“Yes, ma’am.” He tipped the brim of a nonexistent hat and let me go. “Later, Thierry.”
Mable and I watched him swagger over to a pickup that wasn’t his usual black monstrosity. A white printout from the dealership still clung to the window, and an orange price sticker blocked part of the front windshield. This truck was a glossy, sapphire-blue dream come true for someone who drove her mom’s hand-me-down sedan with peeling bumper stickers from her middle-school days plastered on it.
Shaw climbed into his new ride, punched the gas and churned up a cloud of dust in his wake.
“Give him a ten-minute head start,” Mable cautioned.
Waiting implied Shaw wanted me specifically, when he had made it clear that was no longer the case.
I cast a fond smile over my shoulder. “I will.”
“Don’t be a stranger.” She waved. “Remember, you said avocado next time.”
I lifted a hand and started walking toward my car. “I’ll remember.”
Thanks to the magic of basswood honey, she had given me two more cases to work. Both FTAs, failure to appears, which would keep me occupied for another couple of weeks while Shaw and I tracked the poacher.
Unlike Quinn, whose capture padded my bank account by five grand, these two were worth half that. Half the risk meant half the fee. Yet another reason why tackling the case with Shaw made good financial sense. Factor in the hazard pay, and we would each walk away with four grand. Not too shabby.
As I stabbed the sticky door lock with my Mom of the Year key, a flicker of movement caught my eye.
Trapped beneath the windshield wipers, a silky black feather whipped in the breeze.
Magic stung my fingertips when I retrieved it.
Caw.
My heart leapt into my throat.
Caw.
After scrambling to get inside the car, I jabbed the lock button until the satisfying click filled my ears. With my nose pressed against the glass, I spotted a lone black bird circling overhead.
Three short bursts of old-school rock music blaring from my cleavage made me jump. During the second it took me to pull my cellphone from my bra, the ominous bird vanished. I smacked the steering wheel with my palm, swiped the call icon with my thumb and forced enough false cheer in my voice to choke a horse. “Hi, Mom, I was just about to call. I got hung up at work— What? I’ll be right there.”
Chapter 6
I pulled into Mom’s driveway and sat there, staring through the windshield. A deep foreboding settled around me as hundreds of cawing birds hopped, fluttered, pecked at bugs in the sod and at each other.
Black birds.
Ravens.
My cellphone was in hand, my finger poised to dial Shaw and report the eerie occurrence when curtains moved inside the house. A second later, Mom eased out the front door and darted to my car. Shaw would have to wait.
This morning she wore a yellow swimsuit with a black rose pattern. Her silvery hair was gathered at her nape, but flyaways curled around her face. Her feet left no prints, and her knuckle was dry when she rapped on my window.
I hit the button and lowered the glass, breathing in her worry and the wet-feather scent of her guests. “I can wait if you want to change clothes first.”
“No, I’ll shower later.” She plucked at her straps. “I dried out waiting on you to get here.” To soften what almost sounded like a reprimand, she added, “I swam first thing, as usual, and when I finished, I found this. I didn’t know who else to call.”
Animal control? Except the birds’ unnatural behavior was obvious, so of course she called me. Unnatural was my wheelhouse.
“Scoot over, and I’ll check it out.” Nudging her aside with the door, I stepped onto the concrete beside her and inhaled deeper. Bird dander. Carrion. Poop. But no magic. “It’s probably a migration thing.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Her lips flattened to hold in whatever comment she almost made.
Screwing up my nerve, I approached the nearest one and nudged its tail with the toe of my sneaker. A normal bird would have bolted before I got that close. This one just blinked round, black eyes at me. That wasn’t right. I smelled like a predator. I was a predator. The birdbrains should have taken a whiff of me then rocketed into the sky.
When Mom’s hand landed on my shoulder, I jumped a foot off the ground and whirled to face her.
Deep wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes, and laugh lines mapped her face, but she wasn’t smiling now.
