by Carter, Mina
“She won’t get far though.” The cat studied his handiwork and, apparently satisfied, sat down, wrapping his floofy tail neatly around his paws. His fiery eyes glowed with amusement. “For a guess that’s Duncan Fozedyke she’s talking to and there’s no way he’ll revoke your MPI registration.”
“There isn’t?” She blinked, hiding her smile as Oberon casually waved a hand and all Garlick’s carefully applied cat hair disappeared as if it had never been.
“Nope.”
The cat yawned so widely that she practically saw his breakfast and grinned. “Who do you think I got to sign off on your registration?”
“Right. I see. Well, thanks for nothing. I’ll just have to deal with this myself. As. Usual.” There was a ringing clatter followed by the stomp of angry footsteps, and then the door was yanked open to reveal a furious-looking Whipsnide.
“Since I apparently have to put up with this,” she snarled through gritted teeth, “you’d better come in. But make it quick. I have an appointment at half past.”
“Thank you.” Daffi smiled politely as the three of them filed into The Office.
Old Wanker stared down at her from his painting over the mantelpiece with an identical expression of distaste to the one his great-great-something granddaughter wore. Witches lived a long time, but even as sour as Whipsnide was, Daffi didn’t think she was more than a century old. Her bet was the living, breathing Whipsnide in front of her hand been born in the last half-century at the most. The absolute outside bet was under two hundred years. She could be utterly wrong, and Whipsnide could be the same age as she was, just pickled with self-righteousness and hatred for anyone who didn’t meet her exacting standards. Like Sybil, she appeared to believe that unless a family appeared in Hare’s Magical Peerage, they weren’t really witches.
Settling herself in the seat in front of the desk, Daffi pulled out her notebook and flicked to a new, clean page.
“Could you recall your movements on the day of the murder for us please?” she asked politely, ignoring Garlick as he leaped up onto the windowsill and pressed his nose against the glass. She’d long since stopped trying to work out what went on in his mad little feline brain. She just hoped he didn’t start hurling obscenities at the pigeons again. The last time that happened, she’d had to explain to the mother of a magically sensitive four-year-old that the bird had not, in fact, said, “Fuck off, you fat, furry little wanker!”
“I left the museum at half-five—”
Daffi held her hand up, cutting the woman off. That earned her an irritated look but she didn’t care. Not like Whipsnide could sack her. Was it?
“Start at lunchtime please, Ms. Whipsnide.”
“Why? Sybil was killed at half-past six. How could what I had for lunch possibly be relevant?”
Daffi looked up from her notes. “Humor me. We need to build up a picture of where everyone was on the day in question. The smallest detail might lead to a breakthrough.”
Whipsnide leaned back in her chair, her gaze dismissive as she steepled her fingers. “And you really think a second-rate witch like you could possibly solve a murder when the watch cannot?”
Next to Daffi, Oberon stiffened. Daffi put a hand on his arm to keep him quiet. Or at the least ensure he didn’t go off like some kind of blue-winged grenade at the insult sideloaded into Whipsnide’s comment.
“Ad hominem argument, ma’am,” Garlick chided. “Attacking the person when you can’t find fault with their statement or argument…” he tsked. “I really thought you were more intelligent than that.”
Daffi kept her smile sweeter than the cakes already under the glass dome on the sideboard for Whipsnide’s afternoon tea later.
“Besides, you never know… perhaps I’ll turn out to be a better detective than a witch.”
“I highly doubt that.” Whipsnide sniffed, her expression belligerent.
Garlick jumped from the windowsill onto the desk, his tail swishing in irritation. On the other side of the desk, her lizard familiar opened one eye and then closed it, going right back to sleep.
“May I remind you,” the cat said, his tone precise. “That you are legally required to cooperate with an MPI investigation under section fourteen fifty-seven of the city’s provision for Magical Law Enforcement. Any prevarication or… attitude could be considered hostile or obstruction, which carries a fifteen-day mandatory sentence in Bedlam.”
