by Bob Dattolo
As I soaked, I tried to review my feelings and everything happening in my brain. By all rights, I should be a basket case of emotions right now. My parents intended to kill me. They did kill my brothers and sisters.
Yet I’m not a basket case.
Granted, most of my emotions ran their course yesterday as I sprinted away looking for a place to kill myself. Mentally, I was already gone and just waiting to find a place to lay down and bleed out. I also said good-bye to my brothers and sisters already. That being said, I should be horrified at what my parents did to the kids left there. I should be questioning why I didn’t take some of them with me.
Except I can’t bring myself to do that. Why? Because they might as well be strangers. My parents didn’t condone close relationships between us and actively set things up so that we’d tattle on the others and always be in competition. The two that I was closest with were James and Donna, and that was because they reached out to me. I was too afraid of bucking the rules otherwise. I’m sure some of the others had close relationships, but I wasn’t part of one. Not any longer. My expectation that something bad was happening had been growing for years, so that didn’t help any. When you expect that bad things are going to happen, it doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense to try and get close to the others. They’ll either get you in trouble and punished or you’d disappear like all of the older kids did.
So I’m devastated inside at the realization that my parents are exactly the kind of bastards I feared they were and I’m beyond sad that my brothers and sisters are gone, but that piece doesn’t seem personal. I know that’s wrong of me, but it’s how I feel. They might as well have been other prisoners. I don’t want them to be dead, not in the slightest, yet…yet they are, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
So my emotional field is pretty vacant right now. It stretches out ahead of me as an almost empty space, with only a mound of emotions straining to work through what I am and what’s going to happen to me. The rest of it is just empty. Where it should have been filled with loss and love for my family, it’s just a wasteland, leaving me with selfish thoughts about what happens to me now.
Drying off with the supplied towel and getting dressed took longer than normal since I’m not quite operating at full capacity, but I was still dressed and ready in less than ten minutes. I didn’t know what else to do, so I put the clothes I had on originally onto the dresser where I found the new clothes, and then opened the door. There were men standing outside, one to either side of the door. Both turned in a flash to face me, startling me at their sudden movement.
“Can we help you, Ms. Driscoll?” The dark-haired guy on the right asked.
My heart pounded in my chest from the shock of them moving “I, uhh, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing now?”
The one on the left reviewed something on a phone and nodded before speaking into a little headset. “She’s awake.” I heard a tiny whisper of sound coming from his earpiece, but couldn’t make it out. “If you’ll step back inside, Ms. Driscoll, Special Agent Thorne will be with you in just a moment.”
I debated staying there, but they were both so intent on staring at me that it made me uncomfortable. “Uhh, okay. Thank you.” Slipping back inside, I closed the door, and sat on the bed. Am I a prisoner? Or just a 16-year-old girl in an FBI building that shouldn’t be allowed to walk around without a guide?
Honestly, probably both.
My agent was at the door in less than a minute. He didn’t seem out of breath, so either he ran and is in good shape or he isn’t based that far away. His looks wide awake and far better than when I last saw him. Even his clothes are fresh and look newly pressed.
“Good morning, Ceri.” He stood next to the door and waved me out. “Are you hungry?”
“I am.” I hate that I sound like an eager kid, but that’s what I feel like. The strange mish-mosh of emotions in my head, what little there are, are all kind of jammed together, leaving me an outsider in my own skull.
“All right, follow me? We have a fantastic commissary here.” The guards outside my door were gone, so I didn’t ask about them, simply falling into stride next to him.
“Any word on my parents? Or any of the people they hurt?”
His lips pressed together. “No. We have a nationwide hunt out for your parents, but we’ve been finding some disturbing things that I won’t get into. We lost another four agents this morning when an outbuilding they were in somehow destroyed itself. We’re still not sure how that happened, so we’ve pulled our agents and have four different magical teams studying every piece of the ground. Your parents have layered the grounds there with more spells than I’ve heard about being in any one place. Almost none of them are good ones, either.”
“Good spells? There’s no such thing.”
His smile caught me off guard. “You’re thinking like your parents taught you to think again. Look at it this way. If you have a small child that is bleeding to death and someone casts a spell on them to stop the bleeding and heal them, is that a bad spell?”
It hurt to talk. “No…no, I guess that’s not a bad spell.”
“Right. Spells are tools. A hammer can be used to drive a nail for a hospital or beat someone to death or any number of other things. Spells can be good or bad or neutral. At last count, your parents have more than 2,000 layers of bad spells on your compound. Evil spells. Spells designed in such a way that there is no good from them from our perspective. Some are designed to drain energy and feed it to them. Some are designed to cause confusion or anger or greed. Some are outright death spells. Granted, a death spell used against an attacking enemy is good from your perspective, but not from theirs. That one is subjective, but from what I’ve been hearing…yeah, it’s not good. We’re not sure how long it will take for the wizards to unravel the layers to make it safe. We were able to cut off the lines of connection feeding energy to your parents, but that’s it. Everything else is still there. I believe they’ve made it through 15 layers so far. Your parents are talented. That’s both good and bad.”
