Possible snippet, DEATH SENDS A PACKAGE.

I came across this in my files, and I’m half-tempted to do the whole thing, because I read the reminder I wrote of whodunit and it made me laugh.

I got the call just before I decided to lock up the office for the night; the precinct has me on retainer for the weird stuff, and even five years after the Migration a dead Fae in an alley was still weird stuff.  More common than it used to be, but more Fae able to raise a stink about it, too.  It kind of evens out.

He had been a pretty little thing, I thought as I looked down at the body, curled in on itself, with a nasty-looking knife still wedged in its back.  But all the Fae are pretty, to human eyes. Even the ones that ate marrow straight from the living bone.  Not that we had any of those in the city, of course.  What was more important was that he didn’t look like a bum or a kneecapper; he had on decent clothes and a sturdy messenger bag.  That and the carefully-groomed wings said ‘courier,’ but not the kind that carried packages worth killing over.

“What’s the guy’s name?” I said. Behind me, Detective Sunset Yewflower stopped trying to pretend not to loom and flipped open his notebook instead.  He’s one of the Fae who don’t have wings, in case you didn’t catch that hint.

“According to his wallet, the victim’s name is Drowsy Whispers of the Glade.  Works as a message deliverer for Quick Transport, no priors, green card is from the Second Wave, no known gang associates.” Sunny closed his notebook. “They’re checking the bag now to make sure nothing was stolen, but he had a list and everything’s in there. We don’t think this was a botched robbery.”

I nodded: neither did I.  QT did documents delivery, contracts, things like that.  Nothing worth a mugging, even when it didn’t go wrong.   Besides, Drowsy here had a steel knife in his back, which meant that it wasn’t fallout from a fight between the local dolmens over territory.  Somebody human wanted this guy dead.

And the cops absolutely call me in when there’s even a chance that a human’s going around killing Fae.  That can get bad real quick. Five years is just enough familiarity to breed some contempt.