Fang and Claw

by Markie Madden

  She made note of it in her tablet. “And where does he live?” Richard gave her an address on the south side, off Logan Street. “You think he’ll be there now?”

  “I bet. More than likely he hopped the train home. Little bastard’s probably plunked down on his couch hiding in another video game. It’s what he does.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Lacey hopped onto the freeway once more, feeling relieved to have the open road stretched out before her, rather than the snarl of traffic up and down 1st Avenue. She eased the car up to 100 MPH and pulled out into the far left lane. Ignoring Colton’s indrawn breath, she called for even more speed, until the white lines on the highway were blinking by as rapidly as a strobe light at a dance hall. Lacey enjoyed the sensation of the G-force as the powerful vehicle pressed her into her seat.

  As if to distract himself from the harrowing ride, Colton turned to her. “Did that kid seem a little out of it to you?”

  “You mean illegally ‘out of it’?”

  “Noticed that too?”

  “It was fairly obvious.” She was approaching at high speed a car driving much slower in the left hand lane of the interstate, and she slipped the car into the center lane and back again in just moments. She had no patience for anyone who wasn’t in as much of a hurry as she was. All Lacey wanted to do was pick up this perp, deliver him to booking for assault with a deadly weapon, and have her meeting with Commander Wilson.

  Seeing the exchange for Interstate 45 coming up in half a mile, she slowed her speed and began threading her way to the right lane through the heavy highway traffic. Logan Street was a short, narrow road situated right along the interstate, and not far from a major train switching station. It had long been considered a slum; the buildings in this area were often unkempt and dilapidated. Many of the houses had been condemned by the city, sadly awaiting their turn to be demolished. Often, the abandoned homes were havens for drug dealers, prostitutes, or the homeless who would slip in through broken doors or windows.

  Lacey pulled to the curb and parked in front of a drab-looking white house with peeling paint. It was situated between a derelict home, with boarded up windows, and a burned-out husk of what Lacey assumed had been another house. The abandoned home was covered in graffiti identifying the local gang with some of the fresher tags. The bright red sign placed over the front door stating: Condemned! Do not enter! had not stopped someone from entering the building; Lacey saw smoke curling up from the fireplace chimney.

  The house that was their destination wasn’t in much better shape. In fact, the only way they could tell it was inhabited from the outside was that the height of the lawn was much lower than in the surrounding yards, indicating that someone cared enough to spend time mowing it. However, all the ground floor windows, save for one next to the front door, were boarded up.

  Lacey wondered if that was the poor man’s answer to barred armor on the windows. The paint was peeling on the three wooden steps leading up to a narrow, stingy porch. Lacey noticed the tiny camera lens positioned in the peephole, knowing it would be transmitting their image to a screen inside the home.

  She knocked, then turned to her partner. “Beefed-up security in this neighborhood?”

  “Does seem a bit out of place.” Colton shifted so they were shoulder-to-shoulder and presented a unified front. Lacey knocked again. A few moments later, they heard the click of the deadbolt and the door cracked open to reveal a short stocky young man with hair so blond it was nearly white, and blue-gray eyes that were rimmed with red. He was wearing nothing but a pair of ragged boxer shorts, a pair of mismatched navy and black socks, and a deep five o’clock shadow.

  When Lacey showed him her badge, he looked at her with an uncomprehending stare. The pungent smoke of an illegal drug wafted out the narrow crack in the door. She exchanged a look with Colton. If her nose was correct, not to mention the glazed look in the suspect’s eyes, they had probable cause to search the man’s home.

  “Willard Jones?” Colton snarled, perhaps thinking that this would get the kid’s attention.

  “Yeah? That’s me.” The young man had a voice that sounded like he spoke through his nose, and it was heavily accented, with a long stress on the A sounds.

  She could almost see the young man’s brain processing, albeit slowly, when he straightened in a quick movement and tried to slam the door. However, Colton had stuck his foot into the door when Willard had opened it, so the younger man couldn’t get the door to close and latch. Lacey put her shoulder into it and shoved it open, her hand on the weapon in her shoulder harness.

  Willard turned from the open door and tried to run into the house. Lacey was lightning-quick, and had the suspect’s arms behind his back before Colton could even blink. “Got cuffs?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Colton seemed startled that she had subdued their suspect so quickly and with so little effort. He pulled the cuffs from the small of his back and grabbed Willard’s left arm, securing one of the bracelets while Lacey held the other arm firmly in place. Only when both cuffs held Willard’s arms behind his back did Lacey loosen her grip on the young man.

  “You’re under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed you free of charge. Do you understand these rights?” Colton recited the standard rights in a monotone voice.

  “Yeah, man, I get it.” His shoulders slumped and he began to weep. “Oh man, like, this is going to suck ass, dude!”

  Colton crab-walked the young man into a living area right off the foyer, and sat him down on a dilapidated and torn couch with sagging cushions. An ashtray, a glass pipe frosted with some sort of residue, and a tiny plastic bag with a green leafy substance lay in plain sight on the scarred wooden table. A tiny television screen sat sadly in one corner of the room, showing a baseball game between the Texas Rangers and some other team Lacey couldn’t identify at a glance.

