I nodded and she shrugged her shoulders, probably not as impressed as she should have been. She probably had zero experience with Weres, which explained why JJ’s footprint had freaked her out when her cow had been… molested. It wasn’t aliens, just the local friendly werewolf.
“Ok, I need to debrief you and we need to talk to your fairy—”
“Rose, her name is Rose.”
“And we need to talk to Rose. How long will she be like that?” Vivian asked.
“Probably another hour, then she’ll want a thimbleful of milk and we should be good to go.”
“I don’t want to wait an hour. Sheriff, it was a pleasure to meet you, but now that you know why we’ve been tiptoeing about… time has become a commodity we’re running short on.”
“I always knew there was something about you,” Cindy said and walked over and gave me a hug before turning. “Don’t forget to lock up. Nice meeting y’all. Tom, I’ll be in touch. Maybe when you’re not so busy…”
“Definitely,” I told her, hugging her back hard enough to make her back pop, our faces inches from each other’s.
Vivian made a clearing of the throat noise as Cindy and I leaned in close to each other.
“But… but… who’s gonna eat all this steak?” JJ asked innocently.
“Bye,” she said and gave him an over the shoulder Bubye wave before turning and walking out.
“I think you had that planned,” Vivian noted.
“And yet he still chases off the woman he actually wants to have sex with!” Rose said, sprawled out on her side.
“Excuse me?” Vivian poked the prostrate fairy in the stomach.
She let out a belch, and then a cloud of rainbow glitter exploded.
“Oh, my God,” Vivian said waving her hand in front of her face to clear of glitter, “Did she just fa—”
“Don’t say it,” I interrupted, “It takes the mystique out of the magic.”
With the air out, Rose started snoring again softly and curled on her side, her wings wrapping around her body, covering her shimmering dress except for the bottom of her legs and her sparkling heels.
“Kinda stings your nose, don’t it?” JJ said, and tore a large chunk of meat in half with his hands and started eating, smiling even though he was chewing a large bite.
“It’s disgusting,” Vivian complained.
I grabbed my fork and stabbed a large steak for myself. For half a minute, I thought about how much had actually changed in the past week and I was blown away. Cindy and I had no more secrets, the enforcers weren’t chasing me down like I’d thought and had actually known about me the entire time… and I had a glitter farting, honey gulping fairy, and a werewolf living with me. Oh yeah, and Vivian was kinda hot too.
“That’s kind of gross,” she told JJ as she watched him eat with his hands.
“Tear you a hunk off?” he asked, chewing with his mouth open.
“How about I tear a hunk off of you?” she said sharply.
“Any time,” he replied, grinning, and tossed her a saucy wink.
She turned to say something to him and then realized he was still half undressed, having lost part of his clothing in his transformation. I was mesmerized. Here he’d gone from threatening to kill her, ripping the gun from her hand and basically threatening to eat her face off after tearing out her throat… to flirting? Was it an age thing or was she just so truly hot that—
“Yeah, go ahead, gimme a steak,” she said and grinned at me.
Chapter Fourteen
Vivian gated us to New York, and we stepped from my bunker into what she called a dedicated gate room. I looked around; to me, it looked like a concrete basement with a steel door set into one wall. I almost expected to see one way glass, but there was nothing.
“This is the one I’m assigned; it’s tight, but it works,” she said, and then pointed at the door.
“Boss, try not to walk so fast, my head is killing me,” Rose said from my breast pocket.
“Shhh,” I told her, “Just don’t fart in my pocket. The glitter will never come out if you do.”
“Fairies don’t… Ooops,” Rose whispered.
JJ busted up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, pointing to Vivian already moving out of the room. The three of us followed Vivian out of the doorway into… an office space? Other than the series of numbered steel doors along one wall, the rest of it looked like an office right out of the fifties. Old school honest to God typewriters were working in a cubicle pool area. Old fashioned Bakelite phones were at each desk. The offices themselves were barely better than the typists pool, but the cubicles were a bit taller.
