Chapter 8

Zach collapsed somewhere between Paras Plaza and 38th Street, utterly wide eyed and panicked. Two whores working the park nearby saw him fall and moved down the block to smoke their cigarettes in peace somewhere else. Had they known of the true evil prowling these streets, they would have run straight into the nearest confessional.

Zach laid on the ground and wondered why he wasn't dead yet. Miles separated the park and the power plant, yet Persian had failed to materialize from the darkness. It's possible she lost the trail, but the night wasn't over just yet. She could be minutes, maybe even seconds behind him. Zach propped up on his elbows. He didn't know how he had the strength to stand or why he ended up beneath a street light, staring at the front door of the police station with a fixated intensity. The whole trip was a blur, but the path in front of him was clear.

If he walked into the station ranting and raving about being attacked by a black devil that was responsible for countless deaths around the city, they'd lock him up in a strait jacket and cart him off to the nearest asylum. Zach already paid his dues to such institutions and had no intention of going back, even if it killed him. There were faster, more natural, less painful ways to die. Persian being one of them.

Still, Zach stood underneath the protective glow of the street light, watching and waiting for something he didn't understand. It could have been some sort of childish response ingrained into his brain as a kid, or maybe even some twisted sense of humor to be murdered on the doorstep of the local precinct, but he couldn't bring himself to leave. Zach started to pace and glanced back and forth from the sidewalk to the door. Having lost his favorite hat earlier that night, the longer parts of his hair dangled in front of his face.

No one came or went from the station and the surrounding sidewalk was quiet. Not that there would be any late night solicitors this close to the station anyway. A bubble of expected morality kept the riff-raff away, including Zach. He was a well-recognized chronic nuisance by many of the beat cops on patrol. With no answers at the front, Zach moved along the perimeter of the two story brick building to the back. Here, he could watch and wait a bit more discretely for whatever it was he was looking for. Various police officers, some in uniform and others with duffel bags in their hands, moved between the squad cars parked along the building and the adjacent lot. It must have been the crossroads of a shift change, otherwise, the back of the station would have been as quiet as the front.

Loitering this close to a badge parade was risky. If a single officer spotted a character like him lurking around at this hour, or any hour in fact, he'd be taken in and treated like a terrorist. Zach wasn't sure why he risked his life like this, especially when he fought Persian so hard for it, but maybe he'd find answers in the soles of a pair of lotad rubber rain boots.

Baby stepped out into the parking lot and stuck her hands in the pockets of her brown leather jacket. She was the last to leave the building and remained unaccompanied by her fellow checkered hats, even when she passed them in the parking lot. In fact, her hat was the only one that stayed on as she left the station. Baby kept her eyes and ears focused on the traffic moving through the lot instead of her phone. She walked every bar of the crosswalk when the little light told her to go, and when she hopped back onto the sidewalk on the other side, she stayed to the right in proper pedestrian etiquette, even when no one else was coming.

Rain started to sprinkle the cement from above, prompting Baby to open up her unsightly colored umbrella. Zach didn't even feel the rain anymore. He only watched, aghast that none of the other officers saw her leave by herself. A young woman traveling on foot this late at night without company was every predator's dream. What the hell was Baby thinking? Didn't she follow her own advice?

It wasn't safe for her to be out here by herself.

The storm finally rolled in over Midtown and lightning cast sharp flashes of light across the sky. Thunder snarled after it the like the spring of Persian's teeth through the cables at Reynold's Power Plant. Undeterred by the sound, Baby continued across the street and boldly walked into the darkness. Filled with a sudden sense of urgency, Zach pawed through the decorative shrubbery and hurried out onto the sidewalk after her.

A twinge of pain ran through his legs, causing them to spasm and stiffen. It wouldn't be long until they gave out again, and this time, Zach wasn't sure he would be able to recover. He was running on borrowed time, but who better to steal more from than the young?

Baby picked up the pace now that she was away from the station. She was two blocks ahead by the time Zach honed in on her trail. He glimpsed the top of her umbrella as it bobbed up the metal stairs that led to the above ground Metro Line. At this rate, she'd board the train without him and she'd be lost to the night forever. Zach pulled himself up the stairs a few minutes later. His bad knee locked up, slowing his ascent considerably, and by the time he made it to the top, the train had already pulled into the platform.

