“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Kaah looked up from where he was quietly enjoying a morning coffee and cream donut at Kris-teas. Standing in front of him was Sheriff Carol and her two deputies. The two males hung back slightly, but with their shoulders tense, Kaah could see they were ready to jump if needed.

He swallowed his food. “Pardon?”

He had been sitting by himself, wasn’t due to be at work for another twenty minutes, and thought this was the place to spend those minutes getting properly caffeinated for the day’s workload. Last night had been long, and with what he and Rork had noticed in the basement of the Keeper’s house, had taken its toll on their energy to get through the day.

“You need to get Kristy to put that coffee in a cup to go and take your donut and leave,” she repeated.

“I don’t have to be at work yet.” He checked Mickey on his wrist, and sure enough, he still had fifteen minutes. “Am I sitting in your special chair, Sheriff?”

“If you come to the station with me, I can explain it all,” she said, “don’t make this a big issue, Kaah.”

“I’d say this is a big issue.” Placing his cup down, Kaah crossed his arms and leaned back on the chair. “You are asking me to leave this wonderful establishment, for reasons untold, and expect me to just do it?”

“Kaah,” Officer Bradville stepped forward, “just do it.”

“Tell me why,” Kaah demanded, “I will not raise one inch of this gloriously toned ass off this chair without knowing why I am being asked to leave.”

“We can take him,” the officer leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone to Carol.

“Simon?” Kaah exclaimed, “Take me? What on earth is this all about?” Kaah shook his head with surprise at what was happening. Everyone in Kris-teas was now watching him with great interest. Waiting with phones out to text whatever the latest piece of gossip was bound to be. At least his ‘Spank Me’ moment might be over.

“You want me to do this here? In front of everyone?” Carol asked coldly.

“You are already doing it in front of everyone, I am sure we all deserve to know what it is that you are so graciously accusing me of,” he looked to the people, “aren’t you all interested now?” The crowd’s hushed mumble of agreeance was accompanied by nods.

“Fine.” Sheriff Carol pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to him.

Kaah opened it and laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” she replied, “now if you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Oh, I mind, I mind very much.” He stood up. “Where is he?”

Down in the far back booth he was sitting, sipping on a mug of coffee. His eyes met Kaah’s as he raised his hand and waved.

“You, smug son of a…”

“Kaah, time to leave,” Carol said as her fingers wrapped around his arm. “Now.”

“I will get you; you hear me?” Kaah growled as he let his guard down and forgot where he was.

“Kaah,” Carol said, “make one more threat, and I will have to arrest you for breaking the restraining order. You are to remove yourself from this establishment immediately. Mr. Taylor was here first, and you shouldn’t have entered until he chose a time to leave.

“You have got to be jok…”

Her hand went up to silence him as she continued, “Are we going to have to remove you forcibly, Kaah? Or will you just do the adult thing and walk out like the civil human being I know you to be?”

Kaah snorted at being called a human, but it did remind him where he was and how he should be conducting himself. “I’ll leave,” he said as he looked at Auberon, “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“No, you won’t,” Sheriff Carol said as she placed her hand to Kaah’s back and with the two deputies flanking them, escorted Kaah out of the café.

 

Outside, Carol pulled Kaah to the side. “Can I give you some advice off the record?”

Kaah was furious at having been made to leave his favorite coffee shop, he looked down at the small framed sheriff, knowing that even though she was little, she had the ability to make his ‘human’ life harder than it needed to be. Kaah took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “What would that be, Carol?”

“Go to work, get on with your day. Stay away from Mr. Taylor as he obviously has some issue with you, and whether I agree or not, I don’t want to have to be made to enforce his demands.”

“You don’t agree?” Kaah asked. He was curious as to how he was viewed by the local law enforcement team.

“Look, as I said, it doesn’t matter.” Carol shook her head. “You, while annoying, haven’t broken any laws or endangered anyone in the time that I have known you.” Taking a breath, she continued, “So, I can’t see what this is about.”

“I’ll tell you…” Kaah started to say.

Carol held up her hand. “I don’t want to know, just stay away, Kaah. If you wish to fight the claim, file it with the courthouse and grab a lawyer. Other than that, my job is to enforce the law and make residents aware of the ramifications of breaking them.”

