by Jackie May
I turn my backside to him and wave my brush in lazy arcs. Then, spinning to face him, I rear back onto my hind legs to give a very unladylike view under the hood.
He rolls his eyes up to the treetops. “Yeah, not a boy, I get it.”
Time to prance. I show him my best runway walk, to the left, to the right, head held high, tail bouncing. I’m bigger and much stronger than any fox in the wild. My luxurious coat is the same color as my human hair—the rustic golden red of fall leaves—but spreading from my nose down my front and under my belly is a soft white undercoat matching the tip of my brush. My ears are very tall and very black. But most arresting are my bright eyes. Throughout all of recorded history and across all cultures, foxes have always had a reputation for sly mischief because of eyes that crackle like mine.
Brenner’s ticks are in overdrive. Both knees bounce, heels hammering at the lowest step. He blinks erratically—more like a series of flinches, really. He turns a palm up, as though he might ask a question, but doesn’t open his mouth.
Speechless, eh? We’ll see about that.
Very slowly, very deliberately, I advance toward him. Two steps, stop, look at him. Two more steps, stop. I bow my head low, and with two more steps I’m at his knee. In case he isn’t getting the charade, I nudge his leg with my head.
He moves a tentative hand toward my ears. “Oh…I wondered…but then I didn’t want to be, like…”
Like what? Handsy? Are you such a square? Just pet me, dammit! Finally he leans forward, inching his fingers toward my head with agonizing hesitation. Just as he gets close enough to make my fur stand on end, I snap my teeth at his fingertips. He jerks back—“Ow, shit!”—and shakes his hand wildly, even though I didn’t touch him, the baby.
I caper with bratty glee, and then, to show there’s no hard feelings, I roll onto my back in the ivy and peer up at him—upside down—with front paws gathered under my chin and back legs stretched out. With my entire underside completely exposed, I am showing Brenner—in canine language—the utmost respect and submission. An alpha would be thrilled. Brenner probably just thinks I want him to rub my belly.
So I shift back. It happens in a blink, a pop of magic rustling the ivy, too quick for Brenner to avert his gaze. I roll onto my knees, hands in my lap, and I’m relieved to see that Brenner doesn’t look away, and he doesn’t seem embarrassed.
“That’s…I mean…” He blinks a lot. “That other fox that was here, he’s, like, a mangy little rat compared to you.”
“I bet you say that to all the ladies.” I gesture at the pile of clothes behind him. I figure he’ll just toss them to me, but he doesn’t. After gathering up each item, he hands the pile to me, then resumes his place on the steps.
“You’re not like anybody I’ve…” He shakes his head. Words have failed him. “And I don’t mean just that you can…obviously, I’ve never known a shifter before. You’re the first fox person I’ve known, but I’ve known a lot of people persons, and you’re…” He stares at his hands, as though they might give him the words…and then, finally, a complete thought strikes him. “It’s like you’re everything I wish I was.”
I’m dumbfounded. I’m blushing. And I’m wondering how much magic the healer shot me up with? I’m…look, let’s just say that in the last twenty-four hours—including those moments standing at a demon god’s throne in front of a neon sky—this moment is the most surreal. Who talks like this? People don’t. We rib, we elbow, we poke at old wounds, we bandy with inside jokes, we one-up and cut down—not always to be mean, but to say what we mean without having to actually say it. I may be an underworld creature; I may be kneeling naked in the ivy; but Brenner is the real freak here.
The haunting fills his eyes. “If I was just smarter, or knew more about all this stuff, I could have…well, I could have…”
Quickly, I dress and plop down on the step next to him. “You could have…what?”
It takes him a long time to answer. “Saved Haley.” He clears his throat and folds his arms across his knees. “But I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier, to Agent Hillerman, how it’s not your fault, what happened to Dario Machlin. You didn’t pull the trigger. Other people made those choices.”
“And there’s nothing you could have done for Haley, if it was vampires.”
“There were three of them. Broke into her apartment. I was supposed to pick her up, but I was late. When she didn’t answer the door, I let myself in, and they were…I shot one, but it only slowed him down. I don’t know why they didn’t just kill me, too.”
“Because,” I say, trying to sound delicate, “they had just fed.”
He nods quickly. I’ve confirmed something he already suspected. “But, okay, so I couldn’t have stopped them. But what if I hadn’t been wasted out of my mind at the time? So much drugs back then…if I were clear, maybe things would have happened different.”
“You don’t know.”
“But I do know.” He rests his forehead on his folded arms, a lost little boy. “I know that Haley only stayed in Chicago because of me. No parents, no family. We only had each other, and if Haley wasn’t so worried about me all the time, she would’ve left.”
“To go where?”
“Anywhere!” Unfolding himself, he stretches his legs and blinks emotion out of bloodshot eyes. “Anywhere but Chicago. She didn’t want to go to DePaul, are you kidding? She could go to any school in the world. She wanted to travel. She wanted to speak other languages, Japanese and shit that I don’t even…and she saved up money for it, too. But her dumbass brother…and I was supposed to be the older one—”
“Don’t do that.”
“Why? Because it’s not our job to make sure everybody plays nice? That’s what you said, and I agree—”
“It’s impossible.”
