By Anne Cain

Lost at Birth

Roan was so bored he’d decided that Tanning Salon Pervert would be

the perfect name for his biography.

As he’d flipped through the TV channels last night, the information

bar had been visible at the bottom of the screen, and as he surfed past one

news magazine program, he saw their episode was titled “Tanning Salon

Pervert.” He didn’t watch it—on general principle he refused to watch

anything that called itself a news magazine—but the words intrigued him.

They sounded wrong in a wonderfully obtuse way, like “peanut butter hut”

or “purple elephant pedophile.” Now, he’d never been in a tanning salon,

and whether he was a pervert or not was subjective and almost totally

hinged on your personal interpretation of the Bible (if you even had one),

but the phrase just stuck with him. He bet he’d sell thousands of copies to

disappointed people actually wanting the sordid tale of a man who got off

on watching women fry under UV lights or get sprayed with fake bake.

Instead, they’d get the mundane story of a gay ex-cop with anger

management issues who could change into a lion at will.

Come to think of it, not that mundane. But nowhere near as

interesting as a tanning salon pervert.

Perhaps Dylan was right. Maybe he was way too blasé about hate.

Here he was, standing in front of a crowd that was chanting “Kill the cat!”,

some waving homemade signs reading Drown Them in the River! (and

some brought sacks—how cute) in front of the county hospital, along with

a cordon of other cops, trying to keep them back from the doors. Grant

Kim was out of cycle and was being transferred to a special holding cell at

the county courthouse until he could be arraigned for several counts of

second-degree murder (all killings committed while in cat form were

charged as second degree). Imprisoning infecteds was difficult, mainly

because no one felt safe releasing them into a prison’s genpop (not only

was their blood super infectious, but they were obvious targets for

harassment by other inmates), and the erratic natures of the viral cycles

made it difficult to say for sure when they’d change. Most were kept in

special hospitals, although lawsuits had been filed over that. (There was

only one prison specifically made for infecteds, and that was in—of

course—Texas.)

Normally, he wouldn’t be part of the cordon, but Chief Matthews

was seriously concerned about the threat level and asked him to come in

and help. He was glad to do so, even though Dylan was afraid: “If

someone recognizes you, Roan, they will target you.”

What he didn’t tell Dylan was that was fine with him. He had always

been one of those aggressive queers. Instead of adopting a victim

mentality, whenever anyone shouted “You’re a fag!”, his response would

always be along the lines of “What of it?” He was the same way as an

infected. He was supposed to be ashamed because he had some fucking

mutant virus? Because he was born with it? Fuck them. Yeah, he was

infected. What of it? If someone wanted to attack him for it, they were free

to, but he’d only let them leave a bruise. A bruise was all he needed to

legally prove self-defense, even if he ended up kicking the living shit out

of them. Which he would do, definitely; he’d make them pick their teeth

up off the street. If they were very lucky, the lion wouldn’t come out.

The other cops were uneasy about having him around. He thought

maybe it was because he wasn’t actually on the force anymore (adviser

just didn’t count), or because he was gay or infected (or both), but he

discovered the real reason from a rookie, Hawkins, a cute little short-

haired bottle blonde who seemed almost too darling to be a cop. (That

could actually work in her favor in some cases—some men might be

reluctant to hit her. Others would attack her eagerly, though, so it was a

give and take.) She came up beside him to take her place in the cordon,

and after looking him up and down said, “So, you’re Batman.” Ah, so that

was it. Everybody had seen the security tapes, and now everyone just

assumed he was superhuman or something. He’d deny it, but he wasn’t

sure if he was being completely honest. Not that he was superhuman, but

other than human? Yeah, he might be in the other category.

It was a sunny but cool day, and he was trying to look as butch as

possible to discourage any of the lunatics. He wore mirrored sunglasses to

fit in with most of the other cops, but he was dressed in biker boots, jeans,

and a black These Arms Are Snakes T-shirt, but that was kind of tight, to

show off a well-developed torso. (Which he got through a bit of muscle

manipulation. Okay, so he wasn’t supposed to ever let the lion out or risk a

blood vessel popping in his brain, but again, his attitude was fuck it—he

was going to live his life as always, and if it killed him, it killed him. So he

let out the lion just enough to make him seem a bit more muscular than he

actually was.) It was cold enough he had to cross his arms over his chest,

allowing him to do some subtle bicep flexing to make them look bigger,

and the short sleeves showed off most of the new tattoo on his arm,

Dylan’s tiger sketch now made permanent in blue and black ink. It was so

new he’d just taken off the bandage this morning. It didn’t hurt, but then

again, as full of Vicodin as he was, he’d have been surprised to feel

anything.

(Now he felt vindicated in his pill popping. Downers lowered blood

pressure, right? So downers might keep his blood vessels from going off

like fireworks on Chinese New Year. Yes, it was self-serving and probably

wrong, but he wanted to believe it, and that might just be enough denial to

make it so.)

He was wearing an earpiece radio, just like the rest of the cops,

which was how he knew that, finally, things were underway. Two different

handcuffed men, surrounded by cops and with jackets over their heads,

were going to be hustled out of the hospital and into the back of a

goddamned paddy wagon (a “prisoner transport”—nice way of saying

paddy wagon). One of them would be Grant, and the other was an

undercover cop. That was how vicious and serious the threats were against

Grant Kim: a decoy had been employed. How had a scrawny Asian kid

who was barely a hundred pounds soaking wet and generally as harmless

as all fuck become public enemy number one?

Roan had gotten him a lawyer, one of Dennis’s protégés, and

Dennis’s office got sent a bit of white powder in an envelope with a note

that said all kitty fuckers had to die. (It was soap, not anthrax, but that

wasn’t the impression he wanted to leave.) There had been a bomb threat

against the hospital last week. Threats had been issued on the web against

cops, or at least those who stood in the way of them getting Grant. Why

this case had turned so ugly in the public eye was unknown. Was it

because a teenage boy was a victim? A father of two? The number of

victims? Because Grant and the first two victims were living in a

relationship most found horrifyingly immoral? (The troika of Curtis,

Tiffany, and Grant, with Grant still getting some on the outside of their

threesome.) Maybe all of the above, maybe none. Roan had come to

expect a certain amount of hysteria in these cases, but this seemed more

excessive than normal. He was so sorry he’d ever advised Dylan to have

Seb bring Grant in, although if the cops had eventually caught him and

brought him in (likely), it would have been so much worse for Grant.

