Shift Work (Carus #4)

by J. C. McKenzie

  The big bad Seducer Demon was choking on my banana nut loaf.

  Sid clutched his throat and pointed at his gaping mouth.

  “What do you want me to do about it? Throw yourself against a chair.”

  Sid stopped his frantic motions and glared at me.

  “I’m serious! I can’t give you the Heimlich maneuver in my current condition, and you can hardly do it by yourself. You need to dislodge the food with abdominal thrusts.”

  Sid’s glare darkened, and his mouth flattened into a hard line. His face had passed red and went to purple.

  I sighed and relaxed into the side of the couch. If he died on the mortal plane, he’d just go back to the Demonic realm and I’d be rid of him. Rid of him until he decided to torment me in my dreams. Even if this debacle wasn’t my fault, Sid seemed like the angsty type to take it out on me anyway.

  “Okay, listen up, Demon,” I said. “Make a fist.”

  Sid clenched his fist and waved it at me.

  “Place your fist slightly above your navel.” I paused until Sid complied. “Good. Grab your fist with your other hand. Good. Now bend yourself over the back of my dining table chair.”

  Sid shot me another death glare.

  “Do it! We’re running out of time, idiot!”

  He bent over the chair. If only I had my phone. It sat useless on my bed, ensuring no photographic evidence of this moment.

  Sid made another strangled sound.

  “Shove your fist inward and upward.”

  He did, barely.

  “Again! Harder!”

  Sid cast me one last death stare before ramping his body down on the chair while thrusting his fist upward.

  My stomach cringed.

  Banana loaf spewed out of Sid’s mouth. The hard almond pieces, slathered with saliva, splattered against the table’s surface as Sid sucked back air. He doubled over the chair and gagged on more loaf, leaving a pool of chunky drool on the seat’s cushion.

  “You’re cleaning that.”

  Sid stiffened and straightened. His arm flung out, and he jutted a stiff forefinger in my direction.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “You will never speak of this,” he whispered.

  “Please, like I want to acknowledge any involvement with you.” My words were true, but I eyed my bedroom door again, which blocked the view of my phone, out of reach and out of assistance. Drat! A video of what I had just witnessed would’ve gone viral on social media. If possible, I might’ve used it as blackmail.

  Sid studied me for a few tense minutes before he nodded, more to himself than to me, as if he’d come to a decision.

  “So?” I asked.

  “So, what?” Sid tilted his head.

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.” With the couch’s help, I pulled my body up until I could get my shaky legs under me enough to stand.

  His lip quirked in a condescending smirk. I wanted to punch it off his face. “Like you could stop me?”

  “I’m not useless.” The beast stirred as she sensed my intent.

  “True, but do you realize, little Carus, I could snap you in two before you even thought to shift into the Ualida?”

  “Well, fuck you, Sid. I don’t want you marauding the Lower Mainland pulling a Bola.”

  Sid snorted. “Please. I don’t feed off blood and mayhem. I’m more likely to cause a mass orgy than slaughter.”

  He had a point. But still. The idea of him running loose in the city made my skin crawl.

  Before I could voice any further objections, Sid spoke again. “Despite what you may think. I do not wish you harm. I want you to be…content…with this bond. I wish to have a permanent anchor to the mortal realm.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen. I felt like a knife had been shoved into my uterus and twisted around.”

  Sid jerked back. His face contorted into something between horrified and disgusted.

  “Tell me your plans, or I’ll reciprocate the pain.” I ground my teeth. Consequences be damned.

  Sid cringed. After a deep breath, his shoulders sagged. “I didn’t plan much. I wasn’t sure it would even work. I didn’t anticipate it would cause such pain either.”

  I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. Dang it, if he didn’t sound remorseful.

  “Can we watch television?”

  “What?” I sputtered. My arms fell limp to my side.

