by S. L. Eaves
***
The sky darkens as twilight surrenders its hold on the evening. Catch sits on the hood of a booted 90s sedan, watching passersby as he takes long drags from his cigarette. Lori emerges from the gym across the street, her Tae Bo class let out right on schedule. Catch snuffs out his cig on the hood of the junker and proceeds to maintain a safe distance as she heads predictably home.
Class, gym, home to shower and change for a night on the town, or a night consumed in study. Nothing unusual or unexpected about this routine. He never attended college. Academics weren’t his thing back then and after two weeks of watching her, he is convinced he did not miss out on the “college experience.”
Lori abruptly falters and reaches out, clutching a lamppost for support. She lets her bag fall from her shoulder and brings her free hand to her face. Catch slows his pace. Probably light-headed after her workout. His nostrils flare as something sweet triggers his senses. He spots drops of blood on the sidewalk. They lead right to her. Catch inches closer. Sniffs the air for the scent of fresh blood. It’s faint, but it’s there. So is something else.
The hairs on Catch’s neck stand on end as a presence pervades his room, causing him to turn from his stakeout perch by the window. Adrian is right behind him.
“Adrian.”
“Didn’t mean to startle you.”
Adrian picks up a telescope from the flat’s only table and tinkers with it.
“You didn’t.”
Catch studies Adrian as he looks around the condemned building in which Catch has taken residence. Its location across the street from Lori’s house makes it convenient for voyeurs like himself. He acquired a collection of binoculars, infrared scopes…a regular starter kit for aspiring stalkers.
“Nice digs.”
“Took some gettin’. Had to run off a couple of squatters.” Catch smirks.
“How’s progress?”
“Fine, I guess. Today a car pulled up and Lori emerged from her house wearing a dress suit, greeted the older bloke, also sporting a suit, and they got into the vehicle and drove off. This has happened sporadically throughout the week. The older man looks like a lawyer or government official. She takes courses at the Criminal Law building. Maybe a work-study thing. Either that or she’s going to court.”
“She’s facing assault charges.”
Catch’s smirk fades.
“But you shouldn’t have to guess. There was an incident the night I put you on assignment. I was privileged to arrive in accordance with the cops. The story behind it should remind you of someone with similar proclivity to violence. There’s a Jekyll and Hyde state beneath the surface. Similar to—”
“Me?”
“I was going to say Marcus. But yes, and you, to a degree. You need that certain edge to thrive in our world.” Adrian’s expression sours. “You realize I’m not supposed to be the one providing you with intel; it’s supposed to be the other way around.”
“Sorry…I—”
“Tell me what you’ve learned.”
“Well, let’s see, her routine seems as ordinary as any college student. She attends classes in the afternoon and evening. There are a handful of pubs she fancies. Eats lots of pizza. Never rises before noon, to which I can relate. Interesting mix of mates. Smokes. Drinks. Studies…
“Normal. Very normal, Adrian. I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be looking for. There’s a reason I don’t carry the letters P. I. at the end of my name.”
A group of students walk by their building. Adrian and Catch regard each other in silence; Catch nods at the window as they pass.
“Who among us pays the slightest bit of attention to humans?”
“I do. They are of greater concern with this war waging. The werewolves spend every spare second studying potential recruits. We must do the same.”
“Okay, I understand, but why her? Nothing strikes me as special.”
“You sure about that?”
“She’s got a backbone and a rebellious side which I can respect. She’s astute, seems to have a good head on her shoulders. I’m not seeing any red flags, but I’m also not seeing much potential in her ability to further our cause.”
Adrian rubs the back of his bald head.
Catch sits back in a tattered recliner and stares into the darkness.
“One evening she was walking home from the gym. There was a tiny trail of droplets decorating the sidewalk, stemming from her. She lost her balance. I thought she was going to pass out—”
“A nose bleed.” Adrian cuts to the chase, taps the telescope with his index finger.
“She’s dying, Adrian.”
“Yes, Catch. They are all dying. What makes her different?”
“Something terminal, maybe cancer. But she’s so young. I came close enough the other night to sense it for myself. She carries the scent of death—faint, but more prominent than your average twenty-something mortal.”
Catch examines Adrian’s expression.
“But you knew this already, too. Is that why you chose her?”
“It’s not quite that clear-cut, but yes she is dying. Probably a brain tumor. Extremely rare for someone her age. Her symptoms are infrequent enough not to raise alarm. At her age, the tumor will have to progress very far along to present signs warranting a trip to the doctor. Thus, it will not be detected in time. It has not been detected in time.”
“How long does she have?”
“As long as you allow her.”
Catch sighs.
“No offense, Adrian, but we are not exactly a charity here. Every human is dying. I do not understand why a short timeline warrants our attention.”
“She is a see’er, Catch. At least she has potential to be. That tumor has triggered parts of her brain the average mortal has no access to. I sense a latent power. With her abilities and your guidance, she can be a great asset to our cause.”
“A see’er? You’re serious? Why didn't you just tell me?”
“I wanted your impression. I don't trust my intuition as much as I used to. ”
Catch raises a cigarette to his lips. He extends the pack to Adrian who shakes his head.
