by K.N. Lee
Where the sidewalk met the alley, she found where she’d kicked her boots off to the side. Shoes never got destroyed when she transmogged without a plan. Clothes, yes. Bloomers were the worst. Elly hated that feeling as they tightened at the groin right before they ripped to shreds around her tail.
She slipped to the shadows of the darkened alley, careful to avoid broken glass on her feet, and grabbed the shreds of her clothing before stuffing them into the ragbag and tossing them back into the dumpster. With an extra bit of towel, she dusted the dirt off her feet and slipped the low boots back on, along with the snub-nose that had done her zero good in her panic.
The darkness was a comfort. Easy. Elly allowed herself a moment to catch her breath. She assessed the rip at her arm from the attack. It healed clean when she transmogged back to human form. She licked the drying blood from her wrist and checked the freshly mended flesh.
Elly loathed messes. This case was a mess. If this creature could leap a seventeen-foot chain link fence in two bounds, how in the name of The Forebearers would she ever be able to kill it?
The shadows comforted Elly as she finished putting on her boots and inserting the retrieved weapon. She finished straightening her rags and smelled him before she even heard his voice. Copper and books. But this wasn’t the same. Still, she wasn’t taking any chances what if there were two or more attackers? What if it was a gang of bloodthirsty nut jobs?
She felt for her gun. The hair on her arms bristled, her body tensed. Elly regarded the stranger coming closer. He stepped into the alley, face hidden in shadow but no weapon drawn. But the other one didn’t need a weapon, either.
“Need some help?” a deep voice asked.
Still crouching down, she gathered her strength in her haunches for a pounce. Just as she was about to leap, he flashed a badge.
“Ghael Constabulary Force, Detective Blaine Cornell.” He held out a hand. “You look like scat. You ok?”
She let out a breath then took a few discreet sniffs. The scent was cleaner, fresher. It said truth. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken up.”
“What happened?”
She wanted to say that some fanged freak had turned into a grotesque monster but that sounded crazy. Instead she said, “I’m a licensed PI investigating the disappearance of a young female.” She looked quickly at her current state of dress. It was closer to vagrant than PI, but she thundered through her explanation. “I thought I had the perp but he got away.”
“And you’re dressed in rags because— “
“He ripped off my clothes.” When he looked dubious, she frowned up at him. “I have ID. My bag is at the end of the alley.”
“Alright then, come on, let me get you a cup of coffee. I’ll take a report.” He stepped back into the street light. The glow of the overhead light cast a shadow over his perfect chiseled cheekbones. Cornell’s eyes were oval, very different from the round eyes of foxkin, and different even from the previous copper-smelling weirdo.
Elly stood, easing her fingers off her weapon. She eyed his departing back, watching him as he ambled towards the light in the street. She kept her other hand firmly at her side, halfcocked in a threat. Whoever this handsome stranger was, she was going to be careful. Up close, he smelled like a campfire, but it was tinged with an aftertaste of copper. He was something similar to the attacker but not quite. He didn’t smell exactly the same. The old book scent had a touch of sweet bark spice… Would he turn into a fanged freak, too?
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said as though reading her mind. “Constabulary, remember?” But he gave her a wide berth, stepping back towards the opposite wall.
“Mmmhmm… I’ll just head back to my skimmer, I think I have a jacket or something there. I’d rather not go into a coffee shop looking like I just stepped out of… an alley garbage bag.” She jerked a thumb at the dumpster next to her.
The irony was not lost. Raised brows came with his twinkling eyes and his expression softened. His lips tipped up at the corners. “Alright.” He took another step back and extended his arm to the sidewalk. “Lead the way, Miss…?”
“Elinor Morgan,” she said. “How did you even know I was there?” Her voice rose in question and caution.
“I was watching the club, heard a commotion, here I am.”
“Why you?” she pointed at the badge he was shoving into his oilcloth duster’s pocket. “Detective? Not a constable.”
“Right,” he said. His quick reply was tinged with an acceptance of her observational abilities and not his job status. “I’m a detective sent here from main Ghael constabulary because of the recent incidents. I’m investigating… like you. Only I’m wearing more clothes.” Cornell turned away and stepped onto the sidewalk. He regarded her again before looking left and right, his perfect hair not moving an inch. His long coat hung below his knees. Unusual at this time of year, even after sunset.
Elly looked down at her green polished toenails near the hobnail of his black boots. His pants were black. Shirt? Black. Even his hair was black, just like the perp she was chasing.
As they exited the alley, she leaned down and grabbed the purse she had flung in the fight.
A few steps from the alley and down the sidewalk they stopped at her vintage Golden Hawk Mark V skimmer. Elly took out her keys and opened the boot, revealing a valise. She clicked the locks, opened the case, and removed a striped dress.
Before he had a chance to turn his back, she untied the make-do belt, pulled the loose dress over her head, and shimmied it down as she detangled her arms from the duster while simultaneously pulling the garment down in a complicated maneuver that many a young girl learned in high school locker rooms.
Caught off guard, the detective turned around as she wiggled the old duster over her hips and the rest of the way off. She grabbed a pair of boy-cut undershorts and pulled them up under the dress not bothering with a more elaborate dance of adding a bra.
