Owl or Nothing

by Willow Mason

  Barry relaxed, rubbing the back of his neck, then pulling at his beard. “Sorry, I couldn’t give you that, but you know it’s when Gabby came on board. Unless you were duplicating yourself, it worked out better for you anyway, having another barmaid to share the duties with.”

  His eyes were steady. The corners of his lips curled upwards. How many times had he looked me full in the face and lied, just as he was doing now?

  “Her dad paid her wages, not you.”

  The surprise hit, widening his eyes and dropping his mouth open. “How do you—?”

  “I had to look through some of your books while the police kept you locked up.” Hey. Turned out Barry was the only one fluent in lying. “You refused to give me a raise for no reason.”

  “There’s no law says I have—”

  “I brought in half the business since I started working here. Those customers who turned up just to see an employed shifter? They stayed and spent their money.”

  He took a step back, staring down at his feet. “We would have done just fine without your lot turning up.”

  “Well, that’s good.” My hands had a life of their own, creeping back to rest on my hips again. “Because from now on, you’ll be managing without them. I looked at your books. Without me working two shifts for a pittance and Gabby being financed through her dad, you’ve either got to pay someone for real or do the grunt work yourself.”

  Barry’s head jerked up, nostrils flaring. “You think I can’t work. I got this place up and running single-handed. Any credit for keeping this bar afloat is down to me.”

  “Your numbers were trending downwards when I joined your staff. From the minute I began working here, they shot straight up. But you can forget your shifter customers, they’ve already sworn they’ll never set foot in this place again.”

  He sneered. “They’ll be back as soon as the curfew’s lifted.”

  “If it’s lifted, and I wouldn’t take that as given, they won’t come back here. Me and Silvana will hold an open house every night, just like we did yesterday. Shifters drank here out of loyalty. Well, from this moment on, they’ll avoid the Barnyard for the same reason. See how far you get on half custom.”

  “You can’t run a bar out of your home. It’s illegal.”

  “It’s not illegal to hold a party every night with a hat by the door for contributions.”

  Barry chewed on his bottom lip and I could see the war in his face. “I already said, I’d take you back on when this curfew’s over. I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll see it when you have to close this place down within four months. I estimate that’s the longest you can keep it afloat. So, yeah. I’ll work here again.” Stepping closer to him, I smiled sweetly. “I’ll work here once I buy it up at rock-bottom prices. The moment you go into liquidation, I’ll have a foot in the door, pushing you outside.”

  “Do you really believe any bank will give you finance?”

  I slammed the door in answer.

  My legs shook enough that I took advantage of a nearby bus stop. Someone had endowed a gift of bubble gum to the wooden slats, left there long enough to crack and fade to grey. Squiggles of felt-tip pen decorated the space around the deposit, no words or symbols, the artist had been too lazy for that.

  Where did all that anger come from?

  A stupid question. It came from every sideways glance or double take I’d pretended to ignore in the past year. It came from months of being grateful for the things everyone else took for granted. It came from knowing my position in society could be downgraded at the snap of our mayor’s fat fingers.

  A better question might be, where had it been hiding all this time?

  Just think of the money, I told myself. You’ll have enough to last out a month or more.

  I wanted to cry.

  It was the thought of my laundry that spurred me into action. The last chore on the list, then I could go home and cry all I wanted. There might be someone else in my room while I did it, maybe a few someones, but that was their lookout. A good cry and perhaps a pizza with a disgustingly high fat content to finish the day.

  If I could afford to order takeaways on my new income.

  Before the morbid thoughts froze me to the bus stop bench for the rest of the day, I jumped to my feet and headed down to the corner shops. Minette waved at me through the window, then picked up the phone. A development that set my belly tingling.

  She held up one finger as I walked inside. A warm breath of steam, chemicals, and damp wool greeted me. “I’ll just be a few minutes, love,” she said in a voice unlike her usual. “Take a seat.”

  Minette turned her back and continued the conversation in such a low whisper, I couldn’t eavesdrop. My owl ears would’ve known what she was saying but changing in the middle of the day, in the centre of town? A stupider idea today than most.

  A car pulled up to the curb outside, scraping its wheels as it drove too close. PC Bryant got out, speaking into his mic. I steeled my backbone, springing to my feet as he walked through the door. “Morning officer,” I said in a cheery tone. “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Sit.”

  Bryant spat out the order like I was a disobedient pet. I resisted the urge to growl. Minette ducked beneath the counter and pulled out a packet. My bag of unlaundered clothes. Or Caleb’s, to be more accurate.

  Bloodstains, claw marks, and all.

  “These yours?” Bryant pulled out his notebook and nudged the edge of the bag with his pen.

  “She said they belonged to her brother,” Minette said with eager glee. “But she doesn’t have one, I checked. And the ID doesn’t match. It belongs to a missing person.”

  “Who’s missing?” I asked before I could bite my tongue.

  “Caleb Williams.” Minette hugged herself, beaming. “He disappeared from his hostel a few days ago and hasn’t been seen since. I don’t suppose you and your shifter pals would know anything about that?”

  PC Bryant raised his eyebrows, and I tried not to sigh. It appeared my list of chores had just grown exponentially longer.

