Bryan stared, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s good. John came through big-time, Pooks. You could do a lot worse.”
Pookie wanted to say
Bryan forced a smile. “If you don’t mind, I gotta get ready to go to work.”
“Say no more, Brother.”
Bryan held out his hand. “Thank you, man.”
Pookie shook it. “Thank me? You saved my life for the second time.”
Bryan looked down. “Yeah, well … I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stood by me. Now that Robin is gone, you … well, you’re all I’ve got.”
Pookie pulled him in and hugged him. “Gimme some sugar, you big lug. I’m glad you pinched off that emotional nugget before you go back to being all reserved and resigned and whatnot.”
Pookie thumped Bryan on the back, then let go. “Good hunting, my friend,” he said, then walked away from Bryan’s mansion.
Pookie felt like a loser for not backing Bryan’s play, but it was just too much. All that death — Robin, Baldwin Metz, Jesse Sharrow, Rich Verde, all killed by something that Pookie still couldn’t truly accept as
For now, at least, Bryan Clauser was on his own.
Holding Hands
Kissing.
Two girls, kissing, hands rubbing on backs, soft and tender, hidden in the shadows of Lafayette Park, holding hands.
Chameleon felt that cold rage churning inside his chest. Why did
No one could stop him now. Sly said Savior was dead. The police had staked out Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park, Chameleon’s favorite killing grounds, but the police were just human. One pair of detectives had walked within two feet of his position. They didn’t notice Chameleon because Chameleon looked just like the tree behind which he hid. He hadn’t killed that night, but the next night he had.
It wasn’t hard to wait. He waited like a spider. If you sat still and quiet long enough, eventually a couple would come to you.
Then you just took them.
Chameleon stood at the base of a small tree, his chest and left cheek against the trunk, his arms wrapped around the other side. That was how you hid. You just hugged the tree, then made your skin feel and look like the tree. The shadows took care of the rest.
The girls drew closer. He wouldn’t have even known one was a girl from looking at her. She had short hair and wore a boy’s shirt and pants. But he knew how women smelled. No matter what she wore, that was a girl.
A girl who would soon be dead.
Chameleon thought it was funny to kill in Lafayette Park, so close to Savior’s old house, the house Sly had told him to watch for so long. But Savior was gone. Sly was in charge now, and Sly gave Chameleon respect. If Chameleon wanted to hunt, that was fine with Sly.
Maybe this time, Chameleon would cut off a head and bring it home for New Mommy. She was changing, changing so fast, but she wasn’t ready to have babies yet. Maybe the reason Old Mommy could have babies was because she ate brains. Maybe New Mommy needed the same kind of food.
Closer still. Only thirty feet now. Walking, holding hands, smiling,
A noise to his left. He couldn’t turn to look, because trees didn’t turn to look. Moving might spook the prey.
More noise. The smell of a dog.
Chameleon didn’t worry. The dog would pass by like all the others.
He watched the girls. Just another ten seconds or so, and he would grab them, pull them into the deeper shadows beneath the tree. Sly liked boy livers better, but he probably wouldn’t mind so much since this was two girls.
The dog smell grew stronger, closer.
A growl — low, deep and aggressive, the kind that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up if you hadn’t made the back of your neck feel just like tree bark. A growl so quiet the girls didn’t even hear.
Was the dog growling at
He had to take a look. Chameleon slowly turned his head, heard his stiff skin crackling like a bending branch.
Just ten feet away, a black-and-white dog with something wrapped around its head stared at him. Its lip curled up, revealing long teeth that glowed softly in the pale moonlight.
But the dog did not go away.
For some reason, the dog frightened Chameleon. Dogs weren’t that dangerous, but there was something in this one’s eyes. Not hunger, but
The dog took a step closer. The lip curled higher. A string of drool swung from the dog’s lower lip. The jaw opened — the growl sounded gravelly, disturbing.
The girls’ footsteps stopped.
Chameleon started to slowly push away from the tree. He would have to pounce on that dog and kill it fast, then maybe chase the girls down. Everything was ruined!
A hissing sound.
Something punched him in the back, pushed his chest into the tree. Chameleon started to pull away, but found that he could not — he was stuck.
Then the pain hit.
It
He squeezed the tree, as if hugging it might take away his pain.
The girls’ footsteps quickened, faded away — they had run.
He opened his eyes to look at the dog again. Now it sat on its haunches. The growling stopped, but its head remained low, its eyes fixed on Chameleon.
More footsteps, heavier footsteps …
Family! He was saved!
“Help me!” Chameleon whispered. He couldn’t see who was there. “I … I can’t move and this dog is bugging me. My chest really hurts. I don’t feel so good.”
The footsteps came closer, from behind and to the right. Chameleon turned to look — a man in black, his face covered by a fabric mask painted with a white skull-smile. Chameleon saw green eyes through the mask’s little eye-slits.
“You’ve been a busy boy,” the man in black said. The skull-smile didn’t move when he talked. That looked weird.
Chameleon felt cold. Sleepy.
“Crap,” the man said. “Emma, I think I nicked his heart. I really have to work on this bow-and-arrow business.”
That was where Chameleon felt the burning, in his chest. “You nicked my heart? I’ll heal up, right?”
The skull-smile shook his head. “Not this time. You’re gonna die, right here, right now.”
“Die? Like … like
