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|  Not really Kate/Curran & it will be changed but still...
Quote: Chapter 1
I walked into the Order of Merciful Aid, carrying a small bird cage and dripping lizard spit from my jeans. The bird cage contained a fist-sized clump of grey fuzz, which I had the devil of a time catching. The jeans contained about half a gallon of saliva deposited on me by a pair of Trimble County lizards, which I’d managed to chase back into their enclosure in the Atlanta’s Center for Mythological Research. I was fourteen hours and thirteen minutes into my shift, I hadn’t eaten since morning, and I wanted a doughnut.
“Hello dear.”
After almost a year of working for the Order, hearing Maxine’s voice in my head no longer made me jump. I still had to pronounce my reply, even if it was in a whisper. Telepathy wasn’t among my talents. “Hello, Maxine.”
I conquered the long grey hallway, making a left just before the black door guarding the lair of Ted Moynohan, Knight Protector and my immediate supervisor, and set the bird cage on Maxine’s desk. The Order’s secretary peered at the fuzz and glanced at me.
I tapped the cage with my nail. The clump unrolled into a tiny fuzzy creature and stared back at Maxine with shiny black eyes.
“How adorable. What is that?”
“I think it might be a dust bunny.”
Maxine blinked. “Whatever you say, dear.”
She called everyone dear, including Richter, a new addition to Atlanta Chapter, who was as psychotic as knights of the Order could get without being stripped of their knighthood. Her “dears” fooled no one. I’d rather run ten miles with a rucksack full of rocks than face Maxine’s chewing out. Perhaps it was the way she looked: tall, thin, ramrod straight, with a halo of tightly curled silver hair and mannerisms of a veteran middle school teacher who had seen it all before and would not suffer fools gladly…
“Richter is quite sane, dear. And is there any particular reason you keep picturing a dragon with my hair on its head and a doughnut in its mouth?”
Maxine never read the thoughts on purpose, but if you concentrated hard enough on something in her vicinity, she couldn’t help but pick up the mental image.
I cleared my throat. “Sorry.”
“No problem. I always thought of myself as a Chinese dragon, actually. We’re out of doughnuts, but-” she reached into her desk and pulled out a large wicker basket “-I have cookies.”
She opened the basket, revealing a row of huge oatmeal cookies.
The scent of cinnamon and almonds hit me. It was good that I had undergone strict mental conditioning since childhood. Otherwise I might have fainted.
Maxine smiled at me. “Would you like a cookie?”
I bopped my head up and down. Words were beyond me.
She handed me a cookie. I slumped against the wall and bit into it. There was paradise.
“You have three messages,” Maxine glanced at the message ticket and recited in a measured monotone. “Mr. Gasparian, 2:42 p.m. ‘I curse you. I curse your arms so they will wither and die and fall off your body. I curse your eyeballs to explode. I curse your feet to swell until blue. I curse your spine to crack. I curse you. I curse you. I curse you.”
“Mr. Gasparian is under impression he has magic powers,” I said, biting my cookie. “He is fifty six years old, terribly unhappy because his wife left him, and he keeps cursing his neighbors. Magically, he’s a dud, but his ranting scares the neighborhood kids. I kicked his case to the Atlanta’s finest and he’s a bit upset that I’m not taking him seriously.”
Maxine lifted the second ticket. “Beauregarde Clayton, Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, Milton Branch, 8:14 p.m. ‘I’ll be here till ten.’”
I frowned. Beau Clayton was a good cop. We’d crossed paths before and he wasn’t someone I’d mess with. “That’s it?”
Maxine nodded. “That’s it.”
“Odd.”
Maxine glanced at the third ticket. “Andrea Nash, 8:22 p.m. ‘I’m in lock-up in Milton Jail. Come get me.’”
I choked on my cookie.
Andrea was my best friend. She was also a knight of the Order. She had several commendations for bravery in the line of duty, could shoot dots off dominoes at a frightening distance, and knew the Order’s Charter cover to cover. She was also in a doghouse. Ted Moynohan suspected that there was something wrong with her. He couldn’t prove it, but that didn’t stop him from keeping her away from active petitions. Getting arrested would be a cherry on her suspension cake. “Does Ted know?”
Maxine adjusted her glasses. “About what?”
“Andrea’s message.”
“What message?” Maxine folded the ticket in a half and tore it into tiny bits.
“Thank you.” I took off running.
“Wait!” Maxine called behind me. “Take another cookie!”
#
An hour later I walked into Beau Clayton’s office, carrying a long parcel wrapped in rags.
Beau grinned at me from behind his desk. In 1066 ancient Saxons met ancient Norwegians in a bloody battle over Stamford Bridge. The legend said that Saxons surprised their enemy and as Norwegians tried to rally, one of their warriors, a giant of a man, stepped onto the bridge and held it by himself, killing more than forty Saxons, until someone got smart and stabbed him with a long spear through the planks of the bridge from below. Looking at Beau, I could totally picture him on that bridge swinging a giant axe around. Hulking, six feet six, with shoulders that had trouble fitting through the door, he had a face of a bone breaker. He sat behind a scarred desk, organized to within an inch of its life. The only item out of place was a large can. The label on the can said Canned Boiled Green Peanuts.
