Blood of the Pride

by Sheryl Nantus

  “Right.” I strutted up to the corner and placed my order, adding a thick slab of carrot cake. Taking a seat at the far end of the café, I glanced out the window at the traffic crawling by.

  Bran put the tray down in front of us. “Again, and your cop buddy won’t get in trouble?”

  “I hope not. It’d be nice if the kid worked his way through the system and did his time but…” The carrot cake was moist and sweet when I took a bite, buying a second of thinking time. “You can’t put a Felis behind bars. Might as well just slit his throat and be done with it.”

  “And Felis justice is…” Brandon stirred his own light brown coffee with a wooden stir stick. “More of what I saw last night?”

  “It may not be pretty, but it’s what we’ve done for years.” I wasn’t ready to go into a discussion about the Pride and what passed for law in the family. I’d been on both sides and wasn’t sure I could explain or defend it.

  “So what was the deal with assaulting the cop?” He lowered his voice to a whisper, glancing at the other patrons. “That’s all they told me.”

  “Had the kid in an alleyway. Couldn’t let the cop see him in full Change.” I added sugar to my coffee and took a sip. “Better to let the kid go.”

  Bran shook his head as he reached over and pulled off a small bit of my carrot cake. “I’m still not getting what all the secrecy is about. Why not come out to the world?” He sat back in the well-worn faux leather chair and tilted his head toward the window and the pedestrians outside. “Do you really think their world is going to change that much if they find out there’s Felis out there?”

  I almost gave myself whiplash looking around to see if anyone had overheard Bran’s statement. “Scream it a bit louder, why don’t you…”

  “No one’s listening.” He grinned before reaching over and grabbing my hands. “I could tell them I was a vampire and you were a zombie and no one would care. Or they’d try to sign us to movie contracts. So, back to my question—why won’t you consider coming out?”

  The carrot cake fell apart under the white plastic fork, making me even more envious of those who could cook. If it didn’t have the baking instructions “just add water” it wasn’t in my cupboard. I tried to corral my thoughts as I chewed on another delicious mouthful.

  “Think of it this way—are you willing to stake the lives of innocent children on it? Because there’s always going to be someone who’ll try to use our differences to justify violence. One screaming xenophobic madman, one bomb, one group of Felis kids on a playground somewhere.” I jerked my thumb out the window at the passing pedestrians. “Heck, we can’t all get along just based on skin color. Imagine adding that some of us get darned furry whenever we feel like it.” I lifted the paper cup to my lips. “I imagine there’d be a slew of lawsuits from freaks wondering if they can claim paternity because they’re furries on the weekend or some lunatic demanding we all be sterilized to keep the gene pool furball free.” A shoving match began just outside the coffee shop, as if on cue—a pair of teenage boys posturing for a larger group waiting for the streetcar. We watched the game act out over the next two minutes until everyone had saved enough face and the streetcar arrived.

  I took a sip of coffee. “That’s why. And I’ve yet to hear a good argument against it.”

  Brandon nodded. “Okay. So what’s our next step?”

  “We go back to the school and see who the kid was. Get a name from his friends or bluff the school into giving it to us, start tracking him that way.” I grimaced, thinking of the footwork. “Take a few hours but I figure we can browbeat the info out of someone.”

  “Or…” Bran pushed the knapsack he had been carrying over to my feet. “We check his book bag.” He grinned as my eyes went wide. “What, you think I just stood around when you ran off?”

  Chapter 18

  I took the bag from him and flipped open the leather flap. “You walked into the cop shop with this? Are you nuts?”

  He put his hands together with a twinkle in his eye. “Wise man say, walk with attitude and never blink.”

  “That’s awful.” I pulled out a handful of binders. “However, I’ll forgive you this time.” I opened the first book and read the name carefully printed on the cover. “Tony Kolanski.”

  “Definitely not his mother’s name.” Bran stole another piece of cake. “Guess she got married. Or remarried.”

