Infected: Shift (51 page)

She sighed again, long and low, but afterward she said, “I wish you were back on the force, Angus. For a crazy asshole, I think you were the sanest one here.”

“Holy shit, are things that bad?”

“It seems like it sometimes. Ignore me, it’s been a shitty day.”

“Tell me about it.” The pain in his head was getting worse. It felt like the slow-motion explosion of a migraine. The problem with that was migraines usually gave more warning. Still, his partial transformation could have fucked up the schedule.

“Yeah, how was that cat thing? I heard you got scratched up pretty bad.”

“I’m fine.” He really didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“Yeah, macho man, you always say that.”

“Like you don’t.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a woman. We always handle these kinds of things better than you wimpy men.”

“Sexism! I could have your badge.”

“You can have it.” After another frustrated sigh, she said, “It’s been a day for crazies. I got called out to a scene first thing this morning—it’s probably on the news, if you bother to watch it—where a guy took a shotgun to his family in a mobile home.”

“No.” More of sympathy than disbelief. He had little trouble believing it occurred. “Bad scene?”

“Four kids under thirteen, his wife, and then himself. It looks like the ten year old tried to fight back and escape through the bathroom window, but she never had a chance.”

“Jesus.” He rubbed his eyes, which now had the dull, hollow hurt of a migraine. This fucker was coming on fast, like it was just waiting for the drugs to wear off so it could jump into the fray. “So what excuse did this dirtbag fuckjob leave behind?”

“Well, from what I can tell, he thought his wife was cheating on him. Did I mention he married her when she was fifteen and pregnant? He was twenty-two at the time.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess controlling, abusive, immature bastard.”

“Also guess unemployed and eighty pounds overweight and yeah, you’ve got a good picture of him. Fuck, I hate this job sometimes, you know? It’s not about catching the bad guy. It’s about picking up the pieces and throwing them away. The worst part was the false hope we could pillory this guy, you know? A neighbor called it in, ’cause they thought they saw a body through the window—nobody heard the gunshots; a shotgun in a fucking mobile home park and yet no one fucking heard the thing—but the guy was gone, and I thought maybe I’d get to string the bastard up by his balls, show pictures of his ten-year-old’s head splattered across a shower curtain until every juror wanted to beat him to death with the gavel… but then the fucker’s car gets spotted by the highway patrol in a lot behind a bar. He killed himself there, God knows why. And now I have all this disgust and I have no one to vent it on. I just have pictures of entrance wounds and exit wounds, when there was enough of a body left to call it an exit wound, and I have these e-mails and phone messages left by the killer that show me what a selfish, immature, hideous prick of a man he was. Fuck.”

“Know what helps? Working the heavy bag. Or any punching bag really. Go now, hit the gym, beat the shit out of an inanimate object until you’re ready to drop.”

“Like I don’t fucking know that?” She made a noise of frustration, one he was very familiar with, and he let her have a few seconds. Finally, she said, “Sorry, yeah, I probably oughta. My victories feel smaller and smaller.”

“I know the feeling. It happens to us ex-cops too, if it’s any consolation.”

“It’s not, but thanks.”

There was a long silence, but it wasn’t awkward. It was the silence of two people who really wanted to help people and often found themselves wondering why. Why would anyone want to help people when they were so fucking awful? You had to ask yourself that question a hundred times, and maybe Dropkick sometimes came up with an answer. Roan knew he almost never did.

Dropkick broke the silence once more, clearly trying to get her mind off the wholesale family slaughter she had to sort out this morning. “Can you ask Holden and his hooker pals about any customers they have in the military, or maybe among truckers? I’m thinking our serial will be among them, since if I’m right about Jane Doe, this guy travels.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that.” Spokane was in Eastern Washington, and Coyote and Karen worked here, on the Western side. But there was that serial killer in the military—was he Air Force? Roan couldn’t remember—who killed mainly in Eastern Washington but had a couple of known victims in Western Washington when he was stationed here. There was also a trucker serial killer, although he spread his handiwork along the I-5 corridor from California through Oregon and to here, pretty much leaving investigators an obvious clue to his profession. “I know Holden’s had a military client or two, one gave him his dog tags. I’ll see what he can find out.” He didn’t tell her it seemed to be a porn site that was doing genuine snuff films, mainly because it sounded like something out of a Dennis Cooper novel. Also, because the Feds would have to be brought in, and they might escape. Well, no, they’d probably get caught. But Roan didn’t want them caught. Did he want to kill them? He didn’t know. His impulse was to hurt these fuckers, hurt them for seeking out and killing some of the most vulnerable adults (near adults, if Jane Doe was indeed a victim) and filming it for the sexual gratification of equally sick motherfuckers.

But if Jane Doe was one, how did that work? A snuff film site didn’t travel, didn’t change locations…

… or did it? Why was he assuming they were doing this only at one place? Why did he assume anything when he had so little to go on?

“You’re not gonna do your usual thing, are you?”

