Shelby wore wings, a jewel spattered contraption coated by the colorful feathers of the rarest of birds. His mask was of the eloquently painted on, glittery variety. The eyeshadow was dusky blue. His attire included a simple summer vest of cotton. It was white, with spaghetti straps. A crimson sash secured his matching slacks at the back. It wasn’t the first time that he’d had the gall to step into that color or such dainty slippers, with their straps of canvas that knotted into bows at the root of his toes.
Joss, the dark half of this Fae pair, watched Shelby from the other end of the alleyway. He’d forgone the ridiculous footwear, and was impatiently smashing a rotting apple core into the wall with the steely stub of his boot. His feathers were stolen from ravens. They glistened in the glow of the pale moon, reflected in the black depths of Shelby’s greedy irises. He was halfway jealous, screw duty and what-not. He watched Shelby’s unhurried motions with growing ire. The way he pressed up against the drowsy eyed party-goer, who was masquerading as a cop. The dark shirt was undone. The man had a nice body under there. Shelby was lapping delicately at the gushing punctures in his neck.
Joss swallowed, hard. So much of it was flowing down, past his glistening belly and down to where Shelby’s wandering hand slipped into his waistband. Joss’ sharp tooth worried at his lower lip as he contemplated this mild dilemma. Which one of the two--exactly, was he supposed to be more jealous of?
“Really,” Shelby murmured absently as he eased away reluctantly. “He does switch me on.”
Joss heaved a sigh, dredging up a reasonable tone. “I was trying to have a conversation with you about something.”
Shelby’s prey sank to the ground with a sigh and a thud. He bent down over him. His finger pressed at the pulse in the man’s neck. Still alive. Good. That was good, he supposed. He cast a Joss a distracted glance. “Hmmm? Which thing was that again?”
Joss bent over the man, directly across from Shelby. The blood that had spilled was becoming sticky. The raw scent of it wafted up in the air, surrounding him. He struggled to ignore the mad pounding in his ribcage, the hunger and need welling up inside.
“You know,” he smiled slyly at his sibling. “What if Newton stole the apple he used to discover his theory about gravity?”
“Huh?”
“Well? Does the accomplishment diminish or exacerbate the crime?”
Shelby’s head surged upward. His teeth were a little runny with red, eyes glassy and mildly perplexed. He scowled after a few seconds of intense mental scrambling. “That’s not what were were talking about.”
Joss shrugged, hungry eyes fixed on the slowly closing wounds in the pretend cop’s neck. The steady pounding of the heart was almost deafening now. He reached out, without realizing it, fingers tracing a path through the blood across the unconscious man’s torso.
His mouth twisted petulantly. “I want some of yours, Shelby. I don’t think I like mine.”
Shelby frowned. “Hell no. We’re not out to lunch. This is a mission. Did you forget--wait." Shelby frowned. "What’s wrong with yours?”
Joss’ glance skittered over the the prone form a few yards away in a dark corner of the alleyway. He eyed the pale and skinny, scruffy man with growing distaste.
“I don’t know. He tastes funny.”
He leaned forward obediently when Shelby crooked his finger at him, trembling slightly as his partner’s tongue probed his mouth. Shelby backed away with a thoughtful frown.
His brows narrowed into an accusing vee. “He’s dead, you moron.”
Joss flinched. His mouth twisted at Shelby’s rebuke. “Not that. There’s something else. Isn’t there?”
Joss watched Shelby hurry over toward the corpse. He hated this. Now he was the one pouting and feeling like an idiot. He followed and bent to watch his brother examine the body. He shrugged, sliding his gaze away from the tail of Shelby’s pristine shirt. He hadn’t noticed yet that it was stained with clotting trickles of red.
Joss decided not to bring it to the airhead’s attention, since he was being such an arrogant ass. Maybe he’d just let him walk around like that for a while, at least until the ick set. He hated Shelby’s stupid choice of colors, anyway. Who the hell wears white to go hunting on Halloween?
