Shaggy kept quiet the on the ride home. My mind had been playing out an explanation for our essentially useless side trip. None of the reasoning sounded logical, nothing I could spin in a way that would be positive.

Sorry, we were talking to Evan because a psycho elf that I had a fling with is stalking me. Sorry, but if I know what race I am, I can defend Kahina better. Sorry, I managed to get myself kicked out of an entire pack's region. Sorry, I wanted to make sure all the stuff in my home was still there and protected.

Each excuse made me feel more dysfunctional than the last. Life was easier when I didn't have questions, didn't have secrets, and didn't give a crap what other people thought of me. I guess that made me a giant child for most of my twenties.

We parked in an underground garage off to the side of Kahina's complex. Concrete felt less forgiving than dirt to my senses.

"Anthony sent out a notice with reminders for tonight." Ann, damn it I was forgetting to keep her name straight, Shaggy was looking at her little handheld again.

"And?" I prompted.

"Looks like a change of clothes again, careful grooming, there are some comments in here about proving we are a unified front and not a ragtag band of brutes and barbarians." Her voice turned mocking at the last part and ended with a smile into the rear view mirror. "I think he's talking about you, sir."

"Fantastic." It was the only response I could come up with that didn't involve shoving a cross up Anthony's rear end.

I let myself out of the car. Shaggy fell into step while still reading the screen. One thumb rolled over the trackball built into it.

"Got some intel on the three wolves too," She said as we walked. That made me perk up. "Three, male, all were newer members to Fifty Five according to Sector roster."

"Daniel got a report back already?" Daniel was a childhood friend of mine. He was a through and through ginger who was also a Sector suit on top of it. The combination threw off a lot of people.

"Sure did, sir, I asked him extra nicely." She sounded smug. It was one less question hanging over my head. This also meant her success at getting information out of Daniel Crumfield was better than mine.

"The dossier goes on to say they were all extended family to some of the pack members. Sponsored a few times over, and completed reintegration training with good time. Certification and everything. One of them was cleared to start Agent support training next year."

Reintegration is a process new wolves go through before being released into the public. It acted like obedience school but closer to taking a wild wolf and domesticating them. Slapping a label on the process made it a legal hurdle for all pack members. The process ranked wolves from 'unsuitable for public exposure' to 'handles extreme situations'. Extreme situations mostly meant sports games.

A slightly drunk wolf at a football game would go crazy if they couldn't maintain some control. Imagine Western Isles' yearly soccer games with a half furry crowd yelling at each other across the stadium. That was exactly what happened during one of the most amusing halftime shows I had ever seen. Only instead of yelling six different packs had launched themselves onto the field, yellows and greens had surged in a tidal wave of violence.

Ranking systems helped with job placement. If a wolf wanted to become law enforcement then they needed the highest classification. Due to the stress of being the arm of the law. Or fang, or claw. Agent support meant someone had scouted them out and made an offer. If that went well they may find full Sector Agent training on their menu. We had basically killed some pack’s future all stars.

"Why did they try for Kahina?" I asked.

"Well, according to Anthony this sort of thing is fairly typical. Not advertised, but typical. He says it will get worse before it gets better.” Shaggy scrolled down some more and nodded to herself. “The Lady's follow up E-Mail indicates it should calm down after she's completed the change, which gives us a week or so of hell."

"If she doesn't?" The question was out before I could stop it. Her chances at success plagued me constantly.

"Then we have a severance package, hazard pay, and a set of skills that will easily carry us to other jobs. Most of us had offers pending from all sorts of places. Well, those that attend the training anyway." Shaggy said with a half glare in my direction.

For me, things would go from terrible to worse. There was no home available to me. I didn't have a Sector identification number. Nor a credit score, social media account, and most of my contacts were from years ago.

"Why do you ask, you know something we don't?" Ann took my silence to have more meaning that it did.

"Not really." Which was the problem. I didn't know anything for sure. If felt like I had half a box of puzzle pieces, or a gun without bullets, or a car without gas. How could I protect anyone if I had no idea what I could do?

"Well the Lady's placed a lot of trust in you, so don't screw it up. Sir." She said. My automatic scowl was hard to suppress. Judging by Ann's next words I must have failed. "Perfect. With that look on your face tonight I'm sure you'll impress Keeper."

