An Erie Operetta (7 page)

“Master Reed,” Rugby called. I glanced up. He had his hand over the end of the phone.”It’s a Ms. Panagakos, she wishes to speak to you.”

“I’ll take it,” I said around a mouth nearly overflowing with thickly seasoned breakfast sausage. Rugby carried the black phone over on a silver platter. I swallowed, dabbed at the corners of my mouth, took a quick sip of freshly squeezed orange juice, and lifted the heavy receiver from the platter. “Good morning, Madame Panagakos. It’s so lovely to hear your lilting voice so early in the day.”

The soprano began talking. I nodded at the appropriate spots even though she could not see my head bobbing, but my attention was on Rugby. He stood beside me, bent at the waist, his head resting next to mine as if he were eavesdropping on the conversation. My brow was quite wrinkled when I looked at Eru refilling my coffee cup. The timid serving girl was taken aback by Rugby’s behavior as well. While the singer spoke into my ear, the head of the domestic staff sighed deeply then wiggled his ear closer to the receiver. It took the loud chimes of the front door, as well as a loud throat clearing from Mrs. Dunrite to get our majordomo moving. Rugby hustled out of the dining room, his cheeks red as a tomato. I returned to the chattering coloratura.

“We would love to come out to see the performance this evening,” I told the diva. “No, we know it’s not your fault. Yes, I think a free showing for those who were in attendance last night is a wonderful idea. Thank you for being so courteous. Yes, I’m looking forward to finally hearing you sing it as well. Curtain rises at eight. Wonderful. We’ll see you then.”

I hung up the phone and turned in my chair to find Mrs. Dunrite and Eru behind me, hands folded in front of them, brown dresses and white aprons spotless as usual.

“It seems the opera company is inviting all the patrons back for another performance since the one last night was so rudely interrupted,” I told them. They both smiled benignly. Right. Like these two women cared if Mikel and I went to the opera. I wished I could think of a way to bridge the gap between us. My worry was put aside when Rugby reappeared at the doorway with a snow-covered Oriental man at his side. I got to my feet quickly.

“Master Reed, Agent Elysian’s... guest has arrived,” Rugby announced.

“I see. Welcome to Lupei manor, Akio.” I smiled my most engaging smile. I had made sure to pronounce the man’s name just as Vincente had: Ah-kee-oh. Our new houseguest smiled back. It was a warm smile. Akio was quite the looker. His black hair was cut fashionably short, his almond-shaped eyes were deepest brown, his teeth straight and white. He was probably as tall as me, roughly five foot six or thereabouts. Rugby assisted him out of his wet coat. I motioned to the chair nearest me. “Please, join me, won’t you? My name is Templeton Reed, I’m Mr. Lupei’s partner. I’m afraid Mikel and the pack are working, and your friend Vincente is--”

“Sleeping in the basement,” Akio said as he sat down with a weary sigh. I took my seat. A clean plate, flatware, and a cup atop a saucer arrived quickly for our guest. “I assumed he’d be asleep. I’ll check on him later. Oh man, this looks good. I haven’t eaten since I set out last night.”

“Help yourself.” I pushed the heaping platter of eggs and sausage towards him. “Where did you drive from?” I asked, filling his cup with coffee. The staff slipped back into the kitchen, obviously distrustful of the man who willingly let a vampire drink from his vein.

“Maine,” he said as he began cutting the sausage links into bite-sized bits. “The weather got progressively worse the closer I got to the lake.”

“Yes, she’s a real she-devil at times, but we love her,” I said. A rousing wind rattled the house, as if Lake Erie were thanking me for the backhanded compliment. “Are you originally from Maine, Mister...?”

“He didn’t tell you my last name?” Akio asked, his fork stalled in front of his mouth. I shook my head. “Damn, that is so like him. He just assumes that because he knows who I am, everyone else on the planet should as well. Akio Lee.” He placed his fork beside his plate then extended his hand. I clasped it. He had a firm grip. “Mother is Japanese, my father is American. Grew up in the suburbs of Boston. Went to Boston College, grabbed a degree in creative writing, met and fell in love with a vampire.”

“But you’re human.” It just dropped out of my mouth like an errant olive. Akio never flinched. “I didn’t mean it to sound that way,” I quickly said. The man waved off my rudeness. “I just never assumed a human would find a vampire attractive.”