“What’s my usual thing?”

“Getting your own brand of revenge instead of turning him over to the correct authorities. That ring a bell at all, Roan?”

“I deny that. Since when have I ever gotten revenge on anyone?”

She snorted derisively. “You can play the game. You know how to rig the system. You may not do anything actionable, but come on. How weird is it that all the guilty parties you finger end up… punished?”

“I’m
The Punisher
now?” Wow, his head was really bad right now. He was trying to keep things light, but the pain was really throbbing, becoming nuclear, sending hot filaments through his gray matter. Jesus, he could have used Dee and his Demerol right now.

“I hope not. What a shitty film.” After a brief pause, she asked, “Are you okay? You sound funny.”

“Bit of a headache,” he admitted. “Probably oughta go now.”

“Yeah, okay. But Roan, about the usual thing… maybe it wouldn’t be so bad this time around. Take care of yourself.” And before he could say a word, she hung up. Wow, she must have had a bad day if she was giving him license to kill the bastards. She didn’t even know about the snuff film angle of all of this.

He needed painkillers, and he needed them now. He attempted to sit up, but the pain was so bad his head felt like it was filled with molten lava, and sitting up seemed like a pipe dream, something bizarrely out of reach. Oh, no—something was wrong.

He rolled over on his side and gritted his teeth against the pain just as Dylan came in. “I was gonna run to the store, we’re out—holy shit, Ro? Hon, what’s wrong?”

“Oh fuck, Dyl, my head hurts so much,” he said, feeling like he was going to have to hold his skull together with his hands to keep it from bursting apart. “Can you get the Percocet? I’ll be fine if I have a couple of those.”

Dylan looked down into his face, and Roan could see the horror in his eyes. “You’re flushed, your eyes—” He didn’t finish the sentence, he simply reached for the phone and snagged the handset. He punched in a couple of numbers, so few that Roan knew he could only be calling 9-1-1. “I need an ambulance,” he said, keeping his voice as emotionless as possible.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” Roan asked through gritted teeth. But in immediate retrospect, he realized he didn’t want to know.

He thought he’d been flirting with an aneurysm. But you know, he'd thought the danger was over. So much for wishful thinking.

Roan
woke up in bed and was so warm and cozy, he decided he wasn’t getting up. Except things started nagging at him, little things he couldn’t quite dismiss as easily as he wanted to. Like the fact that the body cuddling him was a bit too large to be Dylan and also smelled ever so faintly of tiger.

Paris would do this a lot, not so much snuggle against him as cover him like a blanket. He rather liked it, actually. He loved the smell of him and the feeling of his weight, the way his warm skin felt against his. It felt like Paris was trying to protect him even in their sleep, and while he would normally balk at the idea of anyone protecting him, he still liked the comfort of it.

He was aware this was all wrong, yet at the same time he actually didn’t give a shit. “Am I supposed to think I’m dead or something? ’Cause you know, even if I believed in an afterlife, I know this wouldn’t be it.”

“Why?” Paris asked in his teasing voice. “Am I not divine?”

He sighed heavily, although he felt a twinge in his chest. That was exactly the kind of cheesy joke Paris would make. “I’m brain damaged, is that it? I had an aneurysm, and a section of my brain has died. Now I think you’re here, or I’m imagining it as a comforting fantasy.”

Paris stroked his hair and nuzzled his neck, which was familiar and nice. “You have to be cynical about everything, don’t you?”

“I know this is my subconscious or unconscious, or a hallucination. I’m just wondering how bad it is.”

“How would I know? I’m you.”

“Good point.” Paris’s hand was on his stomach, so he picked it up and kissed his palm before letting it fall back on his chest. “I miss you.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Paris replied sympathetically. “But you have Dylan now. You love him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” It was funny, but while he could easily lie to himself, he couldn’t while he thought he was talking to Paris. “But not like you. It’s different.”

“It would be. But you be good to him. Hear me?”

“I hear you. But if I’m a drooling vegetable, there’s no way I can be.”

“Like that would ever happen to you,” he said, giving Roan a quick kiss on the nape of his neck. “You’re a superhero, remember? You can only die on television.”

Roan was puzzling over that cryptic comment when he woke up, not overly surprised to be in an uncomfortable bed, surrounded by the horrible smells of a hospital.

But having Tank in his room? Yeah, that was a surprise.

For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming, but then Tank noticed he was awake and said, “Bonjour, Roan. How you feeling, ’ey?” Tank had started growing facial hair that looked like a combination between a soul patch and a goatee; it was hard to say if it was intentional or accidental. It was also, oddly enough, a reddish gold, whereas the unruly mop of hair on his head was a sort of a polished-cedar color. He was standing up near the back corner of the room, and it looked like he’d been checking a text message on his phone. Only now, with this new weird facial hair, did Roan see an oh-so-slight resemblance to the late Alice In Chains singer Lane Staley, although Tank was shorter, more muscular, and undoubtedly much more Quebecois (and less heroin addicted).