Mal Lilystone

Mal drummed her fingers against her knees as the music reverberated inside of her skull; drilling room for flowers to bloom along the creases of her skeleton. One day when she ceases to exist in this world- and she is perpetually aware that even as an immortal being this day will eventually come- she hopes to become home to a whole garden ready to boast for the world to see. Her sunflowers will reach up towards the stars and her lilies will flourish underneath the light of the moon. She has lived enough years on this planet to know how ugly it is when people forget to care for the world and all the organisms that grow from its earth.

A knock came at her door and she reluctantly paused the music to pull it out of her head and back into nonexistence. She stood up from her perch and made her way across the room, letting out a soft sigh before opening the door to the petite figure of the fledgling designated to her on the other side.

"Speak," she commanded of him; hating how harsh her voice sounded in contrast with the softness of her demeanor. However, she knew well enough that he wouldn't be able to make it past fledgling without being properly taught how to respect superiors.

"Elder Vlad requests your presence," the boy bowed his head, his movements marked with nervousness as he shifted between his feet. Mal grimaced and clenched her jaw before allowing her neutral expression to return to her features and her shoulders to relax back into confidence. The last time Elder Vlad wanted to see her it was to berate her for doing something wrong. He rarely ever complimented her for the million things she did right; he only remembered the few things she had messed up. Which sucked when he was to be her mentor, and he hardly ever did anything but complain that she hadn't done it right.

She was under constant scrutiny for every single move she made, and it caused her to loathe even becoming a vampire in the first place. Not that she'd had a choice in the matter, anyways.

"I hate to rush you, Princess, but he made it clear that urgency was crucial," the boy bowed again, not daring to look Mal in the eyes. She hated being called Princess; it was a title that she felt she did not deserve. You live long enough and do enough good in the world and apparently people start to look up to you.

She wanted to glare at the boy for being rude but knew that this was her hunger speaking as she had skipped breakfast in favor of getting some time alone. She smoothed the skirt of her dress and hastily walked down the hall to the room where Elder Vlad did most of his research.

"Come in," his voice called out to her from the other side of the door just as she reached her hand up to knock. She should've known better; Elder Vlad had a real knack for sensing where people were without even seeing them. It was an incredibly difficult ability that only the "experienced" vampires could even attempt... according to Vlad, at least. Mal was never allowed to even try this (not to his knowledge and not to yours either, dear reader, for if Mal were practicing anything unbeknownst to Vlad she'd be beheaded... seriously).

"I was told you needed to see me?" she inquired lightly, using a pathetically meek tone of voice. Not that she were afraid of him, but because if she talked how she wanted to she'd be chastised even further.

"You know Dorian H'Langraash, right?" Mal fumbled in her mind trying to place the name to a familiar face. It wasn't until she had rearranged the jigsaw pieces to the handsome face of one ruby-eyed Prince among Dragons that she nodded her head in reply. He had stubble lining his jaw the last time she'd seen him and silky hair that itched for her fingers to run through it.

"He was murdered today," her stomach plummeted to the floor as the news settled into her pounding heart; causing it to rattle inside of her ribcage. She gulped, trying to swallow the sandpaper realization that unease was slowly creeping into her throat.

"O-" she cleared her throat, ridding her voice of the desert dryness, "okay? What am I supposed to do with this information?"

"I want you to investigate," he replied easily, as if this were the most obvious answer ever. His response caused her to frown and raise her left eyebrow, questioning him.

"Investigate? A murder of a high-ranking immortal? You trust me with that?" she insinuated that he had never relied on her for any matters of importance purely because she felt like being petty. Which in turn made it dawn on her that she really should not have missed breakfast. Elder Vlad was most likely 3 seconds from strangling her himself.

He glared at her with fire flashing in his cool blue eyes; a raging flame drying out the ocean inside. If he actually had a look that could kill (if he'd been a strong enough vampire to do so) this would be it. Mal tensed; her muscles turning to stone as she braced for punishment for her attitude. That is, until he let out a sigh and fixed the collar of his button-down shirt. He looked at her calmly and smiled. This motion was unnatural for Vlad; a smile was foreign on his face and happiness was nearly entirely uncharted territory.

"I understand where you might believe that I don't trust you, Mal, but you must know that you are incredibly gifted. I am only hard on you because I have higher expectations for you than I do for most. I am sending you to investigate because you have very keen sense and I know you will find anything out of place. If we have an opportunity to solve this for the rest of the Others, we will be revered by them. I am done being feared, Mal, I know you can solve this," he said more than he'd ever said at one time (aside from his lectures, of course) and it was all complimentary.

"Why do we have to investigate? I bet with such a high-profile case like this the best are already on it," Mal wanted to go to satisfy her need to be a hero but also wanted to press for answers.

"There are murmurs..." Vlad lowered his voice and averted his gaze, trying to find an answer that didn't make Mal any more suspicious of the circumstance, "that the reason behind it could be linked to his power of immortality, or maybe just his power in general. If this were the case, all of us are in extreme danger," he finished.

Mal frowned even deeper, her shoulders unable to uphold their proud carrying she'd been trained for. Her people could be in danger; the very people she's promised to protect as a Princess. She had to do something, but was she really prepared for a murder investigation?

"Will you go, please? You're the only hope we have at understanding the situation. I know Dorian was merely an acquaintance, but I'd like to put his spirit at rest and allow his family to mourn him properly. They won't be able to accept his murder without knowing what... monster would've done this," he spoke the word so vehemently that Mal was concerned he'd forgotten how many times people had used it to describe them.

She knew that she would forever be left with guilt should she choose not to accept his request, and so she nodded once more.

"Put your conscious at ease, Vlad. I will figure out what caused this fear to ripple throughout our ranks," she gave him a warm smile, flashing a pearly pair of fangs sharpened to dagger-like points. She hated to show them usually, being that most others thought that the fangs meant she would attack them. Which she wouldn't, because she has self-control. Well, most of the time anyways.

It wasn't until the moon had basked her skin in its silvery glow that she dared leave their base. Travelling during the daylight was a danger; not because the sun burned her sensitive skin, but because humans were more active when the sun was high in the sky. If she were discovered by mortals without any pre-existing knowledge of others she would risk being hunted. In a world of media, being a vampire would be something incredibly hard to hide. I mean, if you saw a wild pale woman running around with sharp teeth and blood on her lips would you not wonder?

Some of the media portrayed it wrong: the speed-running, the shape-shifting, the insatiable craving for human blood? All lies told by humans to keep fear in the minds of their subservient peers. In reality, her travelling was done by teleporting to the blood-drinker base nearest to where she desired to go. In this case, it would be downtown Chicago. From there she would catch a taxi to Dorian's home.

"Where to, miss?" the taxi driver looked up at her in his rearview mirror and she smiled without parting her lips, hiding her teeth.

"The homestead of Dorian H'Langraash," she murmured, turning away from him so that the only thing he would see was moonlight glinting off of her hair as she spoke.

She could see the beauty of his home and the crowds of people gathered outside well before it was in her line of sight, but she'd never let Vlad know that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ace Acadia

There's something about killing someone that makes Aca Acadia extremely happy. Maybe it's watching their bodies explode midair. Maybe it's listening to the glorious buzzing of the gun as it shoots out, blasting them with an impressive beam of light. Or maybe it was getting to listen to the sound effects. Nah, it was definitely the sound effects. Those were too cool to pass up. Killing people was great.

Not that she was some sort of person who liked killing. No, there were enough of those in the world already. In fact, when she wasn't busy playing games or getting more degrees to add to her collection of 'Colleges I Have Attended', she was out there investigating shit and helping uncover the reapers behind the dead bodies that floated their way through the city. There was a sewer heap of people who traveled the system, laying low in their slimy caves, waiting for their next chance to strike. Well, those who liked repetition, that is. The rest of the criminals, those who committed one or two offenses at most, never even entered the sewers. They strayed above, only occasionally popping open a drain to say hello and get resources. Most never even discovered the secret.

Ace did. Not because she'd wanted to, but because something about dark webs really enticed her. That, and she enjoyed going undercover and doing things. Working for the police really had its perks. Not that she always worked for the police. In reality, she was more of an 'on call' but not an 'active duty'.

So when her secondary phone started ringing, she didn't hesitate to jump off the back of her couch--the poor remote bounced off the cushions and fell heavily onto the granite floors--and an unfamiliar voice told her that she needed to get to a certain address at a certain time, she answered with the cheeriest grin on her face and somehow managed to mispronounce the words 'yes sir' in the process. Not that she truly wanted to go. Her online friends had just gotten on an hour ago and they rarely ever all met up at the same time. But still, a real death? In-life bodies were just way cooler than the ones on screen. So she'd have to defeat Chester and his stupid freaking upgrades tomorrow because there was no way he wouldn't drop everything to play her again. Something about men really drew themselves to her. Perhaps it was her impressive avatar or the fact that she didn't really need to sleep so she could play constantly, or maybe it was just the fact that her voice was really pleasant to listen to. Whatever it was, all the guys online loved her, all the girls online loved her, and Ace Acadia only really loved her bubblegum pop music and dead bodies.

"Okay, fucking nerds! Tomorrow it's game day. I've got dead bodies to find."

"Aw, really?" The scratchy teenage boy whined into his headset while she began to adjust her own. "You're a fucking whore, Acie."

"Sorry, Chessie. Your mom requested me tonight and I can't turn her down. She always tips like forty percent."

She logged off while he continued to whine and finally disconnected the mike. Listening to stupid people online was never a great choice, but damn, it gave her a great chance to deliver her epic comebacks. It also released all the anger she needed out of her body. Not that it had worked entirely this time. No, because despite the fact that she had more overall kills than Chester--HE HAD TO GO AND KILL ME SEVENTEEN TIMES? I ONLY KILLED HIM TWELVE. It was too much. She couldn't stop thinking about it. So there it lingered, keeping her going like a little dose of pep in her step.

On her phone, she started playing her songlist. Cherry Doll came up first and she turned it up, not caring which of their songs it was, because honestly, everything from them was enough to make her smile. Loud music,

"Looks like we got more corpses to play with," she muttered. "Gotta love corpses. They always seem so fucking friendly. So kind. What will I wear today?"

Something told her that showing up at a prestigious dead man's house wearing a sports bra and light gray sweatpants probably wasn't the best idea. She waltzed over to the closet, dancing to the tune of the music and letting her broad shoulders really get into it. The closet was broken into two sections: BLACK, making up half of the closet, and RAINBOW, making up everything else. She slipped into her work shoes, some nice black tennis shoes with black holo sparkles on them, then immediately took them back off, put on real pants, threw the shoes back on, tore out a bright pink shirt that said 'I Bite' in fancy black script, then ran her fingers through her hair until it seemed like it wasn't going to be a rats nest.

It was already six pm, which meant she probably needed to get down there, given that she often worked with a mix of daywalkers and nightwalkers. At least the sun wouldn't be too shitty, given that it had rained most all day. That was the great thing about Chicago--she could always count on the rain to help her out if nothing else would.

"Alright--so, what were those damn directions again? Oh, right, a dragon. That sounds heavenly. Gotta love when those damn dragons die, right?" She sighed to herself, cursing, because honestly, the houses that dragons lived in were so...ugh. She preferred to live in her underground house, with her strobe lights and her large kitchen and the great living price! She had a nice fridge that was big enough to store all of the blood she could possibly want while also making her look like she might not be a crazy blood-drinking maniac. Ah, the humans would go nuts if they ever saw her house.

It was a pretty place, spacious, without all those walls that humans enjoyed so much. The only thing that got walls was the toilet, because fuck if she'd ever let someone watch her shit. That was some weird kinky bs that she didn't like to think about lest she remember that video that Chester linked her to last year. She shivered at the thought.

"Okay. Got dressed. Got my phone. I look nice. Sunscreen--where is my sunscreen?"

That was the hardest part of the day. Even with cloud coverage, she wasn't going to risk having to go outside and have that damn thing pop up to say hello. So she dosed herself good, getting everywhere she could think of with that sweet-smelling spray. It almost smelled like bananas. She'd never know why. She didn't want to know. It didn't smell like sunscreen though and that was all she cared about.

"Okay. Time to go. Time to find a dead body. I'm ready now."

The phone rang again, and this time a different voice told her that she needed to get down there. That they were working and she needs to help on the case, yadda, yadda, yadda. It was all whatever it was, but Ace sighed and said okay, she was on her way. It wasn't her fault if their perceptions of time said that it had taken her an hour to get ready. While everything seemed fast to Ace, every day seemed fast. Maybe she was just the one going slower.

Whatever it was, it was time to set out. There was a case to solve. A dead dragon and a killer loose to the city. Who could it be? Ace Acadia was on the case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Penelope Wickers

On the corner of North Sawyer Avenue and Armitage, on top of an old lamp post whose light was busted out, with a camera in one hand and a phone in the other, sat one Miss Penelope Walker. Her bubblegum hair was tucked behind each ear, and she'd pulled a worn leather jacket tight around her shoulders. Two sets of wings remained tucked beneath the fabric, fragile against the strong gust of wind that was blowing past. With her elbows on her knees and face resting against her phone and palm, she let her eyes wander around the busy intersection. Graffiti in large white letters covered the brick wall across from her, and the storefront to her left held a recent "For Lease" sign. As for her camera lens, it remained fixed on the nearby apartment building to monitor activity.

