The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution) (2 page)

Captain
Gregg hadn’t welcomed Lorna’s promotion. A recent series of exposés
by the news stream investigative reporters proved a lot of senior
cops resented lycans and vampires, AKA
The Others
, in law enforcement. Either the police they
interviewed were jealous of their abilities or unforgiving of once
having preyed on humans. In Gregg’s case, Lorna suspected he added
on resentment to women moving up.

On the other
hand, his boss, Watch Commander Bell, appreciated what Lorna
brought to the department, saying the OPD was lucky to have her.
Among the three thousand of The Others around the world, most were
tied in some way to Coven International, Inc. or CI. Low-paying,
mundane occupations such as police work held little appeal.

Lorna
proceeded to a glass-enclosed office cubicle. The space boasted a
newer desk, with a computer for her use alone. Drawing the blinds
to shut out the world, she paused for a moment to organize the day.
A review of the previous shift activity showed nothing
extraordinary—mainly an overflow of minor druggies from Vice. A
note to call Marta in the morgue rested atop the pile.

That would
have something to do with the Gomez murders.

The second she
reached for a case file, a commotion erupted from the bull pen.

“He’s free!”
shouted a male voice over a din of shouts and scrambling feet mixed
with chairs falling over or slamming into desks.

Lorna opened a
blind.

Displaying
astounding agility, a young man, handcuffs dangling from one wrist,
jumped from desk top to desk top, evading the grasp of twenty
detectives and a smattering of uniformed officers. Detainees in the
holding cells along the far wall cheered him on, but those cuffed
and awaiting their trip to booking did their best to stay out of
the way. A couple of file clerks stood agape on the edge of the
commotion.

From the
Shift Activity Reports, Lorna knew the fugitive to be a minor
offender. The night before, Vice had caught him in a sweep of
underground raves. After filling their holding cells, they sent the
overflow to Major Case, which almost always had space. Lorna opened
her office door. The pungent odor of
gap
surrounding the wide-eyed frenetic young man flooded her
lycan senses. The popular designer drug made some users immune to
pain, while others went berserk. In this situation, both had
happened. The man’s free hand hung crushed at his side, the result
of passage through the locked handcuff. Now he raced around the
large open room in frantic, aimless desperation powered by drug
induced paranoia.

Captain Gregg
stood frozen at the doorway of his office. A sheen of sweat gleamed
on his bullet-shaped bald head. His lips moved, but no words came
out.

As the next
senior officer, Lorna took charge. “No guns!”

With thirty or
forty officers, detainees, and secretaries running in all
directions, the last thing anyone needed was some cowboy popping
off a Glock in the crowded space.

Lorna morphed
into lycan form, evoking a collective gasp among those present.
Earlier, everyone in Major Case heard Captain Gregg address her as
“werewolf”, but only he and one other understood the truth behind
what the rest of Major Case believed to be no more than a nickname.
The heightened senses, speed, and strength came in handy, but she
avoided advertising them. The Others had come out almost ninety
years ago. Still, many humans hated or feared them.

Exploding out
of her clothes, which fell in rags on the floor, she didn’t waste
time regretting not wearing an outfit with morph seams. An instant
later, she stood a foot taller, covered in dark, coarse hair. A
fearsome square face accompanied by a fanged snout even a gaphead
must know brooked no foolishness topped the furry, broad-shouldered
creature. In her present form, she couldn’t speak, but her body
language would tell him all he needed to know.

With fellow
officers scrambling to get out of the way, Lorna set her sights on
the gaphead.

He
gathered his wits enough to break for the exit, but, even in his
hyperactive condition, she covered ground faster than he did.
Cutting him off at the exit, she grabbed his good arm in a
yellow-nailed prehensile claw, slamming him to the floor. The smell
of blood from his mangled hand awakened the ever present urge to
feed on the raw, bloody flesh, but ever since the
Coming
Out
, no vampire or lycan
tasted human prey, except for backsliders or the occasional feral
that surfaced in the most remote or primitive parts of the
world.

