Strange Magic

by Justin Gustainis

  “A lot of what we’ve got amounts to nothing more than a weird vibe we’ve been picking up from talking to our CIA contacts,” Fenton said. “Colleen noticed it, too.”

  “Something’s in the wind,” Colleen said. “We can tell from the way people clam up when we mention certain subjects.”

  “Everything’s nice and friendly at first,” Fenton said. “Just casual conversation, you know? Then one of us finds a way to work the word ‘demon’ into the discussion and—bam! Everything closes down faster than a whorehouse with the Vice Squad at the door.”

  Colleen looked at him. “I’m not even going to ask where that metaphor came from.”

  Fenton shrugged one shoulder. “TV, mostly,” he said. “I watch a lot of HBO.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s a good answer—I’d stick with that.” Turning back to Morris and Libby, Colleen said, “It wasn’t a fluke, either—happened to us four times.”

  “Five,” Fenton said, “if you count the guy I talked to on the phone yesterday.”

  “Nobody in the CIA knows a thing about demons, and nobody wants to know,” Colleen said. “We were thinking about calling you to report that we’d come up with zilch, when we had some luck. Or Dale did.”

  “I figured since that vampire told you the CIA guys messing around with demons want to use ’em against the Caliphate, it wouldn’t hurt to talk to a few guys I know in the Bureau’s Anti-Terrorism Unit.”

  “That’s right,” Morris said. “The fucking Caliphate’s already sent some American converts back here from Iraq, all primed to commit jihad.”

  “Four lone wolf attacks so far,” Colleen said. “They’ve killed two cops, one off-duty Marine and some woman who was just out shopping. Wounded a few others.”

  “So you talked to some FBI anti-terror guys about demons,” Libby said. “And…?”

  “And nobody’s heard anything about what might be going on now,” Fenton said. “But one guy, who’s been around since J. Edgar Hoover was a file clerk, told me some government-funded scientists are supposed to have summoned a demon—by accident, no less—back in 2002 or thereabouts.”

  “By accident,” Libby said softly. “Goddess save us.”

  Fenton snorted. “I know, right? Supposedly, the thing they brought over possessed one of the scientists, killed all the others, and went on a torture-murder spree along the East Coast, until it was tracked down and stopped by a government agent. Guy almost died in the attempt.”

  Morris looked at Libby with raised eyebrows, then turned back to Fenton. “An agent from the Bureau, you mean?”

  “Uh-uh. He supposedly worked for a federal agency that doesn’t even exist anymore. It was called—hold on.” Fenton pulled out his smartphone and tapped the screen a few times. “Yeah, that’s it—the Office of Scientific Integrity.”

  “Never heard of it,” Morris said.

  “Neither had I,” Fenton said. “I looked it up, though. It was a small operation that was phased out during the Bush administration—the second one.”

  “It doesn’t sound like the first place you’d look, if you wanted somebody who could chase down a demon-possessed serial killer,” Libby said.

  Fenton nodded. “I know. Their brief was investigating fraud by people with government research grants. The project that supposedly brought the demon over was government-funded, so that’s how this scientific integrity outfit got involved. But apparently the dude they sent was no pencil pusher. Former Navy SEAL—fought in Vietnam, supposed to be some kind of real badass.”

  “Wonder what he was doing investigating Ph.D.s who’d fudged their data?” Morris said.

  “Beats me,” Fenton said. “Maybe he got tired of all the killing.”

  “Does this Rambo have a name?” Libby asked.

  Fenton glanced at his phone again. “Yeah—Michael Pacilio.”

  “Wonder where he is, after all this time,” Morris said. “Or even if he’s still alive.”

  “Turns out, I can help you with that,” Fenton told him. “There’s a huge central database for all federal employees, living and dead. Goes back to 1961—seems like somebody in the Kennedy administration started it. Not everybody has access to this beast, but my FBI creds got me in.”

  “And Pacilio was in this database?” Morris asked.

