1. We’re Back!

O ctavius Evander spun, doing his best to keep his face serious as he pointed dramatically at the human in front of him.

“YOU, SIR! Have been caught!” He spun again, whipping out, from inside his jacket, the results of the fingerprint analysis. “I bet you thought you got away with stealing the jewels, and funneling company funds into your own pocket, but your sticky fingers left clues behind! Mainly…fingerprints… Not that smart of you, to be honest. But?—!”

He glanced over with a pout when his boyfriend, and fellow detective, Turney Pimms, who was standing directly next to him, didn’t react on cue.

The zombie rolled his eyes and slowly tossed a small bit of golden glitter up in the air in front of them, saying, in a monotone voice, “You have been caught…by us…”

Behind him, Henry De León clapped, as did Kim Min-ji and Scarlett Beauford, because this was the grand reveal, and clapping was necessary!

Though the women had been slower to react, and could have ramped up their enthusiasm… Henry was, at least, properly clapping.

Octavius did have to say, he was slightly disappointed that their client, Mr. Ethan Bowlery, who was standing a few feet away, wasn’t reacting much at all, besides a raised eyebrow. But whatever, he would not let it dim his excitement!

With a beaming smile, he eyed the culprit, Mr. John Bowlery, their client’s nephew, who was now staring at the glitter on the ground with… Was it confusion? Or concern…? Hmm…the furrowed brow was reading more confusion to him…

An odd reaction to being caught, but he would press on with his perf-exposing… He’d press forward with his exposing… Yes… As he was a…detective! The Lead Detective, and Owner, of The Undead Detective Agency!

“Henry! Bring out the Glittery—I mean, the Case Discovery Board!”

Yes… Case Discovery Board was much more professional than the Glittery Case Board of Doom! The name wasn’t as fun or awesome as the other, but…one must maintain one’s professionalism! As he was a professional—a professional detective!

Octavius pursed his lips as he thought on it. Would it be so wrong to want to be known as the Glittery Professional Detective?

Turney yawned, staring blankly at the road, which was lit by the moon and the van’s headlights, as he turned onto the drive that branched off towards Scarlett’s house.

“I still don’t get why we had to bring everyone with us,” he stated, his gaze flicking to the rearview mirror, to eye ‘everyone’ in the back. “With how simple that case was, I’m pretty sure we could have completed it by ourselves.”

Scarlett and Min-ji had taken the seats in the middle, and Henry was by himself in the very back, taking the bucket behind the zombie. The seat beside Octavius’ fledgling was folded down, the space filled with luggage.

“We didn’t bring everyone!” Octavius huffed. “Cormac and Theo remained at home.”

Turney snorted. “Theo is the company accountant. Of course, he’d stay here. As for…Cormac, he only stayed because he had some last-minute ‘issues’ with the sale of Theo’s house.”

Though, he was wondering if said last minute ‘issues’ even existed. He wouldn’t put it past Cormac Laurent to try to wiggle out of having to work. Not that they had needed the werewolf with them, to add on to the lack of working going on.

Most of their time had been spent chasing Octavius, as he tried to play with the random animals that happened to be roaming around their client’s small farm…

He grimaced. Okay…he maybe had to take some blame in that as…Turney may have been just as distracted by the cute animals as Octavius… But how could he be blamed for that?! There had been babies! They’d been cute…and small…and cute…

“Well, Henry needed to come for training, of course!” the vampire pressed on.

Turney’s face twisted—training, in what? Clapping, glitter throwing, and dramatics? He’d been the one who had collected the fingerprints, and the only one who had watched him do it was Scarlett. The rest were off…

Actually, he wasn’t sure what the rest were off doing at that time, but they had only been there two days before they reached Octavius’ dramatic conclusion… So there hadn’t really been much to see, besides maybe the random questions they’d asked people…

“And we came, why?” Min-ji drawled.

His boyfriend scoffed. “As if Scarlett would stay behind while I took her neophyte to another state.”

It had been almost six months since his change, and…well, Turney couldn’t say he liked being too far away from Scarlett. It made him feel…anxious. He knew it was the bond… and he was pretty sure Scarlett felt similarly, so Octavius was likely right.

