Great, just great. Another mess. And I don’t just mean the guy whose insides were now on the outside all over the pavement in the French Quarter. I mean the fact that I know it was a supernatural culprit. There were a ton of giveaways, like how all of his jewelry was meticulously removed and placed into a neat, little pile by his body or how his pupils appeared to be missing. Not his eyes, his pupils.

She was going to be upset, and no one wanted to make her upset. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it. The Queen of the faeries had me investigating any possible Fae-related deaths since she became displeased with the last detective. I assumed he simply told her what she didn’t want to hear a few too many times, but no one saw him after that.

I snapped some shots of the deceased, his bits and pieces, and all around the scene. The elaborate, pastel houses, once owned by freed slaves, did not feel like the appropriate backdrop for a murder, but then again, what was?

What a job. I know why I was picked for it, of course. I’m a half-blood. Mom’s a faerie; dad was a human. I was working as a reporter, not even an investigative one, but there’s no explaining human occupations to the Queen of magic. That, and me being a woman seemed to seal the deal for her. I wasn’t exactly offered the job as much as told it was my duty to obey her.

After fudging my credentials, the faeries got me working as a forensic photographer. Gets me to crime scenes, and I can take pictures of all of the evidence. Traveling is a perk of the job, but it hasn’t exactly been a vacation, especially since every place I’ve been sent to so far has been the worst time of year to visit.

My last big case was in Dublin during the winter to uncover a very disgruntled Pooka. He’d been living on the streets as a dog, and some people were unkind to him in ways I don’t want to think about. He decided to let them know what it felt like to be an animal. Had them chained up in cages, and put masks on them so they could fight to the death in cold, rainy ring matches. He even invited other Fae to take bets.

I must have been standing still for too long thinking about the Dublin case, because Detective LaCroix snapped his fingers at me and pointed to the mound of gold chains and rings.

“Hey, newbie, you get a shot of that?” He asked.

I nodded. There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed it, but a girl could hope.

“Why would the perp take the victim’s jewelry off and then leave it?” Lacroix asked.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I eyed Lacroix in his full suit and tie. I was less than excited to be sent to Louisiana in the summer. The air was so thick it was hard to breathe, and everything was perpetually wet. Eyeing the other members of forensics inside the yellow tape, I couldn’t imagine how they were going about their normal duties in their full business attire, let alone the extra gloves and decontamination suits. The only good thing about the getup was that the mask I had on was obscuring the dead guy’s smell enough to keep my breakfast in my stomach.

I remained silent. No need for me to affirm that something out of the ordinary was out of the ordinary. Queen Mab wouldn’t like any of this.

Back when I told the Queen about the people-fighting ring, she was furious. She doesn’t want humans to know about the Fae. Magic is supposed to be hidden. The more hidden, the more powerful. Everything is about secrets to her. Those who can keep them, and those who are dead.

The way her blood red lips contorted and her black eyes seemed to glow with rage while I described the betting on the “dog”-fighting, I thought I was done for. If anyone could kill with a glare, it would be her. Luckily, it didn’t last long. Queen Mab went back to her emotionless, porcelain expression while ordering her silver-clad knights to bring her everyone involved and dispose of the witnesses. She didn’t speak any other words to me, but I understood the case was closed.

Not knowing any faerie politics (thanks mom), I made some enemies that day. And now, here I was, shipped back across the ocean on a red-eye flight to another mess. I barely had time to get off the plane and introduce myself to the team, before being rushed to a crime scene. And now, I had to figure out if this death was by a faerie, and which faerie, fast, because the only thing Queen Mab hated more than bad news was incomplete bad news.

“Hey, newbie, I asked you a question,” Lacroix said.

“Oh, I thought maybe it was rhetorical,” I said.

“Rhetorical? Where you say you’re from again?”

“North.” I didn’t want to be too specific, but my accent was obviously American and from the North East. Last thing I needed was a detective looking into me.

“Right. That’s exactly why I want your perspective, as an outsider.” Lacroix was hard to read. He had reflective sunglasses and the creases in his dark skin made it look like he was perpetually frowning.

“Uh, I don’t know. There’s lots of talk about witchcraft around here?” I tried.

“You mean voodoo?” Lacroix said a little too loudly. “You think it’s dark magic?! That’s what you think, Barbie O’Gillis?”

As much as I appreciated the middle-school name-mockery, I had already said too much. The others around me went about their business as if they hadn’t heard a thing. I held my camera at my chest and blinked a few times. The sweat was making its way into my eyes.

“It’s O’Malley,” I said, “Hailey O’Malley.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I could feel the weight of the air pushing on me. Desperately wanting to be anywhere but there, I shifted, readying myself to leave but remained standing over the kneeling detective. There was a silence that seemed to last forever.

Then, a strange noise bubbled up from the detective. It was startling to me at first, but then I realized he was laughing. He stood up and slapped me on the back.

“I’m just messing with you, newbie. Let’s get out of this heat and get some sweet tea down at the station. Don’t want one of you Northerners passing out from the heat.” Lacroix’s demeanor was entirely changed.