  “What’s this stuff here?” Colton snarled at the suspect, indicating the paraphernalia on the table.

  “Just a bit of weed,” Willard sniffled through his sobs. “That’s all, dude, just a bit of weed.”

  Lacey, wearing gloves to collect the evidence, picked up the bag and sniffed it deeply. “I think there’s something else to it,” she commented, holding the bag up to Colton’s nose so he could get the scent.

  His nose twitched as he took in several deep breaths, analyzing the smells he was collecting. “I think we’re going to find out that’s Odyssey,” he told Lacey finally. “And for that, we get to tag you for possession of an illegal substance.”

  “Dude, I didn’t know it was O, really! Damn, I thought it was just weed!”

  Lacey chuckled at the younger man’s use of the slang term for the new street drug that was a combination of marijuana, legal in the state of Texas, and the Zizi Lotus leaf, the mythological plant Homer wrote about in his play The Odyssey, that induced a state of euphoria and apathy. The two drugs combined would cause the user to suffer from hallucinations, confusion, and loss of dexterity, among other things. The Lotus was deemed illegal in the United States and accounted for a large percent of the country’s annual drug busts.

  While Colton began questioning Willard about the train incident, Lacey took out evidence bags and collected the bag of drug, the pipe, as well as the ashtray which seemed to have some burned particles in it, possible leftovers from the pipe. She sealed the evidence with her initials, date, and time, and scanned each bag with her tablet before tucking them away in the shoulder carrier she used for evidence.

  Entering the suspect’s data into the tablet, she scanned over his priors, several arrests for controlled substances, a couple drunk and disorderly charges. She also noted that the young Shifter’s animal was a Goat, and added specific instructions for the type of restraints he would need while at the jail, and to put him into a cell where everything was steel and
bolted to the floor or walls; Goats were known for chewing through anything that wasn’t hardened steel, and had been responsible for creating some decent yet deadly weapons from everyday items in their cells.

  Colton walked Willard down the sidewalk, when the subject yelled over his shoulder, “Hey, will ya lock the door for me at least?”

  Lacey locked the door and made sure it was secure. Then, she realized she’d never had a cage installed in her car, as it was her own personal vehicle, and now they would have to transport the prisoner down to the station without the protection afforded by the add-on. She rolled her eyes at the perceived intrusion on her privacy but knew there was no other way to do it. She couldn’t justify calling a patrol unit off street duties just for a transfer when she had a perfectly good vehicle to do it with. But she started to think twice about her desire to use her own car while on the job.

  Colton seated the younger man in the back seat, behind the driver’s seat, so that while Lacey was driving he could keep his eye on the perp. Lacey stashed her shoulder bag containing the evidence into the trunk, as it wouldn’t have been proper to leave it where the suspect could have access to it, and there was no room for it in the front seat.

  When she finally climbed into the car and fastened her safety harness, she noticed that Colton, while still belted securely in place, had turned his body a bit in her direction. At least he knows how to follow protocol when he wants to, she thought as she turned the engine over. It’s the getting him to want to that’s the hard part. She was still anxious to get back to the station so she could hand this stoner jerk over to Booking and then try to get in to see her commander. She still wanted a transfer.

  “Like this is some kick ass ride, dude,” Willard commented from the back seat. “Totally epic!” He seemed to have forgotten, at least for the moment, that he was in handcuffs.

  Colton didn’t say a word all the way back to the station, though Willard kept up a running monologue about every aspect of her vehicle that he thought was “cool, dude” until she zoomed down the highway at 115 MPH, at which time he yelped, gulped several times, and then fell silent. Thank god, was all she could think. This entire experience reminded her of why she didn’t miss her days on patrol. And why she never wanted to end up carting a prisoner around in her personal vehicle. Maybe next time she’d make Colton drive his own vehicle. No, hopefully there won’t be a next time I work a case with Colton! She wasn’t ready to admit that she was just starting to get used to him.

  When she arrived at the police station, rather than pulling her car up into the parking ramp as she usually did, she rolled into the subterranean level leading to the sally port, where prisoners were brought in and out of the building. The car’s doors echoed hollowly through the concrete structure. Willard seemed to be panting in anxiety by the time they pulled him from the back seat, whether from her driving or the prospect of another stay in the opposite of comfortable accommodations at the jail, Lacey couldn’t tell.

  She depressed the doorbell-like button on the intercom. “Identify yourself.” The voice was mechanical and rasping through the speaker.

  “Anderson, 75-81918A, with a prisoner.”

  The door emitted a loud buzz and Colton pulled it open. About ten feet from it was another door, which was electrically wired up to the first one; no matter what anyone did from either outside or inside the building, the second door would not unlock as long as the first one remained open. Knowing from past experience how sticky the outer door could be, Lacey pulled it closed with force. Colton, one hand guiding their suspect, approached the second door and pressed the buzzer on it. This one had no speaker; the guard on the inside simply released the door whenever the alert sounded.

  Lacey stepped to the guard sitting behind a counter, who was just setting aside a newspaper.

  “You out slumming again?” He asked with a chuckle.

