Merchant of Dreams 1.01

“Aza.”

My eyelids fluttered.

“Wake up, Aza.”

I groaned aloud and tasted my mouth. It was dry and thick with an unpleasant taste I couldn’t immediate identify. What was that? Onions? Garlic? Man, I must have bad breath. Blame it on the endless stakeouts and my nonexistent sex-life (maintained by sleek battery-powered tools).

“Azadana Rohin! Up! Wake up!”

I struggled with my eyelids, each which weighed a ton or more, and listened to someone prattle on in a meaningless lecture. None of it made any sense, so I mumbled an incoherent reply laced with profanity and fell back into my dreams. Sweet dreams, really. I was part of an office that appreciated my skills, with a boss who wasn’t half-troll and half-cyclops, and the sex was just—

“Azadana!” snapped a woman’s voice for the fourth time, and it seemed to come from far, far away. Through wormholes and across galaxies, all the way down to little old me. “This is an office, not your bedroom! Everyone is staring.”

Everyone?

Everyone.

I jerked my head off the desk and licked, elegant-like, at the trail of drool along the corner of my mouth. “Huh? W-what did-? Where the hell am I?”

A rush of light crashed down over my world, and I blinked away the sharp sting of tears. Florescent rods were a bitch, with their flaring whiteness and humming-bird flutters. A yawn hit me faster than I could hold it back, and my mouth opened wide in a close copy of the scene from Jurassic Park where the man gets eaten in the public bathrooms. I’m the t-rex, by the way.

I winced as a woman’s nails dug into my shoulder. “Wake. Up.”

“Oww,” I whined massaging myself and barely managing to shake off the blanket of sleep. “Go easy on me, Mahla. I’ve been here since last night.”

My coworkers, men and women carrying guns, watched with faint expressions of amusement and pity. They were officers of the law, these monsters. And I call them monsters in an entirely scientific sense. Most of them, in another age, and even in this one, would be considered monsters of some kind or another. Ever wondered what the inquisition was about? Look no further. Want to know why serial killers do what they do? Well, because they’re not humans. They’re something more and, in a manner of speaking, something less.

A few of my fellow monsters managed to snap photos of my t-rex impersonation with their nifty, little phones. Quick-like, so as to preserve whatever respect I still had, I wiped my chin with the back of my hand and tried to seem as professional as possible. Hopefully, they’d catch that on camera too.

Fingers crossed.

“Azadana,” chided the squat, motherly woman standing over me. “You’re hanging onto your job by a thread as it is. Don’t give them an excuse to toss you out. What would your father think?”

My brilliant stepfather, Danthir Rohin, who I truly loved but was perpetually frustrated with. Police Commissioner and Man of the Goddamned Year (century). Gather ‘round. Come get an autograph.

A day didn’t go by when his name wasn’t thrown in my face, cementing everyone’s opinion of the fallen star (that would be me). I had a brother whose talent was matched by none and a father whose meteoric rise through the hell of government bureaucracy was spoken of only in hushed whispers. Truly, it was the stuff of legends.

But then they all looked at me. Let’s not forget Azadana Rohin, they said to one another. Let’s smear her name whenever the opportunity arises, since it’s pretty much all she’s good for. Let’s take snapshots with nifty, little phones while she sleeps at her desk—a desk she’s warmed for six months. Let’s thoroughly amuse ourselves until the day she blows her goddamned head off or performs a rendition from the scene in that movie (you know which one I’m talking about) where the crazy chick shoots the other guy and then proceeds to massacre all her colleagues.

Yeah, that’s how I felt. Welcome to my world.

“My father would throw a banquet if they kicked me out,” I huffed in reply, although I knew it was absolute shit. He was too kind for that. A little shindig, maybe, but never a banquet “You need me to file something, Mahla? Photocopy someone’s ass? Maybe a whooha? I could clean out your drawers if you like, because that’s all I’ve been doing these days. You know, I think someone mistook me for the cleaning woman last night. Told me to clean the toilet.”

The mother-hen and in-house Godzilla of our police station looked down on me with stern disapproval. Mahla had that face. You know, the one that makes you want to curl up, pout and whine some nonsensical excuse for a mistake you haven’t even made? She was the embodiment of all of Meryl Streep’s characters rolled into one.. It probably had to do with the bow in her hair. Maybe it had something to do with how she always smelled like baked cookies. That motherly scent you never forget. Scared you at a primal level, she did.