Would someone have actually been stupid enough to attack Grant

with about a dozen cops on the scene? Considering how foaming at the

mouth this crowd looked, Roan could believe it was a good possibility.

There was an ugly feeling in the air, a sense of impending violence. It

made the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and it was all he could do not

to growl.

He was wearing an obvious gun and had a Taser on the side of his

jeans, but he wondered if he’d actually use them if or when something

went wrong. Lately, his instincts had led him to go hand to hand. Perhaps

that was just another reason for the guys to call him Batman.

The cops stood shoulder to shoulder, making a human blockade, not

only hiding the men being hustled to the van from view, but also trying to

intimidate anyone who might be thinking about attacking. Roan made sure

he was in the center so he was both the most exposed and had the best

view of the restless crowd.

Somewhere near the person with the Where Is Our Civil Right To

Be Safe? sign, a chant of “Kill the cats!” began anew, and Roan wondered

what was wrong with him. In the face of this incoherent mob violence, he

should have been afraid, but he honestly wanted to anger them more. He

wanted to grab Lieutenant Ramirez and tongue kiss him before

transforming into a lion, and he really didn’t even like Lieutenant Ramirez

(he was way too fidgety, and Roan hated his porn stache). Something in

him just lived to be contrary. If he couldn’t have their respect, he’d accept

their hate.

As the officers started coming out with Kim and the undercover

stunt double, Roan noticed an almost Brownian motion in the crowd, and

he saw the ghostly pale scalp of a man pushing forward, so wan his skin

was almost the exact same color as his off-white hooded sweatshirt. He

was elbowing people aside and reaching into his pocket, and Roan knew in

that second he wasn’t going for his phone. “Gun!” he shouted, diving into

the crowd.

There was screaming, cops shouting in their radios, people running

one way or another, but the man was focused on Grant, and Roan was

focused on him, so much so that the crowd of people around him, even

those he was reflexively shoving aside, dwindled away to mere spots in his

peripheral vision. Noise was nothing—all drowned in the blood pounding

in his ears and the growl burbling up from his throat.

The man had managed to pull the gun out of his pocket before Roan

was on him, tackling him and riding him to the ground, hands firmly

grabbing his wrists and pinning them to the asphalt parking lot. The man,

tall and lean but still fairly strong, tried to buck him off, but Roan had had

too much experience riding guys (ha) and wasn’t moved. “Motherfucker!”

the man shouted, spittle spraying from his lips. “Cat-fucking fascist p—”

To Roan, the bones in the man’s wrist felt like fish bones, fine and

fragile, and with just the tiniest squeeze they crackled like dead leaves

under his fingers. The man screamed incoherently, arching in pain, as the

gun fell out of his useless hand. Roan saw a fast-moving blur in his

peripheral vision, a bigger, chunkier guy pulling a baseball bat out of one

of the cat-drowning sacks and charging him. He was vaguely aware of a

cop—maybe more than one—yelling “Freeze!” But he ignored it as much

as the man did.

With a snarl, he jumped, and slammed bodily into the man, who was

too surprised and hit too swiftly to react. He went crashing to the parking

lot, still managing to hold onto the bat, and as he brought it up, Roan

caught it and yanked it out of his hands, throwing it across the lot.

Although the Vicodin was helping to keep his anger in check, he still felt a

sharp, deep pain in his jaw as it shifted, and tasted blood. “Who else wants

some?” he roared at the onlookers. The ones who didn’t want trouble had

already fled; those who were considering whether or not to join the fray if

there was any chance of winning were still loitering about, and most were

in the dangerous demographic of men in their late teens and early twenties,

the probable age group of the would-be assailants. The sideliners stared at

him in goggle-eyed horror, and he could smell the sudden fear like a toxic

spill of vinegar. The fight was over; no one wanted to chance it.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Batman, couldn’t you leave some for us?”

Thompson carped. He was the cop that looked not unlike a young Jim

Brown and had been at the head of the escort line. Roan wouldn’t have

minded tongue kissing him; he was much more attractive than Ramirez.

“Oh, he’s always been a show-off,” Dee said, kneeling beside Roan

and putting his EMT kit on the ground. Yep, ambulance teams were

standing by, and since they were at a hospital, it seemed almost silly.

There were doctors inside—why couldn’t they use them? Probably some

damn insurance thing.

Dee looked him in the eye, an eyebrow raised in concern, and asked,

“You okay, Ro?”

It was probably the Vicodin, but he felt much more in control of

himself. The lion hadn’t come out enough to run away with him. It had

just come out enough to distend his jaw a bit. Oh, and allow him to throw

a body slam on a guy trying to assault him with a bat. And break a man’s

wrists like they were made of spun sugar. Okay, so the lion had come out a

bit more than he intended. At least no one was dead, himself included.

Roan wiped the blood away from his mouth and said, “Peachy.”

“I can’t breathe,” the man beneath him gasped, obviously breathing

but wincing in pain all the same. Roan got off of him, and he rolled over

on his side and curled up into a fetal position, holding his ribs.

“You know, if you just Googled this red-haired bastard, you’d have

saved yourself a world of hurt,” Dee scolded him, snapping on a pair of

rubber gloves. Roan stood and noticed Shep and some other paramedic he

didn’t recognize were attempting to work on the gunman, who was still

screaming and writhing in pain. Three cops were standing around them,

but only one still bothered to have his Taser out. Roan visually confirmed

the paddy wagon was gone; Grant and the other cops got away, as they

were supposed to have done. Mission accomplished.

He rubbed the back of his neck and scanned the rest of the lot,

freezing as soon as his eyes fell on a cameraman for Channel Five

standing crouched beside an SUV, the helmet-haired “action news

reporter” beside him (his name was Chip or Flip or some damn cartoon

name). Roan only needed to see the blow-dried wonder’s mouth moving in

profile to know he was saying to his cameraman, “Tell me you got that.”

Oh shit.

