb. Attached to a hand, attached to an arm, attached to something else.
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He started pulling boxes out of the freezer, throwing them on the floor, and when he cleared away a stack of Popsicle boxes, he found a face staring through a plastic bag. He wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but it looked like Jordan Hatcher. “Aw, fuck.” So Roan was right—his odds of being alive had been low. Now they were nonexistent. He sank to the floor, sitting with his back to the still humming freezer, and wondered how he was going to get Roan out of here alive.
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22 Your Pearly Whites ROAN was floating on a sea of blood. But it was warm and soothing, so he didn’t mind. It was like he was hovering on a bed of warm, thick air, and it didn’t smell as much as you thought it would. It was very peaceful, and he almost didn’t notice how much pain he was in. But there was pain. In fact, it was so great his mind seemed to have fuzzed out. Someone had overloaded the speaker, blasted it at a volume beyond eleven, and now nothing sounded right. Nothing felt quite right; it was lopsided somehow, off, and he wasn’t sure if he minded or not. Maybe when he was closer to consciousness. That was a huge problem. When you were close enough to consciousness to ponder it, you were obviously coming back to it. It was totally unfair. The floating sensation became a slow, sinking sensation, pain growing and dragging him back to Earth. The pain quickly went from excruciating to unbearable, and then moved into an area where vocabulary failed. It felt like he had been crushed, every single bone in his body had been pulverized one by one, his blood broken vessel by vessel, and he would have screamed if he had been capable of doing it without causing himself further pain. (Which was impossible, so he couldn’t.) He lay absolutely still, trying to will the pain to settle like warped boards in an abandoned house, but it never happened. So he had to lie there, aching, hoping he didn’t have to move, but just opening his eyes brought on a pulse of pain. Where the hell was he? He was in a room with cheap white stucco paint slapped on flimsy walls, moldy green curtains pulled against what looked like radioactive sunlight, and a threadbare carpet some odd color between harvest gold and chewing tobacco. He smelled bland, horrible industrial laundry detergent coming from the flat pillow he was resting his head on, and figured he was in a very cheap motel, and if he was capable
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of feeling something beyond pain, he’d feel rough sheets. He groaned deep in his throat, incapable of actually articulating a syllable. He couldn’t move either. Breathing hurt. Oh shit—he'd totally transformed, hadn't he? He must have. This was the kind of roaring, angry, malicious pain that only came with a full body warp. What was the last thing he remembered? With all this pain, his memory was even more fragmented, but… running into the house. He had a memory of that, of body tackling someone coming out the door. Then… shit, he didn’t know. Did he bite someone’s throat out? Did that actually happen? He had a sense memory of that, of flesh and muscle between his teeth, but nothing else. Could just be part of his nightmare. (Well, certainly that’s what he wanted to believe.) From another room—but close—he heard running water and a slightly out-of-tune male voice singing. He heard a door open, smelled fragrant steam, and eventually the man crossed into his limited field of vision. Of course it was Holden, dripping wet and naked save for a thin white towel wrapped around his waist. “Hey, you’re conscious! Hold on a sec, I got something for you.” He disappeared to the other part of the room, and Roan heard a strange noise. Liquid being shaken in a plastic bottle? Yes, that was it. Finally Holden reappeared with a water bottle not quite half full of water. “Gonna need to drink this. It’s got enough ketamine in it to numb half of Panic, so I bet it’ll make you feel almost human for five seconds.” He frowned, then said, “Just prop your head up. I’ll dribble it in.” He guessed he couldn’t move well? Good guess. He leaned his head back, a small movement painful enough to make him wince, and Holden delicately brought the bottle to his mouth and let it trickle down his throat. The water was lukewarm and had a slightly bitter, plastic taste, but Roan was dying of thirst, and the water kind of soothed his ravaged throat when he could force himself to swallow. The bottle was almost empty when he finally started feeling the effects of the ketamine, a gradual, warm numbness that started to wash over his agonized body like a healing tide. Once the bottle was drained, Holden walked off, still talking. “I know you can’t get heavier in your lion form, but I swear you were. Holy shit, did I have a hard time dragging you to the jeep.” Roan turned over onto his back as the Vitamin K took over and he could breathe without feeling like someone was punching him in the chest. “It was a clusterfuck, huh?” His voice was a ghastly rasp. Apparently his throat hadn’t fully healed yet.
