Pets and Pests

"Help?" James asked incredulously.

"Quite so," Eve answered with a nod. "You see, I've been thinking that I've been dreadfully selfish in not doing this before. I heard you have a pixie problem."

"It's a minor nuisance," James said quickly.

"They're like fleas!" one of his managers said at the same time.

"I'm sure fleas are a minor nuisance," Eve said with a genuine smile, "but you've been unable to get rid of them for quite some time now, have you not? The pixies, I mean. And it's just occurred to me that pixies are susceptible to vampire charm and my people could easily persuade them to leave. It's really unpardonable of me to not offer my help sooner, but the thought just occurred to me the other night. As you see, I hurried to offer my help as soon as I thought of it."

The werewolves were staring at each other in disbelief. Never, in all the thousands of years of recorded history, had a vampire offered to help a werewolf. They were sworn enemies, wasn't she supposed to know that? And yet here she was, smiling delightfully under her veil, while her skin was surely being fried by the sun they had been so careful to have glaring on her from all windows.

"Why the sudden thought?" James asked circumspectly.

"Oh," Eve answered with a laugh. "Lady Cassandra calls it heart problems. You see, I have a new employee."

She raised a hand to pat Rex on the head, and left it there, carelessly playing with his hair.

"We only hired him recently," she went on, "but already he has proven invaluable. And he's made me realize that werewolves are delightful creatures and that we should all be friends."

She began scratching Rex behind his wolf ears, apparently absentmindedly. As expected, his tail began wagging almost instantly, hitting her over her legs. He did not apologize, but his face, which had turned crimson, showed that he was trying hard not to say or do anything.

The effect on the werewolves was instant. A few wolf ears began popping up from the managers in the back, most likely the newer ones. Even James was watching her with his eyes wide and his pupils dilated. Not getting enough ear-scratching at home, Eve thought.

"Of course," she said, "I would not presume to inconvenience you by offering my help for free. I know how much your pride would suffer if I did. Perhaps your werewolves could do us, vampires, a small favor in return. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, that sort of thing."

James gulped, staring at her with eyes bulging out of their sockets. Then he regained his composure and turned to one of his younger managers.

"We are being impolite. Rolf, give Miss Stakes your chair!"

Eve did not decline this second seat, which was a dignified executive chair, good enough for a guest, though still not as impressive as the massive armchair of the werewolf CEO. Rex sat down next to her on the footstool they had originally prepared for her, and she kept scratching him behind the ear, since it seemed to have such a positive effect on the werewolves. In front of her, as James was sitting down, some of the managers began pulling heavy curtains over the windows.

***

Rex had had a hard time adjusting to how carelessly intimate Eve had become. Perhaps she didn't know the full effect of scratching a werewolf behind the ears. Or perhaps this was just so much harder for him because his tail kept wagging out of control, hitting her unintentionally. A few times he was sure his tail hit her over her butt, and he instantly saw himself fired for sexual harassment. Was it even possible to harass your boss?

He felt so much more relieved to be sitting on the footstool by her chair. At least here, his wagging tail was hitting against the floor. No danger of hitting his CEO while tail-wagging anymore here. But her hand was still in his hair, scratching him behind his wolf-ears in front of everyone in the room. And everyone meant all the big-shots at the company that hadn't wanted him, even his big brother Rolf, the youngest executive in the history of Bones R Ours Corporation. Rex knew he was going to get an earful at home over this. Work at Bones R Ours ended at six in the evening, though semi-compulsory company hunting parties, known as "team building", lasted long into the night. Still, by the time his night shift at Blood Lust would end in the morning, he was sure everyone at home would have heard about his new job, his new CEO, and her very hands-on approach to their work relationship.

While the CEOs talked of pixies, Rex kept staring at his brother, who was evidently staring at Eve. Rolf was too good at office politics to be ogling her directly, of course, but Rex knew his brother well, and could well imagine what he'd have to say back home. The thought nearly made his tail stop wagging. But then Eve's fingers touched his ear again, and he had to clench his fists to stop himself from rolling onto the floor and begging for a belly rub.

***

Eve thought the talks were going well. Apart from Rolf, who was staring at her in an odd way, even for someone who'd had to give up his chair for her. All the others seemed charmed. It was a rare thing for a vampire to be able to charm a werewolf, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. How well it had worked out! They were half-distracted with the ear-scratching. By the looks on their longing faces, this clearly meant a big deal to them. And they were delighted with the idea of finally being rid of pixies.

The more they talked, the more it became apparent that the "minor nuisance" was much more of a problem than they had let on. The pixies had taken a liking to their warehouses, and had moved in years back. They had been breeding like mad ever since, and were thoroughly destroying the place. They never stole much, but pixies are playful creatures, and often mischievous. They always ruined goods, pushed boxes off shelves, torn fabric apart, stained what could be stained, bleached what was meant to never be bleached, clogged everything that could be clogged, and so on. Furthermore, they seemed to have a knack for figuring out which goods were in short supply and needed to be shipped fast, which goods were costlier and more difficult to acquire, and which little prank would cause the greatest costs to fix or the greatest damage to the corporation's reputation and profits.

And yet, they could not be exterminated. Pixies were pests, everyone agreed on that. The werewolves thought so, the vampires thought so, every unhuman other than the pixies themselves thought so. But the humans had their laws on inclusion, and the laws were clear: if any unhumans were to be treated as equals, than all unhumans were to be treated the same. That meant pixies. You couldn't just kill them off, poison them or catch them in traps the way you did with rats. They had their rights, just as everyone else. Sure, they could be fined for damages, even sent to jail for the more serious pranks, the ones that caused any real harm. But that was a matter of catching the right culprit, and the police were never very good at figuring out one pixie from another. Can you prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the pixie you have in your hand is the pixie responsible for the latest disaster? Not when all the pixies shout things like "I didn't do it, it was my twin!" and fly around you in circles to confuse you even more. The police always gave up on them. But harm even one pixie, and the police would be all over you for unhuman murder.

This was the root of the werewolves' problem: pixies were bad for business, but there was nothing legal that the werewolves could do to get rid of them. And werewolves are sticklers for the legal stuff.

Eve smiled under her veil, a genuine smile this time. What she was proposing was borderline legal, but the werewolves were fed up, and borderline sounded good enough for them right now. She gave Rex another pat on the head. Her new bodyguard had proven quite useful, and he was putting up with the ear-scratching remarkably well. She was nearly determined to give him a raise when they'd get back to Blood Lust Tower. But then James' face darkened, and he asked her in a much harsher voice:

"So, Eve, what do you want in return?"