I don't think I'm quite a retainer. Anita is a retainer, was 
a retainer, and I'm certainly nothing that she was. Come to think
of it, I don't really know what being on a police retainer means.
Simply that Anita was on it, and I'm no Anita. The police know me 
best as "Jean-Claude's wolf," as Anita so fondly belittled me
at any chance. Most people, thankfully, call me Jason.

	
Jean-Claude was the master vampire of the city of St. Louis, 
up until about six hours ago. He hadn't been replaced yet, due to
the irregularity of the situation. The problem being, Jean-Claude 
could not possibly be dead.

	
According to the Police: Anita Blake, heap-big 
vampire "Executioner" and human servant to "the victim," became 
increasingly angry with the Master in the late hours of the morning 
prior, and cut off his head, with a very large knife. Then, also 
according to report, without using the knife, she burst three ribs 
from the back, and peeled away his heart like the core parts of a 
watermelon. Given the strength and power allotted her by her…
umph… joining forces with the aforementioned vampire and Richard 
Zeeman, she may have been able to do this single handedly.

	
According to, well, myself: Bullshit.

	
Which brings us about up to speed. Sergeant Rudolph Storr had 
called me about an hour ago, and it had taken twenty minutes to get 
to her apartment. Anita's apartment. Storr was the head of the
local investigation team for baddies, like the Master. "Rippit," I
think they called it, for short. The Regional Preternatural 
Investigation Team. But Anita had been their local expert on the 
knitty-gritty. She knew more about the monsters, about us, than the 
normal citizen. Well, she'd disappeared, naturally. Having a warrant 
for arrest often has that effect on a person accused of an action 
that might mean immediate death sentence. I'd helped her out on a few 
occasions, mostly being ordered to do so, though I might have, 
anyway. But, apparently, she'd told someone about me, because here I 
was, taking a new master in Jean-Claude's… absence.

	
I pulled into the parking lot as far as I could; the small 
mount of covered parking seemed irradiated by red and blue, pulsing 
like the inside of a neon version of the human heart. I saw so many 
cops on few occasions, and I'd actually prefer to have kept it
that way. They seemed to ebb and flow, up the stairs, down. I'd never
been to Anita's apartment complex. Not conscious, at least. But, it
was difficult to imagine the place empty, without the Blues and 
Plainclothes and the lot. I popped open the car door and started 
towards the social mass, towards the stairs, through a barrage of 
police cars.

	
"Excuse me, sir," came the voice of a woman. I turned and
saw her. At five foot four, at about my height, she weighed around 
one-ten. Nice and slender, with an air of extreme superiority. She 
had a pair of white gloves tucked nicely into the breast pocket of 
her dark blue police uniform. Directing traffic when the call came? 
How will the world of St. Louis survive without her in the 
intersection?

	
"I'm sorry, sir. No civilians are allowed across the police 
line." The more she talked the more I liked her face. Blonde, no-
nonsense hair curved the delicate line of her cheeks, and her mouth 
crested her chin like a rose in a sugar bowl, drawing the rest of her 
face down to meet it gently.

	
"My name is Jason Schuyler. Sergeant Storr called me in as
a…"

	
She turned and walked away. I stood there for a moment, mouth 
open in half-syllable.

	
"Hey," I called after her, "Was that a `Hang on a
second' walk away, or a `Get the hell off my crime scene' kinda
thing?"

	
She didn't turn as she walked, but I could hear her laughing 
under her breath as she disappeared into the crowd. A few of the 
other cops watched her as she went. Some watched at eye-level, others 
a little lower. I shook my head and laughed. Someone was the hot item 
on the scene. Maybe that would explain the huge amount of policemen 
swarming in the parking lot. Do they really need all these people for 
one dead Master?

	
My dead Master.  Ordered by Richard Zeeman to be the 
footstool and morning snack of the prettiest man in the city, I'd 
been with Jean-Claude fairly non-stop for about two years. College 
had given way immediately. What does a dog need with brains, at any 
rate? Richard was the leader of my pack. Yes, I'm a werewolf, 
(lycanthrope, pooch, "fur-face," many things; Anita always
had a good one).

