Silence From Above
[;strigiforme; ;great horned owl;][;horror; suspense; ;third person; ;novelette;]
 
Summary: Living with the evidence of nearby neighbors is part of city life.  But the stress of being packed together tightly can warp one's senses, thinking, and behaviors in a fight for dominance.  Who is the prey, and who the predator?


The second floor apartment still had evidence of the move-in from two months ago.  Food was a good example.  The coffee table in front of the split couch had a plate coated with take-out pizza grease, and a bowl with a few feathers left behind evidence of a carnivorous avian diet.  The woman hooted in soft beats, singing in the particular way she did after a good meal.  Another example was opposite the couch.  Thomas and Geraldine hadn't finished reassembling the media center, but the fifty inch adaptive display hung on its mounts with the center soundbar beneath.  Towers to either side had two columns of tuned drivers - carefully aimed for maximum clarity at the leaning couch against the far wall - but the hangers for the pair of surround speakers on either side were still unoccupied powder-coated steel.  The one closest to the door had a shoe rack beside it with white sneakers for a human on the bottom half, and gray aviform grips on the top half.
  But Thomas's thoughts had been pleading with fate tonight.  A vacation, he thought, would be perfect.  The fall air, the cloudless sky with moon high, and no neighbors in sight.  If that wasn't in the cards, he wished for perfect silence from the apartment above.  This time they'd gotten a full twenty minutes of relative quiet from upstairs, twenty blessed minutes of peace to eat within.  Yet another thump from above rattled the wall behind the couple and anything within a couple feet, such as the women's canvas handbag swinging from the lower hanger.  An embroidered iron-on patch with creases built in allowed the wings of the owl to flap as the bag moved.  Above, the arc declared "Dangerous When Horny", and below "And I'm Always Horny" in bold letters.
  The couple below, both human, had said the noise level from the second floor apartment was inaudible.  Thomas pushed the issue.  Even with protective gelforms on her talons to protect the wooden floors he remained unconvinced that Geri's footsteps were silent.  Hearing in this case was believing.  They picked a time when the third floor apartment was empty and took turns listening in 102.  Thomas carrying a load equivalent to groceries or Geri's frozen whole food was inaudible to her half the time; if she found the evidence of life above that scant then untrained human hearing wouldn't register it.  The ultimate test involved Geri letting loose her best scream as if trying to drive off the feral owls from their previous place.  Neither of the residents of 102 had ever heard the difference between a large predator avian crying out as if territorial or successful in the hunt and an adult anthro.  Neither wanted the experience.  Let them remain ignorant, Geri told Thomas later.  If they weren't fans of obscure horror movies, no need to provide a running commentary on how wrong the producers made their feathered nightmares.
  How two humans and a small dog in 302 could make that much noise was mysterious.  Overloud footsteps were one thing.  A constant drumbeat of canine feet and nails...Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Whenever they were home the dog ran from room to room, sometimes in random patterns and others as if seeking the furthest corner from the predator below.  Occasionally a voice called out.  Come to mommy, sit with mommy, mommy wants cuddles.  And then, Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Tonight the couple had returned from a date night moderately drunk.  Between the pooch running in circles and the intermittent thuds of dog toys bouncing off the walls, Thomas and Geraldine considered going into the bedroom and fucking as loudly as possible.  Her orgasmic hooting and screaming wouldn't be far off of the warnings that sent small animals in the woods running.  No predator was perfect, but all learned that fear killed.
  In unison the couple turned their heads in the dim light and tracked the noise from above.  Geraldine's eyes narrowed within the oval of rust colored feathers, not unlike the half-lided appearance they had if Thomas disturbed her during daytime.  Inside the cloak of her wings, taloned fingers curled and scraped audibly against the black boarhide bracers encircling her wrists.  Her half of the couch had a grip bar installed, and the sharp talons jutting from downed legs tightened on the bar until the silicone reached maximum compression.  Thomas reached over to remind his wife to not open her wings quickly.  Instead, a sharp hiss leaked from her until out of breath, then she continued with rapid clicks of her narrow beak.
  "We should complain to the leasing office," she said.  When another pair of thuds from above shook the walls, Geri pushed the human hand from her leading edge and settled deeper in her white, black and rust wings.
  His old college tshirts, many from four years on the flight team, had small holes or tears from the accidental talon.  Unscarred jeans hissed over the treated leather of his couch half.  "They pay their rent on time just like us.  We agreed the reason prices on the larger downstairs units were a hundred less a month had to be noise levels."  And, he thought, if I don't start on any soundproofing someone will get hurt.
  "Fine.  Just because there's a clause about undue noise, doesn't mean it's a get out of jail free card.  I'm going upstairs to talk to them."
  Geraldine kicked free of the couch and left barefoot without allowing Thomas another word.  Paired with her wearing only a old pair of work overalls that had been cut down to shorts and a strap top, the woman did a passable roleplay of an 80s action movie girl.  Unlike the couple above, she closed doors gently even when angry.  He stewed over the inevitable explosion and things he'd hear once this escalated.  The leasing office would make a futile attempt to mediate.
  No one could go up the wood and metal stairs quietly.  Halfway up the Gentilis's dog smelled trouble coming and zipped into their bedroom.  Count to ten after her knock and the door to the apartment above closing.  Human footsteps boomed like kettledrums and avian feet barely made noise.  Wings didn't grant levitation powers, but a bodyweight a third lighter tended to cover up many corners cut during construction.  Marissa and Chloe across way on the third floor might talk some sense into Geri, or have suggestions that avoided excessive talking.
  He shuffled out and jogged up the stairs to the third floor.  The open stairwell and landing between the two quartets of apartments was covered by a mildly sloped roof.  A sufficiently athletic person could make it up in one of several ways, but Geri had chided him after the first mention.  The house they'd just moved out of had a perfect breeze some nights, and giving Geri the chance to stretch her wings was good exercise.  But their lease on this place included a clause about that.  Somewhere in the past an avian or other winged anthro had caused more than a security deposit's damage by walking around up there.  Geri could make the roof from one of the nearby trees without trouble, same as him if he pulled out the old wingsuit and glided in the right wind.  It still fit, but he knew himself too old for the most complex maneuvers or college stunts.  Marissa and Chloe were lighter than Geri by at least a dozen pounds, but they were in the same boat: winged anthros were lucky if they had anything beyond the build for gliding.  All three could do it with ease, unlike ones that had atrophied their wings due to generations of bipedalism.
  The bats would be hanging out for the evening as usual.  Upside-down smiling vinyl cutouts with their names in a feminine script were slapped on a mass-produced rustic wood round, hanging on the door like a eternal Christmas wreath.  A high squeak responded to his knock.  The apartment inside was only lit by a single dimstrip in the kitchen and a TV with aftermarket nocturnal filter affixed.
  "If you don't stop cooking, Marissa...oh.  Thomas.  Smelled like you outside."  
  Thomas shut the door and ignored the voices he'd cut off from 302.  "Geri's gone sensitive again."
  Chloe paused the video playing on the inverted television and unhooked from the cage couch, loose fabric fluttering around within the limits of how it tied on like midnight's kiss.  Membrane wings enclosed him, warm from the high bloodflow.
  Marissa leaned against the kitchen wall, flattened nose twitching in irritation despite a wineglass of blood.  Angular patterns rippled the gray lace Y-robe she'd belted over her light frame.  "Stop creeping him.  Thomas, please tell me you weren't eating a fruit salad before walking upstairs."
  "He had pizza later.  Eww.  But Geri must like how fruit makes him taste.  Apples, cherries...two kinds of melon."  Chloe released him with an absolutely filthy smile.  "Were you cleaning out the fridge?"
  He patted her ass, adding a friendly grope that avoided the slits of her pants.  The silken taupe fabric wasn't opaque enough to hide the red-brown fur underneath, and definitely not the flare of the nostrils upon her dog-like face.
  "Busted.  She's been itching to pick a fight with the Gentilis."  A pair of ugly squeaks made the couple's opinion of his upstairs neighbors clear.  "If they don't take that damned dog out to run more often, I'm going to lose a weekend to installing a half foot of foam on the ceiling."
  "If you want Chloe's help, let me know.  I'll guilt trip her."  The fructivore made a choking sound at Marissa's jab.  "We did the bedroom two years ago.  You don't need the bulky stuff from the hardware store, and a little wall foam is worth the effort even if 306 couldn't hear half our squeaking to begin with."
  Thomas ran a hand through short, dark hair and glanced at the bats in turns.  "I should have seen the problem coming.  She's used to the country and doesn't seem to mind a bit of outside noise.  It's not like we're next to the interstate.  But between the stomping upstairs and the pooch she's been getting annoyed more often.  They must have driven out whoever had that apartment last."
  "That would be the Norths."  The fruit bat sidled up against the human and returned the earlier favor.  He jumped as sharp nails attempted to pierce his jeans, both the women laughing briefly.  "Older couple.  Marissa convinced them to sign up for Meals on Wheels, and did a weekly casserole for them on top of that."
  "And they did leave suddenly.  I never got to say goodbye," said Marissa.
  "They asked us to help out at the Halloween haunted house the last couple years."  Chloe's laugh tinkled like bells.  "Marissa makes the best sexy vam-"
  "Todd, if I'm remembering right?  He's hardly the worst human but I'll bet they're both from one of the Middle Enclaves."
  "That doesn't immediately equal asshole.  My one, repeat very brief one, encounter with him before he knew I was married to Geri was enough proof for me that he treats everyone far more evenly than most.  Misentrist minds at their finest."  Thomas tented the old flight team tshirt, eliciting a whisper of 'sexy' from the fructivore as it revealed the human's physique.  "Met more than a few in college, and just as many non-human as human.  You could plop Todd in the middle of the Inner Enclaves and he'd be spouting nihilistic word salad just the same."
  "He's got a point.  Before I met you there was this one eight foot tall cow chickie that went guano-brained when I walked into the room.  Finally had to leave because no one could convince her there's a difference between fruit bats and vampire bats."  Chloe examined the claw-finger of her left wing, trying to collect her thoughts.  "And really the only people that freak out about trash like that are the extreme control freaks that bleat every time they see a bit of humor like Geri's owl patch, or worry themselves to death about what goes on in private."
  Thomas sighed.  "We're not talking about the Restoration or the Enclaves.  They've got their reasons, and neither us nor them fall under your control freak class.  Don't know how you two put up with the Gentilis other than avoiding them."
  "It's pretty much that.  At least management replaced the flanges and wall gaskets on this apartment this summer past, and you need to keep pushing unless they can prove yours are brand new.  I can deal with the occasional noise that makes it past the acoustic foam.  Listening to Chloe yammer every time the neighbors take a shit required more alcohol than I can drink.  A good soundproofing job keeps the peace."
  "I'll call later.  If I don't collect Geri, whatever comes out of her beak could get us in trouble."
  Chloe gripped the couch's bar and waved after settling her feet around, her face level with Thomas's navel.  Marissa tossed an apple at her roommate and shooed the human out.
  The restrained shouting from 302 was still audible from outside 305.  He didn't knock and Geri didn't ease back from her in-the-face argument with the Gentilis.  "All I'm saying is take the goddamned dog outside more.  I don't care that you walk around like a bowling ball.  I don't care that Lucia needs a ball gag when you fuck her like I want sunglasses right now.  I'm not the only one with a beef here."
