In the Beginning There Was Dark
By Barbara Mooney


13. Jeez!  What IS that smell?!

        "My head..."
        Officer Felina Feral sat up, her paws on her temples.  A large purple
lump throbbed on her forehead.  Over it was held a package of ice, which was
beginning to melt and to leak down into the angered officer's face.  Her uncle
wiped the water trickles away with a cloth.
        "She's awake?"
        Commander Feral gestured for Officer Whiskers to enter.  He ran into
the sick room, looking a little too relieved for Felina's tastes.  What had
happened, she wanted to know.
        "Somebody jumped you in the file vault," Jason said, placing a paw on
her shoulder.
        Feral scowled.
        "Don't tell her!  We need her to remember on her own."
        Felina nodded, remembering standard Enforcer procedure.  She tried to
open her eyes, which were somewhat stuck shut, but the bright whiteness of the
sick room forced her to shut them once again.  Jason realized the problem and
dashed over to switch off the lights.  This helped, and as Felina sank back
down onto the bed, she looked around, draping one arm languidly over the side.
Suddenly she raised an eyebrow in alarm.
        "What stinks in here?" she demanded.
        Jason and Feral sniffed the air.
        "Smells like rubbing alcohol to me," said Jason.
        "I don't smell a thing, other than antiseptics," said Feral.
        "It smells like... that basement," Felina clarified.
        Jason leaned over her.
        "You're right, there is something... on you."
        "Watch your mouth!"
        Feral leaned over.
        "He's right."
        "Then the mole must have been the attacker!  Think, Felina, what did
he look like?" Jason pressed.
        "What did *who* look like?"
        "The guy who jumped you."
        "Stop telling her!  Felina, what's the last thing you remember?"
        Felina attempted to concentrate, narrowing her eyes as she tried to
narrow the field of her thoughts.
        "I was putting some files away... and then I noticed that it was dark,
and so I looked up, and there was someone there.  Big... dark... up on the
crossbeams.  Then he jumped on me.  I'm surprised he didn't kill me."
        "Thank you, Felina," said Feral, "you've been a big help."
        "So what now - and you'd better say I get to catch him!"
        "You need your rest."
        Felina sat up at attention.
        "I'm done.  Reporting for duty."
        Feral was about to say something else when a medic pushed open the
door with an urgent look on his pinched face.
        "Commander Feral?  The mayor is here for the meeting you requested."
        "We'll be right up," Felina told him, taking the ice pack off of the
injury.  It was deep purple and green in places, all in all rather
unattractive - one might even say disgusting.
        Jason winced and Felina gave him a dirty look.  The three followed the
pained-looking medic out of the room and into the medical center lobby, where
Callie Briggs was waiting.
        "Commander," she said, offering him a nod of acknowledgment.
        "Madam."
        She scowled.
        "And - Officer Whiskers, I see you are moving up in the world."
        Jason smiled, recognizing her.  She looked especially nice in the blue
dress, he thought.
        "But Officer Feral - what happened?"
        "I had an accident in the field.  Hit my head, but it's not too bad.
I've had concussions before that were much worse than this."
        Callie saw the obvious; Commander Feral undoubtedly was of a different
opinion.  At least he was keeping his eyes to himself this time.  Yet he
seemed even colder than usual today.  She hoped that his mood had nothing to
do with her.  IF she won the nomination, they would at least need to be on
speaking terms.
        Feral cleared his throat - his one "nervous habit."
        "Miss Briggs - I was expecting the mayor himself at this debriefing."
        Callie raised an eyebrow.
        "And he was expecting you to be in your office."
        She turned, and gestured for the three to follow her.
        "The mayor is with Mr. Cole," she said, over her shoulder and loudly,
although in a tone that suggested a lack of caring whether she was heard or
not, with an undercurrent that denied requests for repetition in advance.
        "*David* Cole?" asked Felina.
        "The one and only," said Callie.  "His *lordship*, Mr. David Cole."
        "Something tells me you don't much care for the guy," said Jason.
        Callie laughed lightly.  "One way of putting it.  But that is who the
mayor is with at the moment.  Before I left, I saw Cole solicit a tour from
one of your sergeants, a Selena Alvarez.  The last stop on that tour is to be
the helicopter deck.  I suggest that we wait there."
        'Sergeant Alvarez?' thought Feral.  'Why do I keep thinking I've heard
that name somewhere before...'
        His eyes were on Calico Briggs's tail as she swept open the med center
doors, sidestepping past a speeding stretcher, and strode into the Enforcer HQ
lobby, which was a sight less chaotic than before.
        And yet her presence there would ensure the next day's chaos.