“I’m done,” Elly said.
“Warn a guy,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“There’s a tea shop around the corner. Buy me a cup of tea and you can take my witness statement there.” Elly slipped around him and hit the sidewalk with a quick pace. She looked over her shoulder. “You coming?”
3
Tea & Biccies
Blaine gazed at the woman across from him sitting in the stark white light of Katrina’s Diner.
Elinor Morgan glanced at him over the rim of her teacup. She put down the tea she was nursing and began nibbling on a nutty biscuit.
He had his tablet out and was sliding his finger across the screen as she spoke, asking things he already knew but forcing himself to pretend he didn’t.
She was unlike any of the women on Numina. Who was she? Elinor Morgan: Ex-detective decorated for bravery; Seannach; and the contact he must lie to. A lot.
What did she do? Surveillance. Bail enforcement, a.k.a. bounty hunting.
Why was she in the alley? Ysbal.
But he had to go through the motions to “enlist” her help without her knowing that he knew she was a foxkin. Every note that he pretended to take was a painful reminder that she was lying. And he was lying.
And it was eating at him.
What a great way to build trust. But Blaine still had a job to do. He consoled himself in the thought that his job sometimes did entail not telling the whole truth. That was good enough for now.
“So, Elinor Morgan,” he said, his face focused on his digital tablet. “Your client wants you to find their daughter. Why aren’t they letting the constabulary handle this?” Another lie. He glanced up.
“Because the constabulary botched it to scat. And there’s no way she’s still alive. It’s been too long. I’m looking for a killer, now. Before he hits again.”
And the Seannach Assembly has a bounty on this guy’s head.
She leaned back. Her pretty face matched her petite bone structure. But it was her penetrating glance that got his attention, as it seemed
to absorb everything as her eyes tracked from his fingers to his shoulders, up to his throat, and finally back to her teacup. She was unlike any of the women on Numina. They were darker. She was bright, almost glowing with her auburn hair and brown eyes flecked with gold.
Before Elinor pulled her long thick hair back over her shoulders, he wondered if she was sitting on it. Her short cap-sleeved a-line was thin, showing the perk of chill in the air. While she looked frail, he noticed the sinew of her forearm as she reached for the tea.
If those childhood stories were true, beneath that skin lay a ferocity that compared with his own true nature.
“Those same constabulary bark-brains are afraid of this guy.” Elinor said. She crunched down on a cookie and shrugged.
“But you’re not? He attacked you. Are you aware he could have killed you?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t afraid. But, I have some skill with hand-to-hand,” she said.
“Yet, you let him get away and you lost your clothes.”
She scrunched her nose “I’m trying to build a case, not kill the guy. I don’t have a license to kill, not like you. He’s trackable, though.”
He debated his next question but she’d be suspicious if he didn’t ask. “Just how did you lose your clothes?”
Elinor kept cool. He waited for her to change her story or keep the first lie. She sat there dipping biscuits in tea, easy as you please. She shrugged and rolled her round eyes at him. “Fine. Some clubbers like a little quick one in the alley. I thought it might put him off his guard.”
She was a smooth liar, he’d give her that. He couldn’t detect a single tell. “Can you describe the incident?” he asked. He needed to know everything, but he had to take it slow. There was a plan, and being patient was part of it.
Elly took a sip of her tea. Her long lashes barely flickered as she studied him. After a long pause she placed the cup on the saucer. Still silent, she pushed the handle back and forth, as though she was mulling over something.
Her head popped up. “Ok, so… I met him in the bar on this strip. It was crowded because it’s ladies’ night and this perp likes to pick them out of crowds. Similar surroundings to where my vic was at on the night she disappeared.”
Elly said disappeared. But Blaine knew that the Seannach had found them desanguinated, mutilated, organs missing and presumed consumed. There was nothing left but a bloodless pile of flesh and marrow-less bone.
This Seannach, Elly Morgan, had to be ferocious or she’d be dead.
“So you got him in the alley and then what?”
Her eyes shifted down to the tea as she dipped a sweet sugar coated biscuit into it. “I did a little strip tease for him, and then suddenly—” She looked up, eyes intent. There was no guile in her words. “He… he… his face contorted. Scared the scat out of me. Then he bolted. No warning. Just turned and ran up a seventeen foot chain link like it was nothing. What can do that?”
He smelled me. Blaine thought.
Blaine, who had been attempting to find Ysbal the second he got to the city of Ballylock, stopped himself just short of groaning at his own stupidity. He should have been tracking Elinor Morgan.
His father said the Assembly’d picked the best and they were right, Elinor was blazing good at her job. She found him. All he’d been doing was staking out the bar scene from afar. She did him one better.
“That was good detective work, finding him. Too bad you left the constabulary to go it alone as a PI.” He baited her, watching lie upon lie manifest. Hating himself for allowing it, and waiting.
She didn’t reply. But she glared at him with a probing look used by some of the best interrogators in the business. She was pulling him apart like a puzzle.
Blaine kept his face composed, he felt a trickle of sweat bead at his brow.
They sat in silence for a few moments before he looked back up and made his next move.
