The Thing in the Alley (Anomaly Hunters, Book 3) Page 18

18

  For the rest of the day Calvin checked the news every hour on the hour. There was no new information until the noon press conference, at which Chief Dowdie repeated what had already been revealed and then added that the latest victim was a middle-aged woman who had now been identified but whose identity was being withheld until her family could be tracked down and notified of her death. The body, which had suffered severe mutilation consistent with the other victims, had been discovered by a patrolman shortly before dawn. Coroner Chandra estimated the time of death to have been between midnight and three a.m. As far as was known, there were no witnesses, visual or aural, to the death.

  Dowdie then revealed that another person had gone missing in the West River neighborhood, a fourteen-year-old girl named Maisie Dayton, who had snuck out of her parents’ house the night before last to meet her boyfriend and had not been seen since. The boyfriend, a seventeen-year-old with a history of petty theft and assault, had been considered the prime suspect in the girl’s disappearance—and hence the disappearance had been considered unconnected with the string of murders—until last night when his alibi had been confirmed beyond doubt. Now, the police feared she may have met the same fate as the other murder victims and, possibly, the two missing graffitists. Chief Dowdie urged anyone with information to come forward. He reiterated that the police believed the murders to have been committed by at least two individuals armed with some kind of odd, large cutting implement.

  The conference ended with a flurry of questions from reporters, none of which yielded any further useful information from Dowdie.

  Calvin switched off the TV, then consulted the map book. The Daytons’ home was on a stretch of Jackson Road that Calvin’s team had traversed during yesterday’s search. Calvin didn’t remember seeing the house. Then again, he and the others had been focusing on heavily foliated areas, not on houses. The house was a few blocks southwest of where Terrell Quinn’s body was found, which was consistent with the hypothesis that the leucrota was traveling west. On the other hand, the Dayton home was simply where the girl had last been seen, not where she died. Calvin wasn’t even sure which direction she went after leaving home; Chief Dowdie hadn’t said where Maisie Dayton planned to meet her boyfriend.

  Calvin continued tuning in to the news every hour, but subsequent reports only repeated what was already known. Apparently the police weren’t having much luck tracking down the latest victim’s relatives.

  He spent the rest of his time surfing the internet for information about the nesting habits of hyenas, wolves, and other animals that leucrotas resembled or were reputed to have been based on, hoping that the parallelisms extended beyond the merely physical to include the behavioral as well.

  Tiffany arrived at ten to four, early as planned. The first thing she asked when he met her at the door was, “Have you heard about the new murder?”

  “Yeah. It kind of makes hash of our search yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  He led her into the parlor, and they sat down on the couch, Calvin careful to keep a body-length of space between them. Given what her father had told him, he was more reluctant than ever to be too bold, move too fast, press too hard, afraid he might reopen old wounds in her psyche. He figured—or perhaps only desperately hoped—that she would give him some kind of a signal when it was time for him to make a move. He looked at her as she settled into her seat, and found it hard to reconcile her pretty face and mild demeanor with the feral fighting thing her father had described. He tried to imagine her scrawling incomprehensible symbols on a madhouse wall with her own blood, but he just couldn’t see it.

  And then he stopped thinking about it altogether, distracted by her nearness. He couldn’t help but be aware of her warm and solid body within arms’ reach of his, so close he could smell some kind of peach-scented product she had used earlier—shampoo, perhaps, or body wash. And the couch’s springs and cushions connected them, too, transmitting the vibrations of their restless bodies’ shifts and squirms to each other. Her every movement made him move too, and vice versa.

  Calvin picked up the map book, which lay open to the two-page spread showing the West River neighborhood, and held it between himself and Tiffany.

  “See, look here…” he said.

  As she leaned toward him for a better look, her forearm brushed his. She was wearing a cap-sleeved shirt similar to the one she had worn the other day, and the feel of her bare skin grazing his made him stiffen, his heart jumping. He glanced up at her only to find that she had chosen the exact same moment to glance up at him. Their eyes met.

  “Um…” He cleared his throat and looked down at the map book. What the hell had he been saying? Oh, right. “See, the area where we, uh, where we searched yesterday, it was, uh…it, uh…” His index finger made aimless circles over the splayed pages. He couldn’t think. Tiffany’s arm was still touching his—only lightly, but he could no more ignore it than he could a stripper giving him a lap dance. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Tiffany hadn’t moved. She was still looking at him. He glanced at her again.

  She hadn’t heard a word he said. She was intently studying his face, her eyes roving over his nose and lips and cheeks, her pupils big as those of a cat about to pounce, her nostrils dilating rhythmically as if she were savoring his scent. Her eyes rose to meet his. They were fierce with desire.

