by R. L. Naquin
“Oh, come on. The bathroom again? Dude. Seriously.” I dried my hands on a paper towel and tossed it in the trash. “I see you have a mouth now. Good for you!” I grinned at him. “Any chance it works?”
The mouth opened and closed, clearly trying to make words, but without a throat, lungs or tongue, it couldn’t produce sounds.
I leaned back against the sink. “Okay. We’ll stick with what we know. You have an important message for me?”
One nod, indicating yes.
“Is it about the murders?”
A hesitation, then nodded. This was going to take forever.
“Any chance you can manifest a throat and start talking sometime soon?”
Two nods. Then he changed his movements and made a swooping motion as if pointing at something in the corner behind me. He did it twice more until I got creeped out and turned to see if something was there.
A goblin floated in the corner, her expression one of tragic despair. The earmuff buns she wore her hair in and the white Princess Leia dress made an odd contrast with her mood.
“Oh. Hey. Felicia, right?”
She nodded slowly, and her mouth twitched.
“I don’t suppose you can speak?”
She shook her head.
“Of course not.” I glanced over my shoulder at Mr. Winky, but the eyeball guy had disappeared. Apparently, he’d given his dire message that someone—besides him—was in the bathroom with me, and went home for the day. Wherever that was. I put the lid down on the toilet and sat, crossing my legs. “So, your mom seems nice.”
Felicia smiled and nodded.
“I’m just going to come right out and ask, sweetie. Were you murdered?”
A ghostly tear slid down her chubby face and she moved her head up and down.
My heart squeezed in my chest. I wanted to reach out and hug her, but my arms would have gone through her as if she wasn’t there. I hated causing her more pain by asking sensitive questions, but I needed information only she could give me. “Did you recognize the person driving the car?”
She shook her head from side to side with a solemn expression.
“Well, crap. Is there something I can do besides find your murderer?” If she had unfinished personal business, I didn’t mind helping her take care of it. But if she didn’t, there wasn’t much reason for her to hang around. Well, except for that murder thing.
Felicia shrugged and held up her hands.
I slipped my pendant out from under my shirt. “You know, I’m going to figure this out and stop the murderer. There isn’t any reason for you to have to stick around. Remember the nice man who helped put you safely into his ring a few months ago?” As I spoke, I rose in an as casual and non-threating way as I could, so I wouldn’t alarm her. “He was supposed to take you to cross over safely to a wonderful place where no one could ever hurt you again.” The stone glowed in the center of the golden scarab I’d had made for it, and even the chain was warming. “Unfortunately, the nice man ran into some trouble of his own—which I solved, by the way—and you kind of got lost in the shuffle.” I stood less than two feet from her with my soul stone dangling from my fingers. “If you’ll let me help you, I can get you to that wonderful place, and none of this stuff will matter anymore. And I promise I’ll find this person who killed you.” I held out the stone. “How about it?”
For a few seconds, I felt the pull of my soul stone dragging her closer. Her feet turned silver and glittery, then lost their form as they drifted toward my pendant. Her expression was thoughtful, as if she wasn’t fully convinced.
A banging on the bathroom door was all the unconvincing she needed. She pulled away, her legs and feet reformed, and she blew out of the bathroom through the wall.
“Son of a one-eyed mountain goat.” I flung the door open. “What?”
Ash stood in the doorway with her hand raised to knock again. “You’ve been gone for ten minutes. Are you okay? We were getting worried.” She glanced at my fist clenching the scarab. “Uh-oh. What was going on in here?”
I dropped the pendant under my shirt. “I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge. I came in to pee and was visited by two ghooooosts.” I flapped my arms for effect.
“Two?” She peered over my shoulder to get a look. “Who was in there with you?”
“First, Winky McEyeball was here, because he has no sense of boundaries.”
“Again? Shit, Kam. That’s so creepy. And rude.”
I nodded in agreement, though I was actually getting used to him. “Then Felicia payed me a visit.”
“Whoa. Seriously?” Again, she peered into the bathroom.
“Seriously. I almost had her, too.”
Her expression wilted. “But I interrupted.”
I sighed. “Yeah, well. I’m sure she’ll be back.”
“You think so?”
“Unfinished business. They always come back for that.”
Chapter Seven
“Hey. You can’t just walk in here and take whatever you want.” Ziggy fumed behind his desk, cloven hooves still propped on the filing cabinet next to him.
Tahm strode over and shoved Ziggy’s feet to the floor, then wheeled him out of the way still in his chair.
“Dude, do you know how much trouble you’re in?” I glared at him with all the fiery wrath of a full-born djinn. At times like these, my pupils were filled with flames, and my skin was hot to the touch.
“What did I do?” He looked genuinely baffled. And afraid.
“Nothing. You did absolutely nothing. And you took money for not doing it. Thanks to your inaction, three people are dead. Three. By the same person, as far as we can tell.” I bent close to his face so he could get a good look at the flames flickering in my pupils. “Three makes it a serial killer. You let a serial killer get buried in paperwork that you didn’t properly fill out.”
