What Goes Bump In The Night

by C. R. Jane

  I didn't address him. "Take him down to the Basement. You can finish his paperwork then."

  When they were all gone from my sight, I exhaled the breath I held. How in the hell did he know about what I'd done to Vesper?

  And more importantly, what was that gibberish about a mark?

  "Lieutenant?"

  The airy voice of Dr. Siriani cut into my reverie. I'd finally made it to the morgue and met the doctor just in time. "Apologies, Dr. Siriani. Please continue."

  The bug-eyed features of the new forensic pathologist put me at ease, oddly enough. I knew that others were put off by him in that respect; well, that and because he happened to take on the characteristics of a praying mantis the way he rubbed one hand over the other. But he always got the job done, and anyone who helped us catch the bad guys was aces in my book.

  Way better and more competent than the previous morgue doctor. Of course, he had likely been in the same ring as the Prick, given that he'd never returned to his position after the shakedown. Wouldn't have put it past him to have tampered with reports, evidence, and who knew what else in order to conceal the truth.

  Siriani was referred to the precinct thanks to Balin, though I didn't like acknowledging Balin for anything. I wasn't stupid. Neither man ever outright said it, but I was supposed to believe that this guy was one hundred percent human, without a drop of God blood in him.

  I could ignore and overlook what I needed to; as long as Balin didn't think he was pulling the wool over my eyes, we were good.

  "So, doctor, you got something for me?"

  "It's a most unusual case, indeed, Lieutenant."

  Uh-oh. I didn't know him that well, but there had been plenty of weird cases about which Siriani had never said anything, so I was a little scared by the fact that he found this case 'unusual.'

  "Well, as you know, Lieutenant, there was a lot of blood. Of course I screened it for all kinds of toxins and poisons and…well, I'm stumped. Based on the names on the hotel reservation, we're looking at a Nash and Tabitha. With enough work I've managed to figure out which went with which body part. You know."

  "Yes, I do know. I was on scene when those body parts were even bloodier."

  He gave me a grim face in response, with a full body shake and cringe motion that was nothing close to cool as a cucumber. There was something humanizing about those actions that made me feel better about Siriani and the case.

  "Lieutenant, though the people were utterly wrecked, there was something perfectly preserved about them. They were taken apart only to be put back together in a seemingly ordered sequence."

  "Do you know what it signifies?"

  He fiddled with his glasses. "Well, no, not really. Those bodies, those people. It is hard to know really anything at the moment. I authorized more thorough tests from the regional forensic labs. They should be able to help us."

  As the precinct with the most resources, it was disconcerting to know that we needed to ask another lab to help us. But I didn't criticize. At least not yet.

  I nodded. "I see. That's all the information we have so far? There wasn't anything definitive?"

  "Oh, I didn't say that, Lieutenant. The DNA is what troubles me."

  "The DNA? Why?"

  "Because I have no idea what it is."

  What.

  Not who or whose, but what.

  Well, that was something new.

  Chapter 4

  It was a miracle.

  I was back at my apartment before dawn for a few minutes of downtime. My cat greeted me with a loud yowl. As if he didn't have all the food he needed. "Okay, Yokai, hold your horses."

  Yokai, aka Demon Cat, bumped his head against my shins. I walked around his swishy tail and into the kitchen. Like I figured, his water feeder and food dispenser were well-stocked. "I don't know why you're complaining; you have plenty of food here."

  I bent down to pick him up and he let me, knocking his head against my neck. "Are you just trying to get attention? That's probably it. Attention."

  He meowed loud and long. Probably lonely. Did cats get lonely?

  "Whatcha see, boy?"

  He was staring intently at the window. I hadn't cracked it open like I usually did. Oops. That was probably why he was restless. I twisted the old iron lock and pushed against the pane. Yokai immediately slithered out onto the terrace.

  I lived in a modified apartment in the old meatpacking district. I didn't like the idea of re-gentrification, but I dealt with it because this was more of a rebuild from the aftermath of the Sylphs laying waste to the city a generation ago.

  Other cities might have been left in ruin, but there was something about New York that the Remnant Gods couldn't leave alone. They'd rendered nearly all of New England a barren desert, but New York they kept up.

  I wasn't going to complain.

  I glanced out the window. The full moon took up nearly all the night sky. It was going to be a nice Hunter's Moon this year.

  Randy the Vagrant's words came back to mind.The mark of the Hunter. What the hell did he mean by that? And what exactly was this mark he claimed he saw?

  I was never good at dealing with metaphysical bullshit. Things I could see, touch, and feel were all things I could throw face first into the asphalt. Gimme a punching bag any day of the week. That usually helped to get my mind right.

  Sure, there were people I could probably call and talk to about this sort of shit, but not any I wanted to bother with right now.

  There was way too much juju out there—good and bad. I didn't like it.

  Yokai was getting a little uppity again, jumping on the terrace, and I was about to yell at him to calm down when a shadow flickered in the moonbeams cast against the wall.

  I froze.

