6 - The Past

"Henry Ferguson." Mickelson repeated to me, facing the desk. "Never seen a better shot at pool. Granted, that didn't mean much when everyone was drunk, but it was something."

The two bodyguards were now standing in front of the door, right behind us. Uncomfortable stares. Aggressive thoughts. They were ready to break us in case we tried to run for it.

"All them horse-bets and twenty dollar shot nights catch up to you, though." He turned back to me, the receipts in his hand. He flicked through them, then set them aside on the desk. He walked behind the desk, opened the drawer, and withdrew another pile of receipts. These, he threw to Melissa, who caught them as awkwardly as possible.

Flipping through them, her eyes turned wider, almost the size of plates. She looked at me, then at Mickelson. "What the hell? Are you fucking serious?!"

"And that's the drink and betting tab, princess." Mickelson went, pulling out another pile of receipts. "I got one here for... protections."

Melissa dropped the receipts, pulling her hands to her face as she closed her eyes. "Damn it, Dad... the hell were you doing?"

Mickelson smiled. "Honestly? Your mother."

Melissa gave Mickelson a hard stare. "That's not funny."

"It is, when you've got two new employees that far in-debt." He grinned, his smirk dominating his face again, and motioned towards me. "Shit, at the rate inflation hits, I can piss on city-boy, here, and the only words out of your mouth would be, 'Good thinking, sir.'"

A moment of silence. The only noise in the room was the sound of the big brutes behind us breathing. For a minute, I contemplated trying to draw the blade.

Finally, he continued speaking. "So, here's what's going on now, and what's been going on since you two knew how to breathe, kids." He sat down, and withdrew a pad of paper from below the desk. Taking the pen from the desk, he started writing. "Your families owe me money. A lot of money." He grinned. "Now, I'm being pretty lenient when I offer you this job."

Offer. Cute. He's trying to make this out to be a legitimate job.

"You see, the Council doesn't exactly like losing any money. Especially if it was on a... unprofitable business proposition such as..." He waved his arms, trying to encapsulate the entire bar in one motion. "This." He pointed at me. "None of which was helped by a certain horse-betting drunk."

I frowned. "And you loaned the money to him, knowing that?"

Mickelson replaced the pen. "Your grand-pappy knew how to grease people up, boy." He threw the pad at me; I managed to catch it in time. "I hope you got the same qualities and skills - else, you gonna be having a hard time around here."

I took a look at what he wrote on the notepad:

" Duties: Cleaning, Service, and anything else demanded by Mickelson and/or associates whom are labeled as such. Payment: Held, until full loans have been payed off ~ salary dependent on quality of service, with increases/decreases dependent on service performed."

 Vague. No singular job, no singular boss. No real payment, just nonsense weasel words. Perfect way to get some workers to consider, and some to walk away.

He knows that this is his territory, his game, his arena. It's just a question of how much of us he can own within five sentences or less. I intend to walk away, but Melissa might end up losing more than she earns through this.

"Now, Miss Faelin, I'm going to need you to meet with Miss Stafferson in the other room." He held his hand out, and Nathaniel jumped to open the double-locked door. As he held the door open, Melissa kept a hard stare on Mickelson. He placed his hand on the table. "You see, I... overheard the discussion you and our associate had in the backroom a while ago and..." He looked away for a minute, pausing, then continued. "I must have a clear discussion and debriefing with him."

Melissa looked to me, her eyes softening, then she turned and walked outside. The bodyguards followed her, and soon Mickelson and I were alone in the office. Another minute of silence passed before he spoke.

"So. You... know."

The hair on my neck bristled again. Somehow, he managed to get our conversation.

"Miss Faelin meant well when she was telling you about the world underground. But the problem is..." He stood up, and walked behind his chair, moving to a cabinet behind him that was shrouded in the dark. "She doesn't understand the... standard operating procedure that is required when someone on the surface learns to look."

I gripped the switchblade in my sleeve. The blade was sheathed still, but I can probably get it out quickly enough.

I contemplated those words as he searched for his files. Standard operating procedure; this has happened enough before, for there to be a proper response. From what I saw in the backroom, it's already happened three times before.

He withdrew a manilla-colored folder, filled with forms. Shutting the cabinet door, he walked over to me and handed the folder to me. Taking it, I opened it up and beheld what seemed like a mixture of police reports and psychiatric evaluation forms. Each was filled with writing, all of it supposed to be mad, supposed to be crazy.