There wasn't much buzz on a lazy Sunday, though. It was too early for anyone to be out of church and too late for any night crawlers to still be slinking home. If there was any shady business going on inside, she wouldn't be catching a glimpse until next night fall. What a waste of the morning.

Penelope stretched back and laid down. There was just enough room for her to fit on the metal and pull her legs up without falling off the flat, smooth surface. The lamp's backing, situated beneath the shadow of a larger building, was warm without being burning hot. That would be saved for when the sun crept up farther and the day reached twelve or so. For now, it was a perfect napping spot.

Propping her head up with one arm behind her head, she used the other to pull out her phone. There were no new texts or calls, but there never were. So she decided to play one of the many games she secretly downloaded onto her phone. They were what Simon liked to call "time wasters." He called other thing that, mostly social media sites and video streamers like YouTube, and had made sure to block them the vast majority. Penny didn't care, though. For most of those websites you needed to have friends anyway. Instead, she was content to swap multicolored, virtual candy pieces to earn fake rankings to compete against people that didn't really exist. Until a pattern of footsteps caught her attention that was.

Twisting onto her stomach, Penny peered over the edge of her perch. Below her passed a group of tourists. You could always tell when they were tourists, something about the amount of sunscreen, the poor clothing choice for a blustery day, or in this case, the stiff Southern accent that came as a short, hyper child bounded in front of the group. "I wanna see the fish next!" he shouted, throwing both fists up in the air and stumbling as he attempted to balance along the curb. A hand caught him and steered him back to sidewalk. They scolded him for almost falling into the road, and the group grew quiet. Penny frowned. If she was big enough to be seen, she would have told him the aquarium was in the exact opposite direction. Neither adult wanted a screaming, unhappy brat on their hands, though, so they kept their mouths shut and kept walking.

She watched them go until a vibration against the warm metal distracted her. Heart leaping into her throat at the sudden activity, Penny swiped it back open and went straight to her messages with Simon. The most recent one was sent a minute ago with a simple order "Home." Sighing, the fae put her device in her pocket and pulled her camera off the stand, slipping the strap around her neck. So much for a break. With a short glance beneath her and to each side, she slipped her wings between the thinly sliced holes in her jacket and took off.

Green, shimmering wings beat behind her at the rate of a humming bird's as she flew over the city. The wing rushed her face and pulled back her hair. Her clothes rippled and she dived through a pair of tree branches that'd intertwined before she pulled up suddenly and emerged above a sting of buildings. For a moment, she felt like she was floating effortlessly, forgetting her muscles fluttering to admire the view. Then, mimicking a hawk, she dove back down and swooped up only before hitting a park bench.

People and cars flashed by left and right as she flew. Chicago was always moving. That was one thing she'd learned. It was all cars and metal and steel and as she ducked beneath a bridge to avoid the wind above, the subway rumbled over it with everything it had. Shivering against the noise, Penny ducked to the right and swerved down a side street and reemerged on Division Street. A cab painted bright blue passed her on the right, and she watched the people in it, a pair of six-year-old girls, staring open mouthed at the towering buildings.

Penny smiled at them, then turned right. Her eyes scanned until she found a familiar rooftop and a large front yard. The house was painted a soft green, the steps that lead up to it a made out of brick. She flew in and zipped beneath the awning of the front porch. As her feet touched down upon the step, the size of it grew. Penny was still only a size six, and had never made it past 5' 2", but at least it was big enough to open the door handle on her own. She inserted her key and twisted the handle, shutting the door immediately behind her after she entered.

The inside was dark. It always was. With the blackout curtains drawn tight and the sky light covered with a thick piece of plywood, there was a guarantee that no sunlight would get in. It seemed overprotective, if Penny was to be honest. A light light couldn't

anyone. Still, she knew better than to argue.

"Simon," she called out, slipping her jacket off her shoulders delicately as to not disturb her wings. There was no response aside from the echo of the high foyer ceiling.

Sighing heavily, she tossed her coat onto a pile of unsorted shoes and headed for the stairs. They were a polished oak, late 19th century, and still in pristine condition. She'd never seen them built, unfortunately. Most of that century they'd spent in New York. Simon liked the weather. It got even more crowded than it had been, though, and they'd traveled up to Maine for a while.

Penny continued up until she reached the second floor, careful not to scrap her shoes on the hardwood as she passed unused, empty rooms. A few needed to be cleaned, that much she could smell. A few others laid open with the shelves half put up or pieces of furniture not yet built and still laying in plastic wrap and boxing materials. It looked messy, underwhelming. It didn't feel like home yet.

The only room that felt close to home was Simon's. He'd been so busy lately, though. It was the move and the stress, that was all. So, in the meantime, she'd been sleeping in her own bedroom. It was right in the middle of the hallway, and as she peered inside, she could see the baby blue walls staring back with her string of lights left on. She must have forgot to turn them off that morning.

.

Her body froze, staring at the open door. When had it been opened? Her feet landed her inside, eyes flying around to check every detail. Not so much as her book on her nightstand had moved, a discarded bra from last night left on her floor. Panic rose in her chest and sealed off her throat. Blinking to keep her vision steady, she tossed the camera from around her neck onto the mattress and went stomping out into the hall.

"Simon! Did you leave my door open?" Penny shouted down the hall. She knew better than to get angry or lash out. That led to trouble. But her privacy was one of the few she had, and she would be damned if she let it slip through her fingers. Marching down the hall, she headed for the second to last door that lay waiting. Without bothering to knock or even announce her presence, she wrenched the handle open and stormed inside.

The office was as pristine as it always was. Bookshelves lining the back wall were stacked with old cover and a neat stack of finished paperwork was inside a wire box at the end of the desk. Behind the desk sat Simon. She forgot sometimes how young he still looked. Leaning back in a desk chair with a book in his hands and a pen forgotten behind his ear, Penny would have thought he was still three-hundred. He reached forward to grab a glass of blood that was left on the desk. The discoloration was clear as she moved into the room; he'd been mixing it with vodka again.

Pausing with his lips pressed to the edge of the glass, Simon let his eyes flicker up to hers. A smile crossed his features. The drink was forgotten as he folded the corner of his book neatly to save it for later and closed the cover. "You're finally here." A hand fiddled with his black, sleek hair and pushed it out of his face as he took her in. There was always that distant but distinct hungry look in his eye that forced Penny to shudder.

She had to be strong, though. Eyes narrowed, she cleared her throat and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Did you break into my room?"

An eyebrow raised with pursed red lips. "What?"

"Did you?" The anger fueled the pixie forward. She crossed the room in a few quick strides and slammed hands down on his desk. It was unlike her, the loud personality exploding out of her without explanation, but she couldn't believe him. Couldn't believe that with

he was willing to do this too.

"Penelope." There was a warning in the name that brought a shudder to her form. He pushed out of his chair, straightening his spine and reminding her that there was over a half foot of height difference behind them. A dark intent flashed across his dark eyes. "What are you talking about?"

Her hands curled into fists against the desk. Her teeth bit into her lip. "Did you break into my room?"

Simon rounded the desk. A foot slipped back away from him, an instinctive movement. His eyes softened. A reassuring smile graced his lips. "No," he promised, holding both hands up in surrender to her, like she could

hurt him. "I wouldn't do that."

Penny squinted at him for a long minute. She wanted to watch him break her gaze, to falter in the concerned look he was giving her. It would have been more than satisfying to call him a liar, just

. "The door was left open," she argued feebly. His arms encircled her before she could protest, warm and comforting. It was the opposite of what she wanted. His pale hands danced through knotted stands in her hair, and her head was pressed against his chest.

"Maybe you left it open and you forgot?" The words were muffled above her.

That wasn't her. She wasn't careless like that. Simon pulled away and shot a questioning look down at her

She wouldn't do that, would she? This morning she thought she'd been sure to lock it, but maybe... maybe she was wrong. Muscles relaxed slowly in his grip, anger fading. She didn't know what had gotten into her really. It was such a hot headed assumption. He wouldn't do that to her, Penny knew that much as his hand slipped up her back and he began to rub her thin wings delicately between his fingers. A shiver passed through her body again. Her shoulders slumped into Simon, and she stayed there a moment to regain her heartbeat.

Simon's hand slipped beneath her chin and lifted her eyes up to look at him, stealing a soft kiss from her lips as he did. A surprised inhale parted them enough that his fangs brushed her lower lip, and Penny froze. The warm hand on her back turned cold. Refusing to pull away, her body froze in awaited fear until he pulled away and the danger passed. "Better now?"

Penny nodded numbly. What other choice was there beside yes?

With his hand still firmly pressed between her wings, Simon steered her back toward his desk. She rested gently on the edge, watching the vampire's fluid movements as he pulled the writing implement from behind his ear and used it to point at a folder on his desk she hadn't noticed. Her fingers grabbed it nervously, reluctant. "Is this the new case?" Her voice had fallen into a small whisper, but he gave her a praised smile at the change and the unease in her stomach began to settle.

Her fingers slipped beneath the manila folder and flipped it open, scanning the inside document in short flicks of her gaze. The name of the victim caught her within the instant. Dorian H'Langraash. Her mouth went fry. Mixture of dread and excitement stirred in her chest. "I- are you serious?" Her question was a gasp of breath.

Simon nodded. "Yes, and I'd rather you get there fast. The sooner the better and all that."

Penny nodded. She slammed the file shut and tucked it under her arm, wings already buzzing. "Right, right." She was going to investigate the murder of the Prince, well, a prince. She smiled a nervous bundle of nerves at Simon and twisted on her heels. "I'll see you after."

"And when you get back we can discuss that outburst, hm?" A ghost of a kiss was left on the back of her neck and Penny managed a small dip of her head as she fled back out of the house and grabbed her coat as she went. The dread didn't die even when she reached the victim's house, the promise of a punishment waiting at home leaving her blood cold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Foster S. Phoenix

Time was a relatively easy concept to understand. If you kept a watch on your wrist, there's a good chance that you would either always be on time or never know when the fuck you were because for some god forsaken reason your watch never seemed to display the correct time no matter how many watchmakers you took it to or how many times you had to cash in on your lifetime warranty. Foster was firmly in the later category, which is a good indicator of why he stumbled across the crime scene of Dorian H'Langraash on complete accident.

His shoes scuffed the sidewalk almost as frequently as he picked at the scratch on his cheek, hand shoved deep into the pockets of his pants where he could still keep an eye on the time. The watch on his wrist was the fourth one that year and for a watch that was supposed to be both indestructible and within the price range of the lower middle class, that was pretty pathetic and he knew it.

Still, it was better than having no watch at all and with his phone pressed to his ear with the other hand, it was a surefire way to keep track of the fact that he was running either hideously late or perfectly on time but there was no way to be sure of either. The voice on the other end of the call was pressed, all of their air expelled with each sentence that they spoke. It was almost as if they were being compressed slowly, or having a furious asthma attack at the same time they were trying to get legal advice. "No," Foster told them calmly, trying to explain the procedure as easily as he could without letting the exasperation show in his voice. "You cannot copyright a species of people. No matter how much profit you could get from suing— trademarking all lycanthropy is a terrible idea for many reasons."

The man he spoke to sighed in the same half-mixture of frustration and irritation that Foster wished he could express right back to him. "And why is that?" he challenged further, pressing the fae to roll his eyes and smile politely at the woman who passed him on the street with a baby stroller in tow. Without thinking, he hopped into the street and crossed over to the other side. Shops with glittering displays and customers busy inside filled his world with noise from a thousand different sources. Enough to drown out the conversation, for sure, but one could never be too careful anymore. Cassandrites were a messy, messy business— especially for the legal system.

"Because," Foster emphasized, stretching the word out for as long as he could. "There's no way you could provide proof of irreparable harm. Furthermore, you would have to, I don't know, confirm the existence of people just like you all over the world?" There was silence on the other end, a heavy pause that lasted long enough for him to skip over at least four cracks in the sidewalk. When an answer did come, it was in the form of a click before the line went dead entirely.

He couldn't help but laugh just a little as he pulled the phone from his ear, pulling up his most recent text messages to send back a few of his own. 'Ur welcome', the first one read. After a moment of squeezing past tourists and commuters alike, Foster followed it up with a second remark: 'I'm late to my date for u'.

In the time it took him to contemplate putting the cell away, he received a reply. It was only three hearts, all happy to see him but still nonetheless. A smile twitched at the edges of his lips as his eyes scanned the name up at the top. Zoe. That girl is a mess. Foster had a particular fondness for his younger sister, perhaps it was just their similarities but he'd always felt that they were closer than most of the siblings he'd met over the course of his life. He did his best to stay on good terms with her, even if they were no longer seeing eye-to-eye on everything. The least he could do was let her redirect her obstinate or annoying clients to his phone where he could get rid of them with a few quick words and some legal jargon. She had more important cases to consider besides.

Prince Dorian was currently dead in his penthouse apartment hundreds of feet above Foster's head, but he didn't know that. The news had yet to spread that the prince was dead at all, and if he was going to be contacted about it in any way— it would be through Phoenix Legal Firm before it would be through first-hand witnessing. But the world had seen fit for Foster to drop his phone as he tried to slide it back into his pocket, causing it to bounce against the busy sidewalk and out of his grip entirely.

Foster dove for the phone, trying to move around the rushing feet that hurried around him. Somehow, the phone remained always out of grasp. Each time he reached, a new set of feet would push it off into a different part of the sidewalk where he would have to start the cycle of "excuse me"s and "sorry"s all over again as he tried to navigate through the people.

