Partners

Problems

“God damn it,” Oona grunted as she avoided the bullet shot at her. “Why do they have that?”

“A good question for later,” Tylor replied, while trying to keep up with her. “Now save your breath and try to keep up with them.”

“You are boring,” Oona complained and did her best to gain some height again. She was flying between the houses of the city, well aware that she wasn't supposed to.

They where supposed to keep a low profile while they were hunting, but right now, their “prey” was doing a better job than them. But hey, she argued with the tiny voice of her conscience (or was it her sanity?), they had killed some of the normal humans before - though they did it in a very low profile way. The normal police didn't head to riddle over the cause of dead and had just written “shot” in the case file. Still. They were metamorphi and even with some witnesses, the human police would never stand a chance to find those.

She got a better view of the two escapes now, as they took a wrong turn and where heading for the central park where she could easily follow them from the air.

“Come down!” she heard Tylor's voice somewhere below her as he was running behind them, but of course she didn't listen.

Instead she increased her speed and was finally above the two men (at least they had the appearance of men right now). She took a fast dive and struck the first of them to the grassy ground, while the second avoided her claws. He hesitated for a moment, then he run, changing his appearance while doing so, becoming bigger but also thinner and more muscular.

“Oh bother,” Oona murmured and wanted to take off again.

“Wait, Oona, wait.” Now Tylor finally got to the park and came over quickly. “Do me a favour and don't get us into some mess again.“

“Don't let him escape,” she said and took off before the man could do anything.

The weretiger was nearly in his 40s, but you would have thought that being a were would mean he’d be in better shape. She would tease him about it later.

So she was in the air again - not very high up, maybe 12 or 13 feet above the ground - and following the murderer again. But not for too long. While he run into between the trees, heading for the other side of the park, she heard a scream that belonged to neither the man she had already captured nor to Tylor.

“A DEMON!” somebody shrieked in a panic and made her grin. Whoever it was, he was quick - or just assumed the first thing that came to his, or better her mind.

She turned around and saw a young couple standing in front of a bench and looking at her in fear. The very sadistic part of her mind was tempting her to fly down to them and give them a little “Boo” but finally the sane part of her mind won and she turned, intending to deal with those two later. But now she had let herself be distracted, and she had to realise she had lost sight of her prey. She gained more height and finally saw the shape of someone running across the street at the other side of the park.

She sped up, flew over him and then came down on him, as she had done with his friend. Well, at least she attempted to, but before she got there he turned around with the drawn gun aiming at her.

It was a last minute escape again. The bullet grazed her, but only left a shallow wound on her arm, not much more than a scratch to her. But still, it burned and told her that something was not right with it. She was only half-blooded, making her very mortal as she was reminded, so she would like to avoid being hit directly by one of the bullets.

“Don't move again,” Oona growled at the guy, who didn't take the pistol down. Right now, he had dark hair and a not too tidy beard.

“Fuck of, demon,” he answered. “Leave me alone.”

“Sorry, cannot do that,” she said. “Doing my job, you know.”

Another shot and she summoned a fireball to throw at him. But before it could hit, the metamorphi vanished into thin air.

She cursed openly. An amulet. That was a problem indeed. She flew backwards. Amulets meant that she couldn't attack with magic and that again meant she couldn't attack from the distance, but as long as the other metamorphi had his gun she would try to keep exactly this distance. And of course she wasn't equipped with any kind of weapon herself, as she had her magic instead. Normally, amulets and such equipment were taboo for anyone but the magic “police”.

And yes, she was usually too proud to use a weapon. She had Tylor for that. And for the other stuff, like tactics.

The escapee grinned when he saw her back up. “So, this is nice,” he said. “Be a nice little girl and go home now, let me mind my own business.” He slowly stepped backwards and was obviously on his way to escape again, but then he stood still.

“Oona!” she heard a voice from the entrance of the street and didn't need to look back to see Tylor finally had caught up with them. And she was really, really thankful he had.

“We have a problem,” she shouted without turning from the murderer.

“What is it now?” Obviously her partner didn't take her quite seriously.

“Well...” Again she summoned a fireball. “He has an amulet.” Throwing the fireball at the metamorphi she proved her point. “See?”

The other man now hurried to get back more quickly, not quite sure whom to aim at. Most of the time the gun pointed towards Oona, who - being a demon (well, half-demon) with obviously magical abilities - presented a bigger threat than the man in his mid thirties. “Stay back. Both of you,” he threatened. “Or I will shoot you. Both of you. So stay back.”

Tylor gave a deep growl. He knew as well as Oona did that he couldn't change here. Even though the whole point of him trying to keep everything secret was pretty much wasted after the young woman had flown through the air. But still, if it hadn’t been for his good behaviour, the both of them would have been fired long ago. He took his fighting stance, lowering his back and braced his hands. He didn't make fists like most men would, but stretched his fingers as if they were claws.

