Raiju: A Kaiju Hunter Novel (The Kaiju Hunter) (15 page)

My mouth was suddenly so dry it took me a couple tries to find my voice. But I told the truth anyway. “I’d do whatever I had to do to protect those around me.”

Her hand sought mine, took it, like that night behind the club. Her hand had been so weak and cold then. Tonight, though, there was strength in her grip, and hard chips of determination in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and reached up and kissed me on the cheek, making me wince as she hit a sore spot.

“
For what?”

“
For tonight. For
everything.
” She drew back, and I saw her eyes: black, fathomless, almost surreal in her deathly white face. They looked like portals of black glass. She pressed her hands prayerfully together. “This was the best night of my whole life!”

I lifted an eyebrow at that. “
This
was the best night you’ve ever had?”

Aside from the usual drunks smelling of vomit, there were a bunch of kids in here with us, sitting despondently on bunks or standing around with their hands in their pockets, looking like they were waiting for the hangman to come for them. All of them looked bruised and slightly smashed by the night’s adventure. I probably looked worse than any of them. Well, Troy and I—except Troy was gone. His grandmother had shown up ten minutes ago in her housecoat and babushka, all three-hundred-pounds of her, and had literally beat him with her right shoe out of the cell and down the hallway to the exit while Troy cried, “Gramma, Gramma, I’m sorry, Gramma!” I had a feeling Gramma would be finishing up with Troy at home, and that Troy would soon be sporting new bruises.

I figured my sentencing couldn’t be far behind. It had taken four squad cars’ worth of police to break up the fight at the monster party, which had acquired a certain surreal quality about it, complete with broken pool cues, broken furniture, a broken liquor cabinet that had drenched me in cheap scotch, and a stereo system that went kaput when I shouldered Troy into it. It had been a pretty colorful fight, and had garnered a nice audience for us. But the owners of the house, assuming they were still in the city, would not be happy campers when they saw how we’d redecorated their den

In a way, it
had
been fun, even though I felt like I’d been dragged behind a small truck. And I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the consequences.

“
I thought maybe this was like every Saturday night with Snowman,” I said, then instantly regretted it. Way to go, Kev. Jealous, much?

Aimi glanced around the station. Most of the cops from the night Qilin first attacked the city were on duty tonight. Most were staring at me like I was the Antichrist descended to earth. I really couldn’t blame them. Every time some drama broke out in this town, I seemed to be at the center of it. Hell, even
I
would have been suspicious of me, at this point. “Snowman and I have fun,” she said. She looked around at the station. “But not like this. The way everyone is staring, I think you’re some kind of celebrity.”

I poked at a loose tooth at the back of my mouth with my tongue. “So is he.” A part of me again wondered if I should blurt out my suspicions or keep them to myself.

She gave me the drollest look. “Snowman and I are best friends, Kevin, and nothing will ever change that. But believe me, you’re worried over nothing.” I must have looked unconvinced, because she added, “Snowman has his sights set on someone else, just so you know.”

I was about to try and puzzle that one out—how Snowman could notice
anyone
past Aimi—when I heard footsteps approaching and turned to see Dr. Mura standing in the station, dressed much the same way as last time. He glared at me as he clutched the collar of his coat closed. Suffice to say he didn’t exactly look like my number one fan. “You,” he said. The ice in his voice could have frozen a bonfire.

Aimi’s face turned hard. “Daddy…it wasn’t Kevin’s fault! He didn’t start it.”

I did finish it, though.

Dr. Mura kept his hairy eyeball on me as he approached the drunk tank.

“
Daddy…!”

“
That’s enough, Aimi. We’ll talk about it when we get home.”

A duty cop stepped forward to let Aimi out of the tank.

I felt a sudden spurt of anger somewhere inside. I think it was hero-itis…or maybe stupidity. “It wasn’t Aimi,” I hurriedly told Dr. Mura. “It was all me. Aimi had nothing to do with tonight, with any of this…”

“
Oh,” said Dr. Mura, “I know
that.
” He glared in at me, looking like he wanted to reach through the bars and pull me through by the hair. Under the circumstances, I probably had that coming. “I specifically told you to leave my daughter alone. Yet you disobey me. Just who do you think you are, young man?”

The voice of parental authority. The old Kevin would have shrunk down to roughly microscopic size. Me, on the other hand…

“
Well, I’m not one of your lackeys, that’s for sure,” I said. “Where do you
get
those guys?” I said, indicating the zombie standing next to him. “Do you farm them like vegetables or just manufacture them? Do they actually have eyes?” I took a step forward but a cop held out his hand to keep me from stepping outside the cell. “Oh, just dump the condescension and get out of my face, old man!” I shouted.

Way to go, Kev. Forget about having Dr. Mura as an in-law. Like, ever.

Dr. Mura looked taken aback by my baditude. First surprise, then anger crossed his face—the kind, I should add, that usually lands people in maximum security prisons for life for first-degree murder. I imagined he was contemplating whether he could choke the life out of me before a cop pulled him off of my gasping, slowly dying body. He narrowed his eyes to black slits. “Last warning,” he said evenly. “You’ll get no more from me. Next time I act.”

I took a step back, feeling like I was being shoved by the force of the anger in his voice alone. Act? Act as in what? What could he do to me? Shoot me?

Without another word, Dr. Mura started down the corridor, his hand guiding Aimi along as if she were an invalid. But before she left with her father, she whipped around and ran back to the cell and took the bars in her hands. She took a deep breath, the bodice of her dress rising and falling. “I’ll do what I can to clear you of all this,” she promised. “I’ll tell them it was Troy who started it.” Then her fact crumbled. “I’ll see you soon, Kevin.”

