Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst

by Campbell, D. Andrew

  I can't stay here, I think. I may not know what's around me, but I definitely know what - or who! - is waiting back there in that house. And Ren was right about that guy; he is definitely more dangerous than I gave him credit for. He managed to resist one of my strongest pushes, and he found a way to both deafen and blind me in one move. That is a much more impressive adversary than I was prepared for.

  Needing to pick a direction, I opt for the "darker" white part of my surroundings over the "brighter" white one that I assume is the house I just fled. "Away" is good for now. I'll worry about "where" away is taking me later.

  "Renny, I'm running," I say as I start to jog at a slow pace. "Away from the house. I can't see. I can't hear. And I have no idea where I'm going. But I'm going to haul some butt in an attempt to get there." I pause and consider the situation for a moment before I continue speaking. "I could probably use some help here. You know it kills me to ask for it, but I might be in trouble." My hands catch the edge of the white fence about the same time I'm expecting to run into it (Thank you eidetic memory!), and I gently vault over it and aim for the neighbor’s house I had remembered seeing earlier.

  "Maybe you could use that nifty, tracker thingy you put on me a few weeks ago," I say in what I hope is a normal-sounding tone (I hate not knowing if I'm shouting or not. It’s frustrating.) and slow as I anticipate finding the edge of the house. My fingers close on the rough bricks I remember pulling myself up not more than a half hour ago (Back when I had all five senses, and didn't realize how lucky I was.), and I turn my body to the right and jog along the house's broad wall looking for the front corner and a chance to finally center my internal GPS.

  While I was in the yard, I didn't have enough information to pinpoint my exact location and know where I was (I could have been anywhere in the yard, or along the fence, or along the house's wall), but now that I'm at the house's corner I know exactly where I am. Pulling up my memories of the past several days of my stakeouts of Chadwick's house, I can easily retrace and count my steps. Even being limited to only three senses (and one very impressive memory), I should be able to get away from here before he can follow me.

  "Ren, I'm heading out to the street," I say and push away from the corner of the house and count the fifteen steps I know it will take me to get to the sidewalk. "I'm going to walk it from here. Either you find me, or I'm going to find my way home to you."

  Feeling the ground underneath my feet change from the soft give of the grass to the hard resistance of the sidewalk, I turn left (away from the house that has caused my current plight) and start walking towards my home (or abandoned warehouse. To each their own.).

  "Oh," I say as I continue my blind meander. "And I used up all my energy reserves getting out of there. I'm starved...and things are about to get interesting..." I let my words trail off as I inhale deeply to get a better sense of my surroundings, and the warm scent of a late evening pedestrian hits my nose.

  "Real interesting," I repeat and increase my pace so that my path will intersect with what smells like a middle-aged man on the other side of the street.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Feeding has helped. Tremendously. My eyesight is back to normal and the ringing in my ears has faded away enough that I can only tell it's there if I stop and focus on it. It has helped that I no longer feel guilty about drawing blood from strangers. I take their blood, but I generally don't kill them. I figure people give blood to the Red Cross to save lives; this isn't all that much different.

  At least that's what I keep telling myself.

  "So what did he do again?" I ask as I turn in my padded, black leather chair and look at the man sitting a few feet away from me in front of a wall of computer monitors. "And how can I avoid ever having to experience it a second time?"

  "Please remember to turn off your microphone next time," he says without turning to look at me. "There are things in this life I just don't need to hear." He pauses and then drops his head slightly and closes his eyes. "Ever. Please."

  The glow from the monitors is pretty much the only light in the warehouse currently, and they illuminate his well-muscled torso and chiseled face quite well. He's impressively strong , and he's in better shape than I ever was (Well, I mean, before all this started. He doesn't really have me beat now, but then again, I'm not really a fair measuring stick either.). All of which is made even more impressive knowing that he's dying and his time left on this world is limited. If it had been me, and I had been diagnosed with a rare, untreatable blood cancer then the last thing I would have cared about was getting into shape. But that's also why I like the guy. He intrigues me.

  "But Renny," I begin, sounding confused, "you've told me I have to leave the mic on when I'm out there so that you can hear what's going on and be able to track me. It's not my fault about that explosion. I didn't know it was coming. And even if I did, then how was I supposed to take the time to turn off my mike. You can't hold that against me. Seriously."

  "Not the explosion, Cat." He turns and brings his dark, sunken eyes up to meet mine (No matter how much he works out, or how great a shape he gets in, he doesn't seem to be able to lose the "haunted" look that makes the skin around his eyes look recessed. I know it bothers him, and it's a side effect of the poisonous blood in his system, but it's still disconcerting to look at at times.). "The guy on the street. Your feeding. I don't want to hear that." He stops and breathes deeply, and I can hear the air quietly whistle through him. "I know you have to do it, but I don't need to hear it."

  "Oh," I reply sheepishly. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I know you've told me. That was my fault. I was a bit…" I look him in the eyes and try to smile as prettily as I can (I know my awkward attempts at flirting have no effect on him - judging from the lack of a change in his pulse or breathing - but I also hope that it can at least lighten the mood when I screw up. Which is often.). "Distracted at the time," I finish.

