by J. L. Ray
Baz was surprised to see Cal in the office. “Detective Kelly,” he said as he held out his hand to shake Cal’s.
“Hi, de Groot.” Cal looked around the sides of Baz. “Where’s Tony?”
“She got muddy in Fairie, and she went to wash off.”
“It came through with her?” Azeem looked amazed.
“That wasn’t all that came through with her,” Baz told him. “The Tempo...well.” He rubbed his head. “Let me start at the beginning, right before the ear bugs died. Then Tony should be back and she can tell her part. I have not heard all of that there myself.”
Azeem nodded. “Set your f-light to record so that your report is partially done.”
Baz nodded and proceeded to tell his side of the story, occasionally interrupted by questions from Azeem. Finally, he ended with Tony’s return. More than twenty minutes had passed. He stopped his recording.
Baz looked a little unsettled. “Tony should be back by now. The dirt that came in on her—is it safe to go in the local water system?”
Azeem nodded, “The station has an air and water Magic Nullification System which treats any stray magic that comes in on prisoners or suspects as well as officers. The static magic in the Mundane biosphere is high enough that a certain level of magical crossover doesn’t affect its functionality. It should be fine.”
“Still, she should be back by now.” Baz looked at the other two Beings. “Should I go check on her?”
“How bad was the mud?” Cal asked.
“She was covered in it on front. None on her back. She said she was going to have a quick rinse and change and then get up here with her report.”
At this point she’d been gone nearly thirty minutes.
The three looked at each other, and then in unspoken agreement, headed to the door.
Tony walked into the changing room and over to her locker. She ran her f-light over the lock and it clicked open, letting her pull out her own clothes so she could ditch the 1980s Flashdance look and its unfortunate layer of rank-smelling mud. As she started to peel off her ruined sweater, she saw the medallion that the Noir Witch had given her, and she pulled it over her head. The medallion, a thin, flat round of metal the size of a quarter, hung a slim length of leather. She gave it a quick look but realized she couldn’t place the symbols, so she set it on top of her clean clothes. She carefully stripped off the dirty clothes, dropped them in the chute for magically contaminated items, and wrapped a towel around her torso. As she grabbed her shampoo, she heard someone in the shower humming. The tune sounded familiar, but without words she wasn’t sure what she was hearing, or who, at least until she walked toward the shower stalls and saw Phil come strolling out of the men’s side, his only clothing a towel riding his slim hips.
She was a bit shocked to find him in a restricted area, not to mention freshly showered and wearing a station-issue towel. Obviously, the feeling was mutual. She hadn’t seen him look that surprised since they realized that his ditzy blonde secretary was actually a murderous mastermind trying to get him killed.
Phil stopped and leaned back against the tiled wall that separated the shower stalls from the locker room. His towel slipped a little lower on his hips, his ripped stomach muscles providing too little support for it to rest on. “This is not the date I had in mind,” he told her with a wicked grin. “However, I am always flexible.” His grin widened as he raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
She held up one weary, muddy hand. “So not appropriate. I’m still on duty, Phil. I’ve got to get cleaned up and report before we can go out.”
“Are you hungry?” He raised one eyebrow as his eyes roamed over the parts of her showing above and below the towel.
She started to answer but had to clear her throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
He pushed off the wall and walked toward her and she heard herself actually saying, “No. No, Phil. Not a good idea.” She didn’t know she had it in her to say no. He looked good enough to...well, enough with the cliché. Then she remembered the mud. “I’m covered in smelly mud from Fairie.”
“What?” He went from seducer to very unsexy mother hen instantly. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the shower. “Do they have a nullifying spell? For the mud?”
“Of course, they do—the station has a full MNS device for both air and water systems. It’s SOP,” she said, startled, as she stumbled to keep up with him and to keep her towel up as well. “What the hell, Phil? I can take a shower on my own!”
