“You meant it when you said we could talk, huh?” Shelby shook her head, a quick blur in my peripheral vision. “This doesn’t seem like the best time . . .”
“Really? You don’t think this is the best time?” We had reached the bushes that grew up against the fence. I stooped, pulling the LED flashlight out of my pocket. It had a red lens, to protect our night vision and hopefully keep from startling the cockatrice if we found it.
“No, not really.”
“Well, I think that the aftermath of you threatening to shoot a member of my family is the perfect time for a relationship discussion. Since most people who threaten my family don’t have much time for conversation afterward.” There was nothing under the bush, not even tracks. I straightened, turning the flashlight off again.
“You know, threats make it a little hard to have a conversation.”
“Then you should break up with me. This is how we communicate.” The cockatrice had been standing in the middle of the yard when it locked eyes with me. I backtracked to the place where I estimated it had been, crouching down to study the grass. Here, at least, there were signs of its passage: bent grass, churned-up bits of earth. “I wish the damn thing didn’t have wings. It’s always harder when they can fly . . .”
“Dammit, Alex, you’re not making this any easier for me.”
“I’m sorry, Shelby. I didn’t know that ‘making it easier’ was part of my job.” I turned my flashlight back on, sweeping it across the grass. The faint indentation that marked the cockatrice’s passage swerved off to the left. “It went this way.”
She sighed and followed as I straightened and started toward the fence. “All right, yes. I was planning to break it off with you. Happy now?”
“Not so much, no, but thank you for being honest.” I kept my eyes on the ground. No matter how much I wanted to be looking at Shelby, I wasn’t going to let myself be distracted again.
“I started seeing you socially because it seemed like a laugh, and I was bored. You weren’t the same kind of boring.”
“Not making me feel any better, Shelby.” The tracks stopped about a foot before the bushes on this side of the fence. I walked a little faster, running my light along the top of the bush. There were broken twigs there. The cockatrice had left the lawn, landed on the bush, and then taken off again.
“Still being honest, like you asked. You’re not . . .” Shelby made a frustrated noise. “You cancel dates. You keep secrets. You talk about lizards at the dinner table. You’re a geek, Alex, and that’s fun for a while—I like smart men—but you weren’t willing to let me see anything deeper. You wouldn’t even watch bad science fiction shows with me, and most geeks love that sort of thing.”
“I should introduce you to my sister.” I squinted at the fence. It was about eight feet high, and the neighbor on that side didn’t have a dog. “Come here.”
“Why?” asked Shelby suspiciously.
“I’m going to boost you up so you can see into the next yard. It looks like our cockatrice went over the fence.”
To her credit, Shelby came right over, putting her hands on my shoulders as I stooped to form a basket for her foot. “I didn’t stay with you only because your cousin was a Johrlac, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Then why?”
She stepped into my joined hands, smiling impishly before she said, “The sex has been amazing.” She pushed off the ground before I could formulate a reply. I straightened automatically, boosting her until her head cleared the top of the fence. Shelby put her hands on the wood, steadying herself.
Silence fell. She wasn’t getting heavier, so she wasn’t in the process of turning to stone—good. Finally, when I could restrain myself no longer, I asked, “Well?”
“We need to go next door,” she said, voice sounding strangely hollow, like she was trying to divorce herself from the scene. “There’s a dead man on the back porch.”
This time, the pause was mine. “All right,” I finally said. “Let’s get you down.” It was time for a little recreational breaking and entering. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
My family has always had what can most charitably be called a complicated relationship with the law. We understand the need for laws that cover an entire population. We just get cranky when those laws are applied to us. It’s hypocritical as hell, but when you’re trying to balance the needs of several dozen nonhuman species against the needs of the human population, sometimes hypocrisy is the only answer. In the four generations we’ve been active in North America, we’ve racked up charges ranging from breaking and entering and vandalism to assault with a deadly weapon and murder. So far, we’ve been able to make all those charges go away. Our luck isn’t going to hold forever, and every time we stretch the law, there’s a chance that this will be the time that things fall apart.
All this ran through my mind as my grandfather boosted me over the fence and into the yard of Bill O’Malley, aka, “the dead man on the porch.” He’d been living there alone since his wife had died some eight years previously, which was a good thing for us; it lowered the odds of someone coming in and finding us creeping around the property. I’d already been questioned by the police once today. I really wasn’t in the mood for a second conversation.
I hit the grass in a crouch, straightening and turning to help Shelby lower herself down. Then I grabbed her hand and pulled her farther into the yard, moving away from the fence as fast as I could without actually running. Shelby frowned at me.
“What’s the hurry?” she asked.
“Grandpa’s coming.”
She opened her mouth to ask another question, before Grandpa answered it the easy way, vaulting one-handed over the eight-foot fence and landing on the grass so hard that it seemed to vibrate the ground. I winced. The thump made by his impact meant that we weren’t going to be finding a cockatrice in this yard—the vibrations would have driven it as far away as its wings could take it.
“That’s amazing,” said Shelby.
“That’s engineering,” said Grandpa. He started toward the porch. I moved alongside him, watching the ground for signs that the cockatrice wasn’t as far off as I thought. Nothing moved within my field of vision, and so I turned my attention to the body.
Bill O’Malley had been in his seventies, still the kind of man who could manage his own house, although he’d been using a yard service for the past few years, according to my grandparents. He was lying facedown on the brick of his back porch, one arm straight out in front of him like he was pleading with something. I moved closer, crouching for a better look.
The tips of his fingers were gray.
The door was still open. Looking through into the kitchen, I saw nothing that seemed out of the ordinary or even out of place. He’d probably heard a noise and gone to investigate. There had been no one there to mix a poultice for him. He’d never had a chance.
“Poor bastard,” I murmured, straightening. “Grandpa, do you think you can jump the fence while carrying Mr. O’Malley? I want to examine his body under better light.”
“How invasive?” he asked.
“We won’t be able to put him back.” I felt a pang of guilt at that, and knew I had some sleepless nights ahead. Any family he still had would never know what had happened to him. But I needed to confirm, once and for all, that this was a cockatrice, and that meant a physical examination. This was how we’d save lives. I tried, with only limited success, to put the thought of his grieving family out of my mind.