“Everything’s fine, huh?” I taunted him. My voice sounded different in jaguar form. Growlier. “You’re gonna need reconstructive surgery, Grizzly. While you’re under the needle, you should see if they can reconstruct your immortal soul.”
“Out of my way, kitty-cat.” He aimed a kick at me.
He wasn’t the first man to make that mistake today.
In jaguar form, it was even easier to duck under his kicking leg. I slammed my shoulder into his shin. It was the same shoulder McThuggy had punched earlier. But I was too angry to feel the pain of the impact.
Parsec went down hard on the jetty, but he didn’t yell. He did not want to attract attention, any more than I did. If I had not already known he and Irene were up to something illicit, that clinched it.
I pounced on him before he could rise. I gripped his arms and stood on his thighs, digging my claws in enough to remind him that I could disembowel him with a couple of kicks.
“Leave that woman alone,” I snarled into his face. Blood was flowing from his cheek. In jaguar form, I had half a mind to tear at the wound. But probably Parsec’s blood was as poisonous as his personality. “If you ever go near her again, I will find out, and the docs won’t be able to fix what’s left of you.”
“Who are you?” He breathed heavily under me, his face dark with rage.
“Just a concerned citizen.” My jaguar features gave no hint of my relief. He genuinely had no idea who I was. I have several forms, as I’ve mentioned. This jaguar was one I’d not used for years and years. Now I’d never be able to use it again. Oh well. It wasn’t one of my favorites, anyway.
That gave me an idea. A very bad, tempting idea.
Parsec was my nemesis. He stole contracts out from under my nose with low bids cushioned by his ill-gotten gains. Whenever we met in human form, he never failed to rub it in my face.
I could eliminate him right here and now.
The sea would gently erase my DNA from the gaping hole in his throat.
Picturing it, while knowing I’d never do it, I laughed a nutty little jaguar laugh. And didn’t notice his body quaking under me.
His chest burst his shirt and suit jacket. A button hit me in the eye.
He flung me off and rolled to his feet in the form of a grizzly bear, still wearing the shreds of his trousers.
“Now who’s laughing?” he growled, and strutted forward, swinging his arms in the grizzly’s lethal boxing rhythm.
I sprang at his throat before I could stop myself. Jaguars aren’t the deepest thinkers. One of Parsec’s forepaws caught me on the side of the head like a dinner plate with claws. It spun me full circle in the air, seeing stars, and I landed badly. It takes a lot of power to knock a jaguar off its feet. Parsec had that much power, and more.
I twisted upright and tried to scramble away. I fell badly and scrambled backwards, my head ringing. My back foot found the edge of the jetty and slipped off.
Parsec dropped to all fours and loped towards me, his massive shoulders rolling.
If he caught me in his hug, I was finished. Even worse, I was already sliding over the edge.
I gathered myself—
—and sprang backwards.
Onto Parsec’s boat.
I landed on the mirror-smooth foredeck, and slid down its slope, scrabbling with my claws, making a horrible fingernails-on-blackboard noise. I fetched up against the six-inch guard rail. That gave me enough purchase to launch into a leap. I landed on the cabin roof—sooner than expected, because the entire speedboat suddenly tilted up against my paws. With a mighty thump, Parsec landed with all four feet on the deck behind the cabin.
I swiped down at his head, and missed.
He leaned over the side and bit through the mooring rope.
Within seconds the swell carried the boat further from the jetty than I could jump.
Oh, crap.
“Look,” I said. “I’ve had a long day. I’m not in the mood for this anymore.”
“You think you’ve had a long day,” he grunted, staring up at me with his mean little grizzly eyes.
“What’s eating you, Parsec? Why’d you threaten that lady?”
“She’s no lady, and how’d you know what we were talking about? Because you were eavesdropping.” He rose briefly on his hind legs as if to go for me, but dropped down to all fours again as the boat rolled. We were slowly but surely drifting out out into the harbor. “What’s your angle, Spots? And don’t give me any crap about chivalry.”
