Between Shifts (The City Between Book 2)

by W. R. Gingell

  I blinked innocently at him, but that only made the air a bit colder. I cleared my throat again and said, “I was going for a walk when I saw Daniel, so I followed him.”

  “Daniel didn’t do that,” said Zero, pointing at my hair.

  “Didn’t do what?” I asked, patting the side of my head. “If those flamin’ pigeons have done a number in my hair again—!”

  Athelas, looking up from his book, said, “Dear me!”

  Not pigeon poop, then. My fingers brushed against something cool and alive, and I snatched them away. Then I reached gingerly back up and twitched it out from between strands of hair, thin and viny and leafy.

  Something was growing in my hair.

  “What the—!” I muttered, tugging at it. It didn’t let go.

  “Did you visit the Green Man?”

  “What, the old bearded bloke?” I asked, too caught up with the vine that was growing in my hair to look at him. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Thought he looked lonely,” I explained. That was mostly the truth—well, it was the truth minus the dryad, and that was as close as I wanted to get.

  “Noh,” said JinYeong, snabbling a biscuit and pointing at me with it, “Paboya?”

  “I just talked to him!” I protested. I didn’t like JinYeong calling me an idiot when I wasn’t sure if I should be protesting it or not. “I didn’t insult him or anything!”

  “I suppose we can be thankful for small mercies,” murmured Athelas.

  “Is this gunna come out?”

  Zero hesitated, then said. “Make dinner, Pet.”

  “That’s not an answer!” I objected. It was gunna be murder to brush my hair if I had to brush around a vine as well. “And I have stuff to tell you! It’s too early for dinner!”

  “Dinner,” he said.

  I made dinner. I couldn’t help thinking about my afternoon, though. Erica seemed scared when I came across her, and Daniel was definitely stalking her, which meant I should be looking at him as the best suspect. But I still remembered how she’d smiled at him the first time I saw them together. It had seemed like she was on pretty good terms with him.

  The last couple of days, though…

  I thought about that, frowning. The last couple of days, Erica had been genuinely scared of him, I was sure—too scared to walk home alone, and too scared to be backward about asking a kid like me to walk her home. No one should be that frightened.

  I was just putting the steak on to cook when Athelas strolled into the kitchen with his empty tea cup.

  “I take it you had an interesting day, Pet?” he inquired, leaving his tea cup on the draining board.

  I nearly said, Oh, so now you wanna hear about it? but Athelas, wearing his most pleasant smile, sat down at the kitchen island instead of the table, and I didn’t think his proximity was a friendly one.

  “Yeah,” I said, instead. “I met a shifter.”

  Athelas nodded, unsurprised. “You’ve become noticeable to them.”

  “Who was it?” asked Zero, stepping up from the lounge room. He didn’t look surprised, either; but since Zero doesn’t show much emotion at the best of times, that wasn’t anything to judge by.

  It was only when JinYeong, following Zero and sitting elegantly at the table, demanded, “Nugu?” as well, that I began to be suspicious.

  “Hang on,” I said, turning away from the stove to lean against the island. “You were using me as bait at the supermarket, weren’t you?”

  Athelas raised one brow elegantly. “Of course. Why else would you be allowed to work—”

  “There was a good chance that at least one of the shifters would sniff you out and introduce themselves,” Zero said, interrupting Athelas. “What happened?”

  “He sniffed me out, all right,” I said. “I was going up to get the groceries when I saw Daniel out and about. I thought he was going somewhere, but he just wandered and then I lost him. Turns out, he didn’t lose me; he bailed me up in the alley out of Wellington Court.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Nope, not a scratch,” I said. It was stupid to feel warm at a question asked so thoroughly without concern, but I couldn’t help it. “I think he was trying to warn me off. He knew I’d been chucking up and he gave me a bit of rare steak to eat; but he was also trying to scare me enough to leave him alone with whatever he’s up to with Erica.”

  “Not exactly pack behaviour,” murmured Athelas.

  “No,” Zero agreed, “but it is pack leader behaviour to the weak in the pack.”