Dee and Shep arrived about five minutes ahead of the cops, and eight ahead of the press. Since Roan had no idea who called an ambulance, he wondered who tipped them off. Probably Flores.

Roan had to wave them away, he didn’t need medical attention, all he needed was a couple of Vicodin, which he washed down with a bottle of water from the car. Some people did need help, mostly mourners who got flustered and overwhelmed after the shooting. Nothing major beyond an asthma attack and heart palpitations, but at least it kept Dee from bugging him. Dylan sat with him in the car for a long moment of quiet, watching as cops, media, protestors, mourners, and his security team jostled and milled about in pseudo-Brownian motion. In a weird bit of irony, Richie was having to hold Holden back from going medieval on someone’s ass. It was kind of nice to be watching it and not participating in it.

He also knew Agent Flores was still watching, but hadn’t gotten involved. Probably because she was here to keep an eye on him, not participate in a melee.

Finally, after many seconds of welcome silence, Dylan turned to him and said, “I’m not used to it. I knew I had to get used to people trying to kill you, but I can’t. How do I deal with this?”

“They might not have been shooting at me,” Roan offered.

Dylan glared at him, giving him that special “fuck you” stare that could only come from someone who had lived with you too long to just accept your bullshit. Roan had to shrug, and admit, ”Okay, they were probably aiming for me. But I knew they would be gunning for me, and I was prepared. They didn’t hurt me.”

“Really?”

“A bruise doesn’t count, no matter how bad it is.”

Dylan looked skeptical, but didn’t have enough ammunition at this moment to counter. Before he could think up something, Roan asked, “Could you tell them to break it up once I get their attention?”

He gave him a curious look. “What are you going to do?”

“Get their attention.” At Dylan’s death stare, he added, “In the most ill advised manner possible. But it’s safer than a gunshot.”

“Do you really think we can’t use something else?”

“Look at them,” he said, nodding towards the rearview mirror. “You think yelling “break it up” is really going to do it?”

He looked for a long moment before sighing. “I guess not.”

Roan popped open the door, and said, “Be as mean as you hafta.” He meant towards him as well as the crowd, but he just assumed Dyl knew that. He stood, eyes briefly closed, summoning up his rage at these idiots who were content to disrupt the funeral of a man they didn’t know to harass a family for having the gall to have an infected son, and he screamed. Except it wasn’t a scream, it was a roar, one ripped from the pit of his stomach and vomited towards the crowd, loud enough to make Roan’s ears hurt.

The melee did stop, as some screamed, some yelped, and one of the female protestors near the back fainted dead away on the lawn. Roan even noticed, out of the corner of his eye, Dylan involuntarily flinch, but that may have been due to the noise level alone.

Finished, Roan turned away, mainly to physically pop his jaw back in, as he’d somehow dislocated it during the roar. It clicked back into place, but fuck did it hurt, and on top of that he had to swallow back the blood welling in his mouth. Of course he ripped the shit out of his throat, and it hurt, but considering his vocal cords had to shift shape and he was trying to force it back again, there was no way it couldn’t hurt. He turned his back on them so they couldn’t see him wince.

“The funeral is over,” Dylan announced, in his sternest bartender voice. “Why don’t we all go home before the SWAT shows up and tear gases us all, huh? You’ve proven you’re dickfaces, which is what I assume your message was. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Unless you’re into handcuffs, then knock yourself out.” Dylan returned to the car, climbing in and slamming the door, and Roan waited until he was sure that there was no pain on his face as he slunk back into the passenger seat. In the rearview mirror, he saw stunned people slowly start to break up and drift away. Even through the cars natural buffering and the ringing in his ears, he heard someone say, “I didn’t think he could actually do that. I thought someone just dubbed that in later.”

Who would sweeten his You Tube videos? Did they think he was doing that? Why? He hated those fucking things. Roan felt his head throbbing like an open wound, and popped another pain pill, aware that it probably wouldn’t help much.

Dylan gave him a concerned look as he wiped the blood off his face. “You okay? That one sounded especially painful.”

“I think I misjudged my own level of anger,” he admitted. He could blame the drugs, but that wasn’t true, and Roan knew it. He thought he was prepared for this nonsense, he thought he took nothing personally or had at least resigned himself to the fact that these people were going to be horrible, but apparently that was harder than he thought.

Dylan rubbed his shoulder in a comforting manner. “If it’s anything, I’m a Buddhist, and I fucking hate every single one of them.”

“That does make me feel a little better.” He smiled weakly at him, and then leaned his head on Dylan’s shoulder as he started the car. What a terrible thing it was to be the anchor, the only person capable of keeping another’s feet on the ground. Roan was terribly sorry he had ever put him in that position.

**

When they got home, they found the machine was full of messages.

Roan meticulously started erasing them. He’d listen to the first couple of words, only confirming they were calls from haters – “Fucking faggot” and “Fucking cat” were the top two choices of the haters, not even bothering with “Hello” – before erasing them. One phone call was from Dee, pre-funeral, warning him not to “lion out” as people with cameras might find the burial plot (yeah, he knew that), and the rest haters, until he came to a weird, stumbling one. “Umm … yeah, hi … Roan. I don’t know if you remember me. Collin? Collin Deering? I was … um, I found that copy of Future Shock you were in, I came across it on the internet …. holy shit, guy, you haven’t aged that much, have you? And the freak t-shirt … you’re still punk rock after all this time. I don’t know how you managed that. I’m a little too soft for it now, I think. Umm … I don’t know if there was much of a point here. I guess I just wanted to say hi, and … um, if you ever wanted to go get beer, catch up, I’d be cool with that. I live in Queen Anne, although, since you’re a detective now, I guess you could find that out yourself. Umm … yeah. Glad you made it, dude. Feel free to call me or whatever. So … yeah. Bye.”

Dylan, who had been making tea, paused to give Roan a curious look. “He didn’t sound nervous.” At the look on Roan’s face, he raised an eyebrow. “Who the hell was that?”

The drugs had actually cushioned the shock, but some of it still got through. He had no choice now but to tell him, as he pulled out his laptop. He’d never Googled him, but now he was curious why he never had. “Remember how I said my first sexual experience was with a straight guy?”

“Yeah?” The moment stretched out, and he knew when Dylan got it, because the surprise registered on his face. “Holy shit, that was him?”

