Breeds 2 (26 page)

A sharp scream broke his thoughts and he looked to the door of the janitor’s station.

The fuck was that now
? Jake’s shift had started in glorious fashion with a whole pizza, ass-up, on the tiles only fifteen minutes ago, and now what? Burritos? Sub sandwiches? Baby barf?

He hesitated, considered flat-out ignoring the scream, and then felt bad for even thinking about ignoring it. Jake placed his mop against a wall. Five seconds later, he opened the door.

A big guy in a sweatshirt stood there, hunched over as if about to tackle someone, and that was all Jake knew. The man grabbed him by the shirt and whipped him face-first into the nearest wall. The impact wasn’t as spectacular as Joey’s, but it was messy enough that Jake went down and did not move again.

John roared at the unmoving man, livid that he had been challenged. He took hold of an arm and vigorously twisted it left and right before releasing the broken limb. A long, well-lit hallway proceeded a good twenty meters before turning a corner. Three closed doors dotted the passage but John ignored them, acutely aware of the grand spectrum of aromas issuing from deeper within the mall. John—but part of him was sensing he was no longer John—thought about the one called Haley. He didn’t like what he’d done to her, but a building, all-encompassing rage immolated that regret, compelling him onward, urging him to do more. Telling him he
could
do more. Much more.

He pounded a wall and the chalky crumple of wallpapered cement echoed briefly. Voices lurked around the corner. Many voices.

John was pissed off enough to see what they were.

His claws raked the wall as he walked by, leaving tattered curls in his wake.

Images blurred through his mind’s eye, and the word “Bailey” came to him. Bailey was his name. His true name. He rumbled with recognition, and felt the mounting pressure of gathering memories just behind the thinnest, straining membrane of total recall. Bailey remembered mesmerizing fragments, unable to grasp the grand scope of it all. He remembered violence with ease, and inherently knew he exceled at destruction. His hands had changed and he stopped to examine them at the corridor’s corner. Voices filled his ears and wrenched his attention away from the red sickles weaponizing his fingers. Bailey eventually turned the corner and beheld another tunnel of white. At the end, however, a crowd—a herd—of people walked through the mouth, appearing and disappearing in seconds.

Bailey went to them.

He emerged in an enormous food court that sat perhaps three hundred people at the very least, eating, drinking, chatting––their noses in shopping bags, rummaging through the evening’s purchases. Some laughed and some sat hunched over, feeding in earnest. One of them, the closest to Bailey, looked up when he appeared at the mouth of the hallway.

Bailey slammed the chewing head into the table, splintering the plastic surface.

That got the attention of the masses and for a fleeting moment, the entire glass and steel and fabricated wood cavern focused upon him in stunned silence.

A team of security guards, metal batons already extended, appeared at the fringes of the food court and weaved through the people, closing in on the apparent hostile shopper.

Bailey roared, throwing his hands wide and startling the nearest shoppers.

Several humans hugged their children close, staring at Bailey with wide-eyed dismay bordering on outraged hatred. A few even stood and pointed Bailey out to the approaching security team. A pack of teenagers stood and watched with gameplay delight. A man—a big man wearing the latest winter style—got up from his table with two others and faced Bailey.

The man reached out a calming hand, his reddening expression twisted into a scowl. “Hey, dude, the hell’s the matter—”

Bailey took the hand and its attached arm and flung the man ten feet behind him as an afterthought.

The man’s two other companions stood. One dark-haired with a braid, the other wearing a black-and-white snowflaked toque.

Bailey raked the face of the dark-haired one, shredding flesh. The blow drove the man to his knees while thick fluids, bright under the fluorescent lights, gushed over his chest. The second man got in close enough to punch Bailey, cracking his jaw to one side. Bailey slashed the puncher’s stomach, opening the sweater and the skin underneath. The puncher dropped to his knees, cradling his midsection as he bent over as if in worship. The tiles turned red.

That was enough to incite the stampede.

The spooked herd of humans dropped their plastic trays of mush and fled. Shrieks spiked the air and melded into a single off-key note of chaos. Children stumbled amongst the tables, crying and squealing and impeding the rush of men and women. Some fell in their haste, others were knocked off their feet. The mob flooded the exits and the corridors, stampeding away from the food court frenzy.

