he caught some movement around the abandoned bus, but his vision wasn't good enough to make it out.
The parking garage was a block away and behind the Triangle. It had its own street. Two-lane blacktop ran under a bridge straight to it. Nohar's office card-key let them in. He told her to go to the fourth level and park. There, he put forty dollars on the meter. 'Wait for me until that runs out.'
'Sure thing.'
Nohar got out of the cab and walked to the barrier at the edge of the fourth floor and looked out. The garage was a relatively new addition to the Triangle, but it was old enough to predate the expansion of Mor-eytown into what used to be Little Italy. Now, Mor-eytown surrounded the garage on three sides. For four floors, the openings in the sides of the structure were covered by chain link and barbed wire. However, years had atrophied security, and one corner of the chain link on the fourth floor had been pulled away from the concrete.
Nohar looked out of the hole now. No sign of the Zips yet. A meter away and down was the tar roof of a neighboring apartment building. The piercing smell of the tar made his sinuses ache. The building blocked his view of the street, which was good. It meant anyone on street level couldn't see him.
Nohar straddled the lip and ducked under the gap in the security fence. He reached over with his good left leg. His left foot hit the tar roof and slid a little. The tar was melting in the heat. He was glad for the boots he'd found at Manny's, tar'd be impossible to get out of his fur.
Nohar eased himself across the gap, trying to be gentle to his injured leg. He brought his right foot down on a clay tile on the lip of the roof. The tile was loose and his leg slipped. His foot followed the tile into the narrow gap between the building and the ga-
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rage. He managed to hook his claws into the fence to avoid falling.
The tile exploded on top of a green trash bin below him. The sound was like a rifle shot.
For a moment Nohar could sense a target strapped to the back of his head. Once it was clear no one was going to appear at the sound, he could move again. Staying to the rear, to avoid being seen from May field, Nohar crossed the connecting roofs to reach his own building, which was a floor taller than its neighbors. Five windows with wrought-iron bars stared across the roof at Nohar. He made for the rearmost one.
The bars were connected to iron cross-members that were bolted to the brick wall. However, security maintenance was even more lax here. The bolts were resting in holes of crumbling masonry and the whole iron construction came loose with a slight pull on Nohar's part.
The window was painted shut, the glass was missing, and a black-painted sheet of plywood had been nailed over it from the inside. He stood upon a wobbly right leg and kicked in the plywood with his left foot. The plywood gave too easily and Nohar had to catch himself on the window frame. It almost broke off in his claws. Tight fit, but he managed to lower himself through the opening he made. He briefly considered replacing things, but if cops or Zips were around, he might need to leave in a hurry.
He was in a broom closet at the end of the fourth-floor hallway. The sheet of
plywood had landed on a double-basin sink and Nohar had used it as a step to get down from the window. The sink was now at a forty-five-degree angle from the horizontal, and rusty water was beginning to pool across the hexagonal tiles on the floor.
Nohar made for the stairs.
As he descended, the odor of tar receded. He became aware of a familiar perfume-The Vind came out. Nohar backed toward the wall FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
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and crept down the steps. He rounded the landing, sliding under the window to the street, and pointed the gun down toward the third floor. No one. There was the ghost smell of blood-He was getting a sick feeling.
Bottom of the stairs, nobody in the third-floor hallway. Three meters away, his door was ajar. The frame was splintered, proving Nohar's belief in the useless-ness of an armored door in a wooden door frame.
No sounds. The perfume was still ghostlike, but the blood was stronger. Nohar flattened himself against the right side of the door frame and pointed the Vind through the opening as he pushed the door open with his foot. Blood, feces, the burning smell of terror filled the apartment—
Nohar covered all the rooms in record time, but the bastards were gone.
They had left Cat in the shower. Nohar found his pet, strips of skin removed from the back and chest, lying in a pool of blood, urine, and feces. They'd hadn't even had the decency to kill the animal before they left it. Cat had bled to death, limping around the stainless-steel pit.
Shaving is a different thing to a morey than it is to a human. To a morey it is a gesture of hatred and contempt. Removal of hair is still the basis of it, but the skin is often removed as well. Survival is rare.
The Zips couldn't find Nohar, so they had shaved Cat.
They left a message on the mirror for him, in Cat's blood. 'You next, pretty kitty.'
Nohar put his fist through it.
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CHAPTER 17
Nohar wanted to kill something.
It was an effort for him not to listen to the adrenaline and finish trashing the apartment. What was worse, every time he thought of Cat, he couldn't help picturing Stephie—
He tried to calm himself by making a methodical inventory of the damage. The Zips had wrecked his comm, along with most of his apartment. They had shredded his clothes out of spite. The couch was dead; it had been ailing to begin with. The kitchen was a disaster. It looked like the Zips had been trying to burn down the building.
But they had missed the two extra magazines forthe Vind. Those were where Nohar had left them, on top of the cabinets in the kitchen. The rats weren't particularly thorough, just violent.
Once he made sure the ammo was the only thing he could salvage, he took a sheet—one they had shredded—and wrapped Cat's stiffening body in it. The blood soaked through immediately, and Nohar wrapped him in another sheet, and finally stuffed him into a pillowcase. He didn't know what he was going to do with the corpse, but he couldn't leave it here.
On the way back to the cab, Nohar had the gun out. He hoped the Zips would show themselves, but the way was clear through to the garage. He bolstered the gun as he closed in on the cab.
The cabbie interrupted him before he could get in
J the back. 'What hit your hand? No, don't want to | know—stop right there.' Now what?
'No shit, piss, or blood in the back of my cab. They lemme drive, but I clean it up.' She got out of the cab and walked around to the back and popped the trunk. She pulled out a first aid kit. ' 'Spect one hell of a tip for this.
Come 'ere.'
Nohar hadn't bothered dressing his right hand. It hadn't seemed important. There were several deep cuts on the back of it, from punching the mirror.
The cabbie cleaned off the wound and tied it up.
'There—what's in the bag?'
'A dead cat.'
'Won't ask if that's a joke. Put it in the trunk.'
What now? Nohar got in the back of the cab and tried to think clearly, putting his head in his hands.
'Where to now?'
'Sit tight for a minute. We're still running off the forty bucks I gave you.' 'Sure 'nuff.'
Damn good thing Angel didn't want to be left alone in the apartment.
Should have ditched things when he had the chance. Now he was waist-deep in shit river no matter what he did. Ziphead had a serious in for him. Guess the limit for rodents in this towns topped off at six-He shook his head.
