Nocturnal (53 page)

He was pointing at a little black girl, stiff and rigid, forever frozen in her final pose. She held a knife in her left hand and a fork in her right. Her skin had started to split on the left forearm, pulling away from the white foam material underneath.

Bryan tilted his head back and sniffed at the air. He turned in place and sniffed again, his nose wrinkling.

“Pooks, you smell that?”

Pookie sniffed. The faint odor of ammonia? That, and some other things he couldn’t name. “Yeah, I do. You find the source, I’ll get some shots of these things.”

Pookie pulled out his phone and snapped pictures: the little girl; the crowbar-man; the other stuffed people; a massive, muscular five-hundred-pound thing that looked an awful lot like a predatory human-beetle hybrid; a woman in a summer dress who was normal save for skin covered with inch-long scales that glimmered soft, rainbow reflections of the lights above; a black-furred thing on all fours that was about as big as a German shepherd, but with sharp, foot-long pincers instead of jaws.

“Pooks, come check this out.”

Bryan was at the back of the room, staring through an open door. Pookie joined him, looking in at a ten-foot-by-twenty-foot room made of old, ill-fitting bricks. In the middle sat a stainless-steel workbench. Metal workshop shelves full of boxes and pull-out drawers lined the walls. A closed, old-style bank vault door — complete with a spinning wheel-lock — took up the entire far wall.

On the center of the workbench sat a rig holding an unstrung bow. One end of the bench had a polished steel rack holding twenty-four gleaming arrowheads in four neat rows of six. The bench’s other end held a custom gun rack loaded with two matched handguns and a blocky, rifle-sized weapon.

“He’s got two five-sevens,” Bryan said, pointing to the Fabrique Nationale pistols. “Serious shit.”

Pookie nodded, memories of the rooftop gun-battle flashing through his mind — those were the same pistols the archer had fired at him. Pookie again realized how lucky he had been; the FNs’ powerful 5.7-by-28-millimeter cartridge could punch through typical Kevlar body armor, then tumble through the body behind that armor. The bullet’s tumbling action would open up a wound channel far larger than the bullet’s diameter.

Bryan reached out and pointed at two empty spots in the handgun rack. “Space for four FNs, only two here. Assume he’s got at least one on him.”

“Awesome,” Pookie said. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get home anytime soon.”

Bryan’s gloved hands lifted the larger weapon out of the rack. It sort of looked like an M-16 juiced up on steroids — a thick, composite stock, a flat-black body topped by a rail-handle, a long magazine curved slightly forward, and a midlength barrel.

“USAS-12,” Bryan said. “Semiauto shotgun. Ten shots in five seconds. File under
avoid
.”

“Consider it filed.”

Pookie examined the shelves and drawers. He saw dozens of boxes of ammo for both the five-sevens and for the shotgun — someone was ready to party.

Bryan opened a metal cabinet on the other side of the room. Inside it hung two dark green cloaks. “Maybe Erickson is too old to be the vigilante, but this is definitely the vigilante’s home base.” He shut the cabinet. “But what’s with all the fake creatures?”

Pookie shrugged. “Maybe it’s a hobby. A way to kill time when he’s not killing people.”

Bryan sniffed again. He turned to the old bank-vault door, then walked slowly toward it.

Pookie sniffed as well. “More ammonia?”

Bryan shook his head. “It’s not just chemicals. I smell something else.”

His gloved hands reached out and started turning the heavy wheel.

A
s soon as John saw the old man walking down the sidewalk of Franklin Street, he knew who it had to be.

“Come on, Pooks,” John hissed to himself. “Hurry up.”

The old man wore black slacks and a dark-brown button-up shirt. Black shoes trod noiselessly on the sidewalk. His hair was so thin it seemed to float above his scalp. He was coming closer, only a few feet from the house.

Just pass on by, just pass on by
 …

The old man reached the bottom steps and started up. He had reached the landing and turned right to climb the rest of the steps when John raised his left hand, palm out.

“SFPD,” John said. “Stay right where you are. Please identify yourself.”

The old man looked up, stared John in the eyes. “I am Jebediah Erickson. This is my house. What is happening?”

Could this man have a gun? What about those people standing across the street? Were they armed? John’s body twitched. He had to control himself. “Uh … there’s been a break-in. Your alarm. Neighbors called. Please step out to the sidewalk.”

“I’m fine right here,” the old man said. “Who are you?”

Shit. Should John lie? No, too late for that. “Officer John Smith, San Francisco Police Department.”

“Please produce identification.”

Shit. Shit-shit-shit. Goddamit, Pookie, get out here
.

John lifted the badge hanging around his chest. “You see this, sir? This is a badge.”

Erickson held out a hand. “Throw me the badge, Officer. I don’t know if you are the police or just acting like the police, so keep your distance.”

The old man’s house had been broken into and it didn’t phase him, not one bit. He radiated confidence. He had every right to ask for ID.

John lifted the badge from around his neck, gently tossed it to Erickson. The old man caught it. He looked at it carefully, then started up the marble stairs.

John raised the Sig Sauer he held in his right hand, just enough to show he was serious.
“Stay where you are!”

Erickson stopped walking. He looked at the pistol, then back up at John. The old man smiled and tossed the badge back.

John again strung it around his neck. He had to stall, buy time for Pookie and Bryan to finish whatever they were doing. “Now, sir, if I could impose upon you to return the favor? Identification, please.”

“I don’t have any identification,” Erickson said. “Are there more police in my house?”

Shit-shit-shit
. “Yes.”