  "It's the tenant's responsibility to coordinate any environmental corrections," said Todd while tapping a foot on the hardwood floor, returning Geraldine's unblinking stare.  Smaller nails meant he didn't have to immediately change to at-home clothes, and maybe he felt superior in polos and slacks.  Maybe Lucia liked the look on her husband, all stiff and groomed.
  302 had a more traditional couch than downstairs, and less cutlery on the countertop.  Still, Lucia's eyes zipped around the room to find some means of defense against an upset neighbor.  The soft click of the door failed to break the stalemate, same as Geri's soft hissing and rattled feathers.  When she fell quiet, her head turned slowly to the left, stopped, then back to the right a few degrees until pinpointing where the bed was on the other side of the wall.  Lucia followed the owl's line of sight, eyes growing wider in realization.
  "Geri?"
  "Yes, my love?"
  "Leave the pooch alone for now.  It's probably pissed all over their laundry."
  Todd grabbed a small bag off the counter - obviously prescriptions from the pharmacy by the shape, tossed the rattling bag into the unlit bathroom, then stalked into the bedroom.  He returned immediately with the shivering white dog, dropping it in the tired-looking woman's arms.  "Laundry's safe for now.  We're putting the doggie bed on the balcony tonight.  Maintenance can check that there's no holes in the wall seals tomorrow.  Be a fucking hoot if that's all this is."
  The human was lucky on many counts.  Even though they were the majority species, no producer in their right mind used banana jokes in a modern comedy.  Likewise, certain words came across as insensitive to others.  Maybe Todd had never seen the reflex speed of the avians, or was the dog unaccounted for in the Gentilis's lease?

From their first meeting, Lucia had a number of questions for her new downstairs neighbors that the internet had failed to answer.  Her own husband had the disadvantage of growing up in one of the ever shrinking pockets of complete humanity.  To him, physical minutiae that required signing up for some salacious pornographic website ranked the same as learning cultural specifics.  He wasn't a bad man, just the type that hated the ever increasing restrictions civilization placed on people.  And by people, he usually meant humans once his temper flared.  An hour later he'd regret it, and then start the self recrimination.  The stress of waiting for the axe to drop, of that one complaint that finally cost him his job despite the monthly "sensitivity training" sessions, was a horrible downward spiral.  She'd thumbed through the latest of his spiral-bound training workbooks.  If that was the best a Fortune 500 company could buy, no wonder the internet did no better for satisfying her imagination.
  Turning the situation around would require a woman's touch; she'd handled plenty of personal conflicts at her old Sapient Resources position.  Sofie wiggled deeper in an attempt to burrow down between her arms and enact an escape.  "Let me talk to her, sweetie.  Just us girls."  The other woman held her wings tight.  Lucia tried to imagine how life would be that far off of pure human, then repeated a silent prayer in thanks of chemise tops and knee-length skirts.  Actually, anything that didn't require accommodations in the waistline. 
  Thomas had squared himself between her husband and the owl, far more comfortable than she was about being that close to her neighbor's sharp beak.  "I'll stay up here.  Todd and I can work this out like gentlemen."
  The strain of holding things together was going to crack her.  Her doctor had suggested switching back to the anti-anxiety meds.  Clinking vacuum steel bottles outside her door, twice a week for the past two years.  The plastic ones the bat occasionally used were no better.  If the light hit them right, what sloshed inside could only be one thing.  Of all the places they could have picked back then, they had to choose an anthro-friendly complex.  It cost almost as much as the condos on the other side of town despite the neighborhood being not quite as good.  Damn them for being full.  But their only other options back then were an all-ages upscale trailer park that required a two year minimum - and you bought the trailer - or a bedroom in a shared house.
  It was impossible to sleep some nights.  She used earplugs at first.  Of course she couldn't hear someone on the other side of the landing.  She didn't have a strong enough sense of smell to pass through two exterior doors.  But the fact they were there, awake while she was defenseless in her sleep, had been one of the main reasons she'd cherished Sofie.  Dogs knew.  They'd missed the window to find another place this year, but unless the trash dumpsters were emptied more regularly this would be the last.  Once they moved, she'd sleep like a baby again.  Sofie could curl up next to her each night.  No more things to agitate the dog, no more strange neighbors.  Everyone tied their trash up but the combination of smells could become an unwashed slaughterhouse if the temperatures climbed too high.  She wanted a small house to magically appear on the market and then they could focus on getting Todd a transfer to another department.  Or another city.  She'd find a job again.
  Lucia poured steel in her spine and whispered in her husband's ear in case he hadn't heard before.  "I'll take the dog for a walk.  You boys are going to be smiles in fifteen minutes."  She grabbed the orange visibility leash - the retractable handle claiming six meters - from the pegboard by the door as Geraldine shifted her feathers.  The stairway lights were bright enough for moths and other bugs to congregate, but far easier on the eyes for her downstairs neighbor.  "Come on, Sofie."  The dog needed no encouragement and pulled towards the stairs.  "Mommy's going for a walk with Geri from downstairs.  Sorry about that.  I don't know what's gotten into him the past few months, or Sofie.  She usually fine curling up with us on the couch all night."
  "I apologize for the-"
  "Don't.  Insinuating the truth is hurtful, but maybe clearing the air with a little incivility is better than stewing."
  "You're not that loud."
  Body language didn't change that much in anthros, she noted.  "And your hearing is better than mine."
  "Mind stopping in for a minute?  They should exceed each other's patience any-" 
  The two adjustable lamps inside had snapped to minimum as the door opened, and Lucia walked in past the owl.  "Wow.  I never realized how dark you might prefer it."  She fingered the thick blackout curtains briefly, the action trimmed short by the closing door.
  "This is far darker than I usually keep things and at this point I'm relying on hearing.  I don't get the best of both.  If I stay in a blacked out room too long my sight gets sharper but only for motion.  We wear adaptive contacts - Thomas so he doesn't destroy his night vision and me so I don't get constant migraines."
  "Thomas can see in this?  I can't see you."
  Geraldine picked up a remote and adjusted the ambient level.  "Better?"  The human hadn't moved from closed door.
  "It must be easy to play practical jokes on him.  Turn the light below his ability and wait silently."  The other woman went still and dropped the lights where they'd been before, leaving the human and dog in the murk.  Almost everything disappeared.  She noticed a knife drying as it rested upon the top of its block, one of the expensive kind amateur chefs used.  It stood out from the darkness by some trick of reflection.  She shifted from foot to foot as Sofie spiraled around her.  "That would scare the piss out of me if someone did that and suddenly moved, like your wings out of nowhere."  And the leash tied her to the spot as Sofie cowered behind her living shield.
  The lights brightened to show Geraldine several feet from where she'd been.  "Pranks like that are unfair and off limits."  The upstairs voices rose, then retreated.  "I was wrong and miracles abound.  Thomas is calmer than me, but won't back down if it comes to a fight."
  "We've got two angry bulls in the same pasture.  Maybe the solution is to fuck their brains out first, then Sofie and I have plenty of time for walkies.  Yes, won't we?
  Geraldine opened the closet door and grabbed a light cloak.  "Thomas has been trying to switch to an overnight schedule like he use to have.  If we keep to opposite schedules, then neither of us will have to complain about the other's noise."  The women shared a glance at a thump from upstairs.  "It's not my intention to spy on my neighbors, period.  If Thomas acted like Todd..."
  Lucia disentangled herself from the dog as Geri's voice moved in the dim light, sheathed talons ticking with each step.  She'd survived living in the same building as the lesbian bats; this was no different.  "He's a better man than this.  The two bats have been here longer than us, about what the Norths were.  Having unique neighbors never heated him like this, but first they leave, then you move in.  It's not like he watches separatist videos all day."
  Geri's head turned in response to the noise above.  Heavy footsteps walked to the kitchen above, followed by lighter ones that didn't drum the floor above.  The process reversed.  "Our jobs wanted us in town.  We had a nice enough place out there, and are lucky we found a buyer on short notice in addition to this place.  Not many places accommodate non-humans to this degree."
  Imagining Todd's vitriol from upstairs twisted Lucia's piqued lips tighter.  "Let's go.  If I don't hear it, I can ignore that it happened."

Geraldine's head canted until the footsteps in the living room unified.  Stray thoughts rarely fled her attention for long.  The only evidence of upstairs for the past hour tonight had been a streamed documentary with the stock music alternating narcolesy and scare chords.  Oh, and the occasional whine of the kennel and dog bed on the balcony for the evening.  The dog had ran itself tired by keeping to the opposite end of the apartment above each time she'd moved.  No matter how quietly she'd walked since moving in, even going to the kitchen risked the chance of whipping the canine into a panic.  The maintenance crew had replaced every gasket or foam strip in both apartments over the past week, and it still hadn't killed the problem.  Now the dog considered whatever it sensed downstairs to be a distant enough threat to bark at - but only when it was still.
  Small victories.  A heated conversation with the leasing office the day after the upstairs confrontation had reduced the shouting matches between Todd and Lucia.  Geri had set aside every unspoken insult from the man above.  The woman wasn't much better, just less obvious.  Instead of taking her shoes off, she walked across the hardwood floors in heels.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Every morning and evening, sometimes combined with the uneven patterns of the dog.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  The soft sounds were actually the worst.
  Thomas had worked late tonight.  Then the little dog became agitated by its owner's noise more than the downstairs predator.  Geri had settled into the couch and tossed a blanket over her shoulders, then flicked through the remote.  Ripples of annoyance left her as more than a dozen speakers rustled with the sounds of her favorite show.  First the dog had been trapped in Lucia's lap, almost right above Geri.  At some point both left for an evening dogwalk.  Thousands of smells clung to the concrete and metal outside, but the pooch fled from the signature of owl.
  That had been hours ago, and she asked herself what might happen if she lost control; gone crazy with animal instinct, no person was free from their roots.  Anyone could succumb and lash out within the packed city.  She closed large eyes and recreated Thomas's actions beyond the door within.  The softest ones had no energy after passing through wood and plaster.  Her stance in the layers of bedding shifted to the other foot, looking for the perfect mix of the leanboard and floor mattress.
  "If it wasn't for the First Amendment and potential battery charges, I'd take that asshole in the parking lot," Thomas said after closing the bedroom door behind.  He tossed clothes in the open hamper.  When she didn't join him on the folding bed's horizontal portion, his hand caressed the leading edge of her near wing.
  "Whatever he said, I don't need to hear it."
  "Great.  We trade sides and get to fight about it."
  She pulled her wing in tighter and away from his hand.  "If he's not abusing her or the dog, I'll live."
  "We're on the same page.  Signs are there.  Has she defended him again?"
  "More than I like, so don't stop me.  Tomorrow I'm starting a petition to get rid of him.  If Todd wants to respect his neighbors in that manner, he'll be doing it elsewhere."  And she pulled tighter at the truth.  It wouldn't work, but Thomas rarely put limits on her.
  "Lucia let something slip about him?"
