“I call bullshit.”
“This conversation’s over.”
“If she—”
“Drop it,” Alex warns him. “She didn’t take it, she’s not leaving the Rec Zone, and from this moment on, she’s under my protection. You got that?”
An eyeball-to-eyeball standoff ensues.
Jimmy relents.
He breaks eye contact with Alex and shoots his best threatening glare at Silver. “The truck leaves in five minutes. You’re not going to be on it.”
With that, he walks away.
Silver pulls a face. “I think he just grounded me.”
“Don’t worry.” Alex strokes her back. “I’ll stay behind with you.”
“Oh, please. I saw how your eyes lit up when you said we were going fishing. You don’t have to miss this because of me.”
“But this place will be deserted. I don’t know if now is a good time for you to be bored and left to your own devices.”
“You really think I’d fare any better sitting beside a lake, waiting for nothing to happen?”
That’s a fair point.
“Go on,” Silver encourages him. “The truck’s waiting.”
“You’ll be okay?”
“Always.”
Alex turns to leave, but Silver suddenly grabs his elbow and holds him back.
“Thank you for covering for me.”
Alex tilts her chin up, forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Don’t thank me, just don’t do anything stupid.” He slips his arm free and begins to walk away.
Silver calls him back again. “Wait. Don’t you need a pole or something?”
Alex waggles his hands in the air. “Hand fishing!”
Silver tries to cock an eyebrow, but it hurts to work those muscles around her sore eye and she just ends up with a twitch in her eyelid. “How’s that supposed to work? You sneak up on a fish, then punch it in the face?”
“I have no idea, but I promise I’ll give you the play-by-play when I get back.”
Silver suppresses the twitch by pressing her index finger against the corner of her eye. “I can hardly wait.”
Without thinking, Alex gives her a quick, strong squeeze, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and holding her tight. Her entire upper torso tenses, expecting pain … but it doesn’t come. Her shoulders are feeling so much better already, and she barely feels a twinge.
“Get lost.” She shoves him away gently, her lungs barely able to draw air inside his firm embrace. “Go fist some fish.”
She watches the hand fishing truck leave, taking a majority of the other campers with it. For the next few hours, it’s just going to be her, a few stragglers, and a handful of Rec Zone employees.
She checks her invisible watch.
Boredom comes in seconds.
Maybe a little bit of gentle exercise would help to work out the residual stiffness in her joints. It couldn’t hurt anyway. It promises to be a nice day, and the thought of a refreshing swim in East Lake is appealing. That decided, she grabs a towel from inside the tent and rolls her hunting knife up in the middle of it. She doesn’t want to leave it behind unguarded, in case Luka takes it upon himself to execute his search warrant in Alex’s absence.
Better safe than sorry.
In any event, as she heads out to the lake, she’s actually happy with the thought of spending a day all to herself.
No slimy fish.
No Jimmy.
No evil looks from the other campers.
Hopefully no hallucinations.
She sets her towel down beside a large, sun-soaked rock along the eastern edge of the lake, in the middle of a grassy clearing. The only sounds are birdsong and the slight ripple of the water as it laps against the banks of the lake.
Removing her boots, peeling off her socks and getting an unwelcome whiff of yesterday’s sword fighting, Silver dips her toes in the water. It’s cool, but not unbearable. Taking a quick look around and satisfying herself that she’s alone, she begins to strip.
She discards her clothes in a pile and tucks her hunting knife away underneath. When she’s satisfied that it’s safely concealed, she clambers up onto the rock and tiptoes to the edge that looms over the deepest part of the lake. Taking a deep breath, she dives headfirst into the brisk water and disappears beneath the surface.
She resurfaces several feet away, in the middle of the lake, and has to take a moment to catch her breath. The sudden submergence beneath the cold water almost winds her, and her chest feels tight and heavy.
It’s exhilarating, though. Her body’s tingling with sensation and she feels instantly refreshed. She does a few laps, practicing her back and breast strokes, lightly working the muscles in her shoulders, and it’s helping. It’s not long before she starts to feel like her usual, limber self again.
Coming up for air after an exhaustive exploration of the bottom of the lake, picking over rusted and algae-covered remnants from a long lost human civilization, she becomes aware of something watching her from the bushes.
It sends a shiver down her spine, but she dismisses it. It’s probably just about as real as the boogey monster she saw last night.
Intent on suppressing the uneasy feeling, she carries on washing her tension away in the lake. She does underwater handstands and tumbles for a long as her body will allow, and until her skin starts to go all wrinkly. At the first pangs of hunger and the first hint of a stitch in her side, she heads for the shallows.
Her stomach grumbles.
Or did it? Maybe the sound came from somewhere else.
Either way, she takes that as a sign she should be getting back to camp and she finally emerges from the water. Naked, and all alone by the lake, she scoops her hair up into a ponytail, settles down on the towel, and reaches for her clothes.
Her hunting knife tumbles out.