“What happens if I break this restraining order?” Kaah asked.

“You will be arrested, and depending on what you did while breaking it, would be how severe your consequences would be,” Carol replied.

“I’d like to see Kaah in the big house, I reckon he’d have them sorted in a few hours.” Simon laughed.

“The big house?”

“Jail, where you would go if you were to say, physically hurt Mr. Taylor while under a restraining order,” Carol repeated her warning.

“I can hurt him without the order?”

Carol’s hands went to her hips as she sized up Kaah. “Don’t make me question your intelligence, Kaah.”

“Fine, I guess I’ll go to work.”

“I appreciate that, Kaah.” Carol visibly relaxed and stood by the door, looking expectantly at him.

“Wait,” he paused and tilted his head, “are you going to wait until I actually leave?”

“Emotions are still a little high I feel. It’s for the best,” Carol replied.

“It’s like you think I have no self-control.” Kaah shook his head. If only Carol knew that given the first chance he had, he was going to send that arrogant demon back to hell where he belongs. “I’m off, I have important things to do, not just wait around and protect a man from a fabricated lie,” he mumbled and walked off toward his work.

Kaah stopped at the top of the stairs, the phone to his ear. “I wish I was kidding, but I just got marched out in front of half the town because of this attention-loving demon.” Kaah was talking to Rork. Not only did he need to vent, but he felt it was important to keep his assistant on top of the gossip before it hit the vine.

“I can’t believe he would be so blatant with his approach,” Rork replied.

“Seems logical in a twisted way. He can’t go anywhere, and this town is too small to hide in. Might as well make it that he can walk around in the open and I can’t touch him.”

“But you can,” Rork said.

“Not while anyone is looking. This had been orchestrated in such a way that the way this town’s gossip train works, I give it an hour, and everyone will know about the order and be keeping a special watch on either him or I.”

“I was warned about his ability to adapt and evolve to get what he wants,” Rork mumbled.

“He hasn’t stopped me, merely changed the rules. He wants adaptation, that’s what he will get,” Kaah said.

“Meet me at the Duck in an hour. I have to check on something then I think we need to go back to Bottleneck.” Kaah looked at the phone which was now dead. Rork had hung up after telling him what to do. That goblin knew if he was going to demand the reaper do something, do it and run. Kaah chuckled as he slid the phone into his pocket and checked his watch. It was just after ten a.m. as he turned and walked into work.

“Kaah,” Jess said as he came into the staff room, “thank god you’re here.”

“Stop, Jess, he’s a guy, like he would know,” Karla scoffed.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Kaah snorted at being dismissed because of gender. He pulled up the chair, did a twirl like he had seen Fonzie do on the ‘Happy Days’ reruns he had been watching, and sat down straddling it. “Let’s not prejudge this based upon my extremely powerful, and may I say sexy, masculine side,” he said half playing.

“Powerful and sexy?” Karla’s eyebrow rose, “You know we already heard about what happened at Kris-teas this morning, right?”

“What?” Kaah frowned. “Already? It was only like ten minutes ago.”

“The internet is slow, but the gossip is fast in Deadend.” Jess laughed.

Kaah rolled his eyes. “Well, there goes my powerful and sexy reputation.”

“Did you actually ever get it back after the ‘Spank Me’ affair?” Jess snorted as she tried desperately not to laugh directly at him.

“Am I just the laughing stock of this town?” Kaah teased, he wasn’t really that distressed by the attention. It actually made him feel like a part of humanity that he had fallen so enamored of the town he called his home.

“I don’t know if it’s quite that serious, but you certainly are bringing your fair share of entertainment to the grapevine.” Karla laughed.

“Not by choice.”

“You’re just blessed like that.” Jess chuckled.

Kaah smirked at the thought of him being blessed by anything. He wasn’t exactly at the ‘burst into flames at a church entrance’ stage of existence. However, being blessed is something the reaper will never be. Why would he need to be? The reaper’s only reason for existence was to carry souls from the front line to the depot. A glorified delivery man in a creepy cloak, he hated what he was sometimes. A small shake of his head brought his thoughts back to the two women looking at him. “So, what’s this thing that being a man is a disadvantage for?”