“I was terrified of this place,” I admitted, “and it looks like—”
“Totally that TV show. The really campy one about office workers, but this place is retro,” JJ finished for me.
“Yes. We’re in the basement of the Bureau of Investigations. Mages have their own entrance so we don’t blow out the electronics upstairs. A lot of us gate in. I need to go tell my boss that you’re here. Can you wait for me in conference room three?”
“Uhhh…” I said, looking around.
“I feel like I’m gonna ralph,” Rose said and I felt my pocket stir.
I held my hand out and she crawled onto it and flopped.
“It’s over there,” Vivian said and pointed.
My gaze followed her gesture and I saw where she was talking about. “Come on JJ, might as well get this over with.”
“Um… before you go, is there anything to eat around here?” JJ asked.
Vivian spun to face him, an angry look in her eyes. That was when she saw the young Were’s expression. He wasn’t pulling her leg and she smiled a little bit and nodded. “Yeah, there’s a sandwich shop outside. When we’re done we’ll go have dinner. It’s been a crazy day.”
JJ’s stomach rumbled loudly. I rolled my eyes and Rose snickered without looking around. Then Vivian turned and walked off. I lost sight of her and turned and was careful not to drop Rose, who curled up on my palm. I passed by the typing pool and a couple of the ladies looked over to see what I was being careful with and there was an eruption of questions. JJ slowed to talk to the ladies, but I headed towards the conference room. I knocked, and when no one answered, I opened the door. The was an oval table with ten comfortable leather chairs. I walked to the far end and looked around. White painted concrete walls. Instead of being dank and damp, it was actually a comfortable 70 degrees and there seemed to be a little bit of airflow from a couple of vents in the drop ceiling. It wasn’t lit brightly, though I think that was on purpose. The last thing, was the wall of mirrored glass.
I knew what that meant, though I doubted they could record anything with so many mages in the building. I heard somebody outside burst into giggles and then the murmur of JJ’s voice before the door opened and he walked in, all smiles, and took a chair. I walked closer to the one-way glass and put my face up to it. I looked into the futures where I opened my duffel bag, and shot out the glass. That wasn’t going to end pleasantly for us, so I didn’t do it, and walked over and sat down next to JJ, putting the duffel at my feet.
“There’s about five in the next room,” JJ said, smiling and looking at the window.
“There’s seven, including Vivian.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, “She smells like lilac today. Too many people in one place. I can’t tell how many but I can hear them a little bit…”
“What’s that on your hand?” I asked.
“Oh, one of the typists… she uh…,” he showed me his hand and I saw a phone number scrawled on it.
I grinned and held my palm up to my face as Rose started to stir. I blew on her gently and she rolled onto her stomach and stretched and then slowly stood up, one hand on her forehead.
“Boss, I’m sorry, I don’t know…”
Her words trailed off when I pulled a small round creamer out of my other breast pocket, her eyes riveted.
“It’s the hazelnut,�
�� she said in a small voice.
“Yeah, I couldn’t figure out a way to smuggle enough milk for you before it went bad, so I got into my stash.”
“He’s got a stash,” JJ said and grinned and then leaned back and looked at the door.
“Boss…” she flew over and took the container and landed on the table top.
I was going to offer to help her open it, but she pulled a small dagger out of her belt the size of the head of a toothpick and cut herself an opening and then upended the container. I watched, always amazed at how much the little figure could eat and drink. Sometimes it seemed to be about ten times her body weight. I saw the bottom of the container flex as she sucked the last of it out and then put it down.
“You really are a great boss,” she said and then flew up to my shoulder and landed.
“Why? It’s just coffee creamer?”
“I used honey and Nutella when I trapped her,” JJ said, “all girls love Nutella. It’s made with hazelnuts.”
I snickered and almost busted up when two things happened. First, Rose made an ugly sound and I checked the future to see if she was about to dust JJ, but instead saw that we were going to have company just as she gave him a rude gesture in sign language.
