Chapter One: Feet of Clay

Domestic disputes are always nastier when they’re cross-species.

I stood patiently on the muddy suburban lawn, listening as the tones of war filtered down the street into windows that everyone inside would doubtlessly later swear were closed. My partner and I had been waiting for what seemed like eternity, and I felt ridiculous standing next to the gigantic Hanukkah menorah erected on the loving couple’s lawn. The six-foot-tall tribute to how much of a nice, Jewish boy the husband was flickered with blue and white lights, making the entire area look like a strip club for Smurfs.

From across the lawn, my partner Newville gave me a long-suffering look as he shoved his hands under his armpits, his breath fogging in the air. Me, I haven’t breathed since the Nixon Administration. Still, I was getting impatient too, and mom’s cemetery closed soon. I promised her I’d visit.

At my side, tonight’s angry wife screamed invective across the lawn at her towering henpecked hubbie. Having bathed in this marital bliss for far too long, I waved over to Newville and he nodded back. After thirty years together, Newbie understood: be partners for long enough and you start to read each other’s mind. Alternately, hook yourself up with one of the clairvoyant tentacle guys from New England and you can get that package from day one. Still, he knew that I wanted to switch duties and babysit the other side of the happy couple. Newville stood up from the front stoop and placed his hand on the shoulder of the finely-made man of muscle standing patiently next to him. I knew he had to be giving out the same old assurances, and so I started my own spiel on the loud and lovely lady next to me.

Miss, I’m going over to my partner for a while. Can I get you anything from your kitchen?

She stared at me, eight feet of hate and spite shoved into six feet of implants. Designer clothes clung tightly to her skin for dear life, making me self-conscious about my coat, button-down shirt, tie, and slacks. Hell, even Newbie was better dressed than me, even if he looked like he had dressed for a job interview thirty years ago and never changed suits.

The wonderful woman in front of me represented the human part of tonight’s lover’s spat, which made the former human in me twinge at the misrepresentation. I dreaded hearing from lover boy about how she was sweet once you get to know her.

What I need, she spat out with a forceful pronunciation of each word, is for you and Tweedledum to leave us alone.

It’s hard to get respect when you look sixteen; that’s been pissing me off for decades. I smiled my stock I’m Not Thinking of Killing You Messily smile, standard issue equipment to all NYPD personnel, and nodded. Certainly. I’ll see if I can resolve this.

As I walked off in my partner’s direction, I heard her call after me. You’re not invited into my house, by the way!

Turning back and grinning, I made sure the points in my smile were extended and visible. The winter wind made a tangled lock of my long hair flash in front of my face. I hoped it was enough to make me look intimidating. You usually can’t pull out the red eyes on a civvy without earning some paperwork afterwards.

Ma’am, I casually said as I pulled the hair out of my eyes, you do realize that saying that to a detective could be considered, in some circles, an obstruction of justice?

A mean thrill shot through me as she stammered, her eyes staying trained on my mouth.

I’m sorry, but I—

My eyes are up here, you know.

Her gaze moved upwards from my fangs. I-I didn’t mean it—

No worries. I said while shrugging theatrically, flipping my badge up out of my pocket and dangling it like a bell. As long as I have this, I can go anywhere, after all. The city invited me. I spun away before she saw the scab-eating grin on my face.

Walking across the lawn, I met Newbie as he ambled towards Little Mary Sunshine. Not for the first time, my mind flashed to that old cartoon of the dog and wolf passing each other on the way to work.

Hey, Newbie. How’s it hanging?

Hey, Mildred. It’s shriveled too hard to hang. Too damn cold, and I’m too damn old for it.

I frowned. When your name is Mildred Heavewater, it’s hard to win a name-calling contest. Fifty-four is the new thirty, I hear. Watch out, Newbie, she’s a barrel of laughs.

He rubbed his nose. I dunno. I can’t tell which of us she's less happy to see on her lawn: the black man or the vampire.

As I walked toward the statuesque man on the front porch, Newbie called back to me.

You’ll like him! He's a perfect young man.

I consciously drew in breath to sigh for effect. The body handles talking fine, but certain things require effort as a living-impaired American. That’s what I’m afraid of.