Karla looked at Jess. “You ask him then, but he is just going to walk away.”

Jess grinned as she asked, “When going out on a date, do you wear saucy underwear but risk muffin top bumps, or go the grannie panties but know you’re looking smooth as silk in the dress?”

Kaah sat silently for a few beats, processing the question before getting up, silently turning his chair around, and walking away without saying a word.

Karla was the first one to burst into a fit of laughter, Jess soon joined in, and the room was filled with a raucous round of chuckling bouncing around the walls.

“I told you…” Karla wiped the tears of laughter from her cheeks as she tried to speak, “I told you he would walk.”

“I know,” Jess snorted, “but his face?”

“Priceless.”

“Right?” Jess nodded.

“You’re both crazy,” Kaah called over his shoulder before knocking on Tracy’s door, waiting for the words to enter.

“We love you, Kaah,” they chorused at him and fell into another round of chuckling.

“Yea, yea.” Kaah waved them off as he heard Tracy’s words. He turned the door handle and entered, shutting the door behind him and taking a seat.

 

“What are those two up to now?”

“You don’t want to know.” Kaah shook his head. “I need to give you the heads-up.”

“On the restraining order?”

Kaah’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously, this town is something else.”

Tracy nodded and shrugged. “It is, and Carol did come in here first to let me know. I do appreciate you coming to tell me though, means that if or when Mr. Taylor comes back and requests information about you or to work with you, I can politely tell him we can’t do business with him.”

“I’m sorry.” Kaah’s eyes dropped.

“For?”

“Costing you some business, I know it’s… hard here at the moment, and I wouldn’t ever want to make it harder. If you need to let me go…”

“Stop.” Tracy’s hand went into the air like an officer at a traffic stop. “Only thing I’ll let you go for is to get me a triple shot latte, no sugar. Other than that, get your butt back to work, capiche?” she asked.

“But.’

“Triple shot latte, no sugar,” Tracy repeated with a wave of her hand as she went back to reading some papers on her desk.

Kaah nodded and got up. “Thank you,” he mumbled, opening the door.

“Oh, Kaah?” Tracy said, making him pause to look around. “Perhaps phone ahead to Kris-teas, in case she needs to deliver it instead?”

He nodded and walked out. He felt terrible being an inconvenience for Tracy and anyone else. He came here to be helpful, now here he was, phoning ahead to order a damn coffee in case the demon with an over-inflated ego was still lounging around in his town.

“Want me to go get the coffees?” Rhonda asked as she walked over. She had only just got back from a client meeting. Rhonda wasn’t as amused by all this as the others. She had a deeper sense of justice in the community, and by the look on her face, she felt a great injustice was being dealt.

“It’s okay, I’ll go,” Kaah said quietly. Having someone dictate his movements wasn’t sitting well with him. He was hopeful that the meeting he had with Rork coming up would bring some light to his problem so things could go back to normal.

Rhonda’s hand went onto his arm, she squeezed. “I got this, Kaah. Besides, I need some fresh air after dealing with Mrs. Foggler, she is hard work.”

“Get her all sorted?”

“Not even close, but she has at least decided to stick with us as handling her mother’s funeral. Tracy will be happy with that.”

Kaah nodded. “Good work.”

“You want a coffee?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m on my way out shortly, I have a meeting.”

Rhonda nodded. “Hope it’s more enjoyable than Mrs. Foggler’s meeting.” Letting out a small laugh, Rhonda picked up her wallet and went out in search of coffee for Tracy and herself.

Kaah checked his watch. Time to get moving, he thought. “I’ll be back later, in case Tracy wants to know where I am, I’m following a lead on a new client.”

“New client?” Karla said, “You planning on turning serial killer?”

“Maybe,” Kaah replied with a deadpan face, which wasn’t hard for him as any emotional displays were always fake anyway.

The silence that hung in the air amused Kaah, as he walked across the room, the clop of his shoes was the only sound bouncing around the room. He paused at the door and looked back at the two women. “Of course, I’ll only kill those who are wearing grannie panties, I say, go saucy or go home.” Winking dramatically, he walked out the room to the sounds of his friends bursting out into a new round of chuckles.