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Suddenly Memories: TigerX
By Dac
Tiger sat in the room by himself, looking around calmly. He’d always wondered what an interrogation room looked like. Clean floor, bare walls, well-lit, not as intimidating as cop shows made them look. Just as boring, though. He swung his feet idly and scribbled with his finger on the table top. He knew he was being watched from the other side of the glass, but he didn’t particularly care. He was patient, and sooner or later they’d want answers from him so they’d send someone in. It didn’t bother him too much. He was innocent, and although he had a suspicion they might try to pin something on him, he knew they couldn’t prove it so he didn’t worry. He wasn’t sure if that was optimism, denial or reality. He pondered that when the door swung open and a man in a grey suit walked in.
Tiger sized the man up. Not tall, but hardly short either. Stocky build, greying hair and a tired look in his eyes. His chin was awash with days-old stubble and there was a scar running down his forehead. Attractive he was not, but he was calm and businesslike as he walked in. He sat down opposite Tiger, who watched him just as emotionlessly. The man sat back in his chair.
“You’re an interesting one,” he said. “No identification on you, no prints on file. I don’t suppose you’d be able to tell me who you are?”
“Usually it’s polite for you to introduce yourself first,” said Tiger levelly.
The man’s face was impassive. “I’m not polite, I’m a detective,” he said. “You’re in for questioning. I’ll question you however I want. If you’re polite to me, I’ll be polite to you, but you have to set the bar.”
Tiger nodded calmly and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Fair enough. Call me Tiger.”
The detective let disdain creep onto his face. “Really?” he said. “You’re going to be like that? What’s your real name?”
“TigerX,” said the man. “That’s my real name. I know how it sounds, but that’s it. Sorry.”
The detective watched him carefully. Tiger worried the detective might think him stubborn and get irritated, but he wasn’t willing to open the interrogation with untruths when he might have to do that later. To his surprise, the detective shrugged and moved past it. “Tiger. OK. And what’s your story?”
Tiger blinked in confusion. “My story?”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to assume you know that people in the area you’ve taken up residence are being killed,” he said. “You recently turned up here in Abernathy. At around the same time, once a week we’ve been getting cases of extreme homicide and you keep getting seen on the streets near enough to the time of murder. You say you have no name beyond that of a big cat and we’re not getting matches on your prints.”
He closed his hands together on the table and leaned forward. Tiger nodded.
“Yeah, I know about the murders,” replied Tiger. “Not everyone living around there is a yuppie who refuses to talk to a guy without a home. I’ve heard things.”
“How do you account for your whereabouts?” asked the detective.
Tiger shrugged and cast his eyes down. “I wander at night,” he said. “I ended up in the wrong part of town, I guess.”
“Same streets as the murders, three weeks in a row,” pressed the detective. Tiger had known he would, it was a weak excuse. “That’s a hell of a coincidence and I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“And some people don’t believe in God, but they can’t prove he’s not there,” said Tiger airily.
The detective rolled his eyes. “Everyone always brings God into these things,” he grunted, annoyed. “None of this has anything to do with God. It comes down to me, a bunch of corpses, a killer somewhere, and whoever’s sitting opposite me. In this case, you.”
“Look, I’m sorry I don’t have a better explanation,” said Tiger. “But that’s the truth. I’ll swear it in court if I need to.”
“You’d probably be declared mentally unfit to testify if you insist on that name,” said the detective. “How about if you sign it instead?”
Tiger hesitated. He hadn’t expected that. “Wouldn’t that have the same problem?” he asked quizzically.
“Probably,” said the detective. “But indulge me. Let’s see it.”
He slid a pen and his notebook across the table to Tiger, who picked them up and studied them. He had a feeling there was a trap involved, but there was nothing amiss in either item. He wondered if whoever was on the other side of the door was as confused as him, but the detective’s face held no answers; he simply sat and watched calmly. Slowly, Tiger threw his caution to the winds and scribbled on the pad.
“Read it back to me,” said the detective.
He looked at what he had just written and read it aloud without inflection. “‘I, TigerX, swear that I had nothing to do with the murder of three families on the nights of the 8th, the 15th and the 22nd in the month of September, and that I was only passing by on the streets. It was cloudy on the 8th and the 22nd and there was a new moon on the 15th. Signed...TigerX.’”
The detective arched his eyebrow as Tiger slid the notepad and pen back to him. “You a weather fanatic? What’s all this about the clouds and the moon?”
“I star gaze,” said Tiger. “It’s a hobby.”
The detective mulled that over for a minute before shrugging. “I’ve heard of worse ones. Well, that’s all I need. I’ll just have a word with my associates, and we’ll see what to do with you.”
“I’m in no rush,” said Tiger as the detective moved to the door. The man ignored him and stepped through. The door locked with a click behind him, leaving Tiger to reflect more on what had brought him to the police station, beside the two arresting officers. He mildly wondered who had reported having seen him on the streets, but the memory of what he had seen the earlier that night...the shadow fleeing the scene again. He leaned back casually, keeping his face free of the horror in his mind. He had managed to vanish in and out of the house before the police. He had seen what had happened to the family, and from that he guessed the same had happened to the two before them, and then he fled in shock. Not long after, some streets away, the two policemen had caught him and pulled him to the station. He didn’t resist; he had still been in shock.
The door swung open and the detective walked back in, followed by a heavyset man with steel grey hair wearing a suit to match, and a tall, thin, lithe man dressed all in black, his hair neatly combed and looking for all the world like a government agent. The two new men stood back as the detective came forward and indicated Tiger to stand up.
“Alright, TigerX,” he said. “You’re free to leave.”
He leaned over and unlocked the handcuffs. Tiger smiled without surprise as he stood up. “Thank you,” he said. “I hope you got what you needed.”
“That remains to be seen,” said the detective. “The two officers outside the door will escort you out.”
Tiger dropped the smile and kept his expression neutral as he left the building. The two policemen gave him suspicious looks as they took him to the bottom of the stairs. He thanked them curtly and looked up. It was still dark, probably only 4am. He crossed the street and disappeared into the dark, heading back to the park.