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“Nope. I’d say it all went off according to plan. We make a hell of a team.” Holden crossed to the room’s lone chair and held up something flat and black. A hard drive. “You want evidence for the Feds? They can go to town on this.” “Jordan?” He shook his head. “We were too late. They killed him long before we got there.” “Fuck.” He rubbed his eyes and was glad the drugs had kicked in. He did feel almost Human, although his heart was pounding a bit fast now. “Where did you get the ketamine?” “They had it. They had a lot of date-rape-style drugs. Maybe some of the people they killed weren’t getting paid for their time after all.” With no modesty at all, Holden pulled off his towel, showing Roan his bare ass as he pulled on his underwear. Well, no shock there. Holden seemed to think modesty was overrated. “What the fuck happened?” Holden told him that he lioned out (well, duh), and some guys fled while others attempted to bring him down, and they didn’t fare too well. Also, Holden figuratively lioned out and got a couple himself but didn’t specify what that meant (although Roan could guess). He then told him about finding Jordan’s body in a freezer in a shed behind the house, and how he'd decided he needed to get back to the main house, but couldn’t because Roan was out in his lion form. So he threw out the meat patties that he found in the freezer, hoping that would distract him. It did, apparently, but not enough that he felt safe to run back to the house. But he lucked out in that it was a hot day and he (the lion) was full and went to lay down in the shade and fell asleep. That’s when Holden decided to sneak out, and it was his intention to go back into the house, find some heavy drugs he could dose him with, and then get him out of there, but he didn’t need to. He told Roan he was already changing back, albeit slowly, when Holden ventured out of the shed (he wanted to ask how so, what that exactly meant, but he was scared to know and didn’t ask). So Holden just went back into the house, found some drugs he thought he might be able to use later, grabbed some cash, and then lit the place up. Roan honestly thought it was the drugs at first, and the fact that he felt like he should have been dead, or that dying would have been more merciful at this point. “Lit the place up?” His voice still had yet to recover; he sounded like Harvey Fierstein’s distant cousin.
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“Yeah,” Holden replied casually, pulling up his jeans. “Burn, baby, burn.” “You burned the house down?” “Of course I did. You probably left blood all over the place, and I’m sure I left fingerprints, and I’ve got a record, so I’m in the system. Better to hasten the ashes to ashes, dust to dust bit.” Didn’t he know going in that working with Holden was opening a very dark door? These were “his people” these snuff guys were messing with, giving him an extra sense of mission. Roan knew he could only blame himself, as there was only one way this could go. “Aw fuck, Holden….” “What? It hasn’t even been reported on the news yet. I’ve watched the morning and noon local broadcasts, and no mention of it. Either no one noticed it, or no one cared. “ “You know what the horrible thing is? You can do more time for arson than you can for some murders.” “Probably. But we won’t get caught.” “Oh really? You have a magic wand?” “I knew this kid called Sparky for many years on the street. He was a pyro, total head case. Remember that rash of fires downtown about ten years ago? All him. He said watching stuff burn made him feel better.” It was hard for him to think through the sludge of drugs and pain, but he finally got it. “Ten years ago? They never caught anyone for those.” The fires were mainly at abandoned and vacant buildings, and transients were initially blamed, but the cops were forced to revise their initial supposition when there was an explosion of similar fires that were too close in style to be called copycats. From what he understood, the method of ignition was similar in all cases as well. But the fires just stopped before a good suspect could be found, leading to speculation that he (and it was usually a he) was in prison for another crime. “No, but Sparky was good. I just copied what he did. Who knows, maybe they’ll blame Sparky for this one too. I doubt he’d care.” “What happened to him?” “Sparks? Oh, he got bored of the scenery, hopped a bus to Miami. Have there been a string of fires down there? That’ll let us know he stayed.” He almost asked Holden why he didn’t drop a hint to the cops, but