The doors opened with several bursts of compressed air and Baby hopped into the nearest car on the other side of the platform. Zach tracked her sideways and jumped into the last car on the line. Ticket takers didn't work this late, and even if they did, they knew better than to bother a heavy breathing smelly homeless man in a tattered overcoat with a twitching eye and unshaven face. The only other occupant of the car, a man who looked rather rugged and ill-mannered himself, promptly got up and left at Zach's appearance.

The departure tone dropped, the doors closed, and the train started moving again. Zach walked up the car and through the compartment doors into the next section. A white wired haired individual in a ratty plaid shirt snored in the center seating. The man from before, fully unabashed with prejudice, got up and moved again. Zach ignored him just as quickly. There was only one straight laced ponytail he was looking for and he found it in the next section.

Baby sat in a seat by herself, surrounded by a handful of other late-nighters. As she settled in, several other passengers put earbuds in their ears and books in their laps. They must have seen her in her uniform before. It explained why Baby could distractedly fiddle with the bandage on her chin while watching the Northside portal for any suspicious entrants. Every so often, she also glanced back to the south as an extra precaution.

Zach ducked out of the window before she spotted him. He couldn't bring himself to enter the car. If he approached her now, it would only agitate the other passengers and draw more attention. He was looking to hide, not stand center stage. Zach paced outside the door, wringing his hands as if the motion powered his steps. Baby was the only person in the whole city who could help him, but what could she do when she found out Persian attacked him again, jump from a moving train and rush off into the darkness torch in hand?

It was ludicrous, but not completely unimaginable.

Zach forced himself into the nearest plastic bench. He didn't have to talk to Baby. Just knowing that she was on the other side of the door was enough for now. He'd wait until the train stopped to "accidentally" run into her and explain his circumstances. His legs needed the rest and the humanoid drooling a few seats over wasn't disturbed by the intrusion. He might as well enjoy the ride.

The train continued to slide through the city. It jostled lightly when the tracks changed, causing the lights to flicker every so often. Zach cautiously watched the shadows, especially those in the farthest darkest corner, and wondered if Persian would pop out at any moment. No one else entered his car, although one or two from Baby's left along the way.

Eventually, Baby stood up to depart at a station the rest of the passengers would have liked to pass by completely. Again, Zach tracked her sideways off of the train several car lengths away. The night engulfed him the moment his feet hit the boards. One orange light illuminated the platform and its reach was limited to the access door of the teller's booth. A closed sign hung in the window. On this side of town, the attendants were sent home before dark.

Baby trotted off of the train, across the platform, and down the metal stairs with the speed of a recognized but unavoidable exposure to late night danger. Zach struggled to keep up with her and sacrificed his stealth with every hobbled step down the rusty metal stairs. He would have tripped at the bottom but his stiff knee wouldn't bend and it kept him standing upright.

The streets were darker out here. Baby would have disappeared had she not stopped underneath the light of the crosswalk to let a semi-truck, most likely hauling an illegal delivery, pass by. She looked especially vulnerable under that small beam of light surrounded by depravity and darkness. At any moment, a freak in a mask could run up and assault her, throw her in the back of a sketchy unmarked van, and start a new line of milk cartons with her unimpressionable face on it.

And Zach thought his neighborhood was bad.

Determined to call her out for being a hypocrite, Zach followed Baby several more blocks until she stopped on the stoop of a shabby brownstone building and pulled out a set of keys. It was the perfect opportunity to prove a point. Zach marched up the steps with surprising ease, acutely aware of how soft his steps had become and how easy it was to sneak up behind her, smell the shampoo in her hair, and count the chains in the necklace around her neck. Such a soft small neck…

It would take ten seconds, maybe two, to grab it and give her a good scare, but Baby had sensed his intent in less than five. She whirled around, pepper spray in hand, and discharged the canister into Zach's face. He bounced backward into the railing of the landing behind him, spewing a stream of curses so foul that only devils would recognize the language.

