by Amy Hopkins
She made it back without issue, despite a harrowing turn across too many lanes of traffic that left her feeling like she was stuck in the twilight zone and headed into oncoming traffic.
Penny parked in one of the student bays of the car park, then let out a slow sigh of relief, glad she’d taken the car out for the first time alone. Cisco wouldn’t have let her live it down if he’d seen how nervous she was.
She dropped the keys into her bag and sauntered into the building, a flush of pride putting a swing in her step. When she passed the grand entryway into the Academy and someone tapped her shoulder, she jumped.
“Agent Crenel!” Penny had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t seen him loitering in the foyer.
“Sorry, Penny. I didn’t mean to startle you. Do you have a minute?” He glanced around as Penny nodded. “Perhaps not here.”
She followed him into one of the nearby offices on the ground floor of the Academy. This one was empty, likely held for one of the many instructors expected to join the school over the next years.
“What happened?” Penny asked.
Crenel raised an eyebrow but didn’t question her assumption. “You’re going to that party out at Cannon Beach.” It was said as a statement, not a question.
Penny bit down on her impatience, knowing Crenel wasn’t one to dally around. “Arcadia beach, actually. That’s just south of Cannon, isn’t it? We leave tonight.”
Crenel frowned. “There have been some suspicious deaths out that way. Nothing concrete yet. Can you keep an eye out for anything unusual?”
Penny nodded again. “Of course, Agent Crenel. What can you tell me?”
He briefed her quickly. “There have been reports of violent deaths in the area. There haven’t been any definite indications of Myther involvement, but the bureau has their ears perked.”
“We suspect there’s a new coven in the area too,” Crenel admitted. “Which isn’t to say they’re involved. Most actual Wiccans we’ve encountered have been smart enough not to try summoning anything, and for the most part, their intentions are good. It’s the covens that cross over into what we’re terming as cult activity we have to watch for.”
“What do you know about them?” Penny asked.
Crenel shrugged. “Just that they’re out there. We’re tracking sales of candles, sage, crystals, that sort of thing. There has been an increasing spike in the sales of occult-associated products since the Veil was made public knowledge, and nine times out of ten, that’s what it’s attributed to.”
“Wow.” Penny couldn’t smother her surprise. “You guys are really on it, aren’t you?”
Crenel brushed off her praise. “Regardless, there is something or someone out there causing a lot of trouble. This perp, human or not, is dangerous.” His eyes drilled into Penny’s. “Do not engage. Really. Don’t.”
Penny grinned. “Sure.”
“I mean, it, Penny! Can I trust you on this?” Before she could answer, Crenel sighed. “Of course, I can’t because you’re twenty and invincible.”
“Excuse me?” Penny snapped. “I turned twenty-two just after New Year’s, thank you very much.”
Crenel grimaced. “So, you can give your absolute, unbreakable word that you will not engage this predator while you’re out there?”
Penny hesitated. “Oh. I guess not. See you Monday!”
Leaving the agent shaking his head behind her, Penny darted out of the room, giggling. She knew Crenel probably just sprouted another dozen gray hairs, and she took pride in that.
She ran into Amelia on her way past the dining hall, and the two walked upstairs together.
“Hey, you ready for tonight?” Amelia asked.
Penny shook her head. “I’m going up to pack now. Hey, guess what?”
Amelia’s mouth pulled to one side as she thought. “You…I don’t know…finally hooked up with Cisco?”
“What” Penny squeaked. “No! I got us a car for the weekend, you numpty!”
“Oh.” Amelia grinned. “So you have somewhere to finally hook up with Cisco? Even better.” She easily ducked the light punch Penny threw at her shoulder. “You know you want to. So, how’d you get a car?”
Penny quickly explained, unable to hide her grin as Amelia gushed over the Jeep and her win. “You utter gem, Penny!” Amelia hugged her before pushing the dorm room door open. “Look at you, kicking all those testosterone-laden boys to the curb.”
“I do my best.” Penny raised her fist and bumped Amelia’s, then leaned down to poke Boots, who was curled up on the bed.
