IT HAD been a while since Roan took a bunch of pills without looking at any of them, but this time he did. Just a few from random bottles until he stopped crying and felt calmer.
So was he changed since he came out of his coma? Was it worse? Doctor Rosenberg thought removing some of the tumors would help with his control of the lion, but it hadn’t helped at all. Perhaps the tumors were a convenient excuse for what was actually happening: the lion was taking over.
As Rosenberg always told him, there was no precedent for the later stage of the virus. Most people didn’t live with it long enough, and computer models were highly flawed. He’d always worried that eventually he’d transform into a lion and never transform back, but this was worse. The lion was infiltrating him, making transformation pointless. He might look Human, but the Human was gone. The Human was dying in slow increments, in the space between seconds, in pieces so tiny it was hard to notice until a huge section was simply gone.
When the lion woke up in his body? That was a precursor. That’s what was coming. And they were all idiots not to see it.
He decided he really wanted to get loaded and shut his brain off. He knew he needed to be honest with Dylan, too, give him a heads up so he could abandon this sinking ship before it went down.
It probably wasn’t a great idea to go to Panic, but before he did, he stopped in a convenience store, used their grotty little washroom to wash his face and take away the tear tracks, and bought a plastic-wrapped sandwich that tasted exactly like Saran Wrap to eat in the car and allay his nausea. That sick feeling happened sometimes with painkillers. He managed not to barf, although it was a close thing.
Panic was loud and fairly busy, but that’s what he wanted. He wanted everything loud enough to overwhelm his senses, including the scent of people, which was enough to roil his newly calm stomach.
He lucked out and Dylan was busy at the other end of the bar, so he sidled up to an open spot and ordered a microbrew from Rodrigo, one of the small legion of hot Latino bartenders who worked at Panic. (A growing category that included Dylan, although most people didn’t know that.) Rodrigo served Roan with a smile and a joke about… something. He really wasn’t paying attention. Roan just smiled and nodded, to be polite. Rodrigo didn’t seem to notice.
Roan drank his beer and waited for Dylan to come down to where he was, aware that the music playing now was some Interpol remix, mainly because the singer’s voice was fairly unmistakable. He found himself mouthing the words, caught off guard by the fact that he knew them. But Interpol had been a favorite of Paris’s, so he must have absorbed the knowledge by osmosis. Funny what you pick up.
Dylan seemed almost happy when he first approached, but by the time he arrived at Roan’s end of the bar, that little worry line had appeared between his brows. “Are you okay?”
Roan grimaced, almost laughing at the question. How could such a simple query be so loaded with meaning? “I’ve had a really bad night.”
Dylan leaned in closer, staring him in the eyes, as the singer insisted, “Sandy, why can’t we look the other way?”
“You’re not drinking on painkillers, are you?” Dylan asked.
“That would be stupid.”
“That’s not an answer.”
They’d been together too long. Only a guy who actually knew him would know that he was being evasive by conceding a point. “When we get home, we have to talk.”
Dylan raised his eyebrows at that. “Are you dumping me?”
“No. I’m not that much of an idiot.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but someone new had sidled up to the bar then and was demanding attention, so Dylan gave him a look that said “We’re not finished” and went to take his drink order. Roan stepped away from the bar and retreated to a small back table, where he could pickle his brain in solitude.
Not that that lasted for long. A bearish guy drifted over and asked if he wanted company, to which Roan replied “no,” but as politely as possible under the circumstances. The bear was at least being kind to him, giving him the option. A few minutes later, a more twinkish guy didn’t even ask; he just sat down in the seat across from him and said, “You look sad.”
Roan held up his hand, showing him his ring. “I’m married.”
The twink, a skinny guy with slightly overstyled blond hair and an ironic T-shirt (in this case, a faded print that just barely read “Free Mustache Rides”), said, “Yeah, I hear that’s pretty depressing.”
Oh good, he was a comedian. Just what he needed right now. “I’m actually married to one of the bartenders. So if you don’t want to get cut off or tossed out on your ass, I’d go elsewhere.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. “Really? To which? The Hispanic guy or the other one?”