  “Yeah I found him—and also found out that the guy died in 2011—cancer.”

  “Shit,” Morris said.

  “Yeah, I know,” Fenton said. “Sounds like he might have been a good guy to talk to about our current problem. However, all is not lost.”

  “How do you mean?” Libby said. “The man is either dead, or he isn’t—and I don’t do séances. They’re all fake, anyway.”

  “Oh, Mister Pacilio’s dead—no doubt about that. But I wondered about the organization he worked for, this Office of Scientific Integrity.”

  “But you told us that was dead, too,” Libby said. “W’s people killed it.”

  “Yes, they did,” Fenton said. “But Colleen had an idea about that, and it worked out pretty well.”

  “Nothing all that profound,” Colleen O’Donnell said. “But it did occur to me that, unlike most people, organizations that die leave files behind. And you know how Uncle Sam hates to throw anything away—he could go on one of those reality TV shows about hoarders.”

  “The records still exist?” Libby said.

  “Well, the thing is, when a federal agency is melded with, assigned to, or eaten up by a bigger agency, all their files go with them,” Colleen said.

  “But the Office of Scientific Integrity wasn’t taken over,” Fenton said. “It was abolished.”

  “So, if the government never destroys records,” Morris said, “where’d they go?”

  “The National Archives and Records Administration,” Fenton told him.

  “I made a few phone calls over there earlier today,” Colleen said. “And the result was both good news and bad news.” She paused.

  “Come on, girl, don’t be a tease,” Libby said. “Give us the good news first.”

  “Okay. Well the good news is that the nice folks over at NARA checked for me, and it turns out that the records of this obscure government agency are, in fact, available there. Anybody with a researcher’s pass can get at them, and you can get a pass right there at the front desk, after filling out a couple of forms. I’ve done it, myself.”

  “I’ve got a funny feeling I know what the bad news is gonna be,” Morris said.

  “If you were thinking that none of the stuff is digitized,” Fenton told him, “then you win the prize, Quincey. Seems nobody thought the Office of Scientific Integrity was important enough to assign somebody to turn their paperwork into something computer-friendly. It’s all still on paper. In boxes, I understand. Big boxes—lots of them.”

  Morris looked at Libby, then at Colleen. “I don’t suppose either of you witches knows a spell that will sort through those records for us magically.”

  “I wish,” Colleen said. “I could sell it to the Library of Congress for a few million bucks and retire. But that’s just not one of the tasks that magic is good for, Quincey.”

  Morris turned back to Libby, who nodded grimly and said, “Looks like we do it the hard way.”

  Chapter Thirty

  THE NEXT MORNING, even though Special Agents Fenton and O’Donnell had returned to their jobs at Quantico, Quincey Morris and Libby Chastain were not, apparently, done yet with the ‘good news/bad news’ paradigm.

  The good news was that the National Archives and Records Administration was located at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, just a few blocks from their hotel. The bad news was that Libby Chastain was allergic to dust, and the basement vaults of NARA do not appear to have been dusted since Dwight David Eisenhower was an up-and-coming young Army officer. Libby began sneezing shortly after their arrival at Public Vault G, which was probably far enough underground to serve as a fallout shelter in the event of nuclear war, if not the Apocalypse.

  “I don’t think I ever
noticed that dust has this effect on you,” Morris said.

  “That’s because we’ve never been anywhere together where the dust was quite this... concentrated,” she said, and sneezed again.

  “Why don’t you work a little magic to help—oh, right. You can’t, can you?”

  “No, I can’t use magic for my own benefit, apart from self-defense. If Colleen were here she might be able to do something, but she’s not, so—fuck it.”

  “Sorry I can’t help,” he said.

  “Maybe you can, cowboy. You’re one of the few men I know who still carries handkerchiefs. Got a spare, clean one on you?”

  “Sure, and you’re welcome to it. But it looks like you’ve got most of a box of tissues in your bag, there.”

  “It isn’t for blowing my nose.”

