I tapped the bar, waiting patiently for anyone to show up. Joey and his friends arrived first. Then it became a constant stream of people, a few walking in every thirty or so minutes. I stayed behind my bar, serving out drinks to anyone who wanted one. Being the smart bartender I was, I kept tabs on everyone, my memory too good to fail me as long as I didn’t drink.
“So, is tonight the night?” Joey asked casually, sitting at the bar in front of me.
“For what?” Rolling my eyes, I took his empty beer bottle and handed him another Blue Moon.
“For you to tell us you’re a werewolf. Come on, Jacky. Jacky fuckin’ Leon!” He gave me a desperate look, leaning over so that I couldn’t avoid his face when I looked down to work on something.
“You know werewolves aren’t the only things that go bump in the night, right?” My patience was wearing thin already. He was a smart human. He knew there was something off about me, but I wasn’t foolish enough to ever tell him what separated us. The world was already dealing with the fact that werewolves were real. They even knew of the fae now, though the fae were still living in human disguises. A few witches were even going public, though it wasn’t going as well for them. Salem wasn’t that long ago.
“Are you a witch?” He blanched, and I couldn’t stop a laugh. Of course he would pick the one everyone seemed most scared of. I didn’t really understand it, but it was probably because witches were the easiest target. They didn’t have the illusions of fae or the strength of werewolves. They were humans with some magic. They were the same, yet different from their own kind.
Different is bad.
“No, you fucking idiot. I’m just saying, you always ask werewolf and maybe you can shake it up sometimes. I mean, it doesn’t change the answer!” I was still chuckling as he glowered at me. I pushed his new beer to him slowly. “I just wanted to own a bar, Joey. This happened to be a good place to do it.”
“Fine.” He swiped his drink off my bar top and walked away.
I felt stung for a moment until I reminded myself that Joey wasn’t a friend. He was different than my other patrons, more willing to reach out and talk to me, but friend wasn’t it. Really, if I thought he was a friend, I might have brought him into my life, exposed him and given him something better than what he had.
I also heard his friends, and several other humans in the area, talk about supernaturals. It made my stomach twist into knots. They always wanted to know if I was a werewolf. Why would I ever admit that to men who thought a werewolf skin might look good as a rug? Sure, they were joking. Texas was a hunting state, and I was one of those hunters, but they didn’t make the small connection that a werewolf pelt to a supernatural was the equivalent to having human skin as wallpaper. It was disgusting and distasteful. It was inhumane. There was no way in Hell that I would ever tell them that I was a werecat. I would be a new and shiny thing, a unique pelt to adorn their walls and floor.
I ignored most of the humans for several hours, working and being pleasant, but not open to small talk. I couldn’t find the mood. The werewolf drama already had me edgy, and from the TV and the news, it didn’t seem like it was going to quiet down any time soon.
“The Werewolf Council of North America has stated that they are going to send in their own team to help stabilize the precarious situation. After the initial violence, there have been no injuries or fatalities reported, but we still recommend all humans lock their doors after getting home and not stay out past midnight. The deposed Alpha is still currently missing, believed dead. His family, two werewolf sons and a human daughter, are also missing as well.”
I sighed, ignoring the woman at the bar waiting on a beer while I listened. God damn. There was a human girl involved. By the Law, she was exempt from all supernatural politics. No werewolf was allowed to hurt her, no matter who her father was. I hoped that her brothers had taken her to safety and someone who could care for her, since their father was most likely dead.
“Jacky, I want my beer. Worry about your packmates later,” the woman said, snappy.
I worked hard to keep my mouth closed and not bare my teeth at her. “Sorry, I’m not a werewolf—therefore they aren’t my packmates. It’s just interesting. I hope everyone is going to be okay up there.” I grabbed a beer from the ice behind the bar. I wanted to be mad, as I finally got the human woman her drink. Mad that a child was out there, in the middle of the mess, but I couldn’t. I knew the score. She was probably safe, no matter what side had her. Even the reckless wolves took that sort of thing seriously. Children were precious, and humans were supposed to be safe. End of story.
My grip on my rag tightened. It wasn’t like this wasn’t normal. It was just too close.
“How does a werewolf even have a human daughter? Did he adopt her?” The woman didn’t leave, and I finally looked over to see who it was.
“Kelly, it’s public knowledge that werewolves and humans can breed. Their children can be either. Some are born werewolves, some are born human. They’ve done DNA tests before to prove it.” The same could be said of werecats.