	
Police-chick reappeared at the head of the stairs to the 
apartments, tailed by the hulk-of-a-man known as Sergeant Rudolph 
Storr. Dolph, per Anita. I think I'll stick with "Sergeant" for now. 
The man stood at six foot something, with arms thicker than my head. 
Granted, if it came down to it, I'd win the arm-wrestle. But, if 
memory serves, Anita had pushed for them to redraw their budget to 
include silver-jacketed ammunition. Something about an officer 
getting opened up by a quasi-jaguar. At any rate, difficult to win a 
gun battle unarmed. Don't get me wrong. Unless Richard or
Jean-Claude ordered it, I wouldn't be engaging any police in combat. 
Richard had disappeared with Anita, and Jean-Claude was "dead". But
what's new?

	
The plain-clothes linebacker funneled through the crowds with 
skill, outdoing and passing the police-chick. As he weeded through 
the police, he mumbled to himself, barely moving his lips.

	
"Werewolf, huh?" He grumbled, "Looks like a damn stripper."

	
I forced myself to remain impassive, not to smile. 
Apparently, all that glorious preternatural knowledge about us 
monsters, for which Anita had been contracted to begin with, had not 
been complete. Most lycanthropes can hear a pin drop in a strip club. 
I'm no exception, trust me. The Sarge continued to mumble, but I 
allowed the white noise of the covered parking to consume his voice. 
A little over four years ago, when I was newly lycanthropic, the 
sounds of the area would have sounded like the stock market at drop 
time. It had taken a few months to really get the hang of channeled 
hearing. At any rate, I pretended not to hear his opinions. That's my 
plan most of the time. Get everyone to underestimate you until the 
minute that it counts, and you'll have an edge when the shit hits
the fan. Once he was close enough, I looked up and pretended to 
notice him for the first time.

         
"Sergeant Storr," I offered a hand. He stopped in front of
me… rather, above me, and glared without accepting my handshake.

	
"You're Jason?"

	
"Yes, sir."

	
Police-chick caught up then, stepping up behind Storr as if 
he needed backup from a tiny little animal liker her. I took a moment 
to smile at her. A bit small in the holsters, but altogether, 
scrumptious. What can I say?

	
"Hey, shit head," I jerked my eyes back to the offending 
Sergeant, surprised. "Stop ogling my officer and listen up."

	
I swallowed the animal inside me before it had a chance to 
reflect in my eyes. I rolled my eyes up to his, but Storr's face
had gone rock hard, impenetrable and unreadable. Out the corner of my 
eye, I could see that Officer-chick had gone completely pale. Damn, 
I'll never be as good at it as Richard. All the same, I stared
into Storr's eyes, and waited. He stared back for a moment without
saying anything, so I shrugged.

	
"I can go back to ogling your officer if you don't want to 
get on with it…"

	
"Fine," he rumbled. "Business." He pulled a
spiral-bound notepad out of a pocket and slipped a pen from the front 
of his suit breast. "I don't really have time for formalities, but you
know I need a new retainer. You also know that Anita…" he stopped 
himself. "Miss Blake has been serving as our preternatural expert 
until now."

	
"Ms. Blake," I corrected, smiling.

	
Something glimmered in his eyes. I watched with curiosity as 
a conflict between expression and physical manifestation wrinkled the 
middle space of his brow.

	
Finally, "You really are a jackass, Jason." Behind it, I 
heard what had happened. He'd been fighting the urge to laugh
when I'd said it. Deep recognition. The Sergeant was already beginning
to miss his warranted murder suspect.

	
I nodded. "If I had a nickel for every time I got called 
that…"

	
"Yeah, yeah." The Sergeant shook his head lightly, glancing 
back to his notepad. "Ms. Blake mentioned you a couple of times
over the course of our collaboration together, and I need a 
preternatural expert. Unless you know someone better, how about a 
police salary?"

	
I grinned. I did know someone better, but I'd be damned if 
I'd pass up on money.

	
"I'll take it, as long as I can help."

