It was nighttime. The forest was alive with the sounds of the animals. Insects chirped. An owl hooted. Off in the distance, a wolf howled causing the underbrush to rustle with the sudden retreat of scurring paws.
"Alice? Alice, are you out there?" The man's voice cut through the air, tight with worry. He almost sounded like he was pleading -- please, let this be the time she responded. The beam of his flashlight swept wide arcs in front of him, illuminating very little save the trunks of more and more trees as he pulled his light jacket closer to ward off the brisk Fall air.
A faint glow seen at the periphery of his vision caught his attention. His head snapped in that direction, quickly followed by a hurried walk to investigate. "Alice? Is that you sweetie?" He paused at the edge of a clearing, face frowning in confusion as it was illuminated by a strange neon-red glow.
Standing in the middle of the clearing was what could only be described as a doorway of sorts. Through the doorway, he could see an alleyway, illuminated by the glow of a neon sign. At the edge of his vision, he could just make out a man standing in the shadows of the alley. Squinting, he took a few slow step closer to get a better look, the other man apparently getting the same idea and likewise moving closer.
Now within arm's reach of each other, the two stopped to examine their companion. The man in the alleyway was wearing a dark tan trench coat, collar turned up to ward its wearer from the drizzle that seemed to be falling around him. The upper half of his face was largely obscured by the dark shadow thrown by his wide-brimmed fedora. He ducked slightly to try to get a look under the hat, but the other man mimicked the movement. Turn and twist as he might, every action was copied as though he were looking at a reflection of himself. A reflection that seemed to be smiling mockingly at him.
He reached out a hesitant hand to the doorway, the fedora-wearing man once again perfectly mirroring his action. His hand met a cool, hard surface. Metal? Glass? It had to be glass since after all, he was looking through it wasn't he? He rested his palm against it and pushed slightly, eyes going wide as suddenly he felt warm fingers intertwining with his own. The other's smile widened.
There was a scream. As it faded, the sounds of nature swelled once more. Peaceful. As though it had never been disturbed.
When he looked at his phone, he noticed he had a couple of missed calls and voicemail from his mother.
"Ahmad, why are you not answering your phone? Are you trying to make your old mother worry? Come down to the restaurant; I could use your help with with weekend lunch rush."
The second part of that seems a bit unlikely; while in the early days you were often asked to help out in order to cut costs, business has picked up enough that that's long since been necessary. More likely this is a ploy to get you to come visit her for some reason or another.
Janet looked almost embarrassed as he scrutinized it. "I know it's not the most expensive thing, but it's the first gift he ever gave me! I just...I would rest easier knowing he had it with him. And hey, think of it this way: you've come this far. All you have to do now is give it to him! He works as a waiter at the restaurant Fatima's Kitchen."
Devin got up and went through his usual morning routine before leaving his rented room and heading in the direction of one of the local restaurants he had heard was good. Part way there, he notices a crowd starting to gather at what seems to be a nearby construction site.
As he walked, Oscar paused briefly to check his reflection in a window to make sure he was symmetrical as always. A brief flurry of movement at the corner of the window caught his attention. Turning to look more fully at it, he noticed across the street a teenaged girl go running up to another group of teenagers. They talk briefly before they all quickly hurry in the direction the original girl came from, a medium-sized white dog loping obidiantly afterwards.
Behind the last one, Rani saw a man, hair parted down the middle with a plain, button-up shirt and slacks. His appearance was completely symmetrical. At his feet lay the fractured images. One by one he picked up the fragments and placed them carefully down like one putting together a jigsaw puzzle. There was a louder growwwllll. It draws Rani's attention to the edges of her vision, where she can sense another presence. It almost seems to stalk around her. Unseen but distinctly predatory. She could feel its rage. Its hunger. Its hot breath on the back of her neck. This time the was practically in her ear.
The third growl jerked her out of her vision as it was not of the beast but of her own belly. A quick glance at the clock revealed it was almost noon on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and she had skipped breakfast. The hunger in her stomach was almost unbearable. A side effect of the vision? Or perhaps just a detail that had bled through into it? Luckily the room she had rented was not far from a restaurant that had been highly recommended to her by several of the locals: Fatima's Kitchen.
