Shift: Infected, #5, page 20
ROAN had to take his mind off things as depressing and all consuming as a relationship, so he stopped by a deli and picked up sandwiches before dropping by the hospital to visit Holden.
Holden seemed to appreciate both the sandwiches and the company. They discussed the Bruen book for a while (Calibre—a fast read, but really enjoyable), and then Holden asked for a lift tomorrow, as he was getting kicked out of the hospital then. He had the state’s health insurance, which wasn’t very good but was marginally better than nothing. And Roan found it amusing that Holden actually thought far enough ahead that he got himself health insurance—he probably listed himself as unemployed, since listing himself as “prostitute” wouldn’t have gone over well—as he couldn’t imagine many hookers did that. They should have. They probably needed health coverage more than anyone, but it was a general reality that people who needed health care the most didn’t get it. Roan told him he was due for a raise since he broke the case, but Holden pointed out that he didn’t actually break it, just got attacked by the right guy. Roan felt it didn’t matter. He had the presence of mind to get a photo, and you had to reward that kind of quick thinking, especially when it was quick thinking done when you were bleeding out from a stomach wound. Not many people could do that.
He wondered briefly if a relationship with someone like Holden would work any better. He knew Holden liked him—how much was a guess; Roan was sometimes under the impression he had a serious crush on him, but he was afraid that was his ego talking—and Holden would accept him without question. Holden accepted everyone, warts and all, which was why he had so many oddball friends. The negative side of this was he’d have to accept Holden selling himself, as he would expect to be accepted without question as well. No, it couldn’t work; they both had too much control freak in them, and he wasn’t sure he could ever live with a guy selling himself to strangers, even if he did make more money than Roan did.
It wasn’t an office day, but Roan went there and finished up the paperwork he’d fallen asleep on the other day and discovered an odd message on his machine. Not the usual death threat—he erased that without bothering to listen to it beyond the “you faggot” part—but one from a potential client who refused to leave his name. He just said he’d stop by tomorrow, as he wasn’t comfortable leaving this on a machine. Leaving what? His name? That was weird but not unprecedented, especially not with the paranoid. It made Roan wonder exactly who would show up tomorrow, and if he’d have a gun. He called Fi and left a message on her machine, letting her know they’d be open tomorrow. That way, if the mystery man did turn up to kill him, he’d also have a dominatrix to deal with, and for whatever reason, men who didn’t even know she was a dominatrix seemed immediately cowed when she barked out orders. Maybe it was just attitude, like she claimed.
Roan realized he was being a coward. He was putting off going home, and he had turned off his cell phone. He wanted Dylan to just make up his mind and get it all over with—maybe it wasn’t too late to score a mercy fuck from Scott—but he was afraid of his answer at the same time. Idiotic, schizophrenic, and cowardly. He hoped he got some kind of brownie points for realizing that, but probably not.
He stopped by a bar, a decent bar, one with lights and everything, although it was a bit of a fern bar and made him feel even gayer just being there. Still, at least they served passable microbrews, and the music they played was easy to ignore. He sat at a table near the window and watched people walking by. He saw a lot of people talking on their cells or texting. Some people actually were talking to each other, but he saw no obvious couples. When a waitress—a young, slim blonde who looked like a college student and wore an honestly astonishing amount of makeup—started flirting with him, he figured it was time to go. If she was serious, he felt bad for her; if she was just doing it for a bigger tip, he felt vaguely disgusted. Either way, it wasn’t ideal.
He stopped by the store on the way home, but since he’d taken the bike he got very little, just some apples to replace the ones that had gone soft in the crisper drawer (crisper his ass) and an industrial-sized bottle of Excedrin, as he went through it like some people went through mints. And did it help? Sometimes. But it seemed like nothing next to Percocet.
