“But?” Diindiisi said from where she curled cat-like in a chair.
“But I hate the damn paperwork,” I replied. “I’m going to grab a Coke. You want something?”
“Tea, if they have anything besides Lipton’s,” she said with a yawn.
“Right.”
I was about fifty feet down the hall to the break room to rummage it for early morning empty calories when the overhead speaker crackled to life.
“Father Salazar, report to the director’s office as soon as possible, please.”
“Figures,” I muttered, and turned toward Goodhart’s office.
The man himself was standing in the door chatting with Jed when I got there.
“Ah, Jesse, come in,” Goodhart said with a broad gesture toward his desk.
“Why am I thinking of parlors, spiders, and flies?” I asked as we all went in and sat down.
“Nothing like that,” Goodhart said. “It’s just, there’s been a complication.”
I hate that word. It’s right up there with decaf coffee on my list of evil words.
“How so?” I asked.
“Ever heard of an undead/monster rights group calling itself PBR Street Gang?” Jed asked.
“As in ‘Almighty, Almighty, this is PBR Street Gang?” I replied.
“Yeah, no,” Goodhart said with a chuckle. “As in Pabst Blue Ribbon. They apparently started out as a hipster beer publicity street crew, then branched out into monster protection.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I said with a low whistle.
“Nope,” Goodhart said, turning on the monitor behind his desk.
He used it from time to time to share videos or, God save my soul, PowerPoint presentations that HQ in Dallas mandated we suffer through. On it was a fuzzy, phone camera photo of the werebear on the roof of the Honda Odyssey.
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said.
“Yeah, it gets worse,” Jed said with an evil grin. “Apparently the van the therianthrope landed on? Theirs.”
“What the hell were they doing in the neighborhood?” I asked.
“According to their website, they were there to meet with an ‘under-represented, oppressed member of the Otherkin community,” Goodhart said.
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is that bullshit?” I retorted. “Stewart’s team found choice cuts of human hanging in the mini-fridge, for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah, but the poor werebear wouldn’t eat the good folk working to improve its condition. Besides, we all know the monsters only eat those guilty of oppressing them,” Jed said. “Show him the video, its great!”
Goodhart cued up the video. It started with grainy phone camera footage of the car chase, including Callie’s failed ramming maneuver, and then shifted to something shot with a GoPro on a headband.
Goodhart paused the video.
“These guys have access to some decent equipment, if nothing else,” Goodhart said.
“Boss, a GoPro is like a hundred bucks at BentonMart,” Jed said.
“Yeah, it’s not the GoPro I’m impressed with,” Goodhart said as he hit play again. The video quality changed again, this time to something shot with high-end night vison gear.
I watched the entire shoot from beginning to end.
“Damn,” I said.
“Yeah, the quality is better than ours. And before you ask, none of their footage is from any of our cameras; we checked the angles and the metadata,” Goodhart said.
“They weren’t close,” I replied. “The Tahoe blocks a lot of their shots.”
“Probably behind the police lines here,” Jed said, pointing to a spot on a map spread on Goodhart’s desk.
“More likely, from the angle, hmm,” I said, looking at the last frame on the screen, “they were here.”
“That’s the alley across 8th,” Goodhart said. “Are you sure?”
“Not one hundred percent, no. I’ve looked at many bad photos over the years, and that’s the only spot I can see where you’d get that angle. I’d have to walk the ground to be sure,” I said.
“Yeah, we don’t have time for that,” Goodhart replied. “There’s a werebear in the sub-sub-sub-basement. You up for doing some interrogation?”
“Bad cop?”
“Was thinking your wife for bad cop, actually,” Goodhart said with a grin. “This one is going down anyway. The meat? Even if she didn’t kill the individuals, she’s trafficking in human remains for occult purposes. Automatic sentence on that one.”
He made a gesture of cocking a pistol.
“So what does cooperating get her?” I asked.