“Be nice.” The voice of the criminal shook a little as he clearly sensed the danger he was in. He half turned and managed to get into a kind of slow run while still aiming at them as closely as he could.

None of them moved for a few seconds, before Tylor jumped forward with inhuman speed.

The sound of the shoot cut through the air and without needing to think, Oona rushed forward. Her instincts acted on their own as she came down on the metamorphi and, without really noticing what she was doing, pinned him to the ground even before Tylor hit the pavement. A strong hit to the criminals head not only inflicted him a nice wound on his forehead, but also let him lose conscience and made him change back into his original form, which was way smaller than the appearance he had taken.

Even so, when she wanted to turn around, it was again the sane part of her mind that finally took over and made her search the man for his amulet, then tie him up with magical handcuffs that would also suppress his changing skills. Then she finally got on her feet and hurried back six feet to where Tylor had come down.

He was already standing up, though his dark skinned and bearded face was looking quite the opposite of happy.

“Geez, you gave me a scare,” the young half-demon commented while kneeling beside him. “Are you all right?”

He gave her a dark look, holding his right shoulder with the left hand. “Do I look all right?“

“Well...” She looked at him and the blood that run over his hand. “Well...” She knew that pretty much anything she might say would turn Tylor into an angry Tiger and she actually would rather return with their prisoners - and have a very angry commander yell at her. “We should go, get the other guy and return to the central.” She looked at Tylor who finally got to his feet. “They will stitch you up there.“

He sighed, obviously grinding his teeth so he didn't give a moan or scream of pain, which she was still able to hear from his voice. “This is why we should work as a team,” he grunted.

She took the unconscious man from the ground and carried him easily over her shoulder. Obviously she was more powerful then most human women at a height of not even five feet and seven inch. But if someone was watching them from the countless windows that were facing the street, it wouldn't have been the worst he or she had seen. Yeah, thought Oona, they should hurry, so someone could cast a spell over the district within the next half hour. Meanwhile she didn't reply to Tylor, because she knew well that he wouldn't expect any kind of dishonest apology.

“You cannot always just do as you wish,” he continued, his voice even deeper than it normally was. “You put us in danger - again.“

“Well, they would have escaped otherwise,” she replied.

“Then we easily could have used a tracking spell.” He looked at her, his eyes golden instead of the ordinary dark brown. He used his own magic to control his wound. “That also would have made way less of a bother out of it. Even if the humans had noticed us, they probably would have mistaken us for fighting gangs or at best just the normal police tracking down a criminal. No further dealings needed, no problems with the chef for endangering exposure to the public.”

Oona gave a deep and annoyed sigh. She knew very well that Chief McLarry would give her exactly the same speech when they returned to their station. Because... Well, it was not the first time she had to listen to it. “Can we just leave it at that?” she asked tiredly while they were walking on the lane to the park again. “Look, I didn't mean to get you shot, I just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and...”

“And didn't give anything else a darn thought,” Tylor finished her sentence.

She winced. “It doesn't sound very nice the way you say it,” she murmured still knowing he was right. She collected the other metamorphi, who, too, was still unconscious, and then looked around. “We should get to the next portal.”

Tylor agreed grudgingly. “Yeah.”
 

Energetically brushing her dark hair, Oona finally left the office of Chief McLarry a while later. She had lost count of how often she had heard the same preach again and again. But it was always the same. He would threaten her but he wouldn't fire her. Of course. He simply couldn't fire her.

Because, after all, her biggest flaw - in McLarry's point of view - was that she didn't give a lot of thought to whether she was seen by normal humans or not. They could erase their memories and even if they didn't get all of them - where was the problem? Humans didn't tend to believe someone who told them about having seen a demon flying through the air. And after all, a lot of those who had actually seen magic happening right in front of them tried to forget it or to find a reasonable explanation. It wasn't that much of a problem. And few of the criminals they hunted cared much about secrecy. So why should she?

All right, obviously there also was her tendency to storm forward without thinking over her actions first, which had resulted in her or Tylor somehow getting hurt several times, but they still had a high rate of criminals they had captured. And that was the point why McLarry wouldn't fire her. Because she was simply too effective to be fired. And, well, she was the first partner who didn't get beaten up by Tylor within the first week – though half their colleagues considered that merely a miracle.

So now she was free of her chief and went to the infirmary, where Tylor should be. But even before she opened the door she already knew he wasn't.

Gregory, the doctor of the magical surveillance unit, turned around as she entered. “If you are looking for Tylor, he already went home,” he said calmly.

“I know,” she sighed.

“He was quite angry again,” the doctor chatted. “He nearly bit me. Again.”

