by Ann Denton
Next to me, Flowers sighs. “Looks like we just discovered the best motive -or murder.” He doesn’t sound triumphant about it. I mean, if Rachel is the murderer, and she killed Louise Grant, the pee and blood sweat and dragon-fire stealing, body-hiding dealer … I guess there’s not much to be triumphant about. But, something about Rachel doesn’t scream murderer to me.
“She says she doesn’t understand alchemical equations, though,” I point out.
“Says doesn’t mean a whole lot. We can place her at the scene just be-ore … beshore the crime. She’s got a shit ton o- motive, considering Louise killed her thriend.’” Flowers stumbles through those sentences with only a mild glare. Guess he’s adjusting to his lisp. Or maybe he’s just confident that some doc at the hospital will be able to reverse my idiocy.
I smack my wayward thoughts and turn them back to Rachel. I make them think through more reasons she might not have been able to commit the crime. “She’s been chained up for two nights!”
Flowers purses his lips. “Again, so she says. We need to get her boy toy, and question him, too. He was there that night.”
“He was in a cage when we found him.”
Flowers shrugs. “Hopper’s shithter animal is small. He could have slipped in and out.”
“Why stay? The doors and windows in that place were all open. If they killed Louise, running is the cleanest option, isn’t it? And, wasn’t Hopper still high when we got there?”
“Could have taken the Nappies athter … once it was done.”
“But that hex was fresh. The milk in the carton was still cold,” I point out. “Louise just poured it, cut herself with the knife while she was chopping those veggies, and was walking to the door—probably because she heard you—when she tunked over dead.”
Flowers fingers come up and flex. Like he wants to choke me out. “Sometimes, I think you just want to argue just to argue.”
“Maybe. But not this time. I think you’re wrong.”
Flowers shakes his head. “Prove it.”
He shoves open the door and tells Seena to read Rachel her rights.
I stand outside in the hall. The gauntlet has been thrown. The need to prove Flowers wrong is visceral. It’s like a writhing snake in my stomach. But, is he wrong? What do I have to go on?
How the claw paw am I gonna prove it?
Chapter 18
Rachel gets dragged off to booking kicking and screaming, her red hair flying everywhere. She’s so pissed her neck starts to elongate even though she doesn’t fully shift. “If you want a damned criminal, look at Hopper! I bet that ass is trying to sell my urine right now!” She stretches her neck around the corner so she can glare at us a second longer before she’s dragged off to booking.
Seena just rolls his eyes.
But her outburst makes me sit down in one of the million chairs set around the open layout of the station. The senior officer working at the desk in front of me looks up, but I ignore him. My thoughts are too busy swarming. I feel like answers are just out of reach, and they’re bugging me, like bees buzzing around my head.
I wonder where the hell you go to sell urine. I have no clue, having never known that’s a disgusting-ass, real-world thing. There are black markets. But our officers regularly patrol the known ones. I’d think the urine thing would come up in training if the urine thing was widespread.
So, I wander around, go upstairs and head back to our main offices, and somehow, I end up perched on JR’s desk. Arnold’s out today, thank goodness, so I don’t have to stare at his hairy werewolf tail while I ask JR who might possibly purchase shifter pee.
The face I get when I ask her that is the perfect comical, nose-scrunching, stuck-out-tongue disgusted face. “Oh my stars, why would I know that? That’s just plain horrific.”
“Apparently, when pee comes from a mixed shifter then it’s got a magical nullifying effect—”
“I just heard blah-blah-blah gross.”
I sigh and put my head in my hands. “I know. Me too. I really don’t get this stuff. I mean, I’d be a terrible witch. Don’t they have to learn all this stuff?”
JR shrugs. “Yeah. I think Alchemy is part of the curriculum at the high school. Why don’t you ask Luke? Isn’t he king of the nerdy sciencey shit?”
I kiss her on top of her head and muss her librarian-style bun. “You’re a genius.”
“Obviously not, otherwise I’d know all about shifter urine.”
“What’s that?” Liza, one of the older female werewolf paralegals, stops and asks.