Whipsnide blanched. Bedlam wasn’t a place anyone wanted to end up—not a norm and definitely not a witch. It had a bad reputation as a norm mental hospital, but the site also housed an underground magical prison. An insane asylum above had been excellent cover for any weird and wonderful noises that might escape.
Quickly, the older witch opened her diary and muttered a quick copy, scroll spell to note down all her movements that day. Lips pursed like she was sucking a lemon, she thrust the scrap of parchment out toward Daffi.
“Here. If you need anything else, you’ll have to make an appointment. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a museum to run.”
Daffi reached out to pluck the parchment from Whipsnide’s bony fingers. Quickly, she folded it away in her notebook. Nodding toward the cakes under their dome on the sideboard, she smiled. “Enjoy your afternoon tea,” she commented as the three of them left The Office.
“She’s lying,” Oberon rumbled, surprising her. Given he was fresh out of the fae courts where things were very different—it had been one of her favorite subjects at school—she wasn’t sure how much of their investigation he actually understood. A lot more than she’d previously thought, if the considering look on his face was anything to go by.
“She is?” Daffi blinked in surprise. “I mean… I suspected she was, but what makes you say that?”
His grin was swift and a little sly. “I’m a fairy, my love. We’re born tricksters. And it takes one to know one.”
Her response was derailed as he stepped closer, reaching out to wind a strand of her rapidly lightening pink hair around his finger. He used it to tug her closer.
“But I’d never lie to you or trick you,” he murmured, his voice low and intimate. “I admit, I’d like nothing more than to enchant you into saying yes and returning with me as my queen but I will not.”
“Why?” she breathed, aiming a kick at Garlick as he made barfing noises. Couldn’t the goddess-damn cat see they were having a moment here?
Oberon smiled, still fussing with her hair. The professional yet approachable tousled updo she’d gone for this morning was completely ruined.
“If I did that, I would only have the shadow of you,” he said in a deep voice, which did things to her lower body that should be illegal. “A perfectly obedient version of you with no independent thought. You would only exist to please me. You would do anything and everything I wanted, and only that.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like most men’s perfect fantasy.”
“I don’t want that.” Oberon slid his hand into her hair. “I want you. I want the light of intelligence in your eyes, your quick wit and the way you challenge me even though I am king.”
Before she could answer, he leaned down and stole a kiss. This time she let him, her hands curling in the front of his t-shirt. He growled and deepened the kiss, the embrace turning torrid in a heartbeat. The world ceased to exist, and she was just starting to think about finding the nearest horizontal—or vertical—surface when Garlick put a claw in the back of her calf.
“Before you two attempt to get arrested for public witch-on-fae lewdness, you might be interested to know that Dave’s about to make a run for it.”
That broke the spell, and she pulled from the hunky fairy’s kiss in time to see that her familiar was right. Dave was headed for the front doors, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. Instinct told her that if he left, they’d never see him again.
“We can’t let him get away,” she hissed, breaking from Oberon’s embrace and rushing to the edge of the balcony. Throwing out a hand, she mutte
red a quick spell.
“Maiden’s sight and mother’s might,
Stop this Shifter from taking flight,
Bring him around and about again,
So we might ask who, what, why and when!”
Oberon whooped and raced down the stairs ahead of her. By the time she reached the lobby, he had the Shifter by the scruff of the neck. From the yips and snarls emanating from the smaller man, she was forced to reassess her suspicions about his canine side. Making noises like that, he had to be something small and yappy like some kind of ankle-biter. She suppressed a shudder. She was so not a dog person.
“Going somewhere, Dave?” she asked pointedly, her eyebrow raised. The fact that he’d tried to run was telling. Really telling.
He knew it as well, sweating like a kleptomaniac in a mall filled with security officers. His gaze darted between the three of them. Well, it darted between Daffi, Garlick and the bit of Oberon’s massive bicep that he could see.
“Just out for lunch… early lunch,” he added when Daffi looked up at the clock. “Man’s gotta eat, you know.”