Suddenly curious about something, she unsheathes it. She hasn’t dared to venture near a mirror since her encounter with Alex’s elbow, and this is going to be the first glimpse she’s had of the shiner he gave her. Tilting the blade, she peers at her reflection in the polished steel.
She freezes.
Instant shock.
The bruise looks bad enough, but there’s something even more disturbing than that in her mirror image: flecks of violet invading her gray irises.
She blinks and looks again, certain that her eyes are playing tricks on her.
Sure enough, her reflection returns to normal.
She breathes a sigh of relief, beginning to wonder how long the side effects of the sedative are going to last.
More noise from the bushes.
Silver closes her eyes. “It’s not real,” she keeps repeating to herself. “It’s just my imagination.”
A twig snaps.
Silver feels adrenalin flood her body. That was real. She pulls on her clothes and begins to walk the perimeter of the lake, making her way toward the sound’s suspected point of origin. On a bank adjacent to the spot where she’d disrobed, she half expects to find a slobbering, gurgling, violet-eyed monster. Instead, she finds a footprint.
This time, a human footprint.
A bootprint, to be exact.
The Omega emblem in the center of it identifies it as either a Hunter or Police Division boot, and Silver compares the tread to her own boots.
Not a match.
That can only mean one thing: this is a Police Division bootprint. And since Alex has gone fishing …
Luka.
Silver feels tension creeping back into her body. She looks across the lake toward the flattened patch of grass where she was sitting just minutes before.
Naked.
In full view.
“Son of a bitch …”
Angry that he would violate her privacy like that, she storms back to camp. She’s determined to have it out with him, but by the time she’s done stashing her belongings back at the tent, there’s already some trouble brewing.
She can hear raised voices inside the Re
c Zone HQ, and a quick investigation reveals three employees standing around an empty chest freezer in the pantry, throwing accusations at one another.
“What’s going on here?” Silver inquires from the doorway.
The youngest employee—a fifteen-year-old girl on a work experience placement—slams down the lid of the freezer and stomps her foot. “I came in here to get the meat for dinner and the freezer was wide open. Everything inside is gone.”
“Everything?”
The girl nods. “Even the scraps we were saving for stew.”
Silver looks over the freezer, checking it for any visible prints or other clues about the crime. “Who has access to this room?”
“Everyone.” The girl chomps down on a fresh stick of gum. “But there’s hardly anyone here.”
She’s right. Still, even with those reduced odds, Silver doesn’t pretend to know what to do next—this isn’t her wheelhouse. Fortunately, she knows someone who’s a perfect fit for this kind of intrigue, and he’s already on her most wanted list.
“Where’s Luka?”
She gets nothing but blank stares from the young Rec Zone employees.
“Deputy Kinsella,” she clarifies. “Where is he?”
The gum chewing girl shrugs. “I dunno. In his room?”
That’s good enough for Silver. Without asking for permission, she lets herself into the ‘Staff Only’ portion of the Rec Zone HQ and makes her way confidently up to Luka’s bedroom. She finds the door open and she’s in luck: Luka’s inside. He’s over by the bed, replacing a broken bootlace, completely oblivious to her presence.
Not in the mood to be cordial, she offers him no greeting.
No hello.
No smile.
Just, “We need to talk.”
Luka jumps at the sound of her voice. “I didn’t think we had much of anything left to say to one another.”
“Meaning?”
“I want my gun back.”
“You’re still stuck on that, huh?”
“How did you know which room was mine?”
“I followed the stench of perversion. Why were you spying on me?”
Luka hesitates before answering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Dumb isn’t a good tune for you, Luka, so don’t play it.” She takes a step closer to him. “You were watching me up at the lake.”
“It’s not a crime to go for a walk.”
“No, but jerking off in a bush while you ogle your boss’s naked wife might be.” Another step. “I think that’s actually enough to place you on the sex offender registry.”
Luka squares up to her. “Why did you come here?”
“I wanted to tear a strip out of you.”
He stands his ground. “Feel better?”
“I haven’t even started yet.” One more step.
Luka shakes his head. “If you really wanted to punish me, you’d have told Alex.”
“Who says I won’t?”
“Do you even know why you’re angry right now?”
“Because you’re a sleazy pervert.”
“It turns you on.”
“Excuse me?”
“The thought of me watching you out there. It turns you on, and that’s why you’re angry.”
“Wow. Your ego is so far out of control right now.”
“I went for a walk, Silver. That’s all.”
“I saw your bootprint—”
“Yes, I went by the lake. And yes, I saw you, but I didn’t stick around.”
“You’re a lying shitbag.”
“Am I? You really think I’m that desperate for a thrill? I turned my back and I walked away. Whatever else you think happened, you dreamt it up because you want it to be true.”
Her palm comes at him so fast, he doesn’t have time to evade it. His face stings in the wake of the slap, but even that proves something to him: he’s right. She could’ve just as easily punched him out, but she didn’t.
“Now do you feel better?” he asks, eager to put an end to this. “Every second that you spend here in this room with me, we’re in violation of the restraining order. Do you really wanna get caught alone with me? In my bedroom, no less.”
Silence.
