by M. K. Gibson
When it was clear nothing was moving and the apartment was empty, Eric holstered his weapon and inclined his chin towards his new teammates.
“I don’t know about you all, but I think this place might be my new spot to bring hookups. Once we’re done our business, they’ll take a real look around and leave.”
“Are you ever serious?” Cass asked.
“Only when I have to be,” he said, flashing a smile.
Behind Cass, the rest of team entered the apartment and began to sweep out. Messer immediately began to pick up objects and inspect them, looking for clues, while DeLeon used her data pad to scan objects. Inwardly, he chuckled. Both of them were products of their relative times and generation of police training. The older man still thought in tactile moves, while the younger officer relied on the tech of the time to do even the most menial of tasks.
But both were wrong in their preferred techniques. DeLeon’s scans would come back incomplete. The apartment building, due to its relative age and construction materials, was a perfect place to hide due to the concrete and metal, which naturally blocked out most scanners. As for Messer, he should have been looking for objects that were unseen instead of what was on display. Dealers and smart criminals never left anything out in the open, if they kept anything illegal in their homes at all.
“According to Ted, Boris was Hermes’s dealer. And according to Brgha, Boris also works for this mystery supplier,” Cass said, reasoning things out aloud. “So is there a chance Hermes was executed?”
Ah Cass, always strategic, but rarely tactical. Always looking for a “bigger picture” when oftentimes, there wasn’t any.
“Huh?” Eric asked. “I wasn’t listening.”
“I said—”
“Eh, don’t care,” Eric said with a wave, forcing the conversation away from pointless “what-if” scenarios. If Hermes worked for him, then why let him die publicly? But if Boris had anything here, it wouldn’t be out in the open; it would be hidden.
He turned to the group. “Check the bedrooms?”
“Might as well,” DeLeon said. “I think the materials in this building are blocking my scanners.”
“Nerd,” Eric said with a private smile.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Cass said. “My allergies are going nuts. Boris must have a cat.”
The team split into pairs. Eric joined Cass in the master bedroom while Messer and DeLeon went into the second one. When they were alone in the room, Eric turned to his partner.
“So what do you think of all this?”
“It’s better than our old job,” she said as she looked through the messy master bedroom, then wiped at her eyes and nose. “Stupid cats.”
Everything smelled of decaying leaves and mulch. The window was left slightly ajar, likely to help ventilate the room. The bed, if you could call it that, was little more than a ratty mattress atop of stack of crates. Cass first checked the nightstand beside the bed, then got onto the floor to look under the bed and between the crates.
“That’s it?” Eric asked. “Just better than our last job?”
“Well, what do you think?” she said, turning the question back on him. “We’re still cops, just disposable cops with a different boss. Remember the Brobdingnagian? He’s still out there. But the next team will pick up where we left off. That’s the way of things.”
“You’re not even a little excited?” Eric asked. “We’re part of some covert group. It’s kinda cool.”
“Look, I’m not you, okay? Nothing really excites me anymore. Good guys fight bad guys. But the bad guys keep coming and we . . . well, we either get too old to do the job or we get dead.”
“You should start your own brand of motivational posters,” Eric said, shaking his head while he rummaged through the dresser. “Instead of that ‘Just Hang in There’ kitten, yours will be this old cat letting go while flipping you the middle paw. In big block letters it’ll say ‘Why Bother?’.”
“Sounds about right,” Cass said as she tapped the floor with her foot, looking for loose floorboards and hidden spaces. “I’m not seeing anything, and there’s no tiles in the ceiling.”
“Yeah, this place seems clean. You check the closet?”
“Not yet,” Eric said, “What do you think of the other ones?”
“Messer seems like a professional,” Cass said. “A bit old-fashioned.”
“And the others?”
“The elf is solid.”
Eric sighed. “I’m talking about DeLeon.”
“New Girl? What about her?”
“You’re giving her a lot of shit.”
