City Under the Moon Page 3

  And Tildascow’s primary interest: hunting.

  Even post-RTMS, today’s hunting philosophy isn’t any different from what it was in the stone age:

  You start with your prey’s footprints. These days they’re found in biometric passport chips, DNA analysis, SIM card and IP tracing, and telescopic, wall-penetrating satellite surveillance. Marry the technology with the simple psychology of human beings—ego feeding, comfort in repetition, and the distracting necessities of biology—and you find patterns.

  Men always fall into patterns.

  But Holly Cooke wasn’t attacked by a man.

  The surveillance camera in the Emergency Department had a much more useful angle than the one in the recovery ward. The shot had been framed to cover three resuscitation rooms and the ramp leading to the ambulance entrance.

  The double doors swung open at 10:34 p.m. on December 29. Holly Cooke’s shredded body arrived on a gurney pushed by two EMTs. They were greeted by Dr. Melissa Kenzie and escorted to resuscitation room number two.

  Tildascow’s memorization technique was known as the method of loci. Her prime subject, or master locus, was Holly Cooke’s body. She traced its path from ER’s ambulance entrance, through a turn into the second resuscitation room, and into its final position on the room’s bed. Every other person or object would be recorded according to their spatial relationship to the master locus. Nonessential information—a fire extinguisher, an exit sign, the motion of the swinging doors, a janitor standing next to them—fit into pockets divided by “key frames,” which marked the major spatial transitions of the master locus.

  Before Cooke arrived, Nurse Laurio had been prepping the resuscitation room. “There’s Laurio,” Tildascow said, and the HR guy confirmed her identity with a hum.

  On the tape, the EMTs lift Cooke onto the bed. Her gurney and body board are soaked in blood. Laurio attaches a pulse oximeter monitor and readies an IV.

  When Laurio sticks her, Cooke bolts upright and throws out her hands. Kenzie gets an arm under her chest to keep her from toppling over the foot of the bed. The EMTs restrain her arms and legs.

  Laurio moves into a corner of the room that’s obstructed from the camera’s view, and then she crosses in front of the bed and washes up in the sink near the door. She seems to specifically examine her arm.

  Tildascow jogged the tape backward, shifting her master locus to Laurio for a second pass. She was a good nurse, moving with the speed and confidence of an ER veteran. Cooke had shown no signs of struggle, and the IV insertion was routine. She had no reason to expect—

  There.

  When Cooke lunges forward on the bed, the doorframe obstructs her hands as they reach full extension. But Laurio recoils, grabbing her arm—

  “Cooke scratched Laurio when she was brought in.” Tildascow said, turning to the HR guy. “Did she report it?”

  “I’ll have to check.”

  “We’ll find out,” promised Anderson, who seemed startled when she turned around. All of the men’s eyes had gravitated toward her ass.

  She quietly thanked no one in particular and made her escape. Crossing the hospital’s atrium, she kept her eyes on the floor and quickly re-ran the ER video in her mind, combining the passes for each master loci.

  “Tildascow!” Anderson called out.

  She quickly shushed him: If the UN guys realized an eyewitness was escaping, they’d retain her for more questioning—and if the EIS decided to lock the place down, she might be quarantined.

  He gave her a manila envelope. “All the witness statements. And more.”

  “Nice. Good work, Anderson.” She quickly surveyed the contents. The bonus material included files on Cooke, employment records for Laurio and Kenzie, and some photos and video stills. “NYPD just handed this over?”

  “Came from way up. They wanted it in your hands. I guess Cooke’s a V-I-VIP.”

  “She is now.”

  Five

  First and 26th

  December 30

  10:03 p.m.

  Some two hundred people were clogging Bellevue’s main entrance. The area was awash in noise and lights. Traffic jams, dueling helicopters, police and fire vehicles, and an endless sea of reporters.

  Tildascow jostled through the crowd and walked north on First. The crisp air was refreshing after so long in the hospital. It was a clear night. Bright. The moon loomed heavy in the sky, just a sliver shy of full.

  She smiled at the dumb idea that had crept into her head, and walked faster. The cold was starting to set in. She never wanted to see this damn outfit again.

