by Ann Charles
I shook my head. “We’re on our way over there right now to investigate further.”
He broke the last of his po’boy in three pieces and handed them to his new friends. “Have you seen Hank this morning?”
Hank was in charge of the large animals at the freakshow. He was a weregorilla who looked almost the same when he was an ape or a human with his big flat nose, deep sunken eyes, and sloping forehead—especially when I was drunk. Of course, the black hair covering most of his body didn’t help either. Hank had tried waxing his back and chest once. His howls of pain were heard throughout the circus.
“Not yet. Why?”
“I stopped by on my way here. His back is covered in scratches.”
How could Eugene have seen them through all of that hair? “What happened?”
“It’s the weirdest thing. He said when he woke up this morning, Leon was in bed with him.”
“Leon?” I snorted. “You mean our Leon?”
Leon was a werelion, the biggest shapeshifting feline in our division. He was known for his deep throaty voice, his extravagant taste in large belt buckles, and his gorgeous girlfriends … and boyfriends. Rumor had it that the king of the jungle was into wild sex, and he had no problem finding partners, which made me wonder why in the world he’d climbed into Hank’s bed. Hank was nothing like the sleek sexy mates Leon typically favored.
“Yeah, that Leon.” Eugene popped a couple of peanuts in his mouth, shell and all. “Hank said when he woke up, Leon was naked and spooning him, purring like crazy and kneading his back with his long, sharp fingernails. That’s how he got the scratches.”
I grimaced. “Oh, dear. I thought Hank preferred females, especially blondes.” The ape shifter had a vintage poster of the original King Kong movie with a wilted Fay Wray in Kong’s hand that he kept hung on his tent wall.
“Well, Leon is a sandy-haired blond officially,” Eugene said, frowning as Fred the squirrel bounded back up his leg and stuffed another peanut in his pocket.
I watched the squirrel take off again across the grass. “Did Leon give any explanation as to why he was in Hank’s bed?”
“Did you just say that Leon was in Hank’s bed?” Bruno asked, handing me a steaming cup of coffee.
The big raccoon at Eugene’s feet growled up at Bruno, earning a snarl in return.
After a nod at Bruno, I turned back to Eugene. “Well?”
“Leon was as flabbergasted by it as Hank. He swears he wasn’t drinking last night, either. They both came to the conclusion that Leon sleepwalked and ended up in Hank’s tent. Besides the scratches, neither of them remembers any hanky-panky going on.”
“Hmmm.” I took a sip of coffee, picking up hints of chicory.
“There’s that ‘hmmm’ again,” Bruno said, holding out a powdered sugar–coated beignet for me.
“Yeah.” I took a bite of the beignet, which was still warm from the fryer. For a couple of seconds, I forgot all about amorous lions and blond-loving apes. “Mmmmm, that’s better than sex.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bruno asked, his cheeks darkening.
Oh, great Zeus’s ass! Now the silly man was going to spend the morning beating himself up about that damned comment. “Drop it, Bruno.” I shoved the rest of the beignet in my mouth.
“If you’re referring to this mor—”
I held up my sugar-coated fingers, playing traffic cop. “Let’s go see Marco.”
We said our good-byes to Eugene and his entourage and headed toward the monkey brothers’ tent in silence. Bruno brooded as we walked, while I cursed whatever force it was that had turned my normally bold alpha male into a self-doubting worrywart.
One way or another, I was going to get to the bottom of this mess before Bruno drove me to drink.
Chapter Five
Marco wasn’t alone inside of his tent. Besides Donatello, who still sat inside the rabbit’s trunk with that same blank expression—although this morning he had a black “CIRCUS MANAGEMENT” jacket draped over him—a very petite red-haired woman in a polka-dot lab coat was with him. A doctor’s bag sat on the ground at her feet.
“Morning, Marco,” I said as we joined them in the room. “How’s Donatello doing?” I didn’t ask about the jacket, figuring Marco must be worried about his brother growing cold from a lack of movement.
