13 – Prince Squid

Lee’s apartment building wasn’t as shitty as Franco’s, but it wasn’t the million dollar condos you could find in some of the areas downtown. This was middle of the road squalor, as opposed to full on depressing squalor, and many of the apartment buildings looked alike, while a few small shops at street level added visual interest.

Roan felt weird doing this in broad daylight, mainly because it felt like something that should be done in the dark of night – skulking in dark alleyways, hunting a fellow hunter. But he was no longer sure he had that kind of time.

The way Holden had looked at him, he was sure he was worse off than he initially thought. Holden was the master of the poker face, he only let you see what he wanted most of the time, but he had rattled him enough that he had offered him a genuine glimpse of what he was feeling. Hell, he shook him enough that Holden gave him a black beauty, which he didn’t even know existed anymore, but hey, why not? The drugs may get passé, but if they were good, they still survived.  He could feel it start to work now, his heart was pounding, his hands shaking a little, but he was starting to feel more centered in himself, if that made any sense at all. It probably didn’t, but since little about him did make sense nowadays, why not?

The apartment building was one of those you had to be buzzed into, but since Holden reached the building first, he pressed the buzzer for one of the places marked with a name beside its apartment number, and there was in response a crackling, “Yeah?”

“UPS,” Holden said, all business. “I have a package for a Mr. Sutter.” Perhaps Holden thought of UPS because one of their trucks was actually idling down the street; they’d both seen the pudgy legged man in his brown uniform enter one of the shops carrying a large cardboard box. It gave a wonderful verisimilitude to the story, and mentally he gave him points for using something in his environment to make his lie more plausible. Then again, Holden being so fast on his feet was one of the reasons he thought he’d make an excellent replacement. The man was a born liar, and while that sounded like an insult, in this business it was a compliment.

Sutter didn’t respond, there was a simply a long buzz, and Holden swung open the door and went inside, Roan following right behind. Once inside the air conditioned lobby, he said, “You’ve done this before.”

Holden snickered. “I’ve had clients who wanted me to sneak into their business before or after hours, so their wives wouldn’t catch on to their extracurricular activities. I’m used to being where I shouldn’t be.”

“That’s why you’d make a good detective.”

“Why not put Dylan up for this?”

“He’s an artist, not a detective.”

They got in the ground floor elevator, which was relatively clean and didn’t smell like piss, which was a nice change of pace from the lower class apartment buildings. That alone was enough to make him angry, if this fucker really was the killer. If he wasn’t … well hell, he was still kind of pissed off. Why not?

Lee’s apartment was on the fourth floor, where narrow windows just big enough to let in sunlight bracketed the ends of the corridor. His apartment was three doors down on the right, and before they came up to the door, Holden grabbed his arm and made him stop. “How we doin’ this?”

“Depends. If he’s home, I need to get in, and if he’s the one, I’ll know.”

“Which means what – you’ll growl or do the full on lion?”

“I’ll try not to lion out on you.”

“What about if he’s not home?”

He shrugged. “We might have to let ourselves in.”

Holden nodded, as if that was simply the sensible thing to do. Breaking and entering never was, but this was where his loose morals came in handy. He wondered once again if he should ever bother to bring up that he knew Scott couldn’t be a client of his, because he asked after him when they left The Dungeon – a client wouldn’t be so obvious, they’d play it cool, perhaps act like Holden didn’t exist at all. And bring him back to his place? Unheard of. No, there was something going on there, and while it made him nervous, maybe it was a good thing. Not for Scott, but for Holden, because he worried he didn’t have the capacity to feel much of anything. Holden could either be nothing but trouble for Scott, or maybe just what he needed. Scott was enough of an enigma that it was hard to say.

Roan knocked on the door, and listened carefully. It was a quiet floor, even though he could scent someone making microwave popcorn, another couple were fucking, and someone down near the elevator had a baby that was making random shrieking noises that approximated speech. None of that was going on in Lee’s apartment, though; it was quiet inside. He thought he heard a television, but it was next door and simply bleeding through the wall.

Since it was quiet, he told Holden, “Keep an eye out,” before dropping to one knee and busting out his lockpick kit, a small collection of tools that fit easily in his pants pocket. He got to work as Holden stepped in front of him on one side, facing the elevator, looking around on a regular basis.

“Not going to force it?” he wondered.

“Don’t want to give him any warning.”

