Feral Nights

by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  It’s been going on two hours since the detectives bailed, locking the door behind them. I could break out, no problem. But I’m sure the vast majority of cops at the station are human, and it would be catastrophically stupid of me to attract any more attention to myself or do anything else that might out me as a shifter.

  I’m about to go for it anyway when Zaleski returns with a couple of warm mugs. He takes a seat and gestures at the chair across the table from him.

  “Where have you been?” I ask, pacing. “I’ve been waiting for —”

  “Sit,” he replies. “I took your meeting with Richards at his warehouse.”

  Oh. My coffee tastes bitter and watery. “Okay.”

  As the Bear leans his chair back on its rear legs, I hope it can support his weight. “You really don’t know where Ruby is, do you?” he asks.

  We’ve been over this. “No.”

  “A lot of people believe she was a predator.”

  He doesn’t say “werepredator.” I shoot a glance at the surrounding mirrored walls. Maybe I’ve seen too many cop shows on TV, but I can’t help wondering if someone is watching and listening from outside the room.

  “Ruby was in 4-H,” I tell him. “The two of us worked part-time at our Grams’s antiques and bonsai shop. My sister graduated high school second in her class. She came to Austin. . . .” So far, everything I’ve learned about Ruby’s troubles in Austin point to her connection with the late Davidson Morris of Sanguini’s. So, what happened to Paxton, the guy who persuaded her to move to town in the first place? The one at the music-promotion agency who supposedly appreciates that she’s a Cat?

  Zaleski stares at me like he’s trying to read my mind. If I share my last lead with him, will that help or hurt my sister? My instincts tell me that the detective wants to do right. But he wears a badge, and there’s no such a thing as fair justice for werepeople. Plus, Clyde mentioned something about Ruby supposedly killing a cop or two.

  Zaleski brings the chair down on all fours. “She came to Austin and what?”

  “Disappeared,” I reply. “What did Richards say?”

  “Nothing much,” the detective admits. “With the families of victims, like Travis’s family, they mostly want answers. You know, closure.”

  Even under the circumstances, I can’t help but sympathize. “About my sister . . .”

  “I’m doing all I can to find Ruby. But no one has officially reported her as missing, and she hasn’t been formally charged with any crime. It’s probably smart to leave it that way, at least for now. At the moment, all I’ve got for her are questions.”

  Fair enough. “Can I go?”

  “You heading home to Kansas?” Zaleski asks.

  He’ll smell it if I lie. “No.”

  “Then lay low.” He gives me his business card, and now I have two of them. “If you do hear from Ruby, I’d appreciate a heads-up.” Zaleski sighs like he knows I’m holding out on him but can’t do anything about it. “Otherwise, you’re free to go.”

  I follow him to the elevator. As I hit the button, Wertheimer pops his head out of a doorway down the hall and calls, “Hey, kid! You got somewhere to stay tonight?”

  I’ve slept in my car before. I can do it again. “I’ll be all right.”

  The detectives exchange a look. “No, wait,” Zaleski says. “I know a place.”

  I’m not interested in a youth shelter. I duck into the elevator. “Thanks anyway.”

  Outside, a couple of homeless guys shuffle by. One is pushing a grocery cart, and the other is singing an old Janis Joplin song. A girl wearing a backpack whizzes past me on a Vespa. Then, up ahead, the shadow I thought was a VW Bug steps onto the sidewalk. It’s a werearmadillo in animal form. Outside. In public. Downtown.

  I’d say it had balls, but I don’t know anything about Armadillo physiology.

  It’s huge, less cute than I would’ve imagined, more like a pissed-off armored tank. It’s not alone, either. Another Dillo steps in back of me from behind a truck.

  I could leap over either one or dart to the side and outrun them. I could —

  “Easy, my friends,” calls a sixty-something man in a pinstriped business suit, strutting down the middle of the street. “I just want to have a few words with the boy.”

  “If this is about my sister,” I begin, “I have no idea —”

  “It’s about both of you,” the approaching man replies, and that’s when I notice his revolver. “I’m sure Detective Zaleski has already mentioned that if Ms. Kitahara doesn’t turn herself in to me within seventy-two hours, our vendetta against her will extend to include you.”