  “I wish to spend time with my anchor.” He held his hand out, palm forward, to stop my opposition to the idea before I had the chance to voice it. “And I wish to use this opportunity to acclimatize better to this day and age. I haven’t had much time out of the summoning circle or bedroom on the mortal plane, and information is expensive in hell.”

  “Television?” If information was expensive, Sid looked to gain a pricy commodity.

  He nodded. “Television.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “I’d be the first to admit that I have no shortage of faults. But if I had to pick one, the one that’s gotten me into the most trouble of the years…it would be that I sometimes get angry.”

  ~Hellboy, Dark Horse Comics

  True to his word, the Seducer Demon spent the night watching television, keeping his hands to himself and browsing the internet on my laptop during commercials. The rise of the sun ended the anticlimactic night in a similar fashion. Sid mumbled, “See you soon” before vanishing into the Demonic Realm.

  Good riddance.

  The domesticity of the night creeped me out almost as much as his regular Seducer Demon role. I’d dozed off a couple of times, only to startle awake and find Sid exactly where I left him.

  I had little time to deliberate the inner mechanisms of the Demon’s psyche, though. Today, I needed to help Stan, and with little sleep, and still no contact from Tristan, I’d have to strive to be on my best behaviour.

  The early morning shone as I stood on the downtown east-side street, littered with garbage and the homeless. The wound on my butt cheek had healed, the skin shiny and red. The injury still sent pricks of pain with sudden movement, and my clothes chafed against the sensitive skin, but my bond with Sid definitely sped up the healing process.

  The building across the street hadn’t changed since I’d been here last. The windows remained broken and boarded up. The last owner had given up long ago and abandoned it. Now, multi-coloured graffiti decorated the outer walls. Colourful tags brightened the otherwise drab hue of the old, neglected bricks. The stonework reeked of urine, human excrement, and unwashed bodies.

  This abandoned warehouse had been the perfect location for meeting my now-deceased handler.

  I ducked under the new police caution tape and walked passed the metal entrance doors. They hung off their hinges as a distant memory of their former glory.

  Inside, the fetid body odour grew stronger. The homeless used these abandoned and condemned buildings as shelter, and I didn’t blame them one bit. When I’d run off to live in the forest as a mountain lion, there were no showers and the elements were harsh. No way would I have chosen nature if I was a norm and could squat in a place like this.

  As each step brought me farther into the building, though, another smell carried through the stench.

  Death.

  A couple weeks old.

  Not good.

  A gaggle of officers glanced up from their post outside a room and nodded at me as I approached the end of the hallway. They must’ve been sent to secure the location. My nose twitched. Decaying flesh, something feline, like bobcat and sour, burnt plastic.

  They wouldn’t meet my gaze and preferred to stare at their feet.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Is it true?” Stan bellowed behind me.

  I turned in time to see him barge down the hallway toward us.

  “He’s dead?”

  I leapt out of the way as Stan barreled passed me. Not even a pause or indication of recognition. His gaze focuse
d straight ahead, intent on his target.

  “Yeah, Stan. Sorry,” one of the officers mumbled.

  He might’ve spoken low and garbled, but I made out his words just fine.

  So did Stan. He pulled up short as his body lashed back straight and tense. His heavy breathing made his chest heave up and down, but otherwise, he stood frozen, legs shoulder-width apart, arms by his side, fists clenched.

  “FUCK!” Stan swiveled suddenly and drove his right fist into the wall. The old wood splintered on contact, and bits of decaying plaster, plywood, and paint flew through the air. Stan snapped his hand back and blood pooled between his knuckles.

  The scent of his injury flooded my senses along with the canned ham of his despair. My stomach dropped.

  I waited with his comrades in complete silence. My skin itched to do something. My brain drew a blank. What could I do to take Stan’s pain away?

  Stan cradled his bloody fist and stared at the wall. Time ticked by. Finally, the tension of his shoulders eased and he let out a long, pained sigh. “Another fucking dead end.” He turned to me.

  “I’m so sorry, Stan. I should’ve been here last night.” My throat grew thick as guilt rode my limbs, and my stomach tried to invert inside my body.