When he did grab hold of the shiny screen at last, it was only to sigh in defeat at the multi-colored crack that ran along his screen. It mutilated the picture he had set as his new wallpaper, a pretty boy with a brooding look on his face who he was supposed to be meeting up with at any time. All but crouching still on the sidewalk, he tapped desperately at the screen in an attempt to get it to recognize his touch. After a few tries, it seemed to understand part of the message he was trying to send to its processors but the process was agonizingly slow.

He gave up with a sigh, straightening up and forcing the damaged device into his pocket where it could do little further damage to his schedule. Glancing as his watch, he realized that he had no idea what fucking time it was. Which meant that at least his head, or rather his ability to tell time, was still in one intact—if not entirely useless—piece.

Fate and Foster collided as soon as he looked out towards the street and saw the mass of people gathering near the front of the skyscraper in front of him. Only pieces of the rush of moving bodies around him seemed to stop by the building, and those that didn't— didn't. In fact, they acknowledged nothing about it at all. Not the crowd, or the blare of sirens as an ambulance roared down the street, not even Foster as his feet propelled him through the scene. Something cold and angry made his body shiver, like the echo of a scream that chilled his body to the core.

The closer he drew, the more the world around him seemed to fade away. "What's going on?" he asked, but there were too many voices to make sense of the answers he received. Something glittered in the air, a shimmering sort of glamour that was otherwise completely imperceptible. They're hiding this. The pieces began to fit together one by one, revealing the picture beneath the jigsaw. Someone is hurt. With a new sense of urgency, he began to push his way to the front of the crowd. "Let me through," he demanded, brushing past shoulders and terrified voices as he tried to see what the paramedics were pulling from the building. "I can help, let me through."

Then came the screams. Panicked, horrified, trapped in the void created by the magic surrounding him. Foster reached the front, and his heart turned to ice inside of his body. Although he had never seen the prince in person, he knew enough to recognize the body being removed from the building. Prince Dorian. On instinct, his hands flooded with warmth and he tried to reach for the still, cold body only to be yanked back into the crowd before they could touch. Foster struggled against the grip, shaking his head furiously as he became caught up in the panic of those around him. "I can heal him," he swore, still trying to get free. "I can heal him."

But the voice that held him back was rough, and his grip was much stronger than Foster's could ever be. "Kid, he's already dead."

Time was a relatively easy concept to understand. What was less easy to understand, however, was the concept of the right person being at the right place— but far too late regardless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Cachail

 For the Cachail, change came in two varieties. The first was a rapid sort, a snap-of-the-fingers transformation between two radically different forms. The Cachail understood this change deeply; it was the change he studied, the kind that molded his life by virtue of occupation. The Court, too, understood this change, enough to know the Cachail understood it best. In this way, his position was safeguarded.

(The second kind of change the Cachail perceived was slower. It was the unyielding growth of ivy along a brick wall, the maturation of a boy to a man, the fermentation of something sweet; it was out of the Cachail's realm of expertise, and so he could not be blamed for failing to understand it. The Court certainly didn't blame him. They needed him for a single job, one that rested squarely within his means. Besides, while rapid change was the Cachail's domain, gradual change had always been the Court's.)

The phone call the Cachail received that morning was of the first variety.

The circumstances that heralded it were unassuming. Doughall was standing beside the Cachail, his expensive cologne irritatingly cloying, his voice an unprofessional drawl in the gallery. The moon-faced curator was leaning across the marble counter with a pinched look around the corners of her mouth, presumably waiting to answer Doughall's long string of questions. And the Cachail's phone was buzzing in the pocket of his black dress pants.

Simultaneously, the sense that something was changing buzzed in his chest, and he stifled the half-smile that threatened his sedate expression. Only a select handful of people would call the Cachail at this hour, while he was personally investigating leads. The lab might be calling, or Willow, provided some Court emergency had struck that morning. But it couldn't be any of those, because the Cachail's phone was programmed to buzz with a specific rhythm for familiar phone numbers, and this buzzing was continuous.

Unfamiliar number, then. Fascinating.

"Will you excuse me for a moment?" the Cachail murmured, catching Doughall between questions. In return, the Cachail received a wide-eyed, panicky glance from Doughall that should have been trained out of him at the academy.

"Take your time, Investigator," the curator replied, her smile too taut around the edges.

Their guide was nervous. Doughall's unprofessional demeanor clearly hadn't assuaged her anxiety—an Unseelie murder investigation within one's walls was enough cause to panic. The Qiu Gallery should never have been a location of interest, anyhow, but the main suspect had visited three sequential nights preceding the murder. If any information was to be had here, the Cachail would have it.

Fortunately for their Cassandrite guide, the case might already be closed.

As the Cachail slipped into the adjacent statue gallery, light glinting off of modern obsidian carvings, he peered at the phone in his hand. The number was unfamiliar, but the first two digits were three and nine. The caller was contacting him from Italy.

At last. Here in the empty statue gallery, the Cachail allowed a close-lipped smile to cut across his face. This was the moment the Cachail enjoyed most in each investigation, regardless of the parties involved.

For every crime committed, two moments of instantaneous change existed. The first was the committing of the crime itself. Before this moment, the world followed some order, and the truth was known. After this moment, the world became more chaotic, and the truth was clouded.

But the second moment did not belong to the world at all, because it was only the Cachail's. The second moment was when the Cachail knew exactly what had happened—who had committed the crime, how they had accomplished it, why they had done so. Eventually, once the Unseelie had prosecuted the case, everyone would know these details. But the truth belonged to the Cachail first.

The Cachail pressed the "talk button" and raised the phone to his ear.

"Pronto," he said. The smile deepened.

*

"In my view," said the Cachail, "we have all we need. If Leander feels differently, Doughall and I may return to the Qiu Gallery. But I believe it unnecessary."

Willow exhaled and leaned across her desk. As always, her office had been kept in pristine condition, the oak furnishings and dim lighting giving a deeper atmosphere to the expansive space. The golden brown tones might have made her office seem Seelie, had the blood-red accents not added an uncomfortable edge. "No," she said, "no more work necessary. Leander agrees." The engravings on her metallic bracer coiled as she spoke, forming the shape of a snake tightening around a shorter, portly woman. When the woman's mouth opened to scream, the Cachail's eyes moved to Willow's face.

Willow would have been beautiful, had the Cachail still been able to perceive beauty. Her movements were languid but graceful, like a cat's; even when she sat still, something beneath the surface appeared to move. Her eyes glittered without light, but in the candle-glow of her office, her golden irises swam and sparkled. In contrast, the reddish-brown tones of her skin seemed to absorb light, so that staring into her face meant watching two stars in the dark.

"Tell her her case," she said now, and the Cachail's eyes focused on those two stars. Though they had known one another for years, neither the Cachail nor Willow could read one another's expressions, as working companions might learn to do. For a moment, the Cachail thought there might be something Willow had left unsaid; then Willow said it: "Come back here when you have finished."

The Cachail nodded, pushed his chair back, and strode from the office.

Unseelie trials were rapid affairs, in which the prosecutor told the Court what had transpired and the Court exacted punishment almost immediately. There was no defense, though an observer of the trial might speak in the suspect's favor. Because of this, when an Unseelie investigator closed a case, the Court liked the investigator to bring evidence before the suspect before they were tried. The suspect presumably already knew how they'd committed the crime, but the Court preferred that they knew where they'd erred and how the Court had learned of it. In this way, the suspect would know their trial would be fair—their punishment would come only because the Court knew they'd violated the law.

Sometimes the suspect would deny their crime, when the Cachail spoke to them. Sometimes they would admit to their wrongs and beg lenience. This was why the Cachail was particularly good at his job—when he had already learned the truth of a crime, the case was finished. Lesser investigators might find room for doubt in the aftermath, but the Cachail did not waver in matters of the truth. He knew the offense, and he knew the punishment. Neither would change.

The holding room was dark when the Cachail entered. The inhabitant, sickly and disempowered behind bars of iron, could turn their own lights on and off. This was one of the few mercies provided to them; earlier regimes had forced suspects to sit in the dark and waste away within iron chains. Now only the walls were iron, and suspects could at least see. (Iron chains might come later, if the crime warranted them.)

But the murder suspect the Cachail now visited did not choose to see. She chose to sit in the dark, hands folded in her lap, head tilted toward an invisible ceiling. From appearance alone—stout body, full cheeks—she couldn't be Tuath Dé; in her eyes, then, the dark truly was dark. In the Cachail's Tuath eyes, the dark was less an obstacle than it was a lens, eliciting different truths from the people and places it held. But the Tuath weren't the only fae in Chicago, and the Cachail often found his perspective unique.

"Melican," said the Cachail. The woman turned, her irises dull and her skin puffy. Perhaps the puffiness was a reaction to the iron, or perhaps she'd been crying. When the woman sniffled, the Cachail gathered it was the latter.

"Are you the investigator?" said Melican weakly, her whole body shifting towards the bars. The sleeves of her cotton uniform had been pushed up to her elbows, revealing a rash along her forearms. (So she'd reacted to the iron. Some of the fae they imprisoned were weaker than others, rendering them iller-fitting for the Court's demands.) As an afterthought, the Cachail noted that her accent was Irish, and something stirred in his gut.

"You can call me the Cachail. I have come to tell you your case."

The gasp caught in Melican's throat. "No," she whispered, the knuckles of her interlocking hands squeezed white. "The overseer said I might not be tried."

"He did not lie." The overseer could not have lied, but this was unimportant—the prisoner should not have been told anything. Perhaps the overseer had taken pity on her. The record had stated that she'd borne three children; the prisoner might have used this to her advantage.

"But you will be tried tomorrow," the Cachail added, taking a step toward the bars. His voice was empty and affectless. "I will tell you your case only once, and tomorrow you will be convicted. Listen well: the Shrew was stabbed on the forty-fifth floor of the Centennial Building, in front of the elevators—"

"I didn't kill the Shrew—"

"—with a knife found beside the abdomen, found two hours after death by a custodian. The knife was not poisoned, meaning it was unlikely that this was part of the Westbrook string—"

"I didn't kill him! I didn't kill him!"

At this, the Cachail paused. Melican spoke the truth, by nature of her species. This was not unusual for prisoners who knew how to lie. Saying that one didn't kill a person when an accomplice did, or that one was innocent but of an unspecified deed, sounded truthful to a fae.

The problem here was that the Shrew was a woman.

"I didn't kill him," Melican continued to say, hands wringing in her lap. Her eyes shone with tears. "I didn't."

The Cachail stared at her. This could only be a trick; the evidence was incontrovertible. "The knife belonged to someone of the Greenleaf household," he continued evenly, ignoring Melican's sniffling. "The lab concluded as much with an ownership spell. It had never left possession of someone within your household, meaning that eleven suspects remained in the case.

"All other members of the household had confirmable alibis, while you—the cook—had none. But lack of alibi is not enough to confirm guilt. Consequently, we tested the cloth wrapped around the handle of the knife. Ownership results were the same, but no member of the Greenleaf household could say where this cloth had come from."

Melican was shaking her head now, the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I told you, I've never seen that cloth, I didn't—"

"The cloth wasn't made within city borders, so the sourcing spell came up negative. We tested the fibers instead. The cloth is made of cotton, but woven into that cotton are traces of a particular pollen. The pollen comes from—"

"—I didn't!—"

"—comes from a plant called everweed, a particular magical plant whose only retentive property is to ward off mold. But everweed pollen isn't used in industry. It's only used in the local textile craftsmanship of a particular suburb of Torino, Italy. That's a suburb you visited six months ago, isn't it?"

Melican's head rested in her hands, where it shook with the weight of her sobs. "I—I visited Turin with my grandson, but that's not—"

"You purchased souvenirs there, didn't you? At a shop called La Barca Blu?" When Melican failed to answer, the Cachail continued: "This is enough evidence for the Court, and it's enough evidence for me. You've been charged with murder of a Tuath Dé, and your punishment will be bestowed by the Court tomorrow."

Now Melican was staring at the Cachail. Her lips were screwed up into something resembling a grimace, something half furious and half fearful. "Why," she said slowly, "would I have done this?" The Irish accent in her words was strong, and the Cachail felt the tug at his gut again.

"The Shrew's company fired your daughter," said the Cachail. As his discomfort grew, he forced himself to meet Melican's gaze evenly. "Now your daughter is destitute. You were angry."

Melican continued to stare at him with that same screwed-up expression, the same fury that the Cachail imagined drove her to murder the Shrew. "I did not murder the Shrew," she whispered, enunciating every syllable clearly.

"Yet the ownership spell indicates you could have lent your knife to someone who did. These are the facts we have uncovered." The Cachail finished with the same words he used to complete every case account: "Because of our work, your trial will be fair. Goodbye."

He turned on his heel and left the room, ignoring Melican's shouts: "I didn't do it, I didn't hire someone to do it, I'm innocent!"

Lesser investigators might find room for doubt, but the Cachail did not waver in matters of the truth.

*

"So it went well?"

The Cachail nodded and settled back into his chair. "She insisted she hadn't done it, but her wording wasn't exact enough to exempt her."

Willow's fingernails tapped against the polished surface of her desk. Other representatives of the Court might have strewn trinkets across their desks, jewels and skulls and whatever else caught their savage fancy, but the Willow had always decorated cleanly. The most stunning attraction in Willow's spaces would always be Willow herself.

"Excellent," said the Willow, and for a moment they sat. Then she spoke again: "You can't go on your vacation, you know."

