Erica doesn’t stir at all while we’re doing this. Her expression is relaxed. Her breathing is calm. Her position, curled up on her side, is entirely nonthreatening. Asleep, she looks nothing like the fearsome witch I know her to be, only a harmless young woman. And it strikes me just how deceiving appearances can be.
Right now, walking the halls of the DSI office, is a person who seems equally as harmless.
The mole.
From now until Erica’s memories are restored—no, from now until forever—I can’t play this game with one hand tied behind my back. I have to be more careful, more diligent, more strategic. And that level-up has to start with weeding out the traitor in our midst. Because if we don’t figure out their identity soon, this tower of cards is going to crash down on top of us.
Fingers brush my arm, and I startle out of my reverie. Cooper stands beside me, a knowing expression of sympathy on his face. He says, “We should clean up the dining room now.”
“Uh, yeah.” I shake away my dark thoughts. “Let’s hurry. I don’t know how long she’ll be asleep.”
The two of us set out to clear away all signs of the memory extraction spell. Cooper sweeps the salt into a dustpan and empties it into a trash bag. I scrub the geometric shapes off the hardwood and toss the bloodied wipe away as well. Starting at different ends of the table, we throw out all the ingredients and tools Erica used to craft the spell, the jars full of strange things, the mortar and pestle sets—but not the books. I almost chuck one into the bag, but Cooper grasps my wrist to stop me.
“Maybe I should take these home with me.” He wrests the book from my hand, then collects the rest of them. “Just in case.”
“I don’t know, Coop. Might be dangerous to keep that stuff around.” I glance in the direction of Erica’s bedroom, the closed door blocking my view of the dozing witch. “And I mean, if something did go wrong with the spell, we can’t exactly fix it. We have no magic.”
“But there are minor practitioners at DSI. If we find ourselves in a bind, the books that Erica used to create the original spell could be invaluable to solving the problem.” He clutches the books to his chest. “I’ll hide them on my shelves at home. No one will spot them there, Cal, I promise. I’ve got over two thousand books in my house.”
“You…make a valid argument.” I grab Erica’s handwritten notes and offer them to Cooper. “Hide these in the books too. They’ve got Erica’s thoughts scribbled on them, and should help another practitioner decode the steps of the memory extraction process.”
Cooper takes the papers, folds them in half, and sticks them under the front cover of one of the books. “I’ll go put these in the SUV. I’ll be back in a minute.” He spins around and power walks out of the dining room, down the hall, and out the front door.
While Cooper’s gone, I start to clear the rest of the detritus off the table, but when I pick up a small jar of what looks like some kind of spice, I spot a folded pink piece of paper that had been hidden underneath it. It’s not a sticky note, thank god, rather someone’s fancy stationery, the kind you’d use for a personal letter. Written on the front flap of the page is a single word: my name.
I set the jar on the table again and pick up the little piece of paper, a tight feeling in my chest. With a nervous breath, I unfold the paper, revealing a lengthy note.
Dear hot Crow,
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like our friends-with-benefits arrangement has finally played out to its inevitable end. It was fun while it lasted—both the sex and the silly banter—and I regret that I had to be the one to pull the curtain and close the show. But as you experience more of the constant shit storm that is the supernatural underworld, you’re going to learn that that’s just how the cards get dealt sometimes. One day, everything is hunky-dory, and the next, the chick you’ve been sleeping with doesn’t even remember you exist. Us paranormal weirdos live hard, play hard, and die hard. We always have. We always will.
But even as you internalize that fundamental truth of our reality, I don’t want you to grow bitter, Cal. I don’t want you to think it’s better to distance yourself from relationships—from companionship—simply because those relationships might one day come to an end. I don’t want you to end up alone, Cal Kinsey, because you deserve more than that.
You told me shortly after we met that you weren’t looking for a serious relationship because you were worried that you would die and leave a grieving family behind. But I think we both know that excuse was bullshit. What you’re really worried about is that your job as a Crow will put others at risk, and you can’t stand the thought of someone’s life being more dangerous simply because you are in it. But here’s the thing: Whether or not a person stands close to you and risks getting shot by your enemies is their decision, not yours. And you need to respect what other people are willing to risk to be with you, not try to push them away because you believe you know what’s best for them.
In short, what I’m getting at here is…if someone comes along, someone you want to love, someone you want to grow old with, don’t crush your possible future together out of fear of the unknown. Because if you do that, at the end of the day, all you’re going to see when you look back on your life are the great things that could have been but never came to be. All you’re going to have is regret. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my forty years of life, it’s that the worst flavor of regret is the kind you foist on yourself when you make a choice based on your fears instead of your feelings.
Trust me on this, Cal. When the “one” shows up, don’t run away like a coward. You can be a better man than that, and I think you already are. And since I’d love to be proven right on that front, do me a favor and don’t duck away the next time a cutie asks you out. Or so help me gods, when I get my memories back, the very first thing I will do is kick your stupid ass all the way to the Michigan state line. Got it?
Don’t disappoint me, you idiot,
Erica
“Cal, are you okay?” says Cooper softly from the dining room doorway.