Not for the first time, I wished I had her faded denim eyes or the rich auburn hair she sported in pictures from my baby albums instead of Mac’s wide green eyes and stick-straight black hair that refused to hold a curl.
“Is this something to do with—” she pitched her voice low, “—your job?”
I bit the inside of my cheek while deciding how much to confide. The Raven theme was too blatant to ignore. This was definitely a case of work coming home with me, but until I knew specifics, I followed our standard operation procedure. I lied. “No, it’s not.”
“I didn’t believe that face when you were nine.” She stared me down. “I don’t believe it at nineteen, either.”
Pretending I wasn’t offended—I was a damn good bluffer—I asked, “What time did you spot them?”
Not fooled one bit, she said, “Six o’clock.”
It was pushing eight o’clock now. At six, I had been buried nose-deep in paperwork. That put my run-in with the poacher around three. Plenty of time for him to organize Mom’s lawn party.
The question was why. Was this a message? A warning? Why target Mom—and therefore me—when Mable said there had been three other incidents?
I dragged a tired hand down my face. “Why didn’t you call sooner?”
“I did.” She reached inside the shelf-bra sewn into her swimsuit top and brought out her cell. “Hold on.”
The habit made me grin. She was the reason I tended to use my bra as an extra pocket instead of breaking down and carrying a purse.
“There.” Triumph lit her face. “My calls have been going straight to your voicemail for the past two days. When you finally answered, I almost dropped the phone. I was that shocked.”
“What’s that smell?” I took a few sniffs. “Did you scramble guilt for breakfast again?”
“I’m your mother.” She swatted my behind. “I have a right to worry.”
“I turned off my cell.” I hesitated. “I was…” don’t say troll hunting, “…troll hunting.”
Her knuckles whitened where she gripped her phone. “Troll hunting.”
Mom hadn’t known who or what Macsen was when they got involved. Not until I came along and wrecked their relationship.
Half-bloods were either born null, or they inherited a portion of their fae parent’s power. That meant Mac had to fess up or gamble that I would take after Mom instead of him. Lucky for us, he wasn’t a betting man and left her with a contact number—Mable’s, actually.
The slip of paper had gathered dust inside a teacup in Mom’s china cabinet until the night she came home from work and found me sitting in the floor in my bedroom surrounded by the corpses of my soulless best friends. They came for my thirteenth birthday party, slept over and thanks to me, left in body bags.
Happy birthday to me.
Before Mom called the cops, she dialed that faded number. Shaw came for me, that’s how we met, and he brought marshals with him to clean up the mess. I was bleeding magic I had drunk down so many lives, and Shaw took away that pain with a touch that burned clear to my soul.
A bond forged between us that night. Or I thought it had.
Rubbing a tender spot over my breastbone, I looked up to find Mom staring at me. “Have you had breakfast yet? I was just thinking it was eight...”
“And that the doors are already open at Jose’s?” She waved her cellphone at the birds. “Get rid of this poopfest, and I’ll drive out to the cantina and pick up breakfast—my treat.”
M
y stomach rumbled at the mention of my favorite Mexican restaurant. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Good.” Tension eased from her shoulders. “I’ll go shower and call in the order.”
Once she returned to the house and shut the door behind her, I dialed my roommate’s number.
A sluggish growl answered me.
“You weren’t asleep, were you?”
Her low groan earned my sympathy.
“I need your help.”
“Whph?”
“Where am I?” I pumped my fist. I had her. “I’m at Mom’s. So are like a hundred bespelled birds.”
“Hmph?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later.”
A long-suffering sigh I took as a yes blasted my ear.
“See you in a few.” I ended the call and leaned against my car, thinking.
Mom reemerged wearing navy capris, a navy and white striped tank top and matching flip-flops. I waved bye as she slid behind the wheel of her burnt-orange mini Cooper and backed down the driveway past me.
While I waited on Mai to climb out of bed, get reacquainted with her pants and make the fifteen-minute run from our apartment to Mom’s house, I snapped a picture of the lawn and texted it to Shaw with the caption We need to talk. Then I plugged headphones into my cell and blared Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Come Around Here No More” to drown out all the racket.