***
The sun was setting as he wandered the streets again, looking around at the various houses. He wondered how many of them contained happy families, the same as the one he’d seen on the floor and bed, or the two he’d heard about after the fact. His thoughts were black. The scene he had intruded upon would haunt him to his death. As he had slept most of the day, he had dreamt of their bodies...the two young children in their beds...the husband and the trail he’d left after being dragged across the floor...and the wife. He had nearly vomited on seeing her.
Cars were driving past as he sat on a bench at a bus stop, tracing imaginary patterns into the wood. He thought hard about the other thing he’d seen. The shadow. He tried to match it to the other images in his memory, the figure walking down the street...
He looked up just in time to see a very familiar face driving an old Mercedes down the street. The detective didn’t notice him, driving straight past and continuing towards the T-junction at the end. Tiger watched the car go past intently. The detective turned left at the end of the street, and Tiger realised where he was going. His mind began to move as he contemplated his options. The detective had seemed...not friendly, but tolerable, and he had been honest with Tiger, however bluntly. Tiger’s mind flashed back to the family he had found, and instinctively he knew what he had to do.
Standing up, he walked cautiously down the street and turned the same corner. He followed the road for another five minutes, turned again and walked towards the end of the street, where the Mercedes was pulled over. The detective had ducked past the police tape and was at the front door, examining something on the threshold. Tiger was debating whether or not to call out when the detective must have felt someone watching him and turned, spotting Tiger immediately. He stared suspiciously at him, not letting surprise show but plainly not pleased to see Tiger. Nonetheless, Tiger waved amicably.
“Hello, detective,” he said.
The detective walked over to the path and put his hands in his pockets, not taking his eyes off Tiger for a second. His face wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t friendly. For a while he didn’t speak, but Tiger waited patiently.
“This isn’t a good place for you to be,” said the detective finally.
“I had nothing to do with any murders,” insisted Tiger.
“I believe you,” said the detective. Tiger twitched in surprise to hear that. “But you’ll have a hard time convincing other people of that, especially if you come back to crime scenes.”
Tiger nodded. “I saw you drive past,” he said. “You know you never gave me your name.”
The detective blinked. After a moment’s hesitation, he held out his hand. “Mark Graham,” he said.
Tiger smiled and shook his hand warmly. “Good to meet you,” he said. “Could we talk?”
Graham’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly. “You have something you need to say?” he asked. “You should have said it last night.”
“In an interrogation room?” asked Tiger. “I don’t think so. Out here in the open, I have a chance to say my piece without people behind glass windows calling me crazy and saying they’re going to send me to a loony bin. It’s not cloudy. It’s just past half moon tonight.”
Graham looked up. The moon was indeed already shining brightly, only getting brighter as the sky got darker. Graham dropped his gaze back down to Tiger.
“All right,” said Graham. “But not here. Let’s walk back to your park, talk along the way.”
“No,” said Tiger. “The tail you put on me is there. They think I’m still there. I’d rather not shatter their faith in their own abilities by proving them wrong.”
Graham opened his mouth to object, but closed it again. Tiger hid a smirk; Graham wasn’t about to waste time denying it. Good. That would save them some time, although it evidently hadn’t improved Graham’s mood. Graham stepped under the tape and gestured up the street in the other direction to the park. Tiger nodded and they walked away from the house slowly. Tiger looked back at it as they walked when Graham spoke up.
“What do you need to say?” he asked.
“I don’t blame people for suspecting me,” said Tiger. “I know I’m new in town. I was passing through, but I thought I saw something here. I need to stay until it’s resolved.”
“What?”
“It’s hard to say,” said Tiger evasively. “All I have is a hunch. But I think he’s your murderer.”
“You know who he is?” asked Graham intently.
“No,” replied Tiger. “Like I said, it’s just a hunch. I don’t have a name, or an address, or anything like that.”
“What do you have?”
“He’s about five feet eleven tall, black hair. That’s all.” The description came flooding out of him like a dam bursting. He’d wanted to tell someone who might believe him since the first murder two weeks ago.
Graham nodded. “That’s a start,” he said. “But you know more than you think. I’m a profiler. Tell me how you know that much, and I’ll be able to work out more.”
“Uh...” said Tiger, faltering. This guy was good, but he still didn’t know if he could trust him yet. Then again, the detective probably thought the same of him. “OK. He...he walked past me, the night of the first murder. I was in the park, half asleep. I saw him, just for a minute, as he went down the street. I followed him, which is why I was on the street the first night. But I didn’t know what he was doing. I followed him and then lost him, so I went back to the park. The next day I heard about the murders and realised what had happened.”
Graham said nothing, not even looking at Tiger as they walked. For his part, Tiger was rattling off details, more focused on them than his companion.
“The next week I didn’t see him. I followed the cop cars to the house. I figured it had to be the same guy.”
“Were you in the park for a while before that?” asked Graham.
“Yeah, several hours.”
“And the first time, what time did you see him walk past you?”
“I think...just past midnight. I couldn’t see the moon, so I don’t know exactly. Why?”
“The time of death we guessed would have been about one am on the first family. If he walked past you at midnight in the park, that’s...not very long to get to the house, break in, kill them and get out. Plus...we can work out what direction he came from. Narrow that down. See? You know more than you think. Anything else? What about last night?”
“Last night,” said Tiger. “I was suspicious. I thought he might do something again so I went out investigating. I...I...”
Graham paused and watched him, but Tiger’s drive had given out. He had gone pale, his memory flashing to what he had seen, and the words stuck in his throat. He swallowed, but Graham waved his hand dismissively. “We’ll come back to that,” he said. “Tell me more about the first night. Do you remember anything else about him?”
“He was wearing dark clothes,” said Tiger. “And...he was holding a blade. A long one. Like a weird sword, almost, but it had ridges. Both sides of the blade had concave curves in them, with sharp peaks separating them.”
Graham looked at him. “Could you draw that?”
“I can try,” said Tiger. “Like I said, I only saw him for a second. It was poking out of his right sleeve. Here...do you have that notepad?”