“Get them out of there, immediately. The chief of police is a friend of mine and if they don’t leave,
right now
, it will go poorly for them.”

John nodded, then pulled the phone out of his pocket. It was hard to dial with his left thumb, but no way he was taking the gun out of his right. Something about this old white dude was scary as fuck.

Bryan turned the wheel until he heard bolts receding into the thick vault door. The wheel stopped. He pulled the heavy door, which slowly swung open on well-oiled hinges.

He and Pookie stepped inside.

The iron-walled vault was all of twelve feet long by eight feet wide. A rack of knives, saws and other disturbing instruments hung on one wall. Shelves containing plastic bottles of chemicals lined the other walls, leaving just enough room to walk around the stainless-steel table in the room’s center.

A stainless-steel table with troughs around the edges, just like the ones in Robin’s morgue.

On that table, a white sheet covering a body.

Bryan smelled something new, something he couldn’t identify. He reached out, grabbed the sheet where it covered the body’s toe, then slid it free with a hiss of fabric.

Bryan heard a soft, distant buzz. Pookie’s cell phone, he knew, but they were both too stunned to pay attention to it.

The body on the table: naked, lean and muscular. Skin the color of purple grapes. Stomach cut open — a hollow cavity, as all the internal organs had been removed. One leg had been stripped mostly free of muscle, leaving only bones and shreds of meat.

And the body’s
head
.

It could not be.

The cell phone kept buzzing.

“Jesus,” Pookie said quietly. “Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, Bryan.”

The head had a huge, thick bottom jaw as wide as both of Bryan’s fists pressed side to side. Inside that open mouth, lining both the top and the bottom, rows of huge, triangular white teeth.

Teeth like a shark’s.

Pookie took a step forward. He reached out a shaking hand, pinced one of the teeth between his thumb and forefinger, then gave an experimental wiggle. The tooth didn’t move. He did it again, harder, and this time the whole head moved in time.

“That’s not fake,” he said. “Holy shit, man, there’s no way that’s fake. Look at it!”

Bryan
was
looking at it — looking at it, and
recognizing
it. He’d seen those teeth and that skin in his dreams.

“This guy is real,” Pookie said. “And if he’s real, then I’m guessing the ones in the other room are real, too. Bryan, what the fuck is all this?”

They fell silent. The buzzing phone demanded attention. Pookie finally noticed. He pulled it out of his pocket.

“Burns, talk to me.”

A pause.

“Fuck,” Pookie said. “Bri-Bri, the jig is up. Erickson is here.”

Pookie climbed the stairs and turned toward the ruined front door. He saw Black Mr. Burns, gun in hand, standing in the doorway, using his body to block entry. Beyond him, Pookie saw an old man standing on the porch.

Gotta be Erickson … at least it’s just a seventy-year-old man and not the goddamn archer
.

“Officer Smith,” Pookie said as he approached. “The house appears to be clear.”

John stepped to the side, gestured to the old man. “This is Jebediah Erickson. He says this is his house, but he doesn’t have any identification.”

No matter what happened now, Pookie knew that he, Bryan and even Black Mr. Burns were screwed. Why couldn’t Bryan have just backed off? They’d tried, dammit, they’d tried
hard
, and now Pookie’s career was probably over for good. His only hope was to try and deal a huge line of bullshit and intimidation to make this go away. Not much of a chance of that working, but he had to give it a shot.

“I’m Inspector Chang,” Pookie said. “It’s late. Care to explain what you’re doing out of your house at this hour with no ID?”

“No, I
don’t
care to explain,” Erickson said. “I don’t need identification to walk outside of my house. Are there any others inside?”

“Sir,” Pookie said, gesturing to the porch stairs, “why don’t we take a stroll?”

Erickson pointed to the house’s open door. “Whoever is in there, get them out here
right now
, or I am calling Amy.”

Amy
. The guy knew Chief Zou on a first-name basis. Yep, they were all fucked good and proper.

Erickson glared at Pookie. The old man put his hands on his hips. “You’ve tried my patience enough, Officer. If you don’t …”

His voice trailed off. He turned to stare into the house. Bryan Clauser stood a foot inside the doorway. Bryan’s mouth hung halfway open in surprise, like he saw something he couldn’t understand, couldn’t quite believe.

Erickson’s expression slipped from indignant anger to thin-lipped, focused rage.

A blur of motion — something hit Pookie in the stomach. His back smashed into the porch’s thick wooden railing.

Pookie saw John raising his gun, but Erickson was so
fast
. The old man spun, landed his heel on John’s temple. John sagged against the house — Erickson reached out and snatched John’s gun before John slid down to his ass.

Bryan rushed out of the doorway. Erickson raised the gun and fired, getting off one shot before Bryan buried his shoulder into the old man’s stomach. They hit the porch railing and went
through
it in a spinning whirl of bodies and cracked wood. They fell fifteen feet to the sidewalk below, Erickson landed on his back, Bryan on top of him.

Bryan reared back to punch, but Erickson’s feet whipped up, black shoes hooking behind Bryan’s head, shins scissoring Bryan’s neck. Bryan grabbed at Erickson’s legs. The old man twisted hard to the left, driving Bryan face-first into the sidewalk.

Pookie tried to draw a breath, but his stomach wouldn’t respond. Where was his gun? His hand found it and he tried to stand.

Out on the sidewalk, Erickson snarled as he squeezed his legs tighter on Bryan’s neck. Bryan’s feet kicked, shoes sliding uselessly against the sidewalk.