She stripped off the t-shirt and used it to mop blood. The claw marks were fading before her eyes. She watched as they retraced their path over her collarbone and up towards her neck, leaving unbroken skin behind. A minute later, there was no trace of any damage except for a faint smear of blood, and the ruined t-shirt she still held.
“Damn you, Ryder,” she muttered. “Damn you to the ninth hell for eternity.”
After showering and dressing in jeans and polo neck sweater, she threw away the ruined shirt. She wished she could throw out the dreams and memories with it.
It was still dark outside when she dropped the bloody shirt in the garbage, but that didn’t deter her own personal brand of stalker. Barely had she replaced the lid on the garbage can, when blinding light flooded the back of her house. She snarled and raised a hand to shield her eyes. The lights arrayed along the top of the fence had done a good job of turning her backyard into a television studio.
The buzz of miniature rotors heralded the arrival of automated hover cams set to lock onto movement. She bent and groped for some ammunition while scanning the sky for a target. Her fingers closed around some pebbles, and she let fly the moment she saw the cameras. They didn’t try to dodge as they usually did—more proof of their automation. Their crews were probably asleep in the vans that had taken up permanent residence along her street. The shotgun effect of her pebbles worked like a charm on the rotors. She ducked as pieces of hover cam rained from the sky; she smiled grimly when she counted her kills.
“Humber four, newsies nil,” she muttered and bent to retrieve her trophies.
Back inside with the door locked, she dropped the cameras next to the other shattered prizes of her personal war with the media. She had quite a nice collection now. The heap of broken technology was beginning to look like a macabre sculpture where it spilled across the kitchen floor.
She made herself a fresh pot of coffee and sat at the kitchen table to sip a cup or two. On the table were two piles of paper. One consisted of newspaper clippings; the other contained her notes and the original hard copy printouts of Baxter’s work on the shifter slayings. Between the two, the blank screen of her portable computer stared at her accusingly.
“All right, already. I said I’d find him, I’m gonna find him!”
Something stirred and awoke to look out of her eyes.
We hunt now?
Chris froze in shock. No!
Not hunt?
Her hands shook and coffee slopped out of her cup. She put it down and pushed it away. Lephmann’s friend said… Geoffrey said all shifters were crazy. He had laughed it off afterwards, but he had meant it. She knew it then and she knew it now. He had meant every word. Oh Goddess, she was hearing voices… her beast had a voice now. What was she going to do?
She blinked burning eyes, determined not to let the tears fall. If she didn’t listen to it, if she pretended not to hear it, then maybe it would go away.
She reached for her cup again, but her hand was shaking so badly she feared she would drop it. She clenched her fist and willed it to be still. A deep breath, another, and the tremors subsided. She smiled grimly and took a gulp of coffee. She wouldn’t let fear take control of her life.
“No one controls me,” she whispered, but there was doubt in her voice. She scowled. “No one. Not even you, flea brain.” She cocked her head, listening for a comeback.
Silence was her answer.
She nodded in satisfaction and turned on her computer. The screen lit to show the last report she had been reviewing. It was a transcript of her interview with Sandy Hodges, but there was nothing in it to help her. She closed the file and opened another. This one began with an image of Vincent Fairman’s corpse on the mortuary slab followed by Meckler’s autopsy report. She reread it carefully, but as with all the other reports, nothing leapt out as being significant.
She cupped her chin in her hand, and leaned an elbow on the table. She sighed; this was going nowhere.
She knew the contents of all the reports by heart. There was nothing in them to help her find Ryder. Scrolling through the data with one hand, she wondered if Baxter and the others had learned anything new. Her information was weeks old, and she had no access to current data. She only had the backup copy of her files to work with. She wouldn’t even have that if Cappy hadn’t assigned her cases to Baxter when Flint joined the team. It was possible that Ken had learned something new in the weeks since her retirement; maybe even something she needed to connect the dots and find Ryder.
