Feral Dust Bunnies (Offbeat Crimes Book 4)

by Angel Martinez

  Wolf threw a distressed look his partner’s way, but Krisk already had his phone out and a contact up. He turned the screen so Wolf could see.

  “Got it.” With the tiny dog shifted into the crook of his left arm, Wolf made the call. “Afternoon. This is Officer Wolf, Seventy-Seventh. No. No emergency. Just a little lost dog.” He rattled off the address, thanked the dispatcher and gave Krisk back his phone.

  In the fifteen minutes before the Animal Care and Control Team truck pulled up, no less than seven dog walkers had stopped to coo and exclaim over the little crested. Wolf wasn’t comfortable with all the attention but the positive interaction had helped her calm down. Two Animal Control officers got out of the cab and Wolf was relieved to see he knew them both. To be fair, so many paranormal calls ended up being animal issues that the officers of the Seventy-Seventh knew most of the AC officers by name.

  “Officer Wolf!” Jason Shen, the male half of the team, raised a hand in greeting. He was one of those men who was almost as broad as they were tall. Of course, that wasn’t literally true, even if he was blocky and square-ish with hands that looked like they could crush stones. “What vicious creature do you have for us today?”

  “This little girl seems to be lost.” Wolf tried to clear his throat so he didn’t sound so gruff. Jason Shen was a nice man but he always made Wolf uncomfortable because he smelled so good, not spicy or chemical sharp like so many human men. Just…good. “None of the neighbors recognize her.”

  “Aww, hey there, sweetheart!” Shen’s partner, Julie Lopez, carefully extracted the crested from Wolf’s arms.

  For a moment, he stood there like an idiot with his arms unmoving because they suddenly felt so empty. When he realized what he was doing, he shook them out as if he’d been holding the position too long and glanced around for Krisk. His partner was back at the alley, staring into the shadows.

  Jason set a cloth carrier down on the sidewalk. “No tags. No collar. Crested purebreds can get pricey, though. Ten to one she’s chipped, Officer Wolf. We’ll find her humans.”

  Face heating, Wolf turned away using the excuse of watching Krisk. He’d let slip the humans instead of people or owners comment once and now the AC officers all used it when they saw him. “Thanks. I…can I check later?”

  “We’ll call you with an update, big guy.” Jason clapped a hand on his shoulder. Wolf struggled not to lick it. So many years with humans and some things refused to fade. “We appreciate that you’re always concerned.”

  Wolf thought he mumbled something more or less coherent before Animal Control bundled the carrier into the front seat of the truck and Wolf stalked away to check on his partner.

  “Krisk? What?”

  He stopped next to the lizard man who was sniffing the air. Now that the smell of canine was receding, Wolf caught the scent of something odd, too. Something wrong. He gestured for Krisk to stay where he was. Of the two of them, Wolf’s nose was better and he could use one less sensory input to confuse him in the stench-swarmed alley. While not a rotten smell—not garbage or a dead mouse, or anything sharp like cat pee—it was disturbing. Almost burned in its undertones with hints of lightning-strike ozone.

  The out-of-place scent led him to a far corner where rags lay in a pile too ordered to be chance. Someone’s nest, perhaps? Unwilling to stick his fingers in where someone might bite him, Wolf picked up a discarded paper towel roll and carefully lifted the top layer of rags and frowned at what he found there.

  “Hey, Krisk?”

  Wolf waited as his partner’s oversized boots stomped down the alleyway and Krisk crouched next to him. Shoulder to shoulder they stared at the contents of the nest, two dead rats lying side by side. Two rats together wasn’t strange, of course. It was the condition of the bodies. They were desiccated, nearly flattened as if they’d been sucked dry. Or—

  “They’re like little mummies,” Wolf murmured. “That’s weird.”

  Krisk rumbled deep in his chest but didn’t offer any reassurances. Without a word, he rose, went to their squad car and came back with a camera. Judging from the amount of pictures he took, Wolf got an uneasy sense that Krisk was more disturbed than he was.