Mister Loew was standing on his front porch, aiming an unblinking stare at his wife while hurt and confusion poured off of him. I felt kind of sorry for the guy; he literally wasn’t made for emotional minefields. Once I got within arm’s reach of him, a sense of calm and relaxation poured over me. Loew’s type has that kind of effect on people, especially on a nice girl like me with a silver Star of David around my neck. Get a Jew within arm’s reach of someone with flaming Hebrew letters on their forehead, and we just feel like nothing bad could happen.

Loew was handsome, I had to admit. He had finely chiseled features, and the rabbi who had chiseled them and brought them to life had obviously seen some romance novel covers. The clay he was carved out of approximated something akin to a human skin tone. Golems had come a long way since the mudslops I remember from my childhood. His eyes turned to me and I tried to repress a shudder, wondering how different parts moved inside a solid block of clay. It’s hard to read a vampire, since our bodies tend to stay dead still without the unconscious muscle movement, but Loew must have recognized something.

Officer Heavewater, he said in a relaxed and pleasant tone.

Detective, actually.

His eyebrows raised, a masterpiece of sculpted engineering. I would expect someone of lower rank in your place.

I shrugged and muttered something about being nearby. In reality, the department was as short-staffed as a flock of midget shepherds, but I wasn’t about to admit that.

You seem troubled, he continued. I am sorry for any inconvenience I might have caused you.

I nodded as I tried to smile. Golems get shit on enough without me having to add to it. It’s not you, Mister Loew. I could see him straighten proudly at the mister part. My partner and I are curious as to your wound. How’d a big, strong boy like you get such a cut?

He lifted his hand to his forehead stiffly and ran it across the six inch gash that lay just underneath his burning words. In the flickering of the flame, it looked ghastly.

I must have been careless, he said.

It never failed. I’ve seen that look in his eyes stare back at me from Russian immigrants, yuppie werewolves, and a young ghost girl whose husband systematically destroyed her remaining keepsakes in lieu of being able to touch her. It always kills me, or it would if a subway car hadn’t done that job first.

Both of us had stared at each other long enough for me to feel self-conscious, so I flipped out my notebook and started scribbling in it. Mister Loew, did your wife attack you?

He slowly blinked, an action that would have set a sculptor’s heart aflutter. It was definitely a conscious movement; the poor schlemiel was stalling me.

Mister Loew?

We have a wonderful relationship. There’s no need to cause her any trouble.

Dammit.

The neighbors seemed to disagree, I said with a flick of my thumb down the street. The complainant enjoyed comparing her to, my eyes flickered up the notebook, ’a rabid, screaming bulldog,’ apparently.

She’s really—

Sweet when you get to know her, yeah. I can imagine.

He stared back, silently running down my patience. Eventually I gave up and started rummaging through my coat pockets. All right, Mister Loew. I’m going to log this in as a possible assault. I don’t have enough to bring her in for now. If I get called in again, though, then I should be able to scare up sufficient cause. In the meantime, here’s a card for a battered spouse line for golems. It’s completely anonymous. I pushed it into his hand, notching a straight indentation into his palm that would doubtlessly heal soon.

He stood there for a few seconds as the earthy gears in his head spun, trying to work around the code of honor some rabbi had written onto his soul. In a normal case of spousal abuse, my words would’ve scared the victim into silence. With a golem, you have to play on their overriding desire to prevent harm.

The suspense finally died as he slipped the card into his pocket. I may just investigate this, Detective. Out of sheer curiosity, of course.

I felt an indescribable flush of relief as I decided to believe him. There followed a few moments of bureaucracy and small talk before I was free to relieve Newville, who was still babysitting the harpy across the lawn. Actually, I take that back. My best friend’s a harpy, and she’s decent people as long as you keep enough paper towels on hand.

This is unnecessary harassment! Her voice probably set dogs’ ears afire for blocks.

Newville stared straight through her while occasionally nodding in what I assumed was an automatic reaction. She paced back and forth in front of him, a bouncing ball of blond and curvy fury, and another pang of sympathy for Loew sprung up inside me. No Jewish boy I knew could have resisted that. She turned on me with a smile and an accusatory finger as I approached.

