In the Midnight Hour

Strigithanos

GUYS! BEFORE YOU GET STARTED, THERE IS A LITTLE BIT OF MATURE CONTENT IN HERE. 

Does this get an author fired or anything? Burned at the stake? maybe I'd better check your community standards before I continue lol.

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Sarae parked her pickup behind an RV that took up half the parking lot across from the jail.

"California," she said, reading the license plate. "Wow, they brought an RV clear out here? What do you think, Zoe, you think it's that guy from Breaking Bad? Do you think they're cooking meth? They've certainly come to the right place for that."

Zoe was snoozing. She patted the owl's wing, and Zoe's head came up.

"Sorry," the little owl said drowsily. "I'm sleeping off an especially large field mouse."

"Come on," Sarae said, leaning close to the back of the passenger seat where the owl was perched. Zoe stepped delicately from the seat to her shoulder and cuddled up against her ear. She arranged her long black hair over her. The owl curtain, as she liked to call it. Zoe arranged her feet on Sarae's shoulder and sank down comfortably.

Sarae always felt as if she were breaking some law by walking around with an unauthorized owl on her shoulder. But it was so good to have company, even if it was a little tiny screech owl.

The sheriff's department was an older house near the city square. They'd been building a new jail for a while because people got tired of convicts escaping through the residential area around the exercise yard. Her cousin had finally pushed for a new bond issue to fix this.

Sarae stopped at the door and rang the doorbell, waiting to get buzzed in. The door's latch snapped, and she pushed in, looking around for that California guy.

If we have a real-life Heisenberg here, I'm going to crap myself, she thought.

She was disappointed to see no one at the counter, but turning, she saw two young black guys, both about her age, sitting in the waiting area.

And between them, on the shoulder of the smaller guy, sat a freaking huge owl.

Sarae gasped. The other Strigithanos, she thought. The one Heather called.

Zoe's feathers tickled her ears as the owl began to poof up in a threatening way toward the great horned owl. The large owl's huge yellow eyes stayed fixed on her. For a moment Sarae didn't move.

The young man with the owl wore sunglasses, so she couldn't see his eyes. But he seemed to look into her soul, exuding the powerful vibe of a person who just doesn't give one fuck what anyone thinks of him. Thin and long-limbed, he wore his hair in a mini afro and a leather jacket over a sweatshirt, black jeans, combat boots—and a fixed frown.

His companion, in sharp contrast, looked like a supermodel. He was tall and broad, his features perfectly chiseled, his immaculate clothes tailor-cut, his hair in a neat fade.