Chapter Nine
I awoke to the unwelcome blare of my alarm and stretched out to reach for Robbie before remembering he’d left in the pre-dawn darkness. I forgave him, though, as he had kissed me goodbye so nicely, allowing me to tumble right back into sleep.
I looked around for Loki instead and was pleasantly surprised to see that he must already be up and about too.
I showered and dressed, then went to find my caladrius.
He was in the kitchen, hopping about on the counter, looking impatient. ‘Pigdog! Feed me!’
Relief swamped me so strongly I barely managed to keep it from my face. ‘You feeling better then, you greedy little bird?’
‘Not bird. Caladrius!’
‘Same thing.’
He made a derisive sound. ‘Like calling unicorn horse.’ He blew a raspberry, and the last hard lump of my anxiety melted away.
He was okay. He had energy enough to sass me; he really was going to be okay.
Warmth and quiet affection slid through me.
And because I was bad at showing it, I pushed that feeling down our nascent bond to him.
He flew to me, landed on my shoulder and buried his little head against my neck.
His joy that I cared was so raw – he was so fucking grateful to be loved – that tears instantly filled my eyes.
Speech was stolen from me by the sudden thickness in my throat, and I reached up to stroke his soft feathers.
They felt fuller, more vibrant, healthier.
We stayed like that, both giving and receiving comfort until a very distinct pang of hunger travelled down our bond. I laughed. ‘Hungry bud?’
‘Starving!’
‘Then let’s feed my little beast. You want to try tuna for a change?’ I asked.
‘Fish?’
‘Yeah.’
He gave the sideways hop he did when uncertain.
‘Try it. If you don’t like it, I’ll give you ham anyway.’
He bobbed his head in a nod and hopped off my shoulder to sit on the countertop. I opened a can of tuna and forked some onto a side plate for him. He attacked it ravenously, trilling happily between bites.
Yup. He liked tuna all right.
On the kitchen counter was a piece of folded paper.
I picked it up and read the note. I hadn’t seen Robbie’s handwriting before, and I’d imagined he was the type to write in neat block capitals or an illegible scrawl.
Instead, his writing was a work of art, all beautiful squiggles and scrawls that stopped just short of being calligraphy. The note said:
Dinner later?
We need to talk about the ogre’s mace by your door.
Robbie
I winced. Ah yes. In all the kerfuffle I’d clean forgotten to mention my visit with Miss Fuck You. Well, it could wait.
‘How are you doing?’ I asked Loki.
He extended a wing and ducked his head under it, hiding.
‘None of that,’ I said gently. ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me you were trying to bond with me?’
His little shoulders sagged. ‘Pigdog didn’t want bond.’
‘I didn’t realise it was an option,’ I explained honestly. ‘I’d heard that caladrii bonds were rare and precious. I – I’m not sure I’m worthy of it.’
‘Are,’ Loki said, and he stuck his little pink tongue out at me.
‘If you say so,’ I conceded, because I’d had enough of arguing.
‘Bond good for Loki too,’ he admitted, hopping from side to side sheepishly.
‘How?’ I asked.
‘This,’ he explained. I felt the tiniest tug on my magic, and as I watched my bird, he quite literally disappeared from view.
‘Loki! Where have you gone?’
He reappeared instantly, hopping smugly, little chest puffed out.
‘Neat trick,’ I said as my heart rate slowed back to normal. ‘Did you teleport somewhere, or just disappear from view?’
‘Invisible,’ Loki said, and he did the trick again. A moment later he reappeared.
This could be useful, very useful. I wondered what else he could do. Was this why Jingo wanted to bond with him? The bird would make an excellent spy. ‘How long can you stay invisible for?’ I asked curiously.
He trilled uncertainly. He didn’t know.
‘All right, we’ll test that out, but not now. Loki, you were at death’s door. You need to take it easy. Stay here today and rest up.’
He made a derisive noise. ‘No.’
I smiled despite myself. ‘Well, I’m glad the bond hasn’t changed that. I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d suddenly become subservient.’
Loki extended his neck. ‘I boss.’
‘If you say so, bud. Come on then birdy boss, let’s move.’
It still took effort to leave the window open for Loki when we left the apartment. The little guy needed to be able to come and go, though, so I pushed down my own discomfort and left it open to minimise his.
I walked to the station, preferring to get my steps in and warm up my body and mind.
Loki flitted above me, singing happily as we moved.
It was a huge weight off my mind to see the little fella looking so much better.
I had no doubt he’d push himself too far, too quickly, so I’d keep a close eye on the white bird. He might not be out of the woods yet.
The streets of Chester were bustling, but people’s heads were down; they were walking to work, not out strolling for pleasure. This was rush hour for commuters, before the retirees and holidaymakers leisurely swanned around the streets.
As I approached the police station, the discordant sound of shouting and chanting greeted me. What the hell?
I kicked up my speed a notch and as I rounded the corner the noise hit me – a wall of hate dressed up in chants.
