It made perfect sense, didn’t it? Why Eli had not gone public with the news. If he was tied to one of the victims in a close way, he could fall into suspect territory. But then he would have had to have been very close to Melissa Prescott to be so scared that his natural inclination towards shallow displays and p.r. blitzes would be curtailed. After the phone call he told Paris he’d talk to Eli about it tomorrow, but Par seemed to think he was included in this. He wasn’t, not yet, but he wasn’t going to argue with him about it. There was nothing to argue about. He trusted Paris with his life, his business, all of it, but he wasn’t really a detective. He was, to use his own term, his “guy Friday”. Roan had to go this one alone.

While Paris was brushing his teeth, Roan did a quick bit of checking. Melissa Prescott wasn’t what he would call gorgeous (okay, yeah, gay guy, but he knew attractive when he saw it no matter the gender), but she did look young - extremely young. She was twenty years old, but with her perfectly round face, full apple hued cheeks, pale blue doe eyes and shoulder length cascade of crimped honey blonde hair, she could have passed for fifteen or sixteen.

Eli had a thing about barely legal girls, didn’t he?

Melissa was his type all the way, with the added benefit that she was actually legal. Could she have been one of Eli’s many girlfriends? Part of his little “harem”? Now that the possibility had lodged in his brain, it seemed to fester, unwilling and unable to come out. Who was the other one of the four who went to the Church? If it was Patrick, okay. But if it was Ashley or Christa …

Those girls? He looked at their pictures too. They both looked younger than their ages; they both could’ve passed for sixteen. They both could have been Eli’s type.

He always fell back to sleep, although he was never quite sure how. Finally the alarm went off, set to radio instead of that annoying buzzer, and he woke to the very loud swells of some bombastic classical music, lots of strings and deep wind instruments building to a crescendo (which included a gong; you always needed a gong), and he slapped the alarm in irritation, rolling away from the warmth of Paris’s side. Paris made a half-conscious noise and snuggled deeper into his pillow, not bothering to open his eyes. That was the thing, the habit; Roan got up when the first alarm went off, and Paris usually didn’t bother getting up until the snooze alarm went off. So Roan sat on the edge of the bed and simply switched the alarm off. Yeah, Paris would probably be pissed off when he woke up and realized it, but he could always claim it was an accident; there was some benefit of the doubt there.

He took a quick shower, got dressed, and went downstairs to start the coffee. The smell would probably wake Paris up eventually, and he’d figured out he’d been ditched. He left a note on the fridge: Following something up. We’re closed today - enjoy your day off. He filled a travel mug with coffee and got out of there.

It was still raining, but some of the more dramatic weather had let up. It was pissing down steadily now, the wind almost nonexistent, the sky a gunmetal grey that made him feel like he was looking up at the hull of a battleship. He noticed the actual time, and stopped at a coffee shop about a half mile from the church, where they knew him fairly well.

It was a small place, one of those that sprung up to try and compete with Starbucks, and did it by promoting its “bohemian” atmosphere and dedication to local artists. As he sat at a small table by the window, eating some kind of pastry that didn’t have enough blackberries in it, he saw the fliers for a “poetry slam” night (people still did that?) and an open mike night. Every time he saw one of those, he always wondered what would happen if he signed up for one, got up on stage, and started ranting like this one vagrant he knew when he was a beat cop. Everyone at the station knew him, they called him “Saint Dude” (when asked for his name, he claimed it was Dude), and he had these wonderfully elaborate, incoherent rants about topics as varied as the conspiracy surrounding aluminum foil, the secret cabal of cattle kings who really ran the world, the saltpeter in pretzels, how the CIA was fitting house cats with 3-D imaging systems for spying on people, and the way the local television station was beaming microwaves directly at him to disrupt his brain. He was a schizophrenic who hadn’t had meds in years, but the sad thing was there wasn’t much they could do for him. They never got a positive i.d. for him, never found family, and the local loony bin was so overcrowded they were actually booking rooms in advance. Unless he was an obvious danger to himself or others, they had to leave him out on the street, and they did, because Saint Dude was never violent. He eventually was hit by a car and died, but his rants lingered on in the minds of those who were treated to them. If only he could have taken his meds, he might have been a hit blogger by now, or a commentator on Fox News. He was a genius before his time.

Figuring he wasted enough time, he went back out into the rain and drove to the Church, parking directly out front, and putting on his fedora before getting out. In his trench coat and hat, he felt like a hardboiled detective in some stylish ‘40’s film, and it was as silly and sad as all hell, but it usually made him feel better. Not today, though; today he just felt a bit foolish. But at least the hat kept the rain out of his eyes.

It was still too early for anyone to be manning the CCTV cameras, so he was forced to knock on the door. He almost pushed the doorbell, but then he remembered the last time he heard it, it played “Year of the Cat”. If he heard that, he might be forced to beat the shit out of Eli, and if he was going to go to jail on assault charges, he wanted it to be for something more meaningful than that.

Rainbow answered the door, trying to be cheerful but unable to hide a slight wariness. “Oh Roan, what a surprise.”

Was she ever going to say “What the fuck are you doing here?” She was just too nice, wasn’t she? “Don’t worry, I’m not here to cause trouble. I have to see Eli about the job. Can you tell him that?”

Her eyes squinched in curiosity, but she glanced off to one side as if looking for directions from the stage manager, and said distractedly, “Um, okay, just a moment.” She left him out on the porch, rain dripping off the brim of his grey blocked felt hat (luckily it was waterproof), but he didn’t wait too long before she opened the door again and looked at him with wide eyed surprise. “Come in. He says he’ll see you.” That really seemed to be a shocker, but he expected that reaction from her.

She led him down a hallway he’d never been down before, narrow and lined with small framed cat prints hardly bigger than photos, and behind a heavy oak door was an old fashioned looking study full of polished cherry wood and dark red and gold upholstery, where books by the foot lined the side walls and a picture depicting a fox hunting party in the woods set the general tone of a stuffy, old world British style library. A plush oxblood colored carpet ran from wall to wall, and there was a heavy oak desk that made up the centerpiece of the room, where Eli sat talking on the phone, motioning Roan in and throwing Rainbow a reassuring look, the tacit approval to leave them alone. Roan sat in one of the burgundy velvet upholstered wing chairs, and looked to see if any of the books had ever been moved or read. Nope, didn’t look like it. He hated designers who used books for aesthetic purposes only, and he hated even more pretentious boneheads who went along with it. There was a huge picture window behind Eli, but gauzy curtains the color of marigolds had been pulled against the gloom, so the only thing visible was the meager light bleeding through. The room spoke of old money and power, and he couldn’t have felt more out of place.

Roan took off his hat and waited for Eli to finish his call, which he finally did. “You couldn’t possibly have found out something so soon,” Eli said, as soon as he put the receiver down.

“What was your relationship with Melissa Prescott?”

Eli was a bit like Paris in that he was a natural actor. Shock flashed through his eyes, but his expression remained stony, and he cocked his head to the side curiously. “I beg your pardon?”

