Free In the Werewolf's Den by Rob Preece Page A

gnome. She dumped off the drinks and left.
    The gnome tapped a small club against his palm. “No magics in normal shops, no normals in mine."
    "She's with me,” Mike said.
    "Yeah? Well, then maybe you're not welcome here either. I had a nice place in Lewisville before they passed the zone laws. Know what they did? Had the health inspectors out every day for a month. I ended up with no customers. Had to shut down. Wasn't doing anything illegal. Just pure nastiness."
    Carl sighed. “We're trying to change that, sir. I understand your anger. But retaliating just makes things worse. Besides, Danielle is different. She's one of the few who can see how silly these distinctions are. She's one of the normal who will treat you like a human rather than some sort of inferior."
    Danielle kept her mouth shut. Carl was right. She had been heading down that road before Joe had given her the warning and brought her back to the warder path. A warder protects the humans from the magical. That is the whole of the job.
    "I don't serve normals,” the gnome repeated as if Carl had said nothing. “And I don't serve normal drinks. You think I'm going to go to the barriers and haggle for bottled water when we get perfectly good water here?"
    Carl reached into his wallet, probably looking for a cash means of resolving this argument but Mike held up a hand. “The dwarves and I will sit and enjoy our drinks. The human and the Were will simply keep us company. Is that a problem?"
    Mike never raised his voice, never changed his tone, but that last question carried a load of menace that would have sent most normals into convulsions of fear.
    The gnome was no coward, but neither was he a fool. “The zone is still a free country,” he observed. “Not like the outside. Sit where you like. Finish your drinks. Then go somewhere else.” He stomped back into his bar.
    "He won't be back,” Mike told Carl. “And we definitely won't see that waitress again. Just leave three dollars on the table."
    "But—"
    "Three dollars is plenty. In the zone, your money goes a long way."
    They sat silently for a while, watching the alleyway entrances to the courtyard where they sat, and where Dean would soon be returning from his day in Carl's lab.
    Danielle wouldn't have thought it possible, but both Mike and Carl blended into the background looking completely at home, completely nondescript, and completely harmless. The two dwarves didn't look harmless, but everyone knew that dwarves will leave you alone if you leave them alone—and if you didn't mess with anything they lay a property claim to.
    Which left her standing out like a giant in a normal kindergarten.
    Tough. Running interference with impaired gangs was exactly what she needed to be doing.
    She slouched in her chair, but Carl laughed at her.
    "You look about as natural as a catfish trying to dance."
    "So, what should I do?"
    "Look bored and disdainful. Like you're a rich normal looking for kinky pleasures. You can't help standing out in the crowd so let them see what you want them to see, not someone who's obviously faking it."
    "But I'm not some pervert looking for kinky pleasure. I wouldn't know how to begin acting like one."
    "You've got the bored and disdainful down. That should do it."
    As compliments went, she could have done without that one. Still, she pulled out her compact, powdered her nose, adjusted her lipstick, and thought she did a decent job at the disdain. Boredom was easy. She'd barely passed her stakeout exams at the Academy.
    Carl's research assistant, Dean, squirreled through the near alley a good hour later. The little imp wore a short-sleeved white shirt with a clip-on tie that had lost one of his clips. His face dripped with sweat and he clutched his plastic briefcase like a lifesaver. To Danielle's surprise, the imp's glasses-covered eyes glanced over her and moved on without a hint of recognition. Either he was so afraid he wasn't seeing straight, or her disguise was better than