Precinct 13

by Tate Hallaway

  Meanwhile, Jack used my computer to make inquiries to New York and elsewhere. He found a woman in Ohio who had a gryphon familiar who was more than happy to participate. We worked out a way for her to send me all the specifics I needed, and she even thought she might know someone with access to a Sasquatch.

  When we hung up the videocall, I had to ask, “Really? Sasquatch?”

  Jack just smiled. I went back to carefully measuring and documenting the damaged cow with a shake of my head.

  The angel, as predicted, turned out to be extremely reticent. When I realized who Jack had on the line, I couldn’t resist peering over his shoulder at the Skyped image. The man on the computer screen was extraordinarily beautiful, but so androgynous as to be somewhat unsettling. He was mixed race with dark skin, and had the kind of loose-flowing wavy hair that I associated with Indian women. No trace of stubble dotted his chin, and its smooth flawlessness might have made him seem a bit soft, but for his eyes. In them there was a hollow mercilessness that frightened me more deeply than anything I’d ever seen reflected in Valentine’s.

  “No,” was all he said.

  With that, the conversation was over.

  Jack let out a breath as we both stared at the static image of his Skype icon: the Los Angeles Angels’ halo-encircled “A.” “I suppose that went pretty well,” Jack said. “He didn’t tear us asunder.”

  By the time we finished that evening, I had several cow head trauma experiments ready to go. According to Jack, Devon would be incapacitated for another night, so we’d plan to start some time tomorrow. That having been decided, I looked around the morgue for something else to do and found nothing. It was just as well. Thanks to the early morning and all the day’s excitement, my eyes were getting blurry and my muscles ached.

  I was ready to go home.

  I offered Jack a ride back to the precinct headquarters, but he declined. He made some noises about needing fresh air after having been cooped up in a basement all afternoon, but I thought, perhaps, he didn’t want the intimacy of even such a short drive.

  That made me a little sad, but I could hardly blame him. He’d basically asked me out this morning, and I’d agreed under false pretenses. Jack had every right to want to inject a bit of professional distance back into our relationship.

  Even though I was tired, I found myself dawdling before closing up the morgue. I wasn’t sure what things were going to be like at home with Valentine waiting there. I’d told him we were okay, but now that I faced the prospect of “us” time, I was less sure. I locked the door and made my way to my car.

  The air outside finally felt like spring, heavy with the wetness of melting snow. Stars sprinkled across the immense blackness of the sky. I paused for a moment before getting into my car, and stared up at the cloudless night. What must it feel like to fly?

  I drove the rest of the way home trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Valentine knew.

  SIXTEEN

  There was no dinner on the stove when I walked in the door this time. In fact, the house was dark. I left my coat and boots in the mudroom with a sigh. Valentine must have found somewhere more interesting to be, though I did notice that his duffel was still on the couch at least.

  I picked it up, thinking I’d put it in my room. The last thing I wanted was for Robert to get annoyed with the way Val left his things strewn around. The duffel was much heavier than I expected. Since the zipper was open, I peered inside to see if he was carrying the anvil. Instead, I found something that looked a bit like a bowling ball, except it had no fingerholds. I picked it up to inspect it. It was some kind of black stone, polished to a shine, with flecks of white crystals in fernlike patterns scattered throughout.

  “Snowflake obsidian.” Valentine stood in the archway between the living room and the small dining room. The lights were off and he was entirely in shadow. For a moment, all I could see was the glow of his ghostly pale skin.

  I jumped and nearly dropped the massive stone. “What is it?” I asked. Then, realizing he’d just answered that question in a way, I rephrased. “What does it do? Why do you have it?”

  When Valentine stepped into the light, he looked as if I’d woken him from a nap, wearing warm-looking, heavy cotton navy sweatpants and not much else. His short hair was slightly mussed.

  All in all, he seemed very…human.

  “I have it for the same reason I have anything. It’s beautiful.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added with a little self-satisfied smile, “And I stole it.”

  A very dragonlike answer.

