by C. T. Phipps
Yeah, that was the end of werewolves like Marcus O’Henry’s dictatorships over the shifter race. The revelation to humanity meant we were subject to the same laws as everyone else. Theoretically. The vampires had been able to negotiate from a far better position because, well, they were rich and had mind-control powers. The O’Henrys were rich, but not vampire-rich. Vampire-rich was less Trump-rich and more ‘bailing out the entire country’ rich. I still didn’t know how they’d done that.
It didn’t take long to get to the Outlands. That was the part of the town built on the highway toward New Detroit. Once it had been nothing but gas stations and fast-food restaurants—and not many of those either. However, since the vampires had turned New Detroit into goth Las Vegas, it was the only part of town which was growing. Unfortunately, what it was growing into was a collection of bars, strip clubs, and small casinos. A place to bilk tourists of their cash before they arrived at the place where they were actually supposed to be bilked.
Given I couldn’t drink, gamble, and wasn’t interested in a side job as a stripper, I didn’t spend much time in the Outlands. Really, as Emma drove into the place, it felt like I was entering into a Frank Miller comic with lots of neon as well as motorcycles. The Lyons’ Den was noticeably set apart from the other buildings in the area and had a significantly classier vibe. It also had security that looked fully capable of throwing around even the hardiest of trouble makers. I recognized a couple of them as werebears of the Carbone family and they looked like they were able to throw cars without turning into nine-foot-tall grizzly bears.
The building was a two-story stone one that used to be a bank and looked like a converted mansion with tinted windows and gargoyles added for effect. The sun was only now setting but there was already a line going on around the place of mostly twenty-something girls and boys. A fuchsia neon sign of a lion pouncing on a human was above the entrance. It also had a smaller sign saying “Must be 21 or older” and “No weapons, magic, or vampires.”
“That’s prejudiced!” Emma said, driving past the location as I searched in vain for any way in.
I rolled my eyes. “Not really the problem. We’re not getting in through the front.”
“I have a fake ID, but—” Emma started to say.
That was when I looked down the street beside the Lyons’ Den and saw Brad O’Henry carrying out garbage. The prince of the city was blond, beautiful, tall, and not the sort of guy you expected to see cleaning up from the back of a goth nightclub.
Interesting.
“Nope, I’ve got a plan,” I said, smiling. “We’re sneaking in.”
Chapter Eight
I explained my plan to Emma as we parked almost two blocks away underneath a bridge leading back onto the highway.
“Uh-huh,” Emma said, clearly not impressed. “Your plan is to get my arrogant full-blooded werewolf brother to help us into a club where we’re underage and our clothes won’t at all stand out. Then you want to confront the city’s crime boss and get him to cough up a murder dagger he may have used to kill my sister and two other people.”
“First, yes. Second, full-blooded? This isn’t Harry Potter. You’re either a werewolf or you’re not. There’s no Halfbloods or Mudbloods.”
“Says the woman not from a family where you can trace your ancestry back to Cain. The O’Henrys can.”
I stared at her. “Cain from the Bible? How would that even work? We have a fossil record and everything. He’d have to be like a million-year-old homo erectus or something and we’d all be related to him anyway.”
Yes, I’ve thought way too much about that sort of thing. Blame it on the fact I have a mother who believes in a literal Great Flood and that God hangs out with the Hecate sisters. Which sounded a lot crazier before I found out Agent Timmons studied fictional martial arts with science-fiction heroes.
“I don’t think it’s actually an accurate family tree,” Emma said. “However, he’s the first werewolf.”
“I thought he was the first vampire.”
“This isn’t a roleplaying game,” Emma corrected. “It’s a stupid plan.”
“Do you have a better one, Penelope Purebreed?”
Emma stared at me then smiled. “That would totally be my cartoon name.”
“Yes, it would be,” I said, giggling.