She took a deep breath. In through her nose and out through her mouth. Mixed with the clean scent of greenery, the warm smell of the earth, and the musky odors of the wildlife were the greasy smells of exhaust and...something else. Something tangy and sharp and familiar but faint enough to make it hard to place. The wind shifted and it suddenly snapped into place: blood. She could smell blood. Enough for her to pick up despite the distance coming from the nearby town of Sioux Falls.
Ahmad had spent his whole morning drawing the astrological charts for some of his friends — the recent ones, the ones who heard voices and made things explode — and now attentively reviewed the results. As suspected, Alfie’s sun was about to enter the house of Aquarius, which, considering how his moon had been a bit on the quiet side lately, surely meant the old man would reap the fruits of his efforts. Ahmad smiled and grabbed his phone to invite Alfie for a walk in the woods — he definitely wanted to be around for Alfie’s breakthroughs and it had been some time since they last spoke — when he saw the notifications.
He furrowed his brow. His mother never called — honestly, he never gave her the chance, checking in pretty much every day and constantly messaging. He shrugged and called her back. After three attempts falling on voice mail he grabbed his keys and started walking to the restaurant, typing out a message to Alfie in the meantime.
Once he arrived there, the place was indeed bustling. All the spartanly decorated wooden tables were full, the waiters seemed about to panic and a few large plates containing bread, pickled vegetables and cumin-spiced beans waited to be brought to the customers. All in all, a regular Saturday, really.
The first few years, he remembered, were difficult. Egyptian cuisine wasn’t exactly on anyone’s radar and some of the traditional dishes, like the divisive molokhyia, were definitely more of an acquired taste. None of this was helped much by the fiercely opinionated cook, Ahmad’s mother, who not only insisted every plate was spotlessly clean before she would accept that a client had finished eating, but also openly ranted about how “American spices taste like sand” and “the tomatoes in this country are like wet styrofoam.”
Still, time softens all things. She slowly learnt how to tweak dishes so they were more appetising to the locals, added pictures to the menus and started serving some staples from the area. Sioux Falls, meanwhile, also grew to appreciate the loving authoritarianism of Fatima’s Kitchen and people simply giggled when she was in a rant-y mood: “cooking in America is easy. Double the salt. Still not happy? Fry it. They will eat anything fried.”
In this crowd, it was easier to find her by following the yelling and cursing in Arabic.
Alfie had nothing against kids, but he had long noticed that kids who died, and thus remained kids forever, tended to be annoying. This time they had scared a couple of rats into his house, who bred quickly and made a big mess. The ghost he hired got rid of the rats for him, and even with the whole ring fiasco, she had cost him less and was more effective than the next best exterminator would have been.
He goes to Fatima's Kitchen to pay his due. On the way there, he checks his phone and notes with interest that Ahmad is already there. He doesn't bother to reply: he figured that Ahmad could have already predicted that he would be at the kitchen, and in any case he would have ample opportunity to speak with him when he got there.
Upon reaching the restaurant, Alfie seeks out Ahmad. But having trouble finding him among the crowd, he begins to try pursuing his secondary goal. "Excuse me, might anyone here know of, or perhaps be, a certain Derek Midmarsh who works here?" The nearby diners give him a look; Alfie remains oblivious. He continues to try to ask around until he either finds an answer or finds Ahmad.
Unseen and unheard by all save Alfie, Janet quickly shook her head. "No, that's *Farouk,* his brother. *My* Derek's not a smoker. He's probably being-" There was as short burst of yelling in a foreign tongue near the doors to the kitchen and Janet heaved a heavy sigh. "- yelled at."
"Aiyaya, how many times must I tell you? If you can't carry six dishes on your arms, stick to just four; don't hold the other two in your hands where you leave smudges and fingerprints. This is not your greasy American diner where you slap a few things on a plate, cover it in ketchup, and call it food! Presentation matters. It's no good if the cooks arrange it perfectly only for you to ruin the rim before the customer ever sees it!"
Derek gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry Eimti*. I'll do better next time."
He was spared further recriminations as Fatima caught sight of her son. Anyone watching could pinpoint the exact moment it happened by how her frown seemed to melt away, replaced with a resplendent smile. "حبيبي, where have you been? I was so worried when I heard that ابن الحمار construction company had claimed another life! I thought for sure they had come back to claim you just as they did your father. Come, let me take a look at you."
