by B N Miles
“Good morning, Captain,” Jared said, trying to sound pleasant.
“What do you want, Bechtel?” Wyatt said.
Jared kept his smile easygoing and neutral. He could tell Wyatt wasn’t in the mood, which meant he’d gotten a nice, fat shit-sandwich from his superiors already, and it wasn’t even eight yet.
“I just wanted to check in with you,” he said.
Wyatt leaned back in his chair and gave him a flat stare. “You never want to just check in,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Jared hesitated then stepped into the office and shut the door behind him. The space was cramped, with files and folders spread out all over the place, scattered like leaves. Some were piled in neat stacks and shoved up against the wall, while others were haphazardly packed into the several large filing cabinets that lined the right side of the office, making it look like the spine of some steel animal. Wyatt’s desk was small, brown, chipped and peeling, and covered with more papers. Jared waded through the mess and lowered himself into the only chair that wasn’t occupied by file folders.
“I wanted to ask you about a case,” Jared said.
“Yeah?” Wyatt grunted and shook his head. “Which one?”
“Taavi Plains,” Jared said.
Wyatt held his palms up. “No clue who that is,” he said.
“Would you mind pulling his file up?” Jared asked. “I’m not sure who’s assigned the case, but I was hoping I could pitch in if possible.”
Wyatt’s eyebrows shot up. “You want to… pitch in?” he asked.
“Sure,” Jared said. “You know, a little friendly consulting.”
Wyatt stared at him for a few beats, and Jared had to keep the smile plastered on his face to hide the fact that his heart was racing in his chest.
“All right,” Wyatt said, his voice slow and even. “You want to consult on a case. That’s totally normal.”
“Right,” Jared said. “Totally normal.”
Wyatt sighed, rubbed his face again, then turned to his computer. He clicked a few times, typed in Taavi’s name, then clicked again.
“Huh,” Wyatt said.
“What is it?”
“Plethoak, thief, wanted for stealing from—” He squinted then groaned. “Are you shitting me?”
“What?” Jared asked.
“He got caught breaking into the freaking Art Museum.”
Jared tried to suppress his surprise. “Really?”
“That’s what the file says. Broke into some special collections section, slipped past some serious wards, and lifted… an object.”
“An object?”
“That’s all it says.” Wyatt leaned back again and crossed his arms. “All right, Jared. What do you want with this guy?”
“It’s nothing big,” Jared said.
“It’s never small with you,” Wyatt said. “Just be straight up with me and maybe I can help.”
Jared opened his mouth then shut it again. Wyatt had always been in his corner, but lately he’d been more withdrawn, a little bit shorter with him. Jared knew the Medlar were making his life difficult, and all because he chose to try and protect Jared. It was beginning to strain their relationship, and he hated asking for more from his Captain.
But he had nowhere else to go. He didn’t have access to these case files, or at least not to the detail he needed, not without being assigned to the case itself.
The problem was, he couldn’t just tell Wyatt. If he said that he was working for his family on this one, and that they wanted to snatch Taavi out from under the Marshals, he’d never get within an inch of the case. The idea of lying to Wyatt made his stomach churn, and so he decided to split the difference.
“I can’t say,” Jared said. “No really, I can’t. I just… you don’t want to know.”
Wyatt leaned his head back, closed his eyes. “I don’t want to know,” he said. “Meaning this is some Magi shit, right?”
“Right,” Jared said.
“And you know Magi shit always gets me in trouble,” Wyatt went on. “Every time you bring more Magi shit through that door, I get a big, fat, fist in my face, and I have to smile and thank whoever decided to break my teeth. You know that, right?”
“I know,” Jared said. “I really hate to bring this to you.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Wyatt sighed and leaned forward again, his eyes sharp. “You know I’ll help you however I can, right?”
“Of course,” Jared said. “And you know I hate asking for that help.”
Wyatt waved that away. “But if you keep this up, with the Medlar and everything else, I don’t know how much more I can do for you.”
“I know,” Jared said, his voice soft. “I’m working on it.”
“Good.” Wyatt looked at the screen again. “It looks like this case is assigned to an agent already,” he said. “But if you can get his permission, I’ll reassign you. Make sure he signs off on it first though. I don’t want this to be a thing.”
“I really appreciate that, Captain,” Jared said.
“Just, for the love of all the gods, please don’t get yourself in deeper,” Wyatt said. “You have something good going on. I’d hate to see it go to waste.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Jared said. He shifted in the chair and leaned closer. “Who’s the agent?”
“Your good pal Harold,” Wyatt said with an enormous smile.
Jared groaned and shook his head. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope, got assigned yesterday.”
“Fuck. Him again.”
“I know.” Wyatt laughed again like he could barely believe it. The delight in his eyes made Jared want to flip a chair. “It’s almost cosmic justice, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks for your help.” Jared stood and stepped over some stray pages. “I’ll get Harold to sign off.”
