Keegan was sitting outside the front of Misery PD. The entire building was fitting to the town’s name. The lamp posts were almost gothic looking with the curls and spikes while the main building was a dark gray stone. Plaques of former officers who had passed in the line of duty were etched into the walls.
“I figured you would just ditch me.” Matt said in greeting as he jogged up the steps towards Keegan. She eyed his outfit. It was appropriate enough for where they were going. Dark jeans, a black button down rolled up at the sleeves. She could spot some kind of ink curling out from under the collar of his shirt.
She wasn’t dressed much differently. She had donned a pair of jeans, a black tank top. Her usual hidden, St. Benedict pendant was left exposed. The cold air wasn’t a factor in what she was wearing. It was the fact the more skin you showed, the more powerful your scent was. As a supernatural that was the most important thing in identifying a potential ally or an enemy while you exuded your own power.
“I said you could come along.” Keegan kicked off of the wall she was leaning against and led him towards her car.
“You’re not cold?” Matt asked as he settled into the passenger side and clicked his seatbelt in place.
“Freezing but once we get to where we are going,” Keegan looked over her shoulder to make sure she was clear to pull on the street, “how cold or hot I get won’t matter. What I need is for other Supernaturals to know I’m one of them and if they mess with me they aren’t going to be the one walking out of Diyo’s.”
“Okay…” Matt let the statement stand as he watched the scenery change from bright city lights into the occasional blip of light and the dank forms of run down and abandoned buildings. He could tell when they moved from the human side of Misery and into the Supernatural District. There were more people walking along the sidewalks despite the lack of street lights. Every once in a while, if he glanced out the corner of his eye, he’d catch the unnaturally bright flare of supernatural eyes.
“What you did earlier,” Keegan started, “With Leeroy? You really have to be careful about that. If he hadn’t been so in control we might not have been able to stop him from doing anything to you.”
“I didn’t mean to do anything, you know that right?” Matt offered.
Keegan nodded. “I know that. Leeroy? All he saw was a threat. As a Djinn, which is related to a demon, you threatened his alpha when you stood up and threw your arms like you did. Do you know what Djinn can do to you Matt?”
Keegan eyed the detective out the corner of her eye and saw him shake his head no. “Like Melinda said, he could literally turn your head into mush with his fingertips. As a Djinn Leeroy has the ability to control your mind. He can make you think that you’re living your life but really you’re not. You would be stuck in a catatonic state and he would leave you like that until you died. That’s only a little of what he can do.”
“What else do I need to know?” Matt asked.
“Gary is a dragon.” Keegan ignored the amused snort from Matt’s side of the car. She understood the reaction. Gary dressed in flannel and almost always tripping over his shoe laces wasn’t someone you’d believe to be something as powerful as a dragon. “I mean he can turn into a fire breathing, town burning dragon. He’s an old fashioned kind of guy. You mess up once with him, you’re on his shit list for a very long time.”
“Okay.”
“Melinda is a werewolf, which I’m sure you knew that with the way your guys howl at her every full moon.”
Matt ducked his head in shame. “Yeah I’ll talk to them about that.”
“That would be nice.” Keegan slowed the car and pulled into a tight spot between a truck and a convertible. She was thankful that they had arrived because she didn’t particularly like talking about herself to other people.
“Where are we?” Matt looked around. He blinked a few times trying to focus on the neon signs hanging from doorways of what appeared to be abandoned buildings.
“Welcome to one of the most popular haunts of the Supernatural District in Misery, Diyo’s.” Keegan tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. “There are some things you need to know before we get out of this car.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Humans aren’t something that supernaturals see too often around here. Don’t look any of them in the eye. As a human, meeting their gaze is like you are challenging their position and until you know for sure what kind of supernatural they are it’s just better to avoid that can of worms at all costs. Don’t talk back to anyone. No matter how annoying they are. I can’t protect you in there and I won’t risk my life trying to protect yours. Do you understand that?”
“Should you even be going in there?” Matt reached across the console and grasped her wrist lightly a moment before he realized what he had done and he pulled back.
“It’s actually pretty damn simple.” Keegan shrugged. “You think normal people get the heebie jeebies from me? I’m off limits to the supernaturals that will be in there. Plus they don’t being around me for too long.”
“How is that even possible?” Matt reached for the door handle and waited for some kind of explanation.
“When you’re like me more people are more afraid of you than not.” Keegan stared out the windshield. “I just give out creepy vibes. Which is understandable if you really get down to the meat and potatoes of it.”
