Excerpt from: The Case of the Dragon's Dilemma

"And you’re sure you are going to be okay looking after our little guest?" Bob didn’t look convinced even as he asked.

"I’ll be absolutely fine," Mikhail said firmly. "It’s not like she does or says anything. She just sits there." He crossed his arms over his chest and looked squarely at the small blonde-haired girl curled up on a temporary bed with her thumb in her mouth. He knew absolutely nothing about children, other than that they were shouting, squealing bundles of confusion that he couldn’t quite get his head around. But at least this one was quiet. She hadn’t said a single word since being rescued from the docks and the cage she had been held in. The fact that she had been one of the children in the cages was another contradiction. He could understand Mal being in a cage—the small vampire was a spitfire and constantly back-chatting and by all accounts had made life difficult for her captors. This child, though—why would any human think she was threat enough to cage her?

"We don’t know what her species is," Bob reminded him. "I could stay here and back you up." There was no trace of sarcasm in Bob’s voice, but there was an element of slyness there that Sam picked up instantly.

"You’re not staying here," Sam said firmly. "We have two schools to check out with Mal and she needs both her guardians with her."

Bob muttered something under his breath but didn’t argue his position with any conviction.

Mikhail chuckled. Bob was handling having a surrogate daughter in about the same easy way as Mikhail was handling having children around him at all.

"I don’t have anywhere to be," Mikhail confirmed. "I don’t mind sitting and watching."

"See if you can get her to talk," Sam suggested. "We can’t return her to her people if we don’t even know what she is."

Mal ran into the room and slid to a stop next to Sam. She grabbed at his jacket to stop from falling on the wooden floor.

"Sam," she said quickly. "It’s time to go."

Mikhail waved them away and shut the front door after they left. He wandered through the house and spent a short while in the file room, but Teddy was lurking and the disapproving looks from the ghost had him leaving to go and check on the girl. For a while he hovered at the door. Sam had tried talking to her. Bob had attempted cajoling her. Smudge had even spent an inordinate amount of time winding in and out of her legs every time she stood up.

Still nothing.

Maybe he should give it a try. He did have one advantage over Bob in that his friend was a pure vampire. And over Sam, who was a human. Maybe she would react differently if she knew more about Mikhail? That he wasn’t pure vampire. Maybe she was a mixed species and had learned not to share that fact with others. A lot of paranormals shunned mixed race beings because they weren’t all one or the other.

It was worth a try at least. What did he have to lose?

He dragged a chair from the side of the room, then straddled it backwards before resting his chin on his hands. Where to start?

"So, I’m Mikhail," he began. She stared right at him and even stopped twirling her hair to listen. "I found out that I wasn’t who I thought I was. It was hard to come to terms with finding out my entire life had been a lie. People didn’t accept me. Even friends I’d known for a long time became enemies." Great. If anything, the confused expression on the little girl showed exactly how little of what he was saying made sense. "Let me start again."

She shuffled a little on the bed but still said nothing.

"I was about your age...well, ten anyway—hell, if you are even ten that is—when I found out my dad wasn’t my dad. Turns out I wasn’t the full-blooded siren, or prince, I was expected to be. In fact, I’m half vampire. Before I was ten you couldn’t have told I was different from other children my age." Mikhail shook his head. He recalled the teasing and bullying when he couldn’t master breathing underwater for long periods of time without using magic, and how he’d learned to pretend everything was okay. As the middle son to the siren king, Mikhail hadn’t been allowed to fail. Did this child in front of him have the same problems?

Mikhail sighed. "As I grew up, my vampire nature became dominant and my siren side became quieter and in the background. I know what it’s like to be different and to have to keep secrets."

Was that enough to communicate what he wanted? Would she see that he understood if she was a half-breed or unusual species type?

She uncurled and sat up.

"Eliza," she said softly. "My name is Eliza."

"Hey, Eliza," Mikhail said. He kept his voice low and friendly. "Can you tell me how to get hold of someone who might be missing you? Parents? Family?"

Becoming mute again, she shook her head, then clambered down off the bed. She walked past Mikhail and into the hallway before going into the bathroom. Well, at least he’d got her name. That was a start. She shut the door behind her and Mikhail contemplated what he was going to ask her next. Maybe a location, or a surname, or anything that meant she could get home.

Exceprt from: The Case of the Sinful Santa

Nick Klauson pushed open the door to the tavern and climbed onto a seat in the back corner where it was dark and he could be alone. He needed somewhere to lick his wounds and this place was as good as any. The barman—woman? Nick could never tell with satyrs—waited expectantly and Nick didn’t keep him or her standing there long. He didn’t have to think about what he was going to order.

“Whisky. A bottle. One glass,” he said firmly. He waited for a reaction and was vaguely disappointed when there was none. The whisky was old, the crystal tumbler bright and there in front of him was the means to forget who he was for a few hours at least.