She sighed morosely. If only Ken hadn’t taken Cappy’s gag order so seriously, he might have helped her. If only DD had hacked into Flint’s files for her… but she hadn’t, and their last meeting had ended badly because of that refusal. Nothing was going right. She shouldn’t have asked DD to do it, but she had, and now their friendship was maybe on the rocks. She wasn’t sure and was afraid to ask. As for Ken, he wouldn’t talk about any of his cases—none of them, not just her case. She could have helped him. She was a good cop… had been a good cop, and she still had all her contacts. No one had better informants on the street than she did, but when she offered to help him, he had refused to consider it. She hadn’t talked to him since and had a feeling he was avoiding her. Everyone was avoiding her these days. All her friends had melted away, but she missed those from the Department the most.
Lady, I miss them so much!
She took a deep breath passed a sudden tightness in her chest. It didn’t matter. That life was over. She had to rely on herself; there was nothing and no one else.
She poured another cup of coffee, and stood near the window watching the day lighten. She couldn’t help feeling that she was missing something important. She turned away from the view of her backyard, and frowned at the clippings. Putting her cup aside, she picked up the top one. It was a news story about her attack. The media had tried to interview her many times, but she had refused to answer their questions. It hadn’t stopped them from printing what they wanted.
As she read the mostly fictional account of her narrow escape from death, her thoughts flashed to Ed Davis. Ed was a slime she had dated for a while a couple years ago. She couldn’t believe she had fallen for the fake persona he used on screen. Ken had warned her more than once, but back then, she wouldn’t hear a word against him. Ed could be charming, but underneath the front he put up to fool the public into thinking he was a nice guy, there was nothing but a deep pit of ambition.
Ed had been just another reporter dogging her steps when she first met him. She had treated him like all the others, with disdain, but events took a bit of a twist, and Ed had been there when she needed him. The case had been one of murder as most of hers were, and the perp, one J.W Rabley, had been keen on publicity. She never did learn why he chose Ed for his go-between, but he did, and it proved his undoing. Ed could have kept the secret and made good use of Rabley for his own gain, but instead he contacted her and together they had set a trap that eventually saw Rabley caught and executed. That had been the beginning of their relationship, and was indirectly the root cause of their break up.
Being a reporter, Ed obviously took a keen interest in her cases, but her insistence on not compromising her rules where the media was concerned hampered his ambitions. She hadn’t thought it much of a problem at the time. All couples had their little fights, but for Ed it was a big thing. He could not—or would not—see why giving him information was out of the question—especially as he had helped her with Rabley. He wouldn’t listen to her explanations and became pushy. He even threatened to leave her if she didn’t bend a little.
She had never taken well to threats; she told him to take a hike. To her surprise, he did. Ever since then, he seemed to show up whenever her name was linked to a case. He seemed to think it was part of his job to make her life harder… just like at the scene of Vincent’s murder.
She frowned. “How did he get there so quickly?”
We should kill him… he betrayed us.
She st
iffened, crumpling the clipping in her fist. She took a deep breath and carefully smoothed it out on the table.
“You don’t exist. I will not listen to a figment of my imagination.” Besides, she didn’t want to kill Ed. She wouldn’t mind hurting him a little though.
She frowned at the computer screen where it still displayed one of Meckler’s autopsy reports. It reminded her of what Ed said that day. He said Meckler had told him that Vincent Fairman was a shifter. It still felt wrong to her, but if not Meckler, then who? His assistant maybe… what was his name again?
Samuel, that was it.
A buzzing sound distracted her and she frowned around the room. Movement on the table clued her in. It was her link. She had set it on silent mode when the reporters started calling. The damn thing was crawling along the table like a beetle. She watched as the vibrating nuisance headed for the edge; it was probably just another reporter. She wondered how much he would offer her to whore her story this time.
The link finally made its bid for freedom, but lightning fast reflexes had her catching it less than an inch below the tabletop. She thumbed the connect button.
“You’ve got to help me!”
