Hexed Hit: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (The Lyon Fox Mysteries Book 4)

by Ann Denton

  “You put a poster of that moment up in the women’s bathroom!”

  “That wasn’t me.” Technically, I had JR hang up that gorgeous poster featuring Seena’s mini-horse self all dolled up like a pegasus. It’s been a bathroom hit.

  I try not to smile at the memory of him made up like some little girl’s plastic pony. It was epic. God, sometimes I love myself so much. But then, I remember, it’s this same self who’s now screwed out of clean clothes. My self-love deflates a bit. Maybe I should be nicer to my co-workers.

  Behind me, I hear a throat clear. Double crap. It’s Bennett. I don’t turn around. I don’t want him to see me like this.

  “Fox, you need clothes?”

  “Yes, sir,” I keep it formal and avoid humiliating eye contact with his deep green eyes. I hate the little part of me that wants to turn to him and blink like some ditz and let him pick me up, carry me out of this hell hole, and solve all my problems. I’m a grown-ass woman. I can solve my own problems by begging co-workers for clothes. Only problem is … my co-workers are dickwads who can’t forgive and forget.

  I stare at the grasshorse across the room. It’s slowly turning human, the arms and legs have shifted and are growing larger. The torso has started to change. I point to let Flowers know he should go take care of that before the shifter breaks the table. He walks over to pull the grasshopper-horse shifter out of his cage and Seena disappears out the front door.

  “Zoe?” Behind me, Bennett speaks up.

  “Yes?” A bell-like voice rings out.

  I cringe. Fuck my luck. Zoe Nightingale, aka every woman’s nightmare, is here to witness me covered in baby puke. She’s a tall, willowy elf who looks like a supermodel but is actually a medical examiner, which just makes me hate her more. Why should she get to be beautiful and smart? The gene police should make that illegal.

  “Do you still keep a change of clothes in your duffel bag? Lyon over here could use them.”

  “Sure,” she answers easily.

  As if I could fit into stick-Barbie’s clothes. Wait … how does Bennett know she carries a change of clothes?

  I turn around, my embarrassment overrun by burning curiosity. My eyes flit between the two of them. There’s a shit-ton of eye contact going on. One might even say longing stares. I push aside the evil part of me that wants to chain Bennett up in my basement so he can’t be happy with anyone else. (Forget the fact that I don’t have a basement.)

  I’m about to gracefully protest and just grab some lighter fluid to set my hair on fire—it will sanitize, and it sounds way more appealing than trying to force my thighs into Zoe’s clothes—when Seena surprises me. He steps over the body in the hall, comes my way, and shoves a duffel into my hands. “Always be prepared, Loser.”

  “Sir, yes, sir,” I hug the bag to myself. “You are the best second-best-friend ever.” Thank goodness! “OMG. I owe you apples. And carrots. And sugar cubes.”

  Seena rolls his eyes but grins.

  “I’m gonna use the bathroom to change. In case the locks are broken in there, this is everyone’s warning,” I say as I head away.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Flowers calls out.

  I don’t bother to respond. Instead, I swing my chicken leg around awkwardly and limp toward the bathroom.

  “Fox, you’re molting,” Flowers shouts after me.

  I flip him the bird. Like I can help shedding feathers. It’s not a conscious decision. My stupid power makes my leg go chicken. At least molting means my leg is turning human again. I shoo a couple chickie pups, who are rapidly growing bigger as they trail after me—yips turning to barks and chick fuzz turning to feathers—out the door as I take refuge in the bathroom.

  I peel off my nasty puked-on uniform and start the faucet. I expect the water to appear brown in this broken-down house, but thankfully it’s clear. I rinse my hair, careful not to let it touch the sink, which is ringed in more grime than a gravedigger’s shower drain. It’s so gross there are raised green stripes on the sides, like some kind of fuzzy fungus.

  “Gross and super gross.” I totally take a photo of the dirty sink with my phone and send it to JR.

  Where are you? she texts.

  Luke’s place.

  Break up. Now. Not even joking.

  I’m kidding.

  Not funny.

  I grab Seena’s clothes out of his bag and stuff them between my knees. Then I pick my dirty uniform off the tile floor and go to put it in Seena’s duffel only to find out it’s got a thin layer of short blue hairs on it.

