12. If Officer Fluffy barked at me, I’d sock him in the snout.
TWELVE
If Officer Fluffy barked at me, I’d sock him in the snout.
Officer Calems’s partner was a werewolf, and he herded me out of Quinn’s office with snarls and bared teeth.
Only threats of mutiny and grand theft police cruiser bought me enough time to change into too tight jeans, a white shirt, and my new black leather jacket.
One of the on-duty cops stuck in the station doing paperwork stole my pajamas and gave me my wallet in exchange.
Damn it. The werewolf with two-inch long fangs driving me away from Quinn was bad enough, but I had left my wallet in his office? I hated mornings. Why couldn’t I be back in bed? I’d settle for Quinn’s couch in his office, warm, cozy, and safe.
The werewolf growled at me, and I turned to face him. Werewolves qualified to work on the police force had three forms: human, wolf, and a blend of both. Officer O’Daniel was in his blended form and wore a special uniform designed for his hybrid body. He showed me his teeth again.
I curled my lip and showed him mine. “Go ahead. Push me, fluffy. I’ll eat you.”
If people were expecting a nice, coherent me before I had time to wake up and drink some coffee, they were out of their minds. And so help me, if Officer Fluffy barked at me, I’d sock him in the snout so hard he’d yip his way back to Quinn with his tail tucked between his legs.
Werewolves. Ugh. At least O’Daniel seemed tame enough; I made it all the way to the garage without having to pick a fight with him, one he’d probably win considering he was waist high on all fours and probably more than six feet when he stood upright.
At least he kept his nose to himself and didn’t try to mark his territory. Once I could talk without growling worse than he did, I’d ask him why he was running around on all fours with a furry coat.
“Your tailoring bill must be atrocious.” I glared at the cruiser, sighed, and crawled into the back, shutting the door before the werewolf got any crazy ideas about joining me and using my lap as a pillow.
Both cops shot dirty looks my way before getting in the car. Yep, O’Daniel was easily six and a half feet tall if not pushing seven.
I really needed to stop my mouth from blurting whatever it felt like. “What? I haven’t had coffee yet.”
“Heard you had a smart mouth, Gardener,” the werewolf growled at me.
I liked Quinn’s snarls a lot better. Yep, I had it bad.
Did infatuation classify as a dangerous disease?
It needed to be; my common sense had already abandoned ship, and at the rate I was going, my self-respect and dignity would soon follow.
“I can finally die happy. Word of my infamous smart mouth has spread. My work on this Earth is done.”
Officer Calems snickered, slid behind the wheel, and started the cruiser’s engine. “No wonder you drive the chief crazy. You can’t help it, can you? I’m genuinely surprised he hasn’t gagged you yet. It’s so refreshing to see someone get on his nerves. Reminds us all he’s actually human.”
Great. I had a reputation for pissing Quinn off?
Wait. That was a good thing. It dawned on me I couldn’t let anyone suspect there was anything going on between us.
He’d never live it down, choosing to sleep with the crazy, scarred CDC chick.
“Does he even know how to use his handcuffs? I thought they were decorations he used to convince people he’s actually a cop. ”
“How is it possible for someone like you to have top-level certification?” Calems shook his head and backed the car out of its spot, and I remembered I needed to wear a seatbelt without anyone reminding me. Go me, acting like an adult for a change.
I decided the truth worked best since no one would believe it anyway.
“Once upon a time, a woman went to a bar, got drunker than a skunk, forgot to take birth control, and got knocked up. Nine months later, yours truly was born, and the woman’s random hookup coerced her into marrying him using me as blackmail material. ”
Ah, I loved the sound of stunned silence.
“Okay, only part of that is true. He didn’t coerce her into marrying him.
Dear old Dad comes from a stuffy traditionalist family who doesn’t believe in abortion or adoption, so to avoid losing his inheritance or smearing the family name in the dirt, they claim it was love at first sight while they pretend the worst mistake of their lives was never born. ”
Nope, I wasn’t bitter, not at all. I’d have to work on that. If I was going to use them as a shield, I’d have to at least try to sound cheerful about it.
“That… doesn’t explain how you ended up working for the CDC as a specialist.”
Since when had I gone from overpaid janitor to a specialist?
“Since abortion or adoption Simply Wasn’t Done, I became known as the family disease, the ruiner of lives.