“Let’s not do this shit, okay? If you want me to work for you, I need full disclosure or I’ll walk. The police have asked me to find a connection between the four victims, and I’m starting to wonder if the connecting factor’s you. Talk to me or talk to Sergeant Murphy in homicide.“ He was overstating his case slightly - there was no way to make Patrick fit into the equation since Eli was straight (no matter what his hair cut and man purse would have you believe) - but scaring the shit out of Eli was the best way to get him to spill his guts.

The Ferragamo turned sour with fear as it oozed through his pores. He could hide the visible response, but not the physical one that coursed through his body. “You are fucking unbelievable. Do you really think I would hurt anyone? Not to mention why the fuck would I hire you if I killed all of them? Why would I be that stupid?”

He shrugged. “Guilty conscience?”

Eli glared at him, eyes like laser, and shook his head. “Un-fucking-believable. Melissa came here a few times, I talked to her once or twice, she seemed like a good kid. I was horrified to discover she’s been murdered.”

“So that was it? Melissa was a random church visitor that you just happened to remember?”

His eyes, as clear and brown as scotch today (he loved his contacts), narrowed in disgust. “I do make a note of remembering my people.”

Especially the young women whom he had a sexual interest in? He could buy that. But at this moment in time, he didn’t quite. “Who was the other church visitor of the victims?”

Eli opened his mouth, shut it, and then tried again, eyes briefly darting down to some papers on his desk. “I-It was Patrick Farley. He came here once or twice, but he never stayed long.”

Which screwed up his theory, but it wasn’t a fatal flaw. “So why did you have to consult a cheat sheet for Patrick but not for Melissa?”

Eli’s right eyelid twitched, and he watched the muscles in his jaw work as he ground his teeth, biting down hard on some ugly comment. “What is it you want from me, McKichan?”

“The truth. You were fucking around with Melissa, weren’t you?”

“No.”

“She was one of your girlfriends.”

“I said no.”

“And I don’t believe you. You’re shit scared; I can smell it.”

That startled a derisive laugh out of him. “You can smell it? Holy fuck, stop the presses! We gotta conviction on scent. Jesus Christ, the cops buy that shit, do they Scooby?”

Roan stood up and put his hat back on, making a point of flicking the raindrops on the carpet. “I’ll refund you your money less one day’s work. Expect a visit from Sergeant Murphy this afternoon.” He turned and walked for the door.

As he expected, he took two steps before Eli exclaimed, “Wait! I hired you! You can’t quit.”

He glanced coolly at him from over his shoulder. “I just did. See you in the funny papers.”

Roan had his hand on the brass doorknob when Eli snapped bitterly, “What the fuck d’ya want me to say? I did a consultation with her, all right? We didn’t date; it wasn’t a big deal. “

He turned to face him, but didn’t take his hand off the doorknob, which he made sure Eli saw. “You slept with her?”

Eli was on his feet, his face twisted in an ugly scowl. He didn’t look so Eurotrash handsome anymore. “How the fuck is that relevant?”

“It is if I say it is. Yes or no?”

He glowered at him, clearly loathing every single fiber of his being, and it was all Roan could do not to laugh. Ooh, Eli’s hatred just made him tingle all over. Was that wrong? “Yes,” he grated through gritted teeth, not so much sitting as collapsing back in his plush leather desk chair. He added snappishly, “Do you want photos? Diagrams? Videotape?”

“Do you have them?”

His hateful look continued, his eyes nearly glowing like embers. Man, some people just had no sense of humor.

Roan turned to face him, digging his hands in the pocket of his coat. “How serious was your relationship with her?”

“It wasn’t. Didn’t you hear me? It wasn’t a big deal.”

He almost said “trick“, but that was a gay term that didn‘t translate to the straight world; in the straight world, a trick was something either a magician or a prostitute did. “A one night stand?”

Eli fidgeted in his chair, squirming with discomfort. “Yeah. Happy now?”

“How close to the time of her death?”

“What?””

“A couple days before, a week, a month? You didn’t want this getting out, Eli, so I’m figuring the timing was bad.”

Eli rubbed his face, and Roan weighed the possibility he was hiding his expression as he concocted a lie. Moderate to extreme. “About a month ago.”

“So, since she was killed roughly two weeks ago, that meant you slept with her two weeks before her demise?” Eli nodded, face still hidden in his hands. Any personal relationship with the victim would get him added to the potential suspect list, but honestly it wouldn’t be a big deal, not in a case like this. The shootings seemed so random - save for the infected connection and the general ages of the victims - that all looks at boyfriends and girlfriends would be perfunctory and shallow, unless there was known violence in the relationship. Maybe it was an ego thing; maybe he lived in fear of having the cops come in and rummage through his life, especially after his near miss with the court on the assault charge.

Maybe, but he still had the feeling he wasn’t getting the whole truth here. And then there was the “informer”, the person who squealed on him. Roan had listened to the recording with Paris several times last night, and while neither of them could recognize the voice, they decided that the caller was either a woman or a man with a higher pitched voice. It had to have been someone from here, the church, someone who knew that Eli had hired him and was concerned about the killings. Most likely someone from within Eli’s inner circle - but why blow the whistle on a one night stand? Eli probably had dozens of them a month. Either it was more than Eli was saying, the informer had some issues with Eli that were just now boiling to the surface, or a combination of the both. It had occurred to him that the informer could be someone who had soured on Eli, turned against him, and Roan wondered how far that disappointment and anger extended. To murder? Was that why Eli was supposedly next? There could have been a couple of different things going on here, and that was a problem. “Did you infect her?”

That made Eli look up at him sharply, horror naked on his face. “No! Fuck no, she came here infected, I didn’t … I didn’t! She was a cougar strain, okay?”

That was easy enough to check, so it was unlikely he was lying about that. But judging from the smell, the size of his pupils, the tiny beads of sweat gathering at his hairline, the rapid beat of his pulse in his throat, he was still lying about something. His relationship with Melissa was more than he was saying, wasn‘t it? But even under duress he wasn’t willing to give it up. Why? Was there something damning about it, something that would make him more suspect than he already was? “Do you have a current serious girlfriend?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re still being evasive. I’m just trying to figure out why.”

He exhaled sharply, holding his hands open on his desk and attempting an innocent look that didn’t quite fit his face. “I swear to you I am not. I had a fling with Missy, yeah, but it was just the once, and it was no big deal. I don’t even think she liked me that much.”

“Bad in the sack, huh? You should ask Paris for tips - he’s a real dynamo.”

His eyes narrowed once more, and a more comfortable look of barely veiled disgust and hostility settled in his features. There was the Eli he knew and loathed. “Is this what I hired you for? To be a complete prick to me?”

“Hell no, I’ll do that for free.” He opened the door but never looked away from Eli’s face; he wanted him to know this wasn’t over. “But as soon as I figure out why you hired me, you may wish you had found someone else.” He left, closing the door behind him, and figured Eli was probably having the shits about that right now.

****

It was as easy as hell to find out the name of Eli’s current girlfriend. He simply went up to Rainbow and asked her if she knew where he could find Sandy, Eli’s girlfriend. She looked at him with great puzzlement, and said that Eli’s girlfriend was named Mia. He made a show of being embarrassed, and after blaming the early morning and a lack of sleep, asked what her last name was again. Not realizing this was complete entrapment, she volunteered that it was DeSoto, and when Roan asked if she was around, said she usually didn’t show up until around six or so. Poor Rainbow - she was so trusting, so friendly. He felt like a complete fuck taking advantage of that, but it did make his job easier.