I fold the note in half again and discreetly tuck it into a coat pocket, then wipe the unshed tears from my eyes with the back of my hand before I turn to face him. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say in a choked-up voice that implies the exact opposite.
Cooper wants to ask me what’s wrong, the question rolling around on the tip of his tongue. But whatever churning mix of emotions he sees on my face makes him think better of voicing his concern. So instead of prying into a private moment I wasn’t anticipating—god, who could have anticipated Erica the witch giving me that sort of life advice?—he decides to skip back to our original mission. “All right, well, we should throw away those last few jars, then move the table back to its normal spot, yeah? The matching chairs are in the kitchen, I think. Want me to grab those?”
I flash him a grateful smile, and snatch the jar that was hiding the letter, adding it to the collection in the trash bag. “Sounds good to me. Let’s wrap this up.”
In five or six minutes, we finish cleaning the dining room and setting up the furniture the way I remember it from the last time I visited. That done, we drag the trash bags out to the end of the driveway, where a garbage truck will pick them up sometime tomorrow morning, and then head back inside to give the house one last thorough survey. Cooper spots the beers we left on the coffee table, empties them into the sink, and tosses the bottles in the kitchen recycling bin. And that’s it. We’re done.
Standing in the front doorway, I try to memorize every nook and cranny of Erica Milburn’s cozy little house that holds for me, all at once, too many memories and not enough. My gaze lingers on the bedroom door for some time, and I imagine, again and again, Erica emerging from her room, the spell having failed, her memories of our time together undamaged. But she doesn’t stir, the house remains quiet, and the short chapter in my life that was our almost relationship firmly ends as I step back onto the porch and close the front door.
Cooper
is already buckled into the passenger seat of the SUV when I climb into the driver’s side. As I start the vehicle and wrestle with my own seatbelt, he stares solemnly at the house through the windshield. “I should be the one who looks after this,” he says.
For a second, I don’t know what he’s talking about. Then I catch sight of the watch containing all of Erica’s most dangerous memories secured around his wrist. I open my mouth to protest, but Cooper shoots me a sharp glare and shakes his head exactly once. “No buts, Cal. The watch is my responsibility.” He gestures toward the busy highway visible through the trees where Erica’s neighborhood blends into the city proper. “Now let’s roll. We still have to stop at Aurora’s best pizza joint before we return to the office.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Over pizza with extra cheese and a sprinkle of Italian sausage, I fill my team in on Erica’s plan to evade detection by Iron Delos. They’re understandably disturbed by the fact that Erica, one of the city’s most powerful witches, considered Delos so dangerous to the practitioner community that she believed the only viable option to protect herself was to wipe her own memory. Based on that extreme decision, Riker preemptively sends out an office-wide alert through the DSI app on every agent’s phone: Do not, under any circumstances, interact with the new Aurora ICM chapter leader, Robert Delos, without express authorization from Commissioner Bollinger.
I’m sure some agents might question that order, thinking a lack of direct access to the new ICM leader will impede practitioner-related investigations. But it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to wild cards like Delos. The last thing we want is our agents getting mindfucked by this guy because he decides he doesn’t like DSI “interfering” in what he considers ICM-exclusive business. The ICM has always been resistant to DSI treading in their territory, and now that they have a telepathy master—a literal brain breaker—sitting at the top of the local hierarchy, I don’t think we can be overly cautious.
Riker, after ensuring his order was dispatched over the network, sets his phone on the table and returns his attention to the task at hand: the Feldman problem. He examines the organized papers laid out across the now cleared task room table. (All the case files have been moved to the corner of the room, the fifty-folder high stacks already collecting dust.) The freshly printed pages contain details about the twelve relevant locations related to the original Feldman case, every place Team Riker had a confrontation with the wizard three years ago.
From just a glance at each page, I can tell Feldman had light feet during that pursuit; the closest buildings are five miles apart. As a single team, it’ll take us days to thoroughly inspect each building for the explosive wards. And we don’t have days. We have a day. Which means we need to boost our manpower by an exponential factor sometime in the next few hours.
Good thing I sent that text message on the way back to the office.
Ella grabs another slice of pizza and drops it on her paper plate. “Okay, so, putting aside this Delos issue for the moment…” She sips her Sprite. “I got in touch with the Paranormal Squad agents working alongside the local FBI crew, Faulkner and Bismarck, and asked them if they could assist us in the hunt for Feldman. Unfortunately, it looks like they’ve got their hands full. Their uninformed colleagues have set up a large-scale interview initiative, and the entire team is going door to door, or curtain to curtain, rather, talking to each of the hospitalized survivors of the convention center collapse. Neither of the Paranormal Squad agents will be able to break from their assignments without raising suspicion.”
“So what was the point of sending them here at all?” Amy rips a big chunk off her pizza slice with her teeth. “Quantico should have admitted they weren’t willing to provide us with any assistance, instead of making such a half-assed gesture.”
“I concur, Major.” Desmond wipes his mouth with a napkin. “But what’s done is done. Time to move on. We have to rectify our manpower issue as soon as possible, one way or another, or we won’t meet the deadline in Feldman’s latest riddle.”
