The Moreau Quartet, Volume 2

  Angel led him upstairs to her flat, having forgotten totally about her roommate. And, having forgotten about Lei, of course Lei was there in the living room waiting for them.

  Angel had barely opened the door before Lei bounced off the couch and said, “Early night. How are you—What the hell happened? Are you all right?”

  Angel opened her mouth to say something.

  “And who’s this?” Lei finished without taking a breath.

  Lei was a Vietnamese canine, but Angel had suspicions that she was really an odd-looking ferret with hyped reflexes. Lei was already shaking Byron’s hand before Angel had managed to get a word out.

  “Lei,” Angel finally managed, stepping out of the way so Byron could enter the second-story apartment. “Byron. Byron, Lei.” Angel felt a little overwhelmed, being squeezed between a pair of two-meter-tall moreaus.

  “Pleased, I’m sure,” Byron said with a slightly amused smile plastered on his face.

  “Sorry I’m back early,” Angel said, “but things came up.”

  “Really no problem,” Lei said, then whipped her head back to face Byron. “I can imagine.” Angel felt Lei’s tail swat her on the ass.

  “Lei—” Angel began.

  “How did the game go?” Lei asked as she stopped pumping Byron’s hand.

  Angel stood there, for a second not getting Lei’s question.

  “Angel, the game.”

  “I, uh—” For some reason Angel glanced at Byron. “Don’t know.”

  “After all your—” Lei glanced at Byron herself. “Oh, yeah, things came up, didn’t they?”

  “Well, yes, you see—”

  “Oh, my, look at that time.” Lei didn’t look anywhere near a clock. She reached past Angel to grab a purse hanging off the back of a chair. “It was nice meeting you, Byron.” She pumped his hand again. “But I have to go. Things to see, people to do.”

  Lei turned and gave Angel a very broad wink before she slipped past Byron and out the door.

  “Lei?” Angel sighed as she heard the door downstairs swing closed. “I hate that.”

  “Interesting person.”

  Angel closed the door as Byron walked in. She looked over the living room. Great, Lei’d been cleaning again. Byron was going to think she was some anal neat freak. “Make yourself at home.” Were clichés the only thing she could come up with? “I’m going to change into something more—” Don’t say comfortable! “—clean.”

  “Please, take your time.”

  Angel walked into her bedroom and ripped off the blood-spattered shirt and looked at herself in the mirror. “You’re still a little drunk,” she whispered at her reflection as she manhandled her jeans off over her feet. “Got to be it.”

  She looked around for something to wear. Compared to the spotless living room, her room was a blast crater. Angel started by trying to find something that smelled clean, and ended up shoving a double armful of clothes into the closet.

  She had to make an effort to avoid further cleaning. “Calm down, Angel,” she whispered.

  She looked at her reflection. She could just forgo the clothes. Clothing was a human quirk anyway. It was her place, right?

  She grabbed a robe from the closet, a metallic-green thing that she’d bought in Chinatown. She almost walked out without ripping off the price tag. She tossed the tag under the bed.

  “I really need a drink.”

  Angel walked past the living room and rummaged in the fridge. Coke, Budweiser, a lonely bulb of Ki-Rin, a bottle of white wine . . .

  She grabbed the wine.

  Angel walked out into the living room and Byron was leaning back on the couch, jacket and tie off, watching the comm. Angel walked up next to him and handed him a glass.

  “The local game’s blacked out, but I found the Denver game.”

  Angel looked up in time to see the Denver Mavericks’ quarterback get destroyed in a sack that involved a fox, two tigers, and a canine. “Yes!” Angel said at the sight almost spilling her wine. “You a fan?”

  “Was there any other reason to be in that bar?” There was something odd in the way Byron said that. “The service is bloody rotten and I can’t say much for the clientele. With one exception, of course.” He toasted her with his glass. God, she loved that accent.

  Angel killed the light and sat down next to Byron.

  Byron continued, “Of course, I started watching real football—” The Mavericks were second and five, and Al Shaheid, the canine quarterback, sent an incomplete pass off into nowhere. Byron winced. “Didn’t he see that? Rajhadien was wide open.”

  “What do you mean real football?” Third down and Shaheid was backpedaling with the ball. “Sack the bastard!”

  “Soccer.” Somehow, Shaheid slipped through a gap in the defense and ran for ten and a first down. “Yes!” Byron said with as much enthusiasm as Angel had shown in response to the sack. “But, as far as I know, the States is the only place they let moreaus play anything professionally.”

  “What’s your team?” Angel asked, sliding into a comfortable nook under Byron’s left arm.

  “Denver—”

  “You bastard! I’m tempted to throw you out right now.” Byron’s tail moved around behind her, and Angel reached down and idly began to stroke it.

  Angel felt Byron’s sharp nose nuzzle her ear. “I suppose you’re Cleveland?” he whispered.

  “Are you kidding? The worst team in the league?”

  “How about the Warriors?” Byron asked as the Mavericks’ opponents got a flag on the play. Someone had used their claws again. Trust the Bronx Warriors to do that at least once a game.

