Harlow nodded and sent a smirk at the idiots as he passed, heading to the door at the back markedGuild Director Tony Varley. The look fell off his face when he noticed the other handlers were sharing peculiar looks with each other…
What the fuck was going on?
He was about to slam the director’s door open, much as he did the front door, when Tony himself called out to stop him.
“Harlow, wait up.” The man rushed from the hallway that led to the interrogation rooms. Further still was a stairway that leads down to a basement full of holding cells, both for humans and paranormals alike.
Tony was sixty-two years old and looked like a retired football player—big arms with a stocky but mostly in-shape body that was starting to go a bit soft in the middle. Deep brown skin, his white hair was in a military buzz cut, and he looked uncomfortable in his khaki pants and white polo shirt.
Harlow crossed his arms and leaned against the door. “Why am I here?” he demanded, staring into the man’s light brown eyes.
Tony grimaced. “There was a new law passed…which you would know if you had been reading your emails.”
Harlow narrowed his eyes. “And?”
His boss rubbed the back of his neck and grinned way too joyfully, as if he had just heard a joke. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Just tell me so I can get back to my vacation,” he sighed.
“Well then…go right ahead and meet your new partner.”
“My new what?!” Harlow growled, staring at the man as if he had lost it. For sure, there was no sane reasoning behind whatever fucked up decision this was.
Tony waved his hand towards the door behind Harlow.
He spun around and grabbed the door handle. Twisting, Harlow slammed it open, really hoping there was some sort of joke on the other side.
It was certainly a joke…on him. His eyes widened at the man… No, not man, vampire, standing on the other side.
“Hello, partner! I can’t tell you how excited I am to be working with you! And what a coincidence this is. Before you ask, no, I did not know that this would happen. I’m as shocked as you are. But I can’t say I’m not chuffed that I ended up partnered with you,” Foxx Honeywell beamed happily before sticking out his hand. The short vampire stood there in all his pink glory, with a bright smile on his face, his dimples, freckles, and one small fang flashing. Foxx was wearing a white button-down with strawberries on it, literal pink corduroys with pink suspenders, and a matching puffy pink cap on his head.
“What in the strawberry fucking shortcake is going on?!” Harlow roared. At the same time, his mind was questioning what the fuck ‘chuffed’ meant.
The vampire's eyes widened, and he stuttered out, “St-strawberry shortcake?!”, sounding a bit indignant.
Foxx looked out of place, being so colorful in a room full of gray walls. Tony’s office had no windows, oddly, but a wall of glass shuttered with blinds facing the rest of the office. His L shaped desk was made of a thick dark wood, and the man’s desk chair was thickly padded, black, and executive looking. The normal shit was on his desk: a computer, and a pile of files, along with other random office supplies. There were two squarish-shaped chairs with thick black seats and backing, and wooden frames on the other side of it. Along the left wall was a line of bookshelves, and along the right, there was a black couch.
Harlow stumbled forward a bit, closer to Foxx, as Tony ushered him inside and closed the door. “Harlow, if you had been keeping up with the emails that I’ve been sending out for the last three and a half months marked ‘Status of Proposed Law: 7613’, you would know what is going on.”
Harlow ignored Foxx's slowly drooping hand as he spun around to glare at Tony with his arms crossed. “What, you actually expected me to waste my time reading all the bureaucratic bullshit being thrown about by the idiot pencil pushers in Washington?”
“Ah, emails. Can’t say I’m too fond of them myself, but there are always text messages. Or calling on the phone—” Foxx piped up and kept going, but Harlow drowned him out.
He had seen the emails…the multiple emails over the last few months. And he had ignored every single one. It wasn't the first time he'd ignored government emails, except none of the other laws had ever been passed, or if they had, they hadn't been this altering. Well, except for the ones in the beginning, but that was different. It had been at least three years since any laws had made much of a difference in his job. This…was going to be a big fucking change—just a giant pain in his ass. Irritation bubbled up, souring his gut.
Tony crossed his arms and glared back. “Here's the update you didn’t read in the last email. Proposed law 7613 passed about a month ago. It is now a requirement that we, at the very least, attempt to assign a paranormal with each of our hunters. I should have known you hadn’t read them simply by the fact you hadn’t complained about it.”
“It actually passed a month and a half ago,” Foxx said behind him.
Harlow continued to ignore the vampire and opted to scowl harder at his boss. “And no one thought to mention it?”
Tony shrugged, looking completely unrepentant. “It’s not my fault you don’t have any friends.”
Harlow would have argued that point…if he had cared. The problem was he hated people. And Harlow mostly refused to deal with anyone unless he had to. Though, he supposed he couldn’t say he had zero friend-like acquaintances. There were some like-minded hunters he got along with. Just none of them worked out of this office.
“Anyway, as of now, the majority of the paranormal councils are still deciding if they want to give their approval for their people to participate in this…” He hesitated, eyes flicking behind Harlow before continuing. “…new venture. With the exception of the vampires and the werewolves. The vampires have encouraged their people to join forces with us, and the werewolves told us to fuck off.”
Yeah, that fit with what Harlow knew of their species. Vampires tended to want to control whatever they could in society. Getting a foothold into the Hunters Guild organization would appeal to them. The werewolves, on the other hand, hated them with a passion. They didn’t want to be involved. They wanted to be left alone. Werewolves were also very suspicious as a people, and would only see this offer as a trap.