Graham dug into his pockets and pulled it out, handing over a pen, and watched as Tiger drew a rough sketch. The sketch wasn’t bad; he drew a long sleeve with a hand poking out, clutching the odd sword. Graham stared at it. It seemed to be long, reaching almost to the ankle Tiger was penning in beside it, held loosely at a very low angle. The peaks Tiger described looked like ugly ridges, rising and falling in an almost symmetrical fashion, although not quite; the blade was indeed curved like a cutlass. Graham stared at it incredulously.
“That’s odd,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a blade like that.”
“Neither have I,” said Tiger. “It’s not the sort of thing you forget. I remember, though...what little moonlight was getting through, the blade didn’t catch it. If it was steel, it wasn’t polished very well.”
“He held it right-handed?” asked Graham.
“Yeah.”
“That fits,” said Graham absently, still staring at the sketch. “Everything we’ve seen points to a right-handed killer. That’s how I know it wasn’t you. You wrote that note last night with your left. And you drew this with it too.”
Tiger was taken aback. He gaped at Graham momentarily. “Are you supposed to be telling me that? Isn’t that closed details of a case?”
Graham rolled his eyes. “You may have slipped past the tail I set on you, but that doesn’t mean I know nothing about you. You came to town recently, you’re destitute, so you’re not going to tell anyone. Besides, even if you had someone to tell, you wouldn’t. You’re honest enough, you’re open with me at the risk of me thinking you’re a nutcase, and you wouldn’t compromise anything I said to you. You gonna prove me wrong?”
Tiger processed that, reeling. He felt like the cop had punched him in the face before kneeling to wipe away the blood, and he couldn’t work out if that was a good thing or a bad thing. After thinking about it for a while, he realised it meant one thing: Graham was already starting to trust him.
“So just from the way I hold a pen, you know I’m innocent?” he asked.
“I’ve been doing that for years,” said Graham. “Every knife killer I’ve questioned, I’ve had them write something, even if I already know they’re guilty. It’s a little affirmation thing.”
“What if I was ambidextrous?”
“People give that word a lot more credence than it’s due,” sighed Graham. “Ambidextrous means people can use both hands, but doesn’t mean they will. Ambidextrous people will still favour one hand over the other.”
Tiger shook his head to clear it. This was going to take some getting used to. Graham was blunt, coarse and honest, that much was obvious, but he wasn’t unfriendly. That was something.
“What were you doing back in the doorway?” he asked.
“Looking at the lock,” replied Graham, closing the notebook and pocketing it. “It had been sawn through. Not broken, sawn. We found the latch lying on the floor when we got there. No prints, just a coarse cut and some wood shavings that matched the door frame. He’d jammed something through and cut the lock, opened it and walked in.”
Tiger felt a knot in his stomach. “You think he used the sword?”
“I guess,” said Graham. “I don’t know what else it could be. Most saws or cutting implements wouldn’t get through the door seal, and the lock was a solid deadbolt. He’d have to have a strong saw to cut through that metal, and he’d have to do it fast, in case a neighbour looked out the window and saw him. My only guess is, this sword, those ridges, they’ve got a fine edge on them, like a hacksaw, and he shoved it through the seal and cut downwards. Looking at your sketch, it’s have to be a bit wider than the seal, hence the wood shavings, which means this bastard is strong. He forced it straight through.”
Tiger took it all in, nodding slowly. He was beginning to appreciate the detective’s finer logic when he went on.
“Didn’t you notice that when you went in?”
Tiger’s head snapped up and he stared at the detective. His mouth soundlessly formed various shapes, but once again he was at a loss for words. Graham smiled without any warmth, as though hoping it would set Tiger at ease. It didn’t, but he kept trying.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m not saying you did anything. But I know you went in, and I’m not the only one. We found a footprint in the yard which I’m pretty sure belongs to that boot you’re wearing, and when I mentioned last night you froze up. You went in, didn’t you? You saw what he did?”
Tiger could only nod, mutely. He stared off into space. The detective paused, then stood shoulder to shoulder with him, looking out in the same direction.
“Seeing things like that is never good,” he said softly. “I’ve seen a lot. Believe me, it doesn’t get any easier.”
“How do you...deal with it?” Tiger managed to force out the words.
“I make sure I catch the bastards who did it,” said Graham coldly. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Win some, lose some. Win some with a cost. Maybe you get there too late, maybe they surrender because they’ve done what they wanted to do. But whatever they might do to other people, never stop hunting them down.”
Tiger swallowed and looked up at Graham. His face had gone hard, his jaw set.
“What happens to the ones you didn’t catch?” he asked.
Graham met his gaze. His eyes were grey and deathly. “Sometimes they stop. Sometimes they move, into someone else’s jurisdiction. All I can do is send them my file and hope they have better luck. It can go on for years, with the federal office chasing down cold leads. I do everything I can, rack my brains, check every possibility.”
He turned suddenly and faced Tiger full on. Tiger took an involuntary step backwards as those hard grey eyes bored holes into him.
“That includes you,” he said. “I want you to know that. The minute you got spotted on the streets, you became an asset, and since you willingly came back to me, I’m going to extort you, a lot. I hope you’re ready for that.”
Tiger set his own jaw. “I saw what happened in there,” he hissed. “I saw what he did.”
“Then help me catch him,” said Graham. “Help me in any way you can so it doesn’t happen again. Whenever we catch them, we process them by the book. I never break laws and I avoid bending them where possible. But you know details, things you don’t even know are useful, and I’m going to get them out of you. Are you willing to help me with that?”
Tiger stared back at him. As he spoke, the images of the night before crept into his mind again. He felt his eyes begin to well up as he remembered the victims.
“The kids. He killed those kids,” he hissed. “What kind of freak kills kids?”
“If you can rape, you can kill anything,” said Graham flatly. “You tell me which is worse. You going to help?”
“Yes,” said Tiger. “Any way you need me to.”
“Good.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card, handing it to Tiger. Tiger inspected it briefly; it had Graham’s name and phone numbers on it. Tiger looked up at him blankly.
“I don’t have a phone,” he said.
“I’m sure that wouldn’t stop you,” said Graham. “You seem resourceful. Call me if there’s anything more you feel like sharing.”
He turned and walked away, back towards his car. Tiger was left staring after him, wondering how much more he should have said.