  “I don’t believe you.” Angel slipped a hand into Byron’s shirt, stroking the fur on his abdomen. “You’re in the town with the best team in the league.”

  “Last year maybe.”

  Angel set down her drink and started undoing the buttons on his shirt. “Last year, this year, next year, every year—”

  “That’s why I’m not an Earthquakes fan.” Byron set down his own drink. “They’re all so full of themse—” One of the Mavericks’ receivers had broken out and was running down the sidelines. “Go, go, go.” Byron began quietly chanting, as Angel undid his pants.

  Angel glanced back at the comm and saw the touchdown. They put up the score and it was Mavericks, 25 to zip. There were a dozen seconds left on the clock for the first half. The Warriors might as well just pack up and go home. Not that anyone in his right mind would want to go to the Bronx right now. At least not until there was a cease-fire.

  Byron reached over and hit the mute button on the remote.

  “You were really upset when the game got preempted,” Byron said as his hands slipped the tie from her robe.

  “I was looking forward to a decent massacre.” Angel nipped at one of Byron’s triangular ears.

  “The president was talking about a massacre.” Byron rolled over and stretched on the couch under Angel.

  Angel sighed and lowered her face until their noses touched. “Political games. At least with football, there isn’t the pretense that it means anything.”

  “That’s rather cold.”

  “So I’m a cynic.” Angel slid back on to Byron’s hips and nuzzled his chest.

  “A few years ago I would’ve argued with you.”

  Angel rested her chin on Byron’s chest. Somehow their clothes had ended up as a nest underneath them. The silent comm was the only light in the room.

  Byron placed his hand on the back of her head, and began stroking the length of her back. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “You were just telling me how cold I was.” Angel found one of his nipples under his chest fur and teethed it.

  Byron smiled his incredible smile, and Angel felt his tail wrap around her midsection. “I was mistaken. You’re actually very
warm.”

  Angel reached between his legs and said, “So’re you.”

  Lei didn’t come back until the following morning, and for that, Angel was very grateful.

  Chapter 3

  The first Wednesday in November, she ran into Balthazar on her way home. The ancient forty-year-old lion was her downstairs neighbor, and she didn’t see him come out very often. But when she made it to the stairs, she heard a whispery growling voice from behind her, “Missy?”

  She turned around and saw the old lion, sitting in a wheelchair behind the half-open door to his apartment.

  “Yes?” She felt a little uncomfortable as she approached him. She had never really talked to Balthazar before. Her only contact with him had been the sound of his comm drifting through the door.

  “Come closer, hearing’s shot.” He waved her over with a hand that arthritis had twisted into a nearly useless paw. It was an uncomfortable reminder of her own mortality—and how the more the pink gene-techs fiddled with something, the more age would ravage it.

  Angel walked up to the door.

  Balthazar had been a huge morey. Had he been able to stand, he would have been close to twice her height. His eyes were clouded, his teeth were chipped, but the mane was still regal. Even in decline, the leonine moreau had the bearing of royalty.

  Which was why Angel nearly burst out laughing when she saw that the blanket that covered his legs was covered with cartoon characters. She kept a straight face and asked, “Can I help you?” She was still in waitress mode.

  She stood in front of the lion, looking up at him even though she was standing and he was seated. He coughed a few times, and asked in a hoarse whisper, “Angel?”

  She nodded, trying to avoid staring at the old blanket. Gray rabbits, black ducks, other things too faded for her to make out. The blanket looked almost as old as Balthazar himself.

  “You’re with that fox who’s been in and out for the last week.”

  “Yes, yes.” And she was getting impatient because that fox was probably waiting for her upstairs.

  She could see his comm in the living room beyond him. It was playing some sort of animation, a black duck going on about how something was “despicable.”

  “He left you something.”

  “What?” Angel found her attention drawn back to the old lion.

  “Here.” With some difficulty, he pulled out a plain-wrapped package the size of a wallet. There were no markings on it at all. He passed it to her.

  Angel hefted the package, feeling a little confused. “Byron left this with you? Why didn’t he just give it to me him—”

  “Said he had to leave.” The lion erupted into another fit of coughing, shaking his head, and rippling his mane.

  Angel held the package and was enveloped by a very bad feeling. “Thank you for holding this for me.”

  “Cost me nothing.”

  Angel nodded and headed toward the stairs.

  “Missy?”

  She turned back toward the lion.

  “None of my business, but I don’t trust him, too smooth.”

  “You’re right. It’s none of your business.”

  Balthazar grunted and began to wheel his chair back into the apartment. Before the door shut completely, Angel thought she could make out a chanting refrain from his comm, “Rabbit season, duck season, rabbit season, duck season . . .”

  She had no idea what it meant, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

  • • •

  The package was still sitting on the coffee table in front of the comm, unopened, when Lei came home. Lei asked about it, and Angel had the bad sense to tell her.

  “Why haven’t you looked in it?” Lei asked her, picking up the small plain-wrapped bundle.

  “I don’t—” Angel retreated into the kitchen. She didn’t want to look at the thing. She’d yet to get to the point where she had a lock on what she was afraid of. Instead of thinking about it, she started to fix herself dinner.

