by R. L. Naquin
Their leader, Frankie the Imp, actually was an imp. And those weird eyes were not contacts. But he passed. Dwarfism isn’t too uncommon among humans, and most people assumed like I had that the unnatural eye color was from contacts. His ability to read people was unsettling, but some humans did that, too. Put all of it together, though, and he stood out.
His team was even more bizarre. He’d explained his philosophy to us that a good O.G.R.E. squad included at least one member for each of what he called The Four Ms—muscle, magic, mental, and management.
The two-person muscle of his six-person team nearly caused me to embarrass myself. First came a stout woman with quite a bit of facial hair. She was roughly my height, average for a woman. Frankie introduced her as Meg, the world’s tallest dwarf. Right on her heels, before I could react, came a doughy man with blond hair and a pug nose. Garfield stood about six feet tall and, we were told, was the world’s shortest giant.
The only thing that kept me from falling out of my seat in mad, cackling laughter was Riley’s calming hand squeezing my thigh under the table.
Meg pulled up a chair and sat in it backward, glaring at me across the table and stroking her chin. Her very hairy chin.
I smiled, squeezing Riley’s hand as hard as I could. We’re totally being punked. I won’t fall for it. We’re going to sit here and make conversation as if this were the most natural thing in the world. I sipped my beer and nodded at her.
She nodded back.
Garfield sat next to her. A definite mouth breather. I would have guessed he was muscle rather than mental without being told. The light in his eyes was one of those low-wattage money savers.
The magic representative slipped in almost without being noticed. Shelby was a plain girl with lank hair, a figure with few curves, and eyes the color of dirty tap water. Not ugly so much as forgettable. She could have easily passed for a human in her gray cardigan and plain dress.
Until she spoke.
“I’ll just have whatever’s on tap.” She said it in a shy, quiet voice, yet it reverberated through the bar like a symphony. The room hushed, and everyone looked around, as if trying to find the source. She ducked her head and said nothing else for the rest of the evening.
Such is the life of a siren with a social anxiety disorder.
Last came the two brains of the operation, a husband and wife team. Hector and Felicia lumbered inside, dressed head to toe in black leather, chains, and spikes. The crowd parted to let them through. They were big. They were ugly. And they were both grinning, which revealed large, sharp teeth.
To me, they didn’t look human at all. Ogres on the O.G.R.E. squad? The thought wasn’t ridiculous. But they shouldn’t have been allowed to come tearing into a bar in public. Shouldn’t they be arresting themselves or something?
And then I really looked at the people around us. Tattoos. Multiple facial piercings and other body modifications. A guy at the next table flicked a forked tongue at his glass, then laughed at a joke his companion had made. His teeth were pointed and sharp, too. I hadn’t noticed them before, mostly because the bright blue Mohawk kind of took over.
The more I looked, the more I realized that half the bar was probably some variety of Hidden, and the other half had decorated themselves in ways that made them actually blend with the Hidden. If anything, Riley and I—and poor Shelby—stood out more than anyone else.
Normal is all relative.
Hector and Felicia shook our hands and joined us at the table.
“You called, we came,” Hector said to Frankie in a snarly, gravely voice. “Show us the money.” Janis came around with a tray and placed full glasses in front of everyone, including the newcomers. She also dropped a fresh basket of rings and a second one of fried mushrooms on the table. As she left, she winked at Riley. He winked back and sipped his drink.
I blew on a mushroom and grinned. I thought it was hilarious.
“Wait,” Felicia said, narrowing her eyes at us. She pointed a meaty finger at me. “You’re that Aegis. The one who saved everybody from the auction.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
She looked at Riley, back at me, then back at Riley. “You’re the reaper boyfriend of the Aegis.”
“Awesome,” he said. “How’d I get to be the sidekick?”
“You’re totally my arm candy,” I said. “Ask Janis.”
He snorted and grabbed a mushroom. “I’m still scary. I’m scary, right guys?”
As one, they nodded, and made sounds of agreement that seemed more placating than convinced of my boyfriend’s tremendous power to rip out their souls from their living bodies.
I patted his shoulder. “I think you’re losing your edge.”
Hector shook his head at me. “It’s not that. It’s you. You’re kind of a legend these days. Don’t you know that?”
I had no words to respond. I didn’t want to be a legend. The next thing you know, somebody will pull out a lyre and start singing a ballad about me.
“I’m really nothing special, guys. My friends were in trouble. And people helped me. You’d all have done the same.”
“Nothing special,” Meg said, picking something out of her teeth. “Everybody knows somebody who was involved in that whole thing. I don’t know about everybody else, but even without the bonus, I’d have gone back to work for the Board today, if only because you asked.”
The rest nodded in agreement.
Celebrity didn’t sit well on my shoulders. In fact, I was kind of freaked out to learn the things I’d been doing had gotten around to such an extent.
“And now,” Frankie said, pushing away from the table, “it’s time for us to get going. It’s been an honor meeting the both of you. But we’ve got a chupacabra to set straight.”
I couldn’t help but notice how oddly coordinated the strange group was as they walked out the door in formation—almost as if they were doing a slo-mo shot during the opening credits of their own television show.