***
Two days later Tiger was leaning on a wall a few blocks away from the park where he was staying. He’d managed to avoid the tail the cops had on him again and was wondering if their heart was really in it. He was calmer than he’d been before. The shock of what he’d seen that night had faded and now every time the images appeared he met it with cold, steely resolve. In his head he had determined, he was going to find the person he’d seen, the person with the sword, and he was going to take him down.
Graham appeared next to him and jerked his head. Tiger fell into step beside him and they walked up the street together.
“Whose phone did you use?” asked Graham.
“I asked some guy if I could borrow his,” said Tiger. “I didn’t think it would work, but he just handed it over.”
“You didn’t keep it, did you?”
“I’m not a thief,” said Tiger, mildly affronted.
“Yeah, well,” said Graham. “Forgive me for making sure.”
Tiger looked at him sourly. “You don’t believe much I say, do you?” he asked, wounded pride jarring his syllables.
“On the contrary,” replied the detective. “I believe a lot of what you say. I pride myself on being able to know when people are lying or telling me the truth, and you’re telling the truth. But on the other side of the coin, I’m a detective and my job is to be suspicious and cover all bases, and you’re a homeless guy with a strange name who got dragged in on suspicion of particularly brutal crimes. Try to understand, I’m being very lenient with you, and if word got out you and I were meeting things could get messy for both of us.”
Tiger processed that mutely as they walked further up the street. He felt a pang of regret, but it took a while of weighing each word carefully before he found an appropriate response.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Graham looked confused. “For what?”
“For not...for not telling you more. I would, but...I’ve said it out loud before, and even I thought it sounded crazy. It’s insane, the whole who I am, how I got here thing...if someone told it to me, I wouldn’t believe it, and I barely believe it myself. I want to tell you how it all happened, but...”
He trailed off from his rambling, shaking his head to clear it. Graham, still frowning, nodded slowly. “You don’t want people to think you’re crazy,” he finished.
Tiger nodded, saying nothing. Graham looked dead ahead and kept walking. “You’re going to find that hard, you know. Destitute people aren’t exactly seen as the most mentally-coherent of folk.”
“I know,” muttered Tiger sullenly, not pursuing the train of thought. He slumped a bit as they walked, and Graham could see that was getting them nowhere. Just as he was about to steer the conversation somewhere else, Tiger beat him to it. “Are you married?”
Graham blinked. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
Graham paused for a moment. Tiger arched his eyebrow expectantly, and eventually Graham shrugged. “I was,” he said. “Divorced now.”
“Why?”
“My wife cheated on me.”
Tiger felt thrown. The indifference in Graham’s voice was like a gun going off; it sounded unnatural, it shouldn’t have been there.
“With who?”
“Some guy,” Graham went on just as casually. “I think he was a restaurant manager. Younger than me. My wife just decided she wanted to trade in for the newer model. That was, what, four or five years ago. They’re still together. I see her every so often, just to catch up. We didn’t have any kids, so we didn’t have to split them up.”
Tiger reeled in astonishment. “Doesn’t any of that bother you?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.
Graham chuckled. “Of course it does,” he says. “But what can I do about it? It happened. It’s in the past and I can’t change it, but getting angry about it, or cutting that part of my life out and pretending it never happened...what good will that do? I couldn’t stay angry at her forever. I loved her once and I can’t just turn that off.”
Tiger scratched his head uncomfortably. “Yeah, but...” He trailed off, unsure what to say, but Graham caught the intent.
“It was bad at first,” he said. “But I was able to keep going. Move on, make something else of my life at the time. I was the only victim, so once I got everything together, it was just another change to live with, and I can do that. Compared to the stuff I see, murders, rapes, mutilations, stuff that actively ends lives or scars them irrevocably, what’s a divorce? I can get back up. Some of these people...can’t.”
Tiger said nothing, staring hard at Graham. Graham looked markedly casual, but stared right back, as though defying Tiger to say something to the contrary. Tiger’s gaze wilted and he faced forward again. They didn’t miss a step.
“So what do you have for me?” asked Graham.
“I checked the dates,” said Tiger. “I was doing my usual thing, when I noticed something I didn’t see before. The timing of his attacks are linked. Look at the dates. The 8th, the 15th and the 22nd. Notice anything?”
Graham shook his head. Tiger gestured enthusiastically.
“The 6th. Last quarter,” he said. “The 12th, new moon. The 19th, first quarter. You see?”
Comprehension slowly dawned on Graham, his eyes widening. “So the next attack...”
“Will be on the 29th. The full moon,” said Tiger. “I should have seen it earlier, but I lost track. It was cloudy on the quarters, I wasn’t paying attention to the moon that night. This guy’s on a cycle.”
Graham scratched at his nose thoughtfully, contemplating it. He closed his eyes for a moment and thought hard. Tiger waited patiently until he opened them again.
“It’s tenuous,” said Graham. “The pattern’s there, but it’s tenuous. It could be coincidental.”
“I thought detectives didn’t believe in coincidence,” said Tiger.
“I do,” replied Graham flatly. “In this world, anything is possible, especially a coincidence. Anyone who tells you otherwise is kidding themselves. I’ll admit, you’ve got something here, a possibility...if you’re right it gives us a deadline. What’s today?”
“The 26th.”
“OK. So we may have only three days. If you’re wrong, there’s no telling when he’ll come back, but he will. It won’t be long, either, he doesn’t like sitting still. So we may have the when, good. The next problem is where. We haven’t seen any pattern in where he’s making his move. None of the victims have any personal connections, as far as we’ve seen.”
“The area?”
“No, nothing correlates on a map. We checked.”
He rubbed his eyes, and for the first time Tiger noticed the bags under his eyes. His skin seemed paler than before as well, and when he moved his hands away his eyes seemed to be bloodshot. Tiger sucked in a slow breath.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
“Agent Dragon,” replied Graham. “Agent Dragon’s the damn problem.”
Tiger stared at him blankly until Graham noticed and rolled his eyes.
“That’s a hell of a name,” observed Tiger.
“Tell me about it,” griped the detective. “He’s...well, he’s an odd case. You saw him, the night we pulled you in. The thin agent. Remember him?”
Tiger thought back to his interrogation, and the image of Dragon came back to him. A lithe man in a black suit. Tiger had to chuckle. “I thought he looked a bit cliché.”