"Shuckle-fuck, woman!" he swore. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Never off-duty officer Cofield instantly recognized the overcoat and accompanying snarl. She gasped so hard that her eyes nearly popped out of her skull. "I'm so sorry!" Baby cried. "I thought you were a stalker!"

Zach replied with a series of R-rated unmentionables, wiped his eyes, and kicked the railing on the steps for good measure. Baby quickly pulled him away from the fall hazard and into the building. She dropped her umbrella and dug in her bag for a water bottle. No sooner did the cap appear did Zach snatch the plastic from her hands, lean back, and pour it over his eyes.

Spots of water darkened the musty discolored carpet like blood, spurring Baby to remedy the situation as quickly as possible before the landlord heard the commotion and came out. She pushed and pulled the walking encyclopedia of profanities up several flights of stairs and reassured a couple of curious neighbors that she had everything under control.

Zach blindly winced and squinted down the hallway until they came upon a rather small and unimposing apartment door. His already beaten face had gone numb, but the burning in his ears hadn't stopped due to Baby's continued apologetics. She unlocked the door, threw her shoulder into the warped corner to open it, and stumbled inside with the rehearsed poise of an Olympic failure. The light switch popped when it turned on and a single overhead light hummed dimly to life.

The apartment was longer than it was wide and ran perpendicular to the door, showcasing a single large multi-paned window that glowed with neon advertisement light. Zach's shoulders brushed the doorframe as he entered. Two steps brought him into the center of the living room, the dining room, the bedroom, and kitchen, all at once. A mid-sized refrigerator and half a cabinet made up the kitchenette on the left wall.

To maximize floor space, the table was pressed up against the wall directly across from the entrance. A single cockeyed chaired poked out from underneath the corner. Only a few small inches separated the back rest from a second hand dresser. The bed was aligned with the right side wall, leaving no room for a night stand in between. At the foot of the bed, the open bathroom door doubled as a closet. Baby snatched an undergarment from the doorknob and stuffed it under her mattress. She then darted back to the table and pulled out the chair.

Still blind with excessive tears and matching snot, Zach pawed around the room until he found something soft and fabric like to clean his face with. Baby returned to his side, steered him into the chair, and filled his free hand with a small bottle of liquid. She said something along the lines that it would help cool the burning, but there was too much technical gibberish in between her continued apologies to make out more than that. Zach washed his face with the coolant and rubbed his hands into his eyes to make sure it filled the cracks. Relief came almost instantly, tingling his skin with the rare magic of modern medicine.

It didn't take long for the swelling to subside and his vision to clear. Whatever antibiotics, probiotics, pesticides, vitamins, steroids, or class II narcotics the scientists used to make this, they couldn't have been cheap. Baby had some Grade A stuff. Just how many times did she spray herself in the face before she invested in it? Zach blinked back into focus. It helped that there wasn't much to look at: Gray sheetrock walls, a couple pieces of furniture, and a distinct lack of color from ceiling to floor. At least he could draw on the walls of his cardboard box if he wanted to.

Baby continued to fuss about the room. She tugged the blanket over the corner of the bed and shuffled around the dirty dishes in an attempt to tidy up the mess that was her personal life. But not without her manners, she turned on a kettle, opened the fridge, and rattled around the empty racks for scraps.

With clearer eyes, Zach glanced around the room again. There was one set of dirty dishes in the sink. One toothbrush in the bathroom. One chair. One pillow on the bed. Not a hint of a one night stand. The only suggestion of a male presence in Baby's life was a picture of a man on the dresser wearing a checkered hat, blue coat with brass buttons, and white gloves. The picture was propped on top of a rectangular wooden box. It acted as a backdrop for a triangular glass case that had a flag in it. A single flower, probably pulled from the drowning weeds outside, drooped over the lip of a small recycled cup in front of the display.

Zach wasn't sure he could believe it. Baby, the spoiled milk sucking goody two-shoes brat, lived alone in a two-bit apartment on the wrong side of town. She had no one to call. Not a crumb in her cupboard. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Just like him.

