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“She’s married. She’s married to a rabbit shifter named Lou.

He’s a quiet sort, lowkey and seems like a hard worker.

I looked him up, once I followed them back to her place and they both went inside together.

So I did some digging into Merry and found out that she and Lou have been married for five years.

He’s from another country, so I suspect he may be after his green card and she was the easiest ride there.

They’ve supposedly been married for two years, but the way they walked together—well, let’s just say the honeymoon’s long over.

After that, I had to head back here, to make the meeting. ”

We filed away all the information for later, before moving things to the conference room, where our client was waiting.

Merry Fangripper was gorgeous, six feet tall and the proverbial Barbie doll. She had golden hair, glowing chocolate colored eyes, and the perfect hourglass figure. She was also a wolf shifter with a coxigan problem.

She sat opposite us in the conference room.

Her boobs were even bigger than mine, but they were rounder and firmer and defied gravity.

Her legs that went on forever. I could tell because she was wearing a bubblegum pink dress so short that, if she separated her knees even slightly, would give us a birds-eye view to secret places that should remain hidden in polite society.

But she wasn’t a blonde ditz. She had a head on her shoulders, so brains as well as beauty.

I glanced at Dante, expecting him to be focused on her…attributes…but he looked distracted. Orik joined us, but he seemed immune to her looks, as well.

“So, you said you have a problem with coxigans?” I asked.

“Yes, I do.” Her voice wasn’t what I’d expected. She sounded like a stern librarian, serious and mature. No breathless gasps or even a surprised Oh !

Coxigans were a form of the nature-Fae. Unlike the sub-Fae, who were the dregs of Fae society, the nature-Fae were the creatures like pixies and will-o-the-wisps and lightning divers and all the other creatures who were part of the Fae kingdom, yet not like the Fae who interacted with humanity.

Coxigans were similar to pixies, but rather than being mischievous, they were downright obnoxious. In fact, their sense of humor had led to several deaths over the years, because Coxigans tended to set up traps that were dangerous, not just annoying.

They did resemble pixies. Small bipedal creatures of different colors, with wings, nasty teeth, and wide innocent eyes, their bites were painful and could easily get infected.

They usually opted for chasing people into bramble patches, or working with the earth-berms to dig deep holes.

The coxigans covered the holes with branches and leaves, then lured unsuspecting victims into falling into the holes.

The creatures set up nests in yards that appealed to them. One coxigan was a annoyance. A nest of them? Was a serious problem.

“How long have they been there?” I asked.

“About three months now. At first it was just a couple of them and I thought they might get bored and leave. I was involved with a huge project for work at that point and didn’t have the time to deal with it.

But then they began to multiply. Like first one ant moves in, then the whole colony follows.

I try to live and let live, but damn, they almost killed my dog the other day.

That did it. Anybody who goes after my dog, goes after me. ”

She leaned back, arms crossed, scowling. “Little freaks.”

“How many do you think there are?” Dante asked.

“About a dozen. They buzz around so fast it’s hard to tell.”

Orik glanced at her. “Is there one who seems to be in charge? What color is it?”

Merry snorted. “I don’t know. I don’t have time to sit there and watch them. There are several green ones, a couple blue ones, at least two yellow ones and a couple purple ones. Oh, there’s one red one.”

Red coxigans were usually the strongest and most often were the leaders of whatever group they were in. Each color had their own magical powers, and the red ones could control fire. Their bite was also more dangerous because the fire took the form of acid.

“Okay, this won’t be easy, but we can take care of them,” I said. “It’s going to take some work, though.” I paused, turning to Orik and Dante. “What are the rules? Do we have to rehome them, or can we exterminate them?”

“The Fae Courts don’t even like them, but given they’re considered nature-Fae, they’re under protection. If we kill them, you’ll end up paying a hefty fine. No jail time or anything, but yeah, we have to attempt to rehome them.”

“Can we chuck them through a portal?” I asked.

“We could,” Dante said. “It’s not like we’d be killing them. Whatever happens to them on the other side isn’t our concern.”

“I can ask…” I stopped. The portal keepers kept their names quiet so they weren’t targeted. “Hold on. Excuse me a moment, please.”

I stepped out of my office and put in a call to Penn, but she didn’t answer.

I figured she was talking to PortalWatch so I returned to my desk.

“All right, I’ll have to check on something later, but we can help.

We’ll require a retainer, and then we’ll need to come out to assess the situation and give you a final estimate. ”

“That sounds good. Can you come out tomorrow morning to look things over?” Merry’s eyes lit up and she sounded hopeful for the first time since she arrived.

“We can do that. Say…ten AM?” I glanced at my schedule.

We agreed on ten the next morning, and I wrote up a note for Sophia. “You can pay her the retainer at the desk. We’ll see you tomorrow morning at ten. Orik, please escort Merry out to Sophia’s desk.”

As soon as Merry left and Orik shut the door behind her, I turned to Dante. “Penn has access to all the portals around here, even though she’s only in charge of one. We can send them through whatever portal we want.”

“Good thinking,” he said.

At that moment, my phone chimed. I glanced at it. Penn had texted me.

i’m sorry i didn’t answer but i was talking to portalwatch. i have some things to tell you tonight, so come home as soon as you can. talk later.

“Good, Penn’s talked to PortalWatch. I wonder if Carson’s found out anything.” I told Dante what Benny had said, and that Penn was talking to her superiors.

“Brim Fire’s slowly trying to gain more footing in our world. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have more control that we think, but I don’t know how to find out,” Dante said. “We need to pay more attention to them. I wonder that they’re not on the government’s watch list.”

“The government probably doesn’t want to think about it,” I said.

“You know that the Coalition already has enough infighting to deal with, with the representatives from all the different groups. They picked the most conservative members they could get in order to prevent a free for all in charge of the country. And it’s not much better across the world.

They don’t want to think about invasion from the outside when they’re paranoid about keeping a balance among all the factions that make up the government now. ”

The government was comprised of members from all protected groups—shifters from most shifter groups, witches, even the Fae had members who belonged to the Coalition, though I had the feeling they were token members to appease the Fae Courts and prevent a war.

Humans were technically outnumbered by the total populace of Supes, and they were doing their best to keep what control they could.

If it meant a facade of working with us, they would.

But some of the shifter groups, in particular, could be more conservative than the most uptight human.

“Wait till the vampires gain the right to join the Coalition,” Dante said. “That’s going to cause an uproar.”

“It’s coming—the Vampire Federation has grown strong with most of the vampires coming out of the woodwork to join it, and the United States Coalition can’t ignore their presence much longer.

The vamps have already won a number of rights, and the right to be a legal voice in the government is next on the block. ” I shook my head.

“There are already protests going on—on both sides,” Dante said. He shrugged. “So, what do we do for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Why don’t you read up on coxigans? That way, Carson can continue investigating the Brim Fire boards.

” I wanted to know everything I could about them.

Benny had lit a fire under me, and given Penn was guarding the portal they were eyeing, I wanted to make certain that nothing went down that we weren’t prepared for.

As we left the conference room, I decided to take off early.

I wanted Penn to show me the portal, so I could scope out the situation for myself.

I told Dante I’d be back in a bit, and—with a quick word to Carson that I wanted anything he dug up on Brim Fire’s current activities as soon as he found it—I headed to my car, trying to duck between the rain drops.