In the car, he added the name Mia DeSoto to his extremely tiny list (so far) of people who were potential suspects. He definitely needed to talk to her as soon as possible; she was the favorite to be the “informant”. Hell hath no fury like a woman cheated on.

Since he was in the neighborhood, he stopped by Melissa’s apartment to talk to her neighbors, but most weren’t home and the ones that were had nothing of value to say. No one was home at the time of the shooting, and no one knew much about her, as she was one of those who “kept to herself”. He stopped by the Starbucks where Ashley Cryer worked, and he got a chatty barista named Matt who was a tall, wispy kid in a canary yellow t-shirt as tight as a second skin, with sterling silver rings all over his face (nose, eyebrow, earlobes) , a shock of electric blue in his spiky golden blond hair, and three loops of barbed wire tattooed on his left wrist. He was happy to talk to him - and give him extra foam on his mochachino - as he liked Ashley and was devastated by her death; he couldn’t figure out who would ever hurt her. Matt was also flamboyantly, obviously gay, as well as extremely impressed that he was a “real life” private detective. He agreed to meet him later after work at the Café D’Ante to talk about “Ash”, but before he left, Matt leaned over the counter and whispered. “I’ll bring her key.” Her apartment key? Jackpot. Thank god for the flamboyantly gay best friend.

He got back home to find the GTO out of the driveway (Paris had finally put the engine back together and reinstalled it last week; he just felt it had some body work left to do) and a note stuck to the front door: Went to the store, be back soon. P.S.: You’re a putz. Okay, yeah, he figured he ditched him. He wondered what he’d have to do to make it up to him. A scalp massage would probably make him forget all about it. (In attempting to treat his own migraines, he’d learned quite about scalp massages, and according to Paris he gave great ones. It was kind of a shame that the scalp massages didn’t work for his headaches, but at least it gave him an odd skill he could seduce men with.)

As soon as he checked the answering machine (there was nothing of note), he called Kevin, his trusty closeted inside source in the police department. He could have called Dropkick, but he doubted she’d give him this kind of information. Kevin could. “Detective Robinson.”

“Hey Kev, can you talk freely?”

There was a pause as he checked. He could hear typing in the background, people talking; it was a noisy day at the vice unit. “Kind of,” he finally said. “How are you?”

“Oh, copasetic. I know it’s not online, but I need you to check the autopsy report on Melissa Elaine Prescott. She’s one of the murder cases being worked by Murphy and Dubois.”

“What?” he exclaimed a bit too forcefully, and then lowered his voice to a hiss. “An active case? Are you mental? How do you expect me to do that?”

“Says the computer whiz. Oh come on, Kev, I have the utmost faith in you. Besides, I don’t need a detailed report, I just need to know if there were any signs she engaged in sexual activity shortly before her death.”

When he and Paris had Randi over for dinner a couple weeks’ back, he’d managed to cajole the nervous Kevin (“What if someone sees me at your house?”) to come too. Kevin had the most attractive skin color you could imagine, it was a kind of burnished chocolate (his eyes also matched), but otherwise … he looked like a nebbish, the poor guy. He was almost barrel shaped - not fat, just stocky, broad at the chest and shoulder but a little soft in the middle - and his round face seemed to be set in a permanently hangdog expression, like he was the saddest guy on planet earth. (Which may have been the truth; hard to say, he was just so reserved.) He remained fairly quiet through dinner, which wasn’t a big surprise, especially since both Randi and Paris were both so gregarious that they held the floor the entire night.

But Kev hadn’t reacted to Paris like he expected. He glanced at him like “Oh wow, look how attractive that guy is”, but that was it; he didn’t fall in rapt, instant lust like nearly every person whoever met Paris. He acknowledged he was too damn good looking and just seemed to move on. Maybe he didn’t like white guys, he didn’t know. In fact, he knew next to nothing about Kevin - save for privately outing himself to him, Kevin never talked about personal stuff. He talked computer shit, cop shop gossip, maybe small talk like the weather and sports, but almost nothing else. He was so far in the closet that not even his personality peeked out very much. Again, this made him feel very bad for him. What must it be like to be that tightly wound?

But it seemed to bring home the fact that while he knew Kevin, he didn’t actually know Kevin at all. He had no idea what his ultimate motivation was. He couldn’t quite believe that Kev helped him so much because he was gay and he was keeping his secret, but what other motive could he possibly have?

Kevin sighed heavily, and Roan knew he wanted to say no, but he wouldn’t. He never did. “If I’m caught and fired you have to make me a partner,” he hissed, then put him on hold.

While he waited, Paris came home, coming in the door juggling two paper bags (Paris always insisted on paper whenever possible, because he hated those “fucking plastic bags” - this was another strangely passionate hatred of his, like SUVs) and a twelve pack of diet cherry Pepsi. Upon seeing Roan on the couch with the receiver glued to his ear, Paris fixed him with a stern gaze, almost mocking but not quite. “How deep is the shit I’m in?” Roan wondered.

Paris thumped the bags down on the counter, let the twelve pack drop to the floor. He held his hand up level with his chin.

“Crap. I don’t suppose dinner and a movie is going to cover this, huh?”

He shook his head and started unpacking the groceries. “Nope, not even buying me something frilly.”

“Damn it, that was plan B.”

His look wasn’t quite forgiving, but he seemed to be thinking about it. “So what did you dig up without me?”

“Eli was fucking Melissa Prescott.”

He made a dismissive noise, shaking his head in disbelief. “And I call myself a man whore. Eli should give lessons.”

“No. Apparently he’s crap in the sack.”

Paris fixed him with a curious, slightly sardonic gaze. “And you know that how?”

“He said so.”

“He just admitted it? Were you holding him at gunpoint or something?”

“No, just slamming his testicles in a desk drawer.”

Paris chuckled faintly, and Roan knew it was okay. If he could make Par laugh, he couldn’t be that mad at him. “And you didn’t think to capture this on film? We could’ve had it on YouTube by now.”

“I know, I’m a complete idiot.”

“You said it, not me.”

Par finished putting the groceries away, and then walked over to the stereo, sipping from a can of Red Bull. Watching him move in his slightly baggy blue jeans that just barely hovered below waist level and his royal blue t-shirt that wasn’t tight but still showed off his arms and the long line of his back to great effect, he wondered how Kevin could not have fallen in lust Paris. Was he insane? Had he seen his ass?

He crouched down and flipped through some of their CDs; they had a whole bunch of them, and it was easy to tell whose were whose. Roan had the punk and the crunchy guitar stuff, while Paris had a lot of electronic, current “alternative” stuff, and the occasional questionable pop rock CD. Sometimes they found a common ground - Roan could tolerate Franz Ferdinand and Interpol; Paris could tolerate Pansy Division and Nine Black Alps - but many times they clashed. “Keane or Orbital?” Par asked.

“Door number three.”

“Pick one or I choose.”

“Oh fuck. Can’t you choose -”

“No,” he interrupted, punching the button on the CD player and opening the tray. “You’re running out of time.”

