“Why his hand?” Abe Abrams, detective with F unit and longtime acquaintance, bent over at the waist to get a closer look. I winced at his inability to squat. “Cam, the hand?”
For a moment, I wondered why he was asking, then I remembered. He was human. He didn’t know.
“Donny just got licensed,” I explained. “He should have a tat right there.” I pointed with my pencil to the bare left wrist. “That blank spot shouldn’t be blank.”
“You sure about that?” Abe grunted, and with obvious effort, kneeled down. He played his flashlight beam over the dead boy’s wrist. “There’s no sign of the tat. Don’t those last for the full ninety days?”
“Positive,” I said. “I inspected his group not four days ago and verified the markings. Donny and his crew were supposed to be working here at the Leaf through the end of the month. Then they were supposed to rotate to the other Ivy Tree hotels through their probation.”
Abe shrugged. “Maybe a john treated him to dinner … then—”
“What?” I spit out. “Then got his jollies in the alley behind the hotel before he killed Donny? Why bother? Have you been inside this hotel? They practically fall over themselves to give guests what they want, up to and including a blowjob if necessary. The Pros stationed here are the finest of the fine. Donny—Donal—was the best in his training group. Why would anyone want him dead? It’s not as if prostitution is illegal.”
“Money? What if it wasn’t a john? He could’ve been mugged.”
“A client,” I corrected him. “Clients here spend more money in a day than any Pro could make in a month. That, plus Donny’s tat wasn’t removable by just anyone.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, fae magic and fae markings. Only removable by someone with the appropriate training and with fae blood.”
I flipped on my flashlight and pointed it down Donny’s body, along the mangled back, the shattered leg bones, and then across the once pristine alley. “Blood trail’s over there,” I said. “Uphill.” That could only mean one thing. Fae. Blood followed fae like rats followed garbage. Instead of flowing into the very convenient drain just south of what was left of Donny’s once beautiful head, the boy’s blood flowed up a slight incline, slightly north and west of his body. “Abe, I’m going to follow this,” I muttered. “Blood’s following fae here. Just another nail in someone’s upcoming coffin.” My stomach tightened at the thought of fae killing fae in this brutal way. Despite our abilities, our talents, there were so few of us. The days of the wars were long over. I wanted to catch this bastard, have whoever did this answer to fae justice.
Abe ignored me. He was a good guy, but just a smidge too close to retirement to want to be out here, working what could be a serial murder case—and worse, involving a fae Licensed Professional Worker, a protected class. Abe and I had both started in the department around the same time: him a fresh-faced detective out of the Central Division; me transferred in from fae relations up near the Mesa. I’d hated the PR gig—with a passion born of a million fiery suns and the anger of a true fae warrior. Making nice with human assholes, just because I was public affairs? Yeah, no. Not a job for me. I’d lasted all of a year before I nearly decapitated one annoying lout who’d had the balls to call me a whore. It didn’t matter that our sexual practices weren’t the same as human ones; since we most often tended to look like them, they wanted us to be like them. We were as similar as a goat is to a GTO. I’d barely restrained myself, packed up my things, and told my then supervisor I was leaving. Three weeks later, I found myself filling out the job application for a San Diego city cop. They hadn’t accepted my application, but after negotiations I was brought on board as a special unit consultant and part of the Bod Squad, a.k.a. Risa threw a hissy and someone jumped.
I dropped to a crouch, peering down the flashlight beam. The blood trail faded, but a few drops were still evident. A low chime from my watch made me glance at the time. Damn. Soon, the early worker bees for the restaurants and hotels would begin to arrive. We were smack in the middle of tourist central, near the convention center, pretty much in the middle of the Gaslamp. I didn’t know what ginormous gathering was in town this week—Comic-Con was over, but we were entering fall convention season. I hadn’t paid attention to the info sheet at the station. We were supposed to have this data, but I figured anything I could look up on my phone was something that didn’t need to clutter my memory. I stopped, sniffing the air as something pinged my awareness. Nothing on the ground. I turned my head and sniffed again. There, to the right. I pointed my light back behind a big gray trash barrel, this one marked with a stencil identifying itself as property of the Ivy Branch, a bar adjacent to the Leaf.
A small hole, no bigger than a rat, shone with a slick of blood on its edges. No rat caused that blood to end up there. Scent was pure fae. Pure Donny. Poor kid had been so excited about his placement too. The Leaf was so prestigious, its concierge known for excellent matches. Rarely did a Pro ask for reassignment from here. This was an amazing place for someone as new as Donny, but his beauty and abilities had catapulted him to the top of the list, so when the concierge asked to supplement their complement of Pros, Donal ap Dylan had been one of the lucky few. Now, he’d be just another stat, another murder. San Diego had just doubled last year’s murder rate for the Gaslamp—only two last year. Now, with Donny’s death, we were up to four. Three dead Workers added to a fairly standard drunk-and-disorderly-turned-knife-fight from earlier in the year and it wasn’t even September.
Sure, humans didn’t understand how anyone could want to be a prostitute, a Licensed Professional Worker, but for those fae with enhanced sexual abilities, it was a way to earn a living legally and still keep their emotions and magic in balance. When we’d revealed ourselves, thanks to an accidental discovery in Roswell that led to one of those ridiculous alien autopsy videos, we’d weighed the odds. Thousands of us versus billions of humans. Our power, life spans, and sheer chutzpah won out. We didn’t want to be caught up in another Area 51 debacle, nor run the risk of technology catching up to our abilities. It was time to make ourselves known, so we did. All at once, all over the world. Unlike stories of other supernatural species who’ve had to lay low and do this slowly, once all the fae clans were in agreement, it was as easy as putting the memories and knowledge into every human’s head as they slept. Within twenty-four hours, it was as if we’d always been there. Because we had—that shadow in the barn that didn’t belong; the scurrying feet in the attic; the face of the woman in the lake—not that I’d go so far as an arm in white samite, but still, a lot of those “edges of the eye,” seeings were us. All of us, in all our various forms.
Sure, there were several years of bickering and politicking between the groups, but overall we’d just been granted citizenship for wherever we lived. A few countries weren’t as simple, so many of those fae just applied for sanctuary and asylum status in more liberal lands. Canada got a great influx, as did the U.S. All either of those countries wanted to know was that we were able to gainfully support ourselves. Most of us could, in fact, most of us had been doing just that. After things settled, many of the fae leaders simply started taking over certain professions, such as prostitution. They cleaned it up, managed to get a bunch of laws passed, and now, in all states except Utah, prostitution was legal and limited to LPWs—who were all of fae blood. This sat a lot better with the various church groups; after all, we weren’t quite like them. Unfortunately, now I was facing this case and someone who was tearing up young-looking male LPWs.