  As she crossed 29th, something shifted behind a parked car. She heard animal nails skittering across the cement. She made out a glimpse of fur just before it moved into her blind spot.

  She whipped out her 1911 and took position behind the vehicle.

  Only the one spare mag; what ammo she had left might not be enough to take down one of those animals. But she couldn’t just let it go. And no time to call the police.

  Deep breath, and she shifted around the car, looking down the barrel—

  —at a possum scrounging in the gutter.

  Perfect bookend to this day. She kept walking, chuckling at herself. It bloomed into flat-out laughter when she heard her stiletto footsteps.

  But still, she stretched her neck around every corner. Those creatures were out there. Had Holly Cooke been attacked by one of them? And then there were two in the hospital.

  Had the one infected two?

  And if so…how many tomorrow night?

  She looked up at the moon again. This time she didn’t smile.

  A taxi almost hit her at the intersection of First and 30th. At least the driver had the decency to stop. Getting out of the cold was preferable to giving him a piece of her mind, so she pulled her hemline below her ovaries and climbed inside. The cab was a modest four out of ten on the stench chart, a significant victory for the long drive across town.

  “Chelsea,” she said. The office in Chelsea was the unofficial HQ for the FBI’s counter-terrorism squad. And, essentially, it was Tildascow’s home. She kept an apartment in Hoboken for her off-season clothes, tax records and stale condiments, but she often went weeks between visits.

  The cabbie nodded and turned up the yodeling on his radio. She settled in for the ride, looking forward to a hot drink and a warm blanket—but not the phone call she planned to make afterward.

  The file Anderson had collected from the NYPD contained 23 eyewitness accounts. Somehow this was the one spot in the city where no one had a cellphone camera handy.

  The first statement came from a hippie performance artist who had been on the other side of First while, in his words, “impersonating a tree.”

  The windows shattered up there, his statement read. I think like the sixth floor. A gorilla jump out and lands on top the car. The windshield busted and it was all this noise, people was screaming, and it ran across the street over there. And then another gorilla jump out that other window and go the other way.

  Other eyewitnesses described the animals as hyenas, dogs, cheetahs, or “panthros.” One guy, a “clothing designer who blogs on the side,” insisted he’d seen a similar event staged by a spontaneous performance troupe in a San Francisco mall.

  The best description of the animals had come from a man who’d been escorting his pregnant wife to the hospital. Just as he stepped out of his taxi, the first animal crashed down on its roof.

  It was shaped like a human, his statement read, but it was really hairy and big. It snarled at me and ran away on its hands and feet. And the second one was identical. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. I don’t think they were in costumes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think they were werewolves.

  Six

  FBI Counter-Terrorism Squad Offices

  Chelsea

  December 30

  11:22 p.m.

  Tildascow hadn’t scored a proper office until she got her second Director’s Award, the FBI’s equiva
lent of the Oscars. Her investigation into an Al Qaeda plot on New York’s water supply had revealed a loose thread that unraveled a billion-dollar international electronic banking scheme. It was pure serendipity, but she had no qualms about parlaying the glory into a real office. The couch had come out of her own pocket, but at least she got to pick the color.

  She stretched out on the black leather in her cozy jeans and Quantico hoodie, sipping hot chocolate and fiddling with a stupid sleeved blanket. She checked her email, well aware that she was looking for an excuse to procrastinate.

  Anderson had sent a couple of updates: three animal attacks reported within the first hour; now the number had grown to seven. More were sure to come. The police were on alert, but it was a big city and those things were crazy quick.

  She scrolled to “L” on her BlackBerry and picked up her landline. Shitty cell service; they said we’d have a flying car by now, but it took two phones to make a call.

  Tildascow had never before dialed this phone number. She’d gotten it in an email, which she’d never answered.

  By design, she had no connections to her old life. No relatives, no relics, no old friends to call and reminisce. No one who knew that little girl with the curly blond hair and the bright blue eyes, the one who looked just like her mom. They’d all fallen into the chasm between the girl Brianna and the Special Agent Tildascow.

  Except one, who stubbornly refused to go.

  When little Brianna turned seven, her mother had enrolled her in the Brownies, the minor-league Girl Scouts. It was important to make new friends, Mom said. This was supposed to be accomplished at bimonthly troop meetings, which would be held at the home of a girl named Kelly.

