Tanned Hide

by R. A. Meenan

couldn’t even get my brother to safety and avenge our parents’ deaths. He was stuck as a bargaining chip and I couldn’t fix it.

  As I stood, the horrible, awful truth hit me. There was no such thing as a magic hit.

  When I left the room, Philip came out of another room down the way with his new social worker, a pale colored housecat in a gray business suit and red high heels. I tried to avoid scowling at her. It wasn’t her fault that they were taking Philip away from me.

  Philip ran over to me and I fell to one knee to pull him into my arms. He gripped back and the tears that had been missing at the news of Mom’s death finally appeared in his eyes.

  “Neil, they’re taking me away! They won’t even let me into the house to get my stuff!” He sobbed.

  I clutched him tight. “It’s just for a little while, kiddo. Just until we get things settled. I’ll come see you all the time, okay?”

  Philip looked at me with tear stained fur and splayed ears. “I’m scared.”

  I ruffed the fur between his ears. “I know, Philip, but this woman will take care of you.” I gave her a quick look. She lifted her gaze, folded her arms and frowned. The contemptible look she threw at me stung, but I probably deserved it. I shook my head and looked back at Philip. “I’ll get you soon. I promise. I’m not going to leave you.” I smiled. “But now I need you to be a big boy and do what she says. Okay?”

  Philip sniffled and nodded. “Okay.”

  “It’s time to go, Philip,” the social worker said.

  I gripped him one more time. “I promise I’ll see you soon.”

  Philip didn’t say goodbye. He just hugged me and dragged himself back to his social worker. I stood and she gave me her card with no smile. I stared after them as they disappeared around the corner.

  Trecheon was waiting for me in the lobby, poking at the hole in his left mechanical hand with a small screwdriver.

  I frowned and splayed an ear. “Are they salvageable?”

  “They’ll be fine,” Trecheon said. “No major damage.” He stood and patted my shoulder. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

  I nodded. It took all my willpower to make my legs move and leave my brother behind.

  Nine

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Black, but I can’t in good conscience approve this application.” The pale housecat stamped the papers in front of her with a huge red “REJECTED” stamp.

  I held in a snarl. This had been the fourth time in ten months since my parents’ deaths that I had saved up and worked through the supposed issues to apply to adopt Philip. This social worker had it in for me. “Tell me, Miss Piper. What’s wrong this time?”

  “I never said anything was wrong,” Miss Piper said, half-glaring at me from across her oak desk.

  “You have every other time you’ve rejected my applications,” I growled. “First it was my location--”

  “You lived in one of the highest crime areas of El Dorado, Mr. Black.”

  “So I moved,” I said. “I packed everything up and picked up a nice place in one of the suburban areas. But then you complained about the state of my furniture and apartment.”

  “Your apartment wasn’t fit for a feral pig.”

  “So I fixed that too,” Neil said. “It’s sparkling clean. It just smells of perfection. You could probably eat off the carpet. But that wasn’t good enough either. You complained about my business.”

  “You make next to nothing in your pathetic business, Mr. Black.”

  “So, then I changed that,” I said. “My business has grown now. I’ve got employees and a reputation to match. Heck, I’m thinking about buying a house.” I leaned over her desk. “I’m in perfect standing now. So tell me. What’s wrong?”

  Miss Piper narrowed her eyes at me. “Did the FBI ever clear your name?”

  I flattened both ears. “The FBI never dirtied it. Where are you going with this?”

  “I was there the day Officer Wilde accused you of being involved with the Fawn Family,” Miss Piper said. “I know you’re a suspect in Miss Fawn’s murder. And I know that you’re likely responsible for your parents’ deaths. So forgive me if I repeat myself, but I cannot, in good conscience, let you adopt Philip.”

  I snarled. “That evidence was circumstantial. They never even followed up on it. You can’t deny me the chance to adopt my brother on a hunch. There are laws that prevent that.”

  “I can, and I will,” Miss Piper said. She leaned forward with an angry frown. “There are always ways around the laws when it means protecting innocent children from murderers, Mr. Black.”

  I stood, slamming a fist on her desk. “You little--”

  She leaned back and flipped open my case file. “Displays unprovoked bouts of anger and aggression,” she recited, while writing. “Worries about possible abuse and neglect. . .” She glanced at me over the file. “Anything else you want to add to that, Mr. Black?”