The Cachail's hands felt as if they'd been frozen in ice. He could no longer hear the sound of his own heartbeat, that hummingbird-fast, frenzied thrumming that grounded him in the world around him. "Excuse me?" he said, though both parties were aware that he had heard her remark.

"The Court is...apologetic," she said as she traced the edges of her bracer. The engravings swirled around her wrist, showing a host of snakes tethering a pair of legs in place. "They can't afford to lose their lead investigator right now."

The Cachail swallowed the tension in his throat. He felt cold. He felt too cold. "Doughall expressed excitement at taking on the next case," he said. The words sounded like frozen gravel.

"Doughall can take the case after this next one, and then you can take your vacation." The snakes on the bracer were biting at the engraved pair of legs; one had sunken its fangs into the Achilles tendon. "There's been an incident. We need you to head down to the H'Langraash mansion."

This provided a brief distraction from the Cachail's private panic. "Dorian H'Langraash?"

"The same one." The snakes on Willow's bracer were growing smaller now, as were the pair of legs. Soon the Cachail had enough room to see the face of the bitten victim—his own face—before it morphed into that of the prince himself. "Disemboweled. That interests you, doesn't it? I'm sure you'd like to get to the bottom of that."

He did. He could not deny his own desire for the answer—why Dorian H'Langraash had died, how the culprit had accomplished it inside his own home—but the timing could not have been worse.

The Court was apologetic about his delayed vacation, but they were not sorry. At times, the Cachail felt as if the Court delighted in his work as much as he himself did. But the Court could not fathom an investigator who could separate himself from his job. Neither could the Cachail, and this was the issue.

He knew of rapid changes because it was his job to know. But he could not know of slow changes because that was not his duty. Slow changes were the business of complete people, and the Cachail had begun to suspect that he was not complete.

He took the Unseelie car to the mansion regardless. He stared silently out the window the entire way, letting his breath frost the glass. Silence was not unusual for him; none of this was unusual, none except the frost dusting the glass in front of him. The frost whispered that something might be wrong, but it couldn't be. The job hadn't changed in decades.

For a moment, he thought something disturbing—that perhaps he had changed—but then he stepped foot onto the H'Langraash grounds, and the mansion rose up before him, and the thought was long gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Melia

There was something strangely delicious about fear. The adrenaline was spiced with blood and terror wove in a bitter, tart taste like a cinnamon drink she'd discovered long ago and never cared to remember the recipe of. Melia drank in the fear of the man in front of her, even though it was hotter than cider and burned her throat to taste. "The thing about debts, darling," she purred, running one long fingernail down the side of his trembling cheek, "is that they're only pleasant when you're on the receiving end." Warmth beneath the cold of her flesh felt like spiderwebs stuck between her fingers,

"Bring me something delicious this time. Wound him." She could feel the words unfurl like a lazy cat inside of her thoughts, not quite her own but connected nonetheless. "I'm getting bored."

Irritation prickled beneath the cool of her demeanor. If I wanted a backseat driver, she snapped, I would have invited you. Melia's fingers came to rest at the corner of his lips, eyes flickering down only long enough to see them quiver. A sliver of a scar marked the edge of her hand, a thin pattern of pale skin that reminded her of the contract they had made. "Blood for blood." The words slipped out almost as an afterthought before her smile widened and she released him at last. "That seems fair, doesn't it?" Somewhere in the deepest corners of her mind, a voice chuckled quietly.

She stepped back, eyes darting over the figure that stood in front of her. What to choose? What could she do that would bring the most satisfaction. His fingers were calloused, too thick to do much good for anything. Hair was greasy and matted, skin pockmarked and scarred far worse than hers could ever be. There was little that could be done for anyone who found themselves in the position of pissing off a demon and trying to live. What could be done, however, was nothing she couldn't do for the right price. But what she needed today was something special. "I want to taste blood," the voice requested. Immediately, she found her target and a sympathetic laugh passed from her lips before she could think to stop it. Taste.

"This will hurt." It wasn't a warning, as much as she would have liked it to be. There was something in those big, brown, puppy dog eyes that screamed with forgiveness. But there was nothing to forgive—no crime had been committed. This was payment, and payment was impartial. Hand shoved deep into the pocket of her coat, Melia searched for something to make the job easier. One stick of gum, a receipt, and a paperclip. There's no way in hell I'm working with this. Her eyes landed on a stray brick cast aside in the shadow of the alley. That'll do.

Blood and pain were a shivering combination. It was difficult to deny that there was a sort of twisted, sadistic form of satisfaction on following through on what the voice suggested. She left the body writhing and alive in the shadows where he belonged, with empty gums grinding against his jaw and a mouth full of bitter blood. That was no longer her concern, however. The debt had been paid. His game was played and over now. "Is it wrong of me to make a joke about the tooth fairy?" Amusement littered its words, the flick of a giggling tongue adding a grin to each syllable.

Her feet echoed against the concrete ground as she walked. "Talk again," Melia threatened, reaching past the blood and plaque stained teeth that collided against each other in her pocket as she reached for her stick of gum, "and I'll gouge my eyes out with a spoon."

"How about a straw?"

Nose wrinkled in confusion, Melia's brows furrowed as she tried to make sense of the prompt. "What—" The question fell from her lips as soon as she caught the smallest flicker of movement from on the sidewalk. It wasn't much, the glint of light reflecting off sunglasses and the hem of dark blue jeans. But it was enough for her to reach out and wrap her fingers in the faded black fabric of a shirt and yank its wearer into the alley alongside her.

Under normal circumstances, nothing would have stopped her from twisting her fingers into a fist and using all her force to drive them into the jaw of anyone who followed her. But the glint of heavily tinted glasses and a coffee cup still steaming paused her just along to make the face familiar. "Alec?" Blonde hair in desperate need of a comb and the smell of cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes solidified her words.

A heavy, contented sigh rested inside of her thoughts. "Like the prodigal son returning from the desert, your little project seems to have returned from—Starbucks." Melia forced her lips not to twitch with amusement as she released the dragon, letting him lower his arms to account for the cups he held in both hands.

"What are you doing here?" She questioned, pushing her fingers back into her coat pocket to stop the teeth that lined it from spilling out into the street where he could see. Shoulders rolling back, Melia allowed her weight to shift to one foot although her muscles never relaxed. There was a ringing in her ears, a painful sound that throbbed between her temples and she struggled not to let the irritation show through as Alec gave her the smallest, coyest grin.

He took a miniscule step towards her, arm extending one of the cups in his hands towards her. "For a PI," Alec began, "you're pretty damn predictable." Although the coffee was within reach, Melia did little more than eye it warily without any sign of taking it. Only when he followed his words with, "It's free," did she allow herself to envelop the cup with her grasp and let its warmth spread over her fingertips. No debts, she reminded herself. Never. "Besides, bullying people in alleys seems to be your usual two-o-clock."

Something like a scoff left her lips, pushed out on an expelled breath of air as she shook her head. "Don't be stupid." Melia took the tiniest sip of the coffee, whipped cream and chocolate melting together with the steaming liquid. Heaven. "It's two-thirty," she corrected promptly, but by this point her resolve was beginning to fail. "How long have you been out there?" Her lips twitched with the memory of a smile as she took another drink, interrogation continuing.

There was something on his mind. Alec's feet shifted back and forth over the concrete, unable to stay in once place for more than a few seconds as he thought about his answer. "Twenty years." A cold, earthy taste passed over her tongue as she shuddered to fight back the nausea that plagued her. What a goddamn liar.

"Fuck you," Melia swore, contemplating whether or not it would be a waste of energy to splash the rest of her scalding coffee on to his pretty, perfect skin. It wouldn't do any lasting damage, but it would be enough to wipe that dumb grin off his face as he stepped forward to close the distance between them.

Even from behind his sunglasses, she could see the tint of red that burned beneath them and the arch of his eyebrows as he flicked a forked tongue out at her suggestively. "Here?" was his reply, and her grip tightened around the cup.

There was nobody else that she knew who could get her blood burning quite as hot. Perhaps it was the heat that radiated from him, or the way his grin mimicked her own in matters of mischief. It was almost enough for her to forget the bloody bone fragments digging into her other hand, or the shattered man she'd left so much deeper in the shadows. "I'm working," Melia reminded him. "Are you just going to bother me?" As casually as she could, she freed her hand from her pocket to fold it across her other arm. Another drink freed the dryness of her throat and left her tongue scalded with clarity-forcing pain.

Taking a moment to pretend to think about it, he nodded his head. "Yes, absolutely."

Another shudder, the taste of dirt and decomposition corroding her flesh and the ringing in her ears turned into something more like a drumming. "That was another lie, Alec," she warned, but it came out closer to a purr. Melia hid the ache spreading over her bones with a grin, stepping forward just enough to fully close the distance between them. Chin tilted, she raised herself up onto her tiptoes until she was close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against her lips. "Three strikes and you're out." It was an empty threat or—maybe it wasn't? But the ideas that flickered through her head were a different sort of sinister.

"Being out sounds fun." Alec's free arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her in closer until his words were barely a murmmur against her skin. Her heart beat to the tempo of the ache in her temples, but the pain was different when she was close enough to smell the cologne hidden beneath his cigarette-stained clothes. She could almost pretend it was worth it.

But it wasn't. All it took was a yawn and something close to a hum in the back of her thoughts to remind her of that. "I like him. When do I get to meet him, Melia?" Her eyes flickered up towards Alec's face and she stepped out of his grip.

She wanted to be able to shake off the heavy feeling in her gut, but there wasn't enough of a boundary for her to push back from for that. "What do you want?" Melia questioned cooly, returning to the situation at hand and forgetting about the warmth of him next to her. Alec looked at her for a moment or two before he seemed to remember where they were as well.

With a shrug of his shoulders, he took a long drink from his coffee cup and leaned backwards to widen the space between them. "You told me to call you if I found anything interesting."

"This isn't a call," she corrected him, nose wrinkling in confusion once more.

Alec breathed out a sigh, pushing his free hand into the back pocket of his jeans. "Yeah," he agreed. "But did you really want me to break the news that Prince Dorian is dead over a cell phone?"

Chills collided with her body one by one, rolling in like waves until her grip on the cup slackened enough to almost let it slip through her fingers. It was as if her stomach had fallen out of her, hitting the bottom of her body hard and forcing all of the air from her lungs. "Oh, now this is interesting." For a moment, she didn't mind the intrusion. It was almost welcome to have someone thinking along the same lines as her for a change.

"Dead?" Melia's mouth shaped the words but her voice didn't believe it. Already, the gears were spinning as she tried to come up with all of the possible ways such a thing could happen. Dead. He's dead. Prince Dorian— part of her stirred with desire, the opportunity to claw herself up onto a higher part of the totem pole had revealed itself. What does this mean for me? For the Unseelie court? In the moment, Melia wasn't quite sure why she really gave a damn but the feeling passed as her eyes locked onto Alec's with firm authority. "I want to see the body." It wasn't a request, she was moving past him and into the sunlight before he had even had time to process her words.

Her gaze caught the black car parked against the curb, paint still glossy as if it had come off the lot that morning. Alec fell in step beside her, but she couldn't focus on him and the death of the dragon prince simultaneously. "I already told them I was bringing someone with me."

Even as she pulled open the door to the passenger side and slid inside, she could feel the weight of the debt settling over her. It tasted worse than blood ever could, and filled the spaces of her teeth as her jaw clenched. Don't worry about it, Melia. Alec in the driver's seat did little to stall the anxiety building in her ribcage, but she kept her face as stoic as possible. "You better drive fucking fast." She mixed her words with another drink of coffee, trying to drown out the foul taste on her tongue.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alec grinned ever so slightly. "Look at you, calling the shots." But he did, and it wasn't long before her feet were firmly on the ground in front of the Prince Dorian's front door, waiting to see a body.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Limerick

I have always appreciated the words "do not go gentle into that good night." They aren't mine, believe me - my rhythm is off by a syllable always - but there's a reassurance to them, a pat on the back and a whisper in the ear, funneling through, existing. It is urgency and it is a lullaby and very often I find myself reciting it to myself, quietly, through pressed lips in the dim and the dark. Don't let your life pass by without completion, it says; don't let life be ripped from you so suddenly, it says. And back in the forties, when the poet'd first said not to, I'd decided to listen.

Not very well, however.

I go gentle into that good night now, and a good night it seems to be here in the streets of Chicago. It's quiet and desolate and I've seen no one and no headlights, which is strange in this city, but I've lived here long enough to know which streets blaze with popularity deep into the morning hours and which streets sit dry and dead and desolate, like this one now. There's no watch when I glance at my wrist, but I know it's three in the morning and plenty of miserable mothers and fearful fathers are stumbling their way back home in a drunken stupor by now. Some will come down this very street. But that's alright. If they see me, they'll write it off as a drunkard's hallucination; a pretty man on the corner, but nothing more.

I don't shine bright enough anymore to be anything more.

A streetlight passes overhead, and I glance up, hoping it provides some light to the hollows in my face, but I know it's too dim, and it flickers up there anyhow, three lonesome moths tap-tapping against the bulb. They're idiots, I want to say, but they won't understand no matter how loud I say it, and their little chitin-coated heads will continue to ram into the glass until they either burn themselves out like a shrivelled young wraith or knock themselves to death.

Plus, I don't think they can quite help it. I mean, I'm not too fond of sleep myself, and nocturnal habits always come crawling back on stunted legs. When you spend so much time up at night, you get desperate for a little light, and I know this is true because I still haven't moved from my spot under the street light.

