Going Nowhere

Chapter 5 - The naked troll

"It was a goddamned handkerchief," I moaned. "Apparently one of the giants was sad about the loss of his puppy a few years back and drowned his sorrows with barrel after barrel of beer at Tiaso's. Forgot his hankie."

I'd been describing the thing Silenus had given me to wear, and Joel started laughing. I saw nothing humorous in this because the stupid thing had apparently become the mandatory uniform for all female bartenders at the bar. Which would be me.

The reason it was me was mainly the huge stack of bills Silenus had handed me at the end of the evening, saying that it was my share of the tips. I'd looked at the money, not entirely sure where it all had come from because the place had been half empty and most patrons had ordered the highly predictable beer and shot. Then I made a quick calculation in my head, grinned at Silenus and told him I wanted the job.

It wasn't actually that I wanted the job, as much as I needed the job. My landlord liked having a wolf in the building, and especially one related to Sheriff Brown, but he was unhappy about not getting paid. After some massive sucking up on my part, we'd made the deal that he'd hold the place for me for a month, after which I would have to give him the rent for three months in advance to get the place back. I hadn't seriously thought I'd manage, but if tips like the ones I got at my first night kept coming, I actually had a chance.

Elsa was either sympathetic to my situation, or kind enough to hold back her laughter.

"How do you even wear a handkerchief?" she asked instead.

"I altered it a little," I told her and grinned with satisfaction when I thought about the small tear I'd made in one corner of the bright red piece of satin. "Cut one corner so I could tie it behind my neck. Tied two corners behind my back and the last one hung low enough to cover my crotch. Looked like a huge bib."

"Pretty sure it didn't," Joel snorted.

"Is it a regular place, or are there others?" Elsa cut in.

According to the latest count, the world was mostly populated with regular humans. The term mostly was a slight exaggeration since the regular community was estimated to be fifty-four percent, but the universally agreed deal was that as long as the regulars were in the majority we wouldn't confirm the existence of any others. As long as the regulars could vote to put restrictions on our kind, we'd just keep our mouths shut about it and let the regulars believe whatever the heck made them sleep well at night.

We could probably have told people about the unicorns, fairies or angels. Those guys had been very, very good at public relations. There was no way in hell anyone would tell anyone about werewolves or zombies, who had failed miserably at communicating the good deeds they did for everyone. It would probably freak the general population out to know that more than eighty percent of the staff at any police station was some kind of shifter. It was mostly wolves, or bears, though, with the odd puma here and there. The big cats usually preferred federal work, which dad numerously and scornfully had explained was solely due to the fact that they liked the "faggedy-suits" and the "assclown-haircuts". My dad was a jeans and tee man, who let his hair fall as it may after a shower, needless to say.

It would also not in any way be a good thing to share that virtually all teachers were zombies, although I suspected that to most high school students, this would actually not come as a major surprise.

"There are others in the bar," I said. "Some wolves. I spotted two fairies and a goblin. There's something else too, but I have no clue what it is. Its scent was like; I don't know... booze?"

"It's a bar," Joel said, and that was a reasonable observation.

It wasn't what I'd meant, though, so I tried again. "Not like that, Joel. It doesn't smell like old beer. It wasn't icky. It was a scent of laughter and partying. Like drunken, hilarious times. It smelled like... fun?"