“Azadana,” Mahla repeated for the hundredth or so time, smiling down at me like I was something that needed fixing. “They want you at a crime scene. Schuler called specifically for you. Congratulations.”

Everyone in the office stopped working and turned to look. Even the lady working in the copy room stuck her head out curiously. Now this…this moment would be talked about for many years to come. Bastards, all of them. At least they could act moderately surprised instead of so blatantly horrified. You’d think they were handing me missile launch codes.

I put on my best expression of hurt but couldn’t help but grin like a child. “Hey, don’t act so surprised,” I replied, dimples appearing in my cheeks. “But really? I mean, really. What madness is this? Why would they want me out in the field?”

The woman patted my head of black hair. “Detective Inspector Schuler called on your phone, but your sleeping habits seem to be interfering with the job,” Mahla replied, but it lacked the harshness that often accompanied her reprimands. “I sent the address to your phone. Go before he fires you for being late.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now,” she snapped. “Quickly, Azadana.”

I scrambled for my drawer, jerked it open and lifted my service weapon out from the bottom where it was gathering dust. The FN Five-Seven worked better for me than most other handguns, and I’d tried out a great many considering my history as a part of one of the most vicious gangs in Ashen City. Good days, I tell you. Except the part where I got shot, stabbed, beaten and almost killed by hookers looking to steal my things. Oh, don’t forget the little children with Desert Eagles, bellies bulging like mini-tyrants on a kill-fest.

I clipped the Five-Seven to my waist, jumped up, knocked a stack of files off my table and then scrambled to save them. They spilled under desks and chairs, skittering off into dark corners of the office never to be found again. So long…suckers.

Mahla sighed, a beautiful little sound, and steadied me with a hand to the shoulder. “Leave it,” she ordered firmly. “Here, drink some coffee; it’s just how you like it.”

I snatched the cup away from her, suddenly territorial, took a deep gulp and then hopped on one foot as it burned a fiery trail down my throat. “Hot! Hot!” I gasped, fanning at my open mouth. “Shit, where are my car keys? My keys, Mahla! Schuler is going to kill me for this.”

The woman held an Inuyasha keychain out in front of my nose, and I grabbed it in my mouth, one hand occupied with my coffee while the other grasped in vain for my leather jacket. Mahla helped me into it, tugging my waterfall of midnight-black hair out from under the collar. She made soft clucking sounds that reinforced my theory she was a hen during her previous life, and then I was scrambling through the office with a stunned silence ushering me out.

Why were they so surprised? I was a good cop, wasn’t I?

♦ ♦ ♦

Now, there’re a few essentials to cover before we jump in. I, Azadana Rohin, am an upstanding officer of the Ashen Police Department. The CID, really. Criminal Investigation Division, if you couldn’t guess. Get with the program, idiot. I entered the service two and a half years ago as a greenhorn constable, smelling of freshly mown grass and childish excitement.

Also, I was covered in enough tattoos and scars to make most think I’d walked through every battlefield in the world and then stumbled in a tattoo parlor. Once I’d carried out my mandatory probation period as a Constable, I was accepted into the CID as a detective constable under the power of the Spook Squad. What’s the Spook Squad, you ask? Good question. I’ll let you know when they tell me.

What I do know is that we investigate whatever the hell the public doesn’t want to see, or at least what our government doesn’t want them to see. Dead banshee? Call the Spook Squad. Murder by the way of werewolf? Call the Spook Squad. Harpies scaring the shit out of humans who had no business knowing monsters existed? Call the Spook Squad. Sighting of a rampaging demon? Well, you get the idea.

Why am I here? Long story, but the short version is that I’m not entirely human. The magic 8-ball—wildcard—mystical power that makes some of us what we are picked me to be a glamourist. I’m like a stage magician. Only difference is that my illusions are real. My magic is just that. Magic. I don’t use props or a misdirecting assistant in a thong. I shape reality and bend perception, twist light and manipulate emotion, creating whatever my mind can imagine. Hence, a glamourist.

What’s that I hear? A standing ovation? This is too much. Everyone sit down. Please, you are all too kind. Enough with the applause. No, really. You’re too kind. Really. Stop. Stop.

