by Jackie May
Hauling himself out of the Porsche, Nick Gorgeous shuts the door gently and fits a faded cowboy hat on his smooth head. It’s not casual Friday, so with his Metallica T-shirt he wears jeans without holes. His tall boots stride toward the building.
I hurry after him. “No motorcycle today, boss?”
“Ain’t your boss, and rain coming.”
I glance at the cloudy sky. A typical Detroit day—gray and soggy. “Porsche. Fast, huh?”
He sighs, knowing where this is going. “Right.”
“I hope so. Driving German in Detroit? She better be fast enough to dodge bullets.”
“Well, Foxy, I’d ask what you’re doing here, but—”
“But you don’t need to, because you already know that I would just say I’m headed in to work, same as you, only—”
“Only you don’t need to say that, because you already know my answer.” He holds the door open for me.
“To which I, in turn, give an answer you already know, and we go back and forth, back and forth, until we’re both like, dude, why don’t we just have sex already?” By now we’ve entered the office, and three people look up simultaneously at the word sex, but when they see it’s just me, they go back to work as usual.
The Double D—that’s the Detroit Division of the Federal Underworld Agency—only has a handful of employees, even though its jurisdiction stretches far beyond the enormous metro Detroit area. Thanks to being funded and overseen by the U.S. government, the Double D operates on a strict “over/under” policy. Overworked and underpaid.
“I got nothing for you, Foxy.”
“But I can get my own things, and I’ve told you not to call me Foxy unless you make me your partner, so we can be Foxy and Gorgeous.”
“Own things, like what this time?”
“Put me on the Nora Jacobs thing.”
“What Nora Jacobs thing? There is no Nora Jacobs thing.”
As he tosses his hat onto a desk littered with file folders and papers, I notice a look from Darla Hall, a middle-aged black woman with half her face hidden behind a computer screen. Her eyes slide from me to Gorgeous, then back to her screen. I know a tell when I see one. Nick’s lying. “Don’t give me that, Gorgeous. You’re probably working it yourself, right? Nora Jacobs already has you whipped.”
“Forget about Nora Jacobs. Is that all you got? The big news that literally everybody in town is talking about? I thought you had your own things?”
The others aren’t looking at me, but I can tell they’re paying attention. Fingers have stopped typing. Ren, the demon incubus and secretary to the Director, has paused the animated porn I heard through his headphones. Watching me, Nick leans back in his chair, boots crossed over a corner of his desk. The floor is mine.
“Okay,” I start, “I happen to know that there’s something bothering the Huron River pack.”
Nick uncrosses his feet, crosses them the other way. “Wolves.”
“The Huron River pack.”
“And something’s…bothering them.”
“Right, I just…I’ve felt, maybe, a slight shift in dominance, and—”
“I see. So maybe you might feel that something could be…bothering them.”
“I know it’s not much—”
“It’s not anything,” he interrupts.
“But that’s why I’m saying put me on it and—”
“Put you on it! Okay, I think I can solve that case right now. Oh, something’s bothering the Huron River pack? Yeah, I think they’re pissed off that Shayne Davies is sniffing their ass!”
“But my pack has an alliance with theirs. They know me.”
“I wouldn’t call what you have a pack, Shayne. What you’ve got is a rabble, at best, when your boys can keep clean enough to stay out of prison.” When I open my mouth to protest, Nick puts his hands up. “Stop, drop, and roll, Foxy. I don’t want to hear about wolves. We let the wolves deal with their own business, you know that. Now hit me again, or hit the road.”
Or hit you with my fist in your beautiful baby face. I swear nobody ever had a more annoyingly appropriate name than Nick Gorgeous. He’s old—I’m talking a thousand years—but he still looks twenty-five. I rub my hands together, rerouting, regrouping. “Okay, I got a guy with an entire apartment full of boosted merch. Car parts, catalytic converters.”
“A fence? C’mon.”
“A police car!”
“A stolen police car?”
“Well, just the light bar off the top.”
He rubs his eyes. I can feel Darla Hall grinning with glee from behind her computer screen. She always did hate me. Then again, she seems to hate everybody, with one exception (more on that later).