  "Uh huh," he mumbles as he turns back to the glowing screens in front of him (But at least I'm pretty sure I saw the corners of his mouth twitch into smile territory. Not a full on commitment mind you, but at least it was a start. Impending death sure can make a boy morose.). "And that's still not my name," he says without looking at me.

  "Ugh," I groan at him in my best mildly-annoyed-teenaged-girl voice (Hey! Use the powers that come naturally, I always say.). "You know I can't use your real name. It's ridiculous. Come on," I say and scoot my chair a bit closer to him, so I can lower my voice. "Pater? Pater Knighton? That's not even a real name! How am I supposed to talk to you without giggling. And what kind of name is Pater anyway?"

  "We’ve covered this before," he says with a tone of resignation smearing through his voice. "My parents combined their names to make it. And in German, "pater" means..." But I don't let him continue.

  "I know what it means. You've told me before, and I don't forget things. Remember. Perfect memory? Things stuck in here forever," and I tap the side of my head for emphasis. "Plus, it was a rhetorical question. I wasn't trying to get the whole background again.

  "And it's not like I can use your last name either," I continue. "As we found out last time. That was a total bust." (Apparently, I can't stop from saying his last name as "Kuh-niggut" and envisioning the Monty Python troupe from Holy Grail. It cracked me up every time, and my constant laughing fits made communication with me nearly impossible. I'm going to blame that one on my dad and his great taste in classic movies.)

  "So until we find something better, I think 'Renfield' will just have to work. It's short. It easily breaks up into a nickname," I say, and then lower my voice as I mumble. "Plus I think it fits our current situation. It keeps me grounded."

  The handsome man in the chair next to me (Can I really think of him as a "man" when he’s less than ten years my senior?), who has become my one and only friend over the last several months, turns to look me in the eyes and just stares at me for several seconds. His breathing doesn't change, and his heartbeat never wavers. He's just a steady rock as hi
s eyes bore into me. He may not have the super abilities that I have (Are they "powers" or just "abilities"?), but his own are impressive. I do my best to not wriggle under his intense gaze. His emotional steadiness has helped settle me since we've been together, and it pays off now.

  "I know Cat," he finally says in his low voice. "I spend my free time reading, too. I understand the reference." He stops and just looks at me as I count the beats of his heart. I get up to six before he speaks again. "And it'll do for now, but don't forget my real name. Names are important." He finally breaks eye contact and turns back to the large monitor in front of him before speaking again in a lighter voice. "Don't think I'm going to be eating any bugs for you, Vlad." And I swear this time that the hints of a real smile actually cross his cheeks.

  "Ok, I agree,” I say before shifting topics. "Now, seriously, what was that in Morrin's house? Because I don't ever want to experience that again!"

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Well, going off of what you described when it happened, I'm going to say it was a modified stun grenade. Commonly called a 'flash bang'," Ren pauses in his explanation and brings up some pictures on one of the monitors and taps them with his finger. "These things. They are relatively cheap, easy to get your hands on if you know what you're doing, and very effective at creating impressive distractions. I'm guessing he rigged his house with some, and then set them off when he walked through the doorway."

  Playing the scene back in my mind, I watch as Chadwick holds his hands above his head - even though I didn't ask him to (In fact he continued to hold them up even after I had told him to put them down.) - and walks through the doorway. His outstretched fingers brush the top of the archway, and that hidden string pulls taut followed by that discernable click.

  "Yah, I could see that. It makes sense."

  "I told you that man was up to no good," he continues while nodding his head. "He was prepared for somebody to find him. He's smart and he's evil. That's not a good combination..."

  Ren lets his voice trail off as he reads something on one of the many screens in front of him. "Actually, let me change that assessment a bit," he says and turns to look at me. "I'm changing my answer to 'frighteningly brilliant' and truly ‘arch-nemesis’ evil. As much as I wanted to push you to go after this guy, I'm starting to think he may be out of our league."

  "What? Why?" I ask and sit forward to try and read what he had just noticed on the screen.

  "The cops that were posted outside his house finally logged a report of your 'visit'..."

  "They knew I was there?" I interrupt him. "How? They couldn't have seen me!"

  "Relax, Cat, I don't mean they knew about you, but they had to know something happened. I've been waiting to see how Chadwick reported what went down between the two of you."

  "And?" I ask, increasing my forward lean to get a view of the many screens in front of him.

  "He's good," Ren tells me. "He had a cover story all set up. Their report says they heard something like an explosion come from the house and saw a bright flash of light through the windows. They approached with weapons drawn - according to what they have in the report they were expecting a bomb of some kind had gone off - and knocked on the front door. No answer."

  Ren goes back to one of the screens and reads for a moment before continuing. "They banged on the door and yelled for about a minute before deciding that they should just kick it in and chalk whatever had just happened up to being a solid case of ‘probable cause'. But before they could act on that decision, the door opened and Chadwick stepped out. He looked disheveled and the police detected a burnt chemical scent to him. They interrogated him right there on his own front porch, and he covered it all perfectly.

