"Yeah, all right, Mort. That'll be fine."
Gaby left her slouched position on the wall. "What are you asking him for? You own the damn building." As she walked between them, she gave Morty's chest an arrogant shove. "If you want the front doors locked, then lock them."
"Where are you going?" Luther demanded.
"To the storage closet to see if Mort has any cleaning supplies. Someone's got to get this mess cleared up, and I'm afraid if he does it, he'll pass out."
Morty nodded. "She's probably right." Then in an attempt to be stronger, he said, "But I'll help, Gaby."
Turning his wrist, Luther looked at his watch. What the hell. "I'll help, but I can't stay too long. I do plan to go by this butcher's you mentioned, just to look around. I'll say a few choice words to anyone there, and hopefully that'll put an end to it."
"Yeah sure." Gaby returned. With one hand she dragged along an industrial-sized mop and bucket, and in the other she held a large plastic garbage bag and a bundle of old rags. "Knock yourself out."
It took more than an hour to get the worst of the mess cleaned up. Luther looked around, and decided it was time for him to go.
Gaby, still behaving like a prune, walked off to dump the bag of blood-soaked rags in the basement near the washer and dryer.
Mort changed the mop water for the fifth time and prepared to go over the stairs again. He'd promised to have a new lock put on the doors first thing tomorrow morning.
That made Luther feel marginally better, but he still didn't like it. Something was up.
He felt it.
Just as Gaby had said, he caught a whiff of the meat market long before he reached it. The unique smell of a fresh kill hung in the air like sweat in a closed locker room.
It wasn't far from her apartment; just a few blocks over. Rather than announce himself, he parked at the curb half a block away and started in that direction. But before he'd reached the butcher shop, he heard a soft, mewling noise.
Luther glanced around but saw no one. Still, he felt the attention directed at him, and knew he was being watched. Gaby? Maybe she wanted to make sure he checked out the butcher, as she'd suggested.
But he didn't think so.
She was far too pissed at him right now to be dogging his heels for any reason. Hell, if he didn't keep going to her, ignoring her rapid-fire insults, he'd probably never get to see her again.
He knew without doubt, she'd never come to him.
Eyes narrowed and temper soured, Luther scanned the area, peering at the closed businesses, the dark doorways, the overflowing garbage cans.
One empty building, boarded up and darker than sin, caught and held his attention. Drawn to it, Luther approached the front but found it locked up tight. He tried a side door.
No one answered his knocks.
He heard another low-pitched whine and moved closer to investigate.
Jaws snapping, a muscular dog lunged out from the shadows. Blood hung from the animal's mouth and mottled the fur around its face.
Luther stumbled back and cracked his spine on a metal railing by the side door. "Damn it." His feet slipped in something wet and he barely caught his balance.
Fur on end, muzzle undulating, the dog continued to menace him. It circled, licked its chops, and inched forward.
Unwilling to shoot the animal, Luther stomped a foot and said with his own mean snarl, "Git. Go on, go. Get lost." He slapped his hands together, all but attacking.
The beast turned and ran.
Heart still thumping, Luther caught his breath, rubbed the bruise on his back, and then turned a semicircle to get his bearings. The partially blocked alley led to a back entrance and, on alert, he moved in that direction.
He heard another, barely audible whine.
The dog was gone, so where… He looked, but saw nothing.
No one.
After releasing the leather latch on his holster so he could get to his gun quickly, he said, "Who's there?"
No one answered.
Drawn deeper into the alley, beyond where the illumination of streetlights could reach, he withdrew a penlight and scanned the area. There on the ground, a large black stain caught his attention. Moving closer to investigate, he stepped around discarded crates and cartons and a few sealed-up bins that didn't warrant investigation.
A fat rat scuttled by, barely missing his right shoe.
Glistening with evening dew, a web stretched from brick to brick. The black stain looked like oil.
Or blood.
Luther bent to touch it, but stopped before making contact. A foul stench reached him, rank enough to make his stomach flinch. With one hand he covered his mouth and nose, and with the other, he shone the penlight.
The black stain trailed away toward a large metal garbage container, and beside that, what looked like… guts, bones, intestines.
Forgetting the smell, Luther shot to his feet and dropped his hand. The narrow beam of light bounced around as he moved closer and closer.
So many possibilities worked through his brain that it took him a moment to recognize the remains as discards from the butcher next door.
Damn dog. So that's what he'd wanted to protect, why his mouth had been bloody?
There was nothing here. No one.
Luther had no reason to be so suspicious. He let out a breath and headed back for the street.
Maybe if his thoughts hadn't veered to Gaby, remembering how she slung that heavy mop, her obstinate attitude and her take-charge manner, things might have gone differently.
He might have had a chance.
But he did have Gaby on his mind, and because of that, he heard the odd wet, scraping, dragging noise a moment too late. He turned and barely had time to catch sight of the nightmarish apparition pitching toward him. The odor intensified.
The body, missing an eye, dragging one useless leg, drenched in a gel-like substance, moaned a complaint, an entreaty, and fell toward him.
Shocked and sickened, Luther lurched to the side, hit the brick wall, and scuttled back into the alley to avoid the grasping arms. "Fuck."
It reached for him again, slavering from a gaping maw that might have been a mouth, and he stumbled away, unwilling to be touched. "Hang on," he said to the malodorous creature. "Just… hang on."
He jerked his radio free to call for help—and something solid hit against his temple. Pain ruptured, bowing his back, blocking his vision. "Oh shit."
As he slipped down, down, down, he realized his error and cursed his own stupidity. He had one single moment of cognizance, one second to know he'd failed not only himself, but Gaby, too.
And then cold blackness snuffed out all thought.
Gaby pulled the chain hanging from the low ceiling in the basement. The bare light fixture clicked, but no light came on.
A prickling of unease raised the short hairs on her neck.
She dropped the bag of blood-soaked rags and, using the dim light from the stairs, looked around. Casting thick shadows, the mismatched washer and dryer were to her right, connected to a laundry tub. Piled high with discarded clothes that Morty never wore anymore, a rickety table sat to her left.
A subtle shift in the air assaulted her, and Gaby looked above the table at the small slider window.
Wide open.
Things came together in a snap. How the perpetrator had gotten in with the bucket of blood, and earlier, the dead carcass. Had the person left? Or had he been around when Gaby sent Luther to the butcher?
What if… ?
The pain seized her suddenly, clutching Gaby in a suffocating lock.
It was so severe that it dropped her against the moldy wall with a groan of agony. "Oh no." Not here, not now, with Mort only a few feet away. No, it had never happened this way before.