  "Yes."  The set of her beak and wings said the conversation was over.  "You need to sleep.  I'm taking a half shift so I don't have this on my mind.  Full shift tomorrow."
  "And I'll get the dirt over breakfast after the other girls have sharpened your claws a few hours."
  "Maybe not.  If I get home before seven, I expect you awake for once."
  "Did they give the pooch a sleeping pill?"
  "It's been quiet the past hour."
  "I'm still putting in earplugs the minute you leave.  I think the dog smells you and gets freaked."
  Men couldn't stop themselves from saying or doing the most obvious parts.  "Go to sleep.  I'd like another half hour of rest before I have to deal with the raccoons and possums."
  Fifteen minutes later he'd turned over in that human manner of not-quite-sleep.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Muted sounds that penetrated the ceiling called in the manner that Thomas compared to reflections at the edge of human vision.  The documentary turned back on, then decreased in volume.  Must have switched to closed captions.  Geri kept repeating the mantra.  Tiling the ceiling in removable damping foam would be over a thousand square feet.  By the time she muted that intrusion, her co-workers had filled the void.  They'd been on break, waiting by the south dumpsters in overalls just as stained as Geri's.
  As usual, the possum started everything.  "You look like pureed vomit.  That's why I don't do the half shift dance."
  "Shut up, Krill.  I bet it's still neighbor problems.  Is it, Geri?"  The rings on Yujith's tail vibrated in an unsettling way.  Both tossed takeout wrappers in the trash and followed Geri back to the massive facility.  After slipping on a pair of Safety Admin approved eyeshades, the raccoon's little dance stood out perfectly from the warehouse bay.
  "It's everything, you two fiends," Geri said with a shake of silent feathers.
  Tonight the maintenance schedule said incoming bay eleven.  They walked past the main storage bays where automated drones zipped above on octorotors.  Robotic forklifts took commands from them, moving pallets from rack to pick to relabel.  Over in Operations, or Ground Maintenance, the staff would be majority human.  Not many found themselves above the pallets or zipping along the rows.  Geri ascended the ladder with wings tucked.  Krill and Yujith scrambled up behind.
  A remote drone four times the size of the octorotors floated up.  "Morning, Geri.  Thanks for saving me from these two nocturnals."  Paul's voice issued from a slit cut into his old ID badge, which had been glued to the drone.  The drone didn't need coffee, but Paul would sip at it every few minutes like clockwork.
  "We doing dumb stuff tonight or real work?"  She started attaching the mandatory safety gear, torso harness and jessies.
  "You'll love it.  They finally approved the multispectrum drones for inspection work.  Best part is all of us will have new tags so we can run in parallel."  A four-pronged pincer appendage gestured.  "Let me go back down and float up the hardware.  We'll do Eleven tonight, and Nine tomorrow."
  Yujith waited until the drone was halfway down.  "She should talk to Paul later.  He lives in town and has stuck his dick more than once in anything female and breathing.  Bet he could make a pick list from memory.  You'd move if it made Max happy, same as Geri did for Thomas."
  "Then it's his fault.  Blackout curtains can't solve population density."  Krill tapped the owl between the eyes.  "I'm envious of humans.  If I had to live outside city limits like you used to the first thing I'd be buying are reinforced doors and deadbolts.  Did you see the evening news?  They found a juvenile mountain lion in the park by the Lake district.  No way."
  "They eat feral deer, not people walking to their cars."
  The others accepted Geri's wisdom while Paul waved as he dropped off the first case of gear.  They unpacked and started strapping the helmet on Geri.  She sighed as they split their focus.
  "And the sound?  I could deal with normal-sized owls if I was out in the sticks, but I won't have to play dead for a cat the size of me.  Damned overgrown things can probably open doors if they smell a snack behind it."
  "Guess you need the rural living starter pack.  Stout all steel flashlight, shotgun, and mid-sized dog."
  Krill's triangular face always managed to taint any emotion with a hint of a laugh.  "Like hell.  It would scream once, and I'd be dead from a heart attack."
  "We need to convince Geri that ceiling and wall tiles are a good investment, not that you'd make a fun found footage movie if we dropped you in the forest for a night."
  "I'd watch the fuck out of that."  Krill gave Geri an unwelcome glare.  Drop the lights, and display's contrast, and the blurs of moonlit movement would be a pure adrenaline rush.
  Yujith laughed at the possum's discomfort.  "Someone's got predator thoughts waiting to become dreams.  I don't blame you.  Straps OK?"
  "Yes.  The closest I've ever come to eating dog was this really jinky restaurant last road trip vacation we took.  Smelled worse than you two after a binge meal at the Furment Shack."
  "You know what else needs soundproofing?  The bathrooms here.  Coughing up a pound and a half of bits sounds similar to one of those scary music bands."
  Yujith stopped talking as Paul dropped the second case.  "So is there any good gossip tonight?"
  "Just talking about Geri's ex-flyboy."
  She shook her wings out and stared down the other women.  "You two are horrible.  Let's get these stops installed so I can be four places at once."

Thomas woke with his last alarm.  A fringe of light pushed inside the blackout curtains.  Geri was asleep against the leanboard with a daytime hood on and headphones leaking ambient noise.  The dog upstairs must have heard through the floor.  It barked once as he moved to the bathroom, again as he returned to the bedroom, and then paused over the kitchen.
  A handwritten note had been magnetted to the fridge with a confirmation number scrawled on it.  Geri had picked a gross dozen lab rats, six guinea pigs, and a rabbit.  Hopefully that last one was for sooner rather than later, and a night that the upstairs neighbors weren't home.  At least she hadn't splurged on a young Flemish after that first time.  The pooch upstairs was half the size of that giant and twice the fluff.  No wonder the thing was scared of her.
  At lunch he drove to the nearest hardware store and wandered through the insulation and acoustic section, looking out of place in pressed slacks and a buttoned shirt versus the tshirt and jeans contractor crowd.  He'd avoided bringing the issue up with Geri because of cost, but the bullet needed biting.  The bats had sent a list of options that read like computer translated installation directions.  When he cornered a so-called expert associate with a worn leather toolbelt, Thomas kept his explanation simple.  They wouldn't have another incident of Geri sneezing up sawdust she couldn't smell.
  "You're paying enough for what are supposed to be partly decoupled floors.  You can hear it clearly?  If they built it to code you're talking about a standard floor, four inches of acoustic foam, four inches of concreteboard, four more of foam, and a second horizontal barrier.  Either that dog's loud enough to get through what's rated to turn shouting matches to whispers, or some contractor pierced the inner soundproofing.  That's some serious fuckup."  The associate flipped a mounted guide to an infographic of how the construction worked.
  "I don't need the mumbo.  Ten decibels should reduce her apparent sound level some, right?  Twenty should make her happy.  Let's talk options."
  His finger pointed out a problem checklist on the next page as he went on.  "Just trying to tell you, something's wrong.  I've done auxiliary installs for non-humans before, and I've been out at your place.  Every apartment I've been in, you could murder someone on the third floor and not hear a thing on the first with the AC off.  Third to second floor?  I can help you get the external noise back to where it should be, but you're installing a lot more than triple-ply all frequency AcoustiGard."
  "They make that in a higher grade?"  They stopped opposite a wolf couple debating high frequency foam in hushed tones.
  "Up to seven ply.  Forty decibels minimum and sixty in best case, but you're talking two layers.  That still doesn't solve impact issues from the floor above."
  Thomas's sigh translated as the sound of money evaporating.  "Let's say that's what I have to resort to."
  "At a thousand square feet?  Low five figures just for material, and AcoustiGard is a professional install.  Most people think they can top out on project costs at five hundred, but a thousand is low end for DIY installs."
  A week's paycheck, minimum.  "So no use there."
  "You said she's a hawk?"  A beeping forklift two aisles over caused Thomas to cover both ears.  The associate led him down the aisle. 
  "Owl.  Hell, my hearing is sharper than yours because I flew in college.  I don't know how that pooch hasn't been scared shitless yet given the mixed population in our building."
  "There's WhisperFoam.  Their tension mount drop ceiling is perfect for apartments.  Four square feet per panel, requires less than two inches headroom.  You can toss DIY grade low frequency foam above.  The higher end line of their panels is affordable and, this is key, removable.  Just the panels and hardware, let me see.  That's pushing close to a thousand.  It's money well spent."  He replaced the mini calculator in its slot.
  "What's the cut, volume-wise?"
  "About ten across all frequencies and twenty on some, but that's advertised.  Do it right and you'll get twenty easy.  Perceptual measurements aren't exact science.  I can sit you down and draw up a rough blueprint so you two can look it over, but you've still got ambient wall transmission.  It not what you could hear, it's all about what a person thinks they can hear."
  Thomas knew that the sales pitch wasn't far off the truth.  "Let's assume I go with the drop ceiling, add the foam above it, and do a reasonable wall liner.  We're looking in the three thousand range?"
  "That's not including whatever takeout costs for all your helpers."
  "True.  Listen, you've been a help.  Can I get your card?  I'm not betting on management doing the right thing without some prodding."  And I'd rather be working nights than listen to that another day, but I should know in about a week."
  Geri didn't respond to a text as he drove back to work, and still hadn't close to the end of the workday.

Finding the two bats in his apartment left Thomas grinding his teeth instead of slamming the boxes on the counter.  Coming home and finding Geri hadn't checked her messages after waking was one thing.  Finding her in chit-chat mode meant she'd been up for a while, especially when the women were all in casual clothing to reduce the amount of mussed up fur or feathers.  In the apartment above, someone had let the Gentilis's dog in living room.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  Tomorrow he'd head back to the hardware store and arrange for delivery on the soundproofing materials.  Geri started to get up, but he waved her back.  The pooch whined above as he sorted the few remaining older boxes to the side and loaded the partial order of Geri's whole food in the fifty gallon pantry freezer.  Damned thing was barely a third full.  He reminisced about their old place, the wildlife and fresh air.  Game meat was more prep than farmed, but free was free.  Half the time Geri had walked right up to wild rabbits and deer when the wind was right.
  Geri called from the couch, her call tinged with the pleasure of a recent meal.  "Before you start in, Marissa woke me up.  The night and day managers left a response."  Thomas poked his head around the kitchen corner.  Chloe nodded as Geri examined a leading edge.  "The lease is on their side initially-"
  "Did you miss my messages?  I've got a suspicion that they know what's wrong.  If this is handled wrong, you're going to look worse than Marissa spilling a gallon of out-of-date blood down the drains."
  "If you'd let me finish?  He overstated his hand.  They can still get chunks ripped out by noise violations, and it'll be worse for them if we make environmental considerations.  Isn't that the endgame?"
  Marissa led him to the couch, then sat on his lap while Chloe raided the fridge.  The gelforms covering Geri's talons waged their ever-valiant effort to keep the deposit and wood floors intact.  The fruit bat returned and replaced her lover.
  "Grape.  Low blood sugar isn't going to help your reasoning."  Chloe plucked one from the bunch, fed it to Thomas, then took one for herself.
  Marissa excused herself to the bathroom.  The fan snapped on, and the pooch above leaped at the opportunity to defend its owners.  It fired a few plaintive barks from a position of safety but its retreat was followed by ringing laughter.