“They’re both Hispanic.”
“They are? Huh. So which one?”
“The one who doesn’t shave his chest.”
“Huh.” Again a single syllable, a noise that meant nothing. He turned back to face him, bright-eyed and well on his way to drunk. “Nice. You looking for a third?”
“Go away.”
“I’ve got some X. I’ll share.”
“Go away before I tear you to pieces.”
He smiled at Roan like he thought he was kidding and cocked his head to the side. “You look kinda familiar. Have I seen you somewhere before?”
“Wanted poster. I’m a serial killer.”
This caused the twink to snicker. Roan felt his phone thrum in his pocket, and he reluctantly took it out, wondering why he hadn’t shut it off. It was Seb, and he didn’t want to answer it, but he did, just to impart one message. “Roan, hey, we need you—” Seb began.
“Not tonight,” Roan interrupted and shut off his phone before tucking it back into his coat pocket. He leveled a stare at the twink, who still seemed to think he had a shot. “I told you to go.”
“C’mon, don’t be that way.”
“I’m an infected who’s more cat than man. And I’m hungry. Go away.”
The twink took this as a come on. He sat forward, a lascivious grin on his face. “More cat than man, huh? I bet you’re a real tiger—”
That was it. Roan growled, raw and angry, and the twink finally sat back, amusement turning to horror. A couple of guys standing nearby even turned to look as the twink got up in such haste he almost knocked over the chair. “Shit, dude, chill,” he said, sounding annoyed, and finally he left.
Roan ignored the looks he was getting and drank his beer, a These Arms Are Snakes lyric suddenly floating through his head: “So if that was a response, then you can call this reaction.” He knew he was really fucked up when song lyrics just appeared. That was a good sign.
He was just about done with his beer when he noticed the crowd parting and a buzz somehow cutting through the throbbing music. Suddenly, two cops were at his table, the familiar Thompson and his usual partner Bragg. The guys—and they did seem to be all guys tonight—happily made room for them, and some even took the opportunity to leave and free up more space.
Roan glanced up at them, not all that surprised or concerned. “Am I under arrest?”
Thompson scowled at him. “Detective Estes seems to think you need an escort to the crime scene, and for some reason he thinks we’re chauffeurs. C’mon, let’s go.”
“How’d he know I was here?”
Thompson pointed up at the ceiling, but the way he winced, Roan understood he was motioning at the ambiance. “He heard loud music that didn’t seem to be up your punk alley. No offense to Estes, but it doesn’t take a genius to narrow it down.”
Well, he did take a call from the good detective, however briefly. This was his fault. “I’m in no shape to go anywhere tonight.”
Thompson shook his big head. Since he’d started growing in a small goatee, he looked a bit like Captain Sisko, adding yet another layer of intimidation to his already sizable amount. “Can’t buy that. We gotta big cat runnin’ around near First and Portland that’s already caused a huge pile up. We need a cat guy.”
“Call in the SWAT.”
He snorted derisively. “Yeah, right. ’Cause a bunch of body armored SWAT guys can run around downtown so easily. It’s not that far away from here, so let’s go.”
Roan looked up at him, still too numb to care. “I said no.”
Thompson studied him with growing wariness. “Dude, you’re not gonna make me handcuff you, are you?”
“You couldn’t if you tried.”
Now a hard glint had entered Thompson’s otherwise casual gaze. “Is that some kinda threat?”
“Is something wrong?” Dylan asked, coming up to the table. His appearance broke up the tension nicely, which sadly seemed to be his function in Roan’s life. Dylan was there to put out fires and calm things down, and keep his animalistic boyfriend from going all feline on someone’s ass. Roan figured Dyl should probably start charging him a nanny fee.
There was an awkward pause as Thompson had never seen Dylan shirtless before (neither had Bragg, who was clearly checking Dylan out), but once he recovered he told him, “We have a cat loose a few miles from here, and your boyfriend doesn’t want to go.”
“He’s my husband,” he said, before fixing Roan with a scrutinizing stare. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“I’m tired.”
