Catnip & Curses (The Faerie Files Book 2) Read online

  “Resource Planning includes accounting, yes,” Harris explained. “Look, the higher-ups have never been huge fans of the Occult Crimes Division. Nobody outside the OCD knows exactly what we do, but one thing’s been made clear—we don't look good on paper.”

  He sighed again and ran a hand through his graying hair before shaking his head.

  “You know the drill; every time a new administration comes in, there’s always some prick who thinks they can make a name for themselves by shaving off a million here, a million there. Sure it looks good for taxpayers, until you realize that all those budget cuts paved the way for cartels and Russian hackers to waltz in and make a mess of things . . . not to mention the vampire outbreaks that keep popping up.”

  “Tell me about it,” I scoffed. “They’re getting harder to catch.”

  “I know,” Harris agreed with a nod. “And you’re doing a fine job of neutralizing those threats before they get out of hand, but that costs money. Everything we do has to look perfect on paper, and completely legitimate. Every penny has to be accounted for and all the math has to point to one thing—that the FBI is doing the best damn job in the whole world. The bureau has a reputation to uphold. A reputation that's apparently being tarnished by one little grey spot on their records.”

  I was more confused than ever and tried to look deep into Harris' eyes for some sort of idea as to what he was thinking, but all I saw in his face was anger.

  “Is this about blowing up the Navigator?” I asked. “Because that was an accident.”

  “So was the Tahoe,” Hawthorne added. “And the Town Car.”

  “Christ almighty, you’ve gone through that many vehicles already?”

  I gave a little shrug. “It’s not like I was trying to hit that werewolf on purpose. He came out of nowhere!”

  Harris threw his arms up, exasperated.

  “I know, alright? I know. But apparently, the Resource Planning Office is starting to question why so much of the bureau’s funding has been going to a department that chases after things that no one else believes in. When you turn in your expense report and list the cause of accident as ‘collision with werewolf’, someone’s going to ask questions.”

  “Pffft. They can ask all the questions they want,” I huffed. “That doesn’t change the fact that I hit a werewolf, not a damn deer! I don't care if no one believes in them.”

  “Can you imagine the trouble people would be in if we weren't around to solve these cases?” Logan replied. “Remember the chupacabra that was wandering around Oklahoma the other week eating all the livestock? He'd still be walking around, terrorizing everyone if it wasn’t for us.”

  “I know, I know, Agent Hawthorne. You're preaching to the choir here. I'm on your side, but some decisions are beyond my control.”

  Logan was watching him intently, frowning so hard he had two deep lines carved into his forehead.

  “I don't get it. If the Resource Planning Office is so worried about justifying our budget, then why did you say we’re adding two more agents to the OCD?”

  For the first time since I joined the FBI, Harris looked as though he was on the verge of cracking up. Bending down, he buried his face in his hands and let out a low grumbling noise as though he was in agony.

  “I was trying to go easy on you two,” he explained. “The agents from Resource Planning will be shadowing you on the job while they conduct an audit.”

  Logan scrubbed his face with his hand, smothering a groan. His foot had started tapping in agitation against the leg of his chair. “Ugh, an audit? For how long?”

  “As long as it takes,” Harris replied, raising his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Now don’t shoot the messenger. The people overseeing our budget want to see how that money gets spent and where it all goes. It’s been in the pipeline for a while. All I know is that they’re sending a couple of hardass pen-pushers who’re known for trimming the fat around here. Oh . . . and they’re skeptics.”

  “Aw, great. That’ll be fun,” I scowled. “So let me get this straight—we have to babysit a couple of randos from accounting and convince them to believe in the unbelievable if we wanna keep our jobs?”

  “Pretty much. Except it’s not just your jobs,” Harris said, pointing at me and my partner. “It’s you, me, and everyone else in the OCD. If this goes badly, the entire division will cease to exist.”

  Logan’s shoulders fell, and he cast me a dubious look before turning to our boss.