She blinked. “J-bone, is that you?” His voice sounded funny, like he was standing in a tunnel.
“We’re in trouble, Chrissy, bad trouble. You’ve got to help me!”
She slumped back into her chair and rubbed a hand over her face wearily. She didn’t need this, not on top of everything else.
“This is a bad time for me, J-bone. I can’t deal with you right now.”
“They’ve got her, they’ve got Lil’ Tina! We didn’t know who else to call. You’ve got to come!”
“Whoa, calm down! Who is we?”
“Me… us,” J-bone said desperately. “The Rascals are camped in my damn living room—all of them! You’ve got to come quick, Chrissy, before something bad goes down.”
Tiny Rascals was the name of J-bone’s gang. A stupid name some might think; it was probably her fault for calling them that when they first came to her attention. That was a long time ago. They were no longer unwanted kids running loose through Monster Central. Nowadays, anyone disrespecting the Rascals did so at their peril. That J-bone sounded so scared was an indication of serious trouble.
“Define bad.”
J-bone lowered his voice. “Trigger wants to go after her. He’s riled the others up enough so they’ll back him.”
Trigger was a damn pain in the butt. He wasn’t one of her kids like J-bone and a lot of the current members of the Rascals. He was new to the area, but not unknown to her. She had checked him out months ago after J-bone mentioned him.
“What does TC say about it?”
“He don’t like it, but he can’t do nothin’ to stop it.”
She frowned. “Why not? What haven’t you told me?”
J-bone lowered his voice even further. “I’m hiding in my john, Chrissy! I ain’t got time to explain everything. TC is out. Trigger is in and calling the shots. You reading what I’m saying?”
She scowled. “I read you, now you read me. You tell Trigger that I’ll haul his butt in if he so much as sticks his nose out your door before I get there!”
“I can’t do that, Chrissy, you know I can’t! I ain’t got the juice.”
She glanced at her kitchen clock and estimated it would take a half hour or more to get there. “I’ve got enough juice for both of us. You tell him what I said and make him believe it.”
“I’ll try, Chrissy, I will try, but you better come quick or it’s my butt. I ain’t kidding. If you don’t come, I’m dead meat.”
“Quit your whining; it’s embarrassing. I said I’d be there. I’ll be there. Now go tell him what I said.”
J-bone sighed and then said, “I can’t believe I’m gonna do this.”
The line went dead.
Chris switched off her link, but then frowned at it. Maybe she should call Ken and have him meet her at J-bone’s place… no. She could always call him later if she needed him. It would be best to learn the situation first hand before bringing the police into it. She didn’t want her kids becoming community property. They were hers and she would protect them; even from themselves.
She shut down her computer and ejected the disk. She wouldn’t let that item out of her possession. Not even for a minute.
In the bedroom, she chose a little-used coat and stuffed the disk into a pocket. Her boomer went into the other pocket with her car keys. She would have preferred her jacket, but Ryder had destroyed it along with so much else. She hadn’t had the time to replace it.
Mark bought her the coat last year, but it had never fitted properly. It looked good on the new—slimmer—her. It was a full-length trench coat that reached her ankles. It had pockets deep enough that she didn’t feel lost without a bag, and turning up the collar hid most of her face; a good thing these days. Her picture was everywhere.
She twitched the bedroom curtain aside and noted her drive was empty. That hadn’t always been so. It had taken a couple of obscure bylaws, and a little string pulling by Cappy, to have the media park their vans up the street and not in front of her property. It hadn’t helped in the end—the use of remotes pretty much negated anything she gained from the illusion of privacy, but today it would work to her advantage.
She patted her pocket for her keys and headed for the garage. Before leaving the house, she paused in the living room for one more item. She stood before the shelf and stared at the photograph of her dead partner. John was grinning at her and holding up a burnt burger on a fork like a trophy. He never had been much of a cook. His badge stood beside his picture with its embedded master key. Cappy knew she had it. He gave it to her himself at the funereal, but she doubted he had ever expected her to use it illegally. She picked it up and carefully removed the black ribbon.