  Carefully, I returned the stone to his duffel and set both back on the couch. I’d ask him if it bothered him to carry something so heavy around, but I had seen him pick up a dead cow like it was nothing. I knew him too well to expect much more of an answer as to why have it at all. I collapsed onto the cushions with a sigh. “You’re not human, are you?”

  Instead of joining me, he came up behind the couch. His hands massaged the knots in my neck. The pressure was just right: hard enough to pop and stretch, but never quite hurting. “Depends, I suppose, how narrowly you define ‘human.’ ”

  The hands that caressed me were calloused and dry and, as I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine the silken hardness of scales. But not quite. This afternoon’s transformation seemed far away. Right now, I let myself relax into his touch. “Jones is convinced you’re evil incarnate, you know.”

  “Jones…” Valentine considered as he worked my shoulder blades, “…is the one who tried to shoot me?”

  In between happy noises, I managed to say, “Yes.”

  “I didn’t like him,” Valentine said, and I could hear the disgusted crinkle of his nose in his voice. “He smelled of fairy silver.”

  “Yeah,” I said, remembering the other strange visit of the day. “He would. His mother is the queen of fairies.”

  “With a mother like that, your friend may easily mistake indifference for maliciousness. Being evil requires that you care enough about the outcome to actively thwart the efforts of another.”

  I twisted around to look Valentine in the eyes. As usual, I saw that cool detachment there. “So you’re not evil, you just don’t care?”

  “I care a great deal about many things,” he said. His thumb traced the thin welt that the casing’s heat had left on my cheek. “One of the most precious is you.”

  Valentine had never said anything like that before, and it hung between us, profoundly. I’d turned all the way around in the couch, so I was kneeling on the seat.

  He kissed me. I wrapped my arms around him, drawing him closer. My dragon-hearted lover might never say he loved me, but at least he’d told me that I mattered to him. A single tear streaked down my cheek.

  When we pulled apart, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me what you were?”

  “You never asked,” he said.

  “That’s no answer,” I insisted. “We were talking about demons and crazy things. Things I thought I saw, but that you believed in. Why wouldn’t you tell me something so important about yourself?”

  “You know you weren’t ready. For every second we spent talking about bridge trolls, you would spend hundreds of hours rationalizing and denying them. You were tying yourself into knots, making yourself sick. If I had told you, it would have scared you to ground. You would have bolted just like your jackrabbit friend.”

  Though he was unnecessarily unkind to Jack, I knew what he said was true. Even so, all the hurt of those times roiled up. I pulled away, and crossed my arms in front of my chest defensively. “Jack said familiars are supposed to protect a witch, introduce us to our own kind, and make sure we don’t have to go through shit like that.”

  My angry accusations didn’t even faze him. “And I would have, if it weren’t for the immediate threat that Gayle represented.”

  The stepmonster.

  Of course.

  Turning, I slumped back down onto the couch. This time, Valentine came around to perch on the end table in order
to face me. “She masked your signal very effectively for many years,” Valentine said. “I only began to hear the call after you left home for college.”

  I’d been planning on medical school from the beginning and, in order to save money, had stayed close to home for undergraduate work. I had lived with my dad a lot on and off during those years, despite the atmosphere there. “You ‘heard’ me? I thought it was a smell.”

  He cocked his head slightly. “Smell, yes, but more than that. I’m not sure I can describe the feeling to a creature with no sense of instinct. Sometimes, there are simply things I must do. Finding you was one of those.”

  I felt weirdly flattered, but there was still so much I didn’t understand. Other than seeing things that no one else did, I’d never felt especially magical. In fact, that’d just made me feel weird and out of place. Everyone else’s life seemed cooler. I couldn’t conjure things from my mind. I’d never been able to cast a spell in my life, at least none I ever knew about. I was even terrible at those card tricks and other phony illusions you could buy in magic shops. “Why? Why me?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “All that was certain to me was that you were something I had to have, own, possess—guard, like the finest jewel in the hoard.”

  Well, at least now I knew why he never told me he loved me. I wasn’t sure I liked this particular revelation, though. I pushed my back against the couch. “I’m your very best possession, huh?”

