Infected: Lesser Evils Read online

  Except him. Roan knew Holden would do anything for him; he was taking advantage of that to get him to finish the Jephson case. But Holden knew that, and since he hadn’t reacted, he obviously didn’t care. He didn’t consider that much of a price to pay.

  They left Lee’s apartment, and named a place and time to meet in the Heights. Based on some educated guesses, Roan could assume where the best hunting ground would be.

  Back at home, Roan had the place to himself, as Dylan was at his art collective’s loft that afternoon. He went ahead and packed a bag for the hospital, and found sorting through what books to take to be the hardest task. Roan hid pain pills under the paper in an otherwise full Altoids tin, and wondered if this meant he was a severe addict. Since he was riddled with tumors, he wasn’t sure he cared anymore.

  He wrote a note for Dylan, apologizing for everything, thanking him for staying with him when saner people would have run, and telling him he really did love him. He folded it up and stuck it in the pocket of a lightweight jacket Dyl wore only once in a while, so he might find it if… no, Roan wasn’t going to think like that. He was getting out of the hospital to piss people off yet again.

  In spite of the speed still coursing through his system, he lay down to have a nap, setting the alarm to get him up in case he totally conked out. Roan dreamed of blood, fire, and someone’s birthday party, for no apparent reason, only for the alarm’s blaring electric screech to wake him up. He changed into dark clothes, loose so if his bones started breaking he wouldn’t rip the seams, and wondered about taking a weapon before deciding that there was no point. Roan would get him or he wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to pull a gun. Unless Lee brought one, then he might use it on him just for spite.

  He took his motorcycle, as it had been a while since he’d taken it out, and he felt like taking her out one last time. He knew there was a parking garage just outside the Heights, for workers at a bank, but Roan knew of a secret loading entrance where he could bust into and stash the bike. Considering what he was planning to do, this was a minor crime.

  The Heights seemed deserted tonight, although not really. There were people on the street, homeless, panhandlers, some pedestrians but not many in this area. Mainly this area was rife with junkies, as any junkie who had a sense of shame left came under the cover of darkness to their local shooting gallery or crack den (whatever their poison was), and Roan wasn’t judging, mainly because he knew he was no better than them. He just didn’t see how they thought they could be hiding their addiction under the cover of darkness, when so many other signs gave it away. Even Roan knew he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  The flaw here was he had no idea when Lee did his hunting, except he assumed it would be earlier in the evening, mainly so it would give him time to skin his prey. Even if you were an old pro at it, skinning something took time, and he more or less tanned them, which added even more time and complication to his ritual. Lee wouldn’t wait until three in the morning to get this started, or he wouldn’t crawl home until after dawn.

  Roan had just secured the black watch cap on his head, hiding every strand of hair, when Holden melted out of the darkness like an expert, which he was. “Looks like you’re robbing a bank, sailor,” Holden said, in his usual silky way. It sounded sarcastic, but like most things with Holden, it was hard to tell. He was dressed down too, in worn jeans, a generic Hanes black sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and black leather gloves. There was something else too, something he could smell but couldn’t see.

  “I told you not to bring a gun.”

  “It’s only in case everything goes tits up. Don’t worry, I won’t pull it unless I have no choice at all.”

  Probably true, but Roan wasn’t crazy about it. “Do you have any kind of paperwork at all? Concealed carry, anything?”

  His smile was professional and empty, which told him all he needed to know. “I have loads of paperwork.”

  “Anything with your real name on it?”

  “My social security card.”

  “You gonna take things over, you get licensed, get everything aboveboard. Got it?”

  Holden saluted, and to his credit it didn’t appear to be sarcastic. Which was good, because Roan would have punched him if it was.

  He reiterated to Holden that he was to hold back, and hopefully have nothing to do. Roan wanted to work this himself, and pretty much had to, as Lee could miss one person coming after him, but to miss two he’d have to be a real idiot (a possibility that couldn’t be denied). Holden agreed, and he seemed to be on the level, but since it was Holden, Roan couldn’t be sure. Still, at least he knew, and when the time came, he was smart enough to get out of the way.

  Roan walked on, deeper into the tenement maze, toward the building where he’d found the slaughterhouse, and knew why Lee had picked this area. A lot of those unrestrained cats were probably from the drug houses, because a lot of infecteds became drug addicts if they weren’t addicts before their infection, and who was here to cage them if they transformed during or after getting a fix? No one. This also led to the possibility that the cats were partially drugged while loose, making them even easier kills for Lee.

  Well, technically Roan was drugged now. But an easy kill? He needed a shitload more drugs to be that. Although, to be honest, he had no idea how much it would take to shut the lion down. In theory, he was as easy a kill as any Human, but the lion was fucking relentless.