It didn’t take him long to trip the deadbolt, and within a couple of minutes they were inside, careful to use their sleeves to touch objects so as not to leave fingerprints. Not that it was likely he’d call cops in even if he thought there’d been a break in; if he was the killer, he wouldn’t be overly fond of cops anywhere near his business.

“So is it true what I’ve heard?” Holden asked, whispering.

He trusted him to be right that no one was here, but he didn‘t want the neighbors to hear. “What have you heard?”

“That juries are letting patently guilty go ‘cause there isn’t forensic evidence supporting their guilt?”

“I don’t see too many courtrooms anymore, unless I’m on trial for something, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Those goddamn CSI shows are too fucking absurd. Not everybody leaves usable DNA at a scene, and not everything can be told from a single strand of carpet fiber.”  The apartment was relatively neat, dominated by Ikea furniture and neutral tones, and smelled of coffee, microwave pizza, and … cigarettes. The same cigarettes he smelled at the tenement? Truth be told, it was kind of hard to tell; unless they were menthol or some other specialty brand, all cigarette smoke pretty much reeked in the same manner, with the little variations too common to be of much help. He knew if smokers actually knew of all the chemicals they were smoking, they’d probably quit tomorrow.

Holden started wandering around the living room, looking around for who knows what. He stopped by a wall rack, and said, “Holy shit, I hope he’s the killer.”

“Why?”

“’Cause he’s got awful taste. Kenny Loggins? Fast And The Furious? God, he deserves a death sentence for these alone.”

“If you find Toby Keith or Adam Sandler, we’ll set a booby trap.” He wandered off towards the room that could only be the bedroom. Did he smell blood? It was so faint it was almost completely lost in all the other scents of a human living in a small space, but he still picked it up. He couldn’t have followed it on a city street, but here he was lucky the ventilation wasn’t great. He followed the scent towards the bathroom – Christ, when was the last time he cleaned it? – while Holden exclaimed, “I found Toby Keith. Can I take a dump on his bed?”

“No.”

“Damn it, man, I’ve found three Steven Seagal movies. We can’t leave this unpunished.”

The bathroom, like most men’s bathrooms, reeked of piss. He winced and wondered how anyone could stand it, and then wondered if it was just his hyperactive sense of smell. If it really smelled that bad, you’d think he’d have done something about it by now.

If you ignored the ring in the sink, toilet, and bathtub, it was relatively clean. He followed that tiny thread of blood scent to the sink, fearing it was just a shaving nick, but it wasn’t in the basin itself. No, it was under, below, and he crouched down to open the cabinet as Holden came to stand in the doorway. “Found something?”

“I’m smelling infected blood.”  Beneath the cabinet was a small plunger, a bottle of Drano, a couple rolls of toilet paper, Rogaine (ha), and a towel. A rather lumpy towel.

He touched it, felt something hard and cylindrical beneath, and pulled back the topmost towel. Beneath it were three small, metal tipped arrows, about the size of your average Slim Jim. “What is it?” Holden asked.

Roan picked one up and sniffed it. It had been washed, in a hot, soapy solution, but not well enough to escape his nose.

“What the fuck … is that actually an arrow?”

“He’s killing them with a bow,” Roan said, both disgusted and amazed. The possibility of him hunting without a gun had never crossed his mind. He got up and went back into the bedroom, Holden stepping aside.

“Who the fuck does he think he is, Robin Hood?”

“It’s quiet, so he doesn’t have to worry about drawing too much attention to himself, and it’s more of a challenge. If he wants a quick kill, he has to make it one damn good shot. And the damage to the pelt is controllable.”

Holden started undoing his pants. “That’s it. I’m so taking a dump on his bed.”

“No you’re not, especially when I’m still looking for the damn weapon.” He went to the closet, which was a bit of a mess, but he figured he’d take more care of his hunting weapon.  The second search option was under the bed, where he turned up a small box full of porno mags (used – goddamn his sense of smell), and a bigger, covered Amazon box. Bingo.

He slid the box out, while Holden perused the porno magazines, careful to use a tissue to handle the pages. “So, Juggs, Shaved Asians, Barely Legal … damn, I love this man. I want to slit him open stem to stern with a nail file and then set him on fire.”

“Get in line.” Opening the box, he found another towel, and once he moved that aside, he found himself looking at a compound crossbow, affixed with a sight. It was the kind any bow hunter going after deer might use. It was a bit bulky, but he could see how it would be easy to hide with a heavy coat or simply inside a duffle bag or a backpack, and it wasn’t as heavy as he had expected it to be. The beauty part? This was an unregistered weapon, so even if the cops bothered to investigate and found a wound on a pelt equivalent to the arrowhead, it wouldn’t matter. There was no official database, nowhere to even begin tracking this.

