Infected: Freefall (25 page)

“The neighbor next door realized the back door was ajar,” Gordo said, pointing at the door just visible at the edge of the kitchen. “There’d been break-ins around the area, so when no one replied, they called the cops and reported it. A prowler checked it out, and found the vic in the kitchen, swimming in a pool of what must have been over half his blood volume. Considering the blood out here, we figure the initial attack was in the living room, but it all ended in the kitchen, whether he was finally brought down there or dragged there by the cat.”

“Any ID yet?”

“Nope. The guy was torn to shit. The cat shredded his face and chest like cheese. His left hand was also gnawed off. We found a part of his thumb, but that’s it so far.”

“Probably all you’ll find. The cat probably ate the rest.”

Gordo looked away, suppressing a shudder. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” He composed himself a second, but Roan thought he looked terrible. Sure, he’d probably been woken up for this call, but he looked weary and haggard, the lines of his face deeper than usual, his jaw taut enough to break concrete.

“Can you tell us what kinda cat we’re looking for? We weren’t able to pull a decent paw print out of the blood or the back lawn.”

Roan closed his eyes and tried very hard to sift through all the scents, get past the blood and death and fear that soured the air like spilled ammonia. With so many people here, bringing with them the smells of cigarettes and coffee, forensic chemicals and deodorant, aftershave and mouthwash, it made it difficult. (Someone had smoked pot recently. Someone on the forensic team, or one of the cops? He couldn’t say right now. They’d covered it up fairly well, but not enough for his nose.)

“Leopard,” he told Gordo. “The vic’s a cougar strain.”

Roan opened his eyes to find Gordo staring at him in surprise. “The vic? Are you saying he’s infected.”

“You didn’t know?”

“No! We didn’t even find a cage here!”

Now that was weird. Roan concentrated on the leopard smell as best he could and followed it, a thin thread of neon among a spiderweb of dark threads of scent. He went up a narrow staircase to the second floor, Gordo following him, and went to a room at the end of the hall. He thought it might be a bedroom, but swinging open a surprisingly heavy door revealed a room with no furniture, save for a flattened old beanbag sitting deflated in a corner under high shelves. There was a window covered with burglar bars. “This was a funky place,” Gordo admitted, as Roan looked at the door. It had been reinforced on the inside with thin plates of metal. “We figured it was some kinda safe room.”

“It’s an ad hoc cage,” Roan said. “The bars are on the inside of the window. It’s to keep something in, not keep people out.”

Gordon scanned the room, looking for any sign of cat occupation. The threadbare carpet was a ’70s burnt orange, one corner of it torn up to the nap. If Roan had been the cat in this room, he’d have torn it to shreds instantly just for being as ugly as fuck. “Are you sure? It doesn’t look like it.”

“I’ve seen people do it before. Some people are really offended by the notion of a cage, and just try and cat-proof a room.” He saw a shadow on the wall and went to have a look at it. Somebody had tried to spackle and paint over claw marks, but they had done so poorly.

Gordo checked out the door, opening it and looking at both sides before scratching his head. “This door wasn’t broken down. It was open.”

“Like the back door?”

“Yeah.” He exchanged a suspicious look with Roan. “What the fuck happened here? We thought the back door was open and the cat came in that way. But it was here all along?”

Roan nodded. The leopard had marked its territory here. He could smell it more strongly in this room than anywhere else in the house so far. “It’s hard to tell, but I swear I scented a woman’s perfume in the hall. I think there were three people in this house; one who transformed into a leopard and killed the man downstairs. Leaving the third one suspiciously AWOL.”

“A setup? Or did they just run for their fucking lives?”

Roan shrugged. “I guess we won’t know ’til we find them, will we?” But if he had to go by his instincts, whatever had happened in this house was even uglier than the scene downstairs.

2

After Hours

R
OAN
smelled like bloody death all the way home.

Dylan had fallen asleep and seemed so peaceful that he hated to even risk waking him up, so he used the downstairs shower. He was under the spray until the water turned ice cold, and he wasn’t sure the smell was completely out of his skin. He hoped it was psychosomatic.

