The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy

by Richard Parry

  The man’s eyes flicked towards him, then he rose to his feet. Not in the old man way Rex would have, all creaking joints and a lot of cursing, but in a smooth, oiled-machine way. Like something wild. The kid’s expression was empty as a gourd, and he bared teeth at Rex.

  “Right,” said Rex, and met the kid’s charge with the taser. The weapon tick-tick-ticked and the kid convulsed, dropping like a pole axed steer. “That’s probably enough conversation. You rest easy.” He checked the kid, then turned him on his side. Recovery position, they called it. Rex had always thought that was one of those labels meant to make something bad sound not bad, and that fit the bill here. Being tased felt bad.

  He kept walking, rising through the building in his own steady way. No more encounters on the way, just a forgotten mop and bucket on five. There was water in the bucket, so Rex figured it for a work in progress. That kind of job could keep for a day with more certainty in it.

  The corridor leading to Just James’ apartment was dark, like a night without the moon. He reached in his pocket for his phone — no signal — and fiddled with it until he made the flashlight app do its thing. The tiny light tried to shoulder past the dark in the corridor, doing a passable job for something that was supposed to make phone calls.

  “Damn, which one is it … there it is.” Rex found Just James’ apartment, and reached up and rapped on the door. He took a step back and turned the light on himself so anyone inside could see through the peep hole. After a minute, he heard the chain being pulled back and the door unlocked. Just James stood there in socks and jeans and a happy smile, and not a lot else.

  “Rex!” He rushed out into the corridor, grabbing Rex around the middle in a hug.

  “Well, hey,” said Rex. He used his free hand to return the hug, just a little more awkward than most people did it. Hugs weren’t really his speed, it was a thing a younger generation did, or hippies. Rex wasn’t young, and he wasn’t a hippy. Not all of California was full of hippies, despite what CNN might have to say about it. “Say. Can we step inside?”

  “Sure.” Just James led the way back inside and Rex pushed the door closed, sliding the chain across. “You came.”

  “I sure did,” said Rex. “We had an appointment.”

  “We were going for lunch,” said James.

  “Still can,” said Rex, “as soon as you put a shirt on.”

  The kid’s face fell a little. “About that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “My Dad’s in my room.”

  “You don’t say,” said Rex. “What’s he doing there?”

  “I locked him in,” said Just James.

  “Seems a fair thing to do,” said Rex, “given a certain set of circumstances.”

  “Are you asking me what happened?”

  Rex frowned. Just James’ Dad was about two hundred pounds, not the biggest asshole Rex had ever had a conversation with, but the man was full of angry. And a coward, which didn’t help, because angry cowards always wanted to prove some shit. Twenty years ago, Rex could have — but it wasn’t twenty years ago. It was today, and Rex’s old bones didn’t have that youthful spring anymore. “I’m not sure.” He scratched a few fingers through the stubble clinging to his chin. “I was hoping we could just get a coffee.” Rex frowned. “Actually, I was hoping we could get a coffee in a different city. It’s not safe anymore.”

  “I need a shirt,” said Just James. “My shirts are in my room.” He looked at his feet, shuffling a little. “My Dad’s in my room.”

  “Hell with it,” said Rex. “Lead the way.”

  Just James padded ahead of him, socks whispering across the smooth wood of the floor. Rex hadn’t really paid it much attention before, he’d only been here to pick the kid up once or twice, and each time he couldn’t wait to get out. In a certain light, the old wood’s richness was attractive, sombre, and out of place with the paintings lining the hallway. Paintings, hell — these are straight out of a calendar. Someone had taken the time to pull apart an old fitness calendar and frame the pictures along the walls.

  Rex figured it wasn’t Just James.

  The door to Just James’ room was closed, a keyhole underneath the knob. Just James held his hand out, palm up, an old black key resting there. Rex looked at it for a moment, then took it between two fingers. He held it in his hand, feeling the weight of it. The weight of what was going to happen when he opened that door.