“It’s okay,” he said as he stabbed a bite of sweet sage sausage. “I take it you’re not?”

“No,” I sat back in my seat, suddenly fascinated with this new turn of events. “I’m what your people would call a shapeshifter.”

“Cool,” he said with a grin, “I love those old Lon Chaney Jr. flicks.”

“Well, I’m not exactly a lycan. I’m a skunk. But I’d like to make you aware of the fact that the lycans you are going to meet are in no
way
similar to Mr. Chaney.”

“Oh, okay.” He seemed a bit disconcerted about that. “I guess I have a lot to learn. I’m kind of new to this whole world.”

“Exactly how new?” I asked tentatively. Elders, please don’t let him say less than an eon.

“Vincente took me as his about six months ago. Before that, I thought vampires were just cheesy romance heroes that glittered.”

Wonderful. A newbie thrall. Mikel would be over the moon. Not. Rugby slipped into the dining room to inform me that I had thirty minutes to get to work. I thanked the Halfling, then asked Rugby to get Akio settled. I was assured all would be taken care of, so I bundled up and brazened the snow whirling about the manse. Mikel had insisted I have four-wheel drive, so I climbed into my snug red Subaru, which a certain majordomo had warming up for me, then drove to the OTTER offices.

Our little town was hunkered down. The traffic crawled along snowy streets. I pulled into what appeared to be an abandoned lot behind a condemned building. The shimmering veil of magic moved over my car as I drove into the lot. I could feel it. Humans could not. I fell back into thinking of Akio as I rushed from my car to the office, my head tucked against the snow blowing in spinning vortexes. Once inside, I shook the flakes from my head, dusted off my shoulders, and stood in line for one of several elevators. So yes, Akio.

I had about a half million questions about the man. While he seemed quite pleasant and bright, why had he given up his previous life to play midnight snack for a vampire? I nodded at a woman who was bitching about the rising costs of coven dues as we entered the elevator. There were ten floors above ground and ten below. I have never ventured below ground. That area is off limits to mere office workers. The morgue is down there, as well as the dark magic regulation task force. I now suspect that the Nosferarti office is to be found down below as well. Elders only know what else lies under the ground.

“Floor seven,” I told the man nearest the buttons. He punched seven. The door closed. I was crammed into the corner. My nose was cold and my glasses speckled with melted snow. Conversation hummed. I pondered Akio. How would I explain a spanking new thrall to Mikel? If I were smart, I’d let the big boys battle it out. I hadn’t spent years with my head plunged into toilets and not learned something. Yes, I decided, I would let Vincente and Mikel knock heads over the breech. This way I wouldn’t end up having cupcakes crammed down the back of my pants. Not that Mikel would ever stuff baked goods into my briefs but...

“It’s about time you showed up, Reed.”

I wiggled through the crowd to find my supervisor, Craig Truvor, waiting for me at the elevator door.

“Am I late, sir?” I asked as I was pushed out into the lineage departments lobby. I stumbled forward and threw a hairy eyeball at the closing elevator doors.

“I thought you volunteered to come in an hour early every day to get that website set up,” he said, his green eyes filled with managerial aggravation. I stared dumbly at the weasel shifter.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I do not recall volunteering to come in an hour early every day.”

“Reed, I distinctly heard you. It was during that meeting about the Cryton Briggs case,” he said before turning from me. I gathered my wits. Once he got behind that ivy-decorated door of his this conversation would be over.

“Sir, I wasn’t even part of the Cryton Briggs case. Why would I volunteer to come in an hour early to work on a webpage that wasn’t even my idea?”

“Any law-abiding citizen of our community would give up a measly sixty minutes to the cause. This is a webpage to aid the ongoing murder investigations. Are you telling me that the growing body counts among the shifter community isn’t worth one hour of your time a day, Reed?” Truvor asked, folding his thin arms over his lean chest. The damned sneaky weasel! You’d think my knowing his secret and him knowing mine would have made things less strained between us. Nope. If anything, the gay man staring at me while the whole of the lineage department hung onto our every word had grown more hostile to me.

“Of course not, sir. It’s just that... I’m not sure that I can make it here any earlier.” I felt quite nervous. I caught a faint whiff of my inner critter on the warm air currents. Shit. I felt everyone on the floor giving me the stink-eye, pardon the bad choice of wording there. “But I’ll certainly try to get in earlier, for those who have been lost.”

