CHAPTER 3
I MADE IT TO THE OFFICE BY TEN. I’D HAD ROUGHLY four hours of sleep, awoken in a foul mood, and my face must’ve shown it, because people took pains to move out of my way on the street. Of course, it could’ve been because a giant fetid mess of a dog trotted next to me, growling at anyone who came too close.
The office of the Order of Merciful Aid occupied a plain box of a building. When the magic was up, it was shielded by a military-grade ward, but now while the technology had the upper hand, nothing distinguished the bastion of knightly virtue from its fellow office buildings. I climbed to the second floor, entered a long drab hallway, and landed in my tiny office, painted plain gray. The faithful canine companion flopped on the carpet.
I pushed the button of the intercom. “Maxine?”
“Yes dear?”
“I believe I’m due two cookies.”
“Come and get them.”
I looked at the canine companion. “Me cookies. You stay.”
Apparently “stay” in faithful canine companion language meant “follow with enthusiastic glee.” I could shut my office door in his face, but then he’d probably howl and be sad. I had enough sad in my life right now.
We trotted down the hallway and crashed to a halt before Maxine’s desk. She surveyed the demon dog for a couple of stunned seconds, then reached under her desk and produced a box of cookies, each the size of my palm. The scent of vanilla hit me. I did my best not to drool. One must maintain the sleek and deadly image, after all.
I snagged two cookies, broke one down the middle, picked the chocolate chips out of one half, and gave it to the mutt. I chomped on the other half. Heaven did exist and it had walnuts in it. “Any messages for me?” Usually I got one or two, but mostly people who wanted my help preferred to talk in person.
“Yes. Hold on.” She pulled out a handful of pink tickets and recited from memory, without checking the paper. “Seven forty-two a.m., Mr. Gasparian: I curse you. I curse your arms so they will wither and die and fall off your body. I curse your eyeballs to explode. I curse your feet to swell until blue. I curse your spine to crack. I curse you. I curse you. I curse you.”
I licked cookie crumbs off my lips. “Mr. Gasparian is under the impression that he has magic powers. He is fifty-six years old, terribly unhappy because his wife left him, and he keeps cursing his neighbors. Magically, he’s a dud, but his ranting scares the neighborhood kids. I kicked his case to Atlanta’s finest. I’m guessing they paid him a visit and he’s a bit upset that I didn’t take his magic mojo seriously.”
“People do the strangest things. Seven fifty-six a.m., Patrice Lane, Biohazard: Joshua was a shapeshifter. Call me now.”
I choked on my cookie. Shapeshifters didn’t get sick, at least not in the traditional sense. The only time I’d seen one of them sneeze was when they got a bit of dust in their nose or when they became inexplicably allergic to giant tortoises. Their bones knitted together in a couple of weeks. What the hell?
Maxine kept going.
“Eight oh one a.m., Derek Gaunt: Can you ring me when you get in?
“Eight oh five a.m., Jim, no last name given: Call me.
“Eight twelve a.m., Ghastek Stefanoff: Please call me at your earliest convenience.
“Eight thirty-seven a.m., Patrice Lane, Biohazard: The dog’s clean. The Good Samaritan was a woman with an accent of some sort. Why haven’t you called me?
“Eight forty-four a.m., Detective Williams, Atlanta PAD: Agent Daniels, contact me about your statement in regard to the incident at Steel Horse ASAP. And that’s all of them.” Maxine gave me a bright smile and handed me a stack of pink message slips.
Andrea emerged from the armory, carrying a manila envelope, and headed my way. Short and blond, she was armed with a pretty face, a charming smile, and a pair of 9mm SIG-Sauers. Which she used to shoot things with preternatural accuracy many times and very fast. She was also my best friend.
Andrea braked a couple of feet from me. I shook my giant stack of pink slips at her.
“I see—you have messages. That’s nice.” Andrea nodded at me and snagged a cookie from the box.
The canine companion growled under his breath. Just in case she was trouble.
“What is that?” Andrea’s eyes widened.
“What is what?”
“The beast.” She waved the cookie at the dog.
The beast trotted over to her side, sniffed her, and wagged his tail, indicating he had decided she was good people and she should give him a piece of her cookie.
“He’s evidence.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I think a dog is a great idea. I just never pictured you with a mutant poodle.”
“He isn’t a poodle. He’s a Doberman mix.”
“Aha. Keep telling yourself that.”
“Where have you seen a poodle colored like that?”
“Why don’t we ask Mauro? His wife’s a vet and he breeds Dobermans.”
I growled. “Fine. Let’s go ask him.”
We padded down the hall to Mauro’s office, canine enigma in tow. If I had to partner up for a job and Andrea wasn’t available, I usually conned Mauro into joining forces. A huge, hulking Samoan, he was steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. Bringing him to a job was like having your own portable howitzer—people took one look at him and decided making trouble wasn’t in their best interest.
Mauro’s office was only marginally bigger than mine, and his body was substantially larger, so the examination of the faithful canine companion had to be taken to the hallway. Mauro knelt by the dog, felt his sides, stared at his mouth, and rose, shaking his hands.
“Standard poodle. Probably purebred, even. Aside from being freakishly large, he’s actually a very nice-looking dog under all that fur. You won’t get any breeders lining up at your door, because you can’t show him. He’s too huge. But otherwise, a very fine specimen.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. “What about the color?”
“That’s a recognized bicolor for the breed. They’re called phantom poodles.”
Andrea snickered.
The phantom poodle sat by me, looking at my face like it was the best thing he’d ever seen.
“They’re very smart dogs,” Mauro said. “Canine Einsteins. They’re protective and they make good guards.” He cleared his throat and slid into an atrocious Southern tinged with Samoan accent. “You know, a young wallflower such as yourself, Ms. Scarlett, shouldn’t be on these vicious streets without a male escort. It’s just not proper.”