“Yeah,” Cass agreed as she moved towards the closet. “She’s an asshole.”
“So were we when we were young.”
“But we had style,” Cass countered. “That girl has a stick in her butt.”
“She’s just young. She wants to make a name for herself,” Eric countered.
“Right. Which makes her dangerous. As of now, she hasn’t done anything to impress me. And I really dislike how she keeps staring at my tits with her judgy eyes.”
“Well, can you blame her?” Eric said. “They get into a room before you do.”
Cass turned, her hand on the closet door, and stared daggers. “Arby—”
“I know, I know,” he said, holding up his hands palms out, in a mock surrender. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”
“It’s okay.”
“I mean I seriously couldn’t resist. They’re so big they have their own gravity.”
“Deacon, Cross, we found something,” Messer called out from the other room.
“Did you find New Girl a personality?” Eric yelled back, shooting a wink at Cass.
“Ha ha assholes,” DeLeon called back. “Just get out here.”
“Be right there,” Eric said, then turned to Cass. “You good in here?”
“Go,” she said. “Play with your new friends. I’ll finish up.”
Eric didn’t respond. It was clear she was in one of her moods and the best thing to do was give her space. So Eric left her in the room to sulk and joined DeLeon and Messer in the living room.
“So what you find?” he asked.
“Three full vials in the spare bedroom and a couple of relics,” Messer said, while DeLeon held out the vials and Hermes’s missing caduceus.
“Man, you guys get all the luck. We didn’t find anything.”
“Except a litter box,” DeLeon said with a smirk.
“Huh?” Eric asked. “We didn’t see a litter box.”
“Well, there wasn’t one out here, in the spare bedroom, or in the bathroom,” DeLeon pointed. “Whatever’s causing Cross’s allergies to flare up has to be in there.”
That . . . was a good point. And one he had missed.
“One sec,” Eric said turning to go back towards the master bedroom. “Hey Cass, you might wanna get out of there. There may be a litter box in that closet and—”
A huge foot lashed out and connected to his sternum. The sudden attack knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling back into the living room.
From flat on his back, Eric saw a white weretiger with black stripes in a tailored suit step out of the bedroom. The shifter held Cass around her waist with his left arm while he held a gun to her head with his right.
“Move back,” the weretiger growled.
Eric narrowed his eyes, but obeyed, crab walking back into the living room where Messer and DeLeon had their weapons drawn. Messer stood there like an Old West gunslinger with his leather coat brushed back and away so that his off hand could reach his knife. DeLeon’s response was textbook academy. She’d managed to slip on her tac-helmet and assume a weaver ready stance.
“Officers,” the weretiger said. “I believe you have something of ours.”
“You’re not getting out of here,” Messer said.
“Yes I am,” the Weretiger said. “Unless you’d like this officer to die, I highly suggest you place your weapons on the floor,
set the vials on the coffee table there, and back away.”
“Someone just shoot this prick,” Cass growled.
“Shh,” the tiger said.
“Put your weapon on the ground,” Messer told DeLeon.
“Sarge, I—”
“Do it,” he said, then set his weapon on the ground and backed away as instructed. DeLeon followed suit, begrudgingly setting her weapon down, followed by the vials. She lowered her head slightly, then backed away. But for some reason, she had a slight smile on her face.
The weretiger’s whiskers turned upward as he smiled. “Good. Now you, big man. Slowly unholster your weapon, and then slide it across the floor towards me.”
“It’s shag carpet,” Eric said. “It doesn’t slide.”
“Then toss it,” the shifter said, adding, “Gently.”
“Okay,” Eric said, “just don’t hurt her.”
Eric removed his weapon while maintaining eye contact with the weretiger. Slowly, he took it by the barrel, and just as he tossed it to the ground by their feet, he yelled, “Cass, drop!”
