The Hornet’s Nest. Patricia Cornwell

drifting out of the radio on the table by the bed.

Niles wasn’t listening as he stared out at the forlorn King Usbeecee staring back at him.

Niles had been called. There was disaster looming in the land of the Usbeeceeans, and

only Niles could help, because only Niles would listen. All others looked up to the

mighty King and mocked him in their minds and among themselves, thinking the

benevolent monarch could not hear. They, the people, had wanted His Majesty to come.

They had wanted his child-care centers and frescos, his career opportunities, and his

wealth. Then they had turned jealous of his omniscience, of his all-powerful and

praiseworthy presence.

Those here and from distant ports were lustful and plotting a takeover that only Niles could stop.

%9 “Anyway,” West was saying, popping open another beer as her weird-ass cat

continued staring out at the night.

“I’m chasing him south on Seventy-seven at about ninety miles an hour? Can you believe

it? He should be in jail right now, you ask me.”

She took another swallow of Miller Genuine Draft, wondering if she should eat

something. For the first time since she’d had the flu several years ago, West was not

hungry. She felt light and foreign inside, and awake. She thought back on how much

caffeine she’d had this day, wondering if that might be the problem. It wasn’t.

Hormones, she decided, even though she knew that the beast was no longer raging, and in

fact had been quiet most of the day, on its way back to its cave until the moon was in

position again.

King Usbeecee was a potentate of few words, and Niles had to watch carefully to hear

what the King was saying. Sunrise and sunset were the King’s most chatty times, when

windows flashed white and gold in a firestorm of pontifications. At night, Niles mainly

studied the red light winking on top of the crown, a beacon saying to him, repeatedly,

wink-wink-wink. After a barely perceptible pause, three more winks, and so on. This

had gone on for weeks, and Niles knew that the code was directing him to a three-syllable

enemy, whose armies this very minute were marching closer to the Queen City that the

King ruled.

“Well, since you’re so friendly,” West said in a snippy tone to her cat, “I’m going to do laundry.”

Startled, Niles stretched and stared at her, his eyes crossed as a similar firestorm flared

inside his head. What was it the King had said? What, what, what? Earlier this evening,

when Niles had been watching the King send him signals with the sun, hadn’t the King

flashed an agitated pattern, light going round and round the building, back and forth, back

and forth, very similar to how the owner’s big white box worked when she did laundry^

A coincidence? Niles thought not. He jumped off the sill, then the counter, and followed

his owner into the utility room. The fur stood up on his back when she dipped into pants

pockets, pulling out money before wadding clothes and dunking them into the machine’s

basket. Other flashes of insight exploded in Niles’ brain. He frantically rubbed against

his owner’s legs, and nipped her, sharpening his claws on her leg, trying to tell her.

“Goddamn it!” West shook the cat off.

“What the hell has gotten into you?”

Wft Brazil lay back in the sleeping bag on the floor of his new, one-bedroom,

unfurnished apartment. He had a headache and couldn’t seem to get enough water. He’d

been drinking beer for two days, and this frightened him. His mother had probably started exactly the same way, and here he was following her path. He knew enough from

all the interest in genetics these days to deduce that he might have inherited his mother’s

proclivity for self-destruction. Brazil was deeply depressed by this realization, and he

was ashamed of his behavior and knew for a fact that West had only humored a drunk

kid, and the performance would never be repeated.

He lay still, hands beneath the back of his head, staring up at the ceiling, lights out, music

on. Beyond his window he could see the top

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