“And chemicals, too,” I add quickly. “Chemicals and cell phones, the stuff terrorists use to make bombs.” Sorry to snitch, Dario, but we both know it wouldn’t have worked between us. You’ll have a different woman by tonight, and I’ll have seen a shiny new man-face that makes my heart pound. I’m twenty-six, but still more boy crazy than a teenage girl touring a firefighter academy.
Nick scratches at stubble on his jaw. “Nah, terrorists making bombs, or… just dumb-ass meth-heads cooking.” But he has pulled his feet down to the floor and is eyeing me, for once, with cautious attention.
“Yeah, or…terrorists making bombs.”
“A guy, you said. What guy?”
“A glutton.”
“Glutton! Shee-yit,” he drawls, throwing his hands up. “Dammit, Shayne, a demon! If I even say the word demon too loud, or hint at anything that might be construed as possibly related in any way to delinquent demons in one of my reports, Washington’s gonna be on the first flight out here with shock collars for all of us. If demons want to blow each other up in their gang wars, that’s fine with me. Let the human police deal with that garbage, not us. And by us, I mean you, Shayne. That’s me telling you to walk away from that one, and definitely don’t bring it back to me. Just ask Ren. I don’t do demons.”
Ren, the gay incubus who has tried and failed for years to seduce Gorgeous, wrinkles his nose and nods. “He really doesn’t.”
“No offense,” Nick adds to his coworker.
“Some taken,” Ren admits.
“Nick!” I cut in, and now I’m pushing my luck, I know. Nick hates being called Nick, because wouldn’t you, too, if your other name was Gorgeous? “This isn’t about money, is it?”
“Oh, now you got jokes?”
“Because I need, like, zero money.”
“Well, that I can do.”
“Just pay for my lunch every day, that’s all, give me something to do, and in exchange you’ll have me out there, and not just me, but me, the eyes and ears of Detroit. I can Sherlock the shit out of any crime scene. I’ll do it right now.” I gesture to Ren. Better start with a softball, easy pitch. “Ren’s watching porn.”
“Everybody knows that,” Nick says, unimpressed. “It’s generally assumed.”
“But I could hear that tiny sound from across the room.”
“Or you could have just made a guess, because Ren! He’s an incubus. Porn’s like food to him.”
“It’s true,” Ren confirms. “I have a doctor’s note.”
“Fine, we’ll go to the next level.” I turn to Oliver Harrington, the young Assistant Director. Sweet, quiet, and incredibly smart—not to mention a powerful sorcerer—Oliver basically runs this whole place for Director Madison West, but she’s the one who gets all the credit. “Oliver’s going to ask for an advance on his paycheck,” I blurt.
His eyes snap to mine, a deer in headlights. Sorry, Oliver, just more collateral damage. Darla Hall, in charge of Double D’s pitiful payroll, sits up, alarmed. “Say again?”
“It’s true,” I say, which is true, by the way. A week ago I overheard the girlfriend of Oliver’s roommate bragging about how she finally convinced her man to quit his job. Now Oliver’s sole income isn’t enough to cover the full rent, and he was too nice to say no when his roommate proposed a p
lan to beg Darla for an advance. But forget all that, because I need to impress, so I say, “Look at how Oliver’s dressed today. Isn’t that the smart outfit that Darla complimented him on?” This is a safe bet, since Darla compliments all his outfits. Oliver is the only person in the world—the exception I mentioned earlier—that Darla seems to cherish. Probably because he’s, like, responsible and stuff. “And what did Oliver bring in for you guys to eat today? Apple empanadas? I can smell them from the break room. Isn’t that Darla’s favorite? Obviously Oliver is trying to soften her up for a big ask, plus I know that his roommate quit his job, so they can’t make rent this month.”
Oliver leaps to his feet. “But that’s not why…I…just love empanadas.”
Darla rises, concerned. “Oh, honey, is it true? You can’t pay your rent?”
“All right, Foxy,” Nick says. “Enough child’s play. How ’bout you do me?”
