Chapter 3 - Not That Type of Snack

7:15 am - Tamsin's apartment

Tamsin woke up on her own couch. She immediately felt pain from her left shoulder when she raised herself up to look around.

She saw Bo stood in her kitchen, cooking something. She could smell cheese, egg, and something frying.

" Why are you still here?" Tamsin asked with her eyebrows frowned. She walked to the kitchen and poured herself a drink. But before she could drink it, Bo grabbed it and poured in the sink.

" No alcohol when you are recovering." Bo stared at her.

" Who are you to say what I can and can't have!" Tamsin poured herself another one. Again Bo threw it in the sink.

" Hey, bitch!" Tamsin stared at Bo.

" And here is your breakfast." Bo put a plate in front of Tamsin.

" What the heck is this?" Tamsin stared at the thing in the plate. It looked like two pieces of toasts.

" Toasts with cheese and egg. You cut the center off one piece of the toast and put it on the other, put the cheese and the scrambled egg in, fry it a little bit then put the center piece back on top..."

" Yeah, yeah, chef." Tamsin grabbed the toast with her hand and started to eat it. She didn't want to admit but it was delicious. Then she realized something:" Why aren't you eating? You didn't poison mine, did you?"

" Well, I normally don't eat this type of breakfast..." Bo sat beside her.

Tamsin raised her eyebrows and looked at Bo. She was confused for a second or two, but suddenly she realized what Bo meant by her type of breakfast.

Bo leaned over and laid her lips on the valkyrie's. She kissed her lightly, gently drawing some of her Chi.

Tamsin was just startled at first. Then she closed her eyes and kissed Bo back. A vague moan escaped from her throat, which had made the succubus wanting more.

Unfortunately, both of their phone rang almost at the same time. They parted.

Suddenly the awkwardness filled the room. Both of them stood up and turned around. Bo took her phone out from her pocket, while Tamsin went to get her phone on the side table beside the couch.

Bo's call was from Trick, who was asking her to go to the Dal. She agreed, then she waited for Tamsin to finish reading her text.

" I need to go. Trick needs me at the Dal."

" Well, well, I guess we are going to the same place then." Tamsin held her phone up in her hand and said, " Dyson asked me to meet him at the Dal."

8:00 am - the Dal Riata

Dyson was already there when Bo and Tamsin arrived.

" You two came together?" Dyson narrowed her eyes when he saw them coming into the door at the same time.

" Emmm... we...met outside in the parking..." Bo said.

" Yeah, morning miracle." Tamsin smirked.

" Ok." Dyson looked at Bo, then he moved his eyes to Tamsin. He sensed something was off, but he didn't really have time for it.

Just when they three were standing there looking at each other, Trick walked out from his den. He had a worrisome look on his face. It was his facial expression of something went wrong.

" So what's the emergency?" Bo asked.

" I was doing some inventory listing this morning. I think someone is stealing from me."

" Oh, great! Just another day of boring job. Story of my life." Tamsin said to herself.

Bo rolled her eyes at her, then she turned to Trick and asked:" What's missing, grandpa?"

" Some old Greek silver coins, with the Athena on one side and Pegasus on the other." Trick said, " Not something really priceless, that is why I didn't call the police yet. But I'm concerned."

" Yeah, we understand. If someone is stealing from you, we need to find him before he steals something really important." Dyson said.

" I think you two can handle some coin theft." Tamsin said, " I'm out of here."

" See you at the station later then." Dyson waved to her.

Tamsin waved her hand back without saying anything. She gave Bo a glance before she walked out.

8:30 am - Trick's Den

" Ok, I'll send all the dusted finger prints to the precinct, see if we can find a match or something in the database." Dyson took off the gloves from his hands and told Trick.

" Thank you, Dyson."

" So who had the access to your cabinets and safety deposit boxes?" Bo asked.

" No one but me, and you guys. I don't suppose any one of you took it, did you?" Trick said.

" Anything else missing?"

" No, just the coins."

" What's so special about the coins?" Bo asked.

" Nothing, they may worth some money on the collector's market, but I have a lot of other more valuable things in there. If the thief was after the money, he would had taken something other things with him too."

" Well maybe he only recognizes the value of the things like say, made of silver."

" Then why didn't he take my gold Goddess statue?" Trick picked up a small statue made of pure gold in his hand and showed it to Bo. " This was right next to the coins." He said.

" Maybe those coins were special for the thief, you know, personal sentimental value." Bo said.

" Where did you get those coins anyway?" Dyson asked.

" I couldn't really remember. I think it was from a customer. He paid for his drinks with them."