“I wish he was cliché,” said Graham. “A cliché government agent is abrasive, rough and stupid. He’s none of those things. He’s smart, he’s informed, and I don’t know what his game is.”
Tiger shrugged unhelpfully. “The federal office doesn’t often send their homicide experts out to your crime scenes?”
“He’s not from that field,” said Graham tersely. “He’s smart, yes, but he doesn’t know too much about serial killers. I met him the night I met you. My captain introduced us at the crime scene, and he said to me ‘I’m mainly here to assist, aid in apprehending the criminal, then extracting him once you’ve finished with him. I know agents have a reputation for getting in the way of investigations, detective, but I promise you I’m not here to obstruct you. This is your investigation, and I’m only tagging along.’ Well, what can I say to that? He’s going out of his way to be ingratiating. But you know when you get that feeling that someone’s not telling you something?”
“All the time,” said Tiger.
“Yeah. That. Dragon has some motivation here, but I don’t know what. He says he was sent just to aid and clean up, but there’s more. I know there is.”
“Should you really be telling me that?”
“Who are you going to tell?” asked Graham pointedly.
Tiger conceded that one silently and they kept walking. For a while neither of them spoke, until Tiger asked a question that had been burning in his mind for days.
“The murderer,” he said slowly. “Why did he drag Mr Price back into the bedroom?” “Empowerment,” was Graham’s response. “Rape isn’t as one-sided as a lot of people think. It’s like any kind of fight or struggle. The victim is able to fight back, unless steps are taken to prevent that. Some rapists beat their victims, break bones, that sort of thing, but our man doesn’t do that. He hits them, sure, but they never have a broken bone. He hurts them mentally. Gets a woman so shocked at the sight of her husband dead on the bed next to her as he commits the act, and she’s torn between what’s behind her and what’s in front of her, so to speak. Then there’s the thoughts going through the killer’s own head. He’s mounting the guy’s wife, and the guy can’t fight back because he’s dead. The killer is caught up in that, feeling like he can’t be touched even when the husband is right there. Dead bodies do wonders for people’s heads. Good and bad wonders.”
Tiger didn’t know how to respond to that. He felt like he should be churned up at it, but compared to how he felt when he’d actually seen it, he felt cold and detached. He said as much to Graham offhandedly.
“That’s normal,” said Graham. “A lot of people get that, they find it easier to talk about those subjects rather than see them. I’ve lost count of how many officials, uniforms and law-pushers I’ve seen with that mentality.”
Tiger nodded slowly. They walked in silence for a while before they looked up at the deepening sun. Graham frowned.
“I’ll need to head back in,” he said, and they walked in the direction of his car. “They’re going over statements from other people, the neighbours that called us when they heard a disturbance, that sort of thing.”
“You sound thrilled,” said Tiger sardonically.
“Oh, absolutely,” sneered Graham. “This is my not-giving-a-shit face.”
“That face is ugly.”
Graham had to laugh at that. “That’s exactly what my captain says every time I-” He trailed off, staring up the road. His face creased in apprehension again as he muttered, “Oh hell.”
Graham’s car was not far, but there was someone between it and them, walking towards them, a tall man in a neat black suit. Tiger recognised him after a moment of staring.
“Agent Dragon?” he asked quietly.
“That it is,” muttered Graham, and then spoke in a louder voice. “Evening, Dragon.”
“Graham,” said the tall man, his voice devoid of personality. “We tried calling you but your phone is off.”
“I’m aware of that,” said Graham. “I was busy, as you can see.”
Dragon looked Tiger up and down. Tiger matched his stare, not relenting. He folded his arms and waited calmly. Eventually Dragon looked back at Graham, his expression apprehensive.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
“You are talking to me,” said Graham. “There’s nothing we have to say that this one isn’t allowed to hear. Let him be.”
Tiger regarded Dragon cautiously; he could catch the unease between the two men, but Dragon was going at great lengths to hide it. He was calm, casual, almost nonchalant, but there was a flickering in his eyes every time he looked at Tiger, something unsettling. Tiger inhaled slowly. The silence was unsettling, but Dragon let it draw out. Tiger held his tongue in case he sourced anything, and in the end it fell to Graham, who turned to him and formally held out his hand.
“Thank you for being understanding,” he said. “I think that’s everything.”
“Not at all,” said Tiger on cue. “Best of luck, detective.”
He forced himself to turn and walk away, leaving the detective and the agent to face off. He didn’t dare glance over his shoulder in case Dragon’s attention was alerted. He ducked around the corner and returned to the park, wondering where his police tail was hiding this time. Now that Dragon knew he and Graham had met at least once the tail might even be lifted. Still, he had a feeling Graham would have to do some fast explaining for their encounter, but nonetheless he was confident in his new friend’s ability. Graham had a way with words, that much was obvious. Tiger watched the sun go down and waited, slowly, as the moon began to burn in the sky above him. He watched in apprehensively. It was almost full.
***
Night had fallen and Tiger was prowling the park nervously. If the killer was going to strike it was going to be tonight, he knew that. He had already attempted to call Graham with a phone he’d found lost on the side of the road, but Graham had responded in code; it apparently wasn’t safe to talk.
“It’s Tiger,” he had said.
“Oh, hi James,” Graham had responded smoothly. “Sorry, I can’t do lunch today. Was there anything urgent you needed to talk about?”
“Nothing that can help you,” Tiger said, resigned. It was the same as the last two times he had attempted to call; Dragon was shadowing him and Graham, his distrust of the man growing stronger by the day, refused to admit anything. Tiger had all but given up on trying to contact Graham and instead waited. He had seen the killer before. Maybe this time he would again, and take him down before he reached his target. He smiled grimly up at the full moon, illuminating the area with a soothing glow. His vision was improved greatly, far more than an ordinary human’s, he knew. He inhaled, feeling his muscles surge, and waited calmly. He sat on his bench for an hour before suddenly the phone went off in the tattered remains of his pocket.
“Yeah?” he said.
“It’s me,” came Graham’s voice. “Sorry about the last few times.”
“It’s OK,” said Tiger. “Dragon breathing fire on you?”