  He surprised me by laughing. “You, my dear, have proven a surprisingly difficult gem to acquire. I don’t believe I have managed that feat just yet. You are far too wild, too…willful a thing to be owned in any decent fashion. I have had to satisfy myself with continual pursuit.”

  My defensive posture melted slightly at that. After all, I thought of him the exact same way.

  The mischievous glint in his eyes inspired me to duck under his arm. I dashed across the room.

  “Okay, then,” I teased from around the archway. I enjoyed his stunned expression. With a laugh, I dashed into the dining room in the direction of the bedroom. “See if you can catch me!”

  Though we played that game for a long time, I have to admit that at several points during the night, Valentine completely and quite thoroughly possessed me.

  I woke up to an empty bed, however. When I reached over to give Valentine a morning cuddle, I found the big black stone ball instead. He’d stuck a Post-it note to the top of it. With blinking morning eyes, I read his scrawling, old-fashioned cursive: “Had to fly. (Ha. Ha.) Will be back.”

  Of course, I had no idea if he meant tonight or sometime next year. I crumpled up the yellow paper and tossed it onto the floor. I should know by now that the easiest way to get rid of a dragon is to give him what he wants. I’d bored him by giving in last night.

  At least I had his promise that he’d come back around eventually.

  I was beginning to think that was a fairly big commitment from someone like Valentine. Despite myself, I smiled as I got up and dressed for work.

  When I went in for the morning meeting, the precinct office was buzzing with excitement. Two zombies had been spotted at Big Tom’s diner. Stone and Jones were on their way out to collect them if they could. Everyone thought the reanimation was likely the work of the necromancer, and it could be the big break we were looking for in this case.

  Devon stood next to the watercooler with an empty cup listing in his hand. He looked completely hungover. He wore the same college sweatshirt he’d had on days ago, but now it was rumpled and stained with dust and grime. A hole had been ripped in the knee of his jeans. Deep bags hung under his eyes and there was a bruise on his stubbled chin.

  I decided not to ask the obvious question. Instead, after he muttered a “morning” in my general direction, I asked, “Does Big Tom’s have brains on the breakfast menu or something?”

  He stared at me blankly.

  “Zombies,” I said. “Don’t they eat brains?”

  Devon yawned and rubbed his neck, as if he had a sore muscle, and said, “Not in my experience.” He gave me a quick appraisal and added, “Rumor has it you’re shtupping a dragon. I told Margot I didn’t believe it for a minute.” He coughed out a laugh like he thought that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

  Because he was so smug about the impossibility, I said, very proudly, “It’s true.”

  “Well, then, welcome to the unnatural club.” He gave me a salute with his paper cup. “I’m glad I won’t be the only one in the office everyone hates.”

  “Oh no, Devon, don’t worry. I’m sure that will still be the case.”

  His mouth hung open as I sauntered away.

  Over my shoulder, I added, “Don’t forget your appointment at the morgue this afternoon. You and Stone have some cow heads to smash.”

  He smiled a bit. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Finally a chance to show her which of us is strongest.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Without the morning meeting to attend, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself. I wished Jones had assigned me a desk. When he came back, I would ask him about it. Meanwhile, I found myself drifting over to where Jack sat reading the Capitol Times. Leaning against the edge of his wooden desk to peer over his shoulder, I asked, “Does it mention Olson’s cows?”

  “Yes,” he said, pointing to the piece. “And some neighbor mentioned seeing ‘dancing lights’ and space aliens.”

  The article was buried in the community section, under the fold on a middle page. Still, I couldn’t imagine Jones would be very happy with this. “At least there’s no picture.”

  “Small miracles,” Jack muttered, taking a sip from a mug at his desk. Whatever he was drinking smelled very green. “The interviewing officers said a lot of people mentioned lights. I wonder if they’re fairy?”

  I shook my head. “The queen was very clear that the only fairy in Hughes County is Jones.”

  “You should really learn to call him Spenser. Everyone does.”