The name at the top of forms was all the same: Henry Ferguson, signed in cursive script.

"So, he was a crazy bastard."

Mickelson grinned, flashing that stupid toothy smile. "The first psychologist to interview him ran out of the room screaming. They needed four officers and a cane to restrain him when they questioned him about the report."

"Why?"

"Because he was drunk and a sore loser."

"No, I mean, why all the forms?"

He seemed to not understand the question for a minute. "People... are very unsure of what they see, especially of it startles them enough. You grand-pappy definitely was frightened - the difference was, he was too drunk to care about forgetting it." He walked to the desk and studied the receipts. "The Council doesn't like the people up above knowing about the people down below. Frightens some, makes converts out of others."

"Who."

He turned his head in my direction. "Who, what?"

"Who is and isn't?"

He chuckled before turning his head back to the table. Moving the receipts around, he continued. "Believing the Council, everyone isn't. We're all just one big pot of normal." He picked up a receipt, studied it for several seconds, then threw out to the side. "'Course, reality is, magic hides a lot of things. Fur, ears, scales, eyes, noses... just gotta know the right glamour, and you can be human from dawn to dusk."

Melissa's ears. Leigh's height. Nathaniel's skin. Things that can be hidden.

"Most of the people that hide never try to become important. Too much risk. Paparazzi are persistent bastards and glamour doesn't hold up under the flash of a bulb. At least, not long enough." More receipts get thrown off the table. I'm wondering now if the chance can be taken. "New spells, new illusions, new magic. Combine that with new tech, and you'd be surprised who is and who isn't."

Irritating. "My question stands, Mickey."

"Everyone is and isn't. You want specifics? Look at alternative news. 'New world order, Illuminati members, secret lizard people running the government'. It's crazy, but the crazy ones always speak when they know for sure." Turning back to me, he was grinning. "Granted, things aren't as connected as they seem, and never as large, but size ain't the issue here." For a minute, he looked to be thinking. "Also, I seriously have no idea why reptilians keep going into politics."

The words held in the air for a moment before he kept going. "Plus, no direct answers. The Council doesn't like when I spill highly-confidential government secrets. And considering how nosy and curious the U.S. population is, that's a simple precaution." He turned to me, holding a large receipt form. Probably the full bill, to hand off to Leigh when I'm supposed to leave. "The Council, by the way, is the Council of Human and Nonhuman Relations. Despite essentially being HR for fairy tales, they're probably the most important governing office when it comes to the underground. See, people like thinking of stories as stories - something else, somewhere else. No one wants to see a man made of bees show up at their door, wearing a trench-coat and offering the latest in affordable vacuum cleaners. So, we keep it under the rug."

The door opened behind me as if on cue. Leigh walked past me and handed a folder to Mickelson. "The files on Faelin, Ferguson, Sanderson, Mitchell, and Guzman, sir. Faelin will be held until her father receives word." Taking the folder, Mickelson gave me a look of smug pride, before facing Leigh. She continued. "Also, Ms. Charlotte would like to know when the Council should be notified of Ferguson's... arrival. I'm sure the Senator wants full knowledge of the situation."

He chuckled. "Of course he would. Tell Mr. Cameron that we have the situation under control and that negotiations are being made. Be vague if you can, Ms. Stafferson. We need to account for all possible outcomes and consequences in this case."

Consequences. Like an experiment, a thought bubble easily popped and discarded. This man's telling me much, but he's not meaning any of it.

Leigh turned to look at me, then handed me a pen. I hesitated before taking it. She smiled, then proceeded to leave.

Mickelson spoke. "Leigh Stafferson. Smart young woman. Been working for me for a decade." He looked through the folder for a minute, then moved to the back. "Now, Mr. Ferguson, I must request that you leave me. I have a phone call to make and messages to send, and you have an appointment with Stafferson." Before he walked into an unseen door, he turned to me, with a hard look in his eye. "And no, you never had a choice or a chance. That blade of yours doesn't work when you're trying to cut through bureaucracy." And with those words, he walked through the dark door, and disappeared with a click.

I stood there in the office for a second, then returned the blade to my inner coat pocket. A loud knock on the door startled me. It opened, and the werewolf walked in, his displeasure evident on his face. "Come on, Ferguson. Stafferson's waiting." He motioned to the hallway.

With no more real questions, a whole mess of ideas in my head, and an aching chest, I followed the mutt out into the hallway.

Despite all this, I had a shred of hope that I was somehow safe. That, hopefully, this works out for me.