“You, missy, are going to report to Peaches for training as usual. Then this afternoon, since you’re not meeting with your advisor, you can go help Shakes sift through the rest of these artifacts you’ve discovered as possible targets. I want a list on my desk of the most likely targets as soon as you can get it together.” Point glared around the room. “I really don’t want to hear about anyone going back to the medical suite this week, am I clear?”
“Yep.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Not sure how I’d get hurt in the tech lab, but sure.”
Point glared at her. “Don’t get smart with me, C. I know you too well at this point.”
Caroline just shrugged as everyone else chuckled and they all filed out of the office.
“Text every five minutes so I know you’re safe!” Caroline put on a fake smile and waved as Darien passed her desk.
“Sure thing, Sunshine.” He rolled his eyes and slung his leather jacket over his shoulder and somehow looking a bit rakish despite the professional tie and slacks. “Try not to make everyone here too crazy, hmm?”
“Ugh. I know I can’t go to the bar with you guys, but I swear, my eyes are bleeding from all the staring at old broken things on computer screens.” Caroline felt herself whining again.
“Two more years and you’ll be legal drinking age. Twenty-one isn’t that far off.” Darien laughed.
“Since when have we stressed about how old I am?” Caroline asked. She was sulking.
“Don’t pout, C. We’ve stressed about your age since you got locked in a basement with a vampire way back in the beginning,” Darien said with a smirk. “We just don’t go out of our way to ignore it when we can easily give you more appropriate tasks. Like today, when we can manage to do that by simply not sending you undercover into a bar when you’re only nineteen years old.”
“Fine, old man. Go get your pretend drink on.” Caroline huffed. Darien laughed because he knew that she was only half-serious. “I’ll just sit here, being bored to tears with museum websites.”
“I thought you had to go train with Peaches first?” He asked, stepping back from her desk. Just before he turned to leave he grinned. “You’ll feel much better about screening possible targets once you’ve had your butt handed to you by the sweetest elf known to civilization.”
Caroline grabbed a rubber band and shot Darien’s retreating head dead on with it, causing him to crack up laughing.
“Nice shot,” Zanna said behind her, shrugging into her own jacket, and managing to look like a Federal agent head to toe. “Now do try not to provoke anyone because you’re sulking today, hmm?”
“Oh, go change into something less goverment-y.” Caroline grumbled back. Zanna chuckled and left the bullpen as well. Greg was already gone.
Caroline scrunched up her face and sighed before turning back to her computer. It sucked being left behind, but she understood why, at least. Darien was right, she was legally too young to go hang out in bars all night, even if she had done it before. That had been a special case of ‘we can’t just leave her alone in the motel’ so they had taken her along, and almost ended up starting a bar brawl when a creeper decided not to take ‘no’ for an answer.
With an under-the-breath grumble, she clicked open the documents she needed and got to work. An hour later she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. As far as she could tell there was no real rhyme or reason to the stolen artifacts other than that they were all connected to the Mad Mages, which made it hard to narrow down the possible targets. Maybe she needed to look at this from a different angle.
Elves. Zanna seemed pretty sure that this Keryth Amberlight— who didn’t actually exist according to any database they could access, so whoever he was, he was using an alias for sure— was an elf supremacist. Keryth was the name of one of the mythical heroes of elf kind, something like King Arthur for humans. It was usually spelled Kerrith, though. One ‘r’ and spelling it with a ‘y’ rather than an ‘i’ was apparently a very old fashioned, almost archaic spelling of the name. They weren’t certain where the Amberlight part came from but was pretty sure it was referring to something elvish.
So. How many of these stolen artifacts were definitely elf-related? Caroline dug back into her files and got back to work.