“Have fun.” Wyatt shook his head, smiling to himself, and looked at the computer. “What a day already,” Wyatt said as Jared turned and walked to the door. He opened it up and stepped back into the hall that ringed around the cube farm.
He took a few deep breaths. The office was coming to life as more Marshals filed in and took their seats. He liked the quiet buzz of the office, the muted conversations damped by rugs, big cube walls, and squishy drop ceiling tiles. The fluorescent lights used to give him headaches, but now they seemed almost comforting in their harsh but consistent ugliness.
Of course Harold was assigned to this case.
He shook his head, sucked in another breath, and began the trek back to his desk.
7
Jared stood at the junction of his and Harold’s cubicles and watched the older man type something in his email, delete it, type it again, curse, delete it, and type it again. Harold was heavy set, with thinning hair, an old brown suit, and bright brown eyes. His pale skin looked almost pink in the harsh light, and Jared sometimes wondered how someone so soft landed a job at the Meta Marshals office.
Jared cleared his throat, which caused Harold to nearly jump from his chair. He spun around and put a hand on his heart.
“Jared,” he said. “You scared the bajeezus out of me.”
“Sorry,” Jared said, putting on his best smile. “How’s it going?”
“Fine,” Harold said, his eyes narrowed. “You?”
“I’m doing great,” Jared said.
An awkward silence descended.
He was friendly with his cube neighbor. Harold had helped him out recently by taking on some of the paperwork Jared had been too busy to fill out on his own. But that had always been the extent of their relationship, and that was very much by design.
Harold was a little clingy. Jared didn’t know how else to think about it. Anyone that showed even an ounce of interest in Harold would get stuck listening to him talk about model trains, or about teaching Huskies to pull sleds, or about any number of arcane and absurd hobbies that Harold was currently obsessed with. The man could talk, and talk, and talk for hours if
permitted, and Jared had seen more than one poor soul get sucked into the vortex of conversation with good old Harold.
Jared had gotten good at excusing himself for the most part. If Harold got going, Jared would smile, tell Harold that he had to use the bathroom, and walk away. Didn’t matter if there was a bathroom nearby and Harold never questioned it. But after a few fake emergency toilet runs, Harold stopped assaulting Jared, and their relationship cooled into infrequent but friendly inter-cube banter.
“So, uh, what’s up?” Harold asked. “I have to email this lady about a set of tracks I’m building her, and she has all these really specific needs, and I got to say, I’m pretty ticked off.”
“Really?” Jared asked. “You’re building train tracks for people now?”
Harold stared at him, and Jared realized that he’d never once actually asked the man to elaborate on anything.
“I am,” Harold said. “For a few years now. Side hustle, you know. Tracks aren’t usually so bad. They vary by length and general model size, but there are set standards, you know? This lady though, she has all these weird train sizes and needs very particular colors and it’s just—” He stopped himself and tilted his head. “You don’t care about any of this, do you?”
“Oh, no,” Jared said. “But I’m happy to listen if you want to talk.”
Harold looked around like someone was about to jump out from behind the cube wall.
“Uh,” he said, shifting in his seat.
“Listen,” Jared said, interrupting him before the man could get going. “I was actually hoping to ask you about a case.”
Harold let out a breath and looked more comfortable.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“You’re working a case about a Plethoak named Taavi,” Jared said.
Harold grunted and nodded. “Another fugitive,” he said. “Gods, I hate fugitives. They’re always running and hiding.”
“That’s sort of the point,” Jared said. “But Wyatt said I could take it off your hands, if you’re looking to unload something.”
Harold perked up and his eyes brightened. “Really? Again?”
“Again,” Jared said, nodding. “Just hand over the case file and tell Wyatt you signed off on this.”
Harold reached for a folder on the corner of his desk then stopped. He slowly pulled his hand back and looked at Jared.
“How about this,” he said. “You want this case, right?”
Jared tilted his head and got a bad feeling in his gut.
“Wyatt’s assigning me,” he said.
“Wyatt wouldn’t do that,” Harold said. “Not after assigning me. You definitely want this case.”
“Okay,” Jared said. “I want it.”
Harold leaned back in his chair and looked at Jared with a tight smile. He tilted his head and the lights glinted off his bald spot. Jared felt a drop of sweat roll down his back.
“This Taavi isn’t the only fugitive Wyatt stuck me with,” Harold said. “There’s this Vamp named Milton Darwin, knocked over a liquor store and crossed state lines with a few hundred dollars of stolen vodka bottles. You help me find that Vamp, and I’ll hand over this case file.”
Jared shook his head. “I don’t have time to work another case,” he said.
“But you’re friends with the Underlord, aren’t you?”
Jared went very still. He felt his body tense, and he reached out for his magic almost by instinct. He had to stop himself from freezing Harold in place and tearing the man’s chest open rib by rib.
“How did you know that?” he asked.
Harold squirmed and held out his hands. “I’m your cube neighbor,” he said. “I hear pretty much everything you say, you know that, right?”
Jared stepped closer. “And who else knows?”
