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Interlude
Agent Jasper Wolfram
I closed the tiger killings case file and sighed. Another job well done… despite the necessary supernatural cover-up. That was… rather unusual. I got up out of my desk chair and looked out the window, taking in my view of Reno. It wasn’t a great one, but it was better than mauled men.
I shuddered, thinking of the time I ran my finger over the tiger’s teeth, completely unaware it would “wake up” and try to rip my throat out.
I’ll never have one-night-stands with witnesses ever again.
“Agent Wolfram,” said a voice behind me. I turned to see a tall man with short cropped hair and a rather pointy face standing in my doorway. He was wearing an extremely expensive looking tailored suit, and he spoke with a strong British accent.
“That’s me,” I greeted, putting a hand on the case file in case he tried to snag it, but trying not to draw attention to my protectiveness.
“My name is Jason Lark. I have an opportunity for you.”
“What kind of opportunity?”
“Did you enjoy your last case?”
“I wouldn’t say I enjoy seeing young men chasing tail getting mauled by rogue tigers, but closing it was pretty great,
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yeah.” I left out the part that “closing it” had meant I’d called in a rather expensive witch from Louisiana to have a curse reversed.
Don’t ask.
“How would you like to work more?” Jason Lark asked.
“What do you know about my last case?” I asked, suspicious.
“I suggest you take my offer,” Lark said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I’m putting together a task force. We need agents like you.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jason Lark. I’m the man who covered up your last case to the public and paid for the witch from Louisiana.”
“Oh,” I said softly, surprised. “It’s… It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said hastily, walking around my desk to shake his hand. He smiled like he knew something I didn’t.
“Get your things,” he said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Turns out that “get your things” meant pack for cold weather. Fucker flew me to Alaska. I left ninety degree weather to hang outside a courthouse when it was forty-five.
“Why are we here again?” I asked, my teeth chattering.
I’d purchased a black wool trench coat, but there was just enough of a breeze to bite through the threads. Damn Alaskans.
“I want you to learn about this case first hand,” Lark said.
He didn’t look cold at all. In fact, he had his suit jacket draped over his arm and was standing there in a blue button up shirt and a tie. “Ah, here he is.”
A young blonde kid, about seventeen or eighteen, was being accosted by the press as he walked out of the courthouse.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He shot a classmate who allegedly stabbed another classmate. But that’s not quite the point. While he was in prison awaiting his trial, he was nearly stabbed to death. His abdominals were completely shredded. However, in two months, he completely healed and gained over ten pounds of muscle. He hardly left the hospital bed.”
“He on drugs or something?”
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“No, he’s clean. We suspect supernatural involvement.”
“So why’d you call me? The tiger case was my first one involving anything weird. I don’t know jack shit about supernatural cases.”
“Tell me, Agent Wolfram, are you a religious man?” Lark asked, watching as the blonde kid was put into the backseat of a police cruiser.
“Not really. I go to church on occasion, though.”
“Do you believe in destiny?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Man this guy is cryptic.
“I want to show you someone else.”
Lark drove me a long ass way up a mountain road (that was paved, thank God) to a cement building I assumed was a high school due to all the teenagers walking out of it. He pointed to a girl who looked about sixteen with long dark hair. She was holding hands with a tall, skinny boy who looked a bit older, with a mop of curly, slightly greasy looking brown hair. He also had a funny little strip of hair growing on his chin.
“That girl can read your mind,” Lark said.
“No way,” I scoffed.
“Her name is Samantha Steele. She’s the girl who got stabbed. She recovered completely in less than half the time it should’ve taken. Her vocals cords aren’t even damaged – and the knife went right through them.”
“So they’re both supernaturally inclined?”
“My colleagues and I have other ideas, but essentially, yes. We think they may be… well, gods.”
“Gods? As in Zeus and Hera?” I laughed. Lark looked at me seriously.
“In a sense, yes.” Lark left the parking lot and began driving to the FBI building. On the way, he explained his research to me.
“My colleagues and I have been watching a suspicious relationship for years now. Every few decades, two people, a man and woman, have near death experiences and recover in record time, becoming stronger than before. And then, two to three years later, one kills the other.”
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“How’d you discover a pattern like that? Couldn’t it just be coincidence?”
“So far, we’ve discovered over one hundred cases in the past four hundred years. Some are barely documented, but we have our resources. We believe two gods are being reincarnated and trying to find and kill each other.”
“Okay, say it’s true. Any similarities between the victims?
Other than the extremely fast healing and all that?”
“Yes.” We pulled up to the FBI building and Lark got out of the car. I questioned him about the similarities again, but he ignored me until we were in his office upstairs. He closed the door and sat down at his desk, motioning for me to do the same.
“You gonna answer me now that we’re alone?” I asked.
Lark placed a photo on the table of a boy with white blonde hair and bright blue eyes – he looked Norwegian.