I want her off of my property! Your little sidekick threatened to arrest me!

Newville cocked his head. Heavewater, she tellin’ the truth?

I fumbled inside my coat for cigarettes, hoping to distract myself with lungs full of smoke. I couldn’t taste them worth a damn, but some heat in my chest might take my mind off this miserable night. Yup, I said as I squeezed one flat while looking at Mrs. Loew’s windpipe. Throwing it onto the lawn, I drew a new one out of the pack. It was right after she tried to disinvite me from the premises.

Her smile lit up like a cheap electric menorah.

Huh. Newville scratched his stubble. Well, we can do this. It’ll take some paperwork. How about we call it ‘resisting arrest,’ this time?

I remembered how much I love working with Newbie as her face went paler than mine.

Something like that, I agreed with a grin. Your handcuffs or mine?

The joyous moment of watching her panic was cruelly interrupted as a calm voice behind me asked, Is there a problem, detectives?

Newville took a nervous step back at the looming collection of clay and irritation. I-I told you to wait on the stoop.

Loew tilted his head slightly, keeping his glare directly on Newbie. It was a gesture worthy of an action movie villain, beautiful to behold if utterly toothless. Before things could pretend to escalate more, I stepped between them.

You did, Newville, I said as I rubbed my temple with an unlit cigarette, but he was worried about his wife. Priority programming.

Ah. Newbie visibly recovered now that I had reassured him that the big scary man was still playing by the rules. Turning back to Mrs. Loew, he fell back onto to the ancient policeman’s art of taunting the asshole.

I’d love to tie up your night, Mrs. Loew, but I got the runs bad and wouldn’t shit in your house if you paid me. He inclined his head and walked off.

As her face went pale, I mentally awarded Newbie an eight and a half with an excellent dismount. I narrowed my eyes at her as I tried to pass by. I think you’re hitting your husband, I said while jabbing an accusing cigarette at her. If I get wind of anything like this again, I’ll be back. The neighbors will call. They seem to like him.

Seconds later, as I opened the squad car door, she called out after me, Actually, he hits me sometimes.

I paused, less like a normal person would and more like an actress on a DVD. It’s so easy without the old instincts and reflexes getting in the way. I had just enough time to see Newville begin mouthing Oh sh- before I had covered the lawn in an angry dead blur only visible to high-end cameras. The wind I stirred up knocked over a gaudy inflatable rabbi, and he started to blow away in the breeze as if the Messiah had come.

Bullshit! The constant neighborhood prayer for an entertaining cop show was answered as I screamed in her face. I just hope none of those living room window voyeurs was recording me. I wasn’t worried about video recordings, of course, but my voice still turned up in audio recordings. That’s goddamn impossible, and you know it!

She backpedaled, taking a full step back, and that put her about half a step away from my grasp. Some surgeon had done a lot of work on her, and she had the length and jiggle to prove it. I-I-I could file a rep-

I snarled. I promised my Mom once that I’d stop doing that, but still, it came out. As it trailed off, Mister Loew was already standing in front of his wife, a very well-spoken wall flaming in the night.

For the last time, is there a problem, Detective Heavewater?

She was clinging to him, and that part sickened me most. I licked around the inside of my mouth, making sure my canines were retracted before I spoke, and waved him off.

No issue, Mister Loew. I was arguing with the misses. She was joking about a golem abusing a human.

That’s ridiculous, he said with the first trace of anger he had let slip that night. She’d never say such a thing. Loew tapped his head. The Great Rabbi’s Laws are in here. She knows that.

I had a golem math teacher once. It impressed on me how much they love lecturing us squishies. Still, I couldn’t let that one stand. Rabbi? You mean the science-fiction writer? He’d never have . . .

I got the Stare in return.

The Stare is something you notice if you’re around golems enough and actually pay attention to them. Some people don’t. Everybody knows one, the people who treat golems like furniture that can marry and own property. They don’t notice the Stare, but they sure earn it enough. The Stare tells you that fun time is over. It’s blank, emotionless, unfocused, and signals that the golem will only help you in the most minimal way. From that point on, you’re dealing with a snippy, anal-retentive, literal-minded robot.