Roan pulled out his pocket knife, and nicked his thumb.

“What are you doing?”

“Marking this.” He pressed his cut thumb just above the trigger, where his hunter friend was unlikely to grab it, at least not until he opened fire. “If I smell my blood anywhere, I can track it. As soon as he takes this out anywhere upwind of me, I will find him.”

“Well, that’s informative. And creepy.”

“Give me a clean tissue, will you?”

Holden balled up the tissue he’d been using to examine the magazines and tossed it under the bed, where it joined a couple more. He then got a clean one from the box on the bedside table and brought it over, and Roan wrapped it around the cut on his thumb before replacing the crossbow in the box, and reassembling it all before shoving it back beneath the bed. “He’s got to have knives to skin his prey. Precision knives, you couldn’t do this with a set from Kmart.”

“And they’re not here, Mr. Bloodhound?”

“Not in this room.” He went back out into the living room, but scowled as he realized he wouldn’t keep them out here. But they weren’t in the bedroom or bathroom, meaning the only room left would be the kitchen. He wouldn’t really keep them in there, would he?

He went to the kitchen, and wondered why he wasn’t smelling even the slightest trace of blood when he decided that the smell of dishwasher detergent was too strong. He opened the dishwasher to find nothing but large knives in the rack, although there were some small ones for finer work, some which looked almost like scalpels. The dishwasher did a better job cleaning off the blood than Lee had done with the arrows.

Holden was behind him, looking over his shoulder. “If you had a search warrant, could you nail him for any of this?”

“No.”

“So what do we do? We could hang out until he comes home. “

He closed the dishwasher, shaking his head. “We’re going.”

“Are you kidding? He’s our guy.”

“I know, but it’s not ending here. There’s a good chance he’ll be out tonight, hunting in the Heights. So will I.”

Holden’s gaze was stony but infinitely understanding. “Good thing I’m free tonight, huh? Let’s get this bitch.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“Don’t have to, want to. If you lion out, you’re gonna need someone to cover your tracks.”

He was right, and it wasn’t like Holden hadn’t done it before. How odd – Holden was a man who didn’t trust easily, and yet he seemed to trust him. But then again, Roan knew he could say the same thing about himself. Ultimately, he and Holden had this in common: they were both jaded men who had been burned, so much so that it was sometimes impossible to tell their hard shells from their interior landscape. Except Roan had a glaring weakness, the people he loved, while Holden went out of his way to keep from showing any weakness. He cared about his “boys”, but in a sort of street approved and expected way. Some of the feeling was probably genuine, but he tried to keep everyone guessing. Roan instantly thought of himself as the weaker of the two of them, because he had such an obvious vulnerability, but – and god, was this corny to even think – maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Holden was weaker because he was afraid to give up even that much of himself to anyone else.

Except him. Roan knew he’d do anything for him; he was taking advantage of that to get him to finish the Jephson case. But Holden knew that, and since he hadn’t reacted, he obviously didn’t care. He didn’t consider that much of a price to pay.

They left Lee’s apartment, and named a place and time to meet in the Heights. Based on some educated guesses, he could assume where the best hunting ground would be.

Back at home, he had the place to himself, as Dylan was at his art collective’s loft this afternoon. He went ahead and packed a bag for the hospital, finding sorting through what books to take to be the hardest task. He hid pain pills under the paper in an otherwise full Altoids tin, and wondered if this meant he was a severe addict. Since he was riddled with tumors, he wasn’t sure he cared anymore.

He wrote a note for Dylan, apologizing for everything, thanking him for staying with him when saner people would have run, and telling him he really did love him. He folded it up and stuck it in the pocket of a lightweight jacket Dyl only wore once in a while, so he might find it if … no, he wasn’t going to think like that. He was getting out of the hospital to piss people off yet again.

In spite of the speed still coursing through his system, he laid down to have a nap, setting the alarm to get him up in case he totally conked out. He dreamed of blood, fire, and someone’s birthday party, for no apparent reason, only for the alarm’s blaring electric screech to wake him up. He changed into dark clothes, loose so if his bones started breaking he wouldn’t rip the seams, and wondered about taking a weapon before deciding that there was no point. He would get him or he wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to pull a gun. Unless Lee brought one, then he might use it on him just for spite.