I had been trying all along to think of a way of asking him about Risk that wouldn’t tip him off to my identity. I still couldn’t think of one. “When Shifters fight, it hurts all of us.”
“Which is why you didn’t attack me in jaguar form, in full view of the freaking tourist strip.”
He had me there.
“The difference is you’re a piece of shit and a smuggler, Parsec.” Everyone knew that much.
“And that lady, as you call her, is a professional sniper and a thief.”
“What?”
“Yeah. This ain’t the peewee league, and you should’ve kept your cute little kitty nose out of it. Too late now.”
I glanced back at the lights of Wally’s. The expanse of glittering black water between here and there looked terrifyingly wide.
Jaguars, in general, are not bad at swimming.
But this jaguar was me, and I couldn’t swim a stroke.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Drop me back to the beach, and I won’t breathe a word to the cops.”
Parsec laughed a grizzly laugh. He surged forward, and I tensed my tired muscles. But instead of reaching for me, he leapt into the cabin. I heard and felt the door slam shut.
I scanned the water desperately. Could that be a dorsal fin breaking the surface?
The cabin door burst open again.
Out rolled Parsec in human form, stark naked,a sight I never hoped to see. In his hands was a sight I liked even less: a heavy pistol. He came up on one knee and fired at me. The only reason I’m here today is because the boat pitched.
“You can’t just freaking kill me,” I yowled in disbelief.
“Sure I can,” said Parsec, steadying himself on the yawing deck. “This is a million-credit play, and you’re not gonna mess it up for me. Because you’re gonna be dead.”
As his finger tightened on the trigger, a sleek gray shape burst out of the water behind his shoulder. It landed right on top of Parsec. Squeaking madly, it battered him with its powerful tail.
The gun skidded across the deck.
I leapt down, avoiding Parsec’s flailing legs, and with the greatest delicacy picked the gun up in my mouth. I dropped it into the ocean.
The bottlenose dolphin was hammering Parsec’s head into the deck with its flippers. Bash. Bash. Squeak! Bash.
“Don’t kill him,” I yelled.
"Why not?” Dolph said. In dolphin form, his voice was a maniacal squeak.
“Because.” I couldn’t come up with any reason that would make sense to Dolph in this mood. Then I had a brainwave. “Because there are millions of GCs at stake.”
Dolph reluctantly rolled off Parsec. He would rather have blood than money when he really gets going, but he wasn’t far enough gone right now not to listen to me. “As in, right here on this boat?”
I searched the cabin while Dolph guarded the bleeding, semi-concussed Parsec. I did not find millions of GCs. Or any at all. That said, there were several lockers which I couldn’t open in jaguar form, and I was sorely tempted to Shift back, but I refrained. It was even more important now not to let Parsec find out who we were. We were already pushing our luck: there are quite a few dolphin Shifters, but not many of them are prone to psychopathic violence.
I did find the keys to the boat, in the ignition.
“You,” I said to Parsec. “Start ‘er up.” I prodded him in the ass with my claws to get him moving.
Groaning and befuddled, Parsec started the boat and navigated drunkenly back to his
mooring at the jetty. Dolph went over the side and returned under his own power. When we reached the jetty, I gave Parsec another gentle clout, knocking him out, and left the boat before the devil could tempt me to do anything worse to him.
The coast was clear, so I went straight back to the boat rental shack, where I’d left my clothes. Thank God, they were still there.
I was dragging my jeans back on when naked, wet Dolph climbed out of the water in human form. I handed him my bag, which held a change of clothes for him.
“Thought you were never gonna show,” I said.
“Had to convince Wally to open the gate in the underwater fence.”
“Better late than never. Put those clothes on and I’ll tell you what happened.” He was shivering. He doesn’t really have enough body fat to be a dolphin. But ‘Dolph’ it’s been ever since we were about fourteen.
I’ve sworn on the Bible not to tell anyone his real name.
