Page 19 (1/2)

Chapter 19

VECTOR

I woke up in a foul mood, ready to kick some ass I started with Chip in Records

"Hey, Kid"

"Okay, first thing: Don&039;t callbrown eyes looked hurt "What&039;s with you? Didn&039;t get enough sleep last night?"

"No, I didn&039;t So half a mile away kept me awake"

He blinked "You did what now?"

I sighed as I sat down in his visitor&039;s chair I&039;d been practicing that dra atMiddle Dutch "Okay, Chip Listen carefully I found Morgan Ryder, uys have been looking for since the day before yesterday In the phone book!"

"Huh Well, don&039;t look atat you" It was true I was looking at hiuys do have phone books down here, don&039;t you?"

"Sure, but - "

"But you&039;ve beenwith me, haven&039;t you?"

He raised his hands "No one&039;shis voice a bit "At least, no one in Records is I can tell you that"

I stopped, mouth already loaded with ears "What do you mean, no one in Records?"

He looked over his shoulder "No one in Records isfan squeaked overhead

"Who?" I whispered

Chip took a breath and gestured ot lifted from us"

"Define lifted"

"Transferred to a higher level High priority, like you said After you found out her last name, certain individuals told us to track down the other three an Ryder alone They wanted to handle her special"

A little shudder went through , which said everything

"Ued unconvincingly "Well" He chewed his lower lip "Actually, it doesn&039;t happen that much Especially not this way"

"Which way?"

He leaned even closer, his whisper barely audible above the squeaking of the ceiling fan "With no one telling you about it, Cal You see, ere supposed to be copied on any info that the Mayor&039;s office found and then pass it along to you But you weren&039;t supposed to know that we&039;d been pulled off the case And I&039; you this now, in case you haven&039;t figured that out yet"

"Oh" I leaned back heavily in Chip&039;s spare chair,at Chip was one thing, but busting in to raise hell with the Night Mayor was so I couldn&039;t visualize Four-hundred-year-old vampires have that effect on ht Mayor? He was the head guy, the big cheese Who would he even be conspiring against?

All of us? The whole Night Watch?

Huain "U as how you weren&039;t supposed to tell me this, maybe we should pretend that you didn&039;t?"

Chip didn&039;t say a word, just pointed to the biggest of the er than the We Do Not Have Pens sign - and I knew absolutely that our secret was safe

In large block letters were the words When in Doubt, Cover Your Ass

Next, I went to see Dr Rat

If I could trust anyone at the Watch, it would be her Unlike the Shrink and the Mayor, she wasn&039;t a carrier She hadn&039;t been alive for centuries and didn&039;t give a rat&039;s ass about the old families She was a scientist - her only loyalty was to the truth

Still, I decided to proceed a little more cautiously than I had with Chip

" &039;Morning, Dr Rat"

" &039;Morning, Kid!" She suy I wanted to see"

"Oh, yeah?" I forced a smile onto my face "Why&039;s that?"

She leaned back in her chair "Those peeps you brought in yesterday - did you know they can talk?"

I raised an eyebrow "Sure, of course Patricia Moore spoke tolike it before"

"What about Sarah? She talked to me"

Dr Rat shook her head "No, Cal, this is different I mean, a lot of peeps become lucid for a few s But those two you caught yesterday have been having flat-out conversations"

I sat down heavily "But they&039;re husband and wife What about the anatheht of each other?"

"That&039;s what you&039;d think" She shrugged "But they&039;ve been calling fro as they don&039;t actually see each other, they&039;re fine"

"Is it the drugs?"

Dr Rat pursed her lips "After one night? No way And as far as I can tell, this isn&039;t the first time they&039;ve had these conversations I think they were living together down in that tunnel - sharing the hunting duties, talking to each other in the darkness Da I&039;ve ever seen They&039;re practically" She trailed off

"Sane?" I said softly

"Yeah Al-in-a-tunnel part?"

Dr Rat shook her head again "We didn&039;t find any hueons Come to think of it, those skulls in Sarah&039;s lair dated atto find her - she&039;d stopped preying on people, had switched over to eating rats"

"E Ex-boyfriend sitting right here"

She flashed her don&039;t-be-a-wuss look atpeople I think your strain isdifferent"

"What about, &039;So pretty I had to eat him&039;?"

Dr Rat sat back down at her desk, spreading her hands "Well, maybe the onset symptoms of the strain are just as bad as a normal peep&039;s But eventually the parasite settles down It doesn&039;t see monstersnot forever anyway"

I nodded That theory fit hat I&039;d seen of Morgan and Angela Dreyfus the night before

"Maybe we caused this," Dr Rat said softly

"Huh? We who?"