A hunger pang surfaces deep in my gut, and I'm forced to duck away; for now, I forgive the little winged beauties for their fallacies and leave them to their devices in favor of walking. I can't remember why I started moving, why I got up from my chair and stepped outside. Maybe to stretch these long legs, or to let the candlesticks harden. That sounds about right. Too hungry to think any more on the matter, to strain for memory. It'll harden later too. It just needs to dry. Like the candles. All will be well. All will be well and I suck in a careful breath and begin to recite "old age should burn and rave at close of day" because that's what I do when I'm nervous and my spine is prickling against the skin and trying to crawl out of its place. The nerves stretch with it and force my fingers to reach as far as they can go. "Rage," I whisper, and it's deep and gravelly and uncomfortable in my throat, "rage against the dying of the light."

Then the world screams.

It's a brief and punctuated noise, but it's loud, and it echoes off of every single wall in the neighborhood. This noise forks lightning and raves against the sky and when it touches my gentle, sensitive ears, it feels like exactly eight wasps are rattling around against my eardrums and it hurts, I'm telling you, it hurts something bad, but I don't move and I don't flinch because although I come from a place of gods and angels I am here now and process things like any other mortal.

Conclusion: That was a gunshot. Followed by a scream, a wail, an agonized call of shock.

It would be smart to turn the other direction, it really would. I've seen humans do it a thousand times when someone's in need. But there's a pull deep in my chest and gut. Sweat sprouts and pours even though there's a chill in the air, and a hot flash crosses through, and my legs begin to shake and it's the sort of shake that you know can only be solved with food.

"Do not go gentle into that good night," I tell myself, loud and clear this time. You're not hungry. This will pass. Do not give into it. Instead, I start at a run and tell myself that the shake in my legs is compassion for whoever exists at the other side of that wall.

Litter and trash, newspapers and napkins, they call catch on my legs as I run, and I have to slow and bend to tug them away, but then there's an alley lit by someone's open window three stories up. A silhouette of a shadow rests against the other side of the alley. He or she or they - it doesn't matter - grabs hold of their hood and tugs it up, gun so close to their head I fear for just a moment they might shoot themselves and brain matter might stick to the brick, but then they're fleeing and then they're gone.

I could chase them. I could. But my legs are still shaking and, well, frankly, I've never considered myself a hunter. This good night is not the night to start.

Instead, I hear spluttering and whimpering and turn my attentions to the boy laying slack against the rough ground, right smack dab in the center. No, not slack - tense, actually. His hands are pressed so tight to his stomach that the tan in them has gone completely white. He doesn't see me. He sees the window three stories up, perhaps hoping that someone will glance out and find him down there. Call an ambulance. Bring a band-aid. Something.

That someone will give a single damn that he's there, bleeding out in a dark alley. Alone.

I take a wary step closer, because I don't know what he'll do. If he does call up to the window I need to leave. But a few seconds pass and he doesn't; he just squeezes his eyelids together, pretty long eyelashes sticking together with moisture. There's a pained crease in his forehead and his lips are parted and he looks young, eighteen at most, and he's dying.

He starts to cry.

This is when I step forward, into the light. "There's no need for that," I say quickly, hands splayed out in front of me. As if to halt him, like that'll do anything.

A gasp leaves him and he continues gasping, and for a moment I think maybe this is it, he'll hyperventilate and pass out and never wake up. Then his head works itself up, a feat so hard there's veins popping up against his forehead and chords in his neck. "Please," he says, "help me." He's sweating too. Like me.

I wipe this sweat off my brow and bite my lip. I can't get help. I don't blend with humans, I have no phone - there is not much to be done here except exist. "I...can't. But you'll be okay. Soon. It won't hurt anymore very soon." My voice is too strong for this. Too calm and unwavering and deep. But I am a Fallen, so I suppose it's fitting. Sometimes it's easy to forget.

Until the hunger comes.

It's a burning thing, pinching every organ together, sucking it into the pit of my stomach. That feathered pancreas stretches; that spleen at the side wrinkles and curls; that liver, usually so solid and firm in its place, is pulled in the direction of rising starvation. All the blood around these things is coagulating and turning brown. I can't see it but I know. Or think I know. It keeps me from moving but my tongue is circling against the inside of my cheeks, soaking in the saliva, and there's a thunder of liquid deep inside my ears. I can hear the deep pulsation of need.

This hunger, I can feel it scratching and tugging and ringing, and I just want to shove my nimble fingers so deep into my canal that I grab hold of the cochlea and rip it right out, send me off balance, send me crashing so there's a bigger distraction, and, more importantly, so I'm unable to right myself well enough to take a soul I don't want to take.

I raise my hands up to my ears, since, with the pain, it seems like the most logical option, but then a new noise breaks through everything else, and I pause. It's a voice, soft and struck with awe. I look down. The boy is staring at me now. His eyelids flutter like he's on the verge of a peaceful sleep, and his brows are yanked up as if by strings, held so high to keep from obstructing his vision. His lips rub against one another and repeat the question:

"Are you my guardian angel?"

I get this question often, when I stumble upon frail folks such as these. They'll see my godlike features, sense the dull glow radiating off my dark skin, and here in particular, the dim street light shines behind me, enacting a halo around the back of my buzzed head. It's very reasonable for people of faith, and even the faithless, to think I'm here to take their hand and guide them to a lemony paradise, where the rocks are soft and clouds are edible. Something outlandish like that. I've come to old ladies and elderly men in retirement homes at their deathbeds who ask me to take them to their deceased loved ones. I've come upon teenagers who couldn't take it anymore and I've come upon newborns who cry in agony but silence at the sight of me and I've even come upon a girl with a rock tied around her ankle at the bottom of a lake and been able to do nothing because she'd already begun to drown. And though some plead too loudly and some say nothing at all, my response is always the same.

I kneel at their side, like I do now, and I say, "Yes."

It's a quiet, calm word, but still it echoes off the alley walls around us. A puddle ripples with no stimuli. The boy lays his head back against the earth, sharp pebbles digging into his scalp. I sense this and lift his head to brush the rocks away and then settle him back down. His eyes never leave mine and I don't make eye contact. It's always been uncomfortable for me. Short fingers find my long ones, though, and then we're twisted together, his tightly, mine weakly. "Make it stop," he says between chattering teeth, "it hurts. It hurts. Please. It hurts." His eyes cross when he looks at me. You'll be gone soon.

Hunger takes another dig at me when the boy says this, and I make a snap decision: the boy is already in pain. If I consume just a fraction of his soul, it'll numb him and he won't feel it anymore; like a morphine that doesn't wear off immediately. When he dies, his soul will move on to the next plane, and in that next plane it'll regenerate the bits and pieces I've stolen, so brutally, but so mercifully, and then he'll be okay. In time, all will be well. "Okay. I'll make it stop," I say. Then a poor choice: "What's your name?"

"Toby," Toby says, "everyone calls me Toby."

Guilt. Weaker than the hunger. Weaker than the empathy. "Alright, Toby," I say, scooping a hand under the back of the boy's head. My lips patter together as I speak. "Alright. You'll be okay in a moment. Just trust me, and go gentle into that good night."

Toby nods, and with a nod of my own, I bend my spine, bow my neck, lower my face to his. "Go gently." My lips grab hold of his in a passionless, empty way, and I breathe in.

The soul hits me with a jolt. Sharp, minty, painful at the back of my nose. Sugary as it trails down the esophagus, curling and spinning and giving itself to my stomach and lungs alike. Then a spice explodes in my mouth, like pepper and paprika, and all is quenched, at least for now. The ringing stops. The pinching, wrinkling, stretching stops. The sweats and shakes stop. The hunger stops.

I release the boy's - Toby's - mouth and lay him back gently where he was, like I never even touched him. I will always know that I did, though. Come to replace the hunger is shame, and it eats away at everything just the same, but in a more passive, chronic way. It's familiar; my brethren brought it upon us all. My head lolls, shakes itself, and for the first time I make true eye contact with Toby. He's still alive, but the fear and heartbreak of lost life has left him and he lays there now, simply waiting. A stray tear from before sits on the cheekbone.

My lips pucker. I extend a hand and wipe the tear, then bring his eyes to a close with the tips of my fingers. His eyelashes really were pretty. Wonder if he'll have anyone that misses him? A mother, a father, a brother, a sister?

Christ, why do I do this?

On my knees, I sit there, rejuvenated but lacking the motivation to lift myself. Not even real sure how long I sit there, but I know it must be going on four o'clock, because that's when I feel it. A chill. Not a cold flash or some leftover symptom that hasn't yet run its course, not a breeze - a chill. Like something's changed in the world, for the better or worse I don't know. It's abnormal and it feels wrong. There's gooseflesh on my arms and I'm not even technically supposed to get those, as they're a mortal blemish, so this, in turn, is no mortal shift.

My eyes dart rapidly but carefully. "Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay..." Shift: left, right. I rise. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Nothing. Nothing at all, nothing to be, nothing here, nothing to see. Pause. Up a little, in the peripheral. Now the direct. Little dainty silhouettes, donned in black shadow with graceful legs and deliberate steps. They're on the rooftops, a whole triplet of them. They run. Curious, I think. Naturally, of course. I don't usually see this sort of thing on my nightly strolls.

This triplet makes an inhuman leap from one roof to the next across the street. I take a step forward, a little accidental rush from the recent feed. My eyes catch something they wouldn't have caught before. They catch more distant shapes on other rooftops further away, and they're all skipping and galloping and gliding their way to one point at the city skyline.

The chill. I think of it again, think of how wrong it felt. I think of how wrong the guilt felt and how light this open door makes me feel, how weightless and convenient. The Fallen have been looking for the perfect deed to atone for their crimes, and this, I think, must be a good start. Shorten the chain, as Jacob Marley might say on any biting Christmas Eve.

I accept this miniscule challenge and follow them through the streets.

Alley upon alley passes. Each distant footstep clambering across brick and concrete is loud so I never get lost (not that I would regardless, mapping Chicago out like I do). There are a few close calls where I think someone might glance down or stumble and see me so I keep close to the moist walls, flattening myself and trying to dim the incessant glow which isn't that strong, but is nonetheless stronger than it was before I kissed a tragedy for fulfillment. If they do see me, they make no note of it.

Soon enough, my glow heightens. We're headed to a brighter part of the city, where everything catches against my skin and reflects tenfold. Caution causes light-footedness; fear causes hesitation. The silhouettes begin to drop like flies, though, grabbing hold of fire escapes and scuttling down like fragile spiders. They all sprint by, and I duck down so the crowd doesn't see me as they all head down the street straight ahead. It's rather useless, really. A few catch sight of me and wave me forward.

I am no gullible man, I'll say it now, but I do take this one chance, this one risk, and follow them on slow heels until I see it.

Status represented by size and luxury. The house (mansion, rather) shines like me under the fluorescent lamps dragged in by a separate party. A fountain out front stands tall, composed of stone and still running, bubbling. Each window in the house is on, a white square situated every five feet and for three stories up. There are people in uniform passing in front of these windows every damn second, and it's a lot to take in. The most obvious clue is the yellow DO NOT CROSS tape sectioning off the house, the yard, the street.

This is no place for me. I am not a man who enjoys the heavy weight of death or puzzles, and this composes both of them, but there's a tickle at the back of my brain and a hand on my shoulder and I throw an arm out and throw them much the same. Too much.

The man is small, and when his rear collides with the asphalt, his face screws up painfully, nose wrinkling. "I just wanted your name, sir."

I look down at him and draw a blank, heart beating at two-hundred and thirty beats per minute, minimum. "Thanks," he says, "for helping me up."

I don't say anything. It all gets caught, and my mouth tangles all the words and ultimately keeps them back. I extend a hand regardless, and the man takes it. I pull him up too harshly too, all an accident, and he inhales sharply. "You really don't play around, do you? Anyways. You're on this team? You're not familiar, but you're definitely Other. And strong..." The man eyes me up and down, and I swallow a lump.

"Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay," is all that comes out.

He blinks. "Can you just answer the question?"

My nerves are buzzing. It's impossible to answer. There's so much happening and I want to do everything but nothing at once and, oh, I'm so indecisive but let's see, let's see, there's that tickle again, feather trickle, and I don't want to do this, I don't, but there's some irony in this in that I think, perhaps, that's why I must do this. To atone for my crimes and the crimes of my brothers and sisters, I must participate. I must help. And so, "My name is Limerick and I am part of the team."

The man nods, makes a note, and heads off as fast as he can to some official beyond the yellow tape. I've done this now, solidified it. My legs shake and hands tremble for entirely new reasons now, and the nervosity kicks in, and here I am, candlesticks long-dried and abandoned in their dim home many blocks away, quoting another little line under my hot breath, "Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

"Do not go gentle into that good night."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael Caim

He didn't know why he was private investigator when everyone treated him like a squashed bug.

"Boy, is this a fake card?"the bartender laid the piece of plastic on the counter. "Not many adults use a detective I.D. as a way to get a drink."

"Look, I forgot my driver's license at home, 'kay? I've had a...rough day."Michael rolled his eyes. "Besides, this joint is known as the place where teens can get away with fakes. Figures that an actual I.D. is considered suspicious."

It wasn't surprising that he was asked to leave.