  Fragile, my ass, he thought. This was all the signal he needed.

  He leaned toward her, slowly at first to give her time to back away or protest on the off chance he had misread her. But he hadn’t misread anything. The language of her face had been unmistakable. Instead of backpedaling, she thrust her face forward to meet his.

  They kissed. What Calvin had meant to be a delicate lip-touch, again playing it safe with this potentially frangible girl, swiftly got hijacked by Tiffany, whose mouth muscled at his with savage abandon, her lips pushing and sucking at his in a sloppy, confused way. After a few seconds, apparently realizing her efforts weren’t achieving the desired results, she abandoned her enthusiastic if inchoate technique and instead started mimicking what Calvin’s lips were doing, only with ten times the vigor.

  It was clear she had never kissed anyone before, which almost certainly meant she was still a virgin. Calvin suddenly felt a little guilty, as if he were taking advantage of her somehow. In his head he heard her father warning him not to harm her.

  Then her tongue thrust through his lips and dove deep into his mouth, and any notion that he was taking advantage of her dissipated in an instant.

  He met her passion with equal force. At least for a moment. She upped the ante almost immediately, shoving her body against his, her hands clutching his chest, her hungry advance taking him by surprise and pushing him backward. The map book slid from his fingers and thwacked onto the carpet. Calvin sank back onto the seat of the couch with Tiffany atop him, her lips smacking wetly and hungrily on his, her tongue driving into him, her hands now pushing up his T-shirt and touching and stroking his bare belly. All the while she made soft, quick grunts, like a ravenous dog devouring a long-overdue meal.

  Then she drew back, her lips separating from his with a quick wet smeck, and looked him dead in the eye. The blaze in her eyes had blossomed into a Hindenburg-like inferno. Her lips were curved into an impudent smile. The little princess was back and intent on getting exactly what she desired. And what, pray tell, did her majesty desire?

  “I want to have sex with you,” she said. “Right now. On this couch.”

  “Um, okay.” He glanced at the clock in the corner. “Are you sure, though? We don’t have a lot of time. The others’ll be here in about half an hour. Cynthia might show up even earlier.”

  “I don’t care,” she said flatly. Her fingers found his nipples and pinched them hard enough to make his already half-erect cock jump in his jeans.

  She felt the warm length of him press against her thigh. Grinning wickedly, her mouth a white crescent of t
eeth, she maneuvered about until her jeans-sheathed crotch settled over his bulge. Then she wiggled her hips back and forth, grinding herself against him.

  He stiffened with a gasp, then rocked his hips to match her movements. He cupped her full, round breasts and squeezed, feeling the padded shape of her bra cups under her shirt, and, under the bra, faint but distinct, the hard little stones of her nipples. She growled and flung herself flat against him again, her lips mashing into his so hard his upper lip got pinched against his front teeth. There was a quick sting of pain and the coppery tang of blood. He was so aroused by now he couldn’t care less. In a weird way, the savagery added to the eroticism.

  Her hips lifted off him, and for a moment he thought she was about to dismount for some reason. Then her right hand slid down his body and settled on the straining hump in his pants. Her eager fingers explored its denim-draped contours.

  “It feels so hot,” she breathed into his mouth. “It’s like a fever.”

  His hands gave her breasts a final squeeze, then moved to the column of pearly buttons running down the front of her shirt. He undid the top one, and her shirt slipped open a little, exposing a triangle of smooth skin below her throat.

  When she realized what he was doing, she broke off their kiss and drew away from him, giving him easier access to her chest and belly. Her hand kept stroking the rigid length of him. Her hips kept rotating, grinding her crotch against his thigh. Her teeth were clenched, her nostril flaring wide with her hot, quick breaths.

  He undid the buttons one by one until her shirt fell fully open, baring her smooth, creamy belly and the two pale globes quivering in the cotton cups of her plain white bra. He seized her breasts, his fingers sinking into the plump, soft flesh. He found her nipples through the fabric and pinched them between his thumbs and forefingers. Tiffany grunted, and increased the tempo of her hip-thrusts and her lascivious caresses. Calvin’s cock felt close to bursting.

  “I have condoms,” she said.

  “What?”

  She shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “I…I’ve had them a long time. I’ve never actually used any of them, but I carry them around just in case. You never know.”

  “How long have you had them? What’s the expiration date?”

  “They have an expiration date?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “Oh.” She nodded slightly and muttered, “That makes sense. Everything expires.”

  She sat up and dug a hand into the right front pocket of her jeans. After a few seconds of digging and groping, she wriggled out a three-pack of Trojan condoms. The box was old and crumpled, its corners dented and frayed, its gloss long since faded.