“Do you want any food?” the satyr asked. Her features coalesced into a feminine shape and she batted her eyelashes at Nick. If she only knew how freaked out Nick was to see a paranormal being able to change sex at the whim of the person they were with.

“Do I look like I want food?” Nick snapped. “If I’d wanted food I would have ordered it.” He stopped as he realised the residual anger from his last showdown with the family was spilling over into spite and irritation. “Sorry,” he mumbled before swallowing another mouthful of burning alcohol. He wiped his mouth. “Bad day.” Bad year. Bad life.

The satyr leaned over the bar, giving Nick an eyeful of newly fashioned creamy breasts in a low-cut top. “You look stressed,” she began with a low purr. “I can help you with that if you have the time.” Evidently the satyr was reading Nick all wrong. The alcohol was burning in his system and he clung to the buzz as long as he could. Unfortunately his family had this damn gene that meant they didn’t stay drunk for long. Sometimes he hated that…sometimes he wanted to drown in the haze of contentment and just stay there for an hour or two.

“Wrong…uhm…” He waved a hand at her breasts.

She chuckled and in the weirdest, unsexiest, most obscene way ever, she morphed into a male. Nick nearly choked on his whisky. The male bartender was so the absolute opposite of what Nick wanted in a guy. She…or he—or whatever the satyr was—had chosen a small blond twink of a thing. What he was faced with couldn’t have been more wrong. Nick loved his men big and dark-haired and strong enough to drag him to bed.

“Better?” the satyr said in a soft voice.

Nope. All wrong.

“I’m not interested,” Nick said quickly. “That isn’t what I came in for.”

The satyr reached out a hand and touched his cheek, startling him back on the stool. “Shame. You’re soooo pretty.”

Nick pulled away from the satyr’s reach. “Uh. Yeah. Just the whisky, thanks.”

“Are you really sure? I can be anything you want me to be.”

“Can you be a way out?” Nick snapped then regretted it. The satyr eyed him with confusion then opened his mouth to answer. “Never mind,” Nick interjected. “The whisky is fine.”

The satyr moved away and morphed as he walked, back into the buxom blonde. Nick could feel the disappointment emanating from her. He hated that. Not only was Nick the only skinny one in the family, but he had a broken form of the family trait of empathy. Not a useful skill when the only emotions he was capable of reading were misery and disappointment. He couldn’t even get empathy right. And as for ho ho freaking ho…

“Is this seat taken?” a voice rumbled to his left. Irritation flooded Nick. This was a big bar with a lot of spaces to hide, why would someone want to share his?

“Yes,” he snapped.

The owner of the voice chuckled and the sound cut through Nick’s melancholy. That was one low, sexy noise. He looked sideways and got an eyeful of man. Big man. Huge. Maybe six-four to his five-ten. Wide, solid, with dark hair, and even in the dim lighting at this end Nick could see the man’s eyes glint with amusement. Nick squirmed in his seat. Why had he said yes? The man, or whatever he turned out to be in this mixed human/para bar, was clearly interested enough to choose to sit next to Nick. Add to that Nick had a whole afternoon to kill.

“No,” he said.

“No what?” the big man said.

“When I said yes, I meant no. No one is sitting there.”

The man looked down pointedly at the fact he was already perched on the stool anyway. “Then I’ll stay,” he concluded.

The satyr behind the bar moved over to serve the new guy. Nick blinked furiously. The alcohol had clearly got to him because he could swear the satyr was morphing from male to female and was at times stuck as a bearded sixty-year-old man with the biggest chest he’d ever seen. He shook his head and concentrated on his whisky. He was obviously losing it big time.

“Zeph Constantine,” the big man introduced himself and held out a hand to shake.

“Nick Klauson.”

They shook hands and Nick winced at Zeph’s grip. Firm, maybe a little too firm. The shaking went on for some time. Neither man released his hold. Finally Nick realised he was still holding Zeph’s hand and embarrassment flushed his face. Thank the heavens they were in the gloom so Zeph didn’t see the tell-tale signs of Nick’s classic awkwardness around hot men.

“What brings you to the city?” Zeph asked as he sipped on what looked like water but could well have been vodka for all Nick knew.

“Toy convention,” Nick answered immediately. Then his mind went blank. What else could he add to that one? That was his cover story and he hadn’t spent any time embellishing it to be able to give details.

“Interesting. And?” Zeph prompted.

“I’m a statistician,” Nick lied on the run. “I look at trends in toy sales to support company marketing.” So it wasn’t actually lying, but he had fudged a little there. His actual job was to visit toy fairs and determine trends, but he was also there to investigate areas with any pockets of residual despair—the parts of the city and the surrounding countryside where there was a lack of joy. Not that he would tell sexy here anything about what he really did. His job description was a little screwy, but that was what he did and he did it well.