Do you think I’m impressive? Well, I’m not. At least not in the crime solving business. What do you want with girl who can create crisp images out of thin air? Not much. That’s why I’ve been relegated to a desk for the past six months. My social skills are nil. First time out on police business, I told a grieving wife her husband had been torn from groin to neck in a most brutal fashion. That didn’t do much to assure my superiors.

You’d think my second name—the famous Rohin name—would push me up the ladder, but it doesn’t help at all. Family dinners have always been a bitch, especially when siblings are career driven sociopaths who would eat their own children if it meant a promotion up the ranks. Brilliant, pyrotechnic brother. High-powered, lawyer sister. Celebrity father on the path to becoming one of the most powerful men in Ashen City. What was I but a mark on the family name?

To top it all off, they were so goddamned supportive. They never criticized my decisions, looked down on me or did anything otherwise to make me feel inferior. What I would give for a good, hateful family. A family that was ashamed and disappointed by my mere existence. Oh, but no. God, Buddha, Yahweh, Innana, Allah (you pick) had decided to stick me with a soppy, caring father and two siblings who thought sunlight shined out of my ass, and a mother who wanted nothing more than to care for me. Did I need a psychologist, or what?

Alright, back to real world.

♦ ♦ ♦

I smacked into someone on my way out, knocking him into the wall. I heard the dull thud of his head striking concrete, but I hurried away with a shouted apology. Donuts for him—sprinkles and all—just not right now. I arrived at my battered Nissan Bluebird and struggled with the door until it burst open and spilled empty coffee cups into the parking lot. It was a pigsty in there; the accumulated garbage of four years. The four years since I left my previous life of service to a dark master. All my attempts to clean it out ended with a hazmat crew and flame throwers.

I ignored a pair of laughing uniforms rolling by in their squad car and jumped right into the mess. By some miracle, I managed to stick the key in the ignition and start the engine by begging and begging until it took pity on me and sputtered to life. I was gunning it along the Ashen City streets twenty seconds later with the cold, winter wind whipping across my face.

This was Old Quarter, the center of the city. The Ashen Police Department’s headquarters along with the city council building sat at its core and around it orbited most of what kept the city on its feet. Government stuff, really. From this point onward, Ashen’s depravity increased exponentially until you had fifteen year-olds with AK-47s running through the streets. That was Deadtown for you, the armpit of crime. Of course, half those fifteen year-olds were once my friends and now led gangs of their own. A few had graduated to a full-blown kingpin status. Kudos to them.

“Watch where you’re going, woman!” shouted a red-faced cabdriver.

His cry was echoed all around, and I flipped him off before overtaking an eighteen-wheeler and barely managing to squeeze back into my lane before a wall of oncoming headlights roared past me. Don’t worry; everything’s fine. This is how I always drive. With my foot set firmly on the accelerator, I followed the twisting streets out of Old Quarter and into Codo, the business district of our fair city. This place was all flash and smoke, women in stilettos and men with private jets.

I spotted a cluster of flashing lights up head and only just managed to hit the brakes before I overshot my mark. The Bluebird’s wheels locked suddenly, sending the car into a screeching slide that ended with me pinned against the steering wheel. With the engine coughing to stay alive, I pulled off a skillful parallel parking and stopped between a squad car and tow truck. Got here in one piece, didn’t I?

Now, how to get out?

I managed to free my long legs from the driver’s seat and then spilled out onto the sidewalk without making a complete fool of myself. A hand caught my arm before I landed flat on my face, and I looked up to find a dashing, ol’ fellow standing over me. Fine, he wasn’t old, but his gaze seemed to carry a thousand years of pain and weighed down on me like an anvil. His hands were large, made for crushing and brute work rather than shaping a crystal dolphin from molten silicate. No idea why I thought of that.

“Oh, wow,” I breathed, always the eloquent one, “do bench-press much?”

He pulled me up, gray eyes swimming with the color of a storm. Now that I looked at him—head on—he wasn’t all that handsome. He might have been if he wanted to, but there was a cold edge to him that threw me off. Angled features, hawk-like nose and square jaw that screamed displeasure. Oh, my God. Did I have daddy issues? Naw.