“Good and bad?”
“Right. Good because that more than likely means you have the propensity for a strong talent, but bad because it means they will be a nightmare to hunt and take down.”
We turned into a place packed with the smell of food, and the trays of delicious fare made my mouth water.
“Not to sound like someone that doesn’t have a clue, but I don’t have a clue. What’s to stop them from tracking me somehow? Does magic even work that way?”
He handed me an empty tray and gestured towards the line of food. “Good question. You can place tracking spells on people, but it’s not easy. At least not like the books or movies make it seem. The interesting thing is that most tracker spells stop working when the person being tracked dies. That’s why we can’t find bodies very easily. You basically died yesterday in that bin. I have it on good authority that there are remnants of a number of spells in or near it that appear to be tracking spells, among other things, but there’s nothing connected to you now. They weren’t set to hook back up with you again if you came back to life. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a spell do that, but it might be possible. It’s probably not something most people would think to do. Maybe if you came back as a vampire, but not back to life. What you did yesterday is unprecedented by just a bit.”
The bacon and sausage smelled heavenly, so I packed food onto my plate, mounding it, questioning why I was taking so much even as I added more to the pile. I’ve never eaten even half as much as this before, yet I knew I could do it. “I wish I knew what was going on.”
“Us too, Ceri. Us too.” He followed me through to a table, staring at Mt. Food. “Are you really going to eat that much?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. “I don’t know? I think so?” The first bite made me groan in pleasure.
“Do you normally eat that much?”
I didn’t wait until I swallowed, only covering my mouth. I�
��ve been taught not to talk with my mouth full, but I couldn’t help it. “No. Never. I’ve never been this hungry before.” He fell silent and started eating his own food as I plowed through mine. I finished the plate before he was even half done and my stomach growled.
“Are you still hungry?”
Fingering the plate didn’t stop my stomach from growling. “Yeah? I’m not sure why.”
His smile was quick. “You’ve been through a lot. You obviously went through a sudden change yesterday on top of being mostly dead for a while. I can see that you might have a strong hunger after that. Some supernaturals eat more than norms, and I believe you may have been starved quite a bit growing up. Mages eat about a quarter more than norms as a general rule, but we believe you’ve been getting at least a third less than a norm should be fed. Feel free to go up and get more.”
I didn’t want to, but it was all screaming at me to get more. Since I didn’t want to be rude and leave the food hanging, I went through the line and came back with another full tray, getting a shocked look from the agent. “Two plates?”
“I’m sorry.” I wanted to hide but didn’t. “I’m just so hungry!”
He continued eating what little food he had left. “No worries. It’s just a shock. Don’t let me stop you.”
Permission given; I dove into my food. I thought the first plate load was a lot of food, but now I had two plates with more food each than the first one did. Every single bite was delicious, and I plowed it down, eating through it all until I wanted to roll myself away from the table. Either that, or sprint and climb the walls. I didn’t feel over-full or stuffed, though, I felt just right. I should feel like I’m going to pop, yet I don’t. Instead, I sipped my orange juice, wondering where it’s been my whole life.
“Thank you for breakfast. I’ve never eaten like that before.”
“It’s all right, Ceri. Every supernatural has been through strange things. You just get to handle a bunch of it at the same time. I’m sorry about that part, and what’s happening with your family, but you’ll make it through. We’re resilient as a species.”
“Supernaturals?”
“Humans. While a lot of us are supernaturals, we’re all still classified as humans, just with special abilities. The only non-humans are the fey, demons, angels, trolls, orcs, and a number of the rarer varieties. Most of the supernaturals you’ll ever see are humans at some level.”
So I’m resilient? That’s good to know. I guess.
“Now what? Am I a prisoner? Arrested? I don’t have a home any longer and was planning on killing myself, so I can’t say that I really have any long-term prospects that seem worthwhile.” Stacking my plates didn’t distract me as long as I hoped it would.
He watched me pretend to be busy until it was obvious I was stalling. Or trying to. “You’re not a prisoner. You haven’t been arrested. You are, though, in an odd position.”
“In what way?”
“You’re a minor. You’re a minor whose parents are running from the law. Do you have any family members you can go to?”
I thought back through everything I’d ever heard from my parents. “None that I know of.”
“No aunts or uncles or grandparents?”
“No. We’ve had people visit us before, but I don’t think they were really family members.”
“Do you know any of them to be able to live with them?”
That thought made my blood run cold. “Uhh, no. Not at all. I’m not sure I’d go with them if they appeared.”
He cocked his head again. He seems to do that a lot to me. “Why is that?”
Some of the people that visited us still make my skin crawl. “You ever meet someone and instantly think they’re evil?”
“Sort of? I’ve interviewed a number of truly evil people and come across others, so that probably counts.”
“Most of the people that visited us were…yeah, not good. I’d rather you give me that box cutter I left in the warehouse so that I can kill myself right now than go with one of them. If my parents are evil and were hiding it, then those other people just never hid it.”