“This is a reflection of how mad you are at me, isn’t it?”

Paris didn’t answer, he just put in a shiny silver disc and hit the close button, putting the CD case back in the rack before he could see what it was. “I guess you’ll find out,” he finally replied, turning the sound down until it was barely audible, giving him some peace for his call. It was the opening strains of “Under The Iron Sea” that drifted down from the speakers set high up on the walls, and he figured that meant he had forgiven him. If Par was still really pissed off, it’d be Orbital thumping down at him.

Kev came back on the phone with a huff of breath, as if he’d just sat down. “You do shit for my blood pressure,” he accused.

“But you didn’t get caught, did you? What did it say?”

“Nada. No sign of any … uh, you know.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary at all? Nothing of note?”

“No, just death via gunshot wound to the head.” There was a pause, and Roan suddenly wondered if he had gotten a copy and was looking at it at his desk. He was in vice - that was fucking risky to look at a homicide file there. Wait a second - where the hell did he get it from anyways? “She had some damage to her back teeth that was consistent with bulimia; you know how all that stomach acid damages the enamel. Although morning sickness probably didn’t help.”

Roan sat forward, only doubting what he’d heard because Kevin was talking so softly. “What?”

“She was about three weeks’ pregnant at the time of her death.”

A little over a dozen chairs were already taken, so he and Paris took chairs in the very back row near the snack table. Unpleasantly harsh florescent lights buzzed overhead like angry insects, and he was glad he brought his coat, as there seemed to be a chill breeze, although it was perfectly unclear where it was coming from. The strong coffee scent almost covered up the sharp, lingering smell of carpet glue.

Paris slumped down in his chair and put his feet up on the back of the empty chair in front of him - rude, but a very straight male thing to do (god, he was good at this; perhaps being bi helped) - and chewed gum nosily as Roan scanned the existing crowd. They all seemed to be in their twenties and thirties, white males (with the exception of a single woman on the far left), the perfect demographic for frustrated violence. But they also looked very normal, the guys you might wait in line at the supermarket with, the guys you would pass on the street without a second glance; no one looked like an extra from The Road Warrior or a foaming at the mouth Jerry Springer guest (except that guy in the front row with the buzz cut - he had a swastika tattoo on his exposed right bicep, only it had the unsure construction and spidery black lines of a prison tattoo).

A couple more people came in, and at five thirty six, a pale man with prematurely greying hair and small square glasses came in, wearing a blue cable knit sweater and chinos and holding a sheaf of papers to his chest like a prized object. Just his wardrobe and demeanor marked him as a speaker, not a crowd member. God, he looked like the middle manager of a paper company in Slough on casual day.

At the dais, he made a show of neatening papers that were already neat, and cleared his throat before speaking in a voice that managed to be soft and loud at once; the consonants timorous, and yet full enough to fill the enclosed space. He introduced himself as Tim and welcomed them all - not counting Paris and himself, there were nineteen people here - and much like a group therapy counseling session, asked if there was anyone who had a story they would like to share about “encounters with infecteds”. Roan felt like crossing his arms, but since that could be interpreted as a defensive or hostile gesture, he didn’t.

It was the woman who stood up first, and really that didn’t surprise him. She was a medium sized, stout woman with stringy brown hair the color of mud and surprisingly bony hands, her face a knife blade of anger and pain. Something haunted her and twisted her, something that made her look about fifteen years older than she actually was.

In a voice that grew more strident as the tale went on, she told the story of her daughter, whom she said was “preyed upon” by “fucking cats” (she never said cats without the “fucking” modifier first) who convinced her that being infected was a good thing, and infected her. She didn’t survive her first transformation, and she felt it was murder, but the cops said if her daughter voluntarily sought to get infected there really wasn’t anything they could do. Even if they figured out who infected her, it wasn’t assault because she had sought it out. (If you infected someone without their knowledge that was legally considered assault, unless you had the tiger strain, then it was considered attempted murder). Her growing rage seemed to galvanize the crowd, bringing them together in a way they hadn’t been.

Roan felt bad for her - it was an awful thing that happened, and her grief had not only aged her but warped her, turning her into this jagged, fragile person who clung to hate in lieu of hope. She was probably the most dangerous person in this room, although he was certain only he and she knew that.

People started speaking up after her, with the lamest complaint being a cat damaging one man’s property and the insurance company raising his rates because of it, and one of the most harrowing being the neo-nazi in the front admitting that he came upon a cat gnawing on his girlfriend’s younger brother (the boy lost his arm).

In the cacophony of people talking over one another, Paris added with convincing anger, “One of those damn cats deliberately infected my roommate in college just to get revenge on the guy who infected her. He went fucking nuts and no one’s seen him since.” It was a change to the back story - which only mattered on a consistency level because they’d told no one their stories yet - but Roan fought to keep his expression neutral, his posture and feelings a studious blank.

The anger was convincing because the anger was genuine; Paris had been talking about himself in the third person. Paris did seem to split his life into two halves, before infection and after, and sometimes he talked about his “then” self as if that was indeed a different person. He was; in Paris’s own words “that Paris” was selfish and pleasure obsessed, vain and extremely manipulative, something he couldn’t quite imagine this quick witted, sweet, frustrating man being (okay, the manipulative part tracked, yet he tried only to use that only for good), but Roan sometimes wondered if he still mourned everything he had lost. How could he not? He wanted to sympathize, and he tried very hard, but Roan knew he could only do it in a sort of abstract way, as he never lost himself. He was born with this disease; he didn’t know life without it. But Paris did; Paris had had a good life, an enjoyable one. He had been popular and loved and a golden boy, one destined for great things even though he was probably going to fuck and manipulate his way there; his life was set. Then he was infected, and his life imploded. Roan was born in rubble and grew up in the craters; he didn’t know what it meant to have a home, a life beyond this. It must have been devastating to have something to lose and then lose it all in one fell stroke.

He wanted to touch him, just put a hand on his back and let him know that he understood his pain even if he couldn’t quite share it, but he didn’t dare; he couldn’t here. So he allowed himself to cross his arms over his chest and slumped slightly to the opposite side, adopting a posture of impatience and boredom. If he couldn’t communicate anything to Paris, he could at least send out a message to the room.

Tim managed to get control of the group, and started to explain that Humanity First was trying to channel this “discontent” (ha!) into action on the political stage; they felt that the infected were not getting equal rights but “special” rights, ones that allowed them to terrorize and kill normal people with little fear of punishment. Paris leaned over and whispered so quietly he could barely hear him over the muttering of the crowd, “Those fucking cats want to get married and not get fired ‘cause they’re trans-species abominations … or am I thinking of gays? Which ones are the buttfuckers again?”

Roan covered his mouth with his hand, pretending to scratch his jaw, and bit the inside of his cheek until the urge to laugh passed as Paris offered him a stick of gum, a lame cover for him being so close to him, but Tim was holding the room and no one noticed. Roan took the proffered gum, and murmured under his breath, “I can’t take you anywhere.”

