Chapter 1
Chapter One
Otis
“Creature Crisis Hotline, Otis speaking.”
“Uh, yeah, hi. I didn’t know if you were the correct person to call, but I didn’t…” She trailed off, like she was waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
I ground my back molars. It had been a long day of nuisance calls, and it was beginning to grate on my already thinning patience, but it was my day to man the phones, so I had to suck it up.
“What appears to be the problem?”
“It’s my roommate, Siobhan. She’s a banshee.
Anyway, she just broke up with her boyfriend.
He cheated on her, the asshole, like she wasn’t a hundred times too good for him—” I cleared my throat impatiently, and she got back on track.
“Sorry, anyway, she won’t stop crying. I mean, she’s really heartbroken, and I guess she’s, uh, wailing a little? ”
I winced, but luckily this wasn’t a video call. A banshee who was losing control of her wail was dangerous.
“Anyway, of course she gets to cry out her broken heart, and I’ve tried everything I can think of to be supportive. I’ve given her at least three flavors of Ben and Jerry’s and played Taylor Swift’s discography back to back, not including ‘Lover.’ If you know, you know,” she added conspiratorially.
I didn’t know.
“But nothing is helping, and old Mr. Jeff in 12B had a heart attack last night. It might not be related, but I’ve already had to take three days off work because I can’t seem to get out of bed…” She trailed off again.
Yeah, the banshee was definitely losing control of her powers during her grief.
“You did the right thing by calling this in. We’ll send someone over to talk to Siobhan tomorrow if you think you can wait that long. We have a therapist who specializes in emotional regulation and keeping a hold on any banshee specific powers that could possibly injure those around them.”
Allison, our resident feelings expert, was amazing. Her psychic abilities helped her connect with people we were assisting.
Not me. As a minotaur, I was good at busting heads and solving disputes with my fists.
However, each shift team had a psychic, and ours was Syke. He was a demon, and while he probably could have helped Siobhan, something told me she’d appreciate advice from another woman rather than a six and a half foot demon with permanent resting bitch face.
The girl on the line cleared her throat. “Uh, yeah, it should be okay. She’s just rewatching Ghost. You know, that movie from the nineties with Patrick Swayze?” Again, no idea. “And she doesn’t seem to be crying as hard. She’ll probably be okay until tomorrow.”
I quickly took down the caller’s and housemate’s details and put the job into the queue for tomorrow’s shift.
Hanging up, I leaned back in my chair. It groaned ominously but held.
Louis came over, slapping me on the shoulder with enough force that it would probably break a bone on a human, but it barely nudged me forward.
The power differential between humans and creatures was a lot.
It was one of the reasons we’d stayed hidden for centuries—probably millennia for people like Syke.
Humans feared things they didn’t understand, and they hated no longer being the apex of the food chain even worse.
With advancements in technology, the field had evened out a little, and honestly, it was nearly impossible for us to stay hidden anymore.
With satellites and drones, and every person having a video camera in their pocket, along with the ability to spread information far and wide within seconds, our hand had been forced.
Honestly, though, we probably could have waited a few more years for artificial intelligence to catch up, and then we could have strutted around in our creature forms because even if someone did capture us on camera, no one would believe it was real anyway.
“Phones have been busy today,” Louis remarked, scratching the fur behind his ear, resting easy in his werewolf form.
We allowed ourselves to walk around in our true forms now, but it had been hard to start with.
The worry that someone would come at us with a gun was still very real, and bigoted humans were an ongoing threat.
Hate groups had popped up as soon as creatures had revealed themselves, and some of the older generation had perished soon after the revelation.
Those days were long gone, though, and we were generally accepted now.
There had even been some creature-human unions, which had started a whole new wave of hysteria, but that too had died down.
This crisis line helped. I felt like I was honoring my brethren who’d given their lives so we could live in the light by being here and answering phone calls from hysterical humans.
The phone rang again, and I sighed. “Creature Crisis Hotline, Otis speaking.”
“There’s a swamp monster thing in the lake down in Victoria Gardens.” The screeching voice, which was pitched somewhere between outrage and hysteria, hurt my ears.
“I see. Does it appear to be in distress?” I asked politely, even though I knew it wasn’t going to be.