  If she wanted to play, he'd leave the bat out of the loop.  "Since none of you nocturnals checked your phones, I'll go over this slowly.  The hardware store has the materials order, and as it arrives we're going to have this place quieter than a graveyard.  We can either solve this the easy way or allow the Gentilis and the complex to drag this out."
  Geri fired a few harsh words at the returning bat before clicking her beak shut.  "We'd end up paying for an outside contractor to prove the flooring in 302 is damaged."
  Thomas tried to hand the bowl of fruit to Marissa, but she handed it right back to Chloe.  "It'll probably go that way.  This is pissing me off, but what if they get louder?  You wear headphones or plugs, but what if they did something that damages your hearing?"  He left unsaid the cost of disabilities.  "Solving this is going to be a team effort, so we'd better plan."  In 302, Lucia called for the dog.  "Last thing I want is them to have to choose between what needs to be done and the pooch."  The women ganged up on him, having already coordinated their opinions enough to make his garnish.
  None of the ladies allowed Thomas to do things for himself either.  Beyond the indignity of being fed more fruit by the bats, Geri demanded they put one of the popular audio dramas on the surround sound system.  Half the material was too faint for him.  Once the bowl was emptied Geri forced the bat to her own lover and nestled against Thomas.  The distant hints of traffic and neighbors drowned whatever the ladies' conversation didn't.
  A sharp whump followed two people walking upstairs.  Seconds later Thomas closed his eyes to bring Lucia's words in focus using flight team-trained hearing.  "Don't tell me what to do.  The vet said things are fine.  I'm fine," she shouted.  The barest hint of a whine moved to the scamper of feet and then shrill barking.
  A fist rattled the upstairs kitchen countertop.  It sounded like a maraca avalanche as things fell over.  "You can't keep the mutt alive forever.  Dogs get older and die."
  "Sofie is only three.  Since when is that old for a dog?"
  "I want you happy, but these fucking neighbors-"
  "We're not going anywhere before this lease is up, and Sofie is a part of this family."
  "I'd feel better if you talked to your mother."  Todd paced around the room in long strides.  "She'd take the dog for a few days.  Management will see the fucking hawkgirl is unreasonable.  She can probably hear paper being shuffled in the office."
  "Not over your shouting!"
  Todd's voice had been by far the more controlled and softer, and became quieter still.  "We're going to end up with her kennel on the balcony full-time."
  "A better idea.  You stay in the kennel, and no one has to yell!"
  Three sounds happened in quick succession, and no one in 202 pretended to be listening to the audio drama anymore.  Sofie barked loud enough for the floor below to hear.  A strike of flesh on flesh.  The freefall of a collapsing body wasn't muffled by wooden floors.  Through his slacks and her culottes, the grain of feathers rasped.  Thomas's hearing was confirmed by bill clicks and Geri's whisper in his ear.
  "Men like him should be struck as they have struck others."
  An unintelligible shout was aimed at the fallen Lucia, then female sobbing.  Geri tracked the continuation after the initial burst.  Marissa's hands tightened while Chloe whispered to her lover.  The sanguinarian usually avoided displaying her teeth.  Now was an excusable slip.  And Chloe's ears twitched just the same.  Thomas admitted to himself as he opened his eyes that an intervention beyond talking might be past due, if not past reach as well.  Geri's eyes held the inhuman look he'd only seen during their rare visits to high-end restaurants that served live food.
  Blood was possible.
  Heartbeats resumed as Sofie whined at her fallen owner.  Lucia pulled herself up.  "Don't take things out on Sofie, and don't say we're not getting a second opinion that we can't afford."
  "I'm sorry."
  "Yeah."  Todd didn't fall over the couch on his own given the whipcrack of palm and face preceding.  True silence fell.  A pair of footsteps, one human and one canine, descended the outside stairwell as someone rose from the floor yet again.  From above, a wall shook as it was struck by a flat palm.  "Bitch is going to be the death of me."

That night the Gentilis left the kennel out again.  Thomas had fallen asleep with earplugs in after the couple upstairs had sounded more like a fox and cat hybrid.  According to the board on the fridge, Geri was due back at 6:30AM.  His alarm vibrated an hour before then.  It took a minute after he pulled his earplugs out to realize Geri was in the bathroom splashing herself clean.  Probably the installs on their drone systems ended up a dusty mess.  The upstairs staff needed a freaking vacuum drone.  Couldn't cost a quarter of what the heavy remote cost and would make a couple dozen avians and other nocturnals happy.
  Geri had shaken herself dry and pulled on a pair of culottes by the time he rolled out of bed in nothing but boxers.  The sharp odor of bleach hit along with the damp air, along with the ugly sight of her stained overalls.  Whatever she'd gotten in them stank.  Even if she couldn't sense how bad it was, she could see and feel it.  He reached past.  There was a decent bit of dirt in the wet mess, but the color looked deeper than normal grime.  Her tan grip boots were ruined with smears of the same, except it couldn't soak into the treated leather.  No human could live with an anthro that considered the occasional whole live animal an indulgent treat and not recognize that color.  He walked out to the living room to confirm she hadn't tracked it from outside, nor up the stairs and landing.
  "What the hell did you do last night?"
  "Don't ask.  If I would have known it could be that messy, I wouldn't have done it."  She recapped the bleach and turned on the water in the tub.  "Did I wake you early?"
  "No."
  She grabbed a sponge and the cleaner from the counter.  "Can you give me a few more minutes?"  The bottle hissed in that almost empty sound.
  "Want me to pick up some more after work?"
  "Fill the shopping cart.  I feel bad about messing up the bathroom on a normal day, and this wasn't.  Plus I need to feak myself.  Shoo."
  His coffee had cooled just to the right point by the time she emerged.  "Mind talking about it now?  You don't leave early."  
  "Paul came out to help.  The new system unchains him from the upstairs office, so he went down to prep the team.  Now we'll be lucky to have the drones running in cordoned lanes.  We were supposed to have that section to ourselves."
  "Was that blood on your overalls?"
  "Yes."
  "His?"
  "No."
  Any further explanation was cut off by a scream from the rawest parts of sentience, at first from above and then running down the stairwell.  Neither stopped to grab shoes nor complained about the rough concrete of landing and stairs.  Several other residents ended up gathered as well on the grass between 102 and 103, the knot closing in on the barefoot woman in satin pajamas.  A blob of white fur laid crumpled in the grass between the air conditioning units, the stained pad even darker from the little blood left of what had once responded to the call of Sofie.
  A gash had been ripped in the dog's neck, and red ran down the side of the building from the sloped roof.  A cheap yellow nylon leash laid coiled over the tiny corpse.  Soon enough the neighbors had dragged Lucia away and called the cops.

It took more than two hours for the police to verify Geri's story.  A bunch of plastic sheeting in the closest dumpster tested positive for the presence of human blood, same as Geri's clothing.  Her co-workers had taken her from the work accident once things were safe, and then treated Geri to a 24-hour drive-through.  The complex's security recorded Geri arriving shortly before Thomas had woken to find her washing off.
  Everyone else that could have ascended the building without a ladder had alibis.  The bats had left for a predawn jog.  At the insistence of a barely cognizant Lucia, the cops had even promised to check out the residents of other buildings.  Thomas finally received a go-ahead to depart for work.  Once settled in he ordered the soundproofing without calling home and pushed the morning from his mind.
  That afternoon he lugged up the first of four loads of bleach and cleaners, finding Geri awake and unpacking a case of the crossmembers.  Two long rows already stretched the length of the ceiling, throwing shadows upward from the dim adaptive lights.  She'd brought everything inside from the landing, piling the rolls of foam on the balcony.  In the sink a sealed guinea pig was defrosting.
  "Couldn't wait?"
  She didn't look up, but the fan of her tailfeathers twitched.  "They gave me off the next few days."
  "Probably for the best."  Thomas reached past her and begin to clip the inverted tees together.  After several he pulled more, but found Geri's trembling facial disk aimed at him.
  "Not really.  Lucia still thinks it was me or Marissa.  The human," she almost spat, "woman headed out an hour ago as I was bringing in the soundproofing.  Let's just say her walk sounded like a woman out for revenge on top of sorrow, but she's as inexperienced as a fledgling sparrow."
  "The less we deal with them over the next couple of weeks, the healthier for us.  You relax before you crack yourself in two.  I'll call around and get some help."
  At some point after dusk Krill and Yujith arrived, and shortly after someone stomped up the landing stairs.  From above, the familiar sounds of feet were currently more like angry heels than taps or bowling ball thuds, and that fading as the soundproofing went up.  The bats called to offer help, wishing Geri and Thomas luck with the renovations.
  Over the next couple of days they worked in shifts.  When both were awake they stuffed the unrolled foam above the drop panels.  Bit by bit, the noise from above went from intrusive to near inaudible.  Thuds became soft steps, clicks became distant ticks, and at one point they thought a sound moving in tight circles directly overhead was a new dog.  Only in the kitchen and bathroom was any noise coming through, and the couple in 202 planned to muffle those areas over the next week if needed.
  Two problems remained.  Whether or not Lucia had convinced her husband of the need for another dog, she cried whenever awake and slept only in exhaustion.  A chance encounter with Todd one afternoon left him unable to say much.  His neighbor apologized for the previous issues, how he'd handled the whole situation, and a dozen other items.  But once said, an optimism he'd never seen spread across Todd's face.  The man spoke in quickening sentences.  A new dog; you'll see.  It's a surprise.  Housebroken, and trained.  All she needs is time.  Nothing wrong with Lucia that a good night's sleep won't eventually fix.
  The second problem didn't involve feeling pity for Todd.  Geri changed her mind about how tacky the eighth inch wall foam looked once unrolled and mounted.  For the first time in weeks Geri gave in completely to her husband's amorous advances, beak nipping at his shoulder and wings enveloping him as he held her aloft.  Her return to work involved more than a few chances for delay or unplanned sick days.  Soundproofing the apartment had dropped the external noise from within the building to beneath his noise floor, so for the first time he'd be able to push the limits on the surround system.  Geri would doubtlessly complain if he recabled everything, but maybe the crossovers needed tuning.  He busted out meters and leads after popping the back off one of the towers.  Something had to have shaken loose from their upstairs neighbors' activities.  And if nothing had, then he was in a perfect position to never hear it while he read off the results of a precision test disc.
  Thomas settled into his half of the couch after finally finishing the last bit of tweaking.  With beer in hand he flicked through the saved audio streams, then twiddled between two live streams.  Almost perfect, he thought after settling on one.  He could finally hear the softest noises, the ones that almost all life couldn't help making.  In the back of his head he began writing an email to the editor of a hifi magazine.  He dozed off, only waking long enough to respond to a text message from the bats.  They'd gone to one of the downtown clubs and were dancing the night away in slinky outfits, doing their usual tease job.  As appealing as playing sandwich meat sounded, Geri wouldn't approve.
  She might have already, messaged Marissa.  Big problems require teamwork, and Chloe needs a harsh lesson.
  You two are horrible.
  Good girls like us still get a bad rap.  Might as well live it up once in a while.
