Arcanum (Tales from the Tarot)

31. Chris

Chapter thirty-one

Chris

“ I t’s about goddamn time you did some work around here,” Luke huffed on the other end of the phone. “Taking two weeks off? What the fuck, bro? Are you dying ?”

“I’m not dying, asshole. I had the time so I took it. It’s nothing. And it was not two weeks.”

He ignored me and kept bitching. “Who is she?! I know you’re seeing someone! I’m not stupid!”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh my God.”

“Don’t groan at me, dick. You’ve been acting weird for weeks! I hardly see you anymore!”

“Dude, we see each other almost every single day. Work, the gym—”

“When’s the last time we hung out? Hmm? When’s the last time we had a bonfire? When’s the last time we went to Stanley’s and watched a game? It is prime football season and you’re nowhere to be found! So who is she? Who is this home wrecker?! I need to know!”

I laughed, unable to keep up with his faux outrage, and shook my head. “You’re such an idiot. When are you going to get a girlfriend, huh?”

“As soon as Stacey realizes I’m the one.”

“Hate to break it to you, but that ain’t happening.”

“Did she say something to you?” He sounded so eager, I couldn’t help but laugh again.

“No. But she’s smart and you’re… you.”

“Blow me.”

“You wish.”

Dispatch interrupted our conversation with a call for Luke. Mrs. Perkins reported a suspicious person in the neighborhood, so naturally, I headed there even though it wasn’t technically my zone. Having Nitro with me meant I had a serious advantage over anyone else responding anyway. No one wants to get into a foot pursuit when there’s a K9 working.

“The audacity of this woman! Doesn’t she know we’re in the middle of a conversation?” Luke said dramatically before keying up and acknowledging that he was on his way.

“See you there,” I said with a laugh, hanging up.

As I drove, I refreshed the call notes on my laptop, reading through the super helpful description: a white male in all black looking in windows at the house across the street. She saw him clearly because of the motion-activated lights before they abruptly went out.

Fuck.

That was Greyson’s house.

Since I’d left for work, I hadn’t heard from him all night. It wasn’t that unusual, though. He knew I hated texting and I had a shit ton of reports to catch up on after my impromptu “vacation,” so I hadn’t called him before he went to bed. But knowing someone was creeping around his house made my pulse kick up another notch. What if he was there? What if he’d gone home to spend some time with Selene? Or, what if they realized he was sleeping at my place? Was it his psycho stalker? Or had Ted Berger finally grown some balls and come over to start something, except the idiot got the wrong house?

Regardless of who it was, I accelerated faster. Nitro whined behind me, dancing back and forth in his cage.

Blacking out the squad, I rolled to a stop and put it into park at the end of the block. My fingers drifted to the slit pocket where I kept Greyson’s rock. Instead of finding the hard lump, all I felt was flat emptiness.

“Shit.” I stuffed a finger inside and dug around, but the crystal was gone. I closed my eyes and swore, remembering that it fell out in the wash the other day and my dumbass left it on top of the washing machine instead of sticking it back in when the carrier was air drying.

Oh well. I’d handle the prowler and then run home and grab it.

“K91 on scene,” I said over the radio, easing myself out of the driver’s seat and circling around to the other side of my squad. Letting Nitro out, I wrapped his lead around my hand and we darted across the sidewalk, hugging the shadows, and made our way into the backyards. One hand rested on my gun, the holster lock already popped, while the other held on to Nitro and my flashlight. Applying the barest pressure to the button, I illuminated certain areas for the briefest amount of time possible before moving on.

“32 from 13,” Tom’s voice said through my earpiece, talking directly to Luke. “Where you at?”

“Coming from the south side,” Luke replied.

“I’m leaving my post,” Tom said.

That meant they were both about five to ten minutes away, depending on how far south Luke actually was.

Something loud thunked up ahead. Nitro growled low and pulled against his leash. I slid my gun out and propped the wrist of my gun hand onto the other, gripping the flashlight tighter. I crept forward, mindful of the leaves crunching beneath my boots, and tried not to trip over the Campbell kids’ fucking toys scattered everywhere.

I gave Nitro the motion to jump over the picket fence that bordered Greyson’s yard. He did, with flying colors. The only sound was his collar jingling softly. I managed to haul my ass over without making too much noise—gun belt creaking, bushes rustling, swearing under my breath as one of the rough edges of wood scraped against the inside of my thigh, a little too close for comfort.

