Copyright 1998, Lyka. This story may be copied for personal use so long as the author's credits are kept, but may not be posted, archived elsewhere, otherwise distributed or sold without the author's permission.

Gil Polonio, or "Mex" as he preferred to style himself, gloated openly as two police officers led his handcuffed sister out to the van.

She didn't look at him as he watched; he didn't look at his mother while she sobbed on the sidewalk behind him.

Catching her changing into leopard form when they'd both been in their teens had turned out to be a stroke of luck for him yesterday. Now Mex not only had his revenge, he had the reward money for reporting a shapeshifter -- a cool one hundred.

That would teach them to order him out of the house. Just because he'd been running his business from there didn't give them the right to throw him out of the place he grew up.

Of course he'd soon found a flat in East L.A. to deal from, but it had been a hell of a hassle.

He smiled as they slammed the van doors closed, then forced it down as he turned to face his mother, standing behind him on the sidewalk.

"Don't worry," he told her. "I won't be coming home again."

Later that day Officers Jones and Bjorn cruised by the complex where the Polonis lived.

"Goddamn scumbag," Jones said. "Turning in his own sister, and she gets hauled off to the camps. We bust him for dealing god knows how many times, last time for selling to a twelve-year-old, and with a plea bargain he spends six months in jail and walks."

"Yeah," Bjorn said, "Shit floats." His big face was nearly expressionless.

"I guess those were-things are really dangerous, but..." Jones broke off, shaking his head. "You'd think the fucking priorities would be a little different."

"Maybe somebody should do something about it," Bjorn remarked, more to himself than Jones.

"Whaddya mean?""

Bjorn shrugged, staring thoughtfully at the house. "Not sure yet."

Mex's business normally did a good five hundred dollars each weeknight, maybe twice that on Friday and Saturday, which paid for an unusually nice, if aging apartment in Hollywood. Tonight he'd turned a cool $1235. It was time to go back to his pad and fix himself his own dose.

Police lights strobed in the rearview mirror of his Dodge. "Shit," he muttered.

He pulled over to the side of the street and waited. The squad car followed, and two officers stepped out and came over.

The bigger one, a hulking man with a badge that said "Officer J. Bjorn," said "Your license, please."

Mex handed over his license and waited for them to get through hassling him.

Officer Bjorn closed his notebook and announced, "We're arresting you for driving under the influence, Mr. Poloni. You'll have to come with us to the station and take a blood test."

A week later, Mex Poloni kicked and screamed as they dragged him into the van.

"Kinda ironic, huh?" Jones remarked. "Creep turns in his sister for being a werecat, then he turns out to be the one while she gets off."

"Could be," Bjorn answered. "Or just sloppy lab work."

Jones turned to look at him. "Whaddya mean?"

Bjorn scratched his jaw and looked thoughtful for a few moments before replying. "You know, the place we send the DUI samples for holding for court cases does the Haufmann tests, too. It was the one that did his sister's Haufmann blood test."

"So? Come on, I've been your partner for three years. Don't be so oblique. What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, you remember the O.J. thing, all the court cases that have been thrown out because stuff got mishandled in the labs. My brother works at that one, he sees it a lot. Samples get mislabeled, lost, even switched with other samples. Happens all the time."

Jones stared incredulously at Bjorn. Then he broke into laughter.