“What exactly are you Keegan?” Matt finally asked the question that so many people back at the precinct were probably dying to know the answer to. Keegan wasn’t like any other supernatural. Unlike Leeroy and Melinda, she physically appeared human. Her eyes weren’t an odd color that only werewolves had. She didn’t have a bluish tinge to her skin and black veins at her temples like Leeroy did. Out of the entire SIU, she and Gary were the most normal of them all and Gary was a dragon.
Matt looked up at the neon sign and frowned in confusion as he tried to figure out where exactly they were. “What is this place? How do you even say the name?”
Keegan rolled her eyes, “This is Diyo’s. You pronounce it die-oh.”
“Don’t think our earlier conversation is done with.” Matt pointed out as they headed towards the entry way.
“I’ll tell you after tonight if you still want to know.” Keegan grabbed the door handle and stepped from the relative warmth of her car and into the cold. She didn’t wait to see if Matt would follow her. Instead she made quick time of heading towards a door that was barely visible underneath neon lights. She was muttering something at the man standing just inside the doorway and they were both slipping through. Keegan watched out of the corner of her eye as Matt paused to take everything it.
It was almost as if he left a world of black and white and dove right into a world filled with color. She could see the way his pupils attempted to adjust under the rainbow bright glow of a black light. He edged closer to her, searching for some form of focus. The crow’s feet at his eyes became more pronounced as his eyes darting around the hallway. As Keegan tugged him further away from the entry way they brushed passed other Supernaturals. The sounds of them scenting both Keegan and Matt as they made their way to the main floor sent shivers up her spine.
Keegan grabbed his arm and whispered close to his ear as the hallway opened up to the main floor. “Next time don’t try so hard to focus. Once you get through the hallway the whole, someone just drugged my drink feeling disappears. It is spelled to bother the mundane. It’s supposed to make you want to leave.”
Keegan paused as Matt took in the room. He stood dumbstruck as if he couldn’t believe that a place in the SD could look like this. It was full of warmth, chatter from people pressed close together and music thumping throughout the area. The tables that had been scattered across the floor were full of Supernaturals not hiding behind their human masks of daytime.
Ghouls let their skin revert to the marble of greens, blues and blacks. Vampires lingered with their eyes dark as night, not a shade of color except the red of their lips. Demon’s flaunted their power with the flick of their eyes. The bright colors that rimmed the pupil indicated how powerful they truly were.
Keegan felt Matt watching her as she finally dropped all the human barriers she placed on herself during the day. Her shoulders dropped as her body relaxed. Dark lines slipped out from under the back of her tank top and followed the same path of her veins. She even moved differently here. Her body swayed, tilted and slipped past other supernaturals. She felt her blood heat up with every scent she took in and she moved like a predator, someone that others Supernaturals should be weary of. When heads turned to see who she was before they began to shift out of her way when she moved, told Matt that there was much more to Keegan Morne than he could ever possibly know. She could feel the way they were still being watched as they settled in at an empty corner of the bar.
“Keegan Morne, what can I do for you my darling?” The voice was whiskey smooth and it held a southern drawl to it. The sheer power that radiated off of the bartender was enough for Matt to know that Diyo was something more than just your average supernatural being. The way he held himself with his posture straight and his body poised reminded Matt of Roman soldiers. It made him wonder hold long Diyo had actually been around.
Keegan leaned over the bar, her lips coming close to the man’s ear as she rested her hand on his muscled forearm. “A minute of your time would be nice. That is if you can spare one for me?”
The bartender’s eyebrows shot up towards his hair line before his lips curled into a wicked smile. The deep blue iris darkened until it turned black. “I can only spare a moment if you leave him out here.”
Keegan glanced over her shoulder at Matt. It took one screw up for things to go south and someone would be dead in a matter of seconds. She was a fan of Matt Hollis but she wasn’t going to be responsible for bring him into Diyo’s and getting him killed. “I don’t think so Diyo.”
“It’s like that is it?” Diyo mindlessly wiped at the bar in front of them. “I thought you were a one man type of girl.”
“I am,” Keegan’s lips curled into a sinful grin as she pressed even closer to Diyo. “But we both know you are anything but man.”
Diyo licked his lips and shook his head. “Even if I said no, we both know you’d work your magic and get me to give up the goods anyway. Follow me and bring your boy toy with you. If you leave him out here then someone is bound to tie him up and give him a try.”
