“Alright,” I said, placing a hand on Lakin’s shoulder. I couldn’t believe that I was actually being the voice of reason here, but nobody else was volunteering. “There’s no point in arguing about this. We’ve already fucked up, so the only thing we can do is try to fix it.”
“And just how are we going to do that?” Lakin demanded.
I took in a deep breath. “We take this to the Enforcer’s Guild.”
Lakin received an emergency call from a shop in Shiftertown that was being robbed, so I headed up to the Enforcer’s Guild on my own, hoping I’d find Annia there. I had to cool my heels in the visitor’s chair by her desk, but eventually she walked in, her dark eyes sparking with anger as she caught sight of me.
“There you are!” She tossed a notebook onto her desk, then sat down in her chair. “Where the hell have you and Lakin been? I thought we were going to meet up at his house after the interviews were done, but you two never showed.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I winced. “We tried to call you, but we couldn’t get through and we weren’t sure how long you’d be on phone calls. All of our interviews led back to Sandin Federal and we wanted to jump on that as soon as possible.”
Annia huffed. “Well, I guess we’re all on the same page, at least. All my interviews pointed toward Sandin Federal as well. Did you grill the manager over there?”
“No.” I let out a disgusted sigh. “The Mages Guild raided the place this morning, and the manager made himself scarce.”
“Crap.” Annia dragged a hand through her auburn hair. “Are there any clues as to where he might have bolted?”
“Not really. But I have a feeling that one of the the Shifter Royale staff might know.” I drummed my fingers on the desk. “At this rate, the only thing we can do is shut down the Royale. I was hoping that you could come with me to talk to Captain Galling, so we could both convince him to get off his butt and send out a task force.”
“Sure. I think he’s in the house right now. Let’s go.”
Captain Galling’s office was located on the top floor of the Enforcer’s Guild building, along with the offices of his deputy and a few administrative workers. His was a corner office, with large windows looking directly out onto the street, and shelves full of books and weapons lining the walls. A large desk and a file cabinet took up half of the space, and there was a small cot in the corner which he supposedly used if he had to work late and didn’t feel like going home. If he ever had used the thing, it was a relic of a bygone time, back when the Captain actually ran the Enforcer’s Guild with a firm grip.
The man sitting behind the desk still looked commanding enough, with a large, strong build, close-cropped salt and pepper hair and beard, and hard, blue-black eyes. But his face and belly had softened from years of being off the streets, and I had a feeling that deep down inside, the Captain was just tired. He was in his late fifties, after all, and in human years that was significant. Also, from what I understood his wife was not in good health, and required his time and attention.
Still, that was no excuse for the way the Enforcer’s Guild had been run for the past couple of years. And though I knew Captain Galling was cracking down on his Enforcers more, mostly as a result of the Chief Mage’s intervention, he wasn’t doing enough, and probably wouldn’t be until he started using that cot again.
“Baine, Melcott.” Captain Galling lifted his head from his typewriter at the sound of my knock. “What do you need? I’m a little busy here.”
“We’re here to request a task force,” Annia said, pushing her way past me and into the room.
“A task force?” Captain Galling’s brow furrowed, and he pushed his typewriter aside. “What the hell for?”
“We’ve been assisting Inspector Lakin with investigating Sillara Tarenan’s death,” I told him. “We found out that she was investigating a series of shifter kidnappings, and traced the kidnappings to an underground fight club called the Shifter Royale.” I explained the Royale to Galling, that Annia and I had attended one just the other night and we’d watched a number of drugged-out shifters pitted against each other in bloody fights.
“The manager of Sandin Federal disappeared today when Inspector Lakin and I went to question him,” I said. “I have a feeling he knows who’s behind this, and the only way to find him is via the Shifter Royale.”
“Which needs to be shut down anyway,” Annia insisted. “The operation definitely falls into Enforcer territory, as it involves humans and shifters.”
“And possibly mages,” I added.
“Mages?” Galling’s eyebrows shot up. “How do you know this?”
“At the end of each fight, the humans shoot the shifters with some kind of dart that not only knocks them unconscious, but forces them to change.” The very memory of watching those shifters change while knocked out made me scowl. “There’s no way it was some herb or drug that did that. I’m convinced there was magic involved. Oh, and before I forget… two of the staff who were handling the shifters were also Enforcers.”