  "Apparently, he told them a couple of his lights exploded in the house. Claimed it could have been a power surge. He even showed them the remains of several lamps to back it up. The report states that they looked around and didn't see anything else suspicious aside from multiple exploded light fixtures and the unusual odor, which they attributed to the electricity and shattered bulbs."

  "But what about the smashed back door? There's no way he could have claimed that was from a power surge."

  "Good point. I'll check," Ren says and goes back to the police report he has up on the screen. After reading several lines, he speaks up. "Ah, here we go. The police noted that several windows and doors were open to air the place out. Morrin claims that was how he knew the police were out front. He was opening the front door to get some air flow when he stumbled into them. It doesn’t look like they ever went around the back of his house. And if the door was open, then they probably didn’t notice anything wrong.

  "There's no record of you being there or any explosion from the grenade," he continues with a sigh. "He had a perfect cover story for what happened. He executed the whole thing with precision, and it was flawless."

  "Fine. He's really smart," I concede. "And after talking to him and witnessing him shrug off my attacks, he has definitely climbed a few rungs on my Nasty-Evil-Dude ladder. But you heard what he said when I was in there. He knows about the girls, and they aren't dead. He's responsible, Renny. I don't know for exactly what, yet, but he is definitely deep into this."

  Remembering Chadwick's responses to my questions in his kitchen gets my blood worked up, and I don't have enough energy in me right now to keep control if it starts to overwhelm me. I need to feed again. That quick snack earlier healed some damage and kept me sane, but it isn't going to hold me over for long.

  "I want him, Renny," I say and embrace the stirring of the darkness in my gut. "I mean he may be smarter than us, and whole lot more evil than we could ever be," and for a second I get flashbacks of another man who I had once thought of as completely evil but eventually was forced to reassess. "But I'm faster, stronger, meaner and a big ol’ slice of something he's never experienced before. He may be prepared for a lot of things, but he can’t be prepared for me. He doesn’t know me…yet.” I let those words sink in before continuing. “He doesn't get to win this fight, Ren. I do."

  Inhaling the calming scent of my friend (Whose blood is too poisonous for my brain to even consider sampling, let alone drinking from. Being around a person that I can't possible feed on has helped me find a happy place in life. I almost feel normal being around him.), I smile and pat the hardened muscles of my abdomen. "Now let's find me a place for dinner."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  As Ren brings up information on the computers about our most recent suspected Den of Druggery (Bringing suspected child abusers to justice has only been a recent endeavor on our part. I'm still focusing on making the city a safer place one rotted out building at a time.), I head over to the wall to grab one of the prepared backpacks off a hook (I've learned since my first ventures out into the world. Now I come prepared.). Looking over my shoulder, I shout to him, "These are all stocked and ready to go, right? No surprises?"

  Ren looks up and glances at me. "Yeah, they're good to go. You don't have to keep checking on me. It was one mistake. Learn to forget, forgive and move on."

  A month ago, he forgot to return the thick, plastic bags to the backpack (The ones that I use to collect the money that I inevitably find whenever I invade one of these places.). I was forced to improvise with some nasty, stained sheets I found in a bedroom. It wasn't an experience I wanted to repeat any time soon.

  I smile at his sassiness. "Perfect memory, remember. I'm incapable of forgetting," I tell him and then consider the rest of his statement. “But I'll work on the other two parts."

  Pulling the straps of the large, black backpack over my arms, I walk back to the computers and check out the map he has brought up on the largest of his monitors. It appears to be a fairly large house in a surprisingly affluent neighborhood. It isn't the normal type of place he's been sending me lately.

  "What's with this place?" I ask him and tap the house on the screen marked by the blue upside down tear shape on the map. "Am I going upscale tonight? Or are you just feeling
adventurous?"

  "A little bit of both," he replies without turning towards me. "As we've become more efficient at wiping out the dark denizens of the underworld over the past few months, they've responded by becoming more creative. You've no doubt noticed that our cash hauls have decreased significantly recently? There's a reason for that."

  "I have," I say (I also noticed his use of the word "our" when referring to the money I take from the houses as opposed to saying "your". It makes me smile. Even though I do most of the physical work when it comes to taking down a suspected house, I keep telling him that it wouldn't be possible without his support. He does all the research and gets his hands dirty with technology in ways that I never could. I've been telling him since we began our partnership that the money is as much his as it is mine. He was reluctant at first, but he's coming around. Especially since he's learning that I can't really spend the money without him. He's my middle man when it comes to the real world. It's his name on the lease agreement for the warehouse - it was also his idea to legally acquire the place so that we couldn't be surprised by having it sold out from underneath us - and it's he that goes out and buys all the supplies. He truly is my Renfield.).

  "They're like a virus in the human body, and we've become the white blood cells trying to destroy them. They're either going to be wiped out and the body becomes healthy." He finally turns away from the screen in front of him and looks at me. "Or they learn to mutate and hide to avoid detection. And right now these drug guys are changing how their system works in order to make it all the more difficult for us to find them."

  "What do you mean 'changing their system'?" I ask him. "I thought they already tried that when they attempted to kill me those last few times."