  “Do you have any advice for us?”

  Chief Harris shot him a wry grin.

  “Not really, except to say good luck. And don’t fuck it up.”

  2

  Logan

  I’d left the office half an hour ago, and I was still letting Chief Harris’s words sink in.

  “If this goes badly, the entire division will cease to exist.”

  If Elena and I failed at this, we were all screwed. I wanted to hit something. I balled my hand into a fist, letting my fingernails dig into my palm. Then I flexed and reached for my glass of Patrón.

  “Is everything all right here?” the waitress asked.

  “Yeah. It’s fine,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “I’ll take another margarita,” Elena said in between gulps of her second drink. She’d forgone the straw to chug them down faster. Our waitress gave a nod and rushed off towards the bar.

  “If you’re trying to get drunk, why don’t you order them on the rocks instead of frozen?”

  “This way I don’t have to have a glass of water in between drinks,” she reasoned.

  “How do you not get brain freeze?” I asked, watching her press the salt-rimmed glass to her lips. Little translucent crystals stuck to the corner of her mouth, and for some reason, I couldn’t look away from her tongue. It was stained pinkish-red from the strawberry margarita mix. The deep, unnatural color went surprisingly well with her vibrant hot pink hair. There was a glob of sour cream in her long ponytail, although I wasn’t paying attention at that particular moment. My eyes were riveted on that little wet tongue as it darted out to lick the salt away from the corner of her mouth . . . and I immediately got hard.

  Fucking hell.

  I gave Elena so much shit for what she ate and also the way she ate. It didn’t matter what it was, she’d find a way to get it all over her mouth, her chin, and even in her goddamn hair. I used to hate when she talked with her mouth full, but now that I was sitting in this Mexican restaurant, watching her lick the salt off the rim of her glass while I had a huge boner, all I could think about was if that behavior translated to blowjobs.

  “I’ve never experienced that before,” she said, knocking me out of my private thoughts.

  “I’m sorry—what?” I started to panic and focused on the half-eaten platter of nachos sitting between us. I didn’t think she could read my mind.

  “You asked me if I ever got brain freeze. As far as I know, I’ve never had it,” she said with a shrug, and I breathed a sigh of relief. We’d been working together for months, although I learned something new about her or the supernatural every day. “I suppose it’s because faerie blood runs hot.”

  “That explains your temper.”

  Elena’s brilliant green eyes flashed at me, and I felt the swelling in my pants get worse. “At least I’m not the one who whipped an apple core at Allan’s head.”

  That did the trick. Thinking of Allan’s pinched little rat face was all it took to make me soft again.

  “I don’t know what the hell I was thinking,” I said, and loaded a few more nachos onto my plate.

  “I think he hit a nerve,” she teased. “Telling us to get a room. Like sleeping together would make us get along? Pshhh.”

  “We’d get along better if you weren’t so crazy,” I pointed out as I willed myself not to blush. “Who the hell uses candy wrappers as a filing system?”

  Elena pretended to look insulted.

  “Obviously, I do. And it works just fine.”

  “You litera
lly dumped trash on my desk.”

  “That’s because you threw those cold case files in the garbage!”

  “Because they were full of garbage,” I reminded her. “One of the folders had a half-eaten sucker stuck to it.”

  Her eyes lit up. “Was it heart-shaped?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I was wondering where that went!”

  Our waitress returned just long enough to swap out her drinks, then left us alone.

  “Look, Elena . . . I know you’ve got Chief Harris wrapped around your finger, but the guys from the Resource Planning Office won’t think it’s cute when they see how messy you are. They’ll see you as unprofessional. You need to step up your game. Forget about your crazy pink hair or your pigsty of a desk. You’ve got a filthy mouth and you live in ripped-up jeans and t-shirts. Do you even own a suit?”

  I watched my partner of seven and a half months as she began to rage-eat nachos with that filthy mouth.

