by WB McKay
"Oh, I've had my friends out checking on the progress of the pirates since we left the restaurant. But we probably should go see how my brother is doing with the scroll." She took a moment to confer quietly with what appeared to be thin air. "Also, you really should have brought this whole conspiracy situation to me a lot sooner."
That was getting to be a theme with the Kinneys. "Next time I will," I said, and I meant it. I really didn't want to keep my friends at arm's length any more.
"And I'll make sure of it," said Ava, muttering under her breath. "I'll have to keep a better eye on her from now on. Then stuff like this won't happen."
"Oh no you don't," I said loudly, making Ava jump. She really hadn't expected me to hear her. "Keep your ghostly creepers to yourself, scary lady."
I wasn't going to be able to take a shower for a month without feeling like somebody was watching me.
"Isn't that why you come to me? So that I'll send my 'ghostly creepers' out to spy?"
"On other people. Spy on other people."
Ava got that distant look in her eyes that said she was communing with ghosts. When her eyes cleared for a moment she turned back to me like she'd forgotten we were in a conversation. "Oh, we can discuss your moral compass later, Sophie. I'm busy."
"But hey, wait." My brain finally caught up with what she'd said about bringing her the conspiracy. "I'm asking for your help on the quest, not with the council member thing. You should stay away from Erik Bresnan. Don't send your friends after him."
"You don't tell me what to do, Sophie Morrigan."
"Okay, but you're not going to do that, right?"
"I'm busy." She waved a hand, dismissing me. "I'll be seeing you shortly."
Right, yeah. One more thing to worry about. "Okay. We took Art's car and it only seats two, so meet us at MOD when it's safe for you to drive."
She didn't answer, so I sent the same message to her in a text and walked out the door. Art followed, his lips pressed into an amused grin.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Despite Ava's delayed departure, she pulled into MOD right behind us. She drove like a woman possessed, and maybe she was. Also, Art drove like an old man on a scenic drive. We made our way through the MOD office until we came to the stairs in the back of the building.
"Art, why don't you help Ava find her brother in his lab. It's about time for me to meet with Enid. I'll find her and join the three of you shortly."
Dispatch was only one floor up and a couple of doors away from the stairs. I rapped on the door and received a muffled "Come in," as a reply.
I opened the door to find Enid wearing a call center style headset. She was surrounded by shelves that had previously held tons of radio equipment used to keep in touch with the various MOD teams out in the field all over the world. Now they were littered with snack food wrappers, empty energy drink cans, and thick leather-bound books. The communications part of the room had been consolidated into a single computer with a triple monitor setup. While many of the fae loved the convenience of the information age, most of them were still hesitant to digitize all of the ancient knowledge that had been passed down in written form over the millennia.
"Just pull the pin and throw it at the thing you want to blow into a million pieces," said Enid, letting out a frustrated growl. She smashed a big red button on her phone labeled 'BFF' and looked up at me with a wry grin. "I give it fifty-fifty odds that the moron tosses the pin and blows himself to pieces. I'm almost done here. Give me two minutes to close up all my programs. If I don't, the next moron will change all my settings and then I'll have to show him how a grenade works from the receiving end."
Enid switched through a dozen different programs in the span of a few seconds and then stood and wrapped up her headset, tucking it away on a shelf labeled with her name. "Ready to go," she said, tossing back her dark curls and fixing me with her brown gaze. "It is good to see you, Agent Morrigan."
"It's good to see you, too, Enid."
She smirked at that. "You do remember my name."
"You worked hard to make sure I wouldn't forget." She'd tried her best to guilt me about not knowing who she was, but mostly I meant her whole attitude. She was good at her job, and she didn't tolerate anyone who failed to notice that. Or at least she didn't tolerate me when I failed to notice. The sea nymph had some fire in her.
"So," she said. "Are you going to tell me what this super secret project is, or are you going to order me to march headfirst into unknown dangers?"