Shelby’s nose twitched. “He stinks to high heaven. Where the hell did you find him?”
Joss pointed in the general direction of the wharf.
“This is what you call hunting? Picking up a dumb junkie that overdosed?”
Annoyed, Joss hefted the man up by the collar. He was shaking him like a rag-doll. “Haah? He wasn’t dead when I caught him, was he?”
Both brothers stilled suddenly. There was a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the atmosphere. They both glanced backward. Joss flushed guiltily. Shelby stared at the lanky man scowling down at them. He was the only one he knew of, who could make raggedy jeans and a tee shirt look like haute couture. The thing about Seefra Hanouri was that he seemed so ordinary and harmless but you don’t get to be renowned in the underworld as Prodigy of the Rath or head hunter-executioner for the Council of Ancients for being a nice guy. At a glance, he was just a good looking and good natured guy. Shelby and Joss knew what a crotchety bugger he was at heart. Catch him on a bad day and he would rip your heart out if you so much as blinked at him the wrong way.
“What the hell did you do?” He demanded. Judging by the impatience in his tone, it was probably the second time he was asking.
Joss dropped the cadaver like it was a hot potato. “I didn’t do it.”
Seefra blinked. “Huh?”
“He went and died all on his own. I swear.”
Shelby grinned at Seefra. Their elder seemed like he might be in a bad mood tonight. The wild light in his eyes suggested that it might be more than just the moon making him unsteady.
“It’s true,” he flicked a nod towards Joss. “The guy was already three quarters dead when old Lame Brain over there picked him up.”
Seefra bent down beside them. “What’s that smell under the dead-smell?”
“That’s what I wanna know,” Joss muttered.
Shelby pulled away the collar on the guy’s shirt, revealing a triangular tattoo. He inclined his head over to the guy he’d just fed on.
“My guy over there, he’s got this mark too. Beside his belly-button though. And you know,” he continued thoughtfully. “He kinda had the same taste but not so much.”
Joss stood, surveying their surroundings with new eyes. Somewhere in the urban maze of boxy buildings, a rogue den of vampires were getting their jollies from pumping hapless humans full of drugs before feeding on them. Joss wasn’t too concerned about the morons who were stupid enough to get taken in but those “made” mongrels were drawing too much attention to themselves. They needed to be shut down, firmly and painfully.
He suddenly realized that Seefra was staring up at him with a bemused expression. “What?”
“What’s with the Prince of Darkness, Prince of Light costumes?”
Joss blinked. “Huh?”
Shelby scowled. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re fairies.”
“Fairies? How the heck did you come to tha--” Seefra fished his buzzing phone out of his pocket. “Yeah?”
Shelby and Joss seized the opportunity to put some distances between themselves and the werewolf. Still, they only went to the rooftop of the next building. Their acute hearing gave them the benefit of eavesdropping on parts of both sides of his conversation with Dominik Locke, interim head of the Rath--antecedents of the werewolves. The Rath were matriarchal but dwindling in numbers and a shortage of true-blood females had left them without a clear leader for nearly a century already. Curiosity had won out over the need for self preservation.
“Just tell me when and I’ll be there,” Seefra was saying.
“I guess Misha’s finally making his move.” Shelby murmured.
“Looks like,” his brother murmured, distracted. His attention veered in the direction of the wharf.
Politics had never been much of an issue for the Rath before. Now that Dominik’s son was pushing the envelope and involving the Council of Ancients in their feud, there was bound to be a lot of confusion all around. This didn’t just concern the pure bloods. If this crap started trickling downward, even the hybrids-- werewolves, like Seefra would start taking sides. It was bound to be a violent, bloody mess.
The power vacuum caused by the loss of the matriarch almost a century earlier was finally beginning to chip the armor of the Rath and from the inside-out, at that. Dominik’s daughter, Mikki was the only viable candidate for Matriarch but she was too young and forcing a premature ascension wouldn’t do the Rath any good.
“Where is Mikki, anyway?” Joss asked.