“Who would ever want to breed with a dog?” She was laughing as she walked away.
I wanted to whack her on the side of her pretty blonde head. Werewolves weren’t dogs and it wasn’t illegal, though some states and countries were trying to make it. In my mind, as long as whatever was going down happened in human bodies, I didn’t care. Werewolves were out and they had always been more lax about their secrets than werecats. They never had the rule to not fornicate with humans, and it was something that’d been going on for hundreds of years, if I remembered my history lessons from Hasan right.
It was near midnight and Kick Shot was as packed as it would ever be. I had nearly forty people in the bar, and the music was turned up louder than the TV now, much to my chagrin. It was still giving updates on the situation in Dallas-Fort Worth, updates I desperately needed.
There was a faint knocking for a moment and I frowned. I had better hearing than any other supernatural race, and that included the weird cousins I had in werewolves. Their sense of smell was a touch better than mine, but my hearing outclassed theirs by miles.
So the faint knocking I heard coming from the back of my building stood out to me like a siren. I tensed up, wondering what could possibly be making the noise. It wasn’t something I had ever heard in my little bar. Ignoring my patrons, I started walking.
“Hey, I need a drink!” someone called out.
“Hold on!” I snapped. “If you reach for a freebie, I’ll take the hand. Clear?” I turned and pointed at the guy who yelled for me. “Two minutes. You can wait two minutes.”
“Yes ma’am,” the man said, settling into his seat. Normally I would never leave the bar during the busiest time of night, definitely not on a Friday, but the knocking was still going, and it wasn’t just getting louder because I was getting closer. Whatever it was, it was hitting harder.
I swung the door open to my staircase and found nothing, so I looked at my back door. Someone was knocking on it. That someone now seemed desperate. I closed the door to the stairwell and opened the back door. I didn’t see anything for a moment until my eyes trailed down to the eye level of my visitor.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered.
I knew the face the moment I saw it. I felt the nearly undeniable urge to close the door immediately and without regret, but resisted it. I waited in silence, hoping I didn’t hear the words I knew I was going to hear.
She searched through a backpack, the little human missing thanks to the turmoil in the big city. She couldn’t be more than ten. I watched her pull out a wallet, obviously not hers—or maybe it was. I had no idea. Maybe it was a go-bag. I couldn’t tell, but it was her size and that was troublesome for some reason. She pulled a business card out of the wallet and looked back up to me, big grey-blue eyes looking terrified.
“I am…I’m Carey Everson.” Her voice trembled and shook, but she had to say it all. She had to. It was the only way she was going to be able to drag me into a small war I wanted no part in. There were questions I needed answered once those words were said, but she had to first get through the ritual. If I acted without the ritual, a war would start, one much bigger than the one her father was probably dead to. “I’m a human. Uh…I am eleven years old…”
“Just get to the important parts,” I whispered softly. There was no reason to give me her life story yet. “I know you’re human.” I could smell it. There was a faint scent of werewolves on her, but she was human. There was no doubt in my mind about that.
“I need protection from the super…supernatural community. I am at risk of losing…” Tears began to spill from her eyes. “My life through…no fault of my own. I am requesting protection from fang and claw from another with fang and claw. I am requesting that the werecats uphold their duties to the supernatural…community and protect me from all threats inhuman.” Her jaw was shaking, but her words were stronger at the end. Her large, lost grey-blue eyes were hidden by her limp, ash-brown hair. I figured that hair was normally a rich oak color, but running for your life had the tendency to wash the color out of someone. She looked up at me again, slowly and shaking. “Please. They probably killed Daddy. They want to kill me too.”
I took a deep breath and reached out, pulling her to me slowly. I had to give her an answer. If I rejected, it would start a war, but I would never reject her. No, children were precious, no matter the species. There was only one correct way this could go down, even if I didn’t want it. I had a duty, no matter how much I wanted to ignore it. This human girl had no reason to be in such fear.
“I, Jacqueline Leon of the werecats, hereby do swear to protect you from all threats supernatural until which time I feel you are in safe hands of family or friends that mean you no harm. I hereby do swear that your life is now in my hands and can be trusted there. I shall treasure your humanity and treat you as one of my own. You, from this moment until which time I know you are safe and no longer need me, are my child of this earth. You will be given all things in accordance to this. Carey Everson, you are hereby under the protection of the werecats.”