“Nobody,” Harold said, shaking his head. “I swear, I just overheard you talking to someone on the phone, and you kept mentioning Nikita, Nikita, then it all sort of clicked together after a while.”
Jared leaned close, got in Harold’s face, and tried not to lose his cool.
“My relationship with Nikita isn’t public,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Do you understand me?”
“I understand you,” Harold said. “I get it, I really do. Sorry if I crossed a line.”
Jared took a step back and composed himself. He couldn’t lose his cool, not in an office full of Marshals, and not on poor Harold. The guy didn’t know how deep the pool was that he just dove right into, and Jared couldn’t hold that against him.
“I don’t know what I can do about your Vamp,” he said. “But if I promise to speak with my contact in the Vampire hierarchy, will you promise to give me that case on Taavi?”
“Promise,” Harold said, hands up in the air. “On my life, I swear.”
Jared grunted and put a hand on the cube divider to steady himself. He didn’t like how close he’d just come to using magic on Harold in anger. He knew he needed to get that temper under control.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” Harold said, sounding relieved. “And I promise, your secret is safe with me.”
“I hope so,” Jared said. “For both our sakes.”
He turned away and walked to his cube. He sat down and stared at his screen for a long moment, his mind buzzing through what just happened. He could hear Harold grumble something to himself then start typing again, clacking over the keyboard.
Harold could hear him on the phone. Jared tried to remember the conversations he’d had over the last month with his girls, but he couldn’t recall them all. He knew he’d talked about Nikki to Jessalene and Cassie more than a few times, and he probably mentioned Lumi’s name more than once. That meant Harold probably knew about all of his girlfriends, and probably knew who they all were.
But there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. He mentally kicked himself for being so lax at work. There was something about being tucked away in his little cube that made him feel safe and in control, but that was just an illusion, one that had been shattered by Harold of all people
He tried to force the sinking feeling from his gut, but it just kept settling, dragging him down.
8
Jared leaned up against a dark iron railing at the end of a gray, nondescript stoop, and stared at a set of stairs that led down toward a deep red door. He took a breath, the smell of sewer steam and humidity flooding his senses, as he glanced up at the darkening sky.
He wanted to head home. As soon as his workday ended, all Jared ever wanted to do was run back to his house to see how Cassie was holding up. But tonight, he had some other business, all because Harold had stood up for himself for once.
Damn Harold. That little guinea-pig looking rat-faced asshole.
Jared walked down the steps. He hated heading into subterranean bars. They were a deathtrap in general, not just because they were probably full of radon and tobacco smoke, despite Philly’s ban on indoor smoking, but also because any ambush would lead to a standoff. It was a trap down there, pure and simple.
But Lumi picked the bar, so Jared couldn’t exactly turn it down.
He pushed open the door and stepped into a dimly lit room with sticky laminate floors. A makeshift plywood bar spanned the left side of the room, with red-topped stools lined along its front, and a few booths and tables were on the right. Punk band tour posters and flyers papered the walls, and there was a small stage set in the corner, empty except for an exceptionally beat up drum kit.
Lumi sat at the end of the bar, leaning forward on her elbows. She looked out of place in her tight, dark navy pantsuit, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, her petite face drawn into a scowl as she stared at the beer in front of her. The bartender was a girl with pink hair and more piercings in her ear than Jared had ever seen, and she gave him a look as he sat down next to Lumi.
“Whisky, please,” he said. The girl nodded once and scowled as she poured his drink. He knew he looked like a cop
, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.
He looked at Lumi and nudged her with his elbow. She sucked in a sharp breath like she was coming out of a trance and tilted her head at him.
“Nice place,” he said.
“Nikki likes it.” She shrugged and sipped her beer. “I called her right after we talked.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Apparently the guy in the cube next to mine’s been monitoring my calls.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
“I don’t think so,” Jared said, shaking his head. “He’s harmless, just a little… well, he’s an old doofus.”
Lumi snorted as the bartender put Jared’s drink in front of him. He paid in cash and left a nice tip, just to be sure she’d ignore them to the best of her ability.
“If you want, I can take care of him.”
“No need,” Jared said, and quickly changed the subject before she offered to murder any more MetaDept agents. “How’s the job going?”
She grunted and picked up her beer. She drained half of it in several enormous gulps then plunked it back down.
“Boring,” she said then let out a little burp. “These guys are maniacs. You should see the ward work they want.”
“What’s the business again?”
“Pharma something,” she said. “Antiaging pills based on Elf physiology? Total bullshit, but they’re tangentially involved with my old family, so.” She made a gesture then sighed.
“Do they know who you are?” Jared asked.
“No,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so. They’re second rate Magi at best, you know the kind, third cousins of a second cousin. One of those weird family branches that nobody thinks about until they’re all dead.”
“Why work for them then?” Jared asked. “They can’t know anything about the Medlar.”
“Money’s good,” she said. “I think it’s funded by the family, so, I don’t know, I might catch something if I stick around, you know? And their research is interesting, even if it’s stupid as all hell.”