Nocturnal: A Novel

He finally turned to look at her. The room’s shadows hid his face, took the light out of his green eyes.

“I think I drifted into the job because of what I really am. I think I became a cop because I like to hunt.”

Robin wondered if she looked afraid, because suddenly she was. Bryan had said because I like to hunt, but what he meant was because I like to hunt PEOPLE.

He took another sip. “Some cops kill a guy and it messes them up so bad they quit the force. I’ve killed five men. Five. All in the line of duty, all righteous shoots, okay, but still — I don’t feel bad about any of them.”

He turned away, again looking off into nothingness.

This new Bryan, the one with the emotions turned full on, he was a frightening man. If she didn’t already know him and met him in a dark alley, she’d run the other way. But she did know him. There was so much pain in his face. She wanted to take him into her arms, pull his head to her chest and slowly stroke his hair.

“Bryan, there’s a difference between being a murderer and being a protector. Cops carry guns for a reason.”

He turned to face her again. “But shouldn’t I feel something? Some kind of remorse? Or guilt? Or whatever the fuck the psychologists kept asking me after every time I put someone down?”

“What do you want me to say? If you hadn’t done what you’d done, Pookie would be dead, John would be dead, and you’d be dead. You saved lives. It’s not like you have an urge to go out and eat babies.”

He said nothing.

“Because if you want to eat babies, Bryan, I’m going to have to go ahead and ask you to put down the scotch.”

He kept staring, then she saw the corners of his mouth turn up just a bit — he was fighting a smile. She waited, knowing him well enough to know exactly what would happen next. His mouth trembled once, twice, then he lost his battle with the laugh.

He shook his head. “You have to be kidding me. Jokes? Now?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’ve been hanging out with Pookie too much.”

Bryan’s smile faded. The sadness returned to his eyes, and in that moment her soul felt like it would splinter and blow away on the wind.

She turned her back to him, then slid onto his lap. He started to react, but before he could say anything she reached one hand up to the back of his head and used his rigidity to pull herself in for a kiss. Her lips hit his. She felt his beard on her upper lip, on her chin. She breathed in the scent of him, felt it spread through her chest. He started to pull away, so she held him tighter.

Her wineglass fell away. She put her other hand on the back of his head, pulling him even tighter, feeling the texture of his hair between her fingers. He resisted, but only for a moment more, then she felt his arms around the small of her back, squeezing her tight, lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all. His tongue — cooled by the icy scotch — found hers.

She didn’t know how long the moment lasted. It lasted a second. It lasted forever. Finally, his strong hands slid to her shoulders, gripped them and pushed her away so that their faces were only an inch apart.

She felt the heat of his breath, smelled the Talisker that came with it. “I missed you, Bryan. I missed you so much.”

Bryan sniffed.

She gently kissed his left eye, let it linger there. “I should have never pushed you away,” she said.

He nodded. “I shouldn’t have let you.”

Her hands slid to his face, felt his beard in her palms, felt the warmth of his skin. “I’m not playing stupid games anymore,” she said. “I love you. I think I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. The genetics don’t change the fact that you’re a good man, Bryan. They don’t change the fact that you’re my man.”

He closed his eyes. “Everything feels so much … just more. Before, all my feelings were kind of, I don’t know, kind of muted. Now they’re on full bore. It’s hard to manage.”

She kissed his nose. “All I need from you is one emotion. Nothing else matters. Nothing at all. Just look in your heart and tell me — do you love me?”

Her thumbs slowly moved back and forth on his cheekbones. He stared at her, his eyes still full of pain but now also filled with longing.

He started to talk, then stopped. He swallowed. He licked his lips, then spoke.

“I love you,” he said. “I always have, but I couldn’t say it.”

She blinked back tears. “You can say it now. We’ll figure this out together. I will never leave you, no matter what happens.”

“It’s not that easy,” he said. “I mean, the Zed chromosome, other people have it and the things that they do … I don’t know what I might do.”

She kissed him again, hard. His fingertips pressed into her back.

Robin pulled away from him only enough to speak, her lips still touching his when she did.

“Stay with me,” she said. “Stay with me tonight.”

He looked at her again, then it was his turn to pull her close.

Hands

Just look at them. Holding hands. Kissing. He could see their tongues flicking in and out of each other’s mouths. So unclean.

The rage built in Tard’s chest. So did the excitement. Everything seemed sharper, more intense, from the breeze blowing off the endless ocean to the sand grinding under his belly to the smell of a dead fish that couldn’t be far off.

They couldn’t see him. People couldn’t see at night, not like he could. And these people had a fire, blazing orange and hot, a spot of light surrounded by this long, dark stretch of beach. Their eyes would be adjusted to that light — they wouldn’t be able to see anything twenty feet outside of their little bonfire. Tard could cover twenty feet in just a couple of seconds. They wouldn’t have time to react. They probably wouldn’t even have time to scream.

There was no one to stop him anymore. He’d killed once, and no one had told him to stop.

Off in the distance, a few other bonfires lit up the evening fog of Ocean Beach. Probably bums. No one cared about the bums, but these two — they looked like they would be missed.

No one was supposed to touch a will-be.

Tard thought about slinking away, maybe looking at the other bonfires to see what was there … but these two, lying there, holding hands, kissing.

The boy crawled on top of the girl and started to move.

It made Tard feel funny to watch, and that funny feeling made him even angrier.

He slowly lifted off his belly and onto his feet, a sand-colored shape that rushed forward, out of the darkness and into the bonfire’s light.

Homecoming

Rex let his fingertips trace along rough tunnel walls made of dirt, rocks, mismatched bricks and half-rotted timbers. The timbers formed steep, inverted V-shapes that supported larger boulders above. The whole thing looked horribly fragile and delicate, as if it might collapse at any moment.

“This doesn’t look very safe,” he said. Sly was ahead of him, Pierre behind him and Sir Voh and Fort in the rear. Rex didn’t need to ride Pierre anymore, nor could he — Pierre had to duck to get through the tight space. The big creature looked up frequently, constantly checking his head height. He seemed quite wary of bumping the timbers above them.

“It’s safe,” Sly said. “Except for this.” He stopped, pointed to an overhead boulder that had been spray-