  It was the first time Jack pulled himself from the newspaper long enough to look me in the eye. I smiled at him sheepishly. “That’ll take some doing,” I admitted. “It’s a lot easier for me to believe in magic than call a cop by his first name.”

  “Is it a respect thing?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “And fear. Cops scare me.”

  He didn’t ask me why; instead, he shrugged and returned his focus to the paper. “You, of all people, should have nothing to fear. Call him Spense, for oak’s sake.”

  “Me, of all people? What does that mean?”

  “You’re the one with the dragon,” he said stiffly.

  Everyone seemed obsessed with that fact this morning and rather pissy about it as well. I’d thought Jack was cool with the fact I had a dragon familiar. Or was he feeling hurt about the other rumor Devon had heard? I’d told Jones that Valentine was my boyfriend. Had Jack not figured that out?

  How ironic that Valentine had left me—with nothing but a note and a giant black ball. It made me wonder, though. Talk was clearly circulating. What did people think of me now? Where did I fit in the office politics hierarchy with my tendency toward the unnatural and a dragon on call?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted the aggravation. I’d never asked for this gig. The only office mates I’d wanted to have to deal with were dead people—ones who didn’t talk back!

  “I’ll be at the morgue if anyone needs me,” I told the back of Jack’s head as I walked out the door.

  Unfortunately, Mrs. Finnegan was in an especially chatty mood today. She told me all about her daughter who was coming to pick up her body. I tried to make polite, interested comments for a while, but when I realized that only encouraged her, I gave up and put on my headphones.

  My mind wandered as I listened to the music. Jack was jealous, that much was clear. It made no sense to me, however. In my mind, he’d gotten the better familiar. Sarah Jane was charming. She might come with a bullyish band of magpies, but I doubted she’d
ever done time for grievous bodily harm. As far as familiars went, she seemed perfect. Mine was violent and temperamental, and even on his best days he could be crafty and deceitful. Our entire relationship was founded on a lie, or at least a dishonest disguise. Sarah Jane was exactly as advertised.

  Of course, he might just be old-fashioned jealous, too. Maybe I was right and Jack hadn’t realized Valentine was my lover as well as my familiar until someone in the office told him.

  I wished I could explain to Jack that, even with Valentine in my life, there was room for more affection. Valentine was many wonderful things to me, but he’d always have the emotional distance…of a dragon.

  That was such a relief to be able to say, because the coldness I got from Valentine used to eat me up. I thought there was something wrong with me, some part of my personality that wasn’t fulfilling him. But, now I knew. It was just his nature. He loved me in his own way; it just wasn’t the human way.

  Jack had nothing to be jealous of.

  Hell, Jack actually knew magic and how to perform it intentionally. The only thing I’d ever done, magically speaking, was accidentally graft someone else’s weapon to my arm. I couldn’t even hope to get rid of it without Jack’s help.

  I glanced at the snake’s head on the back of my hand. It had moved again. The tip of its nose was tucked slightly under its scaly neck, almost like a sleeping cat, except its lidless black eye stared out at me.

  It looked content and comfortable.

  I should have been repulsed, but instead I had to resist the urge to give it a gentle, loving stroke.

  What was wrong with me? Was Devon right? Had I gone over to the dark side finally?

  I let out a frustrated snort. Maybe I’d never left it.

  The music switched to something that always reminded me of Valentine, Mariah Carey’s song “My All.” “If it’s wrong to love you,” I sang along, “then my heart just won’t let me be right.”

  My emotions were a complete tangle. I made some headway on both cases, however.

  The lab at the hospital came back with some preliminary results of the tox screen on the necromancer. They found trace amounts of sorbitol and paradichlorobenzene on the skin samples I’d taken during the autopsy. Both were chemicals used in embalming. Sorbitol was used to return moisture to the body and the paradicholorobenzene was a mold inhibitor. I supposed he could have picked both up while handling the bodies he’d robbed from the graves, but there was another chemical present that made me wonder—borax. It was a common enough household chemical, but it was also used to adjust the pH of embalming fluids. That seemed more like the kind of thing you’d have on your skin if you were actively mixing those chemicals, like a mortician would.