  The moment Brianna arrived at Kelly’s house was precisely when she discovered that there were rich people and there were poor people—and the Tildascows were not rich people.

  Their Brownies Troop Leader was Kelly’s mother. She was a sharp, well-spoken woman with a no-nonsense aura, which must have served her well in her day job as a big-shot attorney-turned-government-gunslinger. She would arrive for their meetings with an assistant in tow (always a sharply-dressed young woman), and dismiss her with work orders precisely at 5 p.m. Then she’d immerse herself in the girls’ baking and papier-mâché follies for two solid hours.

  She always made sure to personally engage each of her Brownie mini-monsters during the course of the evening. She’d inquire about whatever little dramas they were facing, and offer uplifting advice in a warm, dignified tone. Soon Brianna felt like she’d found a secret best friend. Most likely, all of the girls felt that way. It was honest mutual respect from an adult they admired, and it positively lit them up.

  At 7 p.m., the assistant would reappear with updates from the office. Kelly’s mom would vanish for a few minutes while the live-in cook (the live-in cook!) served s’mores. She’d make an encore at 7:30, offering cookies to the parents arriving for pickup, and leave the girls with sticker books, fun assignments, and hugs with encouraging whispers.

  She was just too damned good to be true. And the girls of Troop 60421 weren’t the only ones who noticed. Kelly’s mom soared up the ranks until she had nowhere to go but Washington. First it was Attorney General. A year ago she’d become the National Security Advisor.

  Brianna knew her as “Mrs. Luft,” but her name was Rebekkah.

  After what happened to seal that little girl in her past, she had tried like hell to shake Rebekkah Luft. Something about the way she offered affection made Tildascow angry. Or maybe scared. Whatever it was, she’d needed everything gone, and that relationship was part of everything. She did enjoy hearing about her former friend’s remarkable ascent, but she kept her eyes averted when she appeared on TV.

  Still, she’d often wondered if a few turns in her career weren’t the result of Rebekkah Luft’s silent machinations. Why hadn’t the incidents in her past kept her out of Quantico? Or the DoD’s Prime Program? Luck, skill, or Luft?

  They’d crossed paths here and there, sometimes in ways that felt arranged. Like the time Luft—then Attorney General—spoke at Tildascow’s graduation from Quantico. She’d never done that before, and never did again.

  Every time they met, Luft would put a hand on her shoulder, look deep into her eyes, and ask, “How are you?”

  She’d never realized how much that question could hurt. Not until it was asked by someone who knew the answer.

  The phone rang. She braced for impact.

  “Hello?” Luft’s sleepy voice made Tildascow feel like she was going to get in trouble.

  “Mrs. Luft? It’s…“ She hesitated too long, feeling stupid, and finally blurted, “Tildascow.”

  “Brianna? Brianna, how are you?”

  “Listen,” she snapped, spiking the lump in her throat. “Um… Mrs. Luft, I… I’ve got… Something happened that I think I need to bring to your attention.”

  “Okay, but don’t you dare call me Mrs. Luft again.”

  PART TWO

  One

  Akron, Ohio

  December 31

  12:58 a.m.

  “I swear to God, I’m gonna wolf out!”

  That wasn’t the most prudent thing Lon had ever said to a roomful of people, but he simply refused to tolerate mockery by inferior intellects.

  He’d been dominating the Magic: The Gathering tournament—as usual. And this was the big one, the regional qualifier for the Pro Tour. He was just three wins away from a free trip to Las Vegas, and his “weenie-meanie white and greenie” deck had proven unstoppable. He hadn’t lost a game, let alone a match (except one to mana screw), when the stupid judge misunderstood the stack rules of his Tarmogoyf.

  And it was a staple card! Everyone knew it!

  The other players laughed at him. Bitter bitches got to feel like big king shits because he got cheated out of a win.

  Lon’s therapist said that he put other people down in order to feel better about himself. And that, pseudo-philisopho-theoretically, was what kept him from having friends.

  The way Lon saw it, he just hadn’t met anyone worthy of being his friend.

  Well… maybe there was one. But first he’d have to get up the courage to meet her in person.