  Roan found a nice, out of the way spot beside a crumbling stairwell and made himself as small as possible, like a homeless man or a junkie who couldn’t go far without a fix, someone who could be easily ignored, urban wallpaper. His eyes adjusted to the dark, enough that he could see the rats here were pretty brazen, not afraid of much at all, not even cars, but him? One came halfway toward him, then turned its snout up, sniffing the air for maybe thirty seconds before turning and running off toward a garbage can across the way. Yeah, he continued not smelling right to any animal, even jaded rats who would probably attack a dog if given half the chance. He was a weird beast, and much like Humans, the rats had no idea what to do with him. Was it a coincidence that five minutes after that, Roan saw no rats at all? He couldn’t even hear them close by. As for Holden, he had no idea where he was. He’d stayed behind, like Roan had requested, and disappeared back into the shadows, out of both view and smelling range. But if Roan couldn’t see him, it was likely Lee couldn’t either, and wouldn’t bother, as he was a plain old uninfected Human, not his target at all.

  Roan found himself watching people coming and going out of the shooting gallery down the alley, as there wasn’t much else to do as he waited and let his nose get inured to all the horrible smells of daily living amplified by both willing and unwilling neglect. He heard deals go down, minor conflicts, slurred speech, and people begging for just one more something (chance, hit, extension until payday). He smelled infected people, and wondered if Lee just set up here and waited night after night until someone transformed. There was no way it could happen every night, or only when he was here. Did he have a hunter’s blind set up in one of these buildings? A sniper’s nest, only he simply watched and waited for the right time to go hunting? If that was true—and that must have been the case—how fucked-up was he?

  Suddenly Roan smelled a faint but telling trace of blood—his blood. And since he wasn’t currently bleeding, it could only be coming from one thing.

  Lee was here. Showtime.

  38

  Horse Girl

  ROAN carefully unfolded himself from his hiding place and sniffed the air, closing his eyes so he could concentrate on the neon thread of his own blood, the scent cutting through the miasma of neglect that made the air seem like a thick sludge. He gauged distance by its strength, opened his eyes, and followed it.

  Roan stuck to the shadows—not as easy as you would think, as it was night and the existence of shadows themselves was disputable—and it wasn’t too long before Roan found Lee, a shambling figure in a desert-style camo j
acket (tan on brown—exactly who did he think he was fooling?) with a worn backpack slung across his shoulders. Lee could have passed for any of Seattle’s homeless, except he smelled of expensive soap, and of course in his backpack he had an expensive compact crossbow and a set of quality knives. Roan watched as he headed to one of the seemingly abandoned tenements—not the one he’d found the abattoir in. Did Lee even know his skinning shack had been discovered by police? Maybe he didn’t care; maybe he knew that the worst he could be prosecuted for was desecration of a corpse. It wasn’t like he was killing “real” people.

  Lee went inside, and Roan waited, giving him time to get ahead of him. Roan was in no hurry, not as long as Lee had his crossbow with him. He was growling under his breath, and he tried to stop, but it was too painful. This was one of those times when he could feel the beast inside him stretching out, getting ready to lunge out of him like his skin was an ill-fitting suit. Roan would fight it for as long as he possibly could, but lately he hadn’t been doing so well reining in his impulses.

  Well, that just sucked for Lee, didn’t it?

  HOLDEN did his best to stay downwind of Roan, but that was kind of difficult, mainly because he wasn’t paying that much attention to wind direction. Did it matter anyways? Roan could probably smell him if he was anywhere within a hundred feet of him. How creepy must that be? Always smelling people. He bet they smelled horrible, no matter how much they bathed, like a poorly maintained zoo in summer. The thought was enough to make him shudder.

  Roan must have tagged his guy, as he headed for one of the “abandoned” buildings (abandoned, his ass; even if Holden were still on the street, he wouldn’t sleep there—it was a good way to get shanked in your sleep or gang-raped), and Holden kept him in view as he went inside. He didn’t want to seem like he was watching the building, but it was hard to pretend he wasn’t. Still, if Lee saw him, what was he going to do, fire a bow at him? All Holden could think in response to that was “Bring it on, Robin Hood,” but that was the sort of thing that landed you in the emergency room with an arrow in your ass.

  “Hey, wannablaugged?” a woman asked, approaching him unsteadily. She was thirty going on eighty, ridden ragged by drug abuse, her eyes glassy and slightly unfocused. She was sort of looking at him and sort of not, wearing a skirt way too short for her sticklike, veiny legs, goose pimpled from the cold, tottering unsteadily on her budget high heels, her half shirt thin and stretched perilously across her breasts, revealing her bra was a lighter color beneath. Her hair was stringy and dull, with the best-looking part of her ratty hair the clearly inferior weave that was sort of haphazardly interlaced through her locks. She smelled of body odor, cheap perfume, and Mad Dog crossed with crack smoke.

  “Pardon?”

  “Wanna blaughgged?” Her speech was slurred, like her tongue was swollen and heavy in her mouth, and Holden wondered if she had a tongue piercing that had gone wrong.

  After a moment of trying to figure out her mashed speech and her vaguely expectant expression, he interpreted what she said. “Are you asking if I want a blow job?” Her head twitched in a way that was probably a nod. “Hon, I’m a hooker too. I think it’s professional courtesy that we don’t mix.”

  It seemed to take a moment for that to sink in. “Yuga?”

  He had cracked her code—she had asked You gay? “Yep.”

  “Icunjerguoff.”

