Rat City

Chapter 3

Cyrus ripped Marisol out of the way just as the giant rat smashed the tree into the floor, leaving a massive crater.

He pulled her up. She saw the beast for the first time and screamed.

The giant rat—rather, a swarm of rats in the shape of a giant rat—roared as it plucked the tree off the floor. All the rats bared their incisors are the same time. A fetid odor hit Cyrus that reminded him of garbage and mold.

"We"ve got to get out of here," Cyrus said.

Customers were pouring out of the restaurant. He took Marisol"s hand and they ran for the door.

The ground quaked behind them, and Cyrus instinctively let go of Marisol’s hand and pushed her against the wall.

A branch lashed Cyrus’s cheek.

The tree slammed into the doorway, blocking them from exiting.

“Oh my God,” Marisol said.

Fire erupted across his skin and he brought his hand to it. Blood.

Cyrus grabbed Marisol’s hand as they stared at the giant rat. Only the three of them remained in the restaurant.

The beast towered over them, rats swarming its body. It laughed with shrieking rats underscoring its voice.

It raised a ratty fist to strike, but Cyrus and Marisol dashed out of the way. The punch brought a wall crumbling down. Rats flew into the air after the impact but regathered on the arm, shrieking more intensely.

Cyrus led Marisol to the middle of the restaurant floor. The giant rat followed, shaking the ground with each step.

Cyrus looked around for something, anything to fight with. He spotted the kitchen in the corner of his eye and moved strategically toward it. Marisol’s hand was slippery in his, and she clung close to him, panting.

The rat picked up a table and heaved it at them. They ducked as the table exploded in a bang of wood, metal, and ripped linen.

Cyrus grabbed a chair and chucked it at the rat. He missed by a long ways. The chair bounced on the floor.

Marisol threw a wine bottle and connected, bathing the rat in glass shards and Pinot Grigio. It didn’t faze the beast.

“We have to make it to the kitchen,” Cyrus said. “That’s our best way out.”

Marisol nodded. They wove across the floor as the giant rat crashed after them, throwing tables and roaring.

In the kitchen, a crisp smoldering filled the air. A skillet full of chicken breasts was burning on the industrial stoves.

He swiped a chef"s knife off a counter and threw it. The knife stuck in the rat"s shoulder and it cried out in pain as several rats fell off it and went limp on the floor.

Cyrus grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall, pulled the pin, and smothered the giant rat in foam.

The beast recoiled, and Cyrus charged forward, his finger on the trigger of the fire extinguisher. Soon, the kitchen was covered in a semi-circle of foam.

Then Cyrus threw the extinguisher and hit the beast in the head, knocking it backward. More rats spilled to the floor and went limp.

Cyrus took Marisol’s hand and they dashed for the back door. He told her to go first, and Marisol pushed the door open and ran into the night.

The fresh air whipped around Cyrus and he imagined himself further down the alley, free from the giant rat.

Then something grabbed him at the last second and dragged him into the kitchen inferno.

Suddenly, he was airborne. Through the kitchen. Into the dining room.

He crashed into a table, breaking it. He landed hard on his back and the impact sucked the wind from his lungs.

The foam-covered beast stomped toward Cyrus, grinning, rats writhing in its mouth.

Rats poured off the beast’s body, squabbling on the floor. In a flash, the single beast was gone, replaced by a wave of smoke-covered rats with red eyes and wispy bodies, who all stood on their hind legs, grooming themselves and bruxing their teeth.

Cyrus stood, gasping.

“What do you want?” he asked quietly.

A wave of squeaks filled the room.

His instinct told him to shift.

He shrank, his bones reducing themselves to rat size. Brown hair sprouted from his skin, and his incisors inched out of his jaws. The beautiful bistro blurred into a fish-eyed view of a landscape strewn with rubble. Soon he was a rat, staring at the others.

The rotten smell from the rat intensified against his little nose. Whatever this thing was, it was vile. The garbage and rotten undertones took on new, sicker nuances now. If his rat body could vomit, he would have.

A soft song echoed around the room. He hadn’t heard it before. A woman’s voice, singing in simple, long syllables. Operatic and siren-like.

He froze with terror.

Murgalen. The tree nymph who turned him into a shifter. His maker.

Her voice was emanating from the rats’ bodies.