“His name is Gaute Fredricksen.”
Lark placed another photo of the same boy on the table. It looked like a much older picture – a school photo from what looked like the ’70s. Lark placed a third picture on the table of the same boy. This one was either an excellent Photoshop or pretty old; he was standing with Bon Scott.
But it was certainly the same boy in all three photos. And he was most definitely the same age.
“These two,” Lark began, pointing to the picture of Bon Scott and the school photo, “were taken in 1975. This one,” he held up the first photo, “was taken yesterday outside the high school we just visited.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “The other two must be photoshopped. Or of a relative.”
“You know it’s the same kid,” Lark said, looking at me seriously. “Trust me, they’ve been authenticated. They’re real.
That’s the connection. In every case, we find someone close to the murderer who logically shouldn’t be alive, or at least not so young looking.”
Lark began laying out more pictures of similar situations.
He had an old, old sepia tone photo from one of the first cameras
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and a black and white image; a picture of an oil painting and a clear, color photo; there were hundreds.
“Who are they?”
“We’re not sure yet, but I’m thinking they’re ghosts.”
“Ghosts? Shouldn’t they be white and spooky?”
“The older images have little to no records, but the newer ones are easier to follow. Gaute died in 1976 at age nineteen. Yet he shows up here, in 2010, looking just as young as he did the day he died. The same thing with this guy here, James Carson. He died in 1902, but he
re he is in 1988 having lunch at McDonalds.
Something is either resurrecting these people, or their souls are hanging around.”
“My job just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “So what is it we’re planning on doing with this case, exactly? Do we even have one?”
“This team’s job is to protect those who don’t know they need protecting,” Lark said. “We fight the things that hide in people’s closets and under their beds. These little god battles offer up a hell of a lot of collateral damage. We’re going to put a stop to it.”
“Okie dokie,” I said, slapping my hands on the armrests of my chair. “Where do we start?”
Lark smiled.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
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Chapter Eight
Mitch, Lily, and I were all interviewed again, regarding the night Carl Shaeffer was killed. We told the exact same story: he was raping my sister, my dad came home, my dad killed him.
They bought it, again. But I had bigger problems to worry about.
Much, much bigger problems.
I still had to graduate.
Blaise had pulled a multitude of strings – the guy was practically the puppet master – and got me into East High School.
It was on the opposite side of town, so I had a long drive each morning, but there weren’t a lot of East kid/South kid relationships so no one really knew who I was (well, aside from recognizing me as that blonde guy from TV).
The first few weeks were pretty much hell. Everyone knew I’d been proven innocent and that Jacob was now going through his trial – with very little luck of getting off – but I still got shunned by almost everyone. Most people thought I’d really planned it. I can’t believe they thought I was that smart.
I didn’t see my friends very often. I could have, but I was sort of a seventh wheel. Mitch and Evan were now best friends, which didn’t bother me, except that their girlfriends were best friends, and I obviously couldn’t be around Sam. And then of course Bryce and Cami were in the picture, and, well, if three’s a crowd, seven must be a whole fuckin’ mob.
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So I pretty much hung out with Blaise. He wasn’t really a fun guy. His accent got pretty annoying after a while, and although I learned a lot from him, he rarely talked about anything but the Core or his love of England and how desperately he wanted to go back.
The Core was stationed in England, he told me, and after I graduated, I would have to move there to further my training.
Blaise could teach me the basics here, but he compared it to learning a language – the best way, and only way to fully understand, is to go somewhere where they speak it. So I guess my after-graduation plans were to move to England. Things could be worse, you know.
Oh, I forgot. They actually were. I had an FBI agent on my ass, and I had no idea why.
His name was Agent Wolfram, and he came to my house one afternoon after I’d gotten home from school, a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday. Wolfram was a tall, muscle-y guy with brown hair. If his hair had been curly, I would’ve thought he was Mitch from the future. He had that same better-than-you-but-only-slightly-aware-of-it air about him, and the stupid wannabe goatee. His eyes were brown, but hidden under an extremely prominent brow, and he was very tan with very white teeth.
In other words, he was the hot guy in the office. And he was about to make his career taking me in for… whatever he was trying to take me in for.
“Mr. Bell,” he greeted with a nod and what I assumed was supposed to be a charming smile.
“Guy in a suit,” I said, unaware he was an FBI agent. He flipped open his badge, the smile still solid.
“My name is Agent Wolfram. I’m with the FBI. Can I come in?” he asked, the grin starting to get creepy. I shrugged and opened the door.
“Why are you here?” I asked, skipping the small talk.
“I just have a few questions,” he said with a shrug, taking a seat on the couch in the living room. “Do you have any coffee?
I’ve been up since four this morning.”
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“Do I look like I drink coffee?” I asked, surprised at my own ballsiness. Probably had something to do with the training Blaise had been giving me – it was mostly hand-to-hand combat training, but he’d taught me a few things about putting people in their place.
