Life With A Werewolf

Unwelcomed Neighbors Part 6 - Calling In Favors

         It took a lot to get the mythicals out of the county. There was one death from the stench, someone's home had been bombed especially bad. It was an elderly woman who was also a werewolf. They never hurt anyone, kept to themselves and didn't ever become involved in anything. Essentially, she and her husband were completely innocent. I doubt of Garret and his merry band of fancy luggage had ever even laid eyes on her.
          The cover story was some sort of gas leak. The town would probably use the cover as an excuse to begin replacing water pipes. But for then, it was just a misfit group of refugees sitting in another county's hotel while the emergency crews went through it and began the difficult process of clean up. Which meant that most of us could only sit by and watch while the police attempted to handle the issues with the rougarou. That went about as well as you'd imagine.
          The rougarou didn't bother fighting back. They'd just laugh, then run. The cops would give chase, sirens screaming and radios shouting to coordinate efforts to corner them on a town street somewhere or in a public place. But no matter what they did, they couldn't seem to catch Garret and his minions. They'd cut through the woods at speeds that the police had trouble keeping up with. The lawyer that Garret seemed to have found, some hotshot from a much larger city, had effectively handcuffed them from doing anything on the property itself. No warrants could be issued because the chemical concoction wasn't a controlled substance. The most they could be charged with, he argued, was littering. Littering wasn't an offense that warranted a search warrant.
          I had attempted to argue with the boss that they had effectively poisoned the population. The way he explained it to me was that there was no way they could make such a claim. It was true that the mythical population, or as he called it, the 'non-human community' had been poisoned. Trouble was, court records could be searched by almost anyone. So, they couldn't legally claim that the chemical concoction was designed to poison even "certain residents", out of danger of someone searching for it later. It made sense. After all, the people who destroyed the twin towers in 9-11 had gotten the idea from listening to the court cases of the original trade center bombers back in the nineties. Dangerous ideas can come from court cases and it's best to not to put certain things on the books. It was why officers of his office had such broad scope of powers. Court, literally, couldn't hold certain people.
          It made sense, but it had backed everyone into a corner. We were seated at a Holiday Inn eating rubbery eggs and microwaved bacon. The kind of bacon that comes precooked and gets shoved into a steam tray for hours on end. The lobby area they had set aside of their continental breakfast had several images of local buildings blown up and drawn abstractedly over vibrant colors. A corporate imitation of Andy Worhol used as decoration for a generic hotel.
          I'd stared at that image of what must have been a court house from a hundred years ago, but had come to amount to little more than literal pale imitations of sketches on a wall. Garret was working at something. He'd effectively pushed every mythical out of the county that wasn't a rougarou. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it happened in a certain way. And the regular cops weren't able to get on his property at all. As if he was hiding something there.
          "Boss, I'm going to need to call in help."
          He gave me a gruff laugh. The color had returned to the large man's face, but he was still weak. Most of the mythical population hadn't shifted into their other forms since being poisioned. Crash was the only one who managed it, and that had been mostly because he was in werewolf mode when he got poisoned. The boss just shook his head.
          "No. You're staying here until this gets dealt with. Once the county is clean we will go through and..."
         "Get poisoned again," I said. The interruption made him grit his teeth and I was about to get my ass chewed. So, I kept going. "Here me out. My previous occupation gave me connection with a few individuals who will have fun with this sort of thing. Whatever is going on is on that property. I'm able to go and check it being a full member of the office.
          "You're a part-time paper pusher who is currently pushing his damn boundaries."
         I shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first time I pushed into places nobody wanted me to go. Remember, that used to be my damn job in another lifetime."
         I could hear him grit his teeth. He knew I was right. But to look on his face said how much he hated that how right I was. It was the look of a man who was preparing to mourn. I just smiled at him. "Hey, I promise he won't destroy half the damn county."
         "What does Crash say?"
         I gave a noncommittal shrug. "He's catching up on modern daytime television. You know there appears to be more court shows than regular daytime dramas and reality shows these days? It's like you gotta pass the bar if you want to be a TV star."
         "When this is over, you're never getting out of the office. You hear me? A year of paperwork. A decade of paperwork. You'll be filling out every form for everyone in the damn office until you die. Then I'll find a necromancer to drag your corpse from the grave to do more paperwork."
         Luck. It should be pushed sometimes. I pushed mine when I gave bossman a confident smirk and said "Aww. I didn't know you cared."
         You know, mythicals can move pretty fast, even when poisoned? And that slap to the back of my head hurt! I honestly felt some claws in it. Rubbing my head, as I made my way to my car, I pulled out my phone and began to type a text message to someone that I hadn't expected I'd ever text ever again.
         Thing is, it wasn't as if I wanted to cut half the people in my life out. It was more of a closing of a chapter. I didn't keep up with certain names and individuals in my life because that chapter was done. My life had migrated to a brand new location. Heart, mind and soul needed to concentrate on the present day, and that's difficult for a person like me to do so when one foot keeps drifting back to the past. Either that, or it's an excuse to not face what I'd lost. You know, either or.
         Still, I'd taken a deep breath and texted a number that I didn't think I'd ever text again. He had saved my ass more times than I could count in another time and place. I'd saved him just as much, and though the "score", if you could ever call it a score, was even between us. Still, he'd always told me he owed me. Part of me was hoping and praying he'd still think so when he heard what I had to tell him. It was our last chance to stop Garret at whatever the hell he was doing.