Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

of underworld current, I shift, my point of view lowering to half my human height. I look up at the human faces high above me. Brenner and Hillerman watch Russo closely. His eyes have doubled in size. I can hear his breaths deepening as he struggles to maintain composure.

Okay, I didn’t really think this through, and now I’m not sure what to do. Should I wag my tail like a dog? I sit down, but that feels even more awkward, so I prance up to Russo. He’s holding my shoe. I snatch it in my teeth and drop it onto my pile of clothes.

Russo follows my every move with growing emotion. At first he seems wondrous, like a kid seeing Santa Claus. But just as he seems about to break into a wide smile, he averts his eyes and takes a deep breath. His brow is creased with concern.

Alarmed, I shift back. “Russo? You still with us?”

His voice is solemn. “I’m with you. To be honest, I’m pretty damn jazzed right now.”

“This is you jazzed?”

“This is me taking a moment to respect present company. Brenner and Special Agent Hillerman, I see you now. For the first time, I guess. I’m sure I don’t know the half of it—and I never could—if you both learned about this on your own, the hard way, I can’t imagine the nightmare. The fact that you’re still here, and you are the way you are…I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Hillerman’s hands are balled into fists. “I wasn’t on my own. I had Matt.”

“Of course. My apologies.”

“I’m headed back to the house.” She sets her jaw and forges toward the front doors through thick, awkward silence.

The instant the door clicks shut behind her, I begin to apologize to Russo on her behalf, but he cuts me off with a sudden, startling shout. “HOLY HAIRLESS BALLS. What the…what!” He shakes Brenner by the shoulders. Then he points at me. “And what! I mean, not about you being totally naked right now, but the other thing!”

“The thing where your partner’s fiancée is a woodland animal?”

“That thing, yes. Do it again! No, don’t, it probably hurts. Does it hurt? Wait, am I really going undercover as a wizard? Will I use real magic?”

“Hell no. Did you take real drugs when you guys were undercover? Wait, don’t answer that. The point is, no, we gotta fake the hell out of this. I got a way, but I’m telling you right now, it will only work if you’re 100 percent willing.”

Russo’s not even listening. He exclaims, “Oh! I have a costume. A wizard costume; I keep it in the back of my closet.”

Jay rocks back on his heels, horrified. “Wait, what?” Apparently there are some things not even shared among partners.

Russo erupts with laughter. “Oh, right, so vampires are real, but my secret is the real shock?” Rolling each of us into one of his massive arms, he smashes us against his sides. “I’m going to be a wizard!”

“I’d say he’s pretty willing,” I wisecrack.

Jay grits his teeth in pain. “100 percent.”

The reopening of a new and improved Underworld is, not surprisingly, the premiere “can’t miss” event of the year for every underworlder within a hundred miles. Terrance really ought to thank Nora Jacobs for nearly destroying the place in her fight against Henry Stadther. Old Fat Fingers even thought to replace the code box on the employee entrance, so I had to freeze my tail off in the massive line outside with everybody else. At least he was in a good enough mood to let me sneak Jay in through the back door. There’s no way a human would have survived the crowd out front.

“Don’t make aggressive eye contact,” I shout into Jay’s ear over the blaring music, “but don’t not make eye contact, either.”

He shakes loose of my crushing grip. “You know, it’s not dumb luck that I survived years undercover in one of the toughest cities in the world. I know how to fit into places like this.”

“Oh, good, because when we first met, I seem to remember something about you hiding in the back seat of my car.”

“That was the street. This is a dance club. It’s a damn peacock show. Look at that guy.” He means the gray-skinned sylph wearing nothing but a diaper made of swan feathers. Seeing Jay pointing at him, the sylph bares a mouthful of fangs and snaps at his finger. Jay leaps back with a shout.

“Yeah, babe, except here the peacocks rip your face off.”

“I can handle it.” He’s on edge now, eyes darting all over the place, clenching and unclenching his fists as we push toward the bar.

Two drunken pixies cavort with each other in our way. When Jay firmly moves them aside, the fey begin to snarl, but seeing me wearing a threatening smile, they both back down. A lumbering troll throws his shoulder into Jay. I flash my FUA badge at the brute, and he quickly steers clear of us. I hide the badge before Jay can see it.

“See what I mean?” he says.

“Go get ’em, babe. You totally got this.”

The best improvement of the new Underworld is the bar, for two reasons. First of all, it’s gargantuan, spanning the entire length of the building, and second, Nora Jacobs is no longer behind it. I see half a dozen new bartenders trying to keep up with all the orders being shouted. The bar’s supervisor—still and forever, it seems—is Wulf the wolf. I’m flattered when he picks my face out of the crowd and sends me a gentlemanly nod and a wink. But then he notices Jay, and Wulf’s warm welcome turns cold. He shakes his head at me, like a parent scolding a child. And like a child responding to a parent, I flip him off.

Jay scans faces up and down the bar. “She’s not here, Shayne. What happens if Russo gets here before she does?”

“Relax.”

“Babe, he just found out that Halloween is real,