  As a matter of fact, Zaleski didn’t mention that.

  “We’re here to make sure you understand that we have the power to follow through on our threat,” he explains. “Perhaps you’re thinking that as a Cat, you could flee. Or that you could even kill us the way your sister slaughtered my grandson.”

  Karl Richards, I presume. He’s lost his mind. “I’m —”

  “Shut up! You may be an über carnivore, but we Dillos prosper in both worlds. We are a proud people with close ties to the Weasels, Rats, and Opossums. We have friends and resources beyond your wildest imagining. You don’t know what it is to be hunted until you’ve been hunted by an Armadillo.”

  It’s hard not to laugh except, again, the gun. Trying to keep in mind what Zaleski had said about grieving families, I decide to take the high ground — literally.

  I jump onto the flatbed of the pickup and from there onto the roof of the cab. I show my saber teeth and claws, but keep my face human. “Look, Mr. Richards —”

  “To you, I am His Majesty, the werearmadillo king,” he declares. “And if you give me one more reason to shoot you, I will.”

  He’s got to be bluffing. “So, Your Majesty, you use your exalted power to . . . what?” I reply, recalling his business card. “Regulate in-home climate-control systems? That doesn’t sound very regal.” Or intimidating.

  “Money is power,” Richards informs me. “Here in Texas, three-digit summers are scarcely newsworthy. I’ve made a fortune on air conditioners.” He squares his shoulders. “We have commercial and government accounts, too.”

  Nice. “You’re saying it’s Ruby or me. Is that all?”

  “No,” he replies. “You misunderstand. Both you and your sister will pay for her assassinating Travis. We will hunt down your every last living relation on this planet, if necessary, adding another to our list every three days. This is war.”

  Not good. I mean, Grams can take care of herself, and who knows what became of my parents, but . . . “Go play in traffic,” I snarl.

  Right then two unmarked sedans turn (from opposite ends) onto the one-way street, both flashing police lights. Zaleski and Werthemier jump out with their guns drawn. “Damn it, Richards!” Zaleski shouts. “I thought we had an understanding.”

  His Majesty slips his weapon into his holster and raises his hands in mock surrender. “We do.” He motions to his thugs. They retreat to a black van in the closest pay-parking lot, and the Dillo forms waddle up a short metal ramp into the back.

  Zaleski grabs my ankle and yanks me off the truck. “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, landing neatly on asphalt. “But about a place to stay . . .”

  CLYDE AND I ARE TOO WIRED to crash right after work, so Chef Nora invites us to her place to tell the tale about our brush with Ruby’s brother. Nora rents out a room in Quincie’s art deco house less than five minutes south of Sanguini’s.

  Because Clyde decides to leave his wheelchair in the SUV, it takes some doing to get him inside and settled at the kitchen table. I’m glad he’s making such terrific progress with his physical therapy, but he’s pushing too hard. Stubborn Possum.

  As Nora serves up mugs of piping-hot cocoa, a knock sounds on the kitchen door.

  She bustles over to answer it. “Awfully late for surprise guests.”

  I follow, hesitating within reach of the knife block on
the counter.

  Meanwhile, Clyde leans his nose toward the window screen. “It’s Zaleski and Yoshi,” he announces, breaking the tension.

  Nora opens the door and rises on her toes to accept a quick peck on the lips from the detective. “What a nice surprise, hon!” she exclaims.

  Clyde and I trade a surprised look that asks, Since when are they an item?

  Nora has ten to fifteen years on Zaleski. Good for her.

  “I left a message on the landline,” the detective replies. “You should get a cell phone like everyone else in the world. How do you do business with vendors?”

  “During business hours,” she says pointedly, extending her hand to Ruby’s brother. “I bet you’re Yoshi. Welcome to Austin. Come on in out of the cold. I understand that you’ve already met Clyde and Aimee.”

  Glaring at the detective, the Cat exclaims, “You didn’t tell me they lived here!”

  “We don’t,” I reply. “We’re just visiting.”

  “We visit often,” Clyde adds from the kitchen table.

  “A word, Nora?” Zaleski says, ignoring us. “Upstairs?”

