“It’s not a crime to insure my property. It’s, in fact, a crime not to insure my property,” Collins spluttered.
“True, but that seems to be a pretty massive disparity,” Darien said.
“So what?” Collins was prepared to bluster his way through the interview. Darien took another sip from his can then close his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. Caroline knew that the very faintest scent of blood escaped that can, but Collins gagged when he inhaled after the small sip.
“Mr. Collins,” Mitch interrupted. “I myself am much more interested in your spellwork.” He pulled out a photo from the file in front of him and slid it across the table. Mitch leaned forward and proceeded to ask a series of questions that Caroline couldn’t hope to follow.
“I have no idea what they’re talking about, Point. I’m sorry.” She slumped in her seat and the medic made a small noise before Point’s hand landed heavily on her shoulder.
“I don’t expect you to follow a discussion about fairly advanced magecraft. Just tell me if you hear him lying or whatever.”
Caroline nodded. “He doesn’t sound like he’s lying. He’s nervous as hell, and smug. Mitch sounds almost impressed, but more curious and a little angry. Darien’s been really pleased to have grossed the guy out. Nobody’s flat out lying so far.”
“Good girl. Keep those ears open.”
She did, and she learned a lot from the interrogation. Sheldon Collins had come across an article in a magazine for mages about enhancing spells one day about a year earlier, it seemed. He wasn’t particularly interested in it, since he wasn’t really a practicing mage despite his abilities. But when he was bored one day, clicking around the internet, he fell down a rabbit hole reading about combining enchantments.
It was one of those controversial subjects that produced a ton of misinformation and conspiracy theories since it was almost impossible to combine two completely different enchantments into one spell. But Collins remembered the enhancement article and that led him to figuring out a way to instead of combining the enchantments flat out, to chain them together like horses pulling a wagon. He needed the items to be very similar, and even then he couldn’t guarantee the results as it turned out, but Mitch was incredibly impressed with the solution.
The motive, of course, was money. Collins planned to take the insurance money from the ‘natural disaster’ and use some of it to redevelop the property into some sort of casino-resort-shopping destination a la Las Vegas, except he kept hitting the anti-gambling laws in the state and the fact that he couldn’t get the area zoned the way he wanted.
“I guess he figured that getting the insurance money at all was his first step, and he’d sort the rest out later,” Point sighed as Darien stepped into the observation room after Collins had been escorted back to his cell.
“He tried to bring a shitty apartment building down on the heads of his tenants.” Darien shook his head and grumbled. “For a few million dollars, he was more than willing to kill innocent people.”
“And he thought you were the bloodthirsty one in there,” Caroline muttered.
“Well, to be fair, you really did skip lunch to do that paperwork.” Point growled, whacked Darien’s shoulder with his meaty, slate-colored hand, and lumbered out of the room.
“Did… did he just make a joke?” The medic stared after him with wide eyes.
“Whoever made the real coffee this morning needs to keep it up.” Darien agreed.
Epilogue
After the interrogations ended, Point had the medic take her back to the infirmary to wait out the observation period they’d insisted on so she was stuck here for another day at least.
Caroline flopped back on the bed, feeling fine thank you very much, but at least the medics were treating her like a functional person with the ability to make her own decisions, now. Shame the rest of her coworkers weren’t. She sounded petulant and whiney even to herself hen she thought the words ‘like an adult.’ Still. She may just be an eighteen-year-old intern, but Point hired her to train to be a full agent, and if she wasn’t going to be allowed to think for herself and actually help when on a case, then why bother?
“Ugh,” Caroline grumbled. She knew she was sulking, but who cared? “What’s the point of going out on an assignment if I’m just supposed to sit there and look pretty?”
“The point is to learn the procedures, and hopefully how to avoid being injured.” Darien leaned in the doorway with his arms crossed and a frown carved across his face.
“Well, I guess I’m two for two then. Once again I have minor injuries and they want to run a few thousand tests to make sure, but I’m actually fine.” Caroline had ended the kidnapping case much the same way.
“Yeah,” Darien nodded. He sighed and pushed off the doorframe and came to sit in the chair next to her bed. “Yeah, you’re mostly okay, thanks to that protective amulet. But because of the sheer power behind the backlash, that thing’s completely burned out now so you won’t be so lucky next time.”
“Bummer. I liked that necklace,” Caroline was disappointed. She really did like it not just as jewelry but also as a souvenir of her first encounter with the magical world that was far deeper than most humans knew. “Can I get it back anyway?”
Darien stared at her for a moment. “Yeah. Ollie’s got it in the lab right now. I’ll ask him to hang onto it for you.” He was still frowning and watching her, but stopped talking. It made her want to fidget, but she forced herself to stay still. Even if she was being reprimanded by Point, and outranked by… well, everyone here, she wasn’t going to let them see her squirm.
After a long time in silence, Darien sighed again and unfolded his arms to scrub a hand over his face.
“You do understand that you could have been killed, don’t you?” He asked. His voice told her how exhausted and emotionally worn down he was.
“Well, I’m sorry I’m not qualified to try to help in any useful way. Maybe Point should work out something else for me to do like fetch coffee,“ she snapped. “Or better yet, fire me since I’m obviously such a worthless liability.” It was unfair, but she’d already sat through something like four hours of being lectured on stupid she had been and so on. Point threatened to promote her to full agent just so he could ‘suspend your dumb ass for the rest of your natural life!’ She was tired of being made to feel bad for trying to stop the bad guys just like everyone else.
Darien sighed and slumped back in his seat. “You know, I came down here about every twenty minutes after we got back, and I caught a bit of the rants you’ve had thrown your way. It’s been pretty nonstop for you, I bet. Greg sounded particularly inspired.”
“Yeah. Point was growly and I thought was going to get fired then maybe arrested. Mitch was like being dragged into the principal’s office, except worse. The college’s principal? Is that even a thing?” Caroline frowned at the blanket for a moment, looking for the right word.
“You mean the dean?” Darien offered. “At the college it’s more likely the dean.” She glanced up at his and while his expression was still serious and exhausted, the slight amusement in his voice was only reflected in the hint of humor in his eye.
“Yeah, that. I only understood about half of what he said once he launched into the magical repercussions of whatever the specific disruptive effect was that I caused by my actions,” Caroline shrugged. “Greg was…”
She remembered him pacing back and forth in front of the windows, growling the whole time. His eyes had kept that golden glow that indicated his magic was very close to the surface, and when he did open his mouth she imagined it was like being yelled at by your big brother who was very disappointed in the stupid mess you got yourself into. She wasn’t sure since she was an only child, but that’s the best description she could think of. When he wasn’t talking, his pacing just made her think of an nervous, thwarted lion growling in frustration.
“I’ve known him for two years, ever since I was transferred to this office, and frankly he was the only one for a
long time that was willing to hang out with me and be my friend here. I’ve never seen him like that. I wonder if that’s what he’d be like with siblings?” Darien’s ability to sometimes sound like he was inside her brain was weirdly reassuring at the moment. He couldn’t be that mad if he was so close to her own train of thought, right?
“Sorry to piss him off,” Caroline shrugged. “I didn’t mean to make everyone angry, I meant to stop that jerk from finishing the spell and causing more damage.”
“None of us are mad, Caroline. We’re damned near faint from relief. We were completely terrified that you were dead, has that even occurred to you?” Darien leaned forward, elbows on his knees and his voice quiet and calm. It made her skin break out in goosebumps and went further to make her regret her actions than anything else had. The angry, irritated rantings she could cope with, even when they made her feel small and petulant. But this disappointment Darien’s voice held? Now she just felt like shit.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I just wanted to help.”
“It took Mitch ten minutes to bring you around, and I’m not sure any of us were paying attention to what we were doing. If that shifter hadn’t been knocked off balance he’d probably have gotten away while we were botching the arrests.” Darien stared at her, his eyes darker than usual. “If something had happened to you, something that we couldn’t counteract or… or…” His eyes went black for a moment as his magic swamped them, and he shuddered before blinking them back to normal. “You’re getting a bit of a reputation for being very brave and very foolish at the same time.”
“What?” Caroline squeaked. “I barely ever do anything!”
“Confronting crazy fire mages,” Darien started ticking points off on his fingers. “Mouthing off at terrorists, letting a vampire feed directly from you— insisting on it, in fact— after barely knowing him for a few hours, goading drunk mages at a bar, flinging yourself into a strange enchantment with nothing but a taser and some good intentions… Word’s getting around.” Darien pulled in another deep breath and slowly blew it out.
Caroline hung her head and picked at the fuzz on the infirmary blanket. “I guess when you put it like that…”
“Point asked me to deliver his verdict since I think he’s half afraid of going off at you again.” Darien stood and stretched.
“Am I fired?” Caroline didn’t dare look up from the pile of fuzz she’d started accumulating in her lap.
“Nope, but you might wish you were before you’re done.” The grin in his voice made her blink and she snapped her gaze up to his face. He stood there, hands in his jacket pockets and smirked. “You’ve been sentenced to three weeks hard study with Mitch on spell casting and diffusion one-oh-one. When you’re not there you’ll be training with Peaches. And if that doesn’t kill you, you’ll be in a good position to sort through the past year of enchantment-based accidental fatality reports. And you still have a ton of paperwork to file from this case.”
Caroline blinked up at him. His grin grew wider.
“Better hurry up and get medically cleared, Sunshine. Training starts Monday.”
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to my mom Barbara, as well as Isaac, Resa, and Paula from my Facebook page who provided some much needed naming help. Seriously, you guys. I’d have a bunch of people named ‘Joe Smith’ in my books if I didn’t get help. Dad and Margaret, I couldn’t do this without you guys.
Mad thanks to my friend Thom who has not only encouraged my bad behavior since I was a baby sailor, but was incredibly helpful with tall ship stuff. Seriously, I could never have figured out Phineas Morgan’s enchantment without you. I’m sorry I left out all that amazing math you did, though, Dad…
And to Curtis: Patron, friend, font of ideas, and genuinely funny guy. Thanks for the support, and I can’t wait to see what trouble we get up to in the future.
About the Author
Katherine Kim is a lifelong lover of fantasy. She started early, being read Tolkien as bedtime stories, which honestly explains a lot. More recently she’s been drawn to more urban fantasy stories through both books and television, and reading continues to be a passion. She lives and writes in Tokyo, with her young family and her possibly demonic cat.
If you liked this book, I hope that you’ll leave me a review here! I read every review and it makes a huge difference to me and to my work. If you want to keep up with new releases, short stories, and special offers, join my mailing list!
Books by Katherine Kim
The Demon Guardian
A Demon’s Duty
A Demon’s Sanction
A Demon Saved
The Riverton Demons
Personal Demons
Spirits of Los Gatos
Sarah’s Inheritance
A Spirit’s Kindred
Finding insight
Brewing Trouble
Spiritkind
Federal Paranormal Activities Agency
Quick Study
Caroline’s Internship
In The Blood (coming soon)
Caroline's Internship Page 11
