by Voss Foster
Levat and Shivan were still no in attendance. Guess the thought of appearing this close to so many humans was just too disgusting to allow.
There were also some alchemists and healers wandering the entrance hall. One of them, a dwarf to look at him, although he could have been a particularly large gnome, I suppose, was tending to Svenson's…everything. The man was in bad shape. Apparently he'd taken a fair bit of glass shrapnel when Swift and Gutt got tossed through the door into Echeni's chamber. There was a little container next to him full of bloody bits of glass.
But he looked up at me and nodded, even as the dwarf set his hand. The old-fashioned way, which turned Svenson pale white. Then there was glowy magic light and he relaxed. His fingers flexed all on their own. So that was fun. Broken bones were probably child's play compared to regrowing skin or curing ancient unknowable poisons or anything else the medics and alchemists had to pull off for us OPA idiots.
"No! This is extortion!"
I whipped around to see one shapeshifter standing up in the middle of the crowd. He tore off his robes, leaving his bare, scarred yellow chest exposed. And rapidly growing along with his arms.
Chenka walked calmly to him, her robes growing with her body like all the others—I guess that chest exposing was just for show or intimidation or something. She stood eye to eye with him, even as he raged. Then she slammed her hands flat against his bare chest. His eyes widened for a split second, and then he shivered back into a relatively human size. Still a little taller and considerably more muscular than me, but no different than any other severely jaundiced meathead. It wasn't a blue glow, but he certainly wasn't doing any more growing.
Chenka turned and flashed her gaze across all of us. "Everyone is accounted for. And these are all the children I know of."
"It is. All of them." Kimmy came out of god knows where. She'd abandoned the black and was dressed in nothing but a tanktop and beige cargo shorts. Nothing about her looked right except for her perpetual scowl of mild disdain. "The numbers line up with my count, at least."
"Good." Swift limped over—they'd patched him up, but he pushed the medical crew away as soon as he was done bleeding and no longer completely broken. He stopped a few steps short of the collected shapeshifters. "I don't know what the Kingdoms will do with you, but thank you for coming forward. These families are reunited now because you all decided to bring them back around." His voice wasn't anywhere near as kind as his words would have anyone believe, and his stance was too tight to be entirely explained away by his pain. But he said it all the same. He did his due diligence as the head of the OPA.
And everything now really was down to the Kingdoms and what they decided. The crimes committed against Al-Sekar and Tarwald had such a wide impact…the trials there would be about war crimes, but also about the future of Fukal as a potential part of the Hidden Kingdoms. There were wrongs to address on both sides, and it was going to get messier before it got better.
"Get the kids back to the offices." Swift nodded once to Kimmy, then to Gutt. "Casey can look them over, then we can start getting them back to their families." He barked over his shoulder. "You get that Casey? The rest of us can wait."
"Sounds like a plan." He bustled by with his bag as Gutt opened the portal. But he stopped and looked at Swift, then at me. "Not that I'm complaining, Dash, but I don't see you all cut up and bloodied and bruised. I'm not sure you're actually doing your job."
"Well, I promise to get shot through the eyeball next time."
Casey smirked. "You say it as a joke, but as long as your brain isn't screwed up, I could fix that." He winked, then stepped up to the portal. "Swift, you and Svenson are right after these kids and Gutt get fixed up."
Then he was gone, Gutt was gone, and the kids filed through—some sniffling, some laughing nervously, all looking tired and way too underfed—with Kimmy bringing up the rear. Then the air stopped shimmering.
Swift sighed. "I need to sit down. You're young and fit. Go see what else needs to get going on."
"No, we're heading back." Svenson walked over, still clutching his once broken hand. It remained swollen and bruised, but he wasn't cringing in pain. "I want to talk to the two of you, and as far as I can tell these preets have everything handled."
I glanced to Swift, and that really drove the whole thing home that Svenson was complaining about, the whole crux of the problem. FBI director gave me an order, and damn it all, I waited for Swift to contradict or confirm it before listening.
So I fucking took charge and grabbed a passing, pot-bellied elf agent. "We need remote transport back to DC."
Swift and Svenson's eyebrows went up, but I shrugged it off. The random agent opened a portal and I led the way straight into…the parking garage. It was close enough.
Svenson and Swift came through as well. The portal vanished and I headed to get the elevator.
"Right here is fine." Svenson's voice was all official and shit again, and it echoed in the empty garage. "No one should be coming down, and this won't take long."
My stomach fell out. I'd fucking ripped him apart, and no amount of supposed bonding or talking with each other was going to undo that. He was the FBI Director, and I was fucked.
But I walked back and stood for my beating and eventual firing. Svenson didn't get the chance to start in on anything, though. Swift beat him to the punch. "Agent Rourke is a pretty exceptional find, Director Svenson. He has a natural bravery that serves him well in the OPA, and hence it serves the FBI well in every possible sense. Even if he is brash and stupid sometimes. So was I at that age."
"I appreciate you defending him, but I'm talking now. Don't keep interrupting me." He nodded to Swift, then looked back at me. "You discharged a weapon and killed a dignitary from the Hidden Kingdoms. What are the odds of a negative media spin that would affect our relationships on that side?"
