Tony Foster

RCMP Constable Jack Elson had been unhappy about the verdict of Accidental Death after the Shadowlord had been and gone, but that was nothing on the way he’d felt when Tony’d finally forced open the doors to Caulfield House on that July night. He’d seen the kind of weird-and-wonderful that even television writers would have had a hard time making people believe, and what he’d seen, combined with a good cop’s ability to sift out the bullshit, had left him with no choice but to believe Tony’s promised explanation. He’d believed it. He just hadn’t liked it much.

Given his adversarial history with the police, Tony still wasn’t sure why he’d told Jack and his partner Geetha Danvers the truth about what had happened in the house—slightly edited of personal information and back story. Maybe he’d hoped that it would keep them from hanging around and scowling suspiciously at all and sundry. It had worked on Constable Danvers, not that she’d been the scowling suspiciously sort to begin with, but it had done sweet fuck all to get Constable Elson out of his life.

Tony'd had less than three hours sleep after Leah left and he'd tried to make that up on the couch of Raymond Dark's office during the lunch break; a simple yet potentially effective plan that was blown to hell when Constable Elson showed up with news of a construction worker whose arm had been bitten off.

( He hadn’t wanted to go look at a dead body )

About a third of the way down the massive wooden staircase the older of the two tuxedo-clad men paused, head up, nostrils flaring as though he were testing a scent on the air. “We’re not . . . alone.”

“Well, there’s at least another twenty invited guests,” his companion began lightly.

“Not what I meant.” Red-gold hair gleamed as he turned first one way then the other. “There’s something . . . else.”

“Something else?” the younger man repeated, suspiciously studying the portrait of the elderly gentleman in turn-of-the-century clothing hanging beside him. The portrait, contrary to expectations, continued to mind its own business.

“Something . . . evil.”

[Lifted almost exactly from chapter one of Smoke and Mirrors by Tanya Huff.  To be continued... dun dun dun!]