He was tired, too tired to trudge upstairs, so he flopped on the couch, naked and wet, and dragged the throw over him, settling his head against the armrest. He’d seen the message machine’s blinking light, but he studiously ignored it.

Roan slept heavily but dreamed too much. In one, he was fighting an endless swarm of biting black insects that he could only see out of the corner of his eye but made his skin unbearably itchy. The next dream, he was inexplicably in a cage, but in his Human form, and he couldn’t get out. Occasionally people would walk by and he’d call out to them, but they’d ignore him. He could feel the lion wanting to come out and yet unable to. He didn’t get it.

Frustration alone woke him up, his head pounding sickly in his temples, a drumbeat that only he could hear. He peeled himself off the sofa, not surprised but disappointed that only three hours had passed. It was still pouring outside, the light gray, and he felt like he was in a submarine that was slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

He went downstairs to steal some boxers from the dryer, and he stared at his cage for a while, seeing it as the small prison it was, like a prop from a horror film. His head continued to pound, like he had an angry old man banging his fist against the inside of his skull, so he went back upstairs and rooted around in a first aid kit until he found some codeine. Yes, he had promised Dylan he was off the stuff except when he was post-change, but goddamn it, he felt like his fucking headaches were included in the compromise. He washed the pills down with a pale ale snagged from the fridge. Yeah, it was way too early to drink, but when he was woken up by a headache, all bets were off.

He decided to actually listen to his messages while waiting for the pills to kick in. The first was from last night. Dee had called to report that he and Luke had gone to see “his movie” last night (Con’s play turned movie). They had enjoyed it (kind of), but Dee found it (quote) “equally hilarious and appalling” that “his” character (the character that Con had loosely based on Roan) was made straight for the film.

Con’s ex-wife, Siobhan, had invited Roan along to the local premiere a month ago and thought he ought to come, but Roan declined, saying that he just couldn’t face it. And he couldn’t, not really—although one night curiosity got the better of him and he snuck out to a late-night showing alone (he told Dylan he was on a stakeout). The movie was okay, and he wasn’t really surprised by the changes made to Con’s original play: the title was now
Requiem
(which made no fucking sense in a story context, but what the hell), and the Church’s protection and knowledge of the abusive priest was watered down heavily, as was the family’s initial response to the abuse (they took the priest’s side and accused Con of making it up and being “wicked”; in the film, this response was limited to simple disbelief, not accusations that he was a liar). Yes, the cop character based on him was inexplicably made straight, removing any romantic subtext from scenes with Con’s character (whose sexuality was never mentioned—great straight-washing), and was also reduced to what was an extended cameo. In the play he was a major supporting character. In the film, he had maybe ten minutes’ screen time. The screenwriter had also created a pretty, shy neighbor girl, presumably a romantic interest for Connor. (Siobhan’s character in the play had been his best friend, also wearied by the constant oppression of her strict family, and while she was still in the film, her role was reduced as well.) If you hadn’t seen the play it was okay. If you’d seen the play, you knew it was crap.

Still, the whole time, Roan kept imagining how chuffed Con would have been to see his play on the big screen, even in a highly bastardized form. Oh, he’d have gotten royally pissed at the filmmakers and probably would have slung beer bottles at their heads, but for about the length of the film he’d be thrilled to see his baby up there. Then he’d start kicking heads in. Roan would have helped.

Siobhan had told him the studio didn’t want a “gay” film because they never made much money, and beyond that she felt it got “focus-grouped to death.” Roan didn’t know why they didn’t just write a rip-off script and film that instead; it probably would have been cheaper. But he didn’t get the entertainment industry and would never claim to.

The next message was from Holden, sounding unusually upset. “Roan, as soon as you get this, I need you to come over. I don’t care what time it is. I have a problem and only you can handle it.”

Roan was a little surprised he didn’t add, “Help me, Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope,” but that was probably too geeky for him. He called Holden but only got his machine, so he hung up without leaving a message. If he wasn’t in jail—and he hadn’t asked for bail money—something strange was going on. Since sleep was out of the question, he decided to go ahead and check it out.