I sat in a chair before his desk and put the parcel on my lap. “Canned boiled peanuts. That’s pushing it.”
“With a name like Beau, a man has to be careful,” Beau said. “Someone might mistake me for one of them Northern boys. The peanuts help to avoid misunderstandings.”
He passed me the can. I glanced into it. Spent shell casings.
“Every time I get shot at, I drop the shells in the can,” he said.
The can was about halfway full. I handed it back to him.
“The last time we met, I did say you would one day need a favor from me.” He spread his huge arms. “And here we are.”
“What did she do?”
He opened a manila folder and glanced at it. “Ever heard of Paradise Mission?”
“No.”
“It’s a high class hotel. Built like a Spanish mission, with the courtyard screened in. The roof is glass and they keep the temperature nice and steady.”
“Like a hothouse.”
“Basically. The courtyard is a beautiful place. Flowers everywhere, a pool, hot tubs. Favorite getaway for rich couples from the city. I took Erica there once. Costs an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it.”
Beau wasn’t in a hurry. He knew he had me by the throat so I just nodded quietly, keeping my struggle not to scream at him private.
“From what I understand, your girl was staying at the place with her significant other. I’ve got him in the cell next to hers. Now, I’m completely straight, mind you, but he was likely the prettiest man I ever seen.”
Raphael. Raphael was a bouda, a werehyena. He was deeply in love with Andrea and he’d finally managed to convince her to give them a chance. It must’ve been their big romantic weekend.
“Apparently, they were both in the hot tub.”
“Hot tubs are nothing but trouble,” I told him.
“Oh I don’t know.” Beau shrugged. “With a beer and good company, they aren’t bad. Relaxing. Soothing, even. In this case, however, they failed to bring about the desired relaxation. Miss Nash got up to go to the bathroom and get some drinks. When Miss Nash came back, she found a young female talking to her significant other.” His eyes sparkled a little. He pretended to check his report. “Apparently, the intruder female was scantily clad.”
He must’ve waited years to use that in a report. “Go on.”
“According to the hotel staff, the poor man did try to discourage the femme fatale the best he could, but she was either dense or really hoped to take him for a ride. Having met her, I’d say both.”
I sighed. I knew where this was going.
“When Miss Nash approached, her fellah informed the scantily clad female that Miss Nash and he were together. He says the female appraised Miss Nash as ‘cute’.”
I swore.
The two furry caterpillars Beau used as his eyebrows crept up. “Do you need a minute?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll be alright. Sorry.”
“It seems that the young woman made some indelicate suggestion of a threesome. Nobody is quite sure what happened next, but everybody agrees it was damn fast. When I got there, Miss Nash was standing by the hot tub in a small bikini, pointing the business end of Sig Sauer P-226 at her fellah and concerned members of hotel staff, while dunking the scantily clad female’s head under the water and asking, ‘Who’s diving for clams now, bitch?’”
My pain must’ve reflected on my face, because Beau reached into his desk drawer and handed me a small bottle of aspirin. I popped two tablets into my mouth and swallowed, grimacing against bitterness. “Then what?”
“Well, Miss Nash and I had a conversation. I bet that she wouldn’t shoot a badge and I won that bet. She had no ID on her - it was a very small bikini - so we invited her, her fellah, and the aggrieved party to be our guests here in this lovely jailhouse.”
Oh boy. “She had no ID, but she had a gun?”
“Brought it in a towel, from what I understand.”
Why wasn’t I surprised? “She’s a knight.”
“I figured that when she called the Order.” Beau’s smile was sweet enough to spread on toast.
I took the parcel off my lap, placed it on his desk, and carefully unwrapped the rags. Beau sucked in a lungful of air in a sharp breath.
A beautiful rapier lay in the rags.
“The schiavona,” I said. “The preferred weapon of Dalmatian Slavs, who served in Venetian Doge Guard in 16th century. Deep basket hilt.” I traced the gleaming spiderweb of deceptively narrow metal strips forming the sword’s guard. “Thirty six point seven inch long blade, efficient for both cut and thrust. A genuine Ragnas Dream sword.”
I turned the schiavona to the side, letting the light of the fey lantern catch the stylized RD on the ornate pommel. Ragnas Dream didn’t make swords, he created masterpieces. The schiavona alone would pay mortgages on both my apartment and my father’s house in Savannah for a year. Greg, my deceased guardian, had purchased it years ago and hung it on a wall in his library, the way one would display a treasured work of art. It was the kind of sword that would make a lifelong pacifist look for tall boots and a hat with feathers.
Beau’s face acquired a greenish tint.
“Breathe, Beau.”
He exhaled in a rush. “May I?”