  Thomas didn't doubt it.  He'd met Geri during their sophomore year because of the flight team.  The few flight capable anthros he'd encountered over the years avoided the sport.  Bad enough to have the social stigma of predator, so why double down and show off?  It could make for a small dating pool.  Had one or both of them mentioned doing that?  Marissa had joked about other bats that worked in slaughterhouses to keep the rumors away, and even shown off her latest improvements to a nurse's costume for the upcoming Halloween.  Probably the only night of the year she could drink blood everywhere in public and not cause a panic.  Maybe...
  Still trying to get a few drops straight from the tap?
  Best reason to flirt with a man.  Get some rest if you're not interested in donating a pint.
  After an hour the noise from upstairs became a small argument, then faded as they moved from their kitchen.  To cover what little remained of it, he switched to some of the softcore porn that Geri preferred.  Interspecies stuff was becoming more common, but for every romantic scene there were a dozen cheap hardcore scenes.  Her browsing history had plenty of those.  There were exceptions, but human/owl pairings dominated.  One that she'd watched several times had a snowy owl chick taking it from behind, her tail feathers and ass pulled up roughly as she stretched out prone on the bed.  Difficult position, he thought, with most avians.  The couple switched to a cowgirl position on a chair, the man resting back on his shoulder blades and bridging so her tail had room.  She leaned forward as the camera swept behind and below for the closeup, pale down contrasting against pinker human flesh that thrust upward as her hips slammed down.
  Geri had become comfortable enough in their marriage to ease up on the territorial behavior.  Once upon a time the snowy owl would have had her beak clicking for days.  Bad influence, she'd said more than once.  Horrible, non-monogamous humans.  But leaving her browsing history unwiped was a tease Marissa and Chloe had nothing on.  He scrolled down to the newest, and dropped the remote when one of the videos featured a female bat anthro on a large white bed.  The animated preview started with the couple stripping.  His finger wavered over the select button after he retrieved the remote, watching the sex.  At the climax the female bit into the human male's neck, teeth ripping into a fake jugular and perfectly colored stage blood squirting all over the room.  The remote fell again as the upstairs argument became louder but didn't prevent Thomas from falling into a deep dream.  

When they'd began dating Thomas had discovered all of Geri's tics, all the things on her personal spectrum of shyness.  Some were understandable.  The leading edge of any avian's wings could be bruised or fractured with ease, so it took many sessions before touching her there wasn't taboo.  She'd relaxed on their first date after discovering that he didn't need the explanation about odors or the surprise of brightly lit restaurants, but pulled the powder room line out of habit.  Anything even approaching a feak in public crossed lines beaten into avians by their parents.  Besides, the first time he'd ran gentle fingers along the outside of her eyes Geri nearly fainted.  The same for a finger slipping under her feathers to graze her earholes, or her single biggest fetish.  Beak caresses were close to highest level of intimacy, and she was nearly as ticklish there as where wing joined her back.  Whether women to admitted it or not, a casual footrub was relaxing and Geri wasn't any different.  But some things needed time.  One of the benefits to marriage was the mythical deep friendship they'd agreed to pursue; no fetish or kink was too strange to talk over.  It made for some interesting conversation u-turns and inside jokes.
  Tonight had begun when they invited Marissa and Chloe over.  All three women had conspired to wear his favorite cut of dress.  Open back designs were among the most practical for winged anthros in his opinion, and should have never been stigmatized by some earthbound busybodies.  Chloe had gone with a virgin killer, Marissa a halter wrap that tied onto the belt of sheer culottes, and Geri with a varicolored half-dress.  The front was a halter top that continued below the waistline, flared into pleats designed to twist as the wearer walked.  A narrow, downsloping belt framed her waistline and held another fold of cloth that covered her below the tailfeathers.  Without underwear it was perfect for those impromptu public quickies.
  After a light dinner all four laughed in conversation with sufficient volume to lessen any sounds from the kitchen, but not the smells of food.  Chloe never accepted that a home had enough fruit, and any wineglass Marissa touched needed thorough washing after.  Every living thing in the apartment found the background rumble of the dishwasher soothing.
  Couples games ended in embarrassment if any pair didn't know the rest adequately.  The bats didn't keep many secrets.  Compared to Geri they were downright libertine, but that was always his wife's last line of defense.  She'd learned that human men often appreciated being the ones seduced and treated it like a hunt, hooting in loose time once matters flew past massage or cuddling.  So when they moved the fun to the bedroom, all the furniture was pushed aside or rolled up.  Whatever they'd planned would be good if they'd splurged on plastic sheeting under the currently folded leanboard.  The last time had taught Geri.  Old bedsheets were too thin and old towels covered too little floorspace.
  Thomas had laughed at how he looked in upper arm bracers and shoulder leathers the first time he'd buckled them on.  As much as he loved women in open-backed dresses, Geri's libido went through the roof when she heard leather warming against human flesh.
  Marissa shifted her video camera lower and a foot to the left.  Her crouch threatened to include the tops of her folded wings in the shot.  "You look like an extra from the Mad Max movies.  How about an Aussie accent, Geri?  They've got owls down under."
  "Shut your wrinkled muzzle.  We want to hear what she's getting down under, not your humor."  Chloe's video camera was taking in the reverse angle from partways behind Thomas and higher.  "Clench down, Geri.  That's what the leather's for.  Show off those talons, babe."
  Even though a good part of her weight was on his forearms, the bracers meant she could grab hold there as well as lace her fingers behind his neck.  Not many positions were more athletic than having her wings opened along the room's diagonal and tailfeathers spread, but it left Thomas in full control of the rhythm.  Geri wasn't a short woman, but between feathers and hollowed bones she rarely topped forty-five kilos.  His shoulder and arm muscles were thick and solid muscle from years of wingsuit practice, biceps and lats beaded with sweat as he let Geri take more of his shaft with each downward stroke.
  Soft murmurs escaped her narrow beak as he reversed direction, Marissa's viewfinder zooming in quickly to show the strings of frothy cloaca lubrication coating the human's girth.  Down again, a fraction lower but still a couple inches until the owl's palest down rubbed against her husband's shaved groin.  Her head rested on one of the shoulder leathers.  He held her at the stroke's bottom, drawing small circles with her hips until she turned her head to bite the hide.
  "That's it.  Bite hard, you slut," Chloe said.  Geri's outstretched wingtips trembled harder in response to the dirty talk.  "That human cock must feel so good when he's breeding you."
  "We're putting this on our channel, right?  Marissa and Chloe's interspecies neighbors."  The tips of Geri's beak became more than dull pressure through the near half-inch thick leather.  Thomas maintained his steady strokes.  "Give us an orgasm, babe.  Let everyone see those wings go wild."
  Geri couldn't maintain tension in her thigh muscles like her feet when she came.  Dark talons wrapped three-quarters of the way around buff colored leather as the owl screamed with unrestrained delight, the finest tufts of down soaked and finally grinding against Thomas's crotch.  He lifted her slowly, then back down an inch, and so on until his cock slipped free.  Higher he lifted until it forced Geri to quit biting leather, and closer he drew her until his mouth touched the banded colors across stomach feathers.  The two bats waited for the scene to continue.
  The human and owl had done this hundreds of times in private.  Thomas lowered his wife to the floor and supported her as she collapsed against his leg.  His shaft rested on the upper hook of her beak, wet and leaving shiny trails as it twitched on the keratin.  Geri's wings hung limp, her hands resting on Thomas's thighs until he pulled them up one by one.
  "Do it, Geri.  You know where you want it.  Stroke it all over your beak."
  Marissa and Chloe caught the handjob in high definition, making certain to spotlight the occasional flicks of Geri's tongue up and down the rigid cock.  One hand gripped the back of the owl's head, going vicelike as his orgasm crept up with raw, hoarse breaths.  Thick globs of semen exploded from Thomas's shaft, clotting all over the facial disk of his wife's feathers and dripping off the hook of her beak.  With one last silent look directly into Marissa's camera, Geri posed with the conquered human manhood she'd attempted to ride to limpness.
  Soft puffs of breath heated Thomas's thigh as Marissa stopped recording.  The sanguinarian returned with a towel and terry cloth cloak.  Chloe continued filming the post-coitual bliss as her lover wiped at fouled feathers.
  "He's still got some spunk in him by the look of things," said Chloe.  Marissa gave her lover a daring look.  "Do you two want to see me?  How about you?"  She laughed as Thomas bounced once against Geri's beak, a fresh smear of sexual fluids shining in the murk.  "Guess that's a yes.  How about we set the cameras on tripods and make this a swap?"
  The women pulled the leanboard open and aimed one video camera at it, then repeated that so that the fructivore and human's tryst would be documented.  Softer lips teased Thomas's shaft and licked up the drying fluids as they watched their lovers explore each other with gentle strokes of talon and nail.
  "You're sweet."
  "Now you know the real reason.  Geri likes the taste."  It was more a texture thing according to her, but no need to interrupt Chloe's experienced licking on his cock.
  "I should borrow you once in a while.  They're not going to object after tonight."
  The sanguinarian hadn't done a complete job of cleaning the semen from Geri's face and probed along the side of her beak with a pink triangular tongue.  This had to be a setup from Marissa.  Her flattened face and dark eyes never wavered from Thomas as her fingers crept lower down and across Geri's abdomen.  She'd always been the brains of the two bats, and now she'd manipulated everyone into her fantasy: seducing another flight-capable woman and watching her lesbian lover impaled by a human phallus, engorged with hot blood.  Perhaps there was more.  What if his size caused microtears inside Chloe?  If that mixed with semen, would Marissa lap that up the same as bloodied wine raised to body temperature?  The image of one bat eating the other out had never been a fantasy before tonight, but Chloe's soft, russety fur and warmth were so different than the silken feel of feather under his hand.  His legs were used to the feel of a wider breastbone and ribs with smaller breasts.  Static electricity built as the hard points of her larger breasts drew erotic sigils over his thighs.
  The tongue twisted down his cock until it found wrinkly hairless flesh that rolled and reacted like prey trying to escape.  Marissa had invented that game at least once before with her lover and now made her human neighbor the small pouch of dangled grapes.  Too many species had curious men that found the experience of a heretospecific tongue among the pinnacle of sexual pleasure, and equally curious women that dared social convention.  Thomas attempted to count the number slowly as he added Chloe and her sapphicly trained skills to the end of that list.
  His wife and Marissa still dipped and squirmed closer, wings overlapping as neither wanted to dismount the leanboard bar and turn their back on the other show.  Talons raked wide furrows in the sanguinarian's fur, her piercing stare demanding that Thomas lift the bat to her feet and get on with things.
  Chloe didn't have Geri's experience in gripping shoulder bracers during sex, but was far lighter.  He directed her to grip the back of his neck and pull as he lifted her one-handed, her legs curling in surprise.  Their audience clapped as a team so that neither had to stop their explorations of the other woman.  With a flourish Thomas added his other hand under the bat's ass and lifted higher until his face was buried in the softest fur he'd ever had, faint ester perfumes clinging from her belly and even lower.  A stern command broke the bat from her reverie.  She'd gone slack-eared and fumbled her calves against the human's broad, leather-covered shoulders, lost in the power he had over.  The passionate scars cut into the boarhide rasped the small tendons and ligaments under red-brown fur as she was lowered.  Thomas's nose trailed higher on her body, from belly to between her breasts, where he paused as if she weighed no more than a balloon.  His muscular tongue rounded over dark nipples and alternated directions in unpredictable places, driving her jaw from slack to thrillingly tense, pleading chirps falling as the human prepared her for what she'd teased over the past months.