" I didn't know you take old coins as payments."

" Oh, I take everything. You never turn down silver or gold." Trick said.

" Well, I guess I'll ask around in the bar, see if anyone saw anyone came in or anything." Bo said.

" I'll go run the prints right now." Dyson said.

1:00 pm - Police Station

" So this is the guy who is stealing from Trick?" Bo looked at the guy in the interrogation room. She saw a trembling guy in there, couldn't even focus his eyes on anything. Tamsin was interrogating him, apparently he was totally scared and couldn't say anything useful.

" Well, we only found four sets of prints in there. Trick's, yours, mine and his. He was hired as a cleaning boy by Trick couple weeks ago for that big sports night party. He did have some records of stealing."

" Doesn't look to me like he could manage to steal something from Trick though." Bo said, " It just doesn't feel right."

" I agree, but sometimes they do surprise you." Dyson said.

They watched the interrogation for a while.

" Wow, your partner is really..." Bo couldn't find a word for Tamsin. She almost said hot, but she swallowed it back before it was too late.

" That's why I don't think he is our guy either. Normally with Tamsin like this, the suspect would have spit everything out by now." Dyson shook his head.

" I guess I could give it a try?"

" Be my guest."

Bo opened the door and walked in. Tamsin saw her and she rolled her eyes. She sat down on her chair with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

Bo sat next to the guy. She laid her hand on his arm and gently sending out her charm. A look of ecstasy appeared on the man's face.

Bo asked him if he knew about the coins. Turned out the guy didn't know anything. He admitted that he went down to Trick's den and smoked some illegal drugs, whiled he was admiring all the collections down there.

" So you didn't take anything from there?"

" I tried to...but the cabinets were all locked, and I didn't want to get myself in trouble, so...you are just so pretty..."

" Ok, enough." Tamsin pulled Bo's hand away from the guy, " Now what?"

" I don't know. Another shapeshifter maybe?"

" Shit! I swear if it is another shapeshifter, I'm gonna..."

7:30 pm - The Dal Riata

After the interrogation, they went into a dead end. Dyson swept Trick's den again, but didn't find any new evidence.

Tamsin didn't waste any time but had some drinks then went to shoot the pools.

Bo sat at the bar, with a beer in her hand. She looked at Tamsin from across the room, who was kicking some other guys asses in the pool game.

She thought she wanted to talk about something with her, but she couldn't even figure out where to start.

Dyson walked out from Trick's den and sat beside Bo. He ordered a beer too. He looked at Bo and asked:" Something on your mind?"

" Me? No, no, nothing is on my mind right now." Bo took a swig from the beer bottle. She turned her head back and stared at a poster behind the bar.

" Well if I didn't know you better-" Dyson stopped when he had noticed something. He moved closer to Bo and whispered to her:" Hey, check out that guy over there."

Bo looked at the man Dyson was talking about, who was sitting at a table by himself not far away from them. He was good looking, with his dark hair, dark eyes and rough jaw. But Bo just didn't like his smile on his face.

" I never know you were into men, Dyson." Bo punched him and giggled.

" No." Dyson said, " Look at what he had just put down on the table."

" Looks like some sort of coin to pay for his drink, why?"

" Remember Trick said about the coin he lost? Athena on one side and Pegasus on the other. Those are exactly the same coins."

" Don't you think it's too bold to spend the money at a place you stole from it? " Bo hopped down from the chair and approached the guy slowly.

" Let's find out." Dyson approached him from another direction.

The moment the man noticed them, he stood up and walked towards the exit. But Dyson covered the front door with his badge in his hand. The man turned around and ran to the back door.

" Well innocent people don't run away from cops, do they?" Bo ran after him.

But both Bo and Dyson were too far away from him. He turned around and looked at them with a smile of satisfaction on his face.

However, the smile disappeared with his body stiffened and fell on the floor. Tamsin hit him with the stick in her hand behind him.

" And you can thank me later." Tamsin smirked at Dyson and Bo.

8:15 pm - Police Station

" Where did you get these coins?" Dyson pointed at the coins in the evidence bag.

" Since when can't people have coins?" The man smiled at Dyson and said, " Do you have quarter on you? Does she?" He pointed at Tamsin. Then he continued:" Can I say you stole her money because you both have quarters?"

" Ok, this is getting stupid." Tamsin stood up and put her hands on the table. She stared at the man and said:" Look, we both know you are just bullshitting. Why don't you save us all the trouble and tell us where you got these coins?"

" One day I wake up, and they just appeared in my pocket, officer."

" We have Trick's finger prints on them too. Are you still going to say that you didn't steal them?"

