by Jasmine Walt
“It’s a nice place,” Annia said, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets. “Looks clean and well maintained from the outside.” She glanced at the steamcar parked in front of the garage, then added, “That model is at least five years old, but the paint looks new. It’s been taken care of.”
“Yeah. Looks like a good home.” But I knew from experience that just because a house looked nice on the outside didn’t mean all was well behind closed doors.
Since Maintowners weren’t always friendly with shifters, I let Annia take the lead, following her onto the porch and stepping back ever so slightly as she knocked on the green-painted wooden door. I picked up the sound of a chair creaking, then footsteps pattering against a carpet. They drew close, stopping just outside the door, and I caught the scent of a woman, mixed with a subtle fragrance. Probably checking us out through the peephole.
The locks clicked as they disengaged, and the door swung open to reveal a woman with sable hair and milky skin who looked about thirty-five. She wore a high-waisted grey dress that flattered her figure, drawing attention to her large bust and away from her thicker waistline. Her pale skin seemed stretched too tight across her face, and the dark circles beneath her hazel eyes told me she hadn’t slept well.
“Good afternoon,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse. “You’re from the Enforcer’s Guild?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Annia said gravely. “I’m Enforcer Annia Melcott, and this is my partner, Enforcer Sunaya Baine. We spoke on the phone a little earlier.”
“Yes, we did.” The woman’s eyes flickered briefly as she glanced toward me, and I knew she wasn’t entirely comfortable with my shifter heritage. But she stepped back and waved us through. “Please come in. My husband had to run out to the store, but he’ll be back any minute. I told him you were coming.”
As I’d anticipated, the interior of the house was as welcoming and clean as the outside. Hardwood floors gleamed beneath our feet, and cream-colored paper with a flower pattern covered the walls around us. Directly in front of us was a carpeted staircase that led up to the second floor, and to our left was a sitting area with green corduroy couches and small, dark wooden tables. A fire danced merrily in the stone grate, at odds with the anxiety and grief etched into Coralia Thotting’s face.
Mrs. Thotting offered us tea and cookies, and I did my best not to scarf them all down as we talked. That was incredibly difficult, as I hadn’t finished my breakfast and had skipped lunch. The aching hunger in my stomach, which had faded into the background, came roaring back as soon as those cookies, smelling so wonderfully of sugar and butter, were set down in front of us. Shifters had very fast metabolisms, and we had to eat constantly to replenish our energy.
“What do you and your husband do for a living, Mrs. Thotting?” Annia asked as I munched on a ginger cookie.
“Marlin is an accountant,” she said, folding her hands around her cup of tea. She did not bring the liquid to her lips, and I suspected she was using the cup more for warmth than anything else. “He provides well for us, but I also work at a nearby plant nursery for half the day, while Cerlina is in school.” Her lower lip wobbled a little.
“I see. So, you’re at home to see your daughter off to school, and then home again to receive her?” Annia asked.
“Yes. And she always comes straight here, unless she is going to a friend’s house, and she never does that without prearranging it with me first.” Tears gleamed in Mrs. Thotting’s eyes. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”
The front door swung open, and a tall man in a dark brown coat and matching hat stepped inside. He shut the door against the nippy air, and Mrs. Thotting stood and hurried over to him.
“You’re just in time,” she said as she took his hat and coat. Beneath it, he wore a white linen shirt and tan slacks. A lean man, but not slight by any means, with regular features. “The enforcers are here.”
“Yes, I see that.” Mr. Thotting kissed his wife’s cheek, then took her hand and led her back to the couch. His eyes, a steady grey, assessed us as we stood to greet him. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Of course.” Annia introduced us, then said, “We want to get Cerlina home safe as soon as we can.”
“Good,” Mr. Thotting said with feeling as he joined his wife on the couch. His big hand wrapped around her small one, and she squeezed his fingers tight enough to make her knuckles whiten. “You should go and question her school then. I tried to make inquiries there, but they wouldn’t tell me much. They have to protect the privacy of the other students, or so they claim.” His expression darkened with frustration.