At which request Ren releases a dreamy sigh, but I got nothing on Nick, so I quickly deflect with something I’ve been working on all week, and this one’s a legit Sherlock. “How about I do you one better? Darla’s got herself a new boy toy.” Darla’s eyebrows fly upward. She immediately crosses her arms over her chest and clutches at her collar, fidgeting with the top button. “When Darla walks, her purse rattles like a pharmacy, only she doesn’t have pills, she has antacid tablets, which she’s been taking every day right after her lunch break. Why? Because she keeps going to the same restaurant, with the same food that upsets her stomach. But that’s not all that rattles in her purse, because to cover up the antacid taste in her mouth, she eats breath mints. Even now, smell that? Winter mint.” Darla snaps her hanging mouth shut. “Which is a little funny, because if you look at Darla’s desk right now, you’ll see a tray with peppermints on it. And each day there’s one more peppermint added to the pile. So why eat winter mints from her purse when she’s got peppermints right in front of her? I’ll tell you why. Because the peppermints are given to her at the restaurant where, despite the food disagreeing with her stomach, Darla continues to go every single day at the same time. She doesn’t eat the peppermints because they remind her of the restaurant, and the restaurant obviously reminds her of some big hunk of man-flesh she’s been meeting there.” Boom! Drop the mic. And let me tell you, I now know it is possible for a black lady to visibly blush. Darla quickly disappears behind her computer monitor. Ren covers his mouth to keep from smiling.
Nick simply rolls his eyes, then squeezes them shut tight, as though he’s just acquired a headache. “Well, that’s great, Foxy. If dating were a crime, you’d be Wyatt Earp. Look, why do you even want this job? There’s got to be an easier way to score a free lunch and minimum wage.”
Why do I want this job? Oh, let’s see. 1. Because minimum wage is still enough to live in a place that’s a) not on wheels, and b) not at my parents’ house. 2. Because I’ve already proven that I suck at every other minimum wage job. 3. I can’t get any respectable job, because, um…they all require criminal background checks. And 4. Because my brother is a successful real estate agent with a wife and kids who my parents adore, and my sister is mated to the alpha of our “rabble.” Their little boy is destined to be the next alpha and already has my parents wrapped around his fat finger. So maybe, just maybe, I’m desperately trying to prove that I’m more than just the entitled millennial baby sister who’s never done anything “serious” or “all the way,” if you don’t count disappointing her parents.
But I don’t say any of that, because of my rule: in an argument, never, never use the truth when a good, hard glare will do the trick. So I’m glaring at Nick, and he leans way back in his chair. He rubs the back of his head, and his brows knit in thought. I can practically see the wheels turning in his mind. I think he may actually be considering my case.
As it turns out, though, he’s only busting his brain for a good zinger. He finally smiles and says, “Well, Foxy, you definitely showed us your Sherlock. Now go Holmes.” And he opens a file folder on his desk, perusing its contents with a sigh of sublime enjoyment.
My hard glare turns into a twitchy eye. It’s like…it’s like he’s just thrown down a Royal Flush, poker’s unbeatable hand. I can only stare at it in disbelief. I turn to Ren. His hand still covers his mouth, but his eyes are wide and his face is red. Oliver, scrambling to find somewhere besides me to look, jerks a desk drawer open. Darla’s eyes slowly rise above her screen and narrow at me, and I swear I hear a cat hiss.
Nick gives me a bright-eyed look. “Because his name’s Sherlock Holmes?”
I let the door slam on my way out.
The setting sun casts a golden oil slick across the underside of wet, blue clouds. I love this time of day after it has just rained. Everything’s dripping wet and the clouds are angry, but for a few minutes on the horizon, the sun sets the world ablaze in sparkling reds and oranges.
I drive past the cookie-cutter prefab homes of Newport Prairie Mobile Home Park. There’s a gathering outside a sea-foam green double-wide with two dozen clinking wind chimes hanging from the front porch. A section of the home’s thatched wooden skirt has been removed, allowing access to three feet of clearance beneath the house. I slow to an idle. My dad, longtime owner and maintenance man of Newport Prairie, will be crawling in the mud under the house, fixing any number of things that are always going wrong on these old units. I don’t see Dad, but the people give me a friendly wave. Human old-timers who’ve known me since I was a pup.