  The first touch of a pale primate phallus against the bat's wet velvet increased the contrast between their heartbeats.  Even in exertion a human heartbeat was glacial compared to the hammering pulse Thomas's hands cradled, four or five for every one of his.  From his first sexual encounter with Geri, and later conversations with more experienced souls online, he'd discovered how gentle a stronger male had to be with delicate pteraform women, on top of the challenges of a standing sex position.  He used the same technique that drove Geri wild.  Careful orbits, tight and slow, allowed his cockhead to ease her open without the aid of hands.  Each trip around parted blood-engorged dark flesh wider, revealing the inner pink and coating him with a fresh layer of sexual fluids.  Completely under his control, he teased her lower.  The curve of Thomas's member increased as if a box spring until he felt the tension ready to break.  At the last moment he lifted Chloe the barest fraction to save her from the full impact of impalement.
  She shivered in his arms, wings going as limp as the owl's had.  Restarting the rolling motion of her hips also restarted the desperately slow drilling of Chloe's vagina, occasionally lifting her or changing the angle of her body.  The unfamiliar variations of internal and clitoral stimulations only increased as the human finished lowering her to fate.  Every avian had a slight bondage fetish, and any female brave enough to dare outside her own more so.  Part of it was the massive possible ratio of power exchange and being manipulated so easily.  Add to that the thrill of jesses and hoods, of inversions or sensory deprivations, and it was no wonder to Thomas that Chloe started babbling breathlessly.  Marissa could never provide all these experiences simultaneously, and certainly not with his intensity.
  His wife and the sanguinarian's heads followed as if locked by computer through the dark.  They would request this again and again, adding to the microphone count until the playback was as vivid as the live show they reveled in now.  Thomas angled his stance to get a better view as the two women alternated in slow dips.  One would reach lower and give a fleeting touch upon the other's sex, their inner arms trying at each other's muzzle or beak to find the tiniest erogenous spots around eyes and nostrils.  The odors, or in Geri's case the sounds and libidinous motions, of illicit sex must have been flooding their awareness and stripping away the polite sentience of civilization.
  Once he had penetrated Chloe deeply, he lifted her and altered their sex from drawn out anticipation to hard thrusts.  If she and her lesbian lover had been aroused by the sight of the natural lubrication between avian and human, feeling his cock pushing deep inside and demanding her own juices turned fantasy to dream-sharp reality.  He spoke in low, soft tones, right into sensitive anthro ears.  Such an erotic action that couldn't be replicated with a human woman, transforming even the most minuscule sound to sensation.  He demanded her passion and trembling leg muscles.  Perhaps next time he'd teach her how to use the arm bracers and why Geri claimed it made her orgasm longer, more intense.  Soft words, impossible for her to respond to, impossible to escape from, as surely as if she'd flown into sticky netting.
  The dulled, rhythmic slapping of sweat damped flesh into fur finally overcame the other women.  Marissa kicked free of leanboard and made a series of cooing noises in the kitchen as the dishwasher hit the end of its cycle.  Deeper.  The bat's head lolled at his shoulder, between her leg and his neck, as her wings slacked over like a body-warmed sheet.  He whispered in Chloe's ear: don't ever tease me again.  I'll make you mine if you do.  My hard cock will use you; your cunt will drown in my cum.
  Marissa returned with the apartment's fifth occupant, a juvenile Flemish rabbit.  She cradled it in dark arms, the lighter brown fur spilling over as she stepped back into the leanboard.  Deeper he thrust into Chloe.  The rabbit's nose twitched in drugged somnolence as it was raised between avian and sanguinarian.  Small contractions around his shaft strengthened as they rode up the lift to the peaks of orgasm.  Four hands jailed the animal as perfectly as he used the fructivore like a life-sized sex doll.  Wordless chirps increased in pace as the contractions grew stronger.
  Soft grunts and louder chirps met, and exploded in sensation as the other couple ripped into light brown fur with needle-sharp teeth and narrow beak.  Vibrant red blood and viscera dripped over the two women, the wounds they'd made well practiced and instantly fatal.

Geraldine returned from work an hour before dawn on Wednesday.  She parked and flicked through her phone's messages, laughing at the screenshot her neighbor had sent hours before.  Knowing Marissa she'd used the tired lure of fruit, and then combined that with more than a couple umbrella-laden drinks.  Once Chloe's dial had been cranked from flirty to showgirl, they'd drag their third wheel off to a corner and convinced the poor girl for a small donation.  A few drops, she'd say, just a few and a kiss.  The bats had perfected the routine long ago, but never took it further.  She knew the feeling; the thrill of the hunt and the ardor after the capture.  It was the curse of every predator anthro species including humans.  Instinct whispered behind the floating gauze of sentience like a sound from across a wall.  Tap.  Tap.  Tap.
  She dropped the phone.  Why now?  It had been almost a week, and now she was hearing phantoms outside the apartment?  A few twists of her head, and the pre-dawn ambiance of the apartment complex's parking lot resolved.  It was just the first trickles of daytime traffic and others locked to that part of the solar cycle.  With a shiver of feathers she picked up the phone and checked the time on Marissa's last message.  One in the morning.  They'd said a night out was better than the chance of the Gentilis possibly arguing on the third floor landing.  At least inside the noise level could be covered with less difficulty no matter the volume.
  The smear of blood outside on her side of the building had been cleaned the day it happened, but standard cleaners supposedly left a hint of the ferric odor behind until rain diluted the ground or pounded the exterior wall clean again.  Thomas had avoided the balcony and memory, and she'd followed his lead.  Maybe kids.  The intrusive thought stopped her.  What if Thomas got her pregnant?  Would their children have her hearing and his better sense of smell?  Good reminder to empty tonight's takeout from the back seat.  She'd repaid Krill and Yujith for driving her home the morning of the accident.  The two called the result a wonderful bouquet, but it would only strengthen if the trash received a full day's heat.  Morning birds ceased their calls as she walked from her lot to the cluster of dumpsters and recycling bins.
  Nearly full, every feaking one.  Insensitive humans tended to call out the involuntary flick of her nictitating membrane as the equivalent of pinching their nose.  The plastics bin had a plague of flies attracted to the stink of soda bottles and microwaved food.  The colored and clear glass bins were never free of the vapors of alcohol and cooking oils.  But the small bin for biowaste and blood containers was almost empty.  Funny.  Marissa took her bottles out on Tuesday and Saturday nights like clockwork.  They could be reused if she sanitized them, but most were cheap plastic.  Geri tried to recall if the bats had been clinking with more glass than usual on their last couple of grocery runs, talons disturbing the top layer to see if the pint bottles were beneath.  Maybe not.
  She turned and startled a drowsy Chloe, the bat in loose flannel culottes and a V-robe.  Two pairs of wings snapped open and Geri fell back a few reflexive steps.  The bat sniffed herself into a coughing fit as she stumbled back.
  "Whoa.  Sorry, Geri.  I had too much, last night was a blur I can't really remember and now Marissa's sleeping everything off.  We just got home ourselves.  Can't smell a thing right now, so good time to take out trash.  The old compensation headache makes everything smell three times sharper.  I think the power went out last night as well.  Check your freezer."  She let loose a fruity burp that added to the overripe odor of her bulging bag of cores and peels.  "I should know better.  She's been on a kick for fresh blood since the Gentilis's dog, and the woman's a glutton if you promise to rub her belly for hours after.  I swear she could chug a fifth without blinking, and butchers charge way too much out of season."
  "Are they still asleep, or do I need to eat with the occasional shout from above?  Wait.  Two passed out humans equal complete quiet until their last alarm goes off."  
  "They've been quiet since we shut our door.  I wonder if she'll ever get another dog.  Not that you'd know before seeing them lug dogfood upstairs again."  She paused, then flung her bag in the open dumpster.  "Speaking of that, didn't you two finish the kitchen soundproofing?"
  "Thomas has to retighten the mounts, and that's a two person job.  Maybe this weekend."
  "Talk later.  And apologize to Thomas for me.  I was really drunk, and I think Marissa popped my boob out for one shot.  Scruffy has her phone locked and I can't look."
  "Sure.  Hopefully the daywalkers keep it down today."
  She strolled back and unlaced the new pair of grip boots once up to the second floor landing.  Someone in the apartments above had been sick since she'd left for work.  Badly, if her nictitating membranes snapped shut just like at the dumpsters.  Her wings shrugged tighter at the memories of the worst reek anyone that had a meat heavy diet feared, one of meat on the cusp of spoiling.  Carnivorous avians tended to be neat freaks for obvious reasons, but accidents happened.  In her case a strict routine, or a human nose, prevented most.  Once a mini-pack of mice had fallen from her bags at their old place, and two days later had finally leaked itself open in the middle of summer.  Humans had it easy defrosting meat, but someone would be late to work cleaning their kitchen.  Whatever had happened, Thomas had no part in the events above.  He'd fallen asleep on the couch and still wore the old college tee and pajama bottoms from last night.  One hand dangled over the armrest, remote for the surround sound system still in hand and brushing the floor.  She shut off the electronics, pulsing lights on both display and receiver going dark. 
  The man had his charms but he'd wake up soon and rush through throwing on clothes, all the while muttering about dirty drains.  Above in 302, tiny sounds like a dog pushing itself on the smooth floor.  Except the small white dog had died days ago.  Shh.  Pause.  Shh.  Pause.  An unnoticeable gap in the blackout curtains would make a fine joke.  Did Lucia replace the lapdog already?  It only took a few minutes to pack a bag lunch and set out clothes for him, and when a single feather started itching loose she plucked it free.  The inhabitant upstairs stopped for a rest, then walked to the bathroom.  Hard to tell through the soundproofing who footsteps belonged to.  Just a reminder to take better care of yourself, she thought, my dearest husband.  He snorted in dream as she left a note for him on the fridge, then laughed as the human turned towards the window.  As she cleaned herself and prepared her sleeping hood, a ray of sunlight advanced across the living room floor.  He'd wake soon enough.

Thomas sighed after a completely unnecessary meeting, which had followed a morning of phone tag with another department.  A feather from Geri rested on his desk, propped up against the computer monitor on the left.  He crumpled the brown bag she'd stashed it in, each exchange from hand to hand compressing it to lifeless trash.  Moving to opposite schedules again was a trial on their marriage, but the small things kept them together.
  The intercom rang, the receptionist on the other end confused at the message she was relaying.  "Thomas, I'm sorry to interrupt your lunch, but your wife called on line nine.  I tried to get her to slow down, but there were a lot of voices in the background and she just kept saying, 'Oh no, not again.'  Then I thought I heard a name before the phone hung up.  Something Italian sounding."