“What are
you?” the gaphead demanded. In situations like this, Lorna heard
that a lot. The Others lived quiet lives with minimal displays of
their abilities. There were, of course, pictures and video streams
of morphs popping up on television or the Internet from time to
time, but seeing one in the flesh seldom occurred and was always
shocking to anyone who witnessed it.

Lycan Lorna
answered by presenting a stare of lethal deliberation. Inside, she
dueled against the urge to tear into the young man’s arm. In the
limited cognitive abilities of her werewolf persona, she understood
returning to human form was the best way to resist temptation,
leading to a different problem.

The morph
would leave her naked in front of the whole squad room.

Another
collective gasp swept the crowd, not an unexpected reaction. The
shock of seeing a human materialize from the brutish, hirsute
apparition filling the room seconds before was enough. From the
corner of her eye, she saw several of the men assume almost
anatomically impossible postures to get a better view of the small,
polished buttocks as she kneeled over the prostrate gaphead. In
human form, Lorna possessed the strength of a world-class athlete.
In lycan form, twice again as much. With fingers like steel, she
grasped his throat.

“Quick,” she
commanded. “Some plastic ties.” Knowing he wouldn’t be slipping out
of those, she turned to the pouch of dazed flesh squirming beneath
her in a feeble escape attempt. She tightened her grip. “Lie still
or I’ll turn you to hamburger.”

Eyes large, he
declined further movement until two uniforms took him away.

A female
officer slipped a blanket over Lorna’s shoulders.

A chill ran
through her at the first touch of the coarse material. Pulling it
close, she stood. “The party’s over. Everyone back to work. I
better not see any cell phone pictures of my butt floating around
the Internet. I know where all of you live.”

Lorna
retreated to her office. Redrawing the blinds for privacy, she
pulled out a spare outfit she kept handy for these situations.
Morphing on the job rarely happened. This was the first time she’d
had to do it in front of an audience.

The squad may
have gotten an eyeful, but nobody got hurt. The bad guy’s cooling
his heels in a cell, and that’s what counts most, doesn’t it?

The desk phone
rang. While reaching for the receiver, she tried to pull a sweater
into place over her head. It didn’t work well.

“Hello,” she
snapped into the phone while wrestling the garment down her
torso.

“Lieutenant
Winters, this is Marta in Autopsy,” a young female voice replied.
“You said to call you when I learned more about the Gomez
murders.”

Lorna
remembered the unreturned phone message. “Sorry about not getting
back to you, but things were a little crazy here.” With a final
tug, she winched the sweater into place. “What have you found?”

“Your
detective was correct. The wounds were not all made by a blade or
tool. A lycan most likely did it. I’ll know for sure after DNA
results come back. You can come see for yourself.”

“I’ll be right
there.” Lorna snatched up her purse. Stepping into the bull pen,
she surveyed the scene for the detective who owned the case.
“Geurin, you’re with me.”

At the far end
of the room stood a worn scrap of a man—Mike Geurin, her first
partner, as well as a former lover. In those days, he’d nicely
filled a young, dedicated patrolman’s uniform while she, a rookie,
occupied a position in the hierarchy lower than whale shit, which,
as the veterans reminded her, sat on the bottom of the ocean.

He picked up a
well-worn plaid jacket showing the after effects of several
lunches. Strapping on shoulder holster and firearm, he pulled
alongside her on the way to the elevator.

Passing his
desk, she spied a pornographic CD partly covered by case files.
“Don’t you think with anything besides your little head?” Not
waiting for an answer, she pulled ahead, leading the way to the
elevator. Lorna punched the button for the morgue basement. On the
descent she thought back to a late morning six weeks earlier.

She was hard
at work when a shadow fell across her. Looking up, she found a
familiar face. “Mike Geurin! What are you doing here?”

“It took
twenty years and going to the extreme of sobering up but I finally
got my shield. The brass threw me in this shark tank.”

She nodded in
agreement about the shark tank remark and motioned for him to sit.
“It’ll be good to have somebody who has my back.”