We walked, pretty fast, back down the pier. The Ferris wheel had closed down for the night, as had the kiddie-oriented concessions. I hadn’t finished telling Dolph everything that happened by the time we reached Shoreside, so we turned north along the strip. The tourist tat emporia leaked amphetamine-fueled music. Curtains fringed the pink caves of peepshows. Barely-legal girls and boys teetered on stilt shoes, tossing interactive flyers for nightclubs into the air. We breathed a soup of alien and chemical odors. Human, Ek, Ur-Ek, yuriops, tasvagga, stargends, and even a family-group of Kroolth brushed shoulders, cilia, horns, and tentacles. The familiar, but still real, atmosphere of danger kept my adrenaline high, making me into a motormouth. By the time I got through telling Dolph just how much I hated Parsec, we’d reached 90th.
“I should’ve smashed his skull in,” Dolph said, for about the tenth time. “You never make the right call in this kind of situation.”
“Hey,” I said, surprised by the unexpectedly harsh comment. Never? But his face still looked a tad bit bottlenosed; he wasn’t all the way back from the killing zone yet. I let it drop.
Peering up 90th, I changed the subject. “Let’s take a walk past Irene’s.”
90th is one of the few commercial-traffic streets connecting Shoreside and Creek, so it’s never deserted, even at midnight. I gradually became aware, however, that it seemed busier than usual. Traffic was backed up. Cars complained bitterly as they tried to reverse out.
Ahead, red and blue light splashed over the gravelnut trees in a familiar strobing rhythm.
We quickened our steps, and then slowed down again as we neared Risk’s place, on the other side of the street.
Light blazed in Irene’s apartment, flinging the shadow of the laundry carousel on the balcony across the street.
A police van and two police bikes stood in the street. One officer was wrangling traffic. Several more stood on the sidewalk doing nothing of any obvious utility. Another stood on the stoop in front of Risk’s front door, arguing with King of the Beasts, who filled his front door in lordly silhouette.
I could tell it was KotB because he was still in lion form, although he now stood on his hind legs, towering over the cop. I could tell it was an argument because he was practically roaring. “Why ain’t you chasing them? That’s your job. Why’re you still standing here talking to me?”
Mumble, mumble, went the cop.
Dolph muttered, “Doesn’t that guy ever Shift back to human form?”
“Maybe not,” I said. Some don’t. They get too comfy, and cease to care what other people think of them. That only works, however, if they have a job that doesn’t require human contact—Craig the Duck comes to mind—or if someone else is bringing home the bacon.
Thinking of Irene, I edged sideways, to see if I could see into their living-room. That put me in the midst of a group of rubberneckers. I said, “What happened?”
“Oh, it’s terrible,” an old lady said. “Armed robbery! And this is the good end of town.”
“Thank goodness Rex was at home,” someone else said.
His name really was Rex. I heard Dolph snigger. But it didn’t seem like a sniggering situation to me.
“Was anyone hurt?” I said.
“Fortunately not.”
“Praise be to God.”
“Amen.”
“Amen,” I agreed. “The kids are OK, then?”
The old lady pointed across the street. “They’re over there with her,” she said with a sniff.
I scanned the other side of the street for Irene, but Rex distracted me. He interrupted Mumblecop with an outraged roar. “Whaddaya mean, you got nothing to go on? I gave you descriptions. I gave you great descriptions! There was three of them, they were nine foot tall, they had blue skin and four arms—"
A collective gasp went up from the rubberneckers.
Into the ensuing silence—so deep that I could hear a pingo dropping from the gravelnut tree over my head—Mumblecop said clearly, “Yes, sir. They were Ekschelatans. That’s the problem.”
*
Eks committing armed robbery?
Never happens.
Never.
Oh, I’m not saying they’re good guys. But busting into a human’s house while his kids are home, with the intention of menacing and robbing him? It’s laughable. They don’t need to do that. They have a freaking empire. They own half of all the valuable IP in the Cluster, thanks to their legacy rights in this, that, and the other, and the extraordinary canniness of their lawyers.
They also have a few star systems.
So my first reaction was that Rex was making it up.
But Irene said otherwise, when Dolph and I found her huddling outside the police cordon on the other side of the street, with the baby on her hip and Mia clinging to the leg of her sweatpants.