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why would he? He didn’t trust cops, and ratting a fellow street kid out was a no-no. At least the fires hadn’t killed anyone (that he knew of). He’d have been more indignant if someone had died. “How many people did I kill?” Holden pulled on his T-shirt—a new one, or at least new to him; it advertised a Yakima titty bar called Sugar’s, which was funny on a couple of different levels if you knew Holden—and replied, “I don’t know. Maybe no one. I didn’t count.” “You’re lying.” “No, I deliberately didn’t count, didn’t check for life signs. You know why? Because I knew you would ask, and I wanted to give you a truthful answer. I do not know, I never knew. I don’t know how many ran away either. I don’t know if the second guy I shot died. I can live with the ambiguity.” “And you think I can? Wait a minute—you shot two people?” “One of them killed Coyote. The other pulled a rifle on me. I feel justified in both cases.” He wanted to shake his head, but couldn’t because of the pain and because the drugs were really kicking in big time now, and that floating sensation was coming back. It was very nice. He could see how people got addicted to this stuff, but it was also very precarious. He had the sense that he was balanced on the edge of a razor blade and movement one way or another would slice him in half. “I didn’t want this to turn into a bloodbath.” “I’m sure you didn’t. But how else was it gonna end?” Holden came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “I know you’re a good guy, Roan. It’s endearing, if slightly naïve. But I’m not, and you knew that. That’s why you brought me in. You want to heap guilt on someone, heap it on me. I can take it.” He then leaned over and kissed Roan gently on the forehead before giving him a bittersweet sort of smile. “No one’s better than whores for absolution.” He glared up at him, trying to push his anger through the haze of pain and drugs. He had no idea if it got through. “That’s bullshit and you know it.” “Do I?” he asked, with such false cheerfulness Roan knew he was being set up. “I’m not your assistant investigator because I’m eye candy, although I’m that too, if I don’t say so myself, nor am I a great detective. I’m your assistant because I will always back your play, because you
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being in any form of lion will never shock me, and because I’m so motherfucking ruthless it kinda scares you at times. I get the job done, and we never discuss the cost.” He then broke into a grin that was somewhat gleeful and somewhat guileless, a hard combination that was all the more chilling for its improbability. “How awesome is it that I’m muscle? Rentboy muscle. Wow, I think I just found a new line of work when I get too old to sell my ass.” He stood up and made a dramatic gesture with his arms, like he was unveiling a magic trick. “What do you think—Fox the Gigolo Assassin? How awesome would those business cards be?” Roan sighed and continued to glare, but now he realized Holden didn’t care. He could scorn him all day, and he would ignore it. “Do you want me to fire you?” “You wouldn’t. I work for a kind word and a pat on the ass. You’ll never find anyone else that cheap.” “Are you psychotic and I just didn’t realize it until now?” “Now don’t be insulting. You know I’m not a psycho. I’m just icily pragmatic. Fuck that whole hooker with a heart of gold stereotype. I’ve got a heart of stone. And you can’t say you didn’t know that.” As he walked across the room, Roan knew he was right. Of course he was right. He had brought Holden into this because he didn’t have to worry about him if things went wrong (which they had), and it wasn’t just because he was a survivor. After all, why was he a survivor? It wasn’t because he was a born peacemaker. He’d said it himself: if it was us or them, they didn’t have a chance. His head was pounding along with his heart, but it wasn’t painful per se, just weird. Ketamine was a powerful—and powerfully addictive— drug. He knew from having seen it used on Danny Nakamura that it could fucking kill you, but he wasn’t worried about it. Shouldn’t he