‘No! No! Ogres, you should go!’
‘Monsters walk free when they should flee!’
‘Humans, not creatures!’
I didn’t need to see the symbol of the Anti-Crea spray-painted on the placards to know who was protesting outside the station – in full view of the Common realmers. This was madness.
I hustled over to the group. ‘Your presence here threatens the Verdict,’ I said firmly. ‘You are within your rights to protest peacefully, but any slogans or signs that depict the Other realm must be removed instantly.’
‘Course you’d say that!’ a man with long flowing hair said, beard straggly. ‘How does it feel, sleeping with the enemy, you bestial bitch?’
Arsehole.
‘I will not justify your vitriol with a response. You have five minutes to remove references to the Other from your chants and signage, or you’ll be arrested for threatening to break the Verdict.
’ The Verdict was the piece of magic that helped keep the Common realmers ignorant of the Other.
But even the Verdict couldn’t hide our presence if these idiots kept mouthing off.
The protestors mumbled, and I heard a fair few “Ogre’s whore” and “Ogre’s prostitute” comments before they began to remove the signs that referenced magical creatures.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’ the bearded guy continued to rail at me. ‘Your parents, wizards through and through, raised you right and you’re slumming it with a creature. A creature who goes around murdering innocent elementals like Lord Marlow.’
Now then, wasn’t that interesting? Only a few knew of Marlow’s death, and while it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that his family had sent out an Other-wide email, it struck me as profoundly interesting that they were here protesting before any media coverage had reported on the death.
Beardy continued, ‘You’re fucking a criminal, Inspector. Just like your bedfellow.’ He was all but spitting in my face.
He was wrong though. I wasn’t fucking anyone, and Krieg’s moral code might vary from mine, but he was no villain.
No, these people were the villains, spewing hatred because they didn’t like anything or anyone slightly different from them.
How sad their lives must be that they lived, breathed and bathed in hatred.
Preaching separation and division and slowly rotting the world with their prejudice.
Above him, Loki switched to stealth mode and took a fly-by shit.
The white splatter landed and matted into the protestor’s long hair.
Hard to feel anything but satisfaction at Loki’s morning constitutional, which increased when the man didn’t even notice the shit in his hair. Might he wear it unknowingly all day.
The group was small – no more than ten at a quick count – but they varied in age and gender.
Six men, four women. Two of the men had buzz cuts and tattoos, and one looked like a professor with a neat goatee, a tweed coat and little fussy glasses.
Then there was the long-haired bearded guy and two other mucky mates who looked like they thought it was still the seventies, dressed in tie-dye and bell-bottoms. No matter their respective socio-economic backdrops, they were united in hate, which struck me as sad.
People should bond over love, nature’s beauty, or books, not bitterness, bigotry and bile.
‘Cop cover-up!’ a female protestor snarled at me.
Dressed in a sharp navy suit with her blond hair in a neat chignon, she looked like a doctor or a lawyer, not a woman consumed by hate.
I’d seen her type often enough to know that the outer package mattered little.
So many hid bigotry and anger under a nice veneer, but I could see through it now, see it glinting in her eyes and in the twist of her mouth.
She thought Robert Krieg was a creature to be tagged and controlled at best, to be put down at worst.
The thought sucker-punched me. To imagine Robbie dead, his eyes lifeless and unseeing, even for a second, made my heart stutter to a stop. How quickly he was becoming essential to my being. If anything happened to him …
I had to swallow down a fit of temper that roared up in me as I watched this woman spit vitriol at me.
‘Ogre-fucking whore,’ she snarled. ‘Hiding the truth, you monster-fucker!’
‘You think he’s a monster? Look in a mirror.
’ I raised my voice so they could all hear me.
‘The law protects your right to speak. I protect the world from what happens when people like you act. Step a toe out of line, any of you, and you’ll be in lock-up awaiting a nice visit with your lawyer. Consider this your only warning.’
Then I pushed past them and into the office. Somehow, even though I couldn’t see him, I knew Loki had come into the building with me, invisibility mode still activated.
DS Roberts looked up as I walked in. ‘Wise,’ he greeted. ‘What the hell is that all about?’ he asked. He looked tired, on his way out after a long shift.
‘Animal rights protestors,’ I said casually, hoping any references to creatures could be passed off as some sort of weird extremist animal rights group.
‘They seem to be against creatures though,’ Roberts said, frowning.
I shrugged. ‘It takes all kinds.’
‘Ain’t that the truth.’ He eyed me. ‘Heard about your new unit, all hush-hush. What exactly is Unit 13 going to be doing?’
‘Like you said, hush-hush.’
He grunted. ‘Some spy shit, I reckon.’
I grinned. ‘Do I look like a spy to you?’
‘You look like something,’ he muttered and walked out.
That was a slight step up from monster-fucker, though not by much. This wasn’t the best start to a day I’d ever had. Surely it could only be up from here.