Moonlighting aside

"I'm not the right person for this job." Perry looked as close to crying as a middle-aged lumberjack could. "You're the only person for this job, Ginny." She grimaced at the nickname but ignored it in favor of more pressing matters. "Just because I'm the only person you think you can sucker into this fool's errand does not mean I'm the only one for this job." Perry opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "And if the next words out of your mouth are a reminder about what my father would have done in this situation, then I'll sic Bill on you, just like he would have." Perry paled, eyes darting nervously to the hellhound sleeping in the corner. "Come on now, Ginny - " "Virginia. As you well know," she cut in crisply. He opened his mouth to protest she raised a brow. She didn't often take blind meetings with clients and this was reminding her exactly why she did that. Family friends or no, leprechauns were always more tedious to deal with than they were worth. His mouth closed petulantly before he ignored his better sense and plowed on. "If you won't do it for me, at least do it for poor Riley." Virginia leveled him with a flat look. "Using the memory of your daughter as a bargaining chip. Classy." The amiable mien fell away and Perry sneered. "You've got that stick so far up your - " "Oh dear. It appears we're out of time. How unfortunate. I trust you don't need Bill's help in finding the door." She watched him turn a fascinating shade of purple from the corner of her eye, watched as he (obviously) eyed Bill and then stood up, throwing a last glare over his shoulder as the door closed behind him. She snorted, slouching back in her chair so she could kick her feet up onto her desk. "I dunno, Ri. I almost want to tell him I've already found where you hid your treasure. Just imagine his face if I told him only one of your lovers would be able to access it." Riley drifted down through the ceiling, ghostly features exasperated but fond. "I really don't think he ever expected that I might form a relationship that I held to be more important than family. He certainly never would have guessed that I would find myself taken with the..." "Mutt-next-door. The word you're too polite to use is mutt." Riley pursed her lips in disapproval, but it quickly faded into a small smile as Virginia simply grinned up at her unrepentantly. "Regardless of whatever you may or may not be, I don't think it ever occurred to him that I might give my everything to you." Virginia felt her grin shifting to something softer, warmer. "You were always the sane one in your clan." That received an eye-roll in response. Riley was only just holding back her smile. "My mom would probably agree with you." "The satyr blood wins out!" Virginia crowed. Bill gave a long-suffering sigh from where he'd been woken in the corner, and Riley finally gave in to a giggle as she settled weightlessly on the edge of the desk. She traced a translucent finger along the desk, not looking up, and Virginia knew which conversation they were about to rehash. "You know, there's nothing that says you have to keep the agency open now -" "And nothing that says I can't go spend your treasure on something else and I don't have to continue to remain committed to a ghost, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Ri, we can have this conversation as many times as you want, but it's not going to stop me from helping people when Bill and I can, and it's not going to stop me from loving you. If your death couldn't stop me, I don't know anything that could." She didn't move from her sprawl, didn't try to make Riley look at her, didn't try to force it even as Riley's pale fingers wrapped around hers. She'd accepted it as an undeniable truth that she'd lost her heart to Riley long ago and nothing in this world - and apparently nothing in the next - could convince her to try to find it again.

We're just like you, only prettier

There is a town along the Mississippi, deep in the heart of the South, where the gentlemen always doff their caps and the ladies are never asked to smile. Thirty miles to the east and thirty miles to the west and not a soul can name this town, but travelers can’t help but recognize the chill that crawls up the spine upon crossing into city limits.

The bayou mamas sit on their front porches, grins knowing and close-mouthed, deftly shelling peas and stringing beads and weaving destinies betwixt their fingers and their tongues. The steps are filled with dark eyed children, their gazes filled with swampland grit and the skeletons they aren’t supposed to know live in the closet.

The pretty girls of the South, though, the swampland’s daughters born and bred, have blood thick as winter molasses and patience thick as a butterfly’s wing. And this town without name, without description, without history, shines brighter for its ladies, the gentle girls who keep its law. The firebugs gleam incandescent, the cicadas chorus unified praise,  the crickets chirp a lullaby for the bayou's chosen. They do not age, these pretty girls, nor show the pass of time; their city keeps them young and lithe, and they keep it well fed. The bayou’s ladies are willing to smile, wait only for someone who thinks to ask. There is but one rule that the townspeople follow and it is this that has kept them alive: only accept what is given unasked. The city is not fed from its townspeople, for any who do not follow the rule are not around long enough to be considered of the town - only a permanent part of it.

Few have seen the ladies smile and none have lived to tell their tale, but the city is fed well on those unlucky few.

Through her cherry lips, the devil slipped a thousand lies

Mariah watched her hands closing around the man’s neck, her hands