  OMG! Those better not be supernatural pubes.

  I hold my uniform by two fingers and lower it carefully into Seena’s duffel. I’m seriously debating if it should go straight to the dumpster. But I don’t get paid until next week and I’ve only got three uniforms—dagnabbit. Maybe my neighbor, Mrs. Snow, will take pity on me and help me out so I can get the thing dry cleaned.

  I check my underwear. At least nothing got on it. I’m wearing a cute little navy-blue lace set because I was hoping I’d get to meet up with Luke later.

  I’ve just pulled the t-shirt and gym shorts from between my knees when the bathroom door bursts open.

  “Ahh!” I screech, holding Seena’s clothes up like a shield.

  “Whoa!” Flowers holds a hand over his eyes.

  “What the heck, you granny panty!” I screech, “Have you lost your effing—”

  Flowers hand clamps over my mouth and shoves me against the wall, pressing into me. “Don’t!” he growls.

  I get quiet.

  He lets go of me and my feet slide back down to the floor.

  His eyes flicker over my lacy lingerie before he deliberately stares around at the floor.

  “Are you going to explain?” I huff.

  “Put a shirt on.”

  I toss on Seena’s white shirt only to find the front has a lovely little saying on it. “You fartled me.” I roll my eyes. Nerd humor. I pull on the blue gym shorts, tighten the string at the waist, and toss my feet back into my shoes, grateful for the socks that protected me from the nasty floor.

  “A lizard-bear was running away. I thought he got under the door,” Flowers mumbles, eyes still down.

  “Yeah, right. Did someone dare you to come in here?” I narrow my eyes.

  Flowers glares at me for that. “Like I’d ever wanna see you naked by choice, -ox,” his eyes widen.

  “-ox, -ox … what the -uck?!” Flower’s voice takes on a tone I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Panic.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “-ucking hell!” Flowers stares at me.

  My eyes widen and my stomach drops.

  Oh shit. I said ‘lost.’ That’s my magic trigger word.

  I try and keep my face blank. He’s gonna kill me. I said Flowers lost his effing … Fudge berries! My hand flies to my mouth. Flowers said -uck, -ox. Shizzle sticks. I don’t think he can say the letter ‘f’ anymore.

  Diego Flores’ fist smashes the bathroom wall. “What the hell? What did you do to me, -ox … Lyon?”

  I cringe backwards and bite my lip. “Ummm …”

  “You -ix it. -ix it now!”

  “How do you know I did this?” I go for a flimsy cop out.

  “You said lost! You said it! Now I can’t -ucking talk!”

  I did. But I didn’t mean to. “You scared me!” (I don’t say—“Sorry, but hey, guess what? At least I didn’t finish the sentence. Because I was gonna ask if you’d lost your effing mind.” Why don’t I say that? Because Flowers looks like he wants to add to the body count this place has going.)

  I back up to the shower curtain. It’s got white soap scum all over it. But if it comes to choosing scum or angry Flowers, I’m going with scum. A cool breeze hits me. I realize the window in this room is open. Probably because it’s so old the fan doesn’t work. I turn my head toward it, debating whether I could escape, but the window is high and pretty small, about the size of a loaf of bread. No way my ass is squeezing o
ut of that thing.

  “Undo it,” Flowers growls.

  “I dunno how,” I whimper, trying to make myself as small as possible.

  He looms over me. “You’re gonna learn.”

  I nod, trying to scrunch even more. His hatred pours over me like lava. I’m pretty sure my bones are melting.

  Bennett’s head pokes around the door. “Everything okay in here?”

  Flowers backs off a step and I come out of the standing semi-fetal position I was in. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “No,” Flowers growls.

  “What’s wrong?” Bennett’s concern is a lifeline. I want to jump in his arms and hide my face in his neck and tell him to flame the mean kitty cat. Only, I can’t. Because even if it was an accident, I’ve seriously fucked up.

  I bite my lip and nervously make eye contact with my commanding officer. That’s a big mistake. We’ve got a weird history. We dated seriously a couple years ago, recently hooked up, and then broke up about a month ago, and his feelings still simmer in his gaze. He wants to get back together. I just want to survive working together. I break away from his stare.

