“Hey, Tony. How was work?” Dan looked over his shoulder as he lounged on the couch, dismissing a couple of holos he’d been burning time with until Antonio had walked in the door.

“It—it was fine.” Antonio took off his jacket and hung it up by the door. “Not much happened, there—there were a couple people, had new systems installed, so I linked ’em up with the intranet and made sure everything was good to go. That took most of my day, and then I spent the last couple of hours answering tickets, and then I came home.”

Dan believed every word Antonio said, but he still assumed a skeptical squint. He knew Antonio pretty well at this point, and could tell when he was leaving something out. That and what the ocelot said didn’t explain why he was 45 minutes late home, or why his arm was shaking so hard that he dropped his keycard twice before giving up and simply tossing it in the vague direction of the small bookshelf by the door. He was going to miss, but Dan caught it with a telekinetic nudge and it flopped back on top, landing open. He could fix it later.

“Did anything else happen?” Dan asked.

“... no, not really.” Which was a lie, and Antonio knew that the manul on the couch knew it.

Dan paused, considering whether to pry further. But his eyes closing, with a half-shake of his head, showed he had decided against it. He sat up, pulled down his T-shirt to straighten it out, and patted the spot next to him.

Antonio accepted Dan’s invitation, leaning against Dan’s side as the manul brought his arm around the ocelot’s shoulder. Something or another was on the TV—crazy that this thing shared a name with two-hundred-year-old 2D rectangles—but Antonio couldn’t be bothered to pay attention. Instead he preferred focusing on the warm, comfortable, strong fluff of his mate as they rested together for a moment.

Antonio didn’t really notice the news come on, though, at least not until the newscaster began speaking: “In tonight’s top story, four citizens are in critical condition after a gas substation on the 4200 block of Biloxi exploded, raining shards of metal and glass on the surrounding neighborhood. Fire Brigade Chief Henry Scotch gave a press conference immediately after the incident, and K-N-Alpha-A was on the scene.”

The scene cut to a charcoal-black wolf in a red-and-white uniform, smoke coming from glowing red dots on the back of his hands. “Our brave firefighters are still working on containing this blaze and determining its source, but while nothing is clear at the moment, we do not suspect foul play at this time.”

Dan felt the ocelot under his arm grow cold.

Then Antonio jumped out of his seat. “Th-they, they-ey-they-he-hee... he’s a [i]fucking liar[/i]!” he accused, one finger pointed at the image. “He, he [i]lied[/i]!”

For a moment, Dan was too surprised to do or say anything in response to his mate’s outburst. Then, carefully, he used his little skill to grab the ocelot and bring his arm to his side, in time for him to have gotten up and gently placed each of his hands on one of the other cat’s shoulders. “You mind telling me what’s up?” With one more trick, the manul flicked the remote off of the couch and caught it—nearly dropped it; his aim needed work—to turn the TV off.

“I...” Antonio sighed, stepping forward out of Dan’s grip and turning his side to him. “... yeah, let’s sit down.”

After they got comfortable again, Antonio started talking. “I was... I was in that part of town, and I was gonna grab some groceries after work, so I was walking down the sidewalk because, you know, there’s that grocery store right there, you know the one I’m talking about—”

“I really don’t.” The manul smiled sadly.

“—Anyway, there is one.”

“Sure, keep going.”

After a moment of remembering where he was, Antonio continued. “So I’m going to the store, right, and I’m right across the street from [i]that[/i]... ‘substation’ they’re talking about, and...” He hesitated for a second. “And it just... it fucking [i]explodes[/i], and—and-and... and this...”

Dan brought a finger to Antonio’s mouth to shush him. “Take a second if you need to.”

“I... yeah.” Antonio breathed deep, in... out. In... out. After that was done, he continued, all the emotion drained from his voice, most of the intonation too. He spoke like he was reading his own words. “After I ducked from the explosion—I jumped into a minibike shop, I think—I stepped back out to see what was going on, and everyone was starting to run away, or too scared to run away. There was something in the fire, something... something garguntuan. I didn’t want to be noticed, so I made sure I wasn’t.” Antonio’s trick was that he could make [i]certain[/i] that he wasn’t noticed. “Anyway, I kept watching from right there, and then... what do they call him, Trailblazer, jumped out of the hole and killed the thing, and it, I don’t know, it turned to dust or something.” Antonio mulled over his own word choice. “Or smoke. Just disappeared, dissolved, [i]whoof[/i],” with a little whirl of his hands.

He continued: “Everyone was still ducking for cover, and then a, uh, a bird, a crow but with a white neck—”

“A magpie?” Dan confirmed.

“Yeah, that, a car drove up and a magpie came out in one of those jumpsuits they wear at the refineries, you know? And he raised his hand and said something like ‘Can I have your attention please!’ or something like that, I can’t remember exactly—”

And then Antonio stopped.

And stayed silent, his brow furrowed, annoyed at his own confusion.

“... and then?” the manul tried to prompt.

The ocelot was getting concerned. “I—I don’t know.”

After a pause, “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t know, the next thing I remember is asking someone else who was gawking at the fire like they had just walked up on it about the monster, and she looked at me like I was crazy.” Antonio sighed, lowering himself a little further into Dan’s fur. “I don’t know.”

“... Weird.” Dan stroked his mate’s head. “Did you notice anything about the magpie or whoever it was?”

“Yeah,” Antonio answered, not really paying attention to what he was saying, “he smelled like pool chlorine and he looked at me funny, like, right in front of my face but looking the wrong way—”

“When did that happen?”

Antonio awoke to his own statement, looking up toward Dan’s face. “I—... I don’t know...”

A moment’s pause.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Dan finally answered. “But I do know you’re here and you’re safe and I love you and I bet you love me.”

“That I do,” Antonio acknowledged.

“Should be something in the slow-cooker, it’ll be ready in,” Dan checked the time, “45 minutes or so. Until then, let’s be comfortable.”

-----

The magpie was very uncomfortable. When he had forced everyone’s attention to clear their memory, he could tell he’d captured the attention of one more person than he had.

Or something.

He clutched his coffee harder. He drank it black, strong, and piping hot. He didn’t like the taste. That was the point.

There wasn’t someone invisible there. He’d trained his way around them, could bring his focus down on someone he could place but couldn’t see. He couldn’t place whoever was here this time.

He knew he had the attention of whoever it was, had their memory generation disabled, could figure out [i]roughly[/i] where they were from their mental signature, but couldn’t wipe what had just happened.

He took a sip of his drink, as odd as that looked through a beak. He was used to the bitter taste, could tolerate it at this point.

An open report form was in front of him, the text cursor blinking patiently.

There were 39 witnesses. He wiped 38 of them. Four of them were caught in the blast directly. He had to fabricate memories for them; that was trickier, but he made up an alibi and had immediately passed it on to the higher-ups. Wasn’t hard. It was already the line they were going with.

Someone would forge embezzlement evidence, someone else would destroy safety inspection records, someone else would probably go to jail for corruption that didn’t exist, but that wasn’t the magpie’s problem. Sacrifices needed making to keep the peace, the magpie knew.

But someone out there knew about Shades now, even if they didn’t know much. There remained a sacrifice to make.

The magpie was going to find whoever that was and make certain the sacrifice was done.