  Stan shook his head. “They told me it’s not a recent crime scene. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

  His words took the edge off my guilt, but self-loathing still gnawed at my gut. “Can we go in?”

  Stan grunted and opened his mouth to speak when one of the officers piped up.”We’re supposed to keep the scene clear until the medical examiner and forensics team get here.”

  Something close to a growl emitted from Stan’s throat.

  My mountain lion purred with approval. Good friend, she said.

  Now my inner kitty was proud of a friend’s growling. What. The. Fuck.

  “But, um…” The cop glanced at his comrades. “We can, um, look this way,” he pointed to the wall across from the door, “and if someone were to slip into the crime scene we’d be none the wiser.”

  Stan’s growl cut off. He gave a jerky nod, grabbed my arm and hauled me into the room.

  The smells packed a punch and nearly knocked me on my ass. Death and pain. Hot iron from a stone mason’s forge coated the walls and dripped off, sending waves of the unpleasant scent across the room. I didn’t want to see the mystery man’s body. I didn’t need to. He’d been tortured.

  The familiarity of his scent pinged a lightbulb in my head.

  “Agent Nagato,” I murmured. That’s why his voice had sounded familiar on the recording. And from the heavy stench of death, this was why he’d dropped off the radar.

  “The missing SRD agent?” Stan asked.

  I nodded.

  Stan stalked to the limp body tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Flies buzzed around the cadaver.

  Another smell hit me. A dead animal. My mountain lion’s soulful yowl racked my heart, and my falcon screeched.

  The snow and tree sap of Nagato’s lynx fera reached me through the waves of death and decay. I’d once thought he might be a bobcat, but the tree sap smell was unmistakeable.

  My gaze snagged on a furry mess in the corner of the room. I dropped to my knees. Nausea boiled in my stomach like a cauldron of acid. My mountain lion yowled again, the hollow and broken sound echoed through my mind and vibrated my bones.

  The bond between a Shifter and their fera was sacred. Sacred.

  They’d defiled it.

  “Bastards,” I spat. A sob lodged in my throat.

  Stan spun around, and his brows furrowed. Instead of demanding an answer, he followed my outstretched arm pointing to the corner of the room.

  “His fera? Stan asked.

  I nodded. “They tortured his fera along with him. From the smell of Nagato’s despair, they killed his fera first, so Nagato would die the most painful death. One of loss and heartbreak. Beyond cruel.”

  “And unnecessary. They got what they wanted from him. My gut tells me his TOD is before Loretta’s. Once he gave them what Loretta knew, they killed him and went after my wife.”

  “We just need to know who,” I said. My nose already confirmed Nagato’s death occurred within days of Loretta’s.

  Stan grunted. “Got anything?”

  I closed my eyes and opened my senses to the room, letting the rot and misery wash over me until I could pick out other scents—Nagato, his fera, unfamiliar norms, something old yet familiar…and Aahil. The drug dealer had been here.

  My eyes narrowed. If Aahil had killed Loretta, he’d been smart enough to use a Witch charm to mask his scent, and prevent VPD backlash, yet neither he, nor anyone else on his diabolical team of douchebags, had found it necessary to mask their scents where they tortured and killed an SRD agent. If any crime scene would potentially crawl with scent-sensitive supes, it would be this one. Why the lack of effort? Did they not fear repercussions from the SRD? Did they know how inept the organization had become, or did they have another, more loathsome reason not to dread retaliation from the supernatural government branch?

  Sergeant Lafleur’s voice sounded in my head, his speech a distant memory. “Let’s get one thing straight, McNeilly. The SRD is corrupt.”

  I glanced at the expectant look on Stan’s face. The SRD’s integrity would have to wait. Stan first. He’d chase after Aahil and gun him down before we solved the second part of this mystery. Loretta’s research. She discovered something big enough to get her killed. It got Nagato killed…and probably Lucien, too. I wanted to know what it was. Tancher Pharmaceuticals’ involvement, the side effects of KK, or something else, something more?