He took his motorcycle, as it had been a while since he’d taken it out, and he felt like taking her out one last time. He knew there was a parking garage just outside the Heights, for workers at a bank, but Roan knew of a secret  loading entrance that he could bust into and stash the bike. Considering what he was planning to do, this was a minor crime.

It seemed deserted tonight, although not really. There were people on the street, homeless, panhandlers, some pedestrians but not many in this area. Mainly this area was rife with junkies, as any junkie that had a sense of shame left came under the cover of darkness to their local shooting gallery or crack den (whatever their poison was), and Roan wasn’t judging, mainly because he knew he was no better than them. He just didn’t see how they thought they could be hiding their addiction under the cover of darkness, when so many other signs gave it away. Even he knew he wasn’t fooling anyone.

The flaw here was he had no idea when Lee did his hunting, except he assumed it would be earlier in the evening, mainly so it would give him time to skin his prey. Even if you were an old pro at it, skinning something took time, and he more or less tanned them, which added even more time and complication to his ritual. He wouldn’t wait until three in the morning to get this started, or he wouldn’t crawl home until after dawn.

He had just secured the black watch cap on his head, hiding every strand of hair, when Holden melted out of the darkness like an expert, which he was. “Looks like you’re robbing a bank, sailor,” he said, in his usual silky way. It was sarcastic, but like most things with Holden, it was hard to tell. He was dressed down too, in worn jeans, a generic Hanes black sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and black leather gloves. There was something else too, something he could smell but couldn’t see.

“I told you not to bring a gun.”

“It’s only in case everything goes tits up. Don’t worry, I won’t pull it unless I have no choice at all.”

Probably true, but he wasn’t crazy about it. “Do you have any kind of paperwork at all? Concealed carry, anything?”

His smile was professional and empty, which told him all he needed to know. “I have loads of paperwork.”

“Anything with your real name on it?”

“My social security card.”

“You gonna take things over, you get licensed, get everything above board. Got it?”

He saluted, and to his credit it didn’t appear to be sarcastic. Which was good, because he would have punched him if it was.

He reiterated to Holden that he was to hold back, and hopefully have nothing to do. He wanted to work this himself, and pretty much had to, as he could miss one person coming after him, but to miss two he had to be a real idiot (a possibility that couldn’t be denied). Holden agreed, and he seemed to be on the level, but since it was Holden, he couldn’t be sure. Still, at least he knew, when they time came, he was smart enough to get out of the way.

Roan walked on, deeper into the tenement maze, towards the building where he found the slaughterhouse, and knew why Lee had picked this area. A lot of those unrestrained cats were probably from the drug houses, because a lot of infecteds became drug addicts if they weren’t addicts before their infection, and who was here to cage them if they transformed during or after getting a fix? No one. This also led to the possibility that the cats were partially drugged while loose, making them even easier kills for Lee.

Well, technically he was drugged now. But an easy kill? He needed a shitload more of drugs to be that. Although, to be honest, he had no idea how much it would take to shut the lion down. In theory, he was as easy a kill as any Human, but the lion was fucking relentless.

He found a nice, out of the way spot besides a crumbling stairwell and made himself as small as possible, like a homeless man or a junkie who couldn’t go far without a fix, someone who could be easily ignored, urban wallpaper. His eyes adjusted to the dark, enough that he could see the rats here were pretty brazen, not afraid of much at all, not even cars, but him? One came half way towards him, then turned its snout up, sniffing the air for maybe thirty seconds before turning and running off towards a garbage can across the way. Yeah, he continued not smelling right to any animal, even jaded rats who would probably attack a dog if given half the chance. He was a weird beast, and much like Humans, they had no idea what to do with him. Was it a coincidence that five minutes after that, he saw no rats at all? He couldn’t even hear them close by. As for Holden, he had no idea where he was. He’d stayed behind, like Roan had requested, and disappeared back into the shadows, out of both view and smelling range. But if Roan couldn’t see him, it was likely Lee couldn’t either, and wouldn’t bother, as he was a plain old uninfected Human, not his target at all.

Roan found himself watching people coming and going out of the shooting gallery down the alley, as there wasn’t much else to do as he waited and let his nose get inured to all the horrible smells of daily living amplified by both willing and unwilling neglect. He heard deals go down, minor conflicts, slurred speech and people begging for just one more something (chance, hit, extension until payday). He smelled infected people, and wondered if Lee just set up here and waited night after night until someone transformed. There was no way it could happen every night, or only when he was here. Did he have a hunter’s blind set up in one of these buildings? A sniper’s nest, only he simply watched and waited for the right time to go hunting? If that was true – and that must have been the case – how fucked up was he?