  Lei didn’t leave it alone. When a few minutes passed without an answer from Angel, she followed her into the kitchen.

  “Open it,” Lei said, brandishing the package. Her brown-furred canine face was twisted somewhere between a growl and an amused smirk.

  “Let it rest,” Angel said as she tried to get past her and put her bulb of soup in the micro. A thin brown-haired arm blocked her. Playing defense, Lei had the advantage of a much longer reach and about 80 centimeters of height—if you didn’t count Angel’s ears.

  Lei slipped in after the arm. “I won’t until you open it up and read the thing.”

  Angel tried to break through one last time and only got a nose full of canine-smelling fur.

  Angel tossed the bulb on the kitchen floor in disgust. It bounced once. She had wanted it to burst open. She stormed out of the kitchen and threw herself down on the couch. “Mind your own business.”

  Lei followed her out to the living room and tossed Byron’s package on the table. “I don’t understand you. What’s your problem? What did Byron do?”

  Angel shook her head. “Nothing, I just know . . .”

  Lei paced in front of the couch, tail swatting the air. “Know what? He’s handsome. He’s charming. He has money.” Lei paused and made a sweeping gesture. “He likes you better than he likes me, God knows why. He’s—”

  “Too good to be true.”

  “What?” Lei stopped pacing and turn to face her.

  Angel looked at the small bundle on the coffee table. “Someone had to wake up.”

  “Bullshit!”

  Angel shrugged. “Par for the course.”

  Lei sat down and hugged Angel’s shoulders. “Don’t you see how silly you’re acting?”

  “It’s not silly.”

  “How long have you two been going out?”

  Angel reviewed the dates in her mind to get the passage of time straight—the football game, the Hyatt Memorial, Golden Gate Park, Chinatown . . .

  “Thirteen days.” Only thirteen? Yes, today was November fifth, only nine.

  “And this is the second night you haven’t spent together?”

  “First. Wednesday we never made it back here.”

  “So I managed to get one good night’s sleep out of those last thirteen days—”

  “We’re not that loud.”

  “You’re stressing ’cause you aren’t going out tonight?”

  “Well—”

  Lei shook her head and chuckled. She rubbed her knuckles in the space between Angel’s ears. “What’re you going to do, graft yourself to him? Maybe he just had the urge to go to the john a few times and hold it himself.”

  Angel sighed. Lei was right. She knew Lei was right. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. “So I’m not rational.”

  “He didn’t do anything to bring this on? Did he?”

  “No.”

  “He didn’t break any plans you had tonight, right?”

  “We haven’t planned anything in advance yet. Just seems to happen.”

  “So what’s eating you?”

  Angel reached for the package. No, he never said one damn thing that could explain the awful feeling she had in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know.”

  Maybe it was what Byron didn’t say. “He’s keeping stuff from me.”

  “Ah,” Lei shifted around so she was sitting on the coffee table and propped her muzzle in her hands. “He’s married.”

  “No!” Angel leaned forward and tried to stare Lei down, but her roommate’s expression told her that she wasn’t serious. Still, the suggestion made her nervous.

  Maybe the problem was that she was so caught up in someone she knew so little about. She’d been so sure she’d dived into this of her own accord. Why did she feel that she had lost control somewhere?
br />   “What, then?” Lei was asking. “Tell me.”

  Angel sighed. “Everything. Nothing. What does he do for a living?”

  “He hasn’t told you? Have you asked him?”

  Only the once, Angel thought to herself and cursed. If only he didn’t make her so self-conscious. As if she constantly had to cover for the fact that she was raised on the streets, a well-used rabbit who’d been homeless for half her life.

  Angel flopped back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. “Moonlit strolls, romantic dinners, dancing—with my feet, dancing—watching the sun set in the Pacific and watching it rise over the bay, talking, talking, talking . . .” And nothing ever got said, she thought. Nothing but the right things to say.

  Lei tapped her on the shoulder and Angel lowered her head to face her. “Well, open the damn thing.”

  “I’m afraid to.” Too soon into this and Angel had an uncomfortable emotional attachment that seemed too fragile.

  Too much, too soon.

  “Don’t be a wuss.”

  Angel glared at Lei and ripped the wrapping off the package.

  At least a dozen ramcards fell out, all emblazoned with a holographic blue and white thunderbolt—the San Francisco Earthquakes logo.

  “Holy shit.” It was all Angel could manage to say. She stared at the tickets, feeling real silly.

  “Your expression is priceless.”

  “Box seat season tickets, the fifty yard line, where the hell did he get—?”

  “I wish I had a camera.”

  Angel picked up a note that’d fluttered out of the package. In Byron’s flowing script it said, “By now, my little angel, you’ve peeled yourself off the ceiling. There are two sets of tickets, and while I am NOT an Earthquakes fan—no matter how much you threaten me—you better take me to the Denver game.

  “I want to be with you right now, because there is a very important question I have to ask you. However, I have to deal with some leftover responsibilities first, then I can think about the future.

  “Love, your Byron.”

  Angel let the paper slide through her fingers.

  “What?”

  “‘Important question—’” Angel said, suddenly unsure of how she felt. “Am I misreading that?”