San Diego Noir

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?”

“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.