“Do you sell your urine?” I question. “Or know anyone who would buy or sell it?”
Liza’s face mimic’s JR’s. “Um, no. That’s weird. Only thing I can think people would buy urine for is to mark their boundaries. Like … if they wanted a stronger alpha scent to keep people out. Like, ranchers trying to keep us away from their sheep on the full moon. That kinda thing.”
I chew my lip. Hmmm… definitely not what I think mixed shifter urine does. I brainstorm as I walk down the stairs and outside. I decide I need a little churro at the snack cart in order to bolster myself.
The little furry green gremlin working the cart winks and gives me an extra churro, which cheers me up considerably.
I call Luke, who’s on his lunch break. “What’s up, beautiful?”
“I have very strange questions for you. If you’re drinking, you might want to pause,” I tell him as I crunch down on my churro.
“You’re eating through this conversation,” he points out. “But I can’t drink?”
“I’m being considerate. I’ve been thinking about pee for the last three hours and so now I’m kinda immune to the gross factor.”
I hear Luke sigh, and then a small noise like he might be sliding a cup away from him. “You know, this is not the kind of dirty conversation I’d hoped you were calling me to have.”
“Trust me, it’s not the kind of conversation I want to have either. I can’t give you details, but, like, I’m wondering about pee.”
“Okay?” I hear the smile in Luke’s voice. “It’s a natural bodily function—”
“Wait. Wait. I mean mixed shifter pee.”
“Ahhh,” Luke’s tone tells me that there is something going on with shifter urine. “Is there somewhere I can meet you in person?”
Confusion fills my head like cream injected into a donut. Why would he want to meet me to talk about pee? “I’m outside in front of the courthouse. You don’t have to—”
“Be right there.”
There’s a whoosh and then a dial tone.
I sit back with my churro. Five bites later, Luke’s standing in front of me, hair windblown but he’s not even winded. Damn vampire. I got out of workouts this evening, but I do not look all glamorous and shit when I’m done with them. Generally, I look like a slippery, sweaty red tomato. How dare he look hot!
Luke leans forward and sniffs my churro. “Mmmm.”
I grin up at him and take a bite. “You know what I just realized? You might be the perfect guy. You approve of all my junk food, but don’t steal it.”
Luke laughs. “You’re just realizing this?”
I shrug. “I’m slow. This is why I’m so confused by this pee thing. I didn’t know mixed shifter pee was a thing. I mean … gross.”
“Didn’t we talk about it the other day when you went to pick up your uniform?” Luke sits down next to me on one of the crappy concrete benches set outside the courthouse. He eyes a tentacled attorney who’s arguing with a client across the way.
“What? No.”
“Oh, I thought I told you that’s why I didn’t like the idea of you going to the dry cleaners. They use mixed shifter urine.”
“WHAT?” That comes out really loud. I mean, like echo-across-the-courtyard loud. I cringe as strangers stop to stare. I give one of those pathetic apology waves, hide my face behind a curtain of hair and turn into Luke. “What do you mean the dry cleaners use urine?”
“Urine’s been
a cleaner for centuries. The ammonia in it. Humans used it for years. They have transitioned over to chemicals over the past fifty years, horrid chemicals by the way—so don’t go taking your clothes there either—but shifter urine’s … stronger.” Luke shrugs.
“You’re saying that when I take my clothes to get dry cleaned, I’m actually getting them sprayed with shifter pee?”
“Um … yeah?”
I shudder. “That is so disgusting!” My stomach twists and I have to hand the churro to Luke. I thought I had a handle on this pee topic. Apparently not. I have to shake my hands out just thinking about it. I thought dry cleaning was some magical spell kinda thing-a-ma-jig. Wave of the wand and bam! Nope. Crapola. Now I’m gonna burn all of my nice clothes. A thought occurs to me though. I used to wear suits more when I worked as a paralegal. And I was in an office full of shifters because Arnold is a favoritism-type of furry butt. “Wait … why didn’t anyone at my old office smell it on me?”
Luke raises an eyebrow. “This is where your question about mixed shifter pee becomes relevant. The right mixes cancel out any scent and any magic. They effectively erase each other.”