  “You’re a horrible monster, Miss Piper.”

  “No, Mr. Black,” she said. “You are the horrible monster.” She passed me the rejected application. “Better luck next time. Assuming there will be a next time.” She waved me out of her office.

  I walked out with the application in hand, consciously closing the door slowly so she couldn’t add “violence” to my case file. God dammit. Damn it all to hell. How the hell did this happen?

  And yet, I couldn’t really get mad. I knew she was right. I was a monster. But I was working on it. I had spent the last ten months cutting all my assassin connections. I was getting out of the business, like Mom asked. Trecheon with me. We’d finally be clean, even if it meant I was stuck with the slow life of an HVAC man for the rest of my life.

  But I couldn’t prove that to Miss Piper. It wasn’t like I could show up and say “Hey! Remember how I was a horrible assassin? Well I’ve been clean for ten months! Here’s my rehab records!”

  If only life worked that way.

  The only thing I could do is somehow “prove” my innocence to the FBI and let them tell Miss Piper that I was clean. Only I couldn’t think of a single way to do that.

  “Need help with something, Mr. Black?” a cooing voice beckoned to me.

  I glanced up and nearly froze in place. The three doe of the Triple Danger stood in the parking lot near a limo. They wore matching dark green dresses and pearls. All of them eyed me with disturbing half-smiles.

  My first thought was to run, but I couldn’t get my legs to work. I tried speaking instead. “What do you want?”

  “We want to help, Mr. Black,” one of the doe said, pacing toward me. I noticed as she walked that she was heavily pregnant. She stopped in front of me and held out a hand. “If you’d just come with us. This won’t take long.”

  “I imagine it wouldn’t,” I said, but I didn’t take her hand.

  She lifted an ear and her smile widened. “Oh come now, Mr. Black. Don’t be so nervous. We want to help. I’m sure you’re curious.”

  “Curiosity killed the cat,” I muttered.

  “But you’re as skittish as a newborn fawn,” the doe said. She reached down and gently took my hand. “I promise, Mr. Black, we only want to help. Give us a chance.”

  Everything screamed at me to get away, but I allowed her to lead me to the limo. The four of us got in and the driver drove off. One doe pressed a button and raised the privacy glass between us and the driver. As I settled myself, I noticed a car seat with a baby fawn in it. She couldn’t have been more than two months old.

  “One of you jumped the gun before I ever got the Matron, huh?”

  “We were pretty confident.”

  One of the doe handed me a glass of champagne. I took it gingerly, but I didn’t drink it. “I never did get your names.”

  The doe who took me by the hand giggled. “Logos,” she said.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “What?”

  “My name. Logos.”

  “I’m Pathos,” another said.

  “Ethos,” the last one no
dded.

  I blinked a moment, until my mind drudged up an old English lesson. I rolled my eyes. “I get it. Clever.”

  “The Matron thought so,” Logos said. “Now, Mr. Black. We understand you’re trying to adopt your brother.”

  I tried not to flatten my ears. “Yes, I am.”

  “No luck so far,” Pathos said. “After four tries. Yes?”

  Lightning ran up my body, but I didn’t let it show. “No.”

  “All because Miss Piper believes you’re Matron Fawn’s killer,” Ethos said. She shook her head. “Tsk, tsk. Speculation can really turn a person.”

  I ground my teeth. “Just get to the point of this conversation.”

  “We want to help you get your brother back.”

  I froze in my seat. “Why?”

  Logos rubbed her pregnant belly and Ethos patted the head of the sleeping fawn in the car seat. “It’s always a shame to see families torn apart.”

  I tilted an ear. “Motherhood has mellowed you.”

  “Nonsense, Mr. Black,” Pathos said. “We’ll help you, but it’s not as if this service comes for free.”

  I tiled the other ear now. “What do you want?”

  “Assurance,” Logos said. She dug a piece of paper out of her clutch purse. “And payment.” She handed the paper to me.

  I glanced over it. It was a very official looking invoice for a “bargaining chip.” I skimmed the legal stuff, then caught the price listed. My jaw dropped.

  One million dollars.

  I looked over the paper at the girls. All three of them smiled at me.

  “You want one million dollars. For Philip.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Black,” Ethos said. “You pay us one million dollars, and we’ll make sure the FBI