"What look?" I asked.

"There, that's even better, sir" Shaggy had to be messing with me. "Anyway, don't worry about the wolves. They won't report it to anyone outside of the packs, Sector has their noses in everything and passed it on as a favor."

"Alright." I shelved one part of the worry and replaced it with another. All her reassurance meant is that the wolves believed this was personal.

"I'm going to my quarters, you remember how to find your room?"

"I'll be fine, Shaggy" Her attempt at banter barely registered. A moment later she rolled her eyes and walked off, leaving me behind for once.

My brain was elsewhere. Kahina was switching over tonight then. I still wasn't sure how our relationship would be after the change. Soon she'd be completely inhuman. Would it change her? Like I was one to talk. Hell. Not knowing what I was might be more frightening than what she was becoming. At least I'd been raised in a world that dealt with Vampires on a constant basis.

Her hunger would probably be worse than ever. Blood would come up quicker in our conversations. Sex, if any, would include a slight nip on the neck, a careful one. Or elsewhere, a lower elsewhere. That thought induced uncomfortable shudders.

I healed. Bullet wounds and excessive blood loss hadn't put me down. Not even a hospital visit. Countless amount of scraps in my twenties hadn't left scars aside from a busted nose. I was a rolling bundle of drunken rage during those years.

Thinking about drinking made me thirsty. There was liquor to drown my musings somewhere. I traveled upstairs to my room to find a change of clothes that had been left out. Getting dressed gave me a properly imposing air. A few layers of clothes were removed to allow for full range of movement.

I went downstairs to get a drink or five before the sun went down. Afterward would be the mouthwash, a lot of mouthwash.

After a few moments, I realized where my grand plan was leading. Candy was right. Kahina was going to kill me, but not because of the blood. No, if Kahina killed me it would be for the age old reason between men and women. I, as the male, would do something incredibly stupid that warranted too much attention. Kahina, as the female, would see my actions and assume everyone thought she was crazy by association when it was only a reflection upon my own poor judgment.

Recognizing my future didn't stop me. It never stops any drunk for long.

Searching yielded a converted break room where I could easily exercise a lack of foresight. Kahina had enough visitors and members on staff that she'd turned one of the side rooms into a lounge of sorts. Small, nowhere near the size of Julianne's bar, but cozy. There were a few different tables and a small counter lined with bottles and glasses. I saddled up to one of the stools at the counter feeling almost at home.

A single swinging door went out into a kitchen. Not the biggest one in the house but fairly close. I could tell the hinges were well oiled from the lack of sound as they moved. Four months living here and I only noticed this room today. This building was huge. Kahina's mansion held too many people for me.

No one else was here which left me with an unattended bar. I fished a tiny glass and bottle of tequila out from behind the counter. Quick and effective. I wasn't tacky enough to drink straight from the neck.

Not until after the first few shots.

I started to tilt the chilled bottle back when Daniel walked in. He was the only redhead I knew with such a deep tan. My oldest friend was dressed in some professional ensemble. Daniel tried to explain to me once the difference between a good suit and a cheap one. A knowledge of fine clothes wasn't included in my skills.

"Looking sharp, man. What is that, a Deckard?" Daniel said in his west coast surfer accent.

Of course the first thing he noticed was my clothes, acting like I stopped and read their labels. Clothes were clothes. Though these did feel very smooth, not rough like my normal stuff. Damned if I would tell Daniel that.

I eyeballed him and kept tilting the bottle back. It took a lot to get me drunk, but persistence would pay off. Hopefully before this meeting with Keeper I would be vaguely sober.

"Mind if I grab a seat?" He asked.

Shrugging was easier than taking the bottle out of my mouth. Daniel took the shoulder movement as an invitation to sit.

"Hold on." He reached behind the counter and found a clean glass and another bottle to set in front of him.

I gasped and finally spoke. "Matching shots?"

"Against you? No thanks, man." Daniel said.

"Lightweight," I muttered. He did keep up with two glasses before passing a round.

"Why are you here, Crummy?" I asked.

"If, by your so cleverly disguised question, you are asking if I care about this morning's excitement, no, I don't. Maybe in a few weeks from now."