Now, he knew that something was going on, and it was inevitable that he was going to get involved with it. The part of his life that he, honestly, tried to avoid at all costs was intertwined with this new case, and he hated dealing with the creatures in the job. However, he recently solved a large, supernatural case that somehow made him a bit popular, so he was now getting bombarded with calls and emails asking if he was taking the case.

He didn't want to be offered the opportunity. The stress, connections, and public tensions would be too much for him, and he didn't want to deal with other detectives. He would rather take small cases about cheating husbands and wives. But, if he refused, his reputation would be permanently damaged, not that he cared, and others might physically harm him.

He started to walk to his office, his hood up and head down, when a familiar ringtone echoed in the air.

"Henri?"Micheal sighed at his assistant. "What's the problem?"

"Monsieur Caim, they asked you to take a case immediately. At the

home of...'Langraash?"It was clear that Henri was at least trying to pronounce the surname. The letter 'h' was always difficult for him to say.

Michael froze, "That's the victim?"

"Yes, why? Is he important?"

"A prince, Henri. "

"A what?!"

That was Michael's cue to hang up on the Cassandrite.

The boy couldn't believe it. Sure, he heard rumors, but he didn't, no, couldn't imagine that someone of that stature would be murdered. Assassinated? He heard the ping as Henri emailed him the details, but he would look at those later. He never was interested in politics, and he was indifferent about the different forms of power in the supernatural world. But, a dragon? The man was incredibly wealthy; Micheal figured that he would have at least four bodyguards. What failed that caused this large of a death?

There was no way he could decline. The consequences were too great, and his own curiosity was peaked. He quickly caught a taxi and soon arrived at the expensive masterpiece of a home. Robbery, perhaps, or revenge?

His new-found determination diminished as soon as he exited the car. Was that...twenty investigators? More?

He almost immediately saw that most of them were not human. However, that was expected; the victim wasn't human. Besides, he himself wasn't-no. He can't think about that.

He tugged on his hood making sure that it covered his face, and he bit the inside of his cheek.

"You just going to stand there?"A girl's voice interrupted his thoughts.

He turned his head to see a young girl, though appearances can be deceiving, with dark hair that resembled a beast's. Of course, it made sense when he saw her crimson eyes. A dragon. How fitting.

"I was looking at the outside of the scene, thank you very much,"He replied, "What about you? I guess that you're his little mistress who decided to dive head first into detective business, or are you just-"

"Please, Caim, princes aren't my type."The girl rolled her eyes."However, I think I'd rather date him than you. He doesn't have that little boy look."

He was about to walk away, but then he recognized her. Ciki Scálaí. Was it just him, or did all of the well-known detectives get the case!

"I'm heading inside before people like you damage evidence,"he smirked, "Though, I wouldn't be surprised if a dragon burned it all up."

"Please, sticks, you would faint on the scene. When was the last time you fed?"She laughed to herself before walking inside.

He flinched. No, he had to shove that out of his mind. He had to do his job, and he had to act normal. He slowly opened the door and made his way to the scene.

Seeing it and how crowded the bedroom was, he immediately frowned. This was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aboleth

Abbie didn't often feel strong emotions. Being a crossroads demon did that to you. You stopped feeling bad for sorry saps with selfish desires rather quickly.

Right now, Abbie was seeing red.

Dorian was dead. Murdered. Lifeless on the floor of his stupid apartment where he was supposed to be safe-

Abbie grit her teeth and halted her train of thought. This wasn't productive. Wallowing wouldn't catch Dorian's killer.

Dorian was an old friend, from way back. They'd watched the Great Fire of London together, they'd been each other's confidants, and Abbie might have even called him her best friend if she had notions like that.

Now he was dead.

And she's given him very important contracts to hold.

She was livid. Those contracts were her bond to some very powerful souls. The killer not only had murdered one of the only people she trusted, they had put her contracts in danger. Anyone who knew Abbie knew that her contracts were the most important thing to her.

She took a breath as she approached Dorian's apartment. She had half expected human police to be around. She bitterly reflected that the Council was good at their job. Abbie traced the spiraling of scars on her left arm, the scars that appeared on any body she took. She could still see the council member's face, the way his blood stained the ground when she'd killed him.

She'd paid for that for years. Only recently had the Council forgotten the slight. They were one of the few groups she respected and feared. No one crossed the Council.

She shook off her memories, pushing her way past the groups of chattering people. They sounded like gossiping hens or starlings to her. She pushed through the barrier that had been set in place, a magic one of course. The people who did these kinds of things didn't mess around.

Abbie swallowed hard. Why was she nervous? She was one of the oldest and most powerful beings in this area, at least in her eyes. What was she so afraid of?

Then she stepped through the door and saw the crime scene.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandy Alva

Every day was the same. Wake up at seven, get to work by nine, and get working. Today was supposed to be different. She'd been given the day off and spent all last night planning a day out for her and Oz. it wasn't something they got to do as often as she wanted, or often at all for that matter. But then she'd gotten a phone call at two am. Now, frustrated and dealing with a worse than usual lack of sleep, Brandy stood at the edge of the bar, her elbows pressed down on the wood and her head lolling as she watched another minute tick by on the old, analytical clock on the far wall.

The beginning of the day was always busy. It was full of prep and sorting and stacking, unloading and stopping unloading to take care of those few creatures that came stumbling in for a drink, either desperate to keep the good times rolling or trying to quell their hangover quick with a fresh buzz. Now, reaching around to the time in between eleven and twelve, there were only a few patrons speckled throughout the bar. The music in the background was soft but hummable, and Brandy busied herself with following the melody of Don't Stop Believin' for the millionth time.

Her cleaning cloth swiped over the spill of a young girl who had become a mess of soft, bubbly laughter that was riddled with anxiety. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She reached out to help Brandy clean, then realized she couldn't do anything and awkwardly pulled her hands back to her chest.

"It happens," Brandy shrugged, getting the rest of the spilled rum and coke (and blood) and tossing the cloth in an empty bucket to wring out later. One broken glass wasn't going to get her more down than she already was. It did make the bar smell more coppery, though.

Leaving the girl with a new drink in her hand, Brandy walked around to the other side of the bar. Her shoes were peacefully quiet against the carpet, the lighting of the bar soft. It made it so sickeningly boring. She thought about pulling her phone out and texting Oz, asking what he was up to without her. The footsteps behind her, however, stopped her. The last thing she needed was her boss firing her over having a phone at the bar. Brandy's eyes turned to catch the gaze of him smiling down at her. The man mas an uncomfortably tall height of 6' 4" and had the canines to match. That wasn't to say she couldn't have crushed him to dust, but that wasn't really her main concern.

"Thanks for working the early shift today, Brandy." The words came with a slap on the back a little too close to her ass and a lasted a little too long. Fucking pervert.

She smiled back to match his. "Sure, Jason. I know it's been hard since Amanda quit." There were still rumors about why.

"Yeah," he sighed like he was trying to call up the "traumatic" memory. "It's a shame. We always seem understaffed."

"Such a shame," Brandy echoed shallowly, faking her way through the conversation so that he would leave. There was nothing she liked less than talking to her boss. Okay, maybe unexpected anal, but the two were pretty close. He acted like a saint with the way he handed out bonuses, but that was only so they wouldn't report anything unsightly. The joke was on him, of course, Brandy wouldn't report anything either way as long as she was left out of it. Humanity was shitty. She got the point.

Eventually, after a prolonged conversation on how his second ex-wife was doing, he finally released her at the sound of the front door opening and walked away to let her deal with the customer. The woman waited until he had left the bar completely, though, then set to work wiping down another sticky spot on the bar. If it was a girl he would have stayed, so she knew the new bar goer was male without a single glance up. She would deal with the guy when he chose to sit down, because it seemed like he was wandering around, loitering near the front by the lack of footsteps toward her.

A whistle caught Brandy's attention. She looked up to see a tall, sprightly young man come sauntering through the establishment toward her. He wore a nice pair of shoes - fancier than any he could afford - with a suit, a jacket, and a loosened tie hanging around his neck like he'd come from having a good time. It was an ugly tie, though, stripped and red, but the wrong kind of red for the suit going with it. His hair was slicked back, and his badge, something he should have concealed long before coming inside, was clipped to his belt.

When he reached the edge of the counter, he turned his face away like in an old movie where he was too suave to bother looking at who he was ordering and slid a twenty across the counter. "Scotch, on the rocks," he insisted with a snap of his fingers.

What a buffoon.

Her eyes rolled on their own. "Is that all?" The man, practically a boy by the way his face had aged, paused. She could tell he was hemming and hawing over the want to keep looking cool or to give in and change his order. The baby couldn't handle more than a shot and a half before spilling onto the floor and throwing up on his own shoes. With a nervous clearing of his throat he added, "and whatever IPA you have on tap?"

Taking the money off the bar, she nodded and went to work. One glass was set up on the counter and the other under the faucet. Then she went in search of the scotch. To her surprise, being the first scotch of the day and Jason being on some strange juice cleanse, the bottle was mercifully in the allotted shelf space. She plucked it down with a hint of levitation from the customer behind her and poured a glass, leaving out the ice. Why water it down if you were going to drink it all anyway?

When she looked up from her job again, she found the man staring. His eyes were locked directly with hers, head finally turned to "grace" her with his presence. A smile split his face and just knowing he was going to say something stupid, Brandy tried to stop him.

"Adam," she warned tersely, flicking her tongue over her lips to stop them from being dry. She wasn't sure when they'd gotten that way.

"Brandy, what a pleasant surprise!" He faked an expression as if he was noticing her for the first time. His voice was over-enthusiastic, the tone behind it more savage than the front he'd put on for the few other girls at the bar, who watched his glistening teeth move and his tight ass wiggle as he laid his arms on the bar and leaned forward.

"It'd be more pleasant if you'd get out of my hair," Brandy responded, not caring to be friendly. She could save friendly for when she wasn't working what felt like a fifteen-hour shift.

His deer eyes fell, his lip suffering from a sudden onset of heavy gravity. "Don't be like that," Adam protested. Reaching out, he took the beer she'd already poured and slid it over to himself. "I thought we were friends."

His whining was high-pitched enough to cause a migraine.

Forcing a thin, impatient smile, she grabbed him by the head and ruffled up his hair. The gel stuck to her hand like thick, warm snot. It was easy enough to wipe off on her apron, but it left a white residue smeared across her lap. Worth it to see the betrayed look on his face. "We're only friends when you want something," she reminded, grabbing the drink he'd bought her and taking a sip as he took one from his. The burn in the back of her throat was nothing more than a tickle, but it brought her more awake and focused.

"Speaking of," Adam paused, trying to gather himself and pull himself up to look taller and more put together, "I need your help."

A laugh escaped her lips as she shook her head in disbelief. Of course.

With a nervous gulp, he tried to continue. "Hear me out." Both hands remained up and out to calm her as if she was a wild animal. "There's this big case that just hit. A h-o-m-o-c-i-d-e," Adam spelled out carefully, whispering every letter like the few bar goers knew or cared. The only man that was close enough to hear was well into his fifties and no more interested in Adam's story than the crossword puzzle he had given up on and shoved away from his seat more than half an hour ago.

"It's an i, not an o," Brandy corrected, polishing off her drink in a quick swallow and putting it back in the dirty dish tub she didn't have the energy to take care of yet.

"That's what I said." Adam waved away her words, pressing the matter at hand. His dark eyes stared her down. "Can we go into the back?"

Frowning, she tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear. "The back? I'm working."

A blush spread across his face. It wasn't the first time he'd taken something like that wrong as he yelped out a, "No!" and got a few stares from across the room. Clearing his throat and smoothing his hands over his hair as he finally fixed the mess she'd made, Adam tried again. "No, I- it's sensitive information, alright? I'd rather not aysay in front of any ustomerscay or Asonjay." He pointed to her manager who sat in one of the empty both in the back. His phone was in one hand and his other had disappeared beneath the table.

Sighing, Brandy reached behind her and undid the loose knot of her apron. "You're ridiculous." Taking off and folding the black fabric, she tucked it safety beneath the counter and walked over to the movable part of the bar, lifting a portion up. "Come on." She motioned when Adam hesitated, and gratefully, he stepped into the slim strip behind the counter to walk back into the kitchen. "And take that off," Brandy added as she yanked the badge off his belt and shoved it into his chest.

Fumbling to catch it, the young man managed a numb nod and then they were both pushing through the double metal doors and disappearing from the front room's view. It was unbearably quiet. The music from the main room didn't reach into the kitchen, and the cook didn't arrive until noon. Adam hopped up on the nearest counter. Blowing air through his teeth and rubbing his hands together, he attempted a nervous smile. She leaned across from him and tried to skip to the chase. If she was gone over five minutes Jason would have her ass. Not that he didn't already want it.

"So, what is it?"

"Ah, right." Hands dashed through Adam's short, black hair. He waited, looking both ways, meeting her eyes, looking both ways, and then meeting her eyes again. He was like an agitated and caged puppy. Sad to watch but irritating to deal with. There wasn't going to be anyone listening. No one was that bored. The officer hesitated more and knit his fingers around the back of his neck. She gave him a nod of encouragement. Come on, Adam. "Dorian's dead," he managed finally, his spine collapsing like the spine of a jellyfish as the words left his mouth.

Brandy stared at him blankly. "Dorian," she repeated, unimpressed, "what Dorian?"

His fingers curled tighter, a frown twisting his lips. "Dorian H'Langraash, like Prince Dorian."

Okay, that was juicy. If Adam could lie, she would have called him on it at that very moment. Instead, Brandy felt curiosity leak onto her face along with a timid smile. "Who knows?"

