Hard Bitten - Chloe Neill [22]
Ethan must have made a phone call.
“Hot beef in the name of peace,” I murmured, then hustled across the street to my ride, a boxy orange Volvo. The car was old and had seen better days, but it got me where I needed to go.
Tonight, I needed to go south.
You’d think a name as fancy as “Ombudsman” (which really meant “liaison”) would have gotten my grandfather a nice office in some fancy city building in the Loop.
But Chuck Merit, cop turned supernatural administrator, was a man of the people, supernatural or otherwise. So instead of a swank office with a river view, he had a squat brick building on the South Side in a neighborhood where the lawns were surrounded by chain-link fences.
Normally, the street was quiet. But tonight, cars spilled across the office’s yard and down the street a couple of blocks. I’d seen my grandfather surrounded by cars before—at his house in the midst of a water-nymph catfight. Those vehicles had been roadsters with recognizable vanity plates; these were beat-up, harddriven vehicles with rusty bumpers and paint splatter.
I parked and made my way across the yard. The door was unlocked, unusual for the office, and music—Johnny Cash’s rumbling voice—echoed throughout.
The building’s decor was all 1970s, but the problems were modern and paranormally driven. So, I assumed, were the boxy men and women who mingled in the hallways, plastic cups of orange drink in hand. They turned and stared at me as I wove through them, their smallish eyes watching as I walked down the hallway. Their features were similar, like they might have been cousins related by common grandparents. All had slightly porcine faces, upturned noses, and apple cheeks.
On my way back to the office Catcher shared with Jeff Christopher—an adorable shifter with mad tech skills and a former crush on me—I passed a large table of fruit: spears of pineapple and red-orange papaya in a watermelon bowl; blood orange slices dotted with pomegranate seeds; and a pineapple shell full of blueberries and grapes. Snacks for the office guests, I assumed.
“Merit!” Jeff’s head popped out from a doorway, and he beckoned me inside. I squeezed through a few more men and women and into the office. Catcher was nowhere in sight.
“We saw you on the security monitor,” Jeff said, moving to the chair behind his bank of computer monitors. His brown hair was getting longer, and nearly reached his shoulders now. It was straight and parted down the middle, and currently tucked behind his ears. Jeff had paired a button-up shirt, as he always did, with khakis, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, presumably to give him room to maneuver over his monstrous keyboard. Jeff was tall and lanky, but what he lacked in mass he more than made up for in fighting skills. He was a shifter, and a force to be reckoned with.
“Thanks for finding me,” I told him. “What’s going on out there?”
“Open house for river trolls.”
Of course it was. “I thought the water nymphs controlled the river?”
“They do. They draw the lines; the trolls enforce them.”
“And the fruit?”
Jeff smiled. “Good catch. River trolls are vegetarians. Fruitarians, really. Offer up fruit and you can lure them out from beneath the bridges.”
“And they prefer not to leave the bridges.”
I glanced back. Catcher stood in the doorway, plate of fruit in hand and, just as Mallory had said, rectangular frames perched on his nose. They were an interesting contrast with the shaved head and pale green eyes, but they totally worked. He’d gone from buff martial arts expert to ripped smart-boy. The Sentinel definitely approved. I also approved of his typically snarky T-shirt. Today’s read I GOT OUT OF BED FOR THIS?
“Mr. Bell,” I said, offering a small salute to my former katana trainer. “I like the glasses.”
“I appreciate your approval.” He moved to his desk and began stabbing the fruit with a toothpick.
So, Catcher