  Chapter Two

  Wolf included the rats in his incident report. Some weird chemical reaction had probably caused the mummy thing—nothing important. But if it turned out to be important later and he hadn’t included it? The lieutenant would have his ears.

  His phone chimed by his left elbow with a text from Krisk.

  Dinner.

  “Yeah, I’m almost done here.” Wolf stared at the message again, then realized he wasn’t sure what Krisk meant. He texted back—

  You mean your place? Mom’s expecting me home.

  Adopted matriarch is welcome. The dinner hour thrice following this one.

  Got it. You know she doesn’t eat mealworms, right?

  One is aware.

  Okay.

  Then because Mom would’ve scolded him for forgetting, he quickly typed out a thank you. Then even more belatedly—

  I’ll ask her.

  Since he was on his phone anyway, he sent a quick text to Mom, who immediately replied.

  That’s very nice of Krisk. Ask him what we should bring.

  He leaned around the computer monitors on their shared desk. “Mom wants to know what we should bring.”

  Krisk stared at him for a long moment before texting—

  This is customary.

  “Wish I could tell sometimes when you’re asking a question. Yeah, I think it is? We always bring pie or something when we go visit Aunt Marie.”

  The line between Krisk’s brow ridges relaxed and he nodded, staring at his phone. Finally he sent—

  Fruit pies are pleasant human food.

  “Okay. Great. Um, I’ll tell Mom.” Wolf reached to close down his system and stopped with his cursor on the shutdown icon. “Hey, did you put your pics of the rats in your report?”

  Krisk nodded, thumping his tail in an agitated way.

  “Yeah, I know. It was weird. Guess if the lieutenant doesn’t say anything, we shouldn’t worry about it.”

  A snort was Krisk’s only comment, one Wolf was almost certain meant, sure, go ahead and try not to worry about it. We both know we will. Which was probably a lot of meaning to assign to a snort but Krisk’s were pretty expressive.

  Wolf called his mom on the way out to his car. “Hey, Mom. Krisk says to bring pie.”

  “Oh, good. That’s an easy thing. What kind of pie?” Clattering in the background indicated Mom was in the kitchen.

  “Fruit.”

  “What kind of fruit?”

  “Um. I didn’t ask.”

  Mom tsked. “Well, what kinds of fruit have you seen him eat?”

  It should have been an easy question but Wolf struggled to remember. Krisk didn’t eat things that peaked his interest, so he didn’t pay attention. Maybe that made him a bad partner by human standards. What did Krisk sometimes— “Apples! I’ve seen him eat those.”

  “There you go. Thank you, sweetie. Could you stop at the store, then, since we don’t have any?”

  “Oh. All right.” Wolf hesitated, wondering if there was some way to get out of it. Store, then the threat of an ironing lesson. Dinner would be later than his growling stomach would like. “I don’t know what kind of apples.”

  “Ask Mrs. Hui if they have Cortlands in yet. If not, Granny Smith is fine. Five if they’re the big ones. Six if they’re small. Oh, and a gallon of milk while you’re there, sweetie.”

  Wolf did his best not to sigh and told his stomach to shut up. It would just have to wait. Of course, once he got to the grocer’s, the sheer number of bins of apples confused him and he forgot which ones Mom had said. Mrs. Hui had to rescue him from apple purgatory, though he did remember the milk on his own. Twenty-five years as a human and sometimes simple human things still weren’t that simple for him.

  As he was placing the groceries on the passenger side floor of his car
, he froze. Conflict and distress drifted to him through the relative quiet of the post-rush hour streets—snarling dogs, the howling of a cornered cat and a strange hiss Wolf couldn’t identify. He locked the car and turned in place, trying to pinpoint a direction with the sounds bouncing off buildings.

  A high-pitched yelp sent him racing north to one of the little side streets that had names but weren’t much more than alleys. Half a block away, that strange scent from earlier in the day hit him—lightning strike scents of burning, ozone and long-abandoned attics—and he stumbled, slowing as fear crept in. It wasn’t reasonable to be afraid but something about the smell raised all the small hairs on his body. Wolf clamped down on a whimper and forced his feet to keep moving. He couldn’t even say why he was scared except that the smell was wrong, so wrong. Someone had to look into it and if he stopped to call for backup, whatever was happening would be long over.

