Feral Nights (2 page)

It has to be painful, discussing your own murder. Travis didn’t even reveal his ghostly self to me until the twenty-first of December (I swallowed my gum), and other than during one disastrous road trip, I’d been coming here at least twice a week since he died back in September.

“I’ve told you,” Travis replies. “It was Friday the thirteenth. Ruby said she needed to talk. She invited me out for a walk in the park, and so I went.”

I zip my jacket. My wereopossum metabolism usually keeps me warm enough, but Travis’s spiritual presence has a chilling effect. Like a ghostly mini air conditioner.

Resisting the temptation to come right out and call him a dumbass, I say, “A badly lit, secluded park on Friday the thirteenth, and you knew she was a werepredator, and you went anyway?”

He hangs his head, hunches his shoulders, and suddenly I feel lousy for picking on the dead guy. “Yeah.” I wave my hand dismissively. “I know. Ruby is hot, hotty, hotness personified — evil of course, but abso-freaking-lutely four-alarm, red smokin’ hot.” I may have overstated my point. “I would’ve gone, too.”

You have to watch out for Cat people. They use sex like a weapon.

“Ruby was saying something about the local cops when she suddenly froze and her claws came out. She hissed at me to beat it, and I did. I hauled butt.”

It goes without saying that Dillos aren’t particularly speedy.

“When I looked back,” Travis concludes, “she’d forced a quick shift — it had to have hurt — and then sprang off in animal form. I’d just made it to the parking lot when paws slammed me to the ground.” He shudders. “The last thing I remember is saber teeth sliding into the back of my neck.” Travis rubs the area as if it still hurts.

Despite werecats’ typical BS about their being distantly related to sabertooth tigers (or at least sabertooth weretigers), no known modern species of Cat have teeth that extend past their jaws. However, they insist on referring to their canines as “saber teeth” because the word
canine
has such a strong Coyote/Wolf connotation.

“Ruby lured you out and let you have a head start so she could chase you,” I realize out loud. “I guess it’s true what they say. Cats love to play with their food.”

“Why me?” Travis asks. “I wasn’t a fast runner. If she was looking for sport . . .”

“She’s a Cat,” I remind him. “They think with their stomachs and genitals. Logic doesn’t apply.” Shifter-on-shifter violent crime is rare, though, except between certain longtime warring groups like Lions and Hyenas or Orcas and Seals.

“Has there been any progress with the police investigation?” he wants to know.

I’ve hounded Detectives Zaleski and Wertheimer for details, but they’ve as much as admitted that the case is getting colder every day. They insist they’re not giving up, and I guess it’s possible there’s stuff they’re not telling me.

After all, I’m not only a sixteen-year-old civilian. I’m also a poster child for everyone who’s ever gotten their booty kicked. My parents, my friends, the cops — everyone’s overprotective of me.

Realizing Travis is still waiting for an answer, I say, “They’re trying, but —”

“I know,” he replies. “They’ve got a lot of other things to worry about.” And it’s not like any case, even a murder, is as important to them as this one is to us.

Travis dematerializes without saying good-bye, and who can blame him? My own best friend was mauled to death, partly eaten, and what have I done about it?

Come to think about it,
that
must be why my Dillo pal is haunting this park — the scene of the crime — and why I’m the only one he’s shown himself to.

Travis’s killer — Ruby Kitahara — is living free and easy and without regrets. If he’s to have any hope of resting in peace, he needs me to find her.

He needs me to make her pay for what she’s done.

The babies are screaming. Clara is screaming in the nursery down the hall. Claudette is screaming in the kitchen sink. Cleatus is screaming in the bouncer chair in front of the TV, and Clint is screaming in the playpen while pointing at Scooby on-screen.

“Clyde,” Dad calls, “do something!” He’s supposedly bathing Claudette.

If the kits were quints instead of quads, I might be a reality-TV star by now, bitching about the paparazzi, accompanied by nubile twenty-something personal assistants/au pairs, but alas, a grand total of five kids doesn’t cut it.

