The Crime in Callahan's Morrow - being rewritten

Chapter 1: The Meeting

"When an ominous feeling is following you, don't ignore it! The shit is real and will smack you right up your thick, ugly head if you're not careful enough."

~Jackal Smorotori, former criminal investigator, inventor, and a vampire; 

from the speech to new recruits

I.

Nicole was sitting on an old and worn, melancholically green colored armchair with washed-out yellow dots. It would work out if it were placed in some old grandma's living room. Sadly, this unappealing arrangement of colors was set inside an informant's office, right smack in the middle of a waiting room, and was totally out of place.

Unsurprising, given the rumors being whispered around – a client going rogue, destroying the office –  Nicole had expected the adaptation would include Shark throwing the money out, acting like a rich snob but, apparently, the rumor about his business falling into a slump was also true.

What was it again... a Naga? Could be. A Naga wouldn't have a problem destroying the place, just shapeshift a bit, and voila. That happened when clients were powerful supernaturals, different species of magic and power, some even more dangerous than someone like Nicole could imagine and could easily demolish almost the whole building. A good thing the building was still standing strong; it could have easily ended up in rubble like that factory in the old district where werewolves had had a rite of passage fight just a month ago.

Nicole glanced at a watch on her left wrist. It had been 23 minutes exactly, and the secretary hadn't quit trying to kill her with that vicious glare in all that time. That was the game two of them always played; one sitting and waiting, the other one sitting and glaring. Honestly, it was quite a boring thing.

Nicole didn't like the look the secretary was giving her, but it wasn't like she could do something about it. It was because of the job she had come to do; to visit their informant, Shark, who was also a vampire. Nicole didn't particularly enjoy gathering tips and rumors from informants about the underground dealings if that wasn't part of investigations. Her job was usually just to observe and call in about any disturbances.

Shark had been assigned to her about a year ago. As an info-broker, he was a valuable asset to the Supernatural Investigations Bureau. He'd made a deal with them, but still tried to pull strings,  demanding someone who he considered interesting enough to be his handler. 

Nicole had somehow ended up being 'interesting enough'. That was the only reason why she dealt with glares and scowls from the secretary every time she waited for Shark to welcome her to his office. Hoping this visit would be quick and informative,  Nicole understood that the chances of that actually happening were lessening with each passing minute.

That woman was a harpy. That wasn't an expression. The secretary really was a harpy, part of the species not really known about since they mostly inhabited other dimensions, a fact that sometimes made it hard to deal with the rogues of their species. Her form was purely human right now, curtsey of harpies' ability to partially shapeshift, and she had what would be considered a pleasing appearance when in human skin.

There had once been a certain incident in the past, one Nicole remembered with a slight amount of embarrassment. She could still remember the look of shock mixed with contempt on the woman's face making quite the priceless picture when she'd taken out a cleaning cloth along with her gun and started polishing it the last time she was here. Harpy's face had, in fact, shifted from anger, bones of the face sharpening, hair elongating, her yellowish eyes flashing brightly like owls' eyes do.