But Murgalen was dead. Cyrus had watched her commit suicide at the Damen Silos. Yet her faint voice carried through the air as if she were with him.

The nymph’s face flashed into his mind—skin mixed with wet bark, a mouth full of wooden, gnarly triangular teeth, and a crown of thorny branches. She spoke lines from his memory.

“I can be benevolent,” she said. “Your existence will serve as proof of that in light of what’s to come.”

Cyrus squeaked in protest.

“If no one will stand up for nature, then I must,” she said.

Murgalen’s face tilted at Cyrus and grinned, full of malice. “Let’s send a message to all these big, bad paranormals, shall we?”

Her face turned to dust and swirled away from his vision.

Cyrus shrieked in fear. The rats shrieked in response, then scattered around the restaurant. They scrambled over each other, dissipating into a dull smoke that lingered in the air. Their squabbles faded until the room was silent.

In the kitchen, Cyrus smelled another smoke. Burning smoke.

Flames erupted from the stove, and this time, an arc of fire set the sprinklers off. Water spilled on the tables and floor like heavy rain. The water stuck to his rat nose, and it was brown and sticky.

Cyrus took shelter under a table.

Bright lights washed across the room, followed by sirens, which were ten times louder to his rat ears.

Several voices shouted, and footsteps shook the floor.

“Police!”

Cyrus swept along the floor silently, navigating destroyed tables and chairs.

The flames were spreading despite the streams of water falling from the ceiling. A wall of heat blocked the kitchen. He relied on his whiskers as they led him to the door blocked by the tree.

Several boots thudded near the window.

“I don’t see anyone,” someone said. “The place is on fire.”

A column of water crashed into the flames. More dirty city water. Droplets landed on his face.

He ran faster now as more water washed into the restaurant. The crackling flames and water collided and danced amid firefighters shouting over the noise.

He slipped under the tree that blocked the door and ran onto the street.

A woman screamed at the sight of him. Instinct kicked in as he wove between people’s shoes. Someone tried to stomp on him but narrowly missed.

Soon, he was in the shadows of an alley, barreling along the walls. Smoke was thick in the air, forming a thousand different textures on his whiskers—amazing but burnt French food, linens ablaze, fire engine exhaust, and an intense duo of ash and soot threatening to choke him.

He found a dumpster.

Behind it, he shifted back into a human. The warm, flame-kissed summer night enveloped him as his vision sharpened and he grew taller.

He ran through the darkness, nose into his elbow to protect his lungs from the thick smoke.

He emerged into the street where police were herding people across the street behind yellow tape.

Siren lights swirled and the police had the building barricaded.

A hand clapped on Cyrus’s blazer and lifted him by the collar.

“Hey!” he cried.

A police officer half pushed, half threw him across the street. He stumbled to get away from him.

“Behind the tape!” the officer yelled.

Cyrus spotted Marisol in the crowd. Part of her dress was ripped, and she was visibly shaken. He straightened his blazer from the cop’s assault and dipped under the tape.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What happened to you?” she asked, her eyes widening with concern.

“I got away,” he said. “Somehow.”

“What the hell just happened?” Marisol asked. “Was that thing…a ghost?”

hellCyrus shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “But we should leave.”

“I want to give a statement to the reporter,” Marisol said. “You should too.”

Cyrus gulped. A shadow flew overhead and he ducked. A raven with blue-tinged wings perched on a nearby streetlight, surveying the scene.

Luna.

It was probably taking everything in her power not to shift into a human, hang from the light and make a snarky comment about how Cyrus’s first date had gone.

Another raven swooped over him and landed on a nearby car.

Rocco.

“It might be dangerous here,” Cyrus said, gaze lingering on the ravens. “Maybe we should leave. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“No way,” Marisol said. “We’re as safe as we’ll ever be. Besides, if we don’t tell the police what happened, they’ll never catch that thing.”

“Yeah, I’m telling them everything,” another person said.

“Hey, there’s the news,” another said.

A crowd started for a news van that was slowing to a stop at the end of the street.

“Come on, Cyrus,” Marisol said.

Cyrus wanted to groan, but he couldn’t leave her. Not until he knew she’d be safe.

Together, they walked to the news van, and Cyrus wondered if this night was an omen for his dating life.