“Oh, indeed,” she agreed and then looked at Oberon. He tightened his arm and Dave squeaked.
“What are you running from?” she demanded, rising on her tiptoes to shove her face in his and glare at him. “Or does my fiancé here have to take you outside and have a chat with you?”
“No! No!” he said quickly and then sagged in Oberon’s hold. “Okay, okay… I’ll tell you!”
Oberon looked at her and she nodded. When he let the Shifter go, she pulled them to the back of the gift shop area, behind a display rack of books entitled Love Potions throughout the Ages by Harrietta Locksglove.
“Okay,” she said, turning to face Dave. “Talk. What didn’t you want Sergeant Abberline knowing?”
He blinked. “Who says I have anything I don’t want the watch knowing? I didn’t say anything about not wanting the watch to know about it.”
She bit back her sigh. Dave seriously proved the dumb blond stereotype at times. She’d found him looking for the “any” key on the ticket booth PC the other day.
“It’s not what you said, Dave,” she clued him in. “But what you did. The sergeant interviewed you and within five minutes you’re making a break for it. Which means you told him some porkies. Didn’t you, Dave? And you’re worried about him coming back… Or,” her voice turned stern. “You don’t want me to know something and you decided to run before I could talk to you. But it couldn’t be that. Could it, Dave? Because we’re friends and you’re a good boy. Aren’t you, Dave?”
He whined as she deliberately hit his species’ trigger and refused to look her in the eye.
“Out with it, now!” she ordered, her voice hard.
Dave mumbled something, his face obscured by his hair.
Daffi leaned closer, frowning. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch that?”
It had been something about Sybil. She was sure of it.
“We were seeing each other. Okay?” Dave snapped, looking at her through the shaggy fall of his hair. “Or rather,” he hissed in frustration, his expression pained. “I was her dirty little secret. I loved her and she wouldn’t even acknowledge our relationship.”
There was real rage and pain in his voice.
“Why was that?” she asked, not letting up on the pressure. There was more here.
“Because I’m a Jack-Shit, okay?”
“So we have a dog Shifter—who would have thought there’d be a Jack Russell cross Shit Tzu Shifter out there?—in a secret relationship with the victim, a killer with white hair—which is not a common color for a witch—and a missing afternoon tea,” Daffi mused later that night when they’d returned to the Mad Pumpkin after a long day of interviews.
Oberon had been let loose on the takeout menus again and the coffee table in the middle of the sitting area was covered in an assortment of boxes. All were mostly empty now. Daffi was snacking on what remained of the prawn crackers, a food stuff she was sure had never had so much as a passing encounter with an actual prawn, as she studied her “crime board.”
One wall of the suite was covered in clues and pictures all connected with colored string to a picture of Sybil in the center. It was an old one, from some school or other. Sybil was dressed in a formal academic gown with a sash covered in multiple badges and a mortarboard hat on her head. She wore the tight smile of someone for whom displeasure was a genetic trait rather than a fleeting emotion.
“Missing afternoon tea?” Garlick asked with a groan. All that was visible of the familiar was four paws sticking up in the air on the other side of the coffee table.
“Uh-huh.” She waved a cracker at the board. “Whipsnide has afternoon tea every afternoon at three p.m. On the day of the murder my disciplinary was in the morning and Whippy had three to three thirty p.m. blocked out in her schedule. Every other day, Sybil’s name was down, but that day it was scratched out.”
“And?” Oberon asked, idly feeding Garlick a piece of fried chicken.
“Whippy said, pointedly, to the watch that the last person to see Sybil alive was me. But I couldn’t have been. There’s no way Whippy would have missed her daily dose of sycophantic fawning.”
“So Whipsnide lied about it,” Garlick mumbled unseen from the other side of the coffee table. Seriously, she had no idea where he put it all. Even for a familiar, he had an impressive appetite. It rivaled hers. And add Oberon into the mix? The local takeouts must think they had a family of twelve living in here.