	
He surveyed my eyes for more than a moment. Finally, he 
pulled a plastic ID card out of his pocket and handed it to me. The 
front of the plastic read, "Temporary."

	
"I'll get you a picture ID once I'm satisfied with
your… usefulness. Follow me." He began to walk in towards the stairs.
"Hell of a day to start the job."

         
We were instantly enveloped in uniforms. Sergeant Storr led 
the way, I followed, and behind me I could hear the crisp sounds of 
Officer-chick's new uniform. Storr heard it too, because he
stopped. 

         
I nearly bumped into him, and had to turn sideways to avoid 
it. Officer-chick ended up crowded in front of me before she, too, 
stopped. I grinned at her as she looked up, surprised at our sudden 
stop. Storr turned slowly around to face us, and I wiped the grin off 
my face. He looked at the woman.

        
"Officer Walters?"

         
"Sir?" She questioned. He looked down at her for a
moment.

         
"Meg… Have you been up to the crime scene yet?"

         
"Not yet, sir." She looked shyly up at him, lightly
worried, apparently about her status at the crime scene. I looked 
around again, pretending not to be right in the middle of the 
conversation. The Sergeant took a deep breath, as if puffing an 
imaginary cigarette.

         
"It's pretty messy, Meg. Are you sure you're up to
it?"

         
Anger streaked her face. "Sergeant, I'm on the team. It's
about time I stop directing traffic in the name of the team." Her face
glowed red, but the reason slowly changed. I ground my teeth 
together. I hoped she didn't get courageous and decide to tell her 
boss how to do his job on my account.

         
Storr rolled his eyes, sweeping them between the two of us.
"A rookie, a werewolf, and one dead Master Vampire. Hell, let's go."

         
He charged up the stairs, trying to make room for an ashen-
white, older woman with dyed hair, carrying a shaggy little pooch in 
her arms. As they swept past, the dog tracked me and growled. I have 
that effect on some of the dominant females.

         
The stairway opened up to a nice hall, with about four doors 
on either side. The police tape was barely visible behind all the 
suits and bodies. A strobe wicked at the darkness that melted at the 
corners of the hallways. The sun had begun to rise outside. As we 
approached, the group parted, birthing us towards the doorway, and 
the pool of blood that had found its way through the crack under the 
door.

         
My blood started to pulse deeply within my throat, and I 
lost a few seconds to the animal inside me. For the first time, I 
thought about that. I swallowed my beast, and stared at the blood, 
half-shocked. I was volunteering to go on retainer to oversee crime 
scenes, murder scenes directly resultant of bouts between humans and 
monsters. There would always be blood, and frankly, I don't think 
they'd be too happy if I went around, tasting the victims. I
began to have my doubts about the idea. How could the police possibly 
be trusting me?

         
"Jason." Storr was in front of me, and I'd sired
a bit of attention in the small hallway. He snapped a finger in front 
of my face, trying to bring me back. "Jason, what the hell are you
doing?"

         
I looked into his eyes, and I could smell his fear.

         
"What?"

         
"You're eyes, Jason. They changed color."

         
My wolf. I…

         
"I'm sorry." I swallowed. There was a growling
deep within my head. I shook it off, tried to swallow my animal 
again, to push him down inside me without more argument. There was a 
moment's tightness in my chest, a push to expand outward and to 
change, but a deep breath pushed it back in. I took a few more deep 
breaths, and opened my eyes. The world did not have as good a 
resolution through my human pupils. It took me a moment to realize 
that the entire floor of policemen was staring at me, as if I'd run 
in naked, and screamed, "Everybody, look at the wolf." Nobody cares if
you're a lycanthrope, as long as you don't work with them, touch 
them, eat with them, or teach their children. It was a good thing I 
didn't need to hide what I was, like Richard. There were laws against 
discriminating, but do you share your lunchbox with the kid who has 
AIDS? Same issue.