  She studied the box for a few seconds, turning it this way and that until she found the expiration date stamped on the bottom. Given the crinkled, battered condition of the box, she had to tilt it back and forth in the light for a few seconds before she could make out the date.

  “It expires next month,” she announced with a happy smile. “We’re just in time.”

  “Okay,” Calvin said, smiling just as happily.

  “Okay,” she echoed. She stared at him a moment, the box of condoms still in her hands. Her eyes surveyed his bared chest, his slim waist, his small red nipples made hard by her tweaks and tugs. “Take off your clothes,” she demanded. “I want to see you naked.”

  In the midst of his surprise, he couldn’t help feeling a little amused. The domineering little princess popped out at the oddest moments. Or maybe not so odd. Maybe it popped out only when there was something she really, really wanted.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we take turns?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Quid pro quo?” Then she nodded. “Good idea. Tit for tat.”

  “I don’t have any tats,” he said.

  “Get that darn shirt off already.” She plucked at the rucked-up T-shirt under his chin.

  He lifted his head and shoulders off the couch, tugged the shirt the rest of the way off, and dropped it onto the floor beside the couch.

  “That barely counts,” she said with mock poutiness. “It was practically off anyway.”

  “So’s this.” He tugged at the panels of her shirt. “So get it off. I want to see you naked, too, don’t forget.”

  Smiling, eyes on his, she slipped off the shirt and tossed it atop his on the carpet.

  He slid his hands over the smooth domes of her shoulders and down her upper arms, savoring the warmth and softness of her skin. Then his hands swerved inward, his fingertips grazing the sides of her breasts. He slipped his fingers under the bra straps and pulled at them, stretching them. The tops of the bra cups pulled away from her skin, exposing more and more of the creamy globes behind them.

  She batted his hands away.

  “You can get that later,” she said. “It’s your turn to disrobe.”

  “You should have gone first. You’re wearing more clothes than I am.”

  She flashed a big, triumphant grin. “I know. That was why I agreed to your terms in the first place. I’ve got more quids than you’ve got quos.”

  “You vixen.” He sat up and reached around her to get to his shoes. This put them face-to-face, and as he started to unlace his sneakers, he kissed her. She snuggled closer, wrapping her arms around his back, her tongue darting into his mouth, her breasts flattening against his bare chest. Her hips, which had fallen mostly quiescent over the last couple of minutes, now began to grind with a vengeance, her crotch sliding up and down along the length of his cock.

  The doorbell rang.

  They stared at each other, completely frozen, not even breathing. Calvin saw a flash of anxiety in Tiffany’s eyes as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. Shit, could it be her dad at the door? Had he been following Tiffany again? Or was it simply Cynthia arriving earlier than expected? He glanced at the clock and saw it wasn’t quite as early as he had thought: It was already 4:15.

  The bell rang again.

  Tiffany jumped off him, snatched her shirt off the floor, and began to put it back on, her fingers fluttering at each button like the wings of panicked birds.

  Calvin likewise sprang off the couch and pulled his shirt on, glad he didn’t have to monkey with buttons like she did. He was fully clothed before she had even gotten the first button buttoned.

  “You keep buttoning up while I get the door,” he told her.

  She nodded.

  “Oh, and put these back in your pocket.” He snatched the box of condoms from the seat of the couch and handed them to her.

  “Thanks,” she said with a small, nervous laugh.

  He strode down the hall to the door, reaching it just as the bell began to chime a third time.

  The bell-ringer turned out to be Cynthia after all.

  “Did you hear the news?” she asked as she stepped inside and he shut the front door behind her.

  “The new murder? Yeah.” Hoping to give Tiffany a bit of extra time to make herself presentable, he lingered at the door, twisting the knob back and forth as if there were something wrong with it.

  “Yeah, I only just found out,” Cynthia said. “I figured I’d head over early and we could brainstorm about it.” She looked down the hall at the open parlor door. “I take it Tiffany Fish is here? I saw her car.”

  “Uh, yeah. She came by early, too.” He gave the doorknob a little shake, then nodded as if satisfied and gestured at the parlor door. “Let’s go.”

  “Is the door okay?” she said, twisting around to look at it as they headed down the hall.

  “It is now.”

  When they entered the parlor Tiffany was sitting calmly on the couch studying the two-page spread in the Kingwood street atlas that Calvin had started to show her earlier.

  She looked up and smiled at them, the picture of perfect innocence.

  “Hi,” she said to Cynthia. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Hi,” Cynthia said, looking first at Tiffany, then around the room as if she sensed something amiss bu
t couldn’t quite put her finger on what. She sat down on the couch near Tiffany, then nodded at the street atlas. “So, what, were the two of you discussing the case?”