  Chapter Twelve

  With a jerk of my head, I inched toward the door. “If you have questions, could I answer them outside?”

  PC Bryant rolled his eyes but nodded. The moment we were clear of Minette’s oversized ears, he barked out, “Where’ve you stashed him?”

  “Caleb Williams is a guest at my house,” I answered, positioning my body so Minette couldn’t read my lips. “He’s been there for two nights now.”

  “And if I paid him a visit, he’d deny you caused the bloodstains on the clothing in there?”

  “Yes.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, feeling the crunch of the receipts from the travel agent. “He was attacked but not by me.”

  Bryant glanced around, rubbing a finger up behind his ear. “If Caleb was attacked, why haven’t I taken his statement down at the station already?”

  I stared down at my feet, shuffling them back and forth. “He didn’t want to involve the police. He’s got free access to a phone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “How about you just answer the questions I put to you?” PC Bryant flipped back a few pages in his book. “We’ve had three officers out scouring the streets, looking for any trace of your friend. It’d be to his benefit if he makes contact, just to let us know to call off the search.”

  “Why don’t you come home with me?”

  “Thought he didn’t want to contact the police.”

  “Caleb doesn’t but since you know about the attack already, it’s hardly his choice any longer.”

  Bryant stared at me with a frown long enough for me to shuffle my feet again. “Won’t he blame you?”

  I shrugged, hiding how touched I was at his concern. “I wasn’t the one to call you. Minette did that. If she’d done it when she first discovered everything, you would’ve called by to ask your questions.”

  He nodded. “Fine. You head on home and I’
ll come along in a half hour. I’ve got a few other incidents to chase up here anyway, so it’ll suit me better to do that.”

  I walked back inside, happy to see the laundress’s expression drop. “PC Bryant is sorting things out. Could you let me know when you’ll have this load ready?”

  Minette chewed her lip, tracing a figure eight on the counter. “Not this afternoon. Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock.”

  “Do I get a discount for it being a day late?”

  I smiled at her alarmed expression. “No! But wait a minute. This is out of the pockets.”

  She opened a drawer and pushed a plastic baggie across the counter. The surreptitious movement made me think of a drug deal, and I checked over my shoulder for any curious passers-by. Nope. The road was clear.

  “Thanks.” I picked up the bag, noting the ID and a handful of change, then shoved it in my pocket. I’d keep hold of the coins as payment towards the laundry. And the food. And the rent.

  If my ‘guest’ didn’t get a move on soon, I’d start charging.

  My head thumped in time with my footsteps as I walked home. Silvana was right, I should get my car up and running. Although I could hardly afford to add petrol to my list of expenses. I should at least give it a test drive and fill up the tank in case we needed to leave town in a hurry.

  “Where’d you get off to?” Dee greeted me near the front door. “There’s a lot of strangers kipped out in the lounge and since you gave my bedroom away, I’ve nowhere to go.”

  “Stay in my room,” I offered while walking inside. The shifter population of our house seemed about equal to the entire town.

  “Your room’s full, too.” Dee darted out of the way as a large male foot nearly trod her into the ground. “And Silvana just keeps inviting more.”

  I might have told Barry we’d run a party every night but while scanning the crowded rooms, I realised I didn’t mean it. “Where’s Caleb?”

  “In his room. Alone.” Dee’s voice was so plaintive I laughed.

  “How about we open up the garage and you can bunk out there for a few nights?”

  “In the cold?” She stared at me as though I’d gone screaming around the bend. “It doesn’t even have electricity.

  The exposed wiring near the door suggested it had once had the luxury but none of the switches worked. I was too scared to mess with it myself and too cheap to pay someone to do it.

  “We can’t just kick everybody out,” I told Dee, trying to convince myself at the same time. “We’ve all had a shock and if people need to band together to forge a way forward, we should let them.”

  “It’s good in theory,” Dee agreed. “I just wish we hadn’t been volunteered as the community hall.”

  I thought of PC Bryant’s promise to drop by shortly and smiled. Perhaps the solution was already sorted.

  I tapped on Caleb’s door, receiving a gruff, “Occupied,” as a response. Since I already knew that, I pushed into the room, quickly shutting the door once Dee had scampered inside.

  “Hey,” he said, his face turning from full-on grumpy to a smile. “Where’ve you been? This place is a madhouse.”

  “And will be for a while yet.” I walked to the window, drawing back the net curtain, stalling for time. “I bumped into someone in town.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Dee clambered up my leg, showing off her dextrous paws. “Get on with whatever it is you have to say. The suspense is killing me.”

  PC Bryant pulled into the driveway. A cry went up in the lounge and a rush of footsteps heralded a mass exit.

  “The police want to check-in with you,” I continued, edging towards the door. “The laundress called them when she saw the bloodstains on your jeans and thought I’d done you in.”

  “I don’t have to talk to them.” Caleb puffed his chest out. “You can tell him to go away.”

  “Apparently, they’ve mounted a manhunt for you, so it’d be better if you tell them yourself.”

  With a slump of his shoulders, Caleb complied, walking into the hallway ahead of me. “I thought we still had rights in this country,” he grumbled, showing he’d never heard of irony.