“Well, I don’t know. It looks rabid. It’s splashing around like it’s attacking things in the water. There are children here,” she hissed.
Sighing, I pulled out the script we had for this moment.
It was dismally well-thumbed. I flipped to the page that contained the script for aquatic and amphibious creatures.
“Under the Creatures Freedoms and Relations Act, water dwelling creatures have the right to utilize and dwell in any water way and/or body of water, be it free-flowing or stagnant.”
The woman had hung up before I even finished the spiel. I knew from experience she’d phone the cops next, but they had their own creature liaisons who’d attend the bigoted calls.
Louis gave me a sympathetic look and went over to the coffee pot to pour himself another cup. “Want one?”
I shook my head. I’d already drunk a whole pot, and any more would be enough to take down a fully grown man. Not a minotaur like me, but still, I didn’t want to get an upset stomach because I’d burned a hole through it with bad coffee.
The phone rang again, and I snorted loudly. “What is it, a fucking full moon?”
Louis huffed a laugh. “Nah, I’d know if it was.”
Answering again, I tried not to sound pissed that people were calling the hotline. That was what we were here for, even if it was tedious today.
“Creature Crisis Hotline, Otis speaking.” There was silence, and I got mad. Fucking prank calls. “Look, it’s a federal offence to call if there’s not an—”
“Uh, hi.” The voice was quiet. “I wasn’t sure I should call. There’s an orc living in my building—”
I flicked to the part of my script that dealt with monsters living in residential areas. “Under the Creatures Freedoms and Relations Act, orcs are allowed to live anywhere as long as they abide by the rules and bylaws of the area.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, I know they look scary—”
“Listen, I know all that. I’m not some prejudiced bitch. If you’d stop interrupting me, I could tell you why I’m calling.” Her voice had lost the unsure edge, and now she sounded pissed. One side of my mouth curled up.
“My apologies, ma’am. Please, go ahead.”
There was a rustle on the other end, and then the caller spoke.
“My neighbor, Eric, is an orc. We leave for work at the same time every day, and we usually wait at the bus stop together. I mean, we don’t talk or anything, but you just get used to seeing people.
It’s a routine, you know? Anyway, I haven’t seen him all week, and I’m kind of worried. ”
I raised an eyebrow. “Have you asked the other members of his clan?”
“Uh, how would I do that?” she asked softly. “I don’t know anything about him except his name, and he’s a stickler for being on time.”
Frowning, I tapped a pen against my notebook. “The clan doesn’t live in the neighborhood with you? You’d definitely know. They aren’t… very quiet.”
I heard her shake her head. “Uh, we live in an apartment building down on Sloane in Southside. Eric is the only orc in the building.”
It was a bad area filled with bad humans and creatures.
It was odd for an orc to be living alone without his clan.
Orcs were social creatures, to the point that they could get ill or even die if they were without their clan for too long.
He might belong to one of the clans from across the river and visit regularly.
That would be enough to keep an orc functioning.
“I see. And you haven’t seen him in a week? Did he say he was going to visit his clan or relatives or anything?”
She sighed. “No. But we don’t really talk, you know? We say hello, goodbye, have a good day, that kind of thing. He might have gone on a holiday, I guess, except…”
“Except what?” I prompted gently.
“He said, ‘See you tomorrow,’ when he hopped out of the elevator on his floor, and then he never showed up the next day, or the day after, and I told myself it was probably just a reflexive statement, or he had a cold or something, you know? But it’s been a whole week, and I tried knocking on his door, and there was no answer, but something just doesn’t feel right. you know?”
Human intuition was the closest thing their species had to magic. That sense of knowing was something most of them had learned to ignore, but creatures treated it like a sixth sense.
I tapped my pen some more. “We’ll come down and check it out. Let me write down some details. What’s your name?”
“Hailey.”
“And Eric’s address?” As she rattled off the pertinent details, I copied them down quickly. My gut was saying this was bad. “We’ll be there as soon as possible, Hailey. If you feel comfortable, please wait for us at Eric’s apartment. He might find a friendly face reassuring.”
She agreed easily, and I hung up. I leaned back in my chair and looked down the hallway to the common room, where we all sat around and waited for call outs. “Let’s roll out! We’ve got a call!”