  “Well?” Stan gruffed.

  “Yeah.” My shoulders dropping. “I got something.”

  “And?”

  “And give me a minute.” I pulled out my phone and punched in Donny’s contact info.

  “Andy,” Stan growled.

  I shushed him.

  “Andy!” he repeated.

  I smacked my palm against his mouth, and Donny’s voicemail picked up. That’s right. He said the SRD had tapped it. He wouldn’t answer.

  “Fuck.” I hung up without leaving a message and turned to Stan. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise to remain calm and not act on the information right away.”

  Stan narrowed his eyes at me.

  “I know I’m asking a lot. I promise on the goddess Feradea and all my feras, you will have your vengeance, but there’s something else going on here. Give me until tomorrow to get things straight, and we’ll make a plan.”

  Stan ground his teeth together and clenched his fists. He stood tense and took long angry breaths as burnt cinnamon rolled of his body in waves. “Fine.”

  Truth. I didn’t need a blood oath to know Stan stood by his word. “Aahil was here. But he wasn’t alone. We need to figure out who and how this all connects together.”

  “Let’s pick him up and torture the truth out of him.”

  “That might tip the others off.”

  “I’ve picked him up often enough it won’t raise any suspicions.”

  I nodded. Thinking it through. “If we pick him up for this, it would have to be off the books.”

  “So?” Stan shifted his weight, ready to move, to take action.

  “So, it means we’d have to handle the information we get from torturing him off the books, too.”

  Stan paused and stopped swaying. “You said you’re pretty badass. You think we need help?”

  I nodded again. “I think this is bigger than we can handle alone.”

  Stan jabbed his finger into my abdomen, just below the sternum, so hard I took a half-step back and winced.

  “You have until tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

  ~Buddha

  When I walked into my apartment, a familiar smell greeted me. I’d been wanting this welcome for days, b
ut now my stomach quivered and my hearing buzzed. Blood rushed to my head.

  Citrus and sunshine, laced with honeysuckle from a warm summer’s day. Tristan’s scent usually made me think of mojitos and sex on the beach, still did, but today, it also put me on edge, because under the deliciousness of his fragrance, something else lurked, something dark and ugly.

  A sour tang of canned ham, parmesan cheese, and musk oil collided with smoke and cobwebs in stiff air, laden with an invisible weight and blue cheese. The almost indiscernible mix of anxiety, despair, guilt, regret, sadness, and shame.

  I paused at the entrance. If I turned around now, I could go back to la-la land and never face whatever horrific truth Tristan had to tell me. I could stick my head in the sand and pretend everything was okay and this divine Wereleopard Alpha who’d walked into my life months ago remained perfection.

  But that would be a lie.

  I walked into the living room where Tristan waited. He sat on my couch, elbows rested on knees, with his hands cradling his bowed head. As I took the last few steps to reach the area in front of him, his head popped up, and he started to stand.

  I held my hand out to stop him.

  He rocked back in the couch.

  “Let’s just skip the awkward hello and get right to it. We both know something’s up and the anticipation is killing me.” What awful truth could Tristan possess to cause such a reaction? One obviously eating him up inside.

  Tristan nodded and bolted from the couch. I took a couple steps back. He didn’t run away; he walked toward me, as if to kiss me and then hesitated. He spun and started pacing.

  “You’re freaking me out.”

  Tristan continued to pace.

  “Please don’t make me play twenty questions. I’ll hate you more afterward. You’ve been avoiding me. Why?”

  Tristan stopped. “I have to tell you something, and I don’t know how.”

  “I find the best solution is to just spit it out.”

  “That might be the quickest way, but not the nicest. I’d prefer some tact.”

  “Why? So you look better? So whatever it is you did seems less awful than reality?”

  He shook his head. “No. So I don’t hurt or shock you more than necessary. I’m thinking of your feelings, not mine. Please hear me out.”