Catharsis (Book 2): Catalyst (4 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

            "Well, going off of what you described when it happened, I'm going to say it was a modified stun grenade.  Commonly called a 'flash bang'," Ren pauses in his explanation and brings up some pictures on one of the monitors and taps them with his finger.  "These things.  They are relatively cheap, easy to get your hands on if you know what you're doing, and very effective at creating impressive distractions.  I'm guessing he rigged his house with some, and then set them off when he walked through the doorway."

            Playing the scene back in my mind, I watch as Chadwick holds his hands above his head - even though I didn't ask him to (In fact he continued to hold them up even after I had told him to put them down.) - and walks through the doorway.  His outstretched fingers brush the top of the archway, and that hidden string pulls taut followed by that discernable
click.

           
"Yah, I could see that.  It makes sense." 

            "I told you that man was up to no good," he continues while nodding his head.  "He was prepared for somebody to find him.  He's smart and he's evil.  That's not a good combination..."

            Ren lets his voice trail off as he reads something on one of the many screens in front of him.  "Actually, let me change that assessment a bit," he says and turns to look at me.  "I'm changing my answer to 'frighteningly brilliant' and truly ‘arch-nemesis’ evil.  As much as I wanted to push you to go after this guy, I'm starting to think he may be out of our league."

            "What?  Why?"  I ask and sit forward to try and read what he had just noticed on the screen.

            "The cops that were posted outside his house finally logged a report of your 'visit'..."

            "They knew I was there?"  I interrupt him.  "How?  They couldn't have seen me!"

            "Relax, Cat, I don't mean they knew about you, but they had to know something happened.  I've been waiting to see how Chadwick reported what went down between the two of you."

            "And?"  I ask, increasing my forward lean to get a view of the many screens in front of him.

            "He's good," Ren tells me.  "He had a cover story all set up.  Their report says they heard something like an explosion come from the house and saw a bright flash of light through the windows.  They approached with weapons drawn - according to what they have in the report they were expecting a bomb of some kind had gone off - and knocked on the front door.  No answer."

            Ren goes back to one of the screens and reads for a moment before continuing.  "They banged on the door and yelled for about a minute before deciding that they should just kick it in and chalk whatever had just happened up to being a solid case of ‘probable cause'.  But before they could act on that decision, the door opened and Chadwick stepped out.  He looked disheveled and the police detected a burnt chemical scent to him.  They interrogated him right there on his own front porch, and he covered it all perfectly.

            "Apparently, he told them a couple of his lights exploded in the house.  Claimed it could have been a power surge.  He even showed them the remains of several lamps to back it up.  The report states that they looked around and didn't see anything else suspicious aside from multiple exploded light fixtures and the unusual odor, which they attributed to the electricity and shattered bulbs."

            "But what about the smashed back door?  There's no way he could have claimed that was from a power surge."

            "Good point.  I'll check," Ren says and goes back to the police report he has up on the screen.  After reading several lines, he speaks up.  "Ah, here we go.  The police noted that several windows and doors were open to air the place out.  Morrin claims that was how he knew the police were out front.  He was opening the front door to get some air flow when he stumbled into them.  It doesn’t look like they ever went around the back of his house.  And if the door was open, then they probably didn’t notice anything wrong.

            "There's no record of you being there or any explosion from the grenade," he continues with a sigh.  "He had a perfect cover story for what happened.  He executed the whole thing with precision, and it was flawless."

            "Fine.  He's really smart," I concede.  "And after talking to him and witnessing him shrug off my attacks, he has definitely climbed a few rungs on my Nasty-Evil-Dude ladder.  But you heard what he said when I was in there.  He knows about the girls, and they aren't dead.  He's responsible, Renny.  I don't know for exactly what, yet, but he is definitely deep into this." 

Remembering Chadwick's responses to my questions in his kitchen gets my blood worked up, and I don't have enough energy in me right now to keep control if it starts to overwhelm me.  I need to feed again.  That quick snack earlier healed some damage and kept me sane, but it isn't going to hold me over for long.

            "I want him, Renny," I say and embrace the stirring of the darkness in my gut.  "I mean he may be smarter than us, and whole lot more evil than we could ever be," and for a second I get flashbacks of another man who I had once thought of as completely evil but eventually was forced to reassess.  "But I'm faster, stronger, meaner and a big ol’ slice of something he's never experienced before.  He may be prepared for a lot of things, but he can’t be prepared for me.  He doesn’t know me…yet.”  I let those words sink in before continuing.  “He doesn't get to win this fight, Ren.  I do."