  “Why the fuck would I own a fucking suit?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said with a breezy half-shrug. “I guess I thought you were an FBI agent. But you just look like some punk-ass kid who doesn’t take anything seriously. In fact, the first time I saw you, I thought you were Chief Harris’s daughter who’d been kicked out of college.”

  While I ate a couple of nachos, Elena narrowed her eyes at me in such a way that made me glad we’d driven to the restaurant separately.

  “If this margarita wasn’t so good, I’d throw it right in your football frat boy face!”

  “Which would only prove the point I’m trying to make,” I explained. I was used to being the calm, rational one between the two of us, but the pressure of what we were up against was getting to me. Why else would I be so dumb as to critique my partner?

  “This audit is a big fucking deal, Elena. I’m going to do everything I can to save our department and our jobs, but I need your help. I don’t want to give these pricks any bullshit excuse for shutting us down.”

  “Neither do I,” she said with a frown. “These assholes are accountants, right? They only care about how things look on paper. I do my job, and I’m great at it! Who gives a shit if I wear a suit or drop the occasional F-bomb? That has nothing to do with how much money we’re costing the bureau.”

  “Sure it does. Harris told us that the bureau has a reputation to uphold. Well, you’re part of that reputation. But if you don’t look like you take this job seriously, the guys who fund the OCD won’t take you seriously. Please just try doing things my way for once. I want to see you in a suit tomorrow morning. And do something about your nails.”

  “My nails? What’s wrong with my nails?” Elena glared at me, then studied the chipped black polish that had been peeling off her fingertips for weeks.

  “Either take off the polish or get a manicure,” I said, and took another sip of Patrón. “I shouldn’t be the one giving you this kind of advice. I suppose it makes sense, though. Bridget was a pageant girl. You wouldn’t believe the shit those girls do backstage.”

  “I don't fucking believe this!” Elena seethed under her breath. God, I was glad we were in public, although I wasn’t too concerned about what she might do. I’d sat through plenty of meals with her and watched her get her panties in a twist over one thing or another. It was like trying to piss off a kitten. Lots of hissing with claws out, and not much else.

  Okay, so sometimes she threw things. Not usually. And while she might’ve had faerie strength, I was twice her size. If she totally lost her shit, I could handle her.

  “Listen,” I began, “I'm not happy about this either. It’s not personal. It’s part of the job we signed up for. If we can deal with a demon who specializes in child sacrifice, we can handle a couple of accountants following us around.” I paused to lean forward, hoping to prove my point. “Elena, I’ve never asked you to change who you are—I’m only asking you to edit yourself a little while we’re under the microscope.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she blew out a breath and sank into the corner of the booth. I’d made a damn fine argument and she knew it.

  “All we have to do is show them what we do, and that what we do is real. Don’t forget that I used to be a skeptic, too. When you first told me you were fae, I thought you were on drugs.”

  I looked across the table and saw Elena’s face begin to soften. I knew she was thinking the same thing as me, about how I’d gone from thinking she was full of shit to believing her more often than not.

  “Yeah,” she said with a begrudging smile. “You've changed a lot since then.”

  “All we have to do is show them a goblin up close and personal and they’ll approve our budget. It'll be fine. We got this.”

  Elena signaled for our waitress to bring over the check, then gulped down the remainder of her margarita, using the back of her hand as a napkin.

  “A goblin? C’mon. I was thinking of something that’ll scare the shit out of them. I hope our next case is something awful . . . maybe another werewolf. Maybe a whole pack.”

  She gave a maniacal little laugh and pulled a few bills out of her purse, leaving them on the table as she dragged herself out of the booth.

  “What’s the rush?” I asked. It wasn’t like her to leave behind a quarter plate of nachos.

  “I told you, I don’t own a fucking suit. I guess I better find one before the stores close.”