He glanced from me to Tahm, apparently trying to decide whether the silent djinn tearing apart his desk was more or less threatening than the lady djinn in his face who appeared to be about to spontaneously combust.
The answer to that question was me. It would always be me.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Headquarters.
It rang twice before it was picked up. “Art.”
“Hey. We have a problem.” I held eye contact with the satyr while I talked.
Art sighed. “When is there not a problem, Kam?”
I brushed aside the comment. Now was not the time for me to tease Art with witty banter. “You don’t have a local OGRE team down here.”
“I don’t? Of course I do. Hang on.” Keys tapped in the background while he muttered to himself. “No, I definitely do. Payroll shows six officers.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not what’s actually here. You’ve got one guy collecting everybody’s salary while he sits around and lets a serial killer take out a bunch of cosplayers.”
The other end of the phone was quiet for so long, I worried he’d hung up. When he finally spoke, he was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear him. “Kam, I can’t believe I’m saying this.” He sighed. “Fire him. I’m making you chief OGRE. Deputize your team. Just for now until we can fill the positions properly. We can’t have any more murders.”
Part of me was horrified. We were already doing two jobs as both soul chasers and reapers. Now we were also an OGRE squad. Another part of me, one I could barely control, was so excited. I was the sheriff in town. I needed an outfit to reflect my new awesome status.
“What about the satyr?” I glanced at my sneakers and considered what color cowboy boots I should replace them with.
“Throw him in a cell. I’ll get somebody down there as fast as I can to collect him.”
I glanced around the stark warehouse. “I don’t see anywhere to put him.” I scowled at him. “How do you not have a single cell in here?” I rubbed the
spot between my eyebrows. Even if we had a place to hold him, we’d have to expend time and energy on keeping him secure. And fed. He’d need to eat and drink. We did not have time for this guy.
Art groaned. “Forget it. Let him go. We’ll catch up with him later and bring him in. Fraud isn’t nearly as important as a serial killer, and our resources are already stretched thin.”
I breathed a sigh of relief at having one problem off my plate. “They really are. I’ll keep you updated as things progress. Thanks, Art.” I hung up before he could, because that always gave me an extra thrill.
Ziggy swallowed hard. “Did you say Art?”
I took a step away from him to allow him space to climb to his feet. “I did. Congratulations. You’re fired.”
“You can’t...”
“Oh, I can. Art just gave me your job. Get out.”
He glanced at Tahm and, for once, Tahm didn’t try to one-up me. He folded his arms across his chest and waited for Ziggy to make a move.
Ash plucked the lone coat off the rack and a dirty coffee mug off the desk. “This all your stuff?”
The satyr nodded. “Except for the leftover lasagna in the mini fridge in the break room.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Is it good lasagna?”
“Yes.”
“Get out.” I took his things from Ash and shoved them at him. “The lasagna is dead to you. And you should probably find a job so you can start paying back all the money you stole. They’ll be coming for it. And you.” I shoved him through the door and locked him out.
I’d been fairly judicious with my use of magic over the last few months, so I had nearly a full gem ready to go. With a brush of my fingers across the gem, I changed my sneakers into bright red cowboy boots, my tee shirt into a proper sheriff’s shirt and the rubber band in my ponytail into a cowboy hat. I found a pin in the desk drawer that said “Why Be Normal?” and transformed it into a badge.
I turned to face the other two, smoothing the crisp ironed folds in my shirt. “Well, I’m ready to get to work. How about you guys?”
Ash laughed and clapped her hands. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
Tahm clenched his jaw and glared at me without speaking. His expectation that I save my magic and not spend it on things he considered frivolous needed to be managed. This was who I was. The only thing I planned to change was my clothes.
I held my hand up toward him. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He gritted his teeth. “I didn’t say a word.”
“Good.” I pointed at the file in his hand. “What did you find?”
He lifted it in the air. “I have Simon’s file, such as it is. Not a lot here, but I do have his address and the name of the investigating officer. Tyrell Reese again.”
Ash moved to the filing cabinet. “I’m on it.”
I nodded. “The sooner we track down the OGREs who left, the sooner we can get some help with all this.”
“Got it.” Ash pulled another file from the cabinet and flipped through the pages. “Tyrell’s in here, so we’re on the right track. Should I call him?”
I eased into the rolling chair Ziggy had vacated. “We’ve got a lot to do. I’m thinking maybe we need to split up, at least until we bring in more OGREs.” My goal, actually, was to bring in enough OGREs to rebuild the squad, crown one of them sheriff and pull my team out. Until then, we had so many leads to follow up on, I was pulled in six different directions.
“Do you think that’s a good idea? Splitting up could be dangerous.” Tahm’s expression was steady, giving nothing away. The way he shifted from foot to foot betrayed his nervousness.
I did my best to listen to him. A good boss didn’t brush aside the concerns of her employees. “I don’t believe we’re in any danger. We’re not the targets.” He started to object, and I held up my hand. “However. A lot of what we have to do can be done all in one place. We can stick together, but still tackle different tasks. At least for now. Okay?”