“Pursue her, Catch. Bring her into our world. You need to believe as much as I do that she will aid us in our efforts.”
Chapter 4
Several nights slip by as Catch ponders and plots. He is growing frustrated with himself and his own trepidations. He has never turned a human. And he needs to make sure that, when he turns her, he will not risk exposure. He cannot enter her house uninvited, thus the easiest method—abducting her in her sleep—is not an option. He needs to work his way into her life somehow.
Adrian spoke as though he’d seen the future. A prophecy known only to him. What part did he envision her playing?
Tonight Lori, who had been laying low the past few nights, finally ventures out. This time Catch does not follow her. Instead, he waits anxiously for the house to clear out. He needs someone to invite him in, but he does not fancy having to deal with a crowd. Finally two others emerge from the house. He recognizes the couple: a roommate and his girlfriend. It is a little past midnight. When Lori left an hour earlier, she was accompanied by one of her roommates, thus leaving one remaining resident. Catch watches the couple swing round the corner, hand in hand, and then turns his attention to the house.
The street is quiet; he crosses and knocks on the door. He suddenly wonders what he looks like. He runs his hands through his hair, brushing it back from his face. He desperately needs a shower.
A girl answers the door in a hoodie and sweatpants. She looks half-asleep.
“Hey, is Lori home?”
“Hi.” She surveys Catch with a smile. “No, I think she’s out for the night.”
“Oh damn. Well she’s got a book I need for an assignment. I meant to swing by earlier, but I got held up. Any chance I can check her room for it?”
“Uh well—”
“She won’t mind. When I ran into her earlier she said I
could borrow it.”
Catch offers a flirtatious smile.
“That hoodie looks cute on you.”
She smiles sheepishly. “Thanks. Sure, come in.”
Bingo.
Catch steps inside and looks for the stairs. He knows her room is upstairs in the front of the house.
“Can I trouble you to show me her room?”
A phone rings from the living room. The girl looks over.
“That’s my cell. Her room is just upstairs, second door on the left.”
“Thanks, darling.”
He passes a bathroom and stops when he reaches the door with a “student crossing” sign featuring a crawling stick figure with a bottle in his hand. He smiles and enters.
Lori’s room smells like vanilla. Stacks of paper clutter the desk and floor. Clothes are strewn about, piled high against her closet door.
He snoops around, taking note of the class schedule and calendar posted on the wall. His phone doesn't work in the conventional sense, but it has a camera and he begins snapping photos.
Her computer is turned off and he opts to leave it that way. He finds a folder marked “trial” and begins pouring through the mound of bills and documents. He picks up the Zippo resting in an ashtray that sported the logo for Thirsty’s, a name he now recognizes. He is about to light a cigarette, decides against it, and returns the lighter. He turns his attention back to the file and began paging through her court case. Takes a few photos of her file.
The man in the suit was her lawyer. She’s got a court date tomorrow. Maybe I should turn her tonight, save her the trouble. Or see how it plays out. He very much doubts she is facing any real jail time. But Adrian said she has a history. That might factor in. Catch knows his curiosity is getting the better of him, but the trial was the most interesting thing to happen in weeks. He’d have to see it play out.
He returns the file and flips through some class notebooks. All were pretty slim; she wasn’t much for taking notes. Her desk and bureau are littered with concert stubs, worn text books, stacks of dusty DVD cases, and a silver flask with a cursive L engraved on it.
She does not appear to have much money. He expected an NYU student to come from an upper-class background; however, her clothes are old and worn and she does not have much in the way of possessions. Maybe she’s not materialistic. Then again, he found those who have the means to be typically are.
When he lifts a stack of papers by her computer, a photo slips out from between the pages. It is a shot of an old row house. He recognizes a young Lori. She is perched on the dilapidated stoop with a group of teenagers, toasting the photographer with half-empty forties.
So they both came from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.
Something shiny by her bedside catches his eye. A closer look reveals a tiny gold cross hanging by a wafer-thin chain from the lamp on her bedside table. Catch reaches out his index finger and lets it burn against the cross’s surface. Reminding him what he is.
“Did you find the book?”
The girl’s voice calls up the stairs.
Catch grabs a random textbook from the stack and joins her downstairs.
“Yep, got it. Thanks, love.”
He hurries out.
***
It is mid-morning when Catch emerges from the courthouse basement. The large building spreads itself across an entire block of the financial district, which gives Catch plenty of underground access. He'd broken into the basement overnight and is now layered up to stay as protected as possible from the sunlight. Fortunately for him it's a rainy day, allowing him to wear a long, hooded raincoat and a baseball cap in an attempt to proceed inconspicuously, or at least to not draw the eyes of the security guards who line the halls.
After roaming up and down several of the building’s large corridors, he is about to concede to asking someone on staff if they know where Lori Black’s trial is taking place when he spots her and her lawyer entering a room about twenty yards away.
He pretends to drink water from a nearby fountain, then slowly makes his way inside the courtroom and takes a seat in the back row. Catch surveys the room, mildly surprised at the attendance, though he supposed it helped to have your entire fraternity house supporting you. All the men are dressed in expensive, tailored suits.