The Great Rabbi would be proud.

Looking balefully at the slinking woman behind the wall of obstructing clay, I shrugged. Yeah, it must have been a joke. Golems hurting humans? Impossible. I just wished it worked the other way. Good night, Mister Loew.

I spun around and stomped back to the police car, possibly leaving a footprint in the concrete. A vindictive thrill rode through me as I imagined Mrs. Loew’s face in the morning. I flung open the passenger door and dropped unceremoniously into the seat, and Newville spared me a concerned look. What happened there?

I crossed my arms and let him stew for a moment. The lines in his wrapping-paper tinted face creased as he scratched his irregular white forest of a beard. Newville sighed after a second, turning his attention to the grease-soaked bag in his lap. I swear, he must keep an emergency sandwich in the car somewhere. It would explain the smell. After a few seconds of sullen silence, he took his gaze off of his bread-wrapped slab and flashed an impatient gaze at me. Girl, I’ve danced this dance with two teenagers. I ain’t got the time for this treatment unless I just caught you with your skirt over your head in a car somewhere. He snorted. And in that case, I’d be downright happy for you.

I pushed my feet against the floor in frustration as hard as I dared. Another broken squad car and Captain Kemmelman would suspend me. She tried to convince me that a golem assaulted her.

Newville’s eyes went wide in the light of the dashboard before chuckling. Yeah, next we’ll be investigating a vampire for a daring daylight bank robbery. You ready to go?

I sat there, staring ahead into the red seas of rage before straightening up in my seat. Gimme a second, Newville. Looking out my window, I saw Loew walking a garbage can out to the curb. In the bright streetlights, his wound looked like a geology project made by a talentless nine-year-old. I rolled down the window and shouted out.

Mister Loew!

He looked up, raising one palm in a piss-poor approximation of a wave. Everybody like us has at least one way to fail at imitating humans. I leaned out, resting my elbows over the opened window.

Just one more thing, Mister Loew. What would have happened if that gash was, oh, say about three inches higher, maybe an inch or two to the right?

He didn’t even blink this time.

I would be dead, Detective Heavewater.

I smiled grimly. Just wondering, Loew. You might want to call that number.

A car window is a flimsy piece of separation. Loew or I could break one, and so could any junkie with a crowbar for that matter. There’s a sad saga the city’s cops have recorded in thousands of crime reports, and one overriding lesson lurking inside is that people shouldn’t trust car windows to keep dangerous things out. I rolled up the window and tried to put the cosmic pane of glass between my life and Loew’s. Unfortunately for us both, fate can break through a window as easily as it makes a life crumble. I would soon learn how intertwined our stories were, and I’d always regret it.

As we drove off, Newbie was shaking his head. Little girl, why do I always have to wait around while you pull that Columbo shit?

Firstly, I’m three years older than you, Newbie. I lit my cigarette, breathing in the warm smoke as I stared at my pale fingers. You ever get tired of hanging around us monsters, Newbie?

He contemplated the question while he steered us back into traffic. Heavewater, I ever tell you that I grew up forty minutes from a KKK lodge?

No. Any further response to that statement required tact, so I just threw in my conversational cards and folded. Shit, no.

I watch his silent, weathered face until a smile crept onto it. I left backwoods Georgia to get away from the monsters, Mildred. Haven’t seen any in years.

We had that kind of quiet conversation you get when friends talk without sounds, just swimming in the silence together. Then my eyes strayed to the dashboard clock and, like always, I went and ruined the moment. Damn. Beth Am Israel Cemetery closed five minutes ago.

Cemetery? He smiled. Aiming for a real quiet Friday night, Mildred?

I took a long drag of the cigarette with my lazy lungs, using years of practice to do so. I bet it almost looked natural. Quiet? Newbie, you’ve met my mother. She might be dead, but she’s rarely quiet.

Chapter Two: A Day in the Life

The weirdest case of my afterlife started like any other: violent, unexpected, and covered in blood. That’s my job, after all.