Okay. That wasn't where I thought this was going. "I'm no expert, but I don't think that's likely. Sir. King Gileal was not a part of the Hidden Kingdoms, and he was attempting to wage war against one of the largest metropolitan areas in the entirety of the Hidden Kingdoms. He kidnapped children from the Mundane to do it. He controlled the supply of essential goods to manipulate his people into taking part in the plot. Any sympathy for him wouldn't be consequential."
"Good." Svenson nodded. "I want a report on that incident for the records, in case anyone on this side gets hold of this. Some of the activists might take particular issue, and it's best if we can quote real information from the agent responsible." He glanced to Swift, then back to me. "And then you don't need a report next week. Or the week after that. Use your discretion. The OPA is full of fine agents with good heads on their shoulders."
He walked toward the elevator. I looked to Swift and he just shrugged. "Take it and run."
I nodded. "Best advice you've given me since I've been here." I followed Svenson into the elevator and held the door for Swift. Once we were headed up, I found out our gracious FBI Director wasn't quite done. "Also, if any of you ever speak to me that way again, it had better be because I have my head at least three feet up my own ass."
I couldn't help but run my fucking mouth. "Can I negotiate you down to two-and-a-half feet, sir?"
He smiled, damn him, looking almost human. "Three feet."
"Yes sir."
The elevator doors opened, we went our separate ways, and once Svenson was out of earshot, I couldn't help laughing. At Svenson, and at my own incredible fortune, and at the sight of those kids milling around, holding cups of…I hoped it was hot chocolate and not steaming cups of coffee someone had given a bunch of traumatized four year olds.
I laughed walking in and over to my desk and sitting down. And as soon as my butt hit the office chair, every bit of that exhaustion fell down around me and I just wanted to go the fuck to bed. But I had one more report to write up. One more.
So I started in on the computer.
Chapter Sixteen
The office was quiet, and it w
as weird. This one wasn't like the quiet after Jörmungandr. That was relief and finally moving on.
Nobody was moving on from those kids. All of them got back together, big news coverage, lots of positive public opinions about the OPA popping up all over the place. But they still lingered in the spaces between the cubicles in the OPA. A week out from the last one being reunited—one of the stone elemental families from West Virginia got held up for a while—Kimmy still had the search open on one screen at all times, checking for any new activity with kids or Sekari or anything like that. King hadn't come out of her office except for an occasional, silent cup of coffee. Swift just wasn't himself. Bancroft was gone a lot, still talking to the ice elementals who lost their daughter. And I admit it, I kept an eye out for anything from Al-Sekar proper. The royal family had been silent thus far, but I wasn't stupid. I knew they wouldn't be happy about us sneaking into their Kingdom for this, and they knew my face and where to find me.
Worst of all, our workload had mysteriously slowed to nothing. I could have believed that folks were only asking for phone and email consults, that we had no preet crimes this week in the entire country. I also could have believed I was the fucking fairy princess of Um-Shevat. Would have been just as true. Swift was as far off as everyone else after this case. The calls all came through him. It wasn't hard math to figure.
Casey of all people walked through the doors. He looked just like the rest of us, morose and mopey, but it was a bigger juxtaposition with him. Normally bubbly, bright Dr. Daniels. He walked straight over to me. "I was lonely." He sat in the cubicle opposite Gutt and pulled his chair out to sit in the middle of the hallway. "I thought maybe you guys were already moving on, but…well, there's that option out the window."
"Swift hasn't given us so much as a whiff of a case since we returned from Al-Sekar." Gutt spun his chair around. "I have, however, done very well at Freecell in this week off."
I nodded—I'd been playing Spider Solitaire a lot—but didn't say anything. Instead, I got up. Damn it, this wasn't getting us anywhere. This wasn't getting us past what happened to those children, what they now had to live with for the rest of their lives. I didn't think anything could, to be honest. You didn't get over that. You just…moved forward with it.
So I left Casey to sit there with Gutt and marched my happy ass over to Swift's office. I didn't even knock, just came in, shut the door, and sat down. "We can't keep on like this."
"You're not enjoying your vacation?" He still looked old and tired and broken. He actually seemed like he was in his fifties instead of some puckish, spritely dude who just happened to have some folds and wrinkles on his face.
"We're not on vacation. Come on, nobody believes that. Not even you. We have to get back out on the job. We're FBI, and I don't know why I'm the one who has to tell that to head of my department."
"There's still good work being done by us here."
"What good work is that?"
"Oona and Rothiel have been very busy, for starters. You've all been on call for consults across the country." His voice didn't show me any fire. I hated seeing him like that, and I hated that he expected the lot of us to move along at the same speed.
"When you first brought me on, you told me you wanted someone with balls, and you liked it when your agents questioned your authority. And if that's changed, then maybe I'm not the right fit. But you are not letting us move on by having us stay here. We need to be out in the field. Kimmy needs something that might actually challenge her for half a second instead of these mindless research runs she's being stuck with. And Bancroft needs to be forced back into his regular spiral of…I don't know, being an elitist old man with too many books. He needs someone to make him stop going to see those elementals. And Gutt and King and I all need to get out of the office. Frankly so do you."