  “A little,” Calvin said. “I was hoping to bring her up to speed on things, but we kind of got to talking about other stuff.”

  Calvin sat down in the antique claw-and-ball chair, which, it was tacitly understood by one and all, was his and his alone. Calvin preferred it because it had been Mr. May’s favorite and because its ornate carvings and gold upholstery lent it a throne-like air that flattered his ego and felt in keeping with his position as de facto head of the group. But now he wished he could sit on the couch next to Tiffany. Well, he could, of course. It was his house and he could sit anywhere he liked. But there were only just enough seats in here for seven people, which meant that if he commandeered a spot on the couch, someone else would have to use his chair, and that wouldn’t do at all. He’d have to see about adding another chair or two.

  He looked longingly at Tiffany across the coffee table, wishing he could be sitting where Cynthia was. Tiffany clearly felt the same way. While Cynthia pointed out the location of the new murder in the map book, Tiffany looked up at Calvin from beneath her lowered blonde brows, her eyes smoldering with longing, a trace of a naughty smile playing on her lips.

  “The unidentified woman’s body was about…here,” Cynthia said, tapping a spot in the map book, oblivious to all this. “And our search grid yesterday…” She reached out and flipped a page. “It was here.” She traced the rectangle of streets with her index finger.

  “Ah,” Tiffany said, glancing down at the map. “That’s unfortunately far away.” Her eyes rose to meet Calvin’s as she said this to make sure he caught the double entendre. He did. He gave a rueful grimace and nodded.

  “Yeah,” Cynthia said with a sigh, still studying the map book. “Looks like we’ll have to rethink our approach.”

  She drew back from Tiffany a little to contemplate the overall street plan, while Tiffany lowered the map book slightly, both of which actions revealed a swath of Tiffany’s torso that had been hitherto hidden from Calvin’s view. One of her shirt’s buttons was unbuttoned right below her breasts, and her shirt bowed open there, exposing a roughly circular patch of pale skin at the top of which a glimpse of her white bra was visible.

  Tiffany, still watching Calvin with that small lusty smile, noticed his sudden look of surprise and alarm, and she cocked her head with a puzzled frown.

  Calvin jerked his head downward while raising his eyebrows, trying to communicate to her that she should look down.

  She did, but both the swell of her breasts and an extruding fold of her shirt hid the revealing gap from her sight. Concluding he must mean the map book instead, she examined its open pages. Finding nothing amiss, she looked back up at Calvin and gave a small, baffled shrug.

  He did the head-jerk/eyebrow-raise again, more vehemently this time. He was about to raise his hand to pluck at the front of his shirt when the doorbell rang.

  Cynthia glanced toward the front door, then looked at Calvin.

  “That’s probably Donovan and Violet,” she said. “When I talked to them earlier, it sounded like they were going to try to show up early for a change.” When Calvin just sat there, looking uncertainly from her to Tiffany to the corridor outside the open parlor doorway, she added, “You gonna get that?”

  “Um, yeah.” He stood up, then looked at Tiffany, who was still watching him in bafflement. Cynthia was staring at him, too, no doubt wondering why he was acting so weird, which meant he couldn’t pluck at his shirt to alert Tiffany without Cynthia’s noticing. Maybe when he came back he could head straight to Tiffany under the pretense of getting the map book from her, and in the process whisper to her to button up. That might work. He hoped. “I, uh, I’ll be right back.”

  He hurried out of the room.

  Cynthia began to study the map book again. After a moment, without looking up from the book, she quietly said, “You might want to check your shirt.”

  “What?” Tiffany looked down, flattening the bulging fold with one hand while leaning forward a little to see the entirety of the front of her shirt. When she saw the gaping hole, she flushed, then quickly wrangled the button through its hole.

  She glanced at Cynthia. Cynthia had a faint smile on her face. Tiffany’s face was now the color of a boiler a few degrees away from exploding.

  “Um, thanks,” she mumbled.

  “No problem,” Cynthia said, her eyes never leaving the map book.

  Calvin returned with the rest of the group in tow. Not just Donovan and Violet, but Brandon and Lauren as well. They had arrived at the same time, all of them having decided to show up early to get a jump on things. They had heard about the new murder and comprehended the increased gravity it lent their task: The longer the leucrota (even Lauren was no longer qualifying it with “presumed” anymore) remained at large, the more deaths would occur.

  Tiffany stood up as they entered, nervously rubbing her hands up and down her thighs.

  Calvin immediately started to head toward her to implement his plan, but then saw that her shirt was fully buttoned now. She must have finally translated his signals correctly.

  “Everyone,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Tiffany Fish, the newest member of our little group.”

