by Jackie May
He folds his arms. “Are you done?”
The shock of Jay being snarky with me sends my irritation through the roof—I feel my fox raging to be unleashed. I want to run and pounce and snap my teeth. But at the same time, I feel relieved to see Jay asserting himself over me. If he’s ever going to be the alpha of our pack, then it’s important for me to respond appropriately to this kind of aggression. It’s up to me to foster his confidence. And so, even though I don’t feel any natural urge to submit, I lower my eyes, staring down at my feet. “Well, I’m out of shoes, so…”
Brenner pulls me into a bear hug. I cling to him desperately, not caring that we have an audience. “We’re all frustrated,” he says. “We’ll think of something.”
Russo walks down the hall to retrieve my shoe. “Brenner, you do realize, of course, where a case like this would end up, if we were in Chicago?”
Apparently, Jay hadn’t realized shit, because he has to think about it for a moment before answering, “Right in our laps.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “Narco squad? What does this have to do with drugs?”
“Not the drugs part,” Russo says. “The undercover part. This is textbook. We got intel on an actionable item, but your snitch can’t remember the details, so we gotta get a look at that thing for ourselves. We go out and get our own invite to this secret place.”
There are many obvious reasons why we can’t go down this path with Russo. Hillerman jumps on the only one we can actually tell him. “We’re known to these people. Won’t work.”
“Not me,” he counters. “I’m new in town. I could be anyone we need me to be.”
My heart revs to life. The entire scheme unfolds in my mind’s eye, and I know it will work. Hillerman—curse the woman—recognizes that look in my eye and says firmly, “Not a chance.”
“But think about it. He’s perfect for the type of community we need to infiltrate. Imposing figure, arrogantly handsome, refined, and filthy rich!”
Russo cocks his head. “Rich?”
“We can fake that.”
Jay brings up the tougher one. “Refined?”
Russo gives a belly laugh. “I know, right?”
“I have a way, trust me.”
“This isn’t a matter of trust,” Hillerman says. “I have full confidence that you could pull this off. It doesn’t hurt that Detective Russo does, in fact”—her face flashes with color—“that he looks, as you said…”
“What, that he’s handsome to a degree of justified arrogance? Is that what you’re saying?”
Russo beams proudly. “Whoa, now, better pump those brakes.”
“I’m only agreeing that he would absolutely fit in. But this community, as you put it, is notoriously, dangerously private.” Her threatening look screams at me to drop the subject.
“Okay, so, executive decision. I’m telling him,” I announce. Hillerman stiffens, and Jay shifts his weight uncomfortably.
“Agent Davies, you are not saying a word, and that’s an order that comes down from On High, as far as you’re concerned. This conversation is over.”
“I’m sure by now you know exactly where you can shove your authority, Special Agent Hypocrite. If you can recruit a vampire master, then I can recruit a human. Look, Nora Jacobs took out Elijah, and we eliminated King Paul. Beyona’s got to be desperate for another recruit for her necromancy ring, so let’s give her one. We need a high-powered sorcerer nobody knows. With a little help, Russo can knock that shit outta the park.”
“Shayne,” Jay warns.
“I’m not waiting for another bomb, Jay. We need to do this, and we need to do it right now. You said yourself he’d believe. He’s got it mostly figured out all by himself. Look at him. I just mentioned vampires and sorcerers, and he hasn’t batted an eye.”
Jay tries again. “Shayne.”
“Russo, it’s all true. Everything you’ve heard, everything you’ve suspected about the supernatural world—it’s real, and it’s here in Detroit. That’s what we’re dealing with. Vampires and werewolves, magic and monsters, okay? You always knew it. You could almost feel it, couldn’t you?” I scrutinize Russo’s reaction, which is…nothing. He seems completely unaffected, which scares me, because it means he’s waiting for me to deliver a punch line. He thinks I must be joking.
“Shayne,” Brenner says for the third time, “I already told him.”
“You…what?”
“He was there. At the crime scene. He saw Nick Gorgeous shield me from the blast. There wasn’t a scratch on him. How do I explain that?”
