“I’d guess that there’s nothing back there worse than an unkempt yard. I’m betting that this guy doesn’t go outside much. Okay, Kitten. Let’s go. You want to go first or should I?” Greg asked. He shrugged his suit jacket better into place and turned his face to the front door. For a moment his green eyes glowed amber letting Caroline know that his manticore nature was close to the surface.
“I’ll go. We pulled his mage registration information, so I’ll play it that way,” she said, stepping up the front walk. The cement leading to the front door was cracked in several places and could use some sweeping, but at least it was fairly level. She brushed her hand down her own jacket and made sure that her ID was visible. Not for the first time she wished it was an actual badge rather than just her employee ID card. Still, it gave her enough authority to knock, and Greg’s shiny Agent’s badge was prominently displayed on his belt and he positioned himself behind her so that it was clearly visible. She raised her hand and knocked on the door.
After a moment there was a faint thump and a grumble that even her human ears could hear through the door.
“Hang on, I’m comin’.” There was another thump, then the sound of the locks disengaging. “I didn’t think I had another delivery comin’ today. What’s it this time?”
The voice cut off when the door swung open enough to reveal them. Nobody on earth would mistake Caroline and Greg for delivery people. To even the man standing in front of them.
He was almost entirely average. Just a bit taller than Caroline, his medium brown hair was thinning visibly. His eyes were brown and his skin was neither tanned nor pale, but somewhere in the middle and showed a healthy American mixed heritage of some sort. He had a clean grey t-shirt on over red plaid pajama pants and bare feet but somehow managed to look completely rumpled. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly why this relatively tidy man somehow exuded greasiness, but he certainly did.
“Mr. Benford?” Caroline waited for the man to nod, his expression wary. “My name is Caroline Peters and I’m from the Federal Paranormal Activities Agency. This is Agent Greg Barnett.” She gestured to Greg and Benford’s eyes flicked to the larger man. “We have some questions and we’re hoping you can help us out.”
Fear flashed through Benford’s eyes but was quickly hidden. “I’ll answer what I can.”
“Can we come in for a moment?” She asked.
The fear flashed through his eyes again, and he chewed his lip before sighing heavily. Resignation settled into every line of his body and his shoulders slumped as he stood back and waved them inside.
“Yeah. Yeah, you might as well," he nodded and his emotional exhaustion shone through the movement. Caroline could hear anxiety in his voice, but also relief. "I’ll start some coffee, huh? I can’t imagine I’ll be gettin’ the good stuff much longer, will I?”
12
Oscar Benford did exactly what he said. He made a large pot of surprisingly decent coffee and after distributing cups to everyone— including Zanna and Darien who were called in from the backyard— he slumped into a chair at his dining table and answered every question they asked him.
Yes, he was the one magically animating puppets. At least, he was the only one he knew of, but he tried not to get out too much anymore. People made him nervous, apparently, and just the four of them in his home were making him anxious enough to ask if he could take a dose of his medication.
To be fair, Caroline thought, we are here to arrest him for committing a felony, so that seems reason enough for his nerves. Zanna scanned the label and compared the pills inside to a reference photo of the prescription, and then passed the bottle and a glass of water over to him.
He didn’t start out intending to break any laws, he explained. He was a freelance graphic designer for websites, mostly, and had a small Etsy shop where he sold charms and trinkets. Mostly good luck things helping people have good job interviews or do well on their exams. That sort of thing. Unfortunately, he hit some bad luck of his own. About a year prior he got sick. A bad cold ended up turning into walking pneumonia which he didn’t get diagnosed until he had to call an ambulance for help when he started coughing so hard passed out for a few minutes.
While he was recovering he lost some contracts that he had been relying on, and naturally, that’s when one of the water pipes in the basement burst.
"That's a lot of bad luck for a guy that makes lucky charms," Zanna raised an eyebrow at him and he chuckled without much humor behind it.