“We need to get it all off of you. I am going to help,” he told her. There was no doubt in her mind that he was both serious and, sadly enough, thinking about safety first. He turned away from her and switched on the water, and she pulled her arm lose and took her towel off and hung it up. Phil turned back around with Cal’s honeysuckle body wash in his hand, not what she was expecting, and suddenly he looked at her, all of her. Her mouth went dry. He stood there for a few seconds, closed his eyes with a rueful smile and then opened them while carefully gazing into her eyes and no further down. “You wash yourself, and I will wash your hair.”
“Don’t wash my hair with that body wash! Use my shampoo.” She handed him the shampoo as he handed her the bottle of body wash, and then turned her back to him.
“This is a severe test of my ability to delay gratification,” he murmured as he lathered her hair from behind her. “I thought being back here might help, but I find it only makes things worse.”
“Things,” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“Mmm hmm,” he hummed. Then he started singing the tune he had had been humming, and she realized he was back on a Death Cab for Cutie kick, as he sang the words to “I Will Possess Your Heart.”
She reminded herself that a long-lived fae like Phil would have plenty of seduction tricks up his sleeve. Well, not up his sleeve right now, since he didn’t have a sleeve. Or a shirt. Or pants. Damn. This wasn’t the time or the place. Unfortunately, about the time she decided that, Phil had gotten the dirt out of her hair and was concentrating on massaging her scalp, which was making her knees want to fold. She was willing to bet money that he knew it. Of course, he did. He’d probably used little tricks like this more than a few times to get his way, maybe more than a few thousand times. And yet, as long as he kept rubbing her scalp, she really didn’t care.
Phil’s hands moved down to her neck, and Tony suddenly realized that, despite the bad timing, it looked like this was definitely happening. She felt the earth moving, which seemed a bit premature, given that all the touching so far involved Phil’s hands on her head. Then she realized she felt the floor thudding rhythmically because someone large was running, and running their way. The movement was violent enough to throw both her and Phil off-balance. She grabbed at the shower stall’s fixtures and Phil grabbed her waist. Okay, he was probably aiming for her waist. He got a little higher than that. She didn’t mind, but she was pretty slippery, so he kept having to get a firmer hold each time the ground shook, not that she was complaining.
“What is—” Before he could finish his question, the door to the locker room burst open and they heard the voices of de Groot, Lieutenant Azeem, and Cal, yelling for Tony. The combined rhythm of their feet and paws moving at speed had caused the floor to vibrate from their weight.
“Detective Tony?”
“Newman!”
“Yo, partner, you okay?’
“I’m in the shower!” Tony answered, hoping they would stay in the locker area. She looked at Phil and mouthed the words, “Stay here. Leave after I do!” She didn’t wait to see his response, and instead, shut off the water, grabbed her towel off the hanger, wrapped it around herself, and walked out, figuring, correctly, that seeing her in a towel would clear the room.
“Hey! You are obviously okay, am I right?” Cal said to her.
“I am! Stubborn mud. It just would not come off,” she said.
The other two Beings nodded sagely as they backed toward the door.
“We’l
l just let you get dressed. Come up to my office as quickly as you can,” Azeem said, wheeling around and leaving the room.
“Sure, sure!” Tony called after him.
De Groot hadn’t said much, but she noticed that his nostrils were working overtime, like a dog trying to get a scent. He shot her a look and then drawled, “Married only a few hours and already you hog the shower, wife!” The he followed Azeem out the door.
“That was odd,” she said to Cal, who had been the first to burst through the doors.
He grinned and tilted his head to the shower. “You better get Phil out of the locker room before Azeem figures out he was in there.” He coughed and added, “I’m pretty sure de Groot already knows. Changelings have the best physical senses of all the Supers, y’know.”
“Shit.” Tony shrugged. “You gonna be upstairs? Hey, what are you doing here?”
Phil came strolling out of the shower, his towel on his waist again. “He brought Newman by for a visit. That’s why I am in the shower.”
“Dude!” Cal scrunched his face up in embarrassment. “Did he spit up on you again?”