Suddenly Roan smelled a faint but telling trace of blood – his blood. And since he was currently bleeding, it could only be coming from one thing.

Lee was here. Show time.

12 – Riding The Grape Dragon

Holden could still taste peppermint gum on his lips when there was a knock at the door, and he almost didn’t answer it.

Scott did two things before he left. First, he wrote his private cell number on a Post-It Note and stuck it to his fridge, weighing it down with one of his dick shaped magnets (this was a running joke, with many of his friends buying him either dick shaped or naked man magnets for his birthday or Christmas, cheapo gifts that were either meant as campy or lascivious, depending on who gave it to him), all while chewing a piece of gum like cud. Holden already knew that trick, which was simple enough – if you didn’t have time to brush your teeth, you just chewed some gum (ideally one of those kind that said it whitened your teeth) and were able to put it off until later. Dentists probably wouldn’t approve, but you had to do what you could. The fact that Scott knew this told him something about him, mainly that he spent enough nights out on the town he shouldn’t have had such a nice body; he should have had a gut and the muscle tone of bread dough, but obviously his metabolism and severe training regime made up for his hard partying.

Secondly, on his way out the door, Scott took out his gum and suddenly kissed him, a deep, long kiss that left him gasping for breath. He then gave him that sexy smile again, popping the gum back in his mouth (cool peppermint, actually very tasty), and said, “Call me some time. Let’s get into trouble.”

What an exit line. How many one nighters had he had? Scott was a player in more than one sense of the word. Holden thought he was slick, but holy hell, that kid had balls. When you looked as good as he did, though, you could.

He could imagine calling him back. He could also imagine going on some Thelma and Louise-ish tragic crime spree with him as well. Might be fun. And that’s exactly why he thought he should never call or see him again. The only kind of person he wanted to see on a semi-regular basis was a client, or Roan. He didn’t need further complications in his life.

So when the knock came, he decided to ignore it, fearing it was Scott. Maybe he had some flimsy excuse, such as a forgotten cell phone, but he could drop it off at his place if it was here, give it to Grey, who wouldn’t ask questions and wouldn’t really care. He didn’t get Grey, he was sure no one did (himself included), but he liked him. He was so secure in his masculinity and his overwhelming ability to beat the shit out of anyone who got in his way that absolutely nothing bothered him. Call him gay, call him a horse fucker, call him the world’s biggest dickwad, and he’d just give you the smuggest smile in the world. One that said, “Keep it up, ‘cause whenever I want to, I can decapitate you with a flick of my finger”. And of course he could; there was no doubt at all that he could make that happen. The only opponent he could face that would give him any challenge at all would be Roan, which was probably why he liked him. If a guy was stronger than you, make him your friend, therefore you will never get your ass handed back to you in a FedEx box full of Styrofoam peanuts. It was a great strategy, one that he himself employed to a certain degree. It wasn’t limited to the ass kicking field, though. Everybody could be useful, it just depended on the circumstances.

But there was a second knock, and this time the door seemed to jump in its frame, the hinges rattling. Not Scott; this time, he had the Hulk on his doorstep.

He opened the door, and any smart ass comment he was preparing was paused inside his brain. “Holy shit, are you okay?”

Roan looked like hell. Wild eyed and slightly feverish, his dark red hair was sticking in tiny, vein like strands to his forehead, and he had chewed his lower lip until it was bleeding, a crimson bead just welling in the corner of his mouth. “No, I don’t think so, that’s why this is important and you have to help me.”

Holden nodded and opened the door wide, inviting him in. Roan didn’t ask for too many favors, so this must be serious. Then he remembered the tumors thing, and internally cringed. He couldn’t imagine Roan dying; he’d lived with the virus for so long, it seemed impossible. And he was the Hulk, right? He could go lion all over someone’s ass whenever he wanted to. It was just that sometimes he forgot the thing that made him so powerful was also the thing that was killing him, one heartbeat at a time.

Roan stopped just inside his apartment, and looked around warily. “Were you in a fight with Scott?”

Oh shit. How could he ever forget that Roan’s sense of smell was deeply creepy? “No. If I said he helped me move some furniture, you’d know I was lying, wouldn’t you?”

Roan stared at him, wide eyed, the black rim around his emerald irises absurdly visible. “Scott’s a client? Holy shit, since when do you bring clients here?”

