Chapter 6 #2
“Why does anyone do anything? Power? Control? Who wouldn’t want a group of scary shapeshifters leading the fight against humans?
But humans have tanks and major artillery.
Even a shifter won’t survive being cut in half with an AK-47.
But SVs would just drag their corpse up as a zombie to keep fighting. ”
“Holy fuck, that really happen, or are you pulling my leg?”
“Dead serious.” He held up his right hand, displaying the tattoos swirled over the backs of his knuckles and down his wrist beneath his sleeve. “I lived through it.”
“The tattoos are some kind of spell?” I studied his fingers, but none of it made sense.
“Runes. But the bitch who did this to me is long dead. Any who’d try again would find their insides on the outside.”
I held up my hands. “Consider me warned. I wouldn’t even know where to start, and unless I go through a lobotomy, I’m not really a control an undead army kind of guy.”
He nodded and tucked his hands in his pockets.
“Let’s go through your locker and I’ll bring you up to the office level, introduce you to the team.
I treat them as a team, though you and I will be doing most of the fieldwork.
They are our backup. You need info, you call the team.
You need backup, you call the team. You need more firepower, you call the team. Don’t be an ass to them.”
“Got it.” I gave him a little salute and paid attention to his explanation of the locker. We had full riot gear, armor, and weaponry.
“Bobby will take you through Weapons and Tactical Gear. We don’t need it a lot, and there’s another team on call this week for Tactical Fieldwork.
We rotate unless an incident is big enough to need all four teams. Hanna is hoping to double to eight teams by next year to keep up with the work, but we’ll have to import variants for that. ”
I nodded like I understood everything he said.
“When not on TFW rotation, we work on active cases. Cases are assigned to teams based on ability. Adding you to our team means we’ll have more SV work, but we get a little bit of everything; shifters, fae, gods, and vampires.”
“Which means they want me to talk to dead people or control zombies or something?”
“We’ve never had anyone brand new to variance in this precinct.
You’ll find most are recruited from prior military work, or the other side.
I’m not sure how this is going to work. I’d like to have you shadow some of the other SVs, but they are both pretty low ability, and Merrill is on TFW rotation right now. ”
“Other side? You mean, through the Veil?”
“Half this building exists on the other side of the Veil. You passed through it on the elevator going down. We’ll pass through it again on the way up to the office.”
“Holy crap, I’ve been on the other side of the Veil.”
“That freaks you out? You stood next to one of the most terrifying creatures in the country at the reception desk and walking through the Veil scares you?”
“You mean the golem?”
“I mean Sergeant Hanna.”
“She doesn’t have a band, but she doesn’t look human either.”
“She’s slaugh, dark fae. Anyone from the other side won’t have a band. Their magic rejects it. They aren’t a variance, they just are.”
“That means Robin is fae?”
“A puck, yes.”
I sighed and hauled my backpack off my back to set it on the bench. “I’m going to need to memorize that fucking manual, aren’t I?”
“Are those cats in banana peels?”
“Yes. I love cats. I’m a cat person.”
He stared at me.
“What?” I unloaded my pack into the locker, put my new badge on my belt, and hooked my lanyard with keycard beside it.
“Never mind. Let’s head back up.”
“Does that mean going back through the Veil?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it terrifying?”
“Were you afraid the first time you had to work a homicide scene?”
“Only that I’d mess something up and vomit on the corpse or something.”
“Is that something you do?”
“No, never. I even took a detailed forensics class that had us assisting in autopsies in college. I’ve never been bothered by bodies, even if they are pretty gruesome sometimes. Once you realize no one is home, it’s easier to look at them objectively.”
“And no one ever thought to check you for variance? You know that’s weird, right?”
“I also collect Asian Ball Joint Dolls based on Danmei characters, but no one is planning to ship me to China to paint them. I happened to shout stop when zombies were lunging at me, like I think any regular person would react, and suddenly I’m variant.”
“I don’t think there’s a variance for the ability to paint dolls.
” He looked thoughtful for a minute, and I stared up at him, thinking he smelled really good.
Like when I buried my face in Peanut Butter’s fur and he purred.
A sense of safety and calm. “There might be a kinetic variance that could make the dolls move.”
“And I’m officially never sleeping again,” I said.
He laughed again. I was beginning to like that sound, husky and free; as if he didn’t have a lot of occasion to laugh, so when he did, he really let it out. Maybe the transfer wouldn’t be so terrible after all.