  “Oh. Okay, here.”

  “Thanks.” Libby opened up Morris’s handkerchief, grasped two diagonally opposite corners, and twirled it a few times. Then she tied the two ends she was holding behind her head, creating something a lot like the masks that Old West highwaymen were always wearing in the movies.

  “This should keep the worst of it out of my nose,” she said. “But if I hear one Jesse James joke, I’m turning you into a toad.”

  “I thought you told me that white magic doesn’t let you do stuff like that.”

  “Maybe I lied.”

  “Ok, Jes… uh, Libby. Let’s see if we can find the files for 2002. You want to start on that side?”

  The shelves on three walls were full with the cardboard bankers boxes that everybody uses for storing files. They were organized in no particular way that either Morris or Libby could ascertain. There were agency files, personnel files, financial records, and a number of boxes labeled simply ‘Misc.’

  After about two-and-a-half hours, they realized something was wrong.

  They had figured that the boxes marked “Agency Files” would most likely contain what they wanted, so they laboriously lined the boxes up in chronological order, from the Office of Scientific Integrity’s chartering in 1991 up to its dissolution in 2005. They were all there, now lined up in neat rows—except for one.

  “The stuff for 2002 is the only year missing,” Morris said. “Coincidence, maybe?”

  Libby slowly untied her makeshift dust mask. “An ancient Japanese philosopher once said something like, “There are no coincidences—only what is necessary.”

  “Necessary to whom?”

  “To whoever took the fucking box—that’s who.”

  They returned to the main floor and spent twenty minutes talking to Archival Assistant Cindy Ficke, a cute little thing from Savannah, Georgia who did her best to be helpful.

  “No, sir, no ma’am. The kind of files you’re describin’ would not be permitted to leave the building. Uh-uh. We allow people to make photocopies of whatever they want, but the originals, they stay right here—unless there’s a subpoena from a court, or maybe a Congressional committee, o’ course. That’s the only time the records are allowed out of the Archives.”

  Morris gave her his most charming smile. “Would it be possible to find out whether the box we’re looking for has been the subject of a subpoena, Cindy?”

  “Why sure, Mister Morris—I’ll be happy to look that up for you. It’s just take a sec.”

  It took a little longer than a ‘sec,’ but Cindy’s computer informed her that the agency files of the Office of Scientific Integrity for the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Two had never been named in a subpoena by anyone, ever.

  “Only thing I can think of,” Cindy said, “is maybe the ones you’re interested in got misfiled, somehow. We can put a search on ’em, but it might take a while. We’re kinda understaffed at the moment—budget cuts, you know.”

  “How long would ‘a while’ come to, Cindy?” Libby asked. “Just your best guess.”

  “Oh, golly—I’d have to say six months, for sure, maybe seven.”

  They thanked Cindy for her trouble and headed back to the basement.

  “Cute girl,” Morris said in the elevator. “I think she liked me.”

  “I’m sure she did.” Libby was unfolding a small sheet of paper that she’d been holding in her right hand.

  “What’s that?” Morris asked.

  “Hmm. Cindy’s phone number, apparently. Guess she liked me even more.”

  Back in the vault, Morris said, “I guess it’s possible one or more of these damn boxes could be mislabeled. We might have to—”

  “Wait. Stop.” Libby’s brows were knit in concentration. “These boxes are labeled as to the type of records they contain—agency files, finance, personnel, and so on.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s on your mind, Libby?”

  “What was the name of that former SEAL Fenton was telling us about last night? The one who stopped the serial-killing demon.”

  “Pacilio. Michael Pacilio.”

  “Since Mister Pacilio was employed by the agency, he’d have a personnel file, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Morris said. “Yeah, he would, most likely.”

  “I wonder how informative that file might be, assuming we could lay our hands on it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but if it’s anything good, I’m buying you a case of allergy medicine, once we get out of here.”

  “Let’s see if we can dig up the file before we do any celebrating.”

  Twenty-some minutes later, “Morris said, “Bingo!”