Ella taps her foot on the floor at an impatient tempo. “We can pull Ramirez and Delarosa off search and rescue rotation—we have the commissioner’s blessing—but both teams have already been overtaxed, so they won’t be a hundred percent in a combat scenario. We need to be very careful with how we utilize them, or we’re going to end up with unacceptable casualties.”
“But even with Ramirez and Delarosa, that’s only ten more people working the ground,” Amy points out, gesturing with her floury pizza crust. “Including Sing’s team, that makes us twenty strong. That’s not enough to search all these buildings in a reasonable amount of time and perform an effective city-wide manhunt for Feldman. Personally, I think we’d be better off sending Ramirez and Delarosa to assist Sing’s team in the manhunt, while we come up with an alternative source of manpower for the building inspections.”
The telltale buzzing on my belt alerts me that the message I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. I pluck my phone out of its clip and set it on my thigh so I can skim the reply without tipping off my teammates that I’m up to something. (If my request is summarily denied, and I have to explain to my teammates that my cool, innovative idea failed to pan out, I’ll feel like an idiot.)
While I’m reading the long text message, Ella continues talking. “What alternative source though, Amy?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Amy tosses the crust on her plate and raises her hands in surrender. “I guess we’ll have to think outside the box or something. I mean—”
Riker loudly clears his throat, startling everyone to silence and causing me to look up from my phone. To find my captain glaring at me. “Something you want to share with the class, Cal?”
“Huh?”
“You seem to have received an enthralling message. Either that, or you’ve been staring at your crotch.”
“Oh, well…” Heat creeps up my neck as my teammates (and Cooper, who’s sitting to my right) snicker at me. “It’s a message, Captain.”
“About what?” Riker folds his used napkin and sets it atop the greased-stained plate in front of him. “The case, I hope.”
“Of course it’s about the case. Have a little faith. I wouldn’t be discussing date night in the middle of an investigation.” I take one last bite of my pizza, savoring the taste, before I say, “Actually, I might have a solution to our persistent manpower problem.”
Ella plants her elbows on the table and leans toward me. “Wait, really? Please tell me you’re not exaggerating.”
“I’m not exaggerating.”
“What’s the source of this manpower?” Desmond asks.
“The Aurora PD,” I say.
The room falls silent.
And then Amy chuckles out, “You’ve got to be joking, Kinsey. The cops hate our guts.”
“True. But they also have an interest in keeping Aurora safe.” I move my plate to the left and set my phone in its place. “You guys remember my kidnapping last year, I’m sure.” Everyone cringes at the mention of my McKinney nightmare, but I don’t let on that I notice their discomfort. “And you also remember, I’m guessing, how a cop found me at the construction site, on the verge of hypothermia, and kindly gave me a lift to the infirmary. Well, that cop was a detective, Matt Lassiter. A smart detective, who cleverly conned me into revealing the truth about the supernatural.”
“Cal!” Ella says. “You’re not supposed to share that information without permission.”
I shrug. “Look, Lassiter struck me as a trustworthy veteran detective, so I let him in on the ‘grand secret’—and now that choice has paid off. Big time.”
Riker says, “That message you received is from the detective.”
I sit a little straighter in my chair, grinning. I’m too tired and sore to appear smug, but my teammates catch the drift. “Yep. On the way back to the office, while Cooper was grabbing the pizzas at Fernando’s, I sent a string of messages to Lassiter, explaining the truth about what h
appened at the convention center, and how we’re in dire need of more boots on the ground to hunt down the perps and bring them to justice and yada, yada. Anyway, Lassiter just got back to me. He says he has twenty cops—six detectives and fourteen uniforms—that he can muster to help us find Feldman.”
Ella smacks her palms on the tabletop. “Twenty more?” Excitement surges through her voice. “With that many additional hands, we can have our three teams—Ramirez, Delarosa, and Naomi—on the active manhunt for Feldman, while we lead the building inspections. We’ll split up into five groups, four cops per group, plus one DSI agent to handle any supernatural elements we stumble upon during the searches. Each team will take two or three of the twelve locations, and as long as we don’t dilly-dally, we should be able to effectively check all the potential target sites and evacuate any ward-rigged buildings…with plenty of time to spare before the deadline.”
“While I’m not fond of working so closely with the Aurora PD”—Riker rolls his chair back and grabs his cane—“the urgency of this situation necessitates we accept our best option.” He rises and strides around the table toward me with his uneven gait. After looming over me so long I start to squirm, he suddenly swipes my phone, reads the text message himself, and clicks through to my contacts to call Lassiter.
Lassiter picks up after a couple rings, and Riker takes command of the conversation, explaining everything about the Feldman case in detail and how we’re going to split our forces to secure all the locations of interest and ensure the safety of the citizens. For the most part, Lassiter doesn’t contribute to the discussion, but what few words filter audibly back through the speaker imply that he agrees with Riker’s assessment of the situation and our general plans for thwarting Feldman’s plot. Riker gives Lassiter a polite but clipped goodbye, hangs up the phone, and sets it down in front of me in the exact spot he snatched it from a minute ago.
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