  “Whatever.” History, physics and one battered mathematics book that must have dated back to the 1980s. “Nothing else here—guess he keeps his electronics on him.” I pushed the books back into the bag. “Finish up and we’ll go visit his mother.”

  “What?” Bran frowned. “You think she knows about him going wild?”

  I nodded and took another sip. “She’s his mother. She knows something’s wrong, I’m sure of that. But she probably doesn’t know how bad things have gotten. Right now he’s a kid on the run and probably pretty pissed off.” I pulled out my cell phone and hit Jess’s number. “But we can at least start a hunt for him and his home is as good a place to start as any.”

  Bran reached over and took the phone from me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You really want to put a citywide hunt out for this kid?”

  “Uh… Yes.” I didn’t snatch the phone back from where it sat on the circular table, but I was close. “Jess’s going to be able to throw down a roadblock and track this kit wherever he’s hiding. If he tries to leave the city by bus, plane or train we’ll know long before the cops do, and it’ll be a lot more quiet than screaming it over the airwaves.”

  “And that’s for the best?” The edge of Bran’s mouth twisted up in a sarcastic smile. “Having him hunted down like a dog?”

  “Like a cat, if you want to continue the image properly.” The coffee was cooling quicker than I could drink it. “Look, this ‘kid’ has killed one woman, and attacked me. Twice.” I held up two fingers to emphasize my point. “So I’m not really thinking that he’s going to roll over and ask for a tummy rub if we meet him again. Throw down the net and we’ll pick him up somewhere down the line.”

  Bran shook his head. “I can tell you from experience that if he slips into the runaway underground, you’ll never find him.”

  “Never say never.” My gaze remained on the phone.

  “Look…” His hand landed atop mine. “I’m not bullshitting you on this. He could be in a whole other city by lunchtime if he makes the right connections. Hocks his toys and hits the road and then where will you be?”

  “And this talks me out of calling Jess because…”

  “He’s not going to split without trying to get some funds. Beg, borrow or steal from family and friends.” Bran held up a hand, marking off the points on his fingers. “First stop’s going to be his family if he knows he can get something out of them. Advance on college funds, whatever. Next, places where he’s got buddies or where he hangs out a lot. Scrape up enough for travel expenses.” He stared at me. “If you launch one of your hunts, I can guarantee there’ll be bloodshed. The kid’s not going to go down quietly. He’s not going to bow down like a good little boy in front of one of your alphas. He’s going to brawl like a world-class fighter right there in the middle of the street at high noon and he won’t care who sees it. That generates press and that’s not going to be good if you want to keep your secret.

  “And…you’ve got me.” He grinned. “I’m the one he sent the photo to so he should want to talk to me.” He puffed his chest out. “Mano a mano.”

  I poked him in the chest. “So macho.”

  “Hey!” The chair wobbled dangerously as he tried to regain control. The wooden legs finally succumbed to gravity, dumping Bran on the floor with a thump so loud the other customers looked over, some with annoyance that we had dared to disturb the tranquil setting. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the glares.

  I dropped my head onto the table, resting it on my hands. “I need to move out of this city. I need to move out of this life.”

 
Bran reached over and patted my head. “Maybe. But right now let’s go over to this boy’s house and see what’s up before you pack up and leave, ’kay?”

  There were only a handful of Kolanskis in the phone book and only one within walking distance of the school. It was one of Toronto’s older streets, townhouses squeezed onto every square inch of earth with a floor mat’s worth of grass in front and back.

  The Kolanskis’s house had been built on a postage stamp-sized piece of land on the corner of two small side streets, probably bringing up the house’s value. A small picket fence, no higher than my waist, ran around the front of the house. The porch was filled at one end with plastic storage boxes almost totally obscuring the view out the front window. The house needed a paint job badly from top to bottom.

  Bran swung open the gate. “Nice place.” The brown grass stood ankle-high with a few stepping stones leading up to the porch steps. We picked our way through to the front door. I reached out and poked the doorbell with my index finger.

