“What?” he snarled, not especially viciously, but enough to make Ness, at her desk, smirk to herself.
Ray glanced over the top of his desk, some files neatly arranged in a tray, Penn’s cellphone, the desk phone covered in stickers of tiny cartoon wolves. Since he didn’t know if that was a prank from his coworkers or some sort of gift from Cal, Ray chose to ignore them. Considering he didn’t remember them, he was guessing Cal had done it. The one on the phone itself read, “Awooo!” in rainbow letters.
“Wow, he actually stayed put,” Penn remarked. She was on the opposite side of the room, coming down from the upstairs offices, but she didn’t raise her voice, knowing Ray would hear.
Ray held in a small sigh of relief and waited for her to sit down at her desk before demanding, “Steve? Steve was the demon he used?”
“Steve was very apologetic about it,” Penn explained. “He’s in therapy now to help him deal with the guilt, even though of course it wasn’t his fault he was under a human’s control. You know Benny wondered once if humans consistently choose demons to control with magic because of demons’ reputations and strength, or if some demons were too suggestible to consider fighting the magic the way a troll or a were might. How much did you listen to? Did you want to hear more?”
Ray shook his head, not wanting to imagine Steve, terrifying-looking but the most laid-back person Ray had ever met, hurting Cal or anyone else. It would haunt Ray later, but he didn’t want to think of it now, with the noise around him almost too loud and his head throbbing.
“I don’t need to hear more if you’re satisfied,” he said, not explaining the rest. “But what did Ross mean,Some dope to keep?“ Cal had said something like that too, more flattering, but similar enough.
“Hmm. Well… you should ask Cal about it. You’ve never been a fan of the term. It sounds like a mistress or a kept boy or something, and you’re just sensitive enough to be bothered by that.” Penn didn’t even bother to smile to gentle that. “But it’s what some fairies call their long-term relationships. Or at least, I believe that’s what they mean. Something something, their happiness, something something. Protection, and love and…” She frowned delicately. “With Cal, probably also the right to defend or avenge you. So, be careful, lest the citizens of Los Cerros have to deal with his wrath.”
Ray’s frown was not delicate. “He said I’m his happiness.”
“And fairies don’t lie.” Penn said it easily while holding out her hand for her phone.
Ray handed it over. “He’s only part fairy.”
Penn paused to give Ray a chilling look that she’d learned from her mother, but Ray was not going to bring her up when Penn had so much going on already. Penn began sifting through the files sitting on her desk, so Ray took that as his cue to do the same.
His desktop held notes about court dates, a calendar, an in-tray containing a toxicology report Ray remembered asking for weeks ago, a coupon to some place called Sugarbuns Baking Co.in Madera, a spare phone charger, and a computer he at least knew the password to, but nothing on it seemed remarkable or even interesting. He wouldn’t have left anything interesting on the work computer anyway. Anyone from IT could be ordered to access it.
The paranoid thought made Ray pause, then continue on with his search for something familiar, but more carefully this time. He reached for a drawer, only to find them all locked instead of just the usual one.
“Is it difficult for you to believe that you’d be someone’s happiness?” Penn asked out of nowhere, watching Ray scowl at his wallet as he dug out the key. Penn regarded Ray warily when he looked up. “I know what people want, Ray. I don’t know their fears unless their fears are also their wants. I wouldn’t have guessed that, about you.”
Ray tore the drawer open, breaking the lock and ensuring the drawer would never close right again.
“Detective Del Mar.” The hesitant interruption brought of their heads up. Rita, one of the admins, smiled nervously at Penn. She always smiled nervously around Penn. She reeked of nerves too, and a hint of arousal; a scent combination Ray associated with certain humans reacting to Penn. Ray would have said that whatever Rita secretly desired must have been shocking or shameful to make her fear what Penn knew, but humans could feel that way about harmless needs, depending on their upbringing, and it was also possible Rita’s fears—and desires—were about the talons and teeth Penn so rarely revealed.
“They want you back upstairs,” Rita tacked on, as if just realizing she hadn’t been speaking. “Sorry.”
Penn got up after a long sigh, waving down Ray again although he hadn’t moved. Ray, and Rita, watched her go, although Rita didn’t hear Penn assure someone who stopped her that Ray was just there to pick up paperwork.“You know him, he can’t sit still. Thanks for your concern.”
Ray wouldn’t have called it concern, but Penn was nicer than he was.
“You don’t look so hot,” Rita observed, too agitated to be cheeky, though she might have meant to be. She kept propping up the loosening bun atop her head. Brown strands of hair fell down her neck. Her pale hands were trembling. She must have been cold; the backs of them were mottled pink. “I never thought I’d see that.”
Ray briefly considered if she’d wanted to see it, then shrugged off the thought.
“They seem pretty pissed upstairs,” Rita offered. “Lieutenant Faulks said she sticks her nose in. But Captain Meyers said Detective Del Mar was smarter than that. Are you supposed to be here?”
“I’m not here,” Ray answered blandly. “I’m picking up paperwork to take home.”
Rita stared at him for a moment, not blinking, then gave Ray one of the anxious smiles she usually gave Penn. “Right. Of course. Well.”
Without another word, she turned on her heel and scurried back upstairs.
Ray debated trying to listen to any conversations up there, although he’d have to at least be near the stairs to filter out all the other noise. Penn was likely getting a lecture, either for going to see Ross, if the higher-ups knew about that yet, or for bringing Ray in. From which Ray inferred that someone had told them Ray was here, probably almost immediately.
He studied the bullpen area again. There wasn’t much activity, but there were some detectives at their desks. Staff members walked to and fro. An IT guy Ray didn’t know was swearing at someone’s computer.
Ray had been invited to and attended Detective Tolman’s bachelor party—a noisy event which had ended with Ray driving many drunk humans home. He bought wrapping paper and candy bars for Aguirre’s kids’ school fundraisers, and dutifully signed Get Well Soon and Happy Birthday cards when they were passed around. He’d covered shifts for some of them in his uniform days, going without sleep easier than humans did.
Ray didn’t need their concern. He wasn’t grieving. He wasn’t anything but tired. But concern, or at least outrage, should have been there. Even if weres didn’t feel pain, even if they thought so, they should have at least joked with him about it.