She’d found time, somewhere, to change out of her evening dress. Quick on her feet, that one.
“I saw them, too. And smelled them,” she said. Eks notoriously smell terrible to humans. “But the filth don’t believe us. Just because we’re Shifters.”
Dolph said, “Or they do believe you, but they can’t go after them, because they’re Eks.”
I said, “Or they’d like to go after them, but ‘blue skin and four arms’ isn’t much to go on.”
Irene nodded miserably. “Or,” she said, “the damn Eks knew no one would believe us.” Her gaze stayed on her husband. She didn’t inquire what Dolph and I were doing back here again in the middle of the night.
“So you were at home when it happened, too?” I said gently.
She nodded. “Kit and Mia were in bed. We were just sitting on the couch, watching holovision …” Her mouth trembled. “They could have hurt my babies!”
I silently marvelled at this woman. I knew for a fact that she had not been here when it happened. She had not been sitting on the couch watching holovision. She had been on the jetty at St. Andrew’s Pier, trying to kill Buzz Parsec with a stiletto heel.
I wondered what she’d do if I or Dolph confronted her with the truth, and decided I did not want to find out. Not now. Not here.
“Will you be OK?” I said.
Her disagreement with Parsec had to have something to do with this. I could not imagine how Parsec’s bottom-feeding trajectory through life intersected with anything Ekschelatan, but it was just too big of a coincidence to be unrelated. I was worried, sensing unseen forces and connections at work.
“Maybe you should go to a hotel,” I said.
“We can’t afford it,” Irene said wearily. Then she straightened up and faced me, suddenly decisive. “Could you take Mia for the night?”
“M-me?”
“Yes, you. Mike.” She knew my name. Had I told it to her? I couldn’t remember, but I didn’t think so. “Your daughter is the same age, right? And Risk always said you were the best boss he ever had. I trust you.” Supporting the baby’s head with one hand, she bent down and detached Mia from her legs. “You’re going to stay with Uncle Mike tonight, ‘kay, honey?”
Mia was too trau
matized to speak, but like the well-trained child she was, she stumbled in my direction. It appeared this was happening. I picked her up. “You’ll be safe, honey, and your family will be safe, too,” I told her.
“I can ask my mom to take Kit,” Irene said. “She doesn’t have room for all of us.”
“Will the bad aliens come back?” Mia said in a tiny voice.
“Nope. They won’t come back,” I said, although Irene obviously wasn’t so sure about that, or she wouldn’t be so keen on getting the kids to safety.
Dolph shot me a disbelieving glance and said, “I’ll hang out here for a while.”
“I’ll come and pick her up tomorrow,” Irene said. “Thank you, Mike. Really, thank you so much.”
I brushed off her thanks, but her previous words rang in my head. Risk always said you were the best boss he ever had … Funny. Earlier today, she’d pretended not even to know Risk’s name. Now she knew not only his name, but mine.
4
I decided to work from home the next day. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Nanny B could handle Lucy and Mia. I wanted to be on the scene when Irene came to pick Mia up. We needed to talk.
“Call me if anything comes up,” I told Mary, our receptionist, over the phone. “Or Dolph can handle it.”
“Oh, he’s out at the spaceport today,” Mary said. “Didn’t he tell you?”
Huh. Wherever Dolph was, I was pretty sure he was not out at the spaceport, even though our ship always needed working on. But if he’d wanted me to know where he was going, he’d have told me. I just had to trust him.
However, it was one more thing to niggle at me as I sought to concentrate on my v-mail amidst a backdrop of squealing voices and thudding feet.
Lucy had taken it in stride when she woke up to find another little girl in the apartment. After an initial standoffish period—typical when she doesn’t yet know someone well—she had succumbed to Mia’s outgoing personality. The two of them were now galloping around the apartment, each wearing half of Lucy’s Hellraiser Miracle costume. It was nice to see Lucy playing so well with a friend. As for Mia, she seemed to have completely forgotten about her traumatic experience last night.
The Cryonite Caper Page 4
