He shifted and moved steadily into the deeper dark.
A SCENT OF DEATH
BY MARIA LIMA
Gaslamp Quarter
It was an alley, just like all the other back-of-hotel alleys downtown. Nothing to distinguish it, especially after the Clean City initiative had turned most San Diego alleys into something that more resembled Vancouver. Not that this part of the city had been all too bad. The almighty tourist and convention dollar tended to keep things cleaner than, say, Chicago or Manhattan. Bonus for us, really.
After all, this was the back of the Leaf, one of the Ivy Tree chain, originally just one hotel, but now several boutique hostelries run for the sole purpose of pampering the wealthy. Everything at the scene reflected the Leaf’s exclusivity, the green of the kitchen door matched by the swirling green leaves painted on the sides of the two dumpsters. The beige awning over the door was the same fine fabric and design as those facing the street view. No one came back here but delivery trucks, the city trash haulers and other similar workers. No matter, though, the Leaf kept up its branding behind the scenes too. This was a true sign of either class or just pure stinking rich.
Admittedly, the stench wasn’t what I expected. I’d done my share of investigations in hotel alleys, and no matter how clean, they stank. Not here; like my native Vancouver, there was no real smell, unless you counted a light air of lavender and vanilla, the hotel’s signature scent, distributed as hand lotion, soaps, shampoo, and conditioner. Only here in a place so uniquely itself that a receptacle for trash smelled like flowers, did this scene seem so incongruous. Disturbing anywhere, but even more so here.
Just one thing disrupted the relative peace and quiet in the depths of the four a.m. darkness. The thing that was the reason for all our lights, for a police photographer’s flash snapping through the still night air, its strobe punctuating what I saw, the one thing that kept me there, even though every part of me wanted to be elsewhere.
One small hand, pale, fingers curled, clutching at a few leafy weeds poking through a tiny crack in the asphalt as if needing to hold on to the closest thing to earth it could reach in this sea of concrete and steel. Earth, living, growing things—the one avenue he could have had to safety. The tiny bedraggled weed hadn’t been enough. Whatever had tracked him down and killed him had either known that, or taken its chances. Yeah, its. As in not human. Just like the most recent victim of what we were calling the Rentboy Ripper, though the MO had little resemblance to its predecessor. The only thing in common was the profession of the victims—children of the night, Licensed Professionals, once known as hookers, prostitutes. My victims were all of the profession older than human—all male, all fae, all in the Gaslamp. Which is why I was here.
Nothing like the hint of a serial fae killer to drop a spark in the very dry powder keg that was political relations between us and the human races. San Diego had always been a fairly easy, laid-back town. Tourists, convention-goers, Navy and civilian residents—all mingled with some semblance of polite disdain. I mean, for humans, the color of their skin or the weight of their bank accounts mattered very little nowadays. After all, until recently (as far as humans knew), every sentient being shared one thing: death. Or rather Death—the grim reaper who visited young, old, middle-aged alike, and no matter who you were, how much you were worth, eventually, the final score leveled everyone’s playing field.
Not us. We didn’t die like they did—do, would. Oh sure, we could be killed, any living being can given enough effort, but we didn’t just die. Old age? Yeah, well, my cousin had seen the turn of the millennium—the first one—and was still performing as a dancer at the Gaslamp Strip Club. Yeah, yeah, it used to be a steak joint, but a lot of things changed. Family restaurants became bars; steak joints with bars became stripper clubs—with a higher cover. And strip joints, well, let’s just say that the Moral Majority didn’t win this one. Can’t say this happened all over the world, but it did in most of the sea and ocean ports and destination cities. Orlando? A heck of a new version of the Magic Kingdom. The one in Anaheim just got boarded up for lack of interest. I never really understood why. Maybe it’s because I’m a halfling. Thanks to my promiscuous mother who, a whole lot of decades ago, had decided to relive her heyday, this time in Haight-Ashbury, I was the product of a Beltane ritual gone wonky. What Mama never knew was that she herself was a halfling. Wood nymph, most likely, I was never sure. She’d gotten herself killed in a nasty hit-and-run when I was twenty. I never learned which of the several men she’d banged on that particular Beltane had contributed his sperm to my making. He’d been full fae, no doubt about it. My own genetics proved that. But he could have been anyone. Never really worried me. Mama and her sister June raised me and I turned out okay. By the time humans knew of us, I’d been an adult for a lot of years and able to figure things out on my own … like why, when I touched certain objects, I knew their history. June was the only one who’d believed me when I was a kid. She’d died in a car accident just last year: drunk driver.
Some of us halflings were too human to make it in Faery; some too fae to make it in the human world. Me, I straddled the fence with the best of the undecideds. I could pass for either. Maybe that’s why my nickname was Chameleon. When I’d joined the Bod Squad, a traveling investigative team made up of two humans, two fae, and two halflings, they named me right away—not Cam for Camilla (a name I’d been known to use), but Chameleon, since I could seem like exactly what was expected. In a difficult situation, I was a tough cop/dealer/criminal. In the middle of a ladies’ church brunch, I looked like Mrs. Cleaver. Part and parcel of the package.
We operated outside the normal parameters of the law, but within the strict guidelines and treaties set down fifteen years ago. We were in charge of any suspicious deaths that might involve fae. Thus, being called in to work at three-bloody-a.m. on a night I was supposed to be off. Not that I’d been sleeping. I don’t do much of that; it’s part of my nature. What I had been doing is my partner—an extremely hot faery princess, who also happened to be assistant DA for the city of San Diego. Risa was nigh onto six feet, gorgeous, all golden skin, red hair, and green eyes. She’d been the subject of many a love letter, the golden child of the district attorney’s office. Her conviction rate neared 90 percent, mostly because the crooks tended to fall in love with her at first site. Oh, it wasn’t her fault, really. There was a touch of siren in her bloodline. They just couldn’t help themselves: women, men, teenagers. I heard that she once got a marriage proposal from one of the sea kings. She never told me who. I was pretty sure it was Murrow, king of San Diego Bay and its surrounds.
“Fuck.” I peered down at the boy’s hand, the only thing not absolutely covered in blood and bits. “Damn, fuck, and shit.” I loved cursing in modern-day English. It was so satisfying. I ran a hand over my hair, for a moment forgetting I’d cut it short and spiky. My persona tonight was that of tough woman detective. “Gloves,” I snapped, holding a hand behind me as I squatted to get a better look.
“Problem?”
A hand slapped a pair of latex gloves into mine. I nodded as I pulled them on and leaned forward. “Jason, you got all this?”
“Got his head and shoulder, yep.” The photographer kept snapping away as I tucked two fingers under the dead head, turning the face just enough to be sure. Damn it. I let his face down gently back onto the asphalt. “I know him,” I said as I stood. “It’s Donny.” I pointed to the body’s left. “Jason, make sure to get all angles on his hand, okay?”