“Yeah.”

“You Googling him?”

“Yep.”

“You never did that before?”

“No. I don’t see the point in Googling people I’m not hired to find. If I wanted to know them, I’d know them.”

Dylan poured a cup of tea before answering. “I don’t know if that’s brilliantly zen or just antiquated.”

“Love you too, hon.” Google coughed up a couple of Collin Deering’s, but he found him pretty quickly. He did live in Queen Anne, and he worked there too, as he was a couple’s therapist now (ha! Went into the family business after all..). He also found an old wedding announcement, stating he got married to a Doctor (of course) Diana Edwards ten years ago. They had two kids.

Dylan joined him on the sofa and had a peek, taking a closer look at the photo. “I see what he means by getting soft,” Dylan said. “But he’s not bad looking. Was he hot as a teenager?”

Current Collin appeared to be a bit doughy and twenty pounds overweight, with a very conventional haircut (his hair just starting to thin), but there was some of the teen he was still visible, in his deep set, sleepy eyes and slightly cleft chin. “I never really thought of him that way. He was a friend, probably one of the few friends I had around that time of my life. He wasn’t ugly.”

“But you’ve never wondered about him since then? Ever?”

Roan wasn’t sure how to answer that and not seem like a total jackass. “I wasn’t sure he’d welcome any attention from me. I mean, we didn’t part in a bad way, but the whole thing was kind of weird. I mean, we’d been friends and he was straight, so … it kind of caught us both off guard.” He didn’t even think about it much, it was so strange. Frankly, if you told him it was a pot based hallucination, he would have been willing to buy that.

“Should we invite him to Quote/Unquote?” Dylan suggested, with a polite smile.

That was the name of a big art show at the Met about gay artists in and out of the closet, past and current, and Dylan managed to get a piece in a show that would be touring museums around the country. Admittedly, he wasn’t making much off the gig, but the weirdest thing about it was Dylan’s submission was one of the body painting portraits of him. Roan took comfort in the fact that you couldn’t see his face, and most people who hadn’t slept with him or been his doctor at some point would recognize his torso. Besides, it was mostly gay slurs painted on his skin, but they looked like blood or flayed skin, although Roan’s tattoos were still visible in the background, perhaps suggesting a deeper meaning. Roan thought it was still too direct and on the nose – Dyl was usually more abstract than that – but Dylan told him “The museum types eat this up. It makes them feel edgy.” Dylan’s cynicism was proven correct. But Roan had to admit the idea of a picture of his torso touring the country was fucking hilarious.

“Yeah, that would be awesome. Me loaded and trying very hard not to make a scene, while the guy who had one gay slip with me and his wife are not five feet away, also trying not to be awkward. That’ll be so much fun, I just might hang myself with a rope made of braided napkins.”

“Aww. Nice touch with the braid. Very gay.” Dylan told him, patting him on the back.

Roan looked at him with a frown. “No one likes a sarcastic bastard, Dyl.”

“Well, I do.” He paused briefly. “Obviously.”

Ouch. Before Roan could think up a good reply, his phone rang. He wasn’t going to answer, but a quick look confirmed it was Seb. With a sigh, he picked up the receiver. “Yeah, I know, I gotta give an official statement –“

“Fuck the statement,” Seb snapped, the tension in his voice underlined by the scream of a police siren in the background. “We’ve got multiple reports of a cat loose in the Briar Woods neighborhood, about five miles or so away from you, off Blackburn Road. We’re en route, as are SWAT, but you can probably beat us there.”

Oh yes. No matter that he felt he’d done his good deed for the day, the day wasn’t over yet. “Fine, yeah, I’ll get going. Anything else I should know?” There was too much tension in Seb’s voice for that to be all. There had to be something else making him sound like he was about to lose it.

“It was spotted outside a day care,” he replied.

”Oh, fuck me,” Roan exclaimed, standing up so quickly Dyl had to sit back on the couch to get out of the way. “I’m on my way.”

“Do what you have to do, just do it fast,” Seb said, before hanging up. No goodbyes were necessary here; it was just wasting time.

“What’s going on?” Dylan asked, alarmed.

“Big cat loose near a day care.” Getting up so fast tweaked his ribs, and he couldn’t help but hiss at the pain. Still, it was good – that pain could fuel his rage, bring out the lion. What a weird turn his life had taken. Now pain was finally of use to him.

Dylan gasped, his eyes full of horror. “Oh god. Go, get out of here.”

He didn’t need to tell him twice. Roan was glad he hadn’t yet taken off his coat, as that just saved him a couple of seconds. He went out to the garage and grabbed his bike, not only for speed but because he was sure he could illegally cut through a back pasture off Crescent Road, saving a couple of minutes of drive time. Impossible in a car, easy on a motorcycle.

The trip was just long enough to make him imagine terrible scenarios in his head, even though he knew the question wasn’t why this was happening, but why this hadn’t happened before. (It had in at least one other state that he knew of, an ugly scene in Alabama, but that was the only one he was aware of. There were probably more that had escaped his notice.)

Blackburn Road was a cul de sac, with five vaguely similar houses spread out in a mimic of a suburban neighborhood, but the overgrown and tree ridden lot at the end of the cul de sac betrayed its more rural roots. He knew from experience this little piece of woods went on for about a third of a mile, before ending at someone’s pasture. It was perfect for a cat who wanted to get out and stretch its legs.

And the house that also functioned as a day care center abutted the woods. Son of a bitch.

He hadn’t even pulled in front of the house before he smelled blood on the wind, and he was growling before he punted the kickstand and turned the engine off. He waited until he was standing before he roared a challenge, the act making his ribs ache fiercely, which in turn made his roar that much more challenging. It was a self-perpetuating cycle, and one he intended to make work for him.

If he wasn’t too late. And he had a gnawing feeling in his gut that he was.

N.B.: If you have not kept up all the stories – and I mean all of them – this may be a little confusing. Also, there are mild spoilers.

It was going to be a clusterfuck, of that there was no doubt. The only question was how big a clusterfuck.