She took a moment to look over Ahmad, making sure he was indeed, well and whole. "Aiyaya, first that poor little girl goes missing and now we have a dead body? What is this town coming to?" She tsk'ed and shook her head sadly. Both a missing girl and a dead body were news to Ahmad , but then, Fatima seemed to have an almost uncanny knack of finding things out faster than just about anyone else. It was probably a side effect of the number of people who came through as well as the somewhat gossipy nature of a population that didn't typically have much better to do than sit around and jaw at each other.
Rani looked down at her stomach in vague surprise and then stretched after flicking the zippo closed with a shunk! CLICK! noise. Rubbing her stomach, she sighed. Absorbed in the flames as she had been it was probably a good idea to eat, magic of any kind required energy after all. Food. Actual food, rather than on the pre-heated crap or something that could be bought from a drive-thru.
Rising from the little bed of the motel, she looked around for cooking facilities she wished were there and knew were not. Still, the locals had been certain that Fatima's Kitchen could provide her with food, and unless the owner was sponsoring a city-wide PR effort enough people had said it that it was probably true.
Grabbing her bag and slipping on her sandals, Rani left the little room at a decent pace. It would have been a simple matter to eat a snack or something. Maybe a chocolate bar? Except American chocolate tasted wrong to her. Some of the fruit snacks were quite tasty, though. But it simply hadn't occurred to her because...well, magic. It was hard, sometimes, to remember that her body needed things like 'fuel'. Magic was just more...important, sometimes.
Still, burning through all her calories was probably why she was thin. Short was likely genetic, but short she could live with. If she was going to fight monsters So she headed for the restaurant.
Blood.
From this distance it was hard to be certain, Any more but Taryn was pretty sure it wasn't as fresh as she would've liked. Her Wolf had stirred at the smell, but it wasn't hungry any more, and she couldn't smell whoever had spilt the blood from here, so there was no challenge to offer, yet.
Smells like It happened last night. It could've just been a car crash or something... But she didn't believe it. Not when she'd been following Warren's usual trail of broken bones, plus at least one slashed throat she was confident she could lay at his feet.
And the moon's waxing.
Unconsciously she scratched at her newest piercing, where the silver was still a little itchy. When you stretched and warped, and put on a couple hundred pounds of fur and muscle, any metal you had lodged in you wasn't going to have an easy time coming along for the ride.
The piercings she'd had before she'd been bit had long since closed back over, but ever since her wolf had been caged, she'd needed to find something she could do as a most-of-the-way human that she'd been denied as a Wolf. The list wasn't a whole lot longer than silver piercings, but at least this way she could pretend they weren't only for one more thing to stop her if her Wolf broke through.
A low rumbling tugged at her ears and she felt herself bare her teeth at the idea of something sneaking up behind her. But with a smoothness born of long practice, she rode the snarl into a warm grin and spun around, thumb out as she shifted her duffel to the other shoulder.
This close to town she didn't really need the lift, but hitchhiking always had the potential of turning interesting, and if Warren was making her follow him back through Sioux Falls and the familiar faces there, then there was no way she was gong to pass up a chance for someone to make himself her target.
"Hi there! Would you mind sparing my legs the last couple miles if you're headed into town?"
Red eyes, red eyes, red eyes. Normal wolves' eyes glowed yellow when they reflected a campfire, a flash light, or the lights of a car. But when the eyes reflect red that's when you know you've got something a lot more dangerous. And he'd come across security camera footage of a guy with red, reflective eyes. It was right there for anyone to see if they knew where to look.
Well, the security camera footage was in black and white, but black and white bright eyes look different than black and white red eyes. If you knew how to look.
Tonight, he was looking for the store or restaurant that the security footage had come from. As he scanned inside the window for security cameras, he met the eyes of the young couple sitting at a table on the other side of the pane of glass from him. He stared at them hard for a few seconds each. They seemed fine.
Except that they were eating at a restaurant that had pictures of food next to their description on the menu. Oscar's shoulders shook once in a silent guffaw. As if the food ever looked like the pictures.
Oh, but hey... that's interesting. There are people he knows in this restaurant. And he doesn't know that many people. Could it be coincidence? Of course not, there's no such thing as coincidence.