I pressed my lips into a firm line and shook my head. "We'll get to that. What we should talk about right now," I said, ushering her out of the office, "is how we are going to keep you from being stuck in dispatch for the rest of your career at FAB." We walked down the hall and into the stairwell. "Or is that where you would like to stay?" I aimed for neutral, but I'm pretty sure it came out as thinly veiled disgust.
"Hey!" replied Enid, shooting me a glare. "Dispatch is a very important function in FAB operations. If it weren't for dispatch there would be fifty percent higher mortality rates on active missions."
Maybe my disgust wasn't so thinly veiled. "You didn't answer my question," I prompted, pushing the down button on the elevator.
Enid rolled her eyes. "Nobody stays there permanently on purpose. It's where careers go to die, but it is a vital function. What I do matters. I won't have anybody talking shit about it."
"How much time do you spend there in a given week?" I asked. The elevator arrived and we stepped on. I pressed the button for the basement.
Enid's brow crinkled when she looked at the button panel, but she didn't comment. "About forty hours in dispatch. I get about thirty hours in MOD training on top of that."
"If you can afford it, you should cut your hours in dispatch down to fifteen a week, max, and do your best to get up to about sixty in MOD if you want to officially join the team."
Before I even finished my sentence, Enid was shaking her head. "Hammond won't give me that many hours in MOD. I've been asking for a long time."
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. I stepped out and Enid followed me. It was easy to tell she wanted to ask where we were going, but she was biting her tongue. "Lesson number one of working at MOD: It's always better to ask forgiveness than permission. When you ask, it's easy for them to point to tiny budgets and deny your request. If it's already done, the worst they can do is give you a reprimand, and it makes them look like assholes to reprimand someone doing a great job."
"Hmmm," said Enid. "I come from a more structured era."
I quirked a brow. That would explain the extraordinary patience she was having as I led her into what looked like a horror movie set. I'd made the mistake of judging her age by her looks and her new position at MOD. Not everybody started working at MOD at the age of seventeen like I did. "What era would that be?"
Her wry smile returned. "I believe they now refer to it as antiquity."
"You don't talk like someone from antiquity."
Her answering smile was a proud one.
I looked her up and down. She appeared every bit the part of a mid-twenties hipster. Skinny jeans, t-shirt for a band that I'd never heard of, glasses that were too big for her face. I had no idea what officially counted as antiquity, but I was guessing it involved things like corsets and petticoats. "Well, you've adapted to meet modern style trends. It's time to push your career etiquette into the twenty-first century."
"How would you suggest I go about that?" Enid asked when I stopped in front of Owen's door. It now had an engraved metal plaque next to it reading "MOD Research Laboratory".
"You could do what I do and toss all ideas about what's proper in a given situation out the window. Then when somebody calls you on it, ignore them completely." I guided her through a couple of rooms until we were in the one Owen said was free of surveillance. "There, now we can talk freely."
"Good. As much as I appreciate you trying to help free me of dispatch, I'd prefer to know what this job is." She surveyed
the stacks of books. "Why are we down here?"
I paced the room, trying to sort through my thoughts. "I've been given permission to put you on a team I'm assembling, the full details of which are very sensitive. I've brought you here because we won't be overheard, and Owen Kinney is part of the team. Ava, a longtime consultant of mine, and Agent Art Fisk are the other members. You would be the fifth and final person on the team."
Enid raked me with her dark gaze. I had a feeling that after my little speech about etiquette, she wouldn't be holding back. "So, you've got some half-baked scheme that you're not going to give me all the details on unless I swear to secrecy. Is that it?"
I grinned at both her phrasing, and her quick assessment of the situation. "Pretty much."
Enid crossed her arms, took a deep breath, and let it out in one big blast. "Tell me what you can while still giving me the option to walk away."