“Like a magic eraser?”
“Yup.”
I sit there and mull that over. “Why did you want to come talk to me about this in person?”
Luke glances around and then looks at me. “Who do you think uses magic erasers?”
“Dry cleaners, obviously.”
“Some house cleaners, too,” he adds, ignoring my look of disgust. “And …” Luke just stares steadily at me.
I can’t believe it takes a minute. But it slams into like a freight train. Who would want a magic eraser? Who would want to get rid of magic? People who did it illegally. “Criminals. But we haven’t studied this! I mean … if this is a thing, wouldn’t the cops know?”
“What if it’s a relatively new thing? At least as far as I know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, sometimes when one goes to dinner at one’s mother’s house … one overhears things. Nothing incriminating,” he’s quick to add, “I might have interrupted what could have been a very innocent discussion of proper cleaning techniques and how expensive cleaning products have gotten.” The sarcasm in Luke’s tone tells me all I need to know. The convo might have been innocent on the surface, but he knows what it implied. At the same time, he doesn’t want to get pulled in for questioning about his mom.
I don’t blame him. His mom is one scary lady. I press my lips together. I don’t want to have to go shake down Cookie Gonzalez and the Crypts. Just because things ended well once does not mean she’d be lenient again.
“So, the Crypts are using magic erasers …” I mutter, half to myself.
But Luke and his damn vamp hearing overhear. “They aren’t the only ones. The Bloods might be slower … but they always get there.” His kiss on my cheek is swift. “I gotta get back to work.”
He’s gone before I can blink. And he took my churro!
I can’t even curse him in my head though. My mind is too full. Too blown.
My thoughts bounce around. No wonder Louise had jars of piss at her house. I wonder how much mixed shifter pee goes for. Did her boss know? Who bought Louise’s jars of pee? Cleaners seem unlikely. She supposedly worked for the Bloods, the local troll gang. Not the brightest. But hella violent. If Luke’s saying the Bloods use magic eraser pee too, then maybe Louise was hoarding it for them. Or selling it to them. But what kind of magic would the Bloods want to hide? And would Louise know what it was? Would they have killed her to try and get those jars? Or so they didn’t have to pay her for them? Or was she selling them to the Crypts and the Bloods found out and whacked her for it?
If the Bloods whacked her, why didn’t they erase the hex if they knew about Magic Erasers? (I’ve decided that’s my new euphemism. I’m just gonna forget that this is about urine.) My gut says it’s because we interrupted the murderer. That the killer was someone who was there that night. Because they didn’t take the Magic Erasers with them. Could it be Rachel then? Is Flowers right?
I can’t pinpoint why, but my gut says no. Somehow, I don’t see her giraffe butterfly shifter form making a quick getaway. Plus, she just doesn’t seem that quick-thinking. She let herself get chained up. And though I can see how she could get talked into that one by her boy toy… I still don’t think she did this. My gut says that there’s some missing piece to this puzzle.
If it wasn’t Rachel, who offed Louise?
No matter how I slice it, it seems like all my questions point to the Bloods for more answers.
I think it might be time to visit Louise’s boss: Tar.
But you don’t take pixie dust to a wand fight. And you don’t walk into Troll territory alone.
I’m gonna need backup.
Chapter 19
Flowers rolls his eyes when I say I want to go to the Blood’s main nightclub, the Tar Pit, but he agrees to go with me when I say it’s the most likely place Hopper will be selling that urine.
He rounds up Petey, for the vamp’s compulsion abilities. To my shock, little tiny Becca wants to go, too.
“I’ve never seen the Tar Pit,” she says as she grabs her jacket. “It’s supposed to be super exclusive. And the owner is like a recluse. No one ever sees him. Total intrigue. On that case Petey and I were assigned, that troll supposedly smashed up an underground fight scene that went down there. But we got reassigned to your case before we ever got to go to the Tar Pit. They just rebuilt it. It’s supposed to be epic. Plus … there’s supposed to be an FFA fight this weekend. I bet that place is gonna be full of ripped, shirtless FFA-style supernaturals. I mean, droolfest.”