He opens the door and heads inside. He checks to make sure he brought his own ketchup packets in case he decides to get something to eat. You can't trust the ketchup bottles in restaurants. They never throw them out! They just keep re-filling and re-using them.
As Fatima looked at Ahmad checking if he was, indeed, well and whole, he did the same. She seemed fine. But was she? Ahmad never felt sure; there was always the chance he missed something small but important, something that could make the difference later on.
Only after that he actually registered what she was saying. “What? A dead body? Who? How? Are you ok, mama?” How could he have missed it? A death should have appeared very clearly on the charts.
Alfie notices that Ahmad is present, happy to see him in the same place as the boy being screamed at. Rather than interrupt Ahmad's conversation with his mother, he simply waves. "I'll be right back, after I deal with something."
He walks up to the man who had just been screamed at. "Derek, I presume? Do you have a moment to spare?" He looks around for a possible place nearby to speak with him privately. He had learned from experience that it's not a good idea to bring portents from the dead in public. And also, he didn't know exactly who Janet was, but thought it prudent not to speak of dead girlfriends in the presence of a possible living one.
Hearing the outburst, followed by Ahmad's comments, Rani considered. People died in construction accidents. It was sad, but it happened. A missing little girl, though, was a missing little girl. If there was something 'wyrd' about the construction accident then maybe it was related, but kids came first.
She headed over to Ahmad and smiled. "Hey Ahmad. Forgot about food again, so I thought I'd try this place out. Recommend anything?"
Fatima threw up her hands in mock exasperation. "Who? Do you think I would have been worried it was you if I knew who it was? All I know is that Mrs. Gates told Ms. Hernandez told Mr. Montgomery told me that the sheriff had to call her husband back from the hospital to help examine the body! Mr. Tsai swears it's the work of a serial killer he read about that's been making his way through the area but, no, I know!" She wagged her finger. "I know it's that ابن الحمار construction company! They still haven't updated their safety equipment and now they have a second death on their hands! I warned them! I sent them letters! I called! But did they listen? No!" It was a familiar tirade. One that had had years to expand upon and grow.
Seeing his opening, Derek had already begun to sidle away when Alfie approached him. He blinked a few times in confusion. "Huh? A moment? Ohhh, I mean, like, " He shot a nervous look at Fatima before flashing Alfie a quick smile and a wink and speed-walking away. There didn't seem to be any place quiet in the restaurant -- it was the lunch hour after all -- but Derek was more than happy to follow Alfie out back. "Nice one brah, way to help a homie out." He held a fist out for Alfie to bump.
*****
Taryn didn't have any trouble getting the middle-aged man to give her a lift. As much as she might have liked a target to vent some rage upon, he provided none. He neither leered nor even tried to start up tedious small-talk, appearing polite but somewhat distracted with a slight case of lead foot syndrome.
After parting ways, it was a simple matter to follow the smell of blood to a local construction site. There was already a small crowd of lookie-loos by the entrance being firmly held back by a few of the local deputies who had made a semi-circular ribbon of crime scene tape. Several more members of the sheriff's department could be seen at regular intervals around the site, no doubt to stop any of the bolder onlookers from trying to jump the fence and run inside.
The smell of blood was much stronger here. But so were the other scents. The numerous humans in close proximity. The metal and sawdust from the site. Roasting meat and exotic spices from a local restaurant.
Alfie nods with appreciation and attempts to shake Derek's fist. "A pleasure to meet you, esteemed homie."
"Now, you're probably wondering why I asked to speak with you. Well you see Derek, ever since she passed away, Rachel has been thinking of you. I come to you on her behalf, as she is no longer capable. She asks only that you accept the ring you gave her, as a sign of her quite literally undying affection." He holds the ring out for Derek to take.
Ahmad waves his hand, also half-exasperated, and is about to answer in the exact same tone when he hears Alfie and Rani. He takes a deep, long breath and turns to his friends — just in time to see Alfie taking one of the waiters out of the room. He raises an eyebrow and looks at Rani.
“Hey, Rani! You came to the best place in town. Ful medames is the classic, but anything mama cooks is amazing. Don’t order fries or you’ll never hear the end of it. Mama, mama! This here’s Rani, the friend I was talking to you about the other day. The British one.”