  As the clock struck eleven that night I lay in bed with a stomach full of chicken nachos, tequila, and a ball of nerves. I’d been confident at dinner, but the truth was that I was genuinely concerned about how this audit would go. I’d never been directly involved in one before. And while I could control my behavior, my partner was a loose cannon. It took all of my spare energy to keep her in check.

  No wonder I was so tired.

  Across the bottom of the bed, a black blob sat on top of the comforter. From where I lay, I could see Lafayette curled in a ball with one hind leg sticking out. I watched him groom the length of his leg, then down along his foot with an intense look of concentration in his bright green eyes. Completely immersed in his evening ritual, he set to work cleaning each individual toe. Then he switched legs and repeated every step.

  I could’ve watched him for hours. There was something so fascinating about the graceful, elegant way that cats groomed themselves. Whenever I took a shower, I scrubbed what needed to be scrubbed and got the hell out. Then I’d shave, put on deodorant, and run a comb through my hair. That was it.

  But with Lafayette, each moment of preening was so meticulous and drawn out that he may as well have been performing a magic ritual. For all I knew, that was exactly what he was doing. His coat had finally grown in, eliminating all of the uneven patches where he’d been shaved in his past life. Now his hair was long and silky, and his tail was as fluffy as a fox’s.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you're deciding whether to pet me or eat me.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking,” I said, watching him run his tongue down his long, glistening black hair. “I’ve never had a cat before. I just like watching you, okay? Is that so weird?”

  “I don’t watch you bathe.”

  “That’s because I do it in the shower. In private. I don’t sit on the edge of your cat tree and wash my ass.”

  Lafayette glared at me.

  “You can leave anytime.”

  “I live here!” I was tempted to throw a pillow at him, but the retribution would be fierce. I turned off the light and rolled onto my side, wondering if I’d be able to fall asleep without being interrupted repeatedly.

  It wasn’t meant to be.

  Lafayette crept close to me, finding the hollow of my stomach, then reached up and began to knead my bicep through the blankets.

  “You’re out of the food I like.”

  “No we’re not. There’s plenty in the pantry.”

  “I don’t like the chicken and
giblets,” Lafayette said, still kneading gently. “The filet mignon is my favorite.”

  “I’m not getting more until you eat the other stuff first,” I mumbled into my pillow.

  “Sylvia always had my favorite,” he said, sounding wistful.

  “She also had about a hundred other cats to feed,” I groaned, remembering the smell of molding furniture stained with cat piss. “Maybe I should get another cat to eat all the chicken and giblets so you don’t have to. What do you think of having a cute little kitten to play with?”

  Lafayette’s claws came out, snagging on the blanket.

  “I hate you.”

  “No you don’t.” I grinned, turning onto my back so I could grab my phone. Even in the dark, I could tell he was sulking. I brought up Petfinder and searched for kittens in the DC area. There were multiple pages of them.

  “How about this little cutie?” I asked, holding up the picture of a wide-eyed tortoiseshell kitten. Lafayette’s bushy tail swung violently from one side to another.

  “You’re the worst.”

  “Aww, I think I should fill out an application,” I grinned while I tapped on her profile. “Oh! Looks like she’s bonded to another kitten. Oooh, a little boy Maine Coon cat. So it looks like you’ll have two new siblings instead of just one. And your new brother’s going to be huge.”

  More violent swishing ensued.

  “I can’t even with you right now. This is how it starts, you know,” he said, glaring at me with his demonic green eyes. “You get one cat, then another and suddenly—”

  “You're Sylvia. Which reminds me that Elena talked to her this morning.”

  Ever since Elena and I had returned from Yarbrough, life moved on and new cases landed on our desks every week, but Sylvia had remained a constant in our lives. She usually talked to Elena, but sometimes she called me. There was always something going on now that she lived with her niece. Sylvia kept us up to date with all of their escapades, her cats' birthdays, and gossip from Yarbrough, since I’d killed their sheriff. Having Sylvia in our lives was like having an eccentric distant grandma.