sitting across from him. It was Kaspar Gunderson. He was dressed all in white today, and it emphasized everything. How I could have ever looked at him and thought him human was beyond me. He smiled. "Ms. Blake, I presume." He put out a hand.
I shook it. "If you could wait outside for just a few moments, Mr..."
"Gunderson," he said.
"Mr. Gunderson, I need to speak with Mr. Vaughn."
"I think it can wait, Anita," Bert said.
"No," I said, "it can't."
"Yes," he said, "it can."
"Do you want to have this particular talk in front of a client, Bert?"
He stared at me, his small grey eyes looking even smaller as he squinted at me. It was his mean look. It had never worked on me. He gave a tight smile. "Are you insisting?"
"You got it."
He took a long, deep breath and let it out slowly, as if he were counting to ten. His flashed his best professional smile on Kaspar. "If you will excuse us for a few minutes, Mr. Gunderson. This won't take long."
Kaspar stood, nodded at me, and left. I closed the door behind him.
"What the hell are you doing coming in here while I'm talking to a client?" He stood up, and his broad shoulders nearly touched from wall to wall.
He should have known better than to try and intimidate me with size. I've been the smallest kid on the block for as long as I can remember. Size hadn't been impressive for a very long time.
"I told you no more clients that are outside my job description."
"Your job description is anything I say it is. I'm your boss, remember?" He leaned over his desk, palms flat.
I leaned into the desk on the other side. "You sent me a missing person's case last night. What the fuck do I know about missing persons?"
"His wife's a lycanthrope."
"And that means we should take his money?"
"If you can help him, yes."
"Well, I gave it to Ronnie."
Bert leaned back. "See, you did help him. He would never have found Ms. Sims without your help."
He was looking all reasonable again. I didn't want him reasonable. "I've got Elvira Drew in my office right now. What the hell am I supposed to do with her?"
"Do you know any wererats?" He had sat down, hands crossed over his slightly bulging middle.
"That's beside the point."
"You do, don't you?"
"And if I say yes?"
"Set up an interview. Surely one of them wants to be famous."
"Most lycanthropes go to a lot of trouble to hide what they are. Being outed endangers their jobs, marriages. There was that case in Indiana last year where a father lost his kids to his ex-wife after five years, because she found out he was a shapeshifter. No one wants to risk that kind of exposure."
"I've seen shifters interviewed on live television," he said.
"They're the exceptions, Bert, not the rule."
"So you won't help Ms. Drew?"
"No, I won't."
"I won't try and appeal to your sense of greed, though she has offered us a lot of money. But think what a positive book on lycanthropy would do to help your shapeshifting friends. Good press is always welcome. Before you turn her down, talk to your friends. See what they say."
"You don't give a damn about good exposure for the lycanthrope community. You're just excited about the money."
"True."
Bert was an unscrupulous bastard and didn't care who knew it. It was hard to win a fight when you couldn't insult someone. I sat down across from him. He looked pleased with himself, like he knew he'd won. He should have known better.
"I don't like sitting down across from clients and not knowing what the hell they want. No more surprises. You clear clients with me first."
"Anything you say."
"You're being reasonable. What's wrong?"
His smile widened, setting his little eyes sparkling. "Mr. Gunderson has offered us a lot of money for your services. Twice the normal fee."
"That's a lot of money. What does he want me to do?"
"Raise an ancestor from the dead. He's under a family curse. A witch told him if he could talk to the ancestor that the curse originated with, she might be able to lift it."
"Why double the fee?"
"The curse started with one of two brothers. He doesn't know which one."
"So I have to raise them both."
"If we're lucky, only one."
"But you keep the second fee anyway," I said.
Bert nodded vigorously, happy as a greedy clam. "It's even your job description, and besides, even you wouldn't let a fellow go through his life with feathers on his