Looking at him directly so no one else could see him, he mouthed “You love it and you know it”, and raised his eyebrows in a mock suggestive manner before slumping back in his chair and assuming a blank, almost surly look on his face. Paris was such a natural actor it was frightening - but which part was the act? He chewed the gum and wondered.

Tim started handing out pamphlets that looked hand stapled, and seemed to be the Humanity First manifesto, although cleaned up a bit, not so rabidly zealous. The ready for prime time version. But Tim was saying that they were always looking for volunteers to be in more “proactive in their communities” and had a sign up sheet up front for those interested. He exchanged a glance with Paris to make sure they were on the same wavelength - they were - and waited until almost everyone else in the room was standing before they got up as well.

Roan waited until almost everyone else who was going to sign up did - this included Paris, who even managed a brief chat with the neo-nazi. (How did he do it? Seriously, how? Roan had an almost unquenchable urge to sucker punch anyone who a racist tattoo; he just wanted to smash their heads into walls until they left dents. There were so many good reasons for hating people on an individual basis that mass, generic hatred seemed idiotic. Hate a person for who they were, god knows he did, but for what they were? Moronic and lazy.) As Roan printed his fake name and address (he gave the address of his old apartment building, but his current cell phone number), he scanned and memorized the names and phone numbers of the other people on the list (he skipped “Kevin Stiles“; he’d given Randi’s address as his own), making a note to get the only female name on the list. Her name was Karen Hammond.

It was unlikely anyone in this room had committed violence against infecteds or would, but the most likely person to do something was Karen. Yes, she was a woman in her late thirties to early forties - it was hard to guess her age, considering how weathered her face was - and demographically not the most likely to commit violence, but what the demographics never included was how rage and the need for revenge - not a desire; a need, a physical ache that begged to be sated - could push the most timid person over the edge. Karen radiated rage like a low level electrical current; she hated because she didn’t dare feel anything else. It was almost a smell, something like flop sweat, sour adrenaline, and slagged metal. Killing some dirty cat would probably dull her pain, but not for long; there might not be enough people for her to kill to make her feel even remotely better. He felt for her, he really did, but he also knew that she was a potential suspect.

He waited until they had left and turned the corner away from the church before pulling out his small notebook and scribbling down the names he could remember. Unless you had perfectly eidetic recall, your memories were bound to screw things up the more time passed.

He and Paris didn’t speak until they got back to the car. Thunder rolled in the distance, and Roan could smell the rain coming in, but they reached the car just as it started coming down, fat drops as warm as blood. Once they were inside, the rain started sheeting down, pounding on the roof of the car like an angry mob.

“That was really weird,” Paris finally said, staring out at the rain streaming down the windshield. The water seemed to obscure everything now; they could have been at the bottom of a lake. “Do you think we’re going to get in?”

Roan nodded. “I’m sure there’s a vetting process, but as long as we keep to the script we should be able to get inside without a problem.” After a moment, he said, “You changed your back story.”

He shrugged a single shoulder, continuing to do everything but look at him. It was forced nonchalance, and Roan wasn’t buying it. “It seemed better, more honest somehow.”

He did what he wanted to do back at the church. He touched his face, trailing his fingers lightly over his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

Paris looked at him finally and seemed startled. “About what?”

“What happened to you.”

For a long moment he just stared at him, something like panic flashing through his eyes as the percussion of the rain filled the car with noise. Paris finally decided to say something, but he cut himself off, grimacing painfully, and then leaned over, burying his face in the side of his neck. Roan put his arm around him as Paris broke down into huge, wracking sobs, the kind that you couldn’t hold back and felt like they were punching their way out of you. He didn’t know what to do or say, so he just held him, resting his head against his, and let him cry, stroking his back and occasionally saying soothing things that meant absolutely nothing. His heart broke for him. Maybe Paris was as far from a saint as you could possibly get, but he didn’t deserve what had happened to him; no one deserved that. No one deserved to have their life destroyed or their body ravaged by a virus that killed you a little bit every passing month and very nearly robbed you of your sanity.

Tears soaked his shirt, he could feel them sliding down his neck, and through the window of water he saw a brief, bright flash in the sky that was soon followed up by a grumble of thunder that seemed so close it felt like it shook the car. Paris was clinging to him desperately, shuddering as he tried to fight back the tears and they came out of him anyways. He had no idea Paris had so much pain in him. He was always the guy with the joke, the smart remark, turning everything into a comedy routine, but what kind of detective was he that he couldn’t see that was a deliberate choice on Paris’s part so he didn’t he have to deal with any of this shit? He was so concerned with the “big” stuff he kept missing the little stuff. He should just turn in his license now.

The storm raged inside and out for about ten minutes, during which the lightning and thunder seemed to grow closer and then went away, surging past like an inconstant tide. Paris finally managed to get a hold of himself, probably just running out of tears, and he sniffed and shifted uncomfortably, embarrassed by this violently emotional display. He leaned back against the seat and looked out the passenger window at the water sluicing down the glass, wiping tears and snot from his face with his forearm. Roan wanted to tell him he shouldn’t be embarrassed, that he shouldn’t feel bad for finally letting it out, but he wasn’t sure how to say any of this. So he just started the car and drove away.

They rode home in silence, the rain gradually letting up, going from a torrent to a milder cascade, but visibility remained piss poor and the gutters on the side of the streets filled up fast. The water was spilling onto the road, and he supposed it was a good thing they were getting off the street, as everybody around here seemed to forget how to drive in the rain and needlessly freaked out about it. Either they had outpaced the thunder and lightning or it had gone in the opposite direction.

Since Roan was already drenched from Paris’s tears, he didn’t care about getting soaked, which turned out to be a good thing because he was a drowned rat by the time he got in the house. Not that he was complaining, they needed the rain after the long, abnormally hot summer, but he hated feeling clammy.

Paris had his back to him; he was just standing at the base of the stairs, water dripping from his hair and pattering on the floor, and he seemed to have the frozen, distracted air of someone who suddenly isn’t certain why they’d come into a room.

He waited a very long moment, slipping off his coat and hanging it on a hook parallel to the door, adding his dripping cap afterwards. “Par?” He wondered how upset he still was. The grief process, especially when you were basically mourning your own broken life, could be a weird one.

Paris slowly turned to face him, his eyes red rimmed from tears and his hair plastered to his face in spidery wisps, and Roan saw this look come into his eyes. It was need, almost fury, and he wasn’t sure if he was going to kiss him or hit him as he approached.

Luckily Paris went for the kiss, but it was hungry and violent, so raw it caught him off guard. Paris snaked his hand under his wet shirt, pulling it up and peeling it off of him as he briefly broke away. He tossed his shirt aside and then took off his own, throwing it aside just as heedlessly. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said before kissing him again, pressing him back hard against the door.

Did he have a choice? Of course he did, but as Roan felt the hard, smooth muscles of Paris’s back move beneath his warm, damp skin, he didn’t think he had the willpower or desire to remind Paris they were still technically on the clock. Besides, Paris probably just wanted to forget, to escape, and Roan didn’t think that was such a bad idea.

He just wished he knew what it was specifically that Paris was trying to forget.

****

They had dinner around ten o’clock that night, both too tired and too ravenous to call for delivery, so they just nuked some leftover Chinese food they had in the back of the fridge. It wasn’t moldy or furry, so Roan figured it was good enough.

