by Ann Denton
“What?” I ask.
She holds up her phone and shows me the pic I sent of that nasty sink over at Louise’s. The sink is ringed in green … I squint. The entire sink is ringed in wet, green feathers. I’d written it off as grime, but looking now, it’s definitely feathers. Like peacock feathers.
My mind flashes back to bathroom and the open window. A window that wasn’t big enough for any animal bigger than a cat to fit through.
The cat-peacock was there that night. Hopper’s telling the truth. Rachel’s best friend. Bill’s girlfriend. What did Hopper call her? Straight edge. No drugs. She must have been pissed at Louise for getting Bill hooked. Pissed when he went over there and never came back.
My mind races as it replays the possibilities. Rachel and her BFF went to the nap shack searching for answers about Bill. Maybe her BFF could smell something was off. I don’t know enough about cat noses to be sure. Maybe she could scent Bill’s body. She was pissed at Louise but hid it. Maybe even shifted into a cat and acted like she was gonna cooperate.
Yeah, that theory’s a good one. I can see it all happening in my head.
She was a cat peacock. Mostly cat. Louise poured her the milk. She drank it. Maybe a baby started fussing and Louise stepped away. Could Bill’s girlfriend have gotten into the secret passage and found his body? The opening dropped into the kitchen. Maybe if she had peacock wings … Maybe she flew up and found Bill’s body. Maybe she took his fire. Thought about using it on Louise.
But there were so many babies there. Maybe she didn’t want to hurt them? I’m not sure. But it would make me hesitate.
She’s the smart one. That’s what Hopper said. She knows hexes. She flew back down to the kitchen … shifted, wrote out the hex on the knife, and shifted back.
Louise came back. But then Flowers was at the door.
She heard the word, “Police,” and the cat peackock ran to hide … in the bathroom.
There was all that blue hair that coated my uniform …
I sit straight up and slop wine all over myself.
“What the—”JR starts.
But I hold up a hand and dial Becca. “I know who did it.”
Chapter 23
I rush to the dry cleaners, blood pumping so hard it sounds like the base beat of a song in my ears as I run. I should've put it together sooner.
Louise doped William Henson on the regular. Who knows if she’d been stealing bits of flame on the regular. But then he overdosed. And she hid him. Like trash.
He might not have had a dragon clan to avenge him anymore. But that didn't mean he didn't have family.
Sometimes, your family is made up of people you choose. People who bond with you when times are hard. Like Jacob and I after I lost my dad. Sometimes, your adopted family is made up of friends who see the world the way that you do, laugh at your crappy jokes, and support you even when you abandon them to deal with Arnold the werewolf alone because you’re pursuing a dream you never even knew you had. JR's family to me. Sometimes, your family is made up of people who've been so important in your past, that they will always be part of your inner circle no matter what—that's Bennett for me.
We’ve spent all this time thinking that Bill was used by Louise, without anyone to defend him. But what if that's not true? I'm betting that's not true.
Becca said it best. Women be vengeful bitches. If his girlfriend was a straight edge, she might have attacked Louise and her boss, Tar. His girlfriend might have stood up for him against the people responsible for his death even after he was gone.
I yank open the door to Sue’s Cleaners and find I’m the first there.
There’s no one at the counter. “Sandpaper tiger tongues!” I mutter under my breath as the door swings shut and the bell tinkles behind me.
A pretty brunette in her mid-thirties pops her head around the corner. She gives me a big, bright fuchsia lipstick smile. “One sec!” she calls.
I blink. I’m not sure, but her neck looks an awful lot like Rachel’s did at the station. Too long for her body. Like a giraffe shifter neck.
I don’t have time to process before Flowers and Bennett have rushed into the front room and crowd me.
“Where is she?” Flowers snarls, just as the busty brunette walks over in her starched black collared shirt.
The woman sighs as I read her nametag. This is the illustrious Sue. She must be the owner. “Did Marian give you a hard time about a stiffening spell?” she asks Flowers wearily. She says, “I’ve told that girl a million times—MARIAN!” Sue yells as if Marian’s in the back. Here.
