“But can you do it?” Rhys asked, tense. There’d never been a job Michael hadn’t been able to manage yet, but he realized he was asking for something pretty big.
Not to mention, I’m technically spying on my own place of employment…
“Wait,” Maisie broke in, looking confused. “The Agency? Whatisthat, exactly? It sounds like something out of a corny spy movie.”
Rhys pulled in a breath. “Well, I guess it would be, if we were in a spy movie,” he said, wondering how he could explain this. “It’s… it’s where I work. And itisa spy agency, I guess you could say. But we don’t look into human crimes – we’re strictly shifters only.”
“You mean… shifter crimes? You investigate crimes committed by people… people like you.” Maisie glanced around the table, clearly including Shaz and Michael in what she meant bypeople. “People who can… turn into other things.”
Rhys nodded. “That’s right. Shifters are pretty slippery when it comes to the law – after all, the human cops can’t exactly chase down a kangaroo for questioning, or go after a goanna that’s been smuggling drugs. Or a dragon that’s been getting into human trafficking – or shifter trafficking. Those kinds of crimes are where we come in.”
Rhys gave Maisie a moment to absorb that, watching her mouthdragonto herself once or twice before she shook her head.
“And… so you’re telling me you’re like, some kind of James Bond, if James Bond could turn into a griffin,” she said after a moment. “Is that actually what you’re saying?”
Rhys chose to ignore the rather rude way Michael snorted in derision, as if he’d just heard something completely outlandish.
Hey, I’m closer to being James Bond than you ever will be,he thought sourly. But what he said out loud was, “Not exactly,but Idodo a lot of… well, I arrest shifter criminals. That’s pretty much the gist of it.HowI do that can get pretty interesting at times.”
“So… is that why you were shot today?” Maisie asked slowly, looking him in the eye. “It must have been something to do with your job, right? And that stuff – the wyvern venom –”
“You got shot withwyvern venom?” Shaz interrupted, looking plainly shocked. “And you’re still walking around?”
Rhys grimaced. He’d been hoping to avoid this. He was fine now – he didn’t need people causing a fuss about it.
“I’m right as now,” he said, hoping they’d drop it. “I was lucky enough that Maisie found me before I got too bad, and she took me to the Agency. They knew what to do, and they got me patched up.”
“Still, that’s pretty serious,” Michael said. “Does this have something to do with what you want me to look up? Can’t you just do that yourself? If you were involved, then you must have access to those files.”
Rhys grimaced again.Here we go.
“Ordinarily, yeah, I would,” he said. “But right now… look, it’s complicated. But I’ve been suspended. So I don’t have access to anything right now, not even the building.”
“Suspended? You?” Michael looked him in the eye, presumably for any sign that Rhys was joking, but obviously he realized that he was being completely serious. “What for? You finally lose your temper with the wrong guy?”
Rhys grimaced. “No. It’s… a long story. If you want to know, hack into my personnel file and find out.”
“Cheers, I might just,” Michael said. “But yeah, I get why you need me.”
“Icouldask Callan or Euan or Trent to look into it, or ask Trent to ask Zina to hack in for me. But it’d be putting them in kind of a tough position, and I’d rather not do that,” Rhys said.
“Well yeah, I can see that.” Michael let out a small, snorting laugh. “You don’t want to ask them to spy on their own workplace for you. No matter what, that’s an ethical dilemma they don’t need.”
“Exactly.” Rhys nodded. “So that’s why I’ve come to you.”
“That, and because I’m the best in the business and you know it,” Michael said, standing and going over to his computer. “So what am I looking for?”
Rhys stood, leaning over Michael’s desk as he typed – though he didn’t really know why he bothered, since the computer screen was just covered in a bunch of cascading windows that opened and closed as Michael typed more rapidly than anyone should really be capable of.
“I want to find out what really happened today,” Rhys said. “Like I said, I got accosted and shot full of wyvern venom. The guys who did it told me they were recruiting double agents for Hargreaves.”
Michael whistled through his teeth again. “Nasty customers.”
“You can say that again.” Rhys could feel anger swelling inside him at the thought of it. “But according to Robb, every single one of them died before the Agency could arrest them for questioning.”
Michael raised his eyebrows without slowing his typing even for a moment. “That’s kind of sus.”
“Tell me about it.” Rhys frowned. “It’s not that Iwantto think something funny’s going on. But there’s just been a bunch of things happening that make no sense at all at the moment, and it’s giving me a bad feeling in my gut.”