“Good. Now get to work, you’re already seventy-five minutes late. You’ll be docked for your tardiness, of course.”

“But I... Yes, sir.” I moved to my cubicle as innocuously as I could. I had lucked out with getting a square in the corner under the heater intake vent. Winter or summer, the air was sucked away from me directly into the filtration system. If any stray stink molecules escaped, as they were now, they’d be inhaled by the huge heating and cooling system. Sure, my little nook was bleak, cramped, and depressing, but a striper who was trying to keep his stripes a secret couldn’t have asked for a better locale. After getting my glasses dried on some tissues, I fired up my work computer. There it sat. That damned website with all the damned names. I wiped my the last clinging droplets of snow from my cheeks with the tissues, tossed the tiny wad of Kleenex into my waste bin, and started adding more names to the database.

Two hours crept past. My cell vibrating in my front pocket startled me slightly. I left the website page to check the incoming text.

“Damn it,” I groaned when I saw the short message from Mikel.

Tracking rogues. Headed 2 Canada. Don’t know when home. Love U. Miss U. M

So much for the opera. I shoved the cell back into my pocket and continued working on building this far-too-sad webpage.

Eight

“Master Reed, there are a couple... things that require your immediate attention.”

I stepped into the foyer and closed the front door behind me. Facing Rugby, I started unwrapping my scarf from around my neck.

“It’s been an incredibly long, bad day, Rugby,” I said as I handed him my gold and black scarf. “Can these things wait until tomorrow? Perhaps Mikel will be back from the wilds of the north and he can handle whatever--”

“There’s our own nearsighted version of Pepe LePew,” Vincente said as he came down the stairs with his thrall a neat step behind him. Rugby’s lips flattened. “I’m well aware of what you’re thinking, Elfling, so you may as well continue whispering about your discontent to the tiny man with the large odor problem.”

“Vincente, you’re being rude,” Akio snapped. The vampire stalled momentarily. His eyes darted to me and then grew distant. “He’s always crabby before he eats.”

With that pronouncement, poor Rugby turned a fine shade of puce then exited the foyer. I watched him go with some concern, then I turned on the pair in designer suits stepping off the last stair.

“I hope you’re not going to join me for your meal?”

“As if I would sully my snack by taking his vein while inhaling the smell of garlic and clam. Go have your dinner. When we’re done we’ll join you.” And thusly was I dismissed by Agent Elysian. In my own home. The nerve of the undead prick. I stalked into the dining room, my snowy shoes slapping wetly on the hardwood floors, then screamed in surprise, arms flying over my head, when the majordomo appeared out of a dark corner.

“Rugby!” I squeaked, “You
must
stop doing that. Cough or something,” I panted before dropping down into a chair to work on slowing my heart rate.

“My apologies, Master Reed.” He moved around the long table to stand at my side. I looked up at him.

“Did you have something you wished to say?”

“That... unholy creature and his slave were in the master’s library.”

“And this is a problem how? Oh, thank you so much, Eru. This clam chowder will certainly hit the spot.” I took the bowl from the serving girl then dribbled a handful of hard, round crackers into the soup. The aroma of thyme and onions wafting up from the red broth made my mouth water. Eru scurried back into the kitchen. The fire in the hearth snapped. I took a small sip, closed my eyes, then opened them when a certain manservant remained obtrusively at my side.”What is it, Rugby?”

The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes grew deeper when he scowled. “I think they may have been doing things in the library.”

“More than likely reading,” I commented, spooning up a big chunk of clam. “Rugby, they’re grown men. They can do ‘things’ if they want to. Far be it for me to cast stones. Have you had any of this soup? I really think Mrs. Dunrite has outdone--”

“Master Reed! They were doing... unnatural things, I fear.” I placed my spoon, and my fat clam, back into the bowl.

“Rugby, you do realize that Mikel and I do things that the majority of our mystical brethren would term ‘unnatural’ as well?” I tipped my head while giving him a “Do you see my point?” look.

His mouth dropped open. I smiled. I had never seen Mikel’s head of staff ruffled.

“Master Reed, what you and Master Lupei do is not unnatural. It’s only queer.” Well, I couldn’t argue that. Rugby leaned down to whisper in my ear. “I suspect that those two were nibbling each other.”