  He grabbed his stuff and sprinted out, making apologies for the personal emergency along the way.  Ten miles.  His mind set a countdown timer as he peeled out of the parking lot, turning towards the back way to his apartment.  The other way would be faster without traffic, but more potential red lights.  Right turn on Lincoln, fifteen minutes.  A helicopter whooped overhead while he waited out a red light at the turn to Seventieth, eight minutes.  Cherry pickers had blocked off a lane down the street from his place, two minutes.  He turned in with screeching tires, the rubber too strong for the air filter to scrub.  At least a dozen cop cars and other vehicles filled the closest spots.  He'd run plenty for conditioning back then for flight team.  What was the distance from the lot to his door?  Less than two hundred meters, even with the stairs.
  An officer stopped him at a cordon fifty feet from the building.  After getting his name, he was escorted up to the second floor.  Most of the activity seemed to be from the third.
  The apartment door opened to a room far too bright for Geri.  The trio of cops inside had no real place to sit other than his half of the couch, so the one in charge was lounging there while the others guarded her far too close for comfort.  And the absolute retch!  This morning it had smelled like a minor clog, but now the small bathroom and kitchen fans couldn't dampen it.  Blood and ripe meat blended with shit.  If this was just a garbage disposal issue, the whole complex would be getting weekly notices on do-nots for a year.
  "Mrs. Wittson, please understand I'm on your side," the detective said, failing at soothing her shaking wings.  The opened door and sounds from outside broke his concentration.  "Who the fuck is this?"
  "Mr. Wittson, sir."  He backed away after the detective waved him off, closing the door with a shrunken posture.  Footsteps descended faster than necessary.  Thomas didn't blame the guy.
  The detective stank of coffee, sugar, and a ill-washed suit that hid every physical flaw except advancing baldness.  "Just fucking great.  Where were you last night?"  He fingered a cellphone in a ruggedized case.
  "Here.  I fell asleep on the couch."  He pointed to the lamps.  "What's happening?  Because if you don't start right now, I'm calling a lawyer.  Geri's-"
  "A suspect to some degree, just like every other occupant of this building.  You can turn the lights down until I say stop, and you'd better cooperate.  The more of that I get, the quicker we're done."
  The remote for the lights slapped into Thomas's hand.  At least the cops hadn't pulled the blackout curtains open, he reasoned, because that would have been an instant coercion and aggravated assault charge.  Geri's wings drooped in exhaustion with each click of the lights until the detective decided an equitable level was about where an early twilight would be.
  "Sounds like I need a lawyer to keep you honest," Thomas said.
  "Nice soundproofing.  How much it cost?"
  Thomas relaxed a fraction and bet the detective was still fishing.  No harm in the detective knowing why he wouldn't have woken up that easily last night.  "Everything?  About five grand."
  The detective's suit rasped against the couch's hide.  "Not bad.  My youngest plays drums now.  Scares the dog.  What's the cut?"
  "Didn't measure that."
  "But you can't hear the apartment above?"
  For the briefest moment he considered explaining his sharper hearing.  Despite all the advances since the early twenty-first century, even partial sensory implants were uncommon.  Few humans sought out voluntary analog augments, and the idea of a dual enucleation just to test the latest version of digital implants and DSP augments didn't make sense.  His eyes were fine as is and the damned artificials were barely past the equivalent of the roughest limb prosthetics.  His variamp wasn't even legally classified as an augment, just an overgrown hearing aid.  The embedded miniature equalizer and pass filter meant he'd gained an edge in flight comps.  These days it was set at the lowest gain.  Not that different than human standard hearing, just upgraded a couple notches.
  If the detective's curiosity needed sating earlier about the ceiling tiles, Geri would have already shown him all the install manuals for the soundproofing.  He could have had an officer contact the hardware store, confirm his visit and the recent purchase, even get corroborating info from their associate.  His wife's wingtips trembled in microscopic circles, as if she'd already been through the wringer and was being forced to watch the next victim.
  "Geri, did he already ask most of this?"
  "No."
  A twist soured the detective's face tighter.  He launched himself up with a grunt, phone in one hand and the other in Thomas's face.  "Listen, Mr. Wittson.  Right now I'm your second best friend apart from the lawyer you're probably waiting to call.  Couple in 301 is on vacation.  303 left the day before yesterday to visit relatives next state over.  Not that many people around last night."  He gestured towards the kitchen and obviously open bathroom.  "Smell that?"
  "I'd have to be back at work not to."  If the detective had gotten a warrant for 202, then the other named apartments were going to have a hell of a surprise when they got back home, he thought.
  "Tell you why I was sitting here and waiting for you.  Last week your wife tried to rinse off enough blood from her work clothes the same morning that the Gentilis, that is your upstairs neighbors in 302, found their dog mutilated outside.  Coincidence, as it turned out.  But I've got a problem."
  "My memory is you confirmed who couldn't have committed animal abuse by getting a security recording.  You've done that again?"
  "I've got a phantom.  Someone got on the roof of this building and dragged the Gentilis's dog up.  They disappeared into thin air.  The Gentilis were asleep, and I find it hard to believe someone could be that quiet on the roof.  One person could, except I've got this alibi thing shitcanning that."
  "Might mean you missed something."
  "Not this time."
  Thomas breathed slowly, partly to cut the stench invading his nose and partly to still his temper.  The detective wanted him playing through events in his head.  He wanted something to cross a suspect's face.  Whatever had happened, it didn't involve him nor Geri.  The cops could finish their checklist for requisite posturing on the taxpayer's dime and go look for clues elsewhere, like some place that didn't give them the fun of wholesale lying.  Forensics must be having a field day somewhere up there.
  Everyone in the room turned to Thomas as he made his voice as quiet as the surround system's noise floor.  "What happened upstairs?"
  "According to your wife, you were here when she got back from work this morning."
  "Yes."
  The detective pointed behind himself.  "Sleeping in this chair, according to her."
  "Yes."
  The detective lifted his phone.  "Do it, Murphree."  He quickly muted the phone, then tapped his finger on his leg four times.  The reflections from a whisper-soft thud were quickly absorbed by foam.  "Mr. Wittson, you can call your lawyer.  There's only three people that would have heard that last night.  One is whoever did this.  The second never showed up to work.  The third is missing.  And the Gentilis had one vehicle for both of them, which hasn't been anywhere."  Stale breath invaded Thomas's personal space.  "Process of elimination.  You're the third person.  Either you killed Lucia Gentili, or you helped her hide last night.  So if you can give me a better explanation than what I think happened, it'll be downtown."

Later that afternoon the last of the police cars departed.  Both bats tiptoed down to 202.  Almost four hours had passed since they'd taken Thomas, and the laywer's office had no news for Geri.  The door closed with a definite strike like an opening bell.  Marissa's ranting soaked up another half an hour as Geri waited for her phone to vibrate under her wing.  Chloe kept breaking her lover's train of thought with constant reminders not to open her wings indoors.  The mental speed bumps only caused the sanguinarian to talk faster, flashing sharp teeth as she recited the relevant laws that regulated her species.  Geri flicked a leading edge open a fraction.  If that dog had never ended up between the concrete patio pads of 102 and 103, the cops wouldn't have had search warrants drawn up with such speed.  Suspicion, she thought, was the beginning of tearing into civilization.  Far too many predators lived under the eternal fear of other people's accidents.  And today, her kitchen had more photos taken of it than the last five pre-move in and post-move out sessions combined.  The pantry freezer had been unloaded, quick defrosted, and then examined against the advertised empty weight of the unit.  Same for the supplied fridge and freezer.
  She twitched as the alterations to her and Thomas's budget tallied behind her large eyes.  First the soundproofing, now legal bills.  Extra shifts were rarities at the warehouse.  Whoever was responsible could have stolen the Gentilis's vehicle.  It wouldn't just exonerate Thomas but be key to a sizable settlement with the police.  They damned well knew any case against them had to involve more people than could be accounted for, and while they could hide the evidence in 302 behind layers of yellow ribbons anything outside was fair game.  Strange how they reacted when that Lucia bitch wasn't around to cry.  Continuing her wandering thoughts, with as much as they paid for this place a few more security cameras would have been reasonable.  That dog was the only reason the cops thought this was complicated.  Sad, but the cops had enough people to trace events.
  It took a team effort to calm the bat.  Chloe ended up had convincing Marissa that they needed a bit of time just for the girls and sticking together would be for the best.  They were all together and weren't doing anything else, right?  Just after sundown they'd made a clanking caravan out of carrying a bag in each hand, each with a pair of Marissa's best reusable half-gallon glass bottles.  The other slots in the bags had enough refrigerated blood for a week, as Chloe pointed out once they shut 202's door.
  "I've never understood why you spend so much time-"
  "Says the furface that spends an hour concocting the perfect fruit salad?  Please."  The bags thunked on the countertop and Marissa's deft fingers started arranging bottles in groups.  Her funnels and strainers came after.  "I'm the best of us in the kitchen.  You just need a chopping board.  Geri needs a second freezer and a clean sink."
  "I'm perfectly capable of cooking human food."  The bats turned in unison and started laughing.  "I'm serious.  OK, so I sneak a morsel of raw meat when he's not looking.  It's his fault for liking the marinade recipes I find."  A series of taps, too muffled by soundproofing to identify the maker's size or species, seemed to come from the apartment above.  Geri turned her head a degree in each direction, then waved the others closer to whisper.  "I'm not crazy.  You two heard that?"  They both nodded.
  "It's sealed," said Chloe.
  "That's not the surround system.  I can tell when Thomas has been tweaking it."
  "Well, what the fuck is it?  We'd have heard the cops coming back," whispered Marissa.
  This time the noise came from the bathroom.  By further whispers from her neighbors the faint hint of blood under the bleach and cleaners was growing stronger despite the closed door.  The sweat from the bottles on the counter started rolling down the sides of the glass, refracting hints of red-black drops around the kitchen.
  The garbage disposal in the sink gurgled for a second, followed by a burp-like sound from the bathroom sink.  Three pairs of pteraform eyes locked on the kitchen sink.  Bits of putrid black, clotted and sour, floated in the graywater that rose a centimeter and then descended.  Whatever was upstairs disappeared as quickly as it had been created.
  Marissa broke the tension.  "Where's some bleach and gloves?  Let's get my stuff in the fridge and scrub up.  Take care of the bathroom if it needs it, Chloe."
  The dimmed lights were set higher.  No one wanted to talk lest it cover up a repeat of any sounds from 302.  Thomas had heard the Gentilis.  The bats had heard the same thing she'd heard upstairs.  She wasn't crazy.  Sure, they were all stressed but a shared hallucination?  Not the kind of thing anyone wanted to reveal at work in earshot of management.  Three people with different diets?  Thomas needed to get home.  The bedroom would be packed with two couples if the bats stayed the night, but she wanted someone in her arms and didn't care who saw.
  Marissa stopped waving hands in Geri's face and resorted to tapping her beaktip.  "Are you even listening?"  Her whisper was ominous.
  "Was thinking."
  "If that asshole turns up, I don't want a cup of his blood."  She retched, tongue out at the thought of the acrid taste.  The bathroom light switch clicked off and Chloe rejoined them with yellow gloves in hand.  "I'd have to steal one of Chloe's oversweet reds and cut things half and half just to hold it down.  It might smell worse than that clog."