“Are they that bad?”
I nodded. “It was bad enough that we asked our parents about it and they said that it’s because they came into contact with supernaturals on their way to our house. Then, because some of the evil had to rub off on us, we had to do penance for three weeks for being near them. We never asked about one of them again.”
“When you say penance?”
“Like I mentioned yesterday? Fasting for days at a time. We had to stay in a hot box the entire time. Flogging. None of us wanted to chance upsetting our parents again by saying anything, so we stayed quiet.”
“Why did you have to do that again?”
“Our parents told us it was the only way we could get right and go to heaven.”
He rubbed his face. “Okay, yeah, you’ve had a strange life. But you’re with us right now. My director asked if you’d be willing to meet with her?”
“About what?”
“You’re at loose ends right now and an unknown underage supernatural.” He stood and gathered his things. “She’d like to speak with you about that.”
Do I have much choice in this? I can’t say that it seems like I do. I’m 16. I’m not an adult. I’m still a kid and I know it. Worse, I’m a kid that’s been raised with lies. Now I’m some sort of freak that was dead for seven hours on top of it. I honestly don’t even know what to do with that knowledge, so I keep shoving it to the back of my head, hoping it’ll go away somehow. Then I see the reflection of my black eyes in something shiny and it brings it back out once more to plague me.
I fell into walking with Special Agent Thorne and he brought me through a confusing maze of hallways that made me wonder if he did it on purpose to keep me from knowing where I was going. Or where I came from.
It took nearly ten minutes to reach a heavy looking wooden door with “Director Fitzsimmons” noted on a little sliding plate. He knocked twice, then opened the door without waiting for an obvious response. Or at least nothing I could pick up on.
Instead of seeing an office, it looks to be an outer area to one. Sort of a sitting room, although there was a desk and a young woman sitting at it.
“So good to see you, Special Agent Thorne.” The woman’s voice was soft and lilting, almost hypnotic.
“Good morning, Rasphael. I have Ms. Driscoll for Director Fitzsimmons?”
The woman seemed to listen before smiling. “Wonderful. Please enter. Director Fitzsimmons has been waiting for you.”
I followed him past her desk, wondering how she knew the director was waiting for us, but didn’t bother asking. I wanted to, but her eyes seemed to grow larger in my mind as I passed her, until the room around me disappeared, leaving me floating in a gray sort of nothingness with the girl floating across from me.
“How interesting.” Her voice was only slightly less hypnotic than before.
“What’s happening to me?”
Her slight laughter sounded like tiny bells. “Nothing at all, Ms. Driscoll. I simply wanted to speak to you on my own. You’re quite the rare one, aren’t you?”
“Umm, what? I’m not sure what you mean?”
More laughter. “No, you don’t. Not yet. None of the humans know yet, but they will. Once your barriers are down and you become what you should have been, they’ll know. You just need to wait for that to happen.”
“What…what will I become?”
She somehow glided towards me and touched the tip of my nose. “Don’t you worry about that, Ms. Driscoll. All will come in time. It’s nothing to be afraid of, although some will be afraid of you. Just remember, you’re only as evil as you are willing to be.” She backed off a little and smiled, revealing a huge mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. “Take it from one who knows. Not everyone is as they seem and actions are the true indicator of who and what someone is, not a label.”
The little hazy scene disappeared with a pop as I som
ehow passed into the inner office, breaking my line of sight to the girl at the desk. Faint tinkling bells reached me as the doors closed, leaving me in the silent office. What the heck was that?
My agent waited silently as I gathered myself together and looked around the room. The office was larger than I would have guessed, being at least 20 feet by 20 feet. One wall was covered with shelves of books, while the opposite was covered with shelves containing pictures of people and what looked like diplomas. The wall with the door had an old painting on it that I didn’t look at in any detail before catching the last wall and the tall, thin woman standing behind a huge dark desk. Out of everyone I’ve ever met, she radiates power. If two rabid lions were fighting and she walked between them, I’d put good money on her being able to get them to stop with just a glance. Maybe a raised eyebrow.
She smiled at me and nodded slowly as she looked me up and down. I didn’t feel judged by that, which I was surprised about, it felt more like she was assessing me based on descriptions or pictures she received and was simply noting that there weren’t any discrepancies. Her voice was deeper than I would have guessed for someone so tall and thin, but it was decidedly still female. “Good morning, Ms. Driscoll. So wonderful to meet you at last, although I would prefer it not be due to such awful circumstances.”
Thorne waved me forward. “Ceri Driscoll, I’d like to introduce you to Director Fitzsimmons. She heads our department here at the FBI.”
“Our department? What does that mean?” I moved with him towards the imposing woman, wondering what she’d do when I reached her.
“May I call you Ceri?” I nodded, so she continued. “By our department, he means the Department of Supernatural Affairs. We’re a subset of the FBI, but we branch out into every other group. We have primary purview over our supernatural assets and any supernatural entities that the FBI is involved in, although we do not take over investigations or anything like that. We’re simply responsible for being involved when any species other than normal humans are involved.”