  “If I had been, I’d be bringing you in,” Lacey retorted.

  Colton removed his cuffs from Willard and handed him over to two correctional officers. Lacey scanned all the evidence from her shoulder bag and laid them on the counter, watching restlessly as the desk officer scanned them in, maintaining the chain of custody.

  “You’ll want to have this tested right away,” she said, indicating the bag of dried green leaves. “I suspect it’s Odyssey but I don’t have a test kit.”

  “Well, here.” The man bent over with a loud screech of his chair. From under the counter he pulled a small square package in a zipped plastic bag. “You’re not planning to switch over to Vice are ya?”

  “God no!” She exclaimed as she put the package into her shoulder bag. “Do I look crazy to you?”

  The guard just laughed, and handed the evidence bags over to the officer who was collecting and recording any property Willard came in with, such as his watch, clothing, and shoes. He was also wearing a silver chain with one of the patron saints on it. Lacey couldn’t see which one it was. The young man only protested when the officer told him to take off the necklace.

  “Dude, really? Like, my mom gave that to me!” He was obviously attached to it.

  “You’ve got to give it up,” the officer told him with a kind voice. “Besides, it’ll be safer in the locker with the rest of your stuff.”

  When it was put to him that way, Willard handed over the chain without another word. Once Lacey had sent the case and evidence information over to the departmental computer, transferring their custody from her to the jail officers, she beckoned to Colton. She could have made him walk through the jail proper and use the elevator to get back up to the unit, but she decided she could afford to take pity on one with such an awkward and ungainly stride, and she allowed him to ride as she pulled the car from the sally port and back into her usual place in the parking ramp.

  But that was the extent of her courtesy; as soon as Colton shut the passenger side door, she locked the car and set the anti-theft system, and turned her back on him. She could care less if he could keep up with her stride, she could care less if he ever made it back to the unit. Once she left him behind, she wished she could forget all about having known him. Lacey knew she would never be able to forgive Colton for what he’d kept from her, as well as the simple fact of his ancestry. As soon as she made it back to her desk, she would be making a very strongly-worded phone call to her commander.

  13

  “There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.” ~~Thomas Jefferson

  Commander Wilson watched her walk into his office, her gait betraying the fact that her body was on tense, full alert. He wondered what had happened to knock her off-balance. In her phone call, she’d only said that she needed to talk to him right away, that something had happened and must be brought to his attention.

  Her blonde hair, normally straight and smooth, looked for all the world as if she had been yanking at it with both hands, and her blue eyes had the look of an animal who’d just become aware of a predator about to pounce, one who was trapped with no possible escape. He saw the shiver run up her spine as she approached his desk.

  “Sir!” She spoke stiffly, as if trying to keep her voice from breaking. “I’d like to request a reassignment or transfer, effective immediately.”

  Typically, he folded his hands together on the blotter of his desk. “Please, sit down.”

  “I prefer to stand.”

  “I prefer to look you in the eye.” Especially right now. “Sit. That’s an order.”

  Wilson saw her reluctance, but she took a seat in one of the leather visitor’s chairs he kept on the other side of his desk. But she didn’t relax, not even by a fraction; her back was ramrod straight, not touching the back of the chair, her hands were trembling in her lap despite the fact that she had them clenched together. If he didn’t know that Vampires’ respiratory rates never went up, he would have thought she was breathing hard.

  “For what reason are you requesting a new assignment?”

  “I can’t work
in the unit. I don’t even think it’s a good idea to operate the unit. I didn’t want the assignment then and I don’t now. I want out.”

  “Lacey.” He saw her stunned look when he used her first name, something he rarely ever did. “You have to give me a better answer.”

  “I prefer for my reasons to be private, sir.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not going to cut it. Look, you’ve been with the department longer than I have, and you’ve been an exceptional officer. I’d like to know you see me as more than just a workplace superior. I’d like to think you consider me a friend, and a confidant.” He watched the emotions play across her face, a little bit of apprehension, a little bit of confusion, but most of it was fear. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s Colton.” He gave her a look of reproach. “I can’t work with him anymore!” She blurted the words, and the look on her face was reminiscent of a dam breaking. “I can’t have him at my back! I can’t promise that I won’t hurt him! I’ll resign, if you can’t transfer me.”

  Now Wilson was surprised. “You’ve been here a long time. Your performance is always excellent. You help bring justice to victims. Are you so ready to give all that up?”

  She looked down as if in shame. “You know I like the job,” she admitted, a hint of anger in her quiet voice.

  “I realize Colton is a little rough around the edges, but he’s an excellent officer. What is it about him that’s bothering you?”

  Her whole body was trembling, though with fear or anger, he couldn’t decide, and her breath was strained, as if she couldn’t make herself say the words. “His pack--his people--” She couldn’t call his pack a family any more than she could control the stutter in her voice. “They killed my family!” She said it loudly, and in a rush, as if by the saying of it she could escape the fact, and looked at the floor.

  He felt rocked to his core, and he leaned back into the comfort of his chair as he processed the information that Lacey’d had no knowledge of her partner’s history. With a gentle voice, he said, “You had no idea?”