  The other bat squeaked at the jib against her diet but picked up the mood just the same.  The dirty gloves went in the sink, then she pushed between her lover and the owl before herding them into the living room.  "Well, I'm more than a little freaked."  She curled up, deeper in membrane-thin brown wings.  "Did they say anything about the plumbing?  Because I'll help pay for one of those snake things if Thomas takes his shirt off and I can watch."  Marissa smacked the flirt's ass.
  "Not really.  The service tech said we'd smell it, and I'm thankful I can't, until they clean 302 no matter how much bleach I put down the drain.  Must look worse up there than when we had the accident at the warehouse."
  "Bad?" asked Chloe.
  "Just an artery that I helped apply pressure to until the paramedics arrived.  You know the problem.  Hit one of those, and a small wound splatters all over the place."
  "Guess it's the same for you.  Live food isn't worth the effort at home.  Give me a safe and sanitized restaurant any day."  She licked pointed teeth, smiling at remembered indulgences enough to not feel Chloe push in and mingle their fur.
  "Can we stay here tonight?  Just for safety?"
  "Up to Geri, but I vote yes," responded Marissa.
  "No reason why not.  You two are already keeping me company."
  It was easier to hear the concern in the flat-faced bat's voice than see the additional wrinkles.  "They should have let him go by now."
  "It'll take time for the lawyer to cut through the layers.  Too quick and..."  She shivered again, wondering if a heated cloak on low would comfort her.  "Do either of you think he did something to the Gentilis?"
  Chloe's disbelief was quick.  "He doesn't seem like the type, Geri."  She frowned at her lover's chirping laugh.
  "Any why not, Mrs. Sweet Tooth?  It's in the nature of mates to protect the other.  We all have a savage side.  It just takes the right spark..."
  "And?"  Chloe asked.
  "We are what we are," said Marissa.  "I should take you out to the country, get us a few acres of land and a cute little farmhouse.  You'd orchard up every scrap of land that isn't the barns and pasture.  I'd raise grass-fed anything, tap them in a round robin, and drain them before slaughter.  We could sell whatever is left at a farmer's market.  No one to stop us from stripping naked and sailing through the night winds once the farmwork's done."
  "Only reason Thomas didn't puke the first time he took me for live food was he'd seen it already.  I'm not ready to go back to rural life anyways.  Too many guns and people that still shoot lead buckshot.  One night we went camping along a ridgeline about, oh, three years ago if I'm remembering correctly."  As she remembered, she allowed her voice to increase in volume.  But not much.  "Early fall.  I joked about the campsite for weeks before, and that first night he surprised me by pulling out his old wingsuit.  Still fit him.  We had a light snack late in the afternoon and fooled around until past sundown.  So there I was, laughing like a bundle of down, and him in a black racing suit.  That much spandex and polyester shows off everything that bracers and leathers do."
  "Dirty woman.  Stop reminding Mrs. Flirty here; she's mine," said Marissa.  Her ears twitched as she stretched backwards.
  "One thing most people don't realize is that human wingsuits have multiple designs.  They can be gliders, which makes the wearer look like a fluorescent flying squirrel.  Comp suits aren't for gliding.  The best are custom made and push the limits of lift.  No one likes handicapped suits.  You end up with drag that you can't practice for in advance from the unused weight pockets.  But his racing suit was for uncompensated events.  Just surface area, personal strength, and agility.  Without any real training I can best most any human that's trained in a normal wingsuit.  Thomas had plenty and knew all kinds of acrobatics, so he jumped off the ridge and shocked me by gaining a good sixty feet in a minute.  I followed.  We glided for a couple miles, and then I hear voices below.  Blam.  I dove, he touched down a second later, and then-"
  The thing in 302 didn't screw up.  Marissa pointed a finger upward.  It was listening, and right above them.
  Chloe leveled her head and spoke at a normal volume.  "Did you take him in the dark and surprise him?"  By the tilt of her head, she shared the same questioning look as the other bat.
  They couldn't be suggesting this, but why not?  She nodded.  "Hell no.  We collected wood on the hike back, built a huge fire and did the whole marital bliss thing."  The remote for the lights was on the coffee table.  "You should try it.  Some of the campgrounds require effort for a human to get to, so they're good for hiding from the rest of the world."  Geri reached slowly and felt the stress pour off her feathers the second the remote was in hand.
  The two bats stared at the ceiling briefly, then Marissa spoke.  "The only thing I'd worry about is food.  Can only bring so much."
  From above, the thing in 302 thought it had moved with all due caution and took nearly silent steps towards the bedroom.  Marissa's finger tracked it.  The three women breathed deeply, still aware of the earlier stench of unprocessed and now coagulated blood.  Geri set her beak and squared her back.  She whispered to herself that this was overreacting and being a bundle of nerves.  A loud series of sirens cut through the night enough to pierce the windows and partly cloak a balcony on the third floor adjusting to added weight.
  She gestured towards the kitchen, then towards Thomas's prized knives.  "Sometimes all you need are the tools, and the food comes to you."  Her finger pressed the button to dim all the lights to their lowest setting, and they stepped backwards into the black kitchen.

It would be an argument, Thomas thought.  The cops had kept him overnight, his phone had gone dead, and the best the lawyer could do wasn't much.  The suit had pushed for his release after the cops failed to advance their case to a judge.  At the top of their problems was tracking Lucia, but that became irrelevant.  Whoever had tried to stuff chunks of Todd Gentili in the garbage disposal left enough fingerprints to have lived there.  One cop called it a murder/suicide, but the lack of a second body nixxed that.
  The car pulled around on the other side of the barrier and unlocked the passenger door.  "Normally don't come out here."
  "Neither do I.  Don't recommend it."
  "No shit.  My cousin got busted one time when his neighbors were running pills.  Cops said he should have known, but he worked days and slept like a dead man the minute he got home."
  He slumped as much as the seatbelt allowed and finally became aware of the eyes watching him in the rear view mirror.  "My wife's probably still up.  That clock right?  Two?"
  "She's been up all night?"
  "It's been, let me think, at least twenty-six hours."
  "Did you sleep?"  The driver slurped a jumbo soda, loudly advertising some gas station's drink price.  Afternoon light shone through at the right angle to make the fruit punch inside darker.
  "In there?  Hell no.  They had me in an interrogation room almost the whole time."
  "Crazy, yeah.  I got a buddy that's probably in there now.  Actually drove out this way because his wife said they might be cutting him loose."  He exchanged the drink for a pack of mini doughnuts, offering one to Thomas.  The reject's crumbs sprayed the dash as the driver mumbled.  "He found this car in the very back of a motel lot.  Drops off this guy, pulls around, and sees this dog on a leash.  No one around.  Leash is tied good to the side mirror."
  "Where was this?"  Thomas pushed himself straight and stared at the rear view mirror.
  "Seventieth and Lincoln.  Hey.  That's not that far from where I'm taking you."
  "Did you talk to him before the cops grabbed him?  What kind of car?"
  "Nissan."  The drink slurped again.
  "Gray?"  The driver said no in response, then again as Thomas's added details didn't match up.  The little white dog hadn't grown into a German Sheppard.  "Too much to hope one of them was found."
  "Who?"
  "Upstairs neighbors of mine.  Guy supposedly went missing."  Thomas decided not to add that the only traces of Todd was enough blood that he hadn't left under his own power.
  "Damn.  Crazy shit, you know?  People get under stress, they see and hear strange things.  Sometimes they do strange things."
  "I really don't want to think about it.  Just want a shower and my own bed."
  "Heard that."  He crumpled the plastic wrapper and crammed it into a miniature trash bin.  "You knew the guy good?"
  "Not really, and I'm not going to miss him.  Just drive."
  The rest of the trip was in silence until he tipped the driver a twenty.  Food, he thought.  Food, not cop chow, would be nice if they had anything microwavable.  He licked his lips and tried to recall what was in the refrigerator's freezer.  With each step his grocery list became less a stream of words inside his head and more a jumble of soft-focused taste memories.  By the time he reached his building his left foot struck the step up to the first floor landing and he stumbled back.  The shock woke him enough that he slowed down and gripped the railing all the way up the stairs to the second floor.
  A soft bit of music was playing on the surround system.  Maybe the food, a quick nap, and then tell the bats in 305 that he was alive and OK.  If the detective had been telling the truth, no upstairs noise until 301 or 303 returned.  Then again, with the soundproofing he and Geri would have eternal near silence.  His key rasped into the lock.
  Geri broke off her enthusiastic singing.  "Thomas!  You didn't call!"  Rustling feathers pushed a silent cloud of air, hinted with her favorite dry perfumes.
  "Dead phone.  Is that blood on the floor?"  His keys clattered onto the counter, and he winced at the preventable noise.
  "You look exhausted.  And yes.  Chloe and Marissa spent the night.  We kept busy by helping her mix and rebottle blood.  So much for getting perfectly clean."
  If the two spots on the wallpaper - near eye level, no less - were any indication someone had gotten drunk enough, and then forgotten to seal the pressurized filters that added anti-coagulants to the mix.  They followed that by sloshing some more out of the container.  "Probably not the best thing to have on the floor if the detective comes back.  We got something to eat?"
  She laughed.  "I haven't been out of the kitchen much since last night."
  "Still smells.  You call a plumber?"
  "Management did, and they'll be by tomorrow."
  Cold blasted Thomas's face as he poked around.  Chicken breast, veggies, veggies, pork chops.  He audibly swore that there was a deep dish personal pizza buried somewhere.  "You moved everything around in the freezer."  A breakfast burrito slid free as he moved another pack of frozen meat.  Plate.  Geri smiled at him as the microwave door clicked shut.
  "Sorry.  Got an unexpected deal on meat.  That's what's kept me busy and sane."
  Thomas ripped open the steaming package and chewed robotically.  "You need to sleep too."
  "Almost done."  She dropped the last hunk of rounded in-bone meat in a plastic bag, and then filled it with water.  "Can you get several vacation days soon?  And the sooner the better."
  "I can try.  Actually we never used any for this move.  I should be good for a week whenever."
  "Can we go back to that one place with the ridge?"
  Warm memories washed over as he straightened.  "That was three years ago."  He tossed the wrapper in the trash bin and the plate in the sink with far more care than his keys.  "I might have a few wonderful dreams, or not sleep at all."
  "We need somewhere remote.  A get away from it all."
  "Consider it done.  I'll set everything up tomorrow."
  "Wonderful.  Put these in the pantry freezer while I clean up.  Don't freak out over how much I got.  It's my fault I'm set on meat for a while."
  A vacation.  Perfect idea.  A week to decompress, maybe bring the wingsuit and soar over the valleys.  The pantry was crammed with the water heater to one side and the second freezer to the other.  They had to remove all but two of the shelves, but they didn't need that much dry goods storage.  He pulled the cord for the light, sighing as Geri returned to singing in soft hoots to whatever the song was.  Of course she was happy.  He shifted the water-filled bags of meat to one arm and lifted the freezer lid.  One half was stacked to the top, the other had a divider placed horizontally.  The front left half was the same.  Full.
  The back left side had the rounded lump of a woman's eyeless head in a small garbage bag, the red plastic drawstrings knotted.  Thomas placed the prepared meat over, and shut off the light.