Nitro darted toward the house immediately, pulling hard on his lead and diving into the bushes beneath Greyson’s kitchen window.

I shined the light at where he was sniffing the ground. No one was there, but the fresh mulch I put down had been disturbed, leaving behind the distinct impressions of bootprints.

My pulse spiked.

Reaching up with one hand, I pushed against the window. It didn’t budge. Thank God.

A twig snapped around the side of the house. Nitro and I both whipped in that direction. I advanced on it, my gaze sweeping back and forth over the dark landscape as I moved, looking for anything I knew to be out of place.

I flicked my flashlight beam toward a dark spot when a shadow lunged out of nowhere. Something heavy and hard slammed across the top of my forearms with a blinding pain. I dropped my flashlight but held onto my gun, even when the second blow came. The unyielding object bashed against the side of my head so hard I saw fucking stars. A wave of nausea roiled in my stomach.

A man shoved past me while Nitro barked like crazy, impatiently waiting for a command. Dizzy and partially blinded, I somehow managed to grab a handful of the guy’s coat. He twisted under my hand, trying to push me away, but I held on as I careened to the side on unsteady feet.

We crashed through the picket fence between my yard and Greyson’s, landing in a heap of broken boards and lilac branches.

“ Bite! ” I yelled in German, once I remembered what fucking planet I was on. It was a risk to issue that command while I was tangled up with someone, but I had no choice. I couldn’t get my gun into position for a clean shot and I couldn’t take any more headshots, either. If I got bitten too, then oh well. I’d take some stitches over death any day.

Nitro snarled and lunged, jaws snapping at anything he could reach, trying to get a good grip. Every time Nitro tried to grab the guy’s arm, he was able to shake him off or throw a punch to keep my dog at a distance.

“K91?” Tom’s voice sounded in my earpiece, a higher pitch than usual. I was sure in all the commotion, I’d hit my mic a couple of times, so I could only imagine what he and the others had heard as we wrestled on the ground.

I was too busy trying to buck the man off of me to answer him, though. After hitting me in the head again, the guy dove for my gun hand, alternately trying to pry my fingers open or slam my hand against broken pieces of the fence to get me to release it.

“K91, status?” dispatch tried.

I made a grab for my radio, but the guy dropped an elbow right into my gut, beneath the protective plates in my vest. The wind rushed out of me. I wanted to puke.

Nitro circled toward my head and tried attacking from the front. Grabbing a broken slat, the asshole brought it down across Nitro’s head, again and again. My dog yiped and rolled to the side with the last blow. Then, the asshole turned the wood against me, swinging it down as hard as he could. I blocked it with my left arm. The old wood splintered and shattered; a rusty nail narrowly missed my eye as it scratched across my cheek.

“You fucker!” My worry for Nitro transformed into pure rage. I wrenched my gun hand free from his meaty grip and smashed the butt of it into the side of his head. He flopped to the side, a red wetness glinting in the moonlight.

Nitro’s collar jangled as he got to his feet again, shaking off his injuries.

“ Bite! ” I repeated as I kicked myself free from the guy’s weight, grabbing my radio at the same time. “K9 deployed! K9 deployed!”

“Status?!” Tom demanded over the top of his engine revving in the background.

Nitro collided with the guy one last time. Since he didn’t have me in his way, he clamped down on the guy’s forearm, sinking his teeth through the thick coat the asshole was wearing.

The guy screamed bloody murder.

Nitro snarled and yanked as hard as he could, digging into the dirt and forcing him face-down into the grass.

I scrambled over the pile of shattered fencing on my hands and knees and leapt on the guy’s back, driving my knee into his fucking kidney as hard as I could. “Don’t fucking move,” I said between my teeth, jamming the muzzle of my gun into the back of his skull.

“Get the fucking dog off of me!” he hollered.

All his screaming made Nitro pull harder, his tail swishing from his own adrenaline rush.

“Oh fuck!” Tom’s voice said—not in my earpiece. It was right behind me. “One in custody. Roll medics,” he said into his radio while running over.

Nitro’s gaze darted behind me and I gave him the signal to stay, reminding him to keep his attention on the fucker in front of us and to not worry about what Tom was doing.