"I did some research," Baby continued to prattle on, completely unaware that her guest hadn't been listening since getting sprayed in the face. "The pokemon that attacked us in the alley is actually a subclass of Persian native to the jungles of the southern continent called Pantheria Neopardius. They're considered a Grade X species of pokemon: untamable. 100% wild. Researchers can't study them because they never live longer than a few years in captivity, even when born and raised in a lab. Something in them just snaps and they go crazy. It doesn't help that they are twice the size of a normal classy cat. They even have an affinity for dark type attacks."

"That black devil is why I'm here," Zach interrupted, snapping out of his thoughts.

Baby assumed as much since the Pantherian Persian was the main thread between them. She took it upon herself to continue sharing the fruits of her research. "Pantherians aren't black," she informed. "Their fur is actually such a deep purple that it only looks that way. In the right light, you can even see that they have spots-"

"Who gives a damn about spots?!" Zach shouted. "That monster tried to kill me!"

"It tried to kill me too, but that's no reason to shout about it."

Zach could have slapped her, but he had forgotten who he was talking to. "She attacked me again just a few hours ago," he explained.

A grave expression weighed down Baby's smile. Her eyes darted between the holes in Zach's clothing. Her hand went to her empty pokebelt. Rookies weren't allowed to carry their assigned pokemon partners off of the clock, but it didn't stop her natural instincts from kicking in.

"She chased me into the plant," Zach explained before Baby started out the door, torch in hand. "And I ran here the first chance I got."

Baby didn't need to know that he had been following her since the police station, and luckily, she was too distracted fulfilling her role as civil servant to realize that she never gave him her address. A real detective would have dished out more than a serving of mace. Remembering the chase reminded Zach just how tired he was. He rubbed his aching knee with a wince.

Baby incorporated his disabilities into her calculations and traded her belt for the bandages on her hands. She paced lightly in front of the table and stopped a few steps in. Another attack wasn't surprising, but Zach's appearance was. The two of them barely escaped the first time around when working together, so how did just one person manage to survive relatively unscathed?

"How did you escape?" Baby asked, jumping ahead of herself.

Zach thought carefully about what he wanted to say next. Did he tell her about the power still coursing through Reynold's plant or his humiliating display of desperation between here and there? What would Baby say if she knew what Persian had done? What would she do when she found out about the bodies? Zach had to balance his survival with the truth in order to make this work.

"Another lightning bolt struck the plant and scared her off," Zach explained.

Baby nodded and looked out the window at the storm. "She probably associates the sound with the shock she got in the alley. I'm not surprised it spooked her. We humans aren't as easy to kill as she thought." Baby then turned to him and winked. Zach was too surprised to speak.

"A close strike like that will make anyone jump," Baby continued, "but our Pantherian seems especially sensitive to the sound, like she's never experienced a storm out in the open before." Baby wagged her finger at her thoughts. "This is important. If she has never been in the open before, it means she wasn't taken from the wild. She was raised in captivity, which would explain her behavior. It's possible she spent most of her life in a lab or a pokeball. Either way, humans were involved and humans leave a trail."

Zach relaxed into his chair. Baby picked up the scent without recognizing his own. She would take care of his pokemon problems and he wouldn't have to lift a finger.

"The black market for pokemon is huge," Baby continued to piece together. "Aces, poachers, and researchers alike would love to get their hands on a rare pokemon like that. But who specifically? Birkdale doesn't have the scientific facilities or grants to sustain a big pokemon research project. The coliseum downtown draws in most of the city's revenue. Tournaments, sponsorships, circuit fundraisers, elite clubs and parties, there's bound to be a dozen or more high profile collectors and trainers in the city at any given time. Taming the untamable is every aspiring Master's dream. A Pantherian Persian would be worth a lot more alive than dead."

Baby's face brightened as a lightbulb blinked on above her head. She turned to Zach and he immediately regretted his chosen path of conversation. "You know more about the real nature of trainers in this city than anybody else," she began.

Zach wouldn't have phrased it quite like that, but that didn't change the truth of the statement.

"You can help me figure out where the Pantherian came from!"

Cozying up to the police with blood on his hands was the last thing Zach wanted to do. When they strolled through death alley and found his tent, they'd put out a warrant for his arrest.

