Prey (14 page)

“Roan—”

“And the grass outside the window. You saw how overgrown the backyard was, right? So how come there’s no path in it? A big cat would have broken the grass, it would have left a trail. There wasn’t one. How does that make sense?”

“Roan!” Sikorski snapped. “You aren’t on the force anymore. This isn’t your investigation. You weren’t even supposed to be at the scene.”

“No, but I was, and I’m telling you this stinks to high heaven.”

Sikorski sighed heavily, and started to lecture him on this being his case and Roan technically being a civilian now. Roan had heard it before, 78

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so he didn’t really listen, he just sipped his too-sweet soda and read the back of his CD. No Pansy Division?! Sacrilege. But why he cared when he had all their CDs he had no idea. Maybe it was the principle of the thing.

Finally, when he could get a word in edgewise, he said, “Just promise me you’ll look into it, Gordo, that’s all I ask. Don’t let this get dismissed as a routine kitty kill.”

“There’s nothing routine about a cat kill, and you know it.”

“Tell that to the boys downtown,” he replied, and then his phone obliged his little snit by losing the connection just then. Fine. He could have called him back but he just didn’t feel like it.

If Paris was here he’d probably be lecturing him too—not your case, not your case—but he began to wonder what possible connection there could be between Tweaks and DeSilvo, if any. Seemed like the sort of thing worth investigating.

But that was for later. He finished his sickly sweet root beer and tossed the cup in the trash. He needed to get to the church, he needed to confront Eli.

And without Paris trying to hold him back, he might be able to beat something useful out of him.

BY THE time he arrived, he could actually find a place on the street to park. There were still too many cars there, and he thought he could hear the strains of AFI leaking from the area near the auditorium as he approached the church. In the dark, with the wan light from streetlamps and porch lights, and the homey glow of yellow lights bleeding from curtained windows, this place looked harmless, almost welcoming, a harbor in the darkness. Maybe that’s why it was so attractive to kids.

The path to the porch was dim, but the house itself was fairly well lit on the inside. By the time he reached the porch, he was torn on whether he should just storm in or knock. It was technically a church, but right now it seemed like a house. Luckily they had some closed circuit cameras watching the front, and Rainbow opened the door as he neared it. “Roan, you’re back.” She pasted on a weak, phony smile that seemed to strain her in some mysterious fashion. She didn’t seem that happy to see him.

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“I’m not here to cause trouble,” he told her, pushing the door open gently and forcing his way inside as she looked over his shoulder, searching for Paris. “I’ve just confirmed that Danny, the boy I’m looking for, was here on several occasions, including quite recently. “

She backed up into the foyer, her innocent little doe eyes looking blurry and confused. “We don’t do anything illegal.”

“I’m not saying you have. But you know there are some members who are more inclined to help kids who may be in trouble, may be unhappy at home… especially if they’re young boys.”

She started shaking her head halfway through his sentence. “We don’t—”

“He could be in serious danger,” he interrupted, fixing her with a stern look that had made a few weak-willed suspects fold in its time.

“Look, we all know I don’t like Eli and he doesn’t like me, but I have no interest in nailing the church with anything right now, no matter what Guy thinks. I just want to find Danny before he turns up dead.”

The use of the word “dead” visibly shocked her. “Dead? What are you implying?”

“Have you heard what happened at Tweaks’s? Did that make the evening news?”

He’d been subtly advancing down the hall as they talked, forcing Rainbow to keep backing up, and letting him deeper inside the church.

The music had lowered until it was barely a thrum, and he could still smell a rather large amount of people, but elsewhere. The incense had faded to a background irritant, and it was because of it he picked up the faint but undeniable scent of a cat. It was diluted, but quite recent.

“I don’t watch the news,” she admitted. “It’s never good.”

He had to give her that. “Tweaks was killed, Rainbow, and so were three kids staying at his place.”

She gasped hard, bringing a hand to her throat as tears welled in her eyes. It could have been a magnificent bit of fakery, but he didn’t think so; Rainbow just wasn’t that good an actress. “What? How? What happened?”