Still, if more humans were shifter-friendly, the Possum angle might’ve sold the show. I could’ve launched an improv career with off-color jokes about my prehensile tail.

“Pick one!” my father yells. “Cleatus! He’s closest.”

Cleatus just took a dump, and it’s his squalling that set off the others.

Holding my breath, I maneuver the chair to scoop up the stinky baby in one arm and roll down the hall to the changing table in the nursery.

It isn’t usually only Dad and me versus the bellowing horde, but Mom ducked out to pick up diapers fifteen minutes ago, which is apparently two minutes longer than we can handle the kits without the house falling into chaos. It’s not our fault. Possum babies are biologically hardwired to cling to their mothers.

It takes some doing to get Cleatus wiped, powdered, and relocated to his crib, but fortunately, my parents found a wheelchair-accessible changing table. Then I roll across the room to cheer up Clara by shaking a rattle and making monkey noises.

Back in the family room, Clint’s wailing comes to a hiccupping halt as my soaking-wet dad slips a freshly towel-dried Claudette into the bouncer chair. “Let’s wait until your mother comes home to bathe the rest.”

Multiple births are over fifty percent more common among werepeople than humans. But Dad spent much of the past several years working at an oil rig in the Gulf, so I was an only child until the kits were born.

I love the little poopers, and I like having my father around again.

It’s hard on a family, being apart.

My parents even separated for a while, but after I was born, they fell back into a rhythm together. When the quads came, Dad had to commit more face time to the family. Now he’s studying to get certified as a science teacher and overparenting me out of guilt because he wasn’t around much when I was growing up.

Turning down the TV, he says, “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you.”

“Again?” At his expression, I add, “I aced Driver’s Ed. I know how to tie a tie, and I learned everything I need to know about sex from the Internet.”

He plops into the sofa chair. “About that monstrosity of an SUV . . .”

The car was a gift from my friend Quincie, who sort of inherited it. Other than this afternoon’s child-care break, Dad and I have spent the day sprucing it up. I can’t wait to show Aimee. “I can afford the gas. Or at least I’ll be able to once I get that raise —”

“I’d feel better about your working if your grades were better.” Dad stands and navigates around the toys on the floor to the Christmas tree. “But it’s more than that.” He unravels a strand of popcorn from the branches. “You’ve had a lot to deal with lately — the babies, your physical therapy, my moving back in, and what happened to Travis.”

Dad missed the funeral. Up to this point, only Mom has brought up Travis’s death. I can’t tell them about my newfound mission to find his killer. They worry enough as it is.

“You’re in a growth spurt, too,” Dad adds. “You’re tall for a Possum, filling out.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” I reply, though I did get new clothes for solstice and Christmas. Stuck in this chair, constantly looking up at other people, it’s hard to feel tall.

“I bet Aimee has noticed,” Dad says.

Now we’re getting down to it. Nice man, my father. Not known for his subtlety.

“We’re just friends,” I reply, plucking a sticky discarded pacifier from between the couch cushions. I set it on the coffee table to be washed. “You don’t like Aimee?”

She isn’t one of us, so to speak. My father has always seemed open-minded about others — humans and non-Possum shifters. But parents tend be more conservative when romance (and/or the possibility of sex) is involved, and Mom and Dad were “taken aback,” as they put it, by the matching half-inch-tall crosses that Aimee and I had inked around our necks.

“Aimee was Travis’s girl,” I explain. “I’m keeping an eye on her for him. You know, to honor his memory.” It’s a phrase I picked up at the funeral.

Dad drops the string of popcorn into a trash bag. “I didn’t realize.”

I shrug. “Now you do.”

“THE KEY TO GRADUATING
from sidekick to hero,” Clyde says, “is all about the car.”

“The car?” I can barely hear him above the din of the bustling restaurant kitchen where we work part-time as dishwashers. By “we,” I mostly mean “me.”