It was a reminder of what our relationship was like before today. No matter happened, it would never be the same. Even if we managed to solve Victoria’s murder, we’d both become part of something much bigger than the usual boys, bands, college, and video games that made up our previous conversations. Actually, it occurred to me I did most of the talking about boys.
“You don’t think your brother will help?” I asked.
Emma took a deep breath and stared forward. “Honestly, I don’t know. My brother and I always got a long a lot better than the rest of my family.”
“You mean he didn’t try to drown you when you were five.”
“No. He always was kind to me. I think whatever crazy genes were on my mother’s side weren’t on his dad’s.”
“Well, you’re not crazy.”
“I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
She had a point.
Emma frowned. “But it seems there were parts of my family I wasn’t aware about. Like, why is my brother working blue-collar labor for the man my grandfather hates most?”
“Marcus O’Henry hates Lucien Lyons?”
“Yep,” Emma said. “Lucien’s a twenty-five year old who owns the half of the town my father doesn’t.”
“Not all—” I paused. “Okay, that’s about right. But—no offense—aren’t you rich?”
“Grandfather owns all of the family property and stock,” Emma said, sighing. “He doles out money enough to keep us looking good and happy but not enough for any of us to ever leave. Everyone has to work for the family, too, in whatever position he deems fit. All of us want out of it but none of us can leave without him shutting us down. We’re slaves to him because he controls the cash.”
“Did Victoria want out?” I asked, trying to imagine the girl as someone struggling to free herself. Given I knew she’d tried to kill my best friend when they were both girls and had enslaved a vampire, I was having difficulty with the concept.
Emma paused. “I dunno. I think she wanted to take over, but that was never going to happen.”
“Because of her human father.”
“Yeah,” Emma said. “Just like Brad will never be allowed to marry Jeanine.”
“Does he want to?” I asked.
Emma turned to frown, anger in her eyes. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Emma proceeded out the door and I was at a loss for words. I was finding out more things than I’d ever expected about my best friend and it occurred to me I hadn’t been the best of friends to my bestie. How much had been secretly going on that I’d never bothered to ask her about? How long had she needed a confidante that I just hadn’t given? I made a resolution to be a better friend to her and hoped I wasn’t too late.
But it did feel like I’d missed a lot going on in my own family, let alone hers. Victoria had been a crazy magic-using rapist, her grandfather was a murderer, their family was operating under a curse, and my brother was a drug dealer involved with Victoria. Both my brother and Victoria were part of a group being targeted by a serial killer and they were all former dealers working for Lucien Lyons. Throw in the fact Victoria was apparently killed as part of a human sacrifice and I actually had a pretty good number of clues. The problem was I wasn’t sure how many of these were part of the case versus just a sign of how corrupt and screwed up our small town was.
Still, I wrote them all down on my phone before getting out of the car myself. I couldn’t forget any of this.
Stepping out of the Falcon, I headed over to the barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence that surrounded the back of the Lyons’ Den. There was a single door in the fence leading inside but it was padlocked. Apparently, Lucien Lyons liked his
security. Emma was standing at the side of the door and looking in, waiting for Brad or someone else to come out from the backdoor to the kitchen.
Interesting fact, I could actually see patterns in the graffiti on the back of the building’s wall. They glowed to my eyes and showed Lucien had set out a pretty heavy set of wards to enhance the supernatural ‘swerve’ of the place. Aside from him, any supernaturals who entered the place with intent to harm would be severely diminished in power. I briefly wondered if my mother had set them down as she was one of the few shamans in town with the power to do it.
But that was ridiculous, right?
Seconds later, I saw Brad come out with yet another pair of garbage bags. Brad was a handsome man about twenty-three years old and had the strawberry-blond preppy haircut you’d expect from a man named Brad. Despite this, I’d never actually gotten the impression Bradley O’Henry was the kind of stuck-up jerkass I wanted him to be. He was more like Emma than Victoria but I still didn’t quite trust him with my sister. He was just too good-looking, smart, and rich. He needed some dark secret to make him believable. There, I said it.