“I’ll just leave this with you, sugar.” Janis dropped the check on our table, smiled and walked away.
Riley picked up the slip of paper and looked at the total. “Awesome. They didn’t pay for a damn thing.”
“Nice,” I said. “We can’t even write it off on our taxes as a business expense.”
“Those guys can really knock it back, too.” He shrugged and reached for his wallet.
My purse wiggled, and a muffled voice rose from the tiny opening on the top. “If you’ll slide the bill in here, I’ll be happy to take care of it. It’s part of my job.”
Riley smirked, then slipped the paper into my bag. I caught the total on its way past and grimaced. It wasn’t that we were cheap. But Riley wasn’t kidding. Who goes to a skanky bar and spends well into three figures? I was surprised there was any beer left in the place, and the cook had probably gone home for the night since he had to be out of ingredients by now.
After a minute or two, my purse moved again and the check appeared out the top, along with enough cash to cover it.
“Be sure to give our server a healthy tip,” Gris said. “I couldn’t see her, but she sounded quite charming and efficient.”
I took the items sticking out of my purse and placed them on the table. “Thanks.”
“It’s the Board’s pleasure. Oh, and I’ll need a receipt, if you don’t mind.”
I made sure Janis got the healthy tip Gris requested. After all, she didn’t get to go to a hotel with Riley when her shift was over.
That pleasure was all mine.
When my phone rang at five the next morning, I almost didn’t answer. Groaning, I rolled over and glanced at the display.
“It’s Bernice.” I tapped the screen to answer, then lay back with my eyes closed. “Bernice, you know we’re an hour behind you and it’s not light here yet, right?”
> “After we catch this psycho, you two can discuss business hours.” Her voice shook, and sadness pattered through the phone line in big fat drops. I sat up, fully awake. “Zoey, they found CeeCee. Her body is less than an hour from where you are now.”
Chapter Nine
I doubted it was a coincidence that the murderer had chosen a place called Massacre State Park. It seemed to fit her warped sense of humor.
What bothered me the most about all this, aside from someone dying, of course, was that it happened near where we were.
“Do you think she knew we were going to Pocatello? Or did she follow us?”
Riley glanced in his rear view mirror, as if checking for someone tailing us. “Who? Kathleen Valentine?”
I nodded. “It can’t be a coincidence. We drove all the way from Texas to talk to Frankie, and here the next murder is practically next door. Doesn’t that weird you out?”
He took a slow, deep breath. “It’s been weirding me out since we got the call from Bernice. I’m also not thrilled that Kam and Darius got sent in the other direction and can’t get back here in time.”
I understood the whole Covenant-breaking, imminent-doom thing Bernice was trying to avoid by getting the O.G.R.E.s up and running, but I wasn’t happy with how she’d handled it. Separating the group investigating the murders and trying to save remaining kidnapped Aegises seemed counterproductive. Most of Bernice’s way of running things didn’t sit well with me. She had a tendency to pull rank and dole out information only when it suited her. I had to wonder how much of the crap we’d all been through would have happened if she’d been a little more forthcoming from the start.
I sat forward in the moving car and rapped my knuckles against the closed glove compartment. After a moment, the door clicked open and Gris blinked at me through a tiny pair of glasses perched on his nose. I tried not to laugh. He was a wooden construct. I was pretty sure the glasses were an affectation. Again, something an unfeeling, soulless creature wouldn’t be likely to adopt.
I wasn’t totally comfortable with him yet, but he was growing on me.
“Yes?” he asked, peering over his horned rims. “What can I do for you, Aegis?”
He was so damn formal with me. “Do you have time to talk?”
He made a show of taking off his glasses and placing them in the compartment in his chest. “For you, I always have time. What would you care to discuss?”
I sat back and readjusted my seatbelt. Whoever invented the damn things sure as hell hadn’t had boobs to deal with. Otherwise he’d have come up with a solution that actually settled between them rather than slide up and choke the wearer.
“How long have you been...self aware?” It seemed like a delicate question. I didn’t want to offend him, but I needed more background. On him as well as Bernice. I reached toward him through my mental filters and probed for any emotions, no matter how small. He didn’t feel offended to me. But then, the tiny emotional light inside him was dim and hard to decipher.
He settled himself on the edge of the open door to the glove compartment, swinging his legs. “Let me see...” He tapped his chin while he thought about it. “It was a gradual thing, you understand. I think it was about ten years ago that I first realized the sounds I sometimes heard around me were voices, and several more months before I understood those sounds were language. About seven years ago, I experienced my first movements. Oddly, it was a twitch in my elbow that started the ball rolling.” He grinned, caught in the memory.
I couldn’t imagine being stuck on a shelf, unable to move or comprehend the people and objects around me. Worse, understanding came to Gris long before the ability to interact with anything. “How awful,” I said. “When did you begin moving around? When did you know you were you?”
“When Alphonso Fester stepped down from heading the Board six years ago, Mother was promoted. She’d always lent her golems to do grunt work at the compound, but once she was in charge, she stepped up production. She wanted more help, you see. And more servants to wait on her so she’d look the part.”