“The exact same as yesterday,” Marco said. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair sticking up in tufts. “He won’t drink or eat or sleep, so I called her.” He pointed at the woman, who couldn’t be more than four feet tall, if that. “This is Gigi,” he said. “She used to work with us at another circus years ago before she retired to focus on her studies. She’s a veterinarian now.”
“I’m Electra.” I shook Gigi’s hand, which was as petite as the rest of her, yet her grip was strong. She smelled citrusy, with a hint of honey underlying it, reminding me of a magnolia blossom. She also smelled like a shapeshifter, but which breed I wasn’t sure. A red feather stuck out of her hair. I figured it was either a clue to what she was post-shifting, or what she liked to eat. I thought about plucking the feather free, but decided it might be something she wanted there, so I left it.
“Electra is the sorceress I was telling you about,” Marco said.
“I’m a seer, not a sorceress,” I reminded him. “It’s nice to meet you, Gigi.” I pointed at her doctor’s bag. “Did you figure out what’s going on with Donatello?”
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything wrong with him.” Her voice matched her size, sounding quite adorable. I liked this woman on sight. Whatever the color of her aura, it must be bright and cheery. “Besides being slightly dehydrated, of course.”
“Marco,” Bruno said, standing in the entryway leading back to the main room. “I’d like to search your office to see if I can find any clues as to who might be behind whatever is going on with your brother.”
After a worried frown in his brother’s direction, Marco left with Bruno following him, leaving Gigi and me alone.
“How long have you been a veterinarian?” I asked her, moving closer to Donatello. I waved my hand in front of his eyes. He didn’t even blink. It was uncanny, really.
“A little over five years now,” she answered, sitting down on the trunk I’d used yesterday as a stand for Ol’ Blue. Her feet barely touched the ground.
“What’s your specialty?” Some veterinarians preferred to work on larger animals. I’d had a great-uncle, though, who’d preferred to focus on exotic animals. When I asked him once why the exotics challenged him, he said they kept him from growing bored with the usual canines and felines.
“Shifters,” Gigi answered, watching me with a narrowed look. “What’s your breed, seer?”
“Werecoyote.” I leaned closer to Donatello and sniffed his neck, and then bent down and sniffed his jacket at chest level. He smelled like a shifter ape, plain and simple.
“Mountain, plains, or desert region?”
“Desert. Southwest.” I tried smelling his dominant arm and hand through his jacket, really focusing as I breathed in this time. Under his normal scent on the jacket, I noticed a faint odor of something slightly cedar-like with a sour edge, and yet woodsy, earthy even, especially near a muddy smear on the nylon fabric. It reminded me of the swampy area at the southern fence line of our circus.
“You live here in Louisiana, right?” I assumed as much since Marco had pretty much pulled Gigi out of thin air this morning.
She nodded. “I find the regular humans down here in the bayou country far more accepting of our kind than those in many areas of the country.”
I’d noticed the warmth and kindness as well in those natives who’d come to see our freakshow circus. Since she’d brought up that she was one of us, I asked, “What’s your breed?”
“I come from the Psittacidae family.”
“That sounds like a branch of the Sicilian mafia.”
She laughed, a light tinkling sound that made me think of tiny bells. “Sorry, too much ve
t schooling. I’m a macaw hybrid.”
I reached out and plucked that red feather from her hair. “Let me guess, a scarlet macaw?”
She nodded, taking the feather and stashing it in her lab coat pocket. “I seem to grow those even in my human form.”
“I thought your kind was extinct.” I’d read an article years ago about humans hunting them to capture and sell on the black market. Macaws made playful pets with their superb social interaction skills, especially the were-versions.
“Some varieties are close to it,” Gigi said. “But we’re not out of the game yet.”
That was good to hear. “How well can you smell?”
Her nose was small like the rest of her, with a distinct curve at the end.
“Contrary to what most folks think, many birds have a well-developed sense of smell, myself included.”