Roan wasn’t going to bother the Kims with any of this,and although Randi requested to be kept in the loop, he spared her from this as well. Mainly he kept this between him, Holden, and Fiona, although even that wasn’t strictly true. He told Dylan, and even though Scott had been called up to the Vancouver Canucks, Holden had obviously clued him in, as Richie had called Roan to offer his help (along with Jeff’s, whom he was going to drag into things whether he wanted to be in it or not). Roan told him it might not be the best idea, as what if he was recognized, but that just made him laugh. Only hard core Falcons fans would know who he was on sight, and the day he was afraid of a bunch of god squad whackadoos (his words) was the day he quit hockey and started selling insurance. If he wasn’t up against he would have turned him down, but he knew Richie and Jeff were intimidating looking (a nose broken several times and a scarred face had that effect), and were more than capable of taking care of themselves, so he agreed to let them help. It was weird enough that he was putting together a security detail for a funeral. But life these days was pretty fucking weird.

Roan planted a fake burial announcement in the paper, with a real church and a real date listed, but neither one being the actual place, time, and date of the funeral. The Kim family was in on it, so they were able to tell relatives to ignore it, but it was a bluff for some of the crazies to take. He knew there would be leaks of the real location, that it was unavoidable, but if he could draw even twenty percent away, that was a fistful of nutbags they wouldn’t have to deal with.

How Grant Kim, even in death, remained a lightning rod was a bit baffling, but also understandable, as he was the embodiment of many fears in one body. He was infected, he had been in a polyamorous relationship, he was Korean, he was of dubious and arguable sexuality. Just like his trial had been a sideshow, his death was too, and it infuriated Roan, enough that he volunteered to run security for free. Considering the problems he was having keeping the lion at bay, this was probably a bad idea. No, it was definitely a bad idea, and he knew it before he even volunteered, but he couldn’t help it. Randi was a friend, and he brought Grant in in the first place, so he felt kind of responsible for him. Maybe it would have been best to let the cops hunt him down and kill him in the first place, but he’d only been trying to help him. Yeah, good intentions paved the way to hell, blah blah blah. You know what the really funny thing was? So did bad intentions. Ultimately, every road led to hell. Churches didn’t tell you this, because they didn’t want you to know how futile everything actually was.

Oh wow. Roan was impressed with his own optimism. With so much sunshine blasting out his ass, how was he not constantly sunburned? Jesus. No wonder one of Dylan’s friends had referred to him as “King Downer”.

Of course, Holden would just say it was realism. But that was Holden, and Roan was still nervous having him on the security team. Thanks to the religious types he grew up with, he revelled in picking fights with the true believers, the more self-righteous the better. He made Holden promise to be on his best behaviour, but only after the fact did he wonder what Holden considered his “best” behaviour, and if it had any correlation between what Roan had hoped. He could have pressed him, but with Holden less was usually more in the information department. It was also usually all you got, as Holden liked mind fucking just a bit too much. It also made him an excellent interrogator, because he could drive anyone to their breaking point just by being chronically evasive. If the CIA had any sense at all, they’d have snapped him up already.

And Dylan was nervous for Roan, as he thought he was taking too much on, especially after all that had happened. But he knew Roan had to do this, and wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t, so all Dyl could do was be supportive and pretend this wasn’t killing him, even though Roan knew it was. It was killing him too.

Ultimately these fucking weirdos should leave the Kims alone and stop making their dead son a symbol of their intolerance, but these idiots had no decency. Roan stopped reading the papers or taking in any news, because the more he heard these morons speak, the more he wanted to let Holden go on them, push them until the cops had no choice but to tase and gas bomb the lot of them. Or maybe Roan should just lion out in front of them, shown them their worst fears were true, and eat some of the fatter ones before they could run to their cars.

Okay, no, he couldn’t do that. But damn, that was fun to think about.

Holden wanted to bring his gun, but since he was a P.I. working under his aegis, he told him he couldn’t unless he got a legal gun (still with its serial number) and a license to carry it, which led Holden to reply, “Spoil the fun, why don’t you.” He knew Holden could use a gun, but he also knew he’d have no compunction about pulling it and using it. It was funny how he could be discreet in all things but busting a cap in someone’s ass.

Dylan wanted to go with him to the funeral, but if he had to go – and he did; of this there was no question – Roan wanted him to stay with Randi and other members of the Kim family. He’d be there as a mourner, but technically he was on the job as well, and if – when – there was trouble, he didn’t want Dyl in the middle of it. Dylan had been hurt enough because of him, and he didn’t want him hurt anymore. Just being married to him got Dyl honorary martyr of the decade status.

Much to Connie’s horror, Gordo asked to be included, mainly because retirement was driving him crazy. Roan took him on, because, while he was older than the rest of them by far, he was a crusty old bastard as well as an ex-cop, and they were good to have around, if only to handle media fallout.

With a couple of guys (unisex meaning – technically it was a man and a woman) from Phil’s security business, the security working the Kim funeral was made up of them, an infected weirdo, a former male prostitute, an ex-cop with a faulty ticker, a part-time dominatrix, and a couple of minor league hockey players. It sounded like the set up to the world’s worst joke, but Roan actually felt like they had a good shot of coming out of this okay. After all, expectations for such a rag tag unit would be super low, and if it didn’t end in a massacre, they’d look like heroes.

There was a chance he’d be followed, he knew that, media scrutiny of him was up again for no good reason (okay, that was a lie – it was a slow news cycle, and all anyone had to do was watch YouTube videos of him to start wondering about him anew), so he had Gordo, Fiona, and the guys from Phil’s outfit (Hannah and Greg, respectively) do some sweeps of the cemetery grounds while he and Holden escorted the Kim family to the funeral. Holden accused him of not sending him on the advance team because he was afraid he’d start some shit, which Roan denied, but it was a hundred percent true. Again, religious zealots were Holden’s sweet spot, the people he most loved to fuck with, and Roan didn’t seem him resisting the temptation. Not that he blamed him in the least, the super repressed were always fun to fuck with, but this was not the day for that. The Kims wanted to have a modicum of dignity, and just because he and Holden were deficient in that arena, it didn’t mean they could deprive them of that.