“Spit up? You mean that viscous fluid which he spewed on me? What an appallingly sweet name for that most vile substance,” Phil snorted. “No, this time I had to change a diaper.” He paused and stared at the partners with narrowed eyes as they hunched over in laughter, Tony snorting far more than she liked to in public. “Are you finished? Yes?” They were still laughing. “No, then.” He stood there, arms folded across his chest as he waited for them to dry their eyes. Cal handed Tony a huge handkerchief, and she dabbed at the corners of eyes. “Now, you are done with your merriment, correct? Good. It was not spit up. Apparently there is a trick to changing a boy’s diapers in order to avoid a urine spray. I do not have that trick. Yet.” He stopped because at the word urine, the two went from relative calm back to howling laughter. Tony started crying again, she was laughing so hard.
“T-T-Twice?” she stuttered. “You got hit twice?”
Phil shook his head, turned away and once more ran one hand down the side of his body, a copy of the casual couture he had on earlier materializing behind the movement of his hand. He turned around, lifted one brow, and then said, “Tony, do you wish for me to wait for you to take you to dinner, or do you and your new ‘husband’ have plans?”
Tony gasped as she tried to get her breath back, “I’ll just be half an hour, tops. Do you want to stay?” She had been laughing so hard that she had missed the sarcasm in his voice.
“I’ll stay,” he told her flatly. He planned to stay and find out just exactly what de Groot was up to with Tony.
“Great!” Tony said and then made shooing motions. “Out you two go. I need to report to the Lieutenant.” Once they left, she dressed as quickly as she could, draping the amulet around her neck again without conscious thought about why she was putting the necklace back on. When it touched her skin, the medallion glimmered for a moment before going back to its former dull pewter.
“Tell me about the Tempo,” Azeem asked as Tony settled down in his office, Cal and Baz next to her.
“It definitely had a short time-span to open,” she replied grimly, realizing where Azeem was going with his questions.
“So not as stable as the portal that was hidden in the wall behind Mephistopheles’ office at Monster-Mate,” Azeem growled.
“Did we ever figure out how Serena managed that?” Cal asked.
“No,” Azeem answered sharply. “Even the GOOEN squad only had a few hypotheses, and no definitive answer.”
Cal winced, “Who got to meet with them for that report?” The GOOEN squad loved being right. They lived to be right. Being wrong just wasn’t an option. So, no definitive answer? Ugliest briefing ever, no doubt.
“I did,” Azeem told him, in a voice that suggested another question would be quite unwelcome, so Cal swallowed the remark he almost made. With a fourth spawn to feed, he’d be needing his paycheck.
“Sir, the Being waiting for us—”
Baz interrupted. “I told the Lieutenant that I thought he was a wizard.”
Tony shrugged. “Maybe he’s a wizard. He certainly wants to be. Anyhow, it was clear from the conversation that the Sutherlands expected to go through the portal to exchange merchandise. Having Natties go through and come back is apparently the key to bringing back packages from Fairie, but I’m still not sure how that works. It shouldn’t be possible to carry items back, should it?” Everyone shook his head. “Thought maybe I’d missed that memo. The Sutherlands didn’t make that plan clear in their conversation with you,” she pointed at Azeem and Baz. “They had to have known we use Super/Natty teams at the SCIB. I think they set us up.”
Azeem rumbled, his anger at a low boil. “They have skipped out on us. I have a BOLO out for them, but given their criminal contacts through Mickey’s cousin, Randy, we may not find them soon.” Shaking his head, he reiterated, “Plain Mundane or not, it still shouldn’t be possible to bring items back like that. Do you know how you managed it?” he asked Tony.
She shrugged. “I really don’t.” As she spoke, her hand went to the medallion, but it hung out of sight under her clothes. No one really noticed the gesture. Not even Tony.
Azeem nodded. “Then tell us about the time in Fairie.”
Tony nodded, “So—Baz faked a breakdown with the truck, and I offered to go through by myself.”
