One Part Human (2 page)

“Be polite; Miss Ganger has agreed to the ride-along under duress. It is the XIA’s fiftieth anniversary, and we need to make a good impression. Be on your best behaviour.”

They snapped to their feet and saluted sharply.

Benny blinked and backed up in her chair when they moved. She had seen images of the XIA. Height was a factor. If they could intimidate a perpetrator, they were ahead of the game. You couldn’t be weak and take down a shifter or a fey or one of the undead. They were all in good physical form, and she had to stop herself from staring.

They seemed to get taller as she stared, but that was only because they approached and each shook her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Ganger,” was said by each one.

Somehow, she got to her feet and looked at them one by one. “So, when do we get going?”

Agent Smith grinned. “That would be now.”

Benny sat in the back with Agent Tremble. She was strapped in while he and the others were not. It was part of her contract.

“So, Miss Ganger, where did you get the recipe for mini-mushroom quiches?” Agent Smith asked her from the front passenger seat. Argyle was driving.

“My mother is an excellent cook, and she and my father used to entertain frequently. She hosted a number of different species at the dinner parties, and I would help her.”

“Used to?” Agent Tremble raised his eyebrows, the pale, graceful lines rising toward the platinum blond of his hair.

His hair, as well as that of the other two, was fastened tightly at the base of his neck with only two long tendrils falling to either side of his very elegant features.

“Yes, my mother was ill several years ago, and since then, my family has drawn in on itself. She helps me work out the recipes and change things to keep them modern and doable for today’s cooks.”

“Well, if my mother cooked half as good as you did, I never would have left home.” Agent Smith grinned. “I wouldn’t have been able to; I would weigh nine hundred pounds.”

“His pride would have eaten him.” Agent Tremble laughed.

Well, that settled it. She was with an elf, a vampire and a lion. Her chance of surviving the night was pretty good.

A call came in, and Smith took it. He keyed in the address and Argyle turned their SUV and they spun off into the night.

The shift she was on began at eight and ended at four in the morning. It was eight thirty right now. Seven and a half hours of holding on for dear life as they whipped through the night. At least they weren’t on horseback.

Argyle grinned at her in the mirror. “We don’t have a siren; she is on desk duty.”

Benny smiled and giggled.

Tremble chuckled. “It is an old joke, but we like it.”

Smith turned his head. “We are heading to a fey-fey altercation. We won’t ask you to stay in the car, but don’t stray too far from it. You are here to see us operate, but we don’t want you in danger, Miss Ganger.”

“Call me Benny.”

Tremble looked over at her with surprise. “Benny?”

“Yes.” She didn’t tell him what it was short for. Beneficia was not a common first name. Benny was socially acceptable just about anywhere.

“That wasn’t the name we were given when we were first briefed.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Probably not, but it is the one that I will answer to.”

“Fair enough.”

Their vehicle was travelling at high speed through an exceptionally wealthy neighbourhood. They approached a gate, and Argyle flipped a switch. The gates swung open and let them through.

Benny could hear screaming and see flares of fey magic from where she was sitting. She leaned back as Argyle brought the vehicle to a sudden halt. The other three were out their doors and heading for the altercation without a word.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and slipped out of the SUV. It wasn’t hard to follow the others. The shrieking fight between the fey was impossible to miss.

Benny was surprised by the two clumps of dazed humans, seven in all. Tremble grabbed the male fey, Argyle grabbed the female and Smith called for a pickup van and medical assistance.

Tremble spoke calmly as he forced his prisoner to his knees. The female suffered the same fate from Argyle.

“Now, what is the cause of all this?”

The man snarled, “It was my day with the pool and hot tub. She had it last night.”

The female with deep-blue hair that seemed quite natural, based on the colour of her pubic hair glowing through the gauzy gown she was wearing, hissed. “It is still my turn. They are the same lovers.”

Argyle closed his eyes slowly, and he was obviously counting to ten. “Smith, did you call for medical?”