"Help you?" he barked. "You're the one who's supposed to be helping me! I almost died tonight!"

Just like a cop to think only of catching a collar. Protect and serve his ass. The only thing a checkered hat like Baby ever cared about was the glory of being a hero. Zach roughly stood up from the chair. It scratched across the floor and bumped into the dresser, causing the picture frame to rattle. Baby stiffened in surprise and Zach moved toward the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Zach stopped a foot short of freedom. Where was he going? Somewhere, anywhere but here. Coming to her for help was a mistake on a multitude of levels. She should've never opened her door to him in the first place. He was a strange man with debased values and she was a young woman with no common sense. What if he decided to attack her right here, right now? She would have no means of fending him off. That freak in the mask under the street light could very well be him. Instead of assuming her visitor was leaving on frustrated terms, Baby should have prepared herself for a fight. She was a police officer for crying out loud. What in the world would ever make her think that any of this was OK?

Zach peered over his hunching shoulder at her. The kettle on the stove began to scream. Baby quickly turned her back to him, that naïve little idiot, and took the kettle off of the heat. On the counter beside it, there were two mismatched mugs instead of one.

"Why would you let a stranger like me into your house?" he suddenly asked.

Baby started fiddling with her hands again. She looked around the room but the big black wailmer in the middle couldn't be avoided.

"Well," she muttered, shrugging her shoulders to lighten the awkward burden of her confession. "I guess, I thought, we were sort of like . . . friends, given the circumstances."

Are we friends?

A cold chill crept through Zach's veins as the voice from earlier that night filled his head.

I can make you something.

It sounded like it was right beside him, stroking the hair at the base of his skull where the bone was soft. He slowly turned toward the window. Rain peppered the glass like hail. Lightning flashed between the bars of the fire escape.

I can take care of you.

Zach held his breath, paralyzed from heart to lung. His eyes burned more than ever before and tears spilled down his face. He should have known better. These were the streets of Midtown after all.

"What, what is it?" Baby asked, quickly coming up beside him. She placed her hand on his arm, saw the state of his eyes, and looked out the window with him. Lightning flashed again, but a large dark shadow on the rail refused to come to light.

Let me show you, it whispered.

Baby didn't finish her curse before she pushed Zach out of the way and the window imploded, showering the room with teeth, claws, and glass shards. The devil cat, Pantera, soared between Baby and Zach and knocked them each to opposite sides. Zach fell to the cement floor and agitated whatever had fractured in the alley. Baby stumbled into the fridge and inadvertently opened its door. It swung open behind her, catching Pantera's slash down to the lead lining.

The entire unit dislodged under the force of her paw and smacked into Baby, throwing her into the cabinets. Her teeth barely missed the brass knob when her face clipped the corner. Zach flipped the table on its side and ducked behind it as if it were a war trench. Pantera scaled the obstacle in one leap, rebounding off of the wall and then the bed so that she pounced into Zach's back before he had a chance to carve his nails into the wood.

The hit flattened him against the floor and pushed the table forward. It struck Baby in the waist as she ran over to help, doubling her over the edge. She rocked backward and fell to the floor. Pantera kneaded her claws into Zach's back, ripping through layer after layer with each squeezing flex of her paws. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't scream, but Baby didn't need words to work.

She jumped up from behind the table, fire extinguisher in hand. Eyes aflame and hair askew, she pulled the pin and trigger. Cold white smoke exploded across the room, bleaching Pantera white so that not even the dead of night could hide her. The devil cat jumped away in a snarl and retreated back out of the window, hitting the dresser along the way. Several items of the display plummeted to the floor.

Baby tottered into the wall and dropped the fire extinguisher. Zach ran past her, his pain all but forgotten. He scratched and clawed at the door to try and get it open, but the warped wood wouldn't budge. Rain blew in from the window, soaking the rug below and tossing the curtains in crazed applause. Two rock steady eyes flashed with the lightning outside. Their reflective glare ringed the bottom of Pantera's gaze like the curve of a scythe. Cleansed of the powder by the rain, she leapt back into the room. Zach broke open the door, slipped, and swung to the side and into the hallway.