“Do you think some of the other children know what happened, then?” I asked. “Or that a parent could have been responsible?”
Mr. Thotting ran a hand through his dirty-blond hair. “I don’t know what to think,” he admitted, a note of despair creeping into his voice. “Cerlina goes to a good school. We moved into this section of Maintown a year and a half ago for my work, and she’s acclimated very nicely to the new environment. We live in a safe neighborhood. My wife goes to all the parent-teacher meetings, and I attend them when I can. The teachers are wonderful, and the parents we’ve met seem like good people too.”
“Cerlina is such a well-behaved child,” Mrs. Thotting added in a soft voice that ached with sadness. “I just can’t understand why anyone would do this to her. To us.” Her voice cracked on the last word.
Annia asked Mrs. Thotting to recount the day that Cerlina went missing, which was two days ago, starting with when she had woken the child up. According to her story, everything was completely normal, and Cerlina had been in good spirits when she’d left for school. There had been no indication that anything unusual was going on in her daughter’s life.
“And things are going well here at home?” Annia probed gently.
“Very well,” Mr. Thotting confirmed. “Cerlina does her chores, we spend time together as family, and she keeps up with her schoolwork. She would have never run away, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” His grey eyes narrowed.
“We believe you, Mr. Thotting,” I said, my tone placating. My sensitive shifter nose told me he was being truthful, and that both parents were genuinely worried about their missing daughter. “But as you know, we have to ask these kinds of questions. We have to be thorough.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Thotting agreed, her voice a little stronger now. “We want the best for our child. We want her home safe.”
“Do you have a photograph of her?” Annia asked.
“I have one here,” Mr. Thotting said, pulling out his wallet. He removed a small, rectangular item from it and handed it over—a school portrait. Annia took it from him, and we both leaned in to study the picture. I held in a sigh of relief as I took in the girl’s braces and unremarkable features—she might grow into a reasonably attractive woman someday, but as it stood now, she would hardly appeal to the pimps who roamed the streets in search of pretty young girls.
“Has anyone new entered your daughter’s life recently?” Annia asked after she’d pocketed the photograph. “Any new friends, or anyone who has visited your family recently?”
“My brother Melan has been staying with us for the last three weeks,” Mrs. Thotting admitted. “He’s from Nebara. He lost his job there when the company he worked for went under. He’s out job hunting right now, or he’d be here speaking with you as well. He’s never shown any ill-intent toward Cerlina—the two of them have been getting along very well. I won’t entertain the idea that he had anything to do with her disappearance.” She lifted her chin, her gaze challenging now.
“May I see your daughter’s room?” I asked. “It would help us to get a sense of her as a person.” And we might be able to find some clue about what happened to her, I didn’t add.
“Yes,” Mrs. Thotting said, rising. “It’s right upstairs.”
We followed the parents up to Cerlina’s room, which was located just to the left of the landing. Unlike the
rest of the house, it was a bit cluttered and messy, with stuffed animals scattered across the bed and the shelves, and a disorganized jumble of papers on her desk. The room smelled of candy and human girl, and I quickly sniffed out the stash of chocolate she kept under her bed. The shelf next to her desk was full to bursting with adventure novels, and amongst the jumbled papers were drawings of fantastical creatures. Undoubtedly, she had a very active imagination.
“Baine,” Annia called over by the dresser. “I found something.”
I turned to see Annia pull a glass flask from one of Cerlina’s drawers. Frowning, I went over to Annia so I could get a better look. “That looks like the kind of flask the vendors at Witches’ End use for their potions,” I said.
“Potions?” Mr. Thotting said sharply. “I don’t see why my daughter would be buying potions. She doesn’t suffer from any ailments.” He turned to his wife. “Did you buy this for her?”
“No.” The woman’s eyes were wide as she watched me take the flask from Annia. “It’s empty. Was there anything in it?”
