Oh, and part 4 is coming soon. It's been written. It just needs editing.
AVENGING ANGELS
BY LOMAS AND KAREN
PART 3: "DETECTIVE WORK"
"So?" Max asked without preamble, as she slipped through the apartment window and looked at Logan Kale. As usual, he was seated in front of his bank of computers, scrolling through a document on the screen. He was chewing on the end of a pencil, and had a troubled frown on his face. His chin and cheeks were stubbled, while his hair looked like it hadn't been brushed that morning. Max resisted the urge to smooth it for him - the one, small physical contact still allowed to them. If he wanted their relationship to be professional, and his phonecall had made that perfectly clear to her, she was happy to oblige. More than happy. She didn't need Logan Kale, not with people like that cute paramedic leaving messages on her machine every evening asking when he'd see her again or if she would meet him at Crash that night.
His worried expression not changing a bit, Logan nodded a greeting, "Come look here. After I got Sung's report, I went online to see if anyone else had seen our wolfman."
Shoulders stiffening at his assumption that he could order her about, Max nonetheless did as he asked and walked to stand behind him. On the screen was a scan of a newspaper - one of the tabloids by the number of exclamations marks in the headline and the lurid illustration accompanying it. It showed a werewolf howling at the moon, his clothes ragged and needle-bright fans protruding from his mouth. That was pretty typical fare, but what caught Max's attention were the three, wickedly long and sharp claws that were sketched springing from each hand.
"The same one?"
"Apparently. According to this article, a reliable source saw him go into the sewers in Sector Four. Normally, I'd read wackjob for reliable source, but, with Sung's report, I'm inclined to take it seriously."
"And, the attempted rape, where did that take place?" Max asked.
"Hold on," Logan took a slim, green folder from the pile on his desk and began flipping through it. Max could see that it was a photocopy of an official, police report. Clipped to the cover were two pictures - one was a photograph of a thin, nervous-looking woman who could only be the victim, while the other was a rough, police sketch of her rescuer. They obviously hadn't gotten much more information out of her than the tabloids had from their 'reliable source', because their drawing wasn't that much different to the one that accompanied the article. A moment or two later, Logan looked back up at her in excitement, "Sector four as well."
Max flashed him a tight smile, "So we know our big, bad wolf is in that neck of the woods. We just have to find his den."
Leaning backwards in his chair, he steepled his fingers in front of him, "And how do you propose we do that?"
"Do what peasants a long time ago used to do," she shrugged, "Use a dog to track it. Or, in our case, the finest canine transgenic Manticore's money could provide."
"Joshua."
*
"So, what Alec think of Joshua Number 728?" Joshua asked the transgenic expectantly, standing to one side and gesturing to one of the pictures propped up against the walls.
Alec took a step backwards, and tilted his head to look sceptically at the painting. From what he could tell, Joshua's approach to art consisted of squirting paint all over his canvas, rubbing it in with his hands, then sticking old bits of paper to it for good measure. Art appreciation hadn't been high on the priorities of Manticore, admittedly, but he had always preferred his paintings to look like something - preferably, naked women.
Still, there was one thing that could be said in favour of Joshua's paintings: rich people with more money than brains went mad over them to the point of throwing large sums of cash in his friend's direction. They paid big for what they called its 'playful, ironic blend of the savage and the civilised'. And, after naked women, pictures of dead presidents were Alec's favourites.
"They'll love it," he said enthusiastically, "I think it's your best one yet."
If he had had a tail, it would have been thumping on the floor, "Alec like?"
"Yeah, Alec like," he replied, adding beneath his breath, "Alec like taking big bucks from stupid, rich people."
"Who stupid, rich people?" Joshua asked innocently.
Rubbing the back of his head, Alec gave him a sickly smile. He had forgotten that dogs had infinitely more sensitive hearing than humans, and that Joshua had inherited that trait in his genetic cocktail. Before he could wriggle his way out of the situation with a suitable lie, however, he heard the familiar sound of a motorbike purring to a halt outside the house.
"Max here!" the canine transgenic said in excitement, "Max come see Joshua."
And thank God for that, Alec thought fervently. He had lost count of the number of times Max had saved his rear, despite her bringing them up in every conversation they ever had together, but this was definitely one of them. He had seen Joshua get angry once, and he did not want to see it again. He especially did not want to be on the receiving end of that anger.
When he heard Max's footsteps on the wooden porch, he walked to the door and opened it for her. As usual, her eyes narrowed on seeing him. She had not liked him from the moment she had met him at Manticore, and her feelings towards him had not been improved by giving up her chance to be cured of the virus in order to get the bomb removed from his head. He knew she thought him irresponsible, untrustworthy, shiftless, sleazy, and many other, less polite adjectives that he had thought girls were never taught. Besides, he had been made from the same genes as Ben, the brother whom she had been forced to kill. He, Alec, was a living accusation.
"Where's Joshua?" she asked.
"And hello to you too, Max," he said wryly, "Do come in. Joshua is inside."
Snorting, she pushed her way past him into the house. Alex shrugged and closed the door behind them. By Max's standards, her behaviour towards him had been almost civil. At least she hadn't driven an elbow into his ribs.
A goofy grin on his face, his tongue protruding a fraction from his mouth, Joshua bounded up to her, "Hey, little fellow. You come eat dinner with Joshua?"
"Hey, big fellow," she smiled up at him, "Great as it is to see you, I'm afraid this isn't a social call. If you don't mind, I need to borrow your nose to track a wolf . . . ."
TO BE CONTINUED