The security team struggled against that thrashing tide, closing in on the man with the bloodied hands and Halloween makeup. One security guard gave up and ran with the rest, hauling a pair of teenage girls to their feet from where they had frozen at a table.

Bailey watched them go, roared so they would move faster. His limbs thrummed with newfound strength, and he sensed the awkward yet undeniable righteousness of it all. His jaws snapped and he ripped the nearby tabletops free.

Four new challengers fought free of the retreating herd, not so easily frightened.

Two women and two men. One man could have been an athlete of some measure, tall but bulky with fat rather than defined muscle. The women were just as tall but slender, their drawn faces brave and focused, their batons extended like singular claws.

“Get down on the floor,” one of them yelled. “Get down on the floor now!”

Bright-eyed and showing teeth, Bailey did not obey.

“Get down!” the smaller man insisted with a pointed finger, brandishing his own club. Three more guards appeared at the absolute corners of the emptying food court, racing to reinforce their companions. Bailey snarled, warning them to stay back, and looked to one of the table units to his left, complete with seats, all suspended by a singular post of considerable thickness.

“
I said get down, goddammit
!”

Instead, Bailey crouched, reached out, and fastened a hand around the table’s thick support column. Claws clicked on the smooth surface. He paused, securing his grip, while black eyes narrowed to slits.

Just before he ripped the unit free of the floor.

The police had Regency Park cordoned off when Kirk and Carma arrived, so they parked across from a lengthy stone wall that marked the park’s southern border and waited for night. Officers milled about the crime scene, collecting evidence and taking pictures, while the multiple yellow ribbons that cut up the area seemed to be missing a bow. Carma scanned the site as parked cruiser lights whirled, shooing off the dark. People filled the sidewalks, all hopeful and patiently waiting for a peek.

“Okay, you stay here,” Carma told Kirk as she unbuckled. “I’m going in.”

“You’re going in there?”

She frowned. “Yeah, I’m going in there. Don’t repeat everything I say as a question. It’s annoying.”

“Cops are everywhere in there.”

“It’s a
park
, you turkey. Plenty of places for me to hide. No one will see me coming or going and I’ll sure as hell smell them before they hear me. Besides, it’s dark.”

“Turkey,” Kirk muttered.

“What?”

“You called me turkey. That’s an improvement over what you used to call me.”

“What did I used to call you?”

“Dumbass.”

Carma held his gaze for a moment before allowing a wry smirk. “Did I call you that?”

“You did. Several times.”

“Huh. Wow. How about that.”

“Yeah.”

“Keep the radio on,” Carma said and cracked the door open. “Give me an hour at least. I should be back then.”

“And if you aren’t?”

Carma shook her head in annoyance. “What do you mean ‘and if you aren’t’? Christ, Doug. And don’t you dare tell me to be careful or I swear to God I’ll slap the living stupid out of your ass.”

She closed the door only to open it a second later.

“Dumbass.”

Kirk smiled wanly as Carma slammed the door and trotted off. He watched her look both ways before crossing the street, her hands deep into the pockets of her winter coat. She resembled a woman from abroad, trudging through the icy winters of Sweden or Norway. She reached the sidewalk and soon disappeared past clots of onlookers. Her plan was to enter the park far and away from the masses, where there were no streetlights, where no one would be looking. Carma was an old pro at stealth. No one would see her coming or going.

That, and Kirk
was
a dumbass.

He sighed and strummed the steering wheel with a thumb, taking in the parked police cruisers and vans that glutted the park’s main entrance. Maybe she would be lucky and catch a whiff of something. Kirk was hopeful. They still had plenty of time before the next full moon, but something seemed off about that. He didn’t know what it was, but a bad feeling crossed his heart, dampening his spirits.