He’d been hoping there was more news from the crime scene, but obviously not. When Roan left, they’d tentatively identified the homeowner as Curtis Bowles, but that didn’t mean he was the victim or one of the missing roommates. He could have been subletting. And considering the condition of the corpse, it could be days or even weeks before a proper identification could be made. Poor bastard.

He dressed hurriedly and ventured back out into the underwater world. He wished he’d stop having nightmares, especially about stupid shit. He probably needed to break down and see Doctor Rosenberg again. He could trust her not to turn him over to the first traveling freak show that came along.

He called Fiona from the car, as he had ample time to do it, sitting at stoplights. He told her he’d be coming into the office today, but a bit later than usual. He left the message on her voice mail, as he was routed straight there. It wasn’t personal. Fiona hated answering her own phone. According to her, “It’s not like it’s ever anything good.” He couldn’t argue with that logic.

The codeine and beer combo had really kicked in now, beating his headache back to a dull and ignorable roar, but he now felt a little hollow-eyed and light-headed, his hands and feet oddly warm. There was no way to win. He checked his eyes in the mirror and wondered if Holden would notice he was on pills again. Oh, fuck it. Holden had called him—he was just going to have to live with getting Roan in whatever shape he was when he answered.

He had to knock twice. Well, the first time was a knock. After waiting a minute and getting no answer, he changed to pounding on the door. That got a response. “Hold your horses,” Holden snapped, his voice muffled by the door. He still sounded tired and cranky.

When he finally opened the door, Roan told him, “You called. Don’t get pissy at me.”

Holden stared at him with sleep-blurry eyes, his mussed sable hair sticking up in all directions. “Yeah, I did, but give me a minute. I was up ’til five thirty.” He turned away, dry-washing his face, leaving the door open, a tacit invitation inside. Roan took it, although not without some reservations.

He felt awkward, and not only because he always felt awkward around Holden since he’d seen him almost completely transform. This time he also felt awkward because Holden was dressed only in red boxer briefs, riding so low on his hips you could see a fringe of dark pubic hair in the front and a good dose of ass crack in the back. Holden had no sense of modesty, so he wouldn’t actually care—you didn’t become a whore if you were actually shy about your body—but Roan found it too early in the day to face anyone half naked. Maybe he was getting prudish in his old age. What a horrible thought. Luckily, Holden padded into his small kitchen, and his counters hid him. “Want some coffee?”

“No thanks. What’s going on?”

Holden ran a hand through his hair, making it only slightly less messy, and nodded his head in the direction of his coffee table. “It’s right there.”

Roan looked as Holden continued to futz with the espresso machine, and he finally deduced that he must have been referring to the folded-up newspaper. He sat down on the sofa and had a look.

On the front page was a large PR photo of a smiling man in his fifties, with a full head of hair almost as white as his supernaturally blinding Chiclet teeth, highlighted by a tan just a few degrees shy of George Hamilton orange. Roan recognized him as Joel Newberry, of the Newberry clan, a locally famous family. They owned Channel Four and a classical station, sponsored a boat race every year, and had a controlling interest in the advertising firm Armstrong Anderson (if there was a conflict of interest in this, no one mentioned it). Scanning the article, it said that Joel, fifty-four, had died suddenly of a heart attack last night.

Roan scanned the rest of the front page, in case he was missing something else, but the only other articles were on rising gas prices, local soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and a dustup at the city council over an offensive e-mail. He couldn’t imagine Holden being interested in any of this. “Is this about the dead rich guy?” he finally asked, giving up.

Holden snorted. “Not just a dead rich guy. There’s no fucking way he died of a heart attack. I want to hire you to find out how he really died.”

Roan scratched his head. Had the drugs kicked in extra hard, or had he actually heard that? “Umm, you knew Joel Newberry?”

“He was Trevor,” he said, pouring himself a cup of espresso. “One of my regulars.”

Okay, it was official: Roan was glad he was on drugs. “This guy? Trophy wife Newberry?”

“He wasn’t gay. I’d say he was bi, although he himself never used the term. He would tell me he thought the Greeks had the right idea, that a man could have another man to fool around with and not be considered gay. After all, our sex drives are more compatible than it is between a male and a female.”