“Great.” I described the scent I’d picked up on Donatello’s sleeve to her. “Where do you think that came from?”
“Well, the sour, cedar-like smell is from the bald cypress tree, which dominates the swamps around here.” She chewed on her lower lip. “The other scent might be Spanish moss, which grows on many trees, including the bald cypress.” She looked at our patient, still squatting statue-like in his trunk. “You can smell all of that on him?”
I nodded. “Especially on the arm of his jacket.”
She came over and sniffed. “Wow, you have an impressive nose on you.”
“Once a coyote, always a coyote.”
“Marco said you used your crystal ball last night to try to see into the past.”
“I didn’t get too far, but I did find where the bunnies who usually make a home in this trunk hopped off to.”
“Did they smell like the swamp, too?”
“Not that I’d noticed, but I didn’t bury my nose in their fur.”
She walked closer and gently grabbed Donatello’s lower lip, flipping it down. “If we don’t get to the bottom of this by tomorrow, I’m going to need to pump him full of fluids intravenously.”
“You’ve known Marco and Donatello for some time, huh?”
“Over a decade now. They sent me money to help pay for my schooling off and on when I was still in college.”
“Do you know anyone from their past who might want to purposely harm Donatello? Someone he might have pissed off? Or to whom he owes money?”
“No. The monkey brothers are tight with their cash, but they are also big hearted and generous when someone is in need.”
“Shoot.” That didn’t help me one bit.
“Listen, I could use some coffee.” Gigi headed toward the main room. “You want to come with me? Or I could bring you one back if you’d rather stay here.”
“Actually, I’d like to head over to their office car on the circus train and see if Bruno’s found anything that could help.” I frowned at Donatello. “You think we can just leave him there?”
“Sure. He’s not going anywhere and most folks around here are still asleep. He’ll be fine until Marco or I come back.”
We stepped out into the sunlight and headed in separate directions after a smile and a wave. As I made my way through the tents to the train car that acted as the management office, I thought about Hank and Leon, trying to figure out how their incident might fit into the other oddities happening lately. In the end, I still couldn’t make sense of it all and gave up. With any luck, Bruno had found something in the office.
Marco was sitting outside on the train car steps when I arrived. “You left Donatello with Gigi?” he asked.
“Actually, she went to get some coffee.”
“You mean he’s all alone?”
“Donatello is fine. Gigi said he could be alone for a bit.”
Marco frowned. “If he was fine, he wouldn’t still be in that damned trunk.” He handed me a set of keys. “I’m going to go back and sit with him. Lock up when you and Bruno are finished.”
“Will do.” I patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll figure this out,” I said, trying to console him.
At least I hoped we would.
“Thank you, Electra.” Marco pulled me into a clumsy hug and then raced off toward his tent.
Inside of the management office, I found Bruno perched behind the large mahogany desk that took up a third of the car. One of the previous managers had been a werebull and required a sizable desk for his massive, bulky form. According to Finn, when he’d quit and left for greener pastures higher up in management, he’d left the huge desk behind.
The rest of the place was filled with filing cabinets, two computers, and a printer. Whiteboards covered with details of scheduled town “jumps” and corresponding show dates covered the walls. I sat in one of the chairs opposite the desk. “Did you find anything that might clue us in on this mess?” I asked Bruno.
“No. Donatello has been busy with his lists and figures, though. Look at this.” He held up a paper with several columns. “He wants Hank to keep track of how much time he spends scooping up shit. Can you believe that?”
“Maybe he was considering getting him an assistant,” I said, trying to be positive. Donatello had offered the same to Eugene in one way or another, after all. I leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs.
Bruno lowered the paper along with his gaze, which got caught on my bare thighs at the hem of my mini-dress. “Are you wearing anything under that dress?”
I blinked at his question. “Yes, I’m wearing underwear. You saw me put this dress on, remember?”