“He’s breathing something, that’s for damn sure,” said Graham bitterly. “He’s asked about you a couple of times. I told him I ran into you on the street and did some additional questioning, and brought up what you told me, about the blades and the lunar cycle. He thinks there’s something to it, and we passed the word on.”
“You told them specifically that I told you that?” asked Tiger, taken aback.
“It’s the truth,” said Graham. “I’d done nothing illegal in talking to you, so there was nothing to lose in telling them that. I didn’t mention we’d met more than once, or that you had my phone number, so at the end of it there was absolutely nothing wrong.”
Tiger frowned, but couldn’t say anything before Graham bulled on, undeterred.
“Dragon and I are going to be on the streets tonight. If you see anything, call me and tell me a location. Nothing more, don’t waste time with hellos. Just tell me where, and we’ll head over. Is that clear?”
“Yeah,” said Tiger. “Got it.”
“All right. We’ll talk soon.”
Tiger hung up and sat on his bench, his eyes flitting around. The shadows deepened everywhere around him for hours as he remained on the bench. No clouds passed through the sky but the wind kicked up and around him the leaves spun across the grass. The darkness did not bother him. He could see just fine as long as there was moonlight. Eventually he stood up and started pacing around the park, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of movement. The shadows danced as he travelled, and he scrutinised each of them in turn. No sign of anything unusual. He sighed as he paced.
Hours passed. The moon was high overhead, and nothing stirred in the darkness but the occasional mouse. He breathed deeply, wondering if he was possibly mistaken. The wait was utterly maddening.
The distant sound of gravel crunching met his ears and he looked up, wondering if a car had pulled up. He blinked. There was a single figure crossing the road on the far side of the park, walking with a purpose.
In the figure’s hand was a long, thin object.
Tiger froze for a few seconds before slinking forward as quietly as he could. He kept his movements light and slow, in case the figure was alerted to his presence, and slid the phone out as he did. By the time he reached the road, the figure was at the other end of the street and turning the corner. Tiger slipped out and followed him, keeping his movements silent. He tapped in the number and pushed Dial. The phone rang three times before Graham picked up.
“Yeah?”
“Coventry Street.”
Graham hung up. Tiger moved up the street and ducked around the corner. It was a long street, and the figure was already halfway up it, moving quickly himself. Tiger assumed a nonchalant posture as he followed his target, ducking to the other side of the street. If the man turned back to face him, he didn’t know what would happen. The man might run, or he might attack, if he didn’t assume nothing was wrong. Tiger frowned, wondering if the man would recognise him. Many of the people in the area were aware of the homeless man living in the park, and many of them knew his face. Would the killer? Could he be recognised at this distance? He puzzled over it furiously as he tried to narrow the gap between them. The figure was none the wiser as he crept closer.
Abruptly the man turned up a side street. Tiger cursed and slipped across to follow him, once again taking to the opposite side of the street. He nimbly avoided every fallen stick or leaf, anything that might snap or crunch unnaturally loudly in the dead of the night. The man still hadn’t noticed him. Tiger wanted desperately to call Graham and tell him they’d turned off the street, but if he started talking the man would hear him. If he dropped back, the man could get away. Tiger swore inwardly.
The man turned and walked up the path to the entrance of a house. Tiger kept his pace going, crossing surreptitiously to the same side of the street. The man fumbled with something as he moved up the path, and reached the doorway just as Tiger reached the path. Tiger’s mind went into overdrive and he darted forward. The man heard him coming at the last second, but had only half-turned when Tiger barrelled into him, driving him off the stairs and into the dirt. The man tried to cry out but Tiger clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Sh!” he hissed. “You and I are going to wait for the cops, pal.”
The man struggled and attempted to say something, but Tiger’s grip was vicelike and the man couldn’t break it. Tiger cast his eyes around, looking for the sword, and his eyes fell on the object the man had dropped.
His heart stopped.
It wasn’t a sword at all. It was an umbrella.
He stared at the man in shock and his mind exploded with confusion. He realised his mistake and leapt off the man, rushed an apology, and sprinted down the street before the man could stand back up. He struggled not to yell in frustration at himself, and wondered where the hell Graham was.
***
“Yeah?”
“Coventry Street.”
Graham hung up the phone and looked at Dragon, behind the wheel of Graham’s car. Dragon was staring tensely.
“Coventry Street,” repeated Graham.
Dragon turned right and the car travelled up the road. They were on the wrong side of the park, but that didn’t matter. The two men were tense, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of the man with the sword. Graham had a pair of binoculars with him, with which he made periodic sweeps every time a shadow moved. Once they started moving towards a clearly-defined destination he set them down on his lap, gripping the armrest tightly.
“Think we’ll make it in time?” asked Dragon tersely.
“Never ask me that question,” said Graham. “I hate nervous questions at nervous times. Just drive.”
“OK.”
They were coming up on the turn-off. Dragon took the corner a bit too fast and Graham felt his stomach lurch a bit. He felt like he was chasing a ghost, pursuing a faceless, nameless thing with only a destination in mind. He sucked down another Red Bull as Dragon pushed the car up the road, keeping his breathing slow and steady.
All at once he pulled the binoculars up and held out a hand. Dragon obediently slowed down, looking at him in confusion.
“Coventry’s the next one up,” protested Dragon.
“Sh!” said Graham. He stared through the binoculars. He had seen something, just for a moment. The binoculars swung this way and that, slashing the darkness to pieces, so intense was he. There wasn’t anything to see down there. Nothing moved.
“There!” he snapped. “That way. Go!”
As he expected, Dragon questioned the order, but didn’t let that stop him from obeying it. He asked his questions even as he threw the car into gear and complied, turning down the street. “What did you see?”
“The sword,” hissed Graham. “The moonlight caught it. He’s there. At one of the houses.”
Dragon drove down the road hastily. Graham kept an eye on the houses on his side of the street until he saw what he was looking for: a door hanging ajar. He slapped Dragon’s shoulder.
“There!” he cried. “He’s inside! Call in to Harris, I’m going inside.”