I uncorked the glass, then took a whiff. “Yeah, there was something in here.” My nose wrinkled as I tried to identify the scent, a strange mixture of sweet and bitter. “I don’t know what the potion was, but I could identify it if I came across it again.” I glanced toward Mr. Thotting. “Do you mind if I take this?”
“Please,” he said. “Take anything you need.”
We left with the photograph and the flask, promising the Thottings that we would be in touch.
As we sped away on Annia’s steambike, I couldn’t help but wonder why a girl with such a loving and comfortable family would consider running away. Magorah knew I would have given anything to have a family like that when I was a cub. But then again, a runaway case would be so much better than a kidnapping and any of the nightmarish consequences involved in child abduction. I could only hope Cerlina was safely hidden away at a friend’s house, and that she would stay safely hidden from the merciless predators of the street until we found her.
4
“By the Ur-God,” Annia exclaimed. “You eat as much as one of my uncle’s horses!”
I grinned at Annia over my burger. “I wonder if I could out-eat a horse,” I said, then glanced down at her already-empty plate. “You couldn’t, that’s for damn sure.”
Annia huffed, leaning back against the booth. I’d insisted we stop at a diner for food before I toppled over from exhaustion. “If I ate even half as much as you did, I’d be bigger than a rhino.” She eyed me enviously. “I’d be eating cheesecake by the pound if I could keep my figure.”
I snickered, then glanced toward the passing waiter. “Maybe I’ll order some,” I said, then took another bite out of my burger.
“You’ve already ordered three burgers, two servings of fries, and a milkshake.” Annia groaned. “Do you really need to torture me by adding cheesecake to the list?”
I waggled my eyebrows at her. “I’ll share.”
We laughed, and the sound gave me pause. We were getting along. Me, the outcast shifter, enjoying a meal with the rich human girl. Could this day get any weirder?
Annia glanced at her wristwatch. “It’s getting close to end of day for Cerlina’s school,” she said. “We should head over there soon, if we want to interview her teachers and classmates.”
I nodded. “Right. No time for cheesecake.” I glanced out the window, watching humans hurry along the sidewalks as they walked past the rows of shops and businesses lining the street. It was a little strange to be eating in a Maintown diner. Maintowners occasionally hired shifters when they needed superhuman strength or senses, and Shiftertowners sometimes hired humans for jobs like bookkeeping or tax advice. But aside from work-related reasons, we didn’t often venture into each other’s territory. Case in point—I was the only shifter in the spacious diner, and it was a happening place. I’d gotten more than a few askance looks from patrons as they’d passed our booth.
“We’re also going to need to interview the uncle,” I reminded Annia. “Did we get his last name?”
“Yeah, Melan Drombus,” Annia said. “We’ll circle back to the house after we do the school interviews.” She picked up her cup of coffee, studying me over the rim as she took a sip. “Captain Galling was right. Your shifter nose does come in handy.”
“Of course it does.” I smirked. “I can sense all kinds of things that you can’t.”
Annia arched a brow. “Like what?”
“Well, if I’ve got someone’s scent, I can track them,” I said, dipping a potato fry into my tub of ketchup. “I can identify most poisons in food, drink, and even on a dead body if I get a whiff of their blood or saliva. And I can tell if someone’s upset, angry, afraid, and if they’re lying.”
Annia’s eyes widened. “Can you really?” She leaned forward a little. “You know for certain that Cerlina’s parents were telling the truth, then?”
I nodded. “To the best of their knowledge, yes. And they’re truly worried about their daughter.”
“That’s impressive.” The sincere admiration in Annia’s voice caught me off guard. “Perhaps we should work together more often. I usually work solo, but we could solve cases a lot faster by working together.”
“Maybe,” I hedged, not willing to commit so easily. I was warming up to Annia a bit, but that didn’t mean I wanted to regularly split bounties with her. And once I got used to running cases, I didn’t think I would need her.
