“You are a beast. A badass,” I said as I looked directly into my eyes in the mirror. The truth is, I needed a pep talk, otherwise I would not have the motivation to go into work today.

For twenty years, I have put my all into this department. I have taken every single training offered. I have stayed late, worked double shifts, volunteered for things within the community. Everything. At thirty-six years old, I can truly say that I have given my entire life to my career.

All I have to show for that effort are some paper awards, some newspaper clippings, double the amount of paperwork on my desk every day. Oh and a list of people who despise me because I’m not exactly human.

Pulling the laces tight on my boots, I stared down at the pile of papers on my counter. I have read this top sheet more times that I care to admit, but on the slight chance I might have missed something, I read it again.

Kacey Quinn Kade,

Thank you for participating in the Advance Training of Police Verse Supernatural Criminals.

While you have exceeded all expectations, you are not guaranteed any placements within our agencies.

If a position opens that we feel you could fill, we will reach out.

Thank you for your dedication to keeping the balance between the supernatural and natural worlds.

Agent Bosco Anders

I picked the piece of paper up from the middle, crushing it into a ball in my hand, before throwing it towards my trash can as I walked towards the door of my apartment.

Muttering under my breath, I grabbed my keys and ventured out into the world. “The only person who decides my future is me.”

“Hey Kacey,” the little old lady that lived across the hall said from her open door.

“Good morning, Miss Knoll.” I said, knowing that from the look on her face, I was about to be lectured on something that I had no control over.

“Do you know what you need to do?”

“What’s that Miss Knoll?” I replied, knowing that there was no point in trying to avoid her because she would stand here waiting for me when I came back home tonight, just as she was every single night.

“You remember those Swills from the apartment above us?”

I nodded. How couldn’t I? She complained about them at least once a week. They carried up too many groceries; they didn’t bring down their trash; they talked too loud. They woke up too early. They went to bed too late. The complaints were truly petty and endless.

“It’s been quiet up there.”

“Quiet?” I repeated, not sure I heard her correctly.

“Yes. I don’t like it. It’s suspicious.”

Before I could answer, my phone rang. It was Linda, the chief’s secretary.

“Hello?”

“Officer Kade, the Chief would like to see you in his office, immediately.”

“What is this about?” I asked before biting my tongue because Linda could be a bitch before she had her coffee in the morning.

“That is a conversation that you’re just going to have with the chief,” she responded before hanging up on me.

Centering myself, I swallowed down any sort of hope I had that this conversation was going to be about me transferring to any supernatural government agency that truly made a difference for everyone that lived in this world.

“Police business?” Miss Knoll asked, bringing my attention back to her as I slid my phone back inside my pocket.

“Yes.”

“Well, you best be off on your way then, dear. But you will investigate the Swills won’t you? The silence is suspicious.”

I forced a smile and nodded. I’ve learned in the three years that I’ve lived in this apartment complex that it’s the best way to handle her.

“What did you do to piss off the chief?” Nash, my partner, asked as soon as I clocked in.

Any bit of hope I had that this was going to be a pleasant conversation drained from my body, as I recounted everything I’ve. done the last several days to see if there was some sort of defense I could muster before walking into his office and being blindsided, but I came up with nothing.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this mad, and I’ve been here nearly thirty years.”

“Fucking fantastic,” I muttered, heading for his office, knowing it was probably best that I just bite the bullet and face him head on.

“KADE!” the chief screamed as he opened the door, seconds before I could knock.

I bit my tongue, so I wasn’t tempted to mutter a curse under my breath. I worked too hard to get where I am to let this overzealous man have a reason to put a mark on my record. “Yes, Sir.”

“My Office. That Chair. Now.”

I walked past him, keeping my head held high. I did nothing wrong, or at least I didn’t think I had...He did, though.

Grabbing a stack of newspapers off his desk as he sat down, he started to throw them at me one by one. “What! The! Hell! Are! These!”