have been? Then again, he’d survived an elephant tranquilizer overdose, so why would any drug worry him? What should worry him was the fact that a full transformation was still hard on him physically and getting harder all the time. Eventually, he’d transform and the change back would kill him. He might have been adapting to the virus, but the body still had limits, and he couldn’t count on it to bail him out forever. He had to stop the full transformations. Now how the hell did he do that? He was able to move his arm without screaming, so he rubbed his hideously dry eyes, and wondered if he could ignore the guilt. Would he fall in a K-hole and forget everything? That was a wonderfully tempting
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thought. Suddenly, he realized what Holden had said. “Noon news? What time is it?” “Just going on one.” “Shit.” He made to move quickly, and suddenly the one-two punch of pain and drugs knocked him flat to the mattress. Okay, he'd rushed it; he needed to take this in stages. So much for adaptation. “Oh fuck. Dylan.” “Will probably chew you out a bit, but will be so grateful you’re alive it’ll be perfunctory. He’s crazy about you, old man, and I gave him a story he will be happy to buy. Just be glad I’m such a good liar.” He stared at Holden. “You told him what?” Holden sat down on the edge of the chair and cracked open a soda he probably got from a vending machine. “Actually I called Fiona and asked her to do it, ’cause Dylan would get suspicious if it came from me.” “Why would he think it was suspicious if it came from you?” He took a deep gulp of the soda, burped, and put it on the arm of the chair. “Hooker over here. You forget?” “So? Dylan knows I’m not interested in you like that.” Holden nodded, and nodded in a strange way, like he was humoring him. “He thinks I have a thing for you, though.” “I never told him you said you’d fuck me for free.” He grinned, but it had an edge to it, like it was sarcastic or he didn’t quite believe him. “Well then, he used his creepy boyfriend mojo and figured it out.” “Creepy boyfriend mojo?” “Some gay guys get it. They know an actual threat when they see one.” “Threat? You’re not a threat.” “Tell that to the guys I shot.” That wasn’t the kind of threat he meant and he knew it, but Holden was content to dodge the comment, and Roan was too tired to pursue it. He’d put it on the “for later” shelf. “What did you tell Fiona to tell him?” Apparently it was, like all good lies, wrapped around a kernel of truth. Supposedly Roan had trailed this cheating guy all the way up to Gig Harbor and got in a car accident up there. He was knocked unconscious— but no real damage done—and taken to a local hospital, but they found one of his false IDs in his wallet and just assumed that’s who he was. Roan
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woke up in the hospital and realized the mistake, but rather than correct it, he’d snuck out of the hospital and was now on his way home. He called Fi to tell Dylan because he was sure he’d get pissed at him. Although there was some plausibility stretching, it wasn’t totally out of line, and really, that was probably the best lie to cover both his absence and subsequent drugged-up pain when he got home. Holden really was the Hemingway of liars. Carefully, with great concentration, Roan sat up and turned, so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. Putting his feet on the floor felt like a minor triumph. He was naked, which was a given (clothes didn’t usually survive the transition—how the Hulk kept his pants on he would never know), but there wasn’t any blood on him, which was highly unusual. “Did you clean me up?” “Yeah. All that blood on motel sheets? It may be a dive that doesn’t ask questions, but a sheet like a bloody shroud? They might ask a question.” Fair enough. In fact, good thinking. Sometimes he forgot how smart Holden was, and Holden was more than happy that people forgot, even Roan. Roan really had to keep that in mind. As assistants went, he was the best. But as an enemy? Fuck no, he would never want to face that scenario. Maybe it was ungrateful and bitchy, but at least Roan could take minor consolation in the fact that his rage got the better of him sometimes due to sharing space with the lion, a biological balancing act that got harder the angrier he got. But what was Holden’s excuse?