There were some protestors there, a small clot of the truly disgusting (the “God hates fags/ God hates cats” crowd) against the moderately disgusting (“Infection is a punishment for your sins”). But it wasn’t nearly as bad as Roan had anticipated, suggesting many had taken the bait of the fake funeral announcement. Whenever they got close to the protestors, Holden would blow kisses at them and bat his eyes seductively, which made one of the “God hates fags” guys turn so red in the face that Roan was sure he was going to go Scanners and explode all over the parking lot. Which was so fucking hilarious he couldn’t keep from laughing. This infuriated God guy more, and just encouraged Holden, leading him to make “call me sometime” gestures. Even though he was a dangerous as all fuck, Roan knew this was why he’d hired Holden in the first place. He didn’t run from confrontation either; he egged it on as much as Roan did, leaving the shrinking violet stuff to people who didn’t like to fight. He was a partner in crime, in more than one sense of the term.

It really looked like they were going to get out of this unscathed. The funeral was quiet and dignified, somber enough that even the protestors on the fringe didn’t ruin it. The day was blindingly clear but bitingly cold, and the cemetery was in a quiet, green section of town well outside Seattle proper, although if you walked to its highest hill you could see the gleam of the Puget Sound on the horizon. Birds sang in the mountain ash closest to the grave site, and the Unitarian minister had the hushed voice of a librarian with laryngitis. For a very long moment, it was tranquil and almost beautiful.

Then Roan noticed that the silver Honda Accord had returned.

A few minutes ago it had turned around in the parking lot and drove deeper into the cemetery, but now it was back. There were several reasons why this could have happened. This wasn’t the only funeral taking place, and the cemetery took advantage of its limited space by making the roads through a tangled skein, more complicated than it should have been. Could even have been a looky-loo, those wonderful voyeurs who came out of the woodwork when you least expected it. But he really didn’t like the dark tinted windows that didn’t allow him to see what was going on inside.

He pulled out his two way radio and said, “Gord, you got eyes on the Accord?” Roan was standing with his back to the mourners, in the most open and visible spot, making him the easiest and juiciest target of the bunch, a deliberate choice. Holden tried to argue him out of it, but Roan knew wherever he was, he would be the most obvious target. Putting himself out in the open seemed like tempting fate, but it actually gave him a significant advantage, as he’d see any attack coming. If he was in a more secluded spot, that might not necessarily be true. This levelled the playing field.

“I can see it, yeah,” Gordo replied, grumpy as always. You knew something was wrong when he wasn’t grumpy. “What, it set off your spidey sense?”

“You know very well I’m Batman, which would make it echo-location.” At some point, he’d passed through his annoyance at the cops calling him Batman, and now made jokes about it. Perhaps it was passive-aggressive. “Either way, yes. Can you get close without getting noticed?”

“No fucking clue. Those windows are definitely illegal. There’s a tint limit.”

“So write them a ticket.”

It was then that Accord shifted – its engine had never been turned off – and started driving out of the lot again. Only as it was going past, a window in the back had started coming down, and Roan knew someone was pointing a gun at him.

Several thoughts and impulses hit him at once. He was actually pretty certain he could dodge the shot, but then he remembered the mourners were behind him. He was going to have to take the hit and hope they weren’t skilled or lucky enough to get a head shot. So he presented himself to the bullet even before he heard the hollow pop of gunfire, and braced himself for the hit as he pulled out his Sig Sauer and returned fire.

Only later, viewing footage someone had taken with their camera phone, would Roan realize that he fired within the same second as the gunman in the car. (Holden would bust out the ten dollar word “preternatural” for that.)

The bullet hit him like a super-charged fist in the right side of his chest, knocking the wind out of him, while he simultaneously heard glass breaking and someone’s surprised yelp, as screams erupted behind him. There was a second shot, but so muffled it was clearly confined to the car itself as it accelerated away, sounding like a leaf blower on overdrive. Roan imagined that, if he hadn’t been winded by the shot, he still might be able to catch it. It was only a Honda, after all.

“Oh my god,” Dylan exclaimed, coming up beside him and grabbing his arm to steady him. “Are you all right? Are you hit?”

“I’m okay,” he told him through gritted teeth. “I’m wearing a vest.” Not everybody agreed to wear the bulletproof vest – Gordo hated them on general principal, neither Jeff or Richie could imagine why they’d have to wear them, and Fiona found the biggest one they had still squished her boobs way too much – but Roan had done it for both Dyl’s peace of mind, and the fact that he was making himself such a blatant target.

Gordo came jogging up, his gun out. “You okay?”

Roan just gave him a thumb’s up, trying to swallow back the growl that wanted to erupt from his throat. Even a minor pain like this was enough to set the lion off. Grumpy bastard.

Holden came up at a leisurely pace, holding out his iPhone. “License plate, anyone?”

Gordo plucked it from his hand as he called the cops on his own cell. “Jenny? Hey, yeah, Sikorski, I need you to get an APB out for me …”

Holden gave Roan a curious look. “Couldn’t Matrix that one, Neo?”

Dylan shot him an accusing look. “What?”

Roan just shook his head. “Not the time or place.” To be honest, Holden knew too goddamn much about his abilities, but there was no help for it now. At least he kept secrets like a concrete sealed vault. He looked at Dyl, and asked him, “Can you calm them down? It’s over.”

He was referring to the funeral party, and from Dylan’s deep frown, he knew Roan was trying to distract him. But he was too kind hearted not to, so he turned and started reassuring everyone as Richie and Jeff converged, followed by Fiona, Hannah, and Greg.

“Ever feel like we’re a bargain bin Avengers?” Holden wondered.

Roan rubbed his chest under the vest. He might have cracked a rib, which would be easy to heal if he partially transformed later, but the big ass bruise would probably be his constant companion for the next week. “All the time,” he said, wondering how many painkillers he had in his pocket.

“Motherfucker,” Jeff said. “A drive by at a funeral? Have those people no fuckin’ respect?” It was a rhetorical question, as before anyone could point out respect was lost long ago or never quite had in this Fox News era, Jeff noticed the protestors were only now warily peeling themselves off the ground. “You wanna take him on now, huh?”

“Is this the second time we’ve seen you shot?” Richie asked, scratching his head.

Oh wow – it was. “At least I have a vest on this time,” Roan said.

Richie shrugged. “Wouldn’t have helped you last time.”

True enough.