Dylan gave him a deeply concerned look. He knew something was wrong but didn’t know how much he could say in front of the cops. “Since when has that stopped you?”
Roan could see the need for more explanations and/or lies opening up before him, and he realized it would be easier to just play along than to explain himself to Dylan. If Thompson, still a single guy, realized the power of a spouse, he might have brought him in from the beginning. Roan heaved a sigh and used the edge of the table to help himself up to his feet. “Okay, fine, let’s get this over with.”
“I’m not sure this is wise,” Dylan said, suddenly rallying to his side. Yes, he had some idea how bad off he was. “He just recovered from a coma not too long ago.”
“I know,” Thompson said. “But he’s Batman. I think we’d need a tactical nuclear strike to keep him down.”
The look Dylan gave Thompson was surprisingly venomous, and unwise to give any cop, but in these circumstances Dylan had probably caught a break. “He isn’t Batman; he isn’t a fictional character. He’s a human being who deserves as much consideration as the next person.”
The way Thompson’s eyebrows raised, he was aware he had suddenly stepped into a minefield. “I didn’t mean it disrespectfully. I was just—”
“I’d really leave it,” Roan advised him. “You’re just gonna dig yourself into a deeper hole.” Roan put a hand on Dyl’s arm, gaining his attention. “I’ll be okay. See you at home, huh?”
Dylan searched his face, his deep brown eyes brimming with concern. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I kinda do,” he admitted, wondering if Dylan could tell he felt oddly disconnected from his own body, like his brain was hovering somewhere near the ceiling and his skull had been jammed full of cotton batting. He gave Dylan a chaste kiss on the lips, then turned to Thompson and Bragg and said, “Let’s get this over with.”
Yeah, that sounded enthusiastic, but there was no help for it. If he wasn’t wasted, his lack of enthusiasm would be even more pronounced. See, drugs could be your friend.
It was a pretty quiet ride in the patrol car, as Thompson had yet to recover from Dylan calling him on the carpet, but Roan didn’t miss the pure symbolism of riding in the back, where they put the perps when they were running them in. Nice.
Thompson was right, it wasn’t far, and perhaps it was the only mercy available right now. All the red and blue lights of cop cars and emergency vehicles bounced off the mirrored surfaces of the skyscrapers like disco lights, the headlights of the stalled cars illuminating nothing. Roan could see two cars, an SUV and a Lexus, snarled together at their crumpled front ends, shattered glass littering the asphalt like crushed ice, while someone was being wheeled to an ambulance on a stretcher. For a moment, Roan saw these things as a virtually soundless tableau, and there was something almost poetic and pretty about it, until Thompson opened the door and the sounds of chaos and the smell of blood and gasoline poured in. At least the drugs still had Roan cushioned, wrapped up snugly in an invisible blanket, so it didn’t hit him as hard as it could have.
Roan did his best to block out the noise and the Human smells and concentrate on the faint but obvious cat scent. It was a lion, wasn’t it? Thompson was saying something to him, but he was too focused on the scent to pay any attention, and although he knew it was rude, he walked off, following the cat’s path. After causing the car accident, it had run off into an alley so wide it was essentially a small side street and cut down into another less busy street. Still, Roan could hear honking and some angry shouts, leading him to think the cat had run through it. The scent seemed to be leading him that way.
He almost felt like he was floating as he cut across the street and got honked at by an angry motorist, the drugs and booze doing their thing. Perhaps that’s why it seemed like there was a jump cut in his reality, and he found himself in a smaller, dingier alley between two run-down apartment buildings, where the lion had been hiding out from the noise.
It was dark brown, almost a mottled black, big in size but unimpressive in mane, suggesting the man didn’t have much hair in his human form. It could smell how different he was and roared a challenge, but Roan roared right back, surprised at the volume he achieved even though he wasn’t angry. He didn’t feel his throat tear this time, but that was probably because he was so wasted. He could probably take a lance in the chest and not feel it right now.