Seena glares at her from his desk, his glasses sliding down his nose. “Excuse me, the droolfest is right here, thank you very much.” He gestures at himself in his pressed pink checkered shirt, and slightly cowlicky black hair.
Becca leans down and ruffles his hair. “Oh, trust me, I know.” She winks at him.
Seena mutters, “Ungrateful sprite,” as we walk toward the stairwell. He rolls his eyes and grins as Becca blows him a kiss.
Flowers pushes open the door only to run into Bennett, nearly knocking the dragon shifter down the stairs.
“Whoa! Sorry, Boss,” Flowers reaches out and pulls Bennett up by the shoulder.
Bennett eyes our group. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to the Tar Pit!” Becca’s giddy. I mean, she’s always bubbly, but she must really have a thing for trolls because this is just odd.
Bennett’s eyes narrow and land on me. “I’m coming with you.”
Awkward. “We’ll be fine—”
But he doesn’t even acknowledge me. He just backs up and holds open the door to the stairs so that we all have to squeeze past him. Unfortunately, I’m last in line.
“This dumb idea was yours, wasn’t it?” Bennett whispers as we traipse down the stairs.
“It isn’t dumb. We know Louise was selling urine to erase magic. The Bloods make the most sense as buyers.”
“Figuring that out isn’t the dumb part. The idea that you’re gonna confront them about it is the dumb part.”
I stop walking and glare back at him. “I’m not gonna confront them! I’m just gonna try and catch them in the act!”
“Nights after the crime?”
“Hopper’s got that can of pee. And we can see if someone’s heard about the dragon fire.”
“Sometimes I think you have a death wish.”
“Solving a crime is a death wish?”
“You have been known to run off after murderers by yourself.”
I grit my teeth. “I was rescuing my mother.”
“And the concert? Where you chased what’s-her-name?”
What the hell? Why is he picking on me? “We were all chasing her!”
“And what about dating the son of a gang leader?”
I whirl on Bennett. “You are about this close to losing your invite to Thanks
giving dinner this year!”
“Are you cooking?”
“Hell no. I plan to force Jacob to come back for a visit so he can cook.”
Bennett rolls his eyes and just stomps past me.
I stare at his back and shake my head. That was aggressive. Bennett doesn’t do aggressive. Not in the asshole way Flowers does. I think he’s still upset about that dragon. William … I mean Bill.
But I don’t really know what to do about that. Best I can do is try to help him find that dragon fire so we can put the poor guy to rest.
One uncomfortable car ride later, we pull up into a parking lot full of open-air jeeps, the only vehicles full trolls can fit in since they are seven to nine feet tall. The Tar Pit is a giant warehouse. The roll up garage doors are a better size for customers, I think as I eye the black metal exterior. Not to mention how violent trolls are. It wouldn't be worth it to buy real building for trolls to dance in. I can see a few new panels on one wall. I guess that’s what Becca was talking about when she said they had to fix this place up.
I shake my head and remind myself not to do anything offensive. Even as we walk up, I hear body clanging against the metal siding of the warehouse. Maybe someone’s drink was mixed wrong. Doesn’t take much to set a troll off.
"Okay, everyone, we're gonna look for Hopper or Tar or anyone with a jar of urine or dragon fire," I say as we get close.
Flowers rolls his eyes at me trying to take charge; Bennett's face is dark; Petey bites his lip; Becca presses her hands together like she's so excited she can hardly contain herself. (I swear that sprite is happy about everything.)
We get past the bouncer no problem until it comes to Becca. The bouncer looks part troll himself at 6’5”, but he has enough good sense to say, in a deep silky voice, "You gonna get squished in there, little lady."
Becca shoots back, "I will not!"
He shakes his head, his five nose rings jingling as he smiles and says, "Sorry. But the boss won't let me let in dwarves."
So … um … fact: dwarves are not attractive. They are a race with squat figures and a lot of facial hair. Becca is a stick thin water sprite. She starts to steam as she stares this bouncer down.