The fae opened and closed his mouth once, then tried counting out on his fingertips as he spoke. "Everyone on the task force, um, a few others, those that found the body, his staff, some bypassers, you, obviously." He faltered at this point when she gave him a very unsurprised face. Stuttering and stumbling, he tried to rush through the rest. "I- I don't know who else really, anyone part of the dragon court that's closer than West Europe, a lot of the council," Adam said that part like there was an accidental leak somewhere along the line. No doubt they wanted as few people concerned as possible.

"You realizing telling me isn't the smartest idea to keep these things under wraps?" Brandy asked.

A red hue crept up across his cheeks again. "Yes, but I'm desperate." He covered his eyes with his hand and scrunched up his face. "I really need this investigation to go well after my suspension."

Her heart strained in her chest for roughly five seconds before she mentally shoved it back into place and shook her head. "I'm sure you can handle it."

Frown twitching, Adam shook his head. He looked tired suddenly, under the poor fluorescent lights and surrounded by dirty, partially rusted metal. It made her want to smooth his hair back and offer him a grilled cheese, almost. "I need your rituals. Just... test it out for a day," he bargained, trying to smile and failing. "Being kobold doesn't have so many perks as," he gestured to her without saying anything, "y'know."

"Adam-"

He stopped her, dropping from the counter with a thump. The shelves of unused dishes rattled. "I'll even get you off work for the day." He waved his badge like it was a magic wand. "And I'll drop you off after," he added, desperate to persuade her.

Brandy groaned, hanging her head in submission. "I hate that you know where I live," she replied, the closest thing as a 'yes' he would be receiving.

Adam's face lit up and he curled his fists, barely resisting from punching the air. "Perfect!" Flooded with energy again, he headed for the kitchen doors. "I'll go get you out of work, you can go to my car out back."

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Your stolen car?"

"It's not-" The lie jammed in his throat. A laugh spilled out instead, and he wagged his finger at her. "Dammit, okay. Yes, my stolen car." He used air quotes to try and offset the truth in some way, then disappeared back out the doors.

Shaking her head, Brandy headed for the back exit. She slipped out of it to find a red Mustang waiting across the street. Without looking both ways, the woman jaywalked to it in her flats. The front license plate was missing as always. A slight jiggle of the passenger handle let her open the car without a hitch, and once she had, Brandy kicked her feet up on the dashboard and tossed her work button up into the back, along with whatever other junk he was hoarding.

The day was hot and stuffy, and she left the door open as she waited. It was always hot and stuffy in the summer, though. Dorian's body was no doubt going to rot badly. An awful thought, sure, but she'd seen more than her fair share of dead bodies - both from Adam's job and her own personal experience. Never a dragon. That was something to worry about. Not that she was the kind of person to worry, but that didn't happen. Not anywhere and certainly not around here. Everyone was going to start pointing fingers and accusing whoever landed in their sight fast if this wasn't slowed with a quick, careful hand.

Things like this couldn't be helped, unfortunately. Eventually, someone was going to mess with the dragon's precious hierarchy.

Brandy pulled out her phone and gave it a quick glance. There were a few texts, some twitter updates, and she noted that Oz had texted her. Getting called in on a Saturday of all things. After texting back she might be home early enough to go out to dinner like he'd wanted, Brandy slid the phone back into her pocket as her eyes caught Adam rushing across the street and reaching the car.

His smile widened as their eyes met, and he slid into the driver's seat. "Didn't take too long, did I?" he asked, eyes flickering over her changed outfit for what might have been a moment too long. The only difference now was that instead of long, black sleeves she was wearing a tight, grey tank top that matched her hair and revealed a fair portion of skin that was currently blocked from his sight by the back of the car seat.

"You're fine," Brandy assured. She slammed the door shut and clicked her seat belt into place. "I was just texting Oz."

"Oh." Adam started the ignition, his teeth working on his lip. It was cleared he wanted to say something. The words he wanted eluded him as he cranked the wheel, brow furrowed. "How's the kid doing?"

Her eyes turned toward the window as he pulled out into the empty street and started driving. "Fine." Her voice made it clear that, once again, this wasn't a topic for conversation.

The fae shot her another glance out of the corner of his eye, one he thought she couldn't see, and then closed his mouth for the remainder of the drive. The silence wasn't bad. Normally there was this black hole between them that sat there waiting for any of their words to be sucked up and twisted around. Today, with the radio turned on and the window rolled down to stir Brandy's silver hair, the atmosphere was near comfortable. On her end anyway. She couldn't tell how Adam was feeling like usual. He was distracted with driving, with this new case that was certainly a lot shitier than the usual.

The guy's house was a ten though.

It was her first thought as they pulled onto Clark street and approached the gated entrance. There were a few people mingling around, either trying to get a glimpse or guarding it against those trying to sneak inside. Adam parked half a block away and hurried around to the other side of the car before the engine had even stopped purring as he tried to open her door for her. She let him, waiting patiently to step out onto the hot, glistening sidewalk. The sun baked her back the moment she stepped outside. A pleasant sigh escaped her lips, and she placed a hand on Adam's shoulder, using him to stretch. The warmth was comfortable, letting her roll her neck and making the tips of her hair hotter.

She started walking first and Adam followed, quick to stay on her heels. A reckless sot of grin split over his face as they approached the iron gate, yet he made sure to steer clear of the actual metal. The last thing they needed was for him to get a rash or pass out or something. Brandy had never been around Adam when he touched iron, but she couldn't imagine it was a pleasant experience. The two people nearest to the closed front gate squinted at them behind sunglasses as they approached. Adam pulled his badge off his belt for the second time that day and flashed it at the two guards manning the entrance.

"Inspector Adam Levitt, part of the UCPD," he announced with a voice that had more authority than the fae contained in his entire body. They both nodded at Adam, likely having already seen him there that morning, and turned expectantly to face the second unexpected guest standing behind him.

Brandy felt a slight smile curl onto her lips when she leaned over his shoulder and added, "I'm part of the special supernatural division, boys. Don't worry." It wasn't the technical name, but the name UCPD (standing for the Underground Chicago Police Department) had never struck her as very clever. Although, it was better than not having one. The state of Montana was a mess in terms of faction activity. She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen loose back behind her ear and smiled broader at the guards. "Can we please get through?"

They both looked at each other, nodded, and then opened the gates. The odd pair stepped inside and began the long trek up to the front steps. Before them was a several story mansion with a pool outside the front steps and a beautiful set of windows looking out on the street. Man, if that didn't a few girls up to his bedroom, she didn't know what did. It probably cost over a million dollars, or well, less now that there was a dead guy in one of the bedrooms.

"You ready?" Adam asked, letting his focus slip on acting serious only enough to give her the flicker of a nervous smile.

"A little rusty," Brandy admitted, drawing in a breath, "but sure. Let's go find a murderer."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alexander King

Alec woke up to slobber being smeared across his face. He blindly reached a hand out to catch the beast's muzzle and felt its tongue slip through his fingers and coat his cheek. With a stifled laugh, the boy shoved him away. He wiped the back of his hand over his sticky face and peered through squinted eyes, expecting to see a grey wolf nuzzling up against his chin. Sometimes, Isaac was in the mood to surprise him like that. Today, however, Alec found german shepherd roughly half the size pawing at his chest.

A grin split across his face. "Hey Rex," he cooed, reaching both hands up to scratch the adolescent dog behind the ears.

Rex let out an appreciative bark in response. Ears perked, tail thumping, and slobber dripping onto the sheets, he pawed Alec's chest, begging him to get out of bed and play. Shoving him back, Alec tried to sit up. It was hard to do with a sixty pound squirming mass of fluff dumped on top of him, but he grabbed Rex by the underbelly and lifted him up enough to scoot against the headboard. There the puppy could rest comfortably on his lap. His tail continued to wag. Each slap against the bed hit the lump beside Alec who, after the fifth attack or so let, out a groan.

"What did I say about that mutt being let on the bed?" His overnight guest growled, peering out from beneath the thick comforter. His hair was matted from sleep and his eyes were unfocused. A snort came from the dragon. Isaac was, as always, protective of anything he considered to be at least one percent his.

"Oh, come on," Alec joked as he scratched the bottom of Rex's chin, "he just wanted to say good morning. Didn't you boy, huh? Yes, you did." His voice descended to the wispy-washy baby talk that came whenever he was playing with the animal, and Isaac huffed, tugging the blanket over his head and turning his back to them.

"Just make it leave," he mumbled. The werewolf was uncharacteristically grumpy for the morning, but Alec said nothing of it. Rolling his eyes, he did as he was told and gave a short whistle and a snap of his fingers to the floor. With a feeble whine from the back of his throat, Rex hopped down from the bed and onto the carpet. His paws weaved around the odd collections of antiques that covered Alec's bedroom as he paced on top of an old Back to the Future poster and around a stack of license plates. Both needed to be hung up on the walls, but the first problem was finding wall space.

"Don't be so territorial," Alec reminded Isaac as he slid from beneath the covers and settled his feet on the floor. Rex gave them a nudge or two with his nose, and then bit down on one. Chuckling, Alec reached down and pet him again, this time in long, smooth strokes. Most people would have broken out in a bloody scream at the pressure being applied to the boy's foot, the dog gnawing at the impenetrable skin with all his might. Apparently, it was no different from a tennis shoe. Since it hurt Alec none, he didn't bother to tell the dog not to. A few bites did nothing but send faint vibrations through his bones.

A huff came from beneath the sheets. "I'm not being territorial. I don't need to fight with a damn dog." Isaac stuck his head out again to glare sorely at the animal. When he did, he noticed Alec's position at the edge of the bed and scrambled to sit up. "What are you doing?" It was that immediate, intense interest coupled with a slight hint of worry.

"Leaving," the dragon replied as he pulled on a pair of blue jeans waiting at the end of the bed. They were a little tight in the crotch, a bit faded around the knees. He smiled at Isaac apologetically, and then turned away, hunting through the laundry basket by his bedpost for a pair of socks. The ones he found were mismatched, one a bright blue and the other yellow and orange, but he pulled them without worry. People always cared too much about socks matching. No one was going to see them anyway.

"What? No, stay." Isaac reached over, stretching to brush Alec's t-shirt. His hand snagged Alec's waist, and he wrapped his arm around him, acting as dead weight when the dragon tried and failed to stand. It was the desperate kind of move that one any other day, on any normal day, would have brought Alec back into bed. He would've showered Isaac with a few kisses and slipped his jeans back off for a little fun. Today wasn't normal.

Sighing, he gently pried the werewolf back off with some difficult wiggling and a brief cheek kiss. "I can't. I work." He made it to his feet and stepped over a fake genie lamp to find his nicest pair of shoe. Well, second nicest, considering the first nicest were business shoes he saved for special occasions. Maybe he should have considered this as a special occasion, but it didn't feel like that. He didn't want it to feel like that.

Isaac scrunched up his face. The scar across his nose broke apart when he did. It was one of the most adorable things about him. "Do you work or do you have judo?" The way he spat the word out was meant to be an insult, like judo wasn't worth skipping out on him for. It didn't matter how he said it, though. Something so small wasn't going to bother Alec this morning. He'd woken up with a strict schedule and threatening to burn anyone to a crisp took time away from that.

"I work," Alec assured as he ran a hand through Isaac's soft hair, "and it's important today. You can let yourself out, right?"

"Yeah," he mumbled, deflating as he curled back up on top of Alec's comforter. The sad, brown puppy dog eyes shot up at him should have given him pause. His heart, however, was weighed down with other things. He didn't have time to play this stupid game.

Alec went to work lacing and then tying a pair of blue tennis shoes he'd forgotten to hide from Rex. The aglets were a frayed plastic mess and a few teeth marks had ripped through the decorative layer of fabric. They'd have to do; he didn't have time to find a better, less slobbery pair. "Good."

"But we can hang next week, right?" Isaac perked up as Alec reached the bedroom door. He could almost picture the other boy's tail wagging as he said the words. "Sushi? Maybe see a movie?"

Even the idea was mouthwatering. "We can go to Arami on Friday," Alec relented, smiling softly.

The werewolf nodded, settling down and wrapping his arms around the pillow Alec had slept on to steal it. "I love you."

"I love you too," Alec replied. A useless, easy lie. He'd practiced it enough times, learned the way to smile broad and scrunch up his nose and bat his eyes like there was no one else in the world he'd rather look at like that. He savored the expression he received from Isaac, pure adoration. The warmth of the fire in his stomach swirled around, receiving the praise and swallowing it.

Honestly, love wasn't something he did. Sure, the sex was good, the guy was cute, and the dates were nice but over-priced. It wasn't like he didn't like Isaac, either, but the thought of loving him? It was unrealistic. He was a dragon. He would be living a long, long time after any werewolf, or any other mortal, was buried deep in the ground. The feeling, though, that was addicting.

With a short blown kiss and a wave, he said goodbye. Alec left Isaac to take his time getting out of bed and shower before he headed home. He wouldn't bring anyone else home until 5 or so to be safe, but the threat they'd run into each other was minimal. On the way out, he grabbed his keys and snagged a light jacket off the door handle to throw on. Then, he went for the stairs, too energetic to wait for the elevator. It was easy to take the concrete to at a time, the lights of each story flickering back on only to watch him breeze by.