Tom yanked his cuffs out of their holster and knelt next to me, attaching them to the guy’s wrist.

“ Release ,” I said to Nitro, pushing away from the asshole on the ground and getting out of Tom’s way.

Nitro spat the arm out with a whine, panting as hard as I was breathing. Once the cuff was on, I put my gun away and dropped to my knees next to my dog. Grabbing onto his collar, I hung on to him for safekeeping while Tom finished handcuffing the guy.

“ Good boy ,” I whispered in German, bumping my forehead against Nitro’s. He gave me another excited whine and licked my face. I used both hands to feel around his head and neck, looking for any bumps or cuts. He whined and jerked away from me when I touched a spot by his ear. There wasn’t any blood, as far as I could tell, but I could feel a hot lump swelling under the fur. “Shh. It’s ok. You did good. We’ll get your toy in a second.”

Luke was the next on the scene, followed shortly thereafter by the ambulance.

I led Nitro away from all the commotion and let my coworkers handle babysitting the asshole while the medics checked him out.

We were halfway to the squad when the world tilted. I put a hand out to brace against a car parked on the street, but missed entirely and crashed to the cold, damp pavement.

Nitro barked next to me and kept barking.

I lifted a hand to try and silence him, but it barely moved off the ground before flopping downward again.

“Chris, what the—Chris!” Luke’s voice shouted from down the sidewalk. His boots thundered on the cement, his keys and cuffs clinking together. More boots followed.

Stomping. Barking. Yelling. It was all so loud .

Squeezing my eyes shut, I willed the world to be quiet for one fucking second. The swirl of colors behind my eyelids kept spinning anyway, which made it feel like I was flying—or falling, even though the unforgiving asphalt underneath me told me I was solidly on the ground, half on the sidewalk and half on the road.

“Get his legs,” Luke said to someone.

Nitro snarled and snapped beside me, lunging for someone. Luckily for them, his lead was still wrapped around my hand.

“Stacey!” Luke shouted, making me wince. “Come get Nitro before he fucking bites me!”

Lighter footsteps jogged over and Stacey clapped her hands, deploying the super excited “dog voice” people used. “Nitro! Who’s a good boy? You’re a good boy! Come here, Nitro! Come on! Let’s go play tug! Tug! See? I have your tug!”

I tried to tell Nitro to go ahead, but the words that slurred out didn’t sound like English or German.

“Aw, man,” Jace’s voice boomed next to me. “I am not getting paid enough to deal with your ugly ass tonight. Let’s see what we got.” He peeled one of my eyelids open and promptly shined a flashlight at me.

I tried to swat at the giant blue hands looming over me, but someone clamped my hands down on my stomach so Jace could peel the other lid open.

“Oh, fuck. Did he lose consciousness?” the medic asked, sounding way too serious all of a sudden, even to my foggy brain.

“I don’t know, man,” Luke replied. “I got here after the fight was over.”

“I got you,” Jace said loudly, too loudly, right before his hand patted the center of my chest. “You’re going to be ok, Chris. Stay with us, ok?”

Stay with me.

My own words echoed in my head. Images of Greyson on the bathroom floor flooded my memory. I’d almost lost him that night. Did I lose him again? Had that fucking chasm come back and swallowed him whole? Was he about to lose me? Had we lost each other?

I didn’t want him to see me like this but I wanted him all the same. Greyson. If he was there, then I’d know he was alright, that he was safe. And I knew I’d be alright, because he made everything alright. Where was he?

I forced my eyes open, even though my vision kept going in and out of focus at all the bodies moving around me. Instead of trying to keep track of what they were doing, I let my gaze drift over their heads.

The moonlight illuminated Greyson’s house. Where was he? Was he in there? Was he safe? Please let him be safe.

The drapes rustled in one of the windows on the second floor. I held my breath, waiting to see if Greyson would reveal himself. If he’d materialize at my side like he always did, a calm, comforting presence amidst the chaos of the world.

But he wasn’t there.

All I saw was a white cat. Selene.

He. Wasn’t. There.

Disappointment surged through me. Disappointment and sheer exhaustion.

I didn’t bother fighting it anymore. It was easier to give in.

My eyelids sank shut. Even as people shouted my name and shook me hard, I surrendered to the quiet dark.