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23 Drown With Me ROAN didn’t know if he'd handled any of this right. But he vacillated between being guilt-ridden and too exhausted to care. Dylan was upset and angry for a bit, but relieved he was okay and was therefore willing to let a lot go. So he bought the car accident story, and while he had obvious reservations, he decided to buy it. Dylan was kind like that, and Roan was reminded that he probably deserved so much better than the shit Roan could offer him. The burned-down house in Eastern Washington was discovered (or at least reported) the afternoon he got home, and it was not only mentioned that it was considered arson but also a homicide scene. That made him pick up the phone and call Hatcher. You never wanted to tell a parent their child was dead. He'd hated it as a cop, and he hated it even more now, especially since he knew how much Hatcher seemed to love his son. This was going to destroy him. Hatcher was initially stoic, as if afraid to show a single scrap of emotion on the off chance he would shatter into a million pieces. But after a long and strained moment of silence, he asked in a low, emotionless tone. “Did you get them?” What a nice, bloodless way of asking if he’d killed them all. He wanted to say no, he wanted to say that technically the lion took care of the ones that didn’t get away, but he decided on an uncomplicated, explanation free, “Yes.” “Good,” Hatcher said, and hung up the phone. The next day, the remainder of his fee and some extra money (expenses, presumably) was deposited into his account. This was a surprise, mainly because he had no idea Hatcher had his bank information. A couple of days later, after the hard drive had made its way to the Feds (anonymously), he got an e-mail of a news report, a small thing that couldn’t have taken up more than two inches of column space. It was all about a man named Conrad Maddux dying in a car crash in Ecuador. Car
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crash his ass. Now why had Hatcher sent this to him? A couple possibilities came to mind: proof that he kept his word, and that he had indeed gotten the last of the men connected to his son’s murder. Or it was a threat of some kind, to let him know that if he passed on that Hatcher had something to do with the now-defunct Tabu website (Holden had checked, although they both agreed that it had probably relaunched under another URL), he could end up as dead as Maddux. Roan was rather surprised he couldn’t even work up some anger about this. He just didn’t care. If Hatcher wanted to take his shot, he was welcome to try. Everyone had had one, why shouldn’t he? Several truly weird things happened. The weirdest one was probably Tank and Fiona starting to date. Tank took Fiona out for a drink as a way of protecting her without her knowing he was, and as it turned out, they hit it off. Yes, he was off to the Bruins farm team soon, but Fi actually saw that as a plus, as she didn’t think she was up to a “proper relationship” right now. Weren’t goalies and dominatrices natural enemies in the wild? After all, he had a hundred pounds of protective gear, and she had a bullwhip. You’d think they were the opposite end of the spectrum. Still, they seemed to share a certain weirdness that made them almost perfect for each other. Dylan sold three pictures in a row for good sums, but only one was bought by someone they knew (Scott). He was still unemployed, but his self-esteem was better. The Falcons found out they were signing on to the domestic partnership registry and insisted on taking them out for a “bachelor party,” which was just an excuse to go barhopping and drink. Which was fine with him, so they went out with the same crew as before, and Roan got the impression that Jeff could drink Charles Bukowski under the table. Every now and again, Dylan would give him a look, a look that said “If I knew I was gonna get your crazyass friends too, I’d have dumped your ass a long time ago.” And he couldn’t really blame him, but weren’t these crazy jock assholes kind of fun? Or maybe he just liked not necessarily being the craziest guy in the room for a change. Part of him expected to get arrested at any time, but he didn’t dwell on it, mainly because if he worried, Dylan would ask him what was up. The pills helped too. The domestic partner registry thing was highly anticlimactic, although that was what he'd expected. It was just signing papers so if he keeled over, Dylan would get his stuff. (Oh, and he’d get Dylan’s stuff,
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but there was no way he was going to outlive Dylan, which he took as a perverse comfort.) Hatcher himself left the country before it came out in the press that Jordan Hatcher’s body was one of those found in the fire, and thanks to a leaked video, the press began to connect Jordan to a porn scandal. It was huge news, even though they had random bits that didn’t quite fit together. It was probably a good thing Hatcher was in France, far away from the sensationalist and slightly wrong local coverage. Roan asked Holden if he'd leaked the video, and he swore he didn’t, but it was hard to believe. The porn/Jordan angle totally switched the line of investigation, and he had it on good authority that some people actually thought this was mobrelated (yes, the mob was in porn. Not in Eastern Washington, but far be it from him to discourage such thinking). The more days went by, the more he knew it was unlikely they’d ever get nailed for it. Roan got two new tattoos, mainly because he felt like it. If he could just cover every inch of his skin, would it hide the fur when he transformed? Would he be some weird tattooed lion? He liked to think so. Both were small—one was on his left arm and one was on his right. The first was simply a paintbrush with a ribbon reading “Dylan” on it, and the second was a biohazard symbol. Dylan was touched by the first but felt