Boots didn’t respond, just buried herself tighter in the blankets. Penny stroked her head with a finger, then turned to address the burning question. “Now, do I need my nice boots or my comfortable ones? I don’t want the red ones ruined if we’re going to be near the water.”
Amelia hesitated, and Penny could practically see the cogs turning. With a sigh, Amelia pointed to Penny’s old faithfuls. “You’re right. Wear those horrible old things.”
Penny picked up her work boots and whispered, loud enough for Amelia to hear, “Don’t listen to her. You’re the best boots.”
She ignored Amelia’s snort of laughter and began throwing clothes into a duffel bag. “How cold is it going to get?”
“For you? Cold. You’ll need thick socks and every layer you’ve got.” Amelia giggled. “But then I’d say that if I was only going to take a tank top and shorts. You freeze in the mildest weather!”
“That’s true,” Penny admitted. “But I’m all kitted out, thanks to you!”
Amelia threw Penny a beanie.
“Where’d this come from?” Penny recognized it as hers, but she hadn’t seen it since she’d bought it.
“Found it under my bed while I was looking for those fingerless gloves I wore the other day. You haven’t seen them, have you?”
Penny rummaged through the stack of blankets on her bed, to no avail. She got down on her knees. She did find an extra pair of socks, two scarves, a notebook, and a shoe, but no gloves. Penny sat back on her knees. “Sorry, mate. No idea.” As she spoke, she tossed the shoe toward the closet in the corner. As it flew, a scrap of pink cloth dislodged from deep inside it.
“My glove!” Amelia shrieked, pouncing on it with glee. “You’re awesome!”
“Someone thinks we are.” Penny’s mind flashed back to her conversation with Agent Crenel. She told Amelia what she knew.
Amelia looked worried for a split second, then broke into a grin. “You really promised not to get involved?”
“Hell, no.” Penny mirrored Amelia’s grin. “I promised I’d try not to.”
Amelia pulled a coat out of her overstuffed bag. “Guess we’d better leave room for our kits.”
Penny gaped. “You were going to go without one?” Her own Academy-issued travel kit—a small bag with basic weapons and protections—was already packed.
“I was going to take the tiny one, but we’re gonna need more than just the basics if something is out there,” Amelia told her.
Penny evaluated the still-full bag. “Amelia, there’s no way you have room for anything else in there.” She smirked. “Apparently, Cisco’s only taking a spare shirt. He’ll have plenty of space!”
That settled, the two girls quickly finished packing. “Where’s your fancy new car?” Amelia asked.
“Student bay,” Penny said. She hefted her two bags, mostly packed with thick, warm clothes, blankets, and every sock she owned. She would not freeze to death sleeping on a beach. “Let’s take these down, then come back for coffee.” She dropped an empty knapsack on the bed. “Come on you, unless you’re staying behind for the weekend?”
Boots flicked her tail and hissed, but begrudgingly slid into the bag and curled back up. Penny struggled, but she managed to loop all three bags over her shoulders.
Amelia hoisted her own duffel with ease.
Penny had taken little notice of what she’d packed, but she knew that at least some of the outfits
would leave her blue and shivering in the current conditions. She envied her friend’s tolerance for the cold.
Penny waited by the Jeep, tapping her foot. “I told him, if his ass wasn’t back by three, I’d go without him.”
“He’s still got…” Red checked the time on his phone. “Forty-five seconds. He can make it.”
At that moment, the front door of the Academy flew open. Cisco raised a fist as he ran toward them, a limp, half-empty backpack dangling from it. “Made it!”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Barely. But seeing as you have so much room in your pack, you’re in charge of the monster kit.”
Cisco’s eyes lit up. “We’re taking the monster kit?”
Officially, the Academy had provided three different options of weapon kits for the students to access: the travel kit, issued to each student for daily use; the basic mission kit, a pimped-out version of the basic, and able to be checked out, and the comprehensive field kit, stored in the Weapons room and only accessible with an official mission ID provided by the FBI liaison.