"This case, even if it goes right, may put your career in serious danger. You will have to keep things from Hammond and any other FAB officials that may nose around. If you're incapable of lying, you'd better be very skilled at skirting the truth." I looked to her for understanding and gave her the opportunity to say she wouldn't deceive her bosses. She gave me a solemn nod. "But, this is absolutely the case of a lifetime. An object that until now has been written off as a mere legend. That's all I can say without your complete agreement to join the team and work the case until its completion or your death."
She gave it about ten seconds thought and said, "I'm in."
"That was fast," I said, my tone flat and hard. I needed her on the case. It had serious ties to the sea and she was a nereid, a type of sea nymph. I could use her skill set. I also wasn't sure who else I'd find to fill the spot. But, I had to make sure she understood what she was agreeing to. "You do realize that if I tell you the details of this case, there is no backing out. If I go down because you squealed to Hammond, I will put you down before I go. I have battled my way through Faerie. I can make your head hurt so bad that you wish it would explode to get some relief. I can make you shit your pants in fear. And that's just the magic that I let the general public know about. My mother is a battle goddess with an affinity for death magic, and I've faced her down twice. Betray me, and I will end you."
Enid's expression when I was done with my little speech was inscrutable. There was definitely fear, maybe a little confusion, and what I was pretty sure was a healthy dose of anger. But it was all there and gone within a second, replaced with an impassive mask. As if to make her point about being calm, she walked over to a comfortable chair and leaned back, crossing her legs. "The threats were unnecessary. I don't make decisions like this lightly. When I say I'm in, I mean it. I can take care of myself and I'm loyal. I know who you are and what you've done, Agent Morrigan. If you say this is the case of a lifetime, I want to be a part of it."
I gave her a stiff nod. "Okay then."
I figured the meeting was over when Enid's gaze turned to the side and she got a distant look in her eyes. "And Agent Morrigan?" she asked, but didn't wait for a response before continuing. "You have no idea what I'm capable of, so don't threaten me again."
"Agreed," I said, a tingle of unease running down my spine. I thought for sure I was going to have to use my fear magic to coerce her into joining my team. Instead, all it took was giving her the right information and motivation. The threats had probably almost caused her to back out. I filed that information away for later study.
There was a knock on the door and Owen stepped in before I could respond. It was his own lab after all. "You ready for us?"
I waved him in. "All right. Time to meet the rest of the team and get to work."
CHAPTER NINE
Enid watched quietly while Owen presented the information he'd learned from the scroll. I watched her closely to see the look of surprise when she realized we were going after the Golden Fleece, but it never came. She took everything in stride.
When the briefing concluded, I introduced Enid to the rest of the team. Art asked the question I was pondering myself. "You don't have the look of shock I expected. Did you know the Golden Fleece was real?"
Enid pushed her glasses up her nose. "Of course the Golden Fleece is real. How else do you explain Alexander the Great?"
"Sorry," replied Art. "Not one for human history."
Owen, of course, chimed in. "Alexander the Great was one of the greatest military leaders and kings in human history. He conquered most of the known world by the time he was thirty years old. And he was of Greek origin, as is the Fleece. He gave Enid an appraising look and then turned his charming smile on me. "And nereids have many ties to ancient Greece as well. It was a smart choice to recruit one for the team, Sophie."
"That's me. Always with the brilliant plans," I replied. Sarcasm was a savior. It neatly skirted the edges of the truth. I had no idea that nereids were Greek or that it would matter if she was.
That's when it hit me. This was my team. I was running a team of three as far as FAB was concerned, but I was the leader of a team of five that was going after the Golden Fleece. It seemed so ridiculous that I almost laughed out loud. My life had changed so much in just a couple of months that I barely recognized it. If I pulled this job off, there wasn't anyone at FAB who wouldn't hear about it. My career would be legend. Even if I was pissing Hammond off, finding the Golden Fleece couldn't be ignored.
