Infected: Lesser Evils (21 page)

It was probably the romantic thing again, holding him back. He still had to believe somewhere in his brain that Humans weren’t necessarily all that bad. Holden blamed Paris for that; if Paris hadn’t proved to be such a sexy firecracker, Roan wouldn’t be trying to hang on so desperately to a humanity that could only betray him.

Holden was aware this was his own cynicism showing. Also probably some wish fulfillment on his part, as he would love to be able to just turn into a big cat and be done with people forever, except as snacks. It wasn’t that he didn’t know he had a dark side, because of course he did; he’d been a street kid, and he did lots of things that could be considered unsavory, and for fuck’s sake, he was a hooker. But working with Roan had taught him many unflattering things about himself, had cued him into things he supposed he could have guessed, but hadn’t really known. He could kill, for instance, and it wouldn’t bother him much. Oh sure, those guys deserved it, so why would it bother him? But just the idea of it wasn’t pleasant. He was every sin his father preached against (while his father went ahead and committed others). Maybe that’s why he was kind of proud of it too.

He played good host, he offered Dylan a drink, but Dylan was content to be as stiff and fragile as a board doused in liquid nitrogen. So Holden left him there as he went into his bedroom to change. He wasn’t sure how to dress. Was he going to pretend to be Roan? Well, that would never work, for several reasons. The main one—the big one—was they didn’t look anything alike. They were both white guys, but that was pretty much where it ended; Roan was technically even paler than him, as he seemed to stay out of the sun as much as possible, and on top of that he was a redhead. Even their body shapes were incompatible—he had broader shoulders, he was healthy farm-boy stock, while Roan was built more for speed. Maybe that was part of the reason why his reflexes were so good. (That and the fact that he was superhuman. More Human than Human?)

Still, Roan had a pretty simple wardrobe to grasp: weird T-shirt, jeans (never designer, never tight), and a funky coat. (Roan had no real fashion sense, except when it came to coats. He had great coats. It was like the one place where his true gayness came through, in his elegant, swoopy coats.) He thought he had a pretty nifty leather jacket, although his T-shirts probably weren’t as accidentally hip as Roan’s. Smutty, sure, but Roan rarely went for smutty. He sifted through his clean shirts, and finally found one with a giraffe on it (Why a giraffe? Why not?) and it seemed funky enough to suit his purposes. He wasn’t going to be Roan, he couldn’t be Roan, but he could be a sort of analogue. A generic Roan type, if you would.

He went into the bathroom, mainly because he had to pee, but he found himself looking at himself in the mirror, which he had promised himself he wouldn’t do. But under the harsh fluorescents Holden got to see the hues spreading across his face, all the colors of the rainbow that a bruise or a contusion could mimic: purple, maroon, yellow, green, brown, even something akin to a low-saturation blue. He scowled seeing it, but not because it marred his pretty face. His face had never been pretty; he had always been told he wasn’t beautiful, but was interesting all the same, which he supposed was some sort of odd compliment—not ugly, not pretty, but not plain. Neither Dylan with his dark-eyed, swarthy handsomeness, nor Roan with his strangely feline—damn it, it was—allure, but some sort of oddity out in his own orbit. Pluto to their Jupiter and Saturn, he supposed, something people argued over categorizing. No, he hated seeing it because it was like “Victim” was plastered all over his face, written on his forehead in blood and lipstick for all to see. Holden was not a victim, he was never a victim, no matter what was done to him, and it filled him with a sudden fury that made him long to start breaking things. But no, he had to collar it, stifle it, get it under control. Because if he lost control, didn’t they win?

Besides, he knew that he had done them all worse by sending Roan after them. He wasn’t an attack dog—sorry, lion, which was a million times better—but something about animal rage and Human logic combined promised you a weapon that few could deal with. In fact, it made him wonder anew if any of those Internet conspiracy theories about the cat viruses were true. The most likely of all of them was some sort of genetic modification gone awry, but for what purpose? Gene therapy? Again, the most likely, but some people insisted the government (any government; didn’t really matter which one) was trying to find that new and improved soldier, like they did in every bad action film. Didn’t seem likely they’d look at the animal kingdom for that, certainly not the cat family (wouldn’t gorilla be better?) and yet, after seeing Roan in action, after hearing what he had done to Garver and his fucking cop butt monkeys, he wondered if maybe someone had figured out the master plan after all. It was just so insane it was hard to believe. But he had some proof, didn’t he? Roan was a one-man destruction squad. He didn’t want to be, he couldn’t always control it, but fuck if he didn’t bring that snuff house down. Holden hadn’t really needed to be there—all those men and all those guns still equaled a fight they couldn’t win and several messy deaths. The only thing Holden had to do was clean up the mess afterward.