         
I waited in anticipation and regret for the crime scene to 
swell back to life. It didn't. Storr glared angrily at me for a 
moment, but recomposed as quick as apparently possible. Were these 
people truly so sheltered that they'd never seen an animal peek
out of someone's eyes? Granted, it wasn't normal, but hell. Most
of these people are the ones the normal people call when things stop 
being normal. Did they rely so heavily on Anita's brain that they
didn't have any experience of their own? No wonder she ran away. She 
just needed an excuse.

	
Sergeant Storr gripped me by the shirt, pulling me closer to 
him. I could smell the fear as it drained away. My senses grew 
stronger every day. That fear was not the fear for his life. I 
doubted such a man was prone to such fear on a day-to-day basis. This 
was fear for what he'd done, what he'd brought to the crime
scene.

	
"Everybody," he leaned over his shoulder, "Back to
work." The whole of the hall accepted his prompt, and shuffled to 
life again. Strobes of light trailed out the half-open door to the 
rest of the blood.

	
Storr craned me against the nearest wall with his fist 
bunched into my silk over-shirt.

	
"Do that again, and I will throw you off my crime scene 
faster than those green little eyes can resurface," his voice was
a relatively even tone, eyes and smell the only things giving away 
his anger. Other than context, anyways. "Got that, wolf?"

	
I touched my hand to his forearm. I could have cracked the 
wrist into pieces, could have popped his shoulder right out of its 
join. Instead, I rested my fingers on the top of his wrist, soft but 
warranting. I gripped his wrist like a hand in the shake he'd
denied me as the first insult to my status.

	
"Did you allow Anita to use her powers to help you?"

	
His eyes grayed a little.

	
"Ms. Blake was a necromancer, Sergeant. Did you allow her to 
use her own preternatural skill to aid her in solving your
crimes?"

	
"Yes."

	
I patted the neck of his hand lightly as I spoke, "Then will 
you allow me the same courtesy, and stop threatening me?"

	
The giant man thought for a moment, scrutinizing details as 
he dug at my face with his eyes. With a sigh, "Alright, but on my 
watch, if you grow one spec of fur that goes beyond natural human 
anatomy, consider yourself off of my payroll, got it?"

	
I grinned, nodding once.

	
Storr grumbled something unintelligible, and started down the 
hall again. As he moved, Officer Meg appeared behind him, eyes still 
a little wide at me. I grinned and winked, making a clicking sound 
between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. She hurried after 
Sergeant Storr.


Blood pooled basically the entire stretch of the small, white 
living room. It never ceases to amaze me, the sheer amount of the 
fluid that a single body contains. The carpet may have been white or 
off-white, apparently there's a difference. But there were very
few places that had avoided complete saturation. As a result, Officer 
Meg and I had great difficulty avoiding tracking the blood through to 
the kitchen. There were already hundreds of boot prints streaking the 
pale flooring of the kitchen. Anita's beautiful kitchen.

	
The body lay chest down half-onto the hard flooring, 
lingering a bit on the carpet to the small landing. One hand curled 
out in a death reach, stretching towards the little white couch that, 
amazingly, had avoided a drop of blood. There was, however, a fresh 
stain of spilled coffee on the arm nearest to the kitchen. Other than 
the spill, the sofa looked new. I'd help Anita move it to her new 
apartment when this whole thing blew down. Jean-Claude is not dead.

	
"We figure the assailant was sitting on the couch with the 
coffee, and that whatever happened, it happened right here. She 
dropped the coffee and went for the weapon." Storr pointed to the 
couch, and to the body, "The coroner was a little early, so we
had him take a quick look while we were waiting for you."

	
I crouched down with him, over the gaping neck of the corpse. 
Most of the blood had pooled from here, since the wound in the back 
didn't appear to reach completely through to the front of the
chest. My pants lipped down into the sticky, drying blood, and I 
wished I'd worn something more casual. For me, that is. I glanced up, 
and Officer Meg was above us, interested, and forcing herself to 
watch. There had been a glitter in her eyes before. It was gone.

         
The Sergeant looked at me as if I wasn't doing my job. I 
shrugged; he shrugged. "What do you think?" He questioned.

