Chasing Shadows by Jez Morrow

Author:Jez Morrow [Morrow, Jez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay, Romance, Erotica, Fiction, Paranormal
ISBN: 9781610403061
Google: _b32ugAACAAJ
Amazon: 1610403061
Barnesnoble: 1610403061
Goodreads: 13616374
Publisher: Torquere Press
Published: 2012-04-25T07:00:00+00:00

* * *

John got up early, thinking he'd need to take the bus this morning, but when he stepped out the front door of his apartment building he found his Chevy in its normal spot on the street. There was a red rose on the driver's seat.

Son of a bitch. John almost smiled.

John felt awkward seeing Bast in the office. He didn't say hello, because he usually didn't. But Bast brought him coffee. That raised brows, at least one pair.

Georgia asked John, "Are you two an item?"

"I -- " How to answer? Step up to the plate, John. He wasn't going to kick Bast into the closet. And he may as well try shoving a cat into the bathtub. But he couldn't Chasing Shadows

88

exactly say This is my beloved, either. "Yeah.

Something's happening here."

"What it is ain't exactly clear?" Georgia guessed.

"Exactly," John said.

To everyone else, John acted the same as he always did. He refused to let himself be changed in any way by the ugly assault -- outwardly, at least. His inward self would need to catch up with that program. He smiled, traded barbs with Marv, said hello to Antwan, talked sports with Thea, and traded good morning grunts with the commander. On the best of days John never wanted to put up with Chuck Wallice. John braced himself for whatever spewed out of that asshole, but Chuck scuttled into his own office and stayed there.

At lunchtime John and Bast went out for hotdogs from a cart -- anything not to sit down.

John's ordeal didn't come up. John didn't want to talk about it, and Bast left it alone, but John sensed something smoldering and dangerous locked away in irons inside Bast.

John laid out ketchup on his hotdog. "So what are you? World cop? Avenging angel? I mean, why do you do it?"

"I need to. The shadows are my prey. I must seek and destroy them. I got no choice."

"Who made up that game?"

Bast lifted his shoulders and his eyebrows, mystified.

"Who is the master of this show? Same one you have."

That was apparently God.

"You're Cajun," John said. "Means you're Catholic."

"Very bad Catholic. You don't get to be a loup-garou by being a good Catholic."

"You're bad for God now."

"I don't know. He don't talk to me any more than He talk to you." Bast was sounding very Cajun today.

They had picked up a small entourage of glossy-headed sky rats, who tottered hopefully after them with throaty coos.

John took a draw on his cola. "What exactly did you do to become whatever it is you are?"

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Bast turned his face up toward the blue sky criss-crossed with white contrails. John couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but his smooth brow was pinched and he suddenly struck John as terribly isolated. A different breed of real lonely.

"I was bit."

"When was that?"

"A long time ago."

"You don't have a long time ago," John said. "You're only twenty-eight."

"I'm not twenty-eight."

"So when?"

"Jefferson Davis was President."

John bobbled his hotdog. "Of the Confederacy."

Bast nodded. "Maw Maw always told me, 'You be good or da loup-garou gonna gitchew.

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