Dim Sum Asylum(7)

“Revenge? I’d have done it if he’d shot a dog.” I softened my voice. “He was one of ours, Uncle Will. She should have been safe. That girl shouldn’t have died under blue fire.”

“I know,” he agreed and nodded at me. “No one knew he was dirty. IA didn’t even suspect him.”

“He hid it pretty well. I only figured it out because I caught him red-handed. If I hadn’t been early, we never would have known. He could have sauntered in after stashing the eggs and found me cursing up a storm because the eggs were gone. I’d have assumed something or someone else got them,” I replied, sliding my leg down to sit fully in the chair. Gaines looked away, but I knew him well. He was angry and ashamed of Arnett. One of his own let him down. “He sucked as a partner, and because of him, I’m still Internal Affairs’s bitch.”

“Not anymore,” Gaines said. “These are yours. As of tomorrow, you’re back on duty.”

He reached into his drawer, pulled out my badge and gun, and placed them on the desk between us. They made a satisfying clunk on the wood, a familiar, comforting metallic echo I’d grown up with. That sound meant my mother was home. Then a few years later, it meant I was home and ready to peel the day off my back. With John and then my daughters, I’d grown into the habit of stashing my weapon in a lockbox as soon as I came through the door. I’ve since gone back to laying it on the table, and now the sound was a siren for Bob the Cat to come looking for a scritch and food. That sound—right now—meant I’d be pinning my badge back on, and I never felt more at home than behind my badge.

I still didn’t like the gleam in Gaines’s eye, though.

“What’s the catch? From what I was hearing, it was going to be another month.” I didn’t reach for my things. I knew that look. There were going to be conditions of surrender. I could see it. “What do I have to give in to?”

“You’ll have to get a new partner.” He placed a folder next to my gun. “I haven’t figured out who’s pissed me off the most yet. I’ve narrowed it down to two. I’ll let you know in a little bit.”

I left the folder where it lay while my fingers itched to grab it. “Can’t I go solo for a while? I just shot my old partner. No one’s going to want to work with me.”

“Just be thankful he didn’t die.” Gaines handed me a grape lollipop. He’d handed me a lot of lollipops over the years, all of them grape or cherry. “If he did, Internal Affairs would be chewing on your badge for dessert.”

“He could still die. Infection. Someone shoving a pillow over his face—”

“I need you to keep your nose clean. That’s it,” he replied, unwrapping a lollipop for himself. He stuck it into his mouth and sucked the candy into his cheek. “That folder? It’s your IA release. They think you’re a little crazy, kid, and I’m inclined to believe them. You haven’t been the same since….”

He trailed off, but I knew what he was saying. After I lost John and the girls, life seemed easier when lived on the edge. I took more chances than I should, pushed harder than I needed to. Of course, if I’d pushed a bit harder, perhaps I wouldn’t have worn that young girl’s blood on my face. I wondered if the dead fae’s parents would wear a black star on their wrists or if they’d pierce their wings with an onyx star. The fae wore their grief out in the open for all to see. I hated giving her parents the chance to decide how to mourn her. I knew how heavy a black star could get. The three I wore on my wrist grew heavier each year, and today I’d add more ink to my body, weighing me down further.

“I’m good, Uncle Will.” I crossed my heart with a finger. “Promise.”

“Try to stay out of trouble for a few months. That’s all I ask,” he said. “Brae, on the other hand, wants you over for dinner next Saturday.”

“Can’t make it,” I replied. “Girls’ Day.”

“That’s why he wants you over. You shouldn’t be alone again this year. If I had my way, you’d be living in the apartment over our damned garage and maybe even wearing an ankle bracelet so I can keep track of you.”

“Look, Uncle Will, I’m not going to be good company after—”

“We’re not looking for good company.” He’d cut me off in a voice sharp enough to slice frozen bread. “We’re looking for our godson. So be there, Roku, at seven o’clock and with a good red wine. Brae’s making lasagna. Don’t be late or I’ll stew your gizzard for a pie.”




THE GILLEY family were traditionalists, and in their grief, they clung to the old ways to comfort them.

I understood that need for comfort. My mother’s Scottish traditions ran to whiskey, and that was one I’d embraced gladly and fully after my family’s deaths, so I was hardly one to cast a stone—polished or rough—at the wild-eyed swaying young man with furled wings being held up by an older fae man near St. Patrick’s front doors. He stank of rotgut gin, a cheap but quick way to blur the pain eating through him, but grief ravaged his youthful, handsome face, carving years into his sallow skin and pulling down a mouth more used to laughter than crying.

The kid was too young to be Moira Gilley’s boyfriend, and his wing patterns matched hers, so either a brother or a cousin. Someone must have thought he’d be strong enough to greet the streams of devastated people heading up the short flight of stairs, but they were wrong. He was barely holding himself together, and with each face passing him, with each footstep ringing on the stone, he cracked a little bit more.