I gave him a dimpled smile that would dazzle anything from a corpse to a Greek god, and tried not to make a fool of myself. “Thank you for the save, mister…?”

His expression was enough to tell me I wasn’t about to get the answer I wanted. “This is a crime scene,” he replied, not caring to share his name. “You’re not allowed here, ma’am.”

Ma’am? For a second, I ignored him and searched in my pockets. There was supposed to be a little pill bottle somewhere. “Uhmm, couldn’t I just stay for a while? I have to work as well.”

“No, you can’t just stay for a while,” he replied tersely. “If you have no business here, I advise you leave, ma’am.”

Ma’am again. If he hadn’t opened his mouth, we might even have been friends. “Ma’am, my ass,” I muttered under my breath, searching desperately in my pockets. Where the hell was that pill bottle? I could already feel the pain building in my chest, a dull throb that would only worsen. “My pretty little ass.”

“Pardon me?” he asked, his voice dropped an octave. “You do realize I’m with the police?”

“Sure I do,” I replied with an easy smile. It wasn’t his fault he was an asshole. “You have a Walther PPK in your jacket.”

The man frowned, and I could see him wondering who I was. I didn’t bother helping him out as my fingers wrapped around a cylindrical object, and I drew it out of my pocket with a relieved sigh. I wasn’t usually this careless. If nothing else, I always made sure my pills were with me. An addict’s nightmare.

Things start to get weird—dangerously weird—if I’m not careful with my doses. It was an orange pill bottle, and I went nowhere without it. Danthir, my brother and my sister would kill me if I did.

“Are you listening to me?” His drawl was laced with boredom.

I glanced up at him. Oh, he was cold. He had the bad boy, dangerous vibe going for him, but it wasn’t exactly working due to his úber-professionalism. Some people couldn’t stick to one personality. It had to do with the dichotomies between who they were, who they wanted to be and what society expected of them. Why wasn’t everyone else as practical as I was? Flip your middle finger and just don’t give a damn. If this guy bought himself a leather jacket and a Harley, well I might’ve even given him a smile, because it would’ve worked well for him.

Instead, I did a little trick I shouldn’t have. Bad, bad girl.

I reached out with my mind and felt the edges of his aura, a shimmering mass of colors that swam and danced in circles around him. Nothing particularly remarkable. He was human. A black-and-white human or at least he appeared to be. There was a shadow to his aura that I couldn’t place, but it was likely an imprint of his past. Traumas that hadn’t healed. Memories that would never go away. It must have been something horrific to leave such a clear mark on him.

An iron-hard finger prodded my arm, jerking me out of my observation. “Stop trying to read me!” he snapped, and I felt him push back with his mind. It was expertly done, especially for a human. Shit, he had training. “Who the hell are you?”

I needed to swallow my pill. No time to play around. “Hey, cool your balls,” I replied, holding my hands up in defense. “Detective Constable Rohin. Who the hell are you?”

“Detective Inspector Elzoran of the Criminal Investigations Division,” he countered almost immediately. “I’m with the humans.”

Alright, shit just got serious. I’d pissed off a superior. Good thing he wasn’t working with us or I’d have to answer some rather probing questions. “I’m CID as well; I work for the other side, though. Spook Squad.”

“You’re a prenatural?” he demanded, taking a step back as if I was something disgusting. “Aren’t there enough of you here already?”

Very mature. This guy was really heaping on the charm. He was one of those. The ones who believed we—prenaturals, that is—ought to be lined up and shot by a firing squad. Almost all humans who knew we existed were afraid of us, and that made them hate us all the more. You tend to despise that which you can’t understand. If this Elzoran character wanted to play a game of who’s the bigger asshole, I was more than willing.

“Prenatural is a racist term, Detective Elzoran,” I replied, uncapping my pill bottle and looking inside. Oh, shit. Only twelve pills left. It would last me six days. “We prefer monster or boogeyman. If you find either offensive, just call us ugly beasts. It doesn’t matter whether we’re ugly or not. Just use it.”

I think he was too surprised to come up with witty reply—not that he seemed the witty type—because he watched as I shook a pill onto my palm. It was tiny and blue, marked with a small ‘A’ for ‘Azadana’ on both sides. They were custom made just for me. Dangerous little things, these. Suppressed most of my natural power and left me a shadow of who I really was.

