On my way back to the office, I got sidetracked by the brothel. Although I had no interest in their services (honest), the Full Moon still managed to get my attention. The twenty-four-hour ladies of the night had a way of doing that.
As night fell, a cold snap slammed on the Quarter, making sparkles of frost creep up the walls of buildings like a spreading plague. Shivering mummies tightened their bandages, wrapped their arms across their chests, and hurried inside to shelter. Werewolves blew out frosty breaths and rubbed their paws together as they huddled on street corners.
Always enterprising, Neffi—the madam who ran the Full Moon Brothel—sent a couple of her girls out with flyers that said, Need someone to keep you warm tonight? Our fine women can drive away the chill of the grave. (Succubus service no longer offered.) Cinnamon, the sexy werewolf call girl, pushed one of the flyers into my hands with a flirtatious lick of her tongue along her muzzle.
“Haven’t seen you in a long time, Dan,” she said. “Stop by and visit. At least show your support for the rally.”
I had no idea what sort of rally the vixen werewolf was talking about, but I had my suspicions . . . and my dread. “Haven’t heard about it.”
“Come on over, then. Be a Dick supporter. It’ll be a lot of fun—I promise.” She licked her muzzle again.
Neffi was not much of a political activist, but she was a businesswoman. Chambeaux & Deyer had helped her out in a conflict against the corrupt Smile Syndicate, and she had offered me some of the Full Moon’s services in payment, but we preferred cash or credit card. With Sheyenne as our business manager, what did Neffi expect?
Because Thunder Dick was a client, I detoured to the standalone row house that, through a quirk of architecture, seemed to have discreet back doors on every side of the building. Maybe it had been designed by Escher’s ghost.
In the unseasonable cold snap caused by the weather wizards, the Full Moon Brothel looked like a magical winter wonderland from a classic Currier & Ives Christmas card. A white blanket of snow had fallen on the roof and eaves, piled up in a perfect coating along the bannisters and the shrubs. Thick, puffy flakes continued to fall through the air like glitter.
Thunder Dick was there in person to create his own microclimate, a cheery, snowy scene that invited hot chocolate and caroling (if that was the sort of thing that intrigued unnaturals). Because the weather wizard limited his cheery snowfall to such a discrete (and discreet) area, it looked as if the brothel was enclosed in a snow globe.
Outside, Neffi and her girls were holding a political rally that seemed more like a party. Thunder Dick wore his tie-dyed weather robes, clutching his portable sundial talisman, finger painting incantations in the air as he waved at passersby. “I hope I can count on your vote.”
Campaign signs had been pounded into the lawn in front of the brothel announcing, We Are Proud Dick Supporters.
Of course they were.
I doubted that the old mummy madam had read either candidate’s platform statement; she simply chose which of the two she wanted to support based on their names. Seeing me, the weather wizard waved vigorously to get my attention, thereby causing an inadvertent swirl in the wind pattern, which picked up some of the clean white snow and splattered it on a group of werewolves who had come by to observe.
Thunder Dick’s cat familiar huddled near his feet, shivering in the cold. Cats rarely found anything charming about snow.
“Look, Mr. Chambeaux!” the wizard called. “I took your advice to heart! See my clean and honest rally? I’m a nice guy, everybody’s favorite uncle. You were right: Being fair and aboveboard is the best way to get support. I want Wuwufo voters to choose me because of my ability and integrity, and because they like me—not because of some childish spat with an arrogant jerk.”
“You’ve matured a great deal,” I said.
“I wouldn’t say ‘a great deal,’” said the cat. “Can we go now?”
“Soon.” Thunder Dick smiled and kept waving at the attendees. “I thought you’d enjoy being at a cathouse.”
Neffi came over to me, walking with stiff and jerky movements, as if she had been produced in a bargain-basement special-effects shop. “There’s my favorite zombie private investigator. It’s been far too long since you darkened our door and brightened our lives.”
“Business elsewhere,” I said.
“Oh, we can definitely take care of business,” she said with a seductive lilt in her voice, a habit she had developed after thousands of years of practice. She was the oldest madam in the world working the oldest profession.
I noted the Dick Supporter signs around in the brothel yard. “Since when did you get into politics, Neffi?”
“Oh, it’s not politics—we just like the slogan. It attracts attention, brings customers over for our Happy Hour, and then we can give them special coupons for our Happy Endings Hour.”
Listening in, Morris/Maurice glared up at the weather wizard. “You can have my coupon. I’ve been neutered. He did it to me.”
Thunder Dick dismissed the cat’s concerns. “Don’t be silly—I had a professional vet do the snipping. After I read the instructions, I decided it would be too complicated to perform myself. I only did it because I care for you so much, Morris. Everyone says that neutered cats are happier cats.”