“I’ve heard that you live with Shiftertown Inspector Tillmore,” Annia said. “Why don’t you live with the Jaguar Clan? You are a jaguar shifter, aren’t you? And you carry the Baine name.”
“It’s complicated,” I said, a little more sharply than I intended. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“All right, then.” Annia looked slightly disappointed, but, to my relief, she didn’t press. I wasn’t about to tell her that my aunt had thrown me onto the streets, or that I was a hybrid. She could assume I was a full shifter, like almost everyone did. Even other shifters didn’t know I was half-mage—they could scent that I was a half-breed, but they all figured I was half-human, and that my shifter traits were simply more dominant.
“I wonder if the Main Crew has made any progress with that new robbery case?” I asked, changing the subject. “An enforcer came by my house this morning to ask Roanas to keep his eyes open for any strange shifters in town.”
“I can’t imagine why they’d suspect shifters,” Annia remarked. “If I were them, I’d be looking at someone in Witches’ End, since they used a sleep spell. Or maybe even a mage.”
I blinked. “That would be a ballsy move, accusing a mage of robbery. Especially since they don’t care about money.” Mages considered themselves above ‘petty’ concerns like profit, as they could produce their own gold. Said production was restricted to prevent inflation, but even so, they all lived comfortably, unlike us peons. They preferred to focus their efforts on learning and spell craft, not money.
“Still,” Annia mused, tracing invisible patterns on the tabletop with her index finger. “A mage might take up robbery just for the sport of it. You know, for adventure.”
I snorted at that, thinking of the Chief Mage and his ilk. Lord Vengar was a crotchety old bastard who cared little for the subjects of Canalo, and the Council was worse. Their only saving grace was that their self-absorbed ways meant they left us to our own devices. “I can’t see any of those guys pulling the sticks out of their asses long enough to indulge in an adventure. They love their rules and conventions way too much.”
Annia chuckled. “I can see now why you punched Ralla in the face,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “You’ve clearly got a low tolerance for bullshit, and no filter to go along with it.”
I grinned sheepishly at that. “I’m a shifter. We’re pretty straightforward.”
“And it’s a refreshing change.” Annia pulled out her purse, then tossed a few coins on the table. “Now let’s go put that shifter nose o
f yours to use. We’ve got a little girl to find.”
5
“Well, that was a bust,” Annia remarked as we walked out of Mrs. Weaver’s School for Girls. “We didn’t learn anything.”
“I dunno about that,” I said as we headed for Annia’s steambike, which we’d left in the school parking lot. Teen girls dressed in school uniforms swarmed around us as we walked, chatting and giggling amongst themselves as they reveled in the freedom of finally being released from class. “Mara gave us some useful information.”
We’d interviewed Cerlina’s teacher and classmates, including Mara, Cerlina’s best friend. The pretty blonde girl hadn’t known where Cerlina could be, but hoped we’d find her soon, especially because several important tests were coming up that they were going to study for together.
“She did tell us that Cerlina’s been tense and preoccupied all week.” Annia sighed. “I just wish that she, or any of the other schoolgirls, had recognized that flask.”
I pursed my lips. “We’ll have to show it around in Witches’ End, I think. I should be able to sniff out which shop produces the potion, if they stock it regularly.”
“Should we go now?” Annia checked her watch. “The shops down there usually close around six, so we don’t have much time.”
I hesitated. “No, we should do that in the morning, when everyone is more likely to be around. For now, though, I think we should go check out some haunts Cerlina might be hiding in.”
“Haunts?” Annia frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There are various spots around town where homeless kids like to hide. I know where a few of them are.” I kept my tone casual, as if I only knew about them from passing by rather than personal experience.
We got on the bike and headed Downtown, where the unsavory souls of Solantha made their homes. The Black Market ran out of here every evening from eleven to dawn, always at a different location. The cracked, dirty streets were lined with brothels and clubs where all sorts of illegal activities took place. I instructed Annia to leave her bike in a safe parking lot just a few blocks from the border between Downtown and Maintown, and we traveled the rest of the way on foot.