asphalt parking lot.
The night must have been darker than I thought; the man unloading the truck didn’t notice me until I was close enough to tap the edge of the truck. I startled him. He was wearing a clerical collar and had the quick, limber movements of a karate teacher.
He looked me up and down. I could see by the light shining from the inside of the church that his expression was carefully neutral. “If you’re looking for money,” he said, “we don’t have any. We’re a rural church. If you’re hungry, though, you’ve come to the right place.”
I looked into the bed of the truck. It was half full of grocery bags of canned food and boxes of premade stuffing. I glanced down at my clothes. I was still wearing the shirt Yin’s men had torn, and I supposed my eye was still ugly.
“I’m not looking for food or money,” I said. “I’m looking for a dog.” Maybe it would have been better to say it was my dog, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. “It has fur that’s been dyed blue, and it’s sick. Contagious, actually.”
“Contagious?” I had his attention. “I haven’t seen any dogs running loose, and I’ve been driving around picking up donations. I can make a couple of calls, though. Help me carry some of this inside, and we’ll see what we can do.”
He grabbed two grocery bags in each hand and turned his back on me, confident I’d follow. I looked around but didn’t see the predator. I picked up a crate filled with boxes of muffin mix and went inside.
It was a wide, shallow room filled with cheap metal shelving. Almost half the shelf space was filled with food donations. There was a second door nestled between the shelves. A dead bolt held it shut. A chipped wooden desk stood in the corner. A cheap portable stereo on the edge of the desk played seventies disco.
Had the sapphire dog come in here? The room was lit well enough that I could see the pastor didn’t have a white mark, and there were no discolored circles on the walls.
The pastor reached up and scratched the ear of a pudgy, long-haired cat. “Those muffin mixes go there.” He indicated a high shelf.
I set the crate there. “If you see that blue dog, don’t go near it. In fact, stay far away. I’d be grateful if you would spread the word.”
I started toward the door. One circuit of the church should tell me if the sapphire dog had gotten in through the walls; then I’d check the house. If I didn’t find anything, I wasn’t sure where I’d go next.
He took out his cell. “Let me make a couple of calls.”
I nodded. “Be right back.”
Outside, I played the flashlight across the lawn but didn’t see anything interesting. I walked around the truck, then the church. There were no openings the predator could have used and no dark circles that indicated it had gone through the wall.
I was on my way to the house when the pastor came out of the church. “Are you Ray?”
“I am,” I said, still walking.
“I’m Aaron,” he said. It seemed weird to think of him by his first name instead of Reverend Surname, but what did I know? Maybe he’d invite me in to play Guitar Hero. “I spoke with the manager down at the fairgrounds. No one down there has seen your dog, but they’ll keep an eye out. Also, Steve Cardinal asked you to wait here for him. He’ll be over as soon as he can.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t about to wait, not if the sapphire dog was as close as I thought. I wished he hadn’t said the dog was mine, though.
I walked around the porch, shining the light on the base of the walls. It wasn’t until we reached the far back corner of the house that I saw it: a dark circle on the brick beneath a kitchen window.
“Crap.”
“What is it?” Aaron knelt beside the mark.
“Don’t touch it,” I warned him as he reached out. “I need you to get away from here.”
“Is it in my house? I have … I have family inside. Loved ones.” He looked jumpy.
“Leave them to me,” I said.
“You said your dog was contagious. Will they have to be quarantined? Does your dog bite?” His voice was going high with stress.
“Aaron, go to your truck and stay there.”
He turned and ran back along the house, then vaulted over the porch rail with the ease of a gymnast. I shouted his name, but he was already at the door. I ran after him, but I heard the door close and lock before I could even reach the porch.
I climbed up over the rail after him, but much more slowly. Maybe I should take up parkour, if I survived.
I dropped the flashlight into my pocket and took out the gun. I slid the ghost knife between the door and jamb, then hesitated. The pastor and his family didn’t know me; I didn’t want to charge into his home with a gun in my hand. I put it back into my pocket and hoped I wouldn’t get killed because of it.
I cut through the locks and pulled the door open. The house lights were on but the place was completely quiet.
“Hello!” I shouted. There was no answer. Had Aaron found the sapphire dog already? Maybe not. Maybe he was in his room hiding his porn.
I crept into the living room. The couch was covered with stacks of newspapers and old travel magazines. There was an uncluttered easy chair by the fireplace and an empty office chair beside the desk. The biggest piece of furniture in the room was another four-foot-high cat playground. The room smelled like damp carpet and cat litter. What family did the pastor have in here?