The students, of course, had already given them names: the leprechaun, the fat leprechaun, and the monster.
“I had to beg for permission,” Penny admitted. “But I swung it on the basis that we implement and document at least one example of the surveillance techniques Quaid has been teaching us.”
In reality, she’d appealed to Crenel’s fatherly nature—what little he had, anyway—by pointing out that two dozen drunk twenty-something kids sleeping on a beach with no protection might attract malicious entities. “What if something attacks in the night?” she’d asked. “And you have to come and ID my body? That would really suck, especially after all the effort you put into recruiting me. Not to mention the torture Dean March would put you through for letting her students come to harm.”
He’d still wavered, so Penny had pulled out the big guns. “I mean, just think of the paperwork you’d have to do.”
That was when Crenel caved. “Fine. What do you need?”
Penny could feel the agent’s scowl through the phone as he rattled off the information she needed to check out the Monster, and was sure she felt his wave of irritation when she ended the call without promising again that she’d avoid—well, try to avoid—a direct confrontation with anything down at Arcadia beach.
Penny popped the trunk and patted the heavy-duty canvas bag. “Amelia and I will have our hands full, dude, so you’re in charge of this baby.”
Rather than complain, Cisco crowed with delight. “Yeah!” He caressed the duffel, eyes full of wonder. “I’ll take good care of you, sweetheart. You won’t leave my side. You can even sleep with—"
“Ew!” Amelia shoved Cisco, almost tipping him off balance. “Get a room.”
“Are we ready?” Penny waited for Cisco to toss his bag in the back before closing it up. She jingled the keys. “Who’s calling shotgun?”
When no one answered, Cisco sighed. He cupped a hand around the back windshield and called, “Goodbye, my love. I have to go and sit up front. I’ll miss you!”
“Amelia’s right.” Penny walked around to the driver’s seat and slid behind the wheel. “You have a really unhealthy attachment to that bag.” She glanced in the rear-view mirror to see Amelia and Red with their heads together in the back seat. “No canoodling back there! This car is a loaner, and I’m not paying to clean the upholstery when I give it back.”
Cisco opened the passenger door and made to shove the small bag on the seat onto the floor. He snatched his hand back when a rainbow head shot out with an irritated hiss.
"Sorry, Boots." He gently picked the bag up and settled it in his lap once his seatbelt was on.
Penny blew out a slow breath as she twisted the keys in the ignition. A troupe of butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach. The trip back from the old airfield had been a few back streets and quiet roads. Now she’d be driving through the city and onto a highway.
Just stay to the right, she reminded herself, then pulled out of the Academy parking lot.
It didn’t take long to get used to driving on the other side of the road. After a few miles on the road, Penny had slipped into a comfortable pace. Soon, the bustling city of Portland slipped away as they headed toward the beach with the radio at a low buzz as the friends chattered over the top.
“I really thought Australia was mostly nudist beaches,” Cisco insisted.
“You didn’t think it, you wished it,” Amelia shot back. “I mean, we get tourism ads for down under all the time. No boobs on those at all!”
“Well… Not naked boobs…” Red ducked Amelia’s swatting hand.
“You idiot.” Amelia folded her arms back up. “You’d chase… wait. What’s that smell?” She hit Red again, harder. “Was that you? That’s disgusting!”
The smell hit Penny in the front, a potent waft that made her eyes water. “Oh, God. Whoever dropped their guts needs to see a doctor about that.” She hit the window buttons, trying to air out the car, but it got worse.
Boots struggled out of her bag. She lifted her nose and tasted the air, then dove back inside with an angry hiss.
“Not us,” Cisco said in a choked voice. “It’s coming from outside. Goddammit, Penny, put the windows back up!”
Coughing hard enough to threaten her lunch, Penny did so. Even sealed off to the outside world, the smell persisted. She pressed her sleeve to her nose.
“Smells dead,” Red called from the back. “Like, really dead.”
One mile on, the odor dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. “That’s a relief. I can breathe again!” Penny cracked her window and gave an experimental sniff. “Yup. Definitely gone. I wonder what it was?”