Swift continued to stare exhaustedly at me, then he blinked and nodded. "You're right. And that is why I hired you. Hell, I knew someone would come barging into my office. Just surprised it was you and not Abigail."
"Swift, what the hell—" There was King, doing all the necessary, expected barging. But she stopped when she saw me. "Are you chewing him out, or can I have my turn."
"There's no chewing out." Swift stood, rolling his shoulders back. "I was being forcefully reminded that I wasn't doing the job I'm supposed to. So sorry if you have a week's worth of venom to spew at me." He nodded and, with each step, he looked more like a man of purpose. He stopped and rested a hand on King's shoulder. "We'll always have Paris."
He walked out and she nodded to me. "Nice work. I would have had to yell."
"Well, maybe yelling would have cut down on the chit chat portion of convincing him." Still, it didn't take much. I had the fleeting notion that he might have been waiting for one of us to speak up, that it wasn't him being all sad and down and feeling sorry for himself. Maybe he was just giving us time.
I'd probably never know, but he was damn easy to sway to my way of thinking.
King and I followed him out, and Swift didn't approach anyone. He went straight for the briefing room. "This way. Big talk. Let's move."
I'd never seen everyone move so fast, which was at least a little vindicating. It meant I wasn't the only one feeling so impotent.
We all took up our normal places around the kidney-shaped table, all staring up at Swift, waiting.
As soon as we were all in, Swift sighed. It was a huge sigh, that kind that shook the whole room. It was the sigh of everything we'd all been feeling since the case with the kids finally wrapped up.
"Svenson and I thought you would need a real break after Al-Sekar, but it's been brought to my attention that we're both idiots."
"That's exactly what I was coming to tell you," said King. "I guess I can go tell him, too."
The corners of Swift's mouth twitched up, but just for a moment before he got all serious again. "I know this has been weird, and cases with children are always twice as hard as it is with anyone else. But we are OPA agents, and the fact is, this time off hasn't helped anyone. It's just giving us all room to wallow, myself included." He nodded to his own statement. "Kimmy, I want the damn search system off that screen. Tuck it somewhere and stick an alarm on it, but stop eyeballing it every two minutes. Bancroft, you can talk to those friends of yours over the phone. We have work to do, and not every case is going to be so hands off for you and your expertise. And for the love of Christ, all of you were letting me do this? For a week?" He shook his head. "All right. Now look, this is going to be a one-time offer. This was a hard case. So who needs to talk it out?"
He walked over and closed the door, then went back to his place at the head of the room and sat down.
Casey was the first one to speak up. "I had to look those kids over once they were out. Most of them were fine…some of them weren't. Some of them looked like they hadn't eaten in a week." He shook from the floor up to the top of his head. "They were abused, and most of them wouldn't talk. And I don't know how it's going to play out now that they're back home."
Kimmy patted him on the knee a couple times, but she didn't say anything.
King was the next to jump in. "The fact is, this wasn't sunshine and fucking rainbows. We all saw those kids. I don't need group therapy." She snorted, though I couldn't tell if that was a sniffle or derisive. "The job is hard. Seeing the kids is hard, but we got them the fuck back. And we should focus on that. We got them back. We got them with their families."
It was…cold and harsh and a little too professional. Just like Agent King always was.
When no one said anything, I figured it was on me. "I don't like cases with kids. I never have." The embarrassment and weirdness of being so open stopped me there. But I guess it felt okay to get it out on the air waves.
There was a long bout of silence before Swift finally spoke again. "Well all right. We've got it together. You all know where to go if you need counseling or whatever. This one hit us all hard, but Abigail has a point buried in all that…let's call it
tough love. We got them back. And the shit part about our job is there's something else around the corner. That's going to be our responsibility, too. It's all our responsibility. That's why Svenson pays us the big bucks, even if he doesn't always like what we do or how we do it: nobody else does this job." He nodded, and raked his gaze around the room. "Now, I want today to be the last day where we all sit on our laurels. Calls start moving through us again starting tomorrow. The field offices will be happy to have a lighter workload."
"And I'll open my doors." Casey wasn't sounding like himself, but he was closer. There was a tiny bubble there, even if he wasn't completely bubbly. "My house. Tonight. I have the room."
His house. It was hardly professional, but at the same time, it sounded damn nice. I wasn't going to be the one to speak up, though.
"I'll take you up on that." Swift nodded. "Guys…just shove off the rest of the day. Do whatever else you need to do. And bring something nice so Casey doesn't host all your sorry asses and have to cook."
It was apparently just a given that we were all going to show up at his fancy expensive doctor house. Swift was either very presumptuous, or good at reading the room. And looking around at everyone…he was just good at reading the room.
We all separated and I patted Casey on the shoulder. "You've got my number?"
"Is this that booty call I've been waiting for?"
"If you look sad enough, it just might be."
He chuckled. "I'll get over it. As much as you can get over it." He smiled tight-lipped at me, but it at least grazed his eyes. "Just come tonight, yeah?"
I nodded. "I just have one thing to take care of. Apparently the rest of my schedule is wide open."