  After a minute, nothing else happened. Maybe I could have been mistaken; maybe it could have been Yokai's shadow, but fuck it all, I knew what I'd seen, and there was no unseeing it. There was something here.

  I hadn't taken off my shoulder holster, but something told me that an unseen shadowlike thing wasn't going to be too impressed with my department-issued Glock or the customized Ruger at my back.

  I stared, waiting, but nothing more happened. When all I was left with was a cramp in my calf and the thundering of my heart, I decided to let it go. "Let's go, Demon Cat. I don't feel like keeping this window open tonight. In or out?"

  Yokai looked at me and then back outside as if he were really trying to decide. I rolled my eyes at him, and as I closed the pane, he swerved his agile body through.

  "Drama queen," I muttered.

  He purred back at me, and then with a final brush against my legs, sauntered to his room. I went to my own and started stripping my jacket off. My custom Ruger was next. I kept my shoulder holster on because I liked the feel of it.

  Damn, did I just want to sit.

  I fired up the computer, pulling at my boot laces while it whirred to life. I saw it again. The shadow. It flickered against my computer monitor.

  I was not imagining it. Not that I had thought I'd imagined it the first time.

  I stilled and waited for the shadow to flicker again.

  Ghosts were common in the city. They liked the overflow of power that came from an enclave of Gods and New York was one of the main power centers in the world.

  But ghosts annoyed the Demon Cat most of all, which was one of the reasons we'd stuck together all these years. He helped chase away unwanted ones and I fed him for his trouble.

  Plus he was a reason to come back to my apartment at least once a day.

  Why wasn't he whining, though? I rose slowly to my feet. On tiptoe, I crept back out to the ha
llway and started sweeping my own apartment, clearing one room at a time. When I was back in the living room, I found Yokai sitting on his haunches. Odd. I'd thought he was in his room. But here he was, head tilted at an odd angle like he was listening to something. The only time he was that still for me was when I dangled his favorite toy in front of his face, and even then it was only for a moment before he would go into berserk mode.

  Well, that was weird. "You okay, Yokai?"

  He didn't even look at me. Instead, he continued blinking at nothing. Then he growled a little, and with a shake of his head, trotted off past me, toward his room. It was like a cat's version of a teenager stomping away.

  Okay, then. "Well, excuse me for interrupting your night."

  "You interrupted nothing, Lieutenant."

  Chapter 5

  As lead detective—and now lieutenant—on the Major Cases squad, I couldn't waste time freaking out over every little thing, which was why I jumped toward the direction of the voice. I collided with something physical and I grappled it to the floor with a satisfying crunch.

  It oomphed at me and remained invisible, but that didn't stop me from hitting it wherever I could. It wasn't the incorporeal supernatural creature I'd expected and I was glad for it. If I could hurt it with my fists? Come at me.

  Maybe it was one of those shadow things that tried to get Vesper last month. The ones that came out of nowhere and anchored her in time to some godsforsaken hellhole. Maybe we hadn't gotten all of the bastards who were part of that anti-God/Humans-first movement that was a front for a power move.

  Whoever he was, he was uninvited and fair game for a pummeling.

  I hit him across the face with a thwack and a snarl answered back. He gripped my wrists and his eyes glowed red, appearing from darkness.

  I slammed my forehead neatly between those gleaming eyes.

  "Dammit! Lieutenant, it's me!"

  I dug my knee into his torso, just under where I estimated his rib cage would be. Belatedly, I realized that whoever I fought was trying to talk to me. That moment of hesitation was all the opening he needed.

  He hurled me off from atop his body and I landed on my back with a sharp smack.

  My breath compressed from my lungs and out of my mouth with a whoosh, as the figure's outline became more visible in the moonlight. Dazed, I was dragged up, my wrists secured above my head.

  "Lieutenant—"

  I did the only natural thing to do in this position. I launched my knee up.

  It didn't connect where I wanted it to, but it was close enough to the groin that whoever it was above me whimpered a little and loosened his hold.

  I rolled away, whipping my gun from its holster and pointing it at the intruder. "Don't you fucking move."

  The darkness that I had been struggling with melted away and Balin was on his hands and knees above me, black night whipping around him like a cloak flapping in the breeze. His hand was up in surrender. He breathed heavily.

  I still didn't lower my gun. "Dude. You could have knocked." I was pleased that I sounded so casual.

  He was still trying to catch his breath. "Dammit. Like I was trying to tell you. I came inside by accident and I got stuck here."

  "Stuck, huh?"

  He stared daggers at me. "Yes. Stuck." He pointed at the window.

  I finally lowered my weapon. "Wait. Are you telling me that you couldn't open the fucking window? Then how the hell did you even get in?"

  His eyes darted away for a second before his gaze met mine again. "Bukuro." At my clearly stunned expression, he clarified. "The cat."

  "Bukuro?"

  "Yup. That's his name. He's amused you call him Yokai, though."

  I couldn't believe this nonsense conversation I was having with Balin. "Bukuro." I repeated the cadence of syllables again, slowly, as if Balin would elaborate.