She gave another sigh. “I am sorry, I guess.“

The young blonde man - a simple mage – stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Not your fault, really. He should get a hang of himself. Geez, for his age, he really has no self control.“

“Ah, well.” She shrugged.

Then suddenly Gregory remembered something. “He also said you got hurt, too.“

“Just a graze,” she replied. “Nothing to worry about, really.” She actually wanted to go and look after Tylor, but as if he had read her thoughts the young mage got to her and took her by the arm where the bullet had nearly hit her. She winced.

“Let me take a look at it at least,” he remarked. “Strong demon-girl aside, if it was a magical bullet like Tylor’s I should look at it.” He led her over to one of the cots. “And, really, I don't think it is a good idea for you to look after our beloved tiger today. He really was angry. Wouldn't be surprised if he is all wild cat at home.“

She didn't reply to this, while the doctor was trying to get a better look at her wound. Since her black suit was elastic it did quite a good job hiding it.

As she sat there, stiff as a stone, Gregory gave her a hurt look. “Now, don't act like this.“

Oona rolled her eyes and first got out of her leather vest, which also had some protective spells cast on it, before she opened the suit and doffed it off, baring her shoulders. Now she got the first real look at her wound, which didn't look much like a normal graze. There was something that looked like some kind of dark powder around and on it - probably the reason for the burning sensation.

“I told you it was a magical bullet.” Gregory grinned at her and took a white cloth out of his commode. Then he went over to his desk and opened the drawers again and again, till he obviously was where he wanted to be. Getting a small flask out of the drawer he went back to her and started to soak the cloth with the clear fluid from the flask.

She looked at him questioningly. “I don't want to be your guinea pig, if this is one of your new ideas again.”

The young mage did a lot of science and had come up with some different potions and healing spells, of which not all had worked. Due to her record of ending up in the infirmary very often, she had had the pleasure of being the one he tried those new inventions on way too often.

“Oh, don't worry,” he replied happily. “I already tried this one. I made this potion to cancel different kinds of enchantments and it works fabulously.“

Oona knew quite well what it meant when he said that.

She clenched her teeth, which was quite right, as it burned like hell when he started to rub her wound with the cloth.

When she opened her mouth to complain, he lifted a finger. “Don't complain,” he said. With a look at her hands, which right now seemed more like claws, he added: “And please, don't try to kill me.“

“Oh, I’m trying my best to control myself,” she hissed.

And so he continued, while she really did her best to neither bite him nor rip out his throat. But like the many (really many) times before, she managed and Gregory did his best to get away from her, when he was finished.

“Now it should heal quite fine,” he said finally, when she didn't make any attempt to jump at him. “You really should try to be a little more careful.”

“Just shut up,” she growled.

He laughed, obviously nearly delighted by her now a little darkened mood. “I guess that is why you get along with Tylor so well,” he remarked. “You both tend to try and kill people when you get annoyed.” And before she could say anything, he added. “Yeah, I know, it is all about the blood. You have boiling blood, right?”

“I really don't know how you can still laugh at this,” Oona murmured while she pulled her suit over her shoulders again. After all even she alone had attacked him at least fifteen times.

“I am a humorous man.” Gregory grinned.

“Yeah, right.”

“And now don't look at me as if your wound was my fault,” he said. “Believe me or not, I helped you.”

She got back on her feet. “I know, I know.” With that she went over to the door.

“Hey, where are you going now?”

“Doesn't concern you, Greg,” she replied. “I've home time now!”

But the young mage got to the door the same moment she did. “Hey, I told you, it's not a good idea to look after Tylor now.”

“Good night, Greg.” She ignored his futile try to get into her way and opened the door.

He rolled his eyes. “Good night, Oona. And remember that I will stitch up neither of you, the next time.”

“As if you have a choice,” she replied while wandering down the corridor.

“I know I don't”, Gregory cat-called after her and that was the last thing she heard from him – for that day at least.
 

It was nearly an hour later that Oona broke the rules again. Well, more or less.

She was standing on Tylor's balcony, looking inside. He had not reacted when she rang the doorbell, so she wanted to make sure that he was okay. And - well - she didn't like to be ignored either, so, at least from her point of view, she had plenty of reason to “break the rules“.

Also, it had not even been a real flight but more of a high jump onto the balcony on the third floor and she was pretty sure nobody had seen her. At least she had done her best to avoid being seen.

She had changed into her normal clothes by now - quite human like and not as catchy as her worksuit - a T-Shirt and jeans.

Once again she looked around. Nobody was near enough to see her.

She had actually never thought too highly of all the secrecy they made about everything and never quite understood why it had become a rule to leave the humans alone. She knew the humans had decided for themselves they didn't want to have anything to do with them, but hell, they also couldn't decide not to have anything to do with birds or spiders anymore, or not to breath or... In the end, they were just as much a natural part of their world as these things, and all this fuss that was made just to keep the humans' precious world view intact… It just wasn't right.

