Scherzo (Book Two of the Muse Series)

5. The Hunter

I was sitting next to a werewolf--a 5'8", 175-pound werewolf wearing a barista's uniform and the faint but still recognizable outline of eyeliner.

"Everyone, allow me to introduce you to Chace," began Tristan, breaking the bubble of shock around the table. "Chace, I am Tristan, this is Elma, Mills, and finally, Theo."

"Charmed," was Chace the killer werewolf's response.

"Now that we meet in person, you do look faintly familiar," Tristan continued, sipping her double espresso and making a slightly pained face. "Have we met previously?"

"Yeeeessss," Chace said in four syllables. "Outside Marrakech, roundabout 1910 or 11-ish, though I imagine you don't remember." Chace had no appreciable expression on his face or in his voice, but just sat with his legs crossed and hands folded on his knee, like a prissy librarian.

With a slightly confused scrunch, Tristan responded, "I must say, I don't recall. My apologies. Did we speak?"

Chace simply uncrossed his legs, crossed them in the other direction, then looked down and back up into Tristan's face with a dramatic flourish that could have been an Oscar clip. "Let's put it this way--we almost spoke. However, you were too busy watching your Russian girlfriend's ass to have time to spend with little old me."

"Oh, Olya," chimed in Mike with a sigh and a smile. "Dear, dear Olya. Quite a gem she was, indeed." Tristan just glared at him. For my part, I was red hot with jealousy and also red hot with annoyance that I was even slightly jealous.

"Again, my apologies," Tristan continued. "What was your name at that time?"

"Doesn't matter," sighed Chace with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'll get over it. All you need to know is that now, today, I'm Chace Hunter, your fucking werewolf bodyguard."

"Chace Hunter? Are you joking?" And back comes Mike, once again taking full advantage of an awkward situation. "Now that is just a cliche upon a joke upon a double entendre, isn't it? I quite love it, personally. I think it's fairly brilliant, darling, really," he grinned.

"OK first of all," Chace countered with less than a nanosencond's pause, his head bobbing side to side and an index finger waving in the air in front of us to the same disco beat, "I'm sitting here because I'm planning to help you bitches. And further-fucking-more," he swiveled his head to face Mike without slowing the metronomic wag of the finger one iota, "if you're about to call me darling, you'd best be able to back that shit up," an admonition to which added after scanning him from head to toe, "literally ... and repeatedly."

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Thirty minutes into the conversation we knew several more key bits of info:

Fact--the end of the curse had not only affected our group, but had also had an impact on the larger supernatural community. Everyone from witches to wolves to those hulky fairies knew that the bizarre storm that hit Winter Rain last week was not just any little squall. The question was, what or who had caused it?

Fact--half a century after a band of renegade supernaturals had made a bid for power, killing many of every order, word was now spreading that the rebels had redoubled their efforts and were hungry for control once again.

Fact--There was a strange fear percolating among all the preternaturals, unrelated to the rebels. Why?

After some more explanation and some very colorful curse words, Chace returned to the counter to finish his shift, but first admonished us not to leave his sight. Until further notice, where he went, we went. So, as the werewolf pulled espresso shots across the room, Tristan answered questions and further filled in some of the blanks as we all sipped our free coffees.