If she’s here, Rachel must not have gotten here yet. Rachel must not have warned her yet. Marian must not know we know. But my eyes recall her face when she saw the hair on my uniform.
She knew we were investigating Louise’s death. And she burnt the evidence. Unluckily for Marian, I take photos of nearly everything.
I stare at the back wall—as if that will make Marian materialize—while Flowers argues with Sue.
“I’m not here about a stithening spell!” Flowers lisps.
Sue stares him up and down skeptically, pursing her bright lips. “You sure?”
Flowers must be beyond pissed, because his eyes start to go tiger. His pupils get round and his irises change from brown to yellow.
So do Sue’s. And then, she starts to growl.
The alpha predator tension shoots through the roof and my pulse instantly spikes. My body says, “Run!!!!!”
This is bad. Sue’s a tiger? I thought she was a giraffe … maybe she’s a combo. Everyone else on this damn case is. A giraffe and a tiger. A Girger. But there’s no telling what parts of her shift to what. What if she’s got tiger teeth? Claws?
Flowers growls louder than Sue did, and he takes a step closer to her. Their eyes stay locked.
I grab Bennett’s arm and look up at him. “What do we do?”
Bennett doesn’t answer. He grins and pulls my hand off his arm. Then he leaps over the counter past Sue.
She turns, but Flowers tackles her and pins her to the ground. “You’re under arrest for growling at an officer.”
“That’s a bogus charge.” Her neck starts to elongate and get stripes. I was right. Girger.
When I’m sure Flowers has her pinned, I use the latch to let myself through the half door to the other side of the counter.
Flowers has let his fangs come out and he’s showing them to Sue, who’s struggling beneath him.
I carefully hug the wall as I round the two wrestling shifters.
I make it to the back where there are baskets and baskets full of smelly unwashed clothes. There’s even a basket with clothes that glow like my uniform did. It’s labeled “Zombified. Handle with Care. Brain Cycle Only.”
I find Bennett standing across a table from Marian. It looks like he’s whispering to her.
As soon as Marian sees me, however, she must put the pieces together. She must know we’re here for her. Her eyes widen, and her piercings glint as she turns and bolts away.
“Cat-shredded couches!” I hiss as I run after her.
She goes into a forest of hanging clothes. There are vamp capes floating midair under ultraviolet lights. There are fairy wings hung on a line like laundry. My hand brushes one and it’s like a sticky spiderweb.
Marian yanks open a door and disappears into a second room. I follow.
Here are the hexes. I can see all kinds of troll clothes, glowing with bright yellow troll blood. On the edges of the clothing, small equations wiggle like worms, slowly eating up the stains.
I wonder if Sue’s Cleaners takes in illegal troll fight clothes as I zip through the room, trying to follow the flying blue mane that’s Marian’s hair.
She whips around another corner. I follow, breathing hard, wondering if Bennett had to stop to help Flowers. WTF is taking him so long?
Another room. This time, the clothes seem more human. Wizard clothes. There’s a burnt smell that emanates from these clothes. Maybe they’re
from the local high school. Uniforms or something. I shove aside heavy cloaks and try to keep my eyes on her feet in front of me, because that’s all I can see with these racks in the way. Then the racks jolt and start moving. Someone’s flipped a switch or said a spell to get the racks rotating; the clothes whip past me, sleeves whirling out from the speed. I go forward but the clothes press against me hard and and fast, shoving me sideways; I can’t push through. I have to drop to the floor and scoot along on my stomach to chase our perp.
Of course, Marian doesn’t care about breaking laws at this point. Marian fully shifts in public. Her clothes shred and fall to the ground as her body changes. While she’s mostly a gorgeous jewel-blue cat, her blue fur transitions to feathers near her rear and she sports luxurious green tail feathers complete with eyes that would make any peacock proud.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t completely dazed for a second. Cat peacocks … peacats are so beautiful that they should be a thing. Everywhere. There should have been an ancient religion for them.
