Page 11 of Aberrant Monsters
He rolled his head on his shoulders, tipping it toward me. “Got evicted, okay. Couldn’t pay the rent.” His tone was flat.
Shit. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“What difference would it make?”
“It’s fucking freezing in here at night. The heating cuts off at six.”
He snorted. “Trust me, I know.”
“You can’t stay here.”
He stared at me in horror. “You’re kicking me out?”
“No, you idiot. You’ll come stay with me.”
His eyes widened in shock. “In the city?”
“Doh, yes, in the city.”
He was a New Blood. A breed they called spectral—humans with a mutation that allowed them to turn invisible, pass through walls, all kinds of stuff. There weren’t many of his kind, but the ones that existed were some of the most feared because of what they could do. It was why the government had tagged them with anklets that muted their abilities, forcing them to remain solid. Except our smarty-pants Archie had found a way to disable his.
Our paths had crossed when I’d worked on a case in the Underbelly a few months back. A woman living in the same apartment building as him had been our client. He’d helped by setting up surveillance and such. I’d hired him after that gig.
I obviously didn’t pay well enough, though.
He was silent and contemplative now, and I understood why. Although he’d gone into the city with us on cases, he’d never lived there. The Underbelly had been his home ever since his abilities had manifested six years ago at the age of eighteen and his family had disowned him. He’d been tagged, registered, and forced to find a home in the Underbelly.
“Say yes, Archie. It’ll be fun.”
He pushed his lips out, as if he was doing me a favor by considering my offer.
I let it slide. This was Archie. The prickly loner who didn’t like to feel beholden to anyone. Someone who struggled with the whole friends and family stuff, and who could blame him after how his family had dumped his ass.
“S’pose I could move in,” he said finally. “Always wanted to meet your uncle. He sounds like a laugh.”
Uncle Frederick was far from a laugh, but whatever. I pressed my palms to my thighs and stood. “Great. We had a call come in a moment ago. Let’s go see what it was about.”
“A job?”
“Hopefully.”
The tinkle of the bell had us hurrying into the main office because the bell meant a client.
Except when I stepped into the office, all thoughts of clients and the money they’d bring in fled, because the woman standing by the door was no client.
Devyn Silvercrest fixed her baby blues on me and offered me a thin smile.
The justice system in the city was a collaboration of three forces. You had the human police that dealt with regular human crime, the Night Guild, run by the city’s gargoyles, that focused on supernatural crimes, and the Knight’s Watch, who dealt with anything related to the fae.
Devyn was with the Night Guild, which meant that Jamie’s remains had been found and passed to the guild to deal with, because although Jamie was human, there was no way the manner of his death could be mistaken for anything other than supernatural.
If Devyn was here, then she’d discovered our link to the victim.Mylink.
“Morning, August, Nandi. You two got a minute?” Her smile never reached her eyes, which was something about her that always unnerved me.
Nandi sat back in her chair and sipped her coffee, totally at ease. The bitch was good playing it casual. But then she hadn’t been the one who’d had the altercation with Jamie and allowed him to be eaten.
“Sure,” Nandi said. “What can we do for you, Officer?”