“Boots, you can come out now,” Cisco said.
The serpent emerged carefully this time, but once she was satisfied the stench was gone, she lifted her head and rested it on Cisco’s arm to watch the scenery pass.
“A body,” Amelia suggested. “Of an elephant. Blergh.” She slid her own window down and inhaled the now-fresh air. “Hey! I can smell the beach. We must be getting close.”
Reports of a car accident holding up traffic on the 101…
“Shut up, guys!” Penny spun the volume dial on the radio. “That’s our route.”
The car was discovered at six a.m. this morning by a passerby. All occupants were declared dead on the scene, and local law enforcement has cordoned off the roadside stop. We recommend allowing extra travel time if in the area…
The report jumped to an ad for a department store and Penny turned it back down. “Damn. Must have been a bad one.”
They didn’t hit the worst of the traffic until a few miles later when it slowed to a crawl. Penny turned the radio back up since they promised an hour of ad-free music.
Penny slowed to match the speed of the car in front of her. A staccato beat rang out from the car stereo, and Penny couldn’t suppress a grin as Saturday Night began to play.
“S.A.T.U.R.D.A.Y.” Penny sang the words loudly, grinning when Amelia immediately joined in. “S-S-Saturday niiiight!”
Boots reared and hissed loudly, making Penny falter. She turned the music down. “What is it, mate?” Usually, Boots would only react like this if something was wrong.
“Look.” Cisco pointed to something on the shoulder of the road ahead. The traffic here was almost to a standstill, and it was a minute before Penny could see ahead to the holdup. When the pulverized car came into view, she killed the music altogether.
“What the fuck?” she whispered. A quick glance in the mirror showed Amelia’s eyes wide with horror, too.
The little white sedan had been peppered with fist-sized dents. All of the windows were broken, and the gaping holes in the middle looked like they’d been punched through, rather than shattered by impact. Metal curled in angry shards around a long gash down one side.
Boots writhed uncomfortably, pressing her nose on the glass and making a low rumbling sound.
A car behind her h
onked, and Penny realized she’d stopped. “Shit.” She took her foot off the brake, and the Jeep began rolling forward. Not fast, since even with her momentary distraction, the car in front hadn’t gone far.
“That’s no crash,” Cisco said. “What did that?”
The wreck receded in the mirrors as traffic picked up again, and Boots settled back on Cisco’s lap, although she still twitched anxiously.
Penny pulled her attention back to the road. “Let’s see if we can get any more info.” She used her hands-free to make a call.
“Don’t tell me I gotta come save your ass already.” Crenel’s gravelly voice rasped over the car speaker.
“As if.” Penny pushed the clutch and changed gears. "What do you know about the accident on the 101 this morning?"
"Car accident?" Crenel's tone immediately eliminated Penny’s hope that he might know something about the incident. "I work for the FBI. I'm not a traffic cop."
"I’m using the term ‘accident’ loosely," Penny explained. "The car looked like it had been attacked. If you come across anything, keep us in the loop."
"What are you, my boss?" Crenel spoke again before Penny could retort. "Of course, you're not. Even he still says please when he asks me to do something."
"Please?" Penny added. "With a cherry on top."
"I'll see what I can do." Penny heard his muffled mutter as he covered the mouthpiece and said something she couldn't make out. "Anything else?"
"Nope. That's all." Penny sniggered. "Unless you want to clean my room for me while I'm gone, subordinate."
"Hilarious." The agent's dry tone suggested he'd found her comment anything but. "I've got shit to do. Try not to get killed out there, okay?"
The beep of an ended call sounded before Penny could reply. She let out a sigh of frustration. "Dammit, I was really hoping he had heard something. If we go back, do you think they’d let us take a look?"
Cisco covered his quick laugh with a cough. "Sure, Penny. All those mean-looking cops back there are going to let us waltz in to investigate with no jobs, no credentials, no authority. What are we gonna tell them? We’re not Mystery Incorporated."