The lion was scared, he could smell that much, but it still had some semblance of sense, and while they roared at each other and paced, the lion knew Roan was the alpha and wasn’t going to fight it. But that’s when a Human appeared, coming out a fire exit from one of the apartment buildings, holding a cheap Glock knock-off. Roan stared at him in disbelief, although it took him a moment to find his voice. “What the fuck are you doing?” It was mostly a Human voice, but it was also a rumble, an animalistic growl caught between speech and noise.
Roan had no idea how much of it he understood. The man, a scarecrow in sweatpants who reeked of tobacco and cheap beer, goggled at him more than the lion, and while he seemed to swing his aim between the lion and Roan, he settled on Roan, obviously taking him for the bigger threat. His fear sweat was like sour milk and old pennies. “What the fuck’re you?” he demanded.
The lion was confused, torn between attacking the man and submitting to the alpha, a precarious position. The man was unaware of how much danger he was in, and his bloodshot eyes seemed riveted to Roan’s face. Had he partially changed and not felt it? Considering how many painkillers he was on, that seemed logical. “I’m a cop, you stupid shit. Get back inside!” The last part of that became a partial roar, which caught Roan off guard. But why not? He couldn’t control his strength or the change. His voice was the last to fall, but fall it finally had.
Roan knew he was going to shoot. It was in his eyes, the twitch of a muscle near his mouth, and Roan lunged for him as he fired. Out of the corner of his eye, Roan saw the lion run, but he was focused completely on the man.
He grabbed the man’s arm and throat with his hands as his feet impacted the man’s chest, and Roan rode him down to the pavement, the gun bouncing out of his hand as his arm hit the ground hard. All the man’s breath had left him in a single geyser of an exhale, otherwise he might have screamed as his arm snapped, Roan hearing as well as feeling the bone break somewhere near the elbow. The man winced in both pain and fear as Roan roared into his face, spittle dousing him, and he squirmed beneath Roan, wanting to get away but unable to escape his grip. His fear stink was eye watering now, and Roan was pretty sure the guy had shit himself.
He heard the slap of footsteps and wasn’t surprised that several people had come into the alley, all bearing the peculiar peppery gunpowder smell of cops. “Holy shit, you’re strapped?” Seb asked.
Roan remembered how to speak, an effort of will, before replying, “No. This asshole just tried to shoot me.”
“Oh, you stupid fucker,” Seb said. “I hope it’s registered ’cause a charge of assaulting police personnel is bad enough.”
Roan got off the man and went after the lion, leaving the guy to Seb and his people. The guy snapped, “What the fuck is he? He’s not Human!”
He didn’t know what Seb said, if Seb said anything, because he had almost reached the end of the alley when he heard the blare of a honking horn, the screech of tires, and a thud like someone had dropped a body onto a parked car, followed by the delicate sound of breaking glass. The sounds alone had painted a picture: he knew what had happened, but he still had to go see.
What he saw was an SUV stopped in the middle of the road, its front end crumpled and its bumper lying on the street, steam escaping from the edges of its dented hood. Lying on its side not far from the wreck was the lion, its sides heaving as it struggled to breathe. Roan could smell the blood above the scent of spilled antifreeze and hot metal. He heard people—a man who must have been the driver of the SUV claiming the cat came out of nowhere, and who was going to pay for the damage—and honking farther back along the road as cars began to back up, but Roan ignored all of it and made for the lion, who was spotlit by headlights of cars going nowhere.
He could smell death as well as blood. The lion was still alive, but not for long, as it had been hurt too badly by the SUV. Roan sat down on the street beside it, feeling the heat of the headlights on his back, and held the lion’s head in his lap as he stroked its scraggly mane. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” he told it, feeling its blood soak through his pants.
There were people gathering at the fringes of his vision and cops on the periphery, but he ignored them all. The lion was making a rumbling noise, a kind of half-hearted purr, as blood leaked out the black pad of its nose and dribbled out of its mouth. He let his fingers tangle in its soft fur and continued to pet it until it heaved its last breath, the purr stopping along with the thud of its heart in its chest.
Roan wondered if there was any scenario where this poor guy would have lived through the night. He wasn’t sure it would have made a difference either way, and that may have been the saddest thing of all.