When I tell people that I’m a vampire detective, their heads fill with romantic ideas. Some involving rooftop acrobatics that are mostly made obsolete by our city’s fine public transit system or a flashing siren. Other involve the sorrow of the slow, tender caress of immortality, and tragic relationships that tend to piss off Inhuman Resources. The people who think this are the same kind who idolize that werewolf doctor on that TV show without wondering how many times he smells a patient shitting himself.

Let’s be clear about what it means to be a vampire cop. Imagine that you’re a policeman down in Texas. You deal with Mexican drug dealers, border crossing, and the occasional illegal chupacabra fight ring. Let’s also say you have an eating disorder, so that you crave your favorite chili all the time. It’s such an addiction that your fridge is nothing but chili. You get the shakes if you go too long without it, but people get disgusted watching you scarf it down.

Now, imagine your job description involves you starting every night by walking into a room with a corpse. Picture walls and floors splattered with queso-laden hot and spicy, and assume that everyone is staring at you to see if you’re going to lick it off the walls. You have to make polite noises to assure them you won’t touch it, but you want to binge more than a crack addict just out of rehab. That’s my life.

The night after my evening with the Loews, my mood as I entered work was particularly foul. My cat had marked both the top of my coffin and my greatly unused apartment bed with his liquid approval. From there I proceeded to spill a third of a bag of blood onto my kitchen floor, and I assumed the night was determined to proceed in that vein. I was too self-conscious to leap from rooftop to rooftop, too sane to own a car in New York, and too…

Well, let’s just say I don’t like the subway.

In any case, I threw myself at the mercy of the street traffic. Being able to outrun a motorcycle doesn’t help me when the roads and sidewalks were packed, and frustration was building as I walked into work ten minutes late. Blood was in the air as I went through the doors of the rundown, brick precinct. I wondered whose it was.

Gritting my teeth, I walked into the station and was assaulted by screams as well as the ever present smell. The old brownstone always rang with raised voices and ringing phones, a barely controlled soup of chaos on our good days. The Department of Interspecies Affairs was the red-headed political stepchild of a long-gone administration, and it functioned like a bandage on a citywide gunshot wound. Regular human citizens were scared of the twenty-percent of the population that checked the other box for species on tax forms, most NYPD members would face an armed drug dealer rather than a troll or vampire, and most drug dealers loved recruiting trolls and vampires. Thus, the city gets us: independent, understaffed, and overworked. City Councilman Clotch ran for higher office with us as his platform then immediately forgot about us post-election. Our budget has barely increased in the thirty years since.

That night, business seemed to be booming indeed. My eyes flickered to the red dripping mess at the front desk. Three officers struggled to restrain a blood-soaked giant nearby—and by giant, I mean a six-foot-four skinhead in black leather. Real giants don’t come down this far south since the treaty. As I watched, Detective Peter Cianelli (a five-foot-two lump of bad attitude and weak deodorant) tried in vain to keep the punk in a headlock while Pete’s poor shoulder was hammered by a fist with swastikas tattooed across its knuckles.

Stay the hell down! Cianelli grunted right before the bald bastard slapped him across the face, sending him sprawling. The perp managed to get one foot on stable ground and quickly drew himself upwards and back, smashing his remaining struggling attendants against the desk. As two cops smacked against the front counter, the poor desk jockey manning it stayed as still as a statue.

Hey, baldie. I said.

Blinking, the skinhead looked in my direction, giving me a tantalizing view of the blood running out of a massive cut on his forehead. Not like I would take a drop of that stuff; I have standards, and the phrase you are what you eat gives me existential chills sometime.

First, the bastard’s eyes widened at the sight of my necklace. Bitch, stay out of— His threats trailed off when he got a good look at me.

We have a ring of sculptures in the main foyer of all of the Lord Protectors of Humanity. Ekimmu of the Hungry Dead, Enkidu of the Restless Spirits, Tammuz of Creations; all the big good guys and girls have a representation. Some rich boy donated them as a tax write-off. The biggest one had to be the statue of Wendigo, Lord of the Wild Ones, since he has that whole arms-in-the-air-screaming thing going on. I had always thought the Sleeper should be the biggest, but people tend to sculpt Old Tentacle Face in a crouch.

The punk noticed two things when he looked at me. One, I was holding Wendigo like a club, with one of my hands wrapped around each of the statue’s ankles. Two, I was grinning like a fanged madwoman.

