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Dumpster, flung it up and over with a grunt, then stepped back. He wasn’t sure what he expected—some wino seeking shelter from the storm, maybe—but there was nothing. Only the reek of rotting garbage.
    He looked into the container. Nothing moved, not even one of those rats the size of German shepherds that infested the alleys near the river. He eased up slightly and stepped back, but the uneasiness twanging the knots of his spine wouldn’t go away.
    Maybe the rain was carrying strange sounds. He’d read about shit like that. Could the noises have come from the kitchen where he’d left Chef Rabbit?
    He pulled a small flashlight from his coat pocket and looked around. He picked up a stick and rummaged carefully through the flattened liquor boxes, broken bottles, day-old food, and coffee grounds. He leaned further in and pushed some of it aside.
    “What the hell…?” Leaning down, bracing his waist against the sill of the Dumpster’s edge, he dug further, got a solid hold on the thing, and pulled it up from where it was wedged between two heavy black plastic sacks. It seemed to be an animal skin. The weight of the thing was incredible. He hauled the skin out of the Dumpster.
    In his time he’d smelled it all, everything from dead dogs to water-logged corpses boiling with plump, pale maggots. But he choked at the stench of this thing, whatever the hell it was. He turned his head away for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths. What in the hell was this?
    Almost like rotting fish, but not exactly. He took a step back and swallowed a wad of puke trying to crawl up into his throat. He put the skin down, wiped his hands off on his coat, and then wished he hadn’t.
    Looking around, he spotted what he needed. He wrinkled his nose, holstered his weapon, picked the skin up, and carried it over to the faucet set into the building wall. He turned the valve and clear, clean water poured out. He knelt and washed his hands and the skin in the steady stream.
    Standing again, he held the skin out and shook the water off it. It was heavy, maybe thirty, forty pounds. It looked like one of those suits dancers wore when they wanted to fool you into thinking they were naked. Except that this wasn’t Lycra or any kind of cloth he’d ever heard of. This was real skin. Scaly skin. But like some giant reptile. Some kind of animal.
    So who was skinning weird animals in the alley behind a fancy nightclub? One of the chefs? Must be a hell of a menu in there…
    He bent over the soggy thing, nose twitching. The Dumpster stench was mostly gone, leaving it smelling like what it actually was. The odor was strong and memorable, very strange, but with overtones that were also familiar. Underneath the rot, there was a scent of something he knew, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Something like burnt oil…he arranged it on the sides and top of the closed Dumpster and leaned closer to get a good look at it.
    Madrone heard the scraping sound again and whirled to face it, his back against the Dumpster. The bulky skin slid down and hit the blacktop with a wet smacking sound, like some monstrous kiss.
    The noise had been right behind him this time. But there was nothing there! There wasn’t anything to hide behind. Madrone looked around, feeling like some over-hyped idiot, even checking the sky above him and everything he could see up and down the alley. Rain blurred his vision, but he caught a glimpse of movement near the edge of the building at the far end of the alley, just off Dearborn.
    “Hey!” He pointed his gun in that direction with one hand, holding the flashlight out to his side with his other hand. “Don’t move!”
    He felt even more like an idiot. Don’t move what? There was nothing there …
    He walked to the end of the alley, found nothing. He swallowed. He could feel sweat dripping from the pores of his scalp to join the rain streaming down his face.
    Again, he heard a scraping sound right behind him. He