“Water?” I asked. “Got some? It’s bitch swallowing these dry. Burns all the way down.”

The detective inspector frowned. “What are those for?”

“Birth control,” I replied sweetly, flashing him my dimples and swallowing the pill dry. “In case you and I hit it off tonight.”

His anger flared, spreading streams of red through his aura. What was it with this guy? He was wound as tight as a steel cord, ready to snap and tear me in half. Even someone as good looking as him didn’t have the right to be this unstable. I wasn’t sure whether to distance myself from the man or recommend a therapist. The APD had an excellent deal.

“You’re being highly inappropriate.”

“So screw me—sue me, I mean. Tongue slip, begging your pardon.”

“You’re bordering on sexual harassment,” he said through gritted teeth. “Should I file a complaint?”

Really? Why did I have to be stuck with idiots? Why? My first time alone on a crime scene, and this is what I got?

“Oh, no. Not one of those babies,” I replied in mock horror. “My father would blow a gasket. Imagine the rumors: innocent, little Aza Rohin sexually harassing the big, bad wolf. So scary.”

Fine. Maybe I was acting like a bitch, but I think six months behind a desk gave me the right to turn up the heat. I was here, here at an actual crime scene, and some super-cop was playing mine’s-bigger-than-yours games before I even stepped out of the car. Goddamned misogynists. They’re the ones who belonged in a kitchen.

“Rohin?” he asked, suddenly taking a step back. “Are you related-?”

“To Danthir and Talus Rohin? Father and brother—bring out the trumpets,” I replied. “Look, I know I’ve got a disgusting car, my hair is all wrong and I think I have Cheetos stuck to my ass, but I’m just here to see the crime scene. My boss is going to kill me if I don’t report to him in the next twenty seconds. Can we table our little soap opera, fascinating as it is?”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. It was gone before I could fix it in my memory, and the scowl was back in place. “I’ve been dealing with your people since dawn. Don’t cause any trouble.”

“Hey,” I replied, acting hurt. “Me? Trouble? Puh-lease.”

Detective Elzoran shook his head, which made his dark curls bounce around, and led me toward the yellow tape. Crime scene technicians in white coats scrambled about, snapping photos of everything from cigarette butts to yesterday’s dinner tossed into a dark alley. The dark alley in question was surrounded by uniforms and stern-faced men with thick jowls. They were classic, old-time coppers with a penchant to smoke cigars and fondle that-which-shall-not-be-fondled. In other words, their testicles.

“Lechers,” I muttered under my breath. “They have nothing better to do than stare at my chest.”

The detective glanced back. Sharp ears on this one. “You think this is bad? You ought to take a drive through Deadtown. It’s possibly the worst place in world,” he replied. “A girl like you wouldn’t last more than a few minutes.”

A girl like me? Were my dimples getting to his head? “Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Well that’s funny, because I lived in Deadtown for five years,” I replied. My annoyance made me say stupid things. Things others weren’t supposed to know. “Survived just fine. Flourished even. Maybe it’s just you.”

A mix of curiosity and anger sparked in his eyes, but he said nothing. Instead, he drew his badge out and presented it to the officer guarding the tape. “Who’s at the scene, Constable Mavis?”

Mavis was a small man who sported an elegant mustache and expertly shaped sideburns. Real Casanova, this one. “DI Marrin Schuler of the Spook Squad, Sir. He’s got that worm Syba with him. Real charmers, those two.”

Real charmers. Real bastards, more like. Syba and Schuler made it their mission to ruin my day, and their barely veiled innuendo was not even remotely amusing. “The Schuler,” I said. “That’s what we call him at the station. Not to his face, of course. It’s a hanging offense where we come from.”

The detective turned slowly to look at me. “I would appreciate it if you kept the comments to a minimum,” he replied.. “In fact, don’t talk at all.”

I cocked a hip. “What’s your full name?”

“Why? You intend on reporting me to your uncle?”

“I don’t need my father for anything. I’ve never needed him for anything.”

“Fine,” he replied. “Kaiten Elzoran; DI Elzoran to you.”

I nodded. “Alright, Kaiten,” I said. “You hate me, and I can’t figure out why. I don’t even care, but I’m under the purview of the Prenatural Branch. You might rank higher than me, but I don’t take orders from anyone but my fellow monsters. Got that?”