I sat down on a bunk. I looked into her eyes and recognized the dark truth there. She was lying. I licked my lips, tasting the blood from my broken lip. “There won’t be a ‘soon’,” I said, my voice pitched low so she wouldn’t hear the sound of it trying to crack. Like that first time behind the club, there was a lump in my throat, but for an entirely different reason. This time around, I knew it was over before it ever began. I was saying goodbye.

“
No,” she said, staring at her feet. “I guess there won’t.” Her voice was small and trembling, full of unshed tears. Finally, she looked up, her eyes shining. “You have to understand, Kevin, my dad…”

“
Fuck your dad.”

She trembled. “I wish…” She blinked against the tears welling up in her eyes. “I wish it were that easy.”

If wishes were horses, and all that. “I’m not good enough,” I said, the words just jumping right out of my mouth the way they had a tendency to do of late. I saw her flinch, and experienced a miserable moment of utter satisfaction. “That’s it, isn’t it? Not white enough, not yellow enough…not rich enough…”

“
It’s not that, Kevin.”

“
Then what is it?” I realized I was shouting and making the cops on duty nervous. I didn’t want to lose it, not like I always did, but trying to hold it in was like trying to stop a nuclear explosion by stuffing the bomb inside a hatbox. It just wasn’t going to happen.

“
You don’t understand.”

“
No,” I said, slumping back. “I guess not.”

“
Kevin…please…please don’t be angry.”

“
Not hearing you.” I looked around at all the other miscreants. I figured I’d better get used to it. I had a feeling I was going to be here a while. Who knows, it might even be a way of life, the way things were going. Anyway, I belonged here, not in Aimi’s ivory tower of a life. Who was I kidding?

“
I am so sorry, Kevin,” Aimi said, grasping the bars separating us. “Today meant so much to me. More than you’ll ever know.” But when I didn’t answer, she finally turned and left me to stare at the cinderblock walls.

I was so done with this romance shit.

5

My dad showed up around five in the morning to take me home. This was the second time he was picking me up at the police station, and he wasn’t thrilled, to say the least, but at least he didn’t say anything as I climbed gingerly into the van, a hand over my bruised ribs. I slid the door closed with an audible clunk. I didn’t feel like talking. I didn’t feel
anything
. I just wanted to get the hell away from the station as soon as possible.

My dad looked me over like he didn’t recognize me. “You okay?”

I guess I looked pretty busted up. The truth was, it hurt with every breath I took. It hurt to just think. And I wasn’t all right. I was as far from all right as anyone could be. I sat back in my seat. “Just drive, Dad,” I whispered.

“
That’s me,” he said, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. I saw his jaw clench, the way mine does when I’m ticked. “Dad the chauffeur.”

I touched my head where a headache was growing exponentially worse by the second, like bass drums inside the walls of my skull. It probably had something to do with the fact that it was there that Troy had landed his stick. I thought about telling him everything, but if he knew what I was mixed up in he’d go ballistic—if he believed me at all. He’d probably lock me in my room until I was thirty years old. “You want I drive?”

“
That’s not what I mean,” he said, low, voice grating.

Here it comes, I thought. I should have known to expect something. This time there would be no pass Go, no collect $200. I was good and well screwed with my dad. I decided to give it the final push. I don’t know why. Maybe because I hated myself that much. “What
do
you mean? I mean…what do you want from me?”

Dad shook his head as he pulled into the street and downshifted violently, grinding the gears. “I don’t know. Maybe for you to stop acting like an ass and running after girls, sneaking out and partying and boozing it up. That would be a good start,” he said, nodding to himself.

“
I’m not acting like an ass.” Real lame. I fiddled with my glasses. “Shit.”

“
You know, you don’t have to play act the tough-guy image
all
the time,” he said, glancing over at me with a sour look on his face. “I get a call you’re at the station…again. You scare the living hell out of me. You get into a fight with some punk. You smell like
alcohol
…” Again he shook his head. “This isn’t you. I feel like I hardly
know
you anymore, Kevin.”

That lump again in my throat. My heart felt like a stone, like it didn’t belong in my chest. I could think of a thousand retorts. All of them would get me in deeper with my dad. Some of them would even make him afraid of me. I was tempted. I was feeling self-destructive again. But I kept my big fat mouth closed. Just let it be, I thought. Let him get it out and over with.

“
What is going on with you lately? It’s like you’re somebody else. Somebody I don’t know.”

I tried to ignore his words.

“
Is it that girl?” he asked. “If it’s some girl getting to you…”

“
It’s not a girl, Dad.”

“
Then
what
? What the hell’s the matter with you? You were a good kid, once. A
genius
…”

A genius who was a wimp, a loser.

“
I know things are rough right now. I know how you feel, but I’m doing the best I can…”

I let out my breath in a puff. Enough. “You have
no
idea how I feel, okay?” I shouted at him, surprising myself. My voice sounded coarse, like I had whatever Snowman had. “You have
no
idea what I’m going through right now, so don’t talk to me like I’m a retard or a crazy, all right?
Fuck.
”

He looked at me, blatantly shocked by my words. He opened his mouth, then closed it as he turned his attention back on the road. We inched down the crowded avenue. The air inside the van became stifling, electric. “I wish your mom was here,” he said at last. “She was always better with this stuff than I was. She, at least, could talk some sense into you…”

“
Mom’s gone,” I spat. “She’s dead. Get over it already!”

He hit me backhand style, knocking the glasses off my face.

It wasn’t a hard hit—I barely felt it at all, I was so numb from everything else that hurt. But my dad had never hit me before, not when I was little, not while I was growing up, and no matter how big of an asshole I was being. It stunned me and put me in a surreal place. I was actually surprised to feel the nasally onslaught of tears in my eyes and nose.