Keegan nearly broke out in laughter at the blush Matt was sporting from Diyo’s comment. She grabbed his hand and led him around the bar to follow Diyo to one of the back rooms.
“Did he just suggest what I think he did?” Matt whispered into Keegan’s ear.
“You smell good.” Diyo answered Matt, unabashed that he was listening in. “Plus if Keegan brought you in here it’s kind of hard to resist. She never brings a guest with her. Everyone is going to want to know who you are and why she brought you here.”
Both Keegan and Matt followed Diyo down the maze of hallways towards his office. They passed supernaturals pressed against each other in a tangle of lust. Neither Keegan nor Diyo batted an eye at the sight but Matt couldn’t help but look over his shoulder to be sure if he really saw what he thought he saw.
“Eyes up front cowboy.” Diyo smirked back at Matt. “We don’t want you to get lost back here. There’s no telling when someone would find you.”
It only took another turn before they were passing through the blue shimmer of a curtain and into a lush office. Diyo dropped into a leather chair while Keegan and Matt sat across from him in a smaller version.
“So what can I help you with lovely?” Diyo folded his hands together and rested them on top of his desk.
“I need to know if you’ve noticed any strange goings-on with the shifter community. Maybe there is something going on that I missed?”
“Is there something going on within the shifter community?” Diyo pursed his lips together in thought. “As a whole? No. Between the leopards and wolves I have noticed they won’t mingle together any longer. They stay as far away from each other as possible. I haven’t gotten any wind of anything specific going on but I know enough that if a wolf starts staring a leopard in the eye that I’m sending them back out into the mundane world. I’m not going to have that blood on my hands.”
Keegan looked over towards Matt before looking back at Diyo. “There was a murder of a leopard family. Well, technically a leopard, mundane and the half-breed child were murdered.”
“Who were the victims?” Diyo asked. “I am assuming they were someone who frequented the club?”
“Possibly, we’re not sure. The victims were Cody and Alice Barr.” Keegan supplied. The newspapers would have photos and as much gory detail spread out on the front page in the morning. There really wasn’t a need to censor herself.
“They were good people.” Diyo let out a deep breath as his eyes rolled towards the ceiling offering a silent apology. “Cody and Alice only made it over here every once in awhile after Connor was born. I’m assuming that is when they could manage to get a babysitter who would care for a supernatural and could stay out most of the night. Anyways, I never saw them have any trouble with any other patrons of mine. Although recently, they haven’t made an appearance in the district. I do believe that they stopped coming out a few months ago completely. They didn’t go out as often as they did since they had a run in with Mason Mills awhile back.”
“I thought he was banned from your properties?” Keegan commented with a raised brow. “After he had a little too much and started spouting off his ideas to keep different supernatural species pure.”
“Oh that was a few years ago and he was banned from this establishment. I do not tolerate that kind of trash. Even if he was a dog in every sense of the word he did grow a pair and apologize for his behavior. I gave him a second chance. Maybe that beating he took a while ago from Cody opened his eyes and realized the errors of his way? I don’t know but I wasn’t going to give him a second chance.”
“So that’s why you re-warded the building?” Keegan hummed underneath her breath a little peeved that she wasn’t informed of why she needed to alter the previous work she had completed for him.
“Who stepped up and took care re-warding the building?” Matt questioned. Both Keegan and Diyo looked at Matt curiously before Diyo spotted the notepad busting with notes and rolled his eyes at it.
“That would be your girl right there and myself.” Diyo nodded towards Keegan. “The owner must always be present at any warding.”
“Why do I get a feeling that if I ask you how you handled the situation you would just shrug it off and say it was nothing?” Matt pressed the tip of his pen into his notepad, the ink bleeding into the paper.
“Because secrets are a girl’s best friend,” Diyo answered with a grin. “The last I heard the best place to find Mason is that sub shop on 3 during daylight hours. It might help you in your investigation but for what it’s worth? Besides that trouble a while back he hasn’t caused much of a ruckus. He’s changed quite a bit and for the better from what I’ve seen.”
“Thanks Diyo, I appreciate all the help.” Keegan stood and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You need anything you’ll let me know?”
“You’ll be the first. Now either enjoy the rest of your evening or get out of here. I don’t need you scaring away my patrons.” Diyo teased as he ushered them back out into the hall. Instead of the maze that they traveled to get to the office, it was a straight shot back to the main floor. This was a world the mundane would never understand completely. No matter how hard they tried.