         
He wasn't going to help. I shook my head, shrugging
again. I pulled my finger across the air over the neck wound, 
indicating. "Seems like two thrusts from the left, the first in
and to the backbone, shattering the vertebrae and… tearing the
ligaments, I suppose. Then a second from the same side, finishing off 
the bone and the other side of the flesh. That's how I would have 
done it. Isn't this the Coroner's bit?"

         
"Just seeing how useful you are. Got the Coroner's
report to a `T' on the neck. What about the back?"

         
I swept my hands and eyes down the spin until I reached the 
blood soaked, raw parts where the black shirt has been torn away from 
the pale flesh. Three ribs burned bright white in a perpendicular 
stretch away from the contour of the back. The access point near the 
spine bore slices that weren't immediately noticeable. The flesh 
started out as simply torn, but deeper into the meat there were 
rivulets that led down in toward the bone. Claws had opened the 
wound. I breathed for a moment, thinking. Richard. Discretion until 
it became necessary to mention it.

         
"Shattered back from a grip near the spine. Probably 
collapsed them forward in the front, right through the sternum."
The Sergeant raised an eyebrow. "Didn't check that one, but
let's see, shall we?"

         
Jean-Claude. This was supposedly my master, lying stomach-
down in his own blood. Well, his "own" blood, if it really
were Jean-Claude. Storr reached around one shoulder, attempting to 
dislodge the body from its suction in the drying blood. He'd put on a 
pair of rubber gloves. Not fair, but I leaned in to help him turn the 
body over. The body was heavy, despite its near-empty flesh. As it 
flipped to its side, the reaching arm whopped over, nearly striking 
me. The black shirt gaped open all the way down to the black pants, 
revealing a long white and red triangle of nearly hairless skin. The 
gleaming smoothness of a cross-shaped burn scarred the side of the 
fallen man's chest, near an ashen nipple. The blood sloughed around 
the scar, its flesh too slick to hold the fluid like the remainder of 
the chest.

         
Jean-Claude is not dead, I told myself again. I believed it. 
The vampire council believed it. We'd all have known if something
so drastic occurred. The vampires he made, governed over, would feel 
it. And Anita. Could she survive killing him? She and Richard formed 
a bond that held them together more than they could possibly defeat. 
No, this was not Jean-Claude. Looking at the flawless skin of the 
stomach, the chest, I knew that it couldn't be him. The stomach
I'd curled against, the chest that stopped moving as the sun came up. 
These were not the same, these cold, dead items that only vaguely 
resembled my Master. An elaborate forgery. Nothing more.

         
Storr mumbled something that I didn't hear. I stood,
stepped back, against the couch. My heart was racing, but not because 
of the animal within me. I took a few deep breaths, closing my eyes. 
What in God's name happened here?

         
"Jason," Storr rumbled carefully.

         
I opened my eyes slowly. "I'm okay. This…" I
couldn't seem to put it into words. "This isn't Jean-Claude. It can't
be." Two points for me. I turned up to look at him, finally catching 
up with my breath. The Sergeant looked at me with a deep crease 
skepticism pressed across his brow.

         
"Jason, this is a difficult case for you, I see this.
But this is Jean-Claude."

         
"A forgery. They just burned a scar into some random guy
and cut his head off. This is not Jean-Claude." I said it again and
again inside my head. I would not believe it, that Jean-Claude could 
possibly be dead.

         
"Jason," Storr repeated. I stopped my thought and
looked at him. His face was stern, an elementary principal's face. `Go
back to class, Jason. Don't through food in the lunch room.'
Certainly not, `Identify your master's decapitated corpse.' He
walked up, standing square in front of me. "Can you handle this? 
There is more I need you to see."

         
I searched his face. It gave nothing away, but I scented the 
sorrow he was holding back. What an awful life this man must lead. 
Holding back such sorrow was natural, something he did often. I took 
a couple of breaths, and nodded.

         
"I'm okay, but what more could there possibly be?"
He didn't say it. Maybe for my sake. Instead, he simply tapped
his own head.

         
"No," I said. "Anita would take the head.
She'd burn it. She would not leave a vampire's head for all to see."
Storr nodded. Still, "Do you want to see this?"