  The world is full of assholes. Rex put a hand against the wall, lowering himself with all the care and attention his knees demanded. He hunched over a little, lining up his eye with the keyhole. He tried to make sense of what he was seeing before he realized he was staring at another eyeball doing the exact same thing. Except the eyeball was full of crazy, skittering about in the tiny view window, and Rex heard a giggle on the other side of the door.

  “Let me out,” said a man, his voice reedy.

  “I just want a shirt,” said Rex. “I’d like to come in and get a shirt. Is that okay?”

  The eyeball vanished from the keyhole, and Rex caught a partial glimpse of the room. Tail end of a bed, a window over it, blinds drawn. Not much to work with there. Something slammed on the other side of the door, causing Rex to jerk back, a cry of surprise coming from over his shoulder — Just James — before the other man screamed, “LET ME OUT!”

  Didn’t sound good, no matter which way you cut it. Rex rubbed at his chin, feeling that stubble again. Needed a shave. Could probably wait some. He turned and looked Just James square in the face. “Son?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to need some towels, big ones if you can get them. A bucket of water about this big,” and here Rex held his hands about a foot and a half apart, “as cold as you can get it. Feel free to use ice. You got ice?” Just James nodded at him. Rex frowned. “Well okay. Off you go.”

  The kid padded away, socks slipping a little on the polished floor as he hurried. Rex waited a few heartbeats until he heard the kid rummaging around somewhere. If Rex had made a good guess of apartment life, towels would be an easy ask, the bucket less so. Ice water would keep the kid busy for even longer. He had maybe a couple minutes to get this resolved. Squared away. He put his hand back against the wall, pulling himself upright.

  He still had the key in his hand. He fitted it into the lock, pausing before he turned it. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to open the door. Let you out.”

  “Good, good, goodgoodgood,” said the other man. Rex heard a sound that could have been someone hopping from foot to foot. People didn’t do stuff like that, not in the real world. Not if they weren’t crazy as a sack of weasels.

  Rex turned the key, the mechanism making a satisfying series of clicks as he twisted it. He had a moment to reflect on how they just didn’t make stuff like that anymore before the door was yanked open in front of him, Just James’ Dad — step-Dad — silhouetted in the frame, light from the window behind him casting his face into shadow. Rex could make out the eyes though, still full of the same damn crazy, and that carried on through the man’s frame as he stood there, shoulders hunched, one side canted lower than the other.

  The man leapt at Rex. A part of Rex’s mind said, Well, that’s just dumb, he’s two steps away, seems a lot of wasted effort, at the same time as another part of his mind was saying, Well, Rex, why the fuck is the taser in your jacket pocket. The man collided with Rex and he stumbled back — that’s why he jumped, knock me off balance, makes sense — and his back hit the wall behind him. He didn’t know how he’d managed it, but he had a hand up, forearm jammed against the other man’s neck. Just James’ Dad was actually trying to bite him, teeth snapping, thick ropes of saliva strung between his pearly whites — more of a beige, really, man needs a dentist — as his mouth opened wide before each snap.

  He could feel his old heart hammering inside his chest, and it’d be push and shove whether he’d make it out of this one. Rex got a moment of clarity —you senile old man, if you don’t find a solve for this, this c
razy asshole is going to do something to Just James — and he mustered himself, rolling his shoulder forward and getting some space between them. The tick-tick-tick of the taser sounded loud as he fired it right into the other man’s neck, and Just James’ Dad dropped, stretching himself long and loose against the wooden floor. Rex looked at the taser in his hand, no clear memory of how it had got there, and then let his gaze rise up to the wide-eyed stare of Just James, standing in the hallway with a bucket held low in one hand, a bundle of towels in the other.

  Rex straightened up, looked around for a second, then said, “Ah, good. You got the stuff.”

  Just James nodded, silent and solemn.

  Bending over to check the prone man, Rex said, “We won’t be needing ‘em after all. Just drop them where you are, son, and go get your shirt.”