Chapter 7
About the time I began worrying Mai had fallen back asleep, sharp teeth sank into my ankle, and I yelped. A dainty red fox sat on her haunches beside me. Twitching her bottlebrush tail, she yipped twice while narrowing her large golden eyes on my headphones. Oops.
“Did you have to bite me?” I unplugged and tucked away my phone and earbuds. “Damn it, Mai, that hurt.”
She bared pointy teeth as if to say I’m here, now what?
“It’s not my fault you went running with what’s-his-name last night instead of climbing into bed at a decent hour,” said the roomie who had been out chasing a bonus check all night.
Her ears flattened against her skull.
“Fine. Here’s the deal. We get rid of the birds, and Mom pays us in huevos rancheros and fajitas.”
Counting on Mom to over-order, I figured I would split my take with Mai.
Mai huffed out a gusty sigh. Her sleek ears swiveled as the birds flapped their wings or hopped in place, reacting to the predator in their midst. I began doubting they could leave, wondering if they were magically adhered to the grass and if there was an undetectable spell invoked here, until a series of rapid-fire yips preceded a bolt of orange-red fur that pounced into the fray wearing an all-too-human grin.
Utter stillness reigned. Three, two…
Feathers exploded in an upward torrent of frantic corvids desperate to escape the kitsune’s jaws.
Mai snapped her jaws then, caught one by its tail feathers and flung it side to side before moving on to her next victim.
Five minutes later, the lawn was clear, and Mai flopped onto the grass panting.
“Good work.” I walked over and stroked her head. Her fur was warm silk under my fingers. “You should get changed before Mom gets back. She’s had enough excitement for one day.” After dealing with the birds, if she caught Mai mid-shift or just plain naked, she might flip. I went to the fence and let Mai into the backyard. “The patio doors should be unlocked. I’ve got spare clothes in the bottom of the bureau in my old room. Take whatever you want.”
With an imperious flick of her tail, Mai hefted herself onto her feet and trotted past me.
By the time Mom returned with breakfast, her yard would be back to normal, making it easier for her to pretend I was too. She never asked me for specifics on Mai, so I never confided in her that my best friend was a kitsune, an ancient breed of fox shifter, who shared my love of the nightlife and steaks with plenty of moo left in them.
Mom needed Mai to be an average young woman of Japanese descent. Not another fae like me.
So we all faked it.
Sometimes, even if it was a lie, it felt nice being normal.
After eating with Mom, I gave Mai a lift back to our apartment. With our bellies full of fajita, I proclaimed it siesta time. I got one foot through the door before Mai kicked off her borrowed flip-flops and faced me.
“Is there something not feathery you’d like to talk about?” She set her hands on her slim hips. “Before you even consider lying, you should know I smell his lure all over you.”
Busted. I shut the door and slumped against it, brought my keys up and used one to scratch off my flaking nail polish. “Shaw’s back.”
“And?”
I blew glittery flakes from my thumb onto the floor. “We bumped into each other this morning.”
The urge to caress the still-tingling spot where he had fed was an itch in my palm. I resisted because the last thing I wanted was anyone’s pity.
Just as I feared, Mai’s warm brown eyes softened. “How awkward was it?”
“As awkward as you can imagine times two.” I hung my keys on a hook by the door. “We talked. We’ve established boundaries that should prevent any more black marks on either of our records.” I tugged down my ponytail and massaged my aching scalp. “We can make this work.”
“Yes,” she added her support, “you can.”
“We have to.” Might as well put it all out there. “We’re working a case together.”
A slow whistle slipped past her lips. “The magistrates didn’t waste time pairing you back up, did they?”
Magistrates. Right. They didn’t know our breakup was the reason Shaw had transferred.
“It wasn’t official.” I mumbled, “It was voluntary.”
“In that case…” She ducked into the kitchen and returned with two bourbon glasses filled to the brim with smoky liquid. “Tell Auntie Mai all about it.”
