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Background Information-[]

Melody Lark is a well-known Contractor who is famous for being very well-connected and for rarely being caught by the authorities. She is extremely wealthy from her Private Investigations business and owns an unknown number of properties as well as a substantial bank balance.

Potential Background Spoilers regarding Contractors
Contractors are a type of magic user that make contracts with Paranormal powers to perform certain actions in return for powers. There are 7 colors of contract and each has a different realm. The names following the color are who Melody has or is intending to contract with.
  • Violet - wisdom, wealth, ambition - Action "make money, donate money": Serafina
  • Indigo - Marriage, love, fidelity, sharing of self, sex - Action: sex: Gus
  • Blue - awareness and physical realm - Action:Pain and suffering Janelle
  • Green - own body - Action: self-multilation: Chloe
  • Yellow - emotions, empathy - Action: Help others: Vanessa (Vacant)
  • Orange - logic, intelligence - Action problem-solving, puzzles: Indali
  • Red - Violence, lust, power - Action: sex or violence: Trish

Appearance[]

Black hair, black eyes, ears not quite fully human. Extremely attractive. Blue sigils around the eyes. Red symbol on forehead. Green sigils along the hairline down to the ears. Yellow swirls along the jawline. Orange swirls above the yellow. Violet symbols around the eyes, with the blue they complete the circumference of th eyes. Indigo around her whole face.

Plot-[]

First appearance: Swing Shift, Ch 4

Swing Shift Spoilers
Melody was first encountered investigating Michael Fitz's apartment when Gus and Vanessa arrive to investigate after his mask failure.

After fear-scenting her (spiced mint), Gus was able to track her back to her apartment. This had three immediate consequences. The first was that he learned that there were no clues in Michael Fitz's apartment. The second was that Melody becomes very attracted to Gus. The third was that Gus learned that Melody was working for the Curator.

Melody set about pursuing Gus with a focus that was border-line disturbing for Gus, but is apparently somewhat typical for Contractors.

As part of her pursuit of Gus, Melody called in numerous favors to expunge her records and clear any pending cases against her, all so she could join the PID as Gus' partner. Her notoriety worked in her favor in that case and she was on the job in a dizzyingly short period of time.

Melody very quickly established herself in Gus' house, and began pursuing a contract with Vanessa also, since Vanessa's girlfriend was revealed to be a werewolf, and member of a criminal organization.

As the book progressed Melody successfully persuaded Gus (and Vanessa) to be in a relationship with her.

Swing Shift 2 Spoilers
Melody contracted with Gus, Vanessa, and Trish before the events of Swing Shift 2.

Melody became the defacto team lead as the person best suited for social aspects of dealing with other teams.

The investigation aspect of workign for the Fed fit very well with Melody's nature, although she found the lack of completion unsatisfying.

Melody was instrumental in breaking the drug smuggling ring, which confiscated over $500M in designer para drugs. Central to that breakthrough was her Orange contract which was mentioned as being with Reixhitz.

Melody pursued Contracts with Janelle, Chloe, Indali, and Serafina, but as of the end of Swing Shift 2, only Janelle had actually contracted.

Swing Shift 3 Spoilers
Melody spends most of book 3 in the background, with some notable on-screen instances. Foremost of those on-screen appearances is the meeting where she discovers she has a half-brother and her half-cousin is married to Kat and Leann, and that Trish is actually her sort-of quarter-sister-in-law (being that Vince is her half brother, and Meliae is Trish's half-sister).


It's Melody's actions in the wake of Vanessa's death that pulls Gus out of his grief and allows him to function.

Appearances in other Novels[]

Additional Artwork[]

Melody
Melody 2

Melody

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