“Yeah. I probably shoulda kept a few for myself, huh? Nah, luck is just a little help. If you have a bad pipe you're more likely to notice it when you're lucky, that's all. At least the pipe burst in the basement, right?” he sighed.
Then with a shrug, he kept talking. “If it had been up here I might have had to replace walls and floors as well as all the stuff downstairs. Still. I had to rip out all the carpet down there. Took everything up all the way to the cement. All the boxes of stuff I had stored down there were toast if they were cardboard, so like, half of it. The sofa and the chairs and a lot of the drywall all had to go. Even doin’ the work myself it was expensive to get rid of it, and that’s not even including the plumber. He did a damn good job, I’ll give him that. And he even helped me find a good source of new drywall for not too much. But still.”
Caroline could hear the weariness in his voice and it hurt her heart. Yes, he was criminally enchanting things and was more than likely an accessory to a string of thefts, at the least, but it was all too easy to understand the quick slide into desperation.
“So you started enchanting the dolls to make some extra money to cover all your sudden expenses?” Zanna prodded.
Benford scrunched up his face. “Nah. I started bulking up my Etsy shop. And I put up a few online ads to try to get some more design work. Designed a few mugs and t-shirts and whatever for those print-on-demand places. It helped, but not enough. Then one of my chat room buddies suggested that I do some freelance enchantin’.” He shrugged again. “I mean, there are guys who make enough to live off of just doing that, right? I’m not really that good, but I’ve got a decent skill with charms and talismans, you know? So I thought sure. Why not? Maybe someone wants a charm for their car. Or their cat. Or their gold tooth, who knows? So I put up an ad for that, too.”
There was a knock on the door and Darien got up to go answer it. Caroline heard Mitch’s voice grumbling about traffic as he came in. Darien led him down to Benford’s workshop in the basement and several pairs of feet clomped after him. Benford shivered and swallowed heavily, but didn’t say anything.
“So what happened?” Caroline asked gently. The one thing that Point let her do as if she really was a full agent already was conduct interviews and interrogations. She never went in alone, in case the subject could be dangerous, but her odd magic skill of getting more information out of a person’s voice than merely what their words said made her invaluable.
Zanna said that her ability to change tracks quickly depending on the person was pretty damn useful, too. For Benford, Caroline felt nothing but sympathy at this point.
“I got an email from this guy,” Benford shivered again, this time at the memory. “He wanted me to animate some dolls for him. I turned him down flat, you have to believe me.” He turned wide, frightened eyes on Caroline.
She nodded. “I do. I can hear the honesty in your voice. The email made you pretty uncomfortable, didn’t it?”
“God, it really did. I’m not really a criminal sort of person, you know? It never occurred to me that someone would try to get me to do something so totally illegal when I put up that ad. Not blatantly like that. Everyone knows that the internet is a dangerous place, and I was ready to get some gross emails, but I thought it would be…. I don’t know. Pornier? Is that a word?” Benford looked around for confirmation. Zanna chuckled and Greg, sitting across from her, grinned.
“I don’t think it’s in the dictionary, but we understand,” Caroline smiled, and he relaxed slightly. �
��So, to get back on track. You put up an ad for freelance enchanting, and you got this email request for the dolls. Did you recognize the sender?”
He shook his head and raked a hand through his hair, slumping back in his chair. “No, I don’t think so. I just deleted the first one, and when I got the second one I emailed the guy back and said that I wouldn’t do it, then deleted that one, too. But he kept askin’, and when I tried to block the email, he got a new address and sent a new request. Finally, I shut down the freelance enchanting stuff and closed my Etsy shop. The guy freaked me out, to be honest, and I don't like confrontation.”
“So how did you end up doing what he asked?” Zanna asked. “It’s a long jump from running away from a guy to doing what he wants.”