I accepted the glass with a grateful nod, took a deep pull of the crisp, fermented drink and sighed as warmth spread through my chest. “Sweet Dreams?”
We plopped down onto the red brocade couch Mai had inherited from an older sister.
“Yep.” She drained her first glass with a hiccup. “Brewed by narcoleptic pixies under a full moon.”
I snorted.
Rumor had it drool from sleeping pixies gave the wine its special properties. I didn’t care. What mattered to me was its subtle sleep enchantment would burn clean through the night—or the day in our case. A few sips took the edge off, weighted your eyes and fuzzed your mind. Tossing back a full glass was like cutting lines and snorting dust straight from Mr. Sandman’s personal stash.
Shifting toward me, Mai poured herself another. “Still waiting here, Tee.”
One more sip to wet my lips, and I spilled the gory details of my day. O’Shea. The poacher. Shaw. I wrapped it all up at the point where I called her to come help me at Mom’s.
“Just remember you’re not a trainee anymore, you’re a full-fledged marshal.” Mai ran a finger along the rim of her glass. “Shaw has seniority, and the conclave bylaws are all in his favor. If you two bump heads—or anything else—you’re the one they’ll reassign this time.”
Coming off a recent transfer, even a voluntary one, meant he was ineligible.
“I know, I know.”
“At least you have romantic drama.” She sank lower into the cushions. “I got nothing.”
“Nothing?” My head jerked toward her. “You’ve gone out every night this week.”
Her eyes went liquid. “He failed the test.” Grabbing my glass, she drained it too.
Fail a kitsune’s test, and you lost her respect. One and done, it was over. No second chances.
“Ouch.” I winced. “I’m sorry. You really liked him, huh?”
“He was a nice guy,” she slurred. “A goblin, but the hot kind.” She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth then fingered her lips like they had gone numb.
“Another goblin?” That made three in as many
months. “Labyrinth much?”
She held up three fingers. “Two words—codpiece.”
“That’s one word.” I pried the glass from her hands before she dumped it on the carpet.
Mai had an unholy obsession with eighties fantasy movies. Labyrinth was her favorite. She was madly in lust with David Bowie’s character, Jareth the Goblin King, who was famous for his tight tights, smoldering stares and a very, ahem, generous codpiece.
Her head fell back while she twisted silky chestnut strands of hair around her pinky.
“Goblins are…” She stabbed a finger toward the ceiling. “They’re hot.”
“Uh-huh. Sure they are.” I clapped my hands. “Okay, time for all foxy ladies to go to bed.”
The noise spooked her, and the next thing I knew a heavy-lidded red fox lay curled on top of Mai’s clothes.
Tempted as I was to move her to her own bed, she hated being carried as a fox, and I hated getting bitten even more. Guess she was crashing on the couch. I left her pawing a shirt while she nested.
“Sleep tight,” I called on the way to my bedroom.
The bathroom earned a covetous glance from me as I passed. I ought to shower. I reeked of black magic, troll and worst of all, Shaw. But my feet were on autopilot, and the wine was telling me that my bed sure looked good from here. A shower could wait. First I needed sleep to dull the night’s sharp edges.
My shins hit the mattress, and I flopped face-first onto my bed.
Bump. Bump. Bump.
My eyes closed long enough to burn when I rolled over and opened them to glare at the ceiling. Must be moving day for the upstairs neighbors. Great. Perfect timing. Today of all days. Working third shift in a first-shift world sucked.
I shut my eyes and thought peaceful, soothing thoughts until sleep teased the corner of my mind.
Nope. Heavy footsteps tromping overhead jarred me wide awake.
“Can’t you stomp any louder?” I fisted my pillow and flung it at the ceiling. “Not like I’m trying to sleep down here.”
A chair scraped over the floor. Then blessed silence.
I closed my eyes, pressed the pillow over my face and breathed in the scent of mountain spring fabric softener.
Dog Eat Dog World: Limited Edition Bundle (Black Dog) Page 17