One final item—a file folder containing a sheet of paper and a card for his wallet. Both items were pristine, the card still in its cellophane wrapper. It was the gun's registration and his license to use it. They FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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were still valid, despite the ban on morey firearms. He'd gotten them a year prior to the ban.
He put the card in his wallet, bolstered the loaded gun, and, hot as it was, put on his trench. Nohar had brought the trench coat despite the fact there had been little threat of rain. He had brought it to hide the gun. He pocketed the two extra magazines and put the case back in the drawer. As he locked the drawer up again, he told himself he was never going to fire the thing, but he knew, if he'd really believed that, he would have never opened that drawer. Nohar left the office, the gun an oppressive weight under his shoulder.
Angel was awake again when Nohar returned with the groceries. She began cursing in Spanish the second be opened the door. Nohar had thought he'd get back before she woke up. After an experience like she'd been through, she should have slept like the dead.
'We had a fucking deal, Kit—' More Spanish. 'You don't leave me alone like that.'
He ducked through the living room and into the kitchen, shucking the trench as he went. Cat followed Nohar, and the food, into the kitchen.
'You listening to me, Kit?'
The dry cat food was still covering the counter where he had spilled it last night. Nohar had forgotten the mess. He set down his bag and picked up Cat's dish. After rinsing it off, he swept about half the spilled food off the counter and into the dish. When he put it down, Cat pounced on the bowl, oblivious to the fact that it was filled with the same stuff that was on the counter.
Nohar decided he could afford the waste and brushed the rest of the spill into the sink and turned on the disposal.
Angel was leaning against the door frame. She looked a lot better. She had taken a shower, returning her dirty brown coat to its original light tan. Her ears
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had perked up, though even with them she was still over a meter shorter than Nohar.
She was jabbering in Spanish, and Nohar knew she wasn't saying anything nice. He asked her what she wanted to eat.
She walked into the kitchen and looked into the bag. She was still angry,
Nohar could smell it, but her tone was softening. 'And I thought you weren't a cop.'
'I'm not.'
She squatted next to Cat. She was calming down, and Nohar began to realize exactly how scared she must have been when she woke up here alone. Angel was someone who wouldn't like being scared. It would screw with her self-image. Angel was looking at Nohar's left armpit. 'What about the sudden artillery?' Nohar had forgotten the Vindhya. 'Just because I have a gun—'
'That righteous? That fine? Something that worthy goes for 5K at least. Tell me you bought it.'
She tried to pet Cat, but Cat was eating and couldn't be bothered. When Cat hissed at her, she stopped.
Nohar began putting away the stuff he'd bought, tossing a half-kilo of burger into the micro for himself. 'I didn't buy it. My father brought it over from the war. Got it when he died.'
She stood up. She wasn't argumentive anymore. She seemed to have gotten it out of her system. 'Knew your sire?'
'It's not unheard of.'
'Only morey /heard of with a set.' She intercepted a bag of tomatoes he was putting in the fridge. 'Even the rats make kids with a needle, and they're as common as fleas on a Ziphead. How'd two modifiedpanth-era tigris ever get together to make you?'
The micro dinged at him and he pulled out the burger. Angel's nose wrinkled. She was vegetarian.
'Mother and Father were in the same platoon. He led a mass defection. The entire company of tigers,
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even the medic. Of all the cubs he must've made, I was the only one to track him down afterward.'
From her expression he could tell he'd talked too much. 'Hot shit, that is a Vind twelve. You're talking about the Rajasthan Airlift. You knew Datia—'
'Yes, I knew him. I don't want to talk about it.'
Nohar took his food and ducked into the living room.
Angel followed, with her tomato, 'Datia's a legend, the first real morey leader—'
Oh, that was great. A true leader. Nohar whipped around to face Angel. Cat was there to pounce on a spilled hunk of burger. 'Datia Rajasthan was a psychopath. He needed to be gunned down, and if you so much as mention him one more time I am going to hand-feed you to the Zips one piece at a time.'
Angel just stared at him.
Nohar sat on the couch, ate a handful of hamburger, and turned on his comm to the news.
CHAPTER 11
Monday morning was breaking into a steel-gray dawn when the Jerboa pulled up in front of Young's shadow house.
'Wake up, Angel. We're here.'
The rabbit, who'd looked like an inanimate pile of clothes until Nohar spoke, stirred. 'Kit? Time is it?'
'Five after.' Nohar stood up and stepped over the nonworking driver's side door. Young's house was the worse for wear. The garage had gone up like a bomb. The only remains of it was a black pile of charred debris at the end of the driveway. The house itself had caught. Nohar supposed some burning debris had landed on the roof.
There was a yawn from behind him that seemed much too large for the rabbit. 'Five after what?'
'Six.' The fire had gutted the house to the basement. The windows looked in on one large, black, empty, roofless space. The two neighboring buildings—Nohar hoped they had been unoccupied—had caught, too, but had escaped with relatively light damage.
'Six, Kit, this is no sane time to be awake—'
'You said that when I woke you up.'
'Could have let me sleep—'
Nohar shook his head. 'Not after that tirade yesterday.'
Angel hopped over the door. She was dressed in an avalanche of black webbing and terry cloth that used to belong to Maria. The only clothing Nohar had for FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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her. Somehow Angel had gotten the castoffs to fit her with a shoelace and a few strategic knots. The problem was, she smetled like Maria. 'Couldn't wait till a decent hour?'
'Quit complaining. If I had a safe place to file you, I'd do it. For now, you're along for the ride.'
Angel yawned again. Her mouth opened so wide it seemed to add twenty centimeters to her height. She shook her head and her ears flopped back and forth.
'So, what we doing here?'
Nohar started walking down the driveway. He could smell the gasoline. Even now, after at least one night of rain, there was still no question of arson.
'I want to see if anything made it through the fire.'
They passed the rear of the house, and the damage was much worse. The entire rear wall of Young's house had collapsed. The siding was sagging and puckered and bowed in the middle. Angel was only a few steps behind him. 'Hope you're not talking architecture. This place is worse than the tower.'
Nohar wasn't talking about architecture.
There's a difference between a supervised, methodical destruction of a body of records—Nohar was pretty