Dragon nearly hit the curb as he parked, and Graham threw himself out of the car. He vaulted the fence and ran up towards the door. Gently, he eased it open and slipped inside, looking around cautiously and listening carefully. He couldn’t hear any footsteps. He walked cautiously towards the rear of the house, finding himself in the kitchen. The moon shone brightly through the window, but there was nothing in there. Turning, he moved backwards, looking through the dining room. Nothing there either. He took a deep breath and turned towards the living room.
Something flashed in the darkness and sheared the barrel of his gun off. He felt a sharp blow to his gut and doubled over, wheezing, as Dragon flew into the room behind him and collided with something lurking in the gloom. There was a loud crash as Dragon smashed into the coffee table, and he heard the sleepy voices of children upstairs.
The family was still alive. Thank god. But that meant they’d soon panic.
“Police!” he bellowed. “On the ground, n-”
The dark figure leapt off Dragon and dived at him, sending them sprawling back into the hallway. The figure raised the sword in the darkness and slashed, but Graham rolled out of the way. The sword caught in a doorframe, and he heard a grunt of annoyance. He kicked the figure as hard as he could, but it glanced off the man’s shoulder just as he pulled his sword free. The man slashed again, sending Graham back into the living room, where Dragon was struggling to stand up. Graham could see in the dark, Dragon had dropped his gun among the glass fragments and was groping hopelessly for it. The figure darted back into the room with them, and the sword gleamed white in the moonlight filtering in the large windows. Graham took a moment to stare at it.
It didn’t gleam with a metallic sheen. It was something else, catching the light and showing up in it but not reflecting it. It was white, dirty but still unmistakeably-
The blade swung at him. Graham ducked it and drove his shoulder into his attacker. The man stumbled back and shoved Graham aside as Dragon ran at him, but the man backhanded him savagely and sent him sprawling. Graham stood back up as the man kicked Dragon in the face, and the moonlight illuminated the room. Graham got his first real look at the man as he turned to face him, and froze in shock.
The man was horrifically pale, with glinting eyes the colour of blood under an untidy mop of black hair. What held Graham’s attention, however, was the sword. The man wasn’t holding it at all. His long sleeve had fallen back, ripped during the struggle, and Graham saw what the sword really was: a long, sharp protuberance of bone, jagged and ugly. It was already dripping with blood, and Graham wondered if that was Dragon’s, his or the man’s own.
The man stalked towards him and held out his left arm. With a disgusting sound, another bladelike-bone ripped through the skin on the side of his forearm, between his wrist and his elbow. Graham took a step backwards and fell onto the couch, staring in horror at the man as he advanced.
The room suddenly seemed to go dark, as though something passed in front of the moon, and the man looked up at the window behind Graham. For half a second, Graham thought he was staring at the clouds, until the glass exploded around him and something sailed over his head, slamming into the man. Both figures hit the ground next to Dragon’s barely-stirring form as Graham slowly pulled himself to his feet. By the time he stood up, it was over.
Tiger slammed his fist into the man’s face, and from the way his lower jaw moved, Graham guessed he had broken it. The man gave a howl of pain as Tiger seized the right blade and snapped it over his knee like a stick with a sickening crack. With a liquid grace Graham had to see to believe, Tiger spun and grabbed the other, breaking it the same way. The man howled in agony and tried to swing the broken blades at Tiger, but Tiger spun reflexively and gave the man another devastating blow to the face. This time his fist carried through and drove the man’s head into the brick wall behind him. There was a crunch and the man dropped to the ground, suddenly silent.
Graham stared in shock. Tiger took a step back as though not quite sure what he’d done. Graham gaped at Tiger, but Tiger looked up, his eyes suddenly wide and fearful.
“I...I...” he stammered. “That...wasn’t...he wasn’t meant to...oh god...I only meant to knock him out...but...the moon...oh...oh god...”
Tiger fell to his knees and vomited in the fireplace. Graham walked over to him, everything else forgotten, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“What about the moon?” he hissed, as Tiger finished retching. “What are you not saying? Tell me, damn it! What did you do?!”
Tiger stared up at him, vomit staining his chin, his eyes glowing in the moonlight, wide with fear. “I’m a superhuman,” he said. “I absorb lunar energy. It was a cloudless night...with the full moon...and I was out in it for so long I just took it all...the cloudy nights...I couldn’t follow because I had no energy...but tonight...oh god...oh god...”
He bent double, panting with exhaustion and shock. Graham knelt to say more when he heard footsteps. Looking up, he saw who he assumed must be the owner of the house, dressed in a bathrobe and holding a baseball bat, staring in shock at the scene in his living room: broken glass strewn everywhere, a man kneeling before his fireplace which was full of vomit, a federal agent struggling to stand up and a man with bones poking out of his arms and a head leaking on his floor. Graham uncovered his badge.
“Abernathy police,” he said. “Sir, if you could step this way please...”
“What the fuck is going on?” the man shouted in terror.
“I’ll explain outside. Sir, is anyone in your family harmed?”
“No...no, we’re all OK, we heard noises, and...Jesus, what the fuck happened?!”
Dragon staggered upright and waved Graham out, saying something noncommittal about keeping an eye on everything as Graham led the man away, trying to calm him down. Halfway through his explanation, the police force turned up, and Graham relaxed a bit more. The man and his family were coaxed from their house as lights came on all over the street and the neighbours came out to watch. Graham’s shift commander arrived with the rest and pulled Graham aside to ask what had happened. Graham summed everything up as best he could.
“...and when he punched the guy in the head...it was like punching an egg. The guy’s still leaking, I think.”
Harris paled at the description. He had already struggled with the bone blades in the arms, asking how the man could bend his arms with such a blade embedded in them, but Graham frowned.
“I’m not a fucking biologist, Barney,” he said. “The guy had bones shaped like swords stuck in his arms and nearly gutted me with them, and then he got his head pulped. I’ll ask the logical questions when I’m a little less on edge, for now I need to digest it all.”
“Fair enough,” said Harris. “Where’s your homeless friend?”
“Still inside, I think,” said Graham. “Dragon was keeping an eye on him.”
Harris looked suspicious. “Better get one of our guys in there. That’s not Dragon’s job.”
“I’ll go,” said Graham. “He trusts me. Come on, you should probably see the body.”