            Inhaling the calming scent of my friend (Whose blood is too poisonous for my brain to even consider sampling, let alone drinking from.  Being around a person that I can't possible feed on has helped me find a happy place in life.  I almost feel normal being around him.), I smile and pat the hardened muscles of my abdomen.  "Now let's find me a place for dinner."

CHAPTER EIGHT

            As Ren brings up information on the computers about our most recent suspected Den of Druggery (Bringing suspected child abusers to justice has only been a recent endeavor on our part.  I'm still focusing on making the city a safer place one rotted out building at a time.), I head over to the wall to grab one of the prepared backpacks off a hook (I've learned since my first ventures out into the world.  Now I come prepared.).  Looking over my shoulder, I shout to him, "These are all stocked and ready to go, right?  No surprises?"

            Ren looks up and glances at me.  "Yeah, they're good to go.  You don't have to keep checking on me.  It was one mistake.  Learn to forget, forgive and move on."

            A month ago, he forgot to return the thick, plastic bags to the backpack (The ones that I use to collect the money that I inevitably find whenever I invade one of these places.).  I was forced to improvise with some nasty, stained sheets I found in a bedroom.  It wasn't an experience I wanted to repeat any time soon.

            I smile at his sassiness.  "Perfect memory, remember.  I'm incapable of forgetting," I tell him and then consider the rest of his statement.  “But I'll work on the other two parts."

            Pulling the straps of the large, black backpack over my arms, I walk back to the computers and check out the map he has brought up on the largest of his monitors.  It appears to be a fairly large house in a surprisingly affluent neighborhood.  It isn't the normal type of place he's been sending me lately.

            "What's with this place?" I ask him and tap the house on the screen marked by the blue upside down tear shape on the map.  "Am I going upscale tonight?  Or are you just feeling adventurous?"

            "A little bit of both," he replies without turning towards me.  "As we've become more efficient at wiping out the dark denizens of the underworld over the past few months, they've responded by becoming more creative.  You've no doubt noticed that our cash hauls have decreased significantly recently?  There's a reason for that."

            "I have," I say (I also noticed his use of the word "our" when referring to the money I take from the houses as opposed to saying "your".  It makes me smile.  Even though I do most of the physical work when it comes to taking down a suspected house, I keep telling him that it wouldn't be possible without his support.  He does all the research and gets his hands dirty with technology in ways that I never could.  I've been telling him since we began our partnership that the money is as much his as it is mine.  He was reluctant at first, but he's coming around.  Especially since he's learning that I can't really spend the money without him.  He's my middle man when it comes to the real world.  It's his name on the lease agreement for the warehouse - it was also his idea to legally acquire the place so that we couldn't be surprised by having it sold out from underneath us - and it's he that goes out and buys all the supplies.  He truly is my Renfield.).

            "They're like a virus in the human body, and we've become the white blood cells trying to destroy them.  They're either going to be wiped out and the body becomes healthy."  He finally turns away from the screen in front of him and looks at me.  "Or they learn to mutate and hide to avoid detection.  And right now these drug guys are changing how their system works in order to make it all the more difficult for us to find them." 

            "What do you mean 'changing their system'?"  I ask him.  "I thought they already tried that when they attempted to kill me those last few times."

            "Well," he continues.  "When they failed to kill you with that house filled with explosives or that more recent one filled with professional hitters, I think they realized they were outmatched.  It appears they've accepted that just killing you isn’t really in their skillset.  So since they can't make
you
go away, they're trying something new: make your
motivation
go away." 

            I just blink at him as he tries to let that sink in.  "But they are my motivation," I tell him.  "Their plan doesn't make any sense."

            "Well not to you and me, no," he agrees.  "But that's because we know why you're doing this, and they don't.  They think you just want their money and to burn their supply.  They haven't quite grasped that your ultimate goal is their complete annihilation.  They're just thinking that if you have less drugs and cash at each location that maybe you'll get bored of attacking them and move on."

            "That'll never happen," I snort.  "This is way too much fun.  I mean, heck, I'd do it for free if I needed to."

            "Well, you're welcome to pass that sentiment along to them tonight when you're out, and we'll see how it affects their future plans."

            "Right," I say, smiling, and point back to the house he has marked on the screen.  "So how does the McMansion fit into their new schemes then?"

            "Actually, I'm not completely positive," he tells me.  "I have an idea about what they're trying to do, and that's where you come in.  I'm pretty sure they're going a bit more mobile and attempting to keep their on hand stock as low as possible.  To make that happen, they are sending around trucks to pick up and deliver the drugs and cash each night to the houses that they supply.  I'm pretty sure this house is the starting point for one of the refill trucks."

            "Ok," I tell him.  "I'm following you so far.  So what do you think we should do about it?"