“Game faces on,” I told them both, cutting off a tirade that would be both instructive and inventive with lots of uses of the word dumbass, the f-bomb, and more colorful expressions for a solid handful of seconds.
They both turned and looked at me. I nodded at the door just as it opened. Two men in suits walked in with Vivian, and a third followed behind them. He wasn’t wearing the dark blue or black suits that made me think of the Matrix like the other two, instead he had on a set of robes that looked straight out of Hogwarts. All he was missing was a pointy hat; instead he had a gleaming bald plate. The other two could easily pass as mundanes, but this guy looked like an extra at some kind of cosplay filming.
I didn’t rise to do introductions, instead when Vivian gave our names I nodded at them. She did the same pointing to JJ and then Rose, who had taken to the air and was flying in the middle of the table between the two of us.
“This is Special Agent Brown, and this is Special Agent Samson. Our boss in the back is Rasmussen.”
“Not a Special Agent?” I asked them.
“No, Council of Mages,” he said.
His voice was curious; it was low, but not low like JJ when he was angry. Instead it was almost a James Earl Jones low. I wasn’t expecting that and gave him a smile. Something about him put me at ease immediately. Instead of being wary and ready to run, I was checking the futures for deceit and combat, but coming up empty.
“I see your fairy is recovered sufficiently,” Rasmussen told us.
“Yeah, all the stress from the past week had her on edge,” I said, though I wanted to correct him on me being her owner.
I hated the idea, yet I knew it would be a mistake to announce I didn’t own her in this present company. I had heard stories about the Council of Mages. They mostly left other magical creatures and entities alone as long as the supernatural world was kept under wraps. A rogue werewolf killing innocents, or somebody raising zombies tended to attract attention and they would call on a hunter like me… at least they’d call on somebody who wasn’t retired. I was out of that game.
“I’m perfectly fine answering your questions, Sigmund,” Rose shot back.
The robed mage’s eyes narrowed and he walked closer. “Hermosa?” he asked.
“My name is Rose, given to me by my Master, Thomas Wright.”
“Interesting…” he said and tapped a finger to his chin a couple of times and then walked towards the far end of the table and sat down.
The talk was about as exciting as I expected it to be. They asked me about my childhood, which was very brief. Sigmund Rasmussen took notes at the far end, but said nothing. The other two agents would listen for a while as Vivian poked and prodded gently, and occasionally they’d ask follow up questions. I refused to answer any of the questions about after my had mother died, and only briefly spoke with them about my time as a Hunter, and only cases they already knew about… and then there was the whole ordeal from when I’d been in Korea. I wasn’t enlisted, but I’d been brought in as a specialist by somebody I’d assumed was from the CIA.
I’d been doing much of the same work I’d done globally, except I’d worked with a six-man squad, and our job was hunting down what had been preying on the US servicemen while we were liberating South Korea. It was, oddly enough, changelings - a lot like the Were community. They were a clan of thugs from China and would transform into a hybrid human and lizard right before they attacked. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what kind of rumors those lizard men created from the skirmishes we’d had.
I told them how we’d tracked the nest down and, because they had overwhelming numbers, we’d coordinated a trap with a known to us: aerial bombing.
It had been risky as hell, and when we’d detonated the bomb near their nest, collapsing part of the tunnel system they inhabited, we’d set off smoke at the other end and run like hell. The Airforce had had no idea that we were there, and I’d assumed that was on purpose. We were off the books, expendable. When the bombs hit, the only entrance we’d left open to the changelings was hit with the artillery and bombing runs. Two of the men died by the fiends getting away, and I’d used up all of my ammunition and got out of there, never reporting in.
“That’s why you were presumed dead. We found three of your team members and remains that we thought could have been yours. You went dark for years, though a couple of times a job would come up and somebody in the States took it who operated a lot like you.”