Azeem shook his head. “That should have gone horribly wrong.”
Tony nodded and Baz tried to disappear in his chair when Cal glared at him.
“Yeah, I figured it was a bit of a crapshoot, but honestly, it felt like the right thing to do at the time,” she said. “I don’t think I have that much Fairie blood.” She didn’t mention the dizzy spells she’d experienced, but without thinking, she once again rubbed her fingers across the material covering the necklace the Noir Witch had given her. Then she shrugged. “So anyway, I went through and there was this giant kid.”
“A giant kid?” Cal said, confused.
“A giant who was a young giant,” she said, and as he nodded, she added, “and he wasn’t all that bright either. But he was a sweet guy.” She got looks from all three of the males. “What? He was sweet. He was really upset that I didn’t have anything for him. I think he does the heavy lifting for his mother, and she pays him in kitsch.”
“His mother?”
“Yeah. She’s a witch.” She waited a minute for them to calm down while the three commented on that particular crapfest. “I don’t know why you’re surprised. Look—a smuggling ring for magical items, a possible wizard, payments in cheesy Mundane kitsch. I figured witches from the start.” She paused and then continued. “Basically, I went through, met Bogey.” They looked blank until she added, “The giant kid?”
Cal snorted. “No way. A giant named Bogey? Like Bogey-man?”
“Uhm…nah. More like Humphrey Bogart, I think,” Tony said. “Mama seems to be a noir fan. Anyhow, when I came through, the portal disappeared. It seemed to surprise Bogey, so that must not be normal. I suppose that might be connected to my Super blood.” She glanced at Baz and didn’t elaborate on that. “I had to explain to him why I didn’t have anything to trade. The guy on the Mundane side just wanted to get the other merchandise through from Fairie before the portal collapsed, so he pushed me to go. If I hadn’t gone, I think it would have blown the whole deal. I mean, what smuggler wouldn’t take something for nothing? Certainly the Sutherlands are that greedy.” She shrugged. “Once the Tempo disappeared, I thought I was stuck there. Then Mama rode in on her broomstick and made it reappear.”
Azeem gaped, “She made it reform? Just like that? No Being sacrificed, no blood magic?”
“No, no. She made it reappear. It didn’t go away when I travelled through it to Fairie. It simply vanished from sight. It was there the whole time. That was a giant grocery bag of weird.”
“And then?” Azeem asked.
“Then she got Bogey to bring out the m
erchandise, asked me to climb on and to touch everything with some part of my body as it went through the portal. I did, we went through, and Gandalf, the whack-job on the other side, divvied it up.” She didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t mentioned the medallion.
“Gandalf?” Azeem seemed astounded.
“When did he tell you his name?” de Groot asked.
Tony flushed. “Oh, he never gave his name. It’s that cloak—it kept blowing in the breeze that wasn’t there, like a bad Hollywood movie.” She flipped up her hands. “I’ve got to call him something! Bogey almost spilled his name, but his mother caught it and I didn’t get enough to be sure of anything specific. Anyway, out of the pile I brought back, he took one long box, like a flower box, only, well, probably as long as I am tall but wider and deeper. He also took two other boxes. Those three were the items he really wanted and was willing to waive our ‘fee’ to get. Baz had ‘fixed’ the truck by then,” she put in air quotes, “so he drove it over, we loaded our boxes and left.” Once again, she made no mention of the medallion, but she wouldn’t have. At that moment, she didn’t remember having it.
For a second, no one said anything. Then Azeem shook his head. “I have never heard of anything like this in connection with a Temporary Portal. Usually, they form at the site of dark magic, some dark sacrifice, and then they go away. I have never heard of one that vanished from sight without completely dispersing. This is unprecedented.”
Cal reluctantly held up his hand, like a kid in class.
“What, Detective Kelly?” Azeem asked wearily.
“Sir, usually Tempos are doors to Fairie that either entice Natties to Fairie or allow them to leave Fairie.”
“Yes, I know that, Detective. Clarify your point, please.”