Every person had a weakness. Beau loved rapiers. I smiled. Once he touched it, I had him. “Feel free.”
He got up, took the rapier, gently, as if it were made of glass, and slid his big hand around the leather hilt. He raised the sword point up, admiring the elegant steel blade. A deep serenity claimed his face. Beau thrust, a textbook perfect, liquid movement, elegant and precise and so completely at odds with his huge body. “Christ,” he murmured. “It’s perfect.”
“She was never here,” I told him. “Her ‘fellah’ was never here. You don’t know their names and you’ve never seen them before.”
Beau was a very good cop, because he made himself put the rapier down. “Are you trying to bribe a law enforcement official, Kate?”
“I’m trying to present a law enforcement official with a token of appreciation for his delicate handling of Order’s personnel’s issues. Knights of the Order are under a lot of pressure. Andrea Nash is one of the best knights I’ve ever met.”
Beau looked at the schiavona. A minute stretched into eternity.
The magic hit
“You take the two of them and you get them out of Milton,” he said. “Nash goes after the girl, I’ll put a bullet through her head.”
#
Ten minutes later Andrea, Raphael, and I stepped out of the jailhouse into a frigid fall night. The magic hit while we were inside and the night shimmered with distant blue lights of feylantern. Both Raphael and Andrea wore orange potato sacks that passed for Milton Jail uniforms.
“Assault,” I counted off on my fingers. “Assault with a deadly weapon. Conduct unbecoming a knight. Endangerment of civilians. Frivolous use of firearm in a public place. Resisting arrest. Drunk and disorderly.”
“I was neither drunk nor disorderly.” Andrea clenched her teeth. She was about five feet two inches, petite and blonde, and didn’t seem at all like the person who’d hold someone’s head under water.
“No, I’m sure you were drowning her in a completely calm and professional manner. Beau Clayton is a crack shot. You’re lucky he didn’t empty his clip into your head. You brought a gun to the hot tub. Who does that?”
Andrea folded her hands on her chest. “Look, I know I screwed up. I don’t need a lecture.”
The door behind us swung open with a screech. A deputy stuck his head out. “Daniels?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve got a phone call from the Order.”
Now what? I looked at Raphael. My heart skipped a beat. No man should’ve looked good in an orange potato sack. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell Raphael that. Given that he was my best friend’s ‘fellah’, I was used to the impact, but occasionally he caught me off guard.
“Take her home,” I said. “Don’t stop at the hotel. Have somebody come back and pick up your things later. If Andrea remains in Milton, she will be shot. You both owe me."
He nodded. “We’ll run it.”
Andrea snorted.
They jogged down the stairs and broke into run, melting into the night with unnatural speed. Ted Moynohan was right. There was something odd about Andrea. Lyc-V, the virus responsible for the existence of shapeshifters, affected both animal and humans. Very rarely an infected animal gained ability to transform into a human, and even more rarely, it was able to mate. Andrea’s mother was a bouda, like Raphael, but her father was hyenawere, born an animal, which made Andrea beastkin. She hid it from everyone. From the Order, because the Order suffered no monsters who weren’t fully human in its ranks. From other shapeshifters, because some in the Pack would try to murder her due to an ancient, deep-seated prejudice against beastkin. Only a handful of people knew her secret and all of us wanted to keep it that way.
“Daniels. Phone.”
I went inside and picked up the phone. “Kate Daniels.”
“Kate?” Maxine’s voice vibrated with an unusual note of urgency. “I know your shift is done, but I have an emergency petition and nobody to handle it.”
Argh. “What’s the petition?”
“Someone attacked the Steel Horse.”
“Steel Horse? The teamster bar?”
“Yes.”
In our day and age, shipping happened by horse or leylines, currents of magic which dragged the goods across the landscape. The leylines threw you out at certain points, often straight into the ambush of enterprising locals, whom you had to fight off until you and your shipment managed to reenter the current. Teamsters made sure goods got where they needed to go by any means necessary. When people said “teamster”, they usually meant a mean, brutal thug about six feet tall, strong as an ox and carrying enough hardware to demolish a small army. The Steel Horse was the watering hole where those pleasant fellows blew off their steam.
“Details?”
“Someone started a fight and departed. They have something cornered in a cellar and they’re afraid to let it out. They’re hysterical. At least one fatality.” Her voice broke with the last word.
“Maxine?”
“Just get there as soon as you can.”
“I’ll be there in twenty…” I listened to the disconnect signal. Maxine never lost her composure. Something went seriously wrong at Steel Horse and I was about to work my mule into a sweat getting there. Hopefully I’d make it fast enough to fix whatever put that note of anxiety into Maxine’s voice.
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and the phonecall 
about buying the ebook while the pb was on it's way but understandable. the series is addictive 
You recommended it to you?
But the ones you have mentioned are def among my faves too 
Good to know my sig had such a big impact... hopefully it happens more often from now on 
Not after everything he has gone through to get her!
