Prologue

"Psst. Hey, babe?"

Ari stuck his head into the break room where he knew he'd find Eoghan. Sure enough, the man he was crazy about stood with his back to him at the coffeepot. His ass had never looked finer in his black tac pants. And the way his muscles flexed in perfectly sculpted forearms and biceps as he raised his coffee cup to take a sip of their favorite morning brew…well, damn.

He sighed as his lover turned to look at him with bright blue eyes. When he flashed him a devilish grin, Ari knew his world was perfect.

"Want some coffee?"

"In a minute." Ari hesitated, pointing out to the bullpen. "You might want to come out here and get a look at the hologram screen."

"What?" Eoghan looked confused as he joined him in the doorway. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm the rookie, remember? You tell me whether that's normal." He pointed up to the large, rectangular screen hanging near the front of the room as they walked out into the bullpen. A crowd of marshals and other personnel had gathered around, craning their necks to watch what was happening on-screen.

Chief Deputy Arizona Priest bent over Night, their resident half-snow leopard IT specialist, who was typing frantically on her desktop.

"Play it again, Night," Priest ordered.

"Trying to, boss." Her hands flew over the keys, nails clicking. "Just about there…have to hack into ABC Channel 7's recent archives…ah…okay." She hit one final key and the scene on the hologram started again.

A male newscaster sat behind the desk reading from a prompter when someone walked onto the stage and handed him a piece of paper. He looked up, slightly confused, nodded as the person walked away, and read for a few seconds before looking off-screen. He held up the paper. "Is this right?" He listened to a muffled, disembodied voice, before turning back to the camera.

"It seems we have ALARMING, breaking news," he said in his professional newscaster voice. "An alien spaceship has landed on—"

His head exploded—brains, blood, and pieces of skull—filled the air in a fine mist in front of what was left… A chest, the blood-soaked paper his dead hands still held, and a tiny lavender creature sitting at a small desk atop what was left of the anchor's neck, punching keys on a miniature keyboard. He stood and closed the laptop, picked up a file folder from his tiny desk, walked calmly to a jagged piece of ravaged tendon, hanging precariously from the head cavity, and jumped to the anchor desk. He landed deftly, before sauntering calmly across the desk, and disappearing off camera.

"Oh, my," Eoghan said from beside him.

Ari looked over at him in shock. "Oh, my? That's all you have to say about that? Oh, my?"

Eoghan glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow, shrugging. "What do you want from me? It'll need containment, of course."

Ari snorted. "What the hell, Eoghan? Is this really normal? Is this how things go? Is this what we do?"

Eoghan smirked and opened his mouth to reply when the chief interrupted him.

"This is normal at the I.S.R., Brown, like it or not." She turned back to Night. "What's the ETA on the sanitizing team?"

"Three minutes, ma'am," Night replied, glancing up at her boss with eyes so neon blue, they nearly glowed.

Priest gave a quick head nod. "Good." She spun back to them and directed her gaze at Ari. "You okay, Brown? You're looking a little green around the gills."

"I'm black, ma'am," he replied in a flat voice. "I never get green."

She smiled as Eoghan snorted from beside him. "Very well, I want to see you two in my office in—" She looked at her watch. "Three minutes. We have a new case."

"This one, ma'am?" Ari pointed up to the hologram.

She shook her head. "No. Rapid Response and our sanitizing teams will take care of that. This little blip means we'll be all hands-on deck for a solid week. I'm sending Marks and Jones to take care of that situation." She pointed to the screen. "You two have a different assignment."

"A new assignment, Chief?" Eoghan asked.

"We have an escaped fugitive who you're familiar with, Sapphire." She sounded exasperated when she pointed at her office. "Three minutes."

"Yes, ma'am," Eoghan said before glancing over at Ari. "Come on. You have just enough time to grab a fresh cup."

"But—" He pointed up at the holographic screen. "What about—you saw what happened up there, right?"

Eoghan began dragging him toward the break room. "You're gonna have to learn to roll with it, man. After a honeybee shifter, albats, and space fairies, I'd have thought you knew that. What happened just now. That's not our case. Now, come on. Coffee first."

Ari sighed. "Okay, babe. Whatever you say."