“Read it, and sign it. We can’t start until you do.” She tossed us each a pen.
I scanned my contract. All of the rules were included, as well as pay rate and job title. I blinked at the salary. One month would cover three months of my usual take. I heard Angel suck in a deep breath and realized she must have come to that part.
At the very end there was a paragraph stating that if we broke the rules, we would be subject to punishment as per decree by Cernunnos and Morgana. It was in stark bold print, and I realized they weren’t kidding. We were signing away our lives. I picked up the pen and hovered over the line requiring my signature. I glanced over at Angel.
“You ready to do this?”
She gave me a nod. She signed her name, and I signed mine. After dating the contract, I handed it back to Talia. When Angel and I were done, there was a palpable sense of relief throughout the room.
“Tell me, what would have happened if we hadn’t agreed, now that we know all of this?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer, but then again, it paid to know everything that we were dealing with.
“You would have been relocated to a safe place. Let’s leave it at that.” Talia excused herself, walking over to the copy machine that was next to the sofa. She made copies of the contracts and handed them back to us. “It’s official, you’re on the clock.”
“Now that we have that settled, let’s get right down to matters. Angel, you stay here for your briefing. Then you can go out and familiarize yourself with your desk. There is a rundown of duties in the center drawer that your predecessor left for you. It includes all the different phone extensions, the way you are expected to greet clients, everything you need. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. It’s always better to ask rather than assume.” Herne was suddenly all business. He straightened his shoulders, and opened the file folder in front of him.
“A few days ago, one of our informants brought a situation to my attention. I’ve double checked the information and it’s valid, so I ran it by Cernunnos and Morgana and they both agree that we need to take care of this as soon as possible.” He pulled out a tablet, and quickly tapped on it. “Yutani, can you get Ember and Angel a couple tablets? And they’ll need work phones.”
He turned to us. “Your work phones are for the members of this office only. Do not give the number out to anyone. All clients will be given the office number and your forwarding extension instead. You are not to use them for personal matters.”
Yutani left the room, and when he returned a few moments later he was carrying two new tablets and two new cell phones. He handed us one of each.
“I programmed them this morning for you, so they’re already. The password has been entered but you need to change it to something that you’ll remember, on both devices. Do not use a password that you use in your personal life. Do not use a password that is under four letters. You must include one uppercase letter and a number in your password. Do not try to use any non-alphanumeric symbols. Please take care of this now, and be sure to write down your passwords because I don’t want to have to hack into them.”
He tossed us each a packet of sticky notes. I felt rather conspicuous poking around while we were being watched, but it was part of the job. Finally, I decided on two passwords that I was pretty sure I could remember, although I did write both of them down. The first, for my cell phone, was gnasHer1, and for the tablet I chose sKillet2. The former was what I was feeling toward my situation, and the latter no one would ever guess considering how little I cooked. When we were finally situated, Herne airdropped the information files to everybody.
“Please open the document titled ‘Kuveo,’ and navigate to the first page.”
“Which side are we dealing with?”
“I believe the Dark Court,” Herne said. “Here’s the rundown: Eight unexplained homicides throughout Seattle, all human. Four unexplained deaths among the shifters.”
“The cops?” Talia asked.
“Turning a blind eye. Rumors are going around that the vampires are to blame, but I traced them back to two officers, both of whom have strong ties to TirNaNog, so I’m pretty sure Dark paid them to fan the flames.”
“Why would they want to blame the vamps?” I asked, confused.
“If people believe the vampires are responsible for the deaths, they’ll focus on them and not the Fae. Humans are uneasy around vampires. And since shifters and vampires don’t get along, chances are likely that they’ll believe the gossip. No disrespect to your people, Yutani.”
Yutani laughed. “I know as well as you do, most shifters are a little hotheaded. I don’t care whether they’re Raksashas, Weres, Selkies, or coyote shifters like me, we’re all a little bit on edge.”
“That’s the truth,” Talia said with a laugh. Her voice was scratchy, and low pitched. She sounded like a smoker who had had one too many packs for the day.
“I don’t see your people winning any awards for being the most patient,” Yutani said, winking at her.
Talia snorted. “Touché. Your volley.”
“Back to the matter at hand,” Herne said, “the fact is we have twelve mangled corpses and no perpetrator in sight.”
“Is there any evidence other than the cops’ connection to TirNaNog that makes you think the Fae are part of this?” I asked, wincing as pictures of the mutilated corpses showed up on my tablet. The bodies had been mangled, all right, torn to shreds and large chunks of flesh were missing. Angel let out a gasp, closing her eyes.
“Angel, I’m sorry. I forgot you might not be used to this.” Herne motioned to Viktor. “Get her a glass of water.”
Viktor hurried over to the sink, where he filled a glass, adding ice from the refrigerator dispenser. He carried it over to Angel, who gratefully accepted it, sipping as she tried not to look directly at her tablet.
“Well, I’m not. I’ll do my best, but please give me some warning next time.” She squinted, scrolling back to the first document.
“I’ll try to remember. As to any other connections with the Fae, yes. That’s what brought our informant in. He was in a bar where he overheard a conversation between two TirNaNog guards. They were drunk off their asses, and talking about the news stories about the bodies. Since there had only been a bare-bones story in the news, our informant decided that he should listen in. He bought the guards another drink, and they were just drunk enough to keep talking. One of them mentioned that it shouldn’t be long before people blamed the vamps, and then he elbowed his compatriot and winked. When our man asked what he meant, they abruptly shut up and turned away, after muttering a warning to steer clear of the catacombs.”
The “catacombs” was the name for a series of underground tunnels below the city of Seattle. At one time, they had simply been called “underground” Seattle. But ever since the space had been taken over by vampires and other nefarious undead, they had been nicknamed the catacombs. No longer a tourist attraction, they were now a place to be avoided at all costs if you weren’t welcome.
“But that would lead to the vampire connection. Did he hear anything else?” Viktor asked.
“Yeah, the most damning. As the guards were walking away, one of them said to the other, ‘That will teach the bloodsuckers to mess with us,’ and then they disappeared. That’s enough to tell me that there’s something going on between the Fae and the vampires. Now, whether the Fae are trying to use the vampires as a scapegoat to hide their own machinations, or whether they’re deliberately trying to get them in trouble, I don’t know.”