“I don’t think you want the details. But Danny was supposed to be there, and I have a horrible feeling that someone’s after him. I’d like to get to him before the killer does. So I need those names, Rainbow.” Okay, he 80

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was bullshitting her, but he knew Danny was probably camped out at the house of one of these oh-so-helpful church visitors, who were as kind as could be to those with young, firm bodies.

She looked torn, her bottom lip quivering slightly as she squeezed her eyes shut in sorrow and doubt, but she let out a little sigh. “I don’t know—”

“This could be life or death. I’m serious.” And he was, if not precisely honest. He could see the thought process going on behind her eyes as soon as she opened them, the flicker and fade of emotions, doubt, and loyalty to the church. But Rainbow didn’t just look like an old hippie, she kind of was one too, and that’s how he knew she’d cave and give him what he wanted. She’d be more concerned about the welfare of the kids than her boss’s approval. “I may know some people who can help you.

Wait here,” she said, disappearing through a side door.

But Roan had no intention of waiting. He decided to see if he could follow the scent of the cat who had passed through here recently, although that was far from easy. In fact, it was damn near impossible in a place where lots of people, especially infecteds, passed through, but with the incense extinguished he figured he had a good shot at it if he concentrated.

He closed his eyes to concentrate on the smell, and carefully worked his way through the lobby and its pictures of big cats, and turned into the corridor beyond. He thought the scent headed toward the auditorium, but no, it headed the opposite way down the hall, where it seemed to get stronger by the simple virtue of so few people coming this way and the air conditioner being absent from this end of the hall. He opened his eyes as he banged into an end table, and he quickly snatched a vase of dried flowers out of the air before it hit the carpet. The scent trail seemed to lead upstairs, which was strange. Only a few select church “members” lived on the upper levels, and as far as he knew, none of them were actually infected. Had that changed? Or had someone decided to sneak their bit of jailbait upstairs? Perhaps both. Oh boy, he couldn’t wait to see.

He started up the stairs, which were narrow and creaky, probably the original stairs of the house that had never been upgraded. There was a wall sconce that looked tarnished with age, another holdover, but it was sadly dark so he couldn’t enjoy the feeling of being in a Victorian mystery, however fleeting.

“Roan,” Rainbow cried from below, and even though he didn’t answer her, she heard the creak of the stairs and looked up toward him.

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“What are you doing?” she hissed, lowering her voice to a strained whisper. She quickly came up the stairs after him, a small piece of paper gathered in one bony fist.

She was too late, of course. He was in the upstairs corridor, which was narrow and unlit, so much so that he could barely make out the braided carpet runner or the separate doorways down the corridor. One was ajar, but it was simply a bathroom; he could smell the 1,000 Flushes from here. He’d just started down the hall when Rainbow did something unusually bold for her—she grabbed his arm. It was pure reflex, he didn’t mean to, but he yanked his arm clear of her grip more forcefully than necessary; he was concentrating on the scent trail and he didn’t like another of his senses (touch) being engaged. She took a step back, giving him some room. “What are you doing up here?” she whispered fiercely.

“Guy won’t like this.”

“Guy can go fuck himself,” he snarled. “In fact, he’d best do so,

’cause I can’t imagine who else would.”

“You shouldn’t be up here.”

“I smell a cat.” The scent went straight down the hall; he was sure of it. The hall ended with a white painted door, the largest one on the floor.

He sensed Rainbow stiffen behind him; it was like the charge in the air jumped a thousand fold. “Why—you can’t… I mean, there’s no cats—”

“You’re lying.” She was. And more to the point, she was nervous, scared. Who the fuck was behind that door?

He just went ahead and tried the doorknob. It was locked, so he slammed his shoulder up against the door, once, twice, three times. Finally the door frame began to splinter as he put his weight behind it and got angrier and angrier, and finally it slammed open.

What it revealed was a fairly spacious bedroom showing signs of damage—broken mirrors and a shredded chair were strewn across the wheat-colored carpet, the bed listed to the side in a broken wooden frame—but what caught his eye was the movement of the curtain. The color of eggshells, it billowed and flapped in the breeze coming from the broken window like a trapped and frantic ghost.