Marian’s cat speed lets her slink away even faster, and as I pass the last of the clothing racks (Bennett starts crawling along behind me—I can hear him muttering), Marian leaps onto the top of the huge industrial washing machines in the back. She leaps from one to the next.
“Stop, you’re under arrest!” I yell. “For the murder of Louise Grant!”
Does that stop her? Psh! Did you really think it would?
She leaps onto a pipe that runs the length of the ceiling and army crawls toward a small window that’s open near the ceiling.
I look around for something to throw on her—a blanket or something—I latch onto a witch’s black gown and throw it. It lands on Marian’s tail but doesn’t stop her progress.
I bite my lip. I don’t want to make her lose her footing, but I have to stop her before she gets out of here.
I don’t want to use my power, but it seems like I have no choice.
“You’ve lost your cat shifter abilities!” I yell. My leg burns.
Marian’s fur wavers and turns into feathers. Her head grows smaller and her neck lengthens. Her front paws turn into wings. Her back paws grow skinny and scaled until they become claws.
She transforms into a full peacock. Her neck swivels and she stares at me for a second, blinking. I’m not sure if she’s more shocked or more pissed. Probably some version of both.
Her claws slip on the pipe and she slides sideways. For a second, it looks like she might tumble backward. But then she spreads her wings and bursts into flight.
But then my magic wavers. I feel it shake inside my stomach as Marian flies back up to the pole. She barely has time to land before she’s a cat again.
“What the three-legged tiger?” I gasp. My leg fades from chicken to human faster than normal. “You’ve lost your cat shifter abilities!” I call out again, as Marian slinks along the pole.
But she doesn’t shift again. She just throws a disdainful glance back at me before she heads for the window.
My stupid freaking powers! What’s wrong with them?
I grab a suit coat and toss it at her next, nailing her in the back. She tumbles to the floor; her cat balance ensures she lands on her feet. I run forward to grab her, reaching for my handcuffs—but suddenly Bennett’s tripping to a stop beside me. I hear a thunk as a huge container tips over next to me. Then whirl of dust settles on my skin.
My limbs get as hard as rocks.
I swivel my neck to see the barrel and Bennett. He’s locked in place, white powder up to his calves. The barrel beside him reads: “Stiffening Powder. Dissolve 1:10 for solution.”
Shit!
My limbs lock from my feet to my hips. I can’t move. I feel the magic spread upward to my torso. I turn my neck to look at Marian but I can’t do anything but watch as she shifts into a naked human, her back covered in a gorgeous dragon tattoo, the letters ‘EWNM’ woven into the dragon’s wings. I can’t do anything but watch as she runs out the back door.
Chapter 24
“Yowling stiffening solution!” I curse and rub my stiff limbs yet again. It’s taken over an hour for them to come back to life and the fallen-asleep prickling sensation is awful. It’s as bad as a bite from a daggle (a witch’s dog enchanted to give painful burning bites).
Flowers eventually realized Bennett and I didn’t come back and went to check on us. He’d let Sue off with a warning about her growl, then supervised the swarm of cops that searched Sue’s Cleaners and spread out through the neighborhood looking for Marian. He also got pretty happy over intercepting Rachel, who ran up just as the search party started.
Rachel is, once again, in custody for questioning. She’s lucky she got here late, or Flowers definitely would have tried to slap her with accessory after the fact charges, too.
I’ve had to watch everything from afar as Bennett and I have been stuck here on the back of an ambulance, getting treated for exposure to magical stiffening chemicals by two dwarves with more attitude than medical knowledge.
“Great furry night,” I groan as my neck cracks. “Lost our perp, broke up, got stiffened—no idea why anyone would do that on purpose—”
“On the other hand, you’ve perthected the art of complaining,” Flowers interjects.
I just glare at him. “Love the lisp.”
His eyes narrow to slits. “Your fault.”
I shake my head. “Not anymore. You could have fixed it.”
Bennett interjects, “Broke up?”