So Roan knew that about him as well? Of course he did. He hadn’t just liked Roan because he was nicer than most cops, he liked him because he was also smart. Nice cops you could dig up, but genuinely smart ones were harder to find. “You know I don’t talk about my business, okay? So why do you even ask?”

“Hey, I’m not the one who tells me about Doug, the pilot who likes being tied up and beaten.”

“Touche. But you don’t know his real name. I’m afraid you know Scott. Sit down. Can I get you some water or something?” He wasn’t just changing the subject – although he was doing that too. Roan just looked like he was on the ragged edge of mania.

“I’d kill for a beer.”

“You’ll have to go out and do it then, ‘cause I ain’t got beer. I have gin and some airline sized bottles of vodka … you on downers? I’m not giving you any hard stuff if you’re on pain pills.”

Roan sank down onto his couch with an explosive sigh, doing a double take over the fallen chair. “Airline sized … is this Doug again?”

“Well, I’m not going to Sea-Tac and raiding the drink carts, so it must be.” Looking in the fridge, he found a Diet Pepsi, and said, “Head’s up,” before lobbing the can at him. Roan never really looked up, but he caught it anyways. “Damn, I thought your smelling thing was the creepiest thing about you.”

Roan shrugged. “My reflexes have a mind of their own nowadays. ”He cracked open the can and seemed to drink about a third of it in two swallows. Once he stopped to take a breath, he reached in his coat pocket and said, “I have something for you.”

“Should I start the porn music now, or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“Cute.”

He went over to see what Roan was holding out towards him. It was a little black flash drive with a clear plastic cap. He took it and asked, “Little black book?”

Roan gave him a sarcastic grimace. “It’s everything I have on the Adam Jephson case, which I’m supposed to be working on now. I’m handing it off to you. As lead investigator, you will be paid accordingly.”

Holden righted the fallen coffee table, and knew this was bad. Since when did Roan hand over an entire case to him? “Can I ask why you’re giving it to me?”

“I’m gonna get the cat killer, and then I’m checking myself into the hospital. I don’t know if I’m comin’ out again, so I thought you could finish this up for me. Although I warn you, everybody has been lying to me. I’m beginning to think the Jephson family is a real nest of vipers.”

“Oh good, it’ll be just like coming home for me.” He pushed the fallen arm chair back upright, then sat down, still holding the flash drive in his palm like a folded fifty. “Why do you think you’re not coming out again? Do you really think you’re getting off that easy?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up, but just barely and only for a moment. “Every time I go into a hospital, I can’t help but think I’m not coming out again. It’s a habit.”

“And yet, you keep coming out of there. Odds are you’ll be right one of these days, but come on. Try some optimism.”

“Must I?” He rubbed his eyes, his posture slumped like he was tired. “I need you to promise me if something does happen to me, you’ll look out for Dylan, make sure no one decides to get him since I’m no longer available.”

He really didn’t like Roan talking this way, but it wasn’t just because he was talking like he was going to die, a reality that Holden just refused to try and grasp. “Why me? Why give me any of this?”

Roan gave him the weary look of someone who felt they no longer had the time to bullshit about anything. “Because I know you’ll keep your word, and I know you’re a survivor. If you can’t survive something, it’s a situation no one would have survived. The CIA missed out on a world class spy.”

“I’m flattered, I think. No, actually, you’re scaring the shit out of me. Is your diagnosis that bad?”

“I don’t know what my diagnosis is. I just know something’s wrong with me, and things keep getting more wrong. I’ve put off facing it as long as I can. I think Dyl’s about to have some of his Buddhist friends kidnap me and dump me in an emergency room.”

“Could you blame him if he did?”

Roan didn’t have to think about it long. “I wouldn’t blame him if he shot me.”

At least he was honest. “So how do you propose going about getting the cat killer? We gonna invade Franco’s house or something?”

“Would that produce a lead?”

“Probably not, but it would be fun to scare the shit out of him. He might cough up his fur salesman, or I could find it. But may I suggest a caffeine injection before we start? You look half dead.”

“I feel three-fourths dead.”

Holden had left his cell on the counter, so he got up to get it. “I’ll call him, see if he’s home. We can pay him a surprise visit.” He didn’t want to, he thought Roan should go to the hospital now, but he didn’t give up on things that easily. Besides, this bastard was killing his people, and if Holden were in his place, he wouldn’t stop either, not until that fucker was dead.

As he thumbed in Franco’s number, Roan asked, “So how’s Scott’s body?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“Sure.”