They were still both damp, but at least it was from the shower so they were warmer. It continued to sheet down outside; in the far corner of the kitchen, you could hear the gutter gurgling as it attempted to deal with the deluge. He wondered if he should clean the gutters, and then wondered if he had ever cleaned the gutters. He was new to this whole house owning thing - that was his excuse and he was sticking with it.

Par was sitting on the end of the couch watching “The Wire” on t.v., dressed in black silk boxers with little red lipstick prints all over it (he loved that kind of tacky shit), feet propped up on the edge of the coffee table, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream directly from the carton. There was a spoon in the carton for Roan too, as Paris had figured there was so little left that there was no point in getting bowls, and he supposed he had a point. (And how lucky was he that he found someone else who liked mint chocolate chip ice cream? So many people hated it, and he had no idea why; that shit just rocked.)

Roan sat next to him, handing Paris his cup of tea. Beer and ice cream didn’t exactly go together, but Roan had felt like one anyways. For a technically short day, it had felt like a long one. He propped his feet up on the coffee table too, and noticed goosebumps on Par’s legs. See, that was why he was wearing the flannel pajama pants with the little cats all over them (Par’s idea of a joke) - you couldn’t be damp and eat ice cream and not get cold.

After a few minutes of silence, Paris finally said, “I’m sorry about … y’know, what happened in the car. I don’t know where that came from.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he replied. He wanted to tell him he knew where that came from, but didn’t mention it. Par knew too, he just didn’t want to admit it.

That just settled in the room for a moment, long enough for Roan to grab his spoon and help himself to some ice cream (yeah, it tasted really weird with beer), before Par added hesitantly, “I guess I don’t like to talk about it. It just seems like … it’s like it all happened to someone else, you know? It doesn’t even seem like my life anymore, just something that happened to somebody I’m not sure I know.”

“You can always talk to me about it, you know. I mean, I know my experience isn’t exactly similar, but I can listen.”

He glanced at him with a weak little smile. “I know. I guess it’s like you and the whole cat traits thing; it’s just not easy to talk about.” He had to bring that up, didn’t he? Oh well, fair enough. He put his hand on his chest and rubbed his thumb underneath his collarbone. “As this is, I’m sure.”

Paris wasn’t caressing his chest - he was tracing the scar across his torso, the one that ran from his shoulder to the hollow of his throat, the one he never talked about. Oh, there was the one on his face too, but it was small and of all of his scars it had faded most with age. This one hadn’t; this one would dog him forever. “Someday,” he said lamely. It was all he could offer right now.

Par nodded and seemed to accept that for now, letting his hand fall away. Enough time had passed to signal the change to a more comfortable topic. “That meeting wasn’t anything like I expected. It was like group therapy.”

“That’s the processed, user friendly face of Humanity First. The real group, the more rabid side, won’t be visible until you go deeper. Kind of like their website.”

“Or Divine Transformation.”

“Exactly. It’s a cult buffer system.”

The telephone rang sharply, not so much startling Roan as annoying him. Everybody knew not to bother him during The Wire - who the fuck was calling now? He let it go to the machine.

The voice that responded to the message was heavily muffled, not professionally distorted but still very hard to understand. “Ask Elijah about Melissa Prescott. He knows more than he’s said.”

A cold shock stabbed through him, and he exchanged a surprised look with Paris before scrambling to the other end of the couch and groping for the phone. He grabbed the receiver and asked, “Hello? Wait -” But all he got was the drone of a dial tone; they’d already hung up.

Caller i.d. said the number was blocked, so he hit star sixty nine to dial the number. But it rang and rang, at least twenty times before he finally decided to hang up. Son of a bitch.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Paris asked. “Was that a prank?”

It was possible, but they’d have to know that Eli (Elijah) had hired him, and was concerned about the killed infecteds - and that latter information was not common knowledge.

“You’re really going to investigate them?” For some reason, Paris sounded slightly queasy at the prospect.

“And Eli, as much as I possibly can. Can’t hurt.”

“But how can it help? I don’t care about Eli, but these Humanity First fuckheads could be dangerous.” He seemed genuinely concerned, and Roan was touched. He still wasn’t quite used to someone caring when he did something stupid.

“If they are, I want to know so I can pass it on.”

Paris really wanted to argue with him, he could see it in his eyes, but as he grimaced at his own thoughts, it was equally clear that after a moment’s debate with himself that he had given up on the idea. There was no point in a debate and they both knew it; he wasn’t going to drop the case and return the check just yet. “So how are you going to start?”

“There’s an informal meeting tonight down in the rec room of a church on State Street,” he noted, checking the online calendar. “I think I’ll wander by and be a dirt bag for a while.”

“Are you insane?” Paris exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “You can’t just walk in there!”

He looked up at him in genuine confusion. “Why the hell can’t I? I’m not wearing a scarlet letter, I don’t have a big I tattooed on my forehead. I’ll cover the lion mark on my wrist and pretend to be rabidly hetero - I’ll fit in just fine.”

Paris continued staring at him in bug eyed shock. “If they find out -”

“How are they going to find out? And even if they do, it’s not like they’re going to tear me apart like fresh bread; it’s not like I’m even Human. They’re welcome to start some shit if they want, but there’s no way in hell they’re finishing it.”

Paris fixed him with a stern look, his clear blue eyes remarkably cold, and shook his head slowly. “You and your macho bullshit.”

“It’s not macho bullshit. Give them Uzis and I still wouldn’t be afraid of a bunch of redneck punk ass bitches like that.” Okay, yeah, that did sound a little like macho bullshit. But he really wasn’t bothered by a bunch of impotent men who could only feel powerful when beating on other people; they were weak little bullies, limp dicks who didn’t want a real, hard fight. The ones you needed to worry about were the ones who relished a bloody, messy fight, but they were few and far between.

Paris sighed dramatically and rubbed his forehead like he was giving him a headache. After a moment, he said, “Fine, I’m going with you.”

Few things left Roan speechless, but this did. He needed a few seconds to find his voice. “What? No fucking way -”

“You can’t stop me.”

“The hell I can’t.”

Paris put on his unyielding face, the one that usually prefaced a huge, pointless argument between them. He sometimes wondered if he’d infected Paris with his own assholic stubbornness. “I’m going.”

Son of a bitch. He wanted to tell him to stop being difficult, but he could just imagine the apocalyptic fight that would ensue, and there was no guarantee that getting Paris mad enough would keep him out of the meeting tonight. So he considered the pros and cons, and how much he cared about Paris and really didn’t want to fuck this up. Goddamn, the things you did for love. At least he knew from the endless parade of cheating husbands and wives that came through his office that straights had it no easier at all. “Okay, fine, if you want to come along, be my guest. But remember, you’re utterly charmless, and if you can be uglier, it’d be a help.”

“I have great experience playing straight,” Paris pointed out. That was true enough. He looked at him with almost absurdly kind eyes now, as if he knew the pride Roan had to swallow to make this compromise. Roan was trying very hard not to let that get to him. A stupid fight was almost better than gratitude. (And what was wrong with him that he thought that?)

