This is an excerpt from Infected: Prey . Roan’s searching for a teenager who may have ran away from home, and seems to have been obsessed with infecteds, making him concerned he might have run off to the Church of the Divine Transformation. That’s where we are when this snark off begins:

*****

As soon as he was done, Paris took his seat, cracked open his soda, and decided to play devil’s advocate. “This is all supposition, you know. Maybe he was a bit obsessed with infecteds, but ran off to join the Hare Krishnas.”

“Or the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Roan replied, playing along.

“The Evangelicals.”

“The Mormons.”

“The Shakers,” Paris insisted, raising his eyebrows in a comic manner.

Oh no, he wasn’t laughing now. “The Scientologists.”

“Oh shit, you win. I can’t top that.”

Roan pumped his fist in sarcastic triumph. “Mock the sacred Xenu if you want, but you won’t believe how much claiming you’re a Scientologist gets you out of conversations.”

Paris snorted a laugh in remembrance, and almost choked on a fry. “I remember when you told that guy that, as a Scientologist, you celebrated Christmas differently. I thought he was gonna have you arrested.”

“Which one was this?”

“The one where you claimed to dance naked around a pyre where you burned the remains of a sacrificial chicken.”

“Oh, right, and ate the still beating heart of a baby goat under agibbous moon. Right. I thought I was particularly inspired that night.”

****

Check out the rest of the Snark here: http://mariesexton.net/introducing-saturday-snark-2

13 – Suicide Policeman

The cops seemed to interview them a very long time, and Holden wondered if they were harassing them in a passive aggressive way. But he couldn’t prove it, and he’d been treated worse by cops, so he just figured he was viewing things through his own warped prism.

He had thought about bringing up Roan’s name, but that was a risky gambit. If Roan was here, the cops would probably be deferential, especially if they’d seen any footage of him acting like Batman or knew how the Chief felt about him. But without him here, they could be a bit more free with their disdain, and Holden knew Roan had as many enemies on the force as friends, maybe even more. (more…)

12 – Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)

Roan barely touched the ground before pouncing on the tiger.

The cop had remembered his training and did the one thing that was hammered into every cat squad member: protect his throat at all costs. He’d thrown his arms around his neck, so the tiger’s fang sunk deep into his lightly armored arm. He was screaming in pain by the time Roan had jumped on the tiger’s back, and sunk his own teeth deep into the back of the cat’s neck.

It squalled a noise of pain and tried to shake him off, but Roan had a death grip on the thing, still just human enough to realize that hands were probably better than claws in this circumstance.

The tiger had to let go of the cop to squall, and as Roan was hanging on for dear life, blood filling his mouth as he locked his jaw, the tiger tried to shake him off. It rolled over, putting Roan on the ground, but that’s just what Roan wanted, as it allowed him to use his still human legs to kick the tiger away, although he’d barely unlocked his jaw, so when the tiger went flying Roan kept a mouthful of fur and skin. (more…)