“Oh shit, Roan,” Fiona said. “Three o’clock.”

He looked up quickly, but saw nothing at three o’clock, so quickly scanned the parking lot, and saw what Fi must have been referring to. Leaning on a blue rental sedan in the parking lot, arms crossed over her chest, was FBI Agent Monica Flores, her eyebrows raised like she was waiting for him to answer a question.

Goddamn it. Well, at least this didn’t make it that much worse. She already thought he was a freak. So if it was confirmed, so what? He was already screwed. The best he could hope for was the FBI saw no use for him.

Yeah, right – and he was a cute little kitty cat.

Roan’s Guide to Valentine’s Day on SJD Peterson Blog

Book 1: Infected: Prey

Book 2: Infected: Bloodlines

Book 3: Infected: Life After Death

Book 4: Infected: Freefall

Book 5: Infected: Shift (release May/June)

And all releases are, of course, available here:

****

1- Haunt You

It was going to be a clusterfuck, of that there was no doubt. The only question was how big a clusterfuck.

Roan wasn’t going to bother the Kims with any of this,and although Randi requested to be kept in the loop, he spared her from this as well. Mainly he kept this between him, Holden, and Fiona, although even that wasn’t strictly true. He told Dylan, and even though Scott had been called up to the Vancouver Canucks, Holden had obviously clued him in, as Richie had called Roan to offer his help (along with Jeff’s, whom he was going to drag into things whether he wanted to be in it or not). Roan told him it might not be the best idea, as what if he was recognized, but that just made him laugh. Only hard core Falcons fans would know who he was on sight, and the day he was afraid of a bunch of god squad whackadoos (his words) was the day he quit hockey and started selling insurance. If he wasn’t up against he would have turned him down, but he knew Richie and Jeff were intimidating looking (a nose broken several times and a scarred face had that effect), and were more than capable of taking care of themselves, so he agreed to let them help. It was weird enough that he was putting together a security detail for a funeral. But life these days was pretty fucking weird.

Roan planted a fake burial announcement in the paper, with a real church and a real date listed, but neither one being the actual place, time, and date of the funeral. The Kim family was in on it, so they were able to tell relatives to ignore it, but it was a bluff for some of the crazies to take. He knew there would be leaks of the real location, that it was unavoidable, but if he could draw even twenty percent away, that was a fistful of nutbags they wouldn’t have to deal with.

How Grant Kim, even in death, remained a lightning rod was a bit baffling, but also understandable, as he was the embodiment of many fears in one body. He was infected, he had been in a polyamorous relationship, he was Korean, he was of dubious and arguable sexuality. Just like his trial had been a sideshow, his death was too, and it infuriated Roan, enough that he volunteered to run security for free. Considering the problems he was having keeping the lion at bay, this was probably a bad idea. No, it was definitely a bad idea, and he knew it before he even volunteered, but he couldn’t help it. Randi was a friend, and he brought Grant in in the first place, so he felt kind of responsible for him. Maybe it would have been best to let the cops hunt him down and kill him in the first place, but he’d only been trying to help him. Yeah, good intentions paved the way to hell, blah blah blah. You know what the really funny thing was? So did bad intentions. Ultimately, every road led to hell. Churches didn’t tell you this, because they didn’t want you to know how futile everything actually was.

Oh wow. Roan was impressed with his own optimism. With so much sunshine blasting out his ass, how was he not constantly sunburned? Jesus. No wonder one of Dylan’s friends had referred to him as “King Downer”.

Of course, Holden would just say it was realism. But that was Holden, and Roan was still nervous having him on the security team. Thanks to the religious types he grew up with, he revelled in picking fights with the true believers, the more self-righteous the better. He made Holden promise to be on his best behaviour, but only after the fact did he wonder what Holden considered his “best” behaviour, and if it had any correlation between what Roan had hoped. He could have pressed him, but with Holden less was usually more in the information department. It was also usually all you got, as Holden liked mind fucking just a bit too much. It also made him an excellent interrogator, because he could drive anyone to their breaking point just by being chronically evasive. If the CIA had any sense at all, they’d have snapped him up already.

And Dylan was nervous for Roan, as he thought he was taking too much on, especially after all that had happened. But he knew Roan had to do this, and wouldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t, so all Dyl could do was be supportive and pretend this wasn’t killing him, even though Roan knew it was. It was killing him too.

Ultimately these fucking weirdos should leave the Kims alone and stop making their dead son a symbol of their intolerance, but these idiots had no decency. Roan stopped reading the papers or taking in any news, because the more he heard these morons speak, the more he wanted to let Holden go on them, push them until the cops had no choice but to tase and gas bomb the lot of them. Or maybe Roan should just lion out in front of them, shown them their worst fears were true, and eat some of the fatter ones before they could run to their cars.

Okay, no, he couldn’t do that. But damn, that was fun to think about.

****

To Be Continued

Roan’s Mix #4 from notmanos on 8tracks.

In the car, Holden was treated to the story of Mandy and her internet boyfriend in a meandering, compulsive bout of verbal diarrhea that made him want to pull over and put her in the trunk.

It turned out internet boyfriend was “like, fat and old” (thirty), and she was pretty disgusted by him, so she took off for the Church the first chance she got. Holden had to repress the urge to gasp dramatically, and proclaim, “Someone lied? On the internet? The police must be informed!” But he didn’t, because she might think he was serious.

Anyways, she found some people at the Church who allowed her to crash at their place, and that brought them up to date. She didn’t know if she was infected or not, but she kind of “hoped so”, and she had hoped to get in on that whole tiger thing, but she never met the right people, and besides, “some kinda shithead kitty fag guy ruined it all”. Holden winced, because she was talking about Roan, and he knew damn well what was coming.

Scott turned to look back at her, and said, “Not only is he a friend of mine, but he’s the guy we work for, so shut your ignorant mouth.”

She snorted, crossing her arms over chest. “He’s a fucking traitor.”

“Say it to his face. If he doesn’t rip your arm off, I will.”

“Do me a favor,” Holden interjected, before it could get really ugly. “Explain to me how he’s a traitor when he wants to keep people from dying horribly.”

