Paulie gave Knight the eye. Knight usually buckled whenever anyone gave him the eye. But this time, he stood up straighter, and said, “I’m fine.”
“From what I heard,” Paulie said, “You were almost dead.”
“I said I’m fine, and I mean I’m fine.” But the moment he walked in there, he almost wasn’t fine. He caught the scent of someone near and dear to him. Valko kept coming in, Knight thought, looking for me. I wonder if he knew?
Paulie leaned against the back of the bar, his arms crossed. “All right, then. You have a plan for what’s the daily special?”
“Meatloaf sandwich, somethin’ easy.”
Paulie nodded, and said what he usually said to Knight when he walked to the kitchen, “Don’t kill Tyler today.”
“Maybe not,” Knight replied as he usually did.
When Tyler – the boss’s nephew – walked in, he was just as useful as tits on a bull. He didn’t even ask Knight how he was, but he did look surprised to see him. Knight performed his magic in the kitchen, and left it for Tyler to clean up, which he hated to do.
Knight stayed until after the dinnertime rush, and left the kitchen around seven, with a wave to Paulie who was in his office, letting the night bartender take the customers. Tyler had stepped out for a cigarette around six and hadn’t come back yet.
Knight didn’t have Kitty any more, and maybe tomorrow he was going to see Brixl to see what he could do about her. He walked out of the restaurant, and he heard someone say, “Hey, Knight.”
He turned, knowing it was Tyler, and headed into the alley next to the pub. “What’re you—“
Someone cracked him on the back of the head with a metal bar. He fell to his hands and knees, seeing stars and birds and hearing the rush of blood in his ears. Someone hit him in the ribs, his right side, the side what wasn’t broken, but had been fractured. He knew something broke there, and he fell to his side to see his assailant.
Mickey, Tyler’s friend, the one Paulie had fired when Knight started working there. Someone grabbed him by his hair and yanked his head up.
Tyler was saying words, but Knight didn’t hear them, as his beast rushed to the fore, healing him near instantly and only seeing red. Kill, the beast demanded, and it came out as a roar.
“Oh, my god,” was the last words Mickey said as the leopard leaped onto him, claws slashing through the man’s chest, biting into the man’s throat and tearing it out. Tyler was frozen, watching his friend get tackled by the leopard. Then he reached for the crowbar, trying to drag it toward him to use as a weapon.
Knight moved faster, his attention now on the scrape of metal on concrete, and he attacked the man’s arm, fangs and teeth biting into Tyler’s forearm. Tyler screamed, and Knight tore flesh from bone, breaking his forearm at the same time.
Knight roared again, and Tyler screamed again, pulling at the kitchen door, trying to open it with his left hand. As soon as Tyler opened it, Knight jumped on the door, slamming it shut.
Tyler went screaming and bleeding into the crowded bar. “Knight! Knight – oh, my God, Knight killed—“
Paulie came out of his office, “What the hell is – what the fuck happened to you?”
“Knight, he—“
“Somebody call 911,” Paulie ordered, and grabbed a clean bar rag from behind the bar, wrapping it around the exposed arm. “You’re gonna be all right.”
“Mickey—“ Tyler swooned, and Paulie caught him.
By the time the police and ambulance arrived, Mickey was dead, and there were bloody paw prints leading away from the scene and disappearing, though they seemed to be heading to Westside.