  “Did you … did you just tase my Dad?”

  The guy had a pulse and was breathing steady, so Rex let him be. Looking up at Just James, he nodded. Hell of a thing to do to someone, especially in front of their kid. You’re an asshole, Rex. Should have handled that better. Water? Towels? Could have thought of something better than that. Poor kid was going to be scarred for life now, all because Rex was older and slower than the kid needed him to be.

  Just James stood still for a moment, then a big grin broke out across his face. “That’s so cool,” he said.

  • • •

  Rex felt the sunlight across his face, the warmth of it welcome against the cold of the air. He had Just James at his side, the kid dressed in sensible clothes against the chill. Rex had helped him pack, the job a little rushed in the face of them not being sure of when Just James’ Dad was going to come to. Back in his days of working in the Department, they’d fought more fires than people, and tasers weren’t really a thing.

  Still, they’d got a few things together for the kid, and Rex had shown him how to fold for space — roll ‘em up, like this … that’s right, tight like a tube — and even found space for Just James’ current book to snuggle in there alongside something called a Nintendo DS. Rex had no idea what the little electronic device was for, but it seemed important to Just James so he’d thought what the fuck and went with it. The book was big and heavy and impractical, but it was a library copy of The Princess Bride. Rex didn’t read much make-believe but he’d read that, and it had been so good he’d read it twice more straight after.

  If that’s what Just James was using space for, it was good enough for Rex.

  He held the kid behind him with one arm, feeling a twinge go through his shoulder, no doubt pulled in the short fight upstairs with Just James’ Dad. It’d work well enough for now, just needed to get the kid to safety, maybe find a car, and then—

  Good God damn, he thought. The town car was still there, pulled in at the side of the road. He could see that young woman — Sky — still inside it, windows wound up safe and snug. Rex looked to the left and right, then pulled Just James along behind him, down the steps from the brownstone, across what seemed an ocean of exposed sidewalk, and to the car. He knocked on the window, and heard the clunk as the central locking released the doors. Yanking the back door open, he hustled Just James inside, then sagged in behind him, pulling the door closed. Another clunk, and all the doors locked again.

  “Hey,” said Sky.

  “Hey yourself,” said Rex. “Didn’t I tell you to get gone?”

  “Strong independent woman,” said Sky.

  “What?”

  “She means,” said Just James, “that she does what she wants.”

  “Smart kid,” said Sky. She craned her neck around. “I’m Sky.”

  “James,” said Just James.

  “Just James?”

  “That’s right,” said Just James.

  “Hell of a bill,” said Rex, “for you to be sitting out here.”

  “It’s okay,” said Sky. “I’ve gone off the clock.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Rex, “but thanks.”

  “I know what you meant,” said Sky, raising a hand to the windows of the car in a gesture that seemed to say, City’s gone to hell, but what’s a girl to do? “Got any idea of where you need to go?”

  “No,” said Rex, then, “Yeah.”

  “Which is it?”

  “Well,” said Rex, “I got no particular place to be, and Just James has no particular place to be either. But I figure, you got people.”

  Sky thought about that, nodding slowly. “I’ve got people.”

  “And,” said Rex, “I figure, now we’ve got my people,” and here he placed a hand on Just James’ shoulder, “we should go get yours.”

  “Well okay then,” said Sky.

  “Okay then,” said Rex. “Let’s go.”

  “Small problem,” said Sky.

  “What’s that?” said Rex.

  “I got no clue where they are,” she said. “Except maybe at the apartment.”

  “You’ve got an apartment?”

  “More of a slum,” said Sky, “but we do what we can.”

  “Okay,” said Rex. “Sounds good.” He leaned back in the seat, his shoulder nagging at him again, and figured the day had turned out just fine so far.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  “We need to get back to the apartment,” said John. “These crackerjack motherfuckers are getting me down.”

  “I don’t think,” said Val, “that I’ve ever called someone a crackerjack motherfucker.”

