Page 3 of The Buck Stops Hare

“Stopped showing up for work a week ago. Fired. No call, no show,” he grunted.

“Got an address?”

The bouncer shook his head but pointed me toward a girl working the bar. She had a side ponytail of all things, blonde and bouncy. I nodded thanks to the bouncer and made my way toward the bar, running a hand along the lacquered veneer. The resin finish didn’t shine like it would have years ago, dulled from small scratches over time. Like me. Death by a thousand cuts.

“Looking for Cliff,” I told the girl when she eyed me up and down, a purr of lust just seconds from being let free. I had that tall, dark, and handsome countenance human women adored, a little native, a little Latino. I preferred the termambiguously brown. It suited me.

She bit her lower lip. “He no-called no-showed a week ago.”

“Hasn’t answered calls from family in a while. I’m checking in. Got an address?” She eyed me suspiciously and huffed. “Three-thirty Friar. Left on Main about a mile and a half, right onto Newson and follow that down about six miles until you start seeing cows, and it’s that gaudy amalgamation of a house on the right.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am.” I nodded in respect and tugged the brim of my hat before turning to leave.

“Uh, hello?” She caught my attention and I turned back, staring her down. Her hand was out, palm up. I was familiar with this human gesture and gave her adown lowhigh five. It didn’t seem to please her, so I left, stalking out before giving the bouncer a nod of thanks.

“She any help?” he grunted.

“Immensely.” I patted his shoulder and parted with a flick of my power, giving him a little gift of luck with the earth. How he chose to use it would be up to him. Though, from the scent of hemp about him, he’d be unleashing it on his indoor garden when he got home.A truly noble cause.

As I took to the skies in dust once more, traveling an unseen breeze, I found the house quite easily. The frankenvilla looked like it’d been cobbled together of leftover material from several other houses and each one a new style of architecture. The scent of death lingered about, old, but not recent. Male, but not young. The earth, as I landed on it, feeling the ground’s energy, informed me that there was a body buried disrespectfully somewhere out back. But not Cliff though.

I flitted by the windows of the house and found the scent stronger near the garage. Flowing in through a crack, I landed amid old tools and a tiny SUV that hadn’t moved in some time. The scent of wild hare drew my attention to a set of stairs that lifted up to a door that pulled me in with interest.

Out of politeness, I knocked, not that I could sense another person in there, but it alerted the hare inside the apartment to my presence. If the scuttling and rattling inside was to be believed, it was a hare, at least, though it was odd not to hear its thoughts or speech.

I turned the knob and found it unlocked. As I peered in, I saw a neat little apartment, everything in its place, a love seat and bed, a kitchenette. It smelled of litterbox, and the whirr and trickle of kibble hit a food bowl from an automated feeder in the corner. A rank scent of boar caught my attention above the scent of Cliff, and how similar he smelled of Rayne. A soft masculine scent, a little sweet, a little sharp. I inhaled deeply, and the core of my being resonated with the rich temptation of omega.Oh.

A recorded voice from somewhere in the apartment piped up.Mad!

Without warning, a thump and scramble caught my attention and I glanced down. A shivering hare stared back up at me, eyes bulging. In its maw clattered a kitchen knife, precariously held between its upper and lower incisors. One ear drooped off to the side a little, and the scattered thoughts of its mind came in whispers and static.

It head-butted my leg, giving a snort and bark of displeasure.

“Hello there, little friend. Do you know me?” I knelt down and offered a hand, hoping he’d drop the knife or calm down. Neither happened. The static of thought pricked at my mind like a dog whistle, there in some strange way, but inconsequential.In a breath, he dropped the knife and reared onto his hind legs, pawing at me anxiously, barking in little broken yelps.

“Hey, hey!” I raised my hands to show my innocence, but it did nothing to assuage the murderous wrath of the lanky hare. I had to grab it by its spiked leather collar. “What happened to Cliff?”

The rabbit paused its assault and barked once, a broken version of a leveret’s cry for its mother. The hare had been infantilized by its owner, raised too young by humans. I stroked his little head as it calmed down. “Now, where is your master?”

It barked once, no words in its thoughts, desperately trying to convey something. “Poor little guy.”

He scrambled across the room to a plywood board on the floor decorated with little symbols and an assortment of colorful buttons. He scavenged them carefully before stamping a button. As before, a noise I heard earlier repeated.Mad!

“Clever boy…” I stepped closer.

Animal! Person! All gone. Mad.He pressed four buttons in synch, giving me a scratchy recording of what must have been Cliff’s voice. The rabbit huffed.Gimme salad, bitch!

That last button was unnecessary, but I acquiesced.

I scooped him up and rose to my feet, traversing the room to the fridge to see if I could grab him something more substantial than the pellets in his already-overflowing bowl. From the thinness of his waist, I’d have bet the hare was too upset to eat.

Nothing much in the fridge stood out, but the vegetables inside were still edible. A box of salad mix still had a day or two left on it. I popped it open and let the rabbit shove himself into the entire tub, munching for his life.

I traced the apartment, sniffing the air, catching whiffs of boar and fear. And oddly, female.

I sniffed about a little more until a shoulder forced its way through the door behind the weight of a rather robust woman, finely muscled and tall, that same green in her eyes as Rayne.

I barely had time to open my mouth in greeting or protest before she hurled something heavy in her hand toward me, pinning me right in the forehead with a resounding clang. A tire iron clattered to the floor right as the female landed atop me. “Where is my brother?”

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