“Wait, does Nick know he was seen?”
“No. Russo didn’t bring it up until we left.”
Hillerman stares at Russo with a strange look, almost as though she’s afraid of him. “You’ve known for the past hour? But, you don’t…”
“I don’t what?” he asks calmly.
“You don’t…” Hillerman looks him up and down. It’s like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “You don’t seem any different.”
“Different, how?”
I help her out. “She means, you don’t have a pitchfork in your hands. See, for most humans, the only way they find this out is…”
“Like me,” Jay says.
“Like us,” Hillerman adds.
Russo nods gravely. “Right. I get it.”
“I doubt that,” she fires back.
“No, I do.”
“You can’t. I’m sorry, it’s just not that simple. I think it’s better for all of us if you walk away right now and consider this whole conversation a stress-induced joke.”
I peel my socks off. “Yeah, no. Russo, look at me. What she means is this isn’t some shadow you thought you might have seen when you were half asleep, and this isn’t a story that you heard from a guy who knew a guy whose grandpa once had a conversation with a tree. This is broad-ass daylight, walking and talking among you, right under your nose.” I pull my T-shirt over my head. “This is your best friend’s fiancée, who you’ve seen every day for weeks, who you loaned your old truck to.” I push my pants and panties down my long legs. “Don’t look away. Do you see me blushing? Just keep your eyes on mine. If you don’t see it actually happen, your brain will find ways to reject it.” Standing in the buff, I smile with no hint of embarrassment. “Russo, this is me.”
With a shiver of underworld current, I shift, my point of view lowering to half my human height. I look up at the human faces high above me. Brenner and Hillerman watch Russo closely. His eyes have doubled in size. I can hear his breaths deepening as he struggles to maintain composure.
Okay, I didn’t really think this through, and now I’m not sure what to do. Should I wag my tail like a dog? I sit down, but that feels even more awkward, so I prance up to Russo. He’s holding my shoe. I snatch it in my teeth and drop it onto my pile of clothes.
Russo follows my every move with growing emotion. At first he seems wondrous, like a kid seeing Santa Claus. But just as he seems about to break into a wide smile, he averts his eyes and takes a deep breath. His brow is creased with concern.
Alarmed, I shift back. “Russo? You still with us?”
His voice is solemn. “I’m with you. To be honest, I’m pretty damn jazzed right now.”
“This is you jazzed?”
“This is me taking a moment to respect present company. Brenner and Special Agent Hillerman, I see you now. For the first time, I guess. I’m sure I don’t know the half of it—and I never could—if you both learned about this on your own, the hard way, I can’t imagine the nightmare. The fact that you’re still here, and you are the way you are…I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Hillerman’s hands are balled into fists. “I wasn’t on my own. I had Matt.”
“Of course. My apologies.”
“I’m headed back to the house.” She sets her jaw and forges toward the front doors through thick, awkward silence.
The instant the door clicks shut behind her, I begin to apolog
ize to Russo on her behalf, but he cuts me off with a sudden, startling shout. “HOLY HAIRLESS BALLS. What the…what!” He shakes Brenner by the shoulders. Then he points at me. “And what! I mean, not about you being totally naked right now, but the other thing!”
“The thing where your partner’s fiancée is a woodland animal?”
“That thing, yes. Do it again! No, don’t, it probably hurts. Does it hurt? Wait, am I really going undercover as a wizard? Will I use real magic?”
“Hell no. Did you take real drugs when you guys were undercover? Wait, don’t answer that. The point is, no, we gotta fake the hell out of this. I got a way, but I’m telling you right now, it will only work if you’re 100 percent willing.”
Russo’s not even listening. He exclaims, “Oh! I have a costume. A wizard costume; I keep it in the back of my closet.”
Jay rocks back on his heels, horrified. “Wait, what?” Apparently there are some things not even shared among partners.
Russo erupts with laughter. “Oh, right, so vampires are real, but my secret is the real shock?” Rolling each of us into one of his massive arms, he smashes us against his sides. “I’m going to be a wizard!”