In the bright white light of Katrina’s Diner, the all night joint that Elly knew well, Blaine Cornell’s chiseled good looks showed no sign of his age. He looked about thirty years old, until you looked deeply into those bright blue eyes. Then he looked old. Really Old.
Ancient.
And an idea began to form in her head.
At first glance his eyes were playful but now, across from her, they had a true purpose to them. And they were lying. But all’s fair, she reasoned.
The man. Man? Sure, she’d go with that. Even though a long sniff of him told her there was something else there. The man had a touch of stubble on his jawline that lazed across it in a sexy un-careful way that made her shove her hand under her bottom until the urge to touch it was under control. Cornell’s brow line was almost feminine, in that each curved in a high arch before dipping down at his temples. His hair was slicked back but the top was swooshed in an old fashioned pompadour.
Old.
Did Detective Cornell believe her? He looked like he was smarter than that, but then so did a lot of constabulary and she’d still managed to fool the asses.
No matter what, she had to keep the secret of the Seannach.
Time and time again, they believed her lies. Lies formed out of necessity. Out of duty. To be Seannach meant living by the code that protected their kin since the time of Forebearers and the legend of the Freedom Road.
What really happened in the alley threw her off balance. What she was expecting was a crazed Seannach that she’d have to take down. But when her quarry’s face distorted into the grotesque monster, her instincts reacted before she could stop herself. Her bones reshaped, followed by the familiar comfort of fur and the unavoidable ripping off her clothes. In hindsight, she really did need to carry something extra to wear in a larger purse. Like always, she forgot.
Lost in thought, Elly looked at Cornell. He’d begun talking.
“… I’ve been assigned to the case now. So you don’t need to stay on it,” he said.
“Except that I will.” She leaned forward. “And I’m not going to give up.”
“Because of the bounty?”
“No, because I let him get away. Now it’s my job to make sure he doesn’t do that to anyone else.” She held her face firm, staring at him. He stared back, assessing her.
Finally, his head dipped in a quick nod. “I’ll make you a deal, if you stay out of my way, I’ll…”
“No. No deal. If you’re on this case,” her fingernail tapped the table, “then we’re going to run into each other. Too bad for you. There’s no way around it,” she said, her counter argument injected a challenge.
The detective’s eyebrows raised at her and she caught another scent. Approval? Relief?
“Which precinct are you from? I’m pretty sure I know most of the Westie detectives in this area.” She dipped another biccie in her tea, leaning one arm casually on the laminate table between them. It was his turn to be under the lens.
“Ghael constabulary, not Westmeath. I’m from Numina,” he said.
“Seriously? You’re a…”
“Brotherhood,” he said, and tilted his head at her as if gauging her reaction.
She stared back. But she wanted to scream.
Scat on a stick. How was she supposed to get this wacky monster making a blood buffet of her kin, and still deal with one of them in her way? If Cornell was here chasing someone from Numina, this guy was one of his. The lightning bolt of connection hit her. But Cornell didn’t smell the same as the freak and she couldn’t tell him that, not now and not ever.
Instead, she probed, finding a way to get information to him and back from him, without revealing the foxkin. “Wait, you guys never leave Numina, do you?”
“What are we? Quarantined?” He sat back and the fake leather wheezed protest. “The Ghael Constabulary, unlike the Numina police, are not restricted only to our home moon.”
She felt her face mimic his, the thin line of lips. The eyebrows furrowing. She jutted her jaw out. Deep down, she suspected that this whole line of scat led to the Numina bloodsuckers.
“You don’t have to worry about me chowing down on your pals.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve heard about your strict code of law. That’s common knowledge all throughout the lunars around Ghael, I think. You guys take inhibitors, right?”
He scowled. “True,” was all he said.
Elly pursed her lips. She needed to tread lightly. “Nobody goes to Numina unless by invitation.”
“Also true, we don’t have much of a tourist industry.” He picked up the coffee cup and sipped. Well, one theory about the people shattered. They ate real food. That was a relief. Next thought was the night legend.
“And really, how many actual days of sunlight do you get?”
“If you’re wondering… I don’t melt, burst into flames or turn into shimmering sparkle dust when the sun comes out. We’re in the gas giant shadow most of our season cycles.”
“But how do your eyes deal with the sunlight?”
“About as good as they do in this diner.” He cocked his head at her. “Anything else?”
“Your skin isn’t pale like the perp’s.”
“I go to a sun center. Are we done with this?”
“Yes.” As she said that, his scent changed from ashes and smoke to a pleasant sage and citrus.
“If the attacker was a Sanguinary… then you being here makes a lot of sense.” She picked up the teapot and poured.
She was going to run into Cornell. Now to figure out who to get in on his investigation and get the detective’s official help, to stop this creature from attacking more Seannach.
The trick was to make sure he never found out about Clan Síonnagh, the Seannach, and their lives here on Westmeath.
At least they’d gotten past him hiding his true nature which was a stupid notion. If the Seannach were truly part fox, there was so much he needed to understand but couldn’t. That yoke of ignorance was starting to chafe. But they’d removed one layer of lies between them, giving them. He caught himself before he breathed a sigh of relief.