His feral grin reminded me of the story of the big bad wolf. “How about you come over here and let me bend you over and check for myself?”
My libido sat up and took notice of his strong hands and sexy beard stubble, remembering how both felt on my bare skin. “Bruno Maska,” I chided playfully. “We are supposed to be looking for clues right now.”
His grin slipped. “Was that too obnoxious? Or vulgar? I didn’t mean to make you feel harassed sexually. I suddenly had a risqué vision of taking you on this big desk. Not that I would do anything against your will, of course.”
I groaned, wondering if whopping him upside the head with the stapler would stop this psychoanalysis madness.
“I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” he asked, scowling.
“Yes, but I still love you.” I pointed at the paper in his hand. “How about we focus on finding clues for now, and later I’ll tie you to the bed, gag you with a silky veil, and ride you into the sunset.” He loved it when I played cowgirl on him last week.
“Okay, but only if you feel comfortable doing that.”
I tapped my index finger on the desk. “Shush and focus.”
Half an hour later, I looked up from the filing cabinet where I’d been skimming through folders and noticed him staring down at a wrinkled shred of paper. “What’s that?”
“I found it in the trash can. It’s an address, I think. The name of the town is Crawfish Pie, if you can believe it?”
I walked over and looked at it, then moved to the bookshelf and pulled a road atlas from the shelf. The town was about twenty miles south-southeast, right smack dab in the middle of a swamp.
“You think this is Donatello’s writing?” I asked, turning to Bruno, who was looking over my shoulder.
“I don’t think. I know.”
I smiled. “Good, then we have a clue. I wonder if Gigi will let us borrow her car.” I assumed she must have arrived via a vehicle. If not, we’d have to improvise.
“You mean the vet in Marco’s tent, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do we need her car?”
“You and I are going to take a road trip to the swamp.”
“What makes you think this address is something more than merely a local pitchman who supplies boudin balls and other local fare for the monkey brothers’ food stand?”
“Because it’s smack dab in the middle of the swamp, which is what I could smell on Donatello’s jacket after you and Marco left their tent.” I walked ove
r to the office door, holding up the keys. “Come on, my majestic madman. Let’s go wrestle some gators.”
Chapter Six
It turned out Gigi the shapeshifting macaw did have a car, but it wasn’t quite what I’d expected when Bruno and I had agreed that she could come with us to the swamp. The custom-made tiny clown car fit her small size perfectly. I, on the other hand, sat in the passenger seat with my knees touching my chin.
I glanced into the backseat at Bruno, who had climbed on board via the back hatch. The sight of him squeezed into the narrow confines of the tiny car reminded me of one of those cardboard tube packages of biscuit dough. If we popped a side window, he’d spill out onto the road.
Luckily for the two of us “big” shifters, we only had to endure the miniature torture chamber for twenty or so miles.
The town of Crawfish Pie was more of a collection of buildings to snag tumbleweeds—or it would have been if we were out west. Here in Louisiana, it appeared to be a nursery for Spanish moss on an island in the middle of the swamp.
“What’s with the name?” Bruno asked as Gigi rolled along the road between a grouping of single-story homes tinged green with moss that bordered the bayou on their backsides.
“Once a year, this little town fills to the brim with people who come here to compete in the Best Crawfish Pie baking contest.” She pointed at a long rectangular building on stilts. “The judges sit at tables inside the town’s Royal Order of Alligators’ Lodge and the pies are brought to them in groups of five.” She smiled at me. “If you haven’t tried crawfish pie, you should. They are mighty fine tasting.”
I grimaced at the sound of a pie tin filled to the brim with crawfish, but I’d bet Eugene would be all over it like bees on honey. “Thanks, but I’ll stick to beignets this trip and save the crawfish pie and alligator boudin balls for another go around.”
“Damn,” Bruno said from the back. “They sure are serious about their swamp boats around here. Look at the size of the propeller on that one to your right.”
Holy gumbo! The blades were as long as Bruno was tall.