Emma whispered over to me. “How do you want to handle this.”
I put my fingers in my mouth and whistled. “Yo, Brad, we need you to let us in because we’re investigating your sister’s death and we think your boss is responsible.”
Emma flicked my ear with her finger. “What the hell, Jane!”
“Ow!” I snapped, covering my ear. “Don’t you ever touch a Cervid’s ear! How would you react if I flicked your nose?”
“I’d rip your spine out then feel really bad about it,” Emma said, chuckling and showing not a single sign of remorse. “You can’t mess with instinct like that.”
“Wait, do you even know about Victoria?” I would feel really horrible if he hadn’t.
Brad walked over to us and frowned, looking at us through the chain-link fence’s door. “I know. I found out within minutes of Aunt Clara finding the body. Lucien gave me the day off but I wanted to get as far away from the house as I could get. I didn’t want to be there when my grandfather found a homeless man or migrant worker to take the fall for it.”
Ouch. “Not much faith in your Aunt Clara finding the real killer?”
Brad had a look of profound sadness on his face I’d never seen before. “I don’t know why you think Lucien is responsible for my sister’s murder, but if you want to point fingers then I think the best choice is Grandfather.”
“You can’t believe that,” Emma said, her voice horrified.
“You can’t?” Brad asked. “Victoria was practicing witchcraft and dating outside the clan. I’m terrified now for Jeanine and will probably have to break up with her to keep her safe. You two need to go home and stay out of this. Marcus O’Henry is a very dangerous man and you do not want to cross him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Have you told Jeanine this, yet? Because, I’m pretty sure she’d stomp a hoof-shaped hole in your head if you did.”
Brad grimaced. “No, I haven’t, yet. I wanted to ask her to marry her and leave this place. I was just waiting to get enough money to do it.”
“Which is why you’re here,” I asked, trying to figure out how to convince him. Honestly, he raised a pretty good point about us being in over our heads but if Marcus was going after his own family, that just meant I had another reason to take the bastard down. Not only was he threatening my brother now, but Jeanine and I sort of liked her. Emma I’d die for, though.
“Your mom threatened to put a curse on me if I didn’t get a job,” Brad said, grimacing. “I don’t think she trusted a werewolf could love her daughter as much as a weredeer. However, she was willing to give me a shot if I showed I was willing to live without my family’s money.”
“That’s beautiful,” Emma said. “Mrs. Doe believes in the power of love.”
“Which is surprising, because Judy’s kind of racist. She printed up and bound copies of the Narnia books after doing a find/replace so Aslan was a stag instead of a lion.”
“I stopped liking the Narnia books when Susan went to Hell because she liked makeup,” Emma said.
I looked at Emma sideways. “Really? I never read past The Silver Chair.”
“It really happened!” Emma said.
I shook my head. “What the hell, Clive. Not cool at all.”
Brad looked at us then pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s like being trapped in an episode of Buffy.”
“More like Veronica Mars with shifters,” I said, smiling. “I hear Kristen Bell’s a weresloth.”
Brad sighed. “I never thought I’d say this but could we get back to accusing my boss of murder? I find it less irritating than hearing you two chat on the day my sister died.”
“I’m just killing time until I can figure out a way to get you to let us in,” I said, grabbing the door’s wire. “So why don’t you just assume I gave an incredibly impressive argument and let me through.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “Not a chance. Good luck, Emma, and stay safe.”
“Thanks, Brad,” Emma said. “You need to get away from here. At least one of us should.”
“Don’t help him!” I snapped at my friend.
The answer to my prayers, one of them at least, came in a most unexpected form. Specifically, it came in the form of Jeanine. She walked out the backdoor wearing an outfit which was roughly in the same league of goth sex kitten (deergirl?) which Victoria’s had been. Except, looking at her boots and the fact that she was wearing a robe over it while carrying a pack of cigarettes, I realized she wasn’t there as a patron but taking a break from work.
“Oh my gods,” I said, horrified. “You’re a stripper now!”