  “Um … I think I kinda … sorta … maybe … made Flowers lose his ability to say f-words.”

  “You gave him a cursing curse?” Bennett sounds disappointed in me. “Ly, I know how much you hate that thing. Why would you ever curse someone—”

  “No, no!” I wave my arms, accidentally whacking Flowers. I immediately pull back, lest I lose an arm. “I mean, he can’t say the letter F.”

  “As in—”

  Flowers interjects. “As in the letter between E and G. She -uckin’ screwed me over, Boss.”

  “He burst in here while I was naked!”

  Flames jump in Bennett’s eyes as he swivels to glare at Flowers. “What?”

  “I was chasing a damn lizard bear! You’re missing the point!”

  “You’re missing the point! She could sue you for sexual harassment!”

  Flowers and I both freeze.

  “Um … it was an accident,” I whisper. No way in hell do I want Flowers to get even more mad at me. And it was an accident. We both had an accident. I’m not suing him. He’s not killing me. Even steven. Right?

  Flowers’ eyes don’t seem to say even steven. They seem to say, “You’d better stick a mirror around every corner before you turn it. Because I’ll be waiting.”

  I close my eyes and wish I had a fairy godmother who could wave her wand and make this all go away. Too bad fairy godmothers are just made up.

  “Permission to be released -rom this assignment,” Flowers requests, growling when he can’t say ‘from’ properly.

  My eyes pop open and stare at Bennett who eyes the two of us. A vein pulses in Bennett’s neck. Not a good sign. “Denied. You two are always at each other’s throats. You need to learn to work together like grown-ups.”

  I meet Flowers eyes before he stomps out of the bathroom.

  Yeah. Fat chance. (Or … as Flowers now says, “-at chance.”)

  Chapter 4

  I walk out of the bathroom to hear Zoe Nightingale talking with Bennett in the front hall.

  Jane Doe’s body has been put into a body bag for transport and a couple wizards are levitating it toward the front door.

  “Definitely homicide. I’ll have to test down at the lab, but it’s looking like a hex right now,” Zoe sing-song says as she pulls off her medical examiner gloves, “If she was the dealer, which is what it looks like, this coulda’ been anyone. Boss, addict, competition … a lotta people could have wanted her dead.”

  Well, baby shit. It looks like our assignment to bust up a nap shack just got upgraded to a homicide investigation. I glance around to share a look with Seena but he’s nowhere to be found.

  Zoe leans into Bennett and I take a step toward them—what? I’m allowed to ask the Commander for my assignment. If it just so happens to interrupt his conversation with a hot ME, that’s totally a coincidence.

  Flowers pops up out of nowhere, intercepting me with a gleam in his eyes. I know that gleam. Nothing good ever comes of that gleam, and right now it’s got a murderous glint added to it. Not because this is a homicide investigation either. Nope, that glint is all for me. FML.

  “Lyon … good news, you get to practice evidence collection.”

  My stomach sinks as any hope of an early morning flies out the window. “Yippee. Where’s the team?”

  “Oh no. No team. You need to learn every aspect of collection. So … I think you can do this one yoursel- … alone.” The loss of the letter ‘f’ turns his last word into a deadly growl that makes my toes curl.

  An entire house? By myself? With a staircase that’s been busted by a rampaging hippo and animal shit every two feet?

  A cop comes running toward Flowers and me, gagging. He shoves past the wizards on the stoop and bends over to retch into the grass. His partner follows behind leisurely. It’s the first time I’ve ever envied a zombie. His dead nose is unaffected by the nastiness around us.

  Flowers looks up from dealing with me to ask the zombie, “Tony, what happened to him?”

  Tony jerks his head behind him and a little piece of loose flesh flaps on his neck. “Hall closet stuffed with jars of urine. Some of it was pretty rank, I guess. I’ll call out the HAZMAT team.” Tony ambles off and I stare after him for a second. (He’s the only zombie on the force. Apparently, the first brain he tried to eat belonged to a witch doctor, who gave him back some of his mental faculties.)

  Flowers nods at Tony’s retreating back.

  This urine-closet discovery does not bode well for me. I secretly wish speed upon the HAZMAT team so that I don’t end up repeating puke-cop’s performance.

  I eye the dark hallways and count at least four more doors. Dammit. The likelihood of at least one of those being infested with something foul is pretty damn high.