And then, almost in the same breath: “Rani, did you hear this about the poor girl? Do you know who it was? God, I hope it wasn’t one of my students.”
"I'm sorry, I was away for a bit and only just back into town last night. I didn't know anyone was missing." Divination magic was a pain in the ass for leaving out information. She'd only seen a man in the flame. Maybe it was to do with this. Maybe it was to do with her missing Amazon package. She just knew it would probably be someone important.
Unless the future changed dramatically. Sometimes that could completely invalidate whatever she saw. Her theory was that she was seeing a possible future, not the future, but it was possible she simply wasn't strong enough to see the true future and was only making a prediction, a mathematical model using magic. Who knew?
But she really wanted that book, and Amazon was not sending it...
"Hi there, ma'am. I'm glad to see news about me has gotten out." She smiled cheerfully as she introduced herself. She didn't really want to call a woman she didn't know 'Mama' though. It was weird enough when foster parents demanded she call them mother or father.
There was a lot her nose could tell her, even muted as it was these days, but now it was much easier if Taryn could help sort out smells with sights too.
This was a construction site, and even if it was daylight, humans never seemed to look where they didn't need to. They didn't have enough predators left to keep them on their toes. So she went about finding a way up, climbing whatever equipment might be nearby with casual strength, as she stretched closer to the sun.
This would be harder with paws...
Derek laughed warmly as his fist bump was shaken. As Alfie explained his purpose, both he and Janet looked surprised.
"What? Rachel? No that's-"
"Duuuude, Rachel likes me? Like, like likes me?" A broad grin spread across his face as Janet sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I totally knew she had a thing for me! This ring this is kind of weird though." He took the proffered item. "And why she'd send you? Are you, like, her grandpa or something? Weeeeiiird. No wait! No weird. It's, like, old fashioned." He nodded, clearly pleased. "I can dig it though. Tell her to meet me here tomorrow around 5. No wait! Taking a girl to where you work is kinda lame isn't it?" He paused, trying to figure out a different location. "How 'bout the bowling alley? Yeah, bowling is cool. I'll take her bowling! Tell her to meet me at Ten Pins at 5, yeah? I should probably get back to work so I can get some tips to buy her something nice. Don't worry though, sir, I'll, like, totally be the perfect gentleman." He looked pleased with himself as he gave Alfie an affectionate slap on the shoulder before he started to head back inside.
Janet hadn't moved from where she seemed to be getting a phantom headache, eyes closed and mouth pressed into a tight line. "You just *had* to say Rachel, didn't you."
*****
Fatima's building rant was interrupted by Ahmad's introduction. She gave Rani an appraising once over. Eyes still watching the newcomer, she responded to Ahmad's question In Rani's stead. "No, no, it wouldn't have been one of yours. She's too...young. Oh but doesn't that just make it all the worse? Poor Ms. Campbell! What the poor woman must be going through, I can't even imagine." She placed a hand on her son's shoulder, almost as if reassuring herself he was still there. She paused a moment to compose herself before shaking her head. "No, no, I'm sure it's nothing bad. We don't have that sort around here. She's only been gone a little bit. The sheriff's department will no doubt find her."
*****
Taryn gave a wary look around as she approached the fence surrounding the construction site. It seemed the sheriff's department had left a blind spot in their watch of the perimeter. She had just started to hoist herself over when there was a firm tug on the back of her shirt, sending her off balance and dropping to the ground once more.
"Now then, now then, what d'you think yer doin' missy?" Still holding firmly to the back of her shirt was a uniformed deputy, apparently just returning from a break of some kind. His name tag read Deputy Orwell. "This here's a crime scene. We can't go letting kids sneak in and tamper with it just 'cause they're looking for some cheap thrill and don't know any better. I've half a mind to take you in right now for obstruction of justice. See if a night behind bars doesn't teach ya to behave. Well? How d'ya that, eh?"
Alfie reaches out to hold Derek back for a moment. "Of course I can arrange a meeting, if you'd like: I do charge a small fee, though. And while I'm sure that she would appreciate the sentiment, I don't think that she would be... in her element, going bowling. But just to make sure, you do realize that Rachel has passed away? As in, died?"
"There you are."