“I’d say he’s pretty willing,” I wisecrack.
Jay grits his teeth in pain. “100 percent.”
The reopening of a new and improved Underworld is, not surprisingly, the premiere “can’t miss” event of the year for every underworlder within a hundred miles. Terrance really ought to thank Nora Jacobs for nearly destroying the place in her fight against Henry Stadther. Old Fat Fingers even thought to replace the code box on the employee entrance, so I had to freeze my tail off in the massive line outside with everybody else. At least he was in a good enough mood to let me sneak Jay in through the back door. There’s no way a human would have survived the crowd out front.
“Don’t make aggressive eye contact,” I shout into Jay’s ear over the blaring music, “but don’t not make eye contact, either.”
He shakes loose of my crushing grip. “You know, it’s not dumb luck that I survived years undercover in one of the toughest cities in the world. I know how to fit into places like this.”
“Oh, good, because when we first met, I seem to remember something about you hiding in the back seat of my car.”
“That was the street. This is a dance club. It’s a damn peacock show. Look at that guy.” He means the gray-skinned sylph wearing nothing but a diaper made of swan feathers. Seeing Jay pointing at him, the sylph bares a mouthful of fangs and snaps at his finger. Jay leaps back with a shout.
“Yeah, babe, except here the peacocks rip your face off.”
“I can handle it.” He’s on edge now, eyes darting all over the place, clenching and unclenching his fists as we push toward the bar.
Two drunken pixies cavort with each other in our way. When Jay firmly moves them aside, the fey begin to snarl, but seeing me wearing a threatening smile, they both back down. A lumbering troll throws his shoulder into Jay. I flash my FUA badge at the brute, and he quickly steers clear of us. I hide the badge before Jay can see it.
“See what I mean?” he says.
“Go get ’em, babe. You totally got this.”
The best improvement of the new Underworld is the bar, for two reasons. First of all, it’s gargantuan, spanning the entire length of the building, and second, Nora Jacobs is no longer behind it. I see half a dozen new bartenders trying to keep up with all the orders being shouted. The bar’s supervisor—still and forever, it seems—is Wulf the wolf. I’m flattered when he picks my face out of the crowd and sends me a gentlemanly nod and a wink. But then he notices Jay, and Wulf’s warm welcome turns cold. He shakes his head at me, like a parent scolding a child. And like a child responding to a parent, I flip him off.
Jay scans faces up and down the bar. “She’s not here, Shayne. What happens if Russo gets here before she does?”
“Relax.”
“Babe, he just found out that Halloween is real, and it’s every damn day of the year, and now we’re tossing his ass straight into the pit, like ‘Peter in the Wolves’ Den.’ I’m his partner, okay? It’s my job to—”
“Lions,” I say.
Jay stops in his tracks, pulling me against his back in a protective stance. “Where?”
“No, not here. I mean it’s lions’ den, not wolves’ den, and it’s Daniel, not Peter. ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den,’ ‘Peter and the Wolf.’ Got it?”
“Same difference, Shayne! The point is, she’s not here yet, and without her, he’s a sitting duck.”
“Do you actually know either of those stories, Jay? Daniel ends up playing with the lions, and Peter kills the wolf.”
“Really?”
“Really. So just relax, okay?”
He shakes his fingers out. “Okay. All right.”
“It’s funny, though, you calling him a sitting duck. Because the wolf actually eats the duck.”
Jay groans loudly. “Oh, shit no, where is she? Call her right now.”
As we arrive at the bar, my eyes fix on the only empty space in the mob of drinkers. I know that empty space. “Jay, she’ll be here. In the meantime, grab that empty space at the bar and get us some drinks so we look natural.”
“Drinks?” He’s intimidated by the twenty-foot wall of neon liquor bottles behind the bar. “What the hell do I order?”
“Just get yourself a Screaming Kiss.”
He looks unsure. “A Screaming Kiss?”
“Oh, you’ll love it, trust me. Hurry, before that space closes up.”