the second was far too derogatory. Why? He was a biohazard. His blood was toxic, full of a rotten virus that would break your bones and squeeze the life out of you more slowly than a boa constrictor. Much like his Leo astrological tattoo, he felt this was a way of warning the newbies how unclean he was. Dylan didn’t find that funny. At the end of the week, Dylan brought up the therapist again, but this time suggesting Roan might want to talk to someone because Dylan thought he was depressed. Really? Roan didn’t laugh in his face, but he wanted to. He’d been a depressive all his life, but he could handle it. He was just in a bad period right now. Maybe one of the people he ate at the snuff house disagreed with him. He thanked Dylan for his concern but told him he’d be okay, mainly because he couldn’t imagine what he would say to a therapist. “I really want my lion side to go away. Can you talk to it?” Against his better judgment, as a sop to Dyl, he met with the reporter, Aidan Lambert, at a coffee shop downtown. He was one of those prematurely balding men, with curly black hair almost hiding the small crop circle at the back of his head, and retro geek-chic thick black frames that he could have ripped off of Elvis Costello in the ’70s. He had a pug
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nose, liquid brown eyes, and a scraggly, almost pubic goatee. He wasn’t handsome, so he went the opposite route, trying to play up the “quirky” angle that served some character actors so well in independent films but never quite played out the same way in real life. He looked like the love child of Abbie Hoffman and Steve Buscemi, and there was no way any good could come of that. To top it off, it was an unseasonably warm day, and here he was wearing layers and visibly sweating in them. (A buttondown blue shirt with a gray hoodie and a worn brown leather jacket on top of it. He eventually shucked the jacket. He completed the outfit with khakis and red Converse sneakers that were probably part of the “quirky” aesthetic he was cultivating. This unleashed Roan’s inner flamer—he wanted to tell him “You’re trying way too hard, honey. You just look deranged,” but since he was wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a T-shirt with the words “Now Panic and Freak Out” on it—a gift from Paris, of course—he probably wasn’t qualified to give anyone fashion advice.) It was no guess at all to say Aidan was straight. Right away, Roan told him that there were some questions he wouldn’t answer, and if he told him to move on, he’d better, or that was the end of the interview. To Aidan’s credit, he agreed, and he was almost a little gushy, as he was apparently aware he’d never done a proper interview. (He’d made an occasional statement to the media, but that was about it.) His oddly boyish enthusiasm didn’t make this any less weird. Aidan stuck to the basics at first, and Roan decided to be diplomatic and pass on making any comment about the church, except when Aidan pointed out he’d had a long, contentious relationship with Eli Winters, he snapped, “It’s a fucking joke, but that doesn’t give any hater nutball the right to shoot the shit out of them.” That made Aidan sit back and glance down at the micro-cassette recorder on the center of the table, as if afraid Roan’s language would cause it to spontaneously explode. Sadly, it didn’t. Did this mean he couldn’t curse in this magazine? He mentally vowed to curse some more. The interview went okay really. Aidan seemed to be aware there were boundaries he couldn’t get close to, but he eventually came to the topic Roan knew he would. “Are you aware of the videos of you on YouTube?” Roan sipped his green tea lemonade as he played for time. Shit. “I’ve never posted any videos on YouTube.” Aidan blinked at him, as if trying to figure out how to best continue.
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“The video of you punching out that lion went viral.” “I’ve never punched out a lion.” “It was you. It wasn’t the greatest quality video, but your hair color is pretty unmistakable, and a couple of cops came out and said it was you.” He hadn’t heard that. Bastards. “I didn’t punch it out. It had been drugged. That was its final lunge before the drugs kicked in. It just happened I hit it and the drugs kicked in almost simultaneously.” “You don’t actually believe that, do you?” “I was there. I know what happened.” Aidan consulted his notebook. It was an actual notebook, with chicken-scratch handwriting scrawled haphazardly across the pages in blue and black ink. It was charming in its way. “This was the same incident where you pulled the lion off a person who was being attacked, and kicked it hard enough to leave a very sizable dent in a parked car.” “Is there a point to these questions?” He hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with having to spit it out. “There are… rumors that you have abilities above normal Humans.” “Bullshit.” “But you do have a superior sense of smell, which has been well documented—” “Smell. That’s different than what you’re implying. Hell, what are you implying?” He shifted uneasily in his chair, and Roan was starting to smell his anxiety across the table. “Nothing really, I swear. It’s just that… while doing some research on you, I found some information that seems to indicate that you have some… gifts that aren’t average.” His stomach sent out an extra pulse of acid. Luckily he was on Vicodin, and outer reactions were hard to muster. “Gifts? What, like the Archie McPhee inflatable toast that my secretary got me for my birthday?” Aidan scowled at him. “No. You know what I mean.” “So you’re a mind reader now? Awesome for you.” “Why are you being hostile?” “This isn’t hostile. Hostile would be throwing the table through the window. Which I’m considering if that emo bastard who bathed in Axe body spray walks by the table one more time. I swear, that stuff’s a chemical weapon. The UN should outlaw it already.”