“Fourteen.”

He made a disgusted noise and crushed his soda can. “Goddamn it, man, you couldn’t have lied and said eight?”

“What are you complaining about, you have a ten at home, don’t you? Besides, would you have believed me if I said he was just an eight?”

“I would have wanted to believe.”

Holden didn’t have to listen for too long before cutting the connection. “My call went to his machine. I don’t know if he’s home and ducking me, or just out.”

“Wanna go find out?”

“Sure.” He paused, wondering if he should say what he was thinking. It might not help, it might make things worse. But then again, what could make things worse at this point? “Look, if you need something to wake you up … I’ve got some pills.”

Roan fixed him with a skeptical look. “I seem that bad, huh?”

“Just tired. Really tired.”

He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. Ever since he could force a change at will, his hair looked shaggy all the time. He hesitated to call it a mane, as that seemed like a stereotype or a slur, but honestly, it looked like more mane like all the time. He wouldn’t say Roan was looking more leonine … but yeah, he kind of was. There was a look in his eyes most of the time that suggested there was something biding its time, waiting or its moment to emerge, and whatever it was, it wasn’t Human. It wasn’t the cold, dead eyed stare of a Human predator, but the sharp, inhuman look of a true predator, the kind that reminded the Human kind they were just Human, and had no idea what a real predator was. To a real predator, no matter what kind of bad ass you thought you were, at best you were food. “What kind of pills are we talking about, speed?”

“Prescription speed, but yeah. It’s a little harder than caffeine, but not by much.”

“Sure, yeah. But since when do you supply me with pills?”

He almost said, “Since you look like death warmed over.” But considering his tumor diagnosis, he thought it might not be politic to say such a thing. “You just look exhausted. You sleep at all last night?”

“I slept fine. I’m probably just getting old.”

“Aren’t we all?” Holden looked through the cupboard over the stove, where he kept a random assortment of spices, and behind the crushed red pepper was an old time film canister, in which he prescription pills. He had some in the bathroom, but ones he wouldn’t mind a thief stealing – Viagra, amyl nitrate, work related medication – while he kept the stuff he didn’t want stolen here in the kitchen, mainly painkillers. This speed functioned well as a painkiller, and didn’t make you sleepy.

He dug out a pill and filled a cup full of water before taking them both over to Roan. Was he enabling him? Yeah, but he looked so rough he felt anything short of injecting him with heroin would be doing him a favor.

Roan examined the pill before popping it and swallowing it down with a gulp of water. Maybe he wasn’t sick; maybe he just needed a vacation. Holden kind of hoped that was the case.

They left, and after a minor bit of negotiation, they took Roan’s car. Holden wasn’t sure how he felt about having a driver on an unknown number of pills, but he pointed out he had better than Human reflexes even when he wasn’t paying attention, and he had no argument for that. “Besides,” Roan added, with a hint of sarcasm. “I’m a functioning pill addict.”

He was, actually. But far be it from him to tell him.

On their rather uneventful way there, Roan suddenly said, with no preamble, “If something happens to me, you should take over MK Investigations.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean it. Get your investigators license so you’ll be ready for … whenever.”

“Me? Why me?”

“You read people well, you have more contacts than I do … you’re perfect for the job.”

“I’m a whore.”

“You don’t have to be. You’re wasting your talent.”

“Are you kidding me? I fuck like a demon.”

“Be that as it may, you’d make a better detective. Just do it above board, okay?”

He really didn’t like the way Roan was talking. It was like he was making plans for when he died, which was in fact what he was doing. What a weird thought – him, a detective. Since when was he mainstream? When did he fulfill a society approved role? How vanilla … although, to be fair, Roan didn’t make it seem so bourgeoisie. “I’m not a superhero, though.”

He snorted derisively. “What kind of superhero am I? Just call me Freak Show.”

“And I’m The Fox. We’re like a bad ‘70’s crime show.”

Roan smiled, liking this idea, like he thought he would. “And we get all the chicks. But since we’re gay, we never close the deal.”

“And we make all the straight boys jealous, wishing they were as cool as we were. Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“We should sell that to Logo.”

Holden chuckled this time. “Only if we package it as a reality show.”

“The cameras will have to follow you around, then. I’m boring when I’m not utterly terrifying.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re more terrifying than anything else.”

“Why does everyone say that?” But Roan was smiling as he said that, so he couldn’t have been that serious. Although Holden was willing to believe it.