Cass stomped her heel down hard. When the weretiger’s grip loosened, she dropped her weight and slipped free. The veteran officer grabbed Eric’s gun, rolled, and brought the weapon to bear. But the shifter wasted no time. He grabbed the vials and ran directly for the balcony. Cassy fired three quick shots, pop-pop-pop, each striking the large creature in the back. But the standard-issue lead bullets did no more than spin the lycanthrope slightly just as he opened the sliding door to the balcony and stepped through.
“You better save me, DeLeon!” Eric yelled as he got to his feet and charged.
The weretiger slammed the sliding door shut in an attempt to stop him. But all three hundred and seventeen pounds of Eric Deacon smashed through the glass, into the weretiger, and took both men over the fourth floor railing.
Chapter Twelve
13 May - 6:51 pm
Svartleside, Coldwater Heights, Apt. 419 - District of Alpdruck
“Cass, drop!” Jessie heard Deacon yell as he tossed his weapon.
Defying all physics and her . . . biological enhancements, Cross slipped from the weretiger’s grip and grabbed Deacon’s gun. As Cross aimed and fired the pistol at the weretiger, Jessie retrieved her own gun.
“You better save me, DeLeon!” Deacon yelled as he, like an idiot, charged the weretiger.
“Oh shit,” Jessie swore as she saw what Deacon intended.
Saying a prayer to whatever god would listen, she stowed her gun into the mag-lock holster and followed Deacon as he smashed through the sliding glass door. The big man collided with the weretiger, and they both fell over the balcony.
“Deacon!” she yelled as she grabbed the back of the big man with her left hand. But the combined weight of the two falling men pulled her over the edge.
Just as she was drilled in the academy, Jessie pulled a fall pod from her tac belt and snapped the device, activating the safety chemicals. In less than a second, both she and Deacon were encapsulated in a thick, spongy, gas-permeable gelatin.
The iridescent, snot-green ball of safety goop half bounced, half splatted against the apartment complex’s unkempt grass and dirt lawn. Both Jessie and Deacon rolled out and shook their heads. “You okay?” Jessie asked.
“Yeah,” Deacon said. “Thanks Jessie.”
She blinked. “You called me—”
“Well, you saved my life,” he said.
“You’re welcome. How’d you know I was carrying fall pods?”
“Standard issue UTF tac belt,” he said, pointing to her waist. “Had one just like it back when I was on the task force. And a goody-goody like you would always make sure you went into the field with a fully stocked belt.”
Jessie rolled her eyes at the comment. “All that aside, what the hell were you thinking pulling some stunt like that?”
“Don’t go and ruin a perfectly good moment by asking dumb questions.”
“Dumb?!”
Deacon narrowed his eyes. “Sonuvabitch had my partner, DeLeon,” he said in a low, growling voice. “Who knows. In time I may do the same for you.”
Uh huh. “So, you’d throw yourself off a balcony to . . . protect me?”
“Yes. No. Well . . . You get the point.”
“And how, exactly, would that help me if I were the one who had to save you?”
“Oh shut up, New Girl.”
“Hey!” Messer yelled from the balcony. “If you two are done, the suspect is getting away!”
Jessie and Deacon both looked over to see the weretiger limping towards a parked black SUV. Despite the four-story fall, the lycanthrope was still mobile, and he had the vials.
“Move it!”
“Yes Sergeant,” Jessie yelled as she got to her feet.
“Yes Sergeant,” Deacon mocked as he too stood.
“Comm link!” Messer yelled. “Channel four!”
“Got it!” Jessie said, fishing out a comm link from her belt and plugging it into her ear, then drawing her weapon.
“You uh . . . have a spare?” Deacon asked.
“Here,” Jessie said, passing a second link to the big oaf. “You were the kid in school who never brought an extra pen or pencil, weren’t you?”
“Extra?” he asked, putting the comm link in his ear. “I never brought one to begin with. Nerds like you always had what I needed.”
“Come on,” she said, turning away and keeping her weapon pointed towards the ground.