Hell. I guess he did get the report. It shouldn't be surprising that he brought it up first. At least he didn't seem worried about it.

"What then?” I said. Daniel poured himself a small glass, then poured me some of the bronze liquid. Rum from the smell.

"Tonight's little event requires an observer from Sector to be made legal. Otherwise, I have to charge your woman with trespassing over more than a few laws. Not a fan of that idea, man." He said while glaring at his drink for a minute.

"Shorten that," I said.

"I watch. I sign on the dotted line. Kahina and Keeper work out the last part of the arrangement, in a week or two we come back and see if things went well." He downed his drink and grabbed another one. I was too confused to join him.

"If? You know about...?" Tact was nearly impossible when talking about Kahina's change. Hadn't Daniel been the one to tell me anyway?

"I help manage Sector liaisons for an entire region, what do you think?" He drank another glass and started over. It'd been only a few minutes and he was already laying it back.

"Going to switch to water?" I asked while slowly blinking a few times.

"Nope. I'm preparing." He followed the statement with a vigorous head shake.

"Why?" It was the clearest word to come out of my mouth in the last ten minutes.

"Listen, Jay. Do you know what my job truly is?"

"Police the police?" I tried to sound clever. It sounded funny to me, but Daniel didn’t laugh.

"A lot of what I do, what every Sector Agent does, is making sure everyone out there gets along on the surface. Sometimes I solve problems with violence. With drop in interviews. Or paperwork nightmares. Tonight I'm solving problems with a drink." He rolled the small glass around on the table before sighing and going for another shot. Daniel was up to four, maybe five now.

"Sounds logical." I solved a lot of my problems with alcohol. As much as anyone could by drowning reality one bottle at a time.

"The Keeper is a big man in the Tribunal, not one of the three but old and knowledgeable. This is me preparing to get on his good side." The Western Sector Agent looked almost annoyed at the latest bout of liquid to pass through his lips. Heathen.

I didn't understand. Drinking like crazy was getting along? Daniel nudged my glass, the one he so carefully poured for me, but I hadn't noticed. Things were happening and slipping by with barely an idle thought.

Hell. Kahina was going to die tonight. Might. This might be the last night she ever got to be aware.

"A toast, man," Daniel said.

I shrugged and lifted a glass in return. My sorrows could always use a bit more drowning.

"To keeping the world semi-peaceful." He toasted.

“To sort of peaceful.” I couldn’t focus on all those words. We clinked the glasses. The drink burned more going down than what I had been plowing through. A few quiet minutes passed by while my thoughts tried to sort themselves out unsuccessfully. I kept sipping at the bottle and considered switching to water.

Time passed while we chatted. Daniel went on about his latest assignment, nothing specific, general bitching about how annoying it would be. More annoying than the last one.

The full story of our last adventure went downhill quick. In short I had rushed out to Evan for two reasons. First, to learn what race I was exactly, because it clearly wasn't human or elven or wolf or vampire. Second was to track down some rich heir to a cult. Dead it turns out. Daniel had been working, as a double agent, with the a cult called The Order of Merlin and putting pressure as a Sector Agent on me. During the final conflict, he betrayed the cult and put a whole series of explosives onto their caravan in the woods.

Booming happened. Crazy moments of near insanity. An easy thirty people had died to gunfire, fireworks, northern pack, and me. Daniel revealed he was on my side all along. Too bad that night Julianne was the one casualty on our side.

"How do you manage all these people and have time for extra assignments?" I didn’t actually manage the sentence in one go. It slurred out a few times as my tongue tripped into teeth.

"Stunt doubles, man, and being good at my job."

All this drinking didn’t sound like being good at a job. Then again I drank a lot and I was good at my job. Intimidation, muscle for hire. Thug in a nice suit. A suit designed by someone I couldn't name with this much liquor in me. Deck something.

"Keeper's gay." Daniel commentated.

"Gay? So?" It didn't make sense why a vampire's sexual orientation would concern me. I wasn't ignorant of different lifestyles, not that I ever swung that way myself.

"Don't stand too close to him while you're plastered. He has a thing for half drunk slabs of manly meat." My friend said with a vague smile.

"You're just now warning me?" I said while one eye threatened to lose vision.

"Figured it'd be easier now than an hour ago." He shook his head and stared into the distance. Both of his hands rested on the counter top.