" What can I say? It's money, it circles around." The man said, with a taunting smiled on his face.

Tamsin gnashed her teeth. She almost hit that man with her fist, but Dyson stopped her.

" How about do yourself a favor and tell us the truth." Dyson said.

" What evidence do you really have on me, officer? Some coins that are not unique, nor rare, with my prints on it? Can anyone put me at the crime scene? Can anything put me at the crime scene?"

" Ok, it's time to unleash the succubus!" Tamsin said. She walked out the interrogation room and told Bo to come in.

Bo sat beside that man. She put her hand on him and released her charm. She held the evidence bag up and asked him:" Where did you get these coins?"

" I don't...see...any coins..." The man mumbled.

" What?" Bo turned her eyes to look at the bag. To her surprise, the evidence bag was empty.

The coins just vanished, as if they just never existed.

For a minute or two, none of them had said anything. It was just the man's meaningless mumble in the room.

" Where the hell did the coins go?" Bo asked," I swear they were still in the bag when I came in!"

" Not that, is interesting." Tamsin had her arms around her chest. She smiled at Bo.

" I guess it's probably a really good time for us to call Trick."

8:20 pm - Police Station

" What? The coins just vanished, in front of your eyes? All of you?" Trick sounded shocked at the other end of the phone.

" Apparently." Dyson said, " Maybe it's some magic trick?"

" Did he touch the coin when it vanished?"

" No, no one had touched them. They were in a bag."

" Hmmm...that is strange, maybe this guy is telekinesis?"

" No, he's no fae. He's just a human." Dyson said.

" Ok. Other than the prints, anything else you find on the coins?" Trick asked.

" Let me see the report...they found traces of blood on it, not human's, nor fae's, but unidentified..."

" Is it on all of them?"

" Yeah, actually every one of them has it, very small amount of trace, how do you know?"

" Because that's how the money had vanished. How could I have not thought about this!" Trick said, " The blood was from a cicada-like insects called Qingfu, very, very rear, in fact I didn't know if they still exist. The mother bug and its larva never separates from each other. If you take the larva, the mother will come for him, not matter how far away it is."

" So how did he make the coins disappear? The bugs took them?"

"No, you take eighty one coins, dip them in the mother bug's blood, and take another eighty one coins, dip them in the larva's blood. Eighty one coins for each, not one more, not one less. Then you put them in separate jars. When you use them, you only take the coins from one jar. They will always come back to you after you spend them, because the mother always finds the way to the child. It's lucky that you caught him after he had already paid his bills, otherwise the coins wouldn't have disappeared, and I would have never figured it out."

" Ok. So I'm guessing if we go to his place, we will find two jars of coins?"

" I suppose so, and the rest is just police business."

10:00 pm - Tamsin's apartment

" Well, another case solved." Bo drove Tamsin back to her apartment.

" Some guy who wouldn't even pay for their drinks ruined another day of my life of doing nothing." Tamsin opened the door.

Bo stood in front of her door, and said:" Well, I've driven you home and I guess my job is done here."

" Ok." Tamsin had one of her hand on the door knob.

" Do you think...emmm...you need any more patching up?"

" I'm ok, succubus." Tamsin raised her eyebrows when she noticed that Bo was not leaving. " Need something?"

" How about some snack for my late night?" Bo asked.

" Then I suggest you go down stairs, turn left, go into that tiny gas station across the street and get yourself some chocolate."

" Not that type of snack..." Bo said. She leaned over and pressed her lips on Tamsin's, before the blonde could pull away.

Bo was just messing with the valkyrie, but as soon as their lips met, she lost control. She totally forgot about feeding, or anything else. She pulled the blonde closer and kissed her hard.

After a while, Bo pulled herself back. As much as she wanted to continue the kiss, she knew how thin the ice was that she was standing on right now. Last time she lost control on the blonde, the tension built between them was just too strong and awkward, almost painful. She couldn't afford to scare away the valkyrie again.

" I...emmm...I really need to go..." Bo let go of the blonde and turned away from her.

Bo walked back to the hallway. She heard the valkyrie closed the door behind her. She turned around and almost knocked on the door, but she drew her hand back before she touched it.

Bo sighed, then she left. She didn't hear the valkyrie sighed on the other side of the door.


A/N: Qingfu is a legendary insect mentioned in one Chinese philosophical literature. It said that the insect looked like cicada but larger, with wings similar to butterfly's. If you take the larva (or the egg), the mother will come to find it, no matter how far away it is, even if it's hidden. The legend about the coins coming back to you after spend them are expressed as in this chapter.