14
“So, I got cozied up to this one group of drunken bozos and listened in on them, and one of them was bragging about how clever his boss was and how his buddies should join them and all that normal BS,” Zanna reported. Her voice carried her exhaustion, even over the phone. “I’ll send in a better report later after I get a nap. But the long and the short of it is that I ended up following that guy to three different bars before he and his buddies got tossed out of the last establishment for harassing the waitresses, much to my shock. I’ve never known a dive that skeezy take such care about their staff, but eh. First time for everything, I guess. My point is that I couldn’t follow them at that point with all the fuss going on. It would have been way too obvious, but it seems that those places are his favorites, so I’m pretty sure I can catch up to him again.”
“Okay, Zan. I’ll let Point know you’re going to sleep in a bit.” Caroline typed out the short email note while she was still talking. It turned out that having that paper trail was handy sometimes, so she wanted her bases covered.
Zanna’s sigh drifted over the phone. “Oh man, I’m so glad I’m done for the night, I’m about over all these all-nighters. And thank all that is holy for Bluetooth. I’m home and parked now, and my bed is calling to me. Oh, let Shakes know that it sounded like these guys are recruiting. There’s probably chatter online that he can pick up. That’s really why I called in instead of texting Point directly. I hoped Darien would be in, but you’re actually better for this sort of thing if he was out as long as I was.”
Caroline laughed. “Yeah, he’s not in yet, but it’s still early. I just came in to stay busy until my stupid meeting on campus. That’s a good idea, though. I’ll let Shakes know to look into it, and I’ll mention it to Point, as well. He’s not in yet this morning— that old troll from near Elk Creek went on a bender and wandered in to make a nuisance of himself under his favorite bridge again.” Caroline sighed. The old guy was nice enough, but he got melancholy and nostalgic when he drank, to the point of hiding out under a bridge near where he grew up. Unfortunately, it was now a pretty major commuter route in and out of Stonehaven from the more rural areas, and his presence and his troll magic ended up snarling rush hour traffic.
Zanna snorted out a tired laugh and rang off the phone. Caroline herself sighed, stretched, and went to refill her coffee cup. She had her advisor appointment this morning, which is why she was in the office so damn early. Not that it had slowed down much. The bullpen was still humming with activity. The lab door was slightly ajar, which was unusual— Ollie preferred to keep the door shut at all times, even if it was never locked— but Caroline could see one of the techs standing there on the other side, so maybe they were on their way through and stopped to finish a conversation.
The break room felt tired and stale this early. The coffee pot sat stained and cold on the machine, whoever emptied it clearly not following through on common office courtesy by starting a new pot. Caroline sighed and opened the supplies cupboard to make more. After washing the carafe and settling the basket with the grounds firmly back into its place, she leaned against the counter to wait for the burbling to stop.
Her phone dinged, and that was enough of a distraction.
Hey C,
I came across these and thought they might be helpful. Sounded to me like they could be relevant to your case, after the questions you were asking the other day. I’ve heard a wee bit of chatter about them one way or another. I hope this helps and you have a good day. Stay safe!
-Lucas
The email was ended with four links to museum displays that were already on her own list of possible targets. Well, that was rather interesting. Darien and Greg st
ill didn’t trust him very far, but his info had proven to be solid.
And Caroline did still have his hoodie, after all.
Well, at any rate, she’d take this list and Zanna’s question about online recruitment to Shakes when he got in, and then she’d head out for her 9:30 meeting at the university. She’d rather face the traffickers again.
“So, how’d it go?” Darien asked as Caroline flopped down into her office chair immediately upon returning from her meeting on campus. He looked bright-eyed and fresh, considering that he was probably out just as late as Zanna and how wrecked she sounded, Caroline wondered if Darien had just cracked open one of the blood packs he kept in his desk drawer.
“I’m actually kind of shocked,” Caroline admitted. “They called me in because they finally sat down and read through my transcript and noticed that it mentioned my internship here, and they freaked out. She wanted to know everything that I was doing here and when I told her that I can’t discuss cases with her, but I’d be happy to give her an overview of my various duties, her eyes kind of bugged out a little. I guess they’ve never had an undergraduate student come in already employed by the Federal Government like this. Seems like I can maybe cut my course load down and graduate early, but she wants to talk to Point first.”