  It’s official. Flowers wants me dead.

  All over a stupid letter.

  I close my eyes and remind myself that I’m actually good at this job. That normally, I like this job. That the feeling I get when I solve a case is worth it. I go home proud of myself and walk on air the following day. I don’t want to give all of that up just because I accidentally ticked off some tiger by erasing a letter from his vocab. I mean, really, who uses ‘f’ anyway? It’s not that important. If it was a pivotal letter, if it was super-popular, it’d be in the finale on that show Fortune’s Wheel. Fuck. I just used ‘f’ in my thoughts like five times.

  I bow my head in defeat. I’m gonna have to let Flowers punish me. (There it is again! Flowers! Crap. Diego Flores can’t even say his own name now. I picture him trying to renew his license at the DMV—department of magical variations, where all magical beings have to register when they become adults—those crones that work there would pass their shared eyeball around and give him a hell of a time.) “Lead on, sir,” I capitulate.

  Flowers narrows his eyes, expecting a punchline, but when I just stand there awaiting orders, he jerks his head and has me follow him to the dilapidated home office across from the living room, where a half dozen paunchy, thirty-something guys in handcuffs stand around … in the buff.

  “Whoa!” I shield my eyes.

  “Gotta truck coming for them, don’t worry about them,” Flowers bends to pick up an evidence collection toolbox.

  For a second, I regret Flower’s attitude. Because, hey, the dude’s got a seriously nice ass. But the attitude that comes with it is all hole.

  “Excuse me,” one of the naked guys says to me. “Are you the part-chicken shifter?”

  “Uh …” I look at Flowers in askance.

  “Your leg,” he rolls his eyes as he hefts the toolbox.

  “Oh. Um …” I don’t really know how to answer that question. Technically, I’m part fae. My mother is pure fairy, with a strange mix of all kinds of fae in our family tree. My dad was human. So, I was born a fairy without wings and without a lotta power. The only supernatural things about me u
ntil this fall were the blue jewel embedded in my chin and my quick-healing powers. Or so I thought.

  Recently … things have gotten a little weird. I can lose things, like rampaging hippos or letters. And there’s the little matter of my blood that I’ve been avoiding. I have three messages from the doctor at the hospital about my missed appointment. I was supposed to go in to double-check my blood and magic test. A test that came back stating I was part demon.

  I think they mixed up my blood sample. That’s gotta be it. No way my mother would associate with a demon. She’s too snooty for that.

  I briefly wonder if that doctor’s test was wrong. Flowers didn’t think I was part chicken before … but I guess it’s still a possibility. I mean, if I was only part chicken, maybe I wouldn’t set off his tiger-shifter instincts.

  I turn to the naked speaker who asked about my leg. I keep my gaze high—no need to add the sight of shriveled gobblers to the freak show this house has turned into—and ask, “Why do you want to know?”

  Naked guy clears his throat. “I’m Lamar. you know, I just wanted to see if you might wanna get coffee sometime. Talk chicken-shifting.”

  Some nude dude wants to grab coffee with a part-chicken cop? Why? It dawns on me. The Nappies wore off. The shifters grew up. Flowers probably force-fed them ‘human’ potion to make them shift. (Humans are easier to arrest than animals. Plus, after the whole Darrell-cat incident last week, Bennett gave us a lecture on protocol that I’m certain Flowers thinks is gospel.) I take a second to stare at naked guy and his friends. One guy bobbles his head back and forth on his neck. He kinda looks like a bird. Oh my ghosts in the graveyard! These are the chickie pups. And I just got asked out by one.

  I burst into laughter.

  “Man, naked and arrested is not the time. Not the time.”

  He huffs indignantly.

  I ignore his offended naked ass and follow Flowers to the kitchen, swiping at the tears that come to my eyes. “Darn, that was funny.”

  Flowers doesn’t grin. I realize I just said another word that he can’t say anymore. Funny.

  I shut my trap. Flowers just points to the kit and has me take out a spell detector. It’s a little blue scanner, kinda like ultraviolet. But instead of showing up white, spelled items or spell remnants pulse red. The more red things glow, the more magic was used on them. I toss on the green glasses that go with the scanner and start at the door frame.