The thought was enough to make me seriously consider dropping this whole thing. The risk of losing my career had been one thing, but I'd had enough attention at MOD lately and none of it had felt pleasant. I suspected it was the reason my boss was so pissed at me, and it was definitely why I'd been assigned a string of death magic cases before I'd started avoiding getting assigned anything. This was to say nothing of the whispering. I just wanted to do my job, get paid, and go out for an amazing cheeseburger after. Why did things have to be so complicated? No matter how I felt about the whole thing, I couldn't drop the case. Not if I thought I was going to lose my job, and not if I thought I was going to be seen as some freakish success story. Whatever Mr. Supervillain wanted with the Fleece, it couldn't be good. This was a man already responsible for the outing of the werewolves. I doubted that he could conquer the world with it like Alexander the Great, but I didn't want him to have any more power than he already possessed.
"My informants confirm the pirates were at the portal in Volarus that leads to Sayulita, Mexico," Ava said as I tuned back into the conversation. She was looking at Owen. "It will take some time for me to get a response from Mexico to see if we have eyes on the pirates there."
"I'll take that as confirmation I'm understanding the scroll correctly," said Owen. "I'd been hoping the pirates would have a more difficult time discerning the location."
"Everybody pack your sunscreen," I chimed in. "It looks like we're off to Mexico and we're already behind. Gather everything you need and meet back here in fifteen minutes."
"There's no indication what this trial will be," called Owen as everyone scattered to gather supplies. "So bring anything you might need to deal with magical traps and battles."
Thirty seconds later Owen and I were alone in the room.
"So, this should be quite an adventure," I said.
"How much did you miss?" he asked, stepping close and taking my hand.
"Was it that obvious?"
"Probably only to me. I was the one doing the talking."
I lowered my gaze to stare at our clasped hands. "I didn't catch much of anything you said. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry. I was mostly rambling." He raised my chin with his other hand. "And don't worry. You can handle this."
My forehead pressed against his. The intimate contact felt natural, like I hadn't just gone weeks without it. "I hope so, because if I can't, one of you could get killed, let alone the harm Supervillain might do with the Fleece."
My eyes were closed, but I could feel the slight shake of his head. "That's not going to happen." He was quiet for a mo
ment, probably to see if I would argue. I didn't because I wanted badly to believe him. "About this mysterious Supervillain…"
"Yeah?"
"Well, you do understand that I've met him? Personally."
I blinked a few times. That should have been obvious to me. Supervillain knew Owen's mother. Owen likely knew everyone on the council. I vaguely remembered making that connection in the beginning of my research, but in my attempts to not think about Owen over the past few weeks, I'd put a wall around anything that might bring him up.
"I doubt I know anything useful to your investigation," he went on. "Erik is very--"
"Ugh." I shivered. "You call him Erik."
He put a hand to his chest and ducked his head. "Pardon me," he said. "Mr. Supervillain." He paused until I nodded. "Mr. Supervillain is very difficult to get to know."
"Ha!" I threw a hand up. "You're telling me!"
He gently took my waving hand and kissed the back of it, his eyes both laughing at me and smoldering at the same time. It was too much to look at. I was giddy and didn't know that I should trust it.
"Supervillain is a creeper," I said, always one to jump over the uncomfortable moments.
"As I said, you likely already know what I know." Owen leaned back, his eyes never blinking as they watched me. I knew this without ever looking his way.
I cleared my throat. "Shouldn't we get going?"
"You're the boss," he said.
"And don't you let anyone forget it." I marched on my way, walking into a chair and then realizing the door had been behind me the whole time. "I've gotta get ready."
"You do that."
"Mhmm." I turned to smile and wave as I went through the door. When it closed behind me, I gave myself five seconds to be mortified, and then reminded myself that I was a strong, ass-kicking lady. Two seconds of uncomfortable embarrassment because I couldn't handle the way Owen Kinney's smolder lit my whole body on fire was completely understandable. It was to be expected, really. Hell, I'd missed it.