Graham and Harris walked in, and Harris stayed with the forensics team, staring at the remains of the murderer. He had already been confirmed dead, there was no question of that, but Graham wasn’t worried about that. Dead or alive, he wasn’t going anywhere. But as he looked around, he couldn’t see either Tiger or Dragon anywhere. He blinked in confusion and called out.
“Hey, has anyone seen Dragon?”
“Yeah,” said Lusenki, one of the forensics guys. “He dragged your homeless guy outside.”
Graham hastily stepped outside, looking up and down the street. He spotted Dragon pulling Tiger up the road to a large black van. The side opened and several men in a strange uniform climbed out. Dragon dropped Tiger as Graham walked up, and he caught the end of Dragon’s statement.
“...killed the one we were after, but this is even better. I heard it from his own mouth, he absorbs lunar energy.”
“Hey!” snapped Graham. “Dragon!”
Dragon and the other men all looked at him. Dragon smiled calmly.
“Detective Graham,” he said. “Looks like this case is closed.”
“What the hell are you doing with him?” demanded Graham. “Who the hell are these guys? You’re not police, you’re not federal...who the hell are you all?”
The men sniggered. Graham sized them up. They all looked unpleasant, and there was something familiar about that uniform, but before he could place it Dragon put a hand on his shoulder.
“I have what I came here for,” he said. “These men are here to help me take a criminal into custody.”
“The criminal is dead,” growled Graham. “You saw that as well as I did.”
“Oh, the one we were hunting is dead, certainly,” said Dragon. “These men are hero hunters, and their job is...well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. We hunt superhumans and we’ve been chasing that corpse in there for months. He used to be a superhero, but not a particularly famous one. When the Hero Destruction Ministry came into existence, he was one of the rare ones to escape, so we’ve been hunting him ever since. When your reports came to us, it sounded familiar but we couldn’t be sure it was really him, so I got sent to verify it before calling in my men here.”
Graham processed all that, staring at each of the men in turn. “And now he’d dead, so you don’t get to take him in.”
“Oh, I’ll think you’ll find we’ve already taken his remains,” said Dragon. “Federal authority, you see. We are federal, you’re wrong there, since we operate under direct orders of the Leader, and our authority trumps yours. Our man has already taken the corpse. But we’re walking away with more than that. We’re taking in anyone with superpowers.”
He looked down at Tiger, trying to stand up. Graham stared, and spotted blood running down the side of Tiger’s head. Tiger made a small gurgling noise as Graham glared furiously at Dragon.
“This man saved your life,” he said. “You’re just going to hand him over?”
“He won’t be mistreated,” smiled Dragon. “We have orders to deliver any superhumans to the Leader, regardless of what they’ve done or who they are. This man falls into that category. The Leader will decide what to do with him.”
Graham looked down at Tiger, who looked back up. His eyes were unfocused, but his teeth were gritted. Graham cocked his head slightly, and gestured to Dragon.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked.
Dragon shook his head calmly. “You are talking to me,” he said. “There’s nothing we have to say that these guys aren’t allowed to hear.”
He signalled to the hunters, who grabbed Tiger and pulled him into the van. Tiger looked at Graham, his face pleading. Graham stared in mute shock and his mind whirled as Dragon leaned against the passenger door, impassive. Graham stared at Tiger’s face, the injustice of it burning through him. The man had helped him stop a monster, apparently a fallen hero turned to rape and murder for reasons they’d never know now, and Dragon was just serving him up to the Leader. Graham bit his lip in anger, and suddenly words flooded into his head. Even as they reached him, he said them aloud. “Sometimes they stop,” he said. “Sometimes they move, into someone else’s jurisdiction. It can go on for years, with the federal office chasing down cold leads.”
Inside the van, Tiger’s eyes widened for a second, and then he smiled grimly. Dragon turned to look at Tiger, confused, and Graham slammed his head into the side of the van. Dragon dropped to ground, unconscious, as Tiger pulled all the hunters into the back of the van. It rocked several times and Graham heard a few cries cut off sharply. He looked around, but everyone in the street was up at the house; no one seemed to have noticed the scuffle. Tiger climbed out and they ducked behind the van. Tiger moved to run up the street, but Graham seized his arm.
“Not fast enough,” he said. “They’ll be on you if you try anything like that. The minute they wake up they’ll report you missing and search for you everywhere. You need to get out of here faster.”
“How?”
Graham reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “You remember which one is mine?”
Tiger stared at them in confusion. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “It’s how I knew which house you were in. I saw it parked out front.”
“Take it,” said Graham. “Take it and go. Go somewhere, go anywhere that isn’t here. If you stay near here they’ll find you.”
“But what about you?” asked Tiger.
“I can say you stole it,” said Graham. “Look...there’s no way to help you without vilifying you in some way. You’ll already be under suspicion for killing the murderer, I know my shift commander too well. But once you’re out of here, you’re out of here. Take my car and go. Save yourself.”
Tiger stared at him, reluctant, but Graham shoved the keys at him. Slowly, hesitantly, he took them. “They’ll know you helped me,” he said. “Dragon will tell them.”
“Knock me out then,” he said. “Make it look like you beat me up for my keys. It’ll only make the story more believable.”
Tiger closed his hand around the keys and frowned. He looked at Graham, torn between his desire to escape and the respect he felt for the man. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“You stopped a murder,” said Graham. “You may have killed him accidentally in the process, and you will need to atone for that, I promise you. But you stopped a murder. You deserve this. Now go.”
Tiger looked up at Graham and saw the depths to the man he barely knew, but the one who had explained things to him so easily over the past few days. A wise man, a man who had seen more than Tiger could stomach and come through it all intact. Tiger breathed heavily. He had trusted Graham’s advice this far.
He swatted Graham to the ground. The detective hit the pavement and did not stand up again. Frantically, Tiger checked his pulse and sighed with relief. Graham was alive. He hadn’t made the same mistake as with the killer. Straightening up, he looked at the keys in his hand, and nonchalantly walked up the street. He climbed into Graham’s car, ignored by all the neighbours and cops still walking around, and drove to the end of the street. He didn’t know when they noticed anything suspicious, if they did at all, but he was not troubled by it. He drove towards the interstate, and vanished into the night as the moon blazed bright above him.
12/11/2011 1:29:26 AM
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