Likewise, Pantera slid on the sharp powder coated debris, careened past him, and crashed through the railing of the stairwell. She fell over the edge and dropped several levels before rolling to a stop on a landing below. Zach climbed up the remaining posts and looked down at her. Pantera kicked away the clutter and stood, licking away the disorientation as easily as blood from her lips.

Zach hobbled into the nearest door and banged on the wood until both fists went white. "Help!" he screamed. "Let me in!" The frame rattled stubbornly against him. Zach jiggled the door knob and it didn't budge. He threw himself even more vigorously into the next.

"She's coming!" he cried. "Let me in!" The dead bolt securely latched from the other side. A nosey neighbor opened their door a few spots down. Zach looked at them and they slammed it shut.

Pantera looked up at the broken landing and flicked her tail. She wouldn't have to climb the steps to the top if she jumped from the rails and crisscrossed between the bannisters. It would take three, maybe four leaps, tops. Zach slammed his forehead against the door of another painful rejection. He grimaced with the awful reality that was his fate. The door wouldn't open for him. None of them would. Deliverance didn't exist in hell.

Down the hallway, Baby rushed out of her apartment, sweating and bleeding from a small cut on her jaw. She spotted Zach down the way and waved at him with one hand. White powder smoked from her arm. "This way!" she yelled. "Over here!"

Zach lifted his head at the sound of her voice. He couldn't see how she had a plan, but if she had a way out, he would take it, checkered hat or not. Zach limped back down the hallway as fast as he could. Baby shuffled over to the railing, glanced over the edge, and slid back into place to meet Zach at the door. She held something in her far hand and tightly hid it against her thigh. She pushed Zach into the apartment with the other. "Take the fire escape," Baby instructed, "through the window!"

The window! The very portal that let the devil in would let its prey out. Of course!

Zach raced through the shattered glass, pushed aside the table, and slammed the chair up underneath the window. He climbed up onto the sill using his bad knee as a crutch. It didn't matter that glass filled his hands or that his ribs felt like they pierced his lungs. This was it. This was his way out. He would survive, if only for a few more seconds. Baby and her foolish righteousness would fend off the devil just long enough for him to salvage an escape. Why didn't he think of it sooner? Let Pantera kill Baby instead of him. Her death would be more than enough to buy him another day. The police might finally do something about the killer cat if it was one of their own that was slaughtered.

The fire alarm suddenly went off and it began to rain inside just as hard as it did out. A blaring alarm sounded, accompanied by a sharp blinking light. Zach stopped halfway through the window and looked back at the door. Baby had triggered the alarm, but instead of following her own escape route, she took a defensive position at the door. She raised whatever it was she had in her hand to match the line of her gaze but her reach extended beyond the doorframe so Zach couldn't tell what it was. Not that it mattered. Pantera couldn't be killed by mortal men. So why wasn't Baby trying to escape? Why wasn't Baby acting like him?

"What are you doing?" Zach shouted from across the room.

"Helping!" Baby shouted back. She didn't bother to glance over her shoulder to see if he had stayed to listen. Didn't she know that if he left, she was guaranteed to be Pantera's next victim? Baby shifted away from the door and into the hallway with the finesse of the officer that she was. She planned to take Pantera head on.

"Wait!" Zach shouted, climbing down from the window and falling off of the chair in the process. "You can't leave me!" He crunched through the glass again, kicking aside the empty wooden box that had fallen from the dresser.

Baby now stood at the edge of the broken railing where Pantera had fallen, hand aligned with her side again. She looked up at Zach's appearance. Dozens of tenants evacuated their rooms behind her, shielding their heads and handfuls of stuff from the rusty rain. Nobody paid them any attention. Not a single person screamed in panic at the sight of a demon. Bodies didn't drop to the floor. All that spilled was eight years of stale water.

Confused and expecting quite the opposite, Zach limped up to the broken railing on the opposite side of Baby and leaned over the edge. A steady stream of people grumbled and cursed their way down the stairwell. The only evidence of Pantera's attack was trampled and scattered underfoot. Zach and Baby slowly looked at one another from across the gap.

Pantera was gone, scared off by the alarm, but they both knew better than to think she had given up the hunt.