  A woman opened the door. Life hadn’t been good to her, not by a long shot. Her blond hair was long and stringy, sticking to her face and neck. Her bloodshot eyes stared at us as if we were plague carriers.

  “Yes?” Her voice wavered up and down the scale with that one word.

  I brought out my official identification. “Hi there. My name’s Rebecca Desjardin and this is my partner, Brandon Hanover. I’m a private investigator looking into the death of Janey Winters. May we come in?”

  Her eyes darted to Brandon’s face then back to mine, then out to the empty driveway. “Maybe. Yes.” She stepped back. “We have PIs in Canada?”

  Bran snickered, silenced with a sharp jab in the ribs from yours truly. I stepped inside the narrow hallway, a sickening sweet smile plastering my face.

  “Yes, yes we do. Certified and everything.” I showed my license again. “Seriously legit.”

  “Oh, my.” She pushed by me, motioning us into the living room. “Please, sit down.”

  The living room was quaint and comfortable, from the hand-knit afghan lying over the back of the dark-green sofa to the family pictures hanging on the wall. I spotted Tony up there—a sweet baby rolling on a carpet with a wide toothless grin, a shy child glancing at the camera as he struggled to keep his balance on a bike and a pre-teen with a sullen look standing between his mother and a gruff man who had to be his stepfather.

  None of them involved fur.

  Brandon nudged me with a glance over to a side table. The Toronto Inquisitor, at least three months’ worth of copies, neatly stacked. We now knew where Tony had gotten the idea to contact Brandon.

  “I’m not sure what I can help you with.” The blonde woman sat down and wiped her hands on the stained apron at her waist. Her voice quavered as she looked back toward the door. “My husband’ll be home in a few minutes, maybe he…”

  I sat on the sofa beside her. Another time, another place I’d have been more tactful but we just didn’t have the time to spare. “Kathy. We know about Frank. And Tony.” I showed her the small scars between my knuckles. “We know.”

  The whisper shocked her into silence for a few seconds. Her thin hands, the skin dry and flaking, moved to touch mine. “You’re…like Frank?”

  “I’m a friend of Frank’s.” It was the truth, in a way. “We’re worried about Tony. We’re worried that he might be…out of control.”

  She rose from the sofa and walked around the chair where Bran sat, her attention on the family photographs.

  “Frank never told me about,” her hands fluttered in the air, “his disability. I only figured it out when Tony was a baby and, well, was different.”

  I flinched at her choice of words.

  “I called him, told him I’d had the baby and it was a boy. I waited for him to say something but he didn’t.” The strangled sigh tugged at my heart. “He didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “So you raised him on your own. With his…” The words jammed in my mouth. “With his differences.”

  “I never told Henry about Frank. I told him that Tony’s father had been killed in an industrial accident, made it feel right.” A deep whiffling breath, punctuated by sobs. “We got married when Tony was six. The worst of it was over by then.”

  “So you taught him how to control himself,” I prompted.

  She sniffled. “I tried.” Her reflection in the picture glass was distorted and warped. “The first time he…went furry, I freaked. I thought about taking him to the hospital but then I realized they’d poke and prick him to death.”

  I nodded. “Yes, yes they would have.” Inwardly I winced at the image. It was one of the Pride’s biggest fears, to lose a kit to the wonders of science. “So you didn’t take him.”

  “I couldn’t do that to my boy, let them treat him like an animal. So I did the best I could.” She wiped her eyes and stared at me. “Did I do okay? Did I do all right by him?”

  I smiled. “You did the best that you could. I doubt many women would have been up to the task.” This was the truth. There was a reason why Ruth had been so valued by the Pride. “It must have been hard keeping the secret.”

  “As soon as he was old enough to understand I told him to never do it again.” Kathy wiped her nose with one sleeve. “I told him that if he had to do it to go into the bathroom and do it away from anyone else.”

  My jaw tightened. Putting Changing in the same category as masturbation wouldn’t have sat well with any Felis, much less a hormonal teenager with his emotions in flux.