At least, they think they know me, like they think they know the rest of my pack, er…family. While they’ve sometimes complained about us “kids” being animals, none of them have a clue about what we really are. Not that there hasn’t been the occasional raised eyebrow. Like when a tenant would complain about a fox problem—“I seen one of ’em tipping over my garbage cans again last night!”—and Dad, in his routinely calm manner, would ask for a detailed description of the fox’s coloring. And they’re like, Why on earth’s it matter what the varmint looked like? But Dad would insist, and if the account was specific enough to single one of us out, he’d shuffle quietly home, smile kindly at us kids, and simply make a few whispered remarks to my mother. And then she would tear us all a new asshole. Good times.
At the far end of the mobile home park, nestled among tall trees, is our pack’s wagon train of five mobile homes, all the same model, placed in a circle around a shared yard which serves as a communal outdoor living room. Three different families live here. Numbers and last names have increased over the years through marriages and babies, or taking in strays.
Almost all of us are Ludar, descendants of immigrants from Romania in the 1800s. You’ve probably never heard of Ludar, because our people are more commonly called gypsies, even though we don’t read palms or tell fortunes with tarot cards. Still, Ludar do have many unique customs, most of which you won’t see at our house unless there’s a wedding or a funeral. We’re not very orthodox, to say the least. But the distinction of being “gypsies” does serve as a handy cover for the eccentricities of life as shifters. People can only assume it’s the Ludar in us—not the supernatural canine beast—that creates communal-living, camp-fire-cooking, moon-worshipping Bohemians.
This road winds around the property, bending alongside a creek near our wagon train. But I don’t want to be seen arriving, so I veer off the road and cut across the field, which Mom always tells me not to do (even though Dad doesn’t care). Several cars and trucks are parked in the dirt. I pull up next to a pearl black Mustang that would be a total badass if not for the stock rims and cheap tires. After killing the engine, I sit for a moment, watching and listening for any response from the wagon train. I hear kids playing. Flames crackling. All seems fairly quiet. I get out and gently nudge my door shut.
At the center of the wagon train there is a good fire going, with a half-dozen kids capering about, many of them just toddlers. To the untrained eye it would appear that the kids are playing tag, but in reality they’re being bullied by my six-
year-old pug-faced nephew, Randy. He loves to pretend he’s already replaced his dad as the alpha of our pack. He’s claimed sole ownership of a spitted chicken roasting over the fire and is chasing his terrified kin away with wild, swinging ham fists. Moving up behind, I grab him beneath the armpits and haul him off his feet.
“Oh, look, everybody!” I taunt in his ear, “I found a hen in the fox house.” Which I know he hates, because he’s not a fox. Like his dad’s side of the family, he’s coyote. When the other kids laugh, Randy thrashes with rage.
“Shayne!” comes a man’s voice, sharp and reprimanding.
Immediately, I drop the boy on his butt and walk away. Leaping up, Randy chases after me, kicking dirt, punching at my thighs.
“Back off,” warns the man’s voice, and the boy is jerked away. I hear Randy run off howling at the other kids, who scatter with frightened squeals.
Quick, heavy steps trail me. “Shayne.”
Shit, and a sigh. I stop and turn, because I know he’s only seconds away from grabbing my elbow and spinning me around. Nolan throws his hands out, splattering me with soap suds. His sleeves are rolled up, and his thick forearms are dripping wet. Across the yard, I see the stone water basin piled high with dishes.
“I’m just teasing him,” is my lame excuse. Nolan knows better. He knows I can’t stand the six-year-old terrorist.
“First of all,” Nolan growls, “yeah, he’s only six, but in shifted form, he’s already bigger than you. His coyote would have your fox by the throat in two seconds flat.”
“He’d have to catch me first.”
“And second, I don’t care how annoying he is. Do you really want our next-in-line to have some kind of deep-rooted childhood hatred for you?”
“You know, I really do. I’ve actually put a lot of thought into this, and I’ve decided that I’ll just take my chances hoping that his dad lives a hundred more years. Would you stop flipping your arms like that? Are you doing dishes?”