         
"Yes, now." I had to know. I needed to see why the
police would confuse such obvious framework with the truth.

         
The Sergeant walked through a narrow hall, where 
photographic strobes bulbed out. The bedroom, I assumed. He dismissed 
the occupants, and a couple of Suits and a Uniform filed out. Storr 
reappeared in the portal like a door of human design. He took a 
breath, tired, and waved me in.

         
As I traversed the hall, Meg appeared behind me, a bit 
disheveled. How could she possibly have been assigned to RPIT? She 
was as squeamish about all of this as I was angry. But, she followed 
me a little more closely, now. Apparently, she'd seen that there
are worse things at the scene than the wolf in Jason's clothing. I
smiled casually this time, and she forced a smile back, and blushed a 
bit. I'd worry about the scent I was getting from her a little later,
when there weren't bodies strewn across the ground.

         
The doorway opened up to the bedroom, as I'd assumed it
did. My immediate notice went to the dozens of stuffed penguins that 
littered the floor. We stepped over the penguins, one at a time, 
towards the bed. Anita Blake collected stuffed penguins. Damn. The 
scent of another animal perked the room. I could smell Richard, but 
there was something more. As I tracked toward the bed, the scent grew 
stronger, and I nearly stepped in it. I stopped in front of the 
pooled clear fluid. Meg didn't stop, and I had to grab her
shoulder. She stopped, looking at me, alarmed.

         
"Well advised not to step in the foreign fluids painting
the carpet." I pointed down.

         
She looked down, and realized that she'd almost stepped
in it.

         
"Well," she said, a little puzzled, "It's
just water, isn't it?"

         
I knelt, looking at it, and sniffed a bit.

         
"No, it isn't."

         
Storr appeared above us.

         
"Lab hasn't called out a report, yet. Not water?"

         
I shook my head. "No…" The animal. This was not Richard.

         
"What?" Storr rumbled. Nice small talk.

         
"A lycanthrope changed here. To animal form, I think.
This fluid is a byproduct."

         
"Richard Zeeman. We weren't sure he…"

         
"No," I said. "This isn't Richard. It's not a wolf."

         
Storr looked at me a moment, puzzled. Finally, "Okay,
Jason. What is it, then?"

         
I bent low, nose nearly pressed into the stuff.

         
"I…" the smell wafted up and down in the air, but
there was something amiss about it. "I don't know, Sergeant. It's
different from anything I've ever smelled before. And I know all the 
lycanthropic types in the area." Thanks to Marcus' Café.

         
"An unidentified were-animal. Great. Another suspect,
then? This one doesn't even have an animal, much less, a name?"
The smelled filled my nose, and my beast rose, unsure about it. I 
spoke mid-sigh, lightly, "Yeah…"

         
Meg shrieked. Storr and I rose to see. She stood, shocked 
and appalled at what lay on the bed. Tears streamed down her face, 
testifying to the fact that she wasn't ready for this kind of
work. I wanted to go to her, pet her hair and make her feel happier. 
It wasn't fair to make such a cute little Officer cry. But something 
stopped me. What she was screaming about. I turned my head to
Anita's bed in the corner of the room, and could see. Froths of black 
hair billowed across the pillow at the head of the mattress. It 
covered the face from my angle, so I stepped over the clear fluid and 
strafed to where I could see.

         
He looked so peaceful. Jean-Claude's midnight blue eyes 
stared distantly off, into the pale glow of the room. His mouth hung 
open only a bit, but the fangs were blindingly visible behind the 
lips. There was a small amount of neck before the flesh cut directly 
off where the knife had carved away his body in the living room. 
Blood had pooled minimally under his chin. I could nearly hear his 
voice in my head, addressing the woman he loved as ma petite. Jean-
Claude was dead, well and truly dead. The truth of it found me like 
the agony I'd felt the moment Raina had bitten into my flesh and 
infected me as the wolf that I am. I tasted, smelled blood, a deep 
sense of loss growing thick in the back of my throat, and I dashed 
for the bathroom around the corner, but black consumed half my starry 
vision and I fell to the ground among the penguins.

         
Complete and unadulterated darkness.