The other side is sparse by comparison. Lori is sitting at the desk to the right, conversing with her lawyer, relaxed and composed. A handful of friends line the bench behind her. Catch rests his gaze on Lori’s accuser. Standing just over six feet, his broad shoulders and upper body atop a trim waist give him an awkward, top-heavy disposition. He is wearing a neck brace and a sling that fastens his left arm to his chest. That doesn't help his disposition either. The neck brace is an obvious exaggeration, a plea for sympathy. The bonehead reminds him of every werewolf he’s killed.
He turns to address one of the three councilmen that surround him and Catch gets a nice clear view of the stitches across his right temple. There are stubbles of hair growing back where it had been shaved around his ear.
Overall, this kid looks like a train wreck. A train wreck in an Armani suit. And this is weeks after the assault. Lori hasn’t glanced over at him. Not once. Catch tries to picture her the night at the frat house. The night she walked in on him seconds away from raping her unconscious friend and beat this pretty boy within an inch of his life. So said the court papers in her room. Allegedly.
It is predictable to Catch that society would be putting her on trial, that she should have to defend her actions against such utter filth. Their world is so backward in many ways. Catch had considered eliminating him himself—do her and the world a favor—but that would draw too much attention to Lori. Given the circumstances, it might get her locked up.
From what he’d read, Lori is charged with aggravated assault and battery, and is facing up to two years in jail. The frat boy’s council of overpriced lawyers wants to ensure the maximum sentence is dispensed. Anything to repair his bruised ego. And it would surely mean expulsion from the university. She’d tarnished his pretty face along with his image and therefore must be punished. Forgetting the fact that he’d mounted her incapacitated friend.
And where is that friend through all this? Catch looks around and spots a girl slip into the court room and quietly take a seat right behind Lori, also doing her best not to acknowledge the plaintiff and his entourage. Must be Rachel.
He’d “allegedly” drugged her and then given her a tour of his bedroom. Cue Lori’s entrance, searching for the bathroom and discovering him disrobing her unconscious friend. She’d picked up a wooden bat propped conveniently by the door and started swinging till the others in the house heard the commotion and intervened.
She would have killed him, in all likelihood. Catch could see regret in her eyes, not for her actions, but that she had not finished what she started.
The frat boys called the cops and Lori ran, taking her groggy and intoxicated friend with her as she fled. Not the smartest move. Rachel had turned out to be not worth saving, in Catch’s opinion. Too petrified of the repercussions to press charges. Her official statement is she passed out and didn't see anything. In their world having money meant having influence and the power to instill fear. If they only knew what real fear was…He ponders at how different this court room would look if the boy had actually managed to rape her. Or if Lori had finished the job. Everyone in this room is luckier than they deserve to be. With one exception.
The lawyers present their arguments. One of the frat boy’s three lawyers presents a laundry list of witnesses. Lori brings in a few character witnesses of her own. Teachers to attest to her good grades and scholarly behavior, friends to claim she’d never hurt a fly. But she has a colorful background and with the one credible witness being unconscious when it all went down, the odds are not in her favor.
The frat boy speaks out from time to time, his behavior appropriate for that of a spoiled rich punk.
Lori looks decidedly vacant. Rachel
leans forward periodically and whispers encouraging words into her ear. At this Lori tenses up, glaring at nothing in particular.
The boy’s lawyers try to paint Lori as a bad seed. Sketchy upbringing, anger issues, short fuse, temper, unhinged, overall menace to society—a far cry from the scholarship-appointed NYU student sitting politely before the judge.
Lori’s public defender would have probably liked her to display some level of remorse, but Catch can see there is no chance in hell of that.
As it turns out, the system does not fail Lori after all. This somewhat shocks Catch. As the trial proceeds, the frat boy’s disrespectful attitude becomes a source of growing agitation. The judge sees right through the frat boy’s pathetic attempts at innocence, the puppy eyes and painful wincing. The whole charade is laughable.
Lori is found guilty, but sentenced to anger management classes, community service and one year probation. The judge guarantees she’ll face jail time if she's involved in any misconduct, no matter how minor. No jail, no expulsion, no satisfaction for the limp dick son-of-a-bitch in a sling.
The spoiled frat boy is infuriated and responds in fits of whining and profanity, effectively affirming the judge’s confidence in his ruling.
Lori looks relieved. Stress leaves her shoulders. She shoots the frat boy a sideways glance. There is an unmistakable gleam in her eyes as she watches him rub his injured shoulder. Inwardly admiring her tenacity, Catch regards her with newfound zeal. This, he decides, has been worth the wait.
Chapter 5
Tonight I cunningly convince my friends to explore this new club with me. With my scholarship safely intact and a month of courtroom hell behind me, I am in a celebratory mood. I promise them cheap drinks and live music. What I don’t specify is the type of music or patrons…a punk rock show at a club across town I am certain will fall nothing short of fun debauchery. With the aid of a bottle of cheap vodka, they are fairly intoxicated prior to setting foot in the venue. So they don’t seem to mind and I am happily soaking in the mayhem.