He came back to a quiet, darkened house, not really surprised but a tad disappointed. He put in another call to Fiona, got her in, and discussed the odd phone call and the possible scenarios that could play out tomorrow. He refused to give her a gun but agreed to wear one, and he said he’d consider her suggestion about calling some of his “hockey friends” to come and loiter in the lobby. It was a good idea, actually: Grey was big enough to scare any ne’er-do-wells on sight, and while Tank’s natural placidity would fool them, as soon as they caught his hawklike, slightly insane gaze, they’d run screaming from the office like their ass was on fire; doubly so if he brought his big-ass hockey stick. It was amusing to think about.
He had a beer and vegged on the couch, attempting to watch television, eating one of the apples he’d bought. He had to admit, organic apples tasted a bit more like actual apples and not just cold, vaguely sweet fruits of uniform texture. That was a nice improvement.
He was insane, wasn’t he? He was insane. He’d lost one of the few guys who would put up with him on a daily basis. That was a small group, growing smaller by the day. And all because he was a stubborn asshole. That’s probably what he needed a cure for, not infection.
He was just getting into the BBC World News when he heard a jingle of keys, and the front door opened. He looked around and saw Dylan coming in through the door. It wasn’t easy to judge if he was here to tell him to go screw himself or was sticking around; he wasn’t carrying anything.
“Hey,” Roan said, trying to be casual. “Wanna apple?”
Dylan fixed him with a slightly disbelieving look, but then he grimaced in a way that was just as good as an eye roll. He was accustomed to Roan and his bullshit. “Not those ones you let rot in the bottom drawer.”
“No, I got new ones. They’re organic, so they should rot sooner.”
“That’s thinking ahead.” Actually, Dylan bought nothing but organic produce, so he was just letting him have the joke. That was a good sign. But there was no sign of happiness as he sighed heavily and put his hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket before approaching the sofa. Roan shut off the set and turned to face him, trying very hard not to start begging.
Dylan sat on the opposite end of the sofa, his shoulders rounded with weariness. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I expect an honest answer, okay?”
Did any conversation that started that way ever add up to anything good? “Sure.”
He seemed to steel himself. He took a deep breath and sat up straight before asking, “Does the change ever really sneak up on you?”
He was bracing himself for that? But come to think of it, Dylan was probably trying to see if he could adjust to having such a freaky boyfriend. “Yes and no. I mean, it always hurts like fuck—imagine having your jaw just snap on its own, shift out of socket like an invisible person has grabbed it and yanked on it—but sometimes if I’m angry, it just happens so fast.” Roan snapped his fingers, and Dylan flinched slightly, mainly in reaction to the description of the broken jaw. “I really can’t hold it back when it comes on like that. I can put the brakes on, but only after it’s started. It’s a nice idea that I can totally control it, but it isn’t close to reality. It’s an impulse, and sometimes it has a mind of its own. I can force a change, but sometimes a change comes on its own.”
“If you’re upset.”
“Yeah. Sometimes fellow cats can bring it close to the surface too.”
“Why?”
“Rivals. I’m the King Cat, and if they don’t acknowledge it, I make them. You saw that for yourself.”
Dylan gave him a quick glance out of the corner of his eye before gazing back down at the carpet, hands held together between his knees. “I had this idea for a painting. You leading an army of cats. Could you do that?”
“Lead a bunch of cats? I dunno. I’ve never tried.”
“But they obey you, don’t they? What’s stopping you from assembling your own pride of altered infecteds?”
He would have been pissed off by this line of questioning normally, but he knew Dyl was still trying to understand this. Dylan didn’t mean anything nasty by it. “In theory? Absolutely nothing. But altered infecteds don’t understand language in that form, so I have no idea how I’d give them an order.”
“But you managed with the panther. You told it to submit and it did.”
“That was more of a ’tude thing. The roaring helps.”
Dylan sat back with a sigh, sinking into the sofa. “That’s a hell of a roar you got there. I wouldn’t have believed a human could make that sound.”
“I’m not human.”
“Stop that shit. Of course you are. You’re just human plus a little extra.” He paused briefly. “The change hurts, I get that, but you change a lot. I know you’re not into S&M, so why do it if it hurts so much? There has to be something in it for you.”
