I have an office. I don’t really need one—I’m the sort of person “a friend of a friend’s sister’s cousin” tells you about, not someone who sends out business cards and advertises. But it was an old city building owned by my parents, one their friends used to work in. That old business was long abandoned a good decade earlier, and Dad indulged me when I asked for the street-level office space.
It had a brightly lit main room, a counter across from the door for a receptionist and a kitchenette in the corner, with three small offices in the back. I didn’t have coworkers. The vinyl lettering on the glass just said INVESTIGATOR—no listed hours—and technically speaking that was apt. I had a license, in case anyone ever asked. I just didn’t so much investigate as I murdered garbage men who deserved it. And I didn’t charge for it.
Now that would’ve bothered Mom—she firmly believed all women should develop different income streams and be self-sufficient—but I had a bleeding heart and didn’t want for much. I paid my expenses—few as they were with bargain clothing I wore until they tore and my home-dyed hair—out of the interest on my trust fund. I didn’t need to charge anyone for what I did. And someone like Joy Suarez, left with nothing after that asshole kicked her out? She didn’t have the money to give.
Without coworkers, I only needed one of the offices for a desk and laptop. The other pair of rooms were fitted with a twin bed and couch in each—one I slept in on occasion, but both could house people in an emergency, which I got more often than not.
After returning from Ben Fraley’s with Joy’s orange tabby in tow, I curled up on the bed and napped for a couple of hours until sunlight streaming through the front window into the room woke me. I hadn’t changed, hadn’t even slipped off my boots or pulled back the dark blankets, and I rose awkwardly with a yawn and stretch. Despite sleeping on my side as usual, I’d ended up painfully bent with the short-haired tabby tucked against me.
He blinked up at me with vibrant green eyes and purred, claws plucking at the quilt beneath us as he kneaded.
“Good morning,” I said.
He purred louder.
“Made yourself at home, I see.”
He rolled onto his side and exposed his belly.
“That is a trap, my ginger friend—one I am not falling for.” I stood, sniffed, and glanced around—he’d definitely made use of the litter. I’d stuffed him in a carrier I’d found in Ben’s closet—where Joy said it would be—and then packed up a few tins of canned food and what remained of the dry, along with the litter. Part of Joy agreeing to go with her friend to see me was that she wasn’t entirely certain he’d continue feeding the cat once the last bag of food she’d bought ran out, and after that she couldn’t say if he’d merely let the poor thing starve or kick it out on the street. She hadn’t intended to leave the cat behind, but Ben changed the locks, because he was a fucking asshole.
I did enjoy referring to him in the past tense, however.
I opened a fresh can of food for the cat and just had the coffee brewing for myself in the main office space when two figures came to the door.
Joy’s dark eyes were red-rimmed as I unlocked and let them in. She stepped forward first but paused, head tilted to stare up at me.
I gave a simple, single nod.
Her shoulders deflated and she looked away—relief tangled with grief. I’d seen enough of it now that I could say I sort of understood it, as easy as it would be to say I did not. People like Ben Fraley learned to manipulate and mold their targets until their identities were wrapped up in their abuser. Four years with him had stripped so much away from Joy that she had to learn how to rebuild herself. She would, indeed, mourn him, even though she knew he deserved it. That was normal and I did not begrudge it.
She stepped past me and her friend, tall full-figured Yamila, followed. Her nod was direct and slow, chin lifted and gaze approving. Yamila knew exactly what Ben was—probably from the moment she met him, though she hadn’t been able to persuade her friend against the relationship.
There are a lot of women who would kill a man like Ben if they had the opportunity and ability—and if they didn’t fear the consequences. Everyone is capable of killing if there is the right alignment of factors. I was just in a better position to act than others. Money, magical power, even the color of my skin—all privileges that allowed someone like me to act on the darker impulses we all had and have a better chance of getting away with it. I just tried to use those impulses not so much for “good” as I did for...well-directed evil.
The orange tabby came strolling out of my room and around the main counter; the moment Joy saw him, she burst into sobs and fell to her knees. Of course the cat took his sweet time to approach her, then rolled around in her arms, licking her face as she embraced him.
“Are you sure we don’t owe you anything?” Yamila asked, voice low as she peered at her friend.
I shook my head. “No, I’m good. Plus a large chunk of missing money from your bank account after his death would raise flags for anyone who looked into your finances. Keep your money and get her back on her feet.” I also may or may not have already planned for some money to suddenly land in Joy’s lap later, when she had her own personal bank account set up separate from her ex.
Yamila clasped my hand in both of hers, a fringe of black hair falling in her eyes as she gave a quick bow of her head. “Thank you, Elis. You have no idea how much I—we—appreciate—”
“I do,” I assured her. “I get it. C’mon, let’s get the cat’s stuff collected.”
*
The tabby’s name was Charles. Not even Charlie—Charles. Which, I mean, better that than “Pumpkin” or “Tiger”, but okay. I actually liked waking with the little bugger there—I did like cats and had grown up with a rather large one who still lived with Dad. My life didn’t feel stable enough for a pet, though.