“This isn’t going to involve running, is it?”
“Deacon!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
As Jessie ran towards the vehicle, she tapped her helmet’s AR visor and began a micro playback from the scene in the apartment. “Scan for identity,” she said while focusing on the SUV’s license plate. A moment later, the augmented reality visor displayed the name Vihaan Hu, AKA “Mr. Whiskers.” Jessie did a quick scan and saw that Hu, or Mr. Whiskers, had a long history of criminal activity. But there was a gap of activity in the last few years.
“Hu! Stop!” she yelled as the creature pulled the door to the SUV open. “Stop or I will shoot!”
Mr. Whiskers spun around, having pulled a compact automatic weapon from inside the vehicle.
“Jessie, down!” Deacon yelled as he tackled her from behind. The two of them rolled as automatic fire hit the spot on the lawn where they once were.
“Get off me!”
“How about a ‘thank you’?”
“I’m wearing a UTF-issued uniform,” Jessie protested. “The micro-Kevlar would have stopped the bullets.”
“Standard bet that he was using armor-piercing rounds?”
“What?”
“It’s a bet!” Deacon said, pulling her up.
The SUV’s engine roared to life and the tires squealed as it took off. “He’s getting away!” Jessie yelled.
“I can see that!” Deacon said.
“We need a ride.”
Arby shook his head, “Messer’s truck is parked on the other side of the block.”
“No time,” Jessie said, running into traffic with her gun and badge drawn. “Stop! I need to commandeer your vehicle!”
“That only works in the movies!” Deacon yelled.
Two vehicles stopped. A blue minivan containing a mom and two kids, and a sleek black sport motorcycle being ridden by a tall man in a red leather jacket and a matching red helmet.
Jessie looked back at the other officer, who stared at her in disbelief. “Movies, huh?”
“It’s because you’re waving a gun in traffic, they think you’re crazy.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I guess it did. Ooh, the motorcycle! Pick the motorcycle!”
Jessie ignored the man and rushed to the minivan.
“Aww, no! The motorcycle!”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we need your vehicle,” Jessie said to the woman and her two kids who were dressed in karate gi’s. “I�
�m going to need you to exit the vehicle and I’ll return it when we’re done. We’re in pursuit of a dangerous criminal.”
“Are you crazy? This place is a crap hole,” the mom said. “There are crazies and criminals everywhere. We’re not getting out here.”
“Deacon,” Jessie called out. “Can you please give me a . . . what the fuck are you doing?”
“So, yeah, if you wanna hang out sometime, call me,” Deacon said as he slipped a piece of paper to the motorcycle rider.
“Arby!”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, tell them to move over.”
“We can’t take them on a pursuit!”
“They’ll be fine,” Deacon said as he slipped into the passenger seat. “How are you, ma’am?”
“Fine?” the woman said, unbuckling her belt and getting into the backseat with her children.
“Great. So, I’m Eric and that’s Jessie, and we’re trying to stop a weretiger who is carrying drugs that causes gods to explode.”
“Mr. Whiskers,” Jessie said, sliding into the driver side and slamming her foot down onto the gas. “His street name is Mr. Whiskers.”
Deacon turned around in the seat and smiled at the family. “See kids, we’re going to go kill Mr. Whiskers.”
The children began to cry while the mother’s jaw went slack.
“Apprehend,” Jessie corrected, looking in the rearview mirror at the family and putting on a wide smile. “We’re going to apprehend him.”
Still turned around and facing the family, Deacon ran a finger across this throat while shaking his head and whispering, “Gonna kill him.”
********
13 May - 7:02 pm
Svartleside, Coldwater Heights, Apt. 419 - District of Alpdruck
Messer watched Cross. She was just sitting there holding Deacon’s gun. She rocked slightly as she stared at nothing.
“Cross,” Messer said, breaking the silence. “You good?”
“Fine, Sergeant,” she said with her mouth, but her eyes were vacant and distant.
