Rusty asked me to pay particularly close attention to two burly Monthlies, heavily tattooed “bad biker” types named Scratch and Sniff. Even in their non-lycanthrope form, and even among the crowd of monsters, these two were intimidating. They wore thick, dirty fur overcoats that they claimed were made of werewolf pelts—nothing provocative there!—coated with road dust and stained with clotted blotches that looked like blood. Known troublemakers, Scratch and Sniff liked to bash their victims’ heads just to see what might come out. They frequently attended the cockatrice fights, and often caused problems, but Rusty allowed them to stay because they placed such large bets.
In recent fights, however, a large fraction of the money was disappearing from the betting pool, as much as 20 percent. Rusty was sure that Scratch and Sniff had somehow been robbing the pot, and I was supposed to keep my eyes open. But these two didn’t strike me as the type who would subtly skim 20 percent of anything; my guess, they would take the whole pot of money and storm away with as much ruckus as possible.
Furguson wandered among the crowd, recording bets with a pencil in his notepad, accepting wads of bills and stuffing them into his pockets. As he collected money, he was very diligent in writing down each wager and recording the ticket number. For weeks, Rusty had pored over the notations, trying to figure out why so much money went missing. He counted and recounted the bills, added and re-added the list of bets placed, and he simply could not find what was happening to so much of the take.
Suddenly, the Rocky Balboa theme blared over the old rave speakers that had been left behind (confiscated by the warehouse owner for nonpayment). Eager fans surrounded Furguson in a frantic flurry, placing their last wagers, shoving money at the gangly werewolf as if they were over-caffeinated bidders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Now, I’ve been a private detective in the Unnatural Quarter for years, working with my legal crusader/partner Robin Deyer. We had a decent business until I’d been shot in the back of the head—which might have been the end of the story, but I woke up as a zombie, clawed my way out of the grave, and got right back to work. Being undead is not a disadvantage in the Quarter, and the number of cases I’ve solved, both before and after my murder, is fairly impressive. I’m very observant and persistent, and I have a good analytical mind.
Sometimes, though, I solve cases through dumb luck, which is what happened now.
While Rusty worked in the back, rattling the cages and giving pep talks to his violent amalgamated monsters, the Rocky theme played louder, and the last-minute bettors waved money at Furguson. They yelled out the names of their chosen cockatrice, snatched their tickets, and the gangly werewolf stuffed wads of cash into his pockets, made change, grew flustered, took more money, stuffed it into other pockets. He was so bumbling and so overwhelmed that bills dropped out of his pockets onto the floor, unnoticed—by Furguson, but not by the other audience members. As they pressed closer to him like a murder of carrion crows, they snatched up whatever random bills they could find. In fact, it was so well choreographed, the whole mess seemed like part of the evening’s entertainment.
Scratch and Sniff had shouldered their way to the edge of the cockatrice ring, where they’d have the best view. Despite Rusty’s accusations, the big biker werewolves had nothing to do with the money that went missing. As the saying goes, never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence—and I saw the gold standard of incompetence here.
I let out a long sigh. Rusty wasn’t going to like what I’d found, but at least this was something easy enough to fix. His bumbling nephew would either have to be more careful or find another line of work.
The loud fanfare fell silent, and Rusty emerged from the back in his bib overalls; his reddish fur looked mussed, as if he had gotten into a wrestling match himself with the vile creatures. The restless crowd pressed closer to the fighting ring.
Rusty shouted at the top of his lungs. “For our first match, Sour Lemonade versus . . . Hissy Fit!”
He yanked a lever that opened a pair of trapdoors, and the two creatures squawked, hissed, and flapped into the pit. Each was the size of a wild turkey, covered with scales, with a head like a rooster on a bad drug trip with a serrated beak and slitted reptilian eyes. The jagged feathers looked like machetes, and their sharp, angular wings gave them the appearance of a very small dragon or a very large bat. Each cockatrice had a serpentine tail with a spearpoint tip. Their hooked claws were augmented by wicked-looking razor gaffs (I couldn’t imagine how Rusty had attached the equipment). Forked tongues flicked out of their sawtooth beaks as they faced off.
I’d never seen anything so ugly—and these were the domesticated variety. Purebred cockatrices are even more hideous, ugly enough to turn people to stone. (It’s hard to say objectively whether or not the purebreds are in fact uglier, since anyone who had ever looked upon one became a statue. Scientific studies had been done to measure the widened eyes of petrified victims, and a standard rating scale had been applied to the expression of abject horror etched into the stone faces, but I wasn’t convinced those were entirely reliable results.) Regardless, wild turn-you-to-stone cockatrices were outlawed, and it was highly illegal to own one. These were the kinder, gentler breed—and they still looked butt-ugly.
One of the creatures had shockingly bright lemon-yellow scales—Sour Lemonade, I presumed. The other cockatrice had more traditional snot-green scales and black dragon wings. It hissed constantly, like a punctured tire.
The two creatures flapped their angular wings, bobbed their heads, and flicked their forked tongues like wrestlers bowing to the audience. The crowd egged them on, and the cockatrices flung themselves upon each other like Tasmanian devils on a hot plate. The fury of lashing claws, pecking beaks, and spitting venom was dizzying—not exactly enjoyable, but certainly energetic. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
The barbed tail of Sour Lemonade lashed out and poked a hole through Hissy Fit’s left wing. The other cockatrice clamped down with its serrated beak, locking jaws on the yellow creature’s scaly neck. Claws lashed and kicked, and black smoking blood spurted out from the injuries. When it hit the side of the pit ring, the acid blood burned and bubbled.
One large droplet splattered the face of a vampire, who yelped and backed away, swatting at his smoking skin. Scratch and Sniff both howled with inappropriate laughter at the vampire’s pain. The spectators cheered, shouted, and cursed. The cockatrices snarled and hissed. The sound was deafening.
Then the warehouse door burst open, and I saw Officer Toby McGoohan in his full cop uniform standing there. “This is the police!” he shouted through a bullhorn. “May I have your attention—”
The ensuing pandemonium made the cockatrice fight seem like a Sunday card game by comparison.
CHAPTER 2
Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater is a well-known recipe for disaster. Shouting “Cops!” in the middle of an illegal cockatrice fight is ten times worse.