“Yeah, I was done with blatant government work,” I told them, “so it was easier to let the officials think I had died. I ate my last payday to do it, but I’ve been socking money away forever and it was work that needed doing.”
“And Vassago, let’s go over that again—”
“What do you got stuck up your tookus, Agent Sparks?” Rose erupted. “I’m hungry and we’ve been running and gunning nonstop for days now.”
I grinned at the diminutive fairy. I looked over and saw Rasmussen grinning back at us, nodding his head.
“I guess—”
“That is all I really need,” Rasmussen said, and his voice wasn’t loud, but it carried well across the room. “If you all could give me and Mister Wright the room for a moment please, I can finish up quickly before Jeremiah decides to devour one of you.”
JJ let out a big grin and blew a kiss at the shocked agents.
“She didn’t tell them,” JJ said to me, tapping me on the shoulder.
“Yeah, too bad. The one on the left looks like you might have made some good kebobs out of him…”
“Kebobs? I’ll speak with your Alpha about this!” Agent Samson said, not realizing the joke.
“You have been, for hours, and I’m hungry,” JJ whined convincingly.
Both agents looked at Vivian, who then pointed at me. Then, when they looked at me, I nodded.
“Who gave you—”
“Agents, JJ and Rose. Please give us the room, then perhaps we can deal with the rumbling stomach of young JJ here.”
“I don’t mind if you tell them the story,” I said. “Rose, no tricky business, Rasmussen—”
“Sigmund!” Rose insisted.
“Sigmund Rasmussen has asked to speak to me alone. I’m sure he knows I’m going to tell you everything, anyway,” I told her.
She flew in front of me, her mouth opening and closing and pointed a finger at my nose and then huffed, before flying out, following the rest as JJ began the story of the challenge. I swear if she had been walking, she would have stomped out in a huff. I grinned before the door closed shut behind them and I was left alone with somebody who appeared to know way too much about us.
“What do you know about Hermosa… er… Rose?” Sigmund asked.
“I won her in a fight, like I said… other t
han that? I call her the little terrorist, but she’s really more like a spy than a terrorist.”
“Good analogy,” he said, tapping his chin again and then walked over and sat on the edge of the table, his robes billowing around his ankles.
“Best I can do on short notice. Vassago called her a traitor. Got any idea why? Reason I ask, you seem to know too much—”
“I’m a mind mage, and almost two hundred and seventy-five years old. I’ve run into Hermosa… Rose… Sorry, old habits.”
“Yeah, Rose… what about her? She seems to be a known entity with people.”
“Rose is… complicated. If she’s thrown in with you as you indicated, she’s a fierce ally. And I know you well enough from your previous jobs to know you don’t actually own her—”
“Now wait a minute—”
“So, I will keep your secrets since I can see the truth in your own thoughts,” he said, and I STFU and clamped my mouth shut, “and having her as an ally will go far for you. She wasn’t always bound, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“In all due time. Besides, I didn’t stay here to talk to you about a five-inch-tall Victoria’s Secret model.”
I gave him the stink eye, modeled after Dwayne Johnson AKA the Rock. He got the hint.
“I wanted to offer an apology for the Council of Mages’ past conduct, and our continuing conduct, but we need you. More than just identification of runes and their uses; we need you to work with us.”
“Excuse me? What?” I asked, totally caught off guard.
“You have been bait, for the better part of your life,” Sigmund said, “As such, you’ve also not been as secluded as you thought until the Korean incident. It took us some time, but we were able to eventually track you back down.”
I blew out a breath in surprise; I had always felt like I had a target on my back and now I kind of knew why. Paranoid bastards.
“Bait for whom?” I asked, already sorta knowing.
“Vassago, and anybody else from the House of Shadows.”
“What was it I was supposed to have witnessed?” I asked. “I mean, Vassago told me that much because he was doing the evil genius monologue, before he thought he was gonna kill me… but he left some gaps.”
First Sight: The Rune Sight Chronicles Page 15