  Calvin introduced the others to Tiffany one by one. She greeted them calmly, smiling, not looking a fraction as panicky as Calvin had feared she would. He suspected their soft-core interlude earlier had something to do with that. It had deepened her bond with Calvin and confirmed she had someone on her side, come what may, and it had left her a little more experienced, a little worldlier, than she had been when she showed up half an hour earlier.

  “Thank God I’m not the newbiest person around here anymore,” Lauren said.

  “You haven’t even confirmed whether or not you want to officially join,” Calvin said.

  “Not yet, no. I’ll let you know.”

  “Damn,” Donovan said to Calvin, grinning. “The chicks totally outnumber us now. Not that I’m complaining. They’re all hotties.”

  And then he said, “Ow!” as Violet’s foot connected hard with his leg.

  “As far as you’re concerned, I’m the only hottie here,” she growled. “Got it?”

  “That included you, too,” Donovan said, rubbing his leg. “I did say you’re all hotties.” He noticed Cynthia staring at him with a look of appalled disbelief. “Well, except you, of course,” he told her. She scowled. “I think. Wait…” He realized he had just talked himself into a very uncomfortable corner.

  Cynthia raised one hand in a stop gesture. “I refuse to take any part in this ridiculous conversation.”

  “Look,” Violet told Donovan, “the point is, you’re only supposed to notice me. In return, you will get laid. That’s how relationships work.”

  Donovan stared at her, his mouth gaping, as the truth sank in. “Oh, man. I’m totally sorry. Really.”

  Brandon made a noise like a whip cracking followed a cat’s meow.

  Donovan shook a finger at him. “Hey, you just wait till you get a steady girlfriend. This is how it is, man.”

  Brandon gave him a smug grin. “Not if you just hire escorts.”

  Cynthia buried her face in her hands and muttered, “I don’t believe this.”

  “You hire escorts?” Donovan asked in an awed voice.

  Brandon looked shocked. “On my income? Fuck, no. But once I start making more money, well, I tell you, there’s no fucking way I’m putting up with all that crazy chick shit. I’m just gonna pay for a little nooky once in a while and that’s that.”

  Violet noticed the thoughtful look on Donovan’s face.

  “You can’t afford it,” she said in a low, menacing tone. “And I don’t mean financially.”

  Donovan looked at her, saw how things stood, and let out a long, sad sigh.

  “Can we please skip to the non-flesh-crawling part of the meet
ing?” Cynthia said.

  “I don’t think there is one,” Lauren said.

  While all this had been going on, Tiffany sidled over to where Calvin stood and whispered, “So evidently I’m a hottie?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” Calvin said.

  “Why was I never informed of this before?”

  “I guess you need better informants.”

  “Clearly.”

  As soon as everyone was seated, Calvin called the meeting to order.

  “Okay, so we all know about the new murder and the new missing person, right?” he said.

  “Yeah, and it kind of makes all that walking around we did yesterday totally irrelevant,” Brandon said.

  “Not necessarily,” Calvin said. “I thought the same thing at first, but now I’m not so sure. The leucrota could still be nesting within the search area. It might simply have traveled a little farther afield last night.”

  “Or it’s not nesting at all and is constantly on the move,” Lauren said.

  “Ah! I did some research into the nesting habits of hyenas and various canids. It turns out that hyenas prefer to sleep in underground dens, usually the burrows of other animals.”

  “Underground?” Donovan said. “Should we be checking sewers and basements and stuff?”

  “Maybe. The thing is, though, hyena dens are communal places. The creature we’re looking for is just a solitary individual.”

  “Yeah,” Lauren said, “not to mention the fact that it’s not technically a hyena either.”

  “That is correct. That’s why I widened my research to include other dog-like mammals. Generally speaking, they prefer to make their lairs in sheltered areas. Wolves, for instance, sleep out in the open, but usually in an area with a lot of cover.”

  “That’s kind of what we were looking for yesterday, wasn’t it?” Brandon said. “Areas with cover?”

  “Yeah. I guess the main point is, all of these animals will seek out the areas where they’re least likely to be disturbed and they’ll stay there. That’s the one thing that holds true for all of them.”

  “Least likely to be disturbed…” Tiffany muttered. She picked up the map book and opened it to the pages showing the West River neighborhood.

  “What about urban coyotes?” Brandon said. “Did you look them up? That’s probably the only animal I can think of that would be analogous. You know, a wild creature prowling a city. I mean, you’re not likely to find any hyenas or wolves in cities very often. But I know there’re coyotes in Kingwood.”

