Page 8 of Brimstone and Broomsticks
I took a breath. The wards meant that residents of Accident felt safe walking around as nature intended them to be. It also meant this town wasn’t all that safe for newbies, humans, who didn’t know the rules. We had human residents, but the newbies were always one insult away from getting a minotaur horn up their ass.
“I’m assuming things didn’t work out well between you and the werewolves. So you had a few drinks, then you got into a fight outside?”
“The fight started inside, but the manager guy kicked us out. I wasn’t inclined to comply, but the others were. The guy had a towel.”
I knew exactly what that towel was because my sister Bronwyn had enchanted it for Pete herself. I wasn’t really that thrilled about a bar owner having something that could pretty much Taser a supernatural into a convulsing mess, but it did stop a lot of fights.
Fear the towel.
“Clinton Dickskin says you started the fight.”
Lucien snickered. “Dickskin. Seriously? I think I’d change my name.”
“When you’re strong enough to bench a tank, no one makes fun of your name.” Actually, everyone made fun of his name, we all just did it privately.
He leaned against the bars, his dark eyes meeting mine. “Yes, I started the fight. I would have finished it too if that sheriff hadn’t shown up with some knockout stick. I’m not a fan of law-enforcement people. They remind me of angels, and I really don’t like angels. I’m not so sure about this town either. My eye hurts, and this cut stings, and I can’t manage to get out of this cage or call Charon and I couldn’t incinerate that Dickwad guy with a snap of my fingers even though I tried. It was an interesting evening, but I’m ready to leave. Well, Iwasready to leave until I saw you, that is.”
Flirt. Too bad he was a client.
I looked down at my file, thinking about the circumstances of the case and what angle I should take to make all of this go away.
No money. No ID. No last name or residence beyond the “hell” scrawled on the paperwork. But Clinton had been in more fights this year than I had fingers and toes, and the guy did appear to be a newbie, which worked in his favor. Hmm. “Let me see if I can get you out on your own recognizance. If the district court commissioner says ‘no’, then is there someone you can call to post bail?”
“Sweetheart, if I could call someone, I wouldn’t be in this jail cell right now.”
Flirt.
“Call me sweetheart again and you can sit here for the whole weekend.” I waved for Officer Watts to come in. “Let me do the talking, okay?”
This dude was smoking hot, but my job was to get Lucien out of this cell and out of Accident. Assault two. Drunk and disorderly. Property damage. Shouldn’t be too hard to get this all dismissed if I spent my Friday night smoothing feathers around town. If I could get everyone to drop the charges, then this man could go back to hell, or wherever it was he came from, and I could get back to my normal life.
It was an ideal solution, but somehow the idea of my normal life was unusually depressing.