As usual, he’s busier running his mouth than the sprayer. That’s okay. As much as I love this place, our particular jobs aren’t super interesting. “What about the car?” I ask.

Clyde recently procured an ugly beige SUV, a major trade-up from his old compact, and he’s been obsessing over it ever since.

“Think about it,” he replies, scraping plates clean. “Does Robin drive the Batmobile? Does Wonder Girl fly the invisible plane?”

“They have the power to fly independently,” I point out. “So why do the Wonders even need a plane?”

“Way back, she — never mind. That’s not the point. There
is
an invisible plane, and Wonder Girl
never
flies it.”

“Which Wonder Girl?” I counter. “Donna Troy or Cassie —?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, clearly impatient. “Neither of them flies the plane.”

“Are you sure?” Arguing with Clyde is usually an ordeal, but I enjoy it. “What about Drusilla, from the old
Wonder Woman
TV show?” We rented and watched it over the holidays. The World War II episodes are more fun than the “modern-era” ones.

“She’s not canon!” Clyde exclaims.

I don’t bring up the more recent animated productions. We have a pact to always discuss those separately.

It’s ten minutes after six. Sanguini’s is always booked solid, but Saturdays are especially intense. Using my sleeve, I wipe my forehead. The restaurant just opened at sunset, but we had prep dishes to take care of first.

“Hey, kids!” The manager, Sergio, offers us each a glass. “Take ten.”

I immediately chug my ice water as a couple of the waiters snag their appetizer orders. One is decked out in a red satin shirt and black leather pants, complete with a high-necked cape. The other is costumed as a Turok-Han vamp.

That’s not unusual around here. The shtick is that this Italian restaurant is supposedly staffed by the undead. Consequently, dining-room employees model Goth-style attire, and the majority of guests arrive similarly or at least spookily dressed. It’s paranormal cosplay to the nth degree. Pretend, most of the time.

“Here, take these!” Sergio presents Clyde and me with personalized business cards, both with the title
Culinary Engineer.
“Every Sanguini’s employee is an essential team member,” he insists. “We all contribute to making this place a success. Let me know tonight if you want any changes, and you can pick up a box of them with your check next Friday.”

It’s my first business card. Nifty. I thank Sergio, slip it in my wallet, and head out to take ten with Clyde. We exit the building via the rear ramp, and he rolls to the parking lot. He’s doing better with the wheelchair, and pushing it has built up his arms.

Last fall, Clyde was critically injured in a real-life vampire attack. It took powerful healing magic to pull him out of the subsequent coma. Despite physical therapy and his heightened wereopossum healing abilities, he’s still on the mend.

I double-take at the vehicle in the handicapped spot. “Is
that
your car?”

Under the overhead light, the once-beige Ford Explorer is covered with gleaming dominoes — from roof to hubcaps, everything but the windows, mirrors, tires, and license plate . . . hundreds, maybe thousands of them.

When I glance down for an answer, Clyde isn’t in his wheelchair. He takes a few halting steps on the asphalt — the first time I’ve seen him stand on his own since being injured. “These dominoes were made from shifter bones.”

“Bones?” I move in for a closer look, determined not to make too big of a deal out of the fact that he’s walking. Clyde gets self-conscious easily.

“Some people collect them,” he informs me.

“Isn’t that sacrilegious?” I hesitate. “Or at least disrespectful?”

Clyde bristles. “Collecting them or my sticking them on my car?”

I was thinking both, actually, but I let it go. As a human being, it’s really not my place to lecture him on what shape-shifters should find offensive.

In the past year, my social circle expanded to include the furry, feathered, and armored after I became close friends with a sweetheart of a werearmadillo named Travis through the Environmental Club at school. He was considerate and gentlemanly (and okay, kind of lumpy-looking). When it comes to guys, I prefer substance over style.

Travis was my “almost” first love, my “maybe” first love. Then last September someone tore him into bloody pieces before we could figure “us” out.