Oh, he could be so good at spotting the little details sometimes. “Yeah. Maybe it’s the endorphins responding to all the pain, but along with the change comes a... a rush. I feel so fucking powerful when the change comes. The pain is kind of irrelevant. I feel like I could fight the world and win.”
Dylan just nodded, like it was something he suspected. “You had that look in your eye.”
“My cat eyes, you mean?”
“They’re just your eyes, Roan. You can see it’s you. The pupils change shape, but that’s all.”
Roan stared at him in disbelief. “Really?”
He nodded. “You didn’t know?”
“No. I don’t look in a mirror when I change.” He considered that and wondered why it bothered him. Maybe it had been mentioned before, but he always thought they were joking. “Fuck.”
“I don’t want you to die,” Dylan said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.
“I don’t want to die. But I can’t just sit down and shut up.”
“Oh, I know. If you shut up, I’d know you’d been replaced by a pod person.” He scowled at Dylan for that, but he got an affectionate, sad smile in return. “You hafta be patient with me. I never signed up to be the boyfriend of a superhuman or a shapeshifter, whichever you prefer.”
“I’m not a proper shapeshifter, ’cause I can only do the one shape.”
“Now you’re nitpicking. You can call yourself whatever you want. Except freak.”
“But I am a freak.”
“No, you’re not. Stop that.”
“But—”
“No,” Dylan warned, giving him a hard-edged look. But it only lasted a second. “Don’t try me, pendejo. Don’t even think about it.”
Roan held up his hands in surrender. “I quit.”
“I wish you’d quit. But you won’t.” Again he sighed, impatiently this time, but his eyes were kind when he looked at him. Roan wanted to touch him, but wasn’t sure he had the right. “I don’t know if I can live with this. But I miss you, and I can’t stand the idea that something will happen to you and I won’t be there. So....”
He trailed off, but Roan felt confident enough to put a hand on his shoulder. Dylan didn’t stiffen up or object. “I missed you too. I’m an idiot.”
“No. You’re smart when it comes to other people. You’re just an idiot with yourself.”
Wow—that was it. Him in a nutshell. “But that’s why you love me, right?” he joked, giving him an encouraging smile.
Dylan rolled his eyes. “No, that’s why I want to punch you sometimes. You just lucked out that I’m a Buddhist pacifist.”
They sat in silence for a moment, but it was a comfortable silence. Roan heard a clock ticking and wondered where the hell he had a ticking clock. His office? “You coming back?”
Dylan stared him straight in the eyes so Roan had no chance of trying to weasel out of a genuine answer. “Let me into your world. Stop keeping me out.”
Did he know what a tall order that was? He must have, as he expected him to balk. But Roan didn’t. “Okay, I’ll try.”
“You’d better. My next snit, I’m throwing your stuff on the lawn.”
“Try it. I wanna see you pick up my desk.”
Dylan shook his head and looked away, smiling. “Such a smartass.”
“But a smartass with a rockin’ bod,” he teased and turned Dylan’s face to kiss him. Dylan slipped his arms around him and relaxed into his kiss like he’d been waiting for it all day. Roan knew he had been.
No matter what happened tomorrow, at least he hadn’t totally screwed things up with Dylan.
Yet.
Book Two: Bloodbath
1
Bear Away
ROAN wondered why anyone bothered with razor wire.
It was so easy to defeat. If you had a thick enough coat (leather preferred), you just threw it on the stuff and could climb over it quite easily. It might rip the shit out of your jacket, but you were fine if you were careful. That’s what Roan did, even though he had other options. He could have used bolt cutters to cut the chain around the rusty gate, or even just attempted a jump over the chain-link fence, as he was hardly a normal human. But that would have been a bit too Six Million Dollar Man for him, and he honestly didn’t know if he could jump that high.
The rest might have ruined any sense of surprise. He didn’t kid himself—there were probably CCTV cameras out here, hidden somewhere in the fourth of a mile of desert scrub up to the house, and the element of surprise was one he couldn’t count on for long—but he wanted to keep it for as long as humanly (or inhumanly) possible. He didn’t know how many people were there (although judging from all the scents he was picking up, many), and he didn’t know how well armed they were, but he knew these weren’t men who cared much for laws. They had killed before, and what was one more body?