Jeanine did a double take at my presence. “I am not a stripper! I am a dancer!”
“That is exactly what a stripper would say!” I said, covering my mouth.
Jeanine looked ready to turn into a deer and batter down the door, which would have worked wonderfully for getting me in there. Hey, never waste a good crisis.
“Hi, Jeanine!” Emma said, waving.
“You’re also smoking,” I said in mock horror. “My gods, what evil has Brad led you down?”
“Could we do this on a day my sister isn’t lying in the morgue?” Brad said, his voice cold and depressed.
I winced. “Sorry, it’s just hard turning off my snark. I’m actually really terrified and sick about all this. I think it’s a defense mechanism of some kind.”
“A defense mechanism that makes people want to kill you?” Jeanine said, pulling out a cigarette before Brad glared at her and she put them away. “I’m only smoking because of your grandfather and sister.”
“Don’t use them as an excuse,” Brad said, sighing. “Jeanine got a second job down here. We’re working together to get out of Bright Falls. Also, she’s not a stripper. She wears clothes. Just not a lot of them.”
“Not that he would mind if I was,” Jeanine said.
“I kinda would,” Brad said, looking at her.
Jeanine looked at him sideways. The look said, ‘we’re not having this conversation in front of my kid sister’ without words. “In any case, what are you even doing in this part of town? It’s dangerous here.”
I stared at her. “What, am I going to get mugged by the fat tourists driving to New Detroit? Maybe get assaulted by…right, Victoria’s murder. I am really terrible at this.”
“You just have no filter,” Brad said. “I knew that from the moment I met you.”
“They’re trying to solve Victoria’s murder and think Lucien may have been involved,” Brad said, shaking his head.
Jeanine responded by doing something unexpected. She reached over to the lock on the door and waved her hand over it, causing it to open. “Come on in. I’ll show you to Lucien’s room and provide a distraction.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What sort of distraction?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter! Danu and Jesus, what the hell is wrong with y
ou? I thought hipster girls like you were supposed to be open-minded.”
“I am not a hipster,” I said, frowning as I looked down at my retro-eighties look . “At all.”
Walking in, Emma followed.
“What are you doing?” Brad said, grabbing Jeanine by the arm.
Jeanine took his hand off hers. “Something is going on around here and Lucien is involved. He may be charming and maybe he helped us out, but he’s also a criminal. Don’t you owe it to your sister to investigate?”
Brad growled as his eyes glowed yellow. They reverted to their normal color a few seconds later. “All right. I’ll help. I owe it to Vicki. She was an innocent in all this.”
I exchanged a glance with Emma. Apparently, I wasn’t the only sibling wearing rose-colored glasses.
Jeanine looked us both over. “Okay, we’ll have to get you looking like you belong here.”
Oh crud.
Chapter Nine
My sister’s idea of what qualified as a disguise disagreed with mine tremendously. After a half-hour in the dancer’s dressing room, I was dressed in a leather bustier, fishnets, and a pair of tiny ripped jean shorts. She’d covered me in white powder, mussed up my hair, and put on my fingers a set of black Lee press-on nails. Even my lipstick, actually Jeanine’s, was obsidian.
Looking in a mirror, I said, “I look like Cassie Hack.”
“I don’t know who that is,” Jeanine said, looking over my shoulder at her handiwork. “I was going for Death from Sandman.”
“You expose your geeky roots,” I said, chuckling. “You are not so far removed from the Dark Side.”
Jeanine rolled her eyes.
I turned to look over at Emma, who was wearing a Lacuna Coil t-shirt and tight leather pants with a purple wig done up in a ponytail. Her mouth was open and she was drooling at the two of us like we were fresh steaks.
I narrowed my gaze. “Emma!”
Emma immediately jumped. “I wasn’t looking! I mean, you look great.”
“Why do you get to wear clothes that don’t make you look like a vampire stripper?” I paused. “Henceforth known as a Jeanine.”