  “You’re saying Wolf Boy is the leader of the pack?”

  “It’s possible. Did he do anything else?”

  “Nope. He told me to stop following him a couple times, but I think he thinks I’m sweet on him, so he didn’t get too mean.”

  Zero’s chilly blue eyes gleamed with the faintest hint of laughter. “It’s possible,” he said again. “That could be useful.”

  “What of your Erica?” inquired Athelas. “Do you fancy the boy could turn his eyes from her and to you?”

  “Doubt it,” I said laconically. Daniel was very much caught up with Erica; though I still wasn’t sure whether it was obsession or love. There had been a tinge of yellow to his eyes today that worried me a bit. “He’s got that same look JinYeong gets when he’s hungry for blood and someone’s bleeding. Reckon we should be watching him when he’s not at work, too.”

  “For now, keep walking Erica home from work,” Zero said. “She seems to trust you. Bring in the detective, too; he can walk her to work and make her feel safe. Do you think she knows anything about the murders specifically?”

  I felt the warmth of being asked for my input and tried not to beam. “Yeah,” I said. “She knows something, all right. I keep thinking if I can push her enough, she might tell me. Maybe if she trusts me enough.”

  “Tell her you’re working with the detective,” Zero told me. “Let her know you’re undercover to help; it might be enough to encourage her to talk.”

  “What if she tells someone else?” I asked, pulling the steaks off the stovetop to cover them.

  Zero leaned against the wall. “Then your part in this investigation will be finished.”

  “Oh,” I said. They really had just put me in there as bait. Nothing would change if I had to leave. A bit resentfully, I asked, “What if no one had come up to me?”

  “The leader of the pack always brings in new members,” said Zero. “Even if it wasn’t obvious, they would have found some way of being near you—some method of attaching you to themselves to make the transition easier. If you trust a pack leader, the odds of your change being successful are far greater. The power of the leader will also grow as the depth of trust from the pack grows, so there’s benefit on both sides.”

  “You really think Daniel’s the pack leader? Isn’t he too…angry? Doesn’t feel like he’s trying to make me trust him.”

  Zero shrugged. “His relationships are more aggressive than caring, and he’s antagonistic rather than nurturing, but he’s a young wolf. If he’s the leader, his leadership style could change over the years. He fed you, and that’s something.”

  “Yeah, but if he’s killing people, changing over the years isn’t soon enough,” I said. “He needs to be stopped now.”

  “There are shifter deaths as well as human ones,” Zero said. “He’ll answer for it if he’s the killer.”

  “You’re gunna hand him over to Detective Tuatu?” I asked, in disbelief. I hadn’t expected that.

  Athelas laughed into his tea, and Zero said, “No. He’ll answer to Behind laws.”

  “Right,” I said. That was more what I’d expected. “What time do you get for something like that? Killing shifters?”

  “Ah, Pet!” sighed Athelas. “You’re so delightfully young and human!”

  “Yeah? Why do I feel like that’s an insult, then?”

  “There are very few jails Behind,” Zero said.

  I frowned. “So when you say he’ll a
nswer for it, he’ll do what? Community service type stuff?”

  Now JinYeong spluttered a laugh.

  “No,” said Zero. “He’ll die. If he took the lives of his fellow Behindkind in malice, and outside of pack leadership squabbles, he’ll pay for it with his own life.”

  “Oh,” I said. I didn’t know exactly what to say to that. “Then when you went after the changelings before—”

  “All dead,” nodded Athelas. “Did you think we were merely rounding them up to incarcerate them?”

  “Dunno,” I said. “Maybe? I mean, I knew you’d kill the ones that fought back, but—hang on, is that what you meant when you said that the Enforcers are judge, jury and executioner?”

  “I do wonder what else it could mean,” said Athelas. “I thought I was quite clear.”

  “I thought you meant Enforcers have a license to kill, and that sort of thing, not that they went around actually killing their perpetrators!” I protested. “I’ve only seen you kill people who attacked us.”