But if he could get in close before they knew he was there, if he could get to the main house, he had a better-than-average shot of taking them down. In close quarters, he had all the advantage.
It was a time of day he usually tried to avoid—the cusp of morning, the sky gently cycling through many shades of indigo and blue as the sun started lighting the edge of the horizon. It was not proper morning, just frighteningly early, the chill bite in the air enough to raise goose bumps on his arms. In a handful of hours, it would be so hot out here it would be a nightmare (especially to one with as much Scottish blood and genetic paleness as him), but right now Roan was shivering as he walked along the ocher sand, scanning creosote bushes and tenacious Scotch broom for any hiding crepuscular snakes or any signs of cameras or electrical gear. Snakes had no smell—not really, not unless they were poisonous—but electrical equipment often had an ozone scent. He saw faint tire tracks, guessed they were from a jeeplike vehicle, and he was still studying them when he caught the scent of exhaust on the wind and heard the faint hum of a motor.
There wasn’t a lot of cover out here—this location was picked specifically for that reason, for the fact that if anyone came for them, they’d have a good half-mile head start—but there was enough scrub brush clumping together and enough lingering darkness that he figured he had some temporary cover as long as he didn’t move. He was wearing all black, his ninja gear as Paris would have called it, but here it had a very specific purpose. In full daylight, he’d stand out in a desert, but right now, in the ass crack of dawn, he was just another shadow. He crouched down behind the sour-smelling scrub in a hybrid kneeling/runner’s crouch, one leather-gloved hand flat against the sand. He would probably have surprise on his side here, but he would have to move fast—he didn’t want to risk gunshots until he absolutely had to. His muscles were thrumming like wires, ready to go, as he’d been priming his own adrenaline since before he reached the fence. His rage was a cold, constant variety, murderous and yet strangely clinical, and sometimes that actually made it harder to keep the cat out. It worked best in sudden, emotionally homicidal bursts, but who was the boss here? If it wanted to keep surviving, it would work with him.
The jeep pulled up about twenty feet away from the scrub—the open-topped kind with no side windows, Army surplus jeep, the kind that gave you better views and more angles at which to shoot at people out of your vehicle. The man who got out was pudgy but had a kind of utilitarian heft, part muscle and part fat. He was wearing a T-shirt that advertised a local titty bar and worn jeans that hung in a way that suggested he had french fry legs holding up his potato-shaped body. In spite of his leather jacket, he was also visibly wearing a gun, what looked like a .45 S&W in a worn belt holster done up in cowboy drag, and a hunting knife in a camo holder on the opposite hip. He was smoking a cigarette, holding a battered old red plaid thermos, which he poured out onto the sand—smelled like coffee, and since it didn’t steam, he assumed it was cold and disgusting. What Roan initially took for a cell phone on his belt appeared to be a walkie-talkie on second glance.
He had a nothing face, the kind you forgot while you were talking to him, soft and doughy, eyes as empty and glassy as potholes filled with rain, a ratty beard and mustache combo that looked from a distance like he painted his face with mud. He looked like he should have been wearing a cowboy hat, if only to cover up the bald spot in the direct center top of his scalp. He smelled like stale smoke, body odor, cordite, and arrogance.
The man glanced at the fence line, a casual look, routine, but he froze when he saw the coat over the top of the razor wire. He was about fifty yards away from the fence, and it could have been a person strung up there from this distance, at least if you didn’t look too hard. He squinted at it, hand reaching blindly for his walkie-talkie, and that’s when Roan decided to make his move. He felt the power gathering in his legs, coiling like springs, before he charged out of the brush, sprinting toward him as straight as an arrow.
It was all a blur really, although he saw it in slow motion, as he did often when the lion came out to play. The guy turned instantly toward him, reaching for his gun instead of his walkie-talkie, but he didn’t make it. Roan crashed into him like a bullet train, shoulder to the sternum, and the man didn’t fall back so much as get thrown back hard into his jeep, making it rock, his air leaving him in a pained grunt.