Mike became
reflective. “Always...” An instant later, he snapped out of it.
“How long has it been? Must be at least five years.” He leaned
toward her with the confidential posturing she remembered. “So
how’s life at your end of the gene pool, Princess?”

She made the
customary scowl at use of the “P” word. “Not much to tell. I’m
dating a lawyer named Jerry Pease. How about you?”

“Well let’s
see. Last month, I picked up my three year chip. Two Lents ago, I
gave up smoking and started working out.” He stood to give her a
better look. “And I lost twenty pounds.”

She took in
his blowsy trousers and shirt with loosened neck tie covering the
new and improved Mike. “I guess sobering up doesn’t include buying
better fitting clothes.”

Mike
acknowledged the payback for calling her “Princess”. “Tough
neighborhood.”

She notched
her head in the direction of the bull pen. “There’s a vacant desk
near the entrance.”

“Good. From
there I can watch your back.” The thought warmed her. Before she
could react, he headed to his assigned station.

With a wistful
gaze, she followed his path. Even though his impertinence and
general bad manners irritated every nerve and their personal
relationship might have failed, his loyalty never wavered.

“I hear you
put on a little show and tell up here.” Mike’s wise-guy tone
scattered her musings. “And me without a camera.” They stood
together in silence for a moment before Mike continued. “It’s been
a while.”

“Been a while?
A while since what?”

“You know.
Since I saw you do your thing.”

Lorna
reflected for a moment. “You’d think the public would be used to it
by now.”

“Trust me. A
transformation in the flesh is nothing like what you see on the
streams. The first time you did it in front of me, I had the
“heebies” for a week.”

Lorna thought
back. “I remember.”

“But
considering a gaphead’s strength, you took a big chance changing
back to human. Why did you do it?”

“Jeez Mike,
you of all people should know. Until I turned back, it was all I
could do not to rip off the gaphead’s arm and start gnawing on
it.”

Watery blue
eyes, showing the irreparable results of too much booze and late
nights, gazed down at her with kindness. “Well anyway, it was a
good job.”

She smiled. A
professional compliment from him still meant something.

They finished
the ride in silence. When they stepped out into the morgue, Lorna
explained the reason for the trip. “Your victims out in Pine Hills
were killed by one of The Others.”

Mike’s face
lit up. “I knew it!” he said with an effusion of coffee breath,
accompanied by a broad grin showcasing large, tobacco-stained
teeth. Giving up cigarettes over a year ago, the nicotine refused
to budge. “It had to be a bunch of feral woofers.”

The slur
lingered between them like three-day old road kill. Several seconds
passed before he tried to smooth it over. “What I mean to say
is…”

“Can it,
Mike.” She cut him off with the finality of a slammed door. Almost
immediately, she regretted using the tone. No question he stepped
out of line, but against that pressed the weight of their years
together.

Mike broke the
silence, as usual with an unrelated, often inappropriate subject.
“Do you ever think about us?” Lorna glared at him. “Not the affair
part. I mean the way we worked together on the job.” Back then,
possessing one of the keenest investigative minds on the force, he
shared his knowledge, holding nothing back.

The talk about
their time as partners was a smokescreen. She figured out his
designs to leverage into their personal relationship, and worked to
put a quick stop to it. “Our time passed long ago.”

He dropped the
pretense. “Did I get too old for you?”

“You know
better. I couldn’t take the booze and bitterness.”

Mike batted
his eyebrows. “I’m all better now.”

Lorna
couldn’t help but smile. No question, he could be insensitive, even
downright offensive, but he still occupied a soft warm spot in her
memory - the irrepressible Mike. Over time, however, she outgrew
him in the sad way one passes by and outgrows a mentally-challenged
older sibling.
“We’re
both different people. There’s no going back.”

“You can’t
blame a guy for trying.”

An image of
how he was in the early days flooded in…the ubiquitous cigarette
wedged between tobacco-stained fingers emitting a blue spinner of
smoke…the frosty blue eyes, a lot clearer back then…his voice, both
comforting and enlightening. “The evidence, Princess. Let the
evidence speak. And when it does, listen…”