Meta Marshal Service 2

by B N Miles

  He felt her go still. Then he felt her start to twist.

  Jared stepped back as the fox monster twisted and melted into Cassie. Her animal body rippled and changed as muscle and bone and organs reconfigured themselves. It took about twenty seconds, but when it was finished, she was back in her human shape, naked and gorgeous. She fell to her knees with a groan. Jared fell down in front of her, wrapping his arms around her beautiful naked body. Her firm, perky breasts pressed up against him. “I have you,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”

  “Jared?” She nuzzled his neck. “Oh my god. I was so scared. And then I shifted and I was just… wild. I couldn’t think straight. It was all just fear and instinct. I’ve never… I’ve never lost control like that before.”

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re fine now. It was just the Goblins, just all their fear magic at once. It overwhelmed us.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Just a whole lot of damage.”

  “Did I hurt anyone?” The terror slipped back into her voice.

  “No,” he said. “You’re okay. Everyone’s okay.”

  Jessalene appeared then, kneeling next to them. She hugged Cassie and pulled her close. Jared stood and turned to the human still standing there, his eyes wide, seemingly unable to move.

  “Well, sir,” Jared said. “I suspect you’ve never seen anything like that before, right?”

  The man shook his head.

  “Do me a favor and stay right there. I have some people that can fix this mess right up.” He grinned at the guy. “You’ll be right as rain and back to doing… whatever it is you do very soon.”

  Jared took out his phone and called Wyatt.

  9

  Jared jogged to the car and got spare clothes for Cassie. He drove back, picked the girls up, and pointed at the human in the polo shirt. “Don’t move,” he said. “It’s not safe. Stay here.”

  The guy stammered something but didn’t move. He gave the clothes to Cassie and she pulled them on, a pair of sweats and a long sleeve gray shirt, before the girls got back into the car. Jared turned around and drove off, his tires screaming as he pulled out into traffic. He turned left at the light and flew into the garage’s driveway. He slammed on the brakes and jumped out, anger flowing through him.

  The truck was gone.

  “What are you doing?” Jessalene asked him as she got out next. Cassie was curled up in the back seat, and Jared could feel her aura, the warmth of it, but also the anxiety she was trying to suppress. He knew how upset she was, as she never let her aura just slip out.

  “We need to go through this garage before Wyatt gets here,” he said. “Once the Marshals arrive, we won’t be able to search as easily.”

  Jessalene grinned at him. “I thought we were going by the book?”

  “Fuck the book,” Jared said. “Those little Goblin fucks hurt Cassie.”

  Her grinned turned vicious. “Damn right.”

  He turned and headed into the garage. He heard the girls talking outside, and a minute later, Jessalene joined him. Together they stood there, staring at the mess.

  The place looked ransacked, like the Goblins ripped through it, looking for anything valuable. It was even more of a mess than it had been before, and neither of them moved.

  “Where do we start?” she asked.

  “You take that side, and I’ll start over here. They couldn’t have gotten everything.”

  “Too much of a hurry,” she agreed.

  “Is Cassie okay?”

  “She’s fine,” Jessalene said. “Just getting herself together. She’ll help in a second.”

  Jared nodded then got to work.

  He was angry. Not because the Goblins had gotten him with their fear magic, although that didn’t help; he didn’t love being manipulated like that.

  No, he was angry because they set Cassie off. They made her shift, confused her, made her wild. He could only imagine what she just went through. From what he understood about Weres and Shifters, when they were in their animal form, their thoughts were… more animalistic. They were still themselves, but their bodies changed, and the mind is a part of the body, or at least influenced by the body.

  In an animal shape, the mind becomes more animalistic.

  And a terrified animal is dangerous.

  Cassie must’ve been losing it in there. Jared was lucky she hadn’t tried to rip him to pieces when he touched her, which said a lot about their relationship.

  He clenched his jaw. Fucking bastard Goblins were going to pay for this. Next time he saw them, he’d be ready for their fear shit.