  “You’ve got it?”

  “Yeah—Pacilio, comma, Michael J. It’s a thick sumbitch, too.”

  Morris started flipping through the contents and muttered, “Holy shit.” A few seconds later, he said it again—louder.

  He handed the bulky folder to Libby and turned toward the door. “Take a gander at this, will you? I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  “The lobby. The girl said photocopying was permitted, right?”

  “Yes, that she did.”

  “I have to get some change. We’re gonna need a lot of it.”

  “Say ‘Hi’ to Cindy for me.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ONCE THE SECRETARY had told him to go in, Clyde Neale opened the door to Burnett’s office, closed it behind him, and took his customary seat in one of the chairs arrayed in front of the big oak desk. Resolutely low-tech as ever, Neale had brought with him a yellow legal pad which now rested across his thin legs.

  “Well?” Burnett said impatiently. Polite conversation, Neale was reminded for the hundredth time, was not his boss’s strong suit.

  “I’ve checked Leffingwell’s appointments and meetings for the day when someone presumably told him about those ‘forbidden weapons.’ All of them are more or less consistent with mundane Presidential business—except for one.”

  Rather than ask the obvious question, Burnett made an impatient gesture that told Neale to quit building dramatic tension and get on with his fucking report.

  “Senator Howard Stark was our beloved President’s last appointment on that day. Most people, apart from the White House staff, that is, who get face-time with Leffingwell are scheduled anywhere from a week to a month in advance, but Stark’s appointment was made just the day before.”

  Burnett scratched his chin. “What’s so important about the Junior Senator from Ohio that he gets into the Oval on such short notice?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” Neale said. “Stark doesn’t swing all that much weight in the Senate these days. Ever since he came back to the Hill after getting shot, he’s been the equivalent of what the Brits would call a ‘back-bencher.’ He shows up—most of the time, anyway—casts his vote when called upon, and goes home. Doesn’t say much in committee hearings, and never speaks from the floor anymore. The scuttlebutt is that he won’t even run for re-election next time out.”

  “And yet this has-been has the ear of the President.”

  “So it would seem. You know, there were all kinds of rumors flying
around after Stark caught those three bullets in the chest at the convention a couple of years back.”

  “What sort of rumors?”

  “Well, there’s one that goes like this: when the Secret Service agents finally broke into the room where Stark was being held, the Senator was in the process of undergoing an exorcism.”

  “Exorcism? As performed by who?”

  “Don’t know. Like I said, it was just a story going around—one of several, all of them mutually contradictory.”

  “Still...” Burnett drummed his fingers on the desk blotter. “If it’s true, that means Stark has had some acquaintance with demons—or, at least a demon.”

  “Could be,” Neale said. “But that doesn’t give him any knowledge about Project H. Shit, it wasn’t even in the planning stages, two years ago.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Burnett was quiet for a few seconds. Neale fancied he could almost hear the wheels and gears turning in that formidable mind.

  “Maybe somebody who does know something about Project H had a few words with Stark, knowing he’d be more likely to treat it seriously than anybody else in the Senate—or in Washington, for that matter. Somebody who wanted to get word to Leffingwell, but didn’t have the access to the Man that Stark has.”

  “That means we need to know who’s been talking to the Senator.”

  “Fuckin’ A right we do. I want eyes and ears on Stark 24/7, effective immediately. And get his phone records, home, office, and cell—especially for the days immediately before he met with Leffingwell. The phone numbers will give us names, and once we have the names...”

  “We can do the same as I did with Leffingwell’s appointments—look for the one who doesn’t fit in with the others.”

  “Very good,” Burnett said. “I knew there was a reason I was keeping you around.

  “Then let me give you another reason why you should. A couple of FBI agents have been nosing around over here.”

  “Nosing around how?”

  “What I hear is, they’ve only talked to people they already knew. They try to make it casual—nothing like an official investigation, all very friendly. But then one of them brings up the word ‘demon.’”