Benford’s hand shook as he reached out for the coffee cup in front of him. He took a deep breath. “Last November I slipped on some ice walking back from my car. I broke my leg in three places and needed surgery and god. Do you know how terrible insurance is in America? Well, it’s worse for freelancers. There was no way I could pay all my bills while having everything delivered because I couldn’t freakin’ walk for a month! I couldn’t ask my friends to be here all the time, either. I was going to be on the streets once my savings ran out, which wasn’t goin’ to take real long.” His voice broke and Caroline put her hand on his arm.
Zanna had her face wrinkled up in sympathy and Greg was halfway back to the table with the coffee pot to refill Benford’s cup. The grief and hopelessness in his voice absolved Benford, in Caroline’s mind. They would naturally double-check his story, look into his hospital visits for pneumonia and the leg injury, and Shakes and the other I.T. guys would go through Benford’s computer with a fine-toothed comb to back up his statements, but Caroline believed that he was a decent enough guy that got caught in a nasty situation.
“So what happened?” Caroline prodded him to take the story up again when he wrapped his hands around the warm mug.
“One day, just a few days after I got home from the hospital, the guy showed up at my door. I have no idea how he tracked me down and found out where I live, but he was standing right there, holding a shopping bag. He said he’d pay for everything, my medical bills and everything else until I could get back on my feet if I just did this one job for him. But he kept coming back asking for more dolls. And other charms. And not taking much off the debt. And it’s all been taking up so much of my time, and I just…” Benford took a broken breath in and sank his head into his hands on the table. Caroline put a hand on his shoulder and rubbed gently while he caught his breath. “I just want it all to stop. But I’m scared.”
Greg and Zanna exchanged glances and she nodded, standing up and pulling her phone out. She stepped out of the room to make her call and Caroline and Greg let the quiet moment stretch while Benford calmed down. After a few minutes, he sat up and sent her a small, watery smile.
“So, um. I sold a few of the defective puppets to some musicians I met at a bar a few months back, to make a little extra cash. Anyway, I got raked over the coals for that, let me tell you. Whatever they’re doing with those things, they’re not jokin’ around.” Benford shuddered again and fell silent.
“So, I want to make sure I understand this right,” Zanna said from the doorway where she was hovering. “You hit a patch of bad luck and when first approached by this… does he have a name, by the way?”
“Um, yeah. He told me his name is Keryth Amberlight.” Benford scrunched his face slightly and shrugged like he suspected it wasn’t the man’s real name. Zanna’s eyebrows rose.
“Keryth, spelled with a y in it?” Zanna asked. When Benford nodded, she took a deep, slow breath. “Very traditional of him. So when Mr. Amberlight first made his request, you turned him down, several times, until your circumstances became acute and he showed up on your doorstep in person, and intimidated you into cooperating.”
Benford nodded again and his shoulders slumped.
"One last question for now," Zanna frowned. "Why you?"
Benford looked up at her and shrugged. "I have no idea. I'm not really that strong, you know? I'm just nobody."
“We’re going to have to take your computer with us as well. Maybe our tech guys can find a trail or something to provide backup to your story,” Zanna said. “I spoke to our chief and he agrees that you are being very helpful and forthright with us. If you keep helping us out like this, it will be taken into consideration.”
“Good,” Caroline smiled at her friend and colleague in relief before turning back to Benford. “What she means is that it sounds to us like you’re nearly as much of a pawn as your puppets are, Oscar. You can trust us. The more information you can give us, the better off you’re going to be. And don’t worry, we’ll keep you safe from this Amberlight guy.”
Darien and Greg led a handcuffed Benford to the car, finally, and Zanna came to stand next to Caroline, watching them go. Mitch and his on-loan minions were still working furiously in the basement and there was even one guy in the small storage shed in back. A van had been sent with another of Ollie’s lab mages to transport all the doll parts and enchanting supplies and various other things destined for dissection as evidence.
“Well, that’s definitely not what I wanted to deal with this summer,” Zanna sighed. “I hate it when things come together like this.”
“Yeah. Not my favorite, either,” Caroline agreed.
