Anthony Francis - Frost Moon

"Such lung capacity," I said. "But what's stopping you? Are you out of money?"

"No way," she said, spinning around. She had a cute Tigger backpack, held by bungee cords, with some cloth from her old vest and top poking out of the flap. "Thrift stores are your friend. I got this, plus this change of, and still had some change."

"So why do you need me?" I asked.

"Well," she said, swaying back and forth. "You said you were going to take care of me and… I didn't want to go out of eyeshot. In case anything happened."

I looked out my window. Every store she had mentioned was within view, if just barely; the oil shop was round the bend. "All right. All right. But my breaks are at one and four today-"

"One!" she said. "That's like over'n hour away. Why do you have to works today anyway? I thought squares got weekends off-"

"They do," I said, grinning, "and that's why I work on weekends. Half my business is either scheduled on the weekend or done on the spot by weekend walk-ins. So the shop has one artist here at all times on Saturdays and Sundays-and today's my day."

"Whatever," she said, sitting down hard in my chair.

"Why not go up to Criminal Records and check out the books-"

"What for?" she said. "I can't read for squat."

I drew a breath. I was going to have words with the Bear King, jaws of death or no. Then an idea struck me. I hunted through my desk drawer and found my old CD walkman-I hadn't used it since I got my iPod, but… "Then listen to an audiobook."

"A what?" she asked, spinning the chair around, her tail following her in an arc.

"You know my friend Jinx?"

"The blind witch?" she said. "Yeah, the Marquis disses her all the time. Means really he thinks she's sweet-"

"A lot of people do," I said. "You know, she can't read either."

"Oh!" she said, suddenly interested in the CD player, reaching for it the way a cat bats at a ball of string. "So what's this then? A stone-age MP3 player?"

"I have an iPod," I said, "but her CDs will play on this."

We stared at the selection Jinx'd given me, and then I realized how pointless that was and started reading them out. "Blink… The Golden Mean… This is Your Brain on Music…" I shrugged. "I haven't had time to burn them to MP3 so I haven't read any of them-"

"What's this one?" she said, holding up one with a blue dragon on the cover, flipping it over. "She's a pretty pretty-"

"Eragon," I said. "You'll like that. It's about a couple of foundlings."

I started to show her how to use it, but then my phone rang again. "Dakota Frost-"

"Sorry to call you so early," Spleen said. He sounded like hell.

"No, no problem," I said, checking the clock. It was eleventhirty. "It figures that the first person to apologize for disrupting me this ungodly morning is the first person who waited to the point that he doesn't need to apologize anymore. What can I do you for?"

"Give me good news about Wulfs ink," Spleen said, no pleasantries.

"I'm having the flash checked out," I said. Surprisingly, Cinnamon had no trouble getting the CD player running. I showed her which one was the first CD, and she took it delicately and popped it in. "Jinx had to refer me to a specialist-"

"Can't you hurry it along?" he snapped, his voice a little faster, a little higher-pitched than normal. "I still don't see why you can't skip it-"

"Spleen, what's wrong?" I asked. Waiting for a response had worked well on Buck, so I just hung there on the phone and waited for Spleen to spill. Cinnamon brightened as the CD started spinning, and I gave her a thumbs up and watched, amused, as she tried to find a comfortable place to set the headphones over her ears. "I got all day, Spleen."

"He threatened me," he said.

"No!" I said, shocked. "Wulf-"

"No, I mean, not literally, but he was very threatening. I felt threatened. He's a fucking menace, is what I'm saying. He cornered me about the ink and when I said I didn't know he snarled and got all wolfy, that he couldn't trust me, that you'd take his flash and scram-"

"Spleen," I said, conflicted. "You tell Wulf I risked my life to check out his tat. I did," I said. "Punched out a vampire last night trying to get to a were-expert."

Spleen hung there on the phone. "You're shitting me."

"No, I'm not," I said.

"You stay away from the vamps," Spleen said. "They're sickos-"

"You tried to take me down to see Savannah," I said.

"I was just messin with ya," he protested. "And she's different!"

My nostrils flared. "You have no idea. Look, I've scanned in his flash. If he wants the original back, he can have it-tell him to call the Rogue and he can come pick it up."

"No, no, I dunno, Dakota, he's not too big on meeting people in public places. What say I come by there tonight?" he said. "After your shift?"

"You're a prince, Spleen," I said. "But give him my number anyway. I want him to feel free to talk to me."

Cinnamon pulled down her headphones and made a face at me. "Giving him your number? But what would Phiiilll say?"

"Hey, Spleen," I said, thinking about something Phil had said about speeding up his investigation. "Can you give us a ride later this evening? There's something I need to do."

"This is a bad fucking idea," Spleen said, bumping down Lullwater towards Ponce.

"Language, Mister Spleen," Jinx said beside him in the front seat.

I grinned. She rarely turned her head unless she was talking directly to you, so I could just barely see her wrinkle her nose from my perch behind Spleen-but I knew the expression. Cinnamon, beside me, was alternately peering at Jinx wide-eyed, sniffing at Spleen and diving back into her audio book-she'd eventually put the headphones down around her neck, which she said she could hear just fine, even though she had it turned so low I could hear nothing.

"So where are we going?" Cinnamon said. "To see your ^ooofriend?"

"You have a boyfriend now?" Jinx asked.

"Not really," I said. Hey, one could hope, but-"Cinnamon is referring to my contact with the Feds, Philip Davidson. He's working with Andre Rand, trying to get APD Homicide up to speed on the case."

"What fucking-excuse my French, Jinxy, what the F case is this?" Spleen said.

"I can't comment on an ongoing investigation," I said with a smile.

"Then why the F am I here?" he asked.

"Because I can't fit the two of them on the back of my Vespa," I responded. "And I have my reasons for asking you and Cinnamon to come."

"So, Cinnamon," Jinx said. "Like the book?"

"ER-A-GONNNN," the werecat said, grinning. "ER-A- GONNNN."

"I'll take that as a yes," Jinx said, folding her hands atop her laptop bag. "I like hanging out with you, Dakota. I get to meet all the most interesting people."

"Wait until you get a load of this one," I said.

We pulled into City Hall East and parked. Andre Rand was waiting for us at the entrance, but I waved him off and turned to the trio.

"Maybe I should just wait here, you know, like in the car," Spleen said. "I mean, what if they try to disappear you? Maybe someone should just hang back and-"

"We won't need to make a getaway," I said. "And, trust me, you don't want to be a suspicious-looking person sitting in a police parking lot."

"You're saying I'm suspicious looking?" Spleen said, twisting round so his good eye could get a look at me round his long, ratlike nose.

"No, I'm saying that anyone sitting in a police parking lot at seven-thirty at night acting like a getway man is bound to look suspicious," I said. "But look, we do need to have a few ground rules going in. Cinnamon, come back from Alagaesia for a minute."

When she stopped the CD, everyone was looking at me.

"First: no-one mentions Wulf, or the Marquis, or any other Edgeworlder," I said. "They're so skittish they won't even meet with me, so we're not going to rat them to the Feds."