Maybe I could volunteer at one of the local shelters. Where did “serial killer witch” fit on a résumé? Under special skills?
I finished my first cup of coffee on the couch by the big bay window, the city waking and rushing by in the background while I flipped through messages on my phone. I needed to shower—I could still smell a whiff of burnt flesh, and I’d stripped off my hoodie so it might’ve been on my hair—and was pondering heading home or just catching a shower here when the door opened.
I sat up and turned to look behind me—I hadn’t locked up after Joy and Yamila left, but then I had layers of warding that made most eyes glance past the place. The average human wouldn’t find their way to my doorstep even if they were looking for it, and anything more than human would usually trigger an alarm.
She did not.
My visitor was a woman of thirty or so. And beautiful. Japanese, a little above average height and lean, glossy black hair falling in layers to her shoulders with a long fringe swept to the side of her forehead. Leather jacket and black jeans, a pair of chunky ankle boots with heels that made me re-evaluate her height. Her dark eyes went straight for me—didn’t scan, didn’t search. She was definitely looking for me.
None of my interior wards were flaring—she was humanish, at least, though maybe not entirely. “We’re by appointment only,” I said.
She stopped before the couch where I lay. “I don’t need an appointment.”
I chuckled and sat up fully, swung my legs around and rose. “All right, I’ll bite—I’m leaving after my second cup of coffee, so I will listen exactly that long.” I tucked my phone in my back pocket, scooped up my empty mug, and went for the coffeemaker.
“Elis...” She remained standing by the couch and I gave her my back, my shoulder-length hair in a messy ponytail that fluttered against the back of my neck as I moved.
She knew my name. Not unusual—plenty of people did—but it still unsettled me.
There was only three-quarters of a cup left in the pot. I informed her of this as I turned back to face her, the rim of the mug at my lips, and added, “So you might have to talk a bit faster.”
“I’m looking for my cousin,” she said.
“Okay. What did he do?”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that. He’s in trouble.”
I tried not to roll my eyes and only about half succeeded. I flicked a hand toward the window where INVESTIGATOR blazed backwards in white. “I’m not that kind of investigator.”
“I know who you are and what you do—”
“Then you have me at a disadvantage. Who are you?”
“Melinoë Takata.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“No, I don’t expect it would,” she said dryly, the weight there not something I understood. Before I could ask, she launched on. “My cousin and I have been tracking the Aanzhenii and—”
Jesus-fucking-Christ on a pterodactyl. I inwardly shuddered at the thought. “Then your cousin’s dead. Sorry—I don’t retrieve corpses, I make them.”
“He’s not dead.”
I took a long drink of my coffee—over halfway there now.
The great winged humanoid creatures known as Aanzhenii were foreign to this dimension—brutally violent when it served them, completely alien in how they thought and acted, and their very presence in this world tore at reality. Literally. They’d been here twenty-five years, growing more and more bold as time went on, but had their own agenda and mostly kept to themselves now. Once in a while they wanted something—Dad had enough ancient texts and demonic artifacts that he’d locked his entire property down with spells to keep the Aanzhenii out. At best, it might slow them down long enough for anyone on the property to get to safety. Nothing could really stop them.
Few things scared me, but those creatures were among them. I’d had enough encounters with... Well, I stopped that thought, and itched idly at my thigh.
Focus on getting the hot nutcase out of your office. “If you’re fucking with them, yeah, he sure as hell is,” I continued. “Sorry not sorry.”
“He’s not because I don’t think it was them who took him.”
Took. She thought her cousin was abducted? “He was tracking Aanzhenii but they didn’t get him?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve traced his steps as far as I can and...” She sighed and scrubbed a hand back through her hair as she dropped to sit on my couch. Which was pretty fucking ballsy considering she had about a third of a mug of coffee for me to get through before I kicked her out. “So...he and I track them because we’re trying to send them back to their dimension.”
“That’s impossible,” I said automatically.
“We’ve gotten close. It started as a ‘what if’ kind of thought experiment but it got serious a few months ago. I don’t think they grabbed him, though—there were no residual tears, no sign of their presence. Something else took him.”
“I have contacts I can point you to,” I offered. “But I’m not your girl. I’m not a private investigator, I don’t look for missing people.” And I sure as fuck did not mess with the Aanzhenii.
Not more than I already had.
“I know who you are, Elis,” she repeated. “And you are going to look for this person.”
I was somewhere between annoyed enough that magic hummed along my fingertips with the desire to murder her and...oddly kind of turned on? Not to mention vaguely curious to figure out which.
Regardless, I had better shit to do right now. What, I couldn’t say, but I wouldn’t tell her that.
I downed the rest of my coffee in one gulp and set the mug down. “Time’s up. Leave me your number and I can put you in touch with—”
“You are going to look for this person because you know my cousin.”
Finally we get to the point. “And that is?”
She didn’t blink. “Your half-brother, Devdan.”