“If I say yes, would that stop you from talking?”

“Maybe.”

“Good. We’re in agreement,” he replied. “You stay on your side of the fence; I’ll stay on mine.”

The detective slipped under the tape and strode toward the throng of uniforms near the mouth of the alley. I watched the sway of his body and the way hard muscles rippled under his jacket. He was tall, a little over six feet, and had broad shoulders that tapered down to a narrow waist. The good ones were all assholes.

I shook myself out of the carnal stupor and tried to follow, but Constable Mavis blocked my path with an outstretched hand. “Badge first, miss. Have to check who you are.”

“That’s detective to you, constable.”

“Sorry, detective,” he muttered back, as if it hurt him to say it. “Still have to check your badge.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s standard procedure. First time on a crime scene?”

First time alone. Rub it in, why don’t you? I reached into my leather jacket with a sigh and just barely managed to extricate my wallet. I bought it at thrift store. Two-for-ones are my favorite. I flipped it to him upside-down, letting him get a brief look at my badge number. He scribbled it on a pad and then motioned me through with obvious contempt.

Floodlights pointed out toward the street, blinding anyone who tried to get a look at the crime scene. It was standard police trickery. If you messed with someone’s night vision, no way in hell they were talking to any reporters. Can’t report on something you can’t see. I picked my way toward alley, catching several curious looks. They hadn’t seen me before. Black-haired thing looking all lost and innocent. Maybe they could save me.

“There you are, Rohin!” roared a figure silhouetted by the floodlights. “Get your ass over here!”

Everyone in earshot turned to look, and that meant half the city’s population. Thank you, DI Schuler. Why not stick a sign to my head saying ‘look here, I’m going to humiliate her’. Arrogant prick. He’d spent more years on the job than almost anyone still alive, but he was stuck as a detective inspector due to his crap attitude. Some people were strict; others were cold but professional. Schuler was thoroughly inappropriate and took pleasure in tormenting others. Schuler the Sadist. Sadistic Schuler. Shitty Schuler. The SS.

He was a mixed-blood. His mother was faeyr. Faeyr, not fairy. A troll, I think. His father was a cyclops and one of the best metal workers in Ashen City. The dual heritage made him as strong as an ox and gave him the temperament of a pissed off child on steroids. If he didn’t get what he wanted, the Schuler went nuts.

♦ ♦ ♦

This might be a little annoying, but there’re a few more things you need to know. Most of us prenaturals don’t look remotely like humans. I do. So do my sister, brother and uncle. We’re the lucky ones, though. Then there are others, like Detective Inspector Schuler, but he’s by no means the weirdest of them all.

The bastard has one eye. One, perfectly round eye, courtesy of his cyclops blood, and it’s centered above the bridge of his nose. His skin is an odd, brownish hue and it’s covered in sharp ridges, which I guess he owes to his mother. Trolls have traits like that, although they’re not all identical. Besides that, Schuler is five feet tall and strong enough to crush a man with his bare hands, a fact he’s happy to boast about when humans aren’t around.

So how does he walk around without being noticed? I think there’d be a city-wide manhunt if anything remotely resembling him walked down the street. Simple and straightforward, Schuler, like every other prenatural, uses illusions to conceal his true form. Glamour, some would call it, and it’s the secret to our continued survival. With seven billion humans on earth, even the gods wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

Anyone who looks at Schuler sees an average height man with a flat nose and eyes that scream get-the-hell-away. Even prenaturals have trouble knowing what their fellow monsters are. The fact that I’m a glamourist lets me see through almost every illusion except the most powerful, and even those aren’t entirely reliable. That’s why he can hide himself from anyone but me, and I’m not about to share that little fact. Glamourists are few enough that most don’t know how clearly magnificent I am.

If the knowledge of my ability was widespread, I think I’d have been popped a long time ago simply on the principle of it. Back to what was happening by the alley before Schuler’s ugly face ruined everything.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tagging close behind Detective Inspector Schuler was a taller man with rippling, green scales covering his body. He had slit eyes, no hair, and two curved fangs stretched out from under his lips. Lamia, a child of the snake bitches. Deadly in a fight, fast as a striking cobra and treacherous as a knife in the back. They could grow back anything but their heads, which made them very difficult to kill. Syba was Schuler’s bitch and a forked tongue bastard if I’d ever seen one, and the fact that he slithered about whispering lies about me didn’t help my opinion of him.