“I did.”

“Have them bring some iron supplements. Those humans need restoration and protection. They are fey locked.”

Benny stared with her eyes wide. The male fey looked over at her and said, “Hello, beautiful. When this lot is hauled off, would you care to stay and play?”

His erection tented his loose trousers, and she felt the pull of his glamour.

His wife caught on and smiled slyly at her. “Yes, lovely. Stay and play.”

The amount of magic being used on her was obscene, as were the images they were casting at her. She blinked and smiled weakly. “You know, that sounds like so much fun.”

She steeled her voice. “Except that parasites like you two make me sick, and preying on deliberately chosen, powerless humans throws you right into that category, making you subject to the magical abduction, assault and confinement charges. Seven counts by my guess, because even if they wanted it, they couldn’t legally want it.”

She flicked their power back at them, and both of them were out cold in an instant.

The humans collapsed a moment later.

Smith looked at her in surprise with a grin on his lips. “Can we keep you?”

She blushed and stood back while they cuffed the fey and carried the humans to the front of the expansive home.

Tremble came to her side as their backup took away the two fey in the prisoner transport. “We aren’t all like that.”

She patted his arm. “I know you aren’t. This isn’t the first round of fey I have met. My parents used to socialise, remember?”

“Ah. You do seem very resistant to mental seduction.”

She grinned. “They should have bought me nachos and a hotdog. I roll over for that.”

Smith passed her and made a quick note, muttering, “Nachos and a hot dog.”

She blushed again, but got back in the vehicle while they completed checking on the humans and making sure that there were none left in the house. Smith did the check.

Benny sat down and made notes about the evening so far.

When the medical attendants arrived, there were three ambulances, and they divided the victims relatively evenly, putting IVs in several and urging them into the vehicles. They were on their way in six minutes.

Her privacy disappeared in the next moment, because the guys climbed into the car, and they were off again.

She sat for three minutes before asking. “So, what do you guys think of the use of the term extranatural instead of supernatural?”

Argyle shrugged. “It is more appropriate. We are more than we were.”

Tremble laughed, “And the fey don’t care. Extranatural, extranormal. We are both.”

“Extra-ego.” Smith smirked.

Argyle looked at her in the rear-view. “You have a little extranatural in your nature, don’t you, Benny?”

She shrugged. “I suppose, but since the great wave two hundred years ago, we all have bits of magical creatures in us, even if we don’t know it.”

Tremble smiled, “If you had a magical creature in you, you would know it.”

It took her two seconds to blush.

Smith shot back, “Not if it was you. She would need an enlargement enchantment and a magnifying glass.”

Argyle ducked and focused on the driving as Smith and Tremble had a slap fight. A second call broke it up, and Smith had to take it.

It was amazing to see them shut down and resume their business as agents. They went from teen boys to adults in under a second.

She stared out the window as they swung from the elegant neighbourhood to one far more middle class.

Smith turned, “We have been called out for a disorderly werewolf. I suspect first shift, but I won’t know until I meet him.”

Tremble snorted. “We are doing backup.”

“Where should I be?”

Smith sighed, “For this one, remain in the vehicle. We don’t know where he is or how his thoughts are processing at the moment.”

Argyle was sombre. “I will lock the doors.”

It was as much of a warning as they could give her. She knew what happened to those who ran afoul of newly shifted weres. They usually ended up in the emergency room with permanent scarring, if someone got to them fast enough.

She sat in the vehicle with the lights off, making notes. The agents went to the home that the call had emanated from, and Smith and Argyle began tracking the shifter.

Benny really wanted to be out there with them, because inside the vehicle, she felt like a staked goat.

Smith shifted his head, and his lion’s mane was glaringly obvious even in the darkness. He took off down an alleyway toward a back lane, and Argyle followed while Tremble stayed on alert.