  At the mouth of the alley, three strays milled about, two pit bull mixes circling in an agitated fashion and a terrier mix that kept rushing into the alley in short forays only to scurry back twice as fast. Wolf gave warning as he approached in a low, rumbling growl that declared him to be the big dog on the street. The dogs didn’t offer any aggression, though, all of them clearly too distressed for shows of dominance. One of the pit bulls even came to him with her head down and butt wriggling to press against his legs.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” Wolf petted her head as he angled past. “I’ll take care of it.” Maybe. I hope.

  The other two dogs scrambled behind him as well, apparently happy to let a bigger dog handle things here. The larger pit bull lowered his head, growling at the alley while the terrier began a bold campaign of barking.

  Wolf refrained from rolling his eyes since he was watching the alley closely. “Thanks, guys. Big help.”

  The dogs stayed on the sidewalk while Wolf started forward. The scent lingered, making him cautious. A darting movement on his left startled him and he dropped to a defensive crouch. A red Solo cup rolled out from behind a trashcan. Whatever it was, the thing was back there. With a snarl, Wolf backhanded the trashcan aside, sending it clattering down the alley to reveal…

  A kitten.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Wolf pointed at the tiny feline and turned to his would-be posse. “That’s what this is all about?”

  All three dogs danced on their front paws, still barking and whining. They weren’t focused on the kitten, though. Wolf frowned and took a few steps toward the kitten who hissed and leaped sideways before rushing behind the next can.

  “It’s okay, little girl. Come on now. You don’t look old enough to be out here by yourself.”

  Slowly, Wolf lifted the second can and moved it to the middle of the alley. The kitten made her stand there, back arched and doing her best to look as puffed up and fierce as she could standing behind… Oh, no.

  Curled up on an old blanket remnant, an adult cat appeared to be asleep until Wolf took a step closer. The cat’s body was shrivelled and desiccated, nearly flattened in its mummified state, just as the rats had been. This couldn’t be a coincidence, these two weird things happening within two miles of each other. Not to mention, the kitten wasn’t old enough to be surviving on her own. This wasn’t a case of the cat having been dead for months and some strange process of decay taking place. Mama cat had died recently and suddenly.

  Wolf stayed crouched by the kitten and her poor mom and pulled out his phone. “Evening. This is Officer Wolf, Seventy-Seventh. I have a situation here I’d like your folks to take a look at.”

  “Evening, Officer Wolf,” the chipper voice at AC said. “More strays?”

  “Not this time. Well. I mean, there are strays. But this is the second strange animal death I’ve seen today. Wondering if we have some kind of disease spreading.”

  Dispatch became suddenly serious and business-like. “Sending a team out to you, Officer. Please don’t touch the carcass.”

  “Wasn’t planning on it. Thanks.” Wolf hung up and replaced his phone with a sigh. “All right, little one. You need to come out of there. C’mere.”

  He reached over and snagged the bundle of hiss from beside the wall. She squirmed and sank sharp baby teeth into his thumb.

  “Ack! Damn it!” Wolf transferred her to his other hand so he could suck on the assaulted thumb and hold her firmly around her too-thin body. After a moment, he shook his free index finger at the kitten. “Knock it off. I’m trying to help you. I know I’m…”

  She batted at his finger with one tiny paw.

  “Just a big, bad…”

  Then she used both paws and captured Wolf’s finger between them, gnawing on the tip.

  “Dog to you… Aww, crud. You’re a cute little hellion, aren’t you?”

  More than cute, she would be stunning once she was clean and well fed. Wolf stared at her markings in fascination. Black tabby with blue eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen one before, her tabby stripes just barely visible against her smoky dark coat.

  She mewed, more of a baby chirp, and Wolf sighed. He probably should’ve left her on the ground. If mom was infected with something, she might be too, but he couldn’t bear the thought of this tiny, fierce creature dying like mom had. He tucked her into the crook of his arm and let her nestle up against his shirt. She wasn’t quite content with that and squeezed between the buttons to climb inside where she clung to his undershirt with all four paws.