It was great fun, especially when they took me to every single meet and greet of magical beings.
They thought they’d solve their problem if they left me unattended near the gorgons’ tent, hoping they could pretend I was an actual statue and not petrified. Nope, no such luck for them. Too bad!”
There. I sounded a lot happier about the whole thing. Who knew I could actually sound so chipper?
“I can’t tell if you’re yanking my chain, and that’s really freaking me out, Gardener.”
I added Calems to my short list of people I actually liked.
“They found me playing jumprope with the whelps and a few statues; a couple of humans had had the bright idea of trying to make a profit by kidnapping a few young gorgons. So, not only was I the unwanted daughter, I didn’t uphold the Gardener pure vanilla family values to their satisfaction.
What sort of freak is immune to gorgons, anyway? ”
Yep, I was totally bitter about the whole thing.
“Whoa. You’re really immune to gorgons? Not just their bile or dust?”
“Oh, piece of advice. Don’t let a gorgon bite you. It hurts like hell. That venom’s just plain nasty. Since I don’t petrify, I itch, and it makes me really, really pissy.”
“Good to know. Do I want to know the rest of this story? Why am I certain there’s a rest of this story?”
I chuckled. “That’s because you’re smart. And you do. You so do.”
“All right. Hit us with it.”
“I did it out of pure spite. They said it wasn’t proper.
When that didn’t work, they told me I wasn’t smart enough.
When that didn’t work, they swore I’d never amount to anything.
That was when they told me if I was so sure I could do it, to get out and go do it, but to never bother them again.
Top of my class, top-level certification later, I showed them. ”
I sure had, and the one time I had made the mistake of asking them for anything, I still hadn’t been good enough for them. Why had I even tried? I blamed the fever.
“That’s impressive and terrifying. I could have sworn you worked as a barista.”
“Used to. I quit.”
I frowned. Wait. Why had Mary gone with Quinn and left me alone on that nightmare all-day solo shift? Damn it, I was supposed to be mad at him over that, not sleeping with him. Hmm. Maybe I could still sleep with him while pissed off? The idea would need to undergo a great deal of testing.
“If you’re looking for work, the coffee at the station sucks.”
Since reaching between the seats wasn’t possible thanks to the cage that kept criminals away from the cops, I forced my best smile. “You wish, Calems.”
A mile long trail of vomit lined with statues promised a lousy day of hard work was ahead of me.
I suspected karma was somehow at play. Since I had glimpsed the heavens through Quinn and his sinful touch, I just had to get kicked out and suffer through hell.
“Is it premeditated murder if I kill those gorgons after I finish cleaning up their mess?”
I had completed four years of education so I could hand scrub a sidewalk with neutralizer while drunk gorgons rolled around in their own vomit.
My cheek twitched. Why did gorgons have to look so damned close to humans?
Except for the gray-green cast and snakes for hair, they came as close to human as the truly magical species got.
With some makeup and a good hat, some even passed as human until they made eye contact.
“Yes, Gardener. You lost your chance for a basic manslaughter charge about five minutes ago,” Calems replied.
Officer O’Daniel wagged his tail while his tongue lolled out of his mouth.
I sighed. “Stay with the car, wear sunglasses, don’t get bit, and try to look cool or something. Please tell me the CDC sent some supplies until they could send a truck.”
“In the trunk.”
“Yippee. Let me out so I can get this over with.”
Calems laughed, freed me from the backseat, and wouldn’t stop chortling, especially when I wailed my dismay at the contents of his trunk. While I’d love to get my hands on the shotgun, he slapped my fingers and pointed at the five-pound bag of high-grade neutralizer.
If the CDC thought a single bag would be sufficient to deal with a quartet of gorgons who were smearing their mess all over the sidewalk with their bare hands, they were nuttier than I was for agreeing to handle the clean up.
To make matters worse, one of the gorgons was a male, which meant one thing: it was gorgon breeding season.
The males didn’t come out of hiding unless they were looking for a human surrogate to help them reproduce with their females.
For a single male to be out with three females meant trouble and a lot of it.
The females would be looking for human women willing to engage in the strangest lesbian sex known to Earth.
If everything went well, which it usually didn’t, the surrogate would then turn her attentions to the gorgon male and engage in the second strangest sex act involving humans.