I stare at his brilliant green eyes and shake my head. “Apparently, I’m part succubus.”
Ben’s eyes widen because he immediately knows what it means for me and vamps.
Flowers starts to ask but he’s interrupted by Darrell, who’s found what he thinks might be a peacock feather. Flowers stomps off after the mummy to go identify it.
Ben stares at me for a while and there’s a long awkward moment, before I say, “What were you telling Marian when I got in there?”
Bennett’s face flushes. “I … just let her know we’d found Bill.”
“She’d have seen that online. Or in the paper.” Something’s off.
He swallows and glances away from me. “I just—”
The pieces fall together in my head as I shake my hand and try and get the feeling back. I stand, suddenly unable to be around Bennett. What the hell? He didn’t trip. He didn’t knock over that stiffening solution on accident. He let Marian get away.
The revelation knocks me off balance. I feel dizzy. I mean, Bennett’s my boss. Plus … he’s him. He’s supposed to be one of the good guys.
“Imma go home and pass out. See you tomorrow, Boss.” I try the avoidance technique. Because I’m seriously at a loss here.
Bennett’s face falls a bit. “Sure. See ya. Sorry again about …”
But the trailing off does it. Somehow it sets me off. Maybe I would have snapped and said something anyway, because I’m me. But apologizing? He knows what he did. He knows it’s wrong. I turn back and stare Bennett in the eye. “Be careful. When you cross lines, they start to look grey. And then they aren’t lines anymore.”
His gaze hardens and his nostrils flare.
I shake my head. I can’t. I just can’t.
I turn and limp home. In the distance, behind me, I hear shouts and squawking. They’ve caught her.
Unlike with prior cases, I don’t feel any sense of victory that we’ve nabbed the killer. Marian offed a selfish, ruthless old hag. A little part of me sympathizes with Bennett.
I hope Marian gets off with a light sentence. I’m sure she will, since technically what I’ve got to pin her to the scene is a photo. Unless, of course, one of the zillion hair samples tie her there. But … who knows?
My mind starts to wander away from the case and back to more pressing issues. Like Luke.
My hands get clammy as I see the lights in the distance for my little fourplex. My phone buzzes again in my purse, but when I check it, it’s my mother, so I ignor
e the call.
I get closer and see Sarah’s curtains are open and clearly, they’re watching for me.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth and I shuffle closer.
When I’m about ten feet from the door, it comes flying open. And suddenly, two strong arms are around me, sweeping me up into a hug.
“Hey! You didn’t call me,” Luke scolds.
Wait. What? He’s hugging me? Failure to compute.
“I … uh …”
“Flowers give you a bad time?”
“We … tracked down our suspect. Had to chase them.”
Luke pulls back and looks me over, head to toe. “Are you okay?”
My mouth opens and closes a couple times. Did someone erase his memory? Did I have a hallucination at the hospital?
“I’m sorry. I thought we broke up.”
“WHAT?” Luke exclaims.
“WHAT?” Tabby and Sarah say from the doorway.
I blink dumbly. Luke scoops me into his arms and carries me up the stairs. He finds my key in my purse and unlocks the door, letting me down once we’re in the relative privacy of my apartment.
“They’re just gonna watch on the crystal ball,” I say absently, imagining Tabby plonking her ball down on Sarah’s dining table.
Luke feels my face with his hands, like he’s checking me for a fever. “Are you feeling okay, Ly?”
I shake my head. Because I’m not alright. Not at all. “At the hospital. You saw my results. And you ran.”
Luke runs a hand down his face. He looks devastated. “Ly, I’m so soo sorry. That had nothing to do—well, I mean it had to do with your results. But it had more to do with my mother.”
“What?” I let myself fall into my purple couch, my hips still a little stiff from the powder. I sit back in the soft cushions and run my hands over the velvet plush. What is going on? What’s he saying?
“She’s been so pushy about you. Asking questions. Nudging us along. She even asked if I was gonna bite you.”
I wrinkle my brow.