“Who says that?” asked Morris/Maurice, then sneezed, still miserable from the snow. “Not any cats, I guarantee you.”
Slender vampire seductresses, gray-skinned but well-preserved zombie ladies, two werewolf hookers including Cinnamon, and even a slippery-looking shape-shifting creature who was a new acquisition (offering “endless possibilities” according to the Full Moon’s advertisements) handed out campaign buttons, even though some of the spectators didn’t have garments to which they could attach them. The ladies called out, “Join us. Be a Dick supporter!”
The weathermancer was delighted and proud, as well as oblivious to the snickers. Even Neffi could barely cover her grin, but because the skin of her lips was so dried and leathery, she never managed much of a smile anyway.
“I thought Ramen Ho-Tep changed his support to Alastair Cumulus the Third,” I said. “Aren’t you two still an item?”
Neffi stiffened even more than she already was. “We’ve been on again, off again for millennia. Politics and relationships don’t mix. I had him wrapped around my gnarled finger, even put up a Thunder Dick poster in the museum—but now he supports that prissy fop just because he dried out a few damp bandages. He should have more of a backbone than that. Ramen Ho-Tep was the pharaoh of all Egypt, after all.
“I know,” I muttered, “he reminds us often enough.”
“But pharaohs are too focused on the upper class, the one percent. Thunder Dick, though, speaks for the common people.”
The cat snorted. “He is exceedingly common.”
Several of the ladies called for Thunder Dick to make a speech (because Neffi had encouraged them to do so). The weather wizard chuckled in embarrassment, brushed down his perpetually windblown hair and beard. “As president of Wuwufo, I promise only the best weather across the Unnatural Quarter throughout my administration. That will be my number one priority.”
“Best weather for which species?” called a reptilian person in a hooded cloak.
“And that is where I promise to achieve a consensus,” said Thunder Dick. The werewolves began to howl, and he turned to them. “For werewolves I promise a full moon every night.”
Two of the younger werewolves looked excited, their tongues lolling out of their mouths, but their pack leaders responded with active scorn and cuffed their younger furry brothers. “Don’t ever believe campaign promises,” one snarled. “Besides, a full moon is astronomical, not meteorological. You don’t control the movement of celestial bodies. Wuwufo doesn’t have that much power.”
“But I could make sure the moon isn’t covered with clouds,” said Thunder Dick.
“Either way, we still transform,” answered one of the werewolves.
The cat hissed at the wolves. When they raised their hackles and growled back at Morris/Maurice, the tuxedo cat bounded back to hide behind the tie-dyed robes.
“And for vampires,” Thunder Dick continued, raising his voice, “I promise no bright sunlight. Always a protective haze and—”
“My foggy bottom, what nonsense!” yelled a thunderous voice, which was conveniently accompanied by a peal of thunder. Alastair Cumulus III appeared, suddenly illuminated by flashes of lightning. His arrival seemed staged, even operatic, as if he had taken inspiration from Don Giovanni.
“Don’t make promises you can’t deliver, Richard. And with your level of incompetence, you couldn’t cause rain during monsoon season. The Unnatural Quarter deserves consistency in their weather, not climate change that plays favorites.” He bowed to the gathered audience. “Ignore this amateur. Vote for me—for climate change you can believe in!”
Listening to this, I was confused, because I had thought Cumulus was the elitist candidate. I could barely tell the two apart from their positions.
By now, cameras from the competing weather networks had showed up and their staff meteorologists made bold predictions about the outcome of the Wuwufo elections, accompanied by contradictory weather forecasts.
Thunder Dick was so outraged at his rival’s arrival that he conjured a wind that blew straight at Alastair Cumulus, flapping the curled prongs of his forked beard, and the other weather wizard countered with an equal and opposing wind. The campaign signs rattled on their wooden sticks. Coupons and flyers for the Full Moon fluttered in the air. When the ladies ran for shelter, each grabbed a potential customer and rushed into the brothel, where it was safe and warm and dark.
Unsuccessful with his weathermancy, Thunder Dick scooped up a big handful of snow and smacked Alastair Cumulus in the face with a snowball.
The other weather wizard’s eyes flared, and he summoned a powerful spell that brought down a crackling heat wave that instantly melted all the fresh white snow and removed any nostalgic Currier & Ives trappings. Runnels of water streamed off of the eaves and left the surrounding area a soggy mess.
“Oh, that’s not fighting fair!” yelled Thunder Dick.
Cumulus snorted, “Says the man who threw a snowball in my face.”
Thunder Dick turned to me. “You see why I hired you, Mr. Chambeaux? You see what slimy tricks he uses?”
“Yes, I saw it all,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “For all our sakes, I’ll be glad when this election is over.”