Oscar was halfway into the alley before Alfie or Derek noticed him.* He continued to approach, not recognizing that a conversation was already taking place. He finally stopped well within Alfie's personal space.
"I thought I saw you in the restaurant from outside. You know who else is here, don't you?" He indicates the inside of the restaurant with a nod of his head.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"
"Hmm?" Alfie raises an eyebrow, trying to divide his attention between his two interlocutors. "Ahmad's in the kitchen, and I caught a glimpse of Rani."
"Exactly.
"Very conspicuous."
Rani smiled as comfortingly as she could. "They should be fine. Missing children are almost always found, if I remember right, and it's usually a case of them being lost rather than anything sinister, especially very young ones." It was true. Plus, a lot of monsters tended to target those much less likely to be missed, or cared about if anyone did notice - drug addicts, the homeless, sex workers and the like. A smart monster could do whatever to such groups and barely raise an eyebrow. Children would mean something dumb, something new...or something so powerful it didn't care. All three were worrying.
"You'd better get your damn hands off me." Her voice was quiet, controlled, but her eyes were hard as diamonds as she glared down at him, not a doubt in her heart that he was not in charge here.
She began to dust herself off, grateful that she was still in traveling clothes instead of something trendier.
"Look, this hasn't been a pleasant trip out here, and I have no intention of tampering with 'your' crime scene. I just need a look to see if this is going to turn into something much bigger than your department is equipped to handle."
"What? What're ya talkin' about brah? I, like, totally saw her last night. And what do you mean a 'fee'. Dude, you're not, like, her pimp or something are ya? 'Cause that ain't cool. Women have rights and-"
The rest of Derek's mini-speech on women's rights was cut off, at least to Alfie's ears, by a very irate Janet. "My name's not Rachel! It's JANET. They don't even sound alike! God, it figures the *one* medium in this small town is a f*!&ing MORON. Or what, do all us spirits just look alike to you? Are you some kind of...dead...ist or something?! God, I'm done with this!" She stormed off through the back wall of the restaurant.
It was probably a good thing Janet had already scared off those rats as it was somewhat questionable if she would have still been willing to do it after that little debacle.
"-sorry to get all serious on you, my man. But I believe strongly that using women, or, like, men, like that is seriously not good. Ya feel me?" Derek finished, looking satisfied that he had just converted Alfie to his point of view.
*****
Fatima tried to look hopeful. "Yes, that's true. But, well, if she wandered off into the woods with the weather starting to turn cold and the wild animals..." She paused, face lighting up as she got an idea. "I know! We can help organize a search party! Right after the lunch shift is over, I'll bring Ms. Campbell some nice, homemade treats and then together we can go talk to the Sheriff." She nodded, quite pleased with the idea.
*****
Deputy Orwell gave Taryn a firm shake from his grip on the back of her shirt. "Now watch your tone there, missy. If you really 'needed' to see the crime scene, you'd have walked up to the officers and stated your business instead of trying to creep in like the delinquent you obviously are." He gave her a patronizing smile as he pointed out what he saw as the obvious flaw in her statement. "Let's see some ID, eh?" He held out the hand not holding onto her collar.
"But I believe strongly that using women, or, like, men, like that is seriously not good. Ya feel me?" Derek finished, looking satisfied that he had just converted Alfie to his point of view.
"What's he talking about, Alfie?"
Rani considered the idea for a moment. "Heading to the sheriff's office and offering help sounds like a lovely idea. I don't know the area very well, so I'd have to to go with someone else, but I'm quite...non-threatening," she added, gesturing down at her sundress and short, thin stature that made her look not much more than a child herself. "And I know sometimes children who do just wander away can hide under bushes and go unresponsive. Maybe seeing me will convince them they're not in trouble or danger."
And Rani could try and use her magic to find any trace of the child, especially if she could touch some clothes the kid had worn or the like. With that she might be able to get a solid idea of which direction she was in. Without it she'd have to do something much more general - maybe pick up life signs? If there were animals bigger than the kid out there she wasn't sure it would help much.
"I suppose I had better eat, if that's the case. What would you suggest, Ma'am?"
Ahmad caught himself nodding with his mother's idea, then immediately changing his mind.