"The Night Watch It&039;s hard for crazed peeps to run amok in a modern city, especially with us on the case So this could be an adaptation to the Night Watch Maybe you&039;re part of a whole new strain, Cal, one that has a lower level of optimum virulence - the peeps are less violent and insane, the transmission usually sexual It&039;s anized to catch maniacs"

"So more than one in a hundred people would be immune?"

"Sure" Dr Rat nodded slowly "Makes sense, really Except for the cat-worshipping" She noticed the change in my expression and frowned "You okay, Cal?"

"U&039;?"

"Yeah, I did" Dr Rat sht yesterday will not shut up about the peep cat Is kitty okay? Can they see it? Is it getting enough food?" She laughed "It&039;s like the anathema in reverse; like maybe they used to hate cats and now they love them - I don&039;t know Weirdmutation? One that appears at exactly the saroaned "Doesn&039;t that seem like too much of a coincidence to you, Doctor?"

"But it&039;s still just a coincidence, Kid"

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because the peep cat isn&039;t viable" She stood and walked to the far wall, where a pile of cages were filled with various cats, all of whom had the scruffy, streetwise look of strays "See these little guys? Since yesterday I&039;ve been trying to produce trans Doesn&039;t matter if they lick each other, eat fro to force two ive each other malaria; it&039;s hopeless"

"But what about transh rats?"

She shook her head "I&039;ve been testing that too I&039;ve tried biting, ingestion, even blood transfusion, and I haven&039;t gotten the parasite to le rat, much less from rat to cat That peep cat is a dead end"

I had to biteThe peep cat wasn&039;t a dead end; I knew about a dozen others But how could I explain about the I&039;d seen the night before? If I told her about Ryder House, I&039;d have to ela, and how I&039;d found the up what Chip had told me about the Mayor&039;s office And once I adht Mayor, I&039;d have to startmind was halted by the smell of Dr Rat&039;s lair, a scent that had been conspicuously absent the night before: rats Ryder House had been so clean No piles of garbage, no reeking decay No sign at all of a brood of rodents

"What if rats don&039;t matter?" I said softly

She snorted "You found a huge brood down in the tunnel, Cal"

"No, that&039;s not what I mean Those rats carry the parasite, sure They were the reservoir But what if they weren&039;t the vector for the peep cat getting infected?"

"But I told you, it doesn&039;t travel from cat to cat So what else is left?"

"Humans"

She frowned

"What if this strain really is like malaria?" I continued "Except with cats instead of mosquitoes? Maybe it just bounces back and forth between felines and people"

Dr Rat s theory, Kid, but there&039;s one problee where the peep cat lay calh the bars

"Um, Dr Rat, I wouldn&039;t do that"

She chuckled; the cat was sniffing her finger, its whiskers vibrating "This cat isn&039;t violent It doesn&039;t bite"

My hand went towhat it did to ave a snort "Any cat will attack if you get it h And anyway that&039;s a scratch, not a bite" She turned back to the cat, rubbing its forehead through the wires of the cage It closed its eyes and began to purr

"But the cats are important somehow!" I shouted "I know they are!"

She turned to face me "The cats? Plural?"

"Oh" I cleared my throat "Well, potentially plural"

Dr Rat narrowed her eyes "Cal, is there so s I hadn&039;t told her But at that ht crossed my mind

"Wait a second," I said "What if the strain spreads between cats and hu? Hoould that work?"

Dr Rat&039;s suspicious expression didn&039;t waver, but she answered me "Well, it could happen in a feays Reet toxoplasma? It&039;s in my brain"

She nodded "Mine too Toxoplasma spores are airborne Cats leave theo up your nose But that would only work from cat to human, not the other way around For tay transmission, you and a cat would have to breathe on each other a lot at short range"

I re Dr Rat had said the day before, and my stomach did a back flip "You mean, if the cat stole your breath?"

She sends where cats were deht work" A frown crossed her face "And you know, those old stories date froue"

Dr Rat&039;s eyes widened My faceodd colors "What did I say, Cal?"

I didn&039;t answer A sh ht before

"Yeah," I said softly, "really nice"

"What&039;s really nice?" said Dr Rat

"I have to go now"

"What&039;s wrong, Cal?"

"Nothing" I stood shakily "I have to go ho sick?"

"No, I&039;h My cat is, u serious, I hope"

I shrugged, dizzy fro could not be true "Probably not too serious You kno cats are"

The cab ride back to Brooklyn was the most unpleasant twenty dollars I&039;d ever spent I stared out the e soared across the Willia if Cornelius had really contracted the disease from me

The old cat had never bitten me, hadn&039;t even scratched me in the last year

Airborne, Dr Rat had said

That had to be nuts Diseases transmitted by fluids didn&039;t just suddenly become airborne If they did, we&039;d all die froet rabies fro HIV