Pushing open the bottom door of the stairwell, Alec heard the metallic click echo through the parking garage. Almost every car was already gone. They all left at eight am sharp, or sooner if they had a longer commute. He didn't care. He was the lazy kinda person that didn't roll out of bed until twelve. His job didn't require him to, and the gym he went to was open twenty-four hours a day. There was never a reason to, until today.

Pressing the button for his black, two-door coupe, he heard the chirp of response and pulled the door open to slide into the leather seat. It was the nicest thing he owned, no doubt about it, and he savored the feeling of the engine purring as he moved the stick shift into first gear and pulled out into the street. From there it was twenty minutes to the pickup spot, plus a five minute stop at Starbucks along the way.

Alec pulled up to the small apartment building about five minutes early. It was dingy little thing, bricks needing a bad scrub and the people coming and going looked no better. He couldn't say much, though. His own apartment laid in the same kind of hellhole - except his hellhole accepted pets.

Ten minutes passed by before anyone came out. He waited patiently, twisting on the radio to a station meant for the oldies. In reality, it was only from the 70's, but he still knew the rhythm as his hands drummed out the song on his thighs. Noting the sunglasses waiting up on his dashboard, Alec snagged them and slid them over the bridge of his nose. They hid the red glow of his eyes from anyone passing by that would have questioned the scientific reasoning behind. Hell if he knew.

Busy watching the street traffic, Alec didn't notice the car door was pulled open until a figure was already sliding into the seat next to him. Her black hair was shoved back from her face as she clicked a seat belt into place. She was wearing a soft, green jacket with a white hood - one of his personal favorites - and some tight jeans. He'd say it wasn't a bad look on her, but hardly anything was. When Melia caught him staring, she raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Coffee," Alec replied, pointing down to the cup holders. Her nose scrunched, waiting for some kind of signal. It got tiresome sometimes, but he was in a good mood as he stretched his smile as wide and inviting as he could. "All I'm asking for in return is your right arm."

A fist hit him in the shoulder. Everything about her postured changed in a single moment, her body on the defensive, and Alec was afraid he'd gone too far until she spoke. "How am I supposed to hit you for being an idiot if I don't have one?" The joke was filled to the brim with sarcasm, her smile a threat.

"Fair point," Alec laughed, both amused and relieved, and pulled the burning cup out of its holder. He offered it to her personally. "A gift, I swear."

The smile dropped its venomous edge. Gentle fingers brushing his, Melia took it, pressing her lips to the edge lightly. A curl of her lips followed the sip, an almost unnoticeable moment where the caffeine rushed through her veins and her toes curled pleasantly. It was addictive to watch. Humming to hide his smile of satisfaction, Alec began drumming out a watching rhythm on the steering wheel. "You ready to go?"

Melia paused then, fiddling with the brown paper wrapping. Something had caught her nerves. With a sigh, she met his eyes as steadily as she could. Too steadily, in fact. Melia was one of the only people he knew who could meet them without daring to blink first. That was something he loved about her, without a doubt. It stirred the fire in his fingertips and sent electricity through his spine.

"I can't stay long today," Melia admitted, taking another sip. Her voice was firm, leaving no room for argument as she turned her gaze lazily to the window. "Something came up."

Alec had been waiting for this. He nodded and pulled out into traffic, not wanting to waste any more time. They were already going to be later than he wanted. "I figured. You want to get working today, right?" Melia glanced at him, allowing her head to dip in a nod. "The death of a dragon's a pretty big case."

That caught her attention. Eyes on him completely, she set her down coffee in her lap, fingers flexing. "When'd you hear?"

"Last night."

A small laugh parted her lips. "I didn't think this was the way back to your place. You tagging along then?" she asked, opening the glove compartment and pulling a brand new paper box out. She waited for him to nod, both in confirmation and as a signal she could have one. Her nail slid beneath the seal and broke it with a quick slice. Plucking a cigarette from the middle of the pack, she rolled it between her fingers and held it out to him. "Got a light?"

Alec rolled his eyes. Using his knee to keep the wheel straight, he reached over and flicked his fingers together until fire bloomed from the tip. It was a difficult task to eyeball the road while he lit the papery tube, but once he had, Melia placed it to her lips and rolled down the window. A stream of smoke was taken out the passenger side, and Alec returned his warmed hands to steering.

It didn't take long to find the hill Dorian's house was on. His mansion was hidden by a large private estate, though, the driveway taking up half the drive. It was surrounded by thick trees and steep drop-offs to discourage anyone from sneaking into somewhere they shouldn't have been. That wasn't a problem today. The wide gates that were often electronically locked had been pushed and tied open to make it easier for anyone and everyone arriving.

Alec drove up until they reached the large turnabout at the top, parking it at the edge of a line of cars that had already arrived. He pleasantly noted that his was one of the nicest there and clambered out with Melia right behind him. An unsteady breath left his lips as he stared up at the paned windows and heavy double doors. It was funny to think he'd never been here before. A hand shot through his short blonde hair, uncombed as always. Why hadn't he thought to comb it?

"Here." Melia handed him the rest of the cigarette, just enough for a single puff before he dropped it onto the nice walkway and ground the ashes in with his heel. Alec blew a long, withheld breath of smoke out through his nose and watched the grey wisps curl up. Distracted, the dragon didn't have time to stop the hand that slipped up and yanked the sunglasses from his face.

"Hey!" He scrambled to grab them back, feeling exposed without the protection. Too late. Melia tucked them into her black hair and placed them on top of her head.

"What?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she fiddled with them again to get them to sit right. Her face was even brighter in the sunlight without them, her skin delicately pale. The smile she flashed melted his resolve. "You don't need them."

Alec drew another shaky breath, trying to hide it with a laugh. She was right, technically he didn't need them at all. It was better this way. Forcing a smile, he followed her up the stone path to the front steps where a pair of men were chatting. It sounded like an argument, not a heated argument but more of the bored kind, where both parties only had the argument having nothing else better to do. The first turned to look at them when they were a foot or so away, his suit fitted and pocket square pressed. He raised an eyebrow at them, and their general appearance, and Alec noted the red hue of his eyes, throat growing tight.

"Can I ask who you are?" He had a Chicago accent. At least they had that in common.

The fae beside him stepped forward first. As always, no fear, no backing down. "Melia," she introduced, hand outstretched, meeting his eyes with a tight smile, "private investigator."

He gave her hand a look and then ignored it, turning instead to face Alec. His eyes were sharp and appraising, judging the boy in no more than a second. An apologetic smile pressed against Alec's lips as he stepped forward in a desperate attempt to gain back the footing he had lost from his poor clothing choice and poor companion.

"Alexander, Alexander King." His voice sounded too deep, his vocal chords contracting violently and overcompensating. It was intimidating. Alec knew he was nothing special. He wasn't a prince or an earl or even a knight. All he had to his name was his appearance and as of now that did nothing but paint him as someone who took this investigation as a joke. This was the first time he was facing another dragon in eighty years, and he wasn't saying anything. The older man was merely staring, waiting for something more and without any guidance, Alec stumbled over the only other words he could think to add. "My mother's last name."

An amused smile flickered across the man's face. "I assumed." He held his hand out at last, and Alec grasped it, holding back his eagerness as the anxiety fell away from his body in waves. The palm was scalding. "I'll admit, I thought you'd look a bit different, younger."

Too tongue-tied to bother to ask how the man knew of him or how he thought he should look, the boy nodded. His hand was released, and he slipped his sweat-slicked palm back into his jean pocket. He meant to ask the other dragon his name but realized he likely should have known it already and became too afraid to ask.

"Alright." Alec was surprised when he was clasped on the back and pointed toward the door. "Up the stairs here and to the left, everyone else in the parlor." He nodded again, mouth dry, warmth tickling his fingers as the older man waved his companion after him to go continue their conversation elsewhere.

A sigh of relief escaped the dragon after they were alone. He ran his tongue over his dried lips and over his teeth slowly, savoring the fact he'd survived. Disoriented, he focused his eyes back on Melia behind him. Her teeth were clenched as she took another sip. Not so mad that she was boiling over the top to rant about it, but ticked off enough that her arms had folded cooly over her chest. When she noticed Alec watching her, she forced a smile, pulling away from whatever void she so often drifted off to.

"This is going to be fun," the fae chimed sarcastically. Her fingers fiddled with the little iron earrings she wore and twisted the sharped points. Alec bit his tongue. He knew better than to tell her just to take them of as he grabbed her hand and pulled it down to his side. His fingers slid in to lock opposite hers.

"The absolute best," he agreed, selfishly thumbing the back of her hand to calm himself down. It brought his heartbeat down steadily, and his fingertips grew cold again. Alec had thought to venture up to this house on the hill a million times in the hundred years he'd been alive, to make a meeting, to simply meet Dorian in the flesh. The thought had terrified him. Now, he was only going to see his corpse. It was almost a relief. A dead body couldn't judge you the way a father could.

Nudging Melia in the ribs, he faked a serious, scolding face and leaned into her side. "Don't embarrass me, alright?"

The fairy leaned back into him. She released her hand from his and slung her arm through his instead, giving the muscle a quick pump to imitate some damsel in distress. Reaching up with her other hand, she ruffled his hair. "I would never, my lord," Melia promised, a smile cracking through her serious exterior.

Alec's cheeks heated up, and he shoved her off. A laugh bubbled from his lips, the taste of mischief on his tongue. "Shut up." Correcting their stumble apart, Alec righted his jacket, raked a hand through his hair, and stole his glasses back from Melia's head, stuffing them into his pocket. A deep breath hollowed out his chest - there wasn't anything to be afraid of - and he stepped inside.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cíki Scálaí

After throwing yet another knife at the wall, I head towards my kitchen. I've had a weird feeling all day and wasn't sure why, I'm also angrier than usual. I growl in frustration as I open the refrigerator door and realize All the food I had was expired. I stark over to my room and throw my black jacket on and walk to the wall filled with holes. Grabbing the one with the intricate designs on the handle, I stash it in the hidden sleath underneath my jacket at my waist. Thinking I won't need much more than that I walk out my door.

Stepping out into the hallway I watch as other people stare at me then returns to doing what they usually do. I throw my hood over my long black hair and marched out of the building. I had enough money to build an isolated castle much better suited for me than this dump of a city with way to many nosy Humans who have nothing better to do than get in my way. Yet the only reason I stay here in this trash bin is because it's easy to get in and out of and easier for some of my more "special" jobs to get a hold of me since I don't hide where I live. Plus despite the noisy people I actually like it here.

I glance at my watch wondering how much time I have before I go into another job. This will be my second one this week.and I think I might take a break and go into hiding since I still can't shake this weird feeling. I let out a low growl as someone walks into me the suddenness of it knocking me off of my feet.

"Oh, I'm so sorry i didn't see you there" a man says holding out a hand to help me up. He's tall with short brown hair and I stand up disregarding his hand.

"Well watch where you're going and maybe you wouldn't have run into me." I growl as I stare at. My blood red eyes glaring daggers at him, yet he doesn't seem to care while others would have run away.

"Wait are you Ciki" the man asks me not caring about my rude comment. I slowly nod my head and my hand reaches for my blade slowly. "Well I was told to give you this" he hands me an envelope. "And I'm sorry for running into you." I watch as he walks away and I trun run the rest of the way to the store.

Once inside I slowly opened the envelope and peered inside. There's a letter, a small piece of paper and another smaller envelope. I decide to open the letter first.

I have a job for you to do. Inside is a small portion of money and once you finish the job I will gladly give you a greater sum of money. And I know you are an assassin but your skills at stealth and weaponly are needed. Inside is also a piece of paper with an address on it if you decide to help, which I hope you do, go there today.

person who wants you to help

Looking in the small envelope I gasp on surprise, when the letter said small amount of money I thought it was talking about $100 not $100,000 This guy was insane. But I was curious and forgetting what I came here for I left and went home. There was another package at my door and I cautiously walked up to it. Using my foot I nuge it out of my way then unlock the door. I pick up the box and walk inside. It's addressed from the same person as the letter. Using one of my long, sharp nails I tear through the tape and revival another letter.

I really don't think you will be interested in this case so I have more things to persuade you into it. Inside is everything I know about the victim. I know you usually kill people but I want you to find out who killed somebody. He is a dragon prince and he was murdered earlier. Then that's why everything felt so weird today, but then how did he get this stuff to me so fast. I put down the folder and walked to my wall full of knives and paced back and forth thinking about what is going on. I am curious to see what it is about but also I want to help out for a reason I don't quite understand. Ugh why does things have to be complicated. I continue to read.

I know that you don't need the money but I hope you will help out your fellow dragons. The one that was murdered was Dorian. Their will be others there but you are still needed as I said before you are excellent when it comes to sneaking around, weapons, and even finding people. I know Dragons can be solitary but I hope you can still work with the others who are also helping.

There's a few high tech weapons in the box. Who ever this guy is he obviously doesn't want me to say no. But I got to admit he's got my curiosity peaked and I do feel as if i need to help out since it was a dragon prince and a highly respected one at that. So I'll do it walking back to the box I grabbed a high tech sword and spun it around a few times getting a feel for it. And grab one of my clothes and put the sword in it on strabbit on my back. I grab the paper that had the address on it and walk out my door.

After a few minutes I reach the address. In front of me was a beautiful castle. I growled in distaste, to me castles were too big. With to much space, I would much rather live in a small cabin in the woods away from anyone and everyone. I walk towards the front door and knock. Before long a young girl opens the door and sadly says, "Ciki, come with me." I get dragged into a room with a few other people three boys and two girls. They look up as I enter.