Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

“Once she gets out of the burn ward, yeah,” Bryan said. “Amy’s a wreck, Pooks — physically and mentally. She won’t talk at all. She’s not all there, man. I don’t know if she’ll ever recover from what she did. I’m getting her help, the best money can buy. The girls are staying here until she gets out.”

Bryan Clauser, former bachelor-cop, now the caretaker of two little girls. “You know anything about raising kids?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Until a couple of days ago, I didn’t know anything about killing monsters. You figure out which one is more complicated. What about Aggie James? Anyone pick him up yet?”

“Yeah, that’s the not-so-good news, Bri-Bri. It seems there was a lot of confusion at the hospital after the shootout. At about six A.M. that morning, an Officer Johnson walked into the maternity ward.”

Bryan shook his head, then laughed admiringly. “No way.”

“Way. Funny thing about a badge and a gun is most people don’t stop to validate your ID. Once he got in the maternity ward, he just took the baby and ran. We’re looking for him, but as of yet he and the baby are nowhere to be seen.”

“Jesus,” Bryan said. “That baby, he’s like Rex. We have to find him.”

Pookie nodded, but wondered what Bryan would do if he found the child. Killing a monster was one thing — murdering a baby was quite another indeed.

“So, Bryan, if His Highness the Mayor cleared your name, why don’t you go back to being my good buddy Bryan Clauser?”

Bryan paused. He looked at Emma. “Because Bryan Clauser never really existed at all. And after all that went down … well, he’s just gone , Pooks. Leave it be.”

Pookie would, but only for now. Chief Zou wasn’t the only person wrecked by all of this — so was Mike Clauser. No matter what it took, Pookie would patch things up between the father and son.

Bryan looked down to the folder in Pookie’s hands. “That for me?”

Pookie handed it over. “The Handyman struck again last night.”

Bryan opened the folder and glanced over the crime-scene photos. “Victims five and six,” he said. “And again with cutting off the hands.”

“We’ve got nothing, Bri-Bri. He leaves the symbols, but that’s it. You and I both know the police will never find this guy. It’s you, or he keeps going.”

Bryan nodded. He closed the folder. “That seems to be the way things are. Pooks, it’s getting dark. You want to come out hunting with me?”

Pookie had known that question was coming, yet all his well-rehearsed and oh-so-clever answers had vanished. Bryan was made to do this — Pookie Chang was not.

Pookie shook his head as he walked to the front door. “I can’t. Me and my new partner have to look into a murder in Japantown.”

Bryan seemed confused at first, then he opened the front door and looked out to the street, to Pookie’s Buick. John Smith waved.

“Black Mister Burns is your … your partner? ”

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”

Bryan stared, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s good. John came through big-time, Pooks. You could do a lot worse.”

Pookie wanted to say I could do a lot better, if only I was man enough to go hunting with you , but he didn’t.

Bryan forced a smile. “If you don’t mind, I gotta get ready to go to work.”

“Say no more, Brother.”

Bryan held out his hand. “Thank you, man.”

Pookie shook it. “Thank me? You saved my life for the second time.”

Bryan looked down. “Yeah, well … I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stood by me. Now that Robin is gone, you … well, you’re all I’ve got.”

Pookie pulled him in and hugged him. “Gimme some sugar, you big lug. I’m glad you pinched off that emotional nugget before you go back to being all reserved and resigned and whatnot.”

Pookie thumped Bryan on the back, then let go. “Good hunting, my friend,” he said, then walked away from Bryan’s mansion.

Pookie felt like a loser for not backing Bryan’s play, but it was just too much. All that death — Robin, Baldwin Metz, Jesse Sharrow, Rich Verde, all killed by something that Pookie still couldn’t truly accept as real . And what he’d seen in that cavern, how close he’d come to dying himself.

For now, at least, Bryan Clauser was on his own.

Holding Hands

Kissing.

Two girls, kissing, hands rubbing on backs, soft and tender, hidden in the shadows of Lafayette Park, holding hands.

Chameleon felt that cold rage churning inside his chest. Why did they get to kiss? Why did they get to have each other, when he had nothing?

No one could stop him now. Sly said Savior was dead. The police had staked out Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park, Chameleon’s favorite killing grounds, but the police were just human. One pair of detectives had walked within two feet of his position. They didn’t notice Chameleon because Chameleon looked just like the tree behind which he hid. He hadn’t killed that night, but the next night he had.

It wasn’t hard to wait. He waited like a spider. If you sat still and quiet long enough, eventually a couple would come to you.

Then you just took them.

Chameleon stood at the base of a small tree, his chest and left cheek against the trunk, his arms wrapped around the other side. That was how you hid. You just hugged the tree, then made your skin feel and look like the tree. The shadows took care of the rest.

The girls drew closer. He wouldn’t have even known one was a girl from looking at her. She had short hair and wore a boy’s shirt and pants. But he knew how women smelled. No matter what she wore, that was a girl.

A girl who would soon be dead.

Chameleon thought it was funny to kill in Lafayette Park, so close to Savior’s old house, the house Sly had told him to watch for so long. But Savior was gone. Sly was in charge now, and Sly gave Chameleon respect. If Chameleon wanted to hunt, that was fine with Sly.

Maybe this time, Chameleon would cut off a head and bring it home for New Mommy. She was changing, changing so fast, but she wasn’t ready to have babies yet. Maybe the reason Old Mommy could have babies was because she ate brains. Maybe New Mommy needed the same kind of food.

Closer still. Only thirty feet now. Walking, holding hands, smiling, kissing . The cold rage blossomed. The lust to kill swirled through his brain.

A noise to his left. He couldn’t turn to look, because trees didn’t turn to look. Moving might spook the prey.

More noise. The smell of a dog.

Chameleon didn’t worry. The dog would pass by like all the others.

He watched the girls. Just another ten seconds or so, and he would grab them, pull them into the deeper shadows beneath the tree. Sly liked boy livers better, but he probably wouldn’t mind so much since this was two girls.

The dog smell grew stronger, closer.

A growl — low, deep and aggressive, the kind that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up if you hadn’t made the back of your neck feel just like tree bark. A growl so quiet the girls didn’t even hear.

Was the dog growling at him ?

He had to take a look. Chameleon slowly turned his head, heard his stiff skin crackling like a bending branch.

Just ten feet away, a black-and-white dog with something wrapped around its head stared at him. Its lip curled up, revealing long teeth that glowed softly in the pale moonlight.

Go away, dog , Chameleon thought. Just go away .

But the dog did not go away.

For some reason, the dog frightened Chameleon. Dogs weren’t that dangerous, but there was something in this one’s eyes. Not hunger, but hate .