Nocturnal: A Novel

Rex laughed, then clamped his hand over his mouth — that had been too loud. He whispered back: “This is the coolest thing ever. Marco had us going through alleys and basements, this is way funner.”

Sly nodded. “We take the roofs sometimes, but it is dangerous. Tonight we can — the monster is hurt.”

Pierre shook his head. “No, I don’t believe it. The monther can’t be hurt, he’th bulletproof!” Pierre picked up a piece of tar off the roof and started drawing the warding symbol on the brick wall.

Sly sighed and rolled his eyes. “No one is bulletproof, Pierre. Tard called and said they took him away in an ambulance.”

Rex looked at the people around him, at Sly and Pierre and Sir Voh and Fort. They didn’t look scary anymore, not at all. “If the monster is hurt, why do we move so quietly?”

Sly smiled and winked one yellow eye. “Because if we’re mistaken, it’s a mistake we only get to make once.”

Rex could see inside Sly’s blanket. Sly wore normal clothes — jeans, battered leather boots and a ratty sweatshirt with a big hood. Fort also wore normal clothes under his blanket. Pierre was a little more odd — he wore blue Bermuda shorts and no shirt.

It was quiet up here on the roofs. Quiet, and abandoned. Most of San Francisco’s buildings were three or four stories tall. Within a single block, Rex and the others could easily move from roof to roof. To reach the next block, all they had to do was jump. Sly led them on a path that avoided known cameras, but he constantly looked for new ones. If he didn’t think it was smart to go around a camera, he would come up on it from behind, rip it off and toss it down to the street.

On those streets, there were cars and people and motion. Up here there was stillness — flat, empty roofs in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

Rex heard a soft moan of pain. Alex. He was limp but alive, if just barely. Fort held him under one thick arm.

Sly slowly rose up until he could peek over the wall’s edge. He looked around, then lowered himself just as slowly. “A few more minutes,” he said.

Each time they leaped over a street and landed on a new building, they stopped and waited. If people were spotted on nearby roofs, Sly had everyone wait until those people went down or he found another way around. When it came time to jump to the next block, Sly would make sure no people were down on the steet below, then time a lull in traffic — no one had seen their crazy leaps.

Rex had never felt so good, so alive. He clung tight to Pierre, smelling the delightfully damp richness of his brown fur, the pungent, sour waft of clothes that hadn’t been washed in weeks. A feeling of warmth radiated into Rex’s chest and arms. Not just the heat from the monster’s body, but a deeper warmth, a feeling of love that made Rex want to cry.

They were taking him home.

Sly looked over the edge, saw it was clear, then jumped. The journey continued, block to block. Rex recognized Jackson Street when they passed over it, as it wasn’t far from his house. Next, they crossed over Pacific and then moved silently from building to building until they stopped and waited at a roof’s edge.

Below them was a narrow surface road. Beyond and below that, deep down, four lanes of traffic disappeared into a tunnel that ran beneath a boxy building.

“Pierre, is that the Broadway Tunnel?”

“Yeth, my king.”

They waited. Down on the surface street, a man and a woman leaned on a car, making out. They looked old, probably almost thirty.

Rex didn’t mind waiting, didn’t mind watching. None of them did. That was how things were done. He looked out across the city. He could see the Golden Gate Bridge off to the northwest, the Oakland Bay Bridge to the northeast. Behind him, high above the city, the six blinking red lights of Sutro Tower.

San Francisco. His city. He would rule all of it. He would be king.

After a while, the man and the woman walked away from the car and into the building below Rex’s feet. Pierre launched himself across the void. Rex sailed through the air, trying not to giggle at the feel of wind tickling his skin.

The group landed atop the boxy building’s flat roof. Pierre knelt. Rex slid off and stood still. The sounds of cars echoed up from below.

Sly moved to a hatch in the roof and opened it, exposing a ladder. He smiled his pointy-toothed smile. “Are you ready, my king?”

“Is that the way home?”

Sly shook his head. “You can’t go home just yet.”

They weren’t taking him? But they had promised. “Why can’t I?”

“Firstborn is dangerous,” Sly said. “If we don’t bring you home at the right time, my king, he may try to kill you.”

Rex hadn’t expected that. He looked from Pierre to Sir Voh to even Fort. They all nodded solemnly — Sly spoke the truth.

“So where are you taking me, then?”

“We have many places under the city, so many that we can go for months without using the same one twice. Firstborn will not find you, my king.” Sly looked to the horizon, stared for a moment, then turned back. “Daybreak is coming soon. If you stay up here, I am afraid the police might find you. You need to trust us and leave all of this behind. Are you ready to start your new life?”

Rex looked at the hatch, then at each of them in turn. He looked around at the glowing windows and twinkling lights of the city, then nodded at Sly.

“I’m ready, brother,” Rex said. “Take me down.”

Late to the Party

Amy Zou held her Sig Sauer in her left hand, a walkie-talkie in her right.

Rich Verde stood next to her. She stared at the eviscerated body on the embalming table.

This was why she did what she did, because monsters were real. The one on the table, the creatures in the room behind her … Amy could only imagine those things reaching for one of her twins.

A feeling of hopelessness filled her, dragged down her every thought. She’d spent nearly thirty years with this secret. Thirty years. Jesus, how time slipped by. Three decades of her life, and now it might all be over — if it was, many more people were going to die.

Verde clinked the barrel of his gun against the creature’s shark teeth, tink-tink- tink.

“You are one ugly motherfucker,” he said to the corpse. “How many people did you kill with your pearly whites?”

How many indeed. “It’s not just the misshapen ones,” Amy said. “You see the guy out there with the crowbar?”

Verde looked at her. “Crowbar?” He thought, then nodded as realization kicked in. “Liam McCoy?”

“Yes,” Amy said. “Looks like we can take him out of the whereabouts unknown column.”

Fifteen years ago, McCoy had been a suspect in four child murders. He’d gone missing before Amy could close in on him. He wasn’t missing anymore. Justice had been served.

She walked back into the gun room. Verde followed. He holstered his Sig and picked up a five-seven, feeling the weight. No point in worrying about prints; they already knew who owned these weapons.

“What about Clauser?” Verde said. “And that fuck-stick, Chang. Maybe firing them isn’t enough.”

She watched Rich eject the magazine, which was loaded. He popped the magazine back into the weapon.

“They were just doing their jobs,” she said. They had been doing what they were sworn to do, following the letter of the law — just as Amy had done thirty years earlier. “What do you want to do, Rich, shoot them?”