Glamour Bites

I made my way through the crowd to look at the wreckage that had once been my home away from home. I could feel the eyes of all the other employees on me as I knelt in front of the debris and looked at the still smoking carnage, thinking.



I had worked on cases with the FBI, so I was the best qualified for finding out who had started the fire, but someone who had been here had to have seen something.



“Who was working today beside Karma and Mike?”



“Darvik and I were, Alexia.” A tiny voice came from behind me and I turned to see Alabastar, a tiny three inch high pixie floating a foot off the ground, tears in his eyes.



“Alabastar, Darvik, I need to know if there was anyone out of the ordinary here with you two, Karma, and Mike?”



Darvik, a three foot high, two foot wide dwarf, stepped out of the crowd and allowed Alabastar to land on his shoulder. The little pixie sat Indian style and placed his hand on his chin, thinking, while the dwarf’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration.



After a few minutes, Alabastar’s tiny voice broke the now silence of the surrounding crowd. “I heard Karma talking to someone, but Mike caught me trying to eavesdrop and sent me to help Darvik some research while he and Karma spoke with the man.”



“I heard a man’s voice too. Just before Alabastar was sent to help me with the research of some upcoming case, I heard it from Karma’s office.”



Darvik’s gruff voice caused me to look up at him and see the sadness in his eyes. I stood and walked over to him, squeezing his shoulder gently. “They’ll be alright, Darvik. Karma and Mike are strong. They’ll pull through.”



“I know, Alexia, but I can’t help but think that if I had been a little nosier, a little less dwarf-like, we’d still have the office and they wouldn’t be hurt.” Large tears welled up and fell into the long beard of the stout dwarf, and he wailed loud enough to have some police look our way.



I took the handkerchief that Ian handed me and handed it to the dwarf, letting him wipe his face before I hugged him. “You can’t help who you are, Darvik.” I lowered my voice and knelt in front of him. “Look at me. I’m a vampyre, witch hybrid. I’m one of a kind. I tried to hide it for so long, but I now realize there’s no way I can not be who I am. You did what you were born to do.”



“What about me, Alexia? I’m naturally curious and didn’t go see who it was. How do you explain that?”



I couldn’t hug the little pixie, but I poked him in his belly playfully and smiled. “You, my dear Alabastar, have always needed to learn to give people privacy when they ask for it. You have finally learned that. And, though something happened, it wasn’t your fault. It was merely a freak accident.”



I stood and looked around the crowd of my colleagues, trying to figure out what to tell them. We had to keep up the business, whether Karma and Mike were there or not. I just had to figure out where we were all going to be currently stationed. As the other business partner of the business, it was my job to answer that.



I smiled and let out a little giggle, getting a shocked look from the saddened faces of my fellow hunters. I shook my head and turned to them. “In true Glamour Hunts fashion, we will continue with the business, even with Karma and Mike in the hospital.”



There were several calls of “that’s what they would have wanted” and “where will we work from”, and I smiled brightly. “I’m coming to that. As their business partner, I am the paranoid one of the bunch. When we first started this business, I took the liberty of finding two properties for our offices. We chose the one that would be seen more by prospective customers.”



Everyone nodded, making it clear that we had had many customers do to our current location. We were in the middle of a shopping center with no other bounty hunting offices within a hundred miles of us. It was the perfect location, but also very easy for others to find us.



“So we moved into the offices we’ve all called home for the last three years, but I was still paranoid and bought the other property with my own money. Mike and Karma helped me furnish it with all the same technologies we had here and we sent all updated files to those computers every night as well as every morning. I haven’t been to the office in a few days, but we still have an office. I’ll give everyone the address and directions and we can all meet there tomorrow morning.”



A collective cheer went up throughout the group of hunters. A cheer for my paranoia, I guess. I sighed and took a notebook that one of the faeries handed me and wrote the address out, handing the notebook back.



She looked down at it and smiled, passing it around the group. Everyone smiled and nodded, knowing that the warehouse I had just given the address for was just outside out of town about a mile from the Faerie Mounds. Most of the employees would be close to home and loved the idea, always hating to come into the city.



After everyone had seen the address and copied it down for themselves, they turned back to me with a smile, nodding. “Does anyone have any questions? If not, I shall see you all tomorrow at 8 AM. I have an arsonist to find.”



As everyone cleared the parking lot, I felt arms go around my waist and took a deep breath, breathing in the sweet wooded scent of Ian. I leaned back against him and his arms moved to wrap around my shoulders.



I kissed his fingers and sighed. “I have a lot to go through in this pile of rubble. If you want to go home, you can. I’ll just take a cab when I get done here.”



“I’m not leaving you, Lexi. I want to help in any way I can.”



“Don’t you have a dinner date with Matt and Gabe?”



Ian smiled and pulled out his cell phone, holding the second button down. He put the phone to his ear and smiled as it was answered. “Gabe? Yeah, it’s Ian. Listen, Alexia has a situation here and we’re going to need some help. Someone set a fire at her office and she’s going to need me to help her go through the debris. Why don’t you guys come and help?”



There was an answering that I couldn’t hear and Ian smiled, giving me a nod. “We’re at the Dimensional Shopping Center on the East Side of town. We’ll see you when you get here.”



He hung up and smiled at me. “See, Lexi? No problems there, and we have free workers.”



I laughed and kissed him gently, pulling away and heading into the debris. “Well I want to get started before they get here.”



“What are we looking for then?”



“Anything unusual. Just think of a normal office and anything that you won’t find in a normal office, let me know.”



Ian nodded and we began to dig through the rubble that had once been my sanctuary. I could tell already that it was going to be a really long day.