Page 1 of Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters
Chapter One
Strange how half the briefing room chairs were empty and still there was no place to sit. Kyle surveyed his choices, trying to pick the least of several evils, mindful that he was ten minutes early with greater evils yet to come.
He decided on a chair far to the left, in the row behind Loveless and in front of Zacchini. That way he might have odd cravings or sudden flashes of disconnected images for the next two hours, but he could handle it. Neither of these would harm anyone around him. The precinct didn’t have enough officers to fill the room, so no one wouldneedto sit near him.
Someone always seemed to forget.
Krisk shambled in, blinked slowly at Kyle with his slit-pupiled golden eyes, and wandered to the other side of the room. No one could explain to him how Krisk had made it through the police academy, or why he had wanted to. The lizard man seemed to understand human speech, though he never spoke, and the legality of his arrests had to be questionable.
Gatling, Lourdes and Wolf all wandered in with early-morning bleary eyes but were aware enough to avoid Kyle’s side of the room. Only Lourdes should have been worried, but it was becoming habit for his department colleagues to give him a wide berth.
The steady, militarytick-tick-tickof Lieutenant Dunfee’s heels reached them from the hallway and everyone scrambled to settle, eyes front and at least pretending attention. She patted Kyle’s shoulder absently as she stalked by, perhaps reminding him that she, at least, had no need to fear his abilities.
The lieutenant tapped her papers straight on the lectern at the front of the room, her hard gaze pinning her officers one by one. “Good morning, ladies and gentle—”
Running footsteps interrupted her as Officer Virago skidded to a halt in the hallway then changed course to rush into the briefing room.
“Damn it, Vance, if you can’t get here on time, don’t make such a production out of gracing us with your presence,” Lieutenant Dunfee snapped.
Virago shot her an unrepentant grin and plopped down two chairs over from Kyle. Normally, Kyle would have moved or warned him off, but the lieutenant was speaking again. Interrupting her a second time, now that she’d started roll call, didn’t feel like the best idea.I can hold this together. Just a few minutes. Nothing has to happen.
“Loveless?”
In front of Kyle, Carrington Loveless III raised his marshmallow-white hand languidly. “Here.”
See? Nothing’s happening. It’s fine.
“Monroe?”
Kyle raised his hand in acknowledgment and a gout of flame rocketed from his fingers to slam into the ceiling. He yanked his hand down, tucked both hands under his thighs and cringed amid a rain of burned ceiling tile shreddings and mortification.
“Here,” he choked out.
“Vance! Move!” the lieutenant bellowed. “Damn it, you know better!”
Virago scrambled out of his seat and claimed a spot standing along the opposite wall. “It’s raining out, ma’am! How’m I supposed to know Kirby can suck up my shit when I can’t even get a spark?”
“Watch the language, and what did I tell you about that nickname?”
Virago ducked his head with a muttered apology, but more than one person in Kyle’s hearing grumbled that the nickname fit too well.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Not something you can control, Monroe. But these other chuckleheads can be a little more cognizant of where they are in relation to you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
With an exasperated shake of her head, she finished roll call, confirmed assignments, then waved someone unfamiliar up from the front row. “Boys and girls, this is our newest officer, Vikash Soren.”
Kyle sat up straighter, shifting to see between the heads in front of him. Soren looked like a poster boy for the model police officer, tall and straight, uniform crisp and sharp. He stood at parade rest beside the lieutenant, impassively surveying his new colleagues. A little knot of resentment lodged in Kyle’s stomach. At his own introduction to the 77th, he’d been nervous and fidgety, freaked out by the collection of…freaks.How can he be so calm?
“Officer Soren transferred from the Harrisburg PD—”
“Don’t they have enough freaky shit of their own up there?” Wolf called out in his rasping growl.
“Since Harrisburg is in our jurisdiction,” she continued with a quelling glance, “he’ll start out partnered with Monroe.”
“What does he do, ma’am? That it’s safe to put him with Kirby, er, Kyle?” Shira Lourdes asked as she flicked nervous glances across the room at Kyle. An empty chair slid away from her and fell over. Her partner, Greg Santos, shook his head and righted the unfortunate piece of furniture.