“I know, but what is my job? I can’t stop them from doing it, but my job is to at least catch them after, and it’s been two years. I’ve got nothing. I’m not…this job is for people like you. You’re smart, you’re quick, you know what to do, you have confidence.”
“And I saw you take on two vamps at once. That’s not confidence?”
“No, that’s just dumb. Dumb as it gets, I know that. That’s me not being able to control…when I get mad like that, I just see red.”
“Got the fight in you, that’s for sure. You take a beating like there’s no tomorrow.”
“It’s rage. And not even at them. It’s useless.” Something occurs to him. “Wait, your arm…”
“All better now.” I offer my bare arm to him. Some part of me wants him to trace his fingertips over the skin, and to not stop there…
He locks eyes with me, and something in his look—not confused, but complex—makes another part of me feel ashamed. The kind of shame I could imagine from a middle-aged high school teacher who makes a pass at a vulnerable student. Ugly mood. I might be more damaged than he is. My arm hangs out there for a moment. I pull it back.
Brenner tugs at his tie. “Did you guys figure out what to do with me?”
“What do you mean?”
“People aren’t supposed to know about you, right? I’m not supposed to know—”
“Oh, you mean are we going to kill you now?” Several wisecracks come to mind, but I decide (reluctantly) to stay in Brenner’s comfort zone. Sincere, straightforward conversation—a real heart-to-heart—does not come easy to me, but I am capable, I swear. I say, “No. You get to live.” And I give an encouraging smile.
He rubs his face. “I promise you, I’m not always like this. It’s just, today…”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
“Two years…” His voice catches in his throat, so he holds up two fingers while he fights for composure. “Two years. I knew what I’d seen. Even though I was wasted, even with all the drugs, I know what I saw. Three guys with fangs. And white eyes, just blanks, no pupils.”
I resist the urge to contradict his story—vampires don’t have white eyes like that. Fangs,
yes, drinking blood, yes, but solid white eyes, no. Whatever, in any case we can agree that they were: “Not human.”
“Something out of a nightmare. Only real. But who would believe me?”
“Did you tell anybody?”
“No. How would I even…” He shakes the thought away. “But when I heard about Rosalind Rose. We’re getting briefed at the office, and I see the crime scene photo, and it’s just…it’s the same. It’s Haley all over again. And the same problem all over again. Nobody else can see it the way I see it. I can’t say any of the things I want to say, because who could ever…” His shoulders drop, along with the rest of his thought. He gives me that complicated look again. “Until I met you.”
Ho, boy. Temptation is a bitch. How easy would it be right now for me to take Brenner’s hand and say You’re not alone anymore, honey. And pull him to me. Sure, it’s immature and irresponsible, but sex right now, after having been nearly killed, after so much anger and frustration, so much stress, so much adrenaline. This day is such a huge mess with so many question marks; how tantalizing to simply let all that go with a spine-tingling gasp and the rush of release—
“—you didn’t even know me,” Brenner is saying, “but you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, those guys are vampires, and my friend here is a demon, and, oh look, a coyote shifter, help me carry him.’” He cups his trembling hands together and stares into them, as though holding something precious but incomprehensible. “Like, what! Who are you, and please don’t ever leave me!”
My heartbeat races up into a lump in my throat, which then pounds against my tightly closed lips and finally bursts out with a messy laugh. I’m just about to slap a hand over my mouth and apologize, but now Brenner’s shoulders are shaking with a laugh that is half sad. His eyes glisten.
“I’m serious. You don’t even know,” he says, “I had you. I had you right there with me, the proof, you know, about Haley, the answers, the…everything.” His sad smile turns painful again. “And then you were gone. And the worst part is, I never would have known, if you hadn’t got my memories back.”
“But you would have also lost all that horrible shit. I mean, the way you talked about Haley. You practically glowed.”
“No!” His sudden anger is surprising. His eyes begin to flinch again. “Remember the deal, we made a deal. If something happens and I forget again, remember what you promised.”
“Wait, are you talking about the thing where I kill you?”
“The thing where you promised to do that for me, yes. And in return I give you everything I got. I don’t care what it is, I’ll do it.”
“Look—”
“Anything you need, any time, day or night, life or death, I don’t care, I’m yours. I just want to stay in this world. The world where I know the truth.”
Oh my gosh, it’s like he’s offering me the One Ring with all its corrupting power. Get it away from me. “Hey, I’m not, like…” I want to get him to understand that I’m not everything he thinks I am—I want to say, Dude, all that stuff I said at Dario’s apartment, here’s a vampire, here’s a demon, look at this coyote, I WAS MAKING FUN OF YOU. And getting your memories restored? I wasn’t thinking about helping you, I just needed your information! Geez, you really are dumb, aren’t you? But I suddenly have to turn away and blink rapidly. So stupid! Fine, I’ll kill you, just don’t worship me. He’s saying all the kinds of things I’ve been desperate to hear for so long from somebody, anybody. But it’s all a lie. Dammit, even when I get something right, I’ve done it wrong. “I’m not what you think.”
“You mean, you’re not a superhero?”