“But we have to watch it. We’re just friends, that’s it. If anyone gets an affection vibe off us, we could be in deep shit.” While that was perfectly obvious, it was actually more insidious than you’d think. There was an unconscious body language that people who’d been together for a while or people simply into each other projected, as subtle as being turned towards another or as obvious as a casual, lingering touch. Roan knew he himself would have to watch out for such things if Paris came with him; they had to be together but always completely parallel, physically, emotionally, and in all other ways and behaviors. They were two straight guys who liked each other but otherwise had no interest in each other. Something like that was usually easier said than done, but at least Paris had the experience of pretending to be straight and passing for a great deal of his life; he knew how to play the game successfully.

Paris flashed him a brilliant, cocky smile as the phone started ringing in the front office and he turned towards the door. “I’ll try not to give you a blow job in front of everyone.”

“Well, if the mood strikes you, far be it from me to stop you.”

Paris blew him a kiss as he ducked out to the front, closing the door behind him. How were they going to ugly Paris up? Without prosthetics, that was going to be difficult.

He picked up the phone and punched in a number he hadn’t used in a while. He wondered if he’d be as welcome as a heart attack. After two rings, the phone was answered and a woman’s clipped, professional voice said, “Sergeant Murphy, homicide.”

“Dropkick Murphy, how’s it hanging?”

She chuckled faintly. “Angus Podgorney. Why am I not surprised somehow?” Sergeant Darinda Murphy was also known as the “lesbian cop in homicide”, the most accepted openly gay member on the police force. She never got the shit he got, and he knew why - straight men just accepted lesbians easier. Maybe because they often seemed like “one of the guys”, or perhaps - and most likely - they weren’t afraid the lesbians were going to rape them in the shower. (That would probably be filed under “fantasy” for some guys).

He called her Dropkick after the band the Dropkick Murphys, which she had never heard of, but she liked the nickname because it was different from the usual nicknames she was given, which were generally Rindy or the Dyke. In response, she called him Angus or Angus Podgorney, a Monty Python reference, supposedly the first and only Scotsman to win Wimbledon. People generally looked at them funny, but at least it was deserved. “Hey, does that mean you were thinking of me? How’s Kim?”

“She’s good. We just renovated our kitchen, and now I don’t have any idea where anything is.” Kim was a nurse over at County General, and had been Dropkick’s partner for the last seven years. Roan had met her a couple of times, mostly on the job, and she seemed nice enough. Neither she nor Dropkick were butch or overly feminine; no bull dykes or lipstick lesbians here. They were both just normal, average, as if deliberately going out of their way to subvert stereotypes. “How’s Paris?”

“A willful little snot.”

That made her chuckle once more. “All you men are like that. So why the call? Somehow I have a feeling that you’re not just wanting to shoot the shit.”

“You caught me. I was wondering, since you’re the hotshot on the squad, if you and Dubois had the kitty killer case. You know, the idiot going around shooting infecteds.”

He heard her chair creak, and since she had a much nicer chair than Sikorski, he knew that meant she’d sat forward. He could picture her leaning her elbows on her neat desk, her stylishly bobbed chocolate brown hair falling forward and obscuring at least one of her equally brown eyes. She dropped her voice to an angry whisper as she hissed, “Where the fuck did you hear that? Who the hell is your leak, Roan?”

“I didn’t hear it from them, I heard it from a guy who has a leak in the coroner’s office. And has apparently spread it to the Church of the Divine Transformation.”

She let out a breath between her teeth, a slow whistle like a deflating beach ball. “Fuck. Tell me you’re joking.”

“No. As far as I know, they haven’t acted on the info yet, but who knows what they might do with it.” If nothing else, it was fair warning. “So are you on the case? What’s the deal? What’s the connection between the kids?”

Again the creak, and he could imagine her pinching the bridge of her nose, which she did when she was trying not to get angry or impatient. “I’m not discussing an active case with you. I can’t believe you’re even asking.”

She didn’t deny being on the case, which meant she was on it. He was glad, because he knew she was a good cop. Dubois wasn’t too bad, but he just didn’t know enough about him; Jon Dubois seemed to avoid him whenever possible, which meant he was either one of those guys who had no problem with lesbians but couldn’t tolerate a gay male, or was a closet case who didn’t like to be reminded of what he could have become if he didn’t fight his sexuality all the way. “I’m not asking for anything damaging, and I’m not going to discuss this with anyone. You know me.”

“Yeah, I do. That’s the problem. I don’t need you butting in.”

“I’m not going to.” He wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. “Is it one killer or one group of killers? Is the Church the common denominator?”

She sighed heavily, and he waited for her to decide whether she wanted to tell him anything or just hang up on him. After what seemed an eternity, she finally said, quietly, “It looks like the same weapon was used in all the killings, and everyone was taken by surprise. This is all off the record, capice?”

“I’ve got you, Murph. This is just between us.”

“Two of the victims had been to the Church, but the other two, as far as we can tell, never went. We have no common denominator for the victims at the moment, beyond their illness.”

Holy shit. The cops had nothing. In a homicide, the first twenty four hours were crucial - if you didn’t identify a suspect by that time, the odds got increasingly worse that you ever would with every hour that passed. Usually the first person identified within that twenty four hour span was also the actual killer; it was cozy how that worked. “Is it a professional?” He wondered.

He heard her tapping a pen on her desk. That was another nervous habit of hers. “There are no indications of that.”

With cops, it was often how they said something, not what they said. “It hasn’t been ruled out.” She tapped her pen at a more rapid pace, and he felt his heart sink. No. “You haven’t ruled anything out, have you?”

“I can’t talk about this,” she replied, the strain obvious in her voice. There was nothing more frustrating than a case that seemed like a zero sum game right from the beginning. This was fucked up.

“If I can help at all …” he offered, wondering why there were no witnesses willing to come forward about the shootings. Were they really supposed to believe no one saw anything? Okay, no one ever did at Wildwood, but what about the other places? And come to think of it, why was Eli sitting on the information that all the killed were infected? Did he just learn it this morning before coming into his office, or … was there some other reason he wasn’t holding a press conference and accusing the police of indifference? This was starting to seem a lot less straightforward and far more messy.

She snorted derisively. “If we need a bloodhound, I’ll call you.” After a moment, she realized how harsh and bitter that sounded, and added, “Shit, I’m sorry Roan, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Actually he was fairly certain she did, but he let it go. “That’s not all I’m good for.”

“I realize that, but you’re a civie. Stick with your cases and leave us to ours.”

“I’ll look into the kids, see if I can find a connection.”

“Roan, I just said -”

“I know the cat community,” he interrupted. “People will talk to me more readily than they will to a cop.” This was doubly true if he sent in Paris to do the job.

She sighed, but he heard the concession in it before she ever said a word. “Fine, ask around. But that’s it, okay? Let’s not have a repeat of the Henstridge thing, okay?”

“What, you think I want the suspect to come to my house and try and kill me?”

“Not that.” He heard her shift once more, and she lowered her voice. “You didn’t make any more friends around here by breaking that case.”

“’Cause he was a cop.”

“And because you made the investigative unit look bad. He wasn’t even on the radar until you mentioned his name. Do yourself a favor and try not to get arrested between now and next year.”