Benny froze when a shadow moved close to the vehicle. She heard the light scratching of claws on asphalt and the ticking as it paced closer. Benny had been around enough shifters to know when one was hunting.

She unclasped the seatbelt as quietly as she could and eased it away from her, holding it so it didn’t make a sound as it rested in place. She shifted herself to the centre of the vehicle while he wasn’t looking, but every time she moved, he lifted his head.

Tremble hadn’t caught on to his proximity. He was on the wrong side of the vehicle for his patchy and fluffy body to be visible to the elf.

He sniffed along the doorframe next to her original seat. She was fascinating to some species; it came from her blended family tree. According to her grandmother, many species wanted to get in on that kind of power. They would do what it took to be part of the next generation.

She watched his half-shifted back hunch down, and then, his head snapped up, his jaws parted and his gleaming tongue came out. The orange of his eyes was hot with a combination of lust and fury. Yup, he was a teenager.

Benny tried not to flinch as he flicked at the handle of the door, trying to get it to open. He would only work with his human instincts for so long, and then, he was coming through that door.

She whispered a repelling charm and one to reinforce the door.

He blinked and stumbled back as the first charm struck him.

The roar in the darkness was a relief. There was nothing like the bellow of a lion to make a young dog cower.

The young man submitted immediately. Smith cuffed him and hauled him off down the street.

Argyle and Tremble met with the initial caller and then returned to the SUV.

Tremble grinned, and she scooted away from his seat and back to her spot behind the driver.

“It was your little charm that got my attention. You repelled him very well.”

Benny smiled weakly. “He was trying to get into the car, so it seemed the best course of action.”

Tremble put his hand on her shoulder, and Argyle hissed, “No contact, Tremble. Those are the rules.”

“She’s upset, Argyle.”

“Rules are rules, and we are on duty.”

Tremble pulled his hand away with a sigh. “Sorry. Our job does take us to places where a lone female is endangered.”

“Only because most races refuse to teach their females to hunt and kill for fear of the men being thought obsolete.”

She buckled up, and they drove the SUV to follow Smith to the house where the young lad had made his escape from. His family was in the yard, and lights streamed out. Smith brought him home as they pulled up, and the youngling was alternately hugged and struck in the head with the back of a hand by other shifters.

When Smith had finished admonishing the family on how to get their son into therapy for his change, he returned to their vehicle and resumed his human visage.

“Well, done, Benny. You kept calm and let him remain next to your window until he tried to get in. That was enough time for me to come around. After this is over, I am going to file a request to get you assigned to us.”

The other guys laughed, and they were called to their next mission. There was an undead committing petty crimes, and they were now free to chase it down. Argyle was going to have to take point on this one.

Three petty extranormal robberies, followed by a hooker with no actual genitalia and two disgruntled customers.

Benny had never seen a mer-woman as a hooker before, but she made a convincing argument for never intending to furnish the half-elves with sexual services. She was trading her magic and the touch of her mouth.

They locked her up for unlawful spell peddling. Magic—you could give it away, but if you wanted to charge for it, you needed a license.

“Why do you turn your prisoners over to the other agents?”

The hooker was on her way to booking. Smith entered the details of the arrest into the computer in the SUV, and he grimaced. “We separate it to speed the process along. As agents, it is our job to investigate, not to continue the interrogation. The prisoners will be interrogated at the office and processed according to what they have been charged with.”

Tremble smiled. “Argyle and Smith are the best agents to do the data entry. I am not comfortable with technology.”

Smith muttered, “He means he can’t type.”

Argyle snickered as they rolled out again, “Or spell.”

Tremble flipped them off and turned to her, “So, Benny, are you finding this ride-along educational?”

“So far, it is very interesting. I had no idea of the range of the calls you were sent out on.”

Tremble laughed. “You haven’t seen anything. We also do speeches for the Changeling Guides and Scouts, the newly undead and the Fey Integration Association. We go out, speak and then get back to work.”