“Okay, you definitely haven’t met enough of us, trust me. I mean, around here, I’m just…you saw, just a cute little fox.” I point outside. “You know the black guy with the cowboy hat? Nick Gorgeous? You know what he is?”
“Is he a lion?”
“No, he’s not a…what’s with lions? Why are you so scared of lions?”
“Nightmares as a kid, of a black lion under the dinner table, and so when I’d put my legs under there—”
“Oh, what the f—” But I decide to change directions. “Look, forget all that. Just tell me—under certain circumstances you want me to murder you, fine, but it’s not like you have a death wish or anything, right?” No answer. “Right?”
He only shrugs.
“That’s not why you do this job?”
“No.”
“You do it for your sister?”
“I wish I could say that.”
“Okay.” So what is it, then?
Another shrug. “I do it to keep busy. There’s a reason why cops burn through so many marriages, you know. This job will take over your life, if you let it. Always another case, another call at three in the morning. You could go for months without having one thought outside the job.”
“So, you do it to avoid your life.”
“No different than drugs, really. Mind-numbing.” At Brenner’s feet is his phone. He holds it up. “I’ve been sitting here for the last hour reading through a dead guy’s bank transactions.”
“You’ve been working this whole time?”
“I know, right? It’s sad. But it beats thinking about other things.”
“Whose bank transactions? Dario’s?”
“Yeah, just staring at it, like a giant crossword puzzle. And you can guess how good I am at those.” He rubs absently at a spot between his glazed-over eyes. “I’ve been going down each entry, one by one, checking addresses, looking them up, seeing if there’s any patterns like the one that only took you thirty seconds to find.”
“And nothing?”
“The only thing that sticks out, really, is a charge for a place called Moon Spa.”
“Moan Spa.”
“No, Moon Spa.” He checks his phone to be sure.
“I know, but we call it Moan Spa because of all the noises you hear through the walls. It’s an underworld sex parlor, the kind of place where Dario would have a tab. They don’t ask if you want a man or a woman; they ask how many? What was the charge?”
“That’s what I’m stuck on. It was only for a reservation, but—”
“No!” This could be something. Wheels turning.
“No?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did you say no?”
“About him having a reservation for last night.”
“Wait…how did you know that?”
“Because you said you’re stuck on it, which means something about it doesn’t make sense, which means the reservation was probably for last night, when we found him not at Moan Spa, but at home with a half-naked woman. Am I right?”
He stares. Dazzled again, dammit. “His reservation was for eight o’clock.”
“Whew boy, early starter. Okay…” I go back to the beginning. Lay it out, nice and easy. “I’m going to walk through this, but I want you to give me your answers before I give you mine, to see if we both come up with the same thing.”
He runs a knuckle back and forth across his chin. Intimidated.
“There’s no wrong answers. Just spitball with me.”
“Okay.”
“So, Dario Machlin has a reservation at Moan Spa for eight o’clock last night. Only he never shows up. Why?”
“Because he’s dead.”
Okay, maybe there are wrong answers. “Right, but he wasn’t dead yet at eight o’clock. So why didn’t he go to Moan Spa?”
“Because he was at home with a woman.”
“On a date?”
He thinks about it. “No?”
Good. “Why not a date?”
“Because a date, he would have planned on it.”
“If he’d had a date, why have a reservation at Moon Spa, right? He would have canceled. Which tells us what?”
He searches…comes up blank.
Try again: “About the woman at Dario’s apartment last night, it tells us he…”
Light bulb. “He wasn’t expecting her.”
; “Boom. He wasn’t expecting a visitor last night.”
“All right, so she shows up unannounced.”
“Yep. So, why? Why did she show up out of the blue? Who does that?”
“I don’t know.” He gives me an innocent look. “You were going to do that.”
“That is a wrong answer.”
“No wrong answers!”
“We’re talking about this woman. Who is she?”
“One of the fey things, right? One of the killers.”
I count off bullet points on my fingers. “One of two killers, a man and a woman. They tried to blow us up at the grocery store. They’re the same two who shot up Dario’s place last night. When dumbass Ben follows me and starts a fight with Dario, the mystery woman goes running out the front door and comes back a few minutes later with her partner.”
“So, he was close by.”
“Exactly. Probably waiting for her in a car. So was she really there for a hookup? With her guy friend waiting outside in the car?”
“No.”
“No.” Feeling my stride now. Picking up speed. “Let’s think about the casino. Late last night, a super hot guy shows up—”
“—He’s a fey, faerie, thing, like her.”
“With a glamour, yeah. That’s what Henry Stadther thought. This guy solicits both of Dario’s succubuses, and he kills them.”
“Poisons their drinks.”
“So there’s the method, right? Show up, solicit sex, and then…”
“That’s why the woman went to Dario’s.”
“Boom. That’s why the guy’s waiting out in the car, because this isn’t going to take long. The woman invites herself in, they get naked, she pours him a drink, game over, right back to the car.”
Brenner shakes his head. “But why?”
“Exactly. Why kill them? Hold on, first tell me this: who are these fey? How do they know Dario?”
“They’re the buyers, right? They’re the ones he was getting stuff for.”