Franco lived in a really shitty part of town, near the Heights, but where else could he live? As long as Holden had known him, he had no idea what he did for money, except it probably wasn’t legal. The shitty places were where you hid when you wanted to be ignored by cops, at least if you were a small fish. If you were a big fish, you just drew more attention to yourself, and that’s why you got lost in better neighborhoods or the suburbs. The only problem with living in the ‘burbs were you had to put up with Glenn Beck fans and child molesters, and the other kinds of refuse that washed up on those whiter than white shores. Holden had no idea how anyone stood it, but then again, he was the type of sexual deviant socialist Pinko commie that was destroying America, so what did he know?

Roan had to circle the block before he found a parking spot, and after he had maneuvered in, he asked, “How’s the girl?”

He really didn’t know what he meant, until he recalled the rescue of several nights ago. Considering he was shot at, how could he forget? (Except it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot at, and it was amazing how your mind just adapted to circumstances, no matter how extreme.) “Jessie’s probably gonna keep her around, see if she can rehabilitate her here. Seems her step-father sold her to the sex traffickers, so there’s no point in sending her home.”

Roan let out a small sigh, more of disappointment than anything else. “I wish people would stop living down to my expectations.” The cynic’s lament. Holden knew the feeling and the problem.

Franco’s apartment building was one of many rotten apartment buildings on this rotten street. If clinical depression had a neighborhood, it lived here, where gang tags decorated the walls and littler decorated the gutters, with the smell of piss mixing with dog shit and exhaust to create a miasma that made Roan wince. Holden wasn’t fond of the scent but got used to it much faster.

Franco lived on the third floor of his building, which he liked because he felt a ground floor apartment was simply an invitation to crack addicts looking for a television to hock. He sort of got the logic, but mainly he thought it reflected Franco’s natural paranoia.

The trip up the dark, rickety stairwell that smelled rather strongly of malt liquor was uneventful, but once they were outside his door, Roan put his ear to it and kept him from knocking. His nose wrinkled from the stench, but after a moment, he said, “He’s home. I hear deep snoring in there.”

“Can you tell if he has a playmate?”

“Can’t smell one. I’m pretty sure he’s alone.”

“You can smell someone through this stench?”

“You’d be surprised.”

Holden knew he would be. Roan tried the doorknob, which was clearly locked, and suddenly he growled, a noise low in his throat that made Holden’s hair stand on end. It was the noise a monster in your closet might make, and his sudden fear was simply an atavistic response to the sound. Roan then turned the doorknob again, and this time something snapped inside it, a metallic sound of a spring or a tumbler cracking under pressure, and then Roan put his shoulder to the door and pushed. He didn’t hit the door, it was a simple shove, and something broke inside as the door swung open. Once inside the apartment, which smelled like bong water and burnt cheese, Holden saw it was a deadbolt that had fallen from the door and hit the carpet.

The apartment looked like a minor explosion had occurred within it, with dirty clothes, pizza boxes, and magazines scattered about haphazardly, with some irregular shaped lumps suggesting there was furniture somewhere underneath it all. For a second, Holden thought he heard someone revving an SUV in the adjoining room, but it was just Franco snoring.

They started looking around, for what he wasn’t sure, but he went immediately to Franco’s computer and started it up simply by moving a mouse, as it was in “sleep” mode. He went through the browser history, and saw Franco was a fan of “chicks with dicks” sites. Lovely. There was also something referencing a donkey show, but he didn’t bother to look too closely.

Roan found Franco’s cell phone in his coat pocket, his coat slung over one side of what Holden assumed was the couch, and after a moment of paging through the phone’s memory, he said, “Call up a reverse directory for me, would you?”

Holden did, and Roan asked him to put in a number, see what came up. Once he was done, what came up was the name Lee McGuiness, with an address that put him near lower Queen Anne. “Recognize the name?” Roan asked him.

Holden shook his head. “Should I?”

“No, but it’s the last number Franco dialed, besides Pizza Time.”

“Think it might be our guy?”

“It’s worth checking out.” Roan wrote the address on the palm of his hand, and then Holden shut down the browser and wiped out the history so even if Franco thought to check, he’d find nothing. On their way out the door, Roan wiped the broken doorknob, even though it was highly unlikely Franco would ever call the cops for any reason. (Certainly not with pot in the place.)

So this was the detective work Roan wanted him to take over, huh? He wouldn’t have expected it, but it was oddly tempting.

This is Dylan’s mix, and it’s a bit more mellow than most of the previous mixes, reflecting his personality: