Elemental Disturbance

by Voss Foster

  He walked off, and I just managed to catch Gutt. "I have a favor, and you can say no. But I want to get somewhere in Vermont real quick…and get back, too."

  Gutt smiled, all his teeth bared. "Heska? Lorath?"

  I shook my head. "Chief Ballinger."

  His one eyebrow went up. "Well, that is certainly a fascinating enough answer to pique my interest." He waved his hand and there was our portal. "Shall we?"

  He and I stepped through into Ballinger's office. For the second time, Gutt had sent us straight through the Kingdoms and into some poor, unsuspecting old man's private sphere. And just like Svenson, Chief Ballinger jumped when he saw us. But at least he chuckled once he got himself situated again, shuffling papers around on his desk. "You OPA boys sure now how to frighten a brittle little old man. What can I do for you?"

  "It's about Dennison. I want to know how things are progressing on that front."

  Ballinger's darkened gaze answered before he could. "It is notoriously difficult to fire a police officer here in Burlington, unfortunately. One person is on the fence, which means he could be brought straight back on."

  I nodded. "Kind of figured it wasn't going well. It never does, does it?" I sighed, halfway contemplating getting Kimmy to hack in and make some "colorful" changes to his records. But only halfway. Maybe three-quarters. "That was a wild hope. But I came here for something else, too."

  "Okay, shoot."

  "How strong is your preternatural program here in Burlington?"

  "We…know what an elf looks like. Mostly."

  I nodded. "What would you say to…having it be a little stronger? A show of good faith to the local preets and maybe head off any potential future Dennisons before they can insinuate themselves too much deeper."

  Ballinger eyed me, slightly suspiciously. But that faded quickly and left him just a happy, skinny grandpa again. "I wouldn't be opposed to some resources, if you have any."

  "Good. I'll have Agent Swift send them over. He just sent a package down to Florida, so they should be pretty near the top of his pile."

  I nodded for Gutt to open the portal again, but Ballinger shot straight up, stopping me from going anywhere. "Thank you. All of you. You really stepped up where we didn't."

  "You stepped up just fine," said Gutt. "I'm sorry, but we do have to leave. Dash just felt this was an important visit to make."

  Ballinger nodded back to him, and the we left. Once we were back in the briefing room, Gutt looked me up and down. "Really?"

  "I saw a chance. This case went on for so long and got so far because we didn't have any systems in place to track missing preet kids." I shook my head. "It's not going to fix itself, and I figured Burlington was primed and ready to get on board with a little more responsibility."

  Gutt nodded, his mouth slowly splitting into a tusked grin. "You do know that all of us OPA agents are the ones who have to go teach the material, when it comes to that, don't you? So maybe don't overbook us on it. I need my beauty sleep."

  I rolled my eyes. "Right. I'll try not to be so taxing on your valuable Freecell time." I jerked my head toward the door. "Let's get going. Remember, we've been ordered to have something good when we show up at Casey's."

  It was good company and better food in Casey's backyard. The fucker had a firepit and a waterfall. OPA already made more than the FBI, but apparently he made more than any of us. Then again, I'd never seen where Swift or Abigail or even Gutt lived, and Kimmy could just Bitcoin her way into a fortune, I imagined. Or intersect some passing transactions.

  I was into my consideration of a second piece of peach pie—Swift demanded there be good food, and he himself managed to deliver just fine—when Kimmy pulled out her phone. Almost as soon as she looked at it, her eyes went wide. "Holy shit."

  "Holy shit what?"

  "Holy shit, our problems made the news. The Hidden Kingdoms have decided to let Fukal in, and it's all over every Mundane headline on my feed." She clicked and scrolled. "'After a rash of kidnappings, a new monarch has been chosen from the ranks of this lost civilization. Chenka of Fukal is the new queen.'"

  Chenka. It could have been worse. "That was fast."

  Kimmy slipped her phone away. "Yeah, that was fucking fast. Can't get shit done like that here and we only have one country to worry about." She rolled her eyes, then she went for more pie which meant I could definitely go for it.

  It was nice. We could sit. We all knew what had happened, we all knew it wasn't over for those kids. But we also knew that it wasn't good for anyone to dwell on it. To remember them, yes, but for all we knew tomorrow would bring an army of dragons who had a taste for newborns.

  God I hoped not.

  So my job was just to remember. I wasn't forgetting the look of pain on Lorath's face, or Selal unconscious on the floor. I wasn't forgetting the house stabbed through with ice crystals.

  But I was damn sure going to be there for whatever went to hell next.

  The Office of Preternatural Affairs will return to handle whatever the hell goes next in Sovereign Malpractice!

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  Author’s Note

  The first book started with a big blue troll who sounded like Frasier Crane. This one started with a child. Not a child I show in this book anywhere, but the one that lives in my head whenever I think about those elemental children captured. I don't remember if it was a dream or a day dream or just one more fleeting vision in the mind of a writer, but I remember the little green boy in rags, cowering in a dark stone-walled room. That's where this book started.

  So I knew from the outset, before I wrote word one, that this book wasn't exactly going to be tip-toeing through the tulips.

  I also knew that I wasn't going to be able to up the stakes any higher than I had in book one. That was pretty clear as soon as I finished Toxic Influence. I just saved the literal entire human race. There's not a whole lot of "up" that I can go to from there.

  And the more I thought about the disparate elements that I had already floating for Elemental Disturbance, the more I realized that I wanted something inside the Kingdoms. I had a threat to the Mundane in book one, but I didn't want it to come off like the Office of Preternatural Affairs was specifically around to keep magic from harming humans, screw everyone else. I also didn't want it to seem like preets were nasty and wanted to attack the humans, but everyone else was safe.

  So I had three parts: a little green-skinned boy, non-world-ending stakes, and preets attacking other preets (Don't you worry: humans also can suck in this world. Keep your eyes peeled for that book.). And eventually, everything began to coalesce into this final product.

  And let me tell you, this book had some weird crap in it at first. Behind the scenes look, there was an entire subplot in the first draft about how the Queens of Tarwald wanted to increase tourism from the Mundane to their own kingdom. Yeah. Weird tangents.

  But I hope the end product was something you enjoyed. I hope you carried along with the story. I hope, at least for a time, you were entertained.

  I'm back to writing, but know that I appreciate you dearly.

  Safe travels, and I'll see you when the next crisis drops in the OPA's lap.

  Voss

  Also By Voss Foster

  Evenstad Media Presents

  The Park

  The Mall

  The Inn

  The Tunnels

  Office of Preternatural Affairs

  Toxic Influence

  Standalones

  The Mountains of Good Fortune

  The Psychic

  About the Author

  Voss Foster lives in the middle of the Eastern Washington desert, where he writes science fiction and fantasy from inside a single-wide trailer. He is the author of the Evenstad Media Presents series, The King Jester Trilogy, The Mountains of Good Fortune, and the Immortal Whispers Series. His short fiction has been featured
in various magazines and anthologies, including Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and Apocrypha & Abstractions. When he can be pried away from his keyboard, he can be found singing, practicing photography, cooking, and belly dancing, though rarely all at the same time.

  Keep reading for a sneak preview of Sovereign Malpractice!

  Sneak Peek: Sovereign Malpractice

  Office of Preternatural Affairs Book Three

  Working for the Office of Preternatural Affairs was a lot of things. It was me riding a dragon and jumping into the skull of a giant snake. It was letting some old elf lady fiddle around in my brain to unlock my memories. It was me chasing down magical drug dealers because local PD still hadn't figured out how to handle preternatural criminals in most of the country.

  Days like today? It was me unboxing a crate of gnomes about to be sold as slaves for the uber wealthy.

  "I'd like to growl about humans over this." Gutt, my big, blue troll partner lifted a particularly emaciated gnome out of the box. They were crammed into the wooden crate so tight I wasn't even sure all of them were alive anymore, so the first priority was getting them loose so everyone could breathe. The one Gutt had, at least, was alive enough to shiver once he was out of the mass. No real surprise. Wisconsin winters weren't exactly the warmest in the world. Still nice to see signs of life.

  "Be my guest." I got another gnome out, this one a woman, her sides and arms bruised purple. Either from being jammed into this box, or from whatever efforts it took for her seller to get her to comply. "I mean, you're not going to offend me. I'm pretty down on humans at the moment too."

  "Yes, well, gnome slavery is not exactly a new idea. It would hardly be fair to lay the blame at the feet of humanity." Gutt shook his head as he gingerly lifted a very young gnome out. The others were finally able to start moving a little bit, and so far I didn't see any who were blatantly dead.

  "Still, I think humankind could have arrived at "enslave small beings" all on our own." I pulled a very old gnome out. His eyes were rheumy white, with what looked like burn scars around them. He swiveled his head side to side, but no way in hell could he see. Not from natural causes either, if I was going to hazard a wild guess. "We need to get them some attention. Hopefully they're not so far gone they can't be fixed up."

  Gutt nodded. There was enough free space now that he could get his fingers around the top of the box. He gave one yank and the wooden slats snapped free, letting the rest of the gnomes loose. "Call Casey and tell him we have incoming."

  I nodded and slid out my phone. Casey, like the rest of the OPA team, was on speed dial. He was number two, though. We—and more specifically I—ended up needing a medic more than I particularly liked.

  "Dr. Casey Daniels, OPA."

  "Casey, it's Dash." I sighed. "You have room for three dozen gnomes in bad shape?"

  "We're already waiting. Swift told me you guys would probably have them soon, so I called in backup. Go ahead and ship them our way."

  "You're a lifesaver, Casey."

  "Yeah, well don’t forget it come Christmas time."

  "Santa-themed strip tease, show for one?"

  "Make it reindeer and we can talk."

  He hung up and I turned to see Gutt already opening remote transport back to Washington DC. The air faintly shimmered where he'd waved his hand, the only identifier that he'd done anything. Well, other than the gnomes scrabbling through and disappearing into nothing.

  Once they'd all been transported, Gutt sighed. "Any possibility we've snuffed out the illegal preternatural slavery business?"

  "As much chance as me turning out to be a Class-A preet this whole time."

  Gutt snorted a tiny, derisive laugh. His olive eyes remained dark, sharp, and focused. "I suppose we'll be back here again soon, then."

  "This exact dead drop in Wisconsin?" I shook my head. "We'll scare them off from using this one for at least a few months."

  "Ah, so we'll just have to find them all over again."

  "Exactly." I clapped him between the shoulders, not an easy task when he was several heads taller than me. "That's the job, right?"

  "Right." Gutt shook his head. "At least they're safe for now."

  He walked through the portal and I followed. The thrill of those neons and pastels around me as we stepped momentarily through the Hidden Kingdoms rarely struck me anymore. Traveling through dimensions was officially an almost everyday thing for me since starting with the OPA. But today, at least, a tiny flicker of excitement ran through my bones as mint green and glowing white and cotton candy pink moved around me. All in the space of a breath, then I was back in the Mundane. Indoors, thankfully, and surrounded by gnomes and sterile white floors and three medics in white coats. Two of them were preets. I recognized the elderly dryad woman from the New York Field Office from my very first outing with the OPA. The other was an elf. Couldn't tell at all how old he was, but he had a calm demeanor and was crouched down to deal with the gnomes on their level.

  And our medic was there, too. Casey Daniels. I suppose technically he was a preet as well, but he was only a quarter hag. He'd get very magical in his old age, but for now he was just our resident medical prodigy/gay twink who liked to flirt with me.

  Though not at the moment. At that moment, he looked a little more like a hag and a little less like a sprightly young thing. His blonde hair was already a mess when he walked up to Gutt and I. "Were there any dead in with them?"

  Gutt shook his head. "All alive, thankfully."

  "Good, good." He scrubbed a hand up and down his face. "There's a couple in bad shape so far, but if they're the worst of it, I think they'll all be fine." He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. "Have I mentioned lately that I really hate this job? Like, really hate it."

  "I don't think being a regular doctor would be any better." I rubbed his shoulder. "Gore is still gore."

  "Yeah, that's not the part I hate."

  I nodded. He didn't need to say anything more. Like all the rest of us, Casey got to see what lurked underneath the extra slimy rocks of existence. Human and preet alike did some vile shit, and if it happened inside US borders…well, that made it our problem to handle.

  Nobody there liked handling forty-ish gnomes in various states of injury and illness.

  I patted Casey on the shoulder. "We'll leave you to your work."

  "Oh, take my eye candy away from me, too?" He had that slight twinkle back to his eyes, muted as it may have been by all this gnome bullshit. "I see how it is."

  Gutt walked away, phone out, and let Casey and I keep on. "Hey, look at the bright side. It's been a minute since I've been gravely injured, so I'm due for a trip to your office soon anyway."

  He shook his head and turned back around to the gnomes, but not without firing off one last retort. "I'm not so hard up you need to hurt yourself just so I can check you out, sweetie. There's plenty of actual gay guys I can look at."

  Then he was back into the gaggle of gnomes with his borrowed healers. I turned back to Gutt just as he was hanging up. "You call in a team to check out the area?"

  He nodded, sending his massive, floppy ears to quivering. "They won't find anything, unfortunately. There wasn't even a whisper of magic in the area."

  "There's never a whisper of magic anywhere until there is. That's what makes this shit so hard." I sighed. "We should go tell Swift what's up."

  We took the short, silent walk back through the hallways to the glass doors of the Office of Preternatural Affairs. The whole space always gave off the distinct aura of "who gives a shit." Nothing in the space was new, save for some high-quality door handles. It was all at least ten years out of date, and the whole space was slightly crooked, the walls narrowing away from the doors. Any chance any of the cubicles had to be square went right out the window with those walls the way they were. I'd never gotten confirmation, but from the first time I walked in, I got the very distinct impression this space had been carved out for them where no office was really supposed to be.

&n
bsp; The OPA was only looking at its eleventh anniversary, after all. Before shit hit the fan, nobody but the crazies thought trolls, elves, and dragons were actually real.

  Big plate of crow to eat when it turned out that not only were they right, but those same fairy tale creatures just had a massive prison break into the Mundane. Us stupid humans? Not exactly equipped to handle murderers who could enchant the blood out of your body, so thankfully the Hidden Kingdoms deigned to actually help us out. Hence why Gutt was actually here and able to work these cases.

  We both headed across the room and straight to Agent Swift's office. His door stood open, propped by a mesh wastepaper basket. His office wasn't the same beige expanse as the rest of the OPA space. Everything was mahogany, umber…some other dark, warm brown I wasn't educated enough to name off the top of my head. No windows, so the whole space seemed very tight and cozy…and okay, sometimes claustrophobic.

  Didn't seem to bother Swift any, though. He sat there, tall and slim, dressed as every bit the professional department head he was.

  He looked up as we stepped closer to his desk. "You intercept the shipment, boys?"

  "Of course," said Gutt. "Also, I'd like to point out I'm almost fifteen years your senior."

  Swift waved that off with a lazy flick of the wrist. "Trolls age considerably slower than my black ass. What are you relative to human years? Forty?"

  "Roughly, yes."

  Swift chuckled, a surprisingly deep sound, and leaned back in his chair. "Get back to me when they start mailing you crematorium coupons." He glanced over to me. "They're with Casey?"

  "And a couple other healers."

  "Good. No dead?"

  "Not when we left them." Gutt growled deep and snarled, framing his tusks in a particularly stark manner. "Though who knows. More than forty of them were crammed into that one crate, and it looked like it wasn't the first time for some of them. We might still wind up with some dead."