“Mama, that’s a really good idea, but look at how full the restaurant is. And then there’s the cleaning, preparing things for the evening…Farouk and Derek are lovely, but we both know you can’t leave all of that to them. You take care of Ms. Campbell and let Rani and I handle this, we’ll talk things over with the sheriff.”
Taryn burst into furious action, grabbing the man's arm and twisting it out to full extension. "It's hard to have a civilized talk while we're grabbing each other, isn't it. Are you ready to attempt one if I let you go?"
Looking at Janet gliding away through the door, and Derek and Oscar's comments bouncing around in his ears, Alfie stops still for a moment, to remind himself that he hadn't done anything wrong. Actually, he had done something wrong, but at least not what it seemed everyone else was thinking.
"Oh. Well. There's been a slight misunderstanding. The ring is a gift from Janet. And seeing that I've just angered her by confusing her name, I might have a somewhat harder time arranging a meeting with her now, but I can still try, if you'd like. The fee is to cover the expenses of the necessary materials and my time, not anything like... that."
Oscar nods, satisfied at the situation, and looks over Alfie's shoulder at Derek expectantly.
"Aiyiyi, you're right, حبيبي.What was I thinking? Ok then, you go talk to the Sheriff now while I'm dealing with the rest of the lunch rush and cleanup. Once that's done, I can bring Ms. Campbell to the Sheriff myself; the more people who tell him we need to organize a search party, the more he'll have to listen if he wants to remain sheriff! Such a clever idea, Ahmad." Fatima pinched his cheek affectionately before wagging a finger at Rani. "You should listen to him better. He already told you to get the ful medames and my. Boy. Knows. What. He's. Talking. About." She punctuated each word with a finger jab in the air.
She gave a pleased smile before starting to turn around. "You could learn something from him too Der- Aya! Where has that boy gotten to? " She started moving away, as she tried to find the escaped waiter.
*****
Deputy Orwell yelped, taken by surprise by Taryn's quick reversal of the situation. He then immediately started yelling. In the brief space between his yelling, the sound of quickly approaching footfalls could be heard coming from where the next two nearest officers were on lookout. It wouldn't be long before they cleared their respective corners and saw Orwell's predicament.
*****
Derek paused, his head cocked to one side. You could practically see the gears turning inside his brain. Turning verrrrryyyy slowly. "What? But Janet's, like, dead. I'm not, like, into dead chicks dude."
"DEREK!"
He winced at the sound of his name being called. "I think...I'll just go ask Rachel out myself. You, like, stay chill, man. I better get inside before Mrs. F skins me alive." Still looking quite confused, he quickly started to head back inside, giving Alfie some serious side-eye as he did so.
"I only hope you don't find out how foolish you've been."
She turned away, letting him sprawl on the ground as she began to run, devouring the distance with an easy, tireless loping pace.
"That sounds good, then," Rani said. "Do we have time for me to grab that, or should I get something to go?" she queered Ahmad. She wasn't going to manage a search on an empty stomach, so she'd need something, but she was willing to walk and eat.
"Well that was disappointing," Alfie mutters to no one in particular.
"Anyway Oscar, as you were saying, you were suspecting something with regard to Ahmad and Rani being here?"
"I'm out looking where this man could have been," Oscar begins, holding up a crumpled printout of a grainy, black and white photo of a man walking along a sidewalk. "I stepped into the restaurant when I saw you and Arya in there, presumably meeting with Elmotahr in his family's restaurant. While I was trying to find you, I overheard people talking about that missing girl AND a found body AND they were wondering if they were related AND I bet that's what those two are about to start asking questions about!"
Eyes wide, Oscar spreads his arms and hands out in a frustrated motion before letting them drop.
"And I bet they're not even thinking about the werewolf!"
Breathing a sigh of relief as his mother walked away convinced not to join a search group, Ahmad turned to Rani. “Sure, we can ask…” he looked at Farouk rushing around from table to table and shook his head. “I’ll just do it myself. Everything’s supposed to be ready anyway, being Mama’s main thing and all.” He quickly poured some of the bean stew on two foil containers, added a generous pinch of parsley, two quarters of flatbread and a few fresh vegetables. He then gave a quick peck on his mother’s cheek as she yelled at Derek and then left the restaurant.
“Here you go. Hope that wasn’t too intense, Saturdays are always chaos here. Now, where did Alfie go? I’m guessing he would want to join.”