Down boy, I said. Bad idea to get stoned in a police station.

Eyes wide, he meekly raised his hands in the air and knelt back down.

Cianelli wiped the blood off of his nose as the other two cops stepped forward with cuffs in hand. Thanks for the save, Heavewater. Can I kick him a bit, first?

I shrugged, which is quite impressive a thing to do while holding a few hundreds of pounds of statue. Eh. There’s paperwork involved. Cianelli stood there, drinking in the fear in the perp’s eyes until I leaned over as much as I dared. Pete, I have to put this down soon. It’s kinda unwieldy.

He nodded, stepping forward quickly to help the other two officers bend the Nazi answer to Mister Clean over the desk.

Carefully placing the statue back on its pedestal, I tried to imagine what kind of paperwork its destruction would bring upon me. Even a pessimist’s imagination like mine came up short. A few of the people in the waiting chairs clapped, especially the smartphone-wielding one in the leather jacket and a headband that screamed Romany. After making sure that the Lord of the Wild wasn’t going to tip over and create a very expensive semi-cannibalistic Zen rock garden, I turned back to Cianelli. What was he brought in for? Did he double-park his Rolls-Royce?

Peter wiped his face with one of the office’s ever present stray fast food napkins while flashing baleful eyes at the desk clerk. Trying to run an extortion ring on the Romany squatters near Hell’s Kitchen. He and his gang were going to burn a bunch of gypsies alive if they didn’t pay their protection money.

I started to regard Baldie with more than my normal contempt for Nazis. Hot human on human action? That doesn’t sound like our usual kind of bust.

When your arsonist has trained fire salamanders, it’s our garbage to take out. Pete’s rueful laugh came out like a thunderous snort.

Smirking, I suddenly remembered how many times I heard talk show hosts blame monsters for the decay of society. In the end, humans have never needed our help to be assholes to each other.

While I mused on speciesism, Peter stared daggers (or maybe pick-axes) at the desk jockey, who returned a stony gaze. What the hell, Bogardus? The red on Pete’s face was less blood-spatter and more fury. You couldn’t have done something? You couldn’t lift a single goddamn talon? For God’s sake, you could have torn the guy apart!

Bogardus shrugged from his perch behind the desk, scraping his stone wings together as he did so. Yep, he said, a bored tone drawling out of his sculpted beak-like mouth. And that would’ve kept me in brutality accusations and incident reports for a week. It’s better for everyone that I let her do it. His eyes rolled towards me, but his facial expression didn’t change. Gargoyles have great poker faces. Everybody loves the girl detective.

This was about par for our office’s Mister Happy Sunshine. As an animated statue, life had prepared Bogardus for being shit on by pigeons and he acted accordingly. The only bit of lightness on him was the old style NYPD hat that perched between his horns like greasepaint on a crying clown. Two things ran out of that gargoyle’s beak: rainwater and self-pity. Hey, Bogey, I said. I thought Larry was on desk tonight?

He rubbed a claw down his crag of a face, wiping off a patch of stray moss. It’s his time of the month. You almost dropped the statue, Heavewater. Gargoyles have a thing about broken stonework, you know?

I grinned, riding high on waves of satisfaction. Having just made a Nazi nearly soil himself, I was in too good a mood not to throw some crap back at Bogardus. Well, he’s the heaviest one. Maybe next time I’ll wave around Pazuzu.

He actually narrowed his eyes at me, winning me a five dollar bet I once made in the break room about gargoyle facial expressions. His stare flickered to the lion-headed statue of the Lord of Air and Winds. After a second he shrugged. Do me a favor and don’t break my Lord’s statue.

Come on, I said with a smile. Somebody would just replace it. I almost said that I’d even break Ekimmu’s just to be fair, but the thought of my Lady’s statue turned to pebbles gave me pause. Maybe I was pushing him too hard. I’d hate to end up in a sensitivity class for yet another innocent joke.

Bogardus continued his ever present glare for a full second before shrugging. Nah, leave it alone. If they made another one, they’d just build one of that new pigeon-shit asshole we’re stuck with. He looked down and shuffled some papers around. You should go and meet the new guy before the morning briefing starts.

