Free Some Kind of Magic by R. Cooper

an
    admission that if that case hadn"t involved a fairy it would
    have been a murder, and was no less serious.
    Ray nodded.
    “Yes, sir,” he responded quietly, and Murphy hesitated
    again. Ray was pretty certain it was because the man was
    thinking of asking about the new case. Things involving
    magic made him uncomfortable, even after years of exposure
    to them, something that the department rumor mill said
    involved a scorned sorceress, though personally Ray found
    that hard to imagine. He couldn"t imagine Murphy with
    anyone. He couldn"t even imagine him as a child.
    Murphy had come up through the ranks with Calvin
    Parker. Ray knew that much. Though he didn"t know which
    side of the gossip the man believed, if he believed any of it.
    He just grunted.
    “How are the consultants treating you?” Unlike when
    most people said it, there was no insinuation in his voice.
    Ray took that as a good sign. “Aguirre has nothing but praise
    for them. I told that guy when he transferred in. We keep
    only the best around here.”
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    63

    “Fine. Fine. They"re fine.” Ray was a firm believer in the
    “No Comment” rule. That was all that Murphy wanted to
    hear about it or anything else magic anyway.
    Whatever his reasons, the captain decided not to ask
    anything else, and with another awkward nod and a tug at
    the suspenders that were struggling to keep his pants up,
    Captain Murphy left, and Ray turned back toward his desk.
    “How"d it go?” A few uniforms were hanging around the
    coffee machine as he walked by, and he immediately
    scowled. He was tired. He was cranky. He was, in other
    words, as wound up as he could be after hours in Cal"s
    company without touching him or catching a killer.
    “You don"t need to work so hard to catch the guy.” One
    of them clearly read his annoyance, but Ray turned on them
    with his eyebrow up. “Probably done you a favor, right? Not
    wasting your time catching bad guys who"ll just get off. And
    we all know what you"d really do to the guy if you had your
    way.”
    “Shut up,” Ray snapped, loud enough to be heard in
    Booking, and damn, he needed to go home. They were just
    expressing the frustration that they"d all felt from time to
    time and he was overreacting. “You have no idea what you"re
    talking about,” he added, extending hands that were
    currently not paws at them to wave them away. “Get back to
    work.”
    As though he wanted the hateful stench of murder in
    his town. As though he was an indiscriminate killer or would
    admire one. He turned on his heel to head back out,
    knowing he was leaving fear in the air behind him.
    He"d officially had too much frustration for one day. Too
    restless to stop now he headed down the street for some
    Puerto Rican takeout and then went back to the car.
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    64

    He ought to drive home. Or go inside. But with the
    possibility of Cal or those ignorant idiots still in the station
    and his stomach growling, he just sat in the driver"s seat and
    opened the carton. His mouth was full of seasoned beefsteak
    when the passenger door opened and Cal swung inside.
    He slid down and got comfortable before Ray could
    swallow.
    “Eating in the car? Really? You need a life, Branigan.
    And you just ate dinner. I was there. You had tacos. In fact,
    you"ve eaten like six times today.”
    “ You pull something sweet out of thin air almost
    constantly. And it"s best not to starve a werewolf.” Good
    advice. And it kept him from having to explain why he"d been
    so ravenous lately. He bared his teeth and then went back to
    eating. He heard Cal take a few fast breaths as the interior
    light went out. He wished it was fear, but he knew Cal was
    turned on even without smelling it. He knew that scent, had
    it memorized for his dreams. It was unmistakable.
    “Then I"ll resist the urge to tease you about your
    insatiable appetite.” But of course, it was as though Cal
    knew anyway what Ray was desperate