  “Those are the laws,” Zero said. “Without reference to you or any other human. Step back now if you’re not comfortable with it.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t comfortable with it,” I mumbled. I wasn’t—not exactly. But I also knew that life Behind and Between was a lot more savage, and if it meant keeping humans safe…

  I still didn’t know. I’d have to think about it a bit more yet.

  JinYeong must have done his thing again, because I was back in the office with Shanae and Erica the next morning. Or maybe it was Zero who arranged it; to give me more time to bond with Erica and prevent Shanae being alone with her in the office for too long.

  Erica was already looking a bit shrunken when I arrived. That could have been because she was working with Shanae, but it could have been because Daniel had followed her to work again this morning, too. That annoyed me, because it wasn’t fair for Erica to live in fear, whether it came from being followed by a little yahoo like Daniel or harassed by a queen bee like Shanae.

  More, I was restless because I didn’t know which one of them it was. Time was passing so quickly, and my dreams were getting worse each night. More importantly, it was getting harder and harder to eat food. As much as I didn’t want JinYeong to be right about…well, anything…I couldn’t help feeling that Shanae was just as good a suspect as Daniel, and at this stage I would have been glad just to know which one of them it was.

  I mean, Shanae wasn’t following Erica around like a creepy stalker, but she certainly seemed to hate her. She was full of short replies and sarcastic answers whenever Erica had to ask her a question, and when Erica went to fetch the morning coffees, she said sarcastically, “Try not to forget mine this time, won’t you?”

  “I won’t forget,” Erica promised.

  Shanae’s spite didn’t stop when Erica had left the room, either; the first thing she said to me when the door closed behind Erica was, “I wouldn’t hang around Erica so much, if I were you. You’re getting pretty friendly for someone who only met her last week.”

  It was the first thing she’d said directly to me all day, and it sounded more like a threat than a friendly warning.

  I grinned at my little corner of the room, and said over my shoulder, “Yeah? What’s wrong with Erica?”

  “Well, if you’re interested in Daniel—”

  Yeah, nah.

  “—or that new manager—”

  Heck no.

  “—you might want to be careful. Erica has a habit of stealing men who belong to other women.”

  I gave Shanae an innocent look. “Really? She doesn’t look like the type.”

  “They never do,” Shanae said grimly. “That’s how it works, kid. Sweet and innocent, that’s the look she goes for.”

  Flaming heck! If this was the kind of gossip she was spreading about Erica, she obviously didn’t want her to have any female friends, either. Had she said stuff like this to the human girl who’d died? April Post had looked like a nice girl—maybe she’d refused to be swayed by it, and Shanae had had to go further.

  Or maybe it was still creepy little Daniel, after all, not wanting Erica’s attention divided between him and other people.

  Beggared if I knew.

  “Try to fix your hair before you go to lunch, by the way,” she said. “That lump at the side looks weird.”

  I patted the lump aggrievedly. The vine was still there in my hair, and although Athelas had taken pity on me and told me it would fall out naturally at some stage during the day, it didn’t make it any easier to do my hair.

  Lucky for me, Erica came back a couple of minutes later, panting a bit.

  “You took your time,” said Shanae, taking her coffee.

  “Sorry,” Erica said. “The new manager, JinYeong; he wanted coffee, too.”

  Shanae rolled her eyes. “Oh well, I suppose we all know why it took you so long, then! I suppose he’ll be asking you out next week.”

  That was flaming rich. Like she hadn’t been offering to buy JinYeong’s coffee a couple of days ago herself!

  Erica looked surprised. “Oh no! He wouldn’t be interested in me! Anyway, I like men who are more…”

  “Manly?” I suggested.

  “Earthy,” she said. “I like flannies and strong arms and beards.”

  Shanae gave us a look of disgust. “JinYeong is gorgeous and there’s something wrong with the both of you!”

  “Yeah, but who wants a pretty bloke?” I protested. “And he’s dirty-livered into the bargain.”