“Not dead for as long as she cooperates, for a start,” Goodhart answered in a grim voice.
“Right. So do we start right away, or?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow. The yawn I stifled killed the effect I was going for, but Goodhart laughed.
“Get some sleep, get cleaned up, and then come back and do your thing. They’ve got her knocked out on a combination of Thorazine, Ketamine, and Haldol right now,” Goodhart said.
“Roger that,” I said, rising. “By the way, any word on Obediah?”
Obie was a voodoo priest. The librarians over at UT had found him unconscious in the ‘special’ section of the Perry-Castañeda Library over a month ago.
“No change. He’s still got brain activity, but it’s like the lights are on and no one’s home,” Jed replied.
“Right,” I said, leaving the office to collect my wife and go get some sleep.
One quick trip home, six hours of sleep, two showers, and several Rip-Its later, we were back at work. I took the time to shit, shower, and shave, and dressed for the occasion, slipping into an ecclesiastical dog collar.
Austin being Austin—Keep Austin Weird—QMG has a couple of special features at the Group offices here. Deep in the bedrock there are holding cells for all formal occasions. There are enough spells on the cells to make your fillings hurt, and there are other features that turn the entire area into a crater if needed. Company legend had it they’d kept a gorgon down there for a while, before she became the night dispatcher. All I knew for sure was there were explosives ringing the elevator shaft and it could be command detonated. I always love spending time in the cells.
The werebear was awake in one of the interrogation rooms. Someone had cleaned her up, dressed her in scrubs, and fed her, then moved her, and restrained her in the interrogation room when we’d sent word down we were coming. Higher up had even contacted a lawyer for her, just to make things all nice and legal. Although, unless she had some compelling proof the human meat in the fridge wasn’t hers, she was going down for trafficking in human parts for occult reasons. I nodded to the observers, who’d be watching by camera, before entering the code and unlocking the door. Diindiisi stepped through, and I followed her, pulling the door closed behind me. I smiled at the werebear and her lawyer, dropping a file on ‘our’ table.
“Well, at least you’re not playing the ‘who’s behind me game,’” the werebear said from where she sat on the far side of the table with her lawyer.
“I really hate the whole Gibbs slap vibe,” I said. “I take it someone informed you of what’s going to happen?”
“He said y’all’d be playing games,” the werebear replied, pointing at her lawyer with her chin. The restraints kept her from making broad hand and arm gestures.
“He would,” I said, turning to the lawyer. “Mr. Netobuvi, has your client been watching crime dramas?” I turned back to the werebear. “We don’t have DNA on you yet, but you’re a carrier of the therianthropy virus, ursus variant. If you’d stuck to mutilating cattle or running down deer, we’d either have ignored you or put you to work for the city, as long as you paid for the cattle. Instead, we found you in a hotel room, with thirty something pounds of human flesh, including one left thigh and a right hand.”
“I was holding that for a friend,” she said, grinning.
“You’re not required to answer any questions he has,” Netobuvi s
aid.
“Absolutely correct,” I said with a small smile. “Either way, one day soon, someone is going to take her into a very small room—where it won’t matter if she changes form or not—strap her to a gurney, pump the air full of colloidal silver, and stick a needle in the big vein on her left arm. After that, they’re going to pull a lever outside the room and pump a cocktail of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride into her,” I replied.
“What about a trial?” she asked with a grunt. She leaned back in her chair and jerked at the restraints. “Why won’t these things break?”
“Trial?” I asked. “You were found in possession of human flesh for occult purposes and consumption, complete with teeth marks that match your unchanged dentition. The law that covers that is old—as in 1890s old—and has one penalty. Death, no appeal. As for the chains, they’ve got enough spells on them to hold a fire drake.”
“Are you done terrorizing my client?” Netobuvi asked, gesturing me back.