  The dogs milled about, occasionally getting up on hind legs to try to nose at the kitten but she hissed from inside Wolf’s uniform shirt and he discouraged it. Whatever had made them so upset seemed to be gone since they were happy to stay near him in tail-wagging quiet while he took his phone out to get photos of mom cat and the surrounding area, then sent them over to Animal Control for their files.

  When the ACCT truck pulled up this time, his stomach did a churn-flip to see Jason Shen again. Not that he dreaded seeing Jason. Exactly. But he’d already been on shift that morning. It wasn’t fair to confuse him twice in one day. Not only that, some unfamiliar officer was with him instead of Officer Lopez.

  “Officer Wolf!” Jason called out as he approached. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  Wolf blurted out, “Where’s Julie?”

  “Oh, I see. I’m not good enough for you.” Jason waved a hand at the other ACC officer. “Mike’s training this month, so he’s riding with me for a few hours this evening. Mike, this is Officer Wolf from the Seventy-Seventh. Get used to seeing his handsome mug. We get a lot of calls from him and his partner. So, what do you have for us?”

  Handsome? For an extended awkward moment, Wolf couldn’t remember how words worked. Jason thinks I’m handsome? “Um…oh. Yeah. Here.”

  Instead of more embarrassing attempts at talking, he simply led them into the alley and pointed to poor mama cat. The playful grin vanished as Jason crouched beside the mummified body. He pulled on gloves and moved her carefully to check underneath and to run a hand over her desiccated ribcage.

  “Have you…um…seen anything like that?” Wolf found he had drifted closer to peer over Jason’s shoulder.

  “You said you found a kitten?” Jason glanced up at the dogs milling nearby. “Mike, see if you can secure one or two of them.”

  Wolf undid two shirt buttons and pried the kitten off his T-shirt. “Yeah. She was behind another trash can but she ran right for mom cat when I found her.”

  Jason let the kitten crawl all over his substantial arms. “Well, hey, little girl. She can’t be more than four, five weeks old. She’s stray-cat skinny but doesn’t look badly malnourished, so mom cat died recently. I could see a body being in this kind of shape after months, maybe. But not days or hours.”

  Behind them, Mike cussed as one of the pit bulls slipped the lead he was trying to put on. The pit ducked and danced sideways and ran behind Wolf, so he tried with the terrier. No luck there either.

  “And you said this is the second time you’ve seen this?”

/>   Wolf nodded, mesmerized by the tiny tabby walking back and forth on Jason’s heavily muscled forearms. “Um…yeah. Rats. There were two rats at the other place. In the alley. The…earlier. With the crested.”

  “Damn. We might have to go back for those.”

  “But you’ll find out, right? What this is?”

  Jason cracked his neck and tucked the kitten inside his shirt. “We’ll do our best. I’ll take mama cat back to our vet. See what she thinks of all this.”

  “And kitten? She’ll be okay without mom?”

  “She looks old enough to be weaned.” Jason stood and called one of the pits to him, whistling and patting his thighs. The pit came, tail wagging, and let Jason put a lead on him. “As long as we’re not looking at some contagious disease process, she has a good chance.”

  Wolf petted the terrier that had pressed up against his legs. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Here.” Jason chuckled as he reached into his pack for another lead and tossed it to Wolf. “She likes you. See if she’ll let you put a lead on her. You sure you don’t want to come work for us?”

  The terrier accepted the lead happily, still pressed up hard against Wolf. “I’m…um…”

  “Joking around, sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.” Jason led his pit bull mix to the truck and got him up into one of the crates. “You’re good with the dogs. And you care. That’s more than most people can say.”

  “Thanks?”

  Jason took the terrier’s lead from Wolf, cussing still coming from behind them as the second pit eluded Mike with a happy doggy grin. “Your crested got her person back already. She was chipped and the owner’d been so worried he cried when we called him.”

  “Good.” Wolf managed a little smile. It was good to know that scared little dog was home safe. “I mean, not good that he cried.”