  Once I’d seen him safely into Bryant’s company, in a newly emptied lounge, I retreated into his room with Dee.

  “The sooner he moves on the better. It’s not like he’s sharing information on Gabby, if he even knows anything.”

  “I can’t kick him out when he’s hurt.” I lay back, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the sensation as Dee snuggled into the curve of my neck. “And does Gabby have anything useful to tell us?”

  “Nah. She’s gone away again, thank goodness. My tender ears aren’t used to such foul language.”

  “Well, I hope the police find someone soon.”

  The front door slammed, and I sat up, hearing the heavy tread of Caleb’s footsteps heading our way.

  “Can you believe those guys?” he asked, striding into the room and slamming that door for good measure.

  “What’d he ask you?”

  “Everything and nothing.” Caleb paced the width of the room a few times, then flung himself down on the bed. “He wanted to know which restaurants I eat at. Can you believe that?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Apparently, some results they had back from Gabby’s body show contaminated food and they think it came from the breakfast bar. I told them I wouldn’t eat anything from that place if you paid me. I’m a vegan! Everything on their menu is from a chicken or a pig.”

  “You’re what?” I replayed our morning conversation at the diner, vaguely recalling a mention of the fact. The food poisoning theory fit better with the reaction Dee had described Gabby having, but to blame the breakfast bar seemed extreme. I ate there all the time. “Why there?”

  “How do I know? Nobody’s sharing information with me any longer. It’s as though I’ve disappeared into thin air.”

  Dee giggled. “Isn’t that what you’re trying to do? Disappear.”

  “The contacts on my phone don’t know that.” Caleb leapt to his feet to resume pacing. “I swear, either people are flooding me with details I didn’t ask for or they’ve got their lips buttoned shut.”

  “Isn’t that what reporters are good at?” With his nervous steps trying to shove spare anxiety at me, I stood back, my hand on the doorknob. “Sifting out the useful information from the crud?”

  “None of it’s useful. You can’t have someone dying of contaminated food AND being torn apart by shifters. Nothing about Gabby’s death makes sense.”

  “Unless the animals got hold of her later.” Both Caleb and I turned to Dee, who cleaned her fur with furious actions.

  I pulled out my phone to check the report again. “But scavengers would eat her, not inflict injuries.”

  “Either predator or scavenger would eat her,” Dee agreed. “But they must have been driven off.”

  “Or changed back to human.”

  Dee and I frowned at Caleb.

  “Isn’t that what you do?” He glanced from me to Dee, then rubbed his eyebrow as the floor caught his interest. “You change into animals with the full moon, then change back again.”

  “Most of us don’t eat while we’re in a different form and it’s not like a light switch being flicked on and off again.” I paused while trying to think of how to explain the physical changes. “It’s an urge that becomes almost overwhelming. A shifter can stay human throughout the full moon—or at any time, really—but it takes differing degrees of willpower. Like a person dieting. If you walk past a takeaway or someone hands you a chocolate bar, it’s harder to stick to your plan.”

  “So, it’s a choice to attack?”

  “Now, it is.” Again, I glanced at Dee, uncomfortable discussing these private matters with someone unaffected by our shared illness. “When the infection first came, nobody knew what it was or how to fight it. A year later, we all have much better control.”

  “Which means whoever assaulted me the other night, meant
to do it.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to me he wouldn’t know that. “Of course. It’s like a punch-up outside a bar. Just because someone’s drunk, doesn’t mean they’re not exercising their will to join the fight or abstain.”

  “They really don’t teach you humans anything, do they?” Dee grumbled. “This base level stuff should be mandatory learning.”

  “Why would someone want to hurt Gabby, then?” Caleb frowned. “I thought it was just a matter of instinct gone wrong, with terrible consequences. What you’re saying is it was no different to straightforward murder.”

  “If she was attacked the way the report claims.” I scrolled through the short pages again. “But this doesn’t sound like one of Keith’s usual reports at all.”

  “I need to go somewhere,” Caleb announced suddenly, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door. “See you later.”

  While I stared after him in astonishment, Dee nudged me. “Quick. While he’s gone, throw all of his stuff into the lounge so I can have my room back.”

  Leaving Dee to do her own dirty work, I retreated into my blessedly empty room and counted out the money Barry had handed me. There was enough for a few weeks’ worth of groceries. In other circumstances, it might have struck me as generous, but my anger still hadn’t cooled enough to view it that way.

  I also tipped out the baggie of coins, fishing out Caleb’s ID card, since he’d be needing it. The money wasn’t very much. I began counting it out, then frowned as I saw one silver flash wasn’t a coin at all. It was a locket.

  A silver, engraved locket.

  Just like the one I’d spent hours searching for when Gabby lost it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  If PC Bryant was surprised when I strode into the station, he hid it well. “Come on through,” he said, nodding towards his desk. Unlike the last visit, it seemed nobody was busy with anything.

  “I found this.” I handed the baggie back across. Although my fingerprints were now all over everything, I’d stuffed it all back into the plastic bag as though that would somehow reverse the process. “It’s what Minette gave me.”