  “I did look those up,” Calvin said. “Urban coyotes, like everything else, stick to areas with a lot of cover. They also have a tendency to roam a lot more than some of the other things I looked up. However, bear in mind that what we’re looking for is supposed to be considerably larger than a coyote, which would make it harder to stay hidden if it’s traveling.”

  “So you think it’s holing up somewhere after all?” Lauren said.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think it would want somewhere it would feel secure. It would want cover. And given its size and its appearance, I can’t help but think it would be spotted if it was spending most of its time roaming around. It’s a big, busy city.”

  “So, what, should we do another foot search, just including this new area?” Brandon said.

  “What would be the new epicenter of the search area if we take this new death into account?” asked Lauren.

  “Ah, that’s an interesting point,” Calvin said. “I was looking at that earlier, and it turns out the epicenter would shift west to somewhere around the intersection of Ferntree and Sycamore, where the Congregational Church sits.”

  Lauren sat bolt upright, her big, doe-like eyes blinking.

  “Whoa!” she said. Then she frowned. “But we checked there. There’s no way anything could’ve gotten in.”

  “The junkyard was near there, too, don’t forget,” Brandon said. “I’m tellin’ ya, monsters like big mazy places like that. It’s tradition.”

  “What’s this church you’re talking about?” Tiffany asked.

  “Oh, she needs the Reverend Squash story!” Lauren exclaimed, gleeful at another opportunity to tell the story.

  “Try to abridge it a bit,” Calvin said.

  Lauren quickly filled Tiffany in on the strange story of Reverend Squash.

  “Wouldn’t the reverend’s house be a more likely location for a monster?” Tiffany said. “It sounds like the house was the locus of the weird activity, and if we posit that like attracts like and that monsters are drawn to liminal places like the alley then the house would be a monster lodestone. If it’s still there, that is.”

  “It’s not,” Lauren said. “It’s long gone. That location is now the home of the Mad Hatter warehouse.”

  Tiffany gasped.

  “Mad had her! Where house? Right there! That’s it!”

  Everyone looked at her, then at each other, then at her again.

  “What?” Calvin said.

  “I know the Mad Hatter very, very well. My dad did a lot of work for them over the years. The Mad Hatter Novelty Company used to be one of the biggest employers in Kingwood. Then about three years ago they filed for bankruptcy, but for a lot of arcane legal reasons, their Kingwood Distribution Center, the place we’re talking about, got sealed up, all its contents still there on the shelves, and it’s stayed that way ever since. It’s just a huge darkened building full of gimcrack novelties, like plastic dog doo and reverse-color playing cards and tiny beans containing twelve tiny elephants.”

  Calvin felt a chill, remembering one of Andrew Fish’s comments when he was telling Calvin about his daughter’s crazy graffiti: And there were numbers, too, here and there. Especially twelves. Lots of twelves.

  “All of it’s just sitting there in the dark, gathering dust,” Tiffany said. “At least until the legalities can be sorted out, which, at the rate legalities tend to get sorted out, will be sometime around the year three thousand. It fits all the criteria. It’s abandoned, more or less, while still remaining the sort of dark, mazy place monsters prefer, as Brandon here pointed out. It’s located on a spot where strange things happened, like the alley and the clearing in your woods out back. And its corporate logo—why, that’s just a big neon giveaway.”

  “What, a grin popping out of a top hat?” Lauren said.

  “A grin. Which is what you said the leucrota’s ear-to-ear mouth is most often likened to. Which means the hat must represent the anomaly in the clearing out back; like a magician’s hat it’s a sort of magical space from which various unexpected things can be pulled or apported. It all fits together perfectly, don’t you see?”

  (And at this point Donovan leaned toward Violet and whispered: “Is she, like, on something?”

  Violet regarded Tiffany a moment, eyes narrow and thoughtful, then whispered back: “I don’t know. But if we could extract her brain chemicals right now, I bet we’d make a fortune on the stoner market.”)

  “It fits,” Tiffany repeated. “The pieces all fit. It all converges.”

  Calvin nodded. “It does.”

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” Cynthia said, waving a hand back and forth. “What is this? How exactly does all of it fit?”

  “The world is made of secret connections,” Calvin said. “Look, I know the evidence is largely circumstantial—”

  “Largely? I’d say completely.”

  “Okay, granted. But the Mad Hatter warehouse does fit on a number of levels. It’s sheltered and unused by people, which fits with the canid info I looked up. It’s dark and mazy, which fits with Brandon’s ideas. It was on the site of Reverend Squash’s house, so it may well have the stink of weirdness about it, just like the alley, which might be to the liking of a monster. And you have to admit its corporate logo is eerily apt.”

  “Wouldn’t there be people there, at least once in a while?” Lauren asked. “Security guards or something?”

  Everyone looked at Tiffany expectantly.