An hour ago I was sober and could have made a decision to stay that way. I think. Of course, I wasn't really drunk. I was far into the land of fuzzy. Very far.

"Why are so many of the older male vampires gay?" I asked. There was a study or ten that were fairly conclusive. Or maybe it was a fact that had been made up on the spot by my completely sober thinking.

"It's easy, Jay, eventually they figure out that having your prostate tickled is far more fun than a mystery box."

"What?" I sputtered. That sounded like nonsense. Trust Daniel to throw me a comment like that. My slightly less sober friend laughed.

"They're not all gay. Most are Bi but don't worry about it. Kahina would have told Keeper to keeper his hands off. Your tush may be admired but not violated. Unless you and Kahina..." Daniel rolled the empty glass around again. He couldn’t sit still and fiddled with everything.

"Not inviting another man to the party." I firmly said.

"Then you two are back together, together." He gestured with both hands then dove for the rolling glass before it fell.

"Mostly" We had unsorted issues that would have to be settled soon. "and provided she doesn't try to bite me again." I rubbed at my neck with one hand. She had tried once years ago, a second time didn't seem like a good idea.

"Man, still shy about that?"

Here I was drunk with a friend asking me personal questions again, last time it had been Julianne pestering me. There should be a disclaimer on the side of these alcohol bottles. 'Warning, may disable personal boundaries.' Then again if anyone else had asked I probably wouldn't have answered. Drink or no. There's something to be said about having a friend to talk to. Even if Daniel was the only one left.

"Not shy. They all do it, nothing unusual. Kahina says that my blood is..."

"Oh, that. Right, well I wouldn't worry about it." I shot him a confused look. "It'll solve itself, it did before." One of the part-time employees swept in through the kitchen door, took one look at Daniel and me and turned right back around.

"What does that mean?"

"Not sure, something important but I can't remember." Daniel's face was puzzled as he took another swig.

"Does this have anything to do with...that other thing?" My voice lowered with the question. Even now the drinking felt a little less effective. Healing shouldn’t sober me up, but it did.

Daniel, while under cover, had been posing as a cult member. Some group called the Order of Merlin. Not my problem so I never asked much about it. What concerned me is that one of his cult buddies had asked Daniel to check me for something. The way he asked felt like it was related to whatever I was, species wise.

"Probably. That's what I've been bitching about. After the change is over I'll have more time to invest in Order nonsense. Hard to balance all this stuff. I've told my contacts that I have to keep things straight for a few more weeks before I can devote myself to the pursuit of our cause." His words didn't have any slur to them. How he managed that while drinking heavily was a mystery.

"I thought you were good."

"I'm great, man. Kept your name off the books with all the nonsense you do. In a world that has a file for every human, including a document showing how many times you shit a day, it's tough to erase somebody without the right tools." He spouted off the lines while tapping out a disjointed pattern on the table top.

"Thanks." I stood up to leave but couldn't resist asking at least one more question. "Am I the only one?"

"There's all sorts of odd things out there, Jay." Gods above, the man actually gave me an answer that contained valuable information. Someone gave me an answer.

"Things that escaped The Purge?" Alright, maybe I had a few more questions, at least when he answered like that. Maybe he knew if other races still existed somewhere.

"Yeah. The motherfucking Purge. Seven shots at this and it’s still not done." He stared at the glass as it started to fall yet again. I reached out and grabbed the glass while Daniel kept talking. “And all the useful information was destroyed. Everything outside the four we basically have to solve with no guidance.”

"Seems like you're offering yourself plenty of rounds already." I said while setting down the glass. He was worse than I with half the liquor. There was enough left in my consciousness to try understanding his lament.

"All part of the plan. My part in helping us all get along." Daniel smiled and lazily reached for the glass. “I can’t talk about it, Jay. Those are the rules, don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Fine.” If he couldn’t talk about it, so be it. I didn’t want him risking his job that kept me safe. Now was a good time to walk off some of this alcohol. Or go on a job then change the undershirt.

"See you in an hour." I had an hour to reach passable sobriety so Kahina didn't throttle me.

He didn’t even wave. I heard the sound of his chair twisting away and another drink being poured. The bottle clanked against the counter as he set it down.