"Yeah, life's tough. If you want to take it up with someone, your partner's right there."
I shifted from foot to foot, uneasy. Five years was what people got for serious crimes. Grievous bodily harm, bank robbery, rape. Sentencing a couple to five years for the crime of falling in love and wanting to be together, seemed harsh given no one had really been hurt.
Except for Lindsay.
And me for the half day I'd lost to the haze of craziness.
Okay, admittedly there had been some casualties. Still...
"Can I have a word?" I asked, walking out of earshot without waiting for an answer.
"What's got your goat?" Thal asked, slouching over to join me.
"It's just, well, don't you think that the punishment really outweighs the crime? Sure, Lindsay got a raw deal, but they're are up here out of harm's way, not hurting anybody."
"Not hurting anybody that you know of," Thal retorted. "What do you think would happen if supes became common knowledge? Do you think all the humans would go 'well, that's Dandy' and skip off home?"
I shrugged. "Sure, I get it would be a bit messy--"
"Messy?" His voice suddenly betrayed exactly how angry he was. I would have taken a step back, but that would have had me over the edge.
"If knowledge of the supernatural becomes known throughout the human world, we're not talking about a couple of people feeling a bit the worse for wear. There'd be hundreds of millions of humans and millions of supes dying in pogroms all over the world. "He held up his hand, although I hadn't been going to respond. "Not even because they're at each other's throats, just because so many people wouldn't be able to cope with the real reality."
"I managed," I said, jutting out my chin.
"Oh? You managed, hah?" He brayed a mocking laughter into my face. "If I hadn't forewarned you that you could use your powers here, those harpies would have torn you to shreds. And you've got a good dose of supe in you, anyway. Imagine those poor sods down there." He swept his arm across the smoggy vista of Christchurch. "There's nothing special about them. Their brains would snap in half like a dusty twig."
I turned and looked out over the city, the one I'd lived in from the day I was born. The thought of how different my life had become in such a short time, going from what I thought was tough--being a Detective--to the insanity I lived in now.
Slowly, I started to nod, and the wind swept around in behind me as though a thousand angels were singing. "Okay."
"Okay?" Thal said as I strode past him. "And exactly what does that mean?"
I ignored him and stalked inside, walking around to Ariana and Arnie. I pointed my finger between the two of them, so that both think I was pointing straight at them.
"Listen up," I said, infusing my voice with the stern music of a thousand piano teachers. "Your choices just disappeared. Five years, prison, and these ugly fucks can look after your son. ""
Areanna rose up, opening your mouth to protest, and I held up my hand and turned my gaze away. "Okay, maybe there is a choice," I said, keeping my voice as light as possible. "How about, five years in prison, or I throw you both off the side of this mountain? What'll it be?"
Thal put his arm on my shoulder and shook his head slightly. "Not how it works, Lou. If those Witches had actually broken a law or tradition you could decide their punishment. But a punishment for Weres has to be decreed by a Were, or someone from the group they wronged. You aren't a normal human anymore, not according to the compacts and treaties. It's one of the reasons they asked for me specifically." He sighed, compassion and regret mixing on his face, and continued, "I thought your Office of Weird would have at least told you in broad terms about the treaties. That's just how the treaties work in New Zealand. The only other punishment they could have been given was too much of a risk. Your Office of Weird doesn't have the resources to watch it's own, and fifteen years serving that office was the only possible option three. Their actions didn't warrant the leniency. Besides, I got paid and brought over here to judge them. It's my job."
Behind me, the half mocking, half respectful sound of the Harpy leader clapping could be heard. I glanced around and impaled her on my gaze. She stiffened in fear, backing away carefully.
Thal turned to the WereEagle family and said, "The choices I gave you still stand, but out of deference to my partner, I will add death to the list of options. I'll give you five minutes of discussion, then you have to choose.
Thal guided me away so they could have some privacy.
I glared at him and said "So they get to choose to be free instead of in prison for the next five years?" I noticed him fiddling with a pair of coins in his hand. I recognized them. He had traded them with that Fae at Charlie's, received them back for five years of him keeping other Fae away from me, and doing nothing to interfere with my life.
"Only from a certain point of view. They'll be magically prevented from changing forms. Few Weres know how uncomfortable that gets in mere months. Five years? They may as well have spent three years in Hell. That is what the pain will be like by the end. And the desire to change. Once they finally can again, it will be like a first change after so long. Slow, and uncomfortable, as the body adjusts to a form not taken in so long. But they already chose."
We stood away from them in silence, waiting for their decision. When they finally spoke up it was with trepidation, fear, and not a little regret. Arnie was the one who spoke. "We have decided on having our forms locked"
"Okay then," Thal said as he negligently spun the two coins into the air. One landed at the feet of each. A heads side landed at the feet of Arnie, and he glanced across to look in horror as his lover changed into an Eagle. Hers had landed tails.
