took off her helmet and then began peering down into it like a fishbowl. I hadn’t noticed, but you could see down into her ears, like you would with a real cat: her weretiger features weren’t just outer-cosmetic, they’d actually changed the structure of her skull. No wonder she couldn’t change. I know I shouldn’t have stared, but when she started scratching—
“I do believe you have ear mites,” I said, laughing.
“If you thinks what the Bear King did to that guy was bad,” she growled, “you should sees what happened to the last guy who tried to put drops in my ears.”
“Who’s the Bear King?” Annesthesia asked. “And I love your collar, Dakota! Where’d you—”
“Don’t ask, and don’t ask,” I said. “I don’t have the king of Siam and the queen of Sheba waiting on me today, do I?”
“Not yet,” she responded.
We made it back to my office and I pulled up the blinds. “Like the view?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Cinammon said, staring out over Little Five. “I mean, the place is a dirty dump, but the people—and hey, hey, that guy’s even a werekin—“
“Actually, no,” I said, peering out. “He’s… just a Fiver. But Cinnamon—look around you. This is my office. This is what I do. This is how I pay for my apartment—”
“What, are you trying to save me, Dakota?” she jeered, throwing herself down in my chair and spinning around, jarring the computer and watching the screen hum to life. After she spun down, she kind of looked to the side and got sullen. “Ok. I’ll gives it a shot.”
“A shot?” I asked.
“You wants a new apprentice, or something? Need an ‘entourage’—”
“No,” I said. I wasn’t really comfortable with her going back to the werehouse, but I wasn’t prepared to take a weretiger under my wing just yet either. “You don’t have to be my apprentice to hang out with me. Think of today as an outing, courtesy of Lord Buckhead—”
My phone rang again, and I picked it up hastily. “Dakota Frost—”
“Hello, Dakota,” came a smooth voice. “It’s Special Agent Philip Davidson.”
“Philip!” I said, feeling a big grin spread over my face.
“Who’s that?” Cinnamon said, her big, toothy grin mocking my own. “Your boooyfriend? Wait a minute—”
“Hush,” I said. “Philip, it’s good to hear from you. What do you need—”
“I think I may be able to swing approval on getting some images to your graphomancer,” he said. “Have you had a chance to talk to your clients—”
Oh, Hell. “No, Philip. I—I haven’t even gotten started. I feel like I’ve let you down, but—” I glared at Cinnamon, and she stuck her tongue out at me “—to be frank I had one hell of an evening working to sort out a complicated tat for a difficult client. And this morning—”
“It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet,” Philip responded. “I didn’t expect miracles.”
“Hey, if you’re going to talk to your boyfriend,” Cinnamon said, “can I go shopping?”
I covered the phone and stared at her. “I’m supposed to keep watch over you.”
“What’s someone going to do, mug me? Unless they gots silver bullets—”
“Oh, all right. Don’t go far,” I said, starting to raise the phone. She stared at me expectantly, and it took me a few seconds to get it. “Oh, you have to be kidding!”
“What?” she said innocently.
I opened my wallet. Typical—I only had hundreds, a five and two ones. “Here,” I said, giving her a single Benjamin. “Don’t go far, or spend it all in one place—”
“Thanks, DaKOta!” she said, snatching the money and darting out.
“Oh, hell,” I said watching her go. What was I doing? Phil! “Sorry,” I said. “I’m babysitting today.”
“You? Babysitting?” he said. “I’d pay money to see that—”
“It’s quite the show,” I responded. “But tell me, if you weren’t expecting miracles, what could you expect? I don’t actually know how to go about this—”
We talked for a while, both of us slowly realizing just how hard this was going to be—after all, I wasn’t the only magical tattooist in the office, and a lot of them would be hesitant to talk to Phil, much less fork over their customer lists. A lot of serious tattoo collectors are rebels: someone sporting ‘FTW’—Fuck The World—wasn’t likely to cooperate with the Feds. After a bit we nailed down some options and I agreed to at least raise the issue with my team.
And since Cinnamon was gone and the day was just starting, it was the perfect time. I went to Reception: there were a fair number of customers