Holden noticed a look on his face, a sort of desperation, and he decided to use it. He couldn’t be Roan, he couldn’t even be an analogue, but a desperate infected? Yeah, he could play that. He made faces in the mirror until he found one he liked, and then mussed up his hair with a little mousse, trying to mimic the look of someone who hadn’t slept well for days.

He wondered if now, because his face was all messed up, he’d get a call back, and he smirked at the thought. Unbeknownst to anyone but Rocky, he’d actually auditioned for a part in a low-budget horror flick some people were shooting up in the Cascades. Rocky was a friend of a friend of the casting director, and suggested Holden might be perfect for them. Seems they needed an actor who didn’t mind working for scale and didn’t mind potential nudity. If nudity bothered him, boy was he in the wrong profession.

Either the world was changing, or being friends with Rocky just meant they were more open than most. They knew he’d done some porn, and didn’t care. Gay porn? Didn’t care, even though he was reading for an ostensibly straight part. He thought the audition had gone extremely well; he made them laugh a couple of times (deliberately), and they said they’d call him back in a week or two. For more auditions, or had he gotten the job? Even Rocky hadn’t been sure, but he said that was a good sign.

Maybe this, combined with the beating, was some cosmic sign Holden should give up hustling and become an actor. It was just another form of whoring, with slightly less sex. He wondered if anyone in the local theater would hire him—”Hi, I’m in gay porn, and tonight, I will be Iago”—but he actually knew some people in the local theater scene. Hire him for Shakespeare, no, but some angst-ridden, artsy-fartsy modern piece? Probably, yeah, no problem. Now it was time to prove his acting chops in an alternate venue. If he could pass as a desperate infected, he’d consider that a good sign too.

When he came out, Dylan looked at him with unreadable dark eyes, and said, “You look like you’ve been preparing for a role.”

“Too phony?”

“No. I’m just getting that you’re not new to this.”

“Of course not. All I do is pretend. I probably wouldn’t know the real me if he came up to me in a bar and bought me a drink.” Even as he said that, he thought he might have given too much of himself away, but screw it. He could look at it as throwing Dylan a bone—poor Dylan, who never knew what to make of him.

You know, Roan did have a point with him. Dylan was the better self, the thing that both he and Roan could never achieve. Poor bastard. How did you end up that way? This was not a world for the better selves; it was not kind. What a terrible burden to live with.

Dylan was quiet, even after they got back in the car and started driving toward the Church. He was handsome; even his profile was a knockout, with his diamond-cut chin and sleek jaw, now peppered with late-day stubble. Roan did have an eye for beauty, you had to give him that. Finally, at a stoplight, Dylan spoke again. “Don’t you hurt?”

“Hmm?”

“You just got out of the hospital, and you still look pretty banged up. How many guys attacked you, anyways?”

“Two. Armed with clubs and Tasers.”

Now he stared at him. “Cops? You were beaten by cops?”

“They had the accoutrement of cops. Doesn’t mean they were. You can’t believe everything you see.” Besides, how much did State Patrol really count as cops? More than a mall cop, sure, but less than a SWAT team member. They were somewhere in that squishy middle.

Dylan continued giving him a dubious look, but the light changed to green, and he was forced to look ahead. “Did you tell Roan this?”

“I told him nothing. I didn’t have to. He knows Taser burns when he sees them.”

“Jesus.” He grimaced as if anguished, and sure he was—Dylan probably hurt for the world—before he shook his head. “Why the hell did they attack you?”

“Oh darling, that is a long and unpleasant story. Let’s just say I wouldn’t take a beating like a good for-hire piece of meat should. Some men in power don’t like it when you get uppity.”

“Why do you do this to yourself? You don’t have to sell yourself.”