“’Cause being infected’s fucking awesome,” she explained, with the aggressively bored tone of someone who honestly can’t believe anyone could possibly be as stupid as the person she was talking to. “You become something else! A big cat! That’s fucking cool.”

Holden shook his head. “You’re an idiot.”

“Fuck you, old man.”

“Before you came here, did you know a single infected person?”

“Duh.”

“Online doesn’t count.”

She shifted in her seat, arms tightening even more across her chest. Her lips twisted, but she didn’t allow herself to frown. “Are you infected?” she finally asked.

“No. But that kitty fag is, and I’ve known him for a while. He’d tell you what a fucking joke it all is.”

She shot him an evil look in the rearview mirror, but Holden found it easy to ignore. Just like he found her misguided and deeply stupid beliefs easy to understand as well. He was the son of a preacher, after all, and he knew how powerful denial could be. It could trump reality, and the more outrageous the belief, the more reality was helpless against it. You would have thought that shouldn’t have been true, but there was no end to which a person would push themselves to avoid facing life as it actually was. Life sucked; any belief, no matter how outrageous, was better.

Scott was lecturing her, but he tuned it out. There was no talking Mandy out of her stupidity, and besides, their job was done. They found Mandy. Sure, she’d probably run away from her mother again, possibly before they even reached Sea-Tac, but who cared? They were just hired to find her once.

He’d be glad to get rid of them both. They could go home and be idiots there. There were enough idiots here as it was. A whole city full of them.

****

Roan had a change of heart, and asked Dylan if he minded going home for lunch instead, and he had no problem with the alteration. They picked up some Vietnamese food to go and returned to eat at the breakfast nook and discuss plans. Not that there was much to discuss. Roan just told Dylan what Doctor Rosenberg had told him, about the apartment and what she wanted to do. Dylan’s reaction was the same as his, wondering about the déjà vu of it all.

Dyl all but refused to make the decision for him, since he felt it was Roan’s decision to make. But he just didn’t know what to do anymore. Dylan asked him if he knew what he didn’t want to do, a work around that was cheap, obvious, and helpful. He didn’t want the lion to ever hurt Dylan; he’d never forgive himself if that happened. So Roan thought maybe he could try the monitored apartment for a week. He’d be back here as much as he could during the day, but that would be it. Dylan wasn’t as worried about the lion coming out as Roan was, but he got the sense this was Dyl being Zen – read: fatalistic – about it all. Roan understood it, but didn’t like it.

They had just finished lunch when there was a knock on the door, which caused them to exchange a wary look. “Did we lock the gate?” Roan asked. Suddenly he couldn’t remember if he had or hadn’t. Dylan shrugged, indicating he couldn’t remember either. Goddamn it. It had been a long day – week, year, decade, millennium – so perhaps they could be forgiven an occasional lapse.

Roan went to the door, actually kind of hoping for a fight, as there was nothing complicated in violence. He knew he could handle it. But a glance through the door’s peephole told him a different kind of fight was on the way.

He almost didn’t open the door, but then he figured fuck it, and undid the locks as aggressively as he could before throwing open the door. “What?”

Agent Monica Flores barely raised an eyebrow at that. “That’s a nice greeting.”

“What the hell are you doing at my house?”

“You’ve been blocking my calls.”

“Which would indicate I don’t want to talk to you, so why are you here?”

She remained stoic and unflappable in the face of his obvious hostility, which just made him more pissed off. She had a manila envelope under her arm, which she pulled out and handed to him. “We’re not enemies, McKichan. I wish you’d stop treating me as such.”

“What is this, a subpoena?” he asked, opening the envelope and looking at the contents. There was an impressive collection of paper, and Roan recognized the top sheets were standard background check forms. All concerning him. “What the fuck is this? You’ve been checking up on me?”

“It’s standard procedure,” she said, tapping a piece of paper near the bottom. He scanned the rest of the pages before he came to what she had been indicating, which was a security clearance badge. It had his name on it, but the photo was missing.

He looked at her in disbelief. Was this an elaborate practical joke? He could see Dee doing this, he really could. Maybe Grey if he was really bored. “Why are you fucking with me? You know I’m just out of the hospital, right?”

“What’s going on?” Dylan asked. Roan sensed him behind him, and he knew Flores made eye contact with him, but from the way her expression remained neutral, he knew Dylan didn’t nod or acknowledge her in any way. He was waiting to see if she was friend or foe.

“Crimes against infecteds and by infecteds are up across the country,” Flores said, as if that explained anything. “We could use a consultant with genuine field experience, and experience being an infected. Even if you are an … unusual one. But, worse case scenario, at least we have a consultant who could fight a tiger with their bare hands.”

“No,” Roan said, trying to hand the papers back. “You can’t conscript me.”

But she didn’t take them, crossing her arms over her chest to indicate she wasn’t going to take them any time soon. “Think about it. The fact that we’re even thinking about this should give you a good idea how desperate we are. My number’s on there if you want to call.” She gave Dylan a polite nod and turned and stalked away.

“I already made up my mind!” he shouted after her, but she ignored him. Of course she did. She was just paying him back for his aggressive ignoring of her. He slammed the door like a drama queen, aware that she couldn’t give a shit, and it hardly made him feel better.

“What the hell is this about?” Dylan asked, starting to sound a little peeved. “Ro?”

He hastily flipped through the sheaf of papers. There were legal forms in here, rules of conduct, stuff he absolutely had to get Dennis to go over. There was no way they could force the issue, was there? “The F.B.I. want to bring me in as a consultant on infected cases.”

Dylan seemed quiet for a long time, so Roan glanced at him from the corner of his eye, and saw his jaw had unhinged slightly. He was staring at him in slack jawed disbelief. Finally, he said, “The F.B.I.? As in the feds?”

He nodded, still disbelieving all of this. It had to be a joke. Flores was doing this to needle him. “Yeah. Flores has made me a personal project. I think she’s bored.” And on to his more than human status, but Dylan didn’t need to worry about that as well.

Dylan put a hand on his arm, squeezing gently, just enough to get his attention. “Hon, is this bad news or good news?”

Roan shook his head and shrugged. Not sure what to tell him. “Pick one. All I know is it’s trouble.” And this was just what he needed more of right now.

Damn it. If he ever needed proof the universe was out to fuck with him, he had it now.