            "Under normal circumstances, I'd have you just follow the vehicle as it leaves and mark whatever houses it stops at so that we could come back to them later."  He looks at me, and I nod my approval of the idea.  "But tonight isn't 'normal' as you're wanting to make a quick trip and get back to Chadwick's to pay him a visit, right?"

            "Correct," I say agreeing with him.  "Tonight isn't for reconnaissance.  I just need energy so that I can be a bit better prepared for my return appointment with Mr. Sparkle-Boom!  He's my main priority right now.  Let me quickly put him away, and then we can get back to our regularly scheduled thug-busting."

            "That's what I figured, too.  So we're going with Plan B instead."

            "And that is?"  I ask, already liking the way he's starting to smile as he thinks about the plan.

            "Simple.  You just intercept the truck as it goes from house to house and decommission it.  Any way you see necessary."

            "I really like that particular plan," I say returning his smile.  "But if it's already left the house for the night, then how am I supposed to find it in the city?"

            "Easy," he says as he lets his smile consume his entire face.  "They’re paranoid and security-conscious criminal thugs.  They wanted to protect their investment, so they put a LoJack tracking system on it.  Once you're in the area I'll activate it.  You just have to follow the signal back to them."

            Chuckling, I turn and run towards the glint of metal hidden in one of the darker shadows of the warehouse.  "Perfect," I say into the microphone on my neck.  "Give me the directions once I'm out."

CHAPTER NINE

            The crushing rip of the wind tears at my clothes as the motorcycle accelerates out of the warehouse's backyard.  The black, polarized visor of the helmet blocks out nearly all the light from the passing street lamps as I zip past them, and the insulated helmet protects me from any unwanted sounds or smells.

            I lean into a turn and downshift to prevent the powerful bike from sliding out from underneath me.  Twisting hard on the handle in my right hand, I accelerate out of the corner and rocket down the next street heading away from the warehouse.

           
Renny definitely earned my respect with this one
, I think, as the mass of metal beneath me silently hums with the road vibrations.  An electric motorcycle.  I never would have thought of it on my own.

            When Ren first suggested I use some kind of vehicle to get from house to house at night and not burn up my energy reserves by running, I thought he was crazy.  There was no way I was going to drive a car (I needed the freedom to move quickly and easily in case of danger, and being encased in a car seemed the antithesis of that.), and a motorcycle was just too loud and smelly to be a viable option.  I couldn't keep something at the warehouse that would reek of gasoline and sound like thunder when it started.  I'd lose my sanity before the end of a month.

            And that's when Ren showed me a website for the newer electric motorcycles.  “It’s silent and doesn’t use gasoline so no nauseating smell of fuel to haunt the place,” he told me.  Plus he could get me a helmet that would protect my senses from being overwhelmed while I was on the streets.  It's not like I had much else to spend the ill-gotten cash on, so I told him to go for it.

            After a few weeks of practice riding at the warehouse, I was set up with a whole new way of traveling.  Plus, it's fun.  Really fun.

            Of course I can't use it every time I'm out, as it still doesn't really work for transporting large sacks of ill-gotten cash back to the warehouse (Ren has slowly been convincing me to invest in an electric car as our next purchase.  As much as I don't like the idea of being trapped in a large, metal box, I do find the idea of not caring bags of cash across a city at night highly appealing.).  But for quick trips around town to scout out a new house or find a place to feed without burning up my energy reserves, it's been a life-saver.

            Noticing that I still have over ten minutes before I'll be near the right neighborhood, I activate the phone that Ren wired into my helmet.  "Hello phone," I say as the phone responds to my voice.  "Call her."  (Being severely limited in who I interact with anymore has allowed me to only have two people pre-programmed into my phone.  One's a guy, and the other is a girl.  For simplicity's sake, I programmed the phone to just respond to "him" or "her" depending on which I'm calling.)

            I only have to wait for the phone to ring twice before it's answered.  "Hey, Cat!" shrieks a high-pitched girl's voice through the helmet's speaker (Thank goodness Ren was able to build in some sound-dampening when he wired the helmet for me or I would end up crashing my bike every time I made this call.).  "It's been a few days," she continues and her voice drops more into the pouty range after starting off excited.  "I was beginning to think you were going to ignore me."

            Giving into one of the few genuine smiles that are so rare for me anymore, I embrace the sound of the voice that I had feared for so long I would never hear again.  Every word she speaks brings back a little piece of my previous, happier life.  A life I can no longer seem to hold on to unless we're speaking.

            "Hey Leyna," I say through my grin.  "I'm sorry, kiddo.  It's been a busy few days around here.  How's life?"

            She giggles before answering and the previous taint of poutiness quickly dissipates from her voice.  "I'm great Cat.  But more importantly, how's city life treating my big sister?"