The smell of cat was strong, as this one had clearly marked its territory, but there was something else. The faint smell of Ferragamo 82

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aftershave permeated the room beneath the cat scent, and he knew of only one person in this place who wore Ferragamo: Eli.

Rainbow walked into the broken room, squeezing past him, and looked around with genuine shock. “He… he said he wasn’t feeling well.…”

Eli was now an infected. Worse yet, he was on the loose in his cat form.

Roan wondered if he’d just solved the case.

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11

A Town Called Malice

ROAN knew it was far too late to catch Eli—he didn’t even know what form of cat he was, except not tiger—but he decided to look for him anyway. He grabbed the note from Rainbow’s hand and headed downstairs. He half expected her to follow, but she didn’t.

There was no way in hell that “cat Eli” would be waiting outside, loitering in the bushes around the church and ready to pounce on him, although he had held out small hope that maybe he would be. He wasn’t afraid of the transformed cats, not like everyone else was, and he honestly wasn’t sure why. He knew he should be; they’d want to kill him more than most people because he smelled of a rival cat. He just figured he could handle one, and if he died, well, he probably deserved it. Was that fatalism? Even when he was on the force, he had no fear of going into a domestic situation or providing backup when there was a hostage situation, because all he could think was, “I’ve survived worse than you.”

He went back to his car and pulled out his HK P2000 SK from beneath the seat, clipping the holster to the waist of his jeans and putting on his jacket so it concealed the weapon from view. He wasn’t worried about a cat seeing it—they could smell it anyway, and wouldn’t care—but about people catching a glimpse of a strange guy with a gun and calling the cops on him. Nothing sent a cat fleeing like screaming sirens and flashing lights. He made sure the safety was off and he had a full clip before snugging the gun in the holster.

He took a good long look up and down the street, hoping for some sign of where Eli might have gone. If he’d changed around the same time as Paris (and since the transformation was based on viral cycles, that was the poorest bet you could make), he’d had two and a quarter hours on him; over two hours in which he could have struck out and hunted. He probably wasn’t anywhere near here anymore.

Or he could have been just around the corner. Cats were inherently 84

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unpredictable, especially the human transformed variety. The one thing you could count on was they always came home to their territory before the virus cycle ebbed and they became human again. The general assumption was they started to feel bad and retreated to where they felt safest, and for whatever reason, that was where they first found themselves. So he could stakeout the church and simply wait for Eli the cat to come back, but he just knew he’d fall asleep due to boredom before he did. Truth be told, he was exhausted; the lack of sleep yesterday was catching up to him, and his forty-minute nap had given him a brief second wind that had already petered out. He was just too old for all-nighters, especially two days in a row.

But he wasn’t giving up yet. He just picked a direction and started walking, hoping he’d find some sign that a big cat had been that way. If it had marked its territory along the way he’d catch a scent, but otherwise olfactory cues wouldn’t help him now. Out in the open, in a (mostly) residential neighborhood close to a busy street, there were too many competing scents for one to stand out. Well, maybe car exhaust, but that was no help at all, and too much of it gave him a headache.

He tried to give off a “fresh meat on the hoof” vibe, but that was hard to judge. The night was quiet, save for its usual noises: the strangely arrhythmic thuds of a bass-heavy car stereo in the distance, the faint barks of dogs, the noise of a television bleeding through the walls of a house he walked past, the blue light almost strobing in the darkened window. He was catching no hint of big cat, seeing nothing helpful, and while he was trying to radiate a “tasty victim” aura, he really didn’t know if he could.

He slowed by big hedgerows and beneath overhanging tree branches, places where a big cat could lurk and hide. “Come on, big boy, come and get me,” he muttered, no longer one hundred percent sure what block he was on.

Oh wow—had he just said that? There wasn’t a gayer thing to say on Earth… well, besides “You know what this room needs? Chintz!”
And frankly he wasn’t gay enough to say that under any circumstance, unless he was being a smartass.