  He shrugged. "That's the name he wants me to call him. He doesn't seem to care what you call him, though." Balin snorted at that.

  I shook my head as if that would help me restart this conversation. "Okay, so what did the cat do?"

  "The cat did nothing. That was the point. He slipped in here as you closed the window and then refused to go back out even though he was completely able to."

  He ended his statement with a snarl and pinned my Demon Cat down with a stare. The cat in question had just so happened to appear in the middle of my living room and was now licking his paw as if he didn't know he was the subject of our conversation.

  I tested out his name. "Bukuro?"

  He stopped his grooming routine for a moment and looked at me with his luminous moon eyes. "Meow?"

  Did he actually ask me a question? I shook my head. I didn't have time to dwell in this Wonderland that I'd clearly fallen into.

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose. "Okay, so I'm supposed to believe that the cat lured you into my apartment?"

  Balin heaved an impatient sigh. He was still on his hands and knees.

  I gestured at him. "Why aren't you moving?"

  He had the gall to be annoyed at me. Did he not see that he entered my home all incognito in the middle of the night? This was not exactly normal behavior, God or no. I said as much.

  Through gritted teeth he answered me. "I am this way because you told me not to move and your Voice had a hell of a lot of conviction behind it."

  I rolled my eyes. Why was he playing? He had Voice too. It was pretty difficult to Voice others who had it. "Dude, get up and stop being so dramatic." I motioned to the chair in the corner with my gun. "Sit the fuck down."

  Balin moved to the chair and stiffly sat down as if his knees rebelled against him. He'd better not tell me that he did so against his will.

  I went to my kitchen, grabbed a squat glass from my cabinet, and set it on the counter. I pulled open the freezer door and took out a few ice cubes and a cold pack. The cubes went into the glass, followed by a splash of vodka. It seemed more appropriate than the coffee I'd rather have.

  I knocked back the liquid like it was a shot and splashed some more in the glass. I carried it and the ice pack back into the living room. Balin still sat rigid in the high-back chair. What the hell was with these men this evening?

  I threw the ice pack at him. "Here. Take that." I sat on the sofa opposite him, placed the glass on the end table, and picked up my gun again. I made a show of removing the magazine and inspecting it, highlighting the special stock of rounds in the clip with cloverleaf patterns swirled around them. The blessings of a priestess assigned to our department.

  I slammed the clip in place and chambered a round. Ready to go. I kept ahold of it with my left hand, my subtle way of letting him know that I was as proficient with that hand as I was with the right, which was currently searching for my vodka. "Now. You're gonna tell me what the fuck you're doing here."

  For his part, Balin took the ice pack and placed it against his ribs. The poor guy actually looked like he was in a little bit of pain. Score for me. "I've been using Bukuro-the cat-as surveillance. I was borrowing his eyes when he decided to hop inside your apartment."

  He grumbled something under his breath that Yokai seemed to hear. The cat hissed in response.

  I looked between the both of them a couple of times. A whole host of questions flooded in my brain, but I gulped them down with my drink, trying to decide if I cared to hear the answers or if I should just send Balin packing back to Deimos and Janus Holdings.

  I clenched my hand around the gun's grip, the weight of it a comfort in my hand. I knew every inch of my service weapon, every notch and curve. The familiarity of it soothed me and helped me to focus.

  Answers. That was what I needed right now.
But answers were best distilled from silence. And so I waited.

  Balin eventually heaved another sigh. "You don't want to hear what I have to say."

  I curled my lip. "Let me decide what I want to hear."

  His eyes glimmered, despite the fact that he was sitting in shadow. "Your...cat? Bukuro? He's not a regular cat. He is exactly the Yokai you wanted him to be."

  I kept my face a smooth mask. "If you're going to be this intractable, I will use these bullets to muss up your pretty outfit and apologize to the big D later."

  "Yokai...you know what that means right?"

  I actually hadn't until recently. I just thought it was a cute nonsense word that sounded like "you okay."

  "It's a supernatural creature. It's Japanese. And?"

  He raised his too perfect brow at me. "A supernatural,shape-shifting creature."

  The way he emphasized shape-shifting niggled at me. "Yokai the Demon Cat is a shape-shifter?"

  "Yes."

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I glanced toward where the cat had been, but he'd disappeared. Dammit. "Well, he wasn't the one skulking around in the shadows and looking like he was about to kill me. In fact, he's always looked out for me."

  "Yup. As he did tonight. He didn't want me inside, but he also didn't want to be locked out tonight. He was...unsettled."

  I asked the one question that I didn't want to ask. "What does he shape-shift into?"

  "Ask him yourself."

  The slinky outline of my cat hugged the shadows, trying for a smooth exit. Not this time. "Come here, Demon Cat."

  He trotted forward and then sat on his haunches, his tail swishing vigorously. I looked at him, staring him straight in the eyes. I didn't know if what Balin said was true, but I knew shape-shifters existed.

  "Are you a shape-shifter?" I asked Yokai slowly. Partly because this was silly. And yes, okay, maybe partly because I was trying to poke fun at Balin, who didn't look amused at all by my play.