“Tokyo goth parade.”
“Huh-what?”
There was a huff of breath. “Don’t ask. I didn’t.”
Joss frowned, picking up a new and unwelcome scent in their air. It was coming from the general direction of the wharf. He hadn’t picked it up when he was there earlier. Was the coven masking their presence somehow? Hopefully, he hadn’t just been too distracted by the night’s silliness to notice. Seefra would hardly forgive a lapse like that.
They heard Seefra chuckle. “The archangels? Mike, maybe could tolerate training them but Gabriel would definitely kill them. He’s already at his wits end with Nefir, as it is. Well, Shelby’s iffy but Joss... you know, he just tried to feed on a drug-soaked corpse? Stupid, right? Hell, I might kill...”
Joss leaned a bit further off the edge, straining to hear. He lost his balance and would have been able to catch up, except that Shelby got annoyed with him all again, for what had happened earlier and kicked at him. He tumbled over with a yelp.
Seefra stopped in his tracks at the sound of a loud crash followed by a muffled yell of dismay, in the distance behind him. “I think he just fell into a dumpster.”
Seefra laughed again, at something Dominick said. “Well, contrary to human myth, it’s the just idiots that roam on All Hallows Eve. This is better than when they do get serious, though. Plus, they are a few ounces of fun to toy with.”
He leaned against the wall and shrugged. A fleeting smile ran across his face. He motioned in the general direction where he sensed Shelby watching from, silently instructing him to start moving downwind of the wharf area. He propped the costumed sleeper against the wall and was in the middle of tagging the dead one for retrieval when a loud bang resounded, followed by a massive explosion.
Moments later, Shelby and Seefra were standing--slack jawed, before the building that had gone up in flames. Joss was covered in soot and his wings and hair were singed.
“This is the place, isn’t it?” Seefra asked quietly. “The one we’ve been searching for all night?”
Joss held up a staying hand at him. He took a few steps back and to the side, putting some distance between himself and his mentor. “Before you go all ballistic and try to kill me, I just have to say one thing.”
“Is this the part where you explain how the hell we’re supposed to investigate a pile of ash? You--”
“I didn’t do it.”
Seefra stared in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?.”
The brat really had some nerve, didn’t he? He reached for him sidearm, seriously contemplating pumping the idiot full of bullets. It wouldn’t kill him but it would definitely hurt like hell. Who knew? Maybe he’d learn something from it. Experience argued otherwise. Still, he’d be getting a little satisfaction from raining down a little pain. Or a lot. Maybe, a lot of pain.
Joss must have seen murder and rage in Seefra’s eyes because he was shaking his head emphatically. “It’s not my fault! All I did was stand right here. That building exploded all on its own. I swear!”
"It happened... just like he said... saw the whole thing.” The choking sound beside Seefra was Shelby trying his very hardest to not laugh. He was failing.
Seefra groaned, shaking his head at Joss. “You must have the worst luck in the world.”
Shelby gave up, doubling over and cackling. There were tears coming put of his eyes. When he finally caught his breath, he smirked. “It’s true. Honestly, I’m beginning to think he’s Cursed.”
Joss became incensed at Shelby's mockery. “Shoot him,” he hissed, pointing at his brother. “If anyone should be killed, it’s him!”
Seefra shoved his sidearm back in its holster. Rage caged, he grinned. “Oh, come now. Would I kill my own subordinates?”
Joss and Shelby exchanged dubious looks and wisely declined to respond.
At first, it didn’t seem so strange, waking up by the sea. I thought I’d simply fallen asleep after my usual swim again. The damp sand was itchy, crackled bits of seashells were cutting into my skin. I was tired to the bone, so I didn’t mind that too much. Waves were idly lapping at my toes. There was a nice breeze rolling over the water. I inhaled deeply, savoring the sharp, salty air. I couldn’t quite contain my delight. It was perfect, that moment. Everything was perfect. The world only tilted after I opened my eyes. 