Jay dutifully hurries to the narrow open space, but when he gets there, he seems to stumble, bumping into an invisible something—or somebody. With a zing of underworld current, a fun-size socialite in a crystal blue princess dress and black leather jacket materializes out of thin air. Elvira whips her blonde tresses to face Jay. She screams at the top of her lungs, throws her arms around his neck, and locks her lips square on his mouth. In his startled haste to back away from her, his hands fumble into her boobs. Elle shrieks with mock objection, slaps him hard in the face, then wraps all four arms and legs around him.
I sidle up with a smile. “Didn’t I tell you about that drink, Jay? Knock you right off your feet.”
Elle screams again and throws herself at me in a full-on tackle. We both wipe out, hitting the floor among a sea of sneakers and high heels. Elle makes mwah noises as she peppers my face with kisses. “Oh, I want him, Shayne, I want my own Brenner, just give him to me already. You have to. Please, please, please.”
“Nope.”
She frowns and makes a petulant voice. “But it’s what I want.”
I fake an exasperated sigh. “Well, since you put it that way, I suppose…I’ll just have to tell him I changed my mind.”
She blinks with surprise, biting the hook like a good little fish. “Changed your mind?” I see the overactive, hopeful wheels turning behind her cautious eyes. “Changed your mind about what?”
“Oh, nothing, just about getting mar—”
She explodes with a delighted squeal and shakes my shoulders, thumping my head against the hardwood floor. “Getting married! I knew it! I told you so, I told you there’d be…and now you’re…oh, and you promised!”
“Breathe, Elle. In and out.”
“You promised I could make the dress, so I need a when and a where, girl, tell me, tellmetellmetellme. Hey!” She shouts angrily at a guy who just stepped on my hair. She flicks a fireball at his crotch, sending him scurrying into the crowd.
Jay lifts us from the floor. The side of his face that wasn’t burnt from the car bomb is now a matching red with an outline of Elle’s hand. “Did you meet up with Russo?” he asks.
“You mean the total silver fox with shoulders big enough for me to lie across?”
“That would be a yes,” I say. “What do you think? Willing enough for you?”
Her eyes grow big. “Um, yes and no. For the job we’re doing tonight, definitely, but for what I’d like
him to do to me later, sadly, I wasn’t feeling much.”
“Elle, he’s twice your age.”
“Which is why I want to bring him an apple and ask for private tutoring after class.”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but your professor only has eyes for another student, and she’s right over there.”
In a dark corner of the club, Agent Hillerman, with her black shades on, holds up the wall. As we watch, she raises her palm in the face of a stylish gnome trying to hit on her. He turns away with slumped shoulders.
“No! Special Agent Stick-in-the-Mud?”
“Trust me, Russo’s the one stuck in that mud, big time.”
Elle sticks out her bottom lip. “Poor silver fox!”
“I don’t see Russo.” Jay looks around impatiently. “Is he here yet?”
She clasps her hands with a tinkling laugh. “Oh, believe me, if he were here, you’d know it. You asked me for help creating a grand entrance. Do you think he’s just going to slip in unannounced?”
The devilish gleam in her eye scares me. “Okay, but Elle, we’re talking about something that will turn some heads, right?”
“Right.”
“Turn some heads,” I clarify. “Not melt faces off.”
She unleashes the tinkling laugh again. “Oh, you guys, it’s scary how well you know me.”
“I agree, it’s scary.”
“Relax! Shall we go out front to see for ourselves?”
Jay cocks his head at me. “Yeah, babe, relax.”
Before I can slap that smirk off his red face, I spy a trio of hulking men headed straight for us. Their hungry eyes are pinned on me. Wolves. I don’t recognize them—likely rogues—but I do recognize the predatory threat making the hairs on my arms stand up. I grab two fistfuls of Jay’s shirt and pull him to me. “Okay, Peter, you’re up. We talked about this.”
“What? Now?”
“Right now. I need you to be a little more demanding of my attention. Don’t look. Just keep your eyes on me like you mean it. I’m yours, right?”