  “Frank should have told you.” I stood up. “He should have helped you with this.”

  Brandon, to his credit, sat there in silence. His gaze kept darting to the front window and the dim light allowed in by the storage boxes. I sensed the tension building in him. Any minute now Henry could walk through that door and we’d lose any chance at privacy.

  It was time to start dealing with the future, not the past.

  I moved to touch Kathy’s arm. “We need to talk to Tony.”

  Her moist eyes shot up to meet mine. “Oh my God…you think he had something to do with that teacher’s murder? I mean, I read about it but when I asked him about it he just shrugged and said it was a crackhead looking for money.” The words tumbled out in a panic. “I didn’t push it. I knew he was acting strange but I thought it was just part of being a teenager, wanting to be alone so often.” She stared at me, a sad smile on her face. “He’s such a boy. You know.”

  I nodded. “I know, and trust me, teenage Felis can be a handful.”

  Kathy opened her mouth, stopped then continued. “Felis? Is that what you call yourself?”

  “It’s what Frank was. And what I am.” I didn’t care right now about confidentiality or keeping the family safe. My eyes went to the family pictures hanging above and around us. “It’s rough growing up with these…skills.”

  “It’s hard for all of us at that age. I guess I didn’t realize how much more for him.” Kathy picked up the ends of the apron and began to wrestle it into knots. “Now he’s hurt someone and has to answer for it.”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t lie to her. “We think he’s involved with the murder and we need to find him.”

  She shook her head, the light greasy strands sliding back and forth. “I haven’t seen him since he left for school this morning.” A tear broke free and ran down her face. “You think he killed her, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I was being way too honest but there was no time to be subtle, to cushion the truth. “He lost control, we understand that. But we need to get to him before the police get on his trail. We need to help him before he kills again.” I began to speak faster, my fingers clenching together in loose fists. “He needs to learn about himself, his heritage and how to control himself. He needs to…”

  Bran came to his feet. “Trouble.”

  The front door swung open, admitting a giant who filled the lobby. Henry Kolanski strutted into the living room with a scowl on his face and hands thick e
nough to fit around my neck and Bran’s with room to spare.

  The beefy man fell into the chair Kathy had vacated only a few moments ago. His stare took in the three of us. “Kathy. Beer, please.”

  The woman trotted into the back, the kitchen presumably, and dashed out with a bottle, cap already off. She put it into his hand and moved to stand by his chair. He looked at us. “Who are you?”

  Before I could speak, Brandon leaped forward, shaking the hand that didn’t hold the beer. “Brandon Hanover, investigative reporter.” In a parody of what I had done only minutes before, he dug out his press identification from his wallet and placed it in Henry’s view.

  “Hmph. Who do you write for?” His eyes narrowed as he scanned the small print under the photograph. “Hey, I recognize you. You write lots of good stuff for the Inquisitor.” His tongue darted out to wet his lips. “I like that rag.” The lips twisted into a smile. “Good paper. Fun reading. Only newspaper I have in the house, home delivery every week.”

  I let out the breath I had been holding, slowly.

  “So whatchya here in my place for?” Henry said. “I work hard all day in a warehouse hustling boxes. Ain’t no alien bodies here or crazy flying squirrels carrying off babies.”

  “Well…” Bran’s eyes met mine as he grinned wider than a cat with a mouthful of bird. “We’re here because there’s been a sighting of a monster cat in the area and wondered if you or your wife had seen anything.”

  The tired man’s eyes lit up. “You gonna quote me?”

  Brandon’s fingers flew inside his leather duster, coming out with a notepad and pencil. “You speak, I write.” He nodded toward Kathy. “Your wife here hasn’t seen anything, but if you have…” His eyebrows waggled upward. “It’s a hot story for our next issue.”

  “Hmm.” Henry nodded, his eyes studying the beige carpet. “I’ve seen some mighty big cats in the backyard. But I’m not sure if you’d call them ‘giants.’” One meaty hand scratched his pate.