I frowned. Bogardus and I had worked together for years, and the death of their original demigod was a touchy subject among some of the winged folk. Jewish-level guilt would poke at the back of my head all night. Look, Bogey, I said softly, I’m sorry for the dig. It was just the heat of the moment.

Neither of us has body heat, Heavewater.

Hoping that was what passed for a joke, I studied his inscrutable face while the sounds of the police station buzzed around me.

Eh, he eloquently continued in the low tones of a church organ. What’re you gonna do? Don’t worry yourself. If that’s the worst thing that pisses me off today, I’ll count my blessings. He stared ahead. My lifelong blessing total might reach three or even four.

I patted him on his immovable shoulder and headed down to forensics, where I’d find an impossible case waiting on the other end of the phone.

Chapter Three: New Blood

The morgue smelled, even to me. Considering vampire noses get poor reception on anything not red, liquid, and letter-coded, that was saying something. Now, I was used to the smell of bodies, whether chopped, fried, or puréed. All my years behind the badge had shown me many of the ways a person’s warranty could be voided irrevocably—but this wasn’t any kind of decay I knew. I normally would have blamed our medical examiner’s addiction to cheap imitation curry, but Herman was, for once, off the hook on this bit of strangeness. The fragrance confronting me was strong but not unpleasant. I rarely pick up on any scents other than that one particular jugular vintage, so this one was a pleasant surprise. It mixed the scents of a forest, a fruit stand, and the breeze after rain all together. It was unconventional, but kind of soothing. I half expected to hear New Age music start up in the background.

Herman grinned at my interested sniffing as he stared up at me from the foot of the stairs. That’s him. We got a sasquatch.

I legitimately blinked. I must have practiced that well. Honest to God and the Dead Lady, we got a Wood Folk?

Yup, he said as he started scratching the greasy minefield he called a face while I hoped he wouldn’t strike gold in them there hills. I was transfixed, as always, by the incessant blinking I saw through his dirty glasses. It was like one of those repeating images on the internet; you always wondered if it was going to stop and show something new. He gestured for me and we headed for the other side of the room.

A real Bigfoot. Right off the reservation, I think. Walk this way, he said dramatically for the thousandth time as he crossed the room with a fake limp.

Covering my face in embarrassment, I watched him ham up a lurch. A lifetime of badly written and racially insensitive horror movies had cemented young Herman’s desire to work with non-humans, eventually inflicting him upon our precinct. From werewolves to phantoms, everybody would (if anatomically possible) cough politely and try to ignore his Vincent Price and Peter Lorre imitations. I wondered if he’d ever realize that he was doing the monster equivalent of blackface.

As we approached the stiff, I felt the urge for a smoke and ignored it. I knew what would happen. I’d ask if Herman minded if I smoked. He’d darkly chuckle while waving to a body and mutter, They don’t, at least. Then he’d laugh, as if he’d never told this one before. You know, only four, maybe five percent of monsters tops actively prey on humans. A few more people like Herman, and the rest of us would take it up with a clear conscience.

Screw it, I decided. I really wanted a cigarette, and so I gave into inevitability. I asked the question, Herman played his part like a robot at a theme park ride, and we moved on. Most cops would never get away with smoking around the cadavers, but I had one important advantage: I didn’t actually need to exhale anything until after I left the room.

I lit up, my eyes straying over the outline under the sheet. Their limbs bent out like a marionette sent through a spin cycle. Who’s contestant number one?

Herman nodded and straightened himself. That was his saving grace, I always thought. He might strut around the office like a late night horror host, but he never cracked a jokes about the stiffs. I don’t know if it was professionalism or fear of a beating, but he stuck to it like a golem stuck to the Laws.

Okay, he said, his eyes alight and fingers twitching in unrepressed and inappropriate excitement. He was still Herman, and each body was like a cross between a new riddle and a Christmas present. I guess that kept them from being dead people. Caucasian male, probably a drifter. Takes a dive off a Fulton Street roof into the alley. He sighed. "Team on the scene seems to have screwed up the bloodwork all to hell, though. Some contamination snuck in.