  “I don’t kn
ow,” she said, squirming under the sudden attention. “My dad only did legal work for them. They didn’t apprise him of their distribution facilities’ security setup.”

  “Maybe they don’t have a night watchman,” Calvin said. “Maybe the powers-that-be think the place is secure enough without one. Or maybe they can’t afford one.”

  “Or maybe the leucrota ate him,” Violet said.

  “Listen,” Cynthia said. “All I’m saying is, we don’t have any actual evidence. It’s all circumstantial. There are probably a number of different places in that area that are closed down and mazy and would provide decent shelter for a monster.”

  “Yeah,” Calvin said, “but they didn’t conspicuously come up in conversation the day before—a conversation that occurred on the spot that is now the brand-new centerpoint of the area encompassed by the multiple deaths—and they didn’t have links to our newest member of the group, and they don’t have a logo that resembles the most prominent feature of the beast we’re looking for.”

  “It’s just a lot of…of hocus-pocus,” Cynthia exclaimed, her voice rising. “It’s not proof. If I’m going to do something, I want it to be for a real reason, not magical thinking.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tiffany flinch. She felt both guilty and glad at the same time.

  Then Tiffany rallied.

  “But magic is afoot,” she said, gesturing at the north wall, the direction of the woods, the clearing. “You’ve seen it yourself.”

  “Yeah, and you haven’t.”

  Tiffany shrank down in her seat a little.

  “Look, I don’t mean to be mean or anything,” Cynthia hastened to add. “But this is different. I don’t like the idea of rushing into action based on nothing more than a few spurious coincidences.”

  “I don’t think they’re spurious,” Calvin said.

  “They’re not proof.”

  “No,” he conceded. “They’re not. Not in a legal or scientific sense. But remember what Betty Romero said: Everything’s connected. We’re just following the connections.”

  “You’re turning an off-hand remark by some possibly dotty old lady into a standard of evidence.”

  “Look, just go with it. Maybe we’re wrong. I admit that. But the only way we’re going to find out is if we check it out ourselves. And don’t forget: During investigations of weird phenomena, weirdness will abound. Remember that one case Mr. May investigated, the one in New York City with that department store? The only reason he figured out what was going on was because he remembered the song that little girl had been singing and he made the leap that it might be connected to the murders.”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “And that time he escaped the explosion in Poland because he had that weird dream?”

  “Okay, yeah. I get it. It’s a big, weird world.”

  Cynthia admitted defeat. She realized now that part of her problem was her odd, instinctive repulsion toward Tiffany Fish, a feeling which, she now reflected, was just as seemingly arbitrary as Tiffany’s proofs. The other part of her problem was that she was afraid of what it would mean if Tiffany were right. If a bundle of vague coincidences constituted valid proof, it meant reality didn’t always follow the sane, linear rules she was used to. It meant there were hidden patterns underlying the world, patterns no one really understood. And that was something she found frightening on a very deep and existential level.

  “All right,” she sighed. “Let’s try it.”

  Calvin nodded and gave her a smile, pleased she had bent to his new girlfriend. Cynthia managed to smile in return.

  Calvin looked at the others. “What about the rest of you? Everyone else on board?”

  They all nodded.

  “I’m a bit iffy myself, I have to admit,” Lauren said. “But I agree it’s a big, weird world, and I’ve already eaten crow over the leucrota thing. So, sure, let’s give it a whirl.”

  “All right,” Calvin said, glancing at the clock. “We’d better start getting organized, then.”

  “What about, like, calling the police?” Lauren said. “If we really think this thing is at the warehouse, shouldn’t we notify them and leave it up to the professionals?”

  “We talked about this the other day.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “They’re looking for a group of humans. If we lie and say the humans they’re looking for are at the warehouse, they won’t be prepared for what they find and we might have dead cops on our conscience. If we tell them the truth and explain what it is they’re up against, they won’t believe us and probably won’t go at all. Besides, I want proof, confirmation that this is what we think it is. I want something for the Collection, preferably the actual specimen itself.”

  “Not alive, surely,” Lauren said.

  “No. We kill it. What else are we gonna do with it?”

  Cynthia shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Why? It’s gonna wind up dead one way or another. Either we kill it or the cops eventually do.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more the idea of us killing it that bothers me. I didn’t sign on to this to become some sort of monster vigilante.”

  “I think this is just an atypical scenario. At least I hope it is. I for one don’t really intend on making a habit of it.”

  “Besides, it’s a monster, Cyn,” said Donovan. “It wouldn’t think twice about eating any of us.”