She draped the ribbon over the corner of the photograph. “I’m only borrowing it, John. I’ll bring it back. I promise.”
She headed for the garage.
Chris reached J-bone’s building in record time, and parked opposite the lobby doors in the no parking zone. She quickly crossed the street, agilely dodging the sparse traffic. The decrepit robot at the doors watched her approach and raised the stump of its arm in a failed attempt to open the door for her.
“Urk,” it said forlornly as she passed by into the grimy looking building.
She looked around the lobby, but nothing had changed. The place still looked ready for demolition. She pressed the elevator call button, and the doors shuddered open. At least they worked, that was something. She stepped inside and selected J-bone’s floor. The doors hesitated, as if unsure whether to close, but finally slid shut. Her last time here she had come to collect Sandy Hodges. Her life had certainly changed since then, and not in a good way. This bit of excitement with Tina was the closest she had come to police work in almost five weeks. No doubt Flint was making good use of her absence to worm her way into Ken’s affections. Not that she needed to try very hard. Ken was already smitten with her.
She scowled.
Ken was old enough to know his own mind, but Flint was a real operator. She could twist him around her little finger without trying. That woman had been around the block a few times. Hell, she probably owned it by now!
The elevator groaned and rattled to a stop. The doors squeaked open and she stepped out into the dingy corridor. She paused to look around. It was quiet. The corridor, dimly lit at the best of times, was dark. Half the lights were out. Her hand slipped into her pocket to caress her boomer. Something felt off. Without really thinking about it, she sniffed the air. Bloodsmell. Someone—an injured someone—had passed this way not long ago. She sniffed again, and tracked the scent of blood to a smeared hand print on the wall by the stairs. She reached out to see if it was still wet, but the sound of quiet breathing distracted her. She cocked her head, listening intently, and heard the regular thumpety-thump of a heartbeat. Lord and Lady, what next? Would she start
hearing mouse farts at a hundred meters too?
She listened to the regular beat and shivered. “Goddess, Mother of All, help me.”
A quiet chuckle drifted up the stairs. “You’re gonna need more than prayers, Lil’ Sis.”
She peered into the darkness and made out a shape sitting on one of the steps. “TC?”
“Yeah.” A painful cough echoed up the stairwell. “It’s me. Knew you would come… stupid. Too stupid to stay away.”
“Oh yeah?” She quickly descended the stairs. “I’m not the one bleeding.”
“Yet.”
TC looked up, and her breath gusted out as if someone had hit her in the belly. His face was a mass of livid bruising. Both eyes were swollen nearly shut, and his lip was bleeding. His knuckles were split and he was cradling one hand protectively in the other. It was badly swollen and probably broken. He looked as if he had gone ten rounds in the ring with a ghoul.
A spike of burning hot rage crackled through her obliterating all thought. She dropped to one knee and grabbed him by the shoulders so he could not turn away.
“Who did it,” she snarled, hardly recognising her own voice.
“You’re hurting me!”
She blinked at him in confusion. Hurting? She relaxed her grip. “Who did your face?”
TC looked away.
She shook him gently. “Come on, you’re not ratting on anyone. This is me. Was it Trigger?”
“Some of it.”
“Only some? What did he do, order the others to stomp on you?”
He shook his head. “He wouldn’t do that, he’d lose their respect. You gotta fight your own battles, Lil’ Sis.”
That was a rule. There were other rules the Rascals lived by, not all of them logical. Fighting your own battles didn’t mean the others wouldn’t back you up in a fight, but it did mean you couldn’t send someone else to fight in your place. If Trigger wanted to lead, he had to fight for it, which he had done by pounding on TC. As J-bone had said over the link, TC was out and Trigger was in—a bitter pill for TC to swallow. He had led the Rascals since the beginning.
Shifter Legacies Special Edition: Books 1-2 Page 66