  Lon walked home in misery, kicking every rock he could find along the two-mile dirt road from the comic shop. His hands were buried in the pockets of his ever-present black overcoat, which was more a statement than a practical shelter from the wind. He may have been freezing, but it was too late to call his mom without incurring the wrath of his stepfucker, Frank.

  He was a puffy eighteen, maybe the last kid at school who couldn’t even grow peach fuzz. Not that it wouldn’t look ridiculous on his always-blushing fatboy cheeks, especially if it matched his flaming-red Chia Pet ‘fro.

  Honestly, he couldn’t blame the people who found him distasteful. Hell—Given the choice, even he wouldn’t want to be his friend. But what can you do about that? Body swapping only happened in bad eighties movies and secret government laboratories.

  Life was so much easier on the computer. In his forums, video games, and chat rooms, he was respected for his expertise, his authority, and his mentoring skills. That world seemed less arbitrary. And also, he didn’t have to struggle to look people in the eye.

  He turned onto the long, lonely road to Frank’s farm, and that familiar dread crept into his throat. Even if he didn’t get to Las Vegas for the Magic Pro Tour, he was going to find a way out of his stepfather’s house, and he was going to do it on his own terms. Most of the kids at school were still in emotional diapers, but Lon felt certain he had the clarity to live on his own. He just needed the money.

  He snuck through the back door into the kitchen. It was a good bet that Frank was already passed out, but he didn’t want to risk an encounter. He’d memorized all of the kitchen floor’s creaks. It only took three well-placed steps to reach his sanctuary in the—

  “How’d it go, Lon? You win your card game?”

  Fuck.

  Fr
ank’s disingenuous sing-song tone meant that Lon’s mother was nearby—and even still it carried an undercurrent of threat. Fucker never failed to turn into a monster as soon as Mom strayed far enough.

  “No,” Lon muttered as he hurried into the basement. That was where he lived, literally and figuratively. His beloved cave, ten feet by six, containing everything he had in this world.

  A black light threw its glow on his vintage velvet posters: Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Nick Cave. His unfurled futon bed filled the narrow gap between the wall and the card table he used for a desk.

  The computer was his Fortress of Solitude, and its layout was supremely specific. His side-by-side widescreen monitors cycled a montage of artwork inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. An open notepad next to his trackball contained a list of the in-game materials he’d been collecting to level up his World of WarCraft character’s crafting skills once the new expansion arrived. Against the far wall, two iron bookshelves were overstuffed with his vast library of occult reference material—all except for the eye-level shelves, which boldly displayed the room’s pièce de résistance: his collection of miniature pewter statues (all hand-painted by the arch-mage himself).

  Lon hadn’t taken the time to fold up his futon, so there was no room to pull his chair from the computer table. Instead, he took his wireless keyboard and mouse to the bed and bumped up the font size on his Opera web browser.

  He was currently administrating six websites. One of them wasn’t live yet; he’d been hard at work creating content to launch modernwitchcraftandmagick.com by February first. Another, truthabouttheblairwitch.com, he’d all but abandoned. He usually only got about ten messages a day from his Lovecraft shrine, but his Magic: The Gathering site’s forum could get up to a thousand posts per day. The others fell somewhere in between. Tonight there had been a little spike on one of his less-traveled pages, ofwolvesandmen.com.

  Of Wolves and Men was his master’s thesis on lycanthropy, the transformation of man into wolf. Unlike his other sites, it was distinctly non-interactive. There were no forums, no feedback button; his contact information was listed only for solicitors of his web design services. He didn’t want to hear from the Twilight girls who kept pictures of Jacob on their hope chests (although it was a blessing that they’d finally stolen the thunder from the Buffy fans who claimed to be wiccans because they knew how to light candles). He’d spent time in the faux-werewolf “community” and become familiar with the “scene,” which existed primarily in competing forums and YouTube videos. He’d played their “misunderstood by society” game for a while, even commissioning his own dentures from a well-respected fangsmith. But at the end of the day, those people weren’t interested in the truth; they’d just latched onto a clique that’d given them an opportunity to shun society back for their own perceived social excommunication. Lon wasn’t looking to lycanthropy for something precious to call his own.