  They began their search. Jessalene started on the far side of the building, Jared taking the near. Cassie joined them after a few minutes. Jared kissed her lips and she nodded to him. “I’m okay,” she said, and got to work.

  Jared stepped over a stack of old tires, skirted some fast-food wrappers, and started rifling through the desk. It was covered with oilcans, funnels, filters, rubber gloves, and what looked like the remnants of a book someone had ripped into pieces. He opened the drawers and found an old sandwich, moldy and half-eaten, several broken yo-yos, loose CDs, a stack of sharpened pencils, phone chargers, and at the very bottom of the bottom drawer, what looked like an address book. It had a black cover and was spiral bound. He flipped through it, finding mostly random local addresses, probably clients, until he got to the middle of the book.

  He frowned. A page had clearly been ripped out. Little bits of paper were still stuck in the spirals, so someone was in a hurry or wasn’t being careful when they did it. He stared at it for a long moment before pulling a page from the very back of the book.

  “Jessa, come here for a second,” he said.

  She seemed all too happy to stop rifling through a stack of old rusted bumpers to walk over. “What’s up?”

  “Can you clear off a spot for me?”

  She shrugged and moved some of the junk on the top of the desk over. He put the notebook down, put the paper he just tore out on top of the page underneath the missing one, and grabbed a pencil from the drawer. He used the side of the point to gently rub down the length of the paper, spreading the pencil lead out in a wide and even layer until an address began to appear, picking up the indents from the page below it.

  Jessalene laughed. “Is that for real?”

  “Sure, you’ve never seen this before?”

  “Of course. I just didn’t know it actually worked.”

  “Usually doesn’t, but whoever wrote in this thing pressed down as hard as he could.”

  “Goblins,” Jessa said.

  Jared held up the page. Unlike all the others, it was an address in the city. He frowned at it for a long moment. “This could be a lead,” he said, folding the paper in half. “Come on, let’s finish up.”

  She nodded and got back to work.

  They scoured the whole place. Cassie reported nothing unusual, except that the Goblins were absolutely disgusting. Jared found much the same. It seemed like they lived in the garage. He found dirty, stained mattresses lined up on the floor in a back room next to an office. The room had clothes thrown all over the place and more trash. An old TV sat in the corner, its round glass screen tuned in to some news channel. The bathroom was a wreck, but there were toothbrushes in the cabinet. The tub was ringed with slime, and something black was growing on the ceiling. He made a face but counted six brushes in all, which suggested that six Goblins lived in this little garage.

  No wonder it was so disgusting. They fixed lawn mowers ten feet from where they slept.

  Jared wanted to go through more, but the sound of cars pulling up outside made him stop. He gestured for the girls to follow him and they stepped out the front door.

  A door slammed as Wyatt got out of a dark sedan. He took off his sunglasses and glared at Jared for a long moment before shaking his head.

  “What’d you do this time?” he asked.

  “Goblins,” Jared said. “Not my fault.”

  “
Sure as hell seems like your fault. Where’s that storage unit?”

  “Up the road. You’ll see it, tucked back behind a pizza place.”

  Wyatt barked some orders, and one of the cars peeled away, heading out to do damage control. The other cars opened up and MetaDept guys spilled out, combing the front lawn before heading inside.

  “What happened?” Wyatt asked.

  “We were following a lead,” Jared said. “Checking in on these Goblins. I guess they got spooked and used their magic on us.”

  Wyatt grimaced. “Fear magic. Nasty stuff.”

  “Jessalene was wearing the body armor and that counteracted the worst of it. I held it together long enough for Jessa to calm me down. But Cassie… she didn’t stand a chance, sir.”

  He nodded, frowning over at her. “Goblin magic is rough,” he said. “Dealt with that a few times myself.”

  “She shifted in her panic and that just made things worse. I managed to calm her down, but she’d already exposed herself to a couple of civilians at that point.”