“How about a soda? Anything with caffeine would help,”
he said, the smile gone.
“We’re out,” I said, plopping down on the chair opposite him. Wolfram stared at me like I’d foiled his master plan. “I’m not leaving you alone to search my living room,” I said coldly, calling him out. He leaned back on the couch.
“Okay,” Wolfram said coolly, “so you’ve been through this before.”
“I watch TV,” I said, crossing my arms. “And if you’re here to question me, I’m sure you know I have done this before.
So what is it you want to ask? I have homework.”
Wolfram reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a photograph. It was of a tall, skinny guy with white blonde hair and shiny blue eyes. “Do you know this guy?” he asked. I shook my head. He frowned and tucked the picture back into his jacket.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“His name is Gaute,” Wolfram answered. “He was born in 1957.”
“That was a good photo for… how old was he? Late teens? Good shot for the seventies.”
“It wasn’t taken during the seventies. It was taken a few months ago – the day before you won your case.”
I squinted at him, unsure of what he was getting at. It was impossible for him to know about Ghosts… wasn’t it?
Blaise had told me about Ghosts. They were Palace servants. Some had higher statuses, like Blaise would be, and served gods and Signs. The Core didn’t have Ghosts; since the Palace was the only place to have access to the Graveyard, recycled souls (Ghosts) were connected with the Palace.
However, Ghosts rarely left the Palace in fear of people noticing them. Unlike the stories, Ghosts had corporeal forms and were
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just like regular humans, despite the fact they would never age.
Most likely, Gaute was…
Sam’s servant.
The realization came as a bit of a shock and my eyes widened. I couldn’t tell where the picture was taken, but if he was here, it was possible that he’d already met Sam and told her what she was. If he had, she would know what I was. Damn the grace period!
But if Sam hadn’t met Gaute yet, I could get rid of him. If she never met her servant, she might never know who she was…
at least not until it was too late.
“Mr. Bell?” I heard Wolfram say. He cleared his throat, interrupting my epiphany. “Are you sure you don’t recognize him?”
“No… I just thought of something important, that’s all,” I said quickly, brushing off his concern.
“Well, if you ever come into contact with him,” Wolfram said, getting a card out of his pocket, “please give me a call. He’s a person of interest in a case I’m working on.”
“Why did you think I’d know him?” I asked, taking the card.
“He knows people you know. I’m sorry I can’t say more.”
I wanted to ask if he was investigating Sam. I wasn’t sure why she would be investigated, but it could be helpful to me.
“I just have a few more questions, if you don’t mind,”
Wolfram said leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees.
“Sure,” I said with a shrug.
“Has anyone new come into your life recently? Since you were incarcerated?”
“Lots of people,” I answered honestly. “My lawyer, the guards, my cellmate… it’s a long list.”
“Your cellmate… the one you attacked?”
“Yeah,” I said stiffly.
“Eric.”
“He’s the one who stabbed you, isn’t he?” I didn’t answer.
I kept my body as still as possible, my glare ice cold. “You don’t
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have to answer that one,” Wolfram said with a sly smile. “I already know.”
“Is there anything else?” I snapped, standing up. I wanted this guy gone.
“The boy you shot – today was the last day of his trial.
He was found guilty. It should be on the evening news.”
“Thanks for the info,” I growled. I already knew this was the last day, but I didn’t know he was guilty. I had testified a few days before. Good to know justice had been served. “Now if you don’t have anything else to ask, I’m going to ask you to leave.”
“One more question, if you don’t mind,” Wolfram said, standing up and straightening his tie. “The girl you saved; have you spoken to her since you were stabbed?”
“Yes.”
“How did it feel?”
“Get out.”
“If you ever see that boy, please call,” Wolfram said with a grin. He threw the picture of Gaute on my coffee table. “You can keep this.”
Agent Wolfram left with what I considered a filthy grin.
He knew he was onto something; he knew I knew he was onto something. But I don’t think either of us knew what that something was yet. Other than plans to kill Sam, which no one but Blaise and I knew about, we hadn’t done anything illegal to attract attention. And the fight wasn’t planned for another year and a half. What was he looking for?
I called Blaise after watching Wolfram’s car disappear down the street. Blaise never told me how he got places so fast, despite my incessant questioning. So, of course, he was there in about two seconds flat.
“We’ve had police interference before,” Blaise said from behind me. I hadn’t heard him come in, so I jumped.
“You gotta stop doing that, man,” I said. Blaise shrugged.
“It’s possible they’ve discovered the War. I’m… not sure what to do about it.”
“I guess that would be my decision, wouldn’t it?” I sighed. I was pretty much the top of the food chain.
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“No… something involving humans that deeply – you said he was FBI? That’s something Lu will have to deal with.”
Night Prowler Part One Page 30