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Aidan looked like he was tempted by the topic shift, but firmly stayed on point. “There’s rumors of a security camera tape, circulated within the police department, that shows you doing something that would qualify as superhuman.” Oh goddamn it, that convenience store tape? You’d think they’d have found something more interesting to watch by now. “There’s no such thing as superhuman, only well trained. Ask a stunt man or a karate teacher.” Aidan looked just a little confused. “So you’re saying you’re just well trained?” “There you go. As a virus child I have to keep myself in shape anyways, so I’m probably in better shape than most.” Aidan nodded, but in a strangely reflexive way, like he was hardly paying attention to what Roan said. He tossed his notebook down on the table and shut off the recorder. “This is off the record, okay? Won’t go in the article. Why won’t you come out and admit that you’re different in more ways than the obvious ones?” “Obvious ones?” He let out a very slight scoff, almost a hiss through his teeth. “Your hair color, your eyes, your sense of smell, your age and your mental faculties in spite of the fact that you’re a virus child. The fact that you’re an ex-cop and private investigator that looks like you could’ve been in a punk band in the ’90s. None of this is normal.” Punk band in the ’90s? “Is it the tattoos? And hey, what’s wrong with my eyes?” “Nothing’s wrong with them! They’re gorgeous. Even I think so, and I don’t notice things like that, and I’m straight. I mean, they’re like cat’s eyes or something.” He then grimaced at his own words, and quickly added, “Not like that. I mean—” “Don’t turn into a pussy on me, Lambert,” he said, smirking at his own pun. “What do you want me to say? That if I wanted to, I could break every bone in your body without working up a sweat? That I could fight everyone in the cafe right now and win? That in lion form shooting me probably wouldn’t be enough? That I could lion out at will?” “Well, that’s a little extreme. What I’ve heard is—” “I don’t care. I deny it all and will deny it all, no matter how true it is or isn’t. And no, that doesn’t mean I’m Republican all of a sudden. It means I know what’s best for me and the people around me.”
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“Meaning …?” “Meaning superhumans are fun from a movie and comic perspective, but think about it. What that makes you is superabnormal. And people sure are accepting of the abnormal, aren’t they? Do you need me to tell you how many websites are devoted to killing all infecteds? They’re not super anything, they’re just diseased, but people get all NIMBY on us all the time. Because we’re unclean, we’re freaks, we’re no longer Human. Add another level to that in your mind, Aidan. Add an infected who’s faster than you, stronger, better. They gonna get flowers thrown at them, endorsement deals? No. The Humanity Firsters will fall all over themselves trying to kill you and make themselves a savior or martyr for their cause. Look at this white supremacist idiot who shot into my house and tried to light it up. My partner was in there. He could have been hurt or killed. I really don’t give a shit about me anymore. I can take care of myself—or should I say the lion can take care of me—but I’m not endangering my loved ones. I am not super anything. I’m diseased, like all other infecteds are diseased. My virus just expresses itself differently, that’s all. And I advise you to drop this line of questioning right now.” His owlish eyes blinked rapidly behind his glasses, and after a moment, he asked, “Could you fight everyone in the cafe?” Roan shrugged. “Give me a challenge, why don’t you? These pastyfaced English majors could be taken by a hyperactive sixth grader.” “I’d put up a fight,” he pointed out, turning on the recorder again. “I’m still betting on the sixth grader. They’re small, but they’ll crawl ya.” About the time the interview was wrapping up, the photographer arrived, a young woman with stringy blonde hair who was so mannish in her slender frame and way of dress (canvas jacket, hiking boots, flannel shirt) that he would have thought she was a male if he couldn’t smell the estrogen on her. She didn’t wear makeup either, had a slight overbite, and almost startlingly clear blue eyes. Her accent when she spoke was very faintly German. She crouched down and took a few photos of him with the cafe window as the background and said very little, except near the end when she was taking the last of her shots. “The camera loves you,” she told him. “You look haunted.” Was that a compliment? He had no idea, but didn’t care enough to ask. Aidan thanked him, paid for the drinks, and told him he’d make sure he got a copy of the magazine when it came out. He hesitated by the table as Gerta (or at least that’s what he called the photographer) led the way
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out. “I understand, you know. But I’m a little surprised someone like you would play it safe.” Someone like him? Rather than ask, he simply replied, “Lose someone you loved more than life itself and get back to me. Becoming the world’s most famous freak isn’t worth what little I have left.” He didn’t know if he’d ever understand, or indeed if he understood it himself.