Scarlett sighed deeply. “I might…have…”

“Sure you would have,” Octavius giggled, his voice heavy with doubt.

Turney let out a resigned chuckle. “Right, and Min-ji came because Scarlett came… I guess you won this one.”

“Of course, I did. Was there any doubt that I would?!” Octavius hmphed.

He snorted.

When Scarlett’s house came into view, he frowned at the sight of the van parked in front, the logo on it saying, Well’s Construction .

Knowing Scarlett would have mentioned if she was getting something done to the house, he looked to Octavius as he parked beside it. “What did you do?” he accused.

Scarlett let out a deep and heavy sigh once again. “At the moment, I’m too tired to even want to know what he did.”

The vampire stared at him with his big, ocean-blue eyes. “Well…ummm…you see…Bubby needed more movability, is all.”

“Bubby is a fish?!” Turney huffed.

“Bubby is our fish!” Octavius cried, before his lips pursed into a pout. “He yearned for freedom!”

“Yearned for… Octavius…he’s a fish?!” He groaned as he removed his seatbelt. “Whatever, let’s drop it for tonight. You can show me the trouble you caused in the morning.”

Octavius whined. “I didn’t cause trouble!”

“Mhmm, I’ll believe it when I see what you did,” Turney said as he got out of the car. “Are we leaving our things in the van tonight, or…?” He trailed off as Scarlett, Min-ji, and Henry jumped out. Octavius was just sitting there, glaring at him through the window.

“Leave it unlocked. I will empty the van and put it away when I’m done,” Henry instructed.

“Fine with me.” He tossed the keys to the vampire, who caught them easily.

Finally, over pouting… Well, over sitting in the van alone and pouting, Octavius hopped out, crying, “I didn’t cause trouble, I tell you! You are besmirching my good name! The only thing I did was make sure Bubby was more comfortable in his home!”

“Besmirching, huh? And I think you mean, in Scarlett’s home.”

“It’s ours too!”

Min-ji watched the two men walk off. The vampire and zombie continued to bicker as they went.

“How big of a mess do you think he made?” she asked. Though…she may have had a slight inkling…on what he likely did…based on a favor she’d done for him before leaving.

Scarlett snorted. “Probably big enough.”

“Worry not, Mistress Scarlett. I ensured that the changes were made to the addition you added years back, instead of to the original structure. The other alterations are easy enough to remove, without damaging the underlining wood,” Henry stated.

The zombie rolled her eyes and walked past the vampire and headed up the steps. Min-ji followed, frowning when they reached the front door and she turned left instead of right, walking in the opposite direction of their bedroom.

“Scarlett, it’s late, we should sleep.”

The zombie smiled slightly, the expression a bit stiff. “We will, after I feed Godric.”

Min-ji barely held back her wince at the man’s name. Now the eighth of March, months had gone by, and…

She pushed the negative thought away, not letting it finish, even in her head. There was enough going on, she didn’t need more negativity on top of it. There was no point thinking about it, or voicing any of what she thought. Scarlett, and everyone, in fact, were fully aware that time was running out for the elder zombie.

Even though Min-ji had put into place mental barriers to protect Scarlett’s emotional privacy after the familiar bond, every time the zombie’s distress spiked, a hint of it would manage to seep through. But the woman refused to talk about it. Then again, there was a lot Scarlett refused to talk about.

Ever since that day… Since their unbreakable bond had been formed, a seemingly insurmountable wall had been erected between them. Min-ji wasn’t sure how to even begin to break that down, and deal with all those issues, let alone get the zombie to talk to her about her distress connected to other matters. So, she said nothing, just nodded and followed.

Entering the completely metal room, that was Scarlett’s body maintenance room, she stood behind her as the woman unlocked and opened the thick hatch in the far right corner.

The groans of the ghoul below could be heard as soon as the seal was broken. Min-ji continued to silently watch as Scarlett grabbed a platter full of animal brains from the refrigerator in the room, and dumped them down.

At the moment, her silence was all the comfort she could give the woman she loved… It was the only comfort that Scarlett would accept from her.