But, well, in the end she did help with it quite often, as their squad was mostly protecting humans. The crimes they dealt with were crimes against humans. But all the fuss made about it... Long ago it hadn’t been this complicated, at least her grandfather had told her so.

Whatever, she told herself, and went to the door of the balcony. She wanted to break it open, but before she could, she heard a familiar voice. “Oona?“

The voice came from above and looking over the balcony's railing, she could see Tylor gazing down at her from the roof of the seven floor high building.

“Oh,” she made to herself. That actually was a reason for him not to answer the door. She jumped onto the railing and even as Tylor started with a “Don't...”, jumped up to him.

He looked at her - not quite keenly.

“Uhm, sorry?” she started.

“You will cause us even more trouble, won't you?” he asked. He had a bottle of beer in his hand and was leaning on the edge of the roof, looking down at the uptown district of the city.

“Depends on how you define trouble,” she answered.

“Geez, you are still a kid,” he murmured.

She looked at him. “I guess you are all right again.“

“Well, somehow,” Tylor answered. “After Greg nearly killed me.“

“He likes to do that,” she said and shrugged.

Tylor just gave a deep sigh. “One worse than the other.“

“Oh, c'mon.” She was looking around. “It’s not that bad after all.“

“What part? You nearly getting me killed or Greg then trying to kill me for real?” His voice was deeply sarcastic.

Giving him a not too amused gaze, she shrugged again. “Neither,” she replied. “I mean, c'mon, are you really angry? Or is this the same it was with Matthew and his never ending preaches?“

Her partner rolled his eyes. “I don't know about you, but I certainly don't like getting shot.“

“And I told you I was sorry,” she replied impatiently.

“And the next time we are out there you might get me stabbed or bitten by a changer dog,” he went on.

She looked at him uncertainly. “Well...“

“And I don't know how many times you already said you were sorry and that you would be more careful the next time, but the next time it was exactly the same. Maybe you got yourself nearly killed for a change, but afterwards it’s the same story. You are not careful enough. And I'm not even talking about your ignorance towards the secrecy laws. Sometimes I wonder why Matt doesn't fire you.” After having finished, he took a sip of his beer and looked away from her, while she shrugged again.

“Matthew doesn't fire me because there are more people leaving than coming in,” she replied quietly. “And because I get along with you and you haven't beaten up anyone for some time now. And he is still puzzling about why, because a lot of persons would certainly like to beat me up.” She grinned.

“Nothing to be proud of,” he murmured.

Now she leaned over the railing of the roof herself, looking up to the sky. She was looking at him from the corner of her eye, but didn't answer his remark.

“You know,” he finally started talking again. “I don't think you are a bad person or anything. You know well enough that I am… quite okay with you... in some way.” Nipping on his beer again, he looked at her. “But while I don't really care about the whole secrecy stuff as long as I don't get blamed for it, I really don't like me or you being in danger.“

“Well, none of us got hurt too badly till now. Greg is good at stitching.“

“And nearly killing by accident,” he remarked dryly. “You know what I am talking about. We are not human, no simple mages, we are not getting killed as fast as they would be, and you have at least some control... For a little demon. That is why they still have both of us out instead of transferring us to a safer unit.“

“And it is not exactly like the kids are scrambling to join us,” Oona added.

Suddenly they both went silent and stared both in different directions. While Tylor was looking down to the city, Oona was looking at the sky, where she could barely see the stars, as the city lights were too bright. The starlight was too faint in comparison and barely notable.

She felt a little melancholic, as she hadn't been able to get out of the city for more than a year now. Since she simply was no human and had to act more or less human most of her time, this got depressing. Sometimes, she also felt quite annoyed about being surrounded by ignorant humans all the time. It wasn't like she hadn't thought about joining some of the tribes living in the countryside, but she knew she couldn't do that. Though it was appealing at the moment, she knew that she would get bored rather quickly.

But at the moment...

She would have given a lot for the silence of the woods and fields out there. She could hear the traffic all the time, sirens and horns of ships in the harbour.

Some minutes passed until Tylor started to speak again. “At least promise to be a little more careful,” he murmured. “Not just for me, but for yourself, too.” With this he gave his now empty bottle an unsteady look.

“I will…” she started and thought a little about how to put it. “Do my best?” It sounded more like a question than a promise.

“That would be a start,” he answered and shrugged. “Well, I don't know about you, but I would like another beer.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Well, I wouldn't mind one either.” She followed him to the stairs.

There Tylor suddenly stopped. “Ah, and one other thing: Never try to break into my flat again.”

She gave him a guilty grin. “Okay.”