“That is debatable. But let’s agree to argue about that later, okay?” Actually, he’d skirted the issue, but he did kind of hurt. His whole face felt like a toothache. He’d been given some painkillers, but very few, and weak; Roan probably had better in his pocket. Holden could have asked, but fuck it, he had an emergency joint at home, and pot was usually a great painkiller. Also, it’d give him his appetite back, which was good. He knew he was hungry, but he’d had a hard time eating. Hospital food, maybe.

Dylan let it be for the moment, but finally asked, “Are you sure you can do this?”

“What, fake my way into a drug deal? Easy. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Ah. That’s very kind of you. But I’m always happy to be someone I’m not.” This was true. Was it sad? He wasn’t sure. He had to admit that right now, he didn’t much care.

The Church was busy tonight, with lights burning in every window and no parking on the street. Holden could hear the thud of repetitive deep bass that usually accompanied club music coming from somewhere nearby. Dylan had to park down the street, in front of a house where no one was apparently home. “Must be one of those infected mixers that drives Roan crazy,” Holden noted, and then, after a moment, added, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“Yeah, I do,” Dylan said, taking the keys out of the ignition and putting them in his coat pocket. “These are the people making Roan’s life hell. I want to meet them.”

Holden just stared at him, impressed by his profile even in the dark. “What did he do to deserve you?”

Dylan almost scoffed, but it was too weak to be much of anything. “He has a magnetism about him, doesn’t he?”

“Animal magnetism?”

“I wasn’t going to say that. But Roan has said something about him having an unstable pheromone load now that he’s out of a viral cycle. He says that could be responsible for anyone being attracted to him ever.”

“Wow. So, does he hate himself ’cause he’s a lion, or does he hate the Human part of himself more?”

“I don’t know. How do you tell?”

“Ask?”

“And do you think I’d get a straight answer?”

“Good point.” With a sigh, Holden put his hand on the door handle. “So are you going to be you, or are you going to use an alias?”

“Just me. You?”

“Since I doubt Roan used his first name, being that he’s anathema to the Church, I’m just gonna be me.” With a grin, he said, “I’m a lion.”

“I don’t even know what I am. If they ask, I guess I’m a lion too.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Holden tried to sound optimistic, but Dylan was clearly at the end of his rope. Shit was getting to Roan, but it was getting to Dylan too. Everyone just needed a hug and possibly some quaaludes, but hey, who was he to judge? It wasn’t like he’d ever been in a functional relationship where he wasn’t being paid to be there. It made life uncomplicated, which was nice, but it also made him the last person who should ever give relationship advice, ever.

They walked to the Church in silence, and Holden took the lead, for no other reason than he was simply the point guard. He was the one trying to pass as an infected in need of burn. Dylan was just… well, he wasn’t sure. Since he was a Buddhist, he probably wasn’t on a mission of vengeance, but who knows? Maybe he was. Just because he was Buddhist didn’t mean he couldn’t snap and lose it. Holden just wished he had a better idea of what he was going to do so he could back his play.

The Church was all dolled up tonight. There were little white lights framing the windows, and little blue ones overhanging the doorway. It occurred to him they were called “fairy lights” in Britain, and he almost laughed. He was wondering why they were so open, considering their recent troubles, then he noticed the hulking figures in the thick shadows. Church security guards, so thick on the fringes they were almost a Human cordon. So it was open within reason, apparently, but there was a brace of rent-a-cops in case something looked really suspect. Holden wondered why he and Dylan weren’t challenged, but after thinking about it a moment, realized an obviously beaten guy and his pretty partner just didn’t seem like the anticat armed fundamentalist types. He bet the mousse he put in his hair helped too; it probably made him look pretty gay, or at the very least, metrosexual.

Once inside, all was light and throbbing noise, like a dance club, although the noise was leaking from another room. There was a long table, on which there was an assortment of boxed cookies, crackers, some fruit, and some bottles of water. It was a coffee pot away from looking like the spread at an AA meeting. A Stepford robotic blonde woman greeted them with a creepy smile. “Hello, and welcome to the Church of the Divine Transformation.” Her fake smile faltered as she looked at Holden’s face. “Oh my, whatever happened to you?” There was a hulking man in the corner, probably Samoan, trying as unsuccessfully to blend into the wallpaper as his coat was unsuccessful in hiding the weapons stashed underneath. The Church seemed to be prepared for an armed siege.