Silver can feel her cheeks burning. What if he’s telling the truth? Those sounds could’ve been anything. Perhaps she was leaping to conclusions. Perhaps she was layering fiction onto the truth without even knowing it.
Nevertheless, “There’s another reason I came looking for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“They’ve got a situation downstairs. It’s a Police Division matter.”
Annoyed, Luka sighs. “Why? What did you do?”
“Haha, very funny. Someone—or something—raided the pantry.”
*************************
Minutes later, standing over the empty chest freezer, Luka looks blank.
“I don’t know what you want me to do.”
Silver would roll her eyes if she could, but her one sore eye rejects her best attempts to perform the maneuver. “Interrogate people. Work up a suspect list. I dunno, but do something. I, for one, would really like to eat tonight.”
“A suspect list? There’s no way a camper did this, Silver.”
“Then what? I don’t even think that brazen squirrel is up for this kind of thievery.”
“Not him, but maybe some of his brethren.” Luka turns and heads outside.
The three Rec Zone employees are patiently waiting by the remains of last night’s campfire, still tossing accusations back and forth.
Almost instantly, Luka switches into Deputy Commissioner mode. “Who was the last one to go inside the freezer?”
None of the young Rec Zone employees appear particularly eager to own up to that right now.
“You wanna know what I think?” Luka continues. “I think someone here left the freezer lid open. I think the meat started to defrost, and the smell brought out some vermin from the woods—probably rats.”
Stepping out from the pantry behind him, Silver screws up her face at his theory. “You think rats did this? That’s the best you’ve got?”
Luka ignores her. “The bottom line is: I think you’ve got some kind of vermin problem.”
The gum chewing girl shudders. “Eww.”
“What’re we waiting for, then?” One of the Rec Zone boys jumps up with a gleeful grin on his face. “Let’s lay down some traps!” He disappears into a nearby storage shed, causing all manner of crashing and banging inside, then returns triumphantly to the group carrying a handful of rusty metal rat traps. “Got ‘em!”
Silver shakes her head in dismay. She’s not buying into Luka’s succinct explanation of events, and she’s never been a fan of the Ockham’s razor principle. In her experience, the simplest possible solution is seldom the correct one, and it’s certainly never the fun one. As the boy sets to work laying the traps, she slumps down on a campfire bench.
Staring at the ground by her feet …
Another print.
A boogey monster print.
“Oh, god. Not again.” Silver covers her eyes with her hands. “When is this gonna stop?”
Luka crouches down beside the print. “What the fuck is that?”
Silver peeks out between her fingers. Luka’s staring down at the dirt, tracing his fingertips over the outline of the print.
“Wait.” She points down at it. “You can see that?”
“I’ve seen something like this before.”
“Me, too!”
Alarm bells start ringing inside Silver’s head. If the footprints are real … the thing she saw in the Cut Off … the boogey monster in the tent …
“Shit!” She grabs the Luka by the shoulders and shakes him. “Do you know what this means?! I’m not crazy!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lusus Naturae
Thwang!
A pitchfork slams into the door of the storage shed, the prongs only just missing Luka’s head.
“Hey!” He grabs Silver by the arm. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“You saw the print!” She’s ecstatic. “I’m looking for weapons.”
“This is a maintenance shed.”
“I’m improvising.”
Luka drags her out of the shed and yanks a pair of pruning shears out of her hands. “Slow down. Tell me what you think made that print.”
“I don’t have a name for it yet.”
“I didn’t think so. But I do.”
Silver stares at him, wide-eyed. “You said you’d seen it before. Where?”
“In the Fringe District.”
“Oh, my god …” She clutches fistfuls of his shirt, demanding answers. “What is it?”
“A Lurker.”
Silver’s face falls. “A Lurker? Are you out of your mind? Lurker’s walk on the balls of their feet, but they’re human. Their footprints don’t look like that.”
“No, and your footprints don’t look like that either.” He points down to her bootprint in the soil.
“Duh. That’s because I’m wearing …”
Luka gives her a minute to catch up, but she’s already there. She looks up at him with an expression of disbelief.
“You think we were robbed by a Lurker in Chimera skin boots?”
“I told you: I’ve seen it before.”
“You’re sure?”
“Years ago. I saw it on my way back to the Sentinel District from that little Fringe District boathouse where we used to meet in the woods. It looked just like a Chimera, so I chased it down and put a bullet in it. I didn’t realize it was a Lurker until I went to retrieve the corpse. It was wearing a Chimera pelt like a one-piece body suit, feet and all.”
Feet.
Something about the feet.
Silver remembers a detail from the prints she’s been finding. “That print by the campfire … did you see the webbing between the toes?”
Luka shrugs. “A deformity? A poor quality pelt? Who knows? But if you’ve been seeing the same thing elsewhere in the Rec Zone, that proves we’re looking for one individual and not a pack. That’s something good at least.”
Silver quickly digests all of this new information. First, she deals with her disappointment at the mundanity of the task at hand. Then, she formulates an attack strategy.
Quietus Page 7