“Done?” I replied, facing him. “I haven’t even started. I’ve talked with a couple of spirits who have been through the lethal injection process. They told me it’s not like going to sleep, regardless of what the press says. Now on the other hand, if you cooperate, we don’t execute you.”
“What do you do instead?” she asked while Netobuvi tried to silence her.
“Well, Jennifer—you don’t mind if I call you Jennifer, do you? It’s your name, after all,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s in the file here,” I said, handing the file over to her lawyer. “If you’ve been keeping up on your Law and Order reruns, you know when you get arrested, they take your fingerprints. Now, when the city does that, they have to turn them over to the Feds. Moreover, the Feds keep those things forever. By the way, did you really get arrested for protesting Austin’s policy on fogging for mosquitos?”
“Yes. The chemicals are harming the environment,” she replied with a haughty sniff.
“Which, of course, makes eating people a good thing because it stops them from damaging the environment,” I said.
“I find this modern era most confusing,” Diindiisi said.
“Why?” Jennifer the werebear asked. “Humanity is destroying the planet. Anything we can do to stop that is a good thing!”
“So humans are outside the natural order, not part of it?” Diindiisi replied.
“Yes,” Jennifer stated.
“Then the animals humans favor, like horses, should be culled as well,” Diindiisi said.
Jennifer had also protested against moving the noble mustang from federal lands. Damn paperwork.
“That’s different. Horses are part of the landscape of North America,” Jennifer said.
“Well, they were, until my ancestors ate them all,” Diindiisi replied, grinning ferally. “As they are now, they’re an introduced species, and therefore just as disruptive to the environment as, oh, zebra mussels.”
“I’d expect someone working for fascists to say something like that,” Jennifer retorted.
“Be that as it may,” I said, “we’re a bit far afield. Tell us how you became a werebear, Jennifer, and we’ll call that a start as far as cooperating with us.”
“I need a minute to consult with my client,” Netobuvi said.
“Right-o,” I replied.
Diindiisi and I stepped to the far side of the room and waited. Netobuvi and Jennifer huddled and muttered.
“So now what?” Diindiisi asked.
“We wait until they’re done muttering and see what she’s got to say,” I replied. “Oh, good.”
Jennifer took a drink from the water on the table. The water was chock full of colloidal silver, just to be on the safe side. The medics claimed they had pumped enough into her to prevent a change for days, but I’m paranoid.
Netobuvi motioned us back over.
“I want you to take the cuffs off my client,” Netobuvi said.
“And, as we used to say in Iraq, people in hell want ice water. Ain’t gonna happen,” I replied.
“There is no evidence that my client is a therianthrope,” he said.
“Really, Ivan? Do you see the scars from where the bullet holes healed? Those dimples on her face aren’t from acne,” I sneered back.
Netobuvi laughed.
“I had to try,” he said finally. “She’ll cop to the therianthropy, but not to anthrophagy.”
“Too bad we don’t have to have evidence of anthrophagy to charge her with possession,” I replied. “Thirty pounds of human flesh, Ivan. It doesn’t matter if she was holding it for a friend.”
“Fine. What do you want from her?”
“Who infected her, where, and when would be a good start,” I said, pulling out a chair at our table.
“My client agrees to the second and third parts, but can’t answer the first part,” Netobuvi said, finally.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “Look, I was…ok, I was at a furry convention here in town two, no three months ago.”
“Go on,” I said, holding up a hand to stop Diindiisi’s question.
“And we started in a cuddle pile, and then started scritching, which lead to yiffing, and I got bitten somewhere in the process,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t see who did it.”
Oh, dear Allah.
“How many furries were in this cuddle pile?” I asked.
“Ten? Fifteen? It was really weird, though—no one started off wanting to have sex, then we were going at it like we were in heat,” Jennifer said. “And it didn’t matter what your fursona was—I remember there was this, must have been a male rabbit, who was really going to town on this female wolf. For a rabbit, his equipment was huge, you know? I do remember thinking the guy in the bear suit had spent a lot on his gear and it looked really good.”