Why was he here, anyways? Call me suspicious, but when there are this many detectives on a crime scene, calling one more doesn’t really help. It just crowds the place and forces everyone to whip out their penises to figure who has the biggest one and thus who will lead the case. Syba was a detective constable, just like me. It was pointless having two of us at a scene. Unless…unless this was all a practical joke and I was about to be sent back to the station

No way. Please. Please, don’t do this to me.

“Good evening, boss,” I said, giving Schuler the standard head-nod unique to our little group. My eyes drifted to pet snake-man, and it took several thousand calories to keep utter revulsion from showing on my face. “You too, Syba. Looking good, all green and polished. What is that shine? Lube?”

The lamia’s mouth thinned to a narrow line, and he gave me a derisive stare while Schuler thrust his single, blue eye up in my face. “You’re late, Rohin,” he snapped. “I don’t pay you to be lazy.”

I stood my ground, deadpan and steady. “Sorry, boss,” I said. No point making excuses. Not that I had an excuse. “I was sleeping” isn’t exactly the best way to defend your behavior. “Won’t happen again.”

“Of course it won’t,” said Syba with an oily smile. “You may never see a crime scene after tonight. This is the closest you’ll ever come to real police work.”

Crawl into a corner and die, I thought. Instead, I gave him a brittle smile and ignored the comment. “What can I do, boss?”

“Not a damned thing,” replied Schuler. “You’re here to liaise between us and the humans. The schmuck who usually does it died last night. Got himself ran over by a car. Splat, dead.”

I looked properly startled; no reason to show how happy I was. It wasn’t good form to rejoice in the death of your colleague, even if it did further your career plans. “Is he alright?”

They both gave me flat stares.

“Of course not,” I deadpanned—stupidly. “He’s dead. What am I saying?”

“When you figure that out, send me a fucking memo,” replied Schuler. “Now make sure you liaise your pretty, little ass off. Don’t let the humans anywhere near my crime scene, Rohin. I won’t take it well.”

Besides the ‘pretty, little ass’ comment, Schuler was quite tame tonight. It probably had to do with the fact that we were in public and as unlikable the troll was, he knew a thing or two about optics. Don’t shit on your employees where people can see you doing it. Privately, it’s fine. It might even be fun, if you’re an especially sadistic gutter-worm.

It was quickly becoming clear the only reason I had this job was because the last person got himself killed. Great way to boost self-esteem, I tell you. Matters were finally beginning to turn in my favor, but there were more pressing concerns at the moment. I was here to liaise; why didn’t I see that coming? With my luck, it shouldn’t even have surprised me.

Liaising involved keeping the humans off the Prenatural Branch’s ass. I was there to distract them, annoy them, and do anything in my goddamned power to keep them interfering in our business. I think I was authorized all means short of a crime. There was nothing worse than this job, because it meant hanging around people who hated your guts.

“What’s with your goddamned face, Rohin? Are you refusing the job?” demanded Schuler, whirling on me. Even if he did look like a human, he wasn’t actually one. His turn was a little too fast, and I noticed several human officers eye him uncomfortably. “I don’t care who your relatives are, but you’re going to liaise with humans or I’ll have you thrown out of the CID and sitting in evidence faster than you can get on your knees and beg for mercy.”

I was a kind girl. Wasn’t I kind? Why did I have to be treated like shit because of my name? Also, it was becoming clear Schuler had fantasies of me on my knees, and I didn’t want to know what happened in them. If he ever tried to bring those fantasies to life…well, he’d find himself missing all three of his testicles plus the appendage that hangs above. Yes, the appendage.

“I never said I didn’t want the job, boss,” I replied quickly with a smile. “Just tell me what to do.”

“You’re here to distract the humans” he said. “Pop a button or two and get that man away from my crime scene. He’s already seen too much!”

I was about to ask what man he was referring to, but my eyes fell on Detective Inspector Elzoran. Great. The prenatural hating human. I was going to babysit a bastard. Here’s to popping a button or two and showing some cleavage.