Caroline still couldn’t quite get her head around the idea of graduating early. She was all for it, but it seemed too good to be true coming from the university bureaucracy.
“Awesome! That’s great news, Sunshine!” Darien smiled widely and leaned forward on his desk. “Point is going to be thrilled. They probably don’t get too many kidnapping victims that turn around and bring down dangerous traitors, either.”
“Not very likely, no. I’m pretty happy about the whole thing myself, honestly. Especially considering how much I didn’t want to go in the first place,” Caroline sighed. “It sounds like I can skip a lot of the practical stuff, since I pretty much already know it thanks to, you know, doing it at work. So did you take a look at the list I sent you before I headed out?”
Darien aimed a sharp stare at her. “I did. Do I want to know how you came up with this list?”
“I mean, it makes sense. Right?” Caroline slid her chair slightly further behind her own computer. Firm taps sounded from Darien’s desktop and she knew he was taking a deep breath along with his tapping.
“You realize a few things are very wrong here, don’t you? First, you do realize that if you have a super-secret confidential informant, you need to actually document them, don’t you? For, you know, legal reasons. Second, the fact that you’re hiding from me means that you’ve been talking to Lucas again. Shakes has been trying for months to find out more information on this guy, but he just keeps hitting wall after wall. He can’t find anything past what turns up from a normal internet search. I can find the same amount of information as what Shakes has dug up. Nobody is that well hidden.” Darien finished his rant on a growl.
“So he’s good at keeping his digital footprint small! We should all be so diligent!” Caroline huffed.
“It’s a good thing everyone isn’t that diligent since it actually makes our job much easier. Which makes the total lack of information on him very suspicious.” Darien stopped tapping.
“I suppose that’s true. Still, that list feels solid to me,” she said. “There are four items, all of them from the right period, all not only associated with the Mad Mages, but elven ones at that. If Zanna is right, and I’d bet she is, and this Keryth Amberlight is leading a troupe of elf supremacists, then these four are our most likely targets. They all have associations with not just the Mad Mages, but also elves.”
Darien sighed heavily and rubbed his temple with his thumb. “You’re right. Your buddy Lucas is shady as hell, but you’re still right. He’s given us a good enough lead. Let’s go talk to Point and see what he wants us to do. But I’m telling you right now, C. He’s going to want to talk to Lucas sooner rather than later.” Darien stood up and glared over the top of their computers.
“Oh, for god’s sake. Does nobody trust anyone anymore? The guy saved my hide. Twice!” Caroline stood to follow Darien, grousing the whole way.
“Sure. He saved your hide and promptly locked you back in the cage he found you in. And now he’s dodging every attempt to see him in person again,” Darien retorted. “Face it, Sunshine. He’s hiding something.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with suspicious, over-protective, self-appointed big brothers?” Caroline smiled sweetly and batted her eyelashes when the only answer she got was a quiet growl.
15
“So I’m looking into that chatter Zanna mentioned and she’s right. I found a chatroom that was pretty much just one long recruitment effort,” Shakes stretched back in his chair, almost tipping over backward, before relaxing and swiveling towards them. “It’s actually kind of gruesome in there. I’ve passed it along to some guys who’ll go in and start stirring up the other side of things a bit.”
Shakes sat in his comfy rolling desk chair that Caroline was willing to bet cost almost as much as his equipment. He sat in front of four monitors, and she wasn’t even sure how many computers were actually sitting around his workspace. Considering how much time he spent sitting in the chair, it seemed like a good investment, and she wasn’t really jealous of how cushy it looked. Well, not very jealous anyway.
Darien frowned. “Is that wise?”