He scoffed, although he knew she wasn’t joking. “Thanks for the heads up. I’ll see what I can find and call you back.” As soon as he hung up, though, he wondered where he was supposed to start. Well, where did any decent detective start? With the victims’ backgrounds.

By the time he had to give it up and do some actual paying work, he had the home addresses and workplaces of all the victims, although he’d already found a tenuous connection between them: all lived away from their families, save for Christa, who lived with her Great Aunt. But her parents and siblings lived Mission Viejo, California; Patrick’s family lived in Cleveland; Melissa’s family lived in Richmond, Virginia; and Ashley’s family lived in Corpus Christie. Was that significant? The Church and very liberal social policies had brought an influx of infecteds to the city, as it was seen as more “kitty friendly” than most, and he knew that scared a lot of people, although kitty crimes hadn’t gone up. A lot of the influx was kids, runaways who couldn’t hack it at home or simply weren’t wanted. It was kind of sad when you thought about it. But it also meant there was a social network for the kids themselves, and he wondered how he was going to insinuate himself in it.

He put together an action list, places to hit and people to interview, and he wondered if he could get permission from Murphy to visit one of the crime scenes, but he figured he’d wait until tomorrow. Right now, he didn’t see her being amenable to it.

The meeting was at five thirty, so he wrapped things up and told Paris they were closing up early. He was hoping that Paris would change his mind about going, but oh no, he was determined to see this through. Why was he attracted to the stubborn? Life would be so much easier if he could somehow tolerate the naturally submissive.

Back at the house, he went through the closet and found the stash of “undercover clothes” at the back. Following people, especially in crowds, you couldn’t draw attention to yourself; you had to be as inconspicuous as possible, as average and unnoticeable as the scenery. He kept a wardrobe of things he normally wouldn’t wear just for the various situations where he might have to tail people, and sometimes he did find himself at a loss. Luckily nowadays, most of the time you could fit in to any situation with a t-shirt and jeans.

And that’s what he settled for, a plain blue Gap t-shirt that looked well worn (because it was - he bought most of his undercover clothes at the Goodwill) and faded Levis that were just a little bit too big for him, along with dirty Nikes that looked like he’d spent the day tracking through the mud. He topped it all off with a gimme cap that covered his hair, and had on it the symbol for the Toronto Maple Leafs. He enjoyed this, because it allowed him to get a suspicious look on his face and say, “Didn’t you take me to a Leafs game?” This was a very obscure reference to a Kids In The Hall sketch, and while it amused him endlessly, Paris had only the vaguest idea who the Kids In The Hall were and had never seen the sketch he was referring to. It made him feel so very old and so very geeky. He had to get the DVDs one of these days, if only to torment Par with them.

Paris went more with a quasi-frat boy look, wearing a basketball jersey (what was the significance of the number 32? He had no idea, but he wasn’t about to admit it) and the jeans he sometimes wore while working on his cars, which meant they were a bit torn and grease stained and looked authentically like the jeans worn by someone who didn’t give a flying fuck about fashion or good taste or laundry. Paris also gathered his hair into a tight pony tail, making him look like a guy who hadn’t gotten the message that the ‘90’s were over - the only way he could have looked less fashionable was if he wore moon boots and a skinny tie. He still seemed a bit too handsome, but they were just going to have to live with that.

Par glanced at his cap, and grimaced. “Oh no, not the Leafs game joke again.”

“Tonight I’m straight; I’m not making that joke.”

He glanced at his watch. “I give it five minutes.”

“Very funny.” He had to dig in his top dresser drawer to find his leather cuff watch, the one with the wide band that hid his leo sign tattoo quite handily, and snapped it on. He added a worn brown leather jacket before they left, and then belatedly worried that he was too color coordinated, but fuck it.

On their way to the church, they decided on fake names and back stories. It was unlikely that anyone would ask, but it was always good to have them ready just in case. Roan had decided on Chris McDonald, a recently unemployed corporate drone, who’d once been mauled by a cat (hence his hatred of them). Paris was Kevin Stiles (apparently the name of this prick he hated in high school), a house painter who had an uncle killed by a cat. It wouldn’t actually be hard for them to dredge up some anger towards cats, because it wasn’t like they loved being infected. If they were perfectly honest with themselves, would they actually want this? Would they want to have to deal with this fucking disease and all the baggage that came with it? Of course not, which was why the people who deliberately chased it, the ones who wanted to get infected, always puzzled them. It wasn’t quite like the Gothic horror romances said, and he thought the trans-porn, even as cleaned up as it was, would send that message loud and clear. Becoming something else was not fun, it was not painless, it was not Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It sucked, it hurt, it lowered your life span dramatically, or in the case of surviving tiger strain infectees, chopped it down to almost nothing.

So anger and discontent wasn’t hard to imagine; it was understandable. But mass slaughter? That was an impossible pill to swallow.

They parked a block over from the church in a Safeway parking lot, because a restored and souped up bright blue metallic ‘69 Mustang was a very memorable car (see, if he had a “normal” gay boyfriend, this wouldn’t even be a consideration). If they were going to keep this up for a while, they’d probably have to borrow Randi’s Saturn or get a rental; god knows Eli’s check gave them more than enough cash to even buy some anonymous piece of crap car just for these kinds of situations. But as Paris would surely point out, what was the fun of a normal piece of crap car when you could have an unusual piece of crap car?

The church was a typical one. Not a converted house like Divine Transformation, this was a “proper” one, small with a starkly peaked roof leading up to a steeple, the lawn neatly scalped, with an old fashioned style wooden sign that hadn’t even been graffiti tagged yet (or if it had, it had been cleaned up well). It looked like the kind of church you’d see in a Currier and Ives Christmas card, only there it would be frosted with snow and have a horse drawn carriage out front. Lights inside made the leaded windows glow, and the small parking lot off to the right side of the complex looked reasonably full.

Churches always made him feel strange. They were places for other people, places where people were married and buried, places where he was an odd and unwelcome guest. He couldn’t walk into one without immediately wondering when it was he was going to be thrown out. There were few places where his alienation became so acute it was almost a physical pain, but churches were at the top of that small list. He didn’t get them, and no one who went to one ever seemed to want anything to do with him. People’s devotion to them would always remain an abstract puzzle for him.

They paused, and Roan took a deep breath. “Ready to go into the lion’s den?”

They were standing a regulation six inches apart so they couldn‘t even accidentally touch, although when Par looked at him, it was with a wry, weary affection. They were alone out here, so it was okay. “I wish it was a lion’s den. I’d feel more comfortable.”

Actually, come to think of it, so would he. But if they wanted to learn anything about Humanity First, they had to see it for themselves. Hearsay was nothing next to witnessing it for yourself.

“Cowards die a thousand times,” he replied, going to the second to last refuge of scoundrels, the cliché. “Brave men only once.”

Paris stared at him, raising an eyebrow. “You suck as a motivational speaker.”

He could only shrug. “I’m more accustomed to discouraging.”

Paris shook his head and started towards the front door of the church. “See if I ever take you to a Leafs game again,” he muttered.

He laughed, he couldn’t help it, but it felt good and was probably necessary anyways.

The real tension was just about to begin.