ONLY one day later, he checked into Willow Creek so Rosenberg could scan the shit out of him. He stayed off pills for the drawing of his blood (and they seemed to take a pint, the bastards), but as soon as that was done he went back to his room and popped a few codeine. It was weird being here, because the last time he'd been here was when he checked Paris out of the place. He remembered dropping off books for him, sneaking in sandwiches, getting to know the only tiger strain he’d ever met. It wasn’t bittersweet to be here, more like melancholy. He would dream about him tonight, wouldn’t he? And he did. They were sitting on a hospital bed, and Paris was shuffling a deck of cards. Right. Paris had tried to teach Roan how to play gin rummy one day, because Roan didn’t know. “How can you be so smart and yet not know how to play a kid’s card game?” Paris asked as he shuffled like a cardsharp. His hair was shorter, as once he was hospitalized here he got rid of his shaggy, overgrown “homeless guy hair” (as he called it). “’Cause I was a foster kid and I missed out on a lot of things. They do what they can for you at some of the group homes, but mostly you learn shit from the other kids. None were interested in card games beyond the three card variety.” “Shall I start playing my violin?” “Quiet, you middle class suburban bastard,” he snapped, and that only made Paris grin at him. As he dealt the cards, he said, “Congrats, by the way. Good of you to make an honest man out of Dylan. Like the ring too.” Once again, Roan had to point out he wasn’t for traditional rings, and once again he’d ended up with a guy who was of the same opinion. So their commitment rings—or whatever the fuck you called it; the “not
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marriage, ’cause that’s icky and gross” rings—were silver bands with a tiny black silhouette of a cat on it. Roan wanted to go with the skull, but Dylan refused. The cat seemed like an ironic compromise. “It’s not a snake eating its tail, but it will do.” He picked up his cards, looked at them, and knew he was dreaming, since the cards made no sense: all face cards, Kings, Jacks, and Jokers (what, no Queens?), some in suits that were unheard of, such as clover, tree, frying pan, and lion. He put the cards down and admitted, “I still miss you.” “Well, you’d better.” “I think I’ve fucked up very badly.” “Not with Dylan?” “No, with everything else. I don’t think I like what I’m becoming.” “And what’s that?” Looking at Paris’s sweet face was so hard it brought tears to his eyes. God, he was so beautiful. It was the tragic kind of beauty too, the kind you knew was doomed from the start. A face that launched a thousand ships and dug a million graves. “I don’t know. I’m so fucking scared I hate myself for it.” “You hate yourself anyways,” Paris told him, then enfolded him in a hug that Roan realized he was desperate for as soon as he felt his arms around him. He leaned into Paris and breathed him in, aware he was dreaming and not really caring. “Change is inevitable. Just let it come.” “And let it wash me away?” Actually, come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad idea. To reach total oblivion, an inner space where he just didn’t care anymore. He always thought happy endings were for dead people. Maybe one of these days, he’d find out for himself.
About the Author
ANDREA SPEED writes way too much. She is the Editor In Chief of CxPulp.com, where she reviews comics as well as movies and occasionally interviews comic creators. She also has a serial fiction blog where she writes even more, and she occasionally reviews books for Joe Bob Briggs’s site. She might be willing to review you, if you ask nicely enough, but really she should knock it off while she’s ahead. Visit her website at http://www.andreaspeed.com and her Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001496290042. She tweets at http://twitter.com/aspeed.
The INFECTED series
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