  “No, but see, that’s the point. We’re not monsters, so we should be thinking twice. Thrice, even. I mean, I kind of thought we’d try to photograph it, get some video of it, get some hair samples, scat samples, that sort of thing, then call the cops and tell them where it is and let them take care of it.”

  “We could, yes,” Calvin said. “But like I said, the cops don’t really know what they’re dealing with and almost certainly wouldn’t believe us if we told them. Since we know more about this thing and its habits than anyone else, we have a responsibility to do something.”

  “I suppose so. But I just want to be on record as not being very thrilled about it. And I think maybe this is something we should discuss more in the future.”

  “Agreed.”

  “My question is,” said Lauren, “if we’re going to try to take care of this thing ourselves, how do we do it? Shoot it?”

  “I don’t know,” Calvin said. “Does anyone here own a gun?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Isn’t there stuff in the house?” said Donovan. “I mean, how did old Mr. May handle things like this? He must’ve had, like, rifles with telescopic sights and tranquilizer guns and things that shoot little tracking devices and shit like that. No?”

  “He was an anomaly investigator, not James Bond,” said Calvin.

  “There’re guns in the Collection,” said Violet. “I saw some.”

  Calvin shook his head. “No. I’m not using anything from the Collection.”

  “But—”

  “No.” It was just one word, but he said it in such a flat and decisive tone that Violet snapped her mouth shut. Which was something just short of miraculous.

  “Gun stores would probably still be open right now,” Brandon said. “We could stop on the way and—”

  “No,” Cynthia said in a tone just as flat and decisive as Calvin’s had been a moment ago. “If there’re guns involved, I’m not going. I don’t like guns.”

  “I’m not exactly a fan of the damn things myself,” Calvin said, gesturing at the scar on his temple where Roger Grey had shot him five years earlier. “But they’re the best option here. I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Stab it to death?”

  “Mr. May never used guns, did he? We both read through all those files and he never once mentioned using guns.”

  “He used dynamite that one time. Are you saying that blowing something up with dynamite is somehow more morally objectionable than shooting it?”

  Cynthia looked around the room. “Does anybody here even have any firearms training?”


  Heads shook.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Giving guns to people who don’t have any experience using them and then sending them into a scary and dangerous situation is a recipe for disaster.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Calvin said. “But I can’t think of a better alternative. Can you?”

  “I agree with Cynthia,” Tiffany said.

  Calvin gaped at her, surprised. “What?”

  She looked at him with a mix of guilt and stubbornness, as if she hated to stand against him but couldn’t do otherwise. “I don’t want any part of this mission if it involves guns. And if guns are to be a feature of this group, then I don’t want a part of that either. I don’t…” She lowered her eyes and her voice. “I don’t like guns.”

  Calvin stared at her, remembering what her father had told him about the bad dreams she had had as a child after the alley incident. Tiffany had told him, too, but using less evocative language, no doubt in an attempt to downplay the trauma the nightmares had caused her.

  She would wake up screaming in pure, primal terror from nightmares in which people were shooting her in the head, Andrew Fish had said. Nearly every night for two years I sat with her for hours, trying to calm her down, to get her to stop crying and trembling like some beaten and traumatized animal.

  “All right,” Calvin said gently. “No guns. We’ll have to find alternatives.”

  Violet tsked and rolled her eyes.

  Cynthia gave Tiffany a smile and a nod of thanks. Tiffany flashed a small smile in return. The moment Tiffany looked away, Cynthia’s smile winked out, and she eyed Calvin with a cold, appraisive look. It wasn’t lost on her that he had capitulated only when Tiffany entered the fray.

  “So if we can’t use guns, what’re we gonna use?” Donovan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Calvin said.

  “I have a tire-iron in my van,” Brandon said. “I’ll take that. Those can be pretty nasty weapons. A good blow with that and it’s good-night, doggie.”

  “Yeah, if you can get that blow in before it chomps your arm off,” Lauren said. She looked at Calvin. “I have a can of Mace in my car. I can take that. We need longer-range stuff to help incapacitate it. Then someone else can swoop in and wham it with their tire-iron or whatever.”

  “Good idea,” Calvin said.

  “What about long-range weapons of a more lethal nature?” Lauren asked. “I don’t suppose anyone has any bows and arrows? Crossbows?”

  “Doesn’t that just get us back to the problem of nervous, untrained people with projectile weapons?” Tiffany said.

  “Dude, you’ve got a house full of shit,” Brandon said to Calvin. “There’s gotta be stuff in here we can use, even apart from the Collection.”

  Calvin nodded, then stood up. “All right. Let’s take a very thorough tour of the house. But let’s try to hurry it up. If my guess is correct, the leucrota lies low during the day and roams only at night, so I’d really like to get to that warehouse before it gets dark.”