  Beyond shifter earshot, he means. They’ll probably turn on a faucet and a fan for extra cover. Before leaving, Nora pours Yoshi some cocoa. When he doesn’t accept it right away, she simply sets the mug on the counter and leads the cop out of the room.

  On his way out, Zaleski points at Yoshi. “You stay put.”

  Pushing up to perch on the counter, I can’t resist studying Yoshi’s smattering of freckles and full lips. Throw in a Cat’s grace and the animal magnetism that comes standard with werepredators, and he’s the romantic equivalent of a flashing red light.

  Yoshi is one of those guys. Like my post–eighth-grade summer fling from church camp — Enrique Soto of JV basketball fame. Neither of us noticed the mosquito army ravaging our skin as we cuddled in a docked canoe one night after lights-out.

  The next day when he offered me his entire bottle of calamine lotion, I thought that was a sign of true devotion, and it was — for exactly six days and nights of “faith, fellowship, and Christian fun.” Then he acted like we were total strangers once the bus crossed back into Austin city limits. It was like we never happened. He was done.

  It was just a fling, but I still felt burned and, worse, embarrassed. Thing is, Enrique isn’t even my type (I couldn’t care less about the respective historical significance of Michael Jordan versus Shaquille O’Neal), but I got sucked in anyway. The abs, the hair, and, to be honest, the fact that someone wanted me, at least for a while. Later, the whole experience only made me appreciate Travis more.

  Travis, who was killed by Yoshi’s sister.

  “Zaleski told me that Ruby has been in this house,” the Cat murmurs. “That man she was supposedly dating, Davidson Morris — he lived here.”

  Yoshi’s nostrils flare. He’s trying to pick up some trace of his sister’s scent. Shape-shifters do that a lot, which makes me paranoid about BO and my period.

  “Try outside,” Clyde suggests, nodding toward the kitchen door. “She killed Detective Bartok . . . or maybe it was Matthews . . . in the yard. Their partial remains were found in the bushes in back.”

  “You don’t know my sister,” Yoshi replies. “You have no right to —”

  “She also staked Davidson Morris, who, by the way, was an evil soulless vampire, upstairs on the second floor,” I put in. “Not that anyone’s complaining,” I add in a softer voice. “Good riddance to the bad guy.”

  “The evil soulless vampire that she’d been screwing,” the Possum mutters.

  In a blur, Yoshi crosses the room to grab Clyde. “You don’t know my sister!”

  Oh, hell. Yelling for the grown-ups, I slip down from the counter, draw the biggest carving knife, and point it at Yoshi’s back. “Drop the Possum! Now!”

  The partially shifted Cat has his claws wrapped around Clyde’s neck.

  “Don’t!” I exclaim. “Please —”

  Yoshi tosses Clyde into a bookshelf, knocking off cookbooks, archaeology tomes, and religious texts.

  “For heaven’s sake!” I drop the cutlery and run past the Cat to my friend. “He can barely walk now.”

  As I help him up, Clyde grunts. “I told you he was dangerous.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have said that about his sister!” I scold.

  As Yoshi returns the butcher knife to the block, Nora and Zaleski storm in. The detective doesn’t have his gun drawn, but his fingers hover over the holster.

  “It’s fine,” I announce. “It’s over.” I take a breath. “They were just being boys.”

  After a moment to digest that, the chef announces in her not-to-be-disputed voice that Yoshi will be staying with her until further notice, and Zaleski announces in his I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass voice that we’re not to tell anyone, or else.

  Yoshi breaks the awkward silence that follows by asking me, “What did you mean by ‘vampire’? Everybody knows that vamps are extinct.”

  That is what most people think. The last widely rumored sighting of one was in the ’60s in Dallas.

  “Pfft,” Clyde replies.

  “Uh . . .” I begin, turning to the adults.

  Zaleski suddenly has his pocketknife out and is cleaning his fingernails.

  Meanwhile, Nora moves to the refrigerator to take something out. The chef briefly nukes it, adds a dollop of cherry-vanilla ice cream, and then offers it with a fork to the confused Cat. She begins, “This is the kind of news best served over pecan pie.”

  I half lift, half shove Clyde up behind the wheel of his domino-decked SUV and I’m climbing into the front passenger seat when Yoshi calls, “Aimee, can I talk to you?”

