So earlier this morning I wrote the writing prompt for the word hedges… and found lots of interesting pictures on pinterest… and here is the next part of my short story, inspired by that prompt… if you want to look at the prompt, and come up with your own writing creation, click HERE

Enjoy these few paragraphs… I will make sure to post all my writing pieces together when I feel that the short story is complete… that way you will have a complete and new short story to read, found all in one place… now you check this out, and I will go edit some more on book two of the Finder’s Keepers series… and don’t miss book one: Shocking Finds (A Finder’s Keepers Novel) Amazon

—- answer to Hedges prompt —- (this has not been edited)

Nick watched the delicious Sam pick through leaf samples and reexamine casts of lemur foot prints all while ignoring the whispering and snickering going on behind her back. Her co-workers looked at her and saw a newbie chasing ghost stories, and myths. They were looking for a missing child, not helping out animal control.

Nick suppressed a chuckle at their ignorance. If they only knew that they were doing both. He wasn’t just looking for a child. He was looking for a shifter-child; one that obviously came from one of the local lemur clans.

His eyes were glued to Sam as bent over yet more print casts. She bounced a little on her feet as she moved from one set of prints to another, and back again.

“Huh. Okay. So more than one.” Her words pulled his eye up from her excitedly bouncing rear. Too bad really. He was enjoying the view.

Ready to send Sam off on whatever hunch she had come up with so that he could have a moment alone with the evidence, Nick inquired, “More than one what?” He need to search for clues without the prying eyes of humans and Norms – those Fae without knowledge or access to supernatural powers.

Sam held two of the print casts as she turned around. “These are from two different lemurs. So we are looking at least two.”

Mastins walked over, shaking his head. “You confused, Cass? What the hell do a couple of rodents have to do with the case?”

Carefully placing the casts back with the others, Sam glared at her partner. Nick smiled and stepped back to watch the tiny beauty tear Mastins a new one.

Hands on her hips, Sam hissed, “When I do a job, I follow every lead. And I don’t ignore any clue, no matter how weird or insane. I don’t know how you work, but I prefer to check every angle. Is that a problem?”

As Sam and Mastins started a hushed but intense hissing contest, Nick moved up to the evidence. Pulling an essence crystal from his pocket, he ran the rock over the leaves and print cases. The crystal pulled information from all the clues and transmitted a kind of report. Holding the crystal tight, he could sense that there had been at least two children and one adult. One of the kids could shift into a lemur but the other one felt like a Nature Fae. Oddly the adult felt like a human.

Nick was used to dealing with Danshue, or evil Fae, but not humans. What was a human doing kidnaping Fae children? And how the a powerless human manage to catch a lemur-shifter? The lemur clans kept their children hidden in magical holds. Usually these hold were hidden withing plant-life, something like a tree or a garden hedge. The lemurs could slip into a hidden home large enough to hold a family of twenty. The inside of a two foot hedge didn’t look large enough to hold such a large building, but magic could change just about anything.

Sam and Mastins were practically vibrating and red in the face, when chief Yu noticed. Glancing between his two underlings, Yu barked, “Mastins- continue working the case. And Cass- run down your lead with our out of state friend here.” Yu glared in Nick’s direction, before turning back to Sam. Arms crossed, feet braced wide, Yu smiled. If you could call that a smile. It looked more like a cat eyeing his unsuspecting prey. “If this crock pot plan of yours doesn’t work, I can always pull out some more transfer papers.”

Looked like Nick had a tag along for his hunt, and Sam would soon be looking for another job. This day wasn’t working out for either of them.