I had never seen someone acting so cavalier at a crime scene, but I also hadn’t been to many crime scenes, and New Orleans was accustomed to bizarre murders. NOLA was known for everything from voodoo to vampires and even pirates. There was a rich history of magical oddities, but nothing to do with faeries as far as I knew. I had no idea if vampires or any of that other stuff was real, but hopefully one of those was the culprit and I could get out of this hotter than hell hole soon.

Nodding to Lacroix, I made my way to the police van, and was grateful for the air conditioning it provided. Taking a deep breath as I removed my forensics mask and hood, I flipped through the images on my digital camera to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Intestines, ceremonial dagger, bloody hands, bloody ground, lots of blood.

I’d have to wait until the necklaces got back to the station to find out if they were actually gold or gold-painted iron. Faeries hated iron, so if the jewelry was iron, it would point in the direction of a faerie culprit. The best way to go about this case was probably to let the real detectives do their work and to eavesdrop. I hoped Detective Lacroix was the fast-working type, because Queen Mab was surprisingly impatient for someone who was immortal.

“Hey, O’Malley, your boyfriend’s here!” I heard a voice call from outside the van.

“My what?” I couldn’t help but say out loud, but luckily, I had the van to myself at that moment.

Once Outside, I could see one of my new forensic coworkers, Chen, standing next to a tall, thin man with hair so blond it could be white and piercing blue eyes. He was definitely one of Mab’s.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said while walking over to them.

Chen lifted an eyebrow looking from the slender man to me.

“That’s right, I’m her fiance,” the Fae said without skipping a beat. “I’m here because you forgot your engagement ring on the nightstand, silly.”

He held out a gaudy, sparkling ring that looked more like someone had won the superbowl than had gotten engaged. I had no intention of taking it or putting it on. From the looks of him, I doubted he was enjoying the weather any more than I was, even though he sported a sleeveless, white shirt to show off his well-defined arm muscles.

“Right. I keep telling you, hun, that the ring is just a little too big, and I have to get it refitted or I’ll lose it. Will you hold onto it for me? I’m working right now and gotta take these pictures back to the station,” I said to the stranger towering over me.

“Of course, dear.” His too-perfect smile gave me goosebumps. But, as I turned to leave he said, “What, no kiss?”

Under no circumstances would this interaction appear normal, but Fae had a way of getting people to believe the unbelievable. It was like an aura they had that put people at ease. Many would find the tall, handsome man before me charming, but I didn’t appreciate Mab throwing a chaperone at me. Especially one who couldn’t control his glamour enough to disguise himself as a human. I could practically see the pointed tips of his ears poking out of his spiky hair.

“Damn, I’ll give him a kiss if you don’t,” Chen laughed, and I got the feeling he wasn’t joking.

I couldn’t imagine there was anything easy about being a gay Asian-American living in Louisiana, so I was rooting for Chen. Of course, this also meant I’d do everything within my power to keep the faeries away from him.

“Right…” I pictured my lips getting stuck to the Fae’s cheek like that kid’s tongue on the pole in A Christmas Story.

I stood on my tiptoes and the man leaned down. I pantomimed kissing his cheek, with the intention to kiss the air beside him. Instead, he swept me off of my feet and I gasped. On reflex, my eyes were shut. Luckily my camera was on a strap around my neck or I would have dropped it onto the uneven pavement below.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing beside an image of myself, my dark hair falling over half of my face while being embraced by the elfish man. The two of them were almost glowing as they locked lips, like something on the cover of a romance novel.

“What the…”

“We only have a moment. What did you see at the scene?” He asked.

“Who are you?”

“Jack. Jack Frost. The Queen’s personal informant, at your service.” His hand swung around in a half circle before he bowed.

“Seriously? I don’t need a babysitter, Jack,” I said.

“Do you think it could be the work of a faerie?” He asked.

“I don’t know, maybe? I’ve barely had a chance to look at the evidence,” I said.

Great, here I thought I was barely getting by at the job, when apparently, I had been too competent and made Mab think I could solve cases with a single glance.

“The Queen wants you out of here by sundown,” he said, then he lifted me into the air with his arms again and stepped into the image of the two of us.

After he placed me down in front of him, I could see that our PDA (even though it was a magical illusion of one) made others uncomfortable enough to avert their eyes.

“Impossible. That’s not even a day to solve this,” I whispered angrily.

“Any minute longer puts you closer to death,” he said quietly, before smiling and blowing me a kiss. He then rushed toward the shady side of the road.

I watched as he turned the corner and was out of sight.

Closer to death? Did Mab send him to kill me if I didn’t solve the case fast enough? That just didn’t seem fair.

It was then that I noticed something uncomfortable on my ring finger. Looking down, I saw a thick, gaudy, silver ring with a diamond as big as my knuckle and sharp, pale blue gems along the side. When I tried to pull my new silver shackle off, it felt as though it got a little tighter.

“FUCKING FAERIES!”