Alfie glances at the picture for a moment. "Hmm. You've got a point. I'm not skilled at identifying people from blurry pictures, but you might as well ask if Ahmad and Rani have seen him."
Oscar stares hard at Alfie for a long moment before silently folding the picture up and putting it inside his brown corduroy jacket pocket.
"I'd be surprised if they had seen him. And I think they're meeting about something else. Maybe go ask them what."
Rani accepted the food with a grateful, "Thank you," she said with a smile. "No idea where they are, I'm afraid, but we can go and take a look for them."
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Once she felt that she'd gone far enough to lose them, Taryn sat back on her haunches for a think. I won't be able to get in for another look before moonrise, and that's still hours away...
Her stomach rumbled loudly, and her wolf stirred with it. Mm. Been a few days since I hunted... But if I'm going to be here with the humans for long, I should maybe just get some of their food instead.
She sighed, And if anyone around here's gonna know what's going on with a mysterious body, it's Oscar...
“Well, that’s certainly something. Guess she was the mysterious presence that would return I saw on the charts.” Ahmad muttered to himself and then walked up to Taryn. “Hey there, what’s up? Are you coming from the construction site? Did you see anything?” He dipped a piece of bread on the stew, started eating it and then offered some of the food to Taryn. “Want a bite? It’s delicious.”
"S%&&. All of them?!"
Food offered was food forsaken, and Taryn quickly claimed her due, practically inhaling whatever was left in Ahmad's bowl before discovering the horrible truth. "This is vegetarian, isn't it." She narrowed her eyes at him for a long moment before replying to his questions, "I haven't seen anything yet. After all, I just got to town. Was it a local? Is that why Oscar and Alfie are here too?"
Ahmad maintained the staring contest with Taryn as he spoke rather seriously. “Vegetables are good fo you, Taryn. Also, Mama always adds some cured beef for flavour, so it’s not 100% veggie.” He looked around and shrugged. “No one knows much about anything, only that someone died at the construction site and that a little girl went missing. We were waiting for Alfie to come before having a talk with the sheriff to see what’s happening and organising a search party. Do you think it’s something…you know…weird?”
Rani had watched the woman devour the meal in fascination, and was deeply glad that she didn't have a need to avoid beef when it was mentioned. She didn't have it often when she was a kid, but Britain didn't view cows in the same light as India, that was for sure, and so she took a grateful slurp.
"Maybe. Probably. In my fire vision, I saw something hunting in the woods. Animals, pigs and bunnies mostly." She paused, and considered. "Or, at least, I saw a clearing and images of dead animals. There was a man, too, perfectly symetrical, which was odd. And growling, but that might have been my belly." She took a bite of the bread.
"It might be completely unrelated, of course, but given a child has gone missing the chance can't be taken. We should treat it as a danger until we're sure it isn't."
"I haven't heard much. Just..." Her eyes flicked carefully between Ahmad and Rani, making sure no one else had gotten close enough. She didn't need to talk about Warren needlessly. Growling though. "It was violent. If it was something... strange, then I need to make sure it stops. Especially if it's something that doesn't want to stop."
"Alfie, there are issues I have with Rani and Ahmad, so they aren't going to talk to me unless it becomes a thing. They like you, though. So you go talk to them, and I'll back you up. We should find out what's going on."
Alfie nods to Oscar and searches for the others.
When he finds them, he begins to repeat what he'd just heard. "I've heard some disturbing talk of a missing girl and a found body. I've heard that there's some speculation of a werewolf involved," he adds with no second thoughts. The thought doesn't occur to him that the mention of a "werewolf" could have any more relation to Taryn in particular than the word "girl." "Have you guys heard anything about it?"
Taryn's eyes bore into Alfie's, but she lets the sideways-confirmation of her fears pass without comment. Damnit.
"Sounds like none of us have enough information yet to make any real guesses. They're watching the perimeter surprisingly well for now, but I'm sure that they'll get soft come moonrise. Or..." She didn't grimace. "If you all wanted to come get another look, I don't think they have enough people to keep us all away. Even without technically slipping past the tape."
As she talked she reached out with the long fingernail on her ringfinger and quickly and precisely sliced free a section of laminated menu. I should really make myself a press pass next time I'm near a printer.
"Shall we?"