Nocturnal: A Novel

Because he pissed you off.

Bryan stepped forward and reached out a hand to help Adam up when the whuff of a silenced gun coincided with a shredded white spot appearing in the floor between his feet.

Bryan froze, moving only enough to look up to the stairs that led into the house. On the top step stood Alder Jessup, who was pointing his cane at Bryan’s chest.

“That will be quite enough,” Alder said.

A thin curl of smoke wafted out of the cane’s hollow bottom.

“A cane-gun?” Bryan said. “Seriously?”

Alder nodded. “Just sit down where you are. I’ve got four more shots in this weapon. Move and I’ll kill you.”

Bryan studied the old man. Alder was leaning against the wall — he couldn’t even stand without using the cane for help. And yet the man’s hands looked rock-steady, as did the barrel of the cane-gun.

Bryan sat.

Alder eased himself down until he sat on the top step. The cane-gun now rested on his right knee, barrel still pointed at Bryan.

“Why are you here?” Alder said. “Why are you assaulting my grandson?”

Adam held his lower back with one hand, his bleeding nose with the other.

Bryan shrugged. “Sorry about that. I, uh, I guess I got a little mad.”

Alder nodded. “Then I would hate to see you when you lose your temper. Again, why are you here?”

“I want answers,” Bryan said. “I want all the answers. I want to know how Jebediah Erickson can do what he does when he’s in his seventies. I want to know why he kills Marie’s Children. I want to know why he tried to kill me.”

Adam stood, wincing from the pain. “Uncle Jeb didn’t try to kill you, shit for brains. He wouldn’t try to kill a cop.”

“Then I guess he just shot me for shits and giggles.”

Alder’s eyes narrowed. “He shot you? You must have been with someone else. Who was with you at the time?”

“Other cops,” Bryan said. “But he didn’t try to kill them. He wanted me.”

Alder and Adam exchanged a nervous glance.

Adam started slowly backing up the stairs. His arrogant attitude had vanished. “I don’t believe Uncle Jeb shot you. Show me where.”

Bryan reached to unzip his sweatshirt before he remembered — the bullet wound had already healed. Healed because he was a Zed, because he was one of Marie’s Children. In his morning optimism, flush with the good feeling of finally opening up to Robin, he’d managed to keep that little fact out of his thoughts. He let his hand drop to his lap.

“Grampa,” Adam said, “he’s one of the monsters. Kill him now.”

Bryan didn’t say anything. He stared at the bullet chip in the floor. He was a monster. He’d lost it with Adam, and for almost no reason. He could have snapped Adam’s neck. A part of him had wanted to do just that.

Maybe Alder’s bullet was the best thing for everyone.

“Do it, Gramps,” Bryan said. “Pull the trigger.”

Alder shook his head. “I will not.”

Adam walked up the stairs to his grandfather. “Then give me the cane. I’ll do it.”

“Shut up,” Alder said.

“But, Grampa, he—”

“Adam, shut your mouth!”

Adam took a step back and fell silent.

Alder lowered the cane. He slowly pushed himself up. He put the end of the cane on the top step and left it there, using it to help him stay standing. “Inspector Clauser, you said Erickson tried to kill you. I’ve never known him to fail. Why didn’t he finish the job?”

Bryan again looked at the chip in the floor. “Because I stabbed him.”

“Stabbed him,” Alder echoed. “What, exactly, did you stab him with?”

“His own knife,” Bryan said. He looked up. “A big silver one.”

Alder and Adam exchanged glances again. Their expressions hinted at panic.

“His knife?” Adam said. “Is he dead?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. He’s in the hospital.”

Alder shook his head sadly. “This is my fault. I just assumed Zou would handle it. She always has in the past. How could she let this happen?”

“Don’t blame her,” Bryan said, surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth. “She tried to stop us. We didn’t listen. We couldn’t let a vigilante run wild.”

Alder’s face wrinkled in scorn. “A vigilante? I can’t believe anyone could be that naive. Do you have any idea what we’re dealing with?”

Images of stuffed monsters flashed through Bryan’s thoughts. He nodded. “I saw Erickson’s basement.”

“Good,” Alder said. “You seem smart enough to believe what your eyes show you.”

Even from the first dream, a part of Bryan had known it was all real. The basement only confirmed that. “This wouldn’t have happened if Zou and Erickson — and you, for that matter — hadn’t kept this a secret.”

Alder sighed and shook his head. “Clearly, I was wrong about you being smart.”

“People need to know,” Bryan said. “We’re talking about actual fucking monsters here.”

Adam spit blood onto the stairs. “Uncle Jeb tried telling the truth once, after Zou tracked his ass down back in the day. He told people all about the monsters, and you know where he wound up? The loony bin.”

“But there’s proof,” Bryan said. “All those stuffed creatures in his basement.”

Alder walked down the stairs, again using his cane as just that — a cane. “You’re missing the obvious, Inspector. You never heard of monsters before this, because the monsters can’t be found by the police. They are hunters, so skilled that no one knows they exist, even when they murder their victims or take people away to wherever it is they take them. The only one who can find them, who can stop them, is Erickson. And, now, maybe you.

“The nightmarish ones Erickson stuffed — maybe the public will believe those are real, maybe they won’t, but believe it or not those creatures aren’t the biggest problem. You saw that some of Erickson’s trophies looked like regular people?”

Bryan thought back to the man with the hatchet. “Yes, there were a few.”

Alder reached the bottom step. “Stand up.”

Bryan did.

“The problem is the ones that look like us,” Alder said. “Erickson looks like us. You look like us. If you show the world the monsters, and show them that some of the monsters look like regular people, what do you think would happen?”

Bryan thought of Robin, of her little machine that could quickly and easily test for the Zed chromosome. If people knew that some of the monsters looked like regular people, there would be a campaign to test everyone. And if someone other than Robin tested Bryan, found out he was one of them …

“Maybe they find a reason to put me away,” he said.

Alder nodded. “And if that happens, Inspector Clauser, who will be left to find the monsters that can’t be found? Who will stop them from killing at will?”

What if Alder was right? Would anyone trust a man with the Zed chromosome? No, not if they also found out about the creatures. This was all so fucked up. No one would trust his kind, not without a civil rights campaign, education — things that took years if not decades.

Erickson had been locked up once. Because of that, hundreds of people had died. Erickson was still in the hospital — did that mean Bryan was the only one who could find the monsters?

Maybe someday soon Bryan would let the world know. Robin could help. She could get the scientific