Shakes shrugged. “Point asked me to. His thoughts were that either it will help calm the sentiments a bit or it will irritate the recruiters enough that they’ll do something stupid to help us find them in person. I dunno much about that. I just sent it down like he asked me to. Your buddy Lucas is on top of things, it seems, though.” Shakes leaned forward in his chair. “I’d love to talk to him sometime.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. Shakes didn’t often come across like an actual agent, preferring his computer to fieldwork, but it was pretty clear in his voice that he wanted a chance to get Lucas somewhere it would be easy to catch the guy. The fact that there was no reason to arrest him was clearly becoming less and less relevant to the guys.
“You guys are completely ridiculous. What, exactly, do you intend to charge him with?” Caroline cocked an eyebrow at the men around her. Shakes looked startled that she’d seen through him so fast, then blushed hard and swiveled back to his keyboard. Darien just grunted and shifted in his seat.
“Anyway, so you’ve dialed into some recruitment chatter. So Zanna was right after all?” Caroline dropped the subject of Lucas, for now. It wasn’t going to help them get any further forward on this case and she had the feeling that they needed to get these guys sooner rather than later.
“Yeah. Definitely elf supremacists of a somewhat generous kind. They seem to include a number of related paranormals under their holier-than-thou umbrella. Elves, of course, are at the top of their charts, but they also seem to be willing to include pixies, sprites, and elementals. Folks like me, on the other hand, with human genetics? Not even a little welcome.” Shakes curled up his lip in a snarl for a short moment before shaking his head as if to clear the irritation physically.
“So, we’re tracking them online. Any way to tell where they are?” Darien leaned forward, his dark hair swinging into his face and making him frown. “Need a haircut.”
“You sure do. You’re starting to get that unkempt hermit look,” Caroline agreed. “It’s a good question, though. Any luck, Shakes?”
“Not a bit. There are people from all over the place in that chatroom, and none of them are saying anything that can connect us solidly enough to our case. Not only that, but the ones who are hardcore arguing for the greatness of elves over humans are mainly logging in from Internet cafes. And they don’t seem to use the same one more than a few times before moving on. I’ve tracked one guy halfway across the country, heading in apparently random directions when he moves on. Right now he’s in Colorado. I tipped off the nearest FPAA office and they’ve got someone watching him, but c
onsidering I don’t know how we want to play this, I didn’t ask for more than eyes on the guy.”
“Yeesh. Well, that’s not very helpful. Or maybe it is?” Caroline looked over to Darien who grimaced.
“So, we can’t really pin down the group’s location by tracking the chatter, although it will probably come up with some useful nuggets of information once it’s all sorted. I assume we’ve got analysts going through it?” Darien glanced at Shakes who nodded.
“Yeah. I tipped the anti-hate guys as soon as I found that one message board. It’s been the most prolific of all the ones I’ve found, but yeah. The analysts have the whole mess, but there’s a lot of it to sift through.” Shakes slumped a bit further into his chair. “I’m sorry it wasn’t more help. Oh!” He sat up and tapped a few keys. “I did look into those priority artifacts you mentioned, Caroline. Two of them are brand new artifacts on exhibit, and they’re being shown together in the same museum up in D.C. It’s one of the smaller ones, not a Smithsonian, but still. These pieces come from France, right on the coast. They definitely seem to be prime targets for these guys.”
Caroline and Darian both crowded behind Shakes to peer at the monitors. There was an ornate green robe carefully draped over a mannequin, showing off the intricate gold thread embroidery. An inset window showed a detail— a skillfully sewn stag stepping under the arch of a tree branch. A second screen showed an inkpot on a tray with several other tools that must have been used by a scribe.
“They’re both from the same place. Supposedly both owned by the same mage, an elf by the name of Virion Ambertree. I’m thinking these are our best bet, and I let Point know just before you got here.”
“Yeah, sounds likely,” Darien agreed. If I didn’t need sleep so badly I’d head up there now to talk to their security guys.”
“You’re no good to anyone when you’re weak from exhaustion,” Caroline said. She poked him in the side and he jumped away from her.
Legacy of the Mad Mages Page 8