He let out a breath and stopped moving his feet. “Thank you.”
“First of all, I’m not working in this dump. Find a box. We need to take the files with us, in case there’s something useful there. If you see anything else we can use, grab it. Otherwise, this place can burn to the ground for all I care. I wouldn’t be surprised if that guy was claiming rent for real offices, paying nothing by squatting here and pocketing piles of government money for himself.”
Ash made a face of disgust. “Let’s get what we need and go. This place creeps me out.”
All the files in the cabinet fit into a single box we found in the makeshift break room. Nothing but a few pens and sticky notes remained. We ignored them and left as quickly as we could, leaving the door behind us unlocked. If somebody came in and stole the crusty microwave and a handful of paperclips, more power to them.
Tahm put the box in the back of my pickup and covered it with a tarp so nothing would blow away. We climbed in and drove toward Harpy House.
“Dammit.” I smacked the steering wheel with my palm.
Ash and Tahm stared at me.
“What’s wrong?” Ash put her hand on the dash and twisted beneath her seat belt to face me.
I sighed. “I forgot the damn lasagna.”
* * *
We spent the afternoon sorting through the poorly filed documents from the warehouse. An appalling number of cases were left open, from domestic disputes to missing children. It was a wonder no one had called Headquarters and complained. Or maybe they had and nobody had put the clues together.
Art was doing his best. He couldn’t run the entire country with mindless golem creatures, a handful of people from before the world had changed and a bunch of freelancers who only wanted to cash in a paycheck from time to time.
Like us with the OGRE squad we were about to try to fix, Art was still rebuilding his base. I had to remind myself that he was fairly new to the job, too.
So, I helped where I could.
“Okay. This pile is prior personnel, correct?” I patted a disappointingly small stack on the right side of my bed. “These are open cases—” I patted the ones on my left “—and these are completed and can be filed away.” The pile directly in front of me was also woefully small.
Ash took away the completed cases in front of me and placed them back in the box. Then she grabbed the open cases and shoved them together in a file for safekeeping. “What should we do with those?”
“As bad as it is that no one’s helped these people, they’re going to have to wait a little longer. We have to focus on this one case. And hopefully, by the time we’re done, the new squad will take over and deal with the old stuff.”
To my surprise, we did find a file for Wendy. It was more like a receipt than an actual file. Since this district didn’t have a coroner or a morgue of its own, someone from Topeka, Kansas, had driven down to pick up Wendy. The only thing in her file was their receipt for her body.
It was something, at least. We’d add to the file ourselves. I gave it to Tahm to place it on the dresser where we’d put Felicia’s and Simon’s files, as well as the employee list from the craft store and the list of Felicia’s friends that we’d acquired from Mrs. Appleton.
That left the personnel files. I gathered them up and handed them to Ash. “Okay. I think we’re making some progress here.”
“That’s a lot of legwork.” Tahm leaned against the doorjamb with his arms folded across his chest.
“Going to be hard working out of this tiny room.” Ash moved the box of files from my single chair to the floor, brushed off the chair, then sat.
“This was just the beginning. Give me a minute.” I tapped numbers into my phone and waited for it to be answered. “Brody. Hey. It’s Kam.”
His voice was cheery, but I could hear the tension beneath it. “Kam. What can I do for you?”
“I was hoping we could help each other.” I pulled my legs under me on the bed. Why was all this so damn exhausting? I checked the time on the clock by the bed. Maybe because we’d missed lunch.
“Sounds good. What do you have in mind?”
“We need to speak with all your employees. And we also need some office space. Any chance you could clear us a spot in the back so we have a base of operations?”
He was quiet for a moment. “Can you wait until tomorrow? I’ve got a truck coming in with a huge delivery this afternoon. Once it’s gone, we won’t have another big one for another week, so you won’t be disturbed. We’ll get you a table and chairs. Whatever you need. Will that work?”
“That would be spectacular.” I plucked at the fringe I’d added to my sheriff shirt when no one had been looking.
“Store opens at ten, but I’m here by nine.”
“We’ll see you at nine, then. Thanks, Brody.” I hung up. “Well, now we have a temporary office to work from. One of us will focus on contacting the old OGREs. The other of you will interview the craft store employees. Tahm, I think that’s a good spot for you. That okay?” He nodded. “Ash, can you handle the OGREs?”
“Sure. You just want me to ask them to come back to work?”
I shook my head. “No. I want to see them myself. Give them appointments to speak with Ziggy’s replacement. If Ziggy hired them in the first place, we may have to look for new hires instead.”
Tahm scowled. “And what will you be doing?”
I braced myself for an onslaught of resistance, bordering on outrage. “I’m going to check out Simon’s once I get you two settled.”
To his credit, Tahm didn’t yell. His tone was measured and stiff. “You said we wouldn’t be splitting up.”
“There are four other people still living at that place. One of them might be the murderer. I’d rather go in there looking more or less harmless than with a bodyguard—which, by the way, I don’t need.”
He grunted and shoved his hands in his jeans. “Fine.”
“Fine?” I raised an eyebrow.