lot of additional places—but since I can’t even touch my ghost girlfriend, I don’t have much opportunity anymore. I wasn’t the target audience for the Unnatural Acts boutique....
The coffee was terrible, as advertised. I finished it and ordered a second cup. The nosy tourists dashed off to chase after a tall horned demon who strolled past and entered an electronics store.
I kept my eyes on the pawnshop alley, and I didn’t have long to wait. Unfortunately, Travis Carey was not the one I’d expected to see on my stakeout.
Sheyenne’s brother came by with a bounce in his step and a grin on his face, still wearing the same natty jacket, without a care in the world. He ducked down the alley carrying a small paper sack and entered the pawnshop without a hint of hesitation, as if he’d been there before and knew exactly what he was doing.
I was disappointed, saddened, and angry on Sheyenne’s behalf, but not particularly surprised. I had no doubt that the sack contained the gold necklaces, rings, and other jewelry she had given him as family keepsakes. Travis said he had gambling debts and people were after him for money. I wondered if he had retreated to the Quarter to get away from brass-knuckled debt collectors.
As I sat there stewing, I debated whether or not to tell Sheyenne. If Travis did pawn the jewelry, maybe I’d dip into the Chambeaux & Deyer petty cash fund and buy the items back for her—if Snazz was willing to part with them.
All of this nonsense was a mystery to me. I didn’t have any brothers and sisters. My dad left us when I was eight years old, my mom worked two jobs just to make ends meet, so I rarely saw her. All the stress, and all the smoking, had put her into an early grave. And those were the days when there wasn’t even a chance that someone might come back.
After years of warm-sentiment greeting cards, heart-aching holiday specials, and sappy songs, I’d been brainwashed into believing in the joys of having close family ties, but I’d never understood them, not really. Now, knowing everything that Travis had done to Sheyenne and how she felt about it, I couldn’t understand why people got completely irrational when it came to idiocy committed by family members. People will roll their eyes and sigh, tolerating stupidity from a relative that they would never accept from a stranger or business partner. Supposedly, you have to put up with it because they’re family; you have to love them unconditionally.
That sort of sentiment might sound great on a greeting card, but it didn’t make any sense to me now. Travis was a jerk by any possible definition.
Suddenly I heard a commotion up the street, drums banging and a squawking brassy noise—a vuvuzela? Not a peppy sound like a parade, but more like a funeral procession (although in the Unnatural Quarter, funeral processions and parades often served dual purposes). A group of normal humans who looked passionate, yet entirely humorless, marched along like an old-fashioned temperance rally, holding up signs that said GOD HATES UNNATURALS, each one hand-lettered and featuring a variety of misspellings. Other signs in the procession proclaimed PASS THEE UNATURAL ACTS ACT NOW!
They handed out leaflets—or tried to. Occasionally, human tourists accepted the flyers; very few unnaturals did. Grumbling complaints and raucous catcalls followed the protesters as they came down the street. Their target, the Unnatural Acts adult novelty boutique, must have been a sharp stick in the senator’s eye. How could he resist bringing his minions here?
At the head of the procession was the man himself—tall, with a pale face, lantern jaw, and permanent scowl, as if it had been chiseled onto his visage by a gravestone artist. Balfour’s appearance reminded me of photos I had seen of H. P. Lovecraft, except this guy wasn’t nearly so handsome—and Lovecraft was by no means a handsome man. A frumpy and equally unattractive woman whose facial muscles seemed incapable of performing the complex act of smiling accompanied the senator—his wife, presumably. If they had been scuffed up and their clothes moldered, Senator and Mrs. Balfour could easily have passed for a pair of zombies.
The procession came forward, causing quite a spectacle, and stopped on the street in front of the café, turning their ire toward the adult novelty boutique. They blocked my view of the alley, and I could no longer see the pawnshop. The ever-increasing crowd of unnatural hecklers made it