“Freaking elf supremacists,” Zanna snarled and turned back inside to growl at Mitch, who could take her bad mood and give back as good as he got. It was going to be a long drive back to the office.
13
“Well, your Oscar Benford is extremely forthcoming,” Mr. Langly said. “He has provided our office with a number of details, and while they are technically in his confession, he has also been very cooperative. I understand that he had even helped to locate several bars that might lead us to this Keryth Amberlight?”
The International Consortium of Mages lawyer settled more comfortably into one of the chairs in front of Point’s desk. Zanna sat in the other, while Caroline and Darien sat on the sofa near the wall and Greg hovered, leaning on the wall by the door. Caroline thought he was playing with a stress ball in his pocket, but a visit from a representative of the ICM of any sort wasn’t the time to display your playful quirks.
“He has, indeed,” Point answered. “He has also worked with an artist to get a picture of this elf so we can identify him, and the two others that Benford has seen as well. They apparently scheduled a meeting in a club one evening. It seemed unusual enough that Benford even remembered the name of the place and I have several agents watching the building right now, and several more going in undercover once the establishment opens this evening.”
Langly smiled and nodded. Caroline hadn’t heard of Mr. Langly specifically, but she knew about the ICM, and in order to be one of their prosecutors, the man had to be both a competent mage and a very good lawyer. He had sharp grey eyes and his salt-and-pepper hair was meticulously styled. Even his charcoal grey suit didn’t bother screaming power, because it didn’t need to. The suit was so expensive that it probably had people for that sort of thing.
“Well, I certainly think that he was a good man pulled into this under duress. He will likely serve some time, but I think, on the whole, he isn’t a danger to the community or the world at large. There’s no need to try to bring the hammer down on him, so to speak. I’ll be happy to agree to a fair deal. Make sure that his legal team gets in touch with me.” Langly smiled, and Caroline could hear the satisfaction in his voice. He wasn’t interested in prosecuting pawns. He wanted the leaders of this group.
Who knew? A lawyer that wants justice rather than money or fame. Langly stood up and shook Point’s hand, then Zanna’s. Darien and Caroline stood as well, and Greg straightened away from the wall. Darien nodded politely when Langly shook his hand, and Caroline prepared to be bypassed but was surprised when the lawyer reached out to her.
“I’ve heard good th
ings about you, young lady. Try to keep out of trouble on this case, though, hmm?” His eyes twinkled with good humor and his voice was laced with friendliness, so Caroline felt herself grinning back.
“I’ll do my best, sir. I promise to try not to get kidnapped this time.”
Langly laughed. “I do believe you have a poor track record on that front when it comes to elves. Maybe stick close to your partner.” He was still smiling when he moved on to shake Greg’s hand and murmur something that had Greg nodding and relaxing just a fraction.
And with that Mr. Langly was out the door and gone. The whole room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Man, those ICM guys are scary.” Zanna shook her head.
“He’s actually one of the decent ones,” Point said, “I don’t mind dealing with Langly. Some of the others really do have the holier-than-thou attitude that ICM lawyers are famous for. I know it takes a lot of working their asses off to get to that level, but it’s always good to know that some of them still care more about justice than politics, at least.”
“So, what are our next steps?” Caroline asked, resettling herself on the sofa.
“Wait, didn’t you have an appointment to get to today?” Darien raised a brow at her and everyone else turned to look.
“I got a call this morning that my advisor was sick, so she rescheduled. I’m not mad about that at all.”
Point sent her a, well, a pointed look, but let her drop the subject.
“Okay, I have a team staking out that club, as I said earlier, but Benford gave us a couple more bars to look into as well. Greg and Zanna, I want you to take the Forest Pub. Darien, you grab a buddy and hit the other one. The Mage’s Meadhall.”
“And me?” Caroline asked. She had a bad feeling that she already knew what she would be doing since she wasn’t old enough to be sent into the bars to troll for information.
Legacy of the Mad Mages Page 7