“Did you notice when you were bitten?” Diindiisi asked.
“Not really. Whoever did it tore my fur suit all to hell with their teeth. Then, well, when the moon went full, I found I didn’t need it anymore,” she said wistfully.
“When was that?”
“June,” Jennifer replied. “The convention was the weekend of the twenty-third, and I felt a little sick on Sunday, but not enough to avoid work on Monday. Low-grade fever, that kind of thing. I just figured it was con crud, popped a couple of Tylenol, and went to work. Thursday, the moon went full, and well, I changed. It wasn’t my perfect fursona—I’ve always felt I was more of a fox, and my suit matched my hair, which cost a lot of money, but still, I was right! I got in touch with my animal side that night.”
She paused to grin widely and run her tongue across her teeth.
“I didn’t go to work on Friday, but that was fine—I called in sick, first time in years, and my boss was like ‘don’t worry, Jenn, hon, just get to feeling better and we’ll see you Monday.’ We were a bit overstaffed with the call center down in San Marcos being closed, and all the folks who worked there being up here because of the flooding and weird weather there, but it was nice of her to say so.”
“My client has told you everything so far. I think you can unshackle her,” Netobuvi said, after he placed his hand on her wrist and interrupted her train of thought.
“My answer is still no. She can tell us her entire life story, and the answer will still be no,” I replied with a smirk.
“Fine. Jennifer, continue telling them what you told me,” Netobuvi huffed.
She got all dreamy eyed again.
“That weekend was…” Jennifer looked me in the eye. “You remember the first time you had really good sex? Or are you one of those priests who ‘eschews carnal knowledge’ to commune better with God?”
“My order has many failings, but no, we’re not celibate,” I replied.
“Then you know what I’m talking about,” she replied. “Sorta. It was like that, only better. Embracing who you are fully, kind of thing. Anyway, I got this letter shoved under my door o
n Saturday, giving me a place to meet with someone about a job offer. Since they had my fursona name, I figured I’d check it out. I could always blow it off if things seemed hinky.”
She reached across the table and grabbed the water pitcher, then drained it in one go.
“Your water here, it has a funny, metallic taste,” she stated. “I notice those things now.”
“I’m not going to lie,” I replied. “It’s full of colloidal silver.”
“You’re drugging her against her will,” Netobuvi said.
“Obviously,” I replied to him. “You can be in a small room with only one door with someone who becomes a thousand-pound apex predator who isn’t restrained physically and chemically if you’d like, but they don’t pay me enough for that.”
“It’s not a problem,” Jennifer said. “I’m supposed to tell you this anyway.”
“Supposed to tell us what?” I asked.
“My story. Mr. Medved said I was supposed to tell you everything if you caught me, so you’d know what was going on,” she said.
“Who’s Medved?” Diindiisi asked sharply.
“I was getting to that,” Jennifer replied. “Man, that silver is messing with me…it’s almost like good pot. Anyway, I go to this coffee shop and meet with the guy there, who turns out to be Medved. He tells me what happened and shows me he’s one of the Collective.”
“How’d he do that?”
“Like this,” Jennifer said, giggling, as her hand flowed from human to a bear’s paw, then froze there.
“Mr. Netobuvi, step away from the table,” I said.
“They lied!” Jennifer shouted. “They said the implants would clear my system of silver, and they aren’t.”
“One last thing Medved told me to tell you was, ‘Things have changed!’” she said, head thrown back, her shout becoming a roar of pain, anger and lust.
The chains on her wrists snapped, and then the ones binding her to her chair shattered. Netobuvi froze in place.
“Get. These. Fucking. Things. Off. Me!”
The chains dangled from her cuffs; thankfully, the cuffs held and were keeping her from completing the transformation to bear form. Admittedly, that had to hurt like fuck.
Blood Moon Eclipse (The Shadow Lands Book 2) Page 2
