Page 4

Chapter 4

I wanted to buy some doughnuts and return to the mine immediately, but the universe had other plans because there were no decent ones left in the bakery. It was late afternoon and the only two in the display case were old and dry; if I offered her those, the hag would be sure to slit my throat.

I put in an order for a dozen fresh doughnuts to collect in the morning then texted Thomas and arranged a time to meet him. Technically I’d be off shift but the Nomo’s office didn’t really keep to strict hours; we worked when we had to and rested when we didn’t. Gunnar was still visibly tired after being run ragged for nine weeks whilst Sidnee and I were at the academy, so it seemed only fair that I put in any extra hours he required.

As Gunnar drove us back into town, I called Connor. ‘Hey,’ he answered warmly.

‘Hi,’ I replied as a huge smile crossed my face. ‘How are you?’ Connor was working hard these days, paying the price for taking nearly a week off work to visit me at the academy.

‘I’m good,’ he assured me. ‘What about you? I heard you caught a new case.’

‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘I’m not quite sure what the deal is with it yet.’

‘I heard he choked himself to death in the mine. Some sort of sex thing.’

I snorted. ‘The Portlock rumour mill is ridiculous. It was nothing like that – a heart attack, maybe.’

‘Maybe? You’re not sure?’

‘No signs of foul play … and yet…’ I trailed off.

‘Your gut says otherwise.’ He knew me so well.

‘Yeah. I’m going to be pulling a few extra hours.’

‘What’s new?’ he teased lightly, but there was no acrimony in his voice. With his own company to run, plus being head of the vampires in Portlock, Connor knew what it was to be busy. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said reluctantly. ‘John’s here.’

John was the vampire who’d helped rescue me from the clutches of the vampire king in London. I owed him big time for his help. ‘Good. Tell him I said hi.’

‘Will do. Love you, Doe.’

‘Love you.’ We rang off.

Gunnar slid me a glance. ‘You two seem happy.’

I beamed. ‘We are.’

‘Good. I had my reservations at first, but he’s good for you.’

It surprised me how much his validation meant to me. ‘He is.’

When we arrived back at the office, a person was waiting for us – or, more precisely, waiting for me . As I put down the black bag, Gunnar escaped to his office. Sidnee had picked up Shadow for me and sat at her desk with the cat on her lap. I gave her a questioning look as I glanced at the woman sitting in the waiting area. She shrugged.

‘Are you Officer Bunny?’ the woman asked as she looked me over.

‘Yes. How may I help you?’ I was curious why she’d waited for me when she could have given the information to Sidnee if there had been a crime. Did she have some sort of prejudice against mermaids? The thought made me bristle.

‘My name is Hayleigh Farnsworth. I read about you in the paper – you know, how the Fanged Flopsy solved that werewolf case. I was wondering if you could help me.’

Great: that whole Fanged Flopsy thing was going to follow me to the grave, and since I was a vampire, that might be a very long time. ‘Sure. Can you tell me what you need help with, Hayleigh? ’

Hayleigh was middle-aged, with mousy brown hair pulled back in a tight bun on top of her head. She was shapely, albeit she had a little extra timber, and was dressed in a sweatshirt, a blue rain jacket and baggy pants. I couldn’t tell what type of supernat she was – and there was the outside possibility that she was human.

She dug around in her huge, purple bag and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper. She handed it to me. I smoothed it out: it was a photo that had clearly been printed at home. It was dark – it must have used up most of her ink to print it – and it showed a heavily forested area with a darker blob in the centre of the trees. I couldn’t make out anything clearly.

I looked up at her. ‘What am I looking at?’

She sighed. ‘I thought you’d be able to see it.’ She lowered her voice and waggled her eyebrows. ‘You know, with your extra powers and stuff from the government experimentation.’

I wanted to roll my eyes but I didn’t; I just waited patiently. One of the things that the academy had taught us was that silence was a powerful tool; if you maintained it long enough, the other person would feel uncomfortable and try to fill it.

Hayleigh looked around as though someone might be watching. No one was except Sidnee, who was hiding her head behind her computer screen and trying not to smile. She leaned over the counter and whispered, ‘It’s bigfoot. He’s trying to get in my house and … you know … ravish me.’ She didn’t actually seem that upset at the prospect, maybe just a little nervous.

I blinked. Several times. ‘Bigfoot?’ I knew the creatures existed – in fact I’d had a run in with more than one nantinaq. They were scary and territorial and outside the barrier, and they definitely wouldn’t be after her body. But what if one had come inside the barrier? Was there a rip? I couldn’t afford to ignore Hayleigh’s claims, even though the whole thing seemed absurd.

‘Yeah, you know, tall hairy, big feet, big—’ she went on.

I interjected hastily before she could tell me about anything else big. ‘I know what you’re talking about!’ I really did.

‘Can you come and look around? See if you can find him? I live alone.’

I looked at Sidnee, who’d started to cough in an attempt to disguise her amusement, then I looked at the pink slips for callbacks on my desk. I nodded, ‘Sure, I’ll come by in an hour. What’s your address?’

She wrote it down on a sticky note before she left. The moment the door closed, Sidnee couldn’t contain her snickers. ‘Banged by bigfoot! Imagine! ’

‘I’d rather not,’ I admitted. ‘Bigfoot is real. And terrifying. If one did get inside the barrier, I’d rather know now than worry that the barrier is failing again.’

That sobered her right up. ‘You’re right. I didn’t think about that. I don’t think it is, though. She strikes me as a lonely woman and this is a cry for help.’

‘Then I’d better give it to her, hadn’t I?’

‘Yeah, you’re right. If I were lonely and scared, I’d want someone to check on anything creepy. Especially spiders.’ She shuddered.

‘Well this isn’t spiders, so guess what? You get to come with me.’ I needed back-up on the off chance that it really was the nantinaq: one of us to try and fight it and one of us to get the word out that the barrier was down.

Sidnee held up both hands in surrender. ‘I’ll never laugh at you again,’ she said, only a little huffy.

Fluffy barked. ‘Yeah, you’re going too, and so is Shadow,’ I told him. If a nantinaq was on this side, Shadow would be the biggest help with his special brand of weird smoky magic. It was going to be a total circus, but needs must.

I checked the pink slips on my desk; nothing was pressing, and most requests could be completed with a few phone calls. I hurried through them and was done in thirty minutes.

I wasn’t looking forward to the visit at bigfoot lady’s place, but it seemed expedient to get to it. ‘Are you ready, Sidnee?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, but we should wait until April gets here. She’s due in five minutes.’

She was right; it was best not to leave Gunnar here alone in case something big came in. ‘Good idea.’

I tidied my desk. The damage that Stan had done whilst cursed into his polar bear form was completely gone, though we no longer had a lowered ceiling. That made the room more spacious, if a little less refined.

The door opened and April Arctos, bear shifter and mum extraordinaire, breezed in. ‘Hi, ladies! I’m so glad to see you both back!’

‘Thanks, April,’ we said together, then looked at each other and started laughing.

‘Well, at least you’re in sync.’ April plopped down her big handbag on her desk. ‘It was crazy here while you were at the academy.’

‘I’m so sorry!’ I said, and Sidnee echoed me.

April waved us away. ‘No worries, ladies. We knew why you were gone. Nothing we couldn’t handle.’ She grinned, ‘But as I said, happy as heck to see you again.’

‘Back at you. We’re heading out but if you need us, call!’ I insisted .

‘You got it!’

I grabbed Fluffy’s lead and Sidnee scooped up Shadow, who was almost too large to carry, then we climbed in the Nomo SUV and headed out to find ourselves a potentially randy bigfoot.