  “But you’ve always wanted to,” said John, hefting the piece of wood like a bat. It was about three feet long, broken at one end, sawed at the other. Val had seen him grab it from a window frame that had busted out into the street, surrounded by rolls of toilet paper. God only knew why the store had had a display of toilet paper in the window, but he guessed it made a weird kind of sense. Everyone needs it.

  “It’s a good name,” said Val. He gestured at the city around them. “Kind of captures the essence of it all. I guess the burning question is, ‘Why?’”

  “Why did I call them that? No clue, really,” said John. Val watched as he stepped up on a pile of rubble that looked like it used to be a bus stop, all broken wood and metal and shattered glass. Something — or some things — had hit it hard. “I think we should go this way.”

  “No, I meant, why are they here at all?” Val frowned. “That way looks like it’s full of burning cars and dead bodies.”

  “Exactly,” said John. “Won’t be any live ones to bother us.”

  “Except for the ones that did the killing,” said Val. He flexed the fingers of his right hand, still sore from where he’d punched the last crazy in the head. He wasn’t used to the pain — never much of a fighter before, and after, well, the—

  Night.

  —thing inside him had done most of the swinging.

  “Except for those,” said John. “Also, I see cop cars.”

  “So?”

  “Cop cars means cops,” said John. “And I could use a friendly face.”

  “It hasn’t really been my experience that cops are all that friendly,” said Val. He fell in step with John anyway. One way was as bad as another, and what he really wanted was—

  Pack mate.

  —Danny. He wanted to hold her, to smell her, to know she was all right. Without her here, nothing was okay, and now he’d lost his—

  Gift.

  —abilities, there was a good chance he’d die. Die, and not be able to tell her how much she meant, and that he understood, and that he was sorry.

  “To be fair, there was that one cop,” said John. “You remember her. Used to kicking ass and taking names.”

  “Carlisle?”

  “The devil herself,” said John. He frowned. “I mean that in a good way.”

  “She’s not a cop,” said Val. “She gave all that up.”

  “She put it on hold,” said John. “She’s not the kind of—”

  A man ran out of a doorway to their right, screaming — ranting? — and slavering like a dog. Val ca
ught a glimpse of wild eyes before the man was on him. Instinct took over, his hands grabbing at the lapels of an immaculate suit jacket. A button popped, spinning off to bounce against the sidewalk. The lunatic twisted away, arms free of the jacket. Val was left holding the empty suit jacket, one sleeve pulled inside out. He stared at it for a sliver—

  Sickness.

  —of time. He gave the jacket a few quick twists around his arm, just before the other man lunged again. Val pushed his wrapped arm against the guy’s face, feeling it through the fabric as teeth tried to close on his flesh. Val clenched his fingers into a fist and punched the man in the head. It was a clumsy shot, his hand hitting more forehead than anything else, and he gave a yell of anger and pain. Val brought a knee up into the other man’s groin and was rewarded by a cough as the teeth loosened, the guy stumbling back. Val eyed him up, took aim, and swung his fist in a savage cross.

  John watched with a critical eye as Val’s attacker fell to the ground, lights out. Rubbing at his jaw, John said, “I give you five, maybe six out of ten, but only because you look like your heart’s in it.”

  “This isn’t,” said Val, panting a little, “as easy as it looks.”

  “Sure it is,” said John. “You’re just not very good at it.”

  Val coughed, wiping something red away from his lips. “To be fair, I’ve got this virus.”

  “I got a friend who had cancer,” said John. “Came to work at the gym every day. With cancer. Emilio. You met him.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” said Val, bending over to search the fallen man. He pulled out a wallet. “Guy’s name is actually Lionel.”

  “No way,” said John, holding out a hand. “Lemme see that.”

  Val handed over the license. “So why you telling me about Emilio? You said Emilio was crazy.”

  “What Emilio was,” said John, “was reliable. You got cancer?”

  “No,” said Val.

  “Then get the fuck up,” said John. “We got people we care about we got to go find.”