                                *       *       *

        He had little experience as a shadow, and for that reason was only now
discovering his skill at it.  His directive had become clear, and its urgency
along with it.  Thus the sudden appearance of Mayor Manx himself had been a
cause of much pleasure, and the discovery that he was not, in fact, alone, but
rather accompanied by what appeared to be an assistant - a *deputy* - was then
a cause for all but celebration.
        Such were the emotions of Derek's captor, suppressing those of Derek
himself most effectively.  His looming figure swept through the darkness in
the lofts above the main concourse, following the mayor and his new aide with
an unsurpassed bird's eye view.  The mayor's hair looked a little thin from
this angle.  Perhaps he might be considering a toupee one of these days?
        Having first established identification of his target, Derek moved on
to the next step - ascertainment of an identity.  Who was this kat?  The
answer might prove difficult to get as a crowd rushed in behind the two, and
for a brief moment they all but disappeared.  It was now or never.  Derek
climbed onto the loft railing and leapt outward and upward, grabbing the edge
of an overhead catwalk.  He swung his legs over the side, then pulled himself
upward and onto it.  Spider-like, he crept along, watching, until the crowd
parted and the mayor reappeared, this time in the company of an Enforcer
she-kat.
        It was just as well, as he really couldn't kill anyone here.
        So from above, he followed them.  Where the catwalk ended, he leapt
from the end out and onto a suspended lamp.  Fortunately it was on an
agracite rod and not on a chain.  He leapt from lamp to lamp.  The trio was
approaching an elevator.
        Derek looked down.  The light on the elevator read "7" - he had little
time.  The last light looked to be at least ten feet away - could he make it?
The light read "5" - he crouched and sprang!  Missing his mark by feet, he
fell to the ground, or rather, to the thicket of waxy-leaved plants placed as
decoration.  Fortunately, he always landed on his feet, and as the elevator
doors had just opened, none of his charges had been looking.
        He weighed his options, and just as the doors were about to whisk
themselves shut, he climbed in with the mayor et. al..
        Cole hardly noticed him, not one to focus on beings of a lower order.
Yet Sergeant Alvarez recognized the creepy officer from their earlier
encounter.  She eyed him warily, yet he fixed his gaze straight ahead.  The
elevator rose to the fortieth floor.
        "I thought we ought to skip the boring floors.  A helicopter ride
sound interesting?" she asked, though her eyes remained trained on the
dangerous looking tomkat.
        "Yass, yass," said the mayor.
        Cole stood silent, thinking of Callie.  He took a deep breath - and
gagged.
        "WHAT is that SMELL?" he demanded.
        The mayor and Sgt. Alvarez sniffed the air.  The foul perfume of
Derek's uniform was more dilute than earlier, and in fact difficult to detect
but for Cole's refined nostrils.  Derek stood stiffer.
        "Exc-yause may..." offered the mayor.
        Derek smiled.
        Lady luck liked him today.
        Yet this kat... he still had to know.  He decided then and there to
follow him.  If anything, THIS one *deserved* to die.
        The elevator chimed for the fortieth floor and all four kats walked
out toward the helicopter pad.  The three together walked off in the direction
of Alvarez's chopper.  Derek pretended to walk the other way, but in truth
wove in and out through the rows of parked helicopters, following them.  When
Alvarez's chopper took off, Whitepaws turned - only to bump into Scotty
Angora, on repair duty (his favorite).
        "Derek!" Scotty cheered.  "Great to see ya!"
        He threw a well-muscled arm around the black kat's shoulders.
        "Ah, Scotty," said Derek.  "Likewise."
        Scotty sniffed the air.
        "You need a shower," he said.  "And I thought Jason had the messy job
today, down at that disgusting crime scene."
        "I'm sorry, I had no idea what he was doing," said Derek
apologetically, his interest piqued.
        "You didn't know?  It's all over Kats' Eye - Jason and his partner,
the commander's niece, are on the mass murder case."
        Derek's eyes went wide, but he said nothing.  It was fortunate for him
to have run into Scotty - it provided an excuse for him to linger on the pad,
that he might intercept and follow the wealthy tom per his arrival.
        "And on his first day, too.  Y'know, I'm beginning to smell something
fishy around here.  D'you follow?"
        Derek didn't so he asked for clarification.
        "Something like, well, I don't know if there's a word for it -
something like favoritism, and it's rather creepy."
        Derek just nodded.  He neither understood nor cared.
        "Tell me, Scotty - were you just let off shift, or just beginning
another?" he asked, voice smooth, even.
        Scotty beamed.
        "I was about to ask th' same of you.  Truth be told, I was in search
of somekat to give me a hand wi' my repair job.  If you're not too busy..."
        "Say no more," said Derek, smiling, and making a silencing gesture.
"How may I be of service?"
        "Ye can start by passing me my tools as I work.  This way..."
        An insidious grin crossed the face of the shorter titan as they
crossed the pad to a spot that was a perfect vantage point to the would-be
landing site of the mayor... and the unfortunate Mr. Cole.

                                *       *       *

        Alvarez again tugged at her hair nervously as she flew the helicopter
over the city, on an "around the block" run that she knew by heart.  There was
a feeling that had climbed its way out of her gut and was now tugging at the
back of her mind.  It was something like a suspicion, a connection half-made.
She knew she would have to tell someone.  The mayor looked around happily,
while David Cole merely leaned back and yawned.
        "Bored already?" she asked him.
        He looked over to her.  In the odd light through the semi-tinted
windshield she struck him as almost pretty.  He smiled, using the well-
rehearsed "lady-killer grin" he loved so well.  She smiled back.
        "Actually, I would have preferred a tour of the athletic facilities,"
he told her.
        "I can arrange that for you," she said.  "But in all honesty, tours of
the actual building require authorization and must be scheduled.  Aerial tours
are a different matter.  Still, if you'd like, I can get you in tomorrow."
        Cole looked out the window and rolled his eyes.  If only he could have
such an effect on Callie - but she was too coy.  He turned back to the
sergeant.
        "Can you make it next Tuesday?  I'm afraid -" here he looked at his
watch "- that I'm on a rather tight schedule these days."
        Alvarez shrugged.
        "No problem."
        The mayor suddenly looked over to her.
        "Sergeant?" he asked.  "Can we gau by Cit-tay Hall?"
        "Sure," she said, altering the course.  "But why?"
        The mayor looked embarrassed.  "I jaust want to see my of-fass fram
the outside."
        Alvarez laughed lightly, problems forgotten temporarily as the spirit
of general mirth filled the chopper.  But given time, the thoughts returned.
        Who was there to tell?