His eyes drifted back to the main entrance of the park. Police officers moved with purpose amongst the cars, women and men in uniform and outfitted with protective vests. At one point in his life, Kirk wanted that very job. He wanted to protect the city’s people, wanted to enforce the law and bring evildoers into the light. As he watched the police walk about their vehicles, his expression softened, shifting into a dreamy glaze, and he remembered those childhood days. Then puberty hit, and his world spun out of control. His
were
blood matured, and he later became chosen as a warden, a protector, of the weak and defenseless human herds. A glorified sheep dog that kept the wolves at bay, ensuring that only a few were ever preyed upon during the year. He could do that part of the job, but it was the other part, the
were
part, that worried him. He’d seen feeding werewolves firsthand and didn’t share their taste for blood, refrained from partaking in the scheduled hunts. Hunts that he supposed were sometimes necessary, even though he despised the thought of them. He imagined there were parts of the job the officers didn’t care for either, but he couldn’t think of what they might be—beyond what they were dealing with at the moment. The uniform looked noble and every bit as gallant as a suit of medieval armor.

Kirk rubbed his throbbing temples and settled into the seat, savoring the smell of Carma even as it dissipated from the truck.

His cell phone rang in the cup holder. Kirk watched it vibrate for a second before picking it up and checking the number.

Morris.

Debating whether to ignore it or answer, Kirk plunged ahead and flipped the phone open.

“Yeah?”

“Kirk.”

“Yeah.”

“You alone?”

“Huh?”

A pause on the line. “I asked if you were alone.”

A group of five police officers stood in close quarters amongst their cars and vans. One of them was talking, the others listened. Kirk wished he could read lips.

“Yeah, I’m alone.”

“Where’s Carma?”

“How’d you know she was with me?”

“Good guess.”

“Well, you can guess where she went, too.”

Silence for a bit. “I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t talk on the phone?”

“No.”

“All right.” Kirk shifted, unease creeping in, threatening to sour his guts. “I’m at the park.”

“I know.”

A set of fingers rapped on the passenger side window and Kirk jumped. After recovering from the scare, he glared at the Pictou warden and shook his head. A grim Morris opened the door and got inside.

“Is that shit I smell?” Morris asked.

“If it is, you’re cleaning it up.”

“Ha.”

“All right, so you’re here,” Kirk said. “How’d you know we’d be here?”

“Didn’t. Cops were zeroing in on the place while I was a couple of streets over, so I just followed my nose. Got in amongst the ambulance chasers and the death peekers like any curious passerby. Was waiting for night to come on when I spotted your truck. Saw her so I stayed out of sight and smell. Where’d she go?”

“Carma? Into the park to see if she can catch a whiff of anything.”

“Good. I saw her get out.”

“All right, well, she’s gone and I’m here and you wanted to talk. Start talking.”

Morris looked at the truck’s passenger door and slowly flicked the lock.

“Okay,” Kirk noted. “So we’re both safe and sound now. Good for us. What the hell do you want?”

Morris drew a hand over his face and stared ahead. “I had to get out of the apartment. It was too bad. Too tense.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what I mean, right?”

Kirk shrugged. “Maybe. Didn’t we talk about this before?”

“I did, but you didn’t,” Morris said. “You’re just too sensitive.”

Kirk studied the warden’s profile. “Yeah.”

“So you know what I’m talking about?”

Kirk nodded.

“You don’t eat people. I know that. Turns my guts in a way, but I’m past that. So what do you do? Since you’re something of a vegan.”

“I eat what I can.”

“Like what?”

“Roasts. Beef. Pork.”

“You cook that?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Nothing raw?”

Kirk realized his fingers had stopped strumming the steering wheel. “Sometimes.”

“And that takes the edge off? Since you won’t hunt people? Or try to avoid it at least?”

A huge drop of rain spattered the windshield, followed by several others.

“Sometimes.”

“Only sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

“The smell,” Morris began with a sigh, “the smell of Ezekiel was driving me crazy.”

“Me too.”

To his surprise, Morris didn’t pounce on the admission.

“This Harvest Moon,” the Pictou
were
began, “I partook. Killed a guy. Like everyone else. Just like all the other wardens. Well, except maybe you, y’goddamn hippy dicksmack. Hunted two days before the moon, actually. That didn’t take the edge off at all. I knew then that I had a problem. Felt the pressure building, y’know?”