"And of course, I forgot to mention the chance that they could end up in different forms." Thal said in a calm, clinical tone. "Punishments tend to end up fitting the crime."
***
"Okay," I said, clapping my hands together as we reached the car. The last of my hangover had disappeared on the nesting site, and I was finally ready to greet the day.
"Okay?"
"Okay, what's next? Okay, where to? Okay, who's been up to no good and needs an arse-whipping?"
"Steady on there, newbie. They won't all be as easy as that." Caution filled his voice.
"Well, then," I said pushing him out of the way and hopping into the driver's seat. "Better get on with the training, then."
Thal laughed and shook his head in amusement. An action that earlier would have infuriated me, but which I now took in my confident stride.
"I don't think you understand what you're getting into."
His note of warning filled me with an edge of excitement. I turned on the car and revved the engine, flicking him an arched eyebrow and a playful grin. "That's half the fun, isn't it?"
I put my foot down and we careened down the side of the hills, hitting the flat and speeding towards the center of town, eager for trouble.
About the Author
Paul C Middleton has worked several jobs, but has had most of his working life in Security. Patrolling dark empty places gave him much time to think on many things. It was not conducive to finding the time or place to write. Then his partner was diagnosed with severe epilepsy, requiring him to reduce his work hours to care for her.
Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, he found that writing enabled him to be available when she needed him and left him feeling like less of a drain on his friends and the world. He also has to thank his two beagles who have become an efficient Epilepsy warning system. When they 'make tongue' he knows to find his partner and get her into a lounge chair or onto a bed.
He tries to bring an uplifting undertone to his stories, but is happy to admit he has a somewhat dark viewpoint on the world.
Links
This is for his Blog
This is for his Mailing list
This is his Author Facebook
This is his Twitter
His Website is Here
Other B
ooks by Paul C Middleton
Mongrelverse Series
Breed Matters
Book 1 – A Mongrel's Curse
Book 2 – Mongrel's Tooth and Consequence (2nd Quarter 2017)
Face The Music
Book 1 – Wereeagles Fear to Tread
Book 2 – A Mongrel, A Bard and Witches, Oh My!
Mother of Monsters
Book 1 – Cursed Mother
Book 2 – Forsaking Motherhood (2nd Quarter 2017)
Book 3 – Mother Remade (2nd Quarter 2017)
Misc. Shorts
Guarding an Imp
A Simple Trip
Betrayed by Faith
Book 1 – Paladin
Book 2 - A-Viking
Book 3 – Myrmidon (3rd Quarter 2017)
The Boris Chronicles (Kurtherian Universe, With Michael Anderle)
Book 1 – Evacuation
Book 2 - Retaliation
Book 3 - Revelations
Book 4 – Title pending (2nd Quarter 2017)
Short Story Contributions to Anthologies
Inanna's Circle Game, Volume 2 (edited by Kat Lind)
The Expanding Universe, Volume 1 (edited by Craig Martelle)
These can be found and will be published on Paul C Middleton's Author page.
About the Author – Lee Hayton (Pen Name Collaboration/Anthology etc)
Traveling is a great expander of ideas and the understanding of other cultures, and Lee Hayton finds traveling in other writer's worlds the most exciting and fruitful journeys of all.
She'd love for you to join her and explore these new worlds together, never knowing for sure if around the next corner is a sight ready to curdle your blood or have you explode into laughter.
Stay in Touch
You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google Plus. Keep on top of every new release by clicking "Follow Me" on my Amazon Author Page, or visit http://leehayton.com and sign-up to my newsletter to receive New Release information and Exclusive Content available to newsletter subscribers only.
Also by the Author
Coming soon... Gun 2 - The Hospital (Gun Apocalypse Book Two)
When Dr. Rachel Harraday is called upon by the CDC to catalog and treat a developing epidemic, she can't foresee the disease will catapult its sufferers into a spree of gun violence. Join the excitement from the sidelines and see if Rachel can cure the deadly disease.
Gun (Gun Apocalypse Book One)
When a neurological virus triggers an epidemic of gun violence, five survivors struggle to find refuge as their world fractures into chaos. Accompany them on their journey and imagine how you might fair in their brave, new world.
Writing as Katherine Hayton
The Tide
Winter Solstice
The Second Stage of Grief
The Three Deaths of Magdalene Lynton
Breathe and Release
Skeletal
Found, Near Water
Phoenix Prime
Phoenix Prime is a Ph.D. level workshop that spans approximately four months. It uses applied industrial psychology to address components of writing, marketing, branding, business, contract issues, and productivity that combine Creative Writing and Business perspectives.
The participants will create a portfolio to showcase their work alongside students in doctoral programs in several major universities. The objective, in addition to expanding the professional growth of all the participants, is to study the impact of the independent author-publisher on the commercial fiction industry.
A Mongrel, A Bard and Witches, Oh My!: A Mongrelverse Story (Face The Music Book 2) Page 5