Catching a few in my lap, I looked at them as I picked up the rest. There I was front page, standing in front of the police station, each heading mimicking each other. Detective Kade, An ELF, Believes Local Police Department Discriminates Against Cities Supernatural Population.

A pit formed in my stomach. I didn’t say this. I know I didn’t...But I knew where they got the thought that I felt this way. “I never said this, nor have I talked to the press.”

“This is unacceptable,” he lectured me. “I have a chief from another district running against me this year. Do you have ANY idea what this kind of GARBAGE could do to my campaign?!?”

I bit down harder on my tongue. Although I didn’t speak to the media and have this posted, the headlines themselves were not wrong.

“Do you know how many donors have already called me this morning, the emails the department has received? Linda is up to her ears in complaints. What am I supposed to do with a situation like this? You’re going to have to make an official on the record statement.”

My jaw clenched. That wasn’t going to happen. My moral code wouldn’t allow it. However, before I could stand my ground, Linda poked her head into the office. There is a call for you on line three. It’s urgent. It’s for you and Detective Kade.

“This is the Chief,” he answered the phone in a much calmer voice.

“Is Detective Kade with you?” The coroner, Tosha Carver asked.

“She is.”

“I believe there is something down here the two of you should see.”

Silence filled the room for too long.

“This is about the string of murders, supernatural murders. Detective Kade and I had a hunch about the reasoning behind the murders, and I believe what I just found proves us both right.”

“What is it?”

“I believe that it is best that you come and see what I’ve found in person. It will be easier to explain that way.” The chief sat down the phone and leaned back in his chair for a moment, never taking his eyes off me. “This conversation is not over.”

I nodded as I stood up. He was right. This conversation was not over, the entire city...This entire country needed to have the conversation we were about to have, however right now was not that time. “I’ll grab Nash and meet you at the coroner’s office.”

“I’m sorry..." Nash apologized the second I climbed into the driver seat of our department truck.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” I replied sincerely as I pushed the button to start it.

“He is pissed.”

“As I am.”

Nash looked at me, unsure what to say.

“Unfortunately,” I sighed. “We are not heated for the same reason, and that is a shame. If more people felt how we do, this city and other cities would be a lot safer for both the humans and supernatural’s that live within them.”

“One Hundred Percent, Facts.”

“Now, did you happen to hear any chatter this morning? Any clue into what we’re going to find in the coroner’s office?”

“Locke was telling Sadie that he heard about a few more missing supernatural’s, but nothing that I’d say was out of the ordinary with the way things have been lately.”

I gritted my teeth together and tightened my grip on the steering wheel as I pushed the gas and slipped under the yellow light before it turned red. Our system was broken. It had always been broken. I was going to fix it. I didn’t know how, but I knew that one way or another, I was going to make this world a better place for everyone.

“Kacey!” Tosha exclaimed with far too much energy for this time of day as I walked through the doors that lead to the cooler rooms where her assistant had sent us.

“Tosha,” I greeted her back, trying my best to sound as lively as she had.

“Ignore the mess,” she said, sliding the four extra-large death by sugar cups back away from her notes.

“Are these from today?” Nash asked in amazement.

“Well, technically they’re from the last two days, but I haven’t been to bed in three, so I’m not sure...” she said, picking up some files as the Chief walked through the metal doors.

“Tosha, I hope you have something good. I had to push two important meetings for this.”

“Oh, this is something that you’re not going to want to miss. I’m sure you’re already aware that in the last two months there have been forty-three missing or murdered supernatural creatures that have been reported in our city.”

“Forty-Three?” The chief repeated, as though he didn’t believe the number.

Tosha ignored him. “With Kacey’s help, I integrated several databases of supernatural families, lineage, rituals, and well, the list was nearly endless. At first, I thought that all our efforts were for not, as nothing in my programs came full circle.”

The chief looked at me just as he had done this morning, like I had done something wrong.

“Then, however, when the missing person’s report for two twin gargoyles came in this morning, all my system alarms began flashing up on my screen.”