  “And done some damage.” Wyatt shook his head. “I remember when you were my star agent. Never made a peep.”

  “I remember when I had a desk job.” Jared gave him a look.

  “Times change.” Wyatt looked around. “This the Goblin’s place?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “All right. We’ll search it and see what we find. Meanwhile, you and the girls get settled, we’ll have to do some debriefing. And you’ll have another mountain of paperwork.”

  Jared grinned. “Sounds good.” He walked over to the girls, and they all leaned up against Jared’s car and watched as the MetaDept guys swarmed all over the garage.

  “What do you think?” Cassie asked.

  “They’ll strip it bare,” Jessa said. “But they won’t find anything.”

  “I think you’re right.” Jared leaned against Cassie’s side. “Did those Goblins strike you as particularly careful?”

  “No,” Cassie said. “Jessa?”

  “Not at all.” She frowned. “But we still found nothing. If they were involved in kidnapping an Elf, you’d think there’d be something, right?”

  “Makes sense to me,” Cassie agreed.

  “All we have is an address.” Jared crossed his arms and watched the MetaDept guys work. He left the notebook inside the drawer, and they’d probably find it. But he doubted they’d think to do the pencil-rubbing trick. As simple and obvious as it was, that sort of thing wasn’t in the MetaDept handbook.

  “It’s something, at least,” Cassie said.

  “I just can’t help but think there’s more to this.” Jared looked at her. “More than just these Goblins involved. I mean, someone must be running them. There’s no way they could’ve grabbed an Elf as old as Wen Bet without help.”

  “I agree,” Jessalene said. “It just makes no sense. They panicked as soon as we rolled in.”

  “We’ll find them.” Jared hoped he sounded confident, even though he didn’t feel it.

  All they had was an address that could lead anywhere. It could easily be another customer, although he didn’t think so. All the other addresses were local, but that one was deep in South Philly, at least an hour away on a good day with no traffic. There was no way these Goblins were driving into the city just to cut one city lawn, assuming the address even had any grass at all.

  “Did I hear Wyatt mention paperwork?” Cassie asked, leaning against him.

  “Oh yeah,” Jared said.

  “Lucky man.”

  He grinned at her, put an arm around her shoulders, and hugged her tight. They’d come close to losing her back there. If she hurt one of those civilians, they all would have been toast.

  But it hadn’t happened. Jared calmed her down and brought her back to herself. If they were going to keep pursuing these Goblins, he’d have to get them more body armor to counteract their fear magic. Otherwise, Cassie would go on a rampage in the city, and that would be the end for them.

  “Come on,” Jared said, pushing back against the Need he felt snapping at his brain. It wasn’t as intense or as distracting as it had been in the past, which meant he might be getting stronger. The idea both excited and horrified him. “Let’s go debrief with Wyatt. I think he’s ready for us.”

  He took Jessalene’s hand, surprising her a little, but she smiled at him. They walked over as a group.

  10

  The next day was a mandatory office day. Wyatt made that clear, and Jared wasn’t about to test his Captain. He kissed the girls goodbye and headed in early to start on the paperwork.

  Harold was there as Jared slipped into his cube. The old detective looked over the divider and grunted a good morning. He had bags under his eyes, and his tie was loose around his neck.

  “What are you in so early for?” Jared asked.

  “Been picking up some of your slack.”

  Jared frowned. “Really?”

  “Captain’s orders. You’ll never get it all done. Hey, do you really have two girlfriends?”

  He ignored that. “Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, sure. Not my call, though. I’d probably just hang you out to dry if I could.”

  “Glad you’re not my partner, then.”

  He laughed and sunk back down to his desk. Jared made some coffee and dove into his job.

  The address in the city kept bothering him all morning long. He pushed it out of his thoughts the best he could. His paperwork had to get done, and Wyatt kept checking in on him, pretending like he wanted to make sure Jared wasn’t still spooked from that fear magic. Really, Jared knew Wyatt just wanted to make sure he was dutifully filling out forms.