  In junkie whore speech, that was I can jerk you off. Wow, what an enticing proposition. Holden was about to tell her that when there was an unmistakable angry roar. Fear brought some of her awareness back, and she looked over his shoulder at the abandoned building. “Whaddafugizzat?”

  He dug a couple of twenties out of his pocket, and held them up, between his fingers. “I didn’t hear anything. Neither did you.”

  The wonderful thing about a prostitute was you didn’t need to barter with them. There didn’t need to be any explanation of terms or reasons given. You offered money, and that was enough; everything was understood. You were paying them to leave you alone and contract temporary amnesia. She took the money, and said, “Didunherfing.” Didn’t hear anything. She then turned and tottered away, even as someone screamed and there was another roar. “Oh, and if you encounter anyone on your way to the crack house,” Holden told her. “You may want to tell them to run.” If she heard him, she didn’t acknowledge it. It might not do any good anyways.

  Holden approached the building, wondering if he should run too. After all, there was nothing keeping Roan, in lion form, from coming after him. He was betting his life on Roan not doing the full lion, but having enough control to be pulled back from the brink. Considering his tumors and his general illness, this probably wasn’t a safe bet. But, the safer bet was he wouldn’t stay conscious through such a full, rapid transition, and that’s what Holden was betting on.

  As for Lee, he’d probably do the smart thing, and as soon as Roan collapsed, he’d make a run for it. And he’d run straight into a bullet.

  The thing about true psychopaths was they were generally smart enough (barely) to be bottom-feeders. They generally killed people in the lower rungs of society, people who wouldn’t be missed by authorities unless someone made a stink about it, or they became so egregious in their behavior it couldn’t be ignored. That meant hookers, junkies, gays, runaways, minorities of all stripes… infecteds included. Hell, it was legal to kill infecteds under certain circumstances, so who gave a shit?

  Holden did. As far as he was concerned, it was even worse than plain old murder; there was a sour taste of contempt to it all that really offended his sense of justice. The deaths weren’t even personal, they were killed because of what they represented, and at least if someone was going to murder you, they could know your fucking name. The least they could do was kill you for you, Holden could accept that a bit better. (Which was perverse, but whatever.)

  So, if things went as he assumed they would, Lee would think he’d caught a lucky break when Roan collapsed, and he’d come plunging straight into a hollow point, never quite knowing how bad his luck had turned.

  At least Holden knew his name.

  THE interior of this building was no better than the interior of the previous building, meaning if you wanted some Human shit and used needles, you were in luck. But by now Roan was accustomed to horrible smells, and he was able to shove them aside and focus on the scent of his own blood, which led up a rickety staircase. Slats were missing in the railing (less a railing and more the damaged ribcage of some decrepit old beast, left to rot in the sun), and the steps were mostly intact, although a couple were soft in some spots, the wood creaking and threatening to give way. Lee had gone up to the third floor, which was probably the last fully intact floor, but also high up enough to give him a good view of both of the major drug houses. Made sense; he never knew what drug of choice his potential victim would prefer. Might as well split the difference if at all possible.

  Roan was briefly worried about making a sound, but then stopped worrying about it, because the smell of rat shit suggested a major infestation, and they wouldn’t be quiet (the only reason they were quiet now was because they’d all fled; Lee, unobservant, hadn’t noticed the rodent tide fleeing ahead of a vaguely leonine tragedy of nature).

  He was still growling, and hadn’t stopped. The best Roan could do was keep it low, below a roar. But as he walked down the hall, toward an ajar door (Lee was just beyond it), he wondered how he should approach this. Was he really just going to attack? Or was he going to give this fuckstick one chance to say why the fuck he did this? Roan knew why; it could have been one of a handful of things, all based on hate, but he wanted to know what Lee’s insane rationale was. It was some obsessive-compulsive need to hear it straight from the lunatic’s mouth.

  Roan gave the door a tiny push, expecting a creaking hinge, but it was quiet. Lee was crouched by the frame of a former window, looking out with what might have been an expensive knockoff set of night vision binoculars. Roan could have pounced on
him with him never being the wiser, but something in him wanted Lee to be the wiser. Roan wanted Lee to face him, and realize what he’d brought upon himself.

  “Did you really think you’d get away with this forever?” Roan asked.

  Lee jumped up and spun, dropping his binoculars and raising his crossbow. Upon seeing Roan, he got slightly wide eyed. Lee was a plain-looking white man with a weak chin and widely spaced eyes; not truly ugly, but very average, not a winner of beauty contests. It was sort of funny—you hoped that the truly evil would look that way, but more often than not they looked just like the guy ahead of you at Starbucks. You saw this guy a billion times and never really noticed him.

  “Hey, you’re that kitty fag!”

  Roan sighed, which was difficult to do since he was still growling. “I have a name. Why don’t you people ever remember—”

  Lee had fired his crossbow, which Roan knew was coming. It was the way Lee shifted his balance, the way his arm tensed before he pulled the trigger, it telegraphed his move like a bad poker player accidentally showing his hand. Roan had lunged for him with a roar just when Lee fired, and he was fairly sure he felt the arrow fly past his ear, possibly nick it, before he crashed into Lee and rode him down to the floor.