  “I’ve never seen him lose his temper,” Shanae argued. “And if you’re comparing him with a boy like Daniel—”

  Erica flinched, but I didn’t think Shanae saw. She probably would have poked a bit more if she had.

  “—if you’re comparing him with a boy like Daniel, then there’s definitely something wrong with your head.”

  “At least Daniel knows how to cook a steak,” I remarked. “I bet Mr. Creased-Trousers couldn’t cook a steak to save his life.”

  Shanae sniffed at me as if she couldn’t bring herself to reply to such ridiculousness, and went back to her computer.

  Later, when Shanae went to the toilet, Erica asked quietly, “Pet, have you been spending time with Daniel?”

  “What?” Good grief, I’d given myself away like an idiot. I hesitated, then said, “Kinda. We met the other day while we were both in the city centre—he thought I was looking sick so he took me to his friend’s kitchen and cooked me a steak.”

  “You shouldn’t—” she hesitated, then said, “If he’s looking after you, that’s good. But Daniel is a very…emotional boy, and being alone with him isn’t the wisest idea.”

  It must have been the day for warnings about hanging out with people.

  I said placatingly, “I won’t do that again. Actually, I wouldn’t have done it the first time, but he kinda dragged me there so I didn’t have a choice. What do you mean, he’s emotional?”

  “Never mind,” she said quickly. “So long as you’re not going to do it again, it’s fine.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Forget it,” she said, stuffing tickets into plastic cases without being careful of the edges. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  I said, “Okay,” and went back to my own tickets. There was still time for persuading her to talk later in the day; still time to convince her it was a good idea to meet with Detective Tuatu.

  I would have tried to persuade her over lunch, but she went all quiet and refused to leave the office. I walked out for lunch at the same time Shanae finished instead, and by the time I was in the staff room, I was happy to get away from her stiff-backed silence.

  I ate lunch opposite Carmen from the front end instead, who asked me in a friendly sort of way how things were going out in the office.

  “Just got safely away from your queen bee.”

  Carmen laughed. “What, Shanae? I wasn’t talking about her!”

  I stared at her. “Really? Who were you
talking about, then?”

  “I was talking about Erica.”

  “Erica? How is she a queen bee?”

  “Not the nasty kind, or anything,” Carmen said. “She’s as nice as they come. But blokes like to do things for her, or do things around her so they can be with her, stuff like that. She’s bad luck for women.”

  It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen for myself. Daniel seemed to be the closest one to her these days, but I would have been stupid if I hadn’t seen the way other men around the store watched Erica, or smiled at her, or jumped to help her before she asked. It was the biggest reason I thought Shanae was still a good suspect—she really hated the attention Erica got.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I saw that.”

  “If she wasn’t so nice, it’d be easy to hate her,” Carmen said reflectively. “Blokes get keen on her and girls get angry about her; ’specially if it’s their boyfriend who gets keen on her. The amount of blokes who cause trouble around her is amazing.”

  “What blokes?”

  “Well, the one that just stopped showing up a week ago was crazy about her—Daniel was annoyed about that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, grinning. “He’s crushing a bit, isn’t he?”

  “He’s stupid, a bit,” she said bluntly. “He seemed to think Chris was bothering Erica, but I’m pretty sure she liked him back and Daniel just didn’t want to admit it.”

  “Just those two, then?”

  “Nah, there were more. A while ago, one of the girls in the cash office had a boyfriend who caught sight of Erica and dropped her like a hot potato—that’s what Rhonda tells me, anyway. Reading between the lines, I think it was Shanae whose boyfriend did that. She must have kicked up a heck of a stink, because he was demoted or fired or sent to another store. We haven’t seen him since then.”

  “What was his name?” I asked. I was pretty sure I already knew, but it would be good to confirm it.

  “James—James Henry, I think,” she said.

  Oh yeah. That was another one of our bodies. One of the shifter victims, too, if I was remembering rightly. Meaning Shanae really could be a shifter? Possible.

  “And for a while there was a greasy bloke hanging around the store every afternoon when Erica finished work. Only for a week or two, mind you; she must have called the police on him, because he was gone after that.”