That didn’t surprise me. For a place running on two board members when there should have been thirteen, they seemed to have a ridiculous amount of constructs running around waiting on people.
“So, she was in her workshop more often.” I saw where he was going with the story.
“Yes. The more golems she animated, the more residual magic came my way. So, less than a year after she took office, I was fully mobile, thinking for myself and wanting to learn everything I could.”
The dull glow of emotion inside Gris sparked brighter at the memory, then nearly went out with my next question.
“What did Bernice think when she found you?”
“I thought Mother would be happy.” His smile faded and his legs stilled. “I was wrong. At first, she seemed afraid of me. Once she got used to me, she was tolerant at best.” He shook his head, as if to rid himself of unhappy thoughts, then returned to smiling and swinging his feet, though he didn’t show as much enthusiasm at it now. “Anyway. Does that answer your question, Aegis?”
The small light of emotion inside him faded further, retreating. I squelched my anger at Bernice and gathered love and acceptance around me like a cloak. Those were emotions I always found easy to pull together. It was constantly around me these days.
Molding the positive feelings into a tight ball in my head, I pushed them past my filters and toward the little wooden man. I’d held back from accepting him because of my own prejudice against Bernice’s creepy golems. No more. No one should feel so utterly lost and alone, even if he didn’t have a lot of feels of his own in the first place. I imagined the ball of love and acceptance pressing against Gris’s chest and melting through to the storage area inside him. To his heart, if he’d had one.
His dull light flared like a blowtorch, igniting a fuse between the two of us and knocking me against my seat.
“Great balls of fire!” he said, eyes wide. “What was that?”
My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, my God, Gris. I’m so sorry.” I sent out a tentative tendril to check his emotional health.
What if I broke him? What if I burned out the flicker of emotion he’d grown on his own? Worst. Empath. Ever.
The dull bulb inside Gris was now a small, cozy campfire. Not the full-blown emotional level of regular folks, but more than it had been before. And it seemed to be steadier, too.
“I feel a bit warm,” Gris said in a dreamy voice. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to take a nap.”
“Are you all right?” I’d meant to ask him more questions about Bernice and what she’d been doing over the past few years. That’s where I’d been going with my questions, anyway until I screwed everything up.
“On the contrary. I feel especially good,” he said, rising from his spot then grabbing the edge of the door. “I think I need some time to readjust and rest. Please let me know when we arrive.”
The door shut, and Riley and I were alone in the car.
We were both quiet for a minute. Riley finally broke the silence. “What did you do?”
“I think I broke our golem.”
* * *
We parked where the signs directed us, and hiked the half mile or so to the lake. We passed a middle-aged man with an enormous backpack. Four kids with smaller versions of the adult pack skipped behind him. He nodded at us and kept going.
I frowned. They could have easily been the ones to come across the body if our guys hadn’t found it first.
A set of stairs led down the side of the cliff to the fishing dock. By the time we got to the bottom, my legs wobbled, and I was grateful for the handrail. I mentally shook my fist at Sara for not dragging me to the gym more often.
At the bottom, I heard voices on the other side of a pile of rocks, so we headed in that directio
n. We found Frankie the Imp and his merry band of imp-ettes waiting.
Well, maybe not merry. And not the whole team, either.
Shelby sat on a rock, watching for movement in the surrounding area. When I spotted her, she already had her eye on us, and gave me a small, awkward smile and wave. Hector and Felicia, the brainy trolls, wandered the area, carefully inspecting crevasses with flashlights, putting small items in plastic bags, and tapping on rocks and trees with sticks.
Frankie stood watching with a dour expression. When he saw us, he strode over, his face screwed up in a scowl. “Ugly business,” he said. “Not our usual fare.”
“Mine either,” I said, frowning. “Where did you find her?”
He pointed toward the water. “Face down in the drink. Craziest thing ever.”
“She drowned?”
“No.” He wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. “She died of smoke inhalation.”
Riley frowned. “CeeCee was a heatsync. That shouldn’t be possible. Besides, she was in water, not fire.”
I rubbed my arms, as if I had a chill. “Dennis shouldn’t have been able to drown, either. Especially on dry land. Where’s the body now, Frankie?”
“I had Meg and Gar take her back to the office. Once Hector and Felicia are done scouring the area, they’ll do an autopsy. I don’t expect them to find anything, though.”
“Was she...” I stopped and swallowed. I didn’t want to know the answer to my next question. Hell, I didn’t want to be doing this at all. I wanted to go home and plan a lesbian elf/attic monster wedding in my back yard. I wanted to get up in the morning and eat Maurice’s freshly baked muffins, hang out in Andrew’s herb shop with his fennec fox, Milo, and forget this whole disturbing nightmare. Of course, if I did that, more people would die. Including my mother. “Was she posed in an odd manner? Was she wearing anything strange?”
Frankie let out a slow breath. “As a matter of fact, she was dressed in a fancy party dress.”
Riley glanced up at the cliff we’d come down. “A party dress?”
“Yes. Her hair was done up in pigtails and ribbons, and—well, here. I’ll show you.” He pulled up a picture on his phone and passed it over to us.