“We knew she was lying about something. Mr. Buffness here ratted her out—another piece of chicken if you would, garcon—thank you,” the cat mumbled as Oberon dropped a sweet and sour chicken ball his way.
“But how does white hair, a dog Shifter, and afternoon tea fit?” she wondered as she finished off the last of the crackers.
“Well, the dog didn’t do it,” Oberon rumbled. “He wasn’t lying. He was in love with her. There’s no way he would have killed her. Not with that look in his eyes.”
“Yeah? How do you know that?”
The sofa next to her dipped under a heavy weight and a deep voice murmured in her ear. “Because I know how he feels.”
She turned to find Oberon next to her, a dark and heated look in his blue eyes. She waited for Garlick to make his usually scathing remark and then realized the cat had either cracked familiar invisibility or he’d disappeared.
“You bribed Garlick. Didn’t you?” She smirked, not stopping him as he reached out to wrap a strand of her rapidly lightening hair around his finger. At some point she’d have to come clean about her real color, hopefully after she’d found the real white-haired killer. Otherwise she was totally back in the frame for murder. Because there was no way Jack hadn’t told Sergeant Abberline about the hair color and… hello, she had white hair and a familiar who claimed to have a link to hell.
Sybil had been killed with a machete coated in hellfire.
Daffi blinked. She’d been half-joking earlier but… “Someone seriously is trying to frame me for murder.”
Oberon moved in closer, big arm around the back of the sofa as he turned her into his embrace. “You can’t do anything about it tonight. Best to sleep on it…”
“I don’t want to sleep!” she insisted, trying not to get distracted by all that hot, hunky faeness.
“I was really hoping you’d say that, my queen,” he murmured, leaning forward to claim her lips.
A soft murmur escaped her and she relaxed into the kiss. It was long and sweet with hints of hot summer evenings, rose wine, and cool sheets. She moaned, her lips parting to allow his tongue to slide against hers. Heat rose and cool sheets gave way to the slide of skin on skin and the brush of blue wings against her body.
She lifted her head.
“Are you trying to enchant me?” she demanded. When had he managed to lie down, pulling her to sprawl over his broad chest?
“No.” His expression was too neutral and careful.
“You so are! Your wings aren’t that big.”
He grinned. “Not here they’re not.”
She gasped. “You were trying to enchant me!”
“Not permanently,” he reached up and stole another kiss. She let him. “Was it working?”
She bit her lip. It was so tempting to let go, just for tonight, and let the hot, sexy fairy have his wicked way with her. Then she could have her way with him. It was a plan with no visible drawbacks.
“I’m not agreeing to marry you.”
“Understood.”
“I probably won’t respect you in the morning.”
“I can live with that.”
“It’s just sex,” she said. “Hot and horny sex.”
“Absolutely.” He nodded.
She leaned down, whispering her lips over his. “Okay, handsome, let’s see how big these… wings of yours really are.”
11
The next morning brought bird song, traffic, and a second body.
Daffi stood in stunned silence as she looked down at the sprawled figure on the cobbles. Jack the Kipper lay in the gutter, his dirty greatcoat spread around him like wings. His arm was flung out, his fish lying on the pavement just beyond his fingertips. A terrible second smile was drawn across his throat, just like Sybil.
“Same murder weapon?” Daffi asked Sergeant Abberline, who was standing next to her studying the body.
The thin watchman shook his head. “The wounds are different. Forensics will confirm it, but I think we’re looking at different weapons.”
Daffi nodded as Abberline moved off to talk to the witch who had found the body. Daffi refused to call it Jack. She couldn’t. Mostly because she’d really liked the quirky little fae and had considered him a friend, but also because he was standing right in front of her, waving his fish madly to get her attention.
She knew things were bad when the dead were trying to get her attention…
The billboard on the wall behind him, not five hundred yards from where Sybil had been murdered, screamed, “REMEMBER WHO YOU WERE BEFORE YOU FORGOT.”