  “Don’t go,” the Possum says. “He’s —”

  “Enough with the drama,” I reply. “I don’t love Ruby any more than you do, but Yoshi isn’t his sister.”

  “Cats are tricky,” Clyde replies. “Expert liars.”

  “Two minutes,” I promise, hopping back out. “Yoshi’s our only lead, remember? He still might be able to help us find Ruby.” Once I slam the car door, the Possum hits the high beams, lighting up the driveway.

  I jog back to Yoshi. He yawns huge, and it reminds me of big cats at the zoo.

  “What is it?” I say, aware that Clyde is watching our every move.

  “Less than forty-eight hours ago, I was living the quiet life, restoring my vintage car, romancing country girls, and trying to stay on Grams’s good side in Heartland, U.S.A.” Yoshi’s eyes turn Cat-like, pupils wide. “Since then, I’ve had multiple firearms and a knife pointed at me, been twice provoked by a scrawny, passive-aggressive Possum, had my life threatened by the werearmadillo king, and —”

  “Threatened?” I echo. “By Pop-Pop Richards?” I’ve attended a handful of family events with Travis, plus the funeral, and that’s what his grandfather insists I call him.

  A prolonged honk comes from Clyde’s SUV.

  Yoshi shakes his head. “Forget it. This is my problem. I’ll —”

  “Just spit it out,” I say.

  “If Ruby doesn’t turn up soon, the Armadillos will be gunning for me, too. They want revenge and lots of it. I need to find out what really happened and fast. I doubt that Zaleski told me everything. You might. Besides, I could use a local guide.”

  “In exchange for what?” I ask. “Why should I help you help a known . . .” I almost say “killer.” That’s the word Clyde would use — or worse. “Fugitive?”

  “According to what Zaleski told me, Ruby hasn’t been formally charged,” Yoshi replies, pacing on the driveway. “Nobody’s going to miss a homicidal bloodsucker like Davidson Morris.” He pauses like it’s still an effort to process that information. “But if that werebear detective was convinced that my sister murdered a teenage shifter and a couple of cops, don’t you think he’d put out an APB on her?”

  Hmm. The extraordinarily sexy werecat has a point.

  “Look,” Yoshi begins again. “We both want to
find Ruby. I get that you’re upset about what happened to your friend. Maybe you’re all looking too hard for someone to blame. I’m sure the Possum is. But I know she’s not guilty, and I’ll prove it to you.”

  Clyde’s horn goes ballistic, and an upstairs light in the neighbor’s house comes on.

  Yoshi hisses in his general direction, and it’s time to bail.

  Glancing at the idling SUV, I reply, “Tell you what: Sanguini’s is closed on Sundays. How about we meet here tomorrow morning? I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

  “WHAT WAS ALL THAT ABOUT?” I demand as Aimee buckles her seat belt. “I want to hear every detail. Every little thing. What did Yoshi say?”

  “Would the Dillos really kill Yoshi for something Ruby did?” she asks in reply.

  Travis is (was?) my best friend (when you’re talking about ghosts, tense is difficult), but I’m no expert on the inner workings of werearmadillo culture.

  “Unclear,” I say, backing slowly out of the driveway. “They could just be trying to lure her out, using the brother as bait, and since when are you on Yoshi’s side?”

  “What do you mean?” Aimee asks, turning up the heater. “I’m not on his side.”

  “You yelled at me in front of him in the kitchen!” I exclaim as we turn onto the dead-end street. “Now you’re more worried about him than finding Travis’s killer.”

  As I brake at the stop sign, she says, “I yelled at you because you started that ridiculous display of testosterone, talking trash about Yoshi’s sister. Of course I want Ruby questioned. Ruby, not Yoshi. He wasn’t even in Texas —”

  “That we know of,” I point out, making a mental note that Aimee said “questioned” and not “punished.” That’s Yoshi’s doing. She wasn’t alone with him for three minutes, and he’s already spun her mind.

  “Fine,” she agrees. “That we know of. But the Dillos have supposedly threatened to extend the price they’ve put on Ruby’s head to him. Assuming he’s not at fault, Yoshi shouldn’t be the one to pay. That would be wrong, Clyde, horribly wrong, and besides, Travis’s true killer would get off free. You tell me: is that justice?”