Nightlife by Brian Hodge Read Free Book Online Page B

finally turned around to help, Justin rose to stare across the dance floor.
    Rapid-fire images, intense flashcuts. Instants of frozen motion sandwiched between milliseconds of total darkness. He could see it all. An out-of-control Trent, whatever he was now, tearing through the crowd.
    flash
    A throat laid wide open, arcs of blood splattering a girl.
    flash
    A wide-eyed head, toppling from its shoulders while blood geysered upward, too too red in the drenching white light.
    “Son of a bitch, Justin.” Erik, angry. Oblivious. “Look at this mess you’ve made.”
    flash
    Jaguar jaws clamping down on a splintering arm.
    flash
    Jaguar claws, tearing open a belly like a gaudy Christmas package and letting the ropy delights within spill out. flash
    Terrified dancers scrambling all over each other to get out of the path of whatever was in their midst. Screaming with sufficient volume to drown out the music.
    flash
    Stampede.
    The strobes were killed and the pulsing colors resumed, and the music pumped onward. Justin hung on to Erik’s shoulder as they both staggered away. Only now did Erik notice the carnage strewn across the dance floor. Only now did he realize there was a lot more to worry about than his shoes. Beneath his tan he went white, and he firmed himself up under Justin’s deadweight.
    “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Let’s get you out of here,” he said, and Justin bobbed his head in complete agreement. “You don’t need to be around for the aftermath of this scene.”
    And he dragged them both for the nearest exit.

Tony Mendoza didn’t normally like to rise much before ten or eleven in the morning. Today, though—the morning after the serious weirdness at the Apocalips—he was willing to make an exception. This morning he was a regular newshound, tuning in local radio and TV to get the official version.
    Tony stretched in the breezes sweeping across the balcony of his condo. Condo. He hated that word. Sounded like one of those little raincoats for your pecker. He much preferred the term luxury penthouse. It was a lot easier to look down on People from the balcony of a penthouse than from some wimpy condo.
    A fine Wednesday morning. Balcony, orange juice, and bran muffins. The sun and wind on his bare skin, obstructed only by his bikini undies. Hair loose and blowing about his shoulders. His boom box tuned to local news, back and forth, getting all the updates. He was alone. Lupo was out in the Lincoln, on an errand. At a pet store, picking up a couple dozen white mice.
    Witnesses’ accounts of what had happened last night varied wildly. This was understandable. Four hundred people, toked up, coked up, drunked up, or in combination—you bet there’d be a lack of concurrence. Not to mention that it was bizarre to begin with.
    Some people swore that a wild animal had been brought into the club. Leopard, jaguar—something. Others swore that it was some loony wearing a mask. Others claimed it was something in between those two. Maybe Lon Chaney’s grandkids were out running amok. Whatever. But more than one person had mentioned Trent Pollard’s name to the police, claiming they’d seen him acting funny right before the slaughter. A few said that from the back, it had looked like him tearing through the crowd.
    Apocalips had been a meat market, once figuratively, now literally. Four people were dead, very messily so. Several others with bite marks and scratches. Doctors indicated that the wounds were consistent with animal teeth and claws.
    Trent Pollard might have been able to explain, but he was no longer talking. Dead men tell no tales. He’d been found dangling from the business end of a noose by his employers when they came to open up the photo studio where he worked this morning. Leaving the police with a prime suspect of some sort, but no motive and no definitive explanations. Which was all for the better, really.
    But what the hell was that green shit he’d snorted?
    So far as Tony knew, Trent was the