  By the time lunch rolled around, Jared couldn’t take it anymore.

  He grabbed his laptop and hid in the break room. The place was empty, so he called up Jessalene. “Hey,” he said when she answered. “You busy?”

  “Not at all.” She sighed. “Been just sitting around here trying not to let Cassie’s optimism infect me.”

  He laughed. “Listen, get your computer. Let’s do a little searching for a second, okay?”

  “Sure.” She perked up right away. “Hold on a second.”

  He waited and sipped his coffee. He could probably do this just as easily alone, but he knew Jessalene wanted to be involved. She came back a minute later, breathing right into the phone. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  He read her the address as he typed it into Google. “I’ll do a street view. You tell me what comes up in search.”

  “Got it.”

  He pulled it up on maps and dropped into street view. It looked like any other South Philly neighborhood, with row homes stretching down the block. He moved the perspective along until he found the address and adjusted it.

  “Looks like… huh.” She laughed. “I think it’s a pawnshop.”

  Jared stared at a storefront with large windows. The name of the place was written in paint along the top. Golf clubs, a wedding dress, a group of solid gold rings, and a collection of video game systems decorated the front display. “Is it called ‘Payloan and Pawn?’”

  “That’s it, yeah.”

  He sighed. “Great.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s one of those payday loan places. You know, they give you a loan on your check at like 20% interest, but if you need a payday loan, you’re never paying that interest back, let alone the principal. Those places are total scams.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised. What do you think a bunch of Goblins with a lawn mowing business need with a place like that?”

  “No clue,” Jared admitted. “It’s a pawnshop too, right? They could be stealing shit from customers and pawning it.”

  “Maybe.” He heard Jessa typing. “Looks like there’s a review on Yelp.”

  Jared laughed. “Really?”

  “Seriously, here. Let me read it.” She cleared her throat. “Payloan and Pawn is a nice little shop tucked back into a cute, qu
iet neighborhood. The loan terms are fair and industry standard, and the shop’s selection is varied and fascinating. I highly recommend you go in and meet the owner, Arman Kozlov. He is a man of fine taste and sensibility.”

  Jared groaned. “I wonder who wrote that.”

  “I’m betting it was Arman.”

  “But we have another lead.”

  “Already on it.” He heard more typing. “Huh. Not much comes up.”

  “Social?” Jared typed the name into Google and scrolled down. “Nothing. Huh. Think that’s his real name?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t you have some government database?”

  “I do,” Jared confirmed. “But I don’t want to use it if I can avoid it.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t want the Medlar tracking what we’re doing.”

  “Ah,” she said, her voice quiet. “Right. I forgot about them.”

  “If we can keep this unofficial, that’ll be good for everyone. Including Wyatt.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Do you know what happened to Lumi?”

  Jared was surprised to hear her ask. As far as he knew, she had no particular love for the Magi woman. “Punished, last I heard,” Jared said. “But I doubt anything too bad. I mean, you saw what she can do.”

  “She saved our lives.”

  “I know,” he said. “I doubt we could’ve handled Ferric on our own. When she crawled out of that crater…”

  “I know.” Jessa sighed. “I still hate her. But I feel like I owe her, too.”

  “You don’t,” Jared said. “I think she considers us even.”

  “Maybe.” He heard more typing. “God, this Arman guy has nothing. That’s a little weird, right?”

  “Not necessarily. If he’s a Meta keeping a low profile, he wouldn’t want any social stuff out there.”

  “True.” She typed some more. “All right. I’m going down this rabbit hole, and I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “Good. I have a mountain of paperwork and Wyatt’s been breathing down my neck.”

  “Really? You seem like you have a good relationship with him.”

  “I do.” Jared frowned down at the computer and closed out of his browser. “He gave me this job when not many people would have.”