“It worked!” I said, trying my best not to sound surprised. Being completely honest, I didn’t know what exactly would happen when I gave Tosha access to my database I’d began building as a passion project since I was a teenager.

“Seamlessly. First,” Tosha said, opening the first drawer to reveal a hologram of the first victim that our program had flagged. “We had Thalion Weaver, a demon, he was found drained of blood. Then there was Elyissa Moricl, a Faye, stolen from her was her essence. Zellaria Axen, a half blood angel it was her grace that was stolen. Alaric Smicken a shadow demon, his heart was taken. One by one,” she said, cutting her presentation short, knowing she’d lost the chief’s attention, but the frustration lines on his forehead, “the pieces of this puzzle came together, the missing Swills gargoyle twins being the true key.”

“Key to what?” the chief questioned, looking down at his watch as his phone buzzed in his pocket.

“We are looking for someone who is building a well...I don’t know whether to call it a physical or metaphorical key... You see, if Kacey’s database is correct. Whoever the killers are now has exactly what they need to access the supernatural spirt realm.”

Holding his ringing cell phone in his hand, the chief impatiently shifted his stance. “So, this is a supernatural problem?”

Tosha and I answered oppositely at the same time.

Liking Tosha’s answer best, he followed up with her. “I am extremely busy today,” he said as he stared me down, before walking towards the large metal doors. “I have much that needs to be straightened out. Why don’t the three of you just figure this out and keep it from hitting the papers?”

I clenched my fists and bit down as hard as I could on the inside of my cheeks. Today was absolutely the last straw. I was done. I could not stand by this man or this precinct any longer. I was going to hunt down Agent Anders and demand that they give me a chance.

With her mouth still hanging open, Tosha looked at me after she watched the chief walk out of her morgue. “I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I expected him to have a bit more of an interest in knowing there was a key to opening a new realm running lose in his city.”

“The only way you will get him to care is if one of his donors decides they want the damn thing,” I said before I could stop myself.

Tosha chuckled, and Nash struggled to keep a straight face.

“So, walk me through this as quickly as you can so that we can get out there and try to find this key before hell is unleashed in this city.”

“Hell?” Tosha repeated, obviously not having put two and two together.

“The spirit realm houses both good and evil spirits. It’s only a thin veil diving the two.”

“Oh,” she said as she clicked buttons on her tablet, loading all the holograms she’d prepared for the chief.

One by one, she connected the dots. Missing organs, missing souls, missing family heirlooms that aided in the creation of the key. She had hit the nail on the head every single time, and she was right that without my own personal database, she would not have been able to connect any of this together, because to anyone from the outside without the right information these deaths wouldn’t have been linked, especially in a city of warring kinds.

“Now for the really important question,” Nash asked as he scribbled the last bit of information in a pocket notebook. “Did you find any clues that would lead you to who is behind these murders, or who might be in the possession of the key?”

“No, and yes.”

“No, and yes,” I repeated, before asking to make sure that we were on the same page. “No, you don’t know who the killer is, but yes, you might know who has the key?”

“Exactly. This is all just a theory, of course. It is your job to do the detective work. But I believe that the NeiValla family is whom is in possession of the key.”

I instantly felt cold and all the hair on my body stood on end. That is one family in this city that I was honestly afraid of. Anyone with any sense of self-preservation was afraid of this family. Not only that, I knew whole heartedly that they were one of the chief’s biggest donors and that they had him fully in their pocket.

“This was why I brought the chief down here. I thought that he would want to hear this information firsthand.”

“He can’t know this. Any of this. At least not yet,” I said, rubbing the side of my head as I tried to process all the information. “Why do you think they’re behind this?”

“Again, this is just a theory. But these murders are clean and professional kills. Out of the forty-three deaths I had listed, these are the only ones with no clues, and no one from either side has taken responsibility for them. It’s possible that I